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Favorite comic ballets -- the short list


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The last time I remember it was about 12 years ago -- the year before Clark Tippet's Bruch ballet. (I only remember THAT because his ballet seemed inspired by GP, not the comedy, but the attention to style.)

I liked it, although it didn't quite match what I'd read about it (I think, as I wrote above, it would be very hard to do today), but those who had seen it before........ Satire doesn't really work unless you know what they're satirizing. It will work on the "ooh, she's glaring at the other one, they must be jealous" level, but not on the level that Tudor was working.

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In my experience, the Concert stands out as a uniquely funny ballet. It is really non-stop, rolling on the floor laughs (my son actually did roll on the floor laughing when he first saw it about age 8 or 9). And although I must have seen it more than a dozen times, it never fails to make me laugh out-loud.

A Robbins ballet that I haven't seen mentioned is the Four Seasons. Both the Winter and Fall sections are certainly meant to get out right laughs. Robbins seems to put a lot of humor in many of his ballets. I'm Old Fashioned, Interplay, Glass Pieces, West Side Story Suite, and many others also contain comic or humorous bits as does the oft mentioned Fancy Free.

Another choreographer that puts a lot of humor in his ballets is Elliot Feld. Such ballets as Felix, the Jig is Up, Simon Sez and many others all have comic elements.

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Grace, Gala Performance is a ballet by Antony Tudor, about a gala perforance--hence the title-- of three great ballerinas from Russia, Italy, and France. Each one is a spoof of what Tudor must have thought were the mannerisms of ballerinas from those countries: the Russian ballerina comes on like a steamroller, pushing the other dancers out of her way and taking WAY too many curtain calls, the Italian ballerina dances everything very slowly and ignores everyone on stage, especially her partner, and the French ballerina is very perky and flits around the stage blowing kisses at the audience. SF Ballet did gala Performance too, in I believe 1999 and 2000. How funny it is depends on a lot of things: who's dancing the parts, how well rehearsed they are, whether the dancers are aware of exactly what they are spoofing, and of course how aware members of the audience are of the joke.

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Hello, Hal -- it's good to read you again. I haven't seen you around for awhile. (I think "The Concert" is funny, too, no matter how many times I see it!)

Ballet Nut, I think your description of Gala Performance is brilliant :)

And Hans, re "Penguin Cafe," I know people who like this one a lot, too. But I'll be interested to see what you think :)

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A favorite of mine is 'Troy Games' by Robert North. It's a highly energetic ballet that more or less spoofs the macho athlete often one against the other. It's quite a sight to see the entire male corp de ballet in skimpy trunks dancing and showing off their athletic abilities to the audience and to each other. The music is extremly rhythmic and the entire ballet is really very funny. Has anyone seen it ?

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Like Ballet Nut, I saw Sfb's GalaPerformance -- and I hope, BN, you saw Lorena Feijoo as the ballerina in red -- I was in convulsions, that girl has seen some ballerinas! She was shriekingly funny -- the amazing thing was she managed to bring back the era of the endless curtain call -- not just to mock it, but to recreate it -- I never got tired of her, she kept on being funny as she wrapped herself in the curtain, she milked it way longer than van Hamel did here a dozen years ago -- and van Hamel was funny, awesomely funny, in the absurdity of her dancing itself- the tilt of the upper body, which she kept increasing -- she did pirouettes in a jacknifed posture, I thought she was brushing the dews off the hem of her skirt like a sylphide..... but she wasn't as funny, just flat out funny, as Feijoo. Feijoo was funny like Steve Allen or Steve Martin, it was contagious......

Another thing you'd have had to live in San Francisco to see -- Arturo Fernandez, who danced in the Trocks as Yurinova Yurhed, did a piece at the end of his dancing career called "a Day in the Life of a Ballerina", in which he condensed most of Giselle into about 10 minutes and parodied EVERYTHING --

He kept changing styles: he flitted from Markova to Danilova to Alonso, the more you new (as with the Trocks) the funnier it was, but the way he staggered into the lights as Alonso was funny without your needing an explanation...... He danced Grahn, i'm told, with the Trocks, and was probably beautiful -- he had exquisite form in jumps, feathery batterie, so it wasn't ALl broad burlesque -- but he could be wicked, and move from an exquisitely silly effect to something that really racked you up....

oh, and Grace, I remember a Ballet by Bejart that I thought was delightful in hte most preposterous way, I don't know whether or not i actually laughed but I was in a state of continuous delight-- it may have been a version of Gaite Parisienne, I'm pretty sure it was to Offenbach, it was certainly about a boy (and the dancer who played him was fabulous, a complete delight ) whose fairy godmother promised him fantastic successes in life, "but you will be very VERY short" -- they did it here in Berkeley in the early 70's; I;'ve never seen or heard of it again.

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If that was Bejart's Gaite (of which I remember little, which is perhaps for the best) the little guy was Victor Ullate.

I haven't mentioned Bejart or Eifman because I thought this thread was about ballets which are intentionally funny.

I did love the little Agnes de Mille solo piece that the Trocks did on their latest visit here, something from the twenties called "Backstage at the Opera." All about a dancer warming up backstage before her debut at the Paris Opera. As the curtain went up the woman was standing there in exactly the pose of Degas' little ballerina statue, until an overly tight tutu led her to scratch her butt.

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Some of these are more humorous than others, but just to lengthen the list:

The Elevator - Leigh Witchel

Filling Station - Lew Christensen

Western Symphony - Balanchine

Surprise Symphony - James Clouser

In A Nutshell - Gordon Peirce Schmidt

The Scrapple Divertissements - Doug Elkins (on PA Ballet)

But the modern people seem to have much more of sense of humor. I adore Brenda Daniels' humorous work in "Venus" & in her various collaborations with Jonathan Larson ("Garden Party", "More")

So what's with ballet? Too serious to poke fun at itself? Humour goes out the window if you get too precise about technique? Either it's "line" or "humor" and never the twain shall meet?

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And as long as we've been remembering Tudor, and mentioning Agnes de Mille, I can't forget Tudor's "Judgement of Paris". I saw it around 1970, when it was performed by Tudor, de Mille, Lucia Chase, and Maria Karnilova. I was home on leave from the Air Force, and I needed a good laugh!:) Boy, did I ever get one! One critic I recall describe the high-jinks as "the goings-on of four geriatric delinquents, who knew exactly how to lean on an audience's funny-bone!"

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thanks balletnut, for the description of gala performance.

hans: penguin cafe has some funny moments, but its message is a terribly serious one - so, overall, if you understand what you are seeing, even though you will be amused by moments, you also feel depressed. (its message is about destruction of the environment and eradication of species.)

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Actually, I did also hear that that was its main point.

Amy, I think perhaps part of the reason classical ballets aren't always as intentionally funny is that when they were created, people went to music halls for humor. Also, humor is often a specific product of its time, and therefore quickly loses its appeal. Case in point: Nobody laughs during Coppelia, unless it is exceptionally well-performed.

I know Bejart has done some intentionally funny ballets, but none really spring to mind at the moment.

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Not an actual ballet - I'm looking for the ballet equivalent of the horrifyingly bad show that is at the center of the movie/broadway show "The Producers". Something that's so bad, it's actually funny! The criterion is, that it has to be a real ballet that's been produced by somebody and is so dreadful, it's wonderful! Eifman is acceptable. So is Petit's "Paradise Lost".

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