kbarber

lovely that ballet gets some exposure on Sesame Street (which has a history of doing so!), but it's too bad they missed the opportunity to show children that boys can dance too.

could some admin please fix my typo in the title.

ROBERTO BOLLE AND FRIENDS GALA City Centre Theatre, New York. Mainstage Sep 17, 2013 7 pm Program and cast TBA.

An announcement from Vladimir Kekhman: Natalia Osipova , Principal Dancer of the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St.Petersburg has become also a Principal of the Royal Ballet in Great Britain. The ‘Izvestiya’ newspaper was informed about it by the Director General of the Mikhailovsky Theatre Vladimir Kekhman. According to him, the official announcement will be made soon by the management of the Royal Ballet. At the same time Natalia Osipova will remain a Principal of the Mikhailovsky and will continue dancing on its stage in the earlier scheduled repertoire. http://izvestia.ru/n...5#ixzz2Ps3pPK62 Osipova will dance in the Royal Ballet's Nutcracker in the 2013-14 season, according to reports on twitter. Presumably other things as well.

I agree with you about Selfridge and in fact had decided to give up on it till I saw the Pavlova plot twist.

Thanks for that information, KB - I will be watching! And watching the Mad Men premiere too. Too bad they haven't worked Balanchine/NYCB into those plots yet. ;) although you must have noticed that when Don Draper had a fling with his kids' elementary school teacher, her name was Suzanne Farrell.... I've posted pics and more links about the Pavlova Selfridge episode to my blog: http://toursenlair.blogspot.ca/2013/04/anna-pavlova-appears-as-character-on-mr.html

"Mr. Selfridge", the series currently running on Masterpiece Theatre on PBS stations (Sunday nights) announces the following plotline for April 14 (Episode 3): "Anna Pavlova causes a sensation at the store". Pavlova is played by Natalia Kremen, formerly of the Stanislavsky Ballet and English National Ballet (more info about her here).

I think you are being a bit premature in your supposition that this is not due to injury. In that interview he talks about the injuries (plural) he has been trying to recover from, which have sidelined him for much longer than expected. That, combined with the tweet of breathebreathebreathe etc. coming at the same time he suddenly vanishes from a bunch of performances at ABT and does NOT show up in the Bolshoi London casting, leads me to suspect that he has further injured himself/is not recovering as he should. NBS Japan just posted to their website that Hallberg has had to pull out of a "Manuel Legris and friends" performance in Tokyo because of a broken fifth metatarsal that is taking longer to heal than anticipated. They quote Hallberg as follows: "Dancing in Tokyo to the dedicated audiences there is a highlight of my year. It is with great disappointment that I have to cancel my appearance and focus solely on my recovery. Although it is physically what I must do, emotionally and artistically I only wish to be sharing my art with you all in Tokyo. As I have such enormous love and respect for you all! I will see you soon though, once all is healed and we will continue where we left off!"

In order to have a properly informed discussion of this question of how better the NBOC could serve its Canadian audience, I think we need answers to the following questions. I don't have them, but perhaps helene and volcanohunter can provide them. Re: "three or four broadcasts of the Toronto performances in a movie theater" 1) How much would the dancers' and orchestra unions require that their members be paid for each one of these over and above their salary (because they would require it) 2) How much would it cost to acquire the equipment to film the broadcast, install it in the opera house in Toronto, pay the technicians to operate it, book the satellite time to transmit it, and whatever other costs are involved? 3) Would the Canadian Opera Company, which owns the opera house, charge more for this (as I understand it, they charge the NBOC for just about everything they can) 4) Is Alexei Ratmansky even willing to have his Romeo filmed for live broadcast? how much would he charge extra for the rights to his production for a live broadcast? How about the designer, Richard Hudson? The same questions apply for James Kudelka and Santo Loquasto regarding Swan Lake and Cinderella. 5) Once we have a costing for this undertaking (times "three or four"), can anyone suggest the names of people who would be willing to cough up the money (in addition to the huge amount of fundraising the NBOC has to do already every year just for its operating expenses and new productions). As I understand it, when the NBOC did a live broadcast of its Nutcracker a few years ago, it had to raise something over $100,000 to pay for it and then took a bath financially. And that was Nutcracker, a relatively easy sell to movie theatres, funders etc.. And I believe there was resistance from the other Canadian ballet companies who felt that NBOC was poaching their own audience. How easy or otherwise would it be to convince a movie theatre in Regina that they should have a showing of "Emergence"? Look at how few ballet companies actually do live broadcasts: the Bolshoi, the Royal B, and the Paris Opera B, all hugely subsidized. Occasionally Dutch National Ballet. Doesn't that tell us something? Re: the fact that the NBOC has in fact started touring this year, but not in Canada (other than to Ottawa): 1) Can someone provide a budget comparing the cost of transporting and providing accommodation and per diems for flying a 70+-dancer company plus orchestra plus artistic staff from Toronto to Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Victoria for two weeks to the same cost for transporting them 7 hours by bus to Saratoga Springs for 4 days? If Saratoga Springs came calling offering an opportunity to provide dancers with extra employment in the middle of July, should the company have refused? 2) If a prestigious theatre in London invites the NBOC to perform there, should the NBOC refuse, saying "Well actually we have to fundraise so we can go to Saskatoon instead?" I have nothing against Saskatoon, I grew up on the prairies myself, but seriously. I'm sorry, but I do consider a comment like "NBOC's idea of a domestic tour is a run to Ottawa" to be NBOC-bashing. As I have said before on this topic, I think this kind of negativity is a case of blaming the victim.

From an interview with David Bintley and other artistic directors in the New York Times (emphasis mine) "There is no doubt that new media and the technology that makes HD screening possible has given us a whole different kind of exposure. We’ve done a few screenings, and are trying to strike agreements with the dancers and the musicians so that it can happen more often. Even though there is no money in it, it is a fantastic marketing tool, and we have found that it actually brings audiences in, rather than taking them away, as many people feared." This year the Canadian Opera Company had to cease its RADIO broadcasts on the CBC because paying the artists was more than it could afford and the CBC was no longer paying for it. And radio is a lot cheaper medium than live HD transmission. "National Ballet of Toronto Canada which occasionally does very limited tours west." Is this NBOC bashing necessary? EVery other year to Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, and Vancouver Island is not what I would call "occasionally" and "limited".

The National Ballet of Canada will be in Saratoga July 16-18, with one performance of a mixed program and 3 of Giselle. Here's a trailer for the mixed program, James Kudelka's very popular The Four Seasons and Crystal Pite's Emergence: http://youtu.be/sZJATcbDLLU

RWB has to be peripatetic. With a home population of 600,000 people in Winnipeg that only supports 5 performances each of 4 programs in a year, it couldn't survive otherwise. The NBOC was plenty peripatetic earlier on when the government supported their touring. The NBOC was invited to LA and DC by the theatres there, and had to do major fundraising to get there. Is the theatre in Vancouver inviting them? At a time when the NBOC actually has access to the production (ie when it's not in London with its co-producer the Royal Ballet)? For a run of 10 performances, with ticket sales ensured by being part of the subscription package for the theatre, as was the case with the Kennedy Center and in LA? Before we indulge in Toronto-bashing, it would be good to be in possession of all the facts and realities. Isn't it blaming the victim to criticize the NBOC for not being able to travel across this huge underpopulated country more often? The NBOC was in Vancouver in 2011. I hardly think it deserves to be called the Eastern Ballet of Canada. It happens to be located in Toronto so that is where most of its performances are given. If it were located in Vancouver, do you think it would be touring to Toronto every year? The Royal Ballet doesn't perform AT ALL in the UK outside of London, in a much smaller, more densely populated country, with much higher subsidies.

WEll the NBOC does try to go out to the west coast every other year. With touring being a money-losing proposition, it's all well and good to talk about "national responsibilities" but unless someone ponies up the cash, how are those responsibilities to be fulfilled? The NBOC has 120 dancers, musicians, and ballet staff and is located over 4000 km from Vancouver. The RWB has 27 dancers and does not travel with its own orchestra; it is located 2200 km from Vancouver.

I expect it may well do! Surely once they get it across the pond it's easier to visit a few other North American venues. I'm keeping an eye on various venue websites as well as Matthew Bourne's.

New York City Center will present the New York premiere of Matthew Bourne’s acclaimed Sleeping Beauty Oct. 23-Nov. 3 at City Center; tickets will go on sale on March 25. For more info: http://www.playbill.com/news/article/175906-Matthew-Bournes-Sleeping-Beauty-Will-Play-Fall-Engagement-at-City-Center

Being a "Royal" ballet certainly hasn't helped the Royal Ballet of Flanders much!

The National Ballet of Canada was originally called the National Ballet Company. Never the Toronto Ballet. Celia Franca's vision was always for it to be Canada's national company.

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is older than the National Ballet of Canada, having been founded in 1938 as opposed to the NBOC in 1951. So it was much more established in 1955 when it asked for and received a royal charter- one year BEFORE the Royal Ballet, it bears pointing out. As for the Australians, I think there are a lot more republicans in Australian than in NZ so "Royal" might not go over so well! RNZB did not become royal till 1984.

It's a new creation by Christopher Wheeldon, so presumably in his neoclassical style.

This is an interesting question, though. People might remember that the late John Curry (who won the Olympic gold medal in about 1980?) commissioned several ballet choreographers for an ice show. I remember both Twyla Tharp and Peter Martins being asked to contribute. But it never caught on. There is some crossover in training, though. I take class with a dancer who makes his living largely from teaching ballet to figure skaters both here in Canada and in Japan. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, currently highly ranked internationally in ice dance, have studied ballet to improve their ice dancing. But this is wandering off the topic of this thread.

When Oksana Baiul was competing in the Olympic figure skating event I had hopes that figure skating would begin to embrace more balletic movements. The turnout showed beautifully on the ice. Alas, Ms. Baiul went on to live a more private life and figure skating reverted to its more athletic rather than artistic side. But that's only MHO. I wasn't talking about crossover between ballet technique/aesthetics and figure skating technique/aesthetics. I was talking about the audience. I know I like watching both., and assume that people who like watching figure skating might well find they like ballet too if exposed to it.

THE RITE OF SPRING MARCH 22–24, 2013 | OHIO THEATRE see dates & times The Rite of Spring Maurice Ravel’s Rapsodie Espagnole featuring new choreography by longtime BalletMet dancer/choreographer Jimmy Orrante Claude Debussy’s The Afternoon of the Faun featuring Amedeo Amodio's choreography THE LITTLE MERMAID APRIL 19–27, 2013 | CAPITOL THEATRE see dates & times Join us under the sea for an enchanting tale of the sea king’s court, the jealousy of the evil sea witch, and the tenderness of young love. This new ballet by two-time Tony Award® nominee Lynne Taylor-Corbett based on Hans Christian Andersen’s enduring classic is sure to become a ballet classic.

An interesting article in The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/03/finally.a.pop.cultural-portrayal-of-ballet-as-art-not-sport/273675/

Oct. 18-20 Swan Lake Ohio Theatre, 39 E. State St. — a collaboration between BalletMet and the Cincinnati Ballet, presented in both cities Nov. 8-16 ‘The Four Seasons: An Evening of James Kudelka’ Riffe Center’s Capitol Theatre, 77 S. High St. — works by the interim artistic director, including his Four Seasons, set to Vivaldi’s music, and Man in Black, with Johnny Cash songs Dec. 12-24 The Nutcracker Ohio Theatre — the beloved holiday ballet with choreography by the company’s former artistic director, Gerard Charles Feb. 7-15 Alice in Wonderland Capitol Theatre — a family ballet with choreography by Charles March 14-15, 2014 ‘Family Ties’ Lincoln Theatre, 769 E. Long St. — a program in collaboration with the Columbus Gay Men’s Chorus March 21-23, 2014 ‘Symphony in C’ Ohio Theatre — a varied program in collaboration with the Cincinnati Ballet and performed in both cities April 25 to May 3, 2014 Capitol Theatre — a program of two works by Artistic Director Edwaard Liang and a work by another choreographer ---

I've always wondered why ballet doesn't court the figure-skating crowd more actively. It seems a natural crossover to me. And, at least in Canada, there are LOTS of figure-skating fans.