Amy Reusch

MJ, I imagine if you call Symphony Space by 1pm or 2pm, they should have a good sense of how early you would need to be there to get in by 8pm... I'd like to do the whole thing (if I can work out childcare conundrums) ... I hope Suki's wearing a mic for the master class... ditto Maria Tallchief coaching Maria Kosrowski in Firebird!! Watching Tallchief draw herself up to demonstrate what she wants makes me wish I had seen her in her prime... It's almost an exposition on stage presence alone... what makes a dancer magnetic when they can no longer draw on technical tricks (e.g. high extension)... [it always amazes me how sometimes young dancers can be boring inspite of incredible technical feats]

Also... I don't know about you... but when I hear a sentence like "she sashayed through the doorway", I can't say I think of someone galloping through a doorway... it always brings to mind some image of swaying hips and swishing skirts... but the square dance "sashay" is definitely a chasse-like gallop... quite possibly they both entered the language by different paths but arrived at the same spelling (for lack of imagination?)

If pick-up companies are included, didn't Anna Pavlova have an all-black corps at a performance in the carribean? (I can't remember where... cuba? )

I don't know what was the first company, but you might interested that when Balanchine was discussing with Lincoln Kirstein plans for him to come to America, he wanted to found a school in Hartford, with, I believe, 7 white students and 7 black students.

Come to think of it, even though it's all-male, they're portraying animals rather than men... even talking male animals, but still animals.

And if you leave your seat to "use the facilities", do you lose it and have to stand in line again? Have no Ballet Alertniks ever attended a wall-to-wall? I think they're usually musical events, but still... ?

Here's the schedule (wow!) Symphony Space Commemorates Balanchine Centennial with Wall to Wall Marathon Extravaganza

Maybe I'm crazy but I have trouble with Gail Grant's definition of Chasse as "one foot literally chases the other out of its position". When I first heard this, I thought it was an explanation some one came up with as a mnemonic device to help children remember the step... but that the name really referred The Hunt... as in noblemen hunting on horseback... rather than to a foot chasing another... my french dictionary lists "hunt" before anything else.. Am I out of my mind? Is there an etymology of ballet vocabulary out there? And has anyone traced the square-dance step "sashay" to chasse?

Is this piece the only all-male-dancer piece Balanchine choreographed?

Nice Season!! Makes we wish even more that we had a company here in Hartford! Has PA Ballet done either The Concert or La Fille Mal Gardee before?

Not sure if this is where this post belongs... but here goes: While I was in class today, I got to reflecting about lost ballet styles... The during grand plies, the teacher had given us a longish balance (8 counts) in fourth releve with the arms in third... mmm.. Ceccheti third, I think... in order to make us think about the arms... requesting that we keep the neck long and the arms soft... Since due to injury I can't releve for the time being, I was totally focussed on trying to keep the arms alive while soft... and got to thinking that this isn't a position we work much on any more... and that "softness" is something not talked about in arms much anymore either... at least not in the studios I've wandered through... And it reminded me of Jean Benoït-Lévy's 1937 French film "Mort du Cygne" released as "Ballerina" in this country... Have you seen this film? It was shot at the Paris Opera and includes footage of the company dancing. For sort of random reasons, I found myself watching it over and over a few years ago while trying to con my toddler into feeling sleepy (she didn't seem to mind the French subtitled since she didn't speak much yet, and having recently conquered walking she found images of people dancing fascinating) (she also made me watch "Top Hat" over & over again at that stage of her life; always later referring to "Mr. Rogers" as "Ginger Rogers"). Watching the dancing of that time, it was hard for me to get used to the technique differences... I kept wondering what on earth people saw in the dancers of that time since it didn't seem to be "line" in anyway we would recognize today... finally I decided it was an intentional quality of softness to the movement... like big soft clouds... all those soft extensions, etc... and the arms... as if a tense muscle would be childish, anxiety-stricken, vulgar or un-womanly.... Which brings me back to the soft third arabesque arms... they seem like a relic of La/Les Sylphides... Is there a quality of "softness" that was present in pre-1950 ballet that we have abandoned? Or are there post 1950 ballets that continue this tradition? I'm not referring to "delicate/lyrical/sensitive as opposed to bold"... it's not that wispy superlight versus strong attack thing... like the difference between 1830s french ballets and late Petipa.... I think we still have that interpretation model... but rather more rounded, less extremity oriented... more quality of movement than shape of movement type thing... Am I making a grain of sense? Here's a blurb from the 2000 SF Intl. Film Festival on the movie

The idea of bringing rotten fruit/vegatables with one to the theater seems bizarre to me... pre-meditated... I mean, I wouldn't go to something that I thought ahead of time that I might feel inspired to pelt the performers with vegatables, would you? After I posted that earlier note, I was wondering if the vegetable thing was something that had mostly happened in the middle ages to mummers, etc. who were perhaps were performing at fairs where vegetable would have been for sale and handy... and it became one of those theater legends... like all the different explanations for how "the green room" got it's name... Does La Scala have some sort of tradition of this vegetable thing?? Is this some sort of "interactive audience" thing?

On the other hand, riots are generally good publicity, right? What about those clacques that stoked the rivalry between Essler & Taglioni, did they only applaud or did they voice disapproval as well? Did people really throw rotten fruit once upon a time in theaters? Perhaps the audience caring enough to voice displeasure isn't the worst thing. What is better, a passionate audience or a polite audience? Booing seems childish, somehow.

And in previous years was NYCB the only dance offered, or were companies like DTH, MCB and Taylor offered in addition to NYCB?...

Sometimes I've wondered if isolation doesn't end up as a benefit, growing a distinct style rather than a bland homogeneity... it might be a gift to be isolated, but only if there is funding enough for excellence to grow... too bad so many of our regional companies are underfunded... we might have a new wealth of choreography (so long as they were forbidden to travel?)... Do you think ABT is trying to rectify it's imported talent situation by building up it's school again?, or do you think the school is mostly an attempt at supplementary income?

Just curious... have they said yet with what specifically SPAC was filling in the 3 weeks that were formerly NYCB's?

Unless I know the author personally, guilt does not drive me to finish a book. Generally, guilt drives me to put aside even great books to get other things done. Come to think of it, even when I know the author, I often can't finish the book. Perhaps some day I'll have the luxury of time necessary to feel guilty about books. One can always hope.

I'm a little confused by this statistic... does the 78 percent include the 44 percent?... isn't a live pop/rock concert a live performing arts event?

By the way, have they improved their program listings? When they performed here a few years ago, it was almost impossible to know who danced what because there were so many names listed for each part. An 88 city tour? Whew!

Thanks for the recommendation. I've always avoided parking parkside because of the increased break-in risk... but maybe since I don't have either xenon lights or airbags and my mileage is way way way way up there, I shouldn't be concerned. What is the deal these days on break-ins in NYC? I remember when it was pretty rampant... although perhaps not so rampant as that decade when because of overcrowded prisons, no one went to jail for grand auto theft and there were gang wars on the upper west side about car stealing turf. If you walk along Riverside Drive, do you see much broken window glass on the street these days? Or is that mostly a thing of the past?

I'd like to see Figure in the Carpet too... but call me sadistic, I'd also like to see PAMTGG because I wonder if now that "jet set" seems "period" there aren't aspects to PAMTGG that are "period" as well.... just curiousity..... everyone seems to have thought it pretty bad, it's sort of fascinating for that reason alone. What would the Trocks make of it, I wonder?

Are NYC parking tickets as cheap as $50? I might consider! No, I'll probably be driving around looking for a spot for hours... probably the night before.... or else I'll park further downtown and subway up. But I wonder when the schedule for the wall-to-wall event gets posted. I'd like to see Renard again.

And if you need material to get your creative juices flowing, try out this quote from Wednesday's links Saratogian.com

I'm going to try my darndest to get down to the city for this. I've heard about the wall-to-wall events for years but this is the first time I've ever attempted to attend one. Does anyone have experience? How long have you had to wait? Are there any strategies to make it through? 12 hours straight.... I don't think I'd last that long. Can't imagine that it will be easy to get in. Do I need to become a member of Symphony Space to even have a chance of seating? At $50, I guess would probably spend that for a ticket...