katharine kanter

There was a thought-provoking exhibition touring Europe last year, called The Bronze Age. It presented the results, in terms of artefacts, from new research and archeology digs relating to the pre-Homeric and Homeric periods, in Europe and Asia Minor. Many many new things have happened in scientific research over the last twenty or so years, notably with respect to Troy, and further proof recently emerged, that Homer had got it all scientifically right. I was flabbergasted by the exhibition. One of the mind-boggling windows, was the contents of an Italian or Greek ship's hold that had foundered somewhere in the Aegean, around 1700 BC. There were bits and bobbles from virtually every area of the planet, including Denmark (that place again !), China and even the Indonesian archipelago if my memory serves me right. Among those bits and bobbles, were industrially-produced (underline industrial) bronze "calf-skins" as they were called (you'd throw them into the foundry, as is), all to exact specifications. Then there was a cache they'd found, with 1200 identical, industrially-produced, mechanical pieces for some machine. Chariot wheels, produced to virtually IDENTICAL specifications, all across the continent, in what are now Romania, Denmark (that place again...), and Asia Minor.... Which shews to go ya, a/ that had we continued along that industrial track, rather involving ourselves in the Roman Empire and feudalism, we would definitely have Men on the Moon or Mars, or wherever, by now, and b/ that reams more was known about every nook and cranny of the world, than we would now imagine. Four thousand years ago. So I would guess that the Indians of the Homeric time, knew a lot more essential things about Greece (and vice-versa), than we do today about either of those countries. Or China... Unfortunately, I am not a specialist in any of these areas, and I know little about the historical background to the Silk Road from China through Asia, Asia Minor and on to tired old Europe, as a vehicle for science and technology, of which I would humbly suggest, classical ballet is a small but honourable part. I think we need some help here. But certainly, by the time of Alexander the Great's Conquests, Indian knowledge must have begun to come into the West.

Western classical dance is not, strictly speaking, Western at all, and neither are the languages we speak in Western Europe, or in America, for that matter. The Indo-European group is a ramification of Sanskrit, although most of the tongues we speak today are so over-simplified (few tenses left, no subjunctive mood, no optative, no putative, indeed, no moods at all, save for bad moods) that one would hardly recognise that fact. Western classical dance, to the best of my knowledge, descends quite directly from technical and artistic experiments carried out on the Indian sub-continent something like three thousand years ago. (It is notable, that, if we are to go by the contemporaneous Greek and Turkic statuary and vases, the turn-out was NOT yet used in the Hellenic World by the time of Aeschylos). All, absolutely all, Indian art-works I have seen from ancient times, use the turn-out. And not only do they use the turn out: they use épaulement, and even academic figures like the attitude, in ways virtually identical to Western classical dance. The turn-out is an enormous technical breakthrough. Whoever thought that one up, was a true genius ! It enables "contrapposto", or épaulement, since the torso can turn in one direction, and the feet and legs, in quite another. And with the turnout, the body will nonetheless be perfectly stable. Moreover, the turnout lends the legs a range of motion almost as vast as that of the shoulder joint. Hence, more steps are possible, and thus more expressivity. And without turnout, there is no such thing as line. No satisfying geometrical shapes can be created without turnout, because to produce complex geometrical forms of beauty, there has to be a coherence between the torso, and the lower limbs. This is possible only with turnout. Turnout lifts the clog-and-stodge-barrier between the naturally turned-out shoulder joint, and the naturally turned-in hip, knee and foot. The mime gestures that we use in Western ballet are today over-stylised (except in Bournonville) and somewhat grotesque. But the technique behind the mime, that enables one to project myriad thoughts and emotions by the use of the eye muscles, the face muscles, and "closed" (dark, sad, evil) or "open" (light, happy, good) positions, comes from ancient India. The Indians, however, have retained more skilful use of the face and neck musculature even today. We could learn a great deal from them to improve our own mime technique. It is important to see the various schools of classical Indian dance to understand this, and to reflect on how this might be connected to metric in poetry, rhetoric, versification, since the Indian dancers, in some schools, alternate dances of incredible virtuosity, with recitations in several classical languages. And the DANCERS do the reciting and singing ! The erudition of Indian dancers is simply staggering. A few years ago, I interviewed two young Indian university students. One was studying philosophy, the other engineering (!). They were giving recitals in Germany, and were highly proficient in one of the Southern Indian classical dance forms. They sang, beautifully, and recited ancient epic poetry, in Sanskrit, in Tamoul, and in two other languages. Their knowledge of Indian history and mythology was encyclopaedic. Might I add that their performances were not boring... Which I suppose brings us back to the subject of how genius is created.... They told me that they began to learn the turnout on the first day of their dancing class, at around age seven. They stand in the first position, but not so turned out as ours, do demi-plié, shallowly, and count to two hundred. Then the plié over time is allowed to go deeper, and second, third etc. position is introduced. (Allow me to say here, that our own turnout is, at the present time, too exaggerated, and there is far too much use of the Fifth position. Bournonville seems hardly to have used the fifth, save for entrechats, because the third is so much more fluent and graceful for really dancing). I do not really understand how the turn-out is related to temperament in music, and more especially, to well-tempered musical systems. Some form of well-temperament existed in China about 1500 BC; such bells were shewn at Paris only last year. But I believe there is a relationship. Perhaps some skilled musician could help us here by giving some thought to the question.

Allow me to say that I agree with much of what Mashinka has to say. But we must all remember one thing: sooner or later, there has got to be great choreography, or there will be no great dancers. Ballet will keel over and die from sheer boredom. That is point one. Point two, is that the present choreographic emphasis is on displaying the body. The aesthetic ideal today is the fashion model, both in the man, and in the woman. This means the tiny pin-head, on the spider-like limbs, as I am wont to say. Looks absolutely terrific in fashion photography. Has nothing whatsoever to do with the criteria for being a first-rate dancer. In Europe, this has now gone to ridiculous extremes. The third point, is that there are major technical difficulties involved in teaching very tall people with endless limbs - centrifugal forces, as any professor will tell you. In fact, any professor, unless he belongs to the Claude Bessy school of thought, would rather teach a shortish-to medium-height student with ballon, than an aethereal endless waif, no matter how lovely the waif may look on the programme-cover photo shots. Overall, over the last 20 years, the population, at least here in Western Europe, has got taller. But not to the extent one might imagine, wandering across the Opera stage in Paris ! Ballet is not a "look". It is not about fashion, or chic. It has to do with dancing to music. Whether the person can interpret music, as a poet, an actor, and emphatically, as a technician, are the criteria for choosing people for our schools and companies. Of course, they have to be well-proportioned, and reasonably agreeable to look at, but then again, what about Gaetano Vestris (Good Grief !) ? Fourth point: Dancers today are under pressure to do stuff that a circus acrobat might find frightening. They work under enormous stress (Forsythe !!!!!). They no longer have time to read, or to study music seriously. Ulanova was a great reader, and knew most of Pushkin's poetry by heart. Most, if not all, the great dancers of the first part of the 20th Century, were very well-read, musical, and well-informed people. They had a life outside the theatre, they knew and discussed with people other than dancers. This is no longer the case in the ballet world, because people no longer have the time, nor the physical and mental energy, after having their limbs stretched out of joint all day, fighting injury, trying carefully to do each movement not to be hurt ! And I am not exaggerating to make a point. And so, most dancers today have no imagination, no phantasy, performances are dull as dishwater, no matter how technical it all may be. Ergo, no people of ballerina status. To end this posting, a quote from Marc Haegemann, on Irina Zhelonkina, which I find to the point in this whole discussion: "Irina Zhelonkina has been a dancer with the Kirov Ballet since 1989. She was born in Tcheboksary and trained at the Vaganova Ballet Academy (pupil of Natalia Dudinskaya) in Leningrad. In 1995 she was made a first soloist. With dancing that is remarkably restrained in manner and unemphatic in technique, with featherlight, effortless leaps, and flowing movements, Irina Zhelonkina has become a supreme classicist. Her physique combines delicate, feminine charm with an exquisitely refined plastique. Of middle-height, beautifully proportioned, with chiseled legs and arms, in a way a dancer like Irina Zhelonkina looks out of place in the Kirov company of the nineties, dominated by slim, long-limbed ballerinas. Irina Zhelonkina has never been in the forefront in the Kirov company. Western audiences mainly know her as the tireless soloist, performing in numerous pas deux and solos of the Petipa-classics. Zhelonkina is the Kirov's ideal interpreter of those charming, witty, and virtuoso pieces like Harlequinade and Carnival in Venice, or Street Dancer in Don Quixote (and few will forget with what lightness and ease she skimmed through the solo with the bells in The Fountain of Bakhchisarai), but proves also very much at home in the nocturnal, romantic atmosphere of Chopiniana. All too occasional appearances in leading roles provided a tantalising glimpse of her artistic potential: she is a true Petersburg Aurora, an aristocratic and proud Gamzatti, a vulnerable Shirin in Legend Of Love, a mischievous Ballerina in Petruskha, and a touching Polish princess in The Fountain of Bakhchisarai. Irina Zhelonkina prepares her roles with Olga Moiseyeva."

What follows is strictly my own opinion. Many would not share it. Moreover, I have only been watching the POB, on a regular basis, for the last five to six years, a mere fraction of their almost three hundred years. Indeed, the POB is, I believe, the oldest theatrical dancing troupe in Europe. If I am not mistaken, it was founded under Louis XIV, as an academy for theatrical dancing. An Internet search will readily provide you with the basic facts. There is also an official site for the Paris Opera, which you will find under Opéra de Paris, or Théâtre national de l'Opéra de Paris, with a great deal of information. There exists a ballet, called Le Conservatoire (Konservatoriet) by Auguste Bournonville, Act I of which is an entire class as it was given by Auguste Vestris at the Paris Opera around 1820. This ballet has been filmed on several occasions by Danish television, but is unfortunately not commercially available. You may be able to see it at the New York Public Library, but I cannot say. That class is poetry. It is vital to see 'Konservatoriet', or Bournonville Schools (classes), to understand what was the technique known as the French school, and how that has changed over the past century. The fundamental feature of Vestris' school at Paris in the first quarter of the 19th Century, was épaulement. This corresponds to what is called "contrapposto" in Renascence painting and drawing. I cannot explain it here for reasons of space. And an extraordinary musicality, developed through enchaînements of up to 116 (yes!) bars. Epaulement has been eliminated entirely in most Western classical dancing over the past century, save for Russia, where the Vaganova school uses it in an exaggerated, almost grotesque form. Paris is no exception. Epaulement, the most interesting thing about classical ballet, has been eliminated, in order to get those legs up higher. Over the last twenty years, at the Paris Opera School, under the direction of Claude Bessy, this race towards "higher, longer, leaner, louder, faster...." has, in my view, got quite out of hand. Mlle Bessy, who in her own day as étoile, was known as one of the most glamorous, dazzling women in Paris, seems to believe that classical dance is, like couture, something for the EYE alone. It is she who launched the unfortunate Sylvie Guillem, and who has thrust forward Guillem clones, like the current étoile Agnès Letestu. Claude Bessy has only very recently, re-emphasised that she considers Guillem the epitome of classical dance. Need I say more ? Of course, not all the faculty at the Opera School do agree ...although one cannot imagine them ever saying that out loud ! The current style of dancing among the women at the Paris Opera, 90% of whom are products of the Opera School, thus reflects Claude Bessy's "aesthetic" - tiny heads perched on spider-like limbs - as well as a discipline at the School so draconian, that the girls have had all the stuffing knocked out of them by the time they emerge into the company. Super-high extensions, no épaulement, rigor mortis in the neck and torso, dry-as-a-bone musicality. On the other hand, the petite batterie is terrific, most turn beautifully, the jump is high and clean (though hard), and everyone is very tidy, very neat, very precise. Can the POB act ? Among the leading women, with the exception of Elisabeth Maurin, No. Can they mime ? No. The POB does not keep on older dancers for the mime roles, so you get seventeen-year olds dancing Coppelius and Giselle's mother, that sort of thing. Possibly that is considered to be more "aesthetic" too - can't have any fat or wrinkles about us, not even in character roles. Might sully the pristine stage ! One should add that for so long as I have been here, the POB casting policy is excessively elitist - as everything else in France. Only the étoiles, and occasionally, a premier danseur, get to dance the good stuff. So one rarely gets to see corps de ballet people having a go at something difficult or exciting. When the étoiles are, in the main, a bit of a bore, which is the case at present, this can be wearing. On to the men. The Opera School's faculty for the men, is outstanding. The men have far more épaulement, far more ballon, and far more personality, than the women. When one sees the Russian dancers beside them, one cannot help but think, "My God, what a MESS". The batterie, both terre à terre, and grand, is the best you will ever see outside Denmark, the turns perfectly on axis, the jumps silent. Even the tallest of the men have brio, they have attack, and some even have that un-French quality, legato. (See the thread on this site for the Paris Opera Concours this year, for more comments from other posters, and my own comment on Emmanuel Thibault). Can they act ? No. Can they mime ? With few exceptions (Kader Belarbi) - No. Is anyone at the POB worried about complete theatrical incoherencies and inconsistencies ? No. Is a performance by the POB moving ? No. Will you break out crying at the poetry of it all ? No - unless Elisabeth Maurin is dancing, and she is having a good night. Will you come away with the highest respect for the competency, rigour and hard work put in by the professors and dancers, in technical matters ? Yes. Is it worth making a particular effort to see the POB, in a classical work ? Yes, because there will be steps that you will probably never in your life, ever, see properly performed elsewhere. As for its being art, that is of course quite another story. You may have noticed that nations where people are humble, dedicated, and just quietly get on with the job, like Italy, or Denmark, tend to regularly produce true artists in whatever field their country excels in. Nations where people are extremely arrogant....well, I shall be diplomatic and break off here. [ January 07, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ] [ January 07, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

Much ink has been spilt in the French press over the case of Emmanuel Thibault, who, so far as I can see, is far and away the finest dancer the Opera has produced in the last twenty years. The preceding three Concours were marked by something of a scandal, most especially, the last one in February 2001. To give you a flavour of the press coverage: Le Figaro, February 28th 2001, by Ariane Bavelier: "Scandal at the Concours de l'Opéra" (title) "The case of Emmanuel Thibault...who, for the past three years, has found his path to the position of premier danseur blocked off. Each and every year, he has been the best of the Concours, and each and every year,he is not promoted. Yet again, this past Wednesday... he shewed himself to be extraordinary. Light years above everyone else. Virtuoso, light, musical, catlike, frolicking through the trickiest technical problems. Such ease astounded even the professionals. And this time, we hoped against hope, that he would be promoted. There were two premier danseur positions available.....And then, tears of rage and injustice. Two other people were promoted...good dancers, of course, but the performance they put in at the Concours was well below that of Thibault...." and so forth. Rumours have been circulating of bizarre manoeuvres, designed to ensure that the aforesaid dancer, who has been working privately with Noella Pontois, never be promoted. Whether amongst such manoeuvres, is the fact that this year, the Concours offered not a single place of premier danseur, is something I, as an outsider, am not in a position to judge. Tall, extremely good-looking dancers are very much favoured at the present time by the POB's Management. Emmanuel Thibault is neither. (Another very fine dancer, though not on M. Thibault's level, who started off in life as a musician, M. Stéphane Phavorin, has, I do believe, been rather over-looked, for lack of a pretty face). One has few occasions to see M. Thibault in roles outwith the corps de ballet. On those occasions, I feel it only fair to say that dancing of so high a standard is but rarely seen. His "Blue Bird" in the The Sleeping Beauty, will go down in the annals of the greats, while his Pas de Trois in "Paquita" would have been met with cheers by Blassis or Perrot. Each time, it has put the rest of the dancing, remarkable as the POB is, into the shade - and that itself, may be telling. There is an intensity, a charisma, and a musicality, that no one else in the company has to that degree. There are no doubt many things which we, as critics and public, do not know, with respect to what goes on in POB corridors. Be that as it may, like many outstandingly gifted people - Lis Jeppesen and Henriette Muus of the RDB were two notable cases - M. Thibault can be distracted, and have a very off-night indeed on stage. But I believe that in a great theatre, there must be room for those who can give more than most, there must be room for the Lis Jeppesens and Emmanuel Thibaults of this world. [ January 07, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ] [ January 07, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

Either one accepts that all men are created equal, or one accepts eugenicist theories. There is no middle ground. I opt for the former view, for which there is first-class scientific evidence, I am relieved to say... In a nutshell, as a potential, every normally-constituted human being, might become, had he the will power, what by the standards of any day would be called a "genius". How is it possible, that in one brief period at the Paris Opera, the students of a single man, namely Gaetano Vestris, became the world-famous Carlo Blassis, Jules Perrot, and Auguste Bournonville ? These people had no degrees at all, but they were possessed of a breadth and depth of knowledge, in all fields, that would put many if not most, university professors today, to shame. To speak of Bournonville, whom I know the most of, as a youth he toyed with the idea of being a violinist or singer (oddly enough, like Johann Kobborg of the Royal Ballet today) before finally opting for his father's profession, the ballet. Clara Schumann refers to him as "extraordinarily musical - by far the most interesting individual I met in Denmark". He read musical scores like others on a book, wrote decent poetry, painted in oils, and was a first-class writer, as his memoirs clearly shew. He was a keen student of theology (most of the books in his library, recently discovered in a cellar of a Copenhagen school, were of theology), of Shakespeare and Schiller. Perfectly Fluent in at least five languages, he learnt Russian at the age of seventy in order to travel to that country. He was married at a young age, and had ten or so children. He was heavily involved in politics ("in this country, I respect our Monarchy, but as soon as I cross the border, I revert to my true Republican self...." can't remember the exact words of his memoirs), and ran a large theatre and school. I might that he also composed something like sixty ballets, as well as his Schools, which are a monument to our art. When exiled from Denmark, he ran the Royal Opera House at Stockholm, and introduced into the LYRIC opera there, reforms (eliminating the intercalary vowels in singing in the Swedish language) that are one of the main reasons that country has since produced so many great singers. For the ballet to once again produce genius, there will be no short cuts. The upsurge of the period of Gaetano Vestris, was based on a close study of the music of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert. These people were competent to hear what no choregrapher today can hear. They read on musical scores like a book. They were in the music, they were part of the music, their minds worked as an intrinsic part of the music. In terms of space-time, music is the most concentrated form of thought accessible to man, even more than physics or the most advanced mathematics. Classical dancing is something called forth from the music, it is a secondary form, relative to the music, but it is not without worth or meaning. If we get back to intensely training dancers in music, and in the sort of subjects that were of interest to our friend Bournonville, I believe that we will once again produce great men, and in great number. [ January 07, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

People read Clement's reviews, essentially because his attacks on sacred cows are screamingly funny, well-written, and, judged by today's namby-pamby standards, fearless. He also happens to know something about choreography. The hard core of dancing - need we all be reminded of this ? - is choreography. Or should be. The general public has become bored with the ballet, because most choreography today, including "revivals" of the "classics", is dire. No amount of ballerina-dom will get us round that fact. In 1993, Lloyd Riggins (principal, Hamburg Ballet, also artistic advisor to RDB) gave an interview to "Dance Now", where he said, inter alia, "One of my main goals is to create new story ballets. From the books I read, I try and outline ballets from them, finding out what is suitable or do-able. Eventually, I would like to try maybe commissioning libretti from writers or poets, after discussing with them the world of the story ballet. I have already found half a dozen stories, that I've outlined into ballets, that I would like to produce and choreograph." But, once one has got the story, one has got to get the steps ! Teaching today is focussed on the step, rather than on the enchaînement. The teacher wants to have the step perfectly executed. A clean step, rather than a flowing, musical enchaînement, integrating the "step" difficulties, into the expressive whole, as in Bournonville's schools. Dancers have now had ground into them from an early age, that dancing is the execution of individual steps, perfectly, rather than reciting a poem (the enchaînement), which itself, is part of the larger poetic composition. There is an excellent article by Maria Fay, available through Internet search engines, called "Where has the Magic Gone", which deals with these issues, seen by one of Europe's leading teachers. I'd strongly recommend reading it, as background to this discussion.