DrewCo

51 minutes ago, Xandra Newman said:

I don't know the NYCB at all and have found all the above posts interesting to read.

 

When you say NYCB has limited rehearsal time and a massive rep (so does The Royal Ballet in London), and that it is hard for junior dancers to make debuts that leave lasting impressions...the AD at the RB manages to give his most talented junior dancers debut opportunities and they do leave lasting impressions, why wouldn't NYCB be able to do so too? 

Although I only get to see the company occasionally, I just wanted to remark that I've seen some quite remarkable debuts at New York City Ballet in recent years--certainly I won't soon forget Laracey's debut in the second ballerina role in Concerto Barocco last spring!  She danced the first ballerina role just a few weeks later but unfortunately I wasn't in NY to see it; I certainly read praise for it. (Other debuts that I missed have been very warmly received -- including by dancers such as Indiana Woodward and Roman Mejia--who was also mentioned by Stella above as "doing well" when she made her comment.)

In other cases I have seen dancers grow in a role pretty quickly. Huxley did fine with an early performance of Four Temperaments I saw a little over a year ago--he had made his debut shortly before--but a year later, this past spring, he seemed to me still much better. I'd say that's a good thing...no debut by a serious artist is going to be the whole story.

People who see the company more often than I may see more mixed results across the board with debuts...and NYCB has a long history of throwing very inexperienced dancers on stage in major roles -- I was rather charmed by Miriam Miller's Titania debut just out of school a few years back, and Sara Mearns' Odette-Odile when she was new to the corps de ballet, and which I did not see, made her something of a star from the get go. The company also has a long history of asking people to sub on very little notice. I don't doubt the results must be mixed sometimes and the company faces challenges, but I'm not sure one should get the impression (or that Stella intended to give the impression) that that the company hasn't also fielded some very successful debuts in recent years.

Russell Janzen at least is tall. I have only seen him a couple of times, but when I saw him most recently found his dancing rather beautiful.  But no doubt the situation heightens the sense that this is a time of transition at the company....

(I actually think Stanley has real "star" quality, but as you say, he is not especially tall.)

Thank you both —

1 hour ago, Legseleven said:

 

Which cast did you see for your third Swan Lake, by the way? 

In addition to the Lamb-Hirano and Nunez-Muntagirov casts, we saw Osipova-Ball. 

Headed back to U.S. wanted to say thanks to everyone who advised me on seating at ROH. I have been to the opera house a very few times over the years but usually picking up seats rather haphazardly whereas this trip I could plan more carefully. 

I said above I would write some of my positive thoughts about what Scarlett has done. Truthfully, as a fan, I still sometimes miss many aspects of the David Blair Swan Lake of my childhood, a production he did for American Ballet Theatre, and that I infer was closely based on the Royal Ballet’s Swan Lake of that era. And, when I think about my ‘idea’ of Swan Lake, I do see it partly as a nineteenth-century fantasy about the middle ages which that production seemed to me to capture. Scarlett and Mcfarlane have a different idea (call it a twenty-first century fantasy about the end of the nineteenth). Accepting that vision when I came to the theatre and also accepting that this wasn’t a turn back the clock—or in any way pious— revival, I found this Swan Lake quite powerful, and the company’s dancing likewise. I’ve already noted my caveats about the ending, but many other aspects seem to me to work fabulously well. Just one example:  integrating the dancers of the pas de trois into the narrative really worked for me and seemed to speak to the production’s overall intentions. When Siegfried’s two sisters exit in Act I, I just loved seeing the attending court ladies wrapping them in their cloaks. I instantly felt what a stifling sheltered world Siegfried lived in, even if a prince has options princesses don’t. And it was entirely natural to see them return in Act III which proved an organic way to get some more classical dancing into the ballroom scene. At least that was my reaction.

Since I began by mentioning seating, I will add that I saw the production from three different locations, and had a very different experience of the ballroom scene depending on whether I was somewhat on the left side of the theater or somewhat on the right. In the former case I was staring right into the gleaming golden wall behind the throne. The glare of the light bouncing off that wall kind of dominated everything else—even from the balcony I found it almost distractingly shiny. From the other angle, looking into the silvery-toned wall opposite the throne  I felt I got a better sense of the vast architecture of the scene as a whole. Both were striking, but I did prefer that Act from the right.

I usually write about performances on my American ‘home board’ so to speak, and I may write something more there — there is certainly a ton to write about —but people here were helpful to me planning this trip, and reading this thread also helped prepare me for the production, so I thought I would chime in with some reactions. But people who see the Royal Ballet all the time are bound to see things in the production and the dancing I don’t. My dates in London were dictated by my partner’s work taking him to London and I therefore missed some dancers I would like to have seen, but I was very well satisfied with all three (very different) Odette-Odiles I saw and the quality of dancing from the entire company. And if the dancing of the big swans is anything to go by, then the company has a number of potentially excellent new Odette-Odiles in the offing too.

1 hour ago, bridiem said:

Back from seeing Sarah Lamb dance Odette/Odile for the second time this week. Absolutely bowled over by her beautiful, pure, crystalline dancing, her absolute commitment to the role....Not a hint of showiness or histrionics, but real drama and feeling expressed in every inch of her body.

 

 

Exactly how I felt about Lamb when I saw her Tuesday. (And thank you for your kind words posted above.)

Have seen the production twice now and been very impressed. There is a great deal to praise both about the entire production and the company’s dancing —Wednesday, in particular, to mention just one element and not the most important, I thought the ensemble of male soldiers in Act I showed a preternatural discipline worthy of the military combined with an elegance worthy of ballet dancers that was really extraordinary. (Strong Tuesday, too, but Wednesday every angle of every fingernail seemed to cohere across the ensemble.) But I am forced to agree with many posts above about the problems with the production’s ending. I found the final scene almost impossible to make sense of the first time I saw the ballet Tuesday even though I had read reviews, the synopsis, and descriptions here on this discussion board. 

I made better sense of it Wednesday, but am still not convinced by it, though much else Scarlett has done appeals to me greatly.  For starters Odette slides off the cliff almost before one has registered she is there (this was true with both Lamb and Nunez and seems to have to do with the way it is timed to the music). Siegfried appears to have been killed by Rothbart, and with Odette’s death the swan maidens suddenly seem, not so much freed from their spell as really pissed off at Rothbart, who—running onto the cliff after Odette, looked to me on Tuesday as if HE were going to join her in a double suicide. After Rothbart’s death the swan maidens go to revive Siegfried —a touch I liked except that he stll lay unconscious for a few more seconds. Having achieved their freedom (according to synopsis) they then simply fall back into swan-maiden formations, and Siegfried walks into the darkness of the Lake, which is both puzzling (is he going to drown himself in the manner of Woolf?) and visually anti-climactic. It is also just a very odd moment in the music for him to disappear upstage into shadow and has no visual weight at all, especially since he has only just returned to consciousness. He returns with Odette-as-princess, and just as one infers her corpse’s human dress is supposed to signal her freedom from Rothbart’s spell in death, her truly free spirit appears in swan-maiden image—an image that is human, yes, but as she appeared when still under Rothbart’s spell and “swan-like”)—this image is visually striking and makes emotional sense but still seems odd if her returned humanity is signified by her Princess-dress....and in the meanwhile, the freedom won for the other swan maidens —which is what gives her sacrifice meaning — isn’t clearly visuallized at all, as at the end they are neatly lined up much as if they were still a corps of enchanted maidens so we can better appreciate Siegfried’s isolated sorrow. It is Scarlett’s staging so I assume that Siegfried’s sorrow and sense of loss is what he cares about, but I would have found it more compelling if the new freedom was somehow more clearly part of the tableau. (Not through changes of costume, but the corps’ stance and port de bras).That is, I would prefer it in the context of this ending. Like some others here, I really would prefer to see an entirely different ending —I love the double suicide and lovers united in land of the dead...But uh...I’m no choreographer.

Both nights I have attended so far—the dancing was so powerful, and not just from the leads—that I found the staging effective anyway, but for that very reason could very much wish the final meaures made greater sense to me EVEN on their own terms telling the story Scarlett wants to tell and not trying to imagine it differently. 

I will add that I think Scarlett seems drawn to complex, busy narrative scenes—Act III closes on multiple focal points with Rothbart grabbing the crown, Odile laughing entirely separately in triumph, Siegfried rushing upstage towards Odette.... And I felt my eye drawn in three different directions at once. But we do get to identify with the Queen at the very end when she is left alone on stage as if crying out her bafflement at everything that just happened. At the end of the ballet, it’s as if we don’t quite have time to sort out the different climaxes and make them cohere. Or at least that was how I felt.

This is very long...I will try to post my many positive reactions separately.

8 hours ago, Lizbie1 said:

 

DrewCo, I'm really looking forward to reading your thoughts on Swan Lake, whatever they may be - please post them when you're ready!

Thank you.  I usually post rather detailed reports on what I see on my “home” board (BalletAlert) which is more North-America-centric, but will try to say something here. Probably when my trip is over and I can sit at a keyboard.

I am certainly happy to be seeing the production in its premier season....and am also trying to catch up with much of the talent mentioned in this thread.

On 30/05/2018 at 23:46, capybara said:

In tonight's gala, Fumi Kaneko shone especially brightly in Symphony in C - every inch a Principal-in-waiting.

On 31/05/2018 at 00:12, Xandra Newman said:

Didn't see her tonight but I like Fumi Kaneko a lot too. Beautiful dancer she is. 

I do hope she stays injury free after having suffered two very bad injuries which slowed her down. 

I can’t comtribute to the main point of discussion, but having recently arrived in London for a visit went to the first of three Swan Lakes last night and think I am now a Kaneko fan. Certainly will be looking out for her at future performances. Actually, when I opened my program and saw the names of so many dancers unfamiliar to me in the secondary featured  roles (other than Magri whom I know from video) I gave up trying to keep track of who was who and just watched ‘purely’ so to speak, uninfluenced by having read that ‘xyz’ was one to watch etc. I enjoyed the dancing of both of the two featured ‘big’ swans, but in Act II, one in particular kept drawing my eye over and over...when I checked my program I saw that the dancer was Fumi Kaneko. 

Since I'm going to see this ENB production, I had recently looked up old reviews of it.  Both Judith Mackrell and Mark Monahan wrote that the ENB production is the 1986 Macmillan production for American Ballet Theatre -- which the company bought in 2005 -- and which I had inferred was not the same as the 1973 Royal production. (Monahan is pretty explicit about this, but doesn't specify the differences. He also says the ABT sets were eventually replaced with sets more suitable for touring.)

The Macmillan website sent me to a page about the 1973 production even when I clicked on a link to Sleeping Beauty from a list of ballets and productions from 1977-1992.  But when I did a separate search via Google I got to this page:

https://www.kennethmacmillan.com/the-sleeping-beauty-2/

For upbeat ballets with more narrative or character elements...one can look back to the repertory of the touring 'Ballet Russes' companies (de Monte Carlo and "original" Ballet Russes) -- eg  Massine's Gaîté Parisienne and David Lichine's Graduation Ball.  But I don't think either is done too often nowadays...and they require a performing style rather different from that of today's dancers.

Recent narrative ballets that are light or comic include several by Ratmansky; I'm thinking of Bright Stream, Little Humpbacked Horse, and Whipped Cream...All very fun and though the first is not without some serious irony in its depiction of Soviet collective farms in the 1930's (cough), it is also laugh-out-loud funny in spots, really a farce. Will these works last?   I've enjoyed all three, but still couldn't say. The first two do at least seem to have a regular spot in their respective companies' repertories; Whipped Cream (which I loved) premiered just last year with American Ballet Theatre, and did well at the box office. If it's successful again this year, then I expect we will see it revived pretty regularly. Next week Ratamansky's reconstruction of Petipa's commedia dell'arte Harlequinade premiers with ABT. (At New York City Ballet, Ratmansky's witty -- and strange -- Namouna has an implicit rather than explicit narrative. I think it one of his most wonderful works, but I'm not sure if its craziness counts as light in the way RichardLH intends.)

Among better known, established works--Ashton's The Dream has already been mentioned and several Balanchine ballets, but not, I think, Balanchine's Midsummer Night's Dream. Balanchine also choreographed his own version of Harlequinade -- in the "spirit" of Petipa, but not a reconstruction. And from Ashton's joyful narrative ballets I'd include Sylvia along with those already mentioned, though it does have some serious underlying themes as most lighthearted ballets do.  And, from the nineteenth century, in addition to Napoli, two other joyful and comic Bournonville narrative works that I'd love to see the Royal Danish Ballet continue to revive are A Folk Tale and Guards at Amager. I don't think they are very likely to make it into the International repertory though.

I suppose one might ponder why a certain type of narrative comic ballet isn't always easily assimilable to the "international" repertory.  (Not just certain Bournonville works. Bright Stream makes more sense at the Bolshoi than it did at American Ballet Theatre.) And though one can come up with a list of more cheerful, bright narrative ballets, it's probably still true that only a few have the hold on the international repertory and people's imaginations that, say, Giselle does. Coppelia was mentioned above. When I was a child, I was encouraged to think of Coppelia as ballet's classic, comic masterpiece--a Twelfth-Night to Giselle's Hamlet. Probably a well-known critic or dance historian referred to it that way, and others here may remember who...Certainly, a great performance of Coppelia is one of the happiest times at the ballet I know. 

I bought my tickets way back in October -- and if nothing untoward interferes with my plans--I will be there the night Alexandrova is making her guest appearance. I'm eager to see the whole company (I haven't seen them since they were the Festival ballet and touring the U.S. with Nureyev) but I can't help but be kind of tickled!

45 minutes ago, BeauxArts said:

32 fouettes, sur place, well-executed from a technical perspective, no doubles or triples, would be very fine to see. 

I find well-executed, on the music singles preferable to doubles and triples less well-executed. But actually in Swan Lake, I think I prefer singles anyway. Even well executed doubles and triples tend to slow things down—which can actually be less viscerally exciting especially when the relation to the music gets distorted. And when just a few doubles and triples are thrown in the mix arbitrarily—as opposed to a regular pattern of alternating singles and doubles or some such—it even undermines the image of Odile as magically in control of her seductive powers. A triple can look like ‘luck’ if it’s just arbitrarily inserted now and then.  Fast, powerful singles with the working leg kept close to ninety degrees can be very exciting (assuming the upper body isn’t a tense mess).

Leaving fouettes out of a full length Swan Lake altogether? I much prefer to see them, but the right ballerina can make a powerful case for allowing some leeway. Among ballerinas I have seen live, I hugely admired Maria Kowroski’s Odette/Odile at New York City Ballet and the two times I saw her dance the role she did an alternate sequence of turns around the stage.

7 hours ago, Paul Arrowsmith said:

Circles?

 

You just have to look at Ashton's choreography - Sleeping Beauty waltz, Cinderella, Daphnis among more - to appreciate how magical circles can be.

 

 

In the stagings I've seen, Giselle has a magical circle too. Of course, it's being used to murder someone. So, from a aesthetic point of view "good" magic; from a plot point of view...not so much.

The dim/dark lighting of many new works fills me with dismay. I'm a pretty "happy" ballet fan -- that is, ready to enjoy a lot of different things. But when I see a ballet lit as if for an audience of cats, I all but want to walk out.

On a less grumpy note:

I was able to watch the youtube video of the rehearsal of this Bernstein program, and I've enjoyed reading about it here. I couldn't help but be struck by the fact the Royal Ballet is doing an all Bernstein program this spring and, say, American Ballet Theater isn't.  But perhaps there will be something in the Fall. New York City Ballet is pretty focused on its Robbins festival in the spring and will be dancing Fancy Free as part of that.

I'll add that I liked the Age of Anxiety when the Royal brought it to the U.S. a few years ago. Musical theater? Sure...I'd have said very good musical theater that only ballet artists could pull off quite so well. The revisionary relationship to Fancy Free made it more not less interesting to me. I'd have to see it again to judge how I thought it held up...

Watching the rehearsal, I found myself also rather curious about Wheeldon choosing the same piece of music for his ballet as Ratmansky did for his Serenade after Plato's Symposium which premiered in 2016. I can speculate that Wheeldon would say, if asked, that this was coincidence. And, of course there are a finite number of dance-able Bernstein scores etc. But it is still interesting to me especially since the Ratmansky was very well-received -- I thought deservedly so, and it's hard for me to believe that choreographers of that stature aren't sometimes aware of, and sometimes even responding to, each other. But in this case, who knows? (This isn't a knock I expect serious artists to be aware of others in their field and responding to them.)

On 2/11/2018 at 10:48, Amelia said:

Last night at a gala in St. Petersburg Melissa danced with Bolle a duet from 'Caravaggio':

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R5-cXwMDwU&t=118s

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GeHWZFg7_t6aLKpV8MgVVikXO5YdY0Gg/view

Another thank  you from me for the video from the gala -- I had missed this.

An outsider here, but wanted to say I can’t help but be happy at this news, though I am sure there are other very deserving figures and...uh...I know that not everyone is a fan. I guess this speaks to Bussell’s international reputation which has been mentioned. The first time I saw her was when she appeared with NYCB in Agon (when she danced the whole ballet) and I remember how electrified the audience was. During intermission, it was not just a tiny number of fans talking about her—it almost seemed as if everyone in the audience was looking at each other excitedly and feeling compelled to say something. In the ladies room strangers were nodding to each other and saying how great the performance had been. The person sitting in front of me had arrived late and was seated at the end of intermission after Agon had been danced only to have the person next to her glance over and ask in an almost horrified tone (if not very considerately) “you missed THAT?!?” This response was not about star quality (though she had that) but a presentness, alertness, and musical responsiveness in her dancing  that made her seem absolutely fresh and in the moment in a way that for me, and some others, even recalled Farrell while still being completely distinctive. At the time, there was a lot of unease at how Balanchine was being danced in the wake of his death and I suspect her success had an extra frisson because of that as well.  Later I very much admired and enjoyed her dancing in other repertory with both NYCB and the Royal Ballet — though I saw her much less than many here and, if it weren’t for this website wouldn't even have known about her television career — but that first time she danced Agon in its entirety with NYCB is also just a special memory for the sheer excitement of discovery experienced in the theater with so many others.

3 hours ago, Lizbie1 said:

 

I haven't yet received my copy of the Friends' magazine, but without knowing who wrote the article in question or its exact wording I'd say it's possible that there's some marketing/journalistic hyperbole going on. Most writers would be unaware of (or not particularly concerned about) the terror those words would strike in some quarters and are merely thinking that talking about "an entirely new fourth act" will generate interest.

 

[…]

The word “terror” made me laugh...but I have to admit that in my case it is kind of the right word. But I think your analysis sounds sensible. At any rate, it should help me sleep more soundly  .

Thank you very much for posting this. I am organizing an entire trip to London around seeing this production with multiple casts and honestly had not imagined quite so much tweaking of the traditional libretto/staging as the list above implies. One or two of the tweaks even recall the Grigorovich Swan Lake--which, let's just say, is not my favorite. Honestly, I hope I've got that wrong. And I guess it's just as well to be prepared. But at least we do know how Tchaikovsky and Petipa/Ivanov ended the ballet. I would have said that it's nothing so 'earthly' as happy or sad. It's sacrificial and transcendent and that's what one hears in the music too. I'm hoping to see that on stage...

(And, of course, whatever the production, I'm also super looking forward to seeing many of the Royal Ballet's dancers whom I have seen very little in recent years and that little in 20th-21st-century choreography.)

16 hours ago, Mary said:

 

 

Not just dancers but, sheer spectacle, beauty makes me cry- Midsummer Night's Dream always. The end of Symphony in C. Anything with  a procession in it.

Not just sorrowful or touching scenes- [...

 

 

 

I don't much cry at the ballet and like several others I am often most moved by sheer beauty, especially in a dancer I consider very "pure" in style on the one hand or very "intense" and in-the-moment on the other.  Or both--and, in fact, the dancer who brought me closest to tears no matter what the role seemed like "both" to me: Gelsey Kirkland. I'm also very moved by choreography I find particularly compelling in its musicality. Spectacle can sometimes move me as well--and grand 'processional' dancing like the rousing polonaise at the end of Theme and Variations. In Ratmansky's Whipped Cream, the parade of fantastical creatures coming to rescue the sick boy in Act II makes me feel like an over-excited child.

But the one thing I keep coming back to when reading people's responses to this question is that I am always deeply moved--and have even once or twice gotten teary--when the Lilac Fairy intervenes to soften Carabosse's curse in the prologue of Sleeping Beauty and then a bit again at the end of Act I when she reappears to confirm the power of her protective spell and summon the forest. I won't say that it doesn't matter who dances the Lilac Fairy or what the production...but it almost doesn't matter. So I assume it's the music-and-mime-and-story in tandem that affect me so much. 

22 hours ago, SPD444 said:

I wonder if we are not being over critical about the “story” being silly. No one accuses Wagner’s ring cycle of being a silly story but that’s about Gods and stuff. Personally, I loved the music; the corps danced beautifully, Vadim didn’t have much to do but did it really well and Nela was wonderful; total command of the stage, I am not an Ashton expert but it looked pretty good to me and that smile is just fantastic.

I'm envious reading all these reports...I have only seen Ashton's Sylvia with ABT--I wish I could see it with the Royal. I love this ballet. And reading this thread, I found myself wondering  not about Wagner exactly, but about other mythological and/or faux-Renaissance paintings and poems from the 18th and 19th centuries. Artists often work with outdated materials that, on one level, neither they nor their audiences take seriously anymore. Though on other levels they might.

Ashton seems to be conjuring what was already in the nineteenth century an ironic and sensual appropriation of Renaissance material that had itself appropriated much older materials. (Floss made what I understood as a related point, but in terms of ballet history.) Nor are the themes of the material all that silly. I love the way Terpsichore is poised at the center of the goddesses in the ballet's final tableau as if to say "Dance" is the force that can bring together all the opposing energies let loose in this ballet whether Diana with Eros or the discipline of agriculture (the human workers or the goddess Demeter) with Bachanalian excess.  In dance, in ballet, these are all fused.

All the times I have seen Sylvia (not all equally good performances of course) I thought it managed to feel urbane and other-worldly all at once. It seems serious because of its playfulness not in spite of it. And always joyful. The story feels part of that--not as key as the fusion of the ballet's music and choreography, but I would have said not dispensable either.

13 hours ago, LinMM said:

I think much more interesting for Polunin fans will be the new film on Nureyev "The White Crow" being filmed next year mentioned on another thread here.

He is not playing Nureyev but a dancing friend of Nureyev in this film.

Yes, as discussed upthread also, he is playing Yuri Soloviev—who was himself one of the great male dancers of the 20th century. Soloviev may be reduced to “dancing friend” in the film of course, but he was a very special dancer.

3 hours ago, alison said:

 

Well, "many" may have done, but I didn't, so thank you for that, DrewCo.  I'll add it to the Special Offers forum.  I assume it's an "early bird" offer.

Yes--I believe it is. 

Not exactly about attending ROH--but I learned through this forum that the same week I am planning to see Swan Lake with the Royal, the English National Ballet is dancing Macmillan's staging of Sleeping Beauty at the Coliseum.  One of my favorite ballets and a production (and a company) I have never seen, so I am pleased all round. Since tickets are already on sale, I have already bought tickets for two performances that don't conflict with any Royal Swan Lakes. Now I'm hoping nothing happens to upend my travel plans....As many of you may already know, the Coliseum has posted a discount code SLEEP2018 -- which knocks 20% off the price of tickets. 

Macmillan's Mayerling has had its first performance by an American company--the Houston Ballet. I'm posting about it here mostly because the premier has taken place under rather poignant and unusual circumstances as one might expect given the devastation visited on the city by Hurricane Harvey a very few weeks ago.  The company normally appears in the Wortham Center which was badly damaged by the storm, and will be closed for a while. But they found an alternative venue that seems to have been workable. They still had to cancel a number of planned performances, but the premier took place with the Mayor of the City in attendance and I think there will be three more performances. (I'm not a local, so I don't know if the Mayor usually attends Houston Ballet premiers or not.) Anyway, here is a review/report on the performance. Presumably a lot of goodwill is involved in reviewing the home-town company under these circumstances, but it sounds like a fine performance:

http://houston.culturemap.com/news/arts/09-23-17-houston-ballets-mayerling-surges-above-the-storm/#slide=0

On 9/13/2017 at 10:17, capybara said:

It's interesting that the summer season at the Coliseum completely coincides with the RB's new Swan Lake at the ROH.

I am hoping I will be in London for the first time in several years this June--so it's a happy coincidence for me!

11 hours ago, annamk said:

 

[...]

 

Re Yermakov I was reflecting that he, Shklyarov and Stepin all gave much better accounts of themselves in their second principal performances & I wondered whether it just takes a performance to get used to the non raked RoH stage ? 

I think dancers often take a bit to settle in (so to speak) on tour. But I'm not sure the rake is the issue as the Mariinsky dancers now dance regularly on the unraked Mariinsky II stage.