Balanchine, Celebrating a Life in Dance

[Mel Johnson]

Villella was hard to take a photograph of. Martha Swope "caught" him quite often, but she also blew quite a few shots. It was hard to capture the magnificent quality of his dancing without the motion being there.

[Herman Stevens]

Thank you Alexandra. That was a great idea, just to pick up the phone! Facts beat speculations anytime. The www can be a real nest of conspiracy theories, and I absolutely wasn't trying to foster one - after all Villella's Prodigal Son piece shows he was welcome in the Costas book.

I can imagine, too, the NYCB people want to give good exposure to their current crop of dancers. It makes it even more obvious that Costas has (so to speak) taken over Martha Swope's work.

Unfortunately I have never seen Villella and McBride on stage together, Mel, but I have to say the pictures I know really bubble with the fun of their collaboration.

Herman

[Alexandra]

Oh, Herman, I know you weren't trying to float a conspiracy theory!

I wondered if the company, or the publisher wanted to showcase current dancers, too -- or that they wanted a lot of color, and Costas's earlier work was in black and white.

[Alexandra]

Costas sent us this by email and asked me to post it, to clarify dates and his relationship with the company.

"Costas has been photographing dance for 35 years. However, his emphasis on NYCB and Balanchine did not start right away. His first assignments were some of the Judson Church dancers, then Bejart, then ABT. He was initially invited to photograph NYCB at Wolf Trap in the summer of 1973 on the occasion of Melissa Hayden's farewell performance. It was only later that he had open access to the company."

[Helene]

I think I found another typo. On page 224, there's a wonderful photo of Pacific Northwest Ballet Principal Dancer Louise Nadeau in La Valse. The caption reads, "Louise Nadel of Pacific Northwest Ballet." I wondered whether this was a maiden name, but a Google Search on "Louise Nadel" brought back no Louise Nadels. Google did prompt with, "Did you mean: louise nadeau". So the real dancer could be found

[Herman Stevens]

I have an ignorant and irrelevant question.

Who's the girl in the blue dress in the DBT group picture on page 136?

[perky]

I believe it's Darci Kistler. Is that correct?

[carbro]

Yes, Darci.

[Herman Stevens]

So we're talking hair extensions?

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

(Thanks, Perky and Carbro.)

Edited February 4, 2004 by Herman Stevens

[Calliope]

[quote=

There are two mistakes I noted - Katherine Tracey is noted in a caption as "Catherine"

is that Kathleen Tracey?

[carbro]

Herman, that was Darci's real, own, from-the-root-to-tip, hair. She has since cut it.

I noticed, too, that Kathleen Tracey was identified as Catherine. Also, Jenifer Ringer's name appears at least once with two "n"s.

[Helene]

Herman, that was Darci's real, own, from-the-root-to-tip, hair.  She has since cut it.

She once sat next to me at one of those pub-like restaurants in the Lincoln Center area -- my friend Mike thought it was amusing when I stopped breathing -- and when she sat down, she sat on her hair it was so long. Before she cut it, it was one of the joys of seeing her in the last section of Serenade. IIRC, it was that long when the ballet was broadcast on PBS with Western Symphony.

[sandik]

Herman, that was Darci's real, own, from-the-root-to-tip, hair.  She has since cut it.

She once sat next to me at one of those pub-like restaurants in the Lincoln Center area -- my friend Mike thought it was amusing when I stopped breathing -- and when she sat down, she sat on her hair it was so long. Before she cut it, it was one of the joys of seeing her in the last section of Serenade. IIRC, it was that long when the ballet was broadcast on PBS with Western Symphony.

A bit off topic in terms of Balanchine, but on in terms of hair. A friend of mine used to dance with Laura Dean, and in one of her works was paired with a young woman who had very long, beautiful hair. During one section of the dance the two of them came downstage center in a phrase that included a kind of swinging bow -- Erin used to say that he felt he was just there to introduce the hair as it swooped past.

[Jane Simpson]

I've just got my copy of this (from Dance Books) - what a lot of pleasure to look forward to! (And how I wish we could have something similar about Ashton!)

[dirac]

In addition to the typos cited by others, I also noted "Kenneth MacMillian," "Yury Kylian," and "Anthony Tudor" (excuse me if someone else already posted these and I missed them).

Just curious -- did the essay contributors supply their own bios?