cyclingmartin

Thank you, Drew and Quinten. I'm not attempting to flatter when I say that I was especially hoping that either or both of you would reply to my post. Your contributions to the debates about Yulia Stepanova implied that you'd understand the issues I'm trying to talk about. There's plenty for me to think about in both your posts. And that's exactly what I was looking for. Two points, Drew. Incidentally to this topic, I passionately agree with your statement (Stepanova, 19 September) that ". . . the measures of Tchaikovsky’s score that the current production cuts have also always seemed to me among the most transformative and moving ever written for ballet...." Secondly, I take your point on NYCB. To be quite honest, as a newbie to thinking about these things, I haven't nailed down the characteristics of various companies except, perhaps, for some elements of the most obvious one -- the Mariinsky/Vaganova style. So I'm going to look at this some more; and I'll especially follow through on your recommendation of Tiler Peck among contemporary ballerinas. Any further recommendations of that kind, relevant to this topic, are welcome. Quinten -- I'm naturally inclined to tilt towards the general position epitomised in your last sentence: "Or it could be a delight to see these contrasting approaches, both of which can work, in my opinion." In exploring this topic I've come to suspect that some ballet folks can be like some musicians. They have such strong opinions about how things ought to be done that the opinions become an artistic equivalent of a religious creed or body of dogma. Anyone or anything that goes against the grain is seen as error or even as artistic heresy. You summarise what I've been trying to do over the last year or so: "to get the full effect the observer has to be attentive to the whole body, not just the feet." I find that so hard, because, for me, it's a new way of looking. I find reading a score a lot easier. HeeHee! But I'll keep going. Thank you both!

First, apologies for such a long post (my first in Ballet Alert!). The nature of my question calls for detailed evidence, rather than opinion. I wonder if folks on the forum can help me understand ballet better by telling me whether my thoughts on this topic are sound. I’m a musician, yet a novice in serious thought about ballet — though I have known the ballet music of, for example, Tchaikovsky, Delibes, Prokovief and Stravinsky for decades. One of the things that I have found most interesting —and sometimes most frustrating — about online discussions of ballet are fights over a dancer’s “musicality” or lack of it. Too often, praise or insult comes without defining what the terms mean. ——————————— So about a year ago I looked up some dancers about whom the term “musical” has often been used. Among younger dancers, the most interesting to me has been Yulia Stepanova. On Ballet Alert! she has a huge number of replies under her name in the “Dancers” section — FAR larger than that of any dancer except Misty Copeland (Stepanova 476 as of 28 September 2018. Copeland 781 — but that’s no surprise). Although not all these replies relate directly to Stepanova, it is clear that she raises strong opinions, and “musical” or “unmusical” are pretty frequent references. So, wondering what folks mean by musicality in a ballet dancer, I started watching everything by Yulia Stepanova I could lay my hands on. (There’s a lot of it, especially on YouTube.) And I followed this up by watching other dancers who have been widely praised as “musical.” In no particular order, here’s a selection: 1) Yulia Stepanova (Swan Lake Act 3, with Jacopo Tissi) (Spartacus Act 3, with Alexander Sergeyev) 2) Rudolf Nureyev (Swan Lake Act 4, with Margo Fonteyn in 1966) (Swan Lake Act 3) 3) Cynthia Gregory (Rose Adagio) 4) Mikhail Baryshkinov (Solo from La Bayadere) 5) Natalia Makharova (Swan Lake Act 3, with Anthony Dowell) 6) Margo Fonteyn (Rose Adagio) 7) Svetlana Zakharova (Rose Adagio) 8) Anna Nikulina (Spartacus, Adagio) 9) Aurélie Dupont (Entrance of Aurora & Rose Adagio) 10) Sylvie Guillem (Swan Lake Act 3, with Manuel Legris and Cyril Atanasoff) Of course, these are variable in how persuasively they express the character or the dramatic context. For example, I understand why some folks find that both Aurélie Dupont and Svetlana Sakharova are too “ice maiden” for the role of Aurora. But that’s not the main point for my purpose here. (If I had to take one of these scenes and leave all the rest, it would be Fonteyn and Nureyev in the Act 4 pas de deux from Swan Lake.) ———————————————————- These dancers are all very different from one another. So what do they have in common that has made so many people describe them as musical? I suggest the following: 1) Their dancing is not concerned primarily with the beat of the music — though sometimes they must be “on the beat." 2) Rather than reflecting the beat, they are far more likely to shape things by the full bar or the phrase. 3) Crucially (and I suspect this is the most important thing of all), their physical movements fill the temporal space and tension of the metre. I mean the temporal tension that, in the music, comes between the beginning of one bar and the beginning of the next bar, and also spans the musical phrase. In “musical” dancers, that musical tension is reflected in the speed and shape of physical movement. One or two people in Ballet Alert! have touched on some of these points. For example, on 4 August 2016, forum member SFCLeo said about Stepanova “To my eye, there is a sophistication in her dancing - a lack of ‘beatiness' -- that may be mistaken by some as not being ‘on’ the music.” On the same day, and in reply, senior member MadameP reinforced the point that musicality includes “being able to phrase a sequence of movements appropriately with the line of the music”. Both these comments seem to be close to the essence of the issue. And yet there are places where being “on the beat” is essential. The infamous fouéttes from Swan Lake strike me as a good example. As Alistair Macaulay said in the New York Times (13 June 2016), “The rare artist is not the one who does the most turns but the one who makes them interesting and, above all, musical.” How to make such a thing musical? It seems to me that Sylvie Guillem does just that — superbly! Her double turns fill the musical space at the end of each phrase; and her timing is impeccable. So does Yulia Stepanova here in Corsaire. She places double turns according to the place in the phrase — in this case they come immediately before the strongest pulse in the phrase, so her movement seems to drive into that pulse. (And please, can someone tell me the name of that type of turn in Corsaire? It looks a bit like a fouétte; but it’s different from the Swan Lake ones. Is it harder? Yulia Stepanova makes it look like a stroll in the park. Are the double turns written into Petipa’s choreography; or is that a detail that the dancer can choose?) Most tellingly, some dancers can get very “out”, creating a tension between their physical movement and the metrical patterns of the music. That is what Fonteyn does towards the end of the Rose Adagio linked above. But it’s calculated; and it all falls back into line after a few bars of music. Superb dramatic sense! I’d be very interested to hear the reactions of folks who understand ballet better than I do — which is not very well at all! Thank you Martin (P.S. I saw Stepanova in London on August 29 last, with Alexander Volchkov, in St Petersburg Ballet Theatre’s Swan Lake. Neither the production nor the soloists disappointed. Charisma is one of the most mysterious of human qualities, especially when it’s quiet, which it is with her. But that’s another topic!)

Thank you, Helene.

Hello from Cornwall, in the south-west corner of Great Britain. I am a musician who has always been interested in ballet, though primarily from the musical end. For example, I have known the music of Tchaikovsky's ballets for years. Likewise for Stravinsky, deFalla, Prokofiev and other composers who wrote music specifically for ballet. Conversely, I hardly knew the ballet music of Minkus and other highly skilled specialists of his kind -- but only because the music per se is less interesting than is the music of the other composers I've mentioned. Since I retired from full-time work, I've had time and space to explore ballet in more detail. It's been an immensely rewarding experience; but also a challenging one. It's helping me to appreciate the skill of specialist composers such as Minkus; but above all it's presented me with ideas and perceptions that are stretching my presuppositions, especially about the physical aspects of ballet. (Disclaimer -- I'm a lousy dancer of any kind; and I cannot catch a ball.) In music, I understand compositional techniques; so I can talk about and write invertible counterpoint, harmony, orchestration etc. But I understand nothing about ballet technique. I do not know the technical language beyond having some idea of what are an arabesque, a fouétte and a pirouette. (When writing in English, does one use the acute accent? It seems that some do; some don't.) I applied to join this forum because this is a place in which there seems to be plenty of technical discussion and information. Also, this is one of the most international-minded groups. So I intend to post a topic or two, largely to present questions of those who understand ballet better than I. (I'm sure that, as in music, knowledge about, love for, and understanding of, are not at all the same things.) Many thanks, Martin