Helene

Thankfully, this post BT John Clifford is public-facing, and we can offer our condolences to her friends, family, colleagues, students, and mentees. What a loss for the ballet world... Rest in peace, Mme Verdy.

According to Macaulay's review, Benno performed in the Pas de Deux.

Ismene Brown translated the "Le Figaro" interview with intro comments and a rough translation of iny interviewer Bavelier's commentary for her blog: http://www.ismeneb.com/blogs-list/160206-millepieds-incendiary-interview.html

Oh, that's wonderful news!

I'm sorry Cruz is out -- I hope this means he's on diaper duty -- but audiences are in for a treat: Miles Pertl was magnificent as Friar Laurence. Here's the updated casting spreadsheet as of today: Romeo et Juliette Weeks One and Two as of 5 Feb.xlsx

I'm at Opening Night "Romeo et Juliette," which should start in five, and there are three promotions: William Lin-Yee to Principal Dancer and Leah Merchant and Kyle Davis to Soloist and Two more Apprentices, too: Dammiel Cruz and Leah Terada join Angeli Manon and

PNB invested a lot of money in the sets and costumes for "Romeo et Juliette," and the stagers don't come cheap. It's clearly a work dear to Peter Boal's heart. I don't share his enthusiasm or think it's a good enough work to warrant those kind of restrictions for 1/6 of the season every two-three years.

Rachel Butler Foster who did Nurse in the last run, had been out with an injury, and there has been no official news about when she's returning, nor of how much control the stagers have over casting. Frustrating on both counts: I think Foster would make a terrific Juliette.

No news yet. There were Q&A's after the last run of R et J: if there are this season, perhaps we'll learn more about this curious casting.

Week Two of casting is up: Pantastico/Moore dance all four evenings, and Rausch/Tisserand dance the Sunday matinee. Here's the spreadsheet for downloading: Romeo et Juliette Weeks One and Two.xlsx

The live streams are listed on the PNB website. This live stream was also listed in the R et J press release in the "Special Events" section. I accidentally marked the press release as "red" and didn't post it until today, after PNB posted a reminder earlier today on Facebook.

Casting is up for Weekend 1 (subject to change): https://www.pnb.org/season/15-16/romeo-et-juliette/#casting Friday, 5 February and Saturday evening, 6 February: Noelani Pantastico/James Moore Saturday matinee, 6 February: Lesley Rausch/Jerome Tisserand Here is the spreadsheet for downloading: Romeo et Juliette Week One.xlsx

Remaining SPECIAL EVENTS: ROMÉO ET JULIETTE COACHING REHEARSAL Monday, February 1, 5:30 pm The Phelps Center, 301 Mercer St., Seattle Join us for this rare opportunity to see Bernice Coppieters, Jean-Christophe Maillot’s muse and original Juliet, coach PNB dancers in Maillot’s signature staging of Roméo et Juliette. Tickets ($25) are available through the PNB Box Office. This event will be live-streamed. BALLET PREVIEW — FREE Tuesday, February 2, 12:00 noon Central Seattle Public Library, 1000 Fourth Avenue, Seattle Join PNB for a free lunch-hour preview lecture at the Central Seattle Public Library. Audience Education Manager Doug Fullington will offer insights about Roméo et Juliette, complete with video excerpts. LECTURE SERIES & DRESS REHEARSAL Thursday, February 4 Lecture 6:00 pm, Nesholm Family Lecture Hall at McCaw Hall Dress Rehearsal 7:00 pm, McCaw Hall Join PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal in conversation with a panel of Roméo et Juliette artists, during the hour preceding the dress rehearsal. Attend the lecture only or stay for the rehearsal. Tickets are $12 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 Roméo et Juliette 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 dancers, immediately following each performance. FREE for ticketholders. LISTEN TO THE BALLET! Saturday, February 6, 7:30 pm PNB partners with Classical KING FM 98.1 to bring listeners some of the world’s most popular ballet scores, featuring the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra direct from McCaw Hall. Tune in to KING FM for a live broadcast performance of Roméo et Juliette conducted by Emil de Cou on Saturday, February 6 at 7:30 pm. Only on 98.1 fm or online at king.org/listen. YOUNG PATRONS CIRCLE NIGHT Friday, February 12, 7:30 pm 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 and search for “YPC.”

Tonight, Monday, 1 February, PNB will live stream tonight's rehearsal from 5:30-7:00pm Pacific Time, 8:30-10pm Eastern Time. https://www.facebook.com/PNBallet/photos/a.439537898951.224264.21358443951/10153560516138952/?type=3&theater From the press release: Romeo et Juliette A CONTEMPORARY INTERPRETATION OF SHAKESPEARE’S TRAGEDY Choreography by Jean-Christophe Maillot Music by Sergei Prokofiev (Op. 64, 1935-36) February 5 – 14, 2016 Marion Oliver McCaw Hall 321 Mercer Street at Seattle Center Seattle, WA 98109 February 5 at 7:30 pm February 6 at 2:00 and 7:30 pm February 11 – 13 at 7:30 pm February 14 at 1:00 and 6:30 pm "A remarkable work...this is like no Romeo and Juliet ballet you’ve seen before: It's intricate, often achingly beautiful, and never simply pretty." —The Seattle Times “A tour-de-force requiring not only high-quality dancing but committed acting in this symbolic, abstract version of the Shakespearean love story. Maillot’s choreography is exciting and energizing, a feast of styles densely packed together, and the PNB dancers revel in it.” —Tacoma News Tribune SEATTLE, WA – In January 2008, Pacific Northwest Ballet brought Jean-Christophe Maillot’s masterful Roméo et Juliette to Seattle for its west coast premiere, making PNB the first American company to perform the work. This three-act interpretation of Shakespeare's great love story was premiered in 1996 by Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, where Maillot is resident choreographer and artistic director. His contemporary interpretation has been hailed throughout the world as "one of the most beautiful ballets adapted from Shakespeare's masterpiece that can be seen today" (Scènes Magazine), and instantly became an audience favorite and a signature work in PNB’s repertory. Now, eight years after its Seattle debut, this unforgettable three-act interpretation of Shakespeare’s great love story returns as PNB continues its 2015-2016 Season. (Audience Advisory: Content may not be appropriate for young children.) Roméo et Juliette runs for eight performances only, February 5 through 14 at Seattle Center’s Marion Oliver McCaw Hall. Showtimes are 7:30 pm February 5, 6, 11, 12 and 13, with matinees at 2:00 pm on February 6 and 1:00 pm on February 14, and a final 6:30 pm performance on February 14. Tickets start at $30 and may be purchased by calling the PNB Box Office at 206.441.2424, online at www.PNB.org, or in person at the PNB Box Office at 301 Mercer St. ABOUT THE BALLET Roméo et Juliette Music: Sergei Prokofiev (Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64, 1935-1936) Choreography: Jean-Christophe Maillot Staging: Gaby Baars, Bernice Coppieters, and Giovanna Lorenzoni Scenic Design: Ernest Pignon-Ernest Costume Design: Jérôme Kaplan Lighting Design: Dominique Drillot Premiere: December 23, 1996: Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo Pacific Northwest Ballet Premiere: January 31, 2008 Running Time: 2 hours, 25 minutes From West Side Story to Twilight, Shakespeare’s great romance seems always to find new interpretation, and its tale of forbidden love has been especially enticing to the dance world. Peter Boal was so mesmerized by Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette when he attended its New York debut in 1999, that it became his first full-length acquisition for PNB as artistic director. Though Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette is firmly grounded in classical ballet, his choreography is imbued with natural and intuitive movement that feels progressive and expands margins of expression. As the famous story of star-crossed lovers unfolds, the dancers' swimming hands, flying arms, and off-kilter balances speak for racing hearts, reckless impulses, and inner turmoil. Stage action is brought into high relief by the ballet’s spare and elegant design. Great washes of blue and gold light reflect the magnitude of Prokofiev's dramatic score, and the piercing elation and lament of young love project like Hollywood close-ups. Sergei Prokofiev's glorious ballet score is frequently called his masterpiece. Its thematic melodies—by turns sweetly tender, sweepingly passionate, hotly fierce and chillingly eerie—provide counterpoint and impart eloquent support to the narrative. In his version of Roméo et Juliette, choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot has taken formal inspiration from the episodic character of Prokofiev's classic score, structuring the action in a manner akin to cinematic narrative. Rather than focusing on themes of political-social opposition between the two feuding clans, this Romeo and Juliet highlights the dualities and ambiguities of adolescence. Torn between contradictory impulses, between tenderness and violence, fear and pride, the lovers are caught in the throes of a tragedy that exemplifies their youth and the extreme emotions and internal conflicts that characterize that time of life—a time of life when destiny, more than at any other moment, seems to escape conscious control, and when the inner turmoil occasioned by passions and ideals can sometimes have disproportionate—even fatal—consequences. In evoking this fragile and volatile state of being, scenic designer Ernest Pignon-Ernest has created a decor marked by transparency and lightness: a play of simple forms that reveals an underlying complexity of meaning. [Notes reprinted by permission of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo.] ABOUT THE ARTISTS Jean-Christophe Maillot was born in 1960 in Tours, France. He studied dance and piano at the Conservatoire National in Tours before joining Rosella Hightower’s International School of Dance in Cannes. In 1977, he won the Prix de Lausanne, and in 1978, he was invited to join the Hamburg Ballet, where director John Neumeier created principal roles for him in many works. In 1983, Maillot was appointed choreographer and director of the Ballet du Grand Theatre in Tours, subsequently one of France’s National Choreographic Centres. He choreographed some twenty ballets for this company, and in 1985, he founded the festival Le Chorégraphique. In 1992, he was awarded the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang. In 1993, H.R.H. the Princess of Hannover invited Maillot to become director of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. As principal choreographer for a company of fifty dancers, he has created more than 28 ballets, such as Vers un pays sage (1995), Roméo and Juliet (1996), Cinderella (1999) La Belle (2001), Le Songe (2005), Altro Canto (2006), Faust (2007) and LAC (2011). Several of these works are now included in the repertoires of major international ballet companies. In 2009, he developed the content and coordinated the Centenary of the Ballets Russes in Monaco, which would see over 50 companies and choreographers pass through the Principality in one year, providing entertainment for 60,000 audience members. Roméo et Juliette is the first ballet by Jean-Christophe Maillot to enter Pacific Northwest Ballet’s repertory. Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) was a leading Soviet composer and brilliant pianist. He left Russia in 1918 and lived in Germany and Paris for the next sixteen years, with frequent trips to America for concert appearances. In 1934 he settled in Moscow and composed prolifically until his death. Among his best known works are the ballet scores Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella and Prodigal Son; the opera The Love for Three Oranges; the children's classic, Peter and the Wolf; the film score and cantata for Alexander Nevsky; and the Classical Symphony. The first Soviet performance of Romeo and Juliet was given at the Kirov Theater on January 11, 1940. Preceding the first performance there were many disagreements between the choreographer, Leonid Lavrovsky, and Prokofiev. The dancers failed to understand the music; and the orchestra, in a last-ditch effort to avoid a disaster, tried to cancel the performance. Despite so little hope for success, the ballet was well received and has been popular ever since. The Lavrovsky ballet was finally presented by the Bolshoi Ballet on December 28, 1946.

From Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/PNBallet/photos/np.1454349173412233.688777437/10153560516138952/?type=3&ref=m_notif&notif_t=notify_me_page

It's no longer available, hence the request for someone who downloaded it when it was.

Kimberly Falker did a great interview with Olivier Wevers for The Balancing Pointe podcast: http://balancing-pointe.com/159-olivier-wevers-founder-and-artistic-director-of-whim-whim-dance-company/ He's so smart.

Whim W'him premiered it's In-Spired" program last Friday, with three new works for Olivier Wevers' company, and it included new dancer, Patrick Kilbane. What struck me about the first two works, Olivier Wevers' "Brahms and Tights" and Mark Haim's "Overflow," was how much vocabulary, grouping, and partnering they had in common, as if the movement was developed in a joint workshop, and then each choreographer chose his own music -- for Wevers, Brahms' Violin Concerto and for Haim, the "Prelude" and (orchestrated) "Liebestod" from "Tristan und Isolde" -- and used the material in his own way. Wevers' work was pure movement, and Haim had more, for lack of a better word, mime, or short, more theatrical interactions between the dancers. It was a great contrast, and Haim's injection of narrative tied well into the third work, Dominic Walsh's "The Ghost Behind Me," set to live music by Houston's Two Star Symphony, which was a narrative work with a central character (Kilbane) manipulated by Puppet Master (Justin Reiter) and character with more than a hint of Death in "La Valse" (Kyle Johnson). While different members of the company were highlighted many times in Wevers' and Haim's dances, they were very much ensemble works, with sections moving seamlessly into another. Walsh's piece had a featured role for Kilbane, which was a great intro to the audience of this stellar dancer. He's new to the ensemble, who have their own subtle interworkings and dynamics, and I suspect by the final show of the season, he'll have found his niche among them. There is definitely a change from the four men/three women to five men/two women dynamic. I thought Tory Peil did the strongest work I've seen from her, especially in the Haim, and it was also great to see Thomas Phelan look more and more compelling.

Round one goes to Sound Transit: a judge has ruled that Sound Transit used the proper valuation basis -- is fair market value. Now it's up to a jury to decide, unless there is a settlement before trial, scheduled for June: http://www.masstransitmag.com/news/12161931/judge-sound-transit-may-use-fair-market-value-to-compensate-ballet-school

Here is an obituary from the funeral home: http://www.smithandkernke.com/obituary/Yvonne-Chouteau-Terekhov/Oklahoma-City-OK/1583928 Rest in peace, Ms. Choteau.

News just tweeted by Dance Tabs: https://twitter.com/DanceTabs/status/691311577212002306 to Ms. Summerscales!

The Rite of Wedding Impressing the Czar!

What sad news. Alexei Ratmansky posted a short message on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexei.ratmansky/posts/10205583409929409?fref=nf Rest in peace, Ms. Lærkesen.

We've had several requests from members and non-members to see if anyone who downloaded the book when the link was active would be willing to post it somewhere -- Dropbox or another hosting site -- so that others could download it, now that it is no longer available. If you would be willing to do so, please contact me via PM or through email at the "Contact Us" link at the top of the page. (Please include your board name if you send email.)