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2015-2016 Season


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Are any of the companies committed to new work committed to women though? It seems these days the major companies are more interested in using star choreographers to sell tickets than they are their stars and more importantly, their brand. Sort of like a venue, no? It's a shame - I'm not sure sharing too many of the same names and productions as other companies is 'healthy' long-term, just as it isn't any business trying to compete within niche industries/markets. We could hardly claim NYCB has the monopoly on Balanchine and Robbins anymore, similarly with Macmillan at the RB. Wheeldon and Peck aren't central to the company's commercial identity, just leaving Martins... and enough said there!

Perhaps counterproductive given what I just wrote but I'm still waiting for a company to adopt a 'near 50:50, men:women' policy amongst revivals too. It's certainly possible for the European companies.

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I second tomorrow's concern regarding ballet companies chasing after the same few hot names for new ballets. I understand why they do so, and I understand why choreographers might grab at every commission they can get wherever and whenever they can get it. But it's a tricky thing balance the requirement for new ballets (and I think that requirement is absolute if the art form is to retain its vibrancy) against the risk of diluting everyone's brand, to put it in crass marketing terms.

And thank you, choriamb, for the Ashley Issacs link! She's one of my favorite dancers -- maybe someday she'll be one of my favorite choreographers, too ... or maybe one of my favorite ADs who hires women choreographers.

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Amy Seiwert is the Resident Choreographer at Smuin Ballet and Helen Pickett is the Resident Choreographer at Atlanta Ballet. Here's an interesting article:

http://www.pointemagazine.com/issues/december-2012january-2013/seen-not-heard

"Several ballet companies have launched choreographic initiatives to give emerging artists a safe space to develop work, and most of them actively seek out women. The New York Choreographic Institute has nurtured over a dozen women—including Adam, Lang, LeCrone and Seiwert—since it began in 2000, for example, and ABT mounted the (sadly short-lived) Voices and Visions: The Altria/ABT Women’s Choreography Project in 2008. Beyond those supportive environments, opportunities for women are limited. “I don’t think there’s any conscious discrimination happening, but this is not a good time financially for ballet, which means there are fewer commissions to begin with,” Seiwert says. “And when companies do commission, they want a Wheeldon, or a Ratmansky, or a McGregor—you’ve got your top four or five safe bets, and they’re all men.” When directors hire women choreographers, they tend to group them on all-women programs, in part because those events get significant press coverage, offsetting the risk factor. But directors aren’t integrating women choreographers into their regular programming."

In addition, I know that Joffrey has a choreographic initiative called, "Choreographers of Color," in which, I believe, a few women have participated. And while not a company, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, has a program entitled ChoreoPlan, in which many women over the years have participated. I know of one female choreographer, Heather Maloy, who choreographed there early on, and has since started her own small dance company, Terpsicorps.

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Not every choreographer at NYCB was a star choreographer at the time of their first NYCB commission...

Looking at it from another angle, I could be wrong, but I suspect the pressures on the corps women are slightly different than on the men.. Peter Martins said decades ago that he felt he had to stop dancing to have the mental space to choreograph (or something to that effect)... I believe that with the greater number of women competing for a chance at NYCB that those who make it in may feel more forced to stay focused on maintaining their performance level? I wonder. The potential choreographic talent of the women seems a vastly under exploited resource...

Or, is it that the best choreographers are rarely the best dancers and the level of competition for the women at NYCB culls the choreographers from among them?

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Not every choreographer at NYCB was a star choreographer at the time of their first NYCB commission...

Where is the emerging talent now though? Major ballet companies appear to be trapped in this cycle of giving the majority of its commissions and revivals to a very narrow group of choreographers. Is that really good for the business long-term? Obviously theatre is a much, much bigger art form, but if the world's major mixed rep theatres and/or permanent ensembles all started sharing too many of the same directors, writers and productions, critics would most likely lynch the general directors (especially at companies where public subsidies are involved), yet in ballet not much is said about it. I'm not sure sandwiching Pam Tanowitz between, say, Forsythe and Ratmansky would dent ticket sales at a major company like City Ballet.

Do the women Peter Martins might consider commissioning need to be from NYCB though, or even the states? I'm not from the US so I'm not sure what's on offer at the colleges, but in the UK choreography degrees tend to be much more mixed gender than the initiatives we see at the ballet companies. If this is about fear of taking risks and not just trying to jam pack a season with as many big shots as possible, why not link up with some of these courses to provide students with access to an art form they wouldn't otherwise come in contact with? It adds to the pool of choreographers and several showcases of work should give an idea of who's most promising.

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In the UK, are the degree programs producing ballet choreographers? One of the problems here in the States is that the product of the degree programs tends to be modern/contemporary dance choreographers... rather than ballet choreographers... the nursery for ballet choreographers has been a major problem here in the States since forever...

I do believe there is a difference between ballet and modern/contemporary choreography. It is difficult to define how ballet choreography is distinct, but staying predominately within the ballet vocabulary would seem to be an element. Staying with ballet's concept of center of balance, and the point from which ballet's motion is initiated might be something, or is that too 19th century? Off center seems to be the mantra of contemporary ballet, but also why much of it looks alike?

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One issue is that some really wonderful work by house choreographers -- sometimes the AD, sometimes not -- and dancers never gets shown anywhere else. A rare exception is Ib Andersen's "Romeo and Juliet," which Kansas City Ballet performed.

Another issue is that it is less career-damaging to fail doing what you've always done than to try something different and fail. Everyone wants the great break-through masterpiece or almost masterpiece -- even Balanchine's batting average wasn't above .400 -- but when an artist tries something different, and it doesn't really work, the knives come out. The audience also expects more of what attracted them in the first place, and in every case a new choreographer is working with a group of people with whom (mostly) he has to form a relationship and teach at least some things from the ground up. That takes time, and they don't have time. Put those three things together, and things start to look the same.

One phenomenon, even among the choreographers that are the hot ones at the time, is that the people who see the works regularly will often say that a work is unsuccessful, or that the choreographer's latest work is just like the six other things he's done, mostly in one city, and "phoned in." For example, I read criticism that Wheeldon's "Tide Mercuric," which PNB performed at the Joyce, was recycled Wheeldon. We're lucky that the Wheeldon we've seen in Seattle has a lot of variety: "Variations Serieuses," "Carousel (A dance)," "After the Rain (pas de deux) and "Polyphonia." "Tide Mercuric" looked like it was in the same family as "Polyphonia," even though I think it was structured quite differently. For a Seattle audience, it doesn't really matter if it's true Wheeldon did "Tide Mercuric" six other times for NYCB, because we didn't see the other six, and whether this is break-through work for him is neither necessary nor the point if the work is quality.

I think it's silly that no one else performs Paul Gibson's "Piano Dances," Ib Andersen's one-act ballet to Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues and "2B," some of Helgi Tomasson's shorter works. These types of ballets feed the dancers, usually with at least five featured roles, and hone neoclassical technique. I understand the obstacles -- time, not willing to send them elsewhere, even if there's virtually no audience overlap, no non-company-focused staging infrastructure -- but it should be possible to figure out something: maybe a ballet master exchange?

Forsythe is preserving some great work by curating "New Suite" by selection pas de deux from works that are less or never performed.

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Looking at it from another angle, I could be wrong, but I suspect the pressures on the corps women are slightly different than on the men.. Peter Martins said decades ago that he felt he had to stop dancing to have the mental space to choreograph (or something to that effect)... I believe that with the greater number of women competing for a chance at NYCB that those who make it in may feel more forced to stay focused on maintaining their performance level? I wonder. The potential choreographic talent of the women seems a vastly under exploited resource...

PNB runs a young choreographer program (Next Step) that usually presents at the end of the season, alongside the season finale and the annual school show. Choreographers have been mostly men, but a few women have stepped up (for both this and for the school show). Someone asked a young woman who had choreographed in the past why she wasn't working on something for an upcoming showcase, and her reply was that she and her fellow corps members were all really busy. The last ballet of the season that year was Swan Lake (I think -- memory may be faulty) and they were in the studio all the time when they would otherwise need to be working on their own choreography. The implication was that the men in the company have more free time, and therefore more time for side projects. I have a feeling that's true of several different ensembles.

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In the UK, are the degree programs producing ballet choreographers? One of the problems here in the States is that the product of the degree programs tends to be modern/contemporary dance choreographers... rather than ballet choreographers... the nursery for ballet choreographers has been a major problem here in the States since forever...

Thinking back to the Carlisle Project, which was designed to give ballet dancers a fast choreographing education, I cannot recall what the gender breakdown was in those cohorts. Leigh Witchel -- do you remember the male/female breakdown when you were involved?

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The nursery for ballet choreographers needs to start at the high-school level, and needs to take root in the major ballet schools. An apprenticeship with a major choreographer (i.e., Peck, Wheeldon, etc.) would be an amazing start for anyone, female or male. I know SAB female students are being heavily encouraged to go outside and explore other choreographers besides Balanchine. They are also given a lot of rehearsal and performance time to show their pieces to the Board, family and friends of the school.

Perhaps major companies should spotlight these young choreographers in between their popular ballet pieces during the season. What a treat it would be to see young talent showcase their pieces to a paying audience.

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Where is the emerging talent now though? Major ballet companies appear to be trapped in this cycle of giving the majority of its commissions and revivals to a very narrow group of choreographers. Is that really good for the business long-term?.

Silas Farley and Peter Walker, both in NYCB's corps, have done the choreography for the last 2 SAB summer Intensives. And I always see Silas working the NYCB crowd at intermissions on nights he doesn't dance. I suppose they could be considered "emerging" choreographers.

I also have to give a lot of credit to the Mariinsky for devoting resources, time and money to not only presenting an evening of young choreographers, but livestreaming the performance worldwide. Out of 8 ballets, only 2 used students (though IMO 1 of these was the best piece), the rest used all ranks of the Mariinsky dancers including principals (Shklyarov in Orpheus).. Several of the ballets (especially Smekalov's Orpheus) had very elaborate production and costume values so this was not a cheap evening to produce. Whether you liked or hated the pieces, I think it was important they had the evening, especially during their International Ballet Festival.

As long as these events continue to happen, ballet will be a vibrant art form.

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PNB used to have it's Choreographers' Workshop in the Spring, and the dancers used their peers. This made it difficult to fit in with the regular rehearsal schedule, and they decided to kill two birds with one stone: the program was moved to the weekend after the last weekend of the season (the school performance weekend), and the dancers were students, giving them the opportunity to work in the studio on the creation of a work and to have a choreographer make work directly on them.

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There is a side benefit in having students, not stars, to choreograph on... It means the work has to survive by the skill of the choreographer rather than the skill of the dancers...

How often are women company members given the opportunity to choreograph on the SAB kids? Every year? Does the ratio reflect the general gender ratio of the company or is it wildly different? (She asks, trying to return to topic, NYCB's next season, the most salient aspect of which seems to be the continued and marked absence of choreography from women).

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Subscriber prices for 2015-16 per ticket

$145

$115

$86

$54

$30

I was unable to copy and paste the PDF with the subscription prices for next season, but they are listed above. Prices are up compared to this season. Lowest subscription price per ticket used to be $28; it is now $30. The next level used to be $53; it is now $54. Maybe others can address the other prices.

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Just pulled the calendar for the Winter 2016 season from http://www.nycballet.com/Season-Tickets/Calendar.aspx .

For 17 days of the month between January 21 and February 18, they're performing either Symphony in C, Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3, Ballo della Regina, or Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 (sometimes in combination with La Sylphide). It's amazing to think how many ballerinas the company can now field in these principal roles: just six years ago, we'd have been lucky to get two of these ballets in a single season, much less four.

[Although I imagine Ashley Bouder and Tiler Peck must have begun investigating how to purchase a dressing room cryotherapy chamber to sleep in the instant they saw the schedule.]

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What are the advantages of getting a make your own subscription as opposed to single tickets? I would get the sub for at least six performances, and will likely see many more performances than that. Normally I just buy a lot of single tickets. Not sure what to do. I would appreciate any insights you could offer.

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