Amy Reusch

Mary Tyler Moore, Grace Kelly, Picasso, Steve Wright, Edward Gorey and some major economist, was it Keynes?

Does being married to a dancer or having a dancer girlfriend count as being a fan?

Parents with kids in the ballet, I don't know if they are fans themselves, but Michael Jordon's daughter took classes with Ken von Heidecke.

I think Martin Scorcese might be a fan,

Are you only looking for living celebrities?

RIP George Thomal.

I grew up at NJ Ballet, and like anyone's childhood teachers, George Thomal looms large in my memory.

His classes taught one how to dance a phrase. His adagios were reveries. Will probably always remember him off in the corner gesturing away at an imagined adagio as the pianist played for the stretch between barre and center.

He was one of those teachers who, although they may have been a perfectionist about corrections, just doing his combinations of steps themselves made one a better dancer, somehow they reinforced one's skills. Perhaps it was just the musicality of the combinations made the movements easier to execute, and the more often the steps felt easy the easier they were to perform in other people's classes as well.

One of the best pointe teachers I ever had, oddly enough... you wouldn't think a man would be a really good pointe teacher, but he was.

When a choreographer teaches class, it seems they draw out the artist in the dancer. It's always inspiring to dance in a class where the teacher is choreographing, not just presenting academic exercises... satisfying to attempt to materialize a movement musing...

And he was one of those teachers who would give the barre with little hand movements and have a student demonstrate just from following those little "hand tendus". He loved to make his students demonstrate, and he could get carried away manipulating them this way and that. I remember once demonstrating an adagio, and I still can't figure out how it happened, but he got to "helping" some cloches and next thing I knew I was hanging upside down by one knee from the barre! He was not without his eccentricities, but the longer one danced for him, the more endearing these became.

NJ Ballet indeed must be feeling a deep loss, he was their resident choreographer since the founding of the company.

I don't recall making any adjustments or subscribing to any threads... just one day it happened, all the threads were in outline format...

Would I know if I had accessed Ballettalk through Google? I have the site favorited and don't go through Google to get here. It's not transparent is it? Would it have happened if I searched Google for something else and followed a link to Ballettalk (not an unusual occurence), would it then reset Ballettalk for any other time I accessed it?

Curious situation. I'll experiment a bit.

Looks like there have been issues at other venues:

http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/224821.php

"The U of A artists series is prestigious and you trust what they say," she said. "I just feel inside that they are as much surprised as I am."

The confusion extended to the Arizona Daily Star, which previewed the ballet on Friday and reported on the St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre. The story misstated several facts, including that renowned ballerina Irina Kolesnikova would be the featured dancer.

Phwew! Thank you! Thanks Mel for the post number (which doesn't show up in outline mode but at least I could count about 30 items down and hunt) and Helene for the short answer..It took me a while to find "options"... I kept looking at all the menu items on the Balletalk banner.... but it's in the top right hand corner the thread "box". (Added in case anyone else finds themselves in the same predicament). I wonder why it switched on me. Anyway, a big thank you!

And Happy Lincoln's Birthday!

Perhaps this problem isn't boardwide, but as of today suddenly threads aren't displaying in their old manner for me.

Instead of the topic being followed by all the replies until a new page is necessary, every reply is now only accessible through some sort of links outline. It's extremely cumbersome and makes following the discussion or backing out to the forum level quite a chore.

Is there a way I can adjust my personal settings to get threads to display as they always have in the past? Or is this some sort of transitional state like the Apache thing that will clear up in a few days?

Tiny and grimy though it was, Fazil's was a very significant rehearsal space in NYC for dance forms that weren't welcome on regular floors... Occasionally as a videographer I'd be called there to watch a rehearsal, and it was such a rich experience... one of those hidden NY world types of things... studio ringing out with the sounds of middle east dance competing with flamenco guitars in the studio across the hall.... I wonder where these groups will rehearse now... Ballet Hispanico?

This is a ballet newsgroup, but in the interests of those who follow other forms of dance as well and don't regularly read the NY Times... here's an article on the studio's closing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/arts/dan....html?ref=dance

Welcome to Ballet talk! (and thanks for all your great work helping dancers in transition!)

Now it's tempting to mis-identify some one else in the photo! Let's see... who could I say looks like....

(Just kidding! I hope you liked Nora Kaye).

If you're curious to see it live, I just noticed New York Theatre Ballet is mounting it in April:

April 11-12, 2008 at 7:30 pm

A mixed repertory of works by Antony Tudor, plus William Dollar's Le Combat

and a premiere by Matthew Neenan.

http://www.nytb.org/season_repertory.htm

Looks like it's coming out in May 2008:

http://www.upf.com/book.asp?id=GOLDNS08

But it can also be ordered through the Amazon link at the top of the page (which will help support Ballet Talk).

Martin Scorsese as a guest star? Interesting!

OH... I see it was Petukhov who choreographed that bizarre Romeo & Juliet that came through a few years ago. I hope it's the traditional Giselle that they're touring? Has this tour touched down in the US anywhere yet?

... I better stop answering myself on-line... but maybe some others are wondering along the same lines:

It looks like it's been in Chicago: http://www.nwitimes.com/articles/2008/01/1...3d10080e9bf.txt

and it would seem to be the traditional version, although the article appears to be a preview rather than a review.

In this situation, I miss the old Ballettalk format of company forums.

Hunting about for this tour's production info, I found another company link (but I can't tell how current it is): http://www.musiciansgallery.com/start/danc...burg/ballet.htm

and this site has a nice history of the company and notes for Giselle:

http://popejoypresents.com/documents/Giselle.pdf

And CAMI's page for them: http://www.cami.com/?webid=617

CAMI is their agent on this US tour, as they have been for companies coming through in previous years.

Oddly, their synopsis refers to the Willis as "Willises".

Sounds too good to be true, but I'm delighted! I wonder what circumstances would permit a venue like Jorgensen would book the Yacobsen miniatures... I'm guessing they'd have to carry a season of two evenings of famous ballet before they'd add a third "experimental" evening... hard to beat the kind of free pre-marketing a ballet like Swan Lake has... They did bring in that wild Romeo & Juliet (darn, choreographer's name doesn't jump to mind) that a Russian company toured af ew years back, but then it had the Romeo & Juliet name.

I'm guessing any company that wanted to tour a Firebird or Rite of Spring wouldn't have much trouble getting bookings because of the fame of the music... although, then again, college educated adults around me weren't familiar with Firebird when it was played here recently, some mistakenly calling it "that firefly thing", so perhaps I'm wrong again...

Okay.... I guess it's just me... but I'm now wavering between company # 3 & company #7 from Natalia's post... I really suspect it's company # 7 that will be playing the University of Connecticut.... but I can't find proof. Maybe (?) someone at Jorgensen Auditorium can tell me, but generally they're not well informed... I think it was last year that they advertised Swan Lake with a photo of the Shades scene from Bayadere... I can't believe a company that rates between the Kirov and Eifmann would be playing at this kind of venue.

Thank you, thank you for the info! I don't hope that we'll get the performance San Francisco gets, but at least that sounds much better than I had hoped for! I will encourage my students to go. Unfortunately I teach that evening. Maybe it's worth my cancelling classes and arranging a group rate instead. Not sure how my director would go for that, but I'll float the idea. Most of my kids have never seen a real live professional ballet dancer, it would be worth more than class to them.

And I agree with you, Paul, about the production values. This won't be like the Coppelia that came through once. The University of Connecticut's performing arts center (?) has no fly space. I'm not sure, but perhaps this is why there was no doll in the entire first act of that Coppelia. Precious little of the references to the doll made any sense to the audence a a result. I don't think there's anything like that in Giselle? The rising from the grave should be manageable. There's been some funky lighting in the travelling shows before, so perhaps they won't manage that transition to morning convincingly, but most of the ballet should come across...

I was curious to find some info for an upcoming performance at University of Connecticut so that I could encourage some of my students to go.

Here is the billing: http://www.jorgensen.uconn.edu/event_detail.php?eventID=41

GISELLE

St. Petersburg Ballet

March 27, 2008

8:00 pm

Direct from the birthplace of classical Russian ballet, the St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre is one of the most distinguished companies in Russia. With its stunning prima ballerina, this jewel of a company will perform one of the most famous and enduring of the romantic ballets. A tragic tale of innocence and betrayed love, the doomed passion of Giselle and Albrecht is reflected in the ethereal choreography and hauntingly beautiful score by Adolphe Adam.

And here is what one finds at the St. Petersburg Ballet Site http://www.spbt.ru/?lang=eng&p=theatre...;last_rnd_id=11

SPBT IS NOT TOURING AMERICAN COLLEGES OR AMERICAN ARTS CENTRES

SPBT is not touring American colleges or American arts centres. Since October 2007 many letters are coming to our website from the USA asking us to provide more information about a forthcoming tour that SPBT (St Petersburg Ballet Theatre) is performing in America from October until spring 2008. The most repeated question is whether Irina Kolesnikova is participating in the tour.American visitors tell us they see advertising for the tour and cannot find any confirmation on our own website that Irina is touring USA. Nor can they find any confirmation on our website that SPBT is touring the USA.So many letters are coming to us every week that we are forced to make an official statement here on this site:

and a little later in the same press release:

Advertised as touring in American colleges and small arts centres with taped music is a company that has no connection whatsoever with Konstantin Tachkin’s St Petersburg Ballet Theatre – brand SPBT.

The official name of the Russian company from St Petersburg advertised as touring the USA is St. Petersburg State Academic Ballet Theater of Leonid Yakobson. Under this name they perform in the city of St Petersburg and we have no idea why they are presenting themselves in America as the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre.

There is this website for Saint Petersburg State Academic Ballet Theater of Leonid Yakobson: http://rus-ballet.com/static-jizel-1.htm

but it's a little vague.

I'm guessing the performance will be about the quality of the other Russian companies that have come through on these 1-night stand university tours... I feel for the dancers, the tours seem to be 1-night stand after 1-night stand all across the US with a handful of longer runs (3 days?) on the outskirts of large cities like NYC.

But I wonder that there isn't something of a scandal going on here with the company using another company's name.

Too bad they don't seem to be performing any of Yakobson's work. I'm curious to see that.

I'm probably totally crazy on this, but I kind of think the dark haired woman in the center of the shot looks a bit like Joysanne Sidimus... but it's been over 20 years since I last saw her and at a later date than that photo... (and you're probably going to tell me that's Nora Kaye).

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt...:en-us%26sa%3DN

Yes, to truly preserve a work, it has to be performed regularly and seen by the next generation. Hopefully mounting modern dance classics is a process still undertaken by university dance departments...

Wonderful, like your mother.

I wonder, when that sort of thing happens, is the problem always with the DVD or is it possible different DVD readers (players) have issues?

Lighting, I suppose, would also have an effect, possibly flattening out -- and therefore broadening -- the image of the dancer. (Isn't it odd that so much is written about Diaghelev's radical developments in stage design, and so little about the way these ballets were lighted?)

Perhaps that's because good lighting design is transparent? People tend to notice lighting when it's bad.

created the role of Cinderella

Who composed the music for this early (-ier than Prokofiev) Cinderella? Curious.

Excuse my ignorance, but what exactly was a benefit performance? Did the ballerina get to keep the box office?

From Alison Leigh Cowan in the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/arts/09s....html?ref=dance And there are some lovely photos!

“Ernestine at age 85 could make dancers in their 20s ashamed that they couldn’t move so well,” said Stephanie Clemens, the director of the Doris Humphrey Society in Oak Park, Ill.

She said that her group enlisted Ms. Stodelle’s help when it produced several videos dedicated to Humphrey’s work. “On those, at age 85, Ernestine is down on the floor showing a young dancer how to do a one-handed push-up,” Ms. Clemens said.

I keep wondering about the framing. It must be wonderful for the wide shots, but I wonder how it affects the tighter shots... are they as strong? Watching football on HD the other day, it seemed like they've decided extremely wide angle lenses are the way to go, exagerating the closer subjects but still keeping a full background... adds a lot of movement but in a rather distorted way... is it too much for classical ballet? I trust there are no problems with the music marrying to the image at this high quality compressoin? I find it very annoying when the music drifts to a different time than it actually happened. What might seem very minimal with other subject matter would be subltly destructive to the artistry of a dancer's phrasing.