zobeide

Yes, there are a few small lifts in Ballo.

I agree with abatt. Though it was great to see Maria, her range of and (for me) the very apparent stiffness in her back really detracted from her performance. Sara was much more fluid, with deep back bends, and of course she was very glamorous. But she got a huge amount of applause at the end (more than any other dancer in the performance).As for Ballo, I am a huge Anthony fan. He is very clean, very fast and has quick footwork. I far prefer to see him paired with Megan than Lauren Lovette. Megan has this role down cold. But maybe that's the problem. She doesn't project any charm or charisma. Her positions were clipped. And pique turn into and arabesque was over in an instant; Tiler is luxurious in this same sequence of steps, holding the arabesque longer. She is just a more interesting dancer to watch. I'ud like to see a Tiler/Anthony matchup in Ballo one day. If he can dance wilth Miriam Miller (probably the tallest female in Midsummer), he should be able to partner Tiler in Ballo.

Mimsyb I am a subscriber and unfortunately we are beholden to dynamic pricing. The only perk we get is being able to exchange.

Well said, balinchinette. I thought Sara was totally miscast, she looked leaden and Tyler really had trouble hoisting her around (yes, like a ton of bricks). But I thought the demis - Huxley, Garcia and Brittany Pollack made up for the leads. They had the right energy and virtuosity.

I have to disagree with you jkr a bit about Symph in 3. I saw Symph in 3 twice this spring before tonight; once with the first cast (essentially the same as tonight except for Erica) and a second cast where Tiler Prck did the lead woman. The first night i saw it I felt bad for Ana Sophia. I feel even worse now because I fear she may have reinjued herself after only a few days back (after being off at least 1 year due to injury). However,I thought Erica (who I'd seen in the second cast) was actually better than Ana. Ana looked very thin, tired and had virtually no jump the night I saw her. Erica, on the other hand, has loads of energy, is spunky and has a good jump. That makes a difference to me because the outstanding (but criminally underutilized) Danny Ulbricht is a fantastic jumper and both of their jumps signal the meaty part of the choreography is about to begin.Erica is also a good height match for Danny.. Sterling was stellar and Taylor Stanley excellent. I also really like Megan LeCrone in this and other Balanchine leotard ballets. She has an angular body type that really fits this type of choreography. Unlike you, I feel she understands exactly what she's dancing and if my recall is correct she provides the talking head interview for the NYCB video on Symph in 3. Joe Gordon was basically good but needs to go up a notch on everything: confidence, partnering and some technique (when he gets nervous he falls out of pirouettes). Still I thought it was a great performance and a great night.

I thought American Rhapsody was extremely dull and unimaginative. Robbie looks kind out of shape and maybe that's all he could do but the dance vocabulary seemed very limited. I actually liked Nicolas Blanc's Mothership better (though neither was anything to write home about). I especially liked that of its 8 dancers, 3 are apprentices and the others are young, not very senior corps members. Of course Ratmansky's Concerto DSCH was the best piece on the program. Unfortunately, I think Sara is miscast as the lead woman. The choreography requires the man to swing his partner around from his neck a lot and Sara is too big to have that look easy and playful. It is also a shame Ana Sophia was out in the female demi role, though Brittany Pollack did an adequate job as her sub. The last time I saw this piece it was performed by the Maariinsky and Filip Stepin and Kimin Kim were the demi men. As good as Anthony Huxley and Gonzalo Garcia are, they can't hold a candle (in technique and charisma) to Stepin and Kim so I felt a bit disappointed. In fact, this evening had very little dance. American Rhapsody was under 20 minutes while Mothership was 8 minutes; Concerto DSCH is about a half hour. This was an evening to come to look at the wealthy celebrities all dressed up but not a great night for dance.

I am so sick and tired of ABT. They make a fuss about "stars" but these stars frequently pull out, are injured, etc. I'd like to see them do something innovative like have a promising soloist or corps dancer take on some of Polina's roles. This works pretty well at NYCB, where young dancers frequently get an opportunity to dance big roles (case in point was the virtually sold out May 1 Jewels which starred several corps and soloist dancers). This company needs a total makeover beginning with a new AD. Maybe Angel Corella could come up and fire 40% of ABT's management. Since he offered Sterling Baca a principal contract he obviously sees that good corps dancers are capable of dancing much bigger roles than are being offered.

This was reported earlier today. http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/arts/20160426_Pennsylvania_Ballet_to_leave_or_be_let_go.html It seems rather heartless of Angel to lay off so many dancers, especially as they were receiving such great reviews. Dance is a tough business.

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I, too, was able to buy single tickets today. And like mimsyb, my ticket agent told me that ABT had previously not allowed the box office to sell subscribers single tickets. They changed course on Wednesday. She apologized for the inconvenience in having to come to the box office twice.

I sent an email to Mr.Timm and received a prompt response that subscribers could buy single tickets at any time before the box office opens. I will call to verify this but I assume after all the complaints, they changed their policy.

Time of subscribing for me was in November. That's still not what policy was previously.

NYCB also gives a 15% discount on all additional tickets (except Nutcracker and galas) to subscribers, both regular and Create your own. Even better, you can exchange tickets over the phone. You discard your old ticket and they mail you the new one. ABT is truly living in the dark ages. It's a wonder it's still in existence.

NYCB's season doesn't start until April 19.

Not a typo. That's what she danced.

One of the students coached - Kennard Henson - is someone I first saw at the 2015 Workshop performance. He was VERY impressive then and has just gotten better. His partner (I don't recall her name) was also very good. I hope they get into NYCB.

I own the DVD of the film so I didn't bother to come to the Filmlinc showing. But I agree that the film was not particularly well done. If memory serves, it was also rather dated; i don't think it went into how Merrill now travels around for the Bslanchine Trust, setting and coaching ballets around the world.As for no other NYCB dancers, I'm sure they could have made some effort to get some former dancers for the Q&A. I don't know if Ib Anderson lives here but Robbie La Fosse and Damian Woetzel both do. However, in a NYT article on Friday (I believe) Merrill said something to the effect that the current crop of NYCB dancers aren't willing to work hard and Merrill didn't want to feed them pablum. Well that remark drew a lot of anger from at least Sara Mearns in an Instagram post. She responded that NYCB dancers were the hardest working dancers she knew and that the remark was completely disrespectful. It doesn't surprise me there were no current NYCB dancers in attendance.

I definitely agree with abatt that you never criticize your dancers in a public forum. Never, ever. Also, IMO, once you have been AD for a number of months you own the company's problems as well as its triumphs. If your dancers don't look good, Benjamin, now that's your fault. As to the question of whether Millepied would ever succeed Martins in running NYCB, I think (or hope) that's unlikely. When Millepied retired from NYCB not only was there no farewell performance, the company barely made any mention of it at all. If memory serves, they issued a one sentence statement saying he had left the company. To me that sounded a bit like "and don't let the door hit you on your way out".

On a different topic, I just saw Justin Peck's The Most Incredible Thing. IMO, it should have been called The Most Dreadful Thing. I thought it was awful; gimmicky (oh those terrible costumes), and for the most part had very pedestrian choreography. The piece is a series of vignettes, each one titled thing like "one o' clock, the cuckoo bird; two o' clock Adam and Eve, three o' clock The Three Kings" etc. These vignettes seem to have nothing much to do with each other so, as a narrative piece, it doesn't hang together very well. I did like the Adam and Eve section, performed tonight by Adrian Danchig-Waring and Rebecca Krohn. But I'd have to say the piece struck me as completely superficial and trivial. And on a program that also has the three new works from the fall plus Chris Wheeldon's Estancia, there was no really substantive work and the evening was very long. I can't believe they have devoted TWO of the Art Series programs to this mess of a night. I immediately decided to apply those two nights towards a ticket towards Anthony Hyxley's Sylphide. At least I'll be seeing a night with two great works.

No,I don't believe there are any "musical chairs" going on, Drew.

In going to wait to buy tickets for casting. I most definitely want to see Evan McKie.

The casting for all the ballets tonight was changed so Gonzalo got his debut this evening. I have to say I was kind of bummed not to see Tiller Peck in the 1st movement (replaced by Megan Fairchild). Maybe she'll do it on Jan. 30.

Yay, for these well deserved promotions!!!

I completely agree. I'm sure Allash was referring not just to Obraztsova, Smirnova and Hallberg but also to dancers who came with Filin from the Stanislavsky like Semyon Chudin (who I think is wonderful). And not once was the name Grigorovich mentioned. If Alexei Ratmansky's is to be believed (and I'm sure he is) Grigorovich is really the behind the scenes player who has divided the Bolshoi. Personally, I found the film rather boring and not at all insightful. I also thought the interviews the filmmaker Nick Reade gave before the film aired (which kind of trashed Filin) were uncalled for. Your film should speak for itself.

Just a few final words about the last Nutcracker: the Mearns/Angle/Peck comboo on 1/3/16. Tiler's Dewdrop was fantastic - as canbelto says, a modern classic. She's got pristine technique, with great energy and fine footwork. She has always been musical but her ability to play with music steadily increases. Yesterday, she would hold a position (say, passé) deliberately long and then catch up to the music. But I think what I love the best about her is that she radiates joy - joy of dancing, of living, of being onstage. She always smiles and looks so happy. I forget everything else. Sara was a mixed bag. She did not perform her entrance with the little angels well. She was always either way behind the music or ahead of it. Her renversé was absent. Any little jump landed with a thud.. The PDD was better. Sara had long lines, very nice entensions, especially in the supported à la second promenade and in pencheé. But she somehow landed in her fishdive face down. She look extremely tense and never cracked a smile.until the end of the coda. You could really count those 13 points because her dancing looked very mechanical (she did them all ok, I think). I did think Tyler was a good partner. He caught her in the shoulders sits, no problem; for the first one he even exetended one arm. I thought he lifted her high above his head for the first sweeping lift (à la the Russians), supported all her of turn of directions, the pirouettes and the series of chaineés at the end well. No his coda is nothing to write home about and his was probably the least virtuosic Cavalier I saw. But what a great partner! Danny Ulbricht was, as expected, wonderful in Hoops. Brittany Pollack was also terrific in Marzipan. I thought Megan Mann was kind of weak as Coffee. For me, the best person I saw in that role was Rebecca Krohn. Little Avery Lin was a delight as Marie, as was Sawyer Reo as her brother Fritz. These two can not only dance well but act their hearts out. Avery was definitely the best Marie I've seen this season, so I'm sorry I saw her only once. Emil José Kelso couldn't keep up with her as Drosselmeir's nephew. But really, all the SAB kids are just a delight and obviously very well rehearsed, whether it's in Act 1 or the Act 2 polichinelles. Parent and teachers should be proud. Now, bring on the winter season!