Helene

Oh, snap: The subscription notification emails now start with who [username] replied to a topic, not just "Topic Reply Notification".

Some functionality differences: 1. If you're subscribed to a topic (i.e. "watching" it), you can "unsubscribe" by clicking the "Stop watching topic" button at the top right of the page. 2. The default for "edit" is "Quick Edit" -- there's a button to "Use Full Editor" if you want more features. 3. The default for "post options" -- signature checkbox, enable emoticons, and post icons (not emoticons in the post) -- is "closed"; to open, click the green "+" or the "click..." text. There is no re-close option.

Some terminology differences: 1. "Watch this topic" is the old "Subscribe to this topic". 2. "Recently added topics" is a subset of "View new topics" results, displayed at all times. Underneath that is the list of subscribed forums or topics, if the "Topics" tab is clicked. 3. "View new content" = "View new topics" 4. "Search" is no longer a link, but a permanent edit box to the right. 5. All of the little icons on posts that confused everyone are now text: "Multiquote", "Edit", "Reply", etc.

The technical upgrade is complete, but I've found that a lot of things have changed to the "skins" and maybe the settings. The default look is a lot different. It's cleaner and a better format for the iPhone version, now available to iPhone users. It will take a while for me to find all of the things that have been customized in the new code apart from the design, and you'll be seeing those changes gradually as I find them. Just so you know: 1. The "friends" feature will eventually disappear. 2. Photo avatars will not be supported. I didn't realize quite how extensive the changes would be, and I'll be working on learning to read and follow the new code. The design, though, is the least priority.

Lots of things have changed -- this is the new default look.

The request for the upgrade is going in now. If you are writing something long, I suggest copying the post and pasting it into a Word or text document. Once the upgrade starts, anything posted from then until completion may be lost, and if you are logged in and on the board at the start, you may not receive the "Board Closed" message.

Unfortunately, it seems that the video isn't available any longer (it says "an error occurred"). I was just able to access it. I'm not sure why.

(FB just asked me if I wanted to be my own friend. FB has become philosophical.)

A Google alert brought up a question about Bill Nye and a patent for toe shoes. Further searching led to a series of confirmations that, indeed, Bill Nye ("The Science Guy") received a patent for an improved toe shoe in 2005. Here is a link to the description and drawings: http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6895694/description.html I can't find any record of these being manufactured.

I don't think it would hurt to have ballet dancers dance real ballet as featured guests on these shows. I think they could do "White Swan Pas de Deux" or the "Peace Pas de Deux" from "Coppelia" or the "scarf" PdD from "La Bayadere" -- "La Sylphide", not so much -- and I bet the "Agon Pas de Deux" would get the studio audience screaming, once they got over the shock of it. Lifts and swoons go over really well, but the audience would be seeing the real deal at the same time. Some of it might stick.

Could be. Or it could be like the San Francisco Ballet website drama of last year, where names dropped and reappeared, except you can't do that once a brochure goes out. Summer waiting for official anything is hard.

I just read an interesting review of "Amelia" by Anne Midgett (dated today) in her blog at The Washington Post: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-class...ttle_opera.html Her main criticism of the opera was "Wadsworth’s relentless realism." I hadn't heard this before from Hagen (but I may have not been paying close enough attention):

Marlis Petersen is the soprano who took over the role of Ophelia in the Met "Hamlet" this past season after Natalie Dessay withdrew for medical reasons. She worked on the role while singing another in Europe, and after that run finished, took an exhausting trip to NY where she had one day of stage rehearsals in the new production before singing in it. Bo Skovhus' Don should be easy on the eyes and ears.

I'm wondering if this will change or is in the process of changing with the Internet. I'm still stuck by PNB soloist James Moore's answer in a Q&A session to the question "Do you see dancers from other companies", and he responded that he sees them all the time on YouTube. With the Internet, you don't have to wait for singer XYZ to show up at your local opera company or dancer ABC to guest with ABT: you can watch them on demand. The amount of opera broadcasts over the radio that are streamed worldwide -- no longer limited to the Met, the local company, and maybe two other companies like Chicago that are picked up nationally -- is extraordinary. With ballet it's a lot harder given the dearth of material by comparison, audio being so much more ahead of video in terms of the cost/quality ratio, and the vigilance with which material is pulled -- selling opera pirates is pretty big business and has been for decades, while ballet pirating still seems more like a trading club (although I could be out of the loop) -- but still YouTube is a lifeline for people for whom live performances are unfeasible due to distance, money, having small children or being a full-time caretaker for a parent, etc. It exposes people to works, style, performers, and standards outside their own space. Also online communities make the one music or dance nerd in the middle of nowhere -- that could be in the middle of a big urban high school or a place that's geographically isolated -- find people with whom to speak about their interests, and, in the case of younger people, be taken seriously. Edited to add: Because so many people from around the world speak English and post in English on the Internet, Americans are exposed to other viewpoints, assumptions, and expectations in the arts.

This morning Facebook invited me to add "George Balanchine", "Irina Baronova", "Vaslav Nijinski", "Serge Lifar", and "Olga Preobajenska" as a Friend. Not to "Like" (formerly "Fan"), but as a "Friend".

These are the way I've seen interest in the arts germinate: 1. Family (extended and chosen) and friends: being taken to a performance, music or dance DVDs played in the house. 2. Peer pressure. (Can work with #1, if wanting to impress someone by appearing/being interested.) 3. School programs. 4. Participation: everything from lessons/classes to rehearsals/performances to singing the "Toreador Song" in the summer camp chorus. 5. Lone interest piqued: advertising, seeing/hearing clips or entire performances on TV or hearing on the radio or internet, reading about in a newspaper article or book.

Our service provider is going to upgrade the board sometime at the beginning of next week. It could take place over a 24-hour period next Tuesday or Wednesday, but we can't get more specific than that, since tech support could get a high priority request up to the last minute. There's always a chance that you'll have to log in again after the upgrade. One of the oddities of the software, at least the version we are on currently, is that if you are already logged in when the upgrade takes place, you may be able to post and use the board, but your post will be lost. If you try to log in during the period the board is down -- between the time they notify us the upgrade is starting and we're able to post the "Board closed" message, and the time they tell us the upgrade is over, and we reinstate the custom fixes -- you should be blocked. The good news is that after the upgrade, the iPhone app for the board will be usuable!

Mary Cargill wrote a review of the Part/Stearns cast for danceviewtimes, and I was taken with this description of Stearns: It made me wish I had seen it.

Maybe I don't understand the business model, but apart from foundation grants or donations, how does a film earn revenue besides DVD sales or runs in a movie theater or money from a TV station that shows the film? If running the video on YouTube increases DVD sales and movie theater ticket sales, however much the distributor or the theater operator takes, that is additional direct revenue generated. Indirect revenue comes from people who buy tickets to a live performance, like the work, and buy the DVD's so that they can see it again or go to see it on a big screen. Or by helping to create a more educated audience, becoming interested in a new art form, or recommending it to someone else (like people do here). Unless YouTube keeps people from buying the DVD or going to the theater more than it increases sales in those areas, not showing it on YouTube generates nothing.

Congratulations to Ms. Meunier! I loved her as a dancer.

Did anyone see "Mirage"? I just read a review from a music point of view in a blog post by James C. Taylor in the LA Times: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemon...ty-ballet-.html I've heard some of Salonen's compositions before and liked them very much. And Leila Josefowicz -- wow! That's like when Elmar Olivera played the Barber Violin Concerto for the Martins ballet (although I loved the way then-NYCB concertmaster Guillermo Figueroa played it, too in subsequent seasons). It's worth going for the concert alone, but, better, I've been hearing good things about the choreography, although no specifics. Please tell!

Recently PNB performed "Coppelia" with an Act III corps of 24 girls between the ages of 10-14. My understanding from a Q&A is that there was a core of girls in all performances, and two casts alternating for the balance. The corps was ethnically and racially diverse at the shorter end -- I hesitate to say younger, because some might look younger than they are, even if they don't look quite as developed as the taller girls -- but not so much at the taller, more adolescent-appearing end.

I didn't see the performance on Saturday, but I did see the Royal Ballet video, and as long as she can use her feet as expressively as she did there, she can dance in clogs for all I care.

So you liked it? ;)

Did you by any chance see "Mao's Last Dancer"? The "Swan Lake" excerpts in the movie are Graeme Murphy's choreography. It's a contemporary version.