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Archive 2005Archive 2006Archive 2007Archive 2008

January

Balanchine, Tallchief, Ballets Russes, etc.

Thanks for your thanks - yes, I'm a ballet buff, but not as lucky as your living in NY and getting to see the NYCB. I lived in Seattle years ago and took ballet classes from a couple who had danced with the Ballets Russes and Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. They had so many wonderful stories about those years. You must have seen the documentary a couple of years ago on the "Ballets Russes" - I loved it and the way they captured the dancers' vivacity. It made me miss my teachers and friends so much. By then they had both passed away. I was lucky to know them. Glad you're keeping up the tradition. — Parkwells ( talk ) 20:01, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Prima ballerina assoluta

Hi Robert, I did start up the category "Prima Ballerina Assoluta" and others have changed it/the wording to "Prima Ballerina Assolutas, "Prime Ballerina Assoluta", etc. In this case, I would stick to the single, and go for "Prima Ballerinas Assoluta", if I had to make it plural. Someone else added the "Prima Ballerina Assoluta" article to the category. I am not too fussed at how the category or articles on the subject progess. The term is for historical purposes mainly. It certainly does not mean that an "Assoluta" is by definition "better". I think tbat Pavlova would certainly have been a better dancer than some on this list. I used to see the ballet more often than I do now. I have had the pleasure of seeing both Nijinsky and also Plisetskaya dancing live (not together). I was very young at the time. Plisetskaya seemed to have an electric effect on the audience, which I have seen from no other dancer. As mentioned, feel free to tidy up anything you want to. :) Wallie 16:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Whoops. I meant to say Nureyev, not Nijinsky. Sorry about that. If I had seen Nijinsky, that would mean I would be around 100 or so year's old. He was dancing around 1913. — Wallie ( talk ) 14:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

February

Categorization

Robert, please have a look at this guideline Wikipedia:Categorization and subcategories , my understanding is that the Category:Ballet should go in Category:Dance styles , the Ballet article should be in Category:Ballet with a forced sort as the first article, so [[Category:Ballet| ]] placed in the article. If the article omits the self named category then the category is not shown on the article page, so use of {{catmore}} in the category still requires eponymous categorization of the article. The wonders of Wiki :) Paul foord 14:51, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Category:Dance vs. Category:Dance Styles

I've had several chats (with a Wiki. admin. who's a professional libarian, among others) about ballet, modern dance, categorization etc. What it finally came down to was that Wiki. guidelines are general recommendations, not binding; and, depending on the subject matter, may be downright counterproductive. My reasoning concerning where the category ballet belongs with respect to categories dance and dance styles has to do with its size (and potential size) relative to other dance styles. It could easily become bigger than the entire remainder of the dance style category. If not the remainder of the entire dance category! Though even if that were the case, ballet should logically still be a sub-category of dance. A little logic, a little common sense; and, in truth, I will almost always defer to someone else if they really want it the other way. My Wiki. coding habits are the deritrus of having learned ALGOL at a summer course for high school students (I still pay the rent by teaching in a college computer department despite [1] having done all my grad. study in theatre and Scandinavian studies and [2] holding only an undergraduate degree in EE — despite which I received tenure; I'm sure they regret that to this very day.) So I code consistently — give a child a hammer and the whole world looks like a nail — and catmore is a marvelous hammer, to get the prima ballerina assolutas category to find the ballerina article and so on. So I use it automatically, whether needed or not. I've learned far too many programming languages to have any desire to learn any more about Wiki's underpinnings than I need to. I'm grateful somebody else built it and am delighted to use it, but what I really do is direct and sometimes translate Scandinavian plays. Theatre is my wife, ballet my mistress (and I cheat on both once a week and go to a flamenco club, strictly as audience.) — Robert Greer 04:24, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

{{WikiProject Dance|Ballet=yes}} article classes

disambiguation talk pages — > {{WikiProject Dance|Ballet=yes|class=Dab|importance=NA}}

Hi Robert, this new class for disambiguation talk pages, {{WikiProject Dance|Ballet=yes|class=Dab|importance=NA}}, will help sort some of the many dab pages. — Paul foord 00:59, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

New redirect class on talk page template

for info {{WP Dance|Ballet=yes|class=redirect|importance=na}} — Paul foord 14:17, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

thank you

These're most useful! What are the other available classes; class=category and class=list, I know, but are there any others? — Robert Greer 20:38, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Types

Paul foord 07:56, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

National Museum of Dance

If you are familiar with the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga, NY, would you have a look at expanding it. Thanks — Paul foord 12:33, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I will be attending a dance conference in Saratoga late Spring and plan to look in, thank you! — Robert Greer 15:40, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

WP Dance ratings

Hi Robert, you have been doing a lot of work applying WikiProject Dance|Ballet=yes to the old WikiProject Ballet tagged articles. You may have picked it up as you have gone along but iIt would be good if you would leave the |class=? items when updating, for example on Talk:Russian ballet you went from {{WikiProject Ballet|importance=top}} {{WikiProject Dance|Ballet=yes|nested=yes|importance=top}} omitting |class=Stub. If I can I will add |ballet-attention=, still looking at how/thinking about that. — Paul foord ( talk ) 12:36, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Mea maxima culpa; give a child a hammer … Robert Greer 17:34, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Ira Aldridge

I replied on my talk page (q.v.), but the short of it is I don't know exactly where I got that. — Jmabel | Talk 05:22, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

New mailing list

There has been a mailing list created for Wikipedians in the New York metropolitan area (list: Wikimedia NYC ). Please consider joining it! Cbrown1023 talk 21:33, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

March

Thanks

Cheers for noticing my work with the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet articles. They are the two companies that I know the most about, being an ex ballet dancer myself, but if there's anything I can help with elsewhere, do not hesitate to point me in the right direction. I think The ENB article is my main priority as the RB article was already well estalished, however nearly all the existing text on the ENB article is copied word for word from the website. Anyway, happy days and dont forget to let me know if there's anything I can help with. — Crazy-dancing 20:13, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

So few Wikipedians writing about ballet, so much ballet to be written about! You appear to be writing from England; with what company / companies did you dance? I still take class but never worked as a dancer (but did sing for the Boston Symphony Orchestra ), live in NYC and write mostly about New York City Ballet. — Robert Greer 21:05, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Too few people writing about ballet and unfortunately, many that do could do with getting some 'up to date information' if you get my meaning there. I trained at the Royal Ballet lower school, but didn't get offered the upper school, so auditioned for the upper school at Elmhurst and then joined Birmingham Royal Ballet for 3 months, but left to go to Vienna Festival Ballet in Austria because they offered me Soloist and I would never have got promotion in England with the level of competition. From there I decided to go into musical theatre so I retrained in London and have been done musicals, cruise ships and cabaret ever since. Have to say NYCB is one of my favourite companies and I was gutted not to get tickets for their season in London recently, especially as a further visit is not likely to be for many more years yet. Nice to meet you anyhow, we shall lead a crusade to drag ballet into the 21st century — hehehe — Crazy-dancing 21:27, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Given how strong the pound is against the dollar and how expensive tickets to City Ballet at the Coliseum are, it might be cheaper to see them here in NY, including flight and hotel! At least ballet is healthier than opera with regard to being in the XXI century, or is this a case of a one-eyed man being king in the land of the blind? My own performing arts career went from being a tenor to being a stage director, mostly Swedish plays in English translation, contemporary as well as "classic." Besides NYCB there's Cedar Lake here; I get to Sweden and Denmark two or three times a year (the Royal Danish is in for a refurbishment at the hands (or feet) of their new balletmaster Nikolaj Hübbe, who just retired from City Ballet.) Sweden has a superb dance scene with the Cullberg Ballet and Stockholm 59° North, which is the Royal Swedish Ballet 's contemporary ballet group. There are a bunch of Scandinavian dance companies that straddle the border between contemporary ballet and modern dance. Are you familiar with the work of DV8 ? Stan Won't Dance, a spinoff of two of their founders, performed here at PS 122. Nigel Charnock, another founder, was at official Dance Month two years ago in Stockholm with his Finnish modern dance company and did his trademark solo act the night before his dancers performed (last year a former Cullberg / Batsheva dancer did the solo act he made on her when they were both with DV8.) — Robert Greer 22:28, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely love DV8 and have had the pleasure of working with various people from the company whilst I was at Birds. I prefer their older work like Monochrome Men and Achilles, but I like that they bill themselves as physical theatre and aren't pretentious about what their type of dance is all about. I hate most contemporary dance companies, 90% of them are just laughable, full of 'dancers' who are only in contemporary because they are physically limited and not good enough for any other dance form, so they spend their life rolling around on the floor to incessant boring music, twitching and ticking away. I like contemporary that has a narrative and a strong classical or jazz foundation foundation (generally with ballet dancers dancing the work). I do think ballet is healthy though yes, having said that opera tickets at Covent Garden have now broken £200 ($400) for the first time. The Swedish theatre scene I have almost no knowledge of except that the training opportunities are very limited. I know they have the Royal Swedish Ballet School, but I know of many a swedish dancer that berate the lack of training opportunities there and have come to England to go to either the Royal Ballet, English National or Elmhurst Ballet schools, and they have found work too. Perhaps the biggest proportion of Swedish people I know have come here to go to one of the musical theatre colleges in London, but then alongside New York, there is nowhere better to go for musical theatre either as a student or performer, plus the musical theatre colleges also have a strong foundation in dance and all of them feed into dance companies as well as the West End. Btw sorry for late reply. — Crazy-dancing 11:40, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Sweden has a very structured career path for performers, beginning with admission to one of the few dance or theatre schools. I've known a number of Swedish actors and dancers, male and female, who've come to NY for training, with varying degrees of success. NY has very good dance classes and both good and positively dreadful acting teachers (my last three year with the BSO I went back to theatre school, Emerson College , to study directing.) I've worked with a few who are excellent, but it's difficult for them to (re)establish careers in Sweden; only two in my acquaintance succeeded in doing so; and American Equity is none to eager to have them.

I'm wholly in agreement with you about most modern "dance" here in NY and its practitioners; the exceptions are the ones you see in ballet class every morning at ten. Sweden, Finland and Denmark have contemporary dance companies where company class is ballet — and the women do pointe work, in at least one case in performance as well as in class — as well as contemporary ballet companies where they never perform en pointe even if they've trained it. August is official Dance Month in Stockholm, and there are nightly outdoor dance concerts free of charge, the best companies in northern Europe.

There might be one night the entire month not up to the rest; if there were two such nights the critics would be screaming for the head of the artistic director of Parkteatern! I go there every year. The nearest we have to that in NY is Fall for Dance at City Center , two weeks of dance, not quite free but almost, ten dollars per ticket, £5! The line begins forming before sunrise (I live in the neighborhood and get up at six, which puts me about number twenty in line; I buy a pair for each and every night.)

Ballet, break dance, tap, contemporary, South African gum boot dancing; mixed bills changing every or every other night; New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre each contribute a token solo or pas de deux (they do send their principal dancers) but it's mostly from out of town and even overseas. There's not been a night yet that didn't have at least one company that was nothing less than supreme — and most nights one company that "should've stood in bed."

City Ballet has as good a deal, fourth ring tickets at $15 apiece (with a $20 annual membership). I'm at the box office 10 a.m. the day single seats go on sale and buy a pair for the first and last night of each program; they dance about 15 different mixed bills in their winter season and as many in the spring, so I find myself at the NY State Theatre roughly 55 times a year. At about what it would cost to buy two pair to Covent Garden (I must confess to seeing Mayerling three times in two days that last time I was in London.) — Robert Greer 18:30, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Mayerling movies — I don't have any knowledge as to which dates would be correct (I've always found movie dates to be variable, with differences of a year or two between sources quite normal … perhaps reflecting the dates made, released in the U.S. and released worldwide. Unless we have a movie Wikiproject that's decided otherwise, I'd just go with whatever's listed on IMDB.COM. — Nunh-huh 01:20, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you again for the Mayerling / Vetsera‎ clean up! — Robert Greer 14:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Lara Pulver

Thanks for adding positive feedback to the discussion whether to delete the article about Lara Pulver . I did the majority of the work on the article and even though it was badly referenced, the person who tagged it was definitely doing it to be spiteful, whatever the other contributors might say. Whoever Qworty is, they wiped all but the first sentence of the article saying it was unreferenced and not-notable when it bloody well was, just not done entirely up to scratch. So, I put back 90% of what I'd written and lo and behold I wake up this morning to find it tagged for deletion. As you might have noticed, I placed a note on there questioning Qworty's motives for tagging and people replied that it was concientious editing, but if you look at their talk page, it seems my objection to their editing style is just one in an extensive list of people who have similarly had the rug pulled from under their feet or ended up in an editing war with this 'expert on all things'. Anyway, hope you have a good day. — Crazy-dancing ( talk ) 16:26, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Royal Ballet

Hi there, have gone a bit crazy adding stuff to the Royal Ballet article. Wondered if you could take a look. I know I need to add in sources and references, and have kept a note of them, but just wanted to get all the written stuff in first of all. — Crazy-dancing 19:34, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Just as soon as I finish today's installment on City Ballet! — Robert Greer 19:41, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

And another thing, I am going mad seeing people making grandiose statements about why the Ballet and Classical ballet articles should remain seperate and that they are different and yet there is next to no difference between them. Is there anything we can do to sort this out. I think Ballet should become a redirect to Classical Ballet and then that article rewritten exlusively about the historical developement of ballet as a classical art form and then a section for links where people can write up their stuff about contemporary ballet, neo-classical ballet etc etc etc. I am only going mad because someone has added Sir Fred Ashton and Ken MacMillan to a list of Neo-classical choreographers and it's just all … pardon the language … bull***t. — Crazy-dancing 20:23, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

It must be something in the water that attracts loonies to ballet articles. At least the ones driving you crazy are ballet lovers. I've had to defend articles against demands for speedy deletion raised by people who've never even been to the ballet; time that could've been spent writing more articles (my success rate defending ballet against deletion is 100%; I lost two or three modern dance articles in my early days on Wiki. but simply imbedded the text into the article from which they sprang.)

There are any number of ballet issues and articles on Wikipedia I refuse to get involved with: Ballet , Classical Ballet , Pointe shoes , En pointe , Nijinsky etc.

Ashton and MacMillan would've been shocked — shocked! — to have learned that their work was neo-classic. The term "classical ballet" appears to be a back formation from "neo-classical ballet;" and, as you say, it refers to what previously was simply called, "ballet."

Try to forget the "classical" ballet nonsense, just stick to your Royal Ballet work and bear in mind what my Daddy used to say (he was a working man.) "Never get into a p***ing match with a skunk!" — Robert Greer 20:56, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

So ... I take it you think my work on the Royal Ballet article is good then or is there any direction you could push me in? — Crazy-dancing 21:04, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

It's terrific! And I'm really serious about not wasting your time trying to talk sense to barbarians. You have a degree of access and insider knowledge that's very rare and not just in the land of Wiki. I've been using Wikipedia to document individual ballets and their casting; including revivals, second and third casts, and individual dancers' first times in rôles; on the grounds that this sort of information is here today and gone tomorrow. It's in my own interest and if of use to anyone else so much the better, but this may not be your cuppa tea. Your section on Johan Kobborg declining the ballet master slot at the Royal Danish was juicy; Nikolaj Hübbe just left NYCB (he was listed as a guest artist with them at the Coliseum) to take the job. He gave a couple of talks, one at City Ballet's home, New York State Theater , the other at Scandinavia House (I speak Swedish and read Danish.) He was quite candid about having applied and been turned down for the same post ten years ago. — Robert Greer 21:27, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Correlazione

I have reverted my edit. — ukexpat ( talk ) 22:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the undo! — Robert Greer 01:40, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Alicia Alonso

Huh — didn't see it. Sure, go ahead w/the deletion. Lector ( talk ) 03:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! — Robert Greer 03:29, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Hats and Caps

I checked for potential reversion; that's the first thing I tried. The problem I found was that there was never a neutral version to revert to. Mic's 2004 work was written from a POV and the POV hasn't been edited since; citations were also never present. I don't know enough to fix these (I only found the articles when I was looking for info myself), so I don't know what the next step would be, except to drive-by tag the articles and see if there's anyone on Project Sweden who knows more than I do and can help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ramidel ( talk • contribs ) 00:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)<! — Template:Unsigned — > <! — Autosigned by SineBot — >

nested=yes OK for me - maybe browser related — Paul foord ( talk ) 12:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! I feared as much (and would've mentioned it but wanted to get an unbiased report that I can wave under our data center's collective nose.) — Robert Greer 21:54, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Edward B. Watson

How is this person in any way related to ballet, there is nothing in the article that would indicate he even went to a ballet? Aboutmovies — ( talk ) 16:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, I've undone the Wiki Project tag; this was the wrong Edward Watson. — Robert Greer — 16:33, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I figured it was the wrong Watson. Aboutmovies — ( talk ) 17:02, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Ballerina

Fixed Ballerina and someone else took care of the other article. Thanks for the heads up. For a non-administrator to correct an article, click on History, then click on the Version prior to the vandal, then click Edit, put "rvv" as the edit summary (it means reverting vandalism) and Save. That old version becomes the current version and the vandalism is gone.

(emphasis added) Robert Greer 22:35, 13 March 2008 (UTC)]

Anything further, don't hesitate to ask. — RoyBoy 800 22:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

April

Vienna Festival Ballet

Sorry for not emailing, have been having trouble with my email lately. To be honest I don't think VFB is particularly notable for inclusion on Wikipedia. It's a very young company, only started in the 80s and though it's had some excellent dancers, the Director, Peter Mallek is really the only notable person linked with the company. The reason I say this is because being exclusively touring and casting on a season to season basis, they have a very high turnover of dancers, with most of the Principals being guest dancers and the majority doing (as I did) a fixed term contract for about 9 months before moving on. Plus, despite having danced with the company, I actually know very little about its history. All I know is that it was started in Vienna, but is now based in the UK, mainly using the BBO's studios for rehearsals. — Crazy-dancing 01:12, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Vienna

Hi there, just wiping my talk page and spotted your question about rep I did with Vienna Festival Ballet. It was literally a season of Swan Lake, Nutcracker and Coppelia (for the masses). We also did quite a few galas like an 'Evening of Tchaikovsky' etc, a couple of shows with Wayne Sleep and quite a few charity galas. With Vienna, they are mainly trying to promote ballet to laymen, so they take the real 'classic' tutus and tiaras ballets out there, things that an audience can identify as ballet even if they've never seen one live before. When we did galas, that was our opportunity to really show off the prowess of the company and dance some other work so we did quite a varied range of styles and had some work choreographed for us for those occasions. I got to dance a piece called Perfect Skin originally created for Scapino Ballet by a dutch choreographer called Ed Wubbe and it was just beautiful, dancing that is one of my best memories.

It's very easy to snigger at VFB, but the thing about it is, it's a small scale company for a reason, so it can fit into tiny theatres, and the sets are cheap and compact for the same reason. They do the 'trashy classics' in rotation because that's what the audiences want to see, especially in areas where it would be difficult for people to get to see The Royal, Birmingham Royal or English National. ENB in particular is supposed to be a touring company, but it does very large scale productions so only goes into the biggest theatres, unlike VFB which will go to more or less any theatre with a stage, even if it's the size of a postage stamp. If you really look at the dancer biogs though there is some real top class talent in the company, there's always more than a fair share of ex Royal Ballet Schoolers who are always exquisite, and a huge bulk of European dancers too. Anyway enough of my warbling. See you soon now am back on wikipedia properly for the next couple of days. — Crazy-dancing

far be it from me

Far be it from me to snigger; Perfect Skin is a major work, at least if one is to judge by who's danced it, not least Talia Paz whom I've seen perform her DV8 solo and other work in Stockholm — she used to be with the Cullberg Ballet — though not in the Wubbe (it shows up on Wiki. under Golan Yosef 's article.) And just what is wrong with tutus, tiaras, Swan Lake, Nutcracker and Coppelia?! I wouldn't make a steady diet of them, but the US contemporary dance types who wouldn't be caught dead wearing ballet slippers — and haven't taken class on pointe since their senior year of college — are truly provincial. VFB deserves credit for doing real outreach with real ballet. — Robert Greer

PS What did you dance in Nutcracker? — Robert Greer 14:41, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Nutcracker

It would be easier to ask what roles I didn't dance in Nutcracker. With the high turnover in tour dates and guests dancers coming in, I shifted around doing all sorts. I did the Gopak, China Tees, the Prince and less glamorously, a stick of liquorice, but I did also do Fritz and Drosselymer. — Crazy-dancing

Circus Polka

Hi Robert, sorry I had to delete your article. I had been working on this article in a user page of mine for a while. The version that's up now is much more extensive and has all of the information that was in your article. — Carabinieri ( talk ) 20:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

thank you

That's nothing to apologize for: there are so few of us writing about ballet and so much ballet to be written about; yours is a lovely and loving article! — Robert Greer

PS I took the liberty of adding Robert La Fosse 's name, as he has been the ringmaster of late and will likely continue in the role; also a direct link to the City Ballet website repertory index and a category of their rep. — 10:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC) — Robert Greer 10:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Carla Körbes

No problem. Oore ( talk ) 18:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Category for Ballets Russes and Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo

Hi, Robert - I've been thinking about this and know what your intent is about these and legacy companies. What about "Ballet companies by Russian exiles" - that grounds them in a particular time (mostly) and links them to the historic events that precipitated some of the activity. The "baby ballerinas", for instance, were from the exile community in Paris, where parents scrimped to get their daughters in ballet class as one way of holding on to their culture. Or "Ballet companies by early 20th c. Russian exiles", so that everything later doesn't get thrown into the category. Or "Ballet companies - Descendants of Ballet Russes"? — Parkwells ( talk ) 13:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

good idea

Wow, you've really been thinking about this! The last is probably best because many — most? — of the Russian-named dancers were given those names to make them sound Russian, especially in the later companies (Freddie Franklin is one of the few who remained British.) How's Category:Ballet Russes and descendant companies or Category:Ballet Russes and its descendants ? Or Category:Ballet Russes, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and Original Ballet Russe ; the latter is bulky but precise. I created a redirect for it but somebody has yet write an article about the last of the three companies, the Original Ballet Russe .) — Robert Greer

PS Did you see the documentary about all three companies that came out a year or two ago? One reason — there are many — for the superb dancers coming out of Argentina, Uraguay and Brazil are Ballet(s) Russe(s) dancers who decided they wanted to remain when the company went there on tour and who then opened schools — and some of them are still teaching! — Robert Greer

Category Ballets Russes and descendants

Must admit I did better by not thinking about it directly - when I looked at your material again, the category just "came to me". I think "Category:Ballets Russes and its descendants" is the best because it is concise, anchored in history and the tradition they were trying to foster, and is really the first of the rest. Yes, I saw the documentary and loved it! Those wonderfully vibrant people reminded me so much of my own teachers and the stories they used to tell. Glad you liked the suggestions. — Parkwells ( talk ) 14:57, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

category created

Category:Ballets Russes and descendants created. — Robert Greer 14:39, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

archive

Would you like me to archive your talk page? — ~ S R S ~ 20:09, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

May

Ondine

Ondine/Undine: a possible compromise?

cross-posted on Talk:Ondine (Ashton)

Hi. I didn't notice it before, but the title of the ballet in question is actually Undine (the German spelling) rather than Ondine. I've written to the person who changed the name to ask why he did it, but so far had no reply, however all the Henze sources give Undine. Accordingly I intend to change the name back. However this means that it would be possible to call it Undine (ballet) rather than Undine (Henze). Would it be acceptable to you to have a merger under the title Undine (ballet)? — Kleinzach ( talk ) 00:55, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

done

Agreed; I have done the deed! This seems to me to be a way of eating our cake and having it too (I've had similar problems with some New York City Ballet entries, not least because George Balanchine , born in St. Petersburg, chose to spell the composer's name as Tschaikovsky rather than the more conventional Tchaikovsky and who am I to argue with Mr. B.) At least the Undine disambiguation page is under the original German spelling; Ondine redirects to it. — Robert Greer

PS The problem is even messier than either you or I could ever have anticipated! I did four quick Google searches and found:
      • Results … about 16,400 for ondine "henze" -undine
      • Results … about 12,200 for undine "henze" -ondine
    • and:
      • Results … about 20,700 for ondine "ashton" -undine
      • Results … about 18,400 for undine "ashton" -ondine
Google "hits" do not represent scholarship or correct usage, but they do show Everyman's thoughts on the matter, and the above results don't show such strong preference for Ondine over Undine to sway me one way or the other. I did four more searches which however did:
      • Results … about 254,000 for ondine ballet -undine
      • Results … about  25,400 for undine ballet -ondine
    • and:
      • Results … about 17,600 for ondine "royal ballet" -undine
      • Results … about     590 for undine "royal ballet" -ondine
One gets similar results for Ondine vs. Undine with Perrot and Pugni instead of Ashton and Henze . — Robert Greer 20:18, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Obviously it's very simple to switch the first vowel so that's what people have merrily been doing. I don't think it's a big problem with the redirects and disambig page. Presumably the Google results were just for English? Are you now going to merge Ondine (Ashton) into Undine (ballet) ? I think that would be best. There can be distinct sections for the music and the choreography. — Kleinzach ( talk ) 22:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

to merge or not to merge

The Google searches were for all languages; I'd considered doing the searches first for English and then for German and might still do so, but I am not going to merge the articles.
  1. 90 to 97% of the ballet usage spells it Ondine; so, right or wrong, the ballet is spelled with an O.
  2. 55% of Google hits to Henze misspell the title with an O and this excluding Ashton's name!
  3. You were one of two persons who wanted the Ashton article merged into the Henze.
  4. Almost everybody else wanted Henze merged into Ashton.
  5. There was one Wikipedian who wanted both Ashton and Henze merged into the article about the novella.
  6. Last but not least, Wiki. administrator DGG made a determination that seperate articles are to be maintained. — Robert Greer 11:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh dear. I thought we were moving in a positive direction on this. Didn't you object to the article being called Ondine/Undine (Henze)? Now it is called Undine (ballet) I thought we could combine the information intelligently under a neutral label. If not then let's abandon this discussion. Better to pursue the matter on the actual pages. — Kleinzach ( talk ) 12:35, 13 May 2008 (UTC) PS I think you are under a misapprehension over the role of admin. They don't determine this kind of thing. DGG was just giving his opinion. — Kleinzach ( talk ) 12:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

end of cross-posting

Ondine bis

Hi there. I understood you saying that Ashton's work is still predominantly used in Britain. It's what was said in an earlier comment that got me (see below). Yes Ashton's work is very British and slighty old fashioned when compared with more timeless works from such as Balanchine, Bejart, Grigorovich etc, but despite peoples personal opinions, the reason Ashton is still going strong in the rep of the major companies is because they love doing his work. Especially when you consider his ballets have been danced by the Kirov and the Bolshoi, you might as well say they've been sanctioned as classics by dance royalty, especially Month in the Country, which was reportedly Natalia Makarova's favourite ballet. It's not to try and put a slur on American Ballet's love of Balanchine's hyper technical style of choreography, but I think a lot of Americans don't appreciate that there's more than one way to skin a cat and that here in Europe, we still prefer ballet that has plenty of wafting around.

I doubt that his reputation there will fade any time soon (though I could find you some Russians and New Yorkers who think it should). 

— Crazy-dancing ( talk )

Alastair Macauley

Funny you mention him, because I have met Alastair a few times through friends and the ISTD. As a person and to discuss ballet with he is wonderful, but in the press, he can be pretty viscious. My personal opinion is that he can often appear spiteful, seeming to pick fault with top dancers, BECAUSE they are top dancers, then gushing praise over a virtual unknown, but realisticaly he just expects the top dancers to prove WHY they are top dancers and isn't afraid to slate sub-standard performances, whilst bringing attention to those that might otherwise go unnoticed.

He made a blundering attempt to review a couple of musicals as Chief Theatre Critic for the FT, to which the musical theatre community as a whole reacted very negatively, so consequently he hasn't done so again since. After that debacle, he has consistently stayed well within his area of expertise, for which he is highly respected.

In all honesty, as much as I might wildly disagree with some of his opinions, I can't help but admit that he's a brilliant critic. He's not your run of the mill dance writer, he's really studied dance in detail and if quizzed, can break down the technical as well as the artistic merits of a ballet with a real in depth knowledge, whereas I've encountered numerous so-called dance critics who work on the premise of 'I know what looks good even if I don't know how it's done'. His dance experience is vast both in ballet and contemporary, especially considering that Britains's contemporary scene is very developped and having travelled extensively to study contemporary on both sides of the atlantic.

In general the NY audiences should appreciate him. He comes from a dance scene which, despite being different to New Yorks, is equally as diverse and is in many ways much more cynical and harder to impress. He has to be, by a long way, the most knowledgeable dance critic that I have ever encountered and genuinely speaks from experience and understanding, not just personal taste. His technical dance knowledge will certainly be used to the full in New York, where technical standards are generally much higher. Top notch I would say, certaianly the dance community here values his opinion enormously and his word has, rightly or wrongly, been the kiss of death for many a production in the past. — Crazy-dancing ( talk ) 13:24, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Ondine ters

I think is best for me to stay well out of the discussion about Ondine. Being a Brit, I am liable to get on my Ashton loving soapbox. Personally I think the only articles there should be are

  • one relating to the novella as the origination for the ballet
  • one relating to the original Perrot ballet
  • one relating to the Ashton ballet with a subsection relating to the music to keep the obsessives happy

Personally I've never even heard of the composer and that's saying a lot considering that Ondine is a personal favourite and what I don't know about my Ashton ballets could be written on a grain of rice. — Crazy-dancing ( talk ) 03:18, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi Robert, from the WP:MOS . Just a note: "Links cannot be used in article titles, and should not be used in section titles; instead, link the first occurrence of the phrase in the body of the text." One reason for this is that some preference settings automatically go to the article edit box where links are in headings rather than going to the article. I used to do it too. — Paul foord ( talk ) 02:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

List of dance style categories‎

Thank you, Paul! I knew about not linking in titles but not about the bad effects of doing so in sections headings. I'll fix List of dance style categories‎ when I get back to NY on Tuesday (I'm visiting Mom in Ohio.) — Robert Greer 20:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

PS this talk page

But I will probably continue to link to section headings on this, my talk page. — Robert Greer 11:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Jeux d'eau (Ravel)

Is there a reason you tagged this under ballet? It's a six minute piano piece. Someone came and removed the catagory, but the WikiProject is still on the talk page. As far as I can tell, there's no indication in the article or any other categories about referencing it as one, and my works list for Ravel doesn't mention it either — and DOES put both Bolero and La Valse under the ballet heading. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:36, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

City Ballet Ravel Festival

I was setting up Category:New York City Ballet Ravel Festival in the course of which I came across a short list of ballets which have been made to the music of Ravel, and Jeux d'eau was on that list. I debated creating two seperate categories, Category:Ballets by Maurice Ravel and Category:Ballets to the music of Maurice Ravel , but each would have been miniscule (in a different context I did create Category:Ballets to the music of Frédéric Chopin as he did not write for the ballet but that has not stopped his music being used.) Bolero was of course written as a ballet but taken on a life of its own. I will create Category:Ballets to the music of Maurice Ravel for Jeux d'eau's benefit and if I ever have nothing better to do move a few thing there from Category:Ballets by Maurice Ravel . — Robert Greer 17:34, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Well it's not uncommon for non-ballet music to become a ballet later, but IMO they shouldn't be categorized as such unless the ballets themselves are notable — in Chopin's case, Les Sylphides is certainly notabl, but the pieces that make up Les Sylphides aren't realted to ballet directly. See the difference? Having a Category:Ballets to the music of Maurice Ravel would just be a case of over catogorization, really. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 19:09, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

categorization etc.

I agree that it's overcategorization to have both Category:Ballets to the music of Maurice Ravel and Category:Ballets by Maurice Ravel , but can also see musicologists' objections to putting Jeux d'eau in the latter. From the music side there's no reason to take note of the latter connection at all, but from the ballet side of the equation it is significant. Musicians (I am a former musican myself) would be shocked at the omission of Ravel's less well known works from his Wiki. entries. Why, then, should the ballet entries exclude his less obvious compsitions? I would very much prefer to have just one Wiki. category for all ballets that use Ravel's music, whether written for that purpose or not, but don't intened to waste my time re-tagging compositions which have been removed from the category in haste by Wiki. editors who (unlike you!) can't be bothered to ask first. — Robert Greer 22:02, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Not quite sure what this is saying. I presume you are referring to my edit which removed the category "Ballets by Maurice Ravel" from the Jeux d'eau article. The reason for that edit was that the article made no claim that Jeux d'eau was written as a ballet. I see that the article has now been recategorized under Category:Ballets to the music of Maurice Ravel . The justification for this is, presumably, that someone (but not Ravel himself) has used Jeux d'eau as music to accompany a ballet. The biggest objection to this is that the Jeux d'eau article itself does not make this claim, and it doesn't seem to be referenced anywhere. In addition, I don't think that the use of categories like this is generally a good idea. A piece of music can be used in hundreds of ways such as film music, video games, etc. If we go in this direction we would end up with Bolero being in such single-member categories as Category:Sex scenes to the music of Maurice Ravel and Category:Gold-medal winning Olympic ice-skating routines to the music of Maurice Ravel . Such tidbits might just about be worth adding to the text of the article (if referenced), but hardly justify the creation of new categories. Grover cleveland 16:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, exactly. The ballet itself would have to be notable (that it, have enough for its own article), but as I said above, it'd have to be the whole piece, not just as a movement like the Chopin pieces in Les Sylphides, or Gottschalk pieces in Cakewalk, or Offenbach pieces in Gaite Parisienne , etc. etc. As it stands now, Jeux d'eau doesn't seem to be a notable ballet in and of itself. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ ( talk ) 17:04, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

NYCB website

From www.nycballet.com

Le Tombeau de Couperin
Music Le Tombeau de Couperin (1919, orchestrated 1920) by Maurice Ravel
Choreography George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust
Premiere May 29, 1975, New York City Ballet, Ravel Festival, New York State Theater

… Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was born in the French Basque town of Ciboure. His family moved to Paris and encouraged him to take piano lessons. At fourteen he was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied with Fauré, who became his principal teacher of composition. His ballet scores include Pavane pour une Infante Défunte, Jeux d'eau, Bolero, Daphnis and Chloé, Ma Mère L'Oye, and L'Enfant et les Sortilèges, a ballet-opera [emphasis added.]

— Robert Greer 22:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Jeux d'eau

Thanks for providing the reference. I think that this passing mention of "Jeux d'eau" as a ballet must be to a NYC Ballet production that arranged Ravel's piano music as ballet accompaniment. ( here is a link to a NY Times review). I can find no other reference that Ravel intended Jeux d'eau to be ballet music, or even that he ever orchestrated it. For a pretty authoritative source on this, here is an extract from article by Ravel musicologist Deborah Mawer specifically about Ravel's ballets:

. Here is a Google books link if you're interested. Grover cleveland ( talk ) 03:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

thank you

This becomes more and more interesting! It's too late tonight (I give final exams tomorrow morning at eight) but I want to get to the bottom of this. Although the list comes from NYCB's website, Jeux d'eau is not one of their ballets; they're just mentioning in passing that there is a ballet to Jeux d'eau . Curiouser and curiouser! — Robert Greer 03:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

School of American Ballet

I found it! And while not officially part of the City Ballet family it is at least a stepchild:

The School of American Ballet 's commendable New Choreography workshop … presented … Mr. Byars's Jeux d'eau , [which] rose consistently above the level of competent craftmanship. It has been interesting to watch Mr. Byars, a young solist [sic] with the New York City Ballet, refine his technical skills and style over the last few years. The same kind of intelligence was at work in Jeux d'eau, Mr. Byars's first ballet. Set to a Ravel score performed live by the pianist Nancy McDill, the pas de deux has a suggestion of plot but is essentially a simple, fresh exploration of the art of classical ballet and ballet partnering. That simplicity, and the way Mr. Byars seems to extend and enhance his dancers, suggests some choreographic promise. — NY Times review by Jennifer Dunning, July 29, 1990

City Ballet's website lists over two dozen ballets made to the music of Ravel, so there should be enough entries in the Category:Ballets to the music of Maurice Ravel to justify its existence; there may well be more entries there than in Category:Ballets by Maurice Ravel by the time all is said and done. I am sensitive to over-categorization, having spent some time cleaning up the taxonomy of the sub- and sub-sub- and sub-sub-sub-categories of Category:Ballet while trying not to step on other WikiPedians' toes. City Ballet was and still is composer-centric; Balanchine double majored in music — piano — and ballet in St. Petersburg and respected his composers, naming nearly all of his ballets for the music. Which does not make documenting them on WikiPedia any easier: I've learned more about piping, redirect and disambiguation pages than I ever wanted to know. But Ravel and City Ballet's Ravel Festival will have to wait for the end of the NYCB Spring season, which is hard enough to keep up with without adding extra farthels and burthens! If you want a list of the ballets they've made to Ravel try this Google search: Repertory Index - New York City Ballet" ravel site:nycballet.com — Robert Greer 21:05, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Mother Goose

PS You can blame it all on Mother Goose , which is being danced this season as part of City Ballet's Jerome Robbins celebration (he'd have turned 90.) It was the ballet that called my attention to their Ravel festival in the first place. — Robert Greer 19:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

June

Ballet redirects

Hi Robert, I'm puzzled by this edit . I thought you accepted a few months ago that it was confusing to readers to use redirects in the catmore template, as they may expect a much more specific article than the target. — Fayenatic (talk) 18:37, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

on further thought

The original {{catmore}}s re-arose when I changed over from {{seealso:Category:}} templates to {{see also cat}}.

On further thought (or lack thereof) I then reversed course with respect to redirects.

What you had objected to was that a reader of Wikipedia might be surprised at being redirected.

The most concise formulation of the question was Shoemaker's [emphasis added] :

It's only where the redirect leads somewhere where the subject isn't really discussed that a problem arises. — Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 22:30, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't see that a person clicking on "The main article for this category is Ballet choreographers " or "The main article for this category is Ballets by choreographer " would be surprised or confused to be presented with Choreography followed by the note, "(Redirected from Ballet choreographers )" or "(Redirected from Ballets by choreographer )," as the case might be.

Nor "The main article for this category is Ballets by composer " or "The main article for this category is Ballet composers " leading to Ballet (music) followed by the note, "(Redirected from Ballets by composer )" or "(Redirected from Ballet composers )."

Nor that even the gentlest reader of "The main article for this category is Ballet designers " or "The main article for this category is Ballets by designer " — or "The main article for this category is Ballets by librettist " or "The main article for this category is Ballet librettists " — being sent to Ballet followed by the note, "(Redirected from Ballets by designer )," "(Redirected from Ballet designers )," Ballets by librettist )" or "(Redirected from Ballet librettists )," respectively, would register shock, awe, confusion or surprise.

The word " Ballet ," singular or plural, being the first word in the names of all the categories, articles and redirects in question, with the sole exception of the article, Choreography . — Robert Greer 12:57, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

PS With respect to the desirability of piping, there is a strong injunction against it in at least one other context, that being on disambiguation pages. — Robert Greer 12:58, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm not going to take it anywhere, but I suggest to you that {{catmore|Choreography}}, {{catmore|Ballet}} or {{catmore|Ballet (music)}} is better than {{catmore}} with a redirect. — Fayenatic (talk) 17:37, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

NYCB

Yes, I think it would be much better having well placed and formatted references than non-specific external links. cheers! — emerson7 16:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

thank you

Thank you! I will get to it but not until the end of City Ballet season at the end of the month! — Robert Greer 16:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Ballet Portal

Do you think we're ready to announce (see step 6) the Ballet Portal ? — Robert Greer 13:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

yes

Yes. However, a bit of extra attention from others wouldn't hurt to move it along. Paul foord ( talk ) 12:33, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

done

Done! — Robert Greer 18:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Ballet Imperial

Turns out there's a band called Ballet Imperial, so I think the best solution is to turn the redirect page Ballet Imperial into a disambiguation page. On that page I've labelled the ballet as: "The common name for Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 (ballet) ". I've no idea if that's an accurate description, so you may want to amend it. Peter Ballard ( talk ) 07:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

thank you

Well and thoughtfully done! — Robert Greer 10:55, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

July

Categorizing redirects: Two and Three Part Inventions

NB Please leave Two and Three Part Inventions in Category:New York City Ballet repertory .

The confusion caused by the discrepancy between Two and Three Part Inventions and 2 and 3 Part Inventions is greater than can be imagined. — Robert Greer 13:20, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Ross Stretton Interview

Hi there, I was just wondering if the US press have reported on the interview with Ross Stretton that was release recently. If you don't know what I'm talking about, he recorded an interview before he died, apparently to set the record straight about his time in charge at the Royal Ballet, but essentialy, he's just accuses the company of having a conspiracy to get rid of him. Most of the major UK and Australian newspapers covered the story, but having been a dancer in America for much of his performing career, I wondered if any of the US papers have picked up on the story? I was around the royal ballet a lot at that time, so I have a good insight into what went on, but I'm curious to see how things have been perceived elsewhere. — Crazy-dancing ( talk ) 23:53, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Not that the NY Times is the only paper, but they give more coverage than any other paper (possibly more than all others combined). What's Stretton say? — Robert Greer 23:59, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

PS Gemma Bond joining ABT is the talk of the town. — Robert Greer 23:59, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Basically, Ross Stretton recorded a video interview that wasn't supposed to be released for 40 years. When he was diagnosed with the cancer he gave permission for it to be released earlier and the transcript has just been published. He essentially blames everyone at the Royal Opera House for his 'leaving' the Royal Ballet, saying that he was hounded out of the job by a big conspiracy, because he was from Australia and a 'colonial' instead of being home grown. He more or less denies all the allegations that were made about him or points the finger back at the Royal Ballet. IT is blatantly an attack on the company, but the British press have put it down to him being ill and bitter, as most of what he's said just doesn't add up with what actually occured. As with most people, I think the suggestion that there was some anti-colonial conspiracy is just tripe. Throughout its history, the Royal Ballet has always been teeming with dancers etc from the colonies, Australia in particular. Even now, we have a South African as the Director of the company and Gailene Stock was actually invited to leave the directorship of Australian Ballet to take over the Royal Ballet School. If you have a look on Google, you will probably find some of the news articles about it, the Telegraph carried two or three articles.

Gemma Bond: ll that can be said is good luck to her, if she can progress with ABT, then I wish her every success. That is only tinged with the bitterness that accompanies every British dancer that has disappeared off to pursue their careers abroad. I was discussing with friends the other day about the apparent lack of British ballet talent in the Royal Ballet. My friend was mightily suprised by my attack, because as I said to her, we have amazing ballet talent in this country, but the Royal Ballet always seems to ignore it. Edward Watson is now the only home grown Principal in the Royal Ballet and whilst nearly all the company are Royal Ballet School trained, it distresses me that the company seem to let our best British talent go un-noticed, until it is too late and they've been enticed away to greener pastures. It amazes me that whilst the Royal Ballet can seemingly count on one hand the number of British dancers it employs, yet other companies around the world are just littered with British born dancers who are not only slumming it with the corps de ballet, but are having fantastic careers as soloists and principals with some of the best companies!!!! It makes me SOOOOO CROSS!!!!!!!!!! No offence to ABT, but GIVE GEMMA BACK! Yes she might only be corps de ballet at the moment, but I will laugh when she gets promoted and the Royal Ballet are yet again left scratching their heads at how they ever let her go.

Cut and paste move of content to Relâche (ballet)

Hi, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. It appears that you recently tried to move a page by copying its content and pasting it into another page with a different name. This is known as a " cut and paste move", and it is considered undesirable because it splits the page history which is needed for attribution and various other purposes. Instead, the software used by Wikipedia has a feature that allows pages to be moved to a new title together with their edit history.

In most cases, you should be able to move an article yourself using the "Move" tab at the top of the page. This both preserves the page history intact and automatically creates a redirect from the old title to the new. If you cannot perform a particular page move yourself this way (e.g. because a page already exists at the target title), please follow the instructions at requested moves to have it moved by someone else. Also, if there are any other articles that you moved by copying and pasting, even if it was a long time ago, please list them at Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen . - Thank you. <! — Template:uw-c&pmove — > - Toon 20:12, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the advice concerning Relâche (ballet) ; if I remember correctly, the material I cut and pasted was an excessively long entry on the Relâche disambiguation page, which I then copied into the ballet article. I'm sorry about the damage to the edit history, but it seemed the lesser of two evils (the ballet itself seems to have been forgotten from ten years after its first performance until a revival of interest around 1980, since which it has bubbled up every five years or so.) — Robert Greer 21:50, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

It's no problem really, there was no real damage done; the histories have been merged by an admin, it's just that without a page history, the GDFL license is violated, as people aren't credited for the work. It's not a very well known about problem, and can exist for long periods if nobody picks up on it. The guidelines on how to merge content from one article are located here , if you want do make any similar moves. But no damage done, and I'm glad you were bold , don't let this affect your good work! - Thank you. <! — Template:uw-c&pmove — > - Toon 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll tip off the powers that be should I see the need to do so in the future — but for the most part create new ballet articles, albeit too many and many that are too short — so little time and so many ballets — that and clean up the categorization, a task that is nearing completion! — Robert Greer 18:27, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

How would one then merge the von Rothbart article into Swan Lake without losing the former's history? — Robert Greer 15:14, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

It's actually really simple. When you perform the merge, just cut and paste the content but ensure that in the edit summary you put "merging content from Von Rothbart " or something similar, as a link to the edit history is needed. You must then make the old article a redirect, not tag it for deletion. Hope that's clear enough. - Thank you. <! — Template:uw-c&pmove — > - Toon 15:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Perfectly so! — Robert Greer 15:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Clarification: perhaps not. It's necessary to put the link in the Edit Summary , not the talk page, as the attribution is still soley to you on this article regarding the addition of the Von Rothbart material in the Edit History . The box below the one you type in to add content is the one I mean. - Thank you. <! — Template:uw-c&pmove — > - Toon 15 July 2008 (UTC)

This is more complicated than I thought; is this then the way I should've merged Von Rothbart into Swan Lake ?

  1. cut the text out of Von Rothbart
  2. typed into Von Rothbart 's edit summary: merged into Swan Lake
  3. redirected Von Rothbart to Swan Lake#von Rothbart
  4. pasted the text cut from Von Rothbart into the new section, Swan Lake#von Rothbart
  5. typed into the Swan Lake edit summary: merged from Von Rothbart
— Robert Greer 18:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

That's it exactly. - Toon 05 18:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Short articles

Is there some reason Prima ballerina and Prima ballerina absoluta aren't redirected to Ballerina ? Please respond here. Clarityfiend ( talk ) 06:33, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Prima ballerina absoluta [sic] already redirects to Ballerina ; you are probably referring to Prima ballerina assoluta (the correct spelling) which is a stub article, as is Prima ballerina . Feel free to do as you like with them, but please leave Prima ballerina assolutas and Prima ballerinas (note the plural!) as they are. They are redirects from {{catmore}} templates in Category:Prima ballerina assolutas and Category:Prima ballerinas respectively. I know that one can "pipe" a catmore without a redirect but am an oldtime programmer and believe in keeping things modular. — Robert Greer 12:39, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Categorizing redirects

I'm removing the categories you added to a number of redirects like List of NYCB Repertory . The target article is already in the same category, making this a useless excercise, where people browing through a category come across the same contents multiple times (I know that redirects are italicized in categories, but still.) I fail to see any benefit from such categorizations. Maintenance categories for redirects may be useful, or categories for redirects to a specific section, perhaps, but in this case? Wikipedia:Redirect states that "Redirects should not normally contain categories that would fit on the target page because it can result in duplicate listings of the same page within a category." I don't think these redirects fall under any of the exceptions listed in Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects but should follow the general rule. — Fram 06:58, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, I was unaware of the Wiki. policy concerning categorizing redirects but will adhere to it in the future and might (or might not) set up a maintenance category for WP Ballet redirects (leaving anything uncategorized bothers me.) There's a lot of ballet to be documented and not very many of us doing it. — Robert Greer 11:27, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for understanding. I have left a number of categories in redirects, e.g. where names of dancers are redirects to a larger article. These are (at first glance) legitimate uses of categories in redirects. If your main interest is somehow keeping track of the redirects related to ballet, adding something (e.g. a Wikiproject tag with class=Redirect) to the talk page of the redirect is a possible solution (one I use for the Comics project, with this result: [[Category:Redirect-Class Comics articles]] ). I hope this helps! Fram ( talk ) 11:37, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

NB Please leave Two and Three Part Inventions in Category:New York City Ballet Repertory .

The confusion caused by the discrepancy between Two and Three Part Inventions and 2 and 3 Part Inventions is greater than can be imagined. — Robert Greer 13:20, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

August

May I ask … destubbing article Hamburg Ballet

May I ask, why you destubed the one sentence article Hamburg Ballet and have the portal link added on the article not on the talk page ? All other portals I've seen, railway, Germany, California … add their portals to the talk page. Greetings (PS please answer here, I'll watch this page) Sebastian scha. ( talk ) 20:01, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

mea culpa

The destubbing was accidental (I am jetlagged, just back from Sweden at 1:30 a.m.) I was unaware that portals go on the talk page; WikiProjects, of course, do so. — Robert Greer 22:21, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

no problem

I've corrected this minor mistake. Have a good sleep or a good day Sebastian scha. ( talk ) 22:49, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

September

Ballerina

Fixed Ballerina and someone else took care of the other article. Thanks for the heads up. For a non-administrator to correct an article, click on History, then click on the Version prior to the vandal, then click Edit, put "rvv" as the edit summary (it means reverting vandalism) and Save. That old version becomes the current version and the vandalism is gone. Robert Greer 22:35, 13 March 2008 (UTC)] Anything further, don't hesitate to ask. — Roy Boy 800 22:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

cont.

I added a small note to the talk:Ballerina page. I hate making decisions about English spelling … Gioland71 ( talk ) 19:03, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I know I am not right

It does not mean I am wrong, though. As I said on the talk:Ballerina page, the simplest solution is to indicate the various forms in English, ranking them by current usage; then add a note on the Russian and Italian equivalent terms. It also would be sensible to distinguish the term ballerina as a generic name for a dancer, and the ranking in the former-Soviet companies (with all its derivatives). In the grand scheme of things, I wish wikipedia always noted the correct native spelling for all the loan words (at least the most recent and trackable ones), besides the spelling commonly used in English. Something similar already happens for words transliterated from other alphabets. Gioland71 ( talk ) 20:35, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Apollon musagète and Apollo

Have now merged the articles under the title Apollo (ballet) but the article def needs expansion and refs if you're interested in working on it. — Cazo3788 ( talk ) 13:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

thank you

Thank you! I will get to it but not until the end of City Ballet season at the end of the month! — Robert Greer 20:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

at long last

I'm finally getting around to it. — Robert Greer 00:15, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Didem (Belly Dancer) categories removed

Hey … I don't get it. Why did you and this HotCat come in and remove the categories Category:Dancers and Category:Bellydance from this article? This makes no sense at all! Didem obviously belongs in these categories. Duh? Htfiddler ( talk ) 18:26, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

A fair question

… which deserves a decent response. If all the Ballet Dancers, Ballroom Dancers, Belly Dancers, Black Dancers, Blackface minstrel performers, Breakdancers, Breakdancing groups, Contemporary Dancers, Erotic Dancers, Fictional Dancers, Flamenco Dancers, Folk Dancers, Modern Dancers, Popping Dancers, Professional Wrestling Dancers and Tap Dancers were included in Category:Dancers it would become so large as to be useless, which is the whole reason for having categories within categories.

Category:Female dancers , Category:Male dancers and Category:Dancers by nationality are special cases, and Didem could perfectly well be listed as both a Belly Dancer and a Female Dancer (and as a Turkish Dancer if such a category existed within Category:Dancers by Nationality).

Category:Belly dancers is itself a sub-category of Category:Bellydance , so no belly dancers should appear in the latter (the same is true of Category:Ballroom dance , Category:Ballet , Category:Tap dance , etc.. Category:Ballet dancers gets still more complicated with Category:Ballerinas , Category:Prima ballerinas , Category:Prima ballerina assolutas and Category:Danseurs , and a prima ballerina assoluta should not be in the category for prima ballerinas or for ballerinas for much the same reason (ditto no prima ballerinas in the ballerina category).

There are is a seperate category for Category:Dance companies , which in turn has sub-categories, so looking at Category:Belly Dancers it woud seem that Sandstorm: The Jim Boz Dance Company and Talisman Dance Company belong respectively in Category:Bellydance and Category:Dance companies (but not in Category:Belly Dancers, which refers to individuals) and Category:Breakdancing groups belongs in Category:Breakdance and Category:Dance companies in the United States (but not in Category:Dancers; I don't go looking for things to re-categorize but do so if I stumble upon them.) — Robert Greer 13:00, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Gotcha!

OK … I get your drift in general, however it is beyond my feeble mind to comprehend in detail. Anyway, thx for your attention to this and for adding the "Female dancers" category. Htfiddler ( talk ) 00:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Jerome Robbins

May I ask why you removed the link to the Jerome Robbins Foundation and Trust website ? — Robert Greer 19:35, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

mea culpa. it was in error. i put it back just now. — emerson7 19:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Thank you! — Robert Greer 19:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

October

Issue with Template:WikiProject Dance nested=yes

The WikiProject Dance template is broken, a little, maybe; when used with the nested=yes option its text is aligned to the left, not centered as are most (all?) other WikiProject banners. — Robert Greer 13:32, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Contemporary music

The WikiProject Contemporary music template has the same glitch (if it is indeed a glitch and not an intentional feature). — Robert Greer 15:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

text justification

Hi Robert, the issue about text justification at Template:WikiProject Dance where nested=yes not seen using Firefox. I may not have looked at the effected talk pages. It is also possible an underlying template may have caused the problem and since been fixed. — Paul foord ( talk ) 05:59, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

IE 6

Hi Paul, we run Internet Explorer 6.0 and the problem is still there. I may get up to Columbia U. later this week (I teach at C.U.N.Y. ) They run Macs and Safari and so provide a cross reference. — Robert Greer 20:07, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

now doing nothing

nested=yes is now not doing anything! See Talk:Aschenbrödel . — Robert Greer 19:49, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to take so long to respond. Raised it at User talk:Happy-melon#'nested=yes' not working in some project templates — Paul foord ( talk ) 06:52, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, Paul (this is not a time critical issue and four days is scarcely a long response time!) — Robert Greer 12:32, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

adding Category:Berries to Blackthorn

Are you happy that Prunus spinosa is correct? The fruit is a kind of wild plum, a drupe like cherry, peach etc. I'm really surprised anyone would call them 'berries' even colloquially, and they certainly don't fit botanically. — Yumegusa ( talk ) 07:27, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I take it back. I've just googled 'sloe berries' and found over 48 000 hits! I should have done a little research before posting here, rather than just trusting my instincts. — Yumegusa ( talk ) 07:46, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
No problem! I was bouncing back and forth between the English and Swedish Wiki. categories for berries , bär in the latter, and stumbled upon it. — Robert Greer 18:06, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Faust

cross-posted on User talk:Jwy

I don't support the suggested merge. See my comments at Talk:Faust (disambiguation) . Cheers, (John User:Jwy talk ) 18:58, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I've cleaned up the page some. Are there particular Fausts that you would move over? (John User:Jwy talk ) 15:29, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
I made two very slight changes to Faust (disambiguation) and Works based on Faust ; Goethe's, Marlowe's, Newman's and Kanso's works appeared in both (they're now just in the former) and there was an extraneous (disambiguation) after Saint Faustus (it's gone.) While I was at it I reversed the listing for Max Brand so that the blue link comes first; see the Faust (disambiguation) page, People section . Here follows a list of what I'd remove from Faust (disambiguation) , indicated by strikethrough; and what I'd move from Works based on Faust to Faust (disambiguation) , indicated by boldface (I apologize for its length.) — Robert Greer 13:13, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Faust (disambiguation)

Based on the tale

The name may may refer to one of these notable works of art based on the tale:

See also
People
Fictitious characters
otherwise

Works based on Faust

Drama
Opera
Classical Music
Ballet
Contemporary Music
Poetry
Prose fiction
Films and Screenplays
Comics
Manga

end of cross-posting

Physalis - peruviana merge

I think that you wanted to use the mergefrom template in one of these articles - you use the merge template in the article you want to remove, and mergefrom in the article you want to transfer its contents to. However, Physalis is a polytypic genus, so there would be no support for merging this in a species article, and Physalis peruviana is clearly notable enough and possesses a decent enought article to retain its own article. I suggest that you revert the proposal, rather than go through the rigmarole of discussing it. Lavateraguy ( talk ) 08:05, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Else Højgaard

Thanks for the correction on the Else Højgaard article. You are right, I've re-read my texts and find that she was never named the første solodanserinde. Good catch. Cheers. — CactusWriter | needles 17:03, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome! — Robert Greer 21:44, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
PS I see from your user page that you're an American living in Denmark; how do you come to write about ballet? — Robert Greer 23:57, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I write about the Danish cinema. During a recent task force drive on nordic movies, another editor created a one sentence stub about Højgaard for her involvement in Café Paradis . Of course, it was immediately proposed for CSD (as is typical). He dropped me a line and asked me if I could rescue it, so I wrote the article. Naturally, she was an easy woman to rescue. Interesting person. — CactusWriter | needles 21:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Heads up

Hi! Just so you know, it's not necessary to make a redirect when you create a new category: You can instead use {{catmore|Ballet}}, for instance, to just link to it. You probably shouldn't create a redirect unless someone is likely to try and search for that redirect, and the page you link to has information on that subject. For instance:

For more information, see Ballets designed by Holly Hynes.

… would probably make people expect to find information about Holly Hynes if they clicked on the link. However

For more information, see ballet.

… would make their expectations a bit more reasonable. It's basically the principle of least surprise .

Cheers! — Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk ) 19:40, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I changed the ones from 2008 back to 1961 , but then I got bored, mainly because you hadn't added the links to preceding years' categories — which I thought were rather good, incidentally. Anyway, over to you. — Fayenatic (talk) 20:44, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

{{main|Ballet}} vs. {{catmore|Ballet}}

I'm glad you like the year-to-year links in Category:Ballet premieres by year . It's something I've been adding sporadically — at best.

Writing up ballets as they get performed comes first — and there are years for which there are not yet any premieres to record.

So the links will get themselves added as time permits.

There is, however, method in my madness with respect to creating re-directs from {{catmore}}s.

Rather than using {{main|Ballet}}.

Or piping a la {{catmore|Ballet}}.

As you may've noticed in the case of some of the more recent years, the redirect sends one to List of 2008 ballet premieres , for example.

Rather than to Ballet .

I am an old-time programmer — from the days of Algol — and have a very modular outlook in such matters.

Having the redirect in place allows one merely to edit it to point to the list.

Rather than edit the {{main|Ballet}} or {{catmore|Ballet}} in the category itself.

Which is not objectionable, but in olden times we didn't consider having to do so to be a clean approach; mainly I am after consistency.

And the saying, often misquoted, is that:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines [emphasis added.]

Eccentric, probably; but foolish, no; it does simplify modification and maintenance in the future. — Robert Greer 21:47, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, certainly the redirects to lists are fine, and highly appropriate: It's only where the redirect leads somewhere where the subject isn't really discussed that a problem arises. — Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk ) 22:30, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the Shoemaker's Holiday. (Is he a WikiElf, I wonder?) The modular approach is good design, and I use a similar approach making use of redirects for fictional characters who get merged and listified from time to time. However, the way that Catmore displays the redirects on your categories is liable to disappoint or confuse readers. I suggest that we should build Wikipedia in a way that is mainly for the benefit of the reader, and only secondarily for our convenience or satisfaction as editors. Kind regards, Fayenatic (talk) 23:05, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Elves! Race of Mary Sue s! At least go for dwarf if you're going to choose a fantasy race. =) Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk ) 03:22, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
I beg your pardon! I was thinking of " The Elves and the Shoemaker ". — Fayenatic (talk) 12:40, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

the future of ballet on Wikipedia

One would hope that in some utopian future there would be an actual Wikipedia article, resplendent with references, for each ballet season.

Not just a little list of premieres.

For the present there are scarcely a dozen of us writing about our beloved form of dance.

So the lists get created whenever there arises a critical mass of ballets within a category.

And I am truly grateful for your lending a hand with this! — Robert Greer 22:45, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, certainly we should update links as appropriate articles emerge. Hmm. As a first step, though, I think that getting Ballet up to featured status would be a good idea in the short term, though - it really is a shockingly bad article (well … undetailed and short might be a better description) for such an important form of theatre. I could try and help, though my knowledge base is more in the vocal arts than dance. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk ) 23:59, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Please do! I must confess to having done nonething with it, but plead extenuating circumstances as I live in New York and go to the ballet too often for my own good.
Which is to say, I spend more time than I should creating a great many short articles which do not aspire to be featured articles, at least not in this lifetime.
City Ballet has literally hundreds of dances in their repertory, most of which are not at all documented on Wikipedia, most of them by Jerome Robbins or George Balanchine , many of them to scores by Igor Stravinsky . They dance roughly forty in the spring and forty more mid-winter, and that's enough to keep anyone busy.
Then there's City Center who present Morphoses , the San Francisco Ballet and American Ballet Theatre as well as their own Fall for Dance Festival .
So if you take it upon yourself to fix Ballet you will be performing a great service! — Robert Greer 00:14, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
If I can get a little help, I will. I'd rather not solo it, though =) Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk ) 03:22, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
I should hope you would do it solo: too many cooks spoil the soup! — Robert Greer 12:02, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Not when the person soloing it likes ballet, but isn't particularly knowledgeable about it. Working with an expert would help, taking some of the pressure off me and giving access to the expert's collection of books and such on the subject. =) Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk ) 14:25, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
You're really trying — for the best of reasons — to drag me into something I don't want to get involved with — for not entirely selfish reasons.
The only ballet articles I'm less inclined to edit are pointe shoes and Nijinsky (I did make an exception just now for the film .)
The reason being that both attract nutcases (not everybody who's edited these two pages is, but there are some, so I just stear clear.)
Ballet isn't as strong a nutcase magnet, but you should know what you're getting into (and perhaps just why it's not up to snuff).
If I have not deterred you from fixing it, feel free to ask me whatever you like — other than asking me to do any actual editing on it.
There is another reason for this request: the Fall dance season only winds down mid-November and there is much to document before Winter season kicks in!
I used to keep some of what I've put on Wikipedia in Excel spreadsheets (and filing cabinets) but decided to post it in a more accessible manner.
For my own purposes — I told you this was in part selfish — but if it's of use or interest to anyone else, that's all to the good.
— Robert Greer 16:13, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
thank you

Both of you! — Robert Greer 23:38, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Categorising redirects

I notice that you have categorised a lot of redirects, e.g. those at the head of category:Ballet related lists . I don't think this is helpful, as the target pages are in the same categories. Please see the policy WP:CAT-RD ; there are reasons to categorise some redirects, but I'm inclined to remove all the categories from these. — Fayenatic (talk) 13:32, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Please retain Category:Ballet redirects in any case. — Robert Greer 13:36, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
OK. — Fayenatic (talk) 13:37, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Thank you! — Robert Greer 13:38, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
PS Ditto Category:American Ballet Theatre soloists . — Robert Greer 17:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

November

Issue with Template:WikiProject Dance nested=yes

On Talk:Aschenbrödel "WikiProject Dance / Ballet" is nesting but left justified, not centered. Whereas "WikiProject Classical music" on the same talk page is nested and centered. — Robert Greer 12:32, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Tributary (disambiguation)

IAW usage guidelines on Wikipedia:Disambiguation please stop piping the links on the above page to your ballet page. If there is a practical reason for deviating from the above policy, please state it here. Gjs238 ( talk ) 11:19, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Henvisninger til andre sprog

Hej Robert, interwiki -links skal skrives på formen [[en:Link]] , hvorved de automatisk vises ude til venstre under "andre sprog", og de må ikke gentages. - Kåre Thor Olsen (Kaare) 10. nov 2007, 02:03 (CET)

Stuttgart Ballet

Thx for your input. See User_talk:BuzzWoof#Stuttgart_Ballet

cross posted from User_talk:BuzzWoof#Stuttgart_Ballet

85.180.37.197 is an unregistered editor who's never done anything else on Wikipedia and well may not return; it would be nice if you were to restore the text that he or she so generously provided — and edit it if it is not to your satisfaction (it's not the loveliest on Wikipedia, but please restore it in any case.) I have not seen the company and generally restrict my writing to matters of which I have first-hand knowledge. — Robert Greer 03:24, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Agreed the content is useful, but it's not on plastering stuff on articles then expecting others to mop it into shape! I've just moved home and my wife's expecting and and and. If you want, feel free to restore yourself and edit. Thx. BuzzWoof ( talk ) 21:24, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter

Hi. I notice that WP also contains an article ( Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter ) about the above person. It was created after your Charles Nuitter but is somewhat more comprehensive. I'm intending to merge yours into the newer article, with appropriate redirects, banner moves and what-have-you, but thought I ought to alert you first. The reason for using the longer form of the name is that that's the version that appears in Opera Grove, the Bible of WikiProject Opera , to which I belong. I'll probably be doing this tomorrow rather than today and will notify you when I've finished. Meanwhile, if you have any concerns, please let me know. Best — Guillaume Tell 17:13, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

please do so

And thank you! — Robert Greer 18:22, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

PS I have put various accoutrements from Charles Nuitter 's page onto Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter 's; to wit, Category:Ballet librettists and {{Portal|Ballet}}, as well as {{WikiProject Dance|Ballet=yes|nested=yes}} on Talk:Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter and {{mergefrom}} and {{mergeto}} templates on both articles. — Robert Greer 19:33, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
PPS See User talk:Robertgreer#Cut and paste move of content to Relâche (ballet) on how to merge two articles the Wiki. way (as in the saying, "There are three ways of doing things, there is the right way and the wrong way and the Army way." It doesn't make much difference to me, but there are Wikipedians who hold these things sacrosanct. — Robert Greer 19:43, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

all done

"See User talk:Robertgreer#Cut and paste move of content to Relâche (ballet) " is fine as far as it goes, but to be comprehensive it should also include instructions on checking for duplication of text or links in the article and for double-redirects and whatnot elsewhere. The actual merging can be quite complex, too - it isn't just a case of dumping the merged text at the bottom of the article. Let me know if there are any problems that I haven't spotted. Best. — Guillaume Tell 01:37, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Sullivan ballet cat

Dear Robert, Sullivan only wrote two ballets, so I think the new category that you created should be deleted and upmerged on the grounds of WP:OC#SMALL . Sullivan was known for his operas, but he wrote lots of other stuff. All the Sullivan-related articles make it easy to find the operas, but we want to make sure that people know about his other compositions and can easily find them all in one place. Sullivan was not known for his ballets, so putting these two items in their own subcat does not seem helpful. Please comment HERE . Thanks! — Ssilvers ( talk ) 19:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Category:Ballets by Arthur Sullivan

(copied from User_talk:Xaosflux )

I think that your deletion (without discussion or notice) Category:Ballets by Arthur Sullivan was a bit hasty; please see User talk:Shoemaker's Holiday#Category:Ballets by Arthur Sullivan and restore the category until the matter has been resolved. — Robert Greer 23:40, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not showing where I deleted this in the log for that page. I would be glad to review any deletion I made, can you please point me to the log entry where you saw be deleting it? Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 12:20, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I do show where I deleted an article redirect of Ballets by Arthur Sullivan — > Arthur Sullivan , after it was flagged for speedy deletion as recently created improbable search term. If that is the page you want restored, please let me know. The category will be just as useful if searching for that title though. Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 12:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Don't worry about that redirect. The category now uses a direct link in {{catmore}}. A lot of other similar redirects are up for deletion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Ballet redirects . — Fayenatic (talk) 12:57, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Mobile site

Here is the listing I was telling you about of mobile portals for Wikipedia: Wikipedia:MOBILE — MBisanz talk 05:46, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much, this tip alone would have justified attending the NYC Meetup, but it offered so much more! Thank you again. — Robert Greer 20:29, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

December

Ballet

Hi, i see that you are a member in Wiki-project Sweden, and that you are interested in Ballet? I don't know if you are interested in the history of this subject. But if you are, they are some articles in Swedish wikipedia, that would deserve to be translated to English Wikipedia, so i thought i should suggest it; Ulrika Åberg , Louis Deland and Hedvig Katarina Hjortsberg all deserve to be mentioned as Sweden's first dancers. Louis Gallodier , Julie Alix de la Fay , Giovanna Bassi and Sophie Daugin belonged to the foreigners that developed the Royal Swedish Ballet in Sweden. Karolina Bock was important not only as a ballerina, but also became a principal in Dramatens elevskola and very influential. In Denmark, Anine Frölich was the first ballerina - an article in Danish can be found in the references on Caroline Halle-Müller . Well, i don't know if you are interested in this! If you aren't interested in giving them that much time, i suppose they would be finished by others if you started them. Anyway - only suggestions, when a saw you're interest in the subject! Best wishes! — 85.226.235.164 17:58, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

regrets

I regret to say I only got to looking at these today, and am glad to see some more diligent individual got there first! — Robert Greer 03:03, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tilde s ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key , and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you!<! — Template:Tilde — > — SineBot 22:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

TWIMC As I always log in my signature is always appended automatically; I have forgotten to log in once, precisely once! That was at 12:46, October 15, 2007 from 198.83.124.253. The latter is the IP for my place of work, Borough of Manhattan Community College (City University of New York). — Robert Greer 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Your ballet articles crossposted to and from User talk:Atavi

Hello Robertgreer. I've got some reservations about some ballet articles you have created. This started when I noticed you added a note to the article Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev) about Romeo † Juliet . I have an issue with the latter, in that there doesn't seem to be anything to signify that this is anything other than a production of the original. I am implying that perhaps a separate article is not warranted.

With this as as starting point I took a look at your contributions; one other thing I noticed was the Les noces thing. You created an article titled Les Noces (ballet) . I took the liberty of moving the article to Les Noces (Robbins) , as I thought that the title was confusing. I haven't decided what to do yet with the Les Noces (ballet) article, which currently redirects to the Robbins article, but perhaps it shouldn't. Also, the same issue I have with Romeo † Juliet applies here too: does it warrant a separate article? perhaps a note in the article Les noces will do.

I am usually an "inclusionist" and I am by no means not an expert on ballet. So I haven't tagged the articles for deletion. But I do have my doubts and urge you to consider adding material to the two articles and any similar articles in order to establish the identity or notability, if you will, of the subject matter.

Regards, — Atavi 12:05, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

PS:I hope you have not taken offense at anything I've written or done. If so, I apologize in advance. — Atavi 12:07, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
No offense taken, your suggestions (and tact) are appreciated, and I will explain. But first, I will go you one better and move Les Noces (Robbins) to Les Noces (Robbins ballet); this manner of naming was suggested by a Wikipedia administrator who's a graduate librarian from Rutgers and graciously saved a ballet stub I created from premature deletion.
The ballet articles I've created have mainly to do with New York City Ballet , which I attend regularly. Too regularly, but it's a cheap thrill at $15 a seat; make it a date for $30. Here's the rub: there are fewer than a dozen people writing about ballet on Wikipedia, City Ballet is the largest company in the U.S. and has the largest rep. of any company in the world.
Their active rep. is over a hundred ballets, so it's a juggling act; write more about fewer ballets or less about more? In the beginning I've opted for the latter, though I know it's contrary to the general Wikipedia mindset. Here's why:
(1) If there are any latent writers of Wikipedia ballet articles perhaps these stubs (which I've meticuluously categorized and marked on their discussion pages as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Ballet ) they might act as a honey pot and get somebody else to expand upon them.
(2) George Balanchine , the (co)founder of City Ballet, had the humility to subordinate the dance to the music; then again his regular collaborator was Igor Stravinsky . Balanchine was a superb musician in his own right, having studied piano in conservatory the same time he was learning to dance (and even played for ballet classes before graduating). He occasionally conducted orchestra rehearsals at City Ballet (only in case of illness on the part of the scheduled conductor) but according to all reports could perfectly well have conducted the performances. Here's where Wiki. comes in; out of respect for the music he gave most of his works the title of the music. This does not make the encyclopedist's life any the easier. just for Tschaikovsky (this is the way Mr. B. and City Ballet spell it) one has:
Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux
Tschaikovsky Pas de Quatre
Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2
Tschaikovsky Suite No. 1
Tschaikovsky Suite No. 2
Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3
These are not the only works of Tschaikovsky to which he made dances, just those that begin with the composer's name. Then one has:
Symphonic Dances
Symphonie Concertante
Symphony in C
Symphony in E Flat
Symphony in Three Movements
Symphony No. 1
Symphony No. 6 Pathetique
The result is a lot of disambiguation — hence Les Noces (Robbins ballet) — etc. And because of sniping from some very tactless, seemingly ignorant — and seemingly unaware of their own ignorance — Wiki. users it became imperative to post at least stubs for those that were ambiguously titled.
(3) Are any of Balanchine's ballets insignificant? Not any of those that are still being danced; the Balanchine Foundation has on staff a dozen or so répétiteurs, former principal dancer s who danced the ballets, usually under Mr. B. himself, know all the roles and the interpretations. Ballet companies other than City Ballet — which maintains an unbroken Balanchine tradition the way that the Royal Danish Ballet maintains Bournonville — interestingly Nikolaj Hübbe will leave NYCB and return to Copenhagen as ballet master — must bring in a repetiteur (the foundation dispenses with the French diacriticals, while retaining the s of Tschaikovsky) to obtaining performing rights.
(4) Are any of Balanchine's successors' ballets insignificant? None of those made by John Taras or Jerome Robbins that are still being danced; it's a bit more difficult to say for current ballet master in chief Peter Martins or choregrapher in residence Christopher Wheeldon ; but Wikipedia's guiding principles however say that we should remain wholly objective and withhold judgement!
Personally, I could leave out a dozen or so dances in City Ballet's rep. that aren't as significant as the rest, but this would be untrue to Wiki. Objectively speaking, any ballet being danced by the largest ballet company in the US, founded by the most important choreographer of the XX century, is significant — whether I like it or not. Certainly more significant than my namesake Mark Greer — we are not related — a school district bandmaster from Michigan whom is the subject of an article being drafted by an ignoramus who suggested deleting the page which the ex-Rutgers librarian so gallantly saved (see Talk:Romeo and Juliet (Lavery ballet) .)
(5) Is it possible to imbed City Ballet — or other modern ballet — entries in existing music or dance entries? I tried and immediately found them being deleted by people who from all appearances knew nothing about dance (see Revision history of Afternoon of a Faun (ballet) ; this I did not even try to reverse, the vandal not having loggged in and looking at the I.P. from which they came it being clear that they could not be talked to sensibly.)
There is too much work to be done (whether writing more about each ballet or writing about more ballets) to get engaged in undo or edit wars or lengthy arguments (this is a particular and peculiar exception because you are the most thoughtful correspondent I've encountered.)
(6) A future problem will be the growth of the ballet stubs in to full size articles and not necessarily of the sort that Wiki. editors and administrators admire. I've discussed this with choreographers, ballet masters, repetiteurs, (major) ballet teachers, dancers with both major ballet companies as well as other companies here and in Northern Europe, and the concencus is that cast lists and lists of ballets in the rep. are the most important articles to the dance world.
We can all look up in the NY Times who danced it on opening night, but what about the second cast? The third? What about last minute cast changes (often due to injury; except for concussions ballet is right up there with football)? As my high school journalism teacher would've asked, who danced what with whom and when and where?
At this point the tail will be wagging the dog, and somebody or other will go and delete everything to do with the Robbins' Les Noces about the time I add the third cast of the fourth revival (see item 5, paragraph 2.) But this is exactly the information that my friends in the professional dance world consider most important and yet, without the facilities of Wikipedia, most ephemeral.
(6) Romeo † Juliet was Peter Martins' major re-thinking of the Prokofiev score. (The music is a given in ballet, this being I suspect one reason that some contemporary dancers try to dance without music; as a theatre guy I have no problem being in an interpretive art form, but some of the modern dance choreographers don't see it that way.) But the fact that a piece of music has had a ballet made to it does not mean that all other, later dances are less important (in fact many of what we think of as canonical ballets are themselves the second or third settings of the music!) Ballet, unlike the opera, is not a museum art form (make that mausoleum .) It's alive and well:
If one Googles "Les noces" Nijinska one finds 16,300 "hits"; if one Googles "Les noces" Robbins one finds 37,300 "hits"!
(9) Finally, do I know whereof I speak? I am a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and Actors' Equity Association , am a full-time faculty member at City University of New York , am a former singer with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood Festival Chorus (sang for Bernstein , Ozawa , Colin Davis , Klaus Tennstedt ), have received grants fromt the Danish government to translate some of the plays I've directed (I speak fluent Swedish — have directed their best playwrights' works, Kristina Lugn among them — less than fluent Norwegian as well and do a little inter-Wiki editing; Wikipedia:WikiProject Echo , Danish Dance Theatre ), and perhaps most significantly have taken ballet class for twenty years with David Howard (who teaches much of American Ballet Theatre ), Willy Burman (ditto City Ballet), Nancy Bielski (any of the ABT or NYCB dancers who don't take with David or Willy) and David's three proteges; Peter Schabel, Paul Estabrook and Alex Tressor, who patiently taught me as a much-too-old beginner and got me up to taking professional class, even if I don't quite belong there; were I unaware of this fact I would not have any business taking the 10 a.m. class.)
Why am I spending any time at all — far too much time — documenting neo-classical and contemporary ballet (and a little Scandinavian modern dance) on Wikipedia? Because it won't get documented otherwise. The alternative is to set up a dance website, Wiki or other, but to do so would be to re-invent the wheel, which I will do only with great reluctance if Wikipedia proves too hostile.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Robertgreer ( talk • contribs ) <! — Template:Unsigned — >
Robertgreer, first of all I want to thank you for taking the time to provide such an enlightening reply to me. I have already said I am not a ballet expert, but I am interested in it, so your reply made quite an interesting read. I am honoured also, to discuss with a person of your expertise; of course I knew before that you knew what you're talking about — I didn't have any doubts.
To the point now: you've got me convinced. I still wish those articles could contain more material, but I'm willing to wait for it …
All of your points were excellent, but your second (6) point was especially convincing. It made me rethink and reminded me of the different productions of Swan Lake (how original, eh … ?): the original , the Petipa , the subsequent productions. The first (6) point is also compelling, and we could only get such insight from someone like you. It's good to have you on WP.
As you say, there's too much work to be done on ballet articles. I wish you well on your wikipedia expeditions. From the Wikipedia point of view, I don't think you're spending too much time on Ballet on Wikipedia; from your own point of view, you could obviously find more creative things to do and I wish there was someone else to do the work you're doing.
As a sidenote, I would just like to remind you to sign your posts for readability's sake. Also, regarding dates in wp,there are display options for dates (I'm using this feature), and having the dates written out in standard format facilitates this.
Regards,
— Atavi 12:44, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for taking the time to read what I wrote! It was useful to organize my thoughts and have a sympathetic ear for them. There will be more on each ballet, added as they are performed; but not every dance shows up every season (there are two seasons each year, winter and spring, but even so it takes time when you're dealing with hundreds!)
It's interesting you mention Swan Lake . Kenneth MacMillan and John Cranko both studied with Frederick Ashton and both made Swan Lakes. MacMillan's is the one better known in the US and probably seen more in the West nowadays than the Petipa . The Joffrey is the only major company that dances the Cranko here. Some years ago they did so for two weeks at the New York State Theater while the American Ballet Theatre was dancing it at the Metropolitan Opera House right across the Lincoln Center plaza. On nights that Makarova was Juliet I did standing room at ABT ; otherwise it was the Joffrey, and the Cranko is definitely the better.
On MacMillan's side, his ballet Mayerling , based on the double suicide of the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and his very young, very decadent mistress, is his masterpiece and never seen except at the Royal Ballet , London. I saw three performances in two days last year on Spring break (I'm not a rich man but can rent a room for ten pounds a night in the East End from a character actress — and a room in Stockholm for about the same from the retired professsor who was my ex-Swedish teacher's Swedish teacher.) Hence my exposure to Northern European dance. Mayerling is available on DVD ( Darcy Bussell , recently retired as a principal dancer but at that time still a soloist, dances the role of Mitzy, the crown prince's ordinary mistress.) This is not The Nutcracker — boy, has that one got a complicated history — and Mayerling is decidedly not suitable viewing for children.
As this is probably the last time I will write you, allow me to confess that twenty years ago my best friend — a college schoolmate and good ballerina though she's now got an MBA and makes ten times what I do — asked me whether I wanted to meet the most beautiful women in New York. I said, "Yes," and she said, "Take ballet class." I did and haven't dated any woman since whom I have not met in class.
I always log in and count on Wiki. to auto-date my entries, a bad habit, one of my many. Robert Greer 14:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
As I said, it was very interesting to read what you had to say and this also goes to your whole last entry.
It's not often that I attend ballet performances. I could probably list all of the performances I've seen, which presumably you can't.:-) I certainly I wish I could see more.
At some point I think I'll incorporate the bits about Swan Lake in the article, if I can find sources.
I will probably buy Mayerling (eventually)
Best,
— Atavi 20:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for the tweaking and especially for restoring the Rushton / Kobburg Afternoon of a Faun ! Robert Greer 21:08, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, the anonymous user 82.169.148.34 who previously deleted the Rushton / Kobborg from Afternoon of a Faun has done so again with the same explanation, word for word, as before; "This article is about the NIJINSKY ballet, the many others who made choreographies for this piece of music don't belong here" (it's good to know that they have mastered copy and paste.) Don't waste your time trying to fix this or reason with them. They appear to have no knowledge of ballet, having written about Chess , the Chess World Cup 2007 , Evgeny Alekseev‎ , Robert Bresson‎ , Elliott Carter‎ , Lenier Domínguez‎ , Vladimir Kramnik‎ , FC Barcelona‎ , Pierre Boulez , Alexander Scriabin‎ , Max Blumenthal‎ , Giancarlo Antognoni‎ and Indonesia‎ . I am assuming that there is only one user logging on from the I.P. A conventional whois query refers one to www.ripe.net/whois which reports:
descr: www.easyw.nl
country: NL
status: ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by: WOLTECH-MNT
source: RIPE # Filtered
tech-c: SK2119-RIPE
person: Saglain Khan
address: Easyway
address: Ged. Burgwal 72
address: 2512 BV Den Haag
address: Netherlands
phone: +31 30 2483500
fax-no: +31 70 3492999
e-mail: <saglain@easyw.nl>
nic-hdl: SK2119-RIPE
remarks: send an abuse notifications ONLY to: <abuse@easyw.nl>
Saglain Khan is presumably an adminstrator for the I.S.P. and not the party responsible. Robert Greer 02:03, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed myself that the user 82.169.148.34 did that. I don't have the energy for an edit war, and as you say it doesn't seem like one can discuss with this person. — Atavi 18:09, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Life's too short for edit wars. I've got twelve pair of tickets for City Ballet (grand total $380 including $20 annual membership which entitles one to half price); the first two performances in January, five at the end of the month and five more in February. And will probably buy more when they announce casting (they do so two weeks in advance). They're up in the fourth ring, oxygen mask territory, but are great seats, row F on the aisle!
Rows A and B are very nice but three times as expensive. Rows C, D and E pretty much sell out at full price to season ticket holders before the 50% discount kicks in, but row F aisle is better than any but the same seats in row D or E. A friend of mine did luck out and get single tickets at half price in D, but I'm buying a pair each night and more or less own F2 and F4.
Row A and C are very nice (as would be row A second or third ring, though I'll take row F aisle seats over row B, even in the third ring.) One must, however, reconcile ones champagne tastes with his beer budget. — Robert Greer 17:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, you hit the nail with the last comment. Anyway, I'm happy that you can find joy in this gift to us that ballet is.
I live somewhere where not many ballets are staged every year. So, I'm kind of envious of you. I've emailed you; I hope you don't mind — Atavi ( talk ) 13:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Feel free to do so! — Robert Greer 10:42, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Interwikis

Hei, har tilbakestilt dine endringer. Slik du setter ned interwikis er vanlig på nynorsk, men ikke på bokmål/riksmåls-wikipedia … Her sorteres de alfabetisk, uten at de nordiske favoriseres ;) Noorse 15. nov 2007 kl. 22:58 (CET)

Tack ska ni ha! — Robertgreer 11. des 2007 kl. 14:32 (CET)

Your proposed deletion of Octet (Christensen ballet), a ballet by William Christensen (cross posted from Talk:Octet (Christensen ballet) and User talk:Manderson198)

I have been documenting New York City Ballet on Wikipedia, or trying to, for the past few months: City Ballet has the largest rep. of any ballet company in the world.

Out of respect for the composers they've worked with, Igor Stravinsky among them, their choreographers often name their dances with the title of the music. Since more than one choreographer may make a dance to the same piece of music this results in more than infrequent ambiguity, and such is the case here.

William Christensen (and his brothers) were founders of the San Francisco Ballet . William went on to found Ballet West in Salt Lake City. He choreographed the first Coppélia in the US in the thirties, the first complete Swan Lake and the first Nutcracker in the forties.

The ambiguity arises in that Peter Martins , City Ballet's current ballet master in chief, has also made a dance to the same music. If one is to post an article on Mattins' dance, fairness demands that Christensen's also be (and good housekeeping says they should be cross linked.)

You write that you appreciate music; I do so as well, having a particular interest in the intersection of dance and music, and trust that you do not hold the former against me. Robert Greer 04:13, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

PS The article is referenced to the extent that the Internet permits, NYCB's website and the University of Utah's library, the ballet predating the World Wide Web by nearly fifty years. May I refer you to various conversations concerning the pecularities of ballet on Wikipedia that you will find on my talk page?

Octet and other ballet productions

I do indeed have a profound respect for ballet and dancers in general. I was just making a note that that particular production may not be significant enough to have its own separate article (apart from the general article List of New York City Ballet repertory ). I may be wrong, and am sure you have a greater knowledge of ballet than I do. I meant no disrespect, if that is what you interpreted my proposal to be. — Manderson198 ( talk ) 04:17, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Octet

May I ask then that you remove your request that Octet (Christensen ballet) be deleted, or that you contact a Wikipedia administrator to retract that request? User talk:DGG is a graduate librarian and Wiki. admin. whom makes a speciality of rescuing articles unjustly proposed for deletion. Robert Greer 14:25, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Prod removed

I removed the proposal for deletion. Cheers. Manderson198 (sprech) 14:41, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

DGG has alread rescued Octet

User talk:DGG is a graduate librarian and Wiki. admin. whom makes a speciality of rescuing articles unjustly proposed for deletion. In the time that I have spent undoing the damage you've caused I could have written three articles — and suggest that you might spend more time writing articles and less proposing deletion of others work in fields of which you are not knowledgable. I apologize for the ill-spirited nature of this reply but have had similar problems with other Wikipedians; you however appear to be far better educated than the rest and should therefore be held to a higher standard. Robert Greer 14:45, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
I believe I saved the article from deletion by removing my prod, DGG just suggested to you that to have a stronger notability case, reviews of the production shoiuld be added. Anyways, case closed and happy editing. — Manderson198 (sprech) 14:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps you did, though DGG wrote, "tag no longer needed — just add some reviews" (emphasis added). I was looking up the University of Utah information at the time that you tagged the article for deletion. Having found the reference I added that to the article but decided not to do any further work on it till the deletion issue was resolved.
This morning, case closed, I added the NY TImes review (reviews of dances made before 1981 are especially tricky to find, and dance has always been the most poorly documented of art forms.) You have thus embarassed me before the esteemed DGG (I am not writing sarcasticaslly.)
It really bothers me to be in such a bad temper during the holiday season, but you don't seem the least bit apologetic and don't seem to have learned a thing from this. Judging by the articles you've written, you may be an academic.
The first rule of academia is to stick to those disciplines in which you are competent, and you are proposing deletion of articles about which you know nothing. Wikipedia regrettably encourages such behavior and yours is assuredly not the worst.
But since you are educated, one would hope that you would hold yourself to a higher standard. Robert Greer 16:01, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I think removing my own tag qualifies as apologetic … I removed it before I saw DGG 's note. Manderson198 (sprech) 16:04, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

But I also hope you understand why I placed it up for proposal-a play from 1958, redlinks for the majority of the cast, and no specific references. I thought it may be significant, but wasn't sure, that is why I used a proposal rather than a speedy deletion tag. Manderson198 (sprech) 16:13, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
It's a dance, not a play; do you know the difference?
And what has its date to do with its significance? Would you propose to delete Swan Lake ? Hamlet ?
Further, I should not have had to ask you to remove your tag; you should have done so of your own volition.
Had you checked the page history before doing so you would've seen DGG's change; which you then proceed to misquote.
Nothing you have written is in the least apologetic, but I nonetheless thank you for not proposing speedy deletion. — Robert Greer 16:47, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't entirely think your crass remarks are necessary. I mistakingly wrote down play. Bottom line is, if you thought the play was significant enough to be listed you should have removed the tag yourself, or atleast had an objective party remove it for you. If you are oblivious to my apologetic connotation, then I do formally apologize. Please don't respond, as this matter is closed and this back-and-forth banter is not productive in the least. Manderson198 (sprech) 16:57, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Monica Loughman

Thank you for your assistance on the above article. You seem to be somewhat more of an expert on the subject than me. ;) — ➨ Candlewicke  :) Sign / Talk 17:40, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Perm

Scarcely, it only came to my attention via the Perm connection! When any ballet article crosses my path I put either the Ballet Infobox or the Ballet Portal template on it, depending solely on whether the former fits. — Robert Greer 16:49, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Portal templates

hello … i'm not sure if you are aware of it, but your placement of the ballet portal template has been causing problems in the articles. more specifically, it really should not be below the footers and categories sections. i've already corrected several already, but i'm hoping in future you might place them where they won't interfere with the page layout. thanks! — emerson7 18:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

location i

I will be happy to place them wherever you think they go best (please advise!)

I would ask that rather than merely undoing them in the future that you replace the old {{Portal|Ballet}} with the new {{portalpar|Ballet|Ballerina-icon.png}}.

Or {{portalpar|Dance|Ballerina-icon.png}} as the case may be.

In the case of longer articles I more often place a Ballet Infobox {{Ballet}} instead at the upper right corner of the article unless there are images.

In which case it goes below the pictures, which are indeed worth a thousand words. — Robert Greer 23:56, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

PS I do not seek out articles to put either Infoboxes or Portal templates on, merely do so when they come to my attention otherwise. — Robert Greer 23:57, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

location ii

I like the "portal" at the top of the article, provided it does not cause too much disruption … we need to bring attention to it in order for more people to get involved! 207.237.61.26 ( talk ) 08:17, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

location iii

I agree with you, and in my early days that's where I put them, the Dance and Ballet portals.

But most of the rest of Wiki. does not agree with us and complained loudly.

Most other portals are in fact to be found farther down the page, at or near the end.

So recently I began putting {{portalpar|Ballet|Ballerina-icon.png}} (or Dance) just before the first [[Category:]] .

The point that emerson7 raised is that this can interfere with some of the other (non-portal) templates that also come before [[Category:]] , so now I'm putting them right after the last External link (if there are any; in the case of most ballet articles there should be).

Just yesterday User:Nrswanson revised the Ballet Infobox {{Ballet}}, giving it a horizontal layout which works better on pure ballet articles.

I have preserved the old vertical Infobox under the name {{Ballet 2}} (note the space between the Ballet and the 2).

It might be more tactful to use the old vertical layout within an article about Tschaikovsky for instance. — Robert Greer 16:19, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

ballet templates i

Hi Robertgreer. I have some concerns with your recreation of the former ballet template. First, I see no benefit in having two essentially identical templates competing with one another. Second, I think the ballet2 template is both bulky and ugly and looks unprofessional. Three, I think the template I created is much more in line with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (infoboxes) and is therefore the better choice of the two. Fourth, advertising for portals on main space is frowned upon by the majority of the wikipedia community. If you do decide to advertise the ballet portal, it really should be at the bottom of the page. Fifth, most of the articles with the ballet template are not included in the navbox which makes the template less appropriate in the main body of the article. The recommended format for these embedded list templates is at the bottom of the page. Finally, the space taken up by the vertical template is robbing the article of space where more appropriate items such as images, diagrams, and other more article specific tempates could go. — Nrswanson ( talk ) 17:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

ballet templates ii

A further note, the opera project seems to like the new template I have created, provided it goes at the bottom of the page which is standard for a wide template of this kind (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera#Ballet tags in opera related articles and infobox in Bolshoi Theatre . So I think that rather than creating a headache for you, I have helped you solve one. Nrswanson 18:00, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

ballet templates iii

That's good to hear (that the new Ballet Infobox is copascetic with the opera world!)

I will {{db-author}} the old. Not that I am the orignal author of the old {{Ballet}}.

Nor have I anything invested in it (as the pop. psychology folk like to say) but on purely technical grounds am the creator of {{Ballet 2}}.

And, yes, you have solved a headache! — Robert Greer 18:34, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

ballet templates iv

You are welcome and thank you for hearing me out. Best of luck with your editing. — Nrswanson 19:33, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

ballet templates v

May I ask that you e-mail me? When I try to EmailUser/Nrswanson I receive:

No e-mail address

This user has not specified a valid e-mail address, or has chosen not to receive e-mail from other users

You can send me by clicking on: EmailUser/Robertgreer — Robert Greer 03:21, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

PS You might look at the recent history of the Bolshoi Theatre and La Scala and Contributions/Whjayg .

ballet templates vi

Hi Robertgreer. I am afraid that bad experience in the past has caused me to decide not to give out any contact information, including my e-mail. So really the only way to correspond with me is on my talk page here at wikipedia. In regards to User:Whjayg I would suggest talking to him. He's actually a nice editor and goes by the name of Jay. English is not his first language so at times his communication can be choppy or unclear, but usually he expresses himself well. In looking at his edit history I can see where you are coming into conflict. I myself am entirely neutral. I don't think the ballet template is essential for either article but I don't see that its presence is harming anything either. There is certainly a better case for the ballet template at the Bolshoi Theatre as it has a much more close association with ballet than La Scala . If you need someone to arbitrate dispute I will help but I really am entirely neutral about the outcome of the conflict. Nrswanson ( talk ) 05:29, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

ballet templates vii

Your past experiences do not surprise me! I have taken the liberty of moving this from my talk page back to your's, being that that's where I initiated this. I hate it when discussions ping pong between two talk pages. If holding the conversation here is amenable to you, just make a new section on my talk page with whatever title seems fit and paste {{talkback|Nrswanson}} into the edit box. It will send me here, and I'll archive the talkback template after I've read your latest (I archive everything.)

It was clear that User:Whjayg is not a native speaker and is reassuring to be told that he's a nice guy. English being his second language may have given me the wrong impression. I agree with your appraisal of the relative merits of ballet in Moscow and Milan, though fans of Carla Fracci and Alessandra Ferri might differ. What it finally comes down to is renown, and the Bolshoi Ballet may just be the most famous in the world, thereby overshadowing the equally illustrious Opera. Conversely, La Scala is almost certainly the most famous opera house and casts its long shadow over the every bit as important ballet company. Life is not fair.

What I find odd is that the good burghers at WikiProject Opera don't have anything to match your Ballet Template . They've got a good dozen special purpose templates and more than a hundred for composers but nothing they can put at the bottom of any old page.

N.B. There is a by no means universal dislike of ballet within the opera world and perhaps an even more virulent dislike of it in the classical music universe. Ironically, many composers (and I don't mean hacks) would go unperformed or nearly so if it were not for the ballet. Consider the case of Adolphe Adam ; his Le Corsaire and Giselle are performed along side Swan Lake and La Sylphide . Can the same be said of his best known operas, Le postillon de Lonjumeau , Le toréador, ou L'accord parfait and Si j'étais roi ? Though in this particular case there may have been bad blood going back to a discussion of the spelling of the ballet Ondine (like I said, I understand your desire for privacy.)

I'll make contact with Jay via his talk page , but it could be a while. My main concerns are the ballets of Balanchine and Robbins and more generally the repertory of City Ballet . They'll be in season the next two months. Tickets are really cheap, fifteen dollars, thirty for a pair, if you join the Fourth Ring Society and don't mind wearing an oxygen mask. In truth, the fourth ring is excellent seating. The New York State Theater was designed to Balanchine's specifications, and many of his and Robbins' ballets are so formal that seeing them from above is desirable. Though, if I had the money, I'd sit in the front row of the second or third ring. If you buy your tickets the first day single seats go on sale you can get aisle seats in row D or E, and at such a nominal price I see every program twice. — Robert Greer 04:11, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Shrek article

Hi Robert. I know you're an experienced editor and you and I have discussed how casts should be included in Wikipedia … can I get your opinion here Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Films/Style guidelines#Question on_uncredited non-speaking roles related to the Shrek article and casting listing on the non-speaking role of Dragon? Thanks. — M 207.237.61.26 ( talk ) 19:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

sorry

I have no Wikipedia experience or expertise in film and write almost exclusively about ballet. — Robert Greer 23:56, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

balletomane

I know, you're a balletomane, but I know you and I have discussed inclusion of castings, so I thought this might interest you. Thanks anyway! 207.237.61.26 ( talk ) 00:12, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

redirects in Category: New York City Ballet dancers

Some of the entries in Category: New York City Ballet dancers are not redirects and more of those in Category: New York City Ballet principal dancers and Category: New York City Ballet soloists have their own articles. I'm documenting New York City Ballet season by season; the ballets being danced get priority over dancers, but these seemingly useless redirects serve as place holders and prevent excessive red-lining from ballet pages that contain cast lists. It saves a huge amount of backfilling whenever a new dancer article is written, and on the scale of moral failings it ranks, I hope, as a folly rather than a vice. — Robert Greer 03: 53, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I understand your POV. I'm just a novice, but I thought that until an article was actually written, it wasn't supposed to be hot linked internally or redirected. I hope you can understand that documenting NYCB season by season with ballets being danced and their casts sounds a lot like an advertisement. A LOT. No other companies have this, do they? (And trust me, I'm a big NYCB fan -was with Miami City and was at SAB for 10 years-, but I thought wikipedia has standards about what should be included and how.)
Also, I've tried to edit the Ballet Portal "in The News" section, since most of the items are from September. Any help you could give would be great! Thanks again! 207.237.61.26 ( talk ) 05: 12, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Robert, I've initiated a discussion of our disagreement here: Portal talk: Ballet#linkage
Please try and see my POV and I will try to see yours. You are clearly knowlegable about City Ballet and do much work on these articles, however, I do not think using redirected links is appropriate for Wikipedia. I also do not think including the full casting list for any ballet company's event is relevant enough to include, especially when it's only utilized for NYCB. Last, I do not think the "In The News" section should still include event almost 6 months old. Again, I appreciate your hard work, so maybe we can find some middle ground. Thanks. 207.237.61.26 ( talk ) 06: 32, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Dear anonymous editor,

I'm not exactly an old-timer around these parts; 1 year, 2 months and 9 days, as of this writing (what follows is a bit disordered for which I apologize.)

It's not City Ballet that I'm documenting (I should've written at greater length here or on Portal talk: Ballet#News , but it was getting late and I still had much to do, albiet not on Wikipedia); first and foremost it's the ballets of Balanchine and Robbins (see categories Ballets by George Balanchine and Ballets by Jerome Robbins .)

And there's nothing out of the ordinary about articles about individual ballets; see Category: Ballets by choreographer (to get some idea of how much there is left to do just for City Ballet's two founding choreographers, click on NYCB repertory index .)

Balanchine was one of the prolific makers of ballets ever to live. He and Robbins had to be; they were running a company that dances sixteen weeks a year in New York City, not counting The Nutcracker ! Nor are they minor figures; the one made Apollo , Jewels and Who Cares? , the other The Cage , Dances at a Gathering and In the Night (but I'm preaching to the choir: you know all this.)

I'm not inclined to be apologetic about such a series of articles either. Look at Category: Garage rock and you will find articles of little if any significance, but should you have the temerity to propose deleting one of these (or even merging Highs in the Mid-Sixties, Volumes 1 through 23 ) you will have hordes of garage band fanatics descend upon you faster than the Wilis upon Alberecht.

Or Category: Baseball , a sport unknown outside the Western hemisphere and Japan, or Football , unknown outside North America! Something that cannot be said of ballet. Yet nobody, certainly not myself, would object to the articles in Category: World Series .

In consequence I will defend to the death articles documenting ballets, even to the point of including casting (not every cast of every Nutcracker but certainly original casts — and revivals by major companies, of which we have a good many; I have my hands full with Balanchine and Robbins.)

There are special classes besides redirects and disambiguation pages and categories. Lists are just what the name implies, and Wikipedia considers itself to be an almanac as well as encyclopedia (this arose in an earlier dispute about almost the same issue.) In my opinion it does a better job of being an almanac. See Category: Ballet related lists and Category: Dance related lists .

The only reason there aren't similar sets of articles about other companies, choreographers, etc., is that there are so few folks writing about ballet on Wiki. (Think how many must be writing baseball.)

When I began all this just over a year ago I encountered a good deal of opposition, more from classical music fanatics than sports fans (which I found particularly galling as a good many composers are performed more often at the ballet than in the concert hall, but that may be the basis of the antagonism.) Fortunately a highly esteemed Wiki. administrator sprang to my defense and I've had little trouble since.

Wikipedia has more guidelines than rules, which is a good thing because if they were rules they would mostly be observed in the breach. Red-lined links are not good but can serve a purpose: to remind us all that an article needs to be written (see Jewels with respect to Ronald Bates and Sara Leland .) The admittedly peculiar redirects you mention serve an entirely different purpose: to indicate that a dancer in a particular cast list is a principal, soloist or member of the corps should their not be a free-standing article for them. I'm not terribly apologetic about this and some other peculiar programming practices (computer programming, that is).

I don't normally get into this, but I learned programming while still in high school courtesy of the NSF , double majored in e.e. and music in college, ended up as a singer, went back to theatre school and it's been downhill ever since.

I have my Equity and SSDC cards but teach in a computer science department at CUNY (when not directing Swedish plays in English) and so remain current. Wikipedia's been around about five years; I've been programming for more decades than I care to acknowledge and know a thing or two about which rules or guidelines to observe and which to bend (bend, not break, and never without good reason).

Concerning the Ballet Portal In The News section, there is also More current events which is where old news is supposed to be moved, like a newspaper's archive. I've just been too busy with other Wiki. stuff to keep up with the portal. — Robert Greer 15: 01, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

PS I would implore you to register an account on Wikipedia (unless you're editing from your office computer and doing so while you're supposed to be working.) And as one of the very few former company dancers on Wikipedia to write, write, write! (I have never worked as a dancer but still take class religiously.) Miami City Ballet is particularly under-represented and you would seem to be just the man / woman to fix this. PNB and SFB could use some work too (I was just assuming you were still in Florida.)

I would also beg that you add the Miami casts (at least for the company premiere, if not the current cast or casts as well) for any ballets they dance to such articles as already exist. And if the articles don't exist, write 'em! The reason I'm so concerned that casts be listed is that this is the most ephemeral of information, not in the sense that it is unimportant but that it is here today, gone tomorrow (try to find the casting of the demi-soloists for Donizetti Variations sometime. Yet this is grist for the mill of dance research, but if you don't live in New York and attend City Ballet and keep your programs how are you ever going to find out? (See, there's not even an article for the Donizetti Variations! I'll get to it the next time they dance it.)

As far as I know all you have to do edit Ballet Portal's In The News is click on the word edit at the right of the blue title bar (the word edit is very faint on some monitors, but it's there.) — Robert Greer 16: 40, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Robert,
I understand that you're quite passionate about this subject. You are obviously educated as a balletomane as well as an editor. I can see that the ballet portal has, without doubt, benifited from your diligent time, effort, and contributions, and -please trust me when I write that I have followed your edits for some time now and have greatly benefited from your work. I say this not to kiss your butt, but simply to let you know that it is true and that I respect your opinion.
I still disagree and maintian my position that including casting creates articles and news sections that become too close to fan sites or adverts. I will aquiesce that ORIGINAL casts for important and weighty works may be relevant, however every cast list for every presented ballet, even for premiers and/or season openings, is not. Including this information will lead to every small ballet recital that's mentioned in any local newspaper having justification for inclusion in the ballet portal. In this vein, it is important to remember WP: NOTE states clearly: "Within Wikipedia, notability is an inclusion criterion based on encyclopedic suitability of a topic for a Wikipedia article. The topic of an article should be notable, or "worthy of notice." Notability is distinct from "fame," "importance," or "popularity," although these may positively correlate with it."
Wikipedia is not a directory. From WP: DIRECTORY: "Wikipedia articles are not:
  • 1- Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics such as (but not limited to) quotations, aphorisms, or persons (real or fictional) … Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic …
  • 3-Directories, directory entries, electronic program guide … For example, an article on a radio station generally should not list upcoming events … current schedules, et cetera, although mention of major events, promotions or historically significant programme lists and schedules (such as the annual United States network television schedules) may be acceptable … "
    • I wouild assert that your "Jewels" article mentions of Sara and Robert are relevant, while the 2007/2008 Revival complete casts are highly inappropriate in that article. Many dancers have danced these roles (myself included), and many many MANY more will continue to dance them. Being cast is not notable enough to warrant inclusion. Which brings me to.
    WP: NOTABILITY contains a link to this important essay: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User: Hiding/What_notability_is_not From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: What_Wikipedia_is_not: "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. As explained in the policy introduction, merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia. Current consensus is that Wikipedia articles are not simply
  • 5- News reports. Wikipedia considers the historical notability of persons and events. News coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, but not all events warrant an encyclopedia article of their own. Routine news coverage of such things as announcements, sports, and tabloid journalism are not sufficient basis for an article. Even when an event is notable, individuals involved in it may not be. Unless news coverage of an individual goes beyond the context of a single event, our coverage of that individual should be limited to the article about that event, in proportion to their importance to the overall topic."
    • I can not find verification that wikipedia is also used properly as an almanac.
    Your comments regarding Garage Rock or Baseball have merit: the number of fans interested in this information would slice Wikipedia to bits were this info removed. However, that does not make the inclusion of such information proper and within Wikiguidelines. You will also notice that there is a great deal of debate regarding the inclusion of other information when sources come from die-hard fans or from those wishing to sell a product. I contend that, despite public desire, such info is not proper for WikiInclusion. There must be a parallel to the relevance and weight. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: Weight#Undue_weight )
    Regarding your comment about knowing "which rules or guidelines to observe and which to bend (bend, not break, and never without good reason)" … I would remind you -not that you specifically need reminding- that this is not a one-man show. WP: CONSENSUS . To this end, I appreciate very much that you have taken the time to respond to my concerns, and I hope you will give my POV some validity. I have home internet access that uses varying IP's, and as such, my contribution history does not reflect the time frame that I have been a WikiEditor. I prefer NOT to have an account. Consider it a test of the fact that W is the free encyclopedia that "anyone" can edit. It may make things more challenging, but there is validity in each persons' contribution, regardless of having an account or not, or the length of their experience here, so long as the edits fall within the guidelines. And, in the past, I have been justified in my decision to edit sans account when brought to arbitration.
    To be honest, I would love to contribute more, but between taking classes, teaching classes, gym, rehearsals, and auditions, I usually don't have much time for research, much less for writing. I can only contribute to Wiki in the manner and amount that I can.
    Last, I have tried to click the "edit" button on the 'In The News' section, and I have removed the NYCB casting. However, changes didn't stick. additionally, casting remains on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal: Ballet/Current_events page, though I have removed the casting several times from that page over the past few days.
    Again, Robert, than you so much for taking the time not only to be such a diligent contributor to the Ballet Portal but also for giving my POV weight, to agree to find a middle ground, and for your tireless work.
    -Mark 207.237.61.26 ( talk ) 01: 35, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

    Dear Mark,

    Thank you for asking where to hold this discussion; this is probably the best place; as you are logging on from a U.R.L. rather than as a registered user your talk page would not be such a good place. Please feel free to move any conversations we've had on other pages to this one if you so desire.

    It's past midnight and I've been on campus since 7: 30 a.m. so I hope you'll excuse my not replying at length. I had hoped to get home and in bed by 12: 45 to get eight hours sleep and take class — ballet, of course — with Kim Abel at 10: 30.

    I have no problem with your having removed casting from the Portal (though it might have been better to ask first; you're the one who brings up consensus) but I disagree with you strenuously that articles (or lists) that record casts constitute advertising. Advertising is when the Daisy Dinkle Dance School posts it class schedule. Perhaps some Wiki. admin. could give you clearcut examples of the same that have been deleted.

    I could even make a case (a) that casts other than the original are more important than the premiere's, in that (b) they are much more difficult to research, and (c) the history of dance is the history of dancers every bit as much as of dancemasters (this also varies somewhat over time.)

    The former (a) is obvoiusly an overstatement, but (b) and (c) are not.

    With respect to portals, may I suggest that you simply ask the few people who have ever posted on Portal: Ballet whether they think casting should be included or not. I don't care much one way or the other. But in terms of a portal on Wiki. functioning as advertising, let us be realistic: no ballet company has ever sold a single ticket as the result of everything that's been written about it on Wikipedia, portal or elsewhere.

    Concensus: I have had very few run-ins that did not end amiably, and this is something that I regret (not that I've had few run-ins but that I've had any at all.)

    But this is not the point I was making about rules vs. guidelines. The difference is obviously that one should observe the former under almost all if not all circumstances, whereas the latter provide guidance; hence the peculiar re-directs, which cause no particular harm and provide a modicum of information about a dancer in a production.

    Please note the operative words, may not, in the guideline you have boldfaced. There is a world of difference between that and the words is not or are not. There is an equally large world of difference between the broadcast schedule of a radio station and a ballet company's season.

    I did not mention it originally, but there are a small number of redirects which are there for one of two other reasons: first, for names that contain diacritical marks which are often misspelled; for example, Joaquin De Luz or Carla Korbes , which redirect to Joaquín De Luz and Carla Körbes respectively (there is a enormous master category for them, mostly non-ballet, Category:Redirects from title without diacritics .)

    The other is to keep track of dancers who move from one company to another, such as Sofiane Sylve , Miranda Weese and Carla Körbes , or who move from dancing into roles as balletmasters. Click on any of the three ballerinas and you will find them at SFB or [Pacific Northwest Ballet|PNB]] . Click on them again and you go to NYCB former dancers or soloists , which they are. Click on them a third time and you find them back at their West Coast companies.

    If you want to look for the discussion about Wikipedia and in particular lists serving as a daybook you might find it in my talk page archive User talk: Robertgreer/Archive 1 . If it's not there it is to be found on one of the talk pages in my contributions . There are articles to be written, and I don't have the time to hunt for it. — Robert Greer 06: 18, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


    PS Further thoughts on your problems editing the ballet portal; your browser's cache may be preventing you from seeing the results of your edits. Alternatively, it may be that your not being a registered user prevents you from editing a portal (some pages are partially protected and only logged in users can make changes; I don't know whether this applies to portals automatically.)

    By the way, I am not the author of Jewels and did but little editing to it, but it is a case in point for generous recording of casts (and, again, I only wish that other balletomanes elsewhere on the East and West coasts would lend a hand.) Ashley Bouder dances both Rubies and Emeralds ; which did she dance first? How long was it before she began dancing both? Is this significant? She is already dancing classical roles overseas when City Ballet are off; how much farther will she develope? Which is more important, the dance or the dancer? There was a time when the answer was clearly the latter. Or are they inseperable and equally important?

    If one turns to living balletmasters' works (or those of recently deceased choreographers) being performed by dancers who learned them by the dancemakers but are not original cast, the wicket becomes even stickier. What of Wendy Whelan performing Christopher Wheeldon 's After the Rain? Her longtime partner Jock Soto retired a few years ago; who has she danced the pas de deux with since? What's more, Miranda Weese was the other principal women in the outer movements but has left NYCB for PNB, and now only the p.d.d. is now danced; casting in this case changes the dance.

    The recent casting of Jerome Robbins' ballets is of equal import. Nora Kaye originated The Cage , but Ms. Whelan learned it from Robbins (she tells an interesting story about this.) Similarly, he made The Concert on City Ballet, then toured it with his own Ballets: U.S.A. but later taught the role of the Crazy Ballerina to Maria Kowroski , who also learned one of the roles in Watermill while still in the corps for a tour to Paris (a ballet that has only been performed by four principal danseurs as far as I know, most recently Nikolaj Hübbe ; which of them are and are not significant?) Which of these will be significant in thirty years? I don't pretend to know, but if this information is not recorded for posterity it won't be there for later judgement. — Robert Greer 01:15, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

    Robert, I will have to give your comments here some thought over the next few days before fully replying. I'm exhausted and my hamstrings and lower back are aching for a hot bath. Lifting girls all day ain't easy. (It's worth it, for sure, but it ain't easy!)
    I will initially make a few brief responses:
  • From the "what Wiki is not" article: Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Including information that is currently considered on the trivial side (or that does not currently have substantiated weight in the greater scope of the field) - solely because it might become relevant in the future - is not right and does not fall within guidelines. ("How much farther will she (Bouder) develop? … Which of these will be significant in thirty years?" Wikipedia is not an almanac. (Though a WikiAlmanac is a great idea!)
  • While information regarding casting might once have been difficult to research, most companies retain these records digitally now, and this information is usually easily available through, for example, NYCB's research page of their website, or directly via a development department. This is becoming a standard procedure for most relevant companies, including Cunningham, DTH, and Ailey, to name a few off the top of my head.
    • I would also like to point out that while we are in agreement that nobody's rushing to buy tickets based on casting notices in the Ballet Portal, it can still be regarded as corollary to an advertisment in that much fewer company castings are being listed. The number of companies in rep GREATLY exceeds the number of company castings listed. NYCB is being given a much greater spotlight. I would parry that -to my eye, at least- this reads more on the "fan page" side. (Wiki being misconstrued -intentionally or accidentally- as a fan-site bothers me as a user so very much more than it being misused as an advert-site. Advert-site info will at least include basic factual info, while fan-site info can be skewed with much greater bias. Posting casting notices primarily of one company can be seen as a violation of NPOV in this regard.)
    Respectfully, I have rewriten the comments that you believed to be inappropriate, since it's clear you understood the point I was making … and that section can be read with the same understanding. Sorry for any offense.
    Lastly, I hope you recognize that I have made these suggestions and comments strictly for the benefit of the portal and with an eye towards your valuable time. Your worthwhile energies could be used with greater efficies and on more notable projects within this portal … a portal which I truly truly appreciate and enjoy.
    Oh, my aching hamstrings. :o) 207.237.61.26 ( talk ) 02:33, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
    Hi, it's Mark (I'm posting from a friend's.) You've included the 2008 cast list on every single one of Balanchine's ballet's that were performed during that season! I'm sorry, but even if you can't see it, despite your dedication to these articles, this is clearly NOT in any way appropripriate.
    Unless you're planning on going back and including the cast list for every year still available (which would be a MULTITUDE), and unless you're planning on allowing each and every dance company to continue to update and inclued these sort of lists to their ballets' articles with each upcoming and ongoing season, I have to remove them. As I mentioned earlier, I won't edit war with you, but perhaps a RFC on this issue is in order. 159.123.254.1 ( talk ) 15:31, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

    Dear Mark,

    I'll answer in the order you raise points. I'm not asking that Wikipedia be a crystal ball, quite the opposite. Dance scholarship is a new field and does not have the research materials available that more established fields do, least of all on the Internet. Nor is this likely to occur anytime soon given the current funding climate. I'm asking that we not pretend that we have a crystal ball and sort out what will and will not be significant.

    I ask merely that we preserve information that is potentially so, which would include the the first cast of any ballet danced by a major company, and given how few people are writing about ballet on Wikipedia the need to define "major" will not arise for a long time to come (I have seen articles about ballet companies that I've never heard of but never a seperate article about a ballet danced exclusively by such a company.)

    Likewise any and all casts of any major company dancing a work by a major choreographer; here there might arise some question over the latter use of the word, "major," but among the Americans and English would you argue against Ashton , Balanchine , Macmillan , Robbins or Tudor ? Here the issue of major company is moot, their dances still being under copyright and not all that easy to get the rights to.

    One obvious exception to this is The Nutcracker , which is unfortunate since SFB and NYCB and the Royal Swedish Ballet each dance their own version of it and with all-star casts (at least on opening night) as do other clearly major companies (the NY Times even sent a critic to D.C. to review San Francisco's Nutcracker there.)

    With respect to company websites, the information is not necesarrily complete (this is a matter I would be happier discussing via e-mail; click on the e-mail icon at the top of this page to contact me; if you are concerned about anonymity, set up a GMail, HotMail or Yahoo account for the purpose.)

    Contrary to what many people think, WikiPedia is also an almanac (thank you for using the word; that was the one that another editor used.) See Wikipedia:WikiProject Kentucky/Almanac as an example, as well as The Wikipedia Almanac and Wikipedia:Almanac . Which leads to the issue of lists (to get some idea of what gets listed around here see All pages with titles beginning with List of.) Any list of anything to do with the ballet makes it easily into the top quartile of these by any measure of Wiki. worthiness.

    This also raises the possibility of a mutually acceptable solution; it would be possible to create a seperate page, List of Western Symphony casts , thereby extracting from the main article the information you find so offensive. Nor have I any problem omitting such from the ballet portal .

    Though I personally wish that people in other cities and other lands would post what's being danced and the opening night casts so that nobody could argue against my doing so for one or occasionally two companies in one city, the other be Cedar Lake ; somebody else will have to step forward to handle ABT . This is not an issue of NPOV; I am one person and cannot answer for the entire ballet world. Why don't you step up and commit to documenting one company's activities? You are in fact more expert than I am (this is not meant to be in any sense ironic.)

    I couldn't care less what Wiki being misconstrued, intentionally or otherwise. Much of it is dreck, but that's not my doing. Nothing I have ever posted is anything but a statement of fact, and if one is to criticize me for my choice of topics one will have criticize every person who has ever edited here. "Oh, you've been writing about W.W. I, you haven't been writing about W.W. II, that's NPOV!

    The example is ridiculous, but so is objection to the fact that I write primarily about Balanchine and Robbins. Anybody who wants to write about any other choreographer, dance company or dancer (note that I have written next to nothing about dancers) has my blessing and if I may be of any assistance to them they are welcome to ask.

    So please stop complaining about this; the fact that you changed horses mid-stream from it being other than noteworthy to being NPOV makes me wonder what your real objection is. Nor has anything I've ever written even faintly the appearance of being an advert-site or fan-site; again, ask you favorite Wiki. admin. to point out to you a real example of such.

    PEOPLE SHOULD GET OFF THEIR — AND START WRITING! WHERE ARE THE OPENING NIGHT CASTS FOR SFB , PNB , THE JOFFREY , MIAMI , SUZANNE FARRELL , PENNSYLVANIA AND BOSTON ? WHERE ARE THE ARTICLES ABOUT THE BALLETS BEING MADE BY THEIR RESIDENT CHOREOGRAPHERS, WHERE?

    The fact that too few people are writing about ballet on Wikipedia does not mean that what I'm doing is NPOV: it means that there are too few people writing. If you can find me a dozen minions I'll be happy to take on three more companies and three more choreographers.

    On purely philosophical grounds I could argue that choosing to include some casts and omit others is NPOV! What I've posted is information, strictly factual and utterly neutral in itself. It may attract some fans, but as long as they behave themselves what matter?

    I have intended from Day One to go back and fill in earlier casts where they are available, but this is not as simple as it sounds. First, NYCB posts casting on the Internet and in the lobby about two weeks in advance; it disappears from the website the beginning of the week after performance.

    The posted information in the lobby can change as late as the day of performance (you are well aware that this happens) and does not necessarily make it to their website. It is unavailable to any one who cannot just meander into the New York State Theater . During their Winter and Spring seasons current casts, which I can preserve complete excluding the corps, take priority over digging up previous casts (there's plenty of time for that when they're not dancing.)

    Finally, there is the slip of paper that sometimes show up inside the program announcing a last-minute cast change, and these latter can be among the most significant in that it is here one finds dancers, occasionally from the corps, performing a role for the first time (there was one performance a few years ago that went a step further: a voice came onto the house speaker and informed us of a cast change made so late that there wasn't time to print slips of paper for the programs.) This I ask about the next day if I haven't been to the theatre (I do not attend every night though you may be getting the impression that I do!) None of this shows up on the Internet and vanishes unless mentioned in a review.

    Secondly, reviews: they are good as far as they go but do not attempt to list casts, however incomplete, and sometimes omit names entirely in the case of a work or two on a long mixed bill; nor is it their task to do so.

    Thirdly, many once important newspapers and magazines stopped publishing before the Internet was even a glimmer in Al Gore's eye, and many that still exist only have articles on-line back to a fairly recent start date. Others, including the Times have current articles for free but charge for earlier ones.

    If you could take up a collection for me to get a blanket subscription to their pre-1980 archives I'd be deeply appreciative, since their reviews of all of Balanchine's premieres except for his last couple of years cost and the same is true for the first four decades of Robbins's work.

    These are matters of no interest in some cases but of potentially enormous importance in others.

    Consider how little we know about Marie Taglioni and Fanny Elssler ; what will future generations think of us if, with the Internet at our disposal and this elegant piece of software called Wikipedia, we drop the pointe shoe?

    A further example would be to know the casts of every performance by the Queen's Men during Shakespeare 's lifetime; why are ballet casts any less important? I'm prepared to leave out the spear carriers in the former and the corps in the latter, but not the demi-soloists.

    And will make the case that dancers are if anything more important to dance than actors to the theatre, in that playwrights leave us scripts. You know perfectly well how few dances have ever been notated and how deficient videotapes are. There are even lost Tudor ballets!

    I have a friend who is a repetiteur and argues forcefully that today's dancers are better than when he or she was dancing — better, and not just technically — so let us not dismiss them as being too insignificant to merit inclusion in the august groves of Wikipedia; they have at least as much right to be here as do left-handed shortstops.

    Consider lastly the intent of Denis Diderot to include ALL knowledge in one place (having seen SFB dance it recently at City Center I'd like to have at hand the first casts for all companies' productions of The Four Temperaments ) and this goal is attainable for the first time our lifetimes but only if we stop quibbling! In the time we've spent on this discussion we each could've written at least five articles. — Robert Greer 02:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

    PS Thank you for the rewrite; I understood that no offense was intended and assure you that none was taken. Ever since the controversy about the word niggardly one cannot be too careful. — Robert Greer 02:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

    Robert, We clearly disagree. Perhaps I was to eager in my evaluation of your NPOV; perhaps not. Either way, to perturb you into yelling at other editors was not my intent. My main point is that the information you have included in these articles do not carry enough weight for inclusion. And while it my be true that wikipedia can be used as an almanac, including almanacial (is that a real adjective?) lists in each article is not the correct place for this info.
    I have already explained that I do not have the time to invest in the portal that you do. And while you're certainly complimenting me with your belief about my education and experience, please trust me that I would think that my time (as yours) would be better spent on other Ballet Portal work than researching, referencing, and retyping cast lists; lists that are not highly notable and are indeed readliy available and certainly wholly 100% verifiable by calling the development department at NYCB.
    While unfortunate, the case IS that there are few other cast lists. And it IS true that while the 2007-8 NYCB season was impressive (-I fell in love with Rachel Rutherford's take on Robbins' Four Seasons, did you catch it? Just delicious-), I do not believe this information will go down in history as highly notable. Perhaps I will proven wrong (particulary and almost solely in the case of Bouder's artistic development) … but that is an issue for the FUTURE to decide. Including this info in the PRESENT is simply not notable or weighty.
    Your suggestion to have seperate "List Of" casts pages sounds like an excellent solution to this issue. Otherwise, I think it may be time for the opinion of a third party not usually involved in editing ballet articles or the Ballet Portal: this is not an issue of ballet we are discussing, it is an issue of how Wikipedia is to be used and utilized.
    I will e-mail you as you suggested for further discussion.
    With utomost respect, Mark 207.237.61.26 ( talk ) 03:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

    Dear Mark,

    Good timing, I was just about to leave, so a short reply; the rest can be conducted by e-mail.

    If you're amenable to the use of list-class pages for casts we are then in perfect agreement.

    I would not have suggested it otherwise.

    Our views on notability amount to looking through opposite ends of the same telescope.

    I know from having done theatre research (I am a director and sometime translator, not a dancer despite taking class thrice weekly) that information that would be valuable to us nowadays has all too often been lost because it was not considered so in its own time, and this certainly continues do to the 1950s.

    Much, perhaps most, of what's known about Elizabethan theatre in practice (as opposed to the playscripts which tell only part of the story) comes from account books and legal documents. So from my end of the telescope, if it's not recorded now the future won't even have the chance to decide on its notability.

    If you're patient you don't need to go to the trouble of extracting the cast lists. It's the sort of thing that can be semi-automated and easily executed while editing the upcoming winter season.

    What motivated me to do this is that I was keeping this information in Excel spreadsheets for my own refernce, but a year ago I realized that I could more readily access it on Wikipedia. Recently I learned that there exist special Wiki. websites to do so from a cellphone browser!

    Consequently, my situation with respect to Portal:Ballet isn't that different from yours: it is my lowest priority. I created it because there should be one, but if others lack the time or interest to maintain it, I am not going to be a martyr to it (I suppose that if a dozen people began writing on at least a weekly basis I would too, but I don't see that happening.) — Robert Greer 05:27, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

    Your observations -and solution- sounds perfect. Thanks for finding a satisfactory middle ground.
    I'm not that interested in posting castings as I haven't been swayed by your arguments, but if you give me another high-need project to research for the portal, I'll help out where I can. 207.237.61.26 ( talk ) 05:55, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

    PS Ms. Rutherford is among the most beautiful dancers in the city, perhaps on the face of the planet (she is the gold standard in Emeralds — and in the middle p.d.d. of Robbins' N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz partnered by Craig Hall — and she, Miranda Weese and Nikolaj Hübbe the sine qua non in Concerto Barocco .) Bouder could be a star on the level of Sylvie Guillem if she's not careful, but another to watch is Sara Mearns. — Robert Greer 05:27, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

    Rach and I trained at Joffrey together. I frequently wondered why she never made it to Principal. I wouldn't compare Bouder to Guillem-potential. Guillem is my favorite dancer, right in front of Zhakarova. I see Sylvie's role — without doubt — as going to Michelle Wiles. Michelle takes David Howard's on Tues and Thurs at 4:30 BDC, as do I. It's worth the cost of class if only to study her process. Seven pirouettes at a time, flawlessly formed. (Speaking of potential assoluttas (sp?) - such a pity about the whole Darci-Sofiane situation, isn't it? *wink*) — 207.237.61.26 ( talk ) 05:55, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

    Dear Mark,

    This is a conversation I most devoutly desire to continue but which would be better conducted via e-mail!

    I take 10 a.m. Monday at Steps where Ms. Wiles is often to be found in David's class.

    I'm comfortable referring to the latter by his first name but not the former (it is your prerogotive as a working dancer to do so.)

    And it's not just her turns but her shear joy in dancing that's worth the price of admission, whether at Steps , B.D.C. , City Center or the Met !

    Wednesdays and Saturdays it's Willy Burman at 10:30, and one more dancer to keep your (well-trained!) eye on is Ana Sophia Scheller .

    I don't belong in either of these classes nor Nancy Bielski's 11:30, but they humor me (perhaps I offer comic relief.)

    I teach at C.U.N.Y. even earlier the other three mornings of the workweek, so it gets me off to a good start and leaves the rest of the day free.

    If I didn't get up at eight in the morning I'd just sleep until dinnertime, something I allow myself once a month in the name of recharging the batteries.

    And quality time with the cat. So click here to send me an e-mail.

    This won't work for an unregistered user, but you can get around this if you register an account.

    You'll need to include an e-mail address on the my preferences page, select Enable e-mail from other users and respond to the confirmation message.

    It doesn't need to be your regular e-mail address (create a single-purpose address on Yahoo or wherever you like.)

    Nor do you need to use the Wiki. account ever again.

    Wikipedia is full of what are clearly one-time accounts and what of it, so long as they're not used for mischief, which this is not?

    I don't mind discussing anything and everything with total candor so long as it comes with the ever so slight degree of privacy afforded by e-mail.

    And make a point of never writing anything that could not be posted on a billboard in Times Square.

    The extent of privacy I maintain on and expect of Wiki. is not having to post my e-mail address on my user page.

    The This user can be reached by email. icon provides adequate access without giving up that last little vestage of privacy.

    I do try to keep my user and talk page here somewhat impersonal, this having nothing to do with the niggardly issue .

    Wikipedia is saying that this page is getting long and suggesting that I archive it, which I will just as soon as we establish e-mail contact. — Robert Greer 18:41, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

    PS Why haven't you started an article about Ms. Wiles or Rutherford ?! There are soloists who are at least as deserving of their own pages as principals.

    The latter's "page" (if you can call it that — I feel free to disparage my own efforts though would hardly ever do so to another's) is currently a redirect to New York City Ballet soloists . — Robert Greer 22:38, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

    David's article needs to be created, the one here is a faulty disambiguation to a footballer. I listed it on the ballet Project page to-do list last week. It's funny, he's undoubtedly one of the top ballet teachers of the century next to Legat and Pushkin, but he's so funny and modest about any undue press.
    Again, no thanks for the account suggestion. Reasons are personal and I can probably explain better in an e-mail. As mentioned, you can reach me at acenyc28@hotmail.com. Please do reach out to me! … Be sure to put "from WikiBallet" or some such in the subject so I don't filter it into junk e-mail folder.
    I will mention to Michelle about further resources other than the ABT bio. and more detailed info to be included. I think hers is an important article and I will begin research at the source.
    I sleep in most days and mornings can be difficult for me, but please do e-mail me. Perhaps we can find a mutual class to enjoy.
    Feel free to archive away! Glad we worked all this out, and a pleasure to know you.
    207.237.61.26 ( talk ) 22:32, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

    I gotta say

    the way you're editing these pages doesn't exactly make it easy for others to edit or contribute, especially not the noobs. See my recent edit to Episodes. To include the "Category: Ballets by Martha Graham" to the "See also" section, I had to change each of the column markers, as well as hunt down the Martha Graham Ballets link … a link which you probably knew would be needed in that section. Also see my comment on the List of Episodes stagings discussion page.

    I know you're doing a lot of work and though I'm still a noob to Wiki, I do think over the past few days I've shown I can be fair and contribute successfully. Please don't make it more difficult for others to participate … after all, the lack of participation got you frustrated just a few days ago. We should all encourage each other to make the ballet and dance sections more thorough, and to make participation easy. Thanks. -M 207.237.61.26 ( talk ) 08:55, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

    Category:Ballets by Martha Graham etc.

    See also: Talk:List of Episodes stagings

    Dear Mark,

    It was not my intent to make things more difficult for you (or anyone else!) There are two ways to do See also.

    One is as a template, the method you used; the other is regular links in a section of the article, usually toward the bottom.

    Some Wiki. editors complain about use of this particular template (I don't know why) so if there's more than one thing in a See also I usually convert it to a section.

    I changed back to two columns (three can usually be made to fit if one is creative with the names of the links, but four rarely does.)

    In theory {{col-begin}}, {{col-1-of-x}}, {{col-2-of-x}} … {{col-end}} sequence can be used for as many as six columns (x=6, if you will.)

    There are at least two other template sets for doing columns, but they don't make the columns equal width, so I usually use this one.

    Newbie though you claim to be, you figured out for yourself how to change three to four, but if you run into things not so easy to work out for yourself please feel free to ask!

    There were many experienced Wikipedians who helped me get up to speed (Wiki. has all sorts of weird byroads.)

    I didn't think to put Category:Ballets by Martha Graham in the See also section; it just didn't cross my feeble mind.

    It was already in the category list at the very bottom of the article, but there is one trick you need to know if you want to use it without {{seealso}}.

    To make a category appear as a link in the middle of an article rather than as a category at the end, you have to add an extra colon:

    [[:Category:Ballets by Martha Graham]] rather than [[Category:Ballets by Martha Graham]] .

    I did that when I converted your See also template to non-template version (the extra colon is one of those things somebody more experienced had to explain to me.)

    We can talk about all of this and everything else later; please, I did not intend to cause offense! — Robert Greer 19:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

    Robert, While I know your intentions are good, using columns simply complicates the editing process. For example, if I want to include information regarding the additional 4 women and 3 men in Episodes I (per http://www.cmi.univ-mrs.fr/~esouche/dance/Episodes.html), a user must copy info from that website, the website address, as well as copying the formatting from the Episodes II portion of the article, paste each item, and then adjust the colums. I believe a simple list of this kind of info would be much easier for the inclusion and not add detriment to the article's layout.
    Since most ballet articles are lowly-rated (stubs and such), I don't think column format is necessary just yet. It's difficult to use for most non-techies or non-HTML-savvies; or for those who just want to quickly get the info down. Opinion? Thx again! -Mark 159.123.254.1 ( talk ) 19:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

    Episodes (AGAIN)

    Hi Robert. I would say that at this point the main link for "Episodes" should be to the ballet, not to the quarterly journal out of Beijing … 207.237.61.26 ( talk ) 23:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

    done

    I checked the talk page and found my own suggestion to do so, dated April 2008 and with no subsequent comment.

    As there are no fewer than five candidates for supremacy I made Episodes itself a disambig. — Robert Greer 00:09, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

    awesome! who's da man? Robert is da man! 207.237.61.26 ( talk ) 02:08, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

    User box for WikiProject Ballet participants

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    thank you

    Thanks for creating the userbox. And thank you also for tidying up the Wikiproject Ballet page — great work! :) — The Fiddly Leprechaun (talk) 22:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

    you're welcome

    You're welcome! — Robert Greer 22:32, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

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