sandik

On 3/4/2020 at 5:54 PM, seattle_dancer said:

 I can't wait to see he programming for Encore. 

I vote for Mopey.  And the solo from Square Dance.

Here is the gist of the press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT FOR PUBLICATION: PNB Box Office, 206.441.2424 or PNB.org

 

Pacific Northwest Ballet announces cancellation of performances at McCaw Hall.

 

ONE THOUSAND PIECES

March 13 – 22, 2020

 

Beauty and the Beast

March 15 – 22

 

SEATTLE, WA, 3/11/20 – In light of Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s press conference regarding health and safety efforts around the COVID-19 pandemic, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Artistic Director Peter Boal and Executive Director Ellen Walker have announced that the organization is cancelling its upcoming performances of ONE THOUSAND PIECES, and Beauty and the Beast. Ticket holders will receive an email today about their cancelled performances. Due to high demands on our staff, we are hoping that ticket holders will review that email before reaching out to the box office.

 

(Following earlier guidelines by Seattle Public Schools regarding outside activities, PNB previously cancelled the March 21 Discover Dance Community Performance, featuring students from Daniel Bagley Elementary, Eastgate Elementary, Graham Hill Elementary, Thurgood Marshall Elementary, REACH Student Dance Group, and PNB company dancers.)

 

“PNB’s audience is of paramount importance to us: having watched these exquisite programs take shape over the past several weeks, cancelling these performances is heartbreaking, but an understandable mandate,” said Mr. Boal and Ms. Walker. “Non-profit organizations like PNB have no contingency budgets in the case of civil emergencies like this one; our resources overwhelmingly go to producing work on stage, and the impact of these cancellations will be devastating. We are hopeful that many of our devoted subscribers and ticket buyers realize what effect this situation has on everyone at PNB – dancers, musicians, artisans, staff, students and faculty – and will consider donating the cost of their tickets as a gift for which we will issue a tax receipt.

 

"Additionally, as a small consolation, our wonderful dancer, musician, stage, and other unions, as well as the choreographers and designers, have agreed to let the dress rehearsals of these programs be streamed online for our ticket buyers. We hope the audiences who were looking forward to attending the performances at McCaw Hall can find some joy and comfort in being able to watch these lovely performances from home. More details will be forwarded to subscribers and ticket-buyers about this special online opportunity in the coming days.

 

“We are more committed than ever to bringing great art back to our stage as soon as possible. We are so thankful for your patronage and understanding, and we look forward to seeing you back at the ballet soon."

 

The PNB School (with locations in Seattle and Bellevue) remains open at this time, however we expect broad announcements about public school district closures shortly, and those decisions will affect the operation of our school. PNB will continue to update its response to COVID-19 on its website at PNB.org/Health.

 

#   #   #

 

Everything is subject to change. For further information, please visit PNB.org.

 

PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET

301 Mercer Street

Seattle, WA 98109

206.441.2424

www.PNB.org

Just got the press release with the announcement that all of the performances for March (Discover Dance and Beauty and the Beast, as well as the Dawson/Cerrudo program) are cancelled.  The PNB website is slammed right now, so I'll paste the release into a separate topic, but just want to point out that they will be streaming the dress rehearsal of the program for ticket holders.  Not sure about the mechanics, but am so glad they are able to pull that out of the fire.

1 minute ago, Leah said:

I wonder if they aren’t even allowed inside the opera house. They might not have a stage to dance on. I believe though that Berlin will be live-streaming its operas, hopefully others follow suit.

I didn't think about access for the performers -- I don't know what their guidelines are.  (not to mention what they're union contracts do to protect them in cases like these)

13 hours ago, ksk04 said:

Basically, instead of balletic busy, Ratmanksy has traded in for plot busy: in the first act alone, Callirhoe falls in love, gets broken up by parents, gets married, faints and fake dies, is buried alive, gets captured by pirates, gets sold into slavery, and marries the guy who bought her. It's a LOT and again that is just the first act--the second is also jam packed. I wonder how much discussion there was about making this into three acts because there is hardly any time to let emotional poignancy develop over such rapidly moving plot lines, but maybe that is not the point! I agree with Josette's critique that the ballet itself seems a bit regressive--Callirhoe isn't particularly clever or intelligent or funny or...anything. People just see her and want her (this happens at least 4 times in the ballet not counting when she gets abducted). She shows one bit of smarts when she covers her wedding bracelet in the crypt before getting abducted. Otherwise she is mostly a moving plot piece that action happens around. That's why it's important to cast the part with someone who can invent charm/wittiness in her dancing because otherwise the character has literally no discernible personality traits.

.....

Basically what is good about this ballet is there is actually a lot of substantial solo dancing for many many dancers, as you see above. That, imo, is its strongest suit. Ratmansky has done some experimenting with same sex partnering that is quite interesting throughout. Callirhoe and Plangon, for example; the 3 suitors together; and Chaereas/Polycharmus. The battle scene is great because it's quite unlike any ballet battle I've seen before--no slashing around with swords, just frenzy to the Sabre Dance which is exactly the musical/dancing pick up needed at that point in the ballet when you are thinking, "oh god, there's going to be a whole F***ing war now?!"

Your description of the plot reminded me of Candide, where all kinds of big and complex things happen one on top of the other, but in most productions I know, that's played a bit satirically.  I find it interesting that Ratmansky chose such a plotty story for a 21st c production.

And your observation about Callirhoe's general lack of interior qualities makes me think as well -- we read about Helen of Troy's beauty, and it still seems like an external quality, but contemporary treatments of her keep trying to give her inner life ("how does she feel, what does she think").  The general culture is in the middle of a paradigm shift about the value of physical attributes -- I'm curious to see how this will be reflected in the art work we make.

But your comment about the amount of solo dancing made me smile -- very glad to hear about a program-length work with lots of opportunities up and down the casting chart!

I'm wishing that organizations that find themselves in this position (and there will be more and more of them) can find a way to run some kind of live-stream or other web-based video programming, to keep their connection with their audiences alive during all this trouble.

I've seen a big chunk of his work as an actor, as well as a director -- I think he would be excellent in a role like this.

Thanks for the nudge.

On 3/9/2020 at 8:25 PM, BalanchineFan said:

How exciting! I've been watching bits of this tour through the dancers' Instagram posts. It looks fascinating. I love Robbins' choreography, but In the Night is like an afterthought to his two Chopin masterpieces, Dances at a Gathering and The Concert.

If you're not familiar with it, Joseph Mazo's "Dance is a Contact Sport" is a backstage look at NYCB during the season when Robbins made "In the Night" -- well worth the read.

6 hours ago, On Pointe said:

Pretty sure if SVU  is casting the part of a sleazy porn producer,  it is THE John Waters.

We can only hope.

I know the least about the Wheeldon, and and very curious to hear more.

Damn, damn, damn.

On 2/28/2020 at 10:17 PM, Amy Reusch said:

I see more Balanchine descent in Forsythe than in Tharp.

Absolutely.  Forsythe is working from a neo-classical base, for all that he stretches it as far as he possibly can.

13 hours ago, nanushka said:

"I have never behaved aggressively toward anybody"

Oh, for goodness sake.

Forsythe does seem to favor hot light from above, without as much side light as I'm accustomed to, so I miss the sculptural aspects that the sides provide.  But even so, I love his work, especially the density and the clarity.  I had a chance to watch Vertiginous in rehearsal when it was staged on Pacific Northwest Ballet, and was gobsmacked at how classical it was, despite the velocity.  It was indeed thrilling.

Glass Pieces has a wonderful sense of going, and it really makes me think about the early post-modernists and their commitment to pattern.  It sounds like a great program!

I was thinking about Francois Hollande, and the unexpected objections to his relationship with Julie Gayet, but that was several years ago.  Not really that germane to the topic here.

8 hours ago, silvermash said:

Well it not quite the story. It's Macron's candidate for the election of Mayor of Paris and videos of him masturbating were shown on a website and later on twitter. He withdrew  his candidacy.

I think we may be talking about two separate people. 

Wow -- what a list!

I will have to keep my eyes open.

9 hours ago, pherank said:

I haven't seen anything about what the artists, musicians and staff prefer, but I can guess they want a predictable (and significant!) off-time period so that they can schedule other things - such as guest performances. And actual time with friends and family.  😉
I don't know if you happened to read this discussion from back in August, but SFB had sent out their yearly survey and it had some interesting new questions...

How appealing would you find each of the following options for structuring the SF Ballet season?

• A season that is spread out across several months instead of 15 - 16 consecutive weeks
• Two non-consecutive time periods where the programs are divided equally
• A season that is spread across the entire calendar year

"As far as I know, those options are not available for the War Memorial Opera House. However, there was another question that asked about one's ability to go to performances that might be located elsewhere (such as the East Bay, South Bay, Marin, etc.)"

And if SF is anything like the Seattle company, they don't necessarily have a large, permanent group of artists (like a ballet company) that is working through the entire season -- up here, the opera works with a significantly new group for each production.  I wonder, though, about the audience -- as someone points out earlier in this thread, the density of the performance schedule affects the people in the audience as well as the people on stage.

I heard this on the radio today and am confused.  The union may be able to make an agreement with Domingo that includes limiting the distribution of their investigation, but have the women who accused him in the first place signed some kind of non-disclosure agreement?  If they haven't (and no one so far seems to say that they have) they can certainly speak out.

9 hours ago, pherank said:

Yes, it's been a constant gripe of ours that the season, as arranged, is hard on everyone - including the audience. But the essential problem is that the War Memorial Opera House space has to be shared with, naturally, the SF Opera ("the theater hosts more than sixty performances of nine operas annually").

I wonder if the opera (artists and audiences) has the same difficulty with such a condensed performance season.  In Seattle, the two companies share the theater (with the usual renters thrown in) and generally they alternate time in the house -- I keep thinking that the two SF companies might benefit from a similar schedule.

I hadn't seen the response, so many thanks for the link.  I was listening today to a report about a member of the French national government who is resigning his position after having been outed in an extra-marital relationship -- the general consensus was that this was highly unusual for the French, who generally do not delve into the private lives of public people.  It seems that things are shifting.

 

Quote

Not only is it fairly obvious that Marion had a legal case, but the French courts sided with her—twice. In 2017, Loukos was handed a suspended six-month prison sentence for "workplace discrimination" and "harassment." The appeal judgement, in December, only found him guilty of discrimination, and sentenced him to a fine and damages.

Until that final court decision two months ago, Loukos had suffered no consequences. By all accounts, he wasn't professionally affected; while Marion found herself unemployed, he was able to continue in his prestigious position for six years.

Even after the #MeToo movement, there is deep suspicion in France of any sanctions imposed outside the (notoriously slow) justice system, and officials have dragged their feet about several publicized cases involving powerful men at the helm of artistic institutions.

 

We are currently without television, so I don't know anything about this -- tell us what attracts you!

2 hours ago, Quiggin said:

On another note Gia Koulas cites Marc Crousillat, who danced with Trisha Brown, as a particularly effective dancer in the musical. Nice video of him in Locus Solo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=727379wYnB0

 

Nice indeed -- thanks for the link!

She is indeed a very engaging writer.  I'm very excited about Fjord -- they've got some wonderful people writing about stuff I otherwise wouldn't get to see, which is a treat for me!