Michael Goldbarth

Joined: 28 May 2000
Posts: 771
Location: Stouffville, Ontario, Canada
Posted: 09 Jul 2005 05:47 pm Post subject:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I fear the NBoC will price themselves out of the market with the move to the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. As discussed, the costs of presenting ballet will go up due to the new home, more performance dates, as well as more dancers to pay. Right now the single seats range in price from $39 to $133. Single tickets to watch the Toronto Maple Leafs range in price from $37 to $182! Here’s my prediction, the National will charge a nice round figure of 50 clams for the low end seats when the Four Seasons opens for the 2006/2007 season and the top seats will go for a nice fat round figure of $150! Gulp! Imagine coughing up $150 to see ‘the contract!’ Of course, seasons tickets will be goosed up as well! Below is what I see 6 Evening Performances costing:

# 1. $899.50 (Exclusive seating only available to subscribers and those who donate)
# 2. $799.50
# 3. $659.50
# 4. $549.99
# 5. $399.50
# 6. $329.50
# 7. $299.50
# 8. $199.50 (Oxygen mask not included)

Start saving up! I wonder how much fans will donate if seats go up this much? Donations help keep prices down. Goose ticket prices too much and many who donate may stop or drop down a level or 2 or 3. So Karen, what will ticket prices look like at our new venue?

Well, even though others may not have posted, others may not be aware of CriticalDance

Heaven forbid, the National receive constructive criticism. They fail to realize that sometimes bad publicity can sometimes be good in that at least people care enough to express their opinion.

“I also believe it is vitally important that the National Ballet once again assert its place in the lives and general consciousness of the Canadian public. Our company is a national treasure, and we cannot let it recede from the dominant position it has always occupied in the country’s cultural landscape and the hearts of our audience. To this end we need to make strategic investments in audience development and outreach programs. I want to make the experience of great ballet a more instinctive and central part of people’s daily lives both through performances that set the standard for excellence in the arts and through programs that allow us to build and connect with the ballet-going public. All of us, everyone involved with the National Ballet, must be advocates for the company and ambassadors for our art to the community and the nation. The fastest way for our company to lose its direction and sense of purpose is to lose contact with our audience; the best way of ensuring not just our survival, but our centrality and ongoing relevance, is to build bridges to them.”

I winced when I heard NBoC chair David Banks introduce our new AD:“Please join me in welcoming the poster child for dance in Canada and our new artistic director, Karen Kain!”

Not just because I was hoping for someone else to assume the role but because of his choice of words: “Poster Child.” I know the term also has a more positive meaning but Karen Kain is a 54 year old WOMAN and far from a child. She’s about as soft as her name sounds! All this talk about “Canada’s Sweetheart” and “beloved” is a little much for anybody in the know to stomach. Her naïve little ballerina days have long been washed away by the sandcastles of time, battered feet, and a bad back. Karen Kain will be all business and no nonsense in her new role. Beware! Anybody who gets in her way will be paved over by her well greased political and PR machine! Speak against her and you might find yourself wearing cement pointe shoes at the bottom of Lake Ontario!

“…As for Kain, I’m not sure I’d use the word ‘ruthless,’ but anyone who mistakes her genial, good-humoured nature for softness had better watch out. Canada’s ballet sweetheart is no pushover. She may not be ruthless – although it won’t shock me if she turns out to be – but Kain can certainly be, by self-description, ferocious when the need arises.”

“It was only later that I heard from a number of disgruntled dancers that during the revival process Kain had been ‘a perfect …’ You can guess the missing word. ‘She was never satisfied…’”

…Note to Mr. K: Karen Kain has control of the purse strings. He knows this was coming from the time he assumed the role of AD. Now there will come a time when the words “no” will be stated empathically and he will have to accept it. There’s a new sheriff in town and he’s a SHE!

“Europe has never warmed to him and in New York, eyebrows head north if you drop the genius word. ‘Interesting,’ ‘imaginative’ and ‘provocative’ are perhaps more suitable adjectives…’”

“Kudelka’s mixed bills had sold disastrously, and the decision to revive The Contract…also failed to draw the crowds.”

“I have to make the relationship work. It’s part of the job.”

‘damage control.’

Maybe Karen Kain is just what the National Ballet of Canada needs at this moment in its history. The last person you want in this job at this time is a “sweetheart.” If the National needs money or a favor I feel sorry for the politician who denies her. They will be publicly embarrassed. She’s done it before!

Of course, politics and the arts mix like oil and water. Rewind your memory back to November 25th of 1999 for The Political Nutcracker at Queen’s Park. Canada’s prima ballerina, Karen Kain, accompanied by Nutcrackers et Prince to do battle with the king of the rats! How fortunate for mike harris that his goon squad of dirty yellow tory bureaucRats were there to save him from the verbal beating he so richly deserved! I was rather surprised Karen, Prince Rex and her toy soldiers escaped a trip to the hoosegow for endangering the intellect of our premier.

And what an easy debating duck harris would be: “Each dollar The National Ballet of Canada receives from the Ontario Arts Council is matched by more than $9.00 in revenue from other sources. The Arts in Ontario generate over $10 billion in direct and indirect economic activity. Arts employment in Toronto exceeds that in manufacturing, transportation, business, and financial services combined.”

The above were “excerpts” from a letter distributed to ballet goers. Thousands signed, concerned that the $425,000 budget cut might stir Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty into the bottomless cesspool of harris’ Vision of Inhumanity. That’s what Karen et ballet guards wished to drop onto the anti-Santa’s (Unscramble Santa and you have harris’ real name) lap but alas me thinks it was busy with other national concerns: The only kind of dancing he understands. It shouldn’t come to a surprise that harris with his wonderful economy for vocabulary would be too afraid to duke it out verbally with an elegant, no nonsense debating pugilist the likes of a Karen Kain. A couple of snappy retorts by Kain and it would have been all over. Just think what would have happened had Karen à la Marie from The Nutcracker hurled her ballet slipper!

...Karen Kain will be as sweet as a triple sour apple martini! Anybody who believes different will be in for a nasty surprise!

…All of her dreams have come true. Some are naïve enough to believe Karen Kain to be a real sweetheart who only dreams sweet dreams. Reality is often more sour than sweet.

“This will mean hiring additional dancers and enlarging the operating budget from $20 million to $23 million.”