By Craig Hubert | Former New York City Ballet principal dancer Benjamin Millepied, famous in non-dance circles for his marriage to actress Natalie Portman (they met while working together on the film “Black Swan”) has removed himself from the upcoming Broadway production of “Hands on a Hardbody,” according to Artsbeat (read Patrick Pacheco’s take on the musical here). Choreographer Sergio Trujillo (“Memphis,” “Jersey Boys”) will take over the staging of the musical, which premiered last May at the La Jolla Playhouse with a staggering behind-the-scenes crew including playwright Doug Wright (Pulitzer Prize winning “I Am My Own Wife”), lyricist Amanda Green (“Bring It On: The Musical”), jam-band musician Trey Anastasio (the Phish member you’re most likely to have heard of) and director Neil Pepe (2008 revival of David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow”). The bizarre musical is based on the 1997 documentary of the same name, which told the real-life story of a Texas endurance competition featuring twenty-four local contestants trying to see who can keep their hands on a pickup truck for the longest amount of time. The film is as amazing as it sounds, up there in the pantheon of automobile-related cult-classics with “Heavy Metal Parking Lot.”
Millepied left “Hardbody” to focus his time on other projects. A recent Los Angeles Times profile tracked his progress with the L.A. Dance Project, self-described by the dancer as a “collective,” where dancers collaborate with musicians, visual artists, and filmmakers. The first performance, this past weekend, was a collaborative piece titled “Moving Parts,” featuring the work of Millepied, composer Nico Muhly, and the painter Christopher Wool (the performance also featured a piece by Merce Cunningham). The article hinted at criticism toward Millepied for coming to Los Angeles and only working with artists from New York and the first reviews were mixed: the Times calling his choreography “very, very ordinary,” while Huffington Post referred to it as “a satisfying eyeful.” If his new venture doesn’t work out, he can always bring his high-culture talents back to “So You Think You Can Dance.”
Image: Benjamin Millepied/Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for AFI
