Helene

Melissa Hayden started late, at 15 or 16. There was always more of a chance to start late as a man, too. In her recent Ballet Initiative podcast interview, Alicia Graf Mack said that it was possible for Copeland because she was a prodigy.

I'll try to find the Fresh Air interview later, but I remember Joan Rivers telling Terry Gross that she never made fun of her husband: the jokes were always at her expense, while Phyllis Diller made fun of (whichever man was) Fang. She said they were bundled together, but that was a difference between them.

Volume 4 is now available for pre-order on amazon.com. Release date is scheduled for 23 September.

Oh, sweet news . While she had so many fans, her contribution was overshadowed by her partners Villella and Baryshnikov. The parts Balanchine created for her in those ballets with Villella, Tomasson, and d'Amboise were among the great roles for women: Rubies, Harlequinade, Coppelia (part reconstruction with Danilova and Act III original), Who Cares?, Tales from the Vienna Woods, Hermia, Baiser, Tarantella, and Costermongers. Joseph Mazo describes her as indefatigable: offstage when others were bent over heaving to catch their breath, she would exhale and be ready for her next entrance. Although typecast as a soubrette, she took over roles made for others, like Melissa Hayden's role in Liebeslieder Walzer, and made them her own, and she danced the most difficult technical roles, like (Tchaikovsky) Piano Concerto Number 2. And there was the Robbins legacy, notably the Girl in Pink. I hope Sarah Mearns is featured in the performance: McBride trained her in North Carolina. She joined NYCB right just a few years after the company was in turmoil after Tanaquil LeClercq contracted polio, speeding to Principal Dancer in two years. During a period where there was chaos, illness,and injury, she danced performance after luminous performance, and Lincoln Kirstein later credited her with carrying the company and saving it through very difficult times. My father and I had Sunday night subscriptions, and dancers often gave their retirement performances then. It was three decades before I encountered one that was as much of a love-fest as hers. She would have deserved the title People's Artist. If she had made it look harder, she would have been honored earlier. I'm glad they realized that it's about time.

Now if you want food, you can't spit in Seattle Center without bumping into a Thai restaurant and almost as many coffee shops. There is reasonably priced food to be had for blocks and blocks, or a fancy meal at Ten Mercer, which is open late and where each PNB ticket envelope has a 20% off entree voucher. (I think if you did print at home and ask the box office for an envelope, they'll give you one, especially if you tell them you came all the way from [your city]). (Ten Mercer is between Seattle Center and the MarQueen. Staying there was an experience: the suite I had was as big as any apartment I've ever lived in, but I found the front desk people a little eager, like they were trying to be a NY hotel from watching movies with NY hotels, at least the guys I dealt with. I'm not sure if there's an elevator, though. I remember going up and down the big staircase, where people go to have their wedding pictures taken.) There are a few restaurants in between, like Toulouse Petit. The food was great when I was there for dinner. Back in the day they took online reservations for weekend brunch, and I remember trying a bunch of times only to get the "Your funeral will come sooner" message. They now say that they only take walk-ins, which explains the mass of people outside every weekend morning for hours blocking the sidewalk in little clusters. So be aware, although they open at 8am for breakfast, if you like breakfast food. Their happy hour is also a great deal, and they are open until 1am. They have plenty of happy hour competition in the area, and there's a pub, McMenamin's, that's a block away from McCaw Hall and open late at night, too. There's also TS McHugh's across from Ten Mercer, within a 1.5 blocks of the Mediterranean Inn and MarQueen. One that's out of the way, and thanks to sandik I learned about, called Citizen, which is close the Sheraton Four Points, 10 minutes from McCaw Hall, which serves wonderful sweet and savory crepes. Did I mention there's lots of food in the area?

The rooms in the Mediterranean Inn are carpeted. For some reason I'm remembering wooden floors at the MarQueen, but I could be imagining things. pherank, do you remember? If you end up in a central downtown hotel, you can take the monorail back and forth to Seattle Center, unless you want a late night, and then it's a short cab ride or a bus. Based on what the Metro website says, despite 151,000 hours of service being dropped on 27 September, none of the impacted bus routes go from downtown to Seattle Center, and I don't see any cuts for LINK, the light rail that goes from the airport to downtown Seattle. Just know, if you haven't used light rail, it's at least a 1k walk through the north end airport parking garage to the machines where you buy a ticket, and then up the escalators to the platform. If your plane lands on the south side of the airport -- international or A gates -- it's another almost 1k walk through the airport to get to the north end to start the trek to through the parking garage. They decided everyone should have to do this, and killed the buses that ran from the south end of the airport to downtown, one of which was an express bus up I-5. From downtown to Seattle Center, if you're staying at the Mediterranean Inn, the MarQueen, or the Maxwell you can take the D Rapid Transit bus to Republican stop (for the Mediterranean Inn) or the Mercer stop for the other two, and you'll be within a block of all but the Maxwell, which is another four or five blocks from either the Seattle Center West buses (D Rapid Transit, 1, 2) or the Seattle Center East buses (3, 4, ask the driver for the stop). For the Sheraton Four Points, you'll want the Seattle Center East buses, or you'll be rolling your suitcase for a while (but at least mostly downhill). Whether you take a bus to Seattle Center or the monorail, you have to come up from the bus tunnel at Westlake (end stop) and come to the surface. The buses are on 3rd Avenue (walk to mountains and water, away from Nordstroms). The monorail is at Westlake Center. You can take the escalators through the Center or the elevators from the southwest corner of Westlake Center. The monorail will leave you a equidistant from all three hotels, but it will be a uphill incline to get to any of them. You can't use a bus transfer on LINK light rail. I'm not sure if this is true the other way around.

I was always happy at the Mediterranean Inn, just a few blocks from Seattle Center, but you definitely don't want to be on the Queen Anne side, especially close to the front entrance above the taxi stand, where all morning long chirpy cab drivers bray starting at 5am. There isn't really a courtyard, but there is an inner quad, and I always found the rooms there very quiet. I'm a very heavy sleeper, but I can't fall asleep where there is noise. I also stayed at the MarQueen just a couple of blocks farther away in a quiet cavernous suite, but it was a special deal in the off-season.

Congratulations to her

Thank you for letting us know, maps!

I wonder who the Children's Ballet Master is/will be. If Hench is going to be in charge of the kids, Circus Polka would be very sweet, and adding Robbins would cover most if the neoclassical greats turf.

Any piece is going to be compared to the Balanchine, the Ratmansky, and the Wheeldon

My gut is no. I think he has too many pans in the fire, and his focus will be on the transition and starting fresh.

My guess is a piece d'occasion for Hench.

Edited to add: Peter Martins choreographed "Beethoven Romance" to a violin/piano work for Kyra Nichols and Adam Luders. It was telecast on the program dedicated to works he made for most of the reigning ballerinas at the time, with "Ecstatic Orange," (Watts), "Barber Violin Concerto" (Ashley/Johnson of Paul Taylor Dance), "Valse Triste" (McBride), and "Sophisticated Lady" (Farrell). Yes, but no to the latter: it isn't clear when the Michael Kaiser report was issued to the company and how long it took to review, create/accept the plan, but the article cited above that states that the company had a five-year-plan is dated the end of July 2013. Roy Kaiser resigned at the end of April 2014. He was there for nine months after the plan was launched. In a non-profit arts organization, the Board writes the checks -- unlike in public corporations, where being on the board is a cushy way to earn thousands and shake hands with the business person running the company and where many appointments are reciprocal -- and they get to call the shots, which includes the choice of "allowing" the professionals to do their jobs. They also get to to ill-advised things like have a major shake-up without being in front of the story with their ducks in a row, a move that my grandparents would have described as "ferkochte," accompanied with hand gestures.

Barry Kerollis is now Artistic Director of Alaska Dance Theatre! The Company's Facebook Page has updated its cover photo with a fantastic photo to announce the news: https://www.facebook.com/AlaskaDanceTheatre Click on it to get the full view. (I can't figure out how to get a fixed link for a current cover photo.) This is coming off a summer where he was one of the four choreographers chosen for the National Choreographers Initiative and presented his new work, "Distinct Perceptions" at the NCI public performance. Here are some photos: http://www.nchoreographers.org/2014_showing_pictures.htm Congratulations, Barry, and welcome back to this side of the Rockies!

Of course they do: a public firing has emotional and sometimes financial consequences that a private parting of ways does not. Swift and brutal can be independent. In fact, I've seen some brutal slow firings that nearly destroyed groups. Any assumption about the timing is just that: an assumption. We don't know if the firings were done at the behest of Corella or as a result of performance evaluations independent of Corella's appointment. Reading carefully, Corella never says that he did the firing or that it was his decision: he was asked for the reasons, which he pretty much brushed off and focused on the team he hired. We don't know if any of this started before Corella took the helm a little over a week ago. All we know is that one person involved, the ballet administrator, Phil Juska expressed surprise, that the firings took place on Monday with no announcement from the Company, that it was leaked to the press on Wednesday, and that the website was updated today. Juska is the only one involved who has spoken.

[Admin beanie on] Our policy is that all news must be official and open to the public, and not part of private conversations, backstage, restricted social media, private forums, etc. Truth or reliability of private sources is not at issue; private is. [Admin beanie off] Stack ranking at Microsoft, which, according to decades of articles and books, was Steve Ballmer's baby, was dumped when Steve Ballmer left and decided to spend his billions on a basketball team. Bill Gates believed the system distributed top performers throughout the company, because there was incentive to move to a weaker group to become the star. For many years this was a carrot, because there were stock options to be had, but it morphed into "rank and yank," the stick that was implemented after people could no longer got rich based on their ranking. They got fired instead, like schools where X% fail automatically, no matter how strong or weak the class is on the whole. All of this has been documented. However, neither model has little to do with PA Ballet, where there was a change to the administration and a board-sponsored plan. The NY Times report is here: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/29/shakeup-at-the-pennsylvania-ballet/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 Even without a statement thanking everyone profusely for staying until the new administration was in place to maintain stability within the organization, which owes them huge amounts of gratitude, without a leak, there was no reason for anyone to know that anyone was fired. People leave when there are new administrations due to philosophical differences or because they stayed out of loyalty to the old administration or to their colleagues, they were planning to leave but stayed because they were asked to bridge to or ride out a transition, they leave for personal reasons, an upcoming change provides a jolt that makes them think they want to do something else whereas without a change, they would have kept going on autopilot, they leave because they are tired, etc. It's not as if Corella replaced everyone with someone from Barcelona Ballet or ABT: all three replacements are PA Ballet people, and Ochoa was already a top instructor at the school. Few other than insiders would know that any of them had a particular connection to him, something disclosed in the recent press coverage. Whoever leaked it did a disservice to the people who were fired, however much damage it may do to Corella and the new administration in the cross-fire. When dirty linen is aired, dirt sticks.

Argh, no Liebeslieder.

I agree with this. There's a reason the Kaiser report was so harsh -- the board itself was called out in the article cited above -- and it wasn't just on the artistic administration side. If in a small city, concerning three former artists who've been there for decades and are beloved by the public, they didn't at least prepare for a leak, it shows a marked lack of professionalism. Of course, part of this could have been the distraction and chaos of the sweep itself. Michael Kaiser must be shaking his head right now. That's when you're leaving to spend more time with your family.

Of course it's hurtful and hard for the people on the receiving end. We don't know if they knew which way the wind was blowing, if they were in denial about the way the wind was blowing, if they thought their long tenure and the feelings about them from their public would shield them from change, or if they thought the board was all talk, no action, among some possibilities. The Kaiser report came out last summer, and, after more than half a year of an attempt, Roy Kaiser resigned this past April. Everyone in the company had months knowing that a new AD was coming in, with a mandate to make changes. Everyone in the company knew that they were, essentially, auditioning for their jobs from the moment Corella arrived. To expect nothing to happen is short-sighted in a workplace where the report card the previous year had been scathing. How much more notice should they have been given? How would you propose to make sweeping change that would be less hurtful to the people involved? A slow drip, with everyone on edge? A year to find another job -- a luxury not many people have -- with the subsequent leaks, depression, hard feelings, having one foot out the door? That's not hard to do with one or two people, if the organization is willing to take the morale hit, but it's extremely difficult to do in a sweep. For a staff to work together in an organized way, they have to be in sync with each other. That doesn't work very well when there's resentment or hurt at a long-time colleague being replaced. With a grand sweep, there is built-in face-saving: it's not about you, it's about me. One-at-a-time, it isn't about me, it's about you. Of course, the leak that they were all fired didn't help. Without it, there were two ways the story could have been told in smaller pieces: introducing the new hires and stating it as a fact that newer, star PA Ballet people were taking on new roles from older star PA Ballet people, with subsequent tributes and thanks to the old, star PA Ballet people, or, if it happened sooner, when the old, star PA Ballet people got new jobs, the new company would say they had come from PA Ballet, and someone would note it in the PA Ballet forum (and there might be an article for Links.) Usually the only people who care about or track anyone on the administrative side lower than an ED -- unless s/he's married to the AD -- are business journals. As far as COBRA goes, the cost depends on the plan. Obviously in states where unemployment is generous, and the larger the number of people on the plan with at least an average distribution of health needs, the more affordable health insurance is. Pennsylvania's maxes out at $573/week (based on salary of $60K/year or more), which is not a fortune ($2292/$2865 for a five week month), and if severance is granted in a lump sum, severance doesn't impact unemployment benefits that start after the initial waiting period.

The company is trying to change direction on several fronts, and while broad sweeps have their own risks, unintended results, and change management challenges, but, since they are in response to report made by one of the handful of big-scale turn-around experts in the arts, being tepid telegraphs lack of commitment. The Board is putting its money where its mouth is and choosing to "Go big" over "Go home." My question about Corella's reasons for hiring Diana and Hench were not that he already has experience with them -- that's a good sign, because it indicates how well people adapt to stress and new environments, and they passed that test in his eyes -- but that he talks about how nice they are. While being a (good) ballet master requires exceptional people skills, he doesn't say anything about the other job skills: scheduling, planning, analyzing, motivating, negotiating, giving unpopular corrections, having the talent for seeing the big picture but learning the details and purpose of every role, working with the corps extensively, being able to explain and transmit what the choreographers intend, being able to adjust the teaching approach to how individuals learn, not just the way s/he learns, just to name a few of them. While most ballet masters do come from the ranks, it's a rare combination to find, and not every Principal Dance has the knack. It's not a given. It can also be a challenge when a married couple dominates a role. Making a transition from one role to another, socially and professionally, especially to another a high visibility position, is by no means easy, especially when it means the mental transition from performing. Alicia Mack Graf said in her recent Ballet Initiative podcast that she's more interested in becoming a business administrator rather than on the artistic side, because if she's in the studio, she'd want to dance. Peter Boal has described the difficulty in transitioning from teacher/mentor to Boss, although he made his transition from performing easier by having a second career as a teacher. Hadley, Gribler, and DeGregory had to do it, but in the context of another administration under another AD with a different management style and priorities. Now Diana and Hench have to find their own way, and, happily with Corella's support and confidence in them; presumably they are on the same page as he. With Ochoa, he's also chosen another PA Ballet insider. It's pretty standard in Europe to hire from the family, literal and chosen, but that rings badly to North American ears. Edited to add: He's saying directly that they don't have the kind of energy he wants. That doesn't necessarily mean the old energy was bad, although it could have been. He wants to establish a different corporate culture. In one of his books Anthony Boudain describes how he likes to work in a testoterone-fueled, loud, profane, insulting kitchen. He then describes going to a friend's great restaurant, where the kitchen is quiet, the staff works with intense concentration, and the people are polite and considerate of each other, which would have driven him up the wall. (I know for whom I'd prefer to work, but that's why "fit" is neutral.) On the other hand, changing that culture might have been part of the recommendations, and, without getting into details, he characterized what needs to change in that way. We don't know. Energy has always been a big thing for Corella. In one of the ABT videos he said that the reason he loved dancing with Paloma Herrera is that they were both young and gave 110%. Hopefully he's learned in the meantime that giving 110% for the long term can break bodies, that great professionals learn to moderate their efforts and pace themselves, and that not all great commitment requires constant extroverted confirmation.