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rtnty

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  1. I'm curious as to whether, or to what extent, the process of memorializing the events of Sept 11--through the production of NEW ballets, not "memorial performances" of OLD works--has begun?? (I mean this particularly in the sense of publicly staged, advertised productions; I'm sure that many, if not all, artists have been privately memorializing or expressing their emotions for weeks now!) If so, is there any general trend among the works (i.e., are they largely geared toward beatific healing or toward venting of rage)? Anyone care to describe a production they've seen or been a part of? What has the audience/community response been like? Are we as a public ready for the process of memorialization to begin? Are we as artists ready to commence that process? Have we distanced ourselves from "it" enough? Or should memorialization come from a position of immediacy rather than one of reflection? If we create while the wound is raw, do we gain power at the expense of perspective or objectivity? Can we ever GET "perspective" or "objectivity"? If we wait to create, though, we gain some distance but lose the perhaps more telling immediate reactions. How do we start to document the pain? We must...yet dare we try?...yet we must... Your thoughts on any of the above!
  2. Leigh wrote, "A choreographer is in a position to broaden the musical repertory, I think we should take this as part of our job." As a musician, I say a great big AMEN to that!!! When great music meets great dance, the "great unwashed" are bound to be hooked by/through one or both of them...and the better off both arts will be. I have a friend who is working on a paper about the philosophical problems--from a musician's/music audience's standpoint--of creating ballets to symphonies. I'm surprised at how much of a fuss has been made over the "inappropriateness" of this. But I've now wandered a long, LONG way from my initial question about Part. Thanks, Rick and others, for chiming in with your Part experiences...
  3. Interesting...being but a backwoods Northwesterner (this is my first year in the "big city" of Rochester--ha, ha!), I had no idea that so many people had latched onto Part's music. I guess I shouldn't be surprised--his music, along with that of Gorecki, Tavener, Glass, Reich, etc., as Leigh mentioned, certainly does fly off the shelves. I can see how it could open a gateway to a sort of "easy choreography" just as many musicians/critics feel it functions more as "easy listening" than as serious art music. But let's not go there; I mean no offense to the above composers, or to admirers of their music, or to the choreographers and dancers who become involved with it.
  4. Hi, ballet history buffs, I'm sorry to be such a pill with my questions about random composers! I suppose I should get my own ballet encyclopedia, but frankly, it's just not in the budget at the moment! Anyway, here's my question. I'm wondering if any of you know of ballets to the music of the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt? (he is no longer living in Estonia--has been in Germany for quite a few years.) I really like some of his music and think it could make for some wonderful dance. In particular, I'm thinking (at the moment) of his piece "Fratres"--I forget what the original ensemble was, but various people have since arranged it for everything from string orchestra to string quartet to eight cellos to wind octet to...! Perchance, somewhere along the line, a choreographer has found inspiration in one of those versions? If you know anything, let me know! (I was dancing around a bit with it earlier this evening...blush...)
  5. Segreta: I would be extremely surprised if the Finnish national balled *didn't* have any Sibelius in its repertoire...but you're the Finn, so I guess you know best! If they in fact do not have any, could it be that the company doesn't want to "marginalize" itself in the eyes of the larger dance world as "that Finnish company that dances Sibelius" as opposed to a company that is capable of taking on any challenge, any music, any genre...? Or is it possible that music lovers in Finland think Sibelius's music belongs in the concert hall rather than at the ballet, especially since it's my impression that Sibelius never actually collaborated on these ballets in the way that, say, Stravinsky did? Not that I would agree with either one of these possibilities, by any means! They're just issues that I'm sensitive to because of the music research I'm doing right now...
  6. Hi, Leigh and others: I just looked at the members announcements for your Sibelius performance, and I am a bit unclear about what the music is that you are (were?!) using. Is it another Valse triste? Regardless, I hope it went well!
  7. Interesting, esp. the Guatemala performance! Thanks for the info. I'm writing a paper on Sibelius' Four Legends for Orchestra (of which Swan of Tuonela is the 2nd and by far the most well known)...actually, my paper has nothing but nothing to do with ballet; just got curious! Thanks again.
  8. OK, well, I guess I'm surprised! Thanks, Victoria Leigh and Sonja, for your info! I don't have the Oxford Dictionary of ballet. I'm very interested in the ballets that were made to the Swan of Tuonela and whichever symphony it was. Could someone check the book and get back to me with more details? MUCH appreciated.
  9. I'm just wondering...does anyone happen to know of any ballets that have been created to music of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)? I'd be surprised if there are any, but what's the fun of life if there's no surprise to it?
  10. Estelle: what fun it would be to see that Paris performance!!!!! Re. the Ann Hutchinson Guest reconstruction: sounds like an interesting documentary, but I don't suppose it will be available in the USA. Do you know if she has any thoughts on the Hodson/Joffrey Sacre that I mentioned above to Drew? (Of course, this topic might have been covered in a previous discussion...haven't checked!)
  11. Drew: don't quote me on this, but I believe there was indeed a fissure in the Nijinsky Faun performance tradition. The reconstruction wasn't as labor-intensive as that of M. Hodson's *Sacre*, but I'm pretty sure you're right in saying that they had to work to recapture some things.
  12. Thanks, Yvonne. I agree that the music is wonderful...but I'm a musician, actually, and only a beginning dancer, so I know much more about that side of the coin than I do about the dance! I was doing some research the other day on the Debussy piece that started it all and was *quite* surprised to learn that this Robbins version existed. And now that you have told me what that version consists of, I'm even more surprised! I wonder if it's effective--if the music and the dancing really go together in that "studio" setup...? Perhaps it's because I already knew about the Nijinsky ballet, but Debussy's music seems to just be made for fauns and nymphs and soft light on the forest floor! It's such sensual music...but perhaps this contradiction between the lush music and the ho-hum (at least for dancers!) ballet studio set, given our Nijinsky-Faun expectations, makes the Robbins version powerful in a different sort of way. Another interesting thing I learned: I had always assumed that Debussy and Nijinsky worked more or less together to create Faun, as STravinsky and Diaghilev, say, did with the various Ballets russes productions. But Debussy wrote the Prelude a good several years before the ballet was made. (ANd Stephane Mallarme's poem predated DEbussy's music by a similarly large span of time!)
  13. Can anyone give me an overview of the differences between Jerome Robbins' Afternoon of a Faun and the original Nijinsky one? Choreography in particular is what I'm after, but staging info would also be welcome. Which version is performed more often today? Which do you prefer, and why? Thanks!
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