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My daughter first saw a Trock show on A&E or Bravo when she was 9, and she loved it. Any humor that is even vaguely sexual in nature goes straight over their heads at that point (the only sex joke I can even think of was in their Swan Lake where the prince comes back in from the wings after exiting with whichever one is the bad vixen swan and coughs out a feather: dd didn't get it at all). But seeing their version of the 4 Little Swans is beyond priceless. We had just endured a spring concert at her dance school where not one but two groups performed the number -- just as badly but certainly not on purpose. I'd go and not worry in the least.

As our family keeps slogging its way deeper and deeper into this world of dance, one of the things that still puzzles us is this notion of who gets credit for choreography. I'm a writer by profession, and, boy, if somebody used the words I crafted and didn't credit me, my paper's lawyers would be all over them. But in dance.... We started noticing it with the Nutcrackers first. These pre-pro programs especially seem to think nothing of putting on a Nutcracker with dumbed-down but nevertheless clearly identifiable choreography from the Balanchine or Royal Ballet versions, yet no credit is given for that. In fact the directors will more often than not give themselves choreography credit, too. I remember the first time my daughter, at 8, noticed this. Her former school was doing a production of a well-known story ballet and had even made a big to-do over bringing in a well-known dance teacher from another country to choreograph. In the midst of rehearsing the show, we watched a videotape of the same ballet as done by a big company. My daughter went marching into the school's director the next day, took her aside and asked her if she knew that the visiting choreographer had stolen the choreography from such-and-such company. The school's director looked at her as if she had two heads, chuckled indulgently, then went along her way without offering an explanation. And she wasn't the sort of person you could ask questions of, so I didn't press her for an answer either (hence part of the reason why it's our dd's former school). But can anyone give me a good explanation for why this is? Is it just sort of a tacit arrangement in the dance world that schools can filch choreography without giving credit? Even just a "based on..." credit would be a lot more honest.

We'll be in Canberra, Australia, soon. Happily the Australian Ballet will come there to perform a mixed program in May, but I'm tempted to travel once to see more of them. My frugality won't permit me to travel twice, so I'd like to know which opportunity sounds better to people: "Swan Lake" in Sydney, or a "Mr. B" tribute program in Melbourne. I'm leaning towards Swan Lake because it's a chance to see something in the Opera House and because I frankly don't know if AB is that exemplary in what they do with Balanchine. You get spoiled here in the US, I think, and I'd hate to be disappointed.

Read the article and enjoyed it immensely. I never would have guessed he came from such a background! and as a journalist myself, I also have to say I just love how unguarded and often more interesting public figures can be in "small" situtations, even when they know it's for publication. But with the Internet making so much more available today, I wonder if that will change the dynamics. I hope not!

I'm just discovering this "side" of the split forum, so forgive the late addendum to this thread. But I wanted to share this experience. Within a week after Mr. O'Connor passed away, our 10-year-old decided to pop in our "Singin' in the Rain" video so as to show our 5-year-old the "Make 'Em Laugh" number. As I got teary-eyed in the kitchen listening to the cascade of kiddy giggles in the other room, I suddenly and distinctly had the experience of someone, somewhere in the Great Beyond, saying "thank you" to us. It was epic.

Thanks, Leigh. That's what I thought I vaguely remembered about them. Well, maybe it'll just be date night for hubby and me.

Just soliciting input here. The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company will be performing in our area in a couple weeks. We feel pretty strongly that taking our budding ballerina to as many dance performances as possible is just as important to her education as any technique class, so, even though it's a school night, we're willing to consider Bill T. because we know they're a biggie. Does anyone know if the content of Bill T. would be appropriate for a 10-year-old? She's happily made it through the live performances of classical companies, Mark Morris, Baryshnikov, even Bill Evans recently, and sundry other local dance performances. But I don't want to spend the bucks if it means I'll also be spending the rest of the night explaining that sometimes men and women, or men and men, or women and women, have special, artistically-valid ways of expressing their love for each other. any and all input welcome!

I saw most of it, and it was a real guessing game for my husband and me to figure out what it was. For anyone who also listens to Karl Haas' "Adventures in Good Listening" on classical music stations, you can appreciate the game of "Name That Company" that we played that night. We tuned in probably half-way through "Black Tuesday" and the TV guide listings in our local paper were of no help. We first debated whether if it was a Broadway production because the staging was more commercial than your average ballet production. Then we were thrown by the technical excellence of the dancers -- too strong for Broadway-style hoofers. So was it a classical company? (we live in the middle of the country, so we can't identify companies by their faces -- "oh yes, darling, of course that's Maria K, remember we saw her at Mimsy's cocktail party last weekend?"). So then we decided the dancers' builds and technique were simply too muscular for classical. So it had to be a top-notch contemporary company, and it had to be American, given the subject matter of the piece they were dancing (clearly something about life during the Great Depression). Now we have seen Mark Morris enough times to know it wasn't his group (not enough rough edges to the choreography ). So I tossed out the only name I could think of and that was Paul Taylor. Ding, ding, it was a winner! Aside from our pathetic Midwestern attempt there at cultural relevancy, we enjoyed the telecast greatly. And I liked Promethean Fire the best. The thing that can appeal to me most about modern are the interesting permutations of geometry you get with truly gifted choreographers. If classical tends most toward simple shapes and lines, then good modern (and in this respect I would include Balanchine) takes those shapes and sinuously explores all their possible arrangements -- but without losing sight of the human element underlying the geometry. Promethean Fire definitely did that. And the dancers' personal excellence only enhanced that. I'm often left wondering, after a lot of modern performances, if it wouldn't have been easier to understand what the choreographer was striving for, if the dancers had been better (harken over to my reaction to the Baryshnikov solo tour). Such a challenge for most modern companies!

Oh, garsh , thanks! I'm more flustered, though, by the fact that I'm a journalist by trade and it was excrutiatingly hard for me to describe what I experienced that night. If I had been on deadline, I'd have been out of a job! But experiences like that are so far and few between, I'd willingly go through another bout of writer's block to experience it again.

And I just realized that I never posted a "review" after having seen Baryshnikov's solo show in July. Part of that was because, frankly, I was so overwhelmed by how thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking a show it was, and I couldn't find words to describe it. Our decision to buy tix had been pooh-poohed by a few dance-world types who advised us we'd be better off renting a video of his good old days. But they were wrong. It was a superb show and I am very glad we went and that we took our then-9-year-old dancer. It is contemporary dance all the way, but this is one of the rare times that I've made it all the way through a contemporary dance performance without checking my watch or deciding that there were one or two of the pieces I could have done without. What I think distinguishes Baryshnikov's successful approach to contemporary dance are his classical training and his really intelligent acting ability. I wasn't expecting the latter to be as world-class as it is. Watching Baryshnikov do modern is like reading a beautiful poem as written by someone with legible handwriting. This is where his classical training is so evident and appreciated -- and an especially great learning tool for a young dancer to see. It was soooo much easier to understand what he was trying to communicate because his technique is clean and strong. I mean, let's be real -- there's more than just a few modern dancers who embrace the form because they failed at classical, the result being illegible "handwriting." And Baryshnikov's superb acting not only makes the dancing more accessible, but it also more than compensates for the inevitable diminishment of his physical genius. I honestly think he is now a more complete performer because he's relying on a much larger set of tools. He's also a more accessible and less intimidating performer now. The brilliance of old was awe-inspiring but I think it also put him on an isolating pedestal from his audience (not that this is a bad thing: awe is a cool thing to experience when watching someone perform). But what he's doing now at age 55 lets him get down from the pedestal and that, I think, makes it easier to "hear" what he's trying to say now about topics like growing old and being alone. I hope others have found, or will find, the show to be as enjoyable.

What a marvelously intelligent review that is! Thank you for the link!

Forgive me if there's a thread for this elsewhere, but I haven't found one. Has anyone gone to the Baryshnikov solo show? We have tickets for one coming up and I'm curious to know what we can expect. The publicity stills certainly show signs of something special in his dancing.