kfw

Kirstein.

Ballet Imperial or Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 ?

I'd love to get to know Tudor's work as well. Susan Reiter has written about New York Theatre Ballet's Tudor and Limon Celebration on danceviewtimes.

Emeralds.

A time and travel machine set for Paris in 1928 to see Apollo, or for White Plains in 1934 to see Serenade?

If I'm not disqualified for not having seen it live,

the second part, on pointe.

Here's one for NYCB fans of a certain age, although anyone who's at least seen video could answer:

Farrell before she left the company or after she returned?

Too hard. OK, Royal.

Apollo full length or Apollo truncated?

Thanks, PhiladelphiaOrchestra. Horowitz's website has plugs for this book by a list of notables including Joan Acocella, Arlene Croce, and Alex Ross. The site also lists his schedule of speaking engagements for the book.

And that, I believe, is how it should be. Teachers of literature and philosophy are competent in a subject, not in a ministry. It is not the business of the humanities to save us, no more than it is their business to bring revenue to a state or a university. What then do they do? They don’t do anything, if by “do†is meant bring about effects in the world. And if they don’t bring about effects in the world they cannot be justified except in relation to the pleasure they give to those who enjoy them.

“Poetry makes nothing happen.†He’s arguing, with deliberate provocation, against the view of the arts as morally uplifting – that we become Better People through their appreciation.

It seems to me that Fish loses faith in the humanities in the same way a lot of people lose faith in religion, concluding that if the humanities don’t make everyone radically better, they have no power at all. I may misread him but think that’s a simplistic conclusion, as is a black and white question like “is it the business of the humanities . . . to save us?†and the answer that, no, they merely to improve us intellectually. In fact they increase our knowledge of ourselves and of each other. The immediate business of a literature professor is to develop smart readers, sure, but at the same time a student’s character is formed by what he’s taught to value and come to love (which makes the ongoing formulation of canons so important), and open-hearted students learn a lot from what wise professors find in the material. Anything we study thoughtfully teaches us life lessons, and the humanities is a richer firled than most.

On a related note, I wonder if Fish would say that cultural exchanges like the one that took NYCB to Russia have no utilitarian value. Would he gainsay the testimonies of Soviet and Eastern Bloc dissidents for whom literature and art were such a source of strength to resist, or that religious literature has often done the same?

As someone who believes we're created in the image of a creator God -- or as some have it, that we're sparks of the divine -- I also believe in art for art's sake in the same way I believe in play for play's sake for children. It's true that kids learn a lot from play, but there is a sense in which is good for it's own sake. It's a sign of health.

Mike, thanks a lot for posting. If I'd known the company was in town, I'd have gone myself. I hope you saw Alastair MacCauley's NY Times review focusing on "Second Hand. I haven't seen "Second Hand" or "eyeSpace," but I think I'd have the same reaction to an IPod soundtrack as you did. But yes, that's just the sort of experiment Merce would conduct, and bless him for it.

CRWDSPCR was the final piece on the first Cunningham program I ever saw (at the American Dance Festival in Durham, N.C. in 1993), and the first one I really "got." (By that time much of the rest of the audience had cleared out). On the company's website you can purchase a wonderful video of that piece, with rehearsal footage and brief interviews followed by the complete dance.

Yes -- allegra Kent's recollections of Doubrovska are real revelations.

The film has fascinating reminiscences by Kent, Tallchief, and Taras, but I especially love hearing Tanaquil LeClerq's deep patrician voice as she describes Doubrovska as "very chic, very elegant, and what I would like to look like." We don't see her speaking, but her voice plays against a beautiful photo of her holding a flower bouquet.

It would be nice to think that both parties could overcome their differences for the sake of preserving the legacy correctly but it seems as if that wound is still too fresh. I find it somewhat ironic that Farrell and Martins were so simpatico as partners on stage but so totally unsuitable off it.

Farrell did a series of public interviews with David Daniels at the Kennedy Center sometime after the New Yorker article but before her 1995 Kennedy Center season. During one Q & A she was asked about Martins and said something to the effect that their relationship was cordial. I think she used the word "fine." She didn't deny there had been a rift, but she expressed no bitterness.

Whatever her "successes," however, I'm not that interested in watching her struggle; in fact, at times it's heartbreaking (low point: seeing the promising yet inexperienced dancers of SF Ballet perform Divertimento No. 15 in clearly cut-rate costumes).

I don't know what her budget was, but the Divertimento costumes and most others SFB wears were designed by Holly Hynes.

If you can find "The Man Who Dances" for sale, it has over 5 minutes of grainy color footage of Tarantella, but perhaps a minute of that is of Villella gasping in the wings, and of the bows afterwards.

the quote from macaulay's blog w/ reference to the gorey drops for THE CONCERT given above as <<They have never seen in New York but are superior in drawing, in fantasy and in wit to those by Saul Steinberg, used by City Ballet.>> is likely missing a word or two - i suspect macaulay meant that gorey's drops "ave never BEEN seen in New York," which is true.

the royal ballet has not brought its staging of THE CONCERT to nyc so far as i can tell. thus it has not shown gorey's work for the ballet to US audiences - i'm not aware of the royal ballet's touring this robbins ballet anywhere outside the UK. NYCB has consistently used its steinberg drops at home and on tour. i don't know if history records robbins's own admiration or preference for the different designs.

Thanks, rg. I see that I read MacCauley too quickly, and what he said was that the Royal uses Gorey's backdrops, not that NYCB did in London.

ami1436 and mashinka, thanks so much for your reviews!

I looked around for the Balanchine interview and find it's included in Back to a Shadow in the Night (also available from Amazon).

This must be one of the two Cott interviews (from Rolling Stone and the L.A. Times) also available as "Two Talks with George Balanchine" in the book "Portrait of Mr. B: Photographs of George Balanchine, with an essay by Lincoln Kirstein."

Minghella's 1999 interview with Terri Gross on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air" is available here.

Alastair MacCauley has made several blog posts in the New York Times about NYCB's London season. In one he writes that the second program with "The Concert" has

cartoon drop curtains (commissioned by Robbins) by Edward Gorey, for decades a balletomane who missed few City Ballet performances. They have never seen in New York but are superior in drawing, in fantasy and in wit to those by Saul Steinberg, used by City Ballet.

Can anyone describe these, or say where they can be found in print or online? I could swear the Steinberg curtains are what I saw in D.C. a couple of weeks ago, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

"Ironically, the stereotype of the sissy male dancer has given rise to a male dancer who is anything but."

This is the kind of thing that some can overlook in the article and some can't. After having already declared his own sexual preference, he is making a statement which doesn't make any sense, because there is no evolution from the 'stereotype of the sissy male dancer' to the 'anything but sissy male dancer' any more than there is from the 'sissy male in general' to the 'anything-but-sissy male'. One would be able to derive that this new masculine non-sissy dancer in fact, owed a great debt to this very stereotype of the sissy male dancer, since that is from what this new dancer rose phoenix-like.

As a heterosexual and therefore a member of a perceived minority in his profession, could this be nothing more than his version of "We're here, we're queer, get used to it!"?

I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt. If gays and lesbians were suddenly as accepted and respected everywhere as straights, wouldn't most remaining closeted gays and lesbians still rush out of the closet to declare their sexual identity? And when they did, would we presume they were implicitly putting down straights? Why should we judge Radetsky by another standard? People want to be known for who they are; St. Patricks' Day parades are not about putting down the French and the Germans.

Radetsky writes well for a man who spends his working hours in a dance studio and not at a keyboard, but we shouldn't expect the same clarity we'd expect from a professional. If the subtext of the article was "I'm not one of those disreputable gays," why would he mention Nureyev as one of the "pioneers" who "opened minds"?

Hans, thanks for posting. If you don't mind, would you please tell us what they say? I think of male heterosexual contempt for ballet as homophobic. What in the world do gay males find beneath their respect about it? You say some of these men are pretty cultured --- are they victims of self-hatred, absorbing and mirroring the judgments of straight males who confuse ballet manners with effeminacy? Is it, as papeetepatrick suggests, just that their sensibilities are limited by pop culture? But then why the actual derision instead of just indifference or polite curiousity?

"I didn't understand the Romantic Balachine; I didn't even want to watch it that much, I was so intrigued with the athleticism."

She may have said similiar things elsewhere for publication, but I was struck by that comment of Wendy Whelan's in an interview in the February 2008 edition of The Dancing Times (a publication now carried by Barnes and Noble). The remarkable way she's extended her range from "The Cage" and Balanchine's black and white ballets to softer roles (I remember being astonished at how lovely she was in the Act 2 divertissement of A Midsummer Night's Dream way back in 1995) has been much noted, so it's interesting that when asked to characterize herself as a dancer today, she doesn't just say she's found her "romantic side," she now positively calls herself a "lyrical dancer."

At another point, talking about bridging Balanchine to "the next step" she remarks that

"There is a lot of abstraction and androgyny now in ballet, and maybe I helped open that up! We don't all have to be Barbie on pointe!"

Asked if she'd like to dance Giselle, she says she doesn't necessarily have to "perform a ballet," but likes to "try on clothes" the studio to "see if they fit." I also love the fact that even though she never met Balanchine, she thinks about him every day, hoping she's "doing his work well enough for him."

But why is it that when a man moves gracefully and elegantly he might be thought of as "gay'? That is weird. Masculine is awkward and clumsy? The dancers in the non ballet dance genres are not tagged with the stereotype. I don't get it.

The ballet aesthetic is just foreign to most people who aren't used to seeing it, that's all. It doesn't register as masculine to them because pointed feet and bent wrist port de bras distinguish it from how most men move, especially in the arena where physical grace in men is most appreciated, sports. Add to that what in other contexts would be taken as pretty look of some of the costumes dancers wear (the outfit for La Spectre de la Rose, for example, or multi-colored tights), and it's no wonder male dancers are often assumed to be gay. The same perception is no doubt one reason one meets more gay men at the ballet than one does straight ones unaccompanied by female partners. As differently as they may think of it, both gay men and non-balletomanes who presume all male dancers are gay are perceiving the same thing.

I wonder, though, if this same false stereotype holds throughout the West. I'm thinking now of a poster I had on my bedroom wall as a kid of the great Spanish bullfighter, El Cordobes; there is an elegance to some of the moves in that most masculine sport (I'm not defending it, just making an observation), that reminds me of ballet.

I have to admit the loose hair in the last movement of Serenade never bothered me, though it certainly is a contrivance to emphasize the final section's internal, somewhat symbolic quality. What his motives were besides restlessness and boredom with old productions I don't know. Maybe he just wanted everyone to look like Farrell with her lion's mane down. Whatever, I don't mind it and sometimes I even find the intimacy and vulnerability of it rather moving. Does anyone remember if there was any critical comment at the time - say, from Arlene Croce or her colleagues?

Croce wrote in '77 that the loose hair

may be the way it was done once upon a time but today [it] looks out of place. The sisterhood of the corps in Serenade, which has expanded over the years as Balanchine expanded the choreography, is in its anonymity one of the most moving images we have in all ballet, and the three new heads of hair in the last movement violate the image.

She also laments a couple of minor changes in the Elegy.

I agree with Leigh. I doubt Radetsky would say he's defending himself by noting that he's straight; I think he just means to set the record straight (no pun intended) for the sake of making himself known. What really seems to bother him is not that he's taken for gay, but that he's assumed to be effeminate when he's macho (a personality difference), and taken for a weak person when he feels he's strong and courageous.

The Kirov has come under fire for its offerings at Kennedy Center but ABT is just as guilty. It has performed Swan Lake there a lot in the last few years, yet could have done Raymonda or Syvia - both new productions.

I would have loved to have seen Sylvia. Depending on casting, I may skip Swan Lake and double up on tickets for the Farrell bill with Liebeslieder Walzer, which I've never seen live, and Episodes, which I've never seen at all. And in regards to Episodes, I suppose it's pretty unlikely, but it would be just like Farrell and the way she's used her company to resurrect rarities, for her to work with Paul Taylor and with the Martha Graham folks to bring back that original choreography.

I cried like a baby at the NYCB's Romeo and Juliet with Sterling Hyltin not only because I know her, but because it was so well done and wonderful to watch.

I identify with the statement: "because it was so well done and wonderful to watch." Sometimes there is an out-of-this-world quality to a peformance -- something that is based on exceptional technique but transcends it --that makes me feel emotional and full of gratitude that arts like ballet, opera, and classical theater exist.

I'm not a cryer, but deep admiration and gratitude are feelings I'm very familiar with at the ballet. In part it's generally because I'm happy for the dancers, almost as a friend or relative might be at a great achievement. The dancers at the time are beautiful to me not just as performers, but -- in the magnificence of their achievement -- as people.

Sorry to be unclear, Natalia. I did mean Washington, D.C. It does sound like she has her heart set on dancing on the other side of the pond, but it's fun to speculate.