Paul Parish

There's nothing I've enjyed more on DVD this year than "7 Brides for 7 Brothers" -- I can't get enough of it. Ever since I saw Mark Platt in Ballets Russes, I've been looking for his old movies -- and that's the one that's readily available. Jacques d'Amboise, who was 17 at the time, is in it -- glorious, and so modest. he played either Daniel or Ephraim, and Platt the other -- Also Matt Maddox, fabulous dnacer and the most beautiful legs and such a noble torso, also Tommy Rawls, who could do triple tours (d'Amboise says in the documentary about making it that's on the bonus disc.) THe BROTHERS!!!!!! o my GOD!. They're like a pack of dogs, they have one nervous system for the lot of them and move like single unit -- not like a corps de ballet, but like a soccer team or birds or dogs.... the scene where Jane Powell arrives at the house to discover that she isn't coming to married bliss but a household of rough-tumble GUYS is mozartean in its complexity of tone -- poignant for her but still the funniest thing I think I've ever seen -- fantastic choreography by Michael Kidd, from whom it looks like Jerome Robbins learned everything he needed for Broadway, for the moves are all dancing in their rhythms but none of them dance steps and always further the action -- until you get to the barn-dance, which is huge, where there are lots of ballet dancers (Kelly Brown, Leslie and Ethan Browne's father looks REAL good) and some ballet catches and flat out steals from deMille, but Kidd always is using plot-points to govern his vocabulary, so it has to be moves these people would do.... American dramballet -- It's an MGM musical, I admit, there's lots of dialogue and singing and story-telling -- but at the back of it there's always a dance-mind at work.

Fascinating thread-- Dancers have a heightened sense of their own a-symmetry. Even very great dancers have a good sde and a bad side, less turn-out on one leg, a side they can't turn nearly as well to, a leg they'd rather jump from. People who look fantastically at ease and beautifully balanced says they don't feel that way. But that's partly because ballet training emphasizes TRYING to develop equally, so you can do a combination to the left and to the right AND REVERSED. I remember a lecture demo in which i wayan Dibia showed a Balinese dance that had something of the nature of a prayer and made a big point of saying that certain features of it were done both to the left and to the right, otherwise there would be a big flaw in it -- the dance ITSELF had to be symmetrical. SO this applies to classical forms in quite other cultures than that of ballet. I'd be very surprised if this didn't apply to the classical dances of Africa. From the West-African dances I've learned, the dances go left and right almost obsessively -- like the Electric Slide. My hunch is that the ability to change directions economically increases markedly the more symmetrically your body is made and operates.... from my own experience (and i'm very lop-sided at the moment), that is the case. and the ability to change directions economically is a prerequisite for graceful movement, sine qua non.

o hans, that's hilarious! and Helene, you're SO RIGHT! in fact, the Trocks version of Raymonda is almost straight, it needs some jokes.... But they can DO it. I'm suddenly picturing Mark Mrris doing hte Arabian ance in the Hard nut -- remember, he claps his hands and his houris fall down dead, one by one.... DIvine imperiousness. The Trocks could try that, too. In nureyev's version, there's a high table full of grandees upstage of hte dancers -- every time she clapped, someone could fall over into their cups. i think I'd have to laugh at that -- the devil would make me do it.

I LOVE Semenyaka's performance [bolshoi DVD], where she makes the claps the beginning of everything. They're the onslaught into a magnificent phrase, a huge spiral of the arms, which turn IN at the shoulder as one hand goes down, the other comes up, and then there's this unbelievable rotation that happens in the back, the wings spread, the shoulders melt omehow as the arms reach out and complete their arcs and arrive in classical second position. AN ABSOLUTELY amazingly beautiful long-drawn-out gorgeous phrase. I've never seen anybody else do it with such amplitude or such a sense of inevitability -- it's like a rainbow materializing in the sky, the arrival at perfection and simplicity. How do you top that? Well, then she does it again! And that's just the beginning!!! when she gets to the passes, the FIRST ONE is final. And then come all the rest of them until you're just screaming. It is SO exciting!!!

Loved your enthusiasm, walboi -- can't wait to see it myself. Mark Morris made a new Sylvia for us in SanFrancisco 2years ago hat made me very happy -- SUCH WONDERFUL MUSIC!!!!!!! -- which SFB is reviving this year at the END of the year. In New York ABT does Ashton's Sylvia, so all of a sudden it's busting out all over..... There's a fair amount of info, Walboi, in case you're interested, about how Ashton choreographed it, how incredibly good Fonteyn was in it, and all in "Secret Muses," the bio by Julie Kavanagh which came out not too long ago. it might be in your library. Another EXCELLENT book is David Vaughan's "Ballets of Frederick Ashton" which may be harder to find.....

Yes, Quiggin -- that scene with the nuns and the flower-seller is too sweet -- my hunch is that it's an homage to W Christensen's similar scene in the old one.... it also reads MUCH better from the left than from the right.... I bet Kristin Long is fine in the grand pas. Tonight's show was my first chance to see Davit Karapetyan -- Snow King. He has a beautifully centered way of moving, beautiful lines -- aside from being a musical dancer himself, as a partner he has very nice timing for lifts -- Katita looked great in her own right, and with him behind her, putting her into the picture. Sensational effect. Sarah van Patten was very fine in the grand pas -- partly because she really entered into the story, and she's almost young enough to be a projection of Clara's, ("me at 17"). She's the first dancer in this role I've who looked like she might actually be Clara when she stepped out of that dressing-room. She felt wonderful in these clothes, her crown, and when she thanked the Sugar Plum Fairy for doing this for her, you could tell she meant it. She also really gives herself to the music -- in her variation, when she'd start the manege she tombes out of. I guess it's multiple pirouette into releve ballonnes, and does three or four with like quarter-turns, and each time it was like her foot was a little hammer striking a chime -- which is perfect with that music, the foot arrived at its extension just as the note was struck.... There were lots of good performances tonight -- Maya Zakour was lovely as Clara, Moises Martin was marvellous as her father, Ashley was very fine as Drosselmeyer, Anita Paciotti and Jorge Exquivel danced the grandparents with heart and flair. Garrett Anderson was again fantastic, simply fantastic, as Russian, Amanda Schull was hilarious as the head can-can girl -- she just tore it up -- Rachel Viselli didn't dance very well, but her mime was wonderful when she was listening to the Nutcracker's narrative -- she reacted to every point of the story in just the right way, it seemed natural and heartfelt and sincere and I was quite caught up in her audience. Maybe she's just truly shy. She dances as if she's afraid, but her technique is so solid, what is there to fear? Maybe she's afraid she's got to be interesting but doesn't feel like pushing herself on the audience. She's not one of those dancers who gets absorbed in the music... if she had a dramatic role where she'd have to be somebody, like in a Tudor ballet, her dramatic instincts might could bring something out of her? Maybe she'd get caught up in that. Makes you wonder. Sergio Torrado was very fine as Clara's cavalier. It's the most refined dancing I've ever seen from him -- I've seen him be killer in big male bronze-idol Bolshoi-style roles, like in Chi-Lin; and an hombre muy macho in Don Q. I have NOT liked him in Ballo -- but that's a very hard part; Ricky Weiss didn't look good in it, and it was made on him.

Can't help you too much with Russians, but Tennessee Williams has got some great ones in English... In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Brick has a good one about his friend who died.... The best of course are for the female characters, but I think there are a couple for the brother in Glass Menagerie..... Shakespeare has great ones -- Macbeth's speech beginning "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" is not long but packs a wallop. But they're maybe too familiar. Robert Browning wrote a whole series of "dramatic monologues" -- poems a couple pages long, that are tremendously fertile -- "My Last Duchess" would be a great piece to present. And they have the virtue of being not just condensations of great stories but themselves great poems.

Humerus parallel to the floor, definitely. Except in Cunningham, where they also put the hand on the shoulder and then do shoulder circles -- it's part of "the back series" -- it feels REALLY good, it's a great way to open up the clavicle and get the shoulders off the neck

Hey Balletdad -- THANK YOU for that info! I haven't noticed her playing with that toy but will look for it. And I like the way you express yourself -- "Hansuke Yamamoto... danced with enthusiasm and barely controlled abandon, which I think works great in this role." I totally agree. From what I've heard about what it feels like to dance it, you're in a whirlwind the whole time and just hoping you land where you ought to, no matter how good you are.

And there's main a l'epaule again in Toumanova's pose. Wonderful picture. Youskevitch's jacket fits so beautifully; what marvellous shoulders! And their tights are so silky. The sight reminds me of how Gisella Christensen used to be so amusing talking about the difficulties of wearing real silk tights, which had no stretch to them and you were always having to pull them up some more because they bagged at the knees in no time. Maybe that's why in the picture all 4 knees are bent. Of course, it also allows for a more compact picture; so does her hand a l'epaule also make it easier to get all of her into the picture. No idea what the ballets are, but her head-dress is very interesting (Was there ever a version of Arabian danced in a tutu?). There's a catalogue-number in the lower right hand of the picture. Could it go all the way back to the photographing? Could that help you?

I'm with Hans -- If you want to see something made to look impossibly easy, check out Vasiliev and Maximova in Giselle -- he lifts her overhead again and again as if she were weightless. The Soviet version of the Act 2 pas de deux is as heroic as Spartacus, but none of the effort can show, you can't even THINK of it, and all you see is her trajectory.....

Sharon, you're totally right -- he IS gallant. It's a very good word for it. Thanks for your kind words about what I wrote, and glad you feel free to see it your own way. If we didn't we wouldn't GO. I'm very eager to hear your report on Thursday's show, so please, LOTS of detail. Paul

Beautiful picture -- thanks for the link. I've heard that positon called "romantic port de bras" -- Nureyev used to put his hand there in the solo from Corsaire, and it was a gorgeous line. Mel will have a better answer than this, but till he weighs in, this is what I know. The position is used in Cecchetti class; and Merce Cunningham uses it in training as well. As RG noted, it sets up the shoulders very well and helps teach how to use the shoulders for turning. Brynar Mehl used to have us do tendus with the hand on the shoulder.

Hey guys, I agree, the Russian dance is incredibly exciting. I hear, though I haven't seen him do it, that Hansuke Yamamoto is the best -- Has anybody seen him? I've seen Pascal Molat and Garrett Anderson as the boy in the middle, and both were fantastic. I've held off posting, since I was going to write something for Danceviewtimes and needed to keep that clear... It's out now, here's the link, wonder what you'll think http://www.danceviewtimes.com/2005/Autumn/12/sfbnuts.html The new Estonian dancer was remarkable -- a little like Vadim, in a way, soft, dreamy, princely. One thing that struck me when I saw it again from standing room was how much better the projections looked from back there-- Act 2 looked wonderful from all the way back, the color saturations were much more intense and set off the dancing more beautifully than from the seats much closer, where -- maybe? -- ambient stage light washed them out. I haven't heard much mention of Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun; I thought she was fantastic in Arabian, which is such a tangle of limbs that it takes some doing for her to make her lines show.... Have any of you seen her?

HEy Fendrock, I had a reaction like yours at first, too. Luckily, where I live in Berkeley, California, the Cunningham company performs every year, and I got frequent chances to see them. It was with "Pictures" that I got the point. I had never seen anything that beautiful in that way, ever before in my life. I was totally, totally gone on that ballet. The next one that floored me was "Sounddance," which is performed amidst hte most thunderous noise I've ever endured, but it was like war, and they were like warriors, just staggeringly brave, defiant creatures in absolute extremis. THey keep bursting through the back curtain, which has slits in it and one moment they're hidden and the next they're there and hellzapoppin.... actually, one guy leads them all in ,and he's I think the last to leave when they all go flying back out. "Pictures' is serene, and "SOunddance" is the opposite -- but they are unbelievable great. And in "Pictures," the lines are so beautiful, it could be "Sleeping Beauty." Merce has a fantastic sense of line. There's lots more to say, but that's where I'd start. if you're ever in a place where you can see old Merce videos, check out "septet" = it's set to music by Satie, and it perfectly fits it = or anything with Carolyn Brown in it. Actually, any of those will also have MERCE himself in it - -and that's worth seeing, he's so funny. But Carolyn Brown was a ballerina of the first rank -- mysterious as the sphynx. Nobody, not Fonteyn, not Farrell, not Sizova, nobody outranks Carolyn Brown.

Sylvy started an EXCELLENT thread about bird-like arms in Florine's variation -- to wit, the ballerina uses her back, arms, and wrists as if she were flying, in the oldest versions of Florine's variation -- i.e., the Royal Ballet's, based on Sergeyev's notations -- which are left out in the current Russian versions. There's another difference in the variations, though -- in the Sergeyev version, she hops on pointe while folding the working leg through from croise devant to efface arabesque. In the Russian version, she enveloppes the working leg to retire, then steps onto that foot and lifts the OTHER leg into croise derierre . Who is responsible for the Russian choreography? Others may disagree, but personally I find it fussy: rhythmically and pictorially much less lovely.

Thank you, Ann Barzel!!! ABout half-way through the movie I realized that hakf the clips we'd seen so far had to be some of hers -- THe clips from Sylphides were a revelation. I was very impressed with the men of old -- Alan Howard, my LORD!!! the lift in the waist through all those jumps is SO BEAUTIFUL. No wonder he could do triple turns. In the 70s in San Francisco, his Pacific Ballet was many thought a more important company than San Francisco Ballet - now I've got an idea why. ANd Zoritch, wow. Are his Hollywood movies available on DVD? Anybody know?

Volkova was indeed a key figure -- British and Danish ballet owes a lot to her.... I'm eager to know more about her. (And wasn't she Stanley Williams's teacher? in which case ballet in America does too....) Thanks for the heads-up about the chapter in Dance View. I'd better renew my subscription.

I believe it, I believe it. Please you guys, say some more about what you recall of her dancing -- her qualities, effects, roles she made sing, and what it was about her that made that happen.

Eva Natanya is still a beautiful dancer; I've seen her take Sally Streets' classes in Berkeley, and don't know what to admire the most, her training, her musicality, her beauty, or her modest and generous demeanor. What a lovely person!

Dear Carbro, and all, I defer to you who saw Saland often, live, over time, since I only saw her live once -- But in that case Saland was unearthly, in excelsis. It was winter of 1991-92, nearing the end of her career. She danced the waltz girl in Serenade that night, and as she was borne offstage in the finale, she opened herself up to the heavens with an action that reminded me of Farell's in the Preghiera of Mozartiana. It was an act of reaching...... She was a dancer greatly inferior in technique to Kirkland; Saland had more imagination than technique -- but WHAT an imagination! THAT she had/has in common with Kirkland.

digital is a shockingly simple but actualy weak system of organizing features -- its strength is that it doesn't relate anything to anything else.... but it's stupid that way, and doesnt know six of one from half a dozen of the other....

Names you might not know: Elizabeth Gorelik is extraordinary at photographing the out-there post-modern dancers aaround the bay Area. Google her; she's fantastic. I agree that Marty Sohl can catch some of the most interesting transitions, especially good at hyperballet. King, who's a BA poster, has some remarkably beautiful images; he sees things I've seen in dancers but rarely seen in photographs. And yes of course, Swope, and Costas. And the immortals, Barbara Morgan, George Platt Lynes, Maurice Seymour, and Baron. ......... I didn't mentin Marc Haegeman before, but agree wih many posters -- he sees line, and the archetype in the moment, which are probably the two most important attributes a dance photographer needs (aside from catching the feel of a movement, but only a very few can do that and do the other two; Morgan could do all three, but she had Graham's costumes toi help her, since htey often revealed the wake of the impulse). Others may catch fascinatng accidents, but Marc sees the canonic moments.

I'd second Mel's view, and add that many students are prejudiced in favor of the technique that would get them cast in student shows -- i.e., their own sometimes limited sense of what their teachers' aesthetic is. (Generally, they understimate the breadth of what their teachers will admire or enjoy in a dancer.) I know I've shown videos of GREAT dancers to students who could not stand all that "stuff" Suzanne Farrell was doing.... similarly, they couldn't see much in Sizova or Sibley. The only dancers who REALLY registered with them were Darci Kistler in the Bournonville Variations (immaculate performance, I admit) and Elizabeth Loscavio in Who Cares? (similarly unassailably fabulous performance, and both of them also look a lot like California girls). On separate line, though, I'd say that in MYSELF I notice that if I've not been dancing for a while -- whether ballet or contact improv or Lindy hop or modern or West-African, which are the forms I enjoy doing -- as a spectator I begin to lose the kinesthetic identification with the movers onstage and start responding more to the spectacle. I think it's a really good thing (certainly for a critic) to do a fair amount of dancing without having a teacher to answer to.

The London writer came closest I think to the problem -- Newspapers have stopped giving us the news. And though they're "hemorraging money," well, that's only one point of view; if their ceo's didn't expect profit margins of 15 per cent (a newfangledness), they wouldn't be having to get rid of all their reporters (which is the substance of the LA Times story -- "not being a team player" was how the Chicago owners characterized the faults of the editor of their LA subsidiary, but what he didn't want to do was have to get rid of the people who'd find out what was going on and write it up). SO the papers are arguing that they need to run more soft features, because "that's what young readers want" -- but they MAY be arguing backwards to cover up the fact that they're not telling readers, young or old, anything interesting -- which is a PRIMARY reason for loss of interest, and readership. WHy buy a paper that "slides knotless through the mind"? My local metro daily is running a disgusting series on suicides off the Golden Gate Bridge -- front page -- that never once goes into why any of these people jumped. EVERY ONE is treated in circumstantial detail, what hte neighbors thought, where they liked to eat, take yoga, etc, a lot of tasty details, and no insight. The whole point seems to be to avoid insight, as if of course, there's no explaining why anybody could do such an unthinkable thing (of course, any claim t insight might have a non-soporific effect, indeed, might make some reader hot under hte collar, somebody indeed might SUE.) It's revolting, pointless and revolting. The papers I've come to trust the most are the conservative ones -- not that I don't have to allow for their bias, but look -- it's now the FT and the WSJ, like the old Herald Trib, which published Denby) which will tell you what the people who know the most think is going on. And NB in particular, in our field, look how much better Robert Greskovic's coverage in the WSJ is than the Times's.