Quiggin

I'm going to disagree a bit and say I hope it's the opposite, that the company be inspired by special qualities she shows here, of taking time to work out all the nuances of her phrasing – and for her not to pick up an international look. I really don't know what the SF company's style is – eclectic as you say, Cuban and Spanish and American vitalistic? Chrisopher Wheeldon says he fit the speedier parts of Cinderella on the San Francisco dancers and the more intimate ones on the Dutch Ballet. I tend to like Balanchine style and commedia dell'arte of Diaghilev and Russia in the early 1920's, so in the past I liked Tina LeBlanc, Gonzalo Garcia, Julie Diana, Vadim Solomakha, Taras Domitro (when he was a bit rawer, before Allan Ulrich's approval this year), and of course Sofiane Sylve – but they're all wild cards in the company.

Giselle is probably going to sell out because it's one of two story ballets the company is doing this season, the evening of the 25th especially since it's the same week as the Gala which is on the 22nd. Makes it an attractive combo if you're coming in from out of town. Cinderella did sell out last year and there was a mad crush even in the standing room area. Tuesdays (old and traditional SF?), Friday and Saturday evenings seem to have "A"ish casts. Someone at the box office told me there are few last minute changes for principal dancers, and if there are, people are most vocally disappointed if the change involves not being able to see Maria Kochetkova, Yuan Yuan Tan, Davit Karapetyan, or Damian Smith. Mathilde Froustey is probably also going to be hot ticket (listen to the mid-performance applause she gets in her solo on the SPF/Grand Pas clip – fairly rare in SF) but I don't know about hierarchy and having to go through the ranks, etc for a dancer new to the company. You can get standing room tickets the day of the performance (around $20) or use a balcony ticket ($30-40) in standing. It's not close-up and intimate as I think you would like – to me it approximates row A and B, fourth ring at State Theater. But I don't think anything anywhere at the War Memorial Opera House is as nice as say the second or third rings for City Ballet performances for the combination of intimacy and angle of view. (I even miss my old $7.00 fifth circle seats – inline, like seats on a small commuter airplane, and everyone with their shopping of the day piled all around them.)

I get this error message so I'll probably not be able to watch it on my (already slow) computer. But do tell us what Lendorf says about whether he might be dancing in Denmark or mostly abroad in the future. (And anything about whether one's style – national or personal – suffers or gains when dancing in international companies.)

Thanks for the clips and the discussion. Elizabeth Kendell in Balanchine and the Lost Muse, which I'm just reading, also speculates on the range Balanchine's memory of – and debt to – Fokine ballets. Also the "snapshot" of Divertimento #15 in 1961 that Clifford posts alongside Nutcracker is pretty amazing – very free and fast and with different accents than today (as Clifford notes). Can anyone tell if Verdy is the third dancer? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxfx_TVQgME

Thanks Pherank – especially for the photo which really captures the original feeling of the ensemble. I doubt though if Schlemmer would have chosen that vibrant a yellow that's in the first video. I went to a small, slightly dysfunctional Bauhaus school where we were always looking at his works and trying to be influenced by his color choices and austere linework. Here is another set of short but incisive dance recreations, including one that may have influenced Merce Cunningham: http://bauhausdances.org/POLE_DANCE.html Also Schlemmer's Bauhaus stairway painting which used to hang near the Museum of Modern Art's own Bauhaus stairway – but apparently no longer on view ... with links to other Schlemmer works in the collection; http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=80049

Music and dance came from separate spheres for me and came together at some point. Dance does tend to trump music when I go to dance performances. Though for one performance of Stravinsky Capriccio for Rubies with the Mravinsky orchestra in 2003, the pianist (it was Sveshnikova Liudmila) was so free and wild and improvisional-sounding, I found myself looking into the orchestra pit to figure out just what was going on as much as watching the stage. But Balanchine (and Helgi Tomasson, too) had the good taste to use music that didn't call attention to itself over the dance, that were perfectly matched. No Mahler, and if Beethoven, something from the Bagatelles. Here's another recording of Mozart k.455 Gluck variations, with Wilhelm Kempff, somewhat subdued but he does some interesting and sly, maybe Suzanne Farrellish things to say once he gets going. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvYYU2V6-Is

Mozart's nod to Gluck (Making it Gluckiana instead of Mozartiana) Schumann's nod to Clara Wieck in Davidsbundlertanze Fred Allen

Half-way down the page of the Neo-alchemist entry of 9/26/2013 (in case it gets pushed off onto another page) is a Degas photo of a dancer – the tones are blackened pewter. Not my most favorite of all – but awfully good. http://neo-alchemist.com/

Thanks, innopac, for posting that clip. The Strauss music sounds more like generic Strauss than the Prokofiev like generic Prokofiev, but I do like the costumes. They're more graphic than the ones in the Wheeldon version, more contemporary – maybe like something Mike Kelley with his great color sense may have done – and I guess lend themselves to a different kind of choreography, a bit fresher?

Also the Gala is three days before the opening of Giselle, so you might be able to bridge the two, plus an extra cast of Giselle on Sunday afternoon. Standing Room "seats" for the Gala – with good views of the stage – are $25.00 or so. The Gala program is bits of this and that but it's a big old fashioned SF social event – more like background scenes from Vertigo than the red carpet at the Academy Awards – and fun to see.

Or more discussions about particular ballets and how each dancer approaches them, such as in the episode on "Swan Lake" with Tersea Reichlen, Ashley Bouder and Sarah Mearns, which I found the most interesting (though I did enjoy them all). In addition to the emphasis on normalizing heterosexuality, there seemed to be far too much focus on "getting ahead," as if the dancers were bankers or copywriters in an ad agency – and as if they thought of nothing else – rather than particular roles they'd love to do. It would also give an idea of what company they were in and what repertory the company specialized in and why the dancers were there (rather than ABT or the Royal Ballet).

There is also a wonderful rehearsal – in the Royal Ballet series that Pherank posted from – of Christopher Wheeldon working with dancers on Aeternum. The choreography with James Hay is fantastically clean and so architecturally pure (like the modeling in a Juan Gris painting), while the choreography in the duet between Claire Calvert and Thiago Soares is nicely balanced between two players – for example when the man folds the woman's leg from behind, and then the woman does the same for the man. Regarding Cinderella as a whole – its outer shape – Robert Johnson in the Star-Ledger thinks that Wheeldon, by not following Prokofiev's scenario and musical cues, fiddled too much with the dramatic arc and left the ballet a little tame. Gone is pressure of the clock bearing down on Cinderella – it seems to be a minor annoyance – and gone are the time dwarfs who warn Cinderella "her charms will not last." Johnson notes that "Prokofiev, who wrote Cinderella in trying circumstances, understood this admonition too well." And Benjamin (whose role seems almost to eclipse that of the Prince) is added at the expense of other characters – of which that of the dancing master is "the greatest loss." Maybe with something of the quiet intimacy of the dances posted in the videos above. http://www.nj.com/entertainment/arts/index.ssf/2013/10/time_warp_san_francisco_ballets_cinderella_fails_to_heed_the_clock.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgthYy5AJls

Joan Acocella has some thoughts on Cinderella – and Wheeldon – at the New Yorker. She ends with Before she had commented on all his [endless] high flying leaps – "But I think Wheeldon is actually much more impressive in the smaller, classroom steps—cabrioles, sissones—that he knows so well." I kept thinking of Carousel and how effective that was, with its much simpler means. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/10/wheeldons-anti-sentimental-cinderella.html

Maybe Faulkner set the bar too high? Anyway what would the press have said if J D Salinger had won the prize – or any normally shy writer (they once did tend to be, if not shy, fairly modest) who didn't want to go or say much?

Good points all. I misread Helene’s comment as my starting point, and don’t want to sidetrack this more – just commenting on what I feel the critics were picking up about SFBallet’s choreographical choices and about San Francisco’s inwardness and general conservatism in the arts – “the San Francisco Paradox,” as architects here call it (when compared to our political progressivism). Anyway I eagerly look forward to the arrival of Mathilde Froustey (in Giselle with Domitro?)* and Simone Messmer next year. And to the Ratmansky Shostakovich trilogy, and – way way at the distant end of the season – Brahms-Schoenberg and Agon. And maybe a peek at Cinderella again, with an odd Thursday night cast. *Though it may be only for a year's sabbatical (via Judith Mackrell): http://www.dansesaveclaplume.com/pas-de-deux/interview-with-mathilde-froustey-the-new-principal-dancer-at-the-san-francisco-ballet/ http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/oct/24/should-ballet-companies-become-democratic-strikes

Gottlieb's take was more acidic but he did follow the other critics in New York and London saying that the dancers are more interesting than the choregraphy. (Three reviewers coincidently – at the New Yorker, at Dance Tabs, and at the Times – referred to SFB's "deep bench" of talent). San Francisco isn't New York, as Helene says, and the problem is that it's a small city, isolated from all the dance activity of the East Coast. SFB doesn't have any other rival companies, like ABT v NYCB, to develop against, nor uptown/downtown cross fertilization. In the general the city is too uncritically supportive of the arts, and good criticism is the only way an artist gets better. Gottlieb also said something about the men I hadn't anyone articulate before: "The boys in particular, even when they look unalike, dance alike, almost as if there were an institutional resistance to anyone standing out." At SFB there seems to be a great emphasis on a certain kind of perfect finish, soft landings, etc but at the expense of interesting rough edges and odd brilliance. Their Balanchine – Divertimento #15 but not last year's fine Symphony in Three Movements with Mazzo & Tan, Quenedit & Van Patten – is often too polite. In a way the "community" ballets "From Foreign Lands" and maybe something like "Dances from a Gathering" (which hasn't been done for a while) and "Borderlands" show off the company best. Incidentally it looks as though Alastair Macaulay has not reviewed any of the performances, but Gia Kourlas's and Brian Seibert's and Roslyn Sulcas's reviews have been nice to read. (Sulcas did a great analysis last week of why the Royal Ballet has so much difficulty bringing off a great Don Q: Royal Ballet's Quixote Quandry.)

Alice Munro is apparently is second place at the last minute (4-1), just behind Haruki Murakami, according to the Guardian citing Ladbrokes. Thomas Pynchon is in the top ten, as is Péter Nádas. Javier Marías (Infatuations/Your Face Tomorrow) seems to have fallen a bit, and Amitav Ghosh (the finely layered In an Antique Land and Glass Palace) is not listed at all. Interesting but meandering article against "global novels" – with easy English translation in mind and denuded of local politics and cultural nuances (Murakami, Eco, Kundera) – by Pankaj Mishra in a recent issue of the Financial Times: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/6e00ad86-26a2-11e3-9dc0-00144feab7de.html#axzz2hILohQEB

Daniel Deivison-Oliveira, who got great notices in London, also seems to missing from the cast lists. With Cinderella the part of Benjamin is an important counterpoint to the overly wholesome, Matthew Goldingish Prince. The ballet is a bit old fashioned, with lots of silly vaudeville-like routines, some of the dancing repetitious ... but lots of parts for company members, so all nights should yield a good show. Sarah Van Patten is a good actress, though sometimes she seems to move through a series of still frame reactions, as if for a David Bailey British Vogue layout. The mixed rep nights should show the company off well. I liked From Foreign Lands, which is very light Ratmansky, and Borderlands, the most intense McGregor, with the company working all-out – and where Vito Mazzeo's height, that of a centering maypole, will be missed. Carlos Quenedit, who danced the same hand-signal part as Mazzeo in Symphony in Three Movements last season, is an interesting dancer to keep on eye on (opposite Frances Chung in Cinderella & Borderlands).

Freudian slip, I meant to say sponsors rather than owners. I really don't see why it is necessary in San Francisco where the ballet is very well managed and the audience well heeled. It's an old money town and old money here loves the ballet. For example, one evening at the symphony I sat in a box named after one of the people at work – she's a lawyer – and the next morning I ran into her in the elevator. I said what a surprise to have been seated in a box with your name on it. And she said "oh that's something my husband did – he's always doing things like that, I can never keep up." Anyway it's ok to sell sponsorship to the "orchestral seats, chairs, drinking fountains, seats, curtains, rest rooms" as Bart says, but they're inanimate objects.

I completely agree. I think it's divisive (and potentially comic - maybe a good topic for a Woody Allen or Almodovar film). I think I might stop going to ballet at the point Domitro, Zahorian, Chung, Quenedit, etc are all sponsored - subservient to the whims of their owners rather than just devotees of their art and some part of them inaccessible, just as art is essentially independent and inaccessible.

atm711: San Francisco's "underbelly" would be the Tenderloin. But it looks like some of Blue Jasmine was filmed in the Mission, at 14th Street and South Van Ness actually a very desireable area for the new tech class. Rents in SF now rival those of New York. The flat in the trailer looked rather nice.

My understanding is that principal dancers at the level of Tan and Kochetkova do guest appearances off season and are able to supplement their income with those earnings. It's hard to imagine that San Francisco Ballet needs to sell sponsorships to make ends meet – Nutcracker and Cinderella pull in full houses and ballet seems to be on the "A" list of things to do in San Francisco. Productions are already sponsored by banks and the oil company and individual donors. It would be great if the extra sponsorship money indeed went to corps members salaries or to retirement or health insurance for dancers once they'd left the company.

I haven't seen a Woody Allen movie for years but thought I'd go because it was filmed here and is supposed to show "the real San Francisco", and it's always interesting to see a movie about the "real city" you're currently living in and then step outside afterwards and see if it changes your idea of your relationship to your surroundings. Anyway yesterday I was looking at the New York Review of Books blog and saw Francine Prose's unsympathetic review there. What was amazing was the number and intensity of responses correcting her take on WA and Blue Jasmine. One writer said that Woody Allen treated the Blanche Dubois character better than Tennessee Williams had (sort of overlooking the fact that Williams had created the part). Prose says: "I’ve always had a certain fondness for films about women breaking down, perhaps because madness has always seemed to me the road not taken. But none of the films I’ve admired—Nunnally Johnson’s The Three Faces of Eve (1957), John Cassavetes’s A Woman Under the Influence (1974), Pedro Almodóvar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), and most recently, Mike Leigh’s Another Year (2010)—have made me feel, as Blue Jasmine did, that the heroine is at least partly responsible and is getting what she deserves." So I think it will be interesting to see the movie with that in mind and see how true that seems. http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/aug/15/blue-jasmine-watching-her-drown/

It looks as though the photograph might be one of a series by Baron Adolph von Meyer, a self-made baron who was associated with Alfred Stieglitz and the photo-successionists and later a very successful Vogue photographer. According to Wikipedia,

Buddy: I think that most of the dances on Greek vases are Dionysian – or done by Satyrs. And I believe Western pas de tros was originally a satyr and two nymphs, later Pan and two partners – as we see it in Emeralds. The Greek term contrapposto was something like chiasma, diagonal arrangement or rhetorical device, and may have had a different set of associations than we give it. "Psychological disposition" might be a 19c or 20c art history add-on. * This evocative painting might be something in the line of your original thought – Poussin's essay on dance and time which gave birth to a multi-volumed novel some centuries later: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_dance_to_the_music_of_time_c._1640.jpg * Regarding Satie and Picasso contra Cocteau, Douglas Cooper in Picasso Theatre, a great and spicily opinioned resource, published a series of postcards between the conspirators. Picasso, encourage by Satie, wanted to eliminate Cocteau's "more egregious gimmicks" (Richardson) and also its similarity to Petroushka. Picasso added the parts of three Managers to the libretto. The famous curtain with the white winged female pegasus and dancer and commedia del'arte characters was also Picasso's idea – Cocteau originally wanted the curtain to look like a scroll of movie titles with the stars' names written on it. T J Clark's new book Picasso and Truth traces the development of Picasso's motifs and mise en scene from intimate Blue Room of 1901 through the horrific Young Girls Dancing (Picasso's farewell to Diaghilev), and on through Guernica. I luckily sat in on a two day seminar in Berkeley Picasso in the 1920s that Clark, Elizabeth Cowling, Jay Bernstein and others participated in, and was one of the few laypersons, and so I've become a sort of mad convert to all this stuff. Here's "roomspace" after Mercure – after the comfortable interiority of cubism of pre-war Bohemianism was breached by the raucous post-war world – which culminates in the bombing of Guernica. http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/3441 from Picasso and Truth: