Helene

Here is the link with more information about the appearance in Minneapolis: http://northrop.umn.edu/events/new-york-city-ballet-moves

Hayden did a wonderful job as in "Stars and Stripes" playing it straight; understanding that this would make it most effective suggests she knows something about comedy. Plus, as far as I know, it was a role made for her alone, not one she inherited or which was envisioned for someone else, because another dancer, usually Diana Adams, couldn't perform. With Hayden and Mitchell in mind, I love the idea of flying, but more like Icarus and not at all ethereal.

I totally agree with you. I find it quite unbelievable that companies don't show casting info, yet ask for your money. They must have some idea who they plan to put in there! I think we are all okay with the fact that things happen and casting changes at the last minute, but we do want a general idea of who we might get. Same with opera companies. It is crazy how some expect you to purchase a subscription without knowing who is going to sing a major role like Norma, for example. You know they have to know who they have pencilled in for a role like that. You don't just choose to put that on the schedule and then go to the local bus stop looking for a singer to sing the most difficult role in the entire repetoire. Since opera companies usually have to book at least two years in advance, in my experience, the companies I've gone to almost always show casting by subscription time, apart from the occasional TBD, usually because someone had to pull out. However, ABT is one of the few ballet companies that announces principal casting well in advance. Ballet companies might have dancers rehearsing roles eight months before a premiere, especially when a choreographer or stager is only available to start then, but more often, the subscription deadline has passed before the choreographer/stager even sees the dancers and chooses them. Ballet also deals with so many injuries that it's impractical to announce casting early: if someone has to be replaced, people feel that they've been sold tickets on false pretenses. Multiple cast juggling is fairly common in ballet, and I've only seen it a few times in my experience of opera. Once was in 2002 when Sondra Radvanovsky didn't sing in a Santa Fe "La Traviata," and the scheduled Elvira in "L'Italiana in Algieri," Madeleine Bender sang Violetta, and one of the apprentices, Meredith Barber, sang Elvira. (The performance in between, of "La Clemenza di Tito," was the first time I'd every heard Kristine Jepsen [sesto], Joyce diDonato [Annio], and Isabel Bayrakdarian [servilia] live.) Another was a Wagner opera where a cover sang the lead, and someone else came in for the cover's smaller role. I remember performances at NYCB, especially late in the Spring season, where the list and explanation of substitutions seemed longer than the cast list.

I just read an icenetwork article that noted that US (figure skating) Pairs team Felicia Zhang and Nathan Bartholomay went to see "West Side Story Suite" at NYCB to prepare for this season's free skate: http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120723&content_id=35420712&vkey=ice_news

According to both Melissa Hayden and Arthur Mitchell, it was going to be made for them. I've only seen them on film, and I know that Melissa Hayden was very technical, but also had some very dramatic roles. What would their gifts suggest?

Single tickets went on sale today, and through 9 August, there will be no service charges. More details here: http://seattletimes.com/html/artspage/2018750702_single_tickets_go_on_sale_at_pacific_northwest_ballet.html

With 10 days to go, the project has surpassed it's goal, but, they're putting the funds to good use. Today the directors announced that they got permission to film Vishneva, Simkin, and Gomes with Tokyo Ballet in "La Bayadere," and they've been interviewing like mad, taking the opportunity to catch Bullion who is in NYC for the Paris Opera Ballet tour, and who studied with Gomes in Paris.

Posted to Lorena Feijoo's Facebook Page: "Friends, Lorena and Vitor are proud parents of a baby girl born this morning at 10:02am in San Francisco. The baby's weight is not known at this time because she was put immediately in her mother's arms. We can tell you this much, she is chubby and how Lorna described her "bella". More info to follow with photos. Love to you all. Yours," Congratulations to the new family

Thank you so much, Estelle! It is always great to hear from you If I remember correctly, Maya Plisetskaya was invited to perform "Bolero", but without very much rehearsal and such a repetitive score, it might have been Bejart himself who tried to prompt her from the back.

I think what Birdsall is trying to say is that Ashton's version was of his time and had elements that were well-known theatrical , specifically comedic, traditions to his audience The core of the ballet was classical and well within the classical tradition -- he was an artistic child of Pavlova as well, and British ballet was influenced by Vera Volkova when she taught in London -- , unlike Ek, who did a contemporary dance version of a classic

The highest price ticket for regular opera performances is 180 Euros and for ballet, 150 or 92 Euros. Due to the economic crisis, that is ~$220 for opera or ~$182-110 for ballet. Last year, the top ticket would have been ~$250.

I agree the goals can be compatible, but, sadly, much of the time they are not, and it's an either/or. My argument is that the preservation of the core rep should be the primary goal of the organization, and the new should be used as a supplement and as food for the dancers. Quoting Patrice Bart from his interview with Marc Haegeman, We are lucky that, at least so far, Pacific Northwest Ballet has maintained this balance, and that the classical and neo-classical ballets in its rep are energized by the inclusion of works from the last few decades through premieres. I always think of it as flirting at a party, and then going home and having great sex with your partner, but it's a similar fine line. I think for opera the bump of new work is made possible by co-commissions and collaborations, where the work gets a much wider audience than anything but a Met-HD broadcast. In Europe, companies are heavily subsidized by the public produce much regietheater, productions which aren't expected to last. In an interview with the Queen of Denmark, Copenhagen Ring director Kasper Bech Holten said that the next time the Ring is produced in Copenhagen, it should reflect it's own time, and that his reflected 2006. In North America, without those subsidies, productions are supposed to last. Speight Jenkins got the Seattle Opera Board to approve a very expensive new Ring for 2001 by promising them that he wouldn't ask for a new production -- typically they last three times over 12 years -- during his tenure and the "Seattle Ring" or "Green Ring" will play for the fourth time next summer. Given the financial situation, it's hard to imagine funding materializing for a new Ring for his successor any time in this decade. It will be interesting to see what happens to opera in Europe, now that governments are slashing funding for the arts. The audience's expectation is for new takes on operas, old and new, and lots of dominant direction, and for rapidly changing productions, and how and when the opera houses adjust to the new economic realities is still a question.

There have been a lot of new opera works, many of them in English, that have been produced in the last decade: off the top of my head, in the past few years, I've seen productions of Vancouver Opera's "Lillian Alling", San Francisco Opera's "Heart of a Solider", Dallas Opera's "Moby Dick" -- co-produced with four other companies, the last of which, SFO, will produce it in the Fall -- Seattle Opera's "End of the Affair" -- originally Houston Opera and revised for Seattle and Madison Opera" -- Seattle Opera's "Amelia." Bramwell Tovey's "The Inventor" was presented in Calgary last year and in a concert version with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra -- Tovey is the Music Director -- earlier this month. (Sadly, I had to miss it.) Vancouver Opera does four operas a season, and this season, along with Boheme, Magic Flute, and Pirates of Penzance -- the usual suspects -- it is presenting Tan Dun's "Tea". The Metropolitan Opera has had a handful of commissions, but apart from some Tan Dun and "Ghost of Versailles," (from 20 years ago), I don't think any of them are finished yet. (Operas are like massive infrastructure projects with fickle deadlines, while, in general, ballet commissions go on when scheduled, and scope, subject, and music, among other things, can change.) New York City Opera traditionally was the company that did new work, and not just to open the opera house. Opera, especially in North America, without much government subsidy, has a much higher bar for new operas: composers don't often coach, unlike choreographers or their stagers, all of the music has to be parted, copied, and changed with revisions, super-titles need to be created for a moving text, and audiences expect more than a lit cyclotron and leotards. Singers aren't on salary and have to be contracted individually. If no one were to perform "Lillian Alling" in the next three decades, someone in 2042 could pick up a score and listen to rehearsal tapes -- I suspect Vancouver Opera has internal tapes of the actual performances -- and put it on without much problem, given the thousands of capable classically trained singers and musicians that far out-number trained ballet dancers. The original physical staging is pretty much irrelevant to re-producing a work. If there is a question of musical style, there are hundreds of thousands of recordings and, now DVDs, to give it context. In music, if fashion demands Stokowski's ponderous Bach, the score still exists to be able to gauge the composer's intent with regards to orchestration, dynamics, and tempi. This is not true of ballet, where continuity lies in two places: schooling and passing down style and intent through generations of coaching, and where the rarely-used notational systems capture much less of the nuances, like, for example, some the Stepanov notations that have steps and floor patterns, but none of the choreography above the waist. It was serendipity that Stepanov notations survived and were accessible and that Hans Beck codified Bournonville choreography in his training and created productions of the key Bournonville works. The early French rep, including "Giselle," was tossed aside and "Giselle" was saved through Petipa's re-working, possibly only because the first Albrecht was Petipa's brother. In my opinion, the companies for which masterworks were created by choreographers with key ties to the companies have the highest responsibility to preserve that rep, and it should be their core, especially when there is a training academy that teaches the style. For NYCB it's Balanchine and Robbins, for ABT it should be Tudor -- through ABT's neglect now on life support through the efforts of New York Theatre Ballet and Sarasota Ballet -- and the mixed bill rep created for it before the full-lengths took over -- for Royal Danish Ballet, the Bournonville rep, and for the Bolshoi and Mariinsky, the classics. (Which they do: despite the "new" choreography -- the Balanchine and the occasional Forsythe and Bejart -- the classical rep is the overwhelming part of their schedule.) Even if the core collection is small, preserving it should be their key mission. Regarding the Balanchine rep, we are three-fold lucky: like in other major companies, when the performances of the main company falter, the school still has teachers that maintain the continuity and produce great dancers, so many of his disciples have spread across the continent to run their own companies, and there is a Foundation to vet and send stagers to companies that want to perform the rep. It's always good that if there is a fire in the museum and most of the collection is lost, for example when Mariinsky management in the '90's decided that they should misinterpret Guillem as an example, there are ways to re-group. Tudor, whose ballets are much more delicate to preserve, should have been so lucky.

This was originally sent to backers, but PNB just posted it to Facebook, so it should be generally accessible. I'm not sure if it will be part of the documentary, especially in this format, but it may be indicative of the types of "film outtakes including some priceless personal moments with Marcelo" that will be provided as digital downloads to backers of $50 or more. The project has added a video for the film in Portuguese and what I assume is an explanation of the project in Japanese on the project page, as well as a link to an article about it in Russian.

It depends on where and how complex the break is. The foot has a bazillion bones. Hopefully, he'll post to his "Like" (fan) page on Facebook, if only to announce in what performances he'll be back. https://www.facebook.com/pages/David-Hallberg/176619735729003

I think most of the American ballet-going audience hasn't the faintest clue about Lifar's politics, of Balanchine's somewhat snarky distain of him, or how he out-maneuvered Balanchine from the POB post when Balanchine became ill. Bejart would be a familiar name, much more than Petit, and much more than Lifar. If Lefebvre thought about taking Lifar's politics into consideration when programming, I suspect she would have dismissed the thought with Gallic disdain.

I would argue that the Farrell period, at least, was driven by her style and her physical limitations and abilities. Hayden's famous complaint was that because Farrell had a bad knee, Balanchine stopped giving jumps in class, and how could they maintain their technique? The ballets he created for her were more assertively, straightly romantic in tone than almost anything he created for his first US companies. Even during the period where she danced with Bejart, of the three masterworks from the Stravinsky Festival, "Duo Concertante" and the "Aria II" segments were more emotionally charged romantic works than any of the other black and white ballets. (Equally emotionally charged was the Kent role in Ivesiana, but that was a different kettle of fish.) The third featured Villella

Amen. Since ballet is a tradition handed down orally, I think what we're supposed to think "museum" means that subsequent interpreters are little more than imitators of the original performers and that the stylistic changes that a choreographer makes in (mostly) his lifetime are ignored. For example, Balanchine had several different stylistic periods, usually driven by a muse. I'm sure that people who saw roles created for Adams, Hayden, Tallchief, and even McBride thought, "Wrong!" when Suzanne Farrell danced them, even though Farrell was his preferred performer. I agree with Patrice Bart, when in an interview with Marc Haegeman in danceviewtimes that "I would be the first to remind that we need proper coaching and that the colour of the work needs to be preserved, but on the other hand, what I would call “contre-emploi” can be revealing and bring out completely new aspects of a role. I think we have understood the success of it." In Farrell's case, like Guillem, she became the norm, or at least the thing to imitate, rather than the "contre," and that seemed to be with Balanchine's full approval. (Had he been well for another decade and worked with Kistler, the Farrell snapshot in time might have been superseded.) When Martins took over NYCB under very different circumstances, all of the museum talk might have been self-serving, but the company had already shifted from many of what long-term supporters felt were its key beauties and virtues, the period in which Villella shined bright. The success of "Children of Balanchine" companies, like Villella at Miami City Ballet and Russell/Stowell at Pacific Northwest Ballet, abroad and in the New York-based press, was often based on Balanchine productions with the sensibility of a prior period of Balanchine's creativity. "Not turning into a museum" has become a buzz phrase put-down for "the past," and it covers all bases, including reconstructions and Paris Opera Ballet's performances of "Giselle." In context, I think the phrase = Villella. Nothing like starting out playing nice with the other children in the sandbox. But very familiar talk in corporations, particularly after reorganizations.

Here is the announcement on the Ballet West website: Ballet West Artistic Director Adam Sklute has announced Nicolo Fonte’s appointment to the post of Resident Choreographer for Ballet West, beginning with the Company’s 2012-13 season. “Nicolo’s work is exciting, powerful, and thought provoking,” said Ballet West Artistic Director Adam Sklute. “His choreography is also a natural fit for my Ballet West dancers. It was clear from the first time Nicolo worked with us that his use of line and torso, his musicality and stylistic quality melded perfectly with our company. My dancers adore working with him and I am excited to see what this close relationship will produce.” Fonte’s initial collaboration with Ballet West took place during its 2008-09 season when the Company commissioned Fonte to create a new work for its Innovations 2009 Program. Titled “The Immeasurable Cadences Within” and set to a score by Philip Glass, dance critics hailed the piece as “visually stunning” and “unsparingly meaty”. For Ballet West’s 2010-11 season, the Company performed Fonte’s pulsating “Bolero,” set to the music of Maurice Ravel, which critics lauded as “climactic, jaw-dropping and so much fun to watch.” Referring to his new appointment, Fonte said: “I am thrilled and honored to be given this opportunity to deepen my relationship with Ballet West, a company I truly admire and respect. Every time I have worked with the company in the past has been intensely rewarding, and I look forward to many more choreographic adventures in Salt Lake City! " While Ballet West has invited many choreographers to create on the Company in its nearly 50-year history, Fonte will be the second-only choreographer to hold the title of Resident Choreographer; Val Caniparoli served in this position from 1994 to 1997. “Nicolo will continue his choreographic career around the world and travel to Salt Lake as needed, “said Sklute. “He is scheduled to produce no fewer than three works for Ballet West within a four-year period of time, and he and I are already discussing a couple of major collaborations which I think will be electrifying.” Known for his daring and original approach to dance, Fonte’s work has been noted by critics for a unique movement language as well as a highly developed fusion of ideas, dance and design. Born in Brooklyn New York, Fonte started dancing at the age of 14. He studied at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York as well as at the San Francisco Ballet and New York City Ballet Schools while completing a Bachelor Degree of Fine Arts at SUNY Purchase. Upon graduation he danced with Peridance in NYC and later joined Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montreal. Fonte subsequently joined Duato's Compañia Nacional de Danza in Madrid and forged a strong identity in the Spanish company for seven years - for both his dancing and his choreography. En los Segundos Ocultos, (In Hidden Seconds), one of three ballets Fonte made for the Spanish company, was hailed as a breakthrough work of great impact with the poetic vision of a mature artist and indeed this ballet established his presence on the European dance scene. In 2000 Fonte retired from performing to devote himself full-time to his choreographic career. Since that time he has created or staged his ballets for ballet companies all over the world. Fonte received a Choo San Goh award for his 2002 collaboration with Pacific Northwest Ballet, Almost Tango, a work which was also voted as one of Dance Europe's "Best Premieres" when it was re-staged for The Australian Ballet in 2004. His subsequent creation for the company, The Possibility Space, premiered in Melbourne in September of 2008. From 2002 to 2006 Nicolo enjoyed an ongoing creative partnership with The Göteborg Ballet in Sweden, creating and staging numerous works that helped establish the company's distinct profile. While in Göteborg he created his first full-length ballet, Re: Tchaikovsky, based on the life of Tchaikovsky, which was widely acclaimed in the international press and appeared on the "Best of 2005" lists of both Ballett-Tanz and Dance Europe. Fonte has also created seven highly successful works for Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. Their 2010 production of In Hidden Seconds received outstanding critical reviews on their tours all over the US. The February 2011 premiere of Where We Left Off has also proven to be a popular addition to their repertory. Fonte consistently collaborates with the most dynamic companies on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2010, he created Made Man for Royal Ballet of Flanders, followed by the reimagining of the Ballets Russes classic, Petrouchka, for Oregon Ballet Theatre in October 2011. Petrouchka- premiered by OBT in October of 2011 - was hailed for its gripping story, expressive style and the lasting impression it makes. This Petrouchka was staged for the Perm Ballet (Russia) in May of 2012 as part of the prestigious Diaghilev Seasons Festival. Also in May of 2012, Fonte premiered See(k), a new work for Houston Ballet to a commissioned score by Anna Clyne. To learn more about Nicolo Fonte, visit www.nicolofonte.com.

From the New York Times, the Bessies awards committee announced the winnter of the Juried Award, Souleymane Badolo, and nominees in other categories. The Times article lists the finalists for work performed in a theater of more than 400 seats -- "Event" (Cunningham/Merce Cunningham Company), "Preludes and Fuges" (Gat/Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève), and "Samhara" (Nrityagram Dance Ensemble) -- and choreographer -- Jennifer Weber, Liz Santoro, Lee Sher and Saar Harari, and Rashaun Mitchell. No updates as of now on the New York Dance and Performance Awards website; there are at least ten other categories.

The next installment is pirouette, and around ~22 seconds his upper back and shoulders say everything:

Francia Russell and Kent Stowell brough Nacho Duato's "Jardi Tancat" to City Center in the mid-90's. I'd hardly call him cutting edge.

$25 for a digital download is cheaper than most DVDs, even at $19.95 pre-sale prices after adding in tax and shipping. It's worth contributing, too, because there will be people who will cancel their pledge before the deadline, when all credit cards are charged, or will have their pledge amount declined. (Not to mention unexpected issues that come up during filming or opportunities that come up which a little extra bit of cash can enable.)