Ari

It might be a good idea for those upset by plans for the Celebration to make your views known to members of the company's Board. They have the ultimate authority, after all.

Harvey Fierstein as the Queen is brilliant, Mme. Hermine. And of course we'd have to have the Trocks as the dancers.

Maxi, see the Links thread for yesterday (July 28) for two reviews of the performance, which explain what happened

Click here

Jane, in one of Arlene Croce's reviews of the RB's Beauty she refers to "Ashton's beautiful Lilac Fairy variation." It's not pure Ashton, since some of Lupokov's steps and the general structure and feel of the variation are his, but someone else clearly added to it and changed it subtly. This kind of emendation is, of course, very common, but there are no conventions as to who gets program credit for it.

The RB's Lilac variation is by Ashton, I believe. That may explain why David Poole didn't use it in his staging -- he might not have been able to get the rights.

I suspect that de Valois might have thought "Desiré" too racy for British tastes!

This is the casting for Petersburg, isn't it?

I just finished I Capture the Castle, which was delightful. The movie just came out -- has anyone seen it? It got mostly good reviews and a friend of mine liked it.

Now I'm reading Elinor Lipman's latest, The Pursuit of Alice Thrift. As I said earlier in this thread, I enjoy all her books, even if many of them are similar.

When Patricia McBride danced Swanilda on matinee days, she never danced at the other performance, even just a short ballet. The idea that a nineteen-year old corps member who had trouble with stamina at her first performance is doing TWO Swanildas in one day is appalling.

Thank you for giving us such a thorough list, Estelle. It must have taken a lot of research! Now, if only I could afford to go over there and see some of these companies . . .

In Taper's biography there are several anecdotes about Balanchine's love for his adopted country — his feeling that in marrying Maria Tallchief he had somehow become an honorary Native American, his pleasure (!) in paying taxes to so great a country — but it doesn't specifically say that he was naturalized.

Regarding Jorgen's post about pronouncing Tatiana Terekhova's name — I have a video of La Bayadère with Terekhova as Gamzatti in which the Russian announcer pronounces her name with the stress on the second syllable, which is the way I've always pronounced it. She also rolls the "r."

While on the subject of Georgian names, what about Ananiashvili?

I've always pronounced it Ah-nan-YASH-vee-lee. But the former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, John Shalikashvili, pronounced his name Shall-ee-kash-VEE-lee.

Anyone?

I've always thought that Americans will take a foreign word into the language as a foreign word, where other English speakers adapt the word to fits their own pronunciation rules

I've noticed that with some Italian words, too. When I was in Italy I was puzzled by the inclusion of "rocket" as an ingredient in salads (in the translation). Then I looked at the Italian and was relieved to discover that it was arugula.

Correctly me if I am wrong, I don't believe DTH ever performed at the Met.

They did, Mussel. I saw them there in the early 90s, they did Stars & Stripes at a gala attended by, I think it was, Barbara Bush. It was part of a one- or two-week season.

  Ouch!  Careful here, there are MBAs involved in this discussion (not I, however).

Mel, I'm well aware that mbjerk has an MBA. However, he no is longer employed in the corporate world, and speaks of it with detachment. It never occurred to me that he might think that my comments were directed at him; if he did, I apologize.

In a weird way dancers are seen as cost where admin staff are seen as revenue generating, especially those in marketing and development.  Dancers are the product, so to me it is strange to cut the product and keep the sales force - what do they sell?

The company I work for, which has nothing to do with ballet, has exactly the same value system. It's trying to force those whose job it is to put out the product to concentrate instead on administrative matters. Those of us who still care about the quality of the product have to be surreptitious about the amount of time we spend attending to it. And we also have the problem of older, more experienced, higher paid employees being replaced by cheaper younger people without substantive experience.

So I think the problem is not exclusive to arts organizations; rather, it's the corrupting influence of corporate America, which nowadays is being run by MBAs instead of people who care about the company. Whatever happened to the mantra of "excellence" so popular in the 80s?

I believe I was one of the snickerers, Carbro. Was this a vertically challenged gentleman who made his presentation at the Met?

In America, we'd say PET ee pah, or risk sounding pretentious.  I'm curious about the British pronunciation?

I think PET ee pah IS the British pronunciation. It was Clive Barnes, the dance critic media star, who brought the pronunciation into widespread use. I wonder how Petipa was pronounced pre-Barnes?

DTH had a season at the Met about ten years ago. They may have had another season there, too — perhaps someone else remembers.

Acosta has said in other interviews that his father knew nothing whatever about ballet except that it imposed discipline. He thought his son needed that, so he enrolled him in classes.

Could that be Niels Kehlet, one of my favorite dancers?? :rolleyes: I'd love to see his Bluebird! (But in The Nutcracker? Was it The Sleeping Beauty bluebird?) Where did you get this tape, Mme. Hermine?

Well, as I said above , I think the reason people balk at the word "museum" in the ballet context is that we recognize that in order for dance to come alive, it has to be of this moment. The notion of an old ballet painstakingly reconstructed suggests, at least at first blush, a dinosaur put together bone by bone — the closest we'll ever get to see one, but definitely dead.

Of course, it doesn't have to be that way at all; good ballet masters can make an old ballet come alive for the dancers and through them, the audience. But in answer to Bobbi's question, I think that people jump to the first conclusion.

Swanilda, in my program for the Saturday evening performance, April Taylor is listed in the corps of Chopiniana. Perhaps others will know the casting for the Saturday matinee and Monday evening performances.

And yet another case:

Scottsdale performances by a dance troupe from India have been canceled after they twice were denied visas.

The 14-member, world-renowned Mamata Shankar Ballet Troupe, which has toured the United States for 25 years, was set to perform next Friday at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts.  

"Discover India 2003" would have exposed Northeast Valley residents to the rich and colorful culture of India. But the dancers were denied visas, and lost an appeal, spurring an investigation into the matter by U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

No reason was given for the denials, said Girija Krishnamurthy, president of the India Association of Phoenix, who suspects the rejections might have to do with tighter travel restrictions imposed on foreigners by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.