Alexandra

Yes! Bournonville, classical dancing, taste, artistry -- all are about to get a huge dose of antibiotics. It's not that he'll make the whole repertory Bournonville, though. I've interviewed Hubbe several times over the last 15 years, and one of the things he's said consistently is that Bournonville is the well to which you return after dancing other ballets, and your Bournonville dancing will be enriched by your experiences. I think that's a very good metaphor. The "Sylphide" staging he did for the RDB, which the company brought to DC, was almost perfect, and the most amazing thing of all -- this company which had so many foreign dancers actually had the style.

I'm stunned. An artist in Copenhagen! Seriously, this is the best thing that's happened to the company since 1994. I'm sure we will see good things coming from this.

For the record, the relevant section of the review is this: What Reiter wrote is accurate. It is not the Balanchine Trust's practice to allow productions to be staged by in-house balletmasters unless they are approved stagers of the Trust. That's the whole point of the Trust -- that stagers who have a direct connection to the Balanchine tradition stage the ballets, and stages the official version. What happens is what Leigh described above: the Trust assigns a stager who sets the production. An in-house balletmaster maintains the production, and a Trust stager checks on up on the production to see that is maintained to Trust standards (but does not check up every year, in my undferstanding.) It is usual for the actual stager, not the in-house balletmaster, to be credited in a program as the stager.

Exactly, Helene. I got an email this morning from Reiter, telling me that, in response to her query, she had received a letter from the Balanchine Trust that the stager was Paul Boos and that Mark Goldweber had "maintained" the production since 2004, and asking me to put up a note at the bottom of her review to this effect.

There are two Old People (their real names) in Flemming Flindt's "The Triumph of Death." The Old Man throws the Old Woman off a roof. Not really positive, but certainly active!!! There are very sympathetic (and dancing) roles for middle-aged people, mostly men, in Ashton's "Enigma Variations." Two ride bicycles (one an old-fashioned three-wheeler) and the latter sports an ear trumpet. You're right, though, Bart, that so many of the roles -- the mother in Giselle, the nurse in Romeo and Juliet, the King and Queen in Sleeping Beauty -- are often reserved for the one or two people they let stay around. Giselle's mother should be in her 30s.

I had two years of modern dance training in college and I don't think I've ever drawn on it. I've had no ballet training. There are some dancers who make excellent reviewers, but there are also some critics with dance training who think that a review is all about pointing out technical mistakes or give an insider's view, and (as an editor) that's not my idea of dance criticism. First, they need to be able to write Second, have a sense of responsibility (which may sound as though it needn't be mentioned, but you'd be surprised). And third and most important, BE ABLE TO SEE, and have seen a lot of dance. I've known dancers who can't tell when a ballet has been changed. Editing to add: I don't think you need to have taken class to be able to see a triple fouette, or that a dancer doesn't land in position. A critic needs to watch, and ask, enough to see the differences among styles. A dancer may know only his or her own style. However, I will say (and I'm sure I've posted this before) that one of the best reviews I've ever read was by a Laura Dean dancer, writing about the company dancing a work she had not only danced, but was part of the first cast. That's a bonus, as is reading a review by someone who's watched a particular ballet over a long period of time and has seen it change. The more different perspectives there are, the better -- and YES we need more reviews. (which is why I started danceviewtimes )

Baryshnikov on Charlie Rose just said that, when he was directing it, he knew ABt would never be a company at the level of Paris Opera because it couldn't afford to have a great classical academy.

Many people argue that it's got the School, and the indigenous choreographer, and its school produces world class dancers, but it doesn't have a great corps (and one could argue that if it did, it wouldn't be Bournonville's company) and it doesn't have enough Bournonville ballets to live on, and nothing of equal value created since the 1870s to stand with it. Others would argue that School, Bournonville and consistently produced great dancers is enough to stay In. I think there's a difference between SAB using those trained outside the walls and other companies taking in outsiders late in their training, is that, with very few exceptions, the SAB latecomers have come from NYCB-related schools, and/or taken summer classes and will easily fit in, whereas ABT has always taken people from a variety of Schools (and many with no School but medals). As for getting booted out, that's an interesting question. In the 1960s and 1970s, I can't remember seeing any British or American reviewer linking POB in the Big Five (very sloppy corps, no native repertory, School, and school, on the downhill slide) but now most people do. Was it just because we didn't see them and so out of sight, out of mind? Or because they had slid so far they were out of contention? BUT because they have a great School, and have made their School their raison d'etre, and produce world-class dancers, they're back In. All of this doesn't mean that other companies aren't "better" -- don't give great performances -- on any given Sunday. Arlene Croce wrote something that made a lot of this make sense to me (and will make some of you pick up brickbats). It was meant to describe, and be complimentary of, the Joffrey, then New York's third company: "New York City Ballet is a third-rate first-rate company. ABT is just plain second rate. But the Joffrey is a first-rate third-rate company."

Generally the Big Five (Kirov, Bolshoi, Paris, Royal, New York City Ballet), or six (depending on whether or not you count the Danes) are considered as such because they have a School (not the building, but an academy that turns out classical dancrs at the highest level, and a style, a unique and instantly recognizable approach to classical ballet); a repertory (created by a native choreographer in the company's style); have a great corps; and have survived more than one director. I'd also say they have to be able to dance what are considered "classics" on the highest level. As noted above, any one of them can have an off year, or an off decade, but until they totally collapse, they're going to be the standard and in the Big Five (or Six). You can't do it on stars alone. That doesn't mean that in any given season another company can't be wonderful, but without hitting all the benchmarks, no matter how loudly people insist they're The Greatest Ballet Company in the World, they're unlikely to be considered as such by other than their fans. And even if you do have all the stars (and ballets) aligned correctly and a wonderful, inspired director, when he or she steps down, everything can disintegrate in a year or two if there aren't the pillars of native repertory and School to sustain the transition. I think when you get to American ballet companies it's hard, because very few people see all of them, or even most of them. I often wonder, too, when a director says "We're going to be one of the Top Five companies" which liist s/he's referring to. And then there are the choreographers whose press releases say "the internationally renowned Joe Blow...." or "We are pleased to present a new work by one of the world's most respected choreographers." Sometimes, as Andy Warhol said, "Art is anything you can get away with."

Paris ballet fans must be in tears This news item was in the NYTimes this morning: Any news of this in the French press, or word of a successor?

I found this site tonight and thought it might be of interest: http://www.ideco.com/fans/language.htm I can't vouch for its authenticity -- maybe others can -- but it explains what the various uses of the fan are (Quickly fanning herself, for example, doesn't mean she's very hot, but rather, "I love you so much."

I would certainly hate someone to dig up some of the things I wrote when I started, the passions of youth being what they are Since both Porter and Deane retired some time ago, I'd guess these were writings from the late 1970s or early '80s. And while one should be careful what one says in the theater for fear of someone posting them on a message board or in a blog, what one says really has little bearing on what one writes or one's qualifications to do so. Alymer, I haven't read Macauley's Fonteyn biography, but I thought (writing from memory) that it was part of a young people's series and thus I'm sure it is slight. I agree with you on the list of Ashtonians. Mine would be longer and include those who'd seen the premieres and actually watched Ashton's work over four decades. I'd echo Leigh's question above: "I'd like to hear who people wished it were instead." (Surely speculation on something that has already happened would be all right )

Honningen was really quite amazing. I was told she did not begin dancing until she was 15, yet she was a very strong technician, good in Bournonville, Petipa and Tetley. AND she had a second career as a master's tennis champion, a sport, she told me, she took up after she retired as a dancer.

rg, it was released in Europe as a film and in America as part of the Disney TV series. It was shot (if memory serves) in Berlin and Helsinski. Hokey plot, but some wonderful dancing.Thanks for the photo!

That question will be asked of any writer who questions the appointment, I think, but if this was in her blog, she may just as well be writing to be proocative -- asking a question to encourage discussion.

I think it's wonderful news. I expected the "why bring in a furriner" objections, and I expect more. I don't think they chose him because he's a man, but because he's good. Some of them are, you know I am very glad to have someone who takes dance seriously and who has as wide a viewing range -- both in taste and in time. I look forward to reading him. Or, to put it another way: :huepfen024:

Ballet history starts in the late 16th century with Catherine de Medici's Magnificences. There was a flowering under Louis XIV in the late 17th century, but the late 17th century is considered part of the Age of Enlightenment (sometimes the late baroque period is separated as "the age of reason" but many scholars link the two into a long period encompassing the late baroque and the neoclassical; that's the short version.)

Well, ballet is an art form that came of age during the Age of Enlightenment, so I'd say the influence is everywhere -- the mathematical precision of French ballet, the patterns taken from/suggesting the gardens at Versailles, the placing everything into neat little categories. Read Lincoln Kirstein's "A Short History of Classical Theatrical Dancing" to start. That should be available everywhere (on line from www.alibris.com if not from amazon.)

There's a housekeeper and a mismatched young couple in "A Wedding Bouquet," but the housekeeper doesn't try to stop the wedding. I can't think of anything that exactly matches the description.

It is indeed a very nicely done article but (and this is clear from the full version if not the quote) the interviews were the "show," so to speak: the article is a report on a seminar held in Hayden's honor, and the dancers quoted were the guests at the seminar.

Thanks for the Link, Leonid. A brief note: The first Madge was a man, the second (back in 1860) was a woman. In the Danish tradition, both genders have been great in the role. Men, Hans Beck and Niels Bjorn Larsen; women, Gerda Karstens and Sorella Englund. The two prime caretakers of "La Sylphide" from the 1960s through the early 1990s were Hans Brenaa and Henning Kronstam who both preferred women to play Madge "because of the sexual chemistry". That's probably why (as well as Englund's portrayal, which has become the measuring stick for this role) the current generation of stagers cast women.

Ray, I think fact checking went out with epaulement

I asked a colleague who knows the company well if he could identify the dancers and he responded: The first sequence, Waltz in a Castle Courtyard, featured Dagmar Kronberger and Eno Peci; the other more prominent pair was Mihail Sosnovschi and Maria Yakoleva. The first three have been demisoloists in Vienna for a while. Yakoleva recently arrived in the Vienna company from the Maryinsky. The waltzers of On the Beautiful Blue Danube were guests Lucia Lacarra and Cyril Pierre as the principal pair and, as the secondary, Olga Esina (also a recent arrival from the Maryinsky) and longtime Vienna soloist Wolfgang Grascher. The choreographer was Christian Tichy.

I know exactly what you mean. Some that I remember -- Baryshnikov in "Push Comes to Shove" and (in modern dance) Judiith Jamison in "Cry." When she danced that, it was movement spun out of her body -- living it, as you say. When others took over the role, you could see that it was steps. I think it's because the role is made on a dancer's specific physique, technical abilities, and personality -- and s/he works with the choreographer in a completely symbiotic way. It IS more than just "no one could dance X like Y," but actually seeing the outline of the dancer (for me) like a ghost or shadow around the role. I haven't seen "Clear" so can't comment on that point, but I hope others will.

The thing is, though, the star system in ballet isn't new -- not remotely. It began in the 1830s in Paris when Dr. Veron (director of the opera) pitted Taglioni and Elssler against each other. It sold tickets and provoked a lot of comments that it Was The End of Ballet As We Know It (because if people come only to see the star, if Star breaks foot, no one comes; also, star retires. And iin fact, one of the causes of the end of the Romantic movement and the long crash of ballet in Paris was that they ran out of stars.) Helene mentioned the different approach taken by Balanchine (which is the same approach the Maryinsky/Kirov did): put the ballet first. They had stars, but they were cast in the ballets most suited to them (something that still prevails in opera, but it's probably only a matter of time before some tenor wanting to sing Boito's Mephistopheles will take the tenor voice where it has never gone before ) The star system, its pleasures and problems, were a constant topic of conversation and dance writing in the late 1970s, '80s, and '90s.