Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

Robert Gottlieb on Recent NYCB Promotions


Recommended Posts

NYCB has long welcomed dancers from other (mostly foreign) companies, a number of whom stay for a while and then move back to their original companies.

Does this work in the other direction? Are NYCB dancers able to go elsewhere for a while and then return? (I'm not thinking of the exceptional Farrell or about those who, for whatever reasons, are discouraged into leaving.)

Off the top of my head, Peter Boal, Jenifer Ringer and Jennifer Tinsley. (I think in Ringer's case "elsewhere" means college, not another ballet company, however.)

Link to comment
Look back to the 50s and 60s, dancers such as Conrad Ludlow and Suki Schorer left SFB to dance at NYCB. Now, NYCB is no longer the central gathering of top dancers from around the country.

I have to think the company would attract and keep more talent if Martins did let more of Balanchine's own dancers coach. Their coaching alone might not spark a renaissance, but it could only help, and certainly the dancers and the art deserve it.

Link to comment

I can't argue against wanting more coaching at NYCB. Like kfw implied, there's almost no downside to it. At the same time, I've been following the Interpreter's Archive filmings for six years now. Some of the great interpreters are also great teachers and coaches (to name names, Violette Verdy) and some less so.

kfw - I think coaching does aid in retention, but we may sense the benefits more in the audience than the dancer. A lot of ambitious dancers would take six performances of Odette with no coaching over one performance with it.

Link to comment
Are NYCB dancers able to go elsewhere for a while and then return? (I'm not thinking of the exceptional Farrell or about those who, for whatever reasons, are discouraged into leaving.)
One who jumps immediately to mind is Ethan Stiefel, who spent a year in Europe and returned to NYCB, before moving on to ABT, frequent guesting and now Ballet Pacifica. Given his star-at-birth status, he may fit the Farrell-type exception category, though.

Robert LaFosse, who started at ABT and moved to NYCB, took time to be Tony in Jerome Robbins' Broadway, but that's probably not what you're thinking of.

Link to comment
Does this work in the other direction? Are NYCB dancers able to go elsewhere for a while and then return? (I'm not thinking of the exceptional Farrell or about those who, for whatever reasons, are discouraged into leaving.)

Edwaard Liang recently did this -- left for Broadway and came back. This pattern seems more common than going to another ballet company.

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...