Helene

In today's Links there are articles about Australian Ballet's stand for marriage equality. From Australian Ballet's Facebook:

Houston Ballet is doing four performances of "Mayerling" on September 22 (eve), September 23 (mat and eve), and September 24 (mat) at The Hobby Center. The September 21, 29, 30 and October 1 performances have been cancelled. https://www.houstonballet.org/seasontickets/pdps/2017-2018/Mayerling-2017/

Designer Jerome Kaplan did an email interview with the "Queen Anne and Magnolia News," and there are photos of Madison Taylor in the "Emeralds" corps costumes and a longer shot of Madison Rayn in the "Diamonds" corps costumes: http://queenannenews.com/Content/On-the-Town/Out-About/Article/PNB-s-Jewels-to-shine-anew-for-years-to-come/3/3/39434

Maria Kowrowski and Ask La Cour in Wheeldon's "After the Rain Pas de Deux" from 12 September 2013:

Casting is up for first weekend: https://www.pnb.org/season/17-18/jewels/ (Look under the "Performance" section) Lucien Postlewaite makes his return on Opening Night in "Emeralds," partnering Noelani Pantastico in her debut in the Verdy role. Here's the downloadable spreadsheet: Jewels Casting Week 1 12_Sep_17.xlsx

Neither you nor I get to debate a church over whether someone they consider a saint is a saint. It's their church: they get to decide what they want. The historical Nicholas II is certainly up for debate.

Simkin just posted to Facebook:

More info about the content: It is from PNB's Facebook Page, but the link only shows the video trailer from above.

Plus dancers who are no longer with the company.

Marcie Sillman writes about Elle Macy for Pointe Magazine (it was shared by PNB's Facebook Page, but I can't get that link to work):

From PNB's Twitter, what I'm guessing are outtakes from PNB's announced short film on the 50th anniversary of "Jewels" to be streamed on Pacific Northwest Ballet's YouTube channel and Facebook Page tomorrow night at 7pm PDT/4pm EDT: Voiceover by Jacques d'Amboise.

Temple University has announced the upcoming 2017-18 colloquia that are live streamed and then usually available to watch on demand. The presentations on February 20 and March 27 might be of particular interest to ballet fans. From the email: Boyer College of Music and Dance, Institute of Dance Scholarship, announces the 2017-18 Dance Studies Colloquium The Colloquium extends through the entire year and affords the opportunity for a sustained conversation on the current state of dance and dance studies. This free bi-monthly event is held on Tuesdays from 5:30-7:00pm at the CHAT Lounge, Gladfelter Hall, 10th floor, Temple University (main campus). Live streaming available at http://new.livestream.com/accounts/1927261. Temple University Dance Studies Colloquium 2017-2018 2017 September 19 Sheron Wray University of California, Irvine "Toward Embodiology: How West African Performance Aesthesis Informs Praxes of Contemporary Dance Improvisation" October 3Richard MoveQueens College/CUNY"Martha@20 -Sonic Bodies, Seizures and Spells" November 7 Hubert Hazebroucq Independent artist/France "Between Technique and Dramaturgy: a Contemporary Dancer's Historical Method" November 28 Joanna Dee Das Washington University "Choreographing Diaspora: Katherine Dunham as an Artist-Activist" 2018 January 23 SanSan Kwan University of California, Berkeley "On Love and Mourning in Intercultural Collaboration" February 6 Petra Kuppers University of Michigan "Asylum Dancing" February 20 Olga De Soto Independent artist/Belgium "Re-imagining “Le Jeune Homme et la mort”: histoires" March 13 Timmy de Laet Visiting Scholar Temple University "Trading Dance: Transatlantic Currencies in Postwar Choreography (1958-1991)" March 27 Olivia Sabee Swarthmore College "Ballet blanc from Revolutionary Festival to Iconic White Act" April 10 Fiona Macintosh Oxford University "Telling Tales with the Body" April 24 Juan Ignazio Vallejos CONICET, Argentina "Articulations of the political in Argentine contemporary dance"

For the last three years, Whim W'him's dancers have viewed close to or over 100 submissions from choreographers from which they choose three: those three are commissioned to create a new work with the Company, and Olivier Wevers, in his opening speech, said that they each spent 55 hours with the dancers. Also in his welcome speech, Wevers announced that the dancers selected the choreographers for next year's Choreographic Shindig IV. The opening work was Bruno Roque's "The Background Hum of Stimuli" to two-part score: spoken directions from a voice like the Google Map's woman's voice and then a jazz instrumental (by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers). Since much of the work was in unison -- break out solos happened later in the work -- it was a great chance to watch new dancers Cameron Birts and Adrian Hoffman for the first time in the context of the company. Birts is short with elegant fluidity. Hoffman is the biggest and tallest man in the company, but it isn't surprising to read in his bio that he was an accomplished martial artist from seeing his strong, dynamic movement which isn't always that common among tall men. Among all of the dancers, the choreography was most compelling on Mia Monteabaro, for whom it looked tailor-made. The second work, Adam Barruch's "Summoning" was simply gorgeous. It was episodically programmatic, ritualistic, and tribal in a strong, but often subtle ways. I wish I had ignored the message that no filming was allowed and bootlegged a video of this to show the Flamenco community in Vancouver -- there are some wonderful artists doing hybrid/cross-over work with Flamenco there -- because the arms and hand movements were so evocative. This isn't to diminish his gifts as a solo dancer, but it's as if Karl Watson's dancing flourishes especially when he is connecting (or not) specifically with his fellow dancers. He and Liane Aung are a great match physically and in their complementary movement quality. The last work, "Limitation Etudes: 7-10" by Banning Bouldin in collaboration with the Whim W'him dancers. The dancers were in white , and they used long, thinnish white bandages to convey limitation and restriction in some familiar and other surprising ways. It felt to me very much like an exploration, and I'd advise watching it before reading the program notes. It's playing at the Erickson Theatre on Capitol Hill, which is a small, intimate, wingless space. There are some standby tickets for tonight, and it's also playing tomorrow tonight -- all shows are at 8pm. It's also plays next week Wednesday-Saturday, September 13-16.

Congratulations to Ms. Kochetkova

He gave an interview to Dance Magazine: http://www.dancemagazine.com/daniil-simkin-staatsballett-berlin-principal-dancer-2482993643.html? (You have to scroll a bit to get to the Q&A)

ABT is in DC from 30 January-4 February. Staatballett Berlin performs "Giselle" on February 2nd and 9th. I doubt Simkin would be cast as Albrecht in both performances, and it's quite possible for him to do at least a couple of "Whipped Cream" performances in NYC, assuming both companies are game, even doing one of the "Giselle" performances.

Here's a lovely photo of the company at the start of the 2017-18 season:

In it's current iteration, it says, It doesn't say when. The Berlin season starts in December with Jewels and runs through June, but performances are spaced pretty far apart, 6-12 days for most. This season it's Jewels, Giselle, and Duato (R&J, mixed bill), at least what's scheduled so far. The opera has a lot more dates in the house.

Congratulations to him! He grew up in Germany, so this is a homecoming, and Berlin is such a great city. I'm glad he'll continue to dance with ABT, too.

Debargue wasn't so bad, considering how he stopped studying for a few years to study literature, and he learned so much music by ear. He sure took Russia by storm: he won the critics award, and his career has been going swimmingly. I heard him play in Seattle in a piece that I don't even like, and he was all that. I wish they had latched onto Reed Tezloff.

More photos via Twitter:

Today was the re-opening of the Francia Russell Center: