mbjerk

How true! This was a glorius period for the Joffrey and greatly due to those ballet masters and mistresses who tended to the repertoire, classes and dancers. They learned from Mr. Joffrey and believed in his insistence on detail and stylistic perfection. But as glebb states, Mr. Joffrey was always around somehow and the dancers knew that he and Mr. Arpino truly cared about all that went on. But the key to this system, as glebb writes, was that the staff had grown up in the company and directly with Mr. Joffrey in the studio. As he became more of a international celebrity and needed to be doing things outside the studio, the staff kept us dancers together and artistically groomed. Several of the dancers from that system are now excellent ballet masters, mistresses, teachers or directors.

It really allows the AD to speak the language. As boards get more high powered and corporate, the ability to phrase statements in their language becomes critical. Also to hardball it versus the softer speak we use. My wife hated me when I was at GE at I "GE'd" all the time i.e. took no grace, time or patience with my language. Also every word out of my mouth was quantitative and I used nothing longer than four letters. Finally most MBA programs teach you not to lose face and to think fast under pressure without emotion. This coupled with the course on negotiation help in those meetings were the board and ED line up for the financial black line and the AD must convince them that premium product should win over low cost options...... I also agree with Estelle that too many boards look for glamour and then get burned later as the artistic product lessens and the favorite dancers leave for other places.

I was under (over?) the impression that we do have directors for these ballets - artistic directors???? At Joffrey a ballet master or mistress was assigned with this responsibilty of director as Alexandra so aptly calls it. If others rehearsed that ballet, then they followed the director's parameters. This may be another tangential thread - should an artistic director be focused primarily in control of everything in the studio or should the director delegate and focus less on studio day to day and more on leading the way? Or do both a la Balanchine (please note the Balanchine - Kirstein - Hogan - others collaboration that covers company, school and development).

You also have to use the mountain climbing thing. Dancers reach a level in rehearsal and need to perform at that level to gain enough understanding to reach the next level. Think of the first rehearsal period as the base camp. Climbing occurs in performance and resupplying, resting or re-establishing a new base happens in performance. All base camp leads to dull performances and all performances leads to exhaustion or worse. Similarly all the preparation for one climb is awful as so many other things out of your control may make it a disaster (conductor, partner, illness, audience, or just a bad hair day...). One way to keep things fresh for principals is to play with the musicality, acting or add technical difficulties. For the corps, challenge each to perform with the emotion, technique of a soloist while maintaining the discipline of the company's line, style and form. VERY HARD! But I have just restated Leigh and Alexandra - ooops.

I was thinking more of rep pieces and corps than soloist/principals. You raise an excellent point. In my experience when a ballet has been set thoroughly and the AD is around, the company has look in the ballet across the board. When there are too many cooks and the AD is not around, that is when the look changes. Often, in big classical companies, soloists and principals have only one coach they work with on their individual repertoire. When these coaches have differing views on a ballet and the AD does not police that view(s) then each couple may have a very different interpretation. Indeed I have been in rehearsals as a dancer where my coach and my partner's coach disagreed vehemently. We went to lunch ;) while they figured out the version we were to dance - actually we excused ourselves due to illness and found another studio. Yes companies do not spend enough time rehearsing and are spread too thin here in the States. But this is more for the fine coaching than teaching the steps or rehearsing an existing ballet. There is a tension between getting out there and performing or rehearsing until everything is perfect. This tension exists artistically, personally and financially.

That would also be taught by ex-ENRON, LYNCH or WORLDCOM executives? - Apologies to Alexandra, but I could not resist. Please add sexual harrasssment and diversity training - all those HR courses are needed.

Actually Deming is very appropos. I was a Six Sigma Quality BPR at GE. For training dancers and rehearsing ballets, the idea of reducing defects and changing how one works to keep the defects out of the system is perfect. It also helps with respect to the operational stuff: daily scheduling, multiple casting, production scheduling and working in the theater - lots of processes to examine. One good example: Some smaller companies rehearse an entire cast when adding new people. as there is only one ballet master/mistress. At Joffrey we only rehearsed the new people, one at a time, and then brought everyone together at the end. This let the old guard work on new stuff and let the new guard work without everyone looking at them with stares that suggest they are not learning fast enough. If one defines the art as a customer, then the quality control and customer defined design work. Seems more in tune than defining the public at large as the customer and defining your art to that.

Three courses from my MBA that I find useful: Organizational Development (to include career development for the dancers as well as succession planning). Leadership in Organizations: What it means to lead effectively across functional boundaries while energizing others to fulfill the vision. Financial Management: What questions to ask when - important for board, donor and executive staff meetings. Two that I had at GE: Time Management and the Covey principles. Leading Change - the Change Acceleration Process (Stakeholder analysis, communication planning and company culture issues). Finally a course in philosophy so all learn the world is not only about them........ I think the dance history course is perfect. It should also include the intrigues during the tsarist and other royal sponsor times!! As well as the critical acclaim (or disclaim) through the ages and be required for executive directors also. The 200 courses should include the various training methods as used by the directors for their ballets (Balanchine, Bournonville, and the Vaganova-Petipa connection from the 1920 - present). And for both AD and ED: the relationship of a school or tradition to contemporary (era not style) repertoire - choreography. The 300 courses would focus on not repeating current history (lack of successors, Going where the culture will not want outsiders, putting bad trendy ballets on to sell tickets only to loose your loyal following, others?)

Or like continously recycled plastic - maleable and practical but really just good for a few things.

Finance Courses to include: Budgeting: Artistic Fantasy versus Executive Drudgery Non-profit Accounting: How not to post a loss (Taught by ENRON and WorldCom VPs). Earned and Unearned Income: Does flattery get you everything?

A College of this University must be for Executive Directors as they too recycle themselves.

It is hard as a mid-sized regional company. Your audience knows ballet as swans in tutus and your dancers probably are not able to dance it as well as should be. You possibly augment the corps with students, which not creates a schism in ability but makes the corps ragged. But the audience clamors for what it knows. Houston grew from a middle company with small versions of the classics. In Ben's Beauty and Swan we all did everything every night. It built the company's comraderie and technical ability tremendously. Also as Ben built the school up to feed the company it allowed talented students to see opportunities in Houston - perhaps squashing the NY wonderlust (not for me though...). It is a difficult choice. I err on the side that if one cannot meet the standard set by the ABT, Kirov, etc. in the dancing, even with a small production, then one should not make the attempt. I also think there are wonderful small versions of Giselle, La Sylphide, van Danzig's Romeo, that enable this type of company to do some classics while building a repertoire and dancers. But I also have always lived in cities where the ABT, Kirov (and now NYCB YEAH) tour often, so I can see the classics and Balanchine rep at a world class standard. Tulsa or Indianapolis do not have this option. Also it depends on why the company exists. Is it because the city wants art (opera, symphony or ballet) for status or development reasons? Is it because a talented person started a company with an artistry that drew audiences? Is it a school that began a company to keep its students at home? These are also stages - look at Mary Day and WSB - it has gone through this whole process. So a long winded non-answer save to say that I find there are enough companies with the dancers, budget and production values to mount the classics fantastically. I would rather the funds are spent on new choreography, retaining better dancers and productions that are smaller (Grad Ball is a good example) and improve the circumstances of the regional companies.

As someone who has danced in alphabet and all-star/no-star companies, I sense that talent, reliability and charisma rule in both. Each situation has its prioritization of the mix but the company, critics and audience find and respect those who deliver and know those who do not. I think that rankings assist those growing older have a tangible result of their career and also give the direction another reason (as if one was needed) to justify the casting at times. I have seen promotions given for talent or longevtiy, I have seen them bought. I have seen worthy individuals passed over in promotion but not casting due to politics. Learning a repertiore through the corps-soloist-principal transition is a good thing for those who mature through repetition and study. For those who grow via inborn talent or intuition, then immediate access to principal parts is important. Directors often see students with talent and give them solo roles immediately upon entrance into the company. Given ballet derives from the royal court, is it surprising that we have an etiquette and hierarchy from the top down? It is sometimes confusing finding the top these days (Executive Director, Artistic Director, Theater Management, Dancer Union....) and interesting to postulate on the whys and whats of promotions and casting. May the New Year be filled with organization charts, casting intrigues and turf battles.

I think it is up to the artistic directors. They must take charge and when commisioning works start from the beginning stating what is expected. Of course on another thread we are picking the Diamond Project to shreds, and it states upfront what is expected. But then the ADs must oversee the process. I continue to go back to writing - we all need to learn the craft, have an editor we trust and master the idiosyncracies of the language and media we work in. Technique is the language, dancers the media and choreography the text. The editor is the AD or ballet master. Finally of course are genius and luck. I just appreciate choreographers who use dancers and music well. Even Mark Morris' latest green statement at Kennedy Center left me grateful to see a beautifully crafted, musical piece of fluff danced well - even if it was kitsch (I kept thinking of those 1950's black cat kitchen clocks with the rhinestones and the eyes/tails going back and forth). I appreciate less choreographers who use dancers to explore continuous partnering or technical gymnastics in an effort to be different and create dances that say nothing to me and leave me wondering if the dancers will survive the next performance. As a dancer, I was always told that when I could hold an audience's attention standing still for a time, then I was a true dancer. Ditto for choreographers, when they can hold an audience's attention with simplicity, then they have begun to master the art. Sorry to rant, but I feel that we have veered off the course of human, artistic statements or performing entertainments and somehow gotten stuck on a track of fadism. Of course there are exceptions, but to paraphrase Manhattnik: All dances are too long, but these days most are longer.

ABT, Royal and NYCB made their name on new work that used and subtly changed an old language: classical ballet. These days it seems to me that everyone wants to make their own language and that is a problem. The focus becomes what can I do that has never been done before versus how may I use and expand the language of ballet to make my statement.

Glebb is not kidding. He often would come to company class and dance the entire performance he saw the night before, complete with corps, soloist and principal choreography. This was more impressive as he did this having only seen the ballet once. Repeated viewing brought commentary on the differences on dancers, musicality and technique. Glebb is gifted!!!

Thanks for the update on the Fourth Ring Ghost Town - I guess the sheriff let in the outlaws and everyone fled. One must then look to the directorship at NYCB. He must choose who makes works for the Diamond project and he is then responsible for the oversight of those works. Artistic oversight (editorial control) during the creative process has been lost these days. Everyone needs an editor (or ballet master) and this is especially true for less experienced choreographers. Few directors take the interest to be in the studio during the creative process. The attitude is one of non-interference and I think this lets bad work get to a point of no return. If the director sees rehearsals in the final week and the ballet is tooo much longer than others, then it is toooooo late to change or cancel. As the director is on a fixed salary, this extra time comes at no incremental cost and may reap huge savings/benefits later on. Funny how no one has mentioned unions as a major source of cost during performance runs. Stagehands and musicians are paid more than the dancers. They are wonderful and work tremendously hard to ensure an excellent show, but the wage scale is at the point where companies are forced to do less.

I think that we have forgotten that dancers dance in a company whose artistic direction they follow. Similarly donors and audiences belong to a theater/company they enjoy. Yes, even the bad...... Perhaps NYCB audiences feel a part of a vibrant organization through projects such as the Diamond, and enjoy discussing the merits or demerits of the works. I do not think at NYCB the audience has or subscription levels have fallen off dramatically, so the product onstage must still be watchable. As for doing more with less, this is the fact in non-profit companies. I am sure that NYCB (or ABT, Joffrey) would make an argument that they work with less than the ideal, the level is different from a small, local company. For NYCB it may mean using less costly fabric or advertising, for a small company using no costumes at all and calling frends to attend the performance. It is impossible to compare, although one may state that genius comes through in any case - but often genius is in the eyes of the beholder until it stands the test of time. Unfortunately we do not have the luxury of failure in today's environment. Failure is necessary to grow, for dancers, choregraphers and audiences. You do not know you hate (or love) artichoke until you taste it.

Companies use the out-of-town world premieres to raise monies also. Joffrey's Nutcracker was paid for and premiered in Iowa City. Kennedy Center sometimes funds premieres also. The risk is that the out of town flops and therefore a source of funds is closed. One idea is for the artistic director to solicit other artistic views during the creative process - studio showings all along the process instead of one or two at the end. This helps with the choroegraphy and dancers' interpretation but not the set, costume and lighting.... Another huge expense left that is sometimes wasted.

Many companies do this through the second or apprentice company. A choreogrpher makes a ballet on this smaller company and if it is a success then is allowed either to remount it or make a new work for the main company. But for "name" choreographers or those others famous enough, this is not possible. These types demand (and get) the main company and if the work fails, that is the price one pays. Too bad dance does not have the video aftermarket that movies do.....

Projects such as the Diamond Project often have funds that are restricted only to that project. The company may not use those funds for general operating expenses nor other projects. It is easier to raise funds for specific projects hence the proliferation of theme evenings or special events. Not many want to see their name associated with the less glamorous operations. The annual salary of $90,000 is nothing in New York (nor SF, Chicago or DC for that matter) compared to what other principals at Big Five or Fortune 500 firms make. A principal dancer at a mahor company is one of ten thousand - similar to a VP at a major corporation who may make upwards of $250,000 base plus another $250,000 in options and perks. Dancers are underpaid given that successful dancers faced similar odds to professional sports players and took as long as doctors to train. Both sports and doctors easily start at over $90,000. This has been said above, but cannot be stated enough.

Yes, I remember Icarus with Ted Nelson as the father and Russell Sultzbach (and his red hair) as the son with Ann Marie De Angelo as the sun???? But as I was young, all I focused on was Ann Marie's tricks and the fact the Ted lifted Russell all over the place - I guess the places were what I was supposed to focus on.

In Barocco I love the moment in the second movement where the principal couple raises one arm to third (fifth en haut) before the snail. Such simplicity and the note sings with the arms.

I was there for the Reagan viewing of Green Table - as we lined up for the pst-performance reception line, I stood next to the man who danced Death. Reagan's words, "You were the bad guy." I cannot see W. being any more enlightened.

I find when the focus is on a male technique versus a male danseur, then the men tend to look weak or less adult. A danseur finds himself as the prince first, a partner second and a technician third. Often in today's environment the order becomes a technician first and second, a vain prince third and partnering becomes a chore to get to the technical solo bits. This is a overgenrealization, but when you speak of the dancers above who you consider adults, do you first think of their technique or their presence/partnering?