Alexandra

I've read parts of this book. I don't think it's a Tell All Gossip!!!! Book and the matter of Bruhn's mother is not the major issue, but presented as important in understanding him. It will be much talked about, especially in Denmark (see Kistrup's title) because Bruhn is a huge personality there still, and it's true that this issue has not been written about before (as far as I know). In addition to Bruhn's short novel, Meinertz conducted interviews with Bruhn's family members and friends to arrive at the conclusion that there was abuse.

Astonishingly beautiful indeed. And, as Kistrup points out in her review, a very hard worker and a self-made dancer (odd, for someone from a major institution, but his development as an artist took place mostly outside of Denmark, and under his own direction). If anyone knew what he wanted to achieve, went after it, worked like hell and got it, it's Bruhn. Obviously the talent had to be there, but he didn't waste a lot of time waiting for someone to turn him into an artist, or a star. I hope this will be in English one day.

Eva Kistrup has a review in her blog of a new biography (so far only in Danish) of Erik Bruhn by the Danish critic, Alexander Meinertz. It's a very good summary of the book (and, I think, an interesting review): The Son of the Black Queen

Viviane, go if you're curious She has a very high reputation in modern dance circles here, and I have many friends who love her work. So it will be a matter of taste, and you may not like it, but the work should be worth seeing. I have not seen these pieces so I can't comment specifically. I hope someone who has will -- and thank you for asking!

Thanks for posting this, Jane. Eva Kistrup has a piece about the new rep, and Hubbe's first steps, in her danceviewtimes blog. Tradition! Tradition!

Kronstam was the Artistic Director of the company then, but I don't think he was actively involved in the filming. If so, he never mentioned it. Tetley staged a triple bill and brought in his own assistants to stage the work and rehearse the dancers.

George Jackson reviews the Japan Festival's modern dance programs in this week's danceviewtimes. Before the Cherries Blossom

It's not the postman!! Apologies for the late delivery. To be perfectly honest, they sat on my living room floor for a week and a half, because I couldn't stamp, stuff and label while at the ballet All issues should have been sent off last Tuesday.

Many people have told us that when they try to access www.balletalert.com (which some people use as the gateway to this forum) they are getting a page telling them that their Apache server has been installed. Some of you will not get this page, but the actual site. What we think happened is that the site was moved by our web hosts (for a good reason; they're a good host) and the new address has to be picked up by all of our individual internet service providers. This may take a day, it may take a week. I remember this happened a few years ago, and after three days I wrote to my ISP and asked them to update the DNS information, they did, and the site was immediately accessible. If anyone contacts you and says they can't find the forum, instead of giving them the url of this forum (which is long), tell them to go to another sister site, www.ballettalk.com There's a link to both this site and the BT4Dancers board, as well as a direct link to the Links forum.

I'm making note of these Some enterprising artistic director is undoubtedly writing these down on his Wish List of Rare Ballets as you reads this!!!

There are a few stories about Nureyev in my biography of Kronstam. Frankly, I can't remember which I kept and which I tossed out. There were several rather nasty stories that I did not include. One that I really really really wanted to include was withdrawn by the person who told it to me (I think I can say it was about Nureyev's being jealous of Kronstam, told me by someone who discussed this with Nureyev). I don't think they got on. Kronstam didn't interact with people generally, and he did say he didn't like Nureyev's way of tossing out steps. One story that I loved -- can't remember whether it's in the book or not. One ballerina told a story of Nureyev trying to change the choreography and being told (not by Kronstam) he might be able to get away with that in London but he wasn't going to get away with it in Copenhagen. Kavanagh bypasses Copenhagen generally. Ashton spent a lot of time there, and had several close friends there, but they don't make it into "Secret Muses." But everybody ignored Kronstam He didn't give interviews and was a very private man. The dancers talked about him and compared him to Nureyev -- generally quite favorably (better actor) -- but he's not mentioned except in passing in all but one of the books about The Great Male Dancers of Our Day.

These are all very good questions! I don't think there's any one answer -- I hope others will join in with their observations and experiences. On learning roles, I think that varies from school to school. Some have "repertory" courses in which students learn specific variations. Others have performances for which the students learn variations. Students learn roles for competitions -- and many learn them in private coaching, because a teacher thinks they'll benefit from it, or because they take private lessons. I think the practices of companies are so varied that it would be difficult to draw any rules about the process -- it varies by company and by artistic director. I was surprised that dancers asked for roles, as I had so often read that dancers had to be "good soldiers" and obey orders -- but they do. Sometimes roles are assigned by the director, sometimes by the stager, if one is brought in to stage a classic, in consultation with the director. If a dancer did learn a role as a student, he or she will have to relearn it, or at least adapt it, when s/he joins a company, as each company has a particular style, or at least approach. Anyone have specific examples?

A quick answer is that the current practice seems to be for young dancers to learn every role, and that anyone who can do the steps in a role will get the role. Or so it seems. This is another huge break with the past, in which dancers (like opera singers) were trained in a specific genre. There was always crossover, especially among stars, but the general rule was that dancers danced certain roles and not others.

Well said, Mel (raising tankard, prepaid). Just catching up on this thread. Thanks for the mention of the review by John Percival in DanceView, bart. It's hard to write a biography of someone one didn't know, and whose early career one hasn't seen, and I was very glad to have Percival's comments.

Read Magri He writes in the 18th century of "fairgrounds dancer" (i.e., acrobats) doing amazing things. My favorite is a nameless woman who could do 32 entrechat huit. It was a circus trick -- if a dancer today devoted her life to this one step and practiced it incessantly she'd probably do it too. As I tell my students, today's dancers are not space aliens. They have the same bodies that people did in 1800 or 1600. One difference today is that companies can be more selective -- and are selecting for different things - and so I don't think too many people would argue that the level of dancing in the corps is much much higher than 50 or 100 years ago. But the STARS have always had a very high level of technique, and roles that challenged them still challenge dancers today. There's a new book out about dance in the 18th century, at the Opera and on the fairgrounds, with eyewitness accounts (letters, diaries of observers) of technical feats that are quite astounding, including male dancing on point in the mid-1700s. Whenever this topic comes up, we often say we aren't just talking about technique, but I can't remember reading much about anything except about technique. I think there are different elements to consider. For example, dancers in the 40s (from film evidence) turn very, very fast -- but aren't very concerned about placement. They wouldn't phrase it that way. They'd say, "Placement is for lthe classroom. The stage isn't the classroom." If you're worried about epaulement (which I see precious little of today. The Kirov is in town, or I could say I haven't seen it all year), about musicality, about style, then you will do fewer pirouettes. Editing to add: I often see dancers whom I think are "better" than anyone I've ever seen -- Cornejo's Puck in Ashton's "Dream," and the man who's dancing the Golden Idol with the Kirov probably just as I'm writing this (Grigory Popov). If I say that around someone who's seen more "Dreams" than I have, or many more Kirov "Bayadere's" than I have, I'll probably get, "Ah, but you didn't see X-ov in the role." I'll stop now, at least for awhile

I think if one thinks of ballet as a sport -- an Olympics -- then the answer might be yes. If one considers it an art form, and takes all of its facets (musicality, placement, epaulement, dramatic ability, style, etc etc etc) the answer would be quite different. I don't think one can disregard history of performance styles when comparing one era to another. As has been often written here, judging dancers by old films is very hard to do unless you know how to read them There are so many aspects -- state of photography, the small space that had to be used, etc. -- that it's comparing apples and oranges.

Thank you, Rabbi!!! Welcome, Matthew!! A couple of questions back: do yesterday's dancers have to go out on stage without taking class? Or are they allowed to take class with today's dancers and learn new steps, or work different muscles? Yesterday's dancers spent a great deal of energy keeping extensions low, yet emphasized deep, deep back bends. It would take some time to change that. Do the women get to wear contemporary pointe shoes, or would Taglioni have to try Balanchine wearing a slipper that gave her absolutely no support -- her strength was in her feet. Would today's dancers have to go back and do a full-evening ballet that was 2/3 mime -- at a time when audiences appreciated mime and judged a dancer on his/her abilities as a mime -- without rehearsal? Or could they have a few classes to teach them how to create a character? Could they also get a few lessons on how to fill a variation, or would they have to go out on stage 100 years ago and just do the steps? I'll go with Rabbi Hillel the Second: It is different

Very interested to know this -- thank you, Lynette. Jealous, of course, because we get Nutcrackers at 10 a.m. Sunday morning and nothing else, but interested.

Hello and welcome! This is a fine place to ask your question. Unfortunately, I can't help directly, but I did find this story on line that mentions Gene Marinaccio in June 2007. The author may be able to help: http://independent.com/news/2007/jun/28/er...enzi-1918-2007/

I'm interested in seeing how this develops. I think it must be excruciating for young dancers not to "answer back" on the internet, not to mention brag about their successes, or impending successes. There's no way for them to respond to reviews they think are unfair. No way to say, "Look. I was dancing with a sprained ankle, I just got evicted, we had NO rehearsal and my partner kept kicking me. Can't I cut a break?" Or simply, "I am positively NOT mediocre." But they can't. And the problem is that anything they write MUST be discrete. They can't complain about the terrible choreographer/partner/director. They can't share the exciting news (that we'd all love to read) about what went on in rehearsal today. But will this change? It will be interesting to see. On dancers are writers, I have to say that one of the biggest surprises I've had teaching young dancers is how many good writers there are. And they're usually the best dancers. I've had students who wrote poetry, privately, for fun; students who kept artistic (writing and drawings) journals; and at least three students every year who've written papers better than juniors and seniors I've taught at area universities. I'm sure there are students at other schools just as talented. Not everybody, by any means, but definitely more than a few. Another problem is lack of time. There have been some interesting dancer and musician blogs on line over the past few years, but most don't last more than a few posts.

I love these. More, please. Innopac, your Spectre story could be a wonderful ballet -- and a recurring nightmare for a dancer!! I think old memoires are treasure troves. There were more interesting occurrences in former times. (Not ballet, but theater -- some of John Gielgud's tales of theater in England when he was very young are hysterical.)

Good advice, Mel! I think this topic, since it's about training issues that seem of interest to dance students, is more appropriate to our sister site, Ballet Talk for Dancers, and I'll close the thread. I'm sure there are several threads over on BT4D about boys in ballet -- they have a whole Men and Boys forum. Ballet Talk for Dancers

That's an interesting point, vipa. In this case, there would have been applause anyway (not only because it was a school performance with parents as an audience -- sometimes the applause is tepid -- but because it really was well done.) I didn't think of it as sport, but something very dry and clinical -- and the admiration was for the discipline. The two other similar mishaps (not counting fallen dancers, or scenery, or things of that nature) were a similar tape problem with Paul Taylor Company in "Esplanade" when it was new and dangerous and exciting. Ruth Andrien came on at the beginning of the last movement, ready to throw herself onto the floor, when the music stopped. She kept going and the music found her in about two minutes -- I think the applause then was as much for the technician as the dancer, because, as you noted in your example, it was absolutely right. The moment was ruined, though, because it took the air out of the dance -- but everyone admired the dancers for continuing. The other was when a thunderstorm took out the electricity at Wolf Trap as the Royal Ballet, with a young cast, was in the middle of "Swan Lake" Act III. This did not go well. Marguerite Porter was just about to start coda (really) and a helpful stagehand beamed a huge spotlight in her face, I suppose to give her something to spot on as well as to light her. That threw her off, of course. Everyone stopped, and Derek Deane turned to the wings and mimed -- very clearly -- "What????" Curtain. The audience, of course, had problems of its own, since half of it was on the lawn and there was not only a lot of rain, but a lot of lightening....

I certainly understand the reasons for dancers leaving, but I still feel sorry for the company (and its audience).

aurora - yes, I think it's exactly the same thing (despite differences of genre ) I'm intertested that your instinct, too, was "The show must go on," and glad it had a happy ending! bart - I've had the same experience watching ballets on tape (try fast forwarding, if you haven't; it condenses time and sometimes I see the patterns more clearly). This grand pas isn't Cunningham, though, so the resonance was missing. There could be arguments of whether the choreography was lacking, and that the piece was overdependent on the music, or one could argue the choreography was quite strong because it survived without the music. (There are several combinations that Balanchine used in his ballets in the '30s and '40s, after Vainonen's work premiered, which I also found interesting!) kfw - yes, they will go to see that NYCB program (and the Kirov's Bayadere) I have to say I was more excited by them seeing Serenade and Symphony in C, but in light of this performance, I'll be curious to see what they make of Moves.