Ray

It does sound strange, only because people who dislike Balanchine find his musicality too slickly or simplistically mimetic--i.e., "visualizing" the music in obvious or (merely) clever ways ("Mickey Mousing," as per LitLing above). Some say this about Mark Morris too. I find his musicality neither jarring nor slick, however--no accounting for taste, I guess!--but I can understand the criticism. Can you elaborate on your sense of annoyance? I would first like to point out that generalisations such as "people who dislike Balanchine" are not helpful in a discussion. Similarly, people may dislike his musicality for many reasons--perhaps they do not find it "simplistically mimetic" or "slick" (a word I did not and would not use) at all but object to some other aspect of it. I am not one who dislikes all of Balanchine's choreography: I adore much of it, particularly Apollo and 4T's. Some of his choreography I find very fussy and embroidered when simplicity would be preferable--and sometimes the opposite--and then at other times the choreography fails to build to a climax when the music does. I find Walpurgisnacht almost unwatchable for this reason--the music "tells" me one thing, and it apparently "told" Balanchine something else! Still, I can understand what he is doing; that is, I can see how he fits the steps to the music and why it makes sense. It does not, in certain ballets, have that "inevitable" feeling for me (in others, it does) but I understand it from a theoretical point of view. Sorry, Hans, for the generalization--I meant to say "some people," but by the time I thought of changing it, it had been quoted out several times already. The main point of my post was a genuine desire to understand yours. I have no other agenda, having thrown away my Balanchine altar many years ago! (OK, I admit I still go there occasionally). I was familiar with one strand of dislike--the music-aping one--but not yours, and I wanted to hear more. So thanks for saying more.

Attended last night (Sat. 6/6); all danced very well for the most part. I especially liked Julie Diana as the Sylph, and Zachary Hench was a precise, impassioned James--good balon AND batterie. BUT why does the lighting have to be so poor? And the corps sylphs' epaulement was ragged, something very noticeable in a Bournonville work. I didn't see the need to present Martin's Barber Violin Concerto, tho' both couples in it did well, and the guest violinist's playing offered a nice surprise. Why not just focus on delivering a top-notch Sylphide? Interestingly, the program did not say who set it (!!).

Martins's sublime indifference, revealed to me through watching his dance, to the fact that this story has been told and retold (too) many times astounds me. But in a boring way.

It does sound strange, only because people who dislike Balanchine find his musicality too slickly or simplistically mimetic--i.e., "visualizing" the music in obvious or (merely) clever ways ("Mickey Mousing," as per LitLing above). Some say this about Mark Morris too. I find his musicality neither jarring nor slick, however--no accounting for taste, I guess!--but I can understand the criticism. Can you elaborate on your sense of annoyance?

Here's another potential poll in re balletomaneness: Most of us attend ballet performances for a variety of mixed motives. But if you had to characterize your reasons in one of three ways, would you say that in the main you generally attend ballet performances to see: ( ) particular dancers, no matter what the work ( ) particular works, no matter who's dancing ( ) particular dancers dancing specific works Again, this is asking you to generalize your experience (but you could interpret "particular dancers" to mean "particular companies"; similarly, you could interpret "particular works" to mean particular kinds of works, i.e., the classics, or particular choreographers) Moderators, if you think this is interesting/useful in terms of what makes up a balletomane, perhaps you could convert it to the spiffy poll format.

I've started Brooklyn, Colm Toibin's new novel, and am just devouring it! Also reading Middlemarch, finally!

And I was speaking strictly in relative terms! Costello has a lot more artistic integrity at this point than Tharp, even in "lesser" work. Much as many have dismissed Forsythe as a ballet choreographer, maybe it's time to strip Tharp of that status too. I'm cross-referencing Helene's post on the "Fell influence of Balanchine" thread when I say at this point I'd be willing to keep Nijinsky in the ballet club and kick Twyla out! I mean does she get to be called a "ballet choreographer" because she says she is? Or am I mixing up evaluative criteria with analysis (i.e., bad ballet is ballet too)?

I think value-per-dollar Elvis C. delivered the most--you could "close your eyes and listen to the music"!

I didn't know that. All I can say is...wow. That's outrageous! But he's not alone. I think in general there's a huge disparity b/t what, say, a dancer gets paid and what a "hot" (?!?) choreographer can garner. Unfortunately, ballet companies that can will actually pay these inflated fees.

Regardless of whether the general environment is as intellectually and artistically stimulating as Balanchine found, he started to choreograph experimentally at a young age -- not without difficulty or criticism -- at school, using his fellow students. As cubanmiamiboy has pointed out, the number of students in ballet academies has grown beyond the capacity for companies to absorb, and at schools, there are still the laboratories for someone who is compelled to create classical ballet. And let's not forget that the rise of Balanchine and the NYCB were made possible from the increase in public and private funding for the arts, especially from the Kennedy era onwards. And while Balanchine may have had to choreograph for his bread at times in his life, his career is really more than most a testament to the value of patronage: 2 Russian governments, Diaghilev's backers, Lincoln K., City Center, the Ford (and many other) Foundation, the NEA, etc.

Lots to chew on, Kathleen, but in re Yes #2, I wonder if that is enough for some viewers--it's not for me, but I want to really understand another way of seeing the ballet heritage, w/o the "modernist bias" that Sontag represents in that wonderful quotation (though expecting a masterpiece every month could prove disappointing--and Sontag elides the material conditions that made that creativity possible--i.e., it's not all genius erupting spontaneously). I share that bias; I tend to lose interest in an art form that's not producing new work, and I share the concern about dancers who may be incipient choreographers. BUT we'd never say this about other classical forms like Noh, would we? For some, the ballet establishment barely holds onto the classical (or even neoclassical) rep, and that's a legitimate worry.

Thanks, dirac, and I didn't mean to point out any problems with the current poll. I just wonder the extent to which ballet watchers (both BTers and others) are interested in new choreographers at all--beyond, perhaps, providing vehicles for their favorite dancers. And I am genuinely curious as to how others feel about nurturing new choreographic talent--i.e., is it essential for the continuation of ballet?

We are talking about these things to some degree as well as a number of others. My point was about the composers. It is habitual to decide on some of these cateogories of 'greatest'. So no, I did not mean to be patronizing, but I did know something that perhaps someone else didn't. In that case, since my formal education has been musical, it hasn't anything to do with 'someone's appreciation', as that routinely people will put either Mozart or Beethoven above the other, and declare the other invalid, and they will not realize that Schumann and Haydn in many cases achieve the heights of genius as Mozart and Wagner. Simple as that. Well, there are useful analytical approaches, but I personally am not interested in any because they might be the 'latest'. As for being able to 'read music, but not hear it...' it's possible to read music, hear music, as well as be involved with some intellectual readings of things. I'm not always successful at the latter, but I definitely am capable of both of the former; we do the best we can in fairly informal blog-like comments. First: I'm going to put my 2 cents in here with papeetepatrick to defend analysis practiced by non-artists. I'm not sure any one scholarly approach to aesthetics/arts is "flourishing" in academia over any other, and not sure why putting forth a particular interpretation is tantamount to mind control. Do you have a particular one in mind? Also, most scholars feel deeply passionate about the objects of their studies--that's usually why they study them. (I will admit that there are--as in ANY endeavor--obnoxious, overbearing, and ambitious pedants.) And I can't think of anyone in academia who's in it for the money! OK, on to what I really want to ask: Has BT ever polled people's interest in new choreographers? I mean, is it OK not to care about "the next Balanchine"? What's lost by not caring? How does it serve the art to care or not? Do we favor a nurturing approach--support choreographers through successes and through failures--or more of a "Darwinian" one--let posterity decide who floats to the top?

Echoing others, I'd like to begin by suggesting we harvest what exists already: get anything that's ever been recorded for TV or film out on DVD/Blu-ray. This would include remastering all the Dance in America/Live from LC vids as well as European and Asian materials; also film rarities like the 1967 Italian-made (?) NYCB Midsummers. THEN get all the film that's at the LC Library on DVD. At least this way there would be no added production costs in addition to paying for the rights. PLEASE don't tell me about the restrictions; I know them all. I'm dreaming here! As a former dancer, behind-the-scenes stuff is not so interesting to me; of all performing artists, dancers and choreographers always seem to be the least prepared to articulate their processes for the camera (OF COURSE there are exceptions). Similarly, most interviewers seem unprepared or just too smitten with their subjects to ask any really interesting questions. I guess I'd be more interested if they were done well, not tacked on or conducted on the fly (i.e., between acts).

Well put, carbro, thank you. The repetition of R&J, though, is of a piece with PBS's solidly middlebrow tendencies when it comes to creative products. I mean, how many versions of Sense & Sensibility have they shown, too?

Hilarious.

Again, I don't really disagree with any of this (it's great to watch an autocrat squirm), and hadn't really considered the repercussions of Stahl's status as an interviewr--i.e., that her questions may be more meaningful b/c other patrons might listen? I do hope that this will lead to more pre-production questioning. And like you, the crass necessity arguments are really starting to rub me the wrong way--I mean even if R&J does fill seats, it's not going to boost NYCB's bottom line significantly unless they do 8 shows of it a week--and even then maybe not.

I agree with kfw about the appropriateness of Stahl's questions in the broadcast: I mean it's a bit late to start interrogating the production at halftime. If indeed she is a patron of NYCB, her questions need to be raised earlier: Repertory choice is a systemic issue. But that's the problem, isn't it? Who's going to question Peter Martins, or any other AD, in a forum where hard discussions happen? It's easier to take potshots and ask gotcha questions after the fact that will lead to absolutely no change whatsoever (NOT that I'm a Martins fan, mind you, nor do I mind watching an AD squirm in the least. But my amusement probably won't translate into meaningful changes in the field). The costumes, BTW, remind me of those 1950s Shakespeare musicals, like Kiss Me Kate.

Yes I have, and I was in it! Because it was SO bad. Your complaint about NYCB broadcasts is even more trenchant if we remember that PBS has already--and fairly recently--represented Martins's full-length oeuvre by broadcasting his Swan Lake!

And some of the DORKIEST dancer acting ever, from principals and corps alike, with some lovely closeups to pick it all up. Dancer acting tends to be super dorky (sorry guys, but it always hits me like a wave when I see it in a full-length). I love the "concerned face" and attendant concerned gestures when something distressing happens center stage. And I swear someone was mouthing faux words, looking first at one person, then the next, then back to the first, etc. (perhaps mouthing, "wtf...wtf...wtf...wtf?").

Can you provide a quotation or some description? I don't have the latest BR. Quotes? rather hard to come by. The article is 25 pages and 8 of them are devoted to Concerto Barocco. Suffice it to say I have never seen CB discussed in the same breath as flowering orchids, James Agee, Billie Holliday and visiting insects. Now you're just teasing us.

Some might find this blog entry on prunes--yes prunes--enjoyable. It even comes with a recipe. An excerpt: "Most outcast fruit, the prune! [Virginia] Woolf [in A Room of One's Own] assaults it with a scorn borrowed from the boniest schoolmistress. The fricatives and plosives of her derision – the same mouth shapes as spitting out pits – are saved for this fruit, as an emblem of the dried and withered place of women in education. Girls are fed on dreary food and drearier thought, both provided by women – governesses and headmistresses – who themselves are overlooked, overcooked, overripe – spinsters, maiden aunts. They are Prunes. Educated women are cut off – cut themselves off! - from the succulent, the affable, the luminous dining table. Virginia Woolf is right: privilege smells, feels and tastes different to privation. She is right, too, that our very being is formed from within our gut: “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” But is she right that “The lamp in the spine does not light on beef and prunes?”"

Can you provide a quotation or some description? I don't have the latest BR.

Hmmmm, I wonder. Are we, BTers? Perhaps a topic for a new thread? Or a poll?

I'm sorry, she loses me on this. I see Balanchine as one of the greatest artist-humanists of the modern age. Yes, her remark reveals a profound inability/unwillingness to see B's work in a larger cultural context.