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kaskait

Inactive Member
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Posts posted by kaskait

  1. Homans is definitely the go-to talking head about ballet nowadays. I attended a Q&A with Suzanne Farrell at the NYPL and she was there giving a speech in the beginning. Like it or not balletomanes are going to be stuck with her for a long time.

    I never read any of her books. I'll have to head to the library. But if her appearance on the documentary is indication of her writing, it is going to be a very dry experience. How did she get to control the message and be the voice of ballet? Who appointed her?

  2. You have to wonder what is motivating KM. I'm sure he must see these problems time and again in her performances. Does he think the audience members are too dumb to notice. Well I guess the rich donor crowd probably had no idea since most of them go to the ballet only for galas, and they pay the bills.

    They do it all to put their names on the building (at New York State), hobnob with one another, make business deals and get their faces in the society columns. Being interested in ballet dancing is not on their radar except that it makes them look cultured. Believe me, people like Lucia Chase and Lincoln Kirstein are very rare. Probably always were rare.

  3. The SL excerpt with Misty and Whiteside excerpt was also tragic. Why, in any case, pick the shortest act of SL and then only a portion of it. If you perform it, you should perform either the PDD from the first lakeside scene or part of the black Swan Act. I suspect Misty knew she's not ready for prime time. First,she is overly muscular, too heavy and has too large breasts to look good in a tutu. Her limbs look short and she looks thick and dumpy in a tutu. Anyone who compares her to Sara Mearns hasn't seen much of either of them.. Sara is much taller than Misty, her muscles are elongated, she doesn't have much of a waist and she has virtually no breasts. Then Misty's dancing is just leaden. Where everyone else seems light, she dances like she has lead in her toe shoes, not light or lifted out of her hips at all. Reminds me of my modern training. When James was trying to lift her (and not even an overhead lift) he looked like he was struggling mightily. And no expression or acting AT ALL. Just awful!

    What Swan Lake part did they actually perform?

    Part of Copeland's cause is for body acceptance in ballet. She thinks we should just overlook her muscular form. I think her overbuilt muscles are getting in the way of her dancing. When I look at pictures of her in the past, she wasn't always this overbuilt. On YT is a short clip of her in the ABT summer intensive 2000 performing Queen of the Dryads. She was very streamlined then. Granted she was still a teen, but she had past puberty and her growing years. Her body should not have changed to the significant degree we see now unless she began some kind of training that built her up. Maybe she thought it would make her look different from the rest. I don't know.

    I feel bad for Whiteside. He is the go to guy in the company now charged with the job of making technically questionable dancers like Seo and Copeland look decent. Mainly by carrying them around like luggage.

  4. I think McKenzie steers away from casting Sarah Lane as well, but I honestly think it's more to do with her height. My feelings has been that he just feels she's too short. Lane herself alluded to it in this article from several years back: http://www.timeout.com/newyork/dance/life-in-the-fast-lane.

    But Lane isn't and wasn't the only small Ballerina ever. There have been plenty of greats that were tiny (Kirkland). Plus once Lane is on pointe that jacks her up to almost 5'5. Her limbs are well proportioned, she doesn't look small.

    It comes down to the fact that she just isn't popular right now. I was hoping to see her in Swan Lake.

  5. I think McKenzie objects to Lane.

    I think so as well. It has to do with that whole film fiasco. Because Lane wouldn't sit tight and allow a third rate actress hijack her career and lie her way to an Oscar. Now he won't let her dance SW because it would further prove Lane right, that she did the bulk of the dancing in the film.

  6. I guess we are quite lucky that McKenzie decided to give Stella the one Giselle. We are lucky that he didn't stick Hee Seo into that Giselle, too.

    I'm wondering how that happened as well. Maybe McKenzie wasn't wearing his glasses that day and mistook the two of them.

    Whatever the case, someone was on Abrera's side and I'm glad. She is one of the best dancers in the company and she deserved that part.

  7. https://youtu.be/BkAOhe-4Q74

    This is a Giselle clip from Starburst of Dance Gala 2014.

    Seo didn't even do the entrechat in the opening, that just seems lazy to me. There were a few balance issues as well. Good thing Whiteside was there for her to lean on. Later on, she seems to struggle a bit with stamina issues. And this is only a portion of the ballet.

    This is the dancer that will taking over the bulk of Semionova's performances this spring?

  8. This sounds like the old system NYCB used a few years back. The work-around for that was to keep adding seats to the same performance, then pick the one you want from a seating chart, and delete all the others. You have to do the add process on the same transaction. If you go back to pick the same performance a second time it will give you the same seat it assigned the first time. I don't know if that still works, but it's worth trying.

    Thank you for the advice. But after deleting the seat and trying to reorder so many times, I finally just purchased it. But I'll keep what you recommended in mind the next time I order.

  9. Does McKenzie think that forcing Hee Seo on the public repeatedly is going to increase box office. My future plan for next season is to buy fewer tickets in advance, since nothing really sells out at ABT anyway.

    It would have been interesting if he tried to push Misty Copeland on the Russians. LOL. I think I would almost pay to see the fur fly on that one.

  10. LOL!!

    Actually, this is quite disgusting. ABT's weakest principal will now get 3 Nikiyas, 2 Juliets and 3 O/Os? Mckenzie shows no respect for his artists or his audience

    The last thing ABT should do is P off their Russian contingent. Since they count on them for their box office. They will NOT be happy with Seo.

  11. Well, looking on the bright side, Hee Seo can certainly use the practice.

    Not even one Swan Lake for Lane? That is just petty. The very definition of the word. But then again, I'm not surprised. Lane would make all the rest of them look like turkeys.

  12. I purchased a ticket to the Sarah Lamb's "The Dream". The website doesn't allow you to pick your seats though. I'm stuck in a middle seat (I like aisle seats). Oh well. I'm still excited.

  13. I dissent. The Victorians did have their creepy side, as do we all (and a lot of the furniture was awful), but they also get an undeserved bad rap.

    They used to put skirts on furniture just on the off chance someone would get sexy thoughts about a sofa leg. CREEPY!

  14. I was at yesterday's performance of Bournonville Divertissements and La Slyphide.

    I can heartily agree that Taylor Stanley was a true standout. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't substitute him in the Pas de Deux section. He did have the fast footwork down cold along with a gorgeous upper body form.

    In the Pas De Six, I was very impressed with Indiana Woodward. She was the only one who looked truly romantic and at home in the style. She had good musicality, dance phrasing and truly finished, elegant upper body form. The others seemed to struggle.

    Also the rest of the male dancers seemed a bit too tall for me. They struggled to pull in their long legs in time for the next few dance phrases. Although it wouldn't look as pretty, I think the ballet would be better if they had more dancers who were the same body type as Taylor Stanley.

    La Slyphide was wonderful. I loved Megan LeCrone as Effie and Andrew Veyette as James. Everyone in the company was so good. The sylph section was lovely.

    The only problem I had was their take on Madge. If she is played as a funny old lady, well than that makes James look like delusional monster. If she is truly evil, it turns James into a tragic figure. I lean toward the latter since it is a romantic ballet. So the NYCB version is a bit skewed and modern in that respect.

  15. I forgot it was on. So I missed that ridiculous opening of a toe shoe being flung onto the stage.

    What I saw was awful. Nothing really about the company but basic stuff about ballet history. And then there would talk about what ballets ABT performed over the years, small truncated clips of ABT greats cut way too short and awful slo-mo shots of current dancers, none of them filmed to show them off in a good way.

    This is a disaster. What happened?

  16. Alas, it looked like the Saturday evening performance had already sold well -- slim pickings in remaining seats. I have no idea why -- Saturday night? Semionova? Shklyarov? So even if it sells out, will Stella get the credit? But we can hope that the ecstatic fans and good reviews will help convince management she deserved this. I wonder if the Russian audience that expected to see Semionova will be upset at the substitution.

    They probably won't be happy that Semionova dropped out. But they still have Shklyarov.

  17. Wait - wasn't Semionova dancing an excerpt from GISELLE at the gala, with Stella Myrta? Maybe they'll make Stella the Giselle for the gala and bring someone else as Myrta???

    That would be a good idea. Give everyone a sneak peak then do a little PR blitz announcing Abrera's performance on the 23rd.

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