Luglio 2021

On Friday, 30 July 2021, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) asserted that the suspension of scheduled International Passenger flights has been extended till August 31 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, the DGCA stated that the international scheduled flights are permitted on chosen routes by the qualified authority on a selected basis. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the scheduled international passenger flights were suspended in India since March 23, 2020. However, the limited international passenger flights have been running under the Vande Bharat Mission (VBM) since May 2020; under mutual air bubble agreements with chosen countries. For the people who are not aware, India has created air bubble arrangements with 24 countries involving the UAE, France, the US, the UK, Kenya, and France. Further, the DGCA declared that the operation of the international all-cargo services will not be hindered by the suspension of passenger flights, primarily flights that have been specifically approved for it. As for domestic news, India has resumed doemestic flights in May 2021.Continue Reading

Striking panoramas, verdant flourishing valleys, large hillocks and rich artistic cultural heritage are just a few reasons why you should visit Tripura this August. Tripura may not be on the tourist map because of its dominating sister states tourism venture in Northeast India, however, Tripura is blessed with so much more natural beauty that one can see online! Only a handful of travellers and daredevils have ever explored this untouched state of awesomeness, and it is high time you visit because Tripura too is embracing tourists and travellers with open arms. To make it easy for you, we have compiled the best places to visit in Tripura in August. Ujjyanta Palace An Indo-Saracenic palace built in 1901, Ujjyanta Palace, is resided in the state of Agartala. This fascinating palace has numerous Hindu temples devoted to divinities like Kali, Uma-Maheshwara, Lakshmi Narayan and Jagannath. It also has a comprehensive museum and library. The place gets all the consideration because of its beauty. Agartala Agartala is the base for any trip to the former royal state. It is best to fly into Agartala from Delhi, Kolkata, Guwahati, etc. The most celebrated draws include the sprawling Heritage Park, striking Ujjayanta Palace; the Buddhist Temple of Benuban Vihar in Kunjaban area; Purbasha for locally made handcrafted bamboo merchandise; etc. Besides these attractions, there are good private hotels in Agartala too. Neermahal Neermahal is one of the most visited attractions in Tripura. It resides in the middle of the Rudrasagar Lake and this structural excellence rightly receives its name which implies Water Palace. The flower beds and surrounding lawns append to the appeal of the place. Sepahijala Wildlife Sanctuary Sepahijala Wildlife Sanctuary is not just like any other wildlife sanctuary. Besides being home to numerous flora and fauna it is also an academic and research centre. Several lakes are within the sanctuary, where a rafting facility is available. Chittangong Hills Chittangong Hills is decorated and pictorial in its appearance. The hills embrace mini-mountains with various channels and small valleys, with six rivers recoiling across the valleys. Jampui Hills The flourishing and rolling hills of north Tripura, a little over 180km from Agartala, are kenned for their picturesque beauty and invigorating weather. Rested at 3000 feet, it is often credited as the Land of Eternal Spring. The mountains are known for their orange farms, and the berries are harvested during the winters. Accommodation is affordable and easily available. Unakoti Once a pilgrimage centre, Unakoti is a structural gem. The huge upright rock-cuts in Unakoti, mostly anointed to Shiva, dates back to the 8th-9th centuries. The rock-cut 29-feet portraiture of Shiva is said to be India’s most comprehensive carving. You can find accommodation at the state tourism’s Juri Lodge in Dharmanagar or Unakoti Tourist Lodge in Kailasahar. Neer Mahal Though this palace – by the lake, is a little over 40km from Agartala, it earns a late visit. In the evenings, you can take a local sailboat ride to the lake palace in Rudrasagar Lake. Built-in 1930, this summer mansion exhibits a blend of Mughal and Hindu architecture. In wintertime, the lake is home to many seasonal birds. The Mahamuni Temple Located 134km away from Agartala, The Mahamuni Temple in Sabroom is a Buddhist pagoda that draws tens and thousands of pilgrims from all across the world. The Kalapania Eco Park is a 21-hectare trimmed garden on the shore of a huge lake and it is built in the Kalachhara section of Sabroom. You can find accommodation at the Pilak Tourist Lodge in Jolaibari or at the Mahamuni Tourist Lodge in Manubankul. Only a handful of travellers and daredevils have ever explored this untouched state of awesomeness, and it is high time you visit because Tripura too is embracing tourists and travellers with open arms. Tripura is blessed with so much more natural beauty that one can see online!Continue Reading

Bihar, one of the most underrated tourist destinations in India, offers a fascinating mix of natural bounties and archaic monuments. Also known as ‘Vihara’ in Sanskrit, which implies a religious community, Bihar boasts many forest reserves, tourists spots, splendid cascades and rolling hills. Be it monsoon, summer, or winter, Bihar welcomes people from all walks of life and ages and can be visited around the year. Here are some of the best places to visit in Bihar in August! Ruins Of Nalanda University Established in the 5th century A.D, Nalanda University is considered one of the world’s oldest residential universities. Located about 95 km from the state capital, Patna, the ruins of Nalanda University was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016. It is said, during its time, the university had 1500 teachers and more than 10000 students sharing and acquiring knowledge. However, in the 12th century, the university was set on fire by Muslim invaders. And more than eight million manuscripts were reported to have been destroyed. If you visit the ruins of Nalanda University, you may come across many ornamental panels, stairways, stupas, and lecture halls; that showcases the marvellous history of the university. Vishwa Shanti Stupa Also known as the World Peace Pagoda, Vishwa Shanti Stupa was built in 1969, and it is one of the seven peace pagodas constructed in India. Vishwa Shanti Stupa showcases Japanese-style architecture and four different and important phases of Buddha’s Life in the form of four statues of himself representing – birth, enlightenment, teaching, and death. If you are an aesthete, you will love this place. Vikramshila In the ancient days, Bihar was known to be the land of knowledge, and Vikramashila was considered the pall-bearer of Indian knowledge along with Nalanda University. Though it was ransacked in the 12th century by Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji, it still displays some of the ancient architecture that will leave you awestruck. Muchalinda Lake According to the fables, Shesh Naga or the Snake King Muchalinda protected Gautama Buddha from the rising waves during a heavy storm while he was into the fifth week of meditation. And in the honor of Shesh Naga services, the lake has been named after him; Muchalinda. The sight of many beautiful birds resting by the banks and the lush green trees is an eye-pleaser. However, the main attraction is the sculpture. It depicts the hood protecting Buddha, representing Shesh Naga or King Muchalinda guarding Budhha during the heavy storm. Griddhakuta Peak Located in Rajgir, Griddhakuta Peak mirrors the shape of the vulture, and consequently, it’s called the Vulture peak. You can also observe a lot of vultures circling in great numbers. Since it is believed that Buddha subserved many sermons at the same spot, this well-known tourist spot in Bihar is considered sacred for Buddhists. The tracks formed by cutting stones and rocks lead you to two magnificient caverns. And for those who find the tour challenging, chairlift conveniences are available to go to the peak. Bodhgaya Most of us, if not all, are probably aware that Buddha blessed this forgotten marvel Land. Bihar is the place where Buddha started his journey to enlightenment. And it is said here in Bodhgaya under the famous Bodhi tree Buddha became enlightened; therefore, Bodhgaya is considered one of the most important Buddhist pilgrimages in the world. So, if you are one of the peace seekers or a history buff you must and should visit this place. Buxar Fort The archaic fort located in Buxar by the Ganges River was constructed in the 11th century AD. The carvings observed in the fort offers splendid views, and the structure of the fort is exceptional. While t the located, don’t forget to visit some of the tourist attractions nearby, which include Nath Baba Temple and Gauri Shankar Temple.Continue Reading

Mitchell Taylor Button was accused of abuse, and his wife, Dusty Button, a dancer with a large Instagram following, was accused of participating in some of it but not named as a defendant.A pair of professional dancers filed a lawsuit on Wednesday accusing a former dance teacher of sexually assaulting and abusing them, and accusing his wife — an internet-famous ballerina who has danced with the Boston Ballet — of participating in some of that abuse.The former teacher — who has been known by several names, but is called Mitchell Taylor Button in the suit — is married to Dusty Button, who was a principal dancer with the Boston Ballet and who has amassed more than 300,000 Instagram followers and several corporate sponsorships with viral photos and videos of her dancing.The suit, filed in United States District Court in Nevada, claims that “the Buttons abuse their positions of power and prestige in the dance community to garner the loyalty and trust of young dancers” and said that the couple would “exploit those relationships to coerce sexual acts by means of force and fraud.” Mr. Button is a defendant in the lawsuit; Ms. Button is not, but is described as a “non-party co-conspirator.” A lawyer for the couple said that they denied the charges.The suit asserts that one of the plaintiffs, Sage Humphries, now a dancer with the Boston Ballet, met the Buttons in 2016 when she was in the company’s apprenticeship program and that the couple sexually and verbally abused her, forced her to live with them and isolated her from her family. Sage Humphries, a dancer with the Boston Ballet, said that the Buttons sexually and verbally abused her and isolated her from family when she was in an apprenticeship program. Kristine Potter for The New York Times“They had control over my phone and passwords to my Instagram, my email,” Ms. Humphries, now 23, said in an interview. “They had complete control over me. If I wanted to do anything, I had to ask them first.”A second plaintiff in the lawsuit, Gina Menichino, alleges that several years earlier, Mr. Button sexually assaulted her when she was 13 years old and he was her 25-year-old dance instructor in Florida.The lawsuit says that Mr. Button used several names, including Mitchell Moore, Taylor Moore and Mitchell Button.A statement sent through a lawyer who is speaking for the couple, Ken Swartz, said, “Taylor and Dusty Button categorically deny these baseless claims and they look forward to the opportunity through court proceedings to disprove all of the plaintiffs’ false and fraudulent allegations.”According to the lawsuit, Ms. Menichino, now 25, said that she met Mr. Button when she was a student at a Centerstage Dance Academy in Tampa, Fla., where she knew him as Taylor Moore. On two occasions in 2010, the suit says, she and Mr. Button were sharing a blanket while watching a movie with other dancers from the studio when Mr. Button sexually assaulted her.Mr. Button regularly sent sexually explicit text messages, photos and videos to Ms. Menichino, the lawsuit said, and solicited the same from her. Ms. Menichino had aspirations of becoming a professional dancer, it said, and Mr. Button would reward her “compliance” with special dance opportunities, such as assistant teaching at a dance convention.“The whole game was to keep him happy,” she said in an interview. “Don’t get him angry, or I was unworthy and I would lose my dance career.”Gina Menichino charges in the suit that Mr. Button sexually assaulted her when she was 13 years old and he was her 25-year-old dance instructor in Florida.Eve Edelheit for The New York TimesMs. Menichino, now a dancer, teacher and choreographer, said in an interview that she had reported her experiences to the police in 2018 but that they told her they had found insufficient evidence to pursue a criminal case. According to police records provided by the plaintiffs’ lawyer, another dancer from the same Tampa studio reported to police in 2012 that Mr. Button had sexually assaulted her numerous times, some of them at her home; that case did not result in criminal charges, either, in part because of a lack of supporting physical evidence, the records said.Ms. Menichino’s mother said in an interview that her daughter told her there had been “inappropriate interactions” involving her and Mr. Button after he had left the studio job.In Ms. Humphries’s case, her mother and father said in an interview that they had sensed something was wrong with their daughter’s living situation and had flown to Boston to “rescue” her.Ms. Humphries said in an interview that she had been in awe of Ms. Button, who was a principal dancer with Boston Ballet, and started spending concentrated amounts of time with her and her husband in 2017. But their behavior toward her became increasingly controlling, the lawsuit said.According to the court filing, the couple insisted that Ms. Humphries sleep at their apartment regularly and eventually forced her to live there full-time and paid for her meals and personal expenses; Mr. Button told her that if he had access to her social media account, he could “make her famous like Dusty.”“If Sage ever attempted to distance herself or disobey the Buttons,” the lawsuit said, “they would threaten to revoke their financial support and sabotage her career.”One evening, Mr. Button sexually assaulted Ms. Humphries in his apartment, the lawsuit said, starting a pattern of sexual abuse that sometimes included violent sex acts that she did not consent to. The filing said that on several occasions Ms. Button held her down to immobilize her while Mr. Button had sex with her. And at one point, the suit says, the husband and wife got into a physical altercation that ended with him “striking Dusty across the face” because he was angry that she had had sex with Ms. Humphries.In August 2017, Ms. Humphries, then 19, received abuse protection orders against both Ms. Button and Mr. Button, the lawsuit said.The Boston Ballet said in a statement on Thursday that Ms. Button’s employment had been terminated in May of 2017 but declined to say why.“Boston Ballet supports Sage Humphries who is bravely coming forward, sharing her experience to protect others, and seeking accountability and justice,” the company said in a statement.Sigrid McCawley, a lawyer representing the two plaintiffs, said that there is a trend of predation in the dance world because of ingrained power dynamics and the desire on the part of dancers to gain approval from authority figures.“Grooming in that environment is particularly easy for a perpetrator,” she said, “because he has full access to very young victims for long periods of time.”Kitty Bennett contributed reporting.Continue Reading

The troupe’s schedule includes two engagements in New York, at the Joyce Theater in October and New York City Center next spring.The Martha Graham Dance Company will debut new works by Andrea Miller and Hofesh Shechter in New York in its coming season, the troupe announced Thursday. The first, by Miller, will be performed at the Joyce Theater in the fall. Shechter’s dance will have its premiere in April 2022 as a part of the first City Center Dance Festival.A third new piece, inspired by Graham’s mostly lost “Canticle for Innocent Comedians,” will receive its premiere at the Soraya performing arts center in Northridge, Calif., in March 2022, and will be performed at City Center’s festival.While the company performed briefly this spring — it put on a short program at the Guggenheim in April and was on a mixed bill at Kaatsbaan in May — the season opener at the Joyce, Oct. 26-31, will mark its full return live performance. “I’m convinced that the exhilaration of being in the physical presence of our audiences — experiencing that deeply personal and emotional connection with heightened appreciation — will be the unmistakable highlight of this season,” Janet Eilber, the group’s artistic director, said in a statement.Miller’s dance, as yet untitled, will be performed by eight dancers and set to a soundscore by the composer Will Epstein, with whom she has previously collaborated. Shechter’s work, currently called “Convergence,” will use all the company’s dancers; Daniil Simkin, a principal at American Ballet Theater and the Staatsballett Berlin, will join them at selected performances.Sonya Tayeh is leading the new version of “Canticle for Innocent Comedians,” from 1952. She will create the work’s prelude, finale, transitions and “Sun,” one of its eight nature-focused vignettes. Micaela Taylor, Yin Yue, Juliano Nunes, Kristina and Sadé Alleyne and Jenn Freeman will make five others. The remaining sections were created by Robert Cohan, a member of the original cast who died in January; and Graham, whose choreography for “Moon” has been preserved. The piece will be set to a score by the jazz pianist Jason Moran.The Graham season will also include repertory by its founder and inspiration, from “Appalachian Spring,” one of her most best-known works, to “Acts of Light,” which has not been presented in New York since 2007.In between the two stops in Manhattan, the company will tour: in the United States and in France, Germany and Turkey. After the City Center festival, it will head to Greece in April and China in May.More information is available at marthagraham.org.Continue Reading

The company’s response to pandemic cancellations? An eight-city tour with sleeper buses and a foldout stage to perform outdoors.ST. LOUIS — On an afternoon in mid-July, the heat index in Forest Park here was hovering in the upper 90s. Members of American Ballet Theater, in town on tour, had just sweated through a company class that the dancer Tyler Maloney likened to “Bikram ballet.” He and his colleagues were on an outdoor stage, and its floor was warming like a griddle.How to cool the stage before the matinee? How about scattering ice cubes across the surface?Welcome to ABT Across America, a ballet tour not quite like any before it. The company wasn’t just performing outdoors. It was performing outdoors on a stage it had brought along, a stage on wheels that hydraulically unfolds from the form of a truck. And in between putting on shows for grateful, enthusiastic crowds, the dancers were traveling from city to city like a rock band, in sleeper buses emblazoned with tour dates on the side.The hot stage fell into the category of what Kyle Pickles, the associate general manager, called “Things We Didn’t Think of Yet.” Also in that category at an earlier point: Where will the dancers shower? Running this 21-day tour, Pickles said, felt like a Choose Your Own Adventure book.Like the ice cubes, the tour was an improvisatory response to unusual conditions: those of the pandemic. Kevin McKenzie, the company’s artistic director, told me that the idea was “born from desperation.”From left, Tyler Maloney, Carlos Gonzalez, Michael de la Nuez and João Menegussi rehearsing in Forest Park in St. Louis.Whitney Curtis for The New York TimesCory Stearns, left, and Menegussi take class while the crew sets up in St. Louis.Whitney Curtis for The New York TimesRunning the tour, said Kyle Pickles, the associate general manager, was like a Choose Your Own Adventure book.Whitney Curtis for The New York TimesBallet Theater was to have celebrated its 80th anniversary in 2020, with shows in New York, across the country and abroad, but all the performances after March had to be canceled; 2021 wasn’t looking great, either. Last fall and this spring, the troupe sequestered small groups of dancers in “bubble residencies” and produced films and livestreams of new work, but the return of the in-person performances that are the company’s life blood kept receding with tides of risk.Outdoors seemed the safest bet. David Lansky, the company’s general manager, thought of what he called a crazy idea: adapting the mobile stages used by touring bands and music festivals. Add a couple more trucks for equipment, plus six tour buses for 20 dancers and 20-something crew members, and Ballet Theater could take its show on the road, with fingers crossed for no rain.The crazy idea had a further rationale. “A.B.T. started as a touring company,” McKenzie said, “but the current dancers don’t know what that was like” — the day after day sense of mission, building a fan base for ballet.On the presenter side, interest was high. Lansky contacted 100 cities. Most, he said, were “over-the-moon excited to plan something after a year of nothing.” But as the logistical difficulties became apparent — finding a site, arranging power, permits, bathrooms — interest diminished.The final list of eight spots leaned on several longstanding Ballet Theater partners, like the Lied Center in Lincoln, Neb., and the University of Minnesota, Northrop, in Minneapolis. St. Louis, which the troupe hadn’t visited in 26 years, got on the itinerary through the efforts of Susan Sherman, a former Ballet Theater board member and local force who formed a team, raised six figures in a few weeks and found an ideal location courtesy of the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival.Teuscher, rehearsing at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesMaloney, stretching before the performance in Minnesota.Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesLauren Bonfiglio on her way to the performance at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesGetting dancers on board took some convincing, especially during early planning, when it was assumed that pandemic protocols would confine them tightly to the buses. Everybody was attracted by the chance to perform for live audiences again, but wary of traveling in such close quarters. “Who will be going?” was the usual first question.No one was forced, and those who were game tended to be young — up for the adventure and the bonding experience, hungry to perform. Apart from the principal dancers Cory Stearns and Devon Teuscher (a couple offstage) and the soloist Catherine Hurlin, the roster drew mainly from the corps de ballet. A quarter of the dancers were apprentices.This lineup had some effect on the repertory. For the opener, there was “La Follia Variations,” a lively small-group work that Lauren Lovette created just before the 2020 shutdown; for the closer, “Indestructible Light,” a crowd-pleaser that Darrell Grand Moultrie choreographed to jazz recordings during a 2020 bubble residency.In between, there was a Jessica Lang duet to Tony Bennett songs and a classical pas de deux from either “Don Quixote” or “Swan Lake,” which Hurlin and Sung Woo Han performed as if they were principal dancers already. If this program didn’t bring the heights of ballet choreography to America, it offered varied enjoyment and a youthful, appealingly unhierarchical vibe.In other words, a tour like this might counter perceptions of ballet’s inaccessibility. Kara Medoff Barnett, Ballet Theater’s executive director, stressed the implicit message: that “red velvet seats are not required,” that ballet can be “an inviting experience on your picnic blanket.”Audiences “love peeking behind the curtain,” she added, “and this stage has no curtain.” Also, significantly, tickets were low-cost or free — subsidized by local presenters, the whole tour underwritten by donors like Bloomberg Philanthropies.And it worked. Crowds showed up in numbers large enough that the surprised dancers really did feel like rock stars. Standing ovations were standard.Darrell Grand Moultrie’s “Indestructible Light,” the closer, was choreographed to jazz recordings during a 2020 bubble residency.Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesPerforming Lauren Lovette’s “La Follia Variations,” the lively small-group work that opened the programs, at the Landscape Arboretum in Chanhassen, Minn..Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesBehind the scenes was the Choose Your Own Adventure. I rode the bus with Pickles and other staff and crew from Minneapolis to St. Louis, about halfway through the tour. When they weren’t napping or nervously checking the weather forecast or joking about “bus rules” (no stinky cheese), they were busy on laptops troubleshooting upcoming tour stops. At one point, Pickles sent out a question to dancers, inquiring who might be interested in a laundry option the next day. Answer: almost everyone.It was about a week before the tour started that Pickles discovered the buses didn’t have showers. In some cities, everyone would be sleeping in hotels (an upside of loosening pandemic restrictions), but for the stops where they would be spending the night in the buses, parked near the hotel, Pickles rented a few rooms where they could bathe.When I asked dancers how the tour was going, they talked about how gratifying it was to be performing again, which they had expected, but also about how the bus beds were comfortable, which they hadn’t. (The bus drivers, for their part, noted how the dancers were much cleaner than their usual rock-band clientele.) Still, some dancers worked out an arrangement among themselves to sleep in the “shower rooms.”Mostly, they grew accustomed enough to tour life to complain a bit about the sameness. (In St. Louis, the distribution of tour swag got them excited again.) Usually, touring dancers have to adjust to a different stage in each town, but since they brought their own this time, it was always familiar — bouncy, if sometimes hot.Where to put that stage was trickier. At the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, where the dressing room was in the Bee and Pollinator Discovery Center next to the red barn, the ground sloped from the stage so as to cut off views of the dancers’ feet. In St. Louis, setting up the stage at the bottom of an amphitheater-like glen avoided that problem, but squeezing it into that spot was a worrisomely close shave.Despite the company’s desire for ABT Across America to echo the troupe’s transcontinental tours of the 1940s and ’50s, it was a much less grueling affair. During the war, in the 1943-4 season, the troupe performed in 73 cities, doing one-night stands in 48 of them. The tour 10 years later was similar: four months, 20 states in buses and trains, mostly a different city every day.But if ABT Across America was shorter and cushier than that, it was significantly smaller and cheaper than the company’s touring model of recent years. “Even before the pandemic,” McKenzie told me, “presenters blanched at the cost of bringing 130 people and hiring an orchestra.” A new touring model similar to ABT Across America might “add another arm to our mission,” he said. “Dancers will be signing up. It would be extra work.”Certainly, the tour opened up space for younger dancers. “It seems like in every piece, we’re pretty much featured evenly,” Carlos Gonzalez, a corps member, said. “It’s a great opportunity to dance and be seen and get experience we don’t usually get.”And it felt good, Teuscher said, to reach audiences that Ballet Theater might not normally reach: “We are America’s company, so bringing ballet to America feels important.”Dancers at the Boys and Girls Club in St. Louis.Whitney Curtis for The New York TimesBetsy McBride, a Ballet Theater corps member, leads an advanced class in St. Louis.Whitney Curtis for The New York TimesIn each city, the company gave classes for the public. In St. Louis, I watched 10 girls take an absolute-beginners’s class at the Boys and Girls Club in a neglected part of town. The class, a week of prep classes and free dance attire (“For reals, we get to keep it?” one girl asked) had all been arranged by Antonio Douthit-Boyd, who grew up a few blocks away and had a stellar career with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater before returning to St. Louis with his husband, Kirven Douthit-Boyd, to run the dance program at the Center of Creative Arts.That Center, newly renovated and humming with activity, was the site of an intermediate and advanced class the next day given by company dancers. When I caught up with the advanced students after the Ballet Theater performance that afternoon, they told me that they had found the professional dancers inspiring but that they would rather be onstage themselves. That’s how inspiration is supposed to work.The tour’s final stop, outside Rockefeller Center back home in New York, was chosen for historical resonance. It was there in 1940 — at the Center Theater, which was demolished in 1954 — that Ballet Theater gave its first performances. John Martin, in The New York Times, hailed it as an unlikely success, “the solidest foundation that has yet been laid for the development of the art of ballet in America.”In 2021, the ABT Across America mobile stage didn’t fit between buildings, so a replacement stage had to be constructed. To include live music, by two pianists, two dances were swapped out, which meant that about half the dancers were also replaced, largely by principals.Stearns and Teuscher in a pas de deux from “Swan Lake.”Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesHannah Marshall and Catherine Hurlin watch from the wings.Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesThose choices might have made some sense, offering a tougher New York crowd something different from what the heartland got. I felt a little resentful on behalf of the tour dancers denied the final glory, but they didn’t miss that much, really. They had already had their rock-star experience, and nearly everything about the New York show — audience, energy — seemed smaller, squeezed into the city instead of out in the open.The tour, in retrospect, grew larger, its unlikely success more impressive. Back on the bus, the production stage manager, Danielle Ventimiglia, had looked out on a double rainbow over cornfields and said, “God, our country is big.”She and everyone else involved in the tour had managed to bring ballet across a large swath of it during a pandemic. Not a single performance was canceled for rain.Continue Reading