Hi!
Tidbits on interesting things going on at NYCB:

Two young conductors are coming to NYCB as part of the artists-in-residence program. Carolyn Chi-An Kuan is from Taiwan and Daniel Wachs is from Israel.

Also, highly reccomended in the NY Choreogrpahic Institute Symposium, which this year will be on Balanchine. The panel includes Francia Russell, Kent Stowell, Peter Martins, and Violette Verdy.
It takes place on March 23 from 6-8pm at the Walter Reade Theater, and is free, but you must call 212-870-4060 or e-mail NYChoreoInst@nycballet to make a reservation.

I attended the symposium on Ashton last year and found it a wonderful experience. Drinks and nibbles are served afterwords.

More information on these tidbits and other news can be found at http://www.nycballet.com/programs/whatsnew.html

As for the Gottleib review....to each his/her own, but the majority of reviews this season seem to be much more positive. Whether it be dance or music or a book or even a school assignment, you're never going to please everyone!
Kate

Well, it seems like Saratoga is reconsidering... for um 2007...

MORE

Here's one I missed when I was AWOL. The interesting thing is that this is the first New York review for Stroman's new work, as far as I can tell. I would have expected a flurry of newsy articles

Lost in Translation
Susan Stroman tries to follow Balanchine across the high-low border at City Ballet, but doesn’t speak the language. By Laura Shapiro for New York Metro


During the thirties, before he had the resources to establish a permanent ballet company, George Balanchine started accepting gigs on Broadway. By the fifties, he had choreographed some fifteen productions, including On Your Toes, Babes in Arms, and Cabin in the Sky. He also managed to alter the way contributions like his were listed in the program. Traditionally, the credit read “Dances by . . . ” Balanchine had it changed to “Choreography by . . . ”

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Efficient Sleeping Beauty Lacks Magic and Majesty
by Robert Gottlieb for The NY Observer

The Tchaikovsky-Petipa Sleeping Beauty is the jewel of classical ballet. It was the ballet that awoke in Pavlova the desire to be a dancer. It was the first ballet that Balanchine appeared in, aged 10, awakening him, too, to the glory of the art—until then, he had only performed his classroom exercises mechanically and with no sense of why he was doing them.

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Very interesting article...

I had no idea that Ansanelli had such severe scoliosis, and am amazed that she was able to keep her condition a secret for so long. Having your height shift up to an inch each day is no small issue, and must be a challenge for partners.

Many people with scoliosis that bad either need a brace or surgery, but perhaps Ansanelli's ballet training allowed her to stay fit and stretched enough to avoid treatments.

Cheers
Kate

Ms Jacobs is not a fan:

Stromanizing
by Laura Jacobs for New Criterion

Not a pièce d’occasion. Not a thirty-minute movement sonnet, a pure-dance project that the deep-pocket producers on 42nd Street would never get. No, Martins has given Stroman the whole stage for an entire program. Not even Jerome Robbins, the most brilliant Broadway choreographer of the last sixty years, and a resident choreographer at NYCB for many of those years, got the whole enchilada at the State Theater.

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