Helene

According to Peter Boal in the Q&A tonight, Carrie Imler strained a calf muscle at the end of the second pas de deux in "La Source" on Thursday night, and she thought if she danced tonight, she wasn't sure about tomorrow night. So she rehearsed earlier today for Encores, including fouettes on her "bad" leg, and Leta Biasucci and Benjamin Griffiths replaced her and Jerome Tisserand in "La Source," and Angelica Generosa and James Moore replaced her and Jonathan Porretta in "Pictures at an Exhibition." I don't know how James Moore could move his legs after "Opus 19: The Dreamer." He's onstage all but a few minutes when Noelani Pantastico and four women dance. Moore is exceptionally vivid in this work, too, and to come out and then dance the Ratmansky, wow. Jerome Tisserand danced in "Pictures at an Exhibition," and his solo tonight was high-octane bad-ass. He was the Q&A guest, and his wife, Laura Tisserand, is now at 36 weeks, and they are looking forward to the birth of a girl. The Orzas have been exceptional in every performance of the "Samuel Goldenberg & Schmuyle" pas de deux.

Rest in peace, Mr. West.

"I Made It for Melissa."

You and I both

Carrie Imler in her 1995 School Performance. I haven't looked back since. On the other end of the spectrum, I have to figure out how to get to Charlotte before Severin-Hansen retires. Too many dancers, too little time (off) and cash.

Or even CSPAN.

I was comparing Seattle prices to NYC prices, and Seattle prices are reduced by the subscriber discount (if claimed), as well as being offered on Goldstar. However, because most subscriptions are subject to a mandatory donation, which, even if tax-deductible in full, still means paying at least $.60 on the dollar, any discount comes out in the wash.

I realize that prices are higher in NYC than in Seattle, but $142 for the Main Floor (orchestra) Front and $187 for Dress Circle (Grand Tier) are nothing to sneeze at, with the caveat that there's a subscriber discount* and Goldstar discount. I think it was in Leta Biasucci's second season at PNB, after apprenticing at OBT, that, due to a variety of injuries and illnesses, she had a major role in every rep for all but maybe one programn. She was given two weeks notice to go from the "just be in the studio to absorb" cast to carrying a full-length ballet, Balanchine's "Coppelia." She made her debut this weekend -as the lead in "La Source," and sharing the Tiler Peck role in "Pictures at an Exhibition." At a Q&A, Peter Boal said we should expect promotions for her and Dylan Wald, who debuted in "Opus 19: The Dreamer," and there was a standing O for him and Sarah Ricard Orza last night. Steven Loch, another young corps-in-name-only PNB member has been outstanding in many principal roles, and Elle Macy has hit it out of the ballpark again and again this season, with performances indistinguishable from the Principals. All four are stars, even if they aren't close to their peaks, no matter what their nominal title (and pay grade). There's no Royal Ballet touring company model anymore, where young dancers do major roles in the core rep of the company and get experience on the road. That means if you've got a home-grown dancer, they have to get their experience somewhere, and in my experience out here, it's been more than worth it. And I've been over-the-moon feeling palpable excitement that you've been sharing about young dancers making their mark in recent performances. *But many subscriptions are subject to a mandatory donation, so it's like the opposite of the alternative minimum tax, but with the same effect of netting it all out.

I wouldn't be surprised. Lack of coaching under normal circumstances is something that dancers have discussed, aside from when injury causes a lot of cramming. Kolpakova can only be in one place at a time.

[Admin Mallet in Hand and Ready to Swing] I've deleted the posts that have clearly gone off the rails with unsubstantiated claims from people who should know better by now, and, in doing so, have removed reasonable responses, since the original quotes are now in the internet ether. As a gentle reminder for newer members, posting "I've heard" pretty much guarantees editing and deletion, unless you're citing that you heard it at a Q&A or in an interview. [Admin Mallet Back Down at My Side]

I can't write about Carrie Imler without crying and ruining my keyboard. Lindsi Dec and Miles Pertl made their debuts in "Pictures at an Exhibition" tonight in Wendy Whelan and Tyler Angle's roles in a cast that was otherwise half of first and second casts from last weekend. Dynamically, it was a different ballet. Both Elizabeth Murphy and Lesley Rausch dance the main pas de deux with plenty of legato, a cousin to the central pas in "Concerto DSCH" with a wider emotional range. Dec danced it with punctuated momentum and elements of staccato, and between her and Pertl and Steven Loch and Elle Macy, there was a lot more angst and danger roiling beneath this village, and the story line between James Moore's and Miles Pertl's characters was clear and rich with emotional resonance. This is also the Sunday matinee cast.

It's Tuesday, July 11 at 7:00pm at the Crest.

A clip from the swoon-worthy "Pictures at an Exhibition" -- solos in order: Foster, Davis, Ricard Orza, Tisserand, Porretta, Murphy, Cruz, Imler, Orza.

He spoke about his rehab from injury that he was told not only was career-ending, but would impact him for the rest of his life, and the man he found who helped him defy that prognosis in this interview with Michael Breeden and Rebecca King: http://conversationsondancepod.com/2017/04/17/joaquin-de-luz-principal-dancer-new-york-city-ballet/

Unfortunately, the last bus to Seattle out of Bellingham leaves at 8:30pm, which is not enough time to see it and get home any other way. I could get a car2go and drive, if you don't mind bump-bumping to Bellingham. Anything for art

Congratulations to Patricia Barker and to Royal New Zealand Ballet! The weather in New Zealand is a lot like the weather in Seattle, on the opposite latitude line . She'll be skipping summer in Michigan and going back to late Fall/winter in the southern hemisphere.

We had talked about taking a field trip to Bellingham for it, but, alas, the weekend performance is on Sunday, July 9 at 11am, the day of Kabby Mitchell's memorial at the Paramount. The alternate day showing is on Wednesday, July 12 at 6pm. which may be too close to a software launch I'm working on to take time off, but I might know better closer to the date.

I can't speak to how it is performed now -- I've never seen PNB do it -- but it was made for Patricia McBride and Edward Villella, so virile and lively was what it was made for

Thank you, Emma!

Postlewaite may have come directly from SAB to PNB, but something in the back of my brain thinks he spent a year in the school first. Things shifted under the Russell/Stowell years: At first, most of the Principals seemed to be hired directly from the outside, with a few exceptions, like Barker. When I first started seeing the company in the '90's, they tended to hire in dancers as Soloists for a year or so, and then promoting them to Principal, like Stanton, Nadeau, Gibson, Maraval, Nakamura, and Wevers, although they also hired Le Yin directly as a Principal. Lisa Apple was hired as a Soloist took a bit longer to get to Principal. They also hired some lovely Russian-trained soloists. (Or maybe corps and made soloists.) San Francisco Ballet was a great poaching ground for them. Gradually, as they built the school, the students started to rise more regularly through the ranks, or at least to be cast as if they were rising. They promoted a few through, like Imler, Bold, Pantastico, and Porretta -- officially announced under Boal in his first year, but usually the contracts are done the spring before. Some more were already soloists and were promoted to Principal under Boal, and as the years have gone by, he's brought many of the Russell/Stowell corps members through the ranks, like Rausch, Dec, Laura Tisserand, who all came through the school, and Foster, Moore, who came straight into the corps from other companies. Among the Soloists, Joshua Grant was hired by R/S as an Apprentice in the early 00's, left in 2004, and then came back under Boal, who promoted him to Soloist. All of the other Soloists and all of the current corps are Boal hires, either from the School as apprentices or from other companies. Edited to add: I'm remembering Generosa from a Next Step or school performance, but that could be my mind playing tricks on me.

Postlewaite was a Russell/Stowell hire, and may also have come directly from SAB. I know they hired Jonathan Porretta directly out of SAB. Jonathan Porretta has told the story several times of being in class, thinking that the "old" guy sitting in front watching was a donor, and, with a friend, doing all kinds of over-the-top impersonations of dying swans, etc. (And for anyone who saw Porretta in his early PNB days, imagining what extra "over-the-top" was is a stretch.) Finally his friend said, "You know who that guy is, right? He's Kent Stowell, AD of PNB." Porretta thought it was all over, and he had blown his chance. Then Stowell went up to him in the hallway after class and offered him an apprenticeship! They had already been given a heads up by someone at SAB, according to one of them at a Q&A from a while back.

, from someone who posted the title of the movie with Pavlova as "The Dumb Girl of Porcini."

Who knew she was making a comeback at 43 .

I can't remember any dancers Peter Boal has hired directly out of SAB. Either they were NYCB dancers -- the Orzas, Korbes, Lin-Yee, and Renko early (ish) in their careers and Weese at the end of hers -- dancers with other companies who had studied with Boal when he was teaching at SAB -- Griffiths, for example -- or they were SAB students who did their last year or two at Pacific Northwest Ballet School, and got into the company in the standard route: Apprentice, Corps, etc., like Generosa and Dammiel Cruz, who attended SAB as a kid and was one of the rare locals who progressed into the Professional Division. Boal also hired back dancers who had been in the company (Grant) or Professional Division students of PNBS who've danced elsewhere (Taylor, Pertl, Ryan), as well a dancers from other companies, some of whom had little or no SAB training, which makes sense, because even the youngest of his former students are out of school by now. But it sounds like a bumper crop at SAB, and maybe if there is a dancer or two who doesn't fit Martins' type needs at the moment or would be typecast and not given opportunities in roles that they'd get in smaller companies.

I really appreciate this: I've looked under "Ballet", have gotten depressed, and have moved to the next venue.