Orel Protopopescu

I found it, thanks.

Thank you all for the thoughtful comments. By reviewing this thread I just learned about the Ulrich dissertation (Berlin) on early Balanchine and look forward to reading it. I'm particularly interested in the influence of Fokine on young Balanchine, since F. was one of Nora Kaye's teachers and I'm currently working on a biography of her. If anyone has insights/references or memories of NK in performance, or any personal memories, please contact me. Easier by email, via my author's guild website. www.orelprotopopescu.com

I just read some prior posts on Homans's Mr. B and saw that the issue of first names came up in April. Some connected it to her disparagement of women, although she does this to men as well (Lincoln, Jerry, Nelson). This was a thorny problem for me, too, as Tanaquil Le Clercq preferred the nickname "Tanny" to her legal first name (which few who knew her used, unless with playful irony) and Le Clercq seemed unduly formal. So I chose to mix the names, trying to refer to the performer as Le Clercq, for the most part, except where it seemed too awkward, and the woman as Tanny. Using Le Clercq consistently seemed unduly formal to me, which she was decidedly not. I'm not sure that Homans used first names in a way that's anti-feminist, since Jerry is most often Jerry, not Robbins. It's also a matter of how seriously people took themselves, or others did. There was a tendency to separate dancers from choreographers, using last names for the latter (as in Tudor and Hugh, as was common at ABT and in its prior incarnation as BT), so I tended to use that as a guide. Personal preference. But I did mention that in my text, in order to explain the idiosyncrasy for readers less familiar with ballet than those who post on this site. Choreographers and composers, etc., seemed to be viewed as a higher order than dancers. I'm not sure why. Is that still true?

Thanks to all who responded to my last post. It was good to hear that you appreciated my biography of Le Clercq as well. I'm grateful to have the warm and generous thoughts/feelings of such attentive readers.

Today, Nov 1, is World Ballet Day, and also the anniversary of the 2022 publication of the newest Balanchine biography, Jennifer Homans's Mr. B. As the author of Dancing Past the Light: The Life of Tanaquil Le Clercq (UPF, 2021), I had a lot to say about Homans's book. You can read my review, published on author Joel Lobenthal's blog, by clicking on the link below, or, if that doesn't work, by copying the link and pasting it into any search engine: http://lobenthal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Mr.-B-reviewed-by-Orel-Protopopescu-10-_15_-23-1.pdf Another review you may have missed, by dance critic, Mindy Aloff (author, most recently, of Why Dance Matters), was posted on the website of Yale's Best American Poetry series: https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2023/02/george-balanchine-mindy-aloff.html#more The dance critic and poet, Jay Rogoff, has a review forthcoming from Salmagundi's Spring, 2024 issue. Alas, most of the reviews in print were not written by dance specialists. I welcome any comments on the above.

Watch it while it's still available! It's wonderful to hear Lourdes Lopez speak of working with Balanchine. What I would add: I believe Balanchine was not a deeply conservative man, although anti-Communist for sure. From the forties on, he told his dancers to think of themselves as "Rockefeller Republicans." Kirstein's childhood friend, Nelson R. had bailed out Ballet Society and NYCB many times, long before he was instrumental in making Lincoln Center happen. And it's important to keep in mind that southern Democrats were reactionary racists in those years. Arthur Bell was never a member of the company, alas. He danced in Frederick Ashton's Illuminations, one of four males partnering Tanaquil Le Clercq. You can read Bell's history here: https://mobballet.org/index.php/2017/05/03/arthur-bell/ Dancer/choreographer Louis Johnson was never invited to join NYCB, nor John Jones, who was memorable in Faun with Kay Mazzo in 1961, although Jones was a member of Robbins's short-lived company, Ballets:USA. Mel A. Tomlinson, another marvelous dancer, was not mentioned by the panel, although he was a NYCB member, one of the few who came from Dance Theatre of Harlem. Here's the current roster of NYCB alumni: https://www.nycballet.com/discover/our-history/new-york-city-ballet-alumni

Hybrid Event, live and on Zoom: Saturday, Nov 19, 2 PM, at Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy St, NY 10014 The only required fields in the registration form are NAME and EMAIL. The rest is optional. Anyone can register for the talk, listed on the library's website and Eventbrite: https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2022/11/19/triumph-tanaquil-le-clercq-balanchine-ballerina-book-talk-and-signing https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-talk-with-orel-protopopescu-author-of-dancing-past-the-light-tickets-437390726437?aff=ebdssbdestsearch The library usually sends out Zoom invitations the day before and another one a couple of hours later. I hope you can join us. Thank you.