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starting the new season


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My hometown company is Pacific Northwest Ballet, and their autumn programs are full of contemporary dance. Twyla Tharp is making a new work, to music by Allen Toussaint, which will be performed along with her Brief Fling and Sinatra Songs. And then we're getting a lot of Kylian, on a program with Crystal Pite's Emergence. Tharp and Kylian really represent different approaches to what we've been calling crossover choreography -- with Pite, as a kind of representative of William Forsythe, we're looking at three of the major examples of how ballet has been morphing over the last several years. I'm looking forward to thinking about that process this fall, and contrasting it with the more classical/neo-classical work they've got scheduled after the first of the year.

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I'm looking forward to the upcoming visits by the Bolshoi (Giselle) and the Mariinsky (SL) to the Kennedy Center in 2014. I'm also looking forward to the Bolshoi's anticipated visit to New York during the summer of 2014. Let's hope that the Mariinsky brings at least a few "A List" principals for the engagement. Most immediately, I'm looking forward to Sara Mearns' Swan Lake tomorrow.

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Tharp's new piece for PNB could be wonderful. She is musical - -and this music -- even if you haven't heard of Toussaint -- is potentially a fabulous score for a ballet.

Toussaint's never become nationally famous, but from New Orleans to memphis he is revered as a performer and especially as a song writer. Not sure what Tharp will use, she'll doubtless pick her own bouquet -- but the celebrated songs he wrote include Time is on my Side, Working in a coal mine, Mother-in-law, and some we loved in the south that never got a lot of play outside, like "It's Raining" and Ruler of my Heart," and "I wish someone would care" three of the greatest blues songs ever. He is a great lyric poet, and then there's the music!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vliI_iJuKcw

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Tharp's new piece for PNB could be wonderful. She is musical - -and this music -- even if you haven't heard of Toussaint -- is potentially a fabulous score for a ballet.

Toussaint's never become nationally famous, but from New Orleans to memphis he is revered as a performer and especially as a song writer. Not sure what Tharp will use, she'll doubtless pick her own bouquet -- but the celebrated songs he wrote include Time is on my Side, Working in a coal mine, Mother-in-law, and some we loved in the south that never got a lot of play outside, like "It's Raining" and Ruler of my Heart," and "I wish someone would care" three of the greatest blues songs ever. He is a great lyric poet, and then there's the music!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vliI_iJuKcw

Thanks for the link -- Tharp has made some of her most significant work to what people have called vernacular music, so I have high hopes for this.

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Fun topic, Sandik. I subscribed again this year to NYCB and so I am looking forward to my first performance of the subscription on October 5. The program is three Balanchine ballets - La Sonambula, Prodigal Son and Slaughter on 10th. I've never seen Prodigal and adore La Sonambula, so I am very excited. And I'll be downstate in Westchester County on business week after next and so may take Metro North into town for the Balanchine B&W. I'd LOVE to see ABT at the Koch (mad.gif ooohh, that name!) with Les Sylphides and Tharp's Bach Partita but I don't think it's going to happen.

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Fun topic, Sandik. I subscribed again this year to NYCB and so I am looking forward to my first performance of the subscription on October 5. The program is three Balanchine ballets - La Sonambula, Prodigal Son and Slaughter on 10th. I've never seen Prodigal and adore La Sonambula, so I am very excited. And I'll be downstate in Westchester County on business week after next and so may take Metro North into town for the Balanchine B&W. I'd LOVE to see ABT at the Koch (mad.gif ooohh, that name!) with Les Sylphides and Tharp's Bach Partita but I don't think it's going to happen.

Come back and tell us what you think of Prodigal -- I remember the first couple times I saw it I was just bowled over.

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I'm actually enjoying Prodigal a lot less than I used to. We were spoiled by having two incredible Prodigals (Woetzel and Boal) perform the role for many, many years. Neither of the Prodigals I've seen among the current roster (Ulbricht and DeLuz) are comparable, in my opinion. Such a pity Woetzel is not brought in to coach these dancers.

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I'm actually enjoying Prodigal a lot less than I used to. We were spoiled by having two incredible Prodigals (Woetzel and Boal) perform the role for many, many years. Neither of the Prodigals I've seen among the current roster (Ulbricht and DeLuz) are comparable, in my opinion. Such a pity Woetzel is not brought in to coach these dancers.

We've been fortunate in both Prodigals and Sirens, but I've been interested in the overall structure of the work the last few times I've seen it.

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I'm actually enjoying Prodigal a lot less than I used to. We were spoiled by having two incredible Prodigals (Woetzel and Boal) perform the role for many, many years. Neither of the Prodigals I've seen among the current roster (Ulbricht and DeLuz) are comparable, in my opinion. Such a pity Woetzel is not brought in to coach these dancers.

We've been fortunate in both Prodigals and Sirens, but I've been interested in the overall structure of the work the last few times I've seen it.

Prodigal Son is a ballet I'm never too excited about seeing yet again, but am always blown away by anyhow.

I'm especially looking forward to Suzanne Farrell Ballet's staging of Mozartiana this season. Can't wait to see the casting!

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Great topic! Something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

I'm looking forward to this Saturday's Night of Stars from the Boston Ballet. It seems like a great line up and I'm very proud that Boston is celebrating its 50 anniversary with a free event for the public. I'm also looking forward to seeing NYCB perform 'Dances at a Gathering' in January. I've never seen that piece and I love Jerome Robbins' solo Chopin works.

I'm also excited about seeing Paris Opera Ballet (Sleeping Beauty and Preljocaj's Le Parc), English National Ballet (Nutcracker and, fingers crossed, Corsaire), and the National Ballet of Canada (who knows! but Swan Lake or Onegin look possible). It will be my first time seeing each of these companies live.

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Looking forward to NYCB offering some other Balanchine: La Sonambula, Prodigal Son, Midsummer Night's Dream, Davidsbundlertanze, and what some say is Jerome Robbins' best piece - Dances at a Gathering. I am also looking forward to NYCB getting over its infatuation with clothing fashions which judging by current publicity is what they think people should be interested in.

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Kathleen O, you may enjoy Ratmansky's delicious "From Foreign Lands," which San Francisco Ballet is planning to bring to New York in October. When I saw them perform it at Stern Grove last month, it made me laugh out loud.

And Sandik, I'm with you -- I'd LOVE to see "Dances at a Gathering" this year. Preferably tomorrow.

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With kfw, I am, as always, looking forward to TSFB's too-short season in November; and I've just put together an expedition to Fort Lauderdale to have a look at Merrill Ashley's staging of Ballo della Regina on MCB, on a program with Serenade and Wheeldon's Polyphonia, in October. Maybe I'll go back in January to see if their realization of Balanchine's Nutcracker still has the vitality it had in 2011, when it benefitted so much from comparison with the NYCB PBS broadcast. (Living in Chicago is apt to give me additional reason to head south that time of year.)

And depending on the repertory, I have in mind the SAB Workshop next Spring. Last time, watching one variation in particular had me at the point of giggling with delight, and the rest of the program wasn't far below. And Ballet Chicago's Nutcracker and Spring Repertory programs I can get to without going through security or getting on an airplane!... Last season, without any fanfare I heard, Simone Messmer, no less, turned up as "Sugar Plum" in their second weekend. Like at SAB, you just gotta be in the right place at the right time.

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With kfw, I am, as always, looking forward to TSFB's too-short season in November; and I've just put together an expedition to Fort Lauderdale to have a look at Merrill Ashley's staging of Ballo della Regina on MCB, on a program with Serenade and Wheeldon's Polyphonia, in October. Maybe I'll go back in January to see if their realization of Balanchine's Nutcracker still has the vitality it had in 2011, when it benefitted so much from comparison with the NYCB PBS broadcast. (Living in Chicago is apt to give me additional reason to head south that time of year.)

I'm jealous- I really was hoping to see Miami sometime this year (the October program looks great, so does their January program with Concerto Barocco, Ratmansky's Symphonic Dances, and a new Peck) but it doesn't look like I'm going to make it to Miami this year. Their Nutcracker is wonderful - I saw it last year.

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