felursus

The last time the Kirov visited NYC I was extremely distressed by the degree of shoe clatter the girls produced - particularly when they performed "Serenade" which involves a lot of running around by the corps. I have NEVER heard ABT make so much noise on the same stage (the Met). I did notice that most of the shoes were blackened on the bottom and tip. I know the company has financial problems, so I thought that perhaps the corps dancers (the soloists didn't make nearly as much noise) had to conserve shoes at all costs - possibly by hardening them with some substance. Any ideas????

I think the original poster was interested in how dancers can tolerate pointe work. Pointe work depends on the principle of the arch - as in architecture. A well-developed arch in the foot (as well as a flexible foot/ankle complex and strong ankle and foot muscles) goes a long way to prevent pain and injury by absorbing the forces involved. This, together with proper consideration given to ossification of children's bones, is why children (and adult beginners) should be carefully and properly trained before attempting pointe work. And lastly, of course, the shoe should fit properly. As the shoes are handmade, no two pairs of shoes even by the same maker are exactly identical, and different types of shoes may be required for different choreography. I know that sometimes a dancer may have to choose between the shoe that feels good and the shoe that LOOKS good. This is a problem facing every woman who has ever worn high heels! It behooves dancers to treat their feet well - keep the "gorgeous" ones for photo sessions - and preserve your feet!

I, too, was at the Jaffe farewell. It was one of the most moving nights at the ballet I have ever witnessed. Clearly, Jaffe was loved by her co-artists and respected both as a dancer and as a person. The curtain calls lasted nearly 1 hour - not a half-hour as someone previously stated - including all the times Jaffe came out in front of the curtain. (Once, she brought out Irina Kolpakova with her.) By the way, the ABT program covers always change with each month. June's cover featured Jaffe in Giselle. At the top of the program page inside was the following message: "The dancers and the staff of American Ballet Theater pay tribute this evening to Susan Jaffe for 22 illustrious years with the Company. We honor her lovingly." By the way, ABT also provided many of the flowers that were thrown from the audience as well as a shower of rose petals from the flies. I lost count of the number of bouquets that were presented - first by the usual tuxedoed backstage personnel and then by Jaffe's ex-partners, current company members, and, of course, by Kevin McKenzie. And then the Wilis each presented her with a single flower - and she said "thank you" to each. When Carreno presented his he did a double tour and landed lying on the floor at her feet! A dramatic and touching moment. I just re-read the Kisselgoff piece: I KNOW she was there 'till the end, because I saw her come out. Why she had the idea that the curtain calls only lasted a half-hour I don't know. I often wonder if I have been at the same performance as she (when I know full well I have) because we seem to see things in a radically different way. As for the performance itself - it was almost besides the point. Jaffe danced carefully and acted beautifully. Carreno was a passionate lover. Boca gave the best-danced and one of the best acted performances of Hilarion I have ever seen - he made it clear that Hilarion really did love Giselle and thought he was acting in her best interests by exposing Albrecht for what he was. Corella made as much out of poor Wilfred as possible (he had wanted to do the peasant pdd, but this went to Herman Cornejo - who danced brilliantly. Wow! is all I can say about his performance. I was less thrilled by Xiomara Reyes as his partner. She has some mannerisms I find annoying. In the second act, I was disappointed by Gillian Murphy's Myrtha. I found her very stiff. Her bourees COULD have been "tighter" as Kisselgoff suggests, but they were very smooth. The rest of the performance was not what I would have expected from her. Michelle Wiles and Stella Abrera (a fabuous Myrtha) were the thankless Moyna and Zulma - and did well. I thought the conductor was awful - the tempi were very, very slow throughout. In one of the lifts in Act II - soon after Albrecht first encounters Giselle, Jaffe had to put her hand down too soon because the music was SO slow they couldn't really sustain it. Jaffe is a dancer who will be very much missed by ABT in more ways than one.

Like Alexandra I, too, grew up with Balanchine's "Dream". Then I saw Ashton's and fell in love. I think I fell in love with the very Englishness of his interpretation - Shakespeare was, after all, an Englishman. However, I do have to say that I wasn't entirely pleased with the way ABT did the ballet. I think Joffrey did it more successfully some years ago. Perhaps I'm just fussy, but nothing will erase my memories of Sibley and Dowell, Alex Grant, Wayne Sleep, and even of Ann Jenner (as the fairy who finds herself alone on the stage at the end of the scherzo). I'd be curious to know where the person (was it Manhattnik?) who said that he was disturbed by being able to see Bottom changing into the ass sat. One must remember that Covent Garden is a much smaller theater and that when properly done one should NOT be able to see the dancer transform himself. Of course if one spends a lot of time trying to figure out how it's done.... Also please remember, he's got to put on pointe shoes as well as don the donkey head. I do admire many things about the Balanchine version - I do enjoy the evening - but I find much of it over-done. Sometimes I feel that there is a lot of padding in it - just for the sake of creating a full-length ballet.

Like Alexandra I, too, grew up with Balanchine's "Dream". Then I saw Ashton's and fell in love. I think I fell in love with the very Englishness of his interpretation - Shakespeare was, after all, an Englishman. However, I do have to say that I wasn't entirely pleased with the way ABT did the ballet. I think Joffrey did it more successfully some years ago. Perhaps I'm just fussy, but nothing will erase my memories of Sibley and Dowell, Alex Grant, Wayne Sleep, and even of Ann Jenner (as the fairy who finds herself alone on the stage at the end of the scherzo). I'd be curious to know where the person (was it Manhattnik?) who said that he was disturbed by being able to see Bottom changing into the ass sat. One must remember that Covent Garden is a much smaller theater and that when properly done one should NOT be able to see the dancer transform himself. Of course if one spends a lot of time trying to figure out how it's done.... Also please remember, he's got to put on pointe shoes as well as don the donkey head. I do admire many things about the Balanchine version - I do enjoy the evening - but I find much of it over-done. Sometimes I feel that there is a lot of padding in it - just for the sake of creating a full-length ballet.

I second Giannina's nomination of Spessivtseva. I have seen everyone on the original list - with the exception of Karsavina and Pavlova, who either died or retired before I was born. Of course I have seen Pavlova on film, but as the cameras were not moveable in those days, the films can give but a slight idea of what she may have looked like in reality. The balletgoers of the future will have a much, much better idea of what dancers from the second half of the 20th c onwards were really like - although one must allow for the basic "unreality" of film/videotape as compared with "real life".

When Melissa Hayden was pregnant she asked her doctor how long she could continue to perform. His reply was: "As long as you can fit into the costumes." In those days spandex didn't exist, so eventually the inevitable happened - a costume split. I was working on a "Nureyev and Friends" event at which Makarova was featured. Nureyev was observed patting her tummy on more than one occasion. It wasn't until a month or so later that I found out that she was pregnant. Inevitably the moment arrives when the dancer can't put on her point shoes. I remember Merle Park commenting on doing class and looking down and being unable to see her feet. Physiologially, for a healthy woman who isn't "showing" much there is no reason why she shouldn't be doing at least most ballets. I can think of a few things that should make a pregnant dancer pause before undertaking - and of course there is also the problem of the added weight not only in how it affects the dancer but also her partner!

Actually, I'm a cat lover in reality: I have 3 - Merlin (a Morris look-alike), his sister from the same litter, Morgana, (a female Baxter-type), and a ragdoll called Douglas Furbanks (aka "Baby" - as in "Bringing Up ..." but twice the size of the other two at only 1 year of age). Actually, I realized that that poor dog was really in jeopardy. A friend of mine had sat in one of those chairs while eating a sandwich. All of a sudden a snaked head appeared and grabbed the sandwich from her hand. A swan, of course. One doesn't even attempt to resist them. I've heard that their bites are worse than tiger bites (per a TV vet in England - and I guess he should know!). The time I was chased by a swan I had been feeding rolls to him and his lady but I wanted to save some to feed trout (it was by the River Test in Hampshire - a famous trout stream). I would have won the Olympic dash in my escape attempt! ;)

There used to be a cartoon series called "Augusta". Augusta was a young girl who had an interesting view of life. In one cartoon Augusta has gone to a costume party where the children are performing to entertain each other. Augusta has arrived in a swan costume. The blurb read: "As her final trick [sic] Augusta performs the Dying Swan from Swan Lake". This strip was posted on the bulletin boards of a number of dance studios around London. Yes, swans were a major banquet item in the middle ages. It was considered a royal treat. As has been previously mentioned in this discussion, all the swans on the Thames belong to Her Majesty. There is a yearly event in which swan keepers go out on the river and nick the beaks of the swans to lay claim to them for Her Majesty. This is called "swan upping". Perhaps someone will know the origin of the term. Swans are really nasty creatures - I've had the dubious pleasure of being chased by one - and boy can they run! On another occasion I saved a dog from having his tail bitten off (it was dangling down into the water in St. James's Park right in the face of a male swan who thought he had to protect the cygnets who were being fed by the dog's owner. My only recourse was to kick the pooch (not hard, but hard enough to make him move) - I was in one of those recliner chairs and my hand wouldn't have reached the dog in time. The owner, of course, thought I was abusing his pet. I had hard work to convince him that I had just saved him a large vet bill.

I have, on occasion, booed a conductor or a choreographer or a designer or even, on one occasion, a company director. By the time they come on for their curtain calls the performers have already been (hopefully) warmly applauded, so boos directed at non-dancers are clearly directed at them and not at the performers. There are occasions when booing is one's only recourse - especially when the non-performer's work is so horrendous that hanging, drawing and quartering would be too good for them! As for Franco Corelli - I shall ask a voice teacher/singer I know who used to study with Corelli about said incident. There is, of course, the famous one also in connection with Nilsson. Nilsson and Corelli had a kind of love-hate relationship. Nilsson said (to me) that being a tenor Corelli had "resonance boxes where his brains should be". In "Turandot" she was always mannerly towards OTHER tenors - when they ceased to hold a note (when singing together), so did she. But with Corelli it was a contest of lung capacity - which Nilsson usually won handily. Once Corelli complained to Rudolf Bing, then director of the Met Opera about this. Bing suggested that in the scene where Calaf has to kiss Turandot Corelli should give her a little nip. A few nights later Corelli and Nilsson were scheduled to sing "Tosca" together. Nilsson sent a note to the Met management saying that she was cancelling because "a mad dog bit me". Needless to say Bing had to do a lot of work to make the performance happen!

I have, on occasion, booed a conductor or a choreographer or a designer or even, on one occasion, a company director. By the time they come on for their curtain calls the performers have already been (hopefully) warmly applauded, so boos directed at non-dancers are clearly directed at them and not at the performers. There are occasions when booing is one's only recourse - especially when the non-performer's work is so horrendous that hanging, drawing and quartering would be too good for them! As for Franco Corelli - I shall ask a voice teacher/singer I know who used to study with Corelli about said incident. There is, of course, the famous one also in connection with Nilsson. Nilsson and Corelli had a kind of love-hate relationship. Nilsson said (to me) that being a tenor Corelli had "resonance boxes where his brains should be". In "Turandot" she was always mannerly towards OTHER tenors - when they ceased to hold a note (when singing together), so did she. But with Corelli it was a contest of lung capacity - which Nilsson usually won handily. Once Corelli complained to Rudolf Bing, then director of the Met Opera about this. Bing suggested that in the scene where Calaf has to kiss Turandot Corelli should give her a little nip. A few nights later Corelli and Nilsson were scheduled to sing "Tosca" together. Nilsson sent a note to the Met management saying that she was cancelling because "a mad dog bit me". Needless to say Bing had to do a lot of work to make the performance happen!

Hard choice. But when push comes to shove (ahem!) I guess I'd choose Paris in the 1910s because of the vast array of the banquet that would be spread before me. Plus the food would be good (to continue the banquet metaphor) and the amenities somewhat better than earlier times. I'm afraid that the Versaille choice would be difficult because I'd have to go back as a courtier in order to get in to see the ballets in the first place.

Hard choice. But when push comes to shove (ahem!) I guess I'd choose Paris in the 1910s because of the vast array of the banquet that would be spread before me. Plus the food would be good (to continue the banquet metaphor) and the amenities somewhat better than earlier times. I'm afraid that the Versaille choice would be difficult because I'd have to go back as a courtier in order to get in to see the ballets in the first place.

I've met lots and lots of dancers too - and I've spoken to them. The person I did meet but failed to do more than stammer a few idiotic words to was Massine. But if I have to pick just one, I think I'd like to meet Kshessinskaya. Second choice would be Karsavina. Tomorrow I might have other ideas.

"A Midsummer Night's Prrrowl" Another that doesn't need a name change: "The Taming of the Shrew" (Think dinner - for a cat - yech!!!) "La Purradere" "Don Quichat" "Purrenade" "Purrady in C" (and that would be quite a parody!) "The Meowy Widow" (I think Elmer Fudd already thought of this one!)

Fresh off the press (actually inside info.): ABT is going to participate in the John Adams festival that Lincoln Center is putting on next spring. NYCB is also going to participate. ABT will have a new work choreographed (not sure by whom) to Adams' "Harmonium" - a choral work. They will also be doing a ?newly choreographed (of this I'm not sure) "Carmina Burana." Performances are scheduled for mid-May, 2003.

Two comments: first of all if the IOC really DID want to do something about this, they would thoroughly investigate all the parties concerned: in this case both the French and the Russians. If either or both parties were found to be at fault the entire skating federation of that nation (or both) should be suspended from competition - and all medals earned by their nationals taken away. This would be hard on the skaters, who in all probability had nothing to do with bribery/pressure (although I can believe that it COULD happen that a skater/skaters who had a lot riding on a competition outcome and who had the money to do so could at least attempt to bribe a judge - and I am not implying in any way that that is what happened at this Olympics). Now we could not help being aware for years that during the Soviet era all the Eastern nations voted as a bloc - perhaps first for their own national - if there happened to be a serious medal contender - but then always for the Russians second. This was never more transparent than in the victory of the Russian ice dance pair (can't remember their names) over Torvil and Dean a couple of years back. When there was an outcry over that, some of the judges said that T&D had done an "illegal lift". However, it was also pointed out that the Russians had broken the 10-second separation rule - which apparently is supposed to be penalized to the same degree. I'm sure others on this board can think of other examples. Secondly: Scott Hamilton spoke today of the need for reform in the judging. He feels that a) the judges should be paid and B) that the judges should NOT be representatives of their national skating federations but should be completely independent. And just to put in my two cents - I think S&P DID behave graciously. Did you expect them NOT to be upset? They DID skate perfectly. The Russians made mistakes. If the Russians had also skated perfectly then they WOULD have deserved the gold medal, but the best program imperfectly performed does NOT warrant a gold medal. One is judging a PERFORMANCE here NOT overall talent or skill. That's what competitions are all about. A performance is a different matter: we loved Margot Fonteyn not because she was a brilliant technician but because of what she brought to her roles, but she would never have won a competiton.

Along the lines of Alexandra's "please, please, Mr. Vilar" topic, I shall pose the question: what would you do (for the arts) if you hit the lottery jackpot? I'm assuming here that you win so big that there's an awful lot left over after you take care of yourself and your nearest and dearest.

One of the points in the way a figure skating program is supposed to be judged is not by what was attempted but by what was achieved. If you try something tremendous (eg. a quad) and fail - especially if you two foot the landing or fall (as opposed to doing a triple instead and landing successfully, you lose credit for the jump altogether. Therefore, in the case of the pairs, the fact that the PLANNED and CHOREOGRPHED program of the Russians was better than that of the Canadians, they made several easily visible errors and did not perform perfectly. The Canadians did. They deserved the gold medal. And now we have the French judge admitting that she had been pressured by her Olympic Committee to vote for the Russians a) to 'revenge' a French defeat by the Canadians in Dec. (don't know the details - no doubt Jeannie can provide them) and B) in exchange for higher marks for the French ice dance couple that are in serious medal contention. Back in the days of the Soviet Union we all knew that all the Communist countries were expected to vote for the Russians - with some "wiggle room" to vote for skaters from their own countries - because the Russians gave them money. So now we know that they are still being pressured. If the statement by the French judge proves true, both the Russian and French skating federations should be penalized - and their skaters banned from international competition for a period of time. It certainly was clear that more than the Russian win was rigged: those Chinese in third place looked totally outclassed by skaters far below them in the ranks. The Chinese have worked hard, but technical prowess (defeated by the failed quad throw in any case) did not compensate for lack of artistry. And, IMO, the American pair far outshone both the Chinese and the fourth-placed Russians. Well, we will see when it comes to the ice dancing: will the Canadians wreak revenge on the French? When it comes to the singles, will the Russians have "bribed" other nations to mark down the American skaters - currently possible contenders for all three medals? I don't think we've seen the last of this scandal in this Olympics - whatever may happen to the enquiry into the judging of the pairs competition.

Gosh! There are many, many facets to this discussion. First of all, many ballet scores (Corsaire is a good example) which are really lousy music either by one composer or, as in the case of Corsaire, several composers. There are a number of really good scores specifically composed for ballet - Nutcracker and Coppelia, to cite two. Then there are music scores that have been adapted for ballet and music scores used for ballet. Balanchine was very specific as to giving importance to sticking to the music as it had been written and NOT compromising the music so that a ballerina could hold a balance or to fit the music to the steps. Other choreographers are happy to tamper with the music to achieve the effects they desire. This displeases musicians mightily. My father was a professional musician and resisted playing for the ballet because of the way much of the music was tampered with. I was told that he once met Balanchine at a party and had a long discussion with him on the subject. (I wasn't in existence at the time, and when I queried him about it, he couldn't remember the details.) Then there is the problem of the musicians themselves. Not too many companies can afford to have their own orchestra and the money to hire good musicians - as does the NYCB. Where they have to share an orchestra with the opera, the lions share of the orchestral budget usually goes to the opera company. Ballet is usually the "Cinderella" sister in the budget stakes and rarely finds her prince. So even if the musicians are good ones, they are frequently under-rehearsed. As for the fact that people are willing to pay for Madonna and not for ballet - the opera has the same problem (although perhaps on a higher scale) - people may be willing to pay through the nose for Domingo and Pavarotti or the latest darling of the media, but won't pay for the very latest local talent (who may actually sing better) - unless, or until, he/she has generally been made to seem a really "hot property". Opera has a bad problem with this: unless the singer "looks right" with very few exceptions he/she won't get heard these days - i.e. they better look good on a CD cover photo. In the ballet world, it's a matter of who has had the most/best media exposure. Of course the dancer had better be able to produce - and having some star quality/charisma certainly helps. I think at the moment ABT has been capitalizing on the publicity it can get from some of its male stars. It doesn't have any women with charisma. They tried with Paloma, but unfortunately Paloma has been her own worst enemy and hasn't been able to capitalize on all the free publicity she had (front cover of the NY Times Mag, for example). There just don't seem to be any women in the company with what could be called "star quality" - something that attracts the general public and the media. Perhaps we aren't really going to see any more of those "stars" - such as Nureyev, Baryshnikov, Makarova and Fonteyn.

In case anyone was wondering - Ringer was back onstage last night (Tues.) in "Serenade."

We all knew that there were KGB agents following the dancers around on tour (and of course were aware that Plisetskaya was not allowed on the 1959 Bolshoi tour of the US (their first appearance here). So when she turned up on the next tour she was an object of curiosity even before we saw her dance. BTW the KGB agents were not just burly men "in raincoats" - a lot of them were the wardrobe ladies, and one was a US interpreter who had been hired by the KGB to spy on the Russian dancers. Generally, the dancers were allowed to "socialize" with fans, briefly, at the stage door and in the lobby of their hotel (opposite Penn Station). The hotel was about 7 blocks from the Old Met, so another opportunity to socialize was to walk with them back to the hotel. Of course, no one could go up to their rooms. This produced feelings of amazement at the turn of history when, during the Kirov tours after the fall of the Soviet Union, we could happily picnic with Kirov dancers in their hotel rooms. The younger dancers who had not been on foreign tours prior the the change in government took this openness in stride, but when talking to the older dancers they, too, expressed amazement.

I agree: it's definitely the work ethic. Have you noticed the huge percentage of Asians now in our symphony orchestras - particularly in the string section? (Can someone explain why stringed instruments and not, say, the flute?) In terms of ballet, I think there may be a higher percentage of the population with a high degree of flexibility (perhaps that's cultural). I remember a Chinese man I knew who had never studied ballet until he was 13. He had gone to pick up his little sister from her ballet lesson and arrived early. He must have been quite an aggressive little boy, because he said he had told the teacher that he didn't see what was so hard about ballet - he could "do that." Apparently he could. He later became a soloist with Ballet Rambert (when it was still a classical company). He certainly was one of the most naturally "turned out" people I have ever seen!

I saw Nureyev the first time he came to the US with the Royal Ballet, and I saw Baryshnikov on his first trip to London. Baryshnikov was far, far and away the better dancer, but he lacked the sheer animal magnetism that Nureyev had. The girls all went silly over Misha, but grownups were ready to strip naked for Rudi. Unfortunately, I think Nureyev quickly became overly mannered. He didn't have a very good body for ballet and, to earn lots of money, scheduled far more performances in too many places than were good for him. He started to cheat, and the cheating showed. Also, he was a LOUSY partner - primarily because he didn't really care about his partners - except for Fonteyn (and I saw him behaving badly toward her - at a rehearsal at the old Met) and Merle Park - who refused to put up with his nonsense - and later, Makarova, who didn't HAVE to put up with his nonsense.

I am in the process of clearing out a trunk in my basement. It is packed with programs that date back to the 60s and some souvenir programs that are still older. One interesting thing that I noted with respect to the Royal Danes: the high percentage of people listed in the corps (early 60s) who later became solo artists. I don't think I have ever noticed such a high percentage in any other company. Perhaps, at least in those days, there was an EXPECTATION that each young dancer had the makings of a solo artist - be his/her strength in classical or character roles. With the Russians, it has always been clear that some graduates of either the Maryinsky or Bolshoi schools were earmarked for careers as soloists/principals in the last couple of years before graduation - and everybody (other students) knows who they are. There are some who never set foot in the back of the corps. (The most famous example was Anna Pavlova, who entered the Maryinsky company as a coryphee.)They are also clearly earmarked prior to graduation to be classical vs. character dancers. You don't see anything of someone who came to dance Odette/Odile dancing something like the Spanish dance when younger (viz. Monica Mason of the RB). Another point about the Russians: their titles when on tour in the West are/were not necessarily the same as their titles back home. These days, and especially in the waning days of the Soviet Union, to save money only a certain number of "principal dancers" were carried on the tour. Many of the "solo artists" are/were "principals" back in Russia, but in order for them to participate in the foreign tours (always a desirable thing), they had to go as dancers of a lower rank. I think there used to be a lot of solo artists in the corps. (I remember one tour of the Bolshoi to England where the average age of the corps was probably well over 35 - dancers married and with children at home to lessen the probability of defections.)