Alexandra

Welcome, Gigi -- you're a late bloomer (in the sense of registered awhile back, but this is your first post) I can't answer your question, but it's a good one, and I'm glad you asked it. Leigh, can you help on this one? (Or anyone else, of course.)

atm, I don't think we can claim the credit for canonizing Fonteyn. I think that was done a year or two before we went on line And anyone is welcome to post for or against. Yes, I admire her greatly (and think what Beaumont describes is her style, not a failing.) But it doesn't bother me if someone else doesn't. I think the "she can't dance" or "has no technique" idea, that gets raised here periodically, will always be countered, but that's different. (Different to not like a dancer than to say he or she is a bad dancer.) This may be a good time to slip this in: I've often used Fonteyn and Farrell as examples of "ideals" of their respective styles, or of great ballerinas, because both are generally recognized as such, and it seemed easier, in the interests of having a common discourse, to use such people as examples instead of someone (Beriosova, for example, or Patricia McBride) whom many people also admire -- with reason -- but who weren't quite household names to the same extent as F and F. But it's never been to try to imply they're the *only* dancers in the world, or that no one can dare say anthing to the contrary. I've been using La Sublimova and La Dreckova and will continue to do so in the future, as names to indicate the highs and lows of the scale, in the hopes of avoiding misunderstandings. [ 08-30-2001: Message edited by: alexandra ]

I wanted to bump this up. We have raised this question before, but I think it's a good one to bring up every six months, or even more frequently, as there are so many new people. Come on -- everybody can answer this one So, especially if you haven't already, please do. I came to ballet at the advanced age of 26! I had taken modern dance in college, but never had the opportunity to SEE anything and hated the teacher, so I didn't go to dance performances. I was intimidated by ballet -- like opera, it seemed something you had to know something about to see and enjoy. (Yes, stupid.) Then I went with a group of friends to see a Nureyev and Friends program and was Hooked for Life. I've thought about dancing every day since.

Thanks for letting us know what's going on in Spain, Lu -- I hope you'll write about ballet performances you see, too. I was always told that the reason ballet had never taken hold in Spain was because there was such a rich classical and folk dance tradition there (classical Spanish dance, that is). But, of course, I'm glad ballet is getting more exposure there, too.

This was original posted by Pamela Moberg on the Links thread: ------------------------------------ Thankyou so much, Alexandra, for posting those links to the Danish papers. They are both serious daily papers not given to scandals. All I can say is that if I were offered a job there, I would think about it... It is kinda sad when these things happen in the art world - so much time wasted in petty bickering when they ought to get on with the dancing or whatever it is they are doing. Hopefully things will settle down in due course and that the Bournonville heritage will be maintained. (I suppose few BalletAlerters could read it). ---------------------------- and I have a reply: Pamela, I think the dancers are being given a bum rap. In my view, it's the Theatre Chief and the structure there that's been the problem since a new regime went in in 1992. Aschengreen is right that the only two directors who could govern the company were Flindt and Kronstam, but it wasn't just through fear and love -- that sounds as though the next director has to come in with either a whip or a box of chocolates. Both of them had a vision of the company that the dancers could accept. The company needs an artist -- I have to love dancers who'll threaten to go on strike because a director puts in his, er, young friend, in the role of the Sylphide and they know it's wrong. Or who think a production of "Giselle" is so putrid that they are embarrassed to be dancing in it. All of their complaints aren't just about art -- some of the recent RDB directors haven't treated them well, and that's part of it. But they need an artist, not a nanny or a prison guard. IMHO, of course

Interesting question. Is there anyone on the board who saw the 1972 Stravinsky Festival performances? I didn't see Symphony in 3 Movements until the late 1970s and I don't have a clear memory. A general impression of power, but not aggression or menace. (I am by no mean saying this is right, just a poor memory of an impression by a then-neophyte.) I thought there was a bobby-soxer element to the ballet, vague references to the period of the score. I loved it when SFB danced it in D.C. last year and though I didn't think it cheerful, I did think they looked -- deliberately -- like kids and, now that you mention it, had an odd sense that it made the ballet more a period piece. It didn't bother me. (I loved the structure of the ballet. I hadn't seen structure clearly back in the 1970s, so in a way it was a new piece for me.) Sorry -- that's a lot of rambles and impressions. I'm sure someone else can do better

Doug, are we to think, then, that Von R turned Odette and her friends into Swans, and then her thoughtful mother cried a lake for her to swim in?

Just a quick word to welcome Richard and thank you for that very informative post. More, please I loved the flying bed!

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to post that, rg -- and thank you for joining us I'm still unclear on one point. You wrote: "And in the revised version the bewitchment is no longer a means of self-protection but a sinister spell." But Odette does mime "mother's tears" formed the lake, doesn't she? I've always thought, as Mel implies, that "mother" was easier to do in mime than "grandfather," hence the switch.

Helena, thank you! That is a Golden Post

I'd echo Leigh's post. There's also a difference between training and ability. Those latter-day Agoners would, I'm sure, be quite capable of mastering what the dancers of the 1950s had, if that's what they were taught; the same thing with the able young technician grappling with the 1936 variation.

Lu, another thing to remember not only about Fonteyn, but about many dancers of the 1950s and 1960s, that in those times, dancers did not put every trick they could do in every role. They did what was appropriate for the role. There were a lot of dancers who were quite different in class than on the stage. (Meaning, just because you have a high extension doesn't mean you should show it. It's not appropriate to the style of many ballets.)

Aage Thordal Christensen has resigned. His contract is up at at the end of the year and he won't seek another term. Thordal Christensen is the fifth director that has left in the past ten years. The Danes used fo have quite stable directorships. Nothing less than five years since 1960. Michael Christiansen, the Theatre Chief under which this has all taken place (and whose policies are, in no small measures, cited by those unfortunate enough to hold the RDB director position) said in an interview in Politiken that this was all the dancers' fault, that they're children and need a strong father to rule them. (Mr. Christiansen's last job was -- I kid you not -- Permanent Undersecretary in the Ministry of Defense. He was very good at budgets, I am told. This seems to have come as a surprise, and so there's no news on possible successor(s).

I hope someone from Ballet Alert! will go and tell us about it -- also, for British posters, what is the reaction, if any, to the repertory?

One year, at the Erik Bruhn competition, the Danish "team" confused the issue by dancing a new work, in the style of Bournonville but choreographed last week by Anna Laerkesen, as the contemporary work, and Balanchine's Apollo for the classical work.

Jeannie, a quick note to say, thanks for all your China posts -- hope you're having a great time.

Welcome back, Giannina. I always love reading your posts (and I am so happy to find someone else who adores Monotones!) You've been watching dance for so many years, and yet you really, truly love it and always find something of value -- thank you for that.

Especially the Welsh I disagree. The great Greek tragedies are firmly rooted in the notion that there are those born to rule and those born to be slaves -- it's not a racial issue, but the notion of superiority, that some people were born to be one thing and others another, is absolutely central to those dramas. Their view of women doesn't comport with ours, either. They're still great works of art, and while it's necessary to explain the world view that underlies them to new readers or audiences, I think attacking them is not particularly helpful. Dirac, if you take your scenario and do an ethnic switch (Mad Christian Wilis attacking poor Jewish Giselle) you may just have the next "rethought" Giselle, and it will be your fault

Thank you so much for taking the time to make those links, Estelle -- and apologies to all that I haven't been around much; I'll be tied up for the next two weeks but should be back full force after Labor Day. Alla, several people have raised the comparison issue in the past, and there's a feeling among some that it's unfair, that critics should just write about the dancer before them. I can understand this view, but as a critic, I need the comparison tool. If someone tells me he's just seen the next Very Greatest Dancer in the Whole World, I want to know who is this dancer like? (Not that any two great dancers are alike, but someone who's "like" Baryshnikov will be someone very unlike someone who's "like" Dowell, for example.) I also think if I'm reviewing someone who dances a role that was created by someone else, or that has had several definitive interpreters, it's fair game to compare them. There can be lots of perfectly valid ways of doing a role, and I think that should be recognized, but there are times when someone really isn't up to the standard that has been established. Someone else will be able to do justice to the "comparing isn't fair" side, I'm sure.

Diana, I fell as though we've just been given a bouquet of beautiful roses -- we're someone's Start Page A web site can have no greater ambition, so thank you. I've found the Net invaluable, and I very much wish I'd had access to it when I first became interested in ballet. NO ONE I knew would even go to a performance with me. They'd go to plays and concerts, but not ballet, and I had so many questions. Now, I have lots of friends to talk to about the ballet, but we're all of the same mind, or nearly the same mind -- we're in the same "party," if you will -- that it's been wonderful to read so many different points of view. I think there are a lot of differences among generations -- not in age, but in the time one started seeing ballet. There are things that one assumes, because one has seen them, or lived through a particular era, that someone who started going to the ballet a few years ago wouldn't see the same way at all. So just knowing that there are a lot of people who like, or dislike, X or Y ballet for totally different reasons than I'm used to hearing is very valuable. And fun to read. I do agree with dirac, though, about the downsides, especially for young people who will think that the Internet is the world. It's dangerous to take what you find at face value (try the medical sites some day), it's difficult, especially for someone younger or new to a field, to distinguish between people who actually know what they're talking about and those who don't. I used to read a tech board when I first got on line -- and I knew absolutely nothing when I first put up the site. There was this guy, Sol, who just wanted to give advice, and probably had the best of intentions, but his advice, according to the site's Gray Beards was lethal. They spent much of their time drying the tears of people who had just tried Sol's New Fix and deleted everything on their hard drive, or installing viruses insteads of virus definitions, etc. I find the internet as research tool disquieting, too. People who died before Netdom are less likely to have as much information as someone who won three gold medals last year, and this will skew perceptions as well. (Although this was a problem when I started teaching 15 years ago. In a dance history class, I had people take a modern dance choreographer as a term paper subject, and people came to me, very angry, because there were no books about someone like Anna Sokolow. The idea of doing newspaper or journal research, or checking books about modern dance in that period for a chapter on Sokolow, didn't occur to them.)

Piccolo, I think it would be fun to think about, and I've taken the liberty of editing your original subject line -- people might have missed it, thinking you were seeking information on the book. I'll put the question this way -- and piccolo, please feel free to amend it, since this is your thread -- you are asked to update this book, and told you can only add SIX ballerinas who began their careers in the late 1970s or after. Really truly six. Not twelve, leaving it up to the editor (who has terrible taste and will, of course, pick the six you really don't like but put in just to be fair).

I certainly think there is a place for essays and a more detailed analysis, but Bernheimer is writing of newspaper criticism, and I don't think the place for essays is there. There isn't the space for it, but I think it's not appropriate for a newspaper. More and more, I think the newspaper review is basically journalism -- report on what you saw, capture the atmosphere, and yes (though I know this is controversial) make some kind of comparison so that not only the current readers, but future readers (reviews as archive) can have an idea of the level of the performance.

Thanks for that. Definitely one to watch. He's been on the Rumored Short List for quite awhile, and the announcement of a new director was expected at the end of August.

Before we get seriously off-track, could I ask that we keep silly season out of this forum generally? I'd like to build up an archive of material on these ballets and don't want to have to go through and read every post and cull out the jokes. If we want to have a silly season type post on swans and other ballet beasts, that might be a good topic for Anything Goes. (Thank you ) Estelle, I don't know if swans had been used in ballets before -- hard to imagine they wouldn't have been. I don't have time to check it, but anyone who has Wiley, Beaumont's book on Swan Lake, or Kirstein's Movement and Metaphor -- I'll bet there would be something in there. [ 08-18-2001: Message edited by: alexandra ]

Now, now, Mme. Hermine, I'm all for silly season, but this is a serious question She's a princess and princesses have ladies in waiting -- at least, that's what I've always thought. Structurally, I think the "companion" idea must come from the old court ballets, when the Princess really did dance with her ladies-in-waiting. Giselle has her little gang of friends, as does Swanhilda. If it's Odette's Mother who turned her into a swan to keep her safe from Von R, then it would make sense that she'd thoughtfully turn all the ladies in waiting into swans, too, so that Odette would have someone to swim with. Now, for the $64,000 question -- why swans?