Morris Neighbor

A collection called "Performing Arts in America, 1875-1923" is available at http://dlc.nypl.org/lpa/nypl/home.html If that doesn't work, go to www.nypl.org and follow the links to "Digital Library Collections." Use the "Search" utility to search for the names that interest you. Clicking on a small "thumbnail" picture will enlarge it to fill your screen. The images are clear and fascinating, covering many styles of theatre and dance. You can set aside favorite images in a personal gallery. Note the dates, however; pictures less than 80 years old are not presently available on line.

When it comes to programming for public broadcasting, the 5,000-pound gorilla we've all been ignoring is the fact that it is driven not by "what is interesting" but by "what attracts money and viewers." A revival of "Dance in America," for instance, will require an advance commitment from one or more corporate underwriters; no broadcaster can afford to produce a series "on spec." Then there are the consultants who point out that three tenors always outdraw a dozen ballerinas. The problem with aubri's plea for companies that most people haven't heard of is that most people won't watch a company they haven't heard of, even if they'd enjoy it greatly if they happened to tune in. It's important to keep trying, but it will take time and luck to get more dance on TV.

Farrell Fan makes a good point, but I think Allegro understates the variety of the NYCB repertory. In the course of the 160-plus performances it gives every year in New York and Saratoga, it stages at least 60 different ballets, which range widely in style. There are indeed evening-length story ballets, including a very traditional and elegant "Sleeping Beauty," a "Coppelia" based largely on Alexandra Danilova's memories, and, of course, Balanchine's "Nutcracker" and "Midsummer Night's Dream." There are usually two premiers in the winter season and two more in the spring: Artistic Director Peter Martins and Choreographer-in-Residence Christopher Wheeldon are the most frequent contributors, but company members and guest choreographers also show new work. The "Diamond Project" TV show did not really do justice to the range of works produced under that rubric, let alone the other new works staged by the company. While Martins himself seems most comfortable with the Balanchine "neo-classical" style (Agon, The Four Temperaments, Stravinsky Violin Concerto), other company choreographers have explored different aspects of the Balanchine heritage. For instance, Melissa Barak, a young corps dancer recently created a highly polished homage to Concerto Barocco. While clearly an apprentice work, it showed admirable skills of invention and composition and above all, Balanchine's pole star, a gift for turning music into movement that both interprets and enhances the composer's art. Over the years, almost every major choreographer has been invited to create a work for the company: Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, Eliot Feld, William Forsythe (all of the preceding more than once), Susan Stroman, Angelin Preljocaj, Garth Fagan, Richard Tanner, Lynn Taylor-Corbett, and Ulysses Dove, among others. The company's audiences have seen European neo-expressionism, American minimalism, narrative dance, jazz, Broadway, and more. The only Really Big Name that seems to be missing is Mark Morris. But all of these World-Famous Choreographers have their own companies or their own agendas or other reasons for avoiding too close an association with a company with such a powerful name and reputation. One guest shot -- a chance to work with world-class dancers from a different background, gain high-profile exposure in New York, and work with a budget that most choreographers dare not dream of (NYCB watches its pennies, but it is by far the best-financed dance company in the US) -- is a temptation few can resist. It's the only dance company in America with its own contract orchestra; is it any wonder Tharp decided to tackle Beethoven's 7th? But a choreographer's commitment to his or her own company can create scheduling problems, especially when dancers have to learn an unfamiliar style. The extreme case came when Taylor agreed to create a new work for the American Music Festival, a predecessor of the Diamond Project. Since he was preparing a New York season for his own company, he had no time to develop a new work with NYCB dancers, but created it on his own dancers, who then had only two or three weeks to teach the parts to NYCB dancers. Taylor was not satisfied with the result, so his own company performed the work at the City Ballet's festival! Martins tried to persuade Cunningham to revive Summerspace, with its pointillist Rauschenberg decor, for the same festival, but the choreographer, then in his '70s and suffering from severe arthritis, declined, noting commitments to his own company and his inability to demonstrate steps to dancers unfamiliar with his work. Even when the choreographer does set the new work on NYCB dancers, extra rehearsal time is often required. Forsythe, for instance, got his early training at the School of American Ballet and bases his distinctive, often quirky movement idiom on the classical forms he learned there. But, as dancers who worked with him put it, "when it feels totally wrong, you know that's what Billy wants." But given the density of the NYCB schedule -- seven performances a week, involving 20 or more different ballets -- rehearsal time is at a premium. By contract, no dancer can be scheduled for more than 6-1/2 hours of rehearsal a day if she is performing that night. More time is allowed on non-performing days, less on matinee days (Saturday and Sunday), and the 90-minute company class is additional six days a week. (Monday, dancers go to the laudromat.) In any event, even a roster of 86 dancers can be stretched thin with so many rehearsals and so little time. For better or worse, we live in a world where it's really impossible for an Ashton, a Tudor, or a Cranko to contribute regularly to a City Ballet, though occasional flashes can and do occur. Indeed one could ask if we have today an Ashton, a Tudor, or a Cranko, but that's another debate!

Profuse (and significantly delayed!) apologies. I never saw Karsavina, and wrote a careless message that left this fact regrettably ambiguous. I have seen Kent, in mind-boggling experiences. Her Sonnambula is the performance by which all others must be judged: ethereal yet concrete, spiritual yet real. There's a Canadian kinescope of her performing the "Adagio" from Symphony in C in less than ideal circumstances (a mini-stage in front of an orchestra) that shows the same gifts: she takes us to a different place, one that floats a few crucial inches above the stage. Her post-retirement interviews make her seem simply spacey. The judgement is not unfair, merely inadequate for such a long and rich career. She deserves a lilly. She deserves a bouquet.

I wonder if they could knock it off in cubic zirconium and sell it on the Home Shopping Network? I like the way you think, Nanatchka! Actually, this whole discussion (and a parallel thread about marketing) raises a lot of interesting questions about how we come to value materials and experiences. Gold, for instance, is indeed a rare element in nature, and one with the unusual quality of occurring only in its pure metallic form. If you find it, you know it and you'll be rewarded. Aluminum was once considered a precious metal because it was so rarely found in its metallic state in nature. But a chemist will tell you it is one of the most plentiful metallic elements on earth. It's also a highly reactive metal, found mostly in chemical bonds with other elements. Once the technology of refining the metal from ore became common, aluminum lost its special status. Diamonds are an odd case. Chemically, they are crystalized carbon, the single most plentiful element on our planet. As we learned in junior high, a diamond is just a lump of coal squeezed very very very very hard, and the gems occur in almost every part of the world. But a diamond is still considered the most precious of precious stones. I recently read an article by an economist who attributes this fact to two factors: an artificially limited supply (sales of most newly-mined stones are carefully controlled by a London-based cartel) and an aggressive marketing campaign. What lessons can fans of dance in general and ballet in particular draw? First of all, that the "dance boom" of the '60s and '70s was a mixed blessing. With so many companies and choreographers presenting works to generally favorable notices (critics and audiences alike were so overwhelmed by the tide of undeniable originality that judgement took a back seat), dance became less "special" and more "oridnary." If you missed Company A this week, you could still catch Company B next week. Then comes marketing, image, and timing. The companies that survived the boom's collapse owe the result as much to savvy as to artistic vision. NYCB, already distinguished by the greatest living choreographer at its head, set the seal on its leadership with the Stravinsky Festival, a landmark event in dance history. Mr. B may or may not have had sales in mind (at considerable expense, he cancelled an entire week's scheduled performances to allow more rehearsal time), but City Ballet's subscription sales boomed. ABT, viewed as stuffy and old-fashioned, saw its audiences decline. The Joffrey touted rock ballets, flaunted the "outsider" status of its dancers (many of whom had been rejected by NYCB or ABT), and courted the youth audience; their high-water mark was commissioning Twyla Tharp's Deuce Coupe. Alvin Ailey was sold (against his explicit wishes) as the hope of Black America. His company has always been multi-racial, and he drew on a wide range of sources. Indeed, one of his most exquisite works is set to Ralph Vaughn-Williams' tone poem. "The Lark Ascending." Harvey Lichtenstein, a one-time Martha Graham student, used modern dance to revive my local arts center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Companies, and performance centers, who failed to find a distinctive "hook" during the boom (I still miss "Dance Umbrella") are gone. In short: Truly great art will survive, but luck determines how long it takes to surface. Young artists seeking to break into the "establishment" world will look for dramatic differences (race, musical taste, etc.), which may highlight, conceal, or even obscure authentic creativity. The future of the art demands a broad canvas for experimentation, while economic reality demands a "Unique Selling Proposition," to use the MBA phrase. I take some hope from the life of Mozart. He spent years in a fruitless search for a patron who would, in effect, give him a blank check to write anything he wanted. He had to write commissions to the taste of millionaires, settle for opera productions in provincial towns (like Salzburg and Prague), and ended his life with a crassly commercial hit, The Magic Flute. If an artist keeps trying, he (or she) will make a mark.

That's good news, Alexandra. Obviously, I was misinformed! We know one determined person can make a difference; Judy's mentor, Merrill Brockway, virtually invented quality ballet on TV. Let's hope that, even in today's world of limited funds and rampant consultants, she can find new ways to put ballet on PBS!

I am reluctant to request a simple video record of a stage work, since the peculiar qualities of video -- the small screen, the limited field of view, the foreshortening of perspective -- make it difficult, if not impossible to create a truly satisfying record. I've seen too many films and videos that reduced the corps to a flea circus and the ballerina to a blur. The success of the Balanchine shows on PBS is due in no small measure to the master's willingness to re-think and re-stage his works for the camera (on the sound-stage at Nashville's Opryland, of all unlikely places). Merce Cunningham has long embraced this process, and Paul Taylor has re-staged several works on video. I'd like to see them do more, and see more from leading choreographers like Mark Morris, especially his wonderful "L'Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato," an evening-length work to Handel. On a practical level, there's the fact that the people responsble for "Dance in America" are no longer at PBS, but we're still entitled to dream. Maybe an ambitious young producer is reading this right now!

"Lucy and Ricky meet Laurel and Hardy"?? Well, no. But let's face a key fact: ballet is inherently sexy. All those gorgeous young bodies, in revealing clothes and close physical contact, inevitably evoke sexual reactions. Whether it's as explicit as Balanchine's Bukagu or as stylized as Swan Lake (36 times!) we all know that Eros supports Terpsichore's turns. This is not to say that dance is pornographic, but that it expresses an essential human quality that companies seek to use to attract audiences. Historically, the Joffrey Ballet has stressed this fact as a matter of company style. In its New York heyday, we got works like Robert Joffrey's rock-scored, mixed-media Astarte (1967), with Maxmillian Zamosa stripping to his dance strap, and Gerald Arpino's Trinity (1970), the ballet apotheosis of peace, love, and rock-and-roll. Believe me, when dancers like Gary Chryst, Dermot Burke, and Christian Holder lept across the stage wearing nothing but pastel tights and a glistening sheen of sweat, the house was awash in hormones. The NYCB brochure makes the same point through more subtle and elegant means. The back cover does look like a fashion shoot: nine of the company's younger members posed casually on a Manhattan rooftop in black-and-white costumes from one of Balanchine's neo-classical ballets: well-toned bodies in ambiguous situations. The portait of Maria Kowroski on the front is quite beautiful, but also very sexy. She's wearing a black velvet sheath -- ankle-length, sleeves to the wrists, neck-scarf accentuating a modest vee neckline with one leg (clad in sheer white tights and white silk pointe shoe)extended through a waist-high slit. The subtle and elegant gets my vote, but let's not overlook a quality that makes dance inherently attractive to young people in particular and human beings in general.

So pleased to see that NYCB is able to raise money on the basis of its work. Perhaps Ms. Hambricht could develop a joint marketing plan with the couple selling plans for the Sopranos house. Yes, as the Times reported last week, that monument to excess is a real house, occupied by real people, who will sell you the floor plans for $599. Where better to wear a "spare" diamond array?

I'd like to echo the general enthusiasm for the quality of the performances on Saturday night. I was especially impressed (though not surprised) by the Ballo. Ashley is known to be a stickler for detail, and her students have responded magnificently to her tutelage. Ana Sophia Scheller whizzed through the technically demanding part with cool aplomb, and her partner, Allen Peiffer, was not simply tall (always a virtue!) but proved he could deploy those long limbs with speed and elegance. I have nothing to add to other remarks on Gentilhommes and Brahms-Schoenberg, but I do have some thoughts on the Woetzel dance. Set to a group of short and unfamiliar piano pieces by Aaron Copland, it's obviously designed to show off the youthful energy of its cast. The first section, a densely modernist Passacaglia, consists mostly of a lot of grappling, as the men (dressed in black street clothes, like a posse of downtown performance artists) manipulate the women (in hot-colored leotards) through a lot of awkward postures. The sprightlier sections (with titles like "Down a Country Lane, "Jazzy," and "Midday Thoughts") give the dancers lots of flashy and playful moments, more than a little reminiscent of Jerome Robbins. The 8 dancers bring a lot of energy, conviction, and style to the piece. Giovanni Villalobos was especially impressive with his grasp of the power of simplicity, but his colleagues all danced with great panache: Jessica Flynn, Adrian Danchig-Waring, Alan Peiffer, Elysia Lichtine, Austin Laurent, Melissa Capellan, and Sterling Hyltin. These are dancers any choreographer would be pleased to see in his studio!

A brief note on worskhop performances, at least as far as SAB is concerned. When I first started to attend such performances some 20 years ago, the performance regularly included a dance featuring young students and another featuring intermediate students and the press was actively discouraged from attending. The writers who attended on an expense account rarely identified dancers by name. In recent years, however, the workshops have featured only students in the graduating division -- young dancers who have already signed contracts with professional companies or will do so within a few months. They deserve to be measured by professional standards, and they do measure up. The School now routinely holds complimentary tickets for critics, and reviews appear in all media that cover dance. Negative comments are rare, but performance standards are extremely high. Sometimes the repertory is ill-chosen for young dancers (last year's Danses Concertantes is a prime example), and I agree that everyone should cut the students a lot of slack in such cases. Also, I think we can all overlook occasional signs of "performance anxiety" -- the expressions of consternation that occasionally accompany complex partnering maoeuvers, for instance -- since they have little effect on the overall performance. In short, I agree that we should not expect a teen-ager to dance like Danilova and should never tell a dancer at this level that his or her career is over before it's begun. At the same time, however, I don't think it's unfair to expect dancing of the highest standard from students at one of the world's most selective and prestigious dance academies.

Paul Parish raises in interesting point here, in the matter of the Paul Taylor company. There has historically been little variation among the men, owing largely to the nature of the choreography. When it comes, for instance, to the famous quartet in Cloven Kingdom, no 98-pound weaklings need apply. Robert Kahn, a slightly-built Taylor dancer of the early '80s, retired on doctors' orders after too few seasons, when the strain got to his back. When it comes to the women, however, there has always been a wide variety, which can be traced to the fact that his is a small company (16 dancers in all, as I recall), and the women's roles tend to be customized to individual talents. So he always needs a tall and imposing "Bette de Jong," a short and ethereal "Carolyn Adams," and so forth. Given the fact that it often takes a few seasons for a new dancer to make an established role his or hers, the company suffers in times of high turnover and blossoms in times (like the past few seasons) when stability and experience dominate. Indeed, during this spring's season, I was quite willing to consign my memories to the scrapbook and cheer the brilliant dancers on stage.

Paul Parish raises in interesting point here, in the matter of the Paul Taylor company. There has historically been little variation among the men, owing largely to the nature of the choreography. When it comes, for instance, to the famous quartet in Cloven Kingdom, no 98-pound weaklings need apply. Robert Kahn, a slightly-built Taylor dancer of the early '80s, retired on doctors' orders after too few seasons, when the strain got to his back. When it comes to the women, however, there has always been a wide variety, which can be traced to the fact that his is a small company (16 dancers in all, as I recall), and the women's roles tend to be customized to individual talents. So he always needs a tall and imposing "Bette de Jong," a short and ethereal "Carolyn Adams," and so forth. Given the fact that it often takes a few seasons for a new dancer to make an established role his or hers, the company suffers in times of high turnover and blossoms in times (like the past few seasons) when stability and experience dominate. Indeed, during this spring's season, I was quite willing to consign my memories to the scrapbook and cheer the brilliant dancers on stage.

I hate to be grumpy, but I find the question itself offensive. As chance would have it, Pavlova is the only dancer on the list I have not seen at some point or another. On the other hand I've seen Farrell dozens of times. How do I compare a dancer I have seen only once -- when, for instance, she might have had the flu -- with one I saw over several years? How do I compare a ballerina I saw at age 12 with dancers I saw as an adult? And what about other brilliant stars: Makarova, Hayden, MacBride, and on and on and on And how, pray to tell, am I to judge a dancer I never saw? As the most appropriate smiley would have it :confused:

This idea may not fit your budget, but my mother, a dancer, was especially fond of pins on dance themes: toe-shoe pins, ballerina pins (her favorite wore a sterling silver long tutu trimmed with tiny pearls), even bird pins (she had several swans, a pair of doves, and an owl I brouhgt her from Poland). If it's beautiful in its own right and suggests that she is as strong, gorgeous, and graceful as she hopes to be, she will love it.

While Balanchine called his work "Symphony in C" when he staged it for his own company in 1950 -- a title used ever since by those who stage it under the aegis of the Balanchine Trust -- it was titled "Le Palais de Cristal" at its premier at the Paris Opera Ballet in 1947. A few years ago, POB staged it here in New York, using the original title (as they always have) and claiming they had the authentic version. While the difference in costumes is well documented (different colors for each movement, as opposed to the uniform white used in New York), the differences in choreography looked more like lapses in memory than reconsiderations by the master himself. Myself, I call the ballet "Bottled Sunshine," since it inevitably leaves audiences in an exuberantly cheerful mood. It's also worth noting that the score, which has long since entered the standard orchestral repertory, was largely unknown until Balanchine found the manuscript, which Bizet had submitted (at age 18) as his entry in the Prix de Rome. Hope this information is helpful!

Well, FF, as you and I both know, the arrival of student dormitories for SAB and Julliard (and, most likely, for other dance academies) has reduced the occasions in which dancers come to stay with, shall we say, "civilians," for purely economic reasons. Like you, I think this is a loss, for both the community at large (which could gain a better appreciation of what it takes to make great art) and for the young artists, who lose some of their already limited (they work at the very time their contemporaries are free) contact with the "real" world. To be sure, dancers face less restrictive attitudes today than in the past -- marriage to an "outsider" or even childbirth no longer lead to dismisal from a prestigious roster. But a chance to "spread the gospel" should not be wasted.

Like you, I agree that Kowroski -- slender, blond, long-limbed and enormously flexible -- is the company's obvious heir to the title "Archetypal Balanchine Ballerina." The most encouraging news I've read in the media, however, is that her head is not turned by all this attention. A daughter of Detroit, she has a down-to-earth midwestern attitude. If she approaches each new part with the same sense of mortality, she will only grow as an artist. But I will still applaud! MN

Alexandra has highlighted a key point: as the pool of talent grows larger and the number of top-rank schools increases, the tendency toward a "standard style" becomes more widespread. The results for dance are mixed: performances at regional companies have risen to new highs, but the New York companies still lack major creative forces. So we get nothing but new (and sometime arbitrary) versions of the classics.

Alexandra has highlighted a key point: as the pool of talent grows larger and the number of top-rank schools increases, the tendency toward a "standard style" becomes more widespread. The results for dance are mixed: performances at regional companies have risen to new highs, but the New York companies still lack major creative forces. So we get nothing but new (and sometime arbitrary) versions of the classics.

With dancers, age has obvious significance, since time takes a physical toll. With choreographers, it's different, since many influnces shape their work. With Balanchine, for instance, there is an obvious, even embarrassing (PAMTGG!), drought after Farrell left his company. But he recovered, even before his muse returned, with the Stravinsky Festival. Paul Taylor hit a similar dry spell when the AIDS epidemic decimated his company. The loss of Christopher Gillis, whom he saw as his successor, was particularly difficult. (All this from the film Dancemaker, by the way.) He also regained his creativity, though it's worth noting that he began using explicitly gay themes in his work: the "I Can Dream, Can't I?" section of Company B, for one example, and Piazzola Caldera for another. In short, "problems" for choreographers are more likely to derive from external emotional problems than the simple process of aging.

Alas, I missed Helene's farewell, but I have followed her career with interest and enjoyed many of her performances. I can't help noticing how many of the observations in this string mirror those of her mentor, Maria Tallchief. Strong but not quite perfect technique, a persuasive but not always dominant stage presence, yet nonetheless, an undeniable star quality -- Helene was a Tallchief for the '80s and '90s. I'm also impressed with her extraordinary endowment of common sense. She once told an interviewer that she peaked the year Balanchine died, when the company was pre-occupied with other needs, so she did not regret her long-delayed promotion to Principal. She wanted a family, so she took time off to have kids -- even though "maternity leave" was a very new idea for dance companies at the time. And she chose to quit at (or at least very near) the top of her game, the most difficult of all choices for a dancer. I wish her and her family nothing but the best!

Thank you very much, Calliope, for the quote from Helene. She has always struck me as a dancer with a very realistic sense of how she is perceived, from Balanchine's insistence on calling her "the little Hawaiian girl" [she is, of course, of Greek ancestry] to her explanation in an interview (which I can't track down) that her promotion to Principal was delayed several years by Balanchine's death, since the company had more important things to worry about. She also took two years off to have a child -- a move few dancers would have considered when she first came on the scene. I'm sorry that other obligations kept me from her farewell Saturday night. I applaud in absentia. As for other stars who have overstayed their welcome, Nureyev was clearly a disaster (a rocket transformed into a marshmallow), Watts was on and off (throughout her career, at least in my experience), and Ashley was always dependable, at Lord knows what cost in pain. Then there was Makarova, who insisted on doing too many Swan Lakes. She had the technique and the style to sell the White pas de deux, but the Black requires those 36 fouettes, well beyond her endurance quotient. So she simply entered three measures late (a minor trial for the audience), performed 24 fouettes (albeit a bit sloppily), ended on the music, and got an ovation. No wonder some fans chant the count out loud. Still and all, absent gross physical problems (like Farrell or Villella), it's really hard to make a decision, especially for men and women who have devoted their lives, from early adolescence, to dance. Ashley and Makarova had the advantage of husbands outside the dance world (the former is married to a UN interpreter, the latter to an international lawyer). Less celebrated dancers are doing well, too. Delia Peters, who pursued a law degree in her off hours from the NYCB corps, is today a successful entertaiment lawyer. Carole Divet, once a featured member of the NYCB crops, has proved her skill as a costume designer. And this is only the beginning. I hear that the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle even offers its dancers courses in "what to do next." There's no easy way, buy surely we can spare 40-something dancers the necessity of making fools of themselves to pay the rent.

Thank you very much, Calliope, for the quote from Helene. She has always struck me as a dancer with a very realistic sense of how she is perceived, from Balanchine's insistence on calling her "the little Hawaiian girl" [she is, of course, of Greek ancestry] to her explanation in an interview (which I can't track down) that her promotion to Principal was delayed several years by Balanchine's death, since the company had more important things to worry about. She also took two years off to have a child -- a move few dancers would have considered when she first came on the scene. I'm sorry that other obligations kept me from her farewell Saturday night. I applaud in absentia. As for other stars who have overstayed their welcome, Nureyev was clearly a disaster (a rocket transformed into a marshmallow), Watts was on and off (throughout her career, at least in my experience), and Ashley was always dependable, at Lord knows what cost in pain. Then there was Makarova, who insisted on doing too many Swan Lakes. She had the technique and the style to sell the White pas de deux, but the Black requires those 36 fouettes, well beyond her endurance quotient. So she simply entered three measures late (a minor trial for the audience), performed 24 fouettes (albeit a bit sloppily), ended on the music, and got an ovation. No wonder some fans chant the count out loud. Still and all, absent gross physical problems (like Farrell or Villella), it's really hard to make a decision, especially for men and women who have devoted their lives, from early adolescence, to dance. Ashley and Makarova had the advantage of husbands outside the dance world (the former is married to a UN interpreter, the latter to an international lawyer). Less celebrated dancers are doing well, too. Delia Peters, who pursued a law degree in her off hours from the NYCB corps, is today a successful entertaiment lawyer. Carole Divet, once a featured member of the NYCB crops, has proved her skill as a costume designer. And this is only the beginning. I hear that the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle even offers its dancers courses in "what to do next." There's no easy way, buy surely we can spare 40-something dancers the necessity of making fools of themselves to pay the rent.

A few messages back, Ari raised an important point: in the dance boom of the late '60s and early '70s, a million flowers bloomed in New York. For those of us who came of age in that period, the posiblities of choreography, in all its many styles and manifestations, blew us away. And when tickets went for $5 or $6 a pop, we got to see a lot of dance. Personal failings were not very important if the performance stretched our ideas of dance. Today, with tickets running $30 or $50 a pop, I am much more selective. Similarly with books. Kirkland chose to betray confidences and compromise friendships in order to maximize her profits. I've never read her book, I have no plans to do so (the reviews were more than enough) and I have lost all respect for her. Talent excuses neither crude vegeance nor criminal excess.