Tag Archives: NYCB

NY Mysteries May 25, 2019

An anglophile friend and I saw the movie, Tolkien. At the box office we were shown a diagram and asked to select seats. We asked which ones were available. The ones in white, we were told. They were all in white. When we arrived at Studio 5  where the movie was being shown we were the only ones there. A few people trickled in. So glad we reserved seats, 

 Tuesday evening I saw a delightful program at the New York City Ballet. As is often the case, the first ballet, Judah, was a warmer upper. It was followed by Jerome Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering. This is its 50th Anniversary and it’s still lively and lovely. It was an audience favorite then. To judge by the Tuesday night applause, it still is. Stars and Stripes, the last ballet of the evening was lots of fun. The music was John Philip Sousa’s marches. 

Don’t miss the CAMP exhibit at the Met. It’s giddy with crazy, beautiful costumes. For example:

CAMP exhibit, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
CAMP exhibit, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
CAMP exhibit, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
CAMP exhibit, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

 

CAMP exhibit, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder. 

Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a  dying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old and with the eighteen-year-old niece of the murdered man.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie. 

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at the prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner being stabbed ? His hated boss, Captain Dick Holbrook, being a trustee of the Windsor School?  Losing his girlfriend to Holbrook? 

New York City Blog June 1 — June 7

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the perfect vehicle for Balanchine’s choreography and Mendelssohn’s music. The NYCB’s current production is based on Balanchine’s production which premiered in 1962.The dancing is superb and the sets are magical. Most of the play takes place in an enchanted forest. Saturday afternoon’s audience was multigenerational and judging by the laughter and applause the performance was warmly appreciated.
Practically next door at the N. Y. Public Library for the Performing Arts, there’s a Frank Sinatra exhibit. Talk about strolling down memory lane. There are great photos of recording sessions and of some of the other celebrities who sang with Sinatra. His mentors were Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong. It was Crosby who said: Frank Sinatra is a singer who comes along once in a life time but why did he have to come in mine? There’s even a closed booth where you can sing along with old blue eyes. The exhibit is at the library until September 4.
El Museo del Barrio has an exhibit honoring Gabriel Figueroa, the Mexican

Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Sinatra at the Paramount
Sinatra at the Paramount

cinematographer. Who needs technicolor? Figueroa’s black and white scenes evoke moody, intense passion. They remind me of Martha Graham’s dances. Figueroa’s films are being shown at the Film Forum this week.

New York City Blog Feb. 1 – Feb. 8

Wasn’t the Super Bowl fun? I like football because it’s so American and so politically incorrect. But what’s happened to the cheerleaders? In the old days they were pretty, bouncy, sexy girls. Now, they look as if they take gymnastics very seriously.

I chose a day when the temperature hovered around eleven degrees to go to the Barbara Mathes Gallery to see Rakuko Naito’s paper work.The gallery is a townhouse that has the secure features of a vault, It also has the hushed, immaculate, tony atmosphere that makes you lower your voice. Then on to the Lauder Cubism exhibit at the Met. Picasso, Braque, Gris. Léger are artists in the collection. Cubism grabbed me as a child when I’d wander through MOMA and stand in front of Picasso’s Three Musicians.

Fernand Léger"s The Typographer
Fernand Léger”s The Typographer

NYCB’s Glass Pieces with music by Philip Glass and choreography by Jerome Robbins was the best piece of an afternoon performance. My head was still filled with the images of cubism so I imagined I saw it in Glass Pieces. This is the first time I’ve appreciated Philip Glass. Choreography complements his music.

New York City Blog Oct. 13 – Oct. 18

I went to a party last night. It was filled with warmth, dancing, glitz and humor. It was principal dancer’s Wendy Whelan’s Farewell to the New York City Ballet. The David H. Koch Theater was packed. It was a wonderful tribute from behind the footlights. Two of the choreographers who have worked with Wendy Whelan closely, Christopher Wheeldon and Alexei Ratmansky, created a ballet for her and her two principal partners, Tyler Angle and Craig Hall. It’s called BY 2 WITH & FROM. Last night she and Hall also danced Wheeldon’s AFTER THE RAIN and she and Angle danced an excerpt from Ratmansky’s CONCERTO DSCH. During the evening there were short clips from a documentary about Whelan. She was shown fostering to NYCB younger dancers and celebrating, in bittersweet fashion, her October 18 retirement after thirty years. The affection for Whelan flowed across the stage to the audience and visa versa. At the end of the evening, most of the NYCB appeared on the stage. At first, they arrived one by one, each offering W. W. a bouquet. It was a lovely, gentle sight gag. Within minutes she was weighed down with flowers. Still, they kept coming and we, the audience, kept laughing like kids watching a beloved relative being teased.

Farewell to Wendy Whelan. The NYCB on stage
Farewell to Wendy Whelan. The NYCB on stage

 

Since I couldn’t offer Wendy Whelan real flowers I’ll offer her virtual flowers.

Flowers for Wendy Whelan
Flowers for Wendy Whelan

New York City Blog: May 25 – May 31

It was a busy week in  NYC. On Sunday I walked through the annual Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit.It extends from Mercer Street to Fifth Avenue and from North to South the boundaries are East 13th Street and Washington Square South and features crafts, fine art, sculpture, and photography.

 On Memorial Day the Miles Davis’s family celebrated the patriarch’s 88th birthday by unveiling “Miles Davis Way”  with an NYC Block Party at 312 W 77 Street, between Riverside Drive & West End, Davis’s New York neighborhood. Lots of people arrived complete with babies and dogs.
Musicians on Miles Davis's Block
Musicians on Miles Davis’s Block
AT NYCB my ballet fanatic friend and I saw Concerto Barocco, an enchanting classic that debuted in 1961, Other Dances with the divine Tiler Peck. We then sat through Neverwhere, more aptly, Never wear because of the ghastly costumes in the current production or better yet, Never again. It’s a deadly ballet choreographed by Benjamin Millepied. The evening ended on a joyous note: Who Cares?  The Danish principal, Ask la Cour, built like a string bean, danced with the energy of a dynamo.
Fancy Car in Madison Ave.Window
Fancy Car in Madison Avenue Window
My tech advisor and I went to BEA  (Book Expo America), held annually at the Javits Center. By comparison, Times Square is deserted and graveyard quiet. You get the picture. The first order of the day was to find the ladies room down a flight of non-working escalators.  Afterwards, we refreshed ourselves with weak, expensive coffee from a stand that must rake in millions. BUT there is gold in them there pipe vaulted halls. Smiling sweetly at the prison guards who man the entrances we managed to gain entrance to the booths. Lugging and offering copies of my mystery in English and Spanish,
THE LEMROW MYSTERY AND MISTERIO EN EL LEMROW, was much more productive than going to the opening address to indie publishers. We concentrated on Marketing to Libraries and came away with invaluable tips, then on to Book Marketing Strategies and Social Media. After a vile lunch of refrigerated ham and cheese buns we returned to the booths. A long, satisfying, frustrating NYC day.