Amy Reusch

What are/were "Imperial Coupons"? Some sort of ration card? That couldn't be, could it? Why would one ration photographs?

Thank you so much for that Liebeslieder!

I remember hearing someone at PNB say, back in the '90s, that they raised the money before they spent it. I assume this was rather than proposing a season and premieres hoping they would attract funding. I also rememer how the decision to buy $8 million worth of Tharp rights galvanized Hubbard Street's base... I am trusting my memory of conversation with staff, which isn't quite the same thing as hard facts, but at the time they had a $100,000 budget, but almost overnight the funds had been established to cover the purchase. .. The recession has surely hit ballet companies, but I can't believe NYCB is in real trouble... Concerned, sure... Making unwelcome adjustments, sure... but more than that?

Is NYCB's deficit a higher percentage than typical of American ballet compnay budgets? I thought they were one of the most financially stable ballet companies in the country. They are the most funded ballet company in the country. Is the deficit out of line? "Financially troubled" implies to me that they are at the edge of the precipice, looking into the abyss... We aren't in danger of their going under, are we?

"The world-famous, but financially troubled company..." http://saratogian.com/articles/2013/03/28/news/doc5154c22491c4f359478276.txt I'm hoping this is just bad journalism... and not an elephant in the room for this forum... Is the NYCB "financially troubled"?

Don't the viewers get to vote on reality TV? The artists seem to have taken a vote. I think we should get to vote too! Perhaps a poll for who is the most guilty looking candidate of the week... or most imaginative new plot twist... (apologies to Eric Morton who brought up the voting concept on facebook) [and to those to whom the turn of events is consistently cruel]

Who has bought the rights to this movie?

Yes, going on a voyage is do much more picturesque than just travelling arabesque...

Google translate isn't pulling that up for me... But it does suggest a noun "scission" for split... Could Sissonne be a corruption? There is an area in France called Sissonne... where presumably the count was from... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sissonne There exists also a Pas de Ciseaux, the scissors step... one would imagine there is a relation between "scission" and "scissors" and yet it is spelled "ciseaux". Truly material ripe for much confusion...

Sissonne. Sissonne fermé (ferme with accent on last e) to sissonne failli I would say.... One might insert arabesque or en avant to indicate that the sissonne passes through arabesque and travels forward. (sissonne can travel side to side or even backwards). I believe Mel Johnson informed us once somewhere that the step was named after a count at court who was particularly good at them... But I forget the details...

Has Lunkina's husband switched film topics yet? I cannot believe the reality tv producers missed out on this! Perhaps, Moscow has come to resemble Chicago in its best film noir inspiration days... We could have a whole new genre... What would one call it? (unfortunately, just like with Chicago's gangsters, real people are being hurt).

Isn't Remnick the editor-in-chief of The New Yorker?

All the talk about pay and control over freedom to go abroad and earn guesting income makes me think back to Osipova and Vasiliev leaving the company. Wasn't there something about getting their schedules to work with their guesting obligations overseas and limitations to performing in Moscow? Perhaps they really did get considerably more freedom by leaving the Bolshoi.

This is what I had mis-remembered as coincidence... that they happened to see Filin leaving as they were moving around for better wifi... so very very strange. And what does Yurasov say?

If Dmitrichenko thought he was given the brush-off... then frustration could be a motive. The stake-out sounds so poorly done indicating that it was possibly coincidence or just amateur, and surely Dmitrichenko was not a professional criminal. We really don't have enough information to know what is true. Dmitrichenko's lawyer leaving the interrogation is just ridiculous. What can we trust out of what we've heard?

I have been given to understand that as a result of decades of government censorship, Russians are better at reading between the lines than we in the West are..

I wonder how formal thar conversation was when Dmitrichenko agreed to pay once the deed was done... and I agree with Helene, that Dmitrichenko might have felt he needed to not be on the wrong side of the hit man. What happens to people who contract hit men and then don't pay up? Perhaps he wanted the guy to menace Filin (if Dmitrichenko felt Filin were acting like the mob, might Dmitrichenko hire a mob type to counter-menace him?) I'm not advocating any of this, just trying to figure out the thinking behind it... which seems so very twisted. The telling thing to me is that the entire troupe of dancers gathered, asked questions and didn't feel they were answered squarely... so there is more afoot here than has yet come out. Filin's side seems to think so, by saying they believed more people were involved. Could there be two mob forces working counter to each other here? ... with the artists in question (with their various rivalries) the mere pawns?

Dmitrichenko is involved in real estate business circles? I smell the trail of the syndicate. They've seemed to be involved from the beginning (attack seems so professional hit-man)... but exactly how they were involved seemed rather vague... this is still vague, but another thread. This attack seems so thug-who-thinks-he-is-a-professional-hitman. A professional hit man wouldn't have left an audit trail, unless it was part of a set up to make him seem like a bumbling fool. Maybe it was intended scare as many people as possible... no trail would be less publicity? Someone with syndicate aspirations as opposed to real connections? I imagine there are all levels of proficiency when it comes to hit men. They don't seem to have found the hacker though. Edited to add quote from Ismene Brown's blog : "a non-profit dacha partnership of which Dmitrichenko is chairman, according to the SPARK database.". That doesn't sound like organized crime.

Dmitrichenko is involved in real estate business circles? I smell the trail of the syndicate. They've seemed to be involved from the beginning (attack seems so professional hit-man)... but exactly how they were involved seemed rather vague... this is still vague, but another thread.

"Filin's lawyer and wife, however, both cautioned that the ballerina is unlikely to have been the only cause of the conflict. "Sergei thinks the motives of the crime are somewhat different," Filin's wife, Maria Prorvich, was quoted as saying in an interview to the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. "The girl is only a pretext, but certainly not the main cause of the crime." She said Filin had suspected Dmitrichenko's involvement in the attack, but is certain that the circle goes beyond the three men arrested on Tuesday." [http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/03/06/ballet-star-acid-attack/1969643/] Dmitrichenko admitted telling someone that Filin was in his way home, but did not order the attack. Who then, with what motive, ordered the attack?

Is that Filin & Vorontsova? No.. The haircut threw me... It is Vorontsova & Denis Rodkin. She is lovely in th clips below... This story gets worse and worse...

Perhaps it is a difference between a European and an American approach to programming? I think here in the US, we have a tendency to put something serious or dark as the second act and a crowd pleaser for the third act... Although sometimes the second act uses some pas de deux. I'm trying to think of how to describe a typical first act... usually something that is not a stretch for the audience... The stretch is used for the second act...Perhaps a recognized masterpiece? I'm looking now at NYCB's spring calendar, and perhaps it's a model not used much any more... Looks like Martins sometimes puts a stretch in the first act and some times a crowd pleaser in the first act, but the third is usually something that closes big & bright. http://www.nycballet.com/NYCB/media/NYCBMediaLibrary/PDFs/MarketingSeasonCalendars/NYCBSpring2013RepertoryCalendar.pdf You know what? I take it back. I thought this was the usual model but looking around at various US company websites, I see it still happens but is by no means the standard structure. Perhaps it was once more prevalent.

I think the the pairings of like choreographers together is an interesting approach (if Ratmansky & Robbins can be considered both theatrical, and Cullberg & the DeMille can be considered both psychological?). Usually split bills try for a mix rather than similarity, don't they? Or am I over simplifying again?

I fear that Ratmansky imay not be not at ABT enough to make a big impact, even with the long contract. I fear he is there as much as the guest artists are there... (Please, someone disabuse me of this notion... For I hope that I am wrong.)

Ok, which choreographers have left their stamp on which companies? Obviously Balanchine on ABT and Ashton on the Royal... Tudor had a definite influence on the old ABT and I think deMille left her influence too, though perhaps that is now so long gone that it is easier to remember her influence playing feeding along with Joffrey & Arpino into the old Joffrey. I suspect that no matter what the NY critics might think of Nissensen, that he is beginning to shape Boston Ballet into it's own personal style rather than just another good repertory company. Hey, Nureyev certainly left his influence as a choreographer on the dancing of the Paris Opera, even if he was a greater dancer than choreographer... Has Ratmansky yet shaped ABT? Will Liang shape Ballet Met?