sandik

I'm curious about the event -- it's not listed on the theater's website. Do you know what they're doing, and how long they'll be in the area?

It pains me to disagree, Leigh, but Sara Lee hasn't been the same since they stopped making those brownies that could knock you right out. And you know I'm one of those people who loves Morris' work, but there it is.

The more I think about it, the more interesting an interpretation of the work it becomes. I wouldn't want it to be my only Traviata, but I'd certainly be interested in seeing it.

I am truly enjoying this -- both Ms Homes initial responses, and the Q&A. Many thanks to all involved!

She danced Firebird with Meehan (it's on tape somewhere) and I thought she had stunning timing -- the sequence after the Prince catches the Firebird and she's trying to escape, where everything is distilled into her wrists and hands (before the music swells and they start the adagio) was just right. I wound up seeing her final performance with ABT accidentally (we'd booked tickets to see a Tharp piece, before the company announced that Gregory would be retiring with Swan Lake act II) and she was wonderful. Oddly enough, it was her arms again that left the biggest impression -- as she bourees off-stage left her arms transform from woman to swan -- a calculated theatrical effect but a very powerful one.

I haven't fully explored it, but this website seems to be a catalog of online resources for performing arts research, and this particular link http://libdev.library.cornell.edu/glopad_p....php?id=1003899 will take you to a program from the American Ballet's March 1935 performances in NY. There's a little rip in the paper -- you can't touch it, but if you squint just right it seems like you can. It's just stunning. And here http://libdev.library.cornell.edu/glopad_p....php?id=1003895 is a picture of Lew Christensen in Apollo in 1937.

What is the name of the publisher?

warning -- this is a pretty long response. I’m glad you were willing to take this topic on for a paper, but I think there are a few weak places in your arguments. Some of them may boil down to a difference of opinion, but there are also some factual errors. I’m sorry not to have the time to make a proper essay out of this response -- I’ll just go through the points: Senior Editor of “The Progress Report,” Mr. Fred E. Foldvary, makes an interesting point when noting, “Since some art is controversial, grants necessarily discriminate. As The Brooklyn Exhibit shows, if the works [controversial] are subsidized, it forces taxpayers to finance art they find revolting.” This is certainly in the opinion camp, but this seems like a hollow argument to me -- most taxpayers are “forced” to pay for many things that they don’t agree with or approve of -- it is the nature of our system that we will rarely achieve 100% agreement on many government activites The NEA as a branch of the, highly equal opportunity, federal government has walked a fine line in granting money to individuals and projects that include experimental work. The NEA distributes approximately 4,000 grants a year…. Furthermore, out of political self preservation the NEA should reconsider supporting artists who have a history of producing art that is offensive or based on subjects deemed generally offensive such as religion and sex. The NEA should quickly condemn artists who use their NEA granted money in the creation of highly controversial artwork so as not minimize the offense taken by others. The NEA might best serve itself if it let controversial artists utilize private sources of capital. Since the culture wars of the 1980’s, the Endowments grants have been quite mainstream, and unless I am mistaken, with the exception of some grants to individuals in the Folk Arts categories, they have not given direct grants to individuals at all. By the standards of most large charitable institutions the NEA is a staggeringly ineffective agency. Twenty-five cents of every tax dollar that goes to the National Endowment for the Arts is lost in bureaucratic overhead. The NEA as an established agency is fully entrenched in the federal bureaucracy. This feels like a false comparison, though, since the reporting and paperwork requirements for federal agencies put those of private agencies to shame. It would be more interesting to compare the Endowment with another federal program or department. The NEA has become a cultural icon in the American landscape and when suggestion of its disbandment arises often the first reaction is strongly against the notion. However, often the perception is that the NEA is larger and exerts a larger influence on the arts in America than it truly does. This is to say that it is not out of reach to suggest that the private sector and the arts industry could assimilate and accept the financial responsibility of the NEA’s roughly $105 million dollar annual budget. It might be possible for arts organizations to replace the base dollar amount of the NEA funds, but that doesn’t really reflect the value of an NEA grant in their overall financial health. For many groups, the NEA grant is like seed money -- a tool that they can use to leverage other support. Aside from issues of matching grants, the fact that a group has Endowment support is like a seal of approval for some other private grantors -- it implies a level of stability and quality that is otherwise difficult to prove. For a more concrete example of the effects that public money has had on the development of the dance community you might want to look into the history of the Dance Touring Program. This was one of the first NEA programs, and ran from the early 1970’s until the mid-80’s. It was formulated in response to a Ford Foundation study of dance in the 1960’s (part of the same initiative that got the FF to underwrite SAB audition tours and scholarships) and was designed to do two basic things -- get more dance out into communities across the country that didn’t have access to much high-quality work, and to get dance companies and dancers more actual performances. In general, it worked as a partnership program -- the NEA money underwrote a potion of the transportation and presenting costs, making it much easier for presenters around the country to take a chance on dance. Because it was organized on a national level, it made scheduling tours easier, encouraging cooperation between presenters to create block bookings. And because the Endowment insisted that the companies include an educational component in their residencies (classes, lecture-demonstrations, open rehearsals) it increased the access that these communities had to the visiting artists -- they weren’t just coming into town to perform and then leaving right away. (personal anecdote -- this often lead to companies participating in extended residencies -- I wound up studying with the Nikolais company for a month in Portland OR while they were in residence there in the mid-70’s, and spent big chunks of time with artists from the Limon company, Repertory Dance Theater, the Graham company, and several others) I apologize for going on about the DTP, but (you can probably tell) I’ve been doing research on it, and its affect on the development of dance outside of NYC, and I think it’s a counterexample for some of the objections you’ve raised to the NEA.

Why, right here. North of California, south of Canada. Mt. St. Helens (the volcano?) In Washington state.

As far as I know, there are seven books because there are seven grades in the English public schools.

Because then there would be no Hamlet.

That's lovely -- I would love to have a "dance historian" t-shirt.

Aieee, my eyes!

I don't know about the baseball metaphor, but I do agree about Snape -- I think he's being set up either as a stellar turncoat or as a twisted hero. Personally, I think Dumbledore is dead, but I've been wrong before. I was struck by his asking Snape for help at the end -- I think he didn't want Draco to have to kill him, that even at the end, he was trying to protect a child from the evil in the world.

In the past, the curriculum at Daisy Dingle schools was primarily "toe, tap, and baton," but that seems to have moderated now, so that it's "ballet, jazz, and lyrical," with hip hop as a frequent addition/substitution to jazz. In some of the larger suburban studios, "dance team" is a popular offering -- tied to the synchronized dance drill teams that high schools support as part of their athletic entertainment. It's seemed to me, watching over time, that jazz dance is frequently dancing to popular music, with the dance style shifiting a bit depending on the music of the period.

My mother, whose family nationality was Czech (Austro-Hungarian Empire, that is) was a serious ballet student in the 20s in Manhattan -- serious enough to have considered going to Europe for training while still a teenager. I remember her saying that "toe dancing" in those days was a very common expression even among dancers, used to distinguish ballet danced on point from ballet -- often ethnically derived -- danced in flat shoes. "Ballet" appears to have been a rather broad term, at least in New York City long ago. Anyone else have an insight into this? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ballet training in the US, even into the 1920's, was a much less organized affair than the gradated curriculums of the European schools. "Toe dancing" was often a specialty in musical theater, sometimes used as analog for ballet, but usually reflecting a fairly narrow technique with an emphasis on bourees and turns. One example of this that's pretty easy to find is the "Lullaby League" number from "The Wizard of Oz," which is mostly bourees and steps on pointe -- the terre a terre dancing is minimal and awkward.

Glynn Ross, one of the founders of the Seattle Opera, died this week, and the obits have been retelling stories. Ross was an unabashed huckster for opera, and one of the slogans he coined for an ad campaign was "Get ahead with Salome."

Many thanks for the link -- I just saw the film last week, but didn't think twice about the copyright issue. I know that many young choreographers use music without really considering the issue of rights and fees, and it worries me that the legal establishment might choose to start enforcement, in a community that can't really add one more fee to the overwhelming list.

"didn't earn enough money and cost too much." Bother -- name me a dance company that doesn't.

I can't pick a favorite, but these are some that I watch when things get really difficult: The Nicholas Brothers in "Down Argentine Way" (and Carmen Miranda too, but not as much) Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in "Swing Time" (especially the "Pick Yourself Up" number) Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland in "Theme and Variations" "The Four Temperaments" (especially Choleric with Merrill Ashley) "The Moor's Pavane" with the original cast (Pauline Koner is like a fox as she grabs the handkerchief) Carlos Saura's "El Amor Brujo" (Blood Wedding and Carmen were great too, but this is my favorite of the three) The "Moses Supposes" number with Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly in "Singing in the Rain"

Marie was teaching ballet at Sarah Lawrence College in the late 70's and early 80's while I was a grad student there. She taught a lovely, modest class.

The Fairy of the Mid-Performance Program Perusal with her cavalier, the Blackberry masquerading as a flashlight.

In the 70's one of the daytime soap operas had a plot line including a dancer -- a woman who supposedly left a ballet company (modeled on the Joffrey) and her hotshot composer husband, and started teaching baby ballet classes in the soap opera city, where she met the perennially eligible doctor. There was a certain amount of "can she be happy without the stage" hullabaloo, but it seemed that Dr. Bob and the baby classes was going to be her pathway to true happiness, until composer ex shows up, needing her help for a new ballet score he's writing, and eventually the two of them fade off into the sunset, leaving Dr Bob alone until his next temporary relationship. The dancing itself was minimal -- cute curtseys at the end of the baby classes, some strained partnering during a touring performance by her former company, and a lot of swooping around the hotel furniture as she "assists" composer ex with his new work. As I recall the actress was not a dancer, and she certainly didn't have a very credible studio persona, but it was interesting to see what the show did and didn't get about dance life. And for some odd reason, I remember the composer ex's name was Ian.

I don't remember this number, but the June Taylor Dancers were usually rather like a television version of a Busby Berkley ensemble, with those amazing-for-the-time overhead camera angles. They did more serious work as well as the lighthearted stuff.

It's very interesting -- she's got a very matter-of-fact tone in her comments. On the corps headwear for Brahms-Schoenberg. " These things are pretty heavy, but its the long ribbons in the back that jerk your head back when your partner grabs you that are the REAL hazard." One question -- is she taking her blog photos with that camera phone?!