Adam

. . . and if there was a story I couldn't find it.

I agree. I also find this "make of it what you will" to be an abdication of the creator's responsibility. It's one thing to ask the audience to be an active participant. But some choreographers (and novelists, and screenwriters . . .) just fail to do their job, and take the position that if the audience doesn't get it, then the audience isn't sufficiently perceptive.

There was a similar discussion yesterday at a panel hosted by Michael Riedel on the Tony Awards and the current Broadway season. Someone suggested that a certain play would have been helped if an explanation of what was happening was given to the audience on their way in. And someone else commented that if a play isn't clear in and of itself, there's something wrong with the play.

"The Emperor's New Clothes", anyone?

When I was in college at Rutgers, there was a furniture store in New Brunswick. Fuch's Furniture. And their slogan was "The Most Mispronounced Name in the Furniture Business." Now, there's an owner with a sense of humor.

Why didn't we realize this sooner? I just figured out what's going on. As part of ABT's participation in the ongoing Jerome Robbins celebration, they've decided to make as many arbitrary, last-minute casting changes as possible.

It may be difficult to tell if he's biased. The mere fact that he rarely likes her work doesn't actually prove that he's biased. He may just be discerning.

I was never impressed by her, and it's not because I'm biased. (Of course, others would disagree, and say that I don't "get" her.) I just don't think she does anything well. For example, "Sinatra Suite" is extraordinarily mediocre. I've been involved in ballroom dancing for years, and any one of my ballroom friends can outdance what you see in "Sinatra Suite". Plainly, it's not the dancers' fault - the choreography is poor. (I must admit, though, that most of my friends aren't run-of-the-mill ballroom dancers. Two of them just placed Second and Third at Blackpool.)

Tharp has said that what she's doing is more advanced (not her exact word) than ballet, because it includes ballet and other elements. I think that she's mixing styles, and none of them are done well. She throws in everything plus the kitchen sink. I also think that mixing styles breaks things up, making the choreography easier to perform (not necessarily less grueling, but less demanding of pure technique).

I'm not a ballet dancer or a modern dancer, but it just seems to me that doing one classical movement, followed by a modern movement, is easier than going across the entire stage doing classical movements. Doing a chaine of movements requires that you maintain control through the sequence. You don't need the same control or balance to do a lone turn and then switch to something else.

I'm not very conversant with the names for things, so please pardon the trivial example, but it seems that it's harder to do four double tours en l'air than it is to do one double tour followed by jitterbugging across the stage snapping your fingers. I've seen lesser dancers do things like that, and the impression I get is generally "Oh, he (the dancer) can't keep it up, so he does a little of this and a little of that."

I don't know if he's biased. That's why I wrote "If Macauley generally doesn't like Tharp".

I agree. What would be a problem is if the critic assigned to cover the particular event (whether it be a Tharp piece or an Adam Sandler movie) has a particular bias against - or in favor of - the artist (if you can call Adam Sandler an "artist").

Just as one doesn't send someone who likes only Ingmar Bergman films to review Adam Sandler's latest, one doesn't want a critic who has never liked a particular choreographer or dancer to review a piece or performance by that artist. If Macauley generally doesn't like Tharp, that is something to consider. I don't care for Tharp, either, but I'm not publishing reviews in the New York Times.

For example, I stopped reading Gottlieb's reviews of ABT, because he had nothing favorable to say about the ABT women other than Vishneva, and the ABT men could do no wrong. Once I noticed that I could give a very close approximation of a Gottlieb review in advance, because it's not based on the performance, it became pointless to read him.

It is vague, though. "She'll always have a position with ABT." (Selling shoes in the lobby?)

I'm a little confused (okay, a lot confused). David mentions how big his leap into the lake was and provides a link to a YouTube clip. But the clip is Angel and Gillian in that PBS "Dance in America" broadcast that's available on DVD. Does anybody have a link to the correct clip? I did a YouTube search and didn't find anything.

"No refunds, no exchanges" is the four-word oversimplified version. There are, in fact, exchanges, and the exchange policy varies by event, company and presenter.

I don't know specifically what the different policies are, because I don't subscribe to ABT, even though I go almost every night. But I am certain that ABT rents the Metropolitan Opera House and City Center and the Metropolitan Opera does not.

ABT is described as a "Non-Resident Company", as distinguished from, for example, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, the New York City Opera, the SAB and the New York Philharmonic, which are "Resident Companies".

The distinction is not the CITY in which the company is located, but, rather, whether it is part of Lincoln Center. ABT is not BASED at Lincoln Center.

That doesn't mean that there aren't lines in the Metropolitan Opera's budget that are allocated to house expenses for accounting purposes, but they are not renting the house the way ABT or, indeed, anybody else does. The Metropolitan Opera gets an "insider's price" because it is a Resident Company.

I haven't been able to locate the rate cards for the Metropolitan Opera House, but if you're interested, here are the rate cards for Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall. You can see all the things for which a company is required to pay - box office staff, rental of equipment, etc. The Met is more expensive.

http://www.lincolncenter.org/pdfs/eventplanner.pdf

The policy is that of the individual companies, not the Metropolitan Opera House. That's why ABT has one set of policies, and the Metropolitan Opera has a different set.

It's also why subscribers must return their tickets to the company and not to the box office. The Metropolitan Opera House (that is, the administration; I'm not referring to the building) itself has no policy. If a company or presenter chooses to rent the building and let it sit empty, that's the company's or presenter's decision.

ABT (or, in other cities, the presenter) rents the venues where it performs and establishes the policy for refunds and exchanges. This also explains why ABT mostly rehearses at its own studios (dress and tech rehearsals excepted), rather than on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House. ABT has to pay rental fees, even for rehearsal time, as a visiting company. City Ballet, by contrast, has its own venue. There are union expenses to open the State Theater, but they don't have to rent it in the same way that ABT must rent the Metropolitan Opera House or City Center.

Given that ABT is, in fact, renting the venue, the reason for the last-minute announcements is obvious. ABT doesn't wish - and cannot afford - to allow refunds based on cast changes, because that would very likely reduce the revenue for that particular performance, leaving the company with less money available to pay the rental fee and other expenses which it is obligated to pay.

That reminds me of the old (and I mean REALLY old) joke about the couple on a date.

He: Do you like Kipling?

She: I don't know, you naughty boy. I've never kippled.

Well, I'd imagine the name Fokine just lends itself to that sort of thing.

You may have seen the recent Saturday Night Live sketch involving a commercial for a furniture store called "Sofa King". You can take it from there, or find clips of it on other sites.

When I was a kid, there was much hilarity about the plane flown by Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron". We first learned about him in the comic strip "Peanuts". Snoopy imagined he was in a dogfight with the Red Baron, pitting Snoopy's Sopwith Camel against the Red Baron's (ahem) Fokker Triplane.

I haven't read every post in this thread, but I want to point something out on which I haven't noticed anyone else commenting. There's very little interview in Graham Watts' "interview". He has virtually no quotes. What he's doing is using Veronika as a convenient starting point (and any dancer would have sufficed, but Veronika's expressed intention to move to Europe and - perhaps - the Royal, makes her convenient to his purpose) to attack ABT and to promote the Royal.

He has comments such as "When I ask her this question directly, she talks about her time in New York as a positive life experience, making her a much stronger person. Notably, she doesn’t attempt to discuss what it has meant for her professionally. Although she is circumspect about recent experiences, her palpable aura of unhappiness clearly stems from the fact that this turning point has ended in a career cul-de-sac. "

Now, that doesn't mean that his conclusions aren't partially correct. Certainly, her leaving ABT means she wasn't entirely happy - or, at least, feels she will be happier elsewhere. But Veronika actually said very little about ABT or her problems.

But that suits Watts just fine. He says, essentially, "Oh, the poor dear. And she has such class. She wouldn't say anything bad about anyone. But I know what the look in her eye meant. That wistful look means, "Kevin McKenzie, you duplicitous liar, you ruined my career. But I shall rise from the ashes by joining the world's premier ballet company, THE ROYAL BALLET." And the way the corners of her mouth turned up means "London is SO much nicer than New York."

It doesn't matter what Veronika said. Watts can tell what she was thinking.

Unintentional hilarity yesterday at ABT's Spotlight Seminar with Nina. Someone asked her where she got those beautiful arms for "Swan Lake" and Nina explained that she originally made small arm movements, and then had to do big arm movements to suit the Bolshoi style. She eventually decided to use the arm movements from "The Dying Swan". She said something like, "I can use the other - it's a Fokine swan."

And the woman behind me gasped and said to her companion, 'WHAT did she say?!?"

It was my understanding that you had to be a subscriber to exchange tickets, in which case you don't need a reason. No subscription, no exchanges. I'm not sure what options are available for a non-subscription ticket purchased by a subscriber.

I thought that the process wouldn't be practicable for last-minute announcements of casting changes.

I've never done it, but I recall that you must return the original ticket to the subscription office of the ABT or of the Metropolitan Opera prior to obtaining whatever is available from the box office. Alternatively, you can ask them to exchange the ticket, and send you a replacement, but then you don't have as much input in what you get.

And all options only work in advance. You have to have sufficient time to return the ticket to the subscription office and have the return processed. Thus, you can't do anything on short notice. It's an option if your plans change and you can't attend a performance, but it won't work for most casting changes for precisely the reason I mentioned in my previous post: they don't announce changes until it's too late to exchange, even if they've known for some time that the dancer was unlikely to go on.

I agree it's frustrating, but it's not limited to ballet. The Metropolitan Opera, which requires that you buy tickets even more in advance than ABT does, also doesn't offer refunds or exchanges (except for the standard exchange options for subscribers). This season, Ben Heppner, who is considered the world's leading Tristan, cancelled all but one of his appearances. And they sold Romeo and Juliet on the strength of the pairing of Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon, who cancelled (or was booted by Peter Gelb, depending on whose version you believe), resulting in three different tenors being brought in.

On Broadway, by contrast, you can get a refund if one of the stars is out. The theory is that the stars on Broadway are, at least in part, selling the show. So if you don't see one of the stars, you didn't get what you paid for. In ballet and opera, you're there to see the company. Also, ballet and opera stars are, at least in theory, more prone to last-minute injuries and illnesses.

On the other hand, there is the question of how long they should wait until announcing a change. I can recall several dancers who were injured, and were left on the schedule. Week by week, one performance's cast after another was changed, all at the last minute, until the whole season went by without the dancer's return.

Now, I understand that this might have been in the hopes that the dancer would recover quickly, and be able to dance those performances. However, unless there's a union rule that prevents this, or it's considered cruel to the dancer to remove their name too quickly, it seems reasonable to list the role as TBA or to place an asterisk next to their name, the way a baseball player can be listed on the roster as day-to-day. That way, people can factor in the possibility that a presently injured dancer may have to withdraw from a particular performance.

"Oh, the dancing was splendid!"

It was, wasn't it? I've never seen Gennadi do stuff like that before. He was always reliable, but not flashy. Gillian started out shaky, but those fouettes were spectacular. In fact, I wasn't even paying attention until the gasps of the audience snapped me to attention. Jose Manuel and Herman were terrific, but they both seemed to have a little less juice than I've seen before. But Jose Manuel and Herman at 90% are still something to see. Carlos is getting better every time I see him.

And it was nice to see Renata getting some soloist action. And wasn't she remarkable? I've liked her for some time. Several people have said to me, "Is she the one that looks like a little Maria"? Now, we got to see them dancing side by side. The "big sister" and the "kid sister".

The women sitting next to me said, "Why do the ABT women sound like they're wearing work boots? The Kirov women don't make a sound. Maybe they have special shoes." This was before Xiomara danced, feather light. They stopped complaining then.

I must say that I'm ready for something else. When you find yourself watching the guy crank the wind machine, you know it's time!

I thought something was odd when Kevin announced that Johnny Depp was going to dance Conrad instead of Maxim.

I don't know if anyone has any interest in photos of the audience (as opposed to photos of the performance) but here they are. Mostly big donors, but there are some dancers in the bunch - Paloma, Irina, Maxim.

I note that the celebrities are NOT, to my knowledge, donors. They just show up to be seen at opening night. (That includes Donald Trump, Matt Lauer, Al Roker, and Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos, all of whom seemed to be guests of NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker - even though Ripa isn't on NBC. Maria Bartiromo was not sitting with them; she was two rows back)

http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/node/10042

I was just commenting on the photo not being the best likeness. As a dancer, I think he's superb, and, as a person, I think he's a wonderful, charming man. He's one of my favorites, both as an artist and as a person.

While I'm on the subject. Xiomara needs a new headshot - or at least use the one in the ticket brochure instead of the one on the website. She's such a pretty girl, but the photo in the "Dancers" section isn't flattering.

Vishneva changed her photo last year, and so did Abrera (Stella's smiling in the photo - now people REALLY won't recognize her!).

If the photos are supposed to help occasional ballet-goers to identify the dancers, it might be useful to show them - especially the girls - in makeup (or, even better, with and without). I can't tell you how many times I've had a dancer say "hello" to me, and I couldn't place her, because I'd only seen her onstage. (Corps members and apprentices only - I'm not THAT bad!)

Much as I admire them both, I wouldn't want to see Herman in either role with Michele.

Wiles and Cornejo? I won't comment. I'll just smirk and look at the cartoon.

http://blog.b92.net/arhiva/files/images/en...a-hippo_gat.jpg

The overhead lighting makes him look blond. I thought he was going for the Owen Wilson look.

http://www.austin360.com/shared-gen/blogs/...owen_wilson.jpg

Anybody have any thoughts about Angel's new ABT photo? He just changed it a couple of days ago.

You can see it at

http://www.abt.org/images/db_images/dancers/corellaweb.jpg

I thought it was an outstanding performance all around. I said to someone, "I don't know if Angel's ears were burning about yesterday afternoon's discussion, but he looked like he was on rocket fuel last night!" He usually has that soulful expression, but last night he had an intensity and a fierceness of expression I've never seen from him.

I didn't mention an injury in any of my posts. The only injury of which I'm aware is Maxim's. He apparently exacerbated a previous injury by dancing on opening night. However, I haven't seen Gennadi, Craig, or Misty so I'm wondering if any of them have been injured or are ill.