kfw

Most Ballet Talk readers and posters probably know about DanceView, the quarterly print companion to danceviewtimes, but I like to plug the magazine for newcomers to the site. Each issue has several full season reviews of major companies, along with many black and white photographs. Many issues have a lengthy interview with a dancer or choreographer. Just like this board each day, DanceView's thoughtful articles are a great place to turn not just for interesting reviews, but for writing that deepens one's knowledge and understanding of dance (mostly ballet).

The 47-page Autumn 2007 issue has the following fine articles:

Challenges, Farewells, Blockbusters: American Ballet Theater's 2007 Spring Met Season" by Mary Cargill;

"Kirstein 100: New York City Ballet's Spring Season" by Carol Pardo;

"The Bolshoi in London, Summer 2007: Novelties, performances of a lifetimes, and dancers to die for" by Marc Haegeman;

"Restoration in Toronto: The National Ballet of Canada" by Denise Sun;

"London Report" by Jane Simpson,

and "San Francisco Report" by Rita Felciano.

I especially enjoy the three half page photos of NBoC's Heather Ogden in "Sleeping Beauty" and Balanchine's "Don Quixote," as well as the cover shot of Christopher Wheeldon rehearsing Aesha Ash and Tiler Peck in a London studio.

Subscriptions to the magazine are available here: http://www.danceview.org/. Both DanceView and danceviewtimes are published by Alexandra Tomalonis, the founder of this site.

Half the article reads like a political tract in the guise of a ballet review, and the writer's sweeping pronouncements are pretty presumptuous. "Mime is an outmoded convention" and 'the whole social underpinning of the 19th-century tradition no longer means anything to us"? Some of us D/democrats still understand how people could revere the institution of royalty as a vehicle for symbolizing a nation's ideals. As for ballerinas pretending to be peasants, acting lower class is not synonymous with slumming, of enjoying lower class pleasures with an ironic, supercilious class attitude: class distinctions don't preclude empathy and respect. Plenty of dancers come from working class beginnings anyhow. Isn't Jennie Somogyi's father an auto mechanic? Farrell certainly didn't come from money. And having just seen the original, silent, version of the film "Peter Pan" this weekend, I, for one, can still be moved by old acting conventions.

I'd love to see Magnicaballi as Giselle.

I have seen 'helm' used as a verb before, usually in journalese. I don't care for it myself but it could wind up as standard usage one of these days.

Only could? I myself have abandoned all hope. :blush:

If an artistic director is willing to speak about what I'm about to see and show me a snippet of it, I'll want to listen and watch and learn. But if he or she thinks that merely flashing me the title of what I've paid to see is educating me, I'm going to feel they're being incredibly condescending.

If we are referring to the projections of titles and rehearsal clips in the Morphoses programs, I thought they were intended as much to fill the often empty black hole pauses that gape between one little middle ballet and the next. The titles were more of a convenience than an education, and the rehearsal clips were too short (and lacking narrative) to give real insight into what went into making and learning a ballet.

It was an inventive diversion to fill the time when the curtain is down, the orchestra silent and the houselights too dim to allow us to read.

Thanks for that explanation, carbro. That puts the title in a different perspective than Acocella's.

bart writes:

Many, however, seem actually to enjoy being educated if it is done in an easily accessible, noncondescending manner. If flashing titles of each dance helps the average audience member to "place" the ballet before he/she sees it, and to get some frame of reference for it, however minimal, I'm all for that. Integrating filmed rehearsal footage, etc., can have its place too, if it doesn't destroy mood and concentration.

I agree, and I see no reason not to try. It wouldn’t be appropriate for all ballets and all performances, but I think it’s worth the attempt. (Especially these days when people are working longer and harder and it’s all you can do to get to the performance on time during the week, never mind the pre-performance lecture.)

I dunno. If an artistic director is willing to speak about what I'm about to see and show me a snippet of it, I'll want to listen and watch and learn. But if he or she thinks that merely flashing me the title of what I've paid to see is educating me, I'm going to feel they're being incredibly condescending. Perhaps what's going on here has something to do with the digital revolution, with people being less likely to read something on paper, or read something that takes a couple of minutes of concentration, as the notes in an orchestral or chamber music program might still do. If a ballet company really needs to appeal to an audience that won't invest a few minutes of actual effort but needs to be passively entertained like kids watching Sesame Street ("Suzanne Farrell takes one large leap") . . . I mean, who wants that audience? Can that audience really be educated?

The Rose Adagio clip that left us all is rated at 4 out of 5 stars. So apparently there are people out there who like that sort of thing.

That doesn't surprise me. What surprises and puzzles me is how coaches born and bred to the Kirov style could countenance deviations so extreme as to be heretical. Does growing up on good taste not breed at least a modicum of good taste? Apparently not. The Kirov style isn't taught and viewed in a cultural vacuum.

papeetepatrick writes:

I recall something in the late 70s in the New Yorker, already doing a big bore of its Anglophilia, in an interesting article called 'Aristocracies', which was all about the 'privilege' that came of the 'sense of duty' of the English upper classes. This was febrile enough.......

It’s still happening over at The New York Review of Books, although it’s not new and I can understand some of the underlying reasons for it. There was one piece recently about Scott of the Antarctic that was a real eye-roller.

I'm not sure I understand. By "the 'privilege' that came of the 'sense of duty'" do you mean a sense of duty supposedly felt by the privileged? In other words, do you mean noblesse oblige?

The average ballet audience member is simply not willing or able to put the time and effort into doing the kind of preparatory work that will help them get the most out of the performances. Most audience members, in my long experience, have never read the program notes; few attend the pre-performance lectures. If flashing titles of each dance helps the average audience member to "place" the ballet before he/she sees it, and to get some frame of reference for it, however minimal, I'm all for that. Integrating filmed rehearsal footage, etc., can have its place too, if it doesn't destroy mood and concentration.

I agree about the rehearsal footage, which is akin to a pre-performance talk, although I'd find it irritating before every ballet -- sometimes I want a real surprise. But having read program notes for the title of the ballet strikes me as a very low bar. Perhaps the titling is just a touch of show biz.

We all want mindless entertainment sometimes and there is obviously nothing wrong with going to the ballet for it (I get mine cheaper!), but it seems to me a shame that so many people wouldn't want more of what's actually on offer. We know that from Ballet Society on till his death Balanchine was popular among artists. Of course many of them were under the radar of the general public at the time, but if Wheeldon can raise the money to work with leading artists from other fields, perhaps that will help to popularize his work and bring in an audience eager to meet him halfway. It sounds like that's just his plan.

When I go to the State Theater, I'm not shy about asking the person next to me, or the guy on the balcony dressed in New York black, if they are longtime viewers or at least subscribers, and then picking their brains if they are, and these people have always been happy to talk (and talk and talk, like the opera buff at the library sale checkout Sunday who ran delightfully on and on when I presented her with two opera cds). Spread the word -- we're not as snobbish as we look!

Absolutely, kfw! As I understood Kathleen O'Connell's point, she was referring to the way these disputes often appear to those who do not come to them with a balletomane's interest and involvement. One man's meat is another man's arcanum.

Yes, my point exactly. I think it takes a certain level of interest and expertise to grok all the hand wringing about the Balanchine legacy. (It’s bitching at a very high level, if I may steal from Mr. Gorey )

Thank you all for your explanations. dirac is right that there is a line here easily crossed, and Kathleen paints a compelling picture of the newcomer who reads that what they were bowled over by was trash (which doesn't mean it wasn't relative trash or that it's snobbish of the critic to say so -- motive counts, and motive can be hard or impossible to discern). But when I see Wheeldon going to the opposite extreme and saying "Our ballets are sexy and we'll make them easy to follow, and we'll even tell you their names so you don't have to open your programs," I have to wonder if building an audience necessitates patronizing it and dumbing down the art form. I realize that's a bit harsh, and maybe it's more than a bit, although I don't mean it to be. But giving people titles because they're too busy socializing to learn the first thing about the program strikes me as pandering and turns me off.

Did anyone get a chance to attend this program?

I went to the theatre...the day after the performance!!.. so there i was standing by myself wondering why was the place closed and empty, 'till i double checked the ticket's date . This is embarassing...

Hey, don't feel too bad. My wife and I once missed a San Francisco Ballet performance that included Symphony in C for the same reason. Fortunately we read about it the next day instead of driving two hours to the theater before finding out. But to make it worse, we'd been returning from vacation the evening before and had passed near the venue right about the time we would have been wanting to be arrive.

Two guys duking it out over Maria Callas forty years after her death is entertaining; two crtics squabbling over who dances Balanchine better twenty years after his undoubtedly looks pointlessly arcane to the unitiated.

I don't understand this. Why can't the uninitiated understand that people have strong opinions about things they love? If I'm interested in a subject, I'm interested in the opinions of the people who know most about that subject.

Thanks for answering my question, Bart and FF. And thanks, popularlibrary, for your very interesting memories -- I missed your post last night or I wouldn't have asked, but given that your answer further filled in the picture, I'm glad I did!

You can often hear me bitching about somebody's eprformance, but I'm bitching on a terribly high level.

I hope to use that line someday somewhere.

So he wasn't overly fond of Firebird, Swan Lake, and Western Symphony -- who would have imagined? I read somewhere that over the years he sat out more and more ballets. Can anyone who attended regularly back then speak to that? Was it, as this quote would indicate, particular ballets, even Balanchine ballets, that he would decline to see? Was he just bored? Did he not want inferior casts to mar cherished memories?

A ballet dancer who would want 'pornlook' would seem to be something of an oxymoron

I think of porn as reductive and art as transcendent, and for that reason I think of the two as antithetical. In the same way, while I find "dirty dancing" a turn off, beautifully danced classical steps can be a turn on, precisely because they're also so much more.

Most of the larger ones and more visible ones are not attractive to me and some are actually repulsive.

I find most tattoos repulsive, especially the larger ones with yellow and green ink. I can understand the aesthetic in macho, working class guys, but otherwise on an aesthetic level I think they're in bad taste, and on a psychological level they seem to me on par with wearing a baseball cap backwards. There are ways to truly distinguish oneself.

I don't know what North Carolina Dance Theater director Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux does in his home theater, but when his company was here in Charlottesville recently he walked around talking to people during intermissions and after the performance, several times seeking out a family with young kids who had attended his pre-performance talk. He seems like a genuinely modest man and there was nothing showy about his presence, and it was sweet to see him with the children.

I was puzzled by one sentence in Jennifer Dunning's review -- was this a compliment, or the reverse?

[Jaiani's] first act disintegration was as wrathful as it was deranged. And it all worked, tempered by a strong, clear, classical attack derived in part, one suspected, from Ms. Jaiani's love of skating.

I read it as a compliment. As I picture it, this Romantic era Giselle has a touch of righteous, feminist era rage. But perhaps it was that second sentence you were wondering about.

Treefrog, thanks!

About Gorey -- you couldn't miss him in the lobby. Did he write at all about ballet (in conventional terms, I mean)? Are there any memoirs which include discussion of Gorey's thoughts about the ballets he saw?

Bart, you can find Gorey interviewed by Anna Kisselgoff and Tobi Tobias in "Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey," edited by Karen Wilkin.

i'm not sure about the benno problem - he was never part of any balanchine i saw but perhaps he was at some point - again my ref. book(s) not close enough at hand to dig aroun.

Noting the many changes in Balanchine's Swan Lake over the years Nancy Reynolds in Repertory in Review writes only that "long ago the Prince's friend Benno disappeared." For the original cast she lists Frank Hobi as Benno.

yes to the volokova query - see (somwhere on BT) alexandra's alert to this book's recent publication.

Here it is.

Others include Tanaquil LeClercq,. . .

Yes, please. Also, Diana Adams. And while I appreciate Gennady Smakov's bio of Barishnikov, I'd love another more deeply researched book on this restless artist.

Great topic, canbelto!

When I attended regularly in the '80's and '90's, there was a weekly cast list posted in the lobby

I kinda miss those days, even though as an out of towner it is nice now to plan NYC visits based on casting. As I remember it, at least when I first saw the notices in the late 80's, they were simple, unadorned typewritten sheets, sometimes with handwritten changes. Many less print-oriented folks than myself probably passed them by after the performance without noticing.

In this Internet age we get so much information so easily, and that's a treat, but back when it was harder to come by, the pleasure was sweeter.

I hope Alexandra will chime in on this thread, because I believe she has a nice story to tell about the name of this site.

Bouder's Rubies is about the most sexually knowing I've ever seen. She's not vulgar - it's just that she doesn't do it playfully or girlishly - or virginally. Her Rubies has been around a bit, and is thoroughly comfortable with that.

That's a great description for the performance I saw in June. I take it that, in following Patricia McBride, playful and girlish (and virginal?) has been more or less the tradition, but the first dancer I saw in the role was Heather Watts, for whom I wouldn't use any of those adjectives.

For anyone not familiar with Paley's work but intrigued by what dirac and Paul posted, her story My Father Addresses Me on the Facts of Old Age is online at The New Yorker. The magazine also has a discussion and reading of Somewhere Else.

I only saw them dance together on video, but I have to add Jacques D'Amboise and Melissa Hayden. Having met both of them in real life, I can imagine that they had a good time together, and it shows in the videos I have seen.

I get the impression that he is and she was pretty feisty. That sounds to me like the basis for a pretty fun partnership, especially given the go-for-broke dance ethic Balanchine instilled.