Boston Ballet / Classic Balanchine / 2 May 2007

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Melanie Atkins in Ballo Della Regina
Canon 5D + 135mm f/2.0
f/2.2 @ 1/880 / ISO 1000

When I first started to go to the ballet, there was nothing I hated more than Balanchine. No plots. No backgrounds. Minimal costumes. Mostly modern music. In short, nothing for the philistine to cling onto.


Company Dancers in Bollo Dela Regina
Canon 5D + 135mm f/2.0
f/2.8 @ 1/1800th / ISO 1600

These days, he's my all time favorite, especially in his most minimalist modern mode. The minimalism emphasizes the dance and eliminates distractions. But it's plenty expressive, if sometimes a little cryptic. I've been calling it abstract expressionism especially since both the timing (50s) and place (NYC) overlaps so well with the painters who used that title. But people who love dance hate that description. What, cmopare Balanchine to Jackson Pollock? Are you kidding? I think it's because the absract expressionists are a little out of fashion and Balanchine is in the pantheon, no more likely to go out of fashion than Mozart. But I love Pollock, Rothko, Hans Hoffman & Co, so I view it as a compliment.


The Company in The Four Temperaments
Canon 5D + 135mm f/2.0
f/2.8 @ 1/400 / ISO 1000

The Four Temperaments along with Serenade is now my all time favorite ballet. Cryptic, simple, powerful, stunning in terms of what it demands from the dancers, unafraid to challenge the rules of classical ballet. It's impossible to watch and not be aware that it is the work of a complex man and brilliant artist expressing some very powerful feelings. What exactly? It's like sitting in front of a Rotko. You have to look for a very long time and ask yourself the question: how does it make me feel. This question will have an answer if you open yourself properly.


Nelson Madrigal & Kathleen Breen Combes
Canon 5D + 135mm f/2.0
f/2.5 @ 1/800 / ISO 1000

System

'You have to look for a very long time and ask yourself the question: how does it make me feel. This question will have an answer if you open yourself properly.'-

photography too?-

not only the looking at but the taking of?-


incredible what these people do and what your photographs are-

DavidS

You captured something beautiful very well.