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Spring Ballet Review is out


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This is the year when my subscription caught up with the seasons! The issue has reviews by two critics familiar to Ballet Alertniks. Mary Cargill writes of Susan Jaffe's farewell and ABT's Fille, and Paul Parish about Sarah van Patten. Among other things are conversations with Christine Dakin; Christopher Wheeldon; and with Holly Hynes and Carole Divet about the late Barbara Matera; Don Daniels on Ballet Mime; a London report from Clement Crisp; and a piece called "Balanchine on the Danube," by Larry L. Lash. I've left out some things, but I want to mention the many beautiful photographs in this issue. The cover is of Alexandra Ansanelli and partner. Bet you have to have to look twice before you realize the latter is Damian Woetzel.

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The chronology of this issue is a little strange. The Winter issue (the one with Aurelie Dupont on the cover) had among other things David Vaugan on SFB's visit to City Center in October '02, as well as coverage of the Kirov in NY during July '02. Now the Spring issue for '03 is suddenly rumaging around back in the preceding period, about a year ago and prior to the things reviewed last winter.

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I was a little suprised at the Wheeldon quote about NYCB's "wonderful dancers who seem to this year to have been unfairly taken apart in many camps in New York"

I know there have been several negative reviews of the company as a whole, but mostly having to do with management.

Anyone?

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When talking about his Ligeti ballets, Wheeldon makes it clear that the NY premiere of SFB's Continuum (Oct. '02) is still in the future at the point in time when he and Mason are speaking. If the interview was therefore conducted (as it seems) last Summer ('02) then maybe Wheeldon is referring to the chorus of criticism of Maria K. last spring ("Vase awaiting Flowers", etc.)? Spring '02 was also the season of La Stafford's Theme and Variations. Again, this Spring '03 issue of Ballet Review seems to pertain to the time frame before that covered in the Winter issue, and that seems to go for the Wheeldon interview also.

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It is quite variable. I had one piece, a very long one, published the quarter after I submitted it, and another waited for two years. I think that's a general experience. Reviews take precedence, I would imagine, because they are more time sensitive, but interviews aren't. It's all part of Ballet Review's charm :)

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Some say that the quarterly is passé, but one of the nice things about them, and Ballet Review in particular, is that they are not consumer-oriented in the more obvious sense. It's assumed that you will be interested in reading a review of an NYCB season that's long past and you're not looking at it in order to decide if you want to go, and that you want to read what a dancer has to say regardless of whether or not the interview is absolutely up-to-the-minute.

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From a writer's perspective, there's a big difference between working on something that will be used as a consumer guide (should we go) or something which is a record of what you saw and what you thought, but isn't designed to come out while a season is still open. Few papers do overnights anymore, but there's still a kind of time pressure with a weekly or daily paper that you don't always have with a monthly or a quarterly.

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