Helene

I'm not logged in, and it didn't even challenge me to prove I'm a human. I wonder why your experience is different.

I hope he gets his dream job. He's what they need.

Here's a lively short video of Angela Sterling and Carrie Imler's video shoot for the rep poster (doing double duty for Encores) https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10154766324343952&id=21358443951

Were those patrons mistakenly assigned those seats or got the box wrong, but didn't think they should call an usher, or did they take it upon themselves to get better seats? Thank you for the heads up to the Bold video: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10154775970563952&id=21358443951

Michael Sean Breeden discusses his decision to retire from Miami City Ballet with co-host Rebecca King for their podcast "Conversations on Dance": http://conversationsondancepod.com/2017/04/24/dancer-dies-twice/ His last performance with MCB was on 9 April. Best of luck to him in everything he does, including their podcast, and health and happiness to him

If Ratmansky was asked the question by text after the interview, I wonder if someone on the editorial side asked for a follow-up question on a hot topic. I'm sure it got them their clicks.

More from the press release: Special Events LECTURE SERIES & DRESS REHEARSAL Thursday, June 1 Lecture 6:00 pm, Nesholm Family Lecture Hall at McCaw Hall Dress Rehearsal 7:00 pm, McCaw Hall Join Artistic Director Peter Boal in conversation with Pictures at an Exhibition stager and former NYCB principal dancer Wendy Whelan during the hour preceding the dress rehearsal. Attend the lecture only or stay for the rehearsal. Tickets are $15 for the lecture, or $30 for the lecture and dress rehearsal. Tickets may be purchased through the PNB Box Office. PRE-PERFORMANCE LECTURES Nesholm Family Lecture Hall at McCaw Hall Join Audience Education Manager Doug Fullington for a 30-minute introduction to each performance, including discussions of choreography, music, history, design and the process of bringing ballet to the stage. One hour before performances. FREE for ticketholders. POST-PERFORMANCE Q&A Nesholm Family Lecture Hall at McCaw Hall Skip the post-show traffic and enjoy a Q&A with Artistic Director Peter Boal and PNB Company dancers, immediately following each performance. FREE for ticketholders. LISTEN TO THE BALLET PNB partners with Classical KING FM 98.1 to bring listeners some of history’s most popular ballet scores, featuring the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra direct from McCaw Hall. Tune in for a live broadcast of PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION on Saturday, June 3 at 7:30 pm. Only on KING FM, 98.1 fm or online at KING.org/listen. YOUNG PATRONS CIRCLE NIGHT Friday, June 9 Join members of PNB’s Young Patrons Circle (YPC) in an exclusive lounge for complimentary wine and coffee before the show and at intermission. YPC is PNB’s social and educational group for ballet patrons ages 21 through 39. YPC members save up to 40% off their tickets. For more information, visit PNB.org/YPC.

Part 1 of the press release: PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET PRESENTS Featuring PNB premieres of works by GEORGE BALANCHINE – JEROME ROBBINS – ALEXEI RATMANSKY June 2 – 11, 2017 Marion Oliver McCaw Hall 321 Mercer Street, Seattle Center Seattle, WA 98109 June 2 – 3 at 7:30 pm June 2 at 2:00 pm June 8 - 10 at 7:30 pm June 11 at 1:00 pm SEATTLE, WA – For the sixth program of its 44th season, Pacific Northwest Ballet presents the PNB premieres by three of the most significant names in ballet: George Balanchine’s classical La Source is a hybrid work, drawn from several earlier ballets and first presented as a showcase for the legendary dancer Violette Verdy. Opus 19/The Dreamer, by Jerome Robbins, is a much darker work, an emotional and physical marathon with enormous awards for audience and artist alike. PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal performed Opus 19/The Dreamer for most of his career as a dancer with New York City Ballet, and he will be staging it along with La Source for their PNB debuts. The evening comes to a close with Alexei Ratmansky’s ravishing Pictures at an Exhibition. Like the ever-changing Kandinsky watercolors that set the stage, ten dancers move in varying combinations to display a plethora of emotion, from raw and wild to solemn and soulful in this work, which will be staged for PNB by the acclaimed former NYCB principal dancer Wendy Whelan. PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION runs for seven performances only, June 2 through 11 at Seattle Center’s Marion Oliver McCaw Hall. Tickets start at $30. For more information, contact the PNB Box Office at 206.441.2424, in person at 301 Mercer Street, or online at PNB.org. The line-up for PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION will include: La Source (PNB Premiere) Music: Léo Delibes (excerpts from La Source, 1866, and Le Pas des Fleurs, 1867, arranged as Naila Waltz, c. 1880s) Choreography: George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust Staging: Peter Boal Lighting Design: Ronald Bates, recreated by Randall G. Chiarelli Running Time: 24 minutes Premiere: November 23, 1968, New York City Ballet George Balanchine loved the music of Léo Delibes, considering him one of the three great composers for ballet, along with Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky. Balanchine returned to the music of Delibes throughout his career. La Source is a hybrid work, drawn from several earlier Balanchine ballets and first presented in 1968 as an extended pas de deux for Violette Verdy and John Prinz. The legendary Verdy was a seasoned artist with piquant technique and theatrical flair, while Prinz was just coming into his own as a dancer. In 1969, Balanchine added dances for a second ballerina and eight women from his 1965 Pas de Deux and Divertissement (which itself was an extension of his 1950 Sylvia: Pas de Deux) and a revision of his “Naila Waltz,” choreographed in 1951 as part of Music and Dance, a presentation by the National Orchestral Society at Carnegie Hall. Reminiscing about La Source, Verdy wrote, “Mr. B’s idea of France in La Source was almost a platonic ideal of the French. It was France through the eyes of an educated person from St. Petersburg who remembered how much France and Russia had in common and how much France brought to Russia with Catherine and the tsar and all the artists that came to St. Petersburg—Petipa, Didelot, the builders, and the constructors. The city is built like a beautiful theater, like Paris is a theater. …For me, dancing La Source was being home once more. The movements Mr. B gave me and that music—they are like family, they are in my genes.” The 2017 Pacific Northwest Ballet premiere of George Balanchine’s La Source is generously underwritten by Bob Benson. The works of George Balanchine performed by Pacific Northwest Ballet are made possible in part by The Louise Nadeau Endowed Fund. Opus 19 / The Dreamer (PNB Premiere) Music: Sergei Prokofiev (Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 19, 1915-1917) Choreography: Jerome Robbins Staging: Peter Boal Costume Design: Ben Benson Lighting Design: Jennifer Tipton, recreated by Perry Silvey Running Time: 23 minutes Premiere: June 14, 1979, New York City Ballet Jerome Robbins choreographed Opus 19/The Dreamer for Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1979, at the end of the single season the famed Russian dancer was a member of New York City Ballet before becoming artistic director of American Ballet Theatre in 1980. The double title refers both to the ballet’s music—Prokofiev’s first violin concerto, composed on the eve of the October Revolution—and its moody protagonist. The score is haunting, dreamy, and ethereal. The dance recalls the atmosphere of earlier Robbins ballets, Facsimile (1946) and Age of Anxiety (1950), both with music by Leonard Bernstein, which explored the psychology of the human experience and whose companions walked a grey line between reality and imagination. Baryshnikov, who partnered ballerina Patricia McBride at the premiere, has suggested an autobiographical tone for Robbins’ dreamer: “He’s a bit of an outsider, a bit of a loner, a bit of a thinking man; there’s a bit of action, a bit of unrealized romance, which is very much Jerry’s life.” Peter Boal danced the role of the Dreamer and chose the ballet for his retirement performance at New York City Ballet in June 2005, partnering Wendy Whelan. He remembers, “Jerry and I worked for endless hours on Opus. The ballet was very dear to him and he entrusted it to very few after Misha. During rehearsals, he spoke of the ethnicity of the music and, in turn, the choreography, referring to Russian peasants and Slavic folk dances. The movements were at times grounded and tribal and alternately manic and meditative. I felt I always gave 100% in everything I danced, but for Opus Jerry wanted more—a level of physicality and commitment that was almost beyond human ability.” The 2017 Pacific Northwest Ballet premiere of Jerome Robbins’ Opus 19/The Dreamer is generously underwritten by Marcella McCaffray. Opus 19/The Dreamer is performed by permission of the Robbins Rights Trust. Pictures at an Exhibition (PNB Premiere) Music: Modest Mussorgsky (1874) Choreography: Alexei Ratmansky Staging: Wendy Whelan Costume Design: Adeline André Lighting Design: Mark Stanley Projection Design: Wendall K. Harrington, using Wassily Kandinsky’s Color Study: Squares with Concentric Circles (1913) Piano Soloist: Allan Dameron Running Time: 35 minutes Premiere: October 2, 2014, New York City Ballet Alexei Ratmansky is quickly becoming the most prolific and diverse choreographer working in classical ballet today. From his painstaking reconstructions of 19th-century classics by Marius Petipa to his revitalization of Soviet-era story ballets to his growing repertory set to the music of Dmitri Shostakovich to his collection of works made for American Ballet Theatre (ABT, where he is artist in residence), New York City Ballet, Miami City Ballet, and elsewhere, Ratmansky is everywhere. Any given night might see performances of his works by two or three or more companies around the globe. Pacific Northwest Ballet has three of them: Concerto DSCH (from the Shostakovich set), Don Quixote (a Petipa classic), and now Pictures at an Exhibition, an utterly unique dance made for New York City Ballet in 2014 and set to Modest Mussorgsky’s signature work in its original version for solo piano. Writing in The New York Times after the ballet’s premiere, critic Alastair Macaulay stated, “‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ is surely the most casually diverse work Mr. Ratmansky has created, but it gathers unstoppable momentum. The 10 dancers—five women, five men—started out in informal home-theater mood, almost as if they were playing charades. Some dances, including the first solo, had a wild, improvisatory, part-stumbling, part-inspired quality. (The tailor-made nature of the ballet’s solos reflects one of Mr. Ratmansky’s greatest gifts: Dancers are vividly, individually, intimately revealed.) In certain numbers the dancers—here on all fours, there gesturing—seemed to enact or refer to private stories. Other sections shifted toward a classicism of long lines and academic steps. Some ensembles were largely about camaraderie; others about geometry, harmony, meter.” Dance writer Michael Popkin explained further: “Not just a rendition in dance of Mussorgsky’s famous work of the same name, the ballet was also functionally a tribute and apotheosis for NYCB’s retiring star, Wendy Whelan” (danceviewtimes). Pictures at PNB marks Whelan’s first project as a répétiteur, or stager, the individual who teaches an existing ballet to a new cast. She will have worked with PNB’s dancers for a total of three weeks heading into the Company premiere on June 2. Ratmansky himself, on a brief break from ABT’s New York season, spent two days coaching the ballet after it had been taught. In addition to Whelan, Ratmansky’s team of collaborators includes renowned projection designer Wendall K. Harrington, whose visual musings on Wassily Kandinsky’s watercolor, Color Study. Squares with Concentric Circles, provide animated counterpoint to the dancers’ moves. Fashion designer Adeline André’s costumes echo Kandinsky’s colors and shapes, while Mark Stanley’s lighting joins all of these components to create a unified whole. Popkin continues: “The ballet tracks the score’s scenario, its action unfolding as a suite of dances before vibrantly colored backdrops. In this 1874 composition, Mussorgsky commemorates the premature death of a friend, the painter Viktor Hartmann, in a tone poem depicting a stroll through a gallery of his pictures. The music, in 16 short sections, alternates tone pictures of some canvasses with a repeating march—labeled ‘Promenade’—that recurs in different musical meters and lets you imagine that you’re strolling from picture to picture. As the promenades segue from conventional to elevated over the course of the entire piece, the composer’s emotion becomes evident: The work is increasingly shot through with his love for his friend and the artistic resolution of his grief.” The 2017 Pacific Northwest Ballet premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is generously underwritten by Patty Edwards. Notes by Doug Fullington.

If you go to the Cincinnati Ballet YouTube channel, you can see excepts of some of Morgan's choreography. The latest one I know about is her "Nutcracker." https://www.youtube.com/user/WatchCBallet Wheeldon was an AD for a few minutes and seems to have run as far away from it as possible. Not that I'd expect him to have been supportive of female choreographers had he stayed on. Did he even want other choreographers to work with his dancers? (That was always Olivier Wevers' goal with Whim W'him, an early advocate of his fellow Belgian choreographer Lopez Ochoa.) Ratmansky was AD for half a decade at one of the most regressive, hierarchical arts institutions on the planet, and he's got scars to show from the battles he chose to fight, ie., removing Grigorovich ballets from the central place and casting/promoting a new generation and breaking hierarchy, much like Millepied tried at POB. I'm sure Ratmansky could be an AD again at the drop of a hat if that were his goal, but he's got such a better deal where he is now, a residency -- with health insurance! -- at a top company with its resources at his command and the dancers he wants, freelance opportunities all over the world, and a zeitgeist that supports his efforts to reconstruct Petipa ballets. The small incremental gain in being in Peter Martins', Kevin McKenzie's, or Nikolaj Hubbe's position wouldn't offset the loss of what he'd have to give up -- he said "no" to a similar position at NYCB when Martins wanted to restrict his outside work -- and the administrative functions/fundraising he'd have to do.

[Admin beanie on] Criticizing Macaulay's writing and opinions is fine here. Criticizing him personally and psychoanalyzing him is not. [Admin beanie off]

Victoria Morgan at Cincinnati Ballet. Tharp has done three new works for PNB between 2008 and 2013: Opus 111, Afternoon Ball, and Waiting at the Station. She did a one year artistic residency in Seattle. Her availability is limited when she's working on her own projects, like Broadway work that subsidizes other work. However, the chances that she would have gotten ballet commissions at ABT or NYCB had she not had success as a modern choreographer with her own company I think are slim to none.

If that were case, I'd expect there to be a lot of girls choreographing young, but then not getting commissions as they grew older. I've never seen evidence that this is true, or that after moving from the junior corps years when time is scarce, that they've gone back to it. I would think that Twyla Tharp would be in a list of Top 10 by commission. The Top 10 list would almost certainly consist of freelancers, since house choreographer ADs like Martins and Tomasson generally don't receive them, and their work isn't often done outside their home companies. Similarly resident choreographers who haven't branched out that much, at least in the beginning.

I interpreted Peck as meaning that if girls could conceive of themselves as choreographers from a young age, they would practice choreography, and that there would be more female choreographers. My first thought was that it is ironic that from the earliest age, girls have an overwhelming number of female examples and role models as dance makers, because their primarily female teachers are constantly making dances for their recitals and shows, yet this doesn't translate into turning girls into choreographers. Then I wondered if that they associate dance-making with teaching, as opposed to dancing, and that this becomes a negative.

"Put your hands up, and back away from the keyboard."

I just got an email invite to the panel on a blind mailing list from PNB, and although the registration form still has "Organization" listed as a mandatory registration field -- I wrote "Audience" -- it looks like it's not limited to members of the organizations referenced in the press release.

I've been shaking my head so much after reading that article that I'm still dizzy. Or, as my grandmother would have said, "Oy, yoy, yoy, yoy, yoy." But I do agree with the comment that it's not Peck's or Ratmansky's or Wheeldon's -- since he decided to quit his own company -- question to answer as much as it's the ADs who are hiring and encouraging choreographers and the programs that are developing choreographers.

Karin von Aroldingen also wrote for "Ballet Review" describing how Balanchine would come to her apartment, look in the fridge, and make soup out of what was there. If I remember correctly, she wrote that he thought that shriveled old neglected vegetables made the best soup. The three recipes she wrote out were for three soups based on "Jewels," one green, one red, and one white. I remember that he baked his beets first for the borscht, and I found that it can make the soup.

I misunderstood him: I thought the answers themselves are what he was disputing when he talked about texting between rehearsals. It looks like he's learning the hard way not to respond on demand.

I'm not sure I caught this at the exact start they showed the film into to "Carousel (A Dance)," but Jacques d'Amboise's partnering is superb, and Susan Lucky must have a core of steel:

I misspoke: I was responding to your comment, "there's no way to misinterpret that," when he's saying that was the opposite of what he said/texted. Either he was quoted accurately -- exactly or substantially -- in response to that exact question, and is lying about it now, or not.

It wouldn't be the first time, and not always in bad faith by the interviewer, since I believe they still have editors, although I might be wrong. I'm not arguing that this happened, but responding to your question.

If his answer wasn't directly to that question, but to a followup question or comment, ie not in exact context, then it would be a just complaint.

You need to request videos in advance. I learned this the hard way last Fall, when I was unexpectedly in Manhattan for the day and thought I could spend the afternoon with "Liebeslieder Walzer."

And the lavishly funded festivals...