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In regards to the December 11 performance during which the sirens went off, Mary Cargill writes in danceviewtimes

For context, in Lyn Garafola and Eric Foner's "Dance for a City: Fifty Years of New York City Ballet," Thomas Bender's essay "The New York City Ballet and the Worlds of New York Intellect."

Thanks a lot, Hans. This sounds like Lamott's territory alright, and well worth reading.

bart, thanks for the recommendation. I enjoyed de Botton's "The Consolations of Philosophy," and while I don't disagree with the first two sentences of his that you quote, I want to recognize that part of us as thoughtful readers that hopes to encounter reflections that we do not immediately experience vicariously and thereby immediately understand, reflections we upon our own reflection do not accept as veracious. Yes we read "Moby Dick" aloud and recently completed "To the Lighthouse." I half tease her that we ought read (reread for me) "War and Peace" and it gets me nowhere. Hans, I have loved some of Lamott's non-fiction. Can you say more about her novel?

dirac and bart, thanks very much. bart, the Search engine brought up what you wrote this August about preferring "a new series of translations put out by Penguin" over the Moncrieffes translation. The Davis translation I have here is published by Viking, which is owned by Penguin, so I assumed that was probably what you were referring to, but I also assumed you'd write a helpful reply. And I was right.

What's clear is that the language is descriptive and accurate. Anything else we can only guess at. I'm sorry this discussion has turned to crude catchall stereotypes. Bentley is the author of a memoir about her obsession with anal sex, so I don't think she's prudish.

I'm about to read Proust. I read 100 pages or so of "In Search of Lost Time" when I was in school, but I've never returned to the book, and now I plan to at least finish "Swann's Way." I've checked out the Modern Library translation by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terrence Kilmartin, and also a translation of "Swann's Way" by Lydia Davis from 2002. Can anyone here recommend a translation?

The 57-minute video is also available for sale from UpStream Productions.

papeetepatrick, I think a biographer can choose her subject and what she wants to focus on. In other words, she can focus on what she thinks is worthy of our attention, and leave out or de-emphasize the rest. Of course you're right that art isn't necessarily enobling. I should have said it's potentially enobling. I think of Farrell telling her students that they are servants of the dance (I think I have that right), which is to say in part that they are serving beauty. It's also true that work has dignity, and that Nureyev worked very hard at his art. As for the sexual details in the book, I don't remember anyone complaining that Kavanaugh wrote about that aspect of his life in the first place, and of course it was a big part of his life, so she could hardly have left it out entirely. Again, it's a matter of emphasis, and of what was left out because of that emphasis.

Fortunately Google knows more than I do. Bridgett Zehr, formerly of Houston Ballet, is a first soloist with the National Ballet of Canada. Thanks for posting, Paquita.

Point taken, Ray, but neither Elvis nor Marilyn would have been celebrated in the first place without their art. Celebrity takes on a life of its own, but I think that life, that phenomenon, is as much about us and what we're fascinated by and attracted to as it is, in this case, about Nureyev. And I also think that while art is enobling, celebrity often degrades both the celebrated and the celebrators by placing the superficial and the lamentable (Nureyev's tantrum's) on the same level as the praiseworthy (his art). Nureyev would not be a household name today if he hadn't gone on to have a great career as a dancer or in some other field after he defected. His art was the foundation for his celebrity, and that's presumably why we're all reading about Nureyev and not Paris Hilton. In any case, my sense from the reviews and from what I've read here is that a lot of people agree with Bentley, and would have preferred less sex and more ballet.

Bentley quite likely just wanted a former dancer turned biographer to give insight into Nureyev's art -- the reason he was a celebrity in the first place, and the only reason, celebrities being a dime a dozen, his biography is worth reading.

In a 1954 souvenir program for NYCB there is a mention of "Ballet Associates in America, Inc." and an annual fundraising "Ballet Ball" ("the Ballet Ball," not "their Ballet Ball"). Can anyone provide more details about the Associates and the ball?

Souvenir program is what I should have written.

No mechanical swans here, but this photo from an old program appears to be of the same production:

I was a little surprised to see that MacCauley didn't mention Pickard and Mladenov's gorgeous "Meditation," but very happy that he wrote at all, and thrilled by all the photographic memory aids. What struck me most strongly in the two performances I saw were the dancing of Pickard and then later especially Magnicaballi and Cook in "Bugaku." Sarah Kaufman in the Washington Post had me worried about a "slightly porno take on the classic grand pas de deux" with Magnicaballi an equal player in a "game of conquest," but I didn't see any game or any "go-go"-ing up of the ritual eroticism in Balanchine's steps, which truly would be kitsch with even a hint of camp. Both women gave us movingly vulnerable portraits, with Pickard perhaps more trepidatious and Magnicaballi more overtly afraid and even resentful (it's an arranged marriage, as Jack reminded me), but at the same time brave. I never saw Mitchell or Villella, but to my eyes Cook had the weightiness Balanchine asked for. Both women gave their characters great dignity, which to my mind reflects dignity on the part of the dancers themselves in a role that must take some courage to perform. I'm anything but an expert, but I thought that the quality of the other performances varied. I'm not one who hated Nabokov's music for "Don Quixote," but the passage for "Pas Classique Espangol" was really, really dull. Hubbard deserved her bouquet for making it worth watching. On the other hand, while Hubbard and Prescott are young and charming, I didn't think either had the technique for the 4th movement of Brahms-Schoenberg. He started audibly huffing early on, and for brief moments they both looked exhausted. But then I was in the sixth row. Much of "Pithoprakta" could be Balanchine's idea of an acid trip, but not the wonderful moments in the pas de deux where the lovers (?) don't quite touch. I'd like to see this again but what are the chances of that? Pickard is lovely in anything, and warm when it's called for, and maybe she isn't Suzanne Farrell or an assoluta even by today's standards, but she predictably triumphed in "Chaconne," which I thought suited her well. And of course Runqiao Du is always a gracious partner. His wife, Erin Mahoney-Du was delightful in "Clarinade" a couple of seasons ago and I hope she's back from maternity leave and back on stage the next time this exciting little company assembles (no pun intended, honest) in D.C.. Jack and Mike, it was great to read your reviews.

Thanks for posting, miliosr. I do believe you've cost me 8 bucks. I would not have hesitated to see Bunuel imagining Dylan, but as a big Dylan fan I've been so turned off by press that makes "I'm Not There" sound like Dylan really isn't there because Haynes has replaced him, that I planned to skip the film. Your reaction has changed my mind.

FF, if that's weak character, I expect that most of us either stand accused or wish we'd had the occasion to be charged. At NYCB I once sat next to a choreographer who was about to work with one of the dancers performing that night. If I tell you what was said now, the choreographer's biographer (some day in the future having posted a small notice in the Sunday Times Book Review asking for personal recollections) won't bother taking me out to lunch.

That's a really interesting point. Could you say more? I had the impression that it was primarily among artists and the arts and literary community that Balanchine first gained a strong following here. Are you saying that these people too had viewed ballet as frivolous entertainment? Or was it that -- because as Leigh illustrated by way of his mother --people on average had a much better grounding in the arts than they do today, Balanchine was able to gain a substantial middle-class NYC following early on? Perhaps both?

I'm not surprised that dance professionals turn out to see visiting dance professionals. What surprises me is that Pennsylvania Ballet brought Serenade and Barocco to New York. That bespeaks a whole lot of confidence, or courage, or both.

Neryssa, you might want to add to your list Lincoln Kirstein's "Thirty Years: The New York City Ballet." The updated paperback was published in 1978, but there is an earlier, coffeetable edition with many rare photos. Also, Robert Tracy's "Balanchine's Ballerina's: Conversations with the Muses."

From the Wikipedia page on the school:

I don't know her either, but I've seen her dance with Farrell's troupe and I've watched Farrell rehearse her in Tzigane. She has a nice face, and while the comment might sting some ex-dancers, I read it as unthinking, not unkind.

Absolutely, Bart, although in this case, she has just argued her case, so that could be read as a challenge: "rebut me." I also appreciate her defense of a dancer whose subtler virtues some in the audience might miss in an age when the Kirov is pushing Somova (obviously Gottlieb and McCauley and whoever else Wolcott feels like feuding with are not in that number). In any case, I love how Jacobs notes parallels between the Vision Scene and Wedding Pas. "Part's arch sinks back into dream, revisiting the spell and giving us a glimpse of the curve, stress, and bevel that held her in that hundred-year sleep" -- that's the sort of writing I treasure. "This is Part's power: radiant, radical imagining," she writes. Much as I love Part, my guess is that this feat of imagination belongs to Jacobs. Too bad she's married to an self-aggrandizing, look-ma-I'm-clever show off of a writer who feels the need to attack distinguished critics a kinder and smarter soul would count as friends.

I love the passionate opinion of a fan. Silly Vanity Department: after years and years of loving Balanchine but not loving waltzing, I was a little proud of myself when I finally saw Liebeslieder (on screen), and wasn't bored. Peter Martins' "Schubertiade," now that was boring (and boring, and boring). This has been a fascinating thread. Of course there have been any number of highly publicized and anticipated new operas with relatively contemporary subject matter recently: John Adams' and Peter Sellars' "Dr. Atomic," Andre Previn's "A Streetcar Named Desire," and John Harbison's "The Great Gatsby" come to mind, and then there are other works by Adams and by Phillip Glass. I would think that there are all sorts of 20th and 21st century stories that would appeal to people uninterested in the classics, if only someone would actually choreograph them, and choreograph them well. For myself, I'd rather see Greek myths.