those fouettes

[rkoretzky]

If this isn't the right place for this topic, please move it!!

We just completed four perfomances of Martins' Swan Lake at SPAC last week. I remember reading a quote from Peter when this production was new, addressing the fouette question--his take as I remember it, that he doesn't care if his dancers do 32 fouettes or no fouettes--he is looking for whatever turns the ballerina feels are appropriate, and whatever number of turns, to fill the music and look good. Of course this is a paraphrase and I apologize to Mr. Martins if I have gotten the gist wrong, but this is the best of my memory.

So the Odiles went down this way: Maria K (28 fouettes and a sliding mess at the end, finishing somewhat off the music), Miranda W (first performance--27 very clean fouettes and a nice finish, second performance--1 double, 28 singles, another double for a grand total of 32 remarkably clean fouettes and a beautiful finish), and Jennie S (I couldn't count 'em, she was so fast and clean-- and there were doubles and possibly triples in there so I lost track quickly).

Now, am I making too much of this fouette question? Obviously there are many who would say I am, but I don't think so. Doesn't the whole ballet turn (ha!) on the fouettes? Isn't that the point where Siegfried betrays Odette? Up until then, he is charmed, but the fouettes are a spell and there is no turning back. (ha again). He is completely bewitched by Odile.

So are 32 necessary? I'd rather see 28 clean turns than 32 sloppy ones, but I'd say that this is one instance where the goal is to be as faithful to the original choreography as possible.

So I found Miranda's 32 clean ones, stopping on a dime, to be the most satisfying, and Jennie's series of singles, doubles and triples, seemingly even stronger at the end than at the beginning (!) to be the most thrilling, and I'd say that might describe how I felt about their performances as a whole, too. Both of them, and Maria, too--were beautiful, vulnerable Odettes, but a strong, cold, menacing Odile is so much harder to pull off.

And as for the Siegfrieds--an unconvincing Philip Neal (our local reviewers seemed to disagree with me about that), a Nilas Martins who seems to come alive when he is paired with Jennie, and has been dancing quite well here, and Peter Boal, finally, finally, for one performance on Saturday afternoon. Mr. Boal is in a class all by himself--this is the phrase that is used over and over in talking about him. What a gentleman, what a partner, what an interpreter, what a fine dancer.

[Mel Johnson]

For a Modest Proposal about what to do with fouettés and other bravura standards, please see:

http://balletalert.ipbhost.com/index.php?s...t=0entry99720

et seq.

[Dale]

rkoretzky, we once had a very long discussion about those fouettes here but I think the thread is gone (it was when the ballet was first done in 1998). The Swan Lakes of NYCB and ABT were going head-to-head and there was talk from the ABT camp that the NYCB just couldn't do them. I had strongly agreed with Martins, that I didn't care as long as what was done was done brilliantly and well. However, I've changed my mind. They are part of the role and, if a dancer is going to do a full-length Swan, she needs to work on them. However, I've seen some replacement items that were pretty neat. I have a tape of a dancer doing some crazy, difficult hops on point.

Back in 1998, we concluded that the reason why many of the NYCB dancers had difficulty with the fouettes was that Balanchine didn't really use that many in succession (there are a few exceptions, such as Western or Midsummer) and that they probably didn't work on them the way a ballerina in a classical company would, a dancer who would have to haul out 32 in Don q., Swan Lake, Le Corsaire and all those gala pieces.

In Darcey Bussell's book, she wrote that it was something she worked on all the time, not just once in a while for one ballet.

As I remember from the first season SL was at NYCB, Kistler replaced them with a turning combination, Nichols did fast pique turns around the stage, Weese did them, Kowroski did most, and Meunier did doubles and singles all the way through.

[doug]

I have to admit, I'm tired of seeing 32 fouettes, but that is probably because they have found their way into Soviet versions of Paquita and Le Corsaire, etc., that I have had to watch recently at PNB. The fouettes were included in the Black Swan coda because Pierina Legnani could do them. She had done them the year before in Cinderella. If another ballerina had created the role of Odette/Odile in the 1895 production, we wouldn't have the fouettes in Black Swan or, probably, anywhere else. Sometimes I wish that was how it went! I'd admire a ballerina for substituting a combination that seemed to express the dominating quality of Odile's personality (or at least her dominance of Siegfried's attention). Didn't Makarova (ironic, since she was a Soviet ballerina) substitute a manege of pique turns?

[carbro]

Right there with you, RK! Unless the ballerina can do fouettes that are really, truly beautiful (and that's about one or two a generation), they can't help but be a circus act on some level. How much did she travel? Did she do multiples? Any fancy port-de-bras? Did she do them while jumping through a flaming hoop? :secret:

Even though it is only 16 counts (I think), I admire the ladies who do the turning sequence in the Tschaikovsky Pas coda with a variety of different turns. (Pirouette, fouette, pick-up chaine, pick-up chaine, I think), It's more interesting and -- to my eye -- more pleasing. It actually looks like dancing! :jump:

[Hans]

According to videos I've seen, lots of Russians have substituted "piqué turns" en manege for the fouettés. After having seen fouettés, it looks rather anticlimactic in my opinion, no matter how brilliantly they are done. I think Swan Lake does require fouettés, but I do not think they should be embellished beyond a double done every 4 or 8 or even 16 turns or so. No fancy arms, no triples (except maybe at the end). Fancy arms and multiple pirouettes are largely Don Q and Le Corsaire territory for me--I don't even really like them in Paquita, though some "Spanish" flavor (such as hands on hips, &c) is acceptable there IMO. Just don't stop the music during the coda

[Helene]

In today's Links there's an interview with Christopher Stowell about Oregon Ballet Theater's upcoming "Act III Swan Lake" from the The Oregonian, where Stowell is quoted as saying about the fouettes,

I'm of two minds about it..They're overrated, and people shouldn't be waiting for that all night long. However, if a ballerina leaves them out, I think they're a bit of a wuss. They're part of the challenge of this role, and they have to do it.

Perhaps this is because, as he later explains,

[Petipa] choreographed a lot on the left leg, and most ballerinas turn to the right. That means they've been dancing on their left leg all night, and then they get to the part where they're most fatigued, the moment everyone's waiting for, and they have to jump up and down on their left leg again.

I think he just called Maya Plitsetskaya "a bit of a wuss," though.

[Anne74]

If, for an audience member or a dancer, "Swan Lake" is all about the third act foutees, I think something's wrong. What makes the famous 32 foutees so famous (and not just in Swan Lake) is the repetition. Audiences love almost any step if it's repeated beyond the point that seems natural to stop at. I understand the point about that moment in the ballet being a metaphor for Odile's ability to mesmerize Siegfried and capture his devotion, but I hate the thought of a ballerina being branded "a wuss" or as technically incompetent for substituting another step. Foutees are indeed very difficult to do well, but so are many other steps that could, if done with the right impetus, equally mesmerize and enrapture a prince.

[Helene]

If, for an audience member or a dancer, "Swan Lake" is all about the third act foutees, I think something's wrong.  What makes the famous 32 foutees so famous (and not just in Swan Lake) is the repetition.  Audiences love almost any step if it's repeated beyond the point that seems natural to stop at.  I understand the point about that moment in the ballet being a metaphor for Odile's ability to mesmerize Siegfried and capture his devotion, but I hate the thought of a ballerina being branded "a wuss" or as technically incompetent for substituting another step.  Foutees are indeed very difficult to do well, but so are many other steps that could, if done with the right impetus, equally mesmerize and enrapture a prince.

I agree with you. I really hate when a role boils down to a set of turns or balances, and the performance is "graded" solely on those elements.

There's a new scoring system in figure skating that gives credit for (legal) elements performed. Some skaters have chosen to drop a jump that they have difficulty performing, often substituting a repetition of a harder jump in combination, and others have chosen alternate positions for spirals and layback spins of equal or greater difficulty, but ones that emphasize their strengths, not their weaknesses. There are many people on figure skating boards who feel this is somehow cheating, even when, empirically, the skater has done something more difficult.

In skating and dancing, I would rather see "elements" performed well and integrated into the drama. Even Balanchine changed steps for dancers, based on their strengths and abilities.

[Anne74]

I'm glad to hear from someone else on the same wavelength about this! I agree one hundred percent that learning and rehearsing a certain role can be the best way to improve one's technique, but as you pointed out, even Balanchine apparently preferred to change a step to suit a dancer's strengths rather than put them onstage struggling. My personal experience has shown that many Balanchine repetiteurs act the same way--- they offer different options after a dancer has struggled and has trouble coming to grips with a given step or passage. I believe the honor lies in the fight to succeed, not in fitting into an ironclad mold. And the beauty and magic lie in a dancer's artistry onstage.

If, for an audience member or a dancer, "Swan Lake" is all about the third act foutees, I think something's wrong.  What makes the famous 32 foutees so famous (and not just in Swan Lake) is the repetition.  Audiences love almost any step if it's repeated beyond the point that seems natural to stop at.  I understand the point about that moment in the ballet being a metaphor for Odile's ability to mesmerize Siegfried and capture his devotion, but I hate the thought of a ballerina being branded "a wuss" or as technically incompetent for substituting another step.  Foutees are indeed very difficult to do well, but so are many other steps that could, if done with the right impetus, equally mesmerize and enrapture a prince.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree with you. I really hate when a role boils down to a set of turns or balances, and the performance is "graded" solely on those elements.

There's a new scoring system in figure skating that gives credit for (legal) elements performed. Some skaters have chosen to drop a jump that they have difficulty performing, often substituting a repetition of a harder jump in combination, and others have chosen alternate positions for spirals and layback spins of equal or greater difficulty, but ones that emphasize their strengths, not their weaknesses. There are many people on figure skating boards who feel this is somehow cheating, even when, empirically, the skater has done something more difficult.

In skating and dancing, I would rather see "elements" performed well and integrated into the drama. Even Balanchine changed steps for dancers, based on their strengths and abilities.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[tempusfugit]

Anne, it is true that Balanchine did sometimes change steps for dancers (Verdy in the pirouette variation of Raymonda Variations, Farrell in Apollo and Barocco, Ashley in Sanguinic, the alternate men's variations of Tchaik Pas for D'Amboise and Villella, etc, etc) and that he sometimes OFFERED to change them and was refused. Adams recalls that she thought she was "awful in the finale of Symphony in C with everyone else whirling around...." and Balanchine said he would change it and she said no, don't. The 32 fouettes are a special case because they were originally a stunt (at the time of the premiere only that ballerina could do this trick, and it became de rigeur ever after in her performances and eventually everyone else's), not something integral to the concept of Odile or originally planned as part of the role. It seems to me that if a ballerina does another step or manege brilliantly that's perfectly fine in Swan Lake Act III, whereas it really is NOT fine to alter steps without the blessing of a choreographer like Balanchine. To name three notorious examples, Square Dance, Glinka Pas de Trois (when it was revived in 93), and Who Cares? all have dazzling virtuoso passages which have been dumbed down almost without exception ever since the roles' creators departed NYCB, and especially since the death of Balanchine. with this sort of proceedings, it will soon be fine to change any troublesome passages in Mozart or Bach (after all, comfort is the only goal, lolol) and so forth. Elizabeth Loscavio did every step-- ravishingly-- in the turning variation of Who Cares? in the Balanchine Celebration; I recently saw a young dancer do more of the steps of Square Dance (not at NYCB, unfortunately) than anyone since Ashley and Nichols danced the role. It can be done. Why then shouldn't those idiosyncratic, overwhelmingly brilliant roles be a challenge that any dancer cast in the part longs to and DOES meet?

[Leigh Witchel]

My, you're on a roll today, tempusfugit.

It's a complicated issue, and I think it's seductive to go with the Francois Villon approach and lament the snows of yesteryear. Balanchine was inconsistent about maintaining his own works - Melissa Hayden tells a story about pressing him to maintain certain qualities in the male duet in Agon when he rehearsed it for the Stravinsky Festival in '72. I hope you aren't intimating that the dancers change the steps out of laziness or because they don't like them. There are precious few dancers out there who won't try and do a step exactly as asked or coached if and when they get coaching.

[Mel Johnson]

I rather like the Gutzon Borglum test: If you can get the original artist to modify his/her own work, then fine. It is rather like "nominating" additional figures on Mount Rushmore. First, you have to get the original artist's permission....

The second that Marius Petipa approves changes to the Black Swan pas de deux, I'll back him up 100%! (Rap once for yes, twice for no.)

[Anne74]

It is, in my opinion, clear that Balanchine works and the "classics" are apples and oranges when it comes to this issue of "different versions" of choreography. I'm straying from the original topic of Swan Lake foutees, if that's ok. It seems to me that it's almost as if you'll never see the same male variation twice in most classical full-lenght ballets! Men are given practically free rein to choose, or even concoct, a variation or coda that suits them best. Women, on the other hand, have little or no choice in the matter and must deal with the flak they'll get for amending a variation.

Although I've seen Balanchine repetituers give dancers (men and women both) various options in certain places while staging ballets, they certianly are always firm about virtually everything. Another can of worms to open is the fact that each Balanchine repetiteur stages any given ballet a different way! Talk about confusing for a dancer....

[Mel Johnson]

The matter of male variations and Petipa/Ivanov works and restagings all seem to go back to Pavel Gerdt. He was pretty much allowed, even encouraged to compose his own solos, and nobody thought much to record what was actually done. This is the outfall from the age of "ad maiorem ballerinae gloriam": The men were ignored in favor of scrupulously noting what the women did, and only were recorded as doing something if they did it with the women.

Balanchine works, odd to tell, have now BECOME "the classics". Balanchine isn't around to tinker with them anymore, and a company which essays a work like that whether from 1890 or 1980 is almost in the same position as the motorist who buys a used car. It really helps to know who had it last before you saw it. There are Balanchine stagers, and Balanchine stagers. Some know every variant of every passage of the ballet they've been hired to set, and some only know the last way it was done. It is really quite unethical to modify a work of art after the creator has done with it, without his/her permission. Would somebody re-harmonize Beethoven's Ninth Symphony? Draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa? Art Conservators the world over are now having to remove the bronze figleaves and chaste overpaintings of the works of masters who were long dead when the updates were done. Dance has only quite recently been able to establish and record beyond the shadow of a doubt what was wanted. In the care and upkeep of art, modifications are done at the modifier's peril, and the endangerment of the original.

[Leigh Witchel]

As a choreographer, I'd make a qualified disagreement.

Ballets are like couture, they need to be custom-fit to the wearer. If any of my works were re-set without my supervision, I would expect the regisseur to make small alterations; the balletic equivalent of hemming the cuff or taking in a dart. It's not the same dancer I made the step on.

This means that the regisseur has to be very sensitive to the work. I'm not saying that a regisseur should go in with the idea of improving the work, but tailoring. Without this tailoring, the work doesn't fit the company; it's like wearing someone else's clothing.

[Mel Johnson]

And also as a choreographer, I'd like to offer a qualified rebuttal.

I have left my own original works in the hands of repetiteurs "with power" to "fix" them as needed. When I was in the Air Force, sometimes there was just no other way! The ballet was in Springfield, and I was in Saigon! Sometimes I have been pleased with the result, sometimes I have not. However, Leigh and I have one thing in common. We are both still alive to ratify or deny changes to our work.

[Anne74]

But isn't the problem actually getting two Balanchine repetiteurs to agree on what he really wanted??? As you've all said, he changed his own ballets often--- some repetiteurs stage an early version, some a later version. Who's to say what's "right"? Which could be called better or more authentic-- the choreographer's first vision or his later re-vision?

The matter of male variations and Petipa/Ivanov works and restagings all seem to go back to Pavel Gerdt.  He was pretty much allowed, even encouraged to compose his own solos, and nobody thought much to record what was actually done.  This is the outfall from the age of "ad maiorem ballerinae gloriam":  The men were ignored in favor of scrupulously noting what the women did, and only were recorded as doing something if they did it with the women. 

Balanchine works, odd to tell, have now BECOME "the classics".  Balanchine isn't around to tinker with them anymore, and a company which essays a work like that whether from 1890 or 1980 is almost in the same position as the motorist who buys a used car.  It really helps to know who had it last before you saw it.  There are Balanchine stagers, and Balanchine stagers.  Some know every variant of every passage of the ballet they've been hired to set, and some only know the last way it was done.  It is really quite unethical to modify a work of art after the creator has done with it, without his/her permission.  Would somebody re-harmonize Beethoven's Ninth Symphony?  Draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa? Art Conservators the world over are now having to remove the bronze figleaves and chaste overpaintings of the works of masters who were long dead when the updates were done. Dance has only quite recently been able to establish and record beyond the shadow of a doubt what was wanted. In the care and upkeep of art, modifications are done at the modifier's peril, and the endangerment of the original.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Mel Johnson]

Now we're back at the used car lot!

You really have to know who the stagers are, and what they know. When a company hired Anton Dolin to stage Giselle, they could be pretty sure of what they were getting, although sometimes, they got little surprises, like, "I don't think that looks well on you, dear. Let's try something that Trefilova used to do...." And who was to say what Trefilova did?! Balanchine staging is really in its infancy, and standards and practices are yet far from uniform, as you have very properly noted.

Now here's a hot 1957 version of "Le Combat" I picked up from a little old lady from the Ballet Russe, only used to dance it on Sundays.... :deal:

[Helene]

Specifically to the topic of the fouettes in Swan Lake, if they were a highlight added to showcase the gifts of a specific dancer (having already been successful in another ballet) I'm not sure why they are that much more "ur-text" than, say, Joachim's cadenzas for the Brahms Violin Concerto. I know that one difference is that there was the expectation of improvisation in the latter, but it's hard for me to imagine that what was intended to be, essentially, a specialty act, was something quite so sacred.

On the subject of an element becoming so big that it dwarfs the performance, I really dislike it very much, for example, when an entire performance of Aurora boils down to how the dancer balances in the "Rose Adagio," when there are two more acts, each with difficult adagios, and character development to the end. I feel the same way about the fouettes; I don't think Swan Lake boils down to them.

[jllaney]

It may be true that men have more latitude to change their variations or codas but there are certain moments in ballet that are indelible. If Prince Desire doesn't do a double tour-soutenu combination in his variation, then I'm asking for my money back. The Black Swan fouettes are in a catergory by themselves. Even some of my non-ballet friends know of them. When that seminal moment arrives in the Black Swan Coda and Odile launches into the fouettes we say "Ah! Here come the fouettes. Let's count" or if she doesn't do them then we say "What will she do instead?" The point is that you notice if she does or doesn't do them.

I also think it's important to judge the art on the level it's meant to entertain. If I go see the Bismark high school ballet club do Swan Lake, I'm ok if the ballerina opts against the fouettes. I don't need to see her break her ankle for my entertainment. But if you advertise yourself as City Ballet, or ABT, or The Royal Ballet then we're talking about world-class ballerinas and world-class standards. I don't think it's too much to ask Miranda Weese to do the fouettes. It may not be fair that some women turn better than others but that lack of homoginy is what makes ballet so beautiful. We all have our strengths. And it may be true that the fouettes are there because Legnani could do them and no one else could but I have to believe that if Petipa didn't think that they advanced the plot or added to the seduction of Siegfried or do any of the things that we associate them with, then he could have/would have taken them out.

[Mel Johnson]

Excellent points, both! Indeed, I was carried away by Michael Rabin's cadenzas in the Brahms, and even when a performer elected to do the Joachim (as best as can be realized), I found this niggling little voice deep inside, saying, "Not what I'm used to. Don't know if I like it as much." I suppose it's all in how you first meet the work. First impressions are hard to break. One problem I think that Swan Lake suffers from now is that nobody's doing a "standard" version. Every choreographer seems to want a piece of the action, and the ballet is getting very lost! There is no plain-vanilla Swan Lake out there. The most radical thing a ballet company could do right now would be to revive a Sergeyev-notation version of the work, (complete with Benno) and let the work speak for itself.

And now a personal note. I got an extra ticket for a Ballet Theatre performance and I took my mother, as I already had a date. Turns out her seat in the First Ring was better than the ones Karen and I had! She was seated next to a longshoreman, who was seeing his first "Black Swan" as a complete novice, his first time ever at a ballet. Lupe Serrano and Scott Douglas were the cast that night, and when the fouettés came, this total newbie was shouting approval! "Did she do all 32 turns?" asked Mom. "Who cares?" said he, "That was one of the most exciting things I ever saw in my life!" Right now, we need more like him!

[carbro]

And perhaps a ballerina or two like Lupe, whom it was never my privilege to see.

I think an extraordinary artist whose Odette brings tears to every eye in the house and whose Odile captivates even sans fouettes, whose Siegfried meets her on her level and aches desperately for her, I think then, well, who needs fouettes? Of course the audience expects them! That's part of the problem. The anticipation itself tends to rob the pdd of its wholeness. Indeed, I've seen one or two Swan Lakes in which the whole point of the ballerina's presence on stage all night seemed to be cranking out those fouettes.

And I like Leigh's analogy of "tailoring."

--Carley

[Anne74]

I think perhaps why this whole issue gets under my skin so much is that I see audience members (seasoned and "newbies" alike) judging the merit of an Odette/Odile's performance on how her fouettes go! How awful. Yes, that third act coda is a landmark moment in ballet history, but who's to say WHAT Petipa really, truly intended. A specific showcase moment for this particular dancer to show off her particular trick, a place for succeeding dancers to show off THEIR particular tricks, or an iron-clad determination that 32 fouettes were the only way to convey the seduction and dynamic between Odile and Siegfried?

In any case, I don't think any dancer should be judged an inferior Odile for performing an equally difficult and mesmerizing "trick" step in her coda. That's my story and I"m sticking to it!

[Amy Reusch]

Hey, Mel, did Lupe spot the floor on the fouettes? I was once told that she always spotted the floor a little off center and since she turned like a fiend no one ever tried to alter her technique. Makes sense from the days when perhaps "spotting lights" were not dead center every night, if they existed at all...those most teachers seem to think spotting the floor would throw off one's balance. (My apologies for a ballet talk for dancers type question here).