Alexandra

Hi, Vila -- we will await your review with interest This ballet did come to New York, and as I remember it, we had strongly divided opinions: In this corner, those who thought that it was a masterwork and Eifman the greatest choreographer of the day; and in that corner, those who thought the ballet was preposterous, tasteless, and pop! I don't know anyone who's in the middle on Eifman. Outside of New York, though, his company generally gets good reviews. It will be very interesting to see what Paris makes of him!

Good point, mbjerk. Contemporary Executive Directors, I must say, remind me of Alias in Loring's "Billy the Kid." Get rid of one of them, another, just like him, leaps out at ya from behind the next rock!

Hurok wanted to call it "The Farmer's Daughter" for the American tours in the 1960s. It's always been a hard sell because of that title. Thanks for your post, 4Ts -- I'm all for bringing the children to the theater, just worried that marketing it as a kiddie show will turn off the Lollys

I agree, I agree I note especially your line that "perhaps Dowell's international career was not an asset to the the company." I think his dancing with ABT at the time that he did -- the Jane Hermann era -- changed his dancing. I have English friends who found him different when he returned, but I saw the changes as they were happening (and I take it you, too, noticed them). He became much more presentational, and started "selling" his dancing. I also think the backstage practices at that time -- lack of rehearsal, the "let's just throw it on stage" -- and the ABT sense of casting -- anybody who can do the steps can dance the role; the more casts the better -- colored his direction. I'm so glad somebody else said this first

Interesting, Katharine. My memories of Mlle. Maurin are from the company's last appearance in DC, which is quite some time ago. At that age, she was very light and neither her dancing nor her acting had much impact -- she did Gamzatti at a matinee -- and we were all puzzled at what the company saw in her. Yet it seemed as though she was the dancer who most interested the balletmasters (from conversations after class). From what I've seen on film and in photos -- we had some lovely ones in a recent issue of DanceView to go with an interview that Marc did with Maurin -- she did indeed gain weight (not in the sense of pounds ) and authority. Maturity, or perhaps being an etoile? There are times when naming a dancer "etoile" brings out the "etoile" in her (Ryom in Copenhagen is one example of that, I think.) So I hope that is true in this case. Regarding Osta, we have a new poster who admires her. Cyngeblanc, what roles have you seen her dance that you especially admire? You wrote that you hoped to see her in "Giselle," but I wondered what you had seen her in that you liked.

I think this subdiscussion has run its course. I would like to state, though, on behalf of the board, and for the benefit of the many dancers who read us, that college attendance and intelligence are not the same thing. We have a policy that when two posters are locked in a disagreement that seems unlikely to be resolved that they take it to email. Please return to the topic, which is Baryshnikov's new Think Tank. Thank you

Welcome, cyngeblanc! Thank you for your post. I hope you'll write about performances you're seeing -- there are many people here who are interested in the Paris Opera Ballet but do not have a chance to see it often. I hadn't thouoght of Osta being a replacement for Maurin -- but she does seem to be in the same "line" -- small, delicate -- if she doesn't yet have the star power (it seems from these posts; I've only seen her in photographs and a few videos and can't comment on her stage presence.)

I like Leigh's definition. And I also think it's important to point out that there's personal style as well as company/school style. Here's another one that's a mixture. I first noticed this in POB dancers -- when they turn their arms are rounded and form a circle. Aesthetically it fits with their very clean style -- no wild arms there. But technically (thank you, Victoria ) having the rounded arms helps them turn. If the arms are extended, or straightened, it can throw a turn off. So this is nice, neat way of holding the arms has a lot to do with technique, but the look of it has become part of the style.

Thanks for that story, Ray -- it fits in much of what I've read. Perhaps what's most interesting now about Farrell is that she has gotten past this and can now look at what is in front of her instead of sticking to preconceived notions. Don't all dancers start out that way when they begin to coach? If they're lucky, they have someone older and wiser around who'll say, "I wouldn't do that," or "Remember you were 5'7 and she's 5'3. Don't you think this or that should be adjusted because of the height difference?" or whatever. And some listen and some don't. Farrell seems to have listen and grown. I also would like to say, just for clarification, that I didn't mean to call the piece shallow, although you are welcome to My guess is that Acocella was writing a general interest piece, something intended for anyone who picks up the New Yorker, and put in as much detail as she and her editors thought that readership would tolerate. I say this from some experience, because my book has extensive material on coaching and that was the section in which prospective mainstream publishers were especially disinterested I'd like to read more about how Farrell coaches, too -- and how other good coaches coach -- and I hope we'll be able to read about that in the future.

I cut one line from the original email: "Ineligible as students: Violette Verdy, Anna Marie Holmes -- not enough mean bones in their bodies." But through magic, of course, anything is possible There would, of course, have to be an extensive Department of Public Relations which would include, among other things: 1. Re-imaging (image makeover) 2. Press relations 3. Marketing 4. Branding 5. Market positioning 6. Gladhanding 7. Spin There would be one course in formulating the company's artistic vision and profile, but it would be an elective.

A friend sent me this today, as his contribution to things that might happen in the future. Some may be more amused than others as the point of the joke is that its originator probably does not admire either the Students or the proposed Instructors; rather than becoming incensed if one of your favorites made the list, please try to think of it as a general proposition and fill in the names of someone you don't like (I don't know who the originator of this is. Really. Like a good journalist, Friend would not reveal his source.) Course Title: Retraining of Directors for Dance Companies. Vision: Re-engineer failed ones so as not to waste the valuable experience they have garnered. Students: Maina Gielgud, Ross Stretton, Michael Smuin. Instructors: Bruce Marks, Ben Stevenson, Oleg Vinogradov. This could grow, of course, and become an entire university......

Thank you, Estelle. You make me eager to see Osta -- there aren't that many "elegant and delicate" dancers around these days.

Welcome, Marco! I can't answer your question, I'm afraid, but I'll move it into the Dancers forum where I think more people will see it. We have some posters who live in China and occasionally post here, and I hope they can help.

Thank you for that, Ophelie. It's a happy time when one's favorite dancer gets promoted! Congratulations to both of you

Well, Alymer, I certainly hope you'll write about it for us!

Good news for London -- although they'll probably get the "real" stars Thanks for posting this, Marc. I'm glad Pavlenko got some good roles.

Thank you for that, Katharine. It's rather as I imagined Neumeier might see Sylvia. And I'm not surprised that some of the Paris dancers could make something interesting of it. That's becoming their role, I'm afraid. Toss us a choreographer, especially any contemporary choreographer, and we'll make his ballet look better than it would anywhere else. A friend of mine had a phrase about the Danes, onceuponatime, that they should have T-shirts that read "We make bad ballets look good!" That mantle, I think, has passed to Paris

Thank you for that, Jorgen -- the "Swan Lake" one is gorgeous! I think Ryom is an example of that rare dancer who worked like a demon throughout her career to be better. She wasn't innately musical, but she learned to make herself look musical. (I saw a lot of rehearsals during this period ) She didn't have a natural line -- but the line in the "Swan Lake" photo is lovely. And along with that, she kept her natural gifts for drama, not merely good acting, but an ability to make even a rather dull ballet seem interesting.

From that clip, I hadn't expected her to have a precise, classical techniqiue Perhaps Martins is bringing back a company tradition of bringing in European dancers as occasional guests -- as Balanchine did so often with Theismar.

Ari, I think that's a very good point -- and another indication of different definitions of musicality. That wouldn't bother some people; they'd only care about the results. And strike others as completely unmusical, becuase the music, however it was danced, was distorted. To go back to the other question posed on this thread -- what do you think about Baryshnikov as "the most musical dancer"?

Jane, I can't find it today, but I swear when I put her through Google the other day (to see if there were any of her books out there -- and there were!) I turned up three: the book you mentioned, the book I mentioned -- AND a book about Africa. I'm sure you're right that "Symphonic" has become over-reverent today, but I thought the photographer was looking for action rather than form. (An example of an "abstract" ballet being made to look like something else.)

There are some photographs of Ryom in "Onegin" and "Giselle" on David Amzallag's site: http://www.blueballet.net/images.html Click on the Misc. Photographs link and use the search box at the top for Choreographer, Cranko; ballet "Onegin" and Choreographer Perrot-Coralli, ballet "Giselle"

Is ths new, Jorgen? There was a book done on Ryom several years ago -- I didn't see it. It took me a long time to warm to Ryom. I liked the company's more classical dancers, like Jeppesen, Kirk, Schandorff and Gad. Ryom isn't poetic, nor as musical as Jeppesen and Gad, and doesn't have good lines. But she was the greatest Tatiana (in "Onegin") I've ever seen, including Haydee. The Danes were great, generally, in that ballet, through those wonderfully detailed characterizations they did as second nature. "Onegin" was her stepping stone to the Sylph -- she was demicaractere and best at playing down to earth characters (I had liked her Swanilda very much when she was young). She had to acquire glamour, and "Onegin" did that. She went from curious peasant girl to an elegant, educated woman. Her Sylph wasn't in the traditional mode at all -- it couldn't be, because she didn't have the gifts that Danish Sylphs usually have. She credits Kronstam for her Sylph, and he used HER gifts, her lightness, her extraordinary, crystalline lightness. Her Sylph was a fairy. I've never seen anyone be more fairylike in that part. She was also the clearest mime I've ever seen as Teresina in "Napoli." Others rushed through the mime and made it look like vague gestures. Ryom seemed to have all the time in the world, and gave you every syllable. She was the most popular ballerina in the company when I was visiting Copenhagen regularly in the early 1990s. The audience loved her in anything she did. Kronstam told me that she was like Margot Lander, THE most beloved Danish ballerina of the 20th century, not in her face or body, but in her humanity (a big deal to Danes). She would dance "Etudes" not as a grand, classical ballerina, but as a hostess, welcoming you into her world -- which is what that role had originally been.

Yes, emphatically Nureyev (And this isn't a quirky choice on my part; it was generally recognized as one of his gifts.) kfw, I've had the same feeling about video as you: "My reaction to dance on video seems to depend very much on my mood. The same footage will bore me one day and thrill me the next." Worse, a dancer will strike me as "over the hill" one day and, watching the same dancer a year later, I might have a very different reaction. Worrisome What did you all think about Makarova's musicality? I remember there seemed to be a national divide over this. I'd read how musical she was in British reviews, and then Americans, Croce for exampe (who admired Makarova and was always writing about her) would say how perfect she was, "except for her lack of musicality, her besetting sin." We've talked before about different definitions of musicality, and perhaps this is one of them.

One more. This is of Hans Beck, c. 1882, when he's quite young. He is the man who saved Bournonville. Listen, for this is a hopeful tale He never worked with Bournonville; they missed each other by a couple of years. But he had a sense of the ballets. The repertory was in horrible disrepair -- nothing new, the old stuff done badly. Around the time of this photo, there were only six ballets given that season, and 10 ballet nights. Beck convinced the directorship to give him the company, and he revitalized it. He improved the standard of dancing, tried to save bits of Bournonville's choreography by incorporating the steps into a set of classes that were danced, one each day (Monday Class, Tuesday Class, etc.), and restaged the ballets so beautifully that even Bournonville's wife (whom Johanna Heiberg, Denmark's leading actress called "a cat of a wife" and sounds as though she would have been hard to please) thought they were good and wrote him a letter saying "You have saved my beloved man's ballets!" Beck, humble man, thought he wasn't a good choreographer -- he could do solos, but he couldn't make ballets. So he didn't choreograph (only one ballet, "The Little Mermaid" and some solos). He thought he was not Bournonville's equal, and so saved the master's ballets instead of making his own. The solos in "Napoli" are by Beck, not Bournonville. Define choreographer! There's a story to this photo. I showed it to Henning Kronstam, who was the great James of his day (dancing it 1956-1970) and he said, "I KNEW that was the right gesture!" He had learned it in the mime classes at the theatre when he was an aspirant, but when he came to dance the role, Hans Brenaa (an exemplary stager) was directing the production, and asked Kronstam what he was doing. Brenaa thought the gesture was too effeminate and told Kronstam to drop it. (The text says "James is enraptured with delight and admiration.") So it was dropped.