kfw

As in, "Eat your vegetables, they're good for you"? Or, "Eat your vegetables or you won't get any dessert"? It's supposed to be an entertainment! I think we might be on the same wavelength here, Jack -- I mean as in as tastes mature, the time comes when vegetables taste as good or better than sweets. But of course people who only want entertainment and aren't willing to put something into it as they would with a hobby, to use your apt example, aren't likely to take the first bites anyhow. And trying to pass of veggies as desserts kinda turns me off.

Could the reason be as simple as a fear that too many people can only afford one or the other? Or will only make time for one or the other? Anyhow, the "Physical Poetry" campaign -- and even the phrase "physical poetry," which sounds like bad poetry -- makes me cringe. Are audiences going to see that "intriguing [ugh] merger of contemporary and classical imagery" on stage? Even if they do occasionally, is that MCB's regular fare? Sometimes I just think that in cultural terms, ballet is a vegetable, and the general public, taken up with pop culture as it is (not that I don't enjoy some of that) has too much of a sweet tooth. Some people mature in their tastes, but others don't. And given all the entertainment options today, who can blame them?

Sandy, thanks for reminding us of how much dancers deserve and appreciate applause. If audience members keep their needs in mind, and dancers remember that some people in the audience couldn't attend performances if they couldn't leave early to get home at reasonable hours, we'll have a more perfect world.

Funny, I caught a couple of the five (?) sections of that opera and don't remember all that, perhaps because I sat up close. I do remember that the audience was encouraged to go out to the lobby to buy snacks. Were they allowed back in the auditorium with them? Probably.

I think the basic standard is not to distract other members of the audience, and that means moving as little as possible so as not to distract the persons next to and behind you.

It's been over 30 years since I last saw Woody Allen's "Annie Hall," but the first phrase that comes to mind is "polymorphously perverse." Accurate? Of course not. But at least it gets at the way some dance observers feel and respond to the movement on stage in their own bodies.

Charlie Rose's website has a 28-minute interview with Gottlieb, the first 18 minutes of which are largely on dance and "Reading Dance."

The Kennedy Center provides them as well, but I can't remember if it's just in the Concert Hall, or also in the Opera House (one would think yes) and the Eisenhower Theater where dance is presented.

I think she backs up her claim a little better than that, though. She cites high extensions and splayed legs with crotches open. She cites leotards and extreme flexibility and a concomitant exploration of the dancer's "capacities as abstract expressive objects." She cites "the same erotic-romantic dreamscape," which is a much weaker claim, because so many other choreographers, at least as far back as Petipa, have created the same thing. But apart from that, isn't she just saying these were bad leotard ballets?

She never says it's Balanchine's fault No, she never does. She just says that people are imitating him to the exclusion of other choreographers, and are doing so without enough imagination.

Aren't tweets and Internet posts by nature public? Anyone can read them online. But the Twitter privacy policy does say that .Also,

Well if they're going to collect tweets, they ought to collect Ballet Talk posts too. Let's take to the streets!

Paul Parrish has written a rave review of Classical Symphony.

Would it be possible to say something about this performance, or others RB is now doing, which much be what the piece looks like with them now? Alexandra's danceviewtimes review is here. I'm sure Dowell has his good reasons, but it's a little ironic that he's reluctant to let a ballet based on a Turgenev story be danced in Russia.

Not to mention on the choreography. Sorry.

I didn't say they did, and that wasn't my argument. I am sorry to misunderstand you.

Regardless of the value or lack of value of tweeting or of any individual's tweets, I don't think the choice is between following all the latest trends or being forgotten. The other choice is to react thoughtfully to the times, which may mean going with them, or opposing them, or leading them in another direction. Dancers don't have to tweet "I'm having coffee" just because some pop star is doing the same. They may or may not gain fans that way. But they don't have to do it.

Simon, you’ve made your point of view clear, but I haven't said dancers should cultivate images of sacred goddesses, I made a distinction between celebrities and stars, and I don’t think the issue has anything to do with fairness. Of course ballet needs to try to attract new audiences. Whether Twitter will do that is another question. Great quote, Mme. Hermine, and in context, very funny!

The New Republic currently has a piece by Ruth Franklin referencing the Macaulay/Isherwood debate about Come Fly Away that wonders why fights between critics are so tame. Methinks polite company is on to something here. If critical opinion, or even just man-in-the-street opinion, is reduced to de gustibus non est disputandum, then isn't the proper, deepest response to the work itself a great big yawn? If art is important, opinions about it are important. As Graham says

Lame? I'm still laughing at it!

Sure it is. But I don't think Bouder's tweets do anything to undermine her great accomplishment No they don't, and that wasn't my argument.

Simon, I'm not familiar with Cooper's tenure and my memory may be faulty, but the exclusivity I remember him speaking of -- and, in any case, the exclusivity I'm speaking of -- is one of atmosphere, not ticket prices or other actual impediments to access. "Elite" is a better word than "exclusive," actually, although "exclusive" is the word I remember, and I know "elite" is out of favor -- precisely, I guess, because it now connotes exclusivity. (I see that richard53dog thinks they're equated too). I'm using it in the sense of merit and meritocracy, and of Kirstein's comment that whether or not a young girl would become a dancer "C'est une question morale." To become a principal dancer in NYCB is a high achievement, and of course high achievement is highly admirable and highly attractive. It's an ideal, and ballet itself presents an ideal of beauty far above the mundane. How tweets will attract people who are indifferent to videos, reviews, and print, web and city-wide ads I'm not too sure. I suppose they'll enlarge the already existing fan base of the dancers who use them by turning them into celebrities. I just distinguish between "celebrity" and "star," and I'm more or less indifferent to the former, just as I'm indifferent to most dancer tweets.

To a point. Sometimes the publicist's most valuable job is telling the client when to shut up and lay low. A 22-year-old (or even a 40-something) may not recognize when silence is the best option, especially if s/he is in the habit of tweeting without a second thought. I remember a BBC documentary on the Royal Opera House in the mid-90's in which a house official wryly observed that the greater access the general public wanted would only weaken the exclusivity they were drawn to in the first place. Shades of the Groucho Marx quip, 'I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member."

And sometimes the presumption is that the people who avoid or reject the technological change do so because they don't understand it and/or can't deal with it. Of course I'm not speaking of Helene here, who used the word modestly in self-reference. But the term tends to be used as a cheap dismissal, and as such avoids grappling with the reasons thoughtful people might reject it. Wendell Berry is no Luddite.

It's a fine line all the same, and I trust people are bearing that in mind as they comment on Bouder's tweets or those of any other dancer. It is a fine line, and that line is unavoidably there when discussing some cultural issues, and that's why people need to read carefully so as not to read feelings into opinions when they aren't there. Bouder isn't really the focus of the discussion anyhow, just an illustration of the issue. The issue is cultural.