Helene

No one is saying there aren't reasons for what happened. No one is saying that Peter Boal doesn't have the right to do whatever the PNB Board will support. Or as we're taught constantly at Justice Institute of British Columbia, "All behavior makes sense." What is "odd and awkward" is that it's unusual for the official press release/announcement to show disagreement as this one did. Generally the point of announcements is to release a joint statement to which both parties can agree, and this one did not do that.

It can -- the Stowell/Sendak "Nutcracker" has been around since 1983 in Seattle -- but while it's not the only game in town, it's the only professional game in town. (International Ballet Theatre on the East Side and Olympic Ballet Theatre in Edmonds, about 15 miles north of Seattle, are ballet school performances.) The closest big productions are in Portland, where Oregon Ballet Theatre produces Balanchine's version -- this season with four performances of "A Holiday Review" interspersed on two weekends -- and up in Vancouver, the Goh Ballet, a student company with professionals performing Sugar Plum Fairy and Cavalier, before Christmas and Alberta Ballet, which is performing its new version three times this week. I think the bigger issue is that the production is in NYC, and its professional competition is NYCB's version in Lincoln Center, a 15-minute walk from Central Park South and 5th Avenue, which fits in much more with the sparkly version of Christmas than a trip on the subway to Brooklyn. Just sayin'.

I don't think they would have seated a black honoree directly next to the Obamas, unless it was a much older black woman, like Maya Angelou. If anything, I think Jones was at the end because he was the youngest and male. I suspect they would have put him between Herman and Haggard if he were a woman.

The snowstorm scotched lots of plans along the way and was disruptive to the rhythm of the holidays, and for some of those who were planning to wait for the reviews and see it after Christmas, they had too much else to do, including entertain house guests whose transport out was canceled. Balanchine's original "Nutcracker" premiered in February 1954; it wasn't even presented at Christmas, and there was no guarantee it would turn into the holiday spectacular and cash cow it is now. I think the ABT's "Nutcracker" is a long-term investment, and it's far too soon to determine what it means to the company. That would be the case even if it were a sell-out this season.

I can't imagine that race, too, wasn't considered in the seating chart.

I agree with the Saura films as "real" dance films. Astaire and partners' dancing and choreography have to make up for the fluff between dance numbers, which doesn't happen in Saura films. My favorite scene and dancing in "Strictly Ballroom" is when Antonio Vargas (Fran's father Rico) shows Scott how to dance.

Casting from Balanchine's The Nutcracker from 1959 (Added 29 Dec 10)

Melissa Hayden and Jacques d'Amboise in Cullberg's Medea (Added 29 Dec 10)

The official statement is that she is leaving. (I confused this with retirement when I first posted, and I made a correction.) I hope this means we will see her dance elsewhere.

Which is pure cheap shot. I think we are going to see a number of tabloid and tabloid-like responses dragging this story out as long as they can sell papers and breed ad click-throughs. Unless there's new news from a reputable source, going forward please leave it at that, since any discussion of dancers' personal lives, especially that which doesn't affect what is on stage, is tertiary to BA's mission.

In how many press releases does one party say "I'd like to stay another year" with no qualifications (like 'ut my spouse is moving to Montana' or 'My back can't take it'), while the other party says "The other party is great", and the upshot is that the person is leaving this year?

It was one of the oddest and most awkward official statements I've seen in a number of years, yes.

Ariana Lallone danced her second-to-last scheduled Peacock in the Stowell/Sendak "Nutcracker" last Thursday afternoon. The role of Peacock has been distinguished by the most consistently strongest casting among a great number of dancers for a number of years, and this for an exceedingly exposed solo adagio role. On Thursday, Lallone gave a definitive performance, dancing every phrase as if she was hearing the music for the first time and responding to it in the moment. to Ms. Lallone. It was a privilege being there.

We don't want to do a global change on all posts and disturb history that much. We're trying to change just the forum and sub-forum names, registration forms, the rules, policies, instructions, and eventually the emails. That's not a lot, but I'm sure I'll miss a few and need to be reminded. But thank you for thinking of us

Commissions from it finance over 25% of the yearly costs of this site.

There are a lot of pages that have the Ballet Talk name. I haven't gotten around to all that I need to change, but I'll start with this one!

Any official company Facebook page is an official source. Dancers' public pages, where you have to click "like" to get updates, are also official. (What aren't are personal pages where you have to actually request to be someone's friend.) I think everyone should be able to see the SFB company FB page with the announcement: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/sfballet Thank you for posting such wonderful news, and to Ms. Elizabeth, Mr. Deivison-Oliveira, and Mr. Hernandez.

Alicia Markova in Princess Aurora (Added 25 Dec 10) Verner Andersen in Royal Danish Ballet's Coppelia (Added 25 Dec 10)

While I would love to see the company visit the Canadian or US west coast, with so many companies unable to afford to tour, that NB continues to do so is one of the few signs of health in this artistic climate. Repeat visits usually mean that they've established a fan base outside their home base, which is also great for a company. I've changed the forum title. Thank you for pointing this out, JMcN.

Thank you, Bonnette. I'll keep looking to align them, though, if only to save real estate and prevent one more scroll wheel turn. I know I found the answer to this when we upgraded, but I didn't document it

With weather affecting performances in some cities, and the economy in others, that's great news, YouOverThere.

Now if I could just get the logo to align with the box...

I'm pretty sure I changed the bottom widget from the banner to the search box tonight. It was my ad-blocking software that was blocking any amazon.com widget/banner. Now I can see the search box. However, the header is now twice the height of the logo, argh. I'll try again to get the search box at the top and the banner at the bottom, now that I can see it appear. Many thanks for your feedback!

The amazon.com search box was always to the right of the logo. It is a widget that has a text box to write in the name of the item being searched. When we upgraded to this version, we also added a banner ad at the bottom of every page, long and narrow without a text box. Neither is showing for me. I just went to Ballet Talk for Dancers to see if I could see the amazon.com box there, and I can't. (Screenshot attached.) It should show on one side of the Zazzle ad, but I can't remember on which side. This is on Firefox. On Safari, I can see the search box, which must be there in place of the banner ad as a result of my noodling before. I'm wondering if it's my "ad-blocking" add-in in Firefox.

This is really odd, because I can't see any amazon box at the bottom of any page on my browser. This has been the case since before the logo and name change. I've been trying various amazon.com widget code for the last 45 minutes or so, and I haven't seen any code appear on the page. But they've appeared on your page and disappeared after I've removed them from the code.