sandik

Like most writers, I try to avoid the pitfalls I recognize, only to fall into ones I'm not watching for. I'm more attuned to overused vocabulary than to cliches, I think -- some of my current glitches are 'emerging,' 'examine,' 'explore,' and most food words ('juicy, luscious, tasty,...'). I also overuse the m-dash (see previous sentence). Some of this is due to the time and space constraints that Leigh describes above, and some is just me. I do use 'plangent' sometimes, usually in talking about a dancer who takes big risks in adagio work. I think of the emotional resonance of the sound, from the straight-on dictionary definition of the word, and its equivalent in movement.

I've noticed the 'flip your phone over' trick for a couple of years now -- it started in movie theaters, but now I've seen it at dance and theater events as well. If you look over the audience, sometimes it seems like fireflies twinkling on and off. I have sympathy with the people who want to check their programs, though. I do look at mine when I sit down in the theater, but sometimes find that my short term memory has purged all casting information the moment that the lights go down...

Your lips to the gods' ears.

Indeed, but it does make me wonder what would happen to the Cunningham rep if they were to follow the NYCB model of keeping the company doors open long past the death of the founder.

I can certainly understand why, but it's a fascinating example of what happens when you take all the energy that you use travelling out and condense it into a smaller space. (my favorite part is the slightly lower than comfortable camera angle for several shots, that make it seem like we're looking up past their heads to the chandeliers -- I kept waiting for someone to hit one with their tambourine)

Slower, absolutely, and much of the choreographic detail has been smoothed out or glossed over, but the tempo makes it possible to see some interesting choices in accent and emphasis. Some of the contrast (sustained v quick) is really compelling here. I understand the Trust's need to protect the copyright, but this kind of side by side viewing is so very interesting, and lets the general audience really see what's going on in a work -- I wish there was a way to do this without all the legal handwringing.

I'm fine with the ongoing discussion, especially since most of what I've read has addressed some of the difficult choices the community has been facing as they work out what the right thing to do might be, and then how to do it. Perhaps because I've been following along in the conversation about teaching dance history to young dancers (in the thread about Apollo's Angels) that I was re-struck by this comment, that we've heard over and over again from many different dance sources: "“All the movements I give are from Merce’s classes, collected over the years,” he explained. “He’s not here, but he’s in the steps.” "

I'm not sure how the Kaatsbaan curriculum is organized, but I do know that several major summer workshops include some dance history sessions in their program. I gave a couple of talks at Pacific Northwest Ballet's summer school a few years ago -- they've got other people on staff now who fill that role. It's not an exhaustive survey, but it's a start.

I agree -- this is the optimal way to manage it. Unfortunately, the pragmatic nature of much dance studio instruction means that there is little time or support for this kind of enriched experience. A few of my colleagues do combine performance training with a more intellectual approach to the material, but this kind of teaching is still in the developmental stages, and is mostly found in college/university settings. But it's much further along than it was even a few years ago!

I don't think that studio training is any broader than it was in earlier times, when the emphasis was indeed on doing. The difference is in what they're doing -- as it was previously, students are generally taught to do what their teachers know of the art form, and that's drawn from what they themselves were performing when they were on stage. So that I learned random bits of the Ballet Russe repertory when I sought out teachers from the diaspora, and students today learn chunks of early dance video work. In a few years, ballet students will have a hybridized version of ballet and modern as their lingua franca from their time in the studio -- anything else will have been learned specifically as a separate item. I was talking with several young dance writers at the recent Dance Critics Association conference and they were pretty much unanimous -- they don't remember getting any historical information about the field until they got to college. But that's the point where things really have changed -- I can't think of a college dance program that doesn't require dance history courses for its degree students, and in the past 25 years there has been a significant increase in the number of texts available for history teachers to use in these classes. When I first became interested in dance, you could read your way through most of what had been published in English over the course of a summer (and that included the full run of American Dancer/Dance Magazine). I know, because that's what I did. And when I first took an organized dance history course, a couple of years later, there wasn't a standard history survey text -- my teacher used Selma Jeanne Cohen's primary source reader (Dance as a Theater Art -- still an excellent resource) and some stitched-together sections of other texts. This was in the late 70s -- Jack Anderson's very useful Ballet and Modern Dance came out not long after (I used it myself in a couple of classes) and then Susan Au's Ballet and Modern Dance appeared (a little less American-centric). The titles may be as plebeian as they are repetitive, but the texts were a big improvement. Since then, several other writers have added to the collection of survey texts, but general readers get mostly photo books, biographies and the occasional anthology. No Fixed Points was something of an anomaly -- a dance history for the general public. In music and theater, there have been more 'general histories' published over a longer period, distinct from textbooks. In dance, we're resourceful folk, and use whatever we can get our hands on for whatever we need, so that I've seen what are primarily coffee table books, or general readership books (think Time-Life) used for academic purposes. It's ironic that the blossoming of dance scholarship (which should come along with an increase in publication) is happening at a time when publishing in all fields is changing rapidly and drastically. One of the reasons that Routledge books are so very expensive is that they're trying to keep their press open in a dying market. (of course, one of the reasons it's dying is that publishers like Routledge are charging so much...) I think it's a mistake to look at Jennifer Homan's book as a textbook kind of history, which implies both impartiality and inclusiveness -- we want to think that the author doesn't have a singular agenda and that they consider multiple points of view in their work. Apollo's Angels is a personal look at history -- in a way, it's like Margot Fonteyn's Magic of Dance (which was also used as a textbook by a few schools). It tells us almost as much about Jennifer Homans as it does about the history of ballet.

This started out as a post about Midsummer Night's Dream, but wound up being about the octet of dancers leaving the company this year, so I'm posting it in this slot. Apologies if it feels like it would make more sense elsewhere. Midsummer is a great ballet to check in with people at different parts of their career – unlike some other program length works there are multiple roles for principal and soloist level artists. Like I said in the Seattle Weekly, I doubt that Peter Boal was thinking that he would need performance slots for multiple artists leaving the company at the end of this season, but serendipity is a powerful force. Titania is one of those roles that women seem to grow in, when they get the chance to come back to it. I think this is Imler’s third time around with it, if I’m counting correctly. She’s danced both this and Hippolyta previously, and her innate stability really underlines the autonomy of both roles. Titania is Queen of the Fairies and Hippolyta is Queen of the Amazons – both of them have power on their own, both of them have very formal relationships with their spouses – without beating the idea over the head with a stick, both roles benefit from the comparison that this casting creates. Beyond the metaphorical similarities, there are some choreographic echoes in the side by side processional moments that make it very easy to see the relationship. All three Titanias that I saw had some great wild moments with the role, especially in the big stag jumps that so often show up in poster images. The deep twisting action in the solos, with the arms sweeping across the center line of the torso reminded me of the descriptions of Suzanne Farrell after her return to NYCB. Though none of the women dancing Titania are scheduled to leave this year, we are losing two of the production’s Hippolytas. Ariana Lallone has been getting quite a lot of press about her career and we’ve all speculated about the awkward nature of the announcement, but I wanted to say something about Stacey Lowenberg, who has been at PNB for almost all of her professional life. When I think of dancers who can jump in and out of the corps, she’s one that always comes to mind. It’s a trickier kind of transition than most people might think -- the mindset for a good corps performance requires a commitment to the group that doesn’t always match the soloist’s need to stand out from the ensemble. I’ve said before it’s the difference between “look at us” and “look at me” -- Lowenberg manages both quite deftly. But while I’m always glad to see her clean lines and musicality in the big ensemble corps things, one of my favorite memories of her is from Tharp’s Waterbaby Bagatelles, as one of the bathing beauties. There’s a moment where she’s upstage left (from the audience perspective) in a group of boy watchers, where she does this little flutter kick -- it’s like a pouf of whipped cream on top of the best dish of pudding, and I am always grateful to her for that. She’s been working hard on choreography the last couple of years, teaching herself the lessons she needs to learn like all new choreographers do, and though the work is still awkward in places, she’s making real progress. I hope that she continues that endeavor. I was so sad to miss Barry Kerollis’s debut as Puck, in part because he’s going elsewhere and it’s likely I won’t see the next part of his career unfold, but also because it’s a role that he should do well in. I like seeing him in the dancey, abstract stuff, but he’s a real treat in anything to do with a character. Even as ‘Prince’s third friend from the left’ in something like Swan Lake or Cinderella, he dances a specific person -- it’s always fun to look for the acting parts of his work. In a Q/A during the first weekend of the run, he said that he was especially pleased to have danced in some of PNBs contemporary rep (especially Dove’s Serious Pleasures), and while I have to believe him if he says so, I agree with Helene’s observation that he seems at home in a jabot and a peruke. Josh Spell is another dancer that I will miss as much for the possibilities in his future as well as the work I’ve had the chance to see him do. Like Kerollis, he’s got a way with a personality, making small moments read clearly. I particularly remember his bartender in Slaughter, working with Kiyon Gaines to tidy away the results of the big fight, and then congratulating each other when they’re finished. His Lysander in this production, like Wevers’, has a great doofy feeling -- he’s a walking around example of the term “love-struck.” While I regret missing the next stage in some dancer’s careers, with Chalnessa Eames I will miss seeing the performances here that she might have been in. She’s woven into many of the works in the PNB repertory that I trust are coming back in the near future, not to mention the parts that I was hoping she would be cast in next time around. When I realized that I wouldn’t be seeing her again as the Nurse in the Maillot Romeo, I was really sad. I’m not sure if it’s her timing in general that lends itself to comedy, or if her comic skills affect her overall musicality, but she seems to find the heart of a rhythmic or musical phrase and then show it to us. Her Butterfly and her Hermia were both excellent, but I had almost as much fun following her around in the second act corps, where she was so very clear about all the where and when. Stanko Milov has been away from the stage for quite some time, with surgery and rehab, but I had been hoping he would be back to performing for Midsummer -- it was a big disappointment to hear that he was retiring altogether. I wish he could have made one last appearance as Theseus. The role is the dance equivalent of ‘underwritten’ -- there’s not much choreographic meat in it, but the moments it does have can really use someone who understands how to command attention and use timing to their benefit. Because the character doesn’t have a big variation, it’s often cast with non-dancing characteristics in mind -- who fits the costume, who’s taller than the woman dancing Hippolyta -- but when it gets the right person, it can be very commanding. You need someone that we believe is a match for Hippolyta -- I have very happy memories of Milov standing next to Lallone, looking like he was a good fit with the Amazon queen. Milov has been game for almost anything during his time at PNB -- I’ll miss his presence. Of all the dancers leaving at the end of the season, Lallone, Stanton and Wevers are the ones getting the most attention, which is as it should be -- their contributions to the development of the company have been almost too substantial to recognize distinctly. Early on, many of the female principals had a kind of light and sunny quality to them -- dancers like Deborah Hadley and Patricia Barker were very skilled and very beautiful, but had to work at the mysterious part of the ballerina persona. Ariana Lallone seemed to come out of a different environment, bringing a darker quality to her performing. She’s been great to watch everywhere, willing to take risks and do whatever a new choreographer might ask of her (she was the best part of Mark Dendy’s Les Biches and Donald Byrd’s Subtext Rage) but she was particularly fine in the Balanchine repertory, ballets that are about the adult world and benefit from having adults perform them. She’s identified with the ‘tall girl’ in Rubies, and Choleric in The Four Temperaments, and she’s danced those parts splendidly, but I was particularly taken with her work in the recent production of Serenade. In an anonymous group dressed in cool blues, she brought our eyes to her as she stepped forward -- the drama of the work coalesced around her. I’m very glad that she’ll be continuing to perform, and I’m looking forward to seeing her at Teatro ZinZanni (as I understand it, Tommy Tune is choreographing the show she’ll be opening in next autumn), but I can hope that she’ll be available to advise and possibly coach at PNB -- it would be tragic to lose her institutional memory. Jeff Stanton has been another stalwart member of PNB for ages -- he’s been such a reliable presence that I’ve sometimes assumed he’d always be there. He reminds me just a bit of Clark Kent: serious, responsible, loyal, and underneath it all, capable of some astonishing things. I don’t really think he has a big, red “S” printed on his leotard, but he has indeed been a super man through his career here. His performances this spring, and especially since he announced his upcoming retirement, have been a bit fraught, which is absolutely understandable, but they’ve also been some of the free-est dancing I’ve seen from him in years. His Demetrius in Midsummer was positively bouncy, and his prince in Cinderella swept across the stage. But one of my favorite moments was in the Encore show, in his performance of the Hoofer in Slaughter on 10th Avenue -- holding Lesley Rausch in an impossibly deep backbend, he winked at the audience, letting us share in the joke. It was a generous moment in a career that was full of kindness and grace. Olivier Wevers is getting all kinds of attention right now for his choreography, and deserves the consideration -- he’s made some excellent work thus far, and looks to be on a good path. But I first knew him as a dancer, and I will miss that part of his career. He’s a great expressive performer, and has done a wonderful job with dramatic parts, but he also has highly refined classical skills and has used them in very evocative ways, as he did in the Divertisment pas de deux in Midsummer. It’s one thing to take on an existing character -- it’s another to find the characteristics of otherwise abstract material and show them to your audience. I’ve really appreciated Wevers fidelity to the work he’s performed, and his ability to show me the heart of the choreographer’s intentions. I look forward to seeing that reflected in his own dancemaking.

I saw this recently and didn't really have time to read thoroughly, but dipping in it looked fascinating, and I know the author to be both substantive and readable.

I did see some hand jive from Cruz and from Orza, but it didn't read too clearly from my seat, and I can't say I remember specific anything from Korbes or Foster. And yes, without that "I release you" Bathilde looks like a very different person. Which could work, dramatically, in some other form of Giselle. That's part of the fun with this production -- the chance to see possibilities.

Part of what I'm really enjoying with this production is the way it's making me think again about the characters and their lives -- it occurs to me that both Giselle and Bathilde manage to get to a state of forgiveness here -- Giselle before she returns to the grave and Bathilde when she has found Alberecht in the forest. I know it's not the version that we often see today, but it has a lovely symmetry to it dramatically.

Actually, they invited the DCA to come -- they've hosted the annual meeting once before (in 1997, when they premiered their new designs for Midsummer) and they will indeed get many eyes on this production. But several of my colleagues, who cannot come to the conference next week, were in the house this weekend -- there will be a lot of coverage for this.

Saw three casts this weekend, and am just gobsmacked with this production. The historical material that has been recovered and restored shifts the tone of the work in several ways -- more varied characterizations, fuller sense of community, more humor (something I never thought I'd say about Giselle!) -- but the fundamental aspects of the work are still there, and looking very beautiful. I'll be more articulate later (I hope!) but right now ... 'wow!'

Google is celebrating the birthday (117) of Martha Graham on their New Zealand home page today, 10 May. here

According to a milliner friend, many people use toupee tape. Along with many people here and elsewhere, I thought it was a lovely dress and that she wore it particularly well. But the image that I remember most fondly is of her walking into the cathedral hand in hand with two flower girls, and the others walking around her like she was their fairy godmother. Just charming! Someone had a comment on the former Miss Middleton's eye makeup, which I couldn't find here to quote -- I didn't really think she was overdone, but I did twinge a bit at Beatrice and Eugenie. Newsweek magazine ran a cover recently with the Olson twins on it, and all four of them seem to have a thing for the raccoon-eyed look.

Damn. Just, damn.

The local paper runs a contest every year for dioramas made with marshmallow peeps -- this year's entries included an homage to Black Swan. what, you thought I was making this up?

Another friend of mine was in the audience last night as well, and had lots of good things to say about Kerollis.

You know, there aren't too many places where I'm going to see an analysis of Midsummer Night's Dream supported by a reference to Star Trek. Big fun!

I had a very sad moment last night during the Theseus/Hippolyta duet, remembering Stanko Milov as Theseus dancing with Arianna Lallone -- Karel Cruz did a great job, but I missed Milov's regal stature.

Thanks so much for the link -- I wasn't aware of this project. I have to say that the photo of Ms Lea, on the main page of the website, actually reminds me of Isadora Duncan with the scarf flying up next to her. From our perspective now, we tend to think of Duncan and St. Denis separately, but at the time there was a rivalry perceived between them, and they do represent very distinct philosophies about dance. Elizabeth Kendall's "Where She Danced" is a fabulous examination of them both, and Susan Shelton's "Divine Dancer" is the book on St Denis.

Excellent news -- I love this film, and am so glad to see it available again. I first saw it when I was beginning to teach dance history, and it was such a great help as I thought about how to present that ballet in its context.