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katharine kanter

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Everything posted by katharine kanter

  1. Jane Simpson wrote "it's the qualities that one almost blushes to mention today, like spirit or soul, and nobility. The great dancers were, or gave the impression on stage of being, somehow above the normal run of humanity. " Too true. But... I don't think anyone is TERRIBLY enthusiastic about what is on stage at the moment, amongst the ladies. Although there are still some MEN out there who can dance. Why no ladies ? Well, my thesis is that we are living through one of the most misogynist epochs ever. As the briefest glance at videogames, rock music lyrics, or films, will shew. In the Western world, the Charities, whether Catholic, Muslim or whatever, will all tell you that they are overwhelmed by an epidemic of women living in dire poverty and bringing up children alone. It is part and parcel of this brutality, that female ballet dancers today are subjected to demands so harsh, even sadistic, it is a wonder they manage to dance at all. The desolating thinness, the extremes pointe work has got to, the bone-crushing extensions. If one has a bosom, there will be people round about to tell you CUT IT OFF. And one has got to be beautiful, and of course, very young. Lynn Seymour would be laughed off the stage today. So would Lis Jeppesen. Why should not the movers and shapers in the private offices where all decisions are taken, shew a bit of "spirit or soul, and nobility" too ? Leave the ladies a little breathing room, gentlemen. Give'em something more than a snowball's hope in hell of developing "spirit, soul and nobility". We might have more to discuss on these pages then.
  2. In response to Alexandra's remark about Latin, which was thought-provoking: Are there not parallels between the present, apparent decay of classical dance, and ancient Greek, or rather the type of method of thinking, for which ancient Greek was, and is, the vehicle ? When the Roman Empire fell, ancient Greek was forgot (not that there was anything good about the Roman Empire, but that's another story). Only the Arabs kept it up, and they launched the Renascence. Then the Italians cottoned on to it, with not-unknown results. And then the Germans cottoned onto it, and the world got Leibniz, and so forth. So, do not despair. He laughs best, who laughs last, n'est-ce- pas ? Post Scriptum: As our American friends will recall, your Edgar Allan Poe, not exactly a fool he, was quite a Greek scholar...
  3. Don't think we've run out of ideas yet, gang. Have often looked at those 1967 films of Bournonville classes, with dancers who say that "don't recognise" many of the steps. Or that they couldn't do them. I remember talking to Michel de Lutry in 1986 - he was then teaching at the Heinz Bosl Institute in Munich - who said that it had become horribly difficult to teach, because as soon as he gave a complicated "Bournonville- style" combination with a lot of jumps and beats, people would, so to speak, "sit down and wait for the problem to to go away". He said we've got out of the habit of "usin' our little noggin" (as he put it) to dance. Might that have something to do with it ?
  4. In an attempt to better understand things like Spleena Croutch and Crans van Bananen, I have been casting around for something to read on the subject. There is not much. However, I did turn up the following. In the year 2000, a French publisher, "Editions Complexe", in its Cultural History collection, published a piece of research entitled: DANSER AVEC LE III Reich, Les Danseurs Modernes sous le Nazisme (Dancing with the Third Reich, Modern Dancers under Nazism). The author, Mlle. Laure Guilbert, teaches at the University of Metz, and carries out missions for the Centre national de la Danse and the Cité de la Musique. Her research was carried out under the aegis of the European University Institute at Florence, the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, and the Paris Institut d'Etudes Politiques. I mention her credentials, simply to indicate that she does not quite appear to have crawled out from under a rock. I have begun reading her book. Others might wish to do so as well. It is most instructive. There will be more forthcoming, once I've grasped her argument, and her facts, which are, incidentally, legion.
  5. "High art requires specialized knowledge not only to do it, but even to appreciate it" Leigh Witchel "Classical ballet is, at the end of the day, something for the connoisseur, for people who know something about the form. Some would have it be a popular art form. Well, it IS a universal language, but IT IS NOT A POPULAR ART FORM. The public, I think, has got to be educated." Elisabeth Maurin, POB Are they perhaps related ? We should be told. (Private Eye).
  6. Thank you Marc ! That's one piece high on me list of Not to Sees. In these troubled times of the TEURO as our German friends would say, one is always grateful for the opportunity to save the price of a theatre ticket, right ?
  7. I'm all for having an Amoklauf from time to time...however: Though people will freely own that it might be a wee bit - well, whatever - to amble into a restaurant famed for its cooking, pull out one's own bottle of Ketchup, and plop it all over, it has become socially acceptable to plop Ketchup all over classical dancing. There's a close link between the turn-out in the ballet, and the shapes that generates in the mind's eye, and the way classical music has developed, out of the ancient Greek modes, over the last couple of millennia. But, some prefer it with Ketchup.
  8. Sylvie Guillem’s reply to questions put to her by D. Frétard in Le Monde dated January 21st 2003, poses – am I alone in thinking this ? - further questions, which I beg allowance may be raised here. We read : « J'ai débuté dans la gymnastique, où il y a beaucoup plus de casse que dans la danse. Les entraîneurs prennent les gamins comme des Kleenex, c'est la loi du rendement, du chronomètre. » « I started out as a gymnast, where there’s far more broken crockery than in the ballet. Trainers use kids like Kleenex tissue, it’s the law of productivity, and the stopwatch.” Does Mlle. Guillem mean to imply that dancers should count their lucky stars, that the methods of Olympic gymnastics have not YET entirely prevailed in ballet training ? We read : « Bien sûr, il y a une sélection très sévère pour entrer à l'Ecole de l'Opéra, puis dans le corps de ballet. Il faut répondre à des critères très durs de poids, de mesure. » « Of course the selection process to get into the POB school is rough. One has got to comply with very strict criteria in respect of weight, and measurements.” Leaving aside for a moment, candidates resembling Tubby the Tuba, WHO pray, has laid down those “very strict criteria” ? By what method are those “criteria” arrived at ? Perusal of Vogue Magazine ? The cinema ? And who, pray, is our ideal ? Kate Moss ? Claude Bessy, never precisely Sylph-like, would, no doubt, have been turned down by her own School. Not to speak of Violette Verdy. We read: « Si l'on trie au départ, c'est dans l'espoir d'avoir l'excellence à l'arrivée. Les gens qui se déplacent pour nous voir ont envie d'applaudir les meilleurs danseurs, les meilleurs spectacles. » « The reason for sorting people out from the start, is because we’re aiming for excellence at the other end. People who make the effort of going to the theatre to see us, want to applaud the best dancers, the best shows”. Come again ? What is “excellence” ? People want to applaud WHAT ? Dancing is NOT just something for the eye. Is it not our duty to make people think, to bring them poetry, music, joy ? Fine, there are indeed basic physical and technical requirements, who would dispute it ? But do we NEED a constant physical buzz, ladies spinning off five pirouettes ? Or men who do jeté à la Tsiskaridze, splitting themselves in two ? What does it bring ? And for how long can they dance like that ? Five to eight years, at most. We read: « Dire à quelqu'un qu'il est trop gros, ou qu'il ne travaille pas assez, c'est lui rendre service. » « Telling someone he’s too stout, or that he doesn’t work enough, is doing him a favour” Well, it might not be arrant cruelty, were he indeed too stout, or lazy. The number of stout, or lazy men and women in the professional ballet world today, would not, I suspect, people a telephone booth. We read: « C'est un problème général de notre société dans laquelle on fait croire à chacun qu'il peut tout obtenir sans travailler, ou sans avoir les qualités requises. » « It’s a more general problem in today’s society, where we let on that one can get what one wants, without working at it, or without being possessed of the necessary qualities”. I would have thought that in the ballet, the more widespread problem is that people have been humiliated to a degree, that they tend rather towards self-loathing. What is more, on a continent, East and West, where we likely have something like eighty or more million unemployed - not to speak of the army of unemployed dancers – a lack of optimism and hope amongst our youth, strikes me as a far more serious problem. We read, « Il s'agit de passion, de dépassement de soi. L’essence de notre métier, c'est : "Coûte que coûte je le ferai !" ». “It’s a question of passion, of striving to go beyond one’s self. The essence of our trade, is « I’ll do it, no matter the cost ». Madam, WHO is telling dancers to do WHAT ? If someone asks you to throw yourself from the 27th Floor of a skyscraper, do you do it, just to shew how passionate you are about serving the choreographer’s intentions ? I’m all for “striving to go beyond one’s self”, but to WHAT END ? To crack and crush one’s limbs, in the service of some irresponsible buffoon ? To end up a wreck at the age of thirty-five, but trumpet “I DID IT” ? Might one not rather call that the Triumph of the Will ? It’s something sad, something Nietzschean, it has nothing to do with the concept of beauty and love, for which, on occasion, people ARE willing to die. ***
  9. Without wishing to be coarse, might that have something to do with dogs, and pavements, or perhaps, still worse DOGS AND FITTED CARPET ?
  10. There are pro footballers, pro dancers, and also, pro writers. Fergusson writes for his living. As one who writes for a livin' meself, I think the fellow had a paper to write, and space to fill. Which he did, very amusingly. But he was also taken with what he saw, and he's put that across better than most. Better than many dance writers, actually. And more power to him.
  11. And when you "grow up", so to speak, and become a professional, it gets worse dear. On stage, and in class. I have heard honkey-tonk piano, night-club piano, hotel-bar piano, and break-dance piano, in classes in companies that Shall Remain Anonymous, but we are not talking Little-Fothingham-on-Plop in X-shire. Some teachers (Hans Brenaa, are you listening, up there in the sky) would blow up. Others....
  12. I saw Erik Bruhn on stage several times, long ago, and I must say, that as an interpreter, he did not "speak" to the audience. He lacked warmth. But that's purely subjective. At Paris last year, at the Cinemathèque, the author of a film on Erik Bruhn entitled "I'm myself, only more so" presented it to a large audience including many in the trade. I remember pinching myself, thinking I had imagined some of the feats of derring-do I had, in point of fact, actually just seen. Bruhn had a truly scientific approach to classical dancing, and he could do fiendlishly difficult things, with style, that no-one has done since. This scientific approach can be seen in his analysis of Bournonville's Etudes Chorégraphiques, that he wrote with L. Moore. The most remarkable section of the film is that shewing him in the studio with R. Nureyev. Leaving aside all issues of personal preference, theatricality, etc. etc. , the contrast between the elegant, apparently effortless, "least-action" principle in Bruhn, and the straining, forced, over-turned-out Nureyev, is quite a shocker.
  13. on how much the taxpayer lost on every empty seat at "Sylvia" ?
  14. Perhaps what the world is waiting for, is a storm of revivals. It is such a bore hearing managerial types say there is nothing left to dance - except of course Spleena Crouch, Splatts Egg and Crans van Bananen - when there are dozens of un-danced pieces lying about gathering dust somewhere. They must be put up before the people who know the parts, die off ! And, frankly, does not a little "Paquita" go a long, long way ? Revive everything, except what is manifestly rubbish, give it half a dozen performances to see whether it can stand on its tiny twinkletoes, and if it can, let it fly. Rotate it in repertoire every three or four years. Contrary to what Official Opinion would have us believe, surely not EVERYTHING choreographed by the POB's eminent ballet masters of the last century has been unredeemable dross ? I'm not sure whether the financial aspect is as serious as we are led to believe. I mean, do Spleena Crouch and her lot for example, work for free ? What matters is the dancing, the steps, and how they are executed, not scenery and costumes, and anyway, the POB has a vast store of whatnots that could be recycled into new productions. Who gives a fig, if the dancing is good ? Nor does it matter that most of these things may not be full-evening pieces. If it's well danced, the public will flock in.
  15. Being half Russian, I am wont, in an idle moment, to sit and worry about what happens to a visitor from them thar' parts - Ulan Bator, perhaps, Minsk, or Tiflis - who flies in to Paris for a fortnight, hoping to survey the POB in all its fabled glory. And what does he get in that fortnight ? Seventeen performances of "Paquita", including matinées. And on it goes, for two full months. "Paquita". Good Grief. And for all concerned: the dancers must be bored out of their skulls. Whatever happened to the policy of rotating repertoire ?
  16. In part, I have been prompted to put up this thread, after watching yet another POB Concours where, in the bit where one gets to choose one's own variation, people who came out and writhed on the ground in Splatts Egg or something despairing of that ilk (ilgg?), were "compared" by the Jury to people who chose to present a fiendishly difficult piece of classical dancing. At the Concours, I saw a "variation" if that is the word, from the Rite of Spring of Béjart, "danced" by the otherwise delightful Fanny Fiat. That is not choreography, it is just infantile babbling about sex. And not sex of any normal variety, might I add. First, I question the sanity of the person who first thought to allow any such comparisons to be made at the Concours. Second, I fail to see why any classical dancer should be asked to turn him or herself into a dusty clot of rags, when all I've got to do is go down to the Gare de l'Est, and face down our unfortunate hordes of dossers - clochards to you Frenchmen. People say one must be modern. Well, I've got a computer, a dish-washing machine, a clothes washing machine, I fly in aeroplanes, admire the astronauts, and generally become very excitable in a positive sense, when faced with some technological breakthrough. Modern to me does not mean slithering, writhing, turning in when one is naturally turned out, tearing off one's clothes in public or worse (and I have seen MUCH worse on our own little Garnier stage here). Why should classical dancers be asked to do "modern" if what is meant by that is NO STEPS, just act like a deranged psychotic ? What is the point of doing ten years' training, to "dance" Splatts Egg et al. ? Why can't we have STEPS for a change ? And who ARE these people who have such incredible influence over the theatres, that one is expected to put up, and shut up, when faced with a nihilistic eructation ?
  17. At the present time, neither Denmark, nor Russia, nor even the USA, those heavy-weights in the dancing world, are turning out, consistently, people on the level that one finds rather "commonly", if that is the word, in France. And hats off to our professors here ! Therefore, for the time being - that may of course change - France is "tuning fork" to the world's orchestra of dancers. The question of who is premier danseur is thus one of some little importance. Dispute over this or that individual is highly counter-productive. Everyone and his kid brother reads these Websites. Even ADs read these Websites. One does not wish to stir the waters. But, certain dancers represent a principle. Erik Bruhn, though I was never partial to his acting or mime, most certainly does represent a principle. His dancing was always to the highest standards. His work on technique, for himself and others, was incessant, throughout his life. He wrote books on technique, and here is one person who knew what he was talking about. No-one could see dancing to that standard, and then utter some triviality like "don't like it when men dance". Galina Ulanova represents a principle, the principle of beauty and love. Her actual dancing may have had flaws, but who would ever have seen it ? Things becomes rather tetchier when one talks about people on active duty in the armed services, so to speak. And speaking of armed services, there IS a sort of war on at the moment, between those who think that ballet is some sort of IN YOUR FACE thing, where you LET IT ALL HANG OUT, spray them with bullets, or ballets, or whatever, stick that LEG RIGHT IN THEIR FACE, and people who quietly go out there, and dance to the music, with taste, elegance, and inspiration. The Thibault case has been debated in the daily newspapers, in the trade press, on the Web, and every evening in the theatre. Were the fellow a buffoon, playing for effect to the gallery, fine. Hats off to Management. But, despite an occasional bezerker episode as the Bronze Idol (man, was that bad !) he is NOT a buffoon. In recent years, as dancing has become a branch of Olympic Gymnastics, the joy has been knocked out of it. Some resist. There are a few, very few dancers, who, when they go down on stage, the public has to be restrained from bounding up on stage to dance alongside. There is joy in their steps. Thomas Lund is that sort of dancer, Lis Jeppesen was that sort of dancer, the Oaks/Edur lot are that sort of dancer, and perhaps there be some today in Russia or the USA, who dance like that. And M. Thibault is that sort of dancer. Inspirational. I don't think the classical ballet can survive without it, and it's hard to fathom why that particular quality unleashes such frenetic hostility amongst others in the trade, whom one might refer to as "sad sacks". The photos Alexandra put up recently of the Royal album from 1946 shew us a time when being a ballet dancer did not mean being a sad sack.
  18. and without wishing to be in any way rude - "antic" in English - it's a very old word, now rather out of usage - means "frolicking" or "capering about" - related to our current expression "getting up to wild antics". Shakespeare was very fond of it, being of an antic disposition himself ! As it so happens, though I s'pose you meant antique, or ancient, antic is HIGHLY suited to the subject of "Sylvia" ! Comme quoi !
  19. Never seen anything like it. Haven't ever seen them separately, but together, they are THE TEXTBOOK. Saw them only once - when shall I have another opportunity ???? - in Derek Deane's brief pas de deux to a Schubert impromptu. Normally, I'd be against any choreography to "good" music. And normally, I hate "lifted" - hate any choreography with lifts. Women do have feet, you know. Anyway, in this unusual instance, not only was this choreography to good music that one can look at without cringing, but the way those two dance ! Borne on the crest of the wave ! How anything as slight and insubstantial as seafoam, could be that moving ... Here are two people who know what it's about.
  20. Le Figaro's January 15th pull-out on the Arts, has a double-page spread on the Concours, the editorial being signed by Ariane Bavelier, one of their two dance writers. Below, how she concludes, under the sub-head "Favouritism": "The Concours does have meaning (joue son plein effet) for the hierarchy's lower ranks...Things become less effective, however, when one moves up to compete for the rank of premier danseur. Here, well before the run-off at the Concours itself takes place, Management sorts out those dancers it wishes to allow to rise, from those who, for reasons of concern to Management alone - reasons quite outwith the public's grasp - are of no interest to Management. "Last year, Celine Talon, an outstanding artist, pulled off a stunning Concours. Not promoted. The same sanction was meted out to Emmanuel Thibault, dismissed yet again after an astonishing Concours, the more so, as he has done that every time (this must be the third, or the fourth Concours), and just as he has been doing these past evenings in the Theatre, in the "Paquita" pas de trois, where he has unleashed quite an uproar. "If this sort of behaviour goes on, one is entitled to wonder whether the annual Concours, instituted in 1860 on the advice of Marie Taglioni, still enjoys any credibility whatsoever ?" Ariane Bavelier "
  21. "In this series of three film screenings, you can experience ballets that were popular once upon a time, but then disappeared from the world’s stages. Recently, rediscovered, these ballets appeal again as works of art in their own right—and can now be seen as influencing the choreography that came in their wake. A question and answer session follows each film with dance scholar and project curator, George Jackson. Film 1: Sylvia, France. 1876/1919 at the Paris Opera. Choreography by Louis Merante Leo Staats. Music by Leo Delibes. " Found on the Kennedy Centre site for June screening of rare ballet film. WHAT o WHAT is this ? Has someone found the original Sylvia ?????????????
  22. [Comments on the French legal system drew complaints and have been deleted. A.T.] Colleagues rang me and said that French national television last night (on TF1, in the programme known as 7 à 8) interviewed a lady whose stage name was Marie-Elise Chalumeau, her real name being Marie-Elise Roper. I do not have televison, so this is hearsay. The subject: the on-going dispute over the Opera School. Mlle. Roper has just resigned from the corps de ballet, after twenty years, and she attended the School from the age of nine. According to colleagues, the allegations she made were, shall we say, serious. I shall refrain from repeating them here, as I did not see the programme myself, but would be grateful for a report from those who did.
  23. As a person who has not only jumped countries to see that little angel, but roped in others up from Italy and other points as well, allow me to say that it is worth travelling just about any distance to see Alina Cojocaru.
  24. As I understand it, technique is the means, the instrument, on which the rest (style, interpretation etc.) rests. It is the mechanics of motion, the underlying principle of motion. Seen from that standpoint, Balanchine - if we are to go by people like Miss Schorer - IS a technique. And Bournonville is, or was, a technique. Why ? Well, if we are to take Suki Schorer at her word, and if that really is what is being taught at the SAB, we have people without any épaulement (waving one's arms about is not épaulement, not in my book anyway). People picking up the heel. People picking up the leg and pressing it against the ear. People releasing the hip to do that. People in a strait-jacket-like fifth position. Girls who do not have the feet to dance in soft shoes. And people, as Victoria Leigh has written, "standing on a third leg". Releasing the hip, and picking up the leg, alters every muscle chain in the entire body. It alters the full edifice, nerve-endings, spinal column, balance (the hip-joint is the heaviest in the body) etc. And it stretches out ligaments to where they do not want to go. Pick up the leg, and you eliminate épaulement. You have thus changed the principle of motion. That is, as a I see it, a TECHNICAL question. When one sees SAB-trained people attempting to dance something else - with a few notable exceptions of course - they are QUITE recognisable. Because they have acquired a TECHNIQUE that cannot be glossed or covered over by acquiring some stylistic features. Bournonville is also a technique, or it used to be. He has épaulement - not just an arm-wave - in every step. That changes all the orientations, the oppositions, the feeling in the body of what is effacé and croisé, one's sense of balance, distribution of weight in poses and on landing from jumps, curvature in the spine... And, of course, if one REALLY does the épaulement, one cannot, physically cannot, pick up the leg. Now, the girls in Denmark do not really do the épaulement any more, because it would prevent them from picking up that goddam leg. They just pretend. That is also why the men dance much better (and why the men here in Paris dance better too, incidentally). So the girls are not masters of the Bournonville technique. They play-act. That is why it looks sentimental, soft and mushy. Technique is the principle of motion that is ground into your body from early youth. Therefore, Vaganova School is also a technique. Look at Alina Cojocaru. As an interpreter, as a musician, out of this world ! But her technique is 1000% Vaganova as it is now taught at Kiev (probably our Agrippina would have cunniptions if she saw what is now called Vaganova School), and that cannot be disguised, no matter which choreography she is dancing, as it has become part and parcel of the body.
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