Thanks for your detailed and informative commentary.

I do believe Balet Bratislava’s core group is 10 or 12 and not 14 but we’d have to ask Mr. Radocovsky about who is salaried full time and not. That the split is 50/50 is excellent: it indicates that Balet Bratislava is a Slovak company but open to the world.

I do feel awful about not mentioning Daniel Corbeil’s excellent performance in Six Dances, you are quite right. As well, whoever two were doing the stilts work were excellent: the best I’ve seen.

We’ll have to agree to disagree about Vaculik’s piece: it was a mess to my eyes, despite good performances by the cast.

Again, I have seen lots of Kylian in Vienna and in Paris and a little bit in The Netherlands and my comparison stands. I’m glad Balet Bratislava has matched Houston and Boston Ballet. I haven’t seen either of those companies live so I’m not in a position to disagree.

Concerning bias. Yes it’s a difficult question, bias in critical reviews.

I know the Balet Bratislava company well. Certainly well enough to have bias and to have picked favorites. In some ways, though my favorites would stand out to my eye even if I came in with entirely fresh eyes.

Some of the attributes which appeal to me in dancers are intensity, passion, dramatic presence, athleticism and physical presence. I do not have as keen an eye for precision, foot position and refinement as many dance critics.

I’m not quite sure what one can do to ensure neutrality, other than to avoid any social interaction with anyone from the dance world. I do try to write my initial impressions before meeting with choreographers and/or dancers after the show to avoid colouring my impressions of the evening. I generally do not accept tickets from dancers themselves to specific shows, as I don’t feel one can write objectively about a performance as the guest of a particular artist.

But no one is perfect and I least of all.

Thank you again for taking the time to share your thoughtful remarks. It’s nice to run into someone else who cares deeply about dance, even when we disagree on the details.

Let me first correct you on some blatant errors in facts. First of all, Balet Bratislava is a company of 14 dancers, 7 women, 7 men, not 10 as you had written in your review. Of the 14, seven are native Slovaks, and the others are foreign. The piece “Falling Angels” was created in 1989, not 1990, and not all the dancers in the piece have solos – there are a coupe of duet sections, and one of the 8 women in the dance does not dance a solo. In Balet Bratislava’s “Falling Angels”, it was the position danced by Natalia Nemethova that does not get a solo. You called “Six Dances” the “penultimate” (definition: second to the last) piece of the night’s show when in fact it was the last. The reason Andrej Szabo “didn’t really hit his stride” in “Six Dances” is he was only in it as an “extra”, one of the background characters, and did not actually dance in it.

I disagree with you about Vaculik’s piece. I found the choreography a little strange in parts, quite intricate and really challenging but very well performed, by everyone, with not one dancer standing out but everyone working as an ensemble. And i thought the BB male dancers did dance with maturity, and not like “teenagers going through the motions.” There were some little quirks about this piece but overall a delightful piece that showcased the dancers’ versatility.

I don’t know how many stagings of the Kylian pieces you have actually seen for you to say that the BB dancers could not be as good as the Paris Opera or NDT. Well let me tell you that I have seen other big and world reknown companies such as Houston Ballet and Boston Ballet do these pieces and from the BB performance the past weekend, they definitely are up to par and in fact deserve extra kudos for coming up with fantastic performances despite the limitations of the Nova Scena stage facilities. You really should be giving them more credit.

On the issue of your dancer reviews, I sense a bias towards certain dancers. You named 5 of the 8 in Falling Angels. Not to undermine their talents, but I must say the strongest performances in ths piece was not from one of those you mentioned. And I am not the only one of this opinion. In Six Dances, I thought the best male performance, again, was from one dancer you did not name.

Just wanted to see a review that was more appreciative of those deserving. But then, I realize it is a subjective review, not necessarily an informed and accurate one, and certainly not fair.