abatt

News flash: Mariinsky's Shklyarov is now listed as Semionova's partner for the May 26 Bayadere on the ABT calendar

It's shocking that ABT can't simply teach Theme and Variations, a one act ballet that's less than 25 minutes, to one of their own male dancers to fill in for Stearns. Instead they have to hire Veyette from NYCB. This isn't the first time this has happened. ABT borrowed Damian Woetzel to dance w.Julie Kent a number of years ago in a Balanchine one act (maybe T&V, but I'm not certain). It's like Deja Vu all over again. Happy that Gomes picked up some Don Basilios, but I can't imagine him trying to lift Semionova in overhead one handed lifts. In fact, I don't even want him to try, because he is too valuable to lose for the season due to back injuries. Waiting with bated breath to hear who is replacing Cory in the other ballets he's scheduled for.

Perhaps this means that Vasiliev will dance Solor w. Murphy on May 27, replacing Matvienko? I hope so. I think they would be excellent together.

Per her facebook page, Kristi Boone Stappas is retiring at the end of the Spring season

One Hundred Years of Solitude is now no. 1 on Amazon.

Jared is finally getting his due at ABT. Good for him! Never heard of Kevin Jackson. Loved Lendorf last season. Too bad about Matvienko. Now Kevin has to figure out who will replace Stearns. So who is replacing Matvienko for his one Bayadere? Vasliev please.

I hope the folks at ABT are reading this and will act accordingly. With Stearns out, there is now a shortage of tall men for the season. Since Hallberg is unavailable, this leaves only Gomes and Whitside for all the tall girl assignments. For whatever reason, they don't cast Bolle much. Maybe they are planning to throw the not-yet-ready Hammoudi into the fire and see what happens.

Wow. That's a great discount. Almost makes me want to jump in the car and drive down to DC. It was really not too bright to schedule the engagement for Easter weekend.

ABT has posted the opening night gala performance w. casting. Stearns is not on the list of performers. I think it's reasonable to conclude he will not make it to his Don Q assignments during week one. Who is his replacement and when will they tell us? I wonder if he we will be out the entire season. The only other ABT dancer cast as Basilio who is tall enough to partner Semionova is Whiteside. Will they have Gomes step into Basilio, as he did in Washington DC.? I wish Stearns all the best, but I've been waiting YEARS for them to partner Part w. either Gomes or Bolle in SL. If that happens, I will get myself to the box office as fast as possible to buy a tix for Part's Wed matinee SL.

The casting is up on the NYCB website for week 1 of the spring season. Whelan returns, dancing This Bitter Earth. I will be there cheering for her. Now it finally does feel like spring, even if the air temp. when I left this morning was only 36 degrees.

I've noticed in the ABT playbill that ABT thanks a particular flower shop for providing the flowers at curtain calls. NYCB doesn't generally do flowers at curtain calls. They do lots of flowers at farewells, though. If you're a NYCB audience member they won't let you into the theater with flowers. They require you to leave your flowers in the lobby under the care of an usher and retrieve them at the end of the performance on your way out.

Alicia Graf Mack is recovering from spinal surgery that occurred earlier this month (from her Facebook page). That's why she was not at the YAGP gala. Hope she returns soon to the stage.

I'm not sure it's fair to read anything into the matinee scheduling. After all, Vishneva's 10th Anniversary celebration is on a Saturday matinee. Part has performed SL on opening nights of the run, as well as Sat nights in the past. It may be time to rotate her SL into the Wed matinee.

Yes, that was part of his genius. Concerto Barocco is perhaps the clearest and best example of how he could take classical music and create ballet steps so perfectly musical that the viewer might think the music was specifically created for the ballet. See the music, hear the dance.

Did anyone go to ABT last night? Reports?

If the road to promotion is the Concours, and she admits that she has not done well in that test, then what has changed that would lead her to believe she might be more successful at the Concours now? All the reasons she had for uprooting from POB and moving to SFB are probably still valid today. Having been the toast of the town at SFB, would she be happy to returning to lesser roles at POB? I doubt it. In addition, I would hate to think that SFB invested its resources in teaching her various roles, only to have her leave after a year.

I may take off a half day from work to see her Swan Lake. I wonder what the nature of Stearn's absence is from the D.C. engagement, and whether it will impact casting for the Met season. Stearns is scheduled to be Part's partner for SL. I will probably miss her Bayadere because they are doing Jewels across the plaza, and I'm already committed to way too many Bayaderes this season - Tereshkina, Smirnova, Cojocaru, Vishneva.

I thought the highlight was Chudin and Smirnova in Diamonds pdd. Very, very well done. There was a minor partnering error, but the performance overall was beautifully done. I also enjoyed Chudin in the Sylphides excerpt (with Bouder). Chudin's lines were gorgeous, and he was very technically accomplished in his solo work. I thought Bouder was miscast in Sylphides. Surprisingly, the Rubies pdd fell flat - mostly because Herman Cornejo had some obvious, repeated partnering issues. Simkin was much better in Pas De Duke on Friday as compared to Thursday's performance. I have not seen Momix in at least 15 years, so I enjoyed the impressive acrobatic/contortionists skills of the Momix performers in TUU. NOt sure I could withstand an entire evening of Momix though. The ballets performed by Lucia Lacarra and her partner were not technically challenging, and seemed to go on for too long. The worst thing on the program was Evan McKie's solo. (Don't have my program, so I forgot the name of the ballet.) Thankfully, at least it was short.

I didn't read it to mean that the students would perform in the Kylian work or Gaite.

I wish the RB were bringing Winter's Tale to the US next year instead of the over-performed Don Q.

Alistair M. has posted his review on the NY Times website, and it is very positive. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/arts/dance/a-new-winters-tale-for-royal-ballet.html?ref=arts#

Unfortunately, and without explanation, Alicia Graf did not perform. Linda Sims from Ailey danced with Simkin. She is even shorter than Simkin, I can never complain about seeing Sims because she is excellent, but I was disappointed. Simkin handled all the virtuoso tricks much better than the Ailey men, but he lacks any skill in jazz-based movement (which he admitted in a little film clip that preceeded the performance). The new Gemma Bond work was, in my opinion, a total dud. The gimmick was that dancers were joined together by long pieces of fabric wrapped around them. Couldn't wait for it to end. As noted by rg on another forum, Stearns was replaced. For me, the highlight of the evening was Smirnova and McKie in a searing performance of the final pdd from Onegin. It was riveting. I definitely would like to see more of both of these incredible dancers. Forgot to add that during the first half of the performance, Tyler Angle and Sara Mearns danced the pdd from In G Major. It was lovely, but not the best account of the pdd I've seen. It didn't help that the pianist seemed to hurry the dancers in parts.

Gomes got the Don Q, but I like him more as Espada than Basilio. .

Just looked at the ABT casting page. Stearns is replaced in Sylphide and Don Q. Anyone know what happened? Ah well, more work for Gorak and Gomes.

I'm not sure about Georgina. She hasn't been given leading roles in the essential Balanchine ballets. Her most memorable role to date has been as Anita in West Side Story. I'd like to see her in lead roles in Robbins ballets, like Opus 19 the Dreamer, In The Night and I'm Old Fashioned.