Suzanne Farrell and Sean Lavery ‘Chaconne' Chore George Balanchine
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- I actually prefer this live performance with Sean Lavery to the PBS broadcast one of CHACONNE. Farrell looks stronger and sharper here, and takes more chances, and Sean doesn’t copy any of Martins mannerisms so I can really “see the music,” as Balanchine liked to say. For some reason in the Martins performance the steps don’t seem to fit the music as well as they do here. I think this might be an even faster tempo too, which makes it even more remarkable because Lavery was taller than Martins and had much, much, longer legs.
Your description notes are spot on JOHN CLIFFORD. Every word.
Thanks for this magnificent post and kind homage to SEAN LAVERY. I cried plenty when he died. I loved his dancing. Here, he displays a swashbuckling light and airy performance of classic clean techniques.
It's everything Peter Martins lacked with his customary drywall personality presence. I never understood Balanchine's obsession with him and his schizophrenic decision to hand the company to him when there were others more qualified for the job. Certainly, you JOHN CLIFFORD, EDDY, AND the indomitable professor of the Balanchine legacy PATRICIA NEARY.
SEAN LAVERY was a great gift to Ballet. For me, APOLLO was his prize role. It had fire and mysterious presence along with, as you said, LINES to honor Ballet academia. He was a beautiful dancer.
Love ❤️ this post.
Honestly, I wouldn't call Martins a "drywall." I think he just didn't like performing that much. His technique could be dazzling, but I'd say more that he wasn't a *daring* dancer, like the less physically gifted D'Amboise & Villella. Clifford was pretty daring, musical, & had long legs. I do agree w/you that Martins shouldn't have directed NYCB, that was a disaster.
so great to see the slight differences in her performance and the one with Martins. you really see how she made each performance so authentically in the moment. a grand artist like Callas
I run out of breath just watching them!
Sean is infinitely preferable to Martins in every way. He has the easy masculinity that Martins affected. And in this piece he makes Suzanne's dancing both crisper and more expressive. It was horrible when illness cut his career short.
Lavery's dancing is also more musical, which makes him (and d'Amboise before him) a more interesting partner for the famously musical Farrell.
Watching this always makes me happy. They make this pas de deux so playful. There is technical precision, of course, wonderful attention to details, an immersion with the music, but along with all that, they are witty, they are having fun, with the choreography and with each other. (Peter Martins dancing this role was always deadly serious.) Balanchine's choreography is what makes it all possible.
It's a very delightful ballet pas de deux performed by Farrell and Martins. Thank you @ John Clifford.
Thanks so much! Keep 'em comin'!
BRILLIANT.
I also saw Lavery dance with Farrell at NYCB as a last-minute replacement for an injured Ib Anderson in MOZARTIANA, & he was *brilliant* that night...nervousness may have given him an extra edge. And that's a HARD male part for someone w/ legs as long as his were. I don't know if he ever danced it again after that night.
Also, as much as I liked Merrill Ashley's dancing, I saw her in CHACONNE after Suzanne retired & thought she was a very wrong choice...she didn't have at all the abandon that Suzanne brought to this role. I just don't think NYCB is going to see an artist like Farrell again soon. They don't come along like that much, with that level of soul & daring. Her dancing changed my life!
Thank you so much. This is just glorious. The way this choreography moves between almost parody and sublimity delights me. I have watched Farrell do this part many times and I still can't comprehend what a magician of movement and tempo she is.
So lovely...wrote a poem today ..for George Balanchine and thank God you and so many others have kept his ballets preserved and alive in this world to such a beautiful extent...The poem is called Vanishing: VANISHING
For George Balanchine on the notion of his that with his death, all his ballets should completely
Vanish (as reported by Clive Barnes in the documentary BALANCHINE LIVES)
With death’s stroke how could his kingdom vanish
I tried to feel along the countries, contours of the inexplicable
Like some blind snow angel wondering
How fold one valentine into another in what descending order
Reprieve no more the gestures frail as snow dissolving into the air
As though the ballets had never been
So emerald, so diamond so full of rubies
Of the forgotten gestures of swans In this particular moment
Apollonian, or Mozart filled rising to the occasion of Heaven
Wings borrowed from another time; Stravinsky’s elan
Firebird blazing no more, these escapades
Upon the living stage
Quixote’s lamentations, Titania’s retinue
Where vanished, where the jazzy splash
Accorded its due the tightrope crossing
Balanced with the serenade triumphant
Falling from the bridge of air again of music
Where, the beloved faces his dilemma
With a secret smile that shimmers and is gone
Softly as into dream sand choreographies sifted
Sink like a kind of Atlantis of the Dance
From which he will not return.
mary angela douglas 12 may 2024
yes! yes! yes! totally agreed. thank you for posting.
JC, you may have seen my remarks on the other link of this perf that you posted. I said there, in short, that I LOVE this perf, & while I think Sean's beats aren't as clean/sharp as Martins's, his dancing is so much more expressive & musical, & his longer legs look lovely here even w/ his not-great feet. Suzanne as always is just gorgeous, & riskily off-balance here. My ques to you is: how did she always manage to dance these hard ballets & keep her mouth closed? That's HARD!
What year did Farrell and Lavery dance this?
Her choreography in this reminds me very much of her choreography in Balanchine's Don Quixote.
actually this a Balanchine choreography !!!! it looks also a bit like the famous "Tchaikovsky Pas de deux" in the.solos
What a lovely duo What is it about some dancers who still look like “real people” even when they’re accomplishing the impossible for the rest of us “real people??”
they don't look like "real people" to me but like Apollo and Terpsichore ! but I understand what you mean .....
Fabulous. What is the music used for this ballet?
Gluck. Chaconne, I believe.
This is a favorite. I love the music. There cannot be great choreography without a great score.
I had not seen this particular performance before and think it brilliant, but Nina Ananiashvili's has a sweetness and grace that thrill me every time I watch it.
What year please?