Alexandra

Here's a link to my review in the Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2002Nov27.html

Did anyone go tonight? Except to say that I thought the company looked very good, and that anyone who has never seen DANCES AT A GATHERING should run and get a ticket while you still can, I'll pass the chalk over to others. (A friend told me there were discounted tickets at www.kennedy-center.org ) Comments?

Thank you, Leigh. On both points

I never got the trailer, so I can't say. (I kept getting an error message.) I have several Danish videos where English comes out suddenly. One of the strangest, to me, is an introduction to Bournonville's "Kermesse in Bruges," where in the very last sentence, the narrator says "happy ending." I thought that odd, since Bournonville is often denigrated for having only happy endings (his darker works were dumped in the 1930s) that there isn't a Danish equivalent.

I'd agree. allegro/adagio, ante-masque/masque (the idea of showing devils before Queen's entree, all the better to show the goodness of the Queen). I definitely think that harmony is a tenet of classicism. There's such an emphasis on allegro and ENERGY!!! today it's hard to think of dancers who have much opportunity to show harmony. In the past, it was one of the glories of the Danish school; they had an almost animalistic quality of utter stillness. Fonteyn had it, and so (taking this on faith and video) did Diana Adams. By harmony, I mean harmony of limb and line.

I think it's the pas de six, the one with the tambourine That's on several tapes.

Diane, I think what you said about conceptual art, and what is being taught in schools is important. It's one of the difference I've noticed, too, between American and European critics -- and of course, there are always exceptions. But often, when I read a Scandinavian or a German review, especially, I feel I'm reading about a play, not a ballet or dance. In a narrative ballet, the "acting" is judged, it's all about the story, about interpretation. I asked a Danish friend about this, and asked him how they had been taught to analyze literature in school. He said it was all about characterization and motivation. They didn't study plot, setting, quality of the writing, or even how well the book had been structured. The work was taken as it was, and they talked about the people. As an American, brought up to believe that our public schools were the sinkhole of Western civilization, I was stunned by this. As early as 13 and 14 we had to write book reports that did not tell the story (I remember being frozen in fear at the time). One essay had to deal with setting, one with structure, etc. And that certainly carried through to university. I take the European point that we Americans are too caught up in technique and structure. ["So what if the guy was totally unsuited to do Albrecht, was 5 feet tall and spent the whole night fiddling with his cloak and grinning at the audience. He did 15 multiple pirouettes!"] I wish there could be a middle ground.

The state of publishing being what it is, I think the only biographies or autobiographies we're likely to see are premature ones -- and they'll be getting younger. It's obviously easier to sell a book when the dancer is at the height of his or her career, and that's often when they're so young that there's not much to write about. One of the many things that's missing these days are little fan books -- anyone remember those? They'd be short, 24 pages, maybe more, mostly photos, a few facts about personal life, training, how they got into the company, that kind of thing. But I think there isn't even a market for that now. It's partly that the Boom is over, but partly that publishing houses are now owned by megaconglomerates and the idea of selling 1,000 or even 5,000 or 10,000 of anything is not what they think of as having a good time. Martins may well have another biography done -- he should, I think; he's directed a major company for nearly 20 years. But it's harder to write a post-performance biography of someone whose career ended with his or her last performance.

Just to be clear, I didn't mean to suggest that I thought the comparison of Benny and Balanchine was apt, but offered it as an example of absurdity in the spirit of Balanchine's quote. (You know how these things get around....)

Balanchine, the Jack Benny of ballet?

Hi, Warren G! Glad you joined us. could you regale us with some of your ballet memories? I agree -- I guess he picked out "Picasso" because that's the one "modern" artist most people would know. But I don't think the comparison goes much deeper. I like the Michaelangelo of snowboarding. You'll probably hear that this winter on TV sports coverage.

Yes, Mary J -- I noticed that, too. The 19th century shoes. Apparently that's what men wore in the 19th century, but, like many things, the tradition survived only in Denmark. It makes the foot look so beautiful, I think. I only saw this with Nureyev, who was crazed from his entry. I was always surprised at how much dancing there was in it. (Meaning, I remember it as a theater piece, and am surprised every time I see it at how much it uses dance.)

Actually, Ronald Reagan had to sit through the Green Table during his Evil Empire period. It was quite satisfying to sit there thinking that he had to watch it (Reagan came to several Joffrey performances when his son was in the company.) Bush41 came to the Joffrey once, too. He had to. Gerald Arpino created a ballet and dedicated it to him.

As far as I know (I've never seen it, but read about it) this is a traditional production (!!!!!). He may have choreographed the character dancers himself, but I've never read about any psychological "enhancements." Has anyone seen it? (And of course, you'll tell us about it, I hope.)

This just came today, from Amazon. It's quite serious with lots and lots of meaty quotes from dancers who worked with Tudor, so it's much more in the Bennahum line than the Perlmutter one. She states her intention to debunk several Tudor myths -- that he was a monster whom dancers disliked, that he created very few ballets (try nearly 50, plus smaller pieces and plays and operas). It's very well-written, I think, and if you have someone who's a Tudor buff, this might be a book for under the Christmas tree. Available at Amazon.com, using the link on the banner at the top of our forum. Hint hint

Dirac, I see your point as well -- and I think that if we, as audience members, have such thoughts, it's the fault of a production. If it's done well, and everyone onstage (and behind the scenes) understands what the production means, and the dancers are given enough information to put it over, then we'll enter into that magic world of suspension of belief, and we won't ask questions like that.

Teachout did a very enthusiastic piece about Weiss and the Carolina Ballet for the Washington Post two years ago.

I'm ready to stand corrected on this if someone has more up to date information, but when I researched this awhile back, the law was that you could make one copy for personal use. Period. Whether the FBI will come after you or not...well, we try to keep political comments off this board, don't we? :)

I agree. I also thought it interesting that the justification of editorial interest is that pop culture is big business. Well, yes. So are Barbie dolls. Do we have articles every day on what Barbie had for breakfast? The problem, of course, is that it will not be additive. They will do readers surveys, and more people will read about Britney than about opera or ballet or classical music. And so they will get more articles about Britney, or whoever is hot that month, because, after all, it's a business.

Yeah. And prices won't rise in the next 25 years, either.

Thank you for posting that, ATM. I love it when people find evidence that the goodolddays isn't a myth I remember all of those. Every last one. I'm not clear whether the audience really has fallen off that much, or if PBS's expectations of audience numbers have changed. I think it's a bit of both.

Bourne is popular, and there are those who admire him as theater. He's not working in ballet, though, as a choreographer. Just using ballet themes. He's a modern dance choreographer.

Any chance it was humiliation of the teaching staff by the pupils? I'm sure they don't go into the army at 10, but there are military schools (I'd read excerpts of this article and misread them; when I posted above I thought the complaints were about the company as well as the school.) I think ballet schools should be humane, but I also think the complaints have to be taken in context -- it's not a public school, open to everyone. Another Danish parallel. In the 1960s and '70s, there was a teacher that several of the girls absolutely loathed, and they had her for their entire school career. Four of those girls became ballerinas, and two have stated openly that she ruined their lives, nearly drove them from dance, was absolutely inhumane, etc, etc. The one story I could get from them as an example was that, one day, the teacher said to the four of them, "Fine. Keep doing what you're doing and you'll dance in the corps for the rest of your lives." The other two say they realized there were problems with other pupils, but they didn't have any. Older dancers had loved that teacher. And one of them ran into her on the street one day and asked how things were going. "These girls today, one has to be tough," she said, looking very sorry about it. I just don't trust the state, or business, or educational experts, studying conservatories. Practicing the piano or violin for 10 hours a day, for an 8 or 10 year old, is absolutely inhumane. But it's also absolutely necessary, and there are children who understand this and embrace the pain. (There are also those, of course, whose parents embrace it on their behalf, but that's a different story. )

Ari has posted the London reviews of this production on Links today.

That's probably a very accurate description of life in a dance company, somewhat, but not much, less rigorous and unpleasant than life in the army. The Danes went through something similar in the 1980s when parents, who wanted their children to be stars, of course, complained that the training (one one-hour class a day) was too rigorous and that what their children were being asked to do (turnout, cabrioles) was unnatural. Which is true. It may be hard to distinguish what is truly harrassment (beating people, casting couch opportunities, etc.) and what is discipline here, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.