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Tapfan

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  • Connection to/interest in ballet** (Please describe. Examples: fan, teacher, dancer, writer, avid balletgoer)
    fan
  • City**
    Dallas
  • State (US only)**, Country (Outside US only)**
    Louisiana

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  1. Did Roxander perform Neopolitan with Takumi Miyake? They both have lovely, clean technique and explosive jumps which should complement each other nicely.
  2. Weren't they performing at BAM before they left for SoCal? Why commission Ratmansky to create a new Nutcracker if they weren't sure they'd have a venue? I thought Nutcrackers were the lifeblood of classical companies. And what did they do in December in the past? Just not perform the Nutcracker? Just sayin'. If ANY city should be able to support two major productions, you'd think it would be New York.
  3. Since ABT hightailed it to SoCal, I wondered why can't a city the size of New York support two Nutcrackers? Both ABT's and NYCB's productions are critically acclaimed. And the Los Angeles area now has two Nutcrackers. Is it the same reason that New York couldn't support two opera companies?
  4. Undoubtedly this is true. But that still doesn't account for failure to recruit from the pool of older students who HAVE committed to pursuing a life in dance. They certainly exist. Why aren't more of them studying at SAB?
  5. Absolutely. No disagreement from me on that. For instance, I know that Katherine of Aragon was a blue-eyed redhead. And "Latino" as an indication of color and/or race is meaningless, despite the fact that it's generally used as an identifier for brown people, in the U.S. And even in a country like Mexico that many people in the U.S. assume is a population made up primarily of Mestizos, there are many people who identify as white. Look at the film "Roma" that went out of it's way to make sure the audience knew that the priviledged family that the main character worked for, was white and that she as an indigenous woman, decidedly, wasn't. When I mentioned the fact that some Puerto Ricans who obviously have African ancestry - I'm talking skin darker than mine AND dreads - identify as white, I wasn't saying that there are no white Puerto Ricans. There are white Puerto Ricans just like there are white and Asian Jamaicans. My point was that how one racially identifies isn't always based on how you look. It's personal. So when people refer to a ballet company as being diverse in COLOR or RACE based on the number of Latinos that they have, it isn't very accurate.
  6. Yes. But every time I think I have handle on this issue, someone from the Latin community comes in and tells me something different. I hear contraditions from learned people all the time. Truly.
  7. I couldn't agree more. But some people twist themselves in to pretzels to claim him as Latino, I assume because he ran for president and they admire him. Of course. But I once got into a lengthy discussion with someone who seemed knowledgeable on the subject, who insisted that you don't have to come from the Western hemisphere or have Latin American heritage to be Latino. Cruz comes from a Spanish-speaking country, Spanish has its roots in Latin, and all people whose primary language derives from Latin are technically, Latinos, including French-speakers. This person was dismissive of the term "Hispanic" and felt it was a pejorative. Yes, there's the rub. And the explanations that there ARE and have been MANY non-white Latinos and other people-of-color at City Ballet is something that makes some of us wonder just what is meant by "many." I hadn't thought about that, but it's true. Lupita is a Mexican citizen so she's a Latina, but not in the way most Americans or even most Mexicans would think of Latinas. Navigating the complexities of Latino identity in a respectful way, is difficult even for people who ARE Latino. Imagine how difficult it is for the rest of us.
  8. Since ABT hightailed it to the West Coast, Is City Ballet the only company in New York with a traditional production of The Nutcracker?
  9. I understand. It's also been explained to me that place of origin or nationality is more important than labels like " Latino" for some folks. But agreement on identifying subgroups like race within the Latino community can at best be called fluid and is very, very, controversial. I know kids within the same family who identify as people of color while their parents identify as white. For instance, many Puerto Ricans who obviously have African ancestry still identify as white. So it depends on which country or nationality in the Latino community you're taliking about and even the individual person, when thinking about how people identify. It's complicated. For instance, Spanish actress Penelope Cruz - who incidentally studied ballet - identifies as both a Latina and a white woman. So if she was dancing with NYCB, she'd make the company more diverse if you're talking about ethnicity or nationality but if you're talking about race, she wouldn't. ( And yes I do know that NYCB has at least one Spanish national as a dancer. ) Mitt Romney whose name should be in the encyclopedia next to the term - "white guy "- angered SOME in the Latino community because he didn't claim his Latino roots when he ran for president. It seems his father having been born in a Mormon colony in Mexico, made Mitt Latino in the eyes of SOME Latinos and they took it as an insult that he never mentioned that fact. It was as if it was a source of shame. So if Mitt Romney is considered Latino due to his heritage, then it obviously is an ethnicity and not a race in the eyes of some folks.
  10. That's the reason I don't get the lack of diversity. Attending Summer Intensives should give the teachers access to a whole range of talented student dancers who are good enough to attend SAB, including many who are people of color and a particularly large number who are of Asian descent. Were non-white students just not auditioning for SAB summer intensives all these years? Was City Ballet's repution for being excessively insular make students of color not want to try? I honestly don't think there was some evil conspiracy to keep the company overwhelmingly white despite there being talented dancers of color out there. But I DO think that for the longest time, diversity just wan't a priority at NYCB. And I understand the feelings of those who say merit alone should be all that matters. But that assumes that there can be no talented people of color out there who could bloom if given the chance. When speaking about the low numbers of black females who attend SAB, Kay Mazzo said that was one of the reasons they were trying to get support to local ballet schools that train large numbers of minority students. She said that when it came auditioning, many black females just weren't where they needed to be. But that doesn't explain the lack of Asian females. And a a few over several years isn't much.
  11. I thought we were primarily discussing racial diversity. Despite the fact that in the U.S., the word is frequently used to refer to people who identify as brown, according to my Latino friends, the term is actually an ethnicity not a race. Many people who identify as Latino also identify as white.
  12. Wasn't Ashley Bouder pretty advanced in her training before she started attending SAB? And Tiler Peck and Quinn Starner were comp kids.
  13. A zillion years ago when I first encountered Ballet Alert, I asked why City Ballet had so few Asian dancers when practically all other companies - large and small - had significant numbers. It was as strange to look at a ballet company roster in the West and see no Asians, as it would be to see no Asians at elite colleges and universities. Some members suggested that people from Asia and the Asian diaspora were like most other ballet dancers, trained in Vagonova technique and thus, had cut themselves off from being considered for dancing at a Balanchine company. But this explanation seemed unlikely to me considering the fact that most of the students who attend SAB summer intensives, have been training in the Vagonova, French or Cecchetti styles. But props to NYCB for finally making progress on hiring and promoting talented dancers who happen to be Asian.
  14. No, it doesn't mean you're a failure because you don't get promoted to soloist. But promotion out of the corp-de-ballet is ONE measure of progress of racial diversity in this elite art form, an art form that not so long ago, was deliberately and unashamedly closed to many black women. (See documentary clips of Delores Browne, Raven Wilkerson and Joan Myers Brown under the heading "Blacks in Ballet" on Youtube) I think some folks are particulary disappointed with City ballet because it was assumed that because of the Arthur Mitchell promotion to principal, they would be one of the first to train, hire and promote deserving black women dancers. Instead, they lagged way behind other, more staid companies. In fact, for an uncomfortably long time, in SOME quarters, they had a reputation for near-hostility towards black female dancers.
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