YouOverThere

You can't do worse than I do, and we need more Denver-area posters. I started posting reviews when I barely knew what a fouette was (I never let not knowing what I'm talking about get in the way of having a strong opinion ).

I also loved the music for Traveling Alone. It sounded like some sort of piano quartet. I was a little bit disappointed with Archetypes. It lacked any significant work for the men, who were mostly used to lift the women. It got noticeably less applause than the other 2. On the other hand, the friend who went with me to the Lone Tree Arts Center performance (which curiously was never mentioned on the CB's website) said that she liked the choreography but found the (minimalist) music "grating". Archtypes was the most "modern" of the 3 works. I could never quite figure out the story. Traveling Alone was in the middle both in the program and in style. It apparently was about a woman who was travelling in (or moved to) a foreign country and the difficulty she had adjusting to the different culture. It had the most goose-bump moments. Embellishments was the most classical in style and had the best parts for men, and the most showy parts. This was probably my favorite of the 3. It gave me a little different view into Mozart's music. Is this reserved for season ticket holders or donor?

I attended my first ever performance by the group formerly known as David Taylor Dance Theater yesterday (3/25). David Taylor had stepped away from the day-to-day operations of the group several years ago, letting his assistant, James Wallace, run the group. Apparently, David Taylor decided to completely retire and turned over the keys to James Wallace. James Wallace then decided to collaborate with a man named Gregory Dawson, who has danced with and/or directed several dance companies in the San Francisco area. The dancers have remained through the transition (other than the normal turnover). Since there was pointe work and turnout, I posted this in a ballet forum rather than a modern dance forum. Since my impressions of ballet have been formed by the very fluid and graceful, hyper-Russian style of the Colorado Ballet, this program was a whole new experience. The program consisted of 3 15-20 minute long pieces, the first 2 choreographed by Wallace and the 3rd choreographed by Dawson. All were very modern, with all the good and bad that this designation implies. All were set to minimalist music. I came away unsure of whether I would go to see this group again. The dancers were wonderfully athletic and flexible (and the women had great legs even by dancer standards ). It was certainly a novel experience and the choreographers are obviously highly creative. But on the other hand, the program was very academic. The program notes contained statements like "...explore choreographed phrases that will be retrograded, distorted, and inverted in a way that they will not be recognizable from the original composed sentences." All 3 works were emotionally sterile. No drama, no story, no depictions of human interaction, no attempt at "beauty", at least in the non-intellectual sense. Both of Wallace's pieces tended to move at about the same pace for the entire length (not surprising when working with the minimalist music), and they became repetitious (not unlike a lot of recent classical music works). Sophisticated art fans probably would have found the program more entertaining than a simpleton like me did.

I am looking at the program notes for the upcoming production of Romeo and Juliet by the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Company and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra (which as per custom in Denver, conflicts with the Colorado Ballet's production of Tribute). It seems a little strange. According to the notes, the music will consist of: Morning Dance Montagues and Capulets Juliet as a Young Girl The Street Awakens Dance Romeo and Juliet Masks Minuet Romeo at Juliet's Before Parting Death of Tybalt Doesn't it seem like there's something missing?

The music director of one of Colorado's top community orchestras suffered a fatal heart attack while conducting a performance of Bach's Toccato and Fugue in D minor. He had told his wife that he hoped to depart while performing music, so in a sense his wish came true. http://www.denverpos...armonic-concert

I guess Brahms brings out a little more passion than I realized. Two men in a high-priced seating area at the Chicago Symphony dropped the gloves during a performance of Brahms' 2nd symphony: http://news.yahoo.co...-220227194.html

I had a great time with Peter Pan, but I'm guessing that it got a little grueling for the dancers. The CB put on 11 performances in 10 days, including 5 in the last 3 days, and there were 20 dancers who appeared in all 11 performances. Because it was mainly an ensemble program rather than a series of solos and pas de deuxs (how do you pluralize French words?), there really weren't any "small" parts other than that for Mrs. Darling. It probably got a little grueling for the orchestra as well, but they were great right to the end.

After my first trip to see the Colorado Ballet's production of Peter Pan, I was ready to, well, pan it. Fortunately, I went back to see again (and again - thank goodness for rush ticket pricing), and I've gotten a bit hooked on it. It's amazing how much I missed the first time - I was ready to write things like that they ignored the romantic feelings of Tinkerbell and Tiger Lily towards Peter, when, especially in the case of Tiger Lily, those pieces were clearly there. OK, it's not Swan Lake or Romeo and Juliet, but the choreographer (Michael Pink) did a pretty good job of creating real ballet from a children's story. There's much more in this work than in The Nutcracker, or even Beauty and the Beast. The dances are largely ensemble numbers, with minimal solos or, ummm, what's the plural of pas de deux? What's lacking are any really memorable dances. Peter has brief romantic pas de duexs (?) with Wendy and Tiger Lily, but nothing that leaves you inventorying your Kleenex supply. More memorable is the music, with some catchy themes in a score that still qualifies as legitimate classical music. To me, the main thing that was lacking was a sense of theme or perspective. Was this supposed to be someone's dream? At first, I thought that the take was going to be a sort of Nutcracker-like dream of a girl reaching adolescence, but that idea vanished. It hardly qualified as a battle of good vs. evil, as the pirates were portrayed as stumbling, bumbling criminal wanna-be's, and since Tinkerbell tried to kill Wendy it's hard to say that Captain Hook was a singularly evil person. Maybe the actual intent was just to tell a children's story, but with even the weeknight programs which began at 6:30 not finishing until after 9:00, it was far from the ideal length for children, and not a few families left after the second act (despite the length, there were remarkably few problems with fussy children). The casting was a little unusual. Three of the 6 principals in the CB were relegated to very minor roles (though I was impressed by how much Maria Mosina added to the one performance I saw her in even in a minor role). The major roles (Peter Pan, Wendy, Tinkerbell, Tiger Lily, and Captain Hook/Mr. Darling) were double cast. In the 'B' cast, the nominal leading role of Wendy was played by a woman who a year ago at this time was in the studio company (though the choreography from Wendy isn't all that difficult; Tinkerbell [especially] and Tiger Lily have more difficult parts). The 'A' cast Peter Pan is perhaps the best man in the corps (certainly one of the 2 best) but the 'B' Peter Pan was played by a dancer who isn't usually in a prominent role.

It was kind of a strange performance. It was the members of the audience rather than the musicians who were dressed in tails.

To me dressing up for the transmission is a confusion of the occasion similar to applauding as you would at a live performance. One is one, the other is the other. (I do think it would be appropriate to dress if it was a premiere or a special showing.) The occasion is the performance, and if the performance is special to people, they dress up. (Or if, like me, they prefer to dress down even on special occasions, they may dress up out of consideration for other members of the audience). I'm a rabid advocate of ENFORCED dress codes for opera and ballet. I surely miss the sunny days of seeing tourists dropping jaws when told they were not allowed into the theater in cargo shorts and/or flip flops. I guess they couldn't understand the measure if the audience around them was basically made of starved nationals-(who would scrapped long sleeves and dressy pants out of nowhere)- in a crumbling grand dame of a theater. I'm really schizophrenic on this issue. I almost always wear a tie to the ballet/opera/symphony and I get annoyed about the casual dress of some of the members of the hiking club that I go to the Colorado Symphony with. On the other hand, I think that the stuffiness of classical music and dance presentations discourages people from attending who might actually enjoy the art but are turned off by the perceived conservative and elitist attitude. I've noticed a steady decline in the formality of dress at the Colorado Symphony over the 13 or 14 years that I've been attending. At first, it was rare to see a woman wearing pants and the majority of men had ties on. Now us tie wearers are in a distinct minority. The same is not true of the Colorado Ballet; however, the overwhelming majority of the attendees are women and they seem to be successful in proving the maxim that women dress for women.

The weather in Denver in freezing, but the rhetoric is just getting heated up. On Dec. 2, The Denver Post published a (shoddily written) editorial bashing the musicians in the CSO http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_19458871?source=bb The musicians union fired back on their website, claiming that the board contained several known anti-union activists and that expenditures for musician salaries have been a decreasing percentage of the budget while expenditures for administrative costs have taken a larger share of the budget http://www.dmamusic.org/news/1061/hostile-nonprofit-takeovers

The Colorado Symphony has reversed course and put a couple of the cancelled programs back in the schedule (on different dates - it was too late to use the original dates). One of the resurrected programs is the collaboration with the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble on Romeo and Juliet.

Getting people in any way possible may be a constructive strategy. I never thought that I would like ballet until I actually attended a performance. The Denver Post has more than one arts critic. Or at least they used to. It just sounds like covering the performing arts is just another thing that they are cutting back on. A friend who left his job as a newspaper columnist a few years ago has said that soon true local newspapers will be gone. Newspapers will contain little besides wire service stories. Couldn't agree more. The CB has really pulled out all the stops the last 2 times they've done Swan Lake.The audience response has been great - it historically has been rare that the CB gets a standing ovation (which I've never understood - I used to wonder if I was violating some sort of audience etiquette by standing) - but 3 out of the 4 performances have drawn a standing ovation. The only thing that I didn't like was the costumes. In Act I, the prince looked like he was wearing pajamas, and the costumes for the ladies-in-waiting looked like they were made from drapes. My only concern is the state of leading men in the company. While Alexei Tyukov is clearly the best male DANCER in the CB, his acting IMHO could use some improvement. He is fond of really slow, very exaggerated hand gestures which lag behind everything else that to me look very unnatural and almost, dare I say it, student-like. Dmitri Trubchanov had some problems when he had to land a jump on one foot. He was consistently wobbly. Newly promoted principal Viacheslav Buchkovskiy had neither of those problems. However, he is rather small in stature. This was his first production as a leading man, and hopefully he will grow to relish being the person the audiences are focusing on.

I wonder if this discount was because of worrying about Hair siphoning off some of the audience. Hair only played those first 2 weekends. Tonight's audience was pretty sparse, with the mezzanine being nearly empty (I sat in the loge because of the economic preferences of the friend I went with, which I actually thought was better than sitting in the orchestra), so maybe they lured too many people with the discount and won't get a really good audience for the last weekend. There is, however, a $5 charge for picking up tickets at Will Call. An insider told me that the CB really wants people to print their own tickets. I don't know what the reason for this is. Let's not get carried away. I've sat in plenty of really lousy seats in the Ellie (the guy at the ticket office said to me today when I was shopping for cheap seats "You won't be able to completely enjoy the show from those seats."). The Ellie was designed to look spectacular rather than to be the best possible theater for the audience.

In this case, it was higher priced seats that were mysteriously unavailable. Cheap seats could have been had all along. I've only noticed the Colorado Symphony trying to steer people towards more expensive seats, and that has only been in the last few years. Shows in Denver occasionally do sell out. I got left out in the cold once when I tried to buy a ticket at the last minute to the CB's Beauty and the Beast, and I think some performances of The Nutcracker sell out. Big name soloists like Yo-Yo Ma routinely sell out and popular touring Broadway plays sometimes sell out at least on Saturday evenings and Sunday matinees.

Getting back to on-topic, before Saturday's concert (which featured a MASTERFUL performance of Beethoven's 7th, conducted by Toronto Symphony music director Peter Oundjian), a percussionist who is one of the longest-tenured members of the CSO gave a brief "update" on the situation in which he stated that the financial problems are not life-threatening and that there is no chance that the CSO won't survive the next few years.

Many big theaters hold back really good "house seats" until the last day or two for big donors, special guests, etc. If they're not used, then they are made available for sale. I don't know the policy at Ellie Caulkins Opera House, but wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened. That could be it. I called them and asked if I could change seats, and they said that it was too late. I think they must know that they "have me" and no matter how frustrated they make me I will still keep going Usually the head ticket guy is at the box office, so maybe I will be able to change seats when we get there. ETA: YES!!! The head ticket guy changed my seat. He may have even given me a seat in a higher price range. I ended up in the perfect seat for a SPLENDID performance of "Swan Lake".

I looked Saturday morning, and they had no performances listed for Saturday at all(according to the Colorado Public Radio website, they had both a matinee and an evening show). The Colorado Ballet apparently has fixed the problem with not listing the current day's show(s) on their website. In fact, it is not only possible to purchase tickets online for tonight's performance but the system shows a lot of good seats available that were shown as not available when I bought my tickets .

I looked Saturday morning, and they had no performances listed for Saturday at all(according to the Colorado Public Radio website, they had both a matinee and an evening show). The Colorado Ballet apparently has fixed the problem with not listing the current day's show(s) on their website.

Getting back on-topic: The Denver Post just came out with an article that stated that the CSO had hired an interim CEO. I hadn't been aware that the CEO position was vacant.

I can only find any info by clicking on Tickets. not by the other scenarios that you mentioned, and only for shows that aren't on the current day. I'm a grouch when it comes to websites. To me, if it's not obvious how to find basic information, the website design is poor. I gave up Saturday when I couldn't easily find out whether they had any performances (I know, the odds of not having at least one performance on a Saturday is pretty remote). Who knows if I was the only one.

I looked Saturday morning, and they had no performances listed for Saturday at all(according to the Colorado Public Radio website, they had both a matinee and an evening show).

Promotion and outreach are not items that any of the arts organizations in Denver seem to be particularly adept at, other than Ballet Nouveau Colorado, which has had some imaginative ideas. Believe it or not, the Colorado Ballet's website does NOT list the schedule of performances for Swan Lake, nor do any of the emails about Swan Lake that they've sent out contain the schedule of performances.

I hadn't been planning on attending that one. I haven't gotten over the last time these 2 organizations got together. It was a most bizarre production of Cinderella, with Cinderella being portrayed as a prostitute whose clients were soldiers returning from Vietnam.

I might be totally off base on this, but it's been my impression that many classical music organizations seem to embrace the image of being elitist. I don't think that's an image that's going to maximize the number of new fans. I think a good first step would be to ditch the tuxedos and switch to clothing that is more contemporary.