nanushka

A single performance? Wow! Interesting that they let it get just that far but not a bit further. The promise of schadenfreude compels me to ask what made it so terrible...

Marcelo has posted on Instagram for the first time since December 15:

That might be most advisable, but I don't know that it would necessarily have to work that way. If there's someone specific they're interested in, couldn't they tailor the description to that person's strengths and abilities, then work around whatever emerges to reapportion other responsibilities as needed? That process could even be a part of the negotiations. (To clarify, I'm just raising a question about the envisioned process, and wondering if there's a variety of ways it might be approached and play out.)

That would seem sensible, but one can also imagine them defining the job based on who they decide to have take it, no?

Yes, that's too bad. One should really applaud the dancers at least, if not the piece.

Running NYCB and choreographing. And I hold him in mostly high esteem for the former and mostly low esteem for the latter.

No, you're right, you were I think. I edited to add what I think is an explanation of how the convo proceeded above.

True. He opens himself up to criticism from multiple sides. ("Maybe he wasn't enough of a man to take it.") ("Maybe he was being homophobic.") (“Maybe he isn’t fluent in English.”) (etc.)

True, I think. But taking Vs1's comment to be referring to the alleged victim (which your original reference was not), I think it does make sense. Edited to add: Actually, I think Vs1's original comment may have been about Copley, and then we switched to talking about the chorus member.

Though of course he might not have fully anticipated the effects of his choice. So it has to have been thought worth the risk at the time, and he could have different feelings now. Just a possibility, I'm not suggesting that's necessarily the case.

I love seeing Sara Leland in a number of Clifford's video's, including that Valse Fantaisie. She has such a delightful air.

Beautiful. Dowell was my proto-danseur. I watched him on the Royal's Swan Lake video with Makarova at age — 10? 12? — and have loved his dancing ever since.

He might. But his supporters might not. That could definitely be a major factor in that complexity. I'm worried for the company.

To be completely pragmatic, without regard for anything else for a moment, I feel like this is bad for the company. This transition is not going to be smooth.

Wow! This makes me really wish I'd seen her live!

Very true. Our "baseball" cards are going to need two entries for height, because of course one wants to know both!

Thanks for the link, dirac. (Love love love that video of Tanny in Faun that's linked there.) Photos can be tricky for comparing height, because there's the angle/perspective issue, plus figures are rarely standing straight up, and usually multiple figures are slouching (though of course that's not the right word, especially for dancers!) to varying degrees and in differing ways. (E.g. It's hard to judge from the photo of Tereshkina and Vishneva above, though I think canbelto's estimate is probably about right.)

Yes, and she does not look particularly short in the video of that piece, but I figured from seeing her a few rows down from me recently that she was somewhere around there (though her height may have diminished a bit in age).

Oh wow. Thanks, I was particularly curious about her, as I thought she looked quite tall and I definitely have a thing for tall ballerinas. Thanks for the pics, canbelto.

Until some enterprising and tech-savvy BAer comes up with a phone app that can serve as the ballet equivalent of baseball cards, giving us full stats for all our favorite dancers at the touch of a finger, I thought I’d mine the collective wisdom of the site to get some info on a few dancers whose heights I’ve been curious about. My ballet-going has been geographically limited and was, until the last decade or so, quite irregular, but I’m a ballet-on-YouTube junkie, and so there are a lot of dancers past and present whom I’m familiar with only from video—a medium in which height seems particularly tricky to discern at times. (It seems easier with some body types than others.) I’d love to hear any info or estimates anyone has for the dancers below. Does anyone else have others they’d like to know about? (I’m sure I’ll think of more to add to my own list.) Allegra Kent Tanaquil Le Clercq Agnès Letestu Monique Loudières Galina Mezentseva Viktoria Tereshkina Thanks in advance for any info!

Photographs can convey (or at least suggest) values through their formal features, it's true. One isn't seeing the body; one is seeing a particular representation of the body, in two dimensions, with a whole variety of compositional techniques coming into play.

Completely get that. Not the word I would use. But the image is striking, and not in a completely comfortable way (for me).

Hmm, yes, at least on her back those don't look like muscles to me, they look like ribs — more prominent than I can remember seeing on any other dancer.

Despite your caveat, CTballetfan, you've written a remarkably vivid report of your impressions. Not having seen this ballet myself, I nonetheless found this really valuable to read. So thanks!

Good article. Nicely hits various facets of the issue in a short space.