abatt

Hee has made a lot of improvements over the years. During fouettes she used to either bail out quickly, or the fouettes would veer all the way to the side of the stage, towards the wings, as she was doing them. Now she moves forward in small increments in a straight line, as most people do, and does a highly respectable number of neat fouettes. I recall a number of prior outings years ago when I was afraid she would either end up in the orchestra pit or in the side wings offstage because she lacked control. Fortunately, she put in the work and got the help she needed to improve.

Yes his dive off the cliff was spectacular, but Carmago's the night before was also remarkable. I was captivated by last night's performance. Hee is so elegant, and she uses her back, head and arms to maximum effect. Of course, she does not have the level of technical brilliance of some other dancers, but her technical achievement was fine (I think 26 fouettes). For me, this was a SL with tragic dimension. Aran Bell was superb. He is a first rate classical dancer. The most negative part for me was when Ahn, playing Rothbart, nearly dropped a princess during a lift gone wrong. Did you catch the look on her face? Total fear. He is a tall and strong principal. I expect better.

It's not only the cast size. The costumes must really add up. And that middle section requires a donkey.

Yes, it was Ask

I saw last night's SL. Carmago danced and acted beautifully. A very impressive performance. Boylston has the same problems that have been an issue for her for years in this. She is a brilliant technician, but her head and torso are often the least free parts of her body, which is a significant drawback in portraying Odette. Her ballroom act was amazing - an unsupported balance that seemingly went on forever. She did at least 30 utterly wonderful fouettes, finishing with at least a double pirouette (it may have been a triple). Yet despite the brilliance in technique, this SL lacked a tragic dimension. Park was breathtaking in the pas de trois. Sebastian did well as Rothbart but had difficulty controlling a spin in his solo. Roander and Klein were fantastic in the Neapolitan dance. The audience was packed.

Yes, Janzen actually was great in this role when he did it as, I believe, a soloist.

I saw Wendy Whelan on the subway last week and said hello. She was very nice and down to earth. She asked me what I would like to see programmed in the future, as the company is already planning the 2024-25 season. I mentioned that Davidbundertanze had not been performed in a long time. She replied that "You need the right tall guy for that one." So that was my brush with ballet royalty on the subway system.

Boylston and Forster seem like a complete casting mis-match.

Bad news. Per the Met website, Boylston is now listed on the Wed matinee for Swan Lake, replacing Murphy.

I liked Murphy's Giselle. She is not as strong as she used to be, but she is still a formidable dancer. She has considerable experience as Giselle, but not with ABT. When Steifel ran Royal New Zealand ballet she did Giselle many times with that company. She and Forster make a good couple. I liked their work together better than when they did Giselle together at the Koch back in 2021. She is not a histrionic scenery chewing Giselle in the mad scene. She is more self contained, which worked well. Since Giselle is only revived every two years or so, I'm wondering if we have seen the last Giselle performances from Cornejo, Murphy and possibly Forster. Did anyone else notice that Misseldine does two full circle of jumps around the stage in her last big solo as Myrta, whereas Devon circles around once and then kills time waving her arms around near Giselle's grave to wait out the time until the next bit of choreography. She is a strong dancer who managed to correct her issues over the course of her four performances and immensely improved her performance. Good work Chloe!

I didn't see Trenary's Koch debut in Giselle, but I recall that people who did noted that she blew the hops on pointe. And we know from the NYTimes article that she did the same thing on tour this year. So yesterday's incident was at least the third time it happened. Nobody is perfect. People make mistakes. But you cannot keep making the same mistake over and over without taking action before thousands of paying customers. I too am surprised because she did well in Ratmansky's SB and in the tricky choreography in Whipped Cream. She was also quite wonderful with Tharp's company at City Center. I had forgotten how Part was excoriated for coming off pointe in the Rose Adagio. After that, I think she may have gotten one more performance as Aurora, but in all future performances she was Lilac Fairy. For me, the dancing must be in service of the drama. The drama can never be the most important or impressive aspect of a ballet. I don't go to most Copeland performances anymore because I found her execution, or lack of execution, of difficulty choreography a huge problem. Yesterday watching Trenary I had similar feelings.

Trenarys technique is weaker than any of the other GIselles at abt this week. Even the much maligned hee seo was far better.

Having seen ternary in Giselle today , I now see why MCKenzie did not cast her in swan lake.

I think self delusion may be part of the DNA of certain types of performers. I felt that Bouder's complaints in print and on television that she was perfectly in shape and was being treated unfairly at NYCB because she gained a few pounds was also delusional. It was clear that she was very out of shape when she came back from a year of injury. It appears that some dancers simply need to believe so strongly in themselves that they are unable to separate fact from fiction. This is part of what happened in Gabe's case. Re Gomes, he resigned. He was not terminated from ABT. He was outraged that ABT would conduct an investigation of him. But at that time the MeToo Movement was all the rage, and an employer was required to investigate any allegation that involved even an iota of sexual misconduct. It is a shame we lost Gomes. The NY Times frequently publishes response letters. I hope someone on here submits a rebuttal to Mr. Shayer's letter.

This week I have been thinking back to Sarah Lane's heartbreaking Giselle, and what a shame that she is no longer in the company.

There are mediocre people of all backgrounds at ABT who are principals - Asian, African American and Caucasian.

Shevchenko should have been with Bell, as the last time ABT performed this. But Bell is the only guy apparently who is tall and big enough to partner Teuscher as Giselle. This is the partner shuffle problem at ABT.

Shayer also fails to mention that Calvin was promoted at the same time as many other people, including Trenary, Brandt and Forster, I believe. It's not like Royal was singled out for promotion as a response to Black Lives Matter. Shayer danced the role of slave owner, Lankadem. He forgot to mention that in the article.

I thought I heard Calvin screamed out. I did not hear it as Shevy.

He is still listed on the ABT roster. This sounds like a set up for a lawsuit if/when they do not renew. his contract.

The most disturbing thing in this article was that he decided to throw Calvin under the bus to suggest that he was promoted due to his skin color. It is also completely lost on him that he is praising Russia for colorblindness, but Russia is the only country that still uses blackface in its productions. Is that not offensive to him? Russia is brutal in its treatment of ethnic minorities. Russia also criminalizes being gay. Does he really want to praise Russia? Think it through Gabe. Think it through.

I notice that this article does not have an option for people to comment. Too bad. I agree that Shayer was not a great dancer. He was mediocre at best. I'm sorry to say this because I have met his mother, and she is so sweet. Additionally, Shayer is short and short men are generally not used in danseur roles. The company has limited space for short men in the lead roles, and Herman is and was the go-to short guy. For a while Cirio, who is immensely talented, also filled the short guy lead roles. It took Herman, one of the greatest dancers of his generation, years and years to be assigned the danseur roles. He was stuck at soloist level doing peasant pas for an extended period of time because of his stature. Shayer is not a fraction of the dancer that Herman was in his heyday. Nobody will ever fully know why DeLuz left, but he was another short guy who was never going to get his due at ABT, especially after they promoted Herman to principal and left DeLuz at the soloist level. Shayer never even mentions height as a potential issue. Harlequin is a lead role. Why is Shayer denigrating it? He also implies in this article that Calvin was promoted to principal because he is black. Not cool. I will agree with him that Lifted was a dumb idea. Feeling sorry for Susan Jaffe, because she was not in charge of the company during the time period that Shayer is complaining about, but she has to deal with the fallout from this article.

I think Schevchenko has made enormous progress due to her performances with the Ukranians of the role, and I did like her chemistry with Royal. I had not previously seen Royal as Albrecht. The thing that disappointed me was that Royal did only about 20 entrechat sixes, and then tried to kill time to wait out the rest of the music. Definitely not a dance to the death, just a dance till I'm a bit tired. I expect that for older dancers, but Calvin in still relatively young. As noted above, the peasant pas went much better last night for Gonzalez and Granlund. I would not favorably compare any of the performances so far this season with Vishneva- Gomes, Osipova-Hallberg or other truly greats from the past. (Ferri, Ananiashvilli and Bocca!!) One thing that must be noted is that apart from whether a dancer has skill on his own merit, it takes a period of working together to establish chemistry. The above greats regularly worked together over a period of years or decades. However, in the current company there is a regular shuffling of partners, which hinders the development of a meaningful partnership.

Did anyone else notice that in the two lifts that Cornejo did in which he lifted Brandt overhead (the so called table top lifts), he did each lift in two stages. First she was lifted relatively low above him. Then he paused and fully extended his arms to lift her higher above his head. That's how you lift a barbell, not your beloved Giselle. It took me out of the ballet. None of the other Albrechts I have seen have paused mid-lift in this manner.

I thought I read somewhere that Misty intends to return in 2024. it does not seem like she would participate in the fall 2023 season. Who knows if Kevin did any coaching. I think he may have been there to see Hurlin, who has been a part of ABT since childhood, make her debut in this major role. Given how much better Misseldeine was on Wed night compared to the prior nights, I would say somebody definitely gave her some additional coaching before her Wed evening show.