Alexandra

The Times has an article today that I thought was interesting -- it alerted me to a trend of which I was unaware. This is a very Wormy Can, and I realize that there are posters here of all religions, including no religion and the Evangelical Christian religion, so please tiptoe carefully, if you join the discussion, but I wonder what people think of this. Is there a surge in Evangelical Christianity, or is it just beginning to be noticed by arts mavens? Will this affect ballet -- or concert dance in general? Here's the article: Evangelical Sales Are Converting Publishers

Thank you for that comparison, Glebb. It's interesting that 20 years ago, the Cranko was the more performed version (not by many, but I think three or four companies besides Stuttgart did it) and now the MacMillan is much more performed. The Cranko also has a few little dramatic touches that either strike one as touching or a bit too much -- for example, Romeo stroking Juliet's hair in bed, and then later doing the same in the crypt scene, seconds before dying. Both were inspired by the Lavrovsky dramballet version, which put realistic detail above formal choreography. (I love the Lavrovsky version, even the cut-down one the Bolshoi showed here last year.)

Ari, yes, McBride's dancing wasn't representative of the company as a whole in 1984 -- that was my point. Five years before, she had not been so noticably aberrant -- there were a lot of very "wild" dancers then, like 'em or not. (Especially the Farrell imitators, who were always more off-center than Farrell.) The difference between McBride and the company was something much talked about here -- the difference between watching dancing every night, so one gets a bit used to a change, and not seeing something for two years, or after a change in staff, choreographer, whatever, and so seeing the change as very stark.

What a great idea! Thanks for posting that, rubria. We do have about ten people from Denmark who check this board, though not every day -- I hope some see it and come. I'm sure you have posters up in Copenhagen -- and that you get a good turn out

I don't know of a video, Glebb. I had a similar experience watching "Voluntaries." The first time I saw it it was new, and the Stuttgart dancers, as you noted, danced from pain. (It was a tribute to Cranko, who had just died, very young and very unexpectedly.) When I saw it later, I thought it was a mess. The organ crests, the dancers are lifted. Running on and off without any reason. I had been seeing a lot of Balanchine in between my first viewing (which was my first season watching ballet, and I knew nothing) and my second, and his ballets had trained my eye to expect a certain response to the music and a specific structure. I agree about the difference in weightedness, too. With Makarova, my hazy memory tells me, the ballet was about being lifted and making pretty shapes in the air.

It will be interesting how the company fares in London with that repertory -- Lynette, what is the change? "Silver Lining" is Kent Stowell's to music of Jerome Kern -- I THINK it's dances set to a collection of songs rather than a narrative ballet, but I haven't seen it, so I may well be wrong. I'm sure "Fearful" is the same you saw at Edinburgh. The Nacho Duato is, for me, pleasant to watch, but unmemorable. Several people who began watching modern dance several decades before I did pointed out that there are many sections of it that are, er, very similar to sections in dances by Graham and Limon. We haven't seen the company in a few seasons -- it didn't come to the Balanchine Celebration here two years ago, which was a pity. . They're still one of our best Balanchine companies, by all reports. I don't know how that repertory will go down there, but I'm sure there will be some good dancing! The company's url is www.pnb.org Click on Company to see a list of dancers, with photos, as well as a list of current repertory.

I remember back in the mid-80s, right after Balanchine died, I began hearing complaints from friends in New York about how the company's style had changed. Back then, what I heard the most often was that Stanley Williams was teaching company class and he was "softening" the style. (But Williams had always been one of the prime teachers of company class, so that couldn't have been the only reason.) The company came to DC that season, and at first I couldn't see that much of a difference. And then Patty McBride danced Raymonda Variations and good lord, it was as though she was a guest star in her own company. The contrast was stark -- she was much more stretched, very wild arms, etc. There's a letter in Copenhagen's Royal Library that I would love to see and be able to read. I've only heard about it. It's one of Bournonville's daughters who went to study in Paris, probably in the 1850s. "Oh, Papa, Papa. How the style has changed!" she wrote him.

I've only seen Malakhov a few times, and always in acting roles (Romeo, Albrecht, etc.) I can't begin to better Paul's wonderful description of him. He's a dancer who intrigues me and whom I wish I could see more often. Last week he danced the first movement in Symphony in C (with Paloma Herrera) and I thought he was marvelous. He *is* like a long legged Nureyev -- they have the same way of pouncing into a step -- but he can remain a part of the ensemble. He was one of eight principals, but not a STAR here, and I liked him very much for that. The dancing itself was very clean, very elegant and very sophisticated -- and joyous. He's not well-matched with Herrera (though this is one of her best roles). He's too small for her and they just don't seem a match made in Ballet Heaven. But he partnered her beautifully. A surprise performance, but one I'm glad I saw. Wish he was doing Oberon in Dream!

BW, I don't see the company often enough to be able to comment on the current state of the style. Most of the students, though, do not go through the school from the age of 8 or 9. They come from other places and have sometimes as little as a year of training -- some have more, of course. From conversations with dancers, I think the company DOES have a stylistic position on some issues of technique. But I kept thinking, watching Verdy coach dancers in the Violette et Mr. B film, and listening to her stories, that the notion that Balanchine didn't care about silly things like head, hands, arms, emotions, etc. is a pile of .....

Thanks for posting this, Marga. It's a category that still exists, but few people use the word any more. Yes, short (and short lines) but not necessarily cute and perky, although that's the way soubrette roles are often done. Watching the film "Violette et Mr. B" I thought Verdy danced Tchaikovsky pas de deux a la soubrette -- there was a real zest and pounce in her dancing -- yet, of course, she was also very sophisticated, depending on what the role demanded.

No, I meant that this performance wasn't studentish -- in the sense of well-schooled -- and careful. Often school academy performances are over-careful, which is what is usually meant by "studentish" They're trying very hard to be perfect, and the schooling shows --"schooling" means that each particular school has a very specific idea of placement (and I don't mean just the hips and legs, but the whole body by this word), how the hands are held -- some want the thumb and index finger together, some want there to be a small bit of space between each finger, etc. -- how high the arabesque is, whether the arms are centered over the head en couronne, or slightly in front of the head, etc etc etc Yes, I saw splayed hands -- which one might accept if that was the official company style -- but more to the point, no consistency in how hands were held as well as other similar details.

Becky, I'm sure you will be lovely, and magical I hope very much that you have FUN with this! Let us know about the performance, please.

I saw the Saturday evening workshop and had mixed reaction. One one hand, they looked more like young dancers than students. I've seen many professional ballet companies with dancing at this level. On the other hand, one of the things I like about seeing student performances is how "studentish" and careful the dancing is. I'll be reconciled to the lack of polish at SAB -- splayed hands, clawed hands, no hands. I want more than that from a great academy. I also thought the dancing overall at this performance was rather slack, especially Gentilhommes. But in Ballo, too, every single musical accent was smudged in the ballerina solos -- and I don't think this piece is appropriate for students. They can get through it, but they can't really dance it, and there's a difference. I saw a lot of Robbins in Woetzel's ballet, from actual steps to the idea and atmosphere, and although I liked parts of it, it was (like Gentilhommes) just a string of steps, in the same way a pop music album is a string of songs, but that's far short of a symphony. I did like the two bits of Brahms-Schoenberg, especially the Rondo.

Yes, Glebb. That's in David Vaughan's biography of Ashton (and it was mentioned at the panel discussion of the ballet as well, at DCA). What I"m not clear about is who taught Karsavina -- any recent readers of "Theatre Street" know? I'd love to think that that little scene dates from 1788! Calliope, I agree that today, "The Farmer's Daughter" wouldn't work -- and I think Hurok wanted it for cities and towns outside New York, too. Perhaps today it would have to be "How Lise Got Hers" or something like that In the '60s, the ballet became popular through word of mouth, so that may happen now, as well.

Jeannie, I've been away or I would have commented sooner -- THANK YOU for these wonderful reports! Thank you for being so patient and telling us about the performances in such detail. I'm glad you're having such a good time!

Hi, Lynette! I knew it hadn't been performed often in England during the past few years, but I didn't realize Fille had been out of rep that long. And the performances we saw here last spring were rough in some characterizations (the Widow Simone, most notably) and fuzzy in some details. The ABT production actually looks rehearsed! Well-rehearsed. Grant spoke at the DCA Conference about staging and coaching. As dancers often do, he said that any classically trained dancer could dance anything, there's no problem with other company's mastering Ashton's style. He talked about Alain being a child -- although he didn't say this, Alain has often been played (at least it was when I first saw the ballet in the late '70s and early '80s) as a simpleton, and it was often uncomfortable to watch. Especially when he was a middle-aged simpleton. But the ABT characterization is of a child. Grant also said something very interesting to me about costuming. Alain's clothes in the first act are too small, as though he's outgrown them, and his wedding clothes in the last are too big, as though his thrifty father had bought him clothes he would grow into. I hope the Royal performs more Ashton than its currently one a year ration, but I hope ABT, which has always had a wonderful nose for what's popular and successful, will get a few more. The Two Pigeons, say, or his Cinderella, to replace the one they've now got. How popular "Fille" actually is here is complicated. There were empty seats on the Friday, opening performance too -- remembering that the Met is huge, this isn't unusual -- but the people who were there seemed to love it. Laughed heartily at all the right places, gave the dancers many curtain calls. I remember reading that this was the situation in the '60s as well. People who went loved it, many stayed away because, it was thought, of the title. Hurok wanted to change it to "The Farmer's Daughter" in America.

In the 1970s, ABT was the resident company of the Kennedy Center -- official title. They performed here for four weeks in the fall (including two weeks of Nutcracker) and three weeks in the spring, around Easter. They had a loving and loyal audience. At the time, the company didn't have a home in New York. When they had the opportunity to have a Met season, they dropped the "resident company" of the Kennedy Center. I don't think this means that they have to move here, but just have a connection, as they did before, and perhaps perform here more than once a week. They also had access to the Center's rehearsal space, too, of course.

I saw a different cast of "The Dream:" McKerrow and Belotserkovsky. Neither were really up to the technical challenges, and the performance as a whole was flat, I thought. But I could still see the ballet -- to me, it looked like a very solid staging that needs fine tuning. The corps was a tiny bit sharp, but, I thought, only a tiny bit. I thought they were very Ashtonian, and I've always thought the native ABT language was closer to Ashton than Balanchine. What I was afraid of (along with others, I think) was that ABT would be too broad in the comedy, and they weren't. Belotserkovsky, as Oberon, just didn't have the speed, and so the Scherzo didn't work. Oberon's temper causes that storm, and the anger comes out in the turns -- the air is stirred, everything else is scattered. It's really a little classical suite for a ballerino and supporting dancers and it erupts in the center of the ballet and is its climax in every way. Several people I know thought that Stiefel did very well. No one can be Dowell, because Dowell was both imperious and fey, and he had such an unusually beautiful body. Because ABT is dancing two new Ashtons, there was a lot of talk this weekend at the Dance Critics Association (about 150 dance critics from around the country, a few from abroad) that it would be nice if they'd get more. Rather surprisingly, to me, this came not only from people who are identified as Ashton people (David Vaughan) but seemed to be a general sentiment. Hard times make for strange bedfellows Ashton may be brought back -- dragged out of that Heritage Works freezer -- for 2004 (his centennary) but his works are seldom performed now at Covent Garden. One this season, one next. One! That means ABT's current repertory has double the Ashton works of the Royal. (Imagine if NYCB programmed only one Balanchine ballet in a season!) ABT has, in recent memory, danced Les Patineurs, Les Rendezvous, Birthday Offering, and Symphonic Variation (the latter was particularly well danced, and well-liked, but went away very quickly). The Symphony in C I saw Thursday night was in much better shape than when the company was in D.C. As a matter of fact, both programs showed a different ABT than the one I've been watching at the Kennedy Center for the past six or seven years. Much more disciplined -- no wrist flicking, no overgrinning, no turning the second movement of Symphony in C into Swan Lake Act II(a). It was a very clean, very joyous performance. Done in a different accent than it would be across the plaza, but I want a world of many accents. Vladimir Malakov danced the first movement (with Paloma Herrera, surely one of the strangest pairings imaginable). I haven't seen him in several years and have never seen him in a pure dance role. I thought it was the most sophisticated male dancing I've seen in years -- sophisticated because it was clean, every step given full measure, no overdancing, and his movements are polished.

This is the ABT press release: GILLIAN MURPHY AND MARCELO GOMES PROMOTED TO PRINCIPAL DANCER AT AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE Monique Meunier To Join American Ballet Theatre As Soloist Maria Riccetto And Gennadi Saveliev Promoted To Soloist Gillian Murphy and Marcelo Gomes will be promoted to Principal Dancer with American Ballet Theatre for the 2002-2003 season, it was announced today by Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie. Mr. McKenzie also announced that Monique Meunier of New York City Ballet will join American Ballet Theatre as a Soloist. In addition, ABT corps de ballet members Maria Riccetto and Gennadi Saveliev will be promoted to Soloist. All promotions become effective for the 2002-2003 season.

It's that time of year again..... We've had some rough times with posts about student workshops. The moderators have been batting this one around, and we'd like to try again to have reports about workshops, including SAB -- which is just around the corner. Please remember that you're writing about Very Young People, people who are not yet professional, who are students, who cannot be expected to dance like 30 year olds. Please remember that, especially with SAB, it is very likely that the students will be reading what you write -- parents, too Of course, no one would dream of writing "John Jones was the absolute worst! He was awful! He'll never have a career in ballet!" Of course not. But we'd also ask that you resist the temptation to Pick the Winner ("John Jones is the Baryshnikov of the future! I know a star when I see one!") Predicting the future of young dancers, for good or ill, can have unfortunate implications. Thanks! Enjoy the workshops -- I'll look forward to reading what you think about them

Don't throw away the Koegler! There's a lot of new stuff in the new Oxford -- mostly modern dance -- which is fine. (I think it's very hard these days to have a separate ballet mini-encyclopedia; there's too much crossover.) But there's also a lot of stuff in the Koegler that isn't in the new Oxford. Especially the sense that Koegler had actually seen much of what he wrote about.

I'd love to see a ballet about wild, loud chickens Great idea, Mr. A!

The people I know who object to erosion in the company's style rarely talk about this or that detail, but at something larger -- the fact that in Balanchine's day, whatever the detail, there was something in the dancing beyond energy -- I just found a quote about this the other day from a dancer who worked with Balanchine, "He didn't want more energy. He wanted more fulfillment of every step." That the dancing itself isn't as strong, as crisp; that the footwork isn't what it was. (This could be said about ABT and the Royal as well, and I think the footwork is deteriorating because contemporary/crossover ballet doesn't care much for steps. It's all lunge, kick, lift, run. In whatsleftofpetipa ballets, the small connecting steps are going so you can put in a few more turns, or run across the stage.) I also don't think that because there is debate over which change is authentic and which is not, that the correct conclusion is "anything goes, it doesn't matter, whoever is in charge gets to pick." I don't think that all memories or analyses or opinions are equal; some are more informed than others. Someone who has an deep and instinctive grasp of the style and knowledge of the performance tradition can make these decisions.

The people I know who object to erosion in the company's style rarely talk about this or that detail, but at something larger -- the fact that in Balanchine's day, whatever the detail, there was something in the dancing beyond energy -- I just found a quote about this the other day from a dancer who worked with Balanchine, "He didn't want more energy. He wanted more fulfillment of every step." That the dancing itself isn't as strong, as crisp; that the footwork isn't what it was. (This could be said about ABT and the Royal as well, and I think the footwork is deteriorating because contemporary/crossover ballet doesn't care much for steps. It's all lunge, kick, lift, run. In whatsleftofpetipa ballets, the small connecting steps are going so you can put in a few more turns, or run across the stage.) I also don't think that because there is debate over which change is authentic and which is not, that the correct conclusion is "anything goes, it doesn't matter, whoever is in charge gets to pick." I don't think that all memories or analyses or opinions are equal; some are more informed than others. Someone who has an deep and instinctive grasp of the style and knowledge of the performance tradition can make these decisions.

That's an outrage! Protest! Email! Write letters!