Helene

sandik heard on the radio this morning that this will be reduced to 10 free articles a month free of charge.

I thought the 3-D Mariinsky "Giselle" was weird: sometimes they looked 3-dimensional and sometimes they looked like cartoon characters dancing around cardboard. I haven't seen "Pina" in 3D, only in the home video version, which I liked a lot.

This is why I would have been thrilled to have had online access in graduate school: in the business school library, almost every relevant volume of tax case law reference books were missing from the shelves. Granted, it was a temporary library without buzzers and beepers, but the only way I could get through my tax research course was to hie it uptown to the law school library. The only thing that saved me was that most of my fellow students didn't make the leap to leave the b-school "campus" and go to the main campus, a really easy subway ride away. Now that wouldn't work, because they moved the b-school to the main campus. I suspect the b-school library had all of the law school books missing from the law school library.

I think that women in ballet have a glass floor, from being held up on all of those pedestals.

Here's a video except of PNB performing "A Million Kisses to My Skin":

Peter Boal created a company for himself while he was still dancing, and he presented in small venues as far as I know. There are very few dancers that can pull of experimental or vanity projects in large venues and sell huge amount of tickets. I'm not even sure White Oak Project with Baryshnikov -- and with dancers like Mark Morris and Rob Besserer on the same program -- booked huge venues. I think it's a matter of pricing and venue: audiences might be happy to Vishneva in non-ballet rep if it were at a small venue for reasonable prices. No matter how you slice it, ballerinas, maybe with the exception of Guillem, have it much harder than men: you get five great male dancers to take their shirts off and do aerobics dance , and there might be snickers and complaints about how vapid the rep is, but people still buy tickets to it, and I don't think events like "Kings of the Dance" are meant to be great exhibits of artistic expression.

That's a great video, leonid. It seems like the dancers walk miles and miles down corridors each day. The Ashton Studio is beautiful.

I had to lend my smelling salts to Bruno Toglioni, so that he could make it through the rest of the show. Levy is a beautiful guy, but there's something kind of unreal about him, i.e., how anyone could look like that. My season's crush is Jaleel White. If I were going to have a girl crush, it would be on Gladys Knight -- take that Pips! -- though I must begrudgingly give credit to someone dancing with Mark Ballas, which tears at my heart, because Katherine Jenkins seems like a lovely person. But why oh why didn't Tristan McManus leave Ballas' spats where he dropped them? Have the pros made a pact to have rotating spats this year? I was gobsmacked by the precision of Roshan Fegan's rhythm. The make-up people did a stunning job with Martina Navratilova. Tony Dolovani did what he could. I wish they'd give him someone with whom he'd have a fighting chance at the mirror ball. I enjoyed everyone. Not everyone was equally talented, but they had humor and almost all had performance quality, mostly without looking petrified. Edited to add: I just read in Wikipedia that Jaleel White played Gladys Knight's (and Flip Wilson's) son on a TV show called "Charlie and Company". I never knew.

Aside from the fact that yawning isn't always a sign of boredom, if a person is bored, a person is bored. Not every moment in a class or in the studio is going to be fascinating, and it seems to me that learning to deal with boredom on one's own and learning to re-focus are a far better life skills to learn for when that person is a professional, when there won't always be a teacher hovering around to yell at them, and they have to be self-motivated and self-correcting.

Here is a link to a KING-FM studio interview with Wim Wenders: http://www.king.org/pages/12437467.php He talks a lot about the technological challenges and how 3D advanced while he worked on the project. Steve Reeder asked him if the dancers helped him choose the pieces, and he said that he chose them himself, but a couple of dancers helped him to judge the quality of the dance, and pointed out what was wrong and what Bausch wouldn't have liked.

There's a fascinating interview by Marta Zekan on KING-FM's Arts Channel with Bruce Wells, who speaks about his hour-long "Snow White", which has the final two performances this Sunday, 25 March (at noon and 3:30pm): http://www.king.org/pages/12437671.php He talks about the importance for dancers-in-training to experience having roles being choreographed on them and being coached in them, his choreographic approach, and about the nine-year old program. The music is to a lovely score by Jules Massenet. The performances are dedicated to the late scenic artist Edith Whitsett, who did the scenic design for this production, her last before she died of cancer. I used to listen to Miss Marta's week-end classical music program for children (as an adult).

We just received the following press release from PNB: THE JOYCE THEATER FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES THE SELECTION OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET AS THE SECOND RECPIENT OF THE RUDOLF NUREYEV PRIZE FOR NEW DANCE The Joyce Theater Foundation proudly announces the selection of Pacific Northwest Ballet as its second recipient of The Rudolf Nureyev Prize for New Dance, a $25,000 commissioning grant established for the purpose of creating new works from large ballet companies, many of whom rarely perform in New York. The prize allows companies accustomed to performing large scale work to create new pieces for a smaller venue. In turn, the award provides audiences with the opportunity to experience these companies in the Joyce’s intimate setting. Granting this award is the second time that The Joyce has made it possible for Pacific Northwest Ballet to create new work; the first occurred nearly four years ago when the company received a Joyce 25th Anniversary commissioning grant. Using the Joyce commissioning grant as a model, The Rudolf Nureyev Foundation developed the concept for its award. Linda Shelton, Executive Director of The Joyce Theater, will present The Rudolf Nureyev Prize for New Dance to Peter Boal, Artistic Director of Pacific Northwest Ballet, in Seattle on March 16, 2012. The award will also be presented to Peter Boal at The Joyce Theater’s 2012 Spring Gala on April 4 at the David H. Koch Theater. At its Gala, The Joyce will also honor the Boeing Company with its 2012 Award for Corporate Philanthropy. Northwest Ballet will use the award to create a new work by Alejandro Cerrudo, resident choreographer for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, which will make its New York premiere at The Joyce during its 2013/14 season. “This award is the kind of stuff Artistic Directors’ dreams are made of,” says Peter Boal. “Funding for premieres is a constant challenge and The Joyce and The Rudolf Nureyev Foundation have just given us a green light, making one more dream one step closer to reality. We are grateful for and thrilled with this opportunity.” Pacific Northwest Ballet,one of the largest and most highly regarded ballet companies in the United States, was founded in 1972. In 2005, Peter Boal became artistic director, succeeding Kent Stowell and Francia Russell, artistic directors since 1977. The Company of 46 dancers presents more than 100 performances each year of full-length and mixed-repertory ballets at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall and on tour. The Company has toured to Europe, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Canada, and throughout the United States. Under the direction of Peter Boal, Pacific Northwest Ballet has continued to expand and diversify its repertory to include works by Ulysses Dove, Marco Goecke, Jiri Kylian, Edwaard Liang, Susan Marshall, Benjamin Millepied, Mark Morris, Victor Quijada, Susan Stroman, Twyla Tharp, Christopher Wheeldon, Alexei Ratmansky, and others. Alejandro Cerrudo was born in Madrid, Spain and received his training at the Real Conservatorio Professional de Danza de Madrid. After becoming a professional dancer in 1998 Cerrudo’s dance career has been shaped and enriched by various dance companies including Victor Ullate Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and, since 2005, by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. In 2008 Cerrudo was named Hubbard Street Choreographic Fellow and became the company’s first Resident Choreographer in 2009. Cerrudo has created several works for Hubbard Street and for the company’s unique collaborations with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Nederlands Dans Theater. Cerrudo’s works are being performed by dance companies around the U.S. and the world, including Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands and Australia. Always dancing and constantly creating, Cerrudo was honored with an award from The Boomerang Fund for Artists in 2011. The Rudolf Nureyev® Dance Foundation - In tribute to Rudolf Nureyev, whose love of the in dance sprang from a profound faith in ballet's traditional past, the Rudolf Nureyev® Dance Foundation seeks to preserve and protect the history and tradition of dance while simultaneously encouraging its progress and development. It also seeks to perpetuate Nureyev’s name and carry on the legacy he left behind. The Foundation provides grants for ballet and modern performances, funds dance schools and dance scholarships, provides financial assistance for the creation of new choreography and restaging of the productions Nureyev created, and supports the establishment of dance collections and film archives to preserve the history, tradition, and appreciation of dance. The Joyce Theater Foundation, a nonprofit organization, has proudly served the dance community and its audiences since 1982. The founders, Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, acquired and renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea, which opened as The Joyce Theater. The Joyce Theater is named in honor of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther’s clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to establish the theater. One of the only theaters built by dancers for dance, The Joyce Theater has provided an intimate and elegant New York home for more than 310 domestic and international companies. The Joyce has also commissioned more than 130 new dances since 1992. The organization has long maintained a dance education program for schools, families, and adults, as well as residency and advisory programs for dancers and choreographers. In 1996, The Joyce created Joyce SoHo, a dance center providing highly subsidized rehearsal and performance space to hundreds of dance artists. Since 2009, The Joyce has also been responsible for Dance Art New York (DANY) Studios, nine affordable studios, located at 38th Street and Eighth Avenue, that are appropriate for creation, rehearsals, auditions, and workshops. The Joyce Theater now features an annual season of approximately 48 weeks with over 330 performances for audiences in excess of 135,000.

Happily, electronic print files don't have to suffer from the same degradation as microfiche and microfilm. (Graphics and photographs are another story.) The upside of many electronic formats is that they can be printed out as pages or books in print-to-demand services. Access is immediate or close to it and doesn't require retrieval, inter-library loans, or intra-library physical transfers. As a teenager, I was allowed to go into NYC or to anywhere in Bergen County on my own, if my destination was a library. I spent many happy hours in the Performing Arts Library. Now I'd be told to get it electronically and never leave the house.

My only point was that transferring from print formats for books, magazines, and records to another media isn't new and occurred before there was any thought of electronic storage on a large scale, and that lack of storage capacity before community services expansion was the driver for it. Not that many books in the big picture would fit into the physical footprint of where the computers are in either of my local libraries.

Electronic storage is significantly better than microfiche, and many magazines today are published in electronic format as well as print format.

I'm sorry it was cancelled, Ceeszi, after you went all the way in to see it. I have a similar story: I was working in Ireland in 2000 and had a pre-paid cell phone there that only worked in Ireland. On my way back to the US, I spent a weekend with a friend in Barcelona, and decided instead of connecting directly through Copenhagen to stay in Copenhagen the night before and to see the Royal Danish Ballet on February 29th. I bought a ticket online and entered my Ireland phone number, and between the Friday I left Ireland and the next Tuesday, the box office left a message on my no-longer-working phone to tell me the performance was cancelled. I remember walking almost an hour from the hotel to the theater, only to have the very nice box office person tell me what had happened. I then went back to the hotel and watched three different episodes of "Ally McBeal", which I had never seen before: one with Danish subtitles, one with Swedish subtitles, and one with Norwegian subtitles!

I think that libraries are for archival material, and that there are many different media on which the material can be stored. Libraries had transferred records and other print materials to fiche for decades, and as Anthony_NYC pointed out, physical books become fragile. When a library reaches its physical capacity, whether or not space is now dedicated to a computer bank or a presentation theater like in the newish Seattle public library, those books are transferred to other media and/or are stored elsewhere. That real estate is usually expensive, and access can take time. Climate control can be iffy as well in off-site facilities. One of my work-study jobs at college was retrieving books from the offsite facility, from which I would return sniffling from each run, which I hoped was due to dust rather than mold. We had one hour a day to retrieve the previous day's requests. There was no time to look for items that were mis-shelved, and these books' existence was an abstraction. I'm proud that the Seattle Public Library system has as many resources as it does for foreign-language and ESL resources to support our immigrant communities.

If I understood the intermission interview correctly, the costumes were based on Petipa-era drawings, and I thought the wigs were, too.

I knew things had changed when there was a single "quiet room" in my local branch

If you are logged into Ballet Alert!, you may post your questions here. If you prefer, you may post questions to the Ballet Talk for Dancers Fundraising thread.

I think it great that Kiyon Gaines is taking on Stravinsky. That will be a great challenge: "Dumbarton Oaks" is a tricky piece. It's fitting that Gaines' work will be on the Russell/Stowell Tribute program: of the choreographers in the company, he's the last one to be trained and nurtured by them. "Allegro Brillante" is a wonderful ballet. I hope Christina Siemens gets to play the Tchaikovsky. I saw Peter Boal dance "Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux" with Suzanne Farrell Ballet.

Thank you, cubanmiamiboy! What a great opportunity to see a rarely presented in North America ballet.

Ronald McDonald House Charities of Western Washington and Alaska has launched its "Men in Kilts" fundraiser, and PNB Principal Dancer Jonathan Porretta is participating. There's a fantastic photo of him, mid-leap in his kilt, sporran-a-flying: http://www.meninkilts.rmhcseattle.org/ (Use the right arrow to scroll to his photo.)

EU employment laws make it easy to hire from almost everywhere in Europe, apart from Norway, Albania, and countries that were once Yugoslavia.

The only visiting company on the list is Ballet Preljocaj.