dirac

As I remember, Joan Caulfield got similar short shrift in "Blue Skies." It often happens in these buddy movies, which is basically what the Crosby-Astaire pairings are. (Bing was the bigger star at the time so he got the girl.) I'm not a big fan of the movie but I agree that the inn is convincing and sometimes lovely, and of course it has "White Christmas."

Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quiñones had died at age 65. Many moons ago Toni Basil did a nifty "Swan Lake" for Saturday Night Live with the cygnets and several of the original Lockers, including Shabba-Doo. Not available online, unfortunately.

Kansas City Ballet hopes for help from the recently passed federal relief package.

Boston Ballet dancers present "The Gift."

A look back at London dance in 2020 by Lynette Halewood for DanceTabs.

A review of English National Ballet by Jann Parry for DanceTabs.

Four years or so later, and the deed is done. It will be interesting to see what happens in the performing arts, as if they didn't have enough to cope with right now. Related. Related.

Well, as long as "steadfastly refusing to cave to the fear and paralysis associated with this Covid," doesn't include "refusing to wear a mask in public and being obnoxious to store clerks who ask me to do so" and other risky behaviors, I'm with you. Well? Will anyone of this ballet generation ascend to Olympus, assuming they get to take the stage again? Thoughts?

A children's book by Florence Parry Heide with illustrations by Edward Gorey is reissued.

The Ballet Beyond Borders conference goes online this year.

The State Ballet of Rhode Island weathers the COVID storm.

Barbara Weisberger has died at age 94. Related.

We hope, anyway. Here is Soloviev's Bluebird to start the year off right.

The Bolshoi Ballet perform live with an audience.

Bay Area dancers answer questions about "Tiny Pretty Things."

On further consideration...........I think that "released at holiday season" doesn't quite fit into our topic. Gotta have at least one Christmas or holiday-related sequence of significance. Please feel free to start a new thread for the object of your enthusiasm, however.

Has anyone seen the Queen Latifah version of "Last Holiday"? It's supposed to have a holiday theme. I've only seen the Guinness version, which I remember as a rather grim little tale.

Rodgers & Hart were not always delighted with what Jazz performers made of their songs ("I Like to Recognize the Tune"). As for "My Favorite Things" - I watch "The Sound of Music" every Christmas on ABC and Miss Andrews sings it very nicely indeed. So there. Coltrane's version is great. He performed it with a soprano saxophone, which was not much in use then.

Lovely clip. (Wondering if it isn't still a bit risky, given that choral singing involves expelling a lot of air however socially distanced, but good for them.)

I have no quarrel with anything you wrote here, except to note that for better or worse I wasn't doing any tiptoeing, just offering my offhand impressions of the show. I do think that if not for the example and high profile of Copeland, Kylie Jefferson probably doesn't get cast, and - I guess it has to be said outright and I should have done so, given the asperity of my OP - that casting is absolutely a Good Thing and also plausible, however contrived I think the series is in other respects. Pedant's Corner: Neveah is not heaven spelled backwards - that would be Nevaeh. Out of curiosity I looked up the Wikipedia entry, which is here, and for what it's worth, it does say that the name has, or had, some currency among the Black community, at least ten years ago or so (?)

Because that wasn't only what I meant, although it's certainly part of what I meant. Neveah is from Inglewood, and one of the first indicators that she's going to have a hard time is when someone, I think it's the Holly character, calls her "straight outta Compton!" or something to that effect. Misty Copeland is at present the most famous ballerina in America, and a groundbreaking one. I suppose it's possible they would have created the same character without the Copeland real-life example, but I'm inclined to doubt it.

His ironies contain ironies. It can take awhile to really "get" Hart. I don't know if I always do. I'd like to think that Balanchine's idiosyncratic but expressive English owed something to him.

Well.....I'm afraid this really is pretty terrible, so far. I'm going to stay with it a bit longer out of curiosity and to see if we get to see some real dancing, or something, but it's heavy going. The show is a collection of contemporary TV series tropes treated without much imagination and, as often with these shows, at least the ones I've seen, little wit or humor. The central character is a Misty Copeland type and the cast is carefully diversified, except in the case of the young male students, who are all dark haired with similar haircuts and hard to tell apart. Unfortunately, the cast is not diverse in its weak acting. Almost didn't recognize Lauren Holly, who deserves better. She's chewing scenery here, but what else can she do? Also lots of unnecessary nudity, but on cable you don't let a bunch of young people with great bodies go to waste. Brennan Clost as Shane, the heroine's Gay Guy Friend, is good.

Thank you, I will have a look. I would like to see that.

Thanks, pherank. Quite a life. I often feel that I have read more of le Carré's books than I actually have done, thanks to the many movie adaptations of his works. The only ones I read between two covers were Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People, which were both great. As Garner observes, le Carré actually contributed to the "flavorful and recondite language of espionage"; there were no "moles" before le Carré began calling them that. I thought le Carré had something of a point regarding the paperback publication of The Satanic Verses, without agreeing with everything he said about the matter.