Ray

Your questions sound rudimentary enough to warrant more extended research, perhaps actually speaking with a dancer or artistic director in person, or sitting in on some rehearsals. You might also read a book like Dance Is a Contact Sport: A Season with the New York City Ballet by Joe Mazo.

A book I took out of the library near Xmas: The Lexicographer's Dilemma, by Jack Lynch. Reviewed Thursday in the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/books/01....html?ref=books. I think the thesis of the book, that "correct English" has a very recent history, might be especially interesting in light of our aesthetic conversations/debates on "correctness" in ballet styles and practice. And it's just fun to read. For an excerpt click here.

An extended essay on Parkinson, a version of which was originally published in the Fall 2005 issue of Dance Now: http://www.pcah.us/m/dance/georgina-parkinson-1.pdf

And (and...and...and...) we can't underestimate the effect of the fall of the Wall on ballet style and technique worldwide. The Russians came and, in many cases, they conquered; at the same time, Russian repertoires were enriched by the influx of formerly forbidden choreography--and no doubt that had an effect on Russian "style." (My esteemed BT-ers, has anyone written an article or book about this topic yet?)

I don't think it has a formal name. Can you tell us where you are writing from (i.e., what version you saw)?

The funniest lapse I ever experienced came in a performance of Paul Taylor's Mercuric Tidings with Pittsburgh Ballet. For those of you who don't know the ballet, let's just say it's frenetic--most of the fast sections of the dance include several small groups of dancers doing lots of different things simultaneously, then running around and regrouping, etc. At one point, me and another guy were supposed to rush up to a standing woman, pick her up by a shoulder and an ankle (me on her left, he on her right), lift and turn her upside down and then return her standing (then all rush off to do something else). Well, I got to her and just blanked out and completely froze up, and there was no way the other guy could do the lift by himself. The woman was always a little scared by this lift--to prepare for it she crossed her arms, stiffened up, held her breath, and closed her eyes--so the awkward little tableau that my forgetfulness inadvertently created included her looking kind of like a terrified mummy as she braced herself for the awkward lift that never happened, the other guy grabbing a shoulder and an ankle for no discernible purpose. We all just shrugged it off and moved on! To be fair, I was an understudy!

Thanks again--love vol. 3 btw! (sorry, WAY o-t!)

At least the 'right in the crotch' got me to watch it, like the rare and gifted 8-year-old I am, trying to find something challenging on BBC4, but AWFUL beyond imagining. It's enough to make Plutarch's edict of gracelessness as recalled vividly by Foucault ring almost totally true--at least while your watching such stupid crap. Yes, very pretty, even gorgeous, boys, but the silliness of 'St. Loup and Morel', just because it's prestigious to use Proust even though it ends up more like 'Caravaggio's Boys'. Plus the Faure, doubtless recalling 'Vinteuil's little phrase for Odette/Swann', now for some 'romance' between the aristocrat Saint-Loup and the 'talented but modest-beginnings violinist' Morel, who turns out to be the opportunisitic poulain/putain par excellence--later a client of the Prince de Guermantes, just using anybody--at least if they'd Morel more of a 'top', so they wouldn't both just come across as a couple of sissies. Not that I was expecting anything all that masculine-Western, etc., but whew! did I ever have to hold my nose on this one. Proust is not about 'romance' in the American sense anyway (nevermind it's french choreographed), Bataille says he sees Eros much more like Sade, and I agree. Sorry to be so Who was the other boy? He was even handsomer, I thought. And wasn't Denys Ganio in something of Petit's Proust piece (or is this part of the same thing) that I think I saw, but I may be confusing. I thought Denys, Mathieu's father, was the handsomer, though. I think you've spent more intellectual energy on this than the choreographer! And thank you for so doing--I'd like to find the Foucault you referenced; can you say where it appears? (EDITED TO ADD: found it, I think--HoS 3, right?)

Thanks for the clip. Beautiful dancers, but I find the choreography to be clunky, pretentious, and sometimes just silly (OOF, right in the crotch!--a thing from the past best left unremembered). And can we call for a moratorium on hugging in pas de deux, straight, gay, or otherwise?

The reason for this, as many of you undoubtedly know, is that publishers no longer pay for indexing--it's completely up to the author to take care of. I'm sure there are exceptions made for some, but even Sarah Palin's book didn't have one--so it's clearly something the publishers feel is OK to omit.

Sounds like a Boris Eifman ballet.

I'm behind on Dexter, but that's pretty hilarious. I wonder if someone who worked for AM is one of the writers...I'm just sayin'...

It's interesting that Balanchine's Meditation --a pas de deux for Farrell and D'Amboise--premiered in Dec. 1963, the month that season 3 ends. The description of the dance on the Trust's website makes it sound like it was made for Don Draper: "On a darkened stage, a solitary, troubled young man enters and kneels. He is approached by a young woman who seeks to comfort him. They dance together and embrace; in the end she departs, and he is alone again."

WOW great season ending. GO JOANIE!

The sample sounds a bit cheesy to my "mind."

Thanks! But the trailer does not play--in place of a dancing figure are the words "303: failed to load a resource."

I don't understand this part of your post. What is your doc? Is it also about dance or performers?

Actually, there's some debate on this, I think--in that some can "turn it off" while others can't (most of whom I worked for, alas). Your point re the Wiseman documentary is clear; I still find performers by and large to be narcissistic (guilty as charged!).

As a former dancer, I especially relished this line in Denby's review: "The Ballet is a huge organism, at the center of which is Brigitte Lefèvre, the tentacular administrative head. She’s a little overbearing, and Wiseman, with evident pleasure, turns back to the dancers...." And in reply to Hans, who wrote "dancers are used to performing as if the audience isn't there," another way of putting this would be to say that performers always act as if an audience is always there.

I'll be there--anyone else?

LOVE this clip, thank you so much for finding it and sharing it. To take nothing away from Mofid, Martins did have an icy narcissism that seemed to come naturally to him (I'm just sayin'...). But could he do the Kiss like that? I was knocked out by his movement toward her face, because there was plenty of narcissism where that came from, so could Martins really come out of it briefly the way Mofid does? Enquiring minds want to know from those who saw both. I really don't see Martins as physically 'the faun', although I'm sure he was fine. Not hidden enough, nothing 'woodlands' about him. Martins is dazzling, extroverted and rather prosaic-ordinary--in no way a secret, poetic, rarefied creature. My comment was facetious; very little serious content in it. In other words, my Facebook voice.

LOVE this clip, thank you so much for finding it and sharing it. To take nothing away from Mofid, Martins did have an icy narcissism that seemed to come naturally to him (I'm just sayin'...).

Thanks, Bart--I tried to embed it, did it wrong, and then "fixed" it incorrectly!

www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-kaiser/where-is-the-arts-program_b_325610.html

This confirms what I've thought about Barton's work since I first saw it: she's been moving "up" too fast in proportion to discernible talent. Everything I've seen that she's choreographed has been impeccably produced, in first-rate venues with great dancers, but slim on choreographic ideas.