Helene

Many thanks!

ABT tweeted this photo for "Whipped Cream": Would someone please ID the dancer?

Ballet West published a photo of DeBona and Rex Tilton from their wedding: Congratulations to them

From Cecilia Iliesiu's Instagram: The Mayo Clinic's description of Guillain-Barre: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/guillain-barre-syndrome/basics/definition/CON-20025832

Wendy Perron chose Jonathan Porretta' Prodigal Son during PNB's NYC tour as one of the year's top performances for "Dance Magazine": http://dancemagazine.com/views/wendys-best-2016/

Congratulations to Mme Baulac -- what wonderful news at the start of a new year Edited to add: here's the tweet from POB:

I don't care what dancers look like, as long as their dancing isn't skinny.

Thibault is a lovely dancer! If Alu were to go anywhere for a different rep and working with choreographers, I don't think ABT is the right place. But Dupont hasn't been in charge for that long, and there's no reason for him to jump ship so quickly: even if Dupont had not replaced Millepied, he's gone from Corps (2010) to Principal (2014) in four years, with promotions in three years out of four. https://www.operadeparis.fr/en/artists/francois-alu

Will one show to go -- starts in an hour -- PNB published this video of Steven Loch being transformed into Herr Drosselmeier:

Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote an article called, "Carrie Fisher's 10 best scene-stealing roles." Two warnings: Some are not safe for work, and the "Shampoo" clip is not remotely politically correct. Be careful to skip the ad videos You'll likely need to click off an ad video that appears in the bottom right hand corner of the screen

Congratulations to M Louvet

More and more sadness. Rest in peace Mme Morgan.

As 2016 comes to an end, I'd like to express my gratitude to @dirac for her dedication to the Links forum, one of the crown jewels of Ballet Alert! Welcome back to @Mme. Hermine (Sunday Links). Thank you to all of our members for supporting us and for describing the things you see. I hope 2017 brings you health and happiness.

Rest in Peace, Carrie Fisher.

I know that the Parents and Grandparents in Act I do social dancing, and the mothers are in low-heeled shoes, and for a dancer who's recovering, it's a way to get stage time. In performances so far this season, I see that Leah Terada, one of last year's apprentices that I don't remember seeing in 2016, and Cecilia Iliesiu, whom I last remember seeing in the studio rehearsal for the new Jessica Lang piece, have been listed in the program as Parents, and Matthew Renko was listed as the Grandfather. I hope this means we'll see them on stage in 2017.

Thank you so much, rg!

I brought my friends' children to see the PNB (Balanchine) Nutcracker, and Alastair Willis conducted, which reminded me of another "Best of 2016": In a pre-performance lecture before a performance of PNB's "Brief Fling program," Music Director and Principal Conductor Emil de Cou was as engaging in telling the story of how he tracked down the music for Tharp's ballet from Michel Colombier's widow in California as I remember from when he was at San Francisco Ballet. He was joined by Alastair Willis, who made a great entrance in a kilt -- sadly he changed before he conducted the Britten for "Forgotten Land" that evening -- and the two of them were hysterical together, bouncing off one another verbally, with wit and humor flying everywhere.

Sandi Kurtz wrote a review for the Seattle Weekly towards the beginning of the run. My comments are in the "Best and Worst of 2016" thread. I may be misremembering, not having seen the NYCB "Nutcracker" since the mid-90's, but I thought the drop displayed during the overture featured snow. I don't think the snow is such a big surprise that it must be saved for the last part of Act I: Tchaikovsky's overture always reminded me of a journey, and Clara/Marie has to get manifest content for her dream from somewhere: thinking about her guests' journey through the woods and town to get to her family's party on a snowy Christmas Eve is a good a place as any. I know it's supposed to be New England, but the town reminds me of upstate NY where my father grew up and through which we took many car rides, and those are especially wonderful memories for me. I find myself with a big smile far before the mice open the front doors. The horizontal stripes and the red, white, and black color scheme for Clara's party dress and Drosselmeier's cape lining are from Ian Falconer's well-known children's books, the "Olivia" (the pig) series, which has been animated as well, and, thus, instantly recognizable by many children, their parents, and probably some of the 20-somethings in the audience. On the left side panel framing the stage, Olivia herself is sitting in the box, and we get a glimpse of her striped shirt. She gets to see every performance and stage rehearsal from that box http://weartboston.org/artists/ian-falconer/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKe-7-MbrHXAUB3hYTa6pkw

In the Stowell version of "Cinderella," there's a flashback to happier times between the father, mother, and Cinderella. The concept of the mother as parallel or the reincarnation as the fairy godmother is not new. I fear that the commercial might not make it clear enough that this is not meant for kids. I'm not sure bare feet are enough.

There will be a live stream of a Cendrillon rehearsal on January 27, 5-6pm PST, 8-9 EST, through YouTube:

Oh, that looks wonderful!

I am so glad I got to see her majestic Sylvia during a visit to London. What a superb artist she is.

The kids give back

They were something of a joke and considered interchangeably. Very often people thought Zsa Zsa was on "Green Acres."

After you noted the change on the NBoC website, @volcanohunter, there was at least one post from the same day (6 Dec) advertising Cote. I wonder if they ever found another partner for him before his injury. Elizabeth Murphy and Jerome Tisserand were partners in the first weeks of the PNB Balanchine production. I only saw the Goh Ballet production twice, and I don't remember if there's a set version of the pas de deux the guest perform, or if they bring their own. The Vancouver audiences saw/will see two dancers at the beginning of their prime, and they are very simpatico together.