dancermom2

Thank you for confirming my suspicions that the eldest son got a name but Aragorn and Arwen's daughters are just un-named! My daughter was a little miffed over that one!

Does anyone out there know if the daughters of Aragorn and Arwen have names? As far as I can tell the only reference to them in the Appendix is a generic "daughters". My oldest daughter would be so appreciative of an answer either way!

Tell that to Peter Major Mel!

Ah the tempi of Ms. Quinn. I think there is a school of thought that goes the increased tempo makes for a better attack and dancing. I don't think that is the case. Do you think she realizes that there are dancers on the stage that have steps to fit into the beats? There is only so much quickness that is humanly possible to maintain and to still retain the art of ballet in the steps. I wonder if she ever looks up at the stage? All I can imagine is that when she left the Royal Ballet (that was where she was before hand right?) the dancers must have been breathing a sigh of relief. No more races.

Well...it depends on where you sit but can range from $40 to $100+. I forgot to add that you usually have to pay taxi fare for the babysitter to get back home again! We thought long and hard about whether we wanted to go out to any event or movie bacause we had to factor in the babysitting costs! Now we are free...I have a 16 year old daughter who can babysit for us so I just have to make sure she is available! I also think we have to expose our children to the arts so they can grow into adults who can appreciate ballet, classical music and Mattisse. But there is a time a place for everything and it so much depends on the maturity of the child. It's ok to bring them...but if they start to lose it you have to be willing to get up and leave.

Babysitting costs depends on where you live...in NYC it starts at $10 and hour! ;)

Even with the added corp members...that is not integration. I still don't see a trend that makes much of a difference. What came first the chicken or the egg kfw? It's not just blacks...it's Hispanics and Asians...people of color. Will there ever be a Albert Evans Cavalier or a Aesha Ash Sugarplum in Nut?

I have to disagree. Aesha Ash and Albert Evans and a smattering in the corp in a company of that size is not integration. That is tokenism especially if you look at how often Albert Evans, a wonderful dancer is used. It is still overwhelmingly white.

I never took my children (I have 4) to the ballet before I thought they were old enough to be able to sit somewhat quietly through the whole thing. I also abide by the rule that if your child is misbehaving you leave. Period. When you have a young child you have to understand when you pony up the money that you take a chance you may not get to sit through the whole thing. Kids are kids after all and this is not Disney World. The problem is is that there are parents out there who (1) don't understand the limitations of child maturity and ability and (2) are probably problems themselves. What came first...the misbehaved child or the parent? I also would never take a child to a ballet that was a leotard ballet...and only took the 3-4 year olds to Nutcracker. The only other ballet I took them to was Midsummer. These are ones they can relate to...not a strictly plotless ballet that they will go nuts sitting through. My worst experience with a boorish parent was at a Nut performance by NYCB. I was there to see my daughter be a Pollichnelle for the first time. What did I get? A family came in behind us...with a 2 or 3 year old. Somewhere half way through the party scene the kid gets ansty. The parents must have brought a bag of things to amuse child...of course getting to it was noisy...involved loud rustling through bag and then whispers about "How about this...no well we have...rustle rustle..." "Antsy kid noises..." It was totally aggravating. This went on through most of the 1st Act. During intermission, I turned around and asked if they could try to be quieter. Then Angels came on...more whispers and rustling. I turned around and shushed them. I must have shushed them numerous times. Right about when my daughter was about to come on stage they left. But they didn't only leave...he leaned over and told me "Thanks you B!@##, thanks for !@#$%^ our show so we have to leave...I'll be waiting for you after the show..." Ok...whose fault was that? The child or the parent for taking the child when the child was obviously not mature enough to sit through a whole Nut performance? It's not the child...it's the parent. Know thy child is the golden rule. The other rule is that misbehaved kids probably are coming from parents who need some lessons in good parenting.

Boorish behavior is not limited to any one class. Respect and good behavior has to be taught and the teaching unfortunately can be lacking regardless of the economic background of the boor. Misbehaved kids and adults exist across socioeconomic boundries. Now whether the high arts are for the masses...I hope so or it feeds the whole elitist argument doesn't it? The most wonderful performance of the Nutcracker is the free performance given for public school children in NYC by the NYCB. You can feel the energy and the "wow" and the awe that this audience sees in the ballet on the stage before them. They may not understand it on the level that a well educated ballet-nik may but they enjoy it nonetheless. They may go "wow" at at different point in the ballet but the enjoyment is real. They may not be absolutely quiet but they are into it. As to our writer of the article I do sense a baby-bigot who believes that children are better not seen at all in the public domain. I also sense a plain bigot.

Not just the Met ushers...the State Theater (NYCB) ushers are pretty fierce in applying the standing room rules when there are jillions of 4th ring seats available. Ah...do you think maybe if there is a law about cell phones they would be as persnickety about enforcing it? :rolleyes:

The New York City Council just overrode the veto of the cell phone ban at public performances. http://www.ny1.com/ny/TopStories/SubTopic/...tentintid=27905 It bans talking, listening or ringing of a cell phone at public performances (other than sports events or during an emergency). Violators are subject to a $50 fine and eviction from the venue! It goes into effect in 60 days. Of course...who is going to enforce this? The ushers?????

The appendices has a story about what happens to the characters after LOTR. It tells of Aragorn and Arwen, Legolas and Gimli, Sam, Merry and Pippen. I never read it the first time around but read it this time after I picked it up again. I found it to be very interesting to see, albiet briefly, what happens to them in the years after The Return of the King.

Swan Lake! Too many sad swans!

The dance of the cygnets in Swan Lake!

One good thing about that show is I finally got Corella and Carreno straight! My daughter sent me to get tickets to see Corella and I got tickets to see Carreno...boy was I in deep trouble. I love to watch Corella dance...but for macho you can't beat Carreno with that Cuban aura of strong manliness so he gets my vote. That orange flourescent rehearsal costume that Vladimir wore keeps popping in my head and I just can't vote for him!

The NY City Council was throwing this about...they actually passed it but the Mayor vetoed it. Why? It was a question of enforcement. Who is going to be the enforcer and make the "arrest" of the cretin who is using the cell phone? It would become one of those laws that no one follows...sort of like the no jaywalking rule in NYC. People jaywalk all the time...even in front of a police car and no ticket is given out! It is sort of like the people who are told 10 million times not to use flash photography at performances and those darn flashes go off all over the place. Who is going to give out the ticket or grab the guy...will you have citizen arrests? I am a strong believer that a better solution is to find technology that would make the cell phone not able to work within the confines of the theater. Sort of like a blocking shield. There must be some inventor out there who could invent this! ;)

I enjoyed watching it from the lay-person's perspective...educated audience I guess! I adore Corella...he is amazing to watch. I don’t know about that Mark Morris "ballet". That was a bit of fluff that somehow felt like something was missing even with the 4 great dancers. There was so much more he could have done with those 4 virtuoso dancers that he didn't. I almost felt like they had to hold back when they danced it. Of course it could have just been the filming. I don't think anyone has invented the right way to film dance. They always seem to focus on the wrong thing at the wrong time and forget to show the tableau!

FYI...Toys R Us and Kaybee Kids are also selling the action figures and barbie sized figures of the LOTR characters. We have Aragorn and Legolas of course! I remember reading the Silmarillion (Sp?) and it was a hard read. I was wondering if I picked it up and read it again it would be easier now that I am older and wiser. I actually read through all the end notes that Tolkein wrote that they included in the new paperback edition they issued and that had lots of interesting info!

My dancer teen daughter is in love with Legolas while my other non-dancing teen daughter is in love with Aragorn...is it because she sees that beautiful movement of a dancer in Legolas? In Bored with the Rings Legolas is Leg o'Lamb by the way! Can you tell our family is obsessed with LOTR?

I was the friend with BW at last nights performance. I think with Haiku the shock of the music and the silences makes it hard to focus because you are saying "What is this..." If I saw it again knowing what to expect ear-wise I could focus on the dancing more. My dancer said that the "music" and silences were wierd but being a dancer she focused on the dancing. Aesha Ash is a joy to watch in this regardless of the percussive music. Albert Evans shows promise as a choreographer and I hope he gets more chances to choreograph. Jeu De Cartes...all I kept looking at were those darn red tights and shoes. Tewsley looked so tentative and I noticed his preparation for his turns. Hopefully time will take care of the look of learning to be a NYCB dancer. I always love watching Benjamin Millipied! I forgot Square Dance with Peter Boal and Yvonne Borree. Peter was as usual so perfect in what he does. I went in not expecting much of Yvonne...I have to say I have a prejudged idea of what I was going to see. To my eyes she actually looked much better than I have seen in a while. She seems to do so much better in leotard ballets than the story ballets like Nut and Swan Lake. Of course, that being said, when I turned to my dancer and said she actually looked rather good my daughter dissected her dancing as only a dancer can telling me all the "whoops" I missed as a "lay person".

I think you need to separate out the swats at what you consider American culture and day to day life from the aesthetics of ballet. And I take issue with many of your swats at what is typical American culture but that discussion doesn't belong here. (There are a lot of capitalists in Europe and Australia too!) What does child rearing or divorce rates have to do with globalization of anything except to put down what your definition is of what American culture is? And wild quick maturing teens? If anything a majority of Americans have never been to a ballet and look down on it as elitist and part of the hoity toity high arts. That topic has been gone over before. Now if you talked about Super Bowl fever sweeping the world in a global sweep you may have an argument for that is American to its core. We have also had discussions on whether there are really American themed ballets--the list was short even for Balanchine. I don't think you can call Balanchine American--he is Balanchine who happened to open a ballet company in New York. What is the perfect ballet body? It follows trends...who are the dominant choreographers and what do they look for? That is how the Balanchine ballerina was born.

His main objection to the sound is that it makes it impossible to tell who is singing unless you look at whose mouth is moving at times whereas in an unamplified opera you just follow the glorious sound to its source. He feels that one of the joys of opera is the natural human voice being projected over the full operatic orchestra. So, in his eyes the two problems he sees are young voices using amplification over a paltry orchestra...he thinks it is ruining them for true opera. Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/22/arts/the...TOMM.html?8hpib

The NY Times in it's Sunday edition on 12-22-02 has a review of this production of La Boheme from the viewpoint of someone who loves opera. (I get parts of the Sunday paper on Saturday!) His major criticsm is that the Broadway production is using amplification for the voices which he basically views as heresy for those who are true opera afficianados. He also complains about the small orchestra being used as compared to what there would be at the Metropolitan Opera House. I was wondering how those who attend La Boheme at the Metropolitan Opera would react to this production and his was obviously not on the favorable side. He feels that the attempt to use young 20 something voices is going to wreck the development of their voices in the true tradition of opera since he feels that the amplification being used is a crutch. He feels that there is a reason that you see older mature performers on the traditional Opera stage. ..you need maturity to find the ability to project your voice without the amplification and to nuance your voice. He definitely feels that something is lost in this production.

How about a salute to Madonna..."Like a Virgin" choreographed like that red pointe shoe ballet in Center Stage? :eek: