Farrell Fan

In reviewing the Ballet Across America season at the Kennedy Center, the chief dance critic of the New York Times noted that the selection of companies excluded "some of America's finest (New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, San Francisco Ballet, Miami City Ballet, the Suzanne Farrell Ballet)." Thank you, Mr. Macaulay!

Marlon Brando has been mentioned, but not for his ridiculously overpraised and in my opinion truly awful accent/performance/throat condition in The Godfather.

There are good cliches and bad cliches. Having recently revisited the ABT "Swan Lake," I submit the May Pole dance (which I like).

Not. The cast appears against the film clip only in the finale. As good as they are, do you want to watch 5'-6' tall NYCB dancers (in a genre in which they're not really comfortable or fluent) do the same steps as a 40-foot tall, illuminated Fred and Rita? The real-life dancers pretty much disappear in the finale, at least as seen from the upper rings of the theater. The scene is a sort of homage to the film clip. Toward the end the NYCB dancers stop trying to compete with the image of Fred and Rita and pause in tribute to the action on the screen.

Following the two performances in Gettysburg, PA, Suzanne will be conducting her two summer intensive programs, at Cedar Islands, and in Washington D.C.. After that, she will take a portion of her company to the Chicago Dancing Festival on August 18 to perform Tzigane. The company returns to the Kennedy Center from October 8-12, in the newly renovated Eisenhower Theater. There will be two programs -- a restaging of The Balanchine Couple, and a mixed repertoire program which includes Liebeslieder Walzer, Ragtime, and Episodes. Ragtime is Suzanne's reconstruction for the Balanchine Preservation Initiative of a ballet which hasn't been seen in nearly forty years.

The Peter J. Sharp Theater where the SAB Workshop took place used to be known as the Juilliard Theater. When it was, the seating capacity was said to be 933. I don't think it's changed since it became named for Mr.Sharp.

Don't you think they ended with Balanchine's death?

All is forgiven!

patrick! This is the first silly thing you've ever said!

Outside, all was chaos as the reconstruction of Lincoln Center continues apace. but within the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, where Miriam Pellman, another longtime dancegoer and I greeted each other by comparing canes, everything was beautiful at the ballet, as she said. It was an extremely satisfying performance, begun by 48 girls, ages 8 to 14, in "Circus Polka," with Jock Soto as enthusiastic ringmaster. After a pause, the Robbins celebration continued with his "2 & 3 Part Inventions." This ballet to Bach is in the repertory of NYCB, but was originally choreographed for SAB students in 1994. The excellent dancers last night were Lauren Lovette, Francisco Estevez, Lillian Watkins, Alexander Peters, Sara Adams, Ryan Cardea, Caroline Beach, and Price Suddarth. After the first intermission, a piece choreographed by Jock Soto "Showcase for Young Male Dancers," was exactly that, with enough leaping and turning so that I thought of the topic that frequently appears in this forum -- is ballet a sport? Perhaps, but these young men displayed plenty of artistry as well. The music was by Johann Strauss, Jr, vigorously played by Arkady Figlin. The dancers were Barry Molina, Joseph Gordon, Spartak Hoxha, Austin Bachman, Alex Forck, Lars Nelson, Trevor Naumann, Eric Trope, Michal Wozniack, Alex Real, Price Suddarth, Josh Brown, Harrison Ball and Peter Walker. One of Balanchine's most sublime ballets, "Concerto Barocco" followed, with Sara Adams and Kristen Segin, along with Caroline Beach, Lillian DiPiazza, Holly Donger, Chaelee Kim, Grace McLaughlin, Adriana Piercy, Shoshana Rosenfeld, and Ryoko Sadoshima. As the lone male, Chase Finley acquitted himself supremely well. There was another intermission, after which came an exhilarating performance of "Fanfare," in which, as usual, the percussion trio (Harrison Ball, Ryan Cardea, and Slawomir Wozniak) were audience favorites.

Thanks for the lovely poem. Balanchine used to say something to the effect that this world was not real, that the reality lay elsewhere. I think you've captured that feeling.

The only dreadful thing I can think of in connection with this book is the overlong, overwrought subtitle. The book itself was moving and fascinating. I think I"ll have to reread it.

Thanks for the fabulous clip, Paul. My late wife saw Bolger live in "On Your Toes" ("Slaughter on Tenth Avenue") and years later, in "Where's Charlie?" She never forgave Hollywood for casting Eddie Albert in "On Your Toes." But we watched "The Wizard of Oz" every year.

Odile? In Balanchine? Huh? Or am I reading too literally? Poetic license, perhaps.

The Kenneth Koch poem, from 1998, is called "To New York City Ballet" and is from the Tributes book. Oh dancers of New York, arranged by Balanchine, You are more beautiful than groves of evergreen! You have aesthetic distance, like the blue-white sea Outside the porthole--Agon or Symphony in C! And how the image lasts, with houselights going on, Of the prince standing gazing at the disappearing swan! Is it Odette? Was it Odile? The two are so the same, But every smile or gesture seems to give away the game. There's only one who brings this honest beating of the heart: George Balanchine! Of all the kings of choreographic art, Great Balanchine, who lifts us, with his dancers As if there were no stage at all, to tell his stories there.

"Tributes: Celebrating Fifty Years of New York City Ballet," is a handsome coffee table book, published by William Morrow and Company, Inc. in 1998, which contains poems by Robert Lowell, William Meredith, Frank O'Hara, Ron Padgett, Marianne Moore, Kenneth Koch, Amiri Baraka, Elise Paschen, Nikki Giovanni, and James Merrill.

Thank you, naomikage, for your description of Bukagu. Incidentally, some of Mishima's works were well-known in the west.

naomikage -- How does Bejart's Bugaku compare with Balanchine's (1963)?

Amen.

For me, "Going to the Dance" (1982) is twice as valuable as "Afterimages" (1977). The latter has 21 index citations for Farrell, Suzanne, while the former has 42. In addition, the jacket photo, by Martha Swope, was of Suzanne in Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2. But don't forget "Sight Lines" (1987). That has 43 index citations for Farrell.

I'm so sorry to hear this. She was one of the greats -- unforgettable.

SAB "Theme & Variations" or "Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3"?

Ray Bolger Balanchine's Barocco or Paul Taylor's Esplanade?

It seems to me that ballet has taken on new prominence in the arts pages of the NY Times since Macaulay became chief critic and that's certainly a good thing. I find his reviews consistently interesting and the writing is livelier than it has been since Clive Barnes moved to the Post. I sent Macaulay an email correcting an error in one of his Sunday pieces (he referred to Balanchine as NYCB's "ballet master in chief," which he never was) and he responded immediately, thanking me and making the correction. As far as I'm concerned Macaulay is doing great!

Margaret Tracey. Peter Martins's "Sleeping Beauty" or his "Romeo + Juliet"?