BW

Now hold on dirac! There'll be no casting of aspersions at 007, I mean, Sean Connery! As for casting my vote, I just can't for - as liebling said - it all depends!

What a story Aubri! You're right "Sylvia" with Balanchine's name is still listed!:eek: One would think there would be an explanation.:confused: In looking over this subject, I think I would like to say "Amen!" to Victoria's comment: Many thanks for your replies.

Yes, Estelle's right - and I'm certainly one of them! I loved reading about your experience too, lilliana - it's refreshing to hear about a perfromance without having it dissected, not that I don't find the dissections interesting - but I enjoyed imagining the Alice in Wonderland scenes and really felt your enjoyment in reading your post! Many thanks for sharing your experience- wish I'd been there too.

Generally speaking a subscription to these kinds of performances consists of different selections of ballets/operas/musical selections (in the symphony sort) that are placed in subsets such as Tuesday nights, which are less expensive than Fridays, etc. There are also other subsets with titles such as "All Robbins Night" (as in Jerome) or "4 Classics by Petipa" ..... In other words, the subscriber is given a number of choices from which to choose, whether they are based on day of the week, or subject matter. Sometimes subscriptions are geared towards attracting new subscribers or families with children...so the choices within these subscriptions will be tailored to what the company's marketing department feel is appropriate. Some subscriptions may be 2, 3, 4 or more performances throughout the season. Why subscribe? You get the best choice in seating, there is usually a slightly cheaper price per ticket, and if you keep re-subscribing you can even keep the seats you had, if you like them, for the next season! The other "perk" is that if you are a subscriber, you can exchange your tickets on a certain day for another day if needs be...Which is something I have to do myself for this spring! Each company will have a brochure that will outline all the details and explain the benefits of subscribing. You need to read them carefully - for example NYCB has a "Fourth Ring Society" and the ticket prices are very, very low... The other plus about a subscription is that you KNOW you're going to get in the door! So there's my long winded, somewhat convoluted, answer - hope it wasn't too confusing!

Alexandra, I just read through those earlier posts you gave links to! :eek: Talk about Calliope's "can of worms"! This is a great topic ronny - I'm glad you posted it. I think of "after Petipa" as giving credit, where credit is due... Though having just read those posts from earlier threads, I am at a bit of a loss as to how someone who comes along in 2001-2002 can really know what is "original" choreography and what has been changed. This subject surfaced recently for me in reading some of the comments on the poll about ABT's artistic director...that morphed into a bit of a discussion about Swan Lake... I suppose it might be wise to read the appropriate chapters in the book Ballet 101, in order to get the original "lay of the land" so as to, at least, be able to figure out if the performance is true to the original story... However, when it comes to ballet steps, how is a neophyte to know?

Twinkle_RBS_gal, it sounds to me at though you are really enjoying your time at the Royal Ballet School. I hope you will look around this board and find all sorts of other subjects that interest you. As I am not a regular reader of the Young Dancers, etc., sections I can't say how many others might be posting here from your country, let alone your school, but I can say that everyone will be very interested to hear from you and that they'll be full of questions as well! I hope that both you and Liz's mom will not forget to take a look at and post on the Recent Performances section on Ballet Talk and that you will think about posting some of your thoughts there, as well!

G, thank you for the explanation - that does help me understand why there are so many at the NYC finals! And I appreciate the clarification on the judging aspect, as well as, the awarding of the ABT Studio Contract. If our schedule permits, I hope to stop by for some of the competition. When I last looked, their website said that after April 15, the exact competition schedule will be available. I appreciate everyone's posts. I do want to point out, that in asking these questions, I did not in any way mean to disparage the competition...I did, however, want to try to clarify some things which you all have helped me do. Victoria, you mentioned, some returning competitors from your school...I wonder, on the whole, how many competitors return the following year in general... I am sure the organization has grown tremendously in the last two years and that each ensuing year their procedures become more streamlined. It is a huge undertaking. P.S. Would any of you mind enlarging upon your comments about children doing variations that were created for adult dancers? I'm not sure that I understand you - do you mean 11 year olds, 12 year olds? If I recall correctly, the competition does have a list of dances that it suggests, maybe even requires, and if that is so, how can one avoid doing these variations? Or are you meaning that these specific variations can and should be modified for the younger(up to what age?) competitors?

Thank you Morris Neighbor, I've saved that info so I can refer to it next time I really want to see something there! I really have been avoiding City Center since my last visit due to the total lack of legroom - my fears have been relieved!

On a small scale view: The studio at which my daughter dances has a 501-3C dance company that really only got off the ground in the sense of performances, this past year. It is poised at the point where it either has to go forward and truly raise money to pay back the out of pocket costs of about 4 parents who have been making phenomenally beautiful tutus and put on "galas" after the main evening's performances, or just do a quick hit raffle/request and try to pay back what's been laid out to date! It's a tough call - especially when the state of affairs within can seem precarious at times. The requirements of starting and maintaining a true not-for-profit organization, a 501-3C in tax code terms, are important to learn. I took one course in this subject and you really need to get some hard core advice from a professional tax person on it. The board members have to be insured so they are protected personally from any possible litigation, etc. The good part about having a board in a small scale operation is that a great deal of the work load should, ideally, be spread amongst the members and the weight of "it all" taken off the shoulders of the artistic directors themselves - which they often hate, anyway. The hard part, probably on any scale, is looking at the dual bottom lines which sometimes don't seem related at all: the art and the necessary income. In a small venue, I would imagine it is a lot harder to say to the artistic director, with whom your child studies, "Nope, sorry, we really don't think doing Swan Lake every performance is the way to draw an audience 4 times a year [and thinking 'even though we know you love dancing in it, yourself'], and we really think it would be better to do XYZ... In reading about the goings on with Lincoln Center and its possible plans, it is not hard to see how difficult it must be to work within a board of any well-known company. The stakes are much higher, relatively speaking, and the egos much greater...And if it is true that it is no longer a board made up of predominantly arts lovers who have an attitude of nobless oblige and one more of social climbing - Egad!

Poppiedancer, thanks for coming over to share your joy of ballet with the rest of us! I was just thinking that unless someone's family were very "into" classical music, that in our culture they would not have too much real exposure to it... Don't know if it's any different for you down in New Zealand or not - so the fact that one can learn to fall in love with the music is just one more draw for the art, isn't it? I would bet that many a young person, certainly in the USA, would never have been open to classical music if it were not for putting on their ballet slippers. P.S. Ronny, glad you enjoyed the image of my daughter's intro. to dance.

Ed, now that is a tribute, if ever I read one:) I would surely rather see a good production, or wonderful moments thereof, than many other things that might flash by!

Liebs, I look forward to reading your synopsis!;) Thanks all for bringing your different points of view to this discussion - you've all helped me look at these two "versions" of ballet with a new eye. Just wondering - can anyone tell me when the birth of the plotless ballet was?

You know, Leigh, right after I posted that I thought: hmm, I wonder about Eifman... I'm too much of a neophyte to have heard of Valery Panov, but I stand corrected! I thought about going to see Eifman, but although I do live right outside the city it is still an effort to get there for things that don't thrill you...at least in your expectations of them, anyway... You know, I haven't even read the articles about his works - my NYT Arts and Leisure and Weekend sections await me! So, was ballet version of The Idiot really bad? Not too uplifting, as I recall.

Ari, I've never seen Onegin, but I do believe you and Liebs when you tell me that the ballet just didn't work. I guess, I felt that you were saying in your earlier post, that the major story ballets were all pretty much "fluff" and although on some levels they may be...on other levels we could probably read a great deal into Siegfried's relationship with his mother! But seriously, your point about complexities of a deeper sense are well taken... I guess this is why we don't see Dostoyevsky's novels turned into ballets...yet. ;) Thanks for your clarification!

Thanks Balletmama - those were two that actually caught my eye. I suppose I had better figure out my dates and get on the horn!

Twinkle_RBS_gal, thank you for writing too! May this be the second of many more posts yet to come! Do you attend the Royal Ballet regularly? I've never been, so I'm quite envious of you and Liz's mom! I would love to hear more about your reasons for loving it so much - can you tell us which were your favorite parts in Giselle and why you felt that way? By reading what you and Liz's mom have written, it helps me to be transported back to that village where Giselle lived and danced and fell in love with Albrecht only to find he was not as "truthful" as he could have been! Would you say that the staging of the ballet was "traditional" in its approach? I am so glad you posted your comments here!

Helena, thanks for bringing back up this issue about fairy tales and folk tales! This was one of the other offshoots of this discussion that I meant to follow-up on: their value as vehicles for illustrating, as you said, "The great truths of life." It certainly seems to me that in all the different cultures we have in our world, that each country's folk tales have a universal theme...I suppose, when you get right down to it, that all fiction stems from this same universal theme. Makes me think of my husband's comment about opera when he compared it to "big time wrestling"! It does seem to boil down to good and evil... However, I would much prefer to watch a well done story ballet than WWF Smack Down any day!!

Don't worry BalletNut - no apologies needed! Perhaps, my use of the word "harsh" should have had a little smiley face next to it. I can see I misunderstood your earlier post. My apologies to you! When I read the first one, I felt you were just lumping all new attempts into one vast "dung" pile ;), now I can see better what you were driving at!

Thanks Alexandra...it's all coming back to me now...I do recall the Rothbart/Swawmp creature dying a long, slow, torurous death and it did take away from the lovers jumping off into the lake... Perhaps I'll find my old program just for fun to see if anyone critiqued the exact one I saw. Who knows, maybe I'm just a sucker for the music? ;)

Thanks Alexandra...it's all coming back to me now...I do recall the Rothbart/Swawmp creature dying a long, slow, torurous death and it did take away from the lovers jumping off into the lake... Perhaps I'll find my old program just for fun to see if anyone critiqued the exact one I saw. Who knows, maybe I'm just a sucker for the music? ;)

Helena, I can only speak as one American however, I would have to say that I consider musicals to fall under the category of the performing arts - they include acting, dancing, singing...

Good point about name recognition...maybe they could slip one into the Diamond Project's performances" ;) Ari, did you mean that those particular fairy tales/stories/myths don't have much social or psychological depth, or did you mean that generally speaking these types of tales do not?

Liz's mom - it sounds wonderful! Had you ever seen Giselle before, if so, it would be interesting to hear a comparison...just form your point of view - how it made you feel versus another version. By the way, how was Tamara Rojo in the "mad" scene? Did she play it as though she'd totally lost her mind - or was she more the heart broken type? I would also like to know how the "wilies" or "wylies" were portrayed? Who played Myrtha?!

It's interesting to read about the different ways everyone was first exposed to the ballet. Ba2'smom, I was not exposed to the ballet growing up because my parents were more into plays.. It wasn't until I graduated from college that someone I knew invited me to a ballet. I can't even recall where it was...could have been City Center. In my mind's eye, it was not a big place...but I do remember who was dancing: Natalia Makarova(I sure hope I spelled her name correctly!) - and it was a classical piece...an excerpt from something I believe.... I hate to say it, but I just don't remember what she danced only that she danced! Miss, to me, it's very special to have a dancing son! I know their numbers are growing but still....it's not that common in this country. I, too, have succumbed to the magic myself through working behind the scenes and watching a piece come to fruition after hours upon hours of work - never would I have known how difficult it was to make it all appear so effortless! Alexandra - were you in France on Bastille Day in 1975? You're awfully lucky to have seen Nureyev .... Come to think of it, I think my sister was "in love with him"...he was her only experience attending the in ballet. Hey, Giannina, I'm glad your husband finally has converted! Fortunately mine has always enjoyed it which makes it something we can do with our daughter that we all like - so nobody's kicking or screaming! ;) And Ari, how many other people do you think have been enticed into the arts through the auspices of PBS? Maybe we should start an email campaign to our own PBS stations to encourage them to do "more"! Around here, in the NY area, we have a program called Metro Arts that often has some good programs...though not well advertised at all - usually we just stumble upon it while clicking away...passing drivel after drivel...until..at last - something worth watching! Say, Jbtlse, are you involved with that Lincoln Center program for teachers? When you say, "ballet outreach program" what exactly do you mean? Do you try to get professionals to come to the schools and work with these kids? It reminds me of the program Jack D'Amboise has... If you have time I'd love to hear about it - maybe you could start a new topic?

Is that the same Swan Lake I saw?:eek: :confused: The only thing "bad" that I recall was the two lovers jumping to their deaths off something or other in the back of the stage... I have to admit I do recall Swamp thing but not much of the rest of it. I will just have to look for that ticket stub...;) By the way, I tried a search but didn't come up with anything from this board.