Brioche

A long over due update on OBC.

http://oaklandballet.org/wp/

My pleasure Gina. I was also thrilled to see a very short moment of Jocelyn dancing.

i never knew Virginia Johnson, but I saw some of her stagings of Lew Christensen's ballets and was very impressed. Oakland Ballet, in particular, did Christensen's "Jinx" surpassingly well in her staging --

San Francisco Ballet -In Memory of Virginia "Ginny" Johnson 2011

I couldn't watch the entire clip. It was entirely too painful to watch Lopatkina show such disrespect and basically waste Makarova's time (and everyone else who was in the studio.) Even renowned diva and editor of Vogue magazine Anna Wintour managed to put on a "happy face" for The September Issue documentary.

San Francisco Ballet's Elizabeth Loscavio did a killer job on that solo on the Balanchine Celebration DVD's,

AND the audience appreciated it and the curtain calls were wonderful.

I fell asleep during Nanna's Lied. I guess I could have gone out and gotten coffee or something and come back in time for Artifact Suite.

As with so many ballets of this "ilk" once the orignal cast is no longer available (IMHO) it should be retired from the repertory. "Nana" was tailored/created to a specific dancers abilities and talent and knowing the original "Nana" very well, what she brought to the role also reflected where she was at professionally and more importantly (and painfully), personally. My heart broke watching her "open that vein" publicly. However...... life experience (good AND bad) can be so beneficial to ones art form.

I did not know Loscavio personally, but she was one of the greatest dancers anywhere, ever, and her abrupt departure for Hamburg was a tragedy. I saw her many times, most dazzlingly in Ballo, Rubies, Tarantella, Theme and Variations...and above all in the turning variation from Who Cares?, in which she is the only dancer I've ever seen or heard of other than Marnee Morris, the creator of the role, to do each and every gorgeous impossible original step.

Her candor, technical brilliance, fire, honesty, and charisma onstage were riveting in every part. I am sure that Nanna's Lied was amazing with her; it may also have had better singing than the lamentably inadequate, utterly esthetically bankrupt performance I heard in the recent run (with Van Patten, who was in fact good). Lenya is irreplaceable, of course, but even so. The ballet is not something which imposes itself; it's intended to be elliptical and suggestive rather than clear, I believe. perhaps it should be retired, since so many audience members seem unwilling to give it any benefit of the doubt.

jsmu -

I will be sure to pass on this post to Elizabeth. I first saw her in class when she was seven years old (her older sister was a wonderful dancer too) and we all knew she had "it" then.

Hamburg was a wonderful place for her to be. As you may know it is a company that celebrates dancers as the get older and the repertory suited all of her (formidable) talents quite well. Plus she met and married a wonderful man (a dancer) and has two gorgeous children AND she's a terrific mom and very happy retired and living in place she loves very much. I do miss her greatly.

Best,

B

I fell asleep during Nanna's Lied. I guess I could have gone out and gotten coffee or something and come back in time for Artifact Suite.

As with so many ballets of this "ilk" once the orignal cast is no longer available (IMHO) it should be retired from the repertory. "Nana" was tailored/created to a specific dancers abilities and talent and knowing the original "Nana" very well, what she brought to the role also reflected where she was at professionally and more importantly (and painfully), personally. My heart broke watching her "open that vein" publicly. However...... life experience (good AND bad) can be so beneficial to ones art form.

From Macaulay's review in the NY Times:

Balanchine is foremost among the artists remembered in this memoir, but d’Amboise also mentions Frederick Ashton, Antony Tudor, Jerome Robbins, Michael Kidd, Lew Christensen, Merce Cunningham, John Cranko, Martha Graham. “They were my mentors, teachers and choreographers,” he writes (though it’s never clear how Graham worked with him).

Perhaps Mr. D'Amboise wasn't clear in stating how he worked with Graham, but does Macaulay not know how to use a search engine? I am certain that there is a chance that he didn't dance in the movement Graham created, however he may observed rehearsals even so.

Episodes

Music:

Symphony, Op. 21; Five Pieces, Op. 10; Concerto, Op. 24; Ricercata in Six Voices from Bach's Musical Offering by Anton von Webern

Choreography

George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust

Premiere

May 19, 1959, New York City Ballet, City Center of Music and Drama

Original Cast

Violette Verdy, Diana Adams, Allegra Kent, Melissa Hayden, Jonathan Watts, Jacques d'Amboise, Paul Taylor, Nicholas Magallanes, Francisco Moncion

Average Length

27 min.

Episodes grew out of Balanchine's enthusiasm for Webern's music, to which he had been introduced by Stravinsky. Balanchine wrote that Webern's orchestral music... fills the air like molecules; it is written for atmosphere. The first time I heard it... the music seemed to me like Mozart and Stravinsky, music that can be danced to because it leaves the mind free to "see" the dancing. In listening to composers like Beethoven and Brahms, every listener has his own ideas, paints his own picture of what the music represents.... How can I, a choreographer, try to squeeze a dancing body into a picture that already exists in someone's mind? It simply won't work. But it will with Webern. Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein invited Martha Graham to choreograph a joint work with Balanchine using all of Webern's orchestral pieces. The result was no true collaboration but a work comprised of two separate sections. Graham's contribution, Episodes I, was danced by her company plus four dancers from New York City Ballet. Episodes II, created by Balanchine, was danced by New York City Ballet and Paul Taylor, who was then a dancer in Graham's company. After 1960, Graham's section and the solo variation were no longer performed at New York City Ballet. Anton von Webern (1883-1945), an Austrian, was part of the neoclassical movement in music. He was a musical scholar who adopted and extended Schoenberg's 12-tone method of composing music, which meant basing a composition on a "series" made up from the 12 notes of the chromatic scale arranged so that no note was repeated within the series. Webern became more and more rigorous in his attempt to compress or simplify his own style.

Off topic (a bit) yes Kirkland looks "real skinny" and I'm not sure when she didn't..anywho..there is much to love about her in that Wolf Trap video in Don Q AND the Coppelia 3rd act variation is quite something. :-)

Excellent questoin, scherzo!!!

I have strong feelings on this, since the one with the little hops and pas de chevals looks like a folk dance set on point and I adore it, and the other one, wiht the gazillion passes is rhythmically banal and a terrible disappointment, IMHO. The Bolshoi always seems to dance the latter, so my HUNCH is that it's by Gsovsky or somebody. The former version is in the Kirov's rep, and I'd like to think it's by Petipa (since he liked folk dance steps) -- there's an OLD video of Toumanova (or is it Tallchief?), Kirkland also is on tape looking real skinny, not at her best, in that one... San Francisco Ballet's version uses this version also -- not sure, Christian, does the Cuban version use this one? It would be I THINK, in Alonzo's Ballets Russes tradition -- but in Havana, the Bolshoi connection may have prevailed.

Actually, I'm not nearly as certain about this as I sound, that's just the way I've pieced these together -- i would love to know the truth....

RG, Doug?

Never mind.

First time I saw this was with Melissa Hayden and Jacques d'Amboise, with Patricia Neary as the Girl in a Kilt. Joffrey did it, too, with Noel Mason, Nels Jorgensen, and Rebecca Wright. Nels kept going out for injury, so Mr. Balanchine sent over Anthony Blum to fill in. I also remember Violette Verdy and Maria Tallchief as successful Sylphides.

The ballet hearks back to the Romantic era, with La Sylphide a prominent motif. Balanchine created it after NYCB played the Edinburgh Festival.

Well my post hasn't been deleted in fact a dialogue with SFB on Facebook is taking place regarding this standing room ticket price. $20 for a regular performance is absurd and they are gouging the true fans of ballet.

The SF Opera is still at $10.

I posted a link to this discussion on their Facebook page. Lets see how long it stays up.

I posted a link to this discussion on their Facebook page. Lets see how long it stays up.

I won't take credit for your refund YouOverThere - however after reading about your experience with the ticket office here, and having been a ticket office manager (and still working in a business that costumer satisfaction is key) I emailed the ticket office manager a lengthy correspondence in regards to their less then stellar performance and sited this website in regards to how far and wide we can communicate a bad (or good) experience.

The Colorado Ballet doesn't seem to have been impressed by my suggestion that they refund my will call and convenience charges, despite the fact that my ticket was not available at the will call window and that I derived no "convenience" from ordering online since I had to stand in line at the box office anyway.

I noticed today that there is a $5 credit from the Colorado Ballet on my credit card account, so it appears that they have refunded the will call fee.

Lew Christensen choreographed it for the San Francisco Ballet in 1958 with various revivals of it in to the 1970's and televised I believe.

http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=7084

Scroll down to the second photograph of Cynthia Gregory and Robert Gladstein in the main roles (1964.)

Embarrassing. There's a reason this ballet in performed infrequently.

Stuttgart, Hamburg, Paris and now ABT.....yeah, that's infrequent.

I'll vote for the SFB women: Vanessa Zahorian and Sarah Van Patten are both gorgeous. Most other SFB dancers are merely beautiful.

Dating myself here - Two more SFB women: Sabina Alleman - gorgeous (still) in the manner of Rita Hayworth and Evelyn Cisneros - lovely to look at onstage, but always took my breathe away more when I encountered offstage at high end parties and fundraisers.

Indeed !! Villellas owes us an explanation and a frank discussion of his plans for next season.

Why?

And this:

SFB First Nutcracker

And my personal favorite (she was one of my teachers):

First Snow Queen

Thanks for the info everyone. I certainly assumed as much.

I hope Tiler Peck got paid well to make that very brief "appearance."

Interesting to me that a former friend of mine used to shove the DC Kirov Academy down everyone's throats (her daughter never dance professionally in the end), and while I certainly am not familiar with everyone who has attended that school, the high profile former student's certainly have made interesting career choices.

But overall, Auerbach's score at the most was serviceable; too often it was so overbearing to border the cliche.

The same could be said for both reviews. :blush:

Neumeier is still conducting these matinées!

All one has to do is research the origins of the story by H.C. Andersen to understand that Disney (who most assume invented the story) didn't tell his story.

And I quote:

The Little Mermaid, longing for the prince and an eternal soul, eventually visits the Sea Witch, who sells her a potion that gives her legs, in exchange for her tongue (as the Little Mermaid has the most intoxicating voice in the world). Drinking the potion will make her feel as if a sword is being passed through her, yet when she recovers she will have two beautiful legs, and will be able to dance like no human has ever danced before. However, it will constantly feel like she is walking on sharp swords, and her feet will bleed most terribly. In addition, she will only get a soul if the prince loves her and marries her, for then a part of his soul will flow into her. Otherwise, at dawn on the first day after he marries another woman, the Little Mermaid will die brokenhearted and disintegrate into sea foam.

The Little Mermaid cannot bring herself to kill the sleeping prince lying with his bride and, as dawn breaks, throws herself into the sea. Her body dissolves into foam, but instead of ceasing to exist, she feels the warmth of the sun; she has turned into a spirit, a daughter of the air. The other daughters of the air tell her she has become like them because she strove with all her heart to gain an eternal soul. She will earn her own soul by doing good deeds, and she will eventually rise up into the kingdom of God.

Lopez is quoted as saying she has the resources to hire 8-10 dancers; Wheeldon says that isn't enough. Is this a reasonable objection?

I've witnessed a small company in my neck of the woods flail with 8-10 dancers. No strong choreographic voice any longer and "founder's syndrome" inhibiting its development in a big way. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

As memory serves Ms. Lopez has always been in "top form" when making comments to the press.

Yes, I think Carbro has really described this well.

Her point also illustrates once again how we have to take a lot of the statements from a Robbins or a Balanchine with a grain of salt. They may say something

relatively straightforward, such as "no stories" but the comment may actually be designed to make a certain type of point within a larger context. I'm just coining a possibility here but let say perhaps Robbins had an issue with some comments he had heard about the "plot" associated with certain numbers and it irritated him. So he quotes "no stories" to cut off this kind of discussion.

Just one kind of example that comes to mind....

I often wonder if choreographers go the "no story" route so that we can invent our own?

Balanchine said it, when you have two people on stage (a man and a woman I believe) you already have a story.