papeetepatrick

Are you okay with that? Is that gonna be a problem for you? "Hey, you okay?" (on TV movies)

Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 2, 'The Age of Anxiety', with the Auden poem-events as annotated by Bernstein on the album, would be a marvelous dance, modern or ballet--and one of the best story-dances that has occurred to me in a long time.

That's good to hear, because I have this $50 Starbucks card, and this information will make Starbucks, which I don't even like and think of as ordinary, seem like a luxurious and gleaming dream.

'No problem' is customer service talk, and anybody who has called New Delhi unwittingly for tech help knows that they are all told to say that just like 'Have a nice day'. I no longer notice these, since they're told to do them. When someone says it in real life, I still don't find it offensive any more. There's a third version of 'Excuse me' as sarcasm, which bart will also recognize, more like 'Ex-cuse MEEEE!!!' but the second one 'Ex-CUSE me' is even more about being offended and self-righteous, and can often be juxtaposed to the 'Hel-LOOOOOOOOO????' which I've never been able to use properly. Eggs also don't go below Medium. I want Accuracy in Egg Titling. I want SMALL EGGS . 'WAHZZUP' is annoying, but that's kids. Of course, there's 'WHAT-evah', that has endless sleazy variations.

Yes, abhorrent, as is the related 'we are NOT gonna go there' by the overly maternal and paternal.

I hate it too, but agree with its irreproachable and unimpeachable importance. Actually, I find it amusing as well, because people used to say it all the time on the old 'L.A. Law' TV show, and that's where I learned it. Jill Eikenberry was good at it. Listen, dears, I think you're all wrong about 'shouldn't of', at least part of the time, because even if I say full out 'he shouldn't have' (which I do), I will say 'he shouldn't've done that', which sounds like 'shouldn't of' but definitely isn't--it's a legitimate diminution of 'shouldn't have' . Here's one that gets on my nerves: not using 'entirely' occasionally, but always using it. It is not forbidden to remember that 'completely' and 'thoroughly' exist. All theorists and wannabe philosophes do this, and even Joan Didion overuses it. There is an 'I'm an intellectual' swagger to 'entirely' sometimes, although not nearly always, and it is very often used to throw weight around in an obnoxious way I don't like any of the 'rocket science' things and won't say them under any circumstances. I confess to having now begun to use '24/7', which overcame years of resistance, but I've decided things are too claustrophobic not to have some things you can slip in that will be understood by children of all ages. Don't like 'YO!' and can't stand redneck 'yyyellooo...' on the phone. I thoroughly dislke 'a couple drinks' and all variations leaving out the 'of'. This is maybe 20 years old, and now even smart bloggers like Josh Marshall will write, not just say, 'a couple clips'. It's 'a couple of clips', Josh. One that has definitely entered common usage is 'different than', and we are all anachronistic curios who say 'different from'. Also, there are many tacky overuses of 'actually', and some are in the same bimbo vein as 'I mean, it was like...' and don't even mean 'actually' anymore. Usually pronounced. 'you know, ACk-shu-a-leee...' and not even necessarily followed by anything at all.

Despite what I said above (where I'm not exactly clear that I mean those other titles you liked are my second choice), I think 'Swan Lake Act II' is quite sufficient. It's not nearly as well-known as it was in Balanchine's day, and I basically agree with Helene that the audience needs to know that it's a one-act-er. Things like 'staging by' could go in program notes, but I don't think they belong in the title. It's not the same as the Bach piece being attributed to Webern which he only orchestrated (in the Balanchine part of 'Episodes'). This IS Balanchine's 'Swan Lake', whatever else it was derived from, just as it IS Balanchine's 'Nutcracker.' I don't know if I feel this way because, somehow, this version of 'Swan Lake' means more to me than all the old full-length ones, maybe because seeing Melissa Hayden do it when I was 20 years old and she was just about to retire is one of the most unforgettable memories of ballet performance I've ever seen; and it even slightly outclasses Makarova's utter embodiment of Odette. Macaulay thinks it should just be called 'Swan Lake', but I think Helene is right--the audience does need to know it's not a full-length without being expected to look at the rest of the program. I think Macaulay's protest of the title is of little or no importance. It's not even done at NYCB anymore, since Peter Martins's notorious version appears occasionally, and I am threatened with it upon its next impingement

Agree, Vipa. But Joan Acocella (see Nov. 10 Links) did get some answers: I wonder how much was the overall cost of the presidential campaigns.. I'll say.... If this is too far from the spirit of the game, just delete mine, please. I couldn't resist Cristian's l'attitude and think that had something to do with it too.

MSNBC just showed a clip from the roast, with Obama saying that Emanuel trained in ballet and "was the first to adopt Machiaveli's The Prince for dance. It was an intriguing piece; as you can imagine, there were a lot of kicks below the waist." A President who reads! Who uses ballet metaphors. Who reads Machiavelli!!! It all sounds suspiciously "elitest" to me. Machiavelli's "The Prince" !. Wow, wow, wow,,,A favorite Castro's. I hope a different understanding of its whole concept, seriously... Oh, no, they've all read that one, even if they haven't. Maybe Carter didn't read it, but the rest did, or got someone else to, e.g., in the outgoing administration, it's almost unimaginable that Cheney hasn't many dog-eared copies of that, as well as maybe even some German tomes, and inform on Marx as well. I'd be startled if Obama hadn't read Machiavelli and much else, and mainly think we'll begin to see a culture that is more like the big ferment that ended with the 70s, and that I'd given up on. Everything points to a less superficial attitude to almost everything--more substantial, less virtual--so that will include art and culture, which has had some great moments since the beginning of the 80s, but a dreadful general collapse IMO.

The program for SFB's Kennedy Center performances does note the Bach: "Music by J.S. Bach orchestrated by Anton Webern (Ricercata, Fugue in six voices from The Musical Offering)." Well, I shouldn't have settled so easily for the NYCB improvement. Farrell Ballet has done it exactly as it should be. 'Ricercata in Six Voices from Bach's Musical Offering by Anton von Webern' of NYCB is still very poor compared to Farrell Ballet program. Thanks, kfw. May all ballet companies doing this work follow SFB's example.

Carbro, thanks for all of that. My little post about the review you had to pay for was misleading, because the link I gave was for the 1985 one that you quoted, and is viewable and interesting. I referred to this one http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.htm...aham&st=cse without pasting in the link at the time. So I've become somewhat like the websites, oh dear. Anyway, I also saw that Farrell and Austin Ballets do not credit Bach. The NYCB description is not perfect, but is quite satisfactory, and they all ought to be that way. When trying to find the 1980 link, I happened upon a link to John Martin's review from June 7, 1959, of the original. Also unopenable, but that must be the ticket.

None. And I'm glad he didn't. I can't imagine the board broke the contract for any reason but that they had no real choice, but I hadn't been aware of what he was like, artistically and personally, until this article. His solution, 'running a deficit on purpose, borrowing...' has the air of extravagance that does not work so well right now as it would have a year ago. There were probably clashes of egoes, and he could easily afford not to do it. Even if one 'fears for the future of NYCO', I don't think he would have worked. People do have to be flexible to survive right now, and there are various versions of asking for huge credit lines which are all being reversed from what they were before Lehman (including pulling them from people with perfect credit scores, etc), with all sorts of instruments being denied that were very easy to get and often granted without asking as recently as a few months ago.

I think the photo with Martha in the Notebooks is Wilson, but the quality is not at all sharp and the dress, although cut similarly, looks lighter and different from this one. May just be problem with the Notebook photo, though.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...odes&st=cse There's another from 1980 that you have to pay for.

I saw the Austin and Farrell Ballet's Episodes in the recent Kennedy Center run, and it included the Bach. I can't imagine a successful Episodes [iI] without it, as it pulls together the preceding movements into a complete work. Episodes without the Ricercata would be equivalent to Sleeping Beauty without Aurora's Wedding. Yes, as rg says, it was Webern's orchestration of Bach, which is not at all as though it was his piece, although the others were. Here's the relevant part of the recent article I found by googling last night, and it might have been written by someone before the performance, but all the talk about difficulties of listening to Webern could not apply to his orchestration of the Musical Offering. Whether or not the writer had seen and heard, Stephen Mills definitely has (since you say it the Ricercata is always there) and only talks about the sound of Webern, nothing about Bach, which must be quite a wonderful juxtapositiion when it follows the skinny, elegant sounds of all that Webern. If, as rg says, only Webern's name is given in the musical credits, that is a sloppy and inaccurate practice, and not unlike 'the Sleeping Beauty without Aurora's Wedding' itself, because there is probably some special release that comes with the advent of the Bach,. and saying that that movement is 'Webern' (or not specifying that we now 'hear Bach through Webern' or something like that) is thoroughly misleading. There is Bach-Busoni, etc., but a re-orchestration doesn't belong to the orchestrator at all. This also is pretty good on the history of the original, except that it is also ignorant of the Graham re-working in 1979 : "Episodes," which premiered in 1959, is danced to several pieces by Anton Webern, whose music is not exactly easy listening. Ballet Austin Artistic Director Stephen Mills has clear memories of the first time he saw ballet, a quarter-century ago. "It was around 1982 or '83," he said via telephone from Washington on the morning of the Kennedy Center opening. "I was in New York, and I saw two performances of "Episodes" in a week, and it was really very striking to me. The music is very unusual, very dissonant, but in typical Balanchine fashion, he was able to structure the movement in a way that you can see the music. Webern, for most people, is difficult to sit down and listen to, but with a dance structure on top of it, it becomes so clear and very enjoyable." ** In order to better understand Webern's music for "Episodes," he adapted it for piano and simply played it himself. He was introduced to Webern's music by the composer Igor Stravinsky, with whom Balanchine worked for much of his life. He became intrigued by Webern's work within the 12-tone structure, in which all notes of the chromatic scale are treated equally within the piece. Balanchine invited Martha Graham, the Great Mother of modern dance, to collaborate on a ballet to Webern's music, foreshadowing the two choreographers' immeasurable influences on 20th century dance. The result was "Episodes." It didn't turn out to be much of a collaboration, though: Working in separate studios, Graham choreographed the first half and Balanchine the second, resulting in pieces that were independent of each other in spirit and concept. Graham's section, a dance-dramatization of the life of Mary, Queen of Scots, hasn't been performed since. Balanchine's half was about the music, and after the premiere, he reworked it as a four-movement stand-alone ballet. People often describe dance as either "narrative" or "movement for movement's sake"; "Episodes" is, in fact, movement for music's and movement's sake. The dancing isn't simply accompanied by the orchestra. It is an emanation of the music, which Balanchine said "fills the air like molecules." And here's a description of Webern's orchestration: The "Ricercar a 6" has been arranged on its own on a number of occasions, the most prominent arranger being Anton Webern, who in 1935 made a version for small orchestra, noted for its Klangfarbenmelodie style (i.e. melody lines are passed on from one instrument to another after every few notes, every note receiving the "tone color" of the instrument it is played on).

I wonder whether this DID begin. It certainly was "Swan Lake" on its own in the late 50s, when I first saw it, and I must admit I never noticed a re-titling in the decades following. That doesn't mean it didn't actually happen then. I may not have been paying attention. Certainly no one I knew used "Act II" in conversation.The NYCB website continues to refer to it as "Swan Lake (Balanchine)" to distinguish it from "Swan Lake (Martins)." When DID the title change? Who did it? And why? NYCB and Balanchine experts -- please help! It could be that I got there and found out what it was, and read it in the Notes rather than as the title. Too long ago to remember. I also don't know if NYCB stopped doing it completely after 'Swan Lake (Martins)' started. I assume they did. But I would have known even then that I was not going to see an evening-length 'Swan Lake' given two other works on the program. So, maybe rg or mel or sz can tell us when 'Swan Lake Act II' appeared as a title. You may well be right that NYCB never used 'Swan Lake Act II' as an actual title, but just explained it in the notes.

bart--thanks for posting this, it's fascinating. Of course, now that we see that 'even NYCO is all Lehman Brothers', we see something of what's happening in arts funding even in established organizations. But this article made me feel very strongly that, even though it sounded like Mortier might revamp NYCO, that it surely can do better. This was very good on detail, and I finished it thinking 'Good riddance!' I don't know if it will prevent a Glass opera about the life of Walt Disney, but NYCO should be able to do better than this kind of wheeling/dealing thing, what with leveraging all over the place, only to fail to get the ace in the hole, flight to safety in T-bills, or whatever you'd call it, at Bayreuth. Now 'maybe nobody wants him'. Other great artists figure out how to 'make do' (and sometimes very well) when they don't get all the money they demand, and I needn't name them.

I don't see why. Balanchine's version of "Swan Lake" Act II is just as based in Ivanov's white act as any other production I've seen in which Benno doesn't partner Odette. You don't see SFB's production of "Swan Lake" titled "Helgi Tomasson's 'Swan Lake'" or the Bolshoi's listed as " 'Swan Lake' (Ingredients: Grigorovich [80%], Ivanov [10%], Petipa [5%], Gorsky [5%])" or the Royal Ballet's named "Petipa's and Ivanov's and Ashton's and Dowell's 'Sleeping Beauty'. What's critical is that the audience not expect a full length, and that's covered by the title "Swan Lake Act II". Well, that's what I said by 'leave it alone', but people are talking about Macauley here, who doesn't like 'Swan Lake Act II'. What nobody has answered is my question on whether it came to be called 'Swan Lake Act II' while Balanchine was still alive. I believe bart said Balanchine called it 'Swan Lake', but I thought I remembered when seeing Hayden in it in 1971 that it was listed in the program as 'Swan Lake Act II'. If Balanchine was fine with 'Swan Lake Act II', I don't see why this was ever brought up. So, who started calling it that? Anyway, I just put out some ideas on other possibilitities. I don't consider it an important issue, and think 'Swan Lake Act II' is fine in any case. In calling it 'Balanchine's Swan Lake', I was trying to arrive at a way of saying that it was a one-actor but changing the name that is being discussed only because of Macauley. It's not comparable to any of the others you listed, unless they're also not full-length. I also think 'Balanchine Swan Lake Act II' is not too long.

I wonder if the Bach was also left out as well as the Paul Taylor part. I just saw a Farrell Ballet article from about 2 weeks ago, describing her company's 'Episodes', and nobody's music but Webern's there. This must have been thrilling in those 2 seasons to see Graham/Balanchine to Webern. As for 'forgetting what she had done in '59', Graham could have forgotten a lot of it anyway, but the notebooks have a ton of what that must have been, because it's the original she was writing the notes for, and they are very specific steps, just as are the ones for 'Night Journey'.

I'd think the best would be to leave it alone, it's not too hard to find out what Swan Lake Act II is. But the best one, I think, would be to call it either 'Balanchine Swan Lake' or 'Balanchine's Swan Lake', which echoes somewhat Balanchine's own titling of his ballet 'Robert Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze'. Ultimately, 'Balanchine's Swan Lake' sounds better than 'Balanchine Swan Lake', and anyone would then see it was one of 3 on a program. I don't think 'Swan Lake' by itself is quite enough, because we're in an era long after it was well-known. I hadn't heard about it in years until people brought it up some months ago, and never heard about in NYCB repertory since I saw it in 1971. Yes, I wouldn't think this for any other kind of ballet, but 'Balanchine's Swan Lake' sounds fine, because, whatever else it is, it is a shortened version of what is always thought of as a full-length ballet. It's also not far from DVDs that say 'George Balanchine's The Nutcracker', is it? which I think was always seen in TV productions going back to the 60s and maybe some other ads as well. I don't see 'Swan Lake Suite' as working, though. Either 'Swan Lake Act II', 'Balanchine's Swan Lake' or 'Swan Lake'. The latter is the tastiest, but also the most elitist and most easily misunderstood. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that in 1971, it was called 'Swan Lake Act II', with Balanchine alive another 12 years, unless I'm wrong. If I'm right, it was his decision to call it that, so somebody will know if it was called Swan Lake Act II back then. I think NYCB does still use 'Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2', don't they? I didn't know what Ballet Imperial was till I saw the Kirov in April.

This is the piece Graham made about Mary Queen of Scots and her execution. I am immersed in Martha's Notebooks right now (thanks again, rg! they're glorious, and I'll be reporting more fully on that thread I started about Books on Martha later), and I read all the Notes about her research on Mary Queen of Scots and much of what she was planning to do and did do in the work.This piece is one of the most detailed in the volume, and has 15 full pages of notes describing enormous amounts of the movement. There is a photo of Mary at L. and Elizabeth (with crown on) at right, and both have the racquets for their tennis game. The executioner is facing the platform where Mary will be executed, and there are 2 more men guarding it. This an older photo than yours, because it shows Graham as Mary, although I don't know the year. Here's just one example of how thrilling these Notebooks are: H stance-- 2 Queens face Executioner enters and presents racquets Enter from wings queens? 4 men walk forward as Executioner walks to Center with 4 men jumping Heralds extend net--queens? To the side, in this one 2) Ex. jumps and turns into Kneel -- 2x Then there are notes for the Game and a Court Dance, and the 1st stroke, Executioner, later there is 'Mary misses' and it shows the score. This is all fascinating, and I'd like to hear from someone who's seen it too. I don't know if it's currently done, but they're doing 'Clytemnestra' at JFK with live music in early December and then again at Skirball here in late spring (they didn't know if they'd have live music in this one or not, but I'll be going to that.) I'd also like to know from someone who knows if 'Episodes' has been done by the Graham Co. in recent years. I know they did 'Phaedra', which I also haven't seen, a few years ago.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/...very-pretty/?hp http://breakingnews.nypost.com/dynamic/sto...mp;SECTION=HOME Two stories on Tin Pan Alley's current predicament. I also found an old NYTimes story from a few years ago about the dancer June Ekman, who has one of those wonderful exotic apartments in one of the buildings, and who teaches the Alexander Technique. Anybody know the name JUNE EKMAN as a professional dancer?

I can't for the life of me remember the composer of 'Clear Lake', but the piece had been inspired by a summer season at Jacob's Pillow. I imagine 'Joy of Man's Desiring' was tailor-made for Solan, who had this marvelous Picasso kind of face, with very deep, intelligent eyes, and was very musical, she could have been a very good Pioneer Woman in 'Appalachian Spring'. 'Shrewd trendies' are by their nature the tenacious ones--it's just that it's the kind of thing that usually is more associated with rock figures who have been able to keep their audience even as they have aged, with Madonna the epitome of it (although not nearly the oldest). What it doesn't have is an inner line you can follow, or at least keep some kind of track of, from one work to the next as with Graham or Balanchine. Ambition comes in different forms, and these get different results.

This interests me, because my impression is not that they are doing something so much 'antithetical' to A & S or anything else, but that they don't use the words like 'beautiful' much, it is as if that is an outmoded word. It doesn't have the value it once had, and 'cool' has come to reign supreme. They might use 'elegant' for some kinds of haute couture that the rich ones wear, but it's mainly not very interested in anything understated --or at least that's part of it, and part of it is the decibel level which started in the 60s and is now the norm--but I still can't deal with it at all. I don't go to anything but jazz clubs and cabaret, though.

zerbinetta--I thought some of the even earlier work was beautiful. I remember an early 70s concert at American Theater Lab, which was this small place in the West 20s, I believe, and 2 of the 3 works I still remember, one pretty well and another vividly: These were called 'Clear Lake' and 'Joy of Man's Desiring'. These were poetic. But if you look across the whole career, it has some quality of the shrewd trendy to it, which wouldn't mean that weren't very good things in it, but I never liked any of the subsequent work as much as those two 'young pieces'. He had one great dancer, Jeanne Solan, who is more well-known for some wonderful work with Kylian, some of which is recorded (including 'Cathedral Engloutie'). I think Lubovitch made 'Joy of Man's Desiring' for Solan, and she was magnetic.