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Besides, when Guillaume Côté danced Swan Lake with Sara Mearns in New York, it was as an emergency replacement for an injured Tyler Angle. Arguably, his presence was essential. Mearns' performances with the National Ballet were announced two months in advance, when it's impossible to know who, if anyone, would be on the injured list and require a replacement.

Prior to Makarova's production, when Westerners saw the Kingdom of the Shades, it was usually in isolation. For example, I remember seeing a bill that consisted of a Glen Tetley piece, the Kingdom of the Shades and the third act of Napoli.

To a large extent this has been the case for a long time. One of my earliest frustrations as a ballet-goer was the "wrong" (i.e., showy) variations being interrupted with applause. But YAGP exaggerated the tendency and normalized whooping and hollering at the ballet, giving it the tenor of a sporting event.

Makarova compressed the first two acts into one. She also eliminated a number of dances. Years ago I watched a television interview with Nina Ananiashvili and remember her describing Makarova's production as "compact." Yes.

Pointe magazine published an article on the problems with La Bayadère in 2020. https://pointemagazine.com/la-bayadere-orientalist-stereotypes/

There were objections to La Bayadère by 2020, though perhaps they were not felt as strongly in the United States as in the UK, where the Hindu population is proportionally larger. The main difference seems to be that McKenzie did not recognize a problem, but Jaffe does. https://inews.co.uk/culture/arts/hindus-apology-royal-opera-house-la-bayadere-racism-cultural-appropriation-223861

A teeny clip from Bourrée Fantasque https://www.facebook.com/share/v/3o2TkacAwJtRPipa/?mibextid=qi2Omg A clip from Errante https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6MgQWzOpdY/?igsh=MW9icjN3bzd1YTEwcw==

Possibly, but I wouldn't expect much. He didn't dance in the company's new production of Swan Lake in 2022. He hasn't danced any after-Petipa ballet for several years. This season he has only danced two performances of Onegin with the company. I saw the second and thought he was weak. Since then, no Nutcracker, nothing in the long run of Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, nothing in Suite en Blanc or anything else in March. I would be astonished if he suddenly appeared in Don Quixote. And by February 2025 he will be 43 years of age. Even Joaquín De Luz didn't dance that long.

The company has posted a lot of Dances at a Gathering rehearsal footage in its Facebook and Instagram stories.

Crime and Punishment has come up on an ABT thread before. I can only say that Helen Pickett produced a one-act version of Emma Bovary for the National Ballet of Canada in November, and I thought it was a mess. My only other exposure to Pickett's choreography was her Petal, which I liked a lot.

That is a seriously New York-centric dance series, with a bit of Philadelphia thrown in.

Personally, I think it would be helpful if the all-Balanchine programs in the spring of 2025 were numbered III and IV, so as not to confuse them with the all-Balanchine programs from winter 2025.

Officially it's called All Balanchine II. https://www.nycballet.com/season-and-tickets/winter-2025/all-balanchine-ii/

Visa applications aren't an exact science. According to press coverage at the time, YAGP had been applying successfully for a certain type of visa for years, but in 2018 a consular official decided that the applications didn't fit the criteria. I recall that on one occasion Edward Watson wasn't able to participate in performances in the United States because of visa problems. Watson, like Jacopo Tissi, would not have required a visa to enter the country as a tourist, but performances are an entirely different thing. Even opera companies, which apply for large numbers of visas routinely, have run into problems from time to time. As for protests, there is a tipping point, and there isn't an available prison cell for every single Russian citizen. But to be successful, a protest movement would have to be on a very large scale. Not necessarily everywhere, but certainly in Moscow.

That sort of terminology is only used in the case of freelancers. There is a reason dancers are identified by their professional affiliation: étoile of the Paris Opera Ballet, senior artist of the Australian Ballet or principal dancer of San Francisco Ballet. They are hired precisely as representatives of their employer. This establishes their credentials with audiences and carries varying degrees of prestige.

Akhmetshina has been working in the West since she joined the young-artists' program of the Royal Opera House in 2017. I likewise think that if YAGP had invited a Russian ballerina who works in the United States, the Netherlands or Austria, it would not have been an issue.

While the gala was taking place, the city of Dnipro and its vicinity was being bombed, resulting in seven deaths, including two children aged 8 and 14. So honestly, I'm not too worried about Khoreva's or Kim's feelings or the disappointment of people who wanted to see them. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68853490

It's also not unusual for a cancelation to be initiated by the venue. After all, impresario A or organizer B thought that inviting controversial performer X or speaker Y was a good idea.

I think it's all about the Mariinsky as a brand. Had they been Russian dancers who work abroad, there wouldn't have been a problem. Had they been Japanese or Korean dancers who didn't work in Russia, there wouldn't have been a problem. But the Mariinsky is part and parcel of Putin's machine, as a tool of soft power, in that it gives special performances for the military, in that its director is part of Putin's inner circle and has used those ties to the hilt. In particular Nagahisa and Kim have made a choice to continue working in Russia, which is not an ally of the United States, and they must realize that one of the consequences of that decision is that their foreign appearances would be greatly reduced.

It's not really a coincidence, because Khoreva did get a visa and did fly to New York. Khoreva, Kim and Nagahisa are all employed by the Mariinsky, whose director is Vladimir Putin's number one apologist in the arts, and where intellectual property rights are ignored. All of them have performed in occupied Crimea. All of then have performed ballets from the which the choreographer's name has been removed, and not just in The Pharaoh's Daughter, but in indisputable Ratmansky ballets. These are some of the reasons the Mariinsky Ballet has become untouchable, and everyone who dances there carries its taint.

I am very glad to read this. I was genuinely distressed when Igor Zelensky took over the Bavarian State Ballet and literally threw Ratmansky's reconstruction of Paquita onto the scrap heap. I haven't enjoyed Ratmansky's reconstructions equally, but that one was revelatory for me.

According to the company's site, it will be the third movement of Glass Pieces, Chiaroscuro and Stars and Stripes. https://www.nycballet.com/season-and-tickets/spring-2025/andrew-veyette-farewell/

I disagree. With only six performances of Jewels, I don't think any should be taken away from the company's dancers and turned over to Sara Mearns. NYCB performed Jewels in the fall. It will perform them again in Washington in June. Typically it performs the ballet every other May or so. In other words, a lot. If NYCB has never cast Mearns in "Rubies", I don't see why the NBoC is obliged to provide her with the opportunity, just so that she can complete a Jewels trifecta before Mira Nadon does.

Speaking as someone who now visits New York as a tourist, I'm sorry that there is less variety in programs each week. This year, the fourth week of the winter and spring seasons feature five different programs over 7 shows (which proved irresistible when one of the repeating programs was Four Temperaments plus Liebeslieder). Next spring the Innovators and Icons II program will be performed six times over the span of seven days. Perhaps it is easier on the dancers to have a smaller number of ballets in rotation at any given time. It is occasionally possible to see a larger number of programs by straddling the weekend. The second weekend and beginning of the third week of winter 2025 will feature five different programs. It's just a matter of finding something else to do on Monday night.

For my part, the first time I saw a Romani dance from Hungary, performed by a company that strove to present traditional European dances in a more authentic manner--rather than souped-up, audience-facing choreography--one of the thoughts that ran through my mind was that it looked nothing like Balanchine's Tzigane.