sandik

Let us know what you've been seeing, and what you think about it.

Thanks for this link -- it sounds like SFB has put a great deal of thought into developing this program.  Pacific Northwest Ballet has been presenting new works by company members, made on professional division students,  for several years now, and just this year started a composition class for upper division women in the school, but it looks like SFB has a more integrated program here.  Hoping to see these kind of projects replicated all over!

10 hours ago, Royal Blue said:

Fifty years after its premiere on May 22, 1969 at the New York State Theater, Jerome Robbins' Dances at a Gathering is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and affecting works in New York City Ballet's repertory. ..

Some insightful analysis here -- I'd say it's one of the foundational works in the ballet repertory.  We saw it here in Seattle at Pacific Northwest Ballet last autumn as part of their Robbins centennial programming, and it was such a pleasure.

43 minutes ago, macnellie said:

Where can I see this?

All over the place, I imagine -- it's a standard studio release.  Check Fandango, or the film's "official" web site, if you don't see it playing at your local plex.

I remember seeing Biasucci and Suddarth in the Neopolitan variation from Stowell's section of Swan Lake, and wishing that they would get a go at Tarantella -- I imagine they will bring the goods when they get to the stage.

On 5/16/2019 at 2:16 PM, pherank said:

You can file this under "Where does the money come from?"

One of the NEA grants for Spring of 2019 was awarded to:

San Francisco Ballet Association (aka San Francisco Ballet)
$40,000
San Francisco, CA
Art Works - Dance
To support the creation and presentation of a new work by choreographer Cathy Marston.

Just one of the many, many sources that must be cobbled together to pay for a season of dance.

Funding does indeed resemble a quilt.  Or a mosaic.

On 5/15/2019 at 2:34 PM, Roberta said:

Similarly, ABT is ignoring its Tudor heritage. I last saw Gala Performance in Sarasota, Florida, in 2015. It was wonderful!

The Joffrey is similarly ignoring its heritage ballets - the Joffreys and Arpinos. I last saw a Joffrey heritage ballet in Oklahoma City, of all places, a month ago -- a fantastic Pas des Deesses. So sad that none of this is seen in the larger ballet cities of the USA.

The Joffrey is missing out on its entire heritage right now -- they offered a home to the Ballets Russe repertory when the rest of the ballet world was less than interested in those works, they were responsible for the renewed interest in Kurt Jooss' works, Tharp's first crossover works... 

Thanks for the links!

I'm one of the folk that see the company through their cinema programming.  I'm certainly grateful for the opportunity, but am baffled at some of the choices -- we just saw the new Swan Lake last year, and we're seeing it again next year?

2 hours ago, Quiggin said:

It's not that she took or didn't take credit, it's that the event on her show was a significantly newsworthy one and was reported on the front pages of most newspapers. Hudson was a shell of his former self and people were shocked to see what AIDS could do to someone who was so familiar to them, almost a neighbor. It really brought the epidemic home to them.

Bingo

On 5/8/2019 at 12:48 PM, leee said:

I've just finished the book and generally enjoyed it -- I'm qualifying "generally" because of the epilogue, of course.

I'm a neophyte compared to the other contributors on the board, and so as a historiographic survey AA is a useful starting point(e) (first position?), if you'll permit me the puns. Homans' preferences for ballet as restrained, graceful, and elevated -- in short, an endeavor of elitism -- shows through enough of her prose throughout the book and early on enough that I knew that her tastes and mine diverge. This difference in taste largely isn't an issue (I was disheartened to read that Robbins dismissed Philip Glass's music, as I count "Glass Pieces" as my favorite dance of his) and I thus knew well enough to view her assertions not as gospel truth but as the stories she as a neoclassicist wants to tell -- that is, until that epilogue. There, her aesthetic judgments take on an aggressively ethical dimension that casts a pall on the rest of the book. The tone of the epilogue actually soured my mood when I reached it, partly because for me the most vital and appealing aspects of ballet are the ones she takes as signs of its decline as an art form of today. I adore contemporary ballet for its obvious athleticism (which I might argue for beyond a mere democratization / vulgarization of taste, and connect it more to minimalism in music) and its lack of emotional affect (here I think I should familiarize myself with Tudor), the combination of which delivers a pure dance experience unencumbered by narrative, bathos, etc.

(I also have an immediate skepticism for people who announce that an art form is dead or dying and pine for some inaccessible, halcyon past, which to me invariably comes from a reactionary reading of history, but this is a prejudice of mine, and I also can't argue that we're clearly living in a day and age where ballet is a niche and not mainstream form.)

All this, and her unnecessary and unfair dismissal of Hodson's reconstructed Rite -- a "travesty"? Really?

I also wouldn't describe her prose as beautiful, since Homans largely writes in the transparent register of a historian; any passages of rhapsodizing are too fleeting (or, if I'm being honest, simply not to my tastes) to have made an impression on me as good writing. (There were a few places, however, where the editing failed her; I believe during the Soviet chapters where her diction gets mired down in the plodding lumpenstyle that wouldn't be out of place in a dram-balet.)

If you're looking for a general history of dance, you might want to check Susan Au's "Ballet and Modern Dance" (I know, not a gripping title).  It's a tight chronological overview that is less America-centric than most.

Also Deborah Jowitt's "Time and the Dancing Image" -- it's more episodic, but places dance events in their historical context, which I think is incredibly interesting.

9 hours ago, Drew said:

Just confirmed (what may have been known to others for a while) that the Royal Ballet Triple Bill with Medusa, that is, the new Cherkaoui, Flight Pattern, and Within the Golden Hour will make it to the Atlanta area-- not live but about a month later. Thrilled because I'm very curious about all three works on that program!  In fact, I have known for a while that RB broadcasts make it to Atlanta in recorded showings a month and longer after the live broadcast goes out--that's not really news--but the midweek nighttime scheduling has made them unrealistic options for me. And honestly I had long since forgotten that this triple bill would be one of the broadcasts.

Anyway,  June allows a little more freedom in a my schedule and I will try my hardest not to miss this showing.

It's coming to Seattle in June as well -- I'm really looking forward to this one.

14 hours ago, millvillemurphs said:

William Lin-Yee is dancing in Giselle in Nagoya, Japan

Glad he's getting this opportunity -- I thought his Hilarion here in Seattle the last time the company performed the work had some true pathos.  I imagine it will translate well into his Alberecht.

I'm sad to hear about this, but oh my gosh, what an incredible reverence here!

I've seen ballet companies do right by Taylor (Pacific Northwest Ballet used to do a very credible Roses during Stowell and Russell's tenure) but even works that seem at first to be extra-balletic (like Aureole) just look better when danced by people who are trained to get down into the ground to go up in the air.

On 5/5/2019 at 8:33 PM, Helene said:

The program has been finalized, 

https://www.pnb.org/season/season-encore/https://www.pnb.org/season/season-encore/

The "Theme" excerpt has been clarified to the the Polonaise, and added is "Piano Dances" pas de deux.

How nice to see a bit of Piano Dances!

2 minutes ago, leee said:

I'm just about finishing Apollo's Angels and have some opinions about Homans' epilogue... would this be an appropriate thread to air my grievances or should I start a new thread specific to AA?

We've hashed out this book here before, but I think it's better to keep current discussions current -- have at it!

2 hours ago, Royal Blue said:

Thank you for informing me about this documentary, which I intend to see at the first opportunity. Of course, you are absolutely correct about there being much to ponder here. My thinking is that the essence of a great work of dance—that is, its essential beauty—will always survive any changes in style that occur due to the passage of time. 

Come back and tell me more about what you think after you see this -- perhaps we are just seeing different things, but one of my takeaways from this film is how radically style/technique has changed over the last 30 years.  Watching the Petronio dancers wrestle with those challenges was fascinating.  The film is running here in Seattle at Northwest Film Forum May 10-16, for those in my corner of the world.

Oh, this is excellent news -- I am so glad that AT is getting the attention she deserves!

Hi there -- happy to have another voice on board.  Do let us know what you think about what you see!

Wish I could see this -- please everyone report back!

On 4/18/2019 at 12:48 PM, cubanmiamiboy said:

That might be the case, and I'd curious to see how the Imperial production of the ballet looked like. But the disconnection between the two acts is too visible, unlike every other Petipa ballet where the main couple always dances the grand pas. Hyppolyta and Theseus make a very brief showing in act I...not enough to fully connect it to act II. And then they don't even have a pas of their own! And the unnamed couple which takes over the meatiest dancing part of the act..too strange. 

Pacific Northwest Ballet circulated excerpts from a wonderful essay by Anita Finkle (that they had commissioned in the 1980s for their first performance of the work) -- the gist of her argument is that all the couples in the work, both human and fairy, were incomplete in some fashion, and that it's only when we get to the second act that we see an example of mature, adult love.  It's not an exact example of Petipa's well-made-play structure, but I thought it was a compelling justification.

On 4/22/2019 at 12:22 PM, Royal Blue said:

How can individual dance works survive the inevitable challenges posed by the passage of time without favorably impressing persons who view them for the first time? As a newcomer to Cunningham, my feeling was that two of the three works presented in honor of his centenary this past week at the Joyce were strikingly beautiful.

Keep your eyes open for a screening of If the Dancer Dances -- a documentary about reconstructing Cunningham's Rainforest on the Stephen Petronio company.  Lots to consider about the process of reconstruction, and issues surrounding changes in style.

On 4/18/2019 at 12:08 PM, Quiggin said:

 

Did Cunningham ever used Marcel Duchamp stills as backdrops?

Walkaround Time, in the 1970s

On 4/22/2019 at 11:48 AM, nanushka said:

Would it be a safe assumption that most of the major casting for the next 6 weeks — not necessarily all the specific dates and details, but the general "who's dancing what" — had already been at least informally assigned before the contract was reinstated?

Probably, but casting is always in flux during the course of the season -- injuries and other limitations make cast lists a moving target.