ABT Fan

On 10/16/2020 at 9:36 PM, nanushka said:

Love her dancing. So upset by her abrupt departure. But “Principal Dancer”? Seriously? Principal of what?

Not a good look.

Lane’s IG now says just “Dancer”.

11 hours ago, nanushka said:

Love her dancing. So upset by her abrupt departure. But “Principal Dancer”? Seriously? Principal of what?

Not a good look.

I’ve seen other dancers put a similar or exact same title on their IG that aren’t associated with or employed by one company who do mainly freelance. Lane was a principal dancer with one company until very recently and has guested with other companies, even earlier this year pre-covid in lead roles, i.e. a principal dancer role. So, I can understand her listing her title that way. If she does any guesting, once that is allowed, I imagine she’d only do a lead role. IG titles or job descriptions are to tell the world “My skill set is this”. If a company needs a Giselle, they want a principal dancer not just a “ballet dancer” or “former dancer” or whatever. Not saying a ballet company  will only hire her or any other dancer for a principal job/role if their IG title says “principal” but this is about advertising yourself.
 

So I don’t think it looks bad. I think it’s sad, like all of whatever happened (including how McKenzie treated her throughout her entire career) that caused her departure but bottom line that she can no longer list “with ABT”.

13 minutes ago, Syzygy said:

Not surprising, but Sarah Lane's Instagram bio now reads "Principal Dancer" rather than "Principal Dancer @abtofficial." 

😭

Thanks for posting that video, syzygy. 

I don’t understand why they hired her - were they expecting her to starve herself to fit their mold? Or, did they think that once she started dancing professionally again the weight would just come off despite her health issues. Regardless it seems like it was handled very, very poorly. 
 

I feel terribly for her. 

1 minute ago, nanushka said:

Maybe I’m suffering from COVID brain and have forgotten, but what is the evidence that the latter has occurred?

I was wondering the same thing. Just because she wasn’t cast as the Rose? Which I thought odd as well, and I was dismayed by it, but I didn’t necessarily think it meant Lane and Ratmansky had a falling out. Others thought that since she wasn’t cast as a lead in his new full length meant something too, but other favorites of his like Boylston weren’t cast either.

25 minutes ago, FauxPas said:

Perhaps because the Fall 2020 ABT season was canceled, Sarah has been given enough months of lead time per the union contract before the next ABT season?  If Sarah Lane is being notified now that her contract is not being renewed as a principal dancer, she has a certain number of months to look for another job.  It is still a not nice way of going about things but that is show biz.

 

But if she was just notified now that this was her last year going into next year, she would still be listed on the roster. 

40 minutes ago, fondoffouettes said:

Sarah Lane's bio page is still up on the ABT site. If that gets taken down then it will be pretty clear it's not a glitch.

https://www.abt.org/people/sarah-lane/

The odds of having a voluntary retirement at ABT are so slim. 

If you manually type in a past dancers bio page, it will sometimes come up anyway. Alban still comes up and so does Roberto Bolle. So I don’t take this as a sign that Lane is still in the company and it’s just some type of glitch that she’s gone from the roster.

Edited to add: I know we’ve discussed contracts many times on this site. Per union rules, I believe others have said that a dancer would have to be notified months in advance if their contract wasn’t going to be renewed. So, if that’s what happened to Lane, she’d have to have known for awhile, perhaps why she was given so few performances for what may have been her last Met season (and a Juliet debut as a good bye gift). 
 

I do feel bad for Hoven as well. Never thought he was up for a promotion now as he’s been overlooked the past year for debuts, which I don’t understand. Last year’s Met season he had a ton of roles, and I saw many of them; he performed all of them beautifully. 
 

The next principal will be Hurlin. None of the other soloists I feel will make it.

I see the next crop of soloists as possibly Coker (she’s a given), McBride, Granlund, maybe Lall, Gonzalez, Klein, maybe Pogossian. 

I’m completely shocked.

For one, that they had promotions at all now. Very happy for all of them, especially Forster who has waited the longest for roles and recognition.
 

Secondly, I don’t even know what to think about Lane. I’m devastated that she’s gone. I wasn’t expecting that despite how awful she’s been treated. Since there was no announcement regarding her, it’s obviously not a retirement. She may well have left on her own after the abysmal casting she got for this past Met season and last fall. I’m so utterly sad that like Lena it’s hard for me to be happy for the others. It’s interesting that her husband is still listed on the roster.

I would love to hear anyone’s report on the performance.

16 hours ago, California said:

If you were looking for another incentive to donate to ABT's Crisis Relief fund, here it is, just announced: Donors will get access next week to a tape of the 2007 filming of ABT’s production of Manon . . . with Alessandra Ferri and Roberto Bolle, along with Herman Cornejo as Manon’s brother Lescaut, and Gillian Murphy as Lescaut’s Mistress.

If we’re looking for another reason to be upset and baffled by ABT’s lack of streaming/video offerings, this is it. They have a tape of *this cast* in *Manon* and it’s only being offered to donors?! And, why have they been sitting on this for 13 years, or have it I missed it somewhere (unlikely)?? 
 

ABT: put this video, and any others you’re letting collect dust, up on your website or your YouTube page, available to ALL.

7 hours ago, laurel said:

So sad, another ABT soloist retiring without much fanfare or farewell.  Scott was one of those dancers we never seemed to see dance often enough, but when he did get the chance he was completely invested in the performance.  Best of luck to him in his future endeavors.

Agree. I still remember how clean and crisp his technique was in Seven Sonatas. 

I can’t help but wonder who may have been promoted to fill these spots if the season had gone forward. 

Well the only dancers who were promoted two years ago were Hurlin, Fang and K Williams, all to soloist. So unless he really meant three years ago, he’s not talking about Royal.

I don’t think this is the way to go with him calling out ABT on his IG. And, he also exposed his friend’s conversation with management. I bet the dancers in the company can easily figure out which of the three he’s referring to. 

Amazing. Yuriko has a similar technique to Brandt in that they can do unbelievably difficult steps while showing virtually no effort or strain. 

I decided I had to post this. I’ve never seen anything like it and as a former dancer I can’t figure out how this is possible. Imagine if she’d be allowed to do this at The Met (in any role). The audience would blow the roof off.

Hallberg isn’t retiring till next summer (even though he takes up his AD role at the Australian Ballet sooner, I believe) so he should be dancing a lead. I imagine he’ll do Albrecht or Romeo with Osipova as his final show. Hammoudi could also do a character role as a farewell (Tybalt); that’s mostly all he was doing anyway in the last season or two.

3 hours ago, California said:

I've been wondering, for all of these retiring principals: they won't be able to stay in shape for a major role in spring 2021, but I wonder if they could return for a cameo role (the mother or queen in something?) and then get the applause/flowers/partners at the end. Why not? Our world is upside-down and a little more innovation next spring would be welcome!

That’s a great idea. If I remember correctly, Abrera’s Lady Capulet was one of the best there was. Besides Georgina Parkinson. I would love it if they did something like this.

13 minutes ago, nanushka said:

So lovely to see all the tributes on social media today from many of Abrera's colleagues. She clearly has very warm relationships with many of them.

Agree. It still kills me that I (we) won’t be able to give her a proper farewell and see her dance one last time. I’m glad she’s happy that DC turned out to be her last show (according to her recent NY Times interview) but I feel robbed. We all know that ballet is a short, difficult career, but hers has felt especially cruel. In the end, she more than deserved a final performance at The Met in front of her adoring peers and fans and to bow one last time to thunderous applause.

4 hours ago, California said:

Dance Theatre of Harlem has announced a digital season, with their Creole Giselle this Saturday, June 6:

https://www.dancetheatreofharlem.org/dthondemandvirtualballetseries/

Oh yay! Thank you for posting. I watched their Creole Giselle on tape I don’t know how many times as a dance student. I can’t wait to watch it again.

13 minutes ago, sz said:

I have not seen any mention of Sarah Lane's Juliet that was to be her ABT debut on May 28....

They only seem to be focusing on the soloists who are “rising stars “. They haven’t included Forster in any of the debuts deferred series either, maybe that is forthcoming, but out of the entire company he had the most debuts scheduled.

Cate Hurlin has posted on her IG clips of her and Bell dancing Bayadere and of the Gamzatti solo. Those are worth checking out.

Abrera gave a recent interview to DanceMagazine about her retirement, and it sounds like she won’t get a rescheduled farewell. Maybe I’m reading into it, but if her farewell was going to happen at some point (but when?) I’d think she’d mention it. 
 

https://www.dancemagazine.com/stella-abrera-2646009112.html?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3

Yikes. Well, I’m glad I didn’t miss anything. I was a bit tempted to tune in but I had other things going on. This is the time for them to get their act together, now of all times. It doesn’t sound promising. I also feel bad for the dancers for so many reasons. Artistically, critical time is being lost during a very short career and financially I wonder how they’ll survive. 

3 hours ago, abatt said:

How sad.  Will we ever get to give Stella the send off she deserves?

This was to be the year of Tom Forster.  How much longer will he have to wait for those opportunities.

I wonder if they’d do Giselle in the fall, which would give her her proper farewell. I kinda doubt they’d do any classics at the Koch though, but maybe they’ll consider this.

Agree about Forster. I’m most upset over his lost opportunities. I think his promotion this summer was a given.

All around sad. I also can’t imagine a summer without the ballet. Hopefully, the dancers (and other staff, musicians, etc) were all able to file for unemployment back when the tours were canceled.

OMG, so adorable! Love the little mohawk.

25 minutes ago, Leah said:

They updated again at 5, still no change. They were probably as you say caught off guard. NYCB has made no changes either. There’s been an overall failure of communication in this crisis - yesterday, when the Met cancelled their season the person at the box office I called had absolutely no idea.

Many of the dancers are not even in New York at the moment. I don’t see how they could even get to NYC for rehearsals. 

I’m trying to cut them some slack. The government and CDC updates are coming fast and furious leaving businesses little time to figure things out. I’m sure everyone is more than aware that if they had to cancel the Met season it would be catastrophic financially and artistically for the company, especially after canceling all of their tours, so no doubt they’d want to do whatever they can to save it or at least a portion of it. And, no final farewell performance for Abrera? I’m trying not to go there yet.
 

As of right this second, flights are still happening, not to say flying is the wise thing to do. I have a friend who is a flight attendant and as of yesterday flights were about half full. I thought it would have been a lot less. 

48 minutes ago, Leah said:

ABT apparently updated its Coronavirus page at 4:30pm today and it still says the season will start May 11. 

They may have been caught off guard by this fast changing situation or are trying to figure out Plan E. I highly doubt at this point they’ll open May 11. Maybe they’ll do a reduced season. But, obviously if the dancers can’t rehearse soon enough that won’t happen either. And, taking class in their kitchens won’t keep them in performance shape. It’s an awful situation all around, for everyone.