California

Dance Magazine just tweeted that David Howard passed away this evening:

Ivan Vasiliev has been busy on his new Twitter account. He just announced that the Kings of the Dance will perform again, in London, March 19-22, 2014: http://www.eno.org/see-whats-on/productions/production-page.php?&itemid=2444

A 1944 film with Tamara Toumanova, "Days of Glory," will be broadcast on Turner Classic Movies at 6:00 am EDT August 15. Set your DVR! http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/1874/Days-of-Glory/

I bought several singles on-line Monday morning right when the box-office opened and didn't have any problems picking out individual seats. As others will have noticed, you have to reset your password for your old account before you can proceed, but I was logged in on that before ordering tickets. I wonder if it reverts to section selection when it's overloaded.

Sorry I didn't notice this on-line before. Here's Part II of the Nureyev version:

Vasiliev now has his own YouTube channel and just posted what appears to be a complete recording of Le Jeune Homme et la Mort. Am I correct that he performed this at the Mariinsky? The unavoidable comparison (at least for me) is the performance of part of this ballet by Baryshnikov in the opening scenes of White Nights. For those who are interested, I discovered an old video of Nureyev in this role with Zizi Jeanmaire:

Good grief - isn't that sometimes a career-ending injury, or am I thinking of something else?

The National Gallery has posted the 30-minute documentary, which I understand is shown at the exhibit: http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/audio-video/video/diaghilev.html?utm_source=Real%20Magnet&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=25960255 And for those of you in the DC area, do note that the exhibit itself has been extended to October 6.

We did have a thread like this, but I can't remember what it was called. I remember posting a report on the March 1978 problem at the Kennedy Center during the premiere week of Baryshnikov's Don Quixote. Martine van Hamel, as Kitri, was injured during the Saturday evening performance. Kirkland and Baryshnikov were having dinner at the Watergate Hotel and were asked to come back to the theater and perform, even though they had already done the matinee.

The casting has now appeared on the ABT web site: http://www.abt.org/calendar.aspx?startdate=11/1/2013

Katherine Williams is still listed as a corps member on ABT's website. My mistake! Thanks for catching that!

The following corps members from the Met 2013 season program are no longer listed on the web site: Roddy Doble, Mikhail Ilyin, Vitali Krauchenka, Renata Pavam, Sem Sjouke, Bryn Watkins, Katherine Williams Just curious if anybody knows where they went. I hope they all landed on their feet, so to speak! I'm not seeing any promotions from corps to soloist or soloist to principal, but perhaps that would be announced separately in a press release, if any happen.

Thanks for the heads-up. I see many changes, but wonder if somebody with an accurate list could tell us who all has disappeared, especially from the corps, and perhaps where they went (if anybody knows). Messmer is missing, as is Dvororenko. Cojocaru is missing, but I'm not sure she was ever listed. Vishneva is listed. http://www.abt.org/dancers/default.asp?section=principal

I just got an e-mail that the Diaghilev exhibit has been extended through October 6: http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/exhibitions/2013/diaghilev.html?utm_source=Real%20Magnet&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=25960250 I don't know if this is new, but the film has been posted on-line, so that's some small consolation for those of us unable to see the exhibit: http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/audio-video/video/diaghilev.html?utm_source=Real%20Magnet&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=25960252

This is still a difficult line to draw. In "Push Comes to Shove," e.g., the dancers are character "types" yet not named characters. As soon as you have an expression of emotion or meaning or human interaction, you are not purely "abstract" in the sense in which you seem to be using it. Perhaps Merce Cunningham comes closest to pure abstraction in your sense, but did he do anything we'd call ballet?

You might want to give some thought to what you understand as "narrative ballet." Must it have a clear plot, characters, etc.? Must it literally "tell a story"? Many ballets convey emotion, interaction, the human condition, etc. without really having a plot. If you are defining "narrative ballet" narrowly to require a plot and dramatic characters, then start with Fokine's Les Sylphides and move forward through the century. EDIT: I missed the "mid-20th century" requirement. Well, take a look at Tharp, Feld, Ratmansky, etc., etc. If it's performed by a classical ballet company, is that enough? If so, then look at Paul Taylor's pieces that ballet companies have performed.

Thank you for these marvelous photos, which I had not seen. It's also sad that she apparently didn't find a career coaching or teaching in New York in the 1950s. She must have been aware of the renaissance in classical ballet all around her then. She would have been in her 70s and perhaps ill, but still...

In reading about various artists and intellectuals who suffered under Nazism, I stumbled across a brief bio of a ballet dancer who was trained at the Mariinsky, went to Berlin in 1926, and ran a successful ballet school there. In 1938, she and her Jewish husband (Joseph Lewitan) made their way to Paris and eventually in 1947 to New York. She is described as "broken" after those struggles and never regained a career. I'm curious if we know anything about her final years in New York, when both NYCB and ABT were establishing themselves. It's always interesting to learn more about the impact on artists and others of totalitarian regimes, whether Nazis or Communists or others.

The schedule for fall 2013 has been posted: http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/press-room/releases/5531-wpfallseason2013 Of special interest to ballet lovers: ABT - Oct. 20-21: Les Sylphides & Bach Partita Tickets go on sale August 14. Specific seats can now be reserved on-line.

Ratmansky's Bright Stream had several comedy bits, including a principal male in drag.

Twyla Tharp's "Push Comes to Shove" is funny in several ways -- both broad, slapstick silliness as well as numerous references to classical ballet. It's enjoyable to "beginners" who aren't aware of the allusions. It's available on DVD with Baryshnikov.

The example of McRae's toe-tapping, where he occasionally goes forward on the points of the tap shoes, is not what I was thinking of. What I saw in the late 50s were girls wearing ballet pointe shoes outfitted with metal on the ends and dancing on pointe in tap dance moves, with the added twist of making noise with those pointes. I still consider that pretty grotesque. At the very bottom of this page, you can see photos of those pointe shoes with metal attached: http://www.the-perfect-pointe.com/TapEnPointe.html

I saw toe-tap in the late 50s at a local dance school in the Midwest. It's as grotesque as it sounds.

I hope all these types of funding thrive, including NEA. They have different goals and Kickstarter (and similar sites) should not be allowed to form an argument that NEA is not needed. NEA has long tried to promote diversity in the arts, arts education, arts in every state and territory, underserved audiences, etc. and we need that to continue. Kickstarter has no such impetus. NEA also runs a very elaborate panel review process, which only a handful of foundations can match. It has always been the case that many smaller foundations and individual donors look to NEA for the "Good Housekeeping Seal" that this project is worth funding. At Kickstarter, supporters vote with their pocketbooks, but NEA has broader criteria than that, which we need. Indeed, much of the early rationale for having an NEA was that it could support projects which were not commercially viable in the beginning. Please remember that the current NEA budget of $147 million was cut by $7.3 by sequestration, and it's still far below the high-water mark in NEA funding, which was $176 million in 1992. Here's a chart of the history of NEA appropriations. Do remember that these are actual dollars, not inflation-adjusted dollars: http://www.nea.gov/about/budget/AppropriationsHistory.html Here is the NEA budget request for FY2014, a modest increase to $154 million, but nobody should be optimistic they will get it: http://www.nea.gov/about/Budget/NEA-FY14-Appropriations-Request.pdf Only about 18% of the budget goes to administration, which is pretty good, considering the very elaborate review panels they run for all the grant programs. The grants go to a wide variety of arts organizations, not individual artists. Some of those grants are designed to encourage private fund-raising with various matches. So NEA has always understood the importance of stimulating private giving. In looking at the overall funding picture, do remember that colleges, universities, and schools at all levels provide an enormous amount of money for arts education. If the percentages contributed by NEA, Kickstarter, etc. seem small, it's not because all the rest is coming from foundations and wealthy donors. Much of that is coming from state governments to their educational enterprise.

We discovered earlier this year that Part I (Arabesque) was for sale on Amazon, but it's great news that they are now selling the entire series. Let's hope this is a good omen for even more releases. Of course, Ashley and Schorer (the key players in the tapes) are still alive and well and presumably were available to participate in negotiations over the release, as needed. (I see that the Balanchine site and Amazon are charging the same price ($19.99/disk), so if you want to help out the Ballet Alert site, perhaps best to order via the little Amazon box on this site!)