dirac

The term “lowest common denominator” seems needlessly loaded in this context. Farrell also has no (formal) credentials as a choreographer. I’m not sure why the fact of being a dancer only makes Copeland somehow unqualified; the dancers are the ones who have to get onstage and make the choreography work, not always as easy as they make it look. (I also found the use of "curated" irksome. At Starbucks they are now offering snacks "curated" by the staff, so we now have curated turkey jerky.) I’m guessing exactly that, Natalia. I tend to feel as you do, but attracting younger audiences is not an unreasonable consideration. If it was such a stratagem, I wonder if it worked?

It isn't just a question of lacking great critics, but any critics. Commentary, even lots of it, isn't criticism. As you rightly point out, it has its value, and it's something we didn't have before the internet, but it doesn't necessarily compensate for what it seems to be displacing.

This was "scathing"? I thought Burke was bending over backwards to be polite to Ratmansky and the piece. It would be more fair to say that she's expressing a point of view, not an "agenda." Mearns' hurt fee-fees are not Burke's problem as a writer and critic. Artists and artmakers present themselves and their work onstage to be appraised. This is not to excuse outright cruelty or unseemly comments, but Burke was not guilty of that, and if Mearns is really as upset as you think she is, the old saw about heat and kitchens comes to mind. And I fully appreciate that she wanted to come to the defense of the ballet in good faith. Twitter is not the best place to make a reasoned defense of something.

It doesn't sound as if Mearns really read the piece, or at least the wider point Burke was trying to make didn't sink in - she seems only concerned with one tree in the forest. Also, first it's just a beautiful dream sequence and she can't imagine what Burke is on about, and then she asks pretty much the same question Macaulay did. But Burke never wrote that ballet should never tackle anything unpleasant. Macaulay and Mearns make her sound like one of those theatergoers of legend quoted as saying, “I don’t want to go to the theater to see rape and murder and violence – I can get all that at home.”

From Burke's article: A really impressive missing of the point.

Thanks for the heads-up, Margareta. Looking forward to this. Along with "The Master's Muse" and "Afternoon of a Faun," the Le Clercq boomlet continues. A piece by Brubach from 1998.

Nice Q&A with Catherine Turocy of New York Baroque Dance Company.

Having a lot of women in administrative and teaching roles is nothing special.

A piece by Martin Filler in the NYRB's blog, with more Penn photographs, including of Le Corbusier and Duchamp, and of course Fonssagrives, in a shot that does great things with feathers.

GetTV recently showed her first television special, "Ol' Red Hair is Back." I expect it's on YouTube somewhere. It starts with Midler emerging from a giant clamshell in a beaded sarong on some sort of Polynesian isle and she sings a rousing version of.......... "Oklahoma!" with the natives enthusiastically joining in. Ah, the seventies. Returning to the topic, sort of: James Earl Jones will be honored at the ceremony.

Also, theater lighting design is one place where women have found it (relatively) easy. Pointing to your lighting designer as an example of gender equity is not a powerful rebuttal. We think of ballet as being dominated by women, but when it comes to putting a project like this together maybe a boys' club dynamic may be at work (?) Women are not part of certain circles, so they don't get thought of? Just tossing that out there.

I gather that Ratmansky is suggesting that if the NYT had asked the question as part of a forum devoted to the subject, he would have answered differently. On the other hand, we may actually have gotten more candid answers from them off-the-cuff, as it were. Ratmansky's chief difficulty, however, is not that his words were unclear. Quite the contrary.

True. But not seeing yourself as a victim doesn't mean you aren't one. Lupino also did well in The Hard Way, which has a nifty script by Daniel Fuchs and Peter Viertel. It was one of Davis’ rejects and Lupino did fine by it.

Thanks for posting, Cygnet. Sorry to hear this. The Silence of the Lambs is a great example of a movie improving on pulpy material. I tend to like Demme’s early pictures with their goofball sensibility better -- Something Wild, Married to the Mob, and Melvin and Howard. I had mixed feelings about Philadelphia. (For one thing, there would have been activist lawyers lining up to take that guy’s case.)

I salute Wheeldon for his intestinal fortitude as he “takes the heat.” As for any short response being inherently flawed by reason of its brevity, here’s a short response, and it didn’t take me long: “This is really more of a question for company ADs, but we all know that the ballet world has not always been open to giving women the same opportunities to choreograph that have been available to men. The reasons for this have something to do with bias and also structural issues within companies, which need to be addressed. In the meantime, companies should look for talented women and encourage them, and make sure that young female dancers understand that becoming a dancemaker is and should be an option for them if they want to try.” Problem is, he hasn’t thought that much about it and that’s what got him into trouble in the first place. To that extent, the three of them do agree. Perhaps not, but there was a certain “band of outsiders” ethos and male sexual orientation did enter into that. One hopes there will come a time when parity makes it possible to speak of choreographers, full stop. (Of course, men are already choreographers by definition; nobody ever has to say “men choreographers.”)

It's a fair point, but Wheeldon and Ratmansky have both been ADs, and Peck may be one some day. If they haven’t begun to think about this yet, now would be a pretty good time to start. Thank you for the links, aurora. As Macaulay notes, Whelan has not chosen to work with any female choreographers in her post-ballet career as of this date. She was asked about this in an interview some time ago and her response was rather neutral. At present there's no reason to believe she's particularly invested in the question one way or another. I remember Maria Kowroski once saying that "Blossom Got Kissed" was a breakthrough for her, an opportunity to explore different sides of herself as a dancer.

Thanks to both of you. I was getting lonely. I liked the first half of the series better than the second;the writers didn’t seem to be able to develop any new themes or mine any new aspects of the old ones. I agree. Lange was favored in the writing – more screen time and also more attempts to give depth to the character. Hollywood was tough for women and still is, although I agree that the series overemphasized it, or let's say they did not develop other aspects of their story. I think they also wanted to show the human cost behind that hard-won longevity, which cost may have been overstated but was also genuine. (I don't think they exaggerated how tough it was, though.) The men not only lasted longer as a rule but were able to age with some dignity if they chose and with greater autonomy, often forming their own production companies to churn out those Westerns – and of course much bigger paychecks. I would also disagree respectfully with some of the end notes for the last show of the series. To call Crawford “sometimes a great actress” is not only untrue but beside the point. She was a great star, arguably the greatest, and that’s plenty.

A cookbook by a ballerina reminds me of the joke Billy Crystal makes in “When Harry Met Sally…..” about the Ethiopian restaurant. Although Allegra Kent did solicit a few recipes for her body book. And of course Watts and Soto published "Our Meals." Oh, and speaking of ballerina memoirs and Heather Watts – come on, Heather! Tell us everything!

but he was clearly making an argument against a culture rather than the three choreographers as individuals. True. I'm afraid I did laugh at what Jennings said about Peck's comment, which inspired interesting mental pictures for this reader. (“If we feed the women bananas at regularly scheduled intervals while their minds are still impressionable, we can encourage them to make steps.”)

Commentary by Courtney Escoyne for Dance Magazine, which includes comments by Luke Jennings on Twitter.

The Tzigane anecdote is from Martins' funny and enlightening memoir Far From Denmark, written with Robert Cornfield. One of these days I hope Martins gets around to another one.

I'm the only one watching this? It ended last weekend. Thoughts?

Copeland's getting to be a publishing industry unto herself. Memoir, children's book, body book - she's checking all the boxes. Well, make hay while the sun shines.

Generally, asking questions by e-mail allows the interviewee more time and thought to respond, not less, but perhaps that was not the case here. However, Ratmansky is claiming that his words were turned upside down. Given what he said, it's hard to see how Sulcas did that. The context supports a straightforward reading of "I don't see a problem." Anyway, Ratmansky's on Facebook and he's using it -- if he wants to elaborate on what he said, he's got a forum. She's under no obligation to do that, as long as she indicates that some questions were asked by e-mail, which she did. Millepied's Daphnis and Chloe was well received, I understand and may have some staying power.

Thanks for the link. Fonssagrives took up sculpting in later years and had a couple of one-woman shows. She said that she saw posing as creating shapes or words along those lines. I'm sure her background in dance was an influence as well.