Ray

Is it partly when the dancer is tense or afraid of being lifted? A bit like when you ride on the back of a motorcycle? It can be--tension can make lifting as hard as not enough "pulling up."

Great question. Morris seems to me to be one of the most thoughtful and articulate people in the dance world, especially about aesthetic issues. It would be interesting to read his take on this topic.Does anyone know whether Morris has spoken about it -- and, if so, what he said? I meant I wonder what he will do with nudity in his upcoming production of R+J using the Soviet "happy ending."

Well, I would say that about some dancers' arms!

I was thinking more of the "morning after" scene, all passion spent, where it would be realistic for them not to be dressed. I know what you mean, but they don't just wake up with a little petting, the do another love PDD! I agree it looks strange both of them lieing in bed fully dressed after their wedding night. Indeed I didn't see one shirtless Romeo in any of the famous choreographies. So take his shirt off and give him fleshtone tights, some kind of semitransparent thin night gown for her, that's enough for phantasy, and remember he has to leave hearing the lark. Just redressing the shirt is enough. Maybe a look at a sister art is in order here. Any reports on contemporary stage productions of the play? (I've never seen it performed live!) The theater is often less squeamish about nudity than ballet. Also, I wonder what Mark Morris will do in re nudity?

As a non-dancer, I had personal experience of this. During a demonstration by professional dancers, I was called up -- as one of the few adult males in the room -- to promenade the ballerina on pointe and in arabesque. I started off to the right, went too far, almost toppled her over. Again. And again. It was quite embarrassing, though I suppose it made the lecturer's point -- which was the same as dancerboy87's. That single experience convinced me -- a ballet-goer with decades of viewing behind me -- to pay a LOT more attention to the mechanics of what dancers were doing. And, eventually, to begin taking class myself. Does anyone else -- from either a dancer's or non-dancer's perspective -- have favorite (or unfavorite) lifts? Any ideas of how to do them? Or not to do them? While it may sound counterintuitive, I've always found that the hardest lifts for men are the "low" ones; those repeated slow jete lifts in Barocco are a killa, as are the repeated lifts of the four corps couples framing Choleric near the end of 4T's, in which you have to lower your partner very carefully on pointe, and pretty fast, and then lift her again from that on pointe position (she can't help you much there). But any lift where you can really get "under" your partner's back and then, in a coordinated effort of her jumps and your thighs, lift your partner high and lock your arms (or arm) is most satisfying--and often audience pleasing. Also fun are shoulder sits where she has a running start (Nutcracker pas) or pirouettes into a fish dive (not a lift, really), where it feels like you're tripping your partner. More timing than strength. One image I think of (ahem, thought of) in promenading a woman on pointe is holding a coffee cup in a moving car: the closer you hold it into you, the more likely you will get burned. This thread has reminded me that I miss partnering; even if I were to return to ballet class as an amateur, I'll never again have the feeling of collaborating with an expert athlete. (Dirty secret of male dancers: despite the often rabid emphasis on men being taught by male teachers--this hides a cluster of assumptions and anxieties--many learn most about partnering from female partners, who are often not only good at it but have figured out how to articulate it to bumbling, self-absorbed boys.)

In my experience working for her in the 80s, Tallchief often talked about Moylan, and I gained the impression that she too saw Moylan as "the epitome of the Balanchine dancer" (I think this also comes through in the documentary--she's pretty candid about it, as I remember), and Tallchief was very competitive with her--Moylan had a lot of the natural gifts that Tallchief lacked, esp. the feet.

Oh, I don't need otherworldliness for any role in Rubies. They're all pretty earthy. But Tall Girl needs sleekness. Now that I review my post, I guess I didn't mean otherworldly, exactly. Something more like "oddness," a kind of sense of the absurd (who is this woman, anyway, and why is she doing these funky--and really difficult--steps that no one else does?). But sleekness is a quality that she could've had too, and it was definitely lacking from Lowery.

I attended on Saturday eve, same casts, and concur completely! Kowroski's extra 5 minutes in EVERY penchee tired me out. I was thinking about how to articulate Lowery's "clunkiness" in Rubies and a more charitable read, perhaps, would be that she exemplified an athletic approach as opposed to a more witty (knowing? sophisticated?) one. Wit is definitely called for in that role--along with the technique, of course--or at least a sense of the otherworldly (pace WWhelan or Allegra Kent).

I was thinking more of the "morning after" scene, all passion spent, where it would be realistic for them not to be dressed.

Well, this will certainly depend on your own perspective in re what you take to be "esthetic" or erotic or stimilating. Actually, practical considerations aside for a moment, I think it would be very touching and dramatically appropriate to have BOTH R + J nude (very Pasolini, very "under the uniforms which mark out our tribes we're all human"), especially in tranlating the play into the medium of dance, which is all about the body.

How, pray tell, would such a national ban be enforced? By the FBI? Many localities have specific laws aimed at "exotic" dancing; I imagine some have even more restrictive laws that are applied to concert dance as well. But to my knowledge there's no federal law about this--wouldn't it violate the First Amendment?

Well I for one like collaboration and co-authorship; that's why I left the ballet world as a professional, despite some wonderful moments of collaboration and camaraderie (dancing in the "mere" corps of Square Dance? Sublime). Editing is still a new concept for ballet--a new concept for dance in general, which is still under the spell of the unassailable genius-creator. (And we see how well that's working for us today...) So I can't imagine too much of it, at least not yet. What's striking about the Carver case is that the Lish editing has formed our view of Carver as a "minimalist" writer, and that's a tough genine to put back in the bottle as it's already shaped another generation or 2 of writers and readers. Perhaps for ballet the analogous situation would be the formation of reperetoire--which ballets (or versions thereof) become canonized, which are lost. The Scholl/Kirov revival of SB , for instance, didn't make many want to return to that "original" version. And B's "edit" of Apollo doesn't have many fans either.

Also FYI many libraries of every stripe are beginning to list articles in their online databases--that is, when you look for "Denby," many online catalogues will now direct you to anthologies in which one of his articles appears; some schools are even linking individual articles from periodical databases to their catalogue search engines. So I imagine the same would hold true for subject/keyword searches. You might check out how much of this work the NYPL Dance Collection has done.

I think the new film on Jock Soto speaks directly to the diversity discussion that's part of this thread, as outlined in the passage below from the recent NY Times article on it by C. La Rocco: "He is determined to seek out young dancers from diverse backgrounds, and he sees the film as outreach: for American Indian children whose culture often encourages them to stay close to home, and for youngsters everywhere struggling with their homosexuality." It's awesome to see him take this on, as an individual artist and as a representative of a major US school and company.

I wonder how much the film will speak to Soto's training lineage as he becomes a teacher himself? I.e., he was such a protoge of Stanley Williams--he embodied so much of what Williams taught, especially about turning. The NY Times article was particularly fuzzy in this regard (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/arts/dan....html?ref=dance ).

Don't forget to remind non-New Yorkers that the Vincent Astor Gallery is at the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center.

True enough! Funny, though: I misread "1993" at first as 1933!

I missed this change. Why did it occur? (You can just direct me to a link if it's already been explained.)

Such random acts of civility elude most major ballet companies, alas. Refined bodies, crass minds and manners!

I should have provided more context: Acocella was trying to elicit from Farrell what the specific elements were of the ballets that made GB want to keep them together. Since she knows both ballets intimately and now teaches them to others (she's stopped being only a "vessel"), I think she probably could speak to the similarities and differences b/t the two in quite some detail! She certainly provides a glimpse of this kind of distinction-making when she's coaching her dancers...perhaps it's the interview situation that clams her up. And, upon reflection, perhaps Joan A. could have asked the question differently--i.e., gotten rid of the "tell me what was in his head" tone that drives most ex-NYCBers to those familiar "je ne sais quois" responses.

Thanks for helping me to clarify what I think I mean. While I think it's hard to expect any practicing performer to be able to reflect as thoughtfully as we might like, I do think dancers could learn from musicians and actors (ever listen to the young performers on that NPR show From the Top? Some of them reveal amazing and brilliant thinking about their craft, even as they prove themselves to be dynamic performers). Still, I think what I still want to push on is my desire to hear older performers articulate better. Back to Farrell again--and I know many will disagree with me--when Acocella asked her why she thought that Balanchine paired Mounmentum and Movements, I just expected her to be able to say more than "because Mr. B. liked them together." You don't need 40+ years of experience with the man to say that. So--back to the topic--I hope that Internet outlets will offer young dancers a place to begin a process of reflection that may not ripen until later.

I hear what you're saying, sz, but I have a real need to hear meaningful/thoughtful/significant/reflective words come out of dance artists' mouths, articulately and clearly. I like to think that even non-professionals can express themselves clearly (but hey, I have to think that, b/c, like Aurora, I teach undergrads!).

This is indeed a rich topic--thanks GWTW! One aspect of the poor quality of ballet dancers' writing could be attributed to age (this dovetails with Aurora's comments, actually). I say this because I recently attended a memorial service for my mother, given by medical students of the hospital to which she donated her body. It all sounded very promising, and every detail was attended to, and the production values were better than some dance performances I've been to. Yet once the very young med students came onto the stage, one after the other, to deliver their testimonials they were, in a word, awful: their clearly carefully prepared speeches were filled with cliches and commonplace expressions (don't get me started on the music choices--if my mother only knew that someone was singing Pink Floyd at her service!). I never doubted their sincerity for a moment, but they simply didn't have the experiential toolbox to produce diverse or deep responses. I think as I move further away from performing I feel an acute sense of disappointment that more dancers, especially those I admire greatly, haven't developed their ability to articulate their experiences. I felt this most keenly recently listening to Suzanne Farrell on a GBF DVD where she's coaching dancers in Monumentum/Movements: she could barely craft thoughtful responses to Joan Acocella's softball questions. SO to end on a sunny note, perhaps it is good that younger dancers are starting to write now so that they will be able to reflect, describe, and analyze more clearly and distinctly when they can't do entrechats any more. BUT getting back to GWTW's worry, I'm also concerned that young blogging dancers' critical thinking could be shaped by the very interested and (mostly) invisible hands of the dance "marketplace," leading them to express themselves in evaluative, PR-style writing. I fear that most in the performing arts have a very black-and-white sense of "promotion"--that is, there are only bad or good reviews, the criteria of which are if they pan or praise--so any writing that's in the least bit critical will be censored.

I just thought I'd alert BTers to a recent article on Denby's writing--it focuses on his poetry, but it's quite an extensive and richly contextualized piece. "Edwin Denby's New York School," by Mary Maxwell, appears in the Yale Review Vol. 95 Issue 4 (Oct. 2007), pp. 64-96. While the Yale Review is a scholarly journal Maxwell's piece is entirely readable. You can access it for free (for only a limited time, I think, although you'll be able to download the pdf) by going to http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/yrev/95/4 (scroll down to the category "Original Articles"). Here's a representative quotation: "Dance by its nature is about impermanence," writes Robert Cornfield in his introduction to Denby's dance writings; "it is an emblem of life's poignant glory." In the late fifties and sixties Denby continued to spend much of his time watching, talking, and writing about dance, especially Lincoln Kirstein's New York City Ballet. For though he wrote about every form of dance and all styles of choreography, Denby's discussions of George Balanchine have a distinct quality of self-description: "He has shown our dancers how to be natural in classicism, and he has shown them how to become unaffectedly brilliant in their own natural terms." In an interview with Anne Waldman, Denby noted, "As a poet, some days one feels like writing severely classic things, and some days one feels like writing shapeless romantic things. Just as [balanchine] does--in his case, as a choreographer. "Denby's high opinion of Balanchine was well known among the New York School. There was even a certain disparagement of Denby's aesthetic infatuation (and influence) by some of his friends. A Schuyler letter to Ashbery relates this anecdote: Schuyler told Anne Porter and the Porters' daughter Katie that he had found a performance of The Nutcracker "lou-zay." "Anne: 'But I was taught at my mother's knee that Balanchine could do no wrong.' Katie: 'Who was your mother?' Anne: 'In this case, Edwin Denby.'" (p. 82)

I don't mean to be mean about such a monumental effort, and, frankly, when someone points out something like this in one of my 200-page functional specs I want to slap them silly, but this cracked me up. I know--I felt guilty as I am so hyperaware of how thankless these kind of research tasks can be (i.e., sometimes it seems that all anyone notices are the errors, no matter how few). But since they're depending on us for updates, how can we possibly shut up?