Alexandra

Another one, 1913. This is Elna Jorgen-Jensen, obviouisly posed, but so pretty I thought it worth a look. What's interesting to me is that neither of these women are doing imitations of the Taglioni lithographs (which they would have known.) And Bournonville danced Sylphide wiith Taglioni, so he knew how she moved. He adored her -- but he didn't have his ballerinas imitate her.

Well, the skirt is obviously much shorter than I remember -- I haven't seen the film in quite awhile, and what I remember are the feet! Paul, I agree with what you say about costume. I've seen quite a few modern dance choreographers use costume as part of the dance -- one has a sense of seeing clothes dance. But I can't think of many examples in ballets created during my ballet-going days. Once, standing in the back of the Theatre watching Kermesse in Bruges, which is a very carefully matched kaleidescope of colors, I was especially struck by the last scene, where the boy with the magic fiddle that can make everyone dance uses it -- and everyone dances. Monks, cripples, old widows, peasants, even the people lashed to the stake awaiting execution. Watching it from the front, the scene is a hoot. Watching it from the back, it's a moving painting. And it suddenly dawned on me that THIS is what Noverre meant when he said that dance was a painting. It's not that it has to have programmatic content, that you take a picture and set it to life (although it can be that) but that it's a three-dimensional, moving painting. You could watch that scene, choreographed in the 1850s, as abstract art. And I wondered if Diaghilev and his friends as schoolboys had watched from the back, or high above, and seen the colors dance, and if that was the impetus, or one of them, anyway, for modern art. (There are Danish reviews as late as the 1930s that write about color as part of the ballet in the same way an art critic would write about color.)

Second photo: (The blue is the page bleeding through the photo -- sorry. I'm working with a primitive program and don't know how to fix that easily.) These are still shots from the Elfeldt film. They are taken from Knud Arne Jurgensen's "The Bournonville Ballets: A Photogrpahic Record 1844-1933" and anyone interested in 19th century dancing should have this book!

This is what the Sylph looked like in 1905. (Time line hint: Sylfiden was choreographed by Bournonville in 1836, so this photo is 69 years after the premiere. Serenade was choreographed in 1934, 68 years ago.) First of two photos:

Paul, I saw the Elfeldt films at the Bournonville Festival in 1992. They showed them on a lifesize screen, hung above the very stage on which they had danced, which was especially fun. Elfeldt was the court photographer in the early 1900s. He got a moving picture camera and walked around, looking for something to shoot, so the story goes, and decided to shoot some dancers. (On one of my walks in Copenhagen one day I went through a passageway about six blocks from the Theatre and there was a little plaque on the door that said Elfeldt, Photographer. I THINK there are still some Eldfeldts there (it wasn't a memorial plaque) but have never investigated it.) There were several sessions between 1902 and 1908, so they are among the earliest films of ballet dancers anywhere! They were filmed in a TINY space -- the camera was on a stationary tripod, so you can imagine. And the dancers are all old: in their mid-40s. They were the stars of the early 20th century: Hans Beck, Valborg Borchsenius and Juliette Price de Plane -- also some children in the children's dance from Elverhoj (the Danish national play, choreography not by Bournonville). They have Napoli tarantella, two bits of La Sylphide (the Sylphide's solo), the reel from Lifeguards, the Jockey Dance, and some solos from opera. Ellen Price de Plane was the niece of Juliette Price, Bournonville's favorite ballerina, who taught Price de Plane the role. (She's also the model for The Little Mermaid.) And the Prices (pronounced Preez-uh in Danish, but Price in English) are a 400 year old theatrical family that started out in England and wound its way through Europe, ending up in Copenhagen. Juliette had two cousins ("Pas de Trois Cousines" was made for them) and Bournonville discovered them dancing at a fairgrounds performance and thought they had talent, so took them into the school. There were dozens of Prices in the Danish Theatre for the next 100 years or so, and although there none still dancing, there are two in the drama department now, I believe.

Alas, I did NOT win the Christmas Day Power Ball lottery. It sounds as though they want somebody to buy the whole collection? Mme. Hermine, what should someone do if they are interested? Should they email you, or PM you? (If it's a new person or someone just looking in, they won't be able to use PMs.) Have you contacted the Dance History Scholars? They're all poor as churchmice, of course, but they may know a museum that's looking for material.

I didn't mean to skip over Dale's and fraildove's posts -- I hope there are more revivals, too, and I hope a lot of our New Yorkers will go see those Tudor ballets by New York Theater Ballet and report. I've been very surprised that Bystrova has done more at ABT. She was very promising as a teenager, and I worry that her only sin now is that she's so classical. I hope she doesn't continue to languish. My own hope for 2003 is that ballet companies generally: 1. Commission ballets instead of yet more contemporary dance works. 2. Emphasize coaching and and allot adequate rehearsal time for their repertory.

Thank you, CDM -- and welcome to Ballet Alert! I agree. I'm always sorry that Jasper's posts are so lonely -- we don't have other people seeing performances in Munich and Stuttgart so it's difficult to have a discussion about them. But I'm sure there are a lot of people who enjoy reading them! When Cranko's production was new, there were those who liked the modernizing and, of course, those who thought he was "dumbing down" "Swan Lake," as they would call it now, and that the company was too small, with not enough first-rate dancers, to do it. Now, reading your scenario, it sounds almost old-fashioned! I'm glad you enjoyed it -- it sounds much closer to a real "Swan Lake" than many of its imitators!

I can't imagine the circumstances where Andersen would have a Schaufuss festival. A Peter Martins Festival would be more likely, I think. The last time Andersen had the reins at the RDB he had penciled in a Neumeier Festival, but fate intervened. But since Bournonville is being turned over to a Danish modern dance company ("Napoli, the New City" will be unveiled this spring by Tim Rushton's New Dance Theatre and, if a success, will surely be part of the Bournonville Festival), perhaps the next call *will* be "Back to 'Galeotti!" I won't make any predictions, there or anywhere. I don't have aesthetic liability insurance

But I do think atm's point is a good one to remember. The ballet WAS done earlier and no one wrote about it as a reflection of Balanchine's recent brush with tuberculosis. We layer our own meanings onto ballets, and sometimes they make it into print, and these then become everyone's images and meanings.

I'll vote on anything. Third! The Third Fairy. I always wanted to see her do that variation. dirac, I think all of them were ballerina roles. The Lilac Fairy was Petipa's daughter, and there are dozens of catty remarks in articles by Western critics -- and even scholars -- that say she couldn't dance, she was a character dancer! imagine! she wore heeled shoes! He just put her iin the role because she was his daughter. And then you see the new/old Sleeping Beauty. She's not a character dancer. She's a danseuse noble. And he cast her, I'm sure, because she knew how to walk and had, as dirac noted above, authority. I think there's also something more to those roles than technique or style or authority, and that's maturity -- artistic maturity. A ballerina (in the true sense of the term) knows how to fill a variation, and this has to do with musicality and nuance and phrasing and all of those intangibles that young dancers don't have the time to develop any more -- and don't seem to be encouraged to develop. NOT dancing like this is what has made classical dancing look so boring. And you'll read lines in contemporary reviews of how "the choreography is too simple for today's dancers." No it's not. It's quite complex. They make it seem simple. They're turning tone poems into scales. One complaint I've heard and read over and over from company directors and older teachers is that when young dancers get into companies, they can't put two steps together. They can do each step individually, but ask them for three in a phrase and you get Step. Step. Step. And by now, the first generation of the Step People are coaching, passing along everything they know.

Unfortunately, I do think it will be hard to find enough material in English on Russian ballet before 1700. But in a way, the roots of the Russian ballet WERE in the court ballet. That was what every King and Kingdom wanted way back then. So taking a look at what was going on in France, in the court of the De Medicis, will show you where the Russian ballet comes from. One aspect of pre-18th century ballet that I've found students are interested in are the dancing manuals. They taught etiquette as well as dancing, and it's fun to find out some of the things they covered -- like dancing wasuseful becuase the boy got to see the girl up close, and tell if she was pockmarked (from smallpox), and if it was a quick rhythm, he could tell if she were lame (since they wore such long skirts, that wasn't visible). It's a very different sensibility -- marriage was so important, and you didn't get to know the person you were marrying very well before you married, so these balls were the only way one got to meet members of the opposite sex. If that interests you, the standard is Thoinot Arbeau's "Orchesographie." It's written in the form of a conversation between a young man and his teacher. (It also includes information on the five positions of the feet and the rhythms of the dancing, and it's good to know, because you'll hear some of those rhythms talked about even today -- the courant, the sarabande.)

It is an interesting question. I can't put my hands on the original cast list for Beauty -- I thought it was in Beaumont's "Complete Book" but if it is, I can't find it. He does have the cast list for the Diaghilev revival, however, and it goes like this: Fairy of the Pine Woods -- Felia Dubrovska Cherry Blossom Fairy -- Lydia Sokolova Fairy of the Humming Birds -- Nijinska (interesting, as this is the most Aurora-like of the solos) Fairy of the Song-Birds -- Lubov Egorova Carnation Fairy -- Vera Nemchinova Those are ballerinas. The Four Princes in the Rose Adagio, too, were always (and still are, in the Kirov and Bolshoi, at least in their show casts) premier danseurs. Today's audiences look at that and think, "What? They don't have anything to do but walk!" but in its day, the audience wouldn't have seen it that way. Walking, presenting the ballerina, etc. were arts in themselves, and, when done with the right elan and proper bearing were part of the mosaic. No. I think the downgrading is a later trend, part of the "it's just steps" attitude. Anybody can do the steps, anybody gets to do them. I think it probably is true (although I have an open mind on this!) that all CORPS dancers were not at the level 100 years ago that CORPS dancers are today, but I don't buy it for ballerinas. Another facet of this is that Petipa created roles like that because he had so many ballerinas -- he had to do something with them (which relates to our "should ballet companies still have ranks?" argument). I found Keith Money's biography of Pavloa a real eye-opener in thinking about the Petipa repertory. He details the way Petipa cast Pavlova -- why she got this role when -- and there's a real sense of repertory. I think today we think of the Maryinsky as putting on discrete shows: "Swan Lake," and when they got tired of that, "Sleeping Beauty," but of corse, they were all jumbled up in rep, and reading that book, it was like reading about a 20th century ballerina being brought up through the ranks by Balanchine or Ashton. A final note on fairies that may be helpful. I was struck this year by seeing "Divertimento No. 15" danced by the Suzanne Farrell Ballet how similar those variations are to the fairies' variations. Not in steps, but in temperament, in employ. The employ is even in the same order as the fairy variations! And when Divert was new, it was danced by ballerinas. Since then, soloists have taken some of the roles at different times. They can dance the steps, but the steps don't have the same effect.

Here's a link to Thomas Lund's web site. Lots of photos. http://www.dancer.dk/welcome/index.html

Mel, I think your description of LaFosse/Mitchell goes to what happens all the time in dance, unfortunately. The edges get buffed off, the individuality goes, and, to put it in the blandest possible terms, something quite special becomes something quite ordinary, in the same way haut couture becomes off-the-rack, first at a good department store, and eventually at Wal-Mart.

Dance Perspectives is another late, lamented journal. I don't think there's anything like it in dance. Each issue was really a little book -- beautifully produced, often with rare photographs. Often it gave life to a book that, even then, was too "arcane" to find a publisher (like Erik Aschengreen's "The Beautiful Danger," a translation of one of his long essays on Bournonville and the Romantic Ballet.) The founder was Selma Jeanne Cohen, one of the pioneers of American dance history - still alive, although no longer very active.

Fair question I guess as bit of both -- I generally prefer "warm" dancers, although I admire "cold" ones. This is a purely personal definition, but I can think of "warm" Apollonian dancers (Dowell, for one), so it's not completely an Apollonian/Dionysian thing. Dancers who are more impressive to me on tape than they did in performance are people like Cynthia Gregory and Peter Martins. There are no technical imperfections; they film beautifully. Their effect in performance didn't depend on perfume. (Both are dancers I admired, but could never love.) But look at Farrell on video, and you see the overbite and the bouncing wrists. Look at Nureyev, and you see the blinking and the distorted face. (Not until the end, when that's all that was left, did I notice that in performance.) And the qualities that made both dances magical for me do not transfer to tape.

Ballet Nut's list was so long it's taken me awhile to suggest it -- you've been repressing these feelings for a long, long time, haven't you, Nut I did see Makarova's Aurora, and I agree she was miscast -- she said so herself. She said she was a Florine (she's right). It was beautifully pure dancing, of course, but....somehow not in the right key. I would say something about principals -- ballerinas, really -- in the fairies parts. Back in the goodolddays, the Royal (and I"m sure the Russian companies) cast the fairies with ballerinas (and the divertissements, too). It's a later practice to downgrade them to second soloist, or promising corps dancer, or gosh, susie doesn't have anything to do Tuesday, roles.

Katharine, I"m going to over this over to Recent Performances, even though it wasn't quite a performance, in the hope that some of the Italian posters may see it.

Coda, I'm sure you're right that no existing tape is fair to her -- it's a problem with nearly all dancers of the '30s, '40s, 50s -- even '60s. I've never seen a tape that captured Fonteyn, and only one or two that did justice to Nureyev. It's the cold dancers who look good on tape, I think. But Ulanova, even in middle-age, still reaches out to us. I've shown her bedroom pas de deux (Romeo and Juliet) in several dance history and "dance appreciation" courses I've taught, to both ballet fans and modern dance students, and every single time it has been THE favorite tape they've seen. Every class has asked to see it again. The passion comes through, the discipline and the freedom of her movement, if that makes sense. I love showing it to modern dancers who think that ballet is "just classroom steps" -- and to ballet dancers who think that ballet is just classroom steps

Oh, Jane, I'm sure you are right. But back then, this was not thinkable! Mel, I was interested in your comment about LaFosse in "Slaughter." I believe you! -- I always listen to people who saw a First Cast. But when "Slaughter" was revived, I thought that was good casting. Perhaps that's because LaFosse is a "hoofer" type -- but Mitchell brought something more than just "type" to the role? Manhattnik, I think Sibley and Dowell would have been fascinating in Balanchine's "Midsummer" Mashinka, I agree with you on LeRiche -- and Cope, too. On top of having the wrong personalities -- not romantic enough, not desperate enough, none of the sense of cramming a whole lifetime into 30 minutes -- they danced his variations at less than half speed. A toast to Dance and Dancers

I agree on Merle Park (and Verdy, of course). I never cared for her as a dancer, but she was very musical. I never saw Kronstam dance his classical parts live, but I saw him in class and rehearsal quite a bit, and he was musical in everything he did, including walking back to the sidelines after working with the dancers. Watching him Jeppesen and Gad, all in a line, at the barre, is one of my greatest ballet going experiences.

I just got a response from the NYCB press office: "Ashley Bouder has been out sick, which is the reason that her name has not been appearing on the current casting announcements. We hope that she will be feeling better and back dancing soon." We do, too.

I would love to see all the Petipa ballerina and soloist roles -- fairies, Odette/Odile, Aurora. This isn't an original, but it's 100 years ago now -- the Elfeldt film of Ellen Price de Plane doing the Sylph. I wrote about it once saying "She is round and merry and never knew Giselle, and the feet flick from under the skirt like a serpent's tongue, a fitting image for a temptress." Nothing I've seen live matches those feet -- no one is even trying to do feet like that. Because the tutu is nearly floor length, the only weapon she has is her feet -- the legs aren't visible. And the arms are rounded as tendrils, and very free.

I'll second Sevillano and Wildor -- although I only saw them do a few ballets, they both were wonderful Ashton dancers. I've only seen Ulanova on tape, coda, but I think she was very musical too. I remember once watching her Giselle (on video) and in the second act thinking that they had cut it wrong -- she seemed off the music. But then instead of listening to the music and trying to match her dancing to it, I watched her dancing and tried to find how she was hearing the music. She had a different sense of musicality from what I was used to (which at the time was either Balanchine's or Ashton's) and was dancing to the undercurrents of the music rather than the melody or the beat -- that's not very clear, but it's the best I can do early in the morning. And it was exquisite. I've never seen anything like her. (She's one of the few Giselles whose mad scene ever made me cry, too -- and that on a video!)