This one’s for the balletomanes

Last night, we attended NYCB’s Spring Gala. Run time: 2 hours 13 minutes. Program (All Robbins): Circus Polka, Four Seasons, West Side Story. Color scheme: black and yellow. Number of fourth ring audience members wearing fleece jackets and jeans: at least four.

CIRCUS POLKA

A ringmaster (originally played by Robbins) cracks his whip as three waves of girls dash around, the oldest girls in blue, the middle in mint, the youngest in pink. The piece is charming and pointless and over in minutes, but we tear up on cue when the tiniest girls come onstage in their miniature pink leotards–and again when the girls run into formation, spelling out the initials “J.R.,” and two pipsqueaks kneel down to form the periods between the letters. “Not much to that dance,” a woman next to us remarked. “Yes, but it sells tickets. The dancers’ mothers–YOU know,” said the woman two seats down (who was wearing turquoise rhinestoned formal flip-flops).

FOUR SEASONS

We pity the dancers cast as Summer. For one thing, their costumes are lemon yellow. For another, their choreography is languorous and includes lots of shuffling along on turned-in feet. It’s a relief when Fall takes over and Daniel Ulbricht, shirtless and mischievous, leaps onstage. Ulbricht’s part, a showy crowd-pleaser, inevitably overshadows the other male lead in Fall, played last night by Benjamin Millepied. But Millepied’s jaw-droppingly bad dancing made him impossible to ignore. “Oh God,” whispered the woman to our right; “uh-oh,” said the gentleman to our left, as Millepied crashed to his knees like he’d been shot, landed on stiff, straight legs, and performed every pas de chat with his knees in parallel. The comparison to Ulbricht was embarrassing. We realize D.U. is about a foot shorter than most of the other men in the company, but he’s still a dude, and he’s still musclebound; if he can land soundlessly, why can’t the other guys? Getting off the ground is important, yes, but so is landing without a tremendous thud audible from the last seat of the fourth ring.

WEST SIDE STORY SUITE

As a musical, “West Side Story” is nearly perfect. As a ballet, it’s misconceived. Robbins handles the problem of non-singing ballet dancers in two awkward ways: the solos (“Something’s Coming,” “Somewhere”) are performed by professional singers, who creep to the side of the stage and belt it out in the dark. The group numbers (“Cool,” “America”) are shrieked by the dancers. Neither solution feels comfortable. The solo numbers ask us to ignore the physical presence of the talented singers, and the group numbers ask us to pretend that classically trained ballet dancers have the chops to handle Bernstein’s music.

We realize this is musical theater blasphemy, but does anyone else feel that “West Side Story,”  in all its incarnations, smells a bit musty after all these years? Damian Woetzel’s haircut isn’t the only outmoded design element. The Sharks’ shiny red shirts and skinny pants, the Jets’ light blue jeans, the mambo, the knife fights, the fake Puerto Rican cadences–it all seems quaint and irrelevant, especially performed live. The most successful scene, “Somewhere,” works because it’s not wedded to a specific time and place. The best ballets are abstractions.

To terrorize y’alls neighborhood

Hey, Vulture! Can we get a little Step It Up and Dance love, if you please? Nice item on the 25th anniversary celebration of “Thriller,” but where’s the acknowledgment of the SIUAD cast members, who performed in bloody zombie costumes and were interviewed (00:13) by Vulture’s own Lauren Salazar?

Your lazy insecure butt

As former ballet dancers, we know how technically demanding that form is. But can we dispense with the idea that unless it’s ballet (or maybe tap) it’s not challenging, and somehow not real? There’s a weird assumption among bunheads, current and former, that other genres–and hip-hop in particular–are fourth-rate and not deserving of respect. Let’s turn to Nancy O’Meara for her opinion: “if you hate hip hop, and think it’s not hard and that anyone can do it, it’s because you never got off your lazy insecure butt and took a class.” True. (She also tells hip-hop detractors “Don’t be a player hater,” but that’s just embarrassing.)

Fourth dancer to go: Tovah

Oh, poor Tovah. Her dismissal doesn’t outrage our sense of justice, but it still hurts. The benighted girl had the flu; Luke Cresswell mistook her deep focus in rehearsal for boredom (and since when are the judges allowed to consider not just the competition, but the preparation?); and this dance style, like the others, didn’t fit well with her training. As she said, “I didn’t get to point my foot once.”

Vincent’s dismissive, shut-up-and-look-cute critiques grated. Was the “maybe you should look into America’s Next Top Model” comment really necessary? In her croaking, phlegmy exit interview, Tovah says, “It’s really nice that they think I’m pretty, but I don’t want to be just a pretty face. I want to be a dancer.” She will be.

Belated praise for Judge Vincent

We haven’t talked about Vincent Paterson yet. This is because on the show, he kind of embarrasses us. His one-liners invariably fall flat, which makes him hard to watch. But we must give Vincent props for his excellent blog. Among the judges, he makes the most interesting remarks about the dancers. Our favorite excerpts from this week:

“Nick needs to stop thinking about Cody. . . in a competition you have to be focused on your own work.” “Tovah seems so vulnerable and frightened. . . So much talent, so much beauty, so much fear.” “Oscar didn’t run off-stage. He tried his best.” [ed: zing!] “I’m not sure [Mike] is versatile enough to continue much longer.” “I’ve seen [Janelle] jump into the split too many times already.” [ed: totally. Enough with the coochie slams, Janelle.]

Stinky pinks

John and Colin have another outstanding vlog recap up on AfterElton. Highlights: They love Elizabeth’s motherly muffin drop and point out that Heidi Klum would never set foot in contestants’ living quarters. And like us, they give Michael’s dirty pics the thumbs up.

Why he did it

Michael Silas addresses the porn scandal in his Bravo blog. Just as we suspected, he posed for the nudie pics because he was broke: “I was a young man with a dream, who left home and headed to Los Angeles on my own. I was staying between friends, basically living out of my car and I had little money. I was a new dancer and let’s just say the work was not knocking at my door and I desperately needed an apartment and to eat, so when I was asked to pose nude, after much thought, I agreed. The money would give me the option to move into an apartment and have a little money to survive on for a while. I am not justifying what I did or saying it was right, but what I am saying is that being 21, alone in a major city, with no one to turn to financially for help, made me have to make some decisions that I may not have made otherwise.” As TracyGee says below, Michael has handled this situation well. He’s confessed his sins, explained why he committed them, and said he’s sorry (kind of). We don’t care about the penis shots, anyway. Who among us has not found him or herself in a financial bind and considered doing something unsavory? It’s Michael’s bad luck that his payday was immortalized in pictures that will live forever online. Or maybe it’s his good luck. After all, he’s the only SIUAD cast member featured in NSFW glory on Perez, and that’s a far bigger prize than the $100,000 purse.

Third dancer to go: Jessica

Jessica’s dismissal lowers the level of neurosis by orders of magnitude. We’re glad we won’t have to listen to her lazy, nasal voice anymore, but we’ll miss her wackadoo theatrics–the mid-performance anxiety attacks, the geysers of tears, the incessant self-reproach. Jessica seems like a genuine sweetheart, and unfortunately, that doesn’t bode well for her career. The dance world, as everyone keeps reminding us, is tough, and Jessica’s insecurity and dubious work ethic make her unsuitable for that world. This girl doesn’t want to audition and hustle and teach classes for a little extra income; she wants to move back to San Louis Obispo and hang out with her mom.

Latin Boyz

Everyone, including gaysocialites.com, is abuzz with the news of Michael’s porny past. Actually, “porn” is pushing it a bit; so far, Michael’s misdeeds seem to amount to a few pantless pics. (NSFW pics here). Big whoop, we say. In fact, this mini scandal makes us feel more sympathetic to the inscrutable Mike. In her blog, Nancy says “Mr. Silas doesn’t seem to have many friends in the competition”; it’s painful to imagine Michael hanging out by himself in LA, fretting over his backstabbing castmates and wondering how long it will take the bloggers to unearth a mistake he made when he was broke. Michael, we’ll be rooting for you in 4 hours and 10 minutes!

One word: plastics

James’s departure means the disbandment of The Plastics, whose sole members were J. Alsop and Miguel Zarate. Now we’ll see what happens when people stop being bitchy and start being nice. Boooooooring.