Who could blame the dove for homing in on Marcelo Gomes’ shoulder and clinging to it instead of obediently flying to its perch during the concluding moments of last night’s tender pas de deux from The Two Pigeons. The dove was feeling the love as was most everyone in the audience. Like its mate waiting on the perch for the wayward dove to join it, the audience had been waiting for a year for Marcelo to return to his home ballet stage. For a few minutes last night the impossibly complex cosmos was at last orderly again as Frederick Ashton’s brilliant choreography of reconciliation played out before us.
What a sublime beauty of a ballet this Ashton excerpt was as danced by Marcelo and the luminous Victoria Hulland who hails from Upstate New York and spent her teen years dancing in the Mohawk Valley Ballet and the Ellison Ballet professional training program in Manhattan. A statuesque blond ballerina who possesses impeccable lines, she was a perfect match for the dark, handsome Marcelo and his richly textured dramatic style. Through swoop and bend, gorgeous arabesques with her hands behind her head, quivering limbs, and fluttering feet, Victoria was the essence of this pas de deux even though the center of our focus may have been fixed on Marcelo. The phrases of supported arabesque in which the two faced opposite directions while his extended arm followed the line of her extended leg revealed the elegance in the geometry. As her head went down, his went toward the sky. As her head came up, his face descended into the palm of his hand. Incredible stuff from an incredible choreographer.
We watched Ashton’s Meditation From Thais set to Massenet’s hypnotic violin solo without blinking. Katelyn May (lightning fast bourrées) and Ricardo Rhodes (strong partnering, simmering sensuality) gloriously performed this ballet while wearing costume designs by Anthony Dowell. Meditation is that rare pas de deux that conveys a complete and intensely interesting story.
The Pas de Trois from Les Patineurs was a curious choice for the program. Dressed as two young girls and a boy, the dancers (Asia Bui, Ivan Duarte, Samantha Benoit) kind of skated about for two or three minutes and then skated through overly-long bows. The selection taken out of context and plopped onto the stage in the middle of the recorded music seemed like a jarring commercial.
La Chatte, a solo which Ashton created for an Hommage to Fanny Elssler Gala to music from Offenbach’s comic opera about a cat who turns into a woman, was performed by Kate Honea. She packed feline neurosis into the choreography quite well. The solo ended when a mouse came scurrying across the stage which sent the cat into a noisy “cat fit”. Cameron Grant performed the solo piano music.
Monotones I and Monotones II, performed with the luxury of Cameron Grant at the piano, each suffered from the audience being too close to the stage. The wobbling of arabesque balances in Monotones I (Ryoko Sadoshima, Thomas Glugovaz, Samantha Benoit) would not have been so evident in a larger theater. Because of the close proximity to the stage, the audience was conscious of the stress the dancers were under due to the difficulty of the choreography. Arguably easier than Monotones I, Monotones II fared better but still revealed the stress that the dancers were experiencing. The evening’s cast (Richardo Graziano, Victoria Hulland, Ricardo Rhodes) seemed slightly more comfortable than the matinee’s cast (Jamie Carter, Amy Wood, Daniel Pratt).
Both Saturday performances opened with Christopher Wheeldon’s There Where She Loved set to a concoction of Frederic Chopin and Kurt Weill — all of it played wonderfully by Cameron Grant and sung beautifully by sopranos Michelle Giglio and Stella Zambalis. We’re sorry to have to say that the whole thing was Wheeldon’s same soup in a different bowl. We’ll leave it at that.
It was wonderful to see the Sarasota Ballet once again. The dancers seem to have grown in sophistication and technical expertise since we last saw them in 2016. It’s almost impossible to express how grateful we all were that the company was able to persuade Marcelo to perform with them in New York and in the coming season in Sarasota.
Saturday afternoon, critic Alastair Macaulay sat in his chair at the Joyce Theater wearing expressions of arrogance and sadness. Was he reflecting on it being the anniversary of Ashton’s death or perhaps was he reflecting on how his and his colleagues' histrionic and reckless perpetuation of mass hysteria with their yellow journalism in the last year had created more victims than responsible reporting? Or maybe he was thinking about another anniversary. A week earlier, it was the 20th Anniversary of his own arrest and jailing for preying on children with his camera in Scarborough on England’s North Sea coast. Given the atmosphere that Alastair has helped perpetuate, it would seem fair to say that his own back story might hold some interest for U.S. authorities. For instance, how did Alastair answer those pesky questions on the visa and green card applications about whether or not he’d ever been arrested? And, did anyone check out his story? Perhaps ICE or USCIS would want to take a look at those documents to see if the questions were truthfully and fully answered. Maybe it would turn out to be one of those cases where "Truth isn't truth." Whatever. Happy Anniversary to him…
Meanwhile, we’ll wing a Pump Bump Award to Marcelo Gomes — a gold winged stiletto — with our eternal thanks for a great run of 20 years and our hope for a few more years to come.
6 responses to “Sarasota Ballet @ the Joyce Theater
Two doves, a cat, a mouse, and Marcelo”
Thank you for the great review, Haglund.
It was remarkable to witness Marcelo’s unparalleled partnering in Two Pigeons especially as compared to some shaky partnering in the Wheeldon piece (about which I share what I imagine to be your unspoken opinion). It may have been the theater and my proximity to the stage, but I thought a few of the couples were very mismatched in terms of height which made the partnering awkward. And let’s not get started on the Cabaret – bare shirts with trousers “costumes”.
May Marcelo soon grace the NY stage(s) again.
Les Chat piece was charming – I was distracted by how silly and distracting the too literal eye makeup was on the ballerina – the painted nose and whiskers. Again, perhaps this plays better in a bigger house, but I just kept thinking her face was dirty.
Really enjoyed Monotones I and II as well. I had never seen it. The lines in the choreography were so stunning. I think ABT may have done this last fall? I think I recall some rehearsal footage of Skylar Brandt in it.
Thank you for the great review, Haglund.
It was remarkable to witness Marcelo’s unparalleled partnering in Two Pigeons especially as compared to some shaky partnering in the Wheeldon piece (about which I share what I imagine to be your unspoken opinion). It may have been the theater and my proximity to the stage, but I thought a few of the couples were very mismatched in terms of height which made the partnering awkward. And let’s not get started on the Cabaret – bare shirts with trousers “costumes”.
May Marcelo soon grace the NY stage(s) again.
Les Chat piece was charming – I was distracted by how silly and distracting the too literal eye makeup was on the ballerina – the painted nose and whiskers. Again, perhaps this plays better in a bigger house, but I just kept thinking her face was dirty.
Really enjoyed Monotones I and II as well. I had never seen it. The lines in the choreography were so stunning. I think ABT may have done this last fall? I think I recall some rehearsal footage of Skylar Brandt in it.
Hello, Haglund,
I went Friday night and Saturday afternoon, so I saw the same Monotones cast twice. As wobbly as balances in Monitones I were on Saturday, they were far worse on Friday night – I thought Sadoshima was in danger of tipping over more than once. I’ve seen Monotones I and II many times over the years and have always loved them. There were issues with these performances, but they were still miles better than what ABT produced a few seasons ago.
As for the Ashton excerpts, I loved the Meditation, which I had never seen before. The dancing was gorgeous and those costumes – WOW. What a stunning mood piece.
Les Patineurs is one of my all time favorites (it was on the program the first time I ever went to the ballet; I can still see Michael Smuin spinning as the curtain came down and continuing to spin as the curtain came back up.). However, extracting a short excerpt with costumes but without a set just did not work for me.
Marcelo Gomes: what can one say? As the old cliche goes, I’d watch him dance the telephone book and be thrilled.
Hello, Haglund,
I went Friday night and Saturday afternoon, so I saw the same Monotones cast twice. As wobbly as balances in Monitones I were on Saturday, they were far worse on Friday night – I thought Sadoshima was in danger of tipping over more than once. I’ve seen Monotones I and II many times over the years and have always loved them. There were issues with these performances, but they were still miles better than what ABT produced a few seasons ago.
As for the Ashton excerpts, I loved the Meditation, which I had never seen before. The dancing was gorgeous and those costumes – WOW. What a stunning mood piece.
Les Patineurs is one of my all time favorites (it was on the program the first time I ever went to the ballet; I can still see Michael Smuin spinning as the curtain came down and continuing to spin as the curtain came back up.). However, extracting a short excerpt with costumes but without a set just did not work for me.
Marcelo Gomes: what can one say? As the old cliche goes, I’d watch him dance the telephone book and be thrilled.
Marcelo Gomes was bigger than the Joyce itself. I loved watching him even in that small pas de deux. He is still in prime years and shouldn’t have to be without a company.
Sarasota was great. I saw the Saturday afternoon cast. I think Monotones I & II could have improved with more rehearsal time. The balances didn’t seem to be in anyone’s body yet. In II the opening spinning of the female dancer was stop and go and not a smooth revolution. All of this can be improved and I’m sure it will. Even still, I enjoyed watching their performances very much.
Marcelo Gomes was bigger than the Joyce itself. I loved watching him even in that small pas de deux. He is still in prime years and shouldn’t have to be without a company.
Sarasota was great. I saw the Saturday afternoon cast. I think Monotones I & II could have improved with more rehearsal time. The balances didn’t seem to be in anyone’s body yet. In II the opening spinning of the female dancer was stop and go and not a smooth revolution. All of this can be improved and I’m sure it will. Even still, I enjoyed watching their performances very much.