kfw

Well maybe he was honored to have been a part of the occasion. Have you ever thought of that?

Yes, I've thought specifically of that. Unless he was invited and comped tickets, he was no more honored than any other ticket buyer. I hear "honored" used his way a lot nowadays, as when people call up Diane Rehm and say they're "honored" to talk to her. I'd be thrilled to talk to Diane Rehm too, but the call screener would be the one doing the "honor"-ing. I guess he or she would be honoring me for having an interesting question?

Maybe he actually enjoyed the performance? (A shock, I know!)

I certainly hope so. But one is not honored by enjoying something.

It would be hard not to recognize her recent accomplishments in several styles of rep, except for the part about his he's managed to resist for a long time with her and many others.

She's made herself useful to the company selling tickets, and ABT is partly in the business of selling tickets.

Dancers are not sum, or dumber than most people. They tend to be undereducated, but my friends who teach college have tales that make her sound above average in research skills.

All true. None of it, as far as I can see, pertinent to what we"vet been debating this evening.

If it's not part of the narrative, it's easy to assume wrongly. If ABT did not make the first black soloist part of its ongoing narrative, for examply, why would she know. What she did know was that there were any black faces at ABT when she became interested in ballet and when she joined ABT.

I'm sure you don't think she's dumb, but I think your argument depends upon her being so. Why would she know? Because she was concerned with the issue. Who goes around claiming to be the first at something without having tried to figure out if they were?

I don't think other people are lying. I think they are mistaken. There are very few places where dancers are steeped in dance history.

Well my argument, as I said, doesn't just depend on dancers themselves being steeped in history.

Racism taints consideration of merit. Describing the racism she faced, in the context of ABT's hiring and training history -- and almost every other company's, for that matter -- may have helped to make up some of the unfair disadvantage and leveled the playing field.

I'm not sure how this responds to my points.

I don't have an issue with multiple factors being taken into consideration when a promotion is made. I think there is a credible, alternate narrative to "Because she's waged a PR campaign that includes the hot-button issue of race, the only reason she'll be promoted is because McKenzie has caved into the pressure."

Somehow I missed this before. I'm sure there are multiple considerations. I've never said or tried to suggest that the PR is the only consideration. What I have said and I think is pretty obvious is that McKenzie would have a hard way to go not promoting her given her PR push.

Not if there's a videotape or written description, especially in another language, like German, that shows that someone else did it before the choreographer. That is also a fact, and the choreographer, who did not know this, is mistaken.

Well we're talking about a hypothetical so it's hard to settle the point, but I don't see its relevance anyhow. Other people lie too? Sure.

Anyhow, I don’t think all dancers are ignorant of history, and certainly the teachers and others who’ve been with the company for ages are steeped in its history. Copeland was highly aware of being black in a largely white world. It was a big issue to her. Understandably of course. She’d know the history because she wanted to know it. Eight years in the company by 2008, and no one had told her and she’d never asked? Same thing after she’d been in the company 14 years??

What I wrote (thank you, Nanushka, for making to easy to find) is one doesn’t need to have seen someone dance to know a PR offensive that includes accusations of racism and a false claim to singularity is an appeal to something besides merit. "Includes." Yes, there was more to her story. No I don’t believe she’s not smart enough to know the media would run with that part of it. Sure, she has every right to her story and how she sees it. Two things can be true at the same time.

That may be your standard, but it's not mine. When people are mistaken about themselves, they are mistaken, unless they have intent to misrepresent themselves. The classic example is in modern and contemporary dance: choreographers, especially dancer-choreographers, constantly write and say that what they're doing is original -- and there are many people around them who will reinforce this mistake -- when, in fact, others were doing the exact same thing before they were born. In my mind, they are mistaken, not lying.

That’s an area where there is genuine room for dispute, and a choreographer may feel he’s doing something new but other people don’t see what’s new, or have seen things the choreographer hasn’t and know it's not new, etc. What Copeland said is clearly wrong, and no one disputes it because there is no disputing it, the facts are known.

Given how long it was before she was corrected, I'd think a lot of people believed that every black female dancer at ABT never made it past corps, too.

Could very well be, but I’m not saying everyone who did was lying (her PR team, unless it doesn’t know how to use Google, is another story). She, on the other hand, had every reason to know otherwise.

dirac, what exactly do you claim is disputable? That she claimed she encountered racism? That she's been promoting herself? That her self-promotion has been so effective that McKenzie could be influenced by the wave of support it's generated. "Disputable" is all too vague. If it’s disputable, I await specifics,

I have said

I don't see any reason to conclude that she was lying. I will repeat yet again the Jackie Robinson example, in which countless baseball journalists and professionals have repeated the mistaken assertion that Robinson was the first black player to play in an integrated professional league. I have no reason to assume that they are lying, lying liars and the people who love them.

Everyone is welcome to judge anyone or anything by whatever standards they want, but to assume that all assertions, standards, and arguments have equal weight is also something we are all free to judge.

People make mistaken assertions about other people all the time. When people make them about themselves, we call it lying.

Yes the crowd cheered like crazy for Misty, but nothing crazier than you would have heard if you were at say Osipova’s ABT Don Quixote debut or a Vishneva Giselle. The Russians (and russeomanes) get just as loud as the Copeland fans. The only difference I perceive is a higher pitch to the “woooooooo”s of Misty’s fans-- more women and girls--and fewer gruff, low-pitched “bravas.”

LOL. Now that's the kind of detail we just can't get from the current NY Times critic!

Thanks (seriously) for your nice and long review, DeCoster, and for that fascinating detail, which gave me a laugh.

Helene, I believe in trying to give people the benefit of the doubt. But to believe that having been in the company proper since 2000, and quite naturally being very aware of what a rare feat she’d achieved, she would think she was the first to achieve that feat . . . that’s just incredible. So when she told an L.A. journalist in 2008, eight years after she joined, that "They've never had a black woman make it past the corps de ballet,” that seems to me almost certainly a lie. And when Glamour interviewed her in 2012 and said “ One of the first things many people point out about you is that you’re the first African-American soloist for the ABT,” and she didn’t correct them, likewise.

As for the other thing I said, dirac, I don't remember anyone disputing that she's conducted a PR campaign - or that she wears pointe shoes, is African-American, and dances for ABT.

As for why they were there, perhaps one, both, or the company will speak on record.

Wilkinson has been unreserved in her support for Copeland, and it would be no surprise if she was asked by someone or decided on her own.

Perhaps Anderson or Wilkinson or ABT will say something, but I imagine we can all agree that their presence speaks for itself, and speaks eloquently and heartwarmingly. If they put out an official statement of support and congratulations, so much the better.

ABC reports that Lauren Anderson and Raven Wilkinson both congratulated Copeland onstage afterward. (And Damien Woetzel felt it was an "honor" to be there. I guess he felt it was an honor that they sold him a ticket. I wish people would quit misusing that word).

Mearns was still indeed the corps when she debuted in Swan Lake.

Well, the accusations are a matter of record and the PR campaign is a matter of record, so I’m not sure exactly what you dispute. That in light of her PR campaign, there is reason to think it might have worked? I have mixed feelings about Copeland, admiring some things and not others, and I’ve said as much. But when criticizing her even for telling an obvious falsehood (that she was the first black ABT soloist), draws objections, it’s clear that politics is at play. Anyhow, I hope she wows’em tomorrow, and makes absolutely clear she deserves that promotion.

The point was that such decisions aren't made in a vacuum and never have been. It doesn't sound to me (not having seen a lot of her dancing) as if Copeland's promotion, should it happen, will be grave violence done to the general principle of merit, but plainly there are differences of opinion out there.

My point was that “lots of other people have done it” is no defense. One doesn’t need to have seen someone dance to know a PR offensive that includes accusations of racism and a false claim to singularity is an appeal to something besides merit, or to know that accusations of racism and racial groundbreaking are highly effective today.Copeland may have earned a promotion solely on merit (i.e. in McKenzie’s opinion may deserve it), but now we’ll never know. I think that’s unfortunate.

From the article:

I do not mean to suggest that Copeland's promotion, when and if it happens, will be an example of the type of balance Corella is describing here. Corella is simply acknowledging that many different factors are at play in promotions.The implication that by hiring a flack Copeland has somehow sullied a pristine world where nothing ever mattered but artistry and skill is dubious, at best. And it wouldn't matter, because simply by speaking out the way Copeland has, she would be the target of such criticism even if she had spent her non-dancing time in a corner with a bag over her head.

Also, Copeland's PR people may have suggested this story, but I doubt they had to. My guess is that the Culture desk of every media outlet in New York has long known the timing of Copeland's likely promotion.

The likelihood of Abrera being promoted is much lower, however, Filippino-Americans have not endured the same long, vicious and storied discrimination, and however we feel about Copeland's PR, it's worked, while Abrera is unknown outside of ballet circles, except perhaps among others of Fillipino descent. Copeland is already news, and the fevered speculation as to whether she'll be promoted is news now, not after the fact.

How terribly sad. RIP, Albert. I'll never forget, especially, your delightful Puck.

A precious minute-and-a-half of Carla Korbes and Karel Cruz in the "Diamonds" Pas de Deux:

https://www.facebook.com/PNBallet/videos/vb.21358443951/10153098827513952/

Gorgeous. Thank you!

Ugh. I can't stand the overuse of "curate." (I'm okay with the Anglican variety.)

LOL.

A nice long one.

Agreed.

You read every post on ballet alert? Impressive. I just read topics that interest me. Which I think was Plisskin's (good) point.

People interest me.

Not sure why some people follow Misty's "PR" if they dislike it so much. I don't like Whiteside's "music" career and think it's tacky and distasteful, and do you know what I do? I don't follow it.

It'd be nice if this thread wouldn't be so negative like it was before.

Me, I just "follow" Ballet Alert.

Another round of pearl-clutching over the shameless Copeland? Yes, indeed, this is just the most outrageous PR effort ever.

Not outrageous. Mighty tacky though.

What does that even mean? "Curated". I'm confused. I know what a curator does in an art museum, but ballet? I don't get it.

I think it's a trendy but pretentious term nowadays. One used to think of a curator as a scholar at a museum who would spend months or years putting together an educational exhibition and exhibition catalog. Granted, Copeland knows more than a little about ballet, but how much can she impart before and after a performance, if she evens spends that much time with these people? Not that she's to blame for the term here.