Alexandra

Emploi!

I hate always having to play Mother Superior but PLEASE BE CAREFUL ABOUT POSTING RUMORS, especially that someone is fired or others are about to be fired. I know this is the kind of talk all of us would have in lobbies or on the telephone, but this is the internet and his mother might be reading it Thank you

Jeannie, we were posting at the same time -- from the little I've seen of the Russian companies, I agree with your analysis. (And I also think it's important to point out that often when we only see a company a few times it's hard to tell what's going on because we're not getting the whole picture. Did we get a bad night? A bad cast? Or is "Swan Lake" really on the skids? -- rhetorical question) I think the problem will be if the dancers and backstage people think that Neumeier/Petit/Bejart, etc., are better than Petipa -- not different from and fun to do, but better than. LMCTech, I think it's harder to differentiate between contemporary and modern than between those two and ballet, because modern dance has been so fluid. I'm as alarmed at the changes -- deterioration, if you will -- in modern dance as I am in ballet, but I hold back from crusading against it because I believe that modern dance has reinvented itself in each generation and it's up to each generation to define it. I agree with what Leigh wrote -- that there are a lot of different definitions for "contemporary dance" and I don't think the dust has settled on that one yet. (Believe it or not, a lot of what I write on aesthetic issues is an attempt to explain the current thinking, not just my own opinion.) Personally, I wouldn't use "contemporary" unless the choreographer/company did, or to mean "made last year" or last week. I start with vocabulary as the basis for any definition. I call what I'm seeing in ballet companies "crossover dance" or "ballet-moderne" or "hybrid dance". Crossover is when, say, Lila York or Mark Morris makes a work for a ballet company (they're crossing over from one artform to another), hybrid is like Glen Tetley and John Butler (who blend some of each; one witty friend said "they've taken the artificality of ballet and the awkwardness of modern dance.") "Ballet moderne" is this stuff that really isn't either. I'd call Kylian modern dance, but would be happy to stand corrected on that -- but I see him as starting from a modern dance base that goes beyond expressionism and is rooted in technique. Nacho Duato imports whole chunks of modern dance works -- Graham, Limon -- into his work and the notion that he's doing anything new galls me. It might be pretty and fun to watch, but new? No way. Perhaps "contemporary" is the best description for the work of most of the younger choreographers now, but a lot of it looks like just plain dance to me -- a little of this and a little of that. One parallel between what's happening in ballet generally and in what happened in modern dance is that, in modern, once upon a time, you could tell by looking at a dancer whether he was Graham or Limon or Humphrey or Horton or Cunningham. Then there was a generation of teachers that had a Graham base and went on to Cunningham. Then the next generation took the Graham floor and the Horton bar, and liked that (as my modern teacher in grad school said) "Cunningham movement is all centered in the head." This generation knew exactly what it was doing and from where it was taking what movement and what theory -- BUT their students didn't. It was all Ms. Jones's class (or whoever was the teacher). Now they are teaching. So it all gets diluted and blended and nothing is anything any more. If I could wave a wand, I'd make lots of contemporary dance companies -- not modern, not ballet, but contemporary -- and then the other two would be separated out and go back to doing what they once did very well. I'd like to thank Terry and LMCTech for asking such good questions and continuing to make this a dialogue as well as for being interested in understanding this issue. I'm not looking for agreement, nor to try to convert anyone away from contemporary dance to ballet, but to try to look at the effects of some things that may seem harmless or pleasant. I bring this up every time the question comes up, but you might be interested in reading the interview with Bruce Marks on the main site in the Ballet Alert! Sampler. He was one of the leaders in bringing -- urging -- crossover dance on ballet companies and as a dancer went from modern to ballet. But one day he looked at his dancers doing a Graham ballet (ballet in the sense of "a dance work") and said, "This isn't what my dancers are trained to do."

I couldn't have said it better Thanks, LMC Tech.

Could it be simply a part of court etiquette? There was no privacy there. People didn't go out into the forest alone, with or without crossbows. Something similar still exists in Raymonda, when the four cavaliers partner her (and I believe Jean de Brienne was one of those four cavaliers initially).

Terry, Eva Evdokimova was one of the dancers trained "outside the walls" that Flemming Flindt took into the company (meaning not only foreigners, but anyone not trained at the RDB school had been barred beforehand) but she wasn't a principal there and left because, according to dancers of that generation, because she was told she wouldn't become a principal there -- because she was foreign born. The two benched classical ballerinas were Kirsten Simone and Anna Laerkesen. It's not that they were literally benched, of course, but they simply weren't often cast.

A few points that I forgot, re Terry's and Jeannie's very sensible questions above. First, the Royal Ballet's decline, which is very well-documented, began in the mid-1970s, when contemporary ballets began to seap into the repertory. From the time I came to ballet I've been reading "Ah! Finally things are beginning to be put right" followed by, in a few months, "Well, maybe not...." Second, some critics I know who have the opportunity to watch Paris Opera Ballet more closely than I have been sounding alarms there for the past three years. One negative effect contemporary ballets do have is that, paradoxically, they don't develop individuals in the same way classical ballet seems to do. Several people have written (and I think they're right) that when the last of the Nureyev etoiles retires, the chinks in the Paris armor will be very visible. Also, the current director of the POB is very contemporary-oriented. They're still classical because of their school, and because there are people who believe in classical ballet on the staff. When they go, all bets are off. Third, I'd nominate as Exhibit A the Royal Danish Ballet in the 1970s, when nearly everyone, Danish and foreign critics, noticed a decline. The director benched the two classical ballerinas, there was no male classical star, and the repertory was nearly completely very small-scale (i.e., 8 to 12 people) modern dances or theater pieces. This had an enormous effect on the quality of the way the classical repertory -- on the one or two programs a year it was performed -- was danced. Danish television broadcast two or three RDB telecasts a year throughout this period, so there is a lot of evidence. The RDB came back, briefly, when the directorship changed and classical ballets began to dominate the repertory again. It wasn't just the scheduling of those ballets, however, but the fact that the three people staging/coaching/directing them knew how to bring them back. Finally, ABT is also an interesting study, from the opposite point of view. Robbins and DeMille were very upset in the mid-1960s when they heard Lucia Chase was going to stage "Swan Lake" and argued passionately against it, partly because they thought the company really wasn't up to it, but mostly because they knew that it meant a shift in emphasis away from contemporary and experimental works like theirs (which were ballet; "contemporary" in the sense of "made last year" not in the sense of a genre). Critics have pounded ABT since that first "Swan Lake" that, although they often have excellent principals, they're off-the-mark in presentation and classical style. So that's the view from history I can't do the Russian companies justice and so won't try.

POB is a very good case study. I was just reading an interview with Patrice Bart (balletmaster at POB) that Marc Haegeman did for the next DanceView -- this really isn't intended as a plug -- and he addressed this question. For Paris, no it hasn't hurt (and I'd agree with him) because they're so sure of their identity. (But remember, when they wanted to really do experimental dance, they set up a separate modern dance company for Carolyn Carlson. It wasn't mixed in with the regular company.) Their school is so strong that anything they dance takes on its flavor. (Bart made the point of how classical even Forsythe looked when POB danced it.) One of the problems may well be that other companies look to Paris (some European companies do, at least) and copy them but, as people almost always do when they copy, they take the outside, what's visible -- the rep -- not all the things that go on beneath the rep. Has the Royal deteriorated? IMO, absolutely, but dancing contemporary works is not the prime cause of that. (Nor, actually, do I think dancing contemporary/crossover works would ever be the prime cause of deterioration, as I tried to explain in the references to SFB above. It's direction.) Hamburg dances Neumeier, not a hodgepodge rep. Hamburg, ABT and SFB aren't in the same league with Paris, IMO. Terry, would you want the Paul Taylor company to do "Four Temperaments" or "The Dream" or "Paquita?" Or, for that matter, Rambert Dance Company, or any other company that identifies itself as a contemporary dance company? That may be one way to look at the question for those who seem not to understand the point that the vocabulary, the very use of the body, is different. I can't emphasize this enough -- this is the point/problem/issue, not a question of taste, of whether you like the works or not. At some point, when a ballet company dances enough works that are not ballet, it ceases to become a ballet company.

I think you'll find the Martinez version of "Coppelia" very Americanized, if not quite bizarre

I believe in "The Red Shoes," the white act includes the huntsmen. They were cut from the British production because of the War (they had very few men during those six years.) Doug, I can't remember huntsmen in Balanchine's, but I may just not be remembering correctly. New Yorkers who see it regularly will know (I just didn't want to ignore your question )

I could never love Makarova's "Swan Lake" because she dropped most of the mime, but not all of it. She seemed to like doing "shoot swans no" and so did it a lot. It was the only mime left. "Shoot swans no." "Swans I shoot not." "Shoot swans no." "I swear, me and my guys will never hurt a feather on their little heads." "Shoot swans no." "All right already. I got it. Stop flapping..."

NO!!!!! He was not "added to that part because the original Siegfried was getting old and didn't want to do the lifts." Von Rothbart was there from the beginning and played a dramatic role in the act; the "partnering" was incidental. The pas de trois -- a device often used by Petipa; think of "Le Corsaire" -- was structurally important, the mate of the pas de trois in the second act, with Benno (see Benno thread).

On a lighter note, why not add skating (ice or roller)? The Kennedy Center put in an ice rink for the Curry company; it needs to be used. And then we could move on to ice hockey; same thing. For the spring season, we could do Irish step dancing (Riverdance like you've never seen it before) and have a hula competition. How versatile shall we be

Kevin McKenzie and David Richardson were in the audience for several performances of "Fille" so there's at least an interest. Naughty Washingtonians immediately began casting it down to the inevitable 7th cast.... I don't think Ashton crosses the pond well. The Joffrey (under Joffrey) made a real attempt to do the works well. I think Joffrey cared, I think everyone involved respected the works, etc., etc. and they still....didn't look much like Ashton. "The Dream" is very fragile. "Fille" is more dancer-proof, but if everyone there dances it the way Stiefel did, it's not going to look like Ashton either.

I agree that the Toulouse repertory seems rather disappointing. And Bordeaux is only going to do three programs?

Thanks for that -- they've really changed the web site! (Your translations are correct, Estelle. Also, some of the ballets scheduled early in the season are already cast, and the casting is up in the sidebar to the right headed Medvirken.) Just looking at the list, it's not bad -- although very heavy on full-lengths. BUT with that company it's always mattered which productions. The current Bournonville productions are very poor and some of the best Bournonville dancers (especially Tina Hojlund) are not being used. The company is nearly half-foreign now, which has a tremendous impact on how the works are danced. Aage Thordal Christensen is about to begin the final year of his contract and it has not been announced whether or not that contract will be renewed. Several of the artistic staff have left (good news, IMO) and the rumors of who will replace them is extremely promising, but it's not official and hence not yet postable. It's very significant to them that they've gotten back "Onegin." The Danish production of that ballet is the one that changed my opinion of its worth -- they made it look splendid. It was the most popular production in repertory among both dancers and audience and had become a rallying cry for renewal. But again, it will depend on who's cast in it and who actually rehearses it.

Very good points, as usual, Ed I think it's actually beyond the fact that we work backward when watching older works. In ballet, because of its nature (company style seeping in to everything it dances, presuming the company has a style) the Royal Ballet's "Swan Lake" or "Sleeping Beauty" was as much Ashton as Petipa. They danced the ballet "in Ashton" -- his phrasing, his musicality, as well as some additional choreography. I agree -- a genius can get away with anything. The problem is that the Genius-10s, and on down, take this as a model and go to town. Yes, they cheapen the original work and yes, I agree there will be people who are new to ballet -- or dense to it -- who will only like the strobe lights (symbol of what's wrong) and want that in everything. In ballet, there's a history of the bad driving out the good. Who was it who wrote reams of sentimental doggerel and dropped it into Shakespeare in the 17th century (not Dryden, a lesser light) so that for two generations people thought it was Shakespeare -- as that's how it was presented. When it was thrown out, I'm sure there were people who never thought Hamlet was the same after losing the immortal lines (I'm making this up; I don't have an actual quote to hand, but it catches the flavor) "Roses are red, violets are blue, I'd blow my head off and yours too." Many Not Geniuses have tampered with the 19th century repertory, as we know and discuss often here, using the opera and theater model -- what I call the Eskimo Hamlet (resetting a play in another place and time). They cut lines that get in the way of their new, improved interpretation. When this started, it was defensible because the audience knew the originals and could appreciate what the restagers were doing. Of course, there would always be people whose first Hamlet was the Eskimo Hamlet and forever associated it with igloos, but who cared? It's more complicated to do this in ballet because the actual movements and blocking are part of the work's matter. Changing place and time tears the fabric. But who cares? I think also some major revisions -- like the Stanislavsky "Swan Lake" -- are appropriate in their time (heresy, I know) because that audience knew "Swan Lake" inside and out and knew the story. So cutting the mime, for that audience, wasn't as huge a crime as it could have been -- and he didn't do it for the Kirov. Two generations of vague gesturing and flapping, though, and you have a new audience who doesn't know the story. This may be why there's an interest in trying to get back to as close to the authentic version as possible.

I'm not sure modern dancers would agree that ballet is the foundation of all dance styles. I don't think dancers can dance all styles equally well. The more eclectic a repertory becomes, the less individual it becomes. Fine classical ballet technique is a very sophisticated combination of things. As Leigh wrote, style isn't something you can take off a shelf. It's not a hat, but bone and sinew and skin, something that's integral to the way a company moves. The trend towards eclecticism in dance is a bit like the Wal-Martization of America. Many more people love, shop at, and work at Wal-Mart than at Sally's Hat Boutique, or Chanel (is there still a Chanel? Does it make polyester skorts in 29 lollipop colors for $19.99 each?), but that doesn't invalidate the loveliness of boutiques. In ballet, I don't believe Wal-Martization is inevitable. More and more dancers/balletmasters are becoming alarmed, as I wrote earlier, partly, I think, is because there was so much emphasis on the primacy of the choreographer that even balletmasters and dancers thought that style/technique was integral and would always be there. They're seeing it's not, and looking to the causes and moving to correct them. In the case of SFB, again, if it survives, and grows, as a classical company it will be because Tomasson keeps strict classical standards in the classroom AND provides enough of a core repertory that uses the dancers' classical technique.

Good example, Ballet Nut.

In response to LMTech's points: First, I think expense is partly the reason, but not completely. Balanchine works are not expensive; Nacho Duato's are. I'd also say that if there are dancers who can't dance ballet, then they shouldn't be in a ballet company. I know a choreographer who was invited to stage a work for something calling itself a ballet company. The director had already picked the dancers he wanted use -- something that's not usual, but that's not uncommon -- and when the choreographer outlined his ideas, he was told, "Oh, no. These girls don't dance well on pointe. We want something contemporary for them." To me, this is cheating the audience. I may like Broadway show tunes, I may like rock'n'roll, but when I buy a ticket to the symphony, I want to hear music commonly associated with a symphony. The notion that a conductor would say, "Well, we're really short of viola players and cellists this season so we brought in a synthesizer" would simply not be tolerated. Whether it's good or bad -- I think it depends on the director. IMO, Helgi Tomasson is one of the better artistic directors. I don't worry when he acquires contemporary/crossover/modern dance works, because I know he knows that that's what they are. Tomasson seems to be acquiring ballets/dances that suit particular dancers, putting the dancers/performers first, in the interests of giving the audience a first-rate theatrical experience (a very European concept, btw). I think this is a perfectly acceptable way to direct a ballet company. I'd be surprised if he had a dancer who wasn't capable of performing in a classical ballet, and I think ballet is his first priority. Novelty works -- meaning everyone knows they're not deathless classics, but they suit the spirit of the times, or are just plain fun -- can be part of a serious repertory, I think, but everyone has to realize that these are novelties. The problem is when the audience screams its approval for Novelty Number 5 and the board says, "Great! Let's have a rep made up completely of these ballets" and the artistic director goes along with it (which I don't think would happen with SFB). So whether in San Francisco or New York or Detroit, I think it's great that there are a lot of companies where dancers can make a living, but if they're not dancing ballet, they're not dancing ballet. (There was a great answer to this on alt.arts.ballet once. "You can call roller skates ear muffs if you want to, but they won't keep your ears warm!" ) There are other companies, though, where the director is perhaps not as experienced nor as thoughtful as Tomasson and really can't make distinctions among different types of work, much less good, bad and indifferent work. This is what people who question the wisdom of putting contemporary dance works in a ballet company's repertory are usually screaming about. (I think there is a huge audience -- i.e., "market" -- for contemporary dance and would be very happy if some of the smaller companies would just admit that they're not ballet companies and call themselves contemporary dance companies. They're doing this in France and I think it's not only honest, but sensible.) All of these discussions and questions are in an attempt to look at ballet in a broad context, beyond what I like, or what the dancers like, or what the boards think will sell, because ballet is such a fragile art form. Probably the main technical reason to be wary about contemporary dance in a ballet repertory is, as Joan Acocella once wrote, "If that's all they dance, pretty soon that's all they'll be able to dance." That's a consideration as well. Other thoughts?

LMTech posted some very interesting points on the Ballet in San Francisco thread, and I thought it might be a good idea to pull them out and start a new thread. (Terry raised some good questions as well, and may want to reraise them again here.) This is what LMTech wrote: "I wonder though if the regional companies aren't doing story ballets and Balanchine/Ashton/ Macmillan because of the copyright/ expense issue. It is after all cheaper to make bad ballet than to stage good ballet. "But I digress...how does all this affect SF? Do you think it's good or bad that we have all this contemporary ballet here. I think it offers more dancers a chance to make a living. Dancers who don't fit the classical ballet mold. ---------------------------------

Thank you, LMTech. This is one of the biggest misunderstandings about our site -- that it is anti-something rather than attempting to examine something else. I very much understand that it's often assumed that anything a ballet company does is ballet, and ballet companies regularly program modern dance or crossover dance works (you could see, for example, a Mark Morris creation for the company, "The Moor's Pavane," a modern dance, and, say, "Theme and Variations" on the same program. No reason why people would not assume that this is all ballet). If I go to Annie's French Kitchen and am served pizza, veal cordon bleu and hot dogs, I may assume it's all French cuisine. One of the reasons I started the site is to encourage people who were interested in this kind of thing to look behind the surface at what went on inside a ballet company, at what was going on in ballet. Your question is such a good one, I'm going to pull it out and start a new thread, and then start a discussion on it.

Don't know, Samba, but Lines is awfully "blenderized" (nice term.) Try www.baydance.com I think they still do a calendar. (Guy, this is for you, too.) [ 06-26-2001: Message edited by: alexandra ]

I'd only add that I think the misunderstanding comes from an assumption on the part of some that there's no difference among ballet, contemporary and modern except as a question of taste. But this isn't true. There are huge differences -- vocabulary and aesthetic being the most important. I'd also comment that the notion that all dancers want to do only contemporary ballet is also not true. There are some -- and there are some companies, especially in Europe, that are proudly contemporary dance. (Rambert Dance Company changed its name from Ballet Rambert, one of the rare examples of truth in advertising.) But there are also dancers who are fighting for classical ballet. Nearly every interview we've published in DanceView or Ballet Alert! with a dancer in the last few years has touched on this subject, and the dancers are worried. (Another reason why I started Ballet Alert!)

Thanks very much, Leigh. I was on a deadline tonight and didn't check the board until now. LMTech, I certainly agree with everything Leigh said. I've been watching, and liking, modern dance for the same amount of time I've been watching, and liking, ballet -- nearly 30 years. This question has been raised before, and I must say I'm puzzled by it. If this site were Tennis Alert!, would someone assume I didn't like badminton, or golf? We never intended this to be a general dance site, and have addressed this issue, and the reason for it, frequently. There's also a lot of material on the main site about why the site was founded, etc. I'd like to especially underline one thing that Leigh wrote -- The assumption that classical ballet is outmoded, irrelevant or somehow just a waystation on the road towards the enlightened state of contemporary ballet or modern dance is one that I think will be questioned here every time it's mentioned.