--Hunter S. Thompson
7/11/2009
Quote
The edge? The problem with the edge is that most of those who have seen it have gone over.
--Hunter S. Thompson
--Hunter S. Thompson
7/08/2009
Cooper Union
We literally designed out from the core, always keeping in mind that the building should be as strong and innovative as the institution itself.
--Thom Mayne
The Civic Value of a Bold Statement
by Nicolai Ouroussoff
[nytimes.com - Jne.09]
We’ll have to wait to find out exactly what the end of the Age of Excess means for architecture in New York. Yes, the glut of high-concept luxury towers was wearisome. But some great civic works were also commissioned in that era. And given the hard economic times, they may be the last we see for quite some time.
The new academic building at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is yet more proof that some great art was produced in those self-indulgent times. Designed by Thom Mayne of the Los Angeles firm Morphosis, it is not a perfect building, but it is the kind of serious work that we don’t see enough of in New York: a bold architectural statement of genuine civic value. Its lively public spaces reaffirm that enlightenment comes from the free exchange of ideas, not just inward contemplation.
Perhaps more important, the building seems to strike just the right tone for this time in New York’s history. A wholly contemporary work, it has a bold, aggressive profile that says as much about the city we’ve lost as it does about the future we are building. It proves that a brash, rebellious attitude can be a legitimate form of civic pride.
The building occupies a contentious site at Cooper Square, between Sixth and Seventh Streets, in the East Village. The area has experienced a particularly painful process of gentrification in the past decade. First, generic glass boxes began popping up along the Bowery. Then CBGB closed. For me the final straw was the opening in 2005 of Gwathmey Siegel’s undulating glass luxury apartment tower at Astor Place, a vulgar knockoff of Mies van der Rohe’s unbuilt Glass Skyscraper project and a symbol of the era’s me-first mentality.
Mr. Mayne’s building does not shy away from this debate by trying to fade into the background. Seen from the old Cooper Union Foundation building across the street, its big concave facade is enveloped in a glittering perforated metal screen, like armor, so that it’s hard at first to get a grip on the building’s scale. A big vertical slot is cut out of the facade’s center, as if it had been ripped open.
Yet the more you look at the building, the more it looks right at home in its surroundings. From certain angles the facade’s concave form seems to exert a magnetic pull, as if it were trying to embrace the neighborhood in front of it. The curve of the corner, which lifts up to invite people inside the lobby, has an unexpected softness. Even the bulky exterior mirrors the proportions of the Foundation building — a friendly nod to its older neighbor.
The effect is tough and sexy at the same time. One of the most overlooked strengths of Mr. Mayne’s designs is his feel for material. He is not a finicky designer; you don’t look to his work for refined details. He tends instead to extract beauty from the crudest industrial materials: raw concrete, steel I-beams, metal screens. The connections between materials are always clearly expressed, never smoothed over, so that you can feel the memory of the workers’ hands. It is what makes his buildings — like the Diamond Ranch High School in Pomona, Calif. — so approachable.
This strategy is social as well as aesthetic. Here the big V-shaped columns that line the sidewalk not only support the building, but they also create small pockets of space where students can hang out along the street. Behind them the lobby is clad entirely in glass. Just inside, a narrow staircase runs along the base of the window down to a basement gallery and theater. Other views open down to the gallery from Seventh Street.
The idea is to create a series of interlocking social spaces, many undefined, and to allow for the kind of casual encounter that is a central part of urban life. And it reflects Mr. Mayne’s ambivalence over the Modernist obsession with transparency. To the Modernists transparency equaled truth. To Mr. Mayne’s generation, which formed its ideas in the 1960s, it could also mean uniformity. Like other radical architects of his age, he is more interested in the dark, hidden corners where people can loiter, get into mischief, escape from authority.
The social heart of the building is a vast internal staircase, which sweeps from the lobby all the way to the fourth floor. The staircase, 20 feet wide at its base, has a classical grandeur, as if the Met’s front stairs had been pulled inside the building. The stair narrows as it rises, creating a forced perspective that exaggerates its length. A big window frames the top, allowing light to spill down into the lobby and drawing you up into the space.
From the top people will filter around to each side and climb a smaller, asymmetrical spiral stair to the upper floors. When I first looked up through this space I immediately thought of the Baroque domes of Guarino Guarini, except that the complex order of Guarini’s domes represents divine order. In Mayne’s version that world has been set off balance, as if to allow for imperfections, and it is inhabited by students.
The building’s flaws, though, lie not in a failure of vision but in questions about its execution. The most serious of these have to do with circulation. I expect there will be complaints, for example, about the main elevators, which only go up to the fifth and eighth floors. The system is based on a design by Le Corbusier, who used it in his 1952 Unité d’Habitation housing block in Marseilles. Since it eliminated the need for corridors on every other floor, he could create big, floor-through duplex apartments with windows on both sides. But here it doesn’t make much sense, because the building is made up of standard, single-story offices and classrooms. Most students will have to walk an extra flight up or down to get to their classes.
Another subtle but important problem is the depth of the treads on the grand staircase. The stairs in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art are 14 inches deep, which is what makes them such a nice place to sit, rest, chat with a stranger. Mr. Mayne’s stairs are a standard 11 inches, like a conventional fire stairwell. They are hard to sit on, and they gave me vertigo when I began my descent from the third floor. Does this sound picky? Not in a design that is all about the informal use of public space. It is the difference between a very good building and a great one.
Still, Mr. Mayne has created a serious work of architecture. And when we look back on this era, the new academic building will stand out with a handful of other designs — the New Museum, perhaps, and the renovation of Alice Tully Hall — as projects that we, as a city, can feel proud of. They leave you with the comforting thought that even in egotistical times, a spirit of generosity can assert itself.
Cooper Union - slideshow
COMMENTS
All it's missing is some stormtroopers and Darth Vader
That grand stair is sure to induce some vertigo! There better be a railing in the middle of the stair.
It's stunning. I took a construction tour a few months ago and it's like they let a bunch of mad geniuses loose and told them they could build whatever they wanted. NYU, SVA, New School, etc. ought to be embarrassed of themselves after seeing this building. Cooper Union is a tuition-free school and relied heavily on donations to make this LEED-certified building happen. The other private institutions in NYC charge a small fortune for tuition, yet litter our city with ugly buildings that don't even pretend to be environmentally friendly. That monstrosity of an SVA dorm on Delancey and Ludlow is a prime example, or anything NYU has built in the past 20 years. The standards for educational institutional architecture just went up a million percent.
The building looks lika car wreck to me. It certainly shakes things up, just like being in a head on collision would.
I think its nickname will be The Crack.
____________________________________________
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (commonly referred to simply as The Cooper Union or Cooper Union) is a privately-funded college in Downtown Manhattan, New York City. Cooper Union, founded in 1859, established a radical new model of American higher education. Its mission reflected Peter Cooper's fundamental belief that education of the highest quality should be as "free as air and water" and should be available to all who qualify, independent of race, religion, gender or social status. For 150 years, the College has admitted students based on merit alone and provided each with a full-tuition scholarship.
The school offers accredited degree programs in architecture, fine arts, and engineering...Cooper is considered to be one of the most prestigious schools in the nation, with all of its member schools ranked among the highest in the country.
The Cooper Union is one of the few American institutions of higher learning to offer a full-tuition scholarship (valued at $130,000 as of 2008) to every admitted student. As a result, The Cooper Union is one of the most selective colleges in the United States, with an acceptance rate generally below 10% (although both the art and architecture schools have acceptance rates lower than 5%).
Financial Support
A substantial portion of the annual budget, which supports the full-tuition scholarships in addition to the school's costs, is generated through donations from alumni in both the public and the private sector. In addition to this, real estate has become a very important asset to the College and has drastically increased its endowment to over $600 million. [...]
Founding and Early History
The Cooper Union was founded in 1859 by American industrialist Peter Cooper, who was a prolific inventor, a successful entrepreneur, and one of America's richest businessmen. Peter Cooper was a workingman's son who had less than a year of formal schooling. Yet he went on to become an industrialist and an inventor; it was Peter Cooper who designed and built America's first steam railroad engine. Cooper made his fortune with a glue factory and an iron foundry. Later, he turned his entrepreneurial skills to successful ventures in real estate, insurance, railroads and telegraphy. He even once ran for President.
In the late 1850s, when Cooper was a principal investor and first president of the New York, Newfoundland & London Telegraph Co., the firm undertook one of the 19th century's monumental technical enterprises—laying the first Atlantic cable. Cooper also invented instant gelatin, with help from his wife, Sarah, who added fruit to what the world would come to know as Jell-O.
Originally intended to be called simply "the Union," the Cooper Union began with adult education in night classes on the subjects of applied sciences and architectural drawing, as well as day classes for women on the subjects of photography, telegraphy, typewriting and shorthand (in what was called the College's Female School of Design). Discrimination based on race, religion, or sex was expressly prohibited.
Those free classes—a landmark in American history and the prototype for what is now called continuing education—have evolved into three distinguished schools that make up The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art: the School of Art, the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture and the Albert Nerken School of Engineering.
Peter Cooper's dream was to give talented young people the one privilege he lacked—a good education. He also wanted to make possible the development of talent that otherwise would have gone undiscovered. His dream—providing an education "equal to the best"—has come true. Since 1859, the Cooper Union has educated thousands of artists, architects and engineers, many of them leaders in their fields. [...]
Notable Alumni
With fewer than 1,000 students, Alumni of the Cooper Union win a vastly disproportionate share of the nation's most prestigious awards. Recent awards include 1 Nobel Prize, 10 Rome Prizes, 18 Guggenheim fellowships, 3 MacArthur fellowships, 9 Chrysler Design awards, and 3 American Institute of Architects Thomas Jefferson Awards for Public Architecture. The school also boasts more than 23 Fulbright scholars since 2001, and 10 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships since 2004.
Notable alumni of the Cooper Union include:
Thomas Edison - inventor
Jeffrey Epstein - billionaire investor (and convicted teen solicitor)
Milton Glaser - New York Magazine founder and I Love New York logo creator
Russell Hulse - Nobel Prize winner for Physics (1993)
Bob Kane - comic book artist and writer; creator of Batman
Daniel Libeskind - architect for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center
--Thom Mayne
The Civic Value of a Bold Statement
by Nicolai Ouroussoff
[nytimes.com - Jne.09]
We’ll have to wait to find out exactly what the end of the Age of Excess means for architecture in New York. Yes, the glut of high-concept luxury towers was wearisome. But some great civic works were also commissioned in that era. And given the hard economic times, they may be the last we see for quite some time.
The new academic building at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is yet more proof that some great art was produced in those self-indulgent times. Designed by Thom Mayne of the Los Angeles firm Morphosis, it is not a perfect building, but it is the kind of serious work that we don’t see enough of in New York: a bold architectural statement of genuine civic value. Its lively public spaces reaffirm that enlightenment comes from the free exchange of ideas, not just inward contemplation.
Perhaps more important, the building seems to strike just the right tone for this time in New York’s history. A wholly contemporary work, it has a bold, aggressive profile that says as much about the city we’ve lost as it does about the future we are building. It proves that a brash, rebellious attitude can be a legitimate form of civic pride.
The building occupies a contentious site at Cooper Square, between Sixth and Seventh Streets, in the East Village. The area has experienced a particularly painful process of gentrification in the past decade. First, generic glass boxes began popping up along the Bowery. Then CBGB closed. For me the final straw was the opening in 2005 of Gwathmey Siegel’s undulating glass luxury apartment tower at Astor Place, a vulgar knockoff of Mies van der Rohe’s unbuilt Glass Skyscraper project and a symbol of the era’s me-first mentality.
Mr. Mayne’s building does not shy away from this debate by trying to fade into the background. Seen from the old Cooper Union Foundation building across the street, its big concave facade is enveloped in a glittering perforated metal screen, like armor, so that it’s hard at first to get a grip on the building’s scale. A big vertical slot is cut out of the facade’s center, as if it had been ripped open.
Yet the more you look at the building, the more it looks right at home in its surroundings. From certain angles the facade’s concave form seems to exert a magnetic pull, as if it were trying to embrace the neighborhood in front of it. The curve of the corner, which lifts up to invite people inside the lobby, has an unexpected softness. Even the bulky exterior mirrors the proportions of the Foundation building — a friendly nod to its older neighbor.
The effect is tough and sexy at the same time. One of the most overlooked strengths of Mr. Mayne’s designs is his feel for material. He is not a finicky designer; you don’t look to his work for refined details. He tends instead to extract beauty from the crudest industrial materials: raw concrete, steel I-beams, metal screens. The connections between materials are always clearly expressed, never smoothed over, so that you can feel the memory of the workers’ hands. It is what makes his buildings — like the Diamond Ranch High School in Pomona, Calif. — so approachable.
This strategy is social as well as aesthetic. Here the big V-shaped columns that line the sidewalk not only support the building, but they also create small pockets of space where students can hang out along the street. Behind them the lobby is clad entirely in glass. Just inside, a narrow staircase runs along the base of the window down to a basement gallery and theater. Other views open down to the gallery from Seventh Street.
The idea is to create a series of interlocking social spaces, many undefined, and to allow for the kind of casual encounter that is a central part of urban life. And it reflects Mr. Mayne’s ambivalence over the Modernist obsession with transparency. To the Modernists transparency equaled truth. To Mr. Mayne’s generation, which formed its ideas in the 1960s, it could also mean uniformity. Like other radical architects of his age, he is more interested in the dark, hidden corners where people can loiter, get into mischief, escape from authority.
The social heart of the building is a vast internal staircase, which sweeps from the lobby all the way to the fourth floor. The staircase, 20 feet wide at its base, has a classical grandeur, as if the Met’s front stairs had been pulled inside the building. The stair narrows as it rises, creating a forced perspective that exaggerates its length. A big window frames the top, allowing light to spill down into the lobby and drawing you up into the space.
From the top people will filter around to each side and climb a smaller, asymmetrical spiral stair to the upper floors. When I first looked up through this space I immediately thought of the Baroque domes of Guarino Guarini, except that the complex order of Guarini’s domes represents divine order. In Mayne’s version that world has been set off balance, as if to allow for imperfections, and it is inhabited by students.
The building’s flaws, though, lie not in a failure of vision but in questions about its execution. The most serious of these have to do with circulation. I expect there will be complaints, for example, about the main elevators, which only go up to the fifth and eighth floors. The system is based on a design by Le Corbusier, who used it in his 1952 Unité d’Habitation housing block in Marseilles. Since it eliminated the need for corridors on every other floor, he could create big, floor-through duplex apartments with windows on both sides. But here it doesn’t make much sense, because the building is made up of standard, single-story offices and classrooms. Most students will have to walk an extra flight up or down to get to their classes.
Another subtle but important problem is the depth of the treads on the grand staircase. The stairs in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art are 14 inches deep, which is what makes them such a nice place to sit, rest, chat with a stranger. Mr. Mayne’s stairs are a standard 11 inches, like a conventional fire stairwell. They are hard to sit on, and they gave me vertigo when I began my descent from the third floor. Does this sound picky? Not in a design that is all about the informal use of public space. It is the difference between a very good building and a great one.
Still, Mr. Mayne has created a serious work of architecture. And when we look back on this era, the new academic building will stand out with a handful of other designs — the New Museum, perhaps, and the renovation of Alice Tully Hall — as projects that we, as a city, can feel proud of. They leave you with the comforting thought that even in egotistical times, a spirit of generosity can assert itself.
Cooper Union - slideshow
COMMENTSAll it's missing is some stormtroopers and Darth Vader
That grand stair is sure to induce some vertigo! There better be a railing in the middle of the stair.
It's stunning. I took a construction tour a few months ago and it's like they let a bunch of mad geniuses loose and told them they could build whatever they wanted. NYU, SVA, New School, etc. ought to be embarrassed of themselves after seeing this building. Cooper Union is a tuition-free school and relied heavily on donations to make this LEED-certified building happen. The other private institutions in NYC charge a small fortune for tuition, yet litter our city with ugly buildings that don't even pretend to be environmentally friendly. That monstrosity of an SVA dorm on Delancey and Ludlow is a prime example, or anything NYU has built in the past 20 years. The standards for educational institutional architecture just went up a million percent.
The building looks lika car wreck to me. It certainly shakes things up, just like being in a head on collision would.
I think its nickname will be The Crack.
____________________________________________
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (commonly referred to simply as The Cooper Union or Cooper Union) is a privately-funded college in Downtown Manhattan, New York City. Cooper Union, founded in 1859, established a radical new model of American higher education. Its mission reflected Peter Cooper's fundamental belief that education of the highest quality should be as "free as air and water" and should be available to all who qualify, independent of race, religion, gender or social status. For 150 years, the College has admitted students based on merit alone and provided each with a full-tuition scholarship.The school offers accredited degree programs in architecture, fine arts, and engineering...Cooper is considered to be one of the most prestigious schools in the nation, with all of its member schools ranked among the highest in the country.
The Cooper Union is one of the few American institutions of higher learning to offer a full-tuition scholarship (valued at $130,000 as of 2008) to every admitted student. As a result, The Cooper Union is one of the most selective colleges in the United States, with an acceptance rate generally below 10% (although both the art and architecture schools have acceptance rates lower than 5%).
Financial Support
A substantial portion of the annual budget, which supports the full-tuition scholarships in addition to the school's costs, is generated through donations from alumni in both the public and the private sector. In addition to this, real estate has become a very important asset to the College and has drastically increased its endowment to over $600 million. [...]
Founding and Early History
The Cooper Union was founded in 1859 by American industrialist Peter Cooper, who was a prolific inventor, a successful entrepreneur, and one of America's richest businessmen. Peter Cooper was a workingman's son who had less than a year of formal schooling. Yet he went on to become an industrialist and an inventor; it was Peter Cooper who designed and built America's first steam railroad engine. Cooper made his fortune with a glue factory and an iron foundry. Later, he turned his entrepreneurial skills to successful ventures in real estate, insurance, railroads and telegraphy. He even once ran for President.
In the late 1850s, when Cooper was a principal investor and first president of the New York, Newfoundland & London Telegraph Co., the firm undertook one of the 19th century's monumental technical enterprises—laying the first Atlantic cable. Cooper also invented instant gelatin, with help from his wife, Sarah, who added fruit to what the world would come to know as Jell-O.
Originally intended to be called simply "the Union," the Cooper Union began with adult education in night classes on the subjects of applied sciences and architectural drawing, as well as day classes for women on the subjects of photography, telegraphy, typewriting and shorthand (in what was called the College's Female School of Design). Discrimination based on race, religion, or sex was expressly prohibited.
Those free classes—a landmark in American history and the prototype for what is now called continuing education—have evolved into three distinguished schools that make up The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art: the School of Art, the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture and the Albert Nerken School of Engineering.
Peter Cooper's dream was to give talented young people the one privilege he lacked—a good education. He also wanted to make possible the development of talent that otherwise would have gone undiscovered. His dream—providing an education "equal to the best"—has come true. Since 1859, the Cooper Union has educated thousands of artists, architects and engineers, many of them leaders in their fields. [...]
Notable Alumni
With fewer than 1,000 students, Alumni of the Cooper Union win a vastly disproportionate share of the nation's most prestigious awards. Recent awards include 1 Nobel Prize, 10 Rome Prizes, 18 Guggenheim fellowships, 3 MacArthur fellowships, 9 Chrysler Design awards, and 3 American Institute of Architects Thomas Jefferson Awards for Public Architecture. The school also boasts more than 23 Fulbright scholars since 2001, and 10 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships since 2004.
Notable alumni of the Cooper Union include:
Thomas Edison - inventor
Jeffrey Epstein - billionaire investor (and convicted teen solicitor)
Milton Glaser - New York Magazine founder and I Love New York logo creator
Russell Hulse - Nobel Prize winner for Physics (1993)
Bob Kane - comic book artist and writer; creator of Batman
Daniel Libeskind - architect for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center
7/04/2009
L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon
Restaurants Joël Robuchon - official site
Hong Kong
Las Vegas
London
London
ABOUT
L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon is based on simplicity and the very highest quality food, drawing on Robuchon’s internationally renowned culinary expertise.
The philosophy of the counter where you dine at L’Atelier is one of interactivity. The eating counter surrounds the entire kitchen where the diners’ food is prepared. Robuchon utilises this format as a chef can actually gauge the reaction of his clients, and even converse with those regulars that wish to participate. In turn diners may watch their food being prepared by consummate professionals in the Japanese inspired lay out.
At L’Atelier you can eat the highest quality food in an informal, convivial environment in less than an hour should you so wish. In London, unlike the sister restaurants in Paris and Tokyo, there are another 20 seats where diners may sit opposite each other.
Robuchon’s menu delights the palate with clean incisive flavours and refreshingly unfussy presentation, the dishes being predominantly French with Italian and Spanish elements. [joel-robuchon.com]
CHEF: Joël Robuchon
Born in Poitiers in 1945, Joël Robuchon originally intended to join the priesthood. But family difficulties forced him to find work & at 15 he took on an apprenticeship at the Relais de Poitiers. In 1966 Robuchon became the official chef of La Tour de France, where he learnt a variety of diverse regional techniques. At 28, he became head chef at Harmony-Lafayette, overseeing 3,000 meals a day. In 1981 he launched Jamin in Paris & within three years had received three Michelin stars. In 1996 he left his Parisian restaurant, but maintained the direction of L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon in Tokyo. He opened another L’Atelier in Paris in 2003 & has since established Ateliers in Las Vegas, New York & London. [squaremeal.co.uk]
REVIEWS
[squaremeal.co.uk]
The London branch of the French überchef’s global brand rarely puts a foot wrong with its meticulously prepared dishes & chicer than chic surrounds: no wonder it’s a magnet for Rolex-wearing types & those with generous expense accounts. While the first-floor monochrome restaurant offers a traditional three-course menu, the no-booking ground-floor ‘atelier’ is more fun: it’s a dark & sleek space, colour-schemed in Robuchon’s signature red & black, where diners perch on stools at a counter overlooking the open kitchen. Black-clad chefs assemble immaculate grazing dishes from high-end ingredients with an air of cool precision & the results are hard to fault. Artfully tiered tuna tartare looks good & tastes even better, the famous beef & foie gras mini-burger with crunchy chips amuses, & pig’s trotter on parmesan toast is a rich mélange incorporating truffle, mushroom & tarragon. As one fan declares: ‘Every mouthful is a taste sensation’. Knowledgeable but ‘abrupt’ staff keep the finely calibrated operation ticking over briskly.
Wine List: This is a judiciously chosen collection, with classics from Bordeaux balanced by interesting bottles from regions such as Languedoc & Corsica. More than half the selection is French, though the rest of the world receives good coverage – New Zealand, Australia & Italy all hold interest. Margins are not low, but there is plenty to choose between £20 & £40. Best Buy White: 2006 Soave, Tamellini, Veneto, Italy, £26. Best Buy Red: 2004 Anjou-Villages, Domaine Ogereau, Loire Valley, France, £32.
[savorycities.com/newyork]
Outstanding modern French cuisine. Reserve at the counter, it is the ONLY place to sit. The outstanding cuisine is best enjoyed via ordering the small plates, which diners can mix and match to create the meal of their own design. There are so many highlights it is difficult to recommend any one over the others. Robuchon's signature langoustine dish is prepared to perfection, sweetbreads are heavenly and the steak tartare is memorable. While food is the reason to come to L'Atelier, the service makes it all that more enjoyable. General Manager and chief sommelier Stephane Colling runs a tight ship. At the counter the waiter are always within close proximity and they provide outstanding service, as do the bussers who make course presentations a special event, multiple times per meal. The wine list developed by Colling is first class containing hidden treasures, including wines from small boutique French wineries that are unknown outside France. If you are unsure, check with Colling and he will guide you to a wine. Further his wine pairings are well selected and served.
[london-eating.co.uk]
The stars of the night were an amuse bouche - a shot of foie gras with a port reduction and parmesan foam. The little free pre-pudding of honey panna cotta with yogurt ice cream, raspberry and lime coulis and a little ground 'granola' was a really brilliant combination and the flavour of the raspberries lasted such a long time. Best of all was a sugar glass bauble filled with sorbets in a sauce of red fruits and some anise in there. This gave us HUGE pleasure - baubles and prettiness aside, the flavour combination again was perfect.
Service was informal and very attentive. Knowing it was my birthday, the put together a little slice of chocolate tart with a candle on a 'happy birthday' iced plate - completely charmed by that.
Next time we'll go to the ground floor, as I like the idea of trying lots of dishes.
Yelp.com
I don't know what it is about L'Atelier that makes me give it three stars. The food certainly is good...
Perhaps one day I really must do the tasting. And sit at the bar.
That being said:
The cons?
I always know the places I want to give 4 or 5 stars and though I have only been to L'Atelier twice, neither time have I walked away reeling from the experience. I think a lot of it is just that I don't find the dining room very pleasant or impressive, and honestly find the price to food ratio more than slightly ridiculous.
Our waiter was nice enough, but he was not knowledgeable about the wine at all nor could he seem to get the sommelier or manager to speak to us about it. I will give him points for being enthusiastic when I asked for suggestions, but everything he suggested was related to foie gras, and I had already ordered a foie gras dish. On top of that, he just struck me as awkward.
The food:
The Amuse was, as my sister noted, delightful. It came in a jigger glass, as you would expect typically from an amuse soup. This however was thick and creamy and required a spoon: warm foie gras emulsion, very nice, rich, and full of flavor.
King crab and radish - (described as: "Le King Crab" king crab in a turnip ravioli with rosemary) tasty, with the perfect amount of shaved radish and small assortment of dipping oils on the plate. I thought this was a very nice, if small, dish - but at the same time slightly awkward to enjoy all layers together.
Foie gras and eel - (described as: L'Anguille - caramelized eel layered with smoked foie gras) - compliments each other well, the foie gras does not overpower the eel at all and if it is smoked, the smoked flavor is exceptionally subtle, the eel itself just a touch sweet. I recall being bored by this last time - and since it was the predominate reason I wanted to go to *this* Joel Robuchon, it was disappointing. On this second trip, I was impressed by the meshing of foie gras (this one far more subtle than the amuse) and the subtle flavors of the eel. Not a bursting-with-layers-of-flavor in your mouth sort of plate, but well done.
"Le Champignon" (described as: portobello mushroom tart with eggplant caviar, tomato confit and arugula) - Just as the king crab dish I'd had playfully calls the slices of turnip that encase the crab meat a 'ravioli', this dish describes strips of eggplant laid atop it as 'caviar' - which to me was not playful but all around silly. Perhaps it is because I actually like some caviar (and am not an eggplant fan) and was subconsciously disappointed? I don't mind anything that has tomato confit - but found the taste of roasted tomato and semi saltiness of the eggplant to overshadow the portobello. I was not fond of this dish, unlike my dining companions.
Sea Bass - (described as "Le Bar" - pan-fried sea bass with a lemongrass foam and stewed baby leeks) - Regarding this dish - IMO it is what it is - a cut of delicately cooked and nicely presented sea bass, semi-salty, but nothing to write home about. Nothing spectacular happening with this dish.
Dessert Amuse Bouche - citrus mousse with tapioca - tastes of basil, grapefuit. This was excellent - bursting with refreshing flavor, tangy, sweet. They really hit the nail on the head with this exciting punch of joy ;)
Dessert: (descibed as "La Pomme Verte" light jivara ganache, green apple brunoise and ginger ice cream) - apple, pear, what my sister describes as oreo, came topped with an extremely thin dried slice of apple, and a small amount of gold leafing. I think the oreo was actually the jivara (or chocolate) ganache - but whatever it was - I was not fond of it. This is probably just another case of - everyone has different tastes. This dessert just wasn't my thing.
The wine I wound up ordering by my fail safe method (if it is a grape I have never heard of - I order it) worked out surprisingly well. It was a 2005 Pinot Auxerrois Blanc from Alsace - and before you call me out, yes, it was in the front of the menu and easy. It was also semi-sweet, fruity but not overpowered by it; a medium bodied white with presence. Good job Val! Good job;)
[concierge.com/travelguide/paris]
Former three-star chef Joël Robuchon was hailed as the best French chef of the 20th century before he retired at age 50. Then, a few years ago, he returned to the limelight with this unlikely vehicle: a New York–style coffee shop cum tapas bar. Ironically, Robuchon wanted out of the Michelin rat race but received a star here in 2006 and a second star at his other Paris restaurant, a somewhat staid sit-down place in the 16th Arrondissement called La Table de Joël Robuchon. L'Atelier is innovative, totally nonsmoking, and fun, as long as you don't mind the counter-only service, high-rise stools, and reservation policy—tables can only be booked for 6:30 p.m. If you choose to dine later, odds are you'll wind up admiring the black and Chinese-red lacquer interior for an hour or more before ascending your stool. Begin with caviar, Spanish ham, or spaghetti carbonara, or perhaps an assortment of little tasting plates. This French take on tapas changes often but might include veal sweetbreads skewered with a bay leaf twig and garnished with creamy Swiss chard, or a tart of mackerel filet, Parmesan shavings, and olives. Then, go classic with a steak or opt for something more inventive like sublime cannelloni stuffed with foie gras and Bresse chicken.
_____________________________________________
TripAdvisor Popularity Index: #20 of 5,912 restaurants in Paris
_____________________________________________
Hong Kong
Las Vegas
London
LondonABOUT
L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon is based on simplicity and the very highest quality food, drawing on Robuchon’s internationally renowned culinary expertise.
The philosophy of the counter where you dine at L’Atelier is one of interactivity. The eating counter surrounds the entire kitchen where the diners’ food is prepared. Robuchon utilises this format as a chef can actually gauge the reaction of his clients, and even converse with those regulars that wish to participate. In turn diners may watch their food being prepared by consummate professionals in the Japanese inspired lay out.
At L’Atelier you can eat the highest quality food in an informal, convivial environment in less than an hour should you so wish. In London, unlike the sister restaurants in Paris and Tokyo, there are another 20 seats where diners may sit opposite each other.
Robuchon’s menu delights the palate with clean incisive flavours and refreshingly unfussy presentation, the dishes being predominantly French with Italian and Spanish elements. [joel-robuchon.com]
CHEF: Joël Robuchon
Born in Poitiers in 1945, Joël Robuchon originally intended to join the priesthood. But family difficulties forced him to find work & at 15 he took on an apprenticeship at the Relais de Poitiers. In 1966 Robuchon became the official chef of La Tour de France, where he learnt a variety of diverse regional techniques. At 28, he became head chef at Harmony-Lafayette, overseeing 3,000 meals a day. In 1981 he launched Jamin in Paris & within three years had received three Michelin stars. In 1996 he left his Parisian restaurant, but maintained the direction of L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon in Tokyo. He opened another L’Atelier in Paris in 2003 & has since established Ateliers in Las Vegas, New York & London. [squaremeal.co.uk]
REVIEWS
[squaremeal.co.uk]
The London branch of the French überchef’s global brand rarely puts a foot wrong with its meticulously prepared dishes & chicer than chic surrounds: no wonder it’s a magnet for Rolex-wearing types & those with generous expense accounts. While the first-floor monochrome restaurant offers a traditional three-course menu, the no-booking ground-floor ‘atelier’ is more fun: it’s a dark & sleek space, colour-schemed in Robuchon’s signature red & black, where diners perch on stools at a counter overlooking the open kitchen. Black-clad chefs assemble immaculate grazing dishes from high-end ingredients with an air of cool precision & the results are hard to fault. Artfully tiered tuna tartare looks good & tastes even better, the famous beef & foie gras mini-burger with crunchy chips amuses, & pig’s trotter on parmesan toast is a rich mélange incorporating truffle, mushroom & tarragon. As one fan declares: ‘Every mouthful is a taste sensation’. Knowledgeable but ‘abrupt’ staff keep the finely calibrated operation ticking over briskly.
Wine List: This is a judiciously chosen collection, with classics from Bordeaux balanced by interesting bottles from regions such as Languedoc & Corsica. More than half the selection is French, though the rest of the world receives good coverage – New Zealand, Australia & Italy all hold interest. Margins are not low, but there is plenty to choose between £20 & £40. Best Buy White: 2006 Soave, Tamellini, Veneto, Italy, £26. Best Buy Red: 2004 Anjou-Villages, Domaine Ogereau, Loire Valley, France, £32.
[savorycities.com/newyork]
Outstanding modern French cuisine. Reserve at the counter, it is the ONLY place to sit. The outstanding cuisine is best enjoyed via ordering the small plates, which diners can mix and match to create the meal of their own design. There are so many highlights it is difficult to recommend any one over the others. Robuchon's signature langoustine dish is prepared to perfection, sweetbreads are heavenly and the steak tartare is memorable. While food is the reason to come to L'Atelier, the service makes it all that more enjoyable. General Manager and chief sommelier Stephane Colling runs a tight ship. At the counter the waiter are always within close proximity and they provide outstanding service, as do the bussers who make course presentations a special event, multiple times per meal. The wine list developed by Colling is first class containing hidden treasures, including wines from small boutique French wineries that are unknown outside France. If you are unsure, check with Colling and he will guide you to a wine. Further his wine pairings are well selected and served.
[london-eating.co.uk]
The stars of the night were an amuse bouche - a shot of foie gras with a port reduction and parmesan foam. The little free pre-pudding of honey panna cotta with yogurt ice cream, raspberry and lime coulis and a little ground 'granola' was a really brilliant combination and the flavour of the raspberries lasted such a long time. Best of all was a sugar glass bauble filled with sorbets in a sauce of red fruits and some anise in there. This gave us HUGE pleasure - baubles and prettiness aside, the flavour combination again was perfect.
Service was informal and very attentive. Knowing it was my birthday, the put together a little slice of chocolate tart with a candle on a 'happy birthday' iced plate - completely charmed by that.
Next time we'll go to the ground floor, as I like the idea of trying lots of dishes.
Yelp.com
I don't know what it is about L'Atelier that makes me give it three stars. The food certainly is good...
Perhaps one day I really must do the tasting. And sit at the bar.
That being said:
The cons?
I always know the places I want to give 4 or 5 stars and though I have only been to L'Atelier twice, neither time have I walked away reeling from the experience. I think a lot of it is just that I don't find the dining room very pleasant or impressive, and honestly find the price to food ratio more than slightly ridiculous.
Our waiter was nice enough, but he was not knowledgeable about the wine at all nor could he seem to get the sommelier or manager to speak to us about it. I will give him points for being enthusiastic when I asked for suggestions, but everything he suggested was related to foie gras, and I had already ordered a foie gras dish. On top of that, he just struck me as awkward.
The food:
The Amuse was, as my sister noted, delightful. It came in a jigger glass, as you would expect typically from an amuse soup. This however was thick and creamy and required a spoon: warm foie gras emulsion, very nice, rich, and full of flavor.
King crab and radish - (described as: "Le King Crab" king crab in a turnip ravioli with rosemary) tasty, with the perfect amount of shaved radish and small assortment of dipping oils on the plate. I thought this was a very nice, if small, dish - but at the same time slightly awkward to enjoy all layers together.
Foie gras and eel - (described as: L'Anguille - caramelized eel layered with smoked foie gras) - compliments each other well, the foie gras does not overpower the eel at all and if it is smoked, the smoked flavor is exceptionally subtle, the eel itself just a touch sweet. I recall being bored by this last time - and since it was the predominate reason I wanted to go to *this* Joel Robuchon, it was disappointing. On this second trip, I was impressed by the meshing of foie gras (this one far more subtle than the amuse) and the subtle flavors of the eel. Not a bursting-with-layers-of-flavor in your mouth sort of plate, but well done.
"Le Champignon" (described as: portobello mushroom tart with eggplant caviar, tomato confit and arugula) - Just as the king crab dish I'd had playfully calls the slices of turnip that encase the crab meat a 'ravioli', this dish describes strips of eggplant laid atop it as 'caviar' - which to me was not playful but all around silly. Perhaps it is because I actually like some caviar (and am not an eggplant fan) and was subconsciously disappointed? I don't mind anything that has tomato confit - but found the taste of roasted tomato and semi saltiness of the eggplant to overshadow the portobello. I was not fond of this dish, unlike my dining companions.
Sea Bass - (described as "Le Bar" - pan-fried sea bass with a lemongrass foam and stewed baby leeks) - Regarding this dish - IMO it is what it is - a cut of delicately cooked and nicely presented sea bass, semi-salty, but nothing to write home about. Nothing spectacular happening with this dish.
Dessert Amuse Bouche - citrus mousse with tapioca - tastes of basil, grapefuit. This was excellent - bursting with refreshing flavor, tangy, sweet. They really hit the nail on the head with this exciting punch of joy ;)
Dessert: (descibed as "La Pomme Verte" light jivara ganache, green apple brunoise and ginger ice cream) - apple, pear, what my sister describes as oreo, came topped with an extremely thin dried slice of apple, and a small amount of gold leafing. I think the oreo was actually the jivara (or chocolate) ganache - but whatever it was - I was not fond of it. This is probably just another case of - everyone has different tastes. This dessert just wasn't my thing.
The wine I wound up ordering by my fail safe method (if it is a grape I have never heard of - I order it) worked out surprisingly well. It was a 2005 Pinot Auxerrois Blanc from Alsace - and before you call me out, yes, it was in the front of the menu and easy. It was also semi-sweet, fruity but not overpowered by it; a medium bodied white with presence. Good job Val! Good job;)
[concierge.com/travelguide/paris]
Former three-star chef Joël Robuchon was hailed as the best French chef of the 20th century before he retired at age 50. Then, a few years ago, he returned to the limelight with this unlikely vehicle: a New York–style coffee shop cum tapas bar. Ironically, Robuchon wanted out of the Michelin rat race but received a star here in 2006 and a second star at his other Paris restaurant, a somewhat staid sit-down place in the 16th Arrondissement called La Table de Joël Robuchon. L'Atelier is innovative, totally nonsmoking, and fun, as long as you don't mind the counter-only service, high-rise stools, and reservation policy—tables can only be booked for 6:30 p.m. If you choose to dine later, odds are you'll wind up admiring the black and Chinese-red lacquer interior for an hour or more before ascending your stool. Begin with caviar, Spanish ham, or spaghetti carbonara, or perhaps an assortment of little tasting plates. This French take on tapas changes often but might include veal sweetbreads skewered with a bay leaf twig and garnished with creamy Swiss chard, or a tart of mackerel filet, Parmesan shavings, and olives. Then, go classic with a steak or opt for something more inventive like sublime cannelloni stuffed with foie gras and Bresse chicken.
_____________________________________________
TripAdvisor Popularity Index: #20 of 5,912 restaurants in Paris
_____________________________________________
7/03/2009
Jock & Sy
Jock Soto
New York City Ballet
Water Flowing Together (documentary)
This is the story of a remarkable dancer, Jock Soto, who retired from the New York City Ballet at age 40, after a 24-year career.
Soto's journey as an openly gay man of Navajo Indian and Puerto Rican descent provides a rare glimpse into the life of a dancer and the disparate worlds which have shaped this important artist.
I actually think it’s very funny sometimes, putting on the makeup and then putting on the tights and then putting on your costume and then I look in the mirror and think, 'This is such an odd occupation for a 40-year-old man.'
Better that I decide that it's enough than somebody else telling me that it's time, or reading it in the newspaper.
Water Flowing Together - official site
The Superman of Dance
Jock Soto, leading dancer of the New York City Ballet, has taken partnering into realms of sleight-of-hand undreamed of before him. Short and solidly built, inscrutably dark-featured, half-Navajo Indian and half-Puerto Rican, this man does not resemble the usual slender-lined ballet prince, yet throughout his career ballerinas queued up to be partnered by him, and when he gave his final performance at the age of 40 last month in New York's State Theatre, they were queueing up again, to shower him with red roses.
Jock Soto & Wendy Whelan
Jock & Wendy
Jock & Wendy
Jock Soto & Miranda Weese
Why Jock Soto Has Been the Perfect Partner
Mr. Soto, 40, who has danced with City Ballet since 1981 and has been a principal since 1985, has an astonishing sixth sense: he is a born partner, the finest that has graced the company since Peter Martins himself. There are no fussy moments in a Soto pas de deux. His talent lies in what you don't see happen: his partners don't fall off point or make unsightly wobbles in a pirouette, and knowing that he is in charge let's them jump higher, spin faster and take risks with musical phrasing. [...]
Gia Kourlas asked a few of Mr. Soto's favorite partners, past and present, to explain exactly how he made them look good...
Darci Kistler: Some male dancers only care about their solos, but Jock cares about the whole picture. He knows what I'm going to do before I do it, and that allows me to be fully in the music with no broken line, no distraction. You're dancing with a partner, but at the same time neither one of you feels the other. I've never felt him touch me! The sensation is like little butterfly kisses.
Heather Watts: A few years before I retired, I asked Peter: 'What's the matter with my arabesque? When Jock puts me in arabesque, I feel O.K.' And he said: 'Yeah, because he puts you there. You don't have the muscle to get there by yourself. . . . At 15, Jock knew where my balance was better than I did.
Lourdes Lopez: You know when you partner and your skirt gets tangled up? I have been in front of Jock Soto when he actually moved the chiffon so that my skirt fell nicely. When I danced with him in 'The Nutcracker,' my tutu was never, ever crushed.
Wendy Whelan: He knows who he's dancing with and he really focuses on her strengths and weaknesses. As partners I think we have a very languid power. He's sturdy and strong, but also very free in a certain way, and I'm more stretchy, but I also have that grounded strength. We make one whole circle, and it's a weird, interesting balance.
Miranda Weese: You can do anything, and it's almost like nothing will go wrong. If it does, he will fix it. You actually find yourself absolutely letting go. There are times I would get off the stage and almost not even realize that I had danced because I was that lost in it.
Ballet.co Review
I will confess that back in the day I wasn't much taken with Soto. Although not at all short, his body type was far from ideal for ballet, especially Balanchine's school, which so strongly emphasizes the line of the leg and fleetness of foot. With his stocky proportions, long-torsoed and short-legged, Soto didn't look particularly Balanchinian (especially next to dancers like Peter Martins, Adam Luders, Daniel Duell or Ib Anderson). Indeed, if it hadn't been for his immediate use as the Designated Partner for Heather Watts (a rather formidable handful), it's questionable whether he'd have gotten into City Ballet at all. As Watts, a dancer of squandered talent whose movement quality was like the screech of fingernails on a blackboard, was perhaps my least-favorite dancer of all time, I couldn't help but view Soto with some of the distaste I felt for her. "He has no business being here," I sniffed.
After a hiatus of about a dozen years, I returned to City Ballet a bit chagrined to discover that Soto, through sheer hard work, had transformed himself into a dancer of sensitivity and power, with an unforced yet commanding presence emanating from the great strength of his unflappable center. Moreover, building from his days partnering Watts, Soto had become the Best Partner in the World. Great partners are valuable anywhere, but especially so in City Ballet, with its repertory largely shaped by Balanchine's veneration of the ballerina. Ashton once said that watching 'Sleeping Beauty' served as a lesson in choreography (and) to watch Soto was to observe an advanced treatise in the art of partnering. Here, his not unsubstantial physique only helped our perception of him to match what he'd in fact become: a pillar of strength, in all senses of the word. [...]
Soto will continue to teach at the School of American Ballet, where his fiendishly hard men's and partnering classes are as popular with students as his performances were with City Ballet's audiences.
Jock Soto at the School of American Ballet Winter Ball (vid)
Sokvannara "Sy" Sar
Pacific Northwest Ballet
Sokvannara Sar performs to Philip Glass's "The Other Side" during opening night of the 2008 Vail International Dance Festival. [plumtv.com]
Dancing Across Borders - official site
This documentary tells the story about a charismatic, young Asian trailblazer named Sokvannara “Sy” Sar. As a youth performing traditional folk dances in Cambodia in 2000, he gains the attention of filmmaker Anne Bass, who sees his tremendous talent and decides to bring him to New York City so he can study ballet.
Highly skeptical at first, his passion for ballet grows as does his natural ability to pick things up quickly — in only three years. His first ballet teacher from Russia beams with pride when she talks about the experience of training the young man from Angkor Wat. She said, “It happens once in a lifetime.”
Bass’ debut film is filled with Sar’s amazing performances throughout his dance career, including photographs and video of him as an apprentice for the Pacific Northwest Ballet in 2006.
Interviews with Sar as well as his instructors clearly present the message that this is no ordinary ballet dancer. Forget that he’s usually the only Asian onstage. While Sar briefly discusses many of the hardships he’s faced in order to study ballet, the documentary does not look into these hardships with the drama that is inherently involved in each of them. But for fans of dance and ballet, Bass’ film succeeds in presenting a good story about one of its brightest stars. [nwasianweekly.com]
New York City Ballet
Water Flowing Together (documentary)This is the story of a remarkable dancer, Jock Soto, who retired from the New York City Ballet at age 40, after a 24-year career.
Soto's journey as an openly gay man of Navajo Indian and Puerto Rican descent provides a rare glimpse into the life of a dancer and the disparate worlds which have shaped this important artist.
I actually think it’s very funny sometimes, putting on the makeup and then putting on the tights and then putting on your costume and then I look in the mirror and think, 'This is such an odd occupation for a 40-year-old man.'
Better that I decide that it's enough than somebody else telling me that it's time, or reading it in the newspaper.
Water Flowing Together - official site
The Superman of DanceJock Soto, leading dancer of the New York City Ballet, has taken partnering into realms of sleight-of-hand undreamed of before him. Short and solidly built, inscrutably dark-featured, half-Navajo Indian and half-Puerto Rican, this man does not resemble the usual slender-lined ballet prince, yet throughout his career ballerinas queued up to be partnered by him, and when he gave his final performance at the age of 40 last month in New York's State Theatre, they were queueing up again, to shower him with red roses.
Jock Soto & Wendy Whelan
Jock & Wendy
Jock & Wendy
Jock Soto & Miranda WeeseWhy Jock Soto Has Been the Perfect Partner
Mr. Soto, 40, who has danced with City Ballet since 1981 and has been a principal since 1985, has an astonishing sixth sense: he is a born partner, the finest that has graced the company since Peter Martins himself. There are no fussy moments in a Soto pas de deux. His talent lies in what you don't see happen: his partners don't fall off point or make unsightly wobbles in a pirouette, and knowing that he is in charge let's them jump higher, spin faster and take risks with musical phrasing. [...]
Gia Kourlas asked a few of Mr. Soto's favorite partners, past and present, to explain exactly how he made them look good...
Darci Kistler: Some male dancers only care about their solos, but Jock cares about the whole picture. He knows what I'm going to do before I do it, and that allows me to be fully in the music with no broken line, no distraction. You're dancing with a partner, but at the same time neither one of you feels the other. I've never felt him touch me! The sensation is like little butterfly kisses.
Heather Watts: A few years before I retired, I asked Peter: 'What's the matter with my arabesque? When Jock puts me in arabesque, I feel O.K.' And he said: 'Yeah, because he puts you there. You don't have the muscle to get there by yourself. . . . At 15, Jock knew where my balance was better than I did.
Lourdes Lopez: You know when you partner and your skirt gets tangled up? I have been in front of Jock Soto when he actually moved the chiffon so that my skirt fell nicely. When I danced with him in 'The Nutcracker,' my tutu was never, ever crushed.
Wendy Whelan: He knows who he's dancing with and he really focuses on her strengths and weaknesses. As partners I think we have a very languid power. He's sturdy and strong, but also very free in a certain way, and I'm more stretchy, but I also have that grounded strength. We make one whole circle, and it's a weird, interesting balance.
Miranda Weese: You can do anything, and it's almost like nothing will go wrong. If it does, he will fix it. You actually find yourself absolutely letting go. There are times I would get off the stage and almost not even realize that I had danced because I was that lost in it.
Ballet.co ReviewI will confess that back in the day I wasn't much taken with Soto. Although not at all short, his body type was far from ideal for ballet, especially Balanchine's school, which so strongly emphasizes the line of the leg and fleetness of foot. With his stocky proportions, long-torsoed and short-legged, Soto didn't look particularly Balanchinian (especially next to dancers like Peter Martins, Adam Luders, Daniel Duell or Ib Anderson). Indeed, if it hadn't been for his immediate use as the Designated Partner for Heather Watts (a rather formidable handful), it's questionable whether he'd have gotten into City Ballet at all. As Watts, a dancer of squandered talent whose movement quality was like the screech of fingernails on a blackboard, was perhaps my least-favorite dancer of all time, I couldn't help but view Soto with some of the distaste I felt for her. "He has no business being here," I sniffed.
After a hiatus of about a dozen years, I returned to City Ballet a bit chagrined to discover that Soto, through sheer hard work, had transformed himself into a dancer of sensitivity and power, with an unforced yet commanding presence emanating from the great strength of his unflappable center. Moreover, building from his days partnering Watts, Soto had become the Best Partner in the World. Great partners are valuable anywhere, but especially so in City Ballet, with its repertory largely shaped by Balanchine's veneration of the ballerina. Ashton once said that watching 'Sleeping Beauty' served as a lesson in choreography (and) to watch Soto was to observe an advanced treatise in the art of partnering. Here, his not unsubstantial physique only helped our perception of him to match what he'd in fact become: a pillar of strength, in all senses of the word. [...]
Soto will continue to teach at the School of American Ballet, where his fiendishly hard men's and partnering classes are as popular with students as his performances were with City Ballet's audiences.
Jock Soto at the School of American Ballet Winter Ball (vid)
Sokvannara "Sy" Sar
Pacific Northwest Ballet
Sokvannara Sar performs to Philip Glass's "The Other Side" during opening night of the 2008 Vail International Dance Festival. [plumtv.com]
Dancing Across Borders - official site
This documentary tells the story about a charismatic, young Asian trailblazer named Sokvannara “Sy” Sar. As a youth performing traditional folk dances in Cambodia in 2000, he gains the attention of filmmaker Anne Bass, who sees his tremendous talent and decides to bring him to New York City so he can study ballet.
Highly skeptical at first, his passion for ballet grows as does his natural ability to pick things up quickly — in only three years. His first ballet teacher from Russia beams with pride when she talks about the experience of training the young man from Angkor Wat. She said, “It happens once in a lifetime.”
Bass’ debut film is filled with Sar’s amazing performances throughout his dance career, including photographs and video of him as an apprentice for the Pacific Northwest Ballet in 2006.
Interviews with Sar as well as his instructors clearly present the message that this is no ordinary ballet dancer. Forget that he’s usually the only Asian onstage. While Sar briefly discusses many of the hardships he’s faced in order to study ballet, the documentary does not look into these hardships with the drama that is inherently involved in each of them. But for fans of dance and ballet, Bass’ film succeeds in presenting a good story about one of its brightest stars. [nwasianweekly.com]
6/27/2009
World Dance
Dance Around the World
Dancers of the World Roma festival Khamoro dance at the Old Town square in Prague, Czech Republic
People dance in the street a day before the start of the Confederations Cup soccer tournament in Rustenburg, South Africa
Supporters of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi dance to music coming from a speaker in the trunk of a car, right, in the streets at a night-time street rally just days before the election, in the Sadatabad district of northern Tehran
A dancer from the Argentine troupe Fuerza Bruta performs during opening night at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, Florida
Revelers dance and celebrate during the 116th Street Festival in Spanish Harlem, New York City. The 28-block festival draws around 100,000 attendees and is one of a number of weekend Puerto Rican pride festivities occurring a day before the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade.
Dancers of the World Roma festival Khamoro dance at the Old Town square in Prague, Czech Republic
People dance in the street a day before the start of the Confederations Cup soccer tournament in Rustenburg, South Africa
Supporters of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi dance to music coming from a speaker in the trunk of a car, right, in the streets at a night-time street rally just days before the election, in the Sadatabad district of northern Tehran
A dancer from the Argentine troupe Fuerza Bruta performs during opening night at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, Florida
Revelers dance and celebrate during the 116th Street Festival in Spanish Harlem, New York City. The 28-block festival draws around 100,000 attendees and is one of a number of weekend Puerto Rican pride festivities occurring a day before the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade.
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