Haglund's Heel

Paul Taylor returns to Lincoln Center March 5-24

Tickets go on sale September 17th at the Koch Theater!  Prices have increased only slightly from last year and once again there will be a lot of seats in the orchestra, 1st, and 2nd rings that will be $10 according to the recent PTDC mailing.  Multiple performance discounts for most price levels will be available, too.

Highlights of the spring season will include:

Speaking in Tongues
To Make Crops Grow (premiere)
Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rehearsal)
Eventide
Scudorama
Esplanade
Gossamer Gallants

among many others and a brand new work by Paul Taylor which is being documented through the Create with Taylor program once again this year.  Anyone can follow the creation process by accessing the videos, blog, and pictures that come with a $5 gift which you can register here.  Here's the link to the webpage that describes all of the repertory being danced during 2013 along with musical excerpts.  It is a slight disappointment that Piazzolla Caldera won't be part of the season this year; it always is such a crowd favorite.

The March 6th performance will honor the 25th anniversaries of Speaking in Tongues and Brandenburgs.  Every ticket in the house will be $5.  Purchase information for this special performance will be announced by PTDC on January 14th.

During September and October, many of us will be making repeated visits to the theater for NYCB's fabulous upcoming fall season.  That will be the perfect time to stop by the box office and snatch up choice seats for PTDC spring performances.  Look for this brochure in the lobby.  Buy early.

It is so great that PTDC, NYCB, the Met Opera, and NYPhil are organized enough to be able to sell tickets to spring performances this far ahead of time.  It really helps the arts patron plan.  It would be nice – and considerate – if ABT could do the same.

Look for this brochure at the box office:

 

March for Marcelo

Okay, Everyone, on your feet.  Line up single file.  Ready.  MARCH!

Left!

Left!

Left, Right, Left!

Left!

Left!

Left, Right, Left!

HALT!  Point.  Click.  VOTE!

Vote with all of your devices.  What's at stake?  The makers of the documentary on Marcelo Gomes are in a contest to win valuable advisory consultation with VIPs of the Tribeca Film Festival which would really enhance the film.  It's a hot contest between their film and a film about Greg Louganis, who most of us loved passionately decades ago.  But that was THEN and this is NOW.  What's it going to be?

 

  THIS OR THIS >>>  <<<
ugly dogs                                                                        smart, cute, dancing dog
 

Voting ends 8/31.  Don't waste your vote.

Politicos quick-step at the Queensland Ballet

We probably wouldn't laugh much if it happened here –– if, say, David Koch held secret meetings with Republican elected officials at his ABT or NYCB studios to map out "strategy" out of the public's eye and away from the media's attention.  But since it probably hasn't happened here, but HAS happened elsewhere halfway across the globe, we can take a moment away from our laser-focused telescopic sights on the RNC's convention coverage in Tampa to be slightly amused.

Down in Queensland, Australia, Premier Campbell Newman, who by the way has formed an advisory panel to figure out how to cut all the "red tape" in the gun permit process so that his government can get guns into the hands of its citizens faster, secretly moved his regular Monday cabinet meeting from his official office to the government-owned Queensland Ballet studios in Brisbane and refused to tell the inquiring media where the ministers, chiefs of staff, and directors-general were holed-up.  Premier Newman said it was all just a simple "strategy meeting to map out the state's future" and everyone, including the police commissioner, engaged in a little "stretching".  Uh huh.

When the Opposition Leaders, union officials, media, and interested citizens who were accustomed to attending and participating in the weekly cabinet meetings finally caught up with Premier Newman at the barre, things got a little sticky in the ole resin box, as they say:

Premier Newman preparing to pirouette:  "Look, there's no secret to this."

Reporter:  "It was secret this morning . . . Is your definition of secret different to the ordinary definition of secret?"

Premier Newman's government was accused of being "addicted to secrecy" just as finalization of the state budget looms and is expected to include wide cuts in public service jobs.  Hopefully, after all its hospitality, the Queensland Ballet and its new director, Li Cunxin, will be spared.

Here's the play by play in print with highly entertaining audio from ABC News in Australia.

 

 

Julio Bocca is having auditions

Attention all corps dancers who should be soloists and soloists who should be principals - wherever you are - Julio Bocca has scheduled auditions for Nacional Ballet del Sodre on October 20.  Here is a link to the audition information.  If you're engaged on the audition date, what's to lose by forwarding the application and a video far enough ahead of time for Julio to give adequate consideration?

Don't wait for some sleepwalking artistic director to act on his implied promises.  The opportunity to work with Julio Bocca doesn't come along everyday.

 

Who needs ballet in August when you've got ––

That's the view from the 3rd Tier at Chelsea Piers Golf Club driving range on Pier 59 along the Hudson River in Manhattan where the All-The-Balls-You-Want-And-Can-Handle smorgasbord from 6:30am to 9:30am weekdays is a real test of manhood.  A few days in a row of limitless balls and you'll find yourself with a nasty case of Golf Fingers, yes, Golf Fingers which need to be submerged in a mug of ice water several times a day until the swelling subsides.  Ballet dancers have it so easy compared to golfers.

Yes, the summer is waning and as you can see below, already, The Leaves Are Fading:

which reminds us, why is there no casting published for ABT's fall performances yet?  Stella Abrera dancing in the leading central PdD in Tudor's The Leaves Are Fading will be one of the few highlights unless Kevin McKenzie cuts her off at the knees in this rep, too.  Haglund isn't buying tickets until that casting goes up, and he recommends that everyone hold off until we know for sure exactly what we're buying.  Buyer Beware.

The highlight of the fall dance season is going to be NYCB's thrill-packed four-week ballet-party with a Gala Evening Hommage à Valentino that is sure to be off the charts in terms of glam and high fashion designed by the great Valentino.  VALENTINO.  Unbelievable.  Get your tickets immediately if you haven't already done so.  All theater rings are for sale and there are $29 seats.  Less than a month to go.

 

Sarah Lane, Luis Ribagorda, Tiler Peck, Robert Fairchild @ NYCDA Gala honoring Baryshnikov

On Wednesday, September 5th, the Bright Lights Shining Stars Gala produced by the NYC Dance Alliance Foundation will be presented at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.  Liza Minnelli will be on hand to present Mikhail Baryshnikov with the Ambassador for the Arts Award.  There will also be a dance tribute to him and a donation will be awarded to the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

Sarah Lane & Luis Ribagorda and Tiler Peck & Robert Fairchild will perform as will members of Ballet Hispanico and The Suzanne Farrell Ballet.  Julie Kent and Leslie Browne will be on hand in some capacity as well.  What a nice assortment of performers to honor this great artist.

Balcony tickets for the performance are $50 and can be purchased here.  You can pay extra to attend the pre-show cocktail reception or post-show champagne/dessert reception and also sit in the orchestra or parterre sections of the theater. 

If you missed Baryshnikov in In Paris during the Lincoln Center Festival, you can catch him as he tackles Chekhov in The Man in a Case next February/March at Hartford Stage in Connecticut.  What a marvelous journey Baryshnikov continues to lead us on as he redefines what it means to be an evolving artist.

 

RNZB – Now hair this!

Royal New Zealand Ballet's beautiful Abigail Boyle was just announced by Proctor & Gamble's Head & Shoulders Division as its brand new Ambassador:

Head & Shoulders sponsorship of New Zealand’s Got Talent will be led by the brand’s new ambassador, highly acclaimed Royal New Zealand Ballet dancer Abigail Boyle, who will also attend and perform at the wildcard competition.

It's hard to find another company that year in and year out plows more resources into worldwide philanthropy and uses cause marketing with such expertise than P&G.  What a boon it will be for RNZB to have one of its exquisite dancers aligned with such an important company and worldwide brand.

There's another P&G Ambassador who you may have heard about:  Michael Phelps.

Terrific news!

Here's Abigail in Balanchine's Who Cares? which was presented this past season as part of Ethan Stiefel's NYC program for the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

 

Balanchine's Stars and Stripes PdD added to ABT City Center program

Kind of odd, wouldn't you say, to see that ABT has added Balanchine's Stars and Stripes PdD to two of the fall City Center programs?  This couldn't be any more obvious an effort to pump up their "American" image which has been all but lost as the result of all the ridiculous and needless foreign guest dancers and imports. 

Since Daniil Simkin has been performing this during summer gigs, it would seem that we could see him in it this fall.

But what an odd choice for the program.  First, NYCB's Daniel Ulbricht, Bouder, Peck and others at NYCB are peerless in this ballet right now.  Not only peerless, but they've set such a high standard that there's a 95% chance that anyone who has ever seen them perform it will be disappointed with whatever ABT puts on the CC stage.  The last thing people want to see is the Stars and Stripes reduced to cuteness and kid-like. 

And is that the only PdD that's going to be sandwiched in between Mark Morris and de Mille on opening night?  What a rip-off of an evening.

 

Gustavo Dudamel, Veronika Part, Roberto Bolle?!

Attention All L.A. Area Haglund'eelers:

The season opening Gala Performance of the Los Angeles Philharmonic on September 27th will feature Veronika Part and Roberto Bolle performing excerpts from Swan Lake.

Wherever you are, whatever crime you have to commit to get a ticket, however low you have to grovel to get in the door, DO NOT MISS THIS EVENT!

Mr. Gene Schiavone's exquisite, heart stopping, breath snatching, tear producing image of Veronika and Roberto is below.  When you see this live on stage, you will think that you have died and gone to heaven.

© Gene Schiavone

UIEX: Backstage at New York City BalletNew book by Henry Leutwyler

Haglund's Sunday morning sleuthing for info on Sarah Jessica Parker's new TV program about NYCB turned up an unexpected but happy surprise:  a July 2012 copyright registration by the awesome photographer Henry Leutwyler for visual material entitled "Backstage at New York City Ballet" which contains 584 photographs. 

That's a lot of photographs!  Haglund finds it difficult enough to keep his cool when the annual NYCB brochure comes out with Mr. Leutwyler's delicious images.  A book of 584 photographs could send him right over the edge.  Also in July, Mr. Leutwyler posted a picture on his website of a UPS package with this tiny note under it:  "Ballet book in progress" - a confirming sign if ever there was one. 

The big, big, really BIG question is, "How much will it cost?"

Update:  PRE-ORDER HERE for $55.10.  A quick check of Amazon shows that Mr. Leutwyler has a book due to be released on Oct 15 which right now is titled "Ballet" and includes the follow description:

After four years of collaboration with Peter Martins and the New York City Ballet, Henry Leutwyler was granted unprecedented backstage access to the Company during the winter of 2012. The resulting book, Ballet, reflects thirty years of his passion for the art form, realised in thirty days of photography. Leutwyler inhabited the shadows of the stage and became "invisible", recording images of the dancers using nothing more than his 35mm Leica. He was able to explore the performers' personal space, affording a more abstract portrait - a visual slice of their frenzied existence in an art form predicated on perfection. Ballet is an homage to the gritty universe from behind the curtain, and a complement to its ethereal beauty as viewed from the front row. With impresario Lincoln Kirstein, George Balanchine co-created the New York City Ballet in 1948. What followed is arguably one the most revolutionary periods in ballet history as he redefined the art form, introducing abstract works performed with a signature speed, musicality, and precision. Under the leadership of Peter Martins, these are the hallmarks of the Company to this day.