5 minutes ago, bellawood said:

While that no doubt was painful and difficult for her, why is it being reported in the NYT? How is this news for anyone beyond AS's therapist, husband or best friend? 

According to a tweet by one of the authors, this is "the family struggle prickling the NYC dance world."

9 hours ago, vipa said:

I am very ignorant about how these things work, but I don't understand how the Abi Stafford thing even got on a NYTimes writer's radar.

At the end of the article is the following note:

Quote

Zachary Small is a reporter who covers the dynamics of power and privilege in the art world. They have written for The Times since 2019.

My guess would be that Small got wind of the story and followed up with Stafford, who was eager to talk. Based on the content of the article (e.g. anecdotes about her resentments at age 6 and at her 31st birthday), I would bet that they talked at quite some length. Out of that emerged the potential for a story with "dancer" in the title and "body-shamed" in the subtitle. I wouldn't call it "click bait" exactly — I imagine Small may be quite earnest in their desire to explore those dynamics of power and privilege — but the upshot is that the story serves very much that function.

11 minutes ago, miliosr said:

Looking at today's dance section in the Times, I see three separate New York City Ballet-related features by Roslyn Sulcas at the top of the page:

• An April 28th retrospective marking the 50th anniversary of the Stravinsky festival.
• A May 2nd article about former City Ballet principal Janie Taylor.
• A May 3rd article discussing Silas Farley's new ballet for the company.

All of this in addition to the (admittedly unflattering) article about Abi Stafford from May 3rd.

I realize none of these are reviews but a lot of smaller companies would love to get that much coverage in the Times.

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.

9 hours ago, abatt said:

As long as McKenzie is AD...

Not long now.

50 minutes ago, Helene said:

Peter Matins retired in Nutcracker.  His SPF was Suzanne Farrell.  

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

Quote

''FEAR not, I shall not dance,'' Mayor Koch promised last night's State Theater audience at intermission during what was billed simultaneously as Peter Martins's farewell performance with the New York City Ballet, Jerome Robbins's debut as Drosselmeier and the 1,000th performance of George Balanchine's ''The Nutcracker.''

With so many unusual aspects to the program, the result was hardly your standard evening at the ballet. It was an event - a festive and even moving one.

The Mayor was on hand to proclaim December as ''The Nutcracker Month,'' which he did with a flourish and with an eloquent tribute to Balanchine, who died in April. Since Mr. Martins's first New York appearance with the company, on Dec. 25, 1967, was in ''The Nutcracker,'' the choice of this ballet had some closing-of-the- circle connotations.

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. 

1 hour ago, abatt said:

For me, the idea of a full length Justin Peck work set to Aaron Copland music is not enticing at all. 

The Times feature practically writes itself.

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

4 minutes ago, KikiRVA said:

I will miss seeing Tombeau, though!  It is such a great showpiece for the corps.

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.

14 hours ago, pherank said:

Macaulay (naturally) posted about this on IG:

"The Russian soprano Anna Netrebko at last clarifies her position: she condemns the war in Ukraine. Brava! From one of the most prestigious of all Russian performing artists - I saw her in a dozen different roles at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 2017-2019 - this must have taken courage. It’s likely to prove a Rubicon moment.
If she is currently in Western Europe - she is a tax resident of Austria - one must ask whether she will be allowed in due course to return to Russia, something she has often done throughout this century. Congratulations to Graham Spicer (Gramilano) on publishing this."

https://www.instagram.com/p/CbvvBiBoaxM/

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.

7 hours ago, Helene said:

Yes, all department heads and direct reports, according to the article.  Certainly no adjuncts.

It's not 100% clear to me, from the wording of the article, that all direct reports were surveyed:

Quote

Woetzel’s evaluation was sent to 49 members of the faculty and staff — including every department head and 18 direct reports — 43 of whom responded to it anonymously. There are about 700 full-time and part-time members of Juilliard’s faculty and staff.

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.

40 minutes ago, vipa said:

In terms of diversity and direction, surely these things were discussed during the interview process.

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:

Quote

Woetzel’s evaluation was sent to 49 members of the faculty and staff — including every department head and 18 direct reports — 43 of whom responded to it anonymously. There are about 700 full-time and part-time members of Juilliard’s faculty and staff.

The review was designed and conducted by Kovner and J. Christopher Kojima, a vice chairman, Woetzel’s letter to the board said. His letter said that it was “not conducted at an arm’s length distance by an independent party as is best practice for nonprofit institutions of our scale.”

The responses included 143 comments, more than three-quarters of which were negative, according to someone privy to a summary of the report who was granted anonymity to describe this sensitive personnel matter.

The feedback amounted to several key criticisms, according to the summary, which was described to The Times: that Woetzel focused on performance instead of education; had weak administrative leadership; failed to consult faculty members on key decisions; and created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.

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

Quote

Alexei Ratmansky, With Family in Kyiv, Leaves His Ballet in Moscow

The New York-based choreographer, who was working on a new ballet for the Bolshoi, said he doubted he would return to Russia to work “if Putin is still president.”

The choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, the former artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet who is now artist in residence at American Ballet Theater, was preparing a new ballet at the Bolshoi in Moscow when President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia made his announcement, early Thursday morning, that he had launched an invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

Mr. Ratmansky, who grew up in Kyiv and danced there early in his career, immediately decided to leave Moscow, and with the help of the Bolshoi, made arrangements to travel home to New York via Warsaw, along with the rest of his international creative team.

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