NYCB Dancer on Dancer

[AmandaNYC]

I haven't seen this posted elsewhere, but I justed noticed this on the Repertory and Dancers section of the NYCB site:

Dancer on Dancer

Pauline Golbin is doing a series of pieces (with interviews) on NYCB dancers. Her first piece is on Dena Abergel. It's a great and interesting piece (you'll learn new things!).

-amanda

[carbro]

Thanks for brining this feature to our attention, Amanda. Do you know if it will change weekly?

Pauline is quite a good writer! And the portrait of Dena that emerges fleshes out the qualities we've inferred by watching her on stage these past 14 (is that possible?!) years.

Both ladies come off very, very well.

[AmandaNYC]

Thanks for bringing this feature to our attention, Amanda.  Do you know if it will change weekly?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It does not speak to when and how frequently these pieces will be posted. But, it does say that she will be posting pieces throughout the spring, so we can hope for a few more, at least!

-amanda

[Marga]

I enjoyed the piece on Dena Abergel very much. Let's hope Pauline Golbin does lots and lots of similar interviews!

[scoop]

How charming! Their conversation makes you realize how although it's the principals who usually get interviewed, the corps dancers can be among the most observant and insightful company members.

More, please!

[jimmattimore]

I haven't seen this posted elsewhere, but I justed noticed this on the Repertory and Dancers section of the NYCB site:

Dancer on Dancer

Pauline Golbin is doing a series of pieces (with interviews) on NYCB dancers. Her first piece is on Dena Abergel.  It's a great and interesting piece (you'll learn new things!).

-amanda

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Amanda: Thank you. I loved the Golbin piece. I never know why some wonderful dancers never rise from the corps? Seems very unfair, but The dance masters and mistresses know far more than I.

JIM

[oberon]

I usually think most of the people in the NYCB Corps would be stars in any other Company. Apparently this very thing has just happened to Riolama Lorenzo (see Links) at Pennsylvania Ballet. Golbin caught my eye several seasons ago and I just love watching her; she is a very beautiful woman, glamourous and yet not aloof - great smile! Love the "hat" photo of her & Abergel (yet another very attractive lady!) It'll be fun to read these interviews and get to know a little more about the dancers.

[perky]

I usually think most of the people in the NYCB Corps would be stars in any other Company.

And they inspire the passionate following that people usually asssociate with stars from other companies. NYCB dancers do seem to make very good writers. Must be something in the water!

[Petra]

This thread is a great answer to the question put forth in another thread about why people 'adore' NYCB. As someone who has never seen NYCB, one of the more illuminating aspects of this article is that both Golbin and Abergel feel very strongly that they are still 'dancing for Mr B'.

I agree that the writing is great. "Spring Season", anyone?

[atm711]

I usually think most of the people in the NYCB Corps would be stars in any other Company.

This is a statement I heard many times in my early days of ballet-going and it was made in comparing Bolshoi corps de ballet with American ballerinas. This was quickly dispelled when I saw my first Bolshoi performance in the mid 50's in NYC. The stars dazzled, but most of the Corps looked like they were waiting for their pension checks.

[oberon]

A second Golbin interview has appeared, this one with Sean Suozzi. It's really interesting.

Of course I would love to read a Golbin interview with every single dancer in the Company but there are four dancers I especially want to read about and they are Elizabeth Walker, Amanda Edge, Carrie Lee Riggins & Jason Fowler.

One thing that has struck me about the Dena & Sean interviews is the fondness the dancers seem to have for one another, not just as colleagues but as human beings. That's nice to think about when watching them dance.

[carbro]

Come on, Oberon! We all know the interview you really, really, REALLY want is Pauline interviewing Pauline!

Thanks for the tip on the Suozzi piece.

[Helene]

The link to the Suozzi interview is located at:

http://www.nycballet.com/about/dod2.html

[Marga]

Thank you very much, oberon! I've been interested in Suozzi ever since I was told he was a second or third cousin of my daughter's friend (from here in Canada) who dances with the Hungarian National Ballet. His face is uncannily similar to hers -- he looks like he could be her brother. They're the same age and have the same passion for ballet. My daughter's friend danced 3 years with the Universal Ballet and for the last 2 years has been a demi-soloist in Budapest. They even have Vaganova training in common (which I learned reading this article). I don't think they've ever met!

I hope there are many more interviews coming soon!

[oberon]

Carbro, the truth is: I want to interview Golbin myself!

Nice photo of her with Suozzi accompanies the interview...to say nothing of the super picture of Sean with Andrew Veyette and Ashley Bouder in TCHAIK PIANO #2...three of the brightest young things at NYCB today. I immediately put on the music; am thinking of how I could blow up the photo to wall-size for my apartment!

[Herman Stevens]

These are very interesting profiles. I consider those little Q & A's at the tail-end as a kind of hoot. Of course it pays off big time that Golbin really knows the subjects well, and can write about 'em with ease and humor.

I'm very much interested in what makes corps dancers tick. The funny thing is I have found over the years that it is much harder to get anything remotely resembling an interview on the record with corps members than with soloists, so much so that I decided it is an ego thing.

Obviously NYCB corps members are different; even a New York cab driver has a bigger ego than one in Amsterdam or Paris. Still, I guess the best way to go about this is Golbin's way, working from longtime observation and familiarity rather than a straight sit-down and spill it out interview.

So I'm looking forward to the next instalments.

[Helene]

Pacific Northwest Ballet had once sold a subscription to a secure site where there were monthly video interviews with dancers from all levels. One of the things that was most striking about the interviews with several of the soloists and corps members was a palpable sense of sadness and disappointment when they answered the inevitable question about whether they'd like to be a Principal/promoted, although they all expressed satisfaction with the way they had been cast. There was a flash of emotional rawness to the moment, and I didn't get the impression at all that they felt they had been held down politically or because of a whim of the Artistic Directors, but more of a sense that even at their best with all of their efforts, they just couldn't quite get there.

One of the corps members interviewed is one of my favorite dancers in the Company, and he clearly struggled to be a dancer, despite not having natural ballet attributes. He's made himself into a compelling dancer, one whom I have to fight not to watch when he's onstage. When dancers talk about struggling with the mirror and focusing on their own weaknesses, never being happy with themselves, it's often a successful principal dancer speaking in an interview. It's painful watching great artists, who might be somewhat limited in the way they could be cast in principal roles, internalize the brand of "not good enough," the conclusion a casual viewer would make by glancing at the program and seeing "corps" and "joined XYZ Company in 1992."

Very different from the affectionate, light-hearted interviews that Pauline Golbin is doing.

[Drew]

Way off topic, but ... I had the worst egotistical cab driver experience of my life in Amsterdam (and this after years of indulging in cabs in New York). It was so unpleasant that it took me quite a while to shake it off and enjoy the city -- where the majority of people I met were, in fact, very pleasant.

Slightly less off topic -- Herman: did you ever suspect that corps members were reluctant to go on the record in interviews because they felt more vulnerable to career repercussions than higher ranked dancers? Even if they were not going to say something negative perhaps praising ballet master A might offend ballet master B etc.?

[Herman Stevens]

My short answer, Drew, would be No. And I think a soloist can be sidelined just as much as a corps dancer.

Scratch any dancer and some kind of career frustration will come out. So I generally prefer not to scratch those places, because I think that stuff is really rather uninteresting in its sameness. Golbin doesn't do it either. Perhaps I should look again, but I believe she doesn't ask the typical sob story questions like "what role did you never get to dance even though you want to badly?" and "tell me about your injuries; do they really hurt?" and that mindboggling "what are you going to do when it's all over?"

For some weird reason a lot of people love to read / hear about dancers as victims, both of their art and of the powers that be. I don't. It has been my experience, though, that if a dancer wants to dish company dirt for political reasons, he or she is going to do it anyway. It doesn't take any scratching.

I tried to get corps dancers to talk on the record was when I was working on a piece on Les Sylphides, for instance. So it wouldn't really have been a big me-interview for them anyway. But I did get a distinct sense they were not just not that eager to get their views in the piece, whereas pretty much every soloist will be happy to give his or her views, and I can only conclude it's an ego thing - the feeling that spot up front is yours. I should ask sometimes. Or perhaps people here have some input?

I should add though that corps dancers as a rule have a much heavier rehearsal schedule than soloists. A corps dancer usually has to work in every piece on the program, and soloists just don't. So the latter tend to be more available too.