Gottlieb on Sleeping Beauty

[Roma]

It was Isabelle Guerin

[Thalictum]

Alexandra you are so right about ABT; it was savaged during Baryshnikov's reign for a number of reasons; now it's as if the critics have simply decided they must support the company at all costs. And that's how artistic standards atrophy.

[Thalictum]

Also, a coach, no matter how celebrated his or her dancing may have been, who wants you to do it their way right or wrong does more harm than good, in my opinion. Better to come to the role fresh than with restrictive parameters, perhaps. Perhaps not; maybe those parameters at least supply a structure, a foundation.

[Roma]

Alexandra has said this already, but I think it is a point worth restating--good coaching is not about forcing someone into a box, it's about taking the dancer to a level that they can't reach by themselves. That's what Balanchine did for his dancers and those of them that do have a great gift for teaching, and judging from their work Farrell, Villella, Verdy, Tallchief fit into that category, can do the same for the current generation. There isn't a dancer alive, no matter how wonderful and naturally gifted, that will not benefit from the experience and knowledge of the greatest dancers of the previous generations. That's the only way classical dancing has survived for three centuries.

[ciara]

I may have lost the thread of this discussion but if any of you are saying that nycb has no coaching by former dancers, that simply isn't the case.

[Helene]

I don't think anyone has claimed that no former dancers coach at NYCB. However, most of the living dancers for whom Balanchine choreographed, re-staged, and re-choregraphed his greatest ballets are not coaching there now.

[socalgal]

AMEN, ROMA!