Review of Petrouchka, Monotones, and Sinfonietta

Petrouchka (1911)
Choreographer- Michel Fokine
Composer-Igor Stravinsky
Performed by the Paris Opera Ballet
*Petrouchka-Thierry Mongne
*Ballerina-Monique Lourdieres
*Moor- Jean Guizerix
*Magician- Alain Borgeau

The opening of the piece begins with an extensive set that looks like the streets of Russia. Each person is dressed in costumes that reflect a common day with various "characters" such as the street dancers, the Russian folk dancer, the strong man, and a strange magic man. At this point there is more acting than dancing. The magician and Petrouchka, Ballerina, and Moor come in by a stage. The magician controls people sized dolls that seem to come to life. I think that Petrouchka is cute in an Edward Scissorhands type of way. The dolls do very character like dancing. The next scene is in Petrouchka's room. Her he does a solo and seems extremely sad. The ballerina comes in but there isn't a lot of long combinations of ballet. I feel like there should have been more dance for this entire piece. The next scene is in the Moor's room. Here the Moor and the Ballerina do a short piece then the Moor and Petrouchka fight. The Grand Carnival has alot of folk dancing. Although this is cool, I still wish there would have been more ballet. Also I did not like when they were mean to the bear. The folk dancing was impressive for the fact that I think my quads would be killing me if I tried doing that. I didn't really understand the demons part. To me it looked like a wolf and then there were birds and a sheep but I really don't know what was going on for that part. Snow begins to fall and I liked that because it made the set very interesting. Petrouchka came back and then the magician made it seem like he killed Petrouchka when he spun a limp doll around. Really Petrouchka had escaped into a boat in the sky. What happened next I didn't really understand either, Petrouchka collapses over the side of the boat, so I am not sure if he died or what that was supposed to represent. I really wih there were longer sections of ballet in this piece but I enjoyed the story aspect to it. I feel like this would be a really good family ballet that almost anyone could generally understand.

Monotones 2 (1966)
Choreographer- Frederick Ashton
Composer- Erik Satie
Performed by the Joffrey Ballet
*Elizabeth Parkinson
*Glenn Egerton
*Tom Mossbrucker

The main idea of this piece came from the moon and Earth interactions. This could be seen by the frequent rotation of dancers. The whole dance had a strong sense of symmetry. Not only were the dancers in symmetric formations, but when one dancer did a move the others would too in a way that made it seem even. The choreography consisted of many beautiful extensions and elongated body positions. The movements were not rapid but did involve many repititions. Overall I liked this piece, I'm not sure if I would have known it was about the moon and Earth just based off the choreography and the non flattering white unitards with bedazzled head caps, but I think if the knowledge of space is there then the dance is understandable.

Sinfonietta (1978)
Choreographer-Jiri Kylian
Composer- Janecek
Performed by Nederlans Dans Theater

The first thing that caught my attention was the blue-green landscape that was set as the background for the piece. Male dancers wearing off-white baggy shirts with white short, entered the stage first. Their movements were quick and consisted of many jumps and turns. To me, the dancers seemed to be like birds in a meadow, the formations changed and shifted together like how birds fly and the frequent jumps gave a lifted sense. The next section included men and women. The women were stopped by a guy and then seemed to be slightly controlled. The man picked her up and she seemed kind of sad. I really like the part with the slowly, melting peel off. At the end, everyone came back onto stage and there was rapid movements again. The dance finished by everyone walking back towards the landscape and then dissapearing. I found it interesting that the dancers were in canvas ballet shoes instead of pointe because usually when I think of professional dancers I always think of pointe shoes. The lighting through out the piece really made me continue to think of birds in a field. Overall I enjoyed this piece and but didn't completly understand what the choreographer was going for; it was beautiful though.