Treefrog

There are books under those dust bunnies? "Undaunted Courage" by Stephen Ambrose -- about the Lewis and Clark expedition -- is one I just haven't been able to move through. "Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants" by Robert Sullivan. Perhaps this is because I actually wanted to write this book, and it is an admission of my scholarly failings. (No kidding! My PhD dissertation focused on rat physiology and behavior.) In general, I do find it harder to progress through non-fiction than fiction. Where do I put them? As of this week, they are moving back to the bookshelf. I have just cleared out space by removing all the books I truly am never going to read (I do think that Molecular Biology of the Gene, copyright 1976, is just a tad outdated by now). On the other hand, I also discovered in the process a handful of books I've collected over the last 30 years that I always meant to read but never quite got to ...

The Fairy of World Peace was supposed to attend but s/he got delayed in the security line.

Not to derail the conversation further, shouldn't that be the "naughties"? And my next serious question: why did styles change? Why did attention start to focus on pointework and line? And finally (or maybe not) -- would audiences today appreciate the ballet of last century and the one before?

One of the delightful things about this board is that people do weigh in with different opinions. It is most helpful to ballet newbies. For one thing, it encourages us to state our own opinions without fear or trepidation. Knowing that even the more seasoned and knowledgeable among us often disagree frees us up to venture an opinion now and then. For another thing, of course, it exposes people to different views of the same ballet. We get to see it through several pairs of eyes, several interpretations. I am so glad that we have at least a couple of passionate Royal Ballet posters! The best kind of thing this can lead to is dialogue. I love it when posters throw in a few questions: "Did you find that ....?" "What did you think of the way he ...?" "Were you as astounded as I when ...?" I don't like it so much when posters are didactic or insistent. I find that cuts off conversation, and the conversation is what I love so much to follow! Oops, sorry, I might have taken us a little .

Another question: which trumps, the style in which a dancer has been trained, or the style that the AD (ballet master, etc.) coaches? I always assumed the latter ... but do stylistic differences sneak through?

Thank you. I wondered about place too, but thought I'd keep it to one variable at a time. But maybe they cannot be separated?

I have ballet dreams all the time! They are good dreams, the kind where I can jump effortlessly and learn choreography on the spot. My performance dreams are limited to student recitals, but even those are way beyond me in real life. There's also a variant where I'm hanging out backstage with Joffrey dancers. I guess dreaming about dancing with them is TOO far-fetched, although I think maybe I once dreamed about taking class with them or doing some social dancing. I reserve my anxiety dreams for the good old-fashioned topics: taking exams when I haven't been to class all semester, and missing -- or arriving late to -- classes I am supposed to teach.

Does ballet change over time? Here's what I mean: suppose you had a tape of performances from, oh, let's say every decade for the last fifty or hundred years. Suppose further that the tape had been altered so that the music, costumes, scenery, lighting, etc. sounded and looked identical, and the dancers themselves were not recognizable. Could one pinpoint the time period of each performance based on the style of the dancing? And if there ARE stylistic changes, can you characterize them?

I've only SEEN about 2 out of the 100! About normal for me.

Chicago has a "One City, One Book" program (or maybe it's the other way round? One Book, One City?) At any rate .... the idea is to get the whole community reading and talking about one particular book. Libraries lay in extra copies and often sponsor book groups. Of course, no one I know has actually taken part in this ... I'm sure you want to know what books are chosen. "To Kill a Mockingbird" is the one I remember, but there have been others.

Just back from the Regional Dance American Mid-States festival, and I can tell you that the future for diversity in ballet does not look rosy. Out of a couple of hundred kids, one could count on both hands the number of bodies with obvious African heritage. Five of them were in our company -- and four of those have one white parent. One the positive side, one of these dancers won a scholarship to the Craft of Choreography conference, and another was named first alternate for a scholarship to the Joffrey NYC summer intensive. (Side note: I did enjoy watching a woman stop by to compliment the performance of one of our dancers, obviously directing her comments to the African-American mom with our group. We had to redirect her to the girl's actual mom, who is white, one row back. Lots of assumptions are made about race in our country.)

My guess is that you were seeing the tape that is used to hold down the special dance surface (which is generally called marley). Marley comes in widths of about eight feet, and five or six widths are used to cover the stage. There are different kinds of tape -- black, gray, clear, and probably others I don't know about -- so maybe that explains the difference in the videos you saw.

Here's my own very quick review. First, the running order was changed for the Sunday matinee we attended. I don't know if it was just for this show, or if they changed it earlier in the run. At any rate, the order was Viva Vivaldi, Clowns, Round of Angels, and Confetti. I was glad they put Round of Angels towards the end, as it was the clear highlight of the program. Victoria Jaiani was elegant and graceful, with beautiful penchées and a lovely line. I cannot for the life of me understand why Viva Vivaldi was the Joffrey's signature piece in the early days. I don't mean to offend any of the former dancers and afficianados, as I know there are a few hanging out here, but this piece has neither rhyme nor reason. Let's have that fellow over there do ... something! Naw, it doesn't matter if it bears any relation to what these two women over here are doing. Everyone point, now! (Not with the feet, with the hands. Stab them several times for effect.) There was some nice dancing, but within such chaos it's hard to appreciate it. As for The Clowns, it started off promisingly enough. It was a treat to watch Calvin Kitten's clean, crisp jumps and articulation, highlighted in isolation as that single white figure on the darkened stage. But soon thereafter, I got lost. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was going on, or why, and the pleasure of watching the dancing got pushed aside as I tried to follow the plot. I spent some time wondering if Arpino meant to reference Petrouschka, or whether he simply ran out of clown choreography and borrowed what he knew. In the end, my husband turned to me and said, "It looked like it was by that guy from Canadia" (referencing The Blue Snake in the film The Company). So ... not, all in all, a wonderful experience. The saving grace, though? This being the last performance of the year, the entire company joined the final bows, in their street clothes! It seemed an entirely Joffreyesque moment. Gerald Arpino joined the company onstage, to their (apparently) heartfelt applause, as did General Manager Harriet Ross, to whom this Mothers' Day performance had been dedicated.

I actually had no idea that leaning forward caused an obstruction! I tend to do this, but will be more careful henceforth.

I would just like to point out -- proudly -- that there is no question too trivial or mundane for our latest forum!

I feel so bad for your sister! A couple of weeks ago, I nodded off at a Hubbard Street Dance Chicago performance. I really, really liked the piece, and it was by far the best of the afternoon. It was just one of those things -- a long walk, an hour or two of gardening, and BOOM! I was out. Actually, the voices in my head were rather amusing: "Must .... not .... nod .... off....It's okay, shut your eyes; you can still watch with them closed! ... No ... must... keep .... eyes .... open....HEY! How'd they get from stage left to stage right? .... Go ahead, just shut them for a little bit..." At intermission I made a beeline for the coffee stand. But then, I also once fell asleep at a Bruce Springsteen concert, with seats in the back of the stage about 10 rows back ...

Why does NEW york CIty BALlet sound better than new york city balLET? Or why does San franCISco baLET sound better than SAN franCISco BALlet? (which is, if I'm not mistaken, as much a trochaic trimeter as the first pronunciation of NYCB) I guess what I'm asking: is this a NYC regionalism (is it American BALlet Theater or American BalLET Theater?) or an NYCB affectation, or something else entirely? What is common elsewhere in America, not to mention current and former members of the British Empire? My dictionary, incidentally, does list both pronunciations, with balLET coming first. (Oddly enough, my Oxford Concise dictionary does not give pronunciations at all! What good is that?)

Thank you, I'd love to read Arlene Croce on Arpino. Where would I find that?

Is there any general agreement among English speakers about where the accent lies in the word ballet? I have always pronounced it "bal-lay' ", with the accent on the second syllable. Yet, tonight I was watching a BioArts program in which dancers repeatedly spoke of the New York City "Bal'-lay" and the School of American "Bal'-lay".

The Chicago Sun-Times' dance critic, Hedy Weiss, is very high on Gerald Arpino. In her review of the current performance, she calls him And in a separate article she gives us a dancers'-eye view of his choreography: Is Weiss' assessment generally shared in the ballet community? And a related question: what other companies have Arpino choreography in their repertoire?

The spring program opened Wednesday at the Auditorium Theatre. On this all-Arpino bill: Viva Vivaldi! Round of Angels Confetti The Clowns Sid Smith reviewed the opener in the Chicago Tribune: And Hedy Weiss waxed rhapsodic in the Sun-Times:

I saw the same Saturday evening performance as Jack. It was wonderful. There was this fabulous soldier fellow, and a couple of good dancers, too. (Just tweaking your leg, Jack; hubby says that if you didn't notice him, he was doing his job.) This was -- gasp! -- my first-ever performance of Giselle. Oh, my, what a delight! a story ballet that actually tells a story without diverging into weird national dances and other artifices. A wonderful, haunting story, so beautifully told and so beautifully danced that I almost had tears in my eyes. Choreography that abounds with apparently "simple" steps linked in astounding complexity. Stunning and emotional visual tableaux. I had no idea the mad scene would be so tender. Nor so heart-wrenching.

I just got a look at the Joffrey's new website design. It's quite lovely. It has what I assume is a very cool feature, which my aged computer is not accessing very well (I can't actually see the pictures ). Can someone check it out for me? On the History page, you can click a link to "Scrapbooks", and from there choose by decade by clicking on the spines of "books". Within each decade, you can choose a year and see pictures of the dances and dancers of the time.

Fall (Oct. 19-30) The Dream Celebration Return to a Strange Land Holiday (Dec. 14-24) The Nutcracker Winter (February 15-26) Romeo and Juliet Spring (April 26-30, May 5-7) Deuce Coupe New Work Sometimes it Snows in April

Nobody seems to have any trouble with dancers of European descent dancing La Bayadere, which, last I checked, was not set remotely close to Europe. There are other examples as well. This whole issue is so complex I don't know where to begin. And I suspect that's the basic problem: no one knows where to begin, and everybody is afraid that if you just begin somewhere it won't do any good because there are too many influences. But, I'll hazard a guess and say the best solution is for companies to hire more diversely, even if they perceive they are "dropping their artistic standards" at first. They need to create a market, or of course young people of color are not going to waste their time and money getting trained. Will this turn off the patrons? If so ... they need to find some new patrons. I'm guessing that some expert PR would take care of this anyway. Finally, I'll say that while it is not what I'd call racially balanced, the Joffrey has a noticeable number of non-white bodies on stage, and every year it seems to bring at least one or two dancers of color into the apprentice program. I really, really appreciate this commitment.