Alexandra

I did see Collier's Aurora, and I'd vote with Grace on the soubrette issue (she was a charming Lise in "La Fille Mal Gardee") Her Aurora was speedy. Fastest Rose Adagio I've ever seen. What's interesting about Collier is that, at the end, she was the last of the Royal Ballet's women to have the style, so even in roles where she wasn't ideally suited, IMO (Titania in The Dream, say) she was a pleasure to watch as a stylist. I do agree with the compact body suiting Petipa, and Ashton -- I don't care for long-legged Auroras. But I don't think all compact -- or classically-proportioned, in the 18th century use of the term, as Fonteyn was, are soubrettes. But female employ is so complex, and so much of it is lost, that I can only get at it. I believe each fairy in the Prologue of Sleeping B represents a different employ, for example, and Balanchine uses the exact same employ, in the same order, in Divertimento No. 15, but I can only see it, not name it.

Lots of interesting issues and questions raised; wish I had time to comment now more fully, but I just wanted to answer Doug. Yes, Nissinen completed his first year at Boston Ballet. So he did watch the dancers for a year before making changes. Paul, thank you for that wonderful description of Stowell -- if ever there was an example of a director cleaning house because he knew exactly what he wanted, and then making it happen, I think it was Helgi Tomasson in San Francisco. I remember, too, some dancers -- like Reyes -- that he kept and that he did change (for the better, IMO). And he also kept dancers like Cisneros (and, I think, Berman was there before he came) and worked with them.

It's a nice piece -- makes me want to see him. One of the problems living in the provinces is that we never get The Next New Thing until s/he's either established or over and done. All the reviews I've read of Khan, though, make me think he's the real thing.

I just wanted to pop in and say thank you to everyone -- these posts have been models of responsible information sharing. You all are wonderful :)

This week's DanceViewWest is up: Review The Wave Crests Summerfest Program 6 Cowell Theater, San Francisco July 24-25, 2003 reviewed by Paul Parish The last weekend of Summerfest was an embarrassment of riches—what a feast of brilliant performances. It's left me feeling kind of glutted, though. It's set up that way—with so many pieces crammed together in so many programs, with the best saved for last, so that the undeniably best dancing is set on a program where the pieces don't have time to set up their premises before they're over.... and then the next one takes you someplace else. Of course, part of the purpose of a festival like this is to allow modern-dance choreographers the chance to try new things, work with dancers they normally would not, experiment. Yet the results can be still-in-process, or austere, or idiosyncratic, with the puzzling impact of leaving you—or at least me—feeling disturbed with a wish that I'd understood more of what I saw. For example, a cryptic ritual interrupted Shadows, Whispers and Sighs about two-thirds of the way through a spectacle of remarkably fluent dancing: one of the dancers approached another and began unravelling her bracelet, which now hung nearly to the ground. (It was made of raffia or straw or pampas grass? or some such). Where did this come from? It left me baffled as one after another underwent this ritual, and left me wondering why I hadn't seen this coming. The dance is by the marvellous African-American dancer-choreographer Laura Elaine Ellis, with an all-star cast: Robert Henry Johnson, one of the area's most accomplished dancers, who's developed his own version of William Forsythe's fusion of ballet, modern, and African-American idioms, was only one of the four (who also included Ms. Ellis herself, Frances Sedayo, and the statuesque Nora Chipaumire). The program offered a note, but it explained nothing, only thanked the sponsors. Perhaps when we see the whole evening from which it is an excerpt, its meaning will open up. (full article inside) Review Shift Gears SHIFT >>> PHYSICAL THEATER Dance Mission Theatre August 8, 2003 reviewed by Ann Murphy Political dance has certainly mutated. What once was raw, agit-prop explosion or sententious sermonizing has all but disappeared from the dance scene. Okay, for the most part, it’s no loss, but why is it only the Dance Brigade brings us regular wild-woman interpretations of current social and economic events, along with forecasts about the future, which, by the way, keep coming true? Is it that nobody dares? Or is it that now people don’t know how? Maybe the problem is deeper: everyday politics have been transformed into hair-raising theater full of spectacular illusion and unsavory drama. Who can compete? Besides, in what fashion do you rail against the oppression of you and your ancestors when nearly everything in the political geosphere dwarfs those complaints? Genocide erupts as effortlessly as new epidemics leave the bush these days, while wars are as blithely scheduled as C-sections. It’s damn hard to make a ripple. (full article inside)

Rodney, I'd have to look that up and I'm on a deadline for the next two days -- I'll try to do it Wednesday

Interesting piece in the times about a choreographer who's winning raves from .... other choreographers! Shiva Meets Martha Graham, at a Very High Speed

I'd seen Pavlenko do just the Shades act in DC and loved her. I like her cool purity (which almost everyone else took as coldness). Thank you very much for posting that review, Viviane.

Thank you for posting that -- I heard it on the news just now. I hadn't known that Hines was ill, so it came as a shock to me. He was a terrific dancer -- a graceful dancer, and a graceful man.

It was one of his last, great ballets and was ditched in the 1930s (along with the other long, serious works). I regret the loss, not only for the sake of the score, but because without Valdemar, Valkyrien, Arcona and Thrymsqviden, we have a very skewed view of Bournonville as a choreographer. He had been working up to Valkyrien his whole career, getting the audience to accept serious work, and they did. These ballets were very popular in the 1860s and '70s. They lasted for 60 years. I know that the ballet was well-notated; it was one of the 16 ballets that Bournonville prepared in 1877 before he retired -- prepared, meaning got the paperwork in order in addtion to rehearsing the ballet and training a balletmaster to be able to stage it. I'm sure it's revivable; I doubt it ever will be. Much of it would have been mime, I'm sure, as Bayadere and Excelsior were mime, and there would have been character as well as classical dancing. The Valkyries' breastpieces were still in the Theatre's costume department in 1990. They were used in the (unfortunately awful) revival of Thrymsqviden. They didn't clatter I've posted pictures very occasionally, but we don't allow them -- too expensive to store, and they also cost a lot of bandwidth when a post is accessed. It's also quite a hassle to post them I do recommend Knud Arne Jurgensen's books -- heavily illustrated, and very detailed. There are photos from Valkyrien in his Bournonville, a Photographic Record.

I wrote to the press office two days ago and asked for that info, and have had no response. If they can't tell us, I'd like to open the floor for members to do so. The No Gossip rule is lifted in this instance If you know where some of these dancers have landed, please let us know. By now, contracts should have been signed, so there should be no harm in this.

Well, we can't always verify the facts But if anyone has them, they can post them.

I didn't count them, but when I read the article, I did have the reaction, "It didn't seem like that many when I read the press release." It is not unusual for companies to have 40%, even 50% turnover. The smaller the company, of course, the more you notice it.

Good question I'm going to move this to the Boston Ballet forum so that the Bostonians will be sure to see it -- but anyone is welcome to chime in, or course.

There are a lot of bits of ballets in those classes -- that's how "Flower Festival" got saved, a few others -- Konservatoriet, I think. Stanley Williams staged a lot of Bournonville for the school --others as well. Adam Luders staged a pas de sept (cinq?) from "Erik Menved," a long, long lost ballet, but one that was noted. There's a missing, and now probably lost forever, "Sunday Class" set by one of Beck's pupils, Karl Merrild, who taught all the great dancers who went through the school in the '30s and '40s. He put in variations from ballets he'd loved that hadn't gotten into the original six, and taught it to the children. This was written down too, but Merrild left the Theatre in 1949, and no one knows what happened to his notes. When I found out about this, I asked dancers who were interested in Bournonville, and some of the Danish critics, who all shrugged. Or said, "Oh, yes. Merrild had a lot of notebooks."

"The Four Seasons" is by Flemming Flindt. (Frank Andersen has never choreographed.) I saw Vessel in that, too, with Nureyev, at the Uris, on one of his Nureyev and Friends program. The night I went (his birthday) he slammed her into the barre so hard it broke. Ah, those were the days. Sadly, Jens-Jacob Worsaae died quite awhile ago, August of 1994, I believe.

Glebb, there's a Danish TV show from the late 1960s -- Peter Martins is in it as a very young dancer. I've seen it, but don't have it. (You're going to have to make Danish friends Preferably older ones, who started taping stuff as soon as VCRs were out!) I don't know how much is on there. It's certainly not all six classes. There are still teachers who could set the classes (I have some recommendations ) I'm also sure they are written down. Anne Marie Vessel Schluter, who's the head of the school, might be the one to contact.

Keep checking. The prices go up and down -- one book I was watching was at $160 (I didn't buy it.) About three months later, a friend saw the same thing for $69. That's still steep, but it is cheaper. On the other hand, libraries are free. On the third hand, you'll be lucky if they have a full shelf of dance books! Good luck, and let us know how you fare -- and what you think of the book!

Lots of interesting points here -- thank you! I think Leigh is right when he points to the pitfalls of charging lower prices. If you're a subscriber paying, say, $50 a ticket, you might not be pleased to learn that the person sitting next to you paid only $30. BUT if a company is really in trouble -- 50, 60% houses, say -- then they often get desperate and raise ticket prices to cover costs, which could reduce the houses to 40%. In that case, I think it would be worth it to try lowering prices. A student rush idea that the Washington Ballet used to do in the early 80s was very popular: $1 general admission tickets. They danced in Lisner Auditorium, then, which has a combination of very flat orchestra seats (bad sight lines) and a very steep, bleacher-like "balcony." The student rush tickets were at the top of the balcony and 1 minute before curtain, you could "rush" down and take any seat in the house. Added a bit of sport to the occasion. Mark, I think it does go beyond just the prices, though -- and sports events and rock concerts are proof of that, I agree. I do think the audience age varies. Two anecdotes. First, I remember reading in the late 1970s an article that said, almost in passing, that NYCB was worried because the average age (or median, can't remember) of its subscribers was 55. I've read that same number several times in the last year as the average age of this or that company's subscribers. (My line for that is "There's a new crop of 55-year-olds every year." Maybe they should do some Freshman Class initiation ceremony when you turn 55?) Another anecdote. I'm doing the second half of Ballet Alert's preview section now, and talking to press and other company people. One person connected with a company in a "market" where there are a lot of 55-plusers, and whose subscription base has grown over the past two years, said that actually the audience was more young people. The older ones don't come -- and this is a company that does not have a pop repertory. Washington Ballet, too, has increased its subscriber base since Septime Webre has taken over, and has been attracting younger audiences, although it IS doing a lot of contemporary and pop work, and I think they would like to attract older audiences, too. So it gets complicated. I also think the Fourth Ring Society is a great idea

I think that's a good point, Ari -- it's all the fault of Realism, poison to ballet, IMO. I've read a quote from Carla Fracci saying that one must go mad prettily -- it's Romantic Ballet, not a madhouse. (I think that's why the 18th century Noverre had his dances in wigs, which are a stylization. Yes, they were a part of the costume of the age, but the whole age was a stylized one. As for today -- it can work, but not when the dancer dancing "Giselle" falls sane and arises MAD. But that's just bad acting.

You can get some out of print books from Amazon -- click on the link at the top of the page and do a search. www.alibris.com is all used books -- they list books from little shops all over the country. I've bought from both amazon and alibris with no problems. I know there are other used booksellers on the net, but I don't have their urls -- others may. Good luck!

Rodney, I've seen some drawings from Noverre's ballet. I remember dishevelled hair, but not Giselle-like. More a messy wig with snakes coming out of it. But they made the point One of the best books -- lots of drawings -- I know of pre-19th century ballet is Marian Hannah Winter's "The Pre-Romantic Ballet." VERY expensive and long out of print, but it might turn up on alibris, or another web site of that sort.

Always feel welcome to chime in, Susanne. I think the full company went to St. Petersburg. What you saw was a small group of dancers produced independently -- meaning the engagement wasn't arranged by the company, although the dancers and most of the repertory were NYCB. What did you think of that performance? (I know that's slightly off-topic here, but I don't think people will mind.) Who danced "Apollo" and "Tchaikovsky pas de deux"? And Dale, have you read any more Russian boards for us?

Love your illustrated answer, carbro! Yes, that's how I read it, too. I think, too, that students are taught they should shock. I found that when I taught aesthetics at a local university one semester. That was their only option; that's what they had been taught that artists did. (Aristotle was a BIG shock to them!) When I was a student in an M.A. dance department here, some of my friends were in a dance composition class, and they were given assignments to recreate some of the very radical experiments done by the Judson Church movement people -- without learning the basics first. So what had once been a genuine reaction against something became something learned by rote. And that was 20 years ago.

Many good points made here -- and thank you for the Austrailian view, floss. (I agree.) I thought Mel made a good point, too, about not treating everyone like six-year-olds. The (few) 9 and 10 years olds I've known have been very open, eager to learn about new things, and eager to put themselves in OTHERS shoes, rather than making Other walk in theirs, if that makes sense. Part of understanding slavery -- or the Holocaust, or colonialism, or the Trial of Tears (a terrible incident in American history where Native Americans were forced to walk from their homes in Georgia to be resettled further west) -- to me, is trying to get at why and how the situation occurred, instead of just how terrible it was. And perhaps most important, to understand the mindset of the time. I remember one eye-opener for me in high school was reading that in the Middle Ages in Europe, many believed that females were incapable of reading -- because they had never been taught it, and, thus, never read. To me, it's not a slight difference; there was more to lack of female education than Evil Men refused to let their daughters read. (The attitude changed when some men without sons, but desperate to pass on their knowledge, decided to try, kind of like trying to teach a dog to speak in their minds, and voila ) I agree with linendale, too -- I hadn't thought of that. But it DOES breed moral superiority. "If I'd inherited slaves, the first thing I'd do when I hit 21 is to free them." Right. And you're in the mid-South. What do you do with the ex-slaves? Just say, "Good-bye, here's 10 bucks, you're free, have a nice life?" They wouldn't get ten miles without being captured and enslaved by someone else. To me, it's more important to encourage -- and help, guide, lead -- children to think things through instead of just having them check off the "right" answer to a moral question. And if we do expand their imaginations in this way, they'll be able to look at ballet with more sophisticated eyes and minds, too