kfw

For all we know the hotel is using her name without permission or knowledge. A stage door meeting implies that no contact was necessary and the signed copies of the book could have been picked up at any of the book signings. There's no proof that Team Misty engineered this stunt.

The promotion refers to "An evening at the ballet: Curated" [ugh] "by Misty Copeland."

I must hand it to Team Misty. They are out there pushing Misty's name in every way possible.

Indeed. Tacky, tacky, tacky.

She's not starring in Cinderella, but she probably has a supporting role as she has in the past. The promotion doesn't say she has the lead but since she does in SL and RJ I could see people assuming she does in Cinderella too. But, that's easy to look up.

People shouldn't have to look up something that's implied to find out it isn't true.

The Cunningham Trust workshop of Split Sides (2003) will be livestreamed here on Friday, June 12 at 4:30.

Hmmm. The 92nd Street Y event has not been made available online, but a Doubles studio event from the previous day I was not aware of is now online here on the Tisch dance site.

I'm glad you enjoyed it, Birdwatcher. I see there are some related videos.

Thanks for the reply, Helene, but what perplexes me is that it's so short. Oregon Ballet Theatre and A Band of Horses were on the same program, so I guess that added up to a full evening. Perhaps if I'd been in the theater, or at Wolf Trap, and especially if I knew the dancers and saw new qualities in them in this work, I would have appreciated it for what it was.

I was there! Dirty Goods is Cleanly bad.

LOL. No argument here. But I'm curious - Boal noted, or maybe someone here noted, that this was premiered at Wolf Trap. I remember seeing that multi-media program advertised and deciding to pass on it. Was what we saw last night just an excerpt? PNB's website refers to "Andrew Bartee’s Wolf Trap commission on a program of contemporary ballet, indie rock, and film." Did the company perform more of this in Seattle?

ETA: PNB, please come back to Wolf Trap or the Kennedy Center with some Balanchine!

For the first couple minutes of Serenade, at least on my stream, there was music only, then silence and the Intermission sign again, then silence, etc.

Funny, but opera transmissions, like on the new website The Opera Platform and from the Bayerishce Staatsopera, stream in high quality With very few glitches.

She was poised and lovely - no surprise there.

Blurry picture with little pinpricks of light constantly appearing and disappearing like twinkling stars; pop-ups, an ad, and warnings of more ads; video out of sync with the audio. And still, Korbes was breathtaking!

I saw Ulbricht in his debut as Oberon on Thursday night. I had a different reaction from the posters above. I found Ulbricht stiff and inelegant of line. His acting was unsubtle and seemed to come from the outside rather than the inside. For example, making a big show of tapping his foot impatiently when waiting for Puck. It bordered on caricature.

Maybe he overdid it, but the foot tapping is traditional.

I am watching the ABT Swan Lake video from 2005 where Reyes and the Cornejos do the pas de trois.

Ah, thank you for reminding me of that. Erica Cornejo is another ABT dancer I miss, although I see she's still with Boston Ballet. But yes, that performance you mention is a delight. Part danced the principal role that same week, and I wish they'd filmed her instead, but at least we have Reyes and Cornejo.

Thanks for letting us know, abatt. I remember Williams in that solo when I first saw the company in '76 or '77, and I suppose he'd probably been dancing it for a decade by then. Here is one clip of his performance, but the one I wish I could find is from the Ailey Memorial at St. John the Divine. I see there is also a conversation with him that took place at the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center just last year.

My point was that he condemns the act of orientalizing, not the use of the term orientalism. It's like condemning the act of racism but not the naming of something as racism.

I see. Sorry to have misunderstood you.

Said titles his own book Orientalism.

Yes, but he uses it to condemn what he means by it. Sensitivity is just a form of courtesy, of course, which is itself a form of respect. But when respect goes both ways, people are slow to take offense.

This is from The Free Dictionary (online):

"Usage Note: Oriental is now considered outdated and often offensive in American English when referring to a person of Asian birth or descent.While this term is rarely intended as an outright slur, and may even be thought polite by some speakers, it is so associated with stereotypicalimages of Asians as portrayed in the West during an earlier era that its use in ethnic contexts should be routinely avoided. However, Oriental retains a certain currency in referring to Asian arts, foods, and practices, such as traditional medical procedures and remedies, where it is unlikelyto give offense."

It's considered offensive thanks to Edward Said, yes, and has been replaced by Asian. Fine and good. But I'll bet a dollar to a dime that whoever used the term chinoserie meant no offense and no belittlement, and I think that for all but terms that have historically only been used to offend or belittle, a good rule of thumb is not to take offense where none was meant. (I realize you did not take offense).

The NY Times article mentioned an SAB student Emma Von Enck. I assume this is Claire's sibling?

It is. I believe they were both featured in one segment of the aol series.

Means danced This Bitter Earth in D.C. last month. The whole thing was too overwrought for my taste, but perhaps it was less so with Whelan.

I stand corrected. John Rockwell is the music critic whom the NYT decided could also be a dance critic. I mean, really, what's the difference, right?

I'd somehow morphed Macauley and Rockwell into the same person. I'd actually thought recently that my morphed persona was becoming a much better dance critic because he was at least talking more about dance history than music history. But I still stand by my belief that Macauley, like Rockwell, doesn't spend enough time reviewing the dancers themselves. And I agree that he can be quite mean-spirited.

Macaulay directly followed Rockwell, as you may remember, and to me it was like day following night. Rockwell's knowledge of ballet and ballet history never seemed very deep. As much as I like Gottlieb, Macaulay is the critic currently writing who most helps me see the steps and better understand the ballet. I also read his cracks as attempts at wit, not mean-spiritedness, although that doesn't excuse them.

I don't understand why Mearns' interpretation of La Valse is considered bad or wrong, even though it allegedly diverges from the way LeClerq did it. Mearns arrives as a wild party girl looking for fun and adventure, and she gets more than she bargained for when she is enticed by the death figure. Why does she have to come in as an innocent type from the start? In a way, Mearns' version makes more sense because she is easily corrupted.

Interesting point, but then it’s not so surprising - not as dramatic - when a wild partier meets a tragic end. Still, was the role really played as an innocent originally? Nancy Reynolds refers to LeClerq's “angular sophistication and doomed half-innocence” (the former sounds like LeClerq as she's been described in just about any role, granted, but the latter not), and says that when it was revived McBride “brought to it an other-worldly, almost vampire-like characterization, with a quality of sophistication Leland also found.” Mazzo and Farrell, she says “played the role more as an innocent young girl.” Reynolds also quotes LeClerq as saying Balanchine (typically) “didn’t say anything about acting or reacting at all.”

Xiomara, who was my favorite ABT dancer, has now left us, prematurely in my view. I think she still has at least a few years in her.

Apparently she agrees she could have danced longer, but felt it was time to step aside for younger dancers. She told the NY Times

Thank you, everyone, for the reviews. She was my favorite ABT dancer as well. I was able to see her one last time in Cinderella in March.

Does he give too much or too little space to ballet history? The poor guy can't win. I enjoy hearing different opinions, but I, at least, do not long for the days of Anna Kisselgoff, although I enjoyed her at the time. I find Macaulay's writing much richer.

A canned or potted history would be one more or less copied from someone else. Macaulay's steeped in ballet history, but he only has so much space to spend on it, and as sandik suggests, he's probably supposed to keep in mind his non-balletomane audience. Short background histories for non-specialists aren't the place to be original.

She's more of a lyrical dancer . . .

She was lovely in Emeralds at the Kennedy Center last year.

I think saying someone's nose is too big would be mean, because there is nothing the dancer could do about it, or should have to do about it. But if a dancer is actually opting to alter her appearance so that it's non-traditional, I think that's fair game. Others may like it or not find it distracting, but if he does, he should say something. He's not saying he doesn't like something about her, he's saying he doesn't like a choice she's making. And chances are, he's not alone.

ETA: Not to excuse flip and tasteless comments like the Hitler Youth comparison.