Alexandra

That's what I thought Thanks!

Thanks, Jane. Who is Jeanetta Laurence? "Isadora" may well be acclaimed as a masterpiece, these days -- I note there's a "new concept" involved -- looks like a redo. What I remember of "Isadora" was a long series of sexually explicit, if anatomically incorrect, pas de deux (in one, the man seemed to reach orgasm when the woman bounced up and down on his shoulder) connected by an actress giving us Isadora's deepest thoughts and feelings. I'd love to see it again. Revivals of Les Noces and Daphnis and Chloe make it a serious season, though -- and there is new work, which is also good news.

Thank you, Rachel -- both for your kind words and for your excellent posts. There are quite a few message boards now. In addition to those at Pointe and Dance Magazine, www.danceart.com has DOZENS of boards, mostly aimed at dancers. There are also discussion groups at www.ballet.co.uk and www.criticaldance.com. Of course, we think ours is the best, but it's good to get out and about (The Ballet.Co one is a bit difficult to find -- go to the Postings page.) And thanks, Estelle, for posting the subscription link -- I've been on deadline the past few days and haven't been able to keep up with the board.

BilboB, video, notation, etc. are all good TOOLS if you have a living, breathing artist to use them. If you want to do anything more complicated than an aerobics class, you need the hand-me-down route. Fight for it

So can we look forward to a revival of this ballet by a major American company located in a certain major metropolitan area near the center of the country?

(They're not supposed to say that any more. They're supposed to say "The Oscar goes to." As one of the past hosts said, "We'd hate to think this had anything to do with competition!") Here's the link to the NYTimes coverage, the complete winners list. http://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/oscars/2...ominations.html No one would have won money betting on "Chicago;" that was a sure thing. But I was surprised (and pleased) that Brody got it -- much longer odds, and well-deserved, IMO. Anyone have an opinion on Polanski? Sympathy vote? "Come back home, all is forgiven?" Lifetime achievement award? Or just that "The Pianist" is a good film?

Thanks, Giannina! The mixed bill indicates that Stuttgart, too, is going in the contemporary ballet direction, doesn't it? But it's very good to read about such a talented dancer! Did others attend this season? If so, please chime in!

I haven't gotten my copy now, so we're dependent on our British posters for comment. It is a very interesting magazine, Grace

Thank you for that, Jorgen. To me, it's VERY good news that Hubbe will be staging a new Sylphide!

I think one of the (man) bad trends in ballet recently has been partner shuffling. There are companies who will schedule Ballerina A with Partner A in, say, "Swan Lake" on Tuesday, and with Partner B (while he's with Ballerina C) on "Thursday" and, then, of course, Saturday will match Ballerina B withi Partner C, just to keep it interesting. (I say that facetiously; I don't get the point.) But rehearsing today seems to be more and more an optional activity.

Mashinka, I thought Fonteyn a warm dancer, as well, but we've had discussions about her on the board before, and several posters here found her cold -- an interesting division of opinion!

ABT has always had a welcome mat out for dancers unappreciated in their homelands Thank you for that knock out of a post, Mikhail! Perhaps Ms. Alexandrova's fans will have to start picketing the theater.

That's what we need -- more cocky headtilts! Ray, I noticed the lack of eye contact with the MCB dancers, too, or at least some of them. Hasn't this become the way of the [dance] world generally, though? It's all steps and counts, nothing else. It's not that one wants to see people waving and grinning in Balanchine ballets, but I think for the past 20 years, at least (and actually, for about five years before he died) the "We do not show emotion" approach was taken to extremes.

Hello, Sandi! (Sandi and I are DCA buddies.) Glad you chimed in, and I hope we'll hear more from you. We'd like to read more about PNB! I'd add a comment about not mentioning a ballet. I've noticed several papers (the Arizona Republic is one of them) which apparently has such an early deadline that the critic either has to review the dress rehearsal, or leave before the last piece, and notes what he did in the review. But editors are not above cutting from the bottom if there's a space crunch.

It's official. Just got this press release: LEGENDARY DANCE TEACHER AND FOUNDER OF THE WASHINGTON BALLET, MARY DAY TO ASSUME DIRECTOR EMERITUS POST OF THE WASHINGTON SCHOOL OF BALLET (Washington, D.C.) – Dance pioneer and visionary Mary Day announced today she will assume the post of Director Emeritus of The Washington School of Ballet upon the appointment of a new director. Since founding the School in 1944, Ms. Day has trained over 10,000 students, established a world-class company in the nation’s capital and been recognized as one of the dance world’s most distinguished and respected teachers. A search committee, co-chaired by The Washington Ballet’s Artistic Director Septime Webre and former General Director Elvi Moore, along with a small group from The Washington Ballet’s Board of Directors has been formed. The search is now underway and Ms. Day’s successor will be in place in the fall of 2003, in time for the new school year. “To be a really good teacher, one has to truly want each person to learn and to want to touch each student,” says Ms. Day. “I think I’ve given a great love for dance to many, many people, and that is what I intended to do. I wanted to develop new talent, choreographers and dancers. But along the way, many lives have been touched and that’s the most rewarding thing that a teacher could feel.” A native of Washington, D.C., Ms. Day had a vision to create, in her hometown, a dance organization that would be recognized nationally and internationally for its standards and quality. Together with Lisa Gardiner, Ms. Day founded The Washington School of Ballet in 1944. Ms. Day’s beloved production of The Nutcracker was first staged in 1961 with the National Symphony Orchestra and has delighted Washingtonians for the past 41 years while providing a rite of passage to thousands of young dancers who have performed in it. In 1962, the Academy of The Washington Ballet became the first in the United States to offer a combined curriculum of dance and academics. That tradition continued until 1977 when the School once again focused solely on dance training. Ms. Day established The Washington Ballet in 1976, Washington’s only professional ballet company, and remained the Company’s artistic director until 1999 when Webre was named as her successor. “For over 50 years, Mary Day has been one of the great visionaries for dance and dance training,” says Webre. “Her influence is evident in ballet companies all over the world where her pupils have become important stars as well as members of the corps de ballet which is the real backbone of our art form.” Ms. Day’s gift for developing young talent has been touted throughout the world and Anna Kisselgoff of the New York Times said, “Mary Day of The Washington Ballet must be doing something right. Her former pupils are among the best dancers around…” Trained personally by Ms. Day are such luminaries as Kevin McKenzie, artistic director of American Ballet Theatre; Amanda McKerrow, principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre; and Virginia Johnson, former star of Dance Theatre of Harlem. Actresses Shirley MacLaine and Georgia Engel were also students of Ms. Day, as were First Children Caroline Kennedy and Chelsea Clinton. Ms. Day has been honored with the Mayor’s Award, WETA-FM’s “Woman of Achievement” Award, the Metropolitan Dance Award, the Cultural Alliance’s Founders Award, the first Chautauqua Dance Award of Excellence in Teaching and the IONA Senior Services Outstanding Citizen Award. Ms. Day has also been named “Washingtonian of the Year” by Washingtonian Magazine and honored by WGMS Radio, Howard University and the National Theatre Corporation. In addition, she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Shenandoah University and an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Mount Vernon College. "Mary Day has played an enormous role in changing the cultural landscape of Washington, D.C., with her production of The Nutcracker which has been performed for over 40 years, and with the professional company she founded,” says Kay Kendall, President of The Washington Ballet’s Board of Directors. “Today’s proliferation of ballet schools and touring companies in our community have been directly stimulated by the groundbreaking, inspirational and progressive commitment Ms. Day has given to the art of dance.”

I think if you look at photos from the 1940s through the 1960s, at least, there are no empty eyes -- Diana Adams, Tanaquil LeClercq, Diana Adams....The "just dance it, dear" robot eyes approach came later, I think.

Ah, La Van Hamel. I remember watching her, hard, in her last seasons, saying, "This is the one I'm going to miss the most." I have to say, in retrospect, I think Gregory was "better." (And nearly everyone else would vote, loudly, for Makarova). But it's Van Hamel that I remember. And I feel cheated not to have seen Kirkland own this role. She SHOULD have been the great Double O of her generation.

Yes, Pamela. I put up a brief note in the Royal Danish Ballet forum. There's a link to Mary Clarke's obituary of Larsen there (and on Links, too, the day it appeared, I think) as well. I had the opportunity to interview Larsen several times, as well as watch him stage "Far From Denmark" (completely the "watch me and do as I do" method). I remember getting a chill the first time I talked to him. We were standing in the old rehearsal room, the one that Bournonville had used, and I realized that this man had been there when Fokine worked at that opera house! So he was very much a link with the past. He had been ill for several years, though, having suffered a stroke in the mid-1990s. I'm going to move this thread over to the RDB forum so that we don't have two conversations going on.

ABT STUDIO COMPANY TO PRESENT THREE NEW WORKS AT THE KAYE PLAYHOUSE, APRIL 15 & 16 American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company will present two evenings of new works at The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, 68th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues, April 15 and 16 at 8 P.M. The program will include Heavenly Bodies by Daniel Baudendistel, Revelry by Robert Hill and Tea and Temptation by Brian Reeder, as well as Antony Tudor’s Continuo. Set to Ernst von Dohnányi’s Variations on a Nursery Rhyme, Daniel Baudendistel’s Heavenly Bodies features nine dancers representing the mythical temperaments of various planets in an imagined scene at Mount Olympus. The ballet has costumes by Katherine McDowell, lighting by Brian Sciarra and scenic design by Wendy Mark. It received its World Premiere by the ABT Studio Company at Indiana University on February 8, 2003. Robert Hill’s Revelry, set to a score of the same name by Lowell Liebermann, is a bravura pas de deux for Danny Tidwell and Laura Hidalgo. Featuring costumes by Zack Brown and lighting by Brian Sciarra, Revelry will receive its World Premiere at the Linbury Studio Theatre at Covent Garden in London on March 28, 2003. Set to Franz Schubert’s Piano Trio in E Flat, Brian Reeder’s Tea and Temptation is a witty exploration of the intricacies of the British class system inspired by the film Gosford Park. The ballet will receive its World Premiere on April 11, 2003 at Stony Brook University’s Staller Center on Long Island. Antony Tudor’s Continuo, staged for the Studio Company by Donald Mahler, is set to Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Tudor created the ballet for six dancers in 1971 for his students at The Juilliard School. Continuo was reconstructed by arrangement with the Dance Notation Bureau, Inc. Tickets for ABT’s Studio Company at The Kaye, priced at $24 for general admission, $18 for members and senior citizens and $10 for students, are available by calling 212-772-4448.

AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE TO PRESENT TWO PROGRAMS FOR THE GUGGENHEIM’S WORKS & PROCESS SERIES, APRIL 6 & 7 AND APRIL 27 & 28 AT 8 P.M. American Ballet Theatre, in conjunction with the Guggenheim’s Works & Process series, will present A Look Again: ABT’s Corps de Ballet on April 6 and 7 at 8 P.M. and A Rose by Any Other Name… on April 27 and 28 at 8 P.M. in the Peter B. Lewis Theater at the Guggenheim Museum. For A Look Again: ABT’s Corps de Ballet, ABT Ballet Mistress Susan Jones will lead an open rehearsal with members of the corps de ballet to demonstrate the detailed work that goes into perfecting ensemble performances. The first movement of George Balanchine’s Symphony in C and an excerpt from the Kingdom of the Shades scene from La Bayadère will be performed. In addition, senior corps dancers will discuss their time and experiences in the corps de ballet. Moderated by Principal Dancer and Ballet Master Guillaume Graffin, A Rose By Any Other Name… offers insight into Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet by alternating actors’ readings of the play with excerpts of Kenneth MacMillan’s choreography of the ballet performed by ABT dancers. The 18th anniversary season of the Works & Process series, produced by Mary Sharp Cronson for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, features extraordinary contemporary music, dance, opera, and theater. Each event presents excerpts of productions accompanied by discussion among the artistic collaborators, offering insight into the creative process. The Guggenheim Museum is located at Fifth Avenue at 89th Street in New York City. Tickets are $15 for general admission, or $10 for members of the Guggenheim Museum, ABT’s Dancer’s Circle or Golden Circle and for students and senior citizens. Tickets may be purchased at the Museum admissions desk, through the box office by calling 212-423-3587 or by email at boxoffice@guggenheim.org. The box office is open from 1 to 5 P.M., Monday through Friday. For more information about ABT, please visit www.abt.org.

I always thought of "The Four Temperaments" as a very humanistic ballet, and the structure one of the many ways Balanchine manipulated classical form (it was interesting seeing it on the same program as "Shades" for that reason. I'd never thought of it as related to machinery. (Which means only that, like a good abstract painting, one can read many things into it!) To me, the themes are the raw material of humanity, the temperaments have different bits of those themes, and in the end, when all the temperaments and themes are joined together, it is a moment of triumph and completeness. I referred to the nature of the temperaments above, I think. Croce wrote that Sanguinic was at the center of the ballet, Balanchine's chosen temperament, as it were, because they were mated. The other temperaments are solitary, unmated, and therefore incomplete. Thanks for your post, Hans. Your objection is as much to the aesthetic as to the ballet I take it -- and your position is shared by many people. I didn't like "4Ts" the first time I saw it -- I don't remember why, just a general negative impression; I think I found it too stark, and although I got something out of it intellectually, I didn't emotionally, rather like you. Now, it seems positively lush to me. I have a different reaction to the ending every time. Sometimes the score has an undercurrent of menace to it, yet those huge supported lifts are triumphant. And sometimes I just feel the triumph. It's useful to discuss this, I think. People are always coming new to ballets considered masterpieces, and will have different reactions to them. Better to question than just to take on faith!

This is a good question, Melissa -- any candidates? By the time I got to "Swan Lake," I think the whole idea of the dual role had changed. Instead of Odile being enchanted to look like Odette, and having to hide her true nature to seduce the Prince, we now get Odiles trying as hard as possible to look different from Odette -- they come at Siegfried with all sirens blaring, and he'd have to be an idiot not to sense there was mischief afoot. I have several older friends who tell me that Fonteyn was ideal in both roles, and they've never seen anyone like her since, and I'd go along with that, even though I've only seen her on video. The Odile is slightly more sophisticated and rather cold, compared to an innocent, warm Odette, but the differences are subtle; they don't scream at you. Any others?

There's an obituary of Larsen in the Guardian today (by Mary Clarke, a long-time RDB watcher) Danish master of dance and mime I would take a small exception to Clarke's comment that "his classical techniquie had suffered during the time with Schoop" [a pantomime company with which Larsen was associated briefly] and note that Larsen was never a classical dancer. He was a character dancer, a mime. (And proudly so; it's what he wanted to do.)

Hans, I just have to ask. What is it that you hate about the choroegraphy for 4Ts? (I don't mean this as a challenge -- you're entitled! I'm just mightily curious.) leibling, thank you for that. I envy you being able to watch those rehearsals, and so many performances! I imagine it would take quite a bit of adjustment for the Shades to be comfortable in that space. I would have liked to have seen Kondaurova's second performance, to see if she was less tentative. I figured out the costume-indicates-character idea in Sea of Troubles, but the work still didn't hang together for me. (And I agree it was odd to stage it on a ballet festival.) I found the dancers very likable and very committed -- and that's one of the reasons I found the work frustrating. It was so detailed -- it wasn't just thrown together, and from what I know of MacMillan he was very precise and knew exactly what he wanted. And I'll believe the dancers delivered that -- and so the confusion was more confusing. Perhaps it was an experiment -- can I stage a nightmare?

I was taught to make a distinction between "film" and "movies" -- it's something we talked about endlessly in a film course I took in college. To me, the difference is similar to that between literary fiction and mainstream fiction. (But then, I went to college during the era when classification was encouraged. And there are bad art films/literary novels and good movies/mainstream novels, of course.) I'd say "you know it when you see it," but if we had a list of ten films/movies, I'll bet there would be a lively disagrement as to which were "art" and which were "entertainment." Interestingly, in publishing they do say "you know it when you see it." They can take any book and put it in the "right" pile! I liked the "Hours" very much, including Kidman (whom I've never liked in anything else). I didn't think she was trying to do a Virginia Woolf imitation; I don't think the film/book was trying to be literal or realistic. (There's an interesting article by Michael Cunningham about the issue of film adaptation, pros and cons, benefits and pitfalls, on the "Hours" website, which can be found by putting "The Hours" in Google). The scenes that stood out in her performance to me were the way she looked at nature and beauty: hard, as something to analyze, because she wanted to write about it accurately, but not feel, not experience. And the way she delivered the line "I think I may have a first sentence." A trace of triumph and excitement, but delivered oh, so casually, and it meant everything. At first, I thought her anger and sterness was strange, but I think it was anger at her condition; it got in the way. I'd give the Oscar to Julianne Moore, if I had to pick, but I did like Kidman. Other supporting actors I'd nominate would be The Pianist's family, especially mother, younger sister, and brother.