Mel Johnson

To my knowledge, there is no technical name for the position, but it is sometimes called, among dancers, the "swan-sit".

Those sound like species of a 40* error. If that happened to me, I'd check my browser and then, if that didn't work, seek help from my ISP.

PS. What's your username on BT4D? We don't seem to have a Funnygirl, and haven't deleted any posters this year.

The same seems to be true for BT4D. Do you happen to know if they are experiencing similar problems?

Still not working for me!

What isn't working? What error messages are you receiving from BT4D? If it's a single screen with "Account Suspended" (see screen shot), I'll need to report it, since BT4D has worked for me consistently since both sites came back up late last night, and your post is dated today.

If it's any other message, you'll need to report that to the "Contact Us" link on the BT4D site. We are separate sites, and we can't fix problems with individual registrations from here.

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To everyone, it was quite a scare, and I'm glad it's been resolved.

You may also be able to help yourself by going into your machine's Control Panel and emptying your cache.

The same seems to be true for BT4D. Do you happen to know if they are experiencing similar problems?

Oh, yes.

But we're back in business now, too, so all is well.

In the case of Bournonville, it seems more based on his peopling his stage with groups that look like actual live groups from the real world. In the fantasy world, apparently there are no juvenile-phase Sylphides. The Petipa/Ivanov Swan Lake made use of available resources at the Maryinsky, which included the advanced students. Quite a few productions there included students to swell the size of the corps as in the Garland Waltz in Sleeping Beauty, or productions of La Bayadere where every adult shade was doubled by a student shade (72 ghosts?!). The effect seems to have appealed to a sense of opulence, not any device to sell tickets. Imperial Russian theaters did not distribute tickets by sales alone, and very often the students HAD no parents to sell to. Consider that the ballet school in Moscow was founded out of the city orphanage!

I will also never ever forget the concierge/bellboy (wish I knew a more PC and formal title for what they do) at the Wellington, who, although I wasn't checked in yet (the bus was 1.5hrs late arriving so no time to do so), stored my luggage, and took me to their back breakroom so I could iron my outfit & change for the ballet that night.

Very decent of the Bell Captain's Office.

Select "More" over the thumbnails on the right side of the page.

Yes, this is the original SAB at 637 Madison Ave., which had been the Isadora Duncan school in NYC.

Without actual language in place, I feel that it is somewhat less than useful for anyone, whether Alberda or us, to comment on company policy with regard to social networking. The appropriate forum for that is the AGMA negotiation with NYCB over their General Contract. It's sounding like a cry to mount the barricades only to find that a proposed measure is intended to prevent jaywalking.

It's a very well-put-together photograph, showing the dancers AND the very beautiful set by Tchelitchew off to good advantage. Balanchine apparently sold the artist on the idea, and his design looks wonderful, especially in black-and-white. I especially like the conference with the orchestra conductor (Balanchine himself).

Hand-marking is old, old as the hills, and not just limited to ballet. One George Washington biographer describes the General during a wartime ball, dancing the first dances full out, then as the evening grew long, he would begin to walk the figures, and do the more complex steps by hand-marking.

But Balanchine was watching when Peter put that one together.

She was doing it with the Siren. "Ho-hum, Wednesday night 8:30. Client number 4. Mesopotamian Special. Wonder where to go for Chinese after."

Yes, I thought it was an extraordinary, brilliant choice of interpretation.

I saw Farrell do the Siren in '68, I believe, with Villella as the Prodigal. She was very sinuous and serpentine, but possessed of an air of "professional" ennui. This role was unlike anything else in her then repertoire, or achievement since.

There is an arcane calculus of how public officials weight forms of constituent input. A phone call to a district office represents 1 vote, a form letter via email is 6, a petition, 6.5, and so on. A US Senator of my acquaintance once told me that a personally written letter coming via first-class mail can be considered 8,000, depending on issue.

That's why "Union Jack" is such a mess. RCAF tartan is indeed a blue-and-gray sett. The WORST mess-up came at the final scene, with the Royal Navy semaphoring to "British Grenadiers". It was a marker to me that Balanchine was losing it.

But they are not at that point identified as RCAF. That would have been another offense. This is just a way of sorting dancers on the stage.

You know, I don't recall the RCAF segment being in Highland dress. "Union Jack" was an awful muddle of British and Commonwealth service traditions, so much that it was considered somewhat offensive. (I certainly found that aspect to be so), but I don't recall that particular error.

Happens all the time in this business. In ballet, Macy does tell Gimbel.

Last mention of the Academie Royale came in 1778, when Gaetan Vestris, Maximilien Gardel, Jean Dauberval and Jean-Georges Noverre were members. I must presume that it got cut short about the same time that the French king did.

Bear in mind that both terms can mean either a School of Thought or a building.

Clearly, this is a de gustibus item, but if it didn't work for you, then there was room for improvement.

Given today's fascination with the neo-Gothic, Hoffman, as a founder of the 19th-century Gothic, makes an appealing subject for directors.

Ever Stop to Think Dept. (Ballet Desk) - In regard to Hoffman's sidekick Nicklausse; there's a sidelong parallel to ballet in him, too. Ever read "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" and about its hero, Nicholas ... Drosselmeyer!?

Masaniello is La Muette de Portici; They're just construing what we would call an opera as a ballet.

"No orders..." is seen back into the eighteenth century; I believe that it means "no free passes".

Neary gave a powerful reading to the part, and suggested to me what another "powerhouse Pat" - Wilde - must have been like in the original cast.