City Center was daunting: large and stuffy and crowded with wine-sipping sycophants...but we did run into Elizabeth Zimmer in the lobby. When we got upstairs to our seats, we endured a mean usher, twice, and then after accommodating the Eurotrash, had to deal with their incessant seal-like clapping. What put it over the top for me was the presentation itself. Enough that there were there ballets in one program - that's to be expected, and we had discussed protocol about leaving at intermissions at a multi-presentational format, i.e. allowed.
But first, Christopher came out and talked about the company and the process and a film that he then showed about the company and the process. And THEN the first ballet began, and the choreography was masterful, and the dancing exquisite, but the underlying stereotypes of gender and behavior really insufferable, especially, I felt, coming from an openly gay ballet master. This is one of the essential problems of ballet, the deeply rooted conservatism. Still, it was excellent for the students to also have this experience. With one exception, the urge to vacate was palpable.
(Afterwards, I considered why our experience at NYCB last semester was so positive and concluded, that one, we had a pre-show talk with the education director, who was very hospitable, and two, the program included some contemporary work that all of the students were impressed and inspired by (Preljocaj). While we had discussed the significance of Balanchine, those works often do read as culturally out of touch, especially when they are live.)
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