It’s officially past the exact middle of the festival and as I’m sitting on the lawn overlooking the stage, tech crew is sanitizing the marley and setting up barres for Damian’s 10am company class onstage. Damian and Suki Schorer have been trading off teaching in the mornings; the Vail Mountain School and the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater have been overflowing with starpower as Whelans trade off rehearsal space with Simkins to better accomodate their respective Ratmansky and Robbins dances. 

Carla Korbes, Daniil Simkin and Joaquin de Luz in class with Artistic Director Damian Woetzel for the 2010 Vail International Dance Festival on 8.2.10. Photo by Caitlin Kakigi.

American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Herman Cornejo arrived late last night from Madrid, directly from a performance with Corella Ballet Castilla y Leon, and was greeted with a hot dinner, chocolate and a Heineken. Today he will rehearse with Boston Ballet principal dancer Misa Kuranaga; other than a week of rehearsal at the ABT studios at 890 Broadway in NYC, they have never danced together before but have always had the one degree of separation in Herman’s sister, Boston Ballet principal dancer Erica Cornejo. They are so perfectly matched physically and stylistically and I am so excited to see them dance the Act Two Pas de Deux from Giselle as well as the Wedding Pas de Deux from Don Quixote. Yesterday, Misa was in the studios choosing between three different versions of Kitri’s solo music; that opening with the pique arabesque into the glissade and saute de chat is intense if the music is too fast but she chose to stick with it as she’s done it in the past. Daniil and Joaquin rehearsed their Robbins/Chopin duet; I think they bring out the best in each other, a very thrilling sort of competitiveness and comraderie. Daniil and Misa will also dance the Pas de Deux from Le Corsaire; they are both two of the most ridiculous virtuosos today and are also dancing together for the first time. It’s been too fun watching all the guys outdoing each other and fooling around at the back of the stage… where else can you see all of them share a stage performing works from Bournonville and Petipa to Wheeldon and MacGregor?

Yesterday I also got a chance to see the two huge world premieres slated for International Evenings of Dance. The solo choreographed for Wendy by American Ballet Theatre Resident Choreographer Alexei Ratmansky is set to a brilliant flamenco score that brings out Wendy’s earthy fluidity. I remember Ratmansky’s last ballerina piece d’occasion- a tour de force for ABT ballerina Nina Ananiashvili in her farewell season set to Khachaturian’s “Waltz Masquerade” in which she jeteed back and forth across the stage and tempted each of her former star partners at ABT. That was something I will never forget and I am so excited to see a special partnership with another brilliant ballerina come to fruition again. I also got to see Tiler, Joaquin, Robbie and Sy Sar rehearse Larry Keigwin’s Aretha Franklin ballet, now called Rock Steady.  There is so much chemistry between Tiler and those three guys and its such a sassy, sexy romp; I hope it will have a long life beyond the festival because it’s hard to imagine having more fun watching a piece.

Joaquin de Luz and Tiler Peck in rehearsals for Larry Keigwin's Rock Steady at the Vail International Dance Festival on 8.2.10. Photo by Erin Baiano.

Stay tuned for video of Daniil, Misa, Wendy, Joaquin, Robbie, Sy, Tiler and Royal Ballet dancers Eric Underwood and Sarah Lamb in rehearsal.

Tuesday night was one of the most exciting nights at the Amphitheater, Dance for $20.10; every Pavillion seat was $20 and every Lawn seat was $10. One thing that I have really admired about this festival is the emphasis on education and outreach that has been instituted. Before each performance Damian speaks to the audience about each of the works to be performed. Tuesday evening featured a kaleidescopic array of dance from Balanchine’s Who Cares?, danced effervescently by Tiler and Robbie, to Black Swan Pas de Deux danced by Carla and PNB Principal Karel Cruz, to Larry Keigwin himself and partner Ashley Browne in an excerpt from Love Songs and a surprise appearance by tango stars Gabriel Misse and Natalia Hills. We were taken from New York to Buenos Aires, from Imperial Russia to contemporary US of A and provided context for each shift. 

Speaking of geographical shifts, BeijingDance/LTDX, led by Artistic Director Willy Tsao, took the stage on Wednesday night; the company became, in 2005, China’s first professional dance company founded independently from the government and has quickly grown into a pioneer of cutting edge choreography. Artist in Residence Sang Jijia created the world premiere of Solitude in Numbers for the festival. The program note read, “You don’t need to be alone to be lonely” and Damian seized the moment to make the apt observation that this was the first visit to America for most BeijingDance/LTDX members. Liu Bin and Song Tingting’s piece October, set to Tchaikovsky’s emotional piece of the same name, was very moving, but I think the heart of the evening was All River Red, set to Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.” Having studied the 1913 premiere at the Theatre Chatelet in Paris in a Russian Avant-Garde class at school, it was really fascinating to see this music employed to suggest not historical Slavic ritual and pagan sacrifice but rather violent oppression in 20th century China, through largely parallel patterns of narrative progression and similarly primitive, earthy and primal movement. And that incredible music in that setting…you feel it in your bones in a way that maybe only the Parisians did when they rioted inside the theater in 1913.

BeijingDance/LTDX rehearses as part of Vail International Dance Festival. Photo by Caitlin Kakigi.

I’ve now been transported to the Vail Mountain School where the Argentinian imports playing in the band for Romper el Piso are rehearsing my favorite tango in the world, “Invierno Porteno” by Astor Piazzolla. I can sit here and listen to this forever…there is nothing as seductive as the bandoneon….but in two hours we will be taking Natalia and Gabriel to a radio interview at the theater, after which the first Up Close (Stars of International Evenings of Dance) will commence.And finally, a video montage of Pacific Northwest Ballet - with some surprise guests - in class and in rehearsal for Benjamin Millepied’s 3 Movements and Ulysses Dove’s Red Angels:

Thank you, PNB!

Until later,

Erica Sheftman