Helene

PNB dancers and staff granted a wish to Ingrid Lasell, a 17-year-old dance student suffering from Dermatomyositis through Make A Wish Foundation. In it Sarah Ricard Orza, Kylee Kitchens, and Lindsi Dec help with her hair and make-up, and Otto Neubert coaches her and her four cavaliers: Seth Orza, Karel Cruz, Batkhurel Bold, and Benjamin Griffiths. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB6r30jfTrU&feature=share

Occasionally I run through my performance diaries from the '80's (when I started to stockpile programs), during which time I tried to see as many casts of everything that I could manage. My experience was: In "Push Comes to Shove" in the early '80's, it was regularly cast with Baryshnikov or Radojevic, Tcherkassky or Kudo, and Susan Jaffe. Tcherkassky owned "Flower Festival of Genzano PDD." Merrill Ashley did all but one performance I saw of "Donizetti Variations" from 1982-1990. Suzanne Farrell did "Monumentum"/"Movements" from 1982-1986. Heather Watts or Maria Calegari and Bart Cook or Jock Soto danced 11 performances of the central couple in "Symphony in Three Movements" between 1983-9. Stacey Caddell did every performance I saw of "Steadfast Tin Soldier" from 1983-90. Merill Ashley and Heather Watts split the Diana Adams role in "Concerto Barocco" from 1983-8, and Watts did every "Bugaku" from 1983-92 and eight of ten Aria I's from "Stravinsky Violin Concerto" from 1984-90. (Karin von Aroldingen from the original cast did the first two.) Stephanie Saland did all but one Symphony Op. 21 and Heather Watts did all but one Concerto Op. 24 in "Episodes" from 1983-8. Patricia McBride did all but one "Sonatine" between 1984-9. Kyra Nichols danced all but one "Walpurgisnacht Ballet" from 1984-93. Heather Watts and Mel Tomlinson danced the "Agon" PDD in all but one performance between 1983-7. etc, etc. This doesn't even count roles that were danced by the dancers who created them, like McBride in the Intermezzo from "Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet," Watts in "Calcium Light Night," the entire cast of "Antique Epigraphs," Farrell in "Mozartiana," and so on. The difference in a company that does primarily mixed rep, as Peter Boal reminds audiences here, is that there are far more Principal roles and opportunities in the average mixed rep program than in full-lengths. That doesn't guarantee that the wealth will be spread very far among the ballets that are performed, not counting periods where injury is the root cause.

Yesterday, Kobborg tweeted:

I look at the Bolshoi and Mariinsky schedules often for our Calendar, and there aren't very many performances of mixed bills. Full-length ballets comprise the large majority of the companies' schedules, not just the touring schedules. Have the Folkine Ballets Russes ballets been a focus of either company during Soviet times? About "Raymonda" I've heard Moscow described as a medieval Silk Road-like market town, and also considered the sticks and backwards until it was renamed the capital and became modernized. It had been ruled by Mongols/Tatars, I wonder if the portrayal of Abderakham was also a sideways swipe at Moscow/Muscovites, the way that political satire uses the "other" including animals.

I know this is often a matter of taste, but despite all of the praise I've read of her, I've seen Alizade in a number of Demi- and Soloist roles where she's been paired with another dancer, and in every one I've preferred her partner.

This isn't specifically Kickstarter-related, aside from being publicized to backers, but the filmmakers are trying to win IndieWire's August Project of the Month, which is awarded through online voting. The prize is a consultation with the Tribeca Film Institute, the August Sponsor of the Month. Voting is open until 31 August, 5pm (I assume EDT): http://www.indiewire.com/article/decide-who-gets-to-talk-to-the-tribeca-film-institute-vote-for-augusts-project-of-the-month# The film is up against a film about Greg Louganis, which is, as of now, edging Gomes' film in votes.

Are these particularly technical roles, though? And given the time period -- much lower expectations for turnout and extension, for example -- would his technical flaws have been that apparent? There are no other men to whom to compare him in "Apollo," and only the troglodytes (dancing and characterization) and the Father (characterization) in "Prodigal Son." Apollo as Greek god only represents the second half of the ballet's history, and which shows him as a work-in-progress, not fully formed and sprung from the head of Zeus. To look at "Serenade" we'd never think that the original three movements were made for adult students at SAB "to teach them to dance" based on the performances we've seen for decades. Almost every major ballerina whose company has performed "Serenade" has found the roles interesting and challenging. There's a lot of characterization in both -- self-absorption being primary -- especially in the full-length "Apollo," and perhaps this, and the contrast to the women, is what Balanchine exploited.

I love how pissy Bussell is: if this were an American spoof, she'd be all cheery and co-operative, like it was Big Bird trying to teach her on "Sesame Street."

Van Amstel has been my favorite pro ever since Nick Kosovich left the show in an early season. I hope he can stay in a long, long time with Sabrina Bryan.

An interesting stat would be dance films/video projects. So far, I'm two for three as a backer, but that's a very small sample. I'm very sorry that Chelsea Wayant's post-production film project on NCDT wasn't funded; she was asking for a relatively modest sum. A PNB dancer, Ezra Thomson, is trying to raise funds for a family-run cafe, and the goal is $75K, which isn't a lot for the business concept, but much larger than most dance-related project goals. It's more than twice the target for the Marcelo Gomes doc, which was marketed to his substantial fan base in the US, Brazil, Japan, and Russia, but it doesn't make sense to set too low a target, especially with 8% or so going to campaign costs.

Some of us know these dancers from Dutch National Ballet DVDs: Jozef Varga is the Albrecht in the "Giselle" DVD with Anna Tsygankova (Giselle), and Mikhateli and Mukhamedov danced Amor and Queen of the Dryads from the Act II Dream Scene in "Don Quichot."

Some of Balanchine's praise for Lifar was reported by Lifar himself.

Sarah Kaufman has written an article in "The Washington Post" about the impact of Kickstarter in dance. The most striking numbers are: and She then goes on to discuss why this is so, but it certainly bypasses traditional grant committees and large donors, exposing standards, taste, and levels of expertise to the marketplace.

I love when this happens. I remember reading an interview with Helen Mirren many years ago, maybe soon after the release of "Excalibur," in which she talked about how less stratified acting was in England compared to the US: actors did all genres, from Shakespeare to what we'd consider soft-core porn, without having to worry about how it would affect their career. In the US there was always the concern about being typecast in "lesser" genres and never getting out. There are a number of US soap actors and actresses who've done theater and film before joining soap operas and have gone back and forth, most notably Lane Davies of "Santa Barbara," but most of the soap actors who became famous in film or more prestigious TV shows haven't looked back until their older years.

I remember pages and pages about the dance she and Balanchine did, his courting through her mother and "poor Eddie Bigelow," her decision to marry Mejia, Balanchine's reaction, etc. She might have been frustrating in what she chose to disclose and her point of view, and she didn't give details about her later relationship with Mejia, but a big chunk of the book before she left the company was about relationships.

In the Balanchine bio on PNB, d'Amboise and Farrell danced together in "Apollo," as Apollo and Terpsichore, with Gloria Govrin*, and, if I remember correctly, Patricia Neary, and "Movements for Orchestra." (This entry in the NYPL catalog says there's a film of a "studio rehearsal.") There was also a clip of them dancing together in "Meditation" that was excerpted in "Elusive Muse;" the NYPL catalog lists this as having been broadcast (with three other PdD) on WNET in 1966. They are also a couple in the complete "Davidsbundlertanze," one of the last works Balanchine choreographed, which was produced by CBS. There's an entry for a stage rehearsal By the time of the late '70's "Dance in America" video, d'Amboise had given up many of his virtuoso roles, and it was Peter Martins who partnered Farrell, in d'Amboise's role in "Diamonds" and in the roles Balanchine created for Farrell and Martins: "Chaconne" and "Tzigane." The NYPL entry for "A Stravinsky Portrait" dated 1972 reads (emphasis mine): According to the entry for this 1982 videocasette, it's a complete recording of the "Apollon musagete" filmed in Hamburg for German TV in 1966. The company went to Germany to film a bunch of ballets during the period that Farrell was not in the company.

"mythomaniac" -- no kidding, as Newman's short interview with him in "Striking a Balance" shows.

I didn't realize that Merkuriev came from the Mariinsky. I loved him in "Le Corsaire" when the Bolshoi brought it to DC.

Almost all of the discussion has been around the women. What is his record on casting the men? The last time I saw the Mariinsky was last summer, in "Anna Karenina" and "Little Humpbacked Horse," and from what I saw, the casting was superb. Of course, these were Ratmansky ballets, not the classic classics.

PNB just tweeted a link to this 2001 photo of Ashley Bouder and Carla Korbes in "Vogue": https://twitter.com/PNBallet/status/238331219899736064/photo/1

Golub is an example of the difference between ballet and opera rep casting: in an opera rep company, someone who sang the equivalent of Juliet one night could easily be cast as Little Swan the next.

Nickwallacesmith also re-posted a lot of the Soloviev videos, many of which disappeared, maybe when Ketinoa's entire channel was shut down when the Balanchine Trust objected to a tiny minority of the videos. NY audiences got a chance to see POB dance "Suite en Blanc" this summer.

From Robert Tracy's "Balanchine's Ballerinas": She also does a handstand in "Stravinsky Violin Concerto" towards the end of Aria I, the same section with the bridges. There's nothing in the interview or bio intro that mentions any formal gymnastics training, only early private ballet lessons, and her comment is "My schooling was Russian, and my first love was the Bolshoi...", but it's clear that she was tumbling/gymnastics-oriented as a child.

Nichelle Nichols -- wow!!!!!!

With that core strength, I bet she never fell of the balance beam.