Helene

Ballet San Jose presents... THE FIREBIRD Maria Jacobs is the title character in Dennis Nahat's THE FIREBIRD THE FIREBIRD May 1-4, 2008 Choreography: Dennis Nahat Music: The Firebird Composer: Igor Stravinsky Scenery and Costumes: Ian Falconer Lighting: Kenneth Keith Danced to a groundbreaking score by Igor Stravinsky, this Russian fairy tale tells of a prince who captures the mysterious Firebird. To gain her release, the Firebird gives the prince a feather, with the promise of her magic intercession if he should ever need it. Little does he realize how soon he will have to call on her, and how many people she will be asked to save from the monstrous ruler of the enchanted forest, The Immortal Kastchei. When Dennis Nahat’s version of the classic story had its world premiere in October, 2005 it won rave reviews and audience acclaim. With three-dimensional scenery and dynamic costumes by Ian Falconer that range from the beautiful to the ghoulish, this FIREBIRD will wow adults and children alike with its passion, its drama and its magic. Presented with: MENDELSSOHN SYMPHONY Choreography: Dennis Nahat Music: Symphony #4 in A Major, Opus 90 Composer: Felix Mendelssohn Set to Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4, “The Italian”, Nahat creates a memorable work (first performed by American Ballet Theatre in 1971) by showcasing his signature style of varied tempos and rhythms. An abstract, joyful ballet undertaken in the classical style, the piece progresses through four movements that culminate in a lively saltarello. DATES/TIMES Thursday, May 1 at 8:00pm Friday, May 2 at 8:00pm Saturday, May 3 at 1:30pm (children’s 1-hour matinee) and 8:00pm Sunday, May 4 at 1:30pm (full-length matinee) LOCATION: San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, 255 Almaden Boulevard in downtown San Jose BOX OFFICE: 408.288.2800 40 North First Street in downtown San Jose Buy online at www.balletsanjose.org Group Sales: 408.288.2820 x 204 PRICES: $25-$82 (discounts for students, seniors and groups) NOTE: Pricing for the Children’s Matinee on Saturday, May 3rd is reduced. Tickets: $16-$47

This is a wonderful, short pas de deux that Balanchine choroegraphed for Edward Villella and Patricia McBride. It's joyous and the score is a lot of fun.

Somogyi also danced Marie as a child.

I will be tempted by the amazon Kindle, once there's some history on the battery. (I had such bad luck with iPods with hard drives that I never got to the point where the battery died, but I'm sure a battery issue with my beloved Nano is in my future.) And probably a redesign or two. The specs say it weighs 10.3 ounces. All I need is one of those hook-ups like in eye doctors' offices -- the rod that flies directly overhead to drop down the little eye chart for the test where you tell the doc when the two dots align. Hang a Kindle from there, and it's hands-free until pressing a button to "turn" a page. In the future, selectronic readers could cut down library costs considerably: the books can be downloaded to an electronic device. Cataloguing can be done electronically. Limited-use licenses can go through the library; no need to stock mega amounts of copies for best sellers, and the license can expire automatically at the end of the borrowing period. (No need to collect fines or process them.) Once a book usage has settled, then physical copies can be purchases in reasonable quantities, if wanted. More opportunities for learning, especially ESL programs, and text books can be updated automatically, instead of waiting for supplements or new print editions. Rare books could be photoed/scanned and could be perused without human hands touching the delicate paper. I would not be surprised if the turning point will come when Boomers are no longer physically comfortable holding books. Highlight book excerpts, and instant term paper and thesis notes and outlines, with the bibliography and citations pre-formatted in a chosen format. Suspect plaguarism? Do an instant electronic search on the excerpt. Reading and want to cross-reference or fact-check? Online through the EVDO connection. (My Internet connectivity is through EDVO, and I can use it anywhere I can get Spring cell-phone coverage.) I would love to be able to purchase and download a book file -- or delete! -- and buy the print version if I loved the book and wanted a physical copy. (That would probably be print on demand.) The environmental savings could be staggering, between trees and the amount of oil needed to transport physical books.

I saw this cast, which volcanohunter found in its cached version: Wednesday matinee: Conductor: Martin West Drosselmeyer: Damian Smith Queen and King of the Snow: Yuan Yuan Tan, Pierre-François Vilanoba Sugar Plum Fairy: Vanessa Zahorian Grand Pas de Deux: Maria Kochetkova, Davit Karapetyan I saw Karapetyan in a program last year -- maybe Firebird? -- and I remember thinking that he was brittle, but I thought he was anything but in the Grand Pas de Deux. He danced with such ease. I actually thought that the adults' dances were pretty insanely paced as well. I was a bit worried that a combination of the dry ice/smoke from Drosselmeyer's entrance and the snow would be tricky, but the dancers seemed to have no trouble with the blizzard. I am so sorry you encounted transmission problems, volcanohunter I didn't get up to Vancouver until Friday, but I don't remember hearing any radio or print advertising for the broadcast in the Seattle area before then, even though it was playing in Monroe. (Though for many in Seattle, Monroe might as well been San Francisco. ) I found out about it here. I would have gone to NBoC's broadcast, had I not seen this thread. The SFB website didn't have anything about it on their home page or their Nutcracker page, although they did have an announcement on the home page that they are hiring a principal dancer.

I was at one of two theaters in which it played in Vancouver. (It started at 1pm here, but it wasn't live; the live NBoC performance started at 11.) I don't know what the crowds were like at the Ridge, but in downtown on Granville, I don't think there were many more than 30 people, including a family of obnoxious children. The kids did, though, show exactly where in Act II they'd had enough: talking at conversational volume intermittently during the Waltz of the Flowers, and then incessantly during the Grand Pas de Deux. During many dozens of performances of NYCB's "Nutcracker," I found that the GPdD seems to be the near universal breaking point for the attention span of all but the most rapt children. Apart from some intro credits, including the sponsors, that played over the Sugar Plum Fairy solo, there were no credits during the actual performance. There were credits at the end that went by so fast they were nearly impossible to read, and the performers weren't listed in the printed program. I caught Sarah van Patten listed as Genie, but no other dancers that weren't on the website cast list. It was very frustrating, especially since Tea danced so beautifully. Who was he???? I really like the dramatic structure and the consistent theatrical conceit of smaller things going into boxes and come out bigger. This started during the overture, after a series of photos of San Francisco circa 1915, with a final shot of Drosselmeyer's Clock Shop, in which the first live scene takes place. Drosselmeyer puts the Nutcracker into its special box, and hides it behind the counter as a young girl and her mother come to choose a gift. After rejecting toys, the young girl is delighted by a clock. When the customers leave, Drosselmeyer dons an alchmist's robe and his cape, and heads off with the nutcracker to the Stalhbaums' party. The first scene after the overture takes place in front of a block of rowhouses, one which is the Stahlbaums'. A young woman avoids a policeman as she sells bouquets. A butcher comes by, asking for directions to make a delivery, a nurse pushes a baby carriage. Drosselmeyer buys a bouquet from the flower seller and gives it to the nurse, before going to the Stahlbaums; he's let in by a servant. Two nuns pass. The butcher comes back with an empty delivery crate. The young girl, whose mother bought the clock begs for a bouquet, and her mother obliges her. A women taking fast tiny steps on huge heels buzzes by, followed by a man laden with her packages. The scene drop and stairs are flown out to show the Stahlbaums house, complete with a large sweeping staircase stage left. I found the scene immensely charming and brilliant in setting a time and place. There were a number of magic tricks -- a blooming scarf, a flying cane -- performed for the children, but this extended to the boxes from which the various dolls emerged, to the young Marie transforming into an adult Clara. Drosselmeyer, played by Damian Smith, was a benevelent soul, with a touch of Rob Besserer's own odd magic. He was not one to incite the boys to attack the girls. (The music in which the girls lull their dolls to sleep to have the loud boys disrupt them was not repeated. Yay.) The dream sequence was done beautifully: elements of the party scene -- the weird, gumby like harlequin, the stilted ballerina doll -- were introduced, Drosselmeyer came up through a trap door in a giant cloud of dry ice, and having super-large presents under the huge tree to Clara's delight, before the dream turned scary, was a logical progression of simple manifest content that turned threatening. Clara was a clever girl, organizing her friends to capture the Mouse King in a giant mousetrap. (This was engineered seamlessly into the Prince's mime in Act II.) The adult Nutcracker, having been saved by Clara (with a little help from Drosselmeyer), transforms into the Prince. He dances for her in his gratitude, but I found it odd dramatically that he treats her, a young teenager, as a romantic partner, including in some lifts. (When he then follows the Sugar Plum Fairy into the wings, it almost seems like he's cheating on her already.) The second act was a continuation of the dream, with Drosselmeyer by Clara's side throughout the act. It was a lovely re-transformation to have her appear on the small sofa on which she first fell asleep during the coda. Tomasson sets a beautiful scene, but, overall, the dancing, especially the group dancing and that for children, is another story. Tomasson can fit steps into musical sequences, but often they don't tie together or breathe. (He's better in solos and small ensembles.) The dancers looks frantic in the first act dances, although it was a nice touch to have the grandparents take the first verse of the group dance. The Dance of the Snowflakes, with the Snow King and Queen, neither flowed nor built around the corps. The setting for Act II was very bare; as a result, the relatively small group of children who played butterflies and bugs in the opening of Act II looked lost on the big stage. Also because they weren't large in number, there was no architectural gravitas, and on film, it looked sloppy. In this Production, they complement the Flowers, who appear to be ladies in waiting to the Sugar Plum Fairy, like in A Midsummer Night's Dream; none of the other Act II dancers watch the Prince's mime or are introduced to Clara and the Prince. Indeed, as we find out in Waltz of the Flowers, the Sugar Plum Fairy leads the dance. The choreography picked up with some the national dances. Tomasson has given some beautiful, open choroegraphy for the men, from the Nutcracker/Prince -- although I would have preferred the dancing cut from the Prince's mime, and the camera to have stayed on him, instead of cutting out at any time -- to the lovely Tea, who was accompanied by a fiery red dragon (it looked like and adult and then a trail of children), to the Trepak dancers who burst out of Faberge eggs, to the final Pas de Deux. The Arabian had a good premise: two men carry in a magic lamp, and after they dance and rub the lamp, a female genie appears, but it didn't quite sustain itself. The Polichelles, usually the best dance for children, featured them at the very beginning, and then turned static as they were upstaged, not by Mother Ginger, but by a slow-dancing bear that emerged from her skirts. The ribbon toting Marzipan tarts, complete with garters, were happily cast with three juicy dancers, none of whose names I could catch in the credits. The ribbons, like the ones used by rhythmic gymnastics, may have been a gimmick, but they were a visual delight and very musical. The middle section, in which Clara holds the ribbons while they dance plain, was not as inspired, but the dancers were inspiring. The young Clara steps into a giant box and emerges as the adult Clara, to dance the Grand Pas de Deux with the Nutcracker Prince. I had never seen Maria Kochetkova before. She's a small dancer: she didn't look much bigger than the young Clara. But she danced with the authority of a tall woman. I particularly liked the way she carried her neck and shoulders in the adagio and her lovely arms. I didn't watch her upper body as much in her solo and the allegro: I was too mesmerized by her singing feet. She's a lovely dancer, one I hope to see live. Except for the flowers, whose petals seemed a bit like layers of feathered peplum, Martin Pakledinaz's costumes were a knockout. They alone would have been worth the price of the ticket, movie or theater. Overall, I would have been disappointed, though, had I travelled to see the production. The movie was just fine.

Thank you, volcanohunter. I'm a bit disappointed, but actually not surprised, because Tan is known from the Othello DVD. I would have preferred either of the evening casts or tomorrow's actual matinee cast. But none of the other dancers are listed, and hopefully some of them will find their way into the other roles.

dirac posted an article in Links today about the filming of San Francisco Ballet's "The Nutcracker." Not only were there two performances Wednesday and today, the cast lists are already expunged from the SFB website cast list. Drat.

Just to clarify, I meant precious to the recipient, since they were the only means for many, many years to hear from people and get news. While I'm sure people said, oh, yeah, he's just complaining about his gout again, a letter was something tangible to hold from a loved one, regardless of content.

A belated welcome to Ballet Talk, jbk. We hope you'll post whenever you attend performances. And thank you for your review, sz!

I agree with this, mom2. I think there are a number of factors, but mostly that the literate world in general is going back to an emphasis on visual and oral skills, and much less so on written skills, as cheaper and cheaper technology overcomes time and distance. Writing is for those who provide information. When the only way to communicate across long distances was through letters, or the only way to communicate officially with the govenment or business was through written correspondence, there was an emphasis on writing. Letters to the editor were vetted and edited. Letters take writing skill and organization, and the were precious: they took days or weeks to deliver. Who needs to write letters any more? Almost every government or business has an online form to fill out: check here, check there, click on a picture to select, fill in these fields, you're done. Have an opinion? Go onto the newspaper or magazine's online site and type away, without editing and with little censorship. Ad hominem attack all the way! All comers are equal. Email, in which brief sentences can be passed back and forth at little cost and no latency, is coming down a notch, as people can teleconference through Skype and a camera. Why even both to write an email, when you can talk to the person, with full visuals? Or capture a little film and forward it to everyone as a holiday greeting; no need even for the family holiday newsletter or a holiday message written on the family MySpace. I don't think younger dancers write worse than their peers. Sometimes they write more awkwardly, perhaps because they are experts in expressing themselves through movement. Many experts feel self-conscious in expressing themselves in other ways, like non-native English speakers who apologize for their incredibly wonderful English because they are worried that it is not as fluent as their native language (and who put many of us native English speakers to shame.) Not to mention how many times they are told how dumb and/or uneducated they are, how passive they are to put up with all of those corrections, being pushed around by choreographers, having their careers at the mercy of artistic directors and politics, and being referred to as "boys" and "girls," and how the intelligent and articulate ones are the exceptions that prove the rule. I think it takes a lot of guts for dancers to write for the public. Even translating good verbals skills to paper can be intimidating. My dad was a blue-color worker whose biggest written demand was to fill out forms at work. His spoken English was great -- his elementary and junior high and high school teachers in the 30's and 40's whipped it into him relentlessly -- but if he had to write a letter, he looked at me helplessly. He couldn't write what he could so clearly articulate in speech. Many students today don't have what is now the luxury of his public school education, nor Mrs. Skewes, who taught my 8th grade English class, from which I still have the lash marks. We may be the final frontier: the only way we can communicate with each other is through writing, and with built-in latency (as well as "preview" and the "edit" button )

I thought that this broadcast was going to be live; from the Ridge Theatre website, However, the broadcast starts at 1pm Pacific Time, and the matinee in San Francisco is at 2pm, according to the SFB website. So the "captured" part is taped, and this Saturday matinee's superb cast is only one of several that might have been "captured" for broadcast. I'm pretty disapointed, since they just replaced the Grand Pas "TBA" and Katita Waldo is dancing. Also, you'd never know from the SFB website that these broadcasts are happening, not even in the "Recent News" section.

Good news for bookbuyers in Canada: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/a...71-5c01e2169a10 (Especially those in the market for books on ballet, which, with the possible exception of the Nureyev bio, never seem to make it to the "30% off all bestsellers" racks.)

Eric Dawson of the Ottawa Citizen weighs in on the screenings in his "Naughty & nice" column: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/a...71-5c01e2169a10 Wouldn't it be ironic if the older theaters that have been converted into movie houses were to become the epicenter of live performing arts via satellite?

I don't think we can expect dancers to write things that would sabotage their careers. However, there's a lot they can share that might make us think about cutting them a break, or perhaps being less sharp. I don't know any world-class athletes, but I do know I've taken special interest and have rooted for athletes based on newspaper articles and "up-close-and-personal" features on ABC Wide World of Sports or by reading about them in SAS magazine. A dancer who writes a blog or has a website may not be promoted because s/he's attracted a fan base, but I think it would be gratifying to know that the audience is seeking out the writer on stage and appreciating his/her gifts, especially corps members or dancers who join a company and are new for the audience.

dirac posted a link to the following article on the Clarke family, where four boys in the family have trained at Royal Ballet School, and where the oldest two are dancing with Ballet Arizona. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/rea...86908-20258866/ It really is an amazing family story, and Phoenix is lucky to have them. (I know, 'tis the season, but still ) I remember the first time I read that Ross Clarke was 24 years old, and I was astounded. He does not dance like a 24-year-old; he's mature beyond his years.

The almost complete casting has been posted to the SFB website: Nutcracker Matinee 12/22/2007,2pm Conductor: Robert Wood Drosselmeyer: Ricardo Bustamante Queen and King of the Snow: Julianne Kepley, Anthony Spaulding Sugar Plum Fairy: Sarah Van Patten Grand Pas de Deux: TBA I've never seen Kepley or Spaulding in solo roles (or at least that I can remember). A broacast (and, hopefully DVD) is quite a coup for this soloist/corps pair. I think it's going to be SFB at Empire Granville 7 Cinemas on Saturday (And for us West coasters, the performance starts at a more reasonable 1pm [vs. 11am]). ETA: I just bought a ticket online -- it was $22.15 (Canadian) with all fees for an adult ticket. (I've got my fingers crossed for Nedvigin in the Grand Pas de Deux.)

Actually, the Federal Government is garnishing my paycheck to support Suzanne Farrell Ballet (directly), just as every citizen of the other Washington has his/her paycheck garnished to support Pacific Northwest Ballet (and they without Federal representation.) We still do have the National Endowment of the Arts, however pitiful. I also believe that the Kennedy Center, the facility in which Suzanne Farrell Ballet performs, is maintained through the government, another form of subsidy. In addition, both companies are subsidized by foundations, whose endowment gains are not taxable as long as they follow the distribution guidelines, and corporations, for whom the donation (money or in-kind goods/services) is exempt from tax. They are also subsidized by individual tax-deductible donations, and even for those who do not itemize, a certain amount is built into the standard deduction. So every taxpayer in the US -- or who has US citizenship, lives outside the US, and whose foreign tax credit is not enough to avoid US tax -- is subsidizing both companies. The PNB venue, McCaw Hall, was built through similar subsidies, as well as state and local funding. Although San Francisco Ballet's version -- and SFB is subsidized the same ways as PNB and Suzanne Farrell Ballet -- will not be telecast in the Seattle area this year, it is likely that some cinema will be fitted with the correct equipment by next year, and the broadcast will conflict with one of PNB's performances. PNB, however, released a movie version of its Sendak "Nutcracker" in 1986, which I believe showed nationally during local "Nutcracker" season, so I guess we could call that even, although I think I was one of about 7 people outside Seattle who saw the film. PBS, the closest thing to CBC that we have in the US, which is partially funded by foundations, corporations, and individual members (same tax subsidies as above), also chooses what it will make available for the local affiliates to buy (or not) as part of their dance or "live from" series, and that is just as much "official" endorsement as NBoC is getting with their "Nutcracker." The film is the only way the company can fulfill its claim to be a National company, which is why I find some of the criticism ironic, and surely the cost of the broadcast, with re-broadcast rights and possible DVD sales is less than a national tour.* The Australian Ballet has similar issues, since it performs mainly in Melbourne and Sydney, and possible a program in Canberra and/or Brisbane. Paris Opera Ballet is subsidized federally, and it no longer tours in France. (A worldwide POB broadcast is one I'd love to see, but if the La Scala opera broadcasts succeed, the next step may be Roberto Bolle headlining La Scala Ballet.). I didn't realize that the Vancouver Sun, Toronto Star, and Globe and Mail for starters were owned and operated by the Canadian government. Each time I've visited Vancouver, I seemed to be able to tune into commercial stations, including our very own KING-FM. *Royal Winnipeg Ballet has a substative claim to "national" based on its touring schedule. Since the Goh Ballet will be in Whistler during the broadcast, and I can see no theaters in Whistler showing the NBoC film at the same time, and Moscow City Ballet doesn't perform in Vancouver until the following weekend (after Christmas), the direct impact of the screening would be with conflicts with local performances in Powell River, Sechelt, Salmon Arm, Yellowknife, and Jonquiere/Chicoutimi, according to the Cineplex listing, and anyone from Vancouver who was planning to visit Whister for the Goh Ballet who changed his/her mind because of the NBoC broadcast. Certainly, concerns about where Federal dollars goes is a major and serious concern. How does the treatment of the federal government of ballet in the West compare to government funding and federal media treatment of other services and agencies?

I'm sure there are a number of companies apart from NBoC that would be interested to know that Goh Ballet is the best ballet company on the planet, but it is not a professional company, if it cannot pay its dancers all of the time, not on some occasions. That is a bold statement, since the Gohs' daughter is a Principal Dancer at National Ballet of Canada, although I've never liked her dancing, whether for NBoC or for Suzanne Farrell Ballet. If there's a male dancer at Goh Ballet who comes close to Cote, I'd be very interested in seeing him: he's the next best kept secret in North America, after the men at Ballet Arizona. Fair enough, but that's very different from saying the none of the country's best dancers are dancing for or from them. Royal Winnipeg Ballet is taking the San Francisco Ballet route of branding themselves and trying to get validation for this opinion outside the US. I haven't seen RWB enough to know whether there's truth in advertising. National Ballet of Canada is in Toronto, the financial capital of Canada, where the majority of powerful and monied people are (except for the enclave in West Vancouver), and people with money get themselves brand new performing arts centers and great school facilities and a large paid professional company in their own back yard. (That's why there's a Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, which can afford to keep Suzanne Farrell Ballet in business and whose head negotiated long-term contracts with Russian companies to tour, when they rarely step foot out west.) Do people in Toronto pay any attention whatsoever to Vancouver or care what kind of ballet companies there are out West? Would Karen Kain be bothered to make a snarky remark about anyone dancing in Vancouver? Do they really think the Goh Academy is competition for National Ballet School? Are they losing students left and right to Goh Academy? They're in Toronto. Nureyev and Bruhn, by most standards among the handful of the greatest male dancers of the 20th century worked for their ballet company. They've got one of the most beautiful arts facilities in North America. They get a huge chunk of funding. They don't need to argue with anyone about primacy. I never really thought of Vancouver as the epitome of classicism, but I'll look again out from under my Tilley hat, after it stops raining

It's such a tribute to the school that there is a wonderful supply of dancers to take the place of those who leave.

One should keep ones knees together regardless of seat or location. It keeps one from spreading out into other people's space, like the guys on the subway, who take up three seats.

My bad, I missed that they included Ballet Jorgen. The Ballet Jorgen site says its the fifth largest ballet company in Canada, and with the exception of Ballet Jorgen, a national touring company, they list the major markets and companies in Canada: NBoC, Les Grands Ballet Canadiens, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and Alberta Ballet. They didn't list smaller companies in any of the major markets, and, for better or worse, Ballet BC is the primary company in the Vancouver area. The reason Moscow Classical Ballet is listed is because it is on Ballet BC's subscription program. Perhaps the question is why Goh Ballet isn't included on the Ballet BC subscription program, because if it had been, it would be on the NBoC site.

Not only appropriate, but much appreciated! It's great to see such a renowned ballerina take on this challenge, and to see ballet have an influence on figure skating. Yu-Na Kim is so talented, and if there's a Ladies skater who can translate Hart's lessons to the ice, I'm sure it is she.

This makes sense: it seems to me that San Francisco Ballet's strategy is to position itself as one of the world's best companies. To use a figure skating analogy, SFB can't win the national title, but it trying for respect from the international judging community, like Sasha Cohen when she competed against Michelle Kwan. If they can broadcast outside of the US and become the "Nutcracker" of choice, the company that people recognize, then they are one step closer to bypass the judgement of US critics.

I have no idea. I know when the Met started their broadcasts, I had to travel an hour south of Seattle, after which they added a theater on the East Side (closer, but I rarely go there on the weekends) and then, eventually downtown Seattle. It took a while for the negotiations to take place to expand the theater networks. This may be an experiment. I would think that since NBoC gets substantial public subsidies, but rarely ventures outside of Toronto, this is a cost-effective way to "share" the company without the cost of a major tour, and certainly without losing revenue during the lucrative "Nutcracker" season. I'm not sure what kind of deal SFB made. Sad that both are on the same day. I love Cote much more than I dislike Kudelka.