We chatted with Heidi Duckler, in the final creative phase for her upcoming dance work, “Cleopatra CEO,” which opens this Friday night on the 51^st floor of Paul Hastings Tower in downtown Los Angeles, and runs for three subsequent weekends.

The architecture-savvy choreographer, celebrating 30 years as a local dance maker, was last seen running Los Angeles from the chambers of City Hall in “Governing Bodies” (2010). She’s now moving onward, or rather, upward, to the executive office suite of the former Atlantic Richfield Corporation, located atop the black-box high-rise building previously known as ARCO Towers.

Few Angelenos will have ventured where the pied piper Duckler will lead them. It’s a chance to see how the 1% worked — by visiting the penthouse digs where a cluster of corporate men ambled through their days. ARCO-brand black gold, sucked by derricks that once dotted the L.A. landscape, still primes the California economy — only now the profits siphon to British Petroleum which bought the L.A. corporation in 2000.

“We are [dancing] where the oil men operated. It is untouched, with a fireplace, and a big bathroom with a 360 degree view from 51 floors up. And a heliport,” Duckler notes with a slight tinge of awe.

“[The venue] represents an excess of money and power. And overarching ambition.

 “It is about the nature of ambition — how ambition causes us to succeed and it can also be the cause of our downfall. Because ambition has positive and negative attributes. 

Implicit in the dance work is an exploration of money, power, and gender. Duckler reaches back into early human history for a means by which she can explore her subject.

“I was inspired by the Stacy Schiff’s book [Cleopatra: A Life],” Duckler says. “There’s all this mythology about Cleopatra – the notion that world affairs were driven by the whim of a woman who was a sex kitten, and manipulative.

“But Cleopatra was 18 she was with Caesar. He was 52. It raises the question of who seduced whom. Cleopatra was multilingual, intelligent and the richest woman in the world,” asserts Duckler, in flat-out admiration for the Queen of the Nile.

“It’s a multimedia piece, so the themes are revealed through music and the physicality of the choreography. I use dancers that are individuals. My dancers are physically aggressive. They are trained, but a bit rough and tumble. I like dancers who are strongly connected to the real world.

“The man who plays Octavian comes from martial arts. Caesar is a break dancer and Cleopatra has a background in Cirque du Soleil,” Duckler says, clearly getting a kick out of all of it.

“We reenact episodes, for example, the battle of Acton, and the marriage of Cleopatra and Antony,” she says with zeal, a proud impresario.

“Then you’ll see Caesar killed.”

At this bold promise, she laughs lightly, perhaps at her own ambition, and says, “What can I tell you?”

Cleopatra, CEO | Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre | Paul Hastings Tower, 51/F, 515 S Flower St | performances thru February

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This dear man, named Andreas Fussel, comes to us courtesy of our good friends on Facebook, Richard Slaughter and Marcus Galante.

Andreas is all dolled up to play the role of Golfo in the Bournonville ballet, “Napoli.” This he did from its premiere in 1842 until 1863.

Golfo is a sea demon ruling the Blue Grotto. Kindly do not mess with him.

_{Photo: 1862, Royal Theatre Archives and Library, Royal Danish Ballet}

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Tom Mossbrucker, at left, memorable in the Joffrey’s production of Billy the Kid, choreography by Eugene Loring, was with the Joffrey organization from 1977 to 1998. He’s not seen in “Mavericks”; the interviewees include Christian Holder, Ann Marie deAngelo, the great Gary Chryst, Ashley Wheater (the company’s current artistic director), and Trinette Singleton, among other first-generation Joffrey dancers.

No mention in the docu about the Joffrey’s long association with the city of Los Angeles, what a pity. But to compensate, there is the presence of local arts & journalism guru, Sasha Anawalt, who is a key talking head in the film as the author of  the go-to book on Joffrey history.

Last summer, interviewing Mossbrucker along with his co-director of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Jean-Philippe Malaty, at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, I asked Mossbrucker to reflect on the influence of his former boss, Robert Joffrey, on his current career.

Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance, screenings
World Premiere, Dance on Camera Festival, New York | Jan 27, 28
Nationwide viewing in movie theaters | Jan 28
Los Angeles screening | Colburn School of Music | Feb 1 | $20 ticket

_{tom mossbrucker potrait by herb migdoll,  courtesy new york public library collection}

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[click on photo for detail]

Said Marta Renzi, board president of the Dance Films Association, which runs the annual Lincoln center film festival: “Over the decades, this perennially boyish man has become a distinguished member of the dance film community. [We are honoring] his more than 35 years with Jacob’s Pillow in charge of the Pillow’s Archives, exhibitions, talks and documentation programs. Norton has been a faithful and avid audience member at DFA’s Dance on Camera Festival, often scouting films to be shown at the Pillow.”

The Alabama-born Owen took a somewhat circuitous path to his role as the Pillow’s historian. Attending Adelphi University on Long Island, he met his destiny via his dance instructor, Norman Walker, who headed the Pillow in the ’70s. 

Owen arrived at the Pillow in 1976 as a student dancer, and soon became Walker’s administrative assistant, handling contracts and correspondence, on an hourly wage. Serving as the festival’s press liaison in the late seventies, he fielded a constant stream of journalist’s questions concerning historical information. A dance archivist was born.  

Owen now oversees the core collections preserved in the Archives at Jacob’s Pillow which were originally assembled by founder Ted Shawn. Materials have been continually added since the 1930s. The Archives at Jacob’s Pillow has approximately 6,000 films and videos from 1894 to present, 45,000 historic dance photos and negatives, 313,000 pages of unique printed materials, 27 trunks of costumes dating from 1915-1940, and a publicly accessible dance library.

The Archives are housed in an 18th century structure, Blake’s Barn, donated by the Hollywood dancer, Marge Champion, and named in honor of her late son. In addition to a central area for exhibits and lectures, the building houses a reading room with video stations providing access to the moving image collection. The lower level contains temperature-controlled storage areas and video production equipment.

Jacob’s Pillow remains at the forefront of the dance preservation field partly through its active participation in the Dance Heritage Coalition, an alliance of eleven major dance collections including the Library of Congress, Harvard Theatre Collection, and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. 

Norton’s latest career achievement has been the 2011 launch of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive, an online resource of video clips from performances that have taken place at the festival from 1936 to 2011.

I am personally beholden to Norton Owen for inviting me to the festival, in 2010 as a speaker on a panel honoring Jack Cole, and in 2011 as a Scholar in Residence under his supervision. To be at the Pillow, with fellows, pondering and discussing a great art form is a dream for any dance writer. Norton is a joy to work with, constantly on the move, managing scholarly research, and hosting the public’s access to the facility. He oversees a grinding weekly schedule of pre-performance talks, post-performance q&a, and twice weekly “Pillow Talks,” many involving complexities of guest speakers and audio-video torment. Throughout this maelstrom, Norton is accessible, scrupulously polite and helpful, and, miraculously, he completes the summer season without being buried by the avalanche of paper crossing his desk. His entire operation, which pairs intellectual thought with dance performance, is a jewel. My fond congratulations go to Norton on this well deserved recognition.

_{Norton Owen Tribute Video from Dance Films Association on Vimeo.Video by Ron Honsa, director of NEVER STAND STILL, the new feature length documentary on Jacob’s Pillow.}

_{Photographer credit Nan Melville Norton Owen photo, David Dashiell
Story source: Berkshire On Stage, Larry Murphy  and wikipedia.}

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Ms. Sumner was born in Brooklyn and began her professional ballet training in Manhattan with Eileen O’Connor on 56th Street. At age fourteen she auditioned for the School of American Ballet and was accepted. There she studied with Antonina Tumkovsky, Helene Dudin, Felia Doubrovska, Pierre Vladimiroff, Anatol Ouboukoff and Muriel Stuart. After three years of study, she was invited to join the New York City Ballet. The corps de ballets member was immediately given demi-solo and solo roles to dance. When the Company moved from City Center to its present home at Lincoln Center, she was promoted to soloist.  

Ms. Sumner’s principal roles included, Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco, Divertimento No. 15, Agon, Western Symphony and The Nutcracker. She danced the role of Sacred Love in Frederick Ashton’s Illuminations and leading roles in Todd Bolender’s Souvenirs and Jerome Robbins’ Fanfare. Balanchine fashioned solo roles for her in Raymonda Variations, Harlequinade, Donizetti Variations, Coppelia, Clarinade, Diamonds (in the ballet Jewels), Don Quixote (divertissement), and Pulcinella, in which she was partnered by Edward Villella.

I’m pleased to have Carol Sumner as my friend on Facebook and she allowed me to publish these marvelous photos.

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_{Hoppe photo credit: E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection, courtesy Graham Howe
Shawn photo courtesy, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Archive, courtesy Norton Owen}

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Until a monster dancer joins her on stage — Jack Cole.

Choreographers, pay attention @ 1:43. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the way to make an entrance — on your knees!

Do you notice that Cole never fully stands up? See how he hugs the ground? Modern dance roots.  Layer on that the jitterbug moves he learned from the best — by dancing with ladies like Marie Bryant at Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom.

You can see that Hayworth enjoys being partnered by him.

The men in the group are trained in Cole technique, the women not. That would come later.

Tonight and Every Night is a very fun, watchable movie, full of dance. The marvelous Marc Platt, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo guy, has a speaking role in it, and he dances as well. 

What a coincidence, Jerry Robbins’s sailor ballet “Fancy Free,” which led to On the Town (1949) and made possible all kinds of Americanisms in classical ballet, dates from 1944. Who imitated whom? I personally think of Cole as a greater innovator than Robbins, who was known for borrowing.  But lacking conclusive evidence, let’s just say that both dances were conceived during the War, when sailors were in the zeitgeist.

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