Drew

Thanks Manhattnik -- I never saw the Baryshnikov cast in Four Seasons, only Farrell and Martins. As far as silly goes, though, I'd say the whole ballet is "pretty silly" -- nowhere more so than in the "Fall" section -- but when it's high spirited and terrifically danced silliness (which I thought it was Sunday) it works...

I strongly agree that there are ballets and productions in which the super high extensions are just 'wrong.' But I also find that the overall quality of the extension matters. When Sylvie Guillem uses a super high extension as, say, Odile it looks "natural" -- in the performance I saw, at least, she didn't strain or distort her upper body, her placement/line (other than the height of the leg) was classical, she danced securely and musically. The use of the legs was integrated into the whole dance performance. Also, she didn't use the extension indiscriminately, at every opportunity, though certainly more often than other ballerinas might have. I've seen other dancers who were so busy getting their leg way, way up and then down that they fell behind the music and their extensions were, likewise, accompanied with distorted upper bodies etc. So, even in a ballet where perhaps the high extensions are not, in my opinion, exactly right, I might find a Guillem (or Bussell) persuasive or, at any rate, be able to enjoy their interpretation...while with another dancer I would just feel, 'no, this is not the way it's supposed to look...'

After the actual quote from Neumeier "about a human being the center of everything," I couldn't quite tell from A.M.'s original entry whether or not the rest was also a a paraphrase of Neumeier, or, rather a quotation or paraphrase of the author of the newspaper article (or even perhaps A.M.'s own thoughts about the ballet) so it seems a little hard to judge, especially since we're dealing with multiple translations (Neumeier into Russian? Russian into English?)

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[ 05-07-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Attended a very enjoyable Sunday afternoon performance. It opened with an all round excellent performance of Four Temperaments -- the dancing (everyone) seemed focused, energized, musical, precise. At the end when the ensemble forms parallel lines and the women are lifted and carried between those lines, their legs and arms extended wide, they all had a kind of expansive springy energy in the air, as if they could have continued the ballet, dancing beyond the stage and upwards. From an individual point of view, not everyone was the very "best" in their role that I've seen, but everyone was just "on." A terrific performance. The Garland/Lafosse ballet Tributary was new to me. I gather this was originally done w. the Dance Theater of Harlem, but this afternoon was just NYCB...Anyway, the ballet didn't make much of an impression on me, and there was some peculiar mishap with a couple in the corps who, I guess, missed an entrance, so that some of the formations that were presumably meant to be symmetrical were not symmetrical. But for one viewing it was pleasant, and the leads Nicolaj Hubbe and Jennifer Ringer were excellent. She has such a beautiful epaulement, she makes every shift in pose and position a rich dance event, and she's just always dancing, even when she's still or in a pose...She also always manages to have a connection with her partner. Wonderful!

An unexpected pleasure of the program (unexpected for me) was The Four Seasons -- I saw this last season with a largely different cast and was more or less bored silly. (I was even more bored at the one other post-Farrell performance I have seen of this ballet and had more or less given up on it.) This afternoon it was a joy to watch, a sheer pleasure; top to bottom everyone was dancing beautifully -- a few really exceptionally. Winter was Riggins/Ritter (really high, soft jumps)/and Jeroen Hofmans...Spring Philip Neal and Ringer. She was absolutely gorgeous in this. She dances as if dancing -- BALLET dancing -- were her native element. Neal was an appreciative partner and offered some particularly strong, beautiful chaine turns. Summer was Helene Alexopoulos and James Fayette; she is always gorgeously sensual in this, but what was particularly fun about this performance is that he just about matched her in lush intensity. In Fall all three principals were terrific -- Whelan had real ballerina flash: she didn't just dance the role beautifully, but really put over its absurd splashiness. Woetzel was as engaged as I've ever seen him -- it wasn't so much that he was jumpig and turning brilliantly (he was, though not quite the best I've seen him) as that he was performing the life out of it, which is exactly what this ballet needs; he was even preening at times, to which the audience decidedly responded. One thing I don't remember seeing before was a series of turns with leg extended a la seconde which he punctuated by periodically jumping from and landing on the turning leg [sic] and immediately resuming his turns all the while keeping his working leg a la seconde. Millepied, as the faun, was both funny and spectacular and in a jump or two genuinely hovered in the air. The whole ensemble danced wonderfully -- even the four pantomime figures symbolizing the seasons seemed galvanized. Altogether a happy afternoon.

[ 05-06-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

I went Friday night which, overall, I thought was a very fine evening. (I don't have the program so apologies for any spelling errors in dancers' names.)

The middle section of the program was fabulous -- great ballets, great performances (from principles and ensembles alike): Monumentum pro Gesualdo with Charles Askegard and Maria Kowroski, Movments for Piano and Orchestra with Askegard and Helene Alexapolous, Duo Concertante with Darci Kistler and Hubbe. Although these three are all 'modernist' Balanchine set to Stravinsky, and Monumentum and Movements are traditionally paired as if one ballet, I was happily struck with how distinct each one is. In Monumentum Kowroski seemed to embody the whole spirit of the ballet; she danced with purity, austerity, and perfect control -- the whole ensemble seemed at once courtly yet very strange, because so very abstracted. The more self-consciously modern -- distorted, disjuntive -- look of Movements actually seemed less abstracted, partly because Alexapoulos and Askegard were very intensely connected -- constantly making real eye contact with each other etc. I would not say that they "acted" but that was almost the effect of the way they danced, as if straining to establish some kind of relationship through the unbalanced, extreme movements. Alexapoulos was as exciting as I've ever seen her -- daring, forceful, charismatic. In both ballets, I really enjoyed just watching the way the ensemble is used to reshape the stage perspective -- it's as if, in each movement, when they regroup, the stage is being 'turned' to a slightly different angle. Duo Concertante has a more tender, intimate quality than either of these works, almost a kind of fragrance. I've raved about Kistler in this before and I greatly enjoyed this performance with Hubbe. (I confess, though, that a crying child next to me and a hyperactive adult in front of me, meant that I was slightly distracted for part of it.)

The evening opened with a somewhat uneven performance of Divertimento no. 15. The ensemble was sloppy in the first movement though a little better later, and the five ballerinas were decidedly uneven. The principles were Martins/Angle/Higgins...M. Tracy, K. Tracy, Yvonne Borree, Jennifer Ringer and Jenny Somogyi. This is a beautiful ballet and after the first movement the cast did succeed in putting it over. Still, it was less than an ideal performance -- with one happy exception, Jenny Somogyi. She was ravishing throughout. Her dancing was utterly simple, articulate, elegant and, in the adagio even melting in a way I hadn't seen from her before. All of the solos were reasonably poised, but there is so much in each one, and most of the principles only succeeded in showing a rather small proportion. Margaret Tracy as the "central" ballerina had some of the speed and clear footwork to make that role work, but (I'm not sure if this is the right "technical" analysis) she doesn't seem to have the kind of open, turned out look to really expose the choreography. By the end of the solo she had gotten smaller. Ringer was, as one might expect, quite strong and lovely. When she first came out in the opening movement she looked a hint underpowered and has noticeably gained weight. However, she phrased her solo beautifully and looked lovely as well in the adagio...in the adagio she dances the moment when the ballerina extends her leg forward and arches backward (in Ringer's case, way backward) towards the man who holds her lightly under her upper arms; the way Ringer lets herself all but fall backward, it looks quite daring. A special word, too, for the "secondary" men, Higgins and Angle, who brought a kind of loving energy to their parts that really helped lift the performance (especially in the lackluster opening) -- notable in a ballet where the men sometimes just go through the motions.

The evening closed with an energetic and well danced performance of the Concert (led by Miranda Weese who looks great in hats)...but for me, it couldn't help but feel a bit of a let down after the other works. I've only seen it once before though (many, many years ago) and I'm not sorry to have seen it again. The dancers, too, seemed to have a good time.

I may go one more time this week and I will try to post on that...One final thought, though: I was a little more than 2/3 back in the orchestra center, and many seats in the rows in back of me were empty as well as some scattered seats on the sides. I thought this a surprisingly disappointing showing for an excellent and varied program.

[ 05-06-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Thanks atm71 for that description...I hope the navy appreciated him.

I'd say Ferri, Kent, and Mckerrow are a fine trio to have seen...

Apologies if some of what follows is a bit repetitive of things I've said elsewhere...I've tried to vary it somewhat...

The first Giselle for whom I felt deep devotion was Marilyn Burr whom I saw with the National Ballet of Washington. At least one of those performances was certainly with Nagy, but what I remember was being utterly enthralled by Burr, especially in Act II. I have absolutely no idea how she "compares" with greats or even very goods I've seen at a later, savier age (and don't need to); she was part and parcel of what made me love the ballet...I also saw Fracci/Bruhn at a very young age and that performance, too, entered into my imagination in ways I can't quite qualify. But the Fracci Giselle "image" I actually remember most vividly was an appearance ca. 1980 in some gala, doing an excerpt from Act II. She was utterly ghostly almost like a mysterious statue come to life.

From my "adult" ballet going, my favorite was Kirkland (Kirkland-Baryshnikov when they still had a genuine partnership and the lifts in Act II were like little miracles). She was affecting and tender in Act I, extremely detailed in her characterization and dancing, and performed the mad scene with an inner directed pathos that was all too believable. She danced gorgeously in Act II -- loving Albrecht yet possessed by the dance -- and in her jumps she just seemed made of air. (I just reread my previous sentences and they sound sort of trite, especially since those qualities are all suggested by the choreography -- but I'm going to leave them, because I think Kirkland really made those qualities live compellingly on stage.)Definitely a dancer who captured, for me, the requisite qualities for both Acts I and II.

My favorite Albrecht bar none is certainly Nureyev, who did (as has already been discussed) an "unsympathetic" Albrecht with all the charisma, nobility, and rage (at the end of Act I) at his command. With Nureyev, that was a lot. The transformation into and through Act II was all the more overwhelming. His performance gave the ballet a depth and weight that, in my experience, it rarely has. Oddly enough Albrecht is the one nineteenth-century classic role in which I did not care for Dowell. However, I only saw him once -- with Makarova at ABT. At that performance, his facial expressions were oddly, and atypically for Dowell, melodramatic -- he literally seemed to pop his eyes out whenever he wanted to express fear or passion, and his characterization was also of an extremely weak Albrecht. At the end of Act I, he seemed like a crushed boy, practically flopping in his movements. Since I all but worshipped him in every other part I saw him perform, I'd like to think he danced it more effectively at other times, but maybe I just disagreed with his interpretation.

I admired Makarova as Giselle but never quite loved her in the role...We had a thread on recent or contemporary Giselles and two I mentioned there but will mention again are Mckerrow and, in a different but still admirable vein, Vishneva. I saw Mckerrow with Malakhov in an extraordinary performance a couple of seasons back; they were perfectly attuned to one another at every moment. In his Act II leaps Malakhov managed to jump high and beautifully and yet make you feel the weight of flesh and exhaustion that was holding him down. A wonderfully romantic and touching performance from them both. Technically, Vishneva's was probably one of the best danced performances of the ballet I have ever seen -- certainly the best performance of the Act I solo -- but she made the quality of her dancing the key to her interpretation, so it wasn't just showy but really worked within the frame of the ballet. I saw Assylmyratova that same week. There were moments in that performance that were simply as meltingly lyrical and memorable as anything I have ever seen though the performance as a whole did not, for me, gel on quite that level.

Finally, at some Kirov highlights program in Chicago, about ten years ago, I saw Alexander Lunev and Veronika Ivanova dance the Act II pas de deux. They performed in the utterly austere, "old style" Kirov manner. It was like watching a classroom exercise, but done at some unbelievable pitch of purity and exactitude. Absolutely one of most beautiful and moving ballet performances I have ever seen.

[ 05-01-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Helena -- I LOVE the story about Nadia Nerina. Actually, I found it so hilarious I couldn't help wondering if it was the ballet equivalent of an urban legend. Very much hoping it's true though!

I actually think that the Chinese folk dance performed by the Central Ballet of China might bear a little more research. In countries that have experienced various forms of invasion/colonialism etc. even their "own" experiences of their traditions often pass through the mediations of foreign eyes and representations. (No "tradition" is really all that pure.) This can happen in more or less complex ways -- as in famous ruins in India now thought of as distinctively national monuments, but initially preserved by orientalizing British colonials. A cruder example would be certain "Indian" dishes that are more like hybrid colonial cuisine.

It may be the case, too, that -- whatever the background of a particular dance or image and even if it is entirely "authentic" -- if it has become a cliche or "coolie stereotype" for Western audiences in Western works like The Nutcracker, re-choreographing it through another type of prism -- like a dragon dance! -- might still be worth doing. (Anyway, I hope one day to see Leigh Witchel's version...)

I have often felt something similar to the idea expressed by Leigh's friend that one does a disservice to history (and art) if one modifies away all the troubling/conflicted contexts that inform many great works. But there is always a kind of risk involved in the ongoing life of those works -- not just a risk of misunderstanding or people's feelings being hurt, but a risk of real identification and inspiration by what is most problematic about the ideas embodied. I've never seen Birth of a Nation but I've read many descriptions of just how exciting the KKK sequence can be...It's precisely for that reason that I think it remains important for people who care about the arts to be fairly conscious and vocal about what is problematic, and not to assume that just because something is "great" that its more troubling aspects can or should be ignored or idealized into something else. (I personally am rather doubtful that Shylock's Jewishness can be altogether universalized away.) It IS a fine thought to imagine, as Alexandra suggests, a future in which what I'm calling troubling will seem merely quaint or so far distant as to be of "merely" historical interest.

I guess no-one wants a "sanitized" art free of all potential conflict -- well, maybe the Mayor of New York does -- but to me, that means that as a ballet lover my responsibility is to worry about the implications more rather than less.

P.S. I don't think ballets are reducable to "contexts" or to "ideas" etc. -- reading myself over, I was worried I sounded that way...

[ 04-20-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

I don't believe in book burning, but I don't believe in ignoring the racism in books (including great books) either. I wouldn't change Petrouchka, but in discussing it I wouldn't pretend the blackamoor figure didn't have a very troubling genealogy. About twenty years ago I was in the Paris Opera library and came across a print of a scene from some stage adaptation (ca. 1820's) of (I think) Paul et Virginie, in which a black native had discovered a mirror for the first time and was gazing at it in idiotic delight -- the pose of legs and arms was exactly the same pose (wide open second position, arms lifted up, palms outward) as used by Fokine's Blackamoor. Even if one doesn't find the story/figure in Petrouchka particularly offensive (some might) it is clearly alined with a whole tradition of depictions that have to do with the way certain types of racial "stereotypes" were perpetuated -- and perpetuated in the context of colonialist fantasy. Doesn't mean Fokine wasn't a great choreographer, doesn't mean Petrouchka isn't a fabulous ballet, doesn't even mean one shouldn't keep staging it -- but doesn't mean one should ignore those histories either.

I tend to take these things on a case by case basis, and I was less sympathetic to arguments about "preserving" The Whims of Cupid, since when I saw it, the girls were on pointe!And if the producers think it's acceptable to update the technique in a ballet whose one claim to fame is that it is -- supposedly -- the oldest ballet continuously in repertory in its original choreography, then I think they open themselves to the charge that they can afford to change other elements as well. (And make a video for historians with all the "old" elements preserved...) Also, when I saw it, it didn't strike me as a particularly interesting ballet in any other respect, so I wasn't as moved by the imperative to preserve it as a living theatrical experience. But this was many years ago, so who knows what I would think if I saw it now.

With the nineteenth-century classics, I confess I like a balance -- that is, I enjoy the fact that there are some updated productions -- and would love, for example, to see Guillem's take on Giselle -- but it definitely is important to ballet as an art form that the major classical companies take the duty of preserving their traditions pretty seriously, especially the actual choreography and basic staging elements. But ballet is alive and onstage and what we see today has been through so many changes that unthinking purity for the sake of purity seems sort of pointless to me. (On the Giselle threads it has been discussed that some of the Albrecht solos were added in the 1930s -- personally I wouldn't like to see those solos disappear in the name of tradition, but that means I may need to be a little more open to interpolations some present day Albrecht might want to add. Of course, like most fans I'm more accepting of the changes that HAVE occured than the ones that will occur.) In any case, he ideal is to have a traditional production in which the traditions can really come to life.

But say, to take (I hope) an innocuous example. Alexandra has mentioned the color symbolism of Giselle's blue dress, and I know I'm just plain used to seeing Giselle in a blue dress, so when I've seen productions in which it's different, I have had to make a little adjustment. But in a contemporary production -- still a traditional one -- if there's an interesting designer who is trying out a different color scheme, this does not seem to me to be in any serious or substantive way disruptive of the ballet's deeper meanings. Don't get me wrong -- I LIKE my Giselle in blue (which I do, for example, associate with the Virgin Mary) -- but it wouldn't be the sort of thing that seemed to me to profoundly alter the concept of the ballet, and if a serious designer were trying out a different schema, I'd say let her/him try...

Just let me clear up one misunderstanding, and I'll get back to Myrtha! My original point to Leigh Witchel actually had nothing to do w. anti-semitism (I didn't remotely mean to suggest anyone in Giselle was coded Jewish...) It did have to do with typing based on coloration (dark/fair) which, by the nineteenth century, can't be entirely separated out from questions of how people were picturing ethnic/racial difference and it's relation, for example, to innate characteristics -- like spirituality -- and class heirarchy. (All those wilis each from a different countries, may even play into this -- Giselle only precedes by about ten years the grand international exhibitions in Paris and London which had everything to do with an interrelation of cultural/trade AND heirarchical stagings of different nationalities.) For that reason I don't think it's being anachronistic to raise these issues in relation to nineteenth-century European ballet even if the original archetypes arose under different conditions. By the early nineteenth-century -- though, of course, more strongly by the end -- these are layers of meaning and association that were part of the texture that audiences and artists lived, sometimes consciously, sometimes less so. It's hardly a profoundly shaping element of Giselle, and, no, I don't find Giselle offensive, but I'm doubtful that discussions of archetypal "colorations" can easily be separated from other, more uncomfortable issues. I'm way off topic, but wanted to clarify my original point which was partly misunderstood...

As far as Myrtha's nobility goes, reading people's comments, I wondered if it doesn't in a way "double" the Giselle/Bathilde opposition of Act I. Actually, if one had a modern production in which Act II was a dream -- mentioned I think on another of the Giselle threads -- one could even imagine a double casting of the role. That would be a little too schematic for my taste and obviously at odds with elements of the original librettists' plan, but there is a way in which both acts see Albrecht caught between a "noble" woman and Giselle.

[ 04-18-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

The drawings I referred to above were by a late Victorian children's book illustrator -- Arthur Rackham.

I have no idea if it has any bearing on ballet story telling traditions -- and rather doubt it -- but central European anti-semitic iconography going back centuries, maybe even back into the middle ages, also uses red hair as a code for "jew" figures (including Judas in mystery plays)...

My only point re ballet is not that there is a particular coding in mind when a villain is dark etc., but that by the nineteenth century these "types" did bear connotations that aren't altogether innocent of ideas about racial type and racial purity. So, personally, I'd be unsympathetic to contemporary productions that organize their symbolism in that way. Of course, with a particular cast, theatrical effects are going to emerge and I have no problem w. that...

Thanks. I understand why critics and fans get carried away when they see a wonderful young dancer, but I often wonder if the superlatives aren't a bit "premature." But, my goodness, I wish I had been at the performance! I'm looking forward, too, to hearing about the others...

This seems to be a good month for Giselle -- reports on ABT performances in D.C. are glowing, and I have just finished reading reviews of the Royal Ballet's Giselle posted as Links...The accounts of Wildor, Rojo, and Cojocaru are all very positive -- of Rojo and Cojocaru actually something more than just positive! Have any Ballet Alert posters seen their performances. I would be very interested in hearing about them...

Leigh Witchel -- I think your scenario is plausible, but I actually have enjoyed versions where Albrecht too is obviously in some way "wrong" for Giselle. (His love for her need not be played all that "spiritually" -- I don't know that Gautier, of all people, would have pictured it that way.) I could even imagine a production in which, from a certain point of view, Hilarion IS the right pairing for her -- which is exactly what makes Albrecht attractive.

(Whatever their earlier origins, by the mid-nineteenth-century the dark/light codings did have ethnic and racialized connotations -- Just take a look at some of the 19th century illustrations of the Nibelunglied in which the bad guys are uniformly semitic in terms clearly corresponding to nineteenth-century cliches...so for twentieth century productions, although I think it's fine to draw on physical contrasts for particular casts I'm not sympathetic to it as a way of building theatrical or "moral" symbolism for a production as a whole.)

I got very used to Albrechts who were young and heedlessly in love and then I saw Nureyev's -- towards the end of his career -- which I remember much as Cargill describes it. He was tremendous -- really overpowering. I admit I don't remember quite that degree of coldness (laughing at Giselle), but sheer arrogance and self-absorbtion certainly...and absolute unwillingness to acknowledge Giselle in any way once he was caught. Until she actually collapsed. It added greatly to the depth of the entire drama.

The two performances I saw (Festival Ballet in D.C.) he did exit the stage at the end of act I with a kind of aristocratic flourish, but it was clear that he carried the weight of what he had done with him. (My recollection is that after the first terrible realization he went into a kind of rage and swept off stage with his cape waving behind him.) By the close of act II as he fell to his knees and the light of dawn struck his face, one felt an entire lifetime of knowledge, grief, and remorse had passed before one's eyes. Nureyev had the most extraordinary expression of wonder and realization (call it self-realization) on his face. An awe inspiring performance. Since seeing it, I have always found the more tender, loving Albrecht approach less interesting. I recognize, of course, that it suits certain dancers better, but the ballet itself becomes more complex if the Albrecht grows in self-knowledge -- if Giselle's forgiveness makes him into a different person. (Even that forgiveness itself becomes more meaningful -- because more difficult -- if Albrecht is something more than another victim of circumstance.)

Felursus: I thought the original production of Giselle (w. Grisi etc.) concluded with Albrecht returning to a forgiving Bathilde's arms.

[ 04-16-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Just an anecdote...I saw a Giselle at the Met. towards the end of one of ABT's spring/summer seasons and the audience was clearly not a ballet audience, not even a subscriber audience, but primarily a summer, "tourist" audience. (I didn't do audience interviews, but such was my impression.) It seemed to be full of people who had never seen Giselle before, but were engaged -- and they burst into applause when the wilis circled Hilarion. They clearly thought it was a big theatrical "moment." It was a little odd -- I had never heard people applaud that moment -- but sort of charming since it seemed quite a sincere spontaneous response...

[ 04-15-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Very envious of those who saw this performance -- just wanted to chirp in with a note re laughing at Giselle. I have sophisticated theater-going friends who attend a huge range of music performances and some modern dance as well but do NOT see much ballet: they attended an ABT Giselle about two years ago and when they told me about it, they couldn't hide how silly they found most of it, the pantomime in particular. (I am sure they were polite enough to keep quiet during the performance, but they admitted to doing imitations of the mime for weeks afterwards...for a laugh!)

Yiddish words probably have appeared on this board before -- but here are some more: Mazel Tov!

Ed Waffle -- I'm curious: when you go to an opera in a language you don't understand, do you read the libretto first? or a synopsis? do you follow the supertitles (if there are any)? Do you ever listen to recordings of the music before -- or for that matter, after -- the performance? I know from your posts that you are extremely knowledgeable about music and opera -- I can't help but think that when you walk into any kind of musical theater performance (including ballet), even if it's a world premier, you have a wealth of "internal" program notes you can bring to bear on what you are seeing -- knowledge about opera conventions, knowledge about the composer, etc. Do you think you would feel quite the way you do now if you didn't have that experience and knowledge? When you first started attending performances did you feel the way you feel now? (I'm not being rhetorical -- I'm really asking.)

Of course, choreographers have the right to judge how they want their work framed -- or not -- for an audience, to decide what's appropriate, what's useful etc. As it happens, I don't think anyone believes that a ballet (or opera) should in any way depend on some external, explanatory apparatus. But if a program note can help prepare an audience to see or hear better, why not? There seems to be a lingering suspicion that it's somehow getting in the way of the audience member's pure, spontaneous response -- but ultimately there's no such thing as a pure, spontaneous response. Someone who truly "knows" nothing (hasn't read reviews, hasn't seen other works by the same choreographer, etc.) will simply import knowledge or assumptions they have from other fields and experiences to the experience of the performance. Of course notes can be done badly -- ANYTHING can be done badly -- but they can also be done well and even sharpen people's perceptions. (And for the live theater most people want their perceptions sharpest when they are watching the work, not just trying to remember it.)

A more general thought. In many respects we live in a "culture" (hate the word) that does a lot to blunt people's capacity to respond to anything that requires a real capacity to perceive. Whether we're looking at something we consider art or entertainment -- literally, most of us don't know how to watch, how to listen, even how to respond viscerally etc. I think that's one of the things that has to be taken into account by theater/music/dance directors of all kinds even when they are hoping audiences will "just" respond to what's on stage etc. A great work of art should be an education in perception in and of itself, but it needs a context in which it can be perceived in the first place. Leigh Witchel is making (I think) a more pragmatic and modest point, but it seems to me partly linked to these larger questions...

[This message has been edited by Drew (edited April 06, 2001).]

I'm a pretty academic type and like to "know" things, but I admit I get bored and discouraged if notes are super long or detailed HOWEVER I wholeheartedly endorse Leigh Witchel's view of this matter. Something to help situate the audience -- to "welcome" them into the work and into the theater -- seems very appropriate. Sometimes, I even find choreographers a trifle disingenuous when they take a more austere approach. It's not exactly as if they don't want or even expect a certain coterie of people to know what is going on...I know who Edwin Denby "is" but until reading Alexandra's post here just now, I didn't know anything about his life, certainly not that he had done gymnastics and, well, I'm sure that at a performance of Taylor's Roses, the work would seem much more resonant to me -- at any rate less arbitrary -- with that knowledge. Surely, Taylor is partly assuming that "some" of his audience will get it, "some" of his audience will know who Denby is. He may sincerely not care if they all do, and yet...if the choreography and choice of music has been partly determined by a relation to Denby, these things are meant to be part of how the work affects one. That doesn't mean it doesn't also have to work on its "own" terms -- but even the way audiences respond to "pure" forms is conditioned by their prior knowledge, experience, etc. It's a very naive purism that thinks otherwise. And, I might add, a very naive view of audiences that thinks a mere program note will necessarily prevent them from coming up with their own ideas about what they are seeing. Having a little framework can actually heighten one's perceptions...

Last year I saw Richard Foreman's Nietzsche play. (Not everyone here may know Foreman's work -- it's sort of cross between popular, satirical farce and super-intellectualized experimental theater.) He probably assumes an audience that knows something about Nietzsche, but his program notes gave one a sketch that situated you even if you didn't know anything and helped you to "get" some of the play's allusive gags; at the same time it didn't go into much detail -- you didn't feel like you were in a classroom, and certainly the audience was "free" to have its own responses/interpretations -- and, of course, real Nietzsche scholars would still get many more of the jokes and allusions than someone dependent on the program note. This seemed to me to hit a nice balance.

P.S. I'm a slow writer, and by the time I posted Jeannie had also posted -- making still more forcefully the point about coteries and "insider" audiences...

[This message has been edited by Drew (edited April 05, 2001).]

I had a good friend who was just starting a professional dance career in the early 80's -- she studied at SAB and at the North Carolina school for the performing arts (name? it's a top place -- Bissell was there for example.) She left ballet in part because of the craziness she experienced around body image etc. At SAB there was constant invocation of Mr. B's name to enforce certain types of image on the girls. When she was eleven she was told, for example, "Mr. Balanchine likes girls who wear make-up." Did Balanchine say this? For that matter, does it seem so bad? (it's just make-up...) I honestly think it's hard to judge, but the cumulative effect she observed was not positive. She knew several people -- I can only be anecdotal, not statistical -- who had serious, health threatening, issues with food and self-image. And she herself found things pretty destructive and left ballet although she did have professional opportunities. Obviously, someone else might have handled the situation differently; ballet isn't responsible for every individual's personal problems and decisions. But if, as CygneDanois suggests, things are a different now -- with less emphasis on thinness -- that's a good thing, and the occasional spotlight on some of the more extreme cases seems to me, also, to be a good thing IF it means that ballet schools and teachers are a little more careful about what can go wrong with their students -- or companies with their dancers. For that reason, Segal's article didn't irritate me as much as it did some others here. And I didn't think he was implying that ballet schools didn't have the right to make ANY physical demands.

Certainly, ballet per se is not at the center of taste/image formation in the U.S. -- but as someone who cares about and loves ballet, I do want attention paid to these issues IN the ballet world. For that reason, too, the fact that Segal or someone else writes an article emphasizing thinness in ballet rather than, say, gymnastics or modelling, seems legitimate to me.

Ballet does/has changed over the decades -- partly in response to its own formal, artistic developments, partly in response to wider social/cultural changes. (I remember my first response to a picture of Pierina Legnani that I saw in a book given to me as a child: "she's fat.") Presumably, Segal means to be a little over the top, because he wants to make a polemical point -- to be part of the debate...I do NOT mean that this is some distinguished or important article (certainly not), but I also think fans, parents, and ballet students may be a little undereducated about just how stressfull, intense, and unhealthy certain aspects of ballet "culture" can be. And I'm not persuaded they have to be, to get great results. Lincoln Kirstein's evocative language of young women dancers as devoted nuns etc. is lovely to read, but hardly practical or realistic...

Rtnty -- do you know if the Nijinsky version has an unbroken performance tradition? When the Joffrey revived it (ca. two decades ago) the company's publicity suggested that some reconstructive effort went into the project. The Robbins version, on the other hand, does have a consistent, unbroken performance tradition. And it is very acutely and suggestively related to the Debussy music. If one knows about the Nijinsky version, it even acquires an additional layer of meaning from that "intertext." Robbins deliberately re-imagines the ballet studio through the image of the erotic dream world of Nijinsky's faun -- the effect can be ironic and sensual. Even if one doesn't know anything about the original Nijinsky ballet, the overall mood of the Robbins works rather well.

(Mallarme's poetry in general is full of mirror imagery that overwhelms and freezes characters and events -- e.g. "Herodiade" -- and it wouldn't surprize me if Robbins had that in the back of his mind, too, when he created his ballet, even if it isn't directly derived from the Faun poem. But that's speculation on my part.)

Perhaps this is one of those "tone" things that's hard to get properly over the internet -- but I assumed the article was a joke, and a rather nasty one at that. (Ross Stretton boasting of bagging a 'roo or a koala bear? The Arts Council using the term "re-education?" unlikely.) But people's responses on this board sound as if they aren't reading it as a joke...Anyway, if someone were to ban the use of live animals for theatrical productions I'd have mixed feelings about it. Animals add atmosphere, but they often do look really miserable. I don't think anyone is about to ban Swan Lake or, for that matter, censor Grimm's fairy tales. On the other hand, they may be trying to satirize the animal rights lobby out of business. And if that's the case, I'm with the animal rights lobby. But perhaps everybody here is joking and I'm the straight man...

[This message has been edited by Drew (edited April 01, 2001).]

If Protas were the trustee, perhaps he could be sued, but if he owns the copyright that's a different situation. Since Graham willed the works to Protas, I assume he isn't merely "responsible" for them -- as a trustee would be -- but actually "owns" them...That's what makes the situation so tricky. If it were to be successfully established that Graham's works were done "for hire," I assume one result would be that future contracts between choreographers and companies would include negotiations on just this point. (In academic publishing the copyright often belongs to the publisher not the author -- however very little in the way of money and even less in the way of genius is usually involved.)