Kathleen O'Connell

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.

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.

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.

Also does Martins' salary include his duties as the head of SAB?

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:

The night could not have begun better. Made for the National Ballet of Canada in 1991, The Second Detail is William Forsythe at his most translucently neoclassical. The rigorous, sunny ensemble piece is about classical steps, which it stretches to the limit.

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.

My point was simply that "government support" includes a lot more than direct grants from NEA. And as taxpayers are providing these subsidies, there is some sort of moral obligation to help ensure that as many people as possible get a chance to enjoy those programs.

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 .

Direct grants (from places like NEA) are relatively small. But those numbers don't include the financial benefit of 501©(3) deductions for donors, which are not the norm in many countries (especially Europe, although some are looking to the American model on this). Those donations would be smaller without the charitable deduction on taxes. Private foundations which donate to the company also benefit from substantial tax advantages. I.e., the taxpayers are providing substantial subsidies to the companies via the tax deductions to donors. Typically, the performing spaces are also benefitting from a variety of taxpayer subsidies, including both direct grants and tax exemptions; if the companies performed in commercial spaces, the cost would be much higher. I don't know how the dollars add up in all these additional categories, but they are substantial.

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.

I get so exasperated at the argument from assorted company directors that making their work available in HD theaters or DVDs will hurt their theater attendance. I don't know what kind of serious research they have on this, but look anecdotally at the situation here. We have available oodles of great DVDs from Royal, Bolshoi, Mariinsky, yet their performances in the US seem to sell very, very well. But we have precious little (at least from the last decade) of ABT or NYCB, yet they hardly ever sell out.

(And that doesn't even take into account the fact that both ABT and NYCB receive a fair amount of taxpayer subsidies and grants -- although we wish it were more -- which would argue in favor of making their work more available to taxpayers who can't get to their theaters for whatever reason.)

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.

Sweet!

It would be great if they eventually have an online only subscription, even a .pdf of their print version.

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 especially got a kick out of Tom Forster - he has a very sweet face in real life and actually was a pretty good looking "ugly" step-sister! In fact I'd like to see him in the role of the prince.

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.

The "Midsummer" fouettes are not only perfectly timed and in character for that particular stretch of music, they also invoke Hippolyta whipping up a forest windstorm.

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.

When I came across the "Amazing Fouettés" videos on YouTube, I couldn't help but be reminded of this thread. Many well known dancers are shown, and it is interesting to see their different approaches one after another.

So for your enjoyment (or displeasure):

Begins with Yuan Yuan Tan, Evgenia Obraztsova -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtJ2R_i6Too

Includes Viengsay Valdés and Mathilde Froustey -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4NVP-tjKk8

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 went last night also.

The cables failed to lift Puck - did anyone realize this? in the end, he was supposed to levitate and 'sing', but the cables drooped around him instead. Troy Schumacher just played it up as if nothing was wrong, as well as the other butterflies surrounding him.

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 hadn't revisited this topic for a few days, and I see that it has morphed into a topic about the benefits of new choreography. While I agree with the idea that new choreography is important to the company, sometimes it turns into pandering to new audiences (see Ocean's Kingdom, Bal de Couture) with works that are trash just to have a celebrity name attached to the pursuit (Valentino, Paul McCartney, Stella McCartney). Also, I think the Diamond Project put too much focus on churning out massive numbers of new works without keeping an eye on quality ("Call Me Ben").

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.

Are there really that many works of note that have been created since their deaths? I ask because it seems that the critical reception of many recent works - with the occasion exception of Wheeldon and Peck - seems to imply that the new stuff falls short of the master.

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.)

Chui Chai Phram is one among many Chui Chai dances in Thai dramatic and dance repertoire. In general the word chui chai is an adverb following the word doen (to walk), meaning a style of strolling, or gait, that celebrates the grace and attractiveness of the walker — a narcissistic type of expression, so to speak.

...

Chui Chai dances in these stories elaborate episodes of transfiguration, the transformation of one person to assume the appearance of another. In these stories, certain characters who are embodiments of divine or magical power, or assisted by divine intervention, or given a body mask, transform themselves into other characters, usually more beautiful and more attractive than before. After the transformation, the character performs a Chui Chai dance to mark the successful disguise and celebrate the new, more adorned self.

The purpose of the transfiguration is often to deceive enemies, or to lure, attract, or persuade others to change their earlier intention.

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.

NYCB places a great deal of emphasis on new work (the captions at the beginning of "Ballet 422," the new documentary following the creation of Justin Peck's Paz de la Jolla, describe NYCB as a "creative ballet company." I puzzled and puzzled over this until I decided they were making a point about their tradition of new choreography).

In some ways, they more closely resemble a typical modern dance company, with the usual emphasis on making all things new, than older models of ballet companies that depend on the historic repertory.

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.)

way back they had a much more robust web presence than many other companies -- weren't they the ones behind that online dictionary?

Oh, that's right, and it's still up. All you have to do to run across it on their site is to hit the little, faint blue Library tab, then hit the little Library tab on the bottom of the Library page, then hit the little Ballet Dictionary (not even Ballet Video Dictionary) on that page!

Seriously! Even I know enough about web design to spot that problem and fix it ... It was such a forward looking thing, and they let it rot behind a thicket of mouse-clicks. I don't even want to think about trying to find it and watch it on a smart phone. Make a damn app out of it and sell it for $0.99.

How about Wim Wenders who did such a wonderful job with "Pina"!

Generally speaking, though, I'd rather see the dancers express themselves by dancing rather than by talking to an off camera interviewer.

Yes to both! Although ... the company needs to tap into talent that understands how telling a story on small screens in teeny-tiny episodes is different from holding an audience captive for two hours in a dark theater, and that's probably not a famous movie director from the last century. Me, if I had the bucks and they had the requisite curiosity and enthusiasm (like Wenders), I'd go for a TV showrunner like Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad) or -- even better -- Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the very excellent and killed-all-too-soon Firefly) who was also a pioneer in the development of shows crafted explicitly for the web (Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog and Dollhouse). Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing demonstrated that he knows how to deal with "classic" material.

By "story" I don't mean something with a plot (we don't need another lurid backstage melodrama anymore than we need forty dancers in practice clothes doing pirouettes), but rather something with a clear point of view, a message, and an arc.

Edited to add: There no need to go for someone famous, by the way -- there's a lot of talent out there ...

What, again with the studio full of dancers doing pirouettes while a voiceover speaks earnestly about artistry and commitment?*

Sigh. It's a step in the right direction, I suppose, but given how many years we are into the age of digital media, it's hardly enough. I've seen more compelling pitches on Indiegogo and Kickstarter, for heaven's sake, and they're all being done on a shoestring.

What's the message? What's going on in that video that would make someone want to run to the theater and plunk down their hard-earned cash for a ticket? Anyone who already knows about the company's diversity in training and style is either a) rolling their eyes or b) charmed and / or chagrined by company's apparent determination to turn a presumed bug into an undocumented feature. Meanwhile, a newbie is thinking "Ballet has styles? Looks like they're all doing the same thing to me." So SHOW THEM. Brag about the diversity of your repertoire, then show a clip of, I don't know, some Tharp -- once on stage in full costume, then again in the studio in practice clothes. Do the same thing with one of the classics. Have one dancer say "Oh, l love to watch [fill in the name of dancer here] in [fill in the name of ballet here]! With his / her [fill in the name of school here] training he / she can really make those [fill in the steps here] explode!" Show said dancer doing said celebrated thing on stage looking like a god / goddess, then in the studio sweating like racehorse.

Come on, it's American Ballet THEATER. Get some theater into those videos.

*Note: I'm not knocking any of the participating dancers; they deserve a far, far better script.

By the way, I suspect they'd turn up their noses at a wonderful white powerhouse like PNB's Carrie Imler because she in't stick thin.

Sara Mearns is far from stick thin but she is one of NYCB's most lauded ballerinas.

There are a number of NYCB dancers in addition to Mearns who could be added to the "not stick thin" list and it's to the company's credit that we get to see them dance regularly, despite some carping from the critics.

For something a little more celestial than Bon Odori, we can look to the renowned onnagata, Tamasaburo Bando. (Onnagata are Kabuki actors who specialize in female roles. When women were banned from the Kabuki stage in the 17th century, men eventually took on their roles.) Kabuki is very stylized, but it started as a popular form of dance-drama -- i.e., it's not a court style, like Bugaku.

Tamasaburo is in his mid-sixties, and has pretty much retired from the Kabuki stage. He is now the AD of Kodo. I was lucky enough to get to see him perform when the Grand Kabuki came to NY in the early 80's. He was bigger than a rock star.

These videos show him in one of his most famous roles, the Heron Maiden. Quick synopsis: a mysterious beauty shows up on the banks of a winter lake. She is really a heron. The narrator will fill you in on the rest. This particular dance is famous for the character's sudden transformations through on-stage costume changes and the skill required to portray the various stages of womanhood, and eventually, creature-hood. At some point, be sure to check out this interview of Tamasaburo in which he explains his art.

Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q1MPwD7zCI

Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP4TdEMrNuo

Part 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6O7KFCCEdU

PS: The end of Part 2 overlaps with the beginning of Part 3 -- you get to see the big costume change twice ...

Buddy - Have you seen the documentary Planet B-Boy? If not, and if you're interested in some hip-hop dance lore, you should check it out. You can watch it on YouTube here. Different style from JabbaWokeeZ, but totally dedicated to their art.