Alexandra

Thanks for posting that -- it really is a modern dance repertory. If not quite a switch, then a sharp right (or left, or whatever) turn. I've wondered about the lack of Humphrey dances, too. I would love to see more of that repertory live.

It's an absolute treasure trove -- I didn't find the Witch Dance, but I'll go back for a look (and finish scrolling through the alphabet).

I love "gruesome badness" Of course, no one MEANS to be bad. Someone had what seemed to be a great idea and no one said, "Hey, let's sit down and role play this one, to see what, if any, are the possible negative ramificaitons." But that's what Ballet Alert! is for This kinda reminds me of the Adopt-a-Pothole program in Virginia and West Virginia (and I'm sure other states whose byways are unknown to me.) You see a pothole, you pay to have it fixed, your name is up there for life. (I also LOVE Helene's Reserve-a-stall idea. There could be a whole donor's bathroom....) But seriously, the kindly donor who wants the dancer to come to dinner -- first for the family, but then, perhaps, for every visiting cousin and college roommate -- could, well, quickly become unpalatable. A prediction. Within 2 years, someone will make a ballet calledl "Gruesome Badness."

Or Lucy dancing to a speeded up version of "Glow Little Glow Worm, Glimmer Glimmer." But to Mel's comment on Mordkin -- I thought "Matinee Idol" when I looked at rg's photos. He has quite a range in those photos, too. He wasn't just Pavlova's forklift.

I'd like to buy a ballerina, please, and I think she should dance the first performance of the new ballet by whatshisname. Or, taking off from Herman's rant (with which I agree, for what that's worth): one could be subversive and bid on a corps member. And to be REALLY subversive: "I'd like to sponsor Mr. X -- here's 100 grand. My only condition is that he NOT dance." Clara, I do understand the need for coming up with creative ways to fund dance, but surely not anything goes, at least not yet. "I'll pay $100,000 for Ms. Doe's firstborn" might not get Board approval.

There are dozens of Murray's photos (scroll down the list for the Doris Humphrey ones, some quite famous, some new to me.) I've seen his photos, but never registered the name, but he seems to have photographed EVERYBODY in the arts -- lots of early film stars, actresses (Helen Hayes, Katharine Cornell), musicians as well as dancers.

I think also the auctioning off -- which I'm sure was done in good fun -- has very uncomfortable associations. Slaves dancing for their owners, the Russian serf ballerinas -- at least the Paris Opera dancers who exchanged favors for diamonds had a bit more say in the matter. Does a sponsor have the right to "request" that "his/her" dancer perform at daughter's wedding, son's birthday? What if a sponsor really is after a dancer, and the dancer isn't interested? Not saying that any of this is going on now, but check back in a decade.

Maybe they'll start getting a repertory where such distinctions are useful

Maybe they'll start wearing little baseball caps with their spoonsors' names on them.... Good question, Farrell Fan. When I win the lottery, I might sponsor a dancer, but I'll insist on the program listing being "sponsored by Anonymous." I guess this is the ballet world's version of Building Syndrome. I'll give you all my money if you'll just put my name on the building. ("My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair." They should read more Shelley.)

Addressing the question posed in the title of the thread, "does he sell?" I think this is a big problem for the RDB. It's part of what Edward Brandes wrote about in his famous piece about Bournonville being a huge marble monument now located in the middle of a heavily traveled road: it's in the way but it's too good to destroy. Copenhagen is a small city in which a world-class choreographer worked. This does give the company a burden. When I was there in 2000 for Bournonville Week, one of the dancers (not especially a Bournonville fan) said to me that the dancers knew that Bournonville was important because "without him we'd be just another mediocre European ballet company." But one suspects that many of the dancers and fans would be much happier with a "mediocre European ballet company" that doesn't have a heritage, that could simply follow trends, lots of Kylian-style pieces (no hierarchy, all dancers are alike, no individuality, no bothersome difficult solos, no worry about classical technique). AND the audience, any hometown audience, doesn't want to see the same ballets year after year, especially in a down period where there aren't Really Big Stars. During the high water marks of the Danish ballet -- the Beck years, the 1960s, when there were huge personalities -- the company could give many performances of La Sylphide -- and Miss Julie and Carmen -- and the audience was happy to see them over and over, because the performances were so exciting. But otherwise, there's a "Oh, Sylphide. We can always see that next year." Or the next, or the next. Perhaps one comes to see a guest star, and a debut, but otherwise...... Jorgen, I was very glad to read that you were looking forward to it! I hope there are enough true dance people there, who are looking forward to seeing this generation of dancers in these roles. And Martin, I agree that what goes on behind the curtain is very important, and this isn't one of the great eras of Bournonville stagings! What the dancers also say is that Bournonville is the "well," as Nikolaj Hubbe once put it, to which they return. It's the touchstone. The repertory imposes standards -- technical standards. Yes, many of the dancers are used to create an atmosphere (and I'd be more sympathetic to their complaints that they don't have enough to do if they were world-class technicians, ready for any challenge). But the solo dances still challenge everybody -- the poor dancers just sitting around, and dancers from other companies and other worlds. The Festival isn't about selling tickets, though. It's about international recognition.

This is such a vague comment, I hesitate to post it, but...... it's August I was struck, looking at these albums, that by the 1910s, the dancers are starting to look....not exactly contemporary, but they're identifiably "cousins" of dancers I've actually seen. What I"m trying to say is, I can't imagine how Legnani MOVED. But I can look at these photos and imagine how Pavlova and Mordkin and Koralli and Preo and Olga S. and those dancers moved. Partly may be because I've seen bits of videos (but not of Preo, so I don't think it's that. I've had the same reaction to Danish photos -- there was a lightening at the beginning of the 20th century, in dance as in architecture.

I don't know if it's a first here; I hope someone will. European companies have ranks such as first soloist, second soloist, coryphee (the Royal Ballet is one). And Paris makes a distinction between etoiles and premiers danseurs -- and THEN you get to the soloists. During the Romantic Era there were even more ranks -- whether you were in the first, second or third quadrille of the corps de ballet mattered. And certain groups had certain privileges -- if you were a coryphee, I believe (I'm writing this from memory, so if someone wants to look it up and finds this is wrong, please feel free ) you couldn't be made to dance in a group larger than eight. Interesting move for Houston to make -- especially when they seem to be turning way from the Stevenson model of mostly full-length ballets (where such ranks might be useful) to the new! contempo-ballet model, where most of the ballets are danced by no more than a dozen dancers, and it doesn't matter what rank they are!

Good points! Of course, ballet companies always need money, but this is going to lead to all kinds of trouble. What happens to the House Ballerina -- in some ways the most valuable company principal, always there when you need her, never injured, but not the star, not the headliner, or, to put it another way, the last girl picked for the soccer team. (And the dancers will know exactly where they stand. Who got picked first, who last? Who got the Board Member from Hell? Who got the more prestigious one? Etc.)

The Cellophane Wilis should stand as a lesson for all time of how NOT to dress a ballet! Walter Terry reviewed Chase's "Giselle." Even Ballet's Mr. Optimist couldn't find much good to say about it -- it's in his collection ("I Was There.") He was not happily there for this one. Mordkin died in 1944, not long after Chase and Pleasant maneuvered him out of ABT? Pity. Anyone who saves Berthe's mime scene can't be all bad

on the net, as you know, one thing leads to another. A search for Mordkin led me to the incredible collection of photographs by Nicholas Murray, including these of Martha Graham from the 1920s. You can actually see her as a young Denishawn dancer become Graham http://www.geh.org/ar/strip88/htmlsrc/muray_sum00031.html

A very interesting list of productions, from Ballet Met's site: http://www.balletmet.org/Notes/GiselleHist.html See how many productions there were, very early, including one in New York only five months after the Paris premiere. And a four-act version at La Scala (oh, details, details please!)

Some more photos of Mordkin (including some tasteful nudes) here: http://www.geh.org/ar/strip88/htmlsrc/mura...l#77:0188:2069B

On the thread right next door, rg has posted links to two galleries of his wonderful Russian postcards. Among many other gems are lots of shots of Mordkin -- we've never talked about him. His dancers (the Mordkin Ballet) were the nucleus of ABT, and he was one of the first teachers/stagers at that company. One of my favorite stories, from the Charles Payne book on ABT, was that, when Dolin took over Mordkin's staging of "Giselle" and was rehearsing the company in secret (they couldn't face telling Mordkin, apparently) Mordkin dealt with it this way: every morning before he started teaching company class, he placed a toy gun on the piano, pointed to the direction of the illicit rehearsal room. Never said a word, never had to. Also known as Pavlova's strong and temperamental partner. And a very interesting dancer, a man of muscles and many moods, according to the photos in rg's gallery, here: http://balletalert.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17492&st=0&

What a lovely way to spend a Sunday morning! Thank you, rg. The dancers are gorgeous, of course, but the costumes!!!!

Today's New York Times has an article about the current practice of sponsoring dancers. (copied over from today's Links) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/arts/dance/15KINE.html Pros and cons?

I checked "Ballet 101"'s videography: The one I'm thinking of is on a tape called "Stars of the Russian Ballet" It was filmed in 1953. There may well be excerpts on other tapes, but this one is a condensed version of the ballet that runs about a half-hour. Ulanova, Plisetskaya, and Gusev.

I think "Fountains" is on a different tape -- Stars of the Russian Ballet (???). It has Ulanova (act 2) and Dudinskaya (act 3) in "Swan Lake" and also "The Flames of Paris."

I would have wagered on Ballet Review, too, Dale; thank you for that. It was more the kind of free-flowing, almost angry piece that Croce wrote in those pages (and knowingly for a small audience of devoted balletomanes with a certain slant on things) rather than for the larger readership in the New Yorker. On the other side of the aisle, the late William Como (long-time publisher of Dance Magazine) adored Fracci and either wrote, or commissioned, several features on her.

Everything Croce wrote isn't in those collections. I don't remember whether it was in Ballet Review or in The New Yorker, but I remember reading an assessment very much along the lines of what Drew wrote.

It does seem unusual. I wondered what the purpose was. Perhaps it's just wanting to keep the process open, but I can't help, in this election year, thinking of primaries, and having supporters and subscribers writing in the candidate of their choice.