Alexandra

You raise so many interesting points, Estelle. Ashton is often quoted as saying that he couldn't imagine anyone wanting to be a choreographer; he wanted to be Nijinsky. And people who saw him dance when he was young thought he was a good dancer -- not a great one, but a very good one. The bits of film that exist show that, too. Ashton and Tudor were both picked very young by Marie Rambert, who somehow knew they would be great choreographers. What would have happened to them had there not been a Rambert? For people like Balanchine and Fokine, they grew up in a system where being a balletmaster was a job, and (I think) people were spotted very young and steered to that track -- Fokine was a good dancer, too, but was more interested in choreography. Balanchine was more interested in choreography as well. Massine was a star character dancer, and created roles for himself and others. Bournonville danced with Taglioni at the Paris Opera during his years there, and also danced in London in a touring company. He was a star dancer -- compared to Albert and Paul. (Arthur St. Leon was a star dancer, too, as was Jules Perrot. Funny, that difference between the 19th and 20th centuries.) When he went home to Copenhagen in 1830 to take over the company, he was its First Dancer as well as choreographer, and that tradition continued through the 1980s. When there was a vacancy, the company's leading men were asked, in seniority order, if they'd take the company. Bournonivlle danced all the big male roles in his early ballets -- James in La Sylphide, Gennaro in Napoli, everything up until 1848. (He quit because his contract expired that year and, having a midlife crisis, joined the army!) Nureyev started very early, mostly making solos for himself. I don't think he ever thought of himself as primarily a choreographer. I agree that one is perhaps a bit...suspicoius of someone who announces, at 35, that he will now choreograph. It sounds as though s/he just wants to have a job in dance.

Ari found links to two reviews; posted on Links on Saturday and copied here. The reviews are coming in for Requiem 9/11, Canada's artistic response to the events of last Sept. 11. The ballet, choreographed by Brian MacDonald, had its premiere Thursday at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. : The Calgary Herald:

Lewis Segal reviews an interesting experiment in the L.A. Times -- Pacific Northwest Ballet on a ballet/theater mixed bill at the Hollywood Bowl. Did anyone go? Bard and Ballet in Duet at the Bowl

We can talk about it here, too, ronny. When someone puts up a "we've discussed this before, check this link," or "there's a book about this," it's not to squelch discussion, but to supplement it -- perhaps even enrich it.

When you're flush, David, I'm sure you'll have dozens of candidates for that post This is good news -- congratulations. The goal is definitely in reach. There's nothing like a Drop Dead Date to focus the attention of donors! I'm sure this has been a difficult time for the company -- if you'd care to share any details, please feel free. I think people will be interested.

I'll be able to make more intelligent comments in five years, if the Kenedy Center-Kirov partnership holds. I feel I've only seen a splinter of the company -- I will say under Vinogradov, he showed us all of his young ballerinas. Partly because of repertory, I'm sure, we got a very partial view of the company. I feel what I saw of the current generation is a very mixed bag, and they were plunked down in roles to which they were not ideally suited and, worse, not coached to adapt to those roles. It was "This is the Zakharova/Vishneva show. Go out there and do what you do. Never mind "Sleeping Beauty."" I don't think this serves the ballets, the dancers, or the audience. I look forward to seeing more of the company, and as I do, I may change my mind. New Yorkers? (Not to mention those who see the Kirov much more regularly elsewhere.) You've had a longer view of this company than we have in Washington. What do you think?

But PBS is supposedly NOT commercial -- I think it's gotten confused between "being in the public interest" and "mass market." The news programs are still good -- and definitely not Tabloid TV. But their "arts" programs are more and more aging rockers. It ain't art, and it ain't today's pop music. It's just popular programming aimed at the Baby Boomers. Growl.

But PBS is supposedly NOT commercial -- I think it's gotten confused between "being in the public interest" and "mass market." The news programs are still good -- and definitely not Tabloid TV. But their "arts" programs are more and more aging rockers. It ain't art, and it ain't today's pop music. It's just popular programming aimed at the Baby Boomers. Growl.

svenia, I think the key is " the Artist who climbs a rope ladder." These roles involve ropes or ladders, or some other apparatus that puts the dancer at "extraordinary risk." He or she is not dependent on her own feet!

I think Ed raises an excellent point. There's a similar problem in publishing: the powers that be do not like/know about/value opera and ballet. It's not on their radar screen, as the current saying goes. If I may give a personal anecdote from my travails of finding a publisher for my book, one editor of an excellent medium-sized press that did publish arts-related books, rejected the proposal with this a note saying kind things, and that the book should be published, "but it needs an editor who likes ballet, and that is not I." (My absolute favorite rejection letter said that the book was so good, the editor didn't want to deny an editor who was a ballet enthusiast the pleasure of working on it, and so regretfully passed on the proposal.) I don't think this is a unique experience. I think a lot of the statements that one reads about how ballet or opera -- or modern dance -- have no relevant to "the people" are made by a few people -- I hate to call them "elites," but that's the position they hold -- to whom the high arts are not relevant. If I were doing educational outreach programs, I'd add, to those (much needed) programs for underprivileged youth, some bootcamps for the privileged, the ones who will be donors and arts managers when they grow up!

I think Ed raises an excellent point. There's a similar problem in publishing: the powers that be do not like/know about/value opera and ballet. It's not on their radar screen, as the current saying goes. If I may give a personal anecdote from my travails of finding a publisher for my book, one editor of an excellent medium-sized press that did publish arts-related books, rejected the proposal with this a note saying kind things, and that the book should be published, "but it needs an editor who likes ballet, and that is not I." (My absolute favorite rejection letter said that the book was so good, the editor didn't want to deny an editor who was a ballet enthusiast the pleasure of working on it, and so regretfully passed on the proposal.) I don't think this is a unique experience. I think a lot of the statements that one reads about how ballet or opera -- or modern dance -- have no relevant to "the people" are made by a few people -- I hate to call them "elites," but that's the position they hold -- to whom the high arts are not relevant. If I were doing educational outreach programs, I'd add, to those (much needed) programs for underprivileged youth, some bootcamps for the privileged, the ones who will be donors and arts managers when they grow up!

Thank you for that, Diane. It's very interesting to have European perspectives, as so many who post here are Americans. I'm glad you've joined us and hope you post more On the character classical issue, I think this may be partly because, as several people noted, it's often so hard to draw a clear line, and so, perhaps, we try to draw very hard and clear lines. To use Balanchine as an example, again, he used German expressionism, folk dance, modern dance, gymnastics, jazz dance -- any movement that interested him AND would suit the piece he was doing, but his works are ballet. Much contemporary dance -- almost all that I see -- picks a movement from here, and another from there, and the only purpose seems to be to be able to say "I go beyond ballet. I stand ballet on its ear," etc. I was also interested in your comments on audience, company size and ticket sales. That is a dilemma. If the company isn't good, people won't come -- and I think people may be drawn in by whatever the marketeers sell them: it's all new! We've got a Big Star! or just good old See Swan Lake!. But if what their selling isn't good, people won't come back. But people in small towns can't travel every weekend to see big city ballet, and if they don't see ballet, then ballet becomes more and more invisible. The other solution is touring -- either the major companies touring the big cities, the smaller companies touring the towns in their regions. I think that's one of the things we're missing.

Thank you for that, Diane. It's very interesting to have European perspectives, as so many who post here are Americans. I'm glad you've joined us and hope you post more On the character classical issue, I think this may be partly because, as several people noted, it's often so hard to draw a clear line, and so, perhaps, we try to draw very hard and clear lines. To use Balanchine as an example, again, he used German expressionism, folk dance, modern dance, gymnastics, jazz dance -- any movement that interested him AND would suit the piece he was doing, but his works are ballet. Much contemporary dance -- almost all that I see -- picks a movement from here, and another from there, and the only purpose seems to be to be able to say "I go beyond ballet. I stand ballet on its ear," etc. I was also interested in your comments on audience, company size and ticket sales. That is a dilemma. If the company isn't good, people won't come -- and I think people may be drawn in by whatever the marketeers sell them: it's all new! We've got a Big Star! or just good old See Swan Lake!. But if what their selling isn't good, people won't come back. But people in small towns can't travel every weekend to see big city ballet, and if they don't see ballet, then ballet becomes more and more invisible. The other solution is touring -- either the major companies touring the big cities, the smaller companies touring the towns in their regions. I think that's one of the things we're missing.

Thank you for that list, Estelle. It makes for fascinating reading. I was very surprised to see how many emigre POB dancers there are.

I agree -- it is sad. NYCB used to come to Washington three weeks each season. It made a huge difference to us -- showing a model of choreography and dancing at the highest level -- and there was a very enthusiastic audience for the company, and Balanchine, that drifted away when the Center began to feed it a steady diet of regional companies. Touring is expensive, but with all the fundraising going on, it's a shame the company can't take some of that money to tour. San Francisco Ballet, which is getting quite large, manages to tour quite often.

Morris Neighbor, I think you've zeroed in on not only one of the crucial elements in a narrative ballet, but one of the main problems today: the score. In the heyday of narrative ballets, there were house composers who could turn out, or churn out, scores as needed. Also the episodic structure of 19th century ballet, based on opera (mixing aria -- dance numbers -- and recitative -- mime) was something of a formula. What does one do today, when serious concert music is nonprogrammatic? Choreographers often turn to the past, and have their musical director chop up and piece together bits of Tchaikovsky. There are new commissions (surely, some of the Dracula ballets have been to new music?) but nothing yet has announced itself as The Next New Thing. One hope I have for this is the new trend for universities to have ballet departments. I did an interview with Violette Verdy (that's now in the Archives on the main site) about the program at Indiana University. There, students get a lot of performance opportunities, dancing in operas and musicals as well as their own programs, AND young composition students have the opportunity to create short pieces for dance. Might that not be a laboratory?

There's also an excellent book, "Tchaikovsky's Ballets," by Roland John Wiley, that deals with this very interesting topic.

Both are imprecise terms, G, and I think one could argue that musicality is part of personality, but "personality," as I think people were using the term, means more than that, it was any elements that were beyond a pure classroom technique.

Yep. That's the one, Watermill. And Leigh looks very like Fonteyn in it, I thought. (A four-hanky tearjerker.)

Thanks for the update, Brioche. Please keep us informed.

I remembered a piece by Croce where she discussed Donn as a good candidate for the "man in trousers" (as opposed to "man in tights") roles in the Balanchine repertory, but couldn't find it in either "After Images" or "Going to the Dance." She did mention his debut in "Vienna Waltzes" in passing, though, calling it "tactful." There were several good comments on this thread that I wanted to pick up. First, Ari's (that Estelle quoted, too): I think the point Ari made that often only the unusual aspects are seen is very true -- often, too, it's only the surface aspects that are noticed. Some of the quotes in Rep in Review stressed that the classicism was under the surface. I'd also agree that there aren't clean, bright lines between categories, and that the ground is always shifting. But I don't think that means one abandons trying. Skimming through Rep in Review again this afternoon, I noticed the Butler and Cullberg ballets -- the crossover dance of their day -- were in rep, and there wasn't an outcry over this, just discussion of the works on their merits, or demerits. I think this was because the core of the company was so solidly ballet -- far too conservative for many -- that it wasn't an issue. They were novelties, taken in as an experiment, or to suit a dancer. Leigh's comment about Four Ts ("The shapes and their plastique are distorted off the classical axis") made me think about how much we consider straight lines part of classicism today, but that wasn't always so. I think this is a post-1950 phenomenon, at least in Western ballet. There are off-center solos in bits of 19th century and early 20th century choreography -- the woman's solo in "La Vivandiere," the third man's solo in "Napoli Act III" -- and it's hard to find a straight line in the earlier photos of Bournonville ballet. In a grouping from Sylphide, Act I, for example, where the Sylph, James, Gurn and Madge are standing together, they're tilted, as though bent by a strong wind, and there are many other examples of this. And Fokine's axis was off-center; in "Les Sylphides," wrote Chase in Charles Payne's book on ABT, the sylphs tilt forward a bit, the spine is curved. I think the definition of classicism has become restrictive, as though it's only "Concerto Barocco" or "Shades." There's no room for the character classicism Barnes mentioned, though that was once a huge part of ballet -- and a way for ballet to deal with darker, inward looking contemporary material.

I remembered a piece by Croce where she discussed Donn as a good candidate for the "man in trousers" (as opposed to "man in tights") roles in the Balanchine repertory, but couldn't find it in either "After Images" or "Going to the Dance." She did mention his debut in "Vienna Waltzes" in passing, though, calling it "tactful." There were several good comments on this thread that I wanted to pick up. First, Ari's (that Estelle quoted, too): I think the point Ari made that often only the unusual aspects are seen is very true -- often, too, it's only the surface aspects that are noticed. Some of the quotes in Rep in Review stressed that the classicism was under the surface. I'd also agree that there aren't clean, bright lines between categories, and that the ground is always shifting. But I don't think that means one abandons trying. Skimming through Rep in Review again this afternoon, I noticed the Butler and Cullberg ballets -- the crossover dance of their day -- were in rep, and there wasn't an outcry over this, just discussion of the works on their merits, or demerits. I think this was because the core of the company was so solidly ballet -- far too conservative for many -- that it wasn't an issue. They were novelties, taken in as an experiment, or to suit a dancer. Leigh's comment about Four Ts ("The shapes and their plastique are distorted off the classical axis") made me think about how much we consider straight lines part of classicism today, but that wasn't always so. I think this is a post-1950 phenomenon, at least in Western ballet. There are off-center solos in bits of 19th century and early 20th century choreography -- the woman's solo in "La Vivandiere," the third man's solo in "Napoli Act III" -- and it's hard to find a straight line in the earlier photos of Bournonville ballet. In a grouping from Sylphide, Act I, for example, where the Sylph, James, Gurn and Madge are standing together, they're tilted, as though bent by a strong wind, and there are many other examples of this. And Fokine's axis was off-center; in "Les Sylphides," wrote Chase in Charles Payne's book on ABT, the sylphs tilt forward a bit, the spine is curved. I think the definition of classicism has become restrictive, as though it's only "Concerto Barocco" or "Shades." There's no room for the character classicism Barnes mentioned, though that was once a huge part of ballet -- and a way for ballet to deal with darker, inward looking contemporary material.

Didn't Vivian Leigh play a ballerina in "Waterloo Station?" Not a ballet film, as such, but a dancer as a leading character. (Dirac will know this one, I'm sure. I've only seen this once, on tv, long ago.)

Can't help on that, I'm afraid

Just posting to bump this up -- perhaps those who weren't online over the weekend missed it. I think Marc posed a good question, and I'd be very interested to read what you all think.