Alexandra

Just a quick moderator's word -- calling choreography "lousy" is quite within bounds. All the opinions expressed on this board are subjective I take your point, Ina -- but I don't know the politics of this particular jury, so I wouldn't hazard a guess as to why. (Although Fadeechev must be out of favor and unlikely to win any award for awhile from the Institutions, no?) I didn't know he had a company now, and was glad to hear about it.

She was doing Rosaline here, when the company brought Romeo and Juliet a few weeks ago. That's the first solo role I've seen Byrstrova do. I agree -- I saw her as a very young teen at the Kirov Academy and thought she was ballerina material then. I have no idea why she's not getting to do more -- but dancers can change after the age of 14, too I think she did a Shade in New York last spring -- she was on the cast list for it, at any rate.

This just in -- a press release about the Eifman company's visit to D.C.'s Warner Theatre. Scroll down for casting! A rare treat (thank you, press release people!) ST. PETERSBURG’S MODERN EIFMAN BALLET MAKES ITS WASHINGTON, D.C., DEBUT AT WARNER THEATRE, APRIL 26 & 27 TICKETS ON SALE NOW WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 14, 2003) Ardani Artists will present the electrifying Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg for two performances only of Tchaikovsky—The Mystery of Life and Death at the Warner Theatre. Curtain is at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 26 and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 27. Tickets, priced $36.50 to $56.50, are on sale now and available at the Warner Theatre box office, all Ticketmaster outlets, or online at www.ticketmaster.com. To charge by phone, call 202-432-SEAT, 301-808-6900, or 703-573-SEAT. For more information, call 800-669-STAGE. Hailed by critics as Russia’s most innovative contemporary dance company, Eifman Ballet was founded in Russia in 1977 by Boris Eifman and revolutionized classical dance by taking the art of ballet to its highest level of expressiveness. Eifman created a new type of dance artist—the dancer/actor—who uses the foundation of classical ballet training as a launching pad for innovative, modern choreography. The theater’s style fuses avant-garde dance with the methods of 20th century dramatic theater and film, and creates a rich and multi-dimensional theater experience. Shortly after its formation, Eifman Ballet began touring Russia, performing to sold-out houses of audiences hungry for original, artistic expression. In spite of pressure for Eifman to leave the country for not making “Soviet art,” the company stayed in St. Petersburg and continued to perform to tremendous popular acclaim. During the first 10 years of its existence, Eifman Ballet was unable to tour internationally for political reasons and became international in 1988 after its first performance abroad in Paris. Since that time, Eifman Ballet has toured throughout Western and Eastern Europe, Japan, South Korea, South A frica, Israel, and Latin America. In 1998, Eifman Ballet made its U.S. debut in New York and electrified audiences with its vibrant, often shocking, and original style. Eifman Ballet began annual tours of the U.S. in 2000, and is currently one of three resident dance companies that performs at New York City Center. Eifman, who has been noted by The New York Times as today’s “most successful Russian choreographer,” is a major figure in modern ballet. He has received numerous awards in Russia and internationally for his choreography and lifetime achievement in the art of dance. In 1970, he became the official choreographer for the Vaganova Academy, the official school of the Kirov Ballet, and in 1975 he choreographed Firebird for the Kirov. Since forming Eifman Ballet, he has created a series of full-length productions including Tchaikovsky, which premiered in 1993. Eifman Ballet’s Washington debut will feature Tchaikovsky—The Mystery of Life and Death, Eifman’s radical look at the mystery of the life and death of the great Russian composer. In Tchaikovsky, Eifman explores the composer’s tormented spirit and his sexuality—its origins and manifestations, and their profound effect on his life. Eifman’s company of more than 45 dancers—who are drawn to the company’s modern ballet repertoire—will perform. Music for the ballet is by Peter Tchaikovsky with story and choreography by Boris Eifman. Set and costumes are by Viacheslav Okunev. Casting: Tchaikovsky - Albert Galichanin (April 26); Yuri Smekalov (April 27) Tchaikovsky’s Double - Alexey Turko (April 26); Konstantin Matulevsky (April 27) Nadezhda von Meck - Vera Arbuzova (April 26); Maria Abashova (April 27) Antonina Milyukova, Tchaikovsky’s wife - Nina Zmevets (April 26); Natalia Povorozniuk (April 27) Youth, Prince, Joker Igor Siadzko (April 26); Sergei Zimin (April 27)

Thanks again Glebb -- I'm glad to hear that about Andersen, as I think he's one of themost gifted people directing a company today. I think Andersen is carrying on Kronstam, but Kronstam was carrying on Lander and Brenaa, who were carrying on Beck, who was carrying on the first Mr. B. Each changing a bit and incorporating things they learned and observed from their own careers, but sticking to the detail and the sense of making it live, living rather than acting on the stage.

Sometimes there are reasons people don't get promoted. I've seen Radetsky in several solo roles (Benvolio, Second Sailor in "Fancy Free" just this past season) and I did not think he was a strong technician, not at ABT soloist level, at any rate.

Grace, grace, where have you been? There were huge threads on Tobias a few months ago when New York Magazine, where Tobias was dance critic for about 20 yeas, eliminated its dance coverage and, hence, Tobias. (After a massive protest by the dance community, the magazine has added back some dance coverage, but not reinstated Tobias.) Do a search on this site for Tobias and you'll find those threads. Briefly, because I know her (she's a friend in Bournonville), Tobias is a New York-based dance critic, educated at Barnard (English major, I believe), who's written about dance since the 1960s. Her daughter, Anne, a dancer, also writes about dance. She was a long-time mainstay at Dance Magazine, writing features, later becoming news editor, and then became critic at New York mag. She's also written quite a few children's books. I think Tobias is an excellent writer and critic, and a rigorous one. Some were put off by her rigor; she didn't compromise or adjust her standards down, as the dance scene began to crumble. Her columns in NYMag covered all of NY dance (at a time when the New Yorker began to pull back coverage and focus mainly on the major companies). Ballet, modern, fringe, ethnic, all of it. Tobias now writes occasionally for The Village Voice and free lances.

Thank you for that, coda -- maybe not so bad a tribute to Nureyev after all (although to have the filmed image of a dead man overshadow today's dancers was probably not the company's intention!)

I agree with Dale. It's the rep. There's the consideration, too, which may have escaped the current company administration that when you have a brand name, it's best to use it. i.e., Americans associate Stuttgart with Cranko. They'll go to see a Cranko ballet, and may be interested enough in the dancers or the company to try out the new rep, but there's nothing in the new rep on its own that's a draw, unless you're a devote of New Now choreography, and New York ain't that kind of town.

Bournonville is an accident of history. He had the luck to work in a provincial capital, and, especially, the luck to have a balletmaster (Hans Beck) who knew he wasn't as great a choreographer as Bournonville and dedicated his career to preserving/refreshing Bournonville. Then, for a long time, there would be one or two dancers a generation who fought to save him. Now they're sick of him, so while his stock may be high on the global market, it's not all that high at home. Ask the balletomane on the street and you'll get, "We think he is a little bit old-fashioned," and I swear the dancers think the American's infatuation with the first Mr. B has something to do with the stories.

Dirac, yes, I think we have had embedded critics. That's what I meant by"if everybody knows about it." There are some that have been above board -- Joseph Mazo's book about New York City Ballet from the 1970s, for one. He followed the company very closely for a season and wrote a book about it (and a very balanced one, IMO). But there have always been critics who were a bit too close to the artists they covered -- I'm sure this is not only a ballet issue. The whole inside/outside issue -- how do you call attention to the work of a deserving artist who happens to be someone you know, and whom you know because you're interested in his work?

I'd be curious to know how this is being reported in Germany -- Diane, Jasper, anyone?

Blue chips are always good to hold, although Balanchine will have a slump whenever the Next New Thing really happens -- but it will be temporary. Don't sell. This does happen in the arts. Both Vivaldi and Handel were "greater" than Bach for a long time, now one would have to be careful saying that in a drawing room When I was in college, I was taught that there were three great American novelists: Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Faulkner. Fitzgerald had been Number One (on style points) but was losing ground to Faulkner ('cause he was Deep). 20 years later, when I was first teaching, I asked a student who was the frontrunner that year. Shocked that I would ask, she said, "Melville, of course." I wonder who it is today? Twain?

I have no problem with embedded critics, as long as everyone is open about the fact that they're embedded

I assumed they were referring to the good reviews from California -- I've never heard of a tour ending for any reason other than insufficient advance sales, though (short of war or natural disaster).

Thanks, Jorgen. One of the hidden Volkova stories -- something that's been virtually ignored in histories of British ballet -- is her influence there. She worked in London for most of the 1940s and coached Fonteyn in her big classical roles. Many gave Volkova credit for Fonteyn's polish. She also gave classes taken by most of Sadler's Wells ballet (and Ashton, who became a friend). I hope anyone with an interest in the Mariinsky will look at the site and read the "Letters" page for Volkova's letters to a friend recounting a visit to St. Petersburg after being away for 40 years. I think they're quite beautiful, as well as being a fascinating description of a city and a company.

Succinctly put -- maybe we should have a No Dogs Rep! award. (I know exactly what you mean, Paul. One looks at the upcoming season with a, That's not bad; well, we haven't seen that one for awhile; oh, no, not that again!)

Grace, I think you've hit on something important in reading criticism that's often not taken into account -- and that is that if one has seen the performance, and/or (especially) if one has strong feelings about the performance, then one will read something very differently than if one hasn't seen it. That quote didn't bother me either, and I generally admire Kistler. It strikes a chord though, because the first time I saw her was when she was 16, in Balanchine's "Swan Lake." She danced three performances here. I loved the first one, her line, the young strength, the vulnerability...everyone else I knew thought it was fine -- for a 16-year-old, but not at all finished. The second night, I noticed that the second third of the performance (speaking of thirds as a timeline) was more developed than the first night; the third night, that was true for the whole ballet. Looking back on it, I had seen her INTENTIONS rather than the reality that first nigiht; the third night, those intentions matched the stage performance. In that sense, the performance was an illusion, half-delivered at first, then completely delivered. If that makes any sense....

Brava, atm. You have good instincts. I hope you act on them Small bands of roving balletpeople, going from studio to studio, exhorting students to pay attention to their teachers..... you really might be on to something!

Welcome, Mike, and thank you very much for posting. I hope we'll be reading more of you! We used to have a rather robust Washington contingent, but several people moved away. (There are some rather long threads about the International Ballet Festival on the Recent Performances forum. You're welcome to ring in there, as well.)

What an interesting question. I think choreographers cannabalize their works fairly often, either producing "rough drafts" of ballets that are then scrapped and replaced by a version closer to what the choreographer intended, but couldn't pull off for whatever reason. (Balanchine -- "Mozartiana," had several versions; solos from "Figure in the Carpet" appeared in later solos. Material for Tudor's "Leaves are Fading" were in older works, in a smaller, or less finished form.) I think novelists do this too -- a novel doesn't turn out right and is put in a drawer, but the hero will resurface in a later work. So that's one kind of cannabalism. In writing revisions, I'd draw a distinction between the kind of revisionism referred to in the quote above -- the "Oh, my God, how could I have written THAT," from the man of 40 about the man of 20 -- and the kind that Fitzgerald did to "Tender is the Night" (in that case, the novel wasn't right, but, as I recall, he couldn't tell why, and it was acceptable and went to press. Shortly thereafter, he realized that if he began in medias res and then told the story in flash back, it would be better, and did that, and that version was published as well. Both versions survive.) The "material aspects" of choreography is a good point. It could be that Tudor's first "Leaves" attempts were rough drafts because he was choreographing on students and was limited by what they could do, both technically and emotionally. But if one thinks of experience as the writer's material, then they really are analagous, I think.

You raise a very interesting question. I'd say generally it's best not to try to get in anyone else's head because it's too easy to be wrong. But how do you handle this situation. A young woman has a reticent stage presence -- great technique, musicality, artistry, just no "star quality." She gets the lead in a new ballet....and blossoms. She now comes on stage as though she has a right to be there; she is a ballerina. You can write it that way, purely descriptive, but would you object to someone writing, "In this new masterpiece, Maestro seems to have given La Petite Sublimova not only a great role, but a great gift. She seems to have cast aside her prior reticence and dances like the ballerina she was born to be?" I guess it's a question, as it often is, of where do you draw the line? For me, what SEEMS to be happening to the critic/viewer is okay; delving into psychological or inner feelings of the dancer is perhaps not. An example of something some may feel is a bit cruel, "He dances as though he's making his grocery list in his head." Just another way of saying a dancer is not in the moment. How do others feel about this?

Fair is far -- for two very different views, read these: (copied from Ari's post on today's Links) The Washington Ballet performed the Kennedy Center on Thursday. Sarah Kaufman in the Washington Post http://www.washtimes.com/arts/20030405-12705840.htm'>Jean Battey Lewis in the Washington Times

I was hoping somebody else would go first..... On the plus side, the company is looking more like a company every program, and I salute Webre for that. It's no longer an extended end-of-school recital company (with some very good dancers); it's a real company now. The program looked very well-rehearsed -- I don't know if it was , but it looked as if it was. For me, the strongest performance was in Choo-San Goh's "Unknown Territory." Now, this is on my list of least beloved Choo-San Goh ballets -- it's boring, its derivation from Glen Tetley is even more obvious now than when it was new -- but it was beautifully staged. It looked exactly as it did when it was last shown here -- Balanchine, Ashton and Tudor should be so lucky -- except that it was better danced. I thought Michele Jimenez and Runquia Du were both excellent in this very long, slow, odd mating ritual in a tribe obviously destined for extinction. "Rubies." Well. I thought the staging and direction were far off the mark (Elyse Borne gets the credit in the program). Some of the movements were TOO sharp, as though the dancers were finding hidden things -- phrases that were supposed to be hidden, subtle, suggestive -- and dragging them into the spotlight with a big "Ta Da! Look what WE've uncovered!" I've never seen a "Rubies" in which the pas de deux couple clasps hands and boogies for a few bars in the opening moments. (Not a suggestion of social dance, but a Social Dance Moment.) Jared Nelson was so broad in the Villella role that a friend commented, "Does he think this is Rodeo?" Brianne Bland and Erin Mahoney are both very good dancers, but the former was miscast in the McBride role and the latter had trouble with the steps. Bland is a small, classical dancer -- she reminds me of Kristine Elliott -- and does not have Balanchine's "speedy leg" or look comfortable in jazzy movements. The corps looked well-drilled (one, two, three, turn) but weren't quite into it. (A very understandable problem with companies stuck in the four programs a year format. There's no time to really get comfortable with a new ballet.) The program closed with a new ballet by Trey McIntyre, which promised to be a Real Ballet. After seeing his "Blue Until June" for the company, which I think is a very light, pop piece, but a very well-constructed one, I was looking forward to this. McIntyre is talented. I've yet to see anything from him that has any depth, but he's still quite young, and he can make dancers MOVE. On this one, though, his reach exceeded his grasp. It's called "The Reassuring Effects of Form and Poetry" -- is the title a joke? This was an in your face, HIGH ENERGY exercise to Dvorak without either form or poetry. I didn't even see any effort at form, or thematic or structural development, and if there was any poetry it was of the postmodern kind, which is totally at odds with the music. (Dvorak's "Serenade for Strings.") REFP is for four couples. The dancers are dressed in medium shades of purple and blue. The men wear poet tank tops and loose stretch pants, the women backless tutus with spaghetti straps crisscrossing their backs, and the tutus have bustles. It's a period piece. It begins with a woman standing next to four men. What to do? Why, lift her, turn her upside down, pass her from guy to guy, splay her legs and exhibit her, crotch front, to the audience, and then turn her upside down again. What else? In the next section, a woman and a man dance together -- well, they share the same space -- and the man stands behind her, reaches between her legs, and...grabs her crotch. She later sits on him. I was beginning to wonder why it wasn't called "crotch shot," when McIntyre seemed to lose interest in this part of the anatomy. The reaction to the music is very superificial -- episodic, in the way McIntyre's "Blue Until June" is, but there he's doing a music video-style piece to a series of songs, and he can sustain a four- or five-minute piece of music. Here, he goes through the score tune by tune, often with a note for note literalism -- the dancers wave their arms at a tremulo in the music, for example. Duets were more supported allegro rather than adagio. (Why use a lush, post-romantic score and ignore its every emotional resonance?) One is painfully aware of repeats. The ballet is so choppy that one thinks the music is stopped and restarted -- although that doesn't happen. It just feels llke that's what's happening. The look of the piece is very Forsythian, but that resemblance is superficial, too, because Forsythe is a master of form. The movement was, to this eye, firmly rooted in the MTV vocabulary. Shoulders shook, chests shimmied. Lots of running, jogging. A ballet step here and there, but dumping oregano into chicken 'n' stars soup doesn't make it Italian. There was one very nice solo built on pirouettes for Bland near the end, and another with lots of petit batterie for a man -- who wasn't brilliant enough to carry it off. And why were these two dancers singled out for solos? Whatever. There was a hint of a Big Finale, when all the dancers were suddenly on stage, but then that idea fizzled out, too, and something else happened. The audience, which was not young (lots of board members and long-time supporters on opening night) gave it an instant standing ovation. I went home and listened to the music to make sure it was still there, and thought of Tudor, but that wasn't reassuring either.

Good to see you again, sissone. I hope you will stick around and report on what you're seeing in Houston. It's an important company, and I'm sure there are people here who want to know what's going on there.

Good idea. And don't forget Brake the nutritional supplement that packs a double whammy. One -- limits height of extension to meet preferred company standards (special formula, obviously, per artistic director's wishes) and Two -- insures that a dancer doesn't go on stage before s/he's ready. Another under the counter nutritional supplement is JetLag insures that effects of jet lag last at least 72 hours, to prevent traveling and dancing on the same day. (Otherwise, I loved Mary J's line of fine products )