Alexandra

Unfortunately, it took two weeks to get all of these mailed out -- all subscribers' copies were mailed Friday, so you should be getting your issue soon, if you haven't gotten it. I'm very sorry for the delay.

If anyone checked that link before 4:30 p.m. EST today, you won't have seen the essay that was supposed to accompany the list. It's a beautiful essay about Ashton (by Alastair Macauley), and how he worked, and what the Fred Step is, and how it's woven into Ashton's ballets, and why it's important. So check again

Amy, I'm glad you posted that. I've been the substitute Links person from time to time, and it's a real job. It takes a long time to do, and Ari did it day in and day out for years, and did a magificent, thorough job. (Not forgetting to thank Mme. Hermine, who took over doing Links on weekends awhile back!) One could make a case that Links was the most important service this site provided, and they don't go up by themselves!

When the company danced here this spring, I thought they looked very strong -- and very dedicated, believing in what they were dancing. People much more familiar with the company over the years generally agreed -- there was new life there. There's an open letter to the dance world from the two fired directors on Dance Insider that (very judiciously, IMHO) gives their side of things, and a blistering editorial on the front page by the site's editor, Paul Ben Itzhak, who has been covering the Graham story during the Protas lawsuit and aftermath. Those interested in the siituation at Graham may want to keep checking that site.

The first court theater schools were established by Royal Charter and the students were.....children of palace servants, sometimes specifically orphaned children of palace servants. (They weren't ALL bad, those kings!) The fairgrounds dancers.....try to get ahold of Winter's book (which is terminally out of print, but in some libraries). The Price family, which is still at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen (!!!) was English and has been a theatrical family for 450 years. Can you imagine that? The first were probably those entertainers who went from village to village on market day -- the central charactes in Bergman's "Seventh Seal." Later, some of the fairgrounds in major cities had temporary theaters, and they danced (acted/sang) there. Not forgetting the rope dancers, who just slung a rope between two trees and went at it. Redbookish mentioned that they sang as well as danced -- like musical comedy people turned "straight" actors today. There were several dancers in the 19th century who had to choose between singing and dancing for a career. (Bournonville was one. He had a "pleasing tenor" if he did say so himself, and chose ballet because he wanted to make productions and ballet was rarely censored, as there were no words.) Another thing, redbookish's post reminded me, were the actor/managers, in British theater, at least. Repertory companies directed by their leading actor -- he chose the rep and starred in everything. That became too expensive, I would imagine, when the unions came in, and the current model -- one theater, one play, one specified length of time -- became a necessity. Back to the theatrical families -- I think I posted above that one reason "show business" remained in the family is because performing artists were excommunicated by the church and not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground. Even someone as eminent as Moliere was buried under cover of darkness by order of Louix XIV; he couldn't allow his friend to lie in unconsecrated ground and no one was going to tell Louis he couldn't. But most people were, like Giselle, buried in a forest. Who would marry into a family like that? And it was a difficult, insecure life. Winter (author of "The Pre-Romantic Ballet") spent most of her life tracking these families by reading tombstones in Europe's graveyards. She dedicated her book to those families -- there are dozens of them.

I thought Royal Ballet fans might be interested in knowing, in this Ashton year, that there's now a page devoted to The Fred Step, and the ballets in which it appears, and which characters dance it, in the Ashton Archive: http://www.ashtonarchive.com/fredstep.htm (For those who don't know the site, of which I am the caretaker, for David Vaughan's chronology of Ashton's ballets. which includes subsequent productions anc casts, it's http://www.ashtonarchive.com ).

I wanted to let you all know that Ari has decided to withdraw from the board for at least a time for personal considerations. She did not want to make a post, but I didn't want her to just disappear. Ari and Helene have done a terrific job in very difficult circumstances -- taking over the board on short notice -- and I'm very grateful to Ari for her part in making things run so smoothly. Helene (who had been postiing as Hockeyfan228 but is now posting under her real name) will continue as a director, and because it's summer and I have a light teaching load, I will be around more to advise if I'm needed -- from the looks of things, I don't think I'll be kept very busy doing that, but I'm here We've asked dirac, who originated our Links forum, if she would take over the Links posting again, and she has agreed -- She is on the west coast, though, and at least at the beginning, she may be posting them a bit later than we're used to. Patience :blush:

Yes, London would be totally different from Paris or St. Petersburg because there was no opera/ballet company and school. And all over Europe there were the "fairgrounds entertainers" that Parmenia Migel documents so lovingly in her book, "The Pre-Romantic Ballet."

We have the same wish list!! I have some of these on VHS (and there is a film of "Enigma Variations," but nothing on tape, as far as I know). Re Bournonville, I don't know. There were a lot of ballets shown on Danish television over the years, but I don't think any of them have been released commercially. (I've seen 3 or 4 different versions of "Napoli" and 3 of "La Sylphide.") The "La Sylphide" was on video laser disk and shown on Bravo; the Napoli was on video but it's no longer available. That's all I know. (I wonder about the Paris Opera Raymonda, too. The Sleeping Beauty is available in England and France, but not the U.S. ) And what about all the ballets that are in the Russian Vaults -- you see bits of old film on those wonderful Glory/History/Magic of tapes, but where are the full versions? Hope the DVD makers are reading this!

Tobi Tobias writes about an exhibition of ballet photographs at the Festival.

I made the same error in print! Woke up at 2 a.m. and realized it and called the desk and they corrected it for the very late editions The Danes did "Cyrano" too. It was very popular, but didn't survive a change of (company" direction (it was one of Kronstam's greatest roles, and I wish I'd seen it).

Does Strindberg count? Birgit Cullberg's "Miss Julie" was a huge hit in the 1950s and 60s, a staple of the repertoriies of the Royal Danish Ballet and American Ballet Theatre (which performed it through the end of the 1970s.) (Miss Julie, a snippy young lady, is raped by her butler on Midsummer's Eve. Domination! Class warfare! Suicide! There was also a version of "Streetcar Named Desire" (by Valerie Bettis, I think) that was an ABT hit -- Nora Kaye and Igor Youskevitch (never saw it, alas). There must be some Chekhov but I can't think of any now (I believe "Month in the Country" is Turgenev). I can't resist pointing out that the first Nora in "A Doll's House" was Betty Hennings, who was trained in the ballet school of the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen, and danced leading roles in several Bournonville ballets

Tobi Tobias reviews Konservatoriet in her Artsjournal blog.

Anna is usually "Anna Reuben" [with James as her son, as Jane notes]. Which means that James is the only ballet hero iin the extant 19th century repertory with a last name!

Ah, those "xenophobic Danes" (referring to a prior post). The weekly email from the Royal Danish Embassy covered the Festival this way. The item is posted in its entirety:

Eva Kistrup reviews the closing night Gala in Danceview Times:

Tobi Tobias reviews the a demonstration of the Bournonville Schools in her Arts Journal blog.

Eva Kistrup's review of Friday's performance of "A Folk Tale" at the Bournonville Festival is now up on DanceView Times. "A Folk Tale"

I think it's primarily dancer driven and not choreographer or audience driven. My "proof"? The Lippizaner (sp?) stallions. They are perfectly happy doing the same steps the same way they were done 400 years ago. So horses don't change? Of course they do. They have scientists constantly messing about with their genes. And they have a competitive spirit, or there would be no horse racing. Is it that they have no fashion sense??? (Guesses at OT Quiz: Mary Quant, really cool cosmetics, England, Swinging Sixies, around Twiggy Time. Rudy Gernreich, topless swimsuit, 1970s?)

Far From Denmark, at the Bournonville Festival, is reviewed by Tobi Tobias in her blog.

Eva Kistrup reviews on The King's Volunteers on Amager" and "La Sylphide"" DanceView Times:

[copied over from today's Links] Two more reviews of the Bournonville Festival: John Rockwell in the Times Tobi Tobias in her blog

From Tiscali: In the Last Century, the years from 1901 through 1910 were called "The Naughty Oughties." Someone else will have to answer your seroius questions

Thanks, all. (Natalia, that's Alexander's book.)

What a fascinating answer! One of the reasons I wanted to study the Danish ballet is because the 19th century lasted longer there than elsewhere. As late as the 1950s the women got no real pointe work instruction. They were handed pointe shoes when they got into the higher (of two) classes in the school, around age 11 or 12, and told to put them on. Classes were both boys and girls. The women (not the men, which I've never understood) had HUGE calves from jumping. The jump was everything. There's a film of Margrethe Schanne's farewell peformance of the Sylph that I've seen, and I've never seen a woman jump like that. It's not only high, it's a real SPRING, and she could clear any piece of furniture in that room. In the early 1990s, the younger ballerinas and the ambitious young women took the men's class so they could jump -- jumps still took precedence over pointework, and the women wore soft shoes in class. One dancer explained to me that you couldn't really jump wearing toe shoes. (I think all this was finally broken in the late '90s and early oughties, but it lasted a long time and was wondrous to see )