Suzanne Farrell on Kennedy Center honors list.

[Dale]

I can't imagine that Farrell didn't know what was going to be performed -- it was in newspaper stories before the Honors were held (and I mean held, not broadcast). Maybe Farrell doesn't read her press, maybe she does.

The Diamonds pas would have been nice. But I understand if the idea of presenting her company, as a whole, was important. When it was announced she would be among the honorees, Mediation was the first ballet I thought about.

I think a portion of Slaughter on Tenth Avenue would have been fun for the audience. But it's not danced in pointe shoes, so that's also something to consider.

I agree, Divert. #15 is something of a calling card for the Farrell troupe. Interestingly, Farrell herself was not really hailed for her performance in the work. I saw her in the lead once.

[kfw]

Given that the piece the company performed uses so many dancers and given that, as Dale noted, they've performed it so often, I think it was the perfect choice. But I'm also going to guess that Farrell chose it and rehearsed it herself.

[ViolinConcerto]

It occurs to me, as we're talking about Farrell's reactions and expressions to certain things....that entire broadcast was edited down (obviously) and it could be that the reaction shots etc we saw had nothing to do with the visual we saw preceding it!

Ever the cynic......

[Juliet]

ViolinConcerto is right-- some of the reaction shots must have been responses to something entirely different. Certainly she knew that Divert was being performed. She and the dancers worked on it during and at the end of the KenCen run.

[Jack Reed]

Actually, from reading the 27th December Washington Post story you posted a link to in post #53, kfw, I could easily guess that George Stevens Jr. had a hand in choosing what would be danced. But I have little doubt that Farrell rehearsed it. As to the reaction shots during the dancing, they could be from some other moment, ViolinConcerto, yes, but Juliet, why must they be? In them she looks to me like following something intently, so, they seem to me to belong to that moment, if not to the best way to show off the choreography.

With regard to reruns, the Honors program with Tallchief reappeared about nine months later on A&E. That's a long time to keep querying the search functions on zap2it.com and TVGuide.com, but it might work.

[Juliet]

"As for her segment, when Caroline Kennedy introduce her dancers to perform Divertimento No. 15, the camera gave us a side shot of Farrell with her hands to her mouth. Clearly she was surprise her dancers was going to perform in her honor."

What I said was in reference to the above statement, Jack. Didn't make myself clear--sorry!

Sometimes they do rebroadcast the Honors programs, so we might be lucky--