canbelto

Well Mr. B was a man after all, but the portraits people have painted of him, from his wives to his "muses" to the corps de ballet girls is remarkably consistent: a reserved, polite, somewhat remote man, not the type to have torrid affairs. Even with Farrell, she kind of hints that despite his ardor something held both of them back, and "even if it had been bliss we would have lost something." I always interpreted it as her incredibly tactful manner of saying that she just didn't feel it for him "that way." Considering how many people have told their "Balanchine story," I think that in that department if there had been more to tell more would have been written. And at this point I don't think it's lingering reverence for Balanchine that's holding anyone back.

Well, I think the reason that there hasn't been a "salacious" tell-all of Balanchine is that in that "department," not much ... happened. I've read it consistently from enough of his ballerinas to believe them, that for Mr. B, matters of the heart pretty much stayed at the heart. For instance Allegra Kent's autobiography certainly holds nothing back in terms of her marriage to Bert Stern, but her description of Mr. B is consistent with everyone elese's.

Juliet in the Lavrovsky version is even more of a mime role than the MacMillan version. I think it takes a dancer of either considerable dramatic ability or charisma to pull it off. In other words having Somova make her DEBUT in the role on opening night of a major tour wasn't really fair to anyone, Somova included.

Kind of hard to do seeing as she's no longer with us, and she steadfastly refused to discuss Balanchine and her life with him.

Reports of Ryan O'Neal's bizarre/violent/self-destructive behavior have surfaced for years, and to his credit he's admitted to much of it, so it's not that much of a surprise. But the behavior at the funeral is depressing, especially the fact that he claims he made a pass at his own daughter. Funny how Farrah and Michael died on the same day, and they both had big funerals. Everyone thought Michael's would be a circus but for the most part it was a dignified and well-handled affair. Farrah's, on the other hand ...

I think of the dancers you mentioned, only Rojo and Osipova have the short, compact body shape you are insisting is the only acceptable shape for "academic classical ballet." And with their terre a terre technique they might be the closest thing we will find to a Kschessinskaya, Preobrajenska or Legnani. The rest of the dancers you mentioned are not tall, but they certainly have a more "modern" physique.

Today: Marcelo Gomes In the past (on video): Rudolf Nureyev, Vladimir Vasiliev, Yuri Soloviev, Laurent Hilaire, Edward Villela* *the few videos I have seen of him. Pity they are so rare. But every time I watch them I think "Wow, so THIS is how it's SUPPOSED to look."

Not saying emploi isn't important. Just that having cutoff heights for classical ballet like 5'6" for men and 5'2" for women isn't realistic nor is it, in my opinion, desirable.

The attraction for leggy dancers, regardless of actual height, has been around since Camargo shortened her skirts (considered by many at that time to vulgar) to show off her legs. Pavlova, Spessivtseva, Danilova, were all dancers praised for their "legginess" although I'm not sure how tall they actually were. I'm not arguing with you that having an extremely tall dancer in a role like, say, Coppelia, would just be wrong. I'm saying that in this day and age there are simply different norms about height. For instance I'm 5'3". In high school I was considered very very short. When I went back to Taiwan I towered over many of the girls and was considered definitely average height, maybe even on the tall side. The reason is that Asian diets, to this day, tend to be weak on calcium and protein. That plus genes. Maybe you would enjoy ballet more if you were able to focus on what dancers DID with their bodies, instead of whether they conformed to your rigid standards about height and emploi. Many of the best dancers have always managed to overcome weaknesses in physique with talent. Also, to imply that anything post-Petipa doesn't require similar care in casting is wrong-headed. If anything, many of the pure-dance roles that Balanchine created I think are more height-specific. I mentioned Rubies, but another obvious case would be the Candy Cane variation in Balanchine's Nutcracker. That variation is designed for a short dynamo dancer like, say, Edward Villela. In recent years I've seen many a taller dancer at the NYCB come to grief with the hoops. The Marzipan sheperdesses are supposed to look cute and girlish, and thus often given to the more petite members of the company. The grand pas de deux has a series of shoulder jump lifts that seem more spontaneous and effortles if the SPF is not extremely tall. And this is all just in ONE ballet. As for Petipa, he created the ballets, and had a choice of dancers he had in mind when he was choreographing. The "first generation" choreographers all had that luxury -- Balanchine, Ashton, et al. A director casting Swan Lake today does not.

Not to mention during the opening night Romeo and Juliet, a woman's phone went off, not ONCE, but TWICE, and she answered both times, and had CONVERSATIONS, both times! The ushers were called but they couldn't get her to stop yapping. This was right behind me. I will say though that as for audience behavior, nothing is more annoying than the "loud conscientious objector" who cannot refrain from making negative coments throughout the performance, under the breath, but audibly. This happened during the Kirov's run at City Center -- I was sitting next to a woman who certainly seemed to know a lot about ballet. So she tore every performance to shreds -- during the performances. When Diana Vishneva and Andrian Fadeev had a shaky moment during the Don Q pdd she spit, "See! Awful! They should never be allowed onstage!" She'd follow the pirouettes of dancers with the turns of her finger and if a dancer's pirouette was not perfectly vertical or clean her nose would crinkle and she would say, "Messed up! Ruined!"

Well first of all, let's think of the practical problems if you require all classical ballet dancers to be within your rather rigid confines. Suppose you were, say, Elisabeth Platel or Altynai Asylmuratova, who both run large ballet schools that are deeply steeped in tradition. They accept a certain number of students every year, and those students are generally around 9-10 in age. While they vigorously check out things like proportion and body shape, they CANNOT, in this day and age, predict that all the dancers they accept will be under 5'6" for boys and 5'2" for girls. In Petipa's age they could, because, as people have pointed out, people were shorter then. So suppose in the Vaganova school a talented girl gets accepted and grows up and only grows in talent and technique. But oops! She's 5'5"! As a teacher, what would you do? Tell the girl "Sorry, you will never dance anything by Petipa because you are too tall? So buh-bye?" Let's not forget that the grand master Petipa himself was not always pleased with the casts he had for his ballets. He had to cast with the dancers he had. I'm not saying to throw out things like emploi, and I agree with Quiggin that some choreography simply looks wrong on extremely tall dancers. That includes, for instance, the main duo in "Rubies" (by Balanchine, a neo-classical choreographer). It's been tradition to cast the ballet with two short dynamo allegro dancers. Uliana Lopatkina dancing "Rubies" would look terribly wrong, MUCH more distorted than, say, a medium height dancer dancing Aurora. For me, I often think the *way* a dancer dances the choreography is much more important than how the dancer actually looks. Viktoria Tereshkina, for instance, is a rather tall, leggy dancer who is extremely talented at executing very fast allegro footwork that usually one associates with shorter dancers.

I think that's a very harsh assessment. Maybe in England Baryshnikov never achieved the level of fame of Nureyev, but in the United States, where he based his career, he was the darlng of both hardcore balletomanes and the general public. He only made one or two films. He achieved his fame because he was a spectacular dancer.

Leonid, I think if you limit yourself to these rather rigid demands, you'd be missing out on a lot of great dancing. Nutrition back in the days of the Imperial Ballet was not what it is now -- children in many developed countries are simply taller. As for the importance of height, I think many shorter dancers are able, through line, extensions, and proportios, to create the illusion of height, which might be more important than actual height. Many dancers that I've seen in person seem positively tiny offstage. Even Veronika Part, who onstage gives the impression of a towering marble statue, offstage looks like a slim, trim, above-average-in-height beauty. I didn't think "Wow how tall!"

Another good documentary is "Daughter from Danang." It chronicles the reunion of an Amerasian daughter with her birth mother in Vietnam. The reunion is disastrous, and the cameras are there to capture it all. Very heartrending. "Dark Days" is a film made of NYC's "mole people," who live in abandoned subway and train tunnels. It's shot in B&W and the filmmaker actually lived with the people for I believe two years. Again, an incredible documentary and surprisingly uplifting and filled with humor.

I always overanalyze Giselle's entrance as a Wili. There has to be something wild, demented, almost out-of-body about the turns. For me, Giselle's initiation should indicate she's no longer the sweet, shy girl of Act 1, but a spirit, no longer fully in control of anything. Of the Giselles I have seen on live Natalia Osipova and Diana Vishneva both made a great deal out of this moment. Both turned with frenetic speed. Osipova has more natural elevation so she seemed like she was flying through the air, while Vishneva's initiation was so much a part of her interpretation of Giselle in Act 2 as an indomitable, formidable spirit.

Of course Hoop Dreams is one of the best MOVIES ever made. Not just a great documentary. It was made in 1994 but I teach in a rough inner city school which also happens to be a basketball powerhouse and so many things I see in the movie I see happening every day to my students. Frederick Wiseman has made some very great documentaries. "Domestic Violence" will make your hair curl, and "Ballet" is also a beautifully made documentary. Michael Apted's "Up" series which traces a group of British schoolchildren from the time they were 7, with a follow-up every 7 years, has really become a fascinating series too.

I'm thinking maybe people skills are also an issue here? Firing/layoffs are an inevitable part of running any large organization but there are ways to do it that minimize ill-will or hurt feelings. This isn't the first time fired/laid off NYCB workers have gone to the press with grievances and angry words under Martins' reign.

Cygnet, I think the difference with "Etoiles" was with that film I thought I got a much better picture of life as a dancer in the POB, for better or for worse. I did feel that Normand only skimmed the surface with "Ballerina." Part of being a good documentarian is being able to penetrate the subjects, and I didn't think Normand was all that successful on that front. Perhaps younger ballerinas do have to watch what they say, but I know that soon after the film was made Zakharova defected to the Bolshoi and afterwards gave some harsh interviews about the reasons she left. None of that discontent (which must have been brewing) is caught on film. Vishneva and Lopatkina are also ballerinas I've seen not mince words in interviews, so I think a better film could have been made. Another very good documentary about a ballet company is Frederick Wiseman's "Ballet."

Another issue might be the different way the public (and dancers) perceive Martins compared to the way the dancers perceived, say, a Balanchine, a Diaghilev, or a Ninette di Valois. My feeling from reading historical books about ballet was that Mr. B, Diagilev, and "Madam" were perceived as almost gods, and their judgment was not to be questioned. They were revered by both the press and the dancers. When there were internal disagreements dancers were promptly kicked out and not welcomed back. I think it's a different era now. Peter Martins or Kevin McKenzie don't inspire the same amount of awe, fear, and reverence. Not that I think they deserve to, just that Mr. B never would have had to deal with these kinds of PR issues because he was, well, Mr. B. and his word was law.

Helene, I think you're right -- those dancers are all retired, and more likely to open up about their lives and career in a candid way. But Normand seemed unable to get very close to his subjects for whatever reason. I also compared this film to "Etoiles," a film about the Paris Opera Ballet, that for some reason I found much more interesting. I particularly remember how harsh Claude Bessy appeared in that film.

After watching this film I wonder if dancers really make for good film subjects. Their lives seem rather limited to hard work and endless rehearsals, and most of them are rather private people. On a related note, for the first time ever this summer I went a couple times to the stage door and met a few ABT dancers. On the whole I was surprised by how these flamboyant, charismatic performers onstage offstage were on the whole very quiet, withdrawn, if all very polite. I see this in the film "Ballerina" too -- only Obraztsova has the kind of outgoing, talkative personality that makes for a good film subject. Normand seemed unable to penetrate the layers of reserve in the other dancers. This isn't like "Elusive Muse," in which the filmmakers were able, I thought, to get Farrell to open up in a frank and compelling way about her life.

I disagree about the blog. I think many of the NYTimes readers blogs have led to some wonderful discussions. One was when Frank McCourt recently passed away -- many of the readers posted on the blog, and a large number of them were former students. He had, after all, been a NYC schoolteacher for 30 years. It was amazing to me how the world saw him as this famous author, but most of the posters on the blog still saw him as their English teacher. A really poignant read (especially for me, a high school teacher). Some columnists have had wonderful, lovely discussions on their blogs -- Nicholas Kristof, for example. And to the laid off dancers, one or two thougthless comments might not detract from words of sympathy or heartfelt advice.

Shortly after I saw Cojocaru in Bayadere I bought the video of La Bayadere with Altynai Asylmuratova and fell in love again. Not bad, your first two Nikyas.

Alina Cojocaru. Saw her in Bayadere and thought she was everything a ballerina should be -- ethereal, delicate, with a big floaty jump.

This article makes me sad to read. I realize that behind every ballet company is a lot of politics, competitiveness, and even heartbreak, but somehow I feel that there was a better way Peter Martins could have handled the economic crisis. The fact that he is not alone in laying off artists (MCB recently did the same) doesn't make the pain the dancers feel any less sad. I got the same feeling when I read that after all the years of service to the Royal Ballet, Margot Fonteyn was never awarded even a meager pension.