kfw

What an educational thread this could be. It took me 10 minutes of Googling to come up with the name of a person I could only picture -- Ruth Page, dancer, choreographer, company founder AND philanthropist, who in 1970 established the Ruth Page Foundation in Chicago. The foundation's website says its current mission "is to promote Ms. Page's vision of dance as an innovative art form and to foster artistic excellence."

kfw, I suspect that you have devoted more time and thought than most of us to Balanchine's aesthetics. I am curious to know your take on Patrick's point that there appears to be a "disconnect" between the ideas and the real career (and esepcially the works).

Perhaps such a disconnect is inevitable. If so, it certainly doesn't invalidate the usefulness, importance, and even the beauty of Balanchine's statements about ballet. But, it may be a warning to those of us (and I am speaking for myself) who tend to look at statements made in interviews and books, even isolated sentences and especially powerful phrases, and imagine that we are reading real game plans for the man's life and career.

Another thing: is it possible that Balanchine, many of whose statements appear to be intentionally cryptic and even provocative, was trying to stimulate thought rather than express a cohesive theory?

Bart, perhaps the fact that I see no disconnection shows that I've thought less or less well. But I don't, and I also think that, for all the fun it is to speculate, there is limited value in using Balanchine's statements to probe and reimagine the psyche of a man -- and this is partly to Patrick's point -- whose primary means of expression was visual and not verbal. His biographer Bernard Taper complained that he had so little to go on in regards to his subject's inner life -- fewer letters than ballets, for example. I suspect that the closer we stay to face value, the more accurate a picture we have. As Balanchine replied to Taper, "you should think of your task as if you were writing the biography of a racehorse. A racehorse doesn't keep a diary." And a racehorse acts by training and instinct, not by calculation.

Also, I'm not Russian Orthodox, but as someone steeped in the Biblical conceptions of God as Father and humankind as created in his image -- created to, among other things, create -- Balanchine's assertion that God creates and man assembles sounds sincere. Or to put it another way, God Created, and then Balanchine created. That's "profound" to me. So, Patrick, when you write that

religion and theology for Balanchine are still necessarily subsumed to the World of Art,

my hunch is that the former flows naturally into the latter. I have really enjoyed everyone's thought on this thread, and thanks especially to popularlibrary for deepening and widening the ideas under consideration.

Balanchine may have been, in his belief in a God-centered calling, only the "asssembler." But in practical terms in the studio he couldl not avoid acting as the Creator. He was certainly willing to factor in a dancer's individuality when choreographing or restaging, and made frequent choreographic changes in many (but not all) of his ballets to accomodate new casts. But Balanchine always remained in control. (A cynic might say he was a master in the art of emotional manipulation.) Telling the dancers to consider themselves as servants of their Art: isn't that another way of telling them, the Father knows best?

It could be, but not necessarily if he saw himself as another servant. I think the question is wrapped up in his old-fashioned view of gender roles. For example, when we read what he told John Gruen (as published in "The Private World of Ballet"), that men are great poets because men have to write beautiful poetry for woman," that "man is the servant - a good servant," and that in ballet "woman is first" and "I have dedicated my art to her," we recognize the sexism today, but it's doubtful he recognized it himself. We know he had an ego, we know he could be manipulative, but when he says he's a servant, he sounds sincere to me.

I wonder if Kirstein actually had Balanchine in mind when he expressed that opinion, given that Balanchine's style is very personal and not at all codified. It has an extremely thick "accent," to use his expression.

Hans, given that SAB does have a syllabus and that there is such a thing as Balanchine technique, I don't understand what you mean when you say his style isn't codified. Yes Balanchine is "neo-classical," but then there is his retort upon first returning to Russia that "the home of classic ballet is now America."

Is Balanchine's own personality invisible in his works when performed most reverently? Of course not. You see it. If his isn't, it's unrealistic to say that the performer's would be either.

I think the key distinction in what I quoted of Kirstein is illumination vs. imposition. One learns the language, and then it's not that one's personality doesn't come through in speaking that language, it's that it each personality shows us the beauty of that language in its individual way. I think of Balanchine telling Darci Kistler not to act. She didn't have to act like a swan queen, she just had to dance the swan queen's steps and she'd be one, one like had never quite been seen before. In passing on the steps, he gave her a way to illuminate her individuality.

Just a guess, but that sounds to me like something Kirstein would have written for Balanchine. Certainly it's something Kirstein believed, as we know from "A Ballet Master's Belief" and his ongoing intellectual quarrel w/ Martha Graham, whose work he thought was insufficiently rooted in codified discipline and too reliant on personality. In the quarterly "Parabola" in 1988 he is quoted as saying that "the word itself is impersonal, but a person can infuse it with almost anything. In modern dance all you hear is the accent, not the language. But ballet is like the King's English. You shouldn't hear any accent at all." When asked later about the ideal performer he speaks of "a transcendent morality" (Balanchine's "La danse, Madame, c'est une question morale"), and of a dancer who can "truly illuminate a gesture, instead of just performing it. And all without imposing personality". Personality can't really be passed on, but the precise gesture can be.

yeah that's cool. I like it too. I have never heard of that publication I'll have to look for it next time I go to B&N.

Great, dulcinea91! When you find it, let us know what you find interesting.

Thank you for all the reports on Part's Swan Lake everyone!!!

While on paper this looks to be a perfect match, I sense that maybe it's not a very easy relationship.

Was this the first time Hallberg and Part danced together?

Part was partnered by Hallberg in La Bayadere while ABT was on tour in Paris. She also did Apollo twice with Hallberg at the Met. Also, he was her partner at least once when she danced Mercedes in Don Q.

Of course the roles are much smaller, but he's been Cavalier to her Sugar Plum Fairy as well.

Thanks, GWTW. The blog looks very promising.

(I've enjoyed reading these responses, everyone.)

So have I. :blush:

I agree that that's one of the many functions an art critic may have, but I think Perl does a poor job of assessing the cultural effect of RR's career; we learn mostly about its effect on himself. I think the reactionary timing shows a lack of simple respect, and for what? The thrill of the buzz it will undoubtedly stir up? The job description of Art Critic can certainly include a sense of propriety, can't it? There's always time to mount a critique if the arguments hold water--and for me, that's part of a critic's job: to persuade me, not just pontificate.

I can understand your feelings but I can't agree with your argument. I think Perl's timing was dictated by Rauschenberg's death -- when an artist dies, critics are asked to assess his or her career. And in writing

Of the dead, speak no evil. But of the works of the dead, it seems to me that we have a perfect right to say whatever we think

I also find it refreshing to see someone challenging the conventional wisdom that Rauschenberg's work exemplifies

the allure of the quotidian

The Spring 2008 DanceView is out and contains the following articles:

Stepping Up: The New York City Ballet's Winter Season, by Michael Popkin

Winter in Paris: Paris Opera Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, and West Side Story, by Marc Haegeman

Olds Friends in New Guises: Jewels and The Nutcracker at the Miami City Ballet, by Carol Pardo

Slovak National Ballet: A Sampler of Ballet in Bratislava, by Julie Van Camp

and New York, London and San Francisco reports by Gay Morris, Jane Simpson, and Rita Felciano respectively.

DanceView is a quarterly print companion to danceviewtimes that makes readers wish there were 8 seasons and 8 issues a year. Subscriptions are available here.

This reminds me of the derogatory editorials published in the NY Times after the deaths of Derrida and Said. Someone's death should inspire us to rise above our own personal likes and dislikes and assess the person's effect on the world (I think many BTers did so after the death of Bejart, for instance), esp. if one has the luxury of a public forum like the New Republic. Doing so begins a conversation; asserting a judgment based solely on taste cuts one off or starts an argument, neither suitable on the occasion of a death (unless the situation is extraordinary--i.e., a political funeral in Apartheid-era South Africa).

I've never cared for much of Raushenberg's art, but it could be that my taste is lacking in that respect. But Perl is writing as an art critic, and it's his job to assess the man's art and its affect on the art scene. That's what he did, and it will no doubt start a conversation.

All cultural downsizing is bad news.

Especially when it even occurs in NYC. I'm really sorry to hear Ms. Dunning will be leaving.

My copy of Nancy Goldner's "Balanchine Variations" arrived this week and I've taken the time to read a few of its 20 chapters, each of which is devoted to a particular ballet (including Jewels). The chapters are organized chronologically, beginning with the first Balanchine ballet we still have, Apollo, and ending with Ballo Della Regina.

The book derives from lectures Goldner has been delivering at the behest of this company and that across the country and under the auspices of the Balanchine Foundation since 1998. It's no surprise then that Goldner's prose is clear and almost conversational -- "my intuition tells me" -- and that to read her is like having coffee with someone who has loved the ballets for decades and eagerly tells you their secrets. Not that she would claim to know their secrets: she writes that while her analytical side says "Balderdash" to Balanchine's claim that dancing can't be put into words, "the part of me that weeps and smiles when watching his ballets lays pen to rest."

A few examples from the first chapter that especially delighted me:

"When Apollo dances with the three muses he sports with them as if they were parts of a mobile . . . " (emphasis mine).

Of Terpsichore: "If there is one salient characteristic of her solo, it's that she keeps revolving around herself, showing her body to the audience from all possible angles. She offers full disclosure. Decades later, in other ballets, Balanchine was still arranging his choreography so that the ballerina would be presented to us as fully as possible."

Of Apollo's solo after his pas de deux with Terpsichore: "What I particularly love about his solo is its encoded homage to ballet technique." While Apollo thrusts his arms skyward as if to hold up the world, "it's not his arms that give him Herculean strength; it's his legs locked tightly in fifth position."

Each chapter here is illustrated with black and white photos in passable but not high quality reproductions. Many are by Costas and others are credited simply to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division. I've seen a few dance books in my life as a balletomane, and there are photos here that don't look familiar. The book concludes with over a page of recommended readings. Longtime fans will have them all, or will at least know of them, with the exception perhaps of Brenda Dixon Gottschild's1 996 book "Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance."

CHazell2, you can find a Ballet Talk discussion of the Royal's revival 2006 revival here -- The Royal's "new" staging of the 1946 Sleeping Beauty

Having just read Michael Popkin's review of the Kirov in DanceViewTimes I recommend it to any here who have been disappointed with Macaulay's unrelentingly grumpy reviews.

Thanks, zerbinetta. At the heart of Michael's thought provoking piece is this observation:

Seeing this repertory performed on one of Balanchine's stages, the interesting thing was how much the results (either intentionally or not) resembled many of that choreographer's one act ballets

He goes on to describe the "recipe" Balanchine took from Petipa for ballets such as La Source, Donizetti, Raymonda Variations, Walpurgisnacht Ballet, and Cortege Hongrois.

I take it that Baryshnikov's exhibit will present his way by letting us look through the lens of his camera, so to speak.

(I haven't seen any accounts of this show in print. Hasn't it received some appreciative attention somewhere?)

Here you go, Jack: Baryshnikov's Artistry, Behind the Camera.

There is an element of craft I've found is the same in writing as in choreography - or actually any art that takes place in time rather than all at once. Pacing. The thing I enjoy most about critical writing is figuring out how to regulate the flow of information so the reader gets an analogous impression to the one in the theater. What facts come in what order - what impressions, what criticism?

That sounds like a really interesting task, and one that your experience as a choreographer would make all the more interesting. In "The Dance Criticism of Arlene Croce" (McFarland and Company; 2005), Marc Raymond Strauss quotes a passage from Edwin Denby's essay "Forms in Motion and in Thought": "But the action of the step determines the ramifications, the rise and fall of the continuous momentum. . . . They dance, and as they do, create in their wake an architectural momentum of imaginary weights and transported presences . . ."

Strauss then writes that "this passage recalls Aristotle's classical principles of aesthetic satisfaction, and cathartic sequencing of events -- events that carry us along with a formally compelling power. The inherent drama of a performance revisited in memory becomes, then, not unlike the formalist's enlivening examination of the artwork itself. In both Denby and Croce's view, the memory of the event subsequent to the performance becomes the scrutinized art object . . . . As the critic seeks to give form to that memory, his or her imagination recreates the "architectural momentum" established by the initial performance. In other words, the manner in which the forms of both the performance and the memory of the performance cohere in the viewer's imagination recapitulates the vital energy of that performance."

Panda, thanks so much for telling us what you think. You expressed yourself very well. I don't think MacCauley undervalues Petipa. He calls "Raymonda," "La Bayadere," and the Grand Pas from "Paquita" "the core texts of ballet classicism," ballets from which "there is an infinity of detail to be learned." What he doesn't like is the way the Kirov tends to dance them, which he considers unmusical, and destructive of choreographic logic of the work. I think that's the heart of his complaint, that the dance is made to serve the dancer instead of the dancer serving the ballet. Only in that sense do I see that he prefers Balanchine: not Balanchine's ballets over Petipa's, but Balanchine's sense of how dancer, dance and music should relate over the Kirov's.

combined with [MacCauley's] 'refreshingly unsophisticated' love of Minkus's organ-grinder claptrap makes him of no interest to me personally; if he has a fondness for this sort of trash, then talking about how a program of virtuoso pieces that brought 'salvo after salvo of audience applause' still is not very convincing in the alarm he experienced upon wondering whether he liked classical ballet or not.

I don't know, I bow to your much greater musical sophistication, but isn't there a place for simple pleasures, for hot dogs as well as beef bourguignon? Sometimes I want a three course dinner, sometimes I want a dog (make mine Chicago-style, please).

Leigh is right about letting the companies be who they are. After all, 'New York City Ballet at its most ideal point' is over and gone and can never be retrieved.

NYCB is past its prime because Balanchine is gone; fans who saw the company in Balanchine's day don't fault Martins' for that, but for the fact that he hasn't adequately passed on the spirit of the ballets. Petipa has been gone much longer than Balanchine, and I guess if MacCauley is correct, complaints about the way his own company danced his ballets date back at least as far, and have an authoritative precedent as great as, Fokine. Still, at this late date it's probably futile for MacCauley to complain about corruptions in text and tone (his real concern, he says). The Kirov dances Balanchine with an accent too. It will be interesting to see if MacCauley finds fault with that.

Cornejo.

A completely fanciful one, if I may: A cooking lesson from Balanchine or a garden tour from Ashton?

How sensitive should a reviewer be to a company's feeling that it must dance a certain repertoire, or in a certain manner, in order to pay the bills?

Great question. In this case, given the commercial success -- someone correct me if I'm mistaken -- that the Bolshoi had with unfamiliar work at the much larger Met in 2005, I'm not surprised MacCauley didn't feel constrained in his criticism.

atm711, thanks for sharing your memory. More blog posts, please.

It seems to me that ballet has taken on new prominence in the arts pages of the NY Times since Macaulay became chief critic and that's certainly a good thing.

Yes, in a mere year he's reported from London, Miami, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and Washington, DC. I don't remember Rockwell or Kisselgoff reporting from outside NYC so frequently.

Mod's note: This thread was broken off the earlier thread on Macaulay's arrival at The New York Times.

--carbro

On the Mariinsky: NYCC thread Aurora writes

I wish he would just review the ballet(s). There is never much of a review--ballet history? yes. But review of dancers, not so much.

as was quoted in today's links, he said the most recent visit to the Kirov left him thinking:

"Maybe I don't like ballet after all?...Almost all of it left me cold."

His friends admitting they felt the same reassures him that he does in fact like ballet, however I've seen nothing in any of his reviews for the times to indicate that he likes very much of it, certainly anything that isn't by Balanchine.

MacCauley would vex me too if he sniffed at a performance I'd been thrilled by. And he sure gives his critics ammunition with this morning's confession -- I laughed out loud. But in that review alone he described the dancing of Vishnena, Lopatkina, Sarafanov, Tereshkina, Somova, Lobukhin, most or all of which he characterized in previous reviews this season.

Choreographers besides Balanchine he has expressed enthusiasm for in the pages of the Times include Wheeldon, Tudor, Ratmansky, Robbins, Millepied, MacMillan, Alleyne, Gaines and, of course, Petipa, and he has yet to review performances of work by Ashton, Bournonville or Joffrey.

I don't know of any critics who think we're in a great age of ballet performance, and of course given that the great choreographers are gone or still emerging, that's no surprise. In the interim, I value critics who give me close descriptions of what they like and dislike. MacCauley doesn't gripe anymore than Croce did, and who has had the more interesting moment in history?