dirac

I would not be wildly reassured if my boss told me I was special but expendable. Too bad about the ratings, miliosr. I enjoyed the family dinner scene and Ronnie's My Career Must Come First moment with Katie.

A review. Did anyone see it last night?

Thanks, Hamorah (and to Rosa for reviving this thread). It's too bad we don't have a record of Gable and Seymour dancing MacMillan's pas de deux. Sigh.

Thanks, Kathleen. Interesting. I haven't read it, but perhaps others have??

Thanks for the detailed review, StageRight. I have my copy waiting to be read. So many books, so little time, etc......

Regardless of what anyone thinks of Black Swan, there's no question that its success brought some exposure to an art form badly in need of it - more than one artistic director has spoken of a post-Black Swan boost in interest.( I did like it better than most commentators here at BA.) Nor were all dancers uniformly negative about it at the time. (Drew, I think Portman's short arms came up in the very long Black Swan thread. If I remember correctly she even mentioned them herself.) Yes. No doubt fear does concentrate the mind wonderfully, but contra Sklute, in my experience a workplace full of people constantly reminded that they're expendable is not a fruitful environment for getting the best from your employees.

Well, it depends on the economist. As I said, it's not my money so I'm pretty mellow about it, and if the good people of the UK want to maintain the royals in the style to which the latter, at least, have become accustomed, it's entirely their call. I can enjoy watching while thanking a merciful Providence that the Founding Fathers didn't foist the whole Duke and Duchess of Whatsit system on us. Yes, that's too bad.

I admit I'm looking forward to that barge. And none of the tax money is mine, so my enjoyment will be untrammeled by such concerns.

The head of the House Formerly Known as Saxe-Coburg-Gotha celebrates sixty years of dedicated figureheaddery and declaring things open. Talk about it here! American TV guide: The Telegraph NPR The Guardian

That's not bad, but I have a feeling the show is going to have to provide something jazzier than boy-girl issues and snipes at the new girl's fat feet if it hopes to hang on to the audience and add more.

I would hardly say Kargman "let it just happen," although I agree First Position is a nice movie. I didn't think last night's episode was so bad. It would have been good to see more dancing and perhaps in the next episodes we will see more. I would think the show would be of interest to any ballet fan and the project is worth attempting. I understand there will be more episodes after this initial series of six if the show does well enough.

Generally when people refer to a "Cinderella story" the meaning is more specific than happily-ever-after, usually referring to someone who triumphs over serious adversity in one way or another. I don't think it really applies to Houseknecht in the sense intended by the Post article (or any other; Houseknecht is a fortunate young woman). Not winning any recognition at YAGP is a setback but as a rule Cinderellas face tougher circumstances than that.

I saw the movie via Comcast as chiapuris did this weekend and largely agree with you, Natalia. I suppose emphasizing Rebecca's love for pink and princesses was irresistible, but it does seem like rather a cheap shot - she's just a high school kid. It's a good movie. Nothing especially remarkable about the film as a film but the human interest in watching little kids compete for stuff is undeniable and of course any ballet fan will want to see this. Agree with this, too. There's more than one moment where Kargman has an opportunity to slip in the information that this isn't Aran's first award and you have to assume the omission is deliberate. It's not the worst omission I've ever seen in a documentary and contrivance inevitably appears when the filmmaker is trying to build up suspense, but sure, it's something the viewer should be told.

Thank you for keeping us posted on developments, YouOverThere. I agree, California, the symphony must feel secure enough financially to give the debs and their parents the finger. Yes and no. It's no longer the heyday of Brenda Frazier and Cobina Wright, Jr., to be sure, but these things do still matter to some of the people who matter. Apparently.

Sad news. His contributions to danceviewtimes were closely read by me and will be greatly missed. RIP.

As its been resolved maybe its too late, but there was something in the wording of this that I found interesting. Above you called this "delivering news you don't want to hear." I would call reviews--both bad and good--opinion. not news. There is a difference and the fact that people don't seem to recognize that is maybe why the MET opera originally wanted to quash the unstintingly negative reviews... Hi, aurora. I didn't mean "news" literally. What I meant was that the Opera News writers were telling Gelb something he did not want to hear. A good way for Gelb to defend his productions would have been to respond in kind - in the pages of Opera News -- not by attempting to bigfoot the help. Putting a lid on the magazine wasn't going to stop the critical voices, which are coming from elsewhere as well, and Opera News isn't merely a handout for donors. This was just a boneheaded play from Gelb, as he's belatedly figured out, and makes one wonder how much "Up to a point, Lord Copper," stuff he's hearing around the office these days.

Yes, it's definite:

Met management has not always been happy with the reviews of the company by Opera News. It's not Pravda, after all, and never has been. No doubt you can argue that Gelb is within his rights but clubbing critics for delivering news you don't want to hear seems mistaken from pretty much any standpoint. It makes him look like a thin-skinned petty tyrant and could well alienate people who would otherwise support him. He's done some good things. He's done some not so good things. If you can't stand the heat, etc.

Not to mention marginal punk bands like The Pretenders, a good enough group for a while but not exactly the stuff of legend. I'm sure you're right about the anti-disco bias.....

It's a bad year for pop divas. Thank you for posting this sad news, cubanmiamiboy. My local R&B station was playing Summer’s hits in her honor today. A wonderful singer whose impact on dance music/synth pop is still felt today. And "Hot Stuff," to name only one, is a great bit of rock by any standard. As for disco, there’s good disco and bad disco. She made some great and innovative disco in partnership with Giorgio Moroder before the genre’s boom entered its decadent phase. She continued to make good music afterward and I think her career was derailed more by personal problems than anything else. RIP. I don't know what the Hall of Fame was waiting for. She should have been inducted ages ago. And she sang the hell out of "MacArthur Park." RIP.

Thanks, Quiggin. Another quote:

Magnani will always have a reputation among buffs, I think (and she was never Sophia Loren to begin with) and her filmography looks better than Monroe's in some respects. Marilyn's enduring fame owes as much to her very special effect in front of the still camera as her movies. Being unpopular in Hollywood won't necessarily prevent you from getting nominated but it can prevent you from winning. In addition Monroe was at her best in comedy and it's rare for comic performances to be recognized. She could have been nominated for Bus Stop and some thought she would be. Monroe was very careful about the photographs she would pass and Schiller recounts, as others have, watching her cut up images she didn't like. Normally this was done by just crossing them out but Monroe was generally untrusting in such matters and rightly so - her image was more valuable than those of other stars, as she well knew. The Bert Stern exhibit showed images of Monroe that she had simply X'd out - maybe Marilyn unwisely trusted Stern or perhaps she had forgotten to bring along her scissors. When Schiller threw out those snipped up bits, he was doing the ethical thing. He now regrets it, because of their "historical value." Uh-huh.

I forgot to thank you for starting the topic, Ray.

Perfectly true, but from what I've read Lepage's production isn't being criticized on neo-Luddite grounds that he shouldn't be using fancy technology in the first place.

Psychoanalysis isn't highly regarded in today's departments of psychology, true, but Freud's influence in the sciences is still very muh a live issue, I think. Yes. The past is a different country, etc. The same can also be true of conventional biography.