Kathleen O'Connell

Sailors on shore leave flirting with pretty women is fine. Three strangers snatching a woman's handbag on a city street and teasing her by tossing it back and forth to keep it out of her reach? That's not politically incorrect so much as plain old cruel and definitely threatening. We may know they're good guys, but she doesn't, and it's a sour moment. That the situation might ever have seemed "playful" to Robbins strikes me as a real failure of empathy on his part.

If she wants it, and "Restless Creature" suggests that she might, I hope Whelan has the kind of post-ballet career that Baryshnikov has had. I for one will show up whatever she does.

Thanks for the links re Ratmansky's negotiations with NYCB and ABT, California. Looking at what ABT pays Ratmansky ($160,000 in 2009, rising to $228,000 in 2012), and, based on the article California linked to, what ABT asked him to deliver (20 weeks, one new or re-tooled ballet per year, and "collabora[tion] on artistic questions, including future programming"), I suspect that NYCB found the price tag too high for what they were looking for -- a choreographer primarily focussed on creating a steady stream of new works for the company's dancers. One new ballet per year wouldn't have sufficed, and you can buy a lot of choreography for $200,000. And call me crazy, but I don't think Peter Martins was interested in collaboration on artistic questions, and certainly not interested in paying for it. Martins has welcomed the contributions of other choreographers almost to a fault, but he's nonetheless made it clear that he's the AD and it's his company. Peck, it appears, will make NYCB his priority:

Well, Halloween is on a Friday this year, which means 1) turnout for the annual Greenwich Village Halloween parade* will likely be higher than it might be if Halloween were on a weeknight, 2) which in turn means transport in to, out of, and around the city will be packed and streets and roads will be congested; and 3) people with children (and many without) will be dealing in some way, shape, or form with trick-or-treating. Taking Halloween off is not the dumbest idea ABT's ever had. * I believe something like 50,000 people participate and 2 million more line up to watch. I sing in a chorus that rehearses in the Village; if a rehearsal happens to fall on Halloween, we cancel it.

My wish list for ABT's 2015 Met Season? That it takes place across the plaza. Seriously. I'd love it if NYCB & ABT could figure out how to share the theater formerly known as State between them. The Met is just lousy for dance.

AARRGHHH! I've done that myself. I've shown up at the wrong hall, or on the wrong date, or with the wrong tickets, the whole gamut. Not only do you mourn the missed performance, you feel like an idiot, too. The CD is in my shopping cart even as we speak. For Finley, I'll spring for physical media ...

Congratulations to all, but especially to Gerald Finely, who is truly an exceptional artist. I was lucky enough to hear him sing Schubert's Die Winterreise in February, and it was the most musical, most emotionally charged performance of that work that I've ever heard, hands down. His wrenching performance as Golaud in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande a few years ago at the Met had me in tears. If you ever have a chance to see him perform, just go.

Wow, that's quite a significant difference. I wonder if NYCB is just in better financial health than ABT? Also, I would bet the principal dancers at NYCB make more money than those at ABT (the NYCB corps certainly should make more because they do much more dancing). Re the principals, not necessarily. It's not unusual to find a principal dancer or two on the list of highest paid employees filed with a dance companies IRS 990 (Part VII is where you want to look.) If you compare ABT's and NYCB's 2011 990s (the most recent available) here's what you'll find: NYCB Wendy Whelan $172,730 ABT Paloma Herrera $190,547 Julie Kent Barbee $187,064 Gillian Murphy $174,129 Now it could be that overall NYCB's principals are more generously compensated than ABT's, but fewer of them individually are above the threshold that would require their income to be reported on the organization's 990.

I don't believe so. Per SAB's 2011 IRS 990, Martins was paid $106,050 for his services to the school. NYCB and SAB are separate organizations; each has its own EIN (IRS Employer Identification Number) and files its own 990. The schedule to review for this kind of information is Form 990, Part VII: Compensation of Officers, Directors,Trustees, Key Employees, Highest Compensated Employees, and Independent Contractors. Always enlightening.

I would like to hear what the NY audience thinks would be the best repetoire for BB to present in NY - what would be truly effective given the all the competion this summer. I'm selfish: I'd like visiting companies to bring stuff that we don't get to see much of in New York, even if it turns out to be junk.

Apollinaire Scherr's review for the FT was decidedly more positive about Forsythe's Second Detail than Macauley's was: I gather she wasn't as taken by Ekman's Cacti as Marina Harss Lauren Gallagher* was, however. I happen to enjoy a shot of 90's Forsythe from time to time, myself. I keep hoping NYCB will revive Behind the China Dogs (1988?), but I'm beginning to suspect they never will ... *Whoops! I'd assumed Harss had written the Dance Tabs review without actually looking at the byline.

Per Schedule L of NYCB's 2011 IRS 990, Peter Martins was paid $77,450 for "Choreographic Royalties / Fees." I believe that this is on top of his base compensation of $775,000. I checked the same schedule in ABT's 2011 IRS 990 and found nothing there regarding McKenzie. His base compensation is substantially lower than Martins' by-the-by: $295,257.

I'm not disagreeing with that point at all! (I made it myself in another post a few years back.) I do think that government support for the arts, whatever the form, is relative drop in the budgetary bucket, however -- for good or ill. (I'm willing to bet that the taxpayer subsidy provided to keep sports teams happily ensconced in their arenas is on a par with, if not actually more than, grants and subsidies to the arts. Ditto public university sports programs.) The National Center for Charitable Statistics has some interesting data on who gives how much to what here Charitable Giving in America: Some Facts and Figures .

OT! Moderators, please move this to another thread if you think it warrants one ... I think we can get a handle on the value of the Federal tax deduction for charitable contributions. (The other items are also doable, but gathering the data would be a big lift ... ) As part of the Federal budgeting process, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regularly estimates the amount of tax revenue forgone as a result of the deduction for charitable contributions. The total "Tax Expenditure" (to use the term of art) arising from all categories of charitable contributions (Education, Health, and Other) is projected to reach $57.3 billion in Fiscal Year 2015. That may look huge, but ... 1) It's about $3 billion less than Google's total 2013 revenue and roughly equivalent to Dow Chemical's; 2) It's about 5% of total 2015 Tax Expenditures, which are estimated to reach $1.24 trillion; and 3) It's about 1.5% of the overall Federal budget of $3.9 trillion. (The biggest single item on the Tax Expenditure list is the exclusion of employer contributions to health insurance premiums and medical care from taxable employee compensation, which is projected to total $207 billion in 2015. Next is the deductibility of home mortgage interest at $74 billion. The OMB's website is a veritable treasure trove of information, much of it available via downloadable spreadsheets, bless them. I found the Tax Expenditure data here. ) The category of interest here is "Other," which is where the bulk of charitable contributions to arts institutions should be captured. The total estimated FY 2015 Tax Expenditure for "Other" is $46.6 billion, of which a mere $1.7 billion is attributable to corporations and a whopping $44.9 billion is attributable to individuals. Keep in mind that this category includes social service and religious organizations, not just the arts. Hmmm ... but how much are charitable donations anyway, and how much goes to the arts? This, alas, isn't detailed in the OMB's lovely Tax Expenditures spreadsheet. National Park Service to the rescue! I have NO idea why, but the National Park Service does provide charitable giving information on its website here. The gist: In 2012, cash donations from Individuals ($229 billion), Foundations ($46 billion), Bequests (23 billion), and Corporations (18 billion) totaled $316 billion. Of that amount about $14 billion went to the arts, culture, and humanities -- i.e., about 4%. ($102 billion -- about 32% -- went to religious organizations.) If we apply the percentage of charitable donations made to the arts -- 4% -- to the 2015 tax expenditure on charitable donations -- $57.3 biliion -- we get an implicit Federal subsidy of about $2.3 billion. Lots of caveats here: I'm applying a 2012 percentage to a 2015 estimate; we don't know if the proportion of tax expenditure arising from charitable donations to the arts is the same as the proportion of charitable giving to the arts generally -- it could be that arts donors are richer than donors to other kinds of charities and therefore claim a bigger slice of the tax expenditure pie; a portion of the donations that an arts organization receives is paid out again in taxable employee compensation, so some of it ends up with the IRS anyway; the 4% doesn't include non-cash donations which would be included in the Tax Expenditure number; etc etc etc. Whether $2.3 billion in subsidies through the tax code is a big number or not is, of course, a matter for debate, as is the extent to which donations to the arts would decline if the deduction were eliminated. Now that I've made everyone's eyes glaze over, we can return to talking about the arts proper.

Actually, ABT and NYCB's direct government funding constitutes a very, very modest proportion of their annual budgets. ABT's 2012 revenues totaled $40.3 million; its government grants totaled $406.7 thousand. That's about 1% of the company's total budget. NYCB's 2012 revenues totaled $66.5 million; its government grants totaled just shy of $1.5 million. (All amounts taken from the companies' respective 2012 IRS 990s, which you can find online at either Charity Navigator or Guidestar.) Both organizations likely receive indirect public subsidies as well. For instance, Lincoln Center may subsidize their tenancy out of funds it receives from government sources. And of course there is an indirect public subsidy to the extent that they receive tax-deductible contributions.

Agreed! I have reached the point where I do most of my reading on some electronic device or other and would happily abandon print altogether if I could. I have zero nostalgia for ink on paper. I've let more that a few subscriptions lapse because the publisher has elected not to make a digital version available, and I am done with dragging paper all over the city with me (and then piling it all into the recycle bin ... ) I'd actually pay more for a digital-only version at this point. PS: Nice, clean site! And I'm thrilled to see Bijayini Satpathy and Surupa Sen of Nrityagram on the Fall 2014 cover!

I agree! I grabbed a ticket for the Saturday 6/14 Cinderella matinée to see Joseph Gorak, whose Prince was delightful in all of the ways that I expected it to be: no disappointment there. But the performance I really carried away with me from the theater was Thomas Forster's bossy -- and utterly endearing -- Stepsister. Thank goodness Cinderella forgave her at the end -- I would have been heartbroken if she hadn't! Forster's comedy was broad, but done without a trace of camp, and all the better for it. I don't know if could or should be cast as the Prince, but I'd love to see more of him.

They do indeed work as choreography, but I did also want to make a little fuss about Isaac's execution of them, which I enjoyed very much. It looked as if she was listening to the music, not just counting. I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I don't think much of Odile's fouettés as choreography. To me, the music sounds like it's straight out of the circus and the fouettés -- or at least the fact that there must be 32 of therm -- are within a hair's breadth of being a circus stunt themselves. But I do like what Gillian Murphy does with her fouettés in this video (which I believe was also in one of pherank's compilations). In the "A" section she's interleaved her singles and multiples in a way that emphasizes what's happening in the music -- the multiples are reserved for the "ta-di-yum-bum-bum" fiddly bits. When she gets to the "B" section, she switches to all singles so that her heel can hit floor in time with each strongly accented beat.

Thank you for the links, pherank. Very instructive. I confess! Odile's fouettés make my eyes glaze over. In fact, just about everyone's fouettés-and-nothing-but variations make my eyes glaze over. Now I know why: often as not there is absolutely no relationship between what the music is doing and what the ballerina is doing, and I find it as boring as all get-out. What is the point of dancing to strongly accented music if nothing in particular is happening on the accents? Ideally, the leg should be whipping out (or alternatively snapping in) right when the cymbals crash, no? -- and not a beat and a half later or a beat and a half before. Some of the ballerinas featured in these videos did look like they were attempting to coordinate their movements with the music, but most seemed intent on filling up however many bars of music they were given with however many turns they could manage (or mis-manage as the case might be). I'd be happier with a couple of bars of well-timed (and well-executed) fouettés followed a few bars of something else when the music changed. That's why I was so delighted with Ashly Isaac's fouettés in Midsummer the other evening. If I'm not mistaken, they were all singles except for the last one, but they were all beautifully timed with the music, and all the more fun to watch for that.

I did. I thought Schumacher handled it well -- if you didn't know he was supposed to soar up into the air, you wouldn't have noticed anything was amiss at all. But I missed seeing him do it all the same!

Lots of debuts in last night's Midsummer. I thought everyone looked fine in their new roles, but some looked more fine than others. I would like to see Ashley Bouder's second or third performance of the Divertissement. I thought her performance looked a tad mannered last night -- or "studied" perhaps, rather than spontaneous -- but she met the adagio's big challenge, which is filling in all that white space with control and musicality. I especially liked the way she kept her arms circling in a continuos flow on that famous diagonal; not every ballerina does it that way, but she did, and it looked beautiful. There wasn't a lot of chemistry between her and Chase Finlay last night -- hopefully that will get sorted out the next time around too. Ashley Laracey was a lovely Hermia -- no surprise there since she is practically the distilled essence of loveliness. But she was more than that, too, especially in her solo. She's willing to dance with more "face" (to steal a term from opera ... ) than your typical NYCB dancer: her bug-swatting and cobweb-flailing -- the emblem of Hermia's frustration and bewilderment -- were appropriately vivid. I second Balanchinette: I'd like to see her get a crack at Sonnambula. General observation: more than a bit of Rom-Com slapstick seems to be creeping into the couples' sections ... I really liked Ashley Isaacs super-musical fouettés as Hyppolyta: her heel hit the floor right on the beat every single time -- bam-bam-bam. It's the kind of detail that makes reloading for the next turn as exciting as the turn itself. Russell Janzen is finally starting to take center stage like he believes that he belongs there -- in the theater modesty is a virtue only up a to a point -- and looked great as Titania's Cavalier: elegant, gracious, ardent. He doesn't yet have the rapport with Reichlen that Tyler Angle does -- let's hope that comes with time and experience, because it otherwise looks to be a promising partnership. Not a debut, but David Prottas was a standout among Bottom's companions (the one with the glasses -- Quince in Shakespeare's play?). I'm trying to remember -- has he ever been cast as Dr. Coppelius? If not, the company should start grooming him for the role pronto, and maybe for Drosselmeyer too. Speaking of standouts and elegance: I thought Olivia Boisson looked particularly aristocratic in Titania's retinue. Some of the other women got a bit swoopy -- Whee! All this chiffon! -- but her lines were always firmly elegant and her carriage beyond reproach. She was a standout in the Melancholic section of 4T's too -- she released her big, silky battements right on the music and without the least disruption to her torso. I hope we get to see more of her. Troy Schumacher is my favorite among the current crop of Pucks. He doesn't have Ulbricht's level of bravura technique (who does?), but he's got more than enough for the role, and I find his unfussy and mischievous but sweet-tempered characterization delightful. Looking at the ballet in its newly made costumes was kind of like looking at the Sistine Chapel after they cleaned the frescoes. I like both better without the accumulated grime, but your mileage may vary. The change was particularly notable in the children's costumes: for the first time you could really see that they were all dressed differently -- very charming.

I suspect that at least some of this is pandering to gala donors rather than new audiences. For all kinds of reasons, it's easier to sell gala tables if you've got a marquee name somewhere on the program. That name could be a gala honoree or it could be someone who made some sort of artistic contribution to a gala premiere. Paul McCartney and Valentino are even older than me -- do their names register in any meaningful way with the younger members of the new audience pool? But there's a whole network of folks around Valentino (and Stella McCartney) who will likely show up at that gala and with whom one might want to rub elbows by buying a few seats at a table. It's venal, but 'twere ever thus. I hope someone is doing a cost / benefit analysis of these "please pull out your rolodexes and fill a table" pièces d'occasion that live for a season and then vanish -- and that analysis had better include the opportunity cost of expending blood and treasure on a gala bauble instead of a worthy permanent addition to the repertory. I sure hope no one was expecting Ocean's Kingdom or Bal de Couture to be the Balanchine / Prokofiev / Rouault Prodigal Son des nos jours ... Lil Buck, Woodkind, JR, and Faile are in a different category, but other than Promenade installations, the company hasn't quite sorted out how to make use of their talents in a way that generates art in addition to buzz.

Yes. NYCB premiered plenty of non-Balanchine junk when he was alive and in charge. And one should note that the critical reception of Balanchine's and Robbins' own work -- right up to their deaths -- wasn't uniformly rapturous, either.

My next entry in enchanting not-ballet. Thai Khon dance — a court style dramatizing episodes from the Thai version of the Ramayana — is pretty darn enchanting. But Thai choreographer Pichet Klunchun’s stripped-down version of Khon can be as beguiling as the original, if not more so. (And let me stress the “can”; some of Klunchun’s stuff is pointedly unlovely and disruptive. He reminds me of William Forsythe in any number of ways.) First, some samples of full-dress Khon. This is a performance of a famous solo, “Chui Chai Phram.” The webpage where the video has been posted will give you a synopsis of the story. (Apparently this solo was originally performed by a male dancer; eventually it became the province of female dancers, but here it is once again performed by a man.) Here’s a little primer on “Chui Chai” solos generally, taken from a journal article by Paritta Chalermpow Koanantakool (On line here: Life History of Chui Chai Phram: How a Siamese Dance is Remembered or Forgotten. In: Aséanie 12, 2003. pp. 105-122.) Here’s some more on Chui Chai from Pichet Klunchun’s website. Now, here’s some Klunchun: A solo from Pichet Klunchun and Myself by Jerome Bel, presented at Dance Theater Workshop in 2007. Note that it’s performed in silence. An all-too-short clip of Klunchun dancing a duet with a member of his company. She wears a Khon costume, he doesn’t. I saw them do this a few years ago as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. It was stunning. Klunchun dancing a site-specific solo on Middelgrundsfortet, a sea-fortress that protects Copenhagen harbor. As you may have figured out by now, Klunchun makes an art of super slo-mo. Check out this clip of a company rehearsal: if we can trust Google Translate, this is something they do when it’s really, really hot. An extract from a group work that looks to be a re-imagining of a battle scene from the Ramayana. Finally, some of the unlovely stuff. I’m guessing you had to be there. Clearly the man has powerful feelings about contemporary Thai culture. Here's lovely and unlovely bundled together in Ganesh, which I gather is a three-part work spread out over three separate venues. K-Pop shows up at the end ... PS: for some full-lenghth Khon, go to this YouTube playlist. Or this one. This one has videos of more Chui Chai solos. PPS: Here are two versions of Chui Chai Benyakai (she's a demon maiden taking on the guise of Rama's wife Sita. Long story ...) One. Two.

I'm sure I've said this before, but NYCB is the MoMA of ballet companies. They both started out as places with a commitment to the new -- not just a commitment to display it, but also to enable people learn how to look at it -- and found themselves decades later in possession of a fabulous permanent collection that, for the larger public at least, overshadows the new work they champion today. And, they're both often criticized for expending blood and treasure on new initiatives rather than on the care and feeding of the permanent collection. It is a tough problem for once small and scrappy but now big and "establishment" institution to solve. And Drew, you are absolutely right about Namouna vs I'm Old Fashioned. Every time the lights go down and the song starts up, I find myself wishing they'd just can Robbins' ballet altogether and let us watch Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth for the next 20 minutes. Heck, I'd rather sit through Spectral Evidence than I'm Old Fashioned. (But I do love love love Namouna. I'd trade Union Jack for it in a heartbeat and never look back.)