miliosr

I've been buying back issues of Dance Magazine and its sister publication, After Dark, for the features and the photographs. But I read the reviews regardless of the writer. I'm always amazed at how much Dance Magazine reviewed, and its reviews section gives a more comprehensive picture of what was going on than you get from just reading Croce.

I don't agree that the absence of any Martins work in the international repertory is due to an inability to accept commissions. In 40 years time, if he had made works of unparalleled quality, someone would have come knocking on his door to have him stage them. If he wasn't available, there were plenty of people who were familiar with the works who could have.

All I meant by "effort" was 40 years of making pieces.

To quote Arlene Croce about Martha Graham: "When I first saw her I fell in love with everything: with the company, with her, with the gestalt. And then of course it all began to sift down, and ultimately some pieces seemed a lot less worthy than others." With Martins gone (and assuming he doesn't get asked back), that "sifting down" process for him and his body of work has begun. All we know at this juncture is that not a single piece of his holds a steady place in the international ballet repertory despite 40 years of effort. It may be that some portion of the Martins repertory survives and becomes like a hothouse flower which only blooms at the New York City Ballet. Or (as I believe to be more likely) it will suffer the same fate that Gerald Arpino's work suffered at the Joffrey. But we'll soon see.

The board members have done Peter Martins no favors with some of their public statements. The clear implication from certain comments made was that the board wanted the investigation to be in Martins' and, perhaps more importantly, the board's favor. And Earle Mack's comment about "rebuilding" gave me a chuckle. If ever someone inherited a fabulously endowed (artistically and financially) dance company, it was Martins upon Balanchine's death. Anything's possible but, if this whole sorry spectacle revealed anything, it has been that the board (a) had let too much power accrue to one person over the course of three decades, and (b) hadn't give much consideration as to what the post-Martins era would and should look like. Reinstalling a weakened Martins as artistic director (at age 71) just puts off the inevitable succession reckoning to another day. I agree.

I'm not sure the report will change any perceptions, especially on the part of those individuals who always thought the report would be a whitewash.

The scenery suggests a distant cousin of Parade.

Some reviews of New York Theatre Ballet's 2017-18 season: http://criticaldance.org/new-york-theatre-ballet-legends/ http://dancetabs.com/2018/02/new-york-theatre-ballet-beethoven-1999-optimists-dark-elegies-double-andante-new-york/ You'll have to forgive me if I don't get too worked up about the final fate of the New York City Ballet (prediction: It will be fine) when small little companies like New York Theatre Ballet struggle to attract notice. Its mission -- to present works that aren't meant to be seen on opera house stages, like Jose Limon's La Malinche and Antony Tudor's Dark Elegies -- is every bit as important as those of the larger companies.

And not even that as Serge Lifar's Suite en blanc is still regularly programmed in the European companies run by former and current Paris Opera Ballet etoiles. This season has already seen productions in Bordeaux, Moscow and Rome and next season will feature a production in Stockholm. Martins does not have a comparable work in his canon being programmed regularly anywhere. "Time's erasing finger" will be cruel to the Martins repertory. It will be squeezed out at the New York City Ballet by the commitment to the Balanchine and Robbins repertories (which, after all, are the reasons for the NYCB's continued existence) on the one hand and the company's unquenchable thirst for new works and novelties on the other. Martins' repertory may live a half-life at the company for a time depending on who inherits the artistic director position. But there's not much demand for his work in the US the way there is for Forsythe, Millepied, Ratmansky, Tharp and Wheeldon. And there's even less demand for his repertory outside the US.

Here are some of the specific points (charges?) made in the petition: Only three classically-rooted narrative ballets over a span of 18 months, No tribute to Marius Petipa on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his birth, All-Jerome Robbins program is welcome but the choice of Fancy Free is an odd choice for French dancers, A floodtide of contemporary works, specifically calling out the contemporary Nutcracker from several seasons ago and Wayne McGregor's Tree of Codes, and The absence of Lifar/Petit/Bejart as well as the great French works from history: Giselle, Coppelia, Le Corsaire, Paquita, Sylvia, La Sylphide.

Moises Martin is scheduled to play Basilio in one of the two performances of Don Q set for today. (The Atlanta Ballet site lists two performances for today at 2pm but I'm assuming the second one is really the evening show.) Also, Martin is now listed in the company roster: https://www.atlantaballet.com/about/dancers/company

When she refers to "my generation's director," I'm fairly certain she's referring to Claude Bessy. Bessy certainly provokes strong feelings. Aurelie Dupont has made no secret of her dislike for Bessy but then there are others who love her (or at least respect her):

I was surprised to read that Froustey's English was poor when she arrived in San Francisco. I've always had the impression of the POB dancers that they're all very fluent in English.

Marie-Agnes Gillot's new commercial for Estee Lauder (w/ Vincent Chaillet): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKo_MRk_d5c

No, but it's a moot point as she's on the verge of retiring from the company.

So let me ask: Who are the current exemplars (if any) of the French style in the company?

No Giselle. None of the Pierre Lacotte reconstructions. Nothing by Serge Lifar, Roland Petit and Maurice Bejart. Nothing by a young(ish) French classical choreographer like Jean-Guillaume Bart. Why a Pontus Lidberg production of Les Noces when the Bronislava Nijinska version is still viable? Why hire Mats Ek to create a new Bolero when the classic Bejart version is programmed this season and Brigitte Lefevre's commission of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's version premiered in 2013?? Iolanta/Casse-Noisette is returning to repertory even though the production(s) didn't exactly receive thundering reviews during Benjamin Millepied's tenure. Is Fancy Free a premiere for the company? A dance about American sailors on shore leave seems like a strange choice. And as for Wayne McGregor -- talk about being actively hostile to a classical dancer's technique! If I were living in Paris, I would try to score a ticket for Karl Paquette's farewell in Cendrillon and then plan on La Dame aux camellias and Le Lac des cygnes (subject to casting). Everything else -- no.

I saw it today. Leontyne Price is very funny in it and definitely steals the show. SPOILERS AHEAD The filmmakers don't shy away from detailing how Robert Moses levelled an entire neighborhood to make room for Lincoln Center. Two of the former residents of the neighborhood, who were young boys at the time, are interviewed and they explain how their parents received notice that they had to be out and that was that. The residents of the neighborhood didn't know anyone they could go to to seek relief. The film also contains documentary footage of the groundbreaking ceremony with Leonard Bernstein conducting Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Commom Man. I don't know what the filmmakers' intent was but the juxtaposition of this footage with the former residents' interviews certainly is a jarring one. The high point of the film is the fly-on-the-wall documentary footage capturing the preparations for Franco Zeffirelli's production of Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra (w/ Price). Price is very funny here, especially when she talks about being stuck inside a giant pyramid during dress rehearsal. I looked up Zeffirelli not realizing that he's still alive. And I came across this: http://people.com/movies/johnathon-schaech-molested-franco-zeffirelli/?xid=socialflow_twitter_peoplemag

June Christy's Ballads for Night People (1959) ("Shadow Woman," "Night People")! After her masterpiece, Something Cool, one of her very best recordings. I can't recommend Something Cool (the 1954-55 mono version and the 1960 stereo version) highly enough. The original mono version sold so well throughout the 50s that Capitol had Christy and arranger Pete Rugolo rerecord it note-for-note in stereo in 1960. But Christy's voice had grown deeper between recordings and it's fascinating to listen to both versions back-to-back, which is possible since a 2001 reissue contains both versions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Cool

It's that time again. New season to be announced soon!

I would add Giselle to your list of Coppelia and La Sylphide as works that should always be cycling in-and-out of repertory. When you refer to the "lost" Coppelia, are your referring to the Pierre Lacotte production that premiered in 1973-74 and repeated (according to the POB's own Web site) in 1974-75, 1977-78, 1978-79, 1979-80 and 1983-84? The Web site states that the Patrice Bart production premiered in 1995-96 (at the relative dawn of Madame Lefevre's tenure) and repeated in 1998-99, 2001-02, 2006-07 and 2010-11.

Maybe because they saw how the board dealt with Martins beating Kistler as something to be swept aside and realized their complaints wouldn't result in any action on the board's part? Maybe they thought the not-so-subtle message in Perry Silvey's online defense of Martins -- that any criticism of Martins is just sour grapes -- would be precisely what they would be confronted with? Answer: no I have to speak up for him. Unless he's done something wrong, he shouldn't be punished for any transgressions made by his mother's ex-husband (who isn't even his father.) I saw him perform once (in Jewels). He wasn't the best male on stage (that would be Anthony Huxley) but he was far from the worst either (that would be Charles Askegard and Sebastien Marcovici).

Or Joan Crawford's children. Christina Crawford wrote her (in)famous book but the two youngest children, Cathy and Cindy, denied Christina's claims. I agree. The DUI was probably the death blow.

I would take it a step further and say that these pieces can be actively hostile to classical technique. Or, to put it somewhat more mildly, by employing so many dancers on a piece where their technique and the company style are largely unneeded for these long stretches of performance dates, the technique and the style can begin to slide. I also think that some of these "contemporary" pieces are vampiristic in nature: They feed off classical technique and style to make themselves look more significant than they really are. (I put "contemporary" in quotes because, really, is Play all that different from what Yvonne Rainer & co. were doing 50 years ago except, now, Ekman is doing the big budget, M-G-M version of it?) I suppose Play isn't a catastrophe when you have the other half of the company performing Don Q at the same time. Of course, this highlights the current predicament the POB finds itself in: It's two companies -- classical and contemporary -- residing uneasily with one another in a single body.

James Whiteside posted this backstage photo from Isabella Boylston's performance in Don Q: https://www.instagram.com/p/BdK-vIVF_Ul/?hl=en&taken-by=jamesbwhiteside Is Whiteside trying to look like Diaghilev with that coat? And, yes, I think we can all agree that Mathieu Ganio is a "major babe".