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A Day in the Life of the Sugar Plum Fairy in San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker (with Jen Stahl) https://www.popsugar.com/fitness/What-Like-Ballerina-44447263?stream_view=1

This being National "the relatives are coming tonight for the holiday and there's so much left to do, and what are we going to do about dinner?" Day, I keep dashing to the computer to take my mind off of the horror of it all. What do people think they want to see Sheehan cast in? As Elizabeth in Frankenstein? The Cage?!!! (That would be a weird breakout role.)

Yes you are both right, my brain is just freezing up. That happens. Even so, I don't think we're going to see many soloist opportunities for her yet. Demi-soloist roles, yes. Tomasson has a whole bunch of young dancers to give opportunities to this year.

If it makes you feel any better - we also happen to be living in an era when people who have fallen from grace get to reinvent themselves and re-emerge after they've gone through the obligatory public disgrace and laid low for a while. If the person is talented enough, and iconic enough (and dutifully behave themselves), they will return.

Thanks for the report Terez! Norika Matsuyama as the Snow Queen is a pretty big deal for her - she did have an injury period that impeded her progress. I can guess that Tomasson wants to ease Sheehan into things - she still has many things to learn about, and this is her first year as a professional dancer. She's gotten a lot of publicity for someone who hasn't even danced a season with a professional company. ;) [ EDIT: my mistake, this will be her second season with the company ] If she paces herself, she can hopefully have a long, long career. When you mentioned Davit being replaced at the last minute, that made me sad - we didn't know it at the time, but he had developed an issue with his back that would rush him into an early retirement.

Yes, I understood that. ;)

To be fair, there have always been females who pursue, and are 'grabby'. Though it's been a much smaller percentage of females who've shown this kind of behavior. With males, aggressive traits have been encouraged for centuries.

The documentary about Gomes has recently been making the rounds. Madison Keesler of SFB recently posted a nice tribute to Gomes on Instagram: madisonkeesler • M a r c e l o . G o m e s • A few weeks ago @Marcelua came to San Francisco to present “Marcelo Gomes: Anatomy of a Male Ballet Dancer” as part of the @sfdancefilmfest. . The documentary about Marcelo, from David Barba and James Pellerito, presented this beautiful artist in such a wonderful way. I highly recommend it! . The first time I met Marcelo was during a summer program when I was only 13. Since then, I have been enamored with this incredible artist. Whenever our paths have crossed over the years, I am always blown away by how kind, humble, and passionate he is as both a dancer and as a person. I'm sure there are many, many people who are quite taken aback by this turn of events.

It was definitely fortuitous having Greco and Scheller hired during the same era. Lucky us. ;) I'm definitely interested in seeing how Scheller develops (or doesn't) under new tutelage. I can't help but wonder if she is relieved to be away from the Martins regime (though coincidentally that is all changing now anyway).

It sucks to be dead wood. ;) At least Balanchine still found ways to help people out later in life (as I mentioned earlier). Very few people were totally written off by him. Martins may be more inflexible in his thinking.

And of course there was the whole "baby ballerina" episode, and Balanchine telling Danilova she was "too old" to dance for him with the de Basil Ballet Russes (I sort of remember she was 26 or 27 then). That sort of set the precedent. Yes, Balanchine could be loyal to certain people but he was mercurial too. Then there are the people like Richard Thomas, his wife Barbara Fallis, and Paul Mejia (married to Suzanne Farrell) who all had fallen out with Mr. B, but Balanchine later helped them out - sending Mejia to choreograph for Tallchief at the Chicago Lyric Opera Ballet, and offering the old SAB classrooms to Thomas for his own school when NYCB moved to Lincoln Center.

My ears pricked up at Gottlieb's assertion that [around 52:50] "Balanchine was very loyal to his dancers". "He didn't say, OK she' no longer very good in this - out! I'm replacing her with this gorgeous twenty-year-old". Like most pronouncements about 'how Balanchine was' there are always examples of very different behavior and experiences. I happened to re-read a lot of the I Remember Balanchine reminiscences not long ago, and there are dancers like Barbara Walczak who received different treatment: "Finally he reached a point where there were many young dancers coming up, like Patty McBride, who had just joined the company, Suzanne Farrell at the School, and Mimi Paul. He really wanted to get rid of the older dancers. We could feel it. He really made it clear by simply taking all of my roles away…" [there's more on this on p.257] I don't recall the names, but a number of male dancers reached a point where Balanchine kept hinting that it was time for them to leave the company (he may have been harder on men that he found uninteresting than he was on women, but that's debatable). Gottlieb appears to argue for shorter careers for principals because they can't maintain the same performance level over the years - and that is plainly controversial. The discussion of extinct Balanchine ballets, favorite Balanchine finales, and 'dessert island' lists was interesting for me [1:07:32]. I agree with Gottlieb that different ballets and different works of art are going to be important to us at different stages of our own lives and learning. The focus changes over time.

Thanks for the heads up, Helene. It's always fun to hear about how NYCB people are first introduced to the company and what their early jobs were like. Is Gottlieb referring to the Bolshoi soloist Alena Kovaleva (Алёна Ковалёва) performing Diamonds?

Masha performs fouettés en dedans with music by Ivor Cutler (Flim Flam Flum) Most Americans won't know who Ivor Cutler was, unless they happened to watch The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour film (he played Buster Bloodvessel).

Great report. For better or worse, Nedvigin may be using The Nutcracker performances to work on partnering skills/issues. Learning the choreography in rehearsals is all well and good, but performing the dances and partnering well - in front of a large audience - is another level to attain. I look forward to your future reports, KWalsh.

Thanks, KWalsh - that's interesting to hear.

Great find, SF_Herminator. Wei Wang continues to develop as a dancer and an artist. I'd like to see Tiit Helimets mentor Wang in partnering and overall strength training - that's the next step. How did the performance look overall? Any particularly great (or shaky) moments for the soloists/Corps? Have you seen Scheller dance yet? Her pairing with Greco should be exciting.

Side note from Festival Ballet Theatre: festivalballettheatre - The Nutcracker THIS WEEKEND! You don’t have to travel to San Francisco to see stars from the San Francisco Ballet perform in The Nutcracker because Festival Ballet Theatre is proud to present not one, not two but three guest artists from the company. Vitor Luiz returns to the @theirvinebarclay to dance with Festival Ballet dancer @taraghassemieh15 on December 15 (7pm). He will also perform with fellow SF Ballet dancers on December 16 with Frances Chung @franadian and December 17 with Maria Kochetkova. Fran preparing before the show:

Wow! How could all those children possibly fit in that one school? ;)

Something posted today by Mathilde Froustey: "This job is hard but man, but I missed it so much. Tonight is my 1st show of the Grand Pas de Deux and i’m seriously freaked out but so happy to be w[here] I belong." And she got a reply form Aaron Robison (now at ENB). It's nice that he's still paying attention to what happens at SFB. aaronrobison86 Merde! lapetitefrench_❤️ I miss you @aaronrobison86 ! Toi, toi, toi Mathilde! And welcome back.

That's essentially how I took it - socio-political commentary. The opening paragraph suggests that Brown wasn't actually there in person for the premiere: "'Members of the creative team took the curtain calls at the great colonnaded theatre by the Kremlin wearing T-shirts with the face of Kirill Serebrennikov on them, while spectators chanted “Kirill! Kirill!”, according to news reports.'" According to news reports. I though it was interesting that a synopsis of the ballet was provided at the end - sans commentary. That would actually be useful in a true review. ;)

That's possible. I got the impression that the writer, Cynthia Bond Perry, was just expressing her support for McFall and the work he did for the company, as well as challenging Nedvigin to be as good or better - that seems fair to me. I just know it's going to take a while to get the company to the level that Nedvigin is looking for. And he's brand new to the A.D. game so he has plenty to learn too. The Facebook posting made me think that the dancers are lucky to work with an A.D. who is still dancing as well as ever. He can actually demonstrate everything fully, and not just motion with this hands. ;)

Erik Tomasson got back in touch with me regarding UNBOUND images: "Just wanted to let you know that I reached an agreement with the dancers for three of the Unbound images. They are currently for sale at my website (www.eriktomasson.com) for a limited time under the 'store' link at the top of the page. The prints are available for purchase until May 1st 2018." http://www.eriktomasson.com/store/ One size only for all prints. Please allow 1-2 weeks for delivery. Last day to order prints is May 1st 2018. FYI: I sent Erik Tomasson an email reply asking if there will be any other UNBOUND images made available - if so I'll update this information.

Erik Tomasson got back in touch with me regarding UNBOUND images: "Just wanted to let you know that I reached an agreement with the dancers for three of the Unbound images. They are currently for sale at my website (www.eriktomasson.com) for a limited time under the 'store' link at the top of the page. The prints are available for purchase until May 1st 2018." http://www.eriktomasson.com/store/ One size only for all prints. Please allow 1-2 weeks for delivery. Last day to order prints is May 1st 2018. FYI: I sent Erik Tomasson an email reply asking if there will be any other UNBOUND images made available - if so I'll update this information. [I'll post this information in the UNBOUND Festival thread too.]

Yes, Lee's passing came as a shock. May he rest in peace. It's hard to believe, but he was the first Asian American to hold the office of mayor in San Francisco - a city in which a full third of the population is of Asian ancestry.