Helene

If I were able to be in NYC, I would choose the "Serenade"/"Mozartiana"/"Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2" cast for 16 Jan/19 Jan evening and then see the "Swan Lake"/"Allegro Brillante"/"Tchaikovsky Suite No. 3" on Sunday afternoon 20 Jan.

Maria Kochetkova tweeted this link to a YouTube video of her first act variation from her Mariinsky debut in "Giselle": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpuOMssRLeg&feature=youtube_gdata_player The same author uploaded this excerpt as well: The end of Act I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSkfH1G-ibc

Kochetkova has been tweeting about being in St. Petersburg. My partner askerovtimur, me and my teacher Kunakova after the performance last night @ Mariinsky Theater http://instagr.am/p/UFCmswEUdq/ It's always been my dream to dance at Mariinsky Theater @ MariinskyEn. Tonight it came true.Thank you to my wonderful teacher here Kunakova!

PNB just tweeted a link to a feature on Carla Korbes written by Damien Woetzel in the February 2013 issue of "Vanity Fair": https://twitter.com/PNBallet/status/287347407312793601/photo/1

If anyone has a way to contact Ms. Bocher but doesn't want to publish the info widely and doesn't have PM access, if you email us at the "Contact Us" link at the top of the page, we'd be happy to forward your contact info to atm711. (Only three of us have access to the mail received at "Contact Us.")

For those with Kindles (any generation) and amazon Prime memberships, you can "borrow" the book on your Kindle for free from the Kindle Lending library. (From your Kindle, go to "Kindle Store" from the main menu, and under "Browse," select "See all categories." From the new menu, slect "Kindle Owners' Lending Library.") If you search on "The Cage," you'll get several hundred options. A search on "dancing for jerome robbins" should bring you right to the book.

Men's slippers last a lot longer, and, as a result, they get a lot more wear. I could have broken a window with Heather Watts' shoe -- I had never held a pointe shoe before, and the hardness terrified me -- but it was too soft to be useful to her anymore.

I think enough people who know about Robbins also know enough about Balanchine to realize that you don't need to be a screaming maniac to be a great artist. The main people who've thought that Robbins' behavior was acceptable or justifiable -- i.e. worth the trade-off -- are the dancers who went on record to say so.

Marina Harss wrote about the swap for her blog, and I think her assessments are on target: http://marinaharss.w...-rdb-and-royal/ I think it's great that Stearns is being welcomed by the Royal Ballet: the School invested two years in him, and now it will bear fruit in the Company.

Ana Sophia Scheller just tweeted a link to the official video excerpts from its December 2012 production of "Cenerentola" (Cinderella): According the text, Jean-Sebastien Colau was her Prince.

According to his ABT bio,

I suspect it makes going on maternity leave a lot easier to schedule than say, at PNB. On the other hand, the Mariinsky splits the company up to tour and present in St. Petersburg concurrently. I'm only mentioning NYCB in terms of Balanchine performances, but there are other companies, like PNB and Ballet Arizona that do amazing work in Balanchine works in corps and featured roles -- they're not on four-eight weeks straight three times a year, so they tend to dance every performance as if it's a privilege -- and the San Francisco Ballet corps did a stellar job in the Balanchine "Coppelia." I've only seen Miami City Ballet on film.

I counted 105 on the roster for the Mariinsky corps, and 85 dancers in NYCB (not including apprentices, which weren't listed). NYCB had over 100 dancers at its biggest, but those years are gone.

Maybe the shoes were from "Diamonds." I remember they were a lot of money -- maybe $100? -- and a special edition fundraising thing, more than the standard Principal dancer's shoes. You're right -- you have to invest in those shoes while the dancer is still waiting to be discovered by everyone else. The dancers that have grabbed my eye right away -- like love at first sight -- rarely disappoint me long-term, no matter how their careers develop, because movement quality doesn't often change. Maybe I should go into shoe collecting now.

For some reason, the Four Seasons in Berlin was one of four hotels approved by my last company for business travel circa 2003, and it was the most opulent hotel I've ever stayed in. Above the mini-bar was a basket of things to buy, mostly the standard fancy peanuts and Pringles for 8 Euros, but there were also little souvenir boxes with (alleged) pieces of the Berlin Wall.

The original poster argued that the choreography for the corps in Balanchine's work makes it that much easier for dancers to be recognized individually. Balanchine wasn't that interested in unison -- for the Mariinsky, corps unison is one of the goals -- and, on the whole, is a lot more dynamic than in the "after Petipa" choreography that Mariinsky dances most of the time. At NYCB, a senior corps role is "Concerto Barocco," the corps-only "Le Tombeau de Couperin," or Act II Divertissement couple in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," all of which demand and energy and dynamics that "Kingdom of the Shades," Wilis, and the white acts of "Swan Lake" don't; their virtues are different. I've always found that, despite the unison, my eye is drawn to specific dancers in the Bolshoi, Mariinsky, and Paris Opera Ballet corps, even if I don't know who the dancers are. I don't know what the contract structure is for the Mariinsky or Bolshoi these days, but once in POB or RDB, it's essentially a guaranteed contract until mandatory retirement age, and for the vast majority of dancers in the companies, they will remain corps for their entire career. At NYCB, there is a year-to-year contract, and the average career of a corps dancers is quite short. (There's economic incentive, or at least reward, to replace older corps members with new ones, as there are salary ladders that increase with longevity.) There is always a trade-off between experience and the new: performances by experienced dancers who've been performing in the corps of "Swan Lake" for two decades can be deep or rote, just as performances of new corps members can be energized or superficial. What is nearly universal is dancers' wish to be recognized and to dance featured roles, and being a lifetime corps members isn't what most aspire to, at least originally. At NYCB Principals make up 28% of the company and Soloists another 11%. (The Mariinsky corp is 24% larger than the entire NYCB.) When nearly 40% of the company advances is in the upper ranks, apart from some Lifetime Achievement awards, to get there, they had to have plenty of opportunities for featured corps roles, demi-soloist and soloist roles, and, in many case, principal roles, opportunities which are rare for most Mariinsky corps members. The Mariinsky, Bolshoi, and Paris Opera Ballet companies, are very hierarchy oriented -- Nureyev caused a huge fuss when he broke ranks on this in Paris -- even though the Principals+First Soloist in the case of the Mariinsky (total of 27 vs. 24 for NYCB's Principals) are a much lower percentage of the company on the whole, which is not surprising, since the Petipa/Ivanov-based classics rarely have more than three leads and a handful of featured roles like "Peasant Pas" or Clemence and Henriette in "Raymonda," whereas a triple bill of "Concerto Barocco" (3 leads and fantastic small corps parts), "Agon (4 leads, four demi-soloists, and corps), and "Symphony in C" (4 leads, 8 demi-soloists, and corps) gives a lot of dancers lots of opportunities to be noticed. As far as the Mariinsky having the best corps de ballet in the world, that would depend on the rep and the time. Both the Mariinsky corps and the NYCB corps have had their up and down years, and their schools have had bumper crop and fallow years. From film and the few performances I've seen of them live in the Balanchine rep, they certainly don't do Balanchine as well as the NYCB corps. From what I've seen of the Mariinsky on tour -- all in the post-Soviet years --I prefer the Bolshoi corps' combination of energy and technique, and their performances in "Jardin Animé" was the best corps dancing in any classic I've ever seen. As far as every Mariinsky corps member being able to be a soloist in any other company in the world, I'd also disagree, and I think companies with their own company styles, like Paris Opera Ballet might also take issue with your assertion. Every Mariinsky corps member most certainly wouldn't be ranked as soloist at NYCB, either.

PNB's come bagged. I don't remember about Ballet Arizona, but I'm sure they sell them in the gift bars in the lobby. I can't remember about San Francisco Ballet, because I rarely get to the gift shop at intermission. I don't remember exactly how the NYCB's came in the early '80's. Perhaps the plastic bag was a carry bag. I just remember being so surprised. (And that Suzanne Farrell's white shoes -- from "Mozartiana"? -- were a lot more expensive than the rest.)

In my experience, the shoes are dried out before bagging them in plastic bags, and they don't smell. A friend came to NYC in the '80's, and we made a ballet weekend of it. At one intermission, she plopped a plastic bag with Heather Watts' toe shoes in my lap, and they were fine. Chances are they've been worn at most for a rehearsal or class and a full-length ballet, and possibly for only an act of a ballet, if that ballet is highly technical. Compare that to spending an entire film in ruby slippers or however long a baseball glove lasts (in and out of the locker room, and all that spitting), or the tape and sticky stuff on a baseball bat.

2012 * 2011 * 2010 * 2009 * 2008 * 2007 * Through 2006 2013 Adeline Genee (Added 1 Jan 13) Paris Opera Ballet Corps (Added 2 Jan 13) George Balanchine's Trumpet Concerto (Added 2 Jan 13) Anna Pavlova and Laurent Novikov in Folkine's Baccanale (Added 20 Jan 13) Tanaquil Le Clerq as Sacred Love (Added 22 Jan 13) Gelsey Kirkland in Firebird (Added 26 Jan 13) Karsavina in Chopiniana (Added 28 Jan 13) Chagall Sketch for Firebird (Added 28 Jan 13) Montage of American Ballet Theatre's 1945 Staging of Firebird (Added 28 Jan 13) Maria Tallchief as Siren in The Prodigal Son (Added 31 Jan 13) Corps Members of "Water Nymph" Ballet in Goldwyn Follies Film (Added 5 Feb 13) Louis Mérante (Added 9 Feb 13) Bolshoi Ballet in Swan Lake, 1942 (Added 12 Feb 13) Diana Adams as Dew Drop in Nutcracker (Added 26 Feb 13) Violette Verdy and Conrad Ludlow (Added 26 Feb 13) Jacques d'Amboise (Added 26 Feb 13) Claude Bessy and Atillo Labis, Paris 1964 (Added 22 Feb 13) Postcard of Glyn Philpot's Painted Portrait of Andre Eglevsky (Added 28 Feb 13) Viktoria (Trofimovna) Bovt and Eugene (Evgeni) Kuzmin in Joan of Arc (Added 7 Mar 13) Violette Verdy in Her Pierre Cardin Wedding Dress (Added 8 Mar 13) Liane Dayde as Swanhilde in Coppelia with Grands Ballets Classiques de France (Added 8 Mar 13) Balanchine at Paris Opera, 1963(Added 11 Mar 13) Claire Motte and Roland Petit in Petit's Notre Dame de Paris (Added 19 Mar 13) Yuri Soloviev (Added 30 Mar 13) Vladen Semenov (Added 30 Mar 13) Hare, from Moscow Art Theatre's Bluebird (Added 31 Mar 13) Nadia Nerina and Rudolf Nureyev in Laurentia Pas de Six (Added 1 Apr 13) Frederick Ashton Staging His Cinderella for Australian Ballet (Added 10 Apr 13) Vera Zorina in Star Spangled Rhythm (Added 11 Apr 13) Maria Tallchief in Theme and Variations with Ballet Theatre (added 15 Apr 13) Frederic Franklin and Nathalie Krassovska as the Poet and the Sleepwalker in La Sonnambula (Added 5 May 13) Suzanne Farrell in "In the Inn" from Ivesiana (Added 8 May 13) Orpheus Rehearsal with Kay Mazzo and Mikhail Baryshnikov (Added 11 May 13) Orpheus Rehearsal with Kay Mazzo/Mikhail Baryshnikov and Karin von Aroldingen/Peter Martins (Added 11 May 13) Alicia Markova and Hugh Laing in Antony Tudor's Romeo and Juliet (Added 16 May 13) The Slaying of Tybalt from Antony Tudor's Romeo and Juliet with Alicia Markova (Juliet), Hugh Laing (Romeo), Dmitri Romanoff (Friar Lawrence), Lucia Chase (Nurse), and Antony Tudor (Tybalt) (Added 16 May 13) American Ballet Theatre, Helen of Troy (Added 16 May 13) Maria Tallchief in Orpheus (Added 19 May 13) George Balanchine Rehearsing Beryl Grey (Added 20 May 13) Portrait of Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (Added 27 May 13) Two Photos of Natalia Petrova in Moscow Art Theatre's A Month in the Country (Added 28 May 13) Four Photos of Rakitin in Moscow Art Theatre's A Month in the Country (Added 28 May 13) Vera with Beliaev in Moscow Art Theatre's A Month in the Country (Added 28 May 13) Rakitin with Natalia in Moscow Art Theatre's A Month in the Country (Added 28 May 13) Katya with the Neighbor in Moscow Art Theatre's A Month in the Country (Added 28 May 13) Drawing of Don Quixote's Dream from the 1869 Petipa/Minkus Production of Don Quixote at the Bolshoi Theatre (Added 29 May 13) Drawing of Don Quixote and the Spiderweb from the 1869 Petipa/Minkus Production of Don Quixote at the Bolshoi Theatre (Added 29 May 13) Drawing of The Battle of the Dragon and the Lion from the 1869 Petipa/Minkus Production of Don Quixote at the Bolshoi Theatre (Added 29 May 13) Drawing of Don Quixote's Entrance into the Streets of Barcelona from the 1986 Petipa/Minkus Production of Don Quixote at the Bolshoi Theatre (Added 29 May 13) Drawing of Don Quixote Battling the Spiderweb from the 1986 Petipa/Minkus Production of Don Quixote at the Bolshoi Theatre (Added 29 May 13) Photo by George Platt Lynes of Holly Howard, Annabelle Lyon, and William Dollar on Which Costumes for Ratmansky's Symphony No. 9 Were Based (Added 1 Jun 13) Tanaquil Le Clercq as Dewdrop (Added 2 Jun 13) Tamara Geva (Added 3 Jun 13) Leon Danielian as the Frontiersman, Valerie Bettis as the Unknown Woman, Marie Jeanne as the Young Girl and Frederic Franklin as the Young Bachelor in Bettis' Virginia Sampler (Added 3 Jun 13) Press Photo with Original Costumes for Alexei Ratmansky's Symphony No. 9 (Added 4 Jun 13) Lydia Lopokova Portraits (Added 6 Jun 13) Portrait of Lydia Lopokova (Added 7 Jun 13) Portrait Olga Spesivtseva (Added 7 Jun 13) Portrait of the Nijinskys (Added 7 Jun 13) Balanchine's "Ballet of the Elephants" for Ringling Brothers (Added 8 Jun 13) Members of the Ballets Russes ~ 1916 (Added 8 Jun 13) Costume Fitting for Don Quixote: Suzanne Farrell, George Balanchine, Karinska (Added 15 Jun 13) Students of Senia Russakoff (Added 6 Jul 13) 1860's Disderi Studio Collages of 37 Paris Opera Ballet Ballerinas (Added 9 Jul 13) Louise Marquet and [Aline Dorsé] (Added 13 Jul 13) Pauline Mercier and Giuseppina Bossi (Added 13 Jul 13) Catherine Littlefield and Philadelphia Ballet Company Dancers (Added 15 Jul 13) Tanaquil LeClercq and Marc Platt in Ruthanna Boris' A Candle for St. Jude (Added 27 Jul 13) Senia Russakoff's School of Russian Ballet (Added 31 Jul 13) Gelsey Kirkland and Jacques d'Amboise in the 1970 Revision of Balanchine's Firebird (Added 2 Aug 13) "Biding My Time" from Who Cares? (Added 6 Aug 13) Demisoloists in Who Cares? (Added 10 Aug 13) Sallie Wilson (Added 10 Aug 13) Catherine Littlefield and Philadelphia Ballet Company Dancers Aboard the S.S. Champlain (Added 12 Aug 13) Violet Bovt in Swan Lake (Added 17 Aug 13) Martine van Hamel and Kevin McKenzie in Mikhail Baryshnikov's Swan Lake (Added 18 Aug 13) Image of a Horned Owl, the Symbol of the von Rothbarts (Added 21 Aug 13) Yelizaveta Gerdt as Odile (Added 22 Aug 13) Ekaterina Maximova (Added 1 Sep 13) Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in Les Sylphides, from Monteux Fete des Narcisses (Added 7 Sep 13) Tamara Geva (Added 9 Sep 13) Violette Verdy in Emeralds (Added 9 Sep 13) Fokine's The Thunderbird (Added 11 Sep 13) Three Photos from The Card Party (Added 18 Sep 13) The Ballets Russes in Poker Game (renamed The Card Party) (Added 19 Sep 13) Kazian Goleizovsky's Ballet Troupe (Added 22 Sep 13) Vecheslova and Chabukiani on Tour in the US (Added 23 Sep 13) Ballets Russes in Apollon Musagete (Added 28 Sep 13) Jooss Ballet in The Green Table (Added 30 Sep 13) Senia Russakoff's School of Russian Ballet Independence Day Celebration (Added 30 Sep 13) Mikhail Mordkin Teaching Students at the Carnegie Hall Studios (Added 4 Oct 13) Marie Rambert and Dancers (Added 10 Oct 13) ABT Gala Lobby Decor (Added 31 Oct 13) Galina Ulanova, Makeup Touchups (Added 7 Nov 13) Les Petits Rats at a 1955 Red Cross Toy Drive (Added 7 Nov 13 Galina Ulanova and Konstantin Sergeyev in the Apotheosis of Swan Lake (Added 7 Nov 13) The Red Detachment of Women (Added 13 Nov 13) Mordkin Ballet Company Dancers, to Publicize Opening of the Jean-Benoit Levy Film Le Mort du Cygne (Ballerina) (Added 17 Nov 13) Raisa Struckhova as Juliet and Yuri Zhadanov as Romeo (Added 20 Nov 13) Vera Zorina in the Movie Louisiana Purchase (Added 30 Nov 13) Suzanne Farrell as Titania and Richard Rapp as Bottom in Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Added 30 Nov 13) Patricia McBride as Hermia and Nicholas Magallanes as Lysander in Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Added 30 Nov 13) Michael Bocharov's Sketch for the Snow Scene in the First Production of The Nutcracker (Added 25 Dec 13) The Children in the First Production of The Nutcracker: Stanislava Belinskaya as Clara and Sergey Legat as Prince Nutcracker (Added 25 Dec 13)

I bet the partner wouldn't have had the same look if your colleague had handed him a signed bat used by Derek Jeter or Andy Pettitte's glove.

I don't think for a second that Peck was trying to imitate Makarova. I would have preferred Part in "Other Dances" because while I wouldn't have expected her to look like Makarova, she has a similarly individual quality, and the connection of her coming from the Vaganova School and Russia to the US to dance classics and newer works would have been sweeter than Peck dancing "Other Dances" and Part dancing Odile, which isn't even the part of "Swan Lake" with which Makarova is most associated. (Which is why I think White Swan PDD, even an Odette solo, since they had the "Giselle" PDD, and "On Your Toes" as a rousing closer would have been better. Even if people expected a Black Swan tutu from the movie, the "Black Swan" soundtrack is heavily based in the White acts music.). I think Peck is a fantastic dancer, but I still don't see the Peck-Makarova connection institutionally, culturally, or stylistically. It was a tribute, not a gala, but, on the other hand, I'm not sure the other honorees got more specific tributes across the board.

Autographed shoes are a great way for companies to make back that fraction of the crazy cost of them, and, on the whole, they are relatively inexpensive souvenirs. They're a lot more accessible than, say, the many thousands of dollars for Nureyev's slippers, Marilyn Monroe's shoes, or autographed baseballs, jerseys, and other sports equipment.

They did a lovely version of "Everything's Beautiful at the Ballet."

I'd never seen the Russian companies in the 50's, 60's, or 70's or the Royal Ballet when Fonteyn, Nerina, Sibley, and Beriosova were dancing, but friends of mine who saw both companies during this time considered them as great as the Mariinsky ballerinas. I've only seen these dancers on film, which is hard to judge, although Kolpakova in "Raymonda" is my all-time favorite DVD. They broke the mold when they made Soloviev.

I agree with you wholeheartedly here. There's little more mannered than coy little hip juts in Balanchine. It's like when non-Mariinsky-trained dancers do exaggerated things with their arms and back, as if this embodies the Mariinsky spine, which, my Feldenkrais teacher reminds our class constantly about spines, goes from the base of the neck to the tailbone. "Jewels" might not be Balanchine's greatest work or set of works, but it's one of the great tests of how a company dances Balanchine, because of the shifts in style, rhythm, and structure in the ballets, and the corps is kept hopping throughout all of them in very different ways. (Croce re-examined her initial dismissal of "Rubies": on December 19, 1983 in a long "New Yorker" review devoted to "Jewels", she wrote, "'Rubies' refracts instead of reflecting; it does its job in the total scheme of things, and it may be the evening's masterwork.") Not surprisingly, when other companies perform his tutu works, they cast their Odettes in "Diamonds" and their Romantic ballerinas in "Emeralds" and the performances are informed by what they know. The "Diamonds" Pas de Deux especially gets the Odette treatment, and in the Mariinsky's hands, it's often prettified, and some people find this hybrid an improvement on the original. (To me it's like Renee Fleming singing jazz.) The first two Balanchine works to be staged at the Mariinsky post-glasnost were "Theme and Variations," staged by Francia Russell and "Scotch Symphony" staged by Suzanne Farrell, and Pankova's success in "Scotch Symphony" and Obraztsova's in "Emeralds" might have been saying the same thing that Balanchine did about the difference between classical (his neo-classical) and Romantic ballet.