Alexandra

Just a quick reminder that Balanchine had nothing to do with the current NYCB productions of "The Sleeping Beauty" and [full-length] "Swan Lake." His "Nutcracker" does derive from St. Petersburg sources. One could argue that SB and SL do not reflect his aesthetic. (I remember Tobi Tobias writing that the guiding principle behind Sleeping Beauty seemed to be "Out by 10:30") I think what Hans wrote about the difference between different productions and bad/wrong/inferior productions is a good one. We can always argue over whether "our" company is performing "their" choreography correctly -- and vice versa -- and usually, understandably, we have a lot more tolerance when a company we see regularly takes in a new work and performs it in native style. But there's another side to that fence.

My summer reading is a long-postponed project: reading all of Edith Wharton and Henry James, to fulfill a promise made to my American Novel professor many years ago. (We all hated both of them, the whole class, and could not get through "The Ambassadors." We tried. We really did try. And he finally gave up -- he loved James -- and said, "Okay, you're right. You're too young. You've got to promise that you'll read it when you're 40.")

I think we are the only ones, Mike. We had two Washingtonians who posted frequently but both have moved to other cities. This was the first serious attempt at making a classical ballet I've seen from Webre, and I thought it light years better than "Romeo and Juliet" or "Carmen." Some of the variations -- Spring, Autumn, Cinderella's first variation in the ballroom scene -- I thought were quite good. Not just an arrangement of classroom steps, but real variations, where the steps denoted character and were interesting to watch. The rest -- especially the corps choreography -- was rather perfunctory, but it was "real ballet" (defined, as a friend of mine does, by "you could tell whether they could dance or not.") As Sarah Kaufman noted in her opening night review, the corps was by no means perfect (timing was off, the dancing wasn't precise, but sometimes sloppy -- unpointed feet, skittery arms) but this is a big production and it will take awhile for the piece to jell. (I have to say I was very happy that Kaufman made the point that if the dancers spend most of the year doing contemporary dance, they're going to have problems dancing classical ballet. Pick one, please ) BUT. The ballet part is only half the story. The rest is sit-com level cheesy comedy, and the comedy was dominant on the opening night. The Prince was so weak -- in presence and in dancing -- and the Jester so strong that it made the second act look like the Jester had rented a prince to stand around at his (the Jester's) party. I agree with Mike about Jonathan Jordan (the Jester at all performances). He had several solos (opening night, it seemed as though he had 17 solos ), mostly jumps, and he not only danced very well but stayed in character; it was a very endearing performance, I thought. The ballet seems to have taken the Ashton version as a template, but lacks its subtle grandeur -- and doesn't use fairytale ballet rules. It doesn't discard them. It seems as though Webre doesn't know them. The Fairy Godmother's first entrance, when she's disguised as an old woman, should NOT be made with dry ice; reserve the mists for the second entrance, when it's magic! And Fairy Godmothers have wands. Webre said at a post-performance talk that he didn't give her one because he thought it was a cliche. No, it's an attribute. It focuses her mime, so that you know there's a transformation; without a wand, she's just waving her arms. And a Jester is not the Prince's pal AND an all-purpose servant -- he's neither. Having him kiss the female guests' hands is out of place. The Jester's role is to comment on the action, provide diversion. As good as Jordan was, unless there's a Cinderella and Prince who can top him, he was given too much to do. The stepsisters were done as bad parodies of the Trockaderos. They could have been named Mean and Meaner. One tripped a lot -- a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. And the other was ugly. So ugly that every male over the age of two gagged when they saw her face. That also happened a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. The poor father had to bumble through all of this -- splat! gag! -- and since he had nothing to do except, between splats and gags, comfort Cinderella (twice, I think), why have him? The stepsisters were at their ubiquitous worst in the ballroom scene. Because the Washington Ballet is a very small company -- too small, really, to do a work on the scale of "Cinderella" -- the kingdom is a very poor one. The guests were 6 corps couples in absolutely identical costumes. So it looked like, perhaps, a birthday party for the kingdom's two sets of sextuplets. In BOUND the stepsisters in their multicolored finery, and they take over. They barely look at the Prince, and go for the Jester -- which could have been funny, but wasn't made to be funny. It was just annoying. They provided the comic relief for the ball scene, which doesn't particularly need any (and the "Love of Three Oranges" sequence, would do) and the joke is that they lift the Jester. A lot a lot a lot a lot ..... As it stands, this is not a "Cinderella" for balletomanes. I'd go to see it for a new cast, depending on the cast, but there's not enough meat there to go to see the ballet for its own sake. BUT the bones are there, and if the stepsisters were trimmed (taken out of the first scene with the Fairy Godmother/Old Woman and at least one antic sequence cut from the ballroom and TONED DOWN to at least vaguely resemble human beings) and the choreography, especially the corps choreography, made more complex, it could be. One thing I thought Webre did very well, both as a choreographer and as a ballet master building a company, was to provide real roles for children, mostly the boys. There's a violinist and a tailor's assistant, and three liveried servants. The much hyped INNER CITY OUTREACH CHILDREN DANCE BUMBLEBEES AREN'T THEY ADORABLE???? were underused. Even seven year olds should be able to do more than run to the front of the stage, shake hands, wave at the audience, shake their butts and run to the back. And do it again. But the violinist and the tailor's assistant are real roles. There is also an Angel couple in the first act divertissement that's danced by children -- a boy and a girl -- that's charming. Otherwise, the girls from the school are cast as dancers rather than children -- they're butterflies -- and although they dance very well, they're obviously students, and they look as though they're there to fill out the corps, which gives the ballet a school production look. I thought Erin Mahoney, as the Fairy Godmother opening night, gave the best performance I saw, in any role. She has real authority -- ballerina authority -- had a sure sense of her role, and her dancing was both full and soft -- she never looked like a contemporary dancer, didn't emphasize her extensions. Michele Jimenez, who was the first night "Cinderella," a very strong, clear dancer, very sweet and very musical, but, to me, she looks the same in every role, with an all-purpose, ear-splitting grin and she always looks like a contemporary dancer to me. I prefered Brianne Bland, the second cast Cinders, who built the role, changing and growing from act to act, and saving her strength for the final pas de deux so that it really crowned the ballet. Of the Princes (dressed in raspberry velveteen, please), Runqiao Du gave an extraordinarily underpowered performance and seemed stiff and uncomfortable in the second act, especially. Jared Nelson isn't a Prince -- he's small and lacks line -- but he was actively engaged in the ballet. A final quibble: the sets were borrowed, so the company was stuck with what looked like a huge, colorful cardboard coach-and-driver-and-horses for Cindrella's trip to the ball. But there was no transformation scene, no pumpkin, no mice. "Cinderella" isn't a comedy, but a fairytale about destiny and coming of age and magic, and while things like wands and pumpkins might seem childish, they're integral to that magic.

I wonder if there IS a dance capital right now? There were two ways of looking at dance capitals. One was that the center of BALLET was home to the company where provincial teachers sent their best students to be polished. Is there such a place now? One hears more about students being de-polished It was also the place where a dancer needed to go to be seen, the place where the leading critics -- the most knowledgeable, traveled and persnickety critics -- wrote. Is there such a place now? The other definition was a city that had the most and the best dance of all types -- and New York definitely fit that bill for a good time. About 20 years ago, people started noticing that the modern dance scene was being squeezed out -- you couldn't go to New York and starve in a garret and make dance any more. Tharp started presenting her works out of town. Studios closed. The center has always been where the great choreographer/company was; stars came to it. So, to follow on Dale's last point, when the next Great Choreographer settles in, the center will build up around him or her. Any nominations for today's dance capital -- or ballet capital, because it's possible to have two separate ones.

All intellectual snobs welcome here. Does one really still have to make a case for why the Greek myths (or Indian, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, Norse, Roman myths) served art for so long? First, because they did provide a common frame of reference. If one needed to show Wisdom, the gods offered Minerva, or Odin. And second, because what high art has that popular art does not is layers -- layers of meaning, symbolism, etc. etc. etc. If people want to watch tv -- and they obviously do -- fine. But I just saw a serious attempt to make a classical ballet by someone whose frame of reference reached no further than sit coms. And that's not the road to anything that lasts.

Ed, I agree. There has to be a difference between a society whose communal frame of reference was the Greek myths and one whose communal frame of reference is anything on television! (I don't hate TV per se, I'm mistrustful of its influence. Nothing wrong with watching anything on it, as long as one knows the difference between something on prime time networks or cable and art, or literature. Of course, that difference is no longer being taught, and I really think the impetus behind that is that if you don't ever tell them that filet mignon is better, don't ever let them taste it, you'll sell a heck of a lot more hamburgers.)

But that's the perfect place for her, Glebb

NINA ANANIASHVILI TO CELEBRATE 10TH ANNIVERSARY WITH AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE Occasion Marked during Season’s Final Performance of Swan Lake on Saturday, June 28 American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer Nina Ananiashvili will mark her 10th Anniversary with the Company performing the role of Odette-Odile in the season’s final performance of Swan Lake on Saturday evening, June 28, 2003 at the Metropolitan Opera House. Ananiashvili was born in Tbilisi, Georgia and studied dance at the Choreographic School of Georgia before going to Moscow to study at the Moscow Ballet School from which she graduated in 1981. She won a Gold Medal at Varna at the age of 17, the First Prize and the Gold Medal at both the Fourth (1984) and Fifth (1985) International Ballet Competitions in Moscow, and the Grand Prix and Gold Medal at the International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi in 1986. Upon graduation from the Moscow Ballet School, Ananiashvili joined the Bolshoi Ballet where her repertoire includes Nikiya in La Bayadère, Kitri in Don Quixote, the title role in Giselle, Rita in The Golden Age, the title roles in the ballet/opera Mlada and in Raymonda, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, as well as The Dying Swan and A Dream of the Rose. Ananiashvili made her first appearance with American Ballet Theatre in 1993, dancing Odette-Odile in Swan Lake. Her repertoire with the Company also includes Medora in Le Corsaire, Kitri in Don Quixote, Lise in La Fille mal gardée, a leading role in Mark Morris’ Gong, Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow, the title roles in Giselle and Manon, the Operetta Star in Offenbach in the Underworld, Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, the leading role in The Snow Maiden, the second movement in Symphony in C and the Sylph in La Sylphide. American Ballet Theatre’s 2003 Metropolitan Opera House season is sponsored by UBS, ABT’s National Presenting Sponsor, and Movado Watch Company, a leading benefactor. ABT’s Spring season is also made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Tickets for American Ballet Theatre’s 2003 Spring season are on sale at the Metropolitan Opera House box office or by calling 212-362-6000. For more information, visit ABT’s website at www.abt.org

Brokenwing, "Chopiniana" (or whatever that is in Russian) was its original name. Diaghilev changed it to "Les Sylphides" when the ballet was brought to Paris; according to ballet lore, this was a marketing change

I remember once going to see the film about the Moscow dance competition in New York, and it begins by a narrator saying, "Welcome to Moscow, the dance capital or the world," and the audience roared. I thought at the time that if there were a simliar film about the American dance scene that began, "Welcome to New York, the dance capital of the world," there may well be a similar reaction by Muscovites.

I think "Les Sylphides" (originally titled "Chopiniana" in St. Petersburg, and still danced there under that title, with sets and costumes; the Royal Danish Ballet did it under "Chopiniana" too, to avoid confusion with "La Sylphide") has always been "Chopiniana" at NYCB -- when it was in the company and the workshop, presumably to emphasize the music and not the atmosphere, whiich was what the original title change represents. But I don't know of another company that dances it without sets and costumes.

Alina Cojocaru was injured in "Manon;" Jaimie Tapper took over. An article in the Times discusses the event, and has an interview with Johan Kobborg (her partner at the time) as well as an appendix on foot injuries. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-...-700285,00.html [This is also posted on Links, but I moved it here for diiscussion. Was anyone there?]

I believe Likolani Brown was a Washington School of Ballet student until very recently, btw. (Victoria, please correct me if I'm wrong.)

Mbjerk posted this on the ABT/NYCB thread and I thought I'd move it to a separate thread for discussion: Here is another question - in the nineteen seventies and eighties NY was the dance capitol of the world. What about now?

mbjerk, I think your "is NY still the capital of the dance world" might do better as a separate thread, so I'll start one on this forum. Drew, I didn't find your post negative at all but, as everything you post here, thoughtful and analytical, and looking at the big picture -- I certainly HOPE we'll get more of the same from you! I agree with your comments about ballerinas; the question of "what makes a ballerina" comes up here from time to time, and I'd point to your post as an excellent answer to that question.

Welcome to both Beeb and Nina -- I hope you'll post about other performances you're seeing as well!

I watched the whole body, but especially upper bodies, first for years. I've found that when I'm trying to figure out why people I know and trust are raving about a dancer I can't stand, I'll watch the legs and feet and consciously block out the upper body and face. I'll usually find that they're right -- great dancer, in the sense of clear execution of steps. But to me, dancing isn't just feet. Where do you focus on stage is another good question. It takes a long time to be able to take in the whole stage, I think, and to watch what's going on at the side of the stage, and to focus on the corps, or non-leading dancers, when the leads are on stage. Another good reason for repeated viewings!

Hi, sissonne -- I remember you! You were one of our earliest members. I hope you stick around this time

In the company's first decade, it did at least one Balanchine program every season, and sometimes one on every program, as did many regional companies then -- ballets like "Serenade" and "Scotch Symphony" were seen as useful in maintaining a company's technique. But the WB always danced them in its own accent -- it wasn't considered a Balanchine company. In the years after the death of Choo-San Goh, the company's repertory declined sharply. Lots of good faith efforts to discover the next Choo-San Goh, but the years before Webre took over -- were pretty grim. I think the company's direction at present is -- well, call it eclectic, call it confused. Webre wants to seem to go in several directions. More classical -- big ballets to attract the Kennedy Centery ballet audience. More contemporary, which seems to be his own natural bent and which some audience members prefer, too. It's a balancing act every director of small and medium-sized companies face, and it will be interesting to see how he proceeds.

A quick word here before this thread turns into yet another debate about this board's policy on workshops. It has been discussed extensively for the past four years and I don't want to go through it again. Those who missed those discussions or the posts that caused the policy--I'm sorry, but you missed them. I'm not going to rehash them nor the reasons for the policy. Comments on that policy are inappropriate for this thread. BACK TO COMMENTS ON THE WORKSHOP, PLEASE

Paula Citron, a Canadian dance critic, saw an NYCB program and spoke about it on the radio. Here's a link to the transcript. Any comments, natives? NEW YORK CITY BALLET - LINCOLN CENTRE

Hasn't anyone gone yet? Reviews (student performer-friendly reviews) please. I'm especially curious to see what the take is on what I've been told would be a setless, costumeless Les Sylphides.

I agree. I'm also going to close this thread, the purpose of which was to announce the workshop. Please post comments on the workshop on a new thread. On this forum

Good to know it's not just happening in dance. I guess From today's NYTimes: Remembering Cannes 2003: Worst Festival Ever

Did anyone go? I saw the first two performances but won't write about it here until after my review is published (of Friday night) probably on Monday. There are two reviews and a background piece on Saturday's Links. If anyone saw the performance and would like to comment, please do.