California

This sounds like the old system NYCB used a few years back. The work-around for that was to keep adding seats to the same performance, then pick the one you want from a seating chart, and delete all the others. You have to do the add process on the same transaction. If you go back to pick the same performance a second time it will give you the same seat it assigned the first time. I don't know if that still works, but it's worth trying.

I was intrigued that they have commissioned a new work by Azure Barton. Have any American companies done that? With the constant complaints about the paucity of female choreographers in ballet, this is interesting. She seems to be a favorite of Baryshnikov (although not Gottlieb!).

Historically, quite a few major philosophers (and otherwise) have promoted the idea that the value of art is measured by its success in communicating moral and religious ideals. Leo Tolstoy's little book What is Art? is one of the best known pushing this idea, a book he wrote after returning from a visit to Paris, disgusted by what he considered the moral decay in the French art world. But you see elements of this view in everybody from Plato to Jesse Helms (sorry) to Hitler (sorry again). I am NOT saying that Jesse Helms is like Hitler, only that the pre-eminence of moral and religious ideals as the essence of art and/or the test of good art has a long history. So Homans believes that ballet is successful as a way of communicating those values, and she apparently thinks the values promoted by the French court are the best values to promote, even now. We might disagree about whether this is really the essence of art at all. We might disagree with her conclusions that a particular artform or work of art successfully does this. Plenty of approaches for challenging her views. I have her book but have barely skimmed it. She is a trained historian, not a philosopher. Her positions might be more defensible if she had entertained a variety of alternative analyses of the essence of art and our standards for evaluating art other than this one. I don't think you'd find many philosophers of art nowadays who would support her approach to the art form.

Presumably, Homans would say they were influenced by the French-Russian sources, just as ABT was, but they had no influence on ABT themselves. Of course, Alonso was featured prominently, Cornejo is from Argentina, and Gomes is from Brazil. Perhaps she thought that was enough.

The same way she got the NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts, with major start-up funding from the Mellon Foundation - impressive credentials (professional dancer + PhD from NYU) and serious connections in NYC. Her PhD is in Modern European History, which seems to account for her omission of Japan and Latin America (although it does not excuse it). https://balletcenter.nyu.edu/ https://balletcenter.nyu.edu/people/jennifer-homans/

Maybe Homan's explanation of the Italian connection was in the longer 2-hour version some people report seeing and it got cut. (Whew!) I do think we had quite enough of the old history, for this audience, although I suppose their goal might have been to explain why ABT has such an eclectic mix of styles and choreographers.

No problems today. I wonder if the user's internet service is the source of the problem instead.

If people haven't yet discovered this, the PBS site not only has the full film, but also lots of extras (e.g., out-takes on partnering with Murphy and Gomes): http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/american-ballet-theatre/full-film/3911/ An interesting little tidbit on Murphy's diary ("A Day in the Life of a Dancer"): meeting with a wedding planner! It does appear that Burns was trying to come up with an approach that was different from the standard documentary, so I'll give him credit for that. We'll never know just how much was forced on him (the slo-mo? the historic approach of Homans?). Clearly he was told which current dancers to focus on (Boylston, Copeland, Seo). I'm glad they included a lot of Murphy, too. I did not see any writing credits on the full film. Has anybody found that on the site? It does appear Homans played a major role in scripting. On the positive side: *interviews with legendary figures (Franklin, Barnes, Kisselgoff, Alonso, Ratmansky). Burns will do a great service to dance history if he donates the uncut interviews to the Dance Collection at NYPL so we can see everything they said. *footage of dancers that we have far too little of otherwise (Gomes, Murphy, Cornejo) Mixed: *Some of the slow motion was interesting as you could study the positions, but way too much of it just wasted a lot of time Negative: *So many dancers and dances went unidentified. This won't help future students of dance history. E.g., Stiefel was shown in rehearsal with Murphy (black swan) and Kent (Sleeping Beauty), but was never identified. The historic footage rarely identified either dancers or dance. I understand that might have been overwhelming, but some priceless footage should have been identified (e.g., Pavlova's Dying Swan). *Way too much Homan in head shots. If they wanted all that commentary, at least show more dance footage while she's talking. *Unreconciled dance history: Ratmansky said matter-of-factly that ballet started in Italy, moved to France, then to Russia. Homans never mentioned Italy. Maybe that geographical detour interfered with her reading on the importance of the French courts. Was Ratmansky talking about the origins of pointe work? Homans seemed to think that reflected the French revolution and the elevation of women in ballet.

At least from Wikipedia, Mitchell joined the company in 1955 in Western Symphony, and then did several other ballets. But that central PdD in Agon is so suggestive and intimate, you can imagine the reaction of audiences in that day and age. He could not perform it for their televised performances until 1965, as southern stations would refuse to carry it.

I can't seem to find this back with Google, but I recently read a fascinating story that Balanchine had been invited to bring NYCB to a festival in North Carolina for a week. From the NYCB site, it appears that was in 1961, three years before passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . The festival director asked Balanchine to please leave Mitchell in New York, as his audiences wouldn't accept a black dancer. Balanchine said: everybody comes or nobody comes. The festival director relented and Balanchine not only brought Mitchell along, but had him perform at every performance. So there! (I'll try to find the source back on this.)

My first reaction was: why not the Dance Collection at Lincoln Center? But, of course, Columbia is the right place, where dance students in Harlem will have easy access and see Mitchell's legacy as a special one. I especially appreciated Mitchell's quote in that article: I sometimes hear Agon called Balanchine's "Sputnik" ballet. I have long called it his "Brown v. Board of Education" ballet. This is yet another wonderful example of Balanchine's efforts to address racial inequality in this country. This was only a decade after Truman desegregated the military and Jackie Robinson broke that color barrier. Ugly Jim Crowe segregation was still rampant in much of this country. (Please watch the film "42" to see how bad it was in that era.) Casting a black man with a white woman was daring in 1957 and Balanchine's legacy is brighter for his courage in doing that.

Stella has a brutal schedule over the next week -- Les Sylphides and Fancy Free tomorrow, the Gala Monday, then two Othello's on Tuesday and Wednesday. Don't you hope they give her some breathing space to work with this new partner for Giselle?

Kochetkova brought in for Giselle? People have stopped wondering about Julie Kent's cancellations. Could MK do her Giselle with Bolle on 5/25? Has she done Giselle with ABT?

Alas, it looked like the Saturday evening performance had already sold well -- slim pickings in remaining seats. I have no idea why -- Saturday night? Semionova? Shklyarov? So even if it sells out, will Stella get the credit? But we can hope that the ecstatic fans and good reviews will help convince management she deserved this. I wonder if the Russian audience that expected to see Semionova will be upset at the substitution.

The ABT calendar page is now showing Abrera. I just grabbed a ticket. Guess I'll be donating my NYCB ticket for that evening for a charitable contribution! Sorry NYCB! The Met Opera page is also updated with Abrera. Can't wait!

Here's the documentation of those dates from the auction site: https://myab.co/events/Ig/i/_All/1bN3/?search= Lots of great stuff at the on-line auction, which closes Saturday. Anybody planning a trip to Colorado this summer (for the Vail festival or otherwise) should take a look, and I assume those ABT tickets would be mailed. (Sorry - no legal marijuana on the site - you'll have to pick that up when you're in Colorado.) https://myab.co/events/Ig/i/

I haven't seen this announced yet anywhere. The dates at Koch are Oct. 21 - Nov. 1. At least, those are the dates for the two ABT tickets currently being auctioned by the Colorado Ballet. No hint of rep, but I hope we'll hear about that soon. I'm still hoping for a revival of Push Comes to Shove with Cornejo!

When I had to cancel a trip to NYC on short notice a few years ago, I called the Met ticket office to see if I could donate the tickets I couldn't use for a charitable donation. Yes, indeed! They asked me to read off certain numbers on the ticket (customer number, order number, etc.), so it was deactivated for me and they could resell. The charitable donation receipts arrived shortly thereafter. I always assumed that the reluctance to exchange tickets, let alone give cash refunds, was simply that it would play havoc with their box office sales. There is always a risk in the performing arts that certain performers won't be able to go on. But perhaps they are more flexible now with subscribers or just to keep more ticket buyers happy, given continuing attendance problems.

Bocca? Now that would get some diehard fans to the theater. Bolle is still listed. If Kent cancels, could Murphy finally get to do a Giselle at ABT? I don't recall what she has danced with Bolle.

Given the half-empty house that others are reporting here, I'm surprised that I don't find any discounted tickets at Goldstar, which this morning has discounts on NYCB performances May 22, 27, 28, 31. TDF does have ABT tickets for May 25, June 1, 3, 4. May 25 is the Kent-Bolle Giselle; I thought that would have at least sentimental appeal, as it's Kent's last Giselle, even though this is Memorial Day.

I can't seem to find the PayPal donation logo/button anywhere on the site. Can you give us info on where to find that?

The National Endowment for the Arts has just announced 75 new grants, totaling $1,710,000, to dance organizations. Lots of familiar names in ballet. See pp. 25-42 for the dance grants. http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/spring-2015-grant-announcement-discipline-list-revised.pdf

I hope it's okay to post a plug for the Colorado Ballet's silent auction, now underway through this Saturday, May 16. Some very nice items, especially for those of you visiting Colorado this summer for the Vail dance festival: https://myab.co/events/Ig/i/

Agon (and more) is listed in their rep index, but we don't know how long it's been since they were performed or if he's planning to schedule them any time soon. http://www.paballet.org/ --look under "company" on the far left and then "repertoire"

That explains why his new Don Quixote next season might be worth seeing. I had been thinking...another Don Q?