A Conversation about Ballet with Stephen Manes
Series: Art Works Podcast
From: National Endowment for the Arts
Length: 00:25:35
Although Stephen Manes has written more than thirty books and hundreds of articles, on the face of it he is not the most likely choice to write a book about the inner workings of a ballet company. He is a techy guy. He's the author of a biography of Bill gates and writes about personal technology for publications like the NY Times, Forbes, and PC World and is known for his biography of Bill Gates. He was even one of the creators and co-hosts of the weekly public television series Digital Duo. But Manes was getting tired of the technology beat. He also loves the ballet and has been a supporter of Seattle's Pacific Northwest ballet (or PNB) for over twenty years. A backstage tour for donors gave him a hint of all the unseen work necessary to make ballet unfold so effortlessly on stage, and Stephen Manes knew what his next project would be. He would bring his love of dance, his outsider's curiosity and his observant eye to document how the art of ballet actually works. Stephen Manes remembers the backstage tour that started it all.
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Piece Description
Although Stephen Manes has written more than thirty books and hundreds of articles, on the face of it he is not the most likely choice to write a book about the inner workings of a ballet company. He is a techy guy. He's the author of a biography of Bill gates and writes about personal technology for publications like the NY Times, Forbes, and PC World and is known for his biography of Bill Gates. He was even one of the creators and co-hosts of the weekly public television series Digital Duo. But Manes was getting tired of the technology beat. He also loves the ballet and has been a supporter of Seattle's Pacific Northwest ballet (or PNB) for over twenty years. A backstage tour for donors gave him a hint of all the unseen work necessary to make ballet unfold so effortlessly on stage, and Stephen Manes knew what his next project would be. He would bring his love of dance, his outsider's curiosity and his observant eye to document how the art of ballet actually works. Stephen Manes remembers the backstage tour that started it all.
Transcript
Transcript of conversation with Stephen Manes
Stephen Manes: It's fascinating to think that The Nutcracker in this company, and in most companies, essentially is half the ticket revenue for the year. Nobody's had the guts to cut The Nutcracker, and this is all fairly new. This is not something that's been going on for a jillion years. It really goes back only to the fifties, when Nutcracker first appeared on TV, and all of a sudden, companies, as they came up, realized this could be a moneymaker, and it is. But the rest of the season, what do you do? Do you do Swan Lake, or do you do some extremely cutting-edge, modern stuff? And you have issues of what's best for the dancers, what's best for the audience, and ultimately what's best for the bottom line, and it all has to be kind of averaged in and figured within a budget so that you're not losing money, or at least you're not losing a l...
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Musical Works
| Title | Artist | Album | Label | Year | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March | NY Philharmonic with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting | The Nutcracker: Highlights . | Sony Music Entertainment | 00:00 | |
| The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy | NY Philharmonic with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting | The Nutcracker: Highlights . | Sony Music Entertainment | 00:00 | |
| The Overture and Russian Dance | Philadelphia Orchestra,? Leopold Stokowski, conducto | TCHAIKOVSKY: Nutcracker Suite. | Creative Commons | 00:00 |
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