Ray
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Connection to/interest in ballet** (Please describe. Examples: fan, teacher, dancer, writer, avid balletgoer)
Former dancer
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City**
Philadelphia
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State (US only)**, Country (Outside US only)**
PA
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Surprising and moving insights about the creation of the familiar musical, with readings from Bernstein's own notes on the process. (Who knew that the original gang conflict was conceived as Jews vs. Catholics?!?!) Listen quick, though: BBC tends to shut down its streams for foreign listeners after a pretty short time. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b043wz2c
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Oh my bad--it's actually a very direct parody of a dancewear spot (which is already ridiculous). Here is another parody that hews close to the language of the original target of satirical attack.
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A funny parody here of all those ballet "reality" shows--or of ignorance about ballet in general.
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Just FYI, Woetzel is presenting PAB at Vail this summer: http://www.vvf.org/content/events/vail-international-dance-festival/2014-upclose-jewels
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This will be very challenging for this company which, unlike PNB or NYCB, has not spent the time/resources to develop a strong organization. IMHO.
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Also, I would argue that PAB's origin story is odder than most NYCB satellites: Barbara Weisberger, the putative Balanchine heir who founded PAB, was never really an NYCB company member, even if she was "a former Balanchine protégée" and had some singular and significant connections to the choreographer (a 2006 NYTimes article explains all).
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A brief answer to that careful response is that I don't see PNB's kind of creative and thoughtful curating an programming--whether or not it's to one's taste--at PAB. It's just not happening, at least not on a sustained, engaged level.
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Not being a choreographer was a good thing--no quibbles there. And yes to Wheeldon and Neenan. But if you chart out the Wheeldon-level projects over the Weiss-level ones, the latter predominate. And numbers of Balanchine ballets performed have fallen off. Yes, fostering Neenan was of course great, but from my perspective, it's not part of a larger vision of mentoring or developing young choreographers. They were both lucky, basically. I agree that the board and subscribers are conservative, but they are also loyal; you can lead them to new places. I don't believe he ever really did that.
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He was fine as a dancer--from what I remember; but I've been very disappointed over the years with his programming. I feel that, in the field, he's been more of a follower than a leader. I'm not sure what he watched or sought out (in terms of the global context). Many rep choices seemed to me simply expedient (all those Ricky Weiss ballets, for instance); as a former dancer I sometimes wondered, from the evidence of what I saw on stage, what was going with training and coaching. And I have no strong sense of what the "Balanchine legacy" really means to the company, other than boilerplate.
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Sorry, Amy, I have to respectfully disagree here. I think his scope was very limited.
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The Duty of Artists To Speak Out Against Injustice
Ray replied to abatt's topic in Everything Else Ballet
Not to disagree with anything said here so far, but I think it's perfectly accurate to call Gergiev a "major musician of our time." To my ears, that sounds fairly neutral; I'm not sure what the problem is with that description.