{"id":4044,"date":"2013-08-16T13:54:11","date_gmt":"2013-08-16T17:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/?p=4044"},"modified":"2013-08-23T13:54:47","modified_gmt":"2013-08-23T17:54:47","slug":"open-rehearsal-with-ballet-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/open-rehearsal-with-ballet-next.htm","title":{"rendered":"Open Rehearsal with Ballet Next"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Michele<\/a><\/p>\n

Ballet Next<\/a>
\nResidency at Kingsborough Performing Arts Center
\nOpen Rehearsal
\nAugust 8, 2013
\nPhotos and video courtesy of Ballet Next<\/p>\n

When Ballet Next\u2019s Artistic Director Michele Wiles launched into her first effort at choreography, she began by working in her socks.\u00a0 After years of performing classical and contemporary ballets en pointe, she wanted to take the pointe shoes off.\u00a0 This approach seems to personify Ballet Next\u2019s mission — exploring the art of ballet in a new way.\u00a0 Her company is doing a residency at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, and throughout an Open Rehearsal, she provided the audience with a glimpse into her process.<\/p>\n

She told us that she\u2019d changed her choice of music three times before finding her groove with Infra 4 and 5 by Max Richter.\u00a0 She placed her palm over her solar plexus as she talked about the search for an energy that felt right.\u00a0 As the music conjured different emotions, those emotions were translated into different forms of movement.<\/p>\n

\"Michele<\/a>
\nFor this new piece, currently untitled, Ms. Wiles worked with soloist Tiffany Mangulabnan.\u00a0 Both dancers are en pointe and they trade off solos, each one dancing in the center while the other walks the length of the stage, sometimes with an eye on the soloist.\u00a0 The movement of the opening solos is lovely and lyrical.\u00a0 Later, the port des bras becomes staccato.\u00a0 There are isolations of the shoulders and ribs.\u00a0 The torso rolls and the dancers undulate, rising out of a deep plie as if riding a wave.<\/p>\n

For me, it is the unison movement in this piece that is especially lush and gorgeous.\u00a0 It is in the unison sections that the chemistry between the two women is given its showcase.\u00a0 Though their styles are slightly different, they work so beautifully together, and they seem to bring as much power to the moment as a larger ensemble would have done.<\/p>\n

Ms. Wiles paused to make a change in a section of the dance.\u00a0 She instructed\u00a0 Ms. Mangulabnan to adjust the movement, and then she seemed delighted that Ms. Mangulabnan had inadvertently embellished the phrase.\u00a0 She instructed her to remember the changes so that they could work on them in the next rehearsal.\u00a0 Later on, during the Q&A, Ms. Mangulabnan explained that dancers train the memory in the same way that they train muscles.\u00a0 The training begins as soon as they start taking class.\u00a0 Day after day, students are made to learn new phrases of choreography and perform them right away.\u00a0 Because Ms. Mangulabnan had executed the new movement of Ms. Wiles\u2019 piece, she declared, \u201cIt\u2019s in there.\u201d\u00a0 It is easier for her to remember executed movement than it is to remember choreography that she only watched someone else perform.<\/p>\n

Ms. Wiles talked about other fortunate accidents that happened in the studio, such as a moment when Ms. Mangulabnan\u2019s bun came undone during the second section of the piece.\u00a0 Those who were watching the rehearsal agreed that the dance looked better when the dancer\u2019s hair was loose, and so that became part of the ballet.\u00a0 They ran the second section, both of the women wearing their hair down, and that little detail did seem to open up the energy of the piece.<\/p>\n

\"Georgina<\/a>After a lovely vocal performance by singer-songwriter Aurora Barnes, Ballet Next\u2019s cellist and Music Director Elad Kabilio talked about the music for Brian Reeder\u2019s Different Homes.\u00a0 He demonstrated the different voices in Benjamin Britten\u2019s 1964 piece Suite for Cello Solo.\u00a0 They each speak melodically and clearly by themselves, then when played together they either \u201cmeet or contradict each other\u201d.\u00a0 With this music, Mr. Reeder set out to explore a different type of intimacy and relationship between dancers.<\/p>\n

For this ballet, danced by Ms. Wiles and Jens Weber, Reeder set for himself the challenge of creating a pas de deux in which the hands are never used for contact and support.\u00a0 The dance opens with the dancers standing back to back, their heads resting on the shoulder behind them.\u00a0 The hand becomes a feathery extension of the arm as unusual lifts are achieved by contact on different parts of the arm.\u00a0 At several points, Mr. Weber\u2019s arms are extended forward like parallel bars and Ms. Wiles\u2019 balances against them, or is lifted by them, in a variety of different fashions.\u00a0 Their promenade happens arm in arm, linked at the elbow.\u00a0 When Ms. Wiles strikes an attitude front in releve, she is chest to chest with Mr. Weber.\u00a0 The dance does succeed in opening up an unusual conversation and vocabulary between the partners.<\/p>\n

During the Q&A session, Ms. Wiles spoke with fondness about her years with American Ballet Theatre and all of the great artists with whom she worked.\u00a0 After seven years as a principal with the company, she asked herself, \u201cWhat do I want to do next?\u201d\u00a0 She was ready to take the risk of striking out on her own and exploring the art of ballet in another way.<\/p>\n

Though the journey has been artistically rewarding, there have also been challenges which led her to find new solutions.\u00a0 Economic challenges caused her to become much more inventive in creating costumes.\u00a0 Ms. Mangulabnan, who came from Phillipine Ballet Theatre, a larger company with a more regimented routine, also spoke about the adjustments in her process after coming to work with Ballet Next.\u00a0 Rather than taking a daily company class and working with the same artists consistently, she now has to take class on her own.\u00a0 There seems to be nothing routine or predictable about the work that she does with Ballet Next.\u00a0 \u201cEvery other month there are new people in the studio to work with and learn from\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ballet Next sees itself as a \u201cplatform for artists\u201d.\u00a0 Every time that I\u2019ve seen them, there has always been live accompaniment.\u00a0 Mr. Kabilio said that the musicians are part of the collaborative process from the very beginning.\u00a0 \u201cYou can\u2019t collaborate with a CD,\u201d which most companies have to use because their budgets can\u2019t cover the costs of live accompanists in the studio.\u00a0 Because of Ballet Next\u2019s close working relationship with their musicians, trust is built between dancers and musicians.<\/p>\n

Ballet Next will be appearing at New York Live Arts<\/a>, January 13 through 18, 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ballet Next Residency at Kingsborough Performing Arts Center Open Rehearsal August 8, 2013 Photos and video courtesy of Ballet Next When Ballet Next\u2019s Artistic Director Michele Wiles launched into her first effort at choreography, she began by working in her … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,20],"tags":[371,496,495,493,494],"class_list":["post-4044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dance","category-karen","tag-ballet-next","tag-brian-reeder","tag-elad-kabilio","tag-michele-wiles","tag-tiffany-mangulabnan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4044"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4052,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4044\/revisions\/4052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}