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Balanchine's Ballets -- Has Performance Quality Dropped?


Guest nycdog

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Guest nycdog

Oh too bad, the links at MIT must have just gone down just tonight? It seems happy13 somehow caused too much interest in them! :angry2: I found the page last December judging by the dates on the videos I have saved.

carbro said:

"The leader of the tall regiment looks to me like Theresa Reyes, but I think you have the colors reversed"

Apparently the spelling is 'Teresa Reyes.' Whatever happened to her? She was a soloist dancer at NYCB?

This post was edited to remove links to non-licensed copyrighted material.

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Apparently the spelling is 'Teresa Reyes.'  Whatever happened to her?  She was a soloist dancer at NYCB?

Well, I couldn't get a very good stream, but I got enough to verify that it is Reyes. She was a de facto soloist, but I don't think she was ever actually promoted to that rank. And thanks for correcting my spelling. I don't know what she's up to now, but the NYCB website may have that info. <--Checked there -- nothing. :angry2:

Edited by Dale
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Anyone see that video clip that Jacques d'Amboise presented at Symphony Space's Wall-to-Wall Balanchine last year? It was from the opening night for Lincoln Center. Wasn't it this section in Stars & Stripes? Didn't he throw the ballerina (now I'm afraid I can't remember who that was) up into the air and catch her where here it is simply a lift and not a throw-catch? [is there a technical term for that?]. Or was it earlier during the pas de deux?

I'd love to discuss the videography here with 32Tendu but I suppose the clip will not remain accessible long enough.

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..... 'Teresa Reyes.'  Whatever happened to her?  She was a soloist dancer at NYCB?

..... I don't know what she's up to now, but the NYCB website may have that info. <--Checked there -- nothing. :angry2:

I found references to her in articles about the Career Transition for Dancers Benefit at City Center, 2003, and there's a pic from that event in Paul Boos' (Les Ballets Grandiva) blog:

Teresa Reyes at Career Transition for Dancers Benefit at City Center

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Guest nycdog
The two demi-soloists in that 1993 Stars and Stripes were Katrina Killian, Reyes, and Michael Byers.

My original point in posting the link to the clip was to show how well they performed Stars. I don't think it's lacking 'abandon' compared to the d'Amboise film from '58. I see they are doing Stars 3 times next week, Ansanelli on the 26th, Sylve on 29th and Ansanelli again on the 30th.

Good find Marga, I quote from the page you found:

"This is Teri Reyes, I took class with her for years and always remember her dancing the soloist role in Stars and Stripes"

She did very nicely with it I thought too! :angry2:

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Thanks, nycdog, for preserving the video clip. It reminds this emigrant from NYC how remarkable the NYCB's resources are. All those dancers, doing so many things so well -- and yet it all coheres. Stars and Stripes shows as much as at did at the beginning the dancers as a company that expresses enthusiasm, brio, and a skill at marshalling large forces moving quickly and accurately from pattern to pattern. Balanchine certainly could create stage-packed grand finales -- crowd-pleasers on a very high level. It was good to see it again.

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The 1993 clip was from the last day of the 1993 Spring Season, a special afternoon-to-evening program at the end of the Balanchine Celebration. I attended many performances of that entire season including this gala -- so many Balanchine ballets! -- and there was a different feeling in the air during it, a combination of the end-of-Spring-Season exhaustion/exhilaration, and a feeling of tribute to the Master. It was not exactly indicative of the Company's dancing that season.

Byars, Killian, and Reyes joined NYCB during the last years of Balanchine's life. They may not have had lots of individual attention -- Killian's graduation classmate, Darci Kistler, got much of it during Balanchine's last years -- however, they were still educated during the last productive, albeit limited, period of Balanchine's life in the late 70's and early 80's. Byars was the son of a NYCB orchestra musician (I believe a clarinetist), had known Balanchine for a long time, and was raised in the "family" since he was a young boy.

The difference between performances by those who had been reared by Balanchine personally and those that weren't was noticeable during the decade after his death. That isn't to say that everyone who came after was automatically worse, but there was a change in emphasis and detail among many of the dancers who came after his time, and not entirely among the corps.

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Hockeyfan228, thanks for this information. It reminds me that individual performances are affected by many variables. Your points about (a) this cast's continuity with Balanchine and (b) the specific circumstances under which the performance took place are well taken.

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The last day of the Balanchine Celebration in 1993 was a unique occasion. It was an all-day affair interrupted by a dinner break. There were also breaks for hors d'oeuvres and dessert, and everybody got a little bottle of vodka at the end. The audience was exhilarated.

What most of the audience didn't know, however, was that former NYCB dancers with close connections to Balanchine had played a very limited role in the Celebration. Peter Martins seemed to use the event to solidify his one-man rule. The crowning blow came a little later, with his firing of Suzanne Farrell.

James Byars played the oboe and English horn with the orchestra. Michael earned a degree in labor law from Fordham and left NYCB.

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Guest nycdog
Peter Martins seemed to use the event to solidify his one-man rule. The crowning blow came a little later, with his firing of Suzanne Farrell.

I laughed reading this, you are truly a Farrell fan. :D I've been reading her book 'Holding On To The Air' recently I'm trying to figure out if she deserved to be 'fired.' I'm not convinced that her being at NYCB would make anything better. She seems to be extremely demanding and unforgiving, I believe that Farrell was the 'not nice' or difficult one.

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I hope you have the paperback of "Holding on to the Air," published by University Press of Florida, because that has a new preface written in 2002 in which she says how devastated she was at being fired from NYCB by Peter Martins, who did it through the company manager. You are right that she is demanding, nycdog, but she is primarily demanding of herself. As for not being nice, all I can tell you is she's always been nice to me. :D

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I read a long Washington Post profile of Farrell called "Dancing in the Moment" and highly recommend it to anyone interested in Farrell. Among the Farrell students that were profiled in the article was Amy Watson, now a rising star at the Royal Danish Ballet. The picture painted of Farrell is a complex one: demanding, remote, yet extremely sensitive and devoted to her students. It's a great read.

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Guest nycdog
I read a long Washington Post profile of Farrell called "Dancing in the Moment" and highly recommend it to anyone interested in Farrell. Among the Farrell students that were profiled in the article was Amy Watson, now a rising star at the Royal Danish Ballet. The picture painted of Farrell is a complex one: demanding, remote, yet extremely sensitive and devoted to her students. It's a great read.

Yes I read this interesting story the other day. I remember Amy Watson (I think it was) said something like she didn't want to wind up with a dog and her ballet memories, who was she thinking of? :D (Tex and Suzanne?)

Hey, there's nothing wrong with dogs!

Farrell Fan, I have the Holding on to the Air with the "Preface to the 2002 Edition." You wrote, 'she is primarily demanding of herself' which seems to be borne out by the comments of Jacques d'Amboise in the 'Elusive Muse' film where I recall him telling how Suzanne was never satisfied with how SHE did things and wanted to do it over and over, and Jacques would be like c'mon it's fine let's go on, but noooo....

The Farrell, Martins relationship is a complex one.

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Yes I read this interesting story the other day.  I remember Amy Watson (I think it was) said something like she didn't want to wind up with a dog and her ballet memories, who was she thinking of?  :D  (Tex and Suzanne?)

Hey, there's nothing wrong with dogs!

Or perhaps the Anne Bancroft character in The Turning Point?

Suzanne Farrell has the backing of Michael Kaiser, perhaps the greatest ballet manager of the late 20th and early 21st century, and, through him, the institutional support of The Kennedy Center. She has had a remarkable career as a stager, including as one of the first two people to stage Balanchine ballets for the Kirov/Mariinsky. She has a small, part-time company that bears her name and a thriving career as a teacher. She is hardly sitting around with nothing but "a dog and her ballet memories."

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Sandik, I'm so delighted to think that MIT is teaching ballet appreciation/history... can you tell us anything more about it?

Well, it looks like it's taught by Iris Fanger, rather than the person I thought it was, but this seems to be the class.

21M.670J Traditions in American Concert Dance: Gender and Autobiography

Explores forms, content, and contexts of world traditions in dance that played a crucial role in shaping American concert dance with attention to issues of gender and autobiography. Explores artistic lives of dance artists Katherine Dunham, Alvin Ailey, Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, and George Balanchine as American dance innovators. Lectures and discussions analyze these artists' works, taking into consideration historical and political contexts. Viewing assignments and attendance of Boston-area dance performances help students identify visual, musical, and kinesthetic underpinnings of choreographic structure.

"From Isadora Duncan to Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Twyla Tharp and Bill T. Jones, 20th century performers and choreographers transformed dance into the liveliest of arts in the New York lofts and opera houses, Hollywood films, and Broadway musicals. The course will explore the achievements of these innovators as artists, rebels, and change agents for the empowerment of women, racial equality and gay rights. Lectures, discussions, in-class films and videos, plus two off-campus dance concerts. "

reading per week: 100 pages

writing per term: 30 pages

(three 10-12 page papers, evenly spaced throughout semester)

no quizzes

no midterm exam

closed-book final exam

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Guest nycdog

I thought 'MIT' was about Technology? What are they doing teaching dance appreciation? :yahoo:

I liked the music here because it's rather like Stravinsky at times, it means absolutely nothing the dance really defines it! I'm reminded of Balanchine's comment when asked why he didn't do any Beethoven, "he doesn't need it." Sousa does here! Margaret Tracey was unbelievably wonderful in this, I would love to see how Sofiane Sylve handles the role!

(What was that little interaction they had at the end there? Cute. :))

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In defense of Amy Watson: I don't know her personally, but if

memory serves me that article was at least four years ago and she was maybe

16 or barely 17 years old and attending the SF Kennedy Center SI---the

author of that article was "embedded" there for several days, and well,

young people let things escape the gates of their teeth that sound horrible

when repeated out of context. I'd bet that Ms. Watson would take back that comment if she could and that whatever she meant was lost in translation.

As a teacher of young people, Ms. Farrell, I'd like to believe, took no umbrage.

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Guest nycdog

:yahoo:

I took the Amy Watson comment below as insulting to dogs in general :) which is why I mentioned it! When she's older I think she'll realize that dogs are better than men, even though I'm a man I know it's true!

"Amy is in love. She met her boyfriend in New York; he was a student at Juilliard, and their schools share a cafeteria. His name is Erin Gann and he has since graduated and is now an unemployed actor. He is 22, a fact that Amy proudly inserts into most conversations when his name comes up, which is fairly often. She has always had boyfriends, she says matter-of-factly, but she has never felt this way before.

"It's riDICulous," she says with mock disgust. Ridiculous is one of her favorite words. She assumes she and Erin will marry in a couple of years. Miami might pose a problem, but she's certain they could work something out.

"I like balance in my life," she says. "I don't want to end up with just a dog and a lot of ballet memories." "1

1. Dancing in the Moment; Under George Balanchine, Suzanne Farrell became one of the world's greatest ballerinas. Now, as a teacher, how much of their vision can she pass on?; Tamara Jones. The Washington Post. Washington, D.C., Oct 10, 1999. pg. W.06

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I recently saw much of the 1993 gala and I'd say that performances have really changed. I think "dropped" is too strong a word. But I do notice that back in 1993, Zhanna Ayupova, Isabel Guerin, and Igor Zelensky could dance in the company and look relatively at ease. Today, I think they'd look like a fish out of water. The style of the NYCB dancers has become more neoclassical. The elbows are sharper, the port-te-bras more exaggerated, the hips more off-balance.

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By the time of the gala, Zelensky had been a member of NYCB for at least a year, after having made a guest appearance. At the time, as a member of the theater audience, I thought some of the guests (Ayupova being a prime example) stood out for their un-Balanchinian style. Guerin, of course, who did fit neatly among the home company, had had several guest engagements with NYCB.

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