abatt

He should be fired, not just suspended. He should also be charged with any applicable misdemeanors might apply.

Most of these young dancers may have been selected by Martins to attend SAB. I forget the timeline of when he resigned. I think he is well aware of many people in the corps from SAB.

Sorry to hear this. Feel better, and I hope the members of your household are okay too.

It's about the casting. He has given her major roles - Chaconne, Firebird, Raymonda to name a few. She learned Diamonds with Catazoro (which she has yet to perform). When they progressively give you more and more of the big Balanchine roles, they are considering you for principal.

They need a tall danseur. Not sure why Peter Walker is not doing Desire. Coll used to get major roles under Martins (Romeo for example), but then he was out with injury for a long time. His career has stalled. Davide Riccardo seems to be a major talent . What happened to Aaron Sanz. They were testing him out in bigger roles, but he has fallen off the radar.

I think that Emma is still learning and hasn't got much experience in lead roles. Aurora has to hold your interest for the entire ballet, and it is a huge role. Emma has been cast mostly in soloist, secondary roles. I guess they feel she needs more seasoning. Still, it pains me to see her cast as White Cat. At least she's getting Florine, which has real substance. In contrast, LaFreniere has done lead roles in various one-act ballets, and has done well. She has been in the company for longer than Emma, so I guess there is a sense that LaFreniere should be given this opportunity at this time. I suspect this will be the last SB run for Megan Fairchild and Tiler Peck, so I guess Emma will have to wait it out a few more years. LaFreniere has been on Stafford's radar for years as someone who was going to get to principal eventually, so if she does well in this role I think the promotion is inevitable.

For a different perspective. Some companies cast a man.

I would have preferred to see Carabosse performed by a man, like Russell Janzen. I get the feeling they wanted to throw an extra little paycheck Maria's way. There was no way they would deprive Phelan of Aurora. She is cast in everything.

For me the interpretation of having the men seem drunk makes sense, because they are celebrating the wine harvest. I also noticed in the first act when she picks the flower and starts pulling off the petals for the He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not countdown, this production does not have the Albrecht character secretly pull off a petal to fool Giselle into thinking that she counted wrong. He merely shows her that she did in fact count incorrectly. Many wonderful nuances and changes throughout. I love the fact that the nobility is not portrayed as a bunch of snooty people who look down on the peasants. My main criticism is with the company, not with the Ratmansky staging. Having seen Giselle over the years by top level companies, the lesser technical abilities of these dancers became apparent. The men in the company are not impressive technicians, in my opinion. I saw opening night (Wed) and Thursday night. Shevchenko was in a different level technically than the Company's own dancers. As an example, Shevy's hops across the stage were marvelous, and she continued until she essentially ran out of hopping space. In contrast, the Giselle on Thursday quit the hops about halfway through. Shevy also has a much bigger and higher jump than Thursday's Giselle. Ratmansky was BEAMING with pride when he took the stage at the end of the show on Wednesday with the company. Nice to run into California at the show and at the hotel. PS - The Residence Inn Foggy Bottom is undergoing extensive renovation. Our room smelled like paint, and we could hear some drilling on another floor at around 9AM on Thursday morning. Also, the heat was not adequate. I can't even imagine what that room must feel like in today's deep freeze. I'll stop ranting now.

I can't say I'm surprised by this info. At his age, how could he expect to continue as a principal given his inability to take on most of the rep. due to injuries. I recall a profile on SAB from a few years ago in which Ball, still a student, said that his dream was to make it to principal. At least he had his dream fulfilled, albeit for a short duration.

Based on casting throughout the season, it seems like certain people may be on the way out. LeCrone is stripped of her role as Lilac, and has not appeared in any significant roles. Georgina Pazcoguin's only role for the Winter is in Ratmansky's Voices.

I saw Indiana during the last run. She was terrific. Great technical ability and sparkling presence. I'm pretty sure Huxley was her partner during the last run too. I'm most skeptical about Phelan, but we'll see.

I'm a little surprised to see Veyette's name as Desire. I guess Furlan and LaFreniere are saved for week 2. Also, Kikta is only listed right now for Diamond. Peter Walker did Desire during the last run, but so far he is only doing Gold. As expected, Harrison Ball is not reprising Desire or any role.

My friend once referred to the 4th ring as the best vantage point to view "Balanchine geometry", which is a very apt description.

Agreed. I saw them in their debut last weekend. They were wonderful. Gordon, in particular, is such a beautiful classical dancer.

ttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/29/arts/dance/kyra-nichols-coaching-new-york-city-ballet.html Kyra Nichols coached several ballet this season, including Rondo. (Adam Luders has also been coaching, but the ballets he coached are not identified. For me, this has been the greatest contribution of the management that took over after Martins. The willingness to have former great dancers return to coach. Nichols' work is described in the attached NY Times article.

If you are willing to pay that much for a sandwich, try to get to the new Rossetta bakery which opened up a few months ago directly across the street from Lincoln Center. Nothing there is cheap, but the quality is good. I have purchased a few different types of sandwiches from Rossetta and they have all been very good.

I think if they hired Taylor Swift to create a new work the ballet, first time attendance would also be off the charts. Tickets sold because the composer of the music has a huge following. It is unrelated to race.

Your guess is as good as mine. It seemed like Peck decided to borrow the types of covering worn by the Novice in the Cage. Any other guesses? A pretentious choice.

Review: Justin Peck Runs Out of Steam in ‘Copland Dance Episodes’ - The New York Times (nytimes.com) NY Times review. Spot on.

By the way, the choreography for Rodeo was largely the same as Peck's creation a few years ago, but the portion where a dancer goes to the edge of the stage and pulls a cord from the floor of the stage has been deleted. Mejia now dances the role that was made on Ulbricht. The costumes and scenic designs are completely different from Peck's prior incarnation of Rodeo.

For me, once was probably enough for Copland Dances. It felt overly long and the choreography felt too repetitive. It did not hold my interest for the 80 minute duration. As noted above, he is much better at choreographing for groups than for duets and trios. There are a lot of duets and trios. After a while it all started to look the same. He tried to interconnect the sections of the ballet by having Nadon and Stanley show up periodically throughout the ballet. It did succeed in creating a feeling of community - a community of dancers or of people living a certain place and time. I'll compare this (unfavorably) with Ratmansky's Trilogy years ago, in which he used the music of one composer, but each of the three sections had a different choreographic idea. That approach by Ratmansky held my interest, and I left understanding more about Shastakovich. The Peck ballet just felt like relentless sameness.

Very fascinating life and career. Based on interviews I've read, she was bitter about the fact that Rita Moreno got the role of Anita in the film of West Side Story, even though Chita originated the role on Broadway.

During the pandemic NYCB put on shows with no intermissions, so it is puzzling that they inserted an intermission after a 10 minute ballet. Clearly the only necessary intermission was before Firebird.

I went to yesterday's matinee. Remember when there was a Vodka toast to Mr. B on his birthday. Not anymore. Remember when the company scheduled special demonstrations and lectures for his birthday? Not anymore. Now we are down to a note in the program. Fortunately, the program was filled with terrific performances except for one. First, Mejia is doing principal work, and has been for some time. He deserves to be promoted. LaFreniere has improved a lot in Firebird since her debut last year. I thought Gerrity did pretty well with the Faust ballet. She is perhaps a touch conservative in the diagonal spins, but it was a very good performance. Liturgy suits Phelan well. Long lines, no spins whatsover. And now we turn to Tyler Angle. NYCB has entirely abdicated its duty to regulate who is allowed to appear on stage. At this point, his appearance is embarrassing. He is very overweight - way worse than Bouder looked in the fall. At least Bouder had a legit reason for weight gain - out with injury for an extended period. Quit applying a double standard to women and men. I don't care how good he is as a partner. Either train someone else in the role or don't perform the ballet if you don't have anyone suitable. I'm sure that for an ordinary person of his age his weight is fine, but he is not in the job of an ordinary person. He should succeed into the character roles of Jared at this point.