7 replies to this topic

[California]

The schedule has been posted for this year's Vail International Dance Festival:

https://www.vaildanc...les-LandingPage

Pacific Northwest Ballet, but no NYCB/Moves. The International Festival includes Sergei Polunin.

[Helene]

"New York City Ballet Stars Tiler Peck, Robert Fairchild, and Zachary Catazaro" are scheduled for the same program as the Polunin.  

Interesting that they're doing the PNB/Ken Stowell "Swan Lake" Act II on the 25th Anniversary opening program, as well as a PNB program with a Wheeldon premiere.  They're also bringing the "Agon," "Apollo," "Concerto Barocco" program that they're doing at City Center in a couple of weeks.  (We don't even get that here in Seattle on a single program.)

[sandik]

That is some interesting programming -- in the past they've taken a relatively small number of PNB dancers, but Swan Lake Act II is the female corps (possibly plus apprentices) -- that's a big group of dancers trying to catch their breath in Vail!

[California]

sandik, on 01 February 2013 - 04:33 PM, said:

-- that's a big group of dancers trying to catch their breath in Vail!

Indeed! PNB is unionized, and the standard dancer's contract in this country provides for 2 rest days before being required to perform at any elevation over 5,000 ft. Denver is just over that, as is Salt Lake City, which might be why you don't see much in the way of touring ballet companies in those cities. Vail is at 10,000! Moves is not unionized (part of the controversy in travelling separately from NYCB), so they didn't have that requirement, and I heard that they flew in the day before having to perform. These are athletes, of course, but the altitude can really have an impact on people until they have acclimated. The Vail festival does have a lot of "extras," like open rehearsals and community events, so perhaps they have ways to involve the PNB dancers in that before they have to perform.

The stage is fairly small so it's possible they'll bring a small corps. And the tiny orchestra pit couldn't handle a big orchestra, so I'm guessing they'll be using recorded music.

[SandyMcKean]

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Vail is at 10,000!

More like 8000' (but that's still very high......I've done a lot of mountain climbing in my time, and I can atest that breathing at 8000' can be problematical if you are working hard; at 10,000' it is very noticable, and at 12,000' and above you never catch your wind regardless of how in shape you are.

P.S. Actually SLC is under 5000'

[sandik]

California, on 01 February 2013 - 04:52 PM, said:

The stage is fairly small so it's possible they'll bring a small corps. And the tiny orchestra pit couldn't handle a big orchestra, so I'm guessing they'll be using recorded music.

I don't know about orchestra size, but I hope they don't have to cut their corps -- it's really a lovely production and they do a great job of it.

[Helene]

I went to bike camp in Colorado many years ago and lamented to the instructors that I wished I had come a few days earlier to acclimate.  They laughed and said that if I really wanted to acclimate, I would have needed to come three weeks early.

[SandyMcKean]

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They laughed and said that if I really wanted to acclimate, I would have needed to come three weeks early.

This is absolutely correct.

There is a lot of misunderstanding about this.  People say such things as "I need a couple of days to acclimatize", but this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what acclimatizing to altitude means.  The human body can not acclimatize physiologically in less than about 3 weeks for typical inhabited altitudes (high altitudes can take even longer). True acclimatization is essentially an increase in the red cell count in your blood -- this takes time -- as well as other shorter term metabolic changes.  OTOH, psychologically one does "feel better" after a couple of days at higher altitude, but this is only because you learn to lower your activity output per unit of time so as not to run out of breath or to avoid having to breathe hard.  Your body does not adjust in so short a time, but you do become more familiar with your surroundings and you do modify your habits (e.g., how fast you walk up a flight of stairs).

Frankly, I am somewhat surprised that union contracts have this 5000' clause since 2 days in not nearly enough time to acclimatize -- in fact, one is usually worse off after only a couple of days at altitude since your body is under some stress due to the lack of oxygen.  OTOH, I suppose that given a typical dancer's hectic schedule, a couple days of rest always helps.