Alexandra

That's my impression without doing the stats The first time I realized this was when I started the Ballet Alert! newsletter and really looked at the programs and other literature companies send out. I noticed the one-for-one ratio too. Another thing driving this, I think, is that dancers are retiring, or being forced out, at younger and younger ages, and it's hard to start a new career at 42, much less 32, especially if you're a high school drop out -- as the "real world" might term you.) This trend has coincided/collided with the Baby Boomers, so all of a sudden there are four, five, six times as many retired dancers as ever before. Equals: one administrative staffer for each dancer.

[This thread was moved from the Boston Ballet forum, where it had started as a discussion of ballet mistress Eva Evdokimova and morphed into a discussion of artistic directors in general.] Some enterprising M.A. candidate should plot the growth of administrative staffs of ballet companies.

Hi, Yvonne! Good to see you again You did indeed post reviews of Ballet West. It's not that there's no interest, it's that when one doesn't see the program it's hard to comment more than "Thank you for posting that!" But this is a major American company and we'd like to keep up with it. We've also found in the past that if one person comments, others often will follow. Our Ballet Moms and Dads forum started with two members -- it's now more than 8,000 posts. So please tell us what you've seen. Yvonne and dancingostrich -- what did you see this past season? What dancers did you especially like (or not)? Tip: You can subscribe to this forum so that you'll get any posts made in the forum. That's a good way to keep up with what's going on if you don't have time to check the board every day. There's a little icon that looks like a tablet at the bottom right of the screen. Click it!

No repertory details, as yet. Just "15 principals and soloists" of the RDB. Which would be nearly all their principals and soloists, I think.

Or the link that's in my signature line!

Giannina just posted a question about an article in the latest Ballet Alert!, which made me realize I hadn't put up an announcement that the issue is out. This is the first of our Seasons Preview issues, and has the 2003-2004 seasons for most of the major and mid-sized ballet companies in the United States: San Francisco Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Boston, Miami, Joffrey, Houston, Pennsylvania, Ballet West, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley, Atlanta, Oakland, Tulsa, and Nashville. (The remaining U.S. companies will be in the next issue, out in August; non-U.S. companies in October.) But Wait. There's more! Two Dale Brauner interviews -- first with Maria Kowroski about dancing (Swan Lake) in St. Petersburg. And second with Cincinnati Ballet dancer Tricia Sundbeck, about dancing in the company's recent Ballet Russe tribute. (Dale will be doing a continuing feature for us, talking to dancers who are NOT from New York, as well as those who aren't. We hope to have a mixture of stars, and dancers whose names you don't know, but are nevertheless interesting to talk to. There's also a photo gallery of the 3rd International Mariinsky Ballet Festival. AND there's my interview with Michael Bjerknes, whose dancing I had always admired. He also has a well-deserved reputation as a fine and thoughtful teacher and ballet master (he now runs a school in the D.C. area, the American Dance Institute) and the interview shows why. And last, but by no means least, Victoria Leigh's column in this issue is about "facility" and moving forward in classical training. What is the perfect body? How much can be done with an imperfect one? This is, if I may be permited to say so, an excelent article that will clarify for parents and young dancers what they're being told by their teachers, and answer many questions ballet lovers have about what a dancer is born with and what can be enhanced through teaching.

Whoops -- I didn't look to see where this was. I'll move it into the NYCB forum.

I have to say this stunned me. I can understand the company's concern (and there are several companies in the U.S. whose subscriptions are down) but this tactic may backfire.

Driver of a dancer, never worry about whether it's in the right forum or not. We have Little Elves who move things around when you're asleep bellepoele, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre is directed by Terry Orr, who danced with ABT. I believe Roy Kaiser (Pennsylvania Ballet) is from NYCB -- but I'll wait to stand corrected So DD will have a lot of places from which to choose!

Ah, if I were a betting woman......

One memorable Wolf Trap summer, ABT changed its mind so often that a joke made the rounds that ABT was TBA spelled backwards And that's one of the problems with announcing casting. Changes have to be made, through no one's fault, and if someone has bought a ticket to see La Sublimova, s/he is not going to be happy with La Turnova, or vice versa.

Yay! :bouncing: Great piece, Manhattnik -- if I didn't know it was sticky and buggy and hot in those plastic seats, I'd be jealous.

This is a fine place for it, Driver of a Dancer. Helgi Tomasson directs the San Francisco Ballet Kent Stowell and Francia Russell direct the Pacific Northwest Ballet Ib Andersen directs Ballet Arizona I'm sure others will add more.

I've bought it, but haven't begun it yet. There were a few people who had -- and some lovely comments on the What are you reading? thread. Please continue the discussion here.

Just bumping this up for more comments.

Queueing is standing in a queue, standing in a line Don't wait until the last minute!

Unfortunately, I don't. She has an international reputation as a wonderful coach, so I can't believe she won't end up somewhere soon. (Mary Cargill did an interview with Ms. Evdokimova for Ballet Alert! a few months ago. I really truly will be putting up the past three years worth of DanceViews and Ballet Alerts on line this summer, so watch for announcements.)

Has anyone ever read Father Menestier's compendium of ballets written in the 15th century? I've only read OF it, but never seen it. There MUST have been swordplay then.

Yes, thanks for that Cliff (and good to see you again!). That's a very helpful site.

Ah, now you have brought up on of the great mysteries of life. Casting. Do they do it by dartboard? Alphabetical order? Rumors abound. SHE is the favorite of HIM, or HER, of the season sponsor, or the local critic. None can be believed, yet all may be true -- or vice versa ABT used to dance in DC seven weeks a year 10, 15 years ago, and we were thrilled that the Washington-trained dancers dominated. We always got Marianna Tcherkassky, Susan Jaffe, Amanda McKerrow, Julie Kent, and Cheryl Yeager, Kevin McKenzie and the late Peter Fonseca. We thought ABT was Washington Ballet Theatre for a time. (And this was through several changes of direction.) And then I'd read reviews of performances elsewhere, and the other principals would be featured. Chance? I never knew. If you have Saturday night seats, though, those performances, in time-honored fashion, often go to the Big Stars. It's considered the fashionable night. My first season I had seats for Wednesday night. I don't even know why I chose Wednesday; I certainly never thought about casting. It didn't take me long to figure out that I'd NEVER see the "big stars." I always got second cast. (My first season I bought 9 tickets to see the company, 9 out of 16. I didn't get Baryshnikov once.)

Great going, Artistic Staff Thank you. (I took the liberty of reformatting, putting the terms in bold; if we underline, people might think they were links.) (I'll delete this post in a day or two, but I didn't want you to think I was ungrateful!!!!)

I'm going to put this up in the hopes that some of our teachers (Mel? Oh, Mel? ) might have a spare moment and want to put up some step names, with a phonetic pronunciation, and an explanation that could be understood by someone Discovering Ballet. (Starting with the basics, of course, the top 10 steps, maybe 20.)

I'm going to make this a sticky. Please feel free to add to it. If anyone disagrees with a pronunciation, please feel free to raise an objection. In the interests of helpfulness to future readers, when we reach a conclusion, I'll edit out all the back and forth so future generations of Ballet Alertniks don't have to wade through it. This will be a list of acceptable American pronunciations of non-English names. Beginning with Big Lee's first questions: Marius Petipa: Mar yus PET ee pah Alexandra Danilova: Da NEEL ova Tamara Toumanova: Too MAHN ova Rudolf Nureyev: Ru dolf Noo RAY yev Julia Makhalina: YOO-lee-ah Ma-KHA-lina (thanks, Hans) Natalia Makarova: Nah TAL ya Ma KAR ova Svetlana Zakharova: Svet LAHN a Za KAR ova

Well, someone presenting an award should make sure s/he knows how to pronounce any names that might come up, IMO, but for the rest of us, unless we hear a name, we won't know how to pronounce it. (I wonder how many people in that audience, hearing Makarova's name for the first time, said, "Oh! THAT's how you say it! I'll have to remember that next time.") One of my favorite mispronunciations was of a dancer with the Dutch National Ballet who substituted for someone else in New York; we were told that VAH day VAH tall would be dancing. Sounded Dutch to me. Nope, it's Wade Wathall, just the way you'd pronounce it in Texas, I learned years later.

Now, there's an idea: A "Firebird" program with three "Firebirds" on it: The Tallchief one, the Kirkland one, and the VonAroldingen one. Not the kind of thing most people would be interested in in an ordinary season, but something for a centennial.