Helene

I can't find a thread on Mara Galeazzi leaving the Royal Ballet, with her last performance at Covent Garden on 13 June in "Mayerling." Her final performance with the Royal Ballet was in a piece for the Britten program by Kim Brandstrup at the Aldebourgh Festival. Gary Avis tweeted a photo of them: https://twitter.com/balletboy09/status/351064798139674624/photo/1

If they are looking for youth, there are several obvious contenders: Peter Boal and Damian Woetzel come to mind first, and Millepied might very well be in the mix after POB. Helgi Tomasson is four years older than Martins, and they both may retire close to each other, which adds a wrench into it. McKenzie is under 60, and Ratmansky most likely has the inside track on ABT, if he wants it, but if I were the NYCB board, I'd be putting out feelers to Ratmansky, too. During the last program's Q&A, audience members congratulated Boal on his new contract extension, and in one of the Q&A's, someone mentioned that he'd been made an offer by another company, which he confirmed without adding detail, although he had mentioned the six-year contract would get his kids through college, and changed the subject. That caught everyone's attention. There's a big drop in budgets between the largest and the medium/medium-large sized companies, and I think that anywhere outside NYCB, ABT, and maybe SFB and Houston, AD's are forced to run lean and mean. As a result, AD of PNB is a prized position, and, inevitably when Boal is poached away, there will be a domino effect, assuming board priorities remain the same and, for example, a choreographer with no management experience isn't chosen.

There's still a company to run, and all of this impacts the dancers, coaches, and administrators. It is not at all clear how much of the rest of this would or could have happened had Filin not been attacked.

When Barker was one of the big group of semi-finalists for the AD job at PNB, she was at a distinct disadvantage not having arts managerial experience, unlike her long-time partner Benjamin Houk, who was one of the finalists. Since then, she's been doing a lot of right things to get that experience, and it's been a blessing in disguise that she's been able to find her way and do it outside the scrutiny of the community where she was an established star and without having to transition from peer to boss in the same company. Guillaume Cote spoke about a similar dynamic in a recent interview in the "Globe and Mail." http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-catalysts/for-dancer-guillaume-cote-creating-art-is-a-series-of-beautiful-accidents/article12749857/?page=allIt's hard to do that as a choreographer, but even if it doesn't work out, even for Jerome Robbins, it was a limited-duration project, whereas being the AD means having people's careers and livelihoods in your hands.

I took a three-day seminar at Jacob's Pillow for people interested in arts management in a dance company in 1986. There were three panelists from major dance companies and guest speakers. One guest was the woman who started Career Transitions for Dancers, who gave a great presentation; I thought her work was inspriring. What surprised me was the disinterested and/or dismissive attitude of two of the panelists, as if this were unnecessary. Eight years later, when I moved to Seattle, Second Stage was launched with Russell fully behind it. PNB salaries were substantially lower than at NYCB, for example: every year, there was a mozaic of photos of people from various professions and their salaries in a "What are they making?" cover (and article) in the "Seattle Times" Sunday magazine section, and I remember being astonished that PNB Principal Julie Tobiason was listed at (if I remember correctly) $32K, when Merrill Ashley was reported as having made more than twice that in the '80's and still substantially more even when (state and local income) taxes and rents were factored in. The difference in attitude was remarkable: it was clear that pursuing an education or creating a business was not stealing precious focus/tunnel vision from dance. I suspect this is one way that things may be easier for NYCB dancers under Peter Martins. At least until there were substantial online-learning programs, it was impractical for a dancer in a touring company to attend school during the performance season, but most of the larger touring companies with the means to set up a formal program are in the modern dance world, where more people had a college background or degree.

There have been other NYCB dancers at Columbia, when they were dancing and/or after they left the company. Delia Peters went to Fordham when she was still dancing, and they went to law school at Columbia. This article in the NYT from 2010 is about past and then-present NYCB and ABT dancers at Columbia. Susan Gluck's wedding announcement shows that she graduated from Harvard and then got her MBA from Wharton. Linda Hamilton got her undergraduate degree at Fordham and her PhD at Adelphi.

Ismene Brown is characterizing Vorontsova's departure this way: Angelina Vorontsova, gf of Filin suspect Dmitrichenko joins Tsiskaridze & Pronin in having contract un-renewed at #Bolshoi. Int trns follows https://twitter.com/ismeneb/status/350773069465403392 Until the translation comes out, we won't know what her source is, but it might not be contradictory to a resignation: either being forced to resign somehow or having there be an advantage to resigning vs. the lapse.

You are not alone: I know people who when they're at home watching on DVD, only watch the second acts of "Giselle" and "Swan Lake" and the last acts of "The Sleeping " Beauty" and "Raymonda," which are sometimes produced as stand-alones for mixed bills. I know when I'm really stressed, I will watch the Thomas Lund tracks of the Bournonville Schools DVDs. I've got them marked off in the booklet. Just beautiful.

There was, at least at one time, a program where NYCB dancers took classes at Fordham's Lincoln Center branch. Pacific Northwest Ballet's Second Stage program has an arrangement with Seattle University to have a professor teach one class a term on premises, and some dancers spoke about an arts management degree through the school. Second Stage also gives funds for dancers to attend the colleges of their choice. Leah O'Connor is the latest to receive her degree from the University of Washington, which she started as a Professional Devision student. Other dancers worked towards becoming PT's and Pilates instructors. Second Stage is dedicated to helping dancers prepare for life after dancing and isn't limited to school. Dancers create proposals, and, I believe, can submit more than one application up to a total $/dancer. Jordan Pacitti has spoken often about how, when he was recovering from injury, he put together a business plan for his fragrance business, which has expanded into skin care since then. Not only was he given funding, he was given mentorship.

If Genshaft is a French-speaker, then she may have been able to use the language on a recent trip to New Orleans to teach class for the New Orleans Ballet Associate students.

I'm fairly sure her first name would be closer to Mah-teeld.

Gary Avis tweeted about being part of Benjamin's last performance: Hugs with Leanne Benjamin after her last ever Manon with Royal Ballet ( what an enormous loss! # sad # RBontour13 pic.twitter.com/ikRQCTitBX https://twitter.com/balletboy09/status/350399631273906176 @bangorballetboy love being on stage with La Benj in her last #Manon with RB I'm plying her with cloak/jewels #RBontour13 https://twitter.com/balletboy09/status/350337255824564225