abatt

I would see Gomes in a return performance of anything. He got a hero's welcome during his appearances at the Joyce last summer with Sarasota Ballet.

The company probably already had a plan in place for each lead role, but sometimes plans must be changed. Added: Re Helene's comment above, the company does have a contractual requirement under which it must notify dancers whose contracts will not be renewed for the next season by February.

There isn't a single person left at ABT who I would go out of my way to see as Purple Rothbart. When Gomes was doing the role, even if I didn't care about the lead dancers I would buy a ticket to the performance to see Gomes do the role.

If the company does not renew Ramasar's contract for next season, it's almost guaranteed that everyone will be back before a new arbitrator litigating the issue of whether the failure to renew is a stunt by NYCB to circumvent the arbitrator's recent ruling ordering his reinstatement. Hopefully NYCB will not be so stupid as to attempt to deny Ramasar the renewal of his contract for next season. It will be interesting to see what roles he returns to this season, and who his partners are.

Finlay resigned. He was not fired.

There are no criminal charges against Finlay. Ms Waterbury has never gone to the police with her allegations. The claims against him are for non-criminal conduct which had nothing to do with work, just like Ramasar and Catazaro.

If Finlay had waited to be fired like the other two rather than resign, I think there would have been a pretty good chance that he would have been reinstated too.

I think NYCB behaved in a very unscrupulous manner with regard to these firings. They were apparently more concerned about the bottom line of their financial security than in behaving in a lawful manner with regard to their duties as an employer. Although I greatly admire and respect the dancers - or most of them - I have a very negative view of their management because of the firings. Jon Stafford is cited in the article as being someone who was involved in making the decision to fire. I'm sure he was not the only person that gave the go ahead to terminate.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/arts/dance/city-ballet-amar-ramasar-sexually-explicit-texts.html Here's a NY Times piece on the subject. Two women spoke to the Times on condition of anonymity to complain about the outcome. Hmm. I think we can all guess the identity of one of the two.

I completely agree with most of what you said. The firings were based on public opinion and perceptions of the board and donors. However, I do not believe that the firings were based on considerations of NYCB's potential legal liability. In fact, I think any lawyer who had a clue would have immediately advised NYCB that under the circumstances of this case, there was no basis to fire these two guys, and that the firings would likely be overturned after an arbitration. To me, this was not even a close case. There was never any legal basis to fire them. If NYCB's lawyers told them to go ahead with the firings, NYCB needs to find new counsel PRONTO. My suspicion is that NYCB was told by their counsel that this would be overturned if the dancers pursued arbitration, but NYCB decided to go ahead with the firings anyway. I think NYCB decided that garnering positive publicity by firing them was more important to their bottom line than following the law.

I attended last night's gala. The biggest star of the evening was the utterly brilliant Kimin Kim. He defies gravity. He was absolutely thrilling in his Don Q and Black Swan variations. Olga Smirnova dumbed down her solo variation in the Black Swan pdd by doing pique turns around the stage instead of the traditional fouettes. Is she afraid to get injured? I expect that modification from certain dancers, but not a Bolshoi principal. I enjoyed Smirnova's Dying Swan, but they decided to turn it into pas, with Calvin Royal circling around her and stalking her. I wanted to swat him out of the way so I could focus on Smirnova. His presence added nothing and distracted the viewer from this beautiful solo. Kondaurova was sharp and authoritative in a pas from Forsythe's In the Middle. It was for me a highlight. Lucia Lacarra and Fabrice Calmels trotted out Arpino's Light Rain duet (subtitled I Am Gumby, Dammit.) Lucia's flexibility is marvelous, especially given that she is not so young. It was trashy but fun. The Manon pas with Stearns and Seo was deadly boring. I don't have high hopes for their upcoming ABT performances in the lead roles. The new Hamrick piece to boyfriend Mick Jagger's music was harmless but amateurish. The finale was a pastiche of excerpts from Don Q. Shevchenko killed it with a portion of Kitri's Act I variation, where she does the Plistetskaya kicks. There were film clips of youngsters talking about ballet after each piece. The first one or two clips were cute. But the repetition of the cute kids on film trying to articulate their love of ballet started to become grating and a complete waste of time.

Whoever was the architect of these firings at NYCB should be terminated . These firings smelled to high heaven from the outset. Added: I'm assuming this reinstatement is effective immediately. Hopefully we will see Ramasar during the Spring season.

Wow. Just read the rest. Ramasar returns. Excellent. He and Catazaro have finally been vindicated. Wonder what Ms. Waterbury and her attorney are thinking about their lawsuit against these two. It truly is a Good Friday. This news combined with the news earlier this week that K. Morgan is joining Miami City make me very happy. Now if only Gomes could return to the New York stage.....

NYCB would NEVER have done this voluntarily. He should not have been terminated in the first place. Thank goodness for the triumph of justice. Sadly, the company has damaged his reputation in spite of this reinstatement.

https://www.broadway.com/buzz/195492/mike-faist-to-bring-cool-factor-to-steven-spielbergs-west-side-story-film-as-riff/ More casting news for this film. Brittany Pollack and Harrison Coll of NYCB are going to be part of the dance ensemble for the Jets. Jeanette Delgado is part of the ensemble for the Sharks. Perhaps others will recognize additional names of ballet dancers from the long casting lists contained in the above link.

The program for the opening night gala is now listed on the website. They will perform Ratmansky's Serenade after Plato's Symposium and Ratmansky's new work, The Seasons. No casting info is available.

https://nypost.com/2019/04/02/ballet-bandit-gets-72-hours-of-community-service-for-maine-spree/ Talicia Martins sentenced to 72 hours of community service.

I'm glad to see that the company is finally putting a warning on the program regarding lyrics used in the Runaway.

Where are the calendars for the new season? I don't see them on the company website.

Since they are doing two weeks of SL instead of only one, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some debuts in the lead roles.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with Mariinsky casting. On a day when public sales begin for a variety of events at the KC, the KC website becomes overwhelmed and the computer program makes an assumption that anyone visiting the site is looking to buy tickets. I don't know what went on sale today. You can directly get into the casting page instead of going to the home page by clicking canbelto's link.

Forgot Charles Askegard, who came from ABT.

That ballet will never see the light of day at the Koch (or anywhere else) again. I remember Twesley partnering Whelan in Balanchine's Ballade, but they have never revived that ballet since. Tewsley left. Why have they never revived that ballet in something like 20 years?

There was also the short-lived tenure of Robert Tewsley. NYCB attempted to hire( Joel?) Carreno from Cuba, but ran into visa issues, if I recall.

My bad. Thanks.