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Sarabia brothers no longer on MCB roster


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Here's something of a shocker: the Sarabia brothers, Principal Rolando and Soloist Daniel are no longer listed on the MCB roster of dancers. There is no officlal statement about this departures.

Rolando's exit, following Jeremy Cox's earlier this season, means that there are only two male principals left: Renato Penteado and Carlos Guerra. Both heroic work this weekend in West Palm Beach, dancing major roles in BOTH ballets in ALL performances. By Sunday, the effort and pressure inevitably began to show, but I admire their guts and professionalism.

With big plans for next season (MCB's 25th), it's hard to guess what they will do. The company premiere of Cranko's Romeo and Juliet, will be a special challenge. Think of all those important male roles. There are several Mercutios among the ranked dancers in the company right now, but no obvious Tybalts and ... more to the point ... only one clear choice for Romeo.

For the record: other than the 2 remaining principals, there are 3 male principal soloists, Didier Bramaz, Yang Zou, and Alex Wong, and 2 males soloists, Daniel Baker and Marc Spielberger. All are very nice dancers, and Wong is incredible mover in certain works. Daniel Baker is, in my opinion, especially promising, . But no one on that list is currently principal material, it seems to me.

Here's the latest company roster: http://www.miamicityballet.org/super_human.php

I wonder what MCB will do to cover themselves next season.

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I knew it...but as it was never official, I couldn't say it here...

If anything, I think Sarabita was never comfortable with the company's repertoire. He's definitely not a "Balanchine boy".

This is terrible. Sarabita, as cubanmiamiboy calls him, :wub: , may never have been comfortable in Balanchine rep,

or been a natural 'Balanchine boy', but someone of his talent could have been trained--could have learned. I'm

a Balanchine fanatic, and I was never offended nor disappointed by Sarabia in Balanchine roles; in fact, I thought

the last few times I saw him he'd really made tremendous progress.

He's a superb, handsome, stalwart, and most prepossessing dancer, and I sure hope he will dance somewhere

after this. he will be sorely missed. Seay and Sarabia in one fell swoop---UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!

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This is OFF TOPIC, but jsmu has mentioned Deanna Seay.

Seay took a serious fall at the Sunday matinee in West Palm Beach -- her last regularly scheduled pereformance after 21 years with the company. It took a while for her to get back up. She was clearly in pain, but she was able to hop off into the wings.

This was in the "Stairway to Paradise" solo in Who Cares? There was total silence in the theater. But the show must go on, and so it was with this joyful ballet. Callie Manning, wearing her chorus girl tutu, came on a few numbers later for Seay's pas de deux with Guerra. Manning did a lovely job.

In the finale, Guerra danced with only two of the leads -- Kronenberg and Jeanette Delgado (herself back from a break brought about by injury). There was a certain amount of creative choreography to make up for the absent Seay, but it all worked out. (When in doubt, do pique turns.) There was more than the usual ovation, and I'm sure that thoughts about Seay were part of that. Several women who sit next to me, and who have observed MCB for many years, were especially upset, as was I.

Back to Sarabia. I can't agree with the idea that MCB did not do a proper job of re-training Sarabia. He seems always to have held on to that desire for the opportunity to dance his OWN repertory -- and to accrue the success that other Cuban stars have gotten -- that he referred to at the time of his arrival in the U.S. I can still see him dancing in the middle of so many dancers in the ensemble conclusion of Symphony in C. He was good. But he wasn't his best. I had the sense that being less than his best was not what he came to America to be.

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