sandik

At a point several years ago this Royal Ballet program was available on VHS tape -- I've had a copy for many years, and often used the Swan Lake pas de deux "plus one" when I taught dance history.

It is indeed the finale of Todd Bolender's Souvenirs. Russell and Stowell arranged for the company to learn the work 1984, and then it was re-staged more recently. I can't say I remember Postelwaite's debut as a gorilla, though!

It may be refreshing, but it is highly unusual, and in a world where these kind of things are often as structured as a grand pas de deux, this change was very noticeable. I don't usually like to parse press releases in the same way CIA analysts used to examine photos of the reviewing stands during the Soviet May Day parade, but this really jumped out at me.

The Nutcracker is a particularly malleable ballet -- despite the fact that we have major chunks of the original choreography extant and available, it is continually being re-choreographed for professional and amateur groups. While most of those productions try to cleave to the main elements of the work, several of them have made significant departures from the 'received version.' One of those is the Mark Morris Hard Nut, which was at BAM earlier in December, and has been presented multiple years in Berkeley, where it is danced in a community with several other Nutcrackers.

Fondly/Fervently just opened last year, and they will probably be touring it well into the 2011-12 season. Jones often takes some time to make a work, and then gives it a fairly long life.

I was wondering about the effect the snow would have on attendance. A couple of years ago here in Seattle, a big snowstorm (that didn't get cleared away for days) really cut into Pacific Northwest Ballet's Nutcracker attendance/revenue. Since this is a new production for ABT, they don't have a long tradition of balancing their budget on their Nutcracker, but it's too bad that it premieres with this extra challenge. Without changing the topic of the thread, is there anyone here who has some thoughts on how this compares with the Baryshnikov Nut from past seasons? I seem to recall at the time there was considerable speculation on how that production "was different than the Balanchine."

I'm sorry if it wasn't for you, but if you remember, could you please tell us what was danced?

Fiddlesticks -- I had a guest, and couldn't watch the program. Could someone please tell us what they performed?

I agree -- I'm always sad to read about someone leaving the profession when all I know of their work is the commentary from other critics. I'm having a strange variation of that experience now, though, watching Carla Korbes on a regular basis at PNB after having heard so much about her work at NYCB without having had the chance to see her there. It feels a bit like a relay race, and this is my turn with the baton. We used to see both Lallone and Patricia Barker in this role, and the contrast was very interesting. Barker was often referred to as "icy" -- I think her blond hair made that a pretty obvious descriptor. Lallone was as implacable, but there was a darker, Weimar aspect to her presence that matched her brunette coloring. This shows up in her performance in Rubies as the 'tall girl' as well, and heightened some of the choreographic connections between those two works for me. Barker was imposing in Prodigal, but Lallone was truly frightening. I've been wondering what she'll be performing at the end of season encore show, and this conversation makes me hope that Prodigal gets considered.

Yup.

Should be great fun.

Unfortunately you can only choose from their pre-selected list, but there were some sites I hadn't seen yet -- thanks for the link!

And as someone who loves both Petipa and Duncan, Levinson's work is particularly illuminating -- thanks for bringing him into the discussion!

I don't want to get into a "greatest choreographer" discussion, but I wanted to add a couple thoughts to the conversation. Leigh's comment about learning taking time is an important one, especially in dance where we have so little of it. I spent a great deal of time with video tape at the beginning of my dance-watching life -- Paul is correct in his list of its deficits, but it's what was available. A good thing, thought -- it gave me a chance to concentrate on one thing at a time, so that I didn't feel desperate about 'seeing everything at once' when I was still struggling to see anything at all. In the states I think there is a shift towards acceptance of Balanchine/NYCB as the received ballet style, away from an earlier emphasis on a Imperial Russian/Ballet Russe point of view. I've noticed recently that companies who would have performed a Swan Lake or a Sleeping Beauty as an institutional milestone (we do it because we can, we do it because it proves we're a ballet company) might now present Jewels in a similar context. In part this is due to the shift in population -- the Russian trained dancers who founded many of the schools and companies across the states, using the works they'd been taught to teach their own dancers, have finished their work, and that foundational generation has been replaced by dancers who have come from the NYCB/Balanchine tradition. You can lay this at the feet of a number of events (the Ford Foundation's scholarship program, the relationship between NYCB and Jac Venza's Dance in America programming, the relative strengths of NYCB and ABT as performing and teaching institutions...) but it is there. A lot of the video I spent time with at the beginning was of Balanchine's choreography -- it's what I could get. I don't think that it's made me Balanchine-centric per-se -- anyone who spends any time with me will tell you how greedy I am for more dance to watch. But I do think that it's made me pretty good at seeing patterns, especially musical patterns expressed in group choreography.

Not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but Alastair Macaulay was on NPR yesterday talking about his Nutcracker odyssey around the US -- brief but interesting. Look here

Balletalertarians? Celebrate extensively!

Oh this is just excellent, especially coming this week, when the governor of Washington State announced that the state arts commission would likely be dismantled next year (massive budget cuts)

Apologies if this thread is already started somewhere else -- found this Washington Post article earlier on who actually comes to the program and giggled at this Post on KC Honors event The broadcast is December 28.

That is fabulous. The look on her face!

Is anyone here going to see OBT's new holiday show? Christopher Stowell has said that some of their most loyal audience is a bit tired of Nutcracker every year, and that this program is an opportunity to see the company at the holidays in a slightly more adult program -- is that working here?

Thank you so much! I heard bits and pieces of the Peace Prize ceremony (especially Liv Ullman reading excerpts from the recipient's work) but hadn't heard any report yet about the rest of the awardees. Now know to look for a transcript of Vargas Llosa's comments!

As someone who teaches notation, I appreciate the comments here -- I certainly do think that work can be recorded in a "text" form, and reconstructed. It's a more difficult process than musicians working with a score or actors with a script, but it is absolutely possible.

Indeed. What I'd like to see now is a compare/contrast review of "Black Swan" and "Burlesque." Oh ouch!

That certainly does seem to be a thread in many of the discussions/interviews that we've seen thus far (especially the comments about the insular nature of the art form)

I rooted around a bit, but couldn't discover who was dancing which performances.