Helene

Thank you for letting us know. Rest in peace, Richka.

Again, that's my point: women of the time might have been as angry or uncomfortable and as aware of the oppressive nature of the sexism involved, but they wouldn't see it through the lens of 1970's feminism or the waves of backlash that followed. The pill wasn't invented yet, and it was before Roe v. Wade. Their discomfort wouldn't have been part of public discourse, and they didn't have social media to discuss and state their case when the mainstream media belittled or ignored their anger and discomfort. On average the consequences of voicing their case were much graver then.

That's my point: because of the blind spots of the times, different characterizations, stereotypes, and practices, including blackface, were generally accepted without scrutiny and weren't meant to make anyone in the audience think twice, be uncomfortable, or interpret them as a political statement. I don't dispute that many if not most women in the time period in which "Fancy Free" was set did not view the sailors' actions through the same lens that many women now do. It does not mean, however, that the woman with the red pocketbook and her real-life contemporaries, were not put off by the behavior looking at it through their own lens and did not react to it by steeling up and/or feeling anger, annoyance, limited in their response, for example, or had not internalized it as the game you play to get by.

SPECIAL EVENTS FRIDAY PREVIEW Friday, October 30, 6:00 pm The Phelps Center, 301 Mercer St., Seattle PNB’s popular Friday Previews are hour-long studio rehearsals hosted by Artistic Director Peter Boal and PNB artistic staff, featuring Company dancers rehearsing excerpts from upcoming ballets. Tickets are $12. These events usually sell out in advance. Friday Previews are sponsored by U.S. Bank. BALLET PREVIEW — FREE Tuesday, November 3, 2015, 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 EMERGENCE, complete with video excerpts. LECTURE SERIES & DRESS REHEARSAL Thursday, November 5, 2015 Lecture 6:00 pm, Nesholm Family Lecture Hallat McCaw Hall Dress Rehearsal 7:00 pm, McCaw Hall Join PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal in conversation with Signature choreographer Price Suddarth, 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 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 dancers, immediately following each performance. FREE for ticketholders. YOUNG PATRONS CIRCLE NIGHT Friday, November 13, 2015, 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.”

I thought I had posted this last month; apologies for the lateness. From the press release: Emergence November 6 – 15, 2015 Marion Oliver McCaw Hall 321 Mercer Street, Seattle Center Seattle, WA 98109 November 6 at 7:30 pm November 7 at 2:00 and 7:30 pm November 12 – 14 at 7:30 pm November 15 at 1:00 pm SEATTLE, WA – For the second program of its 43rd season, Pacific Northwest Ballet provides a crystal-ball look at the next generation of dance makers with EMERGENCE, a program of four contemporary works. PNB audiences have been counting the days until they could see Crystal Pite’s Emergence again, and PNB dancers have felt the same way. Kiyon Gaines’ Sum Stravinsky was another immediate favorite when it debuted in PNB’s 2012 ALL PREMIERE program. The Calling, a haunting work by choreographer Jessica Lang, artistic director of Jessica Lang Dance, receives its PNB season premiere, alongside a world premiere by PNB’s own Price Suddarth. EMERGENCE runs for 7 performances only, November 6 through 15 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. “This program reflects our Company well,” said PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal in his program notes for EMERGENCE. “The range of pieces is vast, with music from the 12th and 21st centuries. The choreographers are young: all four were born after 1970. They are a diverse group and yet they share the common denominator of having developed as artists and choreographers in an environment that was encouraging to their creativity and experimentation. They were accepted for who they were, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, age, or income, and they were asked to find out what they had to say. Perhaps that’s the answer we’re all looking for: acceptance and encouragement for all.” The line-up for EMERGENCE will include: Sum Stravinsky Music: Igor Stravinsky (Concerto in E-Flat, “Dumbarton Oaks8-v-1938,” 1937-1938) Choreography: Kiyon Gaines Costume Design: Pauline Smith Lighting Design: Randall G. Chiarelli Running Time: 18 minutes Premiere: November 2, 2012 Sum Stravinsky is Kiyon Gaines’ second ballet choreographed for PNB’s mainstage repertory, following M-Pulse in 2008. It premiered during the Company’s 40th Anniversary season. In his program notes, Mr. Gaines wrote “The creation of Sum Stravinsky is particularly special for me because it gives me a chance to both return to my roots as a choreographer and to give a special gift to PNB in its fortieth year. I was inspired by the Balanchine/Stravinsky relationship and also knew I wanted to add to that some of the influence of [PNB Founding Artistic Director] Kent Stowell. In my research for music by Stravinsky, I kept landing on the Dumbarton Oaks concerto. Kent had choreographed his own Dumbarton Oaks many years ago, and I remember watching it and thinking to myself, ‘This is one of the ballets I would absolutely love to dance.’ Creating Sum Stravinsky has given me this wonderful opportunity to revisit the music and create movement that expresses how the music makes me feel. As a choreographer, Balanchine is one of my biggest influences, and I am still amazed each time I see his works at how adept he was at moving large groups around the stage and creating great patterns, shapes, and formations. This is something I also wanted to explore while creating Sum Stravinsky.” The Calling (PNB Season Premiere) Music: Anonymous (“O Maria, stella maris,” French late12th-early 13th century) Choreography: Jessica Lang Staging: Jessica Lang and Kanji Segawa Costume Design: Elena Comendador Costume Concept: Jessica Lang Lighting Design: Al Crawford Running Time: Five minutes Premiere: October 15, 2006 (as part of Splendid Isolation II); Ailey II, Baltimore, MD Jessica Lang is a choreographer and the artistic director of Jessica Lang Dance. Hailed as "a master of visual composition" by Dance Magazine, she has created more than 80 works on companies worldwide including Birmingham Royal Ballet, The National Ballet of Japan, Joffrey Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Richmond Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, and New York City Ballet's Choreographic Institute, among others. Ms. Lang is a New York City Center Fellow for 2015 and the recipient of a 2014 Bessie Award. She has received numerous grants from organizations such as the Jerome Robbins Foundation, the NEA, and the Choo San Goh Foundation, and a 2010 Joyce Theater Artist Residency supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation helped launch her own company in 2011. Ms. Lang is on faculty of American Ballet Theatre's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School as well as a teaching artist for the “Make A Ballet” program. She has been commissioned by Birmingham Royal Ballet to create a premiere in 2016 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Ms. Lang is a former member of Twyla Tharp's company, THARP! Signature (World Premiere) Music: Barret Anspach after Antonio Vivaldi (2015) Choreography: Price Suddarth Costume Design: Mark Zappone Lighting Design: Randall G. Chiarelli Running Time: 30 minutes (est.) Price Suddarth studied ballet at Central Indiana Dance Ensemble, the School of American Ballet (SAB), and Pacific Northwest Ballet School, and he attended summer courses on scholarship at PNB School, the Rock School, SAB, and Miami City Ballet. Mr. Suddarth joined PNB as an apprentice in 2010 and was promoted to corps de ballet in 2011. In 2012, he was chosen as one of Dance Magazine’s Top 25 to Watch. His choreographic career began at SAB’s student choreographic workshop in 2007, and he has subsequently worked with regional companies in the United States. Mr. Suddarth has created regularly for PNB’s NEXT STEP choreographers’ showcases, and in 2012 he was commissioned to create a ballet for PNB School's Annual School Performance. He was invited to present his works at the 2012 Regional Dance America Gala performance and at the 2014 Chop Shop: Bodies of Work Contemporary Dance Festival. A Pacific Northwest native, Barret Anspach composes chamber music, orchestral music, pop music, and ballet scores. He graduated in 2010 with a Master of Music from The Juilliard School. Mr. Anspach’s commissioned score for Signature marks his second orchestral premiere for PNB (his first was created for Andrew Bartee’s 2012 arms that work). He has also been commissioned by Joel Sachs for the New Juilliard Ensemble and has collaborated with a variety of artists in other disciplines, including performance artist Rachel Mason, choreographer Zack Winokur, photographer/filmmaker Michael Hart, and musician Jenn Ghetto. He and songwriter Seth Garrison form the dream pop group Night Cadet. Mr. Anspach lives in Seattle and is the brother of long-time Company dancer Jessika Anspach. Emergence Music: Owen Belton Choreography: Crystal Pite Staging: Hope Muir Scenic Design: Jay Gower Taylor Costume Design: Linda Chow Lighting Design: Alan Brodie Running Time: 28 minutes Premiere: March 4, 2009; National Ballet of Canada (Toronto) PNB Premiere: November 8, 2013 Crystal Pite is known as one of the most innovative and exciting choreographers at work today. National Ballet of Canada artistic director Karen Kain commissioned Pite to create an original work for the company as part of a program of new work by Canadian choreographers. The result, Emergence, brought audiences to their feet and went on to win four Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Production, Outstanding New Choreography, Outstanding Performance and Outstanding Sound Design/Composition by Owen Belton. A riveting dark-hued work that casts a swarming, scurrying group of dancers, insect-like, in an eerily subterranean universe, Emergence dramatizes through its mesmerizing choreographic attack the ways in which the instinct for creating social forms seems hard-wired into life itself. Pite’s inspiration for the work came from reading Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software by American popular science theorist Steven Johnson and considering parallels between the social organization of bees and the hierarchical nature of classical ballet companies. Johnson’s statement that “simple agents following simple rules could generate amazingly complex structures” became a touchstone for the piece. Pite was interested in individual expression and in collective problem solving through movement, often favoring the visual and kinesthetic appeal of the eccentric over the mundane and the grotesque over the beautiful. Pite rarely works with dancers en pointe and was attracted not only to the dancers’ ease of movement but also to the potential for a creature-like effect. Key to Pite’s vision for Emergence was her collaboration with composer Owen Belton, who uses both acoustic and electronic instruments, often in combination with computer processing techniques, to arrive at atmospheric palettes of sound and tone. Pite and Belton incorporated drone-like sounds of bees along with sounds of marching to signify the power and ominous presence of the body politic. [Notes courtesy of National Ballet of Canada.]

Today PNB posted this to Facebook: According to the link, it's a fundraiser with free admission, but a tax-deductible donation of $30 gets and entry into a raffle, including a prize from former PNB dancer Jordan Pacitti (Skin).

Along with commentary that is built into art -- using stereotypes of the East when the composer/librettist was really talking about their own societies, changing the location from Sweden to Boston to avoid censorship -- unexamined assumptions about privilege and the norms of the times are cooked in. There are enough arguments about the former and whether it's exploitation of the stereotyped characters. When the latter happens -- in "Fancy Free," when young boys appear in blackface, the characters of Isaac and Seyd-Pasha in "Le Corsaire," for example -- It think it's a legitimate discussion to call out the underlying assumptions that could be offensive for what they are. We're all blind in some ways, and just because an artist is great doesn't mean he or she isn't blind in a big way.

Steven Loch guested with LakeCities Ballet Theatre in Texas in Tom Rutherford's "Dracula": http://www.theaterjones.com/ntx/reviews/20151020110040/2015-10-20//

I love the exquisite Claude de Vulpian, but I usually skip Nureyev and Baryshnikov to watch the sublime Soloviev:

I struggle with the description of "Napoli" Act III: "stripped of most of the mime and most of the character roles, and lovingly and meticulously staged by Andersen, Eva Kloborg and Anne Marie Vessel-Schlűter." I would expect a truly loving staging to include the mime and the character roles, but recognize that with lack of experience, let alone expertise, in those performance traditions, the quality might very well have been erratic if included.

The Astrologer is not a large role in The Golden Cockerel. The King is onstage all the time.

Congratulations to her

The Queen of Shemarkhan is the best role in The Golden Cockerel. I'm glad to see that both Part and Abrera are cast.

Bavarian State Ballet will do live streaming for a series of operas and "Le Corsaire" during it's 2015-16 season. "Le Corsaire" airs 7:30pm CET, 1:30pm ET, 10:30am PT). There are no re-broadcasts or archives: only real-time is guaranteed. The full list is on the website: https://www.staatsoper.de/en/staatsopertv.html and in this thread: http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/40729-bavarian-state-opera-live-stream-schedule-2015-16/

Bavarian State Opera is once again live streaming a series of performances during it's 2015-16 season, mostly opera. They are not archived. Here is the list as of now: October 23, 2015, 8.00 p.m. [2pm ET, 11am PT] Richard Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos Musical Direction: Kirill Petrenko Stage Direction: Robert Carsen With Amber Wagner, Brenda Rae, Alice Coote, Peter Seiffert a.o. November 15, 2015, 7.00 p.m. [1pm ET, 10am PT] Arrigo Boito Mefistofele (New Production) Musical Direction: Omer Meir Wellber Stage Direction: Roland Schwab With René Pape, Joseph Calleja, Kristine Opolais a.o. December 12, 2015, 7.00 p.m. [1pm ET, 10am PT] Sergei Prokofiev The Fiery Angel (New Production) Musical Direction: Vladimir Jurowski Stage Direction: Barrie Kosky With Evgeny Nikitin, Evelyn Herlitzius, Elena Manistina a.o. March 19, 2016, 7.00 p.m. [1pm ET, 10am PT] Giuseppe Verdi Un ballo in maschera (New Production) Musical Direction: Zubin Mehta Stage Direction: Johannes Erath With Piotr Beczala, Simon Keenlyside, Anja Harteros, a.o. June 12, 2016, 7.30 p.m. [1:30pm ET, 10:30am PT] Marius Petipa / Ivan Liška Le Corsaire Musical Direction: Aivo Välja Soloists and corps de ballet of the Bavarian State Ballet June 26, 2016, 6.00 p.m. [noon ET, 9am PT] Fromental Halévy La Juive (New Production) Musical Direction: Bertrand de Billy Stage Direction: Calixto Bieito With Kristine Opolais, Roberto Alagna, John Osborn, Aleksandra Kurzak a.o. July 31, 2016, 4.00 p.m. [10am ET, 7am PT] Richard Wagner Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (New Production) Musical Direction: Kirill Petrenko Stage Direction: David Bösch With Wolfgang Koch, Christof Fischesser, Jonas Kaufmann, Sara Jakubiak a.o.

I've never been in the Men's rooms at McCaw Hall, but from what I've been told, there are four stalls plus urinals. If anything, they built a great number for women and possibly a better ratio for men than suggested. I can't remember the last time I spent more than three minutes on line. McCaw Hall also has two sections that I've never seen in any other house, Gallery Lower and Gallery Upper that ramp from even with the Orchestra to the first tier up, the front rows of which, the Dress Circle, are the Met's Grand Tier, although in Seattle, Dress Circle isn't segregated from the riff-raff. The two sets of side balconies are mostly fixed and forward-facing -- there are no loose-chair scrums in the boxes for sightlight real estate -- which is unusual as well. The Main Floor price breakdowns are comparable to many houses that don't have continental seating, but multiple sections on each floor -- a prime section in the front middle, different breaks depending on how far they are to the side -- but the biggest complication comes from the way seats in the Second Tier, the highest floor that has five discrete sections, are priced, because pricing is based on a combination of how far forward and how far center. NYCB used to have three price breaks in Fourth Tier: Rows A&B, which are physically separate, and then the last three rows were cheaper than the bulk of the Fourth Tier. Subscriptions are more complex, because of the Mandatory Contributions tacked onto some sections and blocks of seats (prime) in others.

I'm catching up with podcasts, and I listened today to the Balancing Pointe podcast with Reid Bartelme, who with Harriet Jung, designed the costumes for "Debonair," Justin Peck's ballet for PNB. (Bartelme and Jung have been designing for Peck since his early work.) I knew the name looked familiar, but didn't remember why until I learned from the podcast that I would have had seen him with PNB as a Professional Division student. He was a PD for a year and a half, and after he had The Talk with Francia Russell, and she told him there wasn't going to be a contract for him at PNB, joined BalletMet, then Alberta Ballet before he returned to NYC and danced with Shen Wei and then Lar Lubovitch, after which he studied full time at FIT. http://balancing-pointe.com/84-designer-reid-bartelme/ My favorite part was when he described the training he got under Yoko Ichino, David Nixon's wife who stayed at the BalletMet school after Nixon left to become AD of Northern Ballet.

Seattle already did the naming rights for the bathrooms at, if I'm remembering correctly, Consolidated Arts. Seattle Opera was very clever to put signs on the Ladies Room stalls at the Opera House before it was gutted, where there were four stalls for the entire top tier (maybe 14 in total for all tiers, all one one side), which made crossing the narrow lobby to race to them after the first act of Gotterdammerung a contact sport. The fundraising signs advertised "96 Ladies Room stalls are planned for McCaw Hall!" But I love this man for this:

Vitor Luiz was Chung's partner in the Scarlett.

This is from Dance Books in the UK: Dance Books is pleased to announce publication of Stephanie Jordan's 'Mark Morris - Musician, Choreographer'. This book is the first detailed study of Morris's use of music, revealing an unmatched range of approaches to music and strategies for making us hear musical scores in new ways. It also has impact well beyond his work, in outlining a choreomusical (audio-visual) framework for discussion that, for the first time, introduces ideas from cognitive science. Until the end of October this book is available from the Dance Books web site at 20% discount off the recommended retail price. You'll find full details of the book, plus ordering facilities, at: www.dancebooks.co.uk

No, his new work is to "Souvenir de Florence":

"Core-ography" was just featured in "Dance Spirit": http://www.dancespirit.com/news/ballet-dancers-bare-their-souls-in-core-ography/

Frances Chung's partner is Vitor Luiz in the rehearsal footage of "Fearful Symmetries." Their rehearsal is a good deal of the aired footage.

Misty Copeland and Yo Yo Ma performed part of Marcelo Gomes' "Courante" last night on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," and Yo Yo Ma trended on Twitter: http://www.bustle.com/articles/115109-yo-yo-ma-misty-copeland-win-over-twitter-in-a-stunning-late-show-performance-video