Kathleen O'Connell

Neither did Rachel Rutherford, whose last performance, IIRC, was the Verdy role in Emeralds. I too agree that the company could make a little bit of a fuss over retiring dancers who have served the company well and honorably, and that includes the corps stalwarts who show up and do what needs to be done night after night.

Just a gentle reminder that these are students. I wouldn't expect to see a Violette Verdy or Jennifer Ringer level of nuance in even the best or most promising of them. Indeed, I wouldn't expect that level from most of NYCB's corps, as good as they are. Also, it's one performance. Lots can go wrong.

I'll add Betsy McBride. I saw her in Ashton's Symphonic Variations during ABT's Fall run at the Theater Formerly Known as State and thought she acquitted herself more than honorably in a very exposed role. She certainly did not suffer by comparison with the rest of the cast, who were, with one exception (Cameron McCune) all principals or soloists. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing her in a featured role again. Backstory: McBride was a principal at Texas Ballet Theater until she left to join the ABT corps in 2015.

Hod has been dancing beautifully all season! I saw her in both Mozartiana and Pulcinella Variations on Wednesday evening, and thought she was something special: she has a style all her own, which isn't always the case early in a dancer's career. (Or in many cases, ever. There are plenty of able, reliable dancers—and not just in the corps—who are more or less generic representations of the house style rather than individually interesting realizations of it.) If she's injured, I wish her a speedy recovery. Although ... I do hope she will take all the time she needs to recover fully and achieve what her dancing to date has promised. And just a quick observation: all four of the women in the quartet I saw (Hod, Kitka, LaFreniere, and Wellington) were a delight to watch, as was Schumacher. He dances the Gigue with real wit, and it's refreshing.

If I were a billionaire, I would throw money in great handfuls at all the relevant boards to make this happen. While I was at it, I would also buy up whatever rights are keeping the Great Performances, Dance in America, and Live from Lincoln Center broadcasts locked away and out of the public view and digitize, digitize, digitize for broad consumption.

Oh thank you, Angelica for the Performance Manager revelation! I'm pretty sure I have been trapped behind that same bouffant!

I think this is where I ritually chime in with a rant about the infelicities attendant to mounting an eight week season at the Metropolitan Opera, a house wholly unsuited to productions of less than gargantuan scale, and just all wrong for dance generally. I can't help but think that the need to get butts into 3800 seats and fill a giant* stage drives the spring rep. It doesn't help that it takes a special kind of performer to project out into the vast cavern that is the Met's auditorium, nor that the sight lines are lousy from more than a few seats, including the expensive ones. Threading the needle of what ballets work in that space, what ballets you have the dancers for, and what ballets people will show up for is a genuine challenge. * The proscenium is 54 x 54 feet; the stage itself is about 100 x 90 feet, including the apron and the wings. By contrast, the Theater Formerly Known as State seats 2550, has a 56 x 30 foot proscenium, and is 54 feet deep at the center.

I'm pretty sure that's what up with NYCB's Pulcinella Variations costumes. 😉 Actually, I like both the ballet and Tsumori Chisato's costumes very much. The costumes are ... whimiscal, but Peck's steps make his colleagues look terrific. (And at every performance I've seen to date, they return the favor.) Yeah, yeah, I'm shilling for this ballet.

Instagram is owned by Facebook. No matter what Zuck may say about wanting to bring the world together, Instagram exists for one reason only, and that is to sell its users' attention to advertisers. A user who might scroll right past an ad might be inclined to linger a fraction of a second longer on a sponsored post from a dancer (or actor or musician or designer or model) they know, even if they don't follow that person. Advertisers want to reach as many of the right people as possible. In this case, they're targeting people who's attention might be grabbed by Copeland's name, not just the people who follow her. The minute Instagram went to an algorithmically structured feed (as opposed to a simple chronological feed of posts from the people you follow) was the moment it stopped being a personal channel between you, your followers, and the people you yourself follow. Not that it ever really was that once it became an ad platform. I'm old and jaded: I'm no more annoyed by sponsored posts than I am by ostensibly personal posts used to shill for sponsors. For the record, I've got nothing against dancers being paid to promote products. Heck, I don't even mind fashion brands ponying up some dough to get moody shots of dancers sporting their togs into NYCB season brochures. In the best of all possible worlds, the arts would be free of commercial taint, but that's not the world we live in.

Judging from what pops up when I search Netflix and the copy in the various "What's Coming to Netflix in June" articles around the web, it's the 1993 version.

I'm sorry I have to miss the June 3 performance - both Dieck and Lowery have been dancing beautifully this season and I'd love to see them go out on a high note.

On this I think we can agree. We're perilously close to violating the "don't discuss the discussion rule," if we haven't done so already, so I'll leave it there.

Why did her age matter in this particular instance? If it didn't, then perhaps there was no need to refer to it all. Nor to her gender for that matter. Including details about age, gender, and appearance suggests that they are important. It may not have been intended, but the implication seemed to be that her being elderly had something to do with her not liking Antique Epigraphs, or worse, only liking "crowd pleasers" and not something "elegant" and "refined." "Sharp sense of humor" — now that would have been an interesting detail to include from the outset: it tells us something about her cast of mind.

Croce was not a fan. From "The Relevance of Robbins," Ballet Review, Spring 1972: "Partly because of the costumes, which illuminate nothing, Goldberg is ninety minutes at hard labor." "The trouble with Goldberg is that it doesn't exist as a ballet. When Robbins has wrestled every last musical repeat to the mat, we don't come away with a theatrical experience but with an impression of endless ingenious music-visualizations, some of which—like the exquisite dance for Gelsey Kirkland and the many good variations for the boys—stick in the mind but most of which fade away like skywriting." I happen to enjoy watching Goldberg, but the analogy to skywriting strikes me as pretty apt. It may be because I don't see it often enough, but the thing that tends to stick in my mind the most is the costume gimmick. In any event, I do make a point of seeing it whenever the company deigns to revive it. This time around I saw the Wednesday, May 16 performance. I thought the Part I cast (Gerrity, Lovette, Applebaum, Huxley, Gordon, and Stanley) was particularly delightful.

For 45 years, writer and broadcaster Studs Terkel hosted a daily radio program on WFMT Chicago and seems to have interviewed just about everyone who was anybody worth talking to. (Not to mention a number of people few prominent radio hosts might have thought to talk to, such as a hotel porter, a cleaning woman, and a cowboy.) WFMT has begun the process of making its vast archive of Terkel interviews available online, and to date has posted over 1200 of them. It turns out that quite a few feature dancers and choreographers, including Igor Youskevitch (1959), Flemming Flindt (1968), and Merce Cunningham (1971). (Alas, not all of the interviews have been digitized yet, including those with Anna Sokolow, Gerald Arpino, Ruth Page, and Danil Nagrin.) To give you a sense of how extensive the archive is in terms of subject matter, here's the list of headline topics. I'm heading down the rabbit hole; if I'm not back in a week, send a search party. African-American History and Culture 110 RECORDINGS Anthropology & Sociology 79 RECORDINGS Architecture, Design, Urban Planning 40 RECORDINGS Chicago 180 RECORDINGS Childhood & Youth 75 RECORDINGS Civil Rights 94 RECORDINGS Cold War 13 RECORDINGS Comedy, Satire 54 RECORDINGS Community Activism & Social Reform 115 RECORDINGS Dance 13 RECORDINGS Education 136 RECORDINGS Elderly & Elderly Care 9 RECORDINGS Environment, Ecology 43 RECORDINGS Feminism, Women, Women's Studies 81 RECORDINGS Film 130 RECORDINGS Great Depression 48 RECORDINGS Healthcare, Medicine, Mental Health 109 RECORDINGS Journalism & Broadcasting 191 RECORDINGS LGBTQ Culture & Rights 9 RECORDINGS Latino Culture & History 29 RECORDINGS Law, Crime, Prison 79 RECORDINGS Literature 170 RECORDINGS Multidisciplinary Arts 26 RECORDINGS Music - Blues & Gospel 42 RECORDINGS Music - Classical Music & Opera 163 RECORDINGS Music - Experimental Music 22 RECORDINGS Music - Folk Music 78 RECORDINGS Music - Jazz 107 RECORDINGS Music - Other 25 RECORDINGS Music - Religious Music 16 RECORDINGS Music - Rock & Pop 22 RECORDINGS Music - World Music 48 RECORDINGS Music 384 RECORDINGS Myths, Stories, Storytelling 22 RECORDINGS Native American History & Culture 16 RECORDINGS Pacifists, Peace Activists & Anti-Bomb Activism 43 RECORDINGS Philosophy 29 RECORDINGS Poetry 67 RECORDINGS Race Relations 122 RECORDINGS Science & Science Writers 52 RECORDINGS Sports and Sports Writers 20 RECORDINGS Technology 30 RECORDINGS Television 38 RECORDINGS Theater 171 RECORDINGS Theology, Religion, Religious Organizations 76 RECORDINGS Travel & Culture - China 9 RECORDINGS Travel & Culture - Denmark 7 RECORDINGS Travel & Culture - France 30 RECORDINGS Travel & Culture - General 31 RECORDINGS Travel & Culture - Germany 27 RECORDINGS Travel & Culture - Italy 11 RECORDINGS Travel & Culture - Russia 17 RECORDINGS Travel & Culture - South Africa 25 RECORDINGS Travel & Culture - United Kingdom 74 RECORDINGS Urban Life 91 RECORDINGS Vietnam War 46 RECORDINGS Visual Arts 55 RECORDINGS Working, Labor, Economy 129 RECORDINGS World War II 46 RECORDINGS

Congrats to Novak! 💐 Only knowing the company from its dancing, Trusnovec (or perhaps another veteran) would have been my guess too. But the dancing isn't everything, and certain mission-critical AD talents might shine brightest backstage and in the studio. It's also possible that Trusnovec (or one of those other veterans) wasn't interested and made that clear in some way or another a while ago. I can think of lots of reasons to say "I'm honored, but no thanks." ETA: or Andy Lebeau! He's been Taylor's assistant since the early 2000's and runs both the school and PTD2.

Thanks, abatt!

Out of curiosity, what Met section or sections are the TDF tickets usually available for? I always assumed that they put people in the Family Circle - but do they try to fill up the more "visible" sections of the house so that it doesn't look so bleak when a show is undersold?

I suspect that the majority of the generation that came of age during the Vietnam war — i.e., today's "aging audience" — would not be unduly scandalized by The Green Table.

Thanks - I should have known that, but didn't! A quick search and I found this short video: Backstage at the Met Opera's costume shop: frenzy, fabric and velvet codpieces I don't know if my favorite bit of dialogue is "Is this Pong? No, it's Ping" (about a costume for Turandot) or "How do you feel wearing that codpiece?" (fitting a costume for Henry VIII in Ana Bolena).

Well, for what it's worth, not mine. Since I know most of the NYCB rep well, I have a pretty good idea of what's coming and what I'm going to see, which frankly adds to my experience rather than detracting from it. And it's happened that I've learned something new about a work I've seen dozens of times and simply never noticed before. A couple of the "See the Music" presentations I've seen have featured newly commissioned or less frequently performed works, and I appreciated having my dance-watching and music-hearing pumps primed. I like the experience of taking in something about which I have absolutely no prior knowledge, but I also like the experience of taking in something when I have a grounding in its particulars, either through study or experience. (To quote Louis Pasteur, chance favors the prepared mind.) They're very different ways of encountering and experiencing art, but they're both valid and valuable. On a related note, I love seeing dancers I've witnessed being human beings — either via social media or speaking to us from the stage in their civvies or sweating and fretting in a documentary — transform themselves into something extraordinary through their art. That's mystery enough for me. Of course, your mileage may vary! And I have gotten impatient with "See the Music" from time to time when I've needed to get out of the theater and into a subway car before it turns into a pumpkin.

OT! I wish the powers that be would deign to fund a documentary about NYCB's costume shop. The little clips we get from time to time make me hunger for something more comprehensive — following a project from start to finish, perhaps. Something along the lines of The September Issue — which wasn't really about fashion, but rather negotiating both creative conflicts and production snafus while working to a tight deadline — might be interesting. At the very least, the craft of these fabulous artisans needs to be documented and celebrated.

I agree! The music at that particular point in the piece, with its plucked strings and silvery little bells, has a kind of delicate sparkle that, to my eye at least, is beautifully captured by interleaving the fouettés with those quick little steps on pointe. It makes me think of embroidery. That being said, Peck's fouettés are undeniably thrilling and a legitimate option, given that the variation was sometimes performed that way when Balanchine was alive. (By Melissa Hayden, for instance, in this 1960 telecast. Patricia McBride did the version with the little steps in the Choreography by Balanchine broadcast.)

Just seconding Drew and Vipa: Laracey was absolutely lovely, lovely, lovely as the second ballerina in Concerto Barocco this afternoon! I simply cannot say enough good things about her dancing today. It more than lived up to the promise of her lyrical, luminous Winter season performance in Divertimento No. 15.

Woo Hoo! One of my guilty pleasures! The company absolutely needs to revive this one while Maria Kowroski is still on the roster. I've seen several ballerinas perform it (including Karin von Aroldingen, who originated the ballerina role) and Kowroski was hands down the best — appropriately droll without being the least bit arch. It doesn't hurt that she looks fabulous in the get-up. I can imagine Reichlen in it, too, but will make it a point to see Kowroski if she's cast.