Manhattnik

"brings [insert old chestnut here] up-to-date" "Diamond Project" (oops, that just kinda slipped out)

A certain soloist who makes one want to reach for a flyswatter? A certain soloist who seems to have inherited, and embellished the Eleanor d'Antuono smile? Can't imagine who you mean.

I think the world needs more Elvis ballets. And, let's redo all the classics so we're never bereft of The King. Giselle could be reset to some trailer-park down South where Giselle captures The King's attention because she's the only girl he hasn't had his way with. Yet. And the Wilis would be made up entirely of gals The King has loved and left. Of course, by the end of the ballet they're all in love with him again, because, well, he's the King. And I'm sure Peter Schaufuss in his heyday could've danced Theme and Variations while holding a guitar and wearing shades. In blue suede ballet shoes. The Elvis Nutcracker would be set, of course, in Las Vegas. Drosselmeyer would be The Old Fat Elvis, reincarnated (see, Mel, this should make you happy!) as the Young Hip Elvis after the battle with mice. Instead of the Kingdom of Sweets, we'd have the Land of Greasy, Fried, Cholesterol-Laden Heart-Attack Food, which would start with dancing biscuits instead of angels. I'm sure I don't need to fill in all the rest of the blanks.... Dear God, that's enough for one morning.

Oh, right, Alexandra. I'd gotten a few details of that Dance Collection story mixed up in my memory. You can still spend hours at the Dance Collection. While I'm not wild about the new layout there at all, there are a lot of video-watching stations (but not many, alas, for films). After seeing the slam-bang combo of five, count'em, five, double tours with which Youskevitch ends his little solo in Gene Kelly's silly Invitation to the Dance, I had an idea what his turns in Theme would be like, and I wasn't at all disappointed. The ronde de jambes were more than fine (only shown briefly), but many dancers today could match or even exceed them; I don't think any dancer I've seen could equal Youskevitch's double tours. I've seen some spectacular turners in Theme (Damian Woetzal is no slouch, to put it mildly), but none with Youskevitch's nonchalent mixture of speed, power and, well, ease. The footage of Eglevsky's Apollo was also fascinating, but far too short. And what a trio of muses! Alonso, Nora Kaye and just a bit of Barbara Fallis (taking her class was one of the [very few] high points of my recreational ballet-dancing days).

Most of the time when I venture to sample the riches of film and video viewable for the asking at the Dance Research Collection of the NY Public Library at Lincoln Center, I never get past the astonishing films of Gelsey Kirkland (yes, she really was That Good, if not Better). Recently, I decided to see what films could be found of the late Mia Slavenska, moved both by her recent death, and Alexandra's comment that hers was the best Don Q to be found in those archives (strong praise, of course!). So I found myself looking at a number of things: a long video assemblage of film bits by Ann Barzel (I think) of various Ballets Russes dancers doing odds and ends (among them some clips of Slavenska doing bits of the Black Swan, and Baronova looking gorgeous posing for the camera); two films of Slavenska dancing Vincenzo Celli's staging of the Don Q pas de deux: an older black-and-white version with Freddie Franklin, and a more-recent one in color with a very young Royes Fernandez. Then I stumbled on, and just had to see, a long film assemblage put together in honor of Igor Youskevitch, with footage (everything I saw had no sound!) of Andre Eglevsky dancing Apollo, with Alicia Alonso as Terpsichore; Alonso and Youskevitch in Theme and Variations, Black Swan, Giselle, Nutcracker, Tudor's Romeo and Juliet, and a few things I've probably forgotten. What a way to spend an afternoon! It's interesting to look at these clips and think of how much our whole perception of what ballet is all about, and ballerinas, has changed over the years. In lthe Ballets Russes clips, I could certainly see where the phrase "Ballet-Russing it up" came from. Sometimes these dancers would look very, very sloppy by today's standards, yet never without a sense of grandeur and importance so noticable by its absence today. A dancer might hurl herself at her partner in a wickedly fast and horribly off-balance supported pirouette; said partner would rescue her from disaster as she tilted farther and farther off balance while spinning like a demented top, and when he'd pulled her back upright, BAM, they'd pop up and fling their arms into some suitably dramatique pose as if waiting for the flashbulbs to go off (arms always to die for, especially Baronova's, and our current generation certainly did NOT invent the Dreaded Wrist-Flick), as if to say, in unison, "This is a BALLERINA, and don't you forget it, buster!" Because I'd neglected to print out the catalog listing of what I was viewing, I wasn't always sure who was doing what, but I really was impressed by the guttiness of these dancers, especially Slavenska, who, even when something she tried didn't turn out quite as prettily as perhaps she'd have liked, always tried, like a good ballplayer, to stretch singles into doubles, and doubles into triples. I like that strength and bravura; there's not enough of it in these days of boringly proper or india-rubber "ballerinas." I also was gratified to see something I'd heard about -- that at the very end of the Black Swan pas de deux, ballerinas back then would do the backwards hops in arabesque on pointe! Yikes! I can't imagine the audience reaction if anyone tried it today; would it drive them crazy, or just look like a painful trick? Slavenska's Don Q's seem quite different from what we know today, but who wouldn't be impressed by her supported promenade in arabesque penchee (on pointe), or her jaw-dropping balances. I thought Cynthia Gregory was the Queen of Balances, but she's a piker compared to Slavenska, and I loved seeing how Franklin and Fernandez would play up her strength by putting her on pointe in arabesque or attitude, then flinging up their arms and BACKING AWAY. Yes, sometimes she'd wobble a bit, but she looked like she'd try to stay up there even if it killed her. I admired her fan-handling in the version with Franklin (she does those cutesy-poo echappes to pointe with an awe-inspiring conviction), although she omitted it with Fernandez. No matter, her travelling fouettes on a diagonal with her hands planted firmly on her hips were more than enough compensation! They'd bring down the house today, would anyone but try to pull them off (Gillian Murphy, are you there?). The Youskevitch/Alonso footage is also astonishing. Youskevitch is indeed dashing and strong, and a fabulous turner. He would write of how he'd try to launch into double tours or pirouettes without much of a visible preparation so the motion would appear organic and seamless (I don't really have a problem with preparations, myself, but that's another story), and you can certainly see this in the clips from Giselle and Theme. As with most men of his era, Youskevitch is much more casual about niceties such as pointing his feet than we like today, and, while the big pirouette solo in Theme (from what little can be seen of it) looks a bit sloppier than I'd hoped, his big double-tour/pirouette solo is every bit as magnificent as I'd imagined it to be. Even with the silly feathered cap he had to wear. He just wooshes up into those turns like a geyser suddenly sprouted underneath him. Amazing. As for Alonso, seeing these clips was a real eye-opener for me (yes, I saw Alonso dance Giselle in the Seventies, but there were only glimmers -- albeit brilliant ones -- of the dancer she must have been). If Youskevitch looks wonderful but dated, Alonso looks as if she could dance Theme tomorrow just as she did in the Forties and give away nothing at all to today's ballerinas. In fact, she'd bring the house down. Such speed, elevation and clarity! In clips from a Nutcracker pas de deux with Youskevitch she fires off some double fouettes which would look impressive indeed on any dancer today. Despite Alonso's fireworks, and her magnificent Giselle (such soubresauts! such a Mad Scene!) the moment that most took my breath away, even over so many decades, was a brief segment of her and Youskevitch in bits of Antony Tudor's beautiful and greatly missed Romeo and Juliet. At the very end of the ballet, in the crypt, after Youskevitch's Romeo has died and fallen to the foot of the bier, Alonso's Juliet contemplates killing herself. In this footage shot from the stage-right wings, you can see the stage-left wings filled with dancers, all with their eyes raptly following Alonso's every move as mimes stabbing herself in the chest. You can see the heaving of her back as the blade enters, and it's chilling, even in this silent, grainy footage, as is the slow desperation with which she collapses and pulls her dying body over Youskevitch's. I got the sense that every one of those dancers in the wings was holding her breath; as was I, so many decades later. Anyway, I'm going to have to go back and watch these again; they were quite an education.

In all fairness to McKenzie, ABT is looking a lot better these days. The performances of Symphony in C at City Center sparkled, and the stagings of the Ashton works, and Tudor's Offenbach, were all quite admirably and sensitively staged. On the other hand, his Swan Lake is still a horror, and that George Harrison ballet? What was he thinking?

precipite -- The reason why Mel is snowed in and has so much time for this.

Temps de fleche = Mel running one step ahead of the vengeance of those in charge of preventing the mangling of both English AND French.

I also think the development of a hierarchy has a lot to do with the fact that, while most dancers can do second swan from the right, not every dancer who can do second swan from the right can do Odette. We're not all created equal, life is not fair, and I think hierarchies are just a fact of life. Perhaps its how the stratification is determined, and what effect it has on the overall health of the company, which might be considered. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt our big companies to remind the corps dancers that they're just as important as the "stars," if not more so. Perhaps this is taking the discussion a bit far afield, but opinion there is nothing so rare and special and magnificent in the ballet world as a really well-schooled and maintained corps de ballet. Stars are a dime a dozen in comparison; they're a lot easier to find, produce, develop and support. It takes a lot of time and nurturing and training to create a corps which can dance like an organic whole -- I've only seen this in person (and only at times) with the Bolshoi and Kirov corps, who've given me some of the greatest thrills I've had at the ballet (the Bolshoi in Kingdom of the Shades; the Kirov in Swan Lake).

I think NYCB's history is a good point of discussion here. They were a "no stars" company, with all the dancers listed alphabetically (well, the star was Balanchine, but let's not go there right now...). Remember Maria Tallchief's parting shot about how her name might be listed alphabetically but that didn't mean that she'd accept being treated alphabetically. And then, suddenly, it changed. I wonder when, and what the story was....

Yes, it's that time of year again, when we get to look back fondly on the year that's just ended, and look forward to the year that's about to begin. And take a few moments to contemplate some of the more, well, special moments of 2002. As usual, I'm stealing the name and format from Esquire Magazine's fondly remembered Dubious Achievement Awards. So, without further ado: Dubious Achievemnt Awards, 2002. The Vacant Chair NYCB's Fall Gala was a tribute to Richard Rodgers on his centennial year. One would think that this would have been a great occasion to celebrate the fertile collaboration between George Balanchine and Rodgers by presenting Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, the ballet from On Your Toes, which is still extant in the repertory and will, in fact, be presented in January. One would be wrong. The fact that we were presented with three premieres of dubious value simply illustrates, yet again, the value the management places on the Balanchine repertory. Most Historically Interesting Idea for a Tribute to Richard Rodgers In his choreography for the Richard Rodgers show Babes in Arms, Balanchine created what is considered to be the first "dream ballet." So one must admire aptness of Robert LaFosse's decision to create "The Land of Nod," an evocation of this, and the many, many, many dream ballets which followed. Which brings us to: Worst New Flavor of the Year LaFosse's "The Land of Nod" also evoked the sort of dream from which one awakes in a cold sweat, grateful for the light of day. What were you thinking? At the dinner following the fall gala, LaFosse made some injudicious comments to a New York Post reporter about the state of NYCB (which had just spent more money than one would care to imagine presenting LaFosse's ballet), and his reason for his retirement. Blink and you missed it In his new, and one suspects short-lived, career as a "guest artist" with NYCB, Robert LaFosse had been cast to perform Drosselmeyer during the first week of Nutcracker. Oddly, after the gala, his name disappeared from the online casting. Richard Rodgers Ballets We'll Never See "Sing for Your Supper" with, oh, I can't. It would be too evil. I'm trying to be good. Really I am. Anyway, email me for details. As Dorothy Parker said, "If you don't have anything nice to say about someone, sit next to me." "If you don't have anything coherent to say, write for me!" A tie. The New York Review of Books gave us Jennifer Homans' rather painful explication of style-as-bifucation, with the difference between Petipa and Balanchine reduced to the angle at which they choose to cut their dancers. "...In a Petipa variation, the body is divided horizontally, tutu style, between 'cut and slice' legs and lyrical arms and torso. What matters is the contrast between the two. But Balanchine created movement that made dancers split the body vertically, down the spine, the right side moving with or against the left." Ouch! Can you say "contraposto"? I thought you could. Meanwhile, The Nation was a vehicle for Diane Rafferty's interesting observation that Twyla Tharp's "mentors" were Balanchine and Robbims. And that, with one exception, Tharp has "stuck to ballet." Can you say "Paul Taylor?" I thought you could. Huh? James Fayette was promoted to principal at NYCB. Sherman, set the Way-Back Machine for 1970. As part of his ongoing effort to turn ABT into the old Joffrey (at least at City Center), Kevin McKenzie announced his plan to appeal to younger audiences by presenting a hippie-flower-power tribute to George Harrison. Perhaps McKenzie was just being retro. Nah. He's already used the Joffrey's sets and costumes for "Offenbach in the Underworld." Will "Astarte" be far behind? The Iron-Fist-In-a-Velvet-Glove-Covered-with-Frou-Frou-Lace-and-Holding-a-Really-Big-Mallet Irina Dvorovenko's unforgettable recension of Violette Verdy in "Sylvia pas de Deux." Name the Demon and You Will Summon It To me. For idly speculating out loud, two years ago, after seeing Boris Eifman's special depiction of the life of Tchaikovsky, about the sort of ballet he would make on the life of Balanchine. This year, we learned that Eifman is going to be making a ballet for NYCB, rumored to be about, yes, Balanchine. June is Busting Out All Over Those who flocked to City Center this fall for Veronika Part's debut with ABT were amply rewarded for their troubles with with a generous, full-bodied performance which thrillingly stretched the choreography's envelope, without actually threatening to break through its restraints. Well, not often. You may groan, but you're writing this down on your napkins To our own cargill, for the most memorable bon mot of 2002, describing a certain expensive costume as "something Carmen Miranda's cat threw up on," which constant readers will recognize as a subtle hommage to Dorothy Parker's immortal review of Winnie the Pooh. There'll Always Be an England... but not, apparently, for Ross Stretton and Robert Tewsley, who must have broken all records for the shortest tenure at the Royal Ballet for an Artistic Director and Principal Dancer, respectively. Don't stand next to her in a thunderstorm Thwarting many ballet fans' eagerness for the most-anticipated debut of the season, the oft-injured Monique Meunier did not appear at ABT's City Center season, being replaced at the season's final performance moments before the curtain went up. All in the Family With Ask la Cour's joining NYCB's corps, we must ask, are there any relatives of Peter Martins who aren't members of NYCB? Walking on a Wire For their thrilling ability to look as if they're flirting with disaster at every perfomance, this award is shared between Janie Taylor and Yvonne Borree. Wigstock, here we come! To Steven Hanna and the other NYCB Mother Gingers for their wildly inventive interpretations of Mother Ginger, which went way beyond the call of duty. And the choreography, but who's watching? A word about Darci Kistler: Darci Kistler is a truly fine ballerina and I would never dream of sullying her name by mentioning it such a context as this.

Balletptomaine: Disease which causes one rob florists to shower boquests on one's favorite ballerina. Edward Gorey once made a hilarious set of illustrations (you could get them at the NYCB guild table back when) illustrating a number of dance scenarious based on "pas" something-or-there. My favorite one, as I mentioned elsewhere here recently, is "Pas devant les domestiques," which showed an upper-crust couple dancing a very unhappy looking tango in front of an audience of also-unhappy looking servants of various ilks. "Paddy Boray" -- special Riverdance number only performed on St. Patrick's Day.

Did I mention that in addition to the expected bits of Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, etc., large tracts of the ballet will feature as-yet-never-heard-in-the-West-and-doubtless-for-good-reason numbers by Meliton and Andrei Balanchivadze? That we'll see the young Balanchine torn (literally) by his young devotion to both music and dance -- represented by a piano on one side of the stage, and a barre on the other? This is where the birth of the doppelganger comes in, played by, in a stroke of casting brilliance (if I do say so myself), Suzanne Farrell! Yes, who says a doppelganger has to be the same sex as its, uh, original? And even if they do say so, would Eifman listen? I should think not. I should hope not. And he'll finally effect the reunion of this star-crossed duo from the dance firmament. Large sections of the ballet will feature the motif of Balanchine attempting to reattach himself to his sprightly and fleeing doppelganger (who represents his artistic inspiration), much as Peter Pan had to chase his dettached shadow. (Did I mention Wendy Wasserstein will write the 13-page synopsis, which starts out with "The great choreographer is cooking blini....?") Further casting: Heather Watts/Wendy Whelan, Kay Mazzo/Yvonne Borree (I know, what was I thinking casting Borree as Geva? Geva will, of course, be Megan Fairchild. Allegra Kent will play herself, as will Kyra Nichols. Merrill Ashley/Ashley Bouder (sounds like a name game of some sort, doesn't it?). Von Aroldingen/Monique Meunier (Eifman can work miracles, y'know!). And, I went back over the original Eifman/Balanchine thread, and I see Leigh comfirms what I'd thought. I may not have posted on BA about the Eifman/Balanchine ballet, but I DID discuss it with Leigh the previous year -- 2000. So, yes, it is ALL MY FAULT! Here's what Leigh said in his post of November 5, 2001: This is actually Manhattnik's: alas we were joking about this a year ago and we should have learned by now not to make jokes lest they come to pass. He already suggested a title that is perfectly tortured-Eifman. Prodigal Son. Well, it was actually "Balanchine -- the Prodigal Son," which will have as yet another subtext the wandering of Balanchine's spirit through time and space, detached, suffering, until it's brought back to his Russian roots through the choreographic exertions of a true Son of Russia -- Eifman (who, in a two-act cameo, will play himself, but with one of those Maurice Bejart goatee thingies to make him look a little more, well, imposing). Anyway, here's my original libretto for "Balanchine -- the Prodigal Son," for those of you who may have missed it (complete with authentic typos): Actuall, it was "Balanchine -- the Prodigal Son." Something about his soul returning to Mother Russia after all that NYC nonsense.... Of course this ballet will work on many levels, but I see Eifman presenting us with a Balanchinian psychodrama much like Tchaikovsky. We learn that, of course, Balanchine's much ballyhooed love of women is nothing more than overcompensation for -- you guessed it -- repressed homosexuality. Balanchine's relationships with his wives, affairs, etc., will be presented as nothing more than doomed, never-consummated, desperate attempts at conventionality, always thwarted when the castrating-bitch-ballerina leaves him. The excerpt from Don Quixote, where Farrell's Dulcinea beats Balanchine's Don to a pulp with her shepherd's crook is one of the emotional highpoints of the ballet. Another high point will be the extra-jazzy version of Concerto Barocco, with new music by Winton Marsalis. Contrasted to Balanchine's unhappy (if artistically productive) relationships with women will be Eifman's depictions of Balanchine's many "conversations" with the spirits of dead composers, not coincidentally all male. The details of these are best left to the imagination, as is the climactic duet between Balanchine and Stravinsky.

[This thread was split off from the Eifman/Forsythe poll thread, as it seemed to be taking on a life of its own. The rather abrupt beginning can be explained by the fact that Manhattnik said he was afraid he'd "summoned" the idea, and I said he wasn't guilty of that, because it had been in print, in The Dancing Times, last fall -- September, I believe -- and Manhattnik's fantasy ballet scenario had been posted in November. A.T.] Oh, and I'm glad to know my posts on BA didn't somehow summon Eifmann (I do have this vision of him appearing in the wake of a pyrotechnic explosion in the middle of the fountain at Lincoln Center the instant I clicked on the "Submit" button!), but I was thinking it. Absolutely. I swear I was! Considering the dreck we've seen at the State Theater, an Eifmann ballet might be a welcome relief. As a Christmas present, here is the casting: Balanchine: Adam Hendrickson Geva: Yvonne Borree Danilova: Miranda Weese Tallchief: Jenifer Ringer Zorina: Darci Kistler LeClercq: Maria Kowroski Farrell: Maria Kowroski (Eifmann will need to do something very artsy here to make it work, but I have faith in him!) Hayden: Jennie Somogyi Kistler: Janie Taylor Diaghilev: Jock Soto Nijinsky: Ulbricht Kirstein: Peter Martins (dragged out of retirement over his sotto voce protests) Robbins/Tchaikovsky: James Fayette Lifar/Stravinsky: Nikolaj Hubbe Martins: Nilas Martins d'Amboise: Philip Neal Lew Christenson: Charles Askegard Villella: Damian Woetzal Tomasson: Peter Boal McBride: Alexandra Ansanelli Arthur Mitchell: Albert Evans Please note that the role of Balanchine's mother will be danced by every female listed above.

I seem to recall his Orpheus ending with Orpheus running back down into the Underworld, presumably to fetch back Eurydice for a second (or was it third?) time, and after he's left she appears again for some reason onstage, and I thought, "He's going to be awfully disappointed when he gets there and finds she's back up here!" It was very much in the spirit of the overblown theatricality which swept over Europe after the arrival of Robert Wilson.

And this is a Christmas present? Yikes. Considering that I originally floated the idea of Eifman doing a ballet on Balanchine as a joke, and now it appears to be in the works, I may have to respectfully decline from answering, as I clearly have the power to bring about great evil with just a thought. Now where is that ring I had lying around the house? At least Eifman is passionate in that somewhat entertainingly florid Russian manner. And Forsythe, well, Vertiginous had its moments. But from what I've seen of his later stuff... Of course, the first Forsythe thing I ever saw was a rather amazing full-length Orpheus for the, was it Hamburg already or some other place? I am going to have to resort to eeny meeny miney moe. Ok, it's Eifman. Just because I think he can be awful in a more entertaining way than Forsythe. But I am afraid to click that button. Very afraid....

Supposedly Lynn Swann took ballet classes, too, but it certainly wasn't for aesthetic reasons!

I think the whole athletic-grace-vs-balletic-grace thing is a horse that long ago was beaten to death. While it was quite liberating for me to realize a few years ago that I just didn't care anymore who got in the playoffs, how the home team was doing (well, I have a residual fondness for the Yankees), etc., I also think there are few things in the world prettier than a well-turned double play. Maybe it's because Yankee Stadium has always struck me as a cathedral. True cathedrals don't have noisy, obnoxious ads blared at you, but they don't have hotdogs, either, so it all evens out. I remember back in my college days, a sports writer on my school paper wrote a rather spirited if cliched piece on how athletes were much more exciting and graceful to watch than ballet dancers, and he'd take Earl Monroe (OK, he WAS really graceful) over Nureyev any day. I thought hard about writing a rejoinder, and then decided there was no point. But I've often noticed that men in this country don't have a problem with admiring male grace and beauty, as long as that grace and beauty was an unintended result of an action with some other goal in mind: putting a ball through a hoop, avoiding getting killed while running past a line on a field, etc. But the "purpose" of sports, well, aside from gymnastics and figure-skating and the like, which aren't real "guy" sports, anyway, isn't to be graceful and beautiful. If Earl Monroe could've sunk all his baskets without taking a single step towards or around any defenders, he would've. If he could've tossed the ball through the net from the locker room, or the jacuzzi, he'd have done that, too. Yes, he was graceful (so was Dave Winfield, and lots of others), but that wasn't primarily what he was about; he'd have been just as big a star if he played "ugly," as long as he "performed" the same. So why is grace and beauty not admired for its own sake more? What if Earl Monroe had decided one day the hell with that damn ball and just ran around feeling the space and exhilirating in his ability to move through it, and shape it? I can imagine many outcomes, few of them pleasant (although perhaps entertaining in a morbid fashion). There's nothing wrong with form following function, but there's also nothing wrong with form being the function, either. Unless you're a dolt, I mean columnist, like Dave Berry. I've enjoyed many of his columns in the past, but this one seemed to mostly be filler composed of cheap shots. At least he didn't make jokes, as one Saratoga wit did a few years ago, about ballerinas always "excusing themselves" after meals. i know, let's not go there.

I used to be very fond of Feld; he's made some wonderful ballets, and continues to make interesting ones. I just wrote a rather lengthy and witty (well, I chuckled) description of some ballets of his which I considered real clunkers (both for NYCB and Ballet Tech). Then I decided that I shouldn't rain on your parade if you enjoy yourself at Ballet Tech. And I do rather like Aurora, from what I remember of it. I think it's become one of their signature works. I also think that despite his occasional use of pointework and ballet technique, he expresses much more of a modern-dance esthetic, which of itself is fine, but perhaps makes him not as interesting to much of the NYC-based Ballet Alert contingent -- at least among our regular contributors. I don't, however, think it's impossible to find works in the Feld repertory with wit, invention and even, as you observed, charm (although I think these days his wit tends to be rather arch). But I just don't get the feeling (based on my experience of Feld) that those ballets are in the majority, or even that I'd encounter them enough to make the trip and cost (I don't think there are any, or many, el-cheapo seats at the Joyce -- just limited and not-too-nice standing room). As for the Joyce, it's a lovely theater, surrounded by charming restaurants. I was last there for the Trocks and had a great time. I do find a lot of their programming doesn't do much for me, though. And, since I live a short walk from Lincoln Center (as opposed to a short subway ride from the Joyce), I tend to focus on what's going on there first.

In no particular order: Dvorovenko's Operetta Star in Offenbach in the Underworld. Meunier's Cortege Hongrois (that seems like about 100 years ago!). Pavlenko's Diamonds. And her Rubies and Emeralds. Ansanelli's Firebird. And her Sugar Plum. And her Allegro Brillante. Anything with Wendy Whelan. Ananiashvili/Acosta (remember him?) in Fille. Kent/Acosta in The Dream (ABT did Ashton proud). The Vishneva/Samadurov Don Q and the Kirov's unflagging energy -- it was a rollercoaster ride from beginning to end. Peter Boal in Midsummer, as always. Ashley Bouder's Dewdrop (or anytime she really nails something). Ringer/Hubbe in Who Cares? Janie Taylor when she's Defying Death; her Dewdrop can be non-stop heart attack, but I like it. She also brought a wild piquancy to the Scherzo in Suite No. 3 with Tom Gold, and Who Cares? with Hubbe. Last but not least, the Kirov corps de ballet in Swan Lake. They weren't quite All That in La Bayadere, but their Swans more than made up for it.

Here's what the NYCB website has to say about it: TRICOLORE Photo Uncredited Music: (1978) by Georges Auric, Commissioned by New York City Ballet Choreography by Peter Martins, Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux And Jerome Robbins Premiere: May 18, 1978, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater Original cast: Colleen Neary, Adam Luders, Merrill Ashley, Sean Lavery, Karin von Aroldingen Ballet conceived and supervised by George Balanchine

Interesting choice of people for the place. A puppeteer? I don't see Misha as this generation's Misia Sert, and this project has "Vanity Plate" written all over it. I think the "Broadway" part of the building will long outlast this fuzzily-defined "foyer de la danse" Baryshnikov seems to want. A lot depends on how the thing actually works once it's built, and who will actually run the place. A gifted director could indeed turn it into something wonderful, but my gut feeling is it won't happen. I'd be very happy to be proven wrong, however.

As a graduation present, from college or grad school (I can't remember which) I was taken to the premiere of Tricolore. (It was given a few times as part of the "Entente Cordiale" evening -- Union Jack, Tricolore and Stars and Stripes. Tricolore didn't benefit by the framings!) I was disappointed that it wasn't by Balanchine, due to his illness at the time. I had hopes, however, which were quickly dashed, and the ballet became perhaps a classic example of too many cooks spoiling the bouilliabase. I wish I could remember more -- I suppose I could take down my boxes of programs and look for Tricolore, but then I'd spend a few hours going down memory lane.... So forgive me if I remember anything incorrectly. Some (all?) of the sections had cute names beginning with "Pas." I remember Robbins' contribution was "Pas Degas," with, I think, jockeys and ballerinas? Thinking Peter Martins might be the young up-and-coming choreographer (this was shortly after he did Calcium Light Night), I was interested in his contribution, based on folk-dances, the very cutely named "Pas de Basque." (Not eponymous, as I don't think they actually did any. None of the names were as cute as Edward Gorey's wonderful "Pas Devant les Domestiques.") Some steps were derived (or so the notes said) from Basque traditional dancing; certainly it was bouncy and colorful, if not particularly inspiring. I think I was either asleep or covering my eyes by the time the finale heaved itself to life. Tricolore would certainly belong on any list of NYCB turkeys.

Sigh. Obviously if I had applied myself more assiduously to destroying my brain cells in college, I too could write for The Nation. "A lot of nonsense has been written about the choreographer Twyla Tharp and her hit Broadway show, 'Movin' Out'….. Well, at least she got that part right! And it's stretching a point until it screams to say Balanchine was a mentor of Tharp's (an inspiration, perhaps), I have fond, if vague, memories from the Seventies of a work called Give and Take, which certainly looked like a tribute to Stars and Stripes, a vastly underrated ballet.

Although I don't have any figures on NYCB subscription sales lately, you don't have to be a weatherman to feel the cold drafts of the winds howling over the vast empty spaces up in Fourth Ring at the State Theater on most weeknights, when one half-expects to see tumbleweed blowing by and hear the howl of coyotes (except, for some strange reason, on all-Balanchine evenings -- go figure). I haven't seen much evidence of the NYCB audience flocking to Diamond Project ballets; it seems more to me of a case of he (or she) who pays the piper getting to call the tune. Or, rather, he who raises the funds to pay the piper -- especially when he IS the piper. The Diamond Project is not new; it's been around for ten years, and the quality of the works can speak for themselves. Most of them are pretty darn awful. And while nobody may set out to make a "bad" ballet, that doesn't mean the converse is always true, either -- that making a "good" ballet is always the uppermost priority. How else to explain the peculiarity of marketing this series as a vehicle for presenting new, edgy, works by new, edgy, choreographers which will boldy take NYCB where no NYCB has ever gone before, when, in fact, the most prolific choreographer for said project happens to be NYCB's artistic director himself? Yes, the three-program companies don't have the luxury of failure. It might be encouraging to know that NYCB can indeed afford the price of failure if only it didn't prove it with such depressing regularity. Or, rather, the financial price -- certainly not the artistic one, and that's where I have a real problem with the argument that dancers can learn a lot from bad choreography. Yes, they certainly can, but mostly what they learn is -- bad choreography, in all its myriad manifestations. Gresham's Law applies to the arts, as to everything else, it seems, and I see a generation learning to make dances that fit the aphorism with which Ronald Reagan was fond of describing his acting career: "They didn't want it good; they wanted it Thursday." Of course companies need to present new works; of course dancers need to have new works made on them. But when the administration demonstrates, year after year, a blithe and cynical indifference to the quality of those new works (let's not even get into how badly the company's priceless heritage has been neglected), it only teaches dancers to be blithe, cynical and indifferent, which perhaps explains the strange and ever-growing joylessness of City Ballet's recent performances. And, yes, audiences know what's going on. Witness the empty seats. Witness the audiences sitting on their hands. Didn't Arlene Croce once contemplate the audience at the State Theater waving "We See You!" signs at the dancers? I think it's again time to get out the cardboard and spray paint.