Alexandra

I trink the "recital" mentality may be part of the problem -- people tend to build on what is already there, not start from scratch, and the "civic ballet" model was to have something at Christmas and something in the spring. Then a fall program is added. By the time you get to "regional" level, there's usually 2 or 3 spring programs. As I remember it, one of the first things Tomasson did when he took over SFB was to break that model and have a continuous season, although it's still broken down into programs -- Program I, Program II, etc, and not a completely integrated repertory (meaning you might see New Ballet on an All New program one night, and snuggled in between Great Classic and Last Year's Best New Work the next). So part of it is mindset, but also, that's not a bad model for growth, and smaller companies don't have the audience to sustain an 8, 10, 12 week season. What's bad about the Program model, to me, especially coupled wiith Modern Marketing 101, is that it's fragmenting the audience. It assumes that there is Type A, who will only see "the classics" and is 80 years old, and Type B, who will only see New Work and is 20 years old. And then there's Mother's Day, and Valentine's Day, and Hallowe'en -- all things that are "easy" to market using non-arts models. The Diaghlev model was more mixed. One old favorite, one avant-garde piece, and a leave 'em clapping or laughing ballet . The new was mixed in with the old, which made new works much more easy for audiences to accept -- accessible in the most neutral sense of the term. As for how to solve it -- what I wrote above, the Dance the Same Program at Four Different Places model can be done until audiences can be developed that will tolerate longer seasons. But is this realistic? Will this ever happen in America? How many cities have a significant population of arts consumers? As they would say in Modern Marketing 101?

Interesting about the Navajo -- I've always thought of Indian communities working cooperatively, and I wonder if that's the positive side of the coin, whereas Jantelov is the negative? Or I may be just looking at Navajo society (about which I have read very little ) through rose-colored glasses. Lolly, Axel Sandemose wrote a novel in which a character, Jante, gave Jantelov (Jante's Law) it's name. But he didn't invent it. It's something you can trace in Danish society back to the 16th century, at least.

Ballet has always lost money. Diaghilev lost money, but he didn't do trash. I think there's a point that companies are desperate to find ballets that are hits, and we're in a stage where the thinking is "PINK. I just read a survey where PINK is the favorite subject. Let's do a PINK ballet." or 'BASKETBALL!!!! Our home team is in the playoffs. Let's do a BASKETBALL ballet." I think tlhat's true. But I think that -- perhaps because of the press of day to day business, perhaps becuase there's no Lincoln Kirstein -- there are few companies that have anyone with the time, taste and breadth of background to choose repertory wisely. In many companies -- obviously, there are exceptions to all this. One, two generation ago, artistic directors chose choreographers with whom they had worked. They still do, but THEN those choreographers were Tudor, Ashton, Balanchine and NOW they're Dwight Rhoden and Val Caniparoli (just to pick on two; sorry if they're your favorites ) So that's part of it. And there is a circuit. One year, everyone does Lila York, the next year it's someone else. Or you pick someone you met when you were guest teaching and seemed like a nice guy -- that's how you get on the circuit Competition juries, summer programs, hang out where the guys doing the hiring hang out. (Easier said than done, I know.)

Medora, the press office won't have the casting until some time next month. They'll send it to me then, and I'll post it as soon as I get it -- promise! Thanks for asking Also, for those who've wondered about how the company is going to perform Romeo and Juliet in the Concert Hall (where there is no orchestra pit) I asked that, too. The orchestra will be behind the dancers. The conductor will probably have a video view of the dancers (this has been done elsewhere successfully). They're building a special, sprung floor. For those who've asked about sight lines, because the Concert Hall is not raked, the stage is raised. I've reviewed dance performances here -- the Black Watch, for one -- and I could see feet with no problem. Now, I'm tall. If you're under 5'3 or so, you might want to bring a cushion.

Ray, thank you for this thoughtful post. I think you raise issues that should be of concern to ballet boards and directors everywhere. The lack of performance issue is very important -- I think it's frustrating to dancers as well as artistic directors to rehearse for weeks and then only have 2, 3 or 4 performances. One way to solve this is what Miami City Ballet does (and others too, but there's is now a regular practice) and that is dance the fall program, say, in three different locations. I think that may be a good model for the future. It not only gives the dancers more performances -- which is necessary! You can't get into a role if you only do it once or twice!!! -- but also brings the company to different neighborhoods and audiences. I now firmly believe that the way to attract new audiences -- young, ethnically diverse, just plain new -- is to GO TO THEM. Don't try to guess what they want -- which seems to have resulted in The Targeted coming to their Target Quota program -- but not to anything else. HOWEVER, if you take what you're doing to a college campus, or a black/Hispanic/Asian neighborhood, you find that the denizens go to the theater that's on the street they know, and may well like what's there. (I've seen this happen.) There's a related problem in that you can't dance this year's works for another 3 or 4 years, if ever. So if the company works on a challenging ballet this season, they'll never get another shot at it. Watching SFB last week doing "Dances at a Gathering" over four performances -- and seeing it get better, deeper each night (and the opening was perfectly acceptable) reinforced this for me. All of this mitigates against developing dancers -- and, I think, developing audiences, because audiences never get to see first-rate work danced well. I don't think many people will disagree with this on this site! Nothing wrong with Broadway, but Broadway is Broadway and ballet is ballet -- Balanchine and Robbins choreographed for both, but they knew the difference. Some of the commissions wouldn't get near Broadway, which does have high standards in its own genre. They're just plain hack. I absolutely agree wiith your comparison to modern dance companies. There are schlock modern dance companies too, but there are many who not only strive for high art, but cast and rehearse the dancers carefully -- again, this goes to respect to the dancers and the audience. I've often had similar thoughts watching some of the contemporary dance works that are in so many company's repertories, some of which are competent, they're just not ballet; and some of them are way below our local modern dance choreographers. Audiences cheer for them, but they don't go to the local modern dance perofrmances, where the could see at least the same level of the same type of work, and often a higher level. "Oh, no. We only go to the ballet," some say. (I've asked!) All of this goes to the poor health of ballet today -- and if dancers are quitting because of it, it makes it all the more sad. You've really struck a nerve here, Ray This is one of the main reasons I founded the site. (As for the poor level of artistic direction, and the hiring process, more and more it's being done by search firms. In one hiring process, the first question that people were asked when the firm began its search is "what name would be known to your audience." )

I think directors meetings are good things, too -- and every other "industry" has trade meetings, so why not dance? (NOT that I thinkl business is a good model across the board for dance, but in this case I think it's all to the good.) I also think it's interesting that directors get together to talk about artistic issues, not just how marketing and other necessary shop talk issues. I've interviewed several directors of smaller companies and, especially if they're the only company in the state, or region, it's a lonely life -- they can't talk to the dancers about their problems (as no boss can talk to the staff), and they don't get any feedback on repertory, etc. I'm iinterested in the composition, too. As Ari noted, the Canadian one was the big guns; this one seems to be attracting smaller groups. I first read about this on Ballet.co a ffew months ago, and the Bolshoi and Royal Danish ballets as well as ABT direcors were listed -- they're now off the list. NYCB, Paris, and the Royal, and San Francisco, were NOT on the list (at least at the time I checked it.) People couldl be busy, of course, but the fact that the "hierarchical pyramid" issue is raised could indicate that this is an issue not of interest to the larger companies. Which is a shame, because it means the issue is less likely to be debated from both sides.

This show will be on PBS in February -- Mpnday, Feb 3 in New York; it will probably be shown on other dates in other cities. Here's the press rellease. WILD THINGS: DANCE IN AMERICA PROFILES ABT’S ALPHA MALES ON THIRTEEN’S GREAT PERFORMANCES Going Home With Carreño, Corella, Malakhov & Stiefel The depth of male dancing at American Ballet Theatre today is unprecedented in the history of American ballet, certainly as exemplified by the contingent gathered by artistic director Kevin McKenzie. Led by Cuba’s Jose Manuel Carreño, Spain’s Angel Corella, the Ukraine’s Vladimir Malakhov, and the U.S.’s Ethan Stiefel, this cadre of international artists challenge themselves and the choreographers who make new dances for them, to explore and stretch their amazing abilities. A new Dance in America performance-documentary, Born to Be Wild: The Leading Men of American Ballet Theatre travels home with Carreño, Corella, Malakhov and Stiefel, Monday, February 3 at 10 p.m. (ET) on Thirteen/WNET New York’s GREAT PERFORMANCES (check local PBS listings). Produced and directed by five-time Emmy-winner Judy Kinberg, the 60-minute special visits Havana, Madrid, Moscow, and Madison, Wisconsin, respectively, to experience firsthand the worlds that nurtured these artists. “Having had the privilege of getting to know each of the dancers from past projects with ABT, I realized that although they come from different countries, their stories are uniquely American,” says Kinberg. “The best way of communicating that, it seemed, was to get a sense of their backgrounds by going home with them, investigating how they came to ballet in the first place, and exploring why they came to New York to realize their highest potential as dancers.” The telecast concludes with a rare, one-time-only occasion: the four dancing together in a specially commissioned work by Mark Morris, arguably the most prominent dancemaker of his generation. The rehearsal process of the seven-minute piece, set to the Fourth Movement of Schumann’s Piano Quintet, Op. 44, provides the spine of the documentary. In addition to choreographer Morris, the special offers observations on the dancers by ABT’s Kevin McKenzie; Jacques d’Amboise, founder of the National Dance Institute and one of America’s foremost ballet stars of the 1950s-80s; Sofia Golovkina, former director of the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, and the legendary Alicia Alonso, director of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba and star of ABT in the 40s and 50s. Also on hand are family members and (in a surprise silent cameo) Cuban premier, Fidel Castro. Vanity Fair calls the program “a four-chambered work that culminates in a chamber ballet for four. The entire hour is beautifully choreographed.” Regarding the “Wild” in the title, the magazine notes, “It has nothing to do with highways or hot rods, but rather the lightning these alphas unleash up in the air.” Among the homeland highlights: o A visit to the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, where Jose Manuel Carreño’s uncles, younger brother, and cousin danced, and where he was trained. “Some people say it’s like a dynasty,” he remarks. Alicia Alonso talks eloquently about her charge, recalling him as a child coming to watch class. Very grown up now, he and cousin Alihaydée perform a truly astounding Coda from the Diana and Acteon Pas de Deux at the Havana International Dance Festival, but not before burning the floor at a favorite salsa club. o Angel Corella’s tour of his parents’ ballet shop in Madrid, where Angel Body Wear is a top seller. The only son in a close family of three daughters, Corella explains the impact of his background and how it defines his work. “The Spanish character has a lot to do with how I dance,” he says, “very passionate and very extreme. We live every single moment one hundred percent. And that’s the way I dance.” o A touching Moscow reunion with Vladimir Malakhov and his mentor, the distinguished former Bolshoi ballerina and teacher Sofia Golovkina, who auditioned him for the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. He reveals how he was sent at age 10 across the Soviet Union to the school, and from then on was able to visit his family only during summers and for two weeks each winter. “I wanted to be a dancer. That is why I gave up everything,” he notes without regret. o A motorcycle ride with Ethan Stiefel on his Harley, back to his roots in the American Midwest to visit his first teacher Jo Jean Retrum at the Monona Academy of Dance in Madison, Wisconsin. Laughs the star of Columbia Pictures’ Center Stage: “They were pretty excited because once I came into class, I guess I represented about 50 percent of the male dance population in Wisconsin.” A production of Thirteen/WNET New York, Born to Be Wild: The Leading Men of American Ballet Theatre is produced by Judy Kinberg and Jodee Nimerichter, directed by Kinberg, and edited by Girish Bhargava. Kinberg produced last year’s From Broadway: Fosse; produced and directed the Emmy-winning Bob Fosse: Steam Heat; Who’s Dancin’ Now?; The World of Jim Henson, and co-produced the Academy Award-winning He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin’. She has produced more than 40 programs for the GREAT PERFORMANCES/ Dance in America series. GREAT PERFORMANCES is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, public television viewers, and PBS. Major corporate support is provided by Ernst & Young LLP, a global leader in professional services. Special funding for Born to Be Wild: The Leading Men of American Ballet Theatre was provided by the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust and the Morris S. and Florence H. Bender Foundation. Visit GREAT PERFORMANCES ONLINE at thirteen.org and pbs.org for additional information about this and other GREAT PERFORMANCES programs. Jac Venza is executive producer for GREAT PERFORMANCES. ..........… Thirteen/WNET New York is one of the key program providers for public television, bringing such acclaimed series as GREAT PERFORMANCES, Nature, American Masters, Charlie Rose, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, Stage on Screen, EGG the arts show, and Cyberchase – as well as the work of Bill Moyers – to audiences nationwide. As the flagship public broadcaster in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut metro area, Thirteen reaches millions of viewers each week, airing the best of American public television along with its own local productions such as The Ethnic Heritage Specials, The New York Walking Tours, New York Voices, Reel New York, and its MetroArts/Thirteen cable arts programming. With educational and community outreach projects that extend the impact of its television productions, Thirteen takes television “out of the box.” And as broadcast and digital media converge, Thirteen is blazing trails in the creation of Web sites, enhanced television, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, educational software, and other cutting-edge media products. More information about Thirteen can be found at: www.thirteen.org.

For lots of background information on the Nutcracker, you might be interested in checking out Mel Johnson's Nutcracker pages on the main site: http://www.balletalert.com/ballets/19th%20...y/Nuts/Nuts.htm

That story rings a bell, Mel -- is it Ambrose Bierce? And I think it was a short film, too. One ballet I don't think would be on my short list for revivals As for the term, since this is a family site, we won't discuss it further (although you've all been wondrously discreet so far)

kfw, do you have access to a scanner? If you do, and you scan the photo, we can post it and perhaps someone can identify the dancers. Way down at the bottom of this form, under Options, you'll see Attach file. The board can "capture" a file from your disk (only borrowing it, of course ). The photo has to be fairly small; the size and allowable extensions are posted. I've seen ballerina ornaments, but I wouldn't say they were splendid, unfortunately. I envy your having a tree. I haven't had one in years.

I remember Troy Games with Dance Theatre of Harlem -- who were VERY funny in it.

I've copied this from www.Londondance.com. It's information about a conference that Dance East is sponsoring about the direction ballet should take in the 21st century. Since it's a press release from Dance East, I assume it's legit to post it here. Comments on the agenda?

Ashley, this is the contact information from the NYCB page: "If you have any questions or require information about New York City Ballet or the NYCB website, contact our Director of Research and Online Media at clanders@nycballet.com." So you might drop her an email and ask if she could pass your request on to Jenifer Ringer. Dancers are very busy, though, so don't be disappointed if she can't do an email interview

A Memorial Service for Mia Slavenska is being planned for February 22, 2003 (4-7 p.m.) at the faculty center of UCLA. Our sources say "presumably open to the public." If anyone learns more about this, please post. Thanks!

Hello, Hal -- it's good to read you again. I haven't seen you around for awhile. (I think "The Concert" is funny, too, no matter how many times I see it!) Ballet Nut, I think your description of Gala Performance is brilliant And Hans, re "Penguin Cafe," I know people who like this one a lot, too. But I'll be interested to see what you think

Ari, I think my reaction was because the first writers I read consistently were John Percival and Peter Williams of the old (dearly beloved, deeply missed) Dance and Dancers, and they were so gentle. I distinctly remember a review by Percival in which it was obvious he didn't particularly like the ballet and found it flawed -- Neumeier's "Don Juan" -- but made it sound so interesting that I got on a train and made my first trip to New York as an adult to see it. (He was right. ) And Williams could write a review, and did, where he panned Lynn Seymour at a gala in three out of three dances, but you never got the feeling he was out to get her. It was a very balanced, polite -- authoritative, no question about that -- but you could get up from the table feeling that if you disagreed with them you might still go to Heaven.

Calliope, a few years ago the European Union decided they needed a history of Europe and got together a panel of historians from each country and assigned different periods to different people. There was this little Napoleon problem. The French wrote about the great Napoleon; the British were in pained disagreement; the Spaniards protested violently. And then they all started laughing and, for the first time, really confronted national differences in history -- I heard a panel discussion about the panel discussions, and it was very instructive I remember being bothered, at first, by Croce's Olympian tone, until I read a lot of other critics and realized that her thundering was well-grounded. I often disagreed with her, and she often made me angry -- because I thought a particular statement was too sweeping, say -- but I always read her, and I always learned something.

I remember reading about that one, and seeing photos, ATM -- but I don't remember the director/stager either. I remember the spareness -- which I thought was beautiful, beautifully visually, but also matching the theme and the music. To me, that's what good design and staging does -- brings out THE WORK, not smother it with notions and distractions. There have been instances of ballet companies bringing in people from outside -- drama, opera -- especially in Europe, but the productions haven't been a success, and it's because they don't understand choreography. You can't change the blocking -- the dancers have to move in that space in that way. And perhaps ballet choreographers don't do productions like this because so few people see art outside their own field. ???

Gautier, too Ballet history textbooks present his opinion as Truth. How many of us learned that there was a day, suddenly, when all neoclassical ballets disappeared and the repertory was completely Romantic ballet? I believed that. The facts don't bear it out. Read the rep; there's a mix for quite awhile. It was a gradual replacement. Read the other critics -- not as entertaining as Gautier, not as poetic. But with decidedly other opinions. And, strangeyl, reviewing things like "Alfred le Grand" which supposedly had died. Is Gautier lying? No, just using a big, sweeping metaphor. He was, in one way, right -- neoclassical ballet was dead. It just hadn't died yet. It was still on institutional life support. Romanticism did sweep in and catch -- well, not everyone, but all the people in Gautier's ccrcle, or who wanted to be in that circle. When someone is writing a commentary on the period, though, s/he has a responsibility to take these factors into account, and not just babble them, and reproduce the errors. I think people with strong opinions will always sound Olympian -- and probably be surprised that their writing is taken that way. They're just expressing an opinion. It's the imitators who TRY to sound Olympian, but it's not from the heart, or the brain, that are bothersome, and there are some like that.

I think someone writing a review is just presenting a personal opinion, and it's not necessary (it actually runs against the rules of the genre) to write "I hated it, but the audience loved it, and so did Critic X, Y and Z, although Critic A and B agree with me about this choreographer's work." But historical commentary is different, I think. The reader has to be able to trust that the writer understands the big picture, and is not just grabbing a fact here and a fact there; it has to be digested. And yes, I think they do have to take into account other's views, in the sense that if you're an opinion that's out of line with accepted thinking, you should indicate that. (I don't mean that this is the case in this instance; just making a general comment.) An example. In 1986, I had a student who wrote a paper that said, "Erik Bruhn is the finest James dancing today." And went on to say why. Well, Bruhn had stopped dancing the role in 1972 and, in 1986, wasn't dancing anything because he was dead. The student kept saying, "What's one little word? Okay! I made a mistake, but it's just one little word!" Well, to me, it's a big deal. Say Bruhn was the finest James of his day, or generation, or in the history of time, or whatever you want to say, and back it up (not, as he did, with copying what a reviewer wrote and forgetting to put in the quotation marks, but that's another problem). But check the date on the book you're copying from before you copy from it. And that's what I mean by digesting facts and having a context in which to put them. And if he were writing a paper on Great Jameses, I'd want him to have read more than one book, and not base his opinion on one video, and consider that the first James was Bournonville. Not in an 8-inch newspaper review. But in an 8000 word commentary, context helps.

Good question -- we actually did a poll on this awhile back, but I can't find it. Dancers won, as I remember it. I'm a choreography person too, although I also love watching dancers, of course, and I believe a ballet is more than the sum of its steps and that great dancing and intelligent direction can make a mediocre ballet an exciting theatrical experience.

The last time I remember it was about 12 years ago -- the year before Clark Tippet's Bruch ballet. (I only remember THAT because his ballet seemed inspired by GP, not the comedy, but the attention to style.) I liked it, although it didn't quite match what I'd read about it (I think, as I wrote above, it would be very hard to do today), but those who had seen it before........ Satire doesn't really work unless you know what they're satirizing. It will work on the "ooh, she's glaring at the other one, they must be jealous" level, but not on the level that Tudor was working.

This is a quote from an article Ari posted on Links; an interview with Dame Antoinette Sibley. comments?

I remember Cakewalk -- another one that should be brought back, IMO. I wonder if Gala Performance could be done today? To really "get it" you have to see stylistic differences -- both as a viewer and as a dancer -- because the ballet is about distorting those differences. (It pits a French, Russian and Italian ballerina against each other, in all their respective glory.) We have quite a long list -- remember this the next time you read a review that says, "Comic ballets are as rare as hens' teeth."....

I see the eradication of hierarchy as an expression of the same principles of Jantelov/tallpoppies/nails (JTN?) No one is "special." We're all "equal." No one can stand out. I was making the leap using the story about the reluctant young Danish ballerina I posted above. That's an example of someone being so modest/beaten down by the society she doesn't want to "push herself forward." But I think the move to eradicate differences and distinctions -- among types of art, or the arts, and among ranks of dancers -- is a manifestation of the same idea. It's more than egalitarian, whcih is "we're all equal! we're all in this together." And Jantelov, which is basicalyl, "who do you think you are?" or "don't you dare think you're better than me." Not a breeding ground for ballerinas. I'd also say that in modern dance, I think of companies like Cunningham's, or Taylor's as a collection of soloists (they might reject the name "stars") but they're certainly individuals.