Michael

Boylston is a good counterfeit ballerina at this point - she's faking it but fakes it fairly convincingly: nerves evident (but few would't be); facial expressions often tense and forced ; as a whole her dancing is very cautious in this video - but cautious in order to look finished - it's evidently a trade off. She doesn't go through her back in arabesque, but finishes her poses neatly at the expense of that depth and real form in her steps; just as she doesn't go through her back deeply (but stays on balance and neat); in attitude she doesn't present a finished line in her working leg, front and back, doesn't bend it much, doesn't raise it. All of this enables her to keep in control, look composed. But far from being a corps dancer, she's yards, miles ahead of what you often see in this role at ABT, particularly Yuriko Kajiya - who often has been paired with Hallberg. However ATM you have the gold standards in your minds eye and I defer entirely to them. MP

But he did a thing, a lot of things, for Mearns - 75% of the success depended on him

SAB was Miriam's passion and cause - the mothers and students from two generations of dancers - probably before the present kids - will all remember her as long as they live. She was in charge of class visits at the end of her work there - as a volunteer, probably, but it was never clear, her position was quite official. Then they professionalized all of that and Miriam was older, much, at that point - and actually it's become much more impersonal at the school in all respects in the last few years. I'm sure she did other stuff at SAB before that. All of which went hand in hand with her following the company and ABT. She had a great eye for ballet and dancers. She also had a wonderful fund of anecdotes - great stories, a little gossipy, just the thing, and all going back a generation of dancers. She remembered everyone when they were young: a dry sense of humor, but always with great good will. A loving heart, she was very affectionate within her boundaries. Above all she had no malice. Morally innocent. Always sat right up front, in the first row at the left side when she could at performances. About a year or two ago her balance started to go, she must have been pushing ninety. She was the best - another loss from a very unique generation, whose like we will not see again. Few left, more's the pity.

Thank you so much. Basically that's the answer and is what I thought. But especially Mel, These numbers - "10, 11, 14a, 14b," etc. - what do these refer back to? Is there a definitive numbered physically written score, or a particular recording you are citing to and if so what is it ? Thanks again and Happy Holidays to everyone - Michael

Where does the music that Balanchine uses for the Sugar Plum Fairy's first entrance variation figure in the original score? (Assuming that there is a definitive version for an original score). Is it in fact the first (woman's) coda to the grand pas de deux - which is where Morris's Hard Nut at BAM had that music when I saw it last night? It worked pretty well there and balanced the man's coda that came immediately after, with its "boom boom" barrel turn music. Much obliged for any info. MP

The ballet is dead or dying argument is a bit ridiculous and lacks any real foundation. The argument that Gottlieb makes in his review is aesthetic - it's that no good new ballet is in his view being made, no one has appeared who is the equal of Balanchine or Ashton. Even if true - and I think he underestimates the contemporaries - you can't base historical extinction on aesthetic features. On the contrary, there are a lot of companies right now, lots of tickets being sold, lots of schools, dancers, students, and interest and literature too. There's no reason to think this is a dying art form. Not to mention Homans, Gottlieb - even by hedging his bets - let's his nostalgia for his own golden age get the better of his judgment.

Translating the The Bacchae as dance has some interesting problems - particularly the key mess up (the "noeud" that has to be "denouee" in the drama) when Dionysus appears on the scene and the King not only fails to recognize him, but persists in attempting to suppress the Dionysiac cult in his realm - leading the God to retaliate by driving the women in the city mad, and in the end to tear the King apart in their frenzied celebration. That's a little detailed for dumbshow or dance action to make clear. The final scene, on the other hand, when Pentheus' (if I remember the King's name) is torn apart is easily imagined on the stage. I look forward to seeing what they do with this.

Thank You all a Chunk (so to speak) - This is one of the things that makes this site amazing -- Michael

Are there any ballets that are based upon Beauty and the Beast, either specifically as a plot or more generally as a theme? A friend who is designing a theater production asked me, as they would like to incorporate some dance, but I really can't think of anything specific; Esmeralda has a similar theme but is so specific in its own "plating" (dans son assiette) that I don't really think it relates. Much obliged for any information -- MP

A fundraising mechanism is putting wealthy donors on your Board of Directors - but having a Board full of wealthy people ignorant about an art form, and about the very workings of the company they control, is what scares me the most. Time was that the key donors actually knew something and had some pronounced taste, good or middling or at least somewhat informed. Nelson Rockefeller collected art and new something about it; Kierstein had to negotiate things with him. Company boards here up until about five to ten years ago had more general knowledge and independent insight than I believe they do today. As time has gone by, a business model has been followed. Company artistic directors who are in place for a long, long time, have an obvious interest in having (wealthy, generous, glamorous, but) utterly compliant and passive boards that let them run things to their their liking.

Also note the departure of Glenn Keenan from the company roster. In the corps since when, 1999 or so? Finally, also note that none of last year's crop of apprentices - Lauren Lovette, Sarah Vilwock, Stephanie Chrosniak, Shoshanna Rosenfeld, et al. - have been listed in the corps for the September season. Maybe the collective bargaining agreement says that the '09 apprentices don't have to be offered contacts yet, before Nutcracker season; but under the old routine the apprentices would have had to be sorted out before the next "year" commenced in November. They are a good group, these women; the entire lot of them were the corps de ballet in La Source in the spring and were not the worst corps de ballet we saw. MP

Didn't see yesterday but she has bunions and does habitually use beer can shoes. But so what; she's the best in the world in that role and no one can take the slightest thing away from her. MP

Lovely evening for everyone: Katherine Morgan and Robert Fairchild were beautiful in Scotch Symphony, I can't think of this show without mentioning them - very lyrical and compelling performance.

Also the housing project is right there

La Stravaganza and Lady w. Dog are entirely more professional than the new Barak piece, for which there is really no precedent or term of comparison that I can think.

Ashley Bouder has to be seen in Donizetti Variations - just an extraordinary performance last night, in another world entirely. Ensemble was not well rehearsed, as first performances of a program sometimes are at NYCB - but that didn't matter in the leading role. Not sure when she's doing this again, but it should not be missed, a performance that I don't think I will forget and that's the first time this season, really this year, maybe in several years that I've felt that about a dancer in a particular role.

How tall was Adams?

Isn't what some are doing with Twitter mostly a case of a celebrity doing on line, for himself or herself, what their agent or publicist did for them in print until recently? It's common to see celebrities promote personal articles about themselves ("Jen and Brad had a big wedding . . . they're happy . . . now they're breaking up . . . she's dating someone new!"), feeding their celebrity status, and maintaining their commercial value. It's also common to see alternate picture spreads of them out eating breakfast without their make-up, or either making out with, or having a spat with the boyfriend or girlfriend. Occasionally or when the need arises there will also be the rehabilitative piece about them . . . the eating disorder, the time in detox or therapy. "Tiger is rehabilitating himself; spending time with his family; Bill and Hillary have gone on a retreat to work on their marriage." Now on Twitter folks are able to do it for themselves and minor celebrities can find mini-publics; but in many cases I doubt if it's any less calculated or less disingenuous. The nature of the feeding has changed, and the means of feeding, but maybe not too much the fundamental nature of the publicity food.

I liked Genevieve Labean's music and the ballet to them very much -- the songs are very clear and lyrical, there's a brief situational statement and then a refrain to each of them, and the refrains were very haunting, melodic, clear and lyrical; so memorable in fact that you can't get them out of your head. The simplicity, innocence and brevity of the songs put them on the borderline of pop music and because that's where they live, they flirt with the sentimental - but that's just where the openess and vulnerability, the personal-ness of her performance took me by surprise. The repeat of the last song, or a bit of it, expressed a moment of sadness and emotion at the end, really the only moment of emotion in the entire program. There were some accoustical problems with the live music in the hall to be sure, but how good to hear live music after six weeks of recorded gigs at City Center. MP

From the PNB school - good - Peter Boal has a fine eye for dancers and a very beautiful quality of loyalty and support for dancers he either taught or knew when he was on the faculty at SAB or dancing at NYCB. Witness what he did for the careers of Carla Korbes and for Ben Griffiths respectively. Lola Cooper was to my eyes as good as any of the women from her year, and it was a very strong year - not only Brittany Pollack but also Erica Pereira were her contemporaries, though Cooper may have been a bit younger in years. Her best qualities were flow of movement and musicality; she was at that point one of those dancers you'd call a "mover" -- you had to watch her dance through variations and parts to realize what was there. Early that workshop year it seemed she was on a fast track - I remember her learning Square Dance at the same time as Pollack and looking splendid in it; also that year, when they did the New York Board of Ed. lecture demonstrations, she was trotted out to dance Tarantella for the school programs. But it was my impression she lost time to injury that spring just before the workshop and then seemed to drop out of sight. I'm most happy to hear she's still dancing. MP

Also Tabitha Rinko-Gay in Leclerq's role; and also, if memory serves, Lola Cooper as the demi (if I remember her name correctly - very talented woman from the Brittany Pollack year who apparently didn't continue dancing).

Balanchine and Picasso make an interesting comparison. Protean in styles; persona factors too; very good at staying on top of, capitalizing on, always appearing to be of their times stylistically - and ended up codifying and forming the stylistic elements of their period; pretty much contemporaries; had pre war paris in common, as well as Diaghilev connections (though far more fundamental with Balanchine). Switching sub-topic: I think you get a statement from Macauley of the Beckett/Balanchine type when a critic is speaking very much from their inner universe of experience. No one has read everything; seen everything; but an interesting critical intellect is always placing things in his or her own context, and cross referencing things they know in that context. Thus if major intellectual events for you personally were Beckett and Balanchine, that's going to be a reference you make. An academic will be trained not to shoot from the hip in this way; but someone writing every day newspaper copy may fire off an impression like this, almost conversationally - a point that someone building a more considered, academic or historical argument would hedge in with qualifications. Some of the most important things that Victor Hugo wrote critically in his Preface to Cromwell and Preface to Gil Blas proceed from just this kind of intellectual shorthand; undoubtedly Hugo felt licensed to say anything he wanted in a preface to his own work; but really you wouldn't want a fine mind to qualify or self censor themselves too much. The question really is whether the internal universe of the critic who's writing this way is a beautiful one and whether the observations are insightful. In that case I tend to forgive them the intellectual shotgun blasts - that is unless and until one of my own sacred cows gets wounded.

I read Macauley's statement about Becket and Balanchine as an extraordinarily emphatic statement about Balanchine and the theatrical/dramatic elements in his work (a side of him that became relatively less evident in his final phase as he de-emphasized production values - just compare the earlier Apollo's, the ones with the birth scene, with the final one, for example) - and reading it that way didn't find the statement too outlandish. More a little ill considered, not off the wall. I would have considered it off the wall if I took it literally as being about every one else in the dramatic arts during the 20th century - it's quite insupportable from that point of view. But if you take it as primarily underscoring a point about Balanchine, it's nothing to get very upset about.

Esmeralda's first entrance for La Truandise - though nothing can equal what the mind's eye sees in Victor Hugo's description of the scene in Notre Dame de Paris - truly one of the most extraordinarily dramatic moments of dance in literature.

Montivedio journals are reporting today that Bocca will direct Uruguay's "National Ballet." I know little about this company but Latin America is in general a good field of activity for classical dance.