Helene

That sounds wonderful, sunshine_d!

Kansas City Ballet announced its 2011-12 season, which will be danced in the first season of the Kaufmann Center for the Arts. Among the works they will perform is Ib Andersen's "Romeo and Juliet", which they've performed in the older venue.

No mention of conductors in the notice -- it was a small box at the bottom -- but unless something has changed since the original announcement in "The Seattle Times", Emil de Cou will conduct "Cinderella" in February and "Giselle" in June. Doug Fullington told us in a pre-performance lecture that "Giselle" will be concurrent with the Dance Critics Association meeting in Seattle. That means the amassed critics will hear him. http://seattletimes....8423_pnb11.html

I just noticed this at the bottom of the Soloist headshots/bios page in the All-Tharp Program (reformatted):

to Ms. Kondaurova!

Michael Popkin has just reviewed the production in his danceviewtimes blog: Swan Lake Reimagined as Popular Theater

Casting for Week 2: Thursday, 11 Nov, 7:30pm: Opus 111 Maria Chapman William Lin-Yee Lindsi Dec Seth Orza Carrie Imler Josh Spell Kylee Kitchens Barry Kerollis Lesley Rausch Jerome Tisserand Leah O'Connor Benjamin Griffiths Afternoon Ball James Moore Lucien Postlewaite Rachel Foster Laura Gilbreath Jerome Tisserand Waterbaby Bagatelles Jonathan Porretta Maria Chapman Jeffrey Stanton Carrie Imler Chalnessa Eames Lucien Postlewaite Benjamin Griffiths Friday, 12 Nov, 7:30pm: Opus 111 Maria Chapman William Lin-Yee Lindsi Dec Seth Orza Carrie Imler Josh Spell Rachel Foster Kiyon Gaines Chalnessa Eames James Moore Sarah Ricard Orza Lucien Postlewaite Afternoon Ball Jonathan Porretta Olivier Wevers Chalnessa Eames Maria Chapman Jerome Tisserand Waterbaby Bagatelles Seth Orza Maria Chapman Jeffrey Stanton Lindsi Dec Rachel Foster Jerome Tisserand James Moore Saturday, 13 Nov, 7:30pm: Opus 111 Carla Körbes Batkhurel Bold Ariana Lallone Karel Cruz Carrie Imler Jonathan Porretta Kylee Kitchens Barry Kerollis Lesley Rausch Jerome Tisserand Leah O'Connor Benjamin Griffiths Afternoon Ball James Moore Lucien Postlewaite Rachel Foster Maria Chapman Jerome Tisserand Waterbaby Bagatelles Jonathan Porretta Carla Körbes Karel Cruz Carrie Imler Chalnessa Eames Lucien Postlewaite Benjamin Griffiths Sunday, 14 Nov 1pm Opus 111 Carla Körbes Batkhurel Bold Ariana Lallone Karel Cruz Carrie Imler Jonathan Porretta Rachel Foster Kiyon Gaines Chalnessa Eames James Moore Sarah Ricard Orza Lucien Postlewaite Afternoon Ball Benjamin Griffiths Andrew Bartee Maria Chapman Ariana Lallone Jeffrey Stanton Waterbaby Bagatelles Seth Orza Lesley Rausch Olivier Wevers Lindsi Dec Rachel Foster Jerome Tisserand James Moore

Yesterday a friend of mine, who took tango for a number of years, and I were talking about the show. He didn't understand why the judges were so harsh with dancers who he thought were stronger in their frame, more precise in their footwork, and who were dancing in the character of the dance, while dancers he felt were stompy and elementary would get gushes from the judges. I guessed that it was a matter of expectations, and that big guys, especially big athletes, got credit for not falling over, but your explanation makes a lot more sense.

Here's Part 2 of the blog interview: http://blog.pnb.org/2010/11/interview-with-pnb-principal-dancer.html

Way too many things conspired to make me miss this, and I hope BTers in Phoenix will report back on Ib Andersen's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", which opens Friday, the first of four weekend performances at Symphony Hall. The casting is up, and there is death in my heart for not being able to go http://www.balletaz.org/index.taf?mnid=team&ecid=1271249506 Jillian Barrell and Astrit Zejnati (evenings) and Natalia Magnicaballi and Shea Johnson (matinees) share Titania and Oberon, with Roman Zavarov and Daniel Marshalsay as Puck. The casts go deep, and Daniel Baudendistel will perform Snout. Please tell us about the performances

Oh, that was delightful. There were always mentions of Luders' high arches, but I always loved his arms and hands and his way of presenting the ballerina. Heavenly to Mr. Randall for his love of the arts and commitment to showcasing them on his TV shows.

Here's the video for "Waterbaby Bagatelles" -- my favorite Tharp, yay!: There are some lovely short segments of Carla Korbes and Karel Cruz. The music is by William Lin-Yee.

I'm glad they made good on it.

Hopefully New Zealand will get to see Mr. Stiefel perform at least a bit, with his own company. Even Peter Boal was planning more than a cameo in a gala performance of "Duo Concertant" when he first came to PNB, until injury tripped him up.

The dancers forum is for general discussions about dancers, and gets far less traffic than the ABT forum. I moved the original request to the ABT forum, which is here: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/32786-veronika-parts-swan-lake/page__pid__277132#entry277132 I apologize for forgetting to leave a link

Our blogs must be ballet-related, though, per our mission. There are many free blogs on which to state one's detailed opinions on broad cultural issues.

Not a video profile, but there's Part 1 of an interview with Porretta on the PNB blog, in which he elaborates on some of the topics he speaks about in the video profile. He also talks about the knee surgery he had right after "Coppelia" at the end of last season, as well as favorite restaurants, strengths, and weaknesses, and other topics: http://www.pnb.org/Blog/ We're promised Part 2 next week.

My father had a Plymouth station wagon with the push buttons. As a child in the front seat, I was fascinated by them, and I couldn't understand why my father didn't use more of them. I wanted to push them all.

A link to the thread on Part: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/22733-veronika-part-divided-opinions/page__p__184503__hl__veronika__fromsearch__1#entry184503 There are also some performance review threads in this (ABT) forum: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/32040-swan-lake/page__p__270566__hl__%2B%2Bveronika+%2B%2Bswan__fromsearch__1#entry270566 http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/30607-abt-in-chicago-2010/page__p__266960__hl__%2B%2Bveronika+%2B%2Bswan__fromsearch__1#entry266960

I think this is particularly exciting: (Emphasis added)Hopefully we'll see some of these students "finish" at the PNB school and have a chance at an apprenticeship.

It's a very bad idea to anger loyal patrons with slap-in-the-face policies.

I thought most programs in the US were free because they were subsidized by advertisers. In Paris, you get a printed cast list for free. If you want a program, it's 10 Euros. That's much better than when I traveled in Europe as a student and couldn't afford the programs, which was the only way to get the cast list (although Paris might have been different even back then). YouOverThere, I think it's inexcusable that you ordered a ticket in advance, and they didn't have it printed out for you. Even moreso that if it was an error, they didn't walk or call over to have them expedite it ahead of ticket sales. But they had your money in hand, and eager people waiting to put more cash in theirs...

Thank you for the correction on "4 T's" and the dancer ID's. I've never seen "A Garden". But from this photo certainly the costumes match, and you're right. Thanks again

James MacArthur, best known for his role as Danno in "Hawaii Five-0", died yesterday of natural causes at age 72. Here is the obituary from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/arts/television/29mccarthur.html?hpw Rest in peace, Mr. MacArthur.

It was "Ballet Alert", the original name of this site Re: Maria Tallchief's comment, I believe it was that she retired because while she didn't mind being listed alphabetically, she minded being treated alphabetically. When it came to my old home companies -- PNB and NYCB, both rep companies -- whom I saw in multiple performances, I wanted to know the casting to see the maximum number of casts and combinations, and, very, very rarely, to avoid a given dancer. Since moving from Seattle, I have to choose a weekend, although I'm hoping for both "Giselle" weekends. So far, having dropped the opening Thursday performance, on the first weekend, the Friday (opening night) and Saturday night have een cast identically or similarly, with a different cast for the matinee. I rarely saw ABT, even when I lived in NYC, but when I do, the dancers, not the rep is usually the draw, unless they are reviving their heritage rep, like Tudor. I do travel to see other companies. On the whole, casting makes a big difference for the full-lengths: if I travel to California to see the Mariinsky, I don't want to spend plane + hotel + tickets + vacation time to see Somova, for example. On the other hand, unless there's a dancer I've seen and loved, like Alexandrova, there's a good chance I'd be just as happy to see a dancer I've never seen before, and if I had to choose two of three nights, would skip a duplicate cast or try to see two new dancers. It's different for rep companies, where the rep is the draw. I'm lucky that since Ballet Arizona generally has one or two casts for each ballet, if there are two casts, each will perform once on Saturday, and I know I'll see both, which is my aim. For SFB, I might choose between weekends to see a specific dancer in a full-length, but on the whole, it's rep that is the deciding point, and I know I'll see a wide range of dancers, which for me is ideal. If I were going to see Miami City Ballet, it would be about the rep and seeing as many of the dancers that are described in such detail on these threads. Ballet Arizona doesn't distinguish by rank in the program, apart from noting apprentices and trainees. On the website, the dancers are listed in alpha order by first name. Rank is disclosed publicly in newspaper articles about dancers, and local newspapers reporting on local dancers made good tend to give dancers promotions, just like sports writers who know little about figure skating will interview a skater or team and suddenly they are/were Olympic and/or World Champions. Louisville Ballet changed to an alpha system this year. I have no problem with people who buy tickets based on casting. For people who have a subscription or buy a single ticket and love Ariana Lallone or Carrie Imler or Carla Korbes, and are pleased as punch to open up their program to find their favorite cast in the lead role, I understand: I still remember my Happy Dance whenever I saw Paul Gibson cast. What bothers me are the people who don't know the company or dancers, and they cross-reference the rankings and are either ecstatic that the dancer is a Principal Dancer, or they're grumpy and disappointed that the dancer is a Soloist, or, Heaven Forbid, a member of the corps. Somova is a Principal Dancer. Obratzova and Kondaurova are not. 'Nuff said.