vrsfanatic Posted September 4, 2003 Share Posted September 4, 2003 I am only able to address the corps work of the years, ruffly 1962-1987, at which time I attended NYCB on a frequently regular basis. I was a child during part of those years, I must admit, therefore perhaps some of my impressions have been a bit clouded by my immense love of anything that had to do with ballet, but I do not really recall the corps of NYCB ever being together. I came not to expect it. Odd because when I was a teenager I was dancing ballets such as Symphony and C, Barocco, Valse Fantasy...and we had to be together. I actually never understood it. SF Ballet , as well as PA Ballet in the 70s were highly regarded because of their corps work particularly in the Balanchine Rep. Could not all ballets look better with a corps that is uniform musically, stylistically, schoolingwise, etc? Since this is a thread that specifically states IMHO, my vote is yes! Not to lead us off topic because we have aleady covered this issue with the current generation of dancers but, when did SAB ever train corps members that went into NYCB? Read the bios of various dancers from the past, as with today's company, the majority were not from the NYC metropolitan area. A few, Ricky Weiss, Judy Fugate, Edward Villella, I am searching my memory for a corps dancer? I am sure there are some? Link to comment
Mel Johnson Posted September 4, 2003 Share Posted September 4, 2003 From the ground up, I'd have to say that dancers from the greater Metro area were usually a minority in the NYCB ranks, no matter what rank they held. Most passed through a period at SAB, but they were from somewhere else, initially. Link to comment
Leigh Witchel Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 The corps at NYCB goes in waves. It's a young crop right now, with a reasonable amount of turnover. I think that may affect peoples attitudes until (and of course, if) the crop settles in. Link to comment
Guest Don Posted September 15, 2003 Share Posted September 15, 2003 Watermill, I think you have a point. Back in the "old days", when I was in ABT, there were far fewer dancers, and I really do think the corps was much better in terms of uniformity. Of course we also had Dimitri Romanov rehearsing us to the eyelashes! Demitri Romanov! My favorite ballet teacher of all time. I used to study with him in San Jose a million years ago, he once kept another class waiting for 15 minutes while he had me do tour en lairs until he was satisfied that I really understood how they should be done. I still miss him. Don Link to comment
leibling Posted September 20, 2003 Share Posted September 20, 2003 I have never seen a corps de ballet be together and be boring. To me, it is boring when things are sloppy and there are too many individuals. If the corps stays together, you can see the beauty and structure of the choreography, and this is just as true of Balanchine as it is of anything else. I saw a video recently of Symphony in C perfromed by a japanese company that was so incredibly exciting because I couldn't believe that 52 people could stay together through so many steps. I know this is off-topic, but i haven't seen NYCB recently. Link to comment
Jack Reed Posted September 21, 2003 Share Posted September 21, 2003 liebling, was that a commercially-available video, by any chance? Link to comment
mussel Posted September 21, 2003 Share Posted September 21, 2003 liebling, if the tape is not commercially available, can I borrow it for a DVD conversion? And I'll give you an extra DVD copy. Link to comment
oberon Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 Having just joined this forum, I'm reading over several topics belatedly. I did want to say that I would not characterize the NYCB corps as "weak". A couple of years ago I had the chance to see both NYCB and ABT in THEME & VARIATIONS and was struck by the clarity, sense of space and the lyricism of the NYCB girls while the ABT corps seemed bunched up, crowding each other; each girl at ABT seemed to be auditioning for a soloist berth while the City ladies rightly provided a lovely frame for the ballerina. I've kept a journal of my opera & ballet experiences since the mid-70s when I first saw NYCB. Even back then, when Balanchine was in command, I have notes about the corps being "off", "out of sync" or "tired". And other times when they were magnificent. It does not seem to have changed that much...there are better and worse corps days and there always have been. For me, I do not really find it disturbing when the corps functions as a group of individuals rather than as a precise machine. My ballet teacher used to tell me that everyone hears music slightly differently and that when she was setting a dance on the corps she did not expect Rockette-like precision. I love to focus on one corps dancer and just follow him/her throughout a piece. Sometimes I will become engrossed watching Amanda Edge or Craig Hall and then realize that I'm ignoring the principals. Link to comment
Dale Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 Oberon, feel free to catch up on topics. There are a lot of NYCB viewers that have been watching the company since the 70s and earlier and we can talk about NYCB endlessly Link to comment
pj Posted November 13, 2003 Share Posted November 13, 2003 This was posted quite a lot earlier in this thread, but I agree with Watermill about Kirov being the best corps around. Another one of my favorite corps is the Moscow Stanislavsky Ballet's. It has to be the training! Dancers in the US don't have the consistency that the Russians have. Link to comment
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