What's good about ballet today?

[Alexandra]

What's right with the ballet world today? What do you think? Are there any good trends? Anything on the horizon, or actually happening, that makes you happy about ballet?

[edited to correct a typo, but also to add -- This could also be specific dancers, ballets, companies, company directors -- anything you like about ballet today.]

[ March 20, 2002, 03:05 PM: Message edited by: alexandra ]

[Calliope]

Somehow saying that it's still around doesn't seem to be enough.

I can't really speak of how it "used to be", but I think the fact that there are now outreach programs to schools is a big factor.

Also, the nutrional/bone density studies being done at companies is a plus.

[Alexandra]

No one can think of anything good about ballet today????? It's spring! The season of new beginnings, of promise, of .....

[Estelle]

Well, in France the improvements in train systems make it easier for people outside Paris to come and see POB performances, that's a kind of progress

More seriously, there isn't that much to be enthusiastic about, but seeing the Ballet de Toulouse last sunday was great. I wished they had more money and could program longer seasons with a larger repertory, but at least it shows that in eight years, a good director with serious artistic choices can build a company which is now one of the best ones in France (well, there are not to many competitors actually ) from basically nothing. Also, reading about the upcoming Massine- Lifar program next season by the Ballet de Bordeaux was good: that's a part of the repertory which is so neglected that it's great to see that Charles Jude, at least, is interested in it. I'm also looking forward to seeing the Kirov next fall (and hoping that more foreign companies will come to Paris).

"Hurlevent" wasn't flawless, but the POB's home choreographers need encouragement (and also Jean-Guillaume Bart's works look promising).

"Don Quixote" will be filmed at the Paris Opera, I hope that it will be shown on a general TV (and not a cable one, as not many people have cable) and who knows, perhaps it will bring ballet to new people, and convince some of them to attend live performances.

The POB- SFB exchange last season was very interesting, I wish there were more company involved in such exchanges (each one performing in the other's home theater), it would enable the audience to have a more diverse choice, and be less expensive than usual touring.

Sorry to be Paris-centered...

[katharine kanter]

There are very few positive things I can think of, in today's ballet world, but one of them is BIG. Big, is

CHINA

I have been told by people who travel to China regularly, that there is a tidal wave of interest for classical ballet in that country. The Central Conservatory at Peking has now got several HUNDRED, read HUNDRED professors.

That is HOPE riding horseback.

They have even shewn a keen interest in Bournonville.

b/ In the Western world, there is nothing good going on.

Bournonville is the hard-core of classical dance, and his teaching has been wiped from the stage and the studio, everywhere in the world, INCLUDING in Denmark.

It is precisely as though musicians had decided, quite literally, to spit upon and then shred all existing scores of Bach or Beethoven.

Even the old Vaganova School - disagree as one might with some of its intrinsic features - has gone over to flat-out buffoonery, with a new generation of leg-thwackers.

This particular state of affairs makes a number of us very angry, but as there is no positive outlet for our anger, we are compelled to control it.

But, there is one critical fact: there do appear to be a couple of hundred people in Europe and the United States who are all-too-keenly aware of just how bad things are, and who are trying, each in their own way, to do something about it. Including people on this Website.

c/ In the major troupes, dancers have better legal advice, better contracts, and are better paid, comparatively, than three decades ago. Perhaps to make up for the fact that there are now so many injuries, careers are a full decade shorter....

In our shoddy, down-at-heel "post-industrial" societies, ballet dancers are now amongst the very few truly competent people who still KNOW HOW TO DO something more technical than pop open a Coca-cola tin.

A first-class professional, like Julie Kent, or Carlos Acosta, probably has more intellectual rigour, and knows more about the world, than the majority of people in Government or Academia.

I suppose that in one way, one could describe that as positive, although what it says about Government or Academia....

Dancers have accordingly become more free in their language. Tamara Rojo gave an interview recently to a European magazine, where she boldly attacked the "ego-stripping" techniques of certain professors, in a way no dancer would have dared to do a decade ago.

That is positive.

[ronny]

What's good??? Technology. Technology like the web and more excellent recording technology will allow the average person like myslef to discover the treasures that are still out there but maybe a little hard to find. A few years ago I would not be able to find this site and the commentary on Amazon about various ballet performances AND most importantly, I would not have been able to research a performance (like Swan Lake, or Sleeping Beauty for example) I have never attended live ballet or have never met a person who knows about ballet, but here I am talking to you!!! It would have been impossible 10 years ago.

Just 2 months ago I saw "Sleeping Beauty" performed by the Kirov company. WHAT A TREASURE!!! I am telling all my friends about it. Where has this been all my life... it is FANTASTIC.

So real Classical Ballet is to me a HUGE hidden treasure that is just waiting to be discovered by people like me and with techlology of the web and so on, it can be discovered. I don't know if I will ever attend a live performance, but here I am, I know the story line now (thanks to this site)

and already I think of Aroura as an old friend!!! Technology made it possible. More people like me are going to discover these things now... the BEST will rise to the surface, it comes with technology. People will discover the best things with technology and the freedom to choose the best. It will happen... and with discovery will come better finance of the best. I think there is a lot to look foreward to.

[ronny]

I just want to add this to my post on technology. Technology from the past has allowed a few people to choose what everyone will see... so the freedom of choice was pinched a bit there. And there were advertisers and time reastraints but the newest technlolgy is allowing more choice and it is just my opinion that with a bigger range of choices now, the best will come to shine forth...Petipa full length performances for example.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

What's good about ballet today is that it remains a living art form with new works being created to support (or, alternatively, that generate) an evolving technique and performance practice -- unlike, say, Noh dramas or Chinese opera.

(Actually, I would be very pleased to be told that new Noh dramas, Kabuki plays, or Chinese operas were in fact being created these days -- it's just my impression that in those forms of theatre, performance practice is frozen where it was 100+ years ago and that no new work is being actively created.)

As much as I complain about the fruits (or lack thereof) of the Diamond Project, for instance, I'm still very glad that NYCB hasn't degenerated into a Balanchine / Robbins museum and that Peter Martins has had the vision, fortitude, hubris, cluelessness, whatever, to keep making and commissioning new ballets. Yes, most of NYCB's efforts on this score strike me as the ballet equivalent of "marking time" until the next genuis comes along -- but I don't think the next genius COULD come along if the making of ballets -- and the revision of ballet's expressive materials -- weren't a living tradition. And as Balanchine himself observed, "you have to make the bad ballets to make the good ballets."

By the way, by "evolving" I simply mean changing, not "improving" or "advancing." I've had a fair amount of formal training in music history and theory, and the very first thing I was taught in theory 101 was that the music of, say, 1890 doesn't represent an advance over the music of 1790 or 1690. Its vocabulary, style, and expressive materials may be different, but it's not "better" -- and I genuinely believe this and that the same is true for any art form, including dance.

And yes, I'm glad technique, style, and expressive materials change over time. At some point in the future, some watershed choreographer will determine, oh let's say just for the fun of it, that a 45° arabesque best expresses what needs be be expressed and the vocabulary will change. And, if the field of classical music is any model, someone will at the very same time champion the re-discovery and re-assertion of "authentic period practice" in the inherited repertory -- you know, reinstating all those extreme extensions in black-bathing suit Balanchine that were abandoned when the new style came into pre-eminence!

An aside: if anything marks the creative zeitgeist of our day, it has to be the earnest retrieval, reproduction, and even veneration of the "authentic" style and performance practice of previous eras. I'm curious to know if this is (or could be) as strong a force in dance as it currently is in music?

[ March 22, 2002, 07:33 PM: Message edited by: Kathleen O'Connell ]

[atm711]

What makes me happy about Ballet today?--There is so much of it! It's so easy to find something that appeals to you---if not live, surely on tape. I heartily agree with Ronny on Technology--it has really expanded my enjoyment. Before video tape we ballet lovers had to content ourselves with recordings and visualize the choreography in our heads. Years ago we could only dream of having ballet companies in our major cities---something that our symphony orchestras enjoyed, and now, so many of our cities have companies they can be proud of.

[Alexandra]

Thanks for these. I'm glad you're starting to come up with some "what's goods." This one was slow getting started

Kathleen, I agree that "if anything marks the creative zeitgeist of our day, it has to be the earnest retrieval, reproduction, and even veneration of the "authentic" style and performance practice of previous eras." There's some debate about this among critics. One school of thought is that it's because there's little new of value being done. Another is because there's a genuine concern that we're losing our heritage (the same thing is going on with historical preservation of buidings. They started tearing down whole cities and people became concerned.) Another is because, for a lot of reasons, a concern with the past is a concern of our age. Another is that after periods of revolution the brakes come on and we look through the rubble to find a few things to build on for the future.

I think the point about the necessity of commissioning new work IS good, even if the work itself is not exactly making a case for itself. The dancers have to do something. They can't just dance old ballets. One of the things I learned from studying the Danes is how much good came out of less-than-top-drawer ballets, whether created or acquired. They helped dancers develop. They made them look at the core repertory differently.

I think the "there's a lot of it" is, like most things, a double-edge sword. Part of me is grateful for it -- especially the videos -- and part of me thinks that the talent is spread too thin among too many companies. But this thread is about the good things

[Leigh Witchel]

I think there's also real hope in the current crop of young dancers I'm seeing in the new generation at NYCB. Between Somogyi, Ansanelli, Bouder (and let's see Weese recovered from her injuries) I think we may get some ballerinas in the bunch. Hope springs eternal, and I honestly do believe that sometimes ballerinas arrive in what seems like a vacuum.

[PK]

What's good at ballet today?Hmmmm...The good news is,aside from some wonderful new dancers,it's really good to see young people seeing ballet, and there's plenty of different choice for one to watch.But....I worry about the arts in general in America..

[BW]

Katharine Kanter your valid laments often make me laugh - I suppose it's your way of writing as it cuts so close to the bone!

Ronny your comments about the value of technology and its allowing more of a diverse group of people to "view" ballet is something I never would ever have thought of!! I sure hope you can make it to a LIVE performance sometime really soon! You may swoon so be sure to bring smelling salts! ;)

By reading everyone'sposts, it has gotten me to think again and worry a bit too, as my own daughter aspires to dance professionally one day... and as a parent one can't help but worry!

All in all though, it's Kathleen's point about allowing genius the room to bloom that is the most hopeful of all. Alexandra already reiterated this and more so I won't belabor it too much. It certainly does do one's heart good to hope!

And I do think Estelle's suggestion about more companies and school pursuing exchange programs would be wonderful! Which reminds me, I had better get on the phone today about seeing the POB students here in NY in May!

[Estelle]

Originally posted by BW

And I do think Estelle's suggestion about more companies and school pursuing exchange programs would be wonderful! Which reminds me, I had better get on the phone today about seeing the POB students here in NY in May!

Actually, I have had the opportunity to talk with someone from San Francisco who was involved in the organization of such an exchange, and I wasn't aware before that it really required so much work from many people, and it took several years to be organized. So it's not something easy to do- but I think it's worth doing.

[Guest Sammie]

New focus on health and nutrition. Ya gotta love that!

[Morris Neighbor]

As an enthusiast who came of age in the midst of the "Dance boom" of the late '60s and early '70s, I can see why many people are pessimistic about dance today. Funding has shrunk, companies have disappeared, and the giants are dead: Balanchine, Robbins, Graham. Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, and even Twyla Tharp are eligible for Social Security (though still capable of creating great art). Even Lucinda Childs, the iconoclastic minimalist of the Judson Group, was hailed in the Sunday New York Times as an elder statesman of dance.

So what's good? First of all, as a recent visit to the School of American Ballet proved, there are scores of gifted young people who have chosen to devote their lives to this exceptionally demanding art, mastering skills once unknown on stage. A few years back, I attended a "seminar" conducted by the New York City Ballet Guild with the late Alexandra Danilova, prima ballerina and teacher without equal. I pointed out that, in her youth, ballet was dominated by stars like her, with dazzling stage personalities, while today's dancers were more technicians than performers. While she graciously agreed that "girls today, they do things I would never dream of trying," she summed up her views with an elaborate Russian shrug and the observation, "If we do not PROgress, we RETROgress."

I think this is extremely important to remember when discussing such an inherently evanescent art as dance. Styles change. Tastes change. The physical ability of dancers change. Modern performances of Copellia, for instance, interpolate extra music for the male star, since there were no male stars in Paris when the work had its premier.

At the same time, there are also several active choreographers worth watching. In addition to Mark Morris (whose commitment to my neighborhood may color my views!) and the aforementioned Taylor, Cunningham, and Tharp, I'd cite Christopher Wheeldon, Garth Fagan, and Susan Stroman, if she could be tempted away from Broadway for a moment. The many young contributors to NYCB's Diamond Project may also blossom into major talents with time and experience. Even Eliot Feld, for all his egotism and eccentricities, can create masterpieces: Skara Brae, with the right cast, is one of the most powerful dance pieces of the past decade, and the solos he made for Buffy Miller, so long as she performs them, are nothing short of brilliant. His current teen-aged company is both a welcome social experiment and a celebration of the city's diversity, but their lack of life experience undermines the impact of many works.

But, hey, he's turning teen-agers on to dance!