Helene

I think Nagy is more handsome now than he was when he danced in the 70's.

Or they want to share the experience with someone of a younger generation. The first Broadway show I went to was Fiddler on the Roof, in the original production (but not the original cast). I was thrilled to see that there was a revival with Molina, so that my (much) younger cousins could see it. (Not that it had to be on Broadway, but it was important to be prominently available.)Although I don't know if today's 17-year-old would have seen the same thing in Pippin that I did at that age A lot of the classic musicals are our a key part of American musical legacy, and are great vehicles for today's actors. I think there's something great about passing them down.

From PNB: PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET ON TOUR Performances at Vail International Dance Festival, Bumbershoot and Fall for Dance in 2007 Ballet Across America Festival at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in 2008 SEATTLE, WA — Pacific Northwest Ballet hits the road for special appearances at dance festivals and events nationwide. First stop is the 2007 Vail International Dance Festival, July 29–August 1, 2007, in Vail, Colorado, where PNB will present three mixed-repertory programs: American Dance Spectacular, A Tribute to Balanchine and Modern Masters. The Company returns to Seattle for a performance at the music and arts extravaganza Bumbershoot, September 3, and then heads to California for a two-day performance at the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s inaugural 2007 Fall for Dance festival, October 11-12, 2007. Plus, mark your calendars for next year! PNB performs in the 2008 Ballet Across America Festival at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., June 12 and 14, 2008. MORE ABOUT PNB's TOUR PERFORMANCES 2007 VAIL INTERNATIONAL DANCE FESTIVAL - July 29 - August 1, 2007 PNB will participate in the 2007 Vail International Dance Festival, July 29 - August 1, at the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheatre and the Vilar Center for the Arts. A project of the Vail Valley Foundation, the annual dance event in Vail, Colorado, has hosted prestigious dance companies from around the world since its inception in 1989. PNB will present three one-showing-only programs at the festival, which also includes performances through August 11 by international artists such as The Royal Ballet’s Johan Kobborg, New York City Ballet’s Wendy Whelan, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Alicia J. Graf; plus performances by New York City hip-hop groups, performing artists from the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, an evening with tap virtuoso Savion Glover and the inaugural performance of Christopher Wheeldon’s new company, Morphoses. American Dance Spectacular, July 29 at 7:30 p.m., features George Balanchine's Square Dance, Jerome Robbins's In the Night and Twyla Tharp's Nine Sinatra Songs. The following day, July 30, 7:30 p.m. the Company presents A Tribute to Balanchine, featuring Balanchine's Square Dance, Agon and Rubies. On August 1, 7:30 p.m., PNB performs Modern Masters, a program featuring Tharp's Nine Sinatra Songs, Nacho Duato's Jardi Tancat, Marco Goecke's Mopey and William Forsythe's In the middle, somewhat elevated. Pacific Northwest Ballet’s appearance at Vail International Dance Festival is generously underwritten by James and Sherry Raisbeck. TICKETS are available online at www.vvf.org or by phone at 970-845-TIXS(8497) or 1-888-920-ARTS(2787). More information on the festival can be found online at www.vaildance.org 2007 BUMBERSHOOT®: SEATTLE'S MUSIC & ARTS FESTIVAL - September 3, 2007 “The wait to get into Pacific Northwest Ballet’s performance at Bagley Wright was reminiscent of those never-ending E-ticket lines at Disneyland. Almost 900 people made it inside, but nearly 300 more were turned away.” – Patrick MacDonald, Seattle Times PNB returns to Bumbershoot, Seattle’s Music and Arts Festival, after the company’s capacity performances at last year’s event. Again, PNB presents one performance only, on September 3 at the Bagley Wright Theatre. Works scheduled to be performed include Duato’s Jardi Tancat, Goecke’s Mopey and the PNB premiere of Ulysses Dove’s Vespers. TICKETS: Three-day passes are now available at bumbershoot.org for $75 thru Friday, August 17 and $95 thereafter. $30 date-specific tickets will be on sale Friday, July 13 thru August 17 and $35 thereafter. Please note that date-specific tickets will be made available after the Festival schedule is published. For more information about Bumbershoot, Seattle’s Music & Arts Festival, visit www.bumbershoot.org. THE CENTER'S FALL FOR DANCE - October 11 & 12, 2007 PNB will also participate in Orange County Performing Arts Center's inaugural Fall for Dance festival in Costa Mesa, California. The Company will dance two performances of Duato's Jardi Tancat on October 11 and 12. Other companies scheduled to perform during The Center's Fall for Dance, October 11-14, include: Srishti - Nina Rajarani Dance Creations, Susan Marshall & Company, Boston Ballet, Via Katlehong Dance, Charles Moulton / The Ball Passing Project, Dutch National Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company, Alonso King's LINES Ballet and Rennie Harris Puremovement. TICKETS go on sale in August. Visit www.ocpac.org for further Fall for Dance and ticket information. 2008 BALLET ACROSS AMERICA FESTIVAL - June 12 & 14, 2008 PNB is honored to participate in the 2008 Ballet Across America Festival in Washington D.C., an event that brings together nine dance companies from around the country for three mixed-repertory programs. Held at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, PNB will present three performances of Duato's Jardi Tancat – - one performance on June 12 and two on June 14, 2008. Other companies participating in the festival include Pennsylvania Ballet, The Washington Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Kansas City Ballet, Boston Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Houston Ballet and Ballet West. TICKETS go on sale April 11, 2008. Visit www.kennedy-center.org for further Festival and ticket information.

From the PNB Press Release: A "Heads Up" with more info about Wheeldon's Morphoses performances at Vail can be found here: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...599&hl=vail

From the PNB press release:

From the PNB press release,

I love Rosen's recording.

As long as "real" reviewers -- i.e., those paid by print publications -- continue to have this attitude, it is unlikely that the Internet will make up the deficit, at least with "real" reviewers. Ironically, given the small number of print publication jobs, those who still have them become an even smaller elite, at least in their own minds. I guess no one has ever read Tobi Tobias's blog, for example. And I rarely read any reviews in print; 99.9% of what I read in print publications is online.

I just received an email from National Ballet of Canada with a link to a page with video montage of the company in class and in rehearsal called "National Ballet at Work." http://national.ballet.ca/education-seasonsFilm.aspx There are a few seconds dedicated to each dancer, with name, rank, and home town identifying each dancer. The music was about as bad as the hold music at the Virginia Mason Travel Clinic, and the video was better the second time around with mute on.

If you follow the "Advanced Usage Help" link, you will see that this is the last option.

Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux gave Hipolito a more prominent role; I wish I had been able to be there. Thank you so much, doug, for the explanation of Level VIII leading into Professional Division (hugh sigh of relief), and for identifying Joanna Curley. North Caroline Dance Theatre is lucky to have her next year.

I saw the Choreographers' Showcase, but, alas, not the school performances in the afternoon. I'm so sorry I missed Eric Hipolito in Swan Lake; I thought he was a standout earlier in the season as one of the students who danced with the Company. He and Andrew Bartee are listed as Level VIII Men, not in the Professional Division. I could have this wrong, but I thought that the numbered levels were on a parallel, non-professional track after a certain age, and VIII is the highest numbered division. Hipolito is such a lovely dancer, and it would be a shame if this means he will not be dancing professionally. I haven't seen all of the student performances since 1995, but of the ones I've seen, I've been waiting for new choregoraphy that puts the PD students on the map since Carrie Imler looked like a star in whatever she danced in that 1995 performance. I thought that happened three times in this workshop: for Leah O'Connor, in the second part pas de deux in Kiyon Gaines's Infinite Intricacies, for Liora Reshef and Andrew Bartee in Olivier Wevers's Liora and Andrew, and for whoever the dancer was in the peacock blue unintard in Melissa Barak's Of the Name They Do Not Speak. While there was a Latin beat to Infinite Intricacies, it was quite a different piece than last year's Schwa, which was performed at the Celebrate Seattle Festival this April, with its large corps. I was disappointed because I believe that in Schwa, Gaines showed great promise in using a corps, something I rarely see attempted by current ballet choreographers, but there are only 22 dancers listed in the Professional Division, and they were pretty busy. (Barak's piece used 14 of them.) The work did show another side of Gaines's skill in creating a pas de deux (for O'Connor and Mark Wax), as well as sequential solos in a later movement. It also had the only balanced larger cast, with four men and four women. Liora and Andrew was a true gift to Reshef and Bartee. Bartee had performed in Sonia Dawkins's Cu Ture in the first half and after this pas de deux in Infinite Intricacies, and in neither was he half the performer he was in Liora and Andrew. I don't know whether he was channeling his inner Wevers or Wevers brought out his inner Bartee, but he was riveting in this piece. Reshef is a terrific dancer and like O'Connor in Infinite Intracies is compelling to watch. I think they will make their impact immediately in the PNB corps. Of the Name They Do Not Speak opened with a female corps in ink blue unitards with some sparkles to music by Vivaldi. I thought it started out a bit slow, but picked up, when the "leader" in peacock blue -- a bit of a Myrtha type -- arrived, followed by a trio of male victims, each of whom took his chance sequentially. There was something tribal about the piece, particularly as the music transitioned to Hollywood composer Danny Elfman, not one of my favorites, but effective here. It was The Cage crossed with a group of anti-Romantic Willis. I didn't get the impression that the female lead had the most technically demanding role of the night, but it required a lot of presence and authority that the unidentified dancer -- all the of the women were listed in alphabetical order -- clearly had. It took me a few minutes to get the drift of Mad Maidens, which proved to be a study in female competitiveness, as the three girls in blue/green took on the three girls in red/pink. I don't know who many of the students are -- changing their hair around in each piece didn't help -- but the shorter, long dark-haired dancer in the jade green skirt was a standout. Likewise, in Cu Ture, there was a terrific dancer, the shortest woman with red hair. The school is turning out some terrific, shorter women who are fascinating to watch. I didn't particularly like the movement vocabulary, but there was something satisfying about the architecture of the piece. According to the program, this "will be performed in the "Dance This" performance, July 6 & 7, 2007 at the Moore Theatre." I liked the electric violin placyed by Earl Maneein for Cu Ture (Ray F. Allan aka fierlion) and the music for Infinite Intricacies (Ethel Quartet and Real Quiet), but I tend to like gnarly 20th century classical music which, to paraphrase Rabelais, cleans out your gut with a bristle brush. I know that Peter Boal has said that the reason the Showcase was done this year on the Professional Division students was because of the extra heavy schedule for PNB this year, with all of the new work in the Celebrate Seattle Festival, but I hope PNB gives it at least another year in this format. In the curernt climate, it won't be often that these young dancers will have works set on them, but they really deserve to have pieces that bring out their best qualities.

Thank you for the review, MJ. Unless a miracle happens, the closest to Seattle the company will get is Berkeley in February 2008. There's an opening night triple bill (Chaconne, a Possokhov to traditional Georgian music, and an American premiere of a Ratmansky ballet) following by three performances of Giselle. As it happens, San Francisco Ballet will be performing Giselle as well that weekend. It will be an interesting contrast. And Jordi Savall is also in Berkeley Saturday night, for a full weekend.

canbelto, isn't that a question that should go to the moderators, not be posted to the board? If anyone has a problem with a post, the correct action is to click the "report" button associated with the post, and the moderators will review it. There's a solid audit trail for Vishneva having been scheduled in two places at the same time, as Cygnet reports, and the Ondine performances were discussed here: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...st&p=179265

Searches for less than three characters can return thousands of hits and can use system resources too heavily, since most of the words are common, like "of" and "to," and "in" that appear in almost every post. Like most resource considerations, it is a trade-off. There is a thread in this forum called Help and Search. While the instructions were written on the last version of the software, they should be helpful. The "Advanced Search Help" link will show options for specifying the search criteria.

Hnh? Ferri is 44; Bolle 32. I am arithmetically challenged here. When Bolle danced in the recent Aida that Alagna quit, there were reviews that made it sound like Bolle is in his mid 20's. I don't know his career, and I was surprised to read in one of the recent Links articles that he is 32.

I remember that she wrote that she told Balanchine she'd love to do the whole ballet, and got the Wall of Balanchine treatment. I would have loved to have seen a Weese Diamonds. (And if we're lucky, we may yet see it in Seattle, when Boal revives Jewels after next season.)

Murphy was actually cast, plausibly enough, as a ballet teacher in "Center Stage." Well, until that scene from a made-for-TV-movie in which her character counsels Eva that it all starts at the barre. Definitely would have been one of my edits.

Wow, so much cynicism about a dancer who is not known for cancelling performances

Of all the threads I didn't sign up for notification on -- I missed that Estelle has become a mother Welcome Mlle Bruhat-Souche! May you bring happiness and joy to your parents. And like Aurora, we hope you will join us in 16 years, and we look forward to your first post.

I'm usually not tearful at the ballet, but this past weekend in Seattle has been a very emotional one. Patricia Barker's farewell program was planned months in advance and was highly publicized after she announced her impending retirement last year, but according to Peter Boal, Christophe Maraval announced his in April. Boal created a short ballet for him and his long-time partner, Louise Nadeau, but his final role in the regular season was to be in the central pas de deux of Symphony in Three Movements, with Miranda Weese. Sadly, Weese had a calf injury (per Boal), and rather than start over with a new partner, Maraval chose to end the season in Boal's ballet. It was already a highly charged night, as Jonathan Porretta danced an even more intense State of Darkness. After the last intermissions, Maraval and Nadeau danced Boal's Adieu, which was a lovely portrait of both dancers and a fitting tribute to them. Maraval was moved by the ovation, and when the curtain came down, there was a giant cheer from backstage. The next night, Barker bid her goodbye in a program she selected, and Maraval was her partner in the second work, the first Pas de Deux from A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was so fitting to see Maraval in a Conrad Ludlow role, as a partner of the highest caliber, putting the irreplaceable Barker in the spotlight. That was a cause for tears.

We'd need some sponsors. In the program booklet for Patricia Barker's farewell performance last night, there are a number of pictures of Barker in real life. In a full-page photograph on page 13, she is surfing on a board while being pulled by a boat. In a photo montage on page 25, she is standing on a ski slope, fully equipped to take on the mountain, and in one of the best shots of all she en pointe on a putting green in a 100 or so degree arabesque "balanced" on a putting iron. Perhaps Jobe, Rossignol, and Titleist would be interested?

Last night at the Patricia Barker farewell performance in Seattle, Francia Russell spoke. During her speech, she quoted Danilova, who told her (and I hope I'm not botching this too badly): "I gave my life to dance [art?] and it repaid me a hundred times over."

This DVD is available through the "Ballet Talk Amazon Mini-Store" (link under logo), along with the following releases: June 12: The Bolt, Ratmansky (Shostakovich), Yatsenko, Merkuriev, Savin July 10: Die Kameliendame, Neumeier (Chopin), Haydee, Liska July 31: Ivan the Terrible, Grigorovich (Prokofiev), Vladimirov, Bessmertnova, Akimov

Saturday, June 9 Pina Bausch has been awarded a Kyoto Prize. Roslyn Sulcas reviews Noche Flamenca for the New York Times. Flamenco is a soloist’s art, an expression of emotion and individuality that is ideally performed in the casual surroundings of cafes and noisy bars. But it’s also an ever more popular theatrical form, and flamenco artists have to battle with the conundrum of choreographing spontaneity and reliably evoking the heat and passion that audiences love. Noche Flamenca, which returned to Theater 80 in the East Village last week for its summer season, does a pretty good job of all this even if its new program, “Aldaba,” is heavily weighted toward the rawly emotional side of flamenco, with mixed results. Choreographed by the artistic director, Martín Santangelo, and the company, it’s a smoothly constructed and pleasurable evening of impassioned, keening song; welling guitars; and the intricate tattoos of footwork and sinuous lines fashioned by the dancers.