ABT at the Frick

I love the Frick, which is a glorious space to view art.  Last time I was at the Frick, I took a peek at the Music Room, but had never spent much time in there.  The Salon last night was in the Music Room, which is a lovely space for an event such as this.  I received an e-mail telling me to be sure to come early to be able to check my coat and get a good seat, so I left work a little early to get to the east side.  I did take a few minutes to peruse the gift shop (found a birthday gift for a friend, woo hoo!), then got in line in the Garden Court with other audience members.  I was probably twentieth or so in line.  They opened the doors about fifteen minutes before the program was about to start and we were able to look at the tapestries on the way into the Music Room.  The tapestries are glorious and I need to go back to look at them more closely and for more than a few seconds.  Even though they're from the nineteenth century, the color and movement is still very strong.  The photo at left is from the Frick's website and I will remove it if asked (I'm having issues with my captioning feature at the moment...).

I got to sit in the second row, which was pretty fun.  When we came in, there were two dancers sitting onstage, clearly playing Don Quixote and Sancho Panza (well, it was clear to me, the gal next to me was quite confused).  No one seemed to be around to tell us 'no photos,' so I took a couple of the Music Room and then at the end during curtain call.  A guitarist came out and played a little Spanish music, maybe flamenco, I'm not sure, but it was very nice.  Then Xavier Solomon, from the Frick, narrated from Cervantes' text, which set the scene nicely.  It's been years since I've read the book, so it was good to hear it so well-read.  Of course, after he finished the introduction, I started thinking about the opening number from the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha, which made me smile.  I've seen the ballet version several times, but the Minkus score isn't always immediately recognizable to me.  The dancers playing Don Quixote and Sancho Panza did the introductory pantomime from the ballet, which is quite lovely, then Clinton Luckett, ballet master from ABT, came forward to talk with us about the ballet, the choreographer (Petipa) and how Petipa used both classical ballet movement and Spanish dance movement together to stage the ballet of Don Q.  Luckett spoke very well and would occasionally put his notes down to demonstrate through movement what he meant.  The talk was quite illuminating and extremely interesting.

Then we got to see three short excerpts from the Don Q ballet.  First was the seguidilla dance, which was a variation of a Spanish folk dance.  Then we saw a brief bit of the fandango between the two second-lead characters in the ballet - the dancers had a lovely rapport and it was delicious to be so close to those spectacular costumes.  Third was a bit of the grand pas de deux from the end of the ballet.  It was terrifically done by new ATB principal dancers James Whiteside and Isabella Boylston.  I'm sure it was hard for them to really let go and dance in such a confined space, but they did a good job with characterization and feeling along with the movement.  It was thrilling to be so close to amazing dancing.

After the dancing, Solomon and Luckett took questions from the audience - for once, all of the questions were really interesting and both men took time to answer them very thoughtfully.  I especially liked how Luckett said the tapestries reminded him to think of dancing as movement and feeling instead of always acrobatics and technique.  I hope he takes that back with him to the company for the spring season.  But I had a great time at the Frick and will definitely look at their whole schedule for the Salon series; I learned a lot in a beautiful setting.  That is always worth a look.  Plus, it was nearly sunset as I left the Frick, so I took a little walk and got some pretty photos.  I'll put some at the end.  The Frick will be repeating this program tonight, so you should take a look if nothing else is on your schedule!