Michael

TV and Movies would be my main explanation. They are probably also why live theater is very much in decline, except for Tourists going to Blockbuster revivals of Famous Repertory, or of Andrew Lloyd Webber. The thing here, Dido, is that in this area "explanations" are always just guesswork. There's no way you can really know any of this. There really can't be any solid explanation. The facts just are what they are. Regarding the old tours, I have always loved the idea of Alexandra Danilova appearing in High School gymnasiums, if not chicken barns, from the Dakotas to Idaho.

Second Thought -- There is no particular reason why a composer today needs to limit herself or himself to contemporary materials for inspiration. There is an incredible wealth of raw musical material out there for composition and variation upon -- it's all open to being exploited. But it's curious how little interest there is in doing that. (I love John Adams and Phillip Glass -- but the dance potential of this material is quite limited -- a basic oscillating step and variations thereupon; Wheeldon has shown more intuition in using Ligeti and Part, but Ligeti in particular is quite limited in what you might call by analogy his "palate"). But back to Farrell Fan's topic: Ballet Music should be dance music, wherever and however you may find it. It doesn't have to be consciously composed for dance -- but it certainly helps when it is, if the composer is gifted in that direction. Look at some of what Paul Taylor has choreographed to.

Too bad there aren't more composers today who compose specifically for Dance. Particularly in an unpretentious sort of way. There are commissions, sure, which have tended to be highly ambitious and pretentious. But it's rare to see a contemporary composer publish a group of dances just out of love for the form -- Come to think of it, however, the use of folk or national dances for form, or melodic, or rhythmic inspiration is pretty much dead because those genres, those animals as it were are pretty much dead. Pop music has pretty much killed off everything else. Free associating, but you could make a similar argument for what's killed the genre of "Song" apart from pop.

I Vespri was performed by NY's Metropolitan Opera last fall and the Ballet music was cut, badly maiming the Opera. The stage design here left no room for dance, and little room even for dramatic action of any kind. It was a huge staircase descending from stage rear to stage front which cut the room available to what was left in front of the stairs. The director then used the staircase to arrange the singers in static groups above and below each other. There was also room at the sides for little soliloquies. Opera and Ballet were joined at the hip in the 19th century. In Copenhagen I understand Ballets and Operas even shared the same theater for an evening's programming as late as the 1950s. Ballets should not be cut out of operas. Opera stagings are so damned dull here anyway, you would think they would take what they could get in terms of spicing things up.

Of what I've seen recently, Brahms Schoenberg, Third Movement. The girls all kneeling in deep backbends either way, on a diagonal, then the lines move straight up and down stage, the principals come up between. The music then is the re-entry of the Tonic theme in a slow Polonaise. The corps work there gives you the chills. If I'm not mistaken Brahms is the first work made for the larger NY State Theater stage, after the company left City Center. The sudden expansiveness for the corps de ballet shows this.

Well, you know Ansanelli is rather a unique Ballerina. The body is most unclassical. In fact it's an extremly difficult body. Particularly the frequently locked up and twisted back. The lack of turnout one can live with. There are many un-turned out dancers who are great. But the random stiffness in her back is something else. And the history of weakness in her feet although she's somewhat overcome this in the last few years. All the same, Ansanelli has always had to "fake it" a little physically in her dancing. She does it every time out. She has to, given how awkward the basic physique is. And she will continue to have to do this at moments. But what has been so amazing and lovely has been precisely to see her transcend these same physical limitations. She throws herself so violently at those limitiations in her dancing, she is extremely difficult to partner, the way she throws herself around. She attacks the limits and finds a way for her to do it. I've seen her do some great things that way. Her first Allegro Brilliante two years ago for example was one of the finest Allegros I've ever seen. She is also an amazingly charismatic dancer. She is hungry and open for and to the audience. Wherever you may be sitting in the theater, she seems to find you individually with her eyes. She can break your heart. She believes in herself as this rare creature, the Prima Ballerina, and ultimately, because of that, you believe in her as that. If she lands with a company dancing evening length story ballets I think she will be very well suited to it. Drama is what Alexandra is best at. She will deliver the goods and please the crowds as Giselle, Kitri, etc. That audience is not too discerning anyway about whether the Italian Fouettes are strong or whether the upper body is delivering a karate chop during Odile's black swan finale. If you seem to do the 32, and throw yourself at them with passion, you get the flowers thrown at you. I really cannot see her going to another Balanchine based company on the other hand. She has already pushed that envelope. She might as well have stayed where she was.

What did they do for an orchestra? Was the music live?

Rockwell's review was an abuse of his power. He appears to have an agenda somewhat like a fan at the moment. He comes to ballet inexperienced and it's interesting to see him respond to things like the Bournonville Festival or more recently to La Vishneyva in what was evidently his first big foot-stomping, flower-throwing Giselle experience. But one expects a lot more form the New York Times than that. My son the Politics Major could now be their diplomatic reporter? Zacharova was a wonderful Kitri last night (Thursday). She handled the demi character stuff very very well, dancing through it rather modestly (twelve noon extensions notwithstanding, she always does that) but with great energy and joy (that was what projected) and adopting comic timing a la Ananiashvilli. In a lot of ways, Nina appears to be her model right now, Zacharova is an unexpectedly strong actress/dramatic Ballerina. And of course, she's dancing Nina's role with Nina's company. And Ananiashvilli is a great comedienne.

I don't know why I forgot to mention the Bolshoi Orchestra. They were glorious and made Minkus sound almost like Delibes. One Evgeny Gurev on the Cornet (who was mentioned in the program), and another unnamed player on the Trumpet, were so perfectly bright and sustained, in tune and in key, in the Cornet solo and elsewhere, at the top of all of the orchestral chords, that it was probably the best I have ever heard Orchestral Brass.

The look of the company "as a company" is very positive. In training and physique they do seem to be the product of the same academy. The connection between the corps de ballet, the soloists and principals is organic and that is NOT something I've observed recently on that same Met stage. (In fact I would say the opposite -- that there is no organic connection whatsoever at ABT between the corps and the soloists and the principals, or between any of the members of the company, even between the corps members as individuals, and each other). But back to the Bolshoi Wednesday night. The ensemble dancing, particularly among the women, was the most consistently positive thing about the performance. I'm very happy to have seen this. The smaller ensembles -- Kitri's friends (Stebletsova and Rebetskaya) in Act I; the variation dancers in the Grand Pas (Osipova and Kobakhidze -- the latter in particular is stunning); and the groups of three and four dryads in the Act II Dream were among the best seen all year in NY. Ditto for the large Spanish dances for the massed corps de ballet. That is where you see the company as a whole and that is where their strength lies. The girls corps de ballet is exquisite: as a group they are beautifully pulled up yet relaxed in the upper body, well matched with each other, and nicely, indeed very nicely musical in their seemingly unified, joyous, relaxed response to the music. Also a good big jump throughout. Among the girls it's a company of jumpers, in fact. The big jump also goes for Shipulina, last night's Kirti. Just don't look at her feet. (Do look, on the other hand, at the lovely unfolding and easy developee, the big lush poses, and the flexible back). In fact, with a lot of the women at the soloist level, try not to look at their feet. The Bolshoi has always had the reputation that Turn Out doesn't matter and that doesn't seem to have changed. The big exception last night was Maria Allash as the Dryad Queen, who does close fifth position. Or pretty much closes it. With Allash fifth is sort of "four/fifths" but at least consistently so. Allash is a big, strong and lyrical girl and a very good one. The individual performance to write home about, however, was Nina Kaptsova's as Cupid. This was quite amazing. Beautiful little runs on point, soft and sensitive with her feet, effortless and right on the musical timing. She has the coy look, the slight physique -- you won't see a better Cupid. A final word about the boys. As a group the legs appear long, meaning the body is slightly longer below the waste than above it and the physical development is not overmuscled. The men appear boyish, elegant, and slender. It is not an effeminate type but it is also not a type that reflects training with weights. The line is refined and somewhat Baroque. The look gives a nice long stretch into fourth position at the finish of phrases, and the footwork among the boys was consistently neat, clear and again musical. The old Bolshoi bravura strength, and sex appeal, on the other hand, are somewhat absent.

I thought Brahms-Schoenberg was wonderful, the best thing I saw all Spring. What a gorgeous Ballet it is. Ringer/Fayette were unforgetable in 2d movement, Maria and Askegaard in the Rondo. The corps work, particularly in 3d movement, is some of the very best in all of Balanchine, 3d movement almost stands on its own. The part where the tonic theme re-enters in 3d movement as a very slow polonaise and the corps is en diagonal, the girls kneeling with deep backbends to either side, was stunning. Also, Megan Fairchild and De Luz in Baiser.

Chris d'Amboise's ballet is an especially good Workshop piece both for its choreographic virtues and because it has so many good roles for both the boys and the girls. (Katrina Killian assisted in choreographing and setting this). The ballet is called "Tribute". In the afternoon, Jenelle Manzi (a mere 16 years old) and Devin Alberda (a mature 18, what?) had the most prominent roles among the girls and the boys respectively in this, although there were so many fine performances it seems almost a shame to single any one out. Brittany Pollack, Gretchen Smith, Leah O'Conner, Robert Fairchild, Andrew Scordato and Max van der Sterre, among others, had other prominent roles in the d'Amboise. Again in the afternoon, in Western Symphony, some of the same kids danced principal roles, to which we must add Kathryn Morgan (2d Movement paired with Mssr. Alberda), and Jan Burkhard and Masahiro Suehara (3d Movement). Maira Barrigo and Ralph Ippolito danced the Rondo and a fine Rondo it was. In Western, it was particularly good to see the 3d Movement (scherzo) restored to the Ballet for these workshop performances. You don't often see it. The company hasn't performed Western with the 3d Movement in it for over ten years or more, although the 3d Movement dancers appear for the finale at NYCB without having danced the movement itself. The fact that Western is a closer and the wish to avoid overtime may be the reason it's usually omitted? If so, that's lame. This is a very promising group of dancers.

Kate thanks so much -- This Board is an unbelievable experience when one can instantly get a response and information like that, out of cyberspace as it were. I never expected such a wonderful insight informed by first hand viewing of both the original Fonteyn and the current revival. Gillian Murphy, last night's Sylvia, is also the Amazonian type -- Thus her first dance with the attendants was her strength but a struggle ensued with much of what followed and due precisely to the need to "open up the seams" in the choreography which you mention. Perfect description. Regarding the two act vs. three act thing -- The only intermission in the current ABT edition occurs at the end of the opening scene in the Sacred Wood, that is, after Eros has revived Aminta and sent him off to look for Sylvia. The later change of scene between Orion's Cave and the Temple of Diana occurred during a mere orchestral pause -- the curtain dropped and the orchestra played the most heavenly few minutes of transitional music -- it was completely transporting, the use of the orchestra for dramatic transition was Wagnerian in the sense of being the kind of theatrical cover used during both Tannhauser and the Ring -- and then curtain came back up in the Diana's Temple scenery for the divertissements, the Grand PDD and the concluding action.

Helene there was much much more positive than ruinous in this, it was a marvelous night at the Theater, one of the ones one lives for. (How's that for ones?). Live works are always imperfect in some way and a big production like this one can very forgiving. I should also have mentioned how very good Marcelo Gomes was as Orion, very fluid and strong he is right now, their faith in him over there is being grandly repaid, even if he does play Evil Nasty characters (from this to Raymonda to Swan Lake) a bit in a "Snidely Whiplash" fashion. Which after all is not inappropriate in what was originally an over-the-top 19th century work. Gomes is having a splendid season.

The first night was very good tonight. The score alone is to die for and ABT's orchestra played it sublimely. Ashton has a great gift for the theater -- It's more than choreography, it's theatricality and staging as a whole. He loves to base stagings on Baroque Tableaux and this one could have been based on Veronese. Of course the company struggled with the production in many respects. Primarily the corps de ballet at ABT is a mess right now, a giant mess. Any time someone complains that Peter is starving his girls across the plaza, they ought to come see this -- evidently this is the alternative. They've also had huge turnover over the past few years and you can't absorb losses like Sean Stewart and Ricardo Torres steadily without it showing. But all in all the company brought great heart and soul to this evening and it showed. That includes Gillian Murphy and Max Beloserkofsky -- It was not a natural role for her but she danced her soul out in it and one appreciated it so much -- extremely and sincerely dramatic and giving herself to the audience direclty in a way I've never seen before from her. Also, Monique Meunier replaced Veronika Part as Terpsichore and danced just beautifully. Seeing the title role makes one appreciate how incredible a dancer Fonteyn must have been in 1952. It must be a sort of shadow image of her. No one today, I think (except perhaps Ileana Cojucaru?) could master the repeated extremely quick shifts of weight from over one leg to over the other, the again extremely fast and seamless changes of position and pose, as well as the extraordinary range of the role, from big dramatic jumps, to petit allegro to pas d'action which simply cannot be classified. It is wonderful that this has been restored to the repertory of Ballet in general writ large.

Bobbi -- I totally agree. Last night was the best of all five performances of Jewels in the Winter AND the Spring. The corps de ballet was great in Rubies. Rubies is a great corps role because each of the girls has a lot of room to move -- the space of a demi soloist for each of them – and because they are partnered. There are four boys and eight girls so each girl gets partnered by turns. The choreography mirrors and simplifies the motifs danced by both of the principal girls: first the circular sinuous phrase of Miranda’s (jazzy action from leg to leg and arm to arm) and then the big partnered extensions of Reichlen. ( Balanchine’s method of composition in all his work is consistently to explore and repeat phrases from one dancer and group of dancers to the next, changing the emphasis and the context of the particular phrases). Everyone was superb in this. Did you see in particular how striking Genevieve Labean looked when presented by her partner – the huge spacious and sensual extensions in arabesque and even bigger stretchs into allongee? Genevieve is coming back very strong from last Winter’s absence but it requires something like this to show an aspect of her you might not otherwise see – Gosh does she benefit from space on the stage and from from partnering to show the big extension and the arabesque. Also notice Jamie Wolf who has become in a way a 2d generation Elizabeth Walker in her meaning and importance to the company, the way she secures each performance and anchors the corps de ballet in literally everything night after night. She does everything so well, there appears to be nothing Jamie cannot dance. She and Ana Sophia Scheller danced both Emeralds and Rubies last night. And yeah, it will be something to see Bouder go into the first role in Emeralds next week. It’s particularly good because it’s such a lyrical role and there was a time when I thought Ashley wouldn’t be cast in anything that didn’t have hops on point. Very very good that they are exploring this other very powerful aspect of her dancing.

Thursday -- Harlequinade and Suite # 3 What a difference 24 hours made -- Both Harlequinade and Suite #3/Theme looked perfectly wonderful Thurday evening. Harlequinade, which has been very well coached (Mikhail Baryshnikov's work with the company on this last week shows) had the Ben Millepied and Alexandra Ansanelli cast. Both of whom were dramatically restrained (a good thing) and technically sharp. Adam Hendrickson and Amanda Edge were Pierrot and Pierette and in many ways I even preferred them to Fairchild et al. -- if only to see more of both of them. Both are particularly strong dramatic and comic dancers, use their faces well and mime clearly. But what really made the production was how sharp, clean, technically beautiful and appealing the entire ensemble was, particularly the girls in black (Korbes, Krohn, Beskow and Muller) and the Birds in Act II (Scheller, Wolf, Labean, Keenan, etc.). When something has been brilliantly rehearsed, it certainly shows. Although the Ballabile des Enfants does get a little tedious for me. In Suite # 3, Sofiane Sylve has restored Theme to the repertory quite nicely. The entire Suite was very sharp and satisfying.

Allegro not Brilliant Wednesday Night: For the record, Allegro looked awful on Wednesday night, like a dress rehearsal and not even a good one. The piece was leaden and slow and lacking in spirit. It was anything but Brilliant and pretty much anything but Allegro. It did not help that the orchestra played the worst I've heard them in a couple of years and that is saying something. Just before, and then just after the curtain went up, the piano and the rest of the orchestra did not seem even to be playing the same musical score. Or in the same key. Some hugely sour chords in the horns then intervened. It was like a parody. Then there was the principal couple. I don't know if it was the bad music or what that discouraged Jenny Ringer, although she did dance cleanly. But nothing could leaven this loaf. Nilas Martins was a huge distraction -- looking as bad in this as he looked good in Apollo on Saturday (and he looked good indeed on Saturday afternoon, it was as well as I've ever seen him dance Apollo). Allegro evidently has different requirements. Nilas is not at all the type and the role emphasized and exposed how short legged he is, that he is a little heavy, and that at times his dancing can seem laborious. In Allegro you want someone who can stretch into a long and noble Bolshoi-like line, a Heroic presence. You want someone who can elevate and cover ground in the turning jetees jumped to the rear. Someone who shows some plastique at the moments when the dancer is in the air and his body turns in attitude and stretches back with one arm upraised. That is not Nilas. It would be distressing to think that there is no one in the company who could dance this role but him. However, we know this to be untrue. Philip Neal was certainly in the theater and capable, we saw him in Musagete later in the evening. In keeping with the orchestra and the principals, the small corps de ballet -- four girls and four boys -- was also all over the map. Enough said.

I think you guys are somewhat missing the point. Gottlieb's article was a review of the Gala program. It was very particular and specific about that but interpolated some more general observations. It was only when the subject became transposed to this Thread, that the general observations became the "Topic" -- and you can't fault Gottlieb for our over emphasis on one or two of his peripheral comments. As a matter of fact Oberon, if you reread Gottlieb's actual review of the Gala program, you will find that you and he pretty much agree about that evening. About 75% I'd say, which is a pretty high overlap. For my part, I'd observe that if you think Theme and Allegro look their best at the moment, as good as they ever have, then we just have a disagreement as to our assessments -- and people will disagree. No one flogging a dead horse on my end.

Well, honoring anything with rehearsal does not seem to be a very strong point at City Ballet right at the moment. Gottlieb is right that the new works have received all the attention -- also Harlequinade and Union Jack have, thank God for small favors, been carefully prepared. But everything else, which does include large chunks of the Balanchine rep, is just being thrown on the stage with the no maintenance at all, or with the lowest possible maintenance. Where a Ballet was performed last Winter, such as for example Theme, the last D.C. cast takes the stage with a minimum of tweaking. (It looks like 4Ts and Glass Pieces are about to be cast the same way). And since the company did not look very good in D.C., and there has been almost no rehearsal of this material since then, it looks even worse now. And when something is revived, as with Allegro Brilliant tonight, it looks as if the first performance IS the dress rehearsal. (Seriously, how could you cast Nilas Martins as the cavalier in Allegro if you were serious about making this ballet look its best?).

The issue with La Cour's promotion does not really concern La Cour's worthiness as such. He is extremely promising, in his appearance, size and his temperament he represents a noble type of dancer currently rare in the company, and he appears to have the chops to be a soloist. This last point may be a little ticklish right now, though, because as cast so far we've not really seen him dance many Balanchine or Russo-Petipa type variations. So we'll have to see on that point. (Note that the company even has some principal boys who can partner but who can't really dance a gut wrenching Don Q type variation cleanly). The issue that I do sense concerns not him alone, but the failure to promote some of his other worthy contemporaries. There are at least four to six boys in the company who have emerged in the last year whose claims for promotion, based upon talent and chops and type, were as strong as La Cour's. I would mention Sean Suozzi and Seth Orza as two, and indeed both of them appear technically superior, as far as variation dancing is concerned right now and that is one of the things I think you would look for in a "soloist". The message you thus send when you promote Ask but no one else, is that they lack an essential virtue. Being born in Copenhagen and having Nilas for a brother.

Well in particular the arabesque was much more dramatic, deep and stretched last night than it was in, say, Beauty last year -- also the camber of her back in arabesque (very full and dramatic now) as well as the use of her eyes and the placement of her neck and the presentation of her face when being presented by her partner in these poses. And continuing to think about it, as one does after a performance, I think the fact that one cannot remember many "steps" in the Evans, that I was so struck by the "seamlessness" of it, is due to Evans choreography as much as anything. There was a fair amount of arabesque for Bouder but other than that I don't remember him using a lot of big "show and stop" poses -- preferring instead to keep his dancers moving, in particular with a lot of flow in the upper body. (Beautiful arms to a lot of what Ashley did). This ability of Evans to do this in a formalistic dance -- that is, to so incorporate the academic vocabulary into his choreography that you don't stop to notice any of the steps -- is analogous in my mind to how brilliantly Ashton did the same thing to the academic vocabulary in his pas d'action. One of the wonderful things about Ashton being to my eyes how everything in his dramatic ballets is so perfectly classical and yet the action is conveyed by incorporating those steps into pure dramatic gesture. Thus Cinderella is on her knees in Act I before her late mother's portrait and suddenly rises on point to reach up to it, for example. It's a relevee, a simple classical step. Yet the gesture purely expresses her reverence to her mother's portrait and that's what registers, not the "step." The vocabulary becomes dramatic gesture. Something similar was accomplished by Evans in his piece, but doing the same kind of thing for pure formalism.

Just back from the Gala. I've been very quiet this Spring so some quick notes to get this started. Selective notes, as I've no thought and no capability to sum up everything in a very long evening. (In particular I hope someone else will write about the new Martins, which does have a magnificent role for Sofiane Sylve). Instread, I'll confine myself to -- First, Ashley Bouder in Albert Evans' new short Ballet: I'm so glad they put Evans' piece on the program because it was quite extraordinary, especially Ashley Bouder. Watching her tonight, Ashley seemed to me to have grown as much as a dancer between this past February, when she was made a principal dancer, to this evening (three months later), as she did from this time last year to this past February. Unbelievable how this girl just keeps on becoming so much more than one could have ever imagined, even at points when one already thought she was quite amazing. Until tonight what she did really seemed beyond technique to me. You just threw all thoughts of "steps" and "positions" and "poses" away, turned off your mind, had no consideration for "how it's done," because her formidable technique had reached the point where it was now just a means of expression. One just entered into the moment with her and accompanied her wherever it was and that was it. This girl is the real thing. You are lucky if this comes along once in a generation. And surely Albert Evans deserves tremendous praise for choreography which is capable of being embodied in this manner. Choreography is not rocket science. Yes, it seems arcane to us who have not grown up in the school of classical dance. But I'm nonetheless convinced that any kid who has spent twenty years on a daily basis steeped in the dance d'ecole -- and surely practically any member of a company like NYCB -- could, if given the chance, set classical steps to a musical score like this one in a manner which would at least look professional on a given evening. What one looks for instead on a stage like that of the State Theater is something more, something much more -- a special feeling for this particular music and these dancers, and a special embodiment of expression in response to both of them which goes beyond mere craft and becomes something fully determined, original and beautiful. And Albert Evans gave us this tonight, along with Bouder and Steven Hanna and one can only thank them for it. The New Wheeldon: Chris Wheeldon's "An American in Paris" was the last ballet presented. It was admittedly a very long evening and I might well change my opinion were I to see this again. (Though nothing I saw tonight made me want to see it again). But I must say I have never seen a more top heavy work: a work with less real content and which depends more on its costumes and sets and lighting to entertain, and less on what I would call the substance of its dancing. The central role, that of the eponymous "American", was not delineated at all. Damien Woetzel was charming but there was absolutely no content or character to him. He brushes at a canvas backdrop with a brush. (Apparently he's a painter, duh). He dances with Jenny Ringer. He dances with somewhat more animation with a rather brilliant and jazzy Carla Korbes. He sinks on his knees. A series of cutsey vignettes stream past. Voila tout. The material for Ringer was particularly thin. Wheeldon, who summoned so much from Alexandra Ansanelli and from himself in "Carousel"; and from Jock and Wendy and himself in everything he's done for them; and from himself and Jock and Miranda Weese in "Shambards", etc., seems for once utterly to have failed to have gotten under the skin of a dancer. Jenny Ringer looks to be in very good dancing shape to be sure -- but the role looked awkward and dead and she was given nearly nothing to do. Look romantic. Look happy. Swoon a bit. Voila tout. As I said, the dance for Korbes was just the opposite. But it was quite short and incapable of carrying the entire Ballet. Though after this I don't see how Carla can remain anything less than a Soloist. Oh yes, I did love Seth Orza as Lance Armstrong bicycling across the stage. And some of the other Susan Stroman-esque vignettes were charming. But that did not and does not justify all of this. Take the costumes and lights away from Midsummer Night's Dream and you still have a great Ballet. Take the costumes, sets and lights away from this and you have very little residue indeed, perhaps even a negative quantity. (And a great deal of debt -- who in the hell paid for this and how much did it cost?). Millepied: Finally I rather liked Ben Millepied's ballet, particularly what he did for Maria Kowroski in the girl's principal role -- a straight and serious dramatic dance, quite responsive to the music, and one to which Maria responded with gravity and emotional depth. My first impulse, when the curtain rose, was that I did not know that Kenny G played the violin. The violinist (quite good) then turned out to be named Timothy Fain.

This is not the kind of subject that admits of a definitive answer. The pleasure has got to be in the discussion -- which supposes that we will patiently listen to what other people have to say. When it is reduced to people vehemently contradicting what other people say and little more, there is little pleasure in it. And little to be gained by reading it. That's not to say that thoughtful points aren't occasionally being made by you NYCDog -- What I object to has to do with your tone and with what I perceive as your lack of patience. You are the one who proposed this topic. Surely you did so because you wanted to discuss it with other people and not solely to challenge everyone into the ring and then to knock them on the head. If it's the former, it's a great topic. If it's the latter, I really don't think that is right.

You know, I think there is something to this -- I agree that you have to seek an historical, rather than a rational or a psychological, explanation for this fact. That said, let's back up for a second. Is the alleged "fact" really true? We don't have a "Royal" or a "National" Ballet or Theater company. But both the City and the State of New York contribute to NYCB's budget and possibly to ABT as well. And as for an alleged lack of public support for the arts in general, it's possible that a great deal of public money goes to the various arts in this country, but that it's incredibly fragmented in where and for what it goes, tracking somewhat the rather fragmented and local structures of our government.