Jack Reed

I think pherank has it right. There was and is a definite difference, sometimes explained by those who worked with him, or those who work with those who did - second-generation now - without ever mentioning the Mariinsky by name. Taking the bit about preparations further, the goal that approach served was to give more flow-through in the phrases, while not blurring any of the poses and so on reached along the way. To my eye, the traditional Soviet/Russian result looked like "here we do this and then we go over here and then we do that"; with Mr. B, we got the "this" and the "that" clearly linked and embedded in the flow. It was speedier, but not just speedier; there was a continuity which gave a phrase a cumulative effect. Years and years ago I went to see a detachment of Kirov dancers - as they were called then - give Scotch Symphony in this rather start-stop, "show-offy" way - making us see them more than their dance - which contrasted with what I had come to love about Balanchine's own company. But this strange way was not the only surprise of the evening - studying my program, I learned the performance had been coached by Suzanne Farrell, no less. (I suppose it was "early days" for her doing that, or maybe these dancers were very refractory, as I've heard their traditons to be; or both.)

A Guide to the Millennium Stage preview webcast video from October 15, 2015 [00:09] Kristen Gallager, ballet mistress* [01:30] Snapshot: Violeta Angelova [03:33] Walpurgisnacht Ballet (Gounod/Balanchine 1980) corps [05:13] Violeta Angelova [07:16] A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mendelssohn/Balanchine 1962) Act II pas de deux Valerie Tellmann-Henning and Kirk Henning [13:10] Snapshot: Michael Cook [15:47] Meditation (Tchaikovsky/Balanchine 1963) Natalia Magnicaballi and Michael Cook [25:41] Kristen Gallager, ballet mistress Don Quixote (Nicholas Nabakov/Balanchine 1959) from Act II Divertissements: [27:55] Ritournel Bonnie Pickard Schofield with Penelope Schofield, and Amanda Halstead, piano [31:54] Pas de Mauresque Melanie Riffee and Ian Grosh [37:43} Episodes (Webern/Balanchine 1959) excerpt: Op. 10 Jordyn Richter and Ted Seymour [42:23] Snapshot: Natalia Magnicaballi [45:22] Emeralds (Faure'/Balanchine 1967) pas de deux Natalia Magnicaballi and Thomas Garrett [49:16] Stars and Stripes pas de deux (Sousa arr. Hershey Kay/Balanchine 1958) Allynne Noelle and Michael Cook [53:51] Kristen Gallager, ballet mistress You may be able to drag the progress button in the bar below the video window left or right while watching the running-time indicator at the left end of the bar and navigate back and forth in the program, according to the running times I've posted here. I've indicated some casting I'm unsure about, but anyone who thinks they've got certain knowledge is welcome to post here or PM me and I'll update this post to make it as useful as possible. I think these dancers deserve to be known!** *TSFB's Company Manager is actually Art Priromprintr, not Kristen Gallagher, as I had it originally. **I've since updated the casting according to the program given to the audience for the Millennium Stage performance. And more recently I've updated the link to the video in accordance with the Kennedy Center web site's new addresses.

You mean you couldn't watch the show on line? That's a real shame! But I rarely see the first few seconds. or sometimes more, myself! Practicing helps, though. But I hope there's more help in my second post just below.

You're welcome, both of you! This link might help you, maps. As you'll see, the upper part of the page guides you to current and recent Millennium Stage webcasts, with upcoming ones farther down; and if you want to go farther back, try the various search boxes and links on the right. For example, try putting "Suzanne Farrell" in the "search by artist or keyword" box and scrolling down to select "Ballet" in the "Genre" box and see what you get. (Okay, I'm a little biased on the subject, I admit it.) But aren't there two open rehearsals? On Thursday the 29th at 1:30 and on Friday the 30th at 11:00? Or is one maybe sold out by now? I was just looking to check up on this, but the Kennedy Center website can be a challenge.

The event having passed now but archived on line on the Kennedy Center's website, so, I'm starting another thread for discussion.

Last evening, 15th October, the event went ahead in the usual venue in the foyer, and the online video appeared in the Millennium Stage archive in a few hours. There were excerpts from seven ballets, all by Balanchine: Walpurgisnacht Ballet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Meditation (short, and complete), Don Quixote, Episodes, Emeralds, and Stars and Stripes, not all from the upcoming shows' repertory, but intended, I imagine, to show the little troupe's big range, not to mention to stimulate and develop the dancers! In addition, there were three dancers presented via some of the pre-recorded "Snapshots" that have been on the company's website, Violeta Angelova, Michael Cook, and Natalia Magnicaballi; and Angelova reminds us of dancers' constant urge to better themselves. These shows are not only for us, but for them, too. [Edited to update the link to the video on the Kennedy Center web site.]

It now appears, 45 minutes before start, that the program will include two excerpts from Balanchine's Don Quixote in recognition of the work's fiftieth anniversary; and some dim video showing some dancers in discussion about an hour ago suggests another theater than the Millennium Stage in the foyer may be the venue, one with a larger stage.

From experience, I suggest getting there early - to the page where the livestream will show, and even better, to one end or the other of the Kennedy Center foyer, where the Millennium Stage is set up - a small one in past years, with seats for a small audience ranked up. (Millennium Stage shows are always free.) If you can't get there in person, you might benefit from some practice playing the video, and there's a livestream of something almost every evening at 6:00 Eastern Time to use, as well as an archive including previous TSFB previews. Here's a link to the Millenium Stage page, which will likely change before your eyes, or require refreshing, as the show begins : http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/millennium/ (If you miss the livestream, it may be archived among the others you see listed there; the only exception I can remember was so badly shot, it was not worth keeping, but the Suzanne Farrell Ballet transmissions are sometimes very adroitly managed.) Here's a link to a page where the repertory for TSFB's upcoming season is given: http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/event/BQBSB I would expect excerpts from this to be on the preview program, although in the past items from future engagements have also turned up. Scroll down, and check out the gallery! If you click on an image and open it, the repertory, dancers, and even the photographer are identified in the address bar of your browser.

Actually, I meant to praise the McCaw seating price structure, bringing it closer to the ideal of giving people what they pay for, not to complain about navigating the chart. (I remember studying it for the first time last Fall and thinking the choice of colors made the patterns pretty!) The traditional, old style may have had some kind of rationale, but it tended to result in the side seats of a theater going empty at the same price as the center ones that were filled - not speaking of McCaw, but from old personal experience in general and well east of the Mississippi. No, I meant to hold the McCaw chart up as a good example of how to do it. Thanks for your comments - one of the benefits of posting here is that it helps me to write better. I think.

Friends in the architectural profession say they have known for a long, long time that women need 3.9 times as many places in theater restrooms as men, but the Harris Theater here in Chicago was the only one anywhere known to me that approximates this number. In the past, I was surprised by the irrationality of the men's room places on different floors of the New York State Theater - the same number on each floor, even though the Orchestra has several times as many audience seats as each Ring (or balcony). On the earned-income side of it - as distinct from the contributed-income side - McCaw Hall's ticket-price categories are the most complex I've ever seen since I noticed prices starting to reflect where people actually like to sit: Time was, theaters offered three prices, for front, middle, and back sections, right across the house, in each level, about ten in all; but a year ago I found 17 price categories in all at McCaw, with concentric zones on the seating chart reflecting desirability. Like restroom parity, this too makes a lot of sense, in contrast to some venues - Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, Symphony Hall in Phoenix - where unpopular sections are simply closed off, though I've never seen demonstrations of how that might maximize total receipts. (I posted both paragraphs before I read the Times article - now I see it's not so clear the topic is raising money for overall operations - the total budget - I guess - but mainly for building construction, what somebody can put their name on, so my second one is a little OT, but the article's a good glimpse into how what we love happens.)

DanielBenton, can you say why you have reservations about the content or the arrangement of the program? I'm curious how other people see things. Too much of one choreographer? (I have an anecdote about Balanchine's versatility.) I think Rubies is a little odd as an opener myself; it's nearly always been in the middle, if not always between Emeralds and Diamonds; but it's a brilliant start. And while Walpurgisnacht Ballet is okay as a closer, I think it's a better opening, though pherank makes a good practical point. With its "infinite" ending, The Four Temperaments seems to me like a great closer, not ending, going on forever. I think that was part of what left Denby so wiped out.

Yes, thanks for the report, pherank. A completely satisfying performance of Rubies is really rare for me - it was a performance of the original cast that hooked me on Balanchine-ballet - because I already knew the music (Stravinsky's Capriccio) intimately, and could experience it as dancers moving just as the music they were hearing told them to - but it sounds like this one was in the running. Plus, Sandra Jennings was on hand, and her stagings have looked pretty good to me, always depending of course on who she has to work with. One particularly striking detail* that has disappeared from Rubies over the years is one I've written about before, and because I've seen it start to come back, I'm curious whether any of it was visible this time, though I don't want to say it makes or breaks a performance of this ballet, which is pretty largely made of striking movement. What does help a performance of Rubies is a sense of wit and play, though this may be a lot to ask of dancers just able to get most of the details right, in decent tempos. In other words, so they look pretty easy, unforced and clear; and expressing the musical thought. (Nobody since has looked like they were having as much fun with the moves and the situations in this as Patricia McBride and Edward Villella - and, IIRC, Karin von Aroldingen in the demi role, the "tall girl" - her fun being the cool, dry kind.) *(Someone who wonders what I'm on about here and has the POB DVD of Jewels handy might cue it up to 42m 14s, where their soloist, holding herself upright and facing upstage, uncertainly inclines her her head downstage for an instant; originally, the soloist and her boys lowered her much farther toward us so she could put her head so far "up" as to look out at us - face upside down! - for just long enough an instant that it registered on us, and then to straighten up and go on.) I think The Four Temperaments is hard to pull off successfully all the way through, because not all of the movement comes from what I think of as the classical, academic vocabulary - most famously (or notoriously) the "here is my foot" pose at the beginning of the "Phlegmatic" variation, for example - and pherank says so that was good to read (although I don't understand the phrase about "the many modernist stage exists of the duos" - maybe there's a word missing?), because it's not so long ago since I saw some SAB students look a little lost in this material on a Workshop weekend, though the "academic" moves were shown with dispatch. Workshop has long hours of preparation with some of the best Balanchine coaches, so I was dismayed there, but of course SDB - can I use those initials or are they in use already? - would have more mature dancers in the roles, though they could hardly have had the studio time. The sense of exhilaration, of "lift off," at the end of The Four Temperaments, is essential - "Like rocket ships taking off!" was Jerry Robbins's phrase, back in the day - and it was not Balanchine's original ending. (Nancy Reynolds, in "Repertory in Review," says, "Balanchine made several versions of the ending before the premier.") Evidently he still didn't see what he wanted in what he called his "Radio City Music Hall" ending, where the dancers came together standing closely in a circular arrangement to conceal a few others who lifted a soloist abruptly into the air, in the center of the little group. That looked to many of us like a volcano erupting from beneath the sea, when I saw it in a film clip at a Dance Critic's Association meeting in New York in Mr. B.'s day, when, unusually for the DCA, they devoted the whole meeting to one ballet. I don't remember when the ending was changed - whether it had been changed already when the ballet made such an impression on Edwin Denby it left him slumped in his seat, to the concern of the ushers - but the last ending - the one we see today - is much more effective in the openness of the formations - across the stage the two ranks of the moving dancers, moving, but with their feet remaining on the floor, between which we see the running lifts - Jerry's rocket ships - and in the formations' open-endedness - those lifts don't end anywhere, as far as we can tell, as far as we can see. This is a long post for someone who didn't even see the shows! But it looks like Balanchine may be getting good renditions in San Diego - if they can keep going. Money's another story: They need to expand their support beyond the dancers' families and their friends, and that's where I think of the inadequacies of typical ballet marketing. Does SDB's reach those who already enjoy other musical or theatrical arts? Or any other arts at all? Even the art of cinema - the movies take you out of your everyday world sometimes, and everybody goes to the movies. Ballet is musical and plotless (or maybe the "plot" is in the music); these are important differences, but I think a little "poaching" for audience on the territory of other, more similar arts might help. Yet some marketers say, "Don't think of people like you. We want newbies." (I think of course of the people who I run into in the theater who are unlikely to stay or to return because they're not oriented to enjoy the show. About as unlike me as possible. And exactly new to what they don't say, but I think Michael Kaiser's term, the Marginal Buyer, is pretty clear, and names a better concept: A few years ago he described how to find them in his blog on the Huffington Post, and why scarce marketing resources might well be concentrated on them. They may be new to ballet, or to that presenter, and they sound already oriented to enjoy art. It may be that the powers-that-be behind SDB already know of Kaiser and his ideas, but it looks like they need to learn more or to do more.)

Thanks, Natalia, it hadn't occurred to me. Wondering what this looked like, I came up with a few still images but no video clips: http://6abc.com/religion/photos-papal-parade-festival-of-families-concert/1003901/#gallery-16 http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/a77d25996ff34cf2b4b0e08b3e41d510b445cbcc/c=0-10-1957-1482&r=x513&c=680x510/local/-/media/2015/09/26/USATODAY/USATODAY/635788950253761697-XXX-POPE-FRANCIS-FESTIVAL-FAMILIES-100.JPG http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/ec79dd631edb59f412485701eaee5b79cec8fbe7/c=0-9-2825-2133&r=x513&c=680x510/local/-/media/2015/09/26/USATODAY/USATODAY/635788950272169815-XXX-POPE-FRANCIS-FESTIVAL-FAMILIES-99.JPG http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/tdn.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/2/cc/2cc2dddb-ce7c-5f0f-8f91-624563659957/56075f854e7d9.image.jpg Someone who wants to try their hand at this search might like to keep in mind that some in media think the company is called the "Philadelphia Ballet"...

I'll second that, or, Quiggin having already seconded it, I'll third it: Bandstand was not a circus. Dick Clark's kids knew their music, they had their stylish moves on (like their clothes), but they heard their music each time, and they danced to it. We saw the music (there's an echo of a worn phrase used to promote ballet), we saw how they heard it, and it looked like they heard it a little differently each time. They were dancing now. They weren't showing us the extremes of what they could do, not just their tricks (though there were some), but what they heard and how they heard it; and what got me about George Balanchine's kids, when I saw them years later, was how they heard their music now. Sure, in the back of my mind, I knew about the training and rehearsal in ballet and all that, but it didn't look like drill - cadets displaying their prepared moves - and because I had found their music, Stravinsky at play, more involving than Barry Manilow, Mr. B's show kicked the experience up a notch (and then some), but, yes, American Bandstand was much better than (what little I've seen of) these shows today. A lot more dancey. But this is supposed to be about the decline of American dance criticism. To that, I'll just say now, especially echoing kfw's apt complaints about poor writing quality, that part of what makes Macaulay stand out is his command of writing, his ability to deploy it, his style, in contrast to Kisselgoff, his predecessor on the New York Times, whose lack of style seemed to me so telling in an arts critic: A sense of style is fundamental to the subject, and his writing exemplifies that, while hers - not that I read much of it, but for style, it was bettered by anything else in the paper I did read - did not.

My recollection of it, too, and this Balanchine-addicted Chicagoan is glad for it: My best memories of the CDF over the years I've gotten in (you need to look sharp when the tickets become available) are of the Jose Limon Dance Company's rendition of The Moor's Pavane and two of the Martha Graham company's presentations. (Though TSFB served Balanchine pretty well with their Tzigane, it was a notch below their usual standard, and another company another season - Ballet West? - offered a less effective Rubies.) I thought the idea of the CDF was mainly to introduce the curious but inexperienced potential Chicago audience to the potential of dance watching through the variety - four companies on one program, for example - and free tickets. Local talent was certainly on view, but not exclusively.

I thought Catoya had been let go. That reported event was just one detail in the disappointing way MCB has been presenting Balanchine lately, when I've seen them on home ground in Florida the past two seasons: less fully realized, more just clearly demonstrated, to my eyes; that's why I didn't try harder to see this program, and didn't, in the end, even though I can sleep in my own bed here in Chicago. Lopez seems to be more interested in dances by living choreographers, whose associates come in and stage them for the company, than in dances by dead ones, whose surviving "associates" - the originators of the roles - Villella used to have in to stage - at least that's my theory about the differences in how MCB's dancing looks now. For example, Wheeldon's Polyphonia, staged by one of his associates, looked very good in Ft. Lauderdale several months ago, more "present" than the Balanchine ballets flanking it on the program, and looking aptly cast to me. It's Lopez's company now, of course, and it ought to realize her vision, or amount to little. Some of us who consider Balanchine's art greater than, say, Wheeldon's, and fear its continued loss through, let's say, indifferent performance, find cause for regret, in south Florida now as in New York for some decades. Reportedly, Balanchine himself would sometimes say, apropos the subject of revivals, "Ballets are like butterflies; I say last year's butterflies don't exist," though I think that many would agree with me that when Balanchine ran NYCB, he had one of the greatest butterfly collections I have ever seen... I'll be interested in your reports of MCB's other appearances, in contemporary works.

This is an important point, well worth making. For another company to show "another flavor" of Balanchine in New York, alongside NYCB and ABT (and the SAB Workshops, let's not forget) can help to sensitize ballet-watchers to different ways of performing and so, enrich their experience, whether or not they prefer the visitors' "flavor" to the established local ones. It's a good reason for PNB to do it. That Balanchine may have become a salable trademark doesn't hurt anything either, as long as the merchandise being sold is genuine...

Only people who care about the same thing can disagree; otherwise it's a shrug, so disagreement is not all bad. I'm not sure I'd travel for this premiere, but I can check out whether Wheeldon's Nut is a fresh collaboration with Tchaikovsky while sleeping in my own bed. Tchaikovsky, of course, had Hoffmann's story in mind, and I shudder at the thought of someone trying to fit the action his music prescribes to a gangster narrative instead! (Is it worth adding that I don't get Morris's The Hard Nut at all?) But for those of us to whom Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker music may be familiar but never stale, continuing to be evocative, delighting with its great craft and variety, this must be an interesting prospect.

I don't know if this life-long Chicagoan qualifies as a "long-time Joffrey attendee" or not - I do remember enjoying programs in the New York City Center including Petrouchka, Square Dance, Parade, and As Time Goes By, but I've rarely seen the company either in New York or Chicago. (Most recently, I saw them in Ashton's Cinderella, danced without authentic Royal style but still charming, it's so well made.) From this you might guess I'm not a fan of the ballets Joffrey and Arpino themselves made for their company, and you'd be right. I'd already watched Balanchine's company dance his The Nutcracker (and still think it one of his best, which is very good indeed, in my book) when I saw a well-shot one-hour version of Joffrey's setting on television. I don't usually talk to my television, but this time I kept saying, "Listen! Just listen!" I was trying to talk to Robert Joffrey, who had not listened to Tchaikovsky like Balanchine did. Not nearly as well. Not that I wanted Joffrey to imitate Balanchine; Balanchine's staging didn't look like an imitation of anything else, even when it was, as I found out later. (His "Candy Canes" and parts of "Sugar Plum" are taken from much older settings, evidently.) What made Balanchine's staging so great for me was that, as in his other ballets, he apparently took his instructions from his composer, at every instant; and then his dancers - his dancers - could look like the music was telling them how to move. And it's for this reason that I'm optimistic about this news! I've only seen two of Wheeldon's ballets, Scenes de ballet and Polyphonia, and the latter showed he can hear his music really well sometimes. Not only in letting Ligeti tell him what to do in some detail, but in Wheeldon's arrangement of Ligeti's pieces into his own suite, so it told him what to make. A very perceptive ear, his. So this could come out pretty well on that score. (Yes. Pun intended.) (Scenes had only a few phrases here and there that helped me begin to understand what all the noise about Wheeldon's arrival on the scene was about.) As to the loss of the Joffrey version, there is that video. As for the Columbian Exposition connection, I suppose that may help to get money from those whose civic pride - or boosterism? - exceeds their appreciation for art. And as for the SF "Nut" I have only seen it in the PBS version, and I don't remember that the World's Fair aspect particularly intruded on a bland and uninteresting, not to mention meagerly decorated, staging. (Maybe making an appeal to the boosters went only so far.) Has it been made clear that the costumes Joffrey used are definitely out?

Yeah, Morris's Dido, too, and in the same month. The Harris is a real asset. And luckily, no conflict has emerged at the Auditorium Theater so far; it tears me when compelling shows go on back-to-back across town, as though this were New York or someplace, after what (to my taste anyway) has been a drought the rest of the year. On the other hand, didn't their Vancouver and Ottawa tours show different repertory, or mostly different, in different cities? Nothing wrong with hoping, though, unless it sets you up for disappointment.

I also hope this works out: She turned up unexpectedly in Balanchine's Sugar Plum pas de deux with Ballet Chicago one year recently, on her way from New York to San Francisco, evidently. My eyes popped. BC is one of the country's best schools, but they don't put dancers like her on stage very often, mostly relying on their own very considerable ranks. Abilities like hers ought to be seen and developed more steadily.

Actually, they were just in Vancouver and then Ottawa in February and March, though those stops do mark the company's first international tours since 2011, and this northern (former) fan remembers that in years past it was pretty easy to check whether and where they would be on tour, so he could mark his calendar and plan ahead as much as those in their tour cities, especially if they were coming someplace nearby. You may be right, they may want to make a "splash" announcement or something, but maybe it's just a consequence of other recent management changes that this aspect of their publicity, convenient to us in their national audience, has been overlooked. On the other hand, the Harris Theater here in Chicago has already announced their dates and repertory for April, 2016. (Scroll down the linked page. Scroll way down!) So some decisions have been made.

Is there any word as to their Dancing Festival repertory? If I were Lourdes Lopez, I'd pick something loud for the second item, in the Pritzker Pavilion - it's open-air in downtown Chicago, not far from heavily-trafficked Lake Shore Drive, and whatever sound-track normally accompanies the dancing is apt to be punctuated on a summer evening by car horns and motorcycle exhausts and the occasional siren, if not thunder as well! I'm not following MCB so closely anymore, so I'm wondering only half-facetiously whether she's got something in repertory by now where these ambient "contributions" will blend right in. (Just checking the MCB web site, I found no mention of tours. Odd.)

"This just in" - in my mail yesterday - in The School of American Ballet Spring 2015 NEWS, bottom of p. 3 under the heading "Workshop Goes National," "check local listings." Yes. Here we go again.

I wonder whether in the 20th century this transmission would have been affordable to an organization like PNB. Not that they publicized it much. I looked at the PNB website front page, forgetting whether it was PNB or PBS, and nothing there (that I saw). I had to resort to an obscure ballet discussion board, Ballet-Something-or-Other!, to get a link. And, how often are these transmissions done? I'd like to know in advance of the next one(s) so as to practice on my end of it. Maybe I could have done something about the wrong aspect ratio, for example: My picture was narrower than it should have been, so everybody looked weirdly spindly, but I was loath to experiment during my only chance, for possibly losing the whole thing. (But the audio mix? Was the orchestra pickup lost after the first part? I got close-up applause - at the wrong times, often - but the orchestra sounded distant - also a problem when I sat in McCaw Hall last October, though. Obviously that's controlled in Seattle, and if the audience is going to do that, that's another reason the orchestra needs to be stronger in the mix. Maybe even turn off the mike in the audience - unless that's the only one working, of course - while the music is playing? And make the transmission better than being there, in that respect!) But oh, Carla Korbes! What people like you do for people like me! If this is among PNB's first efforts, power to them, and may they keep trying.