sandik

I remember this comment as well, and it was in reference to the post-Farrell NYCB. Don't think it was in the Mazo, but can't pin it down otherwise. One of my big regrets is that I saw so little of McBride live. I know her best, really, through the parts that were made on her, as I see the Balanchine rep staged on other generations. And I agree, she was a phenomenal dancer.

The new website is indeed a surprise, I didn't get any notice of a change through the usual channels. On first browse, it seems pretty good. I really don't like the teal -- it looks too much like the Seahawks uniform color to me (Seattle pro football team) And the images are a bit too wide for my monitor size. But those are probably just me. In the section on history and company structure: They've updated the standard company bio and made sure to acknowledge the early players (Janet Reed, Lew Christensen, Leon Kalimos, Melissa Hayden). I didn't click through to the PDF file, so don't know if that's been re-written as well. They've changed the repertory to an "active" list, which I assume means works that we might consider fair game for programming, which means if you want a list of stuff they've done and dropped you need to go back through your own files. They've included the PNB premiere dates, which is really helpful if you're writing about the history of a work in the company, but it's organized alphabetically by title instead of choreographer, so if you want to check to see if a particular artist is part of the group you have to page through it line by line (I know this seems like a small detail to most people, but it's something I do regularly, so I notice...) I'll have to go back and do some more looking around to see who's now missing in action. And they've got their financial stuff on the site: annual report, audited financial report and IRS 990. Haven't looked at them yet, but that's a very nice feature.

What a nice and concise description of his process! He is in many ways the closest we get to true cinema verite -- he will keep his cameras going in a location for so long that the people being filmed sometimes do truly forget that they're being recorded. It can lead to incredibly intimate material.

Wasn't he, though, after all those years of hosting the Kennedy Center Honors? And his hosting those New Year's broadcasts from the Vienna Philharmonic. It's ironic to read all the obits of him at the same time that we're marking the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing -- one of the things that marked Cronkhite's work was the sense that a well-rounded individual was informed about a wide variety of things: scientific, literary, artistic, political and everything in between. He was both knowledgeable about science and struck with wonder by it -- his response to the lunar landing is an example of that. He could explain how it worked, and why we went, but when it came down to it, he was as enchanted as us all.

From the links section, an article on an upcoming film by Frederick Wiseman on the Paris Opera Ballet here Does anyone have any advance information on this project?

Oh this is amazing! I was at a show Saturday night and was wishing there was a choreographed ritual for the audience to use to turn off our cellphones...

When I saw this I thought "where is the Louisa May Alcott" but perhaps she is too old-fashioned for this list. My son and his cohort (now 15) all zoomed through the Alex Rider books -- if you like those you might look at Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series.

Great news. The amazing and hopeful thing about this experiment is that you don't have to be in London or NYC to have it. Movie houses in suburban strip malls can be, and have been, similarly packed by people looking for this kind of artistic expression. Classical theater belongs in theaters; and there obviously is an audience for it. I believe and hope the same holds true for ballet, when the times comes that someone of vision puts together a similar project. I share part of your optimism, but I'm old enough to remember the beginnings of cable television, and our visions of channels devoted solely to our own individual obsessions. I've seen the Arts and Entertainment channel become the reality law enforcement channel, and Bravo become the home of cooking contests and scandal-laden social eavesdropping. I don't get the Ovation channel (too much money in my cable world) so haven't been able to follow its development -- what I hear is still pretty good, so perhaps the tide has shifted.

Expand this to include books and I'll raise my hand as well.

Ah, Sarah Vowell -- unfortunately, we're all caught up with her. Read "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" on a trip last month -- not especially well done, but some very funny moments, and it's a great summer book. Am in the middle of the anthology of New Yorker food writing, and re-read Anthony Bourdain's first essay on restaurants, which still makes me kind of queasy...

Ah, you've started August early!

"First Tweens?" Yes, I know...

And I'm such a greedy girl that I want them all -- the hefty and scholarly as well as the selective and gossipy!

This makes me very sad. Whatever mess he made of his personal life (and the repercussions on other people) he was an astonishing musician, and a phenomenal dancer.

Wow -- this is a major change, and not necessarily a good one, I think. Though the comment after the article (that it will make the Academy Awards more like the Golden Globes) was meant as a criticism, I don't think that's such a terrible thing.

Rockwell reported from out of town regularly, as I recall. No complaints here. Macaulay is a fine critic, the Times continues to afford him and the other dance critics space and travel even in this difficult economic time and if anything he's improved since joining the paper. Rockwell did travel much more often than his colleagues, but I think AM gets around even more than JR did. I know he's been here in Seattle more often than any of his predecessors. And speaking as a dance critic, I can pretty much guarantee that there is never enough space to discuss everything you'd like to in a review!

A dance enthusiast should get this and make them run dance programming on the channel!

You remind me that I haven't seen any of Tati's pictures in years. Must rent one or two. I'm surprised Traffic isn't available?? It may be easier than I'm led to think -- a local film group did a small festival a couple summers ago, and I remember some comments about the fuss they went through. Whatever the trouble, it was wonderful to see those films on a screen (rather than a television) and I was struck again with what a wonderful mover Tati was. It was fascinating to see his character develop over the course of several films.

Good and difficult questions, all. Sacre is a huge milestone in the history of dance, the kind of work that has achieved notoriety beyond the dance world. It has been labeled as a turning point in the development of western art, tagged as the "first real modern dance", used as a metaphor for the displacement of World War I, and blamed for the eventual dissolution of the Balelt Russe -- not in that order(!) The original ballet only had a handful of performances, and did not last in permanent repertory. It was, though, the topic of considerable speculation, both academic and artistic. It was, in a way, like Woodstock -- people were proud to claim that they had been in the audience for the event. And like Woodstock, over time it has come to mean almost more as an event than as an actual artwork. Several choreographers have made work to the score since its 1913 debut, and though some of them have lasted far longer in active repertories, none of them have made the same 'splash' as the original. Most of the dance world thought it was lost beyond retrieval, but historians Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer were not convinced it was hopeless. Many of the dancers who had been in the original production had taught what they remembered in various situations, and there were extant renderings of the sets and costumes. Hodson and Archer began to compile all this material, laying out sketches alongside the score. They knew that Marie Rambert, who Diaghilev had hired to assist Nijinsky analyse the score, had made copious notes, but they didn't actually find that document until they were almost finished with their compilation. Robert Joffrey was an enthusiastic collector of anything having to do with the Ballet Russe -- he'd had Massine set some his early work on the company and encouraged Hodson and Archer to keep working on Sacre -- finally when they were ready to start staging, they worked first with the Joffrey. The version of the work they created, using the Rambert documents to check their work, is not a reconstruction of the original choreography so much as it is a new creation using all those original materials. I cannot say that it is the same ballet, but it is certainly the closest that we can get (time travel being what it is). And in some ways, the hullabaloo this restaging created in the dance world echoed the ruckus the original work inspired. PBS broadcast a Dance in America program in the 1989, featuring extensive interviews with Hodson and Archer as well as a cleanly filmed version of the company in the ballet. Since then, H and A have staged the work on a few other companies, including the Paris Opera and the Maryinsky -- these have been filmed and broadcast in various places. (see here for some conversation about film versions) I don't know if anyone has it in their active repertory at this moment, but I imagine it is around and about in the Ballet Russe anniversary programming this year. If you're interested in some of the history surrounding the work, I highly recommend Shelly Berg's "Le Sacre du Printemps: Seven Productions from Nijinsky to Martha Graham" It's out of print so you might have to interlibrary loan it (try you local college library), but she's an excellent historian and her descriptions of the different works are visceral and evocative. Like most dance fanatics, you just have to mention Sacre to get my full attention -- it's a fascinating ballet.

Anything by Jaques Tati, but especially Traffic (though hard to find)

And we will be spending part of the summer wondering who else will be coming on.

I'm glad to answer questions when I can. And the costs really do vary significantly. During his life, Balanchine sometimes charged a very nominal fee for his choreography (as little as $1) if he felt the company asking for it was ready, and would benefit from the experience.

Have to think at more length about this question, but Helene's response reminded me that Stephanie Jordan has written cogently and at length about musicality (especially in terms of Stravinsky) -- worth looking for.

Indeed -- it's so skeptical!

You know that good deeds will return to you at some point, though...