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f.y.i. from Audrey Ross, who does press for Feld's Ballet Tech: DANIEL LEVANS (1953-2015) It is with great sadness that I report the passing of Daniel Levans of a lung infection on September 15, 2015 in New York City. Raised in the Adirondack Mountain area of New York State, Daniel began Irish and tap dancing lessons at age five, and initiated his performing career with a touring carnival at age nine. His dance studies continued in the Vaganova and Graham traditions at the High School of Performing Arts, and in the Cecchetti and Imperial Russian Ballet School traditions with Vincenzo Celli, Barbara Fallis, Vera Nemchinova, and Richard Thomas in NYC. In 1969, at age fifteen, Levans became a charter member of Eliot Feld's American Ballet Company for its debut at the Spoleto Festival in Italy. He joined American Ballet Theatre in 1971, where his versatility actuated leading roles in works by Tudor, Balanchine, de Mille, Robbins, Fokine, Ailey, Neumier and others, as well as the classics. Noted for his performances within the dramatic repertory, Mr. Levans rose to the rank of Principal Dancer at age eighteen. Joining New York City Ballet in 1975, Levans danced under Balanchine and Robbins until a chronic knee condition forced his retirement from the ballet stage one year later. Mr. Levans also appeared in films, TV and stage productions, including Turning Point, Grease, Red Badge of Courage, Goodbye Girl, The Waltons, and Street Scene with New York City Opera. He choreographed musical theater productions of Miss Liberty and Bloomer Girl for Goodspeed Opera House, Brimstone for Stockbridge Theater and the workshops of Hal Prince and Musical Theater Works, and directed and choreographed productions for the Smithsonian Institute, the King Cole Loves Broadway series at the St. Regis hotel as well as Off-Broadway productions of Oh Boy!, The Gorey Details and Amphigorey, which received an Obie nomination for best musical. His ballets have appeared in the repertories of American Ballet Theater, Cincinnati Ballet, Ballet Oklahoma, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre Universal Ballet, Seoul Ballet Theatre, Miami City Ballet, and Ballet's Galaxy of Stars. Mr. Levans began his teaching career in 1974 at Barbara Fallis and Richard Thomas' New York School of Ballet, and has taught and coached for ballet companies and schools, universities and colleges, as well as Broadway music theatre productions. He was a longtime master teacher at Eliot Feld's Ballet Tech, which remarked that "he imbued generations of students with his passion for the rigor, technique, epaulement, elegance and continuity of classical ballet. Yes, part of him goes on in those he trained." Audrey Ross

another vid by Rinehart, this one regarding Victoria Tennant and her work with archives of her mother, Irina Baronova for her recent book: IRINA BARONOVA AND THE BALLETS RUSSES DE MONTE CARLO. https://vimeo.com/139233906

f.y.i. pardon any duplication here but these items have come to my attention. they are by Lisa Rinehart, who continues to do such videos. more may come my way, in which case i'll post them here. about Wendy Whelan. It's been posted many places MovingForward https://vimeo.com/92701693 about a Young Arts dancer from two years ago https://vimeo.com/66477862 Cynthia Harvey's Foundation En Avant https://vimeo.com/103431591 p.s. i've just seen that when posting these links the Young Arts item says cannot be played but i think when one clicks on it, it does play. p.p.s. and one more, this one a promo for the current Robert Wilson project with Mikhail Baryshnikov based on the Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky. https://vimeo.com/138310664

JR was unforgettably Makarova's first-cast Bronze Idol in her staging of LA BAYADERE. quite a shock, to learn of his death.

if mem. serves, Nureyev's plan to locate and make use of the last act of Minkus's LA BAYADERE, which he intended to stage, went unrealized due to his ill health, but it has been suggested that his aim when preparing his POB production of BAYADERE was to include the final, temple destruction scene.

um surely Grant was the original Jester and Helpmann the original, other sister.

if the above post refers to SWAN LAKE as performed by ABT on Mon. Jun. 22, 2015, it was not Macaulay's by-line - he was not at the Met last night, he was presenting an evening historic Royal Ballet films from the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the NYPL's Bruno Walter Auditorium. the writer of the NYTimes review of ABT's opening SWAN LAKE, 2015 was Gia Kourlas.

my hunch here is that since Balanchine so disliked the results of the filming project from Berlin that the Balanchine Trust is keeping to that opinion and that it does not look favorably on releasing these films. yes, a number were shown in A&E or elsewhere during the years following the filmings but as time went by these films were more and more discredited and were no longer telecast, let alone packaged for the commercial market. so all one has now, if one was recording off the air, are the recordings gained at the time to videocassette.

can't speak to or for Youtube but the '73 LA VALSE filmed in Berlin has not been put on the commercial market to the best of my knowledge.

from ABT: << cast changes for the evening performance tonight, May 13: In Theme and Variations the principals will be ISABELLA BOYLSTON and CORY STEARNS. In Pillar of Fire the principals will be DEVON TEUSCHER*, ROMAN ZHURBIN and CORY STEARNS. >>

link and attached snapshot of impromptu tributes in Moscow (see link) and Munich (see attached) as you May 4. http://www.gettyimages.fr/detail/photo-d%27actualit%C3%A9/portrait-of-late-russian-ballet-dancer-maya-photo-dactualit%C3%A9/472136204

first link found: http://rt.com/news/255153-russian-ballerina-plisetskaya-dies/?

the Diaghilev docu. turns out the be the little video that the National Gallery of Art, in DC put together for the gallery's version of the bigger Diaghilev show that was mounted two? years earlier at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. the NGA video was released on dvd and sold at the exhibition. it's under 30 min. and may still be available.

f.y.i. Bluebeard : Chor: Marius Petipa; mus: P. P. Schenck; lib: L. Pashkova (cf. Beaumont); scen and cos: P. B. Lambin, K. M. Ivanov, Henrykh Levot, V. T. Perminov. First perf: Russia: St. Petersburg: Maryinsky Theater, Dec. 8, 1896

f.y.i. http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Balanchine-Celebration-Part-2-Two-VHS-Video-Tape-1993-New-York-City-Ballet-/291390841746?ssPageName=ADME:SS:SS:US:3160

then you likely mean the version filmed for The Magic of the Dance as follows: The magic of dance, part VI / BBC-TV production in association with Time-Life TV and RM Productions, Munich ; producer, Patricia Foy. Imprint : U.K. : British Broadcasting Corporation, c1979. Notes : Part VI: Out in the limelight, home in the rain. : Narrator/host: Margot Fonteyn. : Historical consultant, Ivor Guest. : Fonteyn in the lighting booth of Covent Garden Theatre discussing her career -- Salut d'amour à Margot Fonteyn (7 min.) / choreography, Frederick Ashton ; music, Edward Elgar ; performed by Margot Fonteyn and Ashton at the gala celebrating Fonteyn's 60th birthday in May 1979. Also includes the evening's final curtain call showing Ninette De Valois and Marie Rambert -- Young children of the Royal Ballet School performing short dances -- Royal Ballet company class taught by Terry Westmoreland (6 min.) -- Rehearsal onstage with Michael Somes leading the members of the Royal Ballet -- Ronald Emblen discussing and demonstrating stage make-up for the role of Dr. Coppélius (5 min.) -- Marguerite and Armand (31 min.) / choreography, Ashton ; music, Franz Liszt ; scenery and costumes, Cecil Beaton ; performed by Margot Fonteyn (Marguerite), Rudolf Nureyev (Armand), Michael Somes (Armand's father), Leslie Edwards, and members of the Royal Ballet. alas these have not be commercially released on either videocassette or dvd.

Natalia, i think you misheard the role Balanchine danced in Copenhagen during Kendall's talk: i do believe it was the so-called 'poet' in LES SYLPHIDES and not James in LA SYLPHIDE that GB danced on short notice; this was during the time that Balanchine was staging Fokine's ballets for the Royal Danish Ballet. Your mishearing was hardly an isolated occurrence during the symposium, esp. as many speakers spoke so softly, or away from the microphone, or both...

re: publishing the event's proceedings, in her wrap up, w/ Morrison, Garafola noted that some of the papers/presentations would probably be published on the web, presumably on the Harriman site, w/ the possibility of some of the illustrations being posted as well, as long as these had no copyright difficulties. no date or deadlines were noted.

Marguerite & Armand was part of I AM A DANCER (see NYPL listing): I am a dancer / E.M.I. Film Productions ; produced in association with the O.R.T.F. ; produced by Evdoros Demetriou ; directed by Pierre Jourdan. Imprint : Los Angeles, Calif. : Lumiere, Republic Pictures, 1972. Notes : Executive in charge of production, John L. Hargreaves ; narration written by John Percival ; set designer, Sydney Beytex. : Performed by Rudolf Nureyev, Margot Fonteyn, Carla Fracci, Lynn Seymour, and Deanne Bergsma, with brief appearances by Frederick Ashton, Hector Zaraspe, Glen Tetley, and Elsa Marianne von Rosen. : Narrator: Bryan Forbes. : Film focus is on Rudolf Nureyev: in performance, in rehearsal, preparing for performance, and in class. : Nureyev in class taught by Hector Zaraspe. Nureyev with Elsa Marianne von Rosen rehearsing corps for La sylphide. Carla Fracci and Nureyev performing in excerpt from Act II of Bournonville's La sylphide (revival by Elsa Marianne von Rosen; music: Hermann Lowenskjold; costumes: Michel Fresnay). Deanne Bergsma and Nureyev in rehearsal, under Glen Tetley's direction, of excerpts from Tetley's Field figures (music: Karlheinz Stockhausen). Margot Fonteyn and Nureyev in rehearsal for Frederick Ashton's Marguerite and Armand. Shots of Ashton commenting upon his ballet. Complete performance of Marguerite and Armand (music: Franz Liszt; costumes: Cecil Beaton) with Fonteyn, Nureyev, Michael Somes as the father, and Leslie Edwards as the Duke. Lynn Seymour and Nureyev in excerpts from Act III of Petipa's Sleeping beauty (music: Tchaikovsky ; decor: Geoffrey Guy). Nureyev is seen under the closing credits performing a manège from Act II of Sleeping beauty. i know it was released on videocassette, don't know about DVD. it was also shot for Magic of the Dance but we know that series didn't get a commercial release in home format video.

regarding applause mid-ballets at NYCB, in the early 1970s there use to be a slip in the program for both GOLDBERG VARIATIONS and for DIVERTIMENTO NO. 15 that went more or less as follows: "We respectfully request that the audience hold its applause until the final curtain." (in the case of GOLDBERG, it may also, or only, have been a pre-curtain announcement, but there were times when it was simply stated on a slip in the program.)

word has come from London of the death of Nesta Macdonald. my correspondent mentioned that some of Macdonald's friends helped her celebrate her 100th birthday in June of this year.

i suspect this was an Alonso and Youskevitch detail. Alonso continued more or less doing similarly in her Giselle perfs. w/ NBdC. tho' someone may know for certain if the detail predated Alonso at BT before Balanchine had a hand in the "Grave Scene" - as these moments preceeded the final, grave sc. perhaps it was worked out w/ Romanoff or Tudor, who are both credited w/ the BT staging.

re: the placement of Ashton's AWAKENING, if mem.serves his pas de deux ended the second act of it's production and picked up, presumably for the start of act 3 w/ the panorama. or??

probably so. i doubt Wright, who was on hand for Sarasota Ballet's recent Ashton celebration(s) to speak lovingly and admiringly of Ashton, leading one to presume he'd not have used what Ashton created w/o crediting him. Ashton's version has been filmed, in some measure, over the years.

Ashton used the 'Symphonic entr'acte, Act II' for the 'Awakening Pas de deux,' created for Sibley and Dowell's Aurora and Florimund, to conclude the second act of Peter Wright's 1968 staging for the Royal Ballet.