katharine kanter

Susie Crow is a dancer, choreographer and writer living in London. A few months ago, I found this passage by Miss Crow, on a thread on another Website: beginning of quote "I would like to pick up on the point about the development of technique, dancers today commonly being able to do things that were rare feats of exceptional virtuosity years ago. I think this cuts both ways. "Technique moves on and changes, but just as some things get better other things get lost. I am sure we have all seen performances by dancers which do not reach the technical as well as interpretative standards set by the originators of a particular role. As an example, I had to look at video of the same ballet in performances from the 60s, 70s and 90s. Technically the earliest performance was the finest in terms of precision, speed, ballon, agility and use of the torso. "Ballet technique seems currently to be pursuing a particular line of athletic development which has a lot to do with certain types of body shape and line and extreme flexibility. This may be progress in one way but perhaps is retrograde in others. There are other types of dancer attribute arguably more important to the survival of the art form which are in danger of being overlooked if selection procedures continue to head down this narrow route." end of quote Miss Crow, whom I for one, have neither met, nor ever spoken with, has chosen to refer to the matter as one of "survival of the art form". Could it not be useful for us to confront, head-on, the fact that these are not "business as usual" times for art ? Allow me to give one example from another field. It so happens that Mark Rylance, the director of the newly-rebuilt "Shakespeare's Globe" Theatre, a man who certainly is not short of a penny, has only very recently "starred", if that is the word, in a film the contents of which cannot be described on a family Website. The opuscule is entitled "Intimacy", by one Patrice Chéreau, a French film-maker who has what I shall delicately call here, a "reputation". It was all over the Times and Telegraph. And, at a recent performance of As You Like at Rylance's Globe, the Rosalind had been directed to drop her trousers and display her ZZZZ in full view of the public. If that goes on in "high art" spheres - and we might perhaps agree that our Will Sh. qualifies as "high art" - well, enough said. [ February 08, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

For an Internet novice like myself, it is astonishing how many ideas crowd in upon one, through debating with dozens of heretofore unknown people on the Net. And hello to Paul Parish, to whom we owe this thread ! Classical dance, we would all agree I think, arises out of a scheme of proportions and relations, dictated by the structure of a NORMALLY-constituted human being. To get the exact feeling in the body, I would ask you, for the moment, to think about the argument below on the flat-foot, rather than on the pointe or demi-pointe. And also, because it applies both to the man, and to the woman. Now, the concept of a developpé, means "to develop out of something, into something". A développé develops out of a retiré. That is the concept. Otherwise, it is developing out of nowhere. Are we this far agreed ? Good. Now, one can retiré to ankle height, to mid-calf-height, to knee height. Most dancers today - this was NOT the case fifty years ago - have ideal harmonic proportions (an exact 5/8 relation between the torso and legs), which means that from retiré at knee-height, their developpé will rise elegantly to 120-130 degrees, give or take ten degrees. Think calm, think strong, think stable. Whereas, to haul that developpé up to Guillemitis, one is talking about a developpé virtually out from crotch level - the foot pawing the crotch and scraping out along the thigh ! How chic ! And one is talking about a developpé where the hips are no longer even remotely level, ergo, instability at the very core. The entire magnificent, stable classical edifice, is utterly skewed. Anyone who doubts that, should briefly put aside their personal aesthetic choices, and take a hard look at still photography of someone suffering from acute Guillemitis - perhaps even the lady herself. Start drawing plumb lines through the centre of gravity, balancing out the hips, assessing the hyper-extension of the "supporting" (if that is the word) knee, and foot, and so forth. This bizarre movement, alone and of itself, suffices to destabilise the entire scheme. It is thus irrational, and has no place in a classical art form. It's as though a theatre actor would shriek himself hoarse to convey strong emotion, rather than properly placing the voice, and only then, projecting it as loudly as he CARES to. Were theatre actors to shriek, their careers would end somewhere about the age of 25. Does that remind us of anything ?

An aged genie, an aged bottle ! Carlo Blassis, founder of the school at La Scala, and writing in 1820, has a few choice paragraphs in which he finds an outlet for his views on hyper-extensions and multiple pirouettes, compared to which, my own aversion is but MILD. Any theatrical art is open to the danger of becoming a circus. Not that there is anything wrong with the circus ! But, I say, let the circus be a circus, and let the theatre, be theatre ! Why has Guillemitis become a planetary plague, rather than a sordid little number being danced at a trading-post saloon up there in the Great Canadian North ? Because, owing to potentials of the electronic age, and the huge revenues generated by the media circus (now there's one circus for you), clever businessmen have decided to pass themselves off as artists of the ballet. Mlle. Guillem, to name but one name, is a clever businessman. Someone, somewhere, has got to call a halt to this. Let these people make their fortune, and why not ? but not on the ballet stage, thank you. Just because a trend has become Big, and Powerful, in no way means that it is Right. And this sort of aberration is not restricted to the ballet. If only it were ! A fortnight ago, with several friends, we saw an RSC production of "Hamlet" at the Barbican which was an insult to the intelligence of the audience, as gross as anything I have seen in the ballet. The audience filed out, not moved, not shaken, but profoundly depressed. And that is how many thinking people leave the theatre, after watching most of what passes for "classical dance" today. It's just entertainment, of a lower sort. Is that good enough ?

There are a number of university-based groups doing serious research on this, amongst them, I'm told, one in New York (Harkness I believe), and Tony Geeves at Queensland University, Australia. If the ballet world is now persuaded that dancers are athletes, by another name, and that like athletes, they are past their prime, indeed physically worn out, at 25 or 26, fine. Let them leave the stage at 25, when they start to "lose their looks". If, on the other hand, we believe that these people are dedicated artists, in the same category as musicians, then we've got to try to keep them on stage as long as possible. Because their minds are going to go on improving, for much longer than they are going to look like Robert Redford, or C. Zeta-Jones, or whoever. This has become a grave problem. "Early" retirement today, means barely out of the artistic cradle. That is the sole reason why I am opposed to Guillemitis, of which Lacarritis is a twiglet. It is not personal, ladies and gentlemen ! This uproar over hyper-extensions and the rest of the gimmicks, is not just a silly fad, like bright-purple bubble gum to stain kiddies' tongues, or something. It is grinding up people's bodies, and therefore, a stop has got to be put to it, before it puts a stop to our art form.

A gentleman familiar with the ins and outs of a certain major troupe (no, neither NYCB, nor SFB, nor POB)recently raised in my earshot, the case of a certain lovely young woman, endowed with a rigorous classical technique, who apparently got a little tired of playing second fiddle to a row of media-friendly elastic-bands...So she too, decided to squiggle, and wriggle, and over-balance, and stretch and bing and bang, and over-extend, and lo and behold, she has never become a principal, and, more especially, she is longer the dancer she once was. In response to BW, allow me to "re-post" snippets from the Daily Telgraph of a couple of years back, quoting Amanda McKerrow: "Over at City Ballet they are doing the same style all the time, trained for what they are doing. Their heels are off the ground so much that their calves suffer. And there have been a lot of hip replacements over there in the past - Suzanne Farrell, Merrill Ashley, Patricia Neary, Edward Vilella . . ." And Ismene Brown continues: These are the biggest names in American ballet, and it's daunting evidence of the suffering imposed by the Balanchine style. I asked Wendy Whelan about the reputation Balanchine gained as a fairly brutal taskmaster ...."Mr Balanchine loved women, he loved them to look like models," replied Whelan. "That was part of his presentation and it had a fabulous effect. It was a very feminine thing, and it was very powerful, with those tall Amazon women." Back to Mr. Parish's apt remark about "imagery", rather than movement. Classical dancing today has become a "look", a branch of still photography. In other words, for much of the public, many artistic directors, and, unfortunately, so many of the dancers themselves, it is no longer about DANCING TO MUSIC, it is about HOW YOU LOOK. Weaning people off this is going to be no easy thing.

Dr. Carlo Bugatti, medical officer of the Lausanne Competition, is up on their site with the following: "Reaching peak quality performance in the field of classical dance calls for extremely high physical, technical and artistic attributes. The risk of injury within this quest is relatively low. However, certain dancers might seek to emulate – or be encouraged to emulate – the achievements of dancers with extreme physical capabilities such as exceptional flexibility or flat turn out. Through forcing their bodies to mimic another dancer’s skills, rather than gradually enhancing their own, these dancers run the risk of serious ‘overload’ injuries, with long term consequences to their dancing careers." I've quoted this, in relation to Mr. Parish's remark about what the rest of SFB might think about having gymnasts in their midst. Anyway, as for Mlle. Maurin, I have, on several occasions when queuing to buy tickets at the Opera, heard people ahead of me saying: "don't care what day. Just give me every performance in the run when Maurin is on". The woman has something. It can't be her pale little figure, nor can it be the frizzy red hair. Might she perhaps have a certain quality, that we may have forgotten in the rush for TITILLATION ? Might classical ballet perhaps be something less for the eye, and more for the mind ? Only her hairdresser knows for sure... Let me be serious, to the extent I can - for decades, we have been wading through an avalanche of choreographic rubbish. Only the exceptionally physically-endowed and spectacularly handsome, whether man or woman, LOOK GOOD wading through rubbish. That should give us pause for thought, as to our priorities I mean.

I think one way to understand the point Mr. Parish is trying to make is to pull out some reproductions of drawings by Leonardo, or Raphael. Those men, who are not precisely considered to be slaggards in their field, had made an exact study of anatomy. Based on that scientific study, the study of what is possible, they then drew. Their criteria for beauty were based on what is possible, to a normally-constituted human being. (For the purposes of this discussion, I am disregarding other aspects of their work). Classical ballet is a branch of that study. It rejects the extreme, because the extreme is a negation of beauty: manierism, preciosity, the grotesque. The extreme also happens to be EXTREMELY harmful to the body, as any orthopaedist who has studied the impact on dancers of what currently passes for "technique", will tell you. One can alway toss that off, and simply say "who cares what harm it does ? Dancers are adults ! No-one's forcing them ! And anyway, I like it ! " But is that sort of reply to a serious problem adequate ? A problem that all "normally-constituted", viz., "not extreme" dancers, have to face at the present time ?

The issue raised by Paul Parish ("Lacarra is not interested in movement, but in imagery") is of course a more general one. It may be useful to consider what Josephine Jewkes, a former principal of the English National Ballet had to say a couple of years back on this precise topic: "More generally, we dancers believe that the trend nowadays is for a more aggressive style of movement (taken to the limits by Forsythe in ballet and DV8, Jeremy James and Per Jonsson to name but three in the contemporary world), but the human body meanwhile has not greatly changed; simply that those with less extreme facility are being challenged further by the examples of a few with acrobatic flexibility which was previously labelled 'unclassical'. This is now becoming the norm. (This is known as 'progress'.)" The same public that goes to ballet, may well have spent hundreds of hours in their life, looking into films of the ilk of "Crash", or "Silence of the Lambs". The public has been conditioned, over the last three or so decades, to crave titillation. And, in the ballet, there is an extreme type, well described by Miss Jewkes, that will produce virtually the effect of a heroin rush, an orgiastic experience, on the spectator. I say this for all of us: if we are to appreciate with true sensitivity and awareness, the efforts of those artists who CANNOT and WILL NOT produce the RUSH, we have got to go cold turkey on sensationalism in all its forms. [ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ] [ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

Two or three years ago, Miss Lacarra was at Paris, in Roland Petit's grim "Coppélia". I sat through it. The sole event of that evening that has remained in memory, was meeting a charming vaudeville actress sitting in the box next to me, dressed in a mock tiger-skin. Each and every time that ubiquitous leg went up and clove to Miss Lacarra's ear, a roar of approval from the audience made it quite possible for us to hold a discreet conversation without disturbing anyone. I did - to reassure you - keep an eye on the stage throughout. Had anything of interest occurred there, trust me, both eyes would promptly have turned their gaze ! Miss Lacarra has a very extreme physique, that distorts the classical line, whether in attitude, in arabesque, in developpé, and so forth. It is of course not her fault that she was born with that physique. Had I been her teacher, I do believe I would have discouraged her from entering the profession. It is most certainly a lack of taste in her professors, and in the public, to push her in a direction from which I fear that she is now too old to extricate herself. [ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

The real issue, it seems to me, is not the formal rank a person may, or may not, enjoy, but whether each dancer in the corps be given a chance to develop himself, and be given a crack at challenging roles sufficiently often, for eveyone to know "what stuff he's made of". It also makes it so much more interesting for the audience, to discover new people in quite unexpected places ! The director of a company is not God. A director keenly aware of that Fact of Life, is likely to give everyone a chance. It also means doing away with the notion of the Jack-of-all-Trades dancer, because no-one is ever really a star, really first-class, in every single role and style. Jean Babilée said in a recent interview - and he was the star-to-end-all-stars at the Paris Opera after the War - that he had quit the Opera in his prime because "they kept on trying to make me dance stuff that I knew I was going to be hopeless at", or something to that effect. What can be stifling about formal hierarchies, is that the Director inherits the whole teetering edifice, and feels duty-bound to cast people by rank. To give one example: Miteki Kudo, the exquisite daughter of Noëlla Pontois, has stagnated at the rank just under premier danseur for several years. As a "mere" sujet, we are never going to see her Sylphide, her Aurora, her Giselle, although she could probably out-sylph them all. It is a terrible pity, and a terrible waste ! At Paris, until a slew of étoiles began to retire recently, one never got a chance to see "the underlings" do anything much but lift a bit of scenery on stage. The present Vacant Room at the Top has certainly improved things from that standpoint ! When people in the corps realise that they may well find themselves doing something sparky the next week, it changes the moral "tone" throughout the troupe. Were I a Person of Power, I would, at least so far as Paris is concerned, abolish all those ranks. I'd also abolish the notorious Concours. It's no more fair, really, than the "old" system of favouritism: first, it amounts to Trial by Nervous Breakdown and second, it fosters extreme conformism. People are so focused on the Concours year-round, because their roles and salaries depend on it, that they avoid doing ANYTHING that might rock the boat. Two ranks are enough: soloist, and corps. "Etoile" is a title that should not be bandied about. It is deserved only by people who have something unique to communicate, and who, ghastly as they may be in some roles, have a true, independent artistic personality. I'd doubt that more than two or three men and women per decade, have that quality in any theatre in Europe.

To harp - so to speak - on one of my favourite themes - one of the reasons we're getting such a lot of unmusical dancing, is because choreography has become too treacherous, the whole thing has got to be overly-demanding, in terms of technique, people are tired, and only the brilliant, the highly motivated, have time to study music at all, or even just go to recitals and concerts. Off the top of my head, and speaking only of the current generation, those that I have seen in person, and who most would consider to be exceptionally able, from a musical standpoint, I would think of: Stéphane Phavorin of the POB (started out in life as a concert pianist, switched at age 16 to the ballet) Emmanuel Thibault of the POB (a cellist, and, like Phavorin, reads scores like a book) Lloyd Riggins of the Hamburg Ballet (plays the piano) Johann Kobborg at Covent Garden (violin, piano, voice - nearly became a singer) Margaretha Trofil-Bittencourt, soloist at the Duesseldorfer Staats Theater (family of musicians) and of course Lis Jeppesen (the lady herself yet again !), who started out singing, and was I believe, married to an opera singer for some time. Of course there are so many other musically-gifted people, but I mention these here as "case studies", if I may. As for Nureyev, his dancing may not have been my cup of tea, as Estelle would say, but his attitude to music was, to put it mildly, serious ! Intense study of music (where did he find the time ?), taught himself to play the piano, harpsichord and clavichord, taught himself to read scores properly and then to conduct... [ January 25, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

The Greek word techne meant, I believe, "a means", an instrument through which one does something. First, as we all - unfortunately - have come up against, there is absolutely nothing one can do about certain types of physical shortcoming. One's Achilles tendon is not going to lengthen for example, one fine spring morning. Second, there IS a great deal one can do about other types of physical shortcoming. Refusal to do anything about them, is either lack of artistic ambition, indifference to beauty, or laziness. In every art form, the hard core is technique technique technique PLUS the elusive. In some cases, however, it may be that one has OTHER artistic priorities. For example, a girl may have but a feeble turn, for various causes, including poor eyesight (yes !). She can either devote 90% of her mental and physical energy to struggling with multiple turns, or she can throw in the towel there, at least for the time being, and concentrate on developing to a remarkable degree, the technical strengths that are more accessible. Third, I do think one would have to come to some sort of agreement on the contents of the notion "technique". Is having a marvellous legato technique ? I think it is. Many would disagree. To me - again, many would disagree - Lis Jeppesen of the RDB, was a stupendous technician. One never noticed what step she was doing, there was épaulement in every step, her enchaînements were a single long poem without a hitch or break, her arabesque was not painstakingly raised and placed, it floated imperceptibly up, and then, like a cloud, down... Her eyes, her face...never a sign of tension or strain. I could go on for lines and lines, but you are spared ! I won't ! Others more sharp-eyed, could not fail to see that her turnout was not pristine, her beats were accordingly not always fully crossed, her turns somewhat perfunctory, though fluent, and frankly, I don't think she ever produced a single academically pure figure as Vaganova describes them in her famous book. I also believe that technique is a process: one is working on it throughout one's career on stage, and thereafter one carries on perfecting it, with the students. It's the people who give up on their technique at some point, who are not technical. No-one is a master of every facet of the art. No one single person's body can master every difficulty. But struggling with technique is a major part of the struggle to express ideas through the dance, and therefore, one cannot allow oneself to be complacent about it. Also, I think it's in the nature of things, that if one is not attempting to advance, one slips backward. What is marvellous about having a first-class technique, is that you can let yourself go and have fun with the dancing. There is a young lady here at the POB, Mlle. Laetitia Pujol, a real hard worker, who is already making a quite a reputation for herself as a technician - fouettes followed by triples, that sort of thing, anything really hard - fork it over, and she'll have a go at it ! Many do not like the girl. Although one might agree that she has not yet developed into a consummate artist, she is one of the few who seems to be having one whale of a time on stage. Big smile on her face : "Rarin' to jump that big hurdle comin' up now" sort of thing. And whooshes over it. If people like that get top-flight coaching in the OTHER aspects, well I say, more power to them.

Did manage to get in last week, to see Act I, twice, and then both Acts straight through, on one occasion. As you've given the Link here, I'd rather not repeat the "plot" details, given in today's NY Times, and by Clement Crisp as well, in yesterday's Financial Times, for space reasons. The subject of the ballet - Progress, in a word, is truly delightful, and I say, We Need More of It. The choreography, save for two decent Mime scenes with Denis Papin (inventor of the concept of steam-power) and the inventor Volta, is, however, a nightmare from start to finish, devoid of a single redeeming feature. In Luigi Manzotti's defence, it should be said that not a step of his original choreography survives. What we are seeing is a 1967 mock-up, by Ugo dell'Ara - although I cannot but suspect that the original may not have been up to scratch either... The less said about the corps de ballet of La Scala, the better. They are pretty actors and mimes, they have a graceful ear for music, and somewhere in there, there do seem to be a handful of decent dancers, but given the thundering masses on stage in Excelsior, it's a bit of a case of seeking a needle in a haystack. Clearly, at La Scala, help is badly needed backstage and in the classroom. Were I competent to give it, I'd be on the train out there tomorrow ! The featured guest artists were Viviana Durante, and Massimiliano Guerra. Again, the less said, the better. One cannot but suspect that the REAL reason La Scala chose to present the thing at Paris in 2002, is that their ballet masters prudently decided that, on POB territory, flight into trivia was the better part of valour. On the other hand, the idea of putting up a ballet on PROGRESS, a thing I had never thought of, until Luigi Manzotti came, so to speak, into my life (!), IS a beautiful idea. I found myself wondering whether one might not do a piece on the Conquest of Space, which would include a Pas des Dieux et des Déesses, and a Pas des Héros, with the great space scientists and astronauts - in the form of ethereal artists of course: Gagarin et al. may have been a tad unwieldy on stage. Something like the international space station, where leading lights from our stages round the world, would interpret John Glenn, Claudie Haigneré...

In response to "Babou" - I've got nothing to add to what's been said above. Estelle and others have already done the rounds on the subject, and unless and until other dancers choose, as Aurélie Dupont has, to lift the veil, I think I would do better to apply to myself the maxim "fools rush in where angels fear to tread".

In reply to "Françoise" - if you spool back through the threads, including that on the POB, and that on Dance Injuries, you will find debate on the "multi-purpose" dancer, and whether that is really all that of a good thing. As said above, none of us out there in the public are, as I see it, competent to judge whether the case in point, M. Thibault, can act, and we are unlikely to be given any such opportunity. Be that as it may, musicians are not only allowed, they are indeed expected, to specialise in certain epochs and authors. Edwin Fischer, Wanda Landowska, or Dinu Lipatti, were certainly not "polyvalent". You have people who never touch Mozart, and people who never touch dodecaphony, and so forth. And yet, they are greatly respected, and they have their audience. Neither do orchestra musicians feel all that "polyvalent", although to earn a living, they must feign to be so. It is instructive to peer into the orchestra pit, when people have to play works they manifestly abhore. One finds people snacking on scraps of sandwich, people flicking through magazines, even - on one attested occasion - Playboy. I've even seen people openly ridiculing the conductor... Very strong language has been used in my earshot by some leading dancers, as to what they have been expected to do in recent years, but it would be untoward to repeat it here. Suffice it to say that they did not feel all that "polyvalent". More generally still, I think that one of Miss Tomalonis' ideals, is to ensure that postings not become a settling of accounts, in respect of this or that dancer, or choreographer, or Artistic Director. One must bear in mind that the postings are read by people from all over the world, including people in Russia and China, who may never get to see the dancers, or the Theatre that one has referred to. In-fighting readily becomes "What's He to Hekabe, or Hekabe to Him ?" In posting, one is expected, I believe, to bear that in mind, and to try to contribute to the debate in a way that may turn out, in the end, to be helpful or thought-provoking for someone far off, who may not see these threads until some days, or even weeks or months, have passed. What goes on at the POB is of general interest, only because the TECHNICAL standards are so high, that the company has become the "tuning fork" (diapason) for technique worldwide. Except perhaps for Russia, neither the daily newspapers, nor the quarterlies, debate, as they did in the 19th Century, technical, or aesthetic issues involving classical theatrical dance. That is why this Website has attracted many people concerned about the future of ballet. The more conceptual, the more thought-out, our respective postings be, the more likely that the Site have a positive impact internationally.

Alexander, there's seem to be a bit of a misunderstanding. I have put M. Thibault amongst the generation of people turned out in the last 20 years, in other words, AFTER M. Legris, and so forth, joined the troupe. I've just spoken of M. Legris on the POB thread. And I'm really not in a position to discuss the acting ability of M. Thibault, because few have ever had the opportunity of seeing the fellow act. We have, on the other hand, all seen M. Paquette act. That does tend to orientate one's prejudices ! Indeed, in Paris at the moment, there is one way to stop an argument, and get everyone in a room to agree: just mention the words "Karl Paquette" ! Harmony, sweet smiles, and the peace of concord follow ! Be that as it may, on the POB thread, there's been a discussion about "danseur polyvalent", the multi-purpose dancer. Does one really need to be terrific in everything, including things one violently disagrees with, internally, in order to qualify as a first-class artist ? Quite honestly, I cannot imagine Miss Jeppesen dancing, shall we say, Forsythe, and I seem to recall that Balanchine was never one of her strong points either. But I would put her right up there in a class with Ulanova, or Fonteyn. Her dancing was the essence of poetry. And I think our American and Russian friends could perhaps point to a number of roles in which Suzanne Farrell, or Atylnai Assylmuratova for example, might have proven atrocious. In the world of art, one would expect, or should I say, HOPE, to find people with powerful convictions. This may well lead these people, often the most strong-minded, to be just plain BAD in roles they despise. What's sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander. There seems to be a tendency, in the world of dance, to expect things from a dancer, that one would never dare to expect from, say, Beethoven, or, moving down the scale, even from a conductor or Shakespearean actor. To give one example: two years ago, a piece called "Casanova" by Anjelin Prejlocaj, was put up at the POB. The girls came out in some sort of semi-transparent bikini thingamiggie, with little pink plastic xxxxxxx ...... organs attached to that shred of a garment. I am told that the relevant feminine étoile, or étoiles, had then to read out "poetry", if that is the word, on venereal disease. This must have gone on for an hour or so. I'll spare you the report (second-hand) on the writhing and cavorting. It seems that some people simply felt that they were just not enough of a "danseur polyvalent" to take on those roles. Not up to the "challenge", perhaps ? Anyway, you take my point. Out there in the wide world, there will no doubt be found some, who would bitterly criticise those who did not go out, or those who staggered through the thing half-heartedly, hoping against hope no-one in the theatre would recognise them, for not being a "proper, versatile" artist, unable to "bend" to "unusual" styles. I say, where was the Animal Rights movement when we needed it ?

Having seen the ballet of La Scala at the Paris Opera last night (house was packed to the rafters), in "Excelsior", it is now clearer to me why people abroad simply collapse in relief when they get to see the POB. The Milan standard is notoriously feeble - although there are a number of good things to be said about the troupe, notably the way they use the music, and the fact that they keep the older dancers - including bald, paunchy men - to do character roles. Difficult to believe nonetheless, technically, that is the land of Salvatore Vigano, Blassis, or Cecchetti... Will write more on La Scala on another thread. However, some allowances probably have to be made for Garnier's raked stage, and for the Italians' terror at having to emerge, in their half-baked state, before the ballet world's equivalent of five-star generals. I think there is scarcely a dancer in the world who would not get the willies, looking out from the wings and seeing the likes of Manuel Legris, Isabelle Guérin, and Elisabeth Platel in the audience (yes, they were there ! ), not to speak of half the POB troupe. As an aside, with respect to the situation in the School, I would endorse Estelle's remarks here. A Opera School student aged about 14 was interviewed in the Figaro, two years ago: "here in this school", she said, "of course, we cannot have friends (amies), only school-chums (copines), because here we learn to compete." Is that not quite un-artistic, and indeed anti-human, as a way of dealing with little plantlets, and setting them up for life ? Is not a troupe supposed to live and breathe with the music like a single soul ? No matter how individual one may be ? Incidentally, the étoile Aurélie Dupont, a bold and daring sort of young woman, has, in the mass media, lambasted the School on that score. (May I be allowed here to refer to a short piece entitled the "Barre, and the Colour Bar", that I did for ballet.co's January issue, on the POB school ?) Again further to Estelle's latest posting, I think I should probably pour a great slosh of water into my wine, as the French say. With the world virtually shredding about us, it is no doubt somewhat petty on my part to criticise POB people who are, after all, out-and-out professionals giving their all, and who themselves, as individuals, are in no way responsible for the fact that musical and artistic standards have slipped badly worldwide. On the contrary, they have tried to keep standards up ! And it is certainly not they who launched television, the "entertainment industry", video games, snuff films, Techno-Raves and the rest of the rot that has destroyed the public's ability to concentrate. The étoile Manuel Legris for example, is a true artist, and, carp as I may at the lack of musicality in France, that is one criticism that certainly cannot be levelled at M. Legris. Reserved, distant, and his acting is always a little under the weather, but does that make his work any less committed, any less central to the troupe's high standards ? Although Bournonville says that "dancing must be an expression of joy", joy simply does not seem to be in the national character at this particular point in history. Too many wars in a few short decades, have got into our pores I think. [ January 10, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

Estelle, what I meant about Mlle. Pontois, is that her delicate, unathletic style - like that of her exquisite daughter - is OUT. She definitely would not have been a "danseur polyvalent". I cannot imagine how she would have got through the POB's current repertory, which under Brigitte Lefevre, is now roughly 65 to 70% "modern". Mlle. Pontois' dancing was something to think about, just as one can remember how thoughtfully her daughter has danced, in the wee little roles assigned to her. But neither of those ladies have ever produced the MASSIVE EFFECT of what Clement Crisp calls "extreme physicality". There is a link between what is aesthetically shocking, the "frisson", and what is physically harmful. Classical ballet has, until recently, been based upon the idea that one hides all effort. Effort does not exclude joy of the highest order, in fact, there is no joy of the highest order without effort. Effort does not mean mindless, useless, suffering, however. Joan of Arc did not launch the campaign against the English, IN ORDER to end up burnt at the stake ! It has, until recently, been possible to hide the effort in ballet, because, hard as it is, it is NOT supposed to entail intense, shooting pain, dislocated shoulder joints, etc, nor should one habitually need anti-inflammatories and/or maximum strength pain-killers before going out on stage. There is now so much effort, so much strain, so much forcing to the outer limit of Territorial Army Special Unit or SAS Commando capacity, that the application of energy and force can no longer be hidden. People are suffering, and it shows. The spectator's conscience tells him, though secretly, that he SHOULD NOT BE WATCHING this stuff. He knows that he may find it "aesthetically" thrilling, but he also knows that he is, in a way, getting pleasure from others' suffering, perhaps even their permanent harm. I can recall one performance, where I later learnt that the famous young star involved, had to have a massive anti-inflammatory injected, under anaesthetic, before going out that night in a demanding role. The star retired for good some three months later. I do think that the public should build up a head of anger, against the use of artists in this irresponsible way. As for the reason that the men have tended to suffer less from injury: this is likely due to two major factors: 1/ they are not expected to pick up the leg (although I fear that some in Russia are now pushing in that direction), to make grand jeté open at 180 degrees, as the women are, and otherwise, hyper-extend down Mlle Guillem's blazing path. Men are not expected to be enormously flexible and elastic (although again, the Russians seem increasingly to want this - see Ruzimatov, Malakhov, Tsiskaridze), and therefore have not stretched out their ligaments by age 22. Women's training, at the moment, is generally of poorer quality than that of the man. There is too much emphasis, too much time wasted, on getting those legs up there, and on pointe work, which IMO should be a detail, a slight side-line. Not enough stress on clean foot-work, batterie, terre à terre, to build aplomb, stability, and strength. And jumping, all sorts of jumps, to build strength and stamina. That being said, were accident statistics available for places such as the Frankfurt Ballett, where both the man, and the woman, are expected to do bizarre things to their joints, we might find that the accident rate is more or less equal for both. 2/ in order to have ultra-slender legs, men do not need to starve their torso. Therefore, they need not become anorexic. And of course, they do not wear the short classical tutu, surely the most unflattering, fattening garment ever devised ! Althogh prancing about on stage in nothing but a leotard is not precisely flattering either...

Quotes relevant to this thread, from an interview with the London magazine Dance Now (a 1994 issue) with the Danish professor,principal and mime artist, Flemming Ryberg: "Nowadays, both choreographers and teachers are demanding from the body more than it can take, by pushing us to over-stretch, to go for too much speed, and too much gymnastics.(...) "(...) Nowadays, I don't think they use the plié really. To understand how to jump, look at the animals: they go down deep on their haunches, they jump, and they land softly. Today we land – one shouldn't say like a cow, but we do land so hard on the floor ! That spoils the knee and the ankle and the hips too. "I think it comes from the modern Russian style. I was trained in the Vaganova style by Vera Volkova, which was soft and more natural. But today everything has to be so technical ! You have to finish in your position very hard, and show it so flashily that everyone will say: "What a technique !" That is not dancing ! "I don't think that Bournonville with all his jumps will spoil the knee or anything else. Of course, before you dance, you have to think of warming up the body, and then you can jump all Bournonville's steps. It has never spoiled the Danish dancers. Now they ARE spoiled, because they have changed technique: they have Russian technique, they have Balanchine, they work in all different techniques, which call for much more leg extension, and much more turn-out. That makes it far more difficult: nowadays, you have to think very carefully about every movement you make, otherwise, by the age of thirty, you can't dance any longer. "I was dancing double tour en l'air and such things on stage, until I was 47 ! And if they had asked me to continue – well, I was dancing on stage only once a month, and that was too little to keep in shape – but I could have continued, because I was good, since I always warmed up before doing anything. The muscles and the skeleton must be prepared for what you are going to do. "Another reason there are so many injuries now, has to do with how the steps should move. In Bournonville we move a lot. It goes, it floats, you move, you do not "sit" on a step when you land. And it goes up and down in the plié, go softly down on the floor. You have to go through your foot all the time. "At the moment, dancers think too much on the technique, on the turnout. To turn out the skeleton really has to work at it, because the muscles and the skeleton must be coherent at all times. You can't turn the foot, without the knee. You have to turn the whole thing. If your knee tends to look ahead, while your feet look sideways, then, as soon as you plié, the knee twists wrongly. The knee must look over the toes. When young people start, they have to be taught the plié very carefully, i.e. how to turn out in a real way. "The first year I had Erik Bruhn as my teacher, I was twelve years old, and I only was allowed to do first, second, third, and a little fourth position in the first year. If you are not turned out enough for the fifth position, the knee will be spoilt. If you train every day and give a little more, then you do a third position. You should not go into this blocked position of fifth before you know exactly where you can place your hips and your turnout. "If you start too early you see a lot of children who are spoiled and it is very difficult to correct them later. They can't jump really. It is difficult to land turned-out from a jump, if you do not have the real feeling for the knee being in the same alignment as the toes, as though you were ski-ing ! If we remember this, there will be less knee injuries."

Things certainly HAVE changed at POB. Noëlla Pontois would never be an étoile today. And the public has changed. A taste for extreme sensations, heretofore confined to the circus, or to the Crazy Horse Saloon, is around and about. I recently came across a review, where a French critic found heavy fault with Elisabeth Maurin, one of Nureyev's last étoiles, for not picking up the leg ! Leaving aside the fact that the étoile in question is but five foot one, it may well be that a person of her taste and artistic judgement - renowned, moreover, as a technician - has simply decided that here was one more trick that the world can do without. Be that as it may, hope may be at hand. A new generation of rebellious dancers may be upon us. Perhaps the rosy dawn may even rise, on the day when dancers shall have written into their contract: "And I shall be called upon to perform no movement or movements likely to cause me persistent suffering, actual bodily harm, or mental distress, nor any lewd or indecent public acts, on pain of X thousand francs damages per day of sick leave, and on pain of X hundreds of thousands of francs damages should there be permanent prejudice to my career, etc." Speaking of hope: There was an odd little moment at a recent performance of La Bayadère in Paris with Aurélie Dupont, one of the younger étoiles, as Nikiya. Mlle Dupont is not exactly my cup of tea, being, as she is, somewhat of a over-brisk, practical sort of person, and a deaf ear to music, but she's a damn good dancer, technically, as well as being terribly pretty. She has authority, without being harsh, and she commands respect. And here is one girl, I might add, who is NOT anorexic. Like all the girls brought up under Claude Bessy's iron hand, she can, of course, glue the leg to the ear and make that telephone call. But, there was Mlle Dupont, carefully extending her lovely, curvaceous limb, and - a hushed silence - that leg stops at 115 degrees à la seconde, moves to arabesque, also at 115 degrees. First time in donkeys years that anyone had seen that, unless Mlle. Maurin was on, without the leg being hoisted down from 180 degrees à la seconde, bang, down to 110 degrees en arabesque. Ripple of shock through the room. Brain waves reeling "Could someone be disobeying the Eleventh, Guillem, Commandment ?" But it happened. And we have lived to tell of it. [ January 09, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

From the Telegraph, some time in 2001: "Forsythe says one major inheritance from Balanchine is his use of the ballet position known as epaulement, which involves complex counter rotations of the body, including the shoulders, hips, hands, feet, head. "As he says, "the mechanics of epaulement are what gives ballet its inner transitions. It's essential to a lot of my thinking." He takes this position one step further by what he calls disfocus. The dancers don't gaze out, but "stare up, roll their eyes back." Like a hypnotist might suggest, he asks them to "put your eyes in the back of your head." Their movement becomes "very water-like, shaky, unusual and serpentine". He warns: "Don't try this with too much furniture about." And HO HO HO said the Cyclops. "Come into my parlour, little Ulysses...." Loved that line on "Ive seen so much deconstructionism.....". Definitely the Quote of the Week. Have circulated it widely.

In our time, animals in the Zoo are better looked to, than ballet dancers. My own view is that the Artistic Director has a responsibility, to ensure that he is working solely with choreographers and ballet masters who know a fair old amount about anatomy. He must give them specifications, as though he were talking to building contrators: "Look you, Sir, I don't want my people shredded. Otherwise, you're shredding their careers, and several hundred thousand francs of tax-payers' money, per dancer wrecked. If you're as creative as you say you are, you can make a ballet worth looking at, without having my lot do double-flips backward landing on a table." Young dancers absolutely do not know what they are getting themselves in for. They start dancing when they are eight or nine. They live in a sheltered artistic environment, protected from lurking predators, and from distractions in the outside world. Their teachers are, if not nice, at least amiable, with them, and their physical needs are properly attended to. There are doctors, nutritionists, anatomists and physiotherapists and what not, skulking down every corridor. The lads are not even allowed to pick up the girl, until the skeleton is properly formed ! Then, one year later, they are in a company, doing double-flips backward, rushing about the stage in one-arm lifts with women who are five-foot-ten and big-boned, or dancing Mr. X's choreography at speed. Many are knocked out of the profession within their first two to three years with a company. Most of the rest will throw in the towel by the time they reach 27 or 28. I fail to see how one may deplore the lack of ballerinas, or the quiet boredom distilled on today's stage, without bearing in mind the fact that, saving a few notable exceptions, there is no-one prominent left, over the age of thirty. When Sarah Wildor resigned from the RB this season, a frequently-heard remark was that it was "normal" that she be pushed aside by "much younger" dancers. Miss Wildor is, I believe, 27 ! Had Makarova, or Fonteyn, or others in that class, stopped dancing at 30, or been physically exhausted by 35, we should have little indeed to say about their dancing. And had they stopped advancing technically by the age of 27, well... The things many choreographers see fit to inflict upon dancers, in utter disregard, I would even say, contempt, for their health, safety or future career, would, in legal terms, probably qualify either as assault, or even aggravated assault. Assault is a criminal offence, in addition to being, civilly, a tort. I know Americans are exceeding litigious - perhaps the ballet studio might be fresh terrain for the American legal profession to explore ? It may be that Artistic Directors should be encouraged to see themselves as Keeper of a zoo full of highly exotic, costly beasts from far-off places. The Animal Rights Lobby could be called in. The human body is a variety of machine. A fragile, delicate machine. Only people who know precisely how the machine works, should be allowed to operate it. Everyone else is a rank amateur, and should be kept away, back there, well away from the exotic animals' enclosure.

The difference between the type of injury all ballet dancers have suffered, literally for centuries, namely twisting the foot or knee owing to fatigue or a moment's distraction, and the type of critical injury to large joints that has become routine OVER THE LAST THIRTY YEARS, cannot be an accident. There is even a girl, now at ENB, whose BACK WAS BROKEN rehearsing a lift in New Zealand three years ago. I will look up for this forum, and translate, an interview that the head of the Paris Opera School, Mlle. Claude Bessy, gave to a French weekly news magazine in 1986. She refers to the fact that dancers today are expected to dance in all "styles" (turned-in, turned-out, modern, Petipa, Balanchine, sometimes all in a single day's rehearsals) as the main cause of injury. She is scathing about the rash of hip-replacements at NYCB. Coming from Claude Bessy.... Read the advertisements for auditions in the European trade press. Most now say - and we are talking about CLASSICAL companies here - "danseur polyvalent ayant des compétences dans le moderne", which means, literally, "multi-purpose" dancer, able to do modern dance as well as classical. Now, as the well-known French professor Juan Giuliano insists, one cannot use the musculature in the same way, for each time signature of the music. He was talking about classical music. Imagine, the impact on the musculature, and the whole neurological system, of a person trained as a CLASSICAL dancer to CLASSICAL music, expected to bounce round, or jerk, or whatever is one does, to electronic bruitings, or percussion or what not, that generally lacks even a proper time signature ? We have all seen young people straight out of the top schools, with a good body and strong technique, start to develop chronic knee problems with six months of joining a major company, following work with so-called "modern" choreographers, calling for application of weight and impetus on the turned-in knee. We have heard 22 and 23 year old dancers come out of a performance and say: "Sure makes you realise you ain't eighteen no more". Dancers of 25, 26, 27 with first-class training, in good companies, have told me that they see themselves as "old", "finished", physically "worn out". Dancers of that age have told me that they wake up every morning in such stiffness and pain, that until they have finished class, they can scarcely move. Charming. The thing cannot be settled by taking a survey of every classical dancer on the planet. We have got to get scientific about this. A decade ago, I decided to make a series of interviews with orthopaedic surgeons, sports doctors, and so forth, at various clinics in Germany and France. They were shewn film and photographs of current "international" style (the hyper-extension à la seconde, the hyper-extended arabesque, the hyper-extended grand jeté (opened to 180 or more degrees), the exaggerated en-dehors, the displacement slightly forward of gravity on pointe to get that "Guillem-Alessandra Ferri" look, instead of standing up ramrod-straight on point etc etc. They were then asked to compare with film and photographs of the same type of movements and positions, in the Bournonville School. The doctors were apalled by the "international" school. They have geometrical instruments to measure the ambitus of movement, and what we are doing today, is so far out of any natural ambitus, that it qualifies in Carlo Blassis' book, as a freak-show. They found the Bournonville school far more natural - bearing in mind, that ballet is never going to be a stroll down to the corner to get a packet of ciggies. These results were published. Some readers in the profession were in an uproar. "You are not allowed to say this !" they cried. Where have we got, where an informed scientific opinion is felt to be "too polemical", or "unfair" ? Amongst the delightful effects of the hyper-extension, apart from hip replacement, is stress fracture of the hip joint. Moreover, there is a sort of covering or membrane over that joint, and today, this is often found to be torn or ripped. Do we really wish to allow people to go on suffering like this, for what Karole Armitage (a priestess of modern dance who has just taken over the formerly classical Ballet National de Nancy) calls the "frisson" of extreme physicality ? Is it "enjoyable" or "pleasurable" to watch a youth or girl of 21 or 22, having their limbs turned inside out, stretched out of the socket, bonged, twanged, and who knows what else, whilst knowing full well than two to three years down the line, that young person WILL NO LONGER BE DANCING ? After ten years of arduous study at school ? Empty-headed choreographers and musicians, empty-headed artistic directors, using their living pawns to CREATE AN EFFECT. Dancers are subject to stern discipline at a very early age. As a result, they tend to be the most obedient persons on the planet. Obedience to "creators" who, in my book, are irresponsible madmen, is turning the classical dancer into an endangered species. Those of us who have no vested interests, must blow the whistle on this nonsense. [ January 09, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

Here are some relevant addresses: Dancer's Health/Safety Issues: International Arts Medicine Association International Association for Dance Medicine & Sciences Ballet Dancer's Injuries, A review of Literature 1987 - 1997, Alain Guierre D.O. Performing Arts Medicine Association British Performing Arts Medicine Trust Arts Lynx Health Resources American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation & Dance

The two quotations below, were found in articles posted up on ballet.co.uk, and are relevant to this discussion, I believe. Josephine Jewkes, ex-principal, ENB. "More generally, we dancers believe that the trend nowadays is for a more aggressive style of movement (taken to the limits by Forsythe in ballet and DV8, Jeremy James and Per Jonsson to name but three in the contemporary world), but the human body meanwhile has not greatly changed; simply that those with less extreme facility are being challenged further by the examples of a few with acrobatic flexibility which was previously labelled 'unclassical'. This is now becoming the norm. (This is known as 'progress'.)" *** (From I believe, a recent issue of the Daily Telegraph) "Forsythe says one major inheritance from Balanchine is his use of the ballet position known as epaulement, which involves complex counter rotations of the body, including the shoulders, hips, hands, feet, head. "As he says, "the mechanics of epaulement are what gives ballet its inner transitions. It's essential to a lot of my thinking." He takes this position one step further by what he calls disfocus. The dancers don't gaze out, but "stare up, roll their eyes back." Like a hypnotist might suggest, he asks them to "put your eyes in the back of your head." Their movement becomes "very water-like, shaky, unusual and serpentine". He warns: "Don't try this with too much furniture about." Tony Geeves, who is I believe a physiotherapist at Queensland University in Australia, actually began a project about a decade ago, specifically on Dance Injuries. He has a number of important suggestions, including one that I believe could be adopted TOMORROW by everyone, everywhere: eliminate grand plié, in class, in performance, just GET RID OF IT - except perhaps in second position - and you will eliminate the NUMBER ONE cause of over-stretching, and therefore weakening, of those absolutely vital ligaments. I shall look up the URL for the various projects - believe that Ann Nugent started one in England three or four years ago as well.