Helene

Official news only, and personal conversations aren't official news.

From the same chapter: (p.94) Then he did the variations from Don Q, and she did a 180 on him.

All of these reports of noise on the floor make me think of tap and Flamenco dancers whose boards are often miked.

If it is true that Ratmansky's works were supported by David Koch, that usually means a restricted donation for a specific purpose, and ABT couldn't use that money for dancers' salaries or computers or pointe shoes or the electric bill. Almost all arts organizations are in the same boat: major individual donors who want their name on something, usually a building or a new production or for a specific role, "The XYZ Principal Conductor" or "The ABC Concertmaster" or "The 123 Center."

I didn't realize I still had the book, but it was, indeed, von Aroldingen: (p.90)

She's a corps member. But she doesn't dance like it.

Thank you, @volcanohunter! That must have been the tour that Kirkland was on. She left for ABT a couple of years later.

I'm not sure how many tours of Russia NYCB took, but during the 1962 tour of Russia, Kirkland would have been nine or ten.

Given how many corps point roles they've performed, it would be more difficult that you'd think.

Not anymore, with the demise of New York City Opera. But when the theater opened, both companies moved from City Center, and they alternated seasons, with NYCO opening in early Fall — or maybe in very late August — and then returning between NYCB’s Winter and Spring seasons.

The floors were built for Balanchine: it was his design for a sprung floor. They may have taken them up for the opera to avoid having holes drilled into them. I'm not sure if the theater has traps. I don't know what the scenery was like, but some sets reverb a lot of sound, whereas other deaden it.

All injury reports need to be from official, public-facing sources, with a link or citation.

The pandemic closures and restriction did a number on gradual declines. All dancers should have been able to heal a bunch of nagging injuries through rest, but many elective surgeries were long postponed., and individual physical therapy was restricted or more difficult. The ability of dancers to keep in shape given their living circumstances and local restrictions, and some having to help their children through distance learning, greatly differed, and some people thrive in a group setting when it comes to training, and, in isolation, not so much.

Susan Jaffe speaks to Town & Country about her vision for the Fall 2023 season, with thanks to Dance Edit for the item in their daily newsletter. It will be interesting to see if the performances live up to it, in addition to whether we think the choice of rep has. https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a45520874/american-ballet-theatre-susan-jaffe/?utm_source=The+Dance+Edit&utm_campaign=ed4f9c3843-TheDanceEdit20201119_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_71d672be74-ed4f9c3843-69902614

Also, given how Merrill Ashley was honest elsewhere about not getting something, it took her then-serious-boyfriend (later husband) to give her feedback on her two facial expressions: frozen big smile and "pained ballerina", which for years I misread as "painted ballerina." If she'd been given feedback from the company or Jaques d'Amboise, who enlisted her for his off-season touring group, I assume she would have written about it. Of course things change over time: it would be a rare apprentice who would be onstage without any performance experience and never having done stage makeup, like Allegra Kent was. Plus, there are now a bazillion YouTube videos, just in case.

The dancers at PNB rave about how much they love and love to do Petite Mort. In addition to the music, what I find worthwhile out here is seeing different partnerships, because the height differences aren't critical. It can run in families, not just talent, but seeing what it means to be a professional and to have a realistic sense of what the profession entails, because they see the difficult sides, emotionally and physically, while growing up.

Particularly when the shoe is on the other foot, ie, they are teachers or coaches, in the arts or in sports. The best of all possible worlds would be for the people who want to be teachers and coaches to teach and coach while they are still performing and/or competing, because they often speak and write about how much they learn when they are teaching, and not just about teaching.

Please do not speculate on injury unless there you have an official source for it. Many dancers have shared on social media, and it is fine to discuss what they discuss.

Tiler Peck was a professional actress from when she was a child, and she also performed on major stages, including on tour, as an adult, including in Tiny Dancer, which was changed for Marie: Dancing Still, which I saw her in out here. She's also been cast in movies and TV shows as an adult. If she wasn't trained in facial expressions from the time she was a child, she would have been tutored, mentored, and/or directed what she didn't learn and absorb from observation, or she wouldn't have lasted long.

We received a message today from Robert DeLong,

They couldn't have played the music from Diamonds, could they? (Grrrrrrrrr.) She also wrote about this in her memoir.

It's usually not easy to replace a key member of a negotiating team, no matter what side they're on.

The only stagings listed in the Balanchine Catalogue for Tchaikovsky Suite No. 3 are: 2005 Ballet de San Juan 2012 Ballets de San Juan Whereas the only T&V's I can see on my browser go through 1986, since there is no scroll bar: https://balanchine.org/see-also/cat-369/ (This is one of the worst websites I've ever used in the modern era; it's predecessor was actually functional.) I never liked it much and even preferred it when NYCB did the pas de deux through the ending of T&V. Darci Kistler did it in the 1993 Balanchine Celebration, and I saw Lourdes Lopez dance it in what I think was one of the Dancers Emergency Fund programs. (PNB did a gala performance in which Carrie Imler danced the variations, and Patricia Barker danced the pas de deux through the ending.)

Official sources are needed for reporting injuries, beyond observations of casting changes.

[Admin] Do not discuss each other, which includes attributing motivations to them. Everyone reading can and will come to their own conclusions. [/Admin]