pherank

Sunday morning barre

That's right! A man coaching the women is interesting in itself. I noticed that Guerin was immediately off to another part of the country to set another ballet - ah, the life of a repetiteur. If one loves to travel, and stay in motels/hotels, it might be OK.

Great report, Quinten - thanks for making the effort, and the trip. ;) I'm forgetting - who was it that coached The Cage at SFB?

Congratulations to Wang, Weeks and Freemantle. I've been expecting the Weeks promotion. I still have my reservations about Wang's partnering in traditional ballets. Obviously Tomasson seems to think he is ready now. I hope that turns out to be true - at least there is still lots of time for cross-training and coaching before SFB is likely to perform another classical ballet.

It seems hard to believe, but Sylve was never able to dance in The Cage at NYCB - she rehearsed for it years ago, but the opportunity never came. I'm not surprised that her initial take on "the queen" would be Myrtha-like. It takes time to settle into a role and make something unique out of it.

Ouch. ;) There's a website that acts as an archive of Rock music criticism, for example: https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Writer/lester-bangs/ Unfortunately, it's insanely expensive. Apparently there are public libraries that belong to this 'service', so that would be the way to get access.

Kochetkova and Morse.

The company would have to have enough dancers of different heights/physiques to be able to pull that off. With most regional companies, the principals are just who they are, and when the program calls for The Four Temperaments, or Agon, then the usual principals are still going to have to make it work. Only NYCB has the size and depth, and endless young dancers waiting for their chance, to be able to think about how a dancer's physique fits a role (or not). But that approach is problematic since it means dancers aren't allowed to take on a role because they supposedly aren't tall enough, or whatever. Sara Mearns would never have gotten to perform as Carabosse or dance in a Martha Graham ballet if she were always cast to her 'type'. It has to be uncomfortable for any dancer when someone else decides what their type is.

Aside from the "Tall Girl" in Rubies, I can't say I've noticed NYCB or other companies insisting on a certain height for any Balanchine roles.

I think someone mentioned that Ashley said she was 5'7.5" (stated in her biography), so it always depends on who a dancer is standing beside. ;) Her limbs are quite long, but that didn't seem to slow her down any. She must have a lot of "fast twitch" muscle tissue (like a sprinter).

Thanks for the report, mrstrong_ballet - it's good to hear other voices. Van Patten is as focused and strong as ever - I think many women would like to know her secret. ;)

Insect girls looking for a cage: I think this would have been the 3/22/18 performance. Novice: Yuan Yuan Tan 2nd Intruder: Luke Ingham Queen: Jennifer Stahl

Thanks for finding those links, sf_herminator.

Somewhat related to this topic - I have come across a website listing (and discussing) Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Worst Reviews Of All Time. I find the information to be really, really funny - as long as one doesn't take the review statements too personally. At the beginning of the list the author (username Schmidtt) states his/her classifications (but the individual reviews mentioned don't really seem to have been labeled in any way). "What do I mean by the "worst" reviews? The reviews generally break down into four categories: (1) Poorly Written Reviews: Self-explanatory. Most of these were written in the magazine's infancy, when no one knew what the hell they were doing. (2) Curmudgeonly Reviews: Reviews that are unduly harsh or dismissive, or offer a specious critique of a band. In many cases the artist that is the target of the curmudgeon's wrath is inventing a new genre, which confuses the critic, causing him (or her, though as we shall see, this was, by and large, a man's man's man's man's world) to lash out with sarcasm and invective. In other instances, the curmudgeon has a personal ax to grind, and is lambasting an album for reasons that are completely tangential to the music itself. Almost all of Dave Marsh's reviews fall under #2. Many of Christian Hoard's do too (when he is not writing anti-reviews). Jon Landau was a curmudgeon until he stopped caring and became a hack. (3) Hack Reviews: Terrible albums, generally by established artists (and/or personal friends of Jann Wenner), that were reviewed favorably by RS. In many cases I honestly doubt that the critic genuinely holds the opinions articulated in these reviews. Anthony DeCurtis, David Fricke and Rob Sheffield are clearly the biggest and worst hacks. J.D. Considine really straddles both #2 and #3. Chuck Eddy possibly belongs here as well, but some of his reviews are so bizarre and off-base that I'm tempted to put him in a fifth category all his own. (4) Anti-Reviews: A review that hedges, describing an album without ever really offering an opinion about it, usually in one hundred words or less. Invariably an anti-review awards an album three stars. Most reviews in today's Rolling Stone by new artists or indie bands fall into this category. Christian Hoard, and virtually every other critic currently working for RS, has embraced this flaccid style." So, what's in the list? Many, many now iconic Pop/Rock albums. There are an awful lot of reviews that simply trash the albums and rubbish the musicians, but some of them are "favorable" reviews, they just happen to be so useless to the reader that I suppose they belong in category (1) "Poorly Written" or (4) "Anti-Reviews". Among the records receiving mixed or bad reviews are various Joni Mitchell albums, the Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers and Exiles on Mainstreet, Beatles' Abbey Road, Simon and Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence, all Led Zeppelin albums, Jimi Hendrix albums, Cat Stevens, various early Neil Young albums, etc.

There's a rather immense discussion about this over here (I'm not even sure where it started in that thread).

I hear you - there are no guarantees for the performing arts. An expanding budget can become a contracting budget within a year. Atlanta Ballet needs a "buzz" about the company to really grow. What you post may well help - it certainly won't hurt.

RB may well grow into the ballet and make it their own (we have to hope). Since the ballet was created on those SFB casts, they should look good. ;) At least Wheeldon may be around to set the ballet - does anyone know if that is the case? I'm with you there. I'm so glad SFB's Myles Thatched was mentored by Ratmansky - getting a very different perspective on how to approach choreography is invaluable for a young person. That's interesting news - it seemed like the original costumes were well received. But they weren't 'classic', so I guess that invites other designers to try for something better.

If it matters, here is a review of opening night (I think), and it basically echos what has been said here on the forum: http://www.danceinforma.com/2018/03/18/atlanta-ballets-black-swan-shows-a-company-on-the-cusp-of-a-new-generation/ I was just looking at the dancer page on the Atlanta Ballet website, and, wow! the dancers are coming from many different countries. That's one SFB tradition that Nedvigin is carrying forward.

Great report, Drew. It's worth posting these descriptions and musings since they 'mark history' and give our unreliable memories something to refer back to in later years. So, does the one act Swan Lake seem to hold up on its own? Or do you feel there are too many missing elements and unexplained happenings?

We'd love to hear what you thought of Sylve and Masha, and the other performances. ;) Kochetkova debuts in The Cage (as the Novice): Isabelle Guerin who is coaching Robbins for SFB posted this picture of the Fancy Free set: Dores André photo of Fancy Free rehearsal:

Los Angeles has a really odd relationship to ballet - a not particularly good one. I suppose Hollywood is largely to blame for that. Many people have dreamed of creating a world-class ballet company in LA, and those plans never pan out. Now Benjamin Millepied is trying a somewhat different tack... But the population of that metropolis is so huge that there will always be some audience for ballet.

Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour is probably the most popular choreographic piece he has set on SFB. It tends to be a good "closer" for a mixed-rep program. The group dance at the end is an "applause machine" as Mr. B. would have said. Within The Golden Hour PDD excerpt (Sarah Van Patten & Pierre-François Vilanoba) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XavL43C3RH4 EDIT: I just checked, and SFB brought Within The Golden Hour to London on their 2012 tour, so I assume that's where the RB got a good look at the ballet.

NYCB is not leaderless - they happen to have a team functioning in the various A.D. roles - which is testament to the fact that there's often too much for one person to do effectively. Just what defines a "leader" varies from one culture to another (and that goes for company cultures and local communities as well as broader national cultures). Cultures that think having a single dictatorial leader (with the first and last word on everything) is better than a team sharing responsibilities, don't really have proof of the 'betterness' of their situation. It's just what they are used to - and change is frightening (and apparently not worth thinking about or planning for). Will NYCB likely return to using a single A.D.? Probably, because that's what the company culture and audience culture are so used to. All the soul-searching and needed modifications coming from 'lessons learned' are likely to dissipate fairly quickly. I'm not hopeful yet that there will be permanent changes to how the board and staff go about business at NYCB or the Met.

Sad, but not too surprising. Major newspapers and journals tend to be more a part of the 'system' than representatives of the opposition. Any decent paper might feature opposing viewpoints in editorials, but they still reinforced the dominant culture at every opportunity.

From the NY Times: Remarkable Women We Overlooked in Our Obituaries Overlooked "Since 1851, obituaries in The New York Times have been dominated by white men. Now, we’re adding the stories of remarkable women." https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked.html The list is quite varied and interesting, from Chinese revolution Qiu Jin (who I mentioned in a different thread) to Margaret Abbott (first American female Olympic athlete).