YouOverThere

Casting for the Easter weekend "Aurora's Wedding" program is available at Aurora’s Wedding Casting | The Washington Ballet

Eun Won Lee and Gian Carlo Perez get the most star time.

The program is "family friendly", which as usual means "short", consisting only of Theme and Variations (which they performed in their February program) and the final scene from The Sleeping Beauty (which they will perform as their season-ending performance). "Family friendly" also means an early start time, which makes the Friday performance (the cast that would be my preference) not particularly "driver friendly".

What about pole dancing?

Though I thought that Cate Blanchett deserved the Best Actress award, as a 60-something person who was "quiet fired" for being too old (in the eyes of the management at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Environmental Modeling Center) I find it fascinating that both the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress awards went to 60-something actors.

On 3/16/2023 at 12:50 PM, dirac said:

Maybe I should try again.

I gave it a second try. It didn't improve my assessment.

6 hours ago, dirac said:

Has anyone else seen it, or have opinions on YouOverThere's question about generational divides?

A related question is did anyone really like Everything Everywhere All At Once and also really like at least one of the "classical" movies, like All Quiet On The Western Front  or Tar.

Tar is the movie that really stuck with me, because it doesn't tell the audience what to believe but leaves it up to everyone to make their own judgements. My assessment of whether justice was served changed over time. I also thought that the characters were among the most realistic of any movie that I've seen (which admittedly isn't a lot).

Since I'm not a huge fan of movies, I usually don't get involved in threads about the Oscars. But I did find this year's Oscar selections to be interesting, since Everything Everywhere All At Once seemed to come out of nowhere in the last few months leading up to the Oscars.

I ordinarily only go to movies when my ballet viewing accomplice needs company, and that person isn't into scifi so we didn't take in Everything Everywhere All At Once. After it cleaned up at the Oscars, I decided that I needed to watch it, primarily because I thought that Cate Blanchett had turned in an extraordinary performance in Tar and I wanted to see whether she was really out-done by Michelle Yeoh (and Showtime was offering a 7-day free trial).

I found Everything Everywhere All At Once to be quite boring and a long way from my conception of a Best Picture winner. Implausible pseudo-martial arts fights that took place just because and stupid people with hot dogs for fingers got tiresome really quickly, especially in the abscense of any meaningful plot. The jumping around from universe to universe seemed to be too handy of a way for the writers to avoid coming up with conclusions to plot sequences. But this is far from a universal opinion. Which leads to my question: have we reached the point at which we have two polarized audiences, one, consisting of mostly older people, that enjoys complex plots, developed characters, and aesthetically pleasing scenes, and another, consisting mostly of younger people, that prefers quirkiness, helter skelter and not necessarily connected action, and cartoonish (or video game-ish) characters?

Oops! I forgot to include the link to the schedule:

2023-2024 Dance Season | Kennedy Center (kennedy-center.org)

The Kennedy Center is out with its schedule for next season. IMHO, it's a huge step down from the current season. ABT will be presenting Swan Lake(!) and NYCB will perform Jewels(!), and there will be a 6-day festival of Asian choreography. Ballet West will be the guest company for The Nutcracker. But there are no companies comparable to the Joffrey Ballet or Scottish Ballet filling out the schedule. There's no indication of whether the Washington Ballet will be performing at the KC.

The modern dance season also seems uninspiring, with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre being the only recognizable name.

On 2/7/2023 at 12:36 AM, Sophoife said:

I am coming (from Australia) to Denver for Yosvani Ramos and Dana Benton's retirement show on Sunday 23 April, 2023.

I would be much obliged for hints and tips on:

- where to stay that is nice, safe, clean, and less than US$200/night, oh and it should be either walking distance from the Ellie or easily accessible by public transport 

- a good florist (I mean, doesn't every dancer deserve flowers?)

- things to do in Denver that are accessible by walking or public transport

- what is the best (safe, reasonably priced) way to get from the airport to my hotel 

Thanks in advance!

I got an email from a friend in Denver, but it doesn't add much to what California posted:

On 2/22/2023 at 1:16 PM, Mothrafairy0912 said:

The school went through a huge upheaval when JK came here.  It's hard to say whether or not that will happen this time, but I would say the tone of the school generally changes with a new company AD.

Though Julie Kent will be a co-AD and the other co-AD will be the current AD, who may have some loyalty to the current staff.

16 minutes ago, DPell said:

Per ABT’s story on Instagram, Jake Roxander is debuting Mercutio today. I look forward to hearing reports if anyone is in the audience.

It was super tempting this morning when a ticket became available, I would have been in compliance with CDC guidelines, which only require isolating for days 1-5 (1st day of symptoms is day 0) and then masking for days 6-10, but in violation of Kennedy Center policy, which requires being symptom-free for 7 days. I'm guessing that the KC policy, and the similarly restrictive Lincoln Center policy (need to have gone at least 10 days since testing positive), are based on not counting on people who should be wearing masks to actually wear them. I would have been far more likely to infect people at the National Symphony concert I attended the evening before my symptoms started than I would have been today (fortunately, I wore a mask at the concert).

I tested positive for covid this evening (Sunday), so I don't know if I will get to this show. Especially since the most likely place that I caught it was at the Kennedy Center (watching Alvin Ailey). Given my situation, with an advanced cancer patient at home, it was probably irresponsible for me go to concerts and shows now that few people wear masks.

2 hours ago, lmspear said:

The Eisenhower has about 10 standing room spaces behind the orchestra.  The are only offered when the seats have all been sold. Just like in the Opera House.

My impression is that the KC no longer sells standing room tickets, a change in policy that began when the current president (of the KC, not of the USA) took over.

2 hours ago, California said:

If dance criticism is mostly gone from major papers like the Washington Post, there's not much hope for its future. 

The article is probably behind a paywall for most of the readers, but the link says it all (the article is dated Dec. 1, 2022):

Dance critic Sarah Kaufman laid off by Washington Post - The Washington Post

7 hours ago, California said:

I have to admit I am glad at least some of the ushers are adhering to the "no late seating" rule, although you got caught in it!

My seat was in the back row of the upper balcony anyway. I would have gone for the back of the orchestra if I'd had time to "shop" for a ticket (a combination of it taking me longer to get there they expected from the hospital where I was visiting my cancer-stricken usual ballet accomplice, my first 3 choices for parking being unavailable - 1 of them due to construction, taking 7 minutes to drive less than a mile to an alternative parking location due to ridiculously long red lights, and having the misfortune to encounter people who were taking > 5 minutes to buy tickets).

2 hours ago, California said:

And while I'm complaining, I talked to several of those "helpers" for the digital program. I was told KenCen is trying to save money by eliminating print programs and a lot of people are complaining. Selling ads didn't cover it? The digital things seem to work on iPhones, but I have an Android phone and it never works. How about a poster in the lobby with casting and we could take a picture of it instead. European theaters sell beautiful, glossy, full-color programs, but I guess American audiences can't be counted on to buy those after getting free ones all these years. One helper suggested opening a browser on my phone, going to the KenCen site and there are digital programs there. Yes, but pretty clumsy and small. 

I had assumed that they discontinued programs for environmental reasons. I don't think that printing programs is expensive (around $1/copy when printing large quantities). I have been able to do the QR thing with my Android phone, except that I haven't figured out how to save the program so that I could use my phone for something else and then come back to it. But that just gets the same thing as using the website (tkc.co/OH for the Opera House).

I attended the Thursday performance, For a number of reasons, including getting a seat in the last row of the upper balcony due to arriving late, I wasn't in the best position to objectively assess the performance. That being said, I wasn't impressed by the changes to the first act. I felt that they made the story less compelling. Having the men act like they were obnoxiously drunk while the women were dancing during the Harvest Festival was distracting. I didn't feel that the choreography for the corps in the first act was any sort of upgrade.

I probably won't see this a second time, as the Sunday performance is already listed as a sell-out and there are only a handful of tickets left for Saturday evening.

Reviews of performing arts presentations have grown increasingly infrequent in the Washington Post, so I'm not shocked that this presentation didn't get a mention. February is a very crowded month at the Kennedy Center, with Alvin Ailey, ABT, and the Washington Ballet performing the next 3 weeks, plus a full classical music schedule that includes recitals by Lang Lang and Joshua Bell.

ABT will be at the Wolf Trap on July 27 and 28. They will be dancing Giselle (performances of which are even more rare in the DC area than performances of The Nutcracker). Tickets go on sale Feb. 17. 

Might the WB go for another married couple, specifically Gillian Murphy and Ethan Stiefel? They have some experience running a company...

In a stack of old unopened mail, I found a letter from the WB dated Dec. 16 stating that David Mallette of Management Consultants for the Arts has been engaged to coordinate the AD search.

There has been no mention of a job for Victor Barbee. Given that he's (I believe) 68, he might have decided that this was a good time to retire. (My last employer - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Environmental Modeling Center - started the "quiet fire" process for me when I was a mere 63).

Casting for February 15-19 performances of Romeo and Juliet at the Kennedy Center, per email from ABT:

• Wed.:               Teuscher/Bell
• Thu.:                 Hurlin/Royal III
• Fri. matinee:   Shevchenko/Forster
• Fri. evening:   Trenary/Cornejo
• Sat. matinee: Boylston/Camargo
• Sat. evening: Murphy/Whiteside
• Sun.:              Seo/Stearns

Les Ballet de Monte-Carlo presented their version of Cendrillon (aka Cinderella) at the Kennedy Center. Their version is a little different from the standard version, almost as much centered around Cinderella's father as around Cinderella, with both having flashbacks about when Cinderella's mother was still alive. Rather than a fairy godmother, the fairy was an incarnation of Cinderella's deceased mother. There was no carriage and no slipper: the prince had a foot fetish, and the fairy arranged for Cinderella's feet to be covered with sequins.

I took in 2 performances, but for some reason I just couldn't get into it. It certainly wasn't because of the dancers, who were spot on and in the ensemble dances about as in sync as any company that I've seen. With the unusual telling of the story and the different characterizations, I found it a little hard to follow at the first show. The production was "cartoonish", with extremely silly (actually, ridiculous) costumes, especially for the women and a lot of slapstick comedy from the men, and I thought that the attention-grabbing costumes diverted attention from the actual dancing. Not only was the story a little different, but the music was not played in the usual order, e.g., Cinderella's Waltz was used in 3 different places, and there was even some music from Prokofiev's score for Lieutenant Kije (my accomplice felt good enough to attend 1 performance, and felt that the production "mangled" the score). I felt like for some scenes the mood of the music didn't fit the mood of that particular part of the story. The dancing was largely at a fast pace, with only a few slow pieces, and I felt that it emphasized athleticness over beauty (I know, "beauty is very subjective). Cinderella's personality was never really developed so I didn't find myself develop a true caring about her.

My take was not widely shared by the audience, though it was a much younger crowd than is typical at the Kennedy Center, and I don't know how many of my fellow spectators have watched a lot of ballets. So I do wonder if the problem was with me; that it was too different from what I'm used to,

According to what I've found trolling around the Internet, the HB's current AD, Stanton Welch, will stay on as the other co-AD, but will now have more time to choreograph.

Is Xiomara Reyes a potential replacement, since she's already on the staff?

On 10/7/2022 at 4:17 AM, California said:

I'm going Sunday afternoon. I saw this production when they did it a few years ago.  It's not a favorite of mine, but it sells very well here and they added a performance Sunday evening 10/16.

It's not the greatest ballet of all time (the choreographer has referred to it as "dance theater"), but I find it tremendously entertaining. I am surprised, given that it seems to be something of a cash cow for the CB, that more companies haven't programmed it, especially regional companies that are often barely scraping by financially, since it will attract people who ordinarily would not go to a ballet. I realize that a ballet company is a little different than a symphony orchestra: a symphony orchestra can present a different program every week, so it can present "pops" concerts and still have a "classical" season, while a ballet company can only present a handful of programs each year.