dirac

Chicago arrived in the sticks last weekend, and so I was at last able to check it out. Um, all I can say is, if this represents a revival of the musical genre, it might be better to allow it to die an honorable death. I see by the papers that some reviewers have hailed it as the best musical in thirty years, i.e., since Cabaret – not a large statement, even if true, as there haven't been too many in the interim. It would be distressing if people were to take this to mean as good as, or even in the same ballpark as, Cabaret. I've always thought Kander and Ebb's score was several cuts below what they produced for the earlier show, and the movie did not change my opinion. The dialogue was feeble and is still feeble – crudely cynical with no sharpness, wit, or edge. Fortunately, it's just as well that the numbers aren't top-drawer, because if they were, Rob Marshall's staging hardly allows you to focus on them. He takes a device Fosse used effectively and sparingly in "Cabaret" -- intercutting between the songs and action/dialogue scenes – and works it to death, so that neither the numbers or the action build up any kind of rhythm. Maybe audiences of today can't take a song if it's not cut into several thirty second sound bites, I don't know. The malign influence of Moulin Rouge is clearly evident here. (I got the feeling, after about forty-five minutes, that I was watching a series of commercials or trailers for a movie. The movie itself didn't make an appearance.) Every number is staged to stop the show, even if the bit in question would probably not stop a high school play. It's a very basic point, but in order for your Big Moments to stand out, you have to have a quiet one or two. (Even John C. Reilly winds up planting his legs far apart and booming at the ceiling, like Judy belting "Swanee" at the Palladium.) There's not a whole lot of choreography to speak of – lots of high kicks, splits, and in the murderesses' number, what looked to be some dry humping. If you're into women's thighs, this is a good movie for you – usually you have to rent porn or tune into cable after hours for this kind of display. Of the three stars, Zellweger comes off the worst. I've always liked Zellweger and her unstarry looks (What did they say in the front office, I wonder – "She lisps! She squints!" We're gonna make her a star!"), but the character as conceived in this version of the story has no charm or humor, the photography is not kind to Zellweger's face or figure, and her big number looks like amateur night. Zeta-Jones does better – she gives you the impression that she could carry a number like the opener if she were allowed to, which she isn't. Both actresses perform in a naturalistic manner unsuited to the high-theatrical, near-abstract style of the show. Gere does better in this respect, but…..boy, does his dancing suck. (The frantic intercutting reaches a nadir with his tap dance – you shift back and forth between a bad courtroom scene and a bad dance. Not a pretty sight.) I don't know if Rob Marshall thinks this is a really cool way to shoot a movie, or if this was his response to the problem of filming a dance-driven musical with stars who cannot really sing or dance. It may also be Firsttimedirectoritis, an affliction that often results in hyperactive camerawork. (Fosse himself experienced an attack of this for his first film, "Sweet Charity," but there the choreography and the songs still came through.) Maybe it's a bit of all three. I'm sorry if the foregoing is harsh, and I hope no one who really liked the movie will hesitate to speak up. I should note that the movie isn't awful, although I might have made it sound so, and it's over refreshingly fast.

If Balanchine's health had been visibly failing and he had died a year or two after completion of the first version, it might have been, however. The general principle that one should proceed with care when applying biography to art is always a good idea, and one that it's wise to keep in mind.

One piece of footage of Tallchief that I think is amazing is the excerpt shown in the documentary "Dancing for Mr. B." of her doing the Berceuse from Firebird. It's from television, the quality is not good, and the studio where she's dancing seems to be about the size of my broom closet, but she is magical, especially when you think that in the same ballet she tore up the stage with electrifying turns and jumps.

Yes, he did. I forget the title -- I think it was for a school performance -- and Le Clercq played a girl stricken with the disease -- a dancer in the character of Polio touched her and she fell to the ground, as I recall it described. A ghastly coincidence. atm711, while it may be true that the second Mozartiana had thematic similarities to the first version, that doesn't mean that Balanchine didn't have special reasons for revisiting the piece at that particular time. I don't think it's necessarily "second-guessing" him to speculate in that vein. Acocella's remarks on the ballet made me stop and think, too, but in a slightly different vein. When I saw Mozartiana on television, it didn't seem to me to be directly about death, but about a place that transcended death --maybe heaven, maybe somewhere else, but another world. (Farrell says something similar in her book, I believe.)

I had the impression that, historically, the Lilac Fairy at least was a ballerina role? I don't think it's a question of technique or style so much as authority. This is not a dance example, but in the movie Gangs of New York Liam Neeson is cast in a very small but crucial role. In terms of screen time it's nearly a bit part, but it needs an actor with command presence. Same thing here. The Fairies are very special, and you need dancers who can convey this, and the dancers who can do that are usually principals. Feijoo as Giselle was one of those What Were They Thinking kind of things. I thought it was from hunger. You've got a role that requires a ballerina and the ballet is going on every night for a week plus matinees, so you put a leading dancer in there even if she's wrong for it.

I guess companies must do what they can to survive, and if a young person new to ballet goes to Dracula and enjoys it, well, that's a start. I have never seen a Dracula on the principle that you don't have to go to the Sahara to know what it's like, so far all I know some of them may be good. At this point I think the subject is inherently camp and therefore parody-proof (although I did get a kick out of George Hamilton in "Love at First Bite." Renfield is a character part, at best, IMO. (For me, no one will ever be able to surpass the fly-catching fervor of Dwight Frye in the Bela Lugosi original.)

In her online interview available on The New Yorker's website, Joan Acocella describes Farrell, Baryshnikov, and Mark Morris as the most musical dancers she has seen outside of tap. I reflected that in the many admiring accounts of Baryshnikov's dancing that I've read his musicality doesn't exactly go unmentioned, but it's not the way it is with Farrell, where virtually everyone comments, frequently at length, on the sensitivity of Farrell's musical impulses. I would like to ask those who saw a lot of Baryshnikov in his prime if they would agree or disagree with Acocella's estimate of his gifts in this area, and why? Following up, who would you regard as the most musical dancers you have seen, and what made you notice that about them?

Farrell Fan, I certainly didn't intend to imply that I believed that Farrell was/is standoffish. It's a sad fact that shyness is often interpreted that way. Perceptions do matter, regrettably, and one thing I remember from Daniel's article was that he felt the need to refute the charge (among others) that Farrell was aloof, remote, and generally hard to deal with.

It's true that the account of Farrell's career follows a path already outlined in Holding On to the Air and Elusive Muse, and it does feel like a retread, but much of that information would be unfamilar to many general readers. And Farrell is not a figure like Baryshnikov who's had half a dozen books or more devoted to his life and/or career and gets lots of media attention. I think Calliope may be right about the undertone. (And one did get the impression of being presented with a New and Improved Suzanne, more collegial, less divalike and "standoffish.") I would hope that people will find ways to praise Farrell's efforts without using her as a stick to beat Martins with. (I'm not suggesting that Acocella intended to do that.) Parenthetically, it's interesting that it was another New Yorker article, David Daniel's "In Balanchine's Footsteps," which took the gossip about Farrell's underuse by the company public and is said to have played a part in precipitating Farrell's dismissal from NYCB. The dance scene in New York may not be what it used to be, but I'd agree emphatically with Alexandra that true or not, that issue is beside the point. A lengthy profile of Farrell is great to see, but there are hardly any reviews of her troupe or NYCB (or other companies) to put it into some kind of context. You need coverage of the daily events, however uninspiring, to put a Big Event like the Kirov's bringing "Jewels" to town into perspective. And it seems to me that a magazine like The New Yorker is there to do things like that.

I enjoyed this very much. I also regret the less than frequent ballet coverage we see in The New Yorker these days, but this is nice, too. We get far less of the devout-Catholic-girl stuff than I've read in previous profiles (and Farrell's own book) an omission for which I was grateful. You have to do a little reading between the lines, but it's fairly clear from the article why Farrell is not applying any "ballerina polish" at NYCB, and both sides seem to have a case. (There is an odd addition to The Sins of Peter Martins: "[Martins] set up seminars where dancers talked about being working mothers." Deplorable.) The profile focuses on the present, fortunately, and the account of Farrell's method and manner as a coach is fascinating. My understanding is that although Don Q was a deeply flawed work with a less than ideal score, there were many valuable, even great, things in it and if anyone stages it anywhere I'm on the next plane. It does seem to me, however, that to mount such a large and problematic work would be a challenging and difficult undertaking for a company of the first rank with unlimited resources at its disposal, which Farrell obviously doesn't have. I hope she succeeds, of course, but in less-than-ideal circumstances it could be grisly.

People often don't realize that many of the real dance book treasures to be found are "tatty" books now out of print and make excellent gifts! (Maybe they feel uncomfortable giving someone a book that's used and "old.")

Walken has an important supporting role in "Catch Me If You Can," which just opened, and there's a charming bit early in the movie when he gives his wife a twirl around their living room. It's very brief, but he does it with flair. (And for the first time in ages, he's not playing a weirdo.)

But ballet and opera haven't traditionally been regarded as high art, and the extravagance that Paul mentions is perhaps part of the reason why. There's a sense in which both forms had to work for respectability.

Well, figure skating, like ballet, is identified with straight women and gay men. So is opera (as a spectator sport, so to speak). As with ballet, there is some empirical justification for this, although that of course never justifies bad jokes, harassment, and worse. Barry mentions eyeliner. The sight of men in makeup, blouse-like shirts, and tights – any gear identified with women – makes men and some women nervous. (This phenomenon can also apply in reverse to women, as Martina Navratilova could tell you.) It's too bad in one sense that a Ted Williams game was your introduction to the sport, Alexandra, because Williams was probably the most disliked player of his era, as you may know, and he would make Barry Bonds look like Miss Congeniality. There are a variety of reasons for this, which I won't go into here, but Williams got the kind of reception you describe in Boston, too. Paul is right, the cultural atmosphere is much more conservative now, and it's really too bad.

I don't think you have to possess a deep and thorough knowledge of something to know you don't like it much.

glebb, I never meant to imply that Verdon was anything less than a dish from head to toe. But she had curves - she wasn't pared to the bone.

I never thought of Gwen Verdon as being hard and lean. Rivera, maybe.

Yes, and it might even make Zeta-Jones a little closer to the showgirls of that era, who were well upholstered.

It's unfortunate that actors singing in context are regarded as "looking silly." Especially so because there is really no way to have a genuine revival of movie musicals without that convention -- there are only so many showbiz stories out there, and too many "fantasy" or "dream" sequences and your actors will look not only silly but crazy.

Edwin Denby mentions somewhere a chat he and Cunningham had about Markova -- Cunningham was an admirer, evidently. It would have been pretty funny if Baryshnikov had sounded off for his introduction to Greskovic's book the way he has elsewhere. "This book is about a really boring art form. If I had been an American, I probably never would have been a ballet dancer. As a matter of fact, if you're browsing in the bookstore, I wouldn't even bother buying this. Don't waste your money!"

Dale, the question of Sylvia's revivability came up on a thread related to Mayerling recently, and several people weighed in. Here's the thread: http://www.balletalert.com/forum/showthrea...ighlight=sylvia

Well, one wishes him the best, of course, but as Manhattnik notes, in these matters the devil is in the details. Anything could happen, or nothing could happen.

This ballet popped into my head because of Ari's and Mel's posts on the comic ballets thread. I've read descriptions of this ballet, but they tend to be rather general -- "catastrophe" "disaster" and so on. (I've also seen photographs of doubtful costumes.) If you saw it, please provide some gory details for our delectation, or mine anyway. If you didn't think it was so bad, please pipe up as well.

I wrote a letter to the editor awhile back praising Aloff's "Jewels" piece and requesting more dance articles in the magazine. Maybe I should have specified "more Mindy" instead of "more dance." That is, if they noticed my letter, which I'm inclined to doubt.

A background as a dancer can only help and not hurt a writer about dance, I'm sure. I intended the post only to incite discussion, not to elicit responses of "How awful!" However, when an article makes eminently debatable statements in a markedly declarative fashion, it can provide an inviting subject, or target, for argument and discussion.