pherank

Things are obviously in a state of flux at ENB, so a good time to make a change.

Well that's an interesting idea. It's about time the POB performed something, anything, on the West Coast. Even if it's in a reduced form.

I always assumed that was the situation. Normally the dancer would be promoted the following season once the new budget was worked out. Unfortunately for Sasha, the pandemic hit, and then she got injured. And normal went away.

Here's a celebratory posting from Sasha Mukhamedov - she's back on stage, dancing In The Night with Tiit Helimets (nice photos too): https://www.instagram.com/p/CaAYV1RpDe0/

Thanks for posting this, Quiggin. RIP Ms. Vitti.

I really hope Sasha is fully healed and ready to dance again. Toi toi toi.

We'll just have to hope it's nothing worse than a sprain or shin splints. Otherwise...

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Interesting. I suppose it is the right time for Sisk and O'Connell to make the change - they've been at Ballet West for a long while. Has it really been 10 years since Breaking Pointe aired? Yikes!

Great to hear that Wei Wang is developing his partnering skills, and Powell and Thatcher are looking good. Lorena Feijoo was small, but I think Dores André is even smaller (with normally proportioned limbs), so I'm not sure there's any way for her to appear "outsized" on stage. She has the endurance of the Energizer Bunny though. I like her expressive looks - and she injects humor where it is needed. I have the same reaction to Forsythe as you express here - his music choices are invariably the weak point of his ballets. I've found that his dances can be quite enjoyable with the sound off. 😉 In fact, that is a good yardstick for choreography - if it holds up to viewing without a sound track then there's real depth and consistent interest to the choreography. I have to wonder if in 60 years anyone is going to regard Forsythe's pieces as "classic" when the music is so of its time, but essentially unimportant and often grating or distracting. Side note: if Covid is here to stay, then I would suspect that N95 mask development would improve considerably in terms of fit and comfort, and at some point, someone's going to develop an effective "transparent" mask that allows the face to be seen. It's just a matter of developing the technology (in the same way that computers, mobile phones, automobiles, etc. have developed over the years).

Soon to be released: Lynn Garafola's book on Bronislava Nijinska. Here's the Fjord Review article: The Eternal Struggles of Bronislava Nijinska Lynn Garafola on her new book, La Nijinska: Choreographer of the Modern https://fjordreview.com/the-eternal-struggles-of-bronislava-nijinska/ "What is it like to write about a choreographer whose work has mostly disappeared, and which you have to discover through descriptions and programs and correspondence and photos. How did you conjure her ballets in your mind? There were various sources that were important to me: One was the reviews. In some you really get a sense of the affect, the emotion, the musicality. I kept trying to find dancers’ words and recollections. Sometimes that came through oral histories, sometimes through memoirs."

Unless they've changed things, I've never had any issue accessing the website articles - they do ask that you register with a name and password to continue accessing articles. Their "Digital" subscription supposedly consists of "access to premium content, unlimited access to archived content, podcasts, and our weekly newsletter", but I've read lots of things without it.

Unfortunately, a typical problem with SFB. Often emails are sent out to a certain group of people, but many others don't receive the message. Please post your performance reactions, California!

For KN95 masks I can recommend the FDA approved Powecom brand sold only through this US distributor: https://bonafidemasks.com/Powecom-kn-95/?ranMID=46357&ranEAID=2116208&ranSiteID=TnL5HPStwNw-uWEvD537mcDq_keNemJHLA&utm_source=Rakuten&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=[publisher_value] And a good American company to know about would be Armbrust - they've been making Level 3 surgical masks for a while, offering 3rd-party N95 masks as well, but are now about to offer their own N95 mask: https://www.armbrustusa.com/products/product-reservations?variant=39657723035781 Armbrust is known for posting endless mask test videos on YouTube - at one point they had tested every available mask on Amazon to find out their actual capabilities. They offer a mask sampler for anyone wanting to know what the various types feel like. Though currently out of stock, I also recommend the "Armbrust Ear Savers" - they keep the KN95 and surgical mask straps from making your ears sore. Video: Armbrust Surgical Mask Vs Armbrust N95 Mask https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEZRgqHK878

You're talking specifically about new choreography but I was actually referring to Miliosr's comment about whether or not companies like the Harkness Ballet and SFB could be considered "meaningful". There's a lot more to this than choreography, and I don't see these companies as being mere experiments. Sorry for the confusion. EDIT: New work can be described as an experiment I suppose, but that's just creation. It doesn't have to fall under the rubric of experimentation necessarily.

If the artists and staff had memorable and fulfilling careers, and their audiences were engaged and had good memories of attending the ballet, yes, of course it had meaning, and was 'meaningful' in their lives. "So, did the art form benefit from these failed experiments or not?" First of all, they weren't 'experiments' - it was just the business of creating a performance art known as ballet (or contemporary dance when that was more of the case) on a daily basis. Even the smallest companies rely upon new works/new choreography to flesh out their offerings each season. That's how young choreographers get started and the dancers love to be created on. But the 'benefit' is in the practice of the art form and all the relationships created in the process of working together - it's a rich experience for the practitioners. And plainly, the art form changes constantly with each generation's contributions. Whether an audience member appreciates the developments is another matter. I'm wondering what possible benefit there could be to telling aspiring ballet dancers (or choreographers) that if they don't produce lasting new repertory or perform canonic works to a high standard (whose standard?) that their time will have been wasted. Sorry, that's no way to learn about and practice an art form. Just ask someone who has finished the performance part of their career - ask Vanessa Zahorian if she experienced any benefit to the art form in her years at SFB. She would likely find it a bizarre question.

"If you can count on one hand the number of commissions that have gained a permanent toehold in repertory, then the 195 number becomes a meaningless statistic" Not meaningless: The creation and performance of new works is the living practice of the art form - it's not some kind of unfortunate aberration. Of the thousands of paintings appearing in fine art galleries around the world each year, how many will be considered master works and gain any notice over the years? Music and book releases are no different. What percentage of films released each year are 'box office' hits, and what do box office and streaming receipts have to do with the art of cinema? Dancers dance, choreographers create dances. As long as they're able to keep working, we have an art form - even with no audience. The economics of ballet are not the artistic aspect of ballet. We can point out that there are only a few 'hits' or iconic works that survive over the decades/centuries, but that is only a portion of what transpires in ballet.

Even so, I'm always happy to watch the Olympics.

Some interesting quotes from Roslyn Sulcas' New York Times article, San Francisco Ballet Appoints Tamara Rojo to Artistic Director: "Since Tomasson’s arrival in 1985, the company has commissioned around 195 new ballets, and established an international reputation for stylistic versatility and technical aplomb." “Helgi brought exquisite taste, an adventurous spirit, a willingness to take risks and an ability to solve problems of all kinds, to San Francisco Ballet,” said Sunnie Evers, the co-chair with Fran Streets of the search committee, and the co-chair of the company’s board. “Finding someone to fill his shoes was a daunting prospect.” 'Evers said that the committee had been committed to a global search that was “inclusive in terms of ethnicity and gender, and people who weren’t necessarily standard candidates.” Over 200 candidates were contacted when they began the process in February, she said, with the list narrowed to eight by July. “We had three people of color and three women in that round,” she said. “There is a lot of talk about ballet being dominated by white men, so I am thrilled we were not.”' "...Tomasson will program the 2022-23 season, including a festival of new choreography" >> That's more information on the hiring process than I've seen from SFB, that's for sure. 195 new ballets is, well, impressive. I had no idea it was that many - even given the number of years Tomasson was A.D. I'd love to know more about that global search. Sounds like they did the necessary hard work. It's just interesting that Tomasson is actually the one slated to program the 2023 season ( I guess I thought there would be more of a shared input). I wonder if that means it may be a while before there is any real change in the artist ranks? And from Margaret Fuhrer's recent Do Men Still Rule Ballet? Let Us Count the Ways article: "On Jan. 11, San Francisco Ballet named Tamara Rojo — the international star who has commissioned more than 40 works by women during her decade leading English National Ballet — its new artistic director." >> 40 new works by women is impressive.

NY Times article: Do Men Still Rule Ballet? Let Us Count the Ways. By Margaret Fuhrer Jan. 21, 2022 Elizabeth B. Yntema’s Dance Data Project has been using a steady drumbeat of numbers to push the ballet world to action on gender equality. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/21/arts/dance/gender-gap-ballet.html?

"The grass is always greener on the other side"

If you think about it, to produce principal-level talent out of a school takes years to see any results. Even if the first Level 3 class had, say, 3 principal-level talents in their ranks, it would take close to 15 years for those dancers to end up as principals. So it would take decades to yield any consistency. That's why I hope the gains made are not squandered.

Then it wasn't just me seeing these things. But I don't want to get into an ABT-bashing - when it should really be about NYCB-bashing. Kidding! Just kidding. This pandemic makes it harder for me to look on the bright side of things, but I have to hope that Rojo has SFB's best interests at heart and isn't just on an ego trip. It may be a glorious new era, or, it may just be different from the last period.

It's very much my perception of the situation from afar. I agree that ABT has been changing over the last few years - and hopefully for the better. But none of the changes seemed to come easily. I'm not sure why the ballet world seems to rely upon public controversy and a cause célèbre to force improvements in the culture, but I suppose that's just people (and perhaps just a little too much 'tradition').

Yes, but as you say, these are recent changes (after years of complaints from the audience I might add). I was just speaking generally about the ABT approach to hiring principals and soloists over the last 30 - 40 years. Dancers coming up through the school never had any kind of precedence that I noticed. But you may know different. It always seemed liked the ABT school dancers were simply used to fill up the Corps, and if they were lucky, might be promoted to soloist after 15 years - I'm kind of exaggerating, but that's what it felt like. 😉