28 April 2013

Édouard Manet (1832-1883)

Manet: Portraying Life

Royal Academy of Arts, London

cinema rebroadcast of exhibition tour, 28 April 2013

remarkable assembly of Manet's portraiture

many experts had trivial comments, but overall coverage of the show was excellent


                                       Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe  (1862)


22 April 2013

Lewis Carroll's Alice


Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

chor. Christopher Wheeldon  (2011)
Royal Ballet
with Sarah Lamb (Alice), Federico Bonelli (Knave of Hearts), Edward Watson (Lewis Carroll, White Rabbit), Steven McRae (Mad Hatter) 
I enjoyed the cinema broadcast from London of the clever and amusing ballet (co-production with the National Ballet of Canada). The British company did not dance better than ours, but they had artists to admire. The Queen of Hearts (Zenaida Yanowsky) was perfect in the grotesque role. Federico Bonelli was as accomplished as he was handsome. The casting could hardly have been better.

14 April 2013

Iron Lady



Margaret Thatcher  (1925-2013)

Rt Hon. Margaret Hilda Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS
Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven

Her ceremonial funeral on 17 April 2013 is a notch below state funeral, a grandiose public occasion with military honours, attended by the Queen, and estimated to cost ₤10 million at a time of national austerity and intensive cost-cutting.

Praise from admirers has been effusive while, on the opposite, pop charts in the UK have seen the resurgence of a ditty from the 1939 musical, The Wizard of Oz:  "Ding Dong! The witch is dead".

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1979-1992, she was the first woman in that post. Relentlessly conservative, she was an admirer of economist Friedrich von Hayek, the opposite in values to John Maynard Keynes. She moved to privatize state enterprises and to remove controls in the financial sector. An enemy of unions, she left the mining industry in shambles. She did what she could to dismantle the welfare state. Famously she withdrew public funding of milk for children in the schools.

When in 1982 Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands, the UK sent a naval task force that in 74 days restored British sovereignty. Argentina lost 649 military personnel in that expedition, Britain 255, along with 3 islanders. The patriotic British public was happy. It remains to be seen what Argentine representative, if any, will attend the funeral this week.*

Since her time the important financial sector of the City has been in serious speculative trouble. High unemployment in the country has become endemic. British industry remains in deep decline. National ties of the United Kingdom have weakened with periodic unrest in Northern Ireland, and with evident separatism and local nationalism in Scotland and Wales. Class divisions in Britain are sharper than ever.

It was Russians who gave Lady Thatcher her most apt soubriquet, long surviving the cold war — iron lady.

* none did








                        


12 April 2013

Football as dance


A dance tribute to the art of football

chor. Jo Strømgren  (1997, 2009)

Jo Strømgren Kompani  (Oslo)

Harbourfront, World Stage, Toronto
12 April 2013

I was expecting a team, but there are at most only four dancers on stage (one a boyishly cute girl). The piece has all the gestures and attributes of soccer from the mystique of the ball, opposition,  aggressions, coach, and referee. It is at times quite ingenious as individualities gradually express themselves, with even homoerotic moments. A collective shower à poil is a fitting end to an hour of clever mayhem.

rating: ✶✶✶✶ (of 5)



08 April 2013

Gerhard Richter (German, 1932 - )


Gerhard Richter Painting  (Germany, 2011)
dir. Corinna Belz
rating:  ✭✭✭✭
Netflix

The documentary on this monumental German artist (born 1932) is skilful and very
interesting. It mostly shows him at work, with occasional commentary, and his succinct
views. My total ignorance of him is a surprise. His techniques are amazing though the abstract results mostly do not blow me away.

05 April 2013

Toronto pandemonium


The Prime Minister, not often seen in Toronto, was recently on the tarmac at Pearson along with some other dignitaries, to take delivery of two visiting giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). Two Canadian zoos will be hosting them for the next ten years at a steep annual cost. The PM, peering into the one travel container, said some words about Sino-Canadian friendship. The Chinese Ambassador thought the reception for the bears was more impressive than what he got. The Mayor of Toronto, himself a bear, had no comment but seemed supportive. FedEx delivered the pandas to the Toronto Zoo with police escort. The pair, who may eventually breed, were headed for 30 days of quarantine.
[25 March 2013]

The annual fee to China for panda research will be paid by the federal government, but the local zoo will have heavy costs to house, feed, and care for the animals. Increased attendance at higher admission is expected to more than cover the outlay, as well in general to improve the zoo's local profile.





03 April 2013

ZOO (Brussels)


Like me more like me
chor. Thomas Hauert  (2011)
ZOO (Brussels)
Brussels/Toronto Project with TDT

Two men come at each other in diverse and highly original ways with specific body  language, varieties of movement, occasional sounds, clothing changes, surprising drag, and partial undress. They appear to be lovers more in conflict and intense dialogue than anything else. The piece is avant-garde and always interesting but not, for me at least, homoerotic. I felt sympathy for each man's individuality but could not really relate well by the exhausted end. 

The choreographer, who also performs, is a Swiss who created his own company, ZOO.  He has had lots of experience on the lively Belgian dance scene, including with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Rosas.

3 April 2013
Toronto, Winchester St. Theatre


01 April 2013

Esmeralda

Esmeralda

Эсмералъда

chor. Jules Perrot  (1844), Marius Petipa  (1896)
recension  Yuri Burklava and Vasily Medvedyev  (2009)
Bolshoi Ballet
Балетная Труппа Большого Театра
with Maria Aleksandrova (Esmeralda), Ruslan Skvortsev (Phoebus), and Vyacheslav Lopatin (Acteon)

original simulcast from Moscow 9 October 2011
rebroadcast 31 March 2013

Not a major work, Esmeralda has lots of pretty dancing and some virtuoso moments. There is a vague connection to Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris, and even a hunchback in the cast. But essentially it is a trivial story where true love wins at the end. 




The Bolshoi cancelled the new version of The Rite of Spring, chor. Wayne McGregor, pending return of hospitalized director Sergei Filin. In Moscow they presented another new version by Tatyana Baganova, with guest dancers from Provincial Dance Theatre, but chose not to broadcast it.