Alexandra

BW, thanks for reviving the thread -- I'd be curious to know what Treefrog, especialy, thinks of this question NOW (and you as well, BW). And, since it's the start of a new season, it's a good topic to bring up. We can start it over, if you like -- forget what we wrote last time. Take it from the top: how do you watch ballet? (Remembeirng, always, that it's perfectly ok to go and have fun and not worry about why, but for those who do....) How has your watching ballet changed over the years -- that's another way to get at this question. What can you/do you see now that you didn't before?

Unfortunately, Almaty is very much a foreign land to many of us -- but that doesn't mean we're not interested! The Fountain of Baksichiray is a beautiful legend, and it was lovely to see the photos. (And you now know many words about ballet!!!)

That's a very good question (as your questions tend to be ) And it makes a very good point -- if a viewer is concerned about musicality, whether he/she is a musician, or has a highly trained ear, or sense of rhythm, or simply listens to a lot of music, s/he is going to be more aware of musicality than someone who never listens to music or is tone deaf. (If you're color blind, you won't be as excited about color as someone who can see the full range of colors.) I think, like a lot of things, one can train one's ear and eye -- if you want to. It's being aware of the music. How do the dancers' movements relate to the music? Sometimes, to me, it looks like the music is doing one thing and the dancer another (and, of course, that might be what the choreographer wants). Sometimes there's an obvious musical cue -- a loud crashing chord, say -- and the dancer waits a second before making the loud, crashing leap. Sometimes you have to SEE a sequence you've seen before danced musically and then you get it. (I'd seen the first act pas de trois in Swan Lake dozens of times before I saw a man who timed his jumps with the music in the coda. What had previously been music + dancing became music/dancing, two separate things were suddenly one. That's an inadequate explanation, but the best I can do at the moment.) As this thread has shown, there are different viewpoints on musicality -- for some, it's rhythm, for some it's melody, for some it's analyzing a score. It might be interesting, the next time you see a ballet you've seen before, or whose music is familiar, to pick one part and listen to the music as hard as you usually watch the dancing, find the dancing through the music -- I hope some of this makes sense

Lee, I think some would say that Forsythe is a ballet-trained choreographer who wandered into the land of modern dance, and others would say he's got a modern dance viewpoint/sensibilities who moved into ballet, and still others would say, well, he's eclectic. Leigh studied quite a few of Forsythe's works and wrote about an article assessing him for Ballet Review a few years ago; I hope he'll see this and respond.

Good point! Winter spent much of her life going through graveyards in Europe and making genealogies, tracing theater families. She traced the Price family from England, in around 1600, through Europe and to Copenhagen in the late 19th century; there are still Prices at the Royal Theatre there. The Commedia players were wanderers, too -- I think that some of the 18th and 19th fairground performers were descendants of these players. Why did it stop? I don't know -- because of the advent of the circus? The "gypsies" were institutionalized, joining carnivals and circuses? When you think of how small and closed society in Western Europe was at that time, it's understandable -- it was one of the rare ways to be free, to travel, to live without constraints.

Welcome, Oberon! I only saw the ballet once, here in DC, and quite awhile ago (20 years? It was during my first seasons of watching ballet in the mid-70s, definitely after Kirkland had left the company.) I have only the vaguest memory of it, but it's one I've often wondered about, and would like to see again. I think (writing this without checking) that in Joe Mazo's book in the company, written during the season whewn Robbins was working on this ballet, that Kirkland was injured during the rehearsals. According to Nancy Reynolds "Repertory in Review" she did eventually dance the 3rd couple (Peter Martins and Helgi Tomasson are both listed as subsequent cast third couple men. Reynolds writes this: "An Evenings Waltzes was a pure-dance piece, full of invention, but despite dazzlilng individual steps, one which did not have a great deal of impact. The rather noisy, tired-sounding music may have been to blame. "The ballet has some virtuoso partnering, which requires perfect timing, and when properly performed, some of the feats are breathtaking. It thus presents teh dancers in a most effective and rather different way."

There were lilttle groups of dancers, often families, who went all over Europe dancing at fairs. I don't remember whether they were hired by the fair managers or passed the hat -- perhaps it was both. The Price family was discovered by Bournonville this way -- he saw them dance and brought them into the theater's school. They'd dance ballet variations (there were probably hornpipe dancers, that sort of thing too). They might be the children of a ballet dancer from a small company, with basic training. Marian Hannah Winter's book, "The Pre-Romantic Ballet," has a lot of wonderful detail of fair performers. There were jugglers and acrobats, too; animal acts -- that kind of thing. A kind of traveling vaudeville. There were children's companies, companies of orphans that did Shakespeare, with five-year-olds as Romeo and Juliet. (Yes, they knew the lines.)

Not a photograph, alas, but mere words. George Jackson reviewed the Lithuanian Ballet's "Romeo and Juliet" for DanceView, and Egle Spokaite was the ballerina. Here's a link to that review: Romeo and Juliet

Bumping this up. Did anyone see Jesus Pastor? What did you think?

ABT is about to undergo a major generational shift in ballerinas. Kent's on maternity leave, McKerrow may be retiring. (Both are senior ballerinas, so even if they have one or two more seasons, it's time to realize they're not going to be there 5 years from now). Who are the next ABT ballerinas? Who do you see leading the company 5 years from now? Or, to look at the question in another way, are we squarely in the age of the Ballerino, with the ballerina taking second place? Will that be the situation 5 years from now? I realize that one dancer of any gender could turn the whole thing upside down, but just playing the cards we're dealt now, what do you think?

We've had lots of terrific reviews, and my sense is that people generally were quite happy with the season. Am I right, or off-base? What's your take on the season generally? Were you happy with the rep? Did you go to all four programs, or one or two? New ballets? Thumbs up, thumbs down? Who or what was the hit of the season?

djb, there are several people on this board who are learning Russian (not me), and I'm sure they're fascinated. If you ever figure out the secret to TER eh ko va please clue us in!

Thank you, Juliet -- we haven't had a review from you in a long time! A question -- are there reduced ticket prices for FF matinees? For children or adults? I often wonder, when I see a Parent with 3 or 4 kids in tow at the Kennedy Center, how they manage it.

Welcome to Ballet Alert!, Skyshark! We try to loosen our rules a bit for non-English speakers and those who live outside the U.S., especially when we have only one or two posters from one country, but I think I need to say at this point that, unlike other sites, we're not a chat board, and we don't want the board to be used to exchange personal greetings, or messages. We have a private messenger system for that -- you need to make 30 posts to be a full member and be able to use it. But we want the board to be used for discussions about ballet. In this forum, on the company, or performances you've seen. Thanks!

Another ballet company has disappeared -- here's an account of it by Laura Bleiberg in the Orange County Register. Company deserves to stay alive We have several people from this area -- what do you think? Kibbutzers watching from the outside welcome, too, of course.

A preview of Cunningham from Chicago: Choreographer not content to rest on his laurels

This may only be of interest to critics, but John Rockwell has a long piece in the NY Times about criticism. Thumbs Down, Thumbs Up: Prizing a Personal Voice Even if It Hurts

Thanks for posting that, Andre! There's a review by Laura Bleiberg in the Orange County Register -- mixed, though kindly (that's how I read it, anyway). Stylish L.A. debut shows room to grow

It's always possible that reference books are wrong. (Photos aren't always good evidence, as they're often staged or studio shots, or good/bad intentions that changed before the ballet made it to the stage.) Some of the reviews I've checked, including Denby's, don't even mention the pas de deux, only the solos and (in others, not Denby's) the mime. A note of interest: he referred to Kriza's solo as a "Tudor parody." There are several Robbins' books in the works, and I hope one will include a performance history (what was changed, when, and who danced what). Siegel is quite specific, but doesn't give her source: "The second sailor (John Kriza) is the one who danced the pas de deux, and in a way, his solo is a continuation of his attempt to win over the girl he found." That's the way that solo was danced when I first saw the ballet, and it's one of the reasons why having the Third Sailor dance the pas de deux seems out of cync. Whether the pas de deux sailor leaves the other two to go back into the bar, or the others run off after the girl, would make a difference, too. (I have no trouble at all bemoaning a choreographer's second, third, or fourth thoughts. ) There are references to the sailor telling his war stories, but I haven't yet found anything specific about shooting down a plane, so that may well have been added later. (I actually had remembered Japan, but couldn't, in a quick check, find a tour to Japan in that time frame so thought I'd misremembered.)

I don't think this is that unusual. (I don't know Johansson's story, so can't comment on it.) Children were discovered by ballet masters who watched them dance at fairs. Two other Danish stories -- sorry I don't have any Swedish ones, but I think these are typical of all Europe. As a teenager, Hans Christian Andersen was determined to be on the stage. He supered, he auditioned for opera, drama AND ballet. He was uneducated, a boy from the provinces. He unabashedly wanted fame. The town fathers, realizing that this guy was not going to go away, took responsibility for him. One family adopted him and paid for him to go to a grammar school -- outside of Copenhagen, where he'd have no distractions. He ended up a writer, not an actor or dancer, of course, but his journey started at the Royal Theatre. As late as 1920, the young Hans Brenaa was a farmer's son, on a farm far away from Copenhagen. One day a neighbor drove by, his daughter in the cart; they stopped and chatted. The daughter was going to Copenhagen to audition at the Royal Theatre's ballet school, why don't you come too? (Hans was one of ten. Why him? Who knows.) These were free schools open to anyone with talent -- unusual in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Poor children with ambition and talent found their way to them.

I didn't know Bakhchisaray was a real place either -- thank you (and welcome to Ballet Alert!) The photographs are lovely

No, Amy. I'm saying that people can learn even if they don't go to school or their parents are illiterate.

Yes, Bournonville's mother was his [bournonville's] father's housekeeper -- point raised as another example, since you asked, I thought, how Johansson was educated when his mother "may have been illiterate." I don't think that was unusual for theater people at that time -- and much later.

I double checked reference books on the "which sailor danced the pas de deux" question since it keeps coming up. If you take them in the order they dance their solos, they were First Sailor - Harold Lang; Second Sailor - John Kriza and Third Sailor - Jerome Robbins. The Second Sailor, Kriza, a/k/a the "sweet sailor" or the "sentimental sailor" danced the pas de deux. The third sailor, Robbins, danced the rhumba solo and not the pas de deux. (See Balanchine's Stories of the Ballets and Marcia Siegel's "Shapes of Change," a study of trends in American Ballet which has a detailed account of the action in "Fancy Free" and other works of that period.) One interesting point I'd forgotten and was reminded of by several authors is how Kriza didn't quite belong -- the Lang and Robbins sailors were always one step ahead of him, always sticking him with the tab, and ran off with the first girl, leaving him alone (to be found, of course, by the second). On another point, regarding the character of the two women, one of the books I checked, "Movement and Metaphor," was not at all helpful in sorting out the sailors, but did mention something that surprised me -- Kirstein called the girls "floozies." In a way, this makes sense. My mother certainly wouldn't have been in a bar, late at night, by herself, in 1944, especially not that close to the ships (and we lived in Baltimore, a sailor's town). But I never thought of them as "floozies," perhaps just girls with less restrictive parents I've never read a reference to "floozies" anywhere else, and I think this was a singular view of Kirstein's. I'd always assumed the shooting down the plane mime was in original, but only based on a story I read (and I can't remember the source) that when the company first went to Germany, the dancer "tactfully omitted" this bit. I thought the company's last revival of "Three Virgins and a Devil" was wonderful (Robbie Wallace was the Devil). I'm sure it didn't measure up to the Robbins-de Mille-Chase cast that atm saw; my cast was very young and sweet. But devilish, too, and entered into the spirit of the times (meaning they didn't look like contemporary kids lost in a work that made sense to a prior generation).

Bournonville's mother was his father's housekeeper (second wife), and he had virtually no schooling. Yet he was widely read, in French and German and English as well as Danish. Home schooling, you might say. Pamela, "pas" is used all through the 19th century, in the sense of "dance". It's not only "pas de deux" but "oh, please, can't I dance my pas in the next ballet."