Gottlieb on Sleeping Beauty

[Alexandra]

It's not that this isn't a valid point – it certainly is.  But he seems to bring it up in every other column, and it begins to sound like overkill.  I might be inclined to overkill myself, if I felt I was seeing an institution that meant so much to me apparently in a long term collapse, but maybe it is too much.

Many interesting points made on this thread, but I had to jump in on this one. Dirac, you've hit on one of the central problems for many people writing today. If you think you're seeing something that you consider an aesthetic outrage, if you feel passionate about it and you're writing about it, what do you do? Make the point once a season and not write about the company more than that (probably have the same effect: "he's always nagging them about x y or z"). Make the point occasionally? Say it once at the beginning of the season and then mention it every three weeks or so? Go out of your way to scream praise at one performance or new ballet that is, to your way of thinking, not an aesthetic outrage? I don't know a solution to this -- if someone has a suggestion I'd love to read it!

As a writer, I know from experience that it is possible to look at work by someone whose work you generally detest on difference-of-aesthetic-opinion grounds and say, "wow, that one's good!" or at least "not as bad as it looked last season" and point out what you think are the improvements. But you can't control how people read you. It might be missed, because the writer has developed a reputation of "he's always beating up on poor Drekov!" or it may be considered an attempt at deception -- "Aha! She hates Drekov but she's going to praise the new baby ballerina to let you think she's being fair, but watch, she'll smash the same dancer two seasons from now;" which, of course, might happen, if Drekov performs according to spec!

Re Gottlieb, I think it's been pointed out before that he writes for a very specific readership which probably expects both a polemical and a highly colored tone, and since writers adapt their writing to suit the publication for which they're writing, that may be one reason for the difference in tone between The Observer reviews and the Vanity Fair piece. I am much more temperate in what I write for the Washington Post (because the readership is huge) than I am in DanceView, a subscription-only publication read by dance fans, or in posts/conversations here. Because everything looks alike on the internet, distinctions are very easy to forget. You may read a newspaper review, a "think piece" (formerly known as an essay) in a small press literary magazine and a post and they all blend together, but seen in their original context, they sometimes make more sense.

[Thalictum]

Michael you said it perfectly.

And let's not forget that Heather Watts is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair.

[dirac]

The Vanity Fair article was also a very different kind of piece, a long history of the company. You could argue that his comments about the company's improvement then were devised to give his writing the appearance of objectivity, but I'm more inclined to believe that, well, he saw signs of improvement. That was five years ago – plenty of time to change his mind. I don't see the company and can't comment from that standpoint, but his stance seems to me pretty consistent overall.

I don't think there's any solution to the dilemma Alexandra mentions. Sometimes critics just stop because there's nothing good to say and they don't want to keep on being unrelentingly negative. People think that critics live to criticize, but I remember the late Pauline Kael saying that she retired in part because it was a bad period for movies and she just couldn't bring herself to review any more lousy ones, it was painful.

[Alexandra]

A post on this thread was deleted and the poster notified by email.

All opinions are welcome here, but in light of a post that had to be deleted, I thought a quick refresher on rules (if you haven't read them, please check the thread Rules and Policies conveniently located on our Rules and Policies forum) was in order.

No personal attacks, please. Keep remarks to the work. Saying "I hated this article and never read anything that guy writes" is okay. Saying someone is a lousy writer, or a blowhard or that a review is predictably pusillanimous puffery is ok (though not encouraged because it's ever so much nicer to be polite!); that's opinion. But saying someone is a liar and a jerk and made off with the silver, for example, is a personal attack and not ok.

No gossip -- no hearsay, nothing that we can't verify or that hasn't been in print, please. Saying "everyone knows that he fakes his injuries" or the like is not ok. Saying "The real reason she was fired" -- or hired, or benched, or cast in the lead -- is not ok. Unless this has been in print; if so, please provide a cite.

If you have inside knowledge and genuinely wish to correct a mistatement, by all means, please do so! But we'd ask that you sign your post with your real name and state the source of your inside knowledge. If we can verify it, we'll let it stand.

Sorry for the diversion. Back to the discussion! This has been an interesting thread. I hope we'll have more comments.

[justafan]

I too must say Michael said it best. I must admit, though, although I totally disagree with many of his conclusions, I often "see" a lot of what Gottlieb sees. We must have much the same taste in dancers. That's why I relish all of his reviews, although I would say many of them are unfair and harsh. Clearly, his opinions are seen through a personal prism that has close, rosy and fond memories of Balanchine and some animus towards Martins.

In answer to your question, Alexandra: Above all else, I think reviewers need to have perspective. And not just perspective with the past, but with the present. I think that is what many of the Martins-haters are lacking.

Some critics (and I would not include Gottlieb in this, although he veers very close to it) can be guaranteed to hate any attempt at something new at NYCB. They are obviously upset, whether rightly or wrongly, but they need to judge NYCB by what is out there today, not yesterday. I see a lot of ballet worldwide and I know that NYCB is not just resting on its former reputation. It may not be as good as it could be, but day in day out, there is not all that much better. So even if you believe passionately that something is not what it should be, a good dose of perspective should inform your writing. Does the critic recommend the reader stop going to the ballet -- or seeing this particular company? I would be surprised if dance critics really wanted that result. To me, that means tempering that angst with some reality.

[dirac]

Alexandra already made this point, but it's worth reiterating -- much depends on the critic's forum. It's highly unlikely that Gottlieb would wind up working for the NY Times, but rest assured that if he did, he would be maintaining a different tone. Or, as I read elsewhere recently, "Nobody reads the Observer." Except, of course, for us.

[oberon]

Justafan hits the nail...or several nails...on the head. We have to live in the present. Martins is not Balachine; whether there is someone else who could be doing a better job running the company is irrelevant because Peter is running it. Yes, things could be better...they could also be worse. No one is obligated to attend if they don't like the programmes or the present roster of dancers.

It is unlikely we will ever see another choreographer who could come close to Balanchine in either quantity or quality of ballets created. And his ballets might not be danced as we think they once were or should be. But should the present generation and future generations be deprived of the opportunity to discover the depth and beauty of these masterpieces because their creator isn't around any more? Or because Diana Adams, Farrell, Patty McBride no longer grace the stage?Yes, maybe some other company has a "better" SERENADE or APOLLO going, but to see alot of the works in a concentrated presentation, NYCB is the place.

We have been hearing for years of the doom/demise/death of NYCB. Why do so many people feel so alive when they're watching the company?

[Alexandra]

The standard isn't past, present or future, it's quality. If you think everything you see is below standard, then you can't lower those standards to accommodate mediocrity. There were first-rate choreographers before Balanchine (and during his lifetime) and if I thought there wouldn't be first-rate choreographers again, I would stop going to the ballet!

I'd also say that among the critics I read, I don't find any of them predictable. I'm constantly surprised that someone liked this, or didn't lke that. And I don't have a sense that anyone is saying, "if it's new, it's going to be bad." Often the opposite is true -- people are enthusiastic over any work that could be considered promising because people are so desperate for good new works.

[Calliope]

I didn't find the article that bad. I agree with him for the most part, though I didn't see Edge/Gold, only heard about it.

I thought his instant dismissal of Borree should have been edited out, it wasn't necessary, yet I liked how he admitted he liked watching Weese. Perhaps it was he not Weese who had "new awareness that dancing involves performance as well as steps"

I have always liked the pace of Martins Beauty. For me it was nice to see a storybook and not have to sit around for 40 minutes of intermission. it's like the Cliff Notes version of the ballet. Get as many people on the stage and off.

But then again, I don't think you go to NYCB to see an "authentic" Beauty.

But back to Gottlieb. Sometimes in reading him, I feel he's following a formula, like writing a 5 paragraph essay. For every good there's a bad and then he throws the history in to conflict with the present. So I never get the sense from him that he feels the company or the art form moves forward.

I've never seen Fonteyn and dare I say, there's a group coming up who has no idea who she is and if they saw tapes would criticize how she can't turn.

It's simply not fair to compare anyone to Pavlova, Fonteyn and Nijinsky. It's like asking my Grandmother to use the computer. A generational gap. But what we're getting stuck with is a guy who was around back then trying to communicate to a younger generation that we don't know what we're missing. Truth is, maybe he's missing what we're seeing.

With regard to the decline of NYCB, I admit, I rarely go anymore, I've lost my love for the art form b/c to me it doesn't feel like art, it feels like a gymnastics/fashion competition. The companies seem to cater to the social set, since they provide the funding, and as long as people look pretty on stage (stick thin) they're all happy.

[ciara]

"Truth is, maybe he's missing what we're seeing" calliope

Thanks ,Calliope. Somehow that sentence gave me comfort. I think there is a world of truth in it. And I know what you mean about the money-driven state of the arts--- but then isn't that just the American way?

[Roma]

I think that the problem Gottlieb and many other people have with the Martins regime is not that Balanchine is dead or that Farrell, McBride, and the youth of the particular writer are gone; it's that the people who knew the work best are not COACHING the current dancers, who, as wonderful as they are, could really blossom if Tallchief, Farrell, Villella, etc, were allowed to pass on their vast knowledge to them. You can see it happen in the sessions taped for the Balanchine archive, you can also see it in the MCB and Farrell Ballet performances--coaching makes a tremendous difference.

It's not that there is a generational gap, it's that while the steps are being passed on, the intent is not, and many works do look stale as a result.

Re Gottlieb on Borree. Yes, he is harsh, and so was Kaufman in today's review, but he is also right, and it needs to be said, especially since she performs so many crucial roles so often.

[Alexandra]

I think that the problem Gottlieb and many other people have with the Martins regime is not that Balanchine is dead or that Farrell, McBride, and the youth of the particular writer are gone; it's that the people who knew the work best are not COACHING the current dancers, who, as wonderful as they are, could really blossom if Tallchief, Farrell, Villella, etc, were allowed to pass on their vast knowledge to them.

Yes!!! I also don't think there's anyone writing regularly about this company that doesn't want the art form to move forward. I've said this so often on this site, but I'll say it again -- it's not that anyone wants the stage to be filled with 2004 Farrells- McBride-Verdy clones. Not at all. It's that those who saw those dancers hold them up as a STANDARD. That's how civilization has always been passed along, and how every art form has been judged. If Danielle Steele and Stephen King are the only ones writing today -- no one else is writing books -- people wouldn't say, "Wow, that's who we have today and they're just as good Jane Austen and Shakespeare. Better even." You wait for writers to emerge who could at least sit at the same table with the greats of the past. You don't want someone writing epic plays in blank verse, or domestic pastoral dramas about mate selection. You want someone with the same level of talent writing about today's dramas.

The coaching problem is a huge one today, and many of "those old guys" saw what happened when good coaching disappeared in other companies and don't want to see the same thing happen to their home company. "Fling 'em out there and see what happens. SOMEBODY will like them" has been going on elsewhere for decades. It was good coaching as much as native talent that made dancers like Farrell and McBride. There is so much talent there -- Bouder, Fairchild, Korbes, Ansanelli -- one wants them to reach their full potential, and not ossify.

[Calliope]

But what if the standard for the dancers now is not the aforementioned dancers? What if some of them think those dancers stunk? Not that they think that. But if your frame of reference is not the same of that person reviewing you, how can you ever perform to their standards? I think we unforunately exist in a time where there's a need for instant stars, who can be tossed aside when the next IT girl/guy comes up and then years later you realize, oh that one was good (as in the case of Weese, who got sidelined with injury, but...)

Coaching is certainly a problem, but what good is it if the company director obviously doesn't feel it's necessary? Isn't the company the current AD's vision?

It's why people (myself included) have such a hard time with Martins. He denies us any glimpse of the past, yet I read about it all the time in reviews and have no idea what they're talking about.

[Thalictum]

The self-evident truth to me is that those star talents carry with them sizeable egos, as do most if not all people at the top of their professions, and could conceivably be a threat to Martins' leadership. Once X is in the door, Martins may not feel he will be able to dispense with him/her when he wants to. They may grow roots.

[Alexandra]

Calliope, isn't that like saying, "I have no intention of ever reading a book written before 1990. Get with it. I don't want to hear about any Dostoyevsky or Dreiser -- much less Longfellow. Who wants to write poems like that? Yuck." Fine if someone wants to have that attitude, but I don't think it's fair to criticize people who do look at an art form within its context. As I wrote above, that's what education is supposed to be about: looking at the past, and the present, and always being aware of what goes before. That was what my entire formal schooling was about, anyway.

When I came to ballet I heard the same things that people are saying today -- "Well, she's nice, but you never saw Verdy in the role," or, (to show how everything old becomes new again) "Yes, today's dancers in some ways are technically stronger and can do more tricks, but things have gotten lost. They're all jumpers today; no one knows how to turn anymore." This was when the Royal Ballet didn't have a dancer who could do the Blue Boy in Patineurs. Today there would be 50 Blue Boys.

I figured out what people were talking about by reading and asking questions and looking at photos and asking more questions. Anyone who wants to can do the same thing today -- and much more easily, since there are videos. If an NYCB dancer thinks that a McBride or a Villella "stunk" then their teacher or director has an obligation to set them straight, pronto.

When I interviewed Nina Ananiashvili for my book on Kronstam I asked her if she'd ever heard of him before she worked with him as a coach, since he had retired before her generation was watching performances. "Of course!" she said, explaining that when a teacher at the Bolshoi School mentioned a dancer from the past "we would all run to the library at lunch and look him up because we didn't want to appear stupid." They were taught about their heritage not so they would become "another Vasiliev" or Plisetskaya, but because they would define the art form for their generation, as those dancers had in their time. But they knew what the standard was, in the same way that a young athlete knows he can't say he's the greatest runner if he's still clocking a 4 minute mile.

As for an AD's vision, I agree with you. If Peter Martins wanted to throw out every ballet created before 1998 in the repertory and replace it with ballets by himself, or Susan Stroman; or turn it into an experimental laboratory and decide that no ballet could be longer than 5 minutes, must not use music; or hire a battalion of acrobats and make art out of that, that's his privilege. (I don't mean to suggest that any of these are his secret desire!) It would eventually drive out most of the people who go there now to see what they're seeing, and, eventually, attract a new audience who loved what they were seeing. And Gottlieb, or anybody else, would have every right to scream and scream and scream if they thought it was an outrage, and the people who saw something wonderful in the new way have a right to shout halleluiahs from the rooftop and tell all of us why it's so great.

[Herman Stevens]

That is one beautiful post, Alexandra, the one about sitting down at the poets' table.

I have to confess I too still have that Vanity Fair piece of Gottlieb's, and I always check the Observer for his stuff.

It can be a problem, these old-timer critics. Some just go sour, some don't. In fact that's the difference between good and bad critics. There are ways, incidentally, people in companies can help prevent critics from going sour on them just because they are getting old. Just having a friendly chat occasionally really helps. And brilliant dancing of course is even a better idea.

It's useful, btw, to occasionally check books like Croce's, as another form of critical memory. You'll find that even in one of the golden eras of the NYCB critics were saying the company was going downhill. :rolleyes:

The Washington Post Peter Martins interview is a deeply unflattering piece. Of course Martins is a busy man, and too busy to coach Apollo or whatever to backwater European dancers. But to his own company dancers? I believe Farrell et al made it pretty clear they were never too busy to hand on the Balanchine tradition.

[Dale]

The self-evident truth to me is that those star talents carry with them sizeable egos, as do most if not all people at the top of their professions, and could conceivably be a threat to Martins' leadership.  Once X is in the door, Martins may not feel he will be able to dispense with him/her when he wants to.  They may grow roots.

Villella didn't have a problem with inviting Verdy, McBride and Farrell into coach Jewels and other ballets. A strong, confident leader wants other talented people around him/her. They know what they can do and have confidence in it, so they are not threatened by another talented person. But Martins hasn't even brought in former Balanchine dancers who don't have aspirations to run a company, such as Allegra Kent.

[Alexandra]

Thank you, Herman! Thing is, the two critics I grew up with are 15, 20 years older than I am and still go to see everything -- they're not sour at all, so I don't associate that with age. I know more younger critics who only see this, or only see that -- despite the fact that we're in an age of cross-fertilization, I'm surprised at how many people in their 20s who've sent me clips and want to write, but don't feel comfortable writing about anything except postmodern dance, who've never even gone to a "Swan Lake," good, bad or indifferent and wouldn't have the vaguest idea how to judge one.

The "friendly chat" idea can work, but I'd say "unfortunately." I think when critics become too friendly -- or are writing so that they will have that friendly chat, or access -- it can be dangerous. I'll quote Kronstam again: "Critics always say they want to discuss things with you. They don't want to discuss them. They want to give you their ideas, and if you don't accept those ideas, they hate you for it." Harsh, but I know of instances where that's true.

I agree with you about re-reading Croce et al. for perspective. She was a very stern critic about Balanchine -- paraphrase: he's going through a period of setting steps to music rather than making ballets. (I think she should have been stern.) I've been very surprised at the favorable reviews of ABT over the past five years; compare them with what was written in the 1970s and 1980s when the company was very harshly criticized for lack of classical style and coaching. Things have not improved, to my eye, yet one wouldn't know that from reading reviews.

I think the difference, looking back on what I saw at the tail end of the Balanchine era, is that even when this or that ballet was a mess, or this or that dancer was miscast, people trusted Balanchine. they knew the cause was either an emergency or an experiment, and that eventually things would be put right. There wasn't this gut-clenching terror that, if, say, the jester were cast as the Prince in "Swan Lake" it was because the artistic director couldn't tell the difference, or didn't care, and that this was what we would look forward to in the future, forever and ever, until it got worse.

adding:

I was posting at the same time as Thalictum and Dale, and so missed their posts -- what you're saying is certainly one interpretation, and the one that most people are likely to draw. I'm seeing the same thing in Denmark. There are people who should be staging Bournonville and coaching other ballets who have been effectively locked out for 14 years. I do think it has to do with the confidence of the director. Great artists generally want to work with other great artists; that's when the creative sparks fly.

I will say, though, that there are dancers who think they're great coaches who may not be, or who can only show you what they did, not help you make it your own, and it's very hard to judge that from the outside. Obviously many of the dancers named on this thread are successful coaches, but just because you were great in a role doesn't mean you can pass it on.

[dirac]

I did read the Post interview, and I must say Martins has a gift for shooting himself in the foot during such sessions, not that that should necessarily be held against him. He actually has a case, but he doesn't make it very well.

It's clearly not quite fair of him to say that according to his critics, the company has been failing for twenty years, especially when you think of the positively fulsome hosannas that greeted his accession to the leadership -- "The magic kingdom is in his keeping" etc.

You have to wonder, even if you're looking for reasons to defend him, why the man who's "too busy" to coach can somehow find time to choreograph for Barbie and compose "holistic workouts" or whatever they were, for videos.

(I was posting simultaneously with Alexandra. I don't mean to ignore her post. )

[perky]

Former dancers who worked directly with Balanchine are so important to coaching because they can tell the dancer exactly what Mr. B. said about this step or that gesture. The dancers who coach and stage Balanchine ballets for instance at the Balanchine Trust are such importants links to the way Mr. B wanted his ballets danced that it should be a requirement to have them there if you wanted to stage any Balanchine ballet. Video is there to show the steps, but these very important people are there to help the dancer show those steps Balanchine's way. I suppose that's why some critics seem to go overboard on stating this issue with every review they write. Because it's not only a link to the past but a bridge to the future.

[oberon]

Alexandra, you are right to note that not all great dancers are great coaches...just as the greatest opera singers aren't necessarily the best voice teachers. Also, dancers (and singers) can sometimes be over-coached to a point where no individuality comes thru. At some point the dancer has to make the role his/her own. We have all read stories about Balanchine telling dancers: "Just dance", as if he did not want to see any "personality"...but the memorable dancers, whether von Aroldingen, McBride, Wendy Whelan, Soto, whoever...all have huge personalities and put their own stamp on everything they did/do. Would Balanchine "approve" of Kowroski? Ansanelli? Bouder? We have no way of knowing.

Where does teaching the steps stop and coaching start? Singers I know get royally p_____d off if a coach comments on vocal technique. That is the voice teacher's realm. Where is the line drawn for a dancer? And at what point does the coach step back and let the dancer's own "perfume" waft into a role? That is, assuming the dancer has some perfume to waft!

[Alexandra]

I think good coaching is all about letting the dancer find his/her own way in the role. Some dancers, with no imagination -- or perhaps too much imagination! -- might have to have everything shown to them and a coach might insist "No, do it that way; your arm must be in exactly this position" but I think even there the intention is for the dancer to internalize it and, when everything is working and coming together naturally, their own personality and insticts will take over.

I think the "just dance it dear" line isn't "that means asbsolutely no emotion; be a stone face" but a corrective to overemoting -- don't be a character, don't imitate anyone else, just do it."

[Roma]

don't imitate anyone else, just do it.

"but do it the way I showed you", too.

[perky]

And when Balanchine said "Just Dance" he was also there to correct them afterword if they did something he didn't like.

[Helene]

I loved how in Elusive Muse Farrell told the exhausted and self-critical Paris Opera Ballet dancer she was coaching in Tzigane that there were many things about her performance that Farrell would have "stolen" had she still been dancing. It's no wonder that Farrell can take second-rank dancers and coach them to first-rate performances.

(My sieve of a brain has forgotten the name of the dancer, and Google isn't helping.)