sandik

Boal's answer was, if I remember correctly, in response to an question about promotions in general. In an earlier Q&A, Boal had said that when he heard the announcement after a Valentine program that he'd be joined in the Q&A by "Corps Member Jordan Pacitti" (who had just performed a principal role in Red Angels), he was a bit shocked, because he doesn't think of Pacitti as corps. Pacitti dances many corps roles in addition to leads. Boal hasn't cast based on caste. He certainly hasn't cast strictly by category (neither did his predcessors, actually), but I still think it's an interesting distinction. Pacitti (and several of his corps de ballet colleagues) are soloists in all but name (and paycheck -- but that's a different discussion). I'm curious to know what kind of works Boal is considering that wouldn't really require a fully functioning corps de ballet.

I was wondering about this -- I found it very curious that both Martins and Wheeldon are making pieces for the Diamond Project, when they seem to have many other chances to work with the company.

I am ashamed to admit that I cannot right now remember how he gets into this position -- 5th is indeed a very exposed position, especially en face, but it is easier to adjust your allignment if you are closing into 5th fron a tendu (using the inner thigh muscles and the friction of the foot on the floor) than it is if you are landing from a turn or (even trickier) from a jump. At some point it might be interesting to discuss outward rotation in general, and its effects on traditional ballet training. There has been, in the last several years, a great deal of research and experimentation done on outward rotation by dance anatomists. A colleague of mine gave a fascinating paper on the placement of second position develope when the leg is fully out-rotated and the pelvis is kept flat to the front. The traditional image of "perfect rotation" had the leg directly to the side with the quadriceps, knee and shin on top, so that the silhouette of the limb has a little scallop shape at the arch of the foot. but the leg is actually capable of more rotation, placing the ball of the femur in a stronger position in the hip socket, but changing the outline of the leg so that the sole of the shoe is starting to face forward.

Thanks for the clarification. If the season is already set, then the timing of this decision doesn't seem quite as drastic. Awkward, as far as the search process goes, but not as difficult as it might be if they were still organizing their 06-07 rep.

The 19th century version of Photoshop?

Being a good corps member is a very specific kind of skill, and although most soloist and principal dancers have put in at least a small amount of time at that level, they aren't necessarily that kind of dancer any more. Thinking about this in the reverse direction, when you see someone move from corps to soloist, you often see a process, where they become more assertive in their position on stage. It isn't "look at us" -- it's "look at me." That's a difficult pathway to reverse. It isn't really a question of liking it, so much as being able to sublimate yourself in the group. I don't really think I agree with this description of PNB's recent staging of Sleeping Beauty but that the soloists would dance corps in the classics, supplemented by the Professional Division, like in the recent performances of Sleeping Beauty. I don't think he was suggesting having a smaller company. (aside from the fact that they only have 5 official members of the corps!) The actual corps sections (Aurora's friends, members of the court) were mostly actual corps members and pro division students -- a few of the dancers that get pulled out into soloist roles (Stacey Lowenberg, Rebecca Johnston, Maria Chapman, Lindsi Dec and I know I'm forgetting a few) were in those ensembles, but for the most part they were doing demi-soloist stuff (fairies, fairy tale characters, etc.) But beyond that, I wonder how a company without a corps de ballet would acclimatize new dancers. Although PNB does hire from its school (and seems to have established a pattern of bringing someone in as an apprentice, and then "graduating" to the corps) it's the place that many people learn to be a part of the group. Where would a company of soloists and principals get its new soloists?

A good point, and thinking about it, I realize that, no matter the size, the standard with ballet companies is to hold a company class, while that is not always the case with modern dance ensembles (rather ironic, since "ballet," as a dance form, is much more uniform from school to school, ensemble to ensemble, than modern dance) "made entirely of principals and soloists" I hadn't heard this, but I find it extremely interesting. It strikes me that a company of principals and soloists would not be able to do any of the 19th century classics.

Isn't this the country where you can learn to draw from the cover of a matchbook? </snark>

I just saw the announcements about Kage leaving the company, and am wondering about the timing. Has the 2006-07 season been announced yet?

On one level I think that mid-sized ballet companies face the same challenges that all mid-sized organizations do, no matter their actual art form. Small groups are often lead by a single artist or a small group of committed colleagues, work from project to project and are flexible enough to bend with changes. The attrition rate is huge, but we don't really think of it in that way because we often don't identify them as actual groups -- they are just artists doing art. Financially, much work at this level is directly subsidized by the artists themselves, and much of the rest of it runs under the institutional radar. It's when the ensemble grows in size or in ambition and tries to become more of an organization with an organizational identity that includes longevity that they enter very dangerous territory. That transition is quite costly, and usually takes longer than anyone anticipated. Less is done on an ad-hoc basis, time needs to be spent just maintaining the identity of the organization (rather than working specifically on art). If they haven't already incorporated they certainly need to at this point -- this is where institution-building gets thick. I don't have statistics on this, but from watching the process over the last 20+ years in Seattle, I'd be willing to bet there are actually fewer failures on this level than there are for small groups. But they are significantly more visible, and that visibility has an affect on the arts community as a whole. All the points that have been made above are a part of the system -- the arts community is indeed affected by changes in popular culture, corporate planning, global economies, educational trends, and other elements as well. But I think that one of the real problems is that very few mid-sized groups wish to remain mid-sized. We are trapped by thinking that all succesful groups must continue to grow -- to hire more dancers, do more performances, commission works, buy real estate... The groups I know that are the most successful at this level are the ones that are not overextending themselves by trying to expand past their strengths.

Oh dear -- when Richard Attenborough was preparing to make "Gandhi" there were still many people around who had known him, and had very specific opinions about what should and shouldn't go into a film about him. One woman apparently felt that his spiritual power was much more important than his corporeal presence, and told Attenborough that Gandhi could only be portrayed as a beam of light. The director replied (paraphrase) that he wasn't making a movie about a bloody Tinkerbell.

I'm not sure if you're referring to the dances or to the music -- as far as the dances are concerned, only Deuce Coupe is from the 1970's (1973) -- the score by the Beach Boys mostly comes from the 1960's. Billboards premiered in 1993 and I believe that the Motown Suite is new, but you could say that the music for both of these was popular in the 1970's. Deuce Coupe was a watershed work for the Joffrey, for Tharp, and for the direction of ballet. It was one of the first truly successful "crossover" ballets, and led the way for a school of thought that looked to combine "unlikely partners" in ballet commissions. It was, interestingly, percieved as a role model for Billboards -- the company looking for a work that would pull from both popular culture and contemporary choreography. I'd be curious to know why the company has commissioned a new work to Motown artists, rather than reviving Forsythe's Love Songs, with music by Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick, but Donald Byrd has made several works for ballet companies recently, as well as modern ensembles, so perhaps they want to continue the crossover tradition

We've just finsihed a two week run of Sleeping Beauty here, so I've been thinking quite a lot about being on and off -- I agree with Leigh that you can be off your leg and still dance competently, but the confidence that comes with everything being in just the right place is what we all hope for, dancers and dance watchers alike.

When I was a kid we had season tickets to the Seattle Opera, and my father was a master at getting out of the theater during the final bows, to avoid the backup at the garage. Now, I don't park there unless I can't find a space anywhere else in the neighborhood. I seem to remember some "in front of the curtain" calls last year with PNB, though I could certainly be mistaken.

As a relatively short person in Seattle, I often wind up standing myself, just so I can see the stage since almost everyone else around me has stood up. Tangentially, I've noticed at performances of PNB that they have started bringing the principal dancers out in front of the main curtain at the end of the company bows, to take one more bow. If I remember correctly, they started doing this regularly last year, and have continued this year, but the audience hasn't figured this out yet, and regularly stops clapping when the curtain comes in, only to have to start back up again when the first dancer appears. You can tell if this is going to happen (the spotlights stay on the curtain, and you can see it moving as the stagehands get it set up) but very few people seem to anticipate this. What usually happens is that people have started getting up to go out to the lobby, and are either stepping over each other or are stooped over picking up their belongings before they leave -- I imagine that the artists on stage come out in front of the curtain to a sea of backs and bottoms.

Oh, I love this ballet. Pacific Northwest Ballet used to do it in the late 80's, with a beautifully bleak dropcloth that was inspired by the Washington coast, but they haven't performed it in years. I wish they'd revive it (though at this point, it would be more like a re-staging). I've heard through the grapevine that a number of people thought it was "too depressing" but I have never felt that way. Incredibly sad, yes, but not depressing.

<grumpy> I've been having a similar twitchy feeling this last week, over Pacific Northwest Ballet's press release for "Ronald Hynd's Magnificent The Sleeping Beauty." Yes, Hynd staged it from the production he set on the ENB, which was drawn primarily from the Royal Ballet version that he knew as a performer there, so it's got the fine hand of Petipa, Sergeyev, deValois, Ashton, and the gods know who else on it. And they do credit Petipa at the end of the first paragraph (and give him his first name -- Tschaikovsky doesn't get a first name until page four). The actual program does a better job, using the standard "after" designation, but I know that people who write calendar copy frequently only know what the press release tells them. </grumpy>

Seriously? Yikes!

I heard Copland speak about his work with Graham at a lecture in the late 1970's. I got the impression that he'd told many of these stories before, but he said that although he often used materials he'd already been working on for dance commissions, he started from scratch with Appalachian Spring, which I think was originally just called ballet for Martha. His comment was that she was "so marked" that he couldn't just stitch together existing materials -- he had to make something as specific as she was. I don't know anything about a Seeger connection, but all these artists were in and out of each others lives all the time -- no one was hermetically sealed.

I'm going to see all five Auroras, and so am still wallowing in Sleeping Beauty, but yes, Pantastico was terrific -- both in the technique and the characterization. She had potential the last time she did it (at the Arena), and has really fulfilled that promise. Definitely worth rearranging your schedule to see her in the role (next Saturday matinee) On a related topic, I know that right now there's lots of comparison going on between the Russell/Stowell years and the beginning of Boal's tenure (I've certainly done my share, and will do more -- it's the nature of my job) but I don't want to cast it all black and white. You may disagree with the choices that R&S made (I certainly did with some), but except for new hires like Korbes and Pankevitch, the dancers we see are very much a result of their work.

Didn't she just -- she's been slowly and carefully developing for quite some time, and we are getting to see some very lovely work from her lately.

This is an interesting development -- in the 1970's the NEA ran a touring and residency program (the Dance Touring Program) originally developed just to get more companies more time on the road performing, but it had several side benefits. Because the tours emphasized residencies (not very common at the time) more communities got to see more of a company -- classes, rehearsals, making new works and maintaining old ones. It encouraged open rehearsals and lecture-demonstrations as well as straight-ahead performances. It educated more audiences, gave young dancers a better peek into the professional world, and in a few situations, actually ended in companies relocating to a community where they had been in residence. Seattle benefitted twice from that phenomenon, when the Bill Evans Dance Company and First Chamber Dance moved to Seattle in the late 70's. For many years, members of those groups and the people they attracted have formed a significant part of the dance community here -- their residencies, and then their moving here, jump-started a big surge in development for ballet and modern dance. I don't necessarily think that the money being offered to ABT is done with those results in mind, but it does seem to build on the earlier NEA model.

I'm sorry, but all I can think of is Palance on the Academy Awards, doing pushups -- something I don't think Serge Diaghilev would even recognize!

Just wanted to add a plug for ArtsJournal (I don't work with them, but they are based in my home town) -- I think Doug McLennan does an excellent job for the arts with this digest/links site.

and forgot to say that all of second week casting is up on the website now.