Swanilda8

19 hours ago, cobweb said:

I would love to read your article, Swanilda8! I’ll PM you to see how I can access it. 

That's very kind! It's an academic article, so it will be a while before it comes out. 

On 10/29/2022 at 11:05 AM, cobweb said:

I am wondering about the title, "In the Upper Room." Does anyone know the story behind this, or what it refers to? I know that google is my friend, but I thought I would start here with so many knowledgeable dance fans. 

I'm working on an article about it right now. The whole work was composed before Tharp came up with the title—it actually premiered as "Untitled Glass Work." The title was taken from the Mahalia Jackson gospel song of the same name. One of the dancers was listening to the Jackson in rehearsal breaks, and Tharp asked about it and liked the title. 

It was sooooooo good!
 

I thought the Rhoden was interesting with some lovely moments. I do think that some of the dancers really embraced the movement style, particularly in the use of hips, and others did not as much. When the performance was there it was very good but at other moments it was a bit bland. 

duo concertante was itself. Great violin playing by Michael Jinsoo Lim! Which was quite a feat given that every piece on the program was a violin solo (just brutal programming from a musician’s perspective). I saw it with Christopher d’Ariano in the man’s role. I love his dancing!

The Pite was really the highlight. It’s such beautiful and unusual choreography. She focuses on the corps moving as one body, not in unison or counterpoint a la Balanchine, not as a machine a la Peck, but more like a living organism. I’d be interested to know if she looked into things like ant colonies or cellular organization, because it was constructed so that each person moved similarly but in their own slightly different times and ways, so the whole group looked like an organically moving body. There were great projections as well to match the season themes. I can’t wait to catch this one in the digital version.

I saw the program this afternoon. The new Ratmansky work (Wartime Elegy) was magnificent. It's four short movements: two sad, slower Silvestrov pieces to start and finish, framing two uptempo excerpts of Ukrainian folk music. There's a real sweetness to the melancholic sections and a bitter depth to the comic, uptempo sections. A lot of collapsing on the ground and dancers holding each other up or picking each other back up. It really does feel like a strong, personal reaction to the war that conveys depth, sorrow, and a sense of defiance to the audience. I had been anticipating something that sacrifices some of Ratmansky's complexity for a political purpose, but it really was one of the finest works of his I've seen and at the same time very politically meaningful. I'll be interested to watch it again on the digital version and to hear what others think.

I'm pretty sure the psychological reporting is drawn from the Bernard Taper biography. I'd have to compare them closely to be sure of it, and I don't have a copy on me, but from my memory most of what I read in the New Yorker excerpt seems like a poetic elaboration on what Taper wrote. And he based that on interviews with Balanchine. 

My new book Ballet in the Cold War is coming out in a couple of weeks from Oxford University Press. You can find the link to the Oxford site here and to the Amazon page here. The book is about the first few years of exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States. It deals with the differences between how American and Soviet audiences saw ballet and what the political impact of the tours was. I hope you enjoy it!

I saw this too and I pretty much agree with everything. I also have trouble loving 4Ts, but some of the lead performances gave this one interest. Alexander Peters as melancholic was a big standout to me, along with Lauren Fadeley as choleric. They both performed the parts as roles rather than as abstract dances, and I think that makes a big difference. 

I loved the dancing in Duo Concertant - Renan Cerdeiro especially. And Miami City Ballet has a real treasure in Francisco Rennó, their pianist. But the violin playing was rough; a lot was out of tune. I had the same trouble when I saw NYCB perform this. It's a really difficult violin part and unless these companies are going to invest serious money in getting someone to play it, they should just let it drop from the repertoire. 

Flower Festival pdd was amazing. Shimon Ito really has the Bournonville style down, which is particularly interesting for a dancer at Miami. It's also just so refreshing to see anything that isn't Balanchine/Robbins/Peck. Also agree that Ito should be a principal. Why is he still a soloist? He's cast as a lead in just about everything they stage and his jumps are so beautiful. 

Heatscape was fun. 

The programming at MCB is starting to really get to me. There's only so much Balanchine and his followers that I can take. If it's in combo with other stuff on the program, then I love Balanchine. But the same exact style of choreography again and again and again is just exhausting. Balanchine didn't even program himself this much! Some of the dancers in the company are amazing, and they can make it worth going but I'm seriously considering skipping one or two of the programs next year if they don't do anything else.

As a heads up, James Steichen's book on Balanchine and Kirstein in the 1930s just came out (Balanchine and Kirstein's American Enterprise). I'm biased because I know the author, but I really enjoyed it. It's a very interesting look at American ballet in the 1930s and the research is phenomenal. In particular, I think we so often look at Balanchine in the 1930s through the lens of the 50s and 60s that the picture becomes distorted. This does a great job of placing Balanchine in this time, not inherently destined to become THE ballet choreographer and leader of NYCB but rather one of many interesting Russian ballet choreographers working in the US, part of a network of dance experts and artists and philanthropists and impresarios  – there's really interesting stuff about the early versions of Serenade and Concerto Barocco as well. 

https://www.amazon.com/Balanchine-Kirsteins-American-Enterprise-Steichen/dp/0190607416/ref=zg_bsnr_1474_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=CAWAEYS9VS9PY3NCVNKP

I have nothing to add to this conversation but excitement! I just moved to Miami this year – looks like it was the right time. And for Jeanette Delgado to be coming back as well. 😁

This is all a little late for the topic, I realize, but asking for a passport number is pretty much business as normal in Russia – it's not seen as the same kind of radical demand as it would be in the US or the UK. 

41 minutes ago, dirac said:

As fondoffouttes pointed out earlier, neither the Post nor the Times has come up with any concrete, specific examples of  sexual abuse or harassment,.   They may do so in future. They haven't yet.

I'm puzzled as to why you're returning to this point. The Post has come up with two very specific instance of harassment – Boal accusing Martins of shaking and choking her in the workplace and the earlier charges from his ex-wive of violence. If your point is that it's not clear this harassment was sexual in nature, than I guess I agree with you; but in that case, the problem is that the title of this thread should be "Peter Martins Sexual Harassment and Violence Allegations." It doesn't mean that the complaints are irrelevant. It's completely unacceptable for someone to harm their employees in any way. It would be unacceptable for anyone - boss or not - to act in that way. The fact that it's the AD makes it even more of a problem because he has control over these dancers lives in ways that make it difficult for them to report such violence. 

As for the rumors of him sleeping with dancers (and the Post is clear that these are rumors), to me that crosses over into harassment regardless of whether there was an explicit quid pro quo about roles. When a workplace superior makes sexual advances to their subordinate, it's very difficult for that subordinate to turn them down without fear of reprisal. The situation is coercive whether or not the person making the advance has manipulation as their intent. That's why many organizations, including NYCB since 2010, make rules against supervisors having any kind of romantic or sexual relationship with subordinates.

I saw Miami City Ballet perform Jewels on Friday and then on Saturday. I agree with Birdsall that Emeralds was particularly excellent on Friday night, and that Tricia Albertson was very notable in her solo. I also just love Shimon Ito whenever I see him dance — he had such smooth landing in his jumps on Friday. I was sitting very close to the stage (far to the side) and you couldn't hear a thing when landed. He's very graceful all around.

Furlan and Messmer did well in Diamonds on Friday, and congratulations on Furlan for his promotion. But the cast of Diamonds on Saturday night, with Cerdeiro and Carranza, was the phenomenal one. Their pas de deux was excellent, and Cerdeiro was just perfect in the third movement solos. His double tours were a thing of beauty - no fumbling, no correction, just 720 degrees of awesome. The turns in second over the violin bariolage were also great. But more than that, he just radiated charisma throughout the ballet. Carranza didn't seem quite like a Balanchine dancer to me. Her quick movements weren't articulated enough for that, but she still put in a lovely performance in Diamonds, and did better in Rubies the night before.  

I'm looking forward to seeing the company again in December for Nutcracker and then again in January. It's nice to see them looking this good, even with the departure of the Delgados. 

My impression in talking to people in dance studies is that there are a few academic biographies of Balanchine in the works.  I'm very much looking forward to have a wealth of critical, academic biographies to compare, because it is so hard right now to separate out fact from myth. 

I got tickets for the June 10 ex-Polunin performance as well, this time with very nice seats in the Grand Tier. Thanks, everyone! Hopefully this will also prove to be a good list of resources for others in the future looking for sold out shows.

Thank you so much, one and all! I am going on June 8 to see Alessandra Ferri, Francesca Hayward, and many other favorites. I'll also be keeping an eye out on the ROH website  for June 10 tickets. 

Hi Everyone, I'm going to be in London very briefly this summer, and I'd really like to see the Ashton triple bill at Covent Garden on June 8 or 10. It's currently sold out and it's a pretty impressive program and cast, so I'm not optimistic about my chances. But does anyone have special tips for getting Royal Ballet tickets to sold out shows?

The Maillot got very good reviews when the company toured London, so I assume they're hoping it goes over just as well in the US. Unfortunately, however, I don't think there's really anything they could do to make Macauley like them, and they can't get any other high profile reviews in New York. 

As for Jewels, they're only doing Diamonds; NYCB will perform Rubies and Paris Opera will perform Emeralds. And while I wouldn't argue that anyone in the world is better than Sarah Mearns at the lead part in Diamonds, I do think that, on the whole, the Bolshoi is just as good at that act as NYCB. I think it should be a very interesting night.

I'm going to be in New York next January through May, so I'm purchasing a choose your own subscription series. This is my first time ever buying a NYCB subscription - does anyone have any advice before I make the purchases? (i.e. does one get better tickets by calling them up or is it ok to do online, are there some categories of tickets that I should avoid, or is there something else I haven't even thought of yet?)

Just want to add two names to the list: Agnes de Mille, mid-20th-century ballet (and Broadway) choreographer and Lucia Chase, an early director of American Ballet Theatre (not quite the founder because their history is complicated but certainly the person who made it into a big company and kept it afloat for the first decades of its existence).

NYCB instagram has the progression of extensions in Agon. "Take One" https://www.instagram.com/p/BCJb67sB7aC/?taken-by=nycballet

I don't think that this is a picture of Kent fully extended in that ballet - or at least not the fullest she performed it. I've seen film where her leg is much higher (though of course not the 180 degrees that we now expect).

Hi, I'm new here, thanks in advance for any kind soul able to pour light on the following:

In Brussels 3rd April the following troupe will dance Swan Lake.

I know nothing about the subject but wanted to make a gift of a (very expensive!) ticket to my young carer who is eager to see the ballet. I am handicapped and depend on the young woman's fine support so It is a pleasure to be able to please her in this way.

First however I was curious to learn more about the production but discovered it was VERY difficult to get clear, precise facts.

If anyone has information on the troupe and can anyone advise that would be great?

Hi, truthyness! Welcome. I'm afraid I don't know much about this company - I'd never heard of it before - but from a little internet searching, I came across perhaps the reason that you've had difficulty finding information about them, which is that their name is the Ruse State Opera, not Russian State Opera, and they are based in Bulgaria. Here's the company website: http://www.ruseopera.com/index.php

And I also found a video on youtube of two of the soloists performs Don Quixote - so a different ballet but it might give you some idea of their style.

Good luck with the gift!

I'm reviving this topic, because a short snippet of Galina Ulanova as Odile has turned up on Youtube!

Thank you so much! This is wonderful footage. Not only is it great to finally see a few moments of Ulanova's Odette, it's also a pleasure to see her out of character before they start shooting. I have to say she does seem a little more Odette-y to me than most Odiles, but not nearly as deficient as I've heard her described. I've often wondered if people play up the Ulanova-Odette, Plisetskaya-Odile thing a little too much because it makes a better story.

As for the show, it is Absolyutny Slukh, which means "Perfect Pitch." The title is a delightful little pun in Russian because you can also translate the same phrase as something like "perfect gossip."

I think the British tend to use the plural (as in "The Royal Ballet are going on tour," "the public don't know what they want" and "the family have expressed their wishes"). American usage tends more to "it" or "its." I'd say it's one of those "when in Rome" questions. If you're an American writing for an American audience , "it" or "its" will seem more natural and less of a potential distraction for your readers (and less distracting for you if you avail yourself of style/grammar check, which may correct you if you go for the plural).

Thank you for explaining what's going on! I am an American but right now live in Europe where I spend most of my time with British people, and I may have picked up some of their speech patterns. I will stick with the American form in my diss, as I'm enrolled at an American university. Thanks again to everyone who responded!

Hi Everyone - I have a question for the general ballet wisdom. I'm finishing up my dissertation and fixing all the nitpicky little grammatical details (so close I can taste it!). And I realized that I can't decide what the appropriate pronoun for a dance company should be. Which of the following two examples reads better?

"Such was the tumult that greeted the Soviet Union’s Bolshoi Ballet when it appeared in the United States in 1959 for its first ever engagement in the Western hemisphere."

"Such was the tumult that greeted the Soviet Union’s Bolshoi Ballet when they appeared in the United States in 1959 for their first ever engagement in the Western hemisphere."

I hope this is the correct place for this question - if not, I apologize to the moderators!

That was quite a turn around from the earlier voting. I'm delighted for Kim and Shakirova, even if they weren't my absolute favorites in the competition. But there's no way they would have won if Ruzimatov hadn't been replaced by Toomas Edur.