miliosr

Jeremie Neveu of the Bordeax Ballet posted this selfie w/ Gomes yesterday: https://www.instagram.com/p/BdKhPLUHlJ_/?taken-by=jeremiiiie http://www.pictame.com/media/1678299989624640127_207663155 And, according to this, Gomes is still scheduled to partner Dorothee Gilbert of the Paris Opera Ballet in Turin as part of Roberto Bolle & Friends: http://www.teatroregio.torino.it/en/node/6811/locandina

Working critics should not be acting as advocates, especially when basic facts are not known. If Wendy Perron knows something that allows her to distinguish between a "small indiscretion" and "shameful behavior," then she needs to report on it. Otherwise, she should have written nothing. As for Scherr, I would respond as a gay male that there are plenty of gay male predators out there. (Responding solely to her tweet and not making any commentary about Gomes because, again, basic facts are unknown.) It's been bad enough watching Alastair Macaulay try to ingratiate himself with various dancers on their Instagram feeds. Seeing Perron and Scherr wade into the fray as advocates instead of journalists only cheapens the critical function even more. Regarding the ABT press release, I don't think it would have made a bit of difference if the ABT board had just written that Gomes resigned and left it there. Given his stature in the dance world, the speculation would have been just as intense.

Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got til it's gone . . .

In the interview Croce gave to Dance Ink after the publication of "Discussing the Undiscussable," Croce had the following to say about criticism and the dancer: SL: Do you think criticism should have a practical effect on the dance world? AC: No. Criticism is only for the audience's personal use. SL: Would you like to be more influential on dancers or companies? AC: No! Absolutely not. That's not ever the point. They [dancers] should do what they do: go to class, listen to the teacher, work hard, look in the mirror, get onstage, get it over with, come back, do it again. The critic doesn't exist to write for the dancer, but for the public. This is a point Edwin [Denby] made better than I can: "Criticism is a conversation that the audience has with itself, and if the performer wants to eavesdrop on the conversation, he does so at his own risk."

Vincent Chaillet has announced on Instagram that he's leaving the company starting with the 2018-19 season. I'm not sure if it's a permanent departure or if he's just taking a leave.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this point. The point I was making in my original post was that Millepied frittered away energy on fights that he wasn't going to win. Control of the school and the competition were known quantities before he took the job. In the long New Yorker profile that followed Millepied's appointment, Peter Martins (!) even warned him about taking the job at the POB for precisely these kinds of reasons. He must have correctly perceived that Millepied's desire to have change and to achieve it right away would be problematic. All of which takes me back as to why Millepied was hired in the first place.

Reset does give certain hints in the sense that you can see Millepied running a micro company within the much larger company, which caused a great deal of heartburn within the ranks. Meanwhile, his harried, Eve Arden-ish assistant is running around the Garnier trying to get him to focus on his administrative duties. (Joke: "Have you seen Benjamin?" "Have you tried Facebook?") Whether his vision for the Paris Opera Ballet was ever a realistic one or not is a debatable point. But to achieve that vision, he would have to have settled in for the long haul and achieved change incrementally. Instead, in a short time span, he imposed an alien repertory on the company, fought a pointless battle trying to get rid of the internal competition for promotion (which the dancers rejected), pointlessly carped and complained that the POB school wasn't under his control (when Elisabeth Platel was never going to cede control of it to him in any event) and made a number of tactless comments about the company's performing style, including the infamous line that watching the company was like watching wallpaper. All of which suggests that maybe Benjamin Millepied's virtues aren't meant for a large institution with entrenched ways of doing things.

This could easily compete for the title of 'Greatest Comment Ever Made at Ballet Alert!' Farrell is 72 and closing down her namesake company. McBride is 75 and is transitioning out of her company in North Carolina. Pat Neary is going strong as a stager but she too is 75. Arthur Mitchell is 83. At this point, I have to think that this generation has had its moment in the sun and the board will go with someone from a younger generation.

John Clifford certainly has an interesting comment on his Instagram feed this morning . . . Regarding the casting couch allegations themselves, I got to thinking about Benjamin Millepied's ill-fated tenure at the Paris Opera Ballet, and his expressed desire to get rid of the internal competition for promotion and to work around the strict hierarchy in the casting of roles. (He didn't get his wish in either case.) At the time, there was a lot of discussion about whether the promotional competition intruded on the artistic director's prerogatives, and whether the hierarchy led to a kind of sclerosis in casting parts. But the flip side is that the competition and the hierarchy act (however imperfectly) as a bulwark against artistic director abuse. As for Suzanne Farrell taking over the helm (if Martins doesn't manage to weather the storm), at 72, I don't know that she would want the hassle of managing a big institution like City Ballet when she didn't want to institutionalize her own company in DC as a rival "see" to City Ballet.

I had the opposite thought regarding the continuing magnitude of Corella's stardom. Ever since he went off to found the Corella/Barcelona Ballet in Spain, I've felt there's been a cooling off to his fame. I really felt that way when he had his sendoff from ABT, which (in my opinion) had a perfunctory quality to it. Oh well, I guess these things are hard to quantify. I agree that McKenzie isn't going anywhere. He's only 63. And it's easy to underestimate how much good will he has with the ABT board given that he got the company through the near company collapse in the early-90s, the dot com collapse (and attendant funding collapse) in the early 00s, and the Great Recession (and attendant funding collapse) in 2008. Actually, the two plum positions to be had sooner rather than later are those of Helgi Tomasson (75) and Peter Martins (71) (although I think Peter Martins may go out feet first.) Yes, she deserves consideration as well. The field shouldn't be limited to these "primo ballerino assolutos".

Is he a realistic contender to succeed McKenzie? I would think that Ethan Steifel or Marcelo Gomes would be the more likely candidates to succeed McKenzie. And, it sure would be messy to abandon Pennsylvania Ballet to its fate by taking some of his PB dancers with him to ABT and then purging the ranks at ABT to make room for them. Messy.

Sorry if I was unclear. I wasn't saying that he was performing in an official capacity with ABT. Instead, I was suggesting that he's still maintaining his ties with the wider ABT family. Even as a last-minute replacement for Whiteside, Baca is smart to keep up relations with ABT.

Per Sterling Baca's Instagram feed, he's guesting with Gillian Murphy in Nutcracker performances this weekend. So, at any rate, he's maintaining his ties with ABT.

What I question is how deep that well may be. It's not like Pennsylvania Ballet is a new company. In addition, New York dancegoers can see ABT perform the multi-act story ballets every spring and summer and can see City Ballet perform the Balanchine repertory year round. Is Pennsylvania Ballet under Angel Corella distinctive enough in either area that it will produce a stampede from New York to Philadelphia? I don't know. Based on the 2016 Guidestar filing, it would appear that revenue vs. expenditures is a problem. And they definitely need to get a better press person in place.

Igor Yebra, formerly of the Bordeaux company, is the new director: http://www.elmundo.es/cultura/teatro/2017/11/28/5a1da4a0468aeb933e8b45f9.html

I took a look at Pennsylvania Ballet's 2015 and 2016 form 990 filings, which are publically available at Guidestar. For the 2015 filing, revenue exceeded expenditures by slightly more than $2 million. But for the 2016 filing, year-to-year revenue declined by close to $3 million while year-to-year expenditures increased by slightly over $1 million. (For the 2016 filing as a whole, the company ran a deficit of $2 million.)

Yes, she's been doing double-duty as an etoile at the Paris Opera Ballet and director of the Rome Opera Ballet for two years.

Another article in what seems like a concerted push to undo all the bad publicity of the past few years: http://www.phillymag.com/news/2017/10/14/pennsylvania-ballet-angel-corella-drama/ This caught my eye: "The board likes what it’s seeing so far. It has extended Corella’s contract into the 2021-’22 season. Ticket revenue for last season was up 15 percent over 2013-’14. There’s been a 33 percent increase in contributed revenue from the board since Corella arrived. Individual giving is up 42 percent, not including the board gifts. A New York Friends of Pennsylvania Ballet has formed, and the numbers are rising for the Ballet’s Young Friends contingent." Percentage increases don't necessarily give you the full picture. If ticket sales and individual/board giving had atrophied to low levels, then double digit percentage increases may look impressive but aren't indicative of the organization's financial health, especially if costs have also increased.

I really wish he would stop commenting about the former dancers. First of all, it's a 'he said-they said' situation that can never be definitively settled either way. But, more importantly, he's the director now. It's all about the quality of the productions -- or its lack.

Suite en blanc in full: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHbPmfpVoz0 Suite en blanc continues to be a popular programming choice for the current and former Paris Opera Ballet etoiles directing companies in Europe. In addition to Laurent Hilaire programming this for the Stanislavsky, (now ex-director) Charles Jude programmed it this fall at the Bordeaux Ballet. The Rome Opera Ballet (directed by Eleanora Abbagnato) will perform it in the new year (w/ Roland Petit's Pink Floyd ballet!) and Nicolas Le RIche has announced that the Royal Swedish Ballet will be performing it in 2018-19 (w/ a new work by Jeremie Belingard!) And in other news, a promo for the Balanchine/Taylor/Garnier/Ekman mixed bill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaN11KDbH94

Have any of our UK posters seen Arthur Pita's The WInd, based on the Lillian Gish silent film from 1928?

Forthcoming documentary about the building of the Metropolitan Opera House in NYC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGgzqqAR5Wc Good to see the filmmaker(s) aren't shying away from discussing all those people who lost their homes in order to build Lincoln Center.

Paquette is covering the last 5 performances of Agon. So. once again, he is the "iron man" of the company.

Another POB-related documentary: https://vimeo.com/202167801 Must be from the 2013-14 season: https://www.memopera.fr/FicheSpect.cfm?SpeCode=MIXT&SpeNum=41209

Instead of Alu in Don Q, he'll be in this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTor43WMY3o And a more comprehensive view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCrylcWORss I don't know . . . it's post-modernism on a M-G-M budget, no?