Helene

Several times people at NYCB found out by looking at the program with the printed roster. This paragraph sums it up and is also slightly contradictory if you interpret it a different way. Essentially Osipova's outside commitments clash with the scheduling situation at the Bolshoi. She should have said the problem is related to her own needs outside of the Bolshoi instead of saying it was related to how Bolshoi operates. If you read between the lines, the point is that Osipova has become too big for the Bolshoi, no pun intended. I don't see it as contradictory or blaming the Bolshoi at all. She was describing her situation in the company, and it is incompatible with what she wants, and why another place fits what she wants. She's solved her own problem.

It was a wonderfully balanced cast in "Gold and Silver" on Sunday: Elizabeth Walker, Davis, and Tisserand.

Congratulations to Ms. Kitchens Mr. Gaines and M. Tisserand and welcome/welcome back to the new corps and apprentices! Peter Boal wasn't kidding when he said Sunday afternoon that we could practically hold our breath until Jerome Tisserand, the guest dancer at the Q&A, would receive a promotion.

Boards are also tied to institutions, and institutions are often concerned and sometimes obsessed about succession.

Ilya, thank you so much for your kind and generous translations which answer so many questions (I love that interviews in the Russian press ask the pointed questions in the first place!) Osipova and Vasiliev sound intelligent, thoughtful, and articulate in your translation.

Jowitt's situation is becoming less and less of an exception. I think Kaiser should have been specific, because there's already the perception that being paid to be the arts critic of a respected arts section or journal is the only way to be a critic. Many "critics" are actually reviewers, and they are like the early dance reviewers, critics of another art form enlisted to write about dance. In most city newspapers, especially with consolidation, the dance critic is a music, film, plastic arts, and/or theater critic, and maybe even a design and/or architecture critic who is expected to cover dance as well. Does a critic in City A, who is neither trained in dance criticism or has a lot of experience watching dance, be taken more seriously than a dance student who has studied dance history or, for example, our own atm711, whose knowledge and experience spans decades? To beat a dead horse, am I going to take her opinion seriously, or the dance critic from the "Arizona Republic" who didn't have much use for "Giselle"? (In fairness, he's been doing his homework since then.) Also, Mr. Kaiser may be complaining about his audience. For better or worse, he's got donors to subsidize an art form that for much of the audience is entertainment, even if it's high-brow entertainment, and there's a lot more competition for audience attention and $$$, especially in this economy.

I can't believe I forgot Kyle Davis in that list: he danced "Gold and Silver" and the male lead in "Baiser". I saw him dance both on Sunday. Carrie Imler and Lucien Postlewaite aren't paired very often. When they have been, it's been time to watch out: their "Square Dance" was among the finest performances I've seen with the company. They were partners this rep in "Black Swan Pas de deux", and watching Postlewaite do the most classical turns and jumps, like saut de basque -- no up-and-around-and-kick-out turns a la Don Q -- with exquisite softness, polish, and phrasing, I saw that he was her equal. Peter Boal said in a Q&A that Postlewaite saw the technical feats that Imler was doing and said that he had to top it, which he at least equaled with complete aplomb, never showing effort or breaking his line. Kyle Davis in "Gold and Silver" looks like he's on the same track of pure, elegant classicism and softness. Davis looks uncannily like a young Peter Boal, physically and stylistically, and I don't thinks it's coincidence that Boal's lines were compared to Anthony Dowell's, because Davis has a bit of that, too. Davis also showed in "Gold and Silver" a whiff of aristocracy in the way he shaded his head. I saw the original leads in "Baiser" -- Patricia McBride and Helgi Tomasson, and watching this ballet, it's obvious why they were Balanchine's choice for "Coppelia" and "Tales of the Vienna Woods" in "Vienna Waltzes" -- and I also saw her dance with one of my all-time favorites, Ib Andersen -- and Davis' performance on Sunday afternoon was second to none, and both Andersen and Tomasson, who were trained in Bournonville technique and narrative, were in their primes when I saw them, while Davis is at the very beginning of his career. From his first entrance, through both pas de deux with an excellent Leta Biasucci -- is there a dancer out of CPYB who does not know what to do with every second on stage, including stillness? -- through the solo and the final scene, he set the tone, from an underlying unease to the final rupture. It was done subtly, seamlessly, and without any obvious emoting. I was gobsmacked. "Divertimento from 'Baiser de la Fee'" is such a tricky ballet. It long has been described as an acquired taste. In many ways, it's an obvious opener, with it's bright corps, but unlike "Donizetti Variations" or "Ballo della Regina", for example, it doesn't have un-ambivalently poppy music. Unlike those ballets or "Concerto Barocco", with its plaintive middle movement, it doesn't have an upbeat ending. Unlike "Emeralds", which has the same penultimate bright faux ending -- the original final ending for "Emeralds" -- and a melancholy resolution rooted in unraveling and fate, it doesn't have an obviously sophisticated atmosphere and isn't the first of a progression. "Baiser" starts with Tchaikovsky's melodies, but Stravinky's unsettling harmonies, and ends sadly. (It was almost a disruption when the next ballet started after a pause, especially on Sunday afternoon.) It demands a certain type of engagement from the audience, rather than warming them up. I'm not sure it works well after driving through rush hour traffic or on a full stomach. It was beautiful to watch Davis paired with Jerome Tisserand in "Gold and Silver", an equally elegant dancer of a different, French-trained style. If any dancer owned this rep, it was Tisserand, who took on his own performances and many others. On Sunday afternoon alone he danced "Romeo et Juliette 'Balcony Pas de deux'", "Afternoon of a Faun", and "Gold and Silver", each dramatically and stylistically different, and he looked just as fresh in G&S as he had when he burst onstage like gangbusters in R&J. In the Q&A on Sunday afternoon, he was the guest dancer and was given a standing ovation, one of the few I've seen at these things, and he looked very happy. His parents were in town from France. I am so glad they got to see these performances. Boal said that we could practically hold our breath for him to get his promotion It's probably too much to ask, but could we just skip the Soloist part and go straight to Principal? More later.

Most organizations control who gets press tickets, and I doubt that major organizations would ever give press tickets to someone who writes anonymously. (One of the issues with reviews of goods and services on the internet is the number of sock puppet accounts created as PR for a restaurant, salon, etc. or to denigrate competition.) Presumably bloggers who get press tickets are vetted by the company. Surely critics like Tobi Tobias who currently blog most if not all of their reviews should get tickets because their criticism is valuable, as would Apollinaire Scherr, were she not also a critic for "Financial Times". If organizations give press tickets to bloggers, the bloggers criticize, and the companies pull tickets, the blogger has a platform to "expose" the organization, and this will make Google alerts. There's a theory that people appreciate free things less. However, getting press tickets doesn't always mean just getting good seats (or what the company thinks are good seats*) -- it can mean getting access to a critics' space and making connections. On the other hand, I can imagine that this can lead to major "How nice for you" snubs as well. *I fully concede that sitting close allows critics to make ID's that they normally wouldn't be able to, even if they miss the patterns from above. I was sitting in the First Tier of McCaw Hall this past weekend, and over some patrons being seated, I missed the Second Stage fundraising appeal dancer introduce herself. I knew from the costume she was one of the two demis in "Baiser", which meant Amanda Clark or Carli Samuelson (that performance), but I was distracted for several minutes during the actual ballet trying to figure out which one she was. (This wouldn't have happened from my Row K seats Saturday night.)

I couldn't agree more, however, what they do best requires more dancers. Carrie Imler and Lucien Postlewaite in "Square Dance", for example, would have shown the company off at its best, but would also have limited the lead roles to two and have required a corps of 12. The Kennedy Center isn't interested in three pas de deux. For a smaller group, I would have taken Paul Gibson's "Piano Dance", a much stronger piece. There's nothing in "Jardi Tancat" or "Arenal", for example, in which Osipova or Vasiliev would be needed, and Duato's works I've seen on tour with his former company have few chances for a soloist to shine and certainly not star.

[Admin Beanie On] This is a contentious topic, which usually requires donning the beanie. Natalia, as Foreign Correspondent from Ballet Alert!, has given an overview. All but people in the group Editorial Advisors and Natalia in this capacity -- need to provide links from official sources, and that includes me. Statement without citations from official sources have been removed. [Admin Beanie Off]

Duato tends to choreography group dances, not showpieces for soloists, regardless of how they might rank the two as choreographers.

I wasn't asking personally: I was asking the question professionally, since the two have a wonderful partnership, and that will be gone from the Bolshoi stage, at least the way it appears now.

According to to today's Link from AFP calling the possibly the Bolshoi's two greatest attractions, I think Maria Alexandrova has something to say about that every time she sets foot on a stage ;) I hope Osipova and Vasiliev get everything they're looking for from this move. They are great dancers, and they have a great future in front if them.

I wonder what David Hallberg is thinking. This reminds me a bit of how Peter Martins was hired mainly to partner Suzanne Farrell, and then she left the company soon afterwards. Of course, that worked out very well with him, and the Bolshoi has cast Hallberg with Zakharova for the "Sleeping Beauty" to be broadcast this weekend.

I don't know a lot about heavy metal, although I loved the documentary about Metalica and enjoyed the music, but I didn't hear much that I thought would be particularly appropriate to ballet steps and movement. I've seen enough ballets where the dancers kick to the skies, and even so, the music overpowers the movement. There were a few slow, quiet-ish songs that might make a short work, but too many together would be monotonous.

They might be able to guest a lot more at the Mkhailovsky and not be tied to the Bolshoi performance schedule. Also, what dancers enjoy performing isn't always the greatest work and/or what the audience wants to see them in. Dancers at PNB often cite Nacho Duato's "Jardi Tancat" as one of their favorite things to dance, and audiences here lap it up every time it's presented. Baryshnikov was cast in the classics -- although he said that he didn't perform enough -- and a reason he gave for defecting was the opportunity to dance contemporary (at his time) ballet and modern dance. Not everything he danced after leaving the Soviet Union was on par with what he danced there.

In last night's Q&A Peter Boal explained that he juggled the schedule to avoid having dancers do two major roles in a row. Last night, the schedule was "Baiser"/pause/"Romeo et Juliette Pdd", with Lesley Rausch and Jerome Tisserand in R&J, and then after the intermission, Rausch and Orza danced "Afternoon of a Faun", followed by "Black Swan Pdd" and second intermission. In this afternoon's performance, he'll split Tisserand's "R&J" and "Faun" by an intermission. It's hard to believe Tisserand's still standing after the two weeks he's had, between his own scheduled performances and substituting for injured dancers. (Boal joked in the Q&A last night about how Tisserand engineered this to be in line for a promotion.) He also partnered two different women in "Faun", which is par for the course at NYCB, but has been much rarer in the last 15 years: when a dancer loses his or her partner, it most often means not performing the role. Here, by pairing Rachel Foster with Tisserand, who performed a weekend early with his original partner, Kylee Kitchens, Boal saved this rep for her, as she lost three partners to injury. On Friday night I saw "Baiser", first intermission, "Afternoon of a Faun"/pause/Romeo et Juliette Pdd"/pause/"Black Swan Pdd", second intermission, "Aurora's Wedding". It was like an inverse "Vienna Waltzes" -- in that ballet, the five parts go from innocent to contrived to demi-monde to sophisticated to neurotic" -- by starting with the most ambivalent and bittersweet in "Baiser" to no ambivalence in "Aurora's Wedding", because even though "R&J" and "Swan Lake" end badly, in the actual excerpts, the characters are at their happiest, and in the case of Odile, most triumphant.Last night's order switched back and forth rather than progressing along a path, and it mixed it up emotionally. Still, "Black Swan", which I must have seen dozens of times in galas, is the temperamental misfit among these other works, which all have deep resonance. In most gala programs, there are several other virtuoso pas, like "Diana and Acteon", "Le Corsaire", "Don Q", etc., but the other four works in this program ask for something different from the audience. I think that if an excerpt of "Swan Lake" was meant to whet the appetite for next year's announced full-lengths -- "Romeo et Juliette"is the second -- "White Swan" would have more in line with the others, but "Black Swan" might have been meant as a contrast and lead in to the optimism of "Aurora's Wedding". "Black Swan" did bring people out of their seats in a heartbeat last night: Carrie Imler and Lucien Postlewaite were evenly matched technically, dramatically, stylistically, and physically, and it doesn't get any better than that. Without a corps, though, "White Swan" tends to look empty. In this rep, the limited formal corps work was probably a godsend. Boal mentioned that 11 dancers were injured, although some were performing in limited capacity. For example, he mentioned that Andrew Bartee and Price Suddarth can't do jumping roles quite yet. Bartee donned the wig in the "Sleeping Beauty" Mazurka, while Price Suddarth was very impressive as Catalabutte, performing with style and stature. Without corps duty, there was lots of work for Kylee Kitchens, in "Faun" and "White Cat", Amanda Clark and Carly Samuelson as demis in "Baiser" and "Bluebird", Eric Hipolito in "Bluebird", "Gold and Silver", and as Wolf, Elizabeth Murphy in "Gold and Silver", and major debuts for Liora Reshef and Leta Biasucci in "Baiser", and Jerome Tisserand in just about everything.

The latest change today is that Leta Biasucci is now listed for Little Red Riding Hood in place of Abby Relic, in addition to her own scheduled performances.

Oh, how could I have forgotten that Zamora went to the Royal Ballet School, which was his dream... Kargman told us in the Q&A that Houseknecht had danced for a year and was asked to return, but decided to go to college again. Kargman said she wanted a dancer who had a "regular" upbringing, living at home, going to public school, doing other teenage activities as well as ballet, and Houseknecht fit the bill.

And both were not the bottom two: Tom Bergeron made this clear as they walked down the steps to get the decision. They often try to create drama by taking a couple that's doing fine and putting them in with the real couple at the bottom.

PNB has created a family-friendly package of four fairy tale-based story ballets, including "Nutcracker", "Don Quixote", "Snow White", and "Coppelia", and their video ad features the related activities that PNB creates for some performances during the season:

Two more videos: A 2'30" slice of "Afternoon of a Faun" with Kylee Kitchens and Jerome Tisserand, in costume and with the set: A montage from "Love Stories", in rehearsal: Laura Gilbreath/Karel Cruz Batkhurel Bold Carrie Imler Lucien Postlewaite Karel Cruz Lesley Rausch Jonathan Porretta Kaori Nakamura Batkhurel Bold Carrie Imler Carrie Imler/Lucien Postlewaite

Do you know which of the dancers showed? The two dancers who are NY-based or close to New York are Michaela Deprince and Joan Sebastian Zamora, who is listed on the YAGP site as "Rock School", but was living in Queens and being coached in NYC at the time the documentary was made. Of course, the others may have traveled: Miko Fogarty lives in Northern California, Gaya Bommer in Israel, Aran Bell in Italy, and according to the director, Rebecca Houseknecht went to college, but she didn't say where.

The PNB website is updated with a bunch of casting changes, as Porretta, Korbes, Griffiths, and Moore, who were out first weekend, are still out I've changed the spreadsheet to reflect the changes (in red) on the website as of today: Love Stories Casting as of 9 Nov 11.xlsx

The film won the audience award: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118045844?refCatId=13 Congratulations!