The parties and concerts may have departed the McCarren Park pool, but for a few days this week some jiving hipsters from another era staked a claim to the imposing, artfully rundown setting. On one section of its vast concrete surface, stippled with bits of crumbling pale blue presumably left over from the era when it was still a functioning pool, a dozen members of the New York City Ballet went through repeated takes of “Entrances,” the first section of Jerome Robbins’ N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz. Thanks to the vision of NYCB soloists-turned-producers Ellen Bar and Sean Suozzi, this smart, fiercely cool synthesis of 1950s urban anxiety and classical form (created soon after West Side Story opened, and one of Robbins’ own favorites among his works) is being re-imagined for today, in a filmed version, with linking interludes, set to air on PBS (as a most welcome offering of the infrequently offered Dance in America series) next spring.
Each of the 1958 ballet’s five sections is being filmed in a different, and mostly gritty, setting. Three are indoors but this one and the moodily sensual “Passage for Two,” filmed in 2007 on the then-unfinished High Line, required braving the elements. On Wednesday, the sun put in an unwelcome appearance a bit more than midway through the day’s 12-hour shooting schedule. The filming having begun in the early morning with a steel-gray cloudy sky above, directors Henry Joost and Jody Lee Lipes, needing to match their earlier shots, held off on afternoon takes until the sun obediently retreated back behind some cloud cover.
As the moodily insinuating jazz-tinged Robert Prince music played, the six men and six women faced off in two lines with an air of ennui, wrists drooping, weight settling down as they warily stepped from side to side. They were dressed in everyday casual gear—tight shorts and tank tops for the women, T-shirts and jeans or khakis for the guys. Toe shoes were nowhere to be seen; the work is always danced in sneakers. Most have performed in the ballet since it entered NYCB’s repertory in 2005, and know the choreography well. Having to perform it in brief segments (on what looked like an unforgiving surface), repeating the same bits many times, did not seem to faze them. In between takes, they relaxed along the graffiti-filled edges of the pool, or chatted with visiting friends and colleagues.
The Opus Jazz film is a labor of love for all involved—a tightly-budgeted, no-frills affair. These dancers are nominally on their vacation; this is one of the few times of year when NYCB is not performing or rehearsing. The project wraps after next week’s filming of the ballet’s closing sequence in a Jersey City theater.
Photo by Joe Anderson.
