California

In Denver, it's only on a premium PBS channel not included in basic cable. I'm sure I saw a note somewhere that after the first broadcast, PBS.org would be streaming it on-line, but can't seem to find that back. http://www.pbs.org/live-from-lincoln-center/program-notes/

Best: "Lest We Forget," commissioned by the English National Ballet to commemorate the centenary of World War I Worst: The unlikelihood those ballets will ever be shown in the U.S., mainly because of the relative ignorance of most Americans of the significance of The Great War

I half-watched a DVR recording, mainly to see if my sister's young grandchildren would like it. Very colorful, almost psychedelic, which seemed child-appealing. But I was disappointed that "Never Smile at a Crocodile," our favorite song, was omitted. I guess I wasn't paying attention during the tap dance.

According to her ABT bio page, she has danced it with them, although it doesn't say where or when: http://www.abt.org/dancers/detail.asp?Dancer_ID=56 She also sent out a photo on Tweet in December, 2012. Who is her partner? https://twitter.com/mistyonpointe/status/282270342779645952

Baryshnikov performed Other Dances with McBride during his year with NYCB, but of course that was after he premiered it with Makarova, who is so closely associated with the role. According to a flood of Twitters and Google-alerts, he is in London with his photography exhibit, but is also on the selection committee.

We could also ask what connection Christine Baranski has to McBride. Well, she was in the revival of On Your Toes at City Center a few years ago and that has a Balanchine/NYCB connection. I suspect that how the casting overall will play when this is broadcast nationally on network CBS December 30 has something to do with at least some of these choices.

But that grant includes an entirely new work by Morris as well, so they could probably justify the budget that way.

NEA has gotten burned on individual fellowships over the years (e.g., the poetry grant to Erica Jong, when she wrote "Fear of Flying," and Congress went ballistic). And the so-called NEA Four were performance artists slated for individual grants. As the NEA budgets have been slashed, this was a type of grant they were not unhappy to reduce or eliminate. Also note that many of those grants say they have conditions requiring NEA approval. They are always nervous about block grants to presenters and need to keep a short leash on the decisions those presenters make about precisely which groups and works get NEA money. This nervousness traces to the Mapplethorpe controversy in the late 90s. NEA didn't actually decide to fund those works by Mapplethorpe. Rather, they had given a grant to a presenter that made that decision. But NEA money was involved, so they took the blame and needed to pull back on so-called "re-grants" to presenters.

The names of the FY2015 dance panelists are public information, although there's no way to know which panel reviewed which group of proposals: http://arts.gov/grants/panel/2015/dance-fy-2015-grants-panelists The Federal Fiscal Year for 2015 actually started on October 1, 2014, although it appears Congress has yet to decide on the FY15 budget. NEA Panelists generally serve staggered three-year terms.

There's no way to know from that list what each originally requested. It's possible ABT only requested $90,000 and could only justify that much in its budget. For those who are really curious (and perhaps other ballet companies thinking of applying next year), all funded grant proposals are subject to release under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). NEA does have the right to charge reasonable labor and copying charges, but for people who want to know what successful grant proposals look like, it's worth the investment. Here's the NEA information page on FOIA: http://arts.gov/freedom-information-act-guide (Of course, the judgments of the people on the review panel have a lot to do with the final decisions, too.)

I found the ABT Ratmansky grant interesting. As we now know he's working to reconstruct Petipa choreography, the new "Sleeping Beauty" suddenly became more interesting to me. I hope they present some educational information in the program, seminars, etc. to give us some insight into that history.

The National Endowment for the Arts has just announced a new round of grants in dance. 88 grants have been made totaling $2,525,000. For the complete list, dance awards start on p. 29: http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/Fall_2014_Art_Works_Grants_by_Discipline_FINAL.pdf Of special interest to ballet lovers: Atlanta Ballet: $30,000 for "Cacti" by Alexander Ekman Ballet Memphis: $10,000 for new work titled "I Am" Ballet Metropolitan: $20,000 for American masters (Robbins, Liang, Kudelka, Nixon) ABT: $90,000 for Sleeping Beauty, including work by Ratmansky with a dance notator to reconstruct Petipa's original choreography Boston Ballet: $50,000 for work by Jorma Elo and Helen Pickett Charlotte Ballet: $10,000 for new ballet by Bonnefoux and Ingram Cincinnati Ballet: $20,000 for "Mozart's Requiem" by Adam Hougland Dance Theatre of Harlem: $30,000 for new work by Byrd and Garland Houston Ballet: $50,000 for "Zodiac" by Stanton Welch and new work by Mark Morris Joffrey Ballet: $20,000 for "Tulle" by Alexander Ekman Joyce Theater Foundation: $100,000 for Dance Program, including several ballet principals and soloists Miami City Ballet: $50,000 for new work by Justin Peck New Orleans Ballet Association: $40,000 for presentation of dance groups, including some New York City Ballet: $100,000 for restaging of "La Sylphide" Pacific Northwest Ballet: $50,000 for All Forsythe program Pennsylvania Ballet: $40,000 for Forsythe's "The Second Detail" Richmond Ballet: $20,000 for original ballets as part of New Works Festival Smuin Ballet: $10,000 for new work by Hougland and work by Ammon Washington Ballet: $20,000 for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" Wondering about ballet companies that didn't get awards? The Endowments never release the names of rejected applicants, so there's no way to know if they applied and were rejected or if they declined to apply this year.

Along with the announcement of the Vail performances, it would be nice to see them announce some community outreach performances in the huge communities in Denver who have never seen her perform and otherwise never will -- the people who populate her fan pages, go to book signings in other cities, etc. ABT never tours to Denver (something we've discussed before, possibly because of the high-altitude clauses in the dancer contracts). Perhaps Vail will be announcing things like this in the future for her visit to Colorado. I hope so. It would be a nice activity for Project Plie or her corporate sponsors. For many months, I've read everything posted about Copeland but never responded. I haven't seen her perform enough to make any meaningful judgments. I haven't read her book (just some book reviews). I don't seek out her TV interviews. I have read very strong opinions on all sides of the issues here and elsewhere. I wish it weren't so difficult to discuss these things in the U.S., but sadly, it still is. I think I'll go back to the sidelines on this thread!

Excuse me, but that's not what I said! Indeed, because of the extensive press she's had in recent years, they might be more likely to attend. As I said, Woetzel might be capitalizing on that public attention.

I didn't realize being "very white and very rich" would prevent anyone from attending a dance program with minority dancers. I also didn't realize that Misty's fans in NYC were "underprivileged." I mean, how would you know simply by attending a performance with a large group of her fans? My apologies. I don't mean to offend anyone. But if you look at the overall marketing, the book signings, the lecture-demos, the fan pages, etc., you get a sense of the principal demographics she's aiming at. Of course white, rich people can attend and enjoy dance programs with minority dancers. I certainly didn't say they were "prevented" from attending anything. And perhaps Woetzel is capitalizing on the extensive press she's had and will benefit from a curiosity factor for those who haven't seen her perform in NYC or on tour.

Wheeldon's The Winter's Tale will be released January 27, 2015, on DVD and Blu-Ray: http://www.amazon.com/Winters-Tale-Edward-Watson/dp/B00PH1H6G8/ref=tmm_dvd_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-2&qid=1417006815 Don't you wish American companies were as efficient as Royal in recording and releasing new ballets? (Sigh...)

I don't know if this has been posted elsewhere, but Copeland will perform at the Vail Festival in 2015 in the International Evenings of Dance, which are typically on Friday and Saturday nights: http://www.vvf.org/arts/vail-international-dance-festival Damian Woetzel, of course, is the artistic director and has made some imaginative programming decisions in recent years, but this is a little puzzling. The summer residents in Vail tend to be very white and very rich, so perhaps there is a curiosity factor for them. The underprivileged communities that apparently flock to her NYC performances don't live there. The drive from Denver is truly miserable and public transportation is awful -- no train service, spotty Greyhound bus. Hotels - essential for Vail evening performances - are no bargain. So it will be interesting to see what kind of outreach they do to bring in nontraditional audiences and whether she will do some complementary events in Vail or Denver.

The Colorado Ballet has been sending out similar warnings by e-mail and elsewhere. Here's an example from their blog: http://coloradoballet.org/_blog/balletblog/post/avoid-ticket-scammers/

I attended the performances the first week and it appeared the fourth tier was completely closed off, except for a few people sitting in the front row or two. Everything else seemed to be nearly sold out - very few empty seats.

Please also take a look at the Cal State Long Beach Dance program: http://www.csulb.edu/depts/dance/ And there are substantial dance programs at UC Riverside: http://dance.ucr.edu/ and UCLA: http://www.wacd.ucla.edu/ College students seem to lean more toward modern dance, understandably, but the programs all include ballet training.

The first video ("atrocious" quality) just posted by Aurora, labelled as Bocca, actually opens with footage of Baryshnikov from 1968. The entire PdD, with Semenyaka: Indeed, I'm wondering about the attribution to Bocca of the rest of the clip. It seems to have been filmed illicitly from the audience. But it is filled with nuances and details that recall the Baryshnikov-Harvey broadcast on PBS of Don Q (later available on DVD). Are we sure it's Bocca? I don't think canbelto was talking about the entire T&V variation, just the one step combination of double tours-pirouettes that you see Bocca do clearly in the second video.

Glorya Kaufman has been pouring money into sponsorship of dance events in LA in recent years, e.g.: "Glorya Kaufman presents Dance at the Music Center": http://www.musiccenter.org/about/Our-Programs/ (At least New York has not yet seen "Really Rich Person presents Ballet at Lincoln Center") And the new Glorya Kaufman School of Dance at USC: http://kaufman.usc.edu/about/ So now ABT has tapped into uber-wealth in Orange County with Gillespie, and no doubt they hope he brings his circle of friends over to support ABT. They are moving the Ratmansky Nutcracker and the Sleeping Beauty premiere to Segerstrom next year, so this could all be related. Perhaps they feel the NYC donor community is maxed out at this point and this is a way to cultivate serious money in CA. It's no secret that southern California remains the last major US region without its own major ballet company, so what's a donor to do if they want serious involvement with a major company. Yes, the LA Ballet formed a few years ago by Colleen Neary is there, but it's very small and performing in minor venues, usually with recorded music. It's interesting that their donor list does not include either Gillespie or Kaufman. You have to assume LAB tried with them. http://losangelesballet.org/ It's disgraceful that the arts are so heavily dependent on private fund-raising in the U.S., but they are, so it's hard to fault companies for reaching out to cultivate those donors any way they can.

There is some serious money in neighboring communities like Newport Beach, so the school might be a way of connecting with more major donors, along with Gillespie. And perhaps Gillespie is looking for a way to make ABT less New-York-centric. Also, Segerstrom in Costa Mesa is adjacent to Santa Ana, which has a huge Latino population. I wonder if they'll tie this in with Project Plie, which is not mentioned, although they do mention limited scholarships and free community classes. Still, it's not as if there is a dearth of ballet schools in that region. E.g., there is a large and well-established dance school nearby (Southland Ballet Academy: http://festivalballet.org/fbt/index.html) which does several nice performances each year with major guest stars (I saw Gomes and Murphy and they bring in others of that stature). I would guess they will see some serious enrollment loss.

That little girl stole the show! In Act II, she was in the back, stage left with the peasants. When peasants weren't dancing, she mimicked principals. In III, she was up-front, stage right. And she knew every step. I saw Vasiliev Friday night and Sunday matinee. He seemed utterly exhausted by Sunday. The stage also seemed smaller than what he was used to. I found his strutting around annoying. Was that his characterization or preening for the audience?

A bit off-topic, but I'm reminded of Woody Allen's assessment of the Evelyn Woods speed-reading techniques: "'War and Peace': it's a book about Russia."