Helene

To the list so far adding: Striking a Balance, Barbara Newman, a superb collection of interviews In Balanchine's Company: A Dancer's Memoir, Barbara Fisher Dancing into the Unknown: My Life in the Ballets Russes and Beyond, Tamara Tchinarova Finch Repertory in Review, Nancy Reynolds

I think that's a great idea Giannina. I'm going to close this thread now.

According to Rita Feliciano's review of Liss Fain Dance Company in danceviewtimes, Fain set "Resolved" "a reworking of last year’s "At the Time" to a different Steve Reich score." "At the Time" was set to "You Are (Variations)" according to Rachel Howard's review from last September, but I can't find the name of the Reich piece to which the new version is choreographed.

And here I always thought the entrance to "old-fart-dom" was attending performances regularly, but insisting far and wide that they don't make them the way they used to.

Mashinka posted a link to an appreciation of Hildegard Behrens by Germaine Greer in the "Other Performing Arts" forum. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/aug/3...ldegard-behrens In it, Greer wrote, While I appreciate the sentiment, and have applied it temporarily, for example leaving at the end of the act after Vinson Cole sang Werther's monologue, not wanting anything to mar my memory of it. But it's hard for me to imagine, unless I was pretty sure I was at the end of my life, that I would boycott one of the greatest works of music and theater and miss the chance that I could hear a young great or soon-to-be-great or a singer I never appreciated but had an inspired performance. If I had decided that no one could ever dance Aurora like Fonteyn and boycotted "Sleeping Beauty", I would have missed any number of wonderful dancers in the role. (And, of course, some not very wonderful dancers in the role and some wonderful dancers I haven't liked in the role .) Thoughts?

Many thanks, Mashinka!

PNB has published the following press release, which includes casting, which I've highlighted in bold. (Kari Brunson is listed in "Vespers", which, if the release is up-to-date, means she will be making her first post retirement performance ) One Day Only! Labor Day Monday, September 7, 2009, 1:00 pm Bagley Wright Theatre 155 Mercer St., Seattle Center SEATTLE, WA — Following its performances at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Pacific Northwest Ballet returns home to Seattle and to Bumbershoot: Seattle's Music & Arts Festival, where it has performed for standing-room-only audiences for the past three years. PNB will once again present one performance at the Labor Day weekend festival, on Monday, September 7. Artistic Director Peter Boal recently announced the casting for the performance, which will feature a selection of works, including the balcony scene from Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette, Ulysses Dove’s Vespers, Ultimatum by company member Olivier Wevers, and Marco Goecke’s cult-hit Mopey. Single day-specific and three-day Festival passes to Bumbershoot are available now at bumbershoot.org, Ticketmaster outlets, and without a service fee at Destee Nation Shirt Company in Fremont. Single dayspecific tickets are $35 through August 21, and $50 thereafter. Three-day passes are $80 through Friday, August 21 and $120 thereafter. For further information, visit bumbershoot.org. Mopey Choreography: Marco Goecke Music: C.P.E. Bach and The Cramps Mopey’s 15-minute solo blitzkrieg through adolescence had audiences leaping from their seats when PNB premiered it in 2005. “Beautiful, label defying…masterfully embodies the chameleonic nature of teens” (The Seattle Times). The New York Times called it “a tour de force…a touching piece of alienation,” while New York Magazine praised Mopey as “riveting in a portrait of madness so eloquent it looked like Shakespeare without words.” Mopey will be performed by PNB principal dancer Jonathan Porretta. Roméo et Juliette – Balcony pas de deux Choreography: Jean-Christophe Maillot Music: Sergei Prokofiev Glowing reviews and packed houses followed PNB’s 2008 West Coast premiere of Jean-Christophe Maillot’s contemporary Roméo et Juliette. Praised as “seamlessly fusing the vocabularies of ballet and modern dance…an astonishing and absorbing view of an old world with the impetus of the new (Seattle Post-Intelligencer), the ballet’s stylized movement and avant-garde design narrow the focus to the core of Shakespeare’s tragedy with an intensity that equals Prokofiev’s passionate score. The Balcony pas de deux from Roméo et Juliette will be performed by principal dancers Carla Körbes and Lucien Postlewaite. Vespers Choreography: Ulysses Dove Music: Mikel Rouse Vespers was inspired by memories of Dove’s grandmother, her energy, and the small wooden building where she met with other women to worship. An insistent percussion score by Mikel Rouse evokes both urgency and restraint as six women in black dresses assemble and reassemble themselves vigorously about wooden chairs. Vespers will be danced by PNB company members Kari Brunson, Maria Chapman, Chalnessa Eames, Carrie Imler, Kylee Kitchens and Lesley Rausch. Ultimatum Choreography: Olivier Wevers Music: Murcof Ultimatum, by company member and rising choreographer Olivier Wevers, is a powerful male duet set to music by Murcof. Two men step into pools of light and begin a playful joust. As they dance, their movements shift from fluid and controlled, to crisp and sharp. The men play off each other’s movement and their combined energies amplify the power until they separate and once again find themselves in their original pools of light. This performance is a special preview for Bumbershoot audiences: Ultimatum was chosen to be presented at On the Boards as part of the Joyce Theater Foundation’s A.W.A.R.D. Show! competition, December 10-13. Ultimatum will be performed by PNB principal dancers Jonathan Porretta and Lucien Postlewaite.

The Maen "Afternoon of a Faun" from Curry's 1980 Ice Dancing special is on You Tube Unfortunately, it's not well lit and the camera is distant. The excerpts that were in a BBC multi-part special on Curry are not on YouTube, which is unfortunate, because they are well lit, and it's an intimate segment, albeit broken up by short interview clips with Clement Crisp and Cathy Foulkes, whose speaking voice is not nearly as poetic as her skating.

I remember from the dressing room interviews in the ABT Now! tape, when she said that having a sense of humor was really helpful, and it's clear from the interview it helps with motherhood as much as with a dancing career. I alwyas think of her in "Center Stage" where she showed a wicked sense of humor in her characterization.

I would say that Cousins was the better competitor, and from all accounts, much easier to get along with, but for me, Curry was the greatest skater I've ever see. But like with greatest dancers, I don't expect this opinion to be universal, since Curry was best at the things I value, and the things I value and the relative weight between them that I assign are hardly universal. Also, Fassi "finished" Curry in the last couple of years of his skating, much like Tarasova did Yagudin and Kulik, who were formed by Mishin and Kudriatsev, respectively, whereas he was much more influential in "making" Cousins. I've seen this distinction influence the comments of a number of coaches. Fassi might have been dead on, but that reflects his values. Luckily for me, Curry followed his own drummer. Regarding the value of school figures from a coaching standpoint, there are many points of view among coaches, and the things that have been rewarded in the triple/quad era are not the things that school figures teach. Why waste time on them, when many parents, who are forking over big bucks to coaches, want to see jump progress, and jump progress soon? The money in coaching is tied to producing successful skaters. Although figures teach blade control, there is a maximum speed that doesn't translate into the things that are rewarded, including, directly speed and power. The Soviet Pairs skaters, who were trained to an extent in figures, learned their beautiful, efficient stroking through practicing stroking for a minimum of 30 minutes a day.

There are many distinguished coaches, too, who did not want school figures to be part of the competition because they felt the schools weren't judged, just used to pre-determine the winners. In 1956, for example, school figures counted for 60% of the mark, while the Long Program 40%, and the actual scores were used, as opposed to the ordinals that were used later, and dropping high and low score and trimming used under the New Judging Systems. It was nearly impossible to dig out of the hole of a school figures shortfall. In the Olympic cycle 1973-6 in which they competed against each other, Cousins did not come close to matching Curry's record in head-to-head international competition. (RC: 15, 11, 11, 6 at Europeans, 10, 9 at Worlds, 10 at Olympics vs. JC: 4, 3, 2, 1 at Europeans, 2, 1 at Worlds, 1 at Olympics). The usual reason Cousins is cited as a rival to Curry at all is that at one British Championship, Curry had a horrible competition, and many observers felt that Cousins should have beat him with what was considered an excellent program, but not excellent enough to dump a European and World medalist. (Cousins would have needed a quad in combination for that, probably.) Curry slowed his skating in his professional programs, partly because of size of the ice surfaces, but mostly because of his interest in the type of blade control needed for school figures and his insistence that skaters in his company be able to work in both directions, including in spins, and he choreographed for both sides to be performed at the same speed, which limited the speed to the weaker side. Although his flow, like many other skaters who don't use a lot of cross-overs, is often obscured by the camera, he is flying in the straight-line footwork in his 1976 Olympic Short Program: Curry, SP & LP Compare that to Cousins in his Olympic Short Program, where he does a number of small, quick steps, but the speed across the ice isn't that fast: Cousins, SP (I love the double-triple combination.) Cousins' footwork in his long program (see 1'30") wasn't that fast or particularly musical; Curry had one fast pass and a couple of slower ones, although right on the music. There are a number of arguments for why men in the six triples/quad era, who need a lot of speed into the tougher triples, triple triple combinations, and quads have to give up the complexity of steps and increase the number of cross-overs, but Curry and Cousins had similar jump content in their long programs, both landing 3 triples in their Olympic Long Programs four years apart. (Cousins attempted four and failed on the most difficult, the triple loop, which Curry landed. He had a gorgeous delayed axel to double axel combination to open, though.) While Cousins had a lot of great qualities, including very high jumps, and he became a much more expressive skater as a professional, I don't think that at their amateur peaks, he was close to Curry in transitional steps, consistent run-out from jumps (although he often had fantastic flow out of the axels), consistent finish, posture, musical interpretation, variety of steps and spin positions, or body control, particularly in his upper body. Any top skater can trade these qualities for more speed. Their Olympic Long Programs (starting around 3'28" in the Curry file) show this contrast quite markedly.

It is always the case that when the number of people leaving > announced cut number, the difference is the number of voluntary resignations. The artistic loss to the public is the same. Just to clarify, which we do from time-to-time when the subject is raised, we don't have a gossip policy. We have a news policy. When news is available from an official source, it is welcome on Ballet Talk. There are exceptions for Editorial Advisors, Foreign Correspondents, and Alexandra (which do not apply to Moderators, Board Moderators, or other Administrators, BTW) whose sources are official, but unpublished. The details are in our policy threads in the "About This Site" forum. We are neutral on the veracity of unofficial sources, since they have no place here. If a party wants his or her information published or announced in public, he or she will arrange it; anyone can self-publish on the web.

Andrew Adler paid tribute to Prokovsky and his connection to Louisville Ballet: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/200...0303/1011/SCENE

According to this article, the following dancers will be joining Joffrey Ballet: Miguel Blanco (formerly Ballet Nacional de Cuba) Yumelia Garcia (National Ballet of Caracas/Milwaukee Ballet) Dylan Gutierrez (San Francisco Ballet) Jaime Hickey (ABT II) Amber Neumann (Silver medal winner, NYIBC) Ricardo Santos de Paula (Bronze medal and Gerald Arpino award, NYIBC) Tanner Schwartz (Royal Danish Ballet apprentice) Jenny Winton (San Francisco Ballet) Kara Zimmerman (Cincinnati Ballet)

Kara Zimmerman, formerly at PNB, will join Joffrey Ballet. http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconn...Weiss31.article

Houston Ballet seemed to have a slew of very tall thin men throughout the ranks.

I wonder if Adomaitis is still in the school. She's not listed in the graduation program as having joined a company, and she was incredibly busy this spring, one of the PD students doing double-duty in First and Third Movements of "Symphony in C", and in "Swan Lake" in the regular season and the Louise Nadeau Tribute, and also in "Serenade" first half first movement in the Tribute. She was also in Sonia Dawkins' "where ART thou?", Olivier Wevers' "The one dance about that one thing #2", and Kiyon Gaines' "[NO HOLDS]^barre'd" in the Choreography Workshop.

A follow-up article shows that Burfield was offered a place in the Professional Division, where he will be training as a sub for the three big productions that use PD students: "Coppelia", "Sleeping Beauty", and "Nutcracker". He turned down an apprenticeship with North Carolina Dance Theatre and a place at SAB for the following year. His teacher in Lubbock, Yvonne Key, was quoted as follows: http://lubbockonline.com/stories/083009/fea_487761879.shtml There is only one apprentice, Ezra Thompson, this year so far, and with the departure of Kari Brunson, who presumably was at the higher salary scale for corps since she has been at PNB for seven or nine years, depending on the article cited, there may be room for another apprentice or corps member.

In today's Links there is a mini-interview with Baryshnikov by Barbara Isenberg in the LA Times blog spot, which says that Baryshnikov is "just 5-foot-7". http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...st&p=254495

I'd like to hazard a few guesses. First, while the ice surface is relatively small compared to an arena where most ice shows and competitions take place -- NHL to Olympic-sized rinks -- and although speed can't always be gauged accurately from film, Curry and Foulkes are skating relatively slowly. They are not powering across the ice. They can cover most of the ice surface off of very little preparation -- in ice skating terms, usually cross-overs -- not only because of the size of the surface, but because of the efficiency that they get from their blades, which allows them to sustain the glide. They skate on the "sweet spot" of the blade. Often their speed is not that much faster than the speed that was used for school figures, which are pre-set patterns of loops and circles that test the skater's accuracy in creating an even pattern using both feet and both edges of the blade, turning in both directions, and shifting from one edge to another, and then trying to repeat the tracing on the ice. School figures are a sub-specialty now, and were dropped from major international and national championships beginning in the early 90's, but they required unbelievable body and edge control and mastery on both feet, both edges of each blade, and both directions, as well as the ability to maintain flow off of single pushes. Many top-level skaters today would wobble or tilt over attempting what Curry and Foulkes did; to maintain a very constant speed requires mastery of the blade. Second, the patterns that they skated were based on the fundamental patterns of school figures. There are a lot of big circles and loops, and neither Curry nor Foulkes cut corners, literally. Like the great classical ballets that were made from academic steps, this piece is based in the simplest movements and patterns, woven together in choreography. Lastly, within the limitations of skating -- the enforced right angle of the "standing" foot in the leather boot, the maximum amount of toe point possible in a skate boot, the sheer weight of the boot and the blade, and the blade which restricts alignment and posture forwards and backwards -- their lines are exquisite.