Alexandra

Good points! Let's spread the joy -- how 'bout if the Kirov starts taking in people from every country to spice things up! ;)

Amen, Thalictum! And Raines is not alone, I'm afraid, but his view of what once would have been considered the life of the mind as "arcane" says it all. The Post is a different animal. Their Style section is geared to politics, and so they're very open to any article about the arts that involves politics, and Sarah Kaufman has written quite a few of these as Sunday pieces. They Post editors wouldn't be so interested in Britney Spears, but any Hill or White House scandal would get prime space. Thank you, Mary, for posting in such detail from the Atlantic piece. i would have missed it otherwise.

The real problem isn't the dancers' nationality, it's that they come from 80-gazillion schools, and Raymonda or Bayadere shouldn't look like a stew!!!

Yes. thank you, Mary -- that was my main point, which Ms Brown apparently missed. Hans wrote: It is a problem, I agree. I do think you can understand a choreographer (or author, composer) and not like them. Perhaps "understand" is confused with "appreciate" which is confused with "like." Re Ari's point on Tudor -- I sympathize. I feel I missed the glory days of Tudor and have never seen perfoormances of his work that were alive. Same with Graham. But I take it on faith that they're great choreographers and don't dismiss them.

I never mean to say that one shouldn't enjoy pop culture. I agree; both forms serve different purposes and each can be enjoyed on its own terms. My only point is to speak up when the two get confused, or when pop culture is all dolled up and passed off as high culture.

Well now, there we have a discussion. One position would be that if you really get it, that means you like it -- or at least admire it -- and if you don't, then you don't really get it. (I don't hold that position, but I think many do, and I'd also argue that both are defensible positions.)

Yes! There's definitely a Dieter Party I think that this is a good example of there are decided differences of opinions and there will be critics whom one reads and agrees with, and those who don't. I also the think the notion of whether one "gets it" or not is always open to debate. I'm sure that those who some think don't get it would argue vigorously that they do, they just don't rate it highly, or as highly as others might. As for Liebeslieder (which lucky New Yorkers will get to see the first week of the spring season!), it didn't go over well in San Francisco either, and this may be a ballet that you either love at first sight, or you think is just a lot of silly mooning about. It is possible that, upon further acquaintance, those who hold the latter view will see more in it and come to love it, too. but then again....

All discussions might well lead here, but I wasn't offering that as a high/low art divide. One might argue it's a good/bad or greater/lesser divide, but I view all the choreographers mentioned so far at the high art end -- that's their intention and those are the rules by which they play. I don't think of them as pop artists, even if I don't always value what they do. Glinka is a classical musician, even if one might not rank him as high as Tchaikovsky (and there are a ton of people who wouldn't utter the words "tchaikovsky" and "mozart" in the same breath.

I'd agree -- there are huge differences among them -- I didn't say they were the same! But if you read critics and make a matrix of what they're generally sympathetic to and what not, the divide is along those lines. There are critics on both sides of the Atlantic that, one senses, only really like the black and white Balanchine ballets and view the Tchaikovsky and romantic or tutu ballets either indulgently or dismissively. Sometimes, too, people are seeing the same thing but valuing it differently. I think it was John Martin (a late Balanchine convert) who once wrote about Divertimento No. 15, "Balanchine has given us that opening ballet of his again".... Well, if you're looking at ballet through the Diaghilev lens, where you had a divertissement opener, a meaty middle, and either a socko or comic finish to an evening, the comment is understandable. If you're looking at ballet through a Balanchine lens, you'd bristle and say, "They are not all alike!" (and I think you'd be right, but I share the lens).

Lampwick and I were posting at the same time, too -- sorry, lampwick; I didn't mean to ignore your comments! djb, something Clive Barnes said at a Kennedy Center panel when the Royal brought its Ashton week here two seasons ago relates to your comment (Barnes having been watching both Balanchine and Ashton since the 1940s). (paraphrasing) We must remember that when Ashton and Balanchine were working, they really didn't have a large pool of male talent on which to draw. When they had good men, they used them. I think that may be why there are fewer challenging supporting parts for men, compared with women (and I don't mean to imply that your comment was meant to be critical at all, just saying that to put the Estonian comment in some perspective).

Balanchine has wonderful roles for men!!!! Short list -- others will add, I'm sure but let's start with Apollo and Prodigal Son. Rubies, Melancholic and Phlegmatic in Four Ts, Stars and Stripes, Harlequin in Harlequinade, Theme and Variations, Vienna Waltzes (5 different star parts), Symphony in 3 Movements, Symphony in C...., Donizetti Variations......etc. Okay, so you don't get to roll around on the floor and bay at the moon a lot, but there's a lot to dance!

carbro, I don't think this is a Balanchine/Ashton divide, more (and this is a generalization!) a Balanchine/MacMillan one. The American critics who are sympathetic to Ashton are, generally, less enamored of MacMillan, and the British critics I've read who are dismissive of both Balanchine and Ashton are, generally, very pro-MacMillan (and Forsythe, Kylian, Neumeier, etc.) It may be more of a generational divide -- but I agree that taste is formed by what we see. The American critics who admire Ashton seem to be of the generation that saw the Royal regularly (the '60s and early '70s) and less later. One leading early Brtish critic (Cyril Beaumont) had a problem with Balanchine's "Apollo" calling it (writing from memory) a "work of youth" and thought it too much of its time (the Age of Sport) mentioning specific movements -- the only one I can remember now is the "swimming" motif. I've always wondered what he saw -- if the early performances emphasized the sporting elements, whereas now they are so subtle I doubt many people would notice them. Re the comments on Liebeslieder that hockeyfan quoted above, I'd agree with her conclusion (and I didn't see the performance). But on the tape, Violette and Mr. B, Verdy is shown coaching the POB dancers, and the segments shown weren't overly emotional to me -- Leigh, since you saw this in Paris, do you think it was a question of overdoing?

Both majors, I agree -- and I also agree with dirac's point that although craftsmanship counts for a lot, fine craftsmanship isn't the only criteria. (The first one that springs to mind is Balanchine's "Tombeau de Couperin," a work I loved and I think is perfectly constructed, but I don't think it's a major work.) Sometimes "major" has to do with intent -- although there are lots of examples of accidental masterpieces. But when someone choreographs something that has "Major Work Candidate" written all over it (Robbins' "Goldberg Variations," say) that's the way it will be judged.

Saying that "the Brits don't get it" is a rather insulting generalization, and since we have people from countries other than America reading this board, including several from Britain, perhaps we'd be more likely to get a response if the question were phrased assuming that people who dismiss or question Balanchine might actually have a point of view worth discussing.

But we have to get to the point where it is not the assumption that it's an African American who funds the Museum of African Art and a European American who funds the French Impressionist wing. That's my point.

I think there are two reasons for it. One was that the avant garde, somewhere about mid-century, decided it wanted to alienate, that if it was popular, somehow that was bad. Deborah Jowitt wrote a piece in the Voice once about loft dance, that it was a group of people making work for each other. That's fine, but then don't scream when the Good Fairy doesn't come down and shower you with a million dollars. The second alienating factor is technology. I was struck by carbro's comment above. I remember liking songs as a child that I had no idea were "country" or "rhythm and blues" -- and that I would never have heard if they'd only been played on those stations. It's very true of the 1960s and 1950s in television, too. The Variety Show that had "something for everyone" because everyone was clustered around one TV set. When Mom, Dad, Dick, Jane, Spot AND Puff each had their own set, ratings data indicated what programs most speple of this age and that gender preferred, and mainlined it. I think it's had a terrible effect -- it doesn't expose us to anything that we don't already know. I take a lot of cabs (I dont' have a car and am always, it seems, lugging magazines to post offices) and in Washington, the drivers are overwhelmingly native African-Americans or new arrivals. I never know what I'll hear when I get in a cab. The black drivers, men in their 60s and 70s, may be playing rock, or jazz, or classical, or a Bible show or Rush Limbaugh. Get someone under 45 and it will be rock or rap.

Richard Buckle was a famous champion of Balanchine. I'd put John Percival squarely in the "gets it" category. Jane Simpson writes beautifully about Balanchine. I remember a piece by the late Peter Williams in Dance and Dancers in which he wrote that he wished every young choreographer would study "Liebeslieder Walzer" as a lesson in choreography (I'm assuming he meant the infinite variability on a simple theme.) There are clueless critics of every clilme, I'm afraid. There are European critics who'll write "where's the content?" The Dance Europe critics I've read generally are of the expressionist rather than formalist camp (I'm sure there are exceptions.) But there are many Americans, too, who I think are equally clueless by missing that there IS content and saying, over and over, "it's just the steps, it's just the steps."

What bothers me about these discussions is the notion of "my" art and "your" or "their" art. to me, one of the good things about being an American is that it's all mine. My family has no connections to New England or the West, yet their literature is my literature. I don't want to feel that Langston Hughes or Richard Wright belong to Somebody Else, and I don't want to be made to feel embarrassed if I'm caught reading Hawthorne. I think this is where the good intentions of the 60s has gone bad -- what was meant to be inclusive has become exclusive. I want people making decisions about the arts who know and care about art. Know what it is, know who the greats are and why, and aren't there to smuggle in "their" people -- women, the handicapped, the elderly, white, blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Asians, the young, the middle aged. No quotas. Just art.

METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE, NEW YORK Frederick Ashton described Scènes de ballet as ‘just an exercise in pure dancing’. This one-act ballet, choreographed to Stravinsky’s score of the same title, is a complex and lively piece. Choreographed with Euclidian geometry in mind, Ashton intended that this ballet could be viewed from any angle and still ‘work’. Scènes de ballet is a homage to 19thcentury classicism with designs by André Beaurepaire. The Divertissements consists of five pas de deux from Ashton at his most virtuosic; The Awakening (The Sleeping Beauty), Voices of Spring, Thaïs, Ondine Act III and Birthday Offering. Completing the programme is Frederick Ashton’s Marguerite and Armand, an adaptation of Dumas’ La Dame aux camélias, the story of the doomed, turbulent passion between a courtesan and her young, idealistic lover. Ashton created this ballet for Fonteyn and Nureyev, but for today’s audience it has become one of Sylvie Guillem’s signature roles with The Royal Ballet. ASHTON MIXED BILL SCÈNES DE BALLET Yoshida, Putrov 13, 15 July Cojocaru, Kobborg 14 July DIVERTISSEMENTS Awakening pas de deux Bussell, Urlezaga 13, 15 July Tapper, Bonelli 14 July Voices of Spring pas de deux Cojocaru, Kobborg 13 July Benjamin, Urlezaga 14 July Galeazzi, Samodurov 15 July Thaïs pas de deux Benjamin, Soares 13 July Galeazzi, Makhateli 14 July Ondine pas de deux Rojo, Cope 13, 15 July Birthday Offering pas de deux Bussell, Cope 14 July Nuñez, Soares 15 July MARGUERITE AND ARMAND Guillem, Le Riche 13, 14, 15 July CINDERELLA Cojocaru, Kobborg, Dowell, Sleep 16 July Benjamin, Samodurov, Marriot, Howells 17 (MAT) July Rojo, Cope, Dowell, Sleep 17 July

CINDERELLA Cojocaru, Kobborg, Marriott, Howells 5 July Benjamin, Samodurov, Soares, Matiakis 6 July Rojo, Cope, Marriott, Mosley 7 July Tapper, Urlezaga, Marriott, Mosley 8 July > GISELLE Yoshida, Bonelli 9 July Marquez, Putrov 10 (MAT) July Cojocaru, Kobborg 10 July

Thanks to Ari for this, on Links: Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum ponders the divide between high and low culture in the Washington Post. Although the article is about books, the issues affect all the arts. I was struck by her closing paragraph: There are so many issues here -- the "high art" side that resents that they're works aren't popular, the "low art" side that resents that they're works are very popular but scorned by critics. The fact that, even in our "there is no such thing as high are or low art" culture, the divide between the two is wider than it's ever been. I definitely believe there is -- and should be -- a distinction between high art and low art. Each has a different intention. But do both genres have to be so alienating?

Rita Felciano reviews Paul Taylor's newest work, "Dante Variations," in this week's DanceView Times: Dante Variations

I think, as carbro said, the score dictates the balance among the roles. In R & J, the score really is the libretto -- everyone who's choreographed it talks about being hemmed in by the score. I think our perception of who's dominant, though, may have something to do with who's dancing the leading roles. I only saw Fonteyn's Juliet on video, but you're very aware of her -- stars have a way of demanding that you think of them even when they're off-stage. The last time I saw ABT's "Romeo and Juliet," though, it seemed to me they were trying to duplicate their all-boy "Corsaire" success by turning up the juice whenever Romeo, Mercutio and Benvolio were on stage. Instead of emphasizing the drama of the ballet, their solos or trios were made into star turns.

Thanks for giving me something NEW to worry about, charlieloki and perky. Though the NASCAR ballet does challenge the imagination -- Juliet, could you costume this one for us? I have a vision of the corps de ballet dressed in car tutus, kinda like you did in kindergarten, with little honky-horns fastened to the skirts, perhaps. The middle movement would be, of course, the demolition derby, and there'd have to be a pit stop section......

Interesting article -- what do you think? A great cultural divide