Alexandra

I just got an email from Nancy Reynolds (author of the invaluable "Repertory in Review") of the Balanchine Foundation announcing some upcoming events in her Interpreters Archive project. (This has been going on for several years. DanceView has covered most of the sessions, with most of the articles written by Leigh Witchel. Reynolds invites someone who created a major role in a Balanchine ballet, or, if this is not possible, someone very associated with the role. The interpreter chooses dancers to work with, and teaches them the work. Reynolds films the sessions, edits them and produces a tape which becomes part of the Interpreters Archive. These tapes are available in many university libraries, and anyone may view them.) As you can probably tell, I am a very enthusiastic fan of this project. It's one way to insure that details of choreography don't get lost, it lets today's young dancers have a chance to work with interesting and important dancers of the past -- Leigh may want to post something of what he's observed. Here's the schedule. You won't be able to watch the tapings, but you can check to see if a library near you has copies of this Archive. Yvonne Mounsey coaching the Siren in LA Oct. 19, with dancers Melissa Barak (former student of Yvonne's) and Arsen Serobian Mimi Paul coaching Emeralds with Sara Mearns and Jonathan Stafford in NYC Nov. 2 Mimi Paul coaching Valse Fantaisie with Megan Fairchild and Joaquin De Luz in NYC Nov. 3 Here's a link to the Archive's page where you can read more and get excited too Video Archives

Great idea! I saw only one performance, but I thought it was one of the best things they've ever done. Write! Call! Start a petition!!

Thanks! That is big news!

Thanks. Glebb -- you are certainly allowed!

Yes, fuzzy vision will not help! Good luck -- and have fun.

The Baryshnikov era repertory was odd, though. On the weekends they did The Classics. During the week, the same small company-within-a-company did modern dance pieces. (Cunningham, Taylor, Tharp, David Gordon, Karole Armitage, etc.) The old ABT rep was pretty much thrown out. Ironically, when McKenzie took over, one of the things he said he wanted to do was to bring back that old rep, and they did a performance of "Three Virgins and a Devil" that pleased even those who'd seen the original. Then things changed. Rethinking? The board? I don't know. I've been thinking about atm's comment that Tudor, Robbins and DeMille wouldn't have a chance today -- probably that's true. One of the problems with today's Program A, Program B way of doing things is that each new work has to be a Hit. (This is an especial problem for smaller companies who only do four programs a year.) No place to work in a small work. The last one, unless I'm forgetting someone, that had a success there was the late Clark Tippet, who was allowed one work a year, except for the year they couldn't find a place for him. (That was before McKenzie's tenure.)

I agree! I think you've nailed the approach -- but I don't think that dancing the 19th century repertory "with pace and energy but not much sense of tradition or even story context" is much to be proud of.

Yes -- and that does help!

Quite a change from when I first saw the company in the early 1970's, where having a European or Russian, or Latin American style sold tickets, at least among the principals. Makarova put on her own shows with Nagy as a tender, thoughtful partner; seeing Fracci and Bruhn in the same roles was like travelling to another continent. Yes, in Baryshnikov's day they were aiming for a Kirov style and had a Kirov balletmistress to work with the corps. There were a lot of complaints that Baryshhikov had completely changed the company and was trying to turn it into Kirov West. (And a lot of people who were very happy about that.) But now there are dancers from lots of different schools (and Schools ) For a smaller company, with a corps in the 20-30 range, seven dancers could have a huge influence, especially if the Artistic Director chose those students deliberately for their style and training. Yes. The school isn't trying to be an influence. It's just a school -- one of many schools in this country that teach Vaganova. We have graduates in many different companies with many different styles, and I'm sure the others do as well. I think that the pre-Baryshnikov ABT was proud to dance Tudor ballets "in Tudor," if you think of style as a language, and Robbins ballets in his style, and "Les Sylphides" like Fokine, and "Swan Lake" a la Ivanov. One of the divides between Europeans and Americans on the style question has long been that we criticize them for dancing Balanchine, say, in their own company's style, and they criticize us for not having a style.

Interesting points, Helene. At the beginning, ABT, I have read, considered itself a Fokine company -- not quite a school, but at least an attitude. BUT it needed to be eclectic in order to dance Tudor-Robbins-DeMille, and other choreographers. I think this only became a problem when the company started dancing a lot of Petipa. It didn't have its own way (School) of dancing Petipa. KAB has been a feeder school to ABT in the past ten years. I've lost count, but I think they have seven KAB graduates (disclaimer: I teach ballet history at KAB), and it is a Vaganova school (and School), but, as Mme. Vinogradova once said about Michele Wiles, "They have already started to change her," after she had been in the company about a month. The current direction doesn't want that look/style/School. Too extreme? Too European? (That's a defensible point.) I think that's why they're trying again to start a school, and press releases indicate that they're consciously working on defining a classical style -- taking bits from several techniques, as the Royal did when it started.

Mel, I'm not going to argue over definitions. What I wrote is not an esoteric, personal definition of School as it's referred to in ballet, but one that critics and historians have used for a very long time. I'm sure you've read it. When Russian critics commented upon the [now] Royal Ballets first visit to Russia, for example, one wrote, "We wondered if they would have a school, the company is so young, but they have an excellent school." She wasn't referring to the RBS, but its technique. Printscess, yes, JKO has only been in existence for a few years. It isn't that ABT hasn't wanted to have a school. It's always been the poor cousin -- without a theater of its own, without a huge endowment to draw on. They have made, as Mel noted, many attempts to start a school (in all sense of the term) and I hope this one succeeds. A company needs to be able to train dancers to its own standards, to have them dance the way the artistic direction wants them to dance. Re atm's comment above: In Charles Payne's book on ABT (the big silver coffee table book) he writes about the fight within the company when Lucia Chase decided to stage "Swan Lake" in the 1960s. Robbins and de Mille argued very strenuously against it, saying that it would change the company's aesthetic, really its reason for being. (The company danced "Giselle," "La Sylphide," "Coppelia" then, but the emphasis was on the triple bill, preserving some Ballet/s Russe/s ballets, but the main focus on new creations. But accbob's point -- that we should have a company that does the big classics to our taste and for our dancers and audiences -- is also a good one, and that's the way ABT started to go. (I'd like both )

It's never had a School. Not the buildings and the classes, but a School -- a choreographer whose ballets shaped its classical dancing and/or a teaching method that defined the company and gave it a style. Washington School of Ballet was a feeder school for ABT for about 20 years, and there are other schools who've supplied dancers over the years, but it's not the same thing, and First, a School means: if you're going to have a great classical ballet company, you have to have a School. Balanchine was importing hundreds of years of European tradition. All of the great European companies born in the 18th century started with a school, and the company grew from that.

Did anyone go to the annual performance at Kastellet? Eva Kistrup has posted about it in her blog at DanceView Times: Transitions

I'll have to quibble with that. ABT, in its Ballet Theatre days, was not based on the star system but on presenting a repertory of vibrant, new, ballets by choreographers from America (Robbins and De Mille, Eugene Loring, et al.) as well as England (Antony Tudor) and Russia (Mikhail Fokine and Leonide Massine, among others). I'm not sure what you mean by "doesn't pretend to be a dance company," but I think ABT has always considered itself a ballet company. It has also promoted American stars at different periods -- when there are American dancers who measure up to international standard (snowballs down, please ) The company was very proud of Cynthia Gregory and Fernando Bujones, to name two. I'll leave it for atm to come in and tell us about the first generation of American stars. I agree with the criticism of ABT's productions, but I think a lot of the people who are complaining are doing so because they're comparing the current company to past glories.

He's listed on their web site as a "first soloist" (which is their top rank).

Amen! This has happened with every new medium. Radio stations weren't allowed to play records in its early days. And how many of us really truly thought the FBI was going to roll up to our door back in the 70s because we'd taped something off TV? This too shall pass. In the meantime, I'll join the go posters go chant.

I don't -- hope someone else does. The opening ceremonies should be dancey, though, from the few practice clips they've shown in news/sports previews.

Thank you for posting that, Anne -- it's a beautiful slice-of-career tribute. (You don't need Danish to watch it. They talk, but the photos say nearly everything.) Bravo til Xander

Taylor is on record, many times, as "disliking ballet," and that could be part of it, but it could also be generational. For both Taylor and Cunningham, Modern Dance was a Statement. It was Not Ballet. And so saying their works are "dances," I think, should be taken in that context.

You know, Bourne has a point. Martha Graham, at the end of her career, called what she had once insisted on calling "dances" "ballets." There's a distinction between "ballet" and "a ballet," and that's the distinction Bourne is drawing. It's an accurate one.

This is way OT on Bourne, so apologies, but neither Galeotti's nor Bournonville's dances are parodies (in Whims or FFD). Yes, they're observations of "other cultures," but they're not parodies of them. Yes, character dancing can be used for parody to brilliant effect, but not here.

Now now. That's not a parody. That's character dance. (And what we have now isn't necessarily what Bournonville did. From photos, it's changed a lot over the years.) I'd second everything dirac wrote above. It's also the raison d'etre of this board to discuss classical ballet (see our Mission Statement) which is why dirac gets to be "high-handed." Writers -- and choreographers -- throw the term "ballet" around as though it's a synonym for "dance." My (least) favorite is: "My work is firmly grounded in the classical tradition!" when it consists of hopping, running, wiggling, and one arabesque.

No, it has nothing to do with whether his work is "good" or "bad" or someone likes or dislikes him, but because he's a modern dance choreographer. That's his language. Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham and Mark Morris are also modern dance choreographers. Very good ones, too The quickest answer is that a ballet choreographer is someone who has been trained as a classical dancer and composes dances using the vocabulary of the danse d'ecole.

Yep And love critics who love our favorite dancers, companies and productions General note in Administrator mode: Please tone down the personal invectives, descriptions, etc. They are out of place in this forum.

Whether a landing is loud or soft depends on how well the dancer can control his weight (easy to say). But the danger is if the plie is too shallow and the landing is absorbed -- or not -- by the knees. That's a short answer. I'd like to hear dancers on this one.