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Thanks nice to read, Neryssa. Has the interview been published? I'd love to read it.

You mean like this? Aha! Thanks.

The problem I've had for months now is attempting to post a link and give it, say, the title of the article it links to. That used to be simple. When I try it now, I get a drop down box labeled "Link Type" with the options "URL," "Link to Anchor in Text," and "Email." The first option just posts the URL with no option to title it. The second gives me the message "No Anchors Available in the Document." Edited to Add: This is probably an I-Pad and not a site software issue, but when I checked to see if I had the same problem replying on the I-Pad, I had no formatting options there at all.

Don't the Joffrey do Square Dance with both a caller and the solo? They definitely had the caller at the Kennedy Center in 2000, and I'm pretty sure I remember the solo. So am I. The birth and the ascent both move me.

Boal did dance the complete version with Suzanne Farrell Ballet however.

Yes. The writer is not "going into people's heads," but instead writing out of her own imagination about LeClerq. But as Brubach noted, because LeClerq was remarkably unrevealing, the author has very little even to base that on.

Getting into LeClerq's head is precisely what this novelist can't do. If even a friend of 23 years can't do it, how could someone who never met her?

And that's just it. As Brubach makes clear, the book may turn out to be good fiction, but it can't possibly get in to LeClerq's head, because no one could do that even when she was alive. As soon as it tries to do that, it's no longer about LeClerq.

Thanks for letting us hear from someone who's actually read the book, joelrw. Welcome to Ballet Alert! and I hope you'll introduce yourself in the Welcome forum. That's true when something of the inner life is already known but O'Connor has no way of knowing it here. I'm sure L'Clerq engaged in an awful lot of reflection in the years after she could no longer dance and before she decided not to take her own life. But the fact that she kept her reflections private makes me all the more loath to read someone's guess work. A third party's fantasy . . . I just don't see the attraction. But that's just me.

Was anyone here watching MCB when Jimmy Gamonet de los Heros was associated with the company? I assume some of his work appealed especially to Hispanics. Did it attract new balletgoers? Did it attract donors? Did either leave when he did?

Yes, and her mother Cissy, who had a marvelous voice herself, is still alive.

You make good points, dirac. But I wouldn't feel wary if you, for example, had written the novel. But when I read that the author is apparently not a real balletomane, but just "came across the facts about" Le Clerq, and her research included watching hundreds of hours of nonexistent footage to "capture" her "essence," a description which is purple prose or at least a cliche, as if the essence of someone's dancing could be captured in prose anyhow . . . all that makes me pretty skeptical. But I'm not knocking O'Connor for taking up the subject.

I understand this sense of resentment, in that imagining Tanaquil Le Clercq's life - as opposed to transparent discussion of her actual circumstances and body of work - feels like a violation to me. I agree with Natalia, it seems odd that so much avowed research should be used in the service of fiction (though, in fairness, the author is primarily a novelist and not a biographer). I have long hoped for a full biography of Ms. Le Clercq, and am sorry that this won't be it. My sentiments exactly.

Thanks for alerting us, Neryssa. I'm wary too, although I see the author has received some good reviews for previous novels. So, according to the Amazon page, the author watched "hundreds of hours of documentaries and New York City Ballet footage to capture Le Clercq’s essence." rg would know better than anyone, but I'll be greatly surprised if hundreds of hours of Le Clerq or even Le Clerq-era footage even exist.

Your impressions match mine, cinnamonswirl. Boylston brought more personality to Gamzatti in the afternoon rehearsal, and it was a pleasant surprise to see Messmer rehearsing the role as well. As for Part and Gomes, they have never disappointed me. Simkin was sharp as the Bronze Idol.

I'm really enjoying reading about Viscera and the success it's been, but I'm wondering if I'm the only one a little put off by its title. It doesn't exactly make me think "neo-classical ballet."

The Winter 2012 DanceView arrived yesterday and I want to call attention to the magazine for the sake of new Ballet Alert members who aren't aware of it. DanceView is "a quarterly review of dance published since 1979 (initially as Washington DanceView)" by Ballet Alert! founder and administrator Alexandra Tomalonis. It's a treasure, with long, thoughtful reviews and essays, and plenty of large black and white photographs. Many issues have something I haven't seen anywhere else -- detailed descriptions of George Balanchine Foundation Interpreters Archives tapings in which Balanchine's own dancers coach today's dancers in Balanchine ballets. The table of contents for the new issue: A Murky Ocean, and Many Fine Performances: New York City Ballet's Fall Season, by Gay Morris Interpreters' Archive: Suki Schorer Coaching La Source; Jillana and Conrad Ludlow Coaching Liebeslieder Walzer, by Leigh Witchel Book Review: Jacques D'Amboise, I Was a Dancer, by Michael Popkin Phedre and Psyche in Paris, by Marc Haegeman Romeo and Juliet in Toronto, by Leigh Witchel Season's reviews from New York, London and Copenhagen, and San Francisco by Marina Harss, Jane Simpson and Rita Felciano respectively. Subscriptions are available here: http://www.danceview.org/

I don't think we've reached a place where citing adultery in a divorce case is retrograde, and I can't imagine what reason could be more justified and germane. It's also a legal tactic, as well as an emotional or societal one. In this case, the plaintiff presumably has greater assets than the defendant, and she wants to protect those assets. It is therefore in the plaintiff's financial interest to ask for an at-fault divorce. If they had a prenup, it may have contained an infidelity clause as well. True. My only point is that adultery is grounds for divorce.

I suppose you're right. It seems deeply silly in this context, doesn't it? I'd think a theater company, that uses words to make art, would take it's own words seriously. If they want to be taken seriously, that is.

We've discussed texting and checking one's phone during performances, but today the Washington Post has an article about a theater company that's inviting people to tweet at three dress rehearsals for a new play. Here's the article )which a computer glitch won't let me post in the usual style): http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/woolly-mammoths-theater-tweet-up-causes-drama-with-director/2012/01/17/gIQAGJVj6P_story.html. They didn't ask the playwright's permission, and while he pointedly has not asked them to change their minds, he's not happy about it. What I'm interested in is their own thinking. I have to roll my eyes at the word "transparency," which suggests an ethical responsibility, but maybe they've just been living in Washington, D.C. too long and can't help sounding like politicians and don't intend that connotation. Still, I can't see how the tweeting could help the artistic process, and if anything it might further encourage people to confuse snap judgments in snappy language with seriously considered criticism. This looks like a publicity stunt.

To apportion would take intimate knowledge of the actions of all parties. It takes no such knowledge to condemn adultery.

I don't think we've reached a place where citing adultery in a divorce case is retrograde, and I can't imagine what reason could be more justified and germane. We don't know enough to apportion blame and it isn't our business to do so, but we can still condemn adultery committed behind the spouse's back, not for the sake of condemning the adulterer but of recognizing that failing to uphold a commitment is dishonorable. If you're suggesting that it's ironic that a sex columnist is taking this step, I might agree there given my impression that they're not exactly defenders of traditional thinking on male-female relations, but I don't read her so I don't know. Anyhow, Jayne makes five great points.

The default iPhone ring is common -- I hear it go off in the bus on a regular basis -- and I've been in the theater where a phone starts ringing and a row of people jump to look in the purse under their seat or in the coat they are sitting on. (I would never look in my purse if the ringtone wasn't familiar.) Yes, maybe that's why he didn't check - not because he was embarrassed to be identified, but because the phone was new and he hadn't heard its alarm before and so assumed it must be coming from someone nearby. In any case, it's sad this happened to a 20-year subscriber.

This guy sounds sincerely apologetic, but he doesn't explain why he didn't immediately take out his phone and figure out how to silence it. It doesn't take five minutes to figure out whose phone is ringing when it's your own, even if you thought you'd turned it off.

That's interesting. I'm veering , but I wonder if what you see has to do with all the irony in today's culture, and even more to do with the fact that the current company lacks the benefit of Graham's presence, lacks someone with her strong imagination and concomitant ability to inspire their own imaginations, so that they can really inhabit those characters.