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Adding to something I wrote earlier: Ana Sophia Scheller mentioned on Instagram that she has been taking classes with Magaly Suarez (Taras Domitro's mother) and Ibis Montoto in Florida. So there is once again a Cuban connection in all of this. SFB loses a number of Cuban dancers, but gains a principal with ties to Suarez and Domitros. I was on the English National Ballet website to check about Madison Keesler's rank at ENB - it was First Artist. That may sound pretty good but ENB has a fussy hierarchy of ranks: Lead Principals Principals First Soloists Soloists Junior Soloists First Artists Artists of the Company Guest Artists (Maria Kochetkova being one of them) Character Artists Is it just me or does this seem anal-retentive?

We have learned that soloist Francisco Mungamba is headed to Benjamin Millepied's L.A. Dance Project. An exciting change for Francisco - I wish him good fortune.

Best of luck to the dancers. Millepied has money for the company right now, so hopefully he can keep the ball rolling. Dancers in LA have as difficult a time making a living as dancers in SF - if Millepied can offer decent salaries for his artistic staff, then people will come.

I seriously hope Ulrich's review was not the only reason it was brought back. Does audience response count for nothing? I think it does given that Myles Thatcher's Ghost in the Machine was given the last open slot in the 2018 season - not Yuri's latest ballet or Arthur Pita's. (OK, the dancers likely had a lot of say in choosing Thatcher, but audience reviews were definitely favorable). It's interesting that Yuri has no ballets slated for next season. I know that I mentioned before that it would be 'gentlemanly' for him to step aside for the New Works Festival and let others have a chance. I wonder if he's scheduling more work for the Bolshoi, or where?

Millepied does say, "dancers who can do pointe work", but I suppose he may need partners for en pointe dancers too. I haven't heard anything more about what Francisco Mungamba and Anthony Vincent will do, so perhaps one of them? And Jordan Hammond and Lee Alex Meyer Lorey from the women? I kind of thought Meyer Lorey was leaving dance entirely to model. But who knows?

Some interesting comments by Benjamin Millepied in this article that may effect someone connected to SFB (but who?): I noticed on your site you have an audition call out for dancers who, if classically trained, can dance on pointe. I’m actually hiring many dancers this fall to complete the company, with dancers coming from ballet companies, actually — San Francisco Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet. We’re going to start to have dancers who can also do pointe work in the company. It doesn’t mean that everyone, every girl in the company, is on pointe, but having some dancers who are trained in pointe work allows me to have a larger repertory. I don’t want to reduce the potential works we can dance, basically. You’re working with Janie Taylor and Carla Korbes, two great ballet dancers who recently retired. I’m completely attracted to the idea of working with retired dancers; some dancers retire early and are in fantastic shape. Carla and Janie still have a lot to say and want to, and I’m happy to give them an outlet. http://www.vulture.com/2017/06/benjamin-millepied-on-why-hes-bored-with-ballet.html

Looks like an exhausting piece to dance, both for the principals and for the demi-soloist/Corps dancers who are mostly duplicating the movements of the leads. It's always nice to get to see Big Red dance an extended piece. I do get lost in the typical contemporary ballet puzzle of twists, turns and transformations - some of the movements are overt while others strike me as purely kinetic eye candy that does not telegraph any particular meaning, aside from "energy". But in that sense, the choreography fits fairly well with Richter's score - I always found that to be atmospheric and energetic, similar to incidental cinematic music. Richter dissolves most of Vivaldi's formal structures in favor of pure atmosphere and a reduced/compressed emotional range. Nice background music though for when one isn't feeling up to the challenges of Vivaldi's original score. ;) The beginning of the male dance section at about 28:40 was a low point for me - that needs some work. Once the women reappear the choreography becomes more involved and interesting though I can't say what any of it "means". The first part of the second half of the ballet [59:00] has a somewhat different choreographic look and feel from the first - less wannabe avant-garde and more playful and lyrical. But then we go back to moody experimentalism before finishing with a quiet scene on the "grass" where everything started. The premiere casting is interesting in that the "Corps" dancers are of fairly uniform build, average size, while Katya Kondaurova and Roman Belyakov have the more out-sized physiques. In these surroundings, it is readily apparent how unusually long-limbed she is, with Olympian shoulders, sort of a leaner Marie-Agnes Gillot. Both leads seem quite at home with the choreography. For me, Kondaurova was the first Mariinsky dancer "born" contemporary - there was never the sense that she had to get her head around contemporary roles and change everything about how she danced to make it work. She just understood, while everyone else looked like a 'dear caught in the headlights' dancing contemporary works. Things have obviously improved for the Mariinsky dancers, but really only in the last 3 or 4 years are we seeing things come together from Principals to Corps.

There is fairly complete footage of Chryst dancing the Chinese Conjuror role. I have to say that's one of my favorite characterizations in dance - surprising and freakish as a sideshow conjuror should be. Chryst is stupendous in that role. I don't find the rest of the choreography to be of the same level, but that's life.

I believe the archived video is now available both places (the Mariinsky.tv video is the embedded YouTube video). Anyway, very efficient service. ;) Note: the performance doesn't start until about 7:50 minutes in.

I think I see what you are referring to - when I click on your embedded video I first see this displayed: Live in 17 hours June 19, 7:00 PM GMT+3 Then it changes to: Live in 17 hours June 19, 9:00 AM 9:00am PST would be better for most people on the West Coast.

I've always wanted to see the Parade revival, but for that matter, I'd love to see someone like SFB take on Farrell's Gounod Symphony 'restoration'. Why should that project raise its head for a moment, and then sink back into oblivion? Farrell is not getting any younger - now is the time to transmit the ballet's roles to whomever.

Thanks for the heads up, Drew. Does anyone know what time of day this will air in US/Canada? Let me see: 9am GMT is 5am Eastern Daylight Time, and 2am Pacific Daylight Time? Probably not doable for me unless they archive the video on YouTube. I want to see Kondaurova dance, and I don't mind the Richter piece actually.

Something I just discovered - Jordan Nicole has left the SFB Corps to dance with her husband (and former SFB dancer) Raymond Tilton at Diablo Ballet: http://diabloballet.org/dancers/

Ah, the "wall walking". ;) That's where the audience gets to see various celebrities "drop" in" to utter some quip - much like the comedians popping in and out of the "Joke Wall" trapdoors on Laugh-In. I especially remember Sammy Davis Jr. popping his head out of a window as Batman and Robin crawled by. But didn't that routine pre-date Laugh-In? The two shows only overlapped for a couple of months. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE_CM3tvkys

The rules are different for academics, to be sure. I'm mildly interested to know if Dylan was very purposefully poking fun at "book reports" and literary lectures. But only mildly so. ;)

And was he intentionally making a dig at the academics? Will we ever know? Borrowing phrases that are of interest goes on all the time in Literature and songwriting (folk music especially is fond of recounting what's topical in the language of the people who are involved), but I tend to agree that it's important to give credit where credit is obviously due. Ezra Pound's Cantos are full of both translated quotes and direct references to other writings, and some of these are explicitly credited (in Pound's 'unique' way of incorporating the author/referent into the poem), but other's are a mystery (thus the need for books like, A Guide to the Cantos of Ezra Pound). The constant interweaving of quotes, bits of song, bits of dry history, and Pound's own musings are the point of the Cantos. And Eliot's The Wasteland (edited by Pound) was constructed with a great many "found" phrases and reworkings of lines from the Bible to Shakespeare, Milton, Verlaine, and on and on. The interweaving of all these elements was again, the point of it all. And Eliot was hoping that readers would be interested enough to dig deeper. I see Dylan doing much the same thing in so many of his songs - like it or not. Somehow, there remains this notion that any artwork that doesn't pretend (and it's always pretend) to be wholly original and seemingly beholden to nothing else in the universe, is secondary or just not very good. The Wasteland isn't very good because Eliot 'didn't make it all up himself'. But then again, he did make IT up - The Wasteland poem - and it is what it is. And just what is it? Well that's what we all get to talk about.

People have wondered about whether the SFB dancers will be ready for the 2018 New Works Festival - after a season of dancing. I've just be looking closely at the season dates, and I would say, yes, they will be both rested and rehearsed (provided no one has any major injuries). The last program to be danced by SFB dancers is likely to be Program 5, which ends on March 25th. Program 6 is danced by the National Ballet of Canada (Neumeier's Nijinsky) and that runs from April 3 to April 8th. Programs 7 and 8 (as they are listing the festival) don't begin until April 20th. So the dancers will have a 25 day period to finish rehearsals for the festival - with no other commitments. Seems doable, assuming that rehearsals begin for many of these new works anytime from July of this year to April 2018.

For all its kitschy, goofy aspect, Batman - and also Linda Carter's Wonder Woman - worked simply because Adam West (and Linda Carter) always played it straight. The super hero was never a tongue-in-cheek character in those days. Rest in peace, Adam.

I couldn't resist... Congratulations to Natasha on her graduation. How lucky you are to: 1) already know what you want to do after high school 2) already have the contract to begin DOING what you want to do after high school

What was surprising to me was the difficulty of the "swimming lesson" of Apollo and Terpsichore. Now it's obvious to me how difficult it is for the Apollo danseur to move his arms fully forward in coordination with Terpsichore's arm movements. Many danseurs just concentrate on balancing the ballerina because it's just too difficult to move the arms and make oneself a stable platform for Terpsichore. Ferrari and Ruanova (1951) perform this admirably. There are also comparison videos on the same YouTube channel for Square Dance (male solo), Rubies, and Theme and Variations (there are often multiple videos for each so look around). On a related note: there's video from the 2015 Vail Festival with Heather Watts & Damian Woetzel commenting and Tyler Peck and Herman Cornejo demonstrating. How nice is that? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh7LOUMt5Xs The Vail people have also provided many short clips of performances from the 2015 Balanchine Celebration at the festival.

More great information - I especially liked hearing something about Bugaku (which is rarely discussed), and Villella's experience with TV dance performances.

Claudia Bauer's summation of the roster changes (so far) on DanceTabs: http://dancetabs.com/2017/06/san-francisco-ballet-and-school-student-showcase-promotions-and-company-joiners/

A fairly interesting compilation of Apollo variations: [EDIT] Prologue Compilation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BQfEuKhcZA 1st Variation 1937 Christensen (Ballet Caravan, the predecessor of Ballet Society/NYCB) 1970s? Esquivel (BNC) 1987 Baryshnikov (ABT/NYCB) 2012 Chudin (Bolshoi) 2010s Finlay (NYCB) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXBdyM8Repc 2nd Variation pt. 1 1951 Ferrari 1963 d'Amboise 1970s? Esquivel (BNC) 1973 Nureyev 1987 Baryshnikov (ABT/NYCB) 1993 Nilas Martins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWUE7hNZpIE 2nd Variation pt. 2 1. Zelensky (Mariinsky) 0:05 2. Beloserkovsky (ABT) 2:47 3. Bolle (La Scala) 5:41 4. Chudin (Bolshoi) 8:33 5. Finlay (NYCB) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxZakh8DlkY The "Swimming Lesson" 1951 Ferrari/Ruanova 1960 d'Amboise/Adams (NYCB) 1968 Martins/Farrell (NYCB) 1987 Baryshnikov/Dunham (ABT/NYCB) 1991 Schaufuss/Seabra (Scala) 2000's Beloserkovsky/Dvorovenko (ABT) 2010? Ganio/Osta (POB) 2012 Chudin/Smirnova (BT) 2014 Parish/Shapran (MT) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax3MUmlShOA Coda 1951 Ferrari 1956 Ludlow 1963 d'Amboise 1970's Esquivel 1987 Baryshnikov 2009 Bolle 2012 Ganio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVXRMIc55_8

If anyone happened to watch the Moscow International Ballet Competition Opening Ceremony on Medici.tv (still available to watch for free), you would be treated to nothing but 'traditional ballet', expensive costume(!), and very predictable, tried and true(?) choreography, over and over again: Yuri Grigorovich / Marius Petipa / Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker August Bournonville / Filippo Taglioni / Herman Severin Løvenskiold, La Sylphide Marius Petipa / Cesare Pugni, Le Corsaire Agrippina Vaganova / Cesare Pugni, Esmeralda Yuri Grigorovich / Aram Ilitch Khatchatourian, Spartacus Marius Petipa / Yuri Grigorovich / Léon Minkus, La Bayadère Yuri Grigorovich / Vassili Vainonen / Dmitri Shostakovich, The Golden Age Kasian Goleysovsky / Valery Zhelobinsky, Don Quixote Alexander Gorsky / Peter Ludwig Hertel, La Fille mal gardée Yuri Grigorovich / Marius Petipa, Raymonda Mikhail Fokine / Camille Saint-Saëns, The Dying Swan Alexander Gorsky / Léon Minkus, Don Quixote If one wants to get a sense of where ballet is now, and where it is headed - best to keep searching - it won't be found at the Moscow International Competition.

Scheller and Taras Domitro dancing a Flames of Paris PDD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QifeMZteGoo This makes me wonder if Taras had something to do with her interest in SFB.