canbelto

I might be wrong but I got the feeling that Peter Martins took on much more administrative duties than Balanchine. Balanchine when he was "Ballet Master" at NYCB was always going around the world licensing, staging, and in many cases choreographing for different companies. Eddie Bigelow and Betty Cage really took care of the administrative day-to-day duties. Balanchine was in those days rightly focused on creating a unique repertoire for NYCB, developing SAB and recruiting teachers he trusted, and casting/teaching/rehearsing.

I think Balanchine chose "Ballet Master" because ... well, he really was a ballet master. He was considered the finest choreographer of his time (and maybe for all time) and the commissions for his ballets were his only source of income.

Huh? The Bolshoi is not some regional company from nowhere. It has a huge international fanbase from their lucrative tours, livestreams, and their stars guesting all over the world. Many of these international audiences would surely be offended by the blackface. Also it's a fallacy that Russians have few people of African descent. It's ironic that this particular argument is still used in the week a movie about Alexander Pushkin, a Russian writer with African heritage. If the Bolshoi has NO dancers from different ethnicities then, well, that's another big problem.

Both Shklyarov and Sarafanov have family situations -- both of their wives dance at the Mariinsky and are big enough stars there that they probably wouldn't want to jeopardize their wives' careers to come to ABT full time.

I don;t know, hopefully open some minds to how offensive and insensitive and unnecessary Lacotte's depiction of Ramze's attendants is.

For anyone who thinks blackface in Pharaoh's Daughter is okay, just watch this and how the minstrel show shuffling dance is recreated by Lacotte:

Doesn;t change the fact that these "historical" blackface details more resemble an early 20th century minstrel show than any historical necessity. I'll add that if you cannot enjoy a ballet without these blackface getups (as in without the blackface then you don't want to watch the ballet), then maybe that ballet isn't worth reviving.

The awesome thing about the internet is that you can research. Here are the original Petipa-era costumes for Ramze and her pageboys. Here is Lacotte's vision: So you can see the exaggerated eye makeup as well as the exaggerated, offensive, stereotypical red lips are all Lacotte.

Also the good thing nowadays is that most TV appearances are preserved on YT. So I did a quick hit to see some of Misty's TV appearances and not in a single one does she appear to have either darkened her skin or overcurled her hair. So everyone is entitled to their own opinions about misty but you're not entitled to alternative facts.

And? Ballerinas (or celebrities) can choose the makeup they want on any particular day without there being a sinister nefarious purpose. Certain celebrities use bronzer when they go on TV because of the lighting. What Lacotte did was entirely different which was he is using Caucasian dancers and slathering them with blackface makeup in order for them to look like an African parody.

So ... you're saying racist stereotypes onstage is a good thing?

And? Misty has to keep her hair straight in ballets because that's the look. Many ballerinas have short/curly hair and wear wigs/extensions/falls to achieve the classical ballet hairdo. In real life Misty doesn't wear her hair the way she'd wear it in Swan Lake. This is a really different issue from Pierre Lacotte making a ballet that has a costume that's so offensive to 21st century sensibilities and looks like a minstrel show. It isn't like a screening of D.W. Griffiths' Birth of a Nation where you can accept a work made in a different time and era. Pierre Lacotte made this ballet in 2000.

This is a false equivalency. Something Bournonville choreographed in the 19th century would have 19th century values about race and we can't hold it against Bournonville. Pierre Lacotte's Pharaoh's Daughter is not even a reconstruction of Petipa's ballet, but a fantasy "based on" Petipa's ballet that he made at the end of the 20th century. There is no particular reason Ramze has to look out of a minstrel show for the ballet to function.

As it happens I went on YT this morning and it seems as if how much body makeup to wear has been at the discretion oft he ballerina portraying Ramze. Here is Nina Kaptsova who is wearing a lot: Anna Tikhomoriva wearing way less:

Also Pierre Lacotte is French. And Frances definitely does have a very ugly history of racism towards its colonized territories and also towards its large minority populations.