Ari

I think the point of Dance in America was meant to be dance in . . . well, America. At the time it was born, PBS showed other dance programs from companies outside the U.S. more frequently than they do now. For that matter, I don't remember the last time there was a new edition of Dance in America.

Colleen Dunn is playing this role now. Yates was the original Girl in the Yellow Dress, but she left the Broadway production last year. I believe she is performing the role with the touring company now.

Wasn't the attitude position taken (by Carlo Blasis) from Giovanni da Bologna's statute of Mercury?

And the pose in Serenade in which one ballerina is lying on the floor looking up at her partner, whose arms try to encircle her, while the "Dark Angel" hovers threateningly above them, was taken from a sculpture of Canova.

I've always thought that that moment in Serenade looks dated; Balanchine very seldom worked with poses, preferring motion. The attitude, however, has always struck me as being echt ballet, the epitome of the noble ideal.

My reading these days is geared towards a visit to Tuscany I'll be taking later this year. Right now I'm reading That Fine Italian Hand by Paul Hofmann, a German who lived in Rome for many years when he was a correspondent for the New York Times. It's a general overview of Italian society, a bit dated as it was published in 1990. Next on my list is Vanilla Beans and Brodo by Isabella Dusi, a memoir of an Australian couple who moved to Montalcino, and the Insight Guide to Tuscany. I've read Insight guides for other countries I've visited and found them to be a very helpful introduction to their history, geography, and culture. I also plan to pick up my old copy of Janson's History of Art and bone up on Italian Renaissance art.

Estelle, I'd be interested to know which guidebooks you are planning to read. There are so many that the trouble is choosing one!

The news has also been posted on a message board devoted to theater by someone who read it on this site (she linked to this thread). I posted a reply giving Caroline Miller's e-mail address, so there will be additional protests from people whose interest in dance is show-oriented. There seemed to be interest, based on the responses to the initial post.

The news has also been posted on a message board devoted to theater by someone who read it on this site (she linked to this thread). I posted a reply giving Caroline Miller's e-mail address, so there will be additional protests from people whose interest in dance is show-oriented. There seemed to be interest, based on the responses to the initial post.

Maxi, neither Charlotte nor Catherine d'Amboise became ballet dancers, although Charlotte is now a successful actress/dancer who has appeared in several Broadway shows. She is currently in Contact, which is closing in September but will be broadcast on PBS on Labor Day weekend—check your local listings. She is married to the actor Terrence Mann. There's an interview with them (from 1995) on his website at http://www.terrence-mann.com/articles/dancer3-95.txt.

Maxi, Stephanie Selby (I believe that was her name) never did join the company. After her year or two as Marie, she appeared in the Polichinelles divertissement and then was never seen again in the children's dances at NYCB. She may have given up dancing—I don't know.

Dancers of the are demanding talks with management over the way the company is run, according to BBC News.

Performers are reported to have become increasingly infuriated with artistic director Ross Stretton's management style, which often sees them kept in the dark about who will be taking the stage in which productions.

The also has a story on this.

It is understood that members of the Royal Ballet in the performers' union Equity considered passing a vote of no confidence in Mr Stretton. But they have instead asked union executives to raise "a number of serious concerns" over Mr Stretton's management style with Tony Hall, executive director of the Royal Ballet's home, the Royal Opera House. A meeting is set for next Tuesday.

And the also covers the story.

The Kennedy Center has announced the repertory for this year's performances by Suzanne Farrell's company. Just one week this time, but there are two programs:

October 23, 24, 27

Raymonda Variations

A Farewell to Music

Variations

Who Cares?

October 25, 26

Divertimento No. 15

A Farewell to Music

Tzigane

Chaconne

I don't know who choreographed "A Farewell to Music." No word on who will be in the company.

Here's the item from the LA Times. It's short enough to reprint in its entirety.

New York Magazine Drops Dance Column

Tobi Tobias, dance writer at New York magazine for the past 22 years, got a call from editor in chief Caroline Miller Tuesday night advising her that her column was being phased out.

It's not that she's being replaced by "someone cuter," the columnist said Thursday. She's just the latest victim of economics, in which the arts--and dance, in particular--are increasingly seen as expendable.

"New York City is a mecca for dance--and there are so few slots where dance is being covered in a steady and serious way," Tobias said. "Companies and artists--not just the people who report on them--are trying to find and retain an audience. Dance is seen as the 'orphan' art since its appeal is narrower than the others. Still, it needs to have its place."

Tobias has received a couple of dozen phone calls and nearly 100 e-mails since word got out. But the decision, it seems, is final.

"While we value Tobi's contribution, I decided not to renew her contract," Miller said. "But we're not abandoning dance. At least for the time being, we'll cover it through listings, features and reviews written by other staff people. In these difficult times, every publication in America has to make painful decisions about how to use limited resources in a way that best serves the readers. And it's no surprise to anyone that the audience for dance has diminished."

Here's the item from the LA Times. It's short enough to reprint in its entirety.

New York Magazine Drops Dance Column

Tobi Tobias, dance writer at New York magazine for the past 22 years, got a call from editor in chief Caroline Miller Tuesday night advising her that her column was being phased out.

It's not that she's being replaced by "someone cuter," the columnist said Thursday. She's just the latest victim of economics, in which the arts--and dance, in particular--are increasingly seen as expendable.

"New York City is a mecca for dance--and there are so few slots where dance is being covered in a steady and serious way," Tobias said. "Companies and artists--not just the people who report on them--are trying to find and retain an audience. Dance is seen as the 'orphan' art since its appeal is narrower than the others. Still, it needs to have its place."

Tobias has received a couple of dozen phone calls and nearly 100 e-mails since word got out. But the decision, it seems, is final.

"While we value Tobi's contribution, I decided not to renew her contract," Miller said. "But we're not abandoning dance. At least for the time being, we'll cover it through listings, features and reviews written by other staff people. In these difficult times, every publication in America has to make painful decisions about how to use limited resources in a way that best serves the readers. And it's no surprise to anyone that the audience for dance has diminished."

Okay, I'll be brave.

I think that a really big change in ballet will be when a female choreographer of genuine talent is courageous enough to make a ballet from a woman's point of view. That is, focusing on the male dancers as the objects of love/desire rather than the female ones, and using the female dancers as surrogates for themselves. (That's a huge generalization about the way choreographers use the sexes; I know there's much more to it than that.) Female choreographers working with men might be able to look at them afresh and see physical and dramatic possibilities that male choreographers haven't. They might well be able to expand the ballet vocabulary for men, too. There hasn't been a lot of movement in this area beyond virtuoso tricks.

Until now, female choreographers working in classical ballet have usually followed the male model. I'd like to see them break it.

The news that ABT's fall City Center season will include ballets to music by George Harrison and Richard Rodgers has led me to wonder how people feel about ballets set to popular music.

In the thread in the ABT subforum (click here to read it), at least one post was critical of these plans. Do you think that classical ballet should be set only to classical music? If not, how do you think a choreographer should approach a popular score? Should s/he choreograph the piece as if it were being set to a classical score, and use strictly classical language (à la Who Cares)? Or does the less formal structure of popular music demand a similarly looser choreographic structure? In Deuce Coupe II, set to songs of the Beach Boys, Twyla Tharp mixed classical choreography with her own looser dance style. So did Jerome Robbins in I'm Old Fashioned, whose music was an adaptation and orchestration by Morton Gould of a song by Jerome Kern. (Many ballet scores based on popular music have to be arranged and orchestrated.) Another Kern ballet, Kent Stowell's Silver Lining, was mauled by the London critics; apparently it relied heavily on ballroom dancing rather than ballet, and the consensus seemed to be that the PNB dancers couldn't do it well. Tharp has choreographed many ballets besides Deuce Coupe to popular music—think of her many Sinatra ballets—and so has Gerald Arpino. They've had mixed success.

Another thing to consider is that many choreographers grow up listening to popular music, and perhaps having the freedom to choreograph to music that they know very well could have a liberating effect on them. I often feel that Peter Martins is really a rock choreographer in disguise—so many of his ballets have a rock sensibility to me. I think his partiality to certain kinds of contemporary classical music stems from the fact that they often sound like rock bands. (This may be my ignorance of modern music talking, but that's how it sounds to me.) I even think he hears Stravinsky this way.

I won't get into the accessability issue (that audiences might be attracted by music they know and like) since it's been discussed here before.

Thanks to everyone for your vivid accounts of Jewels. I wish I could have been there.

One minor point: Karin von Aroldingen danced the Verdy role in Emeralds, not the Paul (walking on pointe) part.

There's a novel called A Company of Swans by Eva Ibbotson, which is about a young British girl in the early 20th century who yearns to be a ballet dancer. She winds up joining a company in South America, where she finds love as well as artistic fulfillment. It's a romantic, rather sensual story, but well written. It's out of print, but I found my copy in a library.

I'm puzzled by the references to the "beige" or "brown-gold" color of the costumes in Diamonds. When the Kirov danced in Washington in February, the costumes looked just as white as those at City Ballet. Perhaps Juliet is right about its being the lighting.

Maybe they'll adjust it for the second performance.

Hi, dancingfan, and welcome to Ballet Alert! There are many posters here who follow NYCB. In addition to this thread, you can check out the NYCB thread under American Ballet Companies for in-depth discussion of company matters, and the Links thread under News and Events for reviews and articles appearing on other websites.

Ronny, I don't know how close Panama City is to Orlando, but the Orlando Ballet (formerly Southern Ballet Theater) does a lot of 19th century classics. Its director is Fernando Bujones, who was a star with ABT in the 1970s and 1980s who specialized in that area. Next season, they will be doing Giselle and The Nutcracker. You can take a look at their web site:

http://www.southernballet.org/

I've always thought that a dancer's beauty comes more from her dancing than her mere physical looks. I don't mean this in a sanctimonious way, but in a practical one. I have stared at photographs of Suzanne Farrell and Natalia Makarova in an attempt to determine if they are indeed beautiful women or whether I was just responding to the power of their dancing, and I've never been able to tell. Whenever I look at them I see them in performance, and they are two of the most glorious creatures I've ever seen. On the other hand, I've looked at photos of Margot Fonteyn, whom I never saw dance classically (live), and concluded that she was just ordinary looking, but a friend who saw her dance many times told me that to her, she's always been a goddess. So I think it's a matter of association. A great ballerina is a beautiful woman, whatever she looks like.

Well, I was trying to avoid mentioning names, but . . .

When I referred to aging dancers, I didn't mean exclusively ballerinas. When Balanchine died, there was a lot of deadwood in the corps and soloist ranks: Frank Ohman, Robert Maiorano, Teena McConnell (among the soloists), Hermes Conde, Tracy Bennett (among the corps). The soloists never danced; the corps men, unfortunately, did. All of them were long past their expiration date. Martins got rid of them, except for Bennett, who got himself together, improved his dancing, and earned a reprieve—credit due to both men there. In the corps, there was a group of hardworking dancers who had been de facto soloists for years, but had been denied recognition as such (although some, perhaps all, were receiving soloist pay): Elyse Borne, Victor Castelli, Joe Duell, Peter Frame, perhaps Jock Soto, hard to remember them all. Not all of them deserved promotion, but they had substantial repertories and the company depended on them. Indeed, Martins soon encouraged E Borne to depart, but he saw to it that she had a couple of seasons as a recognized soloist first. (For those who don't know the story: Elyse Borne was a good corps dancer, with no promise of a higher calling, who was shanghaied into ballerina duties when Baryshnikov joined the company simply because she was short enough to dance with him. She was desperately overstretched in her assignments, and often looked miserable onstage, but she gamely perservered in what Balanchine wanted her to do.) Martins also promoted Stephanie Saland, who danced mainly principal roles, to principal; she once mentioned in an interview in Dance View that Lincoln Kirstein had said to her at the time, "It's long overdue, isn't it?" He may also have promoted Maria Calegari, but I don't remember and can't find my programs from the relevant period.

Alexandra, I wasn't charging Balanchine with nepotism for favoring his wives. What I was saying is that if Gottlieb wants to complain about Martins favoring Kistler, he's got to acknowledge that Balanchine indulged in the same behavior. Same thing with the Nilas/Chris d'A situation. I'm not saying that nepotism shouldn't be frowned on, just that it's not fair to launch an attack on one person without noting that it's happened before with other people, including the great Balanchine. One of the points I was trying to make is that any consideration of NYCB's casting policies has to be looked at in the context of its own history (as well as the policies of other companies).

As for criticism affecting company policy, I think that is a part of what it's for. As Michael said in an earlier post,

And I think that the expression of opinions, even consensus, that emeges on this Board and in the hallways of the theater about critical issues does matter in the long run. It almost becomes metaphysical but not only that. I think that people read it (including some in the company) and notice. Look at what happened at ABT, for an example -- after the deluge of criticism re Pied Piper, etc., we got Dream and Fille this year.

Well, I was trying to avoid mentioning names, but . . .

When I referred to aging dancers, I didn't mean exclusively ballerinas. When Balanchine died, there was a lot of deadwood in the corps and soloist ranks: Frank Ohman, Robert Maiorano, Teena McConnell (among the soloists), Hermes Conde, Tracy Bennett (among the corps). The soloists never danced; the corps men, unfortunately, did. All of them were long past their expiration date. Martins got rid of them, except for Bennett, who got himself together, improved his dancing, and earned a reprieve—credit due to both men there. In the corps, there was a group of hardworking dancers who had been de facto soloists for years, but had been denied recognition as such (although some, perhaps all, were receiving soloist pay): Elyse Borne, Victor Castelli, Joe Duell, Peter Frame, perhaps Jock Soto, hard to remember them all. Not all of them deserved promotion, but they had substantial repertories and the company depended on them. Indeed, Martins soon encouraged E Borne to depart, but he saw to it that she had a couple of seasons as a recognized soloist first. (For those who don't know the story: Elyse Borne was a good corps dancer, with no promise of a higher calling, who was shanghaied into ballerina duties when Baryshnikov joined the company simply because she was short enough to dance with him. She was desperately overstretched in her assignments, and often looked miserable onstage, but she gamely perservered in what Balanchine wanted her to do.) Martins also promoted Stephanie Saland, who danced mainly principal roles, to principal; she once mentioned in an interview in Dance View that Lincoln Kirstein had said to her at the time, "It's long overdue, isn't it?" He may also have promoted Maria Calegari, but I don't remember and can't find my programs from the relevant period.

Alexandra, I wasn't charging Balanchine with nepotism for favoring his wives. What I was saying is that if Gottlieb wants to complain about Martins favoring Kistler, he's got to acknowledge that Balanchine indulged in the same behavior. Same thing with the Nilas/Chris d'A situation. I'm not saying that nepotism shouldn't be frowned on, just that it's not fair to launch an attack on one person without noting that it's happened before with other people, including the great Balanchine. One of the points I was trying to make is that any consideration of NYCB's casting policies has to be looked at in the context of its own history (as well as the policies of other companies).

As for criticism affecting company policy, I think that is a part of what it's for. As Michael said in an earlier post,

And I think that the expression of opinions, even consensus, that emeges on this Board and in the hallways of the theater about critical issues does matter in the long run. It almost becomes metaphysical but not only that. I think that people read it (including some in the company) and notice. Look at what happened at ABT, for an example -- after the deluge of criticism re Pied Piper, etc., we got Dream and Fille this year.

Interesting that you think that Gottlieb's article is so historically-minded, Nanatchka. I think the opposite—that he criticized current casting policy without considering that of earlier days.

I can’t comment on Gottlieb’s evaluations of particular dancers, since I haven’t seen the company enough this past season. But I do have a problem with his tone and his arguments.

The most distressing thing about his article, to me, is its prevailing tone of hysteria. I don’t think this helps anyone and may do a good deal of harm. The hostility he evinces towards Peter Martins will surprise nobody who has followed his writing in recent years; in practical effect, however, all it’s likely to do will be to alienate those in power at NYCB, the very same people whose interest might have been piqued by reasonable, thoughtful criticism. If I were professionally associated with the company, I would glance at the article and think, “Oh, Gottlieb’s raving again,” and not even read it—thereby scotching whatever hopes the author may have had of influencing company policy.

The trouble with Gottlieb’s arguments is that they treat Martins’s casting decisions as though they occur in a vacuum, and are unrelated to other considerations an artistic director has to make. Any consideration of how dancers are cast at NYCB these days would have to take the company’s history into account—that is, to compare it to the casting situation that Martins inherited from Balanchine.

Now, nobody revers Balanchine more than me. But I’m also the first to say that the decisions he made could be very, very strange, and sometimes just plain wrong. In terms of casting, the reason for some of his decisions became clear years later, but others didn’t, and some are still indefensible 19 years after his death.

For instance, the issue of older dancers. Gottlieb complains that there are too many dancers past their prime who are hogging parts that should be given to talented youngsters. This is a problem in every ballet company, and there’s no easy solution to it. Balanchine was loyal to dancers who had served him well, and never fired anyone. He let them decide when to retire. He encouraged them to do so by seldom casting them, but did make sure to cast them at least once a season so they could receive regular paychecks, and he left them their dressing rooms. It was kindly meant—I think he wanted to give them time to work out a career transition plan—but it meant that talented young dancers who were dancing much more often as soloists than as corps members were denied the promotions they deserved. When Martins took over, one of the first things he did was to promote these de facto soloists and principals and give the older dancers their walking papers. In fact, it wasn’t so long ago that Martins was being harshly criticized for pushing out older dancers in favor of younger ones. I guess you can’t win.

Favoritism/nepotism. This, too, is a problem everywhere. In NYCB history, there was the prolonged principal career of Karin von Aroldingen, a dancer whose talents were completely unsuited to Balanchines’s ballets but who was a close personal friend of his. Conversely, Balanchine was not overly fond of Violette Verdy, and did not cast her a great deal. He also had a very annoying (to me, at least) tendency to favor a few corps members at a time and give them demi-solo roles in EVERYTHING, year after year, when there were eager, talented youngsters who would have given their eyeteeth for a chance at one of their roles. Martins has abolished this practice and doles out those prized demisolo roles much more equitably. Then there was the case of Chris d’Amboise, who was pushed forward (he danced Apollo!!!) with absolutely nothing to recommend him besides his filial relationship with Jacques. He was, IMO, a much worse dancer than Nilas Martins. The NYCB followers of the time loathed him, and many of the company’s male dancers were outraged at the favoritism he received. And if Gottlieb mentions Darci Kistler as receiving special treatment by her husband, what about Tallchief, Le Clerq, Kent, and Farrell? He also complains that Carla Korbes wasn’t cast as Titania this year. I remember when I yearned to see Stephanie Saland dance her magnificent Swanilda, but Balanchine kept giving every performance of every season to Patricia McBride. The moral is: casting peculiarities will always occur in every company. As Arlene Croce once wrote, “All ballet companies are crazy, but each is crazy in its own way.”

Gottlieb compains that Charles Askegard is “hardly a danseur noble.” Wake up, Bob: he’s tall, and the company has always needed tall men. Askegard is more watchable a classicist than many of his predecessors. ABT may be “where the boys are,” but that’s because many of their male stars are primarily interested in displaying their virtuosity, a chance that NYCB’s repertory and ethos wouldn’t offer them. Not all of these paragons perform with ABT outside of the Met; they’re more interested in being international stars. As Michael says, Stiefel “got away” from City Ballet because he was one of those men. Gottlieb’s “Mr. & Mrs. Jack Spratt” crack is simply cruel, as is his attack on Margaret Tracey. According to him, she “not only undermined her talent but betrayed it” when all she seems to have done is to have given birth and been unable to return to form. Like most of what he says here, these remarks are cheap attempts to attack without a reason other than hostility towards Martins.

Developing dancers. Gottlieb is sharply critical of the casting of Jenifer Ringer in T&V because, he says, she doesn’t have the technique for it, and having been with the company for 13 years, is probably uneducable. But at the same time he reminds Martins of the way Balanchine developed Merrill Ashley’s adagio by insisting on roles like Emeralds and Swan Lake. At the time Balanchine was doing this, Ashley had been in the company for the same period of time that Ringer has now. Casting Ringer in T&V meant that other dancers would lose out, but Gottlieb’s refusal to give his enemy the slightest credit for acting in other than a dastardly way leads him to interpret this situation as hostility to Jennie Somogyi. He accuses the company of “ghettoizing” her. As what? Gottlieb is so blinded by hatred of his former colleague that all his statements become suspect; his article is not analysis but battle. The one time he praises Martins—for pushing Kowroski early in her career—he can’t let it go without whomping him at the same time (he was right, but he was reckless). It gets tiresome after a while.

When reading this article, I couldn’t help but remember Arlene Croce’s review of Martins’s Sleeping Beauty. She was confirmedly anti-Martins by this time, but her review was thoughtful and fair—and very positive. She may have been bitterly disappointed by his stewardship of the Balanchine legacy, but she was a true critic, able to give credit where it was due. If only her admirers would emulate her in that.

Finally, lest I come across as a Martins zealot, let me say that I am far from being one. My opinion of his tenure as BMiC is very mixed. I like the way he’s handled some situations and dislike others. But I think that if we’re going to have a productive dialogue on how Balanchine’s company is to develop without him, we will need to bury personal hatchets, lower the temperature, and discuss issues in a level-headed way. Criticism like Gottlieb’s makes this impossible.

Interesting that you think that Gottlieb's article is so historically-minded, Nanatchka. I think the opposite—that he criticized current casting policy without considering that of earlier days.

I can’t comment on Gottlieb’s evaluations of particular dancers, since I haven’t seen the company enough this past season. But I do have a problem with his tone and his arguments.

The most distressing thing about his article, to me, is its prevailing tone of hysteria. I don’t think this helps anyone and may do a good deal of harm. The hostility he evinces towards Peter Martins will surprise nobody who has followed his writing in recent years; in practical effect, however, all it’s likely to do will be to alienate those in power at NYCB, the very same people whose interest might have been piqued by reasonable, thoughtful criticism. If I were professionally associated with the company, I would glance at the article and think, “Oh, Gottlieb’s raving again,” and not even read it—thereby scotching whatever hopes the author may have had of influencing company policy.

The trouble with Gottlieb’s arguments is that they treat Martins’s casting decisions as though they occur in a vacuum, and are unrelated to other considerations an artistic director has to make. Any consideration of how dancers are cast at NYCB these days would have to take the company’s history into account—that is, to compare it to the casting situation that Martins inherited from Balanchine.

Now, nobody revers Balanchine more than me. But I’m also the first to say that the decisions he made could be very, very strange, and sometimes just plain wrong. In terms of casting, the reason for some of his decisions became clear years later, but others didn’t, and some are still indefensible 19 years after his death.

For instance, the issue of older dancers. Gottlieb complains that there are too many dancers past their prime who are hogging parts that should be given to talented youngsters. This is a problem in every ballet company, and there’s no easy solution to it. Balanchine was loyal to dancers who had served him well, and never fired anyone. He let them decide when to retire. He encouraged them to do so by seldom casting them, but did make sure to cast them at least once a season so they could receive regular paychecks, and he left them their dressing rooms. It was kindly meant—I think he wanted to give them time to work out a career transition plan—but it meant that talented young dancers who were dancing much more often as soloists than as corps members were denied the promotions they deserved. When Martins took over, one of the first things he did was to promote these de facto soloists and principals and give the older dancers their walking papers. In fact, it wasn’t so long ago that Martins was being harshly criticized for pushing out older dancers in favor of younger ones. I guess you can’t win.

Favoritism/nepotism. This, too, is a problem everywhere. In NYCB history, there was the prolonged principal career of Karin von Aroldingen, a dancer whose talents were completely unsuited to Balanchines’s ballets but who was a close personal friend of his. Conversely, Balanchine was not overly fond of Violette Verdy, and did not cast her a great deal. He also had a very annoying (to me, at least) tendency to favor a few corps members at a time and give them demi-solo roles in EVERYTHING, year after year, when there were eager, talented youngsters who would have given their eyeteeth for a chance at one of their roles. Martins has abolished this practice and doles out those prized demisolo roles much more equitably. Then there was the case of Chris d’Amboise, who was pushed forward (he danced Apollo!!!) with absolutely nothing to recommend him besides his filial relationship with Jacques. He was, IMO, a much worse dancer than Nilas Martins. The NYCB followers of the time loathed him, and many of the company’s male dancers were outraged at the favoritism he received. And if Gottlieb mentions Darci Kistler as receiving special treatment by her husband, what about Tallchief, Le Clerq, Kent, and Farrell? He also complains that Carla Korbes wasn’t cast as Titania this year. I remember when I yearned to see Stephanie Saland dance her magnificent Swanilda, but Balanchine kept giving every performance of every season to Patricia McBride. The moral is: casting peculiarities will always occur in every company. As Arlene Croce once wrote, “All ballet companies are crazy, but each is crazy in its own way.”

Gottlieb compains that Charles Askegard is “hardly a danseur noble.” Wake up, Bob: he’s tall, and the company has always needed tall men. Askegard is more watchable a classicist than many of his predecessors. ABT may be “where the boys are,” but that’s because many of their male stars are primarily interested in displaying their virtuosity, a chance that NYCB’s repertory and ethos wouldn’t offer them. Not all of these paragons perform with ABT outside of the Met; they’re more interested in being international stars. As Michael says, Stiefel “got away” from City Ballet because he was one of those men. Gottlieb’s “Mr. & Mrs. Jack Spratt” crack is simply cruel, as is his attack on Margaret Tracey. According to him, she “not only undermined her talent but betrayed it” when all she seems to have done is to have given birth and been unable to return to form. Like most of what he says here, these remarks are cheap attempts to attack without a reason other than hostility towards Martins.

Developing dancers. Gottlieb is sharply critical of the casting of Jenifer Ringer in T&V because, he says, she doesn’t have the technique for it, and having been with the company for 13 years, is probably uneducable. But at the same time he reminds Martins of the way Balanchine developed Merrill Ashley’s adagio by insisting on roles like Emeralds and Swan Lake. At the time Balanchine was doing this, Ashley had been in the company for the same period of time that Ringer has now. Casting Ringer in T&V meant that other dancers would lose out, but Gottlieb’s refusal to give his enemy the slightest credit for acting in other than a dastardly way leads him to interpret this situation as hostility to Jennie Somogyi. He accuses the company of “ghettoizing” her. As what? Gottlieb is so blinded by hatred of his former colleague that all his statements become suspect; his article is not analysis but battle. The one time he praises Martins—for pushing Kowroski early in her career—he can’t let it go without whomping him at the same time (he was right, but he was reckless). It gets tiresome after a while.

When reading this article, I couldn’t help but remember Arlene Croce’s review of Martins’s Sleeping Beauty. She was confirmedly anti-Martins by this time, but her review was thoughtful and fair—and very positive. She may have been bitterly disappointed by his stewardship of the Balanchine legacy, but she was a true critic, able to give credit where it was due. If only her admirers would emulate her in that.

Finally, lest I come across as a Martins zealot, let me say that I am far from being one. My opinion of his tenure as BMiC is very mixed. I like the way he’s handled some situations and dislike others. But I think that if we’re going to have a productive dialogue on how Balanchine’s company is to develop without him, we will need to bury personal hatchets, lower the temperature, and discuss issues in a level-headed way. Criticism like Gottlieb’s makes this impossible.

Although I'm a committed feminist, Fancy Free has never struck me as being offensive. The sailors are very young and, as Farrell Fan says, this was a different time. But NYCB dancers have never seemed to catch the proper tone of this ballet—they have always made the sailors' behavior more loutish than playful. Arlene Croce once suggested that this tough quality comes from the dancers' living in New York, where life has a certain brutality. ABT dancers do this ballet much better, and I think it's a mistake for NYCB to dance it (even if it was Robbins himself who imported it).