balletmama

If you go back to the NY Times article, you will see that a university in NYC is going to be involved in the Baryshnikov project. Will be very interesting to see how this shapes up.

Have been looking over the new designs and am wondering what people on these boards think. It's hard for me to tell whether all the designs provide for performance spaces; some mention this, others don't but seem to include open areas and other gathering places that might serve the purpose. I guess that for me reviving the area might mean putting up a tall building or a secure one or one with good transportation access, but it especially means a place where people will gather for all kinds of recreation. Any thoughts? Which design gets your vote?

To me there is an Emperor's New Clothes quality to new NYCB choreography these days, which is why most of my hard-earned ticket dollars go to ABT. There appears to be a lack of vision from the top down. New versions like Swan Lake get performed for no apparent reason; the creative spark or passion is hard to discern. And re the Diamond Project, which I thankfully saw for free on television, why subject audiences to one new and less-than-thrilling piece after another? Why not show some respect for the company's tradition (and some compassion for the audience) and perform one new piece along with a few of the much-loved ones, as the Ailey company is currently doing with new pieces by Taylor-Corbett and Harper? Seems to me that in any art, the new is in dialogue with that which has come before. OK, that's my grumbling for the day...

Re Mateo, yes to what Mel says, but my understanding is that the productions are in an intimate theater and the tickets are affordable. Sounds to me like a promising formula! I know our tix to ABT and NYCB do not cover the cost, but even bad seats cost an awful lot. Not to sound like Baz Luhrman, but Broadway is a much better bargain. Why not another ballet on Broadway? Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake certainly attracted lots of people...

I felt some sensory overload in the cafe scene, but I think that suits the subject. (Keep in mind also that I am very sensitive, don't go to rock concerts, etc.). For the rest, the set is surprisingly small and the "action" focuses on a very few characters at a time. This isn't as different from a traditional opera production as all the hype would have one expect/fear. I heard an interview on NPR in which an Opera News critic voiced his fear, prior to opening night, that the singers would be "belting" since the show is on Broadway! It's nothing like that at all.

Yes, that is what most struck me. After all the excitement of the cafe scene, the most touching moments come afterward, when the street is quiet and the lovely, tender voices of Mimi and Rodolfo fill the house. Unfortunately, I did not bring kleenex...

There is a series called Footnotes: The Classics of Ballet, available on Amazon and Kultur, which I keep coming across when searching for ballet videos. I have never actually seen any of the videos, but they include explanations, interviews, and clips with some of the greatest ballet dancers ever. Can anybody who has actually seen these comment?

Saturday night, what an amazing performance. This was, I believe, the second performance of a world premiere of Lynn Taylor-Corbett's Prayers from the Edge, an exciting, beautiful, and touching piece that was, as I understand it, about gang warfare and was inspired by a trip to the Middle East. When I say that it might sound sort of programmatic, but it wasn't -- just sheer joy and excitement. I enjoyed every minute -- some amazing pas de deux -- and didn't have my usual immature wish that they'd just skip this piece and get on with Revelations. 😉 Happily, they did Revelations, too (none of us found Dance at the Gym too inspiring on this particular night), and the audience response was so overwhelming that they did an encore! Have others seen encores in dance before? I was struck more than ever by the intense connection between dancers and audience at an Ailey performance. So much of the modern I have seen, mostly up at Jacob's Pillow, has been so cerebral. I have very much enjoyed the Limon company, which also dares to be beautiful and passionate. I would be grateful to anybody who would tell me what else I might enjoy. And go to see Ailey! If you visit the NY Times website you can get 20 percent off.

I think the article is right on the mark in poking a little fun at the I Need to Suffer Or It's Not Art mentality. For some dancers, Gaynor Mindens are wonderful, and I really don't think they deserve excommunication for that! Fortunately, most technology has progressed some since the late 19th century; tennis racquets, for example, are a whole lot better today than back when I was a kid (only a few decades after Taglioni ;) ).

Gee, and I thought I was the only one who felt that way about the Girl in the Yellow Dress scene. Just couldn't see what all the fuss was about. Thought I was just getting too old to appreciate that sort of thing...;-)

Just wondering...how is the economy affecting ballet companies in general? I can see where if half your college fund has been lost in the stock market, a subscription might change to one or two carefully chosen performances. Re Boston in particular, given the management had dismissed at least one of their most popular dancers before reinstating her, could that tend to leave the audience feeling a bit like chumps?

I am going Thanksgiving weekend, when the show will be in previews. Very excited. Would love to see him do a ballet next...

Just a small, factual point: Finis Jhung now teaches at Peridance.

Just a small, factual point: Finis Jhung now teaches at Peridance.

Apparently the weather was too bad for them to broadcast the actual performance; what was on the air was the dress rehearsal.

In keeping with the title of the series, I'd like to see performances featuring some of the regional and national ballet companies -- SFB, Houston, Boston Ballet, American Repertory Ballet, Washington Ballet, Colorado, Carolina Ballet, etc. -- with a mix of wonderful classical repertoire and some new works. It would be interesting to see a program organized thematically, rather than devoting the entire time to one company. You didn't ask, but I would not like to see any more Diamond Project.

Thank you, RG. If anybody out there taped this off the air, I am looking for a copy...

Does anybody know where I could get hold of this video? It seems to be out of print and is unavailable at any of my usual used video haunts. I gather it's a series of interviews with great ballerinas about performing the role of Giselle.

A lovely performance...I have a vague memory (hallucination?) of Alexandra asking a while ago how we would like to see Romantic ballets presented with less than 90 degree arabesques. Well, even if I am remembering incorrectly, last night we did see just that. Julie Kent did not go for high arabesques in her lovely portrayal of Giselle. It was the quality of movement she brought to the role that was extraordinary. Lovely though Michele Wiles and Xiomara Reyes were, Julie was in a whole other universe. I would also like to applaud the ABT corps, which I usually see as a testimony to irrepressible American individualism. Last night they danced beautifully, dreamily, together. Their dancing was a major contribution to the beauty of the evening.

I know people who call themselves evangelical Episcopalians who are much more liberal than the televangelists and people on Christian radio stations. Many of the latter call themselves evangelical but sound awfully fundamentalist to me. Based on my personal experience with some profs, Wheaton College seems to be more liberal or open-minded than those TV-type evangelical institutions and spokespeople; PBS spent a whole episode of its Evolution series covering the fact that Wheaton teaches evolution as well as creationism. Maybe the trouble with this thread is that it's pretty hard to make blanket statements about evangelicals or any other religious group, although guessing is fun. Tomorrow night at the Met I will be on the lookout for WWJD bracelets in the audience! ;-)

I agreed to watch some of the NBA draft with my son tonight. A 7-foot tall player named Nikolai something-or-other from the republic of Georgia was drafted by a team whose name I have already forgotten. Sorry, I only follow high school hoops. ;-) Anyway, the sportscaster said to him, "I hear you started out doing ballet in Georgia." I was stunned by the player's response. "I was six years old and it wasn't ballet," he said. "Ballet is for women. I was doing national dance, and we have swords and bullets, etc." He went on about how macho Georgian national dance is. I was surprised because although I know this attitude toward ballet is prevalent in the U.S., I didn't think this kind of gender stereotyping existed in the former USSR. Was he just pandering to the American sports public, or is ballet considered "for women" among certain social groups in Russia, etc.? :confused:

Evangelical churches, along with charismatic churches, are growing dramatically while the traditional mainline Protestant churches are either leveling off or dropping (there is some difficulty evaluating the numbers, because the stats on mainline Protestant churches used to include anyone who had been born into the faith, so to speak, and now they include only people who are actually members). The explanation many give is that the evangelicals offer clearer (simpler) tenets in a scary world, and they focus on a personal relationship with God, while the mainline Protestants can be too "heady." (I am a mainline Protestant. We live in the gray areas of life.) Now, many evangelicals are anti-dance, but you probably know about Ballet Magnificat, which certainly sounds as though it's run by evangelicals. Since evangelicals are gaining enormous political power, I would definitely have some concern about the fate of arts funding. And I am sure that many on these boards are familiar with the decision of atty general John Ashcroft (who has a prayer group in his office every morning) to cover the exposed breast on the statue of Justice that stands behind him during press conferences in the justice department's Great Hall. Although she is not dancing, his objection to her visible nipple certainly says a lot about his attitude toward the body and in particular the female body. I know this is slightly off-topic, but here she is in her glory days, breast exposed: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/ame...000/1788845.stm

I enjoy visiting the cast of this sculpture that is at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA, and I have a huge poster of it in my office. My understanding is Degas was really seeking to make the little dancer look like an animal. This was a visual pun on the fact that, as Estelle reminds us, the students were known as "les petits rats" and had lifestyles considered questionable, but also I remember reading (speculation?) that Degas was interested in the ideas of Darwin. Here are some comments at the Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha) website: START QUOTE: The original Little Dancer caused a furor when first exhibited in 1881. Made of tinted wax and dressed in real clothes, the sculpture outraged many viewers' sense of propriety. One critic railed: "Wishing to present us with a statuette of a dancer, he has chosen amongst the most odiously ugly.... Oh, certainly, at the very bottom of the barrel of the dance school, there are some poor girls who look like this monster.... but what good are they in terms of statuary? Put them in a museum of zoology, of anthropology, of physiology, all right: but in a museum of art, really!" This hostility was, however, very much to the point, as Degas was clearly using the sculpture to question accepted ideas of art. Joris-Karl Huysmans, a generally more sympathetic critic observed: "The terrible truthfulness of this statuette is a source of obvious discomfort... all their notions about sculpture, about that cold, inanimate whiteness, those memorable stereotypes replicated for centuries, are demolished. The fact is that, on first blow M. Degas has overturned the conventions of sculpture." With its incorporation of ordinary materials there is a good argument for making Degas' "first blow" the first modern sculpture. The only sculpture exhibited by Degas in his lifetime, the wax version of the Little Dancer was in poor shape when unearthed in his studio after his death. Over twenty bronze versions were cast by the Paris master founder Adrien A. Hébrard under the authority of the estate, which were also "dressed" with a ribbon and tutu. To judge from the high quality of the detail in Joslyn's plaster, it is most likely that it was the successful prototype for the bronze edition. END QUOTE After showing the wax sculpture in the 1881 Impressionist exhibition and getting blasted by the critics, Degas never again showed any of his sculptures publicly. Degas is not the favorite artist of many feminists, many of whom see his approach to women as primarily voyeuristic and hostile; others see his women subjects more positively, as engrossed in their activity, unaware or uninterested in a male viewer's point of view. Little Dancer, Age 14 was cast in bronze after Degas' death. Somehow I have the sense that Mary Cassatt, his good friend on and off, was involved in getting this to happen, but my memory may be playing tricks on me. I know Cassatt was enormously impressed with his sculpture.

Nina was great! Gorgeous! And I couldn't even see the flowers from my perch...She has such an amazing quality, impossible to describe.