Kirk, so what's the scoop on Palmer? Is he retiring or taking a leave of absence from SFB to run Maximum Dance. Surely, he must be doing a lot of dancing and work to keep Maximum Dance going. Any juicy gossip?

The True Hollywood Story (sorry, but I love that show) is David is still dancing the same amount of performances with SFB, but cut a deal to have Helgi work around Maximum. I think he's committed for 22 weeks and he's currently with the Company in London and then on to Belfast.<p>I'll follow this up later. Gotta do the job thing.

I'm back. <p>Okay, back to our saga. David is actually dancing more than he did last year. I know that many people have issues with Helgi, but I have been impressed with bot he and McFall from Atlanta allowing their dancers to perform with us. Helgi's been great working with David on scheduling.<p>After our first performance in Sept, David left the very day of our Sun matinee to fly to DC to perform at the Ken Center, returned to choreograph a new jazz ballet to Brubeck (with live jazz quartet on stage) about 30 minutes long, danced in a very difficult piece by Danny Roessel (res chor for Royal Flemish) and Shogun and then left the next day for SF only to leave 3 days later for London and Belfast. At least he's in shape : )<p>His Co-AD, Yanis Pikeris, is here preparing for our second half of the year ... Feb performance series, Mar/Apr children's program (our original ballet about endangered animals), Apr/May participation with the Fla Grand Opera's Eugene Oneygen (I know I massacred this) and out season finale in June. We are also trying to get some touring dates in the middle and after June. We've got quite a few nibbles, but nothing concrete.<p>David and Yanis have created a great artistic structure, but we also have a great administrative side. Our Treas of the Bd was Pres of Miami City for more than 3 years and his partner, our current Bd Pres, was Mcb's marketing guy. Sorry for the rambling.

Shag,<p>Thanks for the info. I was wondering about Palmer. It seemed like he was doing a lot! And he is!<p>So, I know you're busy but would you consider doing an interview of David or Yanis? Or one of the dancers? If you want, record the interview on a microcassette tape and mail it to me.

We have a number of interesting people involved in the company. Besides David and Yanis (Moscow Gold Medalist, Jackson Silver Medalist), Mryna Kamara is almost full time with us. If you don't know her, she is a frightenly leggy african american woman who has dance with NYCB, MCB and for the past three years, Bejart. Also Staphanie Walz was with ABT for 8 years (also dating Ethan Brown for the past 5) and she decided to spread her wings with us. Tim Meledy, Kirk Peterson's muse in Hartford and founding MCB dancer splits time between us and Hartford and Hiroko ???? is joining the company in Jan and she is a former Jackson Silver Medalist and danced with the Royal Flemish (David connection).<p>Beyond that, Ev Cisneros sets Val's work on us when we do it. I think a great interview might be Elyse Bourne, SFB's new ballet mistress. She's got the opinions regarding "museum" works such as Mr. B dominating a company's rep, and with her background, you have to respect where she's coming from.

Shag,<p>I would love to interview Elyse sometime but we should probably feature someone not affiliated with SFB. Otherwise, we'd get too many SFB personalities on the criticaldance.interviews page.<p>Let me know if you or perhaps someone within the company wants to conduct an interview one of the other celebrities. It doesn't have to be a real interview. You can have two celebs chat about the company and their dancing and record it on a microcassette, for example. Send me email if you want.