Alexandra

This just in from the NY Times news alerts:

Patrick Swayze, Who Starred in 'Dirty Dancing,' Is Dead at 57, A.P. Reports

Patrick Swayze, the balletically athletic actor who rose to

stardom in the films âeoeDirty Dancingâe and âeoeGhost,âe

and whose 15-month battle with advanced pancreatic cancer

drew wide attention, died on Monday, The Associated Press

reported. He was 57 and lived near Los Angeles.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/09/14...tml?_r=1&hp

From DC, I very seldom see political figures at the Kennedy Center these days, but in Olden Times (70s, 80s) quite a few Cabinet members, Senators, newsmen and Kennedys came regularly. Senator Fulbright's season tickets were right behind the Post's seats on Wednesday night. I remember after one "Les Sylphides" I heard him say to his wife, "That was real purty, honey."

Dan Rather used to come regularly when he was anchor in D.C. Joan Kennedy and family would often put in appearances -- John Kennedy Jr. also came when he was in town.

One FBI Director, whose name I forget (after J. Edgar), was also a regular attendee. I remember one performance when his administration was in disgrace for some reason or another, and no one would talk to him at intermissions. Brzezinski (sp) seemed to be a fan -- I remember seeing him often, once in a box with Beryl Grey, and they were obviously friends.

Ronald Reagan would attend his son's Joffrey performances. Both he and Bill Clinton (at separate times, obviously) were in the audience at Lisner Auditorium, and the Secret Service was obviously hating every minute -- not only the ballets, but the layout. It's a typical college auditorium, and even with guards stationed every 20 feet down both sides, heads pirouetting constantly, it was a very open space.

Elizabeth Taylor came to a few performances when she was appearing here in a play. AND Sandra J. O'Connor was an avid modern dance fan.

Larsen was excellent in that clip---he really captured Massine's persona---you could easily fool me into believing it was Massine. Who is the fellow who did those fast pirouettes?

atm, I'm reasonably sure that is Stanley Williams, as he played the part of the jailer.

It is danced with such conviction, isn't it? Late in his career, Larsen was noted as a character dancer, so people forget he was a star dancer -- not a classical one, but a star dancing character dancer He created a 45-miniute solo in Harald Lander's "Qvaartsiluni" ("the Nordic 'Rite of Spring'").

Farrell presented "Meditation" here a few seasons ago. As far as I remember, several (if not all) of her principal dancers danced it. (It didn't match the brief moments we have of Farrell on film.)

Well, one of the chief pleasures of classical ballet is that, if you see 20 ballerinas (real ballerinas, not just dancers ) dance Aurora, or Giselle, or Odette/Odile, you will see 20 totally different interpretations -- different physicality, phrasing, dynamics, liunes, everything. Not because they're trying to be different, but because they're being themselves.

Thank you for that post, Sandor O. I don't think it's possible to really truly understand it -- it's been one of my main interests for the 30 years I've been a critic. I have a few insights (many of them learned qiute lately from working at a ballet school) but there's no answer, any more than there's a factual answer to why Beethoven was Beethoven.

I think some things can be learned -- a dancer can be polished, can imitate a gesture to look sad, or loving, or whatever emotion is appropriate; can count so that s/he seems musical, etc. But I think much of it is instinct -- and how anything as unnatural as classical ballet can be instinctual is one of the great mysteries of life.

A story. We had a boy from Korea at KAB who did an Albrecht, at 15, that is better than most Albrechts I've seen danced by 25 or 35 year olds on stage. It's my understanding that there is no tradition of Romanticism in Korean culture. I doubt he knew the story before his teacher taught him the pas de deux (they just danced the pas de deux) but he felt that music, and you could see, on a bare stage, a forest and a moon. I asked him how he did it, and he said, "Not artistry. Technique." Yeah, right. He could also tell, by instnct (because what can you have seen at 15?) which dancer should dance which role. ("He not right for that. He not Albrecht. He Basil.")

I've seen students study videos and choose which one suited them (with guidance from their teachers, who might throw out everything they've learned) and work and work on a role and give excellent performances -- perhaps limited by a less than excellent technique, but you can't fault the feelings. Some of them do not have perfect turnout or beautifully shaped feet. Some of them are 4.4 pounds overweight -- things that would keep them out of major companies, so you'll never see them. And then there are the technical whizzes who seem to not have a brain in their heads -- but I have them in academic classes, and they are intelligent, and can think, and analyze literature and understand Romanticism, say. It doesn't show in their performances -- thinking too hard? Or is it that they're given such difficult material that, at 15 or 16, they are struggling to master every step and they don't have time to phrase it?

I liked the Ballerina movie a lot -- and so did my students (I showed it to them in summer school this year). A lot of them asked very similiar questions to what you raised.

Thanks, Helene. If Im remembering correctly, John Guy wrote quite a bit from Copenhagen for "Dance and Dancers."

Thanks for posting that, Helene. Who conducted that interview?

What Hubbe said is almost exactly what Ib Andersen said in an interview I did in about 1994. "He was the glue that held the company together. He was the only reason the Danish ballet held on to its international reputation as long as it did.” It's generally what the dancers said when I was doing interviews there. It was very good to read it from Hubbe

Oh, well I don't remember it being funny OR Latin (but I was just about to come back and say, "I think it was calldd 'Burn'" when I saw Helene's post.

Back to Steve Reich, here's a link to a brief biography of Reich that mentions his collaborations with dancemakers. Maybe this will job some better memories.

http://www.newmusicbox.org/archive/firstpe.../reich/bio.html

Laura Dean did several dances to Reich. I saw them, but it was a long time ago -- She was fascinated by the whirling dervishes, so they were based on spinning, with subtle changes to match the equally subtle changes of tempo or rhythm in the score. I liked them, especially one she made for....ice dancers! John Curry had a very short-lived company, and she did one for them that I loved -- but I can't think of the name at the moment. Sorry, these are off the cuff notes from memory.

I can't view it either (it says Unavailable in Your Area), but just from the one shot of "Fonteyn" taking a modest curtain call, it's awful. And reading the accompanying promo is worse. Do they distort political and diplomatic history as badly as they distort balletl history?

Keep going I'm enjoying reading these.

I haven't seen very much of Limon's work, but I've liked everything I have seen and wish there were more to see. Thanks for writing in such detail about it. As for Forsythe -- your review was just like being there

I don't have the date, unfortunately. I hope someone else will.

Thanks for linking to that, bart. I didn't remember I'd put it on line (The Danish dancer, Bjarne Hecht, translated the review for us. I found it fascinating the way the reviewer approached it -- not through movement, nor even the story, but through the music.)

I've seen this, and it is a wonderful find on several grounds. First, the DVD is clearer than the film. Second, there are dancer identifications. (Erik Bruhn is about 20 here, and is absolutely gorgeous. You can tell he's a great dancer, even though he's still a boy, and even though he is not yet fully trained.)

And third, it's a beautiful work.

Another thing that sis interesting about it is that, in 1948, the RDB was just at the cusp of their international period. Children were still being trained by the Bournonville Schools (two classes only, danced the Schools every day). There had been some dabbling in mostly Russian, or faux-Russian, styles by some of the stars, and some of the young men (Bjornsson, Bruhn and Stanley Williams) had been dancing in London, right after the war, but mostly this was a really truly Danish company -- no real Russian influence. They also haven't had a great classical ballet director for 30 years (when Hans Beck retired; Lander was a character dancer) and it shows.

The dancers are mostly very small. There were men around 5 feet tall and women a bit shorter. But they all look alike -- they dance alike. It's really like watching a family. Yet there were at least two tall men -- I believe Frank Schaufuss is in that (6'3) and I know Henning Kronstam was in it (5'11, at 13). I can find Schaufuss, I think, because there's one very tall man in one section, but I cannot find Kronstam (and believe, me, I've looked!) He was mentioned in a review, in which the reviewer complained that the company was so hard up they had to use a boy from the school, and even though Kronstam had had a major, pantomime role in an opera ("Peter Grimes") they shouldn't be using children.

Larsen is interesting, in Massine's role. Mona Vangsaa, 8 years from being Ashton's Juliet, already shows she has "modern" lines.

A few months after the premiere, Lander had the sets painted over and used as a backdrop for an evening of Bournonville divertissements. He did not want the Russian influence to come there (yet he began preparing a very young Toni Lander to be as Russian as possible, changing "Etudes" from Danish to Russian, sylphs to swans). This action is believed by many to have precipitated the Lander Scandal (he was fired after a court trial for sexual harrassment, but many feel that the dancers really wanted to get him out of the company).

Anyway, lovely DVD, glad it's out

Thank you for posting this, Mme. Hermine. I was very sorry to read it. I knew Norman Crider from his days at the Ballet Shop; half of my dance library came from that Shop! He knew every customer -- and what he had SOLD to every customer. If you saw a book, he would call over to say, "No, you have that one. You need the OTHER Keith Money book -- I think I have one in back."

One more time. The topic of this thread is Ruth St. Denis. . Please keep to the topic.

Thanks for getting us back on track Amy.

One further note. Cut the personal comments. If you have something to say about someone's post that goes beyond the content of the post, USE PMs.

If the Moderators think a thread is going off the rails, we will say so. Otherwise, stick to the topic under discussion, please.

Back to Amy's question and clarification.

Thank you for that, Leigh! Of course, one has wild dreams that Ms. Maddow's fans and followers (does she tweet?) will all dash up to jacob's Pillow.

Dan Rather is (or was) a ballet fan. He frequently attended Kennedy Center ballet performances when he was based in Washington. So did quite a few Senators and Cabinet members of the '80s and early '90s. Didn't help.

In the 1950s and 1960s, there was an ad that appeared in ballet programs with a photo of a dancer, in tutu, and wearing only a bra. A sturdy piece of construction that a Viking Warrioress might don before going into battle. The caption was: "I dreamt I was a ballerina in my Maidenform bra." (or was it "I dreamt I danced a ballet"?) You can tell from photos and films from that period that women of whatever size wore armor while dancing (and everywhere else, of course, before the Bra Burners).

Now, I was wondering about when you said lots of choreographers change Swan Lake for productions. It's true there are endless reworkings, reimaginings of Swan Lake, which is a pity because Petipa's Swan Lake is perfect. But the prevalent ethos of a lot of modern choreographers towards the classics seems to be, that if something's not broke, bludgeon it into bloody submission with a sledge hammer until its a pulped, bubbling choreographic mess of cheap tricks and dodgy juvenile subtexts.

Simon, I loved your post, but especially this paragraph. I don't think I've ever read it described so perfectly.

I know your synopsis is a satire, but, for those who have only seen the reimaginings, I would add that Odette is not a bird when Siegfried sees her, but a woman, and in the goodolddays, Odile did not spend the entire act trying to make herself look as different from Odette as possible, but was Odette to life, but with a different personality. It could be taken as the lakeside Odete is the private woman and the ballroom Odile is her public face. Harder to do, of course, and so it's gone. (Letestu, on the latest POB version of Swan Lake, uses an old trick that works, at least for me, by being warm to Siegfried and turning to the audience, as an aside, growling and seeming to say, "stupid boy. Now, watch this.")

This is one Neumeier I'd like very much to see. if it's the same version I've read about, Siegfried is modeled on Ludwig, the Mad King of Bavaria, who had a thing for swans -- to the point of having a swan pond in his castle.

James (and good to read you again!) please tell us about it -- including what regions it will play in

I definitely feel the ominous element, even from the film. It's SUBTLE No Death figure, nothing obviously dramatic, just people swirling at the edge of a precipice, which is what is in the music. It's the bright young things waltzing, partying, waltzing as the world is about to explode, who don't realize they're in a vortex until the very end, and I do see that in the choreography.

Interesting. Remember in the ABT film how much time was spent with Kolpakova's rehearsals AND Symphonic Variations. Maybe Wiseman has taste

And there were Peter Schaufuss's ballets about Elvins ("The King!") and Princess Diana. That one died a quiet death in Birmingham, if I remember correctly, on its way to London. On third thought, perhaps drinking WOULD help

Marc Haegeman's site has a new look -- I was checking today to see if he had any new photos up, and of course, he does. The Photo Galleries are lovely Marc! (There's a section on his dance writings, as well.)

So here's a shameless, and very heartfelt, PLUG:

http://www.for-ballet-lovers-only.com/specials2.html