Helene

The premiere of Ratmansky's "Tchaikovsky Overtures" is tonight; Julian Mackay posted about it to his Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmgteBQKsWV/ While I wouldn't expect new creations of Ratmansky works to enter other companies' reps for a few years, it may be possible for ABT to get the rights in the future, especially since this will premiere in Europe (Munich).

Today's -- Friday, December 23's -- matinee performance at 2pm has been cancelled. We are having Weather here in Seattle, and driving isn't safe right now, due to icy roads. PNB is sending email notifications to every ticket buyer they have in their system. https://www.instagram.com/p/CmhHVQNNvP_/ The post says to check the website for updates for the other performances -- here is one scheduled for tonight and two tomorrow, until next week. https://www.pnb.org/ When I opened up the site, there was a pop-up announcing the cancelation, and there is also a persistent banner at the top of the website: The weather channels are looking at freezing temperaturs until sometime this afternoon, then above freezing, rising into the 40's and even 50's and rainy next week, but I guess they'll see whether the ice melts in time for this evening's performance.

Argh, it took seeing 2000 Nutcracker posts on social media before I realized that I haven't kept up with casting, argh! Here's the link to the PNB website (scroll for casting): https://www.pnb.org/nutcracker/ Here's a link to a downloadable Excel sheet for this week's casting: Nutcracker 2022_12_22.xlsx Here are the posts that finally wok me up: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cme5Vw0S1su/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CmfWSCoq8fN/

That is true, and I haven't heard anything about the Met planning to change this. Their Listen Live/Sirius XM on-air people, mainly Debra Lew Harder and William Berger, are asking for people to recommend favorite broadcasts to replay during the four-week break, from the end of January until the half February/half March week when performances resume. Plus, the singers they contract with have long lead times, so if they're planning to make a switch, it would be complicated and costly to change quickly.

I think they shouldn't be in a hurry to fill the spot until/unless they find the right person. They didn't always have a resident choreographer, and there was a reason at the time to hire Ratmansky. I also think they should be looking for additions to their coaching staff, independent from the RC role. May she live a much, much longer life, but Irina Kolpatkova will be 90 next May.

Balanchine owned the rights to his ballets when he was alive, and he gave his ballets freely or at nominal fees to many companies. Are the terms of Ratmansky's rights schedule for ABT public? If not, we only know he has the right to get fees, unless he ceded them.

This isn't surprising given his recent focus, and, often, people re-evaluate in face of change and/or a milestone -- contract renewal, change in administration --- but it's bittersweet given the plethora of home-grown talent in the company. I hope he does come back as choreographer or to stage something the premieres elsewhere on these dancers.

Iliesiu posted some of the photos from her Instagram Live and some new ones to her Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmXdBNgyNbN/

1. She did not consent to photo sharing: she forgave him (in a public statement) after the fact. 2. She was not the only one.

Cecilia Iliesiu just finished guesting in the Goh Ballet (Vancouver, BC) Nutcracker. I knew she was performing the Snow Queen from Act I, but she also danced Spanish in Act II, according to the photos in her Instagram story, which will expire after today. She also left a gracious message thanking the backstage costume staff.

According to the arbitrator, it was NYCB's business, because while he determined that firings weren't justified, the suspensions were. NYCB is a workplace. While they may be under one-year contracts, dancers are employees and have more rights than contractors. Courts can decide at any time that some terms in the contract are unenforceable, for better or worse. The courts can decide that there are other principles of employment law that must be practiced in addition to what is in the contracts. The courts can interpret/re-interpret law and apply case law to new circumstances, like the judge who reinstated NYCB in the lawsuit did. (There was dissent in the judge's interpretation, and I don't remember reading anything about where that stands now.) A court is not going to decide that all dancers must be able to be paired together, or that there are specific circumstance that they shouldn't be, but they can interpret whether or not the company made reasonable accomodation based on difference principles, possibly hostile work environment. They could even come up with arguments based on workplace law that influence how companies manage what they consider weight issues. Simply because it's always been done this way or that, and dance company management and guest choreographers have been able to cast at will and define capability in terms of their aesthetic doesn't mean that this will always be the case.

I heard part of Stewart Goodyear's piano version of The Nutcracker yesterday, and it was amazing. I bought the full album as a download and it is a joy. This is the info page from Steinway & Sons, which published the album. https://www.steinway.com/music-and-artists/label/tchaikovsky-nutcracker-stewart-goodyear

Since the women haven't identified themselves, the company hasn't identified them, the suit alleges sharing photos for more women (and at least one student) besides Waterbury, -- and these allegations weren't denied -- we have no idea if photos of the woman who spoke to management were among those whose photos were shared. And since photos were shared with at least three men in NYCB, the women who went to management would be working with them, and, at social events, subjected to Mr. Jr. Board Member.

In fact, the company argued that some women told management they would be uncomfortable dancing with the men and impacted their employment, which was part of their firing decision, and the New York Times did, indeed, report on the arbitrator's decision right after it hapened: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/arts/dance/city-ballet-amar-ramasar-sexually-explicit-texts.html?searchResultPosition=28

NYCB has "community standards." And it's not as if morals clauses, or whatever they're named, are something new and part of "cancel culture," unless you consider "cancel culture" as old as the oldest sin, because workplaces and groups have, for millenia, removed people from violating their cultural norms, which, for companies, has simply meant embarrassing them., or restricted them from the beginning.

On his Instagram account Julian Mackay posted some short clips of Ratmansky choreographing his new ballet for Bayerisches Staatsballett: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmRaqbqqE_Y/

Edited to add: Per the article: Catazaro said that he did not share images of Waterbury, but didn't deny that he had shared other photos or comments. The lawsuit said he had exchanged photos, but of other dancers. If Catazaro had been a purely passive recipient, I don't think that NYCB would have gone out on a limb and fired him for receiving photos.

The previews for West Side Story were in 2019, and the article to which FayBallet linked was from 2018: the news in multiple publications in 2020 about picketers targeting Ramasar's participation in a Broadway show, by which time Catazaro was on another continent -- which would be interesting to a much wider audience -- wasn't news at the time that they were both fired from NYCB. While Ramasar would have been better known to a general audience because he had been in Carousel, and for people who had read the lawsuit, was a far more enthusiastic participant in photo-sharing and commenting than Catazaro, it's just as possible, if not likely, that this wasn't why they chose a photo of Ramasar above the lead, and Catazarro much later in the article. I plead guilty to scrolling past almost all photos in news articles and reviews, and find them annoying interruptions to text; I have to force myself to look at the "Parting Shot" at the bottom of the Dance Edit newsletter. I'm not sure if the photo registered consciously when I first read the article or if this was a pattern in coverage of all phases of this ongoing story. Ramasar would have been correctly feeatured in the picketeers stories, when he decided to return to the Company, and when his girlfriend spoke publicly. But FayBallet raises an important point: why when it should have been "all things being equal" when both Ramasar and Catazaro were fired in the same decision. (Finlay had already left the company.)

Guesting for Nutcrackers may also be influencing casting. Many of the younger dancers can earn money guesting with companies where they grew up/went to school unless NYCB has a contractual black-out for the second half of December. Not all ticket buyers are raring to go after Christmas, and if sales are slower the week after, then having names might bring in more local attendees who aren't heading out to warmer climates. I remember when that week was full of debuts, but that doesn't seem to be the case this year looking at the Sugar Plum Fairy and Dewdrop casting for the last week.

Yes: all of the streams can be viewed as many times as you want during the viewing period, and you can pause and slide along the timeline to go back and forth.. I think I watched The Seasons Canon about 73747485948056 times, and the Nutcracker stream is available for nine days if you buy it by December 19th, longer than the five-day regular rep viewing period. Yesterday I received an email with details and a "test your device" option, and I'm guessing people who subscribe between now to the launch will get it as well. . The company sends a separate email with the link and password once viewing is enabled. Each time you click the link to open a new browser, you'll need to re-enter the password, so save that email. This will be such a treat! And a shameless plug: all of the regular rep programs are available to stream, almost always from the Thursday after the program closes to the following Monday, and the February 2023 program is the Giselle that Doug Fullington and Marian Smith worked with Pacific Northwest Ballet to stage using various newly found (at the time) source materials and the original score.

This is extraordinary news: Whim W'him, with the help of a personal loan from an anonymous patron, has purchased a church on upper Queen Anne, a few blocks from the Trader Joe's site! https://crosscut.com/culture/2022/12/seattle-dance-company-buys-church-queen-anne The church currently earns money from a daycare center and embedded cell phone tower, and these revenues will cover loan repayments. It sounds like an amazing space, and now the company will have stability. This is amazing 📣 .

Alastair Macaulay posted Hyltin's curtain calls to his Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/Clyas2TA1DN/

That sounds like a wonderful performance @tutu!

With the emphasis on features at the NYT, that's what Harss writes for them. You have to search for the reviews she writes on Fjord Review. She also does seasonal dance previews for The New Yorker. She used to review frequently for Dance Tabs. She's spent a substantial amount of time writing a critical bio of Alexei Ratmansky for Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, which, according to an event with Lynn Garafola, is "forthcoming." https://m.facebook.com/events/the-norfolk-library/lynn-garafola-in-conversation-with-marina-harss/743942826882859/ I'm having no luck finding anything more specific on the publication date. So while she might have a little bit of time freed up, she should be on a book tour, and I hope she gets to see and write about performances as she travels.

It means not to duplicate the video.