scoop

I can't believe I'm saying this since I'm totally nuts for Balanchine, but the company IS called Suzanne Farrell Ballet, so there's a case to be made for presenting the range of choreography that influenced her. My curiosity is piqued since I don't believe I've seen SFB dance anything but Balanchine.

How charming! Their conversation makes you realize how although it's the principals who usually get interviewed, the corps dancers can be among the most observant and insightful company members. More, please!

Glad to see this thread is still alive, in time for the latest McEwan: Saturday. Gotten mixed reviews so far as I can tell, but I enjoyed the excerpt that the New Yorker ran last year. He really captures that sense of menace and forboding that seems to have descended on the world since the war in Iraq.... I did go back and read Amsterdam, and, you're right Herman, I was surprised at how slight it was compared to Atonement....

In lub again with City Ballet! Sunday night's performances were quite thrilling, and much more energetic than the previous night (I wonder if the company was just glad to get this tour over with and go home!). Theme & Variations was crisply danced -- by the corps and Miranda Weese alike. I always find it exhiliarating to watch how Balanchine moves a stage full of dancers, criss-crossing at lighting speed, shooting off sudden arabesques, whipping out turns and leaps -- there's something so high-wire about it, I almost forget to breathe. Four Temperaments was terrific as well. It's amazing how fresh a ballet like this remains, especially after seeing the newer dances that borrow from such works (or, to be kinder, pay homage to them) -- the flexed wrists and feet, etc., the torso contractions, etc. Ansanelli and Askegard in Sanguinic, as previously noted, are quite a mismatch, size-wise, yet despite him getting whacked in the knee a couple of times, I thought they pulled it off nonetheless. She has a wonderful quicksilver quality. I'm Old Fashioned was delightful, Carla Korbes and Jenifer Ringer really had that '40s-movie-star glamour. p.s. Marga -- many thanks, although I bet I'm not the first to see pretzels instead of dancers on all too many stages these days!

Well, I hate to continue the distress over this run -- I generally am so grateful any time I can see NYCB -- but Saturday night's performance fell sort of flat for me. It's not so much that I can point to this or that dancer having a bad night, or any particular flaws in the execution of a ballet, but the whole feel of the evening was low energy, somehow just off. Divertimento was lovely, but didn't sparkle. Polyphonia struck me as uninteresting -- I always love seeing Wendy Whelan and Jock Soto, but the choreography for them didn't seem much different from all those other bend-me, shape-me, pretzel ballets out there these days. (God, I sound so dyspeptic. Sorry about that!) West Side Story Suite was a bright spot on the program. Damien Woetzel was a totally cool Riff, and Jenifer Ringer was great fun as Anita. I thought it odd that Maria and Tony didn't have much to do -- I was expecting a big pas de deux for them to Somewhere, but that turned out to be more of an ensemble, let's-all-be-friends piece. It was quite nice, though, very airy and sweet. I remain hopeful though and have tix for tonight -- Theme, 4Ts and Old Fashioned.

For me, being alone on stage would be the most frightening thing ever! I think that's why I love Balanchine's Concerto Barocco -- I imagine it must be great fun to dance one of the leads, having a buddy on stage to play off of.

Carbro, right you are. In fact, I was wearing Makarova's Other Dances costume in my dream!

I've had only one ballet dream ever, and I think it was so wonderful it blocked any future ones! I was dancing this gorgeous, passionate pas de deux with Baryshnikov (this was back during his peak as a ballet dancer). I think the dream must have been inspired not by a performance I'd seen but by a series of photographs popular back then, because I distinctly remember that the dream was in black and white and sort of grainy . Anyone remember those photographs? They were sold as posters and postcards, and there were several of Suzanne Farrell and I think maybe Natalia Makarova.

Happily, and finally, I have the Rosalie O'Connor "Backstage at the Ballet" calendar. It seemed to be sold out last year when I tried to find it online. I'd resigned myself to having to settle for something else (funny how when you can't have one particular thing, everything else just pales in comparison). But then last night, killing some time at a Borders, there it was, with all the other calendars that were now marked down to $4!

Ohhhhh, I feel like having a good (virtual) cry. You're a class act, Alexandra, and I'll miss your guiding spirit. You should be proud of what you created; merde on your new venture! And a big thank you to all of you who are carrying on what Alexandra started! GROUP HUG!

Sorry for any confusion I might have created: I was able to buy a single ticket -- actually for a class Suzanne is giving that I tried to go to last year, but it sold out --so I assumed all the tickets were available. I agree, Dirac, these may go fast, so everyone mark April 11 on their calendars, palm pilots, etc!

Tickets are already on sale on the website. So glad this is happening -- I seem to recall some earlier threads about cancelled tours, etc. Let's all plan to meet at intermission!

What a sweet daughter you sound like! This is maybe a bit farther afield than you want to go, but the video, Elusive Muse, about Suzanne Farrell, includes an interview with Edward Villella among others who have partnered her and perhaps, I don't recally exactly, some brief clips of him performing. It's a brilliant documentary nonetheless, and I think anyone who loved that era of NYCB would enjoy it.

I loved Democracy when I saw it in London this spring. The actor who played Willy Brandt, Roger Allam, was just dynamite. He really gave you a sense of Brandt's charisma, as well as his melancholy. I didn't know anything about the real-life incident on which it was based, and found the play totally gripping. There was something Shakespearean, almost, about how Brandt's downfall was treated.

I couldn't finish it. When the story drifted away from the ballet world so did I. None of the characters struck me as compelling and I couldn't care less what happened to them. And although the author went to SAB, I didn't feel like there was much evocation of that world.

I'm SO glad to know this! I've always admired how she handled the kind of life she was dealt as a president's daughter, and it warms my heart that her ballet education contributed to her development as a graceful -- in every way -- young woman. You should be very proud of the role you played in her life, Ms. Leigh!

Not to distract from the very important main topic here, but what is Clinton's familial tie to ballet??

Ah, Farrell Fan, how nice to learn we have one other thing in common besides loving Suzanne! I forget how I discovered Anne Tyler, sometime in the 80s, but quickly gobbled up every novel. My favorites are some of the earliest ones -- Celestial Navigation, Earthly Possessions and Dinner at Homesick Restaurant. One scene that remains in my head after all these years is from (I think) Earthly Possessions where the two characters end up living in a house where everything -- sofas, chairs, etc. -- has a twin. What a great metaphor of two people uncompletely coupled. (Or at least that's how I read it!) I love her gentle, affectionate style of writing, such a switch from much of the current hip-and-ironic approach. By happy coincidence, I moved to Baltimore about 17 years and it's been neat landing in the middle of what sometimes can seem like an Anne Tyler novel. The people haven't disappointed -- they're as oddball and endearing (well, SOME of them are! ) as you might imagine. For some reason, though, I haven't read her in years, perhaps since Saint Maybe. Your review, though, makes me want to catch up again -- many thanks! Oh, and one more thing -- I wouldn't gossip about our very private author, but this has been published in the papers: She's been involved the last couple of years with a restauranteur in Washington, and at one point wrote the funny little messages that were tucked into the cookies at his place.

Oh, what a clever idea! I have banned myself from any new magazine subscriptions because of the clutter that they create -- ie, a new New Yorker shows up when you're only a third of the way through last week's, so you start that one, and soon, half-read magazines are underfoot everywhere! This seems self-limiting, though, like even I could dispense with an issue before the next one comes. Of course, there's still the problem of not being able to throw out certain magazines. I have my Martha Stewart Livings from way way back, long before she became a felon!

Zeta-Jones is totally glam -- I love how when she first married Michael Douglas she instantly and unapologetically embraced her ascension into the ranks of Hollywood royalty, even though she'd hardly made any movies at that point. It was amazing how during last year's Oscars she was hugely pregnant yet still managed to look like the cover of one of those '40s-era fan magazines. I almost don't recognize her in those cell phone ads she does -- the jeans and the tank top totally disguise her.

Bill Murray was heartbreaking in "Lost in Translation" -- I can't remember when I was so moved by a performance. It was sort of sad how the camera remained on him after Sean Penn won -- he looked truly devastated. Broke my heart a second time! I guess I admire, though, that he didn't put on some fake smile and clap heartily in that faux generous way nominees often do. That said, and without even having seen Mystic River, I was happy for Sean Penn. I've always loved his work and thought his speech was both authentic -- he managed to get his politics in but briefly and rather wittily -- and elegant. You really sensed how seriously he takes his work, and how much he admires his colleagues.

:yes: Thanks for the quick review, Ari! Hope to read more from you and others... How's this for bad timing: The New York City Ballet comes to the Kennedy Center for the first time in 17 years -- the exact time I've lived in the area -- and this week I'm on a business trip in ... New York City! Shoot me NOW! :green: Hope to get back home by Saturday so maybe I'll get to catch Serenade et al that night and Jewels on Sunday...

Oh. My. God. What a blasphemy this is -- I had to read both articles twice, I couldn't believe the Stepford quotes from the Chamber of Commerce and Museum of Dance officials. How on earth did the likes of these people and this Chesbrough guy become the inheritors -- and now the trashers -- of this amazing legacy? I don't believe I've ever seen such blatant mismanagement and neglect and, good grief, I'm running out of vocabulary. I can't believe of the SPAC board only Marylou Whitney was outraged enough to quit, or that they put up with Chesbrough all these years as he ran the program into the ground. :speechless:

Don't have much to add -- although I remember reading the book when it came out at the time and agree it'd be interesting to find out what happened to the "characters" -- but I believe Lisa Reinhard is married or otherwise with Baryshnikov. Or was this in the book? Maybe I have even less to add than I thought! :shrug:

Sounds like a great appointment! I remember her as a very charming dancer, and was impresed to read about how seriously she's developed her second career as a teacher. The appointment should calm some of the fears that Webre was going to tip WSB more into a strictly neo-classical company. Looking forward to seeing how the company develops from here on...