The Dirty Blonde

Out in the cosmos, a star goes supernova once every fifty years.  On earth, it’s even rarer to witness someone on the cusp of stardom go supernova.  Yes, there are stars who have breakout roles, or hit singles, and those who have quick ascensions, but it is uncommon to see someone who seems almost preordained for stardom. The ballet community has such a star with which to hang their hopes upon, one who is on the verge of going supernova.

Mira Nadon is a twenty-one-year-old wunderkind in every sense of the word.  Currently the youngest soloist with the New York City Ballet and containing boundless amounts of talent, she has already claimed some of the most prestigious accolades awarded in the field of dance, such as the Clive Barnes award and the coveted Princess Grace award.  With jet black hair, a delicate face crafted from fine china, and ballerina proportions that excite and tantalize ballet goers, each entrance is an event, a spectacle, and a marvel.  Every performance marks some deeply held truth that art, in whatever form, is alive.  We are witnessing a dancer on the brink of stardom.

But is it fair to pin this much hope on someone so young?  To have so many expectations for her career, could become more of a burden, and could threaten to extinguish a flame in someone so bright.  For Mira, she doesn’t focus on that.  She doesn’t concern herself with these existential implications.  Her dancing is always present, and she truly lives in each moment, simply dancing for the joy and love of it.  I was lucky enough to sit down with Mira to talk about her career, and the future she sees for herself.

Do you ever feel fearful or get stage fright when you go on stage? 

I don’t usually feel stage fright. I’ve been lucky that I’ve always felt prepared. I definitely did feel nervous during my first show as a soloist.  I was debuting in DGV, and it was either the first show of the season or it was my first show as a soloist, and I did have the thought like, ‘oh no, I’m a soloist now, and I have to deliver as a soloist.’ But then you just do it and, I don’t know, I think it’s probably best not to overthink it and not get in your head because that’s not really going to help you in the long run.

As a young and new talent, what does it feel like to be picked out and spotlighted in the company?

I guess I try not to think about it too much.  It’s really great to be recognized for your work and have your work appreciated. I’ve just tried to be myself and give everything to all my soloist parts and all my corps parts. When you’re in the corps, maybe you’re doing a couple soloist things, or maybe just understudying roles, but you really have to put all your effort into your corps de ballet work.  I think that’s how they start to notice and step in and help you stand out.  I’m grateful that they saw that and that they believed in me and have given me more opportunities.

What was your first featured role and how old were you?

My first principal role was the fairy of courage in Sleeping Beauty. I think I was 17 and was a first-year corps de ballet member.  That was probably the most nervous I’ve ever been for a show because I was like ‘oh, if I do badly, they’re never going to give me anything (laughing)’ But I did it, and that was maybe in the winter or spring season in 2019.  Then in the fall season, I did the tall girl in Rubies, which is a big Balanchine ballet, and I got good critical feedback. So that was exciting.

Do you ever feel like your ascent has happened too fast? I mean everyone wants to be a soloist, a principal, a star, but would you have wanted more time in the corps?

I feel like it’s actually been a good pace. I do think it’s so useful to be in the corps de ballet. And I wouldn’t have wanted to get promoted right away from the corps because I think you learn so much about how a company works and how to work with people. Also, in a community sense, you form so many bonds with everyone and that’s when you really become part of the company. So, I’m really glad I had all that experience. Also, from like understudying in the back, you really learn from other people.  You learn how you want to act, and maybe how you don’t want to act, and you can pick up good and bad traits from people and how to work and you can observe and learn a lot. So, I don’t think it was too fast, and I also had time to figure out who I wanted to be as an artist. 

It seems like a lot of hope has been pinned on you for the future of the company and the future of dance itself.  Is that something you feel at all?

It’s not really something I ever thought about. I just never really thought that broadly, I guess, but recently I had a conversation with my teacher from SAB Susie Pilar, where she was like, “listen, we all believe in you, me and all the other Balanchine ballerinas.  We were hoping Maria Korowski would be this person, and then she ended up doing her own thing. But we’re hoping for you to continue Balanchine’s legacy.” And I was like, ‘whoa.’

For real?

It was kind of crazy. So, I don’t really think about that a lot. I guess it’s nice that people believe in me. But as a dancer, you don’t feel like you’re super in control of your career because it’s kind of in the hands of other people. I can only do the best with what I’m given and hope that people enjoy it. I try not to dwell on it too much.

What do you what do you hope to get out your career? Do you want a long career? 

I would like to be a principal; I don’t necessarily need to be dancing till I’m in my forties. I would hope to retire while I’m still able to put on a good performance and perform at a high level. Not necessarily that you have to retire when you’re in your peak, because I think some people do that and then it’s like, oh, they could have danced for longer.  I don’t think I’ll feel the need to hold on to it for a super long time, and I don’t really know if I want to stay in the dance world, or if I’ll want to do something different. We’ll see. It might be nice to move on, but I don’t know.  Hopefully it’s far away.

And for my last question, why do you dance?

It’s just enjoyable.  You can’t really replicate the feeling of being onstage and there’s something about rehearsing something and practicing all the steps, and head movements you’re going to do.  Then when you go onstage there’s a very specific energy with the audience, and my favorite part of performing is when you’re comfortable enough to make new choices and respond to the music and the dancers around you in an organic way, and that’s exciting.  It creates a really special energy. And it’s just really very fun.

The forecast for the future of New York City looks to be doom and gloom.  But each cloud has a silver lining, and so far, this fall performance season has shown the gradient colors of silver that a cloud can carry.

New York City Ballet had one of their best fall seasons to date.  It was reported that attendance was at an all-time high compared to last year.  This is due to a few different reasons.  The quality of the performances was exceptionally high.  There were some nights at the ballet that, while the programming may have left more to be desired, the dancing was thrilling, and there was a palpable energy percolating from the stage.  The principal dancer, Sterling Hyltin, who retires this December with Nutcracker, bade farewell to many of the roles she was known for throughout her career.  Her dancing, which has always been iconoclastic, went even further, showing what a dancer could accomplish with no limits. This in turn, rubbed off on all the other dancers, which is probably why the performance quality was stellar.  There was a real go-for-broke energy that was palpable on stage, and made each performance feel alive and fresh.  

The biggest boon the New York City Ballet received however was in the score Solange Knowles had composed for the company for their 10^th anniversary Fall Fashion Gala.  Not only because she was the first woman of color to ever compose a score for the New York City Ballet, but because her sister, the one and only, Beyoncé, had attended and posted about the premiere of the work.  To the 280 million followers she has, that was a megaphone for the ballet like they’ve never had before.  The free advertisement paid off, and while by all accounts the ballet and the score itself were mediocre, each night the house had been entirely sold out, a phenomenon unlike any seen for any previous fall season.

It begs the question though: is it more important to sell seats, or create good ballets?  The answer may be a bit of both, and reminds one of the chicken and the egg, but at this time, it might be more wise to build an audience than a repertoire.  Come for snacks, stay for the show.

It’s no shock to anyone living in New York that the city is facing a cultural crisis.  Whether it’s due to rising prices caused by inflation, a fraught political climate that’s diverted people attention, or a penchant for living virtually, there’s been little progress made in the cultural sectors of the city as of late; we seem to actually be regressing.  Just recently, Broadway’s longest running show, The Phantom of the Opera, announced that it was closing after 35 years due to the impact inflation, operating costs, and a lack of tourism.  In an interview with the New York Times, producer of the show, Cameron Mackintosh said “There’s much less international tourism. Box office is down 10 to 15 percent on average.”  It’s a double hit to the show that made it impossible to continue operating.

Tourism is the life blood of any city; this is especially true of New York City.  With less tourists visiting, it’s up to native New Yorkers to sustain the arts, which is a behemoth of a task.  With the rising costs of living, it’s become even more untenable for New Yorkers to support the arts.  If you were to take a trip to The Metropolitan Museum of Art now, one of the most influential museums in the world, the first thing you’d notice is the crowd, or lack thereof.  In the past, there would’ve been a long que to buy tickets; this is no longer the case.  Many of the museums various wings and exhibits see little foot traffic now.

The same is seen and felt at Lincoln Center.  One of the world’s preeminent performing arts center, it’s home to such illustrious institutions as The Metropolitan Opera, The New York Philharmonic, and the New York City Ballet.  The New York City Ballet recently opened their fall season, and one can already notice the lack of attendance.  Pockets of empty seats dot the spacious auditorium which seats up to 2500 people.  They’ve even sectioned off the 4^th ring due to lack of ticket sales.  One notices this most during the applause, which used to be loud and enthusiastic, but is now tepid and subdued.  The dancers of the company are aware of this too.  Rising soloist, Mira Nadon, notices this most when she takes her curtain bows, which is a long-standing tradition of the company to do after a piece.  She’s taken notice of the near empty house and says flatly “It’s doesn’t look good.”

A small audience is certainly no less appreciative, but it doesn’t bode well for the city’s cultural currency.  With less attendance, and higher operating costs, budgets will soon have to be cut, and these once glorious organizations will be reduced to a shadow of their former selves.  And with tourism already at an all-time low, the city can’t afford to lose anything that might draw more people back.  Otherwise, any hope for the future of New York City will be lost.

Work Cited

Paulson, M. (2022, September 16). ‘Phantom of the opera,’ Broadway’s longest-running show, to close. The New York Times. Retrieved September 25, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/theater/phantom-of-the-opera-broadway-closing.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-phantom-of-the-opera&variant=show®ion=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc 

I feel that most of us during the global pandemic faced some sort of crisis involving purpose and identity.  While that’s our own personal journey to discover, American Ballet Theatre played out its own identity crisis on stage this fall season with one of their mixed rep programs.  The program that evening, being composed mostly of new pieces commissioned during the pandemic, showed a company being pulled in many directions.  It’d have been fantastic if these pieces were of actual merit and contributed to the artistic vision and expansion of culture and taste, but most of the pieces had no value or any merit to them besides being an example of what not to do and commission for a company of this caliber.

            The night started off rather strong though.  The first piece on the program was Alexie Ratmansky’s Bernstein in a Bubble and immediately we are off to the races with this piece.  Ratmansky charges the dancers forward with his instantly recognizable movement vocabulary that captures the pure joy and exhilaration inherit in dancing.  He’s one of the few living choreographers who’s still able to manage this.  He is also a supremely musical choreographer, not just in the sense of creating steps to counts, but in matching the energy and pathos of the music.  He presents his honest reaction to the music and he is usually always on the mark and can capture the essence of any piece of music he choreographs.  It makes for a thrilling and engaging piece where you can really see the music personified through dance.  Using a small ensemble of dancers, he is also able to illuminate individual personalities and have them shine forth in different groupings and patterns. A highlight of the piece was a slinky, sexually charged jazzy duet between Aran Bell and Chloe Misseldine who had a chemistry on stage that was palpable and enthralling to watch.  The piece, as a whole was thoroughly entertaining but did feel a little incomplete due to lacking a set and having not much cohesion between the costumes which were rather basic and uninspired.  The piece also ended flatly when the dancers strike a tacky pose of taking a selfie at the end.  It was random and dimmed what was an interesting and successful ballet.  

            From this point forward the program and the night took a sharp nosedive down and it became quite painful to watch.  The next piece was another virtual commission put to stage called Touché by choreographer Christopher Rudd.  The duet featuring Calvin Royal III and João Menegussi as Adam and Steve (cringe) started off in silence with the dancers beating their chest and shouting in an overly melodramatic fashion.  Then the lights in the audience come on for a split second and then go off as the dancers then begin to strip and begin quite an explicit homoerotic duet.  Now I’m no prude, but the nature of this duet really crossed the line of tastefulness for me and if that weren’t bad enough it was filled with unoriginal cliche’s that didn’t lend itself to piece at all besides just being there.  The one redeeming quality being that the music chosen was nice to listen too, but ultimately the piece was hard to watch and tolerate.

            Another Duet was next on the program, by late choreographer Clark Tippet titled Some Assembly Required featuring Skyler Brandt, and Gabe Stone Shayer.  I won’t really go into this overly long, and dull duet because it was so inconsequential except to say that the duet was included in the program for ABT’s first ever pride night to honor the late choreographer who was a victim of the AIDS epidemic and so it was a nice way to highlight him.  I only wish they might’ve chosen a more compelling piece to put on the program to show him in a better light.

            The last piece, and certainly the most dreadful of the night was Darrell Grand Moultrie’s Indestructible Light.  Featuring a cast of fresh young members of the Corps de Ballet, the piece devolved into a high school production of a jazzy ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ spectacle full with sequined and rhinestone leotards and tights.  At one point a velvet wall comes down and the dancers lean and dance upon the wall with all sass and taste of adolescents.  The dancers themselves, are actually very talented and threw off pyrotechnical feats with ease, but I just couldn’t get beyond how terrible and tacky the piece itself was.  What’s sad too is that these young talented dancers, will seldom get another opportunity like this to be featured in a ballet.  Most of their dance career will be in the swan corps or stomping around in peasant boots in the back, and so any opportunity to truly shine is exceedingly rare for them.  I only wish that they could’ve had a piece that was worthy of their talents and didn’t waste my time.  Overall, the evening was a dud and not even a respectable piece like the one Ratmansky gave to us could salvage it.  But I always believe it’s important to see bad ballets, only so we can inform our tastes further and learn what not to see and avoid.  I certainly will be avoiding more programs like this.

            Like the Cole Porter song goes, ‘another opening, another show’.  On Tuesday the Martha Graham Company opened its 96^th season to a full house at the Joyce Theatre.  No doubt the return of the Graham company in New York City was highly anticipated and was met with well deserved fanfare.  From the beginning of the show with director, Janet Eilber’s eloquent and well delivered curtain speech we were in for a good night.  And overall, I would have to say the Graham company had a very strong opening night, it wasn’t without some faults or duds, but as a whole the masterworks of Martha Graham elevated the performance and allowed us the audience to be swept off our feet.

            The show opened with Grahams iconic work Diversion of Angels which had its premiere in 1948.  I only mention its premiere date to highlight its timelessness and relevance for today.  Diversion of Angels shows us the many facets of love and its expression, but it is also essentially a showcase of the physicality and technical demands of the Graham technique.  It’s a brilliant work that still challenges and exposes the much more technically adept dancers of today.  And while some rose to the challenge and managed to soar like angels, others didn’t quite meet the requirements for this piece yet.  The dancers who stood out the most for their technical brilliance and freedom of expression were Lloyd Knight, Principal of the company who showed why he is in fact on top and gave us an authentic graham experience, Alessio Crognale for capturing the beauty and rapture behind the duet of the couple in white, and Marzia Memoli, who flew across stage as the sprightly girl in yellow, jumping with all the joy of the return to the stage.  They carried me through this piece with their joie de vivre.  And while I said earlier some dancers couldn’t quite keep up with the technical challenges of the Graham technique, they nonetheless are all beautiful and accomplished dancers.  It was just lacking in authenticity of style.

            The next piece on the program was perhaps the most unique and exciting moment of the night.  It was the recreation of the solo Immediate Tragedy choreographed by Martha Graham in 1937 in response to the atrocities women faced during the Spanish Civil War.  What was so unique about this solo though is that there is no recorded footage of it, and it was recreated only through a catalog of recently discovered pictures of Graham herself performing the solo.  So, the process of recreation was one of collaboration and imagination.  Using the knowledge of the Graham technique and aesthetic and mixing that with the standards and practices of today’s contemporary movement vocabulary, we got to witness the perfect blend of old mixed with new.  It was one of those rare moments when the alchemy of a piece and its process came together seamlessly and produced a work of magic and power.  The solo was filled with intensity and the spirit of oppression and resistance.  Immediate Tragedy was brilliantly executed by the other worldly Xin Ying, who brilliantly expressed the emotional range of the solo, while also executing the very demanding choreography with assurance.

            After such a treat, the next piece on the program failed to continue the momentum of the night.  The Graham company presented the world premiere of the very much in demand and I personally believe, over hyped choreographer Andrea Miller’s piece titled Scavengers.  In Scavengers, Miller presented to us 4 separate duets and one solo, all of which were disconnected from each other.  The piece was more an exercise in partnering that an fully fleshed out dance piece, because despite all the intricacies of the duets, there was no emotional connection or through line of the piece.  And because of its lack of emotional content, I found that there was nothing to latch onto to give it any distinction.  It also felt incomplete in the way that each duet never had a clear finish, and the lights would just fade in the middle of a phrase and come back up onto another couple.  The only thing of interest in the piece was the solo danced by Anne Souder who’s supple, and elastic dancing was mesmerizing to watch, but her solo, like the duets, was marred by poor lighting choices and reduced its overall effectiveness.  The piece had potential but unfortunately, Andrea Miller managed to waste the incredible dramatic talents of the dancers and instead presented a piece that lacked depth and character.  

            And finally, to finish off the evening we were presented with the timeless Graham classic Appalachian Springs.  Where the Miller piece lacked emotional depth or a semblance of a story, Appalachian Springs gave us everything that Scavengers was missing.  From the score by Aaron Copland, to the set by Isamu Noguchi, and the choreography by Martha Graham, Appalachian takes you on a journey that nourishes the soul.  What is so remarkable about Appalachian is that it is both easy to follow along without being too simple and straightforward.  And the dancers presented this work successfully.  Anne O’Donnell, as the bride captured the joy and hope of a women about to embark on a personal adventure of discovery and self-fulfillment.  She dazzled in her solo, throwing off pitch turns and executing the demanding floor work with ease and breathe.  Lloyd Knight again gave us a master class in the Graham aesthetic as well as bringing gravitas to the role of the Preacher.  And Lloyd Mayor as the husbandman had a presence that was both commanding and assertive, as well as tender and warm, and the connection that he and Anne O’Donnell shared was heartfelt and believable.  Though Appalachian Spring can come off as dated in style to some, it still manages to illicit a real emotional reaction that is absent from most pieces being choreographed today.  And from the last chords of the music, as the Bride and the Husbandman look off into the horizon at all the possibilities of the future, the poignancy of the moment is felt, and I left the theatre feeling elated with the same hope for the future of dance. 

Fall is in full swing here in New York City.  The leaves have changed, the air is brisk, and ballet has returned to the stage.  After a nearly 2-year hiatus, the dance companies of the city are emerging from their hibernation and are once again performing for the general public.  And so the expectation is that dance and art will be bigger and grander than ever.  But what we got this weekend at American Ballet Theatres production of Giselle was a show with echoes of its former glory, but still drowsy from its time away of the stage.  

            Giselle, like most classical ballets of the 19^th century has a paper-thin plot and is more a vehicle for the principal dancers to flex their chops.  Essentially Giselle is an operatic tragedy with themes of love, deception, and forgiveness.  But it fails to convey these things and comes off as rather trite because of its lack of awareness.  The ballet itself hardly acknowledges its own plot, only so far as to move the action forward to the next variation or pas de deux.  The sense of danger and doom are missing here and then lends itself to the awkward and uneven character progression.  These problems of Giselle were especially more apparent at Saturday’s matinee which featured the debuts of the two principal roles, Giselle and Albrecht, danced by Cassandra Trenary, and Calvin Royal III.  Both are very promising dancers, but they did not reach the anticipated heights that was expected of them.  Trenary’s failures were especially sad, considering that based on type, the role of Giselle would seem like a natural fit for her.  But her Giselle in act one was very subdued and meek, which after a while became contrived.  Technical glitches aside, which there were a few to many for comfort, there were however parts in the first act that showed promise, particularly during the infamous mad scene.  The mad scene can easily escalate into a state of camp as Giselle flies into hysterics over Albrecht’s betrayal.  But with Trenary, we saw a girl in real time suffer a devastating blow to both her ego and her heart.  She mimicked a sort of panic attack on stage that was very compelling to watch in its rawness of emotional vulnerability.  It was that moment that I felt that her Giselle will become something worth watching and look forward to seeing her develop in the role.  Calvin Royal III had the stronger debut, but seems miscast in the role of Albrecht, only for having such a sunny and joyous presence that it makes it hard to believe that he would have ever betrayed Giselle’s trust in the first place.  But in most classical ballets the princely role falls into this trap and you can’t help but feel sorry for the dancers who try to bring depth to characters whose design is only to highlight and hold the ballerina.  The real standout of the first act however was Patrick Frenette in the role of Hilarion, a village man who is in love with Giselle and exposes Albrecht royal heritage.  Frenette acted circles around the principals and made his side character the most compelling part of the first act. 

            The second act is where the bulk of the dance action happens and revealed to us, the audience, who the real stars of the night were.  Enter the wili’s.  The corps de ballets synchronous movement in the second act were precise and executed well and was the highlight of the afternoon.  All the women were together in form, and the lines were clean and meticulously placed as they hopped across the stage in unison in the iconic phrase of the second act.  That afternoon the audience bore witnesses to the true strength and backbone of the American Ballet Theatre.  Also, in the second act Trenary, though playing a deceased Giselle, risen now as a wili, danced with an energy that brought life back into her lifeless character.  What didn’t come together at first managed to finish strong, but it just proves that the ballet Giselle is not greater than the sum of its parts, and that the alchemy behind a stellar performance still needs some work.