ismeneb

California hits the nail on the head! Translation is indeed complex, not only verbally but conceptually. If I may address Pherank's point in particular, the query over the aim of the 'responsibility for justification of fascism' law - this is a different use of 'responsibility', it means answerability, being held to account. As I read Gusman's statement, he is worried that as there is (in his view) almost no one who seriously stands up for 'fascism', a law about it must be intended for another, perhaps wider purpose. Reading the extreme anti-'other' views of Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky in the interview I linked to (translation here) makes it clearer what these senior figures are meaning. Gusman's wife is (according to his Wiki entry) a lecturer at Georgetown University, Washington, so a rise in state xenophobia would hit home. It's also worth bearing in mind that Izvestia is a government newspaper - it polls views from extremely opposed people, but gives no indication of the proportionate public weight of each opinion. It tends to be the individual's background and career that makes their view more or less of a talking point. Ismene

Being fair is never easy to achieve, but the effort to be fair must always be paramount. There are some very wayward accusations in this discussion concerning Sir Kenneth MacMillan's widow, hence http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml...stretton120.xml Carlos Acosta enlightens one corner of the story in a recent interview in The Australian (not by me): http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...7-16947,00.html Quote: "His one serious setback in recent years was during Stretton's short-lived tenure at Covent Garden in 2001-02, when the Cuban found himself sidelined from important roles. "Ross Stretton had a problem with me and with high-profile people. I think it was his insecurities. He couldn't handle big artists because if you are going to direct big artists you need to know more than them but he was never a star," Acosta says. "So if you are going to be in a room and correct my Don Quixote, a role I know a great deal, you need to know it better than me. And I think he always tried to go for very young dancers (who) know no better so he could have authority, so people like Sylvie Guillem and myself, those people were pushed away. And all of a sudden I was in a position when I had like 10 shows all year. From 30-something the year before I had seven or something ridiculous. So I had to book myself in places like Dallas, Budapest, jetsetting all over the world just to keep busy because I wasn't getting the roles." Ismene Brown

RG, I happen to be reading Galina Ulanova's memoirs at the moment in which she recalls the Bolshoi's aborted Paris debut in May 1954. This was a combined group of Kirov and Bolshoi (a large Kirov group headed by Dudinskaya, Sergeyev, Shelest, Kurgapkina and a smaller Bolshoi one led by Struchkova, herself and several principal men). She describes it as the first time full-length Soviet ballets were to be performed in the West, concert outings had occurred previously. They were in Paris almost 3 weeks, making long preparations (due to the unfamiliarity of Prokofiev and Russian music to the Parisian orchestra, as well as to last-minute adjustments to the large-scale Bolshoi scenery into the smaller Garnier). The performances were cancelled on the very day of the opening, she said, due to a critical escalation in the Indo-China war, where the USSR had long been backing Vietnam against France, culminating in the heavy defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu on May 8, with several thousand casualties. The French government held a national period of mourning and banned all entertainment, she says, for 3 days, particularly Soviet, which directly hit this Kirov/Bolshoi tour. The USSR hurriedly arranged an East German tour to save face and the company went straight on to Berlin. Ulanova said many photographs and even critiques of their rehearsals were carried in French newspapers in the days before the scheduled premiere, as the rehearsals were crowded with French dancers, coaches and critics (the Paris ballet was directed then by Ulanova's compatriot Serge Lifar and many leading dancers of the time were Russian-trained). Presumably this is one of the photos. Ismene Brown

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml.../btballet12.xml links to an interview I did earlier this year about Nina Ananiashvili's plans. Ismene Brown

I beg Doug Fullington's pardon for some sloppy wording above, which I have edited. I did not intend to question his judgment of the usability of Stepanov notations for Pharaoh's Daughter; this was too shortly worded from Pierre Lacotte's opinion when I interviewed him re Pharaoh's Daughter reconstruction, thus: "[The quality of the Pharaoh notation is] Not good enough. It is good for Sleeping Beauty, Bayadere, and many other ballets, but for Daughter it was only good for HIS [Petipa's] memory. You have a lot of notes which I used, but choreographically it's not in detail.... I asked a friend in America (Doug Fullington) to send me a video and I was surprised, because he said, everything is not right in the score. ... Well, two variations were very clear, two girls in the pas d'action. I took them, and I asked him to do the Rivers. And he did the Rivers, but I'm sorry when I saw it, it was not right, it was not clear, it was like two steps here and nothing else, and I know Petipa and I said, I'm sorry, I don't want to do that, the notation is not very good." Lacotte finally took the advice of Semionova, the last Aspiccia, who told him (he said): "Listen, I'll give you good advice - you know the style, you know all the ballets of Petipa very well, do it yourself. Pay respect to the style but do it yourself." This clarifies that it was Lacotte who decided, based on Fullington's help, that the notation was not comprehensive enough. Re the state of Harvard archive, there is some rather haphazard filing, since fluent readers of old Russian with a detailed knowledge of 19th-century ballet do not often turn up among the staff. When I asked Harvard in 2004 about the Pharaoh notation I was first told that only 22 sheets of fragments existed. When I queried this, they corrected and apologised (quote: "Oh dear, I'm very glad you wrote back... Thank you for your persistence"), saying the bulk of Pharaoh (a 254-page choreographic/mime score, a full 251-page orchestral score, a 7-page detailed synopsis of the ballet, etc) was filed under its composer Cesare Pugni, rather than Petipa. Misleading filing is a problem, I am told, if a clerk did not have the knowledge to place a named dance with the right ballet. Eg 'The Rivers' had been annotated by someone (possibly a reader, rather than a cataloguer) 'La Source, not Pharaoh's Daughter'. Also the Russian habit of ascribing a ballet to the composer rather than the choreographer is reversed in the West, hence perhaps the Pugni-Petipa mix-up. It is not an ideal situation, therefore, but perhaps one day it will be. Ismene Brown

Solor: you asked how the Harvard Theatre Collection obtained the Sergeyev papers. It was through an English ballerina, Mona Inglesby, who ran the International Ballet in the UK from 1940 to 1953. I interviewed her in 2000 for the Daily Telegraph re the Kirov's reconstruction of Beauty and heard first-hand some stuff that some dictionaries have wrong. Sergeyev, theatre director of the Maryinsky and chief regisseur, left USSR 1918 with three wooden crates containing the papers of the 25-year Maryinsky notation projection commanded by Petipa. It was in the obscure Stepanov notation, mostly loose papers, and recorded the mainstay of the Maryinsky repertoire over that golden period: some 24 ballets (including all the big popular Petipas, which Petipa himself frequently freshened up) and another 24 opera-ballets. He went to various places as a jobbing balletmaster, most significantly with Diaghilev (and old friends like Fokine), then with de Valois in London, where she took the Petipa texts as her base for 'Beauty', 'Giselle', 'Coppelia' and 'Swan Lake' (hence London's claim to historic authenticity in these). Losing faith with de Valois, who allowed interpolations and edits in classics, Sergeyev started working with Inglesby, a decent young ex-Rambert ballerina who had set up a touring company in wartime of 40-80 dancers (including Harold Turner & Moira Shearer at different times). Her International Ballet staged these "true" Petipa productions of Giselle, Swan Lake, Coppelia, Sleeping Princess, and Fokine's Carnaval (with Bakst designs), Prince Igor dance &s Sylphides too, up and down the country. Sergeyev's estrangement from de Valois deepened apparently with the Sadler's Wells 1946 Sleeping Beauty which altered the sacred text; Inglesby said the IB version was closer to the original. In personality he was described by her, de Valois & others as rather rigid, conservative, lonely; very homesick for Russia and the old Imperial days. When he died in 1951, he did NOT bequeath the notations to Inglesby, as it says in both the Oxford Dicts. Inglesby told me he left them to a Russian friend who had no interest in dance (perhaps hoping they'd find their way back to Russia). She was alarmed, paid this friend £200 for the notations, who thought himself well rewarded. She quit ballet to have a family, kept these three crates of notations, and worried about what to do with them. After abortive talks with the Royal Ballet, RAD and the Kirov Ballet (at the Grosvenor Hotel), she was pointed by Ivor Guest towards Harvard. They paid her (they told me) around £6,000 for the collection in 1969 - she remembered that sort of figure. The collection included the notations, which were effectively gibberish without Stepanov's primer, and much IB production material: photographs, programmes, costume swatches, designs, etc. The notations were pretty much impenetrable, and their existence pretty much unknown, until the Kirov found the old Sleeping Beauty designs in the mid 1990s, by chance Tim Scholl told them that Harvard had the old notations, and an old Stepanov primer was unearthed in the Kirov library. Hence the reconstructions became possible. But reconstructions still depend on the very small number of competent readers of Stepanov - Pierre Lacotte depended on Doug Fullington for the Pharaoh's Daughter at the Bolshoi; Lacotte's view, based on Fullington's help, was that only a small number of the 254 pages were usable, hence his extensive rechoreography.[EDITED FOR CLARITY] (The Kirov's Vikharev questions that view.) Performances changed so often, and composers & choreographers were so obliging, that establishing what was the "authentic" benchmark of any ballet is a challenge; but thanks to Inglesby & what followed, this question must now assume centre stage in the future of staging classical ballet. Ismene Brown

The National Dance Awards website proclaims, slightly misleadingly, that the dance awards "are presented by the Critics' Circle - the critics and journalists who see and review companies on a daily basis." Lest it be assumed that all national critics belong to the Critics' Circle and hence have a hand in these awards, let me clarify. Among the 60 or so members of the Critics' Circle dance section there were, until last spring, the current dance critics for the 10 national daily and weekly newspapers. However, three of them - Clement Crisp of the Financial Times, Louise Levene of the Sunday Telegraph and I myself, from the Daily Telegraph - have resigned and would emphasise that we have nothing to do with the awards or nominations. Ismene Brown

Yoel Carre–o's visa problems were entirely from the US Treasury Department end, I was told by both him and Nilas Martins of NYCB. They date back two years; the Treasury Dept kept Carreno waiting eight months before denying him permission go to New York. (He prefers the correct spelling Yoel to Joel, which has been done to assist English pronunciation. In Cuban Spanish the Y is pronounced close to a soft J, or a Russian Zh. J is pronounced more like H.) I understand that President Bush, since May 04, has removed the use of "cultural" or "educational" reasons to permit travel between the two countries. It appears that exceptional humanitarian circumstances are now the only standard justification for travel. Uncertainty over how the May guidelines had altered previous conditions was why Nilas Martins' group was scheduled for the Havana Festival but then was unable to travel there, and I understand from the Cuban end that this also explained the late withdrawal of DTH's Rasta Thomas and some Houston Ballet dancers. Two foreign nationals at Houston Ballet did appear. Rolando Sarabia told me personally, and with a big smile, that he would be back at Boston next year. I do not know why his and Carre–o's circumstances are considered differently. Ismene Brown

I gave news of both of these exceptional dancers last month in http://www.arts.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main....13/btcuba13.xml. Ismene Brown

Hockeyfan228, I realise it can be a bore to have to read stuff before you comment on it, but do please check your facts. You launched a blanket condemnation of British critics partly resting on my supposed preference for DTH's 'Return' over their Balanchine programme. Well now - I did not review 'Return' at all (I was reviewing Scottish Ballet's fine stab at '4Ts', ironically enough). And my review of DTH was critical of their performance, not of the ballets themselves, which I have expressed my love and awe of at length over the years, no doubt tediously. So you have fabricated my views and rested a hollow argument on it too. Ari and Alexandra have both reiterated the cliched conception of British critical reaction to Balanchine ballets. I would say that to "get" a choreographer as they describe is no more useful than "getting" a novelist - you blind yourself to love all or hate all. Sensitive critics "get" works of beauty, expressiveness and excitement, whoever they are created by. Balanchine's works have fervent fans among the British critics, not least because we love the man's musical soul. Critics whom I know do not at all divide roughly into Ashton+Balanchine v MacMillan+Kylian, or black-and-white Balanchine v tutu-Balanchine - I simply don't recognise these so-called lines that Alexandra states that she sees. Once in the professional business, we critics must make a hearty effort to dissolve our prejudices and widen our horizons. I dearly wish we saw a broader range of Balanchine over here, 'Davidsbündlertänze' as well as 'Agon'; despite loathing much Kylian, I have liked a couple of them - and it doesn't stop me relishing a Bournonville; I have found that Ashton can be sexier than MacMillan, and MacMillan can be more "English" than Ashton; that Ashton can be eerier than Cunningham, and Cunningham can be more delicate and humane than I would ever have guessed from the widespread American commentaries about his radical abstractness. Again and again, I have found that tidy certainties are the realm of wishful thinking, that art is exultantly messy and various, and one can surprise oneself over and over. I do ask you not to waste time on us-and-them arguments, and just to consider that sometimes Balanchine might be done justice, and sometimes not. Ismene Brown

Buckle's 'Nijinsky' and 'Diaghilev' are must-haves, as previously said (they do overlap, obviously, from time to time, but their different focuses yield different focuses). I also think Agnes de Mille's 'Martha' is magnificent, a tremendously vivid, insightful history of American modern dance as well as a sharply observant, personal view of Graham. It's obviously not objective, but De Mille was a fine writer by any standards. Easton, de Mille's biographer, is staider in style but did her proud, I thought, in 'No Intermissions' (de Mille had the most interesting life imaginable). The Tudor biog by Chazin-Bennahum (which I haven't read) had a lukewarm review in 'Dance Now' by Allen Robertson (writer with Donald Hutera of the useful 'The Dance Handbook', about to be reissued updated). He found it unreliable factually, particularly about the English aspect of his career and life, and was superficial in its examination of Tudor's work, but thought it superior to Donna Perlmutter's biography 'Shadowplay'.

Hello all. Interesting discussion about critics. I've demurred about getting involved because I am one (Daily Telegraph, London), and in the past we've lived in our ivory towers of paper, our privacy and perhaps fear of challenge violated only by the occasional reader's letter, which does not always raise such worthwhile issues as you all raise here. The Internet has changed my view. As a critic I think I can't ignore it and its potential for mass challenge to my competence any longer. So donning my carapace of thick skin, I will enter here, because I am surprised at the variance between my perception of my job and that of some of you. Jeannie was concerned at being offered a "set" of comp tickets for her husband/companion as well as for herself. If she meant a "pair" I am absolutely amazed. It never happens in my experience. If she meant a "single", ie. to accompany herself, then that is normal practice, and as Alexandra pointed it, no doubt is done from politeness. As it happens, I decline a second ticket for about three quarters of the shows I see, and I know two critics here who usually go as a pair anyway, without taking a partner each. Secondly, Jeannie's point about freebies again, I think, finds her needlessly excited. Certainly I have benefited on many an occasion from a paid trip abroad, expenses generally split with my employer; but a preview feature is not a review. It implies no advance assessment of the artistic value of what is to come (apart from the fact that we only accept preview trips for things we consider have genuine artistic newsworthiness - the article has to compete, once written, with, say, a feature about Radiohead or Ewan McGregor, so it had better justify itself). It explains what the artists want to say, where they come from, and how perhaps their context may affect them. I deliberately refuse to assess any rehearsal or preview performance in a feature as far as I am able, because after all I want to keep my opinion ready for the review the following week (or I'll only be paid for one piece, won't I?). It is quite easy to remember that this is not a social invitation. (Besides, since when did we spend a weekend with new people and always return saying nice things about them? In the car home, do we not comment on their domestic taste, their personalities, their cooking, their conversation..? We write a kind thank you letter, but a public preview piece in a newspaper is not the same thing.) In the last post to this topic, Alexandra described a "junket" practice by newspapers of such cynicism that I don't recognise it, but then I realise that America's geography and touring circuit creates very different demands from what we have in Britain. British newspapers are not so enamoured of dance that they will agree to critics going on trips to preview "new" choreographers and "new" ballets that they would not normally justify with the space, uninvited. I refuse the majority of invitations abroad that I receive, before I even put them to the arts editor. (It may be worth bearing in mind that for most dance critics only one person's opinion of their work matters. Their boss's.) Leigh, Paul and others appear to want a critic to provide "impartial" "reportage" and "information" - to pluck out a few words that raised my eyebrows. Not a soul in the world is impartial, and personally I think simply giving the readers information about a performance (which many of the readers were at anyway) is dull and pointless. Anyone could do that. My job is to convey my enthusiasm and hope for what I saw, and my satisfaction or not at the fulfilment of my expectations. I.e., did I have a good time? That simple question covers the quality of skills, of idea/story, of atmosphere (visual and aural), of individual artistry, of, maybe, historical significance of the production in a company's current position. The answer to that simple question may be yes or no, I had/had not a good time, but it must also answer another - the real question: Would or could the reader have a good time at a dance show? And the answer to THAT question must always be Yes. My chief crime would be to be so tedious or incoherent in my writing that readers thought dance was a bore. At the end of my review I want them to know that watching dance could enhance their life. Ismene Brown