Marie Mutsuki Mockett

National Geographic: A Time to Run

2012-01-18T12:55:00.003-05:00

Last July, I traveled to Japan for National Geographic. My assignment was to write a "cultural piece" about tsunamis in Japan--the world's most tsunami prone country. There were no firm rules about the piece, and my research and my questions led me to lots of interesting places, and into conversations with many different people.

Ultimately, I ended up writing a more personal piece than I had expected to. You can read "A Time to Run" here, or in the February issue of National Geographic, with the dog on the cover. In this essay, I talk about the childhood journals I kept in Japan. Each night, I'd write an entry under my mother's watchful eye, and do a drawing. It's strange now to see that many of these pictures included waves and the water--but then this is not so strange when you consider that we were often by the beach.

I'm heading for Japan tomorrow, but this will be a personal trip. And quite quick. It's an odd time to go to Japan--the New Year has started and we are still weeks away from any winter festivities and from the first cherry blossoms. But I'm looking forward to some quiet time and some conversations with friends and, of course, relaxing in a nice, big Japanese bath. There are a few things we just don't have in the States--a good onsen is one of them.

Mahler, Marimba, Manners and the New York Philharmonic

2012-01-13T15:40:00.004-05:00

Maybe you've read the reports about the iPhone interruption at the NY Philharmonic on Tuesday, January 10th. I was there. I Tweeted about it as soon as I got home. The story keeps building, and there are a few things that are being left out, and so I thought I'd just write up my own feelings about the whole thing here.

Thinking back, I'm pretty sure the phone started ringing *before* the 4th movement. It kept ringing and ringing and ringing. I don't mean it rang 4 times and then shut off and went to voicemail. I mean, it rang at least 10 times. Maybe 20. And then it would stop. And then it would start again.

I thought the phone was abandoned. I thought maybe it was backstage, by the door and had been forgotten by someone who was calling repeatedly to find the phone. I do that sometimes. I can't find my phone in my apartment, and so I call it and it rings and rings and stops and I call again until I can find it. That's what the ringing was like at the NY Philharmonic that night. We aren't talking about 4 rings and then straight to voicemail. We are talking about incessant ringing. For at least a half an hour (on and off. On and off). And this is why I think the ringing started during the second movement.

The woman behind me forgot to turn off her cell phone too. When it rang during the first movement, she jumped and turned it off and was deeply embarrassed. Her son scolded her in between movements. She told him to shut up. Then they were all quiet. This was annoying, but it's a part of going to concerts now. I hate that it's a part of concerts--just like I hate that people seem incapable of *not* unwrapping candies during the opera. I hate that the candies are opened slowly--like that's going to be less of a nuisance (note: unwrap your candies pre-performance, put them in a baggie, and pull them out of the baggie if you need them so badly).

As for the infamous iPhone--the man who owned it made no move to turn if off. There was no lurch to turn off the phone. Why? Why not jump and turn off the phone? Along the way, the orchestra played loudly--here is a clip of how loud Mahler's 9th can get: That's loud enough for most people to ignore the Marimba. But now put the cursor to 9:05 to 9:10. That is not loud enough to cover up a marimba. Note, according to Youtube, that the last movement has now been going on for at least 9 minutest. That's 9 minutes of a constant iPhone ringing.

Some have suggested that Alan Gilbert should not have stopped. But at that point, the iPhone was beyond rude. I was incredulous that it kept on ringing--and that its owner hadn't done something about the noise. I couldn't believe that no one sitting next to him was nudging him or doing anything to get him to shut down the phone. And that is why I thought, initially, that the phone didn't have an owner. That's how bad it was.

During the break, as Gilbert engaged the audience--the phone KEPT ON RINGING. Like-you'd think that as soon as you realized that the orchestra has *stopped playing because of you* that you would *turn off the phone*. The man didn't turn off the phone. We just sat there--waiting for the ringing to stop. That's when someone in the balcony yelled; "Just walk outside." Which seemed like a reasonable suggestion. But the man didn't go outside. And we kept sitting there. While the phone rang.

At last it stopped. But because it had also rung in previous movements, I wasn't sure the hall would be quiet. According to news reports, Gilbert extracted a promise that the phone had been shut off. I didn't realize this. I was just tense and worried for the remainder of the performance (which was a shame, because the orchestra sounded *great*).

And as for Gilbert--he showed he had some cojones that night. I liked him for confronting the audience member--and then apologizing so courteously to all of us. He had balls and class. I remembered years ago when I went to see M. Butterfly on Broadway and a woman came in late to her seat and David Dukes absolutely skewered her. It was uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to have the suspension of disbelief broken like that. It's even worse, I think, that manners have broken down so much. I say this as a relatively "young" person who wasn't even alive during the height of thank you notes and please and thank you. But it really is now as though we all think we are in our own living rooms, and we are not.

On a related note--my next concert going will be to see Lang Lang, the pianist, whom some might remember I talked about for a presentation at the Knitting Factory during my book tour.I had the audience do a blind listening to Lang Lang and Rubenstein doing Chopin. I read reviews of both players, emphasizing the whole "too Asian," "too emotional," "too technical" thing, and then had the audience guess which recording belonged to whom. Finally I will get to hear Lang Lang myself. I can't wait.

Salon Dot Com and Weight Loss

2012-01-06T16:04:00.005-05:00

Happy New Year.

I've written a piece for Salon.com on weight loss and diet which you can read here. One line:

I wondered about the split in my head: the idea that fun girls are willing to eat and can comfort us with a cozy, permissive warmth and that thin girls are the paragons of a beauty that only a very few can emulate. Who really wants to be so thin if it just makes you bitchy? Or does it?

Food and diet and exercise are rather engrossing topics. I've received more email from this one essay than I have for anything else I've ever written. In a way, I wonder if weight--and all the other subjects that weight touches--isn't one of the most personal things we can ever really talk about.

One thing I will write here--just very quickly. A number of people have written to tell me that their weight gain coincided with some kind of depression or illness. Obviously, I sympathize as this was true of me too (depression). The terrible thing about depression related weight gain is that exercise is often prescribed as a way to help alter your mood--and yet if you are depressed, it's nearly impossible to find the energy to do anything more than what is necessary to get through the day. I get this too, and have absolutely been there. But I do want to say that I have finally found a way to work out at home, and that this really more than anything now is what helps me with my moods, my sleep and my general health.

At any rate--it's my birthday tomorrow! And according to my handy iPhone app, the sun will set at 4:44 tomorrow--which is about 17 minutes more sunshine than December 7th. For me, more sunlight is always a reason for optimism. We have yet again made it through the dark time of the year. I hope you are feeling it--certainly I am here.

With all my best wishes for the new year--the year of the Dragon.

Above the Waves, and A Hiatus

2011-08-28T12:58:00.003-05:00

I'm overdue in announcing that my memoir, tentatively titled "Above the Waves," has been sold to Alane Mason at Norton. (Norton!). Publishers Marketplace announced the sale thus:

"ABOVE THE WAVES details the history of Marie Mutsuki Mockett's family Buddhist temple in Iwaki, Japan, (25 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant), and explores the religious and cultural frames within which people in Japan cope with death and disaster."

I'm hard at work now. ;-) Alane Mason has edited some of my favorite writers--people I've admired from afar.

I should also say that I've returned from a trip to Japan in July for a really exciting project, that I don't feel ready to announce publicly, but will when the time comes.

Needless to say, with all this work--and with an adorable 20 month old toddler--I don't have the time to update my blog as regularly as I used to and this means I'll be going on hiatus for the time being.

I've enjoyed making friends via the internet, and meeting so many interesting people. Hopefully there will come a time when I can update this blog again.

Thanks for stopping by and for reading.

Four Giselles

2011-06-05T21:10:00.007-05:00

That's right, four. That's how many Giselles I've seen this year--three at ABT and one at the Royal. It is not as many as a die-hard balletomane would go and see, but it's still quite a lot. By the time I was going to my fourth Giselle, my husband looked at me incredulously: "You really like that ballet." "It's the casts. The production," I said. "That's why I keep going."

Giselle is a classic. Each time I see it, I learn something new, even if the dancing is not top notch. The themes and the choreography are really that deep. Giselle is an example of that thing they always tell you about storytelling and art--if you go deep, people will see things and find things that you yourself the creator didn't even realize you were putting in the work.

Giselle is about dancing and love and betrayal and ghosts and death. The girl, Giselle, loves this guy Loys, only, Loys is really Albrecht. He's a prince and he's engaged to a girl named Bathilde. At one point, Giselle and Bathilde even meet and despite their difference in class, get all girly with each other and talk about their boyfriends. The hunter, Hilarion, has a massive crush on Giselle and is suspicious of Loys. As it turns out, Hilarion figures out that Loys is really a prince and tells Giselle, who dies of a broken heart. Later, Loys/Albrecht and Hilarion separately go to Giselle's grave because they are sad. Of course, they conveniently go at night, the very best time to visit a graveyard. Giselle shows up as a ghost, but because of the way she died (dancing, before her wedding night), must join band of pissed off ghost sisters called the Willi who force any men they meet to dance till they die. Hilarion dies first. Albrecht looks like a goner, except that Giselle's love saves him and he makes it until dawn when the Willi all disappear.

There's plenty of modern day Twighlight and Gossip Girl sensibility mixed in with a Wuthering Heights type vibe and anything else romantic and tortured in this story. Much depends on the interpreter. For example: is Albrecht just a player? Is he in love with Giselle? Or, is his seduction some kind of game? Here's an interpretation with Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev of the Bolshoi.

Albrecht is kind of like: yeah, I don't want to deal with your crazy when the royals are around.

Now look at this version, fast forwarding to around 1:47. This version stars Natalia Makarova and Baryshnikov.

Here, Albrecht looks like he feels pretty bad. And this is what they say about Baryshnikov--that he changed the way that Albrecht is played. In Baryshnikov's version of Giselle, we the audience are watching a true love story from the beginning. There's another great version on Youtube which I can't embed, but which is from 1956 and stars Galina Ulanova. In that version, Albrecht is actually annoyed by Giselle when she goes mad. Even today, Albrecht is played differently.

Ditto for Giselle, and ditto for someone supporting like Hilarion. The standard ABT version is to have Hilarion and his plodding theme song make him seem like a stalker.

One of the pleasures of the Royal Ballet version which I wrote about here, is that Hilarion comes through as a very human person who just really cared about Giselle. At ABT, most Hilarions behaved creepily--except for Jared Matthews, whose nuanced and sensitive portrayal made me sit up and pay attention. Because he seems like a decent guy, you feel pretty bad in Act Two when he dies.

And then there were the ABT Giselles themselves: Hee Seo, Alina Cojocaru and Diana Vishneva. There are many ways to be a Giselle. Is she, for example, already unhealthy and is that why she goes mad and dies in Act One? Certainly the way that Vishneva played Giselle made our heroine seem unearthly from the start. Or is she an earthly, girlish girl who just loves to dance and feels things a bit too much, like Cojocaru?

Is she healthy? In fact, is she so healthy, she seems a little bit nuts and *that's* why she goes crazy later?

There are countless ways to think about Giselle and to interpret her dancing. And the the choices made in the first act impact the second. Here's Vishneva (I don't have a clip of her from act one) after she is made part of the undead. She's beyond ethereal.

Now Cojocaru.

Differences? For me, Alina is like something out of the spirit world. She's so febrile (I've never actually used that word before because it's never fit anything or anyone until now). At times, watching her dance live, I thought she'd escaped her body. In one very small moment, she dropped a bunch of flowers on her Albrecht, played by David Hallberg and then bourreed off the stage. The movement was the kind of thing I've always read about, but never seen. She skimmed the stage. She practically took off. Toe shoes were invented for that kind of gravity-defying behavior. You always read about how thrilled audiences in the 18th century were to see women skim the ground on their toes. It's rarely thrilling now. Except, when Cojocaru exited the stage, I and everyone else in the audience gasped. It was astonishing.

Vishneva's Giselle is also ethereal, but silky. She is moving through water. She's a beautiful thing from a dream. And this is why Albrecht can't stay away from her and why she goes mad and then appears as a Wili. She's a beautiful and unearthly creature from the start. Vishneva--more than any other dancer I know--is able to be beautiful from the word "Go." She knows how to cast a spell. That's also her downfall, because she can rely on her ability to project beauty and it can hamper her performance (I'm thinking of the time I saw her in Sylvia, where she wasn't able to rely on the whole beauty thing, and her dancing felt flat and false). But she is absolutely, breathtakingly gorgeous from start to finish.

Cojocaru's journey in a way is harder, because she starts out very much alive, and then transforms into a spirit. Her artistic choice for me is all about transformation. As such, it's absolutely awesome to behold such a physical change. Her performance was also--to me at least--more uneven. There were moments where she didn't dance, but appeared to just be natural. There were moments when she and Hallberg didn't connect the way that Gomes and Vishneva consistently did. There were moments where I wasn't sure what was happening. But the final transformation was something to behold. And I didn't notice or mind her feet at all--I was focused on her and her dancing.

All the Giselles I saw at ABT were good--and technically stronger than the one at the Royal earlier this year. The Vishneva/Gomes partnership probably had the strongest impact on me--and that is in part because of Marcelo Gomes' strong acting and dancing. In act two, when Albrecht is dancing for his life, Gomes made it really look like he was dancing and was exhausted (but still beautiful). He threw his head back during his cabrioles. He looked at Myrtha, queen of the Wilis, and pleaded with her to let him stop. It was all highly effective. And because Gomes is so confident, so clearly a man who has been in love and understands and can play with sexual attraction, his courting of Giselle and act one was electric. By the time she'd died, I felt and believed in their love. And, because of this, and because of the dancing and acting choices made, I really felt in act two that Albrecht required Giselle's protection. This provided for a drama in the second act that I rarely get to see.

This kind of intimacy is harder for Hallberg to establish in Giselle, mostly because I think he's probably not a cad. It would probably not occur to him to be a cad to someone. His Albrecht comes off more like a Siegfried from Swan Lake--a thoughtful, romantic man in search of something greater and more interesting than what he can find at the palace. Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and even Romeo and Juliet are set up to accommodate princes like this--Albrecht is a bit different. So it was much harder for me to believe that Hee Seo and Hallberg, and Cojocaru and Hallberg were in love.

On the other hand, because Cojocaru has this uncanny ability to really transform from a living, sensitive, alive girl to a dead one who can float, I was able for the first time to really understand that Albrecht cannot see Giselle at first when they meet at her grave. Some choreography:

And suddenly--after seeing so many Giselles (and believe me having seen many more in years past), the story and the choreography seemed novel and genius yet again. I realized you simply can't take in everything that the story has to offer with one go around.

Hee Seo, who is one of my favorite young dancers, gave a strong debut. I didn't love her Giselle as much as her Juliet, which arrived on stage fully formed. The critics have not been so nice about Seo's Giselle and this upsets me, because her Juliet is truly, truly astonishing. Because I know she has such a strong performer instinct, I don't doubt the Giselle will come with time. Watching Seo dance Giselle, I thought to myself what a complex role it really is, how every moment requires not only dancing, but dramatic choices. And watching someone do it for the first time, after watching veterans, I was reminded of just how complex a piece of artistry Giselle actually is.

Finally, a few more thoughts. Here is the way Giselle rises from her grave in the Royal Ballet production:

The ABT version: (you have to ff to 9:30).

And this for me highlights one of the many differences between the styles of the two companies--there was so much care in the storytelling that the Royal puts on. Note the location of the two graves and the eeriness of Giselle's appearance in the first clip--and how it really fits the music.

Other notes: Yuriko Kajiya turned her solo as a Wili in a gorgeously crafted piece of dance. I remember Gabrielle Brown years ago--still in the corps--did the same little solo and we all applauded. She was promoted. I admire everything Kajiya has done this year. Such care. Stella Abrera so impressed me as Myrtha. I know her fans wish she could have a turn as Giselle. Well, so do I. The orchestra might want to slow down a bit in places--Cojocaru is great at playing with tempii and phrasing. It's not a bad thing to think about. I don't like Cojo's hair down in Act 1. It's stringy. I don't mind stringy hair during the mad scene, but wish she had pinned her hair up and brought it down later. Thank God for Simkin's peasant pas de deux. Wonderful jumps. Would like to see him do something more substantial.

American Ballet Theater: Mixed Reperatory

2011-06-05T20:43:00.004-05:00

Yes, I've been very busy writing about Japan, but I am honoring all my ballet tickets and making it through the very heavy ballet season. I'd meant to write a post about what you should see--if you have kids, if you hate tragedy, if you like to experiment, if you want to see "stars," etc, but simply ran out of time. Maybe next year.

I started out the season by going watch Alina Cojocaru and Jose Carreno in Don Quixote, a ballet I've actually never managed to sit through in the past. But I made myself stay for Cojo and Carreno--this will probably be the last time I'll ever see him dance, which makes me extremely sad as he is a wonderful dancer, partner and performer. All the same, the ballet--even with Cojo's dedication and showmanship--didn't win me over. I felt like I'd been to the circus. Sascha Radetsky was replaced (due to injury) by Gennadi Savaliev, who appeared to be marking the steps. Maria Riccetto is a gorgeous woman in person, but somehow always appears pinched on stage. Why does life do this? It's not fair. Some people who are really good looking in person simply fade on the stage. Others who are odd looking in person come alive under the lights. Cojo was charming and earnest and you could not help but love her good-naturedness. But I needed something more, and this video of Osipova which I've watched repeatedly didn't help make me feel that an opportunity had somehow not been missed.

http://youtu.be/aYB7s-oUh2k

At any rate--I did enjoy seeing Simone Messmer and Joseph Phillips as Gypsies. I'd been curious about both dancers and was happy to have a glimpse of the "edginess" that Messmer is known for. I'd like to see more of her. And Phillips has grown on stage--much more presence than the last time I saw him.

Shallow points--Cojo's feet really bothered me. Much as been said and written about her bunions and how this is not her fault and how she has to wear extra wide shoes as a result. But must she cut the fabric off the bottom of her shoes so a raggedy edge is waving around as she dances and is visible all the way in the Dress Circle where I was sitting? I get that dancers don't have time any more to darn their points, but the raggedy edge was distracting.

With that complaining out of the way, I'll move on to the joy that was the Mixed Program. What is a mixed program? Well, it's a program in which non-related, shorter dances are performed by different casts. It's the way most of New York City Ballet performs. Think of it as a kind of "set list," like if you went to a jazz gig and heard different songs performed by the same band with different players sitting in at different points. It's like that.

First, a piece by Alexei Ratmansky, who's just accepted a 10 year contract with ABT. And just in time too, because the company needs some fresh blood who can choreograph new pieces and show that ballet is a living, relevant art form. And I say this as someone who loves and believes in ballet. Dumbarton, an ensemble work set to music by Stravinksy, featured a mixture of corps, soloist and principal dancers, including a personal favorite, Michele Wiles, who lately seems underappreciated and underutilized to me. Wiles is a virtuoso, but also a performer. She also has a scary and unpredictable quality that Ratmansky brought out in the pas de deux he created for her. This makes me hopeful that he'll continue to bring out what is best in her and that she'll continue to have the chance to dance better and newer pieces. Her Odile/Odette (Swan Lake) is one of the best out there and, again, underappreciated. Go if you can.

Dumbarton, though, is a piece that one needs to see more than once. Like everything Ratmansky does, it's thoroughly musical and while logical--nothing feels like the work of an automaton--it's not predictable. Like the best novel--you feel the story unfolding in an organic fashion but can't predict where it is going--Dumbarton is a little revelation. Most of all, I was just happy to see such great and strong dancing from all levels of the company. It's a sign of what could be and what Ratmansky could bring not just to ABT but to New York. After some trips to see dancing across the street where the men are not so universally strong, I was happy to see such bold and confident movement.

Dumbarton was followed by Troika, a work by Benjamin Millepied. Google him if you need to know who he is and why he has been in the news lately. I was so relieved to see Sascha Radetsky dancing here after missing him in Don Q, and grateful that between the two dances he chose Troika instead. Troika also feature Daniil Simkin, whose dancing and intelligence I've admired in the past and Alexander Hammoudi, a corps member whose athletic but inward quality make him unusually magnetic--like a dark haired Hallberg. I wasn't much of a fan of the choreography. It felt--to use a writing term--verbose. You know how you read a book by a contemporary writer who is getting lots of buzz and that writer talks and talks and talks and after a while you think: Oh, right, you are jabbering away because there is no there there? Well, that's how I felt about Troika. It was there--why? We had to fill the stage with all the movement . . . because? I understand that abstract pieces don't require a plot. And after seasoning my eye a bit with City Ballet, I no longer need a story from dance. But there has to be some kind of structure, or response to music that is still cathartic. While I loved the dancers in Troika, the emotional reason for the piece eluded me. It felt empty. It also felt like pieces I'd seen before.

I don't know anyone who liked the revival of Tudor's "Shadowplay," the third piece. Except for me--I liked it. But I'd just read a biography of Buddha, including the temptation by Mara that Buddha undergoes before his enlightenment. So, for me, the plot of Shadowplay was easy to follow. Also, I've read a lot of Jung to get the very 60s ethos that the piece intended to convey, and I really appreciated Tudor's ambition to try to do so much on stage and through dance--a fable, a psychological stage, an inner life. While I think Craig Salstein is such a wonderful actor--his Puck radiates in Midsummer Night's Dream--he didn't have enough gravitas or virtuosity for this particular piece. I wish I could have gone to see Simkin the following night, but don't have the cash for that.

Most people loved the final work by Christopher Wheeldon at the end of the evening. I loved it too though curiously, I don't remember much any more (the Ratmansky is lingering longer in my head) other than the fact that Isabella Boylston and Marcelo Gomes had a wonderful pas de deux in which they seemed to be asking each other to please, please "see me." It was moving. The lights and costumes were also very good. But beyond that, I now can't remember what I saw, which makes me wonder if the piece had some great moments but relied more on effect. I found myself wishing that Ratmansky had more help with costuming and lighting and learned a thing or two from Wheeldon.

And this is the funny thing about Wheeldon and Ratmansky: I find myself always complaining about Ratmansky's costumes. In Dumbarton, for instance, everyone seemed to wear these odd, post-Communist, drab, shirt dresses that really didn't do anything for anyone. I've complained in the past about his use of celadon green that doesn't pop on stage and the cut of the cap sleeves on his dresses. And here again I hated the costumes. But the dancing, the steps, the musicality were sublime. Of everything--Dumbarton is what I would most want to see again. And if I think back--it's the piece where the dancers looked the happiest.

Salon Dot Com

2011-06-05T10:14:00.002-05:00

My piece on Japan and the nuclear disaster appeared in Salon May 14th, 2011. You can read it here.

Japan Fundraiser at Tenri International

2011-05-05T21:22:00.004-05:00

This Saturday, May 7th, I'll be joining friends for an evening of music and performance at Tenri Cultural Institute in New York to help raise money for Japan. All proceeds will go to the Japan Society's Tohoku Earthquake Relief Fund. It's a great chance to help support Japan and to also hear wonderful music from a number of fine emerging composers, musicians and singers, including my dear friend Tamara Hardesty (I can't believe I get to share the stage with her!).

The Tenri Cultural Institute is located at:

Tenri Cultural Institute
43A West 13th Street
New York, NY 10011

You can also get more information by clicking on the image above, or by calling the event organizer--not to mention talented musician--Sachiko Kato at 646-408-8886. Hope to see you there!

Monmouth College

2011-04-19T09:46:00.001-05:00

On Monday, April 18th, I was invited by Heather Kelly, of Monmouth University and CJ Lonoff of Speaking Matters to visit students at Monmouth College in New Jersey to talk a bit about the disaster in Japan. I was just back from Japan and of course the tsunami, earthquake and nuclear plant troubles were the topic of conversation. I learned a great deal while there, and had much to talk about with students. I really enjoyed myself and meeting so many young people.

I was very moved to see that the students at Monmouth were raising money for the Japan Society to try to help the people of Japan. Students had folded paper cranes--each was a dollar. I asked if anyone knew the story of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. They did not--and so I shared this story with them.

This was not the first time that I've visited a college and talked about Japan, but this visit was special--I was moved to see how young people really care about Japan and want to be helpful to a place that is so dear to me.

Boys Over Flowers, NPR

2011-04-17T22:04:00.003-05:00

If you've followed me for a while, then you know how much I enjoyed Yoko Kamio's series, Hana Yori Dango and the Fuji TV adaptation in particular. I find it interesting that in shoujo manga, there is a tradition of celebrating plucky, clever heroines. Here in the west, comic books seem to focus so much on super powers. But Tsukushi, like many other manga heroines, is "ordinary"--just very spirited and brave.

I wrote all about my love of Hana Yori Dango for NPR, which ran a segment with my voice this past week. You can listen and read here.

For the uninitiated--the Japanese series is mostly available on bootleg copies from Hong Kong which I have heard you can find on Amazon and Ebay. I do also recommend the Korean series--the actors are very good, though the ending annoyed me. There is also the original adaptation from Hong Kong, which spawned a pop group named...drumroll...F4.

Celebrating Penelope Fitzgerald

2011-04-17T17:10:00.002-05:00

I'll be celebrating the life and work of English author Penelope Fitzgerald along with event organizer (and friend and fellow writer) Ellis Avery, Jonathan Franzen, Joan Acocella, James Marcus and other writers at the KGB Bar this Sunday at 7. Fitzgerald was extremely influential to me at an important part of my writing life and I'm happy to pay tribute to her life. Hope to see you there.

Back from Japan

2011-04-14T21:48:00.001-05:00

It was too short of a trip and if I could go back tomorrow, I would. I always feel emotional when I go to and come from Japan, but of course, this time the trip was even more emotionally charged.

I had taken great pains to change my ticket to avoid flying over Tohoku and to not to anywhere near Tokyo. For reasons that I won't go into, but which include problems with the airline, we ended up in Narita anyway. Usually a bustling airport, it was eerily empty with international travel at an all time low. This actually upset me--everyone who worked there carried themselves with such dignity and really tried to help us with our travel woes. And yet, of course, the gaijin are not coming.

The mood in Tokyo was quite somber. Above, a sign from the JR office. Power shortages have inspired many to voluntary dim lights and keep usage low.

One of the yearly cherry blossom season bento box specials. These kinds of little bursts of color felt very out of place in Tokyo, where everyone was dressed in black.

One of the many, many places where I could donate money. This was taken at a family style restaurant in Osaka.

View of Mt. Fuji, by bullet train.

Ewan went to his first matsuri (to the eagle eyed, yes, he has also had a hair cut). It was a bit noisy for him and he isn't really used to loud, smelly, drunk men. But eventually, he felt more secure and had a good time.

This dashi comes in front of our friends' house every year and turns around before being hauled off. It's quite a spectacle.

I am, of course, a veteran lover of matsuris. I hope to go back to Handa next year for the big shindig, which only occurs every few years.

Somber as Japan was, nature will do what it will do. I happened to arrive on the week when the cherry blossoms hit their peak. They were so lovely and it was hard not to feel optimistic amidst so much beauty. Below, some photos in Kyoto.

Above--a nice cherry blossom chiffon cake from Starbucks. This kind of thing only appears for the season, of course.

One of a few dinners I attended. This one was in Kyoto. Friends and I discussed the earthquake and its impact.

May 5th is traditionally Boy's Day, but is now celebrated as Children's Day. All the same, I was so happy to find these koinobori--and to take my son to see them and enjoy them.

Virginia Writers Conference

2011-04-04T15:41:00.006-05:00

I'm incredibly behind with my blog keeping, but did want to note that I was part of the wonderful Virginia Books Festival in Charlottesville, where I was lucky enough to read with Ellen Meeropol, whom I've known for a few years now, and Michael Parker, who I was very happy to meet. The festival took place March 16-March 20. I had such a great time, and developed a huge crush on New Dominion Bookshop where I read. Such an extraordinary shop with a marvelous selection.

The New Yorker Blog

2011-03-23T23:33:00.003-05:00

A piece I wrote on the daily struggles of my family at the temple in Fukushima appeared on the New Yorker blog. I've been trying not to hound my family, but obviously I am concerned for their well being.

You will also note in the comments that two people criticized my use of the word "biannual" and suggested I substitute this with "semi-annual," which the New Yorker did. Today I received this email from my father-in-law in Scotland.

"I checked my Chambers Dictionary, and it gives both meanings for biannual. !!!!!"

Recently the Japanese government expanded the voluntary evacuation zone due to a lack of food and supplies reaching the area around the nuclear reactor. As far as I know, my family is still staying put, as they said they would.

Talk of the Nation

2011-03-16T23:30:00.003-05:00

After my op ed in the New York Times came out, I was asked by producers at Talk of the Nation if would participate in a call in show about the disaster in Japan. You can listen to the show here; I'm on for the last 15 minutes.

My thanks to Neal Conan and Priska Neely.

Fukushima, Japan/The New York Times Op-Ed

2011-03-14T19:33:00.020-05:00

First, thanks to all my friends and family members who have inquired about my family in Japan. And thanks to everyone who read my piece in the New York Times. As you know, cousins from my grandfather's side of the family live in Iwaki City, which is south of Sendai, about 20 miles from the Daini Nuclear Power Plant and 27 miles from the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. While my family is alive and well at this moment, we are all obviously tremendously concerned, and have asked them to vacate the area. But as you also know, my family runs a Buddhist temple, which means they are now extremely busy comforting community members, and conducting funerals.

In the event that you are stopping by here because you want to know a little bit about my family, I've included some pictures and information. Tohoku, the region of Japan hit by the earthquake and tsunami, is a very, very dear place to me and has been since childhood. That's partly why I set my novel, Picking Bones from Ash, in the north of Japan. Lots of people focus on the glamorous south (where the geishas live); I love the wild, unpretentious and traditional north.

This is a photo showing four generations-my grandfather, who was 96 in this picture and who passed away just this January, my mother, my son Ewan, and me. This photo was taken last May. The temple belonged to my grandfather's father.

This is Sempou, my mother's cousin. I have known him since I was a small child; he was adopted into our family in his twenties to take over the temple. But later, I learned that he was actually a blood relative (complicated, Dickensian story for another day. I reference it here). Here, Ewan is five months old. I was planning on going back to the temple with Ewan this April for my grandfather and grandmother's memorial services. Obviously, I will not make it up to the temple at all this spring. It remains to be seen if I will postpone the trip altogether. All the same, Sempou was delighted to meet my son, though he refused to smile for a photo for me, as is the Japanese way for a certain generation.

A shot of Sempou putting the final touches on a funeral ceremony. The sutras for funerals are standard, but Sempou is a thoughtful man, who always looks for a way to personalize what he does; all deaths are unique.

Sempou is inside the temple, conducting "Daihanya," a yearly Buddhist ceremony that occurs in February. Sempou has a beautiful voice and a charismatic presence. Watching him, I felt incredibly proud. You can see how many people rely on him for comfort. Our temple is on the stark side. This is partly because it is in the Sotoshu sect (Zen), but also because it is old (though not old enough to be some kind of historical site!)

The two faces of Sempou's son, Maakun (as I call him). On the one hand, he's a stylish, Harajuku going fashionista, making the drive down to Tokyo for his clothes. He is also a very serious and compassionate young priest in the making. I wrote quite a lot about my cousin here.

A casual shot of my young cousin greeting a visitor. This walkway connects the temple (left) to the house (right) where everyone lives. Privacy is a little hard to come by at the temple, as visitors drop by without warning and the priests (not to mention their wives) must be ready to receive and entertain them. Of course, other people make appointments, but it's completely unsurprising when someone shows up out of the blue. Also, note the parasol. I now carry one in New York!

But don't get the idea that my cousins--Maakun and his brothers--are in any way overly serious. They are boys. Here, priest gear is mixed in with Sony Playstation gear.

I also wanted to include a shot of what the coast looks like in peaceful times. My mother and I routinely stay at Sekinoyu Spa, near Nakoso. It’s a traditional place, with a sign out front declaring that no one with a
tattoo will be allowed to bathe inside. When I arrive, it’s usually
evening and I immediately head to the baths, before retiring to the
dining hall for a bowl of raw, fresh sea urchin and rice. Then it’s
off to bed in a futon—a real futon that lies on the woven tatami floor
of my room, and not a wooden Ikea frame. Older, single men often opt
to spend the night in armchairs so as to avoid paying for a hotel
room; they rise and bathe and eat in the morning. I wake up to the
cinnamon sun warming the horizon and fishermen out to get their catch.
The waves of the North Pacific crash right outside the window, and a
seawall comprised of concrete pieces that look like oversized jacks,
combs the water.

Below, a view of the sunrise over the ocean, and the boats at sea.

If you want to read more, here are some notes and photos from Ewan's first trip to Japan last year, some photos from Maakun's wedding, notes on what happens at a funeral, and a piece I wrote titled Letter from a Japanese Crematorium.

The Royal Ballet

2011-03-09T16:52:00.005-05:00

I remember the first time I looked at a black and white book of two dancers named Nureyev and Fonteyn. My father had found the book in the library and recalleded seeing these two legends on television in his youth. For the next few years, I regularly checked and re-checked this and other dance books (mostly of Nureyev and Fonteyn), poring over every page. From that point, I had a dream of seeing the Royal Ballet. Actually at that point I had a fantasy of actually joining the Royal Ballet, but reality and the completely wrong body type intervened.

A few weeks ago, I finally went to see the Royal Ballet for the first time, in a production of Giselle. I'll write about the production and dancing in a moment, but first want to point out that the shop at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden sells these nice Nureyev-Fonteyn mugs. The rim is silver (which hisses in the microwave. Translate: don't microwave). There are also nice Nureyev-Fonteyn tea trays and tote bags. Tacky? The photo was taken by Frederika Davis, who is still taking pictures of the Royal Ballet, though she's in her 70s. It's a gorgeous, not-at-all tacky shot.

Why do I bring this up? Aside from the fact that of course I came home with a mug, tote bag and tea tray, I mention this because I was enormously moved to see that there would even be a market for this kind of nostalgia. It's been years since Fonteyn danced at Covent Garden, and yet I love that the Royal Ballet is paying tribute to its greatest star and to its history. Do we have anything even approximating this at home in the Met when ABT performs? I do recall once going into the Met shop and seeing a dozen or so people transfixed in front of the giant monitor, watching Baryshnikov on screen in something (Swan Lake, I think, with Makarova). But we don't seem to have the same national and cultural pride in our greatest dancers--even if those dancers were born elsewhere.

I was also struck by the fact that there are many more dance magazines--ones I've never heard of--for sale in the shop, and you can bet that I bought as many as I could and read them cover to cover before giving them to Tonya. Some of the articles even focused on Nureyev and you see that his shadow is very, very long in Europe. Of course, ballet is essentially a European creation. It is their culture, so it makes sense that it would continue to be celebrated.

But there was a great deal more to note. I saw Mara Galeazzi as Giselle, and Thiago Soares as Albrecht. I liked them both. I didn't love them, but I have been spoiled in the past few years by the Giselles (Vishneva) and Albrechts (Halberg) I have seen. I didn't believe that Galeazzi was a young village girl. I was surprised when she came off point during the "hopping" portion of her variation--and surprised that I minded. I couldn't figure out what Soares' Albrecht was doing. Was he just fooling around, which is the way some dancers portray Albercht (Nureyev was famous for this, laughing at Giselle when his fiance shows up). Or was he sincerely in love with her and embarrassed to be found out? I couldn't tell. On the other hand, there were signs early on that this was be an unusual production. Giselle's mother has an elaborate pantomime sequence, whose full translation is given inside the beautifully printed and bound program. Why the pantomime? It adds to the story, for one, and foreshadows the gestures and movements that the Wili will take. Pantomime is also a part of ballet's history.

There were other unusual sequences in the ballet. In the ABT production, Giselle dies of a broken heart. The notes in the synopsis make this clear:

The shock of learning of Albrecht's duplicity is too great for Giselle's frail constitution. Her mind becomes unhinged and she dies of a broken heart--her love unrequited.

In the somewhat more violent British version, Giselle stabs herself--she wills herself to die. I found Galeazzi's mad scene thus incredibly compelling and upsetting both.

But then we got to the second act. In the past, when I've gone to see Giselle, I have to admit I've chosen productions because there was a specific dancer I really wanted to see in the role. ABT encourages this kind of viewing with its "star" structure. As a result, the corps can be under-rehearsed and appear haphazard. Last year, for example, I was incredibly disappointed by the entrance of the corps in the Kingdom of the Shades. And yet, in the 80s, I remember being absolutely floored by the progression of young women in white.

But the Royal Ballet has a beautiful corps. And I realized just how much this can add to the story--with the young wili echoing Myrthe's gestures of: "no." It's an awesome sight to see the young girls work together and sets up a wonderful contrast to poor Giselle's efforts to maintain a connection to the land of the living one more time. And when Galeazzi sank into the floor, as if swallowed by the earth, there was not a dry eye in the room.

In other words, the production I saw had a tremendous sense of mwork and of company te, and not just bravura dancing. This was a new experience for me. I have seen Giselle so many times, I've forgotten to look for the story--and I say this as a writer who is hopelessly interested in narrative structures! It also have to commend the orchestra. After the strange, breakneck pace at which the New York City Ballet's orchestra sometimes played, I was impressed by the Royal's tremendous sensitivity and attention to its dancers.

I take away two things. One: a single visit to the Royal Ballet is insufficient. There are so many dancers to see, and I look forward to Alina Cojocaru, a Royal Ballet principal, returning to New York this summer. Two: I look forward to seeing more Giselles, to see how productions and storytelling differ. I will also be looking at the corps, and hoping for that feeling of being immersed in a dense world of ethereal, severe and talented women.

Nixon in China, or Opera is Grand

2011-02-16T13:56:00.005-05:00

I remember my first opera at the Met. I went to see La Traviata with Editha Gruberova and she was terrible. She was also, according to Wikipedia, 42 and not the singer she had been when my parents had seen her over a decade earlier in Vienna. "Opera," said my mother, "can be better than this." And now it is.

The change in part came from a focus on singers--the new generation is superb and you rarely hear the wobbly vibratos and pitchy screeching of years past. The Met is now one of *the* places to see new, jaw-dropping, imaginative, and ambitious theater. Some of the re-stagings of classics, to my mind, are successful and others less so. All the same, I usually leave the Met feeling elevated because someone has tried to envision a grand world for me to enter.

I remember an interview with Bryan Singer, who wrote and directed the first two wonderful X-Men movies. To paraphrase, he said something like: the only way to translate the X-Men story to screen and to respect the fans, was to treat the material with sincerity. I think that's as true of a comic book hero as it is an opera. The Met respects its fans and treats its operas with sincerity. I love the results.

Much has been made of the fact that Nixon in China took 27 years to reach the Met. I was nervous about going last night--I always worry that "high art" of the modern variety is going to be above me. You can read the reviews in the press if you want the usual assessment of the music and the singing. But this afternoon, I'm still thinking about the second act, and what it means to the world of opera. In this portion of the opera, Pat and Dick are treated to a show staged by Madame Mao, which is actually a ballet choreographed by the witty Mark Morris. A young peasant girl is "whipped" on the stage. Pat is upset and goes to comfort the young girl. A young man forgets his gun (hello Chekhov) on stage, and Dick keeps trying to return the prop. From here, reality disintegrates and Pat and Dick get caught up in the action--the mass whippings, the thought control, the mind fuckery of the Cultural Revolution--and you in the audience lose track of what is real and what is not. Which, if you think about it, is probably the way that any kind of authoritarian mind control must feel. Are your emotions authentic? Are you allowed to have any? What constitutes reality when all activities are dictated to such a minute level?

It's an incredible feat of theater and art, this second act. I sat there feeling horrified and amused all at once; it's rare for a piece of art to reach and succeed for several emotions at the same time, but that's what great art can and should do. And I sat there thinking that in 1987, when Nixon in China was first produced, the creators must in some part have been thinking of trying to demonstrate what opera can be. There is so much ambition in this work. You can really feel how it paved the way for our concept of what opera is--both past and present.

There are other aspects of this production that I haven't about read anywhere--the subject of race, for example. Over the years, I've noticed less and less race based casting at the Met. The Don Carlo I saw this winter was Asian. Albrecht was black. Last night, there were "black Chinese workers" and "white Chinese workers." The audience does not seem to care--nor should it. The vision for opera now is so vast and so grand that race seems to matter less and less. The statement that the operas are all making now are not so much about Duke so and so in his 18th century palace, or a very 19th century courtesan, but about very richly imagined themes. Opera of course lends itself to "big feelings"--we use the word operatic for a reason. But it's almost as though by focusing on the emotions in opera--the love, betrayal, the lust, the greed--even more than the particulars, opera has managed to almost reinvent itself and transcend its aristocratic upbringing. How else does something like Nixon in China emerge?

Over at Tonya's blog, the discussion surrounding race in dance has been fascinating to read.

An anonymous poster wrote the following:

For dance to really move forward directors need to stop looking to “dance” as inspiration and start looking at the world around them for influences. Once that is done the whole race discussion would be obsolete because everyones differences will be embraced which ultimately will tie us all together (and box office sales).

Somewhere along the way, I feel like the Met and the opera world stopped looking myopically at opera for inspiration, and at the world instead. Though I have loved the Zeffirelli sets and the Otto Schenk production of the Ring Cycle, I'm impressed by the willingness of Peter Gelb to have a vaster vision than to try to stick his audience in 19th century Europe night after night. The essential integrity of opera has remained, but by opening up the scope, the operas have become more generous and more human. It troubles me that ballet doesn't seem to have gone through this same change yet.

Sara Mearns, Swan Queen

2011-02-12T23:15:00.005-05:00

"So, you know how Sara Mearns is kind of wild on stage?"

"Yes."

"That's why they have to give her a dependable partner."

What does it mean to be wild on stage? There is a moment in the whimsical ballet Namouna, where Mearns does a series of jumps, while turning backward in the air, and landing against some men who must catch her. She can't see them. She has to trust that they are there and won't drop her. They don't know how hard she will jump. The whole thing is terrifying. Some dancers would hold back and play it safe, hitting the beat, or jumping high enough to look impressive, but not angling their bodies to ever be at any risk. Think of iceskaters at the Olympics, pausing before the big jump, then landing with a look of relief. Sara doesn't do this. She throws herself. She seems to enjoy it. You feel frightened for her and thrilled. You end up enjoying it too.

This was the energy Mearns brought to Swan Lake last night at the New York City Ballet pretty much from the moment go. Her white swan, Odette, leapt onto the stage and immediately began to flutter with fear and exhaustion. Mearns did something I've never seen anyone do before--she radiated the panicked nervousness of a bird frantically trying to get out of a cage, with a sort of queenly, eon-long suffering beauty. Hers was a Run-Lola-Run-Jason-Bourne swan, running on adrenaline, but still hopeful that one day her predicament will end.

As a contrast, take a look at Uliana Lopatkina of the Kirov.

Here is a swan who looks like she's emerging from the water. She's had a nice bath and is stretching out her wings to dry. She is queenly and regal and turns away from the prince because, well, maybe he isn't good enough for her. She's silky, elegant, and gorgeous. She meets the prince and thinks: hmm. Maybe you can help me!

For contrast, here is another version, this time from the Paris Opera Ballet. You'll notice a difference--the leg extensions are not quite as high. For me, this interpretation, performed by Agnès Letestu, is high on actorly drama. Odette looks like a bird. She is in some ways a more physical creature than the swan above, all darting eyes and twitching head.

And here's one more, from a slightly different moment in the ballet. Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn are Siegfried the prince, and Odette the swan, respectively. Look how passionate and how in love the two seem. It is going to break your heart later when he (oops) chooses another woman over her.

I don't think any interpretation is the most correct (and if you want to see more, knock yourself out. Type in "Odette's entrance" and see what you get). The point is just that Sara's, to me, was completely unique. In she flew, an exhausted, gorgeous, swan queen who we all very much wished to help. She was riveting; her performance gripping. If I put on my thinking cap, I'd say that here is an example of a performer taking something that has been done hundreds of times, and finding a way to make it new. As a fan, I would just say I sat there transfixed, and thrilled, with my hand over my mouth.

Dancers usually say that it is the black swan who is more difficult to capture. If you have seen Black Swan, the movie, then you know all about the received opinion concerning this role. In a recent article in the New York Times, NYCB dancer Sterling Hyltin (whom I also love), said:

“By nature white swan is easier for me. I’m more petite. We’ve got some very tall women in our company who do ‘Swan Lake,’ and for me it’s intimidating to feel as womanly as they are in a role, but I have to realize I’m a woman just like them.”

The black swan is the sexy, show-stopping role. She is the one who does 32 fouettes (a kind of demanding turn--ballet fans often count to see if a ballerina does them well). For example, here is Gillian Murphy:

No wonder the prince forgets about the white swan, right? Initially, (as in, a few years ago), Mearns didn't even do the full fouette regimen, though she certainly did last night when I saw her. And while she was also not doing multiple turns, like Murphy did above, the effect was still thrilling. Her Odile was in command, sexy, not cruel, but certainly intent on overpowering the prince.

So, no wonder the prince chooses Odile by accident and breaks Odette's heart, right? Why would anyone choose the fluttering, silky, sad white swan over the sexy one? Except, the way that Mearns played the white swan, as I described above, anchored the character so fully as the most important part of the story, that you could only feel even more devastated by the prince's betrayal. On a story level, the fact that Mearns infused Odette with so much adrenaline driven energy--you feel her fear--means that the last act does not fall flat. You do not think: "Oh, here we are with that white swan again." It's a brilliant way to play the duality and one I've not seen before. It makes sure that you, the audience member, are completely invested in the heart of the story, and that you are not treated merely to an evening of acrobatics.

In the hallway, during intermission, I ran into a veteran dance critic who said to me, dreamily: "It used to be this way every night."

But a ballet shouldn't just be about its star. True, I paid for my ticket because of Mearns. But one hopes that the rest of the ballet will also be good. And there was some good dancing. Daniel Ulbricht seems made for the role of the jester. It's one of the jumping-man roles, which also calls for the ability to appear good natured and playful. Ulbricht is all of these things, and he was certainly airborne. Joaquin de Luz was even more extraordinary, with some of the most effortless double tours I've ever seen. I enjoyed the trio of Abi Stafford, Megan Fairchild and Tiler Peck--I love Peck in particular. Anna Sofia Scheller, whom I've not been nice to in the past, really impressed me last night, what with her strong, playful dancing. She is someone who just seems to radiate *health* and does well when her characters are healthy. This was the second time I watched Eria Pereira. The first was in Chaconne where I thought she must be a student, she looked so small and hesitant on stage. I'm confused as to how she managed to become a soloist, while someone with actual stage presence, like Lauren King, is back in the corps.

Then there was Jared Angle, as Siegfried the prince. Angle is a solid partner, but his acting and emotion lack variety and depth. Look, for example, at this clip from the Royal Ballet. It's from the end of Swan Lake, when Siegfried realizes what a mess he has made of things, and so dashes frantically around the lake looking for the swan/woman he has betrayed. Watch for the urgency of his movements. (This is Nureyev, we are talking about).

(Musically, by the way, this sounds like just the kind of thing John Williams would have listened to and used for some of his movie music. Listen again).

This kind of passion was missing from Angle. And this makes me wonder what Mearns would be capable of were she to dance with an even better partner. I am thinking, for example of how much passion the often reserved David Hallberg (whom I adore) gave his Romeo when he danced with Osipova in Romeo and Juliet last spring. Even Gia Kourlas wrote:

As young ballet stars they show a longing to push past the point of comfort in their roles, especially those as fraught with history and emotion as Romeo and Juliet. You can sense their impatience, their devotion and, finally, their desire not to settle for a performance on the surface.

This is not to say that David Hallberg isn't amazing at everything he does. It's just that partnered with Osipova, he seemed to push himself even more. And looking at Mearns, who is clearly an artist of immense talent, intuition and depth, I couldn't help but want even more for her than she already has. What magic, for example, might we see if she danced with Marcelo Gomes? The set around them would melt.

Of course, if the set in question is one designed by Per Kirkeby, that would not be such a bad thing. I have been googling trying to find pictures of the sets and costumes to show you, but none seem to exist. There is probably a reason for this. They are horrendous. I have an open mind when it comes to modern productions--I loved the much booed Tosca at the Met, for example. But what on earth possessed anyone to think that a high octane splattered primary color based set that looked like Jackson Pollock on acid would be in any way shape or form, good? The mottled courtiers who opened act two looked like marbled fudge chess pieces from a discarded production of Alice in Wonderland. The jester, as someone said to me, looked like a gnome in neon fatigues. At some point, this kind of color scheme starts to look willfully in bad taste. It's not funny. It's cynical.

My friend Allison put it best when she said: "Tim Gunn would never let them get away with this!"

Or, as another friend, who is not a regular ballet goer said to me: "This is distracting." Well, yes. It was also distracting when the orchestra decided to race through the first act, as though on speed. Why so afraid of something classic? If there is a heart to a story, it will show. Why not embrace that?

The ending of City Ballet's production has also been considered "controversial." Last year, after attending Darci Kistler's farewell performance, I wrote that it was "strange." Looking at it again, though, I've decided it is wonderful. In most versions, Odette and Siegfried either jump off a cliff and die (ABT), or vanquish the evil von Rothbart and live (Bolshoi). Here's the incomparable Plisetkaya, alive at the end of act 4, and protecting all the little swans who have clustered around her.

City Ballet does something different. The tormented, desperate Odette manages to vanquish von Rothbart, but still she is engulfed by the sisterhood of black *and* white swans, only to disappear out of sight. It's a feminist ending to a ballet that otherwise relies heavily on the power of a prince for salvation. At the end, Mearns, as the swan, is presumably healed from the affliction of the aviary curse. But, regretfully, she must retreat to now recover, one assumes, from her century long ordeal and perhaps even a broken heart.

NYCB in Rehearsal: Prodigal Son and After the Rain

2011-02-10T22:12:00.011-05:00

(Various photos are not Sara Mearns or Sean Suozzi, but cobbled together to give you a sense of the ballet)

I wonder if there is a more violent role for a man in ballet than the Prodigal Son. At one point, our Prodigal Son, now very far from home, sits on the floor and bends his head. The unrelenting Siren stands on his shins and he holds her in place, then slowly lowers his leg. It's one of the many unconventional lifts and moves that Balanchine employed the convey the complete dominance the Siren has over the Prodigal Son and the debauchery of her world.

I've seen the ballet before--most recently with Angel Corella and Kristi Boone--but was really pleased to be invited to watch Sara Mearns and Sean Suozzi in rehearsal. I'm like a broken record now with my Sara Mearns love, but what a treat it was to see this lush, commanding dancer take on the role of the Siren. How easily she sliced through those turns in arabesque seconde (that was very mean, George Balanchine). And how easy she made it all look--the cape, the parallel bourrees, the lifts.

I was fascinated to also watch the ballet in rehearsal. There's the prop--the gate/table/boat/crucifix. There are the subtle moments where the ballet master reminded the group of goons to stay upstage so the Siren was always in the foreground. There were the numerous challenging jumps that Suozzi had to master. I had an even greater appreciation for the level of detail that the rehearsal master was trying to draw out, and for the effort on the part of the dancers.

Watching these young people work so hard, I only wanted them to succeed. Watching a rehearsal like this is informative on so many levels--you see what makes the dancers human, you see the seams of a piece and how certain moments require extra concentration, and you see the effort that goes into bringing a piece to life. There was the conductor, mastering the tempos while conducting a piano. There was the pianist, who was expected to know what "Go back to Prod stomps" meant. There was the demand of superb timing--Prod is edited carefully so there are no spare moments, despite the scene changes. There can be no error.

And yet in all of this, you could really see the seeds of greatness, in the dancers themselves and in the work. I did not get to see the live performance--Suozzi and Mearns were debuting (I was at the Joyce), though a text from Tonya confirms that the evening was a success. I look forward to her more thoughtful review.

As for the ballet itself--for me it is without question a masterpiece. You can check out this video for clips to get a sense. I know I have a sense to complain about Balanchine's ballets feeling dated--absolutely nothing is dated about Prodigal Son. From the story, to the unusual and constantly inventive moves, you are aware that you are seeing a singular work. There are moments--when the goons move their hands like a centipede, or when the Son returns home on his knees--that are not ballet per se. They are movement. But they are intelligent movement used in such an effective way. Then there are the complex and distorted positions of the Siren and Son--how else can you better convey the sickness of their relationship than when she literally dominates him by wrapping her body around his legs and slowly, expertly lowering herself down. The Son stands no chance against the Siren (especially when she is Sara Mearns).

(Video clip of After the Rain, not Whelan and Hall)

I was also really, really fortunate enough to see Wheeldon's "After the Rain" in rehearsal. This is a classic piece, much discussed and recently the subject of a full article in Dance Magazine, who interviewed various principal dancers to take on the role. Wendy Whelan, of course, originated the part and so it was particularly moving to watch her perform it, and to see her gently provide advice to her young partner, Craig Hall. I will cry when Wendy retires (plus, everyone always tells me that she is absolutely the nicest person, and I like it when nice people are also successful people).

I don't know what After the Rain is meant to reference. But for me, the intense emotion and intimate choreography (and the pointe shoe less dancer), made me think of a couple, coming together after some kind of storm, and focusing on the important work ahead of them--of coming together, or being kind and forgiving, and thankful. I found it a profoundly moving piece. There is a moment in the DanceMagazine article, for example where Whelan spoke of blessing the "four corners." I noticed that moment in the piece, and the genuine deference and elegance with which she committed to the gestures. For me, then, this is a rich piece, filled with honest and earnest emotion that is never cloying, but feels sincere and complex in the best sense.

I hope to see it in performance some day.

Ronald K Brown, Evidence, Individuality

2011-02-10T14:05:00.005-05:00

(Photo)

I think we probably shouldn't use the term "classical music" any more. Sure, there are some things that are "classical," but when we say "classical," we really mean "performed by an orchestra of some sort in a concert hall." Philip Glass, John Adams and Thomas Adès aren't classical--Adès, after all is still alive. But I was at the New York Philharmonic when I heard Adès, so I get why the term "classical" is fixed to him, even if it's wrong.

I was listening (and weeping) this evening to Brad Meldhau's stunning new album, a great deal of which is composed and I was thinking: what makes something jazz and what makes it classical? My friend Jeffrey reminded me over the weekend that the dividing line is supposed to be improvisation. If a player gets the freedom to just make something up during performance, then he's a jazz musician. This doesn't take into account the codas or violin solos that are inserted into violin concertos (weren't those things made up too?) But I get the point. We have this vague idea that if we go to a concert hall, the music is written down and performed as it is written down. At a jazz gig, you are going to get something different every night. In my twenties, my friend Ned used to tell me that he hated labels for musicians period. He wanted the integrity and compositional sophistication of the classical world and the freedom of improvisation from the jazz world. He called himself a "modern" musician.

But I was thinking about this all over again on Tuesday when I went to see Ronald K. Brown and Evidence at the Joyce. My dance teacher--a jazz dance teacher--had always encouraged me to go. So I did.

Now, dance is full of these labels too. If you ever want a demonstration in physical humor, go watch a jazz class just as it is taking over a studio where a ballet class has ended. There are the ballet students, earnestly trying tombe pas de bouree glissade jete one last time. A jazz dancer will invariably follow, looking like a member of the Trocks, whether he is or not. Eventually someone will crank the music to drive out the ballet students and a few jazz dancers will work on some communal thing involving lots of isolations--things that annoy ballet dancers--to try to take over the space.

But the point is this: jazz dancers like to think that they are individuals. They like to think that their art form discriminates far less against body type. You hear words like "fierce" and "attitude" all the time in a jazz studio and woe betide the dancer (ahem) who comes across as too cerebral and not fierce enough. They don't like the idea of a corps de ballet, in which women maintain the same lines and work to match each other angle for angle.

The first thing I thought when I saw Ronald K Brown's dancers was that they were indeed incredibly unique. Some are tall, some are small, and some are not small at all. But they all have a jazz/Afro/Cuban vocabulary that requires intimate understanding of isolations, of arms and hips and a general looseness. What you get when you watch these dancers perform is a sense of dialogue between their individual natures. There is someone for everyone to watch. There is no "one star" whom you must watch with your binoculars, though I confess to really enjoying the men and Lilli Anne Tai in particular. There is no one "right way" to do the moves, though the choreography is in place. As a result, you, in the audience, feel a tremendous sense of freedom. And then there is the music, which ranges from Stevie Wonder to Nikki Giovanni and which feels overwhelmingly uplifting and spiritual--of the easy variety.

Brown's choreography is full of earthy moves--touching the earth, turning up the solar plexis to the sky. He is acknowledging the African diaspora in ways that are moving and that invite the audience to share in the joy of the dancers. For the most part, the groupings are just that--groupings--with the occasional coupling. This is a troupe that works together, and that is not in opposition with itself.

At times, though, as I can in a jazz gig, I missed a feeling of tightness. Sometimes in a jazz gig, I get annoyed with the solos which seem to drift, and wish for the clarity of composition. I would like to be delivered a well thought out thought. And this happened when I watched Evidence, though I know that the majority of the moves are in fact choreographed. The end of the world premiere piece, On Earth Together, involved a solo performed by Brown. For me, it left the piece hanging--I wanted a greater sense of closure. Since I don't know Brown, and had never seen him dance before (he looked great, but I suspect his talents weren't what they once were), it wasn't moving enough for me that *he* was dancing. I was reminded of going to see Mark Morris a few years ago. Morris danced a solo--he was somewhat portly--but he made the whole thing so funny, that even a novice like me could appreciate what he had to offer at that stage in his life and career. Unlike that evening, I felt disappointed when Brown closed out his own show, as though the pieces in the end were too similar in their use of dance vocabulary, and as though they kept making the same joyous and worshipful point over and over.

All the same, what remains for me, is the vision of eight dancers, all incredibly unique, giving shape and breath to joyous music. Just as the best jazz gigs are the most freeing and ecstatic musical experiences I know--unlocked as they are in the moment--so too does the most heightened moment of Evidence absolutely release something inside you that you did not even know needed to get out. It's the unexpected--the unwrittendown--that provides this kind of release. And it happens because of the individuality of the dancers is celebrated, and because the same kinds of physical demands that are placed on, say, the corps of ABT, do not exist in the jazz world.

Discovering Balanchine, the Disbanding of Merce Cunningham, Books are Permanent Art

2011-02-07T11:43:00.008-05:00

This weekend I was in Washington DC for the annual AWP writers conference. I was shy about going, yet ended up having a wonderful time seeing so many friends. There is also something very affirming about being with people who love to write and love books and share your struggles.

But the book--the end product of our toil--doesn't really care all that much about conferences. As an art form, it has not depended on congregating. And while an "informed reader" of, say, Shakespeare, might get a lot more out of his plays than someone who has misses every other reference (like me), there is probably still something in his work that is going to register, even on paper. I, as a reader in the middle of nowhere, can still feel comforted by my favorite novels. A book is not dependent on context.

I was thinking about this whole idea--how books can exist as art forms in isolation--and how this stands in strong contrast to the world of dance. George Balanchine is widely acknowledged as one of the genuises of the 20th century, though some critics lament that his gift is not as broadly noticed as, say, Stravinsky or even Norman Mailer. Why? Because dance is a collaborative art form and relies always on the interpreter. And unlike music, which has the CD, the MP3 and the vinyl record before that to capture some shadow of past greatness, dance is best experienced live. A DVD is essentially flat. And unlike drama, which can exist in book form, dance cannot be "read."

For years I have read passing references to the diminished greatness of New York City Ballet. My good friend, a culture maven if ever there was one, will simply not go. I meet a great many New Yorkers of a certain generation who are like this. Over the past few weeks, I have been digging through reviews of City Ballet to find a similar attitude reflected in the writing. Here, for example, is the curmudgeonly Robert Gottlieb whom, I have been assured, is actually very lovely in person.

To today's City Ballet dancers, "'Balanchine' is this step-driven, one-dimensional form. Occasionally, a dancer struggles to find more, as if she knows something is missing. But she ends up contriving emotion with breathy flourishes and fake ornamentation. The dances, like the dancers, look pretty enough; but we no longer know what they are about." Ms. Homans can hardly be accused of old-fogey nostalgia-she's relatively young-nor can she be accused of being part of an anti-Martins cabal: None of the New York critics seems to know her.

In a more recent review of the company, he writes:

The eight girls in Concerto Barocco, cast from strength, were accurate and pleasing, but they don't seem to know what the ballet is. There's no sense of its greatness, its significance. Corps girls used to be thrilled to be in Barocco—it was an honor. Today, it's just another assignment; the exaltation is gone. But then who is there to inspire them?

I was at that performance of Concerto Barocco. I had high hopes for it--I knew it was considered one of Balanchine's masterpieces. But I was deflated by the end. I couldn't see anything that was at all great. It felt . . . weak and empty. I found the classicism forced and untethered. I thought: "If only there were a story to rescue all this movement. Then, perhaps, the dancers would know why they were even up there at all." I've seen laser shows set to music that were more exciting than Concerto Barocco. And then, because I can be insecure and hard on myself, I decided that I just didn't get it. The problem must be me.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, then you know that I have also seen other Balanchine pieces which were a revelation--but they depended on the casting. The steps in the choreography, I've decided, aren't enough to elevate a piece to greatness. In some instances--the 4Ts comes to mind--I can really see why something is interesting and unusual and even daring. But often, the Balanchine stuff falls flat. Why?

I've been digging around and learned some interesting things--much of which will sound like gossip. The aforementioned Robert Gottlieb, he of the Balanchine biography, was once on City Ballet's board. But he left at one point when confronted by Peter Martins. At that time, Gottlieb was the editor in chief at the New Yorker, and Arlene Croce, the legendary dance critic, was lobbying arrow after cannonball at Peter Martins. Eventually, Martins cornered Gottlieb and said something along the lines of: "You not only publish her, you agree with her."

The negativity is not hard to find. Before her tome, Apollo's Angels was published, Jennifer Homans wrote this clarion call.

Now the unthinkable has happened: at the City Ballet, Balanchine ballets have become boring, pompous and passé. Since Balanchine's death, what was once so vital has become dull and ''established: a lifeless orthodoxy reigns.

What happened? Balanchine's ballets are not in trouble just because Balanchine died. They are in trouble because an era has ended.

Maybe it's because I'm from northern California, or maybe it's because I married a stoic Scot, but I don't like doom and gloom scenarios. They annoy me. But how to find out the truth for myself? It's not like I can go back in time and see City Ballet and compare those past performances with the present. There are, however, some reviews and the more I googled and researched, the more I kept coming up with these names: Arlene Croce and Edwin Denby. Fortunately for us, their work still exists. Two weeks ago in San Francisco, I came across a collection of Denby's essays while perusing the lovely bookstore Browser Books in Pacific Heights (I was waiting to go eat at SPQR). The shopkeeper was a culture hound and we had a wonderful, dizzying talk about the opera, symphony and dance. I also left with a copy of essays by someone named Nancy Goldner.

And then today--a review of Goldner's essays by Gottlieb. One of the essays focuses on Concerto Barocco, that boring ballet that so let me down last fall. Of Goldner's essay, Gottlieb writes:

Or consider this throwaway remark about what to many people is Balanchine’s signature work, Concerto Barocco : “Typically, dancers, like regular people, make contact with their arms. In Concerto Barocco they say hello to each other with their legs.” Again, the writing is homey, but the thinking isn’t.

And this, then, made me want very much to see Concerto Barocco again. Could I perhaps pick out these visual cues, in spite of subpar dancing? Balanchine said that one can't capture dance through words. As a writer, I disagree-a writer *ought* to be able to capture anything. Reading Goldner's essay makes me want to see Concerto Barocco again, to look for the energy and the imagery that is described therein.

There was another incident of serendipity in San Francisco. While at my beloved Amoeba Records, I came across old recordings of Balanchine's work--for DVD, but with original casting. I sat down and read Goldner's essay and Edwin Denby's essay on the Four Temperaments. Then I watched the video. What a revelation. The steps, as performed by these dancers, were full of vitality, nuance and relevance. It is as they say--the dancers do inform the art. If only I could watch all of Balanchine's work this way--with the aid of good and loving critics and performances of the past. The present might feel a little bit different. But this is perhaps an extreme length to go, to try to understand something. Then again, I'm a writer.

There are critics who see a silver lining. Balanchine no longer resides only at New York City Ballet. Even the doom and gloomers acknowledge that fine productions are put on by the Royal Ballet or by Miami. Others are sympathetic to Peter Martins' plight; Martins, after all, never claimed to be Balanchine and took on a nearly impossible task of filling the master's dance shoes. As someone new to the City Ballet watching scene, I like and respect that he tries to keep the repertory fresh and new. How else can a young dancer be excited?

A few years ago, I did start to hear some chatter that City Ballet was looking better, even to the grouchs. Here, for example, is an article by Gottlieb in which he singles out some of the young, new performers. Alastair MaCauley has singled out Sara Mearns as the great American ballerina of our generation. Something good is happening. And still, it is said, the company isn't what it once was. One can still walk out of Concerto Barocco disappointed.

Perhaps aware of all of this kind of drama, the Merce Cunningham company announced that it would disband at the end of 2011, after a farewell tour. Cunningham himself died in 2009 (I saw him alive at 90, at BAM-thank God). This seems like an extreme measure. On the other hand, it is one way to avoid the fate of being called "lifeless." In an article today in the Times, MaCaulay posited that perhaps Cunningham's work would not be seen again, though some efforts are underway to save the choreography. We have Giselle and that damned Swan Lake. Why can't we also keep Biped? I am a sentimentalist. But I also know that dance, like jazz improvisation, is a living art.

Respect all living things, says the Buddha. Life is an illusion. I still hope the novel is permanent. I still believe in permanence. If it weren't for writing things down, for example, Mahler would be a footnote in history as a good conductor. Thank God someone revived his symphonies. One hopes the same for Balanchine and Cunningham.

Thought Bubbles

2011-02-01T21:52:00.008-05:00

Friends know of my love for video games--though I hardly have time to play these days. My favorites, though, are still those put out by Bioware and which are known in the trade as RPGs (role playing games). A hallmark of the Bioware RPG is that the protagonist--this means *you*--lands in a world or planet and wanders around listening to conversations. Often the conversation appears as text in a screen below so you can read at the same time. Sometimes you can converse with a character. And sometimes you can't. But the chatter always tells you something about the world you are visiting--the politics, the mystery you need to uncover, the mood.

In recent years, as I go from city to city--and especially as I repeat cities--I am a little bit humbled by the fact that the people at Bioware sort of got it right. I am just back from Mac World and--inveterate eavesdropper that I am--the conversations one hears in SF, even if not at Mac World, are most emphatically *not* what one hears in NYC. Samples:

"Me and my friend, we're working on this ap . . . " (this by the way I would hear repeatedly)

"And then I realized one day that it was up to me to really project a sense of purposefulness . . ." (these moments of self-actualization are common, particularly at brunch on a weekend).

"No. Dude, no. It's 60 40. Not 80 20. Apple is *never* 80 20." (I have no idea what they were talking about. But they looked like programmers. I realize it is wrong, wrong, wrong to socially profile people, but they looked like programmers. We don't have many programmers in New York, unless they were hired to fix financial software, in which case the programmers tend to look irritated that they have to look after bankers who make money but are clueless. In California, there is a sort of freed elitism about programmers--like, they are *finally* where they should be, and can wear something other than black.)

Then, I got to New York and heard:

"But it can't be art if it doesn't have an intellectual component."

"Let me put it this way. If they offer 5 million, there is no deal." (Smarmy, he was).

And I was like: Dude! Stop it! Stop being some Bioware character! You don't have to signal to me that I have flown on my airplane, and landed in this other place where people are not building aps or arguing esoteric percentages. I get it. I'm in New York. But it did make me wonder--what do I say randomly? Does it pinpoint me to one place? It's a fun game. Try it some time. Fly some place and write down little dialogue gems and then compare to what you hear at home. It's even more fun if you do this overseas, which of course I do in Japan or in the UK.

But it all made me wonder--how do we as writers explain to readers that they are now in a new place? I don't think we offer up little snippets of conversation like this. I think in general, our first response is to try to describe things. So, randomly, I have stacked some books and pulled some scene-setting, opening quotes.

"People think blood red, but blood don't got no colour. Not when blood wash the floor she lying on as she scream for that son of a bitch to come, the lone baby of 1785. Not when the baby wash in crimson and squealing like it just depart heaven to come to hell, another place of red." (Got that? Is that vivid? Some sounds, but no pithy dialogue).

"In our little fishing village of Yoroido, I lived in what I called a "tipsy house." It stood near a cliff where the wind off the ocean was always blowing. As a child it seemed to me as if the ocean had caught a terrible cold, because it was always wheezing and there would be spells when it let out a huge sneeze--which is to say there was a burst of wind . . . " (you get the point).

(That's northern California, by the way. Not Japan).

"Six months before Polly Cain drowned in the canal, my sister, Nona, ran off and married a cowboy. My father said there was a time when he would have been able to stop her, and I wasn't sure if he mean ta time in our lives when she would have listened to him, or a time in history when the Desert Valley Sheriff's Posse would have been allowed to chase after her with torches and drag her back to our house by her yellow hair." (You know where you are, you know the voice is funny but biting, and you know that something has happened before anyone has spoken).

"I've hurt things, the boys showed me this. Pulling legs off spiders and such. Kevin Ryder next door and his friends, they let me come into their fort. But that was years ago, I was a child, it didn't matter if I was a boy or a girl. It would be against the law to go into their fort now I suppose. The law of my mother." (Scary! Why do we writers like scary? I don't think we *like* scary. It's more that scary is interesting).

"It was just the two of us, my mother and me, after my father left. He said I should count the new baby he had with his new wife, Marjorie, as part of my family too, plus Richard, Marjorie's son, who was six months younger than me though he was good at all the sports I messed up in." (Relationships. A situation. A voice).

Anyway, this all goes to show me, at least, how like life a book is not and how closely its reality is authored by the, er, author. And, how tightly and clearly you had better imagine that world, beyond tidbits of conversation, but for how it feels, for how it sounds, for what it makes you *feel*, more than what it sounds like. How different is that from our encounter of a place, when we set out in reality (or virtual reality). But it's also a lesson as to why you cannot necessarily know how your novel will start--you can only know after the world is fully realized. And that only happens when you are done. Tricky business.

My MacWorld Moment: The Sara Mearns Swan Lake Ticket Pounce

2011-02-01T14:28:00.003-05:00

We had promised each other that the minute New York City Ballet posted the cast listing for Swan Lake, one of us would pounce on tickets for any production involving Sara Mearns. But with the popularity of Black Swan (and no, Portman won't be dancing, though some have called to ask about her dance dates--guys, it's a *movie*), most shows were sold out. So it was that we waited, fingers crossed.

Last Friday I was at Mac World, waiting for my husband's presentation to begin, and trying to distract my garrulous one year old with a bottle of milk ("You must wean!" said the doctor. And I really will. Just not while traveling). First came the text on my iPhone: Tonya had received a press release and sent it to me. I needed to check my email, she said. So I did. One handed.

And there it was: an extra performance of Swan Lake. Still with one hand--and the presentation beginning behind me--I tried to log into the City Ballet site via iPhone to see which tickets I could find. The site hadn't been updated yet--the press release hadn't gone out to everyone--and February 11th still looked like a mixed program with nary a swan in site. But the press release was specific about the date and the fact that Sara Means would be the swan.

The City Ballet site was impossible to navigate on the iPhone, so I switched to the iPad. I got 3 tickets, and then the countdown began. In bright red lettering, the clock ticked backward--I had exactly 15 minutes to complete my purchase. First, I had to log in.

Log in? I had no idea what my password might be. I didn't want to switch over to my email and leave the internet page in case I got stuck trying to get the password--with the clock ticking down, I knew I could at least stall for more time if things went wrong with my email, but didn't want to switch screens. So I called up my email on my iPhone, retrieved the password and entered the information.

The clock continued to tick, but at *every single page* I was informed that the site was stalling due to unusually high activity. Well, duh. Wasn't every balletomane doing exactly what I was at the moment? I hit refresh repeatedly and somehow the tickets were mine. The presentation unfolded smoothly. The baby was quiet. I was grateful for the iPad and the iPhone and informed my team of our successful purchase and impending date with dance greatness.

Concerto DSCH

2011-01-24T10:02:00.011-05:00

Alexei Ratmansky is perversely funny. He must be. I can't think of any other choreographer I've seen who consistently finds way to tease out the humor in music and to translate this into motion. He seems to find endless ways to make us laugh. And like the best humorists, his funniness can teeter slightly toward discomfort.

A more accessible example would be his mice in the newly choreographed Nutcracker. Yes, it was funny to see the mice in the kitchen at the start of the ballet--but also quite disturbing and unexpected. In Namouna, which I saw last year and absolutely loved (and ought to write about), he brought out the personalities of three excellent but highly disparate dancers--Jennifer Ringer, Sara Mearns and Wendy Whelan--while also giving each a different brand of humor. Ringer was a smoking tease (dancers do smoke). Sara an off-kilter seductress. And Whelan somehow ended up as the grand ballet queen at the very end, in a ceremonial pas de deux which to me felt equal parts sincere and mocking of ballet as a medium for romantic love.

So, even though I loved the Nutcracker, I'd been wondering lately if he could choreograph with space and with complete sincerity. Does everything always have to be jam packed with intricate jumps and turns? Must everything always be so funny? Could he escape the moniker I sometimes use on a certain kind of writing and art which seems to be so popular these days--could he be anything but a very clever boy?

The answer, is yes. I've now seen two casts perform Concerto DSCH, and in both, found much to admire. Ratmansky always bears repeated viewing because of the complexity of his choreography and the sheer business of his stage presentation. But DSCH also contains real moments of potential nuance. The "leads," if we are to think of them that way, are a boy and girl who have the "serious" story and two boys and a girl who have the "playful" story. This is a very simplistic explanation of casting, but it helps me to describe the impact of what I say.

Last Thursday, Wendy Whelan and Benjamin Millepied were the "serious" couple. Both are accomplished dancers, and they whirred through the choreography. At one point, the music, by Shostakovich, featured a piano solo. The steps seemed to indicate a man and woman struggling to connect, coming together, the losing each other, then reconnecting until Whelan was led away by a chorus of women and Millpied, a group of men (who themselves reflected back the coming together-apart theme). I found this section moving, but how much more of an impact it had with Sara Mearns and Tyler Angle on Sunday. Whelan and Millepied are smaller--their turns and footwork more brisk. Mearns and Angle, however, dove into the feeling of the music and as a result, gave all the steps greater resonance. Their coming-together made me feel briefly hopeful, and their parting full of regret. Their version of the choreography was sincere, and never hammy; this is a rare thing to achieve. It's hard to fake sadness.

I don't know, though, if Ratmansky intends for us to be too sad at the end of DSCH since all the parties are back together. I sort of suspect he eschews too much tragedy. And so, when Mearns re-enters to stage to get her partner's attention again (it was momentarily diverted by the humorous girl), she did it with great comedic affect. The whole thing worked.

As for the humorous couples--the first night I saw de Luz, Bouder and Veyette, and on Sunday, Ulbricht, Scheller and Veyette. How does Ashley Bouder manage to be so funny? Yes, Scheller is an extremely strong dancer--her legs and center are really solid, as I've said before. There is never a moment where I worry about her doing, say, grande ronde de jambe on point, unassisted. But Bouder managed to find the inherent funniness of the steps and this added a real contrast to the "serious" section. In my dreams, I'd see Bouder and co on the same night as Mearns and Angle. The level of contrast--and thus the tension of the piece--would be delicious.

Like the Four Temperaments, I think of Concerto DSCH as a showstopper for anyone who can actually command the steps. It is never going to be a boring ballet with anachronistically pretty steps. But also like the 4Ts, Concerto DSCH has the potential to be a deeper emotional experience for the audience when performed by dancers who find something even more meaningful within the music and the choreography. And that alone makes it a brilliant construction--it is the kind of dance that can work on several levels, depending on who is dancing. The best kind of art always works this way. And this makes me wonder--does Ratmansky know? Does he do this on purpose?

Finally--my shallow points.

Firstly-there is something wrong with the capped sleeves on the dresses. I thought that Ashley Bouder's body looked odd in the blue dress, and Ashley Bouder does not look odd. Then I wondered if perhaps it was her costume, if the lines somehow cut her body in the wrong place. Ana Sofia Scheller also looked strange in her blue dress (though perhaps a little bit better). Then I realized--it's the capped sleeves. All the dresses had capped sleeves, but did not look as strange, because the warm, earth toned dresses (red, orange) blended in better with the skin, and the line on the sleeve was not as jarring.

It has now been a decade since Juicy Couture and Three Dot t-shirts showed us how to cut a shirt and sleeve. Even the Gap has done away with the chunky "let me show off your fat arm" t-shirts in favor of flattering capped sleeves. I would think this would be a universal law of costuming and sewing by now.

Secondly--what is it with the strange shades of green that show up in these Ratmansky productions? I don't mind green in general-I like it as a color (an early and successful poem of mine is titled "Celadon" and begins: "I could eat you"). I just think that green can really be a tricky color to wear if you don't have the right skin tone. If I remember correctly, that strange shade of green also showed up in On the Dnieper.

There are additional problems with this green color--it often doesn't really "pop" to the far back of the theater. It seems to fade away. And maybe that's the point and I'm missing something. All the same, I find it frustrating to search for the dancer's form on stage. And it seems unfair to reward those in the audience sitting closest to the stage with a crisp performance, while making it even harder for those sitting far away to see well.

Yama, Lord of Death

2011-01-24T09:34:00.009-05:00

Over the weekend, my grandfather in Japan passed away. He was 97. In the space of five years, I've lost my grandmother, father and grandfather. I am not unique. We all lose people. But it is hard not to feel that I've entered this stage of life where someone is snipping away at the fabric of the past. The things that made me who I am and shaped my experiences up to this point are all disappearing. And of course, I realize I'm lucky. For some people, that sense of "snipping" begins much earlier.

Of course "no one" is snipping away at anything. This is just the natural course of things. But I also know I'm not alone in feeling this slight paranoia. The Tibet Buddhists, for example, envision Yama, the Lord of death, holding the cycle/wheel of life in his jaws. No one escapes his grip, unless they manage to escape the cycle of existence altogether (why are there no ballets--subtle or otherwise--on this subject? Or maybe, I just don't know about them).

As I was thinking about this, I also recalled the small but excellent exhibit at the Rubin Museum of Art last year titled: "Remember That You Will Die." (And this, in turn, made me recall Muriel Sparks' novel, Memento Mori).

The Rubin exhibit was organized around western and eastern attitudes toward death--the western attitude was quite severe, often emphasizing that death is the great equalizer for us all, while the eastern attitude demonstrated that death was simply part of a cycle which, as I've said above, one could ultimately escape.

Sometimes I feel that I have been thinking endlessly about the nature of grief. I was thinking about it again after the shootings in Tuscon, and how, after a few days, the media began, in its earnest fashion, to harp on "healing" and "closure" and the much maligned term "normalcy." Last night I looked through the recommended steps one is to take in order to integrate grief, because of course, psychological healing demands that we integrate and move forward. There are the usual things one must do--but most of all, one must form new relationships and focus on the future.

And so, I have this idea of Yama chomping away at the past fabric, and me, furiously trying to knit up a new one. Of course, we all know who will ultimately win. Still this made me think of the Norns, or the Fates in Nordic mythology, weaving together loose strands to put together a tapestry of the world.

In the opera Gottedamerung, the ropes the Norns are using, snaps. They can no longer weave. They've lost access to their wisdom. They, too, are subject to the eternal chomping of Yama.

New York City Ballet: Mozartiana, Concerto DSCH, Cortege Honaire

2011-01-20T23:56:00.005-05:00

I think that Kim Jong Il would like the ballet. I'm not completely sure about this, but he does, every year, put on the Airang Games, which sort of looks like it could be a kind of ballet.

(Those flashing "pictures" you see behind the gymnasts--that's thousands of school children holding up colored pieces of paper. They practice every day. Dancers dance every day-why is there no ballet in North Korea?)

I mean, at a certain point, the ballet looks like gymnastics. People see a ballet, like the one below, and wonder how on earth it could ever be considered an art form.

(That would be Alina Somova, of the Kirov, "dancing" the role of Sleeping Beauty)

Cortege Hongrois, which I saw on Thursday, could be a nice sort of Balanchinian Airang Games kind of piece. The dancers wear hats and boots and tassels--all things that are a challenge to dance and move in. The costumes are meant to evoke a "Hungarian" look. Why? Why indeed. I don't know. This is the kind of Balanchinian thing that used to confuse me--this "we are dressing up like it's the 19th century in Europe, even though it isn't, and we aren't in Europe, and there's no story to explain why we are pretending that we are." In other words, this is the kind of piece that might look more like gymnastics and pagentry--it's certainly set up for a pagent.

I've remarked before that I find some Balanchine works hard to understand--they feel untethered to me, and mannered as a result of self-consciously looking back at an earlier period. And I suspect Cortege Hongrois would have been that kind of experience--except Sara Mearns was dancing. Sara Mearns dancing changes everything. She is a conjurer, turning the stage into a world. And you, in the audience, are lucky enough to get to see her world for a little while. Isn't that why we go to the theater--to get to go somewhere other than where we are?

At one point did a series of bourrees with her arms in second, gradually upping the tempo of her turns and drawing in her arms. The effect was thrilling. Later, she repeated the step, with her arms out in second, keeping the tempo steady, so the music seemed to breathe differently. I thought: "Wait. What just happened?" I hadn't expected the change in atmosphere.

Later I thought about the difference in these two sections. Were they choreographed to be handled differently? Were they the choice of the dancer? The overall effect was one of surprise--she didn't do the same thing twice. And it also felt appropriate. I've seen people dance who seem to have calculated every moment--and you feel that conscious calculation and it's disappointing. Vishneva in ABT's production of Sylvia a couple of years ago comes to mind. With Mearns, there was this sense that she was just spontaneously responding to music, drawing out its color, and thus enriching the experience. As with all great artists, she seemed to work both from a place of command of the language of her discipline (dance), but also from a deep and undefinable place.

In his review, Alastair MacCauley remarked in Mearns' luster--and this is a good word. Because of the way that Mearns shone, the rest of the dancers shone too. This, I think, is why the performing arts fasten on the word "star." A great artist shines, of course, but how much more magnanimous is her art when she can shine on others around her and make them better.

I also began to think that at some instinctual level, Mearns must understand what makes Balanchine great--the fact that as soon as she steps on stage and commands it (boy, does she ever command the stage)--whatever she is dancing makes sense. It is never anachronistic. This made me think that she must also just understand *dance* down to her bones--nothing she does is ever a series of steps, but always is suffused with her personality. The dance, in whatever form, comes to life. With Mearns, you are seeing ballet and not Airang Games pagentry. But if she weren't there? I'm not sure the piece would work so well. And this runs counter to one cornerstone of NYCB's philosophy.

New York City Ballet surprised loyal subscribers this year when it announced it would not produce cast listings until a few weeks before performances--the dances, they declared, were the stars and not the dancers. Veteran attendees were miffed. I didn't care at first--I'm still learning about dancers and repertoire, and I'm willing to explore the idea that the dance is the star and not the dancer. Except now I've see Sara Mearns in Cortege Hongrois and now I don't think I can ever discount the dancer.

The evening also included performances by Maria Kowroski, Daniel Ulbricht and Tyler Angle in Mozariana. The dancing was preceded by a talk from Faycal Karoui, who explained the origin of the title; the music is by Tchaikovsky, who reorchestrated pieces by Mozart. Karouis demonstrated such concept as "syncopation" to the audience, and highlighted passages he thought were references to Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute. I, of course, am a sucker for learning new things, especially as they pertain to dance, and greatly enjoyed the lecture.

Mozartiana itself, however, felt not quite ready. I love Kowroski's dancing--but here she felt underpowered and tentative. I would love to see her when she has the chance to dance this piece a bit more, although that may not be possible. This article by from the Guardian includes quotes from Wendy Whelan, who points out it would be nicer for dancers to be able to perform a piece 10 times, though the reality is that casts are always rotated. I also enjoy Daniel Ulbricht, except he seemed to be dancing ahead of the music and I wondered if he was really listening to the orchestra.

Tyler Angle, on the other hand, is an absolutely exquisite dancer in nearly every sense. He makes a beautiful partner--and I realized how rare it is that you see someone really excel as a partner. But he is also a wonderful dancer in his own right, with gorgeous feet, legs and turns. I hope to see more and more of him in the years ahead.

We were also treated to Ratmansky's Concerto DSCH. I would say more about this piece, except that I will see it again on Saturday, with a different cast and want to save my thoughts until then--and see how they change.

And now for my shallow, gossipy observations.

Firstly, yes, Natalie Portman was there. Yes she is very pretty and very small and has gorgeous hair and skin.

Secondly, I wonder if there is a piece of music composed for socialites and all their buzzing, busy, self-entitled glory. One ran up to Alastair MaCaulay and asked: "So, they've allowed you back in spite of your Nutcracker review?" He handled it with class. Actually, I thought to myself that he handled the whole thing with this kind of grace that only an English--perhaps British person--would. He somehow made her feel like her comment was actually funny, while also managing sound self-deprecating and to not at all put down either NYCB or any of the dancers. After the second act she was in another corner of the audience. And again, somewhere else at the start of the third.

All this made me think of my father in law and our trip to LA. We were at the Getty Museum, getting in an elevator to try to access one of the many disjointed galleries that stretch out across the hillside. We held the door open for another man to get into the elevator too. "There's room," we said.

"That's all right," he said. "I'll wait for the next one."

As the doors closed, my father in law called out: "No, no. It'll be the same elevator."

This is the kind of joke that people in LA might very well not find funny. I tried to explain this to my husband. "To some people, that might sound mean. Like we were making fun of the man."

"Nah!" my husband roared. "It's witty!"

All the same, when my 97 year old grandfather died over the weekend, it was my father in law who sent me the most thoughtful and beautiful email--succinct, but so heartfelt and appropriate.

Language is so imperfect across continents and oceans. Dance, however--good dance--always communicates.

Finally--a special shout out to Taylor Stanley, a new member to the corps, who blew me away Sunday afternoon in NY Export: Opus Jazz. One to watch.

New York City Ballet: Winter Season Begins--Walpurgisnacht, Duo Concertant, Valse-Fantaisie, The Four Temperaments

2011-01-19T21:19:00.014-05:00

The story of ballet, according to Jennifer Homans' magnificent tome, Apollo's Angels, includes this bit of history from the French Academie de Poesie et de Musique, established under Charles IX and influenced we are told, by neo-Platonists:

"If he danced, so the men of the Academy believed, man might break some of these earthly ties and raise himself up, closer to the angels. The movements of the body, disciplined with poetic rhythm and meter and brought into accord with musical and mathematical principles, could tune him to celestial harmonies. . . . this sense of perfect mathematical proportion . . . led the Abbe Mersenne, in a moment of high inspiration in 1636, so refer to the 'author of the Universe' as 'the great Ballet-master.'"

I sometimes, in my overly brainy--or dare I say, melancholic-- way wonder what dance is and why it moves us. This quote has now been lodged in my brain as I read Homans' book slowly--anything I read these days, I read slowly--and as I went to see the New York City Ballet last night, the first night of the Winter season.

There were four dances, all Balanchine choreography and by the end of the evening, I was really struck by the breadth of his ambition and the range of his work. That's one thing about an artist--I'm always more impressed by people who try a variety of things, even if some fail, than someone who sticks to a tried and true recipe.

The first performance of the evening, Walpurgisnacht, takes its title and music from the opera Faust. You've heard of the expression: a Faustian bargain? In both the opera and the play, the very learned doctor Faustus is bored; his life of books hasn't made him happy. So he makes a deal with the devil to obtain and experience the love of Marguerite, a beautiful woman, unparalleled among her peers. At one point, Faust is taken to watch Walpurgisnacht, a kind of "springtime Halloween" in the pagan-meets-Christianity world, which takes place on the Eve of May Day, when the souls of the dead run wild and free. The holiday is still celebrated in parts of Europe in particular and is, of course, associated with springtime, the end of winter and fertility. Some parts of the world celebrate with bonfires; you can be sure there is also plenty of drinking and general merriment.

Even though the Balanchine ballet isn't intended to be a direct representation of Walpurgisnacht, the music and the title do inform the piece. The women begin with their hair tidily kept in buns.

(Photo-not City Ballet)

By the end, their long hair streams across their shoulders and they dance with abandon and joy. In the performance last night, I was struck by the quality of the corps. I'm not sure I've ever seen such strength, or such a virtuosic use of women dancing together like this--not in the so-wounded-we-might-kill-you Willi of Giselle, or among the tortured-feather-ex-princesses of Swan Lake. What power the women displayed, right up to the climax and ending.

Wendy Whelan, City Ballet's veteran ballerina, danced the lead. Alastair MacCauley, the lead dance critic at the New York Times, has never been a fan of Whelan's, often describing her shoulders and arms as stiff. I love Whelan. It's true--in the past couple of years, I do feel that her strength is diminishing, but in a way, I love her even more on stage because she is able to give performances where she seems even more stripped of any artifice. The point of Whelan's dancing is not all the things she isn't--ethereal, or super limber, or super loose necked. The point is that Whelan is an artist. Everything she does has commitment, speed, virtuosity and a point of view. She's an intelligent dancer. And while Walpurgisnacht is not my favorite kind of dance for Whelan's gifts (I love her in Wheeldon's works, for example), who can forget the sight of her whirring across the floor in mad-cap bourres, her long hair flailing around her? Whelan always commits herself to the music and it is precisely because of her individuality that she is able to pull new and different shapes out of space, thus stretching what dance can do. No wonder she is Wheeldon's muse.

I was impressed by Ana Sofia Scheller--this is the second time I've seen her dance. I don't know if I can think of anyone off the top of my head who has such command of legs, feet and torso. She is so secure in her extensions and turns. And yet for me, there is something missing in the way she uses her upper body. It's as though her feet and legs are solid, but the music doesn't completely flow up into her arms--they move more like an afterthought.

But the net effect of the Walpurgisnacht last night was of a very kind Charles Askegaard, rather outmatched by the wild women turning and jumping around him. Balanchine loved his women strong.

(Photo here: the sublime Alina Cojocaru)

We were then treated to an entirely different work--Duo Concertant, with music by Stravinsky. When the curtain opens, a piano and violinist are on stage and begin to play together. A man and woman--last night, Sterling Hyltin and Robert Fairchild--stand nearby and appear to listen to the music, before finally taking to the stage and interpreting the music. I've seen Hyltin twice before, and while I've always liked her, I've always found there to be something a little slight in her dancing--the full impact (unlike Wendy) of her presence hasn't come across to me. Last night she thrilled me. Her entire body was alive--down to her fingers. There is a moment, toward the end of Duo Concertant, where the stage light highlights just Hyltin's hands. Her fingers seem vibrantly alive. One reason her performance worked so well, though, is because she was beautifully matched by Fairchild, who was given a series of steps in which he needed to keep his center of gravity low, while still maintaining an air of insouciance, and even off-the-cuff improvisation as he moved through very precisely determined steps. He was effortless and beautiful. And the two of them together--Hyltin and Fairchild--brought forth the playfulness of Stravinksy's score.

As the piece ended, however, the dancing took on a poignancy--Fairchild seemed unable to truly "capture" Hyltin though he tried. In a series of steps, he would freeze her body into place, then try to place their hands together to dance with her. But, like Marguerite does to Faust, Hyltin disappeared, just slightly out of reach. Inspiration, of course, works like this--seizing us, playing with us and disappearing. In last night's performance, both Fairchild and Hyltin were able to embody these moods, and able to use their bodies so beautifully, from toe to finger. For me, these two were probably the highlight of the evening, in pure "dancer" terms--I hope to see them again.

(Photo here with Tiler Peck--she looks like a princess, right?)

In Valse Fantasie, we were treated to Ashley Bouder and Andrew Veyette, who stepped in as last minute cast change (not his best night, but I do love him as a dancer). Bouder has been heating up the dance world for a while now, and I was eager to see her perform on stage. Bouder is a true artist, inhabiting steps and music with her entire being. Oddly, MacCauley--who seems awfully focused on the eyes and mouths of ballerinas--has this to say about Bouder:

The main problem for this terrific virtuoso is her excessive need to project prepared facial expressions. It occurs only when she looks directly out front, as if addressing the rehearsal mirror; an element of calculation seems to enter her upper body.

I found this an odd but interesting comment--and I'll look at Bouder's dancing again to see if I agree. Most of the time I was watching, I found myself cheering for Bouder for being that rare dancer who dances with every fiber of her being including her face. She's a marvelous, sprite-light performer, bringing to life a piece I might otherwise not have liked so much. I often find Balanchine's wholly neo-classical pieces--the "I'm looking back at the Romantic period of ballet, but creating a romance without any princesses even though everyone is dressed like a princess"--to be a let-down. In the past, I have found such pieces almost farcical--they are the kind of thing that, in the hands of the wrong dancer, can seem untethered, overly mannered, and embarrassingly too pretty. Not so with the enchanting Bouder in the lead. She convinced me, via her presence and carriage, of the sheer joy of the music and the steps, stripping away anything that might make the choreography seem slight and insignificant.

I thought again about Bouder's use of her face during the final piece, The Four Temperaments, while watching Sebastien Marcovici dance the role of "Melancholy." Yes, his face registered lots and lots of melancholy and no small amount of torture. But for me, the expression didn't match the movement of his body. It was odd and felt like a trick to me--he seemed to be telegraphing that he felt the music, and yet his body didn't seem committed to the action or the drama. As a result, I found his dancing insincere. With Bouder, it was the complete opposite. Her face glowed with good-dance-happiness, because she was dancing.

As for The Four Temperaments--what a monster of a piece of dancing. The title owes its origin to a medieval school of thought which posited that human character was the result of a balance--or imbalance--of four humors: yellow bile, black bile, blood and phlegm. As a result, you were phlegmatic (content, kind, "at rest"), melancholic (overly reflective), sanguine (cheerful and social) and choleric (energetic, passionate and fiery).

The Four Temperaments, the ballet, is an astonishing display of theater and psychology. Watching the surprising shapes and twists and jabs, all executed from these strong, neat and powerful bodies, I couldn't help but think both of the Homans' quote at the start of this blog post, and of the aspirations of the ancient Greeks, which I wrote about after visiting the Getty Villa in LA. The choreography had both a searching, yet declarative quality, as though to say: "this is how we are as people," and at the same time, "look at all the things we can't do--we don't know everything yet." The universe--the possibilities for people, music and art--are vast.

I suspect that for me, the Four Ts is also a piece that will need repeated viewings, with different casts. While I appreciated the angular jabbing and thrusting of Theresa Reichlen's Choleric--how completely the Balanchine ballerina she seemed last night--I didn't see a marked difference in her delivery than I did from the Sanguine section, danced by Jennie Somogyi. Aren't Choleric and Sanquine supposed to be different humors? They can't both get to be the strong, unstoppable Balanchine ideal. I've written about Marcovicci above. And while I liked Ask de la Cour's Phlegmatic, there was a part of me that wanted him to do more. I wanted him to inhabit the piece even more--I couldn't help but wonder what David Hallberg might have done with a similar solo. I was left feeling that many of the dancers were doing the steps, but that the choreography wasn't fully elevated.

I don't have anything to base this on--this is my first viewing--though after I mentioned this feeling to a friend who has seen the piece before, she told me that more intensely. She also commented that she had seen other companies give stronger renditions. All the same, the striking, searing and searching power of the choreography and the music impressed me greatly.

I'll close just by saying that I read recently that Rupert Thompson's novel "Divided Kingdom" is set in a world in which people are divided according to their temperament. The Japanese, of course, have their whole "blood type prejudice system." I need to read this book. Finally, just above, a clip of the Four Temperaments, danced by the Dutch National Ballet.

Art and Dynamism: Le Page's Das Rheingold, Don Carlo and La Traviata

2011-01-19T12:56:00.015-05:00

(Photo)

A number of years ago, I took some family members to the Japan in the winter to watch an eight hundred year old Shinto ceremony, that takes place over four days. There's the midnight procession of the god as he is transferred from his usual shrine to a temporary one. He's moved in the middle of the night, so the evil spirits have less of a chance of seeing him and getting at him. To ensure that things to smoothly, priests drag a burning log across the road in front, dripping bits of fiery coal, so the walkway is literally burned clean. The god is surrounded by people wearing face masks and dressed in white carrying sakaki branches, which they wave while moaning like goblins.

The highlight, though, are a series of dances which start in the evening and continue late through the night. It's cold and there are four bonfires around the outdoor "stage" where the action takes place. It's all in service of the god, now in his new home. The deeper into the night you go, the wilder and more dramatic the dances become. But it's also a long, long night.

"You have to think," I said to my cousins, "of a different sense of time."

(Photo)

It's odd. A festival that is 800 years old really does come from a time when people moved at a slower pace. People also had a shorter life expectancy--but they also moved more slowly. And here we are, with our long life expectancies, and our concomitant desire to be entertained by things that move.

I was thinking about this when I went to see the entire Ring Cycle at the Met in 2009--you know the operas that clock in at like 5 or 6 hours per performance? Does anyone sit that long for anything any more? I guess some people do, if it's, say, to see all the Star Wars movies back to back. But in general, this kind of long-term performance viewing doesn't really fit in with a modern approach to life. You would probably only do this if you were really passionate about something enough to live and breathe it for a good portion of the day.

Still, people go to see the Ring. People like me. The new production, by Robert LePage was much hyped last fall--it's rumored to cost around $40, and while that doesn't make it as expensive as the much discussed Spider-Man musical, it's a heck of a lot to spend on an opera. Rheingold was to feature pulleys and acrobatics, and a never-before-seen contortable stage, and motion-response video screen. In recent years, the Met has become *a* if not *the* place to see new and innovative set and theater productions--the Ring was going to be a new step in this direction, as the old and beloved Otto Schenk sets were dismantled, along with the numerous Zeffirelli productions that are now stuffed with mothballs.

The good news--for me--the singing was divine. I was a little disappointed by Bryn Terfel, after having loved so many of his recordings over the years. On stage, his voice seemed too small and underpowered. I don't know if this was age or an off night, or just the size of his voice. Stephani Blythe as Fricka gave a remarkable performance. Her voice soared, her brow furrowed as she fretted over the good-for-nothing head-in-the-clouds men in her life. The star for me, however, was Eric Owens as Albericht. I felt he stole the show. Not only was his voice beautiful and full, but he gave his character so much humanity that I actually felt sorry for Albericht for the first time--a measure of how a performer can change the way you view a character you thought you knew. Like a fan-gurl, I went and signed Eric Owens' "fanbook" on his website.

And then there was the set. I believe it was Opera News which, in reviewing the production, actually used the term "park and bark," which I had never heard before. But apparently, once upon a time, this is what singers did at the opera. They parked and they barked. They howled at the moon. They didn't move around the stage. I remember these days. I remember when "The Dance of the Seven Veils" was, um, suggested and not danced because the singer couldn't . . . move. There was simply too much of her. In recent years, the tendency has been for singers to be fitter, and to be physical actors and not just vocal ones. I haven't minded this change--as long as the singing was good.

In Das Rheingold, however, the staging meant that the singers had very little room to move. Here is a scene where the gods convene.

See that middle slab that looks like a slide? The characters--the gods--entered the stage by sliding belly-first down this slide and into the crevass below. The sliding was done by a body double. Once in the "crack," as my friend and I kept referring to this crevass, the body double would exchange places with the actual singer, who would pop up and assume character. The sliding was tiresome after a while. What god enters the stage sliding? Just because something has not been done before does not mean it's a terrific idea--and just because you need a body double also doesn't mean it's a great idea. Originally, LePage is said--and this is hearsay--to have wanted to use more pulleys and suspend his actors. This idea was jettisoned after it was noted that opera singers are often heavier than actors. So we get the sliding.

Actually, this crack in the floor was immensely distracting. It cut the stage and gave the actors little room to move. And as a result, they did in fact park and bark. This is not to say--and here is where the whole idea of timing and dynamics comes into play--that I think it would work to have a super dynamic Wagner set in which actors regularly trot from one end to the other. For one thing, this would exhaust singers who have to power through a long evening (though Das Rheingold is a comparatively short opera). But there does need to be some kind of movement--just as in the 800 year old ceremony I wrote above, the dancing does become more intense, even if it takes an entire night-time and moonrise to do so. Action, in a story or a show, has to go somewhere.

In another example--the opera opens with the Rhine Maidens singing and frolicking in the water of the river Rhine. Here, the maidens were actually suspended. As they flicked their tails, the motion sensitive stage/screen behind them rippled and the video-projected stones "moved," as though teased by the water. But after a while . . . this grew old. The maidens, when "fighting" off Alberich, couldn't really do too much because their pulleys would not allow them to. The water kept rippling in the same way. What was initially thrilling became static. The scene didn't visually develop along with the music.

I found this an odd contrast to the old set (above) which was essentially static--it was a fixed and physical set--but which allowed the maidens to move around. No, there weren't suspended and the "water" didn't look as real as it did in the video projection. But the scene was able to physically unfold. As a result, the physical action of the production actually went somewhere, whereas in the LePage production, the show moved forward for a moment with the aid of some dazzling effect, only to stall. Thank God for the glorious music and singing.

Later in the production, Wotan ventures down to see the dwarf Mime to try to get the Ring. In the previous production, the "descent" was managed via a set which lowered slowly, simulating the descent through the earth to the world of the Niebelungs. In the LePage production, the entire set straightened, then twisted into the shape you see here. Body doubles, suspended from cables "walked" across this twisted platform. And then, in a bit of stage direction that made me giggle, the two "walked" back the same way they had come. I realize that I was supposed to assume that they weren't really "walking back" but were walking deeper into the underworld. Instead, the image felt incomplete.

As I watched the LePage production, I couldn't help but think of another theatrical "descent,"--the Phantom of the Opera (don't laugh), another show which was criticized for its expense, until the thrills a minute and the plot and music so captivated the public's attention that Andrew Lloyd Weber was vindicated. There is a moment where Christine and the Phantom "descend" to his lair. They cross a platform stage right to left and exit. The platform then reverses its angle, and Christine and the Phantom cross it again. The audience knows it's the same platform. But because the platform is lower each time, the abstraction works, and the descent feels "real."

Repeatedly in the LePage production, I felt let down. I was let down that actors slid on their stomachs. Loge sort of suspended felt like he was "sort of suspended." The actors crossing "down" into the Niebelungland felt like a compromise. I saw good ideas that were not complete. I felt jerked around by the timing--at some moments, we were supposed to be in a show that was going to move quickly--and then it didn't. A new staging detail that was interesting would show up, and then stall. The dynamics ended up uneven.

The only exception would be the last few minutes, in which the set folded up and displayed a vibrant rainbow and then the cosmos. Then I felt thrilled. Then I felt the set was able to act on its own, to its full capacity and actually complement and elevate the music and story. I don't doubt that video at some point is going to be integral to thrilling modern staging. I just don't see it yet with this production. Curiously, I found myself thinking about a show that is more than 20 years old--another musical: Chess (again, don't laugh). I only saw the London version in 1988, but I remember a Chess board that doubled as Tirolian mountain, a Bangkok street scene and a serious chess match room. I remember the use of video and how this amplified the show. All these elements I remember working extremely well together, even if the design was nowhere near as sophisticated as the multi-million dollar set for Das Rheingold. But each element was integrated. I tried very hard to find a video clip to include to show you, but none seems to exist (ditto for any stills from the original London production).

A few more notes to complete this post--I also saw the new Don Carlo production and La Traviata. Don Carlo is a long opera--it clocks in at just over 4 hours. The staging here was also new, this time by veteran English director Nicholas Hytner. The Times called the production "Cautious but Winning." I disagree. I thought it was superb. Because no definitive version of Don Carlo exists, the director often gets to make up his mind as to how the opera will end or unfold. And this of course impacts staging and direction. At over 4 hours, we are back in "800 year old Shinto ceremony" time. To match the pace of the show, Hytner carefully orchestrated lighting and sets, so that actors moved and set pieces were introduced to give the opera a slow by appropriate feeling of "unfolding." At one point, a couple of columns simply floated down to divide a space in two (diagonally). The room--a church--felt transformed. We the audience of course knew that the stage was still the same stage, but with just this move, the director was able to suggest that we were somewhere else. For me, these kinds of measured changes really worked--the opera felt fluid, unfolding and surprising us in a way that worked with the music and singing--until the very end.

I had a different experience watching La Traviata, which starred Marina Poplavskaya, recently the subject of a very interesting and not altogether flattering article in the New Yorker by Gay Talese. The production here was staged by Will Decker. The production is challenging. Violetta, the main character, is on stage nearly the entire time and does not get to "park and bark." She must ride a sofa held aloft by men in black, writhe on a clock, and play hide-and-go-seek under upholstery. At the start of the second half of the opera, Violetta is traditionally out of the room and her lover, Alfredo, sings of their love. Decker has her onstage, mimicking Alfredo and miming that she does not want him to go to Paris when he declares that he will go and take care of her debts.

For me, this bit of new direction did not work. Why would Violetta just "mime" that Alfredro should stay by her side? Why does she then seem surprised when he comes back? I understand that the new staging was meant to avoid the very kind of "park and bark" that I was making fun of earlier--in this production Violetta runs around. It's a very physically demanding role. And yet, in her dress, bright red against a set that is otherwise black and white, Violetta's limitations as a physical actress become apparent (speaking of which--did no one read "What Not to Wear?" A woman with a small bosom, muscular arms and short neck should not wear a sleeveless, square necked dress. Christ-at least give her a V-neck. Consider redesigning the dress depending on the build of the singer, please). Singers aren't necessarily dancers. And movement isn't why we go to see opera (at least I don't).

What was more, the sets and harsh lighting and color scheme for me did not elevate or even match the lush music. La Traviata has parties and dancing--and then sadness and gaiety. The Decker production seemed to be some sort of Germanic comment on mobs and sex and, at least in tone, seemed more appropriate for, say, Don Giovanni or even Boris Godunov. If Das Rheingold felt bizarrely static, then La Traviata felt overly dynamic.

Dancers--and athletes--talk all the time about "follow through." When I shot archery, I was constantly told to think about "follow through." Ditto for tennis. Ditto for any action in ballet. Ditto for any kind of story, which begins in its own universe and inherent dynamics. You must complete an action when you begin it. The audience--and the action itself--will know if you do not.

Lypsinka and Black Swan

2011-01-13T12:02:00.009-05:00

In the movie Black Swan, there is a moment where the tortured ballerina Nina, played by Natalie Portman, insists on rehearsing the night before her big debut. She is in a studio with a pianist who, we are to assume, is fatigued and annoyed to have played Tchaikovsky's score hours on end. "I'm going home. I have a life," he huffs. And strides out.

When I saw this scene--a brief flicker of life in an otherwise mordent movie--I sat up. I recognized the pianist. Unlike Portman, who is not a dancer, the pianist was real. I had seen him around Steps, where I take ballet class. I waited patiently for the credits, found his name and cross-referenced the list of musicians at Steps. His name, John Epperson.

"Yeah, so?" said my dance teacher. "He used to play for me. So what?" (Oh, you hardened New York ballet-types).

"Did you know," I pressed, "that he is Lypsinka?"

Now *this* was interesting.

It's also a measure of how fascinating New York is, that someone can be the rehearsal pianist of choice for ABT and for the Steps pro-classes, while also having an unusual an interesting talent of his own.

In New York (and, yes, other world-class cities), people are many things, all at once. You might be a bank teller, but you might also be a comedian who is reviewed by the NY Times or the New Yorker or Time Out. You might work at a cheese shop, but have a devoted cult following for your CDs, and sell out the room every time you perform at the Time Cafe. I've known "famous" punk musicians who earned extra money by moving furniture. Lots of performers teach--which is less stressful on the joints than being a "man with a van." But the reality is that most true and dedicated artists don't live inside a protective coating of money and celebrity, in which a shopping trip doubles as a "outing" for the paps. Most artists work and work hard, and are acutely aware of the distinction between the grind of earning a paycheck and the imaginary space where art and magic are made. As I get older, I sometimes think that this division is harder to maintain. When we are younger, ambition and a belief in a better tomorrow casts a romantic pall over a bed-bug infested apartment. Over time, these things change. It can be harder to make magic.

Which brings me to Black Swan. Friends have been asking me for an opinion--I get to so few movies these days, but a babysitter helped me out so I could go. Much has been made of what real ballet dancers think. Here, for example, is Daniil Simkin's Tweet, which I carried in my head as I watched.

Black Swan was a fascinating sensationalistic exaggeration of 'our' ballet world, though in its essence shockingly accurate. Loved it. #fb

Well, yes. The movie was a stereotype and awfully exaggerated. Later, I kept wondering--because I'm a writer--how the the script was written in the first place. If you were to look at the surface of a dancer's life, then Nina's story might seem possible. Here, for example, is an NYTimes article on NYCB dancer Kathryn Morgan. The article was published in 2006, when Morgan joined the company as an apprentice--she's a soloist now (and such a lovely dancer!). The article notes that Morgan: lives in a one-bedroom with her mother, and:

"wore a pale pink leotard and tights, the color emphasizing her youth. As always, her dark hair was swept into a French twist. She wore no jewelry. The apprentices’ deer-in-headlights expressions were offset by the gum-chewing nonchalance of veterans like Carrie Lee Riggins, who joined the corps in 1997."

The article continues. Morgan was plucked from the apprentice ranks to play Juliet--a fresh approach--not unlike the way Nina is plucked from near obscurity to play the Swan Queen.

“The intimidation factor is still so high,” she said, while acknowledging how welcoming the company was. “I don’t want to mess up and have everybody think, ‘Why is she here?’

Unlike Nina, however, the real life ballerina Morgan nails the performance, and nearly everything after, and continues her ascent. She continues to be a favorite among balletomanes, who love to look at dancers in the corps and predict who will one day be a star.

But unless you care about ballet as ballet, this might not be interesting. What might be interesting instead, is something more . . . lurid, like Gelsey Kirkland's best-selling memoir "Dancing on My Grave." There, you will find lots about the dark side of dance, about abusive choreographers and male partners and bulimia--all distractions from work and art. She writes:

`How was it possible that Misha's resources as an artist, so evident in performance, were different from those of his basic personality?'

That's Misha as in mikhail Baryshnikov. As in--she's naming names! Gossip!

Remember Nina's relentless search for something beyond the safety of technique in ballet? Here is what Kirkland Tweeted (somewhat recently).

Technical perfection is insufficient. It is an orphan without the true soul of the dancer.

Now with these two bits of information--if we extrapolate out--we have the story of the tortured life of an artist. This is what we want artists to do and be, if we are honest--to live darkly, to demonstrate that a life spent living for art is really not easy, that it might be better to remain a bank teller after all. Put all these things together, and you have a movie like Black Swan.

Except . . . most dancers don't kill themselves. The movie is an exaggeration. And as time goes by, I like it less. I think Aronofsky did a wonderful job of using Portman's flat-toned voice and presence to create a character who seemed repressed and anxious. I enjoyed the special effects, which went a great way toward transforming Portman into a black swan. But I didn't love the movie. It didn't show me why anyone would ever want to dance at all--there was little of the beauty of dance (which Winona Ryder's character is said to embody). The world of dance looked like torture and camp. And I found the rather one-note atmosphere tedious after a while. Thank god, then for Lypsinka.

And yet . . . (I change my mind again) . . . as time goes by, I do think the movie did capture something about making art. Wendy Whelan (principal with NYCB) wrote this about Black Swan.

No performance is a perfect performance but some performances allow for the feeling of perfection. Achieving this moment of ecstasy easily validates all the pain and struggle of the art form by taking us (and possibly our audience) for a moment to a world beyond our own.

Most art, the saying goes, come from a place of play. There was a young girl in ballet class this week, who you could see just loved to move. After class, the teacher and I talked about this young girl. Would she advance? Would she put up with the hours of work, the criticism, the injuries? The subjecting herself to judgment?

"You have to have a thick skin or be really lucky," said my teacher.

"Or stupid," I said.

She laughed. "Or stupid."

I would say that in the year after my novel was published, I spent most of the time in this weird purgatory. It didn't help that I was pregnant, and still extremely upset over the loss of my father. But these things are incidental. When you go from taking something--dance, a book--from a place of play, to the marketplace, in which you are judged, in which you are challenged to find some kind of self-worth, while others are deciding if you have any worth at all, it can be brutal. This is why I find myself admiring and feeling very forgiving of artists who are known for their diva-like behavior. It's a wonderful kind of blind, self-protective behavior. I wish I had it.

Occasionally, an artist gets it all--mental health, wonderful family and friends, plenty of money and just enough struggle to continue to grow and develop in constructive and not destructive ways. But this is so rare and the human psyche--in fact the world--isn't set up to support art or artists in this way.

And in light of this fact, I did find that Black Swan did reveal something quite profound about the cost of making art, of submitting yourself *on faith* that years of training, of writing, or practicing, will actually matter in a way that is public. Because by the time any of us are adults, we rarely paint or compose just so our mothers will pin our accomplishments on the refrigerator. We want you to care. We are afraid that you might not care. And in this tension--the personal struggle and the struggle for acceptance--there is a very, very deep abyss in which a sensitive mind could easily become trapped.

This reminds me of an interview I heard on NPR with Aronofsky. I'm paraphrasing here, but he said something about how when he was younger, he used to encourage students to follow their dreams etc. Then he spoke movingly about how hard it had been to make Black Swan--despite the success of The Wrestler. Now, he said, (and I'm paraphrasing) he found it hard to be quite so idealistic and encouraging. Hearing this, I thought: "Et tu?"

"It ought to be enough in life to be a good person," my Aunt once said to me.

"It isn't for me," I said. And she looked very concerned for me. And now I know why.

Tragedy, Comedy, the Getty, Babies

2011-01-06T22:45:00.011-05:00

In high school (and the first year of college), I had this extremely nice boyfriend, and we wore tragedy-comedy rings to signify our relationship. I went to lots of theater on Broadway-tickets were cheap for students-and saw a lot of tragedy and comedy, and felt very inspired and romantic all the time.

But it wasn't until I went to the British Museum, and saw actual representations of tragedy and comedy that I sort of understood how profound these symbols are. Like--there was a point where people did not represent sadness and happiness, and then there was a point where suddenly they did. What's more, there was a point where culture suddenly involved not just showing some god flying off into the sky while the little humans looked on expressionless or with some archaic smile, but re-enacting things that were sad and happy for people.

If you stroll through the halls of most museums and look at very old art--the Egyptians--you will see a lack of personal expression. And then, with the Greeks, the expression and representation and pathos suddenly leap out at you from inside glass cases. People become people.

What happened?

I had forgotten all about ancient culture, and my early obsession with it, until this past December when we took a family trip to the Getty Villa in Los Angeles. It is a true villa. JP Getty apparently wanted to recreate the Villa dei Papiri, which dates from the first century, and was buried under Vesuvian ash and lava.

The next time someone tells you that delusions of grandeur are, well, deluded, send them to the Getty Villa. I can't think of anything more deluded than trying to recreate a two-thousand year old villa. And yet, what a gift to be able to see Roman and Greek artifacts in their "natural" setting.

Here--one of the Muses. I think this might be the Muse of philosophy. I looked for the Muse of Poetry, since that would be the closest thing a writer today would need to turn to for help, but she was absent.

All the same, you get this extraordinary feeling about this old culture that, as I said, suddenly started to represent comedy and tragedy--the whole human condition--as a world separate from the gods. It's interesting. It's not a surprise that the Getty also includes an outdoor ampitheater, which occasionally performs plays. If I lived in LA, I would absolutely go see a performance.

Here is a fragment of papyrus, with a little piece from the Illiad--one of our oldest stories. Looking through the many rooms of the Getty, and examining the representations of heroes, I was reminded again of the power that a heroic individual exudes on us, even as we seem to be (or I seem to be) increasingly jaded. It's not an easy thing to come to terms with--this notion that we still want heroes to serve and save us, even as heroism seems so fleeting.

And then I came home to New York and sat down for my obligatory reading sessions with Ewan. He is good at holding a book and looking at the pictures and understanding that "something" is happening on those pages.

But the most popular book? The one that generates the most interest and that is universally acknowledged as the one that holds the attention of babies everywhere? It's this series of baby faces--babies smiling on one side, and babies crying on the other. The official title: Mrs. Mustard's Baby Faces.

Over and over Ewan turns the pages, examining the happy babies and the sad babies. I see all this concentration on his face. He seems to understand that half the babies are happy and that the other half are suffering. He turns to the book over and over, as if to try to come to terms with these dual emotions. Sometimes he looks at me, as though he wants to ask me a question. Then he goes back to the faces, until I put the book away and start up Dr. Seuss.

It is said that we have to learn to empathize early, or some of us will not learn to do so at all. Then there are the children who have difficulty reading human expression. When I think about this, then I think that these books--which struck me as terribly inane when I looked at them while pregnant--contain in them a wealth of instruction and information. And that my high school sweetheart romantic rings were not so cartoonish after all.

ABT and Ratmansky's Nutcracker

2011-01-02T23:09:00.007-05:00

(Photo: Rosalie O'Connor)

I am back in New York just in time to see the very last performance of the new Nutcracker with Herman Cornejo and Xiomara Reyes in the leads. I wish very much I'd been able to see more casts, because this production and interpretation of the Tchaikovsky score and Nutcracker story was sheer magic and virtuosity.

First, Ratmansky proves he is an intensely musical choreographer. There's a moment early on in the first act when the happy, major key music slips into something that sounds vaguely sinister. As a child, I was always bothered by this musical section, and wondered what it meant. Ratmansky's answer is to show us mice and rats in the kitchen, a harbinger of things to come when Clara and her Nutcracker will face off against the Rat King. In moments like these--and there are many--you can feel a sensitive and musical mind at work, probing the music, and reinterpreting the story as necessary. And the reward for the audience is great because you too have the joy of hearing the music anew.

(Photo: Rosalie O'Connor)

There is, for example, the much discussed "snow scene" in which Clara and the Prince start out laughing in the snow, only to discover that they are cold and that the snow, while beautiful, is also menacing. Balanchine die-hards have complained about this section on message boards as being "out of character". But if you listen to the music--really listen to the music--it does not have a purely "happy" quality to it; it sounds like snow. That is, the music is changeable, playful, and at times, dangerous. Ratmansky hears this, deliver the scene accordingly, and thus gives us the snow scene anew.

This reimagined snow scene does something else; it gives us a moment in which Clara and her Prince play and laugh--something we will see them do later as adults. It also gives them a further adventure. The Nutcracker can often feel static after the death of the Mouse King. Not so in this production--Clara and her prince continue on their journey. All does not simply come to an end because the Nutcracker has been transformed. It also cements the relationship between Clara and her Prince. They will protect each other and help each other from dangers other than the Mouse King; it tells us what their future will be.

There are numerous other moments like this--the point at which the children enter the Christmas party is another example. The pas de deux's which, not danced by children, take on the depth of adult emotion and love. Then there are other unexpected moments. The Arabian dance, always so serious and sexy that companies choose it as a set piece, is turned on its head with a male dancer who is *so* serious he can't decide which woman he loves best, thus losing them all.

Then there is the storytelling. I went on and on in an earlier post about my feelings that the Nutcracker is a romance; it's in the music. Ratmansky delivers us a romance, but preserves the early portion of the ballet for children, giving us the adult versions of the prince and Clara as "visions." For me, this compromise worked. In fact, it didn't feel like a compromise because we learn early on that this story is going to depend on a child's magical point of view. Ratmansky explains his decision in the Playbill that accompanied the performance; to paraphrase, he said something about how adults pretending to be children is never fully convincing.

Is it clumsy to have children "see" adult versions of themselves? Not when the choreography incorporates childlike motions, so we know we are seeing adults who are still tied to their childhood selves. In the production I saw, Xiomara Reyes laughed and smiled as her childlike self might have done, while simultaneously dancing with adult bravura and precision. At one moment, the choreography required her to become overcome with shyness and scamper offstage, only to re-enter and finish her combination. We don't lose sight of who she once was. In a way, it's a reminder to the audience that they too will have an adult and child version of themselves.

In writing, it's important to try to "teach" your audience how your story will be told early on, so they are adjusted and so the story will unfold naturally. Ratmansky does this, albeit via the medium that is dance. In most ballets the Nutcracker is introduced as a doll, who only becomes life-sized after midnight. Ratmansky neatly introduces the Nutcracker to the audience as a boy--because that's how Clara sees him. At various points in the Christmas party, Clara either interacts with the Nutcracker as a boy or a doll on the stage. But the direction is clear: to her, he is a boy and to the grownups, he is a doll. We, as the audience, get to see both. And this changeable, mutable quality, so much a part of childhood, sticks with the ballet until it is midnight, and the mice and the Nutcracker and the other dolls do battle.

Who are the other dolls? The ones who appear in Act 1--in the Balanchine version you know them as the soldier and the pretty dancing girl. These dolls appear throughout the first act, to try to protect the Nutcracker when he is injured by Fritz, and later, in the war against the Mice.

The overall effect of this production is one that is cohesive, the product of a singular vision and that is not simply a series of set pieces. I felt immersed in a world and as an audience member, I want to be immersed in a world. The theme of sweets and eating sweets starts from moment one, and carries on to the second half of the ballet in the Kingdom of the Sweets (which otherwise seems untethered). The mice appear early on and reappear and reappear (even at the end). It makes sense. Mice and sweets go together. And then there are the various lovely couplings in the Kingdom of the Sweets including flowers and bees.

(Photo: Rosalie O'Connor)

Visually, the production was stunning--I loved the house askew, the entering and exiting through doors and the colors. But I also loved the precise and complex choreography. I would need to see this production again and again to dissect all the different steps--suffice it to say, Ratmansky seems to have never seen a turn, turn, turning-jump combination he didn't love. Ditto for every version of assemble known to man and woman. At one point, I worried for the bees, varying their turns and jumps and direction, so like a jazz dancer might. And the timing required for the corps section to at once stay together, but dance in their respective "groups" made for scenes that were beautiful, but constantly in motion. Each party guest had clearly received direction. At one point, I saw the butler flirt with a guest . . . only to be reprimanded by her husband. This drunken, slightly corrupt adult flirtation was in contrast to the sweet and cheerful romance of the flowers and bees in the second half of the show. And then there were the costumes--having danced with props, I don't know how Mistly Copeland and others managed to perform with those hats askew.

And then there were the dancers themselves. I loved the "leads"--Cornejo and Reyes. There was I think a slight slip in which Reyes seemed to lose her balance. Blink and you missed the tumble, though, as these pros continued to dance right through the performance. Cornejo is certainly one of the best dancers alive today, as he demonstrated. Everything he does is so fluid, effortless and just beautiful. It wasn't hard to imagine him as a prince. Reyes I've only seen dance a couple of times and it was a pleasure to see how radiant she can be in a role that requires girlishness and virtuosity.

This was not an easy ballet. The timing and the intricate steps give very little space for breathing. I'm thinking, for example, of how much takes place at the end of the kitchen scene, of how quickly we go from the mice, to Drosselmeier, to the start of the party. It's not a lot of bars and a great deal of information, which means choreography, must be delivered on time. Given the complexity of the ballet, I'm really impressed by the production and can't wait to see it again next year.

On Criticism

2010-12-15T16:24:00.003-05:00

A talented jazz bassist walks into the elevator mid conversation and says, " . . . and do you know what? Most of those critics can't even play! It's just a bunch of words." My husband relayed this story to me a number of years ago, back when he was at the New School, and it is a personal favorite. It is also something that has been on my mind lately as I think about the arts and criticism.

To be fair, there are music critics who play and dance critics who dance(d). Many more do not. One thing, however, when you look at the New York Times Book Review--hey! All the reviews are written. As in, all the book reviewers are also writers. Unlike jazz musicians, who are rarely reviewed by their peers, most writers are in fact reviewed by other writers, which makes book reviewing a unique discipline.

But what about dance criticism? The New York Times hired Alastair MaCaulay from the Financial Times in London a few years back; his tenure has been interesting. MaCaulay is a true balletomane. Witness these four articles on performances of Balanchine's "Jewels"; each danced by a different American company. MaCaulay finds something interesting to say about each one. This is an attentive and truly interested mind at work.

And then, there is this interview:

I also believe, passionately, that when you're watching people perform dance, music, or plays, then one inner fiber of you is dancing or playing or speaking too. That's why, when you go to "Carmen" in the cheap seats, people can't help themselves bursting into the Toreador song; they're so happy to recognize this great song, they have to join in.

MaCaulay does not dance-has never taken a class. He is said to possess a vast knowledge of the history of ballet, and to apply this to his writings. He is, in other words, a scholar. He is also someone who feels.

I've been thinking about this interview--and the story of the bassist--for weeks now. Is a critic a professional feeler who can analyze and translate these feelings into words? Put it another way--what does an audience member who cannot play jazz or a ballet goer who cannot dance, get out of a live performance? I know I certainly want to go home with a feeling. I want, for example, to go home as I did after watching Valery Gergeiv and the Mariinksy Orchestra perform Mahler's Second, to go home and wonder: "What the hell just happened?" I don't want to go home, as I did after listening to the Philharmonic perform The Firebird, and think: "What the hell was it with the tempos?" I'd like to go home moved, even if I don't know why. So, do I read critics because I want to know how they felt and I want them to analyze how they felt so I have some way to gauge how I should/might/did feel?

But I wonder if it matters whether or not a critic has engaged in the art form itself. I've been thinking about this a lot, particularly as it pertains to dance, in no small part because my new novel features a dancer and I've been trying to figure out how to write about dance well. It's difficult. Reading dance criticism doesn't always help. And dancers aren't generally known for writing, or for living a life of the mind.

But a few weeks ago, I had an interesting experience. I was in my morning ballet class as usual, when I spotted a young man who was clearly professional. And very good. The only reason he could possibly be in my class was because he was injured--which turned out to be the case. I felt all this sympathy--like I'd found some kind of magnificent bird kicked out of its nest and I wanted it to go back to its celestial realm.

After class, we ran into each other again and I learned his name and where he had danced. Then we stood outside the infamous Willie Burmann class and watched the professionals at work. My new friend told me how badly he wanted to be back in that room.

"What is it about Willie Burmann?" I asked.

And then he explained. The class works because of how Burmann teaches at the barre, and then moves this instruction to the center. Burmann had gotten him to turn--and he does not consider himself a turner. I don't consider myself a turner either.

"You have to stay on your toes," he said. "Even at the barre. Keep the weight off your heels." Then he told me that I ought to take the Willie Burmann class too. "Otherwise, you'll never get better."

Well, sure. I'd love to take the Willie Burmann class and to improve, but I wouldn't want to degrade the art form by showing up next to Wendy Whelan. And frankly, I find it embarrassing to watch some of those people in that class who so clearly should not be there. But the idea stuck with me.

In the next class, I tried to put these principles to use. While at the barre, I tried to keep my weight off my heels. Then we moved to the center--and everything was easier. I flew in my turns and landed them easily. I could also see how it would be a matter of time before I added rotations, in large part because I didn't even need to use my arms. Quite a few people came up and told me how great I looked. It's nice as an adult to get better at something, especially dance, which is really for young people.

Then, a few weeks later, I began to read the new Jennifer Homans book on ballet: "Apollo's Angels." I read this passage:

"The Danes had pristine footwork and quick, light jumps, achieved in part by dancing neatly toward the balls of the feet, but if you didn't put your heels down you would never gain the soaring elevation and leaps that characterized the Soviets. The differences were not merely aesthetic; they felt different, and moving this way instead of that could make a dancer, for a moment, into a different kind of person."

First of all, this is a wonderful book, and after hearing Jennifer Homans on Terry Gross--Homans was gracious, sincere and smart--I can't read the book quickly enough. I wonder if too much hasn't been made over her "death of ballet" battle cry. I see her point and, yes, ballet needs some kind of change. But second of all--her book meant something different to me because in a tiny way, her description of technique had mirrored my own small experience and opened up how the body is capable of more than we think if trained differently.

Do I have special insight into dance now that I have finally learned how to turn? I don't know--I occupy this weird space between someone who can sort of dance, but is light years away from really being able to do it. In class--jazz class in particular--I sometimes hear my hyper-wordy voice asking about something related to counting and I get this eye roll from the teacher because . . . dancers aren't supposed to analyze so much. Analysis is the real of cerebral people, ie writers. Worse: "You dance how you are!" is what you often hear from teachers--our bodies are supposed to reflect some inner truth. This always irritates me. My body is a poor reflection of who I am. My body is highly imperfect. If I have to accept that my body is a reflection of who I am, well, then I guess I have to accept life's disappointments every day. Who I am or what I think I am is more accurately reflected in what I write because that is more closely related to what I think. I'd like to believe that what I think is more important than what I look like.

And time and again outside of class, I'll learn that the lumbering adult dancer who can't seem to point his feet or keep his shoulders down in class, is a talented artist who supports himself selling actual paintings. Or that the awkward, so unable to stand up straight I thought she had MS woman, is actually a lounge singer. Or that some awkward, overly cerebral middle aged woman is a Shakespeare scholar. These are people whose bodies don't reflect who they are.

What does this have to do with criticism? Maybe it really only matters how something as esoteric as dance makes us feel. Maybe the point of any art, actually, is what it tells us about ourselves and how we as individuals respond to a piece, regardless of our training.

I dance because I like it and because it is the only form of exercise I enjoy and because if I don't dance, I get depressed. Since moving to New York, my classes at STEPS have often been the sole thing to keep my spirits up.

But I do wonder if insight into the mechanics of art matters. Do book reviewers read books more carefully because they are "writers"? See, I don't think so. I think that writers are very well aware of the hierarchy they occupy. They know who is who, and how they fit in, and who was shorlisted for what award, and who is with what agent, and who was on what list and how if they review, they are more likely to be reviewed, etc. And whenever you deal with a group of people, there is always a median, a sense of what is "accepted"--even in a group of people as creative as writers--and what is threatening and new and what might be considered "too" new. This is why I, and others, so appreciate it when we find someone with taste we admire and who doesn't seem to be influenced by fashion or politics, but who just reports back on what she likes.

Would it be better, then, if reviewers weren't writers? Well, then we end up back in the universe that the bass player at the start of this piece occupies--a world where the reviewers don't do the thing they are reviewing. That's hard for musicians to understand; so much of their art depends on interaction. Actually--I should clarify. Some musicians are also aware of the hierarchy, as I learned this weekend, when one professional musician told me about another one who invited a notable critic to his recording session and solicited advice for how to make the record-in-progress stronger. That's not a bad way to guarantee a good review.

I think that there is so much art out there, it is invariably important for us to have critics to help us ferret out what we might like and what we might appreciate. I still struggle with the very idea of criticism--that we all end up with the audiences we deserve, to paraphrase Robertson Davies who reportedly once said that every man ends up with the wife he deserves. It's an imperfect system. The nice thing is that if you are truly passionate about an art form, you can investigate it on your own--even if you are an old and incompetent dancer--and make up your own mind.

The Nutcracker, a Romance

2010-12-15T09:43:00.015-05:00

At the end of the original "Nutcracker," written by ETA Hofman, the heroine, Marie, gets her prince. He'd been suffering under a curse, and was made to take the form of a practical, but otherwise ugly wide-jawed Nutracker. She, however, has seen through the curse, helped him defeat it and will be rewarded with the title of princess, and marriage.

Drosselmeyer's nephew takes Marie aside and tells her that by swearing that she would love him in spite of his looks, she broke the curse on him and made him handsome again. He asks her to marry him. She accepts, and in a year and a day he comes for her and takes her away to the Doll Kingdom, where she is crowned queen and eventually marries the Prince.

In other words, the Nutcracker is a romance that ends pretty much on the same note as Beauty and the Beast where, due to heroics, the girl is able to get the boy who turns out to be handsome after all. But this only happens after much torment from the mouse King and Queen, and only after the young couple's mettle is tested night after night. In other words, the Nutcracker is a romance, but of the dark variety.

Another way to look at it, is that the Nutcracker is a kind of inverse Swan Lake, where the hero does not screw up, the half-man-half-Nutcracker does not have to sacrifice himself in order for any curses to be broken. Instead, the girl--just like Beauty and the Beast--saves the day. She's no hapless Siegfried, easily fooled by the Black Swan, or shallow Albrecht, who just wanted a bit of fun.

(Cover of Sendak's illustration of the ETA Hoffman tale).

Tchaikovsky would have read this story when composing the music for the Nutcracker. You might not know this now when you hear snippets of the ballet's more upbeat musical interludes--Spanish Coffee, the Waltz of the Flowers--when you are shopping at the mall. Listening to these pieces, you might think that the Nutcracker is just another variation of a Disneyfied Fantasia. But if you really listen to the music all the way through--really listen--you'll hear hints of the kind of romance and drama that Tchaikovsky must have been trying to capture.

Why is the Nutcracker so popular? I've been reading the New York Times critic Alastair MaCauley's accounts of his Nutcracker journey across America. Back in November, he wrote:

The importance of this ballet to America has become a phenomenon that surely says as much about this country as it does about this work of art.

And why is the ballet so important?

While the United States is far from young, it still matters to many Americans that this nation seems youthful and that it embraces newcomers. When the “Nutcracker” heroine arrives in the paradiselike Land of Sweets, she is at once made welcome. The Sugar Plum Fairy presides with her wand in ways not unlike the Statue of Liberty with her torch in New York Harbor. You have traveled far; here, in this land of milk and honey, find rest and delight. Here people of different races are equal; here you may make a new start.

One aspect of the discussion surrounding the Nutcracker that I haven't seen addressed (yet), is this idea of romance. If you speak to balletomanes, most will agree that their favorite version of the Nutcracker was the one produced by Baryshnikov, in which the lead dancers are not children, but adults, who play children at first, but grow up as the story develops. In the Hoffman story--Marie/Clara is a 12 year old girl. She is precisely on the cusp of adulthood, as one would have considered womanhood a century ago. In the Baryshnikov/Kirkland version of the Nutcracker, Clara/Marie helps to defeat the Mouse King, rescues the prince and discovers that . . . she likes him. Take a look at this clip, just after the Mouse king has been defeated and the prince gently thanks Marie and she, in turn, learns to dance with him, as an adult.

It's pretty romantic. The prince remembers that he is a prince. He's nice to Clara right away--just as a girl would dream a prince would be--and gently demonstrates that kindness and heroism and sex appeal can all go together. What girl would not fall for this?

It's a strong contrast to the way the scene is played by, say, New York City Ballet, in which the prince and Clara/Marie are children. I could not find a comparable video clip for you to compare. But there is this decidedly unsexy photo:

It's a lovely moment in the ballet between two children, though it does not, to my mind, take advantage of all the lush music Tchaikovsky offered. But that was not Balanchine's point in creating his Nutcracker: he wanted to be able to showcase students of different ages from his school and to give them a chance to perform. In Balanchine's version, the Nutcracker is still a magical story, but it is not a romance. And though I enjoy this production, I always feel that the music is not completely well served. An example:

Here's Gelsey Kirkland again, still in Clara's "nightgown," now in love and dancing because she is in love and dancing for her prince. The drama is grounded in the music.

Now, in the City Ballet version, here is the Sugarplum Fairy (I think that's Darci Kistler) who has greeted the children--and now dances (at a faster tempo).

I love this choreography, but as a story, the scene comes off more as a showcase and a stunt. The children--the prince and Marie--sit in the back and eat sweets and watch the Sugarplum Fairy and various other "sweets" perform, until it is time to go home.

Ditto for the way the story ends. In the City Ballet version, the chords come in and up the sleigh goes, while everyone waves goodbye.

It is perhaps telling that in the 1993 filmed version of the New York City Ballet's Nutcracker, the role of the prince was played by MacCauley Culkin. Note the way he is transformed from Nutcracker to prince.

In the Baryshnikov version, the land of the Sweets begins to fade and Clara wakes up in her house, wondering if the awakening she has experienced was all a dream--though she also feels transformed. (You'll have to ff to 3:30 to hear the music and see the change). It's almost as though she's lived out a parallel version of the Wizard of Oz (movie version), or Peter Pan. Clara traveled to another world, had a magical experience, and wakes up changed.

Ballet companies deal with the issue of romance in the Nutcracker a variety of ways. The Russians follow the Baryshnikov version--to be fair, I should say that Baryshnikov follows the Russian version, because that's probably where he got the idea in the first place. It is just that most western audiences think it's *his* version because the 1977 televised performance was the first look at the romantic Nutcracker that many of us had.

Here's the Bolshoi with a gallant and graceful prince, and a Clara who must now grow up.

In the Bolshoi version, by the time we get to the classic "Sugarplum Fairy and her Cavalier" (which has to be about the most emasculating role since Prince Philip couldn't pass Mountbaten on to his kids), Clara and the Prince and their love have matured. The choreography and very rich and often dark music reflects this.

The action, the music, the story--all are grounded in something that makes sense.

Contrast that with the version where the Sugarplum Fairy and her Cavalier dance. What is it with the tormented music? Why so tormented? They are just dancing for the kids sitting in the back. Here is an example from Tallahassee.

It's funny how the music almost sounds and feels different when it is not connected to the story in a way that is really meaningful. The drama and potential are there--but if the story is missing, then the music loses its meaning too. What's missing? The romance.

There are other ways to deal with the romance, than to either cast children, or adults. The Pacific Northwest ballet uses a young girl in the beginning, then switches to an older ballerina after the Nutcracker becomes a prince. It is often said that by using sets designed by Maurice Sendak, PNB's version of the Nutcracker is "darker"--though, again, if you read the original story and bear in mind that Tchaikovsky would have read it too, I'm not sure how the story could be anything but dark.

In regional performances, principal and soloist dancers from major companies are often brought in to perform the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy, while children dance the roles of mice and toy soldiers. This has been an excellent way to bring "real ballet" and real ballet dancers to cities outside of New York, to demonstrate excellent adult dancing, and to give children a chance to perform--and mothers a chance to compete with each other and to video tape their kids.

Below--some children.

More kids--the girl is 11 and you will need to ff to 2:15.

Below, a more "romantic" Nutcracker, with tweens. The scene is just after the Mouse King is defeated and the curse is broken. This video is from San Diego.

Finally, an example in which a principal dancer--the wonderful Michele Wiles of ABT--is brought in to a regional company--North Carolina. She dances the Sugarplum Fairy with her cavalier. The kids, who presumably danced the first half of the ballet, watch from the side.

And once again, the music feels disconnected from what is happening on stage.

Why, then, is the Nutcracker so popular in America? What's with all the versions?

The short answer, to me, is that Americans love Christmas. It is practically our national holiday, though I realize it is not PC for me to say so. The news watches, breathlessly, to see what we will buy. These numbers tell us "how we are doing." We are, after all, a nation of consumers. The Christmas figures will determine if some business did "well" or "poorly" for the entire year. This may well decid if eyou wake up happy or depressed on January 1st, facing a brand new year, and a mountain a paperwork for your accountant.

But behind all this, there of course a more magical and spiritual dimension to Christmas, coming as it does during the dark time of the year. After Christmas, the days will subtly get brighter. And on the subject of magic--there is the fact that many of us grow up believing in Santa Claus, unable to wait until Christmas morning, only to learn later that Santa does not exist. The magic was created by our parents. Presumably, we grow up to learn of other more earthly pleasures, but the magic of Christmas is gone. There is a reason why: "I felt it was like Christmas" is a phrase often used to describe elation. I can think of two ex-boyfriends who were also ex-drug addicts who described cocaine to me in the same fashion.

As adults, we think of Christmas as having a romantic dimension. This is why we see the infuriating Tiffany ads every December.

It's why movie companies release romantic comedies during December--and why audiences want to go and see them.

The Nutcracker captures this sense of elation, or transformation and of romance. As a child, the presents, the tree, Santa--all are magical. As adults, we know that all this tender magic will fade. We also know that the only hope you will ever have of feeling that kind of magic again as an adult resides in an expensive present, or the ecstasy of falling in love. The story touches on all our favorite fairytale archetypes--Beauty and the Beast, the Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan. The girl gets to be a princess, which, as the merchandise marketers of Disney know, is a sure-fire way to get female attention.

On a final note, I'm curious to see what kind of Nutcracker ABT will unveil. In interviews, Ratmansky, the Artistic Director, seems to hint that, like the Pacific Northwest Ballet, he will use a child and adult Clara--the hybrid solution. He has also noted that Tchaikovsky was in the throes of depression while writing the score to the Nutcracker, something I had not known. One hopes for a Nutcracker that entertains, but listens sensitively to the music.

Wikileaks and Writers

2010-12-09T21:52:00.009-05:00

By now we all know the story of the music industry, and how it was forever changed by Napster. Never mind that Napster has gone the way of Netscape--downloadable music forever altered the music industry model. I, for example, can no longer go to Tower Records after a memorable evening at the Met to look for a recording to take home. Now I have to go onto iTunes (where I can at least get immediate gratification), or perhaps order a CD from Amazon.

The publishing industry, too, is changing. I've ranted before about my desperate wish for people to embrace the changes and to think constructively as to how writing and reading can move seamlessly into this new age. Much is always lost with change; but only a luddite would believe that good music--and good books--are gone.

But now, it seems, our government is going to have to learn what artists and musicians learned over a decade ago. Yes someone can, with the touch of a button, publish just about anything. Once upon a time, the impulse to share information would have depended on, say, a newspaper. Or a magazine. Or a book. And readers would have to go and buy that newspaper, magazine or book. The process is made much easier by the internet. But the desire to share, to blow the whistle, to turn turncoat (all depending on your point of view), is nothing new. It's just all much easier now. And yes, that means a few people can't control anything any more. Welcome to the world most of us have been living in for a while.

I certainly don't think that the appropriate way to respond to these changes is to prevent the sharing of information (hi Beijing!)--this would be antithetical to the freedoms we all say matter to us. But you can already see this kind of lumbering coming from the likes of Senator Lieberman who, let's face it, isn't exactly known for his intuitive understanding of modern technology. It is difficult for me to think of Wikileaks as a thing to be for or against--it just is. It was also inevitable. My guess is that diplomacy will have to change. I haven't any idea how--that isn't my job--but it is telling to me that only after music, movies and publishing have had to adjust to life with the internet, the government is now going to have its turn.

I often think about matters of diplomacy. Since I have been traveling overseas for so many years (and meeting diplomats on those flights, who always impress me) and listening to people from so many different countries, and listening to how they misunderstand each other, I--something of a worry wart--become very nervous at any sign of a culture clash. Here is an example. I got my hair cut today at a very nice Japanese salon and I took my almost one year old son.

"He's so good!" the stylists all said to me--in Japanese. They don't speak Japanese to most guests, but make an exception for me. "Is he just like this, or do you give him drugs?"

"Drugs?"

"Yes. Most of our American clients drug their babies so they won't cry. That's why so many Americans grow up to become drug addicts as teenagers. They were drugged when they were babies and so they grow up to be anxious and never bond with their parents, who they then complain about all the time, so they have to go into therapy."

I suppose that Tom Cruise would agree with this assessment. And it did give me pause for thought. It also told me what is going on in the minds of these stylists each time a tony client shows up with her kid. An exception was made for me. But only because I speak their language--no stereotype could therefore be enforced.

I do long for a day where we all get to see each other just as people, and where we take in information as we get it and as it is doled out.

Falling in Love, Falling out of Love

2010-11-04T15:38:00.008-05:00

A couple days ago, I had a nice long conversation with a young new friend, who is an aspiring writer. We talked about books. I have had some difficulty reading, as I've said elsewhere, but have recently started to make my way back to fiction. I finished Jean Rhys' "Wide Sargasso Sea" this afternoon and a pile of other books await. For the first time in a long time, I am excited to read.

In our conversation, we touched on two books: "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuko Ishiguro and "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy. Let me just say here that I've long loved Ishiguro and have admired his career. For a great many reasons, he's someone I always list as a favorite author and whose choices I privately admire and examine as I try to make my way through to becoming a "real" writer. "Never Let Me Go" was published in Canada before it was available in the US; lucky for me, I was in Vancouver and you can bet I made sure I would be in Canada long enough to get the book to read on the plane flight back to New York. I inhaled it.

Now, a few years later, I find myself reflecting back on the novel and feeling disappointed--less and less of it is staying with me. I think there is something to the sad way in which the characters march off to their doom and the repressed way that they accept their fate that feels flat to me. This quality has worked in other novels--in "The Remains of the Day" I could feel why the butler was unable to return love and the novel didn't feel so flat because Miss Kenton has a spark to her, a quality that searches for and really wants love. And everyone was up against overwhelming forces. I'm unconvinced of the "tide of history" that pervades "Never Let Me Go."

I suppose part of it is that the novel is speculative (or science fiction if you want to call it that, though as one person has pointed out, NLMG can't really be science fiction because the science aspect of the novel is viewed with such suspicion), and I want an experience like I had watching the film "Children of Men" or even reading the crack-like addictive novels "The Hunger Games." In these stories, people are placed in "speculative situations" (there are no more babies in "Children of Men": children are sacrificed gladiator style in "The Hunger Games"), but struggle to find their humanity and to fight back in some way. It isn't even clear in "Children of Men" that the future will be positive or that there is redemption, but at least there is movement in the story. We leave "Never Let Me Go" feeling very sad. There is no hope. The end.

And if it feels flat to me, it could be because I am American, but I don't think so. There are other novels that I have loved which end on extremely tragic notes--like Eight Million Gods and Demons--and yet feel complete and as if we are watching people battle bravely. I think it felt flat to me because I felt I was reading about an idea, and much less about how people would actually behave within the confines of that world. (Incidentally, as time has gone by, I reflect back on the final "Hunger Games" book which initially annoyed me, and now I think the author was quite clever and insightful. I think it still needed better editing, but she was brave to finish the story off as she did. But perhaps more on that another time).

We also got to talking about "Blood Meridian," which I still think is an incredible novel. I'm still in love with it. And even though there is a sameness to all of McCarthy's work, the vision is unique and the execution highly original. No one else can do McCarthy. The vision is also often tragic and yet there is this quality to his books which is alive and is not quantifiable. Years later, some aspect of his work lingers in my head. I still feel something.

This is what I am looking for in what I read now. I spent a great many years looking at novels that have been published to try to understand what made a novel publishable. I read a great deal of first fiction--and I'm sure will continue to do so. But it's that quality that is ineffable that I think makes a book last and last and elevates it to art. This is what I am now seeking (and suspect I have found in "Wide Sargasso Sea.")

What does it mean to get older and to fall out of love with some books, to still be in love with others and to be ready for a different kind of reading experience?

(Edited to add: not too long after I posted all of the above--and congrats if you made it all the way through--my friend Maud posted this video, in which Ishiguro does indeed say that his novel was about mortality and the fact that most of us accept our fates and do not fight back).

Art Forms and High Art

2010-10-29T08:58:00.007-05:00

A few days ago, my friend Maud sent me a link to an excerpt from "Apollo's Angels," a history of ballet written by Jennifer Homans. The excerpt on The New Republic asked if ballet in its current form is dead. Homans cited a number of reasons why the question is worth asking--technically she feels dancers are hesitant (I beg to differ), that the courtly language of ballet seems lost in our contemporary and urban world, that the breakdown of national styles means that there is no more true "Russian school" and "American dancer," etc.. Then, there is this paragraph:

Today we no longer believe in ballet’s ideals. We are skeptical of elitism and skill, which seem to us exclusionary and divisive. Those privileged enough to obtain specialized training, so this thinking goes, should not be elevated above those with limited access to knowledge or art. We want to expand and include: we are all dancers now. Ballet’s fine manners and implicitly aristocratic airs, its white swans, regal splendor, and beautiful women on pointe (pedestals), seem woefully outmoded, the province of dead white men and society ladies in long-ago places.

My friend Jeffrey and I were delighted a few years ago to discover a kinship, not only where books were concerned, but also with music. Together, we try to get to a few operas a year. Before I had Ewan, we also made it the Joyce and also to BAM. I once brought up the fact that I sometimes feel insecure for loving these old art forms so much. I know how mannered they can seem to modern eyes and ears. Even jazz, with its "Hey cats" and "Swinging" can sound so falsely enthusiastic, as though one is willfully trying to inhabit a black and white film.

"Yes," said Jeffrey. "And so does rock and roll. All art forms are mannered."

He's right. There are forms of self expression that strike us as "authentic" and immediate, but we are all always reflecting back the time and place that we live in and grew up in and part of our physical language--especially when exaggerated as in performance--is going to look mannered to some. Even if it's done with as much authenticity as possible.

Homans goes on.

For classical ballet to recover its standing as a major art would thus require more than resources and talent (the “next genius”). Honor and decorum, civility and taste would have to make a comeback. We would have to admire ballet again, not only as an impressive athletic display but as a set up ethical principles. Our contemporary infatuation with instability and fragmentation, with false pomp and sentiment, would have to give way to more confident beliefs.

This caught my eye. We would have to admire ballet again. I admire ballet. It is the quintessential "it is very hard and so you must work hard to make it look easy and thereby impart feeling" art form. Women float. Men are forever strong. Girls become birds and fly. Etc. It is ethereal. And though ballet can be funny--there is no end to nuanced humor that the body can portray--ballet, or at least classical ballet, isn't ironic. No one nudge nudge wink winks on stage to say, "Hey! I'm a swan. No really." Magic is expected. Do we believe in magic?

But she's implying more--that some kind of courtly grace has been lost. That manners are gone. That we don't really value civility or think of it as part of our culture, or that culture is something to aspire to. And that this *is* what ballet can and must be.

For classical ballet to recover its standing as a major art would thus require more than resources and talent (the “next genius”). Honor and decorum, civility and taste would have to make a comeback. We would have to admire ballet again, not only as an impressive athletic display but as a set up ethical principles. Our contemporary infatuation with instability and fragmentation, with false pomp and sentiment, would have to give way to more confident beliefs.

The best Balanchine, it is often said, isn't necessarily performed by NYCB. You can have a good night of ballet in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston and Miami (and the New York Times may well review you). And now Los Angeles, as Dance Magazine pointed out, is building up a rep company with a mix of cash generating classics and commissions. Yes, I know this means that ballet is popular and not necessarily relevant. It's a trade off. For now. Art goes through these cycles. In the recent Opera News, I read an article where an author lamented that a golden age of voices had passed in the 60s (Leontyne Price, Joan Sutherland, etc), while pointing out just how much regional opera there is. One no longer *must* live in New York City.

I think back to the early 90s when ABT was struggling financially and couldn't even keep a season at Lincoln Center. I remember going to see the Bolshoi in the late 80s when the KGB was all over the theater. It seems like it might be nicer for dancers to be able to travel freely. And in time, I should think new forms for ballet will develop, if they aren't already.

Still, I know quite a few cultured New Yorkers who mourn the "old days" of ballet in our city. Here, for example, is an introduction to Arlene Croce's book (Croce was a beloved dance critic) "Writing in the Dark."

Looking back over the events covered in these pieces, I can hardly believe they happened. That dance could ever have been as rich, as varied, and as plentiful as it was in the seventies and eighties now seems a miracle. When I was appointed The New Yorker's dance critic, in 1973, I knew the hour was late: Balanchine was sixty-nine, Graham had left the stage, and any number of important careers were winding down. Still, there was enough activity to keep anybody interested, and what with Baryshnikov's defection in 1974 and Suzanne Farrell's return from exile that same year, there was more than I could keep up with. I was in the theatre nightly and sometimes, between Friday night and Sunday evening, I saw five performances.

Something about the ballet caught the imagination of critics and by extension the cultured in a way it does not today. At least, that's what's implied. It is an attitude I often hear. And yet, there *is* great dancing. There are great ballet dancers--perhaps without that dramatic sweep of the personal lives of Nureyev and Farrell, but great all the same (isn't it nicer for dancers not to have their personal lives so examined?) There are also other great dance companies, born out of the tradition of ballet. It wasn't so long ago that the Times and the New Yorker were declaring that this was a great age for dance in general.

Could it be that we are just getting older? Could it be that with the romance and danger that surrounded Nureyev's escape to the west, we are romanticizing and longing for a period of time that was in fact rather harsh, but that managed as a result to capture the public's imagination and we are letting that color our sense of what is "great"? Let's not forget the old adage about the death of the novel, coupled with (I think it was Proust) who said that old thing about any novel having only 2,000 serious readers at any one time. Is mass admiration ever true love?

I was thinking about all this--and I began to think about the novel. I have had tremendous difficulty reading anything in the past three years since my father died. I'm sure part of that is due to having been pregnant and then having a child and not being able to concentrate for long periods of time. There are other reasons too. But as I've said previously, my enthusiasm for the novel died out.

Lately though, I've been thinking about what an extraordinary form of art it is. True, you don't really need to have a theater for the ballet. Every day, (or nearly every day) there is an interpretive cupcake dance on behalf of the Magnolia Bakery in the Village. All this is done without an orchestra and a conductor who understands dancers and a set and lighting and seats and all the thing we think ballet should have. But still. When we think of going to the ballet, there are conditions under which we expect to experience it.

What do you need for a novel? Not much. You can be anywhere. You can be, as I have been, in a bunkhouse in Nebraska and still carry your culture with you, or find a beloved treasure. The novel can be epistolary. It can move freely through time. It can explore the darkest corners of the human mind. It can take you to other parts of the world. It is extraordinarily malleable and as a result, I believe, tenacious.

(Edited to add: not too long after I posted all of the above--and congrats if you made it all the way through--my friend Maud posted this video, in which Ishiguro does indeed say that his novel was about mortality and the fact that most of us accept our fates and do not fight back).

Asian American Writers Workshop and Literary Awards

2010-10-29T08:41:00.007-05:00

On September 17th, I read an excerpt from my novel, Picking Bones from Ash, at the Asian American Writers Workshop alongside writers Tishani Doshi, and Oliver de la Paz.

The evening was hosted by AAWW director, Ken Chen, a frustratingly accomplished person who not only graduated from Berkeley and became a lawyer (for the disenfranchised), but turned his back on a lucrative profession to become a poet, whose first collection won the Yale Series of Younger Poets awards. He's also extremely kind and unusually intelligent (with a knack for fashion) and all these things in combination make some of us feel--why bother? Did I mention that his poetry is very good too?

And then there were the readings, all of which were very strong (and by that, I mean Tishani and Oliver had strong readings. I am not going to comment on myself). And both are also beautiful. It can be a lot to live up to--reading in New York City. Tishani is a dancer and a poet, in addition to being a novelist, and of a mixed background. Naturally, this spoke to me. And Oliver is a parent, with two small children, and I was interested to see how these life experiences had become part of his work (and that he still had work to share, even after having children. It gives one hope).

Finally, a bit of nice news. The AAWW sponsors a prize every year for writers of Asian descent. Picking Bones from Ash has been named to the longlist, alongside Ha Jin, Nami Mun, Paul Yoon, Daniyal Mueenuddin, YiYun Li, and Shawna Yang Ryan. This is extraordinary company. Picking Bones from Ash has had quite a journey in the last year. One worries about publishing a novel. Will anyone care? Will anyone read it? And yet, there has been some very kind recognition from important contests. I am extremely grateful.

(And thank you, Oliver, for letting me use these photos).

Scotland by Air

2010-08-23T07:49:00.005-05:00

I am a window seat junkie and I'll never understand why the map view of flights on United planes seems to have diminished a bit. I really loved being able to photograph Siberia and use Google Earth to figure out that I'd flown over Attu Island.

The sky was fairly clear as we flew out from Scotland and I'm always hoping we'll go far enough north to see some of the Hebrides. My father in law told me that he always hopes so too, but that most routes go further south. So you can imagine how excited I was to see views like these from the plane.

This, though, then led me to wonder exactly what I'd seen. Lazily, I sent the photos to Scotland and about 48 hours later, got this email:

Having compared your photos with an atlas, and the northerly course near Greenland, I can see that you flew North-west over Mull. Mull was probably cloud-covered, but also under the plane. The small island is Kerrera, which guards Oban Bay, with the Firth of Lorn beyond. You can see the town of Oban in the curve of the bay. The inlet to the North is the entrance to Loch Etive, at Connel.

In the other picture, the island is Coll, with possibly a bit of its neighbour Tiree in the bottom left corner. They are the outer of the Inner Hebrides. You must have flown directly over Saffa (and Fingal's Cave), and then out over Barra, the southern tip of the Outer Hebrides.

Greenland you say? Yes, that's right. I was watching the map view the whole time, hoping we'd go far enough north to catch some of Greenland, and we did. I took some photos, but they don't show up well. And we weren't close enough to see any bobbing iceburgs, though I could certainly see glaciers and lots of snow. Humbling. Again. Another place I may never get to go.

The email made me feel lazy, so I pulled up Google Earth again (reinstalling it, to be accurate) and spun the globe a bit to pull these images.

Here is the isle of Coll.

And here is Oban, which is unmistakably what I saw from the plane. Oban, you might recall, was the site of a huge seafood feast we enjoyed two years ago. Hoping to get back there in early March.

Scotland

2010-08-18T17:46:00.007-05:00

Hours and hours of sunlight. We can go running at 8:30 and it's still light at 9:30. Everyone tells me that in June, the sun sets at 11 PM. I've never gone to Scotland in the summer before because it's the most beautiful time of the year, which means it is also the most expensive. This year, however (I think due to the runway closure at JFK), every time of the year is expensive and so we decided to bite the proverbial bullet and travel in the summer.

And since it's so gorgeous here in the summer, I'm afraid I'm now hooked and will want to be back next August.

View of the castle from the hotel window. Below, Ewan poses with the view.

We walked down the Royal Mile. Yes, I know it's tacky but it's also a nice way to view the festival. And I was on the hunt for a baby kilt (which I also know was tacky of me.)

Marie found the mini-kilt (and hat and jacket) of her dreams. The jacket--a sample--was a one of a kind (and not photographed).

And Ewan met his first cousin--Ellie!

Gordon managed to get us a table at the Witchery, which he's long wanted to go to with me--and Ewan got to go too.

We walked down a little cobblestone path . . .

The ceiling is decorated with images from the Tarot.

The Witchery was in fact once a witchery--more witches were apparently burned here than anywhere else. And now it is a restaurant with a lovely room and lovely views.

Ewan sat on everyone's lap.

Fish Pie and Haggis.

Scenes from Edinburgh and the Fringe Festival.

Usher Hall, where we heard a lovely concert of music by Wagner and a symphony by Nilsson.

Bagpipe playing members of some regiment, coming down from the castle, during the Tattoo.

Japanese Baby Food

2010-08-05T19:12:00.012-05:00

Here's what I don't understand (and non-baby people, just skip this post as it will likely annoy you as much as it would have annoyed me when I was a non-baby person).

New mothers have this incredible pressure on them to breast feed and even to breast feed exclusively. The ones who breast feed exclusively--heretofore known as EBF, as it is referenced on message boards--can, at times, lord their perfection over others. Somewhere I read that baby formula ought to be available by prescription only. This debate rages and continues and new mothers get together and slowly figure out who is supplementing with formula and who isn't and who might be "cool" with the whole issue of formula and who might not and are relieved to find non-judgy kindred spirits. Dr. Sears, the current baby guru, spends pages and pages on breastfeeding, reminding us that "breast is best," and citing studies which correlate breast milk with everything from IQ to obesity (studies which others are ready to challenge). Most mothers I know--and this is anecdotal--suffer some sort of guilt or insecurity over breastfeeding and this is made all the more annoying when some paragon of female perfection, aka Gisele Bundchen comes out and declares that breastfeeding ought to be THE LAW.

So, this goes on and on . . . and then around 4 to 8 months, depending on who you are, you realize that your baby actually has to eat. Food. And then the debate switches to safe foods and textures. And that's kind of it.

There's a big part of me that wants to say, wait. What? The debate was over breastfeeding versus formula and now it's over? Didn't anyone read the article about how we literally are what we eat? As a country, we are about 30 percent obese and 60 percent overweight. And this, mind you, is despite the fact that breastfeeding rates are rising. Breastfeeding. That activity which is supposed to just maybe prevent obesity.

I don't understand why we aren't talking about what babies eat after the initial milk only phase is over. I don't understand why there is a paucity of material on what to feed your baby and how to do it correctly.

What's more, I'm starting to think that we really as a culture don't love food all that much, or at least, that we can't seem to tell the difference between what is good for us and what supposedly makes us feel good.

Here's the list of foods that Dr. Sears recommends for a 6 month old baby.

bananas
rice cereal
pears
applesauce

What is rice cereal? It's cooked rice that has been sapped of all moisture so you can reconstitute it with breast milk or formula. It's like instant oatmeal.

From 7 to 9 months, baby may eat:

avocados
peaches
carrots
squash
prunes
sweet potatoes or yams
mashed potatoes
barley cereal
teething biscuits
pear and apple juice

No meat. A lot of sweet foods. The prepackaged baby food companies oblige, and go along with this kind of food progression. When I went to look at some organic jar foods to see if there was something I could take for Ewan on a trip, I found lots and lots of sweets and fruits. About the only non-sweet thing for a young baby was a jar of peas.

Here are the foods the Japanese baby food book recommends for babies aged 5 to 6 months:

rice (cooked and reboiled and mashed)
bread (again, softened and mashed)
soumen noodles (see above)
potatoes
tofu
flounder
bream
shirasu (white anchovies, which must be rinsed of salt and mashed)
plain yogurt
carrot
broccoli
apples
strawberries
melon
watermelon

Around 7 to 8 months, the Japanese baby food book recommends adding:

udon
soybean powder
egg yolk
snapper
cottage cheese
chicken breast
spinach
egg plant
tangerine
kiwi

There are recipes too, in the cookbook, on how to make a broth with kelp and fish, so you can season rice and potatoes and virtually anything else. The instructions are clear: aim to give your child carbs, protein and veggies with every meal. Sound familiar? Sure--that's what you want your child to eat as he gets older. In other words, the whole idea behind Japanese baby food is that your baby is eating. He is eating your food. He is not adapting to texture. He is eating and enjoying the things that you already love.

The cookbook is gorgeous. The photos appetizing. I taste the baby food and think that if I were a baby, I'd eat what I am making. Would I eat jarred prunes and spinach? No. Yes, babies have to get most of their nutrition from formula. But how can you eat a healthy diet as a baby when you have to chow through a container of prunes? I find, too, that by following these instructions, I think about what I should eat. If he is eating some egg, I'll eat some egg. If he can now eat spinach, I'll eat spinach. These are all things I should be eating anyay.

So why is the debate about what we feed children not more charged? Why don't we worry more about what we are eating from a very small age? Why is there no gorgeous baby food book that makes cooking fun and eating fun? And I guess that last statement sort of answers the question--people in Japan love to eat. It's fun. It makes sense that you want to share what you love with your child. If you don't value food or what you are eating, then how can you pass on healthy habits to your own children?

*steps off soap box*

Musee d'Orsay at the De Young

2010-07-22T23:59:00.010-05:00

I was thinking the other day that my Dad left me two castles. There is the one here, in the house where I am now, and if you have been here, then you probably know how I feel about this place. And then there is the other castle, the one that is made out of communing with great art, hearing live music, experiencing the magic of travel. I was thinking today that there are probably several reasons why I've been trying to absorb so much art, and hanging out with him in the other invisible castle is probably a big reason. Now that I am married, published and unpregnant, it's pretty obvious to me that he is not around and this, more than anything, has added to the general malaise I wrote about earlier.

So, today, we went up to the renovated De Young Museum (holy cow, when did that happen?) to see the first of the two traveling Musee d'Orsay exhibits. This first will end September 6th, and showcases pieces having to do with the birth of Impressionism; the later show which will last into January, features Van Gogh, Cezanne and later participants of the movement we call Impressionism.

There was a time in high school when, like all teenage girls, I felt very strongly about the Impressionists. I'm pretty sure those feelings lasted into college, and I had my Cezanne poster and Turner poster (I know he wasn't technically and Impressionist, but all the same) up on the wall of my dorm room till the corners gave out. Then somewhere along the way I noticed that Impressionism had to do with selling umbrellas and matching prints to paint jobs chosen by interior decorators and the house at Giverny and, well, I lost interest. Going to this exhibit today revived my interest.

I'd forgotten how badly these various painters--Manet, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pissaro, etc--all wanted so badly to be part of the Salon.

I was fascinated by how Caillabotte could paint such an extraordinary piece, and still expect to be admitted! Like, no. They weren't going to let you in with that piece and, looking at it with history on my side, why on earth did you even want to be associated with all those lustless nude portraits of Greek goddesses anyway? Except, of course, artists want to be accepted. And then I got to the rooms where we learned all about how the artists hung out at Cafe Batignolle.

And how they worked together--there are two paintings of the same dead heron by different artists--and how they joked with each other--Bazille painting his friends but leaving himself out of the picture and then Manet putting in a portrait of Bazille and making Bazille taller than anyone else--and the entire show was suddenly humanized.

What's more, there were no paintings fit for tablecloths and umbrellas, though certainly you can buy such items at the end of the exhibit if you want to. Instead, we see pieces that did get accepted into the Salon, and we see how close but not quite close enough the Manets and Monets were. In other words, you can really see how at first, these artists don't seem to have come out of nowhere. They have the techniques down. It's just--they had these ideas. And their ideas led them into temptation and then, well, there's nothing so corrupting as an idea. (To be fair, the Salon paintings are very accomplished. It's just--nude pink saintly dead gods, yada yada yada. How many centuries of the same thing do we need? Wouldn't the truculent Greeks be pissed off by poor Jason and the Argonauts and that weird scarf tied around his penis?)

We see how the Spanish painterly style influenced Manet. We see how each artist--Pissaro, Sisley and all the rest--develop increasingly personal styles. That's a roller coaster for an artist--once you are on a personal path, there is no getting off. And yet still they hoped to belong and in the absence of being able to do so.

So instead of more chewy Renoir paintings and happy Monet flowers, you see a snowy landscape with a magpie. There's Whistler and his mother. And lots of Manet, which was helpful because I never quite had a fix on Manet before.

And then there are all the characters--Emile Zola shows up. It all made me wish for a pair of pants and a nice cafe. Because of course, these were all men. Where, I wonder, is that cafe now? Are there still artistic movements like this where people are trying to overthrow one establishment? Or is the establishment now a fluid thing and fragmented, as everyone keeps trying to tell us the entertainment world is. In hindsight, these artistic struggles look romantic, but of course they are not. They are quite existentially awful. It did so make me wish to be part of something, though.

At the same time, I left feeling incredibly enriched and happy. This, for me, is what happens when I spend a few hours in the invisible castle. I am thankful to all you smart curators out there in your dark suits and "air of knowing" that you always possess for putting together such an intelligent, multi-faceted and beautiful show.

Of course I knew that the Musee d'Orsay was full of treasures--I spent a great deal of time there when I was a student. But the way in which this particular exhibit is presented--with the humanizing and the story and the characters and the art instruction and true art history and the reminders about the war--just floored me. I wish I could go back again. I am so glad that Paris of the West has had a chance to host this group of treasures. I'll be getting my ticket for the winter.

(As an aside--a little excitement. We had to evacuate the building. I am pleased to report that the emergency exits are functional, that traffic flow out of the building is speedy and that reentry was generally seamless.)

Tanabata Ewan

2010-07-16T16:23:00.003-05:00

In case you are wondering why Ewan is posing in front of bamboo stalks with streamers, this is all in service of Tanabata, the star festival, the romantic summer holiday in Japan when two lovers are finally reunited by a bridge of magpies who help them cross the Milky Way. More photos, to help you with iconography.

Balletomane

2010-07-11T22:20:00.003-05:00

A number of years ago, when I had what I now recognize was some kind of nervous breakdown, I took the money that I had saved up and went off to visit friends and museums in Europe. At the time, it felt like a very privileged and spoiled thing to do. I remember my father saying to me that he thought it was wonderful that I was traveling. He said: "Obviously, you need to go to the museums and they are there for you and will be again." I thought that this was remarkably indulgent of him. I still felt guilty and spoiled, but I still wanted to go and I did.

It's been probably twelve years since all of that and I finally understand what he was talking about. I've been in a malaise for the past six months--hardly reading anything at all. But I find myself suddenly listening to symphonies, planning to go to the Philharmonic, visiting museums (easy to do with a baby) and going like a maniac to the ballet. And this I realize was what my father was talking about--those old great arts are always there for you when you need them.

I posted about my experiences at the ballet last year. I figured that this year, with a baby, I would hardly go, if at all and each time ABT called to encourage me to attend/subscribe, I explained that I would not be coming. Well, resistance is futile in these things. I caved and bought tickets to most of the matinees. And then I found out that one can really use babysitters, and off I went for more performances. Now the season is over and I'm feeling terribly morose, and trying to think how I can get down to the Kennedy Center to see Suzanne Farrell and the Kirov in February. But for now, some highlights:

When I read that the great Darci Kistler would be retiring, I bought a ticket immediately. I'm not really sure that I love the Peter Martins version of Swan Lake--the ending is sort of Giselle--like in that Odette bourres offstage, leaving Siegfried to contemplate his future without her. Under any other circumstances, I would find this choreography weird and anticlimactic. Except in this case, we had Darci Kistler leaving the stage and saying goodbye to all of us forever and imbuing her dancing with so much emotion--even if the technique was not all there--I was in tears.

I was also alone--as I was much of this season and looked around to see if anyone else was there feeling the same thing and there to pay tribute to the last of the Balanchine ballerinas and more to the point, the end of an era. And it made me think of all the great art that was on during the Balanchine heyday--and even before. It must be like that now in New York. It just takes a person who is not blase to find it.

I'm pretty sure that this was David Hallberg. And if it was, it made me happy that he'd go across the courtyard, to see the "other" ballet company and to bid farewell to Darci Kistler too. How could another dancer not be moved by her exit? As a writer, it's very hard to imagine saying goodbye so publicly. Like, I spent all this time loving this art form and working and perfecting and now . . . I'm too old?

Later that day, I was still feeling melancholy from the performance, so I walked uptown to my dance studio and ran into a friend with whom I take dance class--he is pretty much the person people turn to in the ballet world for Pilates and he was Darci's trainer, and so we spoke and sobbed together and that felt cathartic, and then I was ready to go home.

I was lucky enough to also read early on that Alina Cojocaru would be coming over from the Royal Ballet to dance as Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. Well, I've seen Sleeping Beauty before, but not like this. In fact, the strongest memory I have of any performance involved someone--trying to remember who--at the Kirov dancing the Lilac Fairy. I don't even remember Aurora. But Cojocaru absolutely captivated me, filling her character with girlish wonder and then surprised pain and then finally, deep love. Her extensions are incredible--yes. But she made them seem so naturally a part of the character, so her technique never overrode the role. I think it'll be a while before anyone erases that performance from my memory. And then there was her prince, Jose Carreno who, the balletomane next to me kept repeating, is 42. I guess if I were 42 I would not want everyone to know and to needlessly repeat it. And perhaps Carreno is slowing down a bit. But I loved him--strong and manly and romantic and all that. I came home and listened to the music repeatedly.

The photo above is of Gelsey Kirkland who was at the same performance. Like little girls everywhere, there was a time when I worshiped Kirkland, then was very upset on her behalf when I read her memoir. These days I understand she's concerned with the quality of narrative in dance, and that she feels that abstraction has come to an end. This is an interesting concept across the board for the arts and it's made me think how such an idea applies to something like the novel.

Take, for instance, the MOMA which is so full of abstract art. Does it strike you as dated? Is it indicative of a time? Do we need more narrative and less mannered suggestion? I remember clearly the first time I even understood what abstraction was--and this so betrays my not-from-NYC-roots. I was watching the movie "The Turning Point" as a child, which I did not understand at all (because I was, like, 5), but I remember the moment when Leslie Browne is told that she is not a character, but an idea. An abstraction. I thought: if I can understand that, I can understand grown ups. I wonder: are we past abstraction?

Anyway, I read somewhere that Kirkland had helped to coach other young performers in the role of Aurora. I doubt she coached Cojocaru. But I think she did work with some of the other Auroras. And this brings me to another thought--I read somewhere else of all the past principals who were hired this year to help the young principals work on developing their roles. I thought the extra work showed. And I loved the idea of past generations aiding each other in artistic expression. Much has been made, for example, of the unique way that Suzanne Farrell is able to pass on the Balanchine legacy. I rarely see Balanchine that I like. I think it must be who is doing the dancing that is affecting me.

And then, finally, the ballet I saw last night. David Hallberg partnered Natalia Osipova in her debut as Juliet. Osipova has been the toast of the town this year and I was lucky enough to plan early enough to get a ticket to see her. My god what a transcendent performance this was. I remember seeing Bocca and Ferri back in the very early 90s . . . last night's performance felt as special. I will be one of those annoying elderly women years from now, saying to some young person in standing room, "I was there when Hallberg first danced Romeo with Osipova . . ." I mean, it was that incredible. I felt privileged. That whole bit I wrote earlier about wanting to find great artistic moments in NYC? Well, I found one.

Romeo has never been a role I really cared about before (well, okay, I did like Bocca. Still). For me the ballet and the play have always been about Juliet and about Mercutio, with Romeo there for Juliet to play against. In the ballet, he does a lot of very heavy lifting, for example, and you need him for the lifts in order to show off how beautiful Juliet is. But it's Mercutio who gets to be witty and provide commentary and quick-changes of temperament. But Hallberg made the role really matter--he found the character in the music, the choreography and, I'm guessing, the text. He also found the character in the world of the stage--interacting with everyone as Romeo would. As it should be. Again. Hallberg is so pretty and he obviously has a brain. Yay!

Romeo, after all, partly gets Juliet's attention in the ballet because of his dancing. Most of the Romeos I've seen just get through the steps and then poison themselves at the end and that's it. But there was something in the way that Hallberg played the character from the start to suggest that here was a young man in search of his one true love--which he finds. So much intelligence, and so much ability and so much talent. The dancer can make all the difference. I've enjoyed Hallberg's dancing for a while, but partnered with Osipova, something new was unleashed--like he found levels of emotion that he felt he could convey and which were authentic. And because I suspect anything he does comes from an authentic and very real place, well, we the audience felt even more moved by whatever he was creating onstage. It was incredible. (I'm still upset that Tybalt killed Mercutio. Like, wtf?)

And of course, there was Natalia Osipova, who was so lithe and captivating and beautiful. Together, they were magical. The photo above (I think) is of Joy Womack, about whom the Times wrote recently--she's a young American studying at the Bolshoi and she lists Osipova as her inspiration. Again, it made me feel happy to see others there to support their chosen art--loving it and feeling inspired by it.

I raved last year about the lovely dancer Hee Seo who was finally promoted to soloist. I tried to limit how much of her dancing I saw this year--it's too easy to just watch your favorites over and over again, and I wanted to try to see other people too. But I loved her again as Gamzatti and in Thais, which I went to see last minute on a Tuesday. So much is being made about the fact that she's the first Korean soloist with ABT. This seems so unimportant, as she's just a tremendous dancer and has a wonderful feel for music and for choreography and for filling movement. Much is being made of her partner Cory Stearns and I still don't feel like I've really seen him at his best. My guess is that what he does in rehearsal still isn't completely coming through in performance. Plus, he was saddled with an awful lot of last minute subbing, what with so many men getting injured this season, and was most likely overwhelmed. But I digress.

I want to say that I still love Seo as Juliet. She, too, gave a carefully shaped performance and there were choices she made which--as my friend Tonya says, were different, but just as true and just as valid. My heart generally can't take two Romeo and Juliets in a row--and certainly not when the performance is as powerful as the one Hallberg and Osipova delivered. But I would be tempted to go to both next year, should the occasion arise.

A few other notes--I wish we had better Mercutios. Can't we have Daniil Simkin? He's so witty and smart and I know he'd do the character full justice in all its complexity. Why must the season be so short? Could we please have a full length Manon? I love MacMillan and Vishneva absolutely blew me away. The mixed programs don't seem to fill seats, but I love them. I loved seeing different smaller pieces and being exposed to more dancers--and more choreography. I hope that this continues.

Finally, I read somewhere that a great ballerina--when she's an artist--is able to create a universe of her own and then place herself in the center of that universe. I've been thinking about this for a while now. It seems to me that the best artists do in fact have powerful imaginations that are able to cast such profound illusions that you believe in the world and the web they have woven. Ballet is moving because it is fleeting. You won't get to be there with me to say goodbye to Kistler, or gasp over Cojocaru, or cry over Hallberg and Osipova. Those moments are gone. The paintings I saw at the MOMA are still there. The novels that I love are still on the shelf. The British Museum still stands. How brave, then, are the dancers who will spin a world for you, just for an evening and make you feel that just for a moment, people-the incredibly flawed human race-is indeed capable of grace and beauty and the sublime. Right now, to me anyway, it seems like the greatest leap of faith.

(A final note on going to the ballet alone. I was so moved by Osipova, I tried to talk to the person sitting next to me about it. And she said: "Oh that girl. She's the one who got mugged. Wonder how long she'll be heah." And then I remembered why I'd rather go alone to something than to go with the wrong people.)

(Okay, one more note. Tonya reviews the performance and, like me, complains that we ought to have Simkin as Mercutio next year. Please. Johan Renvall always brought the house down with his rendition. It ought to be a showstopper, not a "Oh, look, dear, he jumped a lot and now he looks tired" kind of role).

(My third postscript. I've been thinking that I didn't write enough about Osipova above. And this morning I was remembering how last year people struggled to write about her. All agreed they had seen something extraordinary, but no one could pinpoint what it was. I remember this from Tonya's blog and from the Times. Having now seen her dance, I understand what it is that people were struggling with. I've never seen anyone move quite like she does. That she is an excellent dancer is not in question--yes she's musical and a tremendous actress and gorgeous. But what she brings to the stage is just so much more than that. It's some kind of ecstatic experience. Even though I'm a writer, I love when words fail me. That's when you know you have seen something new and unique. I can't wait to see Osipova again).

Fiction Writers Review

2010-06-30T22:08:00.003-05:00

A few months ago, the lovely Jessica Haberli came to my apartment and sat with me (and with Ewan) and asked some smart questions about writing and about my novel. The interview has been transcribed and edited. Please have a read, then take a look at the rest of the site which has tremendous resources for writers and readers. Thank you to Jessica and to the Fiction Writers Review, and to Celeste Ng, fellow (pregnant) Bread Loafer for making this all happen. It is an unusual treat to get to talk about one's work in such a thoughtful and carefully considered manner.

Solid Food

2010-06-25T22:59:00.005-05:00

One thing people kept asking me in Japan: had Ewan started eating solid food? No, I explained. I was waiting until I got home to the US, so my husband could be a part of the foodie fun. We are, after all, both lovers of food. But the constant questioning was a reminder to me of what a foodie culture Japan really is. I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who didn't love food, or didn't speak about it enthusiastically in Japan. And it's sort of not a surprise, seeing as how Japanese food really is one of the world's great cuisines (in both the high and low eating experience sense).

So, I picked up a Japanese book on how to start feeding a baby. We've been examining it carefully here at home and I have to say that it is eminently more detailed and helpful than any western book I've found so far. Look, for example, at this, well, charming and useful illustration of how the baby's tongue is able to move at 5-6 months, 7-8 months, 9-11 months and 1 to 1 and a half years. I mean, that's useful and fascinating information! I plan to watch Ewan's tongue the next time I feed him.

And then there are helpful pictures like this which show you exactly how finely a carrot should be chopped/pulverized/pureed to correspond to age and tongue movement. And then there is the list of acceptable foods, which includes fish right from the get go! Take that, western books recommending bananas and sweet potato only! This whole marrying of art and science when it comes to food can start at such a young age. And why not? I mean, if food is something you take very very seriously, best to start good habits when very young.

I think I'm going to the farmer's market this weekend to find the perfect carrot, which I will steam and puree . . .

Congratulations, Tyler Hutcherson

2010-06-23T13:57:00.004-05:00

Congrats are due to young Tyler Hutcherson (my cousin!) for winning first place in Black and White photography at the San Mateo County Fair for this photo:

Photography as an art is a mystery to me. The outside world seems static and immutable, unlike a story or a painting, which can be manipulated. So how do some people just manage to take great photos that speak? Why aren't all photos the same?

This picture was taken two years ago at harvest. My father had just died. I was in shock and desperately sad and my brain racing to try to process the very many things it had to understand (something that is still trying to go on) and attempting to also still make me feel like I belonged on earth. I think grief is the most destabilizing emotion I know. I was thinking about the generations of family members who had run this farm and how they could not have predicted that we would be so disconnected now . . . and yet still farming. And somehow Tyler got all this in his photo. Of course, I doubt anyone would know all this information unless they knew me. But still the emotions are there. In fact, I distinctly remember not putting this photo on my blog because it seemed too personal--too revealing of something I was feeling too deeply.

Congrats to you Tyler! I'm so proud. But not at all surprised. I told you all summer you had an eye for photography! Long may you keep taking pictures.

Happy Father's Day (with a father)

2010-06-20T20:35:00.003-05:00

Friends know that my dad passed away just before Father's Day two years ago--and that we were incredibly close. I still feel that I am adjusting to this new world in which he is not present. And at the same time, I still feel as though my relationship to him continues because I reevaluate what he has said, or recognize what he might have said to me when I face certain obstacles.

I really haven't enjoyed that past two Father's Days. There was nothing to celebrate.

But this year, Gordon is a Dad and I wanted it to be a special day. So I planned ahead and purchased tickets to a baseball game. Even though we are (apparently) decidedly not Yankees fans, our team of choice was playing at Yankee Stadium today. So it was that I went to Stubhub a couple of months ago, looking for the best deal.

I woke Gordon up pretty early this morning and after some minor protesting, he agreed to open his Father's Day card. And then got out of bed to get going to the game.

It was not a great game. It was very hot. But it was a lovely outing and a nice way to spend the time. Afterward we would things down with a trip to Sripraphai.....and Ewan had his second meal of solids.

Things Japanese

2010-06-18T21:28:00.023-05:00

It's basically summer now in Japan, which means that seasonal decorations are changing. Gone are the cherry blossoms (plastic or natural) to signify spring. And in their place: watermelon, fireworks and . . . goldfish. Why? Because in the summer time, it's fun to catch goldfish as part of a matsuri.

Here are some people catching goldfish--I took this photo a number of years ago when Gordon and I went to the Gion matsuri in Kyoto. And since then, it just seems like the goldfish is everywhere as an emblem of summer. It makes sense. Japan is so hot. The goldfish live in nice cool water.

And this year, all of the sudden, I kept seeing ads for "goldfish jelly." And finally, I found some for sale in the Takashimaya in Nagoya station. The jelly packs come in a "net." I had to buy one. I ended up eating it in the Kansai airport, convinced I couldn't take it through security. Honestly? The flavor was okay (no, the fish weren't real). I think it probably tastes best chilled. And really, the whole point is that the jelly is cute to look at.

Everywhere I went, Ewan and I were well taken care of. There was, in the women's bathroom, a little chair where I could "park my child." Here is the chair.

Here are the directions--bilingual, you will note. As a mother, I am actually quite adept at going to the bathroom while carrying a baby. Fortunately, I had Ewan in the stroller most of the time, so I didn't have to demonstrate my dexterity. But oh for a baby parking place in the bathroom stalls at home--and on a plane!

People deplore the decline in manners in Japan and the fact that it is quite possible to ride a train with a small child, and for someone not to get up and give you a seat as they would in the old days. I don't know. These things are sort of like comparing the standard of service for airlines. United *used* to be so great and now is just trying to make a buck. Well, Japan is still pretty great when I think of what life is like in the US. Look at the following, for example.

That's right--it's an elevator just for babies and the the elderly. And it was even policed by a woman in a blue suit. Granted, it was also in a very high end department store. But I'd never see this at home in New York, where an asshole of an attorney cut in front of me in line at the airport precisely because I had a baby and looked like an easy target. And did I ever let the United Airlines agent have it when she proceeded to route a group of people in front of me for the same reason.

I'm generally fascinated by elevators in Japan. Almost all the train stations now seem to have them. And of course, the design is so practical and so much better than the pee infested steel traps of the New York subway. Not sure if you can see from this photo--but the train station elevators are all curved, with two sets of doors. You go in, naturally curve to the right, and then exit through the opposite doors. The boxy elevator is sculpted to allow for traffic to flow.

The elevators are also almost always glass, so you rarely feel claustrophobic. It can be a trip to be in one of these things, and to pass by floors, and to see the innards of a multi-storied building. That's a photo for next time.

I'm not too sure what to make of this trend. These are fingerless gloves, designed to keep the sun off of your arms. Of course, gloves like this don't do anything to protect hands. I suppose that the gloves are lighter than wearing a sweater over a short sleeved shirt and in that sense are practical. I meant to check some out in a store, but never got around to doing so.

No, these are not baby clothes. These are dog yukata (summer kimonos). I found this rack at a 100 yen shop, which I guess means that even dog clothing for Japanese puppies is made in China.

Japanese hotel breakfasts are still the best, most nutritious food you will eat in the morning. No cardboard donuts, or pellets from a plastic dispenser. No dried out toast that is advertised as "continental breakfast." Just, real food. Generous portions too.

There is a trend here. I cannot leave Ewan alone in a department store before he is surrounded by women (Okay. I didn't leave him completely alone. He was with my mother). It happened in Beverly Hills, and it happened here in Nagoya. One minute I was shopping for something and the next thing I knew, a group of women in kimonos had gathered around my son, who was very happy for the attention.

He is going to be trouble.

RIP Angus the Cat

2010-06-18T21:15:00.004-05:00

June is a cruel month. A few days ago, Angus the cat passed away. He was 13, which is a pretty good run for a cat, and certainly for an indoor outdoor cat. But I thought we'd get more time with him and I imagined how he and Ewan would play. I am again reminded of the fact that imagination is not fact.

If you are an animal lover, then you know how it feels to lose a treasured friend who has been there with you through breakups, through drafts of novels (even those discarded), the death of your father (who died almost two years ago to the day). You feel terrible that you didn't sleep with your beloved cat one more time because you were too focused on the baby. You are glad your cat died of what appears to be a massive heart attack, that he didn't have a long and drawn out disease and that he didn't suffer. But you miss him. And June, a somewhat cruel month already, seems even crueler.

Goodbye to Angus, most noble and gentle of cats, killer of mice and birds (okay that wasn't so gentle) and sentient being who once looked at Skype and went behind the computer to see where the human was hiding. You will forever be missed.

Los Angeles

2010-06-18T13:41:00.014-05:00

I grew up in California, and yet I spent very little time in Los Angeles. Usually we drove down for a special exhibit at LACMA, or a performance at the Chandler Pavillion that would not be repeated in SF and yet that, as art devotees, we felt we needed to see. We went to Disneyland, and Universal Studios--but not much beyond that.

Then last year, I read in Los Angeles for the Vermin on the Mount reading series. Though I was eight months pregnant, we gamely went around LA, looking at some touristy places--and some not. And Gordon and I absolutely fell in love with Los Angeles and decided we would go back, whenever the opportunity arose. Needless to say, I had a fantastic time again. But for the traffic, I'd consider LA to be quite possibly a perfect city. In the photo above, Ewan poses next to a gigantic oreo cookie which Gordon and I tried and failed to eat for breakfast.

Gordon's plane was about 5 hours late getting into LA, so to entertain ourselves, Ewan and I went to Neiman Marcus (as one does) where he was promptly admired and urged to get an agent.

That first night, we had dinner with David Moses--an old friend--who works in Studio City. We ate at Kiwami--quite possibly the best meal of the trip--and learned about Los Angeles and its workings. Having discovered that David and I share a love of food, I suspect it won't be long before we all attack some kind of high eating experience again.

The following day, we met writer Cecil Castellucci for breakfast at Lamill. Did I know that coffee could be so divine? Or that Cecil and I would spend 4 hours talking at a constant clip? I met Cecil for the first time last year at Vermin on the Mount and since then, we've corresponded a bit. I also met up with her this past January, about a month after having Ewan. I remember feeling that 8 o'clock was very, very late. Anyway, we talked up a storm and had a wonderful time and I know we'll see each other again.

Later, it was off to Venice Beach where I found a store that was pretty much me in a nutshell. It's called Principessa and, well, I think I'll be going back there seeing as how everything fit and I just loved everything in the store.

Gordon informed me that we would need to watch at least part of the World Cup Game in which England was to play the US. As a Scotsman, he was of course rooting for the US and needed to teach Ewan to do the same. I don't think Ewan will have any problem emulating his father.

Later that weekend, we met up with some musician friends who happened to be in town. So it was that we all stayed out until late, talking and eating some more. Ewan fell asleep, content that we were all close by.

Now we are home in New York, and the adjustment from jet lag has begun in earnest.

Mixed Roots Festival, Los Angeles

2010-06-18T13:34:00.003-05:00

A couple of photos from the Mixed Roots Festival, where I was lucky enough to read last weekend in Los Angeles. I've posted about the festival before--having now attended I can tell you I was incredibly, immensely impressed. What fun for someone like me to see so many "mixed roots," and the interest in mixed-up-ness. How nice not to have to explain my heritage. The National Museum for Japanese Americans is not to be missed, and manages to span a great deal of (sometimes difficult) history. What a treat to see Maya Soetoro-Ng read in person. I'd tell you what she read and what it all looked like but we were asked not to do so, as the book is to be published next year. Needless to say--for reasons that will be obvious next year--I found her story lovely and moving. And how wonderful to have met Tara Betts and Neil Aitken--I don't know how I missed Carleen Brice.

Thanks to all who came and spoke and bought my book! And thanks to Heidi and Fanshen for organizing a much needed and singular event.

Ewan in Japan

2010-06-16T00:23:00.016-05:00

Ewan is now a world traveler. He's been on planes, trains and automobiles--and in this picture, is happily riding the bullet train. Probably the most challenging thing about traveling in Japan with a child, is wrangling all the luggage on public transportation. There is a wonderful service in Japan called "takubin," which allows you to ship your stuff anywhere, and we did a lot of sending our luggage ahead. But this meant carrying a lot of other stuff on our bodies, which was tough. I am going to again look into the perfect luggage solution--probably some kind of backpack--which makes it easy for me to push a stroller and carry diapers.

Ewan also met a lot of folks. Here we are--all four generations of us: my mother, grandfather, Ewan and me. It's strange for me to think that Ewan is actually of even more mixed heritage than I am, though he looks far more white than anything else. I should add that he was much admired in Japan for his pale skin and blue eyes. He is a natural flirt, and took all the admiration as a chance to smile and win everyone over. He was a delightful traveling companion.

A less formal picture of Ewan and my grandfather. I love that Ewan looks so engaged and even slightly skeptical. It was as though he understood he was meeting someone special, and someone the likes of whom he'd never seen before. In this photo, Ewan is being held by our friend Nobata.

Regular readers know about the temple in the north which my family owns. Sempou, our cousin, is the head priest, and here he is holding Ewan. I try very hard to get Sempou to smile in photos, but it rarely works, since the default expression for pictures is this sort of blank and formal face.

Ewan also had a delightful time in Hadano with more family. Here is my cousin Masako--Ewan loved her and her mother. I have more photos, but need to sort through them, which is a challenge when one has to clean, do multiple loads of laundry, look after a baby and type up interview notes . . .

Ewan also spent time with Isao and Nono--the latter pictured here with Kawa-chan, my very favorite manicurist. Nono was a natural father. We all had a great time running around Tokyo together--Nono feeding Ewan and changing diapers and taking photos.

And I was able to get my manicure (for research purposes) while Ewan played nearby with friends.

The finished result.

Here is Isao--the perfect uncle.

Every time I spoke to my husband via Skype--and Ewan squealed upon seeing his Daddy--I was asked to recount what I had eaten, because Japanese food really is some of the best cuisine in the world. So, herewith--two photos of food.

We took Ewan to a particular shrine that I like to visit. I have a relationship with the guujisan (priest) there, and often go to interview him or to ask questions about Japan and Shinto. Here, Ewan gets his hands washed in the traditional way. Usually shrines have water outside for hand washing. But this inside fountain permits the priest and guests to go seamlessly from one building and into the shrine without going outside--in case of rain.

Everyone expected Ewan to cry during the drum banging and the bell rattling. Instead, he was completely transfixed.

Nashville Public Library

2010-06-15T23:30:00.002-05:00

Oh, libraries. How do I love thee? Librarians have been so very kind to me and to my book, Picking Bones from Ash. Here's a conversation I had with Deanna Larson at the Nashville Public Library. I loved the intelligent and perceptive questions--and our conversations. It all made me want to visit. Our talk was back in November, but the podcast just recently went live. Please give a listen and enjoy.

Mixed Roots Festival

2010-06-12T01:57:00.005-05:00

I'm here in Los Angeles for the Mixed Roots Festival, co-founded and run by bestselling and prizewinning writer Heidi Durrow. Picking Bones from Ash is about many things--travel, family, spiritual seekers--but it is also about "mixed roots," something I understand very well. Selfishly I wanted a book with a heroine who was from different worlds, because growing up it was difficult for me to find novels where characters blended places and backgrounds as I did. Picking Bones from Ash celebrates the reality of a mixed up life.

The festival will be at the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles. I read at 3:30 PM. I hope to see you there!

2010 Paterson Fiction Prize Finalist

2010-06-04T19:41:00.003-05:00

I woke up in Japan this morning (more on that and some photos in the near future) to a lovely email from Marisa at Graywolf, who had written to inform me that Picking Bones from Ash is a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize. Jayne Anne Phillips' book, Lark and Termite, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, is the winner. Also on the list, Joyce Maynard, who I loved meeting in Portland last fall, and Bonnie Joe Campbell, who was also a National Book Award finalist. The list:

First Prize:

Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips

Finalists:

Picking Bones from Ash by Marie Mutsuki Mockett

American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell

Claiming Kin by Laura Marello

Irish Girl by Tim Johnston

Labor Day by Joyce Maynard

Congratulations to everyone. I had no idea I was even in this contest, and am grateful to everyone who gave the book a chance and read it. This is some nice company to be keeping.

Girls Write Now: Chapter Reading Series

2010-05-18T20:58:00.004-05:00

If you are in town on Friday, please come out to the Chapters reading series at the Center for Fiction for the wonderful organization Girls Write Now. This impressive organization recently received the Coming Up Taller Award from Michelle Obama. I'm pretty excited to be a part of the line up, in which young girl writers--and their professional writer/mentors--read their work out loud. Some of you who have known me for a long time are aware of my work in the mentoring field (yep, I edited that), so this is of course very much up my alley.

Maud Newton--that would be the talented, prize winning writer and blogger Maud who the Times named one of the 40 bloggers who really matter (and the only book/literary blogger at that)--has a generous write up of the impending event. And of course it's nice to be back at the Center for Fiction, where I read last fall. This time, I'll be about 30 pounds and one baby lighter. I hope to see you there.

Saroyan International Prize

2010-05-05T11:59:00.001-05:00

Pretty exciting news here in the Mockett (sorry Drummond/Mockett) household. In addition to the fact that Ewan has started to roll over (and generally creep around on the floor and in his crib), I learned a couple days ago that Picking Bones from Ash has been shortlisted for the Saroyan International Prize. I was shocked--completely shocked--and so, so happy. I mean, it always feels like a miracle for a writer when her work is read and appreciated. But to be shortlisted for a major honor like this, when one is judged by her peers and serious and critical readers, is very exciting. I'm honored and flattered.

The list is impressive, and includes Victor Lodato, whom I met and hung out with in Portland, and Skip Horack, who I met last summer at Breadloaf. You'll also see some newsworthy names in there. (And, yes, I know they got my name wrong. That spelling is floating around out there and many have opted to use it, and I'm not about to complain).

You know, it's a funny thing. At one point, every writer works and works and works in isolation, knowing almost no one. That writer might, say, go to a conference, not really knowing why she's there, but watching all these published authors on the other side of some "fence," talking about the publications, and wondering how she ever gets to part of that world. And she might feel that her career is going nowhere, while all that time, her work is actually "working" for her.

Suddenly--I know so many people who write. I know and admire their books. I know what it means to be included in a list like this where the writing is so strong, and the commitment to artistic vision full of nothing but integrity. There are no sell outs on this list. I

All this is incredibly cool. And it only happens if you have a committed publisher and editor--which I do. And it all just makes me want to work even harder. So thanks to the anonymous readers who included me. I'm just tickled.

Backwards Life at The Superstition Review

2010-05-05T10:43:00.003-05:00

Way back when, I worked on short stories and thought it might be fun to try to write one that went backwards. I was thinking about the whole idea of Buddhist reincarnation, and how, after death, the soul is supposed to do a sort of "backwards life," until it is reborn in the physical world as a baby. So, I wrote a story called "Backwards Life." I also forgot that I had it. But this spring, The Superstition Review, the online journal for the Arizona State University Literature, Writing, and Film program, asked me for a piece, and I finally remembered that I had this story. I pulled it out, and polished it up, and am so pleased to see it out in the world.

The story opens thus:

"Somewhere in the house they would find a treasure. Beyond the hoarded boxes of roach killer and incense lining the periphery of the living room, there would be jewelry, the gold and scarlet kimonos Reiko remembered from childhood, a secret love letter. The house, like the body, would have one heart."

Read the whole thing if you like!

Children's Day

2010-05-05T10:37:00.000-05:00

Happy Children's Day, a holiday in Japan that always falls on May 5th. Once upon a time Children's Day was Boy's Day, but in an effort to recognize all kids, the holiday is now gender neutral. What follows is a personal post-skip if that kind of thing annoys you.

Traditional Children's Day decorations include enormous koi flags like the ones pictured above. If we were all in Japan right now, riding the train through the countryside, or perhaps venturing from city to city, we'd see these flags everywhere. Nobody celebrates the beauty of childhood like the Japanese. Not even, I'd venture to say, the Victorians. (Photos from here and here).

Our own flying carp are much more modest here in Astoria. But thanks to my friend Atsuko, in Japan, Ewan has this to look at as he lies on the floor, while the fan whirls overhead and I curse at the rising temperatures.

Actually, maybe Ewan isn't just lying on his back. In honor of Children's Day, he seems to have decided to roll over. I saw him grabbing his foot this morning and just as I was going to take a picture of that, he suddenly flipped.

We actually celebrated Children's Day over the weekend at Japan Society, which does wonderful events for children. The afternoon began with a play--a reenactment of Momotarosan, or the Peach Boy. He's a folk hero who, true to hero status, slew a pack of wild onis or demons, along with the help of a monkey, dog and bird.

Here's Ewan, after the play, posing with the actor who played the dog.

In addition to snacks and treats, the kids made crafts. Here you see some girls coloring and assembling their own koi streamers (Ewan has a complete one thanks to Daddy).

It was also traditional on Boy's Day to display a set of armor. You know--to show off budding male strength. We don't have a helmet for Ewan, but fortunately the Japan Society activities included origami helmets out of newspaper.

Here, Ewan models his own.

Saturday was also my mother's birthday. So we capped out the evening at Aburiya Kinnosuke for some tasty Japanese food. They had a special namasake available and I am still craving it four days later.

Hello Kitty Must Die

2010-05-04T22:12:00.004-05:00

Last year, I received a manuscript in the mail from a young writer, hoping to find an agent and publisher. I read about a page and thought: "This is going to sell." And it did. The book was subversive, and savagely funny. It skewered the perceptions that we have of Asian women--and the way they view themselves. It attacked everything from the Asian graduation-to-marriage-peer-pressure-conveyor-belt-, the ubiquitous family Chinese restaurant immigrant experience, the pressure to get a great paying job . . . in short, it overturned most every stereotype of being an Asian girl in this country that I could think of. It was rude, but it was smart and I loved it. And I blurbed it. The book is "Hello Kitty Must Die" (see, no punches held) and the author, Angela Choi. Here is my blurb:

"Darkly humorous, but compulsively readable, Hello Kitty Must Die skewers the stereotypes of Asian girls as Hello Kitties through its protagonist, the enigmatic Fiona Yu. With a knowing wink to Fight Club and The Joy luck Club, Choi sends her characters careening through corrupt law firms and exclusive clubs, finally landing straight in the heart of San Francisco Chinatown, and leaving a trail of blood along the way. Like Pahlaniuk before her, Choi acutely spots what is absurd about life on the margin, and captures the disaffection of being young and smart in a country drowning in excess and saturated in media. A bold, and visceral debut."

I meant what I wrote then and I mean it now. And I'm so pleased that the critics have noticed too. Here, for example, is the Publishers Weekly review, which is starred. This is a big deal. Writers live to have a starred review. It means, "Hey. Look at this book! It's worth reading!"

"A demonic stir-fry of influences, including Amy Tan, Chuck Palahniuk, Clive Barker, and Candace Bushnell, infuses Choi’s prose with passionate ferocity."

I keep thinking to myself--who else can I talk to about this book? I met with Terry Hong, from Book Dragon last week, and thought: I need to take a book to Terry. Too late. She'd already read it and loved it. So, now I am putting up a general post, appealing to all of you, whoever you might be, to give Hello Kitty Must Die a chance. It will not be everyone's cup of tea. Choi is angry. There is a body count. But I do promise that the book is hysterically funny and perverse, and sometimes in life, you can learn something from things a bit outre. It is the perfect book for the irritated and not-repressed-but-perceived-to-be Asian in your life. Or, non Asian, if you wish. Doesn't everyone need to kill Hello Kitty every now and then?

And I should also say, before closing, that I knew Angela Choi once upon a time when I was an SAT tutor for Kaplan test prep. Angela was a young high school student--and just about as motivated a person as I have ever met. She worked her ass off and raised her score by 300 points. She went to Yale. She took charge of her life. She's generally a person to be reckoned with--and so is her book.

Home, Kansas City, Washington DC, Other Home

2010-04-26T15:48:00.018-05:00

Friends know I have an unquenchable wanderlust. It's supposed to be hard to travel with children, but not impossible. I decided to do a test run to California with Ewan, in order to prepare for a longer trip later this spring when we will go to Japan. I have to say, Ewan did very well. My seatmate gave him a 9.5 out of 10.

I also badly wanted to be back in California. Some part of me always looks to the west for home and trips back to Carmel sustain me during the rough times in New York. Everyone always talks about how beautiful spring is in New York. And, yes, it is. But California is much prettier.

The fruit trees were blooming and I know that we will have a crop of plums, cherries and apples to look forward to in the months ahead. The olallieberries are also in bloom and we are hoping the bees will help give us a crop. The air is rich and the light powerful. We had a small storm, but that only sent us a pair of Mallard Ducks who have taken to the back yard for mating. I'm hoping for a family of ducklings.

Ewan had his first trip to the beach. It was a glorious Sunday, and easily 75 degrees. I bought a sun parasol for the beach for future trips this summer. I can't wait until Ewan can wade and go poking around in tide pools.

I was pretty excited last year when I learned that the Kansas City Public Library had picked my book, Picking Bones from Ash, for the April Book Club read. I've wanted to go to Kansas City for a long time. Every harvest, we used to talk about making the road trip from Nebraska to Missouri to go to the Nelson Atkins Museum. My father, finally did--I never had. So, I leapt at the chance to meet some of my readers, and to visit a city I've always wanted to see. I was thrilled to see many of the treasures that I've known about from books. And of course, it was fun to see pieces which could very well have been featured in my novel.

Kansas City isn't just about a museum, however. As the slogan goes, it's about blues, jazz and barbecue. We hadn't been on the ground for more than a few minutes before we started asking where to go and eat. Everyone said the same thing: Jack Stack.

The photo above is blurry, but there we are, newly off the plane and chomping down on a huge plate of meat, with some beans, corn and potatoes (and beer) on the side. For some reason, Ewan wasn't included in the photo.

A close up of the food.

Those of you who know about my farming occupation are probably aware of the fact that I check the wheat prices at the Kansas City Board of Trade most days. In fact, that's one reason I wanted an iPhone. Here is the building itself, with some kind of metal-work wheat on the front. I didn't get to visit. That will have to be on another trip.

Kansas City is also known as a city of fountains, and here we are with the cat fountain. (Or rather, here is my mother and here is Ewan). I have to say--we found the city really beautiful and there is more I want to see when I go back.

I was a little nervous to meet with the Book Club. I mean--what would they say? The evening turned out to be a true highlight for me--perhaps the highlight since I've started touring around to talk to people about Picking Bones from Ash. Everyone had read the book and enjoyed it. And I was so pleased to learn that nearly everyone had a different take on what the book meant to them. This, after all, is why writers write--to reach people. And hopefully to entertain. A few of the book club members posed for this photo with me--a few were camera shy. No matter. I can still see what it was like to sit in that room, flanked on either side by readers.

And here I am with librarian Carol Levers. I'm grateful to her for giving me the chance to interact with her book club group. I hope we stay in touch and that I can visit again some day. We spoke only briefly after the discussion ended and I learned what an interesting person she is, with an fascinating personal history. I also have to say that the Kansas City Library is quite possibly the most gorgeous library I have ever seen. You hear about how people don't read and libraries are closing. I am glad that the library in Kansas City is in such gorgeous shape--and is also so busy.

From Kansas City, we returned home to New York for less than twenty-four hours before barreling off to Washington DC. This time, we traveled by train to celebrate the inaugural issue of the Asian American Literary Review, which contains an essay by yours truly. Eight writers also spent most of the day reading and talking to an eager audience on the subject of writing and being Asian American for the syposium: 8. I was so impressed by the variety of viewpoints represented at the Symposium. I was also so happy to catch up with writer Ru Freeman, author of A Disobedient Girl, who poses here with Ewan. They make a nice couple.