dirac

Another liberal-minded arts world type gives Misty a platform......

She's darn lucky to be black, if you ask me.

It's right here. Cover up that nipple, strumpet!

Thank you for those links, Buddy. I am glad to see Mrs. Kelly fighting her husband's corner, although I note that she isn't his biographer just yet - she's been promising that book for years, and it is long overdue. I don't doubt that Kelly was a dominating presence behind the camera for An American in Paris, but the movie also reflects Minnelli's visual style. Nice to see Kelly giving credit to Alan Jay Lerner's screenplay.

I enjoyed it. It’s not as comprehensive or as entertaining as Striking a Balance, true. In part this is because the subject matter has less surface glamour and more grit – the passing of the years, the challenge of finding work as stimulating and rewarding as the career dancers are forced to give up all too soon, when in most professions they would still be regarded as relatively youthful, the difficulty of sitting in the audience watching someone else dance your roles (and not always so well) and the joys and frustrations of teaching, coaching, and - more rarely - running a company. I liked Desmond Kelly’s forthrightness. There is indeed an element of “You kids! Get off my lawn!” in what he and others had to say but that doesn’t mean all their observations are necessarily off the mark even when I didn’t agree. Kelly may not always think much of the younger set, but the interview makes clear that he devotes himself to them, and as a teacher he’s talking from the trenches, “pouring water through the sieve,” as Balanchine once wrote to Suzanne Farrell. I especially enjoyed hearing from Donald MacLeary and Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, and Lynn Seymour tells it the way she sees it, as always. Also Merrill Ashley. Thank you, Jane, for the heads-up about the book. I wouldn't have heard of it otherwise.

Anyone thinking of moving? Bacall's apartment in the Dakota goes on sale for $26 million. The article doesn't mention that the Dakota's exterior also added a soupcon of spook to Rosemary's Baby.

The Internet giveth, and the Internet taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Internet. Coming late to the party on this one, but I echo California’s mention of Alexandra’s seemingly endless patience with and encouragement of her writers, from the big names to the fledglings. She has spoken in the past of Nureyev’s eye for talent, but it would be unlike her to toot a horn about her own, so let me say on her behalf that it is a remarkably acute one. I also second AlbanyGirl's (and Helene's) remark on the anticipation with which you'd open the envelope with the latest issue. DanceView provided long essays and interviews with fine pictures in a readable and comfortable format that the Internet hasn’t quite yet been able to duplicate or replace (or I wouldn’t be constantly seeing these rather desperate-sounding online exhortations to “Read the whole thing!”) I enjoyed being curled up with DanceView, reading the whole thing, with additional good feeling in the knowledge that my subscription, however inadequate to cover costs, meant that I was giving something back for my reading pleasure. Anyway, thanks to Alexandra and her stable of writers for the memories and fine writing. I still miss the old paper “Ballet Alert!” with its funny items about this and that…..

Thanks for telling us about it, vipa. Anyone else catch it?

The new production by Diane Paulus has been very well received, no mean accomplishment since Fosse's staging was generally regarded as the basis of the original's success. The work itself is certainly no masterpiece, but it has a certain winsome charm. I saw The LIght in the Piazza on television, YouOverThere. Absolute chloroform, I am sorry to say (with all due respect, sidwich). Please, oh please, take me to the circus......

Evidently the show will be a miniseries. They're using many actual ballet dancers and apparently scheduling them for more than one season is a bit of a hassle. Not necessarily a bad thing, many of these multiseason serial dramas go on longer than they ought to do.

They're baaack......

Color me unsurprised.

A few outside commissions doesn't make Peck overextended....yet. He has said that he doesn't want to follow the Wheeldon/Ratmansky model of doing ballets for lots of different companies. And, as Violette Verdy said, you don't say no to the Opera. miliosr writes: I agree. I hope he comes up with other ideas beyond commissioning ballets from the usual suspects.

If such were true, it would go well beyond "canniness" or possibly even cynicism. It is quite true that you can't buy this kind of publicity, but then few would, I suspect.

Fiddlesticks. Peter Gelb, a profile in courage.....

Thank you for starting this topic, Pamela, and for always keeping us posted! Congrats to the winner. I think Drew and the Guardian writer are on to something. Every year after Roth's annual snubbing we get people complaining that the prize keeps going to some danged furriner nobody here ever heard of. People have been comparing Roth to Susan Lucci for years. In this case, however, I don't think he will get the long-desired prize eventually. Can't say I'm weeping into my pillow about that.

Thanks for posting this, volcanohunter. I think there's a pirated recording of her Norma out there from the late fifties but I have never heard it.

Hanna Weibye has been doing dance reviews for The Arts Desk for some time now.

kfw writes: The word is also an "effective tool" for identifying a persistent discriminatory phenomenon for what it is.

aurora wrote: It's not favoritism. She's clubbing McKenzie into submission with her blunt instrument.

To which I would reply: Kevin McKenzie and the board always have the power of 'NO'. There's nothing to prevent them from ignoring pressure from any dancer seeking favored treatment. If they're too weak to say no in the face of sustained pressure -- of any kind -- from a dancer, then they should all resign because they're obviously not up to the task of being stewards of a major arts organization. Adding to this that I see no problem with a dancer openly questioning and challenging management, actions which are just as likely to pose great risks as reap great (or any) benefits, since any pressure applied - assuming that is in fact what Copeland intends to do, which is plenty arguable - may have the effect of alienating the boss.

kfw, on 11 Sept 2014 - 8:22 PM, said: Yes, it does. A great deal of sense.

Precisely, Drew. Racism in institutionalized form is not a question of individual prejudice (although individual action can make a difference in ameliorating the problem, once recognized).

Croce didn’t get the regular gig at The New Yorker until the early seventies, so anything she wrote about the pre-Bejart Farrell would be spread around in Ballet Review and elsewhere. Most of the material from that period, at least the material Croce wanted to put between hard covers, is collected in Afterimages. Miliosr has summarized the material pretty well. In the "Folies Bejart" review she also called Farrell "an unfinished dancer who needs to work." Yes, I've always admired how Farrell has remained loyal to Bejart (to the point where her company is one of the few places you can see Bejart's work performed in the United States.) I saw her company do the R&J pas de deux in Berkeley. I agree, I think it's great that she does what she can to show his work in this country. I'm sure if she had a bigger company with more resources she would do more.

That certainly makes sense, although if there are “uniforms” as mentioned in the article, everyone might were the same shade of, say, navy blue. I think the main point is not to have people distracted by the colorful ties in the horn section and that sort of thing.