SandyMcKean

....that "the world ain't what it used to be" hits most of us sooner or later.

I have to agree with you bart. I haven't fallen in this trap yet (at least I hope not), but my age is rapidly getting to the level where I am at least susceptible .

I've often wondered why older people seem to indulge in this "the world ain't what it used to be" or "the younger generation has no respect" type of world view. It seems a pretty common occurrence. Fear of loss of control perhaps? Hindsight only remembers the good stuff? I'm going to try to resist this particular pitfall in the coming years. Wish me luck!

....although this wouldn't be the first production to make severe demands on them.

I agree; however......

In Seattle Opera's current production, the 3 Rhinemaidens fly too, but they are totally suspended in the air. The stage crew moves them around (back and forth, up and down, and maybe a little forward and back). The Maidens do all the arm and leg movements, of course, including full flips. But I have to think that is easier than what Lepage made these Maidens do since in the Seattle Opera version the Maidens are always in the same situation. They are fully supported by a harness (they even have "foot pedals" that they stand on); but in the Met production the Maidens support themselves to some extent.....and their "support" situation is always changing. Also they have to do it just right or they would flop to the ground (they wouldn't go very far since the rope would stop them from doing little more than what would happen to you or I if we simply fell to the floor). So the Met Maidens never know exactly how secure they are....which is what invokes all that primative fear stuff. Seattle's Maidens are more like someone in a parachute harness.....they may be falling but it "feels" secure (if I'm making myself clear).

This is particularly true for Loge I thought. He has to walk backwards up the ramp at a steep angle. If he doesn't lean against the rope at the right angle, he will surely slip and fall to the ground. Again, it wouldn't be far (it would be like a chair being pulled out from under you), but he has to do it right, and he is surely aware that he could, at any moment, fall. The Seatttle Maidens never have to worry about anything like that even though they are suspended 20 feet in the air. Indeed, I thought Richard Croft (Loge) looked very uncomfortable.

I saw the HD performance last Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I am a huge sucker for Wagner's huge orchestrations, so this result is pretty much a foregone conclusion with me.

I would like to comment on the work of Lepage. I was totally captivated by his Damnation of Faust. I thought his use of modern technology to be a breakthrough, and opened up all sorts of possibilities; so I greatly looked forward to what he might be able to accomplish with the demands of Wagner's near impossible imagination. In a word, I was disappointed. Not by everything, but by much.

I thought "the machine" was brilliant. It's ability to create forms as if by magic was spectacular. The opening e-flat chord of Das Rheingold has never had the effect on me as this one did when the straight line of the tops of the "planks" of the machine started to move in a sine-wave pattern. That long opening chord (and how it develops) has always seemed to me to represent the Rhine River as well as undifferentiated nature. That sine-wave motion was at once the river, but also as elemental to nature as can be (nearly everything of order in the physical universe in some way depends on this most basic harmonic motion).

Then I became disappointed with the Rhine Maidens. The Rhine Maidens should be totally at home in their element of water -- completely free to swim in all directions with abandon. Not so here. The singers had to struggle against their very human fears of steep slopes and edges. These ladies did a marvelous job, but Lepage is asking too much here. Indeed, my overall objection to Lepage's concept is that he asked too much of all his singers. In my younger days I used to be a rock and ice climber on the cliffs and glaciers on the volcanos in the Northwest where I live. I know the very human feelings of being on edges, and stepping on slopes that are steep enough that you are not sure the soles of your feet will stick. These singers are NOT natural rock climbers . I take my hat off to them for having the bravery to do as well as they did. Sure they had a rope attached to their bodies making the movement even possible, and providing safety; but believe me, just having a rope does not stop fear (I once froze on a rock climb in Yosemite Valley for an hour until my partner talked me through the move even tho I was well roped and anchored). I was amazed that most of the singers were able to trust the setup so well. I was distracted however by the Rhine Maidens (who had to trust totally), and by Loge (who had to walk backwards).

OTOH, I thought Wotan and Loge's descent into Niebelheim to be extraordinarily effective. The way that staircase twisted into a "staircase into Hades" and the other-worldly way the 2 singers moved, totally had me feel I was descending into a whole other world beyond human experience.

I think the Met and Lepage have done opera a favor with this production. The future possibilities for hi-tech stagecraft in opera boggles my mind (and I have little doubt we are only seeing a tip of the iceberg here). However, the use of such hi-tech spectacle can't make the singers uncomfortable as they attempt to fight off primordial fears of falling (even babies won't cross a gap on a suspended pane of glass....this fear is built into our DNA).

Last night I saw what was for me a "dream cast" in Jardi Tancat. Due to an injury there was a last minute (24 hours actually) change. Carla Korbes, Carrie Imler, and Leslie Rausch ended up on the same stage in the same piece as the 3 women in this piece. Individually they were magnificant, and in ensemble their performance oozed artisty in this heavily emotional piece. These 3 woman are arguably my 3 favorite female dancers at PNB (all for very different reasons), and to see them togther was for me: heaven.

To add to the magic of this performance of Jardi, these women were partnered by 3 of the finest men in the troupe: Lucein Postlewaite, recently promoted Seth Orza, and Kiyon Gaines. I was thunderstruck by the performance (and intra-communication) of these 6 extraordinary dancers in a piece they clearly love.

Peter Boal strikes one as somewhat reserved, so I am often struck by what a truly great sense of humor he has, and how he has a real knack for comedic delivery and timing. When he's comfortable he invents some very funny lines on the spot.

At the last minute I decided to go to the dress rehearsal last night. I often avoid them because I miss the flat-out dancing and energy of a "real" performance. But last night it was well worth my time to see Carla in the lead role in "Glass Pieces".....she is a knock out in that powerful role. And what a ballet!! I am a big Robbins fan anyway (he's genius in my book), and on top of that I've always loved ballets with minimialist music. My regular subscription night is tonight.....I can't wait to see Carla do it again.

(I am always amazed by Carla when I see her in a dress rehearsal. I swear she never "de-tunes" her dancing just because it isn't a real performance. She dances flat-out no matter what -- I'm sure there are others too who do the same. My guess is that she is a born "performer".....she's never fully alive unless she's on stage. She's good, incredibly good, and she knows it. Her confidence is unbounded. I hope she's at the Q&A tonight.)

Margaret Mullin/Jonathan Porretta

ooooooooo.......I like that. Bound to be interesting!

Hey ID'er par excellence.......

Who is the female dancer at 0:20 in the above video clip? Chelsea Adomaitis maybe? Now I'm thinking Rachel Foster....but somehow it doesn't look like her to me.

It was very interesting to me to hear Josh talk about Chalnessa Eames's sense of humor. I love the way Chalnessa dances, and for my money she has no peer at PNB when it comes to female character parts and especially anything with humor in it. He says it's just part of her natural personality......just as I've always thought: after all, how could it be any other way? She's such a natural comic on stage. My day is always brightened when I see her dance. In anything more modern she is tops too.....as she will no doubt be in Sechs Tanze (even without taking the humor into account).

I was thrilled to see my heroine Carrie Imler rehearsing a humorous part too. Carrie's unmatched technique plus her ability to act, including with humor, will be a joy to see. (I'll never forget her as a Tharp stomper).

P.S. I noted that Josh says Chalnessa's first name with a short e rather than the long e I have always used. Good to know. (Plus it seems she has the nickname of "Challa".)

bart, since you seem to be interested, here's a couple more videos. The first (~3 minutes) is a piece of a Red Angels performance that PNB did in Vail just this month (much better resolution -- altho I'm not so sure the dancers are at the top of their game....the red head who starts is a relativity new dancer who came from PNB's schoool, Andrew Bartee, he's a real comer). The second (~2 minutes) is highly recommended by me......it shows all the Doves PNB has done recently. Absolutely don't miss the very last part of this second video that has short snippet of Lucien Postlewaite as the narrator in Serious Pleasures.

The speed and non-stop momentum work well with the sharply edged classical positions. Everything is very, very clear.

Excellent words......that's just how I feel about it.

I enjoy the music, though I don't know at what point it might start driving me up the wall. Not before the ballet's 12 minutes are up, one would hope.

I fully understand this comment. OTOH, and strangely for me since I am sort of a Bach-to-Wagner fan, the music actually grew on me. I've seen Red Angels maybe 6 times now, always with the same violinist*, and I found it rather jarring at first, but the more I've heard it, the more I feel comfortable with it. In the theater the combo of this music, the violinist, and the sharp power of the dancers work some sort of magic.

*I understand that only this violinist is allowed to play the piece. She goes to where ever it is done.

Can anyone tell me how the rest of the ballet -- described by NYCB as being 12 minutes long -- goes? And how this segment of 4 solos fits into the larger work?

As Helene briefly described, the entire ballet is more or less like what you see in the video; there isn't a much large architecture that these solos fit into.

Like Peter Boal, I am a big fan of Dove. Like Helene, I truly love Red Angels. For me, it has the excitement of a modern ballet, but with the precise positions, foot work, and arm use of classical ballet. It is a good vehicle for showing off highly skilled classical ballet dancers (in something different) -- in a strange way it reminds me of Agon (austere) with completely different tempi. Unlike Helene, I also love Vespers. She and I have discussed this often, and we both don't seem to see what it is that the other likes/dislikes. For me, there is an power that comes from each dancer in solo that expresses some unsaid passion or pain that transcends. It more suited to a modern dance troupe perhaps, but I thought our always versatile PNB women did it justice (even if they later complained of bruises and other negative impacts on their bodies due to all the floor work). I'm probably in a minority on this, but my favorite of all was Serious Pleasures. I'll make no comment on it as "ballet", but as a stunning piece of dance and drama, it blew me out of my seat. If you like the "sexual expression" side of dance, and I do, this is a blockbuster. The heartache of the death of a gay friend that apparently inspired this work was as powerful as anything I have seen in dance.....especially when Lucien Postlewaite is doing the "narrator" role.

Seems to me that a discussion like this could be appropriate for this forum (altho perhaps not this subforum) as long as it does not debate the political issues or points-of-view themselves, but instead restricts itself to a discussion of the impact and desirability of arts organizations accepting money from parties that have expressed political agendas. It's a decision any arts manager has to make frequently (probably nearly everyday).

P.S. I want to make clear that I do appreciate the BT moderators insuring that the discussion does NOT stray accidentially or purposely into a solely political discussion. One discussion is about the thing itself, the other is about the IMPACT of that thing on the arts. The one discussion seems to me to be appropriate, but the other is not.

As much as I dislike the lopsided political influence of the very wealthy (who ironically complain of the influence of "special interests"), surely no arts institution can turn down gifts of millions, and in this case even 100 millions, of dollars.

I just happen to run into this video on YouTube. Perhaps others have seen it, but I hadn't. Starting at 0:57 there is a short stretch of Boal in this piece he loves so much:

P.S. I can never see Red Angels without thinking of Leslie Rausch. No one else ever quite measures up to her in that female role for me.

Use Helene's link since it takes one to the overall blog rather then to only Boal's posts. (Note one can get to eitehr from either however.)

Helene, do you happen to know how many PNB apprentices there are in total at this time?

Interesting Anne.

Except for the large size of RDB, the percentages are not too different except we have far more principals in relation to corps dancers. We don't have the designation of "character" dancers, but they'd probably mostly be in the soloist category; so the soloist percentage of 20% might be nearly the same in both companies.

In practice, PNB is larger than 44 dancers because we have "apprentices"; we used to have 5 or 6, maybe we have 4 or 5 now (I can't find a place to verify that number). The apprentices often dance as part of the corps, so we are more like 50 dancers with a larger "practical" corps percentage than I have shown. But we are obviously no where near 86 dancers (America vs Europe no doubt.....we Americans are too busy spending GDP on war toys rather than supporting the arts ).

Leaving the size difference aside, my guess as to why PNB has such a larger percentage of principals over corps is that the human beings we call dancers seem to really like living and working in Seattle. In a word, they just don't leave. We have very little attrition, so the dancers just get better and better while staying. Eventually it is just not fair not to promote them. But I'm only speculating.

Recently there were 3 major promotions announced at Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB). I became curious as to how this development would affect the relative percentage composition among the 3 major "ranks" of dancers in a major ballet company like PNB.

PNB now consists of 44 dancers (by my count from PNB's web site). The percentage break-out in round numbers is:

Principal = 30%

Soloist = 20%

Corps = 50%

I wonder how that compares to other "big city" companies?

Thanks Helene for the heads up.

I love this teaser. I hadn't realized how much I was missing ballet already (you spoiled NYC people don't know what it's like to have just a single season......like skiers, we in Seattle spend most of our time pinning away waiting for "snow").

I can't believe it, but I've watched this 1+ minute video some 5 times today alone. It even brought tears to my eyes.

Helene, just to be perfectly clear, are you saying that in the BT forums one has never been able to delete one's own just posted msgs?

If so, why is that? Such deletion is possible in other forums I participate in, and I've found it very handy. The way I've seen it work is that one can only delete a post if you are the author, and it is the last post in that subforum. If anyone replies, then you can no longer delete your own post.

This is handy because sometimes within minutes, or seconds even, of having posted a message, you think better of it and wish you hadn't posted it. Usually no one else has yet seen the post much less replied to it. The other time I've found it handy is like the other day when I made a mistake and double posted. For that situation (and perhaps some other error) it can be mighty handy to simply delete the mistaken message immediately.

Thanks carbro.

Didn't the old software allow the deletion the very last post in a forum by the original poster? If not, I must be thinking of some other forum I frequent.

P.S. I see you successfully found and deleted my boo-boo....thanks

I made a mistake and double posted. I went to the erroneous post (still the last post in the subforum), but could find no way to delete a previously posted message even if it is the last message in the forum. I searched this forum for any details on how this function may have changed but didn't find anything.

What am I missing?

It's worth a lot.....and in fact, I do the same thing when I'm worried. Problem is this particular time, and at other times, I'm not worried, that's when I am heard to say "Oh s**t".

....were you editing on a mobile device?

No. This was with Internet Explorer (IE) on a PC.

Since I started this topic, I did some more research and testing. I thought perhaps this behavior was due to the new BT software, or perhaps a little known behavior in IE.....I've now convinced myself it is a "problem" in IE.

Researching IE does not seem to show that hitting the backspace key takes you to the previous web page, but in my testing I find that it does if the cursor is not already located in a text input box. On my system at least, if I hit the backsapce key while viewing any web page, IE navigates back to the previous page unless the cursor is in a text input box. OTOH, this might be designed into IE. Help says that "ALT + LEFT ARROW or BACKSPACE" navigates to the previous page. I took that to mean "ALT + BACKSPACE", but apparently it means the backspace key alone (unless of course you are in a text input box). In any case, pretty confusing.

P.S. It is easy to put yourself in this unfortunate situation: all you have to do is click your mouse anywhere outside the text input box....VOILA suddenly you are in the condition such that if you hit the backspace you will lose whatever text you've already entered since IE will unceremoniously navigate back the previous page.