vagansmom

Best-laid plans: Work has gobbled up all available waking hours this fall, but I found Never Let Me Go in audiobook format, so I'm listening to it now. Halfway done. It's strange and I love it. As Kathleen O'Connell stated, the narrator is a very sympathetic figure. But how can she not be, given the story she has to tell? Rosalyn Landor has become my favorite reader/performer. Her quiet, thoughtful, unhurried voice creates a mood Ishiguro must be grateful for. I know that I will search out recordings by her from now on. I believe I'll reach the end of the book in two days. Next up (because I discovered the book unread in a guest bedroom) is Ishiguro's When We Were Young. It may have been left by a visitor; I have no memory of having ever bought it myself. I'm hoping I can find The Unconsoled in audiobook format at a library. That's the only way I can manage to "read" books right now: in the car, I'm a captive audience. Anyone else listening more than reading?

Am I right that SAB dancers aren't allowed, or at the very least, are strongly encouraged NOT to attend SAB's summer program? Hehe, that would make all, or nearly all, of them NOT "pure SAB".My recollection, from my daughter's summers there, are that SAB uses the summer as a way to audition talented dancers from all over to see whom they'd like to invite to their year-round.

I think Robbie Fairchild realizes that his prospects for ensuring financial success throughout his whole life, not just his ballet dance career, lie with his seizing the here-and-now opportunities that are occurring on the heels of his Broadway success. He is multi-talented, becoming more and more well-known outside the ballet circle, and likely will have a variety of choices once he can no longer dance. It looks like golden opportunities to me, though I will miss his leading-man easy charm and ballet technique. I've longed for a new Gene Kelly: Fairchild may very well fill those shoes.

Thank you. I will start with Remains of the Day. I may then move straight to The Unconsoled because I frequently am the sole person who likes a book written by an unconventional writer. Anyone read Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout? It won the Pulitzer and is my favorite contemporary novel (if one can call it that), yet I'm the only person I know who loves it that much.

For someone who's never read Ishiguru, which book do you recommend I start with?

Corps that pays to dance: That's how I see these programs. I get it: ballet companies can't afford to pay enough dancers to mount the productions they'd like to perform. So they set up these pre-professional tuition programs (and call them different names, but the commonality is that they "pay to play"). I don't begrudge the ballet companies for doing this to stay alive, but I feel awful for the dancers who have to wait a very long time if ever to finally get paid to dance.

Abatt and others, would you say that those rookie mistakes you saw ( other than the issue of not fully extended limbs which is another matter) were all male partnering errors? What DOES a ballerina do when her partner's leg is in the way? Or when she has been under-rotated? Are there ways to manage those partner mistakes that she didn't employ? Or was it a matter of not enough partnering rehearsals?

I'd switch from Bouder to Hyltin. I think she is the complete ballet dancer and I'm truly excited to be seeing her in this role. Bouder always leaves me cold. I've tried so hard to like her but during her absence from the stage these other phenomenal dancers got their chances to dance more roles and proved they not only have the pyrotechnics or close to it, they also have an ability to connect with audiences: Hyltin, Reichlin, Peck, Fairchild, Mearns. They are each singular in their portrayals and I trust each one to embody both Odette and Odile. I trust Bouder's Odile, but the music for Odette is so exquisite I need to see a dancer who will inhabit that character or I'll be terribly disappointed.

I am very happy for Emma von Enck; she sparkles at every role she's been given, making it her own! Actually, both sisters do.

I like the photo. It's not at all what I'd imagined from reading some of the comments here when it was initially described. Thanks for the explanation about Cirio. I'm glad to hear he's a guest artist and not injured. Our loss this fall though.

No Jeffrey Cirio????

So many Odette/Odiles to see! I have to figure out how to make many trips to NYC. If Tiler Peck gets one, she'd be my first ticket, then Fairchild and Reichlin. Maybe Mearns, but I'd want to see dancers whose interpretations will surprise me.

I would be quite surprised if parents withheld their students from SAB based on Talicia Martins's drug challenges. Peter Martins was in the news for alleged wife abuse back in the years when I sent my daughter to SAB. It didn't figure at all as one of my concerns (whereas crossing NYC streets was the #1 worry - my daughter then was a country bumpkin). Administrative staff run the day-to-day school operations. That abuse issue didn't even flicker once across my mind and I never heard it mentioned by any other parents.

One day, drug addiction will finally be widely recognized (most of the medical and many of the educational professionals know this) as not a moral failing, but the product of heredity. Some people's genes make them prone to addiction very quickly. While some might be able to experiment with drugs during adolescence and young adulthood without quickly becoming addicted, others don't fare so well. Two people can be the same size and weight and take the same drug at the same dose and yet one will become addicted while the other won't. And society ignorantly praises the one with "self-control" and looks down at the other person for lack of the same. I work with this population (often individuals with ADHD - usually highly creative people) before and sometimes during addiction, and my heart goes out to them and their families. Talicia Martins and her parents, Peter Martins and Darci Kistler, have my deepest compassion. I sincerely hope that she will be able to find her way back to sobriety.

I think the difference between Misty Copeland and Joy Womack is that Copeland appears to have more social communication skills. She knew enough to hire a good PR person and to follow the advice. As dancers go, however, I'd much rather have to watch Womack in a performance than Copeland. Neither have the musicality I need to see in order to enjoy a performance and both are too earth-bound for me. But Misty scales down the technique whereas Womack doesn't. That poses an interesting question: Ignoring everything but their dancing, who do you think makes a better ABT principal?

I know a lot of dancers who've sent in video auditions. Am watching this with great curiosity because of its claims.

She's now listed as one of only two dancers so far on the company page of a new ballet compny, American National Ballet. Does anyone know anything about this company, the AD's and its mission beyond what's posted on their website? http://americannationalballet.org/the-company/

I don't know. I still think there's enough phenomenal talent out there that doesn't come with a history of negativity toward employers. If I were an AD, I wouldn't want to have to deal with her personality. She's not the big name draw that would make an AD be willing to put up with certain behaviors.

I remember that, BalletFan, and had the same thought at the time.

Had Balanchine been alive in Ansanelli's time, she surely would have been his muse. I ache to see her dance again.

Ansanelli was far and away my favorite ballerina during that period of the NYCB. I found her to be a most musical dancer. Interestingly, there was someone on Ballet Alert who followed every post of mine during that time with a post of his/her own informing me that she was the least musical dancer there! Since music was, for a very long time, my profession, I felt quite confident in my assertions. While at the Royal Ballet, Ansanelli continued to fight an injury. I've always believed that her unhappiness really stemmed as much from fear and worry about that injury as for any other reason, but that's me speaking with my pop-psyche hat on!

I could never boo a performer for all the same reasons given by so many here. But, like Mashinka, I haven't applauded for a performer whom I felt was egregiously off the mark. Even then, I end up feeling badly because I wonder if the individual has something going on (illness, injury, or family strife, etc.) that could have impacted that performance.

Based on the reports about how most of the dancers onstage after Part's final performance did not extend to her the same affection and, let's face it, respect as they did for Vishneva, I'd say that she and they are not good fits in terms of coaching. The relationship needs to be mutually respectful.

Balanchine, the son of a composer, grew up studying ballet and music concurrently. After his studies at the Mariinsky, he spent three years studying music at the Petrograd State Conservatory of Music, so he was a professional musician as well as professional dancer. I don't think it's possible to have another Balanchine unless that individual has studied both music and dance to such high levels. To me, he is the Mozart of ballet.

Me too. Thank you for telling us about it. Eleanor was my daughter's coach for many years.