melissaga

There has been a somewhat steady stream of former NYCB dancers who have visited the company to teach class, coach or set choreography this season. I read somewhere (perhaps here or the NYT or maybe Pointe Magazine?) that Peter Martins tended not to invite his former colleagues, those that danced in his time, back to the company. I have wondered if some of these former dancers are actually quietly being considered for the AD position or one of the other new and yet to be named positions. Examples would be Debra Wingert, Patty McBride, and her husband, Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux. I'm sure there are others. Those three were mentioned on social media from various dancers within a few days of each other.

The Young Patron's Circle at NYCB is for patrons under 40 years of age. My guess is that he aged out and neglected to update this information anywhere. Makes a person seem younger to be involved in "young" anything so it might be advantageous to leave that up as an unended involvement if a person wanted to be viewed as younger for some reason (lightly walking on the fact that if the man is predatory towards young adults, even of legal age, this would be desirable).

Ms. Waterbury has been a model for Danskin for some time. If you scroll through Danskin's Instagram, you will find plenty of older posts with her in them.

I don't know if such rules exist or not. I also do not know if the actual relationship began when Ms. Waterbury was still at SAB or not. It came to mind because my daughter, a dancer in another company, has mentioned the rules about fraternization with students both at her current company and where she trained previously.

Not so much class but rules about fraternization. There are other companies where there rules about fraternization with students. The relationship alone between should have raised concern, at least in some places, even if she was 18 when it started. I have tickets for Jewels this season and was initially planning on trying to catch a few other performances in October.

Like Macauay, I also saw R+J 5 times this season, albeit different casts. The leads I saw were Xiomara Reyes/Herman Cornejo, Gillian Murphy/Cory Stearns, Natalia Osipova/David Hallberg, Paloma Herrera/Marcelo Gomes and Hee Seo/Alexandre Hammoudi. It was interesting to read the criticisms of Osipova in this thread. She was one of my favorite Juliet this season for the same reason others disliked her performance. Juliet is a 14 yr old girl. I often feel that Juliet starts young, but suddenly rapidly ages once she falls in love with Romeo. In many performances, she suddenly goes from being a little girl to a mature woman. I find that transition to rough. I think Juliet is a wealthy, rather spoiled, young teen. I felt the adolescent, impetuous nature of Juliet throughout Osipova's performance. I also felt that Hee Seo kept Juliet young throughout the entire performance. Gillian Murphy, Xiomara Reyes and Paloma Herrera all went through that rapid aging that I personally dislike.

I am a very occassional lurker. My daughter was a super in Romeo and Juliet this season. She mentioned the same thing, but she also mentioned that the dancers carry on conversations in their normal speaking voices while on stage in those large group scenes such as in the marketplace, etc. She was shocked the first time one of the company members came by and spoke with her during a performance! She is used to whispers, if anything, while on stage.

So in Alastair Macauley's review of the various Swan Lake performances, he mentions, almost in passing that Michele Wiles' performance as Odette was her final performance with the company. I have not found any other news of her leaving the company. I did see that she will be performing elsewhere (guest appearance with Lemon Sponge Cake). I had a phone call from what I think was someone in the box office today and I asked. The caller did not know, but someone else in the room thought that she quit. My daughter has met her a few times and enjoyed chatting with her. Was wondering if anyone knew where she would be going from her.