Helene

Excellent!

If there is more to dancing than just 32 fouettes, then it stands that anyone who gushes over Copeland must agree.

[Admin Sledgehammer in Hand] Discuss the topic, not each other, or I'll start deleting entire posts instead of editing. [Still Hanging onto the Admin Sledgehammer] Edited to add: I'm excited for all of you who are getting tickets!

In this production Siegfried is offstage when Odile does her solo variation, and last night, Lendorf was offstage while Boylston did her variation, so she was not encircling anyone. But nice idea! He often is. Which means there's no one physically there to be whipped if she does fouettes, hence, it's all image-based.

Boylston has done 32 fouettes. She can do them. She didn't in this performance.

Or, using another image, a manege can look like she's encircling and entrapping him, establishing her turf, and all kinds of psychological effects. If you want the effect of whips, Carrie Imler's chainees do the trick and seal the deal even more than the 32 fouettes that precede them.

Oh, I loved her the one time I saw her dance, when PA Ballet brought "La Sylphide" and "Bolero" to Brooklyn.

In several of Doug Fullington's lecture/demos on Petipa reconstructions, he said that while men had great flexibility, ballerinas tended to do the original choreography, even if it was there because Petipa was under a time crunch, borrowing from himself*/what he'd done for that dancer in the past, because people would say the ballerinas only changed it because they couldn't do it, as opposed to being appreciated for doing something else. Reading every fouette thread on Ballet Alert! certainly shows the truth in that, over a century later. In his recent interview with Michael Breeden and Rebecca King, Edward Villella said that Balanchine re-choreographed parts of "Prodigal Son" for him, because Balanchine said the original and first revival dancers were "a terre" dancers, and Villella was an "en l'air" dancer. *Watching "La Source" the last two weekends, in the soloist's section added in the later version Balanchine created on Suki Schorer, it was like watching parts of Dewdrop and "Waltz of the Flowers." Edited to add: I've seen many world-class ballerinas in world-class companies do 32-fouettes in any number of ballets. While almost all stayed on point, it is a rare ballerina who does them in a technically world-class way from beginning to end, however exciting they may be.

Part Two, on working at NYCB, particularly with Balanchine, McBride, and Robbins, is up: http://tendusunderapalmtree.com/edward-villella-part-ii/

Plisetskaya "dumbed down" the choreography, so Boylston is in good company.

I merged the Heads Up thread about the live stream of Carrie Imler and Batkhurel Bold's retirement performance (which is available for another month through PNB's Facebook page), but I forgot to leave a link. You can find it here:

Of course, there is no Ali in the original, so that's one problem solved.

My favorite Bold story was one Francia Russell told in a Q&A. When he first came to the US, he spoke his native tongue and Russian, but not English. While it was clear that as his first year went by he was understanding the language, they'd never heard him speak, until one day, a year later, he did, and they realized he could just fine. He just hadn't, at least to them, until then

I'm going to repeat myself: it's so nice to read all of the enthusiasm about dancers getting such great chances!

[Admin Beanie Back on for a Minute] General enthusiasm about dress rehearsals is fine. We want to avoid descriptions, because what if La Sublima doesn't do triples in performance? But someone looking awesome/splendid/magnificent/star-like/great/beautiful, etc. etc., yay! (I know, not black and white, but I'm happy with pearl gray on this one.) [Admin Bean Back Off]

[Admin Beanie Back On] No reviews of dress rehearsals. They might be public as a fundraising effort, and most of the time dancers are not marking or working things out, but they don't always have the luxury, and they're still rehearsals. [Admin Beanie Back Off]

[Admin Beanie] No one has to "lighten up" about anything: people absorb art in a specific context based on what's important to them and their values. And it has no place on a discussion board, since it's about as subtle an attempt to stop the discussion as "Talk to the hand." [/Admin Beanie] [Fan propeller cap on] I think ABT should dump their "Le Corsaire" and do the original-from-reconstruction version. Even the "Truncated Third Act to End Before Overtime at the Kennedy Center Kicks In" version that the Bolshoi presented in the late '00's is 1000x preferable, in my opinion.

Thank you for starting this topic, Anne! I'm so used to contemporary work where I don't expect any love or even ease to look present in the partnering. Yesterday afternoon, when I was watching a pas de deux with very tricky partnering and some devilish lifts, the woman took a much more driving, almost independent approach to the role, especially compared to the other two women who danced it with other partners. And while the final lift was a struggle -- the geometry was going to make that really hard, no matter that he is quite tall -- I didn't even realize that there was a struggle going on from the get-go. My friend, who knows his stuff, explained afterwards the various ways in which they weren't on the same page -- when I had no idea (seriously) -- how some partners have/develop the kind of trust that makes making it work possible within the laws of physics, and how that is the difference in seemingly incompatible pairs to work beautifully together. There must be a great deal of trust and goodwill in Pacific Northwest Ballet in general, because I remember before Benjamin Griffiths was promoted and was doing demi-soloist partnering roles, when those switches happened, he'd be with the tallest women in the company, and he partnered them like they were the perfect heights for each other. Similarly, a wide range of corps men between 5'8-5'10, who make everything look smooth despite the company's tall women.

Word.

The Ratmansky version is one of my favorite full-length ballets, so I hope they never get rid of it. I think there is room for both.

It was an epic lovefest. Details later, and I hope by many. The film was great! As I walked across the lobby during intermission, I saw the sweetest little boy, only to realize he was Carrie Imler's son being carried by Imler's mother and flanked by his dad. She took her final open curtain bows with him in her arms as they poured snow from above. The first part ended with Bold and Lesley Rausch in the final pas de deux from Kent Stowell's "Cinderella," and amidst the explosive ovation were a lot of tears in the audience. And we weren't even any of the families section. Can't cry at work, so I'll stop now.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10154910010458952&id=21358443951

I thought that was meant to contrast with the way he interacted with the female trio. Last night, he was revealed before that scene.

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