Amy Reusch

Does she think they pay for bad reviews too?

There seem to be fewer students than I would have imagined... and I'm surprised by the mukluks...

Oddly, all the subject heading are shown lined up vertically as if in a column only one character wide... Until I click in far enough to read all the comments, then they suddenly align in a normal horizontal layout. It is a little hard to read. Not sure if this is because I am reading on an old iPad or what.

Thank you, Mussel!!! Mearns is a revelation every time I see her dance... always every movement seems to motivate from deep within... so subtle and yet such a difference!

There is a freedom in portraying the magical, come to think of it...

The definition of "key employee", linked to above, states "Officers, directors and trustees are not considered key employees." Is Artistic Director not a director as defined by the IRS? Tax law details are such an arcane field!

I agree with Sandik, it sounds like the trailer to Wim Wenders' Pina Bausch film.

It worked for Rite of Spring, at least publicity wise.

This is one of those things where we need a "like" button! I wonder what the cost was. I wish there were programs like this all over the world.

If the move is beautiful, perhaps the skirt should be made opaque... Balanchine liked extensions but not used indiscriminately. I can't remember any pictures of oversplits in his dancers when he was alive...

It would help a lot if this could be the new model... artistic integrity upheld but artist allowed to give financial benefit to whomever seems right.

Thank heavens.

I was surprised to discover a few years ago there was a distinct PA Ballet style, but indeed there is. I would have had to sit and analyse it quite a bit to describe it, as it was subtle, but the company that performed in the videos on it's anniversary this side of the millenium looked surprisingly like the company of twenty years ago... and was distinguishable by that style from Boston Ballet and PNB even though there were a lot of reasons for these companies to resemble each other... perhaps it was the influence of constistent ballet masters & repiteurs, but it was there. While it is lovely with the global village that so much talent moves around the world..., I for one, am sorry to see the homogenizing effect the global village has had on companies that used to have such distinct flavors. Sure, the major companies still look different, but I would venture that they are a lot less different than they were thirty years ago. The repertories are becoming increasingly similar as well. Something is being lost here.

I suspect Roy Kaiser might have very much been a "dancers' director"... he shepherded the company out of financial crisis, kept the repertory and style intact, and built the institution up from within, filling the positions of ballet masters/mistresses with retiring principal dancers who had been with the company since their apprentice years and who knew the repertory and company style as only one who has been with the company all one's professional life could... It is a model that very much reminds me of the structure of the great ballet institutions of the world: Paris Opera, Maryinski, Royal Danish, Bolshoi, Royal Ballet, Australian Ballet... This may have lead to some weaknesses that the board sought to counter with Angel Corella's hiring, but I think they may have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. Of course he is going to bring in his own team.... but the newcomers vs. existing camaraderie must have been harsh... particularly when so many the newcomers communicated in a language not shared by the majority of the existing company. Sure, City Ballet & SAB was run by a strong Russian coterie, but everyone new this coming in and it was part of the Ballets Russes heritage of the company. I am not in Philadelphia... it has been decades since I lived there... but it seems a strange fit. Miami, on the other hand, would have been a natural location for this new company. So many of the new coterie seem to have Orlando Ballet connections.

Out of curiosity, of the 43 dancers, how many were there before Corella took over? Didn't he add a few fairly quickly? If he added, say, 5 dancers, would that mean a higher percentage of the previous company has left?

Ruth Page perhaps should be added to the list of choreographer/directors. If we include non-ballet but still western theatrical dance, then Doris Humphrey serving as artistic director/choregrapher for the Jose Limon company might be worth considering as arguably the biggest talent performing would have been Jose. It may not quite fit your search as Humphrey was also a stellar dancer (though perhaps she was not dancing by then?) and Limon was a masterful choreographer.... but... Do Tharp's works do more to showcase male talent? I am not sure I could go that far... Almost, but maybe not.

This is wonderful!! So very happy they found a way around risking the copyright of the choreography to do this!

Beautiful! I often find myself watching footage from this show... What is it?

Come to think of it, perhaps it was the Bolshoi that was referred to as a ship? Maybe the metaphor has been applied to both behemoths in the last year.

We've discussed many an artistic director and many an Institution over the years here on Ballet Alert, but have we directly abstractly discussed the dynamics of the artist vs, the institution? It seems successful artists gradually grow an institutions like a carapace, and that this shell can survive longer than the artist and take on new residents as if the shell selected the hermit crab,,, Without an institution to handle producing, artists cannot seem to survive for long... Self producing artists eventually burn out if they don't build up an institution, but sometimes even these self built institutions throw out the artist. I think I've heard the Paris Opera referred to in the last six months as an ocean liner, and that an artistic director cannot hope to suddenly change course... Would love to see an examination of the artist vis a vis the institution. Did the Maryinsky make Petipa possible? Would he have produced The Sleeping Beauty for a smaller institution? does the institution shape the artist? How does a big institution affect the kind of work a choreographer produces? It has resources to foster a choreographer, but it also has to support those resources and the pressure to produce success is different from the drive to create artistic expression perhaps? Words do not serve me well here.. but I think some here would know what I am getting at... Jerome Robbins produced a lot of work for Broadway... Is Broadway an instutution itself, even if it is a market? Does a ballet company require a school to survive, or merely a Nutcracker? (Can the Nutcracker be considered an institution?) Do large institutions untintentionally stifle innovation? For a while there it seemed ballet companies were all commissioning modern dance choreographers to create them new works. Have we moved on from that era to a new era of international star choreographers continent hopping like Ratmansky, Wheeldon & ? Is ballet an institution in its very bones? What makes for a sea change? Battling with a bureacracy from time to time, one wonders about these things, what the invisible beast is that is part of the equation.

I find the strapontin seats fascinating...they seem like they would surely violate the firecodes here in the US. Are they less expensive than the regular seats? Where do the ushers keep the strapontin patrons until the last minute seating?

Kbarber, it's been a long time, but I have this vague memory of being told once that an easy way to deal with PAL was to playback the DVD on a computer rather than to a TV. I don't think I've ever had a PAL DVD to test out this solution. Do you knowif it is a myth? [edited later to add: My spologies, I joined this discussion late and did not see the earlier post about the DVD not playing back on computer]

I loved the live stream... So wonderful to see Square Dance from that perspective and through a wide angle lens... One really gets the social dance aspect in a way one doesn't from the flatness of a proscenium presentation. Next time perhaps they could be persuaded to put a wireless mic on Peter Boal, he was difficult to hear and it would have been nice to hear what he was saying to the dancers. It was eye opening to watch the run up the platform in Prodigal.

Ah yes, but Balanchine founded NYCB...

The company will look gorgeous in Balanchine's "Midsummer Night's Dream", in my humble opinion.