With not much going on in the New York dance scene until National Ballet of Canada’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland September 9-14 at Koch Theater, I’ve been going through interesting videos on YouTube from New York City Ballet dancers.
The first is Principal Dancer Daniel Ulbricht dancing in Brooklyn Bridge Park (I think) to “Ain’t No Sunshine” in April. Musicians are Harrison Coll, Joshua Thew, and Peter Walker -all members of the Corps de Ballet at NYCB – with choreography by Larry Keigwin. Nice dancing from Daniel with pirouettes, tours and saut de basques, with interesting special effects.
The second video is from April, when the company danced at the Kennedy Center in DC. This video features Daniel, Peter, and Harrison dancing on stage at Kennedy Center, the isles and lobby of the theater, and outside of the theater near The White House and World War II Memorial. A lively, fun video.
Multitalented Peter choreographed the third video in NYCB Corps de Ballet dancer Emily Kikta’s newly vacant apartment over Labor Day, set to “Where’s My Bow” by Yo-Yo Ma and Stuart Duncan. The idea of dancing in her vacant Upper West Side apartment was proposed on Wednesday before Labor Day, rehearsals started Thursday, and the apartment was handed back to the landlord on Sunday. Dancers are: Jackie Bologna, Preston Chamblee, Emily, and Peter. From Emily’s YouTube page: “A fun video we did over Labor Day weekend! Because why waste an empty New York apartment?”
Peter did an amazing job of utilizing the different parts of the apartment in ways that I had never thought of and that read very well on film. The nice thing about us being the editors, dancers, choreographers and cameramen, is that it allows us to make sure everything is really tight and exactly how it was envisioned. Nothing gets muddled in transition from person to person. There’s no middle man: we do it all. … Our goal for this video was just to see what we could do in such a small and unique space. We’re very used to dancing in large empty rooms, so changing our environment changed the steps we could do and the whole feeling of the piece. Making videos like this are just a lot of fun for us and we learn more every time.