kfw

I'm a little surprised that neither Kirstein nor Denby wrote about dance photography, Kirstein especially because he wrote about Cartier-Bresson and supported and wrote about Evans. Speaking of Martha Swope, she was interviewed in Ballet Review awhile back, but talked about working with NYCB, not her work itself.

If I may go slightly off topic for a moment, the Balanchine ballet I'd like to see ABT do - not at the big Met, but at City Center where it was first performed - is Orpheus. I've only seen it once, at the State Theater where the stage is said to be too large for it. ABT certainly has the personalities for it.

A newspaper citing unnamed sources of its own could be gossip in some circumstances. A newspaper reporting on serious allegations made anonymously by necessity is news in my book. Perhaps our Danish posters have a good feel for the politics here, but given that Hubbe is given high marks for revitalizing the company, it would surprise me if he lost his job - note, for example, the excuses made by company administrator Pederson - and surprise me if the dancers, who for all we know may be mere corps members, would think they could bring him down. Gossip is talking about people in order to make them look bad. It is malicious. But dancers who don't do drugs and think they're harmful would have a good motive - concern for the company and even the dancers doing drugs - to report drug use when asked to report problems in the company.

Sheesh. The old, "because he's an artist he can behave badly" defense. Were the dancers in Hubbe's office that night the ones who complained? And if they were, they may have felt pressured to partake - not partaking could have been read as disapproval, which for obvious reasons they wouldn't want to show. Or perhaps you're right and some are hypocrites. My point is that we can't know that, and it's unfair to presume the worst about them. Where is the evidence for that? If anything, it's the press coverage that will finally force the investigation Jacobsen and the board didn't want. As has been pointed out, those dancers are dependent on Hubbe for their jobs. Answering questions in an internal investigation isn't gossiping, and reporting the results of investigations is reporting news.

Leonid, I'd be interested in your response to the following from canbelto in response to Simon earlier in the thread: I understand that, but your position here doesn't flow inevitably from concern, and the opposing position isn't in conflict with it.

puppytreats, you might try Jonathan Weinberg's "Substitute and Consolation: The Ballet Photographs of George Platt Lynes" in the book "Dance for a City: Fifty Years of the New York City Ballet," edited by Lyn Garafola and Eric Foner. I don't know if Amazon has it, but as you may know, purchases made through the Amazon link at the top of Ballet Alert pages help keep this site afloat.

What possible gain and what possible loss did an up-and-coming, media darling of a U.S. congressman by the name of Anthony Weiner have in texting lewd photos of himself to Twitter followers he'd never even met? People do dumb, dumb things. And I'm of the opinion that we all do dumb, dumb things some times. Explain that via Martin Luther or via recent neuroscience, or both, but the fact seems undeniable. I don't know what Hubbe did or didn't do, but not a lot surprises me. That's exactly why Jacobsen should have authorized further investigation himself. The stakes are high for all concerned. Everyone has faults. If faults discredit a finding, everyone's findings and everyone's opinions are discredited. No one has said anything like that. No one, not on BA and not in the report as far as we know, has said he sold or even literally pushed drugs on anyone, and no one suggested ill motives.

It's entirely possible that that's what's really happening here, and if so, then it's likely that evidence for _that_ will eventually surface. I see none so far. It would surely be the best outcome at this point. In the meantime, Hubbe's in a position of public trust, and I hope an investigation goes forward for everyone's sake.

It's responsible to commission a report but sweep its findings under the table? Those anonymous people may well come forward, but if they do so, it will be at the risk of their roles if not their jobs outright. They deserve no opprobrium for speaking anonymously, especially when they asked to so so in the first place. They don't deserve the suspicion that has been cast their way. Hubbe's offer has been cited here as evidence in his defense, but I don't see how it proves anything either way. The best way for him to clear his name would be to take that test, which he is free to do. I think also perhaps the queen's, and by extension the nation's and even that of Bournonville lovers? He's not working for a private firm. Not for long, no.

Yes, and it turned up anonymous reports of cocaine use, which Jacobsen squelched and now refuses to investigate further. It’s possible he’s trying to protect his dancers because he believes they’re innocent, but everyone knows that the way to do that is to authorize a full investigation. (And Hubbe’s being clean at the time the news broke hardly proves the allegations are untrue). He’s acting like he thinks they’re guilty. Commissioning a study and then dismissing its findings as “unfounded” speaks for itself. If rules do prevent Jacobsen from taking action, his statement, which sounds illogical on its face, didn’t specify them, and Moller and other apparently haven’t heard of them.

Does that sound logical to anyone? Is it against the law to investigate a complaint if the accused deny the behavior? If the law obliges taking people at their word, why didn't Jacobsen treat the complaints, the first words given here, as if they were true? Regardless of what is or isn't going on in the company, that statement makes Jacobsen sound less than confident that it's nothing. That concept is charmingly illustrated by Garrison Keillor in his monologues on A Prairie Home Companion.

I wonder if Balanchine's disappointment that Adams, and then her replacement Kent, were unable to dance the pas de deux - something D'Amboise mentions in his new autobiography - is another reason Balanchine initially lost interest in the work. But D'Amboise does write that "Balanchine used to suck the thumb of delight looking at the choreography" he'd created for it. DAmboise also mentions that the fountain malfunctioned during the premiere and the water valves had to be turned off for subsequent performances. I've looked through all my dance books too - Haggin, Garis, Croce, Denby, and various memoirs - and it's surprising so very little mention is made of a work which sounds so ambitious.

You can see quite a few reproductions here. Thanks for your insights, Quiggin.

The NY Times obit mentions a Kirk Varnedoe essay on Twombly. I love the title," Your Kid Could Not Do This, and Other Reflections on Cy Twombly.

Sad isn't it? I'm reminded of Nicholas Carr's article in The Atlantic Monthly a few years ago, Is Google Making Us Stupid?: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.

At least that one is recorded, although it's currently not for sale, and neither is Beach Birds. I don't know just how many dances Charles Atlas filmed before they couldn't afford him any more, but they must have scads of stuff in the vault. They'll be showing films of Duets and Squaregame at the Lincoln Center Festival's Merce Fair in a couple of weeks, and they showed more there in 2007. Pond Way is on Google video. I can only assume they'll start selling DVDs of these works eventually. That won't keep the company alive, but it will keep it in our minds as we watch dances we never saw live, or only dimly remember.

Sure. I can't think of what else could need to be said by now. I started to argue a larger point a few posts back, but then I thought maybe everyone would rather take a break.

Yes, I think they’re all debatable. My point is that there is precedent for legal adjudication in cases of practical liberty, to balance the playing field. .When I wrote “the goal is to share space,” I meant “the goal should be to share space,” i.e. to preserve as much practical liberty as possible while taking sides in the conflict. Sorry to be unclear. Probably some people have more drastic goals, but that shouldn't preclude restrictions predicated on good ones. I think bart makes a good point here. To build on that point - not to presume to put words in bart's mouth - in a democracy there are winners and losers on particular issues, and if the democracy is functioning as such, despite the routine complaints from groups and parties out of power, to lose is not by definition to have been treated unfairly.

And I hope to see her reprise the role in D.C. I've seen her dance it twice there, including the week ABT filmed the ballet with Murphy. Would that they'd filmed Part's performance with Gomes instead.

Simon, I understand and probably obviously have shared your frustration with this thread sometimes. But surprise, surprise, I agree with a lot of what you wrote here. I’ll only make a few comments. I think this is quite reasonable. The goal is to share space, not stamp out smoking or drive out smokers. Well, we can hope, right? Seriously, I don’t simply blame celebrities for teen smoking, as if there’s a one-to-one correlation and no other factors. I do think they play a role, whether intentionally or not. Youths model adults. Dance students surely model admired dancers, in my opinion. That's not expressing a low opinion of them, it's just observing human nature. I think that ideally society has high standards and we all welcome its demands, at least intellectually, because we recognize their wisdom and justice. But we’re not living in those times, and it’s not fair to hold people to standards no longer shared. I also think that bart’s post was right on.

That all sounds very neat. Except that legal liberty is enforceable by law and a part of statute, practical liberty doesn't actually exist and is personal to the individual's moral code and sensibilities and hold no water in terms of the real world, unless of course they become an illegal act. I’m not sure I understand all of what you’re saying, but it's intriguing. What do you mean when you say that what I've described as practical liberty doesn't exist? I’m talking about whether smokers are free to smoke in certain public places or non-smokers are free to enjoy them as they wish to, without breathing smoke. Both freedoms, both liberties, can’t exist at the same time. The law decides between conflicts like this all the time. There are noise ordinances, upkeep of property ordinances, and ordinances that restrict panhandling and picketing to certain areas. There are eminent domain seizures. There are laws against various types of behavior on the grounds that they cause harm, and as has been pointed out, smoking bans are based on what is believed, rightly or wrongly, to be harm. Do you oppose all these philosophically, is that what you’re saying?

I disagree and I think that feeling is at the heart of some misunderstandings here. To criticize people is not necessarily to stigmatize, and at most it is a couple of very narrow behaviors - smoking in public and smoking in public despite being a role model - that has been criticized here, not the individuals in a larger sense. To criticize is not to reject. Everyone, after all, is open to criticism. Everyone can be criticized on some fronts.

Smokers, who are the objects of social shaming and reproach, as this thread demonstrates, are at a plain disadvantage in these debates. These laws are passed for reasons of health, not as matters of "personal liberty." My own feeling that if non-smokers can't be bothered to move, it might be best and safest for them to stay home..... I’ll grant you that smokers are often the objects of social shaming and reproach, and that stinks, no pun intended. But as I have tried to say in one way or another on this thread, that’s not my approach to them. As I believe I have explicitly said, I don’t look down on them – that sort of attitude is very far from my thinking. I do think that under some conditions smoking is rude, but that isn’t to say that rudeness characterizes smokers, as if all smokers were rude, or no one else ever was. I am not on a crusade against smokers or smoking, I'm just taking a position on the rights of smokers vs. non-smokers. I believe Simon was the first to speak of liberties here, when on page 11 he wrote of “a total curtailment of [smoker’s] liberties.” I completely agree with you that the laws are passed for reasons of health, and so that everyone can enjoy public spaces (the latter is the same thinking behind some noise ordinances) and not in order to curtail liberties. But there is legal liberty and practical liberty, and as the saying goes, your freedom/liberty ends at the point of my nose. Where wills clash, which to say in any society, no one can be completely free, and we make laws to side with one disputant over the other. As a practical matter then, laws curtail legal liberties, but their absence sometimes curtails practical liberties. Leaving aside for the sake of argument the issue of harm, I still don’t understand why if the smoker is bothering the non-smoker and not the other way around, the smoker should be accorded a right to do as he pleases and the non-smoker not.

Okay, so posts which accuse other posters of being specious and silly are fine as long as the poster has a view in accordance with the prevalent argument that smoking outside is a subversive act of malice and an attack on civil liberties? Ugh, no. Posts that describe other arguments as specious or silly are watched carefully. Posts that purport to tell people what their problems are are usually deleted, if we find them. Specious and silly are blunt terms for describing arguments. They can be specious and silly themselves, or they can be the blunt truth and the best way to cut through the fog of rhetoric. In any case, they are directed at the argument, not the person. I should add that I, for one, don't consider smoking outside a subversive act, or an act of malice, or an attack on civil liberties, or any other kind of attack.

Simon, your last sentence is deeply silly and almost makes me want to abandon the discussion. I would ask a smoker not to light up if I had arrived first, but not if he did. But of course this choice only applies to spaces where moving is possible, not to the example we've discussed of the queue. Specious. Native Americans would have a case, but they're not complaining. It's their health, of course. I'm not going to lay out the case that the young ape their idols, and I'm not going to lay out the case that the sun rises in the morning. There isn't anything I want to see done. I'm glad to see prohibitions in some cases, and in some others not. I oppose them in bars and restaurants and other private establishments. Marga wrote: As a practical matter, where wills clash, one or both sides have their liberty curtailed. The issue of smoking in public illustrates this fact. When non-smokers have to move, their liberty is curtailed. Sometimes we pass laws taking one side or another. That's the law's function. And in a democracy, where each side can push their case, that's not unfair.