Amy Reusch

I've been enjoying this series, and so was surprised at how poorly shot the stage performances were... After all the nice personality and rehearsal flicks, it never occurred to me they wouldn't know what to look at when it got to the stage... Admittedly their access was limited compared to the off-stage work, but really....? What were they looking at? Meanwhile, I've really enjoyed meeting the kiwis!

Would be nice if an angel would underwrite live music for them....

Yes, I totally agree, thank you for hunting down all the info! If development people bring in more money than the cost of their salary, it would seem the salary is insignificant, until all sources of funding have been tapped, and the limits reached....?

This is nicely done: Who are the beautiful dancers?

What seems strange to me is that Villella is taking the fall for this... it's not like he just came on board and pushed this budget on the company...

What, you don't think he wore shoes like those? Whose body he do you suppose he is wearing?

Would be fun to set up in standing room of the theater on Apr 1 somewhere...

If he only knew.....

Bob Dylan too...(opened for them)

The suspense is over "Pina"!

It is so interesting to see the cygnets pas de quatre danced with relatively smooth rolling of the heads rather than darting focus changes, something that has always been a turn off for me. This roll looks very cute and more baby swan like. Very interesting. I wonder what the original was like.

Yes, and it's very hard to channel ballet dancers back into college for choreography training... We are often talking about dancers still in their performing careers. I think it's easier for modern choreographers to find a "lab" to experiment in than for professional ballet dancers, and the ballet repertory suffers as a result. Advanced student showcases are an excellent lab... Yes, the mistakes are worked out in public, but it is a relatively friendly audience (friends and family of the students) and if the most promising of these experimenters were then drawn to the prestigous presenting venue for a private weeklong workshop with mentors... It wouldn't be the same as a year of composition at a good college, but it would be better than nothing. One is tempted to say the potential choreographers should just go to college, but then they would have to be willing to say goodbye to their dancing careers... And if one waits until they are at the point of retiring, then they are starting at a time when the use of their own bodies to experiment on is starting to be diminished,.. It is a real disadvantage. August would be an excellent time for such a thing, when there is not much else being presented and students/choreographers time tends to be more free. It could work out nicely for the student dancers too, with a morning master class, then being thrown into rehearsals with a new choreographer as well as brush up rehearsals of the piece chosen for presentation. A great networking opportunity as well as a good sample of what a dancer's life in a company is like compared to life in a school. I am not saying student performances at the regional company schools should be all new choreography; students should still ned to present the classic masterpieces, but it would be good for them to work with living developing choreographers as well.

Thanks 4rmdncr, when Kickstarter first popped up on my internet feeds it was for dance company tour projects, then later Iwas surprised to read somewhere that it was started to attract seed money to for-profit ventures. Your explanation makes the most sense. Fundraising in the internet age has evolved into a more complex but malleable thing, hasn't it? Interesting development, I wonder how the new world will shape up.

Did I miss before that they "released" their school principle from her responsibilities? I just recieved a press release announcing that Dalia Rawson was replacing the "released" Lise La Cour. I wonder what the circumstancss around the relase were.

Mentoring.... Hmmmm.... I'm now fantasizing that a venue like The Joyce, Kennedy Center or Barushnikov Arts hosting a festival in which they invite one student piece from each company for showcase presentation, coordinate press attention, arrange for a closed door mentor critique for each of the choreographers... Would be a nice thing and interesting all around... To see what choreographic talent is brewing around the country; what the up &coming dancer generation looks like, and for the choreographers to get some serious feedback and have a nice credit of their work being presented at a significant venue in NY or DC .

It's always a matter of the rights... I wonder, in terms of finding the financial backing to help a producer invest in the reissue of the Balanchine Celebration, if something like kickstarter.com wouldn't help group many small donors together enough to fund the working through of all the rights?... The internet seems to have the means these days to reach the niche market for these videos... But maybe kickstart is not the sort of tool open to an organization like the Trust or the producers of the video?

Super! Why don't all companies do this?

Yes, and I'm wondering why? Who was inspiring those three so that they should share a look? I'm wondering if it is a Fred Astaire influence?

I don't know that it is relevant, but of those ADs listed in Checkwriter's [non]table, only Villella and Martins were on a par... weren't they both (along with d'Amboise) legitimate contenders to take over NYCB on Balanchine's passing? Of the other stars (and lesser lights) from the stage, these two held way more box office sway than any other on the list. Miami has been getting Villella for a steal... It's quite the coup for a city/company this size to have scored Villella... He is older now, and were he just starting out, would no longer command the same investment, but he as surely proved his skill and successful transition from valuable dancer ro valuable director. Admittedly he is very much in the NYC mold, and perhaps Miami, as Manhattan South has less issue with this than say SF or Chicago might, but still, we're talking Villella! I honestly wondered if they thought they were replacing him with Carlos Acosta.

In all fairness to Struchkova, that is an unfortunate freeze frame of a moment when she is moving extremely quickly, so quickly that the foot has to leave the pointed position perhaps a little sooner than she would normally allow it to if she didn't need to use it to rebound back up to retiré again. What I don't see us factoring in is something I remember so many dancers of about 50 years ago all griping sbout: the horrible conditions most dance film were shot under... seems the standard complaints went along the lines of having to be on site at some ungodly early hour, warming up and then waiting "forever" for the filming to start, while all the lighting issues, etc. were worked out, then all of a sudden without enough warming to properly warm up again, being expected to dance full out on horrible floors and in spaces not necessarily well designed for fitting the choreography into...and then to do so well enough to impress posterity. Now that these dancers are elderly they can look back to at films of their now lost youth with a kinder eye, but I don't think many were satisfied with the results at the time. Some went so far as to refuse to be filmed, knowing both the conditions and how cruel history can be to dancers. I never seem to hear these complaints from todays dancers... Maybe because the recording technologies have improved so much, and the flooring and pre-production skills are better, so that dancers can be shot under normal performance conditions. I just thought a footnote was in order.

Sad wasting of the treasures in their repertory...

Sylvie Guillem's flexibilty has become almost commonplace now, yet no one seems to have quite her movement quality... There is a chic 1980s nonchalance to her performance of "in the Middle" that none of the hyperflexible followers have quite caught: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHbU5zjUbYw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Soloviev almost does on all counts... I wish elevation was still the focus, I'd rather see a grand jeté climb to these heights than legs whip open in an oversplit. Vladimiroff's line doesn't hold up well to the lens of time, but i think his elevation does:

Well... Baryshnikov does.... And that clip of Gelsey Kirkland rolling down out of piqué arabesque is still breathtaking... r

A performance without live music is like a performance lit with flourescent light... Our attention is focused entirely on the dancing, but... the subliminal effect of the quality of the music is HUGE... Like listening to a piece of music played by a student musician or a master musician... It's the same piece of music, after all, but in the master's hands it is much more effective.... The dancing is still the dancing, but it's lacking. Of course, a bad orchestra/conductor is like bad lighting... It can get in the way of enjoying the art. I wouldn't mind canned music so much if it sounded as good in the theater as in my earphones... but usually it is subjected to awful sound systems. Canned music makes the performance feel like it is missing a dimension... I can't imagine the difference to the dancers... Sure, canned is predictable... But how many dancers would prefer to take class to canned music over a live accompanist.... Very very few, unless the accompanist is incompetent.