Old paintings and new dance

Today started with a visit to the Met where I met up with Lilian. Among other things, they have a Vermeer painting on loan from the Rijksmuseum and are making a show around it. Since there are so few Vermeers out there, I'll take whatever opportunity to see one. The audio tour does a nice job of giving some background. The painting, The Milkmaid, is surrounded by other work by Vermeer (owned by the Met) and other works by contemporaries of Vermeer. It's really interesting to see not just his evolution as a painter but also how he and his fellow painters were working through issues at the same time (and learning from each other). The use of light and depth in the paintings is always amazing to me.

After our taste of 17th century Dutch, we headed to the roof to have a look at the sculpture up there. It's a piece by Roxy Paine, who did a similar sculpture in Madison Square Park a few years ago (which I took a picture of). He creates branching metal forms that appear to grow out of the roof. This piece is low and long and we can walk in and around the branches (unlike the one in the park which was more compact but very tall). The early pack of runners were starting to come into Central Park (for the NYC Marathon) and we could hear the cheering down below. My goodness, those runners were really fast! Amazing after 26 miles.

After our roof foray, we decided to explore the American Wing via a guided tour. They recently renovated this area and the courtyard is exceptional. It's one of my favourite places in the museum. They have also installed a series of period rooms starting with the 17th century and it was quite interesting to see these. A great deal of the art is set up in glass boxes in library like rows. Picture frames, portraits (Washington by Gilbert Stuart! Madame X by Sargent!), furniture, grandfather clocks, and all presented in a much more casual way than you normally see with such treasures.

After lunch, Lilian had to head home and I killed some time checking out items in the wing that had an audio guide symbol. Then it was time to catch a bus for City Center. I didn't have coins and the bus driver was kind enough to let me stay on (who says New Yorkers are rude?). Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company was performing. The review of their Thursday performance was not so good but this was a different program. I love City Center because it's so small and compact. From my seat near the front of the first balcony it felt like I was on the stage with the dancers. The company draws dancers from many different places and I was interested to see that Melissa Barak was with them. She used to dance with NYCB and is now with the LA Ballet. Wendy Whelan is also part of the company and it was a real treat to watch her in such close quarters. She is one of the 'elders' of ballet and it was a joy to see her dancing and more than holding her own with much younger partners. The first piece was to music by Georgi Ligeti which did not appeal to me and I found this makes it hard for me to enjoy the dancing. I loved the second piece and thought the 2 dancers were absolutely beautiful, fluid and instinctive. The third piece was also great, although I'm not sure what the deal was with the cones floating in the air above the dancers. The costumes by Francisco Costa, designer with Calvin Klein, were quite interesting. There was a lot of very unusual and beautiful partnering but maybe my favourite part of this ballet was the sequence for the men only.

Both the Boston program and the City Center program had a piece danced to music by Arvo Part. Somehow this Estonian composer has become the darling of contemporary choreographers. I can see why, the music is haunting, lyrical and beautiful. The Boston piece was choreographed by Helen Pickett and the NY piece by Lightfoot Leon. I believe there was another ballet I saw in the last few months danced to Part's music as well, I'll have to try and remember what that was. 'Spiegel im Spiegel' seems to be the piece that is drawing the dance makers.

Dinner tonight was at a Lebanese place called Ilili. The food is an upscale take on Lebanese and was delicious. They have a kibbeh in yogurt soup which really makes the meat moist and the duck kabob was so rich and flavourful. Dessert was essmalieh, which is shredded filo with creamy filling and an orange blossom syrup and tasted like eating crunchy flowers!