koshka

It's terrific news, and so nice that it comes just before the benefit, which, according to news articles in both the Wash Post and Wash Times, will go on as scheduled.

Funny you should say that. Just yesterday a letter to subscribers from WB arrived in the mail. I will type the whole thing in if people are interested. The gist, however, was that discussions are ongoing, that they expect to have a resolution and, consequently, news about the remainder of the season "in the next few weeks". While I too have benefited a bit from the out-of-work dancers doing some teaching to keep a roof over their heads (and it was delightful), I really hope to see them back on stage soon. Absent any new developments, there aren't that many forums for news unless, of course, the Arts/Style section of the newspaper or the radio equivalent chooses to do a feature. Depending on how delicate the negotions are, though, this might be viewed as a minefield for all.

You got a tea event invite? I got a wine tasting invite! (Soooooo not my taste). But I'm with you--<teen inflection>as if </teen inflection> I'd go at this point...

I went Thursday night and Sunday afternoon and saw the rehearsal on Friday. Thursday's program was enjoyable enough--Gong was lively and fun, Afternoon of a Faun was nice (if not particularly exciting)--as another poster has noted, Carreno could just sit there and stretch for all I care. The Black Swan pdd was nicely done (Dvorovenko and Belotserkovsky) though Dvorovenko was not really evil enough--she probably makes a better Odette. I liked the National Ballet of Canada couple from the Sunday matinee better overall, though it's not really fair to compare an excerpt with a full performance. The Green Table was repetitive and in the "OK, now I've seen it once & can cross it off my list" category for me. My main thought throughout was that it would be really fun to photograph because of the dramatic lighting and the repetitive choreography (the photographer's friend). There was a man sitting next to me who said he hadn't been to the ballet in 30 years. Sure wish he had gone to Romeo & Juliet instead. He just couldn't get his mind around Gong and Faun (though of course he liked the Black Swan pdd) and he disappeared at intermission. The cast was mostly the same for the Friday rehearsal and the Sunday performance, though Frederic Franklin performed Friday but not Sunday. David Hallberg was magnificent--a terrific actor, a great partner, and a beautiful dancer. He needs a haircut though--shaggy hair in male dancers is just yucky. He and Paloma Herrera were well matched and I thought she was a lovely Juliet, though I preferred Xiomara Reyes 2 (?) years ago. The men were generally terrific--it's been a good season for the various male corps at the Kennedy Center this season. The patterned costumes worn in the ball scenes are dreadfully busy, in stark contrast to the solid-color costumes (e.g., Juliet's blue gown), which are elegant and striking. Does anyone know if the costumes are all of the same vintage, or whether some are newer than others? Once again the cast information was disappointing. There were clearly students in the cast, but their presence was not acknowledged anywhere.

Wow--I love the photos. I have been to the opera house in Minsk once or twice, on a visit to Belarus in 1994. I don't know what we saw--it was the week of December 10 or 15 or so, bu it was _not_ Nutcracker. We also went to the circus. I have photos from the circus but not from the ballet. I would very much like to go back sometime, but alas it is hard to visit either as a tourist or for work. :-(

I would absolutely love it if they did a Proteges-type run every year. If it were to become a regular occurrence, it would be even more amazing if they could work up some sort of cycle/coordination, so that, for example, one year all of the schools would send students at an early level, then the next year more advanced students, or...I don't know. Does anyone have a sense of whether tickets for this run sold well? I'd guess it was a tough sell since last 2 weeks ago Swan Lake and this week/weekend is Romeo and Juliet. But maybe the audiences were different. Also, I'd love to see the Japanese company in for a full run of its own.

I agree that Birthday Offering looked much more solid on Sunday. One of the blondes is American Quenby Hersh, who is studying at the Royal Ballet School on a scholarship won at (or as a result of, or?) YAGP. I don't know if she's the one who caught your eye, but you might be able to google and see if the face matches... And here is as good a point as any to say that the program was woefully lacking in information. They could easily have id'ed the ladies by variation (etc) but they didn't. Unfortunately after reading Natalia's comments about Vasnetzova's Dinkle-ish arms, they really annoyed me. Also, I'm glad to see that I wasn't imagining things and that Shklyarov's choreography really did change. I was waiting for the labored cabrioles, and mercifully they never came. Ginastera, alas, doesn't really speak to me. I loved seeing Sinfonietta again, though. Also, I found it quite fascinating to see Concerto Barocco and Sinfonietta together. Both are classical leotard ballets, but DTH's corps is about as varied as they come (height, "look", skin tone, you name it) and the Japanese school was about as similar as they come (all similar height, look, hair color, features, etc).

_As far as I know_ the issue is not whether students can be used in children's roles. For these cases there are waivers and in any case I don't think that it's the use of students _in children's roles_ that the dancers find unacceptable. The issue is the [unlimited] use of upper-level students as part of the corps, or, in other words, as substitutes for company members. Students are paid less and are not unionized.

point 4 is the union's demand for a three-year contract for current dancers. The industry standard, I believe, is annual reviews. A three-year contract is wanted, in this case, in order to protect the current dancers from retaliation for union activity. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Throughout this I've had trouble figuring out whether the "3 year" contract was to be for each dancer (I would expect "management" to find that unacceptable) or for the terms between AGMA and management, with annual reviews for each dancer but some oversight / review options for nonrenewals of contracts. Can anybody clarify?

I too was there last night. I actually thought Scaramouche was rather cute, though part of me longed to see some more classical work from the tiniest ones. There were some rough moments in both Birthday Offering and Napoli, but these are students, after all. In some ways it was nice to see the contrast between the dancing by the RDB company dancers (pas from Flower Festival) and then the students. It was disappointing to me that there were so few younger students. Only POB sent students below the age of 15 or 16, as far as I could tell. One quite fascinating contrast was between the successive cabrioles by the male Vaganova graduate, which were rather labored, and those in the next piece, by RDB females, which were much lighter. Interesting. I agree that Sinfonietta was an absolute delight--beautiful choreography, beatifully simple costumes, and exquiste dancing. Terrific. I was also disappointed by the Vaganova grads Nut pas de deux, though not exactly for the same reasons as Natalia. Vasnetzova has a classic ballet body--very long thin legs and highly arched feet and a beautiful (if overused) extension. Her turning, however, was very, very weak. Not quite as weak as mine, but each preprofessional program in the Washington area probably has at least 3 girls who are stronger turners than Vasnetzova. Did anyone else notice the chunk of duct tape on the left side of the stage? What was that all about????

sparklesocks raises something I've been thinking about while reading the reactions above and thinking about my reaction to the 2 shows I saw at the Kennedy Center last week. When one sees a ballet by a visiting company, especially a company that one has rarely or never seen before, one can comment and focus upon (at least!) two aspects of the performance(s): the company and its dancers and dancing, and the production itself. I was totally wowed by the company. I would be happy to watch them just walk around and spend an entire evening doing arabesques (one reviewer somewhere said that the choreography was repetititve and had too many arabesques, which reminded me of nothing so much as the line in the movie "Amadeus" where Salieri says a piece by Mozart has "too many notes".) That said, I can definitely see the points made by the posters here who already know the company and were more focused on the production, which was rather odd. All in all, I would probably have been happier to see them in a traditional Swan Lake, although (plot aside) I loved the extended male corps work in the first act, probably because it's so very rare to see so much good dancing by a male corps.

WAMU (88.5) has a segment on the WB situation right now. I'd imagine it will be available on line later. A few notes from the broadcast. Main page for today's WAMU show about the WB dispute First they had on Chip Coleman, Luis Torres (WB dancers) and Washington Post critic Sarah Kaufman. One of the callers was from AGMA. They all basically talked a bit about what the lives and careers of dancers are like (short and demanding), and about how the contract was basically "industry standard". The topic of what brought things to an impasse at a maximally inconvenient time was not discussed. Alas, I was not quite quick-thinking enough to ask this question by calling or emailing in. In the second half, Septime Webre was on. To my ear, he presented himself quite well in the sense that he was quite ready to lay out exactly which conditions were easy to agree on and which were not. He said that in December, management was willing to agree immediately to the working conditions/health part of the proposed contract, and he further claimed that the proposed contract health/hours/etc. terms were roughly in line with WB practices already. In addition, he gave some interesting figures on the growth of WB since his arrival 7 years ago (3000+ subscribers now vs. 725 before, budget up about 100-150%, etc.) and indicated that he thought a union was standard and appropriate for a company of WB's current size. Webre laid out four points of (apparently continuing) contention: 1. Use of WSB students in WB productions other than Nut. He sees it as a casting question to be handled by the AD (himself). The dancers see it as a way of using cheap/free labor. 2. Size of the company: dancers want a guarantee that it will be fixed; management wants flexibility. 3. Hiring/firing decisions: the union wants these to be subject to review, to ensure that only artistic considerations (rather than, for example, union organizing activity) come into play. 4. Can't remember. :-( All in all, an interesting broadcast.

About attendance: I sit in the front row and didn't take a very close look, but attendance on Thursday did not seem overly weak. It's true that Nut sold out, but I found it quite easy to pick up an extra front row ticket for NYCB's Saturday matinee performance in March. So it's hard to say. I will try to take a better look on Sunday.

I was there tonight (Thursday). THe principals were Aleksandar Antonijevic and Greta Hodgkinson. They were terrific. Hodgkinson was far more effective as Odile--she was deliciously evil and Siegfried fell for her much more so than for Odette. When the corps is supposed to be doing something together, they are generally in sync and look terrific. I agree that the corps choreography with everyone doing something different just doesn't have any appeal. As for the plot (do we really go to the ballet for the plot???), the first act is indeed weak. The whole wench role is weird, and one can't quite figure out if Siegfried is just alienated from life or is enjoying his life as a carefree bachelor. Plot problems aside, I quite enjoyed the men's dancing in the first act. I did not like the raggedy costumes for the fool and the fool's sidekicks (???)--I thought they really detracted from their dancing, which was very good. In the second act, the baby swans were a bit tired looking but the corps work was otherwise lovely. As above, the chemistry wasn't quite there. In the third act, I rather liked the princess costumes with the tent/cape headpiece things, and the handlers didn't seem so out of place. The leopard trim on the aqua handler's coat was something else. As above, both principals really seemed to come to life in the black swan parts--Odile is a delectably evil bad girl, and Siegfried falls for her quite convincingly. In the final act, the black swans didn't cause me much consternation--after all, they are female and they've had an hour or so--why wouldn't they change outfits? The black tutus are trimmed in purple and are gorgeous. Rothbart has some dreadful costumes throughout--something raggedy early on, then black (ok) with faux torso muscles (eeeeuw) at the end.

There was a review in the Washington Post today by Sarah Kaufman, who didn't really think this production had enough drama. However, I nearly always disagree with Kaufman's reviews. Two young ladies from my office (who, as far as I know, rarely go to the ballet) went last night and loved it, though one noted that she sometimes felt like there were long stretches without "amazing dancing". She also noted that one male dancer seemed to have landed badly and then ran (elegantly) into the wings, and wasn't sure whether that was an injury or a planned exit. I will be going tonight.

Exactly. It is definitely cheaper to tour with recordings, but from what I understand, some companies' contracts with their orchestras do not permit them to use anything other than their own orchestra (including recorded music) on tour.

I have no direct information, BUT I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that it is actually cheaper to tour the Russian groups because they can get away with paying the dancers less and putting them up in less-nice places. Also, companies like Boston might have requirements about using their orchestras on tour, which would add to the cost. It would be most interesting if anyone had any hard numbers or explanations...

National Ballet of Canada's Swan Lake opened at the Kennedy Center last night. There was an open rehearsal in the afternoon, which I attended. Based on seeing the rehearsal, I think the production is really terrific. The soloists did a bit of marking, but otherwise the dancing was full out. The male corps has a great section in the first act. The female corps showed great unity. The costumes are amazing, especially the black swan tutus with deep purple trim and some of the elaborate headdresses. There was no casting information provided, and I am lousy at matching faces seen from the balcony to faces shown in studio shots on company websites, so I have no idea who did the principal roles. Were any other Alertniks there?

At the recent POB school performance, the teacher of the youngest group of boys sometimes addressed them as "Messieurs". Addressing the audience, he said something to the effect that although they are only children, when he uses "Messieurs" it is to remind them that they are dancers. Other teachers just used "filles" and "garcons" ("girls" and "boys") Further, in some cultures the use of the equivalent of "Miss" or "Mrs" is more a stage-of-life issue--after a certain age, it seems that one is Frau or Madame or Senora regardless of marital status.

Fret not (yet!), Hans--I think that Bill's comment is more like a "Hmmmm, what might happen". Face it, a couple of dozen dancers are out of work for the duration and there is a growing company in town. Given that the Feb. and Mar. performances have been cancelled, we can only hope that WB can work things out now that there is less time pressure than there was during the Nutcracker.

As always the photos are gorgeous. However, at least on my computer, there is something weird about the windows--I kept getting unwanted (beautiful, but unwanted) extra windows popping up.

I am not sure that bart had in mind sending money to the Board.

Purebreds...hmph. I could afford them, I gues, but why? My rescue/shelter cats are quite magnificent and give me all the ballet tips I need. About other cat roles: word had it that the Washington Ballet's Nutcracker had a cat in Mirliton. The WB Mirlitons are cardinals. The cat was not in the show last year and <heavy sigh> I did not get to see it this year. Now, about the Kuklachev Cat Theater...Sadly, I was not able to actually _see_ the Nutcracker, nor did anyone I know. I can't remember if I spotted a poster about it or saw it listed on their website or what. In any case, according to the info on their website now (English part exists but isn't working), the music is Tchaikovsky and viewers see how cats save the prince and princess from the Rat King. Kuklachev was trained as a clown and starting training cats by chance, it seems. Apparently they're not all that hard to train once they see that there are treats and attention in it for them. As for what the cats do: I can't say they do much in unison. But they do walk on tightropes, crawl along tightropes, ride on little perches on a bicycle with Kuklachev, etc. One cat does a most impressive handstand (pawstand?) on Kuklachev's palm. I highly recommend the show either here or in Moscow. The theater in Moscow is great--there are portraits of the leading cats in the lobby just as other theaters have portraits of the actors/singers/dancers. The website's main page gives an accurate flavor of the zaniness of the place: Main page The Repertoire page lists the Nutcracker show Cat Theatre Repertoire page--note cat in handstand The "Artists" page has a part for those without tails and those with tails... Page about the artists with tails

Pollyana Ribeiro (Boston) has exquisite phrasing.

koshka _likes_ this thread. Cats, of course, provide us with perfect examples of how to jump and land, and of how to react to a stage error or problem (problem? I see no problem...) The Kuklachev Cat Theater of Moscow, by the way, reportedly did The Nutcracker as one of its recent shows in Moscow.