A Mathias Heymann Sampler

Besides my admiration for Paris Opera Ballet etoile dancer, Mathias Heymann, as a great classical stylist and technician, (the best of his generation in my not-so-humble opinion)...I love his passion and contemporary side too. I've seen many dance Bejart's ultra-sensual BOLERO over the years, including Sylvie Guillem; on a Gala; where she did it w/o any corps, and she still pulled it off (!) and Maya Plisetskaya. The original, Jorge Donn, was quite sensual and wild, but in a more ambisexual, feline, way, and Nicolas LeRiche was also excellent, even though his boyish, Tom Sawyer face, and fair coloring, made him look almost too innocent for such hot-house choreography. Here, in this excerpt, Heymann is the most ferocious and virile looking man I've ever seen in it. His energy seems to build right until the end. Considering the dancer never rests nor gets off that table, that's quite a feat. All others I've seen seem a bit pooped by the end. Not Heymann. In the Robbins excerpt from A SUITE OF DANCES, he does exactly what Jerry wanted in these type of solos. I should know because I was an original in his DANCES AT A GATHERING, and much of Villella's role was choreographed on me. Jerry wanted the dancer to have an interior dialogue with himself. He is dancing for himself; making it look almost like he's improvising as he goes along. Heymann catches this beautifully, while still executing some difficult and controlled choreography. And, as usual, his musicality is perfect. The solo and coda from the Sleeping Beauty (in Nureyev's Paris Opera Ballet's production with Myriam Ould-Braham) I've added because it's at the right tempi. So often European companies take the man's solo and coda way too slow...and boring. Here it's still exciting. Lastly is a short slow motion improvisation (I think) showing his extraordinary ballon and clean batterie.