Alexandra

I think Reyes may be very interesting as Juliet; it's MacMillan's production, and that Juliet doesn't have to be a lyrical dancer. I also liked her in the third movement of Symphony in C and didn't find her at all annoying. To me, the smile is genuine, not fake (actually, I don't even remember her smiling that much) but what mattered to me in that ballet is how musical her dancing was.

I wish I could contribute to this -- Massine is a choreographer who's always interested me. I have to say my heart always sinks when I see "Parade" on the program -- I don't like the music, I don't like the costumes, I don't like the movement, I don't like the whole idea of it! And yet when I see it, I always enjoy it and marvel at Massine's craft. (See the "taste" thread above -- this is a good work, I think, a minor work but a good one; it's just not to my taste.) If a company put on a Massine festival -- put all the resources under the heavens into that festival and gave us Massine as Massine would want us to see him -- would we say, "Oh, thank you! A lost choreographer restored to us!" or is he out of time now? (If the latter is true, he may well be back in time in another 20 years or so, so I'd be very happy for that festival to preserve the works.)

Thanks for being brave, BW! I think you've hit on the central problem, actually: like beauty, is there such a thing as universal good taste and bad taste? I'd argue that yes, in theory -- we hvae words for it, as I wrote above. But when we get to the examples, then we get into trouble. Maybe we're momentarily frozen, because of the Fear of Offense factor (I don't mean just here, but in society generally)? Yet we'll still say that something is "overly tasteful" or, conversely, "hideoulsy tasteless," and (unless we loved either work in question) most of us will nod our heads and know what we're talking about.

I don't think you can have an age requirement; some three-year-olds are better behaved than the throat-clearing, cellophane-rattling, cell-phone answering, smooching and whispering adults we've all encountered (and who live again in Pollard's piece). I wrote on a thread about audiences some months ago one very egregious case of a little girl who talked at the top of her lungs, sat on top of the seat (put the seat back up, sit on top of it) so that the people behind her couldn't see, and kicked the back of the seats of the people in front of her. The usher for that side of the house was practically gang tackled by her victims at intermission and they were afraid to do anything (i.e., make her extended family take her out of the theater) because the family didn't think there was a problem. (I suggested what they were telling airplane passengers to do at the time -- throw a blanket over her and drag her up the aisle.) And the house manager finally intervened. Most parents I've seen try shushing the child and, after the third yelp or wail, take them out. I'd like to believe that most people are responsible. I have to say that I've never had an audience problem at our local modern dance venue, Dance Place, although children are regularly part of the audience. Most are children of dancers and have been playing in studios all their lives. They know they have to stay out of the way of large people who jump at them!

This is another "wormy can" question, inspired by a web site a friend sent me this afternoon. It's a real estate site that has photos of apartments, most of them beyond my reachk but it was fun to flip through them and see how someone who could afford $6 million for a two-bedroom apartment would decorate it. Often when we think of "taste" or use the word, it's to say that something is in "good taste" or "bad taste." But sometimes it's just "different taste." Among these apartments were some that must have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to decorate, but I swear I wouldn't live in them they were willed to me with the stipulation that I couldn't throw out a single furbelow. Others were at odds with their buildings. There was one that looked like it had been owned by someone with a severe Barbara Cartland complex (everything was pink and there were lots and lots of organdy pillows and bows), but the building was starkly contemporary, very simple, very plain, the kind of place where you'd expect two pieces of furniture per room, max, and huge modern art paintings on the walls. Different taste. I wouldn't say it was in bad taste; it was quite elegant. It just wasn't my taste. Are there some types of dance/ballet that simply aren't to one's taste -- story ballets, ballets to X composer, "pretentious" ballets, whatever ballets? And can we differentiate between "not to my taste" and "that's in bad taste?" It's a very relativist age to begin with, and that, coupled with fear of offending (someone reading this will undoubtedly have a house filled with pink pillows; I apologize) makes us dance around the taste issues. There are choreographers who are often accused of being "tasteless" -- Smuin, Eifman, Bejart. And some who are accused of being "too tasteful" -- Ashton, for one. We have the elements of agreement in the language. "elegant," "sophisticated" "refined" are qualities that many would use to describe "good taste," while "coarse," "common," are words used to describe "bad taste." Little black dress and pearls, good taste. Chartreuse and purple polka dot plether dress with ruffles and a turquoise underskirt with a giant silver poodle tacked onto the dress, bad taste. Jackie O and Audrey Hepburn, good taste. Dolly Parton, bad taste. (I use her as an example because she's on record as saying she knows she dresses in bad taste.) Is taste still an issue? Is it a discussable issue? Or is it something that we can only deal with in small groups, when everyone has been vetted and has the password and we know we won't offend anyone? In discussing dance, is there a way around the taste issue? Should there be? Is there a way to say, "I think that using small children as soldiers is in poor taste," or "the moment when the corps comes out, wearing bikinis with swastikas on them, is so loathsomely tasteless," etc. I do realize that this is a can of worms, but if we're careful, I think it might be discussable.

Thank you for that, Estele. Now I don't feel quite as bad that I couldn't come for this. At least I have a good idea of what it looked like!

I had a German friend once who was shocked at how passive American audiences were. Why don't they boo? Don't you care about art? Good grief, let's get a dialogue started here. He'd boo at performances I was supposed to be reviewing, so I stopped taking him to performances. Cultural differences, cultural differences. (I'm sure I'll be told by 50 people that all Germans don't boo. I'm not saying that they do. I'm saying this one did and thought it was part of the theater-going experience.) Our Ranter did make a point of saying he considered the people disturbing him middle class -- he may mean that they're the masses. Hard to tell. But I did think it was about etiquette and not art. If no one was disturbing him, I guess, he'd think they were all basking in art, and no doubt viewing it in exactly the same way -- the right way! -- that he was. It's like all those ghastly commercials with the women looking attentively, intelligently, and the men being idiots, plugged into their walkmen and listening to rock (quietly, quietly, not to disturb) until they can contain themselves no longer, and ..... Come to think of it, he's right. They shouldn't go to the opera/ballet/concert. But I agree with Leigh -- it has nothing to do with art, or appreciating art. (I don't think it's TV, though. I think it's the death of the dining room table. People don't teach children manners or how to behave.)

There's an Op-Ed piece from the London Times that Ari posted on Links which might raise some eyebrows. Usually when the "is art for the masses?" topic is discussed -- gingerly, if at all, because it's so rooted in issues of class and education and taste -- the point by those who say "No!" is that for anything to be sophisticated, whether it's wine or painting or ballet, it can only be appreciated by people who understand it in all of its manifestations and subtleties. IF you try to make art that everyone can understand (like, appreciate) you'll wind up with Fox TV. (Lest this position raise egalitarian hackles, it's usually phrased as a matter of education, not rank or privilege. Anyone can learn to appreciate art, but you're unlikely to "get" art, particularly avant-garde art, if you've just come in off the street and think a painting is what's on a greeting card.) The Times fellow, though, has a go at the audience. It's Them that shouldn't be allowed in, because They don't know how to behave. It's mostly aimed at the middle-class. Any comments? Whisper It: Art is Not Aimed at the Toe-Picking Masses

Juliet, I'm not saying that one method is good or bad, just that there's a difference in emphasis. There are plenty of good teachers here and bad ones elsewhere, of course. I'm also not saying that American teachers don't want the students to get it right. I'm saying that in European schools -- England, Denmark, Paris, that I know -- the syllabus is at a deliberately slower pace and that there's a reason for it, agree or disagree. I also know many American teachers who complain about this -- that European trained dancers "don't know how to dance." (I'd argue that if they went into their own companies with their own repertories they'd dance very nicely. It's not a system, perhaps, that lets you dance 10 different styles in a week, at least not until you get used to it. To me, this isn't a bad thing. To others, it is.) I realized after I wrote the post above that I don't know whether the current RB School director is using Vaganova or not. There was a concern about the training and there may well have been a change -- so if anyone knows, please correct me.

Yes, Manhattnik, my comment was in response to yours. Partly because I groan whenever I read that quote; it's snitty. Geniuses don't have to be kind, or polite, but still. (Wasn't it made in the context of, "So why didn't you get the job in England?") More importantly, I think that because that quote is so often used, there are a lot of people who think that it means that "vulgar" (whatever that means; in the 1930s, it meant too many pirouettes) is something for which ballet dancers, or students, should aim. I'll echo what Hans said above: "As for the students dancing "correctly," isn't that how students are expected to dance?" I know quite a few American dancers who love Cecchetti. The Royal Ballet school hasn't taught Cecchetti for well over a decade. Merle Park changed them over to Vaganova. Anthony Dowell spoke to this in Washington during a company visit, saying this had been a conscious decision because otherwise "we won't be able to compete." But the point I was trying to make when I wrote the vulgar line above is that there are ways to discuss differences in schooling or opinion without mocking, trashing, or condescending to that with which we disagree or don't like. If someone thinks the demonstration/style was dull, then that's what they think. I've seen dull Royal Ballet dancing, as though all the juice had been leached out of the movement, and that may be what happened here (Kisselgoff makes some of the same points as Johnson, just does it in a more judicious way). And I thought Johnson's point, that delicacy comes from strength, it's not decorative, is a good one, and I can imagine what the students looked like in that regard from what he wrote; there are current RB dancers whose delicacy seems fake to me. I see it as part of MacMillanism. When his version of expressionism took over -- emoting on top of classical steps to make them more "modern" and "meaningful" -- I think the dancers became removed from classicism as a living force; it's no longer the native language. Perhaps the school has picked this up and is training the students for it. But I don't think being vulgar is what's needed. And I don't think that correctness -- in English, French, or Russian dancers -- is bad. It's just different from what we're used to seeing. Editing to add: I think the emphasis on correctness is one basic difference between European and American training. I've heard American teachers complain that European-trained dancers can't learn new or complicated combinations as quickly as American dancers. That may well be true, but it's the result of the difference in emphasis. Traditionally, European schooling has been to make sure that the students have the correctness in their bodies; time enough to mess them up when they get into the company. As students, they do it over and over and over until they get it right. When they start dancing professionally, then they'll have this in their bodies. I've noticed European (English, French, Danes, Russians) correcting to a fifth position rather than just comin' down close enough and bounding away again. I think this is part of that difference as well. Americans (or some of us, at any rate) value energy above everything. So it's a little sloppy, so their arms are dangling at their sides. It's exciting and it moves. But for a European school, I don't think that's what they want to show. They want to show the schooling.

Vulgar is now a universal good when it comes to company style?

I have to say I agree. I thought that was way over the top -- and I have to say I think some editors would have questioned such strong language about students. I don't read Johnson regularly now, so I don't know if this is standard, but I do remember one review last spring (of NYCB, I believe) that was so harsh that the Gottlieb piece that bothered some people here looked like boosterism in comparison. Let's just say that review of students wouldn't be allowed to stay up here Johnson's mother was a teacher, and so I'm sure he has strong feelings on how ballet SHOULD, if not MUST, be taught, but I think there's a way of saying it when children are involved.

I think Mary's described the contemporary notion of a "good genius". But I wonder, thinking about it, if my example above (the Nice Guy) could be considered a genius in today's climate. If his art reflects his life, I think it would be considered to have no edge. If it reflected a darker inner life, he'd receive serious consideration, but people would spend the next century poking around to figure out where the darkness came from. If he's not evil, he's bipolar or schizophrenic does seem to be the contemporary stereotype.

Has not the 20th century (and we still seem, alas, to be in the 20th century philosophically) concept of the Genius as Tortured Artist/Bad Guy replaced the 18th century angel genius, as the anti-hero and outsider have replaced the hero? Imagine, if you can, a painter who does not abuse his models, is not a drug addict, has been married to the same woman for 20 years, does not have a mistress, is a model father, and is nice to his mother. Imagine that you are this poor fellow's PR agent. How can you sell him? Dull as dirt -- he can't possibly be an artist. He's nice. He's decent. He's doomed.

Not wanting to let Rockville leave them in the dust, New York's City Council has banned cell phones at performances -- it was on ABC news tonight.

Or perhaps it's a case of one man's debut is another's out of town tryout?

GWTW, I just happened to see a film of early court dance reconstructions, or I would never have known the source of the Wheel of Fortune dance He made it into a pas d'action, the way the characters whose fates will be linked "just happen" to stop facing each other, but otherwise it's the same. I remember at the time reading that the flag dance in the first act is authentic -- from Sienna, though. I would love to see Loudiers in this -- I think all ballerinas should be able to dance as long as they can do so convincingly, and I think many of them can dance well into their 40s. And I have to say, although I was quite fond of Nureyev, I think his choreography looks much better on Legris than it ever did on him. He emphasized everything; Legris smooths the rough spots.

Thanks for the recap, Michael, but I really don't think we know what's in Kudelka's mind. Sylphide4ever, I think Michael is speaking for a lot of people who were upset with the Glasco affair. If you do a search for her name, you may turn up previous threads. She fought for her job -- not the money, but her job -- and lost. I think the points Michael made about Kudelka wanting a different kind of company are apt, but perhaps forced on him by events. The goverment withdrew a lot of money, quickly. The good old days -- when the company played back up in New York to weeks of Nureyev performances in the big classics -- were gone, perhaps at least partly because Nureyev was gone. Kudelka had to cut dancers and it's hard to be a Petipa-style, or really a company in the mold of the old Royal Ballet, which is what NBoC was during the 70s and 80s, without the sheer number of dancers to do it. Can you have a ballerina in a medium-sized company? I think so -- even a "Petipa-style" ballerina. The Royal itself did, when it was building. But today, there's what's assumed to be a more egalitarian push -- we've been discussing it on several threads in the Aesthetic Issues forum. Before it gets completely lost, could anyone answer sylphide4ever's question about tickets?

vrsfanatic, thank you for raising those points -- that there have been find male dancers with ABT before (going back to Erik Bruhn it the 1960s, and with the possible exception of Malakhov, none of the current young men equals that standard, IMO) AND questioning Morris's comment about the steps being new. Good grief!

I haven't seen all the films, so can't vote. But I would put a plug in for everyone in "The Hours," down to the boy who's Leonard Woolf's assistant and only has to give a Meaningful Glance. Not to mention the Cook! And she wasn't even nominated. If you're interested in acting, I'd recommend this film -- it reminded me of an Ashton ballet in its texture and rhythm, the way it uses detail and the way the superficial masks everything important.

Thank you, Estelle and cygneblanc! Imagine! A television station proud of its city's ballet company!!! I used the realplayer link, and the ballet segment is at 41 minutes into the broadcast, if you'd like to skip over the other stories and go straight to the defile.

I love atm's cast. Ashton would have caught exactly the right balance between general bitterness and the tragedy of never getting to wear the gown at the wedding. Lynn Seymour would be good, too, I think, in the second cast. (atm, you missed your calling -- Kirkland as Estella is very daring, but I'll bet it could have been interesting!)

But they're not primarily choreographing the play. They're choreographing the score. This goes for all the versions I've seen.

I think one of the characteristics of late 20th century ballet is the exposure of the athletic side of ballet -- I doubt that the analogy would have occurred to people 100 years ago. Of course dance has a physical component and requires strength and coordination and agility (but so does playing a musical instrument). But we're in an Age of Sport and sports heroes are so worshipped (and so rich) that comparing dancers to athletes seems to give it status. Also, before 1950, the aesthetic was to hide effort. The steps, the effort, the training, the athleticism, were private. I think the last thing a dancer would have been wanted to be told (in public) was that he or she was an athlete. Now, it's the first.

I second Mel -- I think the gestures are not anachronistic. (And other productions are crude as well, to my mind. There's some of it in MacMillan and Cranko, and a lot in Neumeier. I can't claim to have seen all productions of R&J. There must be 100 now.) Nureyev uses a lot of Renaissance material -- the Wheel of Fortune dance in the second act is a real court dance (I've seen it on a tape of reconstructions). I liked his first two acts. In the third, though, he does bring in 20th century material. Shades of "Moor's Pavane" -- he often put in whatever he was dancing at the time.