emilienne

I. The legacy II. Annotated list of ballets left to the chief legatees III. Financial appraisal of the legacy in question Lobenthal, Joel. "Tanaquil Le Clercq". Ballet Review, Fall 1984 (12:3), pp 74-86. (For anyone interested, Lobenthal also includes a very good videography of Le Clercq's various appearances on film.) Of particular note is that the Four Temperaments was not listed in Lobenthal's article. This suggests that either Lobenthal's article is incomplete or that it is one of the unnamed assets that Horgan and von Aroldingen shared. Does anyone know for certain? This list is from page 83 and is listed as ballets bequeathed to her and two other associates (presumably Horgan and von Aroldingen). La Chatte Apollon Musagète The Gods Go A-Begging Prodigal Son Le Bourgeois Gentilhommes (two versions) Cotillon Mozartiana (it's unclear which of the five versions he meant) The Seven Deadly Sins (two versions) Le Baiser de la Fée Card Game Ballet Imperial (this is presumably the 'classical' version, as the Concerto is listed separately later in the list) Mozart Violin Concerto in A Major Danses Concertantes (two versions) Waltz Academy Night Shadow (both versions?) The Spellbound Child Divertimento Renard Symphonie Concertante Theme and Variations (standalone 'classical' version presumably, as the full Suite version is listed later) Firebird (1949 - which means that Robbins presumably has the rights to a later version - but which?) Bourrée Fantastique Trumpet Concerto La Valse À la Françaix Tyl Ulenspiegel Swan Lake Act II Scotch Symphony Metamorphoses Harlequinade Pas de Deux Concertino Valse Fantaisie (probably the 1953 version - see later annotation for Glinkiana for the 1967? version) Opus 34 The Nutcracker Western Symphony Roma Allegro Brillante Divertimento No 15 A Musical Joke Square Dance (two versions) Agon Gounod Symphony Stars and Stripes Waltz-Scherzo Episodes (I assume this is just the Balanchine sections and noninclusive of the Graham portion) Modern Jazz: Variants Panamerica Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux The Figure in the Carpet Monumentum Pro Gesualdo Donizetti Variations Jazz Concert: Ragtime Raymonda Variations Bugaku Movements for Piano and Orchestra Clarinade La Source Harlequinade Variations Trois Valses Romantiques Jewels Glinkiana (probably includes the 1967? version of Valse Fantaisie) Metastaseis and Pithoprakta Slaughter on Tenth Avenue Who Cares? Tschaikovsky Suite No 3 Sonata Choral Variations on Bach's 'Von Himmel Hoch' Divertimento from 'Le Baiser de la Fée' Scherzo à la Russe Symphony in three Movements Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No 2 Cortége Hongrois Coppélia Sonatine L'Enfant et les Sortiléges Schéhérazade Gaspard de la Nuis Rapsodie Espagnole The Steadfast Tin Soldier Chaconne Union Jack

With thanks to Jack Reed for the tip on Taper, the following information is taken from the following sources: Lobenthal, Joel. "Tanaquil Le Clercq". Ballet Review, Fall 1984 (12:3), pp 74-83. Taper, Bernard. "Balanchine's Will". Ballet Review, Summer 1995 (23:2), pp 29-36. I. The legacy II. Annotated list of ballets named in the Legacy (or known at the time of my writing) III. Financial appraisal of the legacy in question According to Taper, the will was drawn up (with consultation with T Sysol) and signed on 25 May 1978 with one minor addition of a codicil dated 18 June 1979. Initially he valued the ballets at nothing - it was Horgan who had, in consultation with the IRS after Mr Balanchine's passing, set money value on the legacy. I'll write about that in a following post. About seventy percent of the rights and all tangible assets (save for two gold watches to his brother Andre) were bequeathed to Tanaquil Le Clercq, Karin von Aroldingen, and Barbara Horgan. Verbatim from the text, p 31: Horgan and von Aroldingen were to share foreign royalty rights to all but twenty one of the ballets named in the will and media royalty rights to all but twenty five, plus all rights to those ballets not specified in it. They were to also share in any other unspecified assets." Later in that column: "Le Clercq was given the American performance rights to eighty-five ballets, of which probably sixty are actually viable." Lobenthal's article does not state precisely the identities of these, just that they were stated by name in the will, I have reproduced the list in the following post. There are, of course, specific ballets given, in alphabetical order by last name, which includes some of the chief legatees: Diana Adams: Midsummer Night's Dream Karin von Aroldingen: Serenade, Liebeslieder Walzer, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Variations pour une Porte et un Soupir, Vienna Waltzes, Kammermusik No 2 Merrill Ashley: Ballo della Regina Betty Cage: Symphony in C (later given to John Taras) Rosemary Dunleavy: Le Tombeau de Couperin Mrs André Eglevsky: Sylvia Pas de Deux, Minkus Pas de Deux Suzanne Farrell: Meditation, Tzigane, Don Quixote Barbara Horgan: Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet Lincoln Kirstein: Concerto Barocco, Orpheus Patricial McBride: Tarantella, Pavane, Etude for Piano Kay Mazzo: Duo Concertant Jerome Robbins: Firebird, Pucinella In all, there was nothing given to Martins, the NYCB, or SAB. For further information on the backstage drama created by the bequeathment, consult Taper's article. Horgan and von Aroldingen were the chief instigators behind the Trust and they convinced McBride and Dunleavy to deposit their ballet rights as well. I am sure that more have joined since, particularly as people have passed away or have retired from active participation in the arts. Interestingly, Taper notes that "[o]nce [the ballets were deposited in the Trust], the action was irrevocable" (33). Horgan acted as trustee-administrator for the Trust, though I don't know if she has continued in that role. The trust went into effect 30 March 1987. Le Clercq did not join the Trust, but she did ask Horgan to represent her, something that (as Taper notes) some of the other legatees have done as well. I assume that the arrangement continued to her death.

You're entirely correct, it is Meditation. Serves me right for misremembrance! In her autobiography, Farrell referred to performing Meditation with Mejia at several places in the US after leaving NYCB in the 70s. She was looking for repertory for one-off engagements and had contacted the NYCB to see whether being 'given' the ballet meant that she could indeed dance it wherever she pleased. I'm pretty sure Meditation was one (is that what you're referring to? I never heard of a Thais by Balanchine.) I know she staged it for her company's first season, but as far as I know, the performing phase of Farrell's career ended when she left NYCB. I believe that she also has Don Quixote.

Farrell was, I believe, given three, including Thais [this is misremembered - it should actually be Meditation, see carbro's next post!], which she performed after leaving NYCB. Anyone know the other two? Also, Helene, I'm curious, what was the version that Taras insisted on?

Well, Jack, it wasn’t an acute hint for you to post, but I am glad that you did, though I would love to hear more impressions as well as fact. After that abrupt disappearance caused by a veritable deluge of papers to write and grade, I have returned to talk about the matinee performance. I shall endeavor to keep my perceptions from taking off entirely, but well – see below for final judgment. Miami City Ballet Sunday 14 October 2009 Auditorium Theatre, Chicago Center Orchestra, Row P Symphony in Three Movements Nothing quite compares with the shock and joy of seeing a new favorite for the first time. That said, the second look was pretty shocking and aweful as well. The dancers in all four pieces were more alert and energetic than the night before. The jumping in Valse Fantaisie and the level of energy in In the Upper Room ceased to look as labored as the night before. Catoya and Sarabia shed their reminders of Things Other Than Swans. This was an on-message performance throughout. Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements, as the program tells me, was a musical attempt to capture the maestro’s impressions of the Second World War. There are the odd moments of crashing chaos sandwiching the deadly quiet in which one sits in dread over what happens next. Mr Villella and Ms Mauro at the Fireside Chat talked about the ‘generic’ (or perhaps simply general) images of war choreographed into the piece: that of the Home Front, the helicopter arms, etc. In the last review, I described the choreography using organic images (the sentient hedge, orbiting bodies), but in truth I also had no idea how to organize the anachronistic but highly persistent images of the Great War, courtesy of my fantastical love of Blackadder Goes Fourth. The pale gleaming women of the Home Front reminded me of particularly sinister and organic barbed wire (its spikes the arms and baroque hands of the Balanchine-trained corp). Tricia Albertson’s jumping contest with Alex Wong became more competitive in the matinee: she challenged him head-on in both ability and athleticism. It wasn’t the lighter one-upmanship of the night before but a grimmer competition whose purpose is unknown. The rhythmic trot, the precision formations strip the corp members of their respective genders – they are anonymous bodies, trying to trap and engage and out-maneuver each other’s units. This time the imagery of the Rubies women seemed more integrated into the action of the corp, pulsing into focus and then just as quickly disappeared, like reflections from popped foam bubbles. The cognitive dissonance is less when one prepares for it, but it is still disconcerting. Are they brief reminders of civilization amidst the chaos? Or perhaps is it an allusion to the spirit of woman as, or at, war? Someone once said that conflicts were in reality short and brutish things, most of the other time in war was spent in boredom, in anticipation and also in dread. As I watched the second movement, I kept thinking about life in the trenches, of bodies sitting still, contorting to climb over obstacles and other bodies. It is a moment of reflection in the stolen calm, in which life resumes in all its oddity. Kronenberg and Guerra in this performance was not as languorous (nor the observer as delirious) as the night before, the newly observed sharpness in their movements better accentuated the contrasts in the choreography. Once again I short-change the third movement in my inability to call up a unifying image of its proceedings (an excellent excuse to see it yet again). Perhaps the most I can say is that if the first had directed my attention to the personalities of dancers or blocks of dancers, then the third forced me to look at the movements of the dancers in relation to each other. It was as if I were forced to view war from above like one would view a Busby Berkeley musical, where suddenly one could extract purpose and logic and even beauty from its purportedly senseless components. The tragedy of war lies in its costs, regardless of the identity of the victor. Perhaps it was an accident of the close reading, but the image that I took away from the finale were the men, prone like corpses, staring out into nothing as the women erected trees of graveyard crosses behind them. Valse Fantaisie 1953 “The three ballerinas, wearing headdresses reminiscent of Glinka's Russia, moved together in a perpetuum mobile, attended by the male dancer.” – From the Balanchine Foundation catalogue entry for the second Valse Fantaisie I am rather ambivalent about the ‘modern’ costuming that every Balanchine ballet seems to have these days. On the one hand, I think it would have lent grandeur and a more overt sense of story (or at least structure) to the choreography; but on the other, the national costumes would have overwhelmed the choreography with notions of character. The increased energy level improved the performance of this piece perhaps most of all. The night performance had dancers looking as if they were straining to jump and was very distracting. That had disappeared by the matinee and the dancers looked happy and free as they bounded all over the stage. There is a clear structure to Valse fantaisie that at once evoked that of the grand pas de deux from Paquita (ensemble, male solo, female solo, female solo, pas de trois, etc) but also transcends it. The waltz rhythm is relentless, an ever-present pulse that sustains the action even as dancers stop, reset, find each other to dance in another configuration. Perhaps the strongest impression that the piece made (besides the excellent dancing by all, including the late substitution for Jeanette Delgado, Sara Esty) were the number of Les Sylphides references that Mr Balanchine seemed to have snuck in. There were the sequence of one footed hops to pointe from the Mazurka and even the undulation of the arms. Valse fantaisie does not resemble Sylphides harmonically but there was the same choreographic integration of the corp and the soloist when the four dancers reunite for the finale. Instead of maintaining the distinction of rank, Mr Balanchine integrates the soloists into the corp (but then again, what kind of corp do four lead dancers make?), allowing them to emerge and melt back seamlessly into a moving tapestry. As Jack noted, there were indeed some problems in the lighting, as the lighting began to dim even before the dancing was over! It wasn’t the most climactic of endings, but overall, still a lovely performance. Black Swan pas de deux The small glitches in mannerisms had disappeared by the matinee performance. Sarabia, prince that he was, ditched the Theme and Variations quote. Catoya dropped the odd Don Quixote/generic Spanish epaulement that she did at the end of her fouettés. The partnering seemed rougher than Saturday night, though the trick-y moments (which I am still not so fond of) - particularly the ending partner spin in which he takes his hands off - no longer looked as if Catoya was about to fall over while doing the rumba. Sarabia is, as I say again, elegant, but really the Black Swan pas de deux doesn’t give him much to do. In addition, I could not keep my eyes off of Catoya, who seemed to have drunk a million cups of seductive evil coffee before the matinee. While the amused detachment still remained, this time she casted her web more widely out to us, fascinating an admittedly primed audience with little more than presence. I particularly appreciated her balances that went on forever. I felt as if I were granted a glimpse into the essence of Odile, that of a potent distillation of intent and technique aimed at Siegfried with the sole purpose of getting him to say YES. It was particularly startling when, during one particularly balance, she suddenly turned her head to look at us, as if commanding us to devote the proper amount of attention and awe to her if we weren’t already, and believe me, we were! Poor Siegfried didn’t stand a chance, and quite frankly, I didn’t feel sorry for him. I’ll leave off In the Upper Room as I have very little to add. I seemed to have lost track of Deanna Seay in the matinee performance. I don’t know how it happened, especially as I quite enjoyed her dancing as a stomper the night before. The smoke did not work as well as the night before, differing highly in quantity in quantity as well as location as the performance went on. The performers in the afternoon also seemed to have more trouble with the scenery – two or three got a bit tangled in the black fabric strips, but these are minor quibbles. Everyone danced their heads off (once again, Jeanette Delgado the stomping demon!) and the energy levels complemented the music (and the still convincing climax) much better. Jack noted that the two stompers at the end seemed to have jumped twice as high as they did the previous night, and they did! Applause was not as sustained nor as loud as the previous night. There was a lot of it but not as much as the company deserved. For their next performances in a clime near me, I think I should invest in an amplifier, or perhaps an unobnoxious company of claquers to do what the city could not.

I think that's a hint for me to chime in between grading. My apologies for dropping out so abruptly - there is a second infinitely more loopy review of Sunday that I haven't yet finished writing. Here I'll add a few more things about the talks to supplement Jack's copious notes. From the Fireside Chat: On Prodigal Son: He didn't understand how to carry himself and finally Mr Balanchine lost his patience and said, "Russian Icons, dear!" On Apollo: He talked about chariot drivers and everyday men and from that Mr Villella learnt to draw the distinction between the Apollo of antiquity and the Person in Stravinsky's and Balanchine's conception. "He taught me Apollo in an hour and a half and I never saw him again!" From the post-performance talk: Q: How did you get to Miami, and what challenges are there? Mr Villella was apparently approached by a group of businessmen/patron of the arts about the possibility of cultivating a dance audience in Florida. In response he wrote a five/five and a half year plan (I think - it could be slightly more) to fundraise, train dancers, and to cultivate a repertory. Afterward, he asked who they had in mind to take up the challenge and was then offered the job because he had such a clear vision of what to do. After waffling a bit (he didn't want to leave New York), he consulted his wife, who was unexpectedly enthusiastic about the idea, and they made the decision to move.

When I met Mr Villella at the Fireside Chat two weeks ago, he mentioned that he had been asked to give the speech for this honor. I wonder what he spoke about!

I lived at the New Yorker for a few months while at university in 2004. It's at 8th and 34th, diagonally across from Penn Station and a major subway hub. It's gotten a bit shabby but still quite nice. The rooms are in good repair and the service staff are very helpful. It's a brisk five minute walk (three blocks) uptown to BAC. Late night can feel a bit daunting in that area, but I had no problems with it.

There are rather a lot of parts to this, including the Fireside chat on Saturday 7 PM before the performance and a talk after the 2 PM matinee on Sunday. I will post as coherently as I can when time permits. Hopefully Jack chimes in soon and grounds my flightiness in fact. Miami City Ballet in Chicago, Auditorium Theatre 3 October, 8 PM Row P, Orchestra Symphony in Three Movements/Valse Fantaisie (1953)/Black Swan/In the Upper Room There’s a moment in the Vision scene in Sleeping Beauty when Aurora wafts through the Lilac Fairy’s attendants. They are arrayed in rows, suggesting paths, perhaps mazes. Perhaps it’s a foreshadowing of the thorns to come. The image came back to me upon viewing Symphony in Three Movements for the first time. The curtain rises on a cascade of hair and legs. I was reminded of a slightly unruly hedge with ponytails and arms and legs enough for spikes. Their bodies, clad in white, gleamed (to borrow a phrase from Ms Farrell’s book) like bleached pebbles. There was a strong undertone of Rubies in the choreography. In fact the cognitive dissonance became so great at one point that I was forced to look down (alarming Jack in the process) to remind myself of its provenance. The jazz references grew more acute with references from what seemed to be the Charleston. Here was the ghost of McBride doing arabesques in profile, the corp of girls repeating the prancing jog of the boys in a rhythmic march, even the one brief glimpse of the tall girl, face briefly visible upside down. But always they were refracted images, seen in clusters, either in unison or in rounds, briefly glimpsed resemblances that receded into the mist. Particularly notable was Alex Wong in the first movement with his wonderfully soft and full-bodied leaps. Tricia Albertson repeats it after him, casually. Anything you can do, she seemed to say, well never mind about the height, here is a lesson on style! At the end of the first movement, the corp formed a giant pinwheel as Kronenberg pirouetted her way through the criss-crossing ranks. I was sitting too low to see the pattern, but there was a wonderful sense of changing depth even when viewed it straight on. I especially appreciated the Company's clarity in movement. There was a suggestion of great physicality without it looking difficult or fussy which I loved. I had not thought to associate the pas de deux in second movement (echoes of Gailliard in the instrumentation!) with stillness. Space, in the absence of the corp, acts as both ornamentation and the ultimate barrier, the deep blue of the backdrop added depth to the movements even as it limited them to their bodies. In fact the second movement seemed like a meditation on containment, motions and bodies caught up in orbit around each other. We see the motif repeated in the hands, around the bodies, and even how the dancers moved in relation to each other (was this a binary system or a planet with a satellite?). Kronenberg and Guerra were deliberate in their partnering – nothing hurried or affected – serenely allowing the movements to bring out their innate sensuousness. Echoing the first movement, Guerra and Kronenberg alternating with each other as they delineated the circular space around their bodies in lazy breaststroke motions (‘helicopter arms’, as Mr Balanchine called them). If Sleeping Beauty’s hedge were alive, I thought it might look something like the third movement, terrifyingly beautiful as it grew and moved in near-sentience. In this case, the woman was the hedge, mesmeric and prickly. After that, I found myself rather weak in the knees! In fact I was in such a daze that I don’t quite remember what happened in Valse Fantaisie (1953), some twenty minutes later. I can report that Sara Esty replaced Jeanette Delgado and that I thought “Apollo with his three Muses, at a (Russian) social?” but beyond that and an image of Les Sylphides that I will come back to in my post about Sunday, it is a blur of waltz music. I located some of that lost composure for the Black Swan pas de deux, danced by Rolando Sarabia and Mary Carmen Catoya. I found myself wondering what a full length Swan Lake from the two of them may look like. Rolando Sarabia has lovely carriage and gorgeous air positions, and his Siegfried knew it. There is a stillness about Catoya that had a very lovely effect on her dancing (I lost moments speculating on her Emeralds). Her Odile did not deal in superfluities – she allowed Siegfriend to project his own desire onto her, maintaining an amused remoteness throughout. After all, the boy was ready to fall in love, unnecessary motions would have been overkill. However, she seemed to be a bit off of her legs at the night performance, her balances came off fairly well but her pirouettes did not look secure. It may have been shock at seeing something non-Balanchine after such a feast, but I thought the warhorse was crammed too full of tricks, and the discomfort kept me from enjoying it as much as previously. The partnering looked off that night as well, and Catoya looked like she was about to fall onto the floor when Sarabia took away his hands during the last partnered pirouettes. I should also add that the Russianness became jarring when Sarabia launched into what seemed to be one of the male solos from Theme and variations with a series of double tours en l’air – pirouette in the middle of the coda. I’ve only seen In the Upper Room through video, and I must admit that I don’t particularly enjoy it. Video flattens the stage and this is one piece that loses much more than average in a recording. Seeing it live restores some of the excitement and depth to the choreography that had been missing. However, that being said, it’s still not one of my favorites (or even preferred) upon a live viewing. There are figure skating references, yoga references, all sorts of movement ideas thrown in there for an interesting soup, but appreciating the athleticism of dancers can become a bit tedious when the pacing lags and the choreography does not develop toward any unifying idea. The bombers and the stompers dance, occupy the same space, share each other’s clothes, but the choreography is sealed off against each other. They coexist but they do not interact. It became extremely noticeable in the last section, as the music tried to build toward a heart-pounding (and unsubtle) climax that the choreography was simply unable to match. That being said, I did enjoy watching dancers enjoying themselves. Most of the dancers looked a bit lethargic in the beginning, but woke up (the transition was rather obvious) as they threw more energy and attitude as time went on, but they still looked a bit too much like ballet dancers. One notable exception from the very beginning was Jeanette Delgado, whom my eyes gravitated back to time and again, though she was replaced (I'm told) after two sections by another stomper due to injury. She had a wonderful way of throwing herself into the choreography. Her body radiated tension, as if trying to contain anarchy within its limits as it fought to get out everywhere. [A few minor edits due to late at night stupidity and for optimistically thinking I could go it along without my program or my notes. Corrections were primarily for grammar and clarity save for a more major one correcting Ms Kronenberg's name. My apologies, Ms Kronenberg, I shan't do it again! Per Jack's suggestion, I have also edited the name of this thread.]

That was a suite of dances (continually revised,cut, reinserted, etc) from Don Quixote. The music was by Nikolai Nabokov. (on-topic) in the case of the Kennedy Center videos - do we know who decides whether the videos are to be broadcast once archived?

Someone's uploaded an extended interview, undated and possibly unreleased, with Katherine Healy. In it, she reviews her training, technique, subsequent retraining, her teachers, etc. The three parts of video is currently here.

The issues of regions and NTSC/PAL/SECAM concern two different things in the audiovisual setup. The first refers to code restrictions (software) and the other to display modes that is more of a hardware issue. Most of the Go Video players sold in the US have a secret menu that allows one to change the player to play disks from all regions. Unfortunately, for an NTSC player to play a PAL video (or vice versa) one requires that the DVD player to have a chip capable of converting the PAL signal to NTSC in order to output it to a NTSC television. Rarely do televisions have that video conversion chip hence the focus on DVD players here. Computers do not have that restriction - one can play whatever one likes. HOWEVER, keep in mind that modern computers have a restriction of the number of times one can change the region setting - 5 changes and it will be set to whatever region it was changed to last. There are a few solutions, flash the firmware of the DVD-drive so that it also becomes region-free, or find an application that shields the region code of the DVD if the disk and player are on different regions. I believe VLC in both Windows and Mac OS X have options to do so. There are also more illegal options (thanks MPAA) but I won't delve into it. emi

What a lovely program, rg. Thank you for posting it! (Rather agog at the thought of seeing Tallchief, Leclercq, et al. every night for such lovely prices...) emi

Bolshoi has apparently added a gala event, "An Evening with the Bolshoi", as some sort of fund raising event on that Saturday (13 June). Aside from the original casting announcement dated April, the website itself lists no corrections to the casts, so it's questionable whether the box office knows. It's probably worth calling about, however. Their website: http://www.carolinaperformingarts.org/ Also, when I looked to buy tickets for my family about a month ago, tickets had sold out for all but the Shipulina Don Q. However, now the box office reports "limited availability" on all dates. Emi

Parts of the Pas de six were used for Benno and the prospective fiancées in Wright's production of Swan Lake (you can see this in the Royal Swedish Ballet's DVD release). However, it was mixed up with rather a lot of other music to make for a looooong third act...

The off-topic version: To Cristian, yes, it definitely exists. It's a 1978 Live from Lincoln Center that featured a Les Sylphides, Don Q pas de deux, T&V, and the Firebird. The T&V is complete with an interview with Kirkland. To 3minuteswest: I would like to see an Ashton programme of some kind (Symphonic Variations, or Scene du Ballet - or ideally, the Sibley/Dowell ITV Symphonic Variations from the 70s), or how about a complete Daphnis et Chloe? Understandably, the RB may wish to release it under its own imprint, if it is separate from your endeavors. I'm half curious to see the Royal Swedish Ballet's Pippi Longstocking, though that's a rather frivolous request... emi

If you mean the one with the Montréal Symphony Orchestra (1992), then yes, it includes everything from the symphonic score. However, if you want something that has the additional music found in most ballet productions, I suggest looking for a copy of Swan Lake, directed by Feodotov with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra. That will have the additional music for Odile's Variation, Valse Bluette, etc. This is currently out of print, however. If you're looking for music from the Tchaikovsky pas de deux, I think the Prévin recording has that as an appendix. emi

(I tried to add this to Jack's initial thread but was unable.) [This is part of a longer piece that I am writing about Rubies, but that's not done and my grading and this review is...] Captivating Rhythms Presented by the Ballet Chicago Studio Company Sunday 17 Mary 2009, 3 PM matinée Athenaeum Theater, Chicago Somewhere in Orchestra Row N I unfortunately missed the first act presentation of Bach 1041 and Coppelia. However, two-thirds of a performance is still better than none at all, especially when preceded by a traffic jam that lasted for nearly an hour. And so, having established this fact, I'll move onto the second and in strict numerical order, the third. The excerpt from Ellington Suite (chor Duell) was unfortunately too short for me to form much of an opinion. The choreography was suitably jazzy for the 'giggling rapids' - Ellington's counterpoint to babbling brooks? - and it showed off the male trio to good effect. The piece began a bit sluggishly, but the dancers seemed to wake up little by little, possibly in preparation for Rubies. Alice Gleaning (chor Ted Seymour) is a world premiere featuring Ballet Chicago student Maeva Esteban. The piece begins with a corp of women dancing in unison to Mozart while a girl (Olivia Schmit) fiddles with her shoe on the floor. The choreography corresponds simply to the melodic line as background dissonance builds, until Maeva is drawn out into another space, in which she, joined later by the corp, is free to play with motifs, repetitions, and variations in a more modern milieu first to the words and music of Ravi Shankar, then to music by Nikolas Lund (and Steve Reich at some point – please feel free to correct me). This piece showcased Maeva's energy and attack, and she shifted between ballet and modern technique effortlessly. Jack tells me that Maeva had very beautiful ballon in her jumps as well (in Coppelia), and we agreed that she would do equally well in a ballet or a modern company. The marriage of modern and ballet is always fraught with interpretation – one which I couldn't resist, apparently. Maeva is drawn out of the melodic simplicity of ballet to take off her shoes, to join in this new free performing medium that can have layers and repetitions. Is it a rejection of the simplicity of classical ballet? Is it an opinion on the limitations of ballet? Is it a commentary on modern dance being the rejection of ballet? I'll stop now before it turns into the Spam sketch. Beans are off. My primary purpose for this trip was Rubies, which I had never seen live. These performances were set by Sandra Jennings, and several male dancers who have performed elsewhere told me that it was perhaps the most balletic Rubies that they have done. Seeing it live puts back the sheer velocity and depth that had been missing from video. While watching, I was often reminded of the mental image I had when listening to Capriccio for the first time, that of cartoon heroes on a merry chase, opening and closing doors while everyone's paths crossed and uncrossed until they were tied into a large ball, arms and legs sticking out randomly. I commented to Jack that these performances still had the 'new car smell' – it was clear to see that the company loved to dance it and they attacked it with immense energy. You could almost hear the skidmarks as the company and the choreography chased after each other. Marvelous. Olivia Schmit was a cool tall girl, staring the audience down in with a measured glare. She reminded me of a huntress, brushing off captivity by her cavaliers because they were incapable of keeping her. I wanted more animation – at times the stare looked blank and it looked very odd against her dancing. Margaret Severin-Hansen and Gabor Kapin were the guest couple. Severin-Hansen is rather short – and at first I thought their proportions were a bit mismatched – but she danced big, showing off the lines and levels of the pas de deux with panache. Kapin was a sandy haired king of the pack, but I thought his solo needed more attack – he looked more self-satisfied than charming or delighted at his bag of tricks. As he swung her around in a series of several lifts, the tight velocity reminded me of partnered lifts from the lindy hop – she seemed to love it, winding him more tightly with every move. At the end of the pas de deux, tho' he had swung her around and danced and flirted, it was clear that Severin-Hansen had the upper hand – he was mesmerized by the illusion she had dropped in his palm. Odile won this round. After the performance, I grinned foolishly at Jack for a full five minutes and had to restrain myself from asking for several encores. A good first viewing, I'd say.

Like all aspiring college somethings I lived in New York for a while, and as I was casting about for a hobby, I decided to fall into the habit of watching ballet. 2004 was a good year - there was the Ashton festival and the bulk of my preferred programming consisted of story ballets. After graduating, I moved around internationally to do fieldwork and such. I tried to catch some ballet wherever I go - it was a good way to keep connected with something familiar from home, and I got to see quite a few fun and inexplicable things - Aurelie Dupont taken to China just to do Bolero being one of them. The frequency of my ballet-watching at that time, however, went from once a week to about once every six months. Now that I'm doing whatever it is I do to stay out of the thriving economy, it takes quite a lot of planning to go anywhere to see a live performance from where I live (it's three hours to Chicago on a good day). However, I think that relative deprivation has made me appreciate the performances and really everything _more_. I am overjoyed when I find an opportunity to see ballet - so much that it's probably unnatural and I have to fight the urge to burble unintelligibly in my reviews. In between performances, I'll find myself breaking my memories into pieces - look at the dancers, listen to the music, put them together every which way - and consequently the enforced hiatus has taught me to think more critically about choreography. The intervening lull has certainly taught me to appreciate Balanchine more. When I first began to go I subscribed to ABT. I watched the NYCB grudgingly but in the meantime I needed some semblance of a story. With enough time, maturation, overdose on statistics, whatever, I've discovered that reliving the umpteenth White Act isn't so interesting anymore - now I plan my trips around Balanchines that I missed the first time around. In fact I found myself so mesmerized by the floor patterns in Serenade that I can't consciously recall parts of it. Set a story, set _several_ stories or perhaps none at all - there's always something to look for. (Already planning to see the October Assault of MCB upon fair Chicago) emi

It did look like Corella had trouble keeping up with the tempo. And I agree, definitely not Murphy - those are not her Gaynor Mindens. The Cyrillic caption says Nadezhda Gonchar. Her biography page at the Mariinsky website: http://www.mariinsky.ru/en/company/ballet_mt_women/gonchar/ It does look like her... emi

If Mercutio is a woman, why is Romeo even bothering with Rosaline and Juliet? I should probably clarify: women were cast in the roles of Mercutio and Tybalt, but M and T are still male. Good question though. Theories? ;) emi

Paul - I'm sorry if I gave that impression, but I did like her, particularly in that duet with Juliet. However, it was clear at least in Saturday's performance that she was mired in the power games and the relationships along with her husband. In addition, it seemed that her affection for Juliet was only equal, if not somewhat subordinate to those same wishes and desires. It was a long performance. I did not mind it (as I'll admit here that I primarily went for the music) but in retrospect the music could have been trimmed to tighten the plot. As a dance drama, drama definitely lost out to the sheer quantity of steps. I was disappointed particularly because the naturalistic acting seemed so good in portions and would then be completely overwhelmed by choreography. Romeo and Friar's relationship seemed more brotherly in this respect - when I meant in that baffling moment of connection, of Friar watching Romeo and Romeo staring back warily, was that the intensity seemed unwarranted so early on. As I said, metaphorically perhaps the Friar had already identified one of his ingredients for defusing the conflict in this fair Verona. emi

I have found my program, and indeed, Romeo was Noah Vinson. I still can't decipher his first scene with Friar Laurence - what was the connection between them? emi

Romeo and Juliet, on Motifs of Shakespeare Choreographed by Mark Morris Performed by the Mark Morris Dance Group 14 March 2009, 7:30 PM Krannert Center - Tryon Festival Theater Orchestra Center, Row V, Seat 5 (last row, approximately center, on steep incline to stage) I gave up my initial idea of adding yet more profundity to the subject of gender politics somewhere between the first and second scenes of Act I. What more can I say that others have not stated already? That women were cast Tybalt and Mercutio and added a predictable but curiously heterosexual slant to those characters (and to those interactions with their male peers)? That indeed the sexual politics of the adult world include a heavy element of violence; and of, in Mr Morris's words, women's ability to fight back (only) in context of their positions and roles? Krannert does not have the best acoustics from the pit - the orchestra must sit very low and the sound (which logically follows location) emanates from a boxed opening before the stage, affecting the quality greatly. There were a few scary moments with the strings at first, but tensions were worked out as musicians dug deeper, both dramatically and chronologically, into the score. Prokofieff's restored score was a revelation. I heard it with some disbelief, not believing that such minor changes could have wrought so much. There is a lushness and delicacy of timbre and tone that was missing previously, and it seems to have become more thematically varied. I no longer felt as if the various leitmotifs directed the brass to relentlessly pound my ears into submission. The New York Times review disliked the production with more energy than I was capable of last night. I will not repeat Mr Macaulay's exact words on the needless repetitions of steps except to say that I share them, and that I began to cringe halfway through the second scene as the hitch steps and the endless low arabesques detracted my attention from the action with their predictability and their regular devotion to the melody. The choreography is not not musical, but it is wedded to an annoyingly regular melodic sense that positions the steps within the music instead of through the musical phrases. Morris's Verona is a sensual and interactive world. Dancers form relationships with each other, indulge in games, clumsy plots, and occasionally transparent enmities that are covered over with cartoonish displays of friendship when the Prince (or perhaps the parent) approaches. Tho' brutal in the machinations of men and women (see Lady Capulet's introduction of Juliet to Paris by a shove, also Paris's manhandling of Juliet during the banquet), it is one in which the men and women seem to have apparent sexual lives without relegating it to the realm of MacMillan's courtesans or (even worse, perhaps) yet another psychological drama involving Siegfried's tutor. Maile Okamura was a superb Juliet. Her restraint made Juliet poignant, deeply unhappy and in search of something more equal and tender than what Paris, merely a rich thug in this production, was capable of. It was clear in her duet with lady Capulet that she was not a fully grown woman. Where as Lady Capulet, all heavy skirts and sombre hair, sank into the steps as if mired in the concerns and power games of that fair city, Juliet in white floated above them, delicately sculpting the air as if to delineate a higher realm in which she still dwells. However, even in her action there is some level of resignation - the poison holds no perverse fascination for her, she takes it as is her duty. Romeo, whose name I will recall if only I had my program - where oh where is it, was a peculiarly gentle man, his bearing often reminding me of Dear Ashley Wilkes (for good or ill) off in world parallel to this one. However, as mystically and ecstatically connected as the young people were at first meeting, neither provided sufficient dramatic motivation to the audience for taking action in order to be together; instead, they were pulled and pushed in various directions, subordinate to the Needs of the Plot instead of the Dictates of Emotion. These dramatic inconsistencies proliferate throughout the production. Mercutio is still a jester, a mad cap prankster whose character is fleshed out during a pantomime sequence with Juliet's nurse, but the dramatic development comes too late, as Romeo is instead convinced to go to the Capulets' party by unknown means. Rosaline was included in this production and explicitly rejected Romeo at the party for sake of emotional closure in one of his relationships. However, was this rejection out of duty? Sheer dislike? I could not read it clearly and she faded into the general obscurity in the company of other townsfolk soon after. However, as this scene came at the expense of establishing Mercutio's relationship and importance to Romeo, the poignance of Mercutio's death is undercut by his portrayal as simply the Jester and I could have done without it. Two other relationships were of special note: that of Friar Laurence, now a much younger and vital man, with Romeo, and that of Nurse and her servant. We see Romeo glancing sharply at Friar Laurence during the establishing scene - the relationship is never explained. Was it a warning from the Friar, a warning to Romeo over his impetuous emotions? Had the Friar identified his likely instrument for reconciling the ancient feud? We are never told. Instead the Friar resumes his wiseman role before briefly transforms into a dancing role in Act III, illustrating a non-point to Juliet for reasons that are dramatically obscure. Second, the Nurse oscillated between moments of intense identification and blankness with Juliet. Was her servant (the man in the green cap she dances with) simply a servant? It seemed like her sympathy toward Juliet could have been motivated by a similarly confounding relationship with man (perhaps that servant) but it is never entirely made clear. Again, her rejection of Juliet is not dramatically consistent in Act IV - there is no inner struggle, the Nurse does so because the plot demands it but there are no hidden feelings nor conflicts. One other outstanding character had no set choreography: he is simply the Prince's flag-bearer. Perhaps even more self-important than the man he serves, he paces about the town with a measure of self-important insouciance that even his master could not (or would not) match. Macaulay discussed several plot inconsistencies, so I will skip over those (I share most of his objections) and expand yet again on my perception of Morris's logic of setting dance to music. The choreography was most effective for pairs and single dancers - the dance of the townsfolk with their stylistic poses and shuffle steps was repetitive and in many cases made me cringe. What was it meant to do? However, there was also great gentleness in moments, particularly by the women with soft port de bras whilst manipulating the air, but in most others I was distracted by the preponderance of steps. There were steps in isolation, repeated sequences, mirrored sequences, sequences repeated to other characters. In addition, at moments there seemed to have been isolated quotes from the MacMillan choreography. Regardless, all in all it was an overload of choreography in places that really did not need it, almost as if the choreographer did not fully trust the music to carry the moment.

A VOB is a video container encoded in the MPEG-2 format (standard DVD encoding format) and has in fact lost some quality from the original source (assuming that it was a DV or a tape camcorder). It is likely easier to edit the source material by capturing it from the camera again, not to mention that more software is available to do so. Note that availability also depends on your operating system. All software mentioned below runs on Windows. However, if you wish to edit a VOB, there are several options, differing in price and ease of use (there being a strong correlation between the two). The standard consumer package is probably TMPGEnc, which is 70$. It is quite easy to use. There's a trial version that may be enough for your purposes. Another commercial package is VideoReDo (50$). Then there's also the Womble MPEG VCR (35$) which edits VOB, but I'm not sure about its DVD authoring features. Then there's also the freeware VOBBlanker (http://jsoto.posunplugged.com/vobblanker.htm), which does the same thing. However, it's a bit harder to use and not as intuitive. Lastly, there's a freeware product called VOBEdit. I don't know how well it works on current Windows OSes (XP or Vista), but it worked well enough on Win 2000. emi Addendum: As for Mac, Final Cut Pro does just about anything, but a license is insanely expensive. iMovie 08 can import the VOB file (if it's on a DVD) as if it were on a camera, but there may be loss of quality issues.