Petra

Well, even though it looks like I will be in America next year (yes!yes!yes! ), I don't think I'll get to see Facade. Portland isn't anywhere near Philadelphia, is it?:confused:

I found the choice of Facade very interesting. I've never seen it, of course, but from descriptions it seems to be such an English 'period' character driven ballet. Unlike most of Stowell's other choices. Perhaps it ties in with the whole Virginia Woolfe / The Hours trend:D

This isn't an answer to Calliope's post, but reading Croce's quote, I was struck by the fact that that quote would probably be true of any other art and many other disciplines during the 1980s and the 1990s. As ballet is an art which requires extensive financial investment, perhaps those 'fortesses of style' were merely products of the post-WWII society in which each country found it important to present its 'national treasures' as exactly that - national treasures. After all, neither NYCB nor the RB have a long history and in fact their national (or comapny) style was forged during WWII or very soon thereafter. What tradition do they really have? Maybe we just expect them to have a lasting tradition because Balanchine and de Valois presented their companies as national companies?

I recently read an article in an Israeli daily which reported that the plans for the new theatre were frozen as a result of public uproar at the plans and that there would be a new tender - although they would try and decide a winner before the end of 2003. Wouldn't this also impact the internal design of the theatre?

This is a fascinating thread. I don't need to be on a parenting board when I have all of you. diane, I'm interested to know what kind of theatre going would you take a 1 year old?

Disclaimer: I've never seen a broadway show. Calliope, I'd say good especially if, to use your own words, people realise that what they're seeing on broadway is 'entertainment ballet' and not 'real ballet'. If they like it enough, they'll be interested to see 'real ballet'. Why don't you regard it as an 'Outreach Program' without having to offer subsidisied tickets? There's a marketing idea - buy a full price ticket to see a broadway show and get half price ticket to a ballet company showing the work of the broadway choreographer (Ican hear all the purists groaning:D )

Thank you all for your illuminating comments. It's like watching an annotated edition.

Alexandra, I didn't realise that Nureyev used 'authentic' Renaissance material. In fact, I am embarassed to say that I thought he was using contemporary movement (with turn-in, etc.) for the court dances. Further more I even took the trouble to think it through and decide that that was very appropriate because in the context of R&J the court dances are supposed to be contemporary dances (You can see it's a long time since I flexed any of my History of Dance muscles.) I didn't like the 2nd and 3rd acts as much as I did the first - too much jumping about from scene to scene - but Loudieres brought tears to my eyes (very difficult on video) in the crypt scene. I have just read the 'Giselle' thread and I see she was right at the end of her career then. I would never have guessed that from her dancing.

I had the pleasure of watching the first act of Nureyev's Romeo and Juliet last night. (The whole ballet was broadcast on Mezzo and I'll be watching the other acts onvideo - hopefully, tonight). It's a very lavish production - the Bastille stage looks enormous, and the dancers were of course excellent. The recording is from 1995 and Romeo and Juleit were Manuel Legris and Monique Loudieres. Both of them seemed to be so young (although in clos-up you can see that they aren't). Legris has this soaring, floating quality which is breathtaking even on my sub-par television. I have read a lot of criticism of Nureyev's productions on this board, but I liked the choreography a lot. There is a lot of dancing and most of it is quite complex but I think that's a good thing. Thinking back to the MacMillan version - that version seems be full of swooning and padding compared to Nureyev's version. The women which are always shortchnged in R&J (and in most Shakespeare ballets - maybe that's why a Midsummer's Night's Dream is such a popular ballet) have a fair amount of dancing here. I particularly liked the balcony scene (without the balcony). You could really see the progression from hardly knowing each other - at the beginning there wasn't much physical contact and they danced in parallel - towards an ever growing love, where at the end they can hardly break away from each other. I do have one issue with this ballet. When the fight between the Capulets and the Montagues begins and everytime the Montagues meet Tybalt, they engage in insults including body language and gestures corresponding to some very 21st century four letter words (I'm feeling family firndly today:p ). I found this bizarre, out of place and rather off-putting. How is this handled in other versions of the ballet?

I'm just not qualified to vote. There is so little ballet in Israel that I'd be glad to see almost anything. (Although I must admit that I often prefer to see modern dance than the Israel Ballet, whose repertory leaves so much to be desired.)

Thank you all - those who travel and those who live in the places other (want to) travel to - for your wonderful reports. This board is the best:cool:

I can't wait for this to be aired on Mezzo - th eEuropean arts channel. Oh, but then it will have a French voice-over (This week, there was a documentary on Merce cunningham. Merce was honoured with subtitles but everyone else had a French voice-over!!!) and I won't be able to understand anything.

It also seems that the Elfin rulers (Galadriel and Agent Smith from the Matrix ( pleae don't shoot me, I don't remember his name in LOTR) are weightier than the other Elves. They do have this deep connection with Middle Earth, this responsibility towards Middle Earth. The other Elves (inc. Legolas) don't seem to have this primal connection except by extension from their leaders.

The Israel Defense Force acknowledges excellence in the arts and sport by granting a status of Excellent Sportsman/ Musician/Dancer. In the case of musicians and dancers, this status is accorded following auditions. I think that Excellent Dancers would usually be positioned in an office job and would be entitled to work half days or until 2 p.m. (Musicians would often be positioned in the Military Orchestra.) As the IDF HQ is situated a 5 minutes walk(!!) from the Bat Dor Dance Studio in central Tel Aviv and a 15 minut drive from the Bat Sheva Studios, this is a viable solution. (Saddam, don't aim for the ballet dancers..) In my day (over ten years ago), a number of girls I knew got married 'fictitiously' (i.e. to other dancers, preferably gay) as married women aren't drafted either. [Hilarion, I can't think of many dancers who are religious enough to be exempt from service on that account.] Sadly, some female dancers aren't drafted because they are underweight (I'm not sure how thin you have to be for the IDF to declare you medically underweight). In reality, however, over the past few years it has become comparatively easy to evade the draft. As the IDF has enough external problems, it doesn't really wish to deal with motivational problems and I believe that most draftees (certainly, female ones) can try to have a psychological or social evaluation that will determine them unfit to serve (in non p.c. language - pretending to be unstable to get out of fulfilling a civic duty). I have no idea how many dancers resort to this method.

According to the Mezzo website, it will be broadcasting the finals on Sunday, 2/2/03 at 15:45 (presumably French time zone). I will try to catch some of the broadcast, but the early evening is major baby time for me - so we'll see...

Leigh, Balanchine may be an aberration in the development of American ballet, as you write, however he definitely has influenced the global style of ballet. Oddly enough, it is the very features that you point out as unamerican (not in the McCarthey way, obviously) such as non-narrative and formalism which have been picked up by ballet companies around the world. [Just as the American ethos is about individualism and self-realisation and everybody ends up eating Big Macs.]

Globalisation/Americanization/etc. is usually about simplification. We (at least those of us who don't live in the USA) often use it to describe something that reaches to the lowest common denominator. Perhaps the fashion world wide for abstract ballets (a.k.a. (a long way) after Balanchine), after-Kylian, Forsythe etc. is because you need to work only (!!) on technique and not on style (in the sense of a Company style), and at present the standard of technique is such that it has now become a fairly low common denominator. This can also explain the dearth of what Alexandra calls demi-charactere ballets - new and old. In a strange way I think it can also explain why full legth ballets based on well known books are successful - one the audience knows the plot, you don't have to work so hard at teh demi-charactere/atmospheric part of the ballet. Hope the (very rushed) above makes some sense.

Modern dance is more popular and affordable in Israel, so unfortuantely I see more modern than ballet. However, at present, I don't get to see anything very often.

Perhaps teenagers in America are very protected:) but I read 'Dancing on my Grave' when I was about 15 or 16 and I didn't find it as disturbing as some of you did. I think most intelligent and literate teenagers realise that Kirkland is not coming from a very stable mental place. In fact, in some ways I found 'Once a Dancer' more disturbing than 'Dancing on my Grave' because Kent was much more accepting of the way she had been manipulated as a young girl and woman.

Lolly, how lucky you are. I have the 'Dancer' book - check out the close up of Nureyev (by Karsh, I think) - talk about 'to die for'. I haven't heard of the Gordon Anthony book, but I grew up with 'Baron at the Ballet' books - you should tell your family to look out for them for your birthday (if you can't wait until next Christmas). The Baron books must be from about the same period as the Gordon Anthony, but with photographs of additional companies: various Ballet Russes, etc. What wonderful, atmospheric photos. Quite different to contemporary photos. I wonder to what extent the photographic aesthetic is influenced by the ballet aesthetic or vice versa.

Forsythe, because I'd rather have pretentious-pretentious than populist-pretentious.

grace, I doubt any ballet company could afford to pay Harry Potter license fees. We'll have to wait 50 years or however long Rowlings' copyright is valid.

This issue seems very difficult to debate because of the problem of defining 'home grown' vs. 'guest star'. Can any company that doesn't have a school actually have 'home grown' ballerinas? Probably, but that depends not only on the artistic direction of the company, but also on the dancer him/herself. Paradoxically, if a young dancer is a mature performer and is ready for solo/principal roles immediately, then perhaps he or she will never be defined as 'home grown'. As some of you have pointed out about Cynthia Gregory. And as even more of you have pointed out (on other threads) about dancers at NYCB who have had most of their training outside NY, and went to SAB for 'finishing'. The same is true, I think, of Cojocaru, and the RB. Regarding guest stars, Adam Cooper and Sylvie Guillem, for instance, were first 'home grown' and then became 'guest stars'. Where do they fit in? This kind of guest star may have the most impact on the morale of the company - for better or for worse.

Thanks. I'll try and find it on video.

I actually thought, shades of JK Rowling. Maybe the directors will plan a Harry Potter ballet:)