kfw

Racism has nothing to do with it then?

Subjectivity is always a factor, but it's one that's difficult to measure, and to assume that it worked against dancers of East Asian heritage at NYCB is effectively to accuse the powers that be there of racism, a charge that only people privy to the decision-making process there are qualified to make. Sure, Macaulay (along with everyone else) loves Sarah Mearns, but he also recognizes and talks about the Balanchinean ideal. That ideal isn't arbitrary, it relates to many of the ballets Balanchine made, and with how he wanted them danced. It's not subjective, which is what I was saying to Tapfan.

You can't know there was subjectivity involved if you don't even know what the objective factors were.

What are you referring to?

Glad to hear that qualification, but I'm not sure what else you think would make people out and out hate her. And how you know they do?

My point is that, other factors being equal - and you don't know all the other factors, like who else was available and what qualities they had - Balanchine training and a classic Balanchine body are highly important factors in getting hired at NYCB.

Since you haven't seen Copeland dance, what makes you qualified to agree that she deserve promotion? Given how quick people like yourself are to attribute "hatred" and racism to people who don't think she deserves it, what are the chances that people in the ballet world would speak up and disagree? (When does anyone in the ballet world publicly criticize a dancer anyhow?) Johnson isn't the only person with an opinion, and there are people here who see ABT regularly, who have quite possibly seen Copeland more that Johnson has, who disagree. Try telling that to Abrera and Lane fans.

There have been and continue to be plenty of exceptions - dancers with other virtues. But those two things are highly desirable attributes, not incidental factors, in who dances at NYCB. They aren't "subjective" tastes.

Balanchine training and a classic Balanchine ballerina body are subjective qualifications for New York City Ballet? Wow.

I'm not sure what you mean by "frustration." Frustration is not what people generally experience when they find someone hasn't told the truth. It's just possible that Copeland really believed she was the first African-American woman to make it out of ABT's corps de ballet when she told an LA journalist that she was, but that requires us to believe she never even asked.

Thank you, California! And rkoretzky .

I am too, but I'm turned off when the writing's bad. Ellen Bar at NYCB is a lot better than Kristin Sloan used to be, and I admire her for other things, but she could really use a professional copywriter (I know, she probably isn't given the money for one). I've received mailers for Kennedy Center modern dance programs with prose so unbelievably awful I actually wrote a line by line critique of the stuff and almost sent it. Not only was it sometimes ungrammatical, in that you knew what the writer meant but he or she had actually said something else, but it was completely purple. I did wonder though, if it was purple on purpose - if the writer felt he needed to be that gaudy to compete with all the loud, gaudy ad copy we see. Or had his own standards been lowered by reading that stuff?

Good point.

I agree. Posing her in Swan Lake dress would have highlighted her greatest achievement, which is not to have become a well-known dance athlete, so to speak, but to have earned leading roles in the classical (heretofore almost exclusively white) repertoire.

In the story, which I love, he's not on the run, although by the time he finishes his journey he's troubled and humiliated, and the story has taken a fantastical turn, with the friends he encounters on his trip speaking of dark events he seems to have repressed, and time having slipped from the happy present to some dark future reality he doesn't recognize. But he embarks on his swim "across the county" in an exuberant mood. Thanks for the reports. It's hard to imagine a more surprising choice for composer than Tom Waits - not exactly a chronicler of upper-middle class suburban life in the 50's - but that makes this all the more intriguing. ETA: I see now that he wasn't the main composer. Does anyone know, is his music for the piece new?

Thanks. Did you see it?

What about Catazaro? Sooner or later, wouldn't you think? And I've always wanted to see Craig Hall in the role, but I guess that doesn't seem likely.

Right, which is perhaps why no one's made such a recommendation. What I actually said was that some Copeland fans will likely want to see more African-American dancers (that's what they say, after all, and it's what one would expect), and Dance Theatre of Harlem has them. The one often understandably follows the other:

Sounds perfectly normal to me.

People whose interest in Copeland begins and ends with that long delayed “triumph” won’t be going back to the ballet anyhow. But some of the people who first went to ballet because of Copeland, and found they loved it, will be especially – not exclusively - interested in DTH. I didn’t see anyone recommending anything – certainly not one company to the exclusion of others. But DTH’s repertoire includes the Act III pas de deux of Swan Lake, Glinka pas de Trois, and Pas de Dix, plus Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux.

Of course. But some Copeland fans who've never seen them will likely go now. That is, if they really like ballet.

It's hard to imagine Copeland hasn't created a cult of personality - isn't having a cult of personality pretty much the definition of a celebrity? And history-making or not, would new people be flocking to the ballet unless they found her appealing? So vipa asks the right question. Is there evidence yet - can there be evidence yet - that her new fans will stick around, will buy tickets for performances she's not in? I'm not in a major city where I can follow a major company week in and week out. I'm genuinely asking - are people seeing more African-Americans in the theater? (Granted, not all of her new fans are African-American).

And then there were the $125 signed posters, sold out by Saturday afternoon. I wonder how many of them there were. I'm sure the company can use a little extra cash.

Everyone seems to agree that Everywhere needs trimming, but those are eye-opening comparisons, thank you. Natalia, I'm not sure why you relate bare, muscular female legs to a lack of grooming, but I agree they don't flatter ballet dancers. On the one hand, they're impressive reminders of all the hard work the dancers have put in. On the other hand, "hard" doesn't fit the aesthetic.

Thanks, abatt. I presume this is done for comic effect . . . ?