It’s Spring and Mabel
Mercer singing Cole Porter songs.
I just finished reading Swan Dive, a 2021 memoir (and
some funny behind the scenes observations) by NYCB dancer Georgina Pazcoguin.
Among the topics she covers is an issue I’ve long wondered
about: “The success of The Nutcracker as a revered tradition in the
United States is baffling,” she writes. “The
US is the only country that regularly performs a ballet that everyone else in
the world considers unwatchable.”
Another pithy comment concerns a different ballet and a role
she was apparently dissatisfied with: “The part was so incredibly mindnumbing,”
she writes “that while sitting in the wings I was able to do my taxes.”
And speaking of wings and Spring and birds and things, Dorothy
Parker was having none of it: “Every
year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads
off .”
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