Kathleen O'Connell

That's because of Mark Stanley's lighting, or, rather, darking. It all got lost in the shadows. I liked it, but would like it even better if we could actually see it.

I guess I disagree. I found Funerailles to be a little over the top emotionally but it was hardly vulgar. It was an intense dance drama in the same vein as Manon or Mayerling, IMO. Looking over the comments from NYCB's fall season I see that Drew also found that it " looked like an outake from some unknown Macmillan ballet". That sound about right to me.Neither did I find anything sexually suggestive or vulgar about Acheron. Creating a new dance, depending on the choreographer, can be a collaborative idea. If it was Scarlett's idea to twerk, he certainly didn't feel strong enough about it to make Sarah twerk. And both casts continued to perform the piece differently, since I saw the last show where Misty danced the piece (and twerked). Certainly, the ultimate responsibity for the work lies with Scarlett but working with 2 such different casts hopefully made him a smarter choreographer. Just to be clear: I got no beef with vulgarity or sexual suggestiveness in ballet. If the pas de deux in Agon isn't sexually suggestive, then I guess I don't know what the term means. [ETA: I found Acheron to sexually suggestive in the ways that both Balanchine and MacMillan can be; as far as I'm concerned, it's a feature, not a bug.] If I've got any complaint about Scarlett's pas de deux, it's that he robs his ballerinas of one of their primary means of expression: their feet. My only objection to the boob-jiggling and (alleged) twerking in "With a Chance of Rain" is that Scarlett didn't have complete control over their effect as theatrical gestures. They were obviously there to tell us something about a relationship, but were presented to us before we had sufficient context to make sense of them. Re MacMillan: Vulgarity is in the eye of the beholder. Jennifer Homans can only utter the words "ballet" and "MacMillan" in the same sentence through clenched teeth. Her palpable disgust with his sexual frankness would be amusing if she weren't also impugning his character with every bomb she hurls at his style.* The chapter in Apollo's Angels covering British ballet in the 20th century is essentially a morality play in which the shining, classical, Apollonian father Ashton is assassinated by his dark, nihilistic, Dionysiac son, MacMillan. I can't take Homans seriously as a critic (or a historian) precisely because she plays with morally loaded dice, but others do admire her work. *It's OT, but here a sample from Apollo's Angels: "MacMillan knew only one way forward: down into the depths of his own damaged personality and dark obsessions." (p. 443) If anything, she's even crueler to MacMillan's muse, Lynn Seymour: "Her autobiography shows a woman plagued by crippling depressions and wild mood swings, and indeed the ongoing drama of her own inner life was a primary source and subject of her art. ... Where Fonteyn demonstrated the discipline and the resilience of classical form, Seymour showed its disintegration into frank expressions of sexual desire and despair." Homan's vocabulary in this chapter is so loaded it's almost unreadable.

OMG!!! Two dancers defied the critics and did the steps the way the choreographer wanted them done! They just don't make artistic integrity like they used to. If Copeland made a bad choice, so did Whiteside -- not to mention Gomes, who set up the punchline. Integrity is being true to one’s own values even when a boss’s values conflict, isn’t it? If Lane and Forster were allowed to dance it differently, Copeland and Whiteside could have as well.Scarlett's about their age too, or even younger, which would make it easier to assert themselves. Alternatively, Lane and Forster might have elected not to dance in the work at all rather than change it. Do we know that Scarlett authorized the changes? Since Lane/Forster did the work more than once Scarlett must have known what they were doing. Being unwilling to dance in a piece is not much of a threat at ABT. I'm sure there were understudies who would have loved to get on stage. I think I didn't express myself clearly. I'm not for a moment suggesting that Lane or Forster threatened to walk off the stage if the steps weren't changed to their liking. I was responding to kfw's implication that it was appropriate for them to change the steps to "be true to their values," and that this was a form of artistic integrity. I offered an alternative to changing the steps: opting not to perform the work at all. In any event, I think it's neither fair nor particularly useful to make judgements about a dancer's character or to attempt to divine their moral compass based on the steps they have been given to do. By the way, I find the idea that Copeland somehow strong-armed Scarlett into a vulgarity he would have otherwise eschewed far-fetched. Funérailles, his recent duet for NYCB, was a cheerfully vulgar as the cover of a Harlequin bodice-ripper, and the grappling duets in Acheron are hardly models of elegant restraint. Yes, the boob shaking and pelvis pumping in "With a Chance of Rain" looked repulsive; I'm pretty sure it was meant to. I harbor no suspicions that Scarlett wants to add twerking to ballet's vocabulary.

Alternatively, Lane and Forster might have elected not to dance in the work at all rather than change it. Do we know that Scarlett authorized the changes?

OMG!!! Two dancers defied the critics and did the steps the way the choreographer wanted them done! They just don't make artistic integrity like they used to. If Copeland made a bad choice, so did Whiteside -- not to mention Gomes, who set up the punchline. In the end the responsibility is entirely Scarlett's. And he doesn't know how to tell a joke: the skit came too early in the work to have the context that might have made it intelligible.

Every March the online magazine The Morning News hosts The Tournament of Books (ToB), a gentle spoof on both literary awards and March Madness (complete with a playoff bracket!) that nonetheless delivers nearly a month of lively analysis and discussion of sixteen of the previous years’ notable books. The short list typically includes the usual Booker / National Book Award / Pulitzer suspects as well as less hyped indie titles, a token genre novel or two, and occasionally, something completely out of left field – e.g. Anne Carson’s Nox or Chris Ware’s Building Stories. The Tournament’s founders are the first to admit that it’s ludicrous to pretend that there could even be such a thing as “the sixteen best books” of any year, much less THE best book: their aim is to celebrate the pleasures of both reading good books and talking them. (The comment thread for each match-up is often as much fun as the judge’s decision itself, and sometimes more enlightening.) The most succinct description of how it works comes from the Morning News’ Wikipedia page, so I’ll just quote from that: Sixteen books published in the previous year are chosen and matched against each other, with a different judge for each match. Judges read their two assigned books and select one to advance to the next round in written decisions that are published daily on the site. Past judges include Monica Ali, Helen DeWitt, Junot Díaz, Sasha Frere-Jones, Amanda Hesser, John Hodgman, Nick Hornby, Karl Iagnemma, Sam Lipsyte, Colin Meloy, Dale Peck, David Rees, Mary Roach, and Gary Shteyngart. The Tournament has two rounds, followed by semifinals, followed by a "Zombie Round" in which two books that were eliminated in the first round are re-matched against the two winners of the semifinals. In the final round, there is a head judge, but all the Tournament's judges vote for the winner. Throughout the Tournament, authors Kevin Guilfoile and John Warner provide commentary on each decision. The best way to get a flavor of what goes on is to check out a previous year’s Tournament: here’s 2014’s bracket and playoff results. The 2015 ToB shortlist was announced just a couple of days ago (the long, long list is here). • Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball • A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall by Will Chancellor • All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr • Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante • An Untamed State by Roxane Gay • Wittgenstein Jr by Lars Iyer • A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James • Redeployment by Phil Klay • Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel • The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell • Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng • Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill • Adam by Ariel Schrag • The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters • Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer • All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld This year I’ve somehow managed to read six books on the shortlist—my hit rate is usually something like two—and I may even get a through a couple more before the Tournament gets underway (I’ve been eyeing Elena Ferrante’s books for a while, so now may be the time to dive in …) What do you think—is there something obvious missing from the short list? In no particular order I’d nominate Ben Lerner’s 10:04, Howard Jacobson’s J, Marilynne Robinson’s Lila and Zia Haider Rahman’s In Light of What We Know, all of which were at least as good as what I've read on the short list. (An Untamed State, Station Eleven, The Bone Clocks, Dept. of Speculation, The Paying Guests, and Annihilation.) Is there something on the list that just doesn't belong there? I gave The Bone Clocks a big "meh"—never have the forces of light and dark seemed so dinky once the curtain was pulled back— although I understand why it's on the list.

Because the internet is a time sink and because I would rather do anything than the dismal chore I'm desperately trying to pretend doesn't need to be done asap: 1) An article written by an arts organization telemarketer that explains how telemarketing calls work and how to make the caller go away. 2) Adaptistration's Drew McManus' observations on the article. Be sure to read the comments, which include a few replies from fundraisers. (If you have any interest at all in the performing arts as a business, Adaptistration is worth a visit.) 3) Two DCM job postings.

kbarber, your politeness is exemplary! Like Kaysta, I rarely answer a call if I don't recognize the caller ID, but if I do inadvertently pick up a fundraising call, the person on the other end of the line gets a rather brusque "no thank you" from me and a quick hang up about 2 seconds into their spiel. I used to try to be polite: "No thank you. I don't wish to donate at this time" or "I never give money in response to phone solicitations" or some such. I stopped that once I started to get pushback on every single call. (My apologies to call center employees everywhere. I know aggressive pushback is likely what the telemarketing compensation model encourages.) Anyway, per its 2012 IRS 990, ABT paid DCM Telemarketing $202,562 for "Telefundraising to current and former donors." ABT's net take was $321,419. In other words, DCM kept about 39 cents of every dollar it raised for ABT. This is a little higher than the 36 cents per dollar that NYCB paid to SDA Teleservices Inc. during roughly the same period, but not wildly out of line. From DCM's website: "Our team of managers and callers are specifically trained for fundraising and will help you reach your goals by effectively communicating your mission to your potential patrons." I think we can gather from this that DCM callers aren't volunteers. SDA's apparently aren't either. I recommend a visit to the "Call Center Campaigns" section of SDA's website to see what they're offering up by way of expertise: predictive dialing, a call center set up to handle a large volume of outgoing calls, "deep lapse" campaigns, etc. Their callers? "A staff of dedicated, well-trained callers who have a genuine interest in non-profit causes (we go to great lengths to immerse our callers in the mission, spirit and culture of each organization we represent, which ensures a fresh approach for each call.)" Ivanov's post suggests that better training might be in order. I don't know if ABT is still using DCM -- they may have switched providers since 2012, of course. But if they're still using a tele-fundraising service, the methodology is likely the same.

Not quite sure where to stick this, but here seems as good a place as any! (Moderators: please don't hesitate to move this reply to another thread if it seems appropriate.) NYCB corps member Faye Arthurs started a lovely -- and very informative -- blog a few months back. (Thoughts from the Paint) She recently put up a series of posts about The Nutcracker, both Balanchine's and Ratmansky's as it happens. They're well worth your time. Today's installment is a guest post by Troy Schumacher detailing a day's worth of prep for about two minutes on stage as the lead Candycane. Don't miss the high speed video of his pre-performance barre. In this post, Arthurs talks about The Nutcracker experience generally from the dancers' perspective and her own roles in particular (Frau Stahlbaum, Arabian, and Spanish). Finally, here are her thoughts on Ratmansky's Nutcracker for ABT, which she finally got to see for the wrong reason: an injury that took her out of some of NYCB's Nutcracker performances. (Get well soon!)

KFW: what kind of proof are you looking for? I'm not asking to be snarky. I really do want to know what you would accept as evidence that black ballet dancers are uniquely challenged when it comes to matters of coaching, casting, and promotion.

Yes. At this point in the discussion, the more pertinent question is which black women you have seen dance ballet whom you feel should have advanced further than they have. Make your case for them based on what you’ve seen – if you can. You allege discrimination. Names please – if you have any. “Everyone knows black people are discriminated against, so dancers are too” is not an answer. No one disputes that they have been, but you allege that that are now. Perhaps so. Someone somewhere, no doubt, and that’s a terrible shame. But you imply widespread and systematic racism. Please demonstrate it based on personal knowledge. May we offer up the voices of black dancers as "personal knowledge"? Many in addition to Copeland have spoken about their experiences. Michaela DePrince Aesha Ash, among others, in The Guardian. Precious Adams A piece written by Nedra Rhone, then of the Columbia School of Journalism, now with the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She's not a dancer, but she interviewed a number of prominent dancers for the article. A quote from Virginia Johnson, taken from a New York Times article on the topic of black ballerinas: Ms. Johnson said the reluctance of ballet companies to recruit black ballerinas of Ms. Graf’s caliber had more to do with vision than with talent. “On one side of the marketing issue it’s tremendously fantastic what they could do with having Alicia as a ballerina,” she said. “But on another side, the side that they’re much more afraid of, is their whole subscriber base and their whole history of being a ballet company the way you thought ballet was. It means that you have to create a kind of trust, and they’ve never challenged their audiences to move forward.” And those were just from the first dozen or so search engine hits.

Links Links Links The Brown Girls Do Ballet Instagram feed. Pinterest and Facebook too. And Twitter. The blog. Here's a Tumblr

And since it's on Spotify, we can all listen to it right now for free if we're in the mood (and don't mind the occasional ad ...) Search under "Robert Irving" and it pops right up as the "Top Result"

I'm not convinced that the issue is necessarily "racism" in the classic sense of believing that one race is inferior to another, or, in this case, that men and women of color are inferior as dancers to white ones. I wonder if it isn't more a failure of imagination and / or a lack of trust in the audience -- i.e., the inability to get past skin color for what I'd argue are outmoded aesthetic / theatrical reasons. Not "aesthetic" in the sense that dark skin isn't beautiful, but rather from a (perhaps unacknowledged) belief that it will be disruptive as theater if Odette and Siefried or Aurora and Désiré or Giselle and Albrecht have different skin colors. But if Carlos Acosta hasn't demonstrated that story ballets needn't trouble themselves with historical accuracy in the matter of ethnicity and skin color, I sure as heck don't know what else can. I certainly don't have any trouble believing that he's a French Chevalier (Des Grieux), a Rhinelandish nobleman (Albrecht), or a young gentleman of Verona, and the rest of the audience apparently hasn't walked out in a huff, either. (Asking for "realism" in that most unrealistic of art forms, the story ballet, is pretty rich if you ask me. It's a fairytale, for heaven's sake!)

It is precisely because I do know people who actively flirt with birtherism that I pay attention to the poll numbers and won’t dismiss them out of hand. Some of these people are dear to me; I know that they are capable of great kindness, generosity, and even probity, but on certain matters that touch on race and religion they are functionally irrational. I cited those poll numbers because I think they challenge the notion that only a small, lunatic fringe of the Republican party refuses to believe that Barack Obama is a US citizen; indeed, per the crosstabs, 28% of Republicans “know for sure” that Obama was born outside the US and 38% think it’s possible that he was. That’s not a fringe. Barack Obama won only 43% of the white vote in 2008 and only 39% in 2012. The numbers suggest to me that the election of an African-American president isn’t in and of itself a signal of some kind of national triumph over bias based on skin color. I’m with Tapfan on this: it matters because art doesn’t happen in some wondrous walled garden safe from the depredations of bias and intolerance. It happens where we live, and where we live is still one twisted place. Again, it is precisely because I have spent decades watching one of America’s premier ballet companies in one of America’s most progressive cities unthinkingly (I hope) perpetuate corrosive racial and ethnic stereotypes through its casting, and, on occasion, its staging and choreography, that I can accept that the allegedly liberal ballet community may well be blind to – and is therefore perfectly capable of acting on — its own racial and ethnic biases. Indeed, it’s precisely because I regularly catch myself thinking, saying, or doing something absolutely boneheaded out of some unseen or unacknowledged bias that I know it’s a thing. (And let me add with a sigh: I’ve spent decades watching and have done NOTHING. I could have at least sent a letter to the AD and his board in protest.) Given how vigilantly ballet patrols the borders of body type – Too fat! Too short! Too blocky! Feet too big! Feet too small! — is it really a stretch of the imagination to think that skin color might be a factor when it comes to matters of coaching, casting, and promotion? If dancers can with reason believe that they’re being held back because of their body type, why is it unreasonable for them to think they’re being held back by their skin color?

Per February 2014 Economist / YouGov poll*, "15% of adults say they are sure the President was not born in the United States." 15% is not a small number -- and those are just the adults who are "sure." Only 62% of US adults agreed with the statement "Barak Obama was born in the United States." 38% didn't. Even if it's just a bunch of cranks inflating the YouGov number out of sheer cussedness, it's ugly. * 1000 US adults interviewed February 8-10, 2014

Very interesting. Keeping in mind the decentralized nature of PBS described above, when that happens at a local affiliate, can other affiliates pick up that material? I don't see why not as long as they can secure the rights and sort out the funding.

You can read all the details in the New York Times. Mr. Litton has a distinguished resumé, but as far as I'm concerned this is what makes him particularly well-suited to the job: Mr. Litton, who will begin in September, spoke with real enthusiasm about working with the company that performs the “Nutcracker” that he saw every year as a child, and that influenced his musical tastes when, as a young man, he dated a dancer there. “I was — what did people of my father’s generation call it, a stage-door Johnny?” he said, recalling when he saw three ballets there a week. Although he had heard Ravel’s G major piano concerto before, he said he had never considered learning it until he saw Jerome Robbins use it in his ballet “In G Major.” “I completely fell in love with it, and, in fact, would go every time that was on,” he said, adding that he went on to play the piece, record it, and tour the world with it. [Emphasis mine.] He also hopes to secure a recording contract for the Orchestra and to record some of the music NYCB commissioned, but never used for a ballet. Congratulations, Maestro!

One of the things I learned when I did a deeper dive into PBS affiliate funding and scheduling yesterday is that local affiliates are sometimes able to acquire and broadcast material at essentially no cost. It works like this: an independent producer approaches the affiliate and says "Would you like to broadcast a documentary about X?" The local affiliate says "Sure, but you have to find the funding, because we can't pay you for it." "Fine!" says the independent producer, "It just so happens that company Y & foundation Z have agreed to underwrite the production in exchange for a funder credit announcement at the beginning and the end of the program." "No problem!" says the local affiliate, "So long as your content complies with our guidelines, our charter, etc etc." And the thing gets done. Also, re fees: I believe that the fee schedule takes the size of the market into account as well, so that say, New York's affiliate might pay a higher fee than an affiliate in a smaller market would. I need to confirm this.

PBS doesn't have its own production arm. Virtually all of its programing is sourced from other producers -- either local PBS affiliates such as WGBH (the folks responsible for Antiques Roadshow) or from independent production companies. PBS then distributes the content it acquires to local PBS affiliates on a program by program basis for a fee. (Local PBS affiliates pay a fee for every bit of PBS content they broadcast, even though PBS is owned as a cooperative by local affiliates.) The local PBS affiliates pick and choose from PBS' menu and most, if not all, acquire at least some of their programming from sources other than PBS itself. Presumably any local affiliate would have been free to acquire "Moments of Grace" from KET had they been interested -- as Colorado Public Television apparently was. Fortunately, we can all watch it here. Local PBS affiliates have a lot more control over their programming than, say, the local CBS affiliate. That's why some of the programs we Ballet Alerters are interested in never make it to our local PBS affiliates or show up at oddball times.

The part I find most dispiriting is that they don't think it would be a good idea to show both. Would it be too much to ask PBS to start a dedicated arts channel? There is already PBS World, which groups together news, documentary and science programs, and PBS Create, which collects the DIY shows. It wouldn't even require creating huge amounts of new programming. There is so much in the vaults already. And yes, there is arts content produced by local PBS stations that never gets wide distribution. Why not show the entire country any operas shot by Minnesota Public Television? I know the science shows and Antiques Roadshow are more popular, but what genuinely surprises me is that we haven't seen the launch of PBS Drama, which would show re-runs of Masterpiece Theater and Mystery 24/7. There must be an audience for that. I suspect that one of the big obstacles to a dedicated PBS arts channel focussed on recycling content already in the vaults is rights negotiation. It's likely that current broadcasting contracts make provisions for things like streaming, re-broadcast on Netflix / Amazon / Hulu / Whatever, etc but that the older contracts didn't. Those rights would have to be negotiated now in order for PBS to make them available again. Rights negotiations take time and cost money. It's also not inexpensive to restore and digitize old media. PBS may be looking at its coffers and thinking the money would be better spent on new programming. A lot of the Masterpiece Theater and Mystery content came from the BBC; since the Beeb now has any number of potentially lucrative avenues by which it can make its own back catalogue available to US audiences, it's unlikely to let PBS do it for free. There's a ton of old BBC content on Netflix, for instance, including performing arts broadcasts. To the extent that they're independent from PBS, local public media outfits like Minnesota Public Television could make their own deals with the Netflixes of this world too. Personally, I'd love it if some deep-pocketed sponsor came along and said "Here's a gazillion dollars: go free what's in those vaults! Oh, and go scoop up all that local stuff while you're at it." ETA: Most of the BBC content on Neflix is on DVD. Some of it is available for streaming, but not a lot.

I honestly don't see the difference between the two photos; if anything, the photo of Ferri looks to be even more about her breasts. At least in the photo of Copeland we can see her whole (rather glorious) form, not to mention her toe shoes.

I am so over kale.

I love that the ballet is Balanchine's Orpheus! We're allowed to enjoy iceberg lettuce ironically now, no?

Here's a very detailed NYCO Renaissance proposal dating from January 2014, courtesy of Parterre Box. Since it goes into some detail about a planned fall 2014 season, it's already out of date. I don't think this is the one I saw -- at least one of my eyebrows would have shot up at the prospect of cramming a Zeffirelli production of Tosca onto the Rose Theater's stage. (In fairness, Zeffirelli has done productions for very small venues -- e.g. his lovely stagings of Aida and La Traviata at Teatro Verdi di Busseto. But I digress.) The planned production costs look to be on the low side to me. If I'm reading them correctly, it looks as if they'd planned to pay the three lead singers for Tosca $750 per performance. (By way of comparison, the chorus I sing with pays its vocal soloists anywhere from $375 - $500, depending on the scale of their parts. Nothing we do is even remotely as complex or demanding as an opera.)