jsmu

Our definitions of flawless execution are diametrically opposed.

Hyltin can't do the steps properly and there is nothing charming or gracious about technical inadequacy. I saw Nichols dance this several times, as well as Farrell, and Hyltin is not a good enough dancer for this role, much less Sugar Plum which is highly demanding. She bores me to death when she is not offending me by omitting or simplifying complex combinations and steps.

Exactly the point. Second Movement Bizet was created for two Balanchine goddesses: Tamara Toumanova and Tanaquil LeClercq. Kent was a worthy successor; Hyltin has none of the goods required for Balanchine goddess roles.

You are so right about Laracey and Lovette, and the waste of Laracey in the corps for eons. Early on, someone was injured and Laracey , the understudy, stepped into the Martins ballet Eros Piano. I have been a fan ever since.

Peck dances the Verdy role in Liebeslieder, and this role is probably the most emotionally troubled and profound of the four. Kyra Nichols gave unforgettable performances in this part, and the critic Arlene Croce wrote a probing analysis of it which appears in her collection Sight Lines.

As has been noted elsewhere, the Tuesday evening performance featured almost all the casting for the cancelled Saturday evening performance, so Mearns and Reichlen switched roles in Walpurgisnacht and Bizet Adagio, Fairchild and Peck in Sonatine and Bizet First Movement, etc. Mearns was superb in Walpurgisnacht-- the scale on which she danced and the risks which she assumed were almost like Farrell all over again: huge, juicy, daredevil, and bravura. Danchig-Warig was handsome and stalwart as her partner. Segin, as one of the demis, had the delicacy and brio she so often shows and which deserve bigger parts. She would have been vastly superior to Pereira as the soloist; Pereira's mousy timidity and miniscule dancing never look worse than in a ballet beside a ballerina like Mearns (Walpurgisnacht) or a real jumper like Carmena (superb in Bizet Third Movement; unfortunately, Pereira was her usual self...) The vastly underrated, beautiful Nichol Hlinka used to do the soloist role exquisitely. Sonatine is a Verdy role which does not yet suit Tiler Peck as well as Liebeslieder or Emeralds or the Divertissement pas de deux. Peck was elegant but not insouciant/perfumed/sophisticated/piquant in that inimitable Gallic only-Verdy way, and the utterly pedestrian piano playing of one of Ravel's masterpieces was no help to her. She will probably grow into the role, which is indescribably subtle and which Villella once described as 'Limoges'.... I agree with the complaints about Hyltin in anything, lol, and definitely in Mozartiana...Huxley, making his debut in a notoriously horrific virtuoso part (originally for Ib Andersen, whose beats, jumps, and steps were legendary), was cleaner, more interesting. technically superior at all times. He was impassive and frequently stone-faced, which will change as he dances the part more often, I'm sure. Ulbricht danced the best Gigue I've ever seen anywhere--the only time I have ever enjoyed this dance. His placement was impeccable throughout and the shapes in the air exemplary. The four women in the Menuet were all good, particularly Kikta. First Movement Bizet featured a wonderful performance by Megan Fairchild, who is always technically correct but who often leaves me cold and strikes me as too small-scale and careful for the roles she is cast in. On this occasion, she was punctilious AND brilliant; not since Nichols and Ashley has the First Movement ballerina hit fifths this tight, clean, and exact , or done pirouettes with this split-second timing, dash, and impeccable endings. Fairchild's entrechats voles are the most beautiful I think I've ever seen, and I can only imagine what sort of muscles she must have to do this kind of moonbeam beats. They are beyond effortless. Hod as one of the First Movement demis is big, grand, and brave. We need lots more of this dancer immediately. Tyler Angle is one of the best partners in any company, and his support of Reichlen in the Second Movement was heroic. I am very fond of Reichlen's dancing in many roles, but the Adagio does not seem yet to be second nature to her. Some of her port de bras are exquisite (in the big-tune penchees and falls into her partner's arms, and in the retransition to the recap particularly) and the little half-running steps near the end are lapidary, and her positions are all stretched and long, but the spirit eludes her. Even Farrell wasn't great in the Second Movement, so...Brittany Pollack did about the best Fourth Movement since Nichols; the infamous turn was whistle-clean and marvelous.

Couldn't agree more. I can't picture Hyltin in half of the roles with which she has been gifted. She has none of the mystery, profundity, or artistry of Allegra Kent.

I disagree; ballerinas from the past are anything but household names, even to a subscriber audience for a ballet company now, and we are not in the midst of something like the ballet boom of the Seventies where a few dancers (Baryshnikov, Kirkland) might have been closer to that status. As I said, nothing about hiring those dancers has anything to do with publicity or stunts. Artistic directors stage lots and lots of things which fall into both categories, this not being one. This is done for the benefit of the company dancers and the ballets; it is as close to ars gratia artis as things get now. Martins and McKenzie do not circulate, at least in my experience, and are said to be in the house sometimes but by no means for every performance. I do not see PNB or SFB regularly so don't know about them. Stanton Welch (Houston) also does not circulate. Robert Weiss (Carolina Ballet) attends most performances and sometimes mingles with the crowd. None of the ADs mentioned here do the sort of thing Villella did.

Nothing about bringing in the ballerinas who originate roles and who worked intimately with the choreographer of those roles is a 'publicity stunt.' Many other companies, including SFB, PNB, and Carolina Ballet have brought in the original creators of roles to coach those roles, and continue to do so as long as those dancers are available. Since McBride and Farrell run their own companies among other things, and Verdy ran two large companies as well as a very large university dance department, it is quite likely that they are too busy to meet all the requests which they receive. As Villella made MCB the company it now is by spending the entire second half of his life and career there, it is more than a little silly to say that he has been 'lionized' at all--much less 'in an excessive manner.' Villella said in an interview a few years ago that he spent ten hours a day at work, when the company was *not* dancing. Needless to say, it was considerably more during the season. He was usually present at the company's performances, and, far more than that, circulated in the audience during intermission; I had the pleasure of speaking with him many times during intermissions, twice for an extended period, and it is quite rare for a company artistic director to be so amenable and accessible to his balletgoers.

I remember him in 'Murder,' a hilarious David Gordon ballet for Baryshnikov at ABT, with Edward Gorey scenery and costumes. His starring role had multiple personalities, including one in drag. Superb in every way.

I think that may have been Dance Chicago....so far as I know this particular festival has always had lots of out-of-town guests (from ABT, NYCB, MCB, PNB, SFB, and all the other Bs....) although it has also always featured Hubbard Street and Joffrey, among other Chicago based companies.

Yes, with Alicia Alonso, and I think we can be pretty sure SHE did every step Balanchine gave her. There is a story which may be apocryphal (one would have to see an Alonso or Tallchief or Moylan performance to know with certainty) that Balanchine added the gargouillades for Kirkland in the 1970 revival of 'Theme.'

Ouch! I had no idea Catoya had been let go. That's a shame. and you are absolutely right about Polyphonia, which looked almost as good as at NYCB with Somogyi etc. and the ballets bookending it (on another thread I talked about Nathalia Arja omitting and simplifying several things in 'Ballo della Regina,' which was demoralizing since she apparently was first cast...) I couldn't agree with you more about what Lopez seems to be interested in (Morphoses South), and of course one of the reasons MCB's Balanchine was superb was exactly that Villella would have Verdy, Paul, McBride, and Farrell for Jewels, for example. Anyone who has ever met or worked with Verdy loves her and says that she is an inspiration in every conceivable way (cf. what Louise Nadeau, Maria Chapman, and Carla Korbes of PNB said about working with her on 'Emeralds.' ) I'm sure you're aware of how Peter Martins has banned, fired, excluded, etc. most of the great past dancers of Balanchine roles from ever coaching those roles at NYCB; he was quoted in one interview along the lines of 'who cares how so and so used to do it?' The butterfly collection is still the world's greatest, but the question is--will the museum remain open much longer?

That's why I said Kirkland was *sui generis*, Amour. I don't like Semionova in it at all. Slow, boring, lots of accommodating and emergency ritardandi...ugh. I saw Peck do it recently too and, although it's good, it ain't Ashley or Nichols or Kirkland by any means. I am sorry I never saw Kirkland do it but even the film of her doing it is mindblowing.

Wow, THE Square Dance available at last! One has always had to go to the Dance Collection and view that kinescope (an adventure in itself) until now. As Croce said, 'Wilde was the WHOLE show.' And Sylvia pdd with KENT!! and any footage at all of the wonderful Lupe Serrano (if only there were any of her alternating double fouettes with a la second turns, as she frequently did to amazing effect....)

Hi, Firefly. Please do share some of your thoughts about ballet and performances in the UK, if you will.

It's unfair because Bouder and Peck are NYCB ballerinas trained at SAB by brilliant teachers like Susan Pilarre and Suki Schorer who are marvelous exponents of Balanchine style and technique. Lane did not do the majority of her training in New York and did not have the benefit of studying for years with women who knew Balanchine and know *exactly* what he wanted. Elsewhere on this thread someone is excused with 'well she's not a Balanchine ballerina'--Lane, though she might have been had she gone to SAB, is not a Balanchine ballerina either, and this accounts for why she can't combine speed with size and shape in the manner that you describe Bouder and Peck doing. It also takes a technique like Bouder's, Peck's, Ashley's, Nichols', etc, to do this at all, and it's possible Lane doesn't have quite that high-powered a technique.

Good question, abatt. VERY good question. Sometimes, for example, Balanchine omitted the gargouillades in the ballerina's opening variation for dancers who were uncomfortable with the step. I've seen it with *and* without at both NYCB and ABT so it's hard to say. A lot depends on who the repetiteur assigned by the Trust happens to be, and not every coach knows every version which was done at one time or another, of course. It's not so much a question of omitting one step, of course; it's the principle. I'm not of the opinion that the Black Swan ballerina lives or dies on whether she does THIRTY-TWO FOUETTES by gawd, either, lol. Balanchine himself said about a la secondes, fouettes, etc, 'the audience enjoys the first three or four....then they start counting.' It's not just the ballerina's or the danseur's steps either; changes in corps steps greatly affect everything. Weirdly, in a recent Miami City Ballet staging, Nathalia Arja omitted several things (or simplified them) in 'Ballo della Regina' and that ballet is always coached and staged by its original ballerina, Merrill Ashley, who owns the ballet. There is no telling for sure about that sort of thing.

This is a five-day festival held at the Harris Theater, the Museum for Contemporary Art, and Grant Park, with ballet, modern, tap, jazz, Latin, and various other categories of dance presented on several varied programs, most of them free (with tickets obtained in advance) and one requiring no tickets (the one in Grant Park.) Saw two performances so far this week: "Modern Women" at the MCA on Tuesday evening and "Dancing at the Harris" on Thursday night. "Modern Women" began with small works by Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham ("Valse Brilliante" and "Deep Song"), danced by the Isadora Duncan Dance Company and Blakeley White McGuire, a dancer from the Martha Graham company. Like all Graham solos, "Deep Song" (from 'cante jondo' in flamenco) is problematic because the astounding performer who created the role is not only inimitable but quite intimidating even after the passage of decades. McGuire is a fine dancer and appears to understand the context of a dance created in response to the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, but she does not have the sacred-monster magnetism that all the Graham solos require in order to attain their effect. It is hard to imagine anyone who would possess that quality now. Crystal Pite's 'A Picture of You Falling' is a solo premiered by its choreographer and since danced by both women and men; here it was performed by two different men from Hubbard Street Dance Company. I saw Jesse Bechard, who is a strong dancer; he is at home with relatively simple movement such as this solo uses and is also clearly capable of considerable physical virtuosity. The solo is intriguing and no doubt would be different danced by a woman. The excerpt from 'Unstruck' by Kate Weare, danced by her eponymous company, was beautifully danced by Nicole DIaz, Julian De Leon, and Ryan Rouland Smith. "Dancing at the Harris" began with a great curtain-raiser: Balanchine's 'Allegro Brilliante.' Unfortunately, Patricia Delgado is not equal to the formidable demands of this ballerina role made for Maria Tallchief; she is adequate but never dazzling, brilliant, or 'Russian' as the music and the choreography require (the piece is to the one-movement fragment of the Tchaikovsky Third Piano Concerto.) Delgado had visible tension in her neck and hands; she was off the music slightly but frequently; her pirouettes in the cadenza were neither secure nor fast enough, particularly the triples...With dancers like the breathtaking Jeanette Delgado and Mary Carmen Catoya and Tricia Albertson (all of whom have danced this role) on the MCB roster, one wonders why Lourdes Lopez casts Patricia Delgado in so many ballerina roles. The corps (demisolo roles all, as there are only five couples total) was good here and Renan Cerdeiro was an able principal male. 'In the Meantime' was an odd collaboration (there were several odd things on this program) between the Chicago Human Rhythm Project (tap), the Ensemble Espanol Spanish Dance Theatre (flamenco and Latin), and the Trinity Irish Dance Company (Irish step dancing); each of the three couples did a number together and then there was a short coda involving all the dancers. Peter Dziak, the man from Trinity Irish Dance Company, was outstanding--buoyant, springy, effortless. Sarah Lane and Joseph Gorak of ABT then gave the Wedding pas de deux from Sleeping Beauty; Gorak is one of the rising young lions of the company, but he like so many other fine male dancers cannot make this tedious male variation anything but a chore. He partnered attentively and sensitively. Lane was not at her best; the partnered side falls with quick arm movements looked mannered and contrived, and her footwork was not up to her usual clarity. Again like so many good ballerinas she cannot make this variation appear anything but trite. (The choreography and even the music certainly doesn't help here.) Lane and Gorak will be dancing Bluebird pas de deux, far more interesting and appropriate for a 'party piece,' tomorrow night, and I look forward to that. After intermission, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago performed a piece they premiered in March: 'I am Mister B.' As you might guess, Mister B here is Balanchine, and the schtick is that the score used is the Tchaikovsky 'Tema con Variazioni' (yes, THAT Theme and Variations.) The dancers, male and female, are in a ballroom with swags reminiscent of actual 'Theme' sets; they all wear costumes halfway between suits and tuxedos. A narrator talks over the Theme, the first two variations, and a later variation, speaking mostly quotes from Balanchine (I am not certain if it was all direct quotation or 'in the style of ' occasionally although I recognized quite a few of the quotes.) Choreographer Gustavo Ramirez Sansano clearly loves and admires Mr. B and this piece is in the nature of a pastiche/hommage/riff (for lack of a better word) on the Balanchine ballet. Knowing most of the steps in the Balanchine I had some trouble not wanting to see them, but the spiky movement was interesting. I don't think most of the movement was related to the grand, Tsarist score in any way, even tangentially or referentially, but it's an interesting idea. Last ballet of the evening was Stanton Welch's 'Maninyas' danced by the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. Though I'm not at all fond of Welch and this ballet has his usual tics, schticks, and mannerisms, the Joffrey dancers did the hell out of it. There are five solo couples in various permutations and listed by the color they wear (Dances at a Gathering, anyone?) ; everyone was excellent, but Amber Neumann's (brown) wonderful jump, Derrick Agnoletti's (brown) energy and fire, Anais Bueno's (green) sinuous elegance, Fabrice Calmels' (purple) partnering (he is superlative), and Mahallia Ward's (purple) opening solo were especially great. This was the most energetic, dazzling dancing of the evening, from everyone.

She is the antithesis of a Balanchine dancer, but SF Ballet has always until very recently been a Balanchine company. Perhaps in recent years they have done less, but they have acquired as many Balanchine ballets as anywhere outside NYCB except Miami City Ballet. Yes, if taught and coached by someone like Ashley or Nichols, 'Theme' is very much Balanchine's ballet, and 'different accents' or even phrasings are a completely different matter from omitted, smudged, simplified, dumbed-down steps.

Bouder and Peck are rather unfair comparisons (the two most brilliant virtuoso ballerinas of the current NYCB, and the only ones who do good 'Themes') but Kirkland, who was sui generis , is an utterly unfair one--rather like Nichols or Ashley would be. Having seen many, many ballerinas notably including Kochetkova omit and simplify lots of steps in 'Theme' it is refreshing even to see Sarah Lane do the correct steps. Also, Kirkland appeared tiny but was in fact 5'4''; Lane is considerably shorter.

For the record, I have seen (been subjected to, alas) Kochetkova in several roles, including as Nikiya, and my objections are exactly the same regarding those as well. I found her actually drab and dull as Nikiya--and I still didn't see the necessary technique for the part, either.

You are right, Drew--I never said Mr B was consistent. Just Farrell *alone* would prove his inconsistency on this topic, LOL. (and I loved Farrell's dancing...) But the point about Ashley is that she nearly NEVER did that--most dancers do it far more, if not all the time. If you read Tallchief being interviewed in, I think, "I Remember Balanchine" (a masterpiece), she says that once she was injured in London and Balanchine changed ONE step for her. Diana Adams talks about how lousy she thought she was (HA) in Bizet finale with 'all the other girls whirling around so well' and Balanchine offered to change it and Adams said, not on your life, George--I'll learn to deal with it. However, I still think it's mostly (not always) about lesser dancers who can't do the steps. LOL. I don't think 'ballet is woman' is at all cultish, however. rather adoring and admiring. It was usually Farrell, by the way (what a surprise) whom he had dancing without an understudy. ABT is desperate for ballerinas in particular (and their stellar Latin man contingent is retiring any year now, sadly) and Kochetkova is not vaguely that--just a 'little partner', as Kirkland said Lucia Chase saw her for Baryshnikov, for a short male dancer.

It might be more exact for your purposes, but in fact I said exactly what I meant. To amplify, there will always be people who complain about highly accomplished technique because a) not all dancers possess it b) their favorites do not possess it and are criticized for this c) they assume, wrongly, that such technique precludes 'artistry.' It's the same exhausted old canard from gymnastics and music: 'technique' vs. 'artistry' as if the two were in a cage match to the death instead of being inseparably, essentially connected...and it is, sadly, extremely widespread. I don't agree about 'deploying technique in a distinctive, imaginative way' because I find that is usually in fact the addition of schtick and mannerism to 'decorate' and 'improve' , if not to conceal weakness. Balanchine's dicta on this (don't DO, don't 'add,' don't subscribe to the ballerina 'cult of personality') are mine as well. Certainly that does not mean one does not want a ballerina to be unique--that is essential and necessary. it is the ballerina using personal tics and schticks to TRY to appear unique, both technically and esthetically (ugh, there I go separating the two. invidious) which is actionable, lol.

That is in fact one of my myriad objections to Kochetkova, particularly in Balanchine: distortion and affectation which goes way beyond mannerism into something even worse. However, what I was referring to as disgraceful was her dumbing-down and simplification of difficult steps and passages (and poor execution both technically and stylistically--and this at a slowish tempo-- of the steps she left in) in one of the most famous virtuoso roles of all time. I don't care if a dancer omits or simplifies a step once in a while--even Merrill Ashley, Empress of Flawless Steps, did that and says so--but to do it often in a ballerina part like 'Theme' is anathema as far as I'm concerned.