The New York City Ballet's (NYCB) home in the Lincoln Centre on New York's Upper West Side is one of the most majestic theatre spaces I have ever set foot in.
Designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee in 1964, to the specification of George Balanchine, the ballet company's inspirational founder, it is a near-perfect example of Manhattan's knack for mixing modernism and art deco to stunning effect.
I am sitting in the theatre's vast first-floor reception area with Peter Martins, the ballet master in chief of the NYCB.
He is the man responsible for commissioning Sir Paul McCartney to write a new ballet for his revered dance company, about which I am interviewing him and ballet in general. The cameras are rolling.
Martins is midway through making an impassioned point explaining why - as Jessica Homan asserted in her recent book Apollo's Angels - ballet is not dead.
He argues that it is, in fact, thriving due to a commitment to take risks such as collaborating with ballet novices like McCartney.
I'm nodding away and thinking that this will make a good clip for my Review Show piece, when some bloke starts flapping his arms about behind Peter Martins' head before gliding across the shot in mock ballet dancer fashion and ruining the whole thing. Tsch.
9/24/11
Sir Paul McCartney: Ordinary yet extraordinary
2:58 PM
deinalove
