Helene

Among the Best's, I can't believe I left out: The Auroras. Four different ballerinas danced Aurora, all at various times in their careers and with different experiences in the role. Nakamura went forth in a blaze of glory, having burnished her interpretation since the production premiered, yet remaining fresh and believable as the young Aurora. Lesley Rausch was expansive and confident. It was a debut for Rachel Foster, and it's always fascinating to see a dancer in her prime taking on an iconic role for the first time. Foster's characterization was nuanced and warm. The youngest, Leta Biasucci, has carried full-length ballets since she came to PNB a few years ago, but Aurora is the biggest test, and she danced a beautifully detailed interpretation partnered by Jerome Tisserand. I look forward to seeing what she does with it in the future. Watching her choices is a happy experience. Jerome Tisserand's promotion to Principal. For this I have an excuse: he'd been dancing at the level for so long, that it was hard to remember he needed a promotion.

From today's Links, between the eight regularly scheduled performances of Grand Rapids Ballet's new "Nutcracker," the private gala (which raised $500K, split with Hospice of Michigan's Pediatric program), according to a linked article in this one, and 4000 school children who saw it, at least 21K people saw the new production, which will tour next season. Choreography was by Val Caniparoli, designs by children's author Chris Van Allsburg, Eugene Lee, and Patricia Barker (costumes). Congratulations to Barker and the company! At this rate, Barker is amassing more actual experience running a company than the vast majority of AD's in North America had taking over a mid- to large-size company.

This isn't really news, but I didn't want to start an entire thread. I saw the "In the Woods" movie, and I was sure I was watching Elle Macy as Cinderella. imdb says that the actress's name is Anna Kendrick, but have they ever been seen in the same room?

Love the one of the usher .

The NPR story: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islistfalse&id=3712549&m=37279007

From the left coast and PNB, not in any particular order: Best: New Production and Revival of PNB's "Giselle." Aside from the dead squirrel collar on Hilarion's jacket, the Houston Ballet sets and costumes used by PNB for the premiere of PNB's version in 2011 were serviceable, and the staging and dancing was the focus. The new sets and costumes by Jerome Kaplan were stunning and brought the visuals up to the level of the production itself. Up close in a wonderful seminar, we could see the beautiful construction and fabric samples. With a second round, Kaori Nakamura, Carla Korbes, and Lesley Rausch got new partners, and a combination of the switches and the time to let the production sink into their bones had a happy effect all around. Nakamura, who retired with this production and the Encores that followed the last performance of the season, was paired with Jerome Tisserand, a stellar Hilarion in 2011, and it's sad that this partnership ended almost as soon as it began. Korbes and Batkhurel Bold are a perfect pairing, but, sadly, that will end with Korbes' retirement. Carrie Imler's Myrtha, simply sublime. There was a joke that William Lin-Yee, who was cast as Albrecht, Hilarion, and Wilifred in this run, could have done the entire first act on his own. His dancing was no joke, and it's amazing that he kept it all straight. He and Sarah Ricard Orza made formidable debuts in the lead roles, and the next sets of leads are in the wings. Jewels. There are few other ballets/programs that PNB performs that have so much opportunity for so many dancers and such an extraordinary standard of choreography. Unfortunately there had been a five-season gap of the full "Jewels," Maria Chapman and Rachel Foster were out on parental leave, and there wasn't as much of a chance to see the gradual development as there was between 2006 and 2009, but there were wonderful repeat performances and debuts. Some highlights: The coaching seminars. I was only able to see Jacques d'Amboise's "Diamonds" seminar, and not Edward Villella's or Violette Verdy and Mimi Paul's. I'm sure if I had, my heart would skip a beat when remembering them, the way I remember d'Amboise's. It wasn't always even about pure movement, but often the opposite: for example, how to make a lift look like it had more of an arc by placement, timing, and breath rather than through muscle or technique. We were watching a master of the stage. And a master storyteller: some of the stories are familiar, but it didn't make them any less potent in the telling. The middle sections: Leta Biasucci weaving elongated phrases together in her "Emeralds" Pas de Trois solo, making it sing from beginning to end. Elizabeth Murphy and Eric Hipolito, Jr. making the center section of the Walking Pas de Deux a highlight of the ballet by pushing against the pulse established in the opening, finding that fine line just before the breaking point, and returning to it in the ending. It made me want to see her Sleepwalker in "La Sonnambula." We're Not Worthys: Carla Korbes, Carrie Imler, and Lesley Rausch in "Diamonds," and Korbes in "Emeralds." Korbes was luxuriant in her finest rep, the Classical and Romantic flavors of neoclassical, without the trappings of a specific narrative. When "Diamonds" played as a stand-alone in 2013, "Swan Lake" was earlier that Spring, and the performances of "Diamonds" by Odettes Nakamura and Imler were more programmatic. (Korbes had her critical knee injury in that program and didn't dance in "Diamonds.") This time, Imler danced more freely and with greater nuance, partly thanks to Lin-Yee's partnering. That's not a partnership I would have expected, but I hope to see a lot more of them. Last season Rausch started to dance with more interpretive freedom than ever before, and her expansive "Diamonds" with Jerome Tisserand got the attention of and kudos from d'Amboise. Notable debuts: Steven Loch's ardent partnering in the Ludlow role "Emeralds." Not even a Prince in the making: he's there, and he's only been in the company a few years. Leah Merchant brought great warmth and lush movement to the Verdy role in a breathtaking performance at the last Sunday matinee, one of the best I've seen. I almost went home after it. (I'm glad I didn't, because Lesley Rausch's long-limbed, sensuous version of the "Rubies" pas de deux followed, the antithesis of short and snappy.) Raphael Bouchard did the "Rubies" male quartet with PNB for the first time, and all I could think of was So You Think You Can Dance Canada's Jean-Marc Genereaux exclaiming, "You're a beast!, you're a beast!" He ate that role up, and I'd love to see him in the lead. Kaori Nakamura. Dancing like she was thirty, Nakamura decided in her forties it was time to retire, and in role after role in her final season, starting in Fall 2013 in "Brief Fling," "That's Life" from "Nine Sinatra Songs," and "Petite Mort" to the role in Yellow in "Take Five...More or Less," to Aurora to the Divertissement from "A Midsummer Night's Dream," she danced with the same technical and interpretive excellence, range, and presence that she had for more than a decade in new rep and old rep, with new partners and old partners, and even with guest partner Sascha Radetsky. Her PNB career culminated with the Encore program with excerpts from several of her great full-length roles: the "Balcony Pas de Deux" from Maillot's "Romeo et Juliette," "Act IV Pas de Deux" from Kent Stowell's "Swan Lake," -- it was Russell and Stowell who brought Nakamura and Olivier Wevers to PNB in the '90's -- and the "Rose Adagio" from "The Sleeping Beauty," where her fellow female Principals and soloists donned practice clothing and shared the stage as spectators and students of her example. Jonathan Porretta. It doesn't matter what he dances these days: it looks like he's making it up on the spot. Short People: After staking a claim as a company of tall women, PNB has three extraordinary young, short women on the roster: Leta Biasucci, Angelica Generosa, and Jahna Frantziskonis. It's about time: men like Porretta, Griffiths, and Moore especially deserve to have such great dancers as partners. The Devils is in the Details. There were so many during the season. Here are the ones that struck me most: During the "Rose Adagio" each of the four suitors present a present to Aurora. There's not a lot of time in the music for those moments, but Rachel Foster looked at each present and made simple, modest eye contact with each suitor before going to the next. They were such beautiful, gracious moments. Matthew Renko's faun-like walks in "State of Darkness," performed with such delicacy. Angelica Generosa in the opening of "Take Five...More or Less," a quirky delight. Ezra Thomson's Drosselmeier's reaction to Clara's kiss in the party scene. So often the Drosselmeier in this production is an almost unilaterally mean uncle, but Thomson made sense of Dream Clara's ambivalence towards him in Act II. His Dr. Coppelius a few seasons ago was full of similarly incisive details. The dead stillness in each of Jessika Anspach's stops as Fairy of Wit with electricity practically crackling from her fingers. Doug Fullington explained that this fairy originally was a nod to electricity, as the theater had been recently electrified, and she was. Out of Character. James Moore's Hilarion. What a heart-breaker. (I'm all verklempt thinking about it.) He didn't play it as a Romantic hero, but it was easy to see how he could be one. (And I don't count Romeo, who's not a grown-up.) Ezra Thomson's Bluebird. Thomson is almost the anti-ballet guy: aside from corps work, he plays the odd guys and the characters, not the straight-up ones. Thomson's Bluebird was so plainly classical, it was a revelation. I hope it wasn't a "Hah! See, I can do it and now we'll return to the regularly scheduled broadcast" one-off. Orchestral Preludes. It's the PNB Orchestra's 25th Anniversary, and to celebrate, the orchestra has been playing an orchestral selection during each mixed bill program. Before the season opener "Jewels", it was the finale from Tchaikovsky's "Theme and Variations," and for Director's Choice, the beautiful "Praeludium" from Edward Grieg's "Holberg Suite." I will miss these after this season. I wish the orchestra could play a concert on their own, like the Met Opera Orchestra does. Debonair. It's not that I think "Debonair" is a masterpiece. It's more important than that: it's a highly skilled and crafted ballet with a wonderful central pas and a fine supporting roles for secondary couples and corps. I didn't understand how good it was seeing it the first time, and this was my limitation, not the work's; it took the second performance for the light bulb to go off and for me to recognize how he showed the difference between public and private and the central couple alone and part of a community, the kinds of distinctions Robbins made, for example, in "Dances at a Gathering" and "In the Night." There was also a major section that repeated, but resolved differently both times, something I've seen in Ratmansky's work. I don't think Justin Peck was trying to copy other choreographers, and he has a voice of his own, but his work has affinities with other ballets with implied, but not specifically narrative traditions, and there is more to the relationships than "I Love You/I Hate You" and "We're The Serious Couple/We're The Lighthearted Perky Couple." I wished there had been more for Sarah Orza/Steven Loch and Margaret Mullin/Benjamin Griffiths, but the central pdd was a beautiful goodbye present to Carla Korbes, a hard, but deeply felt conversation between two adults. I am so glad I got to see Peck towards the beginning of his choreographic career. Carrie Imler. Where there's a character, Imler always knows who and what hers is and represents, and her variations personify that character. As Myrtha and Lilac Fairy, she was simply at another level of the stratosphere from mime to dancing to simple presence. What was even more impressive was watching her reveal the Forsythe DNA that goes through Pite and Dawson, as her work in "Emergence" -- performed this year as a central part of Encores in June -- informed her choices and provided a continuity of movement quality in "A Million Kisses to My Skin." We're Not Worthy. And since "Emergence" is valid for this year, I can't express how much I appreciate a work in which ballet and contemporary dance mutually coexist with respect and without it being a put-down of ballet. Double-edged Sword: The preggerinas had beautiful children, but they aren't back yet. I know, #firstworldproblems# Worst: Nakamura's retirement. Carla Korbes' retirement announcement. Laura Gilbreath's costume in "Diamonds." She's a long-bodied, long-limbed wonder, and she should be able to show it in something that doesn't look like an ill-fitting cheerleader's uniform. The next time this ballet comes back, make her a costume that fits. Outside Seattle: Not being able to make it to Ballet Arizona's season-ending Balanchine program after ten-years-in-a-row. Not getting to San Francisco to see the Ratmansky Trilogy. Not getting to Munich to see "Paquita." Not getting to Sarasota. No classical/neoclassical ballet company in Vancouver. Not being able to see Tereshkina live, wherever she is and whatever she's dancing. Knowing that there are many under-rated and under-reviewed dancers doing spectacular work in many, many places that I don't see. The people we've lost. RIP carbro.

Happy Holidays to everyone at Ballet Alert! To start off the greetings, here's a video greeting card from PNB:

Ismene Brown posted a summary and translation of a report that the Bolshoi Theatre, through Katerina Novikova, has denied a story in the Chelyabinsk press that former Bolshoi Principal Yuri Klevtsov, who has a high position at the ballet in Chelyabinsk, will replace Sergei Filin. According to the Bolshoi, General Director Urin will give Filin one year's notice about whether his contract will be renewed past 2016. http://www.ismeneb.com/Blog/Entries/2014/12/20_Rumour_of_new_Bolshoi_ballet_leader_denied.html

I just received an update: Hopefully Seattle public television will pick air this, since Morris is a local hero.

I hate the Four Cygnets dance performed right after such a sublime pas de deux sets a very different mood. A friend posted this playful version to another board: The mood is no less playful, but it was very clever.

This sounds like a wonderful production, with full involvement from everyone in it.

In the "Dancing for Mr. B" documentary, Kistler said that Balanchine gave her instructions about the PDD that she didn't understand: Don't look at your partner, you're not in love with him. He said that freed her (15-year-old-self) to be herself, because she hadn't had the kind of experience that could inform her. I don't know if that's what she was trying to say, allowing each dancer to be herself, but I thought it was curious that she framed in terms of being a swan, since there's no consensus on how much of a swan Odette is (and when) in the white acts. How much of "Swan Lake" was done at Kistler's workshop? There's rehearsal footage (with pianist) of the Pas de deux, and maybe some footage of the actual workshop performance has surfaced, but were all of the other elements included? If people recognize the end of the Pdd in the telecast as Martins', how did Kistler's end?

It helps that native daughter Cojocaru and Kobborg have adopted the company. (Cojocaru had long donated Gaynor Minden shoes to the company for her sponsorship role.) Kobborg did the staging and performed Widow Simone. My friend, who is not a ballet junkie but has a great eye, likely didn't know being what trained in the RDB tradition means to a character role like Widow Simone, but his comment was that Kobborg did the comic parts without being over-the-top, and that the clog dance *almost* stole the show, which is how the ballet is supposed to work. I still think about how my first performance in my PNB subscription was an add-on, the Australian Ballet performing the work, with the very young, but extraordinary talent, Lucinda Dunn. It's such a shame that ABT won't do a West Coast tour on the way to Socal for "Nutcracker" next year, bringing this work.

Thanks to a heads up from this past Sunday's Links, I told a friend who is visiting Bucharest this week that "La Fille mal gardee" was playing during his visit. He went and he gave the Lise, Cristina Dijmaru, a rave review.

My favorite name-changing story is Merrill Ashley's. Her name was Linda Merrill, and NYCB allowed a student who graduated into the company ahead of her to change her name to Linda Merrill, even though there was a real Linda Merrill at the top of her class still at SAB. When she was forced to take a different name, she took Ashley, a family name, and realized that the upside was that she was listed at the top of the alphabet in the list of dancers. M. Allard will have the same advantage.

The questions about whether any of us have witnessed the racism that Copeland describes? As if that is likely on a ballet discussion board. What I read is a dismissal of a woman's described experience because of a belief, without any proof, that the ballet world's support of a black dancer is so strong that no only is the racism she describes trivial, she is to be taken to task for not appreciating that help and support. It's one thing if a story doesn't ring true to someone, and there's no rule about expressing it, but that is not an argument.

Thank you rg -- I missed the "1964" before the change from Cygnets to Valse Bluette, a lovely dance that maintains the mood, as opposed to the Four Cygnets. I asked because this seemed to me to have Martins' imprint on it.

I've seen Balanchine's version many times, without the Four Cygnets and with Valse Bluette (changed in 1959), with a different ending in the Pas de deux, and I don't remember seeing a male variation. Did they go back to the 50's and re-stage earlier versions to attribute this to Balanchine? I've only seen the magnificent sissone coda entrance in the coda in Balanchine -- Merrill Ashley was always majestic here -- instead of the horrific musical slowdown for a pirouette diagonal, but on the whole it looked different from what I remember.

They obviously were planning to stay despite the difficulties, until the lawsuit. Unless they had a contract with LC from which they couldn't pull out without the judges' ruling, they thought the trade-offs, despite the complaints and defections, were worth it. Nonetheless, it is a very different animal to put on an event in a familiar venue than to re-create it in a new one.

They had a deal. They knew the logistics, which is a lot easier than setting up in a new place, and their new venue isn't going to be ready until 2018. It's not trivial to get a new space, but they will be allowed to use it this winter.

As the polls cited by Kathleen show, you don't have to be a birther by any stretch of the imagination to be among the millions "unsure" if Obama was born in the US.

If I'm following this correctly, the City contracted with Lincoln Center to control use of Damrosch Park and collect rental fees, primarily from Fashion Week and Big Apple Circus, which legally belongsto the City and which the City cannot relinquish/assign. As a result, the park will be mainly accessible to the public again, with a limited number of private events whose fees will go to the City. LC will have to find $32m a year from other sources. Was this agreement created to help the big LC upgrade?

Part and Seo have been the only two with whom McKenzie has not been parsimonious with leading roles. With Part, he was parsimonious with the recognition, although she seems to be delegated to the matinees that her fan base can't always attend. In Seattle, I'm so glad Lesley Rausch finally got over the hump of getting the Sun. matinee singlet. After she finally got two, her first and second performances were very different until this season. The first tended to be conservative, but by the second, she started to expand and experiment. Now she has the confidence and *experience* to come in the first with that expansiveness, having mastered the pacing. It's one thing to be a Vishneva or Semionva or Osipova and fly in for a single ABT Odette or Giselle, since they're dancing so frequently elsewhere, but it's no way to grow dancers, just a recipe to buy them already grown. It was a great surprise to see the soloists cast for two or three Nutcrackers, even if that was from necessity, not recognition. I expect each to have expanding fan bases in Socal next year when the production moves.

Official news only. All else will be removed, like the one I just deleted.

Thank you for the news, Amour!!