Helene

Prioritizing diversity is only a purely political goal if the dancers don't meet the standard, and quotas work both ways. Although we pretend that many things are meritocracies, particularly when standards are high in spite of racism and nepotism, these are two forces that undermine it by ignoring those of merit and creating an artificial elite.

I disagree about the training aspect. SAB takes very few specifically Balanchine-trained students, because there is little Balanchine-specific training anywhere. Strictly classical training is the rarity. Neoclassical training is the norm, and SAB takes many, many neoclassically trained students. The vast majority of professional track students come from outside the NY area. Not many SAB children make it from the lower ranks into the PD, and very few of those who do make it into NYCB. Many AD's have said that they would love to train black dancers in their schools, but there just aren't any, with corroborating, if anecdotal testimony about how foreign and unaccepted ballet is in the community. The same cannot be claimed for dancers of Asian descent. SAB has a vast network of people to feed them students, which is a form of recruiting, even if this is not acknowledged If there was a priority to diversify SAB and NYCB -- or any company for that matter -- it would be easy enough to get the word out, and the network would be feeding schools and companies.

When the Bolshoi performed "La Bayadere" in Berkeley in 2009, the Shades I saw were Kaptsova, Tikhomova, Goryacheva, and Kobaridze. When I saw ABT do the ballet in the mid-80's, the Shadows were Browne, Spazzo, Stallings, Katerndal, and Jaffee.

Casting for the "Don Q" in Saratoga, an embarrassment of riches, is up: http://www.oneidadispatch.com/general-news/20140530/bolshoi-ballet-to-perform-in-saratoga-springs July 29 and August 1: Alexandrova/Lantratov July 30: Krysanova/Chudin July 31: Kretova/Lobukhin I love Alexandrova, but any recommendation from those having seen the company lately, especially these dancers and/or Don Q? I remember Krysanova's Gamzatti vividly, but I can't translate that mentally to Don Q, and I haven't seen Kretova.

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It took a major donor, Anne Bass, for SAB to accept Sar, who had only danced the classical Cambodian dance that Bass saw him in and didn't really know what ballet was. He was personally trained to bring him up to speed, and he joined PNB, presumably from his connection to Boal from SAB. (Boal was interviewed in the documentary Bass made about Sar.)

The have been many and will be many more articles on Kaori Nakamura's retirement, but the company celebrated D. David Brown twice on opening night of "Giselle," first in a pre-performance dinner at The Ruins and then in a post-performance toast on stage. http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/2014/06/pacific-northwest-ballets-dreamy-giselle-marks-end.html?page=all

Thank you for the ID: when I saw the name "Ungar" in the costume books, I thought someone in the company had gotten married.

They are shades, but I suspect spell check reared its ugly head here.

I've only seen one of Bruce Wells' story ballets performed by Professional Division students, and I don't know if the others follow the same format, but he did narration from a lectern downstage left for his stellar "Snow White." It was a treat to see the kids respond to it.

SAB, like many other schools, has a big split between the school and professional tracks. Very few of the school track students (up to 13 at SAB, older at other companies) make it to the Professional Division, let alone NYCB. The PD students are from all over the world, the cream of the crop of students who fit what the school is looking for and can live in NYC. The lower ranks of the PNB school look like the Seattle community. The PD, not even close, but closer than SAB. NYCB has rarely had Asian women starting from Balanchine's time. For a while in the '80's there seemed to be one Asian male dancer t a time, maybe two when Gen Horiuchi danced. Just as black dancers can be stereotyped physically, Asian dancers can be stereotyped as too short for Balanchine. That doesn't speak to individual dancers, of course, but it is hugely discouraging. Just Saturday night at PNB's "Giselle," the Albrecht, Batkurel Bold, at PNB since the late '90's, was Mongolian-born (although if I recall correctly, in a Q&A someone mentioned either that he had become naturalized or was about to take his test), the Hilarion was William Lin-Yee, the Chinese-American man you reference and whose early training was at SFBS before SAB, and who will make his debut as Albrecht this Thursday, and the Wilifred was Eric Hipolito Jr., a Filipino-American. (His younger brother, Enrico, is a huge talent, too.) There are also women of Asian descent at PNB and in the school's professional division, like Angelica Generosa. Until he became injured and had to retire from dancing full-time, former Principal Dancer Le Yin danced all of the prince roles. It's not and never has been for PNB at least. PNB in particular has been renowned for its productions of Balanchine rep because Francis Russell is such a renowned stager who had permission and active encouragement (from Balanchine) to stage earlier versions, the one she danced and knew. However, Russell and Stowell presented a wide range of rep, from full-lengths mostly by Stowell -- although they introduced the Balanchine "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and the ABT "Don Q" -- to a wide range of mixed rep. (Janet Reed and Melissa Hayden directed PNB and its predecessor organization for less than a decade before Russell and Stowell.) I don't remember a single "All Balanchine" mixed rep aside from "Jewels" since 1994 when I moved to Seattle -- it was NYC that got one (one performance) last tour; I'm not sure about 1987 at BAM -- and three Balanchine ballets in a single season of six non-"Nutcracker" programs is a relatively rare occasion to celebrate. I fear that the Balanchine "Nutcracker" coming to PNB in 2015-16 will tick off the Balanchine box in upcoming seasons, aside from "Midsummer" which sells tickets, especially given the large cast of kids. I'm not sure how much Balanchine dominated the rep during the Christensen era, but the Christensens started in vaudeville and came out of the companies where Balanchine rep may have been the star, but where there was a wide variety of rep, including narrative short ballets and the Americana that Kirstein encouraged. Balanchine wasn't the driving force during the Smuin years, and SFB performs more Tomasson than Balanchine, where three Balanchine ballets out of eight programs a year is an occasion. I think the only Balanchine full-length performed by the company is the "Coppelia" co-production with PNB. They all do, even SAB, not by advertising, but by the same alumni-like network and reputations that drives students to Harvard or Yale, even though Harvard and Yale don't need to sell themselves. Teacher networks push and pull students towards various programs, give them a heads up on students both trying to get in and who aren't going to be offered a place in their own company. Over half of PNB studied with Peter Boal; even though he hasn't taught at SAB for years, he's still in the loop. Francia Russell is friends with Suki Schorer, and Russell said in Q&A's that Schorer had recommended SAB students to her. If you look at the Facebook account of any dancer, you'll see hundreds of friends that went to the same schools and summer programs, who danced for the same companies, who know each other from their best friends and roommates who did, and who look up to the professional dancers who come back to their schools and want to follow in their footsteps or come to the US and Canada and have a built in support network. They can give each other specifics about the faculty and what type of dancers their companies are looking for, making the process self-selecting, and they can give career advice to aspiring students. Many of the women in PNB said they went to the PNB school because PNB was a tall company that hired tall dancers from the school. There are many companies who wouldn't have looked twice at Lindsi Dec, let alone Ariana Lallone or Laura Tisserand. Dancers say they looked at specific companies because they want to dance the rep their school trained them in or want to expand their range. They also look to companies to find dancers who look like them. Frances Chung expanded her rep at SFB; Goh Ballet is strictly classical training. Any Kirov Academy students have to do the same, although they can be typecast in the classical rep in more diverse companies There were also Asian-American women in the recent past at SFB, like Megan Low, whom Mark Morris cast in the lead of Sylvia. Also, many foreign-born dancers are now American citizens, and are, by definition, Americans. That they were foreign-born is generally relevant when they come from a famous school (Moscow, Vaganova, Alonso's school), a famous teacher (Ullate), or have classical Russian schooling,like many Eastern European dancers. There aren't many Asian schools that have been a pipeline in the same way. AD's also take advantage of trends: defections from Cuba (intermittent) and when the former Soviet Union dissolved. For a while in the '90's, for example, PNB had a handful of awesome dancers from the former Soviet Union, and I suspect it wasn't a coincidence that there are two stellar men from Albania in Phoenix. Dancers talk to each other. Totally our gain NYCB didn't take a number of spectacular PNB dancers and dancers who've thrived at many other companies throughout the years.

One of the greatest things I've ever seen in the theater. He did an interesting collaboration with YoYo Ma as part of the Bach cello suites series "Inspired by Bach."

I realize that POB is an institution with far more cliques and political intrigue, but in the rather binary case of Miami City Ballet, dancer Jennifer Kronenberg was backed by ousted Artistic Director Edward Villella to succeed him. She was seen by board members who wanted Villella gone as a continuation of what they were trying to change, at best, and having his support was seen as a negative by the majority.

No AD can make any dancer a star. Filin can give a dancer opportunities and marketing machines can publicize the dancer to the hilt, but the public decides whether a dancer is a star, or as it has been seen many, many times, the public decides that they're not interested in a dancer who is forced on them. It is hardly a unique occurrence when an Artistic Director pushes a young dancer, and there is resentment within the company against that dancer. As far as why an AD pushes a dancer, we have a strict "official news" policy on Ballet Alert!, and that's the limit of what can be discussed here. Smirnova's performances haven't been universally lauded, but she has been embraced by much of the public and critics. Whether ABT should hire a rising, young star instead of only guest artists who are in their primes and leave the growth to company members is a question.

Ismene Brown posted a new blog entry and translation of an Izvestia article on how Putin's "Fundamentals of State Policy" could impact the arts, and the conflicts between three major tenets -- ban against swearing, anything offensive to religion, and justifications of fascism -- and the arts, including creative freedom and copyright. A decision on how to apply the over-arcing policy to the arts is expected in September: http://www.ismeneb.com/Blog/Entries/2014/5/29_Arts_fight_threat_of_state_censorship.html

A new video, with small interview segments with Jahna Frantziskonis and Amanda Clark: "'Giselle': Being in the Corps de Ballet":

Marcie Sillman interviewed Kaori Nakamura about her training, career, and upcoming final performances for Seattle NPR station KUOW: http://kuow.org/post/last-dance-pacific-northwest-ballets-kaori-nakamura The audio interview control is under the photo, and the article below it is not a transcript of the interview.

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The Mariinsky Ballet posted about the performance with a rehearsal photo of Tereshkina and Shklyarov to its (English) Facebook page and also tweeted a link to the FB entry: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=680572681977927

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The question is more how guests Tereshkina and Shklyarov will interact with Boylston and the rest of the ABT ranks. Tereshkina and Shklyarov are two of the greatest artists dancing now, but a warning that Tereshkina registers on the cold side compared to a Vishneva or Zakharova or Obraztsova. That's a quality I prize, and if I were in NYC and had to choose one cast, it would be Tereshkina, even were she meeting her partner five minutes before curtain, but it's not everyone's cup of tea.

Next photo posted is the first glance at Giselle and Albrecht's Act II costumes: Carla Korbes, Jerome Tisserand, and Kaori Nakamura.

It couldn't have been comfortable for either Hilaire or Legris, whose careers were tied at the hip for so long, to be fighting for the same position that eventually went to Millepied. I hope Hilaire lands on his feet and will be in a position to run his own ship.

Les hommes: https://twitter.com/PNBallet/status/471796098818789376/photo/1 My guesses (l-r) are Raphael Bouchard, Matthew Renko, Eric Hipolito Jr., Joshua Grant, Andrew Bartee, Ryan Cardea, and Kyle Davis. It may be Imler who is peeking out of the background between Hipolito Jr. and Grant. The neat thing about the boots is that they are top sewn to the men's ballet slippers.

Sweet, including Seth Orza with his daughter (I'm assuming) in the far right background: https://twitter.com/PNBallet/status/471751846717964288/photo/1