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usetodance, I saw that performance and have nothing negative to say beyond what I've already posted. Overall I had a wonderful afternoon. But you can find reviews, not of that pereformance, but of that cast and others during the same DC run in the online edition of danceviewtimes here and here.

New York City Ballet subscription brochures take awhile to reach the the outer southern boroughs of NYC, but mine reached me here in Charlottesville today, and I was struck by all the photos already mentioned, but also by the back cover shot of three rather merry muses. Do they really grin like that in Apollo these days? I'm reminded of the Kirov at the Met in '99.

I've always loved the promenade at the New York State Theater, although I've been alarmed in recent years by the encroachment of dinners and receptions that restrict its vast expanse for the benefit of various rich folks. Did Lincoln Kirstein mean for the place to smell like a deli?

I dislike the large performance photographs displayed outside the upper rings. To my mind any photos would mar the spare beauty of the place; and half-lifesized photos of ballets and dancers I've come to see live and in 3-D diminishes that live, 3-D experience.

Sorry, I don't come to Ballet Review for movie discussions unrelated to dance.

Me either, and I'd also prefer less modern dance then they tend to cover. Then again, this issue has another one of Clement Crisp's dance-going diaries, as well as 2-3 articles (my copy's at home) by one Leigh Witchel, always worth a careful read!

What about the Divertissement? Act I was pretty well danced here last year, but Act II (classical demands) was very much worse for the wear -- What news from DC?

I saw the Sunday afternoon performance with Ringer and Martins in the pas de deux. Any day with Jenifer Ringer in it is a good day, but she did not look comfortable or happy while they were alone onstage, and it was only when they came back on afterwards to join the ensemble that her dancing looked relaxed and free, that she glowed, that she looked like the Ringer we're used to. The pas de deux itself was relatively stiff. As for Martins, I didn't see any partnering bobbles, but in his brief solo moments he no more than sketched the steps, and barely got off the ground.

Bart, thanks a lot for the review. I was tempted to go see this on the big screen myself, but decided against it because . . . PBS will broadcast it this spring!

Do the powers-that-be at the Times think that natives have just seen too much NY dance to have a clear point of view any more? First Rockwell... now a Londoner? Is there anything to that notion?

Rockwell has been with the NY Times since 1972.

P.S.: I saw James Wolcott's love letter when it first appeared. Thanks for linking to it, drb. It's kind of sweet. You want it to be true, for Wilcott's sake.

Yes, you do. That piece strikes so rich a chord, it cracks me up. Wolcott is married to Laura Jacobs, who writes about dance for The New Criterion, and who has published her own raptures about Ms. Part. From an essay entitled "Assoluta," much of which is about this ballerina, here's Jacobs on a Part-Gomes Swan Lake:

Part revealed the heart that’s been in lambswool these last two years. Here was an emotional Odette, passionately pitched, her narrative flights clear and momentous, and the delicacies, those trilling entrechat-passés en arrière, for instance, like water singing. When Odette first allows herself to lean back upon Siegfried’s chest, Part tendrils against him in something between rest and wrest. You never forget she’s trapped in feathers, in Rothbart’s spell. And when Odette approaches Siegfried with a full circling swoop of the arms that pulls her up to pointe, Part powers a whoosh so huge we see the danger of her love—she actually startled Gomes, overwhelmed him— the supernatural size of her, it is the conjuring of the spell blowing through her, white rush and strange heart, Wingwraith. This is imagination, wild and precise, rehearsed and released, big, bigger, biggest. This is Veronika Part, making bliss of the art once again.

Azulynn, you can find reviews of Part in Swan Lake here and here.

Sitting on the floor in the east Village: Dale, I'm sure Denby did it.

And i'd bet Alastair has done it (in London, of course).

And this is really the problem with the Times -- they're gray. The head man is a man and would not sit on hte floor in the East Village, he'd lose caste.

We don't know that, and we won't know that until he's been in town for awhile. This is a guy who long ago demonstrated his passion for dance. He deserves a chance.

Ray wrote:

As far as Macaulay's expertise goes, Paul's (and other's) criticism in this regard suggests to me that perhaps his writing might constitute a case of style over substance.

He had two fill-in stints at The New Yorker, a magazine known for style with substance.

I expected the "why bring in a furriner" objections, and I expect more. I don't think they chose him because he's a man, but because he's good. Some of them are, you know I am very glad to have someone who takes dance seriously and who has as wide a viewing range -- both in taste and in time. I look forward to reading him.

Me too! Remembering some of his New Yorker reviews and reading about all the effort he's made to see dance for so many years, I'm thrilled. Besides which a furriner should have a fresh perspective on NYC's downtown dance scene.

Perhaps the point of such a dance *IS* to challenge norms of beauty, and the choreography and nudity are working together to achieve that end...Wouldn't that be a valid goal for art?

I agree that this would be a perfectly valid goal, aurora, but I also think it would be a reductive one for most choreographers.

Why can't that (the lack of conformation to the "ideal nude"), be a point of interest instead of a distraction?

What is wrong in presenting various body types as attractive and interesting?

Whether we experience it as interesting or distracting isn't really up to us; we can tell ourselves something is beautiful but we can't make ourselves perceive it that way. Over time our tastes may expand and we may find beauty where we'd missed it before, but in the meantime we're distracted, and even a "that's interesting" reaction is a distraction from the real subject matter at hand, the choreography. I like Bart's perform-it-twice rule. And some of us might need more viewings than that.

Well I say, “Good for Acocella!” If Farrell says that she didn’t much mind her parents’ breakup, then do her the courtesy of taking her at her word. Armchair psychologizing of this particularly facile and clichéd variety does nothing to help one understand Farrell’s art nor does it give one any meaningful insight into her creative partnership with Balanchine. That special relationship only “[bears] the earmarks of unfinished business with her own father" if the daughter happens to be a great dancer and her father happens to be a great choreographer and there happens to be “unfinished business” in the first place. I say that Farrell's relationship with Balanchine bore all the earmarks of two remarkable artists colliding like charged particles.

I think that if Farrell's father hadn't been absent, her relationship with Balanchine would have been different inasmuch as she would have been different, and as it happened, "unfinished business" may well have gone into her dancing and her collaboration with Balanchine. To say that isn't to say that unfinished business and not talent and hard work and spirituality produced the great dancing.

But Acocella was wise not to speculate if she couldn't get Farrell to talk. In any case, the psychological angle would have been interesting, but nowhere on the same level as the dancing was interesting, and it might diminish and detract in retrospect from the mystery that was part of her gift. If I had clear memories of Farrell's greatness, I'd be leery of having them tarnished by a psychological "explanation."

I can't remember the details, but I've read recently that concerts mixing new "classical" compositions with intelligent pop in "non-stuffy" settings (clubs) have been catching on with younger listeners, many of whom are probably reluctant to spring for pricey symphony tickets anyhow. This is a big university town and there was at least one such concert here last fall.

Jane, since you love 30's-50's ballet history I hope you have a copy of the 1954 book "Ballet Panorama," with photos by "Baron," and commentary by Arnold Haskell. It's a sequel to "Baron at the Ballet," which I haven't seen. In this 222-page book of portraits and staged shots taken in the three years prior to publication the material is arranged into sections called The Dancer as Individual, Exotics (non-ballet), English Ballet, and Other Ballet Companies (NYCB, POB, RDB). Many of the photos are full-page; none are smaller than a quarter page.

Gordon Anthony's "Dancers to Remember" also features staged photos, mostly from the 30's and 40's, with a few from the early 50's, and has an appendix in which Gordon goes into detail about his methods and technique.

Another volume I treasure is Cecil Beaton's little 1951 memoir "Ballet," with its watercolor dustjacket and frontispiece, over 100 gorgeous and evocative photos, and numerous line drawings.

I wish the State Theater would commission statues of Balanchine and Kirstein

for the Promenade. That would be so appropriate.

Or maybe, at least, they could borrow & display the Noguchi bust of Kirstein the Wadsworth Atheneum has in Hartford.

Didn't the library there borrow it for the 1993 celebration? Seems to me I saw it then.

As far as I can remember, Maya last set foot on American soil during the July 1999 Met engagement.

She danced Fee Fleur de Farine (Wheat Flour) in Sleeping Beauty at the Kennedy Center in February 2002. I remember seeing her dance the final performance of the run, but according to the program she was scheduled to dance all five performances.

Thanks, Cygnet, for your heartfelt written appreciation of Dumchenko, and thanks everyone else for your raves and reviews. I attended the Saturday matinee, and I've never seen dancing lovelier than Obraztsova's.

Thanks for a great question, Cliff. Productions tend to deteriorate over time if the choreographer dies or moves on (if he's a guest) or loses interest. In such cases dancers replacing the originators of the roles lack the benefit of the creator's concentrated coaching. For example I've read that even during Balanchine's lifeftime some of his ballets sometimes looked shoddy.

Isn't it more likely that it is the NYCB Board, and not Peter Martins, that wants a new R and J? No doubt their marketing surveys indicate that this would bring in considerable revenue from the full length ballet fans.

But between ABT and whoever else lands at the Met each year, the full length fans already have a lot to choose from. I would think the board would have enough familiarity with and love of NYCB history to want the company to follow NYCB tradition, not glom on to someone else's.

As for her qualifications - other than her personal relationships - for a number of years she ran a pickup company with NYCB dancers and others that toured in this country and abroad. So no doubt she does have experience and skills in the area of administration, casting, etc.

Experience, yes. But that pickup company showed up at George Mason University one year billed to dance Balanchine, but substituting Martins and The Dying Swan and I forget what else instead. In the pre-performance talk Watts made some sort of excuse, but the real reason for the change was that the Balanchine Trust wouldn't give them permission for the Balanchine.

Jane, I was thinking about this, and I do believe that it reflects Balanchine's own views on faith.

The Prodigal Son is based on a parable, a parable about the relationship between God and someone who comes to believe in God.

It seems that Balanchine felt that a Christian builds his/her own faith in God; God does not reach out, or compel, belief.

fendrock, that's a fascinating reading, but it's not one I've ever heard before. Certainly it's not the classical Christian reading, which sees the parable as illustrating God's eagerness to forgive someone who has willfully done wrong, and His joy in so doing. Still, as carbro, says, the father's initial impassiveness in the ballet does make his final solicitiousness more poignant. And it puts the spotlight on the effort it cost the son to return, emphasizing the sincerity of his repentance. I'm not speculating that this is what Balanchine intended, but we can watch it that way.

Here's the part of the article that really intrigued me:

Mr. Wheeldon said he wanted to give dancers a greater voice, which is sometimes difficult in large companies like City Ballet. Referring to leaders of large companies in general, he said that casting decisions were not “always handled in a perfectly sensitive way.”

“My mission is to create an environment that is collaborative in all respects,” he said.

Collaboration is part of the choreographic process for many choreographers, as I understand it. That makes sense. But collaborative casting? How workable is that?

(Incidentally, I recall disputes over NYCB conductors going back to the days of Robert Irving and his associates.

Wasn't it said of Irving that he'd speed up tempos at Saratoga in order to get to the races on time?

Coincidently, WQXR just finished playing Gergiev's and the Kirov's complete Firebird. I didn't catch the date of the recording, but it was beautiful. Huge, reliable brass - I wonder if that will be a problem in February?

It sure sounded wonderful in Carnegie Hall in December of 2001. I can't wait to hear how this experiment works.