No! It's MY turn!

Recently, I told my Facebook friends that, finally, I was going to get a crack at Black Swan--thank you, Netflix--and would go in with an open mind and sloppy food. I decided against the sloppy food, and boy, am I glad. Had I really tried to eat during this flick, I couldn't have kept anything down.

Which is not to throw shade on Darren Aronofsky's psychological horror show. On the contrary, this vertiginous profile of a pathologically insecure, unraveling individual--not the entirety of ballerina-hood, mind you--is effectively disturbing. Its job is to make you queasy. If it doesn't, frankly, you're not paying attention.

Every frame over the top, Black Swan forces you to sit inside the head of young Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), with eyes forced open Clockwork Orange-style, and experience the outside world in the decidedly skewed, feverish way Nina sees it. Visually, it's a mind-blower, and its constrictions, hyperboles and stereotypes derive from Nina's inner visions. It's clear that, from start to finish, the audience never sees anything that exists out there in actuality. And that is the genius of Black Swan.

Which doesn't exactly make it easy to love. There's certainly no one to like and get behind in this movie--not the severely troubled lead, not her sexist ballet master (Vincent Cassel), not her overbearing mother (Barbara Hershey), not her immature and envious colleagues, not even her rather vacant ballet partner (Benjamin Millepied). And even if you go for pretzel logic and try to twist Nina's late-act Black Glama moment into a kickass feminist metamorphosis, there's the sticky little matter of the way things end for her.

I recently saw Wallace Shawn's Marie and Bruce (with excellent Marisa Tomei and Frank Whaley), and it's a strange thing, indeed, to spend quality time inside a rancid little world with characters that, from jump, make your skin crawl. Aronofsky takes the kind of risk Shawn took in his 1978 play. The risk works, here, if you accept what Aronofsky is doing, instead of hoping for a redeeming tale or a documentary about careers in ballet. Black Swan's setting is the world of ballet--just as the setting of a murder mystery might happen to be the world of publishing or Wall Street--but it is not about ballet and has nothing to say to ballet. Except perhaps that, like Aronofsky's The Wrestler, Black Swan draws from a milieu that exploits illusion and sells tickets.

With all of that pushed out of the way, how you respond to Black Swan will be determined by your tolerance for psychological melodrama taken past places Alfred Hitchcock might cross the street to avoid. Not for every taste. But now that I have finally seen it, I can understand why some people who have no investment in ballet call it a gutsy work of art.

Riverdancers test group mind over matter

Seemed Like A Good Idea at the Time
This American Life, April 24, 2011

Don't miss Act One: Luck of the Irish!

In the "Mix"

Karen Bernard's Performance Mix Festival 2011 continues mixing it up at Dixon Place through Sunday. Happy 25th Anniversary to both the fest and to DP for surviving in this tough town by throwing hearts, minds and doors open to adventure. Not quite knowing what to expect is considered something of a virtue at both DP and Le Mix, and last night's mashup--with work by Dawn Springer, Shree "Shyam" Das, Myra Bazell and Lindsay Browning, Kai Lossogott and Mduduzi Nyembe, and Isabel Lewis--proved to be no exception.

For me, there were two takeaways. Composer-musician Shree "Shyam" Das's Serenity to Madness, and Back--a coursing, ghost-ridden electronic piece maybe a bit too lengthy, ultimately, and too pretty for madness--might have been the evening's most captivating "dance," oddly enough, for the elaborate, precision hand movements he used to interact with his equipment. This sound wizard was rivaled only by the fascinating performance of Lindsay Browning in Molt (directed by Myra Bazell with Bazell-Browning choreography), hissing, trembling and, yes, molting out of her strapped-on tulle hoop skirt, rolling like tumbleweed and helplessly arcing into ecstasy and oblivion and, it would appear, liquefaction. The work uses a version of Johnny Mathis's 1957 tune "Wild is the Wind"--not the great Nina Simone cover, a song like a seal upon my soul, but welcome nonetheless.

Showtime: 7:30pm, tonight through Sunday. General information about the Mix's remaining and, as always, multifarious events can be found here.

Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey Streets), Manhattan
(directions)

Dance for autistic youth

Examining Dance Classes For Teens On The Autism Spectrum
by Lydia Hance, Dance Advantage, April 28, 2011

Honoring unforgettable Gwen Verdon

Gwen Verdon (Photo courtesy of PhotoFest)

I'm Not Lola: A Tribute to Gwen Verdon

DANCERS OVER 40 

HONORS THE QUINTESSENTIAL BROADWAY GYPSY
GWEN VERDON

A video history and discussion of one of the most beloved Broadway dancers

Monday, May 23, 8 PM

St. Luke's Theater
308 West 46th Street (between 8th and 9th Avenues), Manhattan

Tickets: $40 ($65 for premium seats) $25 for members of Dancers Over 40
Reservations: Telecharge or 212-239-6200

Broadway veterans Lee Roy Reams and Harvey Evans head this tribute to Gwen Verdon. Paul Phillips, Verdon's stage manager, is flying up from Florida with some personal video clips. Those, combined with other well-known dancers and dances from that era, will be showcased.

GWEN VERDON (1925-2000) born Gwenyth Evelyn Verdon in Culver City, Ca., was one of Broadway's biggest stars during its golden era and beyond, and winner of four Tony Awards. As a toddler, Gwen had rickets, which left her legs so badly misshapen she spent her early days in orthopedic boots and rigid leg braces. Her mother put her 3-year old in dance classes and she went on to study ballet, tap, jazz, ballroom, flamenco, Balinese--and juggling! At age 11 she appeared in the 1936 movie The King Steps Out, and, after eloping with reporter James Henghan in 1942 began her career as assistant to Jack Cole and as a Broadway gypsy.

Her breakthrough came in 1953 when Michael Kidd cast her in a featured role in Can-Can, where her opening-night Garden of Eden performance was so well received that the audience screamed her name until the startled dancer was brought from her dressing room in her bathrobe to take a curtain call. Verdon received a pay raise and her first Tony Award for that triumphant performance. In 1955 she starred in Damn Yankees, and will forever be identified with her role as the vampish Lola, a role that won her second Tony and the lead in the movie version. Another Tony came when Verdon played Anna Christie in the 1957 musical New Girl in Town, followed by Redhead (1959--her fourth Tony). In 1966 Verdon appeared as Charity in Sweet Charity, another triumph directed by Bob Fosse, whom she had married in 1960.

Although eventually estranged, Verdon and Fosse continued to collaborate on projects such as Chicago (1975) in which she originated the role of murderess Roxie Hart. After that Verdon concentrated on film acting, appearing in many movies, including The Cotton Club, Cocoon, Cocoon: The Return, Alice, and Marvin's Room.

In 2000, at the age of 75, Gwen Verdon died in her sleep of a heart attack at the home of her daughter Nicole in Woodstock, VT. At 8pm that night all marquee lights on Broadway were dimmed in her memory.

Ratmansky commits to ABT

Alexei Ratmansky Gives ABT 10 More Years
by Stephanie Goodman, The New York Times, April 27, 2011

Brantley on "The Normal Heart"

‘The Normal Heart’ on Broadway
by Ben Brantley, The New York Times, April 27, 2011