volcanohunter
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Posts posted by volcanohunter
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Officially it's called All Balanchine II.
https://www.nycballet.com/season-and-tickets/winter-2025/all-balanchine-ii/
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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2 hours ago, Dale said:
On a different note, finally got around to reading the NYT story on the new seasons and I guess I missed this news: "Alexei Ratmansky (Feb. 6), the company’s artist in residence. He will stage a suite of dances from Petipa’s full-length “Paquita” that incorporates the “Minkus Pas de Trois,” Balanchine’s restaging of the ballet’s pas de trois." Again, another rare Balanchine is being brought back. I think it's interesting that Whelan herself performed in some of the works revived for the historic 1993 Balanchine Celebration season. I'm pleased to think that maybe Wendy, having that experience, has led to her bringing those ballets back. She was in the cast for the revival of Haieff Divertimento in 1993. I don't believe it was performed thereafter before being brought back more recently. Whoever is responsible for these revivals, kudos. I'm looking forward to seeing these works, again.
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.
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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/
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Quasi-ethnography was pervasive in the 19th century, and we tend to turn a blind eye to it because we put it down to the standards of the time. In 1924 Ravel was coming late to the cultural (mis)appropriation game, as was Balanchine in 1975, and Ravel's work, as you explained, was an extension of a composing tradition, rather than being informed by serious ethnomusicology.
I can't help wondering whether people a hundred years from now will cringe at more recent "explorations" by Western composers of percussion from Southeast Asia, for example.
Trends inevitably change, as in the case of Mozart's use of "Turkish" musical elements.
In truth, Mozart's works are only superficially similar to the source.
But with time it's possible to engage these works with greater detachment. A month ago Fazil Say and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta presented a concert that explored Mozart and his influence from various angles, including, of course, this piece:
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It would have been helpful if the world of classical music had taken the initiative and changed the title of Ravel's piece, but as of June 2022 it was still being performed as Tzigane.
If there were a consensus about calling the piece Ravel's Rhapsody for Violin, for example, (since as far as I know Ravel's only official rhapsody is the "espagnole"), that could just as easily work as a ballet title. Perhaps then Ravel's and Balanchine's faux depictions of Romani culture would seem less objectionable because there wouldn't be intimations of authenticity.
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The Gypsy Robe doesn't refer to an ethnic group. It was used by a group that chose to use the term to describe their profession. No one imposed it from the outside, no outsider took it upon himself to define that group.
Even so, when groups, associations or sports teams have discovered that their chosen name is problematic, they have usually changed it to something else.
Both the music and the choreography of Tzigane use ethnic stereotypes, and they are works by outsiders to the culture, in which case there is always a risk of simplifying, distorting, misrepresenting or caricaturing that culture, no matter how much the creators may admire it.
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4 hours ago, Helene said:
I can understand a name switch -- and, given its content, it would be a mockery to call it Roma or Romani -- but why Errante, when Balanchine already created up-to-three works with that name to music by Schubert, the Wanderer?
According to the Balanchine Catalogue entries:
- 138 - L'Errante 1933 (also called ERRANTE; ALMA ERRANTE; THE WANDERER, performed in Les Ballets 1933)
- 143 - Errante 1935
- 197 - Alma Errante (Errante) 1941 (Performed by Ballet Caravan in rep)
(This link is to the catalogue: it appears to be in a frame and won't go directly to the search results: https://balanchine.org/catalogue-page/catalogue-main-archive/)
I hope that the right people were consulted. Obviously words such as drifter, nomad, rambler or vagabond would have been inappropriate. Wayfarer tends to be associated with a Mahler song cycle. It does seem like a mistake to recycle a title Balanchine used for other ballets, even if it's desirable to use a title without negative connotations.
I haven't yet encountered a case of the music being renamed in concert settings.
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On 4/10/2024 at 12:09 PM, nanushka said:
Most European languages have traditionally used a similar word, which originated in Greek, to describe the Romani people. You'll find the same root in the Romance (ţigan, zingaro, cigano), Germanic (Zigeuner, Zigeiner, sigøjner, zigenare, sigøyner, sígauna) Slavic (cygan, cikán, cigán, cigan, ciganin) and Baltic (čigonas, čigāns) languages, Hungarian (cigány), also Turkish (Çingene), even Esperanto (cigano). But just as the Romani consider the word gypsy offensive, they dislike its other European cousins.
Of course, the word also appears in European languages that use other alphabets, such as Greek Τσιγγάνος, Bulgarian циганин, Ukrainian циган or Yiddish ציגײַנער. It's pervasive.
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Sara Mearns has been visiting Toronto again. Her Instagram stories include the Côté/Lepage Hamlet, which played last week at the Elgin Theatre, and the CN Tower.
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2 hours ago, abatt said:
It's Freaky Friday here in NYC. Never experienced an earthquake before. 4.8 magnitude. My building was shaking.
Before I was born, my parents lived in San Francisco. My mother described being woken up at night by tremors. My first was the Northridge earthquake of 1994, which literally threw me out of bed. Having no frame of reference, I assumed this was the sort of thing my mother had experienced regularly and initially no idea how serious the quake really was.
The New National Theatre in Tokyo was the first theater in my experience (at least in English) that included instructions on what to do in the event of an earthquake as part of its pre-show announcement. (In fact there had been a tremor two days before.)
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The thing with Prince Gremin is that Curley may qualify as "too hot" for the role, i.e., excessively strong competition for Onegin for the story to be plausible. When the National Ballet of Canada performed the ballet in November, two debutant Gremins were yanked at the last minute, though neither was injured, and at least one of them qualified as extremely imposing. Another dancer ended up performing Gremin in 6 of 7 performances.
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The remaining two streams are now on sale for $80.
https://order.pnb.org/packages/fixed/1098
Crystal Pite's piece is also available on Paris Opera Play, though the rest of the program is different, of course.
https://play.operadeparis.fr/en/p/thierree-shechter-perez-pite-evening
Since the Paris Opera Ballet livestreamed Don Quixote today, which will be available on demand until April 9, now is as good a time as any to take advantage of POP's 7-day free trial. 💃🕺
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Additional casting for the POB livestream of Don Quixote includes Roxane Stojanov as the Street Dancer, Florent Melac as Espada, Héloïse Bourdon as the Queen of the Dryads, Silvia Saint-Martin as Cupid, Inès McIntosh as the Bridesmaid, Yann Chailloux as Don Quixote and Fabien Revillion as Sancho Panza.
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9 hours ago, SandyMcKean said:
I just watched the digital presentation. To each his own, but frankly, for me, this program was at best ho-hum.
I'm afraid I have to agree. I can imagine that Bacchus probably produces a strong kinesthetic effect in person, but on a screen it seemed like derivative choreography set to even more derivative music.
On screen I hated the lighting for both pieces, because it seemed to conspire to obscure the dancers.
As for One Thousand Pieces, I never would have suspected that it was inspired by Chagall's America Windows. For one thing, it's so damned dark. Stained glass is nothing without light. The male dancers were practically invisible. Stained glass by definition has color! I was so frustrated by the piece that I came close to turning it off three times.
Before I was born, my parents lived in San Francisco. My mother described being woken up at night by tremors. My first was the Northridge earthquake of 1994, which literally threw me out of bed. Having no frame of reference, I assumed this was the sort of thing my mother had experienced regularly and initially no idea how serious the quake really was.
NYCB 2024-25
in New York City Ballet
Posted · Edited by volcanohunter
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.