Bruce Wall

My word that's a lot of nominations for Tiler. I'm sure she'll be delighted - and surprised! Very happy too that she's back dancing again in the NYCB Spring Season.

@Jeannette, happily Ratmansky's Solitude - a true masterwork IMHO - will be repeated in the NYCB '24/25 season. It is a work I'm confident will withstand any one nation's time; one whose rich choreographic heart will beat long beyond you and certainly me.

I find seven a good (well, refreshing in comparison) number ... The SL is for two weeks (14 performances) at the end of the '25 NYCB Winter Season and MSND is - as per tradition - at the end of the Spring season (another 7 performance outing). It is always The Nutcracker that arms itself to match the RB records. It will - as usual - have 43 performances - all in one concentrated chunk giving the new NYCB intakes plenty of opportunity to show their fanciful wares.

One definitely positive aspect to the new NYCB season is (a) the regimentation of all evening curtain times to 7.30 pm [previously the Friday and Saturday evening slots were 8pm] and - in response to NYCB audience requests - (b) a reduction - in the majority of cases - from two interval programmes to one. This should ensure that the similar quality is delivered within a more minimum time frame. I would imagine that this would mean the majority of performances will end just before or very near 10 pm from EVERYONE's perspective. Very healthy for family and working life. Well done, Wendy and Jonathan.

Here's the NYT's coverage - but that will, of course, be covered by a paywall.

Here's a Broadway World overview - I think this is available for most UK readers.

Sure a press release will follow shortly. The calendar is not a bad way to look at it. You can click on the different programme's titles and see a list of the works to be performed.

Sorry, @Estreiiita but - at least for me - this link is not working.

Details here - includes new Ratmansky and new Peck and three full-lengths: Coppelia, Swan Lake and Midsummer Night's Dream.

I think NYCB is a definite exception to the above stated rule - and, quite frankly, always has been. Apprentices are often thrown into the deep end VERY QUICKLY and DANCE A LOT - but then the Company dances more rep per annum than any other Company on earth. That stamina is built into them at SAB - which is why Balanchine always insisted that any dancer joining the Company from outside (and they are extremely few and far between for very significant reason) would spend six months at SAB - just to be fair to them. It is VERY different in that regard from any of the other Companies referenced.

Dave, I fear this British attitude has long been the sad - but all too real - case. Being actively involved in this area within this isle - as well as being privileged to be active in many other parts of the world - I proactively see the results of this with vibrant effect. I've simply given up here I fear and accepted what you write as now a simple fact of life - That way nothing really surprises. The 'universal (British) THEY' have forced such sadly. These things seem NOT to alter. It is especially sad given this country's previous history of precedent setting. Sadly, you can't live on that - as much as some STILL try. Things really came into focus for me when Oxford made Shakespeare an 'elective' for English degrees in the latter part of the last century. This is one of the few countries on earth where you can have a degree in the English language and - in practice - never actively have touched the Bard. The results speak for themselves I fear - and will long after I'm gone. There are some things that you simply can't 'buy back'.

Source This could be exciting for Companies in the UK - Perhaps, say, London City Ballet. There are many Robbins' works that have never been seen in this country. I would be curious to see how much 'say' the Robbins' estate will have in the selection however. Up until now they have been really quite strict.

I went to the matinee after the Sadler's premiere. It was all that I could get a ticket for and was grateful at that. I had to rearrange my schedule to make it I remember. I really wanted to like this after all the response here and the hype. I really wanted it to be a hopeful marker for BRB's new leadership. I found it tawdry and boring. It was bitterly disappointing. You'd have to pay me to see it again. Best wishes to those who love it.

Really admired this endeavour and it had so many imaginative touches and adorable spirit. It's always wonderful to be able to really appreciate the core Petipa constructs. We so often only see it obscured. I was so grateful to be able to see the Paquita in Munich that Fullington worked on with Ratmansky. It was such a lovely production which a later Russian Director of that Company sadly had destroyed. I loved the use of demi-pointe to give speed. Balanchine definitely played with this as well. Thought the final principal couple were by some distance the strongest but all the 'Nikki's' were able dancers - and could 'move'. The highlight for me was really Larry Moore's orchestrations. No question. I adored them. Here was an idiosyncratic score that had been 'opened up' rather than obscured - or 'covered over' in the Martin West/Royal tradition. The idea - let alone the buoyant reality - of this is a massive gift. There is so much that should be tackled not just from an Asian perspective but from a 'Meetoo' one in these regards as well. Blessedly our world IS - or certainly can and SHOULD BE - a different one. I wonder, will people look back and see this as a kind of '19th Century Shakespeare' treatment moment? I won't be about ... but I would so love to know.

Geoff, here is a note that Doug has put up on the American equivalent to BcoF (not sure that we are allowed to mention that name here) which will give you an answer: - Other performance will also be streamed (Saturday, March 30 @ 2:00 and 7:30 PM EDT), and I believe the streams (once edited) will be available for viewing on the same site for several weeks after the performances.

Some hereabouts might be interested in this Celebration of the late, great Arthur Mitchell - legendary NYCB dancer and founder of the Dance Theater of Harlem who would have turned 90 on 27th of this month. This is one of the Studio 5 presentations from New York's City Center and is available for free on demand until 9th April. It features the wonderful NYCB principal Chun Wei Chan doing the Agon PDD which Mitchell originated. He's a lovely dancer. It starts with a little film about Mr. Mitchell's involvement in inspiring the Chance to Dance programme for the Royal.

One thing I think we know - as I believe it has already been announced (albeit delayed from its original intention) - is Wayne McGregor's MADDADDAM, yet another co-production with the National Ballet of Canada. Let's hope that this can/will prove the same success that Woolf Works and The Dante Project have been with their dedicated audiences and then the Royal Company will have a contemporary three-act triad to go with their established MacMillian triptych - one that so cleverly seeded the formation of the former. That would be a major achievement no question - and one that will decorate the name of the current Director forever more in terms of dance history.

Think you might be surprised, Ian. Lots of rattlers on the loose in the 1930's wild west I should have thought - even on Hollywood sound stages. I can understand not wanting to make the heroine quite so passive .... I just hope the ending is not quite so misappropriated in terms of the strength of the heroine's character as was the case in Rojo's take on Raymonda. That was definitely one of its weak points. I think a 'Singing in the Rain' kind of triangle - as they suggest here - could actually work quite well - whilst maintaining the core choreographic patterns we all cherish 'La Bayadere' for. If this is a success I wonder if they will then tackle Le Corsaire. I'm certain Susan Jaffe will be all ears. How wonderful that this university has the wherewithal to fund - in terms of cash and personnel - such an exciting challenge - and to bring so many key departments together to do so. With 68 core dancers alone that's quite an ask.

That specific element was not mentioned - but you could tell from some of the photographs that dedicated elements of the ballet (like the spectacular drum dance) are being maintained and I'm sure with Mr. Fullington being involved that the original choreography and the core constructs of Minkus' score will be honoured in as appropriately judicious a fashion as humanly possible. From the bits of the story that have been reported for 'Star on the Rise' it very much seems as if a flower basket segment too would be very much appropriate here. The elements of jealousy and betrayal are clearly being built into this tale's dramatic fabric.

Source - An article to appear in tomorrow's NYT - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/23/arts/dance/bayadere-revamped-indiana-university.html?searchResultPosition=1 It will be interesting to see how this turns out. I would so love to see this succeed - especially with someone so well versed in the ballet's history as Doug Fullington involved.

That is most interesting. If you look at television, literature, film, etc., that I think simply is not true today .... whereas it may well be true for older Bow Street audiences. There is a comment above on this board that says that MacMillian was ahead of his time. Clearly Different Drummer is OF our time. Listen to the cheers that greeted last night's performance (albeit to a diminished - and from what one hears heavily discounted - house). I think the answer lies somewhere between this bed and MacMillan's chair. I think the perspective in reality deals more with the development of specific companies and how those companies and their dedicated audiences are (and continue to be) built. I don't think this is anything new. There is a (seemingly dying) divide between those dedicated to (and fed upon) seemingly linear narratives (much like the Royal's even now regular rounds of MacMillan's own R&J, Manon and Mayerling - built one assumes with one eye at least on a prospective cash register) and those which deal with more contemporary (so called 'devolving') constructs (like McGregor's Woolf Works and Dante Project). it is instructive to see how these audiences very much differ under one roof. The seed to bring/unite the two under one will always in the Royal's regard the rich legacy of Dame Monica Mason. It may be arguable that she, herself, will have been 'ahead of her time'. I think she probably will have thought she was helping to shape it. Both entities it seems now on many occasions fill. That is key. The audience for the McGregor is noticeably younger. The audience for the dedicated diet for the MacMillan rounds will eventually pass on. The balance I'm convinced will then be different. These items engage in very different ways. Just think of how timelines have changed in terms of editing film. Entities that today are a flick of a switch would have taken a building of equipment in my youth. While I think the balletic warhorses - the Swan Lakes, the Giselles, the Coppelias, the Sleeping Beauties, will continue as the bread and butter - and that well deserved due to their historic markers on the balletic idiom's own shelf - the linear narrative will - indeed has - change beyond recognition. It is already doing so and has for some time. People's comfort with that will depend on the ability to move on. I well understand - especially at my advanced age - how comforting it is to rest in the bowl of the established spoon ... but we must know ... like the Wicked Witch of the West herself ... it is melting. I very much enjoyed this triple bill. This is the kind of programme that the Royal excels at - and rightfully so. They are such extraordinary MacMillan artists. They have been shaped in this regard - this is where you can see them in their comfort zone - this is definingly NOW where they are AT HOME - and, here, you can see why this is the Company has grown into the McGregor focus point for our time. The indicators in works like Different Drummer are just so strong. This is their now accepted strength - whether we like it or not - and, as ever just now - it seems there are a goodly few correspondents about here who struggle (as I have myself at times) - and that - for reasons as noted above - is completely understandable. Dances Concertante delighted in the congress of its wit. Loved the costumes which reminded me somewhat of those for Balanchines' same - (you just have to replace the shimmering helmet tops for the colourful gloves the men wear) - although in construct they are quite different works. There was some strain in the partnering but that is completely understandable given the sudden cast replacements. Joe Sissens really stood out in the clarity of his balletic form I thought - as he did too in the fine final work. When the curtain rose you could appreciate just how small (in terms of world balletic stages that is) the ROH platform actually is - and how gloriously MacMillan addresses that oh, so cozy intimacy. It was - like the gaily epigrammatic music - cheering. It was wonderful to see Different Drummer again after such a long time - and after the rise of McGregor. It now so much more comes into a potent focus and I thought the fine Royal company settled rightfully into its fold. Sambe was as mesmerising a focus as he had been in his debut in Mayerling - only the development of the arc here, perhaps, lies a little more in his own favour. His weight shifts are such a fine contemporary Royal construct. So, so vivid. I thought Whitehead and Hay were simply outstanding. These are roles that in lesser hands could prove disastrous. The balance of artistry employed here is so difficult to achieve. That I well know. Bless Hay for defining the absurdity of the Doctor as a serious construct. He made the irony of the end actually work - and that methinks is no small feat. Serrano - portraying the 'outsider' Drum Major - gave a spectacular debut. Hayward too is such an outstanding MacMillan entity. Here we had all the MacMillan elements - replete with the framed portrayals of depravity and the harlot fields so beloved by time ensured (i.e., long standing) Royal audiences - but with a theatrical shift that in its very alienation can ensure - by virtue of its very intriguing construct - dramatic engagement. This well honours its source materials in manor that other overstretched works simply could never hope to do. Requiem was simply sublime and both Cutherbertson and Hamilton - again such fine, FINE Royal (and therefore MacMillan) artists - ones so, SO very much in the right place - simply shimmered whilst ensuring the potent backbone of this magnificent work ultimately inspired in both their own and crucially its glow. So much to celebrate in this particular evening.

NYCB's Tiler Peck DEFINITELY fits that bill ... Bless her mother, Margaret. She rescued me from a world of prosecution. I had always failed at math much to the disappointment of my father. Then came Algebra. Memory suddenly kicked in for a child who now - at long last - had a name to associate with his sufferings thanks to dear Mrs. Hampshire. Suddenly 'the dunce' came first in a class test. The Master in question refused to believe my result had been achieved without cheating. I was dragged into a separate room with a team of teachers as inquisitors. The questions had angrily been chalked on a board. 'Do it now, Wall' they insisted. I did. Once more I completed the entire test to the strains of their anguished silence - only ever interrupted by discomforted shuffling. There was a substantial pause after I had finished: 'Well, Wall' the response hesitantly came, 'I suppose .... but it is unconventional'. The memory burns in my brain even now ... as does the furious joy of Tiler's pique turns.

There is so much Peck which would have been preferable. Thinking of pieces that would have been appropriate for smaller UK stages I can think of In Creases and Belles Lettres off the top of my head. Still, they were simply making good on a Wells' commission commitment made prior to the pandemic otherwise this little 'tour' I suspect would not have happened at all. After all it occurred right at the short NYCB holiday break period for the dancers following the long Winter Season (and remember they have performances during this period between Tuesday and Sunday with two matinees each week and at least three varying programmes each week). They are back in rehearsal for the Spring Season tomorrow at State Theater and with a greater swathe of the company on tour to Chicago (at the Harris Theater which was the first multi-use cultural unit to open in the US in 1929) over five days the next week following. The Spring Season then runs 23rd April to 2nd June at State Theater with a similar performance schedule and a further two new works premiering following which they go to Washington for their annual Kennedy Center stint and then on to their traditional summer sojourn at Saratoga Springs in Upstate New York. They then have a well deserved break returning mid-August for preparation for the Winter 24/25 NYCB season which leads into Nutcracker with the Winter Season following. The 24/25 season should be announced next month with advance subscriptions being available to established patrons at that time and single tickets for the entire season then being generally available in early August.

Thanks for letting me know, Alison. It's just that I find it most strange that one has it and the other does not. I will send a note and ask there how they managed it. As I say, it is difficult as a dyslexic because you can read something back any number of times and think you see it one way and then on another realise that it simply isn't what you had thought it was in the first place. Everything is every which wya. You can think that words are there that simply aren't and yet you don't see it until its too late. It's been damning me for decades.

Too late with my corrections - have put them here. One thing I don't understand is why the American equivalent to BcoF - which clearly is on the same platform it seems - [e.g., on those occasions when the overall system goes down for BcoF it does the same for the American equivalent as well] - still the latter does NOT have the half hour time limit set for edits. Is this a setting selected by the respective organisers? It suggests that it must be. Just asking. I know as a self respecting dyslexic I am most grateful to be able to go in and correct myself. I will keep seeing things backwards beyond the time limit. Just saying .... Tonight London got Sara - that's Sara Mearns - in her now one and only London performance of this run - in just one of oh, so many NYCB roles that she has originated - and we saw her in the solo variation and the PDD with Gilbert Bolden in Rotunda - (again the originator - and that when he was still in the corps) - and both glittered. Again, this work was commissioned by/for the Wells and I understand it is to be retired after tomorrow by NYCB. Sara is a star in the old-time mold and she thrust forward with the dramatic weight that made the central segment of this work count mightily this evening. Again, this is NOT a programme that would EVER be done in this fashion at State Theater - or anywhere else I would imagine. This is a programme devised by Sir Alistair Spalding and it clearly worked for HIS audience - and the capacity attendance was one of the most heartening things about this little adventure. It made my heart weep when I thought of just how empty SFB had been. Perhaps they too should have been programmed by Spalding. He has clearly built his audience - and they adore him and his taste. I doubt sincerely this will ever happen again in NYCB's regard. There's not much in it for them really. One thing it has proven to me I think is that things are best left in their proper spaces. I so admire MacMillan and McGregor by the Royal Company on the ROH stage. They are built to serve those works and they do so SO very beautifully in their appropriate environment. Balanchine, Robbins, Ratmansky and Peck should stay at State Theater or its equivalent. Each are there - in appropriate spaces - for a very significant reason and their purpose rightfully served with companies expressly trained to honour such - and who do glory - expressly in each particular construct. (For this reason the Rotunda built for the Wells simply swam in the larger climb.) Still, NYCB honoured their commitment - no one can now say that they didn't - which at the time would have been JUST Rotunda and that initially negotiated at some distance before the pandemic. They have at very least done that now with pride .... baring the item below - which I have to confess truly SHOCKED ME. Why? Well, there was something this evening that I have NEVER seen with NYCB before. ONLY IN LONDON it seems. In Love Letter Roman was dancing the role created by SVV. Still, he only did PART of it tonight. In this evening's performance that long central variation at the heart of the work WAS ENTIRELY MISSING. Roman DID do it twice on Thursday - BUT NOT AT ALL TONIGHT. The piece seemed knocked back. I have no idea what's going on - but I have NEVER seen NYCB do any work where part of the core choreography was cut. Certainly there was no announcement. Most strange. Why SVV could not have done the performance - and partner Quinn Starner - as he did Olivia Bell - I have no idea. Heaven knows he would have partnered both of these ladies any number of times in segments of a vast array of works in NYC. Was it to simply have Roman on the performance roster? I assume that segment will be back when SVV does the final performance tomorrow. I sincerely hope someone consulted Mr. Abraham. If not the lack of respect for the material being served is manifold.