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Then they'd no doubt have to also take back Yuriko Kajiya. Don't know if they're willing to take both of them back.

There are some YT clips already:

I think another issue is that Corella unfortunately has acquired a reputation for firing dancers en masse, and also making it clear that he wants the company to head in the direction of dancing full-length classics. There's nothing wrong in molding the company to your vision but some of the instagram videos look like auditions for a YAGP gala.

Wed matinee is fine if she also got an evening slot. But for the vast majority of the working folk, Wed matinees are no-gos.

Angel was a delightful dancer with a wonderfully boyish persona and a radiant stage persona. Part of this was his appearance -- his huge eyes and smile was just made for the stage. But the PA Ballet dancers' instagrams almost seem to be auditions -- lots of class footage of how many tricks they can do. This is one example. It's impressive but that urge to squeeze an extra revolution prevented him from ending the pirouettes in fifth position which IMO would have been more aesthetically pleasing.

I'm afraid I wasn't very enthusiastic about Lane's Swan Lake. I can understand them not giving an O/O. However giving her a Wed matinee Giselle is incomprehensible -- she was one of the finest Giselles I ever saw, period. And Juliet is a role that's practically screaming her name.

I think Laura Cappelle (and many other writers) no doubt wanted to celebrate the fact that the reconstructions were being done at all after being banished to the dustbins so many years ago? And that the FT usually has very short arts reviews where a litany of complaints would run out of print space? And also, in general, for performance reviews as well as life most readers don't like to read a review that "cannot stop complaining."

The coaching staff has gotten really depleted as well. Irina Kolpakova seems to be an 84 year old energizer bunny, but Victor Barbee left along with Julie Kent, and Alexei Ratmansky closely supervises his own ballets and does intensive coaching with them but for the regular bread-and-butter repertoire who is there to coach the dancers? One wonders.

Brandt stepped in last year on short notice and was a wonderful Medora in Le Corsaire. Really disappointed that she didn't get a Kitri this year.

I think the issue is that NONE of the ABT's roster right now is "young." Even the newly promoted principals (Devon, Christine, and Sarah) were longtime corps members/soloists. ABT's extremely structured way of casting and limited repertoire for their Met season makes it harder to develop dancers in the pipeline. Even Ratmansky can't seem to upend the rigid way ABT casts. For instance I was sure that Skylar Brandt (a favorite of his that he's been developing for several seasons) would get cast in Harlequinade but that didn't happen.

I follow some of the PA Ballet dancers on social media and agree that it seems as if the way to get cast is to dance very much like Corella himself danced: lots of bravura tricks and endless pirouettes a la seconde. It seems very exciting but I'm curious how they do with, say, Jewels later this season.

Marcelo Gomes. She had a really rough time with the Giselle Act 1 variation and had to put her other foot down and never really made it more than a few feet across the stage.

Well to be honest the last few times I've seen Abrera she's still a lovely dancer but I do see a decline in technique. Her Giselle last season was a lot shakier than I expected.

Thanks for the reports! I had wanted to see this but don't think I'll have time.

Clips have surfaced on YT:

I can't find the exact quote (I think it was in a book) but there are several articles where Mitchell talks at length about the support he received from Balanchine: https://www.salon.com/1999/06/29/mitchell/ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/arts/dance/arthur-mitchell-harlem-ballet-lenfest-center.html This quote stood out:

Well ... Balanchine cared enough to stipulate that if the company was touring to any city and the city would not welcome Mitchell in their hotels/restaurants then the company would simply not tour there. So while he might not have been a vocal civil rights activist I think he did push Mitchell very aggressively as one of the company's stars and in those times, that was quite bold.

Hmm what I see with Agon is that the cultural stereotypes were turned upside down. In Agon the man and the woman are absolute equals, and their pas de deux is free from the traditional female submission/male dominance trope. In fact many times the woman seems to be the dominant one. Maybe the most famous example is when she is balancing in attitude and drags him along on the floor. I think this is also one of the few times Balanchine depicted primal lust from the female. It's not the big man chasing the female. The female is openly lustful of the male. She lies down on the floor and spreads her legs for him so explicitly I still get jolted by it. Imagine watching this in 1957. When she finally relaxes her body at the end of the pas de deux I read it as "we're together because I wanted him and he wanted me." The pas de deux between the lily-white, princessy Diana Adams and Arthur Mitchell is so very different from, say, Abderakhman's attempted seduction of Raymonda or the Pasha buying Medora as a slave. In both of those ballets the male from another ethnicity/culture is viewed as the predator who needs rescuing. The woman in Agon doesn't need rescuing. To put it crudely, it looks like she really really wants to get #@!&'ed.

Hmm Nytimes just published this photo. She's certainly thin but her bones don't protrude any more than Adrian's. Compare this with Wendy. This photo actually does make me uncomfortable to look at and I say this as someone who considers Wendy's Symphony in Three to be the best I ever saw.

I think Corella is different from Lopez. Corella slashed and burned his way through both the company and the repertory and brought in his own people and his own taste in ballets. Lourdes Lopez's approach in Miami has been more measured. She didn't decide to completely reinvent the wheel. Some long-term soloists and principals retired and/or were let go but she didn't completely remake the company. As for Troy Schumacher he;s looking good but he's in sort of an odd spot because right now the company has a plethora of short virtuosos: - Joaquin de Luz is retiring in the fall but while he's still here he's still performing well. - Daniel Ulbricht is amazing in his limited repertoire - Anthony Huxley is also an awesome short virtuoso - Harrison Ball is injured right now but he's also the same type In the corps, Roman Mejia is already getting a bunch of roles. So Schumacher might have to "wait his turn" for a couple more years.

I hope Harrison Coll gets promoted to soloist soon. He certainly deserves it.

I've stood next to Wendy. She's not tall. Her proportions are very long with long arms and legs but she's probably 5'5" at most. I've never actually seen tall girls do it. I've seen Wendy, Tiler, and Sterling. I think the smallness might be necessary for all those difficult lifts in the pas de deux.

I went back this afternoon and happy to report that Chase's partnering was much better today in Agon, although still don;t think he's right for the role. Symphony in Three Movements was fabulous. Baiser de la Fée also improved a lot.

A wrap up of the Winter Season, including the final all-Stravinsky bill and Romeo + Juliet: http://poisonivywalloftext.blogspot.com/2018/03/winter-season-diaries-all-stravinsky.html

Oh I'm excited for you! It's one of those ballets where if done right the energy and attack leave you breathless. And it's only 20 minutes long.