Philippe: Coming Up on NYC-ARTS, a profile of Ballet Hispánico, the largest Hispanic cultural organization in the U.S. Eduardo Vilaro: Ballet Hispanico's mission is to bring together individuals and communities to celebrate, share, explore the joys the heritage of Latino cultures.
Philippe: And a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for a look at "Juan de Pareja: Afro-Hispanic Painter," which offers an unprecedented look at his life and artistic achievements.
Born around 1608 in Antequera, Spain, Pareja was an enslaved person in Velázquez's studio for more than two decades.
Upon his emancipation, he charted his own artistic path.
The exhibition features approximately 40 objects including paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts, as well as books and historical documents.
Announcer: Funding for NYC-ARTS is made possible by the Ambrose Monell Foundation, Thea Petschek Iervolino Foundation, Jody and John Arnhold, the Lewis "Sonny" Turner Fund for Dance, Elise Jaffe and Jeffrey Brown, Charles and Valerie Diker, the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, the Nancy Sidewater foundation, Elroy and Terry Krumholz Foundation and Ellen and James S. Marcus.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the city council.
Additional funding provided by members of Thirteen.
NYC-ARTS is made possible in part by Swann Auction Galleries.
Swann Auction Galleries.
We have a different way of looking at auctions, offering vintage books and fine art since 1941.
Working to combine knowledge with accessibility, whether you are a lifelong collector or a first-time buyer, or looking to sell.
Information at swanngalleries.com.
Philippe: Good evening and welcome to NYC-ARTS.
I'm Philippe de Montello on location at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, just a 35-minute train ride north from Grand Central Station.
Located on the banks of the Hudson River, it is the largest museum in Westchester County.
Its offerings include exhibitions of American art from the 19th century to the present day; a state-of-the-art Planetarium; an outdoor Amphitheater; and Glenview, a Gilded Age home on the National Register of Historic Places.
I'm here in The Sitting Room of Glenview, the mansion built in 1877 for Wall Street financier, John Bond Trevor, his wife Emily Norwood Trevor and their family.
Charles W. Clinton, architect of the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan, designed Glenview as a magnificent castle-like perch surrounded by the beauty of the natural world, with views of the Hudson River and the Palisades.
It's one of the first suburban homes, made possible by the new commuter train lines.
The Glenview mansion is a magnificent representation of the early Gilded Age.
It features design and décor of the era's "Aesthetic Movement" embracing straight-lined furniture and handcrafted woodwork, often medieval in appearance and simply decorated.
The first floor contains six fully restored period rooms: The Similar in style to The Great Hall is The Dining Room with English medieval features of walnut wainscotting and a faux timber ceiling.
The Trevors hosted many dinners in this room putting into service Glenview's most important piece of original furniture, the Daniel Pabst sideboard.
Carved into the cabinet doors are scenes from Aesop's fables of "The Fox and the Crane," a commentary on how to be a good host.
In its day, the Billiard Room was dedicated to the popular pastime of the late Victorian era.
Today, it is home to Nyblewyck Hall - a monumental dollhouse modeled on nineteenth century homelife.
Many of the objects in The Library were not owned by the Trevors but were carefully selected by curators based on historical research.
The Kimbel and Cabus cabinet has been on view at Glenview for 40 years.
This three-tiered revolving book rack originally belonged to the family.
And here is a selection of Mr. Trevor's original books from his teenage years.
And in the galleries, there's a "bookstore" that has been beloved and highly visited at the Hudson River Museum for more than forty years: Pop Art icon Red Groom's immersive site-specific sculpture of dazzling color, decoration, and pattern, pays homage to the Pierpont Morgan Library and the Mendoza Bookstore.
In keeping with a longstanding commitment to the community, The Hudson River Museum Junior Docent Program is now in its 28th year, a nationally recognized model for teen programming.
Each year approximately 70 at-risk youth from public high schools throughout Yonkers participate in the museum's after-school leadership and youth development initiatives.
On our program tonight, we'll go behind the scenes with America's premiere Latino dance company.
Founded in 1970 by the late Tina Ramirez and now under the direction of Eduardo Vilaro, Ballet Hispánico brings communities together to celebrate Hispanic cultures.
Its repertory draws from many traditions and many countries - from classical ballet to Spanish flamenco, Latin social dances to Afro-Cuban rhythms.
At New York City Center from June 1st through June 3rd, Ballet Hispánico will perform a mix of signature works and new commissions.
"Club Havana" is Latin dancing at its best.
The rhythms of the conga, rumba, mambo and cha cha are brought to life by choreographer Pedro Ruiz, himself a native of Cuba.
The world premiere of "Sor Juana" is the work of Mexican-American dancer and choreographer, Michelle Manzanales.
The dance tells the story of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, a seminal figure who was centuries ahead of her time in advocating for women's rights and education.
Her legacy continues to shape the rich tradition of Mexican literature.
Each performance will include an excerpt of "New Sleep," a duet by William Forsythe, to be performed in honor of Tina Ramirez.
A neoclassical work, it demonstrates the choreographer's ability to take apart classical dance vocabulary, keeping it precise but still allowing for individual expression.
Forsythe's work was long admired by Tina, who for many years sought an opportunity for the company to perform one of his dances.
On this occasion, the work will pay tribute to this beloved artist, educator, activist, and visionary.
Eduardo Vilaro: Ballet Hispánico's mission is to bring together individuals and communities, to celebrate, share, explore the joys, the heritage of Latino cultures.
And so in that mission the vision is about opening up this dialogue for everyone to explore what it is to be Latino today.
I've been associated with the organization since 1985.
First as a dancer and then as the artistic director.
Ballet Hispánico has been around since 1970, when Tina Ramirez, our founder, wanted to give voice to the Latino artist.
And she began with a handful of young ladies who wanted to learn how to dance professionally.
Michelle Manzanales: The Ballet Hispánico School of Dance has been around for almost 50 years.
It's about giving access to the artform for anyone.
Students can come and study all different genres, whether it be ballet, flamenco, hip hop.
We have these traditional dance forms that we celebrate: Classical Spanish dance, flamenco, but then also fusion.
We're honoring history, but we're also taking it to the future.
Eduardo Vilaro: I consider Ballet Hispánico a contemporary Latino dance company, which means we are looking at the culture in a contemporary way.
And the dancers are highly trained in classical dance, because that's our heritage.
Melissa Fernandez: I trained strictly in classical ballet in the Cuban tradition from five years old to about 15.
I went to an arts high school, New World School of the Arts in Miami, which offered not only a strong base in classical ballet, but also the classical modern forms like Graham, Limon, Taylor, Cunningham.
I think something that really helped me prepare for this role that I'm now in Ballet Hispánico was the idea that I couldn't just box myself in into one category.
I wasn't just a ballet dancer.
I wasn't just a modern dancer.
Michelle Manzanales: Our dancers at Ballet Hispánico, because they work with so many different choreographers, we want them to be that blank slate that is willing to take the risk to go into these different roles, to these different styles of dance, it's like being a chameleon, they have to be able to transform themselves.
Melissa Fernandez : Obviously we're always gonna stay true to our Latin roots, so there will be many, many pieces that you see were there's an influence of salsa, or rumba, or Mambo, cha cha cha.
And then we have contemporary modern.
And I think that's what Ballet Hispánico represents, a fusion of cultures and styles.
Music lyrics: I don't belong here Eduardo Vilaro: Danzón is a contemporary ballet that was created in collaboration with Paquito D'Rivera.
I found it so riveting, the fusion of jazz with strings.
Of course we added a lot of more Latin rhythms, when we put it together.
And danzón itself is a fusion of African and Spanish, and also many different forms of music in Cuba.
A lot of the challenges of bringing in a new dancer to work like this is style.
So each choreographer has their own style in their genre.
And for me you know to get a dancer to be very technical and at the same time grounded in Afro-Cuban movement is a challenge.
Sometimes it's easy to coach the technical aspects.
The artistry, the intention, that's something elseand it is a wonderful process, because it's there that that the artist learns a lot of themselves and then reflects it back.
And that reflection is in the performance and it's beautiful.
Eduardo Vilaro in rehearsal: Spiral your back.
Yes.
That's it.
Bam, good.
This was lovely.
Johan Rivera: None of the dancers are actually alike when it comes to personality, like charisma, quality of movement.
So I need to work around the 360 view of like how this dancer can use the material and now make it his own, as a dancer myself, it's like I said something when I was doing the solo.
Now I want that person to have the opportunity and the space to find their own message to share.
Johan Rivera in rehearsal: Think about the progression of like going down as like descending from the material.
Nick Fearon: I wasn't too familiar with the Latin styles of dance coming into Ballet Hispánico, but it was something that everyone else was very familiar with so they taught me very quickly.
The culture is definitely a big aspect to Ballet Hispánico in general.
Cause I'm not Latino myself, I'm Irish and Polish, so, it's not only about embracing the Latin culture but it's about bringing your own culture in and embracing that as well.
Michelle Manzanales: An exciting part of being a dancer for Ballet Hispánico is getting the opportunity to explore these different voices.
And if you look at our dancers they're so diverse, and that diversity, coupled with the choreographer's voice, coupled with Ballet Hispánico's mission altogether, that's what makes it so rich.
Eduardo Vilaro: Every choreographer that comes to Ballet Hispánico to make a piece gets that conversation with me about culture.
And they divert differently.
We've run the range from my work that is full of Latino Caribbean movement, to Ron K. Brown, that is much more Afrocentric, to Tania Pérez-Salas, which is very abstract, and to Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, who grew up in Belgium with a parent who's from Colombia.
So it's very rich for us because it really shows us that the depth of how culture affects each artist.
Like Michelle's piece "Con Brazos Abiertos" is a perfect example.
Michelle Manzanales: "Con Brazos Abiertos" is really just was a dream come true for me.
The work is really about telling the story of what it is like to live between two cultures.
For me as a Mexican-American person growing up in Texas, it allowed for me to sort of reflect on that and then bring this piece to life from those experiences.
The music ranges, it's very eclectic which is how I feel.
I'm not one thing, I'm not just mariachi music and I'm not just pop music of the 80s, I'm somewhere in between.
The sombrero was a fun thing to explore, the sort of cultural stereotypes but then also deconstructing it, manipulating it, and using the hat as a symbol.
Melissa Fernandez: She uses her early stages of vulnerability as a young dancer, as a young choreographer, and then slowly it evolves to show how her insecurities bloom into acceptance and admiration for her culture.
We're not only dancers.
We're artists, but we're also teaching artists.
One of the great missions of Ballet Hispánico is to go out into the community and teach workshops and engage children and adults, all ages, all socio-economic levels.
Eduardo Vilaro: When we do work in the community it's about saying this art form is yours.
Even if you're not Latino.
You don't have to learn to speak Spanish.
You learn to move, another language that that breaks barriers of color and social status.
And you know when you grab someone's hand and you lead them onto the dance floor, even the person that's most inhibited, let's go just a little bit.
And if we can find those pockets of letting go and open them even more, that's what Ballet Hispánico is about right now.
Currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is "Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter.
"Today, he is largely known as the subject of the Met's iconic portrait by Diego Velázquez.
Born around 1608 in Antequera, Spain, Pareja was an enslaved person in Velázquez's studio for more than two decades.
Upon his emancipation, requested by Velázquez, charted his own artistic path.
The exhibition features approximately 40 objects including paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts, as well as books and historical documents.
In addition to telling Pareja's story, it also examines the ways in which enslaved artisanal labor and a multiracial society are linked with the art of Spain's Golden Age.
Much of what we currently know about Pareja is due to Harlem Renaissance collector and scholar Arturo Schomburg.
Schomburg dedicated his life to researching and recovering the cultural contributions of African diaspora.
The exhibition begins with his photos and writings, along with books he collected which serve to connect 17th century Spain with 20th century New York.
In fact, he sold his book collection to the New York Public Library in 1926 to help fund his research trip to Spain.
Velázquez's portrait of Pareja, painted in Rome in 1650, is contextualized by his other portraits from this period and the original manumission document freeing Pareja.
Following his emancipation, Pareja became an established artist in Madrid, and this exhibition culminates with five of his rarely seen paintings, some of enormous scale.
Included is Pareja's most famous painting, "The Calling of Saint Matthew" from 1661, in which he inserted a self-portrait making direct eye contact with viewers.
The five works exhibited here illustrate a contrast between Pareja's lively and color-saturated compositions and Velázquez's more subdued style.
The exhibition reexamines the narratives around one of the most celebrated works in the history of Western portraiture -and introduces us to a remarkable artist whose name may be familiar to many, but whose work has not been explored in depth.
"Juan de Pareja: Afro-Hispanic Painter" is on view through July 16, 2023.
Next, we'll take a trip to the Brooklyn Museum for "Monet to Morisot: The Real and Imagined in European Art."
The exhibition focuses on artworks created in the 19th and early-20th centuries.
In Europe, this was a period when artistic techniques, subject matter, and patronage underwent profound changes.
Featuring some 90 works from the museum's collection, it includes artists such as Monet, Morisot, Cezanne, Rodin, and Degas.
Lisa Small: I am Lisa Small.
I'm the Senior Curator of European Art at the Brooklyn Museum, and a curator of "Monet to Morisot: The Real and Imagined in European Art."
This exhibition brings together a really important part of Brooklyn's European collection it's 19th and early 20th century European art.
Rodin was the most significant sculptor in mid to late 19th century France.
And one of the objects that we have here called "Age of Bronze" was actually one of his first big successes that got him a lot of attention and notoriety.
And it's an interesting work that went through a lot of permutations.
When he first developed it, it was called "The Vanquished."
And the model that posed for it was holding a spear in one hand, and it was meant to commemorate the Franco-Prussian war that had just concluded and sort of be an homage to all of the people who had died in that.
But he decided to remove the spear but retain the gestures in the figure, which then became a little bit enigmatic, right?
Without the prop it became something that was a little more difficult to read.
And he retitled it "The Age of Bronze," thinking about man's awakening into a new consciousness.
But it was also very controversial.
It's a male nude.
It was based on a model that was posing for him and Rodin's facility with conveying the contours of the body.
The anatomy was considered so accurate that he was accused at the time of having made a sculpture based on a life-cast of the model's body, which was a complete no-no at the time.
And he actually had to go through many conversations to prove that he had not just cast the body of his commonplace model, but rather had created the composition on his own.
So it turned out to be a rather significant work in his career.
Philippe: I hope you enjoyed our program this evening.
I'm Philippe de Montebello on location at the Hudson River Museum.
Thanks for watching and see you next time.
To enjoy more of your favorite segments on NYC-ARTS, visit our website at NYC-ARTS.org.
Paula: Good evening and welcome to NYC-ARTS.
I'm Paula Zahn.
Philippe: I'm Philippe de Montebello at the Tisch WNET studios at Lincoln Center.
Paula: Leonard, what a privilege to be able to sit down and talk with you.
Leonard Lauder: I love being with you here, too, Paula.
Paula: Where are we?
Michael Tilson Thomas: We're at a moment to take nothing for granted.
Philippe: Well, it's a pleasure to be here with the curator of this exhibition full of hope.
We are in the midst of some of the greatest sculptures by the iconic names.
Wendy Whelan: Classical and modern dance are extremely different, and i have so much more to learn before I can really articulate the differences.
Sheldon Harnick: And when I listen to Yip Harburg's lyrics in that, I suddenly thought that's what I want to do with my life.
Gregory Crewdson: My pictures resides in very intimate, very private moments.
Vijay Iyer: My primary way of playing piano is by improvising.
Alice Greenwald: You are in some respects on sacred ground.
Dee Dee Bridgewater: A woman came to see me perform and said how would you like to play Billie Holiday?
Jodi Hauptman: I think one of the essential things we learned is that Matisse used pens to compose his work.
Renee Fleming: Viewers are surprised when you're doing a piece 100 years ago and think oh my gosh this could be now.
Anne Umland: The cardboard guitar is the very first of that moment of realization.
Ivo Van Hove: Suddenly you come and present something and get applause.
Great.
You know?
Announcer: Funding for NYC-ARTS is made possible by the Ambrose Monell Foundation, Thea Petschek Iervolino Foundation, Jody and John Arnhold, the Lewis "Sonny" Turner Fund for Dance, Elise Jaffe and Jeffrey Brown, Charles and Valerie Diker, the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, the Nancy Sidewater foundation, Elroy and Terry Krumholz Foundation and Ellen and James S. Marcus.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the city council.
Additional funding provided by members of Thirteen.
NYC-ARTS is made possible in part by Swann Auction Galleries.
Swann Auction Galleries.
We have a different way of looking at auctions, offering vintage books and fine art since 1941.
Working to combine knowledge with accessibility, whether you are a lifelong collector or a first-time buyer, or looking to sell.
Information at swanngalleries.com.
