Helene

I found Emily's snobbery more palatable than Lorelei's and Rory's mockery. But I expected so much less of Emily

carbro, What a GREAT report!!!!! (Kvell!!!!) How sweet that he partnered his future wife at the SAB performing Bournonville. I'm so glad he is managing the school, too. What an amazing role model he'll be for the boys, and I hope he's able to tap talented dancers who have the potential to be good teachers, the way he was recruited by Mazzo and Williams.

I heard an interview on Fresh Air with Amy Sherman Palladino, the creator of The Gilmore Girls, and watched an episode for the first time tonight. So this is a disclaimer that I'm not sure if tonight's episode was a repeat, making this old news. The show opened with mother (Lorelei) and daughter (Rory) at their mother/grandmother's (Emily) dining room table, reviewing pictures of "City Ballet" dancers, to help Emily pick one to sponsor. After making fun of one potential choice's skin, and treating the entire process as a Jr. High School meat market cat-fest, Emily's choice is a blond Eastern-European-born young woman, because she is least like her errant daughter Lorelei (who was a great disappointment after having a baby at 17), and a fantasy/toy daughter is what Emily wants. When the dancer proceeds to ask Lorelei's long-abondoned magic eight ball over and over if she'll be rich -- her vapidness no longer adorable -- Emily trades her in for a pretty boy from Russia, who becomes a perpetual visitor in her sitting room until he storms out, having read a magazine interview where Lorelei compared her mother "jokingly" as Stalin, the killer of much of his family. The portrayals of both dancers were condescending, although, being trapped with Emily as a sponsor was portrayed as the nightmare the entire personal sponsorship scenario could become.

Absolutely. In 1941, things looked good for the Nazis, with occupations in Scandinavia, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Greece (after the Greek troops were off in Albania fighting Italian troops), Yugoslavia, not to mention decimating the Soviet Union's western front that summer.

According to the short bio lead-in to her interview in Robert Tracey's Balanchine's Ballerinas, "During the 1941 American Ballet Caravan tour of South America she was the company's leading ballerina, and Balanchine made two of his most famous ballets for her: Concerto Barocco and Ballet Imperial." About these ballets, she said, "In Barocco, I had to dance for eighteen minutes straight. To every beat. It was the most demanding role ever did for me. The way they do it now isn't quite the same. Ballet Imperial was not a masterpiee like Barocco, but it was a vehicle for me and delightful to dance. She continued to say that she was in four other ballets on the tour: Serenade -- which, according to the bio, Balanchine restaged for her in 1940 when she guested for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, adding a movement for her -- Apollo (as Terpsichore), and The Bat -- as well as Divertimento, which he "whipped up" as a rousing closer. In that ballet, she had an adagio and a Tyrolean Dance; the latter she said she had to do as an encore.

It's not surprising that the US ambassador found the modern works subversive: the tour was funded as part of a culture war: Latin America was considered a major battleground of political influence over which the US and Soviet Union fought. Anything "revolutionary" in any way would have been worrisome to the continent directly north.

I'm hearing a lot of "yeah, right," but I'm not hearing substantive arguments against several of his theses, at least as Gladwell describes them: 1, That there are two types of learning, and there are ways in which popular culture strengthens one type of learning in particular ways. He does not argue that one is superior to the other, just that each is inferior in some aspects that the other is superior. 1. That new, complex video games encourage complex problem-solving skills, including determining what the multi-layered rules are based upon through experience and observation. (He doesn't mention that many of the video games as well as board games we played as children are available online, to be played with other people from all around the world, on demand.) 3. That engagement stimulates part of the way that non-engagement doesn't. That one either has a scientific basis, or it doesn't. In a multi-cultural world that is linked in ways through communications, economics, and artistic endeavors to an extent that was inconceivable even a generation ago, I have no doubt that understanding a quickly changing environment is a critical skill. And in the current world economy, where employment in the US, Canada, and Europe is increasingly skewed toward services and information, lack of this skill is an economic disadvantage. Gladwell has delved into many areas where he and the authors he reviews have challenged widely held assumptions to see if they stand up to scrutiny. I don't think this is as a degredation of the The New Yorker's purpose at all. One thing that I appreciate about both Alex Ross and Malcolm Gladwell is that while they both hold high standards, they don't believe that goodness and greatness is limited. They see abundance of both.

Many thanks, balletdad! I'm looking forward to seeing all three pieces.

From all accounts from his partners, Jock Soto is a Partner-King. I'm not sure if Conrad Ludlow is a Partner-King or Partner-Prince, but he, too, was the NYCB man of his generation whom the ballerinas coveted as a partner.

I tried to answer this, but I looked at my list, and there were no KINGS on it. Only dancers!

There are two sites that manage payment for the site that is selling the CD: 1. Moneybookers, for which if you select credit card, you must supply fax the info that ariodante described 2. ikobo.com, which is down right now, and may not ask for the same. When I ordered tickets from the Bolshoi, they used a third-party payment processor. It's fairly standard for foreign transactions off sites from Europe and Russia. If the processor is legit, then the request for a fax of the credit card is to protect the site from massive credit card fraud, because it shows that the person ordering is in physical possession of the card, and has not purchased a stolen credit card number for $5. I suspect it qualifies the processor for better chargeback protection as a result. If the processor is not legit, then the processor has possession of the "CVN" code, the 3- digit code on the back of the credit card (Visa/MC/JCB/Discover) which is not printed on the front of the card or on credit card statements. The processor also has a copy of the signature. If you choose Moneybookers and "bank transfer," you do not give banking details to the site. You are given bank transfer instructions to deposit the money in a Commerzbank account in Frankfurt, using a transaction ID that links the payment to the original order. However, expect the cost of a foreign bank transfer to be at least $30 from the US, making the cost of the CD at least $45. While I can't say whether or not this is a legitimate company, it certainly has made a big effort to appear as one, capturing IP addresses as backup and banking with one of the world's major banks.

On Sunday night, 12 June, Pacific Northwest Ballet is producing a farewell tribute program for Francia Russell and Kent Stowell. On the website is the following description: http://www.pnb.org/whatsnew/tribute.html What a wonderful gift from their sons

The Seattle Symphony kicked off its MADE IN AMERICA Festival tonight, and one of the pieces was "Suite No. 2" from Dybbuk. The music was so beautiful, that I regretted not having gone to San Francisco for Program 6, especially since it was the last chance to hear Mogrelia conduct it for the Company. (The Seattle Symphony played magnificently for conductor Christian Knapp.)

Local PBS station KCTS is airing a tribute to Francia Russell and Kent Stowell on 26 May (time TBD). According to the blurb in the PNB newsletter sent today, "KCTS Special Honors Kent Stowell and Francia Russell. Tune in to KCTS TV on Thursday, May 26 for a special tribute to retiring PNB Artistic Directors Kent Stowell and Francia Russell, including in-studio interviews, rehearsal footage and photography spanning their 28-year tenure at PNB." Set those TiVo's!!!

In today's PNB newsletter, there's a mention that "Four boys from PNB's DanceChance program performed a piece choreographed by former PNB dancer Timothy Lynch at PONCHO's annual gala on April 30. Following the performance, PONCHO raised $165,000 specifically for Arts Education." (PONCHO stands for "Patrons of Northwest Civic, Cultural and Charitable Organizations," which, according to its website started as a group that put on an auction to retire a chunk of the Seattle Symphony's debt after the 1962 World's Fair, and raised enough money to donate more to the Symphony and several other arts groups. They've never stopped raising money for the arts in Seattle, and they give away a lot of it.)

I just received Pacific Northwest Ballet's newsletter, announcing that Principal Dancer Patricia Barker will make guest appearances in The Sleeping Beauty on 5-6 May (tonight and tomorrow), dancing the role of the Lilac Fairy. Other major role casting (as of now) is: 5 May Aurora: Lorna Feijoo Desire: Nelson Madrigal Carabosse: Jennifer Glaze 6 May Aurora: Larissa Ponomorenko Desire: Roman Rykine Carabosse: Viktor Plotnikov Full cast list for the two performances is posted to the Boston Ballet site at: http://www.bostonballet.org/season/attendi...tingmay5_6.aspx

Welcome to Ballet Talk, Tessdixon! Many thanks for your review, and we hope to hear about future performances you attend.

I've always thought of "Ballet Alert" as "BAL let a LERT" and "Ballet Talk" as "BAL let talk."

[Admin note: I edited the title to reflect the correct spelling for easier recognition.]

I've always heard the "Ballet" in American Ballet Theater pronounced another way: both syllables are stressed equally, with the voice rising a bit on the first syllable of "Theater."

Now that I live on the other side of the country, and my time in NYC is limited, it's the rep that determines what program I'll attend. All Balanchine Programs are like manna from heaven to me. On short visits, I'd rather not skip individual ballets (leave early, arrive late), but I would if a program was my only chance to see Liebeslieder Walzer, and the rest left me cold.

There's a very nice presentation on the NBoC website, which explains the making of An Italian Straw Hat. http://www.national.ballet.ca/Performances...allet-index.php

And the "hair" choreography, where the the women do port de bras all the way forward and back, just wouldn't be the same with buns

And what a sight it was in the pose in the last movement where the three women stand nestled with partly arched backs, featuring the cascading blond hair of Kistler, red hair of Calegari, and brown hair of Nichols, especially before she cut her hair. And then there was the all-dark hair version with Saland, Hlinka, and Alexopoulos.

To the people who took his class, especially the Monday class he taught for a while on the "day off," often without piano accompanist, it was shocking THEN that the other dancers didn't take his class. Different dancers had their reasons, but almost all publicly acknowledged ones seem to boil down to: a. He didn't give a proper warm-up, but went straight into strenuous tendus immediately after plie at the barre. Balanchine was often quoted as saying that dancers expected an easy barre, usually close to a quote that said that dancers were like racehorses that needed to be prodded out of their laziness. b. They weren't balanced -- he might give all hops on pointe while he was choreographing a ballet with hops on pointe, and then focus on something completely different in the next phase. In Balanchine's Ballerinas, Melissa Hayden said that when Farrell had bad knees, Balanchine stopped giving jumps in class, and she asked how a dancer could remain in shape to dance his ballets without jumps in class. c. They were too physically strenous for dancers who were overloaded with rehearsal and performance and/or for dancers in later parts of their careers. Villella talks about this in Prodigal Son. Class was readily acknowledged as Balanchine's laboratory. While this met his purpose, and he was the one in charge, while few dispute that as a rule, class was important for a dancer's career, it isn't universally acknowledged to this day that his approach to class was the best for the dancers' bodies or physical development. Melissa Hayden said in the PBS Balanchine biography, a dancer learns how to dance Balanchine by dancing his ballets. [Oops -- posting simultaneously with Dale]