On Pointe

It isn't clear whether or not Abi Stafford is suing NYCB, but engaging an attorney to write a demand letter is the usual precursor. Even NYCB doesn't get sued every day, even though lately it may seem that way, so that makes it news. Now that she is or soon will be a lawyer, Ms. Stafford Lillo seems to to be proving the saying that "when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail".

Then please take this opportunity, as a budding lawyer, to actually make your case, because the article in the NY Times does you no favors. NYCB's stance comes across as logical and reasonable, but the plaintiff's complaints seem petty, self-serving and vague. Airing out family feuds by lawsuit is a misuse of the legal system.

My point is that some are using a hypothetical argument as an excuse to vent their racism against Misty Copeland. I did not "enjoy" the WaPo comments about her "slaggy" calves (what does that even mean?) or her supposedly "poor feet", which is ludicrous. I really wish people would just be upfront and say they don't like her because she's a Black woman - albeit one who enjoys lightskinned privilege - who is frank about racism. They would prefer that she be like Francesca Hayward, who once claimed that she never was treated any differently from white dancers at the Royal Ballet School or in the Royal Ballet. (Hayward has since stated that she did experience racist treatment, but didn't want to recognize it, probably out of a sense of self protection.) Like her or not, Copeland has been very valuable to ballet in general and ABT in particular. Her great sin is that, to some, she isn't sufficiently grateful for the opportunities she's been given. Doubtless they would be happier if she would just shut up and dance.

Has Misty Copeland ever, in word or deed, indicated that she has any desire to run ABT, or any other ballet company?

I hate this kind of article. All it did was give haters and racists of various stripes yet another opportunity to denigrate Misty Copeland and ballet in general. And it's shockingly trivial about the serious situation ABT is in. There was no rhyme or reason in mentioning Ketanji Brown Jackson in the same article, except to set up the proposition that a Black woman attaining a high position in one field means that a Black woman is the logical choice for another high profile job. It's disgusting.

So does the outcome. Chris Rock wasn't punched, didn't bleed, wasn't even knocked down. The LA police have said that if the incident had occurred between ordinary citizens, they would not have made an arrest. They legally couldn't arrest Smith because an open hand slap is a misdemeanor and Rock would not press charges. Halyna Hutchins is dead. Alec Baldwin probably didn't intend to hurt her, but he pointed the gun, he pulled the trigger. As executive producer, he signed off on an incompetent nepotism hire as armorer, no doubt because she was cheap. The producers had been warned repeatedly that conditions on the set were unsafe and a number of crew members had staged a walkout in protest, but nothing was done. Smith committed an impulsive act. Baldwin allowed an unsafe environment likely to lead to serious injury or death, and did.

Of course not - Baldwin's action was infinitely worse. Chris Rock got his feelings hurt. Halyna Hutchins is dead. Perhaps compounded by the Baldwins' gleeful announcement that they are expecting their SEVENTH child, or "Baldwinito" according to his wife. (Even after her unmasking, Señora Baldwin can't give up the phony Spanish act.)

But if you prick them, do they not bleed? It's been (mostly) my pleasure to meet and work with a number of high profile stars in my career, and in my experience, they were no more egotistical or "dedicated to the good life" than any other humans. Some very famous performers are so low key when offstage and offscreen, they can ride the subway and go about their business largely unrecognized and umbothered in NYC. There is a Hollywood film and music producer who has funded schools and hospitals lavishly, and has a concert venue bearing his name, but in his everyday dealings with people is a monster from the flaming pits of hell, known to try to destroy the careers of those who displease him. Harvey Weinstein is in prison and Roman Polanski is a convicted felon who would be in prison if he ever sets foot in California again. They haven't had their Oscars taken away from them. Will Smith is known as a very hard worker and good guy in Hollywood. In a moment of high tension and stress, he made a colossal mistake that impacted others. I'm not making excuses for his actions. He was in the wrong. But Chris Rock instigated the incident. Even if Smith had kept his seat, it was cruel (and in my opinion calculated) for CR to try to demean Smith and his wife at what should have been one of the greatest nights of their lives. (I am skeptical of those who apparently know all the juicy details of the Smiths' marital woes, but claim to not know that Jada Pinkett Smith suffers from alopecia. She has been very open about it.) Smith has apologized and resigned, and the Academy will do what they need to do, but as a longtime member of SAG, I am very much against suspending his membership. Smith is a producer on his films, and if he can't work, he won't suffer financially as he is immensely wealthy, but dozens of others will lose their livelihoods. I don't think that SAG or the Academy has taken any action against Alec Baldwin, who, through his carelessness, shot and killed his cinematographer while on the job. Just as I felt it was overreach for AGMA to be involved in disciplining the dancers in the Finlay-Waterbury affair, I don't believe that SAG should be involved in Slapgate. Unions are not nannies.

Maria Khoreva has an impressive command of the English language. Her use of the word "unmercifully" was deliberate. She's entitled to her opinion, but expressing herself so harshly will have consequences. I wonder if Bloch and Nike will sever their relationships with her? If they do, and if her enormous international fan base shrinks, she has only herself to blame - unless she is a Kremlin puppet who was ordered to make that remark, which is a possibility.

It seems Mr. Kovner and many faculty members did not like Damian Woetzel's way of dealing with racial matters at Juilliard. (For what it's worth, I know a number of Black Juilliard graduates, and every one of them, while grateful for the rigor of the training, suffered some degree of trauma. They perceived the faculty as anti-Black and merely tolerating their presence. One was even denied a degree, after paying for four years of tuition, because they decided she wasn't talented enough to make a career as a dancer.). It's telling that apparently Woetzel's most ardent defender is Wynton Marsalis, a Juilliard graduate and arguably the most prominent Black figure in jazz. Then there's the fact that Woetzel is relatively young and good-looking, and was actually a star performer. There must be a few faculty members who felt looked over when Woetzel got the position as president. And shame on him for emphasizing performance at a school for performers! Woetzel may have won this time, but the knives are out.

Valieva received a hero's welcome back home in Russia, where she is considered a hapless victim of the Olympic system, instead of a drug cheat whose handlers blew their timing on the dosage. They let her skate, although any other athlete with a failed drug test would have been sent home in disgrace before sundown. I don't feel sorry for her in the least, as I have no doubt she knew she was taking a banned substance. Tutberidze's girls aren't allowed a swallow of water without supervision. Blaming it on grandpa sealed the deal for me. For me, the only question is whether Valieva fell apart because of pressure, nerves, or lack of her usual pharmaceutical help, or did she take a dive. In practice before the free skate, she landed every element. The idea that EVERY Olympic skater would lose their potential moment of glory to accomodate Valieva was a hypocritical, grossly unfair decision. Imagine the meltdown if Trusova had won gold and Valieva won bronze or silver? I thought Trusova was going to swing on somebody, which was at least an honest, unorchestrated reaction. If skaters are too young to follow the rules, they're too young to be participating.

I don't think it even occurred to the producers to make sure that they had the rights to the choreography. That was Wheeldon's responsibility as the director and choreographer of record. He presumably brought in Rich and Tone Talauega, who are credited for "Michael Jackson movement". Vince Paterson, Michael Peters and Jeffrey Daniel are not unknown kids on Tik Tok. They are not hard to find. This was a major lapse. Luckily the remedy is simple - pay up. Ron Chernow wrote the book that inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda to create Hamilton. Miranda gave Chernow 1% of his share of the royalties. From the Broadway production alone, Chernow earns about $900,000 per year. MJ the Musical looks to be a smash hit. They need to compensate the creators who rarely see that kind of payday, but should.

Unfortunately creators of choreography are not accorded the same respect as writers and composers. And Black choreographers in particular, like Black blues musicians, are ripped off routinely. For example, Jimmy Fallon gave a slot on the Tonight show to a white Tik Tok influencer who performed the platforms most popular dances, but never mentioned that all of the dances were actually cteated by young Black kids. To his immense credit, Fallon later apologized and had the actual choreographers on the show. Vince Paterson is white, but Michael Peters, Jeffrey Daniel, and others who worked for Michael Jackson were Black. Jackson himself created a lot of his iconic moves. In the New York Times comments on the show, Paterson expressed anger at Christopher Wheeldon being credited for work he created, including the pose from Smooth Criminal in the photo that accompanies the article. (Myles Frost is apparently outstanding in the role, but in the photo, he doesn't capture Jackson's elegant line.) Choreographers must learn how to defend their work vigorously and demand respect, and payment. Music clearance firms exist to make sure that all the music used in films, onstage and on television has the proper permissions and payments to the composers established. It's time to do this for choreography.

In reading the comments to the NY Times review of the show, I was astonished by claims of choreographer Vincent Paterson that the choreography that he created for Smooth Criminal and for Thriller with Michael Peters is used in the show with no compensation to him or Peters' estate. They barely received a mention in the credits and Paterson was not invited to the premiere. This is shocking behavior on the part of Wheeldon and the producers. Choreography is intellectual property. This show is going to be a smash hit, and Paterson and Peters should get paid. Even a 1% royalty on a show that sells out on Broadway is enough to make the recipients very comfortable financially. I hope Paterson doesn't have to sue, but if he does, Wheeldon doesn't have a leg to stand on, no pun intended.

I agree that the style of that era is long gone and looks archaic to our eyes now. But where's the sheer joy of moving to music? I hope that hasn't become extinct. The current crop moves from one pretty pose to another, giving us plenty of time to admire their ultra high extensions and impressively arched feet, but that's not enough. Maybe I've been looking at too many videos of class work and coaching sessions. There's not enough performance quality in their work. Obviously video can only give us an approximation of a stage performance, but Sergeenkova is not exciting to me.

The Bolshoi has bought into the aesthetics of rhythmic gymnastics for its female dancers, it's not just Zakharova and Sergeenkova. The corps looks like an ensemble of beautiful clones, with very little personality on view. Sergeenkova is lovely, but a bit remote, and disconcertingly unyouthful for a teenager. She's a bit mysterious, which is a plus in my opinion. But Classic Arts Television has been running old films of Plisetskaya, Maximova and other Soviet era stars, and that brand of passionate artistry is apparently in short supply in the Bolshoi of today.

Well that was a pretty depressing read. Sexual coercion is terrible, but honestly, I don't understand why anyone would tolerate being hit by a ballet teacher. Didn't anyone hit back? It's not like North Carolina was the greatest, most influential ballet school in the world. One can and should go elsewhere.

If they want to maintain their credibility, YAGP is going to have to start some form of pre-qualification before they allow dancers to compete. There are many beautifully trained, talented American youngsters who enter, but I notice that the competitions that originate outside of the country don't have incompetent entrants.

I posted that video of Bella Jones last year, bemoaning the fact that even with her extraordinary talent and facility, American ballet companies prefer their Black dancers to be barely distinguishable from the white dancers. I've also been looking at the YAGP videos for this year and while I hesitate to say it, because I know there are ballet moms who post here, some of the American dancers this year are shockingly bad. Not untalented. Bad. Too many are stumbling their way through difficult solos with such faulty technique, they scarcely look trained at all. Some are clearly not strong enough even to be on pointe, as evidenced by their slack knees, unstretched feet and turned in legs. I assume that the pandemic has made serious training difficult. But they should not be attempting work that is so far beyond their current ability.

The blues aren't always blue. Within the musical form, the songs can be sexy, joyful and humorous, too. Here's a B B King song with one of my favorite lines - "Nobody loves me but my mother - and she could be jivin' too!" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SyI8rdWKiTI

MacMillan choreographed his own Elite Syncopations ballet for the Royal Ballet, notable, to me anyway, for illustrating a complete lack of understanding and connection with Joplin's music. I don't agree entirely with the notion of "cultural appropriation", but that ballet skirts close. Maybe " cultural pastiche" is more accurate, or choreographic tourism, similar to the Chinese dance in the second act of The Nutcracker, or all of La Bayadere or Lakme. I also don't see any connection between Joplin and minstrelsy, but I've never seen Donald Byrd's piece, so I can't express an opinion on that. Joplin flourished in an era when almost every middle class home had a piano and an accomplished pianist who played it for family entertainment. The Maple Leaf Rag was the first published sheet music to sell more than a million copies. Joplin put his photograph on his music, so there would be no doubt in the public's mind that his compositions were created by a Black man, not a black face parodist. This was a bold act in the 1890s - well into their careers in the 1960s, the Supremes were not pictured on their albums because of fears that the white general public wouldn't buy them if Black women were on the cover.

The Graham piece was quite something. She seems to be parodying herself with the sturm und drang opening, which oddly reminded me of the Kingdom of the Shades scene in La Bayadere. While it was much better than MacMillan's version in my opinion, I didn't feel that she understood the rhythmic impulse of Elite Syncopations any better than he did. I thought that the best part was the waltz Bethena, at least the parts where she played it straight and didn't go for a laugh. I would love to see choreographers make use of Joplin's work that isn't as well known, like Solace and Magnetic Rag. (Although Solace was used brilliantly in the movie The Sting.) But those pieces are melancholic and introspective and for some reason, rag can't seem to get out of the light comedy category. While I'd like to believe that artists of any background can tackle the material, Joplin's music is fundamentally Black American and maybe a Black American choreographer could approach it more organically than MacMillan and Graham.

Roger Ebert famously said that a critic must consider the film that the creators made, not the one he or she wishes they had made. Gia Kourlas wanted the dream ballet in the new WSS. Well they didn't include it, so deal with what they did include and judge that. Overall I would say that Justin Peck's work was excellent. Was it better than Robbins'? No. But, as they say in Hollywood, it didn't suck. (That's considered a compliment.)

Yeah, there was some shade thrown in the article. But Patricia Delgado was brought into Ivo Van Hove's recent Broadway production, along with Rafael Trujillo, ostensibly to bring Latin flavor to Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's choreography as well. So apparently Mrs. Peck can get work without her husband's backing.

Justin Peck himself is half Latino - his mother was from Argentina - but there doesn't seem to be much Latin influence in his work so far. He comes from an interesting family. His grandfather was very involved in the civil rights movement, and his grandmother was the famous baker and cookbook author Paula Peck.