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La Sylphide is about learning to co-exist with other people? For all the thought he says he’s given James, it looks like he can’t actually articulate what the ballet’s about. But given his training and experience, that's very hard to believe. He seems to be saying what he wants it to be about, and that comes out like some kind of latter day hippie platitude - 'it's huge, man.'

Imagine the bad publicity _that_ would bring them. That would be pretty dumb, don’t you think? They have no way of responding without drawing scrutiny from a wider audience, and as this thread demonstrates, an awful lot of people are inclined to accept her story without evidence it’s true. On the other hand . . . . . . it’s highly doubtful that she could get anyone fired or disciplined with claims – and could she substantiate them? – made years after the fact. If retribution was what she was after, she’s had it the only way she could. But I don’t presume she was. I’m sure she wants to encourage black kids (and make a buck and become a celebrity - her right). Teaching them nuanced and charitable thinking – ‘Although I want to change the tradition, I can see it’s not designed to keep you and me out’ – would have been a real service. Attracting new audiences is great, and I’m sure most soloists think they can do principal roles, but one doesn’t just put in X years as a soloist and deserve Swan Lake. I don't know how ABT works, but it shouldn't work that way.

Not to minimize the lousy service you've received, but they deserve a plug too. I ordered Nutcracker tickets Sunday, and in my haste I managed to buy them for a week before I'll be in town. After buying tickets for the date I actually wanted, I emailed NYCB customer care, and within the hour received instructions for getting a refund for the first set. Then the next day, someone from the box office actually called me to give me further instructions. They certainly didn't have to do that - the standard No Refunds warning is right there on their site.

Aurora wrote: I agree in theory, and I don’t remember Copeland actually claiming her career had actually been hurt. But f she has, where is the evidence? Racism exists, so it’s quite possible Copeland faced it at ABT. But we also know that arts organizations tend to be progressive, which is to say that they’re filled with people who, if they have a conscious or unconscious bias in regards to race, have one in favor of black dancers – for obvious good reasons, they want black dancers to succeed. It stands to reason that while Copeland may have met the first reaction (again, where are the names and where is the evidence?), she also met the second. If she wants to talk about busting stereotypes and wants to argue for opening the art form to body types likes hers, fine. If she wants to serve as a role model (and is a good one), great. Wonderful. But when she conflates the odious with the morally neutral – when she conflates racism with the traditional preference for a body type that most white women don’t share either, well, abatt makes a good point. No one would accuse Copeland of being dumb. Pique Arabesque wrote: Certainly. She also has the right to name the people she thinks were racist, rather than putting a whole organization under suspicion. Even if someone at ABT wronged her, she can still treat the rest of the people there right. In regards to Alicia Graf, what artistic director in his or her right mind wouldn't, for reasons of prestige and ticket sales, rush to hire or promote a talented black dancer if the company had a place for her? I understand Johnson’s anger as an outsider looking in at these companies. But to think that ADs would let racism dictate their decision making flies in the face of common sense, in my opinion. ETA: abatt, who was posting at the same time, puts it very well. Copeland is engaging in insinuation.

Copeland hasn't admitted anything. She's made an accusation, and an accusation that was guaranteed to gain her widespread sympathy and support. Naming names would have taken a lot of courage. Letting her dancing do the talking would eventually have garnered her the widespread acclaim she deserves as a groundbreaking dancer.Or she could have written her book without crying "racism." Instead she tarred a whole ballet company (Who are the supposed racists who supposedly didn't want to see her rise? She is taken at her word that she encountered them, but fans are left to speculate who she's talking about, while the purported racists - everyone there is now under suspicion - can't even defend themselves). I don't want to be too hard on Copeland. She's young, and she lives in a culture that has encouraged her to do this. But in the end, I'm not sure it's honorable.

I want to reread Croce on Farrell now, but two questions come to mind - did Croce actually make those complaints before Farrell left for Europe, and did other critics share them? What an interesting topic - thank you, milosr.

After 55 Years in Vaunted Spot, a Picasso Is Persuaded to Curl

I always wonder where Balanchine was when, for example, they were shooting the piano lid during Duo Concertant.(Maybe tied down). As Jack notes, at least the camera work in Coppelia is straightforward and we don't lose the choreography in some fancy pants shot.

I agree. I think it's clear from the way she's referred to in the third person that she doesn't write the tweets.

Hmmmmmm, Villella will host and Mearns will dance. Oh yeah, Villella, I should have thought of him. An excellent and likely choice. Back to George B Fan's hope for "The Man I Love" pas de deux from Who Cares? - Tiler Peck is acclaimed in that role nowadays.

Lovely to read, not hard to believe. She caught my heart the first time I saw NYCB, in 1979. You mention the Joseph Mazo book; I remember he also had something unkind and totally unnecessary to say about her and her then husband. Who will introduce her - d'Amboise again, as he did for Farrell? Farrell? A big-name Broadway contemporary who will declare herself a fan?

It does for me, especially nowadays, when the cellphones and I-Pads get put away only as the performance is beginning, and get brought out the moment intermission begins. I wouldn't say audience members are exactly obliged to "Be Here Now" when the lights are up, but when people come together for something special and focus on that thing together, it makes it more special. Likewise, when they don't, they can detract from the special occasion. For me, at least. The last time I tried going to rock concert every fourth person was on some sort ot electronic device _during_ the performance. Sandy, I'm glad you learned to like "The Nose." I heard two Met performances and loved each one, but when I finally watched the opera, the visuals were so busy, that they gave me sensory overload. But I stayed or rather, I sat in front of the television, for the whole performance.

I can think of all sorts of legitimate reasons for making a mad dash for the exits as soon as the performance ends -- the last bus/train home, a baby-sitter who has school the next day, a long drive ahead on a work night. Those are all factors that can be considered before one buys a ticket. I have to agree with the writer that leaving immediately is rude to both the performers and to the audience (it breaks the spell), especially for audience members who can't attend frequently, for whom a performance is a truly special occasion. I'm an audience member who can't attend frequently, at least not compared to many on this board, and I see the issue differently. I think a lot of people would never be able to attend peformances or see what they wish to see if they couldn't at least sometimes leave as soon as the curtain fell--perhaps someone who can't attend very often might be in that position more than others. (If there is one week in the course of a year that I can travel to see a particular performance or performer--well, I can't just pick and choose my dates. Likewise, where I live, if I'm dependent on another person for a ride etc.) In fact, like others who have posted, I almost always applaud until the very end--and I agree that it's more gracious to performers (and to other audience members one might have to slip past) than rushing out. But I'm still inclined to try to be understanding of people who leave for their reasons which might not be what I would consider the best. A handful of times in the past decade, I have left as soon as the curtain fell -- once after a matinee, so I could get to the airport on time, once after an evening performance when I was alone in an unfamiliar city and wanted to beat the rush for cabs, once when I became ill during the last act. I'm sure someone can explain to me in each case how I could have handled the situation differently, but I'm also pretty sure I was doing my best ... Well, you folks are right, and thank you for setting me straight on that.

I can think of all sorts of legitimate reasons for making a mad dash for the exits as soon as the performance ends -- the last bus/train home, a baby-sitter who has school the next day, a long drive ahead on a work night. Those are all factors that can be considered before one buys a ticket. I have to agree with the writer that leaving immediately is rude to both the performers and to the audience (it breaks the spell), especially for audience members who can't attend frequently, for whom a performance is a truly special occasion. Anyhow, Macaulay has a piece today on a similar topic, The Delayed: To Sit or Not to Sit?

Thanks, rg. The introductory remarks were a little faint at first, but I'd thought I'd heard the costumes were original. Good to have confirmation.

On the Summer Reading thread, responding to Quiggin’s question sandik wrote: Did anyone see the Trust's staging of Ocean excerpts yesterday? Whiteness - or maybe off-whiteness with a hint of grey - as in the City Center studio floor, was very much an element in the presentation. One of the cameras seemed to be at eye level to the studio audience seated around the floor, so whenever the dancers were halfway across it, the floor largely filled the screen. I've seen many of the films Cunningham made with Charles Atlas and Eliot Caplan, and I know he sometimes delighted in obstructing even the live audience's vision during certain dances and Events. But this didn't seem a felicitous choice, at least for as often as we saw it. On the other hand, Cunningham might have been amused that the audio and video were several seconds out of sync. Of course that scarcely mattered during the actual dancing, but the stagers and dancers spoke before and after the dancing. As wonderful as it has been to watch these streamed Events, and to have them available online afterward – and that’s mighty high on my wonderfulness scale - the bland studio space itself has been the weak link. This time at least the dancers were wearing attractive unitards, probably the originals, and that helped a lot.

From a Merce Cunningham Trust email: Previous Events can be viewed here.

Thanks for the link, Kathleen. I had forgotten Gottlieb had been on the board. In his little Balanchine bio he says that he

City Ballet can't just order up great works, as the Diamond Project showed. What widely admired choreographers are languishing for lack of commissions? What great contemporary ballets should it import? Great dancers are best shown in and are in part formed by the demands of great material, and Balanchine and Robbins provide it. New dancers can make old ballets fresh again. So too, in a lesser degree, can new costumes and sets, although at City Ballet those frequently seem to be worse (costumes for Symphony in C and Who Cares, sets for Jewels).

I remember that. I should probably read it again. I seem to read everything again eventually. I've been rereading (or re-rereading), a little at a time, Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and Walker Percy's The Second Coming. I'm now reading, for the first time, Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage and, for a book group, John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. I recently read Julian Barnes' novella The Sense of An Ending, which won the Man Booker award in 2011. I'm slowly working through a collection of Auden's poems. For nonfiction, I recently read Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy. I want to reread Paul Tillich's The Courage to Be, and read all of Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War, which I only read parts of in school.

Interesting.I don't consider jogging a sport. I think all sports, even auto racing, are athletic, but not all activities that require athleticism are sports. For what it's worth, Merriam-Webster calls a sport "a contest or game in which people do certain physical activities according to a specific set of rules and compete against each other." I'm sure you're right that some people equate athletic activity with sport whether competition is the point or not. But are there people who don't make that equation, yet consider ballet a sport because they have so little conception of what the art form is? What a great discussion. Thanks, Alexandra.

So am I, and I don't really understand why the misperception that it's a sport persists, unless most of the people perceiving it that way have never been to the ballet (and aren't pictures of Nutcracker or Sleeping Beauty the first things most of them think of?).A sport is by definition competitive - competition is its point. Some ballets have competitive moments, but few exist merely for the sake of competition.

So that explains it. Thanks.

Not me, I wish I still had my copy. And I wish that film would turn up. I saw a couple of references today to this version being on Broadway, but I saw it in the Mitzi Newhouse, at the time the smallest Lincoln Center theater. It seems unlikely that it ever moved to Broadway. I remember Williams at one point during the play taking a seat in the front row and looking at someone’s program. I’ve since seen a couple of other Godots, but none as funny and as moving at the same time. ‘‘I dread the word ‘art,'’’ Williams said in 1989 when discussing his craft with the AP. ‘‘That’s what we used to do every night before we'd go on with ‘Waiting for Godot.’ We'd go, ‘No art. Art dies tonight.’ We'd try to give it a life, instead of making ‘‘Godot’’ so serious. It’s cosmic vaudeville staged by the Marquis de Sade.’’ Since you’re a Beckett fan, I’ll note the other Beckett production I remember at Lincoln Center about that time, a one-man distillation of ''Molloy,'' ''Malone Dies'' and ''The Unnamable” with Barry McGovern, whose name you must know, and maybe you've seen him. I was surprised to see him again in Dublin in 2004, as a member of the chorus in Seamus Heaney’s version of Antigone, The Burial at Thebes. Thanks for the Seattle Rep memories. I hope you'll post about Godot in September.

Thanks to you both for your revealing memories. I remember Williams with Steve Martin (and Bill Irwin and F. Murray Abraham) in Waiting for Godot at Lincoln Center in 1988. I guess Beckett wouldn't have liked his ad-libbing, and the staging didn't get great reviews, which must be why the talked about filming never occurred. But I thought he was fantastic, and I wasn't even a fan. RIP, Mr. Williams.