#Unity Phelan

[enchanted-keys]

Unity Phelan and Russel Janzen in Serenade (New York City Ballet 2023)

[mirobraz]

Unity Phelan, American ballerina in John Wick, chapter 3.

[swanlake1998]

chun wai chan and unity phelan photographed performing in christopher wheeldon's ‘liturgy’ at the 2022 vail dance festival by christopher duggan

[balanchine-ballet-master]

Allegra Kent Rehearsing La Sonnambula

Allegra Kent rehearsing Unity Phelan in La Sonnambula. Photo: Amir Hamja for The New York Times

Happily for all of us, Jonathan Stafford and Wendy Whelan are bringing back dancers who worked with Balanchine to coach today's company members. This article about Allegra Kent, the original NYCB Sleepwalker in La Sonnambula, coaching Unity Phelan in the role, is from today's New York Times.

Allegra Kent Conjures ‘Messages From the Air, the Atmosphere’

The iridescent Balanchine ballerina returns to New York City Ballet this season to coach for “La Sonnambula.” What does she want? Mystery.

By Gia Kourlas Oct. 3, 2023

It was the first ballet that made sense to her. There was mystery, passion, pain. The music, by Vittorio Rieti, after themes from Bellini operas, swept her into another world.

“I was 11,” said Allegra Kent. “My heart was broken.”

Kent, the former New York City Ballet principal, was just a child when she attended a performance by Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in Los Angeles. The final work on the program was “Night Shadow,” George Balanchine’s 1946 ballet, later called “La Sonnambula.”

Kent had no idea who Balanchine was. But just four years later, she would join New York City Ballet, the company he had formed with Lincoln Kirstein. And not long after that, in 1960, Balanchine revived the ballet, casting Kent as its mysterious Sleepwalker.

Allegra Kent working with Phelan as the Sleepwalker and Taylor Stanley as the Poet. Photo: Amir Hamja for The New York Times

This season, as part of the company’s 75th anniversary, Kent, 86, was brought in as a guest coach for “La Sonnambula,” which returns Wednesday for four performances, and for “The Unanswered Question,” the gripping second movement of “Ivesiana.”

Kent wasn’t with the company from its 1948 start, but she was still a part of its early days and one of Balanchine’s most important muses.

She joined City Ballet at 15, just a year after she arrived in New York from California to study at the company-affiliated School of American Ballet. Balanchine gave her a scholarship, and soon after, she began attending performances.

“The first ballet I saw on the first program was 'Serenade,'” she said, referring to the Balanchine masterpiece in an interview at her Manhattan apartment. “I can’t remember the other ballets because it was like, 'Serenade'—the whole world is open.”

Eventually La Sonnambula, with its magic and tragedy, came her way. In this haunting ballet, the Poet hero romances a woman, the Coquette, before discovering a Sleepwalker at a masked ball. Holding a candle, the Sleepwalker skims across the stage in close-knit bourrée steps on pointe wearing a flowing dress. Its diaphanous sleeves, like wings, catch the air as they stream behind her.

The Coquette’s jealousy leads the Baron, the host of the ball, to stab the Poet; the Sleepwalker, devastated, carries him away. With the right dancers, the ballet is gut-wrenching, but it takes imagination born from almost psychic sensations. The heroine may be walking in her sleep, but “she’s not expressionless,” Kent said. “You can’t come in like a zombie.”

In the pas de deux, the Sleepwalker glides past the Poet, who ducks underneath her candle; he waves his hand in front of her face to see if she is awake; he falls to the floor in her path, but she steps over his outstretched body, unruffled, and continues on her way. There should be daring, too: on tour in Moscow, Balanchine demonstrated one of the Sleepwalker’s crossings on a stage that Kent said was like a football field.

“She’s not expressionless,” Kent said of the Sleepwalker. “You can’t come in like a zombie.” Photo: Amir Hamja for The New York Times

“He took the candle and ran on the diagonal,” she said. “In those days, they had footlights. He stepped over the footlight and stopped. I thought, Oh, my God, he’s going to die” — plunging off the stage. “But he didn’t die. He stepped back and gave the candle to me.”

He was showing her, in essence, how the Sleepwalker possesses a layer of extrasensory perception; that what can’t be seen can be felt, and that even in a sudden stop — as he did himself on that stage — there should be no physical reverberation.

“Balanchine loved danger,” Kent said. “In the step in ‘The Unanswered Question’ when she slowly goes back” — the ballerina, again in white and held aloft, falls into the arms of four men obscured by darkness — “the audience is terrified for a moment. So this is the genius of Balanchine. Ah! She’s going to run off the stage! She’s going to fall over backward! Is anyone going to catch her?”

The original Sleepwalker — and the one Kent first saw all those many years ago — was the great ballerina Alexandra Danilova. Kent herself was briefly coached by Danilova not in the studio, but in a chance meeting, waiting for the 104 bus on Broadway. “She stood up and started demonstrating at the bus stop,” Kent said. “Gosh, what a moment.”

This is a ‘Sleeping Beauty’ in the Balanchine style,” Kent said. “The kiss does not wake her up.” Photo: Amir Hamja for The New York Times

Rehearsing at City Ballet’s studios with Unity Phelan and Taylor Stanley, who will perform the Sleepwalker and the Poet in one cast, Kent was intensely ethereal, acutely focused, with fingers full of life. She said, “You’re getting messages from the air, the atmosphere.”

Kent turned to the mirror to study their reflection as if it were a painting. With her elbows raised, her fingertips curving toward her chest, she worked on details — as many as she could. She was trying, it seemed, to penetrate below the surface of the skin, to draw raw emotion into the movement. Details are important to Kent, as they were to Balanchine. He would come backstage and say, “‘Oh, your crown is half an inch too far back,’” she said. “‘Bring it forward.’ I mean, it’s not even the hair, it’s just the crown. Details.”

Kent stood in front of Phelan, who held the candle with a curved arm as the other extended to the side. Kent rested her elegant fingers on Phelan’s shoulders — just a whisper of pressure — and stared at their reflection in the mirror. “Don’t look up,” she said, releasing her hands.

“You are sleepwalking, but you’re aware,” Kent said. “You’re in another realm but there’s something going on within you. A great tragedy that is not explained.”

Phelan, who danced the Sleepwalker in a previous season, is approaching the role differently now. Her Sleepwalker moved too forward from the chest, but with Kent’s help, she is working on relaxing, softening. “You can still be active, but if it gets all tense then it looks like you’re putting on a show instead of it coming from a genuine place,” Phelan said later. “If I’m just being myself and actively doing something, I’m not sensing everything in my body. So that’s what I’m trying to bring it back to.”

When she first danced the Sleepwalker, Phelan wanted to prove that she could be ghostly, waiflike, light. “What I’ve discovered from Allegra is that I may have been going too far with that,” she said. “You let yourself be involved emotionally. I think I was trying to stay so disassociated.”

“You are sleepwalking, but you’re aware,” Kent said. “You’re in another realm but there’s something going on within you. A great tragedy that is not explained.” Photo: Amir Hamja for The New York Times

When the Sleepwalker comes onstage, she’s not just taking brisk walks on pointe. She’s searching. “We don’t know what it is — if it’s a child, if it’s a love,” Kent said. “But it’s a huge thing missing. It’s a huge urgency. But beyond that, there’s so much mystery. There is a huge lack in her life.”

Stanley, rehearsing the moment when the Poet waves his hand in front of the Sleepwalker’s face to see if she is awake, was too dynamic. Kent stepped in to demonstrate.“ Just the tiny back and forth over my eyes,” Phelan said, “with her hand being that close to my face, I saw all the energy. She wasn’t shaking. Nothing was happening. But everything was alive in her hand. I was like, that’s what she means.”

There’s nothing casual about “La Sonnambula,” which Kent says is like no other Balanchine ballet. “I used to do this night after night in my living room just to get that despair and the subtleties,” Kent said. “That search. This is a ‘Sleeping Beauty’ in the Balanchine style. The kiss does not wake her up.”

Kent, with her cheerful wit, summed up her own “Sonnambula” experience: “This is what I’d say: Thank you, Balanchine,” she said. “Thank you, Madame Danilova. And I thank the M.T.A., the metropolitan transit authority. The generosity of her and the generosity of the bus being late.”

[henry-spinoff]

Todo sobre el spin-off de #JohnWick

Si eres fan de la saga de John Wick, seguramente estarás al tanto de que hay varios proyectos en marcha para expandir el universo de los asesinos más letales del cine. Además de la cuarta entrega de la franquicia, que se estrenará en mayo de 2022, y la serie precuela The Continental, que llegará a Disney Plus más tarde de ese año, hay otro spin off que promete ser muy interesante:…

[ubu507]

Unity Phelan

Josefina Santos for The New York Times

[citylifeorg]

The 92nd Street Y, New York Announces Celebrating Balanchine: A Screening, Book Reading, Conversation and Performance

Director Connie Hochman, Heather Watts, Jennifer Homans, Tiler Peck, Unity Phelan, and Calvin Royal IIICommemorating the 40th Anniversary of George Balanchine’s DeathIn PersonSunday, April 30, 6:30 pm ETOnlineSunday, April 30, 8:10 pm ET(Note: screening is not available online)Tickets from $20 The 92nd Street Y, New York announces Celebrating Balanchine: A Screening, Book Reading, Conversation…

[luxmaeastra]

Aerleas stepped through the door, his hand reaching for his blade in the next breath. His home felt....off.

There was always some laughter, some music - something. He moved through the door finding his parents in the kitchen. Phelan was on the floor and hadn't bothered looking up to see him.

His mother's eyes were red rimmed at first her shaking fingers made his breath catch. He'd never seen her feel fear. But as he met her eyes it was only rage he saw.

His father was no better, his hand gripping the counter hard enough to have it split. Where were the others? Where was little Luscia and Luther?

"What happened?"

He'd only been gone for a month. If something had happened why hadn't he been called home? Cyra turned away walking out the room slamming the back door hard enough to shatter the glass.

Nyack's jaw ticked and he looked to Aerleas.

"Fae. They do what they always do. They take what they wanted. In this case it was Luscia they -"

Aerleas was already running down the hall. He pushed her door open. She sat on her bed that direworlf pup their father had found in her lap. Luther sprang to his feet the book discarded.

"Aerleas -"

"Do you know the thing's name?"

Luther's face pinched. He could feel Phelan at his back. Strephon must still be in the nursery building this early in the day.

Luscia sniffed but didn't respond too quiet. She was never this damn quiet. He looked to Luther who looked sick.

"Darcain. He - he dined here and he - we couldn't - Aerleas we -"

"Don't worry about what we can or cannot do. She told you?"

Luther gave a tense nod. Aerleas turned and walked out the room and house. He grabbed his tools from where he'd stashed them in the armory.

He knew what he was risking with this. He knew what the consequences would be - let them come. He wouldn't regret the blood he was about to spill.

He moved through the woods sneering at the mansion the prince and his kin lived in. They cleared the entire land to make this onstentious home. In a way he was glad for it, none of their animals and trees would have to grow to like these monsters.

He remembered now, they were hosting some fae for relations. Some misguided idea to promote unity or something as equally idiotic.

He looked to Rizz in confusion. He hadn't called for his warband.

"Phelan calls us. What are we doing?"

He wondered if Luscia would want them to know. But he'd grown with these Changelings. He'd trained and hunted with them. He was sure there was more than one here who adored his sister like he did their siblings.

"The prince in that house touched Luscia...without her consent."

He left it vague but he could feel their rage. Rizz spat at the house. His Cuff was new but no less honorable.

"Just the family?"

Aerleas raised his head and grinned.

"No. Let's make it a lesson they'd never forget."

--------

Viren clicked his tongue looking to Sarai holding out the newsletter. Keir sipped at his wine watching them.

"What's happened?"

"Changelings inacted a Blood Curse on Lemurise nobles. They -"

"One of ours?"

"No I think Summer and Day? They entire family was brutally slain the curse most likely drawn in their blood. Utterly barbaric."

Keir sniggered and leaned toward Viren.

"And you once said the Fae could govern themselves."

Viren snickered and clicked his glass with his brother's.

"Your right. Are we toasting to ongoing chaos then brother?"

Keir beamed at Iris.

"I think we should. Kept us in power didn't it my love?"

//For anyone??? The reason for Aerleas's exile 👀//

Taking a hold of the paper she looked over the news, the report of what had happened. Her chin rested upon her chin, her fingers toyed with the necklace around her neck.

Bleeding heart, emotionally seasonal. Even was Viren and Keir celebrated, she couldn't help but think of the innocent who had suffered on both sides.

Iris listened to the pair of them, leaning upon the arm of her chair toward Keir as she listened. Any notion of discomfort she had felt was quick to leave her, the reminder that she was safe and with her beloved as enough to settle her from the topic.

Yes, a toast. She smiled when he beamed at her, she reached out her hand toward him. "Yes, it did."

[eorumrosae]

Two of Air - HEART Duality, polarity, separation, unity, dichotomy, integration, choice, big picture There is only the whole. A magnet is a magnet because it has both halves and it ceases to exist if one or the other half didn't exist, it would no longer be a magnet. Creation and destruction goes hand in hand, when you begin to do a traditional piece of art, you're destroying the state your tools existed in prior to you beginning creation of your art piece. The paint is no longer unmixed in a tube, it is a shade on the paper that no longer is free of markings. Duality creates two opposing forces. It creates conflict, a war-like state of existing. Good or bad, positive and negative. And it drives to decide which is better than the other. Two of air, offers a choice between these two paths. One offers chaos, the other peace. Which will you choose?

XXI Perception RV - MIND Perception, understanding, world view, opinion of self, clarity, objectivity

Is your perception false? Is your perception of other in fact, self-perception? Do you think someone does not like you for who you are? That they don't feel the way they say about you?

Do your best not to allow assumption to be the foundation of your perception when it comes to your interactions with others! Throw away the 'what if's' and 'maybe's', right now. Cultivate trust, tentative if you must, in the words and actions of the people around you. "Never Judge a Book by its Cover!" Don't let yourself become incapable of opening the book because you've gone and judged it by the cover.

You are the book, the blurb at the back of it. Friends and family get the synopsis, the blurb and some key points, but only you know the full story! If you want people to have a more accurate picture of you, then be willing to share your story of you, honestly, without embellishments.

In turn, understand that you can't know the full stories of the people around you, the people you meet without allowing them to share their stories with you. Sometimes it takes time, for we've all been judged by the cover in our lives by many people.

Release your perception that you know the answers to everything! That you know what motivates or drives other people in relation to you or others. Don't let your limited perception and knowledge dictate your openness to relationships in your life.

VI The Crone - SOUL Feminine power, fearlessness, authenticity, individuality, independence, new purpose, freedom, shadow self The Crone is everything she chooses to be. A woman who is aware of her choices. She is the wise woman who is like nature -- wild, still, passionate, volatile, calm, peaceful, adaptable and flowing, creative and powerful!

The Crone has learned to look at her own needs. She has, by necessity, become a strong and independent individual, who has found new purpose!

A life of your own design! How wonderful is that, the realization of it. That you are able, capable and you have it in you to make of your life what you will. Reminiscent of the power of the Magician, she too, has balanced her powers and is capable of willing into her life her desires and wants and needs. She is who she needs to be, when she needs to be.

The Crone symbolizes the emergence of a mature woman who sees herself as being in her prime, with many fertile and productive and creative years ahead of her! She is a woman who embraces her true power and potential.

Be less what's expected of you, true to yourself and your needs. Be your whole full self, instead of selling yourself off in bits and pieces to please others. This is your life, your time, and you've got this! --- Dreams of Gaia Tarot by Ravynne Phelan reading Ruth

[usagirotten]

John Wick: Chapter 4 Trailer

The eagerly awaited “John Wick Chapter 4” marks Reeves’ return to the beloved assassin of few words. While the plot remains under wraps, the film is expected to pick up after Wick was delivered to the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) at the end of “John Wick Chapter 3,” after trying to topple the assassin hierarchy The High Table. The film also stars Ian McShane, Lance Reddick, Bill Skarsgard, Clancy Brown, Donnie Yen, Shamier Anderson, Hiroyuki Sanada, Scott Adkins, and Rina Sawayama. “John Wick Chapter 4” is directed by Chad Stahelski from a script written by Michael Finch and Shay Hatten. Stahelski previously told The Hollywood Reporter that “Chapter 4” will find “new and interesting ways to have John Wick suffer” through even more insane stunts — as if killing a man using just a library book wasn’t enough. The second-to-last “John Wick” film also marks the beginning of the end of Reeves burning the candle at both ends as Wick.    Reeves and co-star McShane are set to appear in spinoff film “Ballerina” starring Ana de Armas as a graduate of the Director’s (Angelica Huston) ballet academy who is forced out of retirement after a gang murders her whole family. The titular unnamed killer dancer has to take down both the gang of murderers and the corrupt local European government that protects them. The film is based on a character who briefly appeared in “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum,” played by professional dancer Unity Phelan and simply credited as “Ballerina.” A Starz prequel series titled “The Continental” is also in the works about the hotel for mercenaries, set in the 1970s. “John Wick Chapter 4” premieres in theaters March 24, 2023. Read the full article

[galina-ulanova]

Unity Phelan in Emeralds (NYCB, 2019)

[moviemosaics]

I’m Thinking of Ending Things

directed by Charlie Kaufman, 2020

[miss-m-calling]

Chun Wai Chan and Unity Phelan in Christopher Wheeldon’s Liturgy (NYCB, 2023)

Photo by Erin Baiano

[swanlake1998]

india bradley, james whiteside, natalie glassie, calvin royal iii, mira nadon, joseph gordon, herman cornejo, lauren lovette, christopher grant, isabella boylston, roman mejia, philip duclos, unity phelan, devon teuscher, and the rest of the artists with russell kaiser photographed in class at the 2021 vail dance festival by christopher duggan

[badmovieihave]

Bad movie I have John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum  2019