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Great question, bart, but I'm not sure the three arguments you rule out wouldn't fly.

I don't hear ballet attacked nowadays on grounds that it's too erotic (although if more social conservatives saw leotard ballets they might use that line. :rolleyes: ) I think the Great Tradition argument would appeal to a lot of conservatives, i.e. most of the people opposed to arts funding. (And isn't it ironic that people would oppose funding to make something more accessible on grounds that it's elitist!). And I think the they-already-have-cable-TV counter-argument is flawed, because the most under-privileged members of society can't afford premium cable.

Terri Gross' interview with Bellow from 1989 is available on the Fresh Air site.

It's a conclusion I came to after long and regretful thought.  I spent a lot of time while I was in college defending him,  too..........

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I see. Thanks for posting the thread!

Henderson the Rain King was my first, but I at last reading I preferred Humboldt's Gift. I think I've read them all, right up through Ravelstein. About the misogyny, I can understand your feelings, dirac, but I'm not sure I agree. He did have a couple of troubled marriages and he did late in life marry a much younger woman (although she was a math professor, and as such not likely to devote herself completely to him, I'd think). Perhaps in Ravelstein he was just poking fun at himself.

Thanks for the memories, FF. Ananiashvili's Mozartiana and the Farrell troupe's Divertimento # 15 -- not from the night I saw it during the Celebration but from the year before -- rank among my favorite Balanchine memories. Which means, I suppose, that they rank among my favorite memories.

I see your point, Leigh.

nycdog, the links you posted are to excerpts of commercially available videos filmed under Balanchine's supervision in the late 70's or on the final night of the Balanchine Celebration in 1993.

Leigh, correct me if I’m wrong, but I never hear anyone make the same overarching complaint about MCB or SFB or the Farrell troupe that many make about NYCB. Particular stagings and castings are criticized, but I’m not aware of people saying that those companies are losing the spirit of ballets, as Croce did when she called the ’93 Balanchine Celebration “The Balanchine Show.”

Oberon, we’re agreeing the Balanchine referred to the style changing, not the steps, and yes he changed the steps himself. My point was that he probably didn’t envision the style being eroded because some dancers couldn’t do the steps. You and Ari make great points about why the ballets might often look fresher in other companies.

Bart, I’m sure I could speak for a lot of people when I say I really look forward to your posts.

As far back as Robert Gottlieb’s 1991(?) Vanity Fair piece, now a touchstone of post-Balanchine NYCB criticism (somewhere I still have my copy), I remember complaints that the artistically sophisticated Balanchine audience was decamping. I don’t live in New York City, but I wonder if Oberon’s description --

They have come to see beautiful, sexy people move to beautiful/edgy music and do things with their bodies that most of us can't do.

-- isn’t correct. Given the dearth of first-class choreographers these days, I can imagine it is.

Oberon, Balanchine foresaw that his ballet’s would look different when he wasn’t there to look after them, but because the dancer’s couldn’t do the steps? “First, a school.” The consensus seems to be that Miami City Ballet and San Francisco Ballet and, lately, Suzanne Farrell Ballet catch the spirit of Balanchine ballets more faithfully, yet NYCB gets the cream of the SAB crop, where students are bred to dance Balanchine. I don't see how this couldn't be Martins’s fault. Almost certainly he's had the pick of ex-NYCB dancers too.

I've been at many performances (but fewer in more recent years) where the audience has gone wild over the athletic feats -- even an arabesque penchee.  But if that kind of excitement lures them back, sooner or later they'll discover there's more to it than that.  I hope. 

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This reminds me of a NY Times review, perhaps 5 years back, of a set by tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman at the Village Vanguard, where the audience was said to cheer as if at an NBA game. With its history of “cutting contests,” there is more of a precedent for this is jazz than in ballet (to my knowledge), but it still strikes me as a sadly diminished reaction. I got a thrill from Michael Jordan’s ability to hang in the air like Barishnikov and make spontaneous choices like Suzanne Farrell. But neither moved me like Veronika Part in arabesque. But that’s me. Does the athletic touch the same place in the sports fan as the artistic does for us, or does it touch the same place 32 fouettes do? The latter, I suppose. To my mind, if beautiful women -- the one thing even a neophyte can appreciate -- don't open a heterosexual man's heart to the sublime, male athletic feats aren't likely to do it.

Thanks for explaining, Leigh.

Bart:

"... distinction between emphasizing position (recent and current dancing) v. emphasizing movement (older dancers).

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I may be wrong, but I thought the latter emphasis was considered an essential part of the Balanchine style, related the musicality that was as important to him. And wouldn't this distinction also explain the relative lack of abandon to be seen in the current company?

I think "straight" men in a given audience may see ballet as a bunch of pretty girls and a bunch of sissies prancing about. (That's exactly what my brother-in-law said watching it on TV once.) It may also make them queasy about their own sexuality. A straight friend of mine, married & 2 kids, told me when he recently saw one of NYCB's hunks in BARBER VIOLIN CONCERTO that he felt uncomfortable and realized that he was feeling a sexual attraction to the dancer. Maybe that is more common than we realize.

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In my experience, it's quite common. I've heard it from a few (straight) men, that the reason they had a hard time watching ballet was rooted in the whole "men in tights" phenomenon. One even said to me that he disliked ballet precisely because "I'm not comfortable enough with my sexuality to be able to watch a man putting himself on display like that," and another time, at a hardware store (yeah, I know...) I mentioned La Sylphide in a conversation, and I just happened to mention the kilts, and the clerk said, "God, imagine, a bunch of boy ballerinas in skirts!"

I'm not sure whether to call this sentiment homophobia per se, but it's definitely got something to do with a discomfort with the association of homosexuality with classical ballet. If there was no taboo against homosexuality, this wouldn't be as much of a problem as it is, just as if there was more gender equality, the tag of being "female" or "effeminate" wouldn't drain as much prestige from a career or interest in the arts as it does. In any case, it wouldn't do much good, in my opinion, to try to "macho up" the arts, or by trying to erase "gayness" from ballet, because the lack of "masculinity" (that is, heterosexual masculinity) isn't an actual problem that has been measured, but a popular perception which isn't based on truth but on stereotypes.

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As a straight male I remember noticing, when I first attended the ballet, that a lot of the guys seemed gay. But I think it took me a few years to pay them much mind anyhow. :rolleyes: Once I did, it took me years -- actually I think it took a few ballet classes -- to be able to completely understand how a straight male could do those port de bras and not feel effeminate. Anyhow, I think eradicating the taboo against homosexuality would only go so far. I'm sure ballet makes some guys uncomfortable because they're attracted to guys against their will, but I don't think that's the only reason a lot of straight guys stay away.

I think Oberon's correct and I expect most people would agree: the body is always sexual to one degree or another, and ballet's beauty often carries a considerable erotic charge, however subordinated and at the same time enlarged and deepened, choreographically and musically, into so much more than mere physical attraction. But gay dancers come on strong, just like straight ones can, and there's no reason a straight person should enjoy a display of gay sexuality. As much as I admire Nureyev, I usually don't enjoy him for just that reason. Some would call that homophobia or unconscious same-sex attraction. I'd just call it heterosexual preference.

Balanchine was someone who had the rug pulled out from under him many times in his life.  It must have made him very tough.  I'm sure once he reached adulthood he didn't cry too often.

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It may be that he did all his crying inside, while he choreographed.

I've always wanted to start SMOG -- Straight Men's Outreach Group.  Get a van and a bullhorn and go through neighborhoods saying, "Lookee, lookee!  Girls in see through dresses turning themselves inside out!!

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LOL. This the part I've never understood. I think of Balanchine saying that if people didn't like the dance they could close their eyes and just enjoy the music. If straight men aren't moved by the choreography, what about about all the pretty girls in leotards?

How ironic in any case that now when homosexuality has such widespread acceptance, perceiving something as gay should be such a turnoff. In the made-for-TV documentary on Edward Villella, the Man Who Dances, Villella and Patricia McBride conduct a lecture demonstration at a New Jersey high school, and you can see the guys are impressed. It's a shame ballet still needs a straight male liason/ ambassador to straight males.

I don't know that it matters that people have no taste nowadays.  Are we hoping to please Allah or something?

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Actually there are people here who do try to please Allah, or some general equivalent, and one of the pleasures of Ballet Alert has always been that others have refrained from making snide comments about that.

I could make an argument that religious presuppositions have shaped and sustained good taste, but this isn't the place for it.

The era from the Thirties through the Seventies have shown an enormous, unprecedented arts boom, as people regarded a familiarity with the arts and literature as a way to enrich their lives and become part of the professional classes. The Reagan - Thatcher era pretty much put an end to that notion.

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Can you explain what you think Reagan and Thatcher had to do with ths, Herman? Thanks.

The former carries the suggestion of transcendence; the latter, of necrophilia.

I think of it as mourning.

It does seem counterproductive, doesn't it?  

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For some Catholics yes -- but it's hard to believe many haven't heard about the book already anyhow and decided whether or not to read it. For others no. The Washington Post quotes someone from a Catholic research organization in Rome as being "astonished at the number of Italians who tell [him] their faith has been shaken. Many historians agree that the book is hogwash (I haven't read either the book or its debunkers), but they haven't written thrillers to say so, so they haven't reached the same number of people.

carbro, I love your example. I didn't take your questions as rhetorical, I just blame -- too strong a word, but that's my drift -- the artists not the audiences.

Imagine ballet getting to a similar point, where a director proclaims that the traditional production of Pillar of Fire is a mere entertainment, and doesn't actually become living art until he puts his "radical" spin on it so we in the audience can at long last comprehend its disturbing elements.

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Thanks for the information and explanation, Anthony. If that's all Jonas is saying, of course I agree with you.

Carbro, I don't think I agree with your first two paragraphs, because I agree with your third. Maybe I'm missing some good examples, but which contemporary shock works are much good? I'm trying to think of the last shocking opera or ballet, or the last shocking work in another art form that provoked true controversy rather than the usual predictable food fights over sexual or supposedly bigoted content. It seems most would-be provocateurs nowadays just preach to their own crowd, who look down their noses at everybody else. To my mind that's a failure of heart, and art.

The Times has already run a review of Riverdance this time around, and Rockwell has clearly seen this production. I think he's written a fine piece that makes proper comparisons and asks interesting questions. He also gave me my morning laugh.

Step dancing involves a stiff torso and arms held rigidly at the sides (all these companies vary that pattern with much freer arm movements). This stylistic oddity, with rapidly kicking and tapping feet juxtaposed to upper immobility, is usually credited to Irish parish priests, concerned about lascivious corporeal display.

I thought I loved the ballet vocabulary because its use of the body suggests the essential dignity and potential nobility of the human soul. But maybe I just like the lascivious epaulement and port de bras. :rolleyes:

I do think this presentation format is a response to an audience conception that ballet is entertainment.  If they presented two programs simultaneously -- as they used to -- I think most people would choose one rather than see both.  "I WENT to the ballet already this week," they would think.

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That's interesting, Treefrog. Whereas as a lot of us here would see both programs more than once if possible.

Thanks for the description of the Auditorium Theatre. I always thought going there was an event in itself, besides whatever the program was. That's the theater where I first saw ballet: the Joffrey from the gallery, as part of a high school humanities class.

It's only snobbery if it isn't true. I suggested why it might be true. Could you be specific about where you think I'm wrong and why you think it isn't?

It’s too bad the link has expired. Zerbinetta, the way see it the how and the what run together here – if you will, is the way opera companies approach their productions mirrored in the way ballet companies approach new choreography? I also don’t see Balanchine’s acceptance of Kirstein’s offer as a judgment on, or a reliable indication of, the relative quality of culture on one side of the Atlantic vs. the other.

European subsidy of the serious arts does suggest there is a higher level of interest in them there, but even if the generalization I’m wondering about is correct, I'm not sure I consider pretension much better than lack of ambition, just unfortunate in a different way. The former might indicate high cultural exhaustion, the latter that companies aren't aiming for culture at all, but only trying to entertain. I guess that's part of what I'm wondering: if American and European companies do tend to view their work differently, why is that?

The question could be best be broadened to include the audience. Do people go to the ballet to be entertained or to be moved and/or challenged? I’m usually entertained, but I go to be moved, and I’ll guess that most Ballet Talkers do the same. What the general audience does, especially the non-subscription audience, is a different question.

The video Man Who Dances has a short excerpt of Villella dancing in it and then rehearsing it with Patricia McBride.