Emma

Best news of all, to me: the Suzanne Farrell Ballet's reconstruction/revival of Balanchine's GOUNOD SYMPHONY. Yeah!

No NYCB???

In June. At least its separated from the Winter Ballet Block!

Suzanne Farrell and San Francisco back to back in the Fall.

ABT, Mariinsky, and Ailey back to back to back in the Winter.

And they wonder why students rarely show...we're too busy for this!

Lane/Cornejo is still there! Just hidden on the July page =)

I have a less harsh view on The Most Incredible Thing. Sure, it's a lightweight piece, probably most appropriate as a season-ender (as, for example, the Colorado Ballet has used Celts). I thought that it was fun, even if the choreography wasn't at the elite level. And after the costumes that ABT showed up with for Sleeping Beauty, I probably will never find any other costumes to be a turn-off. The biggest problem that I had is that without reading the program I would have had no idea of what was going on. Was the pair of dancers who were wearing matching halves of a costume supposed to be the king?

Tchiakovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 is my current favorite Balanchine dance. Good riffs for the corps as well as the soloists. There were a couple of bobbles in Wednesday's performance, which proves that everyone is human.

Agreed. I was expecting completely horrible things based on reviews, but I was definitely entertained! IMO, the costumes were only garish when the entire cast was on stage at the same time. The music was nice...if anything the PDDs could have been beefed up a bit -- it really felt like a very lightweight Nutcracker Act II missing the substantial sections (Waltz of the Flowers, Sugarplum PDD). Loved Infernal Machine with Laracey & Ramasar (I thought she was significantly stronger here than in Ash). Loved the Balanchine (though I wish Scheller would loosen her upper body).

I agree Sonatina, I saw the Lovette/Huxley cast last Spring. While I thought they were both tremendous (such crisp petite allegro the both of them!), I left the theater feeling rather depressed. Normally I leave feeling exhilarated...kind of why I like to go to the ballet! I don't plan on seeing it again.

Kennedy Center Casting: http://www.nycballet.com/NYCB/media/NYCBMediaLibrary/PDFs/Press/Washington-DC%E2%80%94March-1-6,-2016.pdf

La Sylphide: Hyltin & De Luz, Peck & Garcia, Woodward & Veyette

Tschai #2: Reichlen & Mearns

I agree with everything you wrote. For some reason, I just wasn't in to La Sylphide yesterday. I enjoyed Peck and Troy Schumacher (Gurn) but the rest of it was just ok. I was also disappointed in Veyette, but I've only seen two other people in the James role so I wasn't sure if I was just in a bad mood (because that was the first time I wasn't really enjoying myself at NYCB)

But then Tschai #2 started and I was happy I trekked out into the cold. It was the highlight of the month for me. So beautiful. I thought Sara Mearns was a whirlwhind of energy on stage. She danced with such passion and really threw herself into the role. Obviously since I have never seen this ballet before, I've never seen Reichlen in this part so I have nothing to compare Mearns to, but I was mesmerized by her. I almost am thinking about braving the cold and the travel again just to see it again. I'm sad they are bringing Bournonville divertissements to DC instead of this ballet.

I've spent most of my ballet going at ABT with story ballets, but I really need to spend more time at NYCB.

Happy Valentine's day!

Tschai #2 is coming to DC on the more contemporary (Justin Peck, Wheeldon, etc) bill! Anyways, in the spring I much preferred the Bournonville Divert. to La Sylphinde -- it was so sunny and full of life. I thought they should have flipped the order of the program and played Sylphide first and end on a happy note.

It's that time of year when they announce the Janice Levin award. IMHO the top candidates this year would be Ashley Hod, Unity Phelan, and Joseph Gordon. My bet would be Joseph Gordon, and that a promotion to soloist would come soon after. A look at the male soloist ranks seems to show some room for a promotion or two. Russell Janzen and Taylor Stanley presumably are on their way to the top. Catazaro has had a lot of injury and down time since his promotion to soloist. He probably needs some time to stabilize before he can be considered for further promotion. I believe that if Sean Suozzi, Craig Hall, or Antonio Carmena were going to be promoted it would have happened by now. None of them is getting major new roles. Besides Joseph Gordon, I could also see Devin Alberda getting a promotion to soloist. Others at the junior level who seem to be getting attention are Cameron Dieck, Peter Walker, Harrison Coll, and Preston Chamblee. Some of these are still very young, however. Harrison Ball's star seemed like it was rising a year or so back, but I haven't seen a lot of him lately.

Joseph Gordon! http://www.nycballet.com/NYCB/media/NYCBMediaLibrary/PDFs/SpecialEvents/2016-Annual-Luncheon-Invitation.pdf

In comparison, the top level of McCaw Hall in Seattle sells for $28-35 depending on the rep (mixed or story). But NYC is more expensive than Seattle (although the influx of investment money from China is making Seattle Real Estate jump closer to NYC!)

I got student tickets at Sadler's Wells in London for £5 (~$7.50) and London is even more expensive than NY!

They're typically only opened when a performance is selling well (i.e. the second ring is nearly sold out) and are priced similarly to the second ring (maybe a few more center $60 tickets here or there in the 3rd ring).

how much are prices for 3rd and 4th ring seats?

Backing up......

The double fouettees are not what I was referring to when I mentioned that in Marnee's solo (the turning girl solo of Who Cares?) had been modified with Pollack's and Isaacs' debuts.

There was an entire diagonal of turns removed and substituted for steps that did not involved turns. Double fouettees or not doesn't really matter much to me, as long as the fouettees are beautifully done.

Yes, Marnee's version of the variation was absolutely incredible. And btw, she had a little trick to staying on pointe, while turning, in her fouettees so that she didn't have to come off pointe. I've never seen anything like that since.

Is Marnee's version available at the NYPL/on DVD? It sounds incredible!

He is there in case anyone is injured, I am sure.

He posted on his instagram this morning that he's performing Bluebird with Stella tonight. I'm sorry for whoever is injured.

I was very happy to see this production with Hee Seo and Marcelo Gomes last night. It's the first time I've seen a classical production of Sleeping Beauty live. Regarding reconstruction's style, I thought that the lower arabesques, the pirouettes in the coupé, and Bournonville-esque small jumps all looked quite lovely, but that the chaines on relevé looked awkward. The costumes were very pretty from my seat; I thought Carabosse's costume was fantastic. However, the wigs were horrible: both ugly and made it extremely difficult to differentiate the corps members in the prologue. And why does an asian Aurora have to be blond? It makes no sense (maybe there's some historical context I'm missing?).

As for the dancing: Marcelo Gomes is as lovely as ever -- when he's on stage he's all you look at. Such charisma. Unfortunately the same cannot be Hee Seo -- she was really very pretty, but at times she blended in with the corps (vision scene). Neither she nor Christine Schevenko as Lilac had that "star quality"/sparkle that I'm used to seeing (I mostly attend City Ballet and have been fortunate to see multiple performances featuring both Sara Mearns and Tiler Peck). Nevertheless, I thought her Rose Adagio was quite strong and was impressed with how long she held her unsupported arabesque after the balances.

Among the younger generation, I thought Skyler Brandt was a stunning Diamond Fairy (so much sparkle!) and Catherine Hurlin an adorable and hilarious White Cat. April Giangeruso stood out among the Prologue fairies, and even though the choreography for her solo variation was rather unfortunate, she still brought a tremendous amount of well-appreciated energy. Zhiyao Zhang was incredible as Bluebird -- such clean jumps and gorgeous upper body fluidity. Finally, Courtney Lavine has gorgeous lines and I pretty much only watched her whenever the corps was on stage -- I would have loved to see her take on a solo.

I join macnellie in looking forward to Swanilda8's continued comments along with the generously translated insights of the judges.

Interestingly the seventh placed couple, Ekaterina Boulgoutova & Yuri Koudriavtsev (Krasnoyarsk), continue to attract me very much. They are probably in seventh place because of the very commendable technical consistency of the others. Yet these two have some very fine qualities.

They are young, fresh and natural. They have a very sympathetic connection with each other and with us. In addition there is a loveliness to their artistry. There is an underlying fineness and delicacy to Ekaterina Boulgoutova. Yuri Koudriavtsev has a handsomely similar and supportive quality with a very fine nobleness, likability and believability that reminds me of the Mariinsky’s noteworthy new First Soloist, Xander Parish. Along with a basic fineness of technical expression is an even more endearing and compelling overall beauty to their performance.

I look forward to seeing the rest of their performances and hope that this charming couple from faraway Siberia does get recognised among the other more acknowledged and highly talented couples. They did make it onto the program, so someone does really like them.

http://tvkultura.ru/video/show/brand_id/59616/episode_id/1266755/video_id/1431626/viewtype/picture/

[slight clarification made to one sentence]

Thanks for the video! They were very fun to watch. I was interested to see them performing black swan to Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux music -- I do know it was written as an (alternative? additional?) black swan pas de deux but didn't think it was actually used. Are there versions of Swan Lake that use this music for the black swan pas de deux? Do they have an extended/second pas de deux?

Question: how tall is Mearns?

I think 5'7"... not positive and if accurate no idea where I read it

Best: Tiler Peck in Theme, Twyla Tour, City Ballet at the Kennedy Center (Serenade, Agon, and Symphony in C all in one program!), MCB's Ashley Knox as Dew Drop, and pretty much everything else I've seen. I'm very easily pleased!

Worst: Audience behavior at MCB. A man seated in the front row brought a crying child back into the theater in the middle of Waltz of the Flowers and left again with the child a minute later (I understand leaving with a child during a performance, but coming back in at any point in time during which dancers are dancing on stage...)

<http://abt.org/dancers/detail.asp?Dancer_ID=276>

At age 12, Waski placed in the top twelve at the 2008 Youth American Grand Prix, junior division in Philadelphia.

It's funny -- I just skimmed through the 2008 Philly semifinals winners (this is what happens before school starts...) -- among the competitors in addition to Paulina are Taylor Stanley, "Emmy" Kikta, Beckanne Smith, and Catherine Hurlin.

In this interview, Cassandra Trenary stated that she was only taking 2-3 ballet classes per week before coming to JKO, but she was taking other dance forms as well (which may be different than what you're asking): http://pointemagazine.com/inside-pt/issuesaprilmay-2012jko-abt-cassandra-trenary/

Just to update: everything seems to be selling quite well, especially when Misty is performing. Prices have been raised across the board for all weekend performances except Sunday evening ($129 side orchestra for Sat Mat. without Misty). Kennedy Center released 60 tickets through its MyTix program this morning for Hee Seo's Thursday Eve. show and they sold out within in 10 minutes (but I got a ticket!!! ) Clearly I'm excited!

From what I recall having read about Kathryn Morgan (I was too young to have seen her live) and as beautiful a dancer as she is, she also benefitted from her strong classical technique in a company where many dancers at the time did not have that foundation.

However, In my opinion, NYCB's corps is currently an embarrassment of riches. Unity Phelan and Ashley Hod were adorable in Agon and I can't wait to see Indiana Woodward in a Balanchine principal role. Additionally, it seems like Lauren Lovette, whom I also love (pardon the pun) watching, has adopted a significant amount of Morgan's rep. Unfortunately, it seems like NYCB just doesn't have the need anymore, as stunning a dancer as Morgan is.

The apprenticeship term also seems to be much shorter at ABT (~ a season) than at NYCB (~ a year). A few ABT dancers who became apprentices for Nutcracker in December 2015 have already been promoted to the corps (i.e. Hanna Bass)

She is such a beautiful dancer -- thanks for sharing! Serious question (I have never danced even close to the professional level): does additional weight over the thin ballerina standard impact technique? From my untrained eye she's beautiful regardless of her weight.

Week One Casting posted: http://www.nycballet.com/NYCB/media/NYCBMediaLibrary/PDFs/Press/Casting/NYCB_Casting_January-19-24,-2016_lobby.pdf

I saw corps member Ashley Knox as Dew Drop while I was in Florida. She was stunning. Why is she still in the corps?

It played beautifully (in HD) on TV -- still have it on my DVR.