Helene

It happened in Seattle. Peter Boal announced Ariana Lallone's retirement. She said publicly and was quoted in the media that she wanted to dance another year and retire during PNB's anniversary season, but that Boal would not renew her contract. Lallone was pretty much a home grown talent, having made it through the ranks, and like Madonna, was known almost universally as "Ariana" and had a huge following. She was also given the best roles of her career by Boal and was giving splendid performances, so it was even more of a than usual. I can't remember if he gave her flowers after her retirement performance, which like most, was during the special Encores performance after the last regular season Sunday matinee.

Congratulations to Mr. Lopatin

Thank you for the info. I thought I heard him speak once, and he didn't sound British, but I was clearly mistaken about hearing him. There goes that theory...

I don't know if Part is married, but I'm pretty sure Kochetkova's husband, Edward King, is American, and it generally doesn't take that long to get permanent residency -> citizenship through a spouse, unless the bureaucracy is down, like after 9/11. (If that's what she wanted.)

I wish her health and happiness and being appreciated in whatever comes next in her life.

Appalling news. Part is a treasure. I only got to see her dance twice, but both times were a privilege. Ms. Part.

The current medici.tv is a beta version of a website that's been in existence for nine years under the older versions of the website. It is not a TV station, but a site dedicated to the classical performance arts, with many live and archived performances, mostly from Europe and Russia. This is something that there have been many posts wishing for. They are old hands at presenting live competitions -- the Tchaikovsky and the recent Van Cliburn, for example -- providing commentators, interviews, and explicit info on their website of the rules and outcomes of these events.

And Suzanne Farrell is the great exception to just about every ballet rule that was written .

Also, Ferri at 54 can choose her roles as a guest artist. That is rarely true of company members, and most likely meant when she was a company member, she wasn't cast in roles she didn't dance, regardless of her preference. Clearly McKenzie thinks that the dancers he casts more than on an emergency and experimental basis can do the roles to his satisfaction.

People complained about Ferri when she was 24, 34, and 44, too.

What is unprecedented is social media allowing dancers to have control over their own self-promotion. However, there is nothing unprecedented about the media running with a story about a dancer and some non-dance-related aspects of their career. As was mentioned up-thread, Leslie Browne, who was promoted after "The Turning Point," and ABT did it's best to leverage the film's publicity in promoting her. They made that choice. Copeland doesn't control the media outside her social media. If the rest of the media finds that she sells, they will write about her, requests interviews with her, etc.

Marina Harss interview Wendy Whelan about her experience staging "Pictures at an Exhibition," and it is very clear why every dancer who spoke in the Q&As described how moved they were by her and the experience: http://dancetabs.com/2017/06/interview-wendy-whelan-on-staging-her-first-ballet-for-pacific-northwest-ballet/

:"Fake news" is neither biased coverage or incorrect news prematurely or erroneously released by legitimate news organizations who have established processes, like fact checking, copy editing, etc. It is specifically what Jayne described, which is click-bait designed entirely to generate revenue. It was created and proliferated in Eastern Europe, and while there are copycats everywhere, it does not apply to the mainstream media's arts coverage. It does not apply to mainstream media that you don't agree with, at least here.

Yeager was not my cup of tea, but I loved Amanda McKerrow. I would seek her out. @vipa: when Tharp joined ABT, her company, Twyla Tharp Dance, merged into ABT.

Rebecca King and Michael Breeden interviewed Georgina Pazcoguin for their podcast, "Conversations on Dance," and it's a great listen: http://tendusunderapalmtree.com/georgina-pazcoguin/

I couldn't remember Yeager's name off hand, but yeah. And it was the same set-up: bringing up a home-grown generation. Most of the non-import Principals and Soloists started in ABT I/Studio Company and have made it up the ranks.

What vipa said.

Browne was lovely in the Tudor ballets. She seemed to be cast in everything originally because of the film, after Kirkland had to drop out of it. On the other side of the plaza, Antonia Franceschi was not after "Fame."

I've read quite nice things about Copeland's performances in all of them, even from you about Copeland's White Act, although I've not heard them described as perfect, and I suspect that so has McKenzie. So, to answer your question, no. I much prefer Balanchine's version of "Swan Lake" given how much of a circus I think the Odile act has become. Although I am partial to Kent Stowell's Act IV choreography and the amazing music.

If you don't know until you try, then you can't ensure that you've cast the best performance on the stage. I think the AD's obligation is to know when to call the experiment quits.

Kirkland's last years were after Baryshnikov took over ABT, but she was a mess by then. Her years dancing with Baryshnikov started in the Chase years. Cynthia Gregory joined ABT a decade before Baryshnikov did, and she was an established dancer long before he took over ABT. Martine van Hamel was a Principal Dancer before Baryshnikov defected. Harvey joined ABT in 1974, the year Baryshnikov defected, but he made her his prima when he took over ABT. I remember performances from the Baryshnikov decade well, and I remember a lot of dullness. While I wouldn't fault Harvey's technique, once for me was enough. It's hard to imagine and remember now, but it took a major mind shift to accept Cynthia Gregory as an actual, bona fide ballerina who was worthy to set foot on the same stage as Russian and European dancers. A bit like accepting Kappell as a bona-fide pianist and Bernstein as a "real" conductor.

Somova and Skorik are from Russian companies, whose dancers are still expected to reflect the virtues of style of their schooling, along with a certain standard of technique, and they were considered epic failures by some in meeting these standards. ABT does not have the same expectation for schooling, and, frankly, I don't think people cared as much. New Yorkers could buy tickets to other performances over a long season, as opposed to being "stuck" with whoever was being cast on tours that lasted a week, for the most part. There are other precedents for ABT dancers not meeting the expectations of the group before them, particularly in the Baryshnikov years, where the dancing did not meet standards set by Makarova, Bruhn, Fracci, d'Antuono, etc. in the years before Baryshnikov defected and took over the company. This is cyclical and didn't suddenly emerge when Copeland or Seo came on the scene.

You missed the many, many posts about Seo's deficiencies, as well as her lack of positives, unlike the positive you found and posted about during intermission of Copeland's White Act.

Balanchine might have disagreed with you: he cast non-bravura dancers in non-bravura roles on occasion, and bravura dancers in Romantic-style roles, and that made many a critic and audience member scratch his or her head. (His answer was that they were his ballets.) For example Arlene Croce called Stephanie Saland's "Square Dance" a failed experiment, and Balanchine was in charge at the time.