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ABT's Male Principal Problem


Promote From Within or Go On a Spending Spree?  

73 members have voted

  1. 1. To solve its looming shortage of male principals, should ABT:

    • Promote from within to fill the ranks
      45
    • Go out into the free market and hire male principals from outside the company
      28


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So anyway... back to the new-yorkers and the Basils, Siegfrieds, Amintas, Conrads, Alis, Albrechts and Solors of ABT...

Well, there's a distinct minority on this board who would prefer it if ABT got back to the Carolines and Billy the Kids and Hagars and Moors and Cowgirls.

I think, the problem why the talented male corp and soloists are not progressing as much as expected is the absence of a good male coach. The ladies have Irina and others but the males don't have one. They should have JM Carreno as a coach,ballet master .

Hasn't this always been the case at ABT, though? As Arlene Croce pointed out in the 90s, ABT dancers need to be more self-reliant than dancers at most companies.

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I could not copy it. It is Russian youtube. I have tried many time to post it, but the link is some media link and I cannot post it here for some reason. Sorry. I have tried and tried. It just keeps leading to my youtube account which I would prefer to remain private.

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I could not copy it. It is Russian youtube. I have tried many time to post it, but the link is some media link and I cannot post it here for some reason. Sorry. I have tried and tried. It just keeps leading to my youtube account which I would prefer to remain private.

No worries..here we go. It's purposefully cagey, I believe, due to what they are dancing.

http://youtu.be/xbYlWrvMitY

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Thank you both so much! (The issue with the URLs is that they were missing a "Y" at the end of the video code.)

I searched and searched through pages of "ОБРАЗЦОВА", but I couldn't figure out how to spell "Голдинг"!.

The Obraztsova/Golding section is cut off prematurely to be followed by the Skorik/Patrick Dempsey Korsuntsev White Swan adagio.

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I only saw Sarafanov dance once (Etudes, NY City Center 2008), but he was absolutely incredible!! I would love to see him at ABT!! Isn't he supposed to be unhappy at the company he's with now (the same company Osipov and Vasilev went to, I don't know how to spell the name.) What a coup it would be for ABT to have him as a principal dancer.

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who was that, ahem, swan queen? Sorry to go this far afield but I'm dying to know.

And now i hit this pose, and now this one, and now that one. Was there a character there at all?

According to the caption, "Скорик, Корсунцев Адажио Одетты", which is "Skorik/Korsuntsev Adagio Odette"

Watching her, I thought will all of her cool detachment, she looked more like a POB dancer than a Mariinsky dancer.

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I only saw Sarafanov dance once (Etudes, NY City Center 2008), but he was absolutely incredible!! I would love to see him at ABT!! Isn't he supposed to be unhappy at the company he's with now (the same company Osipov and Vasilev went to, I don't know how to spell the name.) What a coup it would be for ABT to have him as a principal dancer.

I'm not sure what the benefit of Sarafanov would be when they already have Simkin on the roster. They remind me quite a bit of each other, and if people have issues with Simkin's younger looks for a lot of danseur roles than Sarafanov runs into the same issue. Plus, Sarafanov is not a great partner dealing with the extremely willowy ladies of the Mariinsky so Id be a little nervous to see what he might make of the slightly less willowy ladies of ABT (this is not a slight to the bodies of women of ABT at all, I like that they look healthy) and he's not a great actor.

Cobweb--Golding left ABT for Corella Ballet when Corella was first getting the company together (maybe 07/08ish), then moved on to the DNB after. His height alone should have had Kevin begging him to stay, since he likes tall female dancers so much.

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I could not copy it. It is Russian youtube. I have tried many time to post it, but the link is some media link and I cannot post it here for some reason. Sorry. I have tried and tried. It just keeps leading to my youtube account which I would prefer to remain private.

No worries..here we go. It's purposefully cagey, I believe, due to what they are dancing.

http://youtu.be/xbYlWrvMitY

Why are they playing that coda-(and in general the whole piece)- soooo s-l-o-o-o-w...? That whole Pas needs to be faster, quicker, sharper!

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I think, the problem why the talented male corp and soloists are not progressing as much as expected is the absence of a good male coach. The ladies have Irina and others but the males don't have one. They should have JM Carreno as a coach,ballet master .

Speaking of which...anyone know what Carreno has done in the year since his retirement form the company? I know he wanted to try other forms of dance and experiment as an artist and whatnot...but does anyone have an actual update? He is still in NY right?

and ksk06 - THANK YOU!

also, how long was Golding with ABT before he left? He's pretty young, so it's impressive how far he's come. (granted he has talent, the looks, and solid training)

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I only saw Sarafanov dance once (Etudes, NY City Center 2008), but he was absolutely incredible!! I would love to see him at ABT!! Isn't he supposed to be unhappy at the company he's with now (the same company Osipov and Vasilev went to, I don't know how to spell the name.) What a coup it would be for ABT to have him as a principal dancer.

I'm not sure what the benefit of Sarafanov would be when they already have Simkin on the roster. They remind me quite a bit of each other, and if people have issues with Simkin's younger looks for a lot of danseur roles than Sarafanov runs into the same issue. Plus, Sarafanov is not a great partner dealing with the extremely willowy ladies of the Mariinsky so Id be a little nervous to see what he might make of the slightly less willowy ladies of ABT (this is not a slight to the bodies of women of ABT at all, I like that they look healthy) and he's not a great actor.

He reminds me of Scott Hamilton with a bad wig.

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I'd love for the promotions to come from within, and not outsourced. I have always liked ballet company's like NYCB, the Bolshoi, and Mariinsky's ballet tradition of having pretty much the majority of their dancers, from the principals down to the corp, a product of their company and the nationality of the company. Now that ABT has a feeder school, I hope they start doing this and developing their own style.

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I too love the promote from within model. I believe that the ABT rep make it difficult, unless it's an obvious talent who hired to serve corps/soloist time until promoted. This would be a Bujones or a Simkin. What I mean is that the repertory of primarily big ballets doesn't allow for a lot of stage time development. Doing 8 or 10 peasant pas a year doesn't prepare a dancer for Albricht. The company can't really take a chance on an up and coming dancer because of ticket sales and the fact that it takes away an opportunity for an established principal to do the role. Contrast this with NYCB which can put dancers out there in challenging corps and soloist roles more than once a performance.

The exception in ABT (IMO) are when tall men are needed. Patrick Bissell (again IMO) was promoted before he was ready because he was tall. Even Hallberg, obviously an excellent dancer, might not have moved up quite so fast if he wasn't tall.

I just don't know how talent can be developed and nurtured unless people can be given lots, and lots of opportunities.

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I just don't know how talent can be developed and nurtured unless people can be given lots, and lots of opportunities.

It would go a long way if they went back to having longer City Center seasons, imo. ABT has many, many shorter narrative works that make for good testing ground for future full-length tryouts. They just need to actually program decent work, rather than the weird rep they've put on for the last two years and their City Center seasons would be salvaged while giving the audiences a venue to "shop" new talent/partnerships.

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Because the point can't be made too many times.

I just don't know how talent can be developed and nurtured unless people can be given lots, and lots of opportunities.

It would go a long way if they went back to having longer City Center seasons, imo. ABT has many, many shorter narrative works that make for good testing ground for future full-length tryouts. They just need to actually program decent work, rather than the weird rep they've put on for the last two years and their City Center seasons would be salvaged while giving the audiences a venue to "shop" new talent/partnerships.

I don't care what the venue is, but I really believe that the dancers need more mixed-rep programs, and as a ticket-buyer, so do I.

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Option A (Ranked from very plausible to completely implausible)

1) Muntagirov -- This is a no brainer. He's young, tall and, with English National Ballet in disarray due to Wayne Eagling's resignation/ouster, ripe for the picking.

Tamara Rojo has been named director of English National Ballet. I don't know how this would impact Muntagirov's plans, with the substantial budget cuts still the company's reality:

A BBC Four documentary last year on ENB, Agony & Ecstasy, showed the stresses as the company tried to hold a balance between selling out to populism and maintaining top classical standards. Over the next two years ENB must swallow cuts in its current £6.8m annual subsidy of £700,000. Rojo, as the next director of Britain's most suffering ballet company in a deep cultural recession, has to make bricks with straw.

She should give Ib Andersen a call about making bricks with straw.

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Option A (Ranked from very plausible to completely implausible)

1) Muntagirov -- This is a no brainer. He's young, tall and, with English National Ballet in disarray due to Wayne Eagling's resignation/ouster, ripe for the picking.

Tamara Rojo has been named director of English National Ballet. I don't know how this would impact Muntagirov's plans, with the substantial budget cuts still the company's reality:

I don't know either. I have to guess, though, that Rojo's arrival as director and prima ballerina would really give pause to the other leading female dancers at the company.

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ABT only lists principals that dance in that particular engagement. Mariinsky did the same thing at the Met, it only listed principals that danced during the Met seaon in the programs last year.

Is that completely true, though? Murphy was listed but did she even dance??

Regardless, the point I was trying to make was that ABT is now two companies: the core company that tours and the dance collective comprised of wandering, itinerant stars who coalesce in New York every Spring and early Summer. The former is looking thin at the top, especially among the male principals. Gomes, Hallberg and Stearns are the workhorses who are holding it together but, again, if one or more of them goes down (knock on wood), the company's touring schedule is going to be in a world of hurt.

C Stearns will be replaced by R Bolle in Giselle this weekend in Virginia, reportedly due to Cory's injury( see todays Link). I hope he recovers well before the Met season .
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A lot of what happens within a company goes back to the school, if the variety and quantity of dancers is there for training a talented number of people can suceed in going successfully through the ranks of a company. As the older members change companies or retire, there would always be people to fill the empty spaces. But it raises the question are there still enough young people taking up dance.currently. Without the promotion of dance or funding for training it makes it difficult to attract the right people into the genre.and therefore many companies suffer from this shortfall.

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