BattleRoyale

Speaking with a friend who's very au fait in NYCB I was told that Megan Fairchild is a shoe in for soloist in the very near future. What d'yall reckon?

Ooooooh, meoooow, Ms Tomalanis. But sadly so true. However, it just struck me on reading your post how many legends of dance go on to be truly dreadful ADs. Almost as if they were spiting the ADs who had pushed and sometimes bullied them into becoming the dancers they were, by eradicating everything the great AD did for his company. eg Martins, Baryshnikov, Vasiliev, Sergeyev the list goes on and on. What do you think? Could company sabotage be a perverse form of revenge?

Indeed, Carbro. However, one could conjecture that if ADs sought to pass on and mantain the qualities that made their eras as dancers so special and dramatic, perhaps ballet wouldn't be the homogenised, gymnastic mush it is today.

What I love about Meunier and Part is that they are such individual artists. They break out of that National Ballet of anywhere mould. Both have a lush womanly sexuality that informs every part of their dancing, and is the antithesis of that awful technique for technique's sake that characterises ABT of today.

That's all very well, but where are Meunier and Part?

RE: Casting from Hell. Here in the UK we've just had Baryshnikov's first episode in Sex and the City. My God, as far as his career as an actor/romantic lead this really is The Turning Point.

However, on this point of lack of preparation one wonders with the current trend to get 'em on as quickly as possible with the least expenditure, how many possibly wonderful dancers who could be wonderful in roles are now going to come off as being casts from hell.

This is very true. However, in Bussell's defence I would hasten to say that the Agon pas de deux takes the utmost complicity and trust between the ballerina and her partner, (as does of course all pas de deux), but especially in that fiendishly, dangerous and complex case. Given the constraints of time and rehearsal I'm not surprised that Bussell decided to rely as much on her strength to get through the pas de deux without mishap, as she would have on her partner, even though I agree it marred the ambivalence and sexual tension.

In response to the term avant garde, i'd like to quote that master of the dramatic bon mot, Martha Graham; "No artist is ahead of their time they are of their time. Everyone else is merely behind the time." However, on the subject of painting and sculpture promoting extreme uncture, well, there was the outrage at the impressionists first public exhibition, ditto at Manet's Olympia, not to mention, the slashing of the Rokeby Venus by a Suffragette and a hundred other such attacks on art. Nor must we forget the bad habit of British Colonial art plunderers who took it upon themselves to smash the genitals from the anciet masterpieces of the Greek and Egyptian sculpture (though would that be seen as shock at the retro garde?) Also there was Hitlers degenerate expressionist art exhibition where he inadvertantly assembled the greatest collection of German expressionist art ever with the intention to shame the artists for their "perverted" artistic sensibilities, and of course the less sensational artisitic statements of the British young arts scene which the tabloid press love to get in a tizzy over. The point I'm trying to make is, I suppose that art all art, if it contains the power to affect the viewer on a deeply personal level challenging moral mores, has regardless of the medium prompted strong emotional response. Though I suppose also Diaghilev and Nijinsky had the element of surprise on their side, no one knew what they were getting till it was served up to them. PR is nowadays sophisticated enough to know that the public will benefit from the advance warning that they're in for a good shock.