Paul Parish

Welcome to Ballet Alert, Variated. I agree with most of your thoughtful response, except that I'd like to point out that the audience has a kinesthetic response to the dance as well as a pictorial response -- and that the quality of tje movement is as important as the plastique. There are many different qualities a choreographer could want -- sometimes a jagged, stumbling action is called for, sometimes precarious footwork is the POINT. Though generally speaking in ballet, awkwardness is an effect, while well-coordinated seamless transitions are the norm. To the degree that the sweep of the phrase matters more than hte articulation of each particular step, making the dance comfortable for the dancer also makes the dance comfortable for hte audience -- since by and large, phrasing is the MOST important conveyor of meaning.

Judging from the little footage I've seen of Ashton dancing, I'd say he was a PHENOMENAL dancer -- unbelievable lightness and rapidity in entrachats-sixes and sissonnes, like Manuel Legris. It's true he started late, and it's also true, he envied Balanchine the training he'd had at the Imperial Ballet School. On another note, I've heard an interview with Lar Lubovitch in which the point was brought out that he was a painter before he became a choreographer. The questions were subtle and the whole conversation was fascinating. I wish I could remember it, but the discussion was not simple. Not sure of his biography -- I think he had studied dance, but his concentration was in the visual arts...... And on yet another note, while what Mel says is true about Balanchine in some ways -- he was a character dancer in his early career, not a premier, and his career was almost ended when he got some lung disease -- TB? -- which left him with only on lung; nevertheless there are MANY accounts from the dancers that he was a superb dancer -- his gestures were wonderful, and he could do the most difficult things perfectly -- not sure what, but something like a double tour landing in arabesque in his street clothes with moccasins on his feet. And Tallchief among others has said that Balanchine knew how a woman was going to feel in her pointe shoes.... He'd ask dancers 'which was are you falling" and incorporated that knowledge into hte next phrase, so the movement had a natural feel to it. Dancers have often said that solos made for them seemed tailor-made, they were comfortable to dance. [They've also often said he did NOT take into account -- or only rarely -- the dancers' need to take a break, get offstage, and catch their breath. That's another matter.]

Gina, thank you. And since you know, would you please describe Wilde's "Afternoon of a Faun" a little bit? I've seen it mentioned many times, but don't know what the movement was like at all.... How many dancers? costumes? WHo was/were your partner(s)? How did the faun move? I'd love to know.

Hmmmmm. I've tried to enter a post here three times now. WONder what I'm doing wrong. THe greatest O/O I ever saw live was Sibley. Ananiashvili made a greeat entrance as Odile: she looked around her as if to say, "Where AM I? Zagreb?" looking down her nose at these people. And her nose suddenly looked a lot like Danilova's.

One of the posts in the Walter Gore thread touched on Mark Wilde glancingly thus: ".... [he] intimated oddly that he was committed to making sandwiches commercially. I remain hopeful this was an in-joke that still escapes me but is remembered. His name was, I seem to believe, a Mark Wild. This was a bit ago." Let me start a thread about Wilde, since he was an important Bay Area dance figure in hte 70s and maybe others will be able to add to this -- Gina, maybe, and others. Bay Area balletomanes will be grateful for the work of Marc Wilde, who was associated with the Pacific Ballet of San Francisco and with Oakland Ballet. He choreographed a sensationally successful version of Ravel's "Bolero" which Oakland Ballet danced frequently as the finale to an evening's dances. I've seen it many times, I always loved it. Bolero (1974) is kind of post-mod Etudes/Grand Pas Classique designed to display the classical technique of the whole company. It's set on a bare stage with barres in place, with the back walls showing, a step-ladder that reaches into the flies, and trees of lights in plain view. The ballet proceeds like Etudes from academic exercises to moves of increasing complexity and difficulty, with the rising excitement of Ravel's music to rachet-up the levels of challenge to the truly formidable. Beautifully constructed, clear, honest, wonderful ballet. The dancers used to perform it in practice clothes, which let the accuracy of their placement, their finesse in transitions, and the musicality of their dancing create the transformation of them from Oaklanders (black, white, Asian, and of all body-types) into noble, god-like ballet-stars. The ballet opened with and built back up to large group movements, but the heart of it was a string of variations that showed you not only what these dancers could do but who (and how stage-worthy) they were: I'll never forget Michael Lowe, Joy Gim, Carolyn Goto, Susan Taylor, Mario Alonzo, their images are still so vivid. As he music built to its hysterical finale, they just all came came at us kicking and turning like in a Balanchine finale. I have never seen a more appropriate setting of that music -- including Nijinska's, which entered the rep 21 years later. It was a sensationally effective piece for the company -- it made the whole city proud of them, and it was easy to tour in both senses, since audiences everywhere loved it and them, and all the costumes could go into a suitcase or two. It was re-costumed later in bright-colored unitards, which also worked. WIlliam Huck's "Oakland Ballet: the first 25 years" lists 8 ballets by Mark Wilde in Oakland's rep, ranging from Concerto Grosso #1 in G to Brahms Intermezzi, La Valse, Afternoon of a Faun, Jazziana, The Sirens, and Concert Waltzes (with Raoul Pause).

"....who intimated oddly that he was committed to making sandwiches commercially. I remain hopeful this was an in-joke that still escapes me but is remembered. His name was, I seem to believe, a Mark Wild. This was a bit ago." Bay Area balletomanes will be familiar with the work of Mark Wilde, who was associated with the Pacific Ballet of San Francisco and with Oakland Ballet. He choreographed a sensationally successful version of Ravel's "Bolero" which Oakland Ballet danced frequently as the finale to an evening's dances. Bolero (1974)is kind of post-mod Etudes/Grand Pas Classique designed to display the classical technique of the whole company. It's set on a bare stage with barres in place, with the back walls showing, a step-ladder that reaches into the flies, and trees of lights in plain view. The ballet proceeds like Etudes from academic exercises to moves of increasing complexity and difficulty, with the rising excitement of Ravel's music to rachet-up the levels of challenge to the truly formidable. Beautifully constructed, clear, honest, wonderful ballet. The dancers used to perform it in practice clothes, which let the accuracy of their placement, their finesse in transitions, and the musicality of their dancing create the transformation of them from Oaklanders (black, white, Asian, and of all body-types) into noble, god-like ballet-stars. It was a sensationally effective piece for the company -- it made the whole city proud of them, and it was easy to tour in both senses, since audiences everywhere loved it and them, and all the costumes could go into a suitcase or two. It was re-costumed later in bright-colored unitards, which also worked. WIlliam Huck's "Oakland Ballet: the first 25 years" lists 8 ballets in Oakland's rep, ranging from Concerto Grosso #1 in G to Brahms Intermezzi, La Valse, Afternoon of a Faun, Jazziana, The Sirens, and Concert Waltzes (with Raoul Pause).

THank you for posting this -- I've never seen it before, but it's truly wonderful. Fonteyn had a fantastic gift for creating drama -- at hte very end, she does perfectly amazing things with echappes to point. The diagonal, as you say, is amazing, and her phrasing of hte fourette passage is better than many who do many more turns, since she ends it with a soussus balance in a glorious pose that is itself quite difficult to achieve in the first place and to sustain when dizzy is quite amazing. and he final pose on his shoulders is glorious. Fonteyn knew her orders of magnitude, which images had to be created when, and when it was crucial to hold the pose and "go wonderful." little-junkie, Fonteyn was my first Odette-Odile and even not having any basis for comparison, I was very impressed. I recall her being extremely dangerous and charismatic as Odile, she didn't use any of the exaggerated vampish type effects we often see, she was just irresistible. Very sophisticated and very much the person that attracts the attention of everyone in whatever room she has entered. Although the quality is poor, particularly the movement , which is somewhat jerky, I think this clip shows the Fonteyn/Nureyev dynamic better than the Nureyev film. They are both a bit nervous in the first moment or two but they settle in and Fonteyn is mesmerizing in her attraction. Siegfried simply is overwhelmed, this is no over the top siren but an irresistible force that simply can't be ignored. Although Fonteyn was never a virtuoso, some of her effects are very impressive, particularly the last part of the coda. She attempts the 32 fouettes, which was more than she did on stage at this point but only gets about 29 out. but the diagonal afterwards is amazing. Also , throughout, her use of her hands and head is very captivating. This was posted a while back but wasn't the complete pdd, I believe it ended with the adagio. This source includes the variations and coda.

THank you thank you thank you! WOw, powerful ballet. SO great to see it now.

MorePlisetskaya-- much more glamorous, less girlish -- with a romantic golden haze around it. I love this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoYJvFPBhdA&feature=related Wonder what you all will think.

Thanks, helene -- this starts with that courtly pd4 i love so much, and then Raymonda's wonderful scarf variation. I can't say I'm in love with Kolpakova -- she's too brittle for me. I DO think Raymonda should be delicate -- Semenyaka is beautiful, so is Lopatkina. Besmertnova was very mannered but still beautiful. Plistetskaya also, though she was almost too robust, was glorious as Raymonda. Such SPIRIT she had What do you think? For every absurdity -- the turned in passe, I DON'T CARE -- there are twenty wonders. I love the way she dances with the scarf, and the clapping solo -- the glorious second position in the arms, the poses on pointe with the standing knee bent; and overall, the portrait of a high-spirited girl. i just love her. Edited to add -- O I take it back. I had not seen the 1976 video of Kolpakova -- she's astounding.the entrechat-quatres to pointe!!! Among a thousand other perfections -- brilliant facetings. Just STAGGERING. Wonderful Raymonda. The 1980 -- just 4 years later -- is not so wonderful.

Dear Bart Birdsall -- i LOVE Lopatkina's Raymonda and completely agree with you. Alas, we did not get her in Berkeley. the ballerina who made the Hungarian dance so dispiriting was Nioradze.

Great topic! and Great POSTS!!! Keep them coming!

Dear Bart, I agree so strongly with you that I love Raymonda and do not know why. Some reasons I could give would be how much i love the music, all of it is wonderful, and it has a perfume of its own. A few years ago, the Bolshoi came to Berkeley and did Raymonda in Zellerbach Hall. I'd always heard that the story is incomprehensible and that it's cut-up, re-arranged, and that nothing can save it except making a divertissement out of it as Balanchine did -- but I did NOT feel that way about it when I saw Grigorovich's version -- nor did i find it crude, as I'd always heard Grigorovich's versions of everything were. With new respect for Grigorovich, I watched with continuous delight and became more and more enchanted as the evening went on. I started to get seriously excited in the dance for the four courtiers, who dance with linked arms and do every kind of pas de bourree. i have NO idea why I love that dance so much, but it just drives me wild with delight. I loved the dream scene -- the demis were ravishing, Raymonda herself has a wonderful variation, the corps dances are lovely.... Abderakhman's act was thrilling - -and Taranda was fabulously dangerous and sexy, but SO wrong for her.... Further thoughts of your own? DO you have an ideal order for things. What do you think of the White Lady? I think the Bolshoi DANCES it better than hte Kirov, who did parts of the wedding act here he following year also and it was -- well, perhaps it was the ballerina's fault, but it was deadly. the Hungarian solo was, and HOW can you ruin THAT, just deadly. Maybe they were just having a bad night....

Actually, Denby DID write about dance photographs at least once-- there is a fine short essay about photographs of Nijinsky; he treats them as evidence, rather than as an art in itself, and htere's little delving into ways they might mis-represent. I don't think he was niave -- I don't think he was interested. it's a great essay....

I'm told that the version that Gelsey Kirkland danced with Baryshnikov came from the version that Enrique Martinez staged for ABT. But who choreographed it? To me it smacks of "Grand pas classique" -- Gsovsky-esque. Kirkland's balances and style, her exquisite, downright precious phrasing of it was masterly and made a fantastic thing out of choreography that looks to me like a display piece -- but what do I know? Does anybody reading this forum know where those phrases come from? I've seen versions on youtube that include Martinez's first two phrases -- including the tombe-pas de bourree on point and then add fancy turns to finish it out -- e.g., the Royal ballet's version as danced by Leanne Benjamin. The wonderful thing about the Kirkland version is that had NO PIROUETTES at all and nevertheless read as full-tilt ballerina with awesome technique..... Anybody on here know the provenance of the elements of the Kirkland version? Thanks in advance.

I believe she was second violin in the CBC recording of Concerto Barocco with Suzanne Farrel -- she was thrilling in it ,esp the last movement....

Radetsky does a beautiful renverse to arabesque in the chasse-coupe ballonne coupe assemble double tour passage-- most people just do a little ballonne in second, his arabesque is risky and beautiful, the 3rd one is very VERY beautiful (though as Leigh points out, god knows how many times he had to do it to get it that clean -- the light has obviously changed by the time that third rep was filmed). THANKS, Christian, for posting this. It's wonderful to compare the guys -- and the choreography. I have to say, I REALLY like your Sarabito, the just for that FABULOUS right leg but for the way the choreography SHOWS that leg -- in the sissonnes, in the pirouette with the slow extension, in the ballonne before the double tours -- he has wonderful phrasing as well as the formidable Cuban charisma AND the technical austerity without which such flamboyance is just embarrassing. Edur has wonderful sweep. Misha looks great but a little greyed down, not sure why. I love the way he uses his upper body in the sissonnes And Zelensky looks great to me. I wish Radetsky had finished on the music.

WHO are these dancers? CAN THAT BE Carla Fracci? I realize this is from 2002, it's possible. The man has VERY good feet and dances very well.

Thank you for posting those. I've just watched la Scala's -- the boy dances beautifully, and the choreography has a few moments of being the same as we're used to from the Danish version (her diagonal of cabriole pas de chat, for example. The choral music and dancing helps fill out the sense of it all. As I understand it, the choreography of the version we know is not Bournonville's but is mostly Hans Beck's working in Bournonville's style -- which gives me increased respect for Beck, since it's SUCH good choreography If you can get your hands on a video of the young Darci Kistler dancing this with Ib Andersen, you'll experience one of the greatest pleasures ballet has to offer.

Bart, I just wrote you a LONG reply, which somehow the software ate up completely. In brief, I praised the kind of writing you're praising here, and referred you to Edwin Denby, who wrote for the NY Herald Tribune at a Time when the Times's criticism of all the arts was grey and mediocre, and who was the greatest critic of dance yet to appear in English. Check out his collected works; Macaulay is writing in his tradition and is the best dance critic the Times has ever had. THe kind of writing you praise is in fact the evidence a critic introduces to back up his/her claims, and Denby was its greatest practitioner. His description of the lifts in 'COncerto Barocco' is among the sublime passages of mid-20th century critical prose in English. All his admirers try to include some passages that give the picture to the reader like Denby did, if the editor will give room for it. Here's an example of what I consider that sort of thing from MY review of the RDB in Berkeley, which came out in last week's BayArea Reporter, the gay weekly of San Francisco, which has an excellent arts section and gives us writers rather a lot of room to say what we think: "The great glory of the RDB is the footwork – Danish dancers, men and women, have feet that are more articulate than most people’s hands. Traditionally they’ve worn white tights and special shoes, black-rimmed with a white diamond down the instep, which makes the pointing of the foot flash like a bolt of lightning. The optical illusion created when the knee straightens and the foot points completely makes the line of the leg look much longer than it is in fact, which is why a ballerina standing on pointe looks radiant, like a star. The pointe shoe allows a dancer to create that finished line that goes out to infinity, which otherwise can only be created by tearing the body away from the floor altogether –i.e., by jumping. The Danish technique contains as many kinds of jumps as Inuit has words for snow – there are tiny jumps, medium-sized jumps, grands jetes; there is a whole category in which the legs cross in mid-air like scissors, the feet flash back and forth in the twinkling of an eye – but you did see it, and they DID DO IT. It’s like a miracle. Furthermore, the style has many many very small steps against which the jumps can stand out by contrast."

She's very good at the counting the petals moment-- you can see she believes in this method of prophecy, it's sincere and clear and she's serious about this, I like her very much there. I do NOT feel much in her "not wanting him to kiss her -- nor do I feel much in his WANTING her to kiss him, i.e.,the acting is weak there, too much indebted to daytime television mannerisms....

Thanks for that delightful report, Jane. They're coming here to Berkeley at hte end of hte month and I can'twait to see them.

Hats! What a moment for hats. It seems necessary to hide the forehead with the hat, if you're under 30. Cleavage may be shown, but not the forehead. What's up with THAT? Victoria Beckham was most noticeable -- her beretta was perched almost in front of her hairline -- but keep looking, and most everybody in the fashionable set had hats growing out of their foreheads. Wonder how they kept htem on.... I thought the queen looked happy in yellow -- it looked like she was showing her approval of the match.

Cristian, this looks like Bourmeister's choreography, which the Stanislavsky Ballet has been dancing for quite some time. They brought it here to San Francisco about 10 years ago, and most of us agreed that it is a coherent, powerful version of the ballet, quite different from the classic version the Royal Ballet dances, rather lurid but internally consistent. More recent versions like ABT's clearly owe a LOT to the Stanislavsky version -- especially in their versions of Rothbart ("Swamp thing"), without having the solid deep theatrical structure that Bourmeister's does.... Clips of Roberto Bolle in Swan Lake make it look like La Scala does Bourmeister's version as well. There's a very good first act.

I'm with you, Jayne -- i see Kirkland and Hepburn in her -- they all three made me want to protect them, as if they were real to me and I TO THEM.... yes, of course, "that way madness lies,' but that is in fact the way artists affect me, as if they were not only in my world but making my world for me.... Obrasztova is one of those performers that God makes you care about.... I don't really believe in God, but I don't know any other way of saying it...