Victoria Leigh

I like them too! I remember the first time I saw the Royal Danish, when I was around 16, and I thought the men had the most incredible feet!

Five years is not an exceptioally long time to stay in the corps, especially if one has started right out of high school with no previous experience. There are many dancers who stay in the corps all their professional lives, and some do last ten years or more. As long as they are still dancing well and are valuable members of the company, they will be kept. More often they leave of their own accord after a while, sometimes to move on to a better position with another company, and sometimes to move on to another phase in their lives or careers. Many go back to school and learn other areas of the art such as administration or costuming, lighting, stage managing, etc. Others go into totally different fields. And of course some female dancers decide it's time to have a family!

Harriet Cavalli's new book, Dance and Music, is available on Amazon.com. I have not seen it yet, but I would think this would be a great book for teachers who work with pianists, or to give to pianists who play for classes. I have ordered it, so will let you know more once it arrives.

I would like several gallons of Round Arm Plus. Needed to counterattack major problem of straight to the side, flat, palms down position which seems to be considered à la seconde these days This condition is especially prevalent in turning movements, such as basic pirouettes en dehors, piqué turns en dehors and en dedans, everything moving in circles and diagonals involving turning, and of course fouettés.

Does POB perform more regularly, and have performances in more than one venue at the same time?

Yes, I'd say one out of 20, at best, which is also being optimistic. And Leigh is also right about the percentage greatly increasing at the lower levels, even in a very good school. There will be exceptional years, where there might be two or three out of say, 25 in the top class, but generally one in 20 would be about it. Our percentage in Florida was higher, I think, but in a short period of time when I was teaching there we had a rather exceptional number of extremely talented students. Also, going way back to the years when I was trained in Florida there seemed to be a rather large number of working dancers coming out of there over a period of a few years. There were a couple of good schools in Miami turning us out (no pun intended ;) ) with great regularity down there!

Not in Houston they're not, campvaldes! Alexandra, I have no idea of the percentages and can only guess, but I'd say your estimate is high. Maybe by about 50%.

I suppose that could be the case, sneds, that a specified number is in the contract, although I have no direct knowledge of that. I don't know if it is in ABT's current contract or not, either. However, it seems to me to be a rather stupid clause if it is there, since there are still many overworked dancers and probably even more underused dancers in both companies. IMO, 85 or 90 dancers in a company, as much as I love to see dancers employed, is totally unnecessary and too many of these dancers have free nights and nights with only one ballet, which is not the way corps dancers will gain the strength and performance experience to grow into soloists and principals. If the company could properly use this number of dancers, like with two companies performing in different venues sometimes, it would be more valid. But this is rarely, if ever, the case. A company of 50 to 55 or so dancers keeps them all working much more of the time, with, I feel no need for any to be overworked. (As a teacher I certainly have to feel that the more jobs the better, of course, but if those jobs do not provide the work they need to do, and we still see certain dancers overworked, then that number makes no sense.) On another thread we talked about the excessive number of casts for every ballet, which creates a lack of adequate coaching and, more importantly, a lack of opportunity for dancers to mature into the roles. A part of the reason for this is the large numbers of dancers in these two companies. Just my opinion, of course

Campvaldes, not sure if you were making an exception of Lauren Anderson and Carlos Acosta or not, but if so, you are correct in that they both dance many classical roles and have never been limited, at least by Houston Ballet, to character roles. Lauren has danced Swan Lake, La Sylphide, Giselle, and just about everything else in the repertoire. I don't believe that there have been any limitations at all in terms of color there. Interesting indeed that a southern company appears to have less segregation than most northern companies. The director is British, however not sure this is the main factor. Both Lauren and Carlos are adored by the Houston public.

A.C., did I misread #4, or are you saying one should always stand up to applaud at the end of a performance? If so, I must respectfully disagree with you on that. Standing ovations should be reserved for the truly superior performances, and not given automatically!

That very well could be, Roma, but whatever their motivation I still think it is not at all a good idea! :rolleyes:

It seems Mr. Gottlieb made one of my points, in my post above, quite clear in his Observer article Friday on ABT and NYCB. Evidently ABT did eight performances of Swan Lake with EIGHT different Odette/Odiles! This, IMO, is totally absurd, and he seemed to think so too. No one gets to develop the role this way. (There were also eight Giselle performances, with only Julie Kent getting two shots at it.) This kind of casting makes absolutely no sense at all to me. It's like the thinking is 'let's give everyone we have a performance and see if we have an Odette/Odile and then she can do it next time we do Swan Lake, in three or four years'. And of course it's also the effort, as Gottlieb said, to keep everyone happy, whether they are suited to the role or not. Instead of using their large contingent of principal dancers by developing them in the roles they are best in, each one gets to do everything just BECAUSE they are a principal. Stupid idea - IMO, of course

Alexandra, Gretchen's book is indeed an excellent one, but it's called THE ART OF TEACHING BALLET, Ten Twentieth-Century Masters. The teachers she writes about are: Marika Besobrasova, William Christensen, Janina Cunovas, Gabriela Taub-Darvash, David Howard, Larry Long, Larisa Sklyanskaya, Alexander Ursuliak, Christiane Vaussard, and Anne Woolliams.

Alexandra, Gretchen's book is indeed an excellent one, but it's called THE ART OF TEACHING BALLET, Ten Twentieth-Century Masters. The teachers she writes about are: Marika Besobrasova, William Christensen, Janina Cunovas, Gabriela Taub-Darvash, David Howard, Larry Long, Larisa Sklyanskaya, Alexander Ursuliak, Christiane Vaussard, and Anne Woolliams.

I believe there is a biography of Rebecca Harkness. Not certain of the title, but I think it was called Blue Blood, or something like that. Liebs and vrsfanatic, I too believe that Lucia Chase qualifies. Even if there was initially the thread of self gratification, she pretty much single-handedly kept that company going, through wars and fires and everything else, for a lot of years! She maintained the classical repertoire, and brought many choreographers to prominence, including Tudor, DeMille, Robbins, Dollar, and many others.

I believe there is a biography of Rebecca Harkness. Not certain of the title, but I think it was called Blue Blood, or something like that. Liebs and vrsfanatic, I too believe that Lucia Chase qualifies. Even if there was initially the thread of self gratification, she pretty much single-handedly kept that company going, through wars and fires and everything else, for a lot of years! She maintained the classical repertoire, and brought many choreographers to prominence, including Tudor, DeMille, Robbins, Dollar, and many others.

I have seen lots of students, in their last couple of years before becoming professional, rip off 32 fouettés, and even some multiples, in pointe classes. I have, however, seen far more people who can DO them than who can DO THEM WELL, even in class. Most will either have a turned in leg in second, or a flopping foot at least on the last half of them, or horrible arms which look more like they are doing karate than ballet, or ALL of the above. It is really, IMO, the RARE dancer, student or professional, who can not only do them, but do them with rotation, controlled feet, and good port de bras. As far as the students are concerned, two factors are important here, one being pointe classes, and the other being that they are doing them in an isolated situation, i.e. just the fouettés, not doing them immediately following a very difficult grand pas de deux when there is no strength left in the legs. With professionals, not only do they not have pointe classes to practice them, but they must do them in the third act of a difficult ballet at the end of a very hard pas! Another thing is that most of them seem to do them to the right, which means the left leg is doing all the relevés. Petipa pas de deux are almost all primarily left leg centered, meaning most of the promenades and balances and pirouettes are on that leg. It gets shot before they ever get to the coda! Another factor, I think, is that most of the time the ballets which require this "trick", especially in terms of 32 of them, are not regularly in the rep, and the dancers do not get to do them on stage frequently enough to build up the strength and the confidence to suddenly handle it when they get to Swan Lake or Don Q. Doing them in class and doing them on the stage are really VERY different things. When a company is going to be presenting a ballet where several ballerinas must do this, then they need to work on it, IN CONTEXT and ON STAGE, for a long time, not a couple of weeks of rehearsal in the studio and then one tech/dress rehearsal. Sometimes the alternate casts don't even get a full stage rehearsal, much less the chance to work the whole ballet on stage many times before performing it. Alexandra asked, in her post above, WHY we are not seeing really solid fouettés delivered on stage, from a technical standpoint. I feel strongly that one of the main reasons for the loss of control and center in these turns is the strange port de bras being used these days. The port de bras is not motivated from the back, and therefore those muscles, and sometimes those of the abdomen as well, are not working to keep the dancer centered and the torso strong. Almost all the dancers I see are using a port de bras where the arms open to a flat, palms down second position, and then moving the lower arms in and out from the elbows. ("karate chop" arms, mentioned above.) This kind of movement does not involve the back muscles the way that rounded arms in second and a circular port de bras in the turns do. While a dancer should be strong enough to do fouettés with the arms almost anywhere, including on the hips for some of them, working without the back muscles and the abdominals does not help them gain the strength and control that they need. Another missing element is the lack of rotation in à la seconde. Besides just the look of the leg turned in, it affects the line of the foot and then the position of the leg on the turn itself. If one is going to do the turns with the use of à la seconde, then that position needs to be turned out! [ 07-13-2001: Message edited by: Victoria Leigh ]

It's both, or the same thing actually, Diana. The young dancers are pushed into major roles too early, without the coaching and guidance they need, and sometimes before their technique has even reached the point where they are strong enough. At the same time they are dancing very difficult contemporary works and sometimes wrecking their bodies in those works. Often they are learning roles from videos, and have far too little rehearsal ($$$ problem rears it's ugly head here). I also feel that they are not brought up and trained with the knowledge of history and the classical ballets to the point where these works and THE MUSIC are an integral part of their lives. This is a generalization, of course, but I do feel this happens in this country way too often. The dancers just don't really KNOW these works.

Just speculating here, and really more wondering than stating anything. But it seems to me that "back then", or "in the good old days", there really were Ballerinas, stars, mature artists who the public knew and loved. Not that we don't have ballerinas today, but with all the contemporary rep, and then the companies who do not rank dancers, and perhaps a lack of "emploi" in terms of developing the classical ballerinas in the classical roles, we just don't seem to develop the Fonteyns, Ulanovas, Plisetskayas, Tallchiefs, or the Farrells and Kirklands. Dancers are doing principal roles before they have matured into principal artists. We see brilliant young dancers with lots of potential, but we don't see many who have been given the chance to develop fully, at least in terms of the classical roles. The emphasis on youth may well be a part of this. Also, the difficulty of the contemporary rep seems to cause a lot more injuries, and dancers burn out earlier. Does any of that make sense to anyone else?

Okay, I will be brave and state publicly that I have never been a Balanchine worshipper - HOWEVER - as a dancer I really did enjoy DANCING his work! It is the musicality, and the challenging technique and speed that made his work such fun to dance, at least for me. As an audience member, there are some works that I like, many I do not, but I have great respect for the vast body of work produced by this man.

It may take that to get it to stop, Bill! It's a shame that it is like that, but, until you start fining people they tend to do whatever they want to do. Requesting that the phones and beepers be turned off just doesn't seem to do it. Making it a law may be the only way, unfortunately I was in the audience of Cabaret, on Broadway, recently, and in the middle of one of the most beautiful songs in the show a phone started ringing, right down center front, and it rang at least three times before the person found it and turned it off. If I had been sitting next to them I'm not sure what I would have done, but I know what I would have been tempted to do!

Plisetskaya did piqué en dedans turns in a circle. While this is not at all the same thing in terms of difficulty, I would rather see well done piqués than badly executed fouettés. Not saying that Plisetskaya could not do good fouettés, however I have seen far too many otherwise good Odiles not be able to execute what I would consider GOOD fouettés. While it is true that most corps dancers today can do 32 fouettés, doing them WELL, at the end of that long and very difficult pas de deux, is another story. Sorry, Steve, but I just don't think any one trick should determine the value of a role like Odette/Odile. I do not see the balances of Aurora as the same thing, and would expect anyone dancing that role to be able to do those, as they are much more a part of basic technique, involving strength, control, and focus, which every dancer should have. I don't consider that a trick. AND, it doesn't happen in the third act after the ballerina has already done a long and difficult second act, and another long and difficult grand pas de deux in the third act!

Plisetskaya did not do them If she would be an outstanding Odette/Odile but does not do fouettés well, then I would change it. Personally, I don't believe that any "tricks" are sacred, and the male dancers change their variations and codas at will, ALL the time! :rolleyes:

Nadezda, I really like the Romantic Era the best! There is a lot of good information on that, and the stories of the ballerinas and of the ballets that were developed during that time are wonderful! But there are a lot of different directions you could go with this, so I would suggest you get a book that does kind of an overview, and see what portion strikes you as one you would like to investigate further.

Nadezhda, I'm going to move this to Ballet History forum. I think that would be the best place