Petra

bart, to generalise with respect to French actors, I think one of their greatest characteristics is the ability to convey passionate emotions in a very understated (and chic ) way. I wonder whether this characteristic is a product of the French acting training or of the cinematic style itself.

I saw "Little Miss Sunshine" on DVD. It's rather slight for a Best Picture nomination and a lot less subversive than I expected.

Many thanks for this discussion. I'm learning so much.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I agree but on the other hand - Aren't we glad when there is popular recognition of "our" stars. Is it tacky for Baryshnikov and Darci Kistler to be featured in ads for Movado watches and Fonteyn and Nureyev on ads for fur coats? Is it degrading because Payless is a low price chain? Isn't Sarah Lane a better role model for the demographic that Payless is targeting than Britney (Spears) or Lindsay (Lohan)?

I saw the 02/10 matinee. This time I sat in the Orchestra, and I was able to fully enjoy Riolama's lovely first act. She is a vibrant, fresh faced Giselle and her mad scene is very still and frozen. It was very very moving upclose, but it just didn't reach the Family Circle where I sat the previous week. Her second act still wasn't convincing enough - she remained flesh and blood and not a ghost. Sergio Torrado looks to be a great asset to the company - the PAB men seem to be stronger dramatically than technically and the women the opposite. Hawley Rowe danced Myrta this time - very authoritative and stern. Less wraith like than Yudenich. My young companion especially liked the peasant pas de deux - Barette Vance received a "pretty good dancing" and Yosbel Delgado even elicited a "wow" - and the Borzoi hunting dogs featured in the first act.

And let's not forget the very imaginative cinema that has come out of Iran in the past two decades: Mohsen Mahmalbaf, Samira Mahmalbaf and others. Some of that was very political - in the broad sense of the word.

carbro, silence can be considered a voice too: "And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice." (Kings 19:12)

Yudenich was the star of the Sat evening too (replacing Hawley Rowe). She was everything you imagine Myrta to be - ethereal, dramatic, icy-hot - amazing! Alexei Charov was a great Hilarion - bold and sympathetic acting. Well, you know where I'm going with this, don't you? Riolama Lorenzo was Giselle, and even taking into account that this was her debut, I'm not sure she's a Giselle. She's a tall strong dancer and she doesn't have an ounce of fragility in her. I don't think she's had many acting roles, as her second act was much better than the first. Sergio Torrado (Albrecht) is a strong dancer too - his entrechat six-es were wonderfully floaty - but either he isn't a great actor or he intended toact Albrect as 'cad who breaks Giselle's heart and only really falls in love with her after her death'. Either way, he didn't earn my sympathy in the first act at all. All that said, it was wonderful to see a 'real' ballet - no concept, no revisionist thinking. IMO this is the way to develop a company and to develop an audience. Where I was sitting, it sounded like there were plenty people who were unfamiliar with the story (who knew such people existed?!) There were also many children. Unlike Ray, I liked the traditional set (but I was sitting in the Family Circle. Maybe it looked different closer), but I agree that the orchestra sounded thin. I'll be seeing next Saturday's matinee with the same cast more or less (so it goes with subscriptions) and will report back again. Edited to add: I just read the link in Dale's post. So Yudenich danced in at least three consecutive performances. No wonder the 'kids' were going crazy for her at the curtain calls.

Thanks, lillianna. Can you tell us if Torrado joined PAB or is he guesting?

Giselle - Casting is up Julie Diana, Riolama Lorenzo, Arnaxcha Ochoa are Giselle Zachary Hench, Sergio Torrado (does anyone know who is), James Ady are Albrecht. Wow, the very young Gabriella Yudenich who was such a hit as Coffee in the Nutcracker is dancing Myrtha! That's a surprise as PA Ballet tends to cast by seniority IMO.

drb, thanks for the additional info. You are right, of course, that AGMA is protective not only of employees in general but also has to balance the rights of various classes (apprentices/corps, etc.). carbro, I agree that AGMA would be aware of the roles available in Nutcracker. I think that the realities of Nutcracker season are such that it would be impossible to limit the number of roles an apprentice dances in Nutcracker. I didn't realise that it was established policy to schedule Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty in two-week blocks.

carbro, it is likely that the AGMA agreement did not anticipate the number of full-evening multi-role ballets that NYCB would perform during the term of the agreement. The AGMA is the party to the agreement that would be protective of the apprentice and would want to limit her number of appearances before promoting her to corps. As AGMA has had a lengthy relationship with NYCB, AGMA probably realized that limiting the number of roles in The Nutcracker wouldn't be a doable scenario for NYCB - but on the other hand its representatives probably didn't know quite how many full-length ballets Peter Martins was planning.

Perhaps Peter Martins was thinking of Balanchine's Midsummer Night's Dream when he determined the narrative flow.

That's so beautiful! How can someone so muscular look light as a feather?!

Just to tie things up properly - I didn't watch the Fiesta Bowl, but I did suffer through the play-by-play the following day in the office cafeteria. Sorry, but I have a very low tolerance level for American football.

papeetepatrick, call me a lawyer (many people do ) but I think that there is a clear distinction between an illegal, outlawed, terrorist organization like Al Qaeeda and a legal political party like the BNP. If Clarke is not committing a crime, then I don't think that she should be discriminated against in the workplace. Again, the hallmark of democracy is tolerance of others, as long as they are not harming others.

Aren't we getting a little carried away? Surely in a democracy, a private citizen may be a member of any legal political party or social organisation. If the British government hasn't outlawed the BNP, I think that a ballet dancer is entitled to be a member, however repugnant that may be to the audience. The UK is not a fledgling democracy that needs to protect itself from dissent. It can allow its citizens (or are they still subjects?) to behave as disgustingly as they choose. I also don't believe that it would be right for the ENB to penalise Ms. Clarke merely for being a member of the BNP. I don't see what right a ballet company has to get involved in its dancers' political activities.

I saw "The Good Shepherd" on Xmas Day. It is a very long account of US espionage during WWII and the beginning of the Cold War through the eyes of one of the major counterintelligence officers (Edward Wilson played by Matt Damon). It is directed by Robert de Niro so although it is self-indulgently long, the acting is outstanding. Unusually for a "suit" or "uniform" movie, each role is very distinct from the other. There is no confusing one tall patriot for another tall patriot or one dark haired beuaty for another... Matt Damon is making a great career as a spy or other person with hidden identities. However, he manages to make each such role very different - Edward Wilson is very different from Jason Bourne or Tom Ridley. Angelina Jolie, with just a little help from the make-up department (it must be very tiresome to have a face that could launch a thousand ships ), does a remarkable job in portraying vulnerability and emotional despair. Tammy Blanchard, a complete unknown to me, was also excellent as the "other woman". Typecasting would have had their roles reversed. I think the screenplay is original, which is quite unusual in a movie of this nature. I see very few movies in the theatre so I don't know how this rates compared to the others discussed here or whether it has any chance for an Oscar. There are plenty actors here who could conceivably get a Supporting nod - Billy Crudup, Lee Pace, Michael Gambon, etc. The Academy loves Jolie of course.

Interesting article, but I think that comparing the workings of a ballet company and an opera company is like comparing apples to oranges. (Disclaimer: I know nothing about opera and not all that much about ballet history and administration. ) A ballet company is, and at least for the last couple of hundred years has been, a "real" company. Although there are and have been stars, they are also part of the company. Dancers almost never start out as soloists, they start as part of the corps de ballet and then they rise to the top, meteorically (sp?) or gradually. An NYCB apprentice had a featured role in a gala a few months ago and has since spent the winter dancing in the corps in The Nutcracker. Would that happen with an opera singer? I don't think so. They start as soloists in smaller places until they get noticed and rise to the top. Another aspect that Rockwell glossed over in his article is the difference between promoting a star as part of the advertising and marketing of a company and promoting a star within the company, like Balanchine did with Farrell, de Valois with Fonteyn (as I see it, de Valois first made Fonteyn into a star within the Sadlers Wells Ballet and then used that star power to promote the Ballet). The reason he glossed over this difference is that in opera there is very little difference between the two. Again, because in opera there is no "company" the way there is in ballet. In terms of marketing a company, Kristin Sloan by way of her blog TheWinger (www.thewinger.com) is doing an incredible job of promoting NYCB in particular and ballet and dance in general, in a way that is very attractive to the young audience that marketers so desire to attract... (Rockwell complained that today's dancers aren't glamorous enough, but perhaps Rockwell's idea of what is glamorous is different to that of today's young audience. I personally find Sloan's accounts of her heroic efforts to recover from injury very inspiring and, yes, glamorous in an "I'll do anything for my art" way.) Does it matter that Sloan and most of her collaborators aren't the stars of their respective companies? I don't think so. And on the other hand, I don't know that the fact that a dancer is a star necessarily brings in an audience for ballet as a whole. Did ABT see any significant rise in ticket sales in Ethan Stiefel's perforamnces after the movie"Center Stage" was released? Darcey Bussell is a celebrity in Britain. Has this affected the Royal Ballet's general ticket sales? If Bussell were to appear in every performance of the Royal Ballet, would there be more ticket sales? Sorry for the random thoughts. Just easing back into things after the longweekend.

I saw the 12/22 pm performance. As this was my very first NYCB performance, I have very little to add to the discussion, however: 1. Ashley Bouder's Dewdrop. What a superheroine of dance - I had tears in my eyes by the end of the Waltz. I have never seen technique or charisma in any way comparable to hers. I feel so privileged to have seen this performance. 2. Karoui's conducting is outrageous. I was the one who booed him. Not everyone is Bouder who can control time and slow down the music the dancers (and especially the children) deserve better - there is no reason they can't be given enough time to articulate their feet properly. 3. Coffee, the 'slow' divertissement, wasn't great - The costume is very bizarre and the dancing wasn't slinky or langorous enough. (I'm not sure who the dancer was).

Leigh, I managed to get the Hudson Hotel for $123 (for the 22nd, the Friday before Xmas) on Priceline. I haven't been there yet, but it looks like the amenities are all there but the rooms are postage stamp sized. This was my first time using Priceline and I probably wouldn't have doen it without your endorsement.

A lot depends of course on people's personal circumstances. In the past I was able to tailor short trips to London and Paris around ballet - a matter both of geography and family. I'm sure I will pick up ballet travel again - in about twenty years or so. That said, later this month my husband and I have the opportunity to spend a night together away from the children - the first time we will have done this in over three years (and the first time away from the younger one)!! There was absolutely no deliberation about where to go (we're in Philly) and what to do that evening. NYCB, here we come.

A complex and intelligent fellow, our Damian. And so is Emily Coates, of course, who read and quoted us...

It was Robert Altman's "The Player" that showed me - then a snotty teenager - that a new movie didn't have to have subtitles to be a work of art. I haven't liked every Altman novie, but "The Player" and "Short Cuts" are very significant in my personal viewing history.

dirac, I think it would be rather tricky to award the literature prize to an American this year as an overwhelming number (perhaps all??) of the Nobel laureates for science are American.