nanushka

Yup, and I'm fairly certain that if reviews got comparable clicks, they'd do more reviews. It's unfortunate — I'd love to see more, too — but that's just the business model they have now. I'm not sure what currently viable alternative might replace that. (Hiring better critics/writers might do a little, but probably not much.)

I agree with many of your points, @JuliaJ. I too was especially struck by the "really disturbing or upsetting" claim, and by the additional $200,000 ask. Even as a non-dancer, I'm well aware that a female dancer's strength and technique are crucial to making partnering happen successfully. It's not all about a man lifting a woman's inert body, however light or heavy that body may be. Knowing that, I don't see why Ratmansky's message ("There is a lot of partnering in the piece and it should look effortless. The men were struggling.") should be read as "body shaming." It was a (presumably) factual statement about the challenges other dancers were having in partnering her.

There's a very interesting article in the Times about Abi Stafford Lillo's departure from NYCB. I'm perhaps biased from seeing her mostly in the final years of her career, in a string of performances that were quite underwhelming, but I don't think she comes off too well in the article overall.

I had planned to skip the mixed program but I would seriously consider getting tickets just to see T&V with them.

Not long now.

Interesting, I hadn't known that. According to the Times review, it was a significant performance for a number of reasons:

Looking over the next year's programming as a whole, my initial reaction is the same as for this year: lots of individual works I want to see, but rather few programs that I'm very excited about. This makes me concerned about the new leadership — maybe they just don't program in a way that suits my tastes.

The Times feature practically writes itself.

Thanks, @eduardo. It looks like the links work directly from what you posted above.

Yeah, I enjoyed it the one time I saw it — but I'll take Peck and Mejia in Allegro, and an overall more exciting program!

I just noticed that Tombeau de Couperin has been changed to Allegro Brillante. Great news! (Might have been changed quite awhile ago, not sure.)

Copeland has reviewed Toni Bentley's new book on Serenade for the Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/books/review/serenade-a-balanchine-story-toni-bentley.html

It was such a weird article. "Difficult questions, yet an easy answer." "It's easy to imagine that the top job at ABT is Copeland's, if she wants it." All so easy! Does Kaufman understand the serious considerations that must go into assigning such a role — much less answering those "difficult questions"?

Not every river with some burned bridges is a Rubicon. As is often the case, I think Macaulay is being excitable and putting his rhetorical style over clear-headed substance. I certainly didn't mean to suggest that I "demand purity of position from Russian artists." I just don't think "bravas!" are in order, in this case.

Is he serious?

A business name change comes with a loss. Maybe not a net loss given the circumstances. But it’s not an “easy fix.” It’s unfortunate. And calling one thing unfortunate does not mean one is implying that war, death and destruction are not immeasurably more so.

It's not 100% clear to me, from the wording of the article, that all direct reports were surveyed: That said, I wouldn't expect Woetzel to necessarily have many more than 18 direct reports, so it's possible that's what was meant. In any case, I wouldn't describe this as "cherrypicking," even if it could be argued that a more representative cross-section of faculty at all levels might have been surveyed. It does seem that Woetzel had a good point in arguing that the review should not have been led by Kovner. But I'd also expect that department heads and direct reports would have a pretty good idea of how effectively Woetzel is performing in his role. It's quite possible that Woetzel's DEI initiatives have been distasteful to Kovner et al. and that he has some serious problems as an administrator.

Everything changed in 2020.

It sounds like the method of the performance evaluation was unconventional but the feedback was pretty strikingly negative. From the article:

Ratmansky too has left his current gig at the Bolshoi, according to the Times.

Thanks for these updates, @dirac. I'm especially glad to see Gergiev finally facing consequences for his support.

What have been Peter Walker’s biggest roles? His promotion was more of a surprise to me, though perhaps not undeserved.

The Times has an article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/arts/dance/new-york-city-ballet-promotes-three-men-to-principal-dancers.html

Intermissions have been running about 20 min, and it looks like there are two for that program.

It was Reichlen's request, per the recent article in the NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/arts/dance/teresa-reichlen-retiring-from-new-york-city-ballet.html I loved reading that part of the article.