Paul Parish

you guys slay me.... Mussell, that's fantastic. Comparisons are odorous, so I'll just say it's up there with Cygne's astounding tale.... Paul

Speaking of JUMPS, well, maybe this belongs on a different thread, but...... Gloria Govrin used to do double saut de basque and entrechat-DIX, you guys. In his class, Balanchine would have her stand next to D'AMboise and say "jump as high as he does," or sometimes "jump as high as SHE does......" SHe told me so. [ February 25, 2002: Message edited by: Paul Parish ]

Speaking of JUMPS, well, maybe this belongs on a different thread, but...... Gloria Govrin used to do double saut de basque and entrechat-DIX, you guys. In his class, Balanchine would have her stand next to D'AMboise and say "jump as high as he does," or sometimes "jump as high as SHE does......" SHe told me so. [ February 25, 2002: Message edited by: Paul Parish ]

re Carabosse's theme ( a long time back in he history of htis thread) 4ts: yes you are right, and yet i always considered the music's echoing when carabosse enters to be a perversion of the original use of the music to introduce the ballet, since when it is first used it is so glorious and when it is echoed it is so sinister. anyone care to comment? Carabosse came to the WEDDING, or at least is present at the apotheos, in the original version, George Jackson told me just the other night. WHich I think is WONDERFUL, that she can be brought back into the family......

re Carabosse's theme ( a long time back in he history of htis thread) 4ts: yes you are right, and yet i always considered the music's echoing when carabosse enters to be a perversion of the original use of the music to introduce the ballet, since when it is first used it is so glorious and when it is echoed it is so sinister. anyone care to comment? Carabosse came to the WEDDING, or at least is present at the apotheos, in the original version, George Jackson told me just the other night. WHich I think is WONDERFUL, that she can be brought back into the family......

Alexandra Again, it's a fantastic thread, and your correspondents have outdone themselves... I've emailed the link to countless friends... SOmebody mentioned obliquely the Preljocaj ROmeo and Juliet with the Doberman. I went and reread the review I wrote of that -- it ran in the Daily Californian, Berkeley, in 1995; I still have it on disk, and have pasted it in below. If you'd like you may post this as is or edit it to suit or not use it at all -- it's not really in keeping with the thread, but it's a fairly detailed account of a production many people may not have seen... ALl the best, PAul Ballet from Hell by Paul PArish the Lyons Opera Ballet is back, and not since they danced their wonderful Cinderella here in 1988 has the Zellerbach Hall stage been so transformed. Their orchestra filled the pit and spilled over onto the apron, where kettle drums and batteries of percussion instruments covered the proscenium piers and made the bunker-like walls of Verona seem to grow right out of the building. The whole stage was exposed, all the way to the back doors and all the way up to the rafters, where the lighting instruments shone like stars in the night sky. We were, it turned out, trapped in this arena and in for a beating; from the slow rise of the dove grey curtain till its fall on the image pictured above (see photo), there was no intermission, and no escaping this brilliantly choreographed S&M scene. ALthough all my friends loved it, Angelin Preljocaj's ROmeo and Juliet literally made me sick. The Lyons Opera House is one of the most dynamic arts institutions in Europe, and their appearances here have been long-anticipated highlights of the United Nations arts festival (which celebrates the signing of the U. N. Charter in San Francisco fifty years ago this month.) This Romeo and Juliet, which many people find a stirring tribute to the suffering in the former Yugoslavia (Prelcocaj is from that region), is running in repertory with two operas (The Love for Three Oranges and Madama Butterfly), and a mixed dance bill, which opens in Zellerbach tonight and features the hot American choreographers Bill T Jones, Susan Marshall, and Stephen Petronio. It's altogether a very impressive offering. People who like this R&J say it reflects the grim world of today. I think that's confused; in grim times, you protect the things you love and resist the brutes. What kind of Romeo and Juliet is it in which Tybalt doesn't get killed? Preljocaj has imposed a concept and cut away a great deal that doesn't fit. Half the music is gone, all the parents, Juliet's nurse, the duke, most of the story. (Romeo isn't even there when Tybalt kills Mercutio; so Romeo's not banished, and two ludicrous duennas catch Romeo and Juliet screwing, since he doesn't have to flee. But she takes the potion anyway. Go figure.) Worse, Preljocaj has left the characters with no intelligence or greatness of heart. It's as if he'd dissevered everything above the cerebellum and left us only reptilian-stem behavior. WHat's undeniably fascinating is the way the dancers move. Juliet's first solo is dazlingly constructed -- small swivels make huge differences, you see her from marvellous angles, the light just flashes off her. You want to know more (though you never get it). THe preening macho thugs probably come off best. Prokofieff's score can get ugly when it needs to, and Prelcocaj finds large, sudden, technically stunning moves for them. Tybalt is brilliantly characterised. So are Romeo and his sidekicks -- in fact, their dance is a joy, like a trio of kids on skateboards. It's virtuosic, high-spirited, the hardest steps in the book tossed off in the spirit of people who own nothing in life but the bodies they live in and get high on their own co-ordination. THe ball scene is even amusingly nasty, like a Michael Jackson video. Preljocaj didn't lose me till the balcony scene, which is bitterly disappointing. THis is radiant music -- but Preljocaj's cleverness doesn't cokme close to meeting the expressive demands of the music. They could be any kids stumbling through a great ****. It's downhill from there. At the end, Tybalt is patrolling the ramparts with a Doberman. The Doberman, and all the dancers, performed magnificently.

Alexandra Again, it's a fantastic thread, and your correspondents have outdone themselves... I've emailed the link to countless friends... SOmebody mentioned obliquely the Preljocaj ROmeo and Juliet with the Doberman. I went and reread the review I wrote of that -- it ran in the Daily Californian, Berkeley, in 1995; I still have it on disk, and have pasted it in below. If you'd like you may post this as is or edit it to suit or not use it at all -- it's not really in keeping with the thread, but it's a fairly detailed account of a production many people may not have seen... ALl the best, PAul Ballet from Hell by Paul PArish the Lyons Opera Ballet is back, and not since they danced their wonderful Cinderella here in 1988 has the Zellerbach Hall stage been so transformed. Their orchestra filled the pit and spilled over onto the apron, where kettle drums and batteries of percussion instruments covered the proscenium piers and made the bunker-like walls of Verona seem to grow right out of the building. The whole stage was exposed, all the way to the back doors and all the way up to the rafters, where the lighting instruments shone like stars in the night sky. We were, it turned out, trapped in this arena and in for a beating; from the slow rise of the dove grey curtain till its fall on the image pictured above (see photo), there was no intermission, and no escaping this brilliantly choreographed S&M scene. ALthough all my friends loved it, Angelin Preljocaj's ROmeo and Juliet literally made me sick. The Lyons Opera House is one of the most dynamic arts institutions in Europe, and their appearances here have been long-anticipated highlights of the United Nations arts festival (which celebrates the signing of the U. N. Charter in San Francisco fifty years ago this month.) This Romeo and Juliet, which many people find a stirring tribute to the suffering in the former Yugoslavia (Prelcocaj is from that region), is running in repertory with two operas (The Love for Three Oranges and Madama Butterfly), and a mixed dance bill, which opens in Zellerbach tonight and features the hot American choreographers Bill T Jones, Susan Marshall, and Stephen Petronio. It's altogether a very impressive offering. People who like this R&J say it reflects the grim world of today. I think that's confused; in grim times, you protect the things you love and resist the brutes. What kind of Romeo and Juliet is it in which Tybalt doesn't get killed? Preljocaj has imposed a concept and cut away a great deal that doesn't fit. Half the music is gone, all the parents, Juliet's nurse, the duke, most of the story. (Romeo isn't even there when Tybalt kills Mercutio; so Romeo's not banished, and two ludicrous duennas catch Romeo and Juliet screwing, since he doesn't have to flee. But she takes the potion anyway. Go figure.) Worse, Preljocaj has left the characters with no intelligence or greatness of heart. It's as if he'd dissevered everything above the cerebellum and left us only reptilian-stem behavior. WHat's undeniably fascinating is the way the dancers move. Juliet's first solo is dazlingly constructed -- small swivels make huge differences, you see her from marvellous angles, the light just flashes off her. You want to know more (though you never get it). THe preening macho thugs probably come off best. Prokofieff's score can get ugly when it needs to, and Prelcocaj finds large, sudden, technically stunning moves for them. Tybalt is brilliantly characterised. So are Romeo and his sidekicks -- in fact, their dance is a joy, like a trio of kids on skateboards. It's virtuosic, high-spirited, the hardest steps in the book tossed off in the spirit of people who own nothing in life but the bodies they live in and get high on their own co-ordination. THe ball scene is even amusingly nasty, like a Michael Jackson video. Preljocaj didn't lose me till the balcony scene, which is bitterly disappointing. THis is radiant music -- but Preljocaj's cleverness doesn't cokme close to meeting the expressive demands of the music. They could be any kids stumbling through a great ****. It's downhill from there. At the end, Tybalt is patrolling the ramparts with a Doberman. The Doberman, and all the dancers, performed magnificently.

It's s great question -- I also LAUGH at the ballet, usually it's witty feet.... SOmetimes it's like weeping for joy... Symphony in C -- when the big tune wells up and hte barllerina dives into that arabesque turn, actually , when Betsy Erickson did that role wth San Francisco Ballet, I lost it completely, it slugged me, caught me by surprise........ and Joanna Berman did that to me as Aurora, in her "Russian dance" variation in hte grand pas de deux, she was so tender -- Sibley and Dowell did it to me at the VERY end of Swan Lake, the apotheosis... ANd MArk Morris as Dido, as he receded from he stage at the end, one step forward and 2 steps back, like a dying heart-beat... And in "Company B" at San Francisco Ballet....... It made me understand how my parents met and why they married and how I came to be born and why our family's life was so full of regrets the way it was...

May I edit what I just wrote? I'm sorry, my thoughts are tumbling over themelves -- does this happen to you? Probably no-one will disagree with me that part of the fun in the finale of Theme and Variations is those ROckette kick-soutenu-kick steps the ballerina does -- I've got Gelsey on video, fabulous, the energy in those, it's irrepressible -- THough I've never seen it at City Ballet in the chiffon skirts they wear, still, part of the fun in ABT's version is seeing the tutus get kicked at this point -- it takes the ballet over the top, makes it a smash -- and THAT depends on the ballerina's personality. In SanFrancisco Balet's version, which I know well, they wear tutus. I can still see Elizabeth Loscavio hauling off and kicking there -- it was almost stripper energy -- but by that point we were all delirious with joy anyway and WHO CARED? Which brings me to the point I most wanted to make about Lucia Lacarra: it's not her extensions I object to -- it's the unrelenting one-note seductiveness, the lack of spontaneity and playfulness in her dancing. She's wonderful in many roles, but not everything. The dancer I'd most contrast her with is Loscavio, who in her great roles had a power much bigger than herself, Athena-energy, so when the spirit moved her she danced as if she'd just sprung forth from he mind of Zeus.... she was was fearless, and this energy carried her, she was completely there in the moment... She wasn't safe, she danced nearer her edge than the most advanced modern dancers... She DID make choices, she prepared -- actually Eric Hoisington once told me he didn't know HOW she managed to get so prepared.... she certainly wasn't reckless, I saw her wipe out on double step-ups in rehearsal and replace them in performance with double soutenus (thus "updating" Theme and Variations to later Balanchine practice of finishing a line of chaine turns -- I wonder who authorized that? Maybe it's actually done that way at City Ballet now?) But at other times -- in WHo Cares?, in her solo, I've seen her forget the steps and make some up till she remembered what came next, and they were CLEVER-- It puts me in mind of my grandmother, who every now and then liked driving over slowdown bumps at considerable speed.... my kind of girl......

y'all are so interesting!!! And so reasonable...... Probably no-one will disagree with me that part of the fun in the finale of Theme and Variations those ROckette kick-soutenu-kick steps the ballerina gets -- I've got Gelsey on video, and it's fabulous, the energy in those, it's irrepressible -- and well, I've never seen it at City Ballet in the chiffon skirts they wear, but part of the fun is seeing the tutus get kicked. It puts me in mind of my grandmother, who every now and then liked driving over slowdown bumps at considerable speed.... my kind of girl......

I agree, costume has a lot to do with it -- and also who the dancer is suppoosed to be. If it's a representation of an idea -- like the spirit of fire, or, say, the phlegmatic temperament, that's quite different from some creature that has a mother and father and maybe a boyfriend.... Aurora's a fairy-tale creature, but she's also a human being -- and her dances are not about extensions but about her aplomb and charm and high spirits -- they're as much about her upper body as they are about the legs, more about upper chakras -- the heart and crown.... and to a very high degree they're about the supporting leg rather than the working leg.... Who else do we notice their supporting leg so much? Her head positions are crucial.In her role, the eyes are very important, she SEES people... Phlegmatic doesn't see anybody). Aurora, Kitri, most Petipa heroines, the whole upper body should seem to be rising freely and easily above whatever is happening down below.... generally speaking toe hops and other very bright quick steps should happen very easily, as with quick pas de chats, only a slight bend at the knee -- dagger-like feet, but hte knees bent no more than coupe, so the shape in the air ihas a large diamond at the bottom and the upper body is beautifully undisturbed.... HHMMMMM.... I can see I could get addicted to this site.....

They made a movie of "On your Toes" -- cmplete with Balanchine's choreography for Princess Zenobia and Slautghter on 19th Avenue.... Anybody got it? Ive got a few treasures I could share in exchange for a copy.....

THe conversations on board are so exhilarating to read... I was especially moved by Leigh Witchell's description of his great Myrtha (whose name i'm going to have to go back and re-read...) but hte feeling he gave of her being a creature of hte air flying in over the rest sets my soul on fire.... It's a great jumping role, and there's nothing we can do about the loss of elevation in the women's technique except to jump up adn down and make a commotion when somebody comes along who gets the ballet back up into hte air. Karsavina in one of her books made a big point about Giselle's ballotte as a step of ELEVATION -- it's not about a high extension at hte end of hte jump, but a double passe unbelievably high off the ground that rocks back and forth like a buouy.... I did see Monica Mason dance Myrtha back in 1969, and she made a bigger impression on me than sibley and Dowell did as hte lovrs -- she was awe-inspiring. Mason had a capacity for hte objective, she could make you feel you were looking at Fate, something that was indifferent to questions of person... so everyting she did had the force of the inevitable.... her face, it's true, had glittering-eyed cold fury in it (I think she turned upstage to blink), but her dancing was tempered by this other, actually more frightening quality -- she had many other qualities, but when called on, she could deliver this one..... she could have danced for Pina Bausch...... Derek Rencher could deliver a tremendous power in character roles -- his von Rothbart was similarly as much a force of nature as a character..... he was like the pull of gravity, he didn't have to do anythingg except wait you out..... when Von Rothbart put the whammy on Odette, her personal force drained out of her...... these are the sorts of things that actors practice in their exercises, and the Royal BAllet was -- rather had been -- a part of the Old Vic Theater company; it made the Royal Ballet in those days rather like a modern dance company (the Capulet men danced with tremendous weight in the ball scene of MAcmillan's Romeo and Juliet -- Rencher danced Tybalt) Mason was also wonderful in Dances at a Gathering...... wonderful wonderful Paul

THe conversations on board are so exhilarating to read... I was especially moved by Leigh Witchell's description of his great Myrtha (whose name i'm going to have to go back and re-read...) but hte feeling he gave of her being a creature of hte air flying in over the rest sets my soul on fire.... It's a great jumping role, and there's nothing we can do about the loss of elevation in the women's technique except to jump up adn down and make a commotion when somebody comes along who gets the ballet back up into hte air. Karsavina in one of her books made a big point about Giselle's ballotte as a step of ELEVATION -- it's not about a high extension at hte end of hte jump, but a double passe unbelievably high off the ground that rocks back and forth like a buouy.... I did see Monica Mason dance Myrtha back in 1969, and she made a bigger impression on me than sibley and Dowell did as hte lovrs -- she was awe-inspiring. Mason had a capacity for hte objective, she could make you feel you were looking at Fate, something that was indifferent to questions of person... so everyting she did had the force of the inevitable.... her face, it's true, had glittering-eyed cold fury in it (I think she turned upstage to blink), but her dancing was tempered by this other, actually more frightening quality -- she had many other qualities, but when called on, she could deliver this one..... she could have danced for Pina Bausch...... Derek Rencher could deliver a tremendous power in character roles -- his von Rothbart was similarly as much a force of nature as a character..... he was like the pull of gravity, he didn't have to do anythingg except wait you out..... when Von Rothbart put the whammy on Odette, her personal force drained out of her...... these are the sorts of things that actors practice in their exercises, and the Royal BAllet was -- rather had been -- a part of the Old Vic Theater company; it made the Royal Ballet in those days rather like a modern dance company (the Capulet men danced with tremendous weight in the ball scene of MAcmillan's Romeo and Juliet -- Rencher danced Tybalt) Mason was also wonderful in Dances at a Gathering...... wonderful wonderful Paul

I've recently heard that he did -- also that the hippos were a parody of Danilova.... Does anybody KNOW for sure how much truth there is in this? it would of course be great fun if it were true.....

Hip thrusts -- another great topic! It's like in that song, "That's why the lady is a tramp" -- If you can't take a little hip thrust, you must be as square as Margaret Dumont.... First of all, Terpsichore does hip thrusts in her variation -- does anybody know, did DAnilova do those, or did Balanchine add them somewhere along the line, after he got to the US? Mary Ellen Moylan, the first "Balanchine ballerina" -- in those early pictures, she looks like she's doing a hip thrust just because she's got her pelvis unapologetically vertical, none of that genteel, peek-a-boo forward tilt that made ballerinas look deferential or lady-like or formidably dignified (which Tudor made such fun of in Gala Performance).....

Hi everybody -- golly, this site is so dynamic -- I wrote this last night, while my registration was pending, and already the vulgarity topic has sprouted several new buds....... what a great topic!!!! I've been reading about the post-fouette bows in Swan Lake and would like to say a few words in their favor. I Do hate milking the bows, but not nearly as much as that awful thing that happens when someone with a microphone in her/her hand asks for "another round of applause," after the real one we just gave, especially if it's in anticipation of a "curtain talk." REAL emotion passing back and forth tbetween the audience and the performers moves me a great deal -- and I think it's provincial of us who've been raised on television and movies and other forms of mechanically reproduced art to be so damned blase about live performance. Maybe it's because i grew up in a small town and haven't outgrown it yet, but the real presence of artists is a thrilling thing for me -- and I love imagining being in a city in Poland or Russia, where it's customary for applause to go on and on and on and it's not unheard of for hte audience to stop hte show and refuse to let it go on until a number is encored. In this country (i.e., the USA), it only happens with African-American companies; only last night, I got up and rocked in the aisle as the Ailey company reprised Rock-a My Soul" after bowing for 10 minutes -- and God knows I wasn't SURPRISED -- at the end of "Revelations" they always do it, and I don't mind; in fact, the whole piece has a triumphant structure so powerful that it's not over till the bows go on and on and they have to dance again, with us out there dancing too..... At performances -- rather screenings -- of "Down ARgentine Way," when it was new, when was that, 1940 or so?, audiences often actually forced the guy who was running the show to double back and show the 3-minute Nicholas-Brothers bit again -- in fact, in some places, and not just in hte African-American neighborhoods, they had to take Betty Grable's name off the Marquee and put the Nicholas Brothers' name on it, that's how the public FELT about it, and I'd have been totally with them -- the Nicholas Bros absolutely overcame hte deadening effect of the 2-d medium, you forgot they weren't THERE -- seeing something like that is like witnessing a miracle, the applause is a way of acknowledging that we have witnessed a miracle together, and that such experiences as these give us a shared sense of values that constitute the community...... we happy band were THERE, like the night Maria Bylova danced Myrtha with the Bolshoi and took the colossal raft of roses they gave her -- like a coffin-full of blood red roses -- or was it Aegina in Spartacus? she did that too, and it might have been that night, it'd be more appropriate, given what she DID, for she walked to the front of the stage and threw those roses INTO THE PIT....... What the **** did that mean???? But Jesus, it MEANT something magnificent. The same tour Mukhamedov stayed in the back and sent everybody else out to bow, waving them forward...... and darling Semizorova, who'd just done Aurora's Act 3 variation in the most exquisite way, suddenly became all confusion and girlishness, I mean really like a person who had no persona of her own, like hopelessly gawky, like Olive Oyl.... Those bows were among hte most fascinating things I've ever seen, but the thing that impressed me the most is that they are part of a customary communicatoin between hte artists and their home audience, and more than anything else they did all night transported me to Russia -- they showed us what it was like to be in THEIR own house, they were showing us a kind of hospitality.... and for us not to respond, best we could, to their generosity was -- would have been so stingy, RUDE. In particular, I felt I got some sense of how performer and audience dealt with the "consecrated lies" of their social system, the things that may not be said, though everyone knows they're true, and the ways they consoled each other for the miseries of existence....... Paul Parish [ February 23, 2002: Message edited by: alexandra ]