Drew

I also have only seen Malakhov a few times, but those few times made a huge impression. However, I think the comparison with Nureyev is inappropriate. Nureyev had an impact and influence that spread far beyond the dance world to say nothing of his enormous impact and influence inside the dance world. I don't think Malakhov as a "phenomenon" is remotely comparable. Nureyev danced during a very different time with very different standards. Today at ABT, for example, the other male dancers include several (at least four or five) genuinely sensational virtuousi who are gifted and imaginative artists as well. Malakhov is my favorite (of which more, below), but in this context he does not stand out quite the way Nureyev did when he first defected to the west and started dancing with the Royal.

Having said that -- Malakhov is my favorite for a reason, and I think a case can be made that he is, taken altogether, the finest male ballet dancer of our time. People who refer to him as the "Nuryevev of our years" probably mean no more than that. The qualities I appreciate about Malakhov include his remarkable line -- the wonderfully full, sustained, 'stretched' quality of his movements -- and his striking stage presence. He is (in my opinion) one of the few male dancers today who know how to run across a stage or, indeed, how to walk or even stand in such a way as to command the stage entirely. His performances in the nineteenth-century repertory also show great attention to dramatic as well as dance detail. Even in an absurd, secondary role -- the expanded "Rothbart" of Mckenzie's Swan Lake -- he manages to create an entire world. His best performances are always 'complete;' I don't really know how else to put it. There is a quality of imagination that expresses itself directly in a very pure, elegant-yet-intense balletic style. (He actually reminds me more of Anthony Dowell than Nureyev -- but all great dancers are sui generis.)

I have not found him to be %100 consistent, and I suspect that his virtuoso technique is not as strong as it once was. Still, in trying to think of someone else I admire as much, who is still dancing today, I can really only come up with one name, Peter Boal, and Boal's repertory is entirely different. However, there are top European male dancers I have seen little or not at all...

Gee...one reason I have not been posting much is that I'm rather exhausted these days plus not seeing any ballet -- but I'll give this a (tentative) try...

Obviously, an insight about a ballet can come from anywhere -- formal analysis, historical context, biography. As long as it maintains a relation to the singularity of the work, it has the potential to enliven understanding, perception etc. Actually, I often find the historical and social "context" approaches to be quite as deadeningly narrow or unimaginative as biographical or psychological ones! (Important works of art interupt and re-invent their 'context,' or even the very idea of context -- an effect for which contextual analysis does not always allow.)

However, that's a bit mealy-mouthed, so closer to how I really feel:

Psycho-analysis has a technical term, that I rather like, for a peculiarly knotty type of causal relation: overdetermined. It does not just mean that something has multiple determinations or causes, but that, it appears to have, from a common sense point of view, too many of them; any one causal explanation COULD account for it, yet more keep popping up. Obviously, when you're talking about something that's overdetermined, you're no longer talking about straightforward kinds of causality or 'explanation' and 'interpretation.' There's a kind of gap or mismatch between the object of which one is trying to give an account and the sheer multiplicity of accounts one can come up with. Artworks are always and, as a matter of course, overdetermined. So, any 'background' or 'explanation,' tends to seem reductive -- even when it's illuminating. (This does not mean anything goes...obviously, sometimes an interpreter just gets something wrong.)Arguably, one actually NEEDS to be reductive in order to clarify some aspect of the work.

For myself, I'm actually very interested in knots and effects of overdetermination, so I'm always rather fascinated at the moment when something can simultaneously be explained by reference to tradition, formal considerations, psychological needs, historical background etc: I would say Balanchine's ballerina roles are a good example -- his interest in Suzanne Farrell, as staged in Diamonds, seemingly inextricable from his interest in Petipa or for that matter a particular musical configuration. Where exactly does one interest begin and one end? I'm not saying there's no answer, just that teasing out the answer(s) might take one deeper into the choreography. Or,to put it a little differently, that what's interesting about Balanchine's art has something to do with the undecidability between a purely formal account of it and a highly personal or referential one...(By the by, this is NOT the same as saying, that the work 'sublimates' -- on the contrary, the problem is more along the lines that one can never be sure.)

Similarly, I think really great works reflect on themselves -- provide their own commentary in a way -- and a really shrewd critic can work, seemingly, 'within' the work to tease out that commentary. This is easier to show in literature!!! but a lot of ballets seem to allegorize their own creation. (Think Swanilda/Coppelia or, for that matter, Baryshnikov's uncanny mimicry of Tharp in Push Comes to Shove -- not a great work perhaps...)

Oh, also, in dance -- where I'm just an amateur, a fan -- I don't have a very well trained eye, so I always especially appreciate criticism that helps me to see better. I mean that quite literally. Of course, I feel similarly about other arts as well -- I always want criticism and interpretation to have a relation to the singularity of a work etc. But if I'm in an area where I have some more extended knowledge and experience...I tend to have rather more specific intellectual problems or debates in which I'm interested.

Gee...one reason I have not been posting much is that I'm rather exhausted these days plus not seeing any ballet -- but I'll give this a (tentative) try...

Obviously, an insight about a ballet can come from anywhere -- formal analysis, historical context, biography. As long as it maintains a relation to the singularity of the work, it has the potential to enliven understanding, perception etc. Actually, I often find the historical and social "context" approaches to be quite as deadeningly narrow or unimaginative as biographical or psychological ones! (Important works of art interupt and re-invent their 'context,' or even the very idea of context -- an effect for which contextual analysis does not always allow.)

However, that's a bit mealy-mouthed, so closer to how I really feel:

Psycho-analysis has a technical term, that I rather like, for a peculiarly knotty type of causal relation: overdetermined. It does not just mean that something has multiple determinations or causes, but that, it appears to have, from a common sense point of view, too many of them; any one causal explanation COULD account for it, yet more keep popping up. Obviously, when you're talking about something that's overdetermined, you're no longer talking about straightforward kinds of causality or 'explanation' and 'interpretation.' There's a kind of gap or mismatch between the object of which one is trying to give an account and the sheer multiplicity of accounts one can come up with. Artworks are always and, as a matter of course, overdetermined. So, any 'background' or 'explanation,' tends to seem reductive -- even when it's illuminating. (This does not mean anything goes...obviously, sometimes an interpreter just gets something wrong.)Arguably, one actually NEEDS to be reductive in order to clarify some aspect of the work.

For myself, I'm actually very interested in knots and effects of overdetermination, so I'm always rather fascinated at the moment when something can simultaneously be explained by reference to tradition, formal considerations, psychological needs, historical background etc: I would say Balanchine's ballerina roles are a good example -- his interest in Suzanne Farrell, as staged in Diamonds, seemingly inextricable from his interest in Petipa or for that matter a particular musical configuration. Where exactly does one interest begin and one end? I'm not saying there's no answer, just that teasing out the answer(s) might take one deeper into the choreography. Or,to put it a little differently, that what's interesting about Balanchine's art has something to do with the undecidability between a purely formal account of it and a highly personal or referential one...(By the by, this is NOT the same as saying, that the work 'sublimates' -- on the contrary, the problem is more along the lines that one can never be sure.)

Similarly, I think really great works reflect on themselves -- provide their own commentary in a way -- and a really shrewd critic can work, seemingly, 'within' the work to tease out that commentary. This is easier to show in literature!!! but a lot of ballets seem to allegorize their own creation. (Think Swanilda/Coppelia or, for that matter, Baryshnikov's uncanny mimicry of Tharp in Push Comes to Shove -- not a great work perhaps...)

Oh, also, in dance -- where I'm just an amateur, a fan -- I don't have a very well trained eye, so I always especially appreciate criticism that helps me to see better. I mean that quite literally. Of course, I feel similarly about other arts as well -- I always want criticism and interpretation to have a relation to the singularity of a work etc. But if I'm in an area where I have some more extended knowledge and experience...I tend to have rather more specific intellectual problems or debates in which I'm interested.

Well...since we're still allowed to talk about figure skating...Yagudin's long program did not disappoint either. I thought that it, too, was still better than SLC -- faster and more energetic at the close. The whole competition has been a "victory skate" for him.

Well, this is one of the few things I've read -- or heard -- on this topic that I liked, although I also seem to be the only person in North America (other than a handful on this board) who isn't beside herself with horror and disbelief that S&B won...

Actually, when I first heard the report of what the French skating official had said (re: the judge's 'fragility'), I thought the official was actually trying to be some sort of whistle blower. It turns out he thought he was doing damage control (oops!) -- which actually makes this less film noir than black comedy. (Unless, of course, the Associated Press made it up, which would be an entirely different kind of scandal.)

As for the possibility of uncovering corruption in, of all things, the sport of ICE SKATING, I just keep waiting for someone to quote Claude Rains in Casablanca: "shocked, shocked [etc.]" Oh well, perhaps the judges are all friends of Ken Lay...

P.S. Re-read the above and decided to wimp out on my tone -- honest, I do feel for the athletes (all Olympic athletes)who make enormous sacrifices to be where they are. But I think the media is a little out of control on this one...and my reaction to this whole discourse of 'fragility' was very similar to the author of the article.

[ February 15, 2002: Message edited by: Drew ]

Gee -- I've only see her in nonsense choreography at a gala, but dancing nonsense I thought she was ravishing -- where someone else might have been a bore. Of course, since I have not seen her in a substantive role, I'm not in a position to defend her as a ballerina, but the Lacarra I saw was riveting, at once lyrical and intense. She may not be right for all repertory, but she is not, in my opinion, in the wrong profession.

It is perhaps a minor point when one is talking about dancers of such major stature (BOTH of them), but in my experience Baryshnikov was a great deal more consistent. When Nureyev was 'off', his performances could really be appalling -- for some viewers his 'charisma' made up for this, but it never did for me. Towards the very end of his ballet career Baryshnikov may not have 'done' quite everything he did earlier, but I never saw him seemingly improvise his way through a performance in a merely bad mood -- with the actual balletic content practically nil. And, as you may infer, I did see Nureyev do pretty much that and long BEFORE the end of his career. That said, the greatest Nureyev performances I saw were simply among the most thrilling and artistically profound of my entire ballet going life. I saw much more of Baryshnikov than Nureyev and, on the whole, the qualities of Baryshnikov's dancing were more to my personal taste than Nureyev's, and yet I don't think I ever saw Baryshnikov dance anything that gave me the sheer 'frisson' of terror and delight that the best of Nureyev did.

Partnering-wise, I always heard outrageous stories about Nureyev, but never myself witnessed anything too egregious and occasionally witnessed a very fine job of presenting a lesser light (actually he danced a lot with lesser lights); Baryshnikov I did see behave very rudely, but likewise saw performances in which he partnered with, at least to a mere fan's eyes, great skill.

(By the by -- my ultimate male pantheon goes by way of neither of the above, but Bruhn and Dowell.)

[ January 30, 2002: Message edited by: Drew ]

One or two of those you list began life with other names -- an earlier, slightly different version of Tch. Piano Concerto Number Two was Ballet Imperial, and an earlier, very different ballet to the music of Mozart's Divertimento Number 15 was "Caracole." And Symphony in C -- one of the "and so on.." in Farrell Fan's list -- was in its first (again, slightly different) incarnation, Palais de Crystal.

Presumably deleting picturesque names for his ballets was, for Balanchine, comparable to reducing costumes to leotard and tights, not just an appeal to the centrality of music but a way of asking people to look as directly as possible at the dancing...(?)

I have always thought gloss could also mean a commentary, and in THAT sense (not as an expert collation of Beauty's superficial charms) I would be willing to call Theme and Variations a gloss on Sleeping Beauty. In a manner of speaking, it offers one great artist's 'thoughts' on another...(Superficial would be the last word I would use.)

I actually am comfortable, though, thinking of it as a "distillation" of Sleeping Beauty -- though as per above, I would have to add "Balanchine's" distillation. It offers HIS conception of what the essence is. (And in its multiple perspectives on the ballerina, it does, for example, draw on aspects of Aurora from all three Acts...)

P.S. Alexandra and I posted simultaneously -- I guess -- so I hadn't read her post when I wrote this. I would have framed things a bit differently if I had, but am too lazy to rewrite...

[ January 24, 2002: Message edited by: Drew ]

Michael1's remarks seem to me to reflect an ambiguity in the article. Are we bewailing the lack of ballet stars who become great public symbols (Fonteyn, Ulanova, Chauvire)? or the lack of ballerinas? Just "Ballerina" is a very serious honorific in my book and ballerinas are a rare enough phenomena. Still, one might go a generation without the emergence of a Pavlova, but I hardly think you can have great classical ballet without genuine ballerinas -- though you can fake with good principals. For me Ringer IS a ballerina and Weese is a superb principal (just an opinion to clarify what I mean...On another thread I'd be happy to say why I think so).

The question Michael1 raises of ballet's larger prestige in the culture seems to me to have more bearing on the question of the public legend, like Fonteyn. Actually, in Britain, Darcey Bussell has gotten a lot of general press, and one thing I have noted (with puzzlement) is that many of the recent articles about Rojo and Cojocaru include remarks along the lines of, 'well, perhaps these new young principles will be devoted to their ART and not worry about having their picture in "Look" magazine' -- remarks that are, I assume, meant to be digs at Bussell. As if the critics resent her popularity. Oh well, sheeznofonteyn.

However, I take it Tobias's point is that wider cultural changes regarding personality/glamor/stardom are reflected in ballet's ARTISTIC development in a more fundamental way -- and that without the proper guidance even a talent like Kowroski will not be able to give audiences the KIND of memorable performances that cause us to be talking about Farrell decades after her retirement -- quite apart from whether or not a wider public joins in recognizing her importance.

Actually, as far as "cultural" prestige goes, I don't think one should underate the role the cold war played in the extraordinary attention and glamor that attached to the Fonteyn/Nureyev partnership or (in the West) even of the attention to figures like Ulanova. I'm NOT saying the cold war alone did it or that Fonteyn wasn't a star before Nureyev's defection, but when people discuss this phenomena I think many different layers and historical moments are getting fused together. When Nuryevev appeared on Merv Griffin Merv wanted to know about one thing only -- the defection, likewise with Makarova on Letterman. And in both cases the interviews I saw were taking place YEARS after the defections. There were also a tiny number of artists throughout the fifties, sixties etc. who were as great as Fonteyn, Nureyev -- i.e. Erik Bruhn, and, in a specialized repertory, Fracci, or, for that matter, the non-defecting Soloviev ot Kolpakova -- who did not get the kind of attention Fonteyn/Nureyev did, and ONE reason for that was the atmosphere of cold war romance/intrigue that followed Fonteyn/Nureyev wherever they went.

But Tobias's concerns I think are mostly elsewhere. When she says ballerina, surely (I HOPE) she means a Kolpakova as well as a Fonteyn?! That is, she means (among other things) a female ballet artist who at once embodies and transforms the art in definitive performances of major roles. I believe, that can take place -- and HAS taken place -- in the absence of the wider and wilder audiences of the ballet boom. But I'm inclined to agree with her, nonetheless, that many promising dancers today need direction that they are not getting. Or, at any rate, that's how things sometimes appear.

On a drearier note...Ballet may at different times have gotten wider cultural 'play' than now but except for the interest generated among NY artists and writers in the fifties and sixties by Balanchine, I don't believe ballet has ever been truly culturally 'prestigious' in the U.S. (and I am a bit skeptical that the situation has often been much better elsewhere)...In the U.S. at any rate, it has never been taken as seriously as other arts, even other performing arts...and actually the fascinating notion that "ballet is woman" is implicated in the overall view of ballet as less an art form than just a bit of glamorous entertainment, showgirls by any other name. (This isn't what I think (!) but certainly ballet history has in some ways even been shaped by this attitude...think Gautier or even Kchessinska or for that matter recall Act I of the Kirov's re-creation of the 'original' Sleeping Beauty -- I can't be the only one who thought Ziegfield...)

[ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: Drew ]

[ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: Drew ]

I agree with much of what has been said -- especially Liebs' remarks about Tobias's lack of international perspective and an underlying sigh of 'sheeznofonteyn' throughout the article. I almost wonder if the article is really about the dearth of ballerinas or about the dearth of those rare figures who seemingly transcend 'ballerina' to become ballet history legend. (A few fans might place Guillem in that category but probably not many on this board...though from the point of view of historical 'influence' she qualifies as something more than the sum of her performances.)

Legends aside, I personally feel that at NYCB the situation is not as dire as at ABT: in my eyes Ringer is a real, old-fashioned ballerina who certainly dances as if she believed every performance were her last (cf. Tobias quoting Fonteyn). Whatever else one thinks of Whelan -- I think very highly of her -- she is a very individual dancer who has been allowed to develop over many seasons, in her own way, and with ballets created for her that do try to cultivate her unique gifts. That is, her career exemplifies the kind of 'ballerina' career that Tobias mourns. (Whelan is senior, but her powers are hardly waning.)

But actually, despite the above remarks, I thought the articule made excellent and important points. I was especially struck by its reflections on the failure of certain dancers to develop as one might have hoped or anticipated. (For me, Mckerrow is a particularly enigmatic case.) Companies aren't responsable for every career that slows or disappoints, but it's surprizing, as Tobias says, that more careers haven't been salvaged. Some of this may be lack of choreographers, but casting, programming, coaching (or lack thereof) presumably all play a part. And the lack of attention to partnerships also surprises me, at least at ABT where the repertory could benefit from some good old-fashioned chemistry, and management has never been shy about box office potential. I was also interested in her comments about the companys' constantly pushing the latest newcomers -- though it's hard sometimes to parse out cause and effect. If you really believe there is no talent at the top, why wouldn't you look for newcomers?

Tobias tries to make a more general cultural point, but I'm not sure she is quite accurate when she equates Julia Roberts with Meg Ryan as an example of today's 'pragmatic' heroines vs. yesterday's glamor queens -- because Roberts is a more hybrid figure and certainly gets packaged and discussed as if she were an updated version of an old-fashioned movie star. This board is not 'moviealert!' but I mention it, because the one point where Tobias lost me altogether was at the end of the article when she claims that we might as well admit that the era of the ballerina is over. One may or may not think Julia Roberts can compete with Grace Kelley et al. but there is always a 'place' for that kind of figure, and when it comes to classical ballet, much of the repertory positively demands such figures. We may be in transition ballerina-wise or just having a dry spell (as per above, I actually don't entirely agree), but that hardly means the era of ballerinas is over and done. Actually Tobias may have just been trying to bring her point home with a flourish. Maybe she does believe she will never see another Fonteyn, but never another ballerina? Geez, I'd practically give up going to the theater...

[ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: Drew ]

At the risk of sounding very 'hide-bound' and 'White Russian' indeed, I will admit first, that having moved away from NYC, I am simply hoping that sometime during 2002 I actually get to SEE some first-rate ballet or something approaching...(No slap at Atlanta Ballet -- I gather they have some terrific dancers, but when I say ballet, let alone first-rate, I don't mean Dracula.)

On the hopeful but not all that realistic front, I love the idea of bringing back a (newly designed) Blair Swan Lake...

With just barely more realism, I also hope ABT's dancers get the right direction and coaching to bring Fille Mal Gardee to life. I don't mind if they make it their 'own' (rather than try for ersatz Royal Ballet style) as long as they don't wreck it in the process.

Throwing all realism to the wind, and in the spirit of bringing New Yorkers, in particular, joy and healing, I hope Suzanne Farrell and Peter Martins share a waltz at the season-ending NYCB gala -- and that she begins working regularly with some of the company's fabulous young ballerinas.

Scaring me to death is the thought that almost every dance company in the U.S. is going to end the year on the verge of bankruptcy and that we will be feeling the effects -- in shorter seasons, taped music, layed-off dancers, cross-over choreograpy, and folded companies -- for years to come. I'll let others say if they think that is realistic or not...

Oh, and may Ross Stretton remember who Frederic Ashton was and everyone at the Maryinsky, Vaganova...

[ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: Drew ]

At the risk of sounding very 'hide-bound' and 'White Russian' indeed, I will admit first, that having moved away from NYC, I am simply hoping that sometime during 2002 I actually get to SEE some first-rate ballet or something approaching...(No slap at Atlanta Ballet -- I gather they have some terrific dancers, but when I say ballet, let alone first-rate, I don't mean Dracula.)

On the hopeful but not all that realistic front, I love the idea of bringing back a (newly designed) Blair Swan Lake...

With just barely more realism, I also hope ABT's dancers get the right direction and coaching to bring Fille Mal Gardee to life. I don't mind if they make it their 'own' (rather than try for ersatz Royal Ballet style) as long as they don't wreck it in the process.

Throwing all realism to the wind, and in the spirit of bringing New Yorkers, in particular, joy and healing, I hope Suzanne Farrell and Peter Martins share a waltz at the season-ending NYCB gala -- and that she begins working regularly with some of the company's fabulous young ballerinas.

Scaring me to death is the thought that almost every dance company in the U.S. is going to end the year on the verge of bankruptcy and that we will be feeling the effects -- in shorter seasons, taped music, layed-off dancers, cross-over choreograpy, and folded companies -- for years to come. I'll let others say if they think that is realistic or not...

Oh, and may Ross Stretton remember who Frederic Ashton was and everyone at the Maryinsky, Vaganova...

[ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: Drew ]

I thought Balanchine did stage a special tribute of some kind after the assassination of Martin Luther King. (Of course, shortly after that, Arthur Mitchell founded the Dance Theater of Harlem, but that's not exactly what rtnty was asking...)I don't have my copy of _Repertory in Review_, but perhaps someone else remembers the Balanchine/King event...

When reading Glebb's remarks I thought immediately of Jennifer Ringer -- she has real star power and personal glamor, but dances with utter devotion to the works she performs -- lighting up the stage far beyond her individual presence. Certainly, she is distinctive, and one definitely wants to watch HER (as was also the case with Verdy, Kirkland, Farrell et.al.) but she always 'gives' that distinctiveness to the role she is dancing. When she walks on stage, I've seen entire ballets (Robbins, Balanchine, Martins, Tharp) spring to life.

I can think of several other performers who might fairly fit Glebb's description, but Ringer was the only one who came to mind spontaneously...

P.S. I thought I had outgrown craving to see dancers whom I have little or no chance of seeing (though I vaguely regret having seen so very little of Guillem over the years) -- but, goodness, I think that if I do not have a chance to see Alina Cojocaru sometime in the next few years I will become a very desperate ballet fan...

Yes, thanks -- I was especially interested to read your analysis of the National Ballet of Cuba. I saw them many years ago -- when they did travel with some quite attractive productions as well as fabulous principals of both sexes. I remember, too, their 'well-drilled' quality, but after reading your review I wish I could see those performances again...I feel as if I would see more.

Yes, thanks -- I was especially interested to read your analysis of the National Ballet of Cuba. I saw them many years ago -- when they did travel with some quite attractive productions as well as fabulous principals of both sexes. I remember, too, their 'well-drilled' quality, but after reading your review I wish I could see those performances again...I feel as if I would see more.

Yes, thanks -- I was especially interested to read your analysis of the National Ballet of Cuba. I saw them many years ago -- when they did travel with some quite attractive productions as well as fabulous principals of both sexes. I remember, too, their 'well-drilled' quality, but after reading your review I wish I could see those performances again...I feel as if I would see more.

Yes, thanks -- I was especially interested to read your analysis of the National Ballet of Cuba. I saw them many years ago -- when they did travel with some quite attractive productions as well as fabulous principals of both sexes. I remember, too, their 'well-drilled' quality, but after reading your review I wish I could see those performances again...I feel as if I would see more.

It is a very interesting quote. I hope Forsythe's works are performed after his death, and I'm glad companies are still performing Petipa (even if only imperfectly), but when artists reflect on their own work, I don't really read it the same way I would if a critic were making general reflections about that work. As has already been noted, Balanchine and Ashton said things that didn't exactly accord either with their actions or with critical views of their importance (and it's history's good fortune that Max Brod ignored Kafka). I assume that artists' reflections on their work may well be rhetorical and strategic anyway -- not in some 'insincere' way, but still partly staged...for the public but maybe even, in way, for themselves. One could quote many, many statements by painters, writers, etc. that would, like Forsythe's, seem to reflect a complete carelessness about the very tradition that feeds them -- a carelessness that their work, however, might belie. (On Forsythe there is, to say the least, some difference of opinion about his work's relation to tradition.) There are many different personal, psychological, historical reasons why this might be so -- and why an artist might think of his work as something that should die with him/her. So, while I agree very much with what others have written about mainting a relation to the past, I'm not much inclined to jump on Forsythe about his reflections or, indeed, think that it NECESSARILY reflects his practice as a choreographer. I'd be more interested in thinking about the kinds of questions that his words (and his will) raise...As it happens,one of the very first threads I read on Ballet Alert concerned whether lackadaisacal or blurry performances of Balanchine were really 'still' Balanchine or even ought to be performed at all.

P.S. One thought re. Balanchine's career. He honored Petipa and Ivanov, but had little interest in traditional productions of their work, freely reworking their materials even when he used the same titles ("Swan Lake"). We would (rightly) scream if we saw that approach applied to the preservation of HIS works, and evidently he wasn't too keen on the idea either...

P.P.S. I don't mean a choreographer can't also be a fine critic...as readers of Leigh Witchel can attest.

[ November 11, 2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

[ November 11, 2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Could one say, "stars," trivialize ballet, but "great artists" have quite the opposite effect? Even from a 'choreographer's' point of view...Ashton doesn't exactly seem to have been hampered by working with Fonteyn, or Balanchine with Tallchief, Farrell et. al. (I don't buy a definition of star that would EXCLUDE Balanchine ballerinas.)

Perhaps the difficulty is that sometimes a dancer is both great artist and 'star': the Baryshnikov phenomenon was, of course, fabulous for ballet as an art and as a business but some of the fallout was trivializing for the company and repertory in which he danced. "Push Comes to Shove" was, in a way, ABOUT his stardom, and very enjoyable the first season or so, but beyond that the cultivation of a repertory for him did not "feed" the company as a company...A perennial problem at ABT, but Baryshnikov's 'star' power did not help, and may have 'hurt.'

At about the same time, Tudor's first ballet for Gelsey Kirkland, "The Leaves are Fading" did "feed" the company; anyone who saw Kirkland dance it knows she was incomparable, but the choreography featured many dancers (including corps member Cynthia Harvey who went on to a career as a principal at ABT and the Royal). And, the ballet continues to be performed with great beauty and success -- both continuing the Tudor tradition at ABT while also showing a different dimension of his work. I even liked Tudor's second ballet for Kirkland, "Tiller in the Fields" -- but, in any case, Kirkland's 'stardom' didn't seem to interfere with Tudor's interest in her artistry. If anything, her real distinctiveness as a dancer seems to have inspired him. One could argue, I suppose, that Tudor deliberately took a pass on creating for the still bigger celebrity, Baryshnikov.

Nureyev is perhaps a more interesting example: at a certain point in his career Nureyev performances became primarily, and then exclusively, about the fact that he was still dancing and people were still paying money to see him...And yet, I wouldn't exactly call them trivial experiences. There was, rather, something crazed about them that was, in a way, an honoring of ballet. (And he did occasionally, a few years before the very end, produce a revelatory performance.) Nureyev also maintained a loyalty to the ballet tradition that at the Paris Opera (and elsewhere) has left a real legacy. His productions (of which I'm not a fan) HAVE fed companies -- contributing, so to speak, to the 'big picture.' And they can't really be separated out from his stardom...He didn't stage things 'despite' being a star; the two personae (director/dancer) were linked throughout his career.

Problems are more obvious when stardom gets cultivated seemingly at the expense of artistry, or at any rate, with little concern for it. You can't really manufacture a ballet 'star' with no foundation -- if you could, Leslie Browne (actually a fine dance actress) would have had a much more high profile career -- but you can, and companies often do, showcase young dancers as 'stars' before they have a chance to grow as artists (Herrera is an obvious example; but also Corella -- though I think he handles 'growing up' in the spotlight unusually well).

I still think attacking 'stars' often misses the point. It's not as if you can master Odette/Odile by having your photograph in a magazine. And, perhaps surprizingly, audiences often can tell the difference. The example that's always given is Moira Shearer and Margot Fonteyn during the Sadlers Wells (Royal) Ballet's first visit to the U.S. -- all those 'silly' Americans who were "disappointed" to learn they were going to see Fonteyn rather than Shearer (famous for the movie "The Red Shoes")caught on fast as to who was the real 'star' of the company -- and its leading artist. Actually, I have heard/read this story so often that I've come to find it a little too condescending to Shearer, who was, after all, a ballerina and Ashton's Cinderella to boot...But the point holds. Great ballet can only be enhanced by great artists, and some (not all) great artists catch the public's imagination in a way that makes them 'stars' for better or worse. Some of the resulting fall-out is fatuous or 'trivial,' --ballet isn't 'about' stars-- but I think it would be absurd to say 'stars' are the problem. Bad casting may be a problem, silly repertory may be a problem etc. And these problems may well be aggravated by the 'star' phenomenon, but 'stars' per se are not finally the problem. Presumably (The New Yorker said something like this), we owe Kevin Mckenzie's absurd Rothbart to something like the excess of male talent and 'stars' like Malakhov at ABT -- but that doesn't mean ABT isn't a better company for having a Malakhov to dance in its productions...

[ November 09, 2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Very interesting interview -- and I liked her comment about learning (from Derek Deane) the difference between being a "technically good" and "classically trained" dancer...I have only seen her in gala bits, but thought she did look like a very classy classical ballerina.

My difficulty with this article is that the intial opposition is set up in such an uncritical, unnuanced way: art is challenging OR it is comforting. The notion that a certain type of comfort might BE a challenge never enters the commentators' minds. So for example, Gregorian chant is presented as 'comforting.' Well, the idea of personal salvation is, in a way, comforting, but hardly comfortable! (Nowadays, people may also listen to Gregorian chant to calm down, but that's not what the article discusses.)Even beauty can be a provocation, and people who teach humanities are daily required to justify it on moral and social grounds such as "values" and "civilization" as opposed to, say, aesthetic ones, such as desire or pleasure.

At the same time,something that may seem to be a provocation can also feed complacency. It is, after all, usually the 'anti' art crowd that feels the force of a so-called provocation (Satanic Verses, Madonnas with elephant dung), and they are patently NOT the intended audience, and, in fact, get sneered at by art lovers for missing the point and interfering with civil liberties. Obviously I count myself among the art lovers, but an ability to appreciate a 'daring' collage with images of the holocaust (an example in the article)or, for that matter, 'Piss-Christ' is hardly a guarantee that one is not, in one's way, seeking 'comfort.'

I do appreciate that this is an article in a newspaper, not in an academic journal -- but the formulations are so unnuanced as to seem useless. As for dance: I was so irritated before I arrived at the discussion of dance, that when I got there I couldn't quite work up the appropriate additional indignation at what was, admitedly, one of the most patronizing discussions of the art I've seen. (And notice how casually the article dismisses the notion that audience interest in Nijinsky's choreography might also be due to its 'darker' aspects.)

[ November 05, 2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

[ November 05, 2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Oops...I just saw that I'm a little late on the "ballet isn't serious" problem -- it already has a topic of its own; I will take a peek at the thread when I have the chance...

I do think that there is 'hate' and 'hate' -- that is, if someone really has no understanding of an art form and nonetheless wants to direct a production in order to make a personal mark, I can hardly imagine any good resulting from that -- at least not longterm good for the artform in question. But sometimes hate comes precisely from a place of deep knowledge and understanding. I'll start with examples from criticism which are easier to pin down --

Andre Levinson's attacks on Isadora Duncan are often more revealing of her art than the praise of her supporters; he can write incisively about how her work counters classicism precisely because of his real grasp of what is at stake both in classicism and in its dissolution. (Another great example is Neitzche on Wagner.) But this kind of 'hate' comes from knowledge -- it's often hate as the other side of love...In actual productions, it might be found in the work of a choreographer responding in an aggressive way to the tradition. I suppose, for me, one plausible example would be William Forsythe -- though I have only seen some of his early works. In those the violence of the pointe work might be described as coming from a certain 'hate' (possibly not the word he would use...)of pointe technique. In terms of productions, the disorienting sets of Dowell's production of Sleeping Beauty(I've forgotten the designer's name) are, at the least, anti-Messel -- and, presumably, intended to shake-up of one of the Royal's signature pieces, alter its tone,w/o actually altering the choreography or story.

I don't think this often happens in ballet, at least not in a way that is artistically serious or worthwhile...much rather we get dreadful productions by people who don't even know that they hate ballet! Much of ballet history involves a direct honoring of traditions -- think, today, of Christopher Wheeldon. (And Balanchine -- who really did turn ballet on its ear -- did it, under the guise of the utmost conservatism. I had almost written disguise.)

But I still think that, at least in theory, there is a place for 'hate' in the serious progress of an art form.

NB The real problem for ballet though (opera also, but less so) is not that it inspires some kind of artistic 'hate,' but that it's simply not taken seriously even by its own purveyors. This creates a situation where people feel free to re-do the classics, because on some fundamental level they don't have even elementary respect for them as choreographic WORKS of art. 'Swan Lake' becomes the canvas rather than the painting...To be honest, I don't mind the occasional oddball production -- and even have quite admired some (ballet is, after all, a performing art, and a ballet was never meant to be a static object) but increasingly one has the horrible suspicion that any sense of a standard -- even a necessarily fluctuating standard -- is being entirely lost.

[ November 05, 2001: Message edited by: Drew ]