105 replies to this topic

[87Sigfried87]

Usually dancers,and ballet fans do not usually find boring a ballet.But when It happens It means It is really really boring.In your own opinion,which ballet did You find boring when You saw it?
I really can't stand Romeo&Juliet as a whole.If It's an extract ok.The whole becomes very boring,especially MacMillan's version.And then everything that's contemporary.I love to dance it,but to be watched,I admit It is boring when It's not a highly genial choreography.
Now It's up to You.

[Figurante]

You don't like contemporary? Hmm. If I may, I would like to recommend a dvd to you. Perhaps you've already seen it? It is one of my favorites, and is some of the best compelling contemporary choreography I've seen, (and not even in person!).
Netherlands Dans Theater in Jiri Kylian's Black and White Ballet's. I can almost guarantee you won't be disappointed.
If you end up looking at the Dvd, all of the segments are fabulous, and humorous. My favorites are Sarabande and Petit Mort. (It's a blast to dance as well!).
I am assuming by contemporary, you are meaning this type of performance? What other contemporary ballet's irk you?

[87Sigfried87]

Figurante, on Aug 12 2007, 03:56 PM, said:

You don't like contemporary? Hmm. If I may, I would like to recommend a dvd to you. Perhaps you've already seen it? It is one of my favorites, and is some of the best compelling contemporary choreography I've seen, (and not even in person!).
Netherlands Dans Theater in Jiri Kylian's Black and White Ballet's. I can almost guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Oh I love Kilian(but Petit Mort that I find genial but boring...),Mats Ek(especially his Sleeping Beauty) but that's an enjoyable type of contemporary dance.Because It's very neo-classical,so You have an Aestethic of the movement,of the dancer and sometimes there's a story or something to follow.
I don't like the contemporary that has the tendence to make dancers and movements get ugly,oppressive and exasperatedly dramatical.I mean,like "Sagre du Printemps" or........i don't know but I think You understand.The one with dancers wearing rags,skin headed with thick dark make up and exhasperating movements and sorrow.Can be nice once,but It really gets upsetting after 10 minutes of performance.And unfortunately this type of contemporary seems to be taking root in the dancing scene.
The choice of music must also be well done or people will start sleeping on the seats.Instead It is really "In" nowadays to make performances on Bach or Mozart pieces,which I personally find repetitive and not for sure of impact on the audience.

But tell me about what You find boring;-)

[papeetepatrick]

I find 'Mayerling' boring and also hate it.

[drb]

I don't feel it fair to mention flops, every choreographer has some of those, but among the very popular successes of choreographic stars:
Petite Mort of Kylian and La Dame aux Camelias of Neumeier.
Also " ..... " by Peter Martins, except that when I try to fill in the quotes, then I've got to fill in the cast, and those glorious NYCB dancers (and some of their best are always cast in the Chief's ballets) are never boring!

[mjbelkin]

papeetepatrick, on Aug 12 2007, 04:44 PM, said:

I find 'Mayerling' boring and also hate it.

Me too, and I'm usually a huge fan of MacMillan's ballets - his Romeo and Juliet, and Manon usually have me in tears by the end.

I think that Mayerling is trying to tell too convoluted a story, with too many people having too many affairs, and what is it with the opera singer in the middle?

[kfw]

Some people find Balanchine's "Don Quixote" dull, at least in parts, but I find it moving. The Don Q that bores me is the traditional version based on Petipa. I'm not a folk-dancing fan.

[canbelto]

Les Noces.

[papeetepatrick]

I also find 'Glass Pieces' and 'Songs of the Auvergne' boring, and all but a split-second or so of 'Friandises' is boring.

[Helene]

The most boring ballets I've seen were so boring I wouldn't waste the time to look up their titles in my performance diary.

Of the ones I remember -- a double-edged sword -- I used to think it was MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet, whose Balcony Pas de Deux reminds me of movie previews that are better than the movie.  Then I saw Manon at the Met in the '80's.  Any ballet that feels eight hours long but stars Alessandra Ferri is not one I'm willing to see again.

[bart]

Three ballets I'd ordinarily avoid:  Spectre de la Rose,  Pas de Quatre , and The Steadfast Tin Soldier.

The choreographer who bores the most on second viewing of a work:  Jiri Kylian.  (Apologies to dancerboy87, but Kylian's work I've seen is sometimes mesmerising the first time around, but mind-numbing on sequent viewings.)

[Paquita]

James Kudelka's "The Contract".

[Farrell Fan]

Had I been asked this question in 1972, after I'd first seen the ballet. I would not have hesitated to answer.

"The most boring ballet  I've ever seen is "Watermill," by Jerome Robbins."

Plenty of people would have agreed. The audience booed the night I was there and at many subsequent performances.  Who could blame us? We'd come to see one of the great dancers of the time, Edward Villella.  But instead of his usual jumping and turning, he hadn't danced a step. He'd come onstage in a long black cloak, slowly removed it and whatever else he'd been wearing, until he was finally down to white jockey shorts. Ah. we thought, watch him go now! But instead, he'd gone to lie down and think about his past.

The subject of "Watermill" was the passage of time, and, as Lincoln Kirstein said, the tempo of the ballet was "diabolically slow." It took several viewings and the passage of time in my own life, for me to begin to appreciate the beauty of "Watermill." I don't know what today's audiences would make of it. After all, everything is faster now than it was in 1972. I still don't count it among my favorite ballets. But I'd like to see it again once or twice before it's time to put the cloak back on.

[carbro]

Oh, I loved Watermill  on first viewing, and always hoped to recapture the experience.  I was floating afterwards, having absorbed the tempo of the ballet, and I felt that the intermission crowd was behaving at manic speed, although probably no more so than usual.  It was a lovely, meditative state of being.

I have enjoyed subsequent performances of Watermill, but only with Villella to date.

I generally find MacMillan boring.  I agree that Kylian is boring on second viewing -- well put, bart -- except Sinfonietta, thanks mainly to the stage full of leaping dancers at the end.

I think boring choreography is often the product of inept choreographers, while bad/ offensive/off-putting ballets can be the work of great choreographers.  There are exceptions to that .  I find Balanchine's Ballade boring.

I'd rather be offended than bored -- at least then I have something to latch onto.

[kfw]

canbelto, on Aug 12 2007, 01:38 PM, said:

Les Noces.

I'm not wild about that one, but the Robbins ballet based on folk traditions that really bored me the one time I saw it is "Dybbuk." Perhaps it would grow on me with further viewings.