Helene

I just received an email from the Royal Ballet. They have a special ticket offer through 20 November for a triple bill including Wheeldon's Polyphonia, Balanchine's The Four Temperaments, and Kylian's Sinfonetta: "When you book a top-price seat for the evening performances on 18, 21 or 25 November you will pay £39.60 (usual price £66), and for the matinee performance on 15 November you will pay £31.20 (usual price £52).When booking for this special offer, choose Orchestra Stalls, Stalls Circle or Grand Tier and enter your preferred number of seats next to the 'email offer' concession." Here is the link to the Royal Ballet ticket site in the email. I just checked the website. They may have assigned a certain number of seats to "email" offer, because I didn't see any available in Orchestra Stalls for the 18 November performance. (If available, they are displayed on a separate line with the special price.) To see availability after selecting a specific performance of "Polyphonia Triple Bill," click on the picture of the section on the left side of the screen. I hope someone will see this, take advantage of the offer, and post about the performance(s). I'm jealous that I won't be able to see this program

The Metropolitan Opera did another triple bill soon after the Stravinsky. It was a French triple bill, including Satie's Parade, Ravel's opera L'Enfant et les Sortileges, and Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tireseas, the latter with sets by David Hockney. Notably, both this triple bill and the Stravinsky one consist of modern works. Maybe there's hope that if Stravinsky was good box office, this one will be revised as well -- with good choreography for Parade -- and that the Met may expand to other programs.

The first time I watched ballet I was a small child and have no idea what it was. I suspect that since my parents and grandparents were devotees of the Ed Sullivan show, it was broadcast on this show. I only know that my parents told me they couldn't pry me away from the television, and I was inconsolable when it ended. Oh the days before VCR's! The first ballet I remember seeing on TV was Pillar of Fire with Sallie Wilson. The first ballet I saw live was Swan Lake with Makarova and Nagy, and Marianna Tcherkassy in the Act I pas de trois when I was 13.

I start with three subscriptions to Pacific Northwest Ballet, University of Washington Dance Series, and Seattle Theater Group. If I love something, or Mark Morris is in town, I'll get tickets for more than one performance. I also try to attend ballet and opera performances whenever I travel. I used to travel a lot for work, and one year, I saw all but one San Francisco Ballet program while working with a vendor in the East Bay! It's much more possible when work is paying for the flights and hotel room I live three hours from Vancouver, and I usually drive there for one or two dance performances a year. Now that Christopher Stowell is running Oregon Ballet Theater in Portland, I'll probably attend a few performances there each year as well. When I visit friends in NY, I try to sneak in performances, and I've even started travelling beyond the Bay Area to see specific companies, especially in this Balanchine Centennial year.

I was looking at the Ballet Arizona website, and in their FAQ was the following Q&A: 'How do you pronounce artistic director Ib Andersen's first name? 'His first name is pronounced eb with a long "e" sound as in beet, and tree. Ib was born and raised in Denmark.'

PNB's Ballet NOW! program, which closes tomorrow night, consists of four pieces: Lynne Taylor-Corbett's Mercury to a Haydn symphony from NYCB's 1992 "Diamond Project," William Forsythe's Artifact II from the longer Artifact choreographed in 1984 to solo violin music by Bach, Kent Stowell's 1997 Palacio Dances to music by Bolcom, and Val Caniparoli's Torque to silence and two pieces by Michael Torke. I saw this afternoon's performance. My impression of Mercury when I saw it in '92 and during PNB's 1995 run was that it was a waste of time for principal dancers, whose joie de vivre seemed forced. While two principals did perform today, the mostly young cast was truly convincing that not only were they given great opportunities, but that they really liked their jobs. In the first movement, Pantastico was superb, and although she is way beyong the choreography technically, she danced with committment and a clear sense of rhythm and shape. Her partner Jordan Pacitti had very soft, clean movement. I thought a little "oomph" was missing, but he was very nice contrast to Pantastico. In the corps choreography Nicolas Ade "popped," with energy and musicality. What I did find interesting though was late in the first movement, where the corps men partnered Pantastico. Three of the men, including Ade, partnered her like corps men. But the fourth, Karel Cruz, managed in three relatively short phrases to convey the sensitivity and attention that eluded Pacitti. When the men had mini solos in succession, it was Lucien Postlewaite who was most impressive. The second movement is really a set-up for the guy. Stacy Lowenberg showed good cheer throughout, even though the choreography was made for partner Jonathan Poretta to shine. What was great about Poretta's performance was that he was attentive to Lowenberg throughout, and didn't try to hog the spotlight that was already his. I found Kylee Kitchens disappointing in the third movement adagio. Unless he's dancing Corsaire, her partner Stanko Milov tends to be one of the most self-effacing partners in the company. Kitchen's movements in the adagio didn't have much weight or shape, and she couldn't match him in presence. As leaders in the fourth movement, Mara Vinson was a wonder, with beautifully articulated feet -- in the air, because there wasn't much pointe work -- and she matched Noelani Pantastico's energy and strength. Le Yin also danced softly and roundly, which is unusual for what I've seen of him so far. What was consistent with my memories of past performances was that the second half of the fourth movement, when all of the couples and corps members are onstage, is where the ballet really starts. But there was some wonderful dancing in the 3.5 movement "prelude." Artifact II opens with a black wing panel downstage, but open wings going back, so that the lighting is exposed. The corps, dressed in gold unitards, surrounds the two sides and upstage. Downstage center is a figure in a dark grey unitard, facing upstage, with a couple to her right -- Patricia Barker and Jeffrey Stanton in this performance -- dressed like the corps. Almost immediately, when Bach's music starts, the second couple -- danced here by Melanie Skinner and Casey Herd -- emerges from the upstage row of corps. Whenever The Other Person (as the woman in grey is known) is onstage with the corps, the corps follows her arm and hand motions, like a giant game of "Simon Says." There's even a section where the two principal couples, alone on stage with her, also follow her movements. The pas de deux that the principal couples perform through various "movements" -- broken by the sharp "thud" of the curtain dropping quickly -- are very much like the ones from "In the Middle Somewhat Elevated," which is not surprising, considering the power of Bach's solo violin music. The corps worked seemed very architectural to me, as they formed various line patterns on the stage in each movement. (Only once did they run, across the stage from one side to the other.) In one notable movement, where The Other Person was absent, they fell to the ground in a row upstage, and proceeded to break unison. An arm would pop up here or there in the line, until they started to cross their arms over each other, with some even creating a chain between them, the only real communication up until that point. I found the corps to be very powerful, and even though I'm not sure exactly what the whole thing means, I have a sense that the ballet was saying something very real, though pattern and movement. I usually don't like Melanie Skinner's dancing -- I find her a bit rigid -- but Forsythe's choreography fit her like a glove. In this cast, she looks like Patricia Barker's sister, and the two couples seem related, partially because the two women have a marked physical resemblance, but also because they move in similar ways, at least in this ballet. (The two leads in the other cast, Lallone and Nadeau, are about as opposite as you can get.) Skinner danced like Barker's equal and without apology, which was wonderful to see. Palacios Dances was a Silver Anniversary Celebration tango-based "puff piece," originally choreographed for Patricia Barker. Barker always looks strained to me in pieces where she's supposed to act "light." This afternoon, it was danced by Louise Nadeau and Paul Gibson. I never thought I'd hear myself saying that Louise Nadeau was wonderful, but she was. The emphasis was on leg work, and hers was crisp, yet light, with terrific tango rhythm. I always love seeing Paul Gibson; there just wasn't enough of him in this piece. What saved Nadeau's performance from the technical people were her bright red tights, for the lighting had the pair in the shadows, which is not Randall Chiarelli's mo. The same was true in Torque., which followed. I know that dancers need new ballets to grow, and that often artistic directors will look at a dancer in a new light when an outside choreographer brings out that dancer's best qualities. I also know that some attempts have to fail, and I'm usually willing to sit through the failures. My litmus test for new ballets is whether it would be worth an injury to rehearse and perform it. My answer for Torque is "no," especially for the women. Caniparoli's choreography looks like much of Peter Martin's corps choreography to Michael Torke. I suspect this has to do with the music phrases; I don't remember any other Caniparoli choreography having the same frenzied look to it. What happened to the women was almost criminal: in the blur of racing limbs and chaine turns, rather than bringing up the level of corps woman's dancing to the level of a principal, it talked down to them so much that it brought Principal Kaori Nakamura's dancing down to the level of the corps. I don't think there is any woman in the company who could have made much of this choreography. Torque is ultimately a men's ballet, and I think Caniparoli should have stuck with an all-male cast. He had one interesting solo for the man in orange, danced by Kyon Gaines, in which there were a lot of angular versions of steps and jumps. (It could have been something I ate; the friend I went with just loved the ballet, although her binoculars may have focused a little too much on Casey Herd ) The only thing that made this worthwhile for me was the performance of Lucien Postlewaite, in gold. He ate up space in every direction, a true stage animal. He looked like he was having the time of his life. And he's only an apprentice! I don't know how he partners, but he has the stage present and physical gifts of a Principal Dancer. He's the most talented man I've seen come out of the corps in the last ten seasons.

Sorry, I just edited this out -- I was duplicating something I said on an earlier post.

Alexandra, Thank you so much for the link to Rita Felciano's review. (According to the program, the company will perform the piece in Santa Barbara (CA) and Cleveland, too.) I had forgotten to mention Maria Ros' exquisite lighting. Seattle audiences have been very lucky the last month: first Jennifer Tipton's lighting for the Seattle Opera's production of Mourning Becomes Electra, and then Ros' for Kvarnstrom. The dancers looked so much like people, that it never occurred to me that they were at rehearsal! (Edited to fix spelling)

Oh, yes! Loscavio's performance of "My One and Only" is worth the price of the video tape alone! I attended the entire Balanchine Celebration performance. As usual, the internationally known guest artists got ovations, especially Darcey Bussell -- I think I'm the only person on Earth who hated her performance in Agon -- Manuel Legris in the Square Dance solo, and even Patricia Barker, who some may have known from PNB/Sendak's version of the Nutcracker on VHS and who others thought was Kyra Nichols. No one seemed to know who Loscavio was, and there was little anticipation in the air when she came out. She then performed the most fantastic version of "My One and Only" and blew the house away, eliciting one of the biggest ovations of the entire celebration from the shocked audience.

K. Kvanstrom & Co. brought a piece called "Fragile" to the Moore Theater in Seattle last night under the aegis of the Seattle Theater Group's dance series. The set was quite beautiful: it consisted of a light gray square dance surface and a white hanging mobile-like structure that looked like a Calder mobile with Noguchi shapes hanging from either end of what looked like the Nike "Swoosh" hanging upside down. The dancers entered at the beginning of the piece and sat their water bottles down along either side of the dance surface. This is where they rested when they weren't dancing, until the very end, when they left the stage into the wings. The five dancers in the piece wore black pants and various stretch tops and shirts in muted colors. The piece opened in silence, with each dancer walking downstage, pulling out a Poloroid, displaying the picture to the audience, and putting it on the stage apron. (I was on the verge of immediate hatred.) Then they started to move, and in various combinations, didn't stop moving to a mostly driving electronic score to music by Anders Jacobson and Amon Tobin and occasional bouts of silence, except where they pulled out more photos and occasionally took photos of themselves during the piece. The dancers were so strong for so long, that only when a silence occured toward the end, and the breathing of the two women onstage was prominent (deliberately, I think), it finally dawned on me that they had been dancing in very long stretches for over an hour. Many of the patterns were repeated throughout the piece. There were a couple of low, distinct turning lifts, one where a dancer would seem to launch diagnonally upwards into the arms of two other dancers while the movement, made stiking because it always seemed reversible, and a movement where a dancer would fall backwards on a diagonal into the arms of another dancer. Most of the rest of the phrases were done in unison or with two groups each doing their own movement. There were movements of great sensuality, yet the performance was so low-key and unselfconscious that it never came close to being exhibitionish. The five dancers were all over the map. Of the two men, one was tall and thin, and apart from exceptionally beautiful ballet feet, he looked like the Dance Guy in college who took up dancing first a year ago and who was cast because he was tall and male and was interested in dance. The piece called for a lot of elastic movement that rounded in constantly changing directions, and the energy of his movement stopped at his waist and died in his inflexible back. By contrast, his shorter, more compact counterpart looked at first like someone who had been chosen randomly off the street, but who, from the moment he started to move, performed great feats of shape and concentration, without ever looking "dancerish." Among the women, there was one tallish, dark-haired, extremely thin woman who was all limbs and angles. The choreography was beside the point for the way she moved, with one exception: for 10 seconds, she did a series of writhing movements downstage left, which was the only thing all night that made sense of the title of the piece. The second woman had sun-bleached blond hair and was the same height, but looked like she had been fed at least daily. She had the most cut arms and shoulders I've ever seen on a dancer. She was able to move with the roundness of the choreography, and many of the arm and hand gestures looked clearest and most differentiated when she performed them. The third woman, who looked like a normal person onstage (but I'm sure was quite thin in real life), had pulled back blond hair and was a revelation: she danced like a constantly contracting and expanding double helix. I could not keep my eyes off of her, because her energy was so continuous throughout her body, and she looked just as strong at the end of the dance as she did at the begining. (According to the program, one of the woman was born in 1965; none of the three woman looked 38 years old, even during the bows.) The strange thing to me was that the really good man and the extraordinary woman weren't really interesting when they danced together. None of the dancers were playing to the audience, and it didn't seem to be a competitive issue. They had similar energy and strength. The really good man looked great with the woman with cut arms, perhaps because they seemed to be having more of a conversation. I'm not really sure what the piece means. I haven't seen much modern dance outside of the Paul Taylor/Merce Cunningham/Jose Limon/Mark Morris veins, and I saw Martha Graham Company for the first time last week. (Where I found in Diversion of Angels some of the seeds of Paul Taylor's style. Imagine, I had thought he sprang from the thigh of Zeus!). So I have no clue if the piece was derivative. But the choreographer was never in my face, and the performers didn't demand my attention, although several commanded it. The piece wasn't avante garde or faux outrageous or pretentious in the way that attracts the "I'm deep enough to understand the existential crisis behind this piece, and you're not" audience. I do know I saw some beautiful movement to music I liked performed by two great dancers and one quite fine one, and I was sorry when it was over. Did anyone see the piece at Jacob's Pillow last summer? If so, I'd really appreciate your take on "Fragile."

I'm so glad you posted your review! Maybe Urlezaga will be able to bring his company on a North American or European tour, like Julia Bocca is doing. I would love to see Stekelman's choreography -- you've whetted my appetite

In Seattle it's an auxiliary station of our public TV station KCTS, and it airs on cable on Comcast channel 75. It's on every day between 4-5 pm and 5 am; they loop through the entire broadcast several times a day. A co-worker once called it "Highbrow MTV."

Zhulin is not only coaching and choreographing for his wife, Tatiana Navka, and her dance partner Roman Kostomarov, but he's also coaching Men's singles skaters Alexander Abt and Vakhtang Murvanidze, both very artistic skaters. Navka and Kostomarov just won Skate Canada, beating last year's European silver and World bronze medallists, Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviyski.

One of the most frustrating parts of watching figure skating on US TV is that not only are the events not televised live, but that after Skate America, broadcasts come after the next event are finished. Grand Prix events are scheduled weekly, beginning with Skate America (then Skate Canada, Cup of China, Trophee Lalique, Cup of Russia, and NHK Trophy). Their names are Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin. From the description on the ISU website, they weren't flawless in either program, but even so, I can't wait to see their performances, because they have such superior line.

Your news of Gillian Murphy's Hagar was good news I've been waiting for Hagar to re-emerge since I saw Sallie Wilson's performances, even if her interpretation is a different one. Especially if her interpretation is a different one!

Cool report -- thank you! I wish I could have seen these performances. If I have a chance to see the Kirov, I will look for performances where Gumerova and Zhelonkina have been cast. Emeralds is so hard to cast, and I've seen so many misses over the years. It's great to know that Gumerova was wonderful in it.

Thank you for your review. I'm 3,000 miles away, and living vicariously through it

Albrecht's point of view sounds like a series of self-justifying rationalizations to me. I'm sure Albrecht has hired his share of gameskeepers to prevent poaching on his estates; how kind of him to condescend to those who do his dirty work. Also, Giselle's mother knows that if Giselle lives long enough, she is frail enough to need someone who adores her and can provide for her, and Hilarion fits the bill. I'm willing to listen to the point of view of a villain, but not a cad. But I loooove red hair. Maybe that explains it (Edited to use the right word.)

Cohen said that the stress fracture in her back was due to an injury she sustained while doing Pilates. Lambiel was injured last year, and just announced that he is injured yet again. He may be in shape for Euros and/or Worlds, but he's pulled out of his Grand Prix events.

The movie was called "Six Weeks," and it starred Katherine Healy, who has appeared in recent years with Ice Theater of New York.

Miriram Mahdaviani choreographed the music in a piece for NYCB. I believe it was part of the American Music Festival.

I've always thought of Hilarion and Gurn as sympathetic, because I've seen them cast as young men of the same class as the heroine. I've never had any sympathy for Albrecht, because he's the one in the position of power, and he abuses it by pretending to be a peasant, like the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto, although not quite as extreme. I've always thought of Giselle as the biggest wimp around, because she protects a liar and a cheat. My sympathies go to Hilarion, because he knows something is rotten in Denmark. James as a character can be different, because while Effy is well-intentioned, she has the assumption of a particular life, and I can sympathize with the potential artist or poet or dreamer who is being squelched by standard expectations and a bourgeous life. That said, to make Hilarion less sympathetic to me than Albrecht would only be possible if Hilarion were portrayed as (more of) a vain, abusive brute, and he could show nothing but pride and stubbornness, not remorse, when Giselle goes mad. Gurn would have to be a churlish brute as well, although he could be cast the way Alexandra describes, as a middle aged man. Although he'd have to be pompous or a lech or have a sense of buying Effy, i.e., someone insufferable, not just older. Which would turn Effy's mother into the mother in La Fille Mal Gardee? I don't think I would have made a very good 19th century audience member. Maybe that's why I like Balanchine and older men in general so much

Alexandra, Thank you for the link to Tobias' review. I am so sad that Hubbe replaced Lund Although, given how much she loved Bojesen, I'm not sure we saw the same performers I guess I felt that Bojesen's Sylph wasn't offering an alternative to a bourgeois world, but a bigger house and a richer father-in-law. Helene

When I lived in NYC, my second home was the 4th Ring, and my favorite seats were the ones in the last row at the far ends, where I could see the stage from an angle. Standing room at the State Theater is behind the last row of the 4th Ring; even so, it's worth standing through the entire NYCB Nutcracker. At the Metropolitan Opera, where ABT's Spring season is held, there is standing room behind the orchestra, which is a great way to see ballet up close. When I was 14, I had to watch Makarova's and Nagy's performance in Swan Lake through a pair of binoculars, because I had shattered my glasses two hours before the ballet started! I find, though, that I enjoy watching the patterns and the contrast of the principals against the corps unaided.

To me there are many ways a male dancer stands out -- assuming this means in a good way -- but I would say that the unifying aspect is that he "sings" to me. The most common aspects of this are * The music and the rhythm drive the dancing, not the other way around, and the phrasing seems inevitable. If there's any reason why I think Villella is heads over Nureyev, and why I found Nureyev dull, it is this one. *The dancing makes me look at the dancer; the dancer doesn't "demand" I look at him. *The dancing is done as part of a phrase, with the relative weight of the movement and shapes in proportion to the phrase. *The dancer knows his strengths and weakness and dances within his own frame. Bart Cook might not have had the best line, but his energy was infused from the top of his head to the tips of his toes and was so palpable, that when he was onstage, I couldn't look at anyone else. (I had even forgotten that Peter Martins was the other guy in the Stravinsky Violin Concerto tape until I looked at the liner notes.) The same is true for me for Nicholas Ade, a corps member at Pacific Northwest Ballet. Anthony Dowell and Peter Boal had/have beautiful line, still or moving, and I find them equally appealing. *The man focuses his energy on his partner. Dowell could be elegant and deferential to his partner, with no false humility. Cook presented his partner with energy and as a equal. Joseph Duell and Jacques d'Amboise could make me see their partners through their eyes. Very different types of partnering, but each make be feel like I'm watching a single dancing entity, not two dancers.