Nikolaj Hubbe will guest with the company -- very short article here:

http://www.playbillarts.com/news/article/4671.html

Hi Alexandra--When you have a chance, could you re-send with the link or excerpted article? It doesn't appear to have come through. Thanks!

It sure didn't! Thanks, AG. I reposted it.

When I went back to check the link, I found a review of the performance.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/a...etrevu0605.html

It's a positive review, but....... class, find at least three clues that let us know that this writer really doesn't like ballet.

Odd that it appeared today, instead of last Friday and Saturday, when it could have convinced people to go see it. (Feh.) It was on the front page of the "Arizona Living" section, right above the Sudoku puzzle, which may very well be prime real estate.

In the matinee pre-performance Q&A, a woman asked timidly, "Is your Danish guest going to perform today?" and Andersen had to tell her not at the matinee, but at the evening performance. (When he asked the audience if anyone had been to an earlier performance, he seemed surprised at the number of people who raised their hands.)

I didn't get the same impression as Mr. Nilsen, but he reviewed the first of three performances, and I saw the last. Hübbe has a very strong stage presence, and his interpretation is more extreme than Zejnati's was in the opening scene the last time the Company performed Apollo, but I'm not sure in what Robbins he found the resemblance. (The Dybbuk? [which I've never seen]) I had no trouble focusing on the muses. I wonder if Hübbe hadn't been a guest whether people's reactions would have been the same.

Zejnati's name was in the printed program for Apollo; I don't even remember an annoucement that Hübbe was replacing him nor a slip in the program. I seem to have fallen under the Curse of the Hübbe: he replaced Lund in La Sylphide when I was in Copenhagen, and Zejnati in Apollo here

Serenade is "fluffy Romanticism" and at the same time is "Swan Lake with all the boring story parts cut out"? An interesting confusion of styles and periods, but okay...

Okay, class, welcome a new student to Alexandra's History of Ballet, Richard Nilsen of the Arizona Republic.

Nilson: . . . .[A]lthough Apollo is the lead character in the story, it is the three muses he encounters who provide the substance of the dance.

Well, actually, that was one-third the case at a recent ABT Apollo, and exactly what was wrong with that one.

I'm pretty sure Serge Lifar must be spinning in his grave

It is a rather odd review, isn't it--from Nilsen's descriptions of Agon and Serenade to this unfortunate typo (his or the editor's?): "Ballet Arizona imported star dancer Nikolaj Hübbe from the New York City Ballet for the lead roll." I am glad to read of the company's overall success; sounds like Andersen's doing a great job.

y'all did very well If we could just cut more of those BORING parts out, we could not only save money, we'd be home sooner!

Maybe Serge can start rolling in his grave. Something new to do