Helene

The exact quote from Alec Wilkinson's profile on Pete Seeger in the 17 April 2006 issue of The New Yorker is "Charles [seeger's father] liked Appalachian music--Seeger said that he may have inspired Copland to write "Appalachian Spring."

Perhaps, E95, you hadn't noticed that Ballet Talk is dedicated to classical ballet. Your preference may be to see Gergiev conduct opera and symphonic music, but no one on Ballet Talk needs to explain why his/her preference is ballet or why he or she is lucky to have the opportunity to see ballet performances in St. Petersburg.

I've never seen the Kirov Raymonda, and, unfortunately, it's not available on tape, so I couldn't compare what I saw to the Sergeyev version. The biographical info I found about Evreinoff on the web is a paragraph from a program called "Danza & Mare", According to the translation on Babelfish, Evreinoff studied at the Vaganova School and then performed in Prague and Oslo. I'm not sure if "artista ospite," which is translated as "artistic host" means she performed as a guest artist with National Ballet of Canada, but she was on the artistic staff there, and taught at School of American Ballet, for the Joffrey summer program, spent nearly a decade (80-89) as ballet master at ABT and National Ballet of Canada, taught in various capacities at Royal Ballet of England, Royal Danish Ballet, English National Ballet, and was affiliated with Dutch National Ballet. http://www.ilportaledelladanza.com/news/ht...=print&sid=1250 This is the third production she staged for Andersen and Ballet Arizona; she also staged the full-length Swan Lake a few years ago and Pacquita excerpts.

To go even farther afield, does anyone know if it is possible to get permissions to perform the Lacotte La Sylphide, and if so, would it be possible to perform excerpts? Watching it today, it occured to me that the Grand Pas de Trois (about 12 minutes) would make a great short ballet, as one of two short pieces as a third of a triple bill, and I may be in the very small minority here, but I prefer the first Dance of the Sylphs, Pas de Deux, Divertissement, and second Dance of the Sylphs to Les Sylphides. I think this section also could stand alone, at close to 28 minutes. One the whole, I don't think this version as a whole has the dramatic viability or emotional impact as the Bournonville version, but the Pas de Trois that opens the Grand Pas de Trois does and is a gem.

Sorry, doug, that was my faulty memory on Raymonda's friends' names. There were no names in the program, apart from the title.The staging was done by Olga Evreinoff, and the choreography was credited to Petipa. Andersen wasn't involved in the staging. I don't even know if he cast it.

We received an email today addressed to our "Contact Us" link, concerning a Bolshoi Ballet performance of Ravel's Bolero, with an inquiry about whether this is available on DVD or VHS: I know there is a 1977 performance of Bejart's Bolero that Maya Plisetskaya recorded, but not only was that later in the 70's, but it was with Le Ballet du XXe siecle. Does anyone know of another production and/or recording the Bolshoi may have made of Ravel's Bolero?

The Choreographer's Showcase, a one-time performance on 22 March 06, was very strong. For the second year in a row, Jonathan Poretta mixed techno and classical, this time with Jubilant, which featured Carrie Imler as soloist against a corps of eight, with a deliberate quote of the flying entrance against the diagonal of corps from Concerto Barocco, and a second movement with pas de deux danced by Kaori Nakamura/Lucien Postlewaite and Noelani Pantastico/Jeffrey Stanton. It was filled with Porretta's infectious energy and insight into stylistic differences shown in the contrasting pas de deux. Again, this is a piece that if it toured to public schools to show students what classical dancing can be, would cause a riotous response. Heartfelt, choreographed by Stanko Milov to three piano pieces he composed and which appear on his eponymous new CD, was not just another piano ballet. It had a story line, with Milov seated at the piano upstage right, a spotlight shining over his shoulder downstage, composing. This transitioned to three sequential pas de deux for women in longish skirts, and Milov served his dancers well, to bring out qualities that had not be in the spotlight before. The best of these was the opening one for Lindsi Dec and Karel Cruz, which emphasized the creamy, articulate quality of her developes and soft, but equally strong romanticism. This was the role that reminded me of a young Susan Jaffee. The pas de deux that followed, one for Kari Brunson and Kiyon Gaines, the last for Laura Gilbreath and Milov himself, contrasted from the first, but were a more temperamentally similar. "Heartfelt" was a singularly appropriate title to this emotional, romantic piece. The last piece in the first half was Olivier Wevers X Statis, whose score of pieces by contemporary composer Thomas Adès, could not have been more different than the lilting, rhythmic piano score composed by Milov. Two of the pieces were clearly based in early classical music, but there is nothing easy about his music, which I thought was fantastic. The ballet consists of five pas short pas de deux, each visually arresting, running the gamut of imagination, including one for Chalnessa Eames and a suitmaker's mannequin. The closest I can come to describing this ballet is that it contained the quirky sensibility and depth of "Five Pieces" from Episodes. Oliviers Wevers has more than talent: he has an original voice. He showed it again in the solo called pigment he created for Ariana Lallone, which followed the intermission, set to a tape of a traditional Japanese folk song. In it, Lallone transformed from a stylized, tiny Japanese woman to her full height as a contemporary ballerina and back again throughout the piece. Completely unexpected, and totally different from X Statis. The last piece, {SCHWA} was choregraphed by Kiyon Gaines and set to a series of tangos by Astor Piazolla. Using 18 dancers, the piece was beautifully structured, with a mixture of contrasting groupings. The very beginning didn't capture me, but two pieces in I was hooked. Luckily for all the costume gems that were created for PNB's all-tango program from a few years ago are available. The dancers look fabulous in them. According to Peter Boal in a post-performance Q&A, this piece will be presented in the Made in the Northwest festival next year.

The Spring program, presented by Ballet Arizona at the end of March at the jewel box “Orpheum Theatre” was called “Raymonda and other works,” The other works were Go with it!, choreographed by Ib Andersen to selections from Preludes and Fugues by Shostakovich in honor of the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth, and the opening work, before, by Julia Adam to chamber music by Haydn. before features four men and four women. The men wear knee length unitards, the women leotards with mid-thigh length sheer, stiff a-line skirts. Half each gender is in black with bone-colored, thinnish horizontal stripes, and the other half in the opposite. The set was a series of horizontal columns that appeared in the adagio section. The design tied well into Adam’s choreographic sense, which is like a needlepoint-like grid against which the dancers create their playful and irreverent patterns. The ballet starts with all eight dancers, and then the group breaks into smaller ones, mirroring and interweaving with each other, and always coming back to several striking “leitmotivs”: one dancer flipping upside down with bent Coppelia legs complete with flexed feet, caught by the other dancers. Each of the dancers falling horizontally in succession, with each subsequent dancer nesting on one before they moved as a unit. A vertical line of dancers moving from one wing to the other, with one dancer stepping up and over the dancers in the center of the line. There was a theme of competitiveness throughout. The piece also featured successive solos built around a white silk handkerchief that fell from the flies before the beginning of the piano adagio movement, some plain classical and others more stylized. The dancers passed (or dropped) the handkerchief as they ceded the stage to each other. While there is a lot of humor in the piece, the movement ended with a gesture for which I must be missing the humor gene: the dancer blew his nose loudly into the handkerchief. In the final movement, which started in slow motion, the competitive theme was reprised, as the dancers fought over possession of the handkerchief. It ended on a more sober note, as a couple posed toward the stage left wing, and a white silk handkerchief fell from the flies. Hearing the Haydn, I couldn’t help thinking of Tharp’s treatment in Push Comes to Shove. Though it shared some of the quirky response to the music, the humor in Adams’ piece is as a rule more subtle and less frantic. Adams gave fine roles for all eight dancers: Michael Cook, Robert Dekkers, Giselle Doepker, Kenna Draxton, Paola Hartley, Kendra Mitchell, Nikolai Moroz, and James Russell Toth. It is impossible to single out any one, because Adam used their dance and physical qualities to such great advantage. She did something unusual, though: while she did use the height contrasts among the women most effectively – the men’s heights were more even – she didn’t particularly highlight their strengths in the “Dancer X has great extension, let that be the theme of the mini pas de deux; Dancer Y is a great allegro dancer, let’s give him a breakout solo” sense. Adams’ choreography complements Anderson’s in its use of the floor, humor, and appreciation for geometry. Unlike other ballets of his that I’ve seen, which prepare the dancers for another piece in the program, this one seemed to focus on showcasing the strengths of the specific dancers, and what a coming out party it was. The costumes were basic: princess-line, flesh-colored leotards for the women and flesh-colored unitards for the men, with a single, common ornamentation: an elongated horizontal “X” on both sides of the ribcage, underlined with in the same navy blue. If I hadn’t seen the program notes before the performance, and had come into the performance in the middle, I wouldn’t have recognized the music as 20th century music. (I wonder if Go with it!, a title that sounds a bit Made in Marketing Department to me, was to counter any sense of fear the audience might had of seeing the name Shostakovich.) I have to apologize in advance that I won’t be able to describe this ballet in great detail. After I returned home from Phoenix, my week was made of non-stop performances and large projects at work. Not only was I not able to do a write-up the last two pieces immediately, but there was so much music and dance that crashed into memory, especially during the week following, that I’ve lost the details. What I haven’t lost is my sense of how much I loved this ballet. The ballet begins and ends with the cast of ten couples, with pas de deux and pas de trois in between the ensemble movements. The adagio pas de deux were made primarily of a trio of movements: developpes, arabesques, and lifts. Much of Robbins Chopin piano ballet opus does the same, as well as any number of piano ballets since. However, in most of those ballets, the women wear skirts. What made the difference in Go with it! was the costumes: with simple leotards, the beauty of the turned out pelvis and inner thigh extended out of the pulled up torso, was the central focus. The bones and the center of ballet were clarified, not obscured. For Ginger Smith (with Astrit Zejnati) and Kanako Imayoshi (with Elye Olson), Andersen created roles that really showcased their strengths: Smith’s turnout and creamy extensions and Imayoshi’s ability to shape and articulate long phrases. Smith, who trained at the School of Ballet Arizona, was a finalist at Prix de Lausanne, and danced with Boston Ballet II and with Robert Denvers in Flanders before joining BA a couple of years ago, is an eye-catcher as a demi-soloist, but this role suggests that she can carry a ballet. I’ve seen Imayoshi before, mostly in classical and neo-classical demi soloist quartets, but this was the first time I saw her. This was a role that put her in such a different light that I kept going back to the program. These pas de deux were followed by a pas de trois for Paola Hartley, Vitaly Breusenko, and Michael Cook. I’m glad that in this neo-classical Andersen cast Hartley with the taller Cook and Breusenko, because it expands her range. (In classical ballets she dances most often with Astrit Zejnati; they are a perfectly classically proportioned pair.) Structurally, it was a good juxtaposition to put the pas de trois in the middle of four pas de deux, but I don’t think the pas de deux that followed were as strong as the first two. I’m not sure if it was because for the women, Tzu-Chia Huang and Natalia Magniacaballi, the roles were less revelatory, or if, thematically, there were really three pas, not four. I very much liked the double pas that followed, with Magniacaballi/Cook and Imayoshi/Olson. Next followed a solo for Astrit Zejnati, and a duo for Vitaly Breusenko, with Andersen’s typical fluency for choreography for men. All three men joined together and the movement ended with a visually stunning tableau, with all three men, one hand on chest, the other reaching forward and up, with an open hand, fingers creating a starburst. To a very sweet, almost impressionistic piece, Andersen created a sparkly pas de trois for Hartley, Huang, and Smith, to follow the men. While it’s not surprising that Andersen would choreograph more expressively and revealingly for his own dancers, there was something detached about Adam’s choreography, however great the dancers look. It’s sophisticated play, and while it’s very possible that it was deliberately void of the suggestion of heart I found in Go with it!, before ultimately wasn’t as satisfying. In the afternoon’s performance, Alexander Izbitser gave sensitive readings of Shostakovich’s music. Sadly he became ill and wasn’t able to perform in the evening. Raymonda Divertissement contains greatest hits – the main adagio performed by the main couple and corps couples, solos for Hortense and Florence, and pas de deux with variations for Raymonda and Jean de Brienne – as well as pieces for two quartets of women, the corps men, and the entire ensemble. There was also a piece for a small group of men, but I can’t remember if it was for Hortense and Florence’s counterparts. Giselle Doepker danced the first woman’s variation. With her head held high but gently on her shoulders, allowing graceful freedom of movement and epaulement, her fluid arms, and her incredible hands -- articulate down to her fingertips –- she was simply exquisite. In the variation that followed, Kenna Draxton’s legs sang. Some of the women in the corps, notably Ginger Smith and Kendra Mitchell, danced beautifully, but on the whole, most suffered from being neoclassical dancers in classical roles, with a lack of requisite stillness in the upper body. (The same dancers look fine in Theme and Variations, for example.) It will take time and experience. The men, on the other hand, were uniformly superb, having absorbed some of the gracious classical quality of the quartet trained in Eastern Europe. Astrit Zenjani comes from that world, too, which put him stylistically and hierarchically – in the classical sense -- at the ballet’s center. His Raymonda was Natalia Magnicaballi, who was a regal heroine. The Orpheum Theatre is a very nice jewel box several blocks from the Symphony Hall. My suggestion to anyone purchasing tickets for performances there is to bypass the website and call the box office directly for orchestra tickets. (Balcony seats are fine via web.) I haven’t sat in the very first row, but the first eight or so rows are difficult for anyone under 6 feet tall, if a tall person or a person with a big head is the row directly ahead.

This is sad news for audience, and I hope happy news for the dancers as they go to the next phase of their lives. I'm glad both of them got greater recognition than many great corps members get: Schull in Center Stage and Low, by being chosen by Mark Morris as the lead -- one of only four dancers so chosen -- in his Sylvia.

If the contractual issues can be overcome, the solution would be controlled web downloads, which eliminate the need to create and distribute media. Also, by having a website, all of the supporting materials --casts, background, history of the ballet, choreographers, composers, etc. -- could be web-based, with the customer downloading what s/he wanted. No printing needed, and adding material to a website is relatively inexpensive. Right now, the Apple Store offers TV shows are downloadable, can be played on computers, burned to CD, and displayed on the new iPods. (Although that tiny screen would be useless for most ballet, except ballet that is filmed badly: "Ooo, let's do a close-up on her toe-shoe ribbons!"). There are also independent websites that are being created for independent movie downloads, with a very small set-up fee (not exceeding a few hundred dollars) to post. There is a movie download site out of England which offers more obscure classics, like Andulusian Dog and the earlies French movies. Apple Store exists on volumes, because the royalties on music, at least, are a large percentage of revenue, but there's no need for BBC or PBS to be as greedy as, for example, Sony. The cost of storage is minimal. Catalog maintenance might be a little more expensive because, for small volumes, there would be more manual set up, but that could be offset by lower royalties. Most of the broadcasts could be taken as is, with commercials/promos edited out (or left in for historical interest), and a wrapper around it (copyright at beginning). If they were kind, they'd break up the broadcast into chapters and include a menu. (Someone in Russia, where there's a treasure trove of state-owned television archives, please be listening! You have the technical and computer talent to do this!)

Many thanks, phenby!

Sandy, if you don't have anything nice to say... Details, please

Those are great opportunities for people in the Metro NY area to see the dancers that bart, Jack Reed, Justdoit, and flipsy have been talking about in the recent threads in the Miami City Ballet forum. For those of us on the other coast, it would be great if you could attend and give us your impressions of MCB

During the last couple of years of their tenure, Russell and Stowell mentioned quite often in the Q&A's that the only reason that well-deserved promotions were not forthcoming was that there wasn't the money. (The ballet had taken huge hits during the season and a half in Mercer Arena.) I think it's a better indication to look at how they cast dancers during that time.

What a great suggestion!

But Francia Russell did cast Chapman in the Second Movement of Symphony in C the last time the ballet was performed. I'm glad Boal is casting her prominently, too.

Many thanks, Natalia, for posting this and giving us the meat of what Vishneva said (and Krylova asked) -- it is a fascinating interview!

Just to set expectations, Lilac Fairy is a very small dancing role -- a single solo -- and a lot of mime and casting spells with what looks like a purple feather duster. Especially since in this production (Hynd) Desire is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, and Lilac Fairy has to lead him by the nose. It's too late for me to do a full write-up tonight, but just a few highlights, not meant to be all-inclusive: Kaori Nakamura was a brilliant Aurora, Körbes was superb as the Fairy of Beauty and as Silver in the Gold and Silver pas de trois in the Wedding Act, and Maria Chapman had a great evening in three very different roles: Fairy of Purity in the Prologue, the Countess in Act II, and the White Cat in Act III.