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Amy Reusch

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Posts posted by Amy Reusch

  1. The passing of Carolyn Clark, founder of NJ Ballet was announced by the company's facebook page.

     

    Before founding NJ Ballet, she danced with  American Ballet Company, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, the Radio City Music Hall Ballet and in such Broadway productions as “Music Man,” the musical that starred Robert Preston. She also danced on television's “Bell Telephone Hour” and served as an assistant choreographer for that show.   She sat on the advisory board of Channel 13 for five years and was a member of the President's Council on the Arts for the Kennedy Center.

     

    I hope to spot a better onituary, but for now only see this

     

    https://snbc13.com/carolyn-clark-founder-and-director-of-new-jersey-ballet-company-has-died-death-obituary/?fbclid=IwAR26aqB2_6nackrCK_FhvZb5ZwLKeZzzVDOoiqaj0PEuOoQ6pTIOXgUmYaI

     

    Carolyn Clark's legacy : NJ Ballet  https://www.nj.com/entertainment/2018/11/nj_ballet_60th_anniversary_season_mayo.html

    Meanwhile, here is an interview in the NY Times from 1978  https://www.nytimes.com/1978/08/06/archives/new-jersey-weekly-interview-ballet-director-leads-revival-ballet.html

     

     

     

  2. In 2022:  Grants to Dance = Total Dollar Amount: $2,315,000    

    in 1974 (in 1974 dollars):  $3,942,327.  Page 24  
     

    In 2022 dollars that 1974 total would be $22,294,699 according to this site.  https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1974?amount=3942327    
     

    By contrast, in 1974 dollars, that 2022 total would  be $409,357.     
     

    Peanuts by comparison, during a period when the government has been subsidizing private for profit business' pandemic losses.

    [Also, I don't see how to get rid of that highlighting, it is unintentional]

    NEA-Annual-Report-1974.pdf#page27

    Grant-Announcement-DisciplineListReport-

     

  3. Several friends, sad to have missed the local screening, were wondering if/when one could stream "In Balanchine's Classroom".  Today another friend sent me a link and I thought I would share it here:  https://kinonow.com/film/in-balanchine-s-classroom/611a871fe21b1a0001f19ec3?fbclid=IwAR1i94ijMFayL5CpqcSg3htHLmysEPbA8z3F8SrN6qX0W3FjSytyLgyR_V0

     

    it is a wonderful film, much in the same line as the Ballets Russes film a few years ago, also a Zeitgeist film... I thought it would be dry and technical (and was looking forward to learning more about Balanchine technique) , but this was not that.  I recommend it for a wide audience.

  4. Jacques... never spoke down to us... always giving... so much energy and elegance as a dancer, and always a dancer, full of curiosity and fascination... and a superb partner....  I used to think his hands affectatious until someone pointed out that Balanchine held his hands that way...   and a producer, he was always bring talent together.

     

    if only he were not so unique.... the world could use so many more like him.

  5. My daughter went with a crowd from BU's honors college opening night and they all adored the Forsythe and Glass Pieces.  I was surpised Agon was less well received, but I think their ears and eyes have been more trained for the other two... Remembe back when the repetitiveness of Philip Glass & Steve Reich was controversial?  This generation grew up with that style of music  as soundtracks for movies and tv advertisements (different sure, but more similar than 12 tone)  And the Forsythe sure speaks to the Instagram generation.  Balanchine's Agon lines are best delivered clean cool and with stillness.  Not made to be punched or muddled.  The timing is tricky... as is the movement intention... if there is no reach in the extension because it came so very easily, perhaps it misses a subtle dramatic quality... and yet if the reach is over emphasized, the sophistication is lost.  Decades ago PA Ballet used to do a killer Agon, but the dancers had the advantage of being closer in time to the originsators.  Not sure what the answer was, but I imagine the casting makes a difference.  I don,t have my program handy (which oddly had the wrong cast anyway,  but I wrote down the corrections) but some of the dancers seemed better in it than others... who looked like they were doing Rubies or Forsythe or Elo perhaps... the muscle memory must be so close in some of those movements!   I remember liking the blonde dancer in the pas de trois.  The toss somehow did not quite hit it though.  And there were some strange overly fay wrists in some sections that I don't remember having that quality in other productions... bent, sure, but not flipped.

  6. So happy that my daughter me (nice role reversal) to see Boston Ballet's rEVOLUTION on Friday, Feb 28.

    i was really looking forward to Agon, one of my favorite Balanchine ballets... and I was looking forward to seeing Forsythe's In the Middle, somewhat  elevated....  as I had never seen his work live before, only on the flat screen.   I was mildly curious to see Glass Pieces, but not particularly, as the video clips I've caught in the past never particularly piqued my interest.

    But wow!! Glass Pieces!!!  Boston Ballet really gets this piece!  And Lia Cirio, wow, just wow!  I've seen her dance every few years, but hadn't seen her lately... she has truly come into her own... as if she stole the "evolution" in the title to show just how far she has come.   

    But, back to Glass Pieces...I have never seen Einstein on the Beach, (and my memory is infamous) but someone who was in it described how he just continually jogged across the stage always in the same direction... imagining what this might have looked like has stuck in my head for almost 40 years... is Robbins dancers among walking people derivative?  I don't know, but it was so effective...it was like watching Dances At  Gathering performed in the subway walkways during rush hour.  Cirio however was in Facades, which I was sorry to learn was not called Ahkenaton... as it seemed performed against a Nile of corps dancers...  The Coda was my daughter's favorite and much as I admired Boston Ballet's male contingent in it, the choreography mostly reminded me of Robbin's Broadway work, which I think I am just the wrong generation for.  But I loved watching the large ensrmble manage to fill the stage with tremendous energy travelling in every direction without crashing into each other... loved the eye contact between the dancers, hard to explain, but what a company!

    I had never heard Thom Willems' music with the extremely dimensional sound design.  I was familar the music, but it was as if it had been taken apart with certain elements exaggerated and given direction. It was kind of distracting... as if it was darting around the house while the dancers were behind the proscenium.   The dancing was fantastic, with all the dancing virtuostic but certain dancers asserting their own signature onto the movement more convincingly than others.  I have always felt no one quite looks at home in the movement as much as Guillem did, but some of BB's male principals pulled this off as well.  Wonderful to see.

    i must be getting old.  Perhaps I am losing night vision, but the only lighting I liked (and liked quite a bit) was for Glass Pieces.  For both Agon & In the Middle... the hot highlights on the dancers were hard to look at... in Agon, the men's white Tshirts were so flourescently bright it distracted from the movement.  For In the Middle.... the hot light from above made my irises want to close down like a video camera, making the shadowy black even more shadowy.  I would say sit closer than under the balcony if you go, perhaps it looks better up close..

     

     

  7. A Brisé is a glissade through fourth that is "broken" by a beat... so the carriage of the weight/jump is different from an assemblé.  I would say there is more floating upward elevation in an assemblé battu than in a brisé which more of a traveling step along the ground. Brisé volé is a little different, but that really isn't an assemble as it is landed on one leg, not two assembled together.  

  8. 13 hours ago, FauxPas said:

    Here is Olga Spessivtseva - not pigtail but a kind of ponytail.

    I see little or no resemblance to Smirnova, who I like very much but prefer as Raymonda or Odette to Giselle.  Great Giselles are kind of a ballerina breed apart.

     

    I was thinking not of that film, but rather the photos...( I wouldn't have called a resemblance from the film either)...  more the small head and the neck line more in evidence here...

    https://ballet.blogberth.com/2018/07/19/tsiskaridzeolga-spessivtseva-as-giselle/

     

  9. Would really like to have more of the pantomime explained... what was the thing where they strike 3 times on their arm as if hitting chimes... what was that broken cross sign made in Act II?  I missed the foreshadowing of Giselle's weak heart during the peasant dances.  Why did Loys send all the peasant girls away before the aristocrats arrived?  I appreciated what the camera was trying for in the arabesque voyagé crossing but wished they perhaps had more practice at it as perhaps with a little tweaking it would have succeeded better.  Was the lighting was adjusted for the video, was it brightened?  It seemed like it might have been.   Could Giselle not have have looked at Albrecht in the dancing before Myrtha arrives, it is as if she can't see him?  Surely Giselle can see Albrecht, it would be the mortal having difficulty seeing the spirit, not the other way around?  Giselle directing Albrecht to the cross was so beautifully and clearly done here, it would be hard to miss that plot point..  I am still waiting for a graceful femme fatale Myrtha... everyone in the role seems to show strain in their arms during the jumps and the lillies just make it more abrupt.  Certainly her line was beautiful, but does Myrtha's coldness always have to be so taut & stony, it always has been in the productions I've seen but it has not won me over.  Did the original Myrtha really have a great success with such an interpretation?  Does cruel always have to be harsh arm movement? I kept wondering if Smirnova would have evoked Spessitseva had anyone seen both perform live.  Her acting was beautiful, as was that of a great many in the cast.  I would see this again in a moment.  Especially if they could widen the the shots just a bit... the Willis looked so beautifully trained, particularly when they toss Hans to his death but the camera was almost too close for us to see the successional transition.

    I want to watch again to see how Giselle was wingless and then after spinning at Myrtha's order, the wings were visible.   I guess I have always managed to miss that detail!

    All that said, I could watch Artemy Belyakov all day long... and then some.

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