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On Pointe

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  • Connection to/interest in ballet** (Please describe. Examples: fan, teacher, dancer, writer, avid balletgoer)
    fan, dancer, choreographer
  • City**
    Chicago
  • State (US only)**, Country (Outside US only)**
    IL

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  1. I became a fan of Shakirova through YouTube videos. Besides her outstanding musicality, precise placement and technique, she expresses such joy in her dancing. I hope we get to see her live in the near future, although given the current political situation that seems unlikely to happen.
  2. I have to confess, I'd kind of want to hate watch that! There are now plenty of dancers of color (not my favorite term) on NYCB's roster. No need to bring in outside talent to virtue signal. They just need to develop the dancers they have.
  3. I'm genuinely curious - what is it about this article that you like? Because if I'm being honest, as a Black American, the optics are terrible.
  4. Unlike the Great Men of the past, Leonard Bernstein left behind a wealth of recorded material as a conductor and a television performer. Future generations won't have to wonder what he was really like (publicly). In last year's film Tar, where Cate Blanchett portrayed a sort of venomous female version of Bernstein, one of the few moments that depict her as vulnerable and human was when she returned to her childhood home and caressed her collection of videos of LB. Bradley Cooper did a great job in my opinion, but his performance isn't going to supersede the actual image of Bernstein.
  5. Roger Ebert often said that it was the obligation of the critic to review the film that the writer and director made, not the one the critic wished they had made. Of course viewers whose opinions aren't going to appear in print or on a website have no such restriction, but I've read so many opinions on Maestro written by specialists who can't accept that, like it or not, Bradley Cooper told the story he wanted to tell. Before this film, I'd never heard of Tom Cothran, and now that I have heard of him, I wouldn't necessarily have been interested in his relationship with Bernstein any more than what we see in the film. Maestro is about Lenny and Felicia. I am left wondering why the Bernsteins married each other in the first place. Lots of women find out their husbands are gay years after the wedding, but Felicia knew that from the jump. The Fancy Free/On the Town sequence indicates that they found each other dazzling and irresistible. At first. Maybe that was enough at the time.
  6. I can't take credit for it. The lack of recognition for a three time Tony winner from the NYTimes was a hot topic of discussion on Broadway boards, especially because there were three articles on the great Chita Rivera. The two had careers that followed the same trajectory - the Jones-Haywood ballet school, SAB, unexpected big break on Broadway.
  7. Hinton had had some years of ill health prior to his passing. Hinton was a Broadway star, the recipient of three Tony Awards. He also appeared on television on occasion. But I will always remember him as a dazzling ballet dancer, with impeccable technique, extraordinary musicality and ease of movement. I am not exaggerating when I say that he could have held his own with any of the great male stars of the recent past. But as a darkskinned, unambiguously Black American, Hinton was born too soon. We'd already had Arthur Mitchell, and then as well as now to some extent, there was only room for one at the top at a time. Hinton was an Army Brat, born in Germany, but growing up in DC. Like Chita Rivera, he was trained at the Jones-Haywood school and received a scholarship to SAB. (Not many ballet schools can boast of alumni like that.). I first met him when I was in a pre-Broadway run of a show with his sister. He was around fifteen, goofing around in his street clothes, and tossing off turns, leaps and sky high extensions that left me open-mouthed in wonder. Who was this kid! I later did two shows with Hinton, and "this kid" was such a gentleman, unfailingly polite and considerate, an absolute pleasure to work with and be around. I can't claim to have been a close friend of his, but I'd like to recognize someone who was - Leah Bass, who cared for Hinton through years of illness, including the cruel loss of both legs to diabetes. Leah is what we call "a real one". Apparently the New York Times has not published an obituary for Hinton, which is an outrage. Hopefully they will do so in the near future.
  8. Interesting interview with the Bernstein children, mainly because of what they don't say. They present an image of idyllic family life, with parents who "adored each other", and never fought in front of them, although they did " sense some tension" at times. No mention of LB leaving their mother to live with a male lover, which had to have been painful for them.
  9. No need to apologize. Dancers in the big ballet companies are paid decently, enough money to live in the cities where their companies are located. They supplement their incomes with side gigs dancing with smaller companies as guest artists, or modeling. Increasingly dancers are getting endorsement deals, which can be quite lucrative, and running their own businesses. Many dancers come from wealthy families and aren't solely dependent on what they earn dancing. Conversely, there are some notable dancers who come from low income backgrounds who probably are the highest earners in their families. At any rate, professional ballet dancers make a lot more money consistently than actors or writers.
  10. As a member of SAG, I can assure you that members nationwide had to scramble to make ends meet during the long strike, as well as members of other professional unions that don't get paid if actors aren't working. The general public has no idea how little most actors, writers and yes, athletes, make. (Just a pet peeve of mine, but I hate it when dancers are referred to as "athletes".) You hear about big stars making millions per film, but not much about Oscar winners like Hilary Swank who didn't make enough one year to maintain her union prescription drug coverage. A Go Fund Me for " rich" performers is a non-starter. Many New Yorkers make a lot less than ABT dancers.
  11. A bit of disambiguation - I post as On Pointe, and have done so for a number of years, but I have no connection to that website and/or publication. I read the Tiler Peck interview a few days ago when it first appeared, and I had concerns about it then, but I hesitated to bring them up here because I thought maybe it was just me. I'm glad to see that it wasn't.
  12. I've been impressed by Tiler Peck's choreography and I'm eager to see what she can do with a large cast. But I didn't think it was necessary to include a discussion of her leading dancers' perceived shortcomings. They are professionals, not students, and presumably they got where they are in the company because of what they can do, not what they need to work on. It puts the dancers in an uncomfortable position before the audience even sees the piece.
  13. Mitt Romney has no Latino heritage. His parents spoke English, and they kept their American citizenship, which came in handy when their colony was run out of Mexico. It would be phony for him to celebrate his non-existent Latin ethnicity. Penelope Cruz is Hispanic but not Latina. She's completely European. The first Mexican woman to win an Oscar is Lupita N'yongo, born in Mexico and Spanish speaking, but with Black African parents, she would never be cast as a Latina. (Even though there are millions of Black Latinos.). And of course race as a concept varies from country to country. Many people who consider themselves white in Latino countries are not white in an American context. But no need to get all tangled up in semantics. The fact is that most American ballet companies have a healthy cohort of Latino and Brazilian dancers. Not NYCB. And there's no clear explanation why.
  14. NYCB has had a number of Asian dancers, for example Edwaard Liang, Georgina Pazcoguin, and Gen Horiuchi, who was a principal. It has also had a few dancers who are half Asian, like Allen Peiffer. But South Korea, China and Japan are now producing such wonderful classical dancers it's unusual to see a company roster without multiple Asians. NYCB has also had very few Latinas compared to most American companies. I can only think of Lourdes Lopez and Monique Meunier.
  15. What did I miss - how was Felicia arrogant and dishonest? She came across to me as a bit brittle, with her sleek updos and mid-Atlantic accent. But that was an accurate depiction of Felicia Montealegre and typical of wealthy white women in Manhattan at the time. (I was around a lot of them in the 70s and 80s.). What was atypical was her devotion to left wing causes, which wasn't touched upon in the film. But there was no way that Bradley Cooper could include every aspect of the Bernsteins' life and marriage in a two hour film. I must have been under a rock because I don't recall anything about Bernstein coming out at that time. I didn't know that he moved to LA with a male lover, none of it. I am perplexed by the heated discussion of whether he was gay or bisexual. Apparently he cheated on Felicia with women as well as men, and he had three children. Seems like a bisexual to me.
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