Alexandra

Sorry, can't help there -- but if you go to ABT's website, there should be a way to contact the company. Or send a letter to Mr. Corella c/o ABT and they'll get it to him. http://www.abt.org

Thanks for this, Ari. Good prices!

I've only seen Platel on a taped-off-TV video, but I loved her in the grand pas classique. Does that count? (I have, as always, several favorites.....)

Van Hamel, for me!

I wouldn't disagree with that at all -- and dozens of other examples. By "meaning" I was referring to overt content, realism. I love many narrative ballets, but adapting contemporary fiction using the classical vocabulary ..... well, anything is possible, but I don't think anyone has figured out how to do it yet. And no one since Balanchine and Ashton has, for me, imbued the classical vocabulary with depth and meaning. When others try to be "meaningful" -- tell a complicated story, in a simplistic way, but graphically, or, say, deal with The Impact of Drugs on Our Society, they're asking ballet to do something it's not meant to do, in my view. But what I was trying to say is that there's a whole wing of the party, if you will, that things that if ballet isn't taking on the deep issues of life -- i.e., the impact of drugs in our society, or Her Second Divorce and the Encounter with the Felon, etc., it has no meaning and is only "pretty" or a "divertissement" (not my view).

That makes sense, but Balanchine isn't the first person to think that "the lower body was as capable of expression as the upper." (Not that she's saying he was.) Tudor springs to mind, others as well. I can't speak to Vaganova training, but I don't see that kind of heart/legs split in Russian dancers in performance. Thanks for the Chujoy quote, atm.

Ismene Brown nearly always has interesting things to say in reviews, and this one is no exception. Ari found this for Links, but I'm putting it here as well, because of her description of Dante Sonata (among other things). This is a work unfamiliar to most of us. Two pigeons that hardly take flight

I'd like to understand it too, vrs. I've also heard it, and I've put it to a misunderstanding. It's often said about Bournonville that the legs and upper body are separate (legs fast, arms doing nothing) but, in my experience watching, that's only true of dancers who would look stiff in any style. Medium to fine Danish dancers, in Bournonville or anything else, dance with the whole body. The arms are down, but the upper body is not at all lifeless. I don't see the bifurcation in Russian dancers, either Kirov or Bolshoi, either. And finally, I don't see that either "horizontal" or "vertical" is superior. When I've heard the "It was Balanchine who divided the body along the vertical, not the horizontal," it's always said in a way that applies "Aha! A major advance!!" Why? Isn't dancing with the whole body better than dancing with half of it, whether a west/east or a north/south divide?

I'm a Symphony in 3 fan -- I'd never heard that, Kay Denmark, but I like it.

That's a good question! I wasn't clear, I'm sorry. When I said "classical" I meant people who are interested in classical dancing, classical style, whether they're watching a 3-act narrative ballet or a 10-minute Balanchine or Ashton, or whatever, ballet. This is a very small group, and they're not as likely to be interested in, say, "Dracula" (at least, not the versions that are making the rounds now; anything is possible!) Does that make more sense? I think you're right, that most people who like "Giselle" would also like "Sleeping Beauty."

Nan, sadly, I agree. I'd forgotten about the Direct Communicators, thinking more of those who worship another Madonna -- but in any event, I think art is divorced from most people's lives. Even if we think they need it, they don't think so. And back to Martins, because we've rarely had a serious discussion about his work here and I'm grateful for the opportunity -- thank you for the list, Helene. I also grew tired of the Watts persona, and I know what you mean about cloning, that it was a limiting role. It's like the current Whelan-Soto pas de deux. It's not that they all look alike as much as they all feel alike. Martins, to me, is a stepspinner. It's as though he has an infinitely long bolt of red plaid cloth and he can unroll it at will, and cut it here, or there, and make it into trousers or a vest or a bow, but it's still red plaid. (I have enjoyed watching some of Martins' ballets and I don't dismiss him; there are a lot worse things out there!! I'm talking about what separates a journeyman from a master.)

Leigh, I think Cygnet said that -- that Balanchine split the body along the vertical, Vaganova on the horizontal.

No official announcement yet. We'll post when there is one.

I think you're in the ballpark, especially about the horizontal. I would argue, though, that there are other schools that integrate the upper and lower body. (And just because a dancer, as many do, says that the legs carry the rhythm and the arms the melody doesn't mean the two halves are working against each other.)

I think the Joffrey has changed a lot since Robert Joffrey ran the company. Then they had a bifurcated repertory too -- a goodly number of fine revivals of 20th century masterpieces and a lot of house ballets and pop ballets. The Joffrey was the first ballet company to do pop ballets -- to great acclaim, at the time. I think this half-and-half model has been the one that's been followed generally around the country for the past 20 years; I've written that, actually. It's a bit different from what Helgi Tomasson is trying to do now, though.

For Martins, is it also not a question of music and form? The former being taste, and the latter being necessity, to follow that taste? In his earlier ballets -- "Schubertiad," say -- there were pas de deux that were more traditional, but that was appropriate to the music. (I only saw that ballet once, 15-20 years ago, so I won't hang my hat on that statement!) If the music is fragmented, with a dark coloration, it would be difficult to do other than the bump and grind, bump and strangle. Is there much contemporary music -- serious music, not pop music -- that would lead him down other paths? (I think that the desire to use contemporary music, music composed for the ballet, is genuine.)

I would like to know how this is viewed in St. Petersburg. The audience, at least at one time, knew exactly what the style was, and what they wanted to see. (I remember reading that when Nureyev first went up on high three-quarter point this caused a month of discussion in the coffee shops.) Maybe this is the ultimate solution to what is permissible and what is not: it depends on what your definition of "it" is. (Sorry, I just couldn't resist.) The more clearly "it" is defined, the more everyone -- artistic staff, dancers, audience -- are in sync with this, then the tighter the style. Then we get to atm's point above, that it can't be a box (I agree with that). It would all be so much easier if we could trust the artistic direction

On the Peter Martins thread right below this one, as I write, on the list, Hockey Fan wrote: I definitely think there are two audiences for ballet. I think there's been a divide since the beginning -- since Lully and Rameau and their respective followers in the early French court ballets. Without going into the history between then and now, today in America, it seems there are the rock ballet people and the full-length story ballet people. The two groups that get short-changed are the people whose taste runs to the truly experimental or the classical. If you're a company director, this is what you're facing. How do you attract and keep both audiences, without boring one and driving out the other? The best solution may be to chuck "Swan Lake," "Romeo and Juliet" and friends, and go for a mid-sized company that can do first-rate productions of small-scale masterpieces as well as new choreography. Or not? What do you think is possible? Or is this not a problem at all?

Oh, that's too good. Evil, but sheer genius.

Michael, I don't disagree with you at all. I think we're saying the same thing. back at the beginning of time, in the cave, we all participated in, and made, art (I'm very influenced by Suzanne Langer's theory of virtual power, that, to reduce it to one sentence, is that art is the way of channeling spiritual power through the artist, with the viewer getting a charge of that power from the artist, the same charge s/he once got directly.) I think we do need art. I need it, anyone interested in the life of the mind and in civilization as a concept needs it. But I think this is the product of education. Otherwise, there's just a yearning need that can't be named, but we spend our lives trying to fill it. Enter the Dixie Chicks From the Renaissance to a few sneezes ago in the West, we had fine art, which today would be described as art that has been made by .001 percent of the population (artists) and enjoyed by, at most, 10 percent of the population (people with the money, time and education, especially the latter). Helene, I wouldn't worry about the "Dixie Chicks" ballet if I had faith in the artistic director. I think, in theory, the "get 'em in the door" idea is fine. The problem is that, too often, next year there will be two "Dixie Chicks" and one Balanchine (or ..... how does one phrase it? serious ballet? non-pop ballet?) and the year after that, none. Just a season of a pop ballet triple bill, a watered down Swan Lake, and a resident choreographer's Romeo and Juliet with a nice Dracula thrown in. I'm not making this up -- that's been the trend of the last 8 years, at least. (I've been comparing ballet company schedules since 1996 for Ballet Alert!) I've been in audiences where there are two Balanchine ballets and one pop ballet and the Balanchine ballets (even well-danced) get a polite scattering and the pop ballet gets screams. And I don't say that to "blame" the audience. If I'm a member of that "target market" drawn in by something that I already like, that's the way I'd react; I have no context in which to compare. I see ballet history as cyclical, not linear. It's not all progression, and it's not all one long downhill slide. I think that the bad drives out the good, until something great comes along. There's been a cycle, for well over 200 years, of: Creation (new choreographer, new theorist, excitement in ballet, dancers and audiences attracted); Formula (new idea turns into formula, attention shifts to the stars; creativity degenerates, all the attention is turned to technique); Malaise (everything degenerates, artists desperately grasp at anything that they think will work to keep the audience). And then something new comes along -- the Romantic Rebellion, Diaghilev from Russia, the new companies in New York and London in the 1940s -- and we have Creativity again. It takes a very great artist -- and a perfect alignment of the constellations -- to maintain a high level of art in an institution. Back to bump and grind and bump and strangle -- great images! -- it struck me that this is a change from the pas de deux of the 70s and 80s, that were what I called "slam bam thank you ma'am." Not sure if that's progression or not. I think we've been in the Formula stage for 20 years now; we're seeing repeat after repeat of the "Agon" pas de deux, and of Balanchine's black and white ballets. The pas de deux either needs reinvigoration, or a rest.

Are the arts crucial to humanity? I'd like to think so. I do think so. And if you took a poll, probably most people would say so. But do we mean it? What needs do the arts fill? A spiritual one, originally. And then it became (I'm thinking out loud here) a want and not a need. Excitement -- spectacles were the big thing 200 years ago; that's not new. They loved the shipwreck scenes, with "water" flooding the stage. And stars, from the early 19th century. That's now delivered, packaged and ready to consume, like candy bars, in pop music and sports. 24/7. Celebrities have replaced gods and kings, and fulfill our need (if it is a need) to worship. What do the arts provide, beyond this? I think that's what flipsy is referring to -- meaning, depth. That's the one thing that pop arts don't give us. (But then we get back to the "is this possible in ballet, using an academic vocabulary?" question.) I really think the battle for arts education has been lost. And although many of us like to think that if an audience is presented with filet mignon with truffle sauce in this corner, and a double cheeseburger with fries in this corner, they'll go for the truffles, most of them go for the burger. (I'm being optimistic here. We'd go for the cookies and candy, and the sandwich on Wonder bread, just as we did when we were 4.) How many times have you seen a ballet program with one or two masterpieces and one or two MTV ballets? Which gets the most applause? Even a rotten "Swan Lake" -- absolutely rotten, choose your own terrible details and imagine a corps de ballet which, only last week, was marching in halftime shows -- with Stars will have people cheering. To end on a really upbeat note, and in reference to what Michael wrote above, many of the people running ballet companies today don't think deeply about their art form, don't understand its roots and its history, never thought beyond their own careers when they were dancers, still carry resentments of what roles they should've gotten but didn't, and have taken over companies without any training whatsoever in what it means to be a ballet master or company director. Casting? Who's my pal. Who screams the loudest if they don't get roles. Why not let them all do it? It doesn't matter. Anyone you put out there will get a good review from somebody and every dancer has his fans. Repertory? Who's my pal? We need something called "Swan Lake," anything will do. No matter how bad it is, someone will give it a good review. etc. All of this has contributed to the tumbling of standards, because if audiences never see first-rate works danced well and presented with care, how can they possibly develop a clear eye? At least if you go to an art museum you can run to the Rembrandt room or check out a Vermeer as a basis of comparison. So it's very understandable why the pop art is taking over (has taken over)? AND, to get back to flipsy's original point, when those on the "fine arts" side of the house, in the tiny little corner that's left to them, make a ballet, it's often empty, bled dry of everything but form, with a veneer of cynicism that passes for sophistication.

Paul, your Periodic Tables reminded me of something choreographed by Frank Schaufuss (Peter's Dad) in the 1950s: Fever. In which Fever, a male dancer clad in next to nothing, leads a corps of The White Blood Cells and The Red Blood Cells to try to recover from what I think was an unseen virus. (I've only seen photos, not the whole thing. It didn't last long.) Not nearly as complex as yours, but one of the few scientific ballets I've ever heard of.

There are so many good points on this thread -- Cygnet, or someone, I hope you will explain about the vertical/horizontal question. It's something I've often heard, but would like to read more about. (Leigh, Paul?) Marc, thank you for those comments. I think the "looking for a story" is one problem, although that's a line too. I'd agree with you about Agon, but I liked their hints of a story in Diamonds; I thought it was in bounds. (To take Ari's goose/gander point made earlier, though, Western audiences have gotten used to the Petipa pas de deux being danced without any hint of a story, or relationship of any kind between the two dancers. That's just ballet today, to some.) Ari, my one example would be the Villella role in "Rubies." In both casts I saw when the Kirov danced this in Washington, that role was done DEMICARACTERE!!!!!!!! It was a Jester part. I found Ari's "Diamonds" example very interesting. That would drive me crazy if NYCB were doing it; I'm not sure it would in another company. If the dancers can only do the movement by exaggeration, is it better not to try? At least not this year? On the other hand, if the hip thrusts are ironed out, is it Balanchine? And is it inevitable. I remember an older critic telling me that onceuponatime ABT danced "Les Sylphides" like Fokine, not like Swan Lake Act II. You could really tell a difference in style. Now that has become a sort of generic "classical/romantic" style. Is that what happens to dance, inevitably? Look at the way 19th century curved line, with the arm shielding the face, became straightened and then stretched. There are some people still screaming about that -- but if Giselle came out with 19th century arms, would a 21st century audience accept it? That's another consideration. Audiences. In those old houses, they take the audience into account, too, know what is expected and what accepted. To go back to my Rubies point, we might see the Jester Rubies Man as a red hot glaring misinterpretation, but a Kirov audience might see an NYCB-pure, seal of approval dancer in that role as too bland. vrs, I agree with you about ballet masters -- there are some who can stage something they've never seen, much less never danced. About 2 a generation in the world, but they exist Unfortunately, you're also right about the current practice of a ballet master staging one of the major classics without having danced in it, or having any familiarity with the ballet or the aesthetic. To me, this is one of the main signs of trouble in ballet today; it's something that would not have been tolerated during the high water mark of ballet in this century. It's a throwback to 18th and 19th century practices of anyone coming into town, throwing up a ballet, calling it by the same name as a big hit in Paris. It's provincial in the bad sense of the term. atm's point about not putting Balanchine in a box is a good one -- he did change, and change radically. Depending on what? Depending on the dancers? On who was available? On who he wanted? Look at Apollo -- from wild boy demicaractere role, with Balanchine saying in an interview that he absolutely did not want an Apollo Belvidere, to.... a very classical Apollo Belvidere. Followed by something a bit in between. Which is "right"? How is a foreign ballet master to cope with that one? Which brings us back to the elastic. For us, as viewers, we'll all have a different standard. But what we're trying to get at, I think, is what the balletmasters' standards are, how they view the elastic.

It is a big question. Is it possible to do this in ballet? 18th and 19th ballets showed that depth through allegory, generally, and pantomime, specifically. Balanchine made an end run around the question (at a time when one wing of modern dance was dealing with Big Issues) through form, by creating structurally pure ballets with evocative undertones. Turning form into content, thus satisfying both intellectuals and the general audience, who wanted Content above all. (I don't mean this was his conscious intention, rocks back in pocket, please.) Another thing to look at though, is, does ballet have to address the big questions of life? What big questions does sculpture address? Beauty is. Form is. Is that not enough? One thing that struck me in Barbara Barker's "Ballet or Balley-hoo" (about the Italian spectacles popular at the end of the 19th century in New York) was an almost casual statement that the reasons that this art did not take root, is that the intellectuals of the day could not accept an art form of the senses and not of the mind. But Content has been King since the Romantic era, perhaps the result of a new, middle-class audience (the old audience having been beheaded) that had little experience with the fine arts. They wanted piano music that they could play in their parlors, theater in language they could understand, stories that were clear on the surface, no messing with allegories or symbolism. Great art and music had those undertones, for people who wanted more than that, but not everyone did. Echoing Michael, to me, the central problem is our lust for realism. It's so seductive. Show a rape or murder on stage, describe it in literature, blow by blow -- make us see it, show the graphic details, let us smell the blood. For centuries, art had been objective, at one remove from life, dealing with concepts on a theoretical or abstract plane. In a way, that made it "easy to relate to," in today's parlance -- not just someone who has been raped, or a murderer, but anyone who has known fear, or degradation, or shame. Not in fashion these days. Too hard to do, and when you're working for a mass audience coming from many different backgrounds with many different points of view, you have to paint in broad strokes. I hope others join in this discussion (and please don't lurk too long, flipsy!)

Well, first, I don't think it's a general opinion that all Balanchine fans accept other accents -- and it's certainly not the written record (and it hasn't been the general voice on this board, either!). Secondly, I think there's a difference among the complaints -- there are matters of accent, and matters of language and grammar, if you will. There's always an elasticity (unless you take the view that the works can be danced only in the style of the original) but what is permissible stretching, and what snapping the elastic in two? If a company turned Agon into a Romantic idyll, or danced it with soft arms or gave us a Davidsbundlertanze with bouncy leaps and sunny grins, I'd say that would be too far a diversion, more a misreading than a matter of stylistic difference. The complaints about NYCB's Sleeping Beauty, especially lately, that I've read have been a lack of polish in the dancing, and I don't think that's inappropriate in a ballet that's been regarded, throughout it's life, as a statement about classical style. I think, also, that there have been more "Petipa fan" complaints about NYCB's Swan Lake than the Sleeping Beauty. And both productions are post-Balanchine, so that muddies the waters too. A lot of it is simply the old What We're Used To question, and its cousin, anything my company does is fine. But beyond that, there are real distinctions and it's interesting to try to figure them out. I saw a TV show of Ashton rehearsing Monotones where he was determined to get what he called "the geometry" right -- it was Monotones II, and the three dancers were standing, side by side, arms en courone, elbows joined; the joining HAD to be at the crook of the elbow, and Ashton was upset because one man was about a half-inch off. That ballet originally had been very much about proportions: when the woman was on pointe, all three dancers were at the same height. This might not matter at all in another choreographer's work. Another example, the Danes had no problem putting some dances for women that had been originally demi-pointe on half pointe, but the arms MUST be kept down. That latter point was not negotiable; it was considered intrinsic to the work, so it would not be acceptable for a foreign company to dance with free or raised arms. We discussed whether NYCB "should" do "Swan Lake" about a year ago, I thiink; I looked for the thread to link to it, but couldn't find it. If this exchange inspires a discussion of that topic, I'd suggest whoever is interested post another thread, in Aesthetic Issues, perhaps, so that we could discuss the topic generally, and keep this thread for the Gottlieb article on the Kirov.