Kathleen O'Connell

It's not as if Balanchine never did violence to music, although messing around with "Apollo" is a uniquely criminal offense as far as I'm concerned. He lopped off the first movement of Mendelssohn's "Scotch Symphony," reordered the movements in Tchaikovsky's "Serenade," and cheerfully mixed and matched bits of Vivaldi and Corelli for "Square Dance." He plumped up the score for "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with extracts from other of Mendelssohn's works. (Although in fairness, I think that only "String Symphony No 9" is actually truncated.) He eventually got around to setting all of Tchaikovsky's "Suite No. 3" but until 1970 only used the "Theme and Variations" movement. Etc etc etc. And don't get me started on the concoction of Bellini's greatest hits that he used for the score for "La Sonnambula."

I would suggest those are somewhat different cases, however. "Apollo" held a unique place in the canon, Balanchine worked on it with Stravinsky, the music was intended for ballet. It does seem to me that Balanchine's diddling with it is particularly curious.

Parenthetically, in Balanchine's defense I can understand or any other choreographer would choose not to set all the movements of a symphony or a suite if it doesn't work for what he has in mind - he left off the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3 for "Diamonds" and it's easy to see why. And I find his use of Mendelssohn far easier on the ears than Lanchbery's and Ashton's. Editing isn't necessarily the issue so much as how it's done, perhaps.

Well, at least he waited until Stravinsky was dead!

Funnily enough I'm not particularly bothered when 18th/19th century music written specifically for the theater is cut, rearranged, or augmented with material composed for another work: that was part of standard theatrical operating practice then and remains so today. What Balanchine did with "A Midsummer Night's Dream" certainly wasn't at odds with that tradition -- and we're the lucky beneficiaries of his skill in knitting together a lovely score. But I nonetheless persist in thinking of 18th/19th century concert music as wholes that shouldn't be cut, even though in Beethoven's time (and later) concerts were more like variety shows and it wasn't unusual for shorter pieces to be inserted in between the movements of a symphony. (Obviously this is before we got all snobbish about not clapping between movements. Time was when musicians were disheartened if you didn't clap between the movements or even applaud at the end of a cadenza. But I digress.) Still, they're meant to be heard as wholes. Plus, first movements are often formally the most rigorous part of a multi-movement work, so it seems to me like a special indignity when they're cut. I suspect it comes down to what one is used to hearing. I really do miss the first movement of "Scotch Symphony" ...

No one has posted anything about 'Romeo and Juliet". I'm aware I'm into a very small minority, but I really like Peter Martins' 'Romeo and Juliet'. Anyway, let me post my thoughts about it.

Peter Martins’ ‘Romeo and Juliet’ has received mainly mixed reviews from the press. I, however, was totally absorbed by Martins’ ballet. I do agree that the costumes by Per Kirkeby and Kirsten Lund Nielsen are, for the most part, very unattractive. It’s almost as though a contest was held to decide what were the ugliest shades of green, purple, yellow, blue, etc. The scenery, designed by Per Kirkeby, is definitely on the cheap side. When compared to the true to Renaissance Italy’s scenery and costumes of American Ballet Theatre’s ‘Romeo and Juliet”, NYCB versions fall flat.

Costumes and sets aside, Martins’ ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a very valid production. It is certainly different from ABT’s adaptation, but in its own way, equally as good. NYCB’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a bit shorter than most productions of the work, but I do not feel in any way shortchanged.

I am very impressed by the performances of Robert Fairchild’s Romeo and especially Sterling Hyltin’s Juliet. At Sunday’s matinee Hyltin is by far the best I’ve ever seen her. She is a perfectly natural Juliet full of coltish charm. She is so beautifully innocent that Hyltin becomes Juliet for me. She also knows how to use her body to show Juliet’s development from a fourteen year old child to a young wife who cannot live without her husband.

Robert Fairchild is an ardent young Romeo who clearly shows his love for Juliet with every leap and turn. As well as they dance individually, the real joy is how perfectly complete Hyltin and Fairchild are together. In the balcony pas de deux the couple performs a beautiful circle of flying lifts. Hyltin and Fairchild are in so in sync they bring tears to my eyes.

Daniel Ulbricht is outstanding as the happy go lucky Mercutio. He is an incredible actor and his dancing is beyond spectacular. His leaps have tremendous elevation and his whiplash turns are very exciting. Antonio Carmeno is wonderful as Benvolio, both in his acting and dancing. Gonzolo Garcia is a powerful Tybalt, the leader of the Capulet family. His sword fighting scenes with Daniel Ulbricht’s Mercutio are very authentic.

Darci Kistler is a sweet and loving Lady Capulet. As Lord Capulet, Jock Soto’s take on the role is confusing. For the first half of the ballet he is an ineffective leader of his family, staying mostly in the background. After Tybalt’s death he suddenly becomes a very stern father to Juliet. Soto’s acting, however, is not very convincing. When he “slaps” Juliet, his hand is so far from his daughter’s face that his action seems pointless. Obviously Lord Capulet does not know how to replace Tybalt as head of the family.

I may be in the minority, but I really enjoyed Peter Martins’ ‘Romeo and Juliet’. I hope NYCB continues to perform it for many years to come.

I know that I for one have kvetched about Martins' R+J, but as Colleen points out, there are some good things in it and I wish the production could be fixed. I think it's much to Martins' credit that he didn't opt for a sentimental, easy-sell Renaissance Disneyland version of "Romeo and Juliet": it's a dark tale about a dark time and there's value in letting it look ominous, if not downright nasty. That said, I wish Martins had found a production designer who could have helped him realize that vision more skillfully than Kirkeby did. His Verona doesn't look ominous or nasty: it looks like it was built on the cheap.

And I thank Martins for creating good roles for talented dancers who don't happen to be tall. I suppose Martins' Mercutio, Tybalt, and Benvolio can seem cliched, but I think he lets all three be more than the sum of their pyrotechnics. Mercutio practically steals the show in Shakespeare's play, too, so I'm pleased that Martins saw no need to overturn that bit of tradition when he had a dancer like Ulbricht to hand. (An aside: Mark Morris had the brilliant idea of casting Mercutio and Tybalt with women. For once it was possible to tell one dashing young Renaissance swain from another and it really showcased the conflict between the two men, which did not for a moment get lost in the on-stage hubbub. I really liked Morris' "Romeo & Juliet" -- happy ending and all -- but I don't think it met with much critical success.)

I have mixed feelings about "The Slap" -- Martins has to somehow convey to a modern audience that Juliet's defiance of her family is a much more fraught and serious undertaking than your average bout of teen rebelliousness -- and the slap does suggest that she's at risk of more than being grounded. But there are already enough casual, creepy images of violent conflict between men and women in Martins' other ballets that this one makes me uncomfortable above and beyond the dramatic conflict it's meant to convey. ("Barber Violin Concerto" has many examples of what I'm talking about, and not just in the closing duet between the barefoot modern woman and the ballet cavalier. There's an image of flailing feminine fists in one of the "Fearful Symmetries" duets, too.) But as Colleen points out, at the very least it needs to be well-executed!

Fairchild and Hyltin both did Martins proud when the ballet was new, and I'm glad to hear that they're protrayals are still moving and true.

Frustrating news -- after several seasons performing the mid-career Apollo (birth scene and stairs) as staged by Francia Russell, Pacific Northwest Ballet is going to do the later version with no birth and no stairs (and so no ending on the stairs). I know, I know -- it was his ballet to change if he wanted to -- but I really love the older version.

Sigh.

He also cut some great music. Farrell said in her book she was sufficiently surprised by that to remark on it to him - "You don't usually cut music like that." "No, I don't," he replied. End of discussion. ("Shut up, he explained.")

It's not as if Balanchine never did violence to music, although messing around with "Apollo" is a uniquely criminal offense as far as I'm concerned. He lopped off the first movement of Mendelssohn's "Scotch Symphony," reordered the movements in Tchaikovsky's "Serenade," and cheerfully mixed and matched bits of Vivaldi and Corelli for "Square Dance." He plumped up the score for "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with extracts from other of Mendelssohn's works. (Although in fairness, I think that only "String Symphony No 9" is actually truncated.) He eventually got around to setting all of Tchaikovsky's "Suite No. 3" but until 1970 only used the "Theme and Variations" movement. Etc etc etc. And don't get me started on the concoction of Bellini's greatest hits that he used for the score for "La Sonnambula."

The reordered movements in "Serenade" really bug me; I understand that Balanchine needed the "Elegie's" death and transfiguration music at the end to tie up the drama, but the "Finale" (the "Tema Russo") is so clearly a FINALE (with recapitulated themes and everything) that to my ears at least it sounds ludicrous to hear it in the middle of the ballet.

I like the birth scene and the apotheosis on the stairs too.

I haven't reported in yet this season, but I am compelled to post an appreciation of Ms. Tiler Peck, who has matured into such a complete ballerina that I am awestruck (not too strong a word) by every role she dances.

The first time I saw her this season was in Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux. It was the third number on a program, and arriving late, the first one I saw. During the pause between ballets 2 (Tombeau) and 3 (Tchai Pas) on the program, I found myself seated next to a good friend. After the adagio, I turned to her and said, "I could go home now." She was just that satisfying. The purity of her dancing -- completely without mannerism -- nothing tossed off, every in-between the in-betweens was expressive. My eyes were moist. Needless to say, the bravura of her allegro and coda were absolutely effortless and crystal clear.

I saw her next in Who Cares?, in McBride's role (The Man I Love and Fascinatin' Rhythm). I have seen literally every cast of Who Cares? that City Ballet has ever offered, and then a handful of others. I had no idea all that was in The Man I Love. Peck gave us not only a young woman who was fantasizing about the joy of falling in love, she gave us someone with a history. You could see, the trepidation of entering a new relationship, the pain of her last one(s), the giddiness of falling in love, the anticipation and, finally, her decision to go for it. Yes, all that was in there. Who knew? And how on earth did she know? Most remarkably, she did it all without acting. It was all in her timing, musicality and gesture. I hope that somewhere, someone managed to capture that performance on video.

The woman is every kind of awesome. I saw her in "Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux" this season too, and it was the first time I can remember being blown away by the lifts. Peck was so gloriously, gorgeously on the music it was like watching a flower explode into bloom right before your eyes. Obviously her partner (Gonzalo Garcia) gets a ton of credit for the effect, but she made the most of the beautiful opportunity he gave her.

And I would sit through "The Seven Deadly Sins" twice if it were a precondition for watching Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild dance "The Man I Love."

I'm hesitant to recommend that anyone avoid a ballet altogether. That said, I've already seen it, twice, and even though Tiler Peck has skyrocketed to the top (albeit a rotating top) of my Favorite Ballerina list, I won't bother seeing her in it. Ever. Or anyone else.

I too am hesitatant to say "Don't go" -- especially if your reason for going is to see a dancer you really like (I really like Stanley, too). I've been to see "R+J" once, and now that that box is checked I won't trouble myself to go see it again. I would like to see more of both new Romeos (Zachary Catazaro is debuting as well), but would prefer that they were featured in some other, better ballet. Storytelling isn't Martins' strong suit and Per Kirkeby's "R+J" production -- every bit as much of an inert eyesore as his production for "Swan Lake" -- doesn't give him any help. Never has Renaissance Italy looked so dinky.

But -- and this is a big but -- you will get to see Stanley (and some other very fine dancers) do a lot of dancing. If you can get past the sets and costumes, like Martins' choreography in general, and don't mind that the storytelling is hit or miss, you will get the chance to see a rising young dancer you like test himself against new challenges, and that's no bad thing.

IMHO Firebird is not the best role for Reichlen. She was beautiful, as she can't help being beautiful. But I find her too cool for this fiery role. I liked the authority and energy that Bouder brought, and especially, the warmth and vividness of Maria Kowroski's presence. I loved Reichlen in Rubies, so I'm not sure what the difference is. Maybe that a ruby gets its beauty from the way light reflects off its surface, whereas a fire (I'm conflating fire and firebird here) seems to burn from within.

Oh, I like all kinds of Firebirds! One of the good things about the current NYCB roster is that it can offer many valid takes on the same role. I haven't seen Bouder's Firebird in a few years, but I liked her energy and attack. I really liked Sofiane Sylve's Firebird, too -- talk about vivid. I enjoy Reichlen's coolness in general, and appreciated it last night -- I thought it made her Firebird seem appropriately otherworldly, especially in the Berceuse. And I liked that her Firebird was true to her temperament as a dancer -- that she didn't put on some sort of "I am a fierce fiery creature" act.

And speaking of beautiful tall blond dancers -- I was sad to note that Kaitlyn Gilliland's name is no longer on the roster. I'll miss her.

I saw "Les Carillons" twice yesterday, once during the all-Wheeldon matinee (with "Polyphonia" and "DGV") and once again at the evening performance (with "Stravinsky Violin Concerto" and "The Firebird"). I was disappointed. The men's costumes--very traditional with the faux frisson of one bare arm--pretty much sums up the overall look of the choreography. Wheeldon has taken standard ballet vocabulary (some of it very pretty) and has tried to sex it up with "non-traditional" gestures and combinations. (I hesitate to say "modern" since it all looks very 15 years ago. Also, some of the gestures--a particularly baroque filip of the arms, some faintly hussar like posturing for the men--seem intended to evoke the past.) They look as fussy, mannered, and clichéd as the costumes. An arabesque is a beautiful and expressive thing all on its own; it's not going to bore us to show it to us straight. (And can I just say that Robert Fairchild has a beautiful arabasque.)

There were some Ratmansky-isms. I couldn't tell if Wheeldon was trying to use them or if he was poking a little fun at them. Members from the ensemble drift onto the stage in sculptural groups and hover in the shadows behind the main action. In Ratmansky's work they evoke the community in which the drama between two dancers plays out. In "Les Carillons" they look like voyeurs. Tiler Peck has a solo (interrupted by a trio with Gonzalo Garcia and Daniel Ulbrecht) in which she stops in relevé and swivels one of her points back and forth, looking for all the world as if she were crushing out the cigarette from "Namouna." (There are echos of "Emeralds" too, as well as of your standard-issue perky village maiden.) As in Ratmanksy, there are little dollops of dramatic action that hint at a larger tale. Remaining alone onstage after a duet with Fairchild, Wendy Whelan wanders sorrowfully among some frolicking couples (She appears to have been left behind by her man, something that happens a lot to Wheeldon ballerinas.) Sara Mearns is left alone too in some kind of stand-off with the principal men. (Later she gets a sorta gypsy, sorta flamenco solo that recalls the great solo Ratmansky gaver her in "Namouna"; it's not as good, but Mearns dances the hell out of it anyway.) But they add up to nothing: there's no sense of a Whelan story or a Mearns story implicitly driving the dancing. We see a sad girl, we see a fiery girl. End of story that never really happened. It's drama unearned.

"Polyphonia" looked very good -- and it was a pleasure to see Adrian Danchig-Waring back and getting some meaningful stage time.

Maria Kowroski and Tyler Angle were partners in both "Les Carillons" and "DGV"; they continue to look wonderful together. There is life after Askegard.

I loved Teresa Reichlen's Firebird; her Berceuse was especially gorgeous and touching. I loved Savannah Lowery's big, sunny Princess, too. She didn't get lost in the costume for one thing, and her dancing is so open hearted and forthright that she's an effective foil for the more complicated Firbird. I've always liked Jonathan Stafford's Prince Ivan; there was a bit less juice to his dancing in the monster scene than I remember, but his witty, winsome portrayal really works in this production.

Kudos to the corps -- they looked great in everything at both performances. Special mention to Marika Anderson, Gretchen Smith, Devin Alberda, and Ralph Ippolito, who danced a hat trick (or three-peated?) at the evening performance. Megan LeCrone has been dancing beautifully lately -- somebody, please, pull her out of the back row -- I want to see more.

Dirac, thanks for the links! I hadn't come across either of these pieces before (how did I miss Acocella's?) -- very enlighening. I had a little trouble deciphering Wenders' comments about the outdoor scenes, but it sounds like they're "micro-extracts" from works in each of the dancers' repertoire that they worked on closely with Bausch. So we can scratch my speculation that they were from "Vollmond" and were shot outside to get around the limitations of the set, which Wenders' apparently doesn't think was so limited anyway. I've read a couple of reviews now where the critic didn't like the outdoor stagings; I did, but then I've only seen a handful of the dances in Bausch's 40-work catalogue (and the dancier ones at that), so I might have minded more if I'd experienced them in a theater and then had to confront them performed on a traffic island with a monorail gliding by overhead.

I love Wenders for this quote:

When I’m sitting, watching Pina’s work, I feel it in my own body. My body understands it and goes with it and my brain lags behind some and eventually follows.

I saw "Pina" again yesterday, this time without any fire alarms. Some quick thoughts on a second viewing:

1) Now that I've seen it without any interruptions I can definitely say that it is too long.

2) The dancer commentaries didn't wear well the second time through. It started to feel like someone recounting one of their dreams: it's information so personal that its meaning vanishes the moment the words hit the air. SInce we don't get any other information about Bausch -- her history, her influences, her working methods, etc -- there's nothing to hang the comments onto other than the dancers' obvious commitment to Bausch. But since we see that in the dancing, we don't need to hear their words, or at least not so many of them.

3) The film lost focus somewhere around the transition from the "Kontakthof" to the "Vollmond" episodes. I think "Vollmond" itself may be the problem. Even if you don't know the overall trajectory of "Cafe Müller" and "Sacre" you can still glean the basic dramatic thrust of those works from the episodes presented. If someone asked you who these peope were and what they were up to--psychically, if not in terms of an actual plot--you could comeup with something. "Vollmond" (which I haven't seen) looks more diffuse, at least as Wenders presents it. There's no community there, and no obvious dramatic idea, just a bunch of people in pretty clothes dancing around a big honking rock and a dark puddle. The choreography looks like noodling; the vocabulary is limited and it's repetitive in a way that suggests a lack of inspiration rather than repetition serving as an expressive device. I wasn't taking notes, but it's my impression that most of the material restaged outdoors is from "Vollmond." No wonder: the rock, the rain, and the puddle may work on a stage, but the camera doesn't love them the way it loves the onstage dirt in "Sacre." However impressive it may be in the theater, the "Vollmond" stage picture just looks inert on film. You can see how shallow that dark puddle really is; the rock looks like a "Star Trek" rock. I'd be tempted to move outside too.

4) The 3D feels like a third way of looking at something, not like a more accurate emulation of reality. The opening shot of (I think) the plaza around the theater looks like a diorama or a tilt shift photo. That's fine with me.

5) The film is nonetheless well worth seeing. What I'd really like to see is "Sacre" and "Cafe Müller" shot by Wenders in their entirety. I thought that his camera work in "Sacre" was especially effective -- the visceral energy of the massed groups especially whomps you right in the chest.

The film is comprised of extracts from "Le sacre du printemps," "Café Müller," "Kontakthof," and "Vollmond" interspersed with commentary from Bausch's dancers. ....There's one genuine "coup de camera" -- Wenders shoots two of Bausch's dancers looking into a diorama of the "Cafe Müller" set, which magically comes to life as an actual performance of "Cafe Müller" while they talk. (The diorama is set up outdoors in a green and sunny park.)

Other than "Cafe", can you identify which dance is which? I saw this yesterday.

Also, how were the dances generally staged or presented? Outdoors? On film? As performance art?

"Sacre" is the one with the dirt on the stage; "Vollmond" is the one with the rock, the rain, and the big puddle; "Kontakthof" is the one with the old people.

Without the context of the piece run through in it's emtirety, how distorted is our experience of it?

Well, that's certainly the $64,000 question! For many, probably most of the people in the audience, this will be what they know of Bausch's work -- as a filmmaker, Wenders will draw an audience because it's his work, not because it's about her work. People won't be able to say that they've seen Sacre, or Cafe Muller, or either of the other pieces that he draws extensive excerpts from, but I do think they'll be able to say they've seen a part of what Bausch was as a dance maker. But we all know that repetition gives the opportunity for further depth -- whatever the actual content. We still learn new things about Swan Lake, even if we've seen it multiple times with many different casts. I think, if you needed to make a Cliff Notes guide to Pina Bausch's style, this film wouldn't be far off. And perhaps that's the best we can ask of it, at least on that level.

Sandik -- I think you nailed it here. If you want to know what Bausch's work looks like and where she is on the dance spectrum, "Pina" is a decent (and very well-crafted) place to start. Wenders loved and admired Bausch's work: per his own telling, he--not much of a dance fan at the time--got dragged to a performance of "Cafe Müller," cried his eyes out, and became a convert. I think he wants the audience to have a conversion experience, too. I don't know if that passion makes him a reliable guide, though--I suspect he selected and staged the episodes the way he did in order to make a good film, not to produce a sober assessment or even accurate rendition of Bausch's art. Scant attention may have been paid to her use of repetition, for example, because however powerful it might be live in a theater it might be a dispiriting dud onscreen. I think Wenders wants you to run, not walk, to the theater to see Bausch live, and to that end has taken pains to make her work look as good on screen as he possibly can -- which may mean he's being less "true" to the works in their entirety than exisitng fans might like.

But the film can't be a substitute for seeing the works live in their entirety in a theater.

I do hope he captured the dances in their entirety and that he'll make them available once his initial round of proselytizing is done.

I saw this in 3D last week and agree with Kathleen -- it's some of the most deft use of 3D techniques I've seen. (as good as the Herzog film of the French cave paintings) I know there's been some commentary about the dance excerpts, but I felt Wenders did an excellent job of "placing" the work. I felt that I knew where the dancers were, in relationship to the space and to each other -- considering what a theatrical coup Bausch's work was, the film was able to give an approximation of that transformation. Because of that, I especially appreciated the sections that were clearly in a theatrical space.

For me, the "silent" interview footage wasn't quite as successful as it might have been -- after the first few dancers, I began to long for something different -- the obedience to the structure got a bit tedious. But I can understand the need to let everyone have their say.

I'm the most grateful for the excerpts of the main works, especially of Cafe Muller and Sacre -- I wish there had been time for more of the incessant repetition that she used to such great affect, but then you'd have to trade something else out, and I'm not sure I would want to make that decision.

First off -- I love that Herzog film ("Cave of Forgotten Dreams")! I've even deluded myself that I get the albino alligators. Herzog claims to have wanted to use 3D to make the most of the paintings themselves, which use the natural contours of the cave's walls to add dimensionality to the animals depicted there. But ... there's a hilarious scene in which an endearlingly goofy scientist studying the cave demonstrates how to use a paleolithic spear thrower -- and of course Herzog shoots the scene so that the spear comes hurtling at you head on. I half suspect that spear thrower clinched the 3D deal for him.

I too would have preferred less of the commentary and more of the dancing. It was hard for me to make much of an assessment of the film's overall pacing, however. The showing I attended was interrupted several times by an errant fire alarm. The soundtrack shut itself off during the first false alarm (standard safety practice, I gather), but the film itself did not stop as it was apparently supposed to. The projectionist attempted to rewind to where we were before the alarm went off, and it took several tries to find the right place. As a result I saw some episodes three times, both with and without sound and completely out of sequence and there was a fair amount of down time to boot while the firemen investigated the scene. Then the alarm--a loud bell and flashing strobes--went off a couple more times after the film started up again. So I couldn't tell if my sense that the film lost focus at around the 2/3 point had any basis in reality or not. Similarly, while I definitely enjoyed getting a second look at the dance sequences, I didn't much enjoy sitting through the commentaries twice -- so, again, it was hard for me to tell if the commentaries were a problem or if the way I saw the film was.

Anyway, I think it's a tribute to Wenders' skill and Bausch's art that I walked out on a cloud despite the less-than-ideal viewing conditions.

I saw the 3-D version of Wenders' "Pina" over the weekend, and couldn't get it out of my head for days. The 3-D experience is peculiar -- it's not quite like watching dance in a theater and it's not at all like watching dance on film -- but it definitely works. In some ways it seems more visceral than seeing these works in the theater -- perhaps because there's no proscenium. (There are a couple of spooke moments when elements of the set seem to be projected out into the movie theater.) And can I just say that it's a delight to watch dance filmed by someone who really knows how to use a camera to tell a story. There are no silly cross-cuts or pointless close-ups or "wow! look at that" showcasing of bravura effects; Wenders knows what we need to see when and from how far back or from how close up. And he just revels in the dancers' diversity in age, body type, and ethnicity; he uses their distinctiveness and individuality to great theatrical effect.

The film is comprised of extracts from "Le sacre du printemps," "Café Müller," "Kontakthof," and "Vollmond" interspersed with commentary from Bausch's dancers. Regarding the latter: rather than showing us talking heads, Wenders opted instead to show us the dancers sitting in front of the camera in silence while their previously recorded comments play as voice-over narration -- is if we're listening to their thoughts rather than watching them speak. I thought it was a really good choice -- these dancers are at least as eloquent with their faces and bodies as they are with words, if not more so -- but others have found it annoying. Wenders also pulls some of the extracts out of the theater and stages them in and around Wuppertal, where they look just wonderful. There's one genuine "coup de camera" -- Wenders shoots two of Bausch's dancers looking into a diorama of the "Cafe Müller" set, which magically comes to life as an actual performance of "Cafe Müller" while they talk. (The diorama is set up outdoors in a green and sunny park.)

I recommend that you try to catch this in 3-D even if you don't much care for Bausch. At the very least it's an example of how to film dance well and what 3-D is good for.

... and speaking of the Mayles, their cult classic "Grey Gardens" is well worth a watch, too. The brothers document the daily life of reclusive one-time socialites "Big Edie" and "Little Edie" Bouvier (yes, there's a Kennedy connection) Beale while their once splendid Hamptons mansion collapses around them, their cats, and some resident racoons.

I caught part of this on cable recently and although I have the greatest respect for your opinion, Kathleen, I couldn't watch it for very long. I felt sorry for them but it was all rather repellent and I couldn't find any reason to go on watching the poor things. I've sat through more repulsive sights, so I can't really explain this reaction.....

Oh, it's definitely uncomfortable to watch those two women disintegrate along with their house, all the while carrying on as if it were a completely reasonable way to live. And although they clearly revel in the Mayles' attention, you have to wonder if it wouldn't be the better part of valor to grant them the privacy they don't seem to want.

5. To the best of my knowledge, the NYCB costume department does not sew scarlet letters onto costumes of dancers deemed to stray.

I'll make the only judgement I can: I think rather more highly of The Correspondent's dancing than I do of Ms Bushnell's writing, but your mileage may vary.

A farewell to the company by Robert Greskovic in The Wall Street Journal.

If, in the wake of MCDC's departure, companies with other backgrounds choose to acquire Cunningham's dances, they'll have a fighting chance at success if they can commit to the quiet concentration and rehearsal time suited to putting the chosen dance on stage. If not, they'll find themselves confounded by these works widely known for their presentation of independently-arrived-at movement, sound and design aspects. Ghosts of these final performances at the Armory, so pristine, alert and full of fine detail, will rise up and doom halfhearted efforts to inconsequence, a fate worse than death.

Greskovic isolates -- correctly, in my opinion -- the problem other dance companies will have with reviving Cunningham pieces. How many companies can, "commit to the quiet concentration and rehearsal time suited to putting the chosen dance on stage?" The Cunningham technique and style is a very particular thing. Like the repertory of Antony Tudor, the repertory may require more time and singular focus than most companies are prepared to invest.

That's an understatement. It makes me very sad that no one--not even in the press, really (those who had the space, of course)--challenged this final wish in a significant way. In my opinion, it's a case of devoted followers not stepping back and looking at the bigger artistic costs to our culture. If we're lucky, some of the works will be performed by a handful of excellent modern-dance schools like Julliard (who will make the time as part of their pedagogy); but I fear that will be it--at least for those of us in the US.

You might find Robert Johnson's review of the final Park Avenue Armory performances interesting in this context. It isn't the first time he's expressed his anger about the plan to disband the company:

Merce Cunningham died in 2009, but the young members of his dance company never looked fleeter or more alive than they did on New Year’s Eve, 2011, when the legendary troupe gave its farewell performance at the Park Avenue Armory. Paradoxically this leave-taking took place amid throngs of well-wishers. Although Cunningham was never commercial, there is no lack of interest in his work. So while the choreographer died of natural causes, age 90, his company had to be garroted.

BAM has uploaded four short videos compiled from footage shot during the Merce Cunningham Dance Company's final repertory performances there in December. Links below ...

Roaratorio

Split Sides (Silas Reiner's solo)

Second Hand

Biped

What about Russian Seasons? Is there a story there? I have only seen clips (where musicality snd a slightly mischievous quality seemed dominate)?

What there is in "Russian Seasons" -- as well as in every other "abstract" Ratmansky ballet I've seen -- is a theatrically rich projection of a coherent community that gives the work the weight of drama even though it doesn't have a plot per se. Something is going on, and I think Ratmansky invites us to feel what it might be even if we can't isolate a storyline that can be put into words . Ditto "Namouna," where I think Ratmansky's ability to evoke a world and people it reached some kind of delicious, demented peak.

And Paul, I think you're really on to something in suggesting that "[Ratmansky's] work will benefit the most from dancers with a taste for the fantastic, even the preposterous."

A fine review of a magical evening! The work is just packed with gorgeous detail – kudos to Mr. Popkin for capturing some of the loveliest for us to treasure, because this masterpiece may well be gone forever.

At first I thought I wouldn’t be able to attend any of the MCDC’s final repertory performances at BAM. (I think I went through at least a half of a box of Kleenex when I looked at my calendar for that week and realized that both hell and high water stood between me and every single night of the run.) Then, thanks to the last-minute operation of some grand cosmic chance procedure, I got two of my evenings back and managed to score a couple of (good!) tickets. I have now officially used up my lifetime’s allotment of karma. (I used up the rest of the Kleenex at BAM.)

Roaratorio was as marvelous as Michael’s review makes it out to be—and as he points out, impossible not to watch it with joy even though your eyes might be full of tears.

I also got to see Pond Way, RainForest, and Split Sides. Nancy Dalva, who sometimes posts here as Nanatchka, threw the dice onstage for Split Sides’ lighting plot for the Friday evening performance.

Split Sides isn’t my favorite Cunningham, but Silas Reiner’s astonishing solo in the “B” section (done in the black-and-white costumes, to Sigur Ros’s score, with Catherine Yass’ décor, and lighting plot 600) was the performance of the evening if not the whole dance year. He got a huge round of applause in the middle of the work—something I don’t think I’ve ever seen at a Cunningham performance—and deserved every second of it.

An aside: I was a little grumpy about the way Cage’s score for Roaratorio was mixed: I think it could have been more deftly layered to bring out some of its own detail and effects. Perhaps the sound system and the venue’s acoustics made that difficult to do.

When I saw the title of this thread, I thought it was going to be about a murder mystery set in the Ballet Russes ... "What delicious, wicked fun!" I thought. Damn, now I'm going to have to go write one.

I think the PBS broadcast will be a "live-on-tape" of the previous night's performance. According to the blurb above, the "Live from Lincoln Center" staff/crew is doing the cinema distribution (& taping?) so it doesn't make much sense to do the same thing twice. Instead, think of the PBS broadcast as a 'delayed broadcast' of the cinema version.

Maybe not? While I was waiting on eternal hold with a not very customer focused vendor, I played around with the "Buy Tickets" section of the NYCB website and was able to put seats for both the 12/13 6PM and 12/14 8PM performances in my cart -- that suggests two different live performances, no?

The full text of a lovely article by Gary Wills on Verdi and Shakespeare as kindred men of the theater has been posted on The New York Review of Books’ website. Wills points out that the working methods of Elizabethan playwrights and 19^th century Italian opera composers were quite similar to each other, but very different from modern practitioners of these arts.

The article details some of the day-to-day workings of both 17^th century theater and 19^th century opera, which is interesting in its own right, but I found it particularly intriguing because of the many parallels between what playwrights and composers were expected to do then and what choreographers are often expected to do today: specifically, tailor roles to the particular talents (and limitations) of the performers they’re creating works for and with whom they likely have a close association.

I don’t think that there are many modern theater or opera analogues to today’s major repertory dance companies. (The RSC, maybe, or regional German opera houses?) An opera star may sing at the Met or La Scala, but isn’t a part of either of those institutions in the way that, say, Wendy Whalen or Marcelo Gomes are a part of their respective home companies. And we expect those companies to give us new works every season, year in and year out, that showcase their stars and develop their rising talents. The major opera houses just don’t work like that anymore, although they once did. (ABT is admittedly something of a hybrid model.) The Met has to schedule and cast its operas something like three to five years in advance from a relatively limited pool of international stars, which must make commissioning, rehearsing, and mounting a new work tricky in terms of creating a role for a particular talent. I don't know how much lead time Peter Martins needed for "The Architecture of Dance" festival, but it's hard to imagine an opera or theater company being able to undertake a similar project.

Anyway, here are some quotes from Wills’ article to whet your appetite:

n the modern theater, performers are fitted to the play, but in Shakespeare’s time, the play was fitted to the performers. If the playwright had an ongoing relationship with the troupe—like Shakespeare’s with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later the King’s Men)—he could create his text for the known strengths of particular actors, as Shakespeare did for the talents of the great Richard Burbage. Shakespeare wrote comic scenes in different ways for the famous clown Will Kemp and for the intellectual jester Robert Armin.............In modern productions, with an established text, producers can shop around in a large pool of unattached actors to find two couples who are plausibly similar, but Shakespeare began with the four men already in his company and wrote the play to use them.

The trickiest job was to write for that rare commodity, the boy actors who played women. These were hard to come by and train in the brief time before their voices broke. That is why women’s parts make up only thirteen percent of the lines in the plays. ............The boys’ memories were such that Shakespeare wrote shorter parts for them than for adult actors—an average of three hundred or so lines to the adults’ 650 or so lines per play. But when he had a spectacular boy like John Rice, he was able to write as big a role for him as that of Cleopatra (693 lines).

The working methods of a composer of operas in the nineteenth century had much in common with those of an Elizabethan playwright—enough to make them ideal subjects for a study in comparative dramaturgies. The playwright had to tailor his drama to the resources of a particular acting company. ..................In his version of Otello, the Moor is a tenor, Iago is a tenor, Roderigo is a tenor, the doge is a tenor, and the gondolier is a tenor. Only Desdemona’s father, not a very important role, is a bass.

... When Verdi did his version of Macbeth, he had only one weak tenor at hand, and he gave him the minor role of Macduff, with only one aria late in the opera. He did not let him sing his own climax-song (cabaletta) alone, but had the chorus join in with him. He had chosen Macbeth as a subject because he knew he could get by with only a minor contribution from the tenor, so long as he had a great baritone—which he demanded from the theater—to play Macbeth.

Even with a proven performer like Felice Varesi singing the role of Macbeth, Verdi was tailoring and adjusting the part as he composed................ When he sent her first music to his Lady Macbeth (Marianna Barbieri-Nini), he wrote, “If there should be some passage that lies badly [for her voice], let me know before I do the orchestration [for the passage that needs change].” He did the same with Varesi, writing him: “I’m convinced that the tessitura [range] suits you well, but there could be some notes or passages that are uncomfortable for you, so write to me before I orchestrate it.” He asked Barbieri about the state of her trill before writing trills into her role—after her assurances, he gave her many trills in her drinking song.

This “hands-on” approach to composition had long been the case. As [Julian] Budden writes:

In the eighteenth century…the singer, not the composer, was the starting-point. When Mozart was a youth no one would dream of composing an aria until he had first heard the artist who was to perform it; and this might be no more than a fortnight before the premiere. Thus, for instance, Leopold Mozart to his wife during the composition of

Mitridate Rè di Ponte

in Milan in 1770—”Wolfgang has composed only one aria for the

primo uomo

, since he has not yet arrived and Wolfgang doesn’t want to do the same work twice over.” More than sixty years later, when Bellini was writing

I Puritani

for the Théâtre des Italiens in Paris, the situation was no different. “The whole of the first act is now finished, except for the trio, because I want first to try it out (

provarlo

) on [the tenor] Rubini.”

Provare

is the word used for trying on a suit. Bellini’s contemporary, Giovanni Pacini, one of the most prolific operatic practitioners of his day, wrote in his memoirs that he always tried to serve his singers as a good tailor serves his clients, “concealing the natural defects of the figure and emphasizing its good points.”

I can tell you from experience that summaries and even conference abstracts can be highly misleading, as authors can (and often will) change details at the last minute. We haven't seen this paper, so what is there to speculate on?

Following the received wisdom that we graduate students love it when people ask to see our works of genius*, I'm now trying to get in contact with the author. Will update if I can obtain a copy of the paper.

*I haven't produced anything of value yet**, and no, I don't know when I'll be done with my dissertation. (hides)

**This first assertion may change after November ends.

Oh thank you, emilienne! I'd really be interested in reading it if it's something she's ready to release outside of the conference confines.

Sigh ... I never did finish my dissertation. The good news is, no one ever had to read it. (I was hoping to make some genius observations about Herman Melville and Thomas Carlyle.)

Having myself once been a graduate student in the grip of A Theory (way back when “Theory” first got its capital T), I can see how someone might have drawn a line through a few data points (Balanchine experimented with pointe technique, Balanchine experimented with pointe shoe design, Balanchine’s ballerina’s didn’t look like Taglioni-era sylphs, Balanchine said “We have no stars”); connected it to another line drawn between technology, toolmaking, and interchangeable parts; read Sarah Kaufman’s piece about the fell influence of Balanchine (which we discussed here) started free-associating, and ended up with the notion that modern ballerinas are as indistinguishable as mass-produced machines. Someone somewhere has surely performed the same operation with football players (sans Kaufman, of course).

I haven’t read Laemmli’s paper—I cannot stress this enough—and in fairness her work may be more rigorous than The Atlantic’s summary makes it seem. Nothing in the summary itself seems particularly objectionable until we get to the fourth paragraph and the claim that “as their bodies were remade, dancers became ‘like IBM machines,’ modern and indistinguishable” and that “stars became a less central feature of dance companies as dancers became more interchangeable” as a result. The very fact that dances are still choreographed on very specific bodies, and that those bodies in all their individual particularity inform the choreography would seem to belie that notion.

An aside: Fischer wraps up her summary with this:

The history of technology doesn't talk much about art. That's why Laemmli's paper is important, paying attention not just to how dancers used their tools, but also how their tools changed them.

The history of technology may not talk much about art, but historians of art do talk a lot about technology—everything from the unremarkable insight that technology changes tools which changes technique to more hotly debated propositions— for instance, that the development of lenses and projected images (as in a camera obscura) changed the way that paintings look because the world as captured through a lens looks very different from the world as seen through an unmediated human eye.

I don't think anyone would dispute that dancers' bodies have changed over time, and it would be interesting to explore how much of this is due to changes in taste, technique, training, and tools -- as well has how changes in technique might have led us to "see" the body differently and thereby changed what we wanted them to look like.

Pointe shoes made the ballerinas of the New York City Ballet into technological artifacts, modern and indistinguishable "like IBM machines"

That's the lead in for a brief article by science historian Suzanne Fischer posted on The Atlantic's website yesterday. The article summarizes "A Case in Pointe: Making Streamlined Bodies and Interchangeable Ballerinas at the New York City Ballet," a paper presented by Whitney Laemmli (a University of Pennsylvania graduate student) at the Society for the History of Technology conference in Cleveland held this past weekend.

George Balanchine, the charismatic director who ran the New York City Ballet and its School of American Ballet, rethought pointe shoes. He worked with Salvatore Capezio to develop and patent pointe shoes to produced the exact lines of the foot and leg he thought beautiful, and to be quieter and less clunky than earlier pointe shoes. He required all dancers (not just the principals) to go on pointe -- and not for a few short moments, but for hours at a time.

Laemmli argues that the new shoes forced dancers' bodies to move in new ways. Dancers on this pointe regimen developed characteristically long, lean leg muscles. Balanchine also encouraged dancers to let the shoes remake their bodies, including developing bunions that gave the foot just the right line. And as their bodies were remade, dancers became "like IBM machines," modern and indistinguishable.

I haven't been able to find Laemmli's paper on line anywhere, and I'm reluctant to base an assessment of her thesis on a brief summary written by another person, but I'm not sure I buy it. I don't know enough about dance physiology to be able to assess the claim that the modern pointe shoe and developments in the use of pointe technique led to "characteristically long, lean leg muscles," so I'll leave that to the more knowledgeable members of this board. But one of the raps against NYCB's corps has always been its lack of uniformity, and it is much more uniform now than it was when Balanchine was alive. The conventional wisdom that Balanchine ballerinas were all tall, thin women with long necks and small heads falls apart when you start listing them. Suzanne Farrell, Patricia McBride, Merrill Ashley, Karin von Aroldingen, and Darci Kistler were hardly stamped out by the same cookie-cutter. To my eye, the dancers in the Mariinsky corps are much more uniform in body type and presentation -- has it always been thus?

Stylistic uniformity, which matters as much as if not more than uniformity in body type, is the product of an aesthetic, not a technology.