Kathleen O'Connell

I thought the part of Herrera's answer that Stuben quoted did take the discussion somewhat beyond dislike of people taking candid backstage shots, though that is where she started.

Here it is with a few more of the sentences that preceded it:

"My career has been so important to me, and I felt I wanted to end it here, to experience it how I wanted to experience it, fully, intensely. That’s how I want to take my leave, before getting mixed up in all this media. Now, if someone makes it you don’t know whether it’s because they really have talent or because the media helped get them there. I don’t want my career to be tarnished by that sort of thing. I don’t have Facebook or Twitter or any of that."

Fernando Bujones on Mikhail Baryshnikov: "Baryshnikov has the publicity. I have the talent." (Reported in People Magazine, 1979.)

Artists have been grousing about other artists' publicity since forever, not to mention about Kids Today.

ETA: Hmmm ... now that I've re-read that People profile, I can't decide if I'm sad or relieved that Bujones didn't have access to Twitter.

I would have been absolutely OVER THE MOON and pounding the "Follow" button like there was no tomorrow if my favorite dancers had been posting little tidbits to social media back when I was 20. But alas, it was all punchcards and mainframes back then ...

Not exactly social media proper, but I found this piece on Guillaume Côté's foray into small screen video front and center in today's OZY.com email newsletter.

Guillaume Côté, Ballet's Smartphone Pioneer

"Why you should care"* per OZY: "Because ballet may be 600 years old, but it’s getting a new look."

The look will not be new to most Ballet Alerters, but then it doesn't look anything like ABT's marketing materials, either ...

* Every OZY piece features a prominent "Why You Should Care" box right below the headline image and right above the "Share" buttons.

The Nation has posted the full text of a new profile of Violette Verdy by Marina Harss.

It's a lovely appreciation of Verdy as both dancer and teacher, but it's also packed with the kind of descriptive observation that can help guide our own dance-watching. Here's a sample:

Verdy encouraged Laracey to sway her hips more as she walked and to take liberties with the timing, “as if you’re singing to yourself, inventing it on the spot, and you’re not onstage at all.” During the second movement, a minuet, Laracey carefully unfolded one leg in such a way that the action appeared perfectly smooth, uninterrupted. Verdy stopped her: “Remember, not too lyrical, a little more folk.” The dance’s Slavic folk elements—a turned-in knee, a hand on the hip, a little horselike prance—began to come into relief, accentuated by pauses and minute changes of timing. The steps developed a flavor. “Feel the slight syncopation here,” Verdy pointed out, referring to the way an accented step slightly anticipated and held the beat. Through these touches, Balanchine and Verdy had turned Ravel’s lilting minuet into a kind of modified mazurka. The dance alternated between French nonchalance and the earthiness of Slavic folk dance.

Harss' article beautifully describes the special combination of musicality, imagination, intelligence, and heart that were the foundation of Verdy's dancing and are now the foundation of her teaching. A few quotes here won't do it justice, so just go read the whole thing!

Thanks, California! I anticipated some Irwin-esque postures, but I wasn't expecting pointe shoes ...

But I am even more curious about this:

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10 at 8pm and SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11 at 7pm

BILL IRWIN AND TILER PECK, New Work (NY Premiere), Bill Irwin, with Tiler Peck

There had better be a video. Because I can't even imagine ... but I'm dying to see whatever it is. (I have absolutely no expectation that I will prevail in the FFD ticket scrum.)

Lots and lots of good stuff on offer! YES! to Nrityagram. For the curious, this is a selection from the work they performed the last time they were in FFD. (The dancer on the left is Surupa Sen; the dancer on the right is her long-time colleague Bijayini Satpathy.)

I have a question. Why do people love to bring up and give credit to Paris Opera for David's training when he only studied there for 1 year? Shouldn't Ballet Arizona School, and most specifically his teacher Kee Juan Han, receive most of the credit?

For the same reason that SAB is given credit for training say, Ashley Bouder or Adrian Danchig-Waring, both of whom were students there for about a year before entering NYCB as apprentices? And Bouder and Danchig-Waring aren't particularly unusual in this regard: they were just the first two "one and done" dancers I found moving through the dancer bios on NYCB's website. It seems that many (if not most?) NYCB dancers attended SAB for only a year or two.

That being said, 1) yes, a dancer's important early teachers should be given credit! (and which credit the NYCB website very graciously accords them); POB does look mighty prestigious on the bio nonetheless ; and 3) I'd be interested to know the extent to which Hallberg's dancing really was formed by his time at POB. Any thoughts?

I have to admit that I'm completely enraptured by POB's exquisitely pliant and expressive feet ... it's about all I can look at when I watch them dance and I barely notice anything else.

Thanks for the link, pssfrb! I started clicking around Kathryn Morgan's main YouTube channel and learned that she'll also be portraying Galina Panova in the musical "To Dance" (based, apparently, on Valery Panov's autobiography of the same name), which will have its world premiere this August at the New York Fringe Festival. I'm glad she'll be performing again in NYC, even if it's just for a short run.

I watched a couple of her little "Technique Tips" videos, and I can see why she's got 29,000+ subscribers. I can't speak to her videos' pedagogical soundness, but Morgan herself comes across as very open, down-to-earth, and caring. It's clear that she's putting a lot of time, effort, and heart into her YouTube enterprise: in addition to her instructional videos, she's posted a ton of nicely-produced videos on topics that run the gamut from how to put on your makeup (stage and everyday), how to deal with jealousy, and (cluing me in to a subculture entirely new to me) how she sets up her Erin Condren Life Planner. If I were a tween bunhead, I would absolutely adore her.

ETA: Morgan recounts her struggles with thyroid disease here.

Stumbled across The Museum of Blacks in Ballet earlier today. The timeline and video gallery are still under construction, but the (invaluable!) Roll Call and Discussions sections are up and running.

From the About page:

The story of Blacks in ballet is integral to the story of dance. By creating a digital platform that compiles this less-known oral history in one apolitical online location, MOBB seeks to make this rich history accessible and inspiring by creating high-quality content, promoting larger discussions within the dance community, and providing a platform and role models for emerging Black dancers.

Worth a look see for the Roll Call alone.

I remember thinking it was more about a series of meetings than it was about a dance.

I put "Ballet 422" in the same category as R. J. Cutler's 2009 "The September Issue" - i.e., a documentary that's more about the process than the product, and more inclined to show the process to you and let you make of it what you will rather than explain it. (I think "Ballet 422" is a little more spare in this regard.) I happened to like both films very much.

"The September Issue" used to be available for streaming on Netflix, but no more alas ... but you can rent it for $0.99 on Amazon Prime Video.

I thought the trend was for most female principals to be on the tall side, between 5'6" and 5'9." Is that wrong?

The principal ranks at NYCB currently skew "not tall": Ashley Bouder, Megan Fairchild, Sterling Hyltin, Lauren Lovette, Tiler Peck, Ana-Sophia Scheller, Jennie Somogyi, and Abi Stafford are on the shorter side; Maria Kowroski, Rebecca Krohn, Sara Mearns, and Teresa Reichlen on the taller.

And yes, I think they'd be a natural choice for Sonnambula. Or Prodigal.

Yes to both. Prodigal does address the tall women / short men issue.

As for Balanchine's Valse-Fantasie, why, why?? As time has shown, IMO ABT simply can not dance either Balanchine or Robbins well. The dancers don't have either the speed or the attack. Just because NYCB isn't dancing it this year (or next) doesn't mean we have forgotten how they dance it. I don't care who is staging it. ABT should just leave those choregraphers to NYCB.

Balanchine and Robbins both choreographed works for ABT (or Ballet Theater, as is was then known) -- Theme and Variations and Fancy Free, respectively. These ballets are part of the company's heritage; surely it has every right to perform them. Indeed, one might argue that there have been periods when ABT could field a better cast for either work than NYCB could: it wasn't so long ago that the conventional wisdom in certain circles was that NYCB itself lacked the speed and attack necessary to dance Balanchine well.

In any event, how is any company supposed to get better at anything if it doesn't perform it regularly?

Yes, improvisation is at the heart of any full-fledged jazz performance. I would only add that very few jazz groups improvise throughout an entire "tune." Written arrangements and so-called head arrangements are the standard jumping off points for the improv.

Absolutely. I'd say improvisation at some level - even if it's limited to the headline soloists, as was the case in many swing bands - is a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for something to be called "jazz."

I'd have a hard time characterizing Rhapsody in Blue as Jazz proper, since the work is fully-scored and there's no improvisation. Jazz-influenced, yes, in terms of its instrumentation, use of the blues scale in its thematic materials, etc.

Although Paul Whiteman, who commissioned Rhapsody in Blue, was called "The King of Jazz" and his ensemble embraced Jazz effects and often included (white) Jazz artists like Beiderbecke, he was firmly committed to formal, written arrangements and eschewed improvisation.

ETA: Compare Whiteman's ensemble with his contemporary Louis Armstrong's first Hot Five for an example of the difference between a big band working strictly from fully-scored arrangements and a fully improvisatory jazz combo. Armstrong's second Hot Five did make use of some pre-arranged section parts.

How about "The audience that McKenzie is now attempting to tap into are those who are excited to see non-white bodies on stage in a lead role" or "thrilled to see non-white bodies on stage in a lead role" as an alternative to "prefer"?

Congrats to all and a big woohoo! for Lendorf!

Princeton University Press put out a critical edition of the Auden poem a few years ago, with an introduction and notes that very much added to my pleasure in the poem when I read it.

Thanks for the tip! It turns out that Princeton has made the introduction to its critical edition available online here.

Sigh. Had Princeton's edition of "The Age of Anxiety" been available as an ebook, I might have purchased it to get access to the notes and the rest of the critical apparatus. There's no room for yet another paper edition of Auden's work on my shelves, however, and the library's copy is out ...

By the way, although Alastair thought the men were English bisexuals, not Americans (does he know something I don't?...hmmm), the young gay man (Tristan Dyer, I believe) who was attracted to McRae clearly had a patch on the shoulder of his jacket that read "Canada."

The character named Malin, danced by Federico Bonelli at the performance I saw, is indeed a member of the Canadian armed forces. Both the Bernstein score and Scarlett's ballet are based on W. H. Auden's 1948 Pulitzer-prize winning poem of the same name. The poem is very long -- essentially book length -- and features the same the same four main characters as Scarlett's ballet: Rosetta, a department store buyer; Quant, a middle-aged clerk; Emble, a Navy recruit; and Malin, a Canadian airman. Scarlett is true to the poem's setting, Manhattan, and more or less true to the poem's story-line, such as it is; most of the text is taken up with its protagonists' philosophical ruminations, however, to which the ballet can do little more than allude, really, and no surprise there. The poem's Wikipedia page is pretty sparse; if you're not familiar with the Auden, this Glynn Maxwell piece, which considers it in the context of Bernstein's symphony, might be a better intro. (I did battle with Auden's poem when I was in grad school; let's just say it wasn't where my head was at then ...)

I too liked Scarlett's ballet more than I expected to and would like to be able to see it again. I think the resemblances to "Fancy Free" are superficial once the dust settles, however.

Just came across this in (yet another) Alistair Macauley appreciation of Sara Mearns:

"The ballerina Sara Mearns, now 29, has entered her prime. She has surely become the most Dionysiac artist in an Apollonian genre, very probably the most talked-of ballerina in America and quite possibly the most argued-about ballerina anywhere." [Emphasis mine.]

Clearly he hasn't been perusing Ballet Alert much of late ...

I thought Acosta was quietly mesmerizing and showed a responsiveness to the music as well as a kind of simplicity or economy of movement that really showed up every other man on stage. Not least Kish who dancing side by side with him would sometimes be performing the same movement seemingly with twice as much energy and range of motion, but still less than half the effect.

I felt this too, and I suspect that it's because my American eyes have been trained by years of watching dancers slightly anticipate the beat, which Acosta does (or at least looked to be doing last night). Kish and the other men appeared to be dancing dead on the beat*, which gave their steps a different energy from Acosta's -- and different from what I'm used to seeing to boot. I enjoyed every minute of Acosta's exquisitely musical dancing and only wished I could have had more of it.

*I've always thought of the Royal as an"on the beat" company, and one that I consequently have difficulty wrapping my head around, despite their many, many virtues. I had been looking forward to seeing their version of The Dream since I've only seen ABT's and it's always good to digest a couple of readings of a work in order to take its full measure. Now I wish they'd brought a different Ashton instead; The Dream looked inert to me last night (ETA: because of the way I perceive the way the dancers handle the beat) -- particularly Titania and Oberon's great duet -- though one could hardly argue that it wasn't well-danced. But I'm happy to own up to this being my problem, not the Royal's.

The singers were Katherine Goeldner and Thomas Randle. I could find no program notes to translate the songs. Odd. (I love when Mark Morris nearly hands out the entire score whenever he dances to sung music!). Both were very fine to my ear. Also, the orchestra (NYCB) seemed to be in top form.

I too was surprised that there were no texts or translations, or, at the very least, a synopsis of the texts in the printed program. I know the Mahler piece well enough to be able to tie MacMillan's images (including the occasional eruptions of Chinoiserie) to the texts, but I suspect the work might have struck someone unfamiliar with the score as overlong and diffuse. (Which I actually think it might be, although I did enjoy huge swaths of it.)

A happy coincidence: I believe that the last time I heard Katherine Goeldner sing, she was portraying Juno in Mark Morris' staging of Rameau's Platée ... she was splendid in that role.

Loved, loved, LOVED the Brooklyn Youth Chorus in tonight's performance of The Dream! Musical, precise, light, fresh, lovely ... and much preferable to the vibrato-laden adult ensembles usually visited upon us in the Theater Formerly Known as State. I'd like to see NYCB use them for its own Midsummer -- it would be a nice complement to all the children dancing onstage.

Not surprised. Just disappointed that PR has become more important than artistry and skill.

In the realm of classical music and opera, PR has been a driver of performance bookings and recording contracts for lo these many years. I can think of a number of singers, solo instrumentalists, and even conductors who have filled halls based as much on carefully crafted buzz as on their talent and musicianship. The belief that certain careers are the product of good PR and nothing else has fueled online opera flame wars for two decades.

If the WSJ wanted to do a non news fluff piece, why not point out that Stella Abrera has been a long serving soloist who has been doing principal roles and who would be the first Phillipino American principal at ABT if she were promoted. Oh wait, I know why. Because Stella doesn't have a PR team.

Well, that's the value of a PR team. A whole lot of what passes for journalism is nothing more than the transcription of a press release, and arts "journalism" (yes, I'm using scare quotes) is no exception. (Note: I'm excluding reviews from arts journalism proper. Reviewing is reporting of a kind -- it's an eyewitness report / analysis of something that happened -- but it's not the kind of investigative reporting that surfaces issues and documents the facts surrounding them.)

ABT's CFO made it clear that putting butts in seats via the company's "Star Strategy" is an institutional imperative; are we really surprised that savvy dancers might have taken note and acted accordingly?