Seeing the new production of Cabaret (which is terrific) got me thinking about different kinds of performing. Alan Cumming as the MC and Michelle Williams as Sally Bowles are both fascinating, but for entirely different reasons.

Alan Cumming in Cabaret, photo by Joan Marcus

In the tradition of Fosse dancers Ann Reinking and Bebe Neuwirth, Cumming’s body assumes highly designed shapes in which each detail expresses volumes. A mere crossing of the hands overhead suggests revelry, the curling of his fingers suggests appreciation of beauty, a sudden squat speaks of squalor. His face is a collision of expressive modes: smirking, childishness, calculation, hedonism. He lurks and prowls, enjoying his effect on the audience. He’s a stage animal.

Michelle Williams as Sally Bowles, photos by Joan Marcus

On the other hand, Michelle Williams, who has been so alluring in her movies (Take This Waltz, Blue Valentine, My Week With Marilyn), shrinks a bit from the stage. The camera loves her face for its vulnerability, sensuality, and honesty—and she projects those feelings in Cabaret too. But her body somehow comes off as less than the sum of its parts. It’s not the shape that’s a problem (she has nice legs and good proportions); it’s the energy. Any one of the chorus girls puts out more physical energy than Williams. Dancers are trained to communicate with every inch of their bodies. And that is accomplished partly by projecting pleasure in one’s own body.

Minnelli as Sally Bowles

That sense of pleasure is what’s missing from Williams. Just look at this YouTube of Liza Minnelli in the song “Mein Herr” from Cabaret.  She’s free, she’s brazen, she’s loving entertaining and lapping up the gaze. She’s exquisitely conscious of her power over the audience. She’s part of the recklessness and obliviousness that led up to Nazi power. She’s a danger zone.

Of course Liza was equally comfortable on screen and onstage, so maybe it’s not a fair comparison. And Williams is a very different Sally Bowles from Minnelli. She plays it more like the late Natasha Richardson did. I’m guessing here because I didn’t see the Roundabout Theatre Company’s original version in 1998, but this article spells it out.  Richardson too was called “brave” (as Williams was called in this review by Ben Brantley)  and played it as though she wasn’t really a professional entertainer—apparently more like the character was originally written by Christopher Isherwood.

Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe

But what it means for this revival is that Williams, though poignant in many scenes, is less compelling than Cumming. And that was disappointing to me because she was compelling when she played Marilyn Monroe. She held your eye constantly, which created the charisma that was essential for the story. Williams is a screen animal.

That shrinking in her portrayal of Sally Bowles  (I think it resides in the shoulders) wasn’t in evidence in My Week With Marilyn. She allowed the camera to come to her, to discover her. But when you’re onstage, you can’t rely on the camera’s lens. You have to be totally, unambivalently, willing to reach out across the footlights.

So…Williams is not a stage animal and she doesn’t help build the architecture of Rob Marshall’s Fosse-tinged choreography. But, by giving a truthful, emotionally complex performance, she does contribute to the powerful story that Cabaret tells.

Beckanne Sisk and Fabrice Calmels in Light Rain, photo by Siggul:Visual Arts Masters.

When two dancers performed an excerpt of Arpino’s Light Rain (1981) at the Youth American Grand Prix gala last week, I was happy to see it again. I was grooving on the rhythm—there’s a really strong hold after the first percussive beat—and the sexy, sinuous movement. I love the way, after many repetitions of that staccato rhythm, the music starts swirling and so does the choreography. It was performed with tantalizing boldness by Beckanne Sisk of Ballet West and Fabrice Calmels of the Joffrey Ballet.

At intermission, I ran into a friend who said she found the duet over-the-top raunchy. “Too many hip rolls, and that last position is—” she used a word that meant it did not belong in a theater. The New York Times review pretty much echoed her reaction.

Valerie Robin and Fabrice Calmels of the Joffrey in Light Rain, photo by Herbert Migdoll

That last position of Light Rain’s central duet is, to me, no more suggestive than some of the moments in Balanchine’s Bugaku or Kylián’s Petite Mort. Don’t most 20th-century pas de deux have an erotic component anyway? I started thinking about why something strikes one person as tasteless and not another. There are certainly times when I felt a piece was tasteless, for instance I tend to react that way to Boris Eifman’s work though I know the Russians adore it. So why did I not feel it with Light Rain and should I feel guilty for enjoying it? Does perceiving taste or tastelessness have to do with time and cultural expectations?

During the 1980s Light Rain was a big hit for the Joffrey Ballet. It showcased the super articulation of the dancers—not just in arms and legs, but in the pelvis too. It had a brazenness that was part of what marked the Joffrey as unique. With pieces like Arpino’s Sea Shadow (1962) and Trinity (1970) and Robert Joffrey’s Astarte (1967), the Joffrey was the sexy ballet company. (Of course, it was also the historic ballet company, what with its major reconstructions of Nijinsky’ Rite of Spring, Massine’s Parade, Jooss’ Green Table, and more.) Light Rain was well matched with the trippy music (by Douglas Adamz and Russ Gauthier) and well crafted in each of its sections. Audiences loved it—just as they did last week at the YAGP gala.

Perhaps when the Light Rain duet is taken out of context of the Joffrey rep, it’s more susceptible to charges of tastelessness. And maybe we’re not used to seeing such pieces at the Koch Theater, which after all is the house of Apollo (i.e. Balanchine). But then again, sometimes it’s satisfying to see a ballet that blithely crosses over from Apollonian to Dionysian territory.

The Joffrey Ballet in Light Rain, photo by Herbert Migdoll

I am honored to conduct the one public interview that the Bolshoi’s artistic director is giving while he’s in NYC. In Sergei Filin’s first trip to the U.S. since the horrific acid attack that nearly blinded him, he is here is to serve on the jury of Youth America Grand Prix, with which he’s had a long relationship. My talk with him will be a pre-performance event Friday, April 11, on the Promenade of the Koch Theater open to all who have tickets to the 15th-anniversary gala that same night.

Sergei Filin in Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux, 1990s, photo by Damir Yusupov @Balanchine Trust. Photo of Filin on homepage was taken by me in 2012.

Looking back at my interview with him a few months before that attack, it seems that things were going well, though he knew some dancers were unhappy. But no one could have anticipated the savagery of a hit-man throwing acid in Filin’s face.

In the intrigue that followed, there was a lot of reshuffling at the Bolshoi. During Filin’s medical leave, a “committee” was put in charge, which raised certain questions. Both the general Bolshoi director, Anatoly Iksanov, and notoriously outspoken dancer Nikolai Tsiskaridze lost their jobs. (Tsiskaridze has taken over as director of the hallowed Vaganova Ballet Academy.) The dancer accused of plotting the attack, Pavel Dmitrichenko, was sentenced to six years of hard labor, later decreased to five and a half.

Things have quieted down a bit, and now we can look forward to the Bolshoi returning to NYC in July.

So, for all those who have tickets to the final YAGP gala—and it will be a blowout, star studded gala—I hope to see you there. For more info on the gala and to buy tickets, click here.