nanushka

20 minutes ago, Helene said:

In theory, the only dancers who are promoted based on talent and ability through examination are Paris Opera Ballet dancers until the rank of etoile, and that is a jury system, which is representative of various factions.

 

Dancers who are promoted through the ranks at other companies represent a combination of taste, judgement and need of the Artistic Directors, who are presumed to be in charge due to talent and merit, constrained by taste, judgement, need, and money, as well as pressure exerted from a variety of sources, most of which they ignore.

 

Some of that need is transparent to the public as it views the product and the conditions under which the company operates, ie, the need for people to work together, the need to take dancers into the company from the school, or they won't get the best candidates at the school, for a mix of type and fach, for reliability -- physical and emotional -- for the ability to learn quickly, to work on different stages, to mentor, to travel, to project in large theaters, to look polished close up in small theaters, for height, for partnering abilities, for versatility, etc. 

This is an excellent explanation of why the dance world is not a meritocracy (and I suspect that few on here would argue with that!) –– but it does not follow that, if one erroneously believed that "examination and/or demonstrated achievement in the field" were the only factors considered when dancers get promoted, one would be misapplying the term by referring to that as a "meritocracy." The latter is what I understood you to be saying. Again, sorry if I wasn't following your point.

46 minutes ago, Helene said:

It's not just power over casting:  it's the power to make decisions about what goes on stage.  Most people mistakenly believe that meritocracy has to do with the talent and ability of the dancers, who aren't the ones deciding what's best for the rest of us, based on their talent and ability.

 

Edited to add:  Meritocracy is still a paternalistic idea, that people rule based on talent and ability, as opposed to heredity, for example.

So is your point a semantic one, that it's incorrect to use the term "meritocracy" to refer to a system in which dancers are promoted based on talent and ability, because they are not at the top of the system?

The Wikipedia article you cite goes on to state:

"Advancement in such a system is based on performance measured through examination and/or demonstrated achievement in the field where it is implemented."

This suggests to me that meritocracy is a term referring to the system as a whole ("Advancement in such a system..."), not just to those who end up on top (and are ADs even really on top?). After all, most soloists were once corps; most principals were once soloists, and many ADs were themselves once principals. The whole system, if it's one in which promotion is based on talent and ability, would rightly be referred to as a meritocracy. Is that incorrect?

I'm sorry if im being obtuse in not following your point.

4 minutes ago, NinaFan said:

 

nanushka - As far as older people changing their seats, I see it happening all the time regardless of age.  Just recently an usher had to yell at some younger adults from moving around for better seats as the lights were dimming.  Oh, and a thirtysomething  stepped all over me yesterday because he couldn’t even wait for the house lights to come on to get out of his seat.  

 

It is not just older folks.  I see a complete cross section of age groups doing plenty of annoying things at almost every performance.   

 

No disagreement here, NinaFan. I've experienced horrors at the ballet committed by members of every demographic!

17 minutes ago, ABT Fan said:

 

But, one of the great things about the Met season is also one of the worst things for the dancers - preparing numerous ballets at the same time, coupled with limited rehearsal time. Fouettes are something you can practice alone without a partner, but as California noted, it's not just the fouettes but doing fouettes after a solo, after a pas, after doing Odette. You can crank out 50 fouettes alone in a studio all by yourself, but put those into a ballet and it's a different thing entirely. That said, yes, of course, there's a technique/stamina issue with several O/O's at the moment which is unacceptable.

 

Great point about context.

7 minutes ago, Helene said:

How is that power?  The dancer doesn't cast him or herself.   Unless he or she is associated with a powerful enough general or politician who can pressure the AD to cast him or her, whether implicitly or explicitly.

 

Dancers can create pressure, but they're not the Deciders.

 

 

Power does not have to be total and absolute in order to be power. The ability and position to exert pressure is itself a form of power. Foucault: "Power is everywhere." Space is power. Time is power. Money is power. Attention, or the ability to command it, is power. A principal dancer may not be able to simply demand a role, but that doesn't mean he or she lacks power. We all have many forms and degrees of power, whether we belong to the Powers That Be or not. Meritocracy is simply the (dubious) idea that those powers are doled out according to merit.

As I said, though, I just wasn't sure I was following your initial post or the point you were making about meritocracy in relation to the prior conversation. I didn't realize you were talking only about the narrow, explicit power over casting.

55 minutes ago, Helene said:

 

And, like many things, "America"'s understanding is based on a misconception: the definition of "meritocracy" per Wikipedia:

 

So it has zero to do with the dancers, and all to do with the Powers That Be, in this case, at ABT.   

 

I'm not sure I follow, Helene. Surely when Americans -- or anyone -- use the term "meritocracy" they're talking about power in its many forms, not just the bureaucratic power of the Powers That Be. For a dancer, rank in a company is a form of power. Isn't that what abatt was likely talking about?

12 minutes ago, fondoffouettes said:

 He should be dancing the swamp monster Rothbart.

Yes, it's time for a swap. Give Forster a shot at some of those roles and let Hammoudi take over as Swampy.

1 minute ago, cubanmiamiboy said:

I need to get to the apartment to the computer. My fingers are noy fast enough on the cell to voice all I want to say...both anger and praise.

Well trust us, we are suspended in anticipation!

6 minutes ago, cubanmiamiboy said:

Major...major..MAJOR disaster that of Seo's deplorable Odile. Major..major....MAJOR triumph for Marcelo's ever crescent artistry.

Oh do tell!! We want the dirty deets!!!

3 minutes ago, ABT Fan said:

You know who they should pair up with Part more often is Blaine Hoven. They did Seven Sonatas together a few years ago and before the piece began I said "uh oh, I don't see this going well" as I thought he'd be too short and not a strong enough partner for her (and too inexperienced). I was so wrong! He moved her around like she was 5 feet tall and also to my surprise they had wonderful chemistry. Of course, Seven Sonatas is not Swan Lake and I don't know how he'd handle all of those overhead lifts. But, despite the bobbles he had in Giselle's peasant pas a few weeks ago, he has never danced or looked better. He more than deserved his promotion last year. If a SL with Part isn't workable, they should at least try him as Siegfried (or Romeo...) with someone smaller (he and Trenary could make an interesting R&J). I don't think I see Hoven as principal material, but I think they should see if he can handle a lead role. 

They're about to do Mozartiana together! Not much true partnering in that (i.e. Lifts and such) so could be a good fit. I'm curious to see how both handle the tricky Balenchinean footwork of course.

5 minutes ago, Natalia said:

 

Isn't Gray Davis the "hero" who jumped last week onto the NY Subway tracks to rescue a man who had been pushed in? I seem to recall reading that his back had been hurt in that incident but maybe not too seriously?

Yes that's correct. He danced Spanish this afternoon and looked in good shape. Though as a fellow sufferer of herniated discs I can say that the problems only keep returning.

I'm very interested to hear he's a regular partner of Veronika! I'd love to see them dance together.

10 minutes ago, Mazurka said:

Seo is wonderful tonight, very lyrical, fragile, vulnerable,  beautiful.

This is nice to hear. Curious to hear if she managed a good Act III.

Yeah, a group of four older people by me decided to change rows during the Siegfried/Benno scene at the start of Act II, just in order to be able to sit maybe 3-4 seats closer to the center. This involved forcing at least 3 people in the new row to stand up for them to pass. After that, the candy wrappers, zipping bags and cell phone lights seemed only minor inconveniences!

11 minutes ago, aurora said:

All I can add for Hammoudi is that he leapt to his death very nicely. Please stop giving him principal roles.

LOL! This last line cracked me up, Aurora. I'm in total agreement. That ship has sailed. It looked for a time –– like, 4 or 5 years ago now –– that Hammoudi might be the next homegrown tall male principal, but I'm tired of waiting for him to step it up. I don't know if he's just not working hard enough to make it happen or what, but by now I think it's time to cut him off and give those opportunities to someone else.

I was excited to see the PDT this afternoon, but that excitement was dampened a bit when April Giangeruso was announced as replacing Catherine Hurlin. I've read great things on here about Hurlin and she's been a standout in the corps, but I have yet to see her in a big solo. I'm sure I'll get my chance soon enough, though.

I always appreciate seeing Zhiyao Zhang, as he has a fine lean elegance and often gets very nice height on his leaps. There were some messy landings today during his solo, but otherwise a good performance. I was even more impressed by their short PDT at the start of the Act III, where his partnering was very clean, making the girls' lifts look like a seamless continuation of their movements on the ground.

I'm mostly in agreement with fondoffouettes about Teuscher's Act II. I had my doubts going into today, as I wondered if this role was the best fit for her. I think she's an excellent dancer in many things –– her Gulnare on Saturday night was really a standout performance, for instance (and I even thought she overshadowed Shevchenko's Medora). But she seems rather cool in temperament to me –– a diamond, I'd say, not an emerald or a ruby. Anyway, as I say, I had my doubts, but the reports from D.C. were so positive, and I went into today with an open mind. But in the end I was underwhelmed. I agree that, in Act II, she was at her best in the PDD adagio. In her variation, on the other hand, I felt she lacked fluidity between steps. I was not too troubled by the height of her développés, but her rond de jambes looked more distinct on the right than on the left, where they were muddied. There was also a stumble once as she brought her leg down, and in the ensuing part of the variation she really didn't seem to luxuriate at all in any of her arabesques.

The cygnettes were pretty good through most of their number, in nice unison, and they handled the pas de chat crossing from far stage left to far stage right quite well (where many ABT quartets tend to fall behind the music), but things fell apart a bit at the end, and Mai Aihara in particular seemed the weakest link. (The others were Rachel Richardson, Betsy McBride, and Breanne Granlund.)

I always hate how jagged the ABT orchestra's tempi are in the Act II coda, especially with the big slow-down when Odette comes out for her diagonal, but I have never heard it get slower than it did today. It seemed a bit ridiculous. I would imagine Teuscher of all people could pull that off a bit faster.

In Act III, despite the problem with Jonathan Klein's shoe, he and Shayer danced a very nice Neapolitan –– in fact, to my eye, Klein looked every bit as good as his partner (no easy feat), and he was even more crisply on the beat of the music.

I was very excited to see Calvin Royal's Rothbart, and for a debut it was quite good. There were some places where he needs to learn to juice up the movements, and that non-balanced arabesque was indeed quite odd. It seemed to me that he planned that, because he waited until very near the end of the phrase to raise his leg, so it wasn't as if he ended it early –– rather, he started it late, so there was no time for a balance. I agree it was better than a shaky balance, but in a stronger performance that can be such a great moment, and here its potential effect was lost.

The intro/adagio of the black PDD was quite good, with the very notable exception of the violin flub. The soloist entered a beat or two early, then had to repeat his phrase once the orchestra came back in after what should have been a silent pause. It seemed like just a total brain flub, and I'm sure the violinist was kicking himself after. (I see in the program his name is Ben Bowman. Hah.) In any case, it was just another lost moment that could have been really great.

Hammoudi looked very tired at the beginning of his variation, and it only got worse from there. Low energy. Devon's variation was very good, though –– one of the highlights of her performance. In the coda, the fouettés were just as reported above, and then came Hammoudi's turns à la seconde, in which his leg was held at maybe a 60 degree angle from the vertical. It just looked like he was really running out of steam by that point. Devon may have been as well, as her backward hops in arabesque also looked rather tired. Kind of an anticlimactic ending to the act, overall. And then to top it off we all had to sit through that interminable entr'acte with the swans.

Devon's mime was another highlight of her performance, in both Act II and Act IV, with just one exception. Her "I will die" gestures in Act IV looked rather odd –– not so much resolved to her fate but rather as if she were scolding Siegfried and saying he was gonna die. But her "you've broken my heart" gesture in the same scene was quite affecting.

Despite my criticisms, I do think on the whole this was a promising performance for her, and I'll definitely see her again in future years, particularly if she's paired with a stronger partner. (I would love to see her with Marcelo, and am sorry I missed those performances.) I might give her a few years to become more seasoned. But there are some other principal roles I'm even more excited to see her in.

And I'm so excited to see Sarah and Daniil tomorrow, and keeping my fingers tightly crossed that Veronika is fully recovered and will dance on Saturday!

35 minutes ago, cubanmiamiboy said:

Well...then they might come with the bright idea of rising the tickets price of her performances as she learns how to throw another fouette in her SL and DQ. Who knows...if she ever completes the 32 at some point of her career ABT might be out of debt, just thanks to her..!

I love the idea of a per-fouetté surcharge! They save your credit card info and charge as soon as Act III is over. Now that's dynamic pricing!

I suspect that she may continue to dance Gulnare and Gamzatti rather than Medora and Nikiya, because those roles are large enough to draw her audience even when she's not headlining. But I'd be willing to bet that we'll see her Aurora next time the full SB comes back.

56 minutes ago, Natalia said:

 

She should stitch to those sorts of roles, as did Ferri. No shame in that. There's room at ABT for  principals who specialize in dramatic roles & not the dancey 19th-C classics or neoclassical ballets. Think Ferri, Nora Kaye, Sallie Wilson.

That, of course, would deny ABT two guaranteed sold-out performances of most productions. I suspect she'll just continue to take on more roles, whether or not they are suited to her strengths. McKenzie is quoted in the recent NYT article:

This season — Ms. Copeland’s second year as a principal — is a killer that includes her debut as Kitri in “Don Quixote” on Tuesday, May 16, and her New York debut as Giselle on May 26. As the company’s artistic director, Kevin McKenzie, put it, it’s symbolic because “she’s taking the mantle of the classics on.”

2 hours ago, cubanmiamiboy said:

I am at the MET. This is pandemonium here. The house is just FULL TO CAPACITY!!???

Looking forward to your report on the performance!

21 minutes ago, Helene said:

I'm going to repeat myself:  it's so nice to read all of the enthusiasm about dancers getting such great chances!

Yes, especially when we remember the frustrations that were so constantly being expressed on this very discussion board just 3, 4, 5 years ago. Such a positive change for the company!

23 minutes ago, Emma said:

I completely agree.  I have to add I was extremely unimpressed with the choreography and costumes for the corps.  I saw Brandt and thought she was fantastic -- this was the first time I saw her in a featured role and bought a last minute student ticket when her casting was announced.  However, the production itself was not my cup of tea even before considering the offensive story line.  IMO it would be best to keep the Act II pas de trois for galas and dispose of the rest.

Given that choreography is really only preserved through a history of subsequent performances, I think there's something to be said for the preservation of a full major work—even if quite adulterated—by one of the greatest and most significant choreographers in ballet history.

Loss and adulteration are of course inevitable, which is one of the great frustrations of the reality of ballet's fragile heritage. But they can at least be guarded against, in those cases where such guarding seems deserved. And I'd argue that there's enough fine choreography in Corsaire (even if not for the corps) that it is deserved.

This is certainly not an argument for ABT's physical production or for Anna-Maria Holmes' staging of that choreography. But I would not want to see Corsaire go unperformed for so long that it becomes irretrievably lost.

31 minutes ago, Helene said:

I think ABT should dump their "Le Corsaire" and do the original-from-reconstruction version.   Even the "Truncated Third Act  to End Before Overtime at the Kennedy Center Kicks In" version that the Bolshoi presented in the late '00's is 1000x preferable, in my opinion.

I don't know the specific production that Helene refers to, but I imagine that a rigorous research-based reconstruction (à la Ratmansky's Sleeping Beauty—in concept, even for those who didn't like the style) would have the benefit of viewing Corsaire as an "of its time" historical artifact. The historical context that FauxPas refers to is a particularly fascinating element of ballet history, and certainly interlocks with the ambivalence that some modern-day lovers of the art may feel about its gender politics, body politics, aesthetics, etc.

3 minutes ago, Victura said:

Thank you, nanushka. I saw Part and Gomes partner together in a performance that was in the Gomes documentary, and they looked great together and was curious why they didn't partner each other more often. She has also spoken quite well of him and attended that documentary premiere and they seem quite friendly. But he has been retiring roles lately and is getting older, so it makes sense that he may want to prolong his ballet career for as long as possible and play to his strengths.

There's so little footage of her, professional or otherwise, so I'll definitely be looking for that. They also dance the white swan PDD in the 2013 YAGP video titled Ballet's Greatest Hits (available on Amazon). It's basically a gala performance, though so not at all with the same intensity as their full-length staged performances. But the video includes some interview segments in which, as I recall, the two of them are sitting together and she's gushing about what it's like to be partnered by him. (And she's certainly not the only ballerina I've heard talk that way.)

7 hours ago, Jayne said:

Better yet, hire Max Beloserkovsky and Irina Dvorovenko

Given how Irina at least (not sure about Max) has been rather outspoken on several occasions about their dissatisfactions with some of McKenzie's choices as AD and his treatment of ABT dancers, I wonder if Kevin might be loathe to bring them in.

7 hours ago, Victura said:

 

Why did they stop partnering each other?

I don't know that there's any clearly documented answer to that, but it's true that Gomes has been scaling back over recent years -- e.g. dropping certain roles such as Solor and others from his rep. I get the sense that he's being quite mindful of marshaling his strengths so he can continue to give the best possible performances for as long as possible.

Sometimes people like to talk about Part as if she's some kind of Amazonian freak of nature and while that's certainly not true she is definitely on the taller end and I imagine that lifting her is rather taxing even for so strong a partner as Gomes.

Edited to add:

And speaking of Solor, I thought Veronika had quite a good partnership with Denys Nedak two years ago in Bayadère. He was a good match for her lyric intensity and was a strong partner. I'd love to see him come back to be her Siegfried next year.

59 minutes ago, canbelto said:

Cory Stearns is a good partner for Veronika. He's not an exciting dancer at all and there's not much chemistry between them but in terms of partnering he handles the challenges pretty well.

20 minutes ago, Jayne said:

Veronika deserves better than that

Yeah, there's quite a lot more to a truly successful partnership than just handling the challenges. Veronika's strengths are not about whiz-bang technical feats. The chemistry is a crucial ingredient.