Michael

I think it's our culture that has changed and not the species of dancers we produce. The fact that we can't find indisputable "Ballerinas" today is a sign of the cultural marginalization of Ballet as a major art form in the popular imagination. Ballet in Ashton's day still carried great mainstream cultural weight and presige in general, and not just among the devoted in the artistic capitals, and a dancer like Dame Margot implicitly commanded a cultural stardom beyond anything the art form is capable of in the present environment. It's not just Ballerinas we don't have anymore, what about male dancers with a prestige and stardome like Nureyev's? I thus agree with Tobias that our inability to find a "Ballerina" is related to a cultural change but think she doesn't go far enough to explore the implications of this. If she did, though, she'd write an article more about culture than about dancers and that wouldn't make good reading. Also -- although this is just quibbling on my part -- she says a good deal of in my view inaccurate things about individual dancers. Miranda Weese is not burnt out. Briefly injured she may be, but there's no "burn out" here. Just see the British press's reviews of her in Edinburgh last summer, which were with only one exception raves. Weese in fact may be a perfect example of what's going on culturally -- She's amazing, but ballet in general is no longer glamorous enough for her status and skill to elevate her to cultural stardom nation-wide. Ballet dancers are not going to be household names anymore. Would that change if Ruth Page and ABT still toured the boonies (Alexandra Danilova in South Dakota)? The fact that this has also stopped is probably itself just another sign of the same times. Will the Royal Danish Ballet again play to packed houses in Detroit? (Nor is it true in my observation that Maria K doesn't know who she is on stage). [ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

What did you think of Tess Reichlen as Coffee (Arabian) at the Wednesday Matinee? Tall, with big extensions, she seemed interesting casting in the role. I've been sorry to miss her and Rebecca Krohn among the younger corps members who debuted in this this fall.

Yeah, she's great. Peter Boal's comment quoted in Vogue that Carla Korbes "dances with a beautiful soul" and that you can teach everything to a dancer except that, applies to Alexandra Ansanelli as well as it does to Carla. [ December 25, 2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

To you too. And I wonder what this Prince Grace Foundation Honor is that Jared Angle is listed in the program as having received. I remember Princess Grace awards generally in the past, but nothing specific before at NYCB. On the subject of Alexandra Ansanelli, I also wonder if anyone has been to see her matinee performances of Sugarplum, including today (Xmas Eve afternoon) and the New York City School matinee early in the season? I'm out of town but would love to have been able to go today. [ December 24, 2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Ulbricht will also find a lot to dance in the Peter Martins' repertory. He was cast last year in pieces like Fearful Symmetries and Harmonielehre. I can also see him doing Prodigal Son some day. He's immensely talented, a dancer of explosive force and power but one who is also surprisingly clean. Where other dancers tend to slur things together -- for example the pas de chats that the lead Candy Cane does (among other quick shifts) inside the hoop in Act II Nutcracker -- he always shows every position, no matter how brief the time available, as something distinct. I think him so talented in fact that he will crack the categories. (While I remain at the same time unsure if cracking the categories is entirely a good thing). [ December 24, 2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Who conducted - Quinn or Fiorato? Andrea Quinn's tempi are so quick that she's five or six minutes shorter in Act I than Hugo is, but I've come to prefer the quicker pace as the drama moves with more impact and the Act II divertiseements also seem to have more punch. What was the tradition in Ballanchine's day, faster or slower? Taylor also had trouble with Dewdrop at moments on Saturday afternoon. At one point, when she circled the stage with piquee turns before exiting, she got too deep in the rear of the stage and rammed hard into a bit of scenery (one of the candy cane side drops). She looked gorgeous in that costume, however. I've been thinking about Snow and how the first group of four women are the turners and the next group are the jumpers, flying across the stage in diagonals into big split jumps into the wings. Doing that, this dance almost resembles moments in Harold Lander's Etudes, except Snow has a reason to exist and a meaning dramatically which Etudes lacks, and which renders Snow transcendant. The brief comparison is entirely in favor of Snow. Like Act II of Giselle, or Kingdom of the Shades, or Act II of La Sylphide, or Act IV of Swan Lake, Snow is where the Women's corps gets to express and portray a romantic, ethereal, dream world, beyond realism, Ballet Blanc Bathed in Blue Light -- which is something that classical dance is so wonderful at, at which I think it's better than any other dramatic art form. And how about that end, with the corps forming two concave semi circles facing the audience, with the vanishing point in the middle, before slowly borreeing off the stage into each wing. [ December 19, 2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Pascale Van Kipnis and Ben Millepied would indeed be wonderful in those roles. Have you noticed how every Drosselmeyer performs/mimes something different? Alex Ritter performs his sympathetic magic (exapanding everything) over the Nutcracker doll after he has first elaborately placed it on the ground at Stage Left. Stuart Capps, on the other hand, spends a lot of time with the screwdriver and then casts his spell over the doll holding it in his right hand, while he mimes over it with his left. Kramerevsky either omits the entire schtik or casts his spell over the crib. I love that role. Alex Ritter uses his facial expressions very well while miming, it seems to me that that is so important in mime -- that the eyes and face must convey a lot in that way. He's the best of the Drosselmeyers.

I'll tack on to your post Liebs to report that in Sunday's matinee performance (the one after your post) Ashley Bouder was extraordinary as Dewdrop, giving beautiful weight and balance to the choreography. She knows how to use stillness as well as movement within a series of steps to shape the choreography, in particular yesterday drawing out the balances in high attitude beyond (almost) what seems humanly possible (cf. Paloma Herrera). But also her performance had so much detail. For instance, I'd never noticed that right at the very beginning of the Waltz of the Flowers Dewdrop is in the middle of the circle, kneeling, then softly brushes the floor and rises, with the relevee bringing the entire dance to life, as (I suppose) the dew is said to animate the flowers. I must have seen this dance 50 times, but I'd never truly SEEN this detail in the choreography before until yesterday. Even subtracting or allowing for my own occasionally excessive enthusiasm, she's amazing. On the other hand, Taylor and Orza had a hard time Sunday afternoon with the grand pas de deux. I'm not sure what their problem was but their performances were way off the level they were at the prior weekend. In general it's my impression that Act II is getting a bit more ragged since the opening weeks, as the company endlessly performs it. However, attendance is superb right now. What with post-9/11 anxieties, it was tentative at the beginning of the run, but suddnely every performance seems jammed. This is usually the time the crowds start to thin, as people like to go to the Nutcracker during the holiday season, but not right during the holidays themselves as they approach. This year it's just the opposite -- the end of the run is selling out and NYCB is having a super Nutcracker season attendance-wise. [ December 17, 2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

I was sorry to miss it, what did she say or why were you impressed?

That first variation must really be a killer. Of everyone this fall, Stafford was the strongest in it, but then she was weak in the grand pas. Trouble is to find someone who can do both, and Margaret Tracey comes about the closest to that, although she's not the strongest in either. How right you are Calliope about Snow looking good. At yesterday's matinee, the first foursome (the snow corps tends to divides into four groups of four, then two groups of eight) was comprised of Elizabeth Walker, Megan Fairchild, Elena Stein and Martine Ciccone. What an unbelieveable treat. Four such beautifully matched (with Fairchild and Stein being dark and Walker and Ciccone fair) and beautifully trained women, all in the same style, and all such knockout turners -- imagine Megan Fairchild and Elizabeth Walker doing those first series of chainee turns to either corner of the stage, so centered and musical, both of them. And the next foursome was led by Ashley Bouder and Jamie Wolf. Actually, there are two corps groups for snow, and they're not always this good.

I strongly agree it's been good to see some of the younger men in the corps cast as the Cavalier this Nutcracker season. Seth Orza, who was cast opposite Janie Taylor, performed very well in the performance I saw last weekend. Orza is tall, very well trained, and is a superb partner. This last point is very important to me and it really showed in his work witn Janie Taylor, who is someone who really dances with, and relates to her partners, who feeds off of strong partnering. They had a lot of eye contact and communication with each other and the grand pas was thus by far the best part of her performance (last Sunday), which Anna Kisselgoff also noted in her review last week. There are so many talented dancers, I often think that just getting the chance to be seen, to be cast, is what determines how far they will go. Helen of Troy would have been just another "beautiful gal" if she hadn't been kidnapped and had a war fought over her. Also -- and I wouldn't want to pursue this because even commenting on it may spark a continued discussion, which is the last thing we need, but a corrective seems necessary to me nonetheless -- There is a lot, repeat, A LOT, of good young male talent at the school. NYCB has no lack of young talent being fed in on either side of the dressing room doors (so to speak). It's what happens when they get there, how they are coached and how they will be nurtured in the years that follow, that will make the difference in how they develop (IMHO). [ December 15, 2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

I saw Maria Kowroski in this at the beginning of December and she was magnificent, not to be missed. In the adagio she has a quality of preserving her flow at all times which no one else there has. Towards the end of the grand pas, at the climactic points in the music, her character starts at the rear of the stage and, three times, bourrees forward, sets herself in a broad fourth position with the cavalier behind her, and then is spun rapidly by the cavalier into a final back bend, literally draped towards the orchestra. With Maria dancing the role what you notice is how she flows through those turns into the back bend at all times, right on the music, with never a hint of calculation or effort to time the last spin and final deep surrender towards the audience. What is special with her is how all this becomes one seemless movement, she just lets herself go and the steps become a gesture of which you are unaware of the parts. With other dancers, in contrast, I notice the steps and the 4th position preparations, my mind doesn't get turned off the same way. [ December 14, 2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Abi Stafford and Ashley Bouder were the story today, with Stafford dancing the Sugarplum Fairy and Bouder debuting in the role of Dewdrop in the Waltz of the Flowers. There was some criticism of Stafford's being cast as the Sugarplum Fairy last year, when she was the Janice Levin dancer honoree. But what a difference a year makes. She has grown immeasurably as a dancer since the spring, both technically and in personality. Personality might well be the most incalculable and the most interesting thing about a dancer, but it's something which can neither be described nor accounted for. A kid changes a great deal between seventeen and nineteen and that only gets more striking as you push them on towards, say, twenty-five years old. Abi Stafford is developing nicely in this way and, on the technical side, showed some pretty astonishing things yesterday --a rock-steadiness and balance on point of Paloma Herrera's class; a vastly improved porte de bras and full, almost Russian use of her arms; and the strongest, steadiest, yet liquid, pas de bourree. The Sugarplum Fairy's initial variation is all about pas de bourree and I've not noticed one in this company as beautiful as Abi's in a long time. Ashley Bouder's debut as Dewdrop was emotional and memorable because (all at once) of this young dancer's unforgettable dramatic presence, a very bad fall she took, and an even more unforgettable recovery after that fall. Ashley Bouder is an extraordinary dancer. She has no problem holding the stage, her performances as the Firebird last year demonstrated that and a lot else beyond dispute and she began her variation yesterday very much as she did her big variation in La Source last winter, with a series of those big grand jettees that Mary Cargill last year said made the audience collectively "gasp." (Except that now, like Stafford, she's grown, showing a more elongated line and body than she did last spring). Then, at the end of the first series of big jumps she took a very bad tumble indeed when jeteeing forward into arabesque on point with her front arm upraised, hitting the floor hard with the full length of her body and no ability at all to cushion it with her hands. This was a different sort of collective "gasp" and what was particularly frightening was a split second when she didn't get up and you didn't know if she would. But then she did and when she did, and then continued her variation, at first tentative, but then jetteeing off stage left with another big, soaring jump, the packed house (the matinee performance was NYCB's gala family Nutcracker benefit) simply exploded into the most prolonged applause I've heard this fall, and after that you should have seen her take fire, with every entrance and exit building in intensity and drawing an even more pronounced burst of applause from the audience. This was family day at the ballet, folks, kids and moms and a few balletomanes like me, but what a moment Ashley Bouder made of it. It's not a performance she or the audience will forget for a while, for a number of reasons, good and bad. Strangely enough, Abi Stafford -- returning to the stage for her grand pas de deux, partnered by Sebastien Marcovici -- seemed more shaken up by what had happened during Bouder's variation than Bouder was. It was an impossible act to follow and the beginning passage of the pas de deux was distinctly the weakest part of her performance. I blame this on Sebastian Marcovici in large part, however, who is surely one of the tensest dancers above the waist of any principal you are going to see. It was noticable how Stafford really began to dance whenever Marcovici gave her some space. The more he got away from her, the better she moved. He was simultaneously (and this isn't easy) not there for her when he was supposed to be but had literally to be pushed out of the way by her when he did get there, so that she could continue to move. In the end, however, about half way through the pas de deux, Stafford's performance also lit up and concluded with a musicality and dramatic intensity, and a reaction from the audience, to match Bouder's that had preceeded it. Other things to mention: Lindy Mandrajieff was very good as the first Marzipan Shepherdess, indeed, this entire little divertissement was very well cast, as she was backed by Elena Stein (Diner), Faye Arthurs, Melissa Barak and Jamie Wolf -- a dream cast. Mandrajieff's is a name I've been seeing since last spring, but now I can finally put a dancer to it. Ellen Bar was a fine Frau Stahlbaum in Act One, miming well and using her arms very beautifully. And Stuart Capps was a superb Drosselmeyer. Eva Natanya made more out of Coffee than anyone else I've seen this year. Antonio Carmena, however, was a bit disappointing in the Toy Soldier variation, it was an off night for him. And Polchinelle and Harlequin are not being well peformed. Megan Pepin has promise as the toy doll, but lacks the precision and crispness of movement right now that Elizabeth Walker used to bring to the part. [ December 09, 2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

I will of course defer to other views, other tastes, "De gustibus non disputandum est." The Constume Institute, notwithstanding the above disclaimer, is (in my opinionated opinion) 7th Avenues dubious contribution to the MET. An entity dedicated to the dubious proposition that fashion deserves the treatment of "high" art. In this vein we have also recently seen the Guggenheim mount a retrospective on none other than that great modern artist, Georgio Armani. That followed the Guggenheim's other blockbuster show: "The Art of the Motorcycle" (which, by the way, included a workshop featuring Ethan Stiefel). I also remember the MET's show featuring Jackie Kennedy's wardrobe, clearly of equal weight with the Pyramid of Giza and Aristotle Contempating the Bust of Homer! I'm an enfant terrible on this subject, I know. In fact, few things are more revealing about the aesthetic and culture of an era than its dress. Culture all hangs together -- the flowing Roman fashions of Madame de Recamier's period in the Napoleonic empire, for example, are all of a piece with its other aesthetics, its ideas, its archeticture and its painting. Home furnishings and decoration are also extremely revealing in this connection. I suppose that the MET is a wide enough context to include this. But Georgio Armani at the Guggenheim -- that I just can't stomach. [ December 08, 2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Don't be too jealous, the fashion institute is in the basement of the Met, their installations are horrid, and I'm sure the show makes better copy than viewing.

You know that the dancing has been ragged when the high points of the the evening are a visiting trumpet player and the Star Spangled Banner. Yes, it's good to have them back. This wasn't a bad way to start either, they've got six months to tighten up their act. The Star Spangled Banner, at the conclusion, was unexpectedly and quite profoundly moving to me. Earlier in the evening there had been a certain amount of dull, obligatory, post-September 11th talk, including the chairman of the company's board reading a proclamation from Rudy Giuliani praising the company -- the sort of thing I would usually go to the ballet to get away from. But when Fiorato, in mid curtain call for the last piece, led the orchestra unexpectedly into the anthem, I found myself unexpectedly standing there and weeping. Emotions numbed by two months of talking heads on t.v. had been touched after all and it was the music and its associations and the reactions of the audience and the company -- it was quite electric, the kids from the corps singing on stage, the audience coming to their feet as one -- that had done it. That's what dance is also all about, conjuring up emotions that transcend the intellectual and the merely sentimental. What an irony that it wasn't the ballets themselves last night that achieved that level. The end demonstrated though what profound emotions art should be able to touch.

OK, is there a bigger company numbers wise in the US than NYCB or how do the numbers compare with ABT, Seattle, San Francisco, or Miami? I agree with you Juliet that discussing students is out of bounds. When they become apprentices, on the other hand, the company puts them on the stage and it's fair for the audience to comment. I don't think that I post on the board because I think that the company should notice my comments or will. It's more that I want to share my perceptions and reactions with others in the audience. Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of the new corps members and apprentices this fall because they always dance a lot in the Nutcracker, it's for that they're particularly needed over the next six weeks, sometimes two performances a day. [ November 16, 2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Based on a quick check of NYCB's website, it seems that Jenny Blascovich, Andrea Hecker and Aubrey Morgan may have left. (The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen). At least six dancers in, three out, would mean the company is indeed growing, and it was very large already. I have to think that, with benefits, even a new corps member would have to cost the company at least 70k a year. Fundraising and revenues are good, chez City Ballet, which has new endowments also for stuff like choreographic institutes. Is there a larger company in the world today, numbers wise, than NYCB? [ November 16, 2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Re the new corps contracts -- has anyone left the company, or does this mean that NYCB is expanding the number of its dancers? One of the reasons that none of the Wien award winners got apprenticeships last spring, at the time of the SAB Workshop, was that there simply wasn't room. Has that changed? [ November 15, 2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Julie Kent was a fine Aurora for ABT as was Amanda McKerrow -- whose girlishness, even as a mature dancer, made this a particularly fine bit of casting. (I was struck, Alexandra, to find you saying on another thread how mature she was even as a teenager -- because she is also paradoxically so very insouciante and girlish even as a principal). In the Kirov production, I saw Vishneva. On the whole I think it was the most electric, exciting performance of Aurora that I've seen, but that may not be the most valid criterion. Of course Diana Vishneva is worlds apart from either Kent or McKerrow in what she aims for and in her qualities as a Ballerina. But particularly in the Vision scene, flitting in and out of the massed corps, constantly evading the prince, she was quite unforgetable. At NYCB I've seen Margaret Tracy, Wendy Whelan and Jennifer Ringer in this role over the years (and even Yvonne Borree once, in a very tense performance). One matinee performance by Tracy stands out as about the best thing I ever saw her do. On the other hand, I don't like Whelan in this role - but I've noticed that opinions of her are generally very polarized -- either you love her or you hate her in any particular role, there is seldom any middle ground. I've also seen video of Fonteyn (I assume it was a Royal Ballet [british] production). She defines the role, I would say -- but I can't really measure a video against a live performance with any confidence and the image of her Aurora is rather abstract for me -- perfect but cold and unreal (because I didn't really see it). [ November 07, 2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

The ABT production twice or three times, starting about six years ago. Peter Martins for NYCB in several different seasons (the first time also I think a while back -- could it have been as early as 1993?) And finally the Kirov's "reconstructed" production, like one of those Russian meals which seems never to end and where course follows course and vodka, red and white wine and Tokaj and cognac are all on the table at once.

I think that, in staging the Nutcracker, the crucial thing is therefore to preserve the dark side and in how that is handled. The dark must be there but must be handled with a light touch too, since that is the point of the piece. I've been looking for a good translation of Hoffman's Nutcracker for years but haven't found one. Does his story differ from the "book" of the ballet? If so, how? Hoffman has always seemed one of the quintessential examples of German romanticism to me. And, given romanticism's central idea that northern, indigenous, "nationalistic" myths, legends and folk tales could be as fit subjects for high art as the the Greco-Roman myths in which the Rennaissance had discovered its artistic material -- the Nutcracker becomes very interesting. In that context it's a kind of exploration of the Pagan, pre-Christian myths and traditions that underlie Christmas and a resonant dialogue between the two traditions. During Marie's Christmas-eve sleep, folk tale figures and personae from the Northern pre-Christian past thus keep popping up and invading the Christmas holiday -- just as the Christmas tree itself had a pagan, pre-Christian significance and the pundits say the Christmas itself had a precursor as a winter solstice festival. It's the dialogue between the two and how it gets resolved that makes this ballet dramatically vital. [ October 30, 2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

With Nutcracker Season less than a month away, I've been feeling that the ballet might even have a serious theme for me this year, as I see it thematically as concerned with the absorbtion of "evil" or "the fearful" into the peaceful ideals of the bourgeois world -- or perhaps the neutralizing or the sublimation of "evil" or the "fearful" is a better way of putting it. In this reading, Drosselmeyer is a threatining figure, but also a curiously benign one. At the family's party, we first see a heated rivalry between the siblings -- certainly agression -- but one which does not exceed the boundaries of the polite or the cute. Then, as the evil genius of the party, Drosselemeyer first introduces the curious Nutcracker man -- a kind of double or doppleganger for his nephew, who will become the child prince. After this, as the evil genius of Marie's dream, Drosselmeyer through sympathetic magic makes the childlike world expand (at least in the City Ballet production, which is I think based upon the 19th century Maryinsky?) until he introduces a war between the rats or mice (which are they?)and the toy soldiers -- which is a mock war for the adult audience, but a fearful one for Marie. All of which is resolved when the Nutcracker turns into boy Prince (with a kind of precocious sublimation of Marie's pre-adolescent sexuality hinted at?) and utterly defeats evil and fear. This is also quite like how romantic love, in the person of Prince Desire, resolves the drama in Sleeping Beauty, except that in the Nutcracker it is a caricature. The Nutcracker is thus a sort toy version of Sleeping Beauty. Beauty absorbed into the bourgeois entertainment of a North European Christmas. I may be "Nuts" for looking for at it this way but, post 9/11, a "curiously benign" dramatic representation of the fearful will be most welcome to me. [ October 27, 2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

The little space was very beautiful and particularly with the extreme rake of the five or six rows in the theater, you were sitting right above the stage well. The experience of being literally right on top of the dancers and the program was something to set off against the difficulties of performing in the small space. The Koto piece for Boal was particularly beautiful, with a measured and hypnotice cadence. Live music at a chamber ballet performance was a treat. The acoustics were good, the koto score was a gem and I did not think Boal in the least wasted. The simplicity of the choreography matched the resontant simplicty of the music. The opportunity to see Ryan Kelly in a small environment, dancing with Abraham Mia in a duet, was also very nice as I got to appreciate each dancer. That Leigh made the dancers look so good is certainly a great accomplishment. Mary Carpenter, Christine Paolucci and Parise Selitti also. Ms. Paolucci is a radiant dancer and Ms. Selitti has such beautiful natural placement and turn out, lovely arms and hands also. I don't know what Jennifer Dunning's problem is. She appears to want to hold Dance as Ever ad Leigh to an impossible standard. It is very important that ballet in small environments, by small companies, be supported. It gives a great deal of pleasure. It nurtues the art. And God knows that a lot of what I've seen from major companies the last two years was not as aesthetically satifying as the Thursday night chamber performance I saw. There was a lucid, restrained and simple beauty about all the work, the evening as a whole, that held things together. Congratulations to Leigh and the company. [ 10-21-2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Tourism is obviously way down in NY, and that has a lot to do with Broadway shows closing. Also, it's unbelievably difficult to get around NYC physically right now. All streets below Canal Street are still closed to cars and the Subways are a complete mess, with trains rerouted and stopping aimlessly between stations for much longer intervals than they actually roll anywhere. It took me 1 and 1/2 hours to get from W. 72d steet to Prince Street to attend a museum opening Thursday, which was nearly deserted, by the way. And cabs were nearly impossible to get at times even before this. No one in the City who doesn't have to go somewhere is going. The further uptown you get, the less this is true, but it's true all the same.