perky

The Guiding Light was one of my Mom's soaps along with As The World Turns.

I remember my sister and I watching it along with her in the seventies and eighties. I had a crush on so many of those actors when I was younger!

I stopped watching it for quite a long time until I was home on extended bed rest before the birth of my daughter in 2000, then I got hooked again for a few years.

It's a big investment nowadays to give 1 hour of your day 5 days a week to a program. The internet is a big time waster (except for ballet talk of course ) which might have something to do with all daytime soaps declining ratings.

Okay, now I'm actually kind of bummed it's been canceled. So many of my memories of this show are wrapped together with memories of my Mom. Now they're both gone.

The role of the poet in La Sonambula requires a flexible back for the movement where he tries and fails to capture the Sleepwalker as she passes over his stretched, arched backbend.

Was there ever a time when people did NOT complain about inconsistencies in the way ballets were danced from season to season, or over the course of a season? I don't think so. Perhaps this is the price a company has to play when it is so large ... has such a vast, revolving repertory of great works ... and performs so often.

Never! Once early on in my NYCB-watching "career" (I started attending regularly in the late 70's) I burbled something enthusiastic about a performance of 4Ts in which Merrill Ashley, Bart Cook, and Adam Luders, among others, had danced. "Oh," observed an older friend who'd been attending since the 60's "you should have seen that ballet when the company could really dance it."

This kind of thing always puts me in mind of Burt Lancaster's great line in the movie Atlantic City: ruminating on the city's decline since its (and his) glory days in the 40's, he says to Susan Sarandon ''The Atlantic Ocean was something then. Yes, you should have seen the Atlantic Ocean in those days.''

Kathleen is right. Comparing the way Barocco was danced in say the 50's with how it is danced now is like comparing apples and oranges. It's less jazzy and more lyrical. This had to have been Balanchine's doing, he was there after all. Was this due to a change within himself or was he responding to a different way of moving in his dancers?

The way Balanchine ballets were danced in the 70's and early 80's is the aesthetic that Martins uses. He was there dancing at that time as was ballet mistress Rosemary Dunleavy and teaching associate Merrill Ashley. So, how is the way the ballets were danced in the 70's different from how they were or are danced in the 90's to the present?

I'm only privileged to see the company every couple of years so I can't make that call but I am interested in what the regulars think.

Editing to preemptively apologize for getting so far off from the thread topic!

Hi Tanny! My husband recently purchased for me Tanaquil Le Clercq's The Ballet Cook Book. This book is long out of print and was on my "wished for but highly unlikely" acquire list. He found it Amazon.com for $25. The book was owned by a public library.

If you get a chance I highly recommend this book! Besides the many interesting recipes from various ballet stars is Tanny's

witty, sparkling writing inbetween. She also includes several photos of herself as a young child.

Thank you Jack. As always your notes on these lecture-demonstrations are very much appreciated.

By my count;

21 Balanchine ballets

7 Robbins ballets

3 Martins ballets

2 Wheeldon ballets

2 world premieres

This is pure speculation on my part but with Liebeslieder Walzer and Vienna Waltzes on the schedule are we perhaps having a ballerina retirement happen this Spring? Those are two ballets that Darci Kistler still dances in and the last section of Vienna Waltzes seems to have lately become a typical senior ballerina last waltz so to speak.

In my Repertory In Review are pictures of Jacques d'Amboise and Peter Martins dancing Apollo wearing black tights instead of the white tights I've always assumed was the standard. It's a jarring image to say the least, especially since both dancers have on the white tunic top. It doesn't look classical or godlike at all only odd and almost pedestrian. Both photos are from the 1960's. In one Martins is dancing with Suzanne Farrell so it would have to have been before she left in 1969.

So does anyone know anything about the black tights? Was this just one of those interesting costume changes that Balanchine would occasionally spring on the audience such as the white mice added to the grey mice in The Nutcracker or the new costume for Baryshnikov's Prodigal Son?

The 1st and 2nd arias from Balanchine's Stravinsky Violin Concerto would be a nice fit. They're intimate Pas de Deux, you don't need a big stage or the entire company and they contrast each other nicely.

Balanchine's Tarantella would be a rousing and fun choice and the two Pas de Trois and the Pas de Deux from Agon would be a witty, infinitely cool choice.

CB 40503- Is that "Our Lady Of The Legs" Maria Kowroski?

CB40506- I think the girl is Janie Taylor but I can't identify the boy.

CB 40508- Darci Kistler

CB 40509-Maria Kowroski

CB 40513- Is that Sofiane Sylve?

Carbro I believe I read somewhere that those marvelous Karinska costumes from Metamorphoses were destroyed in a fire.

I would LOVE to have that Tanny photo blown up to poster size, framed and displayed in my home.

I have mixed feelings about the show. Some of the performances have been decent such as the solo Indian classical dancer and the group Irish, but some of it has been not so good, even amateurish.

A new host would be a good idea as well. I've got nothing against Flatley as a dancer but as a host he's terrible. His voice and persona are so mellow and sleep inducing. Isn't he from Chicago? Why does he sound like a wee movie leprechaun?

I voted New York City Ballet but I would also like to add Miami City Ballet, Suzanne Farrell Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet for the quantity and quality of the Balanchine performed.

Then I saw Mel's suggestion of a Maryinsky Bourree Fantasque with those dancers and I heard a choir of angels singing "Alleluia!".

Got this as a Christmas present from my husband

I'm keeping it on my coffee table to show off a bit for some guests that are coming. Is that wrong?

Mostly "Oh, sheet!"

Oh Merde!!

As I watch the ice rink that my street has become I'm reminded of another overused and irritating phrase used to describe slick road conditions, "It's a sheet of ice out there!".

I've lived off and on in the Midwest almost my entire life and have heard this phrase for as long as I can remember. Is this a uniquely Midwestern saying? East Coasters what do you say?

Another annoying phrase, " Git ur done!".

Most pretentious phrase, "Quid Pro Quo".

I prefer the more seedier sounding "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" preferably said with an New Yawk mafioso accent.

Time to pop in with a personal observation. Football seems to be a fertile field for strong competitors. This week I voted for the first time this season. Even though Brooke has extraordinary natural talent, I cast one vote in error (misdial due to spastic finger) and all the rest for Warren Sapp, whose charm is intoxicating. When Carrie Ann told Warren earlier in the season, "I think I have a crush on you", I was all with her.

What surprises me is that among a field made up largely of entertainers, whose livelihoods depend on being likable as performers, the macho jocks Warren, Jason Taylor and Emmit Smith have been as charismatic as any of the actors, singers, talk show hosts and other show biz types.

I find this interesting too Carbro. You have only to look at the team dances from last week. Team Cha Cha were all professional entertainers, Team Paso Doble had the two athletes with Brooke. Guess who sold it and performed it the best? Maybe it's just a matter of athletes being able to put their game faces on and get down to it.

And I'm rooting for Warren Sapp as well. I like the competitiveness and inventive choreography that comes out of Kym Johnson when she thinks she has a winner.

The overuse of the word genius, as in "My hairdresser is a genius at highlighting!"

Using the word "meh" to describe something or someone you really couldn't be bothered to have an opinion or feeling for.

Inserting the word "uber" as in "uberchef" or "uberexecutive".

i don't know when the library acquired these, but i found these listings today:

http://catnyp.nypl.org/search?/Xmcbride+an...=g&1%2C1%2C

http://catnyp.nypl.org/search?/Xsuzanne+fa...DZ&3%2C3%2C

Thanks for the heads up Mme. Hermine!

Chloris leachman will be dancing with Mark Ballas's FATHER, who's also a Latin ballroom champion/ They could have enormous sentimental reserves, if she can dance. This is so exciting. I'm sorry, everybody, I'm slightly beside myself.

Also, the idea of Misty and Maksim is pretty exciting -- obviously she can move, and he's SO strong he'll be able to match her power; which could be very exciting.

And the disney kid can probably dance -- they always can -- and he and Julianne may raise cuteness to fever pitch. Fetch me my salts.

Can we please get a tango with Cloris as Nurse Diesel and Corky as Harvey Korman?

I'm excited about seeing Misty/Maks (yea he's back!) and Karina/Rocco.

Is Bottom the cat that never warmed to Mr. B? I remember reading in her autobiography about one of her cats that wasn't fond of him. Is Suzanne still a cat lover?

If your local library doesn't have the tapes ask them to do an interlibrary loan for you. This is how I've managed to see at least half of the archive videos.

This is just wonderful news! Even if you're not a dance student or teacher these tapes are worth their weight in gold. WATCH THEM if you are able to. The feeling I get while watching these is like admiring a painting by a master for many years and then a restorer comes along and lightly cleans the canvas, all of a sudden you notice colors and depths that were never there before and you fall in love all over again.

I think I said this a couple of years ago, but Leigh should arrange all of his archive articles into a book!

Bouder has a stage quality which really reminds me of a the great 60s-70s generation of Balanchine dancers. I love the way she controls and projects, as in those brief freezes (arm pointed up and out) in the midst of fast choreography. Her dancing in this is large, witty and very clear. Hayden, in the original cast, also had these qualities.

The August/Sept. Pointe Magazine has a mini-interview with Bouder on the last page. (It's the issue with Corella on the cover.)

You read my thoughts! There's a snippet of Hayden dancing the Stars And Stripes variation I've seen. She dances it so fast and so light with a style I can only call "classically cheeky". Bouder dances it the same way.

The pas de deux seemed rushed to me and the crowd drove me bonkers. Every little jump or spin was greeted with loud squeals and cheering. Despite that I was still happy to see Balanchine performed on network television. For just a few minutes the stale, rank air that usually permeates reality television smelled clean and pure.

Thanks for the heads up about this Bart!

As I was reading this my first thought was "this story would make a great movie".

Unfortunately, there is relatively little commercially available video of Kent in performance. Does anyone have a favorite Kent video (or snippet)? Do you know of any other dancers who she has coached or ballets she has helped to set?

I've only seen one clip of Allegra dancing. The Bizet 2nd movement pas de deux. It's not near enough! I want to see Allegra in Bukagu, Seven Deadly Sins, Diamonds, etc.