harpergroup

As of this July, there have been 2 other departures from the NYCB. Corps dancers Jessica Flynn and Jerome Johnson are no longer listed on the roster of the company.

As posted on NYCB's website on July 12: "For Immediate Release - July 12, 2005 NEW YORK CITY BALLET ANNOUNCES FINAL PERFORMANCES OF PRINCIPAL DANCER JAMES FAYETTE New York City Ballet has announced that principal dancer James Fayette will retire from the Company this summer, dancing his final performance at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center on Thursday, July 14 at 2:00 p.m. For this performance, Mr. Fayette will dance the second movement of Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet with principal dancer Jenifer Ringer. Following his retirement, Mr. Fayette will begin working for the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) as the New York Area Dance Executive. During his career with New York City Ballet, Mr. Fayette served as the Chairman of the Dancer’s Committee for AGMA, which is the labor organization that represents the dancers of the New York City Ballet. Mr. Fayette was born in Ridgefield, Connecticut, and studied dance at the School of American Ballet. In the spring of 1991, Mr. Fayette became a member of the NYCB corps de ballet and was promoted to soloist in the spring of 1997. Mr. Fayette was promoted to the rank of principal dancer in May of 2002. During his fifteen-year career, Mr. Fayette has danced featured roles in ballets choreographed by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Peter Martins; including such memorable roles as Herr Drosselmeier in George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker™ and Bernardo in Jerome Robbins’ West Side Story Suite. He has originated roles in ballets choreographed by Jerome Robbins, Peter Martins, Christopher Wheeldon, Richard Tanner, and Lynn Taylor-Corbett. New York City Ballet is currently performing at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, New York through July 23, 2005. " NYCB Press Release

Unfortunately, my partner and I will not be making the trip to Washington this weekend (she just had an emergency appendectomy ), and therefore have to sell 2 tickets for the Saturday matinee (1:30pm on 6/25). The tickets are in the 2nd Tier, seats A5 and A7, and are priced at $29 apiece. I would prefer to sell them to a BT'er in NYC, where I can arrange with you for a ticket transfer. If that doesn't happen, and a buyer lives outside NY (if I'm lucky enough to find a buyer), Carbro has agreed to bring the tickets to the Kennedy Center, and will leave them at the Box Office on Friday night (she's bought my Friday tickets). Let me know if you're interested. I can be reached by email at harpergroup@verizon.net. And for those of you lucky enough to see the performances, please post reports!

And Jason Fowler is back, too.

Any word on which of the performers got invited to be NYCB apprentices?

The tall man in white is Charles Askegard.

As I stated in a different string, Ask la Cour has already done Apollo, in a trip with Millepied's subset of NYCB dancers. His muses in Stockholm (I think) were Saskia Beskow, Ellen Bar, and Amanda Hankes.

Okay, now that first comments are in: while I was surprised by how quickly Ask got new roles (well, actually, I would have been surprised if there hadn't been some familial ties), I have been pleasantly surprised by how much I have liked him. Shambards (while not my favorite Wheeldon balledt) made good use of him. And I thought he partnered Kowroski very well last night. I have even liked him in the corps of Union Jack, where he is by far the regiment member with the highest knees during the quickstep section. I also got to see tapes of him from the Royal Danish. It seems that he got to do Lensky in Cranko's Onegin during his first year in the corps. (Yes, there might have been some nepotism to his getting the role, since his mother was a ballet mistress there, but his dancing was VERY good in the tape I saw.) He also toured last year with a mini-group from NYCB, led by Benjamin Millepied and including Saskia Beskew, Ellen Bar, and Amanda Hankes. [sidenote: Ask stated during a recent NYCB Insight session that he got to do Apollo during that tour's stop in Stockholm.] As for Korbes: obviously, she deserved the promotion - and ABOUT TIME, too.

In John Rockwell's review of last night's gala, he casually stated during a discussion of Benjamin Millepied's piece: "Ask la Cour (promoted to soloist Wednesday, along with Carla Körbes". The html location is: http://nytimes.com/2005/05/04/arts/dance/04nycb-extra.html

Paolo - Are you looking for a list of the annuals with descriptions, or are you looking for someone selling them? Also, on the autographs, are you looking for samples of them (say, to compare to ones you are trying to verify) or are you trying to buy? I can help with the list of descriptions, if that's what you want.

FYI: Sean Suozzi was not in "Who Cares" yesterday. He was replaced by Darius Crenshaw, just as Sarah Ricard was replaced by Dana Hanson (both without the insert noting the change). And I'd like to single out Jonathan Stafford in particular for his work during "Who Cares".

Well, the original broadcast of The Nutcracker on Playhouse 90 had Diana Adams as SPF, partnered by Candy Cane, Tea, Coffee (as played then by Arthur Mitchell, who smoked what looked like an opium pipe during his own variation - and then took a nap on stage), and lead Hot Chocolate. So my guess would be that they can lift at least some part of the choreography from Mr. B's own TV choreography. How they'll change off the ballerinas? I think carbro's pretty close.

FYI - During last night's broadcast of the 1957 performance of Rodgers' and Hammerstein's Cinderella starring Julie Andrews, Jac Venza mentioned that there would be (in January) a Great Performances broadcast of Gillian Murphy in Swan Lake.

He actually provided personal (and corporate, from the Bloomberg corporation) money for things like the Lincoln Center Festival years before he even ran for office the first time. I may not like much of his social policy, but he HAS provided enough support for the arts to at least let me dislike him on a political basis only. (Quite a change from my normal attitude to Republicans in office.)

This was in today's NY Times. The lead sentence in the article states: "The Saratoga Performing Arts Center's decision in February to end the New York City Ballet's 40-year summer residency was flawed and indicative of generally poor management that includes overpaying the center's top executive, according to a preliminary state audit to be released today." Full article appears at: Saratoga Center Cited for Mismanagement So - thanks to all of the Save the Ballet folks for their efforts.

For those who haven't seen the company roster this week, 5 of the 7 apprentices from this past year have apparently been given contracts: Tyler Angle, Likolani Brown, Maya Collins, Lauren King, and Sara Mearns. Their names now appear on both the roster page in the program, and on the NYCB website dancer listing.

According to a friend of his, there already was an "Edward Liang" in the dancers' union, so he had to choose another name. "Edwaard" was as close to his own name as he could get.

The return of Monique Meunier - even if it's "only" in the second girl's part in Ballet Imperial.

No one seems to have mentioned it, but Tuesday's performance was Jared Angle's first one since his latest injury.

Very nicely summarized. I, too, attended, and felt that the normal "flow" of questions and answers was missing from the interview. This was apparently caused (in part) by the fact that Kyra was unavailable for a talk with Ellen Sorrin over the weekend - because Kyra was dancing multiple performances and roles. (Hurray! Though one of the roles she danced was Serenade, which was substituted for the Martins' ballet Jeu de Cartes, which had to be cancelled because of Nikolaj Hubbe's injury.) Unfortunately, Kyra also got stuck in NJ and NYC traffic and arrived at the theatre after the seminar was supposed to start, which meant that there was no prep time available to review questions and develop a cohesive approach to the interview.

Staying with the discussion of Fancy Free for a moment: the current 'Spanish' variation as danced at NYCB is my pet peeve about coaching - especially the parts where the sailor runs his hand up his leg and side, looks at it, and runs it back down. I remember it from ABT in the 70s (or 80s - it all runs together as I get older). But I distinctly remember a sort of humorous self-eroticism (not sure that's the exactly right word) that is now totally lacking in the City dancers. This surprises me, because I seem to remember Peter Martins doing it acceptably when he danced the role briefly.