Helene

The casting must have been switched around a bit, because in Dance as a Contact Sport, Joseph Mazo writes that, because of injuries, (Page 237). On p. 238 he quotes the program insert for the performance: Five years after the premiere, Blum was dancing mauve and Maiorano was dancing blue. (And "mustard" was replaced by "brick"?)

Does anyone remember the spread that Antonia Franceschi, Lourdes Lopez, and Carole Divet did sometime in the '80's, in which they wore vintage Fortuny dresses? I can't remember if it was in Elle, or a different magazine. The "action" shots were more like Martha Swope photos. The dancers looked gorgeous in the dresses.

Hmmm, interesting bit from the article about Steven Libman's resignation from Pittsburgh Ballet Theater on post-gazette.com in today's links section: I wonder if the PNB Board is wooing him for Russell's/Stowell's position. He's got a great deal of fundraising experience, eliminated the PBT's deficit, and worked to create an endowment for the company, as well as getting a grant to produce modern works (according to the other link from Pittsburg live.com.) Although his track record with labor negotiations sounds mixed, it sounds like the kind of credentials they'd be looking for. Hopefully, he came to visit during the spate of beautiful spring weather we recently had...

sdj3, Thank you so much for the link! Re: the Donna Karan dress, I must paraphrase Joan Cusack in Working Girl: "Eight thousand dollahs? It isn't even leh-thuh!"

I totally agree!!! They were so incisive and beautifully written. I read them after I had posted and realized that I didn't have to say anything -- they had said it all!

I was so enchanted by Sylvia, I want it to start all over again, right now! This is long, because no one else has described all of the dances and action, and since it's rarely seen if not new, I didn't quite know what to expect from it. In Sylvia Morris starts with a canvas of a youthful near-utopia, where mortal and demi-god creatures are free to be themselves, be that dryad, satyr, naiad, nymph, or village youth, and they are satisfied with who they are, living in the moment. While there is a sweetness that pervades throughout, there's nothing innocent or precious about them, and they are portrayed alternately with sensuality and power and languidness. The fly in the ointment is that Sylvia, gleefully interested only in her battalion of Diana's hunting nymphs, is pursued by two males: the young, heartsick Aminta and the gruff, lustful Orion. The god Eros decided to get involved, and by making her fall in love with Aminta, makes her vulnerable to Orion's abduction. That is a lot of characterization and action to happen in Act I. The ballet begins with the dryads and satyrs, dancing separately and then together, each of four pairs with a characteristic lift. The Naiads enter next, with a gait on pointe that looks like they've come out of the ocean onto the burning sand. When the music repeats, the dryads and satyrs do a variation on their original choreography, while the naiads repeat their entrance, and then they split into trios of one of each character. Each trio does its own lifts and choreography simultaneously, until they drop to the floor. Each satyr goes back and forth between his dryad and naiad, eliciting various responses from the females. The extended opening ends with all of them nesting and falling asleep. The mortal Aminta arrives and after a declamatory solo in which he declares his love for Sylvia using vocabulary he will repeat in his big Act III variation, pledges his loyalty to Eros, asks for the god's help, and hides behind Eros' statue. Sylvia's pack of eight nymphs make a grand and joyous entrance on a slightly tilting upstage ramp, one after another striking a "ready to shoot" pose with their bows. They then come downstage and do a powerful dance -- they are cast as the "big" girls -- and then there is a fabulous entrance for Sylvia on the top of the ramp, striking the pose in the posters: fifth position on pointe, arms in a big overhead "V," one hand holding a bow. Down the ramp she bounds, and she jumps through the swirling group of (eight) nymphs on a diagonal that she repeats briefly in Act II and again in the Act III pas de deux, and leads the rest of the dance. A restful, pastoral scene follows, in which Sylvia's Friend retrieves a swing for Sylvia from stage left and leads a dance of three of the nymphs in the center of the stage, while the other four loosen their hair and bathe it downstage right in the water (metal) on the stage apron, as Sylvia swings back and forth. It's a sensuous, intimate scene among the women, until they realize that someone's been there. When the nymphs find Aminta and haul him into downstage center, Sylvia, upstage center, pretends to shoot him with her bow, and then laughs it off. (That she's not a true Diana/Myrtha convert yet is foreshadowed by letting Aminta off with a scare; in Act III, Diana hestitates not one second before killing Orion in the same fashion and the same stage positions.) After he declares his love for her, she shoots towards Eros' statue. Aminta throws himself in front of the arrow to protect Eros, and is killed. Eros, in turn, shoots Sylvia with an arrow of love, which she picks up and puts in her sheath. She knows something's just happened, but she can't quite put her finger on what. Orion is in wait, hoping to find Sylvia alone, and quickly portrays "I want, I want, I want," which reminded me a little of Lysander's gesture, after Puck has mistakenly made him fall in love with Helena, who is happily united with Demetrius: "Me. Owns. Her." Enter the village youth, after Orion goes off to lie in wait. If there was any part of Act I that was a little slow, it was probably this dance, which could have been part of just about any story ballet, or possibly any story ballet score. After they leave temporarily, Sylvia returns, drawn to Aminta, but Orion seizes the moment and kidnaps her. When the villagers return and find Aminta's body, Eros, dressed as a sorcerer, brings Aminta to life, after a solo that had Morris' name written all over it, full of South Asian imagery, some reminiscent of Serenade, his recent solo to Lou Harrison's gamelan-inspired music. Act II opens with a powerful solo for Orion around an altar-like flat rock on which Sylvia's unconscious body lay. Bypassing the obvious, Morris choreographed a solo in which nearly all of the big movement was done from the waist up. (Later Orion gets a mini-solo with some double tours, but his character is mostly grounded.) When he first touches the still-sleeping Sylvia, she flicks him off and turns on her side, like someone who is not used to sharing her bed. Dreaming, presumably of Aminta, she then does a magical little gesture in which she does a slow port de bras into fifth, and by doing so, wraps her arm around Orion's hovering neck, and he slowly lifts her to sitting position. Then she wakes, and shows her dismay at Orion being there. He chases around her, as she realizes that she's stuck in the cave. Enter Orion's band of goofs, who act as if they've been watching football and drinking beer for the last two decades and have never been on a date (or had a sister). Morris gives them a lumbering line dance and lots of hunched over, grounded movement. By contrast, Orion shows his supremacy to them by his open chest. Sylvia teaches them to make wine from grapes -- slamming her toe shoe tips into the rock -- and gets them all drunk, and then starts a dance in which she jumps up on and leaps off the rock into the waiting arms of Orion's band. As they get drunker and drunker, there is a frenetic, spontaneous-looking though carefully choreographed free-for-all, as Orion's goofballs start emulate Sylvia's dancing, jumping off of the rocks into each other's arms and dancing with each other, until they all pass out. Sylvia is still stuck in the cave, and she prays to Eros and makes him an offering of her bow and sheath of arrows on the rock, Eros appears, frees her, and once the stone on which Eros was standing moved into the wings, reveals an exhausted Aminta, sleeping in a swing. The transformation takes place out of the cave when the asymmetrical drapes forming the walls of the cave lower to the ground, covering Orion and his boys, and revealing Eros atop the giant stone that closed the mouth of the cave. From the Dress Circle, this didn't have much of an effect, but from the Balcony Circle, it was magic to see Eros revealed up above as the back curtain lowered. (Very Ring of the Nibulungen like.) For all of the lack of traditional set dance pieces in Act II, Orion's world, and Sylvia's many reactions to it, were characterized through wonderfully inventive and invocative movement, alternating between humor and danger and pathos. Act III opens on a blinding white set with three stairs on both sides and upstage, in back of which are pedestals and statues of Vesta, Diana, Bacchus, and a fourth god, and begins with a juicy, bounding dance for two men called "heralds" in the cast list; these are the meatiest male roles after the three leads. They are joined by the male "celebrants," who also have a buoyant dance, joined by the woman, who get to dance a bit with the men. As Bacchanales go, this is one is upbeat, without any hint of debauchery. Aminta enters, a bit brooding, until a pirate ship comes by, bearing seven "slaves" in harem attire and veiled with wide scarves, which gives some oomph to the patterns they create. Finally, Sylvia in pink performs a wonderful variation in a more formal mode than her earlier warlike choreography, while Aminta is veiled. She's joined by Aminta in a moving pas de deux, in which Sylvia finally reveals herself to the amazement of Aminta, and they are joined. The veil is used beautifully throughout. I believe that it is after a group dance that Aminta unleashes a wonderful solo, which contains the core of his first solo, but expands with the joy of someone who is loved and has been accepted. Not only are the steps and the line difficult, but it would look ridiculous if performed like a prince, and it takes the commitment of the dancer not to fall into a habitual portrayal. (I don't think his solo comes after Diana is in the picture, but I could be remembering this wrong.) Orion shows up and claims Sylvia for himself, ready to take on Aminta. Sylvia tries to prevent a fight, when Diana shows up, like a lightning bolt. After a powerful entrance solo, she stands upstage, shoots Orion through the heart, and then rejects Sylvia's plea for mercy. Diana's fury felt more dangerous than the potential rape of Sylvia by Orion -- partly because Orion's goons were humorous, but also because there was some inherent bone of decency in Orion, despite himself, while Diana takes no prisoners -- but, again, Eros in the guise of the Pirate comes to fix what he broke, by revealing Diana's seduction of a very beautiful mortal boy. Diana relents, and Sylvia and Aminta are united through two lovely gestures: a repeat of the touching of index fingers from the pas de deux -- like in Apollo, but facing each other -- and jointly holding high the arrow of Eros. In the background are Eros and Diana, upstage center, holding their bows in shooting position, portraying opposites and, in Maffre's rendition, mortal enemies. The two casts I saw gave starkly different portrayals. On Saturday night, Liz Miner portrayed a Golden Girl Sylvia, and not just literally: the tall, lean, blond, smart, athletic, charismatic leader, who is very much one of her pack, but is the girl all the others follow, if only to be in her orbit. Pascal Molat's Aminta was a gentle man, the type to whom the high-spirited Sylvia would have given the "let's be friends" speech, had she been interested in men. By her third act solo, Miner had bloomed into a calmer version of her earlier self. During the pas de deux, it's as if she delays unveiling herself to hold on to the moment a while longer; Molat can't quite believe at first that she really loves him. In this pairing Molat's Aminta gains more presence and confidence to match his gentleness and Miner's Sylvia gains more softness to go with her strength. While Diana and Eros behind them will continue their battle, in this cast Sylvia and Aminta meld into perfect complements of each other. In the wedding reception betting pool, I would give great odds for these two to stay together. By contrast, on Sunday afternoon, Megan Low's Sylvia was the prodigy, or the small girl with gymnastics ability on the cheerleading squad who always ends up in the center of the formation or the top of the pyramid, but masterminding and leading in every prank. She's the leader of the nymphs by merit, but she doesn't really mesh into the sisterhood. Guennadi Nedviguine's Aminta is the boyfriend that every girl, including Sylvia, would want, if she were interested in a boyfriend. (When Sylvia keeps Molat's Aminta from fighting, it's to keep him from being beaten to a pulp, because he's not a fighter by nature. Nedviguine's Aminta needs help because he's mortal.) After she is hit by Eros' arrow, she remains the same Sylvia, only this time turning her formidable energy into bringing him along to her world. When she hesitates during the unveiling in the pas de deux, she is teasing him, and teaching him that she's the one still calling the shots. Nedviguine's performance of the Act III solo was the finest male variation I've seen danced this season in any company. I don't think that the sailing will be completely smooth for this match, though, even if that's supposed to be the moral. Garrett Anderson's Eros/Sorcerer/Pirate in the first cast was danced in a light, Puck-like style, as if he were really having a grand time fooling all of these mortals with his disguises. By contrast James Sofranko had a more earthbound style, emphasizing the plie more than the jump, as if Peter Boal had taken the role of Puck. His was more of a battle to the death with Diana for each soul than Anderson's. Lorena Feijoo's Diana was cyclone strong, but when her tryst with Endymion was revealed, she cut her losses fairly quickly, almost giving Eros his due. Not Muriel Maffre's Diana, who stormed in like the Queen of the Night to blast Pamina for betraying her. When her tryst was revealed, she really wanted to know how this pirate person knew about this, and when Eros revealed himself, she looked like she wanted to kill him on the spot for showing that she had any vulnerability. Her final pose with Sofranko's Eros was like a nuclear stand-off. Pierre-Francois Vilanoba was the multi-faceted Orion in both performances. The strings and woodwinds sounded wonderful in both performances. The horns and brass blended much better on Sunday afternoon, but that could have been the difference between sitting lower in house and in the Balcony Circle; the sound was better up higher in general. Andrew Mogrelia conducted both performances. After Sunday's performance, three of the slave girls took an extended bow to cheers from the company and orchestra; I assume that was their last performance with the Company. I think I figured out which of the heralds was apprentice Garen Scribner; he continued to applaud the principals as they came out for bows, until the girl next to him grabbed his hand and made him stop I think the strength of the ballet is that Morris clearly believes in the score and because he paints what he hears and not a drop more, he chooses movement that brings out the innateness of the characters. While there is plenty of humor in the ballet, I didn't see a single wink.

In the June 2004 issue of Blades on Ice is an item announcing that World Figure Skating Men's champion Evgeny Plushenko and Anastasia Volochkova are collaborating on a music video that "will be a love story featuring Plushenko and Volochkova." Volochkova is described as "a multi-talented Prima Donna. She is also a fashion and makeup model, a show business personality and an actress who is very popular with Russian mass media." Most interesting is the assertion that At nearly six feet tall, I think he would have made quite the partner.

ITA! Thank you so much. I loved him in the role for the same reason. He wasn't just an aristocratic pretty boy in a fancy uniform. I always had the impression that part of the danger and attraction was that he had seen battle and had shed blood, and I've never seen any other man in this role imbue it with the same power or effortless waltzing.

To me, for critics there is only one definition of "get it," and that is the first -- does the critic understand what the context is and what the choreographer was attempting to do? Once established the critic can determine whether it worked or not, whether s/he liked/appreciated/bought into/liked it (or parts of it) or not, and/or whether the music was appropriate or not and why, etc.

From where did the excerpts from the Balanchine documentary with Tanaquil LeClerq and Diana Adams come?

Because Nichols is concrete, and this is a porous role? She was so THERE. Farrell wasn't a dream or a sylph, but there was something unwordly about her, as though this were her dream. I think that's exactly it. Nichols was an up-front participant in this world, not in her own, self-absorbed world.

I got an email today from the NY Philharmonic, describing a test for a "Concert Companion": They have online sign-up (online sign-up to test the 75 PDA's available during the Ives/Stravinsky concerts.. Deadline for the Ives/Stravinsky concert is 12 May, with notification on 19 May. This wouldn't work for ballet during the performance, but it would be an interesting option not only for concerts, but for opera venues that don't have supertitles or for the hearing impaired in theaters and movies. Of course, this assumes that they will disable all of the audio on the devices!

I was out late last night, and I was pretty tired when I watched the TiVo'd version, but did I doze during the part where Sarah Jessica Parker talked about her SAB experience? Did she play a bug or a scaramouche or a candy cane, and, if so, what was it like? Did she ever meet Balanchine while at the school? Did the experience form her in any way? Because otherwise, in my eyes, she's a ballet-loving celebrity hosting what was touted as an important celebration, and given her fame, a marketing coup. She seemed pretty excited and rather privileged to be hosting it, and it was annoying when Martins pushed her to center stage when she was clearly trying to stay on the sidelines, just as he pushed vodka-toting Baryshnikov to center stage during the 1993 Celebration. It would have been nice if more of her narrative pointed out the collaboration between Balanchine/NYCB and the other Lincoln Center resident companies and/or disciplines during his career. The lack of tie-in reminded me a bit of hearing Yehudi Menuhin introduce his selection during a tribute to Szigeti, in which he said, in essence, "I don't know why I've been asked to take part in this, but I'm going to play..." But this was really a gala, not a celebration/tribute, and I don't think the attempt to make a hybrid of it worked very well. I also don't think the connection between Parker, Bushnell, and Askegaard is gossip or irrelevant. Parker would not have been asked to host but for her fame in Sex and the City, which was based on Bushnell's book. Askegaard is Bushnell's husband, and they all know each other. My question is whether it was Askegaard who "minded" her during the curtain call (in which she seemed a bit uncomfortable at center stage among the dancers, as many non-dancers are, regardless of their stage experience). I think it was very kind of whoever did. I may have misheard, but I thought that Kline was rattled because he first pronounced the last syllable of Balanchine's name as "shine" instead of "sheen," and then tried to make a joke of it by saying "Bern-stine"/"Bern-steen" (Potato, Potahto). Kline looked pretty uncomfortable on the whole. I agree with those who said that the camera work was awful. It was so frustrating to cut from the dancers in "The Man I Love" to Marsalis, especially when his riffs had nothing to do with the dance phrases. Luckily, dancers count, or they could have been very thrown. I thought Ansanelli gave a lovely performance, and let the dancing show the passion, instead of a lot of acting and emoting. Martins was a fine partner. The cut ins and outs during Brahms-Schoenberg were also disconcerting; I found it difficult to follow the soloists. I think the director violated the KISS principle. The first role that Yvonne Bourree impressed me in at the beginning of her career was Duo Concertante, and I really liked seeing her in it again. I'd never seen Boal in the ballet before, and it was great to have another of his performances recorded. I also agree with those who pointed out that the gala was ten minutes short, so would it have really ruined anyone's dinner to see the ballet in its entirety? But I'm still glad to have even that piece and the excerpts of Liebeslieder on home media at last. I found Kowrowski's phrasing in Concerto Barocco a bit odd, as if there was a slight disconnect between the audio and video tracks, and that might have been the difference between live and recorded performance. I thought Shaham's and Anthony's playing was wonderful and miked very well; I don't think the singers were as well miked from downstage right. I prefer Saland's version of the "Rosenkavalier" waltzes to Nichols', and I'm still trying to figure out why Nichols' performance didn't really grab me.

Interesting that on 18 May, Noguchi gets a series of fives stamps depicting his sculpture "on the 100th anniversary of his birth," but Balanchine has to share. (link) And one of the sculptures is not the lyre he created for Orpheus. :angry:

I heard on the radio that the stamps were presented today at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Did anyone attend?

Casting is now up on the San Francisco Ballet website for the rest of the run. 5 May, Evening - 7:30 pm Conductor: Andrew Mogrelia Sylvia: Liz Miner Aminta: Pascal Molat Orion: Pierre-Francois Vilanoba Diana: Lorena Feijoo Eros/Sorcerer: Garrett Anderson 6 May, Evening - 8:00 pm Conductor: Gary Sheldon Sylvia: Yuan Yuan Tan Aminta: Gonzalo Garcia Orion: Yuri Possokhov Diana: Muriel Maffre Eros: Jaime Garcia Castilla 7 May, Evening - 8:00 pm Conductor: Gary Sheldon Sylvia: Megan Low Aminta: Guennadi Nedviguine Orion: Pierre-Francois Vilanoba Diana: Muriel Maffre Eros: James Sofranko 8 May, Matinee - 2:00 pm Conductor: Gary Sheldon Sylvia: Vanessa Zahorian Aminta: Joan Boada Orion: Peter Brandenhoff Diana: Lorena Feijoo Eros: Pablo Piantino 8 May, Evening - 8:00 pm Conductor: Andrew Mogrelia Sylvia: Liz Miner Aminta: Pascal Molat Orion: Pierre-Francois Vilanoba Diana: Lorena Feijoo Eros: Garrett Anderson 9 May, Matinee - 2:00 pm Conductor: Andrew Mogrelia Sylvia: Megan Low Aminta : Guennadi Nedviguine Orion: Pierre-Francois Vilanoba Diana: Muriel Maffre Eros: James Sofranko Knowing that things change, I'm doing a low-key happy dance right now to see Miner and Feijoo on Saturday (eve) and Low and Maffree on Sunday. Nedviguine didn't dance any of the Balanchine program ballets that I saw, and I'm looking forward to seeing him for the first time. My only disappointment is missing Possokhov's Orion.

If anyone goes to the Sunday, 9 May matinee or Tuesday, 11 May performance of Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet, I'd love to know what you think of Noelani Pantastico and Olivier Wevers, who will dance the second movement. Does anyone know which Feijoo will dance Ballo? According to the San Francisco Ballet website, Lorena Feijoo dances her last performance of Diana in Mark Morris' Sylvia on Saturday evening, 8 May, but it would be possible for her to perform in NYC on Wednesday, 12 May. Or is it Lorna Feijoo, of the Boston Ballet?

Jean Claude van Dam also took years of ballet when he did martial arts, even before he made films.

Program II consisted of two films: "Balanchine Lives!" from 1997 and "New York City Ballet, 1965" a WNET production, and a Q&A with Francia Russell. The theme of "Balanchine Lives" is staging Balanchine, and it's comprised mostly of a series of interviews with Artistic Directors who programmed Balanchine ballets and the stagers who worked with the companies, as well as short excerpts of the actual staging rehearsals. Bernard Taper and Barbara Horgan were also interviewed. The film cut back and forth among the various stagers, so there wasn't an extended section for each of the ballets that were staged. It went by so fast that my notes were sketchy, and it was hard to get complete quotes, but I'll try to give the essence of what was said. The film opened with part of an interview with Francia Russell, then it segued to Karin von Aroldingen and Sarah Leland getting out of a cab in Toulouse, and trying to find the entrance to the rehearsal hall! von Aroldingen was the main stager for Liebeslieder Walzer, and Leland was there to partner her in rehearsals, and it was really neat to see them dance together. At one point they both were trying to tell the man not to look at his partner, which Leland explained something like, "it's not that you don't like her -- you're just blinded by her," which strikes me as such an American explanation. They were delightful to watch, and von Aroldingen was glowing during the staging. From listening to her talk about staging and about the ballets, it was clear why Balanchine liked her so much as a person. She talked about the ballets Balanchine created for her as "presents," but also said that the ballets were presents to anyone who danced his work. He created four great roles for her -- [Edited out "Man I Love" and added in] "Who Cares?"/"Stairway to Paradise" in Who Cares, Stravinsky Violin Concerto First Couple, Davidsbundlertanze, and "MacDonald of Sleat" in Union Jack -- which I think stand up to the ensemble roles he made for anyone. According to Russell, she inherited the rights to Liebeslieder Walzer and is a specialist in staging it, which she did in the film for Ballet du Capitole of Toulouse. Barbara Horgan explained that the rights for most of the ballets were divvied up in Balanchine's will, including shared rights to some ballets, and the Trust was created as the inheritors got together to "make a whole" out of the legacy. According to Russell (Q&A), Betty Cage inherited the rights to Symphony in C, which she gave to John Taras when he was unemployed after his stint at ABT. Russell said that he charged 3x the usual amount for the rights to the ballet, and that when PNB wanted to include it in next season's Balanchine Celebration program, he insisted on a long list of conditions as well, including using only his version, which was different than the version Russell preferred to stage, the one that PNB had performed in the past. (That's the reason that Symphony in C was replaced by Ballet Imperial on the program.) Because Taras died recently, what will happen to the rights is not yet public. Russell said she was flying to NYC tonight and was having dinner with Barbara Horgan tomorrow night, and that she would ask if anything was known, in the hope to be able to add Symphony in C back on the program. (Too bad Cage didn't create a lifetime trust for Taras, and then revert the rights back to the Trust.) Russell did emphasize that Taras was "very generous" when he gave PNB the rights for free to perform the 4th movement of Symphony in C during the opening celebration for McCaw Hall. In the Q&A dancer Jodie Thomas asked what would happen to the ballets when the copyrights expire. Russell said she would ask Horgan when they meet tomorrow. It was great to see a lot of PNB dancers in the audience watching the programs. Russell, Stowell, and Ballet Master Otto Neubert sat in my row for the films. Russell commented during the Q&A that the staging community is very close, and they know each other's quirks, so they were trying not to giggle too much as they listened to their colleagues' comments. Patricia Wilde appeared, looking like a proper Boston lady, in a high-necked cream-colored silk blouse with three fabric-covered buttons on the collar, and a pin (looked like a cameo) on her blue jacket. She said that if Pittsburgh Ballet Theater was going to do all of Jewels, she wanted it to be when she was still there. Elyse Bourne did the staging. I think it was she who said that she was of a different generation than the original dancers, but that everyone who worked with Balanchine in ary era has something to contribute. Susan Hendl staged Theme and Variations for Miami City Ballet, and she said that because Villella danced the male lead in the NYCB premiere, she asked him to help her with the male role and partnering. He was shown helping to coach during the film. She was very funny when trying to describe what she wanted vs. what the dancers had done; at one point she told them, "Anyone can 'plop.'" Patricia Neary staged Concerto Barrocco for Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo; her voice sounds very much like Melissa Hayden's. Artistic Director Jean-Christophe Maillot was one of the most interesting people interviewed for the film. He contrasted von Aroldingen's approach -- "giving information to the dancers that they have to pick up and do something with" -- with Neary's -- "She has a lot of energy...is still dancing...having Pat together for a year would be death, but for a period it's like a whip." Maillot mentioned liking working with different stagers, because he said, "the spirit of the piece will be different" and said that it's good to have different intellects and aspect. Neary, taking off her pointe shoes, talked about wanting to keep up with the dancers, even though she was "old enough to be their mother, but don't tell them that." Farrell wasn't shown staging, but she said that when she saw Concerto Barrocco from the audience, she realized that the two soloists "were in danger of becoming intertwined" with their bowing, and that when she stages the ballet, she makes sure that the two women dance very closely together to reflect this aspect of the music. If Bart Cook was interviewed about staging, those parts were edited out, because he talked about working with Balanchine to round out the part of Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and seemed really tickled that he was able to make Balanchine laugh. There was ample footage of Russell staging A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1997, which reminds me of the NYCB "people we miss" thread. In the clips were Seth Belliston and Vladimir Bourakov dancing Puck, Maynard Stewart dancing Oberon, Lisa Apple dancing Helena, Konstantin Kouzin dancing Lysander, and Gavin Larsen and, I think, Rachel Butler as butterflies. Sadly some have retired and other are dancing elsewhere (sniff), although Larsen is only three hours away in Portland. In the film Russell told an anecdote about sitting next to Balanchine during a staging of Symphony in C in which he said that she was the only person who would know how it really went. She said that other people would know, but in the Q&A she emphasized how important it was for the next generation to learn to stage the ballets. She also said that Barbara Horgan will ask former dancers who have not transitioned into another field, or are unemployed, to try their hand at staging, if she thinks they have the aptitude. More On Balanchine: von Arolding quoted Balanchine as saying that the waltz is difficult because you have two legs but it's in three. Villella quoted him as saying that the floor on which they danced was the music. The second film was rather stagy, with Balanchine and his dancers watching the tape of the program. A dancer gave the intro to each of the four pas de deux in the program. Introducing the (first half of the) Agon pas de deux, Mitchell said that it was "like seeing live sculpture...becoming live before you." He danced with Suzanne Farrell. It was funny watching Villella pose like a movie star -- not quite James Bond, but... -- listening to his intro, in which he emphasized his and McBride's speed and energy. They then performed Tarantella at breakneck speed. Villella was terrific, but McBride was unbelievable, considering the pace and the intricacy of her part. For me it was the highlight of the program. d'Amboise introduced Meditation is his characteristic rambling, but energetic and upbeat style. He said that it was very Russian, and that Balanchine was "tasting a little sorrow" by making the ballet. He said that he thought there was a pleasure in the sorrow, and Balanchine replied that it (sorrow) was "not pleasure at all!" Meditation was the third ballet I saw NYCB perform, with Farrell and d'Amboise, and I didn't like it any more several decades later. If Sonatine is the "best Jerome Robbins ballet Balanchine choreographed," then I think Meditation must be the worst, but that's just me. Rounding out the program was the variations through the end of Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, danced by d'Amboise and Melissa Hayden. The most impressive part was how first d'Amboise started a series of turn sequences that started slow and built gradually, and Hayden followed with very slow fouettes that built to fast ones. What control they showed. Unlike Tarantella, I don't think TPdD works well on a small stage with the camera up close; the sweep is missing. There were some other Q&A questions that didn't involve staging. Someone asked why PNB has never done Vienna Waltzes. Russell replied that because of the expense and the number of dancers needed, PNB couldn't do it on their own. PNB and San Francisco Ballet were going to pay for it and peform it jointly on a proposed tour of LA, SF, Portland, Seattle, and, possible, Vancouver, but the project fell through. Another person asked what was the thinking behind next season's programming. Russell said they wanted to do their favorite Stowell ballet, which is Romeo and Juliet, a Stravinsky program, and to end with Silver Lining, because the entire company is in it, and they wanted to end their tenure "surrounded by the company." They also wanted to show the range of repertory. The question that is dear to my heart, but the answer to which was heart-breaking was why Russell and Stowell never staged Liebeslieder Waltzer, which Stowell had danced with Suzanne Farrell. She said that it was expensive and long, and that the ballet -- Stowell's favorite and Russell's "desert island" ballet -- was a "specialized, acquired taste." She said that even in NYC, the audience leaves "in droves," which she found "sickening." She talked about the people who leave during the pause. She said the people who love it, really really love it, but that the "bigger problem" is that the ballet has "limited audience appeal for such a long work." Part of the expense comes from the costumes, but the other part comes from the set, which is required by the trust. She said that she and Stowell have a great sadness that they've never done the ballet. Russell's tongue-in-cheek solution was to "bar the doors" and to make each audience member "watch it three times before you say you don't like it!"

1904 was a very good year -- the birth year of Balanchine, Ashton, and Moshe Feldenkrais, founder of the Feldenkrais Method (Awareness through Movement and Functional Integration). This Thursday, 6 May, Feldenkrais practitioners and organizations are planning rolling worldwide Awareness through Movement classes to honor him. For a full 24 hours, there will be a class somewhere in the world.

With the same 10x figure I would retrofit the Mercer Arena to meet code and ADA standards, and endow it to present student/apprentice productions of ballet, opera, modern dance, and chamber music.

In a post-performance Q&A after PNB's current season Balanchine program, both Russell and Stowell said that Liebeslieder is their favorite ballet. Alas, it will not be staged in Seattle during their final season. (And Symphony in C has been replaced in next season's Balanchine Program by Ballet Imperial. )

Tonight's presentation was phenomenal. First Doug Fullington introduced Diane Chilgren and spoke a little bit about what we'd be seeing. I didn't take notes, and I don't remember which of Chilgren's comments came at the beginning and which came during the Q&A, but here are paraphrases of some of them: *Chilgren got the silent tapes two months before starting production. She had scores of La Valse and La Source with minimal markings, and she did her own notation. Since she worked with Verdy on La Source, she was able to get Verdy's input and to confirm the work she did on her own. *Chilgren came to NYCB in the '70's and hadn't seen LeClerq dance; the La Valse tape was the first time she saw LeClerq. *The tape of La Valse was a pirated tape made by a fan at Jacob's Pillow in 1951. I don't think either Chilgren or Fullington said that the La Source tape was also a pirate -- it was shot from front and above -- but they both were made with hand-held cameras, and Chilgren said that a challenge was that because of that, the dancers sped up and slowed down. She had to match her playing to the tape, which she said were not the tempos she was used to from playing the pieces at PNB. *Someone asked Chilgren how she came to PNB. She said that Balanchine was artisitic director of a company in Geneva towards the end of his life, and she worked for that company until he died in 1983. At that point she decided that she wanted to return to the US. Barbara Horgan recommended PNB, and her family lives in the greater Pacific Northwest, so she wanted to return here. *Someone else asked how Chilgren became involved in dance. She said that someone -- and to this day she doesn't know who -- recommended her to NYCB, and just before she was about to do a recital at Town Hall, they called her to ask her to audition. She decided to wait until after the recital, and they called again. She went and they asked her to play excerpts from Firebird. She said after that, the Glazunov score they gave her was easy. The final part was playing for one of Balanchine's classes. She said he kept talking to her and eliminating all of the classical music she had. First she mentioned that he preferred show tunes because of the energy, but then added that he didn't like classical music played at incorrect tempi. Having passed that "test" she said that she really liked the Company and found Balanchine fascinating, so she stayed while continuing to perform concerts on her own. The first half of the program was a series of different tapes, beginning with the silent version of Tanaquil LeClerq and Nicolas Magallanes performing the Eighth Waltz (to "Valse Nobles et Sentimentales). For some reason, it elicited some giggles from the audience. Then the ballet was repeated with the piano accompaniment by Chilgren, and it bloomed, yet at the same time was eerily intimate. LeClerq was in her early 20's when it was made, and what a unique sensibility she had at such an early age. La Valse was followed by interviews with Violette Verdy, who started with one thought and kept branching farther and farther out, from Balanchine and French music and how he used it more than French choreographers, to dancing the roles he made for her using French music, to working on the reconstruction. There was footage of Chilgren recording the music as the film of La Source played, and a discussion between Verdy and Chilgren, in which Chilgren held her ground to get a word in edgewise One of the topics they talked about was trying to figure out the timing to make it seem like the dancers were responding to the music, not the other way around. One challenge they discussed was that Villella got airborne quickly when he jumped, so that it was hard to time; in one instance, Chilgren played so that on the four she was back in exact synch with him. The film itself was almost all pas de deux and solos for Verdy and Villella. There were several shots of the corps as Verdy and Villella entered, but until the finale, there was almost no corps action. The dancing was phenomenal, and the woman's role is so difficult. Not that the man's solos are a cinch, but, for example, in the second pas de deux, Verdy has to keep her leg up through various supported positions, and her leg was light as a feather the entire time. She had two solos that went on so long, it was hard to imagine the stamina it would take to survive them, let alone making them look effortless. After a short break, a French film version of "les etoiles avec les danseurs" of the NYCB performing Western Symphony was shown. The short excerpt from the beginning of the second movement, and the extended one from the fourth are familiar from the PBS Balanchine documentary. What a cast: Diana Adams and Herbert Bliss in the first movement, Melissa Hayden and Nicholas Magallanes in the second, Allegra Kent and Robert Barnett in the now rarely seen third movement (scherzo), and LeClerq and Jacques d'Amboise in the fourth. Before it was shown, Fullington mentioned that it was filmed one week before LeClerq contracted polio, and it is the last film of her dancing. During the intermission I heard someone say to Francia Russell that she was the star of the second half, which she shrugged off, but Fullington pointed out that she was one of the corps girls in the first movement, on her first assignment at NYCB (on a European tour no less). So when she came into focus, she got a round of applause. If someone told me I could have one of the three films, I wouldn't know how to decide. The footage of La Valse was so poignant, Verdy, especially, and Villella were dreams in La Source, and even though I think Western Symphony is a bit of a dog, all of those great dancers were in it...

Which would be ironic, because for years, Americans would buy tickets to the company because of its foreign roster; American dancers were considered "inferior," the same way American pianists, violinists, and conductors were considered inferior to their European counterparts.