sandik

Ross has truly come up through the organization -- as the art form continues to develop during these changeable times, it's great to have someone with that kind of institutional background in this position.

She seems to make a work for her Kidd Pivot company, and tour it extensively for multiple years -- a couple of Seattle organizations are part of the list of co-commisioners for "Revisor," which is coming up on its third year in repertory, and we'll finally see it here this coming season. And we'll also see her "Season's Canon" set on PNB -- it was originally made for the Paris Opera Ballet in 2016.

Thanks for the correction -- I shouldn't rely on my memory!

Cerrudo has staged work here and made work for the company -- I think Little Mortal Jump is a good example of his physicality. He's just starting as the AD of Carolina Ballet, so you may see more sooner. The company has been following pretty strict Covid protocols all season, but wound up having to cancel the first weekend of their most recent rep. Some dancers have been masking on stage pretty consistently all season, but if you've had Covid, you still mask for several days even after you test negative. We're all in that place where this kind of last-minute shifting is becoming more standard. The alternative is continuing to stay locked down -- it's a tricky balancing act.

We moved a couple years ago, and I'm still sorting through old flyers and paperwork -- I came across catalogs and flyers from years ago, from several different dance book distributors. I got very nostalgic... Where do people look nowadays for books?

From a letter Dear Customers, Friends, & Colleagues, I am writing to you, with great regret, to inform you of the imminent closure of Dance Books. Trading conditions during the pandemic have been very difficult and in addition to this we have recently been hit by two bombshells: earlier this year our book trade distributors, Vine House, went into liquidation, meaning that we have lost the ability to sell our publications to bookshops, and a month ago the company that hosts our web site announced that they too are closing, which means we shall shortly have no web site and thus no opportunity to sell our books to private customers. In these conditions our only option is to close down while we are still solvent. I have of course tried to find a company willing to take us over, but to no avail. I'd like to thank all the many people who have supported us over the more than fifty years I've been running the company: our friends and customers and my fellow staff members, particularly my partner Richard Holland, our brilliant editor/designers Liz Morrell and Sanjoy Roy, and my co-editors of 'Dance Now', Ann Nugent, Sanjoy Roy, and Allen Robertson. Our web site will remain active until mid-July, so if you'd like to order any of our wonderful books please do so soon: after that date they will no longer be available. Very best wishes, David Leonard Managing Director, Dance Books Ltd. As usual, you'll find full details and ordering facilities on our web site: www.dancebooks.co.uk

Yes! Boal mentioned this at the post-show on Thursday, and I forgot to include it here. I'm very glad that she's relented -- the company has worked hard to create and maintain a screening program for their subscribers, and it felt awkward to finish the season with a missing link.

A few comments, in no particular order. I had a ticket for opening night, and got it transferred to Thursday night (the new opening) -- I have a feeling this kind of last minute adjustment is going to be a part of our lives for awhile longer. Earlier in the spring Olivier Wevers company had a similar challenge, cancelling the first of a two weekend run, only in their case it was appendicitis rather than Covid -- we forget sometimes there are other difficulties out there! The company looked very on top of their work, so we had a chance to think about the choreography and performance alongside the "oh my god we're in the theater" vibe that so many performances have right now. This program really does show Tharp's responses to ballet-based dancers -- the structural game-playing is there, but the vocabulary is mostly classical, especially in "Brief Fling." In the post-show discussion, Angelica Generosa, who danced the main pas de deux, said that the stager Charlie Neshyba-Hodges commented on the structure of the work -- he feels that Tharp may have been influenced by Balanchine's Theme and Variations, both in the challenge for the main couple, and in the way both works start with a simple tendu sequence that gets turned inside out and upside down throughout the ballet. The cycling between three main groups is fast and complex, which is an interesting contrast to the sweetness in the score, which features big chunks of Percy Grainger's "Country Gardens," in a movie-like orchestration. As that theme came back and back each time the blue couple found themselves on stage again, it was almost like a repeating joke, except the dancing kept charging along. I'm very sorry to just see it once this time -- I have a feeling there's a lot more going on. It's not fair to compare "Sweet Fields" to other works using shape-note music -- while Tharp does come from a Quaker background, and there are some references to Shaker dancing in the choreography, this is not an exploration of their ecstatic and austere world. She made it for one of her own ensembles, and it is indeed a dance for a group, rather than the clear hierarchies of "Brief Fling" and the theatrical conventions of "Waiting at the Station." I'm not sure who had the final say in casting, but it was almost exclusively corps members -- it gave them some wonderful opportunities. The movement is more fleet than grounded, with some unusual torque in the upper body. One of the biggest challenges is a long sequence for the men, with a group of them acting as pallbearers for a soloist who slithers down to the ground and is scooped back up again. There is some acrobatic shifting that goes on which felt like it could use a little more rehearsal when I saw it on Thursday -- the audience responded to the tricky aspect of it in a way that undercut the more serious nature of the procession. This is the third or fourth time the company has presented "Waiting at the Station" (the PNB website is between updates and isn't showing a performance history right now), and although there have been many new cast members inserted, it still fits the general profile of the company. It's a romp, basically -- the main narrative, about a father trying to make a connection with his son before he dies, does get told, but it's wrapped and cushioned with all kinds of hijinks. It is indeed a closer -- everyone looks good while having a good time. One interesting factoid -- at the end of the ballet the two main women seem to be heading for a cat fight, but the father whispers in their ears and defuses the conflict. People always want to know what he says to them -- I remember at one post-show Q/A someone (possibly James Moore or Kiyon Ross) said that he tells them "what they need to know," but this time around Generosa (who danced one of the women with Postelwaite) said that it was different every time, and that the father character made the decision. And now we both know. Honestly, if I were programming an all-Tharp show, I'd swap out In the Upper Room or Nine Sinatra Songs for Waiting at the Station, even considering that Waiting was made for PNB. But I'm not the boss.

They have been so careful this season, as well as so lucky -- this is an incredible frustration for all.

The book does indeed sound like all that, but this chapter heading is making me giggle "A Lack Of Novelties; Ballerina Problems"

Louise Nadeau is the Queen in week 1.

Damn -- he had a long a full life. I saw him professionally once, and he was fantastic.

First week casting is up here.

I have to smile -- I can only imagine those two in a studio, with their similar hairdos.

Wow -- Confetti -- I haven't seen that in ages. The Arpino rep doesn't seem to be very well served right now, which is too bad.

No kidding. This kind of catalog raisonne is as useful as it is rare in dance -- there are a few floating around in our world, but not enough. I listened in on a talk by dance scholar Harmony Bench last year, about a project tracking Katherine Dunham's career. She and her research colleague (forgive me but I cannot remember her name right now) have been compiling chronological information about Dunham personally, and about her company -- where they were week by week, what they did, and who might have seen them dance. The level of detail is as impressive as it is astonishing, and for those of us who are interested in how dance developed around the US in the middle of the 20th century, this is invaluable information. I'm so glad to see this kind of detailed work being done in dance.

I didn't realize this project had been in operation all this time -- what a great roster of organizations to support!

He seems to be very involved with organizing dance artists who are trying to find their way in this chaos, and amplifying the news out of Ukraine. As I understand it, he would be in residence sometime after July, for a work that would be premiering in September -- no one really has any idea what the situation will be at that time.

There are some really interesting choices in this upcoming season, but I find myself curious to know about the works that aren't there. At one point, PNB had a very fruitful relationship with the Paul Taylor company, and with William Forsythe -- I wish we could get a glimpse of that material as well. I know that right now it's very hard to anticipate what kind of ancillary programming they might be planning (workshops, lectures, video, etc) -- I'm hoping that those kinds of events might cast a wider net when it comes to looking at the history of the company. A 50th anniversary is a big deal in our field.

What we know about the new Ratmansky is that everyone is crossing their fingers that it can happen at all -- world politics are making everything fraught right now.

I went to opening night -- I have thoughts about the performance, but had to write about the post-show Q/A for some colleagues, and so will post that here first: I went to the post-show chat on Friday -- the "guest" was Kyle Davis. I thought we'd get a chunk of Peter Boal by himself since Davis was in the Peck at the end of the show, but he arrived almost the same time as Boal, so most of the discussion was focused on Davis. On a fashion note, I noticed that Boal was wearing a blue and yellow ribbon on his lapel, which I imagine was to support Ukraine.) Just in the order it came: Someone asked if Plot Point had been "condensed' since the last performances -- Boal said that Pite had tweaked some things when she originally set it on PNB the last time, but there hadn't been any real changes since then. Davis showed up, and Boal asked how he was feeling after performance. Davis said that after something like that you go home and feel good about what you'd done. It's "a good team building piece -- everyone dancing and working hard." Boal mentioned that the apprentices have been working hard in this rep, especially in the Peck. Someone asked where Peck was -- Boal said he was on his way to the airport to catch a redeye back to NYC. He got here and went directly to the studio - stagers had brought most of the work together, so Peck could get to individual coaching, and some tailoring the choreography to the dancers. They think this work has a lot of individuality. Someone asked about tap dancing -- Boal sent around an email asking who had a tap background before casting started. Davis apparently sent Boal a video of him tapping as a young kid. I asked Davis to speak about his work as a choreographer, especially during the pandemic. He said that he had a lot of opportunities for the streaming works, but he really wanted to come back to dancing right now, before that part of his career was over. But he does have a list of things he wants to explore. I asked if he was still working on Sylvia and he said yes. "Always." Someone in audience said that the Peck reminded her of New York, and that Davis resembled Boal when Boal was performing with NYCB. Davis said the year he joined the company someone substituted Boal's headshot for Davis' on a bulletin board, to see if anyone would notice. Boal turned this into a compliment for Davis (by saying that he was flattered with the comparison -- very tactful) Someone asked how difficult it is to dance wearing a mask (in the Pite) - Davis said it was like dancing in a dense fog, and then when the light reflects on the mask you're basically blind. Someone asked what it was like to work with Pite - Davis said that "she has a magical way of running a room." She knows how to work with individuals, and how to create a sense of the group. She wasn't able to get here to coach this time around, so all her contributions were through Zoom. Everyone was impressed at how effective she was able to be despite the remote nature of Zoom. Someone asked what choreographers Davis finds inspiring -- Pite, Ratmansky, Forsythe, and Lang were top of the list. Someone asked what Davis' "favorite move" is -- he said "walking like a robot," but was prompted to pick something less specific to a single work, so it was pirouettes "and walking like a robot." Someone asked about changes during the last 2 years -- Davis said you always expect a short career, but you don't anticipate it being interrupted by something like Covid. They all spent time thinking hard about what they actually do, and why they do it, did they want to return, and what did they want to come back to. I asked about the works that didn't make the cut for the anniversary season -- what was on the next tier. Boal did not want to answer that, but did say that there were dances that would likely have been performed "on the rotation" like Countenance of Kings and Matthew Neenan's Bacchus (might have seen them last year in normal times) -- did not say if they will be coming back after next year. Davis said he was looking forward to Ratmansky (neither Boal nor Davis was confident that Ratmansky would be able to make a new work for the season opening), and to the Lang and the return of the Liang, especially since they'd had to make it in such a locked down fashion that it didn't really feel like they were dancing together. Someone asked about transitioning from this rep to something more classical -- Davis said it was very tricky - gave props to "my partner Leta Biasucci" And that was it. sandi

Actually, the upgrade happened just before the lock-down -- the hall (which not the same administration as the company) had just installed a very nice camera system. They were very lucky that way. I bought one this year, and it's been a real help -- the garages charge full freight on event weekends, and what street parking there is also raises their fees...

If you haven't been following along, Fjord has some excellent coverage!

This is miserable news -- Dance Tabs has been a great place to read for all these years, and a valuable outlet during a time when the number of places that run long-form reviews have continued to close. I'm very grateful for such a long and good run, and sad that it's coming to a close.

Another perspective: https://www.npr.org/2022/01/14/1073037473/terry-teachout-dies-critic?fbclid=IwAR2BA0dImURVE1WN2TcPuHAranWX1kKfvxG3DEGpUJ0ldVPMK0SK41eyQbg