Alexandra

Re the internal competitions in Paris, I can't give the date without looking it up, but they're mentioned in Ivor Guest's "The Romantic Ballet in Paris." Taglioni was on the first jury! Talk about intimidation It's interesting that this competition started in Paris at the time the Romantic Ballet was winding down, and there was a lack of stars. I would guess that the early Paris competitions were to insure a high technical standard -- as they still do today -- but I wonder if it was also part of an attempt to find/make stars? That's total speculation on my part Jeannie, thanks for the information. I thought there were Soviet (but not international) competitions earlier than that, but didn't know the dates. I think it's also worth mentioning that one of the reasons for the Soviet's interest in competitions in the 1950s and 1960s was because of the Cold War -- the dancers couldn't get out, the international interchange among dancers stopped. Since the dancers couldn't tour -- there are generations of Russian dancers that are unknown, or little known, in the West, the competitions were a way for the Soviet dancers to achieve recognition. Perhaps a "consolation prize" for not being able to tour. During the Cold War, I've heard/read American dancers say that they loved going to the competitions because it was the only way they had exposure to Russian dancers and Russian training. Mary Day, the head of the Washington School of Ballet, entered several girls for that reason.

Calliope, I'm sorry to say this because I'm the one who moved the thread -- I thought you were just asking about the history. But if you want to discuss whether competitions are for the best or not, could I ask that you raise that on Aesthetic Issue, or Anything Goes? It's been discussed several times here -- it can always be raised again, as there are always new people, of course -- and I intended this forum (as noted in the posts about it on Ballet Alert! Online) to be about the competititons, not whether or not there should be competitions. I really don't want to start this forum off with a debate about whether or not there should be competitons so replies to this question, on this forum, will be deleted. I'm going to move a copy of this thread BACK to Anything Goes -- we can debate the question there. Thanks. [ January 11, 2002: Message edited by: alexandra ]

At the risk of causing confusion, I just moved this thread back to Anything Goes, since it's taking a "should there be competitions" tack. The role and wisdom of competitions can always be debated; I just didn't want the subject raised in the competitions forum, for the reasons stated in the post announcing the forum on Ballet Alert! Online. [ January 11, 2002: Message edited by: alexandra ]

I moved this over from Anything Goes and am posting to bump it up. I'm sure Jeannie can give a more thorough answer.

I moved this over from Anything Goes and am posting to bump it up. I'm sure Jeannie can give a more thorough answer.

I think the distinction between a dancer not having to be a danseur polyvalent, or jack of all trades, yet not having too a limited range, is a good one -- there is a middle ground, and that's where the great dancers usually are. It may also be a question of repertory, though. Since there are so few star demicaractere roles in the contemporary repertory, a demicaractere specialist has less chance to show his range (if he has one.) I often think of Nijinsky and what he would have been without Fokine. Would he have been considered as great a dancer if he had just had Bluebird, or even Bluebird and Albrecht? On the hierarchy, I don't know the practice in the 20th century, but in the 19th it was just as Estelle described, according to Ivor Guest. If you had such-and-such a rank, you could not be made to dance in anything larger than a group of four. (Think of the old ballets, and how there are 16 maids of honor and 8 Giselle's friends.) There's still a vestige of this -- that a principal dancer doesn't take a corps role.

Just a quick note -- thanks for touching on the international aspects of the site, Katharine. It is good to bear in mind that there are people reading the site who may not be familiar with this or that dancer, but there is no prohibition on discussing dancers. I think many people who read the site are interested in reading about different dancers; the only prohibition here is against gossip. We have an aesthetic issues forum that's specifically for debate about....aesthetic issues But most of the people who use the site aren't scholars and we want everyone to feel comforable writing about performances they've seen. I agree, though, that dancer bashing isn't welcome -- but one has to become accustomed to reading that one's favorite dancer is someone else's least favorite, and vice versa. When I started the site I tried to use Fonteyn and Farrell as examples of the good, not because they were my favorites, but because I thought they were generally recognized as models of particular styles. All this got me was that people assumed, quite undestandably in retrospect, that they were personal choices, and there are quite a few people who do NOT see them as ideals I've now switched to La Sublimova and Drekova (married to the dread Drekov, the choreographer). None of this has anything to do with the Paris Opera, of course, but I thought I'd interject to clarify matters.

Hello, Lynette! Your "boring and prosaic" (and very astute) comment is quite important, I think. Public transport does have an effect. When I first began going to the ballet, the subway in D.C. stopped running at 11:00 p.m. I had friends who never saw the end of some of the longer ballets. Estelle, I don't think Americans have any particular dinner hour any more. Some families may have a set tradition, but as a society, we don't eat by the clock. I remember reading that one of the reasons that EuroDisney had trouble (aside from trying to forbid wine) was that they were used to American dining habits -- we change our schedule to suit the occasion, so if the restaurants are all crowded at 1:00 we'll happily eat at noon or 2:00. But they found that French people all expected to be fed at 1:00 p.m., and to the Disney people, that was inefficient. (Why can't you people change to fit OUR schedule? Convenience of the customer be damned!) Some people eat before curtain and some afterwards. Restaurants near theaters have pre- and post-theater menus.

I think Lifar was rather short, but that's just from seeing him as an older man standing next to young dancers whose heights I knew. (About 5'5; just a guess, and I can't do centimeters ) Jude was quite tall. ABT brought him in to partner Cynthia Gregory for a short time -- at least 5'10 or 11 (about as tall as Dowell). Estelle, one of my theories is that one of the signs that a ballet is either unloved by the current administration or simply has passed its prime -- when its aesthetic is no longer really alive, when it's not important -- is that the casting breaks down. When a ballet is fresh people want to see THOSE dancers. Often, there's only one cast. When people are tired of it, or something else new comes along, it's like a bone thrown to the dogs. Everyone gets a crack at it. Some of them may be very good, but it loses its association with a particular body.

Estelle, re "union time" I meant the number of hours -- or perhaps miniutes -- that the stagehands work. One of the reasons for shortening the Petipa ballets is that the program must be over by 11:00 p.m. (when the curtain starts at 8:00) to avoid overtime. I was speculating that perhaps companies are trying to save money by cutting the amount of time the stagehands are on duty.

Kevin brought up a very good point, I think, about the fact that the Royal Ballet does only one program a month, where in the past they would do two or three. Program variety is another thing that has diminished over the years. An older colleague frequently bemoans the fact that even as late as the 1980s he could see several programs in a week during a trip to Europe; now it would be a week of Swan Lakes. Supposedly, this has something to do with cost cutting. But it ossifies the dancers and means that princpals, especially, have less stage time.

First, a medal of Good Board Citizenship to Farrell Fan for starting a new thread for a new topic instead of raising it on the original thread. Good going!!! It's a good point, too. I think this is the wave of the future. Cutting down on union time? Getting everyone home? I very much agree with Juliet that they can't please everybody, but there has been a change in the past few years and I sense a new trend. (Why should I expect that a new trend would be anything but bad?) At last year's Balanchine celebration there was a pause between ballets where once there would have been an intermission. I can't remember which ones -- I believe it was "Mozartiana" and "Prodigal Son" but I'll be glad to stand corrected on that. I remember that one of the ballets had a complicated set, so there was a frantic air about the pause. You could hear large heavy objects being thrown around backstage. There was no atmosphere. It actually made people anxious -- it was the talk of the one intermission. I have hopes that the concession people, sensing a loss in income, will rise up and stop this before we get used to it. I like early nights, too, but I don't want to go to a banquet and be served the second course while I'm still trying to eat the first. Hmm. Maybe they'll figure out a way to let us take home a doggy bag -- Juliet, this way everyone would be pleased. "Those of you who wish to see the ballet, please feel free to stay. Those of you who wish to go home, here is a video of last night's performance."

I think the point of "20th century choreography is getting ignored more and more" is an important one, and it's not a problem just in Paris. You've got your Far From Petipa versions of "the classics" and you've got your Made Yesterday choreography, and there's about 120 years in between that's ignored. (NYCB an exception here obviously, and London's Royal Ballet still has performances of Ashton and MacMillan, although not many this year). But elsewhere? In Paris, Staats (whom Balanchine admired) is almost never performed. Lifar, Petit and Bejart....well, at least they're native choreographers And Fokine and Massine are given very, very few performances anywhere.

Thanks, Kevin. I didn't know about that one.

Thanks very much for your review, Manhattnik, and for your comment, Doug. Doug, could you elaborate? What do you see in this ballet that shows Balanchine's changing (transformation/manipulation ?) of Petipa's choreography? We often don't take character dancing seriously today. It would be interesting to have a serious discussion of it.

On the dieting to have slender legs issue, this is something I've noticed as well. (I can't speak to anorexia, which is a specific condition, and there are, I think, some very slender people who are not anorexic.) But there are also dancers who, I think, do not have a natural lines. A colleague pointed this out to me once; I don't think I could have figured it out for myself. His example was Ruzimatov, whom he described as a character dancer who had pared off every ounce of body fat so that he could simulate line, which he did not naturally have. When I now see a very sinewy dancer -- male or female -- I remember that. I'm certainly no medical expert, but I would imagine that this could also have an effect on injuries. (Of course, true anorexia is a disease with hideous consequences.) [ January 09, 2002: Message edited by: alexandra ]

Many good points. "extreme technique" and style grazing were both coming into their own by the 1970s, when I started watching dance, and I remember at the time there were a lot of articles criticizing company directorships for the number of injuries. The difference seemed instantly noticable and was commented upon -- harped upon. Glen Tetley and John Neumeier were the Devils then. (I've seen Neumeier works rehearsed and it was frightening. One man was nearly knocked unconscious by a sharp blow to the chest -- right over the heart. Several "moves" had been changed. "Oh, we don't do that any more after X hit Y in the eye," etc.) Like many Bad Things that came into dance in the 1970s, we've gotten used to it now. (Well, some of us have; I haven't.) On injuries generally, beyond technique, there may be a psychological component as well. I did an interview with a Washington Ballet dancer years ago who felt that some of her injuries had been caused by nerves, or fear of dancing. Twice when she had to do a part she felt she was not suited to, nor ready for, she became injured in the last rehearsals. She said that made her look for it in others and felt she could tell when someone was going to be injured: they were stressed, or frightened, or reticent about doing a big role.

Thanks very much for that, Cliff. I thought that there was a reason for calling it "Indo-European" but had not facts to back up that instinct And thank you for the information on chess. It's interesting that 1470 was roughly the same time that the Italians were the great dancing masters at the Renaissance courts. (And they weren't just any old Italians, but, for the most part, Jewish Italians. I don't know if there's any signficance to that, if they were recent arrivals from the Middle East, or had been in Italy for generations, but being a court dancing master was one of the main "out of the ghetto" escape routes for Jews.) On your theory of genius societies, I think there's something to that. Genius, luck, and accident. I took a course in grad school on the English Renaissance and read a very interesting rticle (whose author I do not remember) who credited the Renaissance in literature to the King James Bible (which was written by a committee!) It made the society literate, and it gave that society an ear for poetry. It created a rich indigenous language.

I saw it. I can't be very encouraging, I'm afraid. I remember it as a lot of clowning around -- great costumes, though. It's quite different from the book, I was told, by a dissatisfied mother, who felt that the added scenes detracted from the main point of the book.

It always fascinates me how polarizing Forsythe's work is. I've spoken with two friends who are ready to move to Frankfurt, they loved it so much. Others either walked out or didn't go. I just find it relentlessly energetic, superficial and, thus, boring. (But I didn't see the program Nanatchka did.) That said, I wish that companies like Forsythe's and Pina Bausch would come to DC. Frankfurt Ballett did come to Wolf Trap several seasons ago, but we've never had a single night of tanzteater at the Kennedy Center. Not one. We never even had Bejart! We had a whole entire month of the Stuttgart once; about four ballets and three casts over and over and over and over.... Avoiding the avant-garde is one sure way for a city to remain a backwater. Joan Acocella reviews Bausch and Forsythe in the New Yorker -- Link on Links -- and I'd recommend it. Whether you agree with her or not, it's interesting. [ January 08, 2002: Message edited by: alexandra ]

That is interesting -- I always thought they were so short they needed to stand on half-toe to see over the row in front of them (Only kidding!)

That makes sense to me -- I'm sure there was a lot of cross-fertilization that is now mostly lost to history and it's very interesting. But I don't think the French and Italians of the Renaissance courts were using Indian models. I've never read where turnout comes from in the West and I'd love to know. As I wrote in my first post, there are marked similarities between chess moves and fencing -- I don't know the history of fencing. This may have evolved naturally -- if you lunge, I think you would naturally turn the leg out to get better balance and be more squarely planted (fourth position). But I have no idea whether there is a historical connection.

Interesting. I've never read any references to this in books I've read about the origins of Western ballet at the French courts, nor did I think that much was known about Indian art in the 15th and 16th centuries. Every reference I've seen has been to Greek and/or Roman models. The Renaissance was a conscious effort to recreate Greek and Roman theater. (Lincoln Kirstein, Marian Hannah Winter, Walter Sorrell being my chief sources.) Or did you mean that the Greeks were directly influenced by Indian civilization? [ January 08, 2002: Message edited by: alexandra ]

Mussel, I thought her comparison was that only NYCB had a resident choreographer, that the other companies mentioned depended on bringing in nonresident choreographers or importing works. (I might add that I don't understand the distinction between the Diamond Project's use of nonresident NYCB choreographers and ABT or the Royal bringing in a choreographer to do a ballet.) [Edited to say: Sorry, mussel I missed that sentence. She made both points!] The Kirov splits itself into several companies and seems to be everywhere at once! I don't know how much they actually perform at home -- I'm sure it's for a year-long season, as do the Royal Ballets in London and Copenhagen. Yes, they alternate with the opera and don't do 23 weeks back to back, or broken in two chunks, as NYCB does, but they dance from September to June. Paris dances from September to June in two houses. [ January 08, 2002: Message edited by: alexandra ]

I wanted to comment on some of Hans Brenaa's remarks. Brenaa was one of the greatest Bournonville stagers/coaches/directors. He was the High Priest to whom one went with a Bournonville question. I never met him, alas, but certainly heard about him from dancers who worked with him and I admire him very much. Two things that Brenaa says in this interview struck me as odd. The first is that the Bournonville Schools were no longer taught in Copenhagen. True, but that had been done in 1949, and Brenaa himself did not teach strictly Bournonville classes. He mixed up the combinations, I've been told. Occasionally he'd say "Okay, it's Wednesday and we're doing it," which would mean, to a Danish dancer, that it was Wednesday and they were going to do the Wednesday class that day. But this was not his usual practice, either with adults or children (he taught both). The theory behind the Bournonville Schools was that they had been fashioned until another teacher of genius, on an international level, came to Copenhagen. When Vera Volkova arrived in 1951, she incorporated Bournonville technique and style in her own classes. Her pupils -- Stanley Williams and Henning Kronstam among them -- followed this practice. It's always interested me that Brenaa was initially more interested in the Russians than in Bournonville. He staged the company's first production of Aurora's Wedding in the 1940s and had studied with Egorova (the interview mentions this too) in Paris. He brought back the secret of spotting to Copenhagen -- a secret Bournonville, I've been told, never wanted the dancers to know, as he hated multiple pirouettes When Harald Lander was forced out of the company in 1950, however, Brenaa saw that the Bournonville repertory was not being well-cared for and became "the man screaming for Bournonville" from that time. He is responsible, single-handedly, for saving "Kermesse in Bruges" and "The King's Volunteers on Amager." The former had suffered a disastrous staging in the 1960s and was prounced dead; the latter had been out of repertory for nearly 30 years and Brenaa brought it back from his memory (it had not been notated). Brenaa also speaks quite passionately in this interview about how Bournonville must NOT be changed. I agree! I agree! And then I learned how much Brenaa had changed him. He condensed the classical pas in ballets such as "Kermesse in Bruges" and "Conservatoriet," which had originally been interspersed with mime. Brenaa cut the mime and left only the dancing. He also added a lot of dances: Adrian's solo in Kermesse, a solo for Louise in Lifeguards, (the only unfortunate one, to my eyes) a pas de deux for Teresina and Golfo in Napoli Act II, the children's dances in Napoli Act III, Effy's solo in La Sylphide Act I (and it was Brenaa who gave the two male solos in Act I to James and Gurn; previously, in Denmark, they had been danced by soloists). There are others, but those are the main ones. So, yes, don't change Bournonville [ January 07, 2002: Message edited by: alexandra ] [ January 07, 2002: Message edited by: alexandra ]