Author Topic: ATTENTION ALL NYC BROKIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (Read 11481 times)

Offline optom3

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ATTENTION ALL NYC BROKIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
« on: October 18, 2010, 02:53:24 pm »
Mandy has just alerted me to the fact that Matthew Bournes Swan Lake is playing now in NYC.

YOU HAVE TO GO AND SEE IT !!!

I first saw it 14 years ago and it still has a major hold over me, in fact I am moving heaven and earth to get there. It is unsurpassed, male beauty, skill,  virility and talent that transcends our mortal plain. I am incapable of putting it into words as they  cannot even scratch the surface of its magnificence.

It is a tour de force and a tragedy. If you only ever see one ballet, go see this one.It will change you as did BBM. Beauty, physicality, talent, skill, raw, homoerotic and yet surpressed sexual energy. OMG just go see it.

Offline Mandy21

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Re: ATTENTION ALL NYC BROKIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #1 on: October 18, 2010, 03:38:54 pm »
Here was the article, btw, off the AP yesterday:

Bourne's male swans are back, and soaring again


By JOCELYN NOVECK, AP National Writer Jocelyn Noveck, Ap National Writer – 31 mins ago
NEW YORK – In the imagery of classical dance, the swan is innocence personified. It is ethereal. It floats, it flutters, it wobbles and it dies — ever so delicately.
The swan does not have rippling biceps or chest hair. It does not have 10 pack abs. It does not thunder, it does not hiss, and it never, ever, glistens with body sweat.
Unless, of course, we're in Matthew Bourne's world. And what a mesmerizing place that is.
More than a decade after Bourne's eye-popping troupe of male swans first hit New York in his reimagined "Swan Lake," winning three Tony awards, the production returned Sunday for a nearly four-week run at City Center.
And it should not be missed. Call it theater, dance, or something perched happily in between, the return of "Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake" is a chance for those who didn't catch it in 1998 to see what kind of life a fertile mind and some pretty cool feathered knickers can breathe into a century-old classic, exposing it to audiences who might never dream of entering an opera house.
It's also a chance to dispel some myths about the show that may still exist even as it has become a classic in its own right, with runs in London's West End and on Broadway, touring productions worldwide and even a reference in the final scene of the movie "Billy Elliot," when Billy grows up to perform as — you guessed it — a Bourne swan.
This is not, for example, an all-male production of "Swan Lake," with men in tutus winkingly taking over female roles. Women play women, and men play men.It's also not all about being gay. Yes, the young prince falls in love with a male swan, but the themes here are much broader: It's about a search for connection, essentially, and yearning to belong somewhere, and perhaps that universal experience of wanting what we cannot have.
All that yearning belongs to the Prince, played here with a thoroughly winning vulnerability by the boyish Dominic North (alternating in the role with Simon Williams).
It's not hard to sympathize with this young man, who is confined to a life of royal drudgery — ship christenings, statue unveilings and the like — with a mother who is incapable of affection, unless it's of a sexual nature. As the curtain rises and the lush Tchaikovsky score begins (the music is taped in this production, alas) the prince is sleeping uneasily, a stuffed toy swan in his arms. His mother enters his room to check on him: She refuses his outstretched arms.
Briefly, the subject of his dreams — or are they nightmares? — appears above his bed: a swan, majestic and menacing. But these creatures will not fully appear until later in the show, when the prince, having been tossed out of a divey disco (you wouldn't think it would be easy to stage a disco scene to Tchaikovsky, complete with an Elvis impersonator, but Bourne does it) and now in utter despair, heads to a park at the edge of a lake. He writes a suicide note and prepares to jump.
And then there they are. Bourne's bare-chested creatures, in their satyr-like costumes by Lez Brotherston, emerge from the water with soaring leaps, muscular yet graceful, dangerous and alluring at the same time. Every so often, they hiss. Bourne has found ways for his birds to flap their arms and jerk their heads and necks in a manner that seems much more, well, swanlike than their idealized ballet versions.
Not that these mannerisms hinder the athleticism of their dancing. By the end of their exhausting appearance in Act 1, the swans are not just glistening with sweat — some are tossing off beads of it every time they turn.
As their leader, Richard Winsor (alternating with Jonathan Ollivier) is not only a stellar dancer but charismatic, with a penetrating stare under those black-lined eyes and the black strip coming down his forehead. Later, at the Royal Ball, he resembles an androgynous rock star in black leather pants and wielding a riding crop as The Stranger. It is the human incarnation of his swan, the manipulative Odile to his first-act Odette. It's easy to see why he makes both men and women swoon.
Like so many of his fellow performers, Winsor is an actor as well as a dancer. There is no dialogue in this "Swan Lake," beyond a few "Hurrahs," occasional outbursts of laughter and hisses, but there is certainly acting, and not merely the canned, dance-acting facial expressions one sees in so many story ballets.
Particularly fine on the comic side is Madelaine Brennan as the kooky, bubble-headed lass who tries to lure the prince. And Nina Goldman is a chillingly effective Queen.
The costumes are first-rate, too, and not just those swan knickers — check out the Queen's stunning red ball gown covered by a black cape. It's worthy of a red-carpet appearance.
Of course, things never turn out happily in "Swan Lake," for either prince or swan — not in the original, and not here. Though Bourne has made many changes in the plot, and has tweaked the production, he says, to this day, the end is still, sadly the same: Only in death can a prince and the swan he loves finally be together.
"Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake," a New Adventures production, runs through Nov. 7.

Dawn is coming,
Open your eyes...

Offline optom3

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Re: ATTENTION ALL NYC BROKIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2010, 10:46:33 am »
Thanks to Mandy for the original heads up about this. !!
Now if I sell a kidney will I be able to raise the money. Who needs 2 kidneys, my brother was actually born with only one and had no idea until at 46 he got kidney stones.
Hmm woner how difficult DIY surgery is !!

Offline southendmd

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Re: ATTENTION ALL NYC BROKIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2010, 11:23:52 am »
I saw this in NYC back in 1998 and loved it.  Highly recommended.


Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: ATTENTION ALL NYC BROKIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2010, 11:36:47 am »

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Uyg24hOiog[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Uyg24hOiog
(Click on the url)

 :)
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
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Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
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Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: ATTENTION ALL NYC BROKIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #5 on: October 19, 2010, 11:46:36 am »




Richard Winsor, foreground, and Dominic North performing
at City Center. The production returns to New York for the
first time since 1998.



"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: ATTENTION ALL NYC BROKIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #6 on: October 19, 2010, 11:56:17 am »


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/arts/dance/18swan.html


Dance Review
Prince’s Fate, Entwined With Desire
By GIA KOURLAS
Published: October 17, 2010




The choreographer and director Matthew Bourne has said that as a child he found swans frightening, so it’s only fitting that in his theatrical mind they are as well — wild, menacing creatures, quicker on land than you might expect and poised to attack. They tip the scale more toward power than pretty; they’re also played by men.

“Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake” — a painterly exploration of desire told through dance — has returned to New York for the first time since 1998, when the production played on Broadway and won three Tony Awards. On Friday night New Adventures, Mr. Bourne’s company, began a three-week run of it at City Center.

Unlike the previous production, this one used taped music; in protest representatives from Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians handed out leaflets outside the theater that read, “There is no music tonight,” and “It is going to be a fake performance!” Neither turned out to be true, but the lack of an orchestra, especially in a show that retells the music as much as the dance, was singularly felt.

Like the classical ballet, Mr. Bourne’s version involves a prince and a swan, but here both are male; his reinterpretation raises the ballet’s inherent sexiness and gives Tchaikovsky’s music new force. In this most recent incarnation it’s not merely a sensation but fairly sensational too. Over the years Mr. Bourne’s production has frequently and erroneously been described as an all-male version of the ballet. There are women as well, and it’s less a ballet than a modern-dance retelling of one. It is laced with references to ballet as well as to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the British royal family and the notion of acceptance.

The story revolves around a queen (the captivating Nina Goldman) whose repressed son, the prince (Dominic North), is having a meltdown. Born into a job he has no feel for, he lacks love. (The only time his mother touches him is in public.) When he encounters a swan ([b]Richard Winsor[/b]), he not only figures out what kind of a man he wants to be and be with — daring, passionate and free — he also finds hope.

As a storyteller Mr. Bourne is unwavering in his ease, and [b]Lez Brotherston[/b]’s set is full of surprises, like when the prince’s bed, in reverse, becomes a royal balcony. Mr. Brotherston’s costumes have gone through a few alterations (the queen now wears scarlet in the ballroom scene) but give the production a glamorous uniformity.

In the opening waltz Mr. Bourne cleverly relates the back story: the prince accompanies the queen to an assortment of events to learn the rules of royalty. It doesn’t come naturally. Ms. Goldman’s queen, outwardly serene and inwardly lustful, shows that’s she’s capable of affection, just not the maternal kind. The prince’s girlfriend (a hilariously crass Madelaine Brennan) also appears, and it’s soon apparent that she is trouble. She also seems to be in cahoots with the shifty private secretary (Scott Ambler).

Escaping the palace, the prince, performed with a mesmerizing innocence by Mr. North, makes his way to a park, where he scribbles a suicide note. Before he can jump into the lake, Mr. Winsor’s swan appears — radiant, wearing feathered breeches and marked with a black streak on his forehead.

Mr. Winsor is a darting, restless swan, sweeping fiercely through the music or quieting his body to instill the notes with foreboding presence. He creates tension in the smallest of moments: when he bends over and arches into a head roll, the movement takes on a dangerous edge. In their pas de deux he and Mr. North play with weight, parting and connecting until the swan cradles the prince.

When Mr. Bourne is not advancing the story, the choreography for the rest of the flock can give off a whiff of generic modern dance; there is a rough power as the swans move from one side of the stage to the other, but also a repetitiveness in their leaps and turns. Their isolated poses provide more lasting intensity, recalling images of Nijinsky.

Mr. Winsor shows up again in the ballroom scene, but this time he’s the stranger, wearing black leather pants and flaunting a riding crop. All the woman in the room are intrigued, including the queen. Mocking the prince’s imploring looks, the stranger seduces them all. For the prince, it’s unclear what is reality and what is fantasy.

In the ballroom dances Mr. Bourne is at his most reverential and humorous: during the coda the stranger sweeps the queen into his arms for a series of lifts. Taken from the “Yam” dance in Astaire and Rogers’s “Carefree,” the move fits perfectly with the music.

For the prince this is the final straw; he loses his grip and is locked away. Swans, more predatory than ever, appear from underneath his bed like a horror scene out of “The Birds.” The confident stranger is gone; Mr. Winsor, back in swan form, claws his way through the mattress.

It’s harrowing, but in the end “Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake” represents a question larger than the story itself: When is tradition necessary, and when do we break free? At the end of the film “Billy Elliot,” the title character is about to leap onstage, not as a prince, but as Mr. Bourne’s swan. It’s an unexpected ending: in that moment we know that Billy Elliot, like Mr. Bourne, hasn’t taken the traditional road, but given tradition a push.

“Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake” continues through Nov. 7 at City Center, 131 West 55th Street, Manhattan; (212) 581-1212, www.nycitycenter.org.
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline southendmd

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Re: ATTENTION ALL NYC BROKIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #7 on: October 19, 2010, 12:03:51 pm »


Dominic North and Jonathan Ollivier

Offline southendmd

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Re: ATTENTION ALL NYC BROKIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #8 on: October 19, 2010, 12:25:30 pm »
There was a "tenth anniversary" tour of the ballet in 2008.  It came to Boston, but only for three performances.  I had tickets to the first performance.  There we were, great seats, sold-out house.  We sat there for 45 minutes after the curtain should have risen.  No show.  

Finally, someone came out to inform us that because of some "unsafe scenery", the show would be cancelled.  Bummer!

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: ATTENTION ALL NYC BROKIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #9 on: October 19, 2010, 12:51:57 pm »



There was a "tenth anniversary" tour of the ballet in 2008.  It came to Boston, but only for three performances.  I had tickets to the first performance.  There we were, great seats, sold-out house.  We sat there for 45 minutes after the curtain should have risen.  No show.  

Finally, someone came out to inform us that because of some "unsafe scenery", the show would be cancelled.  Bummer!



Gasp!!

I can't even imagine  what the audience response must have been!! Awful.

"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"