http://www.radio-canada.ca/audio-video/pop...712041800_5.asx

Here is an item on french CBC that shows a lot of dancing plus interviews (part french part english) with Eddy Toussaint and Choo Chiat Goh. (Yes, french CBC. Or chinese CBC. But never english CBC. I have been watching an internet discussion running parallel to the BT discussion on the Canadian nutcrackers and found a link to this very long but very well written lecture (which mentions Goh Ballet in passing). I couldn't agree more.) http://www.com.umontreal.ca/Spry/spry-dd-lec.html

Oddly enough, the national ballet's site lists live nutcrackers you can see across the country as well as their televised broadcast - but there is no sign of the Goh Ballet? Instead BC is listed as having the touring Moscow Classical Ballet as our local nutcracker. Gee. The Goh segment sure looked like a Nut to me. But then their Giselle looked like Giselle to me too ... Possibly that was the problem.

http://www.national.ballet.ca/TheNutcracker/live.html

According to the Goh Ballet site, they are performing "The Nutcracker" at Whistler during the weekend of the broadcast, and I'm afraid Burnaby hasn't made itself into Vancouver any more than New Jersey has made itself into New York City.

http://www.gohballet.com/

My apologies, did I miss part of the story? The link I posted just said "The Nutcracker is performed live on stages across the country by Canada’s leading ballet companies." - was it supposed to be only in Vancouver? (Not sure how the Moscow City ballet got to be one of Canada's leading ballet companies either ...) The page I linked lists many locations: Windsor, Guelph, Mississauga, Peterborough, Ottawa, Brantford, Brampton, Kitchner, Markham, Montreal, Victoria, Spokane, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa and Winnipeg ... why not Burnaby and Whistler?

I reviewed the Vancouver Sun article I linked on the other thread and could find no mention of location specific advertising either http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/ar...dbb9096&p=2 Only this quote from Ballet BC, who are not, after all performing a Nutcracker of their own and are not having the Toronto ballet in theatres at the same time as their offering. And who also (unlike the Goh) receive government funding. And - unless you don't count the Goh apprentices (who are on stage) - are not BC's biggest ballet company. This is what they said:

"Kevin Garland was very gracious. She did call me earlier in the year and said: 'I just want you to know that the National Ballet has been very fortunate to secure this arrangement for a high-definition broadcast,'" Howard said.

"I said to her: 'If our Nutcrackers were in the same time frame, I would be very concerned because it really is our bread and butter.' She acknowledged that. But the timing is completely different. Ours are after Christmas."

Isn't "gracious" an interesting term to use? Rather like "her Grace" ...

But absolutely no indication that I can find that the Goh Ballet was contacted or that any compensatory advertising was handed out or posted in their name.

My bad, I missed that they included Ballet Jorgen. The Ballet Jorgen site says its the fifth largest ballet company in Canada, and with the exception of Ballet Jorgen, a national touring company, they list the major markets and companies in Canada: NBoC, Les Grands Ballet Canadiens, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and Alberta Ballet. They didn't list smaller companies in any of the major markets, and, for better or worse, Ballet BC is the primary company in the Vancouver area. The reason Moscow Classical Ballet is listed is because it is on Ballet BC's subscription program.

Perhaps the question is why Goh Ballet isn't included on the Ballet BC subscription program, because if it had been, it would be on the NBoC site.

Is it? No one ever tells me anything! When was the ceremony and why wasn't I invited?

Yes, I'm kidding, but what does primary mean? I frequently hear RWB describe themselves, very correctly, as Canada's premiere company, meaning first. I also hear Toronto describing themselves the same way, for more dubious reasons. I understand who gets to use the word Royal. The word National escapes me although it seems to have something to do with being in Toronto. But primary?

For number of dancers, the Goh Ballet said they had 30 on stage for Giselle, but I counted closer to 45 (they had about 30 in each act). For age of company, Goh has been here for 30 years, I'm not sure how long BBC was here for, but there were others earlier than both. For all the "new company" announcements, the Goh has always paid some money to some of its dancers on some occasions, as they are still doing. BBC has equally good claims to be a "primary company" but they always look modern to me and the dancers I know actually refer to themselves as modern. From an audience point of view, I would say Goh was our primary ballet company and BBC was our primary modern company, if primaries are really necessary, but I hope they are not because I enjoy all the diversity as an audience. (Oh, I just made 45 Vancouver modern companies furious! Now I see why BBC doesn't call themselves modern!)

Internationally, the Goh Ballet is very well known (for a ballet co.) throughout Asia, so to most of the world's population. They are also somewhat known on the other continents, (Europe, etc.). They are actually far more likely to be interviewed or reviewed in China or England or Singapore than in Vancouver. Goh brings in guest artists and choreographers from around the world, BBC brings in a lot of guest teachers and choreographers from NBS and NBC. Most significantly, BBC is populated (as is every company mentioned in the Nut ad) with an AD, choreographers, teachers, staff and/or dancers from NBS and NBC. There have been absolutely zero NBS or NBC people at the Goh company or school, ever to my knowledge.

I really think the issue here is not who is the primary company in BC but who is the primary company in Canada? There is a ridiculous amount of money at stake which depends on Toronto keeping the public and the corporate donors from finding out that none of the country's best dancers are dancing for or from them. (Yes, there are very good people who go to work and school there, but I don't like their dancing once they are there. Goh Academy has by far the highest graduate placement record - this from a school with no money to hire their own graduates, and the last pick of potential students, with no money for decent facilities or scholarships.) Keeping down the competition is essential for Toronto and always has been. (Lynn Seymour received the worst reviews of her life in Toronto.) But with the US making it more and more difficult for Canadian graduates to work in the states (our closest job market), there is becoming a backup of hugely talented dancers in Vancouver who are no longer willing to go quietly into the night and leave the stage to Toronto. And they have a growing audience that is no longer willing to listen to a "gracious" Toronto telling us they need more of our money while our own starve.

No, NBC touring will certainly not help. I was in the audience at their Giselle this fall and their Swan Lake two years ago. There, I just scratched everything I wrote about them, and it's just as well. I will just say - they don't look like us, they don't dance like us, they don't have our energy, our style, our technique, or our soul, and they do not represent us. Our companies do.

So ... as a Vancouverite, here are my New Year's resolutions.
1) I will no longer refer to the Toronto Ballet as anything other than the Toronto Ballet. They do not represent me. They are certainly not qualified to appoint primary companies for me.
2) I declare the Goh Ballet and Ballet BC as the primary ballet and modern companies for BC, for Canada, and for "the planet". I do this without having ever seen half the companies in Canada, let alone the planet. Yay, Toronto hyperbole!!

Now that the question of primary companies is settled, we have one question remaining: Why are the dancers for the best ballet company on the planet not being paid? I think I know where some money is ...

I'm sure there are a number of companies apart from NBoC that would be interested to know that Goh Ballet is the best ballet company on the planet, but it is not a professional company, if it cannot pay its dancers all of the time, not on some occasions.


That is a bold statement, since the Gohs' daughter is a Principal Dancer at National Ballet of Canada, although I've never liked her dancing, whether for NBoC or for Suzanne Farrell Ballet. If there's a male dancer at Goh Ballet who comes close to Cote, I'd be very interested in seeing him: he's the next best kept secret in North America, after the men at Ballet Arizona.


Fair enough, but that's very different from saying the none of the country's best dancers are dancing for or from them.


Royal Winnipeg Ballet is taking the San Francisco Ballet route of branding themselves and trying to get validation for this opinion outside the US. I haven't seen RWB enough to know whether there's truth in advertising.



National Ballet of Canada is in Toronto, the financial capital of Canada, where the majority of powerful and monied people are (except for the enclave in West Vancouver), and people with money get themselves brand new performing arts centers and great school facilities and a large paid professional company in their own back yard. (That's why there's a Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, which can afford to keep Suzanne Farrell Ballet in business and whose head negotiated long-term contracts with Russian companies to tour, when they rarely step foot out west.)

Do people in Toronto pay any attention whatsoever to Vancouver or care what kind of ballet companies there are out West? Would Karen Kain be bothered to make a snarky remark about anyone dancing in Vancouver? Do they really think the Goh Academy is competition for National Ballet School? Are they losing students left and right to Goh Academy? They're in Toronto. Nureyev and Bruhn, by most standards among the handful of the greatest male dancers of the 20th century worked for their ballet company. They've got one of the most beautiful arts facilities in North America. They get a huge chunk of funding. They don't need to argue with anyone about primacy.


I never really thought of Vancouver as the epitome of classicism, but I'll look again out from under my Tilley hat, after it stops raining

If anyone was confused, the "best ballet company on the planet" was referring to a statement made by Karen Kain in the articles referenced on this thread http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=26132 where she refers to their Nutcracker as the best on the planet. She made similar comments about their Giselle and Polyphonia. My point is, I can do that too. So can anyone. I can also make my own lists of Canada's leading companies and do not need to accept their lists. (And the Goh dancers are apparently paid, but amounts and number of weeks are never ideal.) And yes, there are many dancers across Canada who are very worth seeing.

I think if Suzanne Farrell were to suddenly call her company the National Ballet of the US, and if your government were to garnishee your pay cheque to fund her company, and the national papers were in DC and also controlled your local papers (and radio, and TV) and Suzanne Farrell controlled the funding to your media as well as to your local companies, and she published a list of "leading companies in the US performing Nutcrackers" and PNB was not on it - while you were funding her to broadcast her company's ballet at the same time as PNB's - perhaps you would feel a little differently about her and her company and their Kennedy Centre. You might even venture the opinion that she's not so hot - or that PNB was not bad - or that people in Seattle maybe had their own opinions on ballet, even when it rained.

Edited to Add: My apologies to Helene and anyone else who thought that I was serious about declaring our two tiny regionals as the best on the planet and tried to interpret that post accordingly. I was being ridiculous as I find NBC's claims equally ridiculous, and my descriptions of the companies were meant to argue that they were equally worthy of the small courtesy of being included on a list of live nutcrackers, not that they were worthy of being heralded as the best on the planet.

Actually, the Federal Government is garnishing my paycheck to support Suzanne Farrell Ballet (directly), just as every citizen of the other Washington has his/her paycheck garnished to support Pacific Northwest Ballet (and they without Federal representation.) We still do have the National Endowment of the Arts, however pitiful. I also believe that the Kennedy Center, the facility in which Suzanne Farrell Ballet performs, is maintained through the government, another form of subsidy.

In addition, both companies are subsidized by foundations, whose endowment gains are not taxable as long as they follow the distribution guidelines, and corporations, for whom the donation (money or in-kind goods/services) is exempt from tax. They are also subsidized by individual tax-deductible donations, and even for those who do not itemize, a certain amount is built into the standard deduction. So every taxpayer in the US -- or who has US citizenship, lives outside the US, and whose foreign tax credit is not enough to avoid US tax -- is subsidizing both companies. The PNB venue, McCaw Hall, was built through similar subsidies, as well as state and local funding.

Although San Francisco Ballet's version -- and SFB is subsidized the same ways as PNB and Suzanne Farrell Ballet -- will not be telecast in the Seattle area this year, it is likely that some cinema will be fitted with the correct equipment by next year, and the broadcast will conflict with one of PNB's performances. PNB, however, released a movie version of its Sendak "Nutcracker" in 1986, which I believe showed nationally during local "Nutcracker" season, so I guess we could call that even, although I think I was one of about 7 people outside Seattle who saw the film.

PBS, the closest thing to CBC that we have in the US, which is partially funded by foundations, corporations, and individual members (same tax subsidies as above), also chooses what it will make available for the local affiliates to buy (or not) as part of their dance or "live from" series, and that is just as much "official" endorsement as NBoC is getting with their "Nutcracker." The film is the only way the company can fulfill its claim to be a National company, which is why I find some of the criticism ironic, and surely the cost of the broadcast, with re-broadcast rights and possible DVD sales is less than a national tour.* The Australian Ballet has similar issues, since it performs mainly in Melbourne and Sydney, and possible a program in Canberra and/or Brisbane. Paris Opera Ballet is subsidized federally, and it no longer tours in France. (A worldwide POB broadcast is one I'd love to see, but if the La Scala opera broadcasts succeed, the next step may be Roberto Bolle headlining La Scala Ballet.). I didn't realize that the Vancouver Sun, Toronto Star, and Globe and Mail for starters were owned and operated by the Canadian government. Each time I've visited Vancouver, I seemed to be able to tune into commercial stations, including our very own KING-FM.

*Royal Winnipeg Ballet has a substative claim to "national" based on its touring schedule.

Since the Goh Ballet will be in Whistler during the broadcast, and I can see no theaters in Whistler showing the NBoC film at the same time, and Moscow City Ballet doesn't perform in Vancouver until the following weekend (after Christmas), the direct impact of the screening would be with conflicts with local performances in Powell River, Sechelt, Salmon Arm, Yellowknife, and Jonquiere/Chicoutimi, according to the Cineplex listing, and anyone from Vancouver who was planning to visit Whister for the Goh Ballet who changed his/her mind because of the NBoC broadcast.

Certainly, concerns about where Federal dollars goes is a major and serious concern. How does the treatment of the federal government of ballet in the West compare to government funding and federal media treatment of other services and agencies?