California

The Bolshoi's Marco Spada, with Hallberg, Obraztsova, and Smirnova, has been posted on French TV's Culturebox. It's visible in the U.S. I don't know about other countries. http://culturebox.francetvinfo.fr/live/danse/danse-classique/marco-spada-par-pierre-lacotte-au-theatre-bolchoi-158711

An interesting twist on SFB's participation: they are trying to raise $30,000 to cover their costs, via Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sfballet/sf-ballet-on-world-ballet-day-live

The SFB site has the times listed for each company -- in PST. That's a little confusing, as San Francisco will still be on Daylight time on October 1. And they list a 4-hour difference between NBofC and SFB -- when there's a 3-hour difference between EST and PST. Perhaps it will be best to just stay on-line to catch all of them!

Five companies will live stream their day on World Ballet Day, October 1, 2014. Here's the announcement from San Francisco Ballet: http://www.sfballet.org/worldballetday Here's the announcement from the Royal Ballet: http://www.roh.org.uk/news/world-ballet-day-to-show-live-action-from-inside-five-of-the-worlds-leading-ballet-companies I'm glad one American company is included. I wonder if ABT and NYCB are planning anything.

They have rental rates and requirements listed for the new building, including the theater. Rates are different for non-profit and for-profit groups. I remember that auditions for summer intensives with other companies were sometimes held at the old building. http://www.coloradoballet.org/studio-rentals

Oh my dear -- I'm from Seattle -- we've got our own! The Colorado Symphony held three "Classically Cannabis" fundraisers this summer, for VIPs. People were invited to bring their own weed and light up in the outdoor patio. Everybody keeps wondering how to get a younger generation interested in the classical arts, but I haven't heard of any such plans by the Colorado Ballet! http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_25827194/colorado-symphony-orchestras-first-pot-concert-classical-gas PS: If this legalized marijuana thing works out in Colorado and Washington state, I predict it will spread like wildfire over the next few years -- much like legalized gambling spread once states realized how much tax money they could rake in.

That's the main entrance on the back of the building facing the parking lot. Red is the company color in their publicity. The new building is at the north end of the very hip, very funky Santa Fe Arts District, with several cute cafes and coffee shops just a block or two down. Students are going to perform in the "First Friday" events on Santa Fe. I hope there are more opportunities for collaboration with the Denver arts scene. http://www.artdistrictonsantafe.com/events/firstfriday If you stop in Denver on your way to the ski slopes (the first ones will open in mid-October, I understand) and/or the legal pot stores, it's worth a visit. They are doing Wheeldon's Midsummer Night's Dream September 26-October 5. It was his first major commission, and he made it on this company. I just got back from a big open house for subscribers and friends and the rehearsal bits we got to see are very promising.

Colorado Public Radio has posted a video tour of the new building. The opening shots are of the old building at Lincoln and 12th Avenue. The new one, which just opened a couple of weeks ago, is a few blocks away in the Santa Fe arts district at 11th Avenue and Santa Fe. The studio where they are conducting company class is as big as the stage at the Caulkins Opera House where the company performs. Downstairs from that is a black-box theater seating 150.

Farrell Ballet is one of many, many dancers and companies that I "follow" on Tweet, so those Tweets are fed in automatically all the time. What was odd about Farrell's: four hours after Google Alert sent out the info on McBride, Farrell sent out just one Tweet -- a #tbt about her own award years ago. And then took another full day to congratulate McBride. If Farrell were not posting regularly on Tweet and had said nothing, nobody would have thought twice about that -- many people don't tweet. And it's possible, of course, that those Tweets are being sent out by a staffer, not Farrell herself. Thanks to social media, as you note, public figures of all sorts are under scrutiny they didn't experience just a few years ago!

Suzanne Farrell Ballet just sent a congratulatory Tweet to McBride -- better late than never!

Her remarks are very puzzling. It's hard to find a college/university dance department that does NOT offer some kind of dance appreciation course ("Dance 101"). Others in the field have been very critical of her for ignoring the extensive work in recent decades on dance studies/theory/philosophy. Here are a couple of harsh reviews of Apollo's Angels which make that point. (Those of you with access to a university library database should be able to find them. Both journals are in Project Muse/Johns Hopkins Press.) Franko, Mark. "Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet. By Jennifer Homans. New York: Random House, 2010; 672 pp.; illustrations. $20.00 paper." TDR/The Drama Review 56.2 (2012): 198-203. DRJ: Nicifero, Alessandra. "Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet by Jennifer Homans. 2010. New York: Random House. 643 pp., illustrations, index. $35.00 hard cover. Mirrors & Scrims: The Life and Afterlife of Ballet by Marcia B. Siegel. 2010. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. 398 pp., illustrations, index. $27.95 paper." Dance Research Journal 44.01 (2012): 104-109. It's worth spending a few minutes with the web site: https://balletcenter.nyu.edu/ There are seven fellows this first year (including a philosopher from NYU, although he has not previously indicated an interest in dance or aesthetics in his professional work). They plan some lectures and seminars - with all that Mellon money, I hope they will live-stream them. Deborah Jowitt is adjunct faculty at NYU: http://dance.tisch.nyu.edu/object/featured_dance_faculty.html Marcia B. Siegel taught dance criticism at NYU for many years, although she is now retired.

I'm with Gottlieb (linked above) on the music:

Suzanne Farrell is a past honoree. But the only Tweet she sent out today was a #tbt about her own award - no mention of McBride's! Tacky!

Patricia McBride will be honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2014. I'm pleased to see dance included this year and especially pleased to see McBride as the honoree. I suspect we'll see quite a parade of her former colleagues at NYCB on the program. The broadcast will be on CBS on December 30. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/hanks-and-tomlin-among-new-kennedy-center-honorees/?smid=nytimesarts

The Mellon Foundation has provided $2 million to establish a new Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, to be directed by dance historian and critic Jennifer Homans: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/arts/dance/new-center-at-nyu-focuses-on-dance-and-the-arts.html?_r=0 The first fellows will be Frederick Wiseman and Heather Watts.

This just turned up with Google Alerts: an explanation for why Carmen and the San Jose Ballet were cancelled from the Osipova/Vasiliev engagement. If this is to be believed, despite severe financial problems and unexpected staff turn-over, the real reason was a disagreement about the order of the program. https://www.sfcv.org/article/why-ballet-san-jose-stayed-home BTW -- It's interesting that Ballet San Jose, Pennsylvania Ballet, and Colorado Ballet (and others, I'm sure) all have the same number of dancers on contract (30).

The Royal Ballet will have a live stream of their program "Sampling the Myth" on Saturday, September 6 at 6:50 pm BST. It can be seen everywhere except Germany. http://www.roh.org.uk/news/dance-performances-as-part-of-deloitte-ignite-to-be-live-streamed-on-6-september-2014 Casting: http://www.roh.org.uk/news/cast-confirmation-sampling-the-myth-at-deloitte-ignite-2014 A world clock is here: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ It looks like it will be 1:50 pm EDT and 10:50 am PDT.

I don't think anybody's mentioned this yet (apologies if they have...), but Isadora Duncan choreographed the entire 7th Symphony. Although not "ballet," she was a strong influence on such classical choreographers as Fokine.

There are just so many things we don't know -- and probably never will, unless somebody spills the beans in an interview. E.g., we know when the October program change was announced to the public. We don't know when the dancers and rehearsal masters knew and could start work on the changes. E.g., we know that Kaiser has the title Emeritus (which is not automatic anywhere) and that he left six months after the Kennedy Center report. We also know that he is featured in a photo for their new donor benefits, a very nice gesture: http://www.paballet.org/donor-events Was he pushed out by the trustees and these little perks that left him some dignity were part of the negotiations? We don't really know, although these things are consistent with that scenario. BTW - I love that the new donor-events schedule has been announced for the entire year. It tells locals what they can get, especially in the way of open rehearsals. But it also makes it easier for out-of-towners to make some travel plans. NYCB is also good about announcing Friends events a year ahead. I wish ABT would show that courtesy to their Friends. By the time they get around to announcing open rehearsals and dancer seminars, travel plans are often made.

There's so much we don't know (and probably never will...). The leaks to the press might well have come from someone who was dismissed. Some of these people might have contracts that they are buying out. The existing contracts (at least for high-level administrators) might have provisions for severance pay. We also don't know what contracts the dancers themselves have or when they were signed or for how long they run. I'm sure most people reading this board have friends and family who have been laid off from private companies. It's common to gather people into a room and announce that they have one-hour (under the watchful eyes of security guards) to clear out their personal belongings from their desk. The risk of sabotage and theft is very high in those ugly situations, so I can understand why that's how lay-offs are so often done. Even then, of course, many companies will be providing severance pay, depending on how long people were employed with the company. (And let me add, as it was brought up before: tenured faculty members can be laid off in a fiscal crisis. The lay-off order depends only partially on seniority; teaching specialties can also come into play.) It would have been nice if, the day staff were told, the chair of their board held a public press conference to at least make announcements. That would have eliminated the problem of premature leaks. As several people have mentioned the issue of health insurance, it's an interesting coincidence that a news item today is the expansion of Medicaid under the ACA in Pennsylvania, so people with very low (or no) income can get free or nearly free health care that way.

As tenure is such a controversial topic in the news nowadays, please allow me to make one correction: tenure of academic faculty does not guarantee lifetime employment. Rather, it guarantees a right of due process before removal, i.e., tenured faculty cannot be fired "at will." In California, at public colleges and universities, tenured faculty can be dismissed for many reasons, after due process: I personally know of several tenured faculty terminated for one or more of these reasons. A few were sufficiently scandalous that they made the news. Most are quietly resolved through settlements, with an agreement not to sue the University. But all had a due process proceeding to defend themselves and, if they lost, they had a right to file suit in state court.

Thanks for that link. The Kaiser report was brutal and a complete shake-up does seem necessary to rejuvenate the major donor class in the region. Although less important than big donors (but still important), attracting a regional audience (New York, Baltimore, DC) seems likely with these changes, especially Corella and the new programming. When I saw the revised program for October, I thought - darn, if I were planning to be on the east coast in October, I'd find a way to work that in. Very nice program! I'll keep an eye on their site from now on, when I haven't in the past.

And they're on the aisle, at least when I've spotted him in the orchestra at the Met, so he can make that mad dash for the exits -- whether to get back to the office, avoid the crowds, or whatever. Has anyone ever spotted him hanging around for all the curtain calls?

But Carter and Emma did "finish the season." I have to think that Corella had the backing of the trustees during his contract negotiations for such dramatic changes, both in programming and staffing. And the alternative -- the drip-drip-drip of letting people go one at a time over months -- would have been disastrous for morale, with everybody wondering who would be next.

A fun article, but I disagree with one statement: I can think of all sorts of legitimate reasons for making a mad dash for the exits as soon as the performance ends -- the last bus/train home, a baby-sitter who has school the next day, a long drive ahead on a work night. That doesn't seem as egregious as leaving during the performance and having to climb over other audience members who might be enjoying the program.