Simon G

KFW, I'm sorry but that really is a rather superficial reading of the facts. How many people care enough to read about Merce Cunningham or even know who he is? We gloss over arts items in the papers, an item where three artists have their artistry called into question and where it's stated they're sacked for falling short in the NY Times, is grossly damaging. "Dumb"? well yes, in his orginal statement back in march he directly impugned their reputations, by stating the sackings were a result of their artistry. Read Farmer's interview with Time Out NY to see how she feels about it. The statement by Carlson regarding "wonderful" new directions coming so soon after this bombshell while the three dancers are still contracted to perform has the quality of kicking someone when they're down - it's cruel, it's unnecessary. The fact he felt compelled to do it is not "wonderful". Dance isn't about statements read in papers and those who have followed the company and know these three dancers both as audience members and dance professionals have been dismayed by this grossly unfair treatment. What gets me, and in light of Helene's comment is the fact that the company is putting out a great deal of mission statements, this talk of legacy - it's something that many a company has faced when the founding choreographer dies/retires. And the pattern is painfully commen - mission statements issued, recordings made, key people put in key positions with their eye on guarding the legacy - and I have to say it's BS. The legacy is in the bones, the technique, the muscular memory the individuality of the dancers who carry that legacy in the lives they've given to the choreographer. In the restaging of Crises this was blindlingly obvious when Farmer came on stage, she was dancing the Viola Farber part, she was herself Holly Farmer, but there was a deep intelligence in her way of interpreting Farber and Farber's technique, her personal idiosyncracies as a dancer - that's what a legacy is, not a mission statement and not statements to the press from administrative bods claiming ownership of continuance of legacy. Carlson in bringing up Graham while deftly failing to mention Protas must be aware of the allegations or implications of this, but again anyone who has seen the company, followed them for years doesn't have to debate this point - the artistic direction which is increasingly being followed tells in the dancers; and sure it's up to Cunningham to follow whatever path he feels he has to in this final stage but it's not one which I enjoy watching. And again there's a legacy an audience member who's love a company for years - and one who no longer gets enjoyment from the company.

Yes, my fingers got away from me. Are you arguing that Cunningham is not making the artistic decisions himself? If so, then there is an issue, and possibly a legal one: using the money from the Foundation for a mission other than the stated one, on which people/foundations donate and get tax deductions, when he is not acting as the artistic director. If you are not, but are arguing legacy, that's a separate issue. If Cunningham himiself fired three senior dancers for whatever reason, and left the communication to a mouthpiece, I can argue that it was a mistake, I can argue that it was an unprofessional way to handle it in the press, but, ultimately, the buck stops with him, however old he is. No, I don't mean at all that Cunningham is not making the artistic decisions - however Carlson has spoken about how much of the administration of the artists he takes over to allow cunningham to choreograph. What I do wonder is in interview Carlson has referred to it was his idea to suggest several collaborators to Cunningham, such as Radiohead, Ros etc and brought there material to him - the ultimate decision was of course Cunningham's as to whether or not to use them but at his height Cunningham wasn't about plugging in to what was cool, of the moment and indeed in that respect both Radiohead, Sonic Youth and Sigur Ros were pretty old hat by the time Cunningham came around to them. And once again I have to say for someone who insists he is nothing more than a conduit for Cunningham, Carlson really does like to talk, a lot. That statement about how "wonderful" it is that Cunningham wants new people in the company, was crass and a grossly insensitive breach of protocol; he's commenting on termination of contracts and sackings after having impugned the fired artists work and artistry - again in the press. And it shows how unassailable he views his position as being as he obviously has no fear of any backlash from such tactless public acts and statements. The wording of a Foundation Mission statement in regards to Cunningham's life's work can be interpreted any way to mean any one thing and that's what gets me in the deluge of material written about Cunningham in which members of the board, Carlson, Swinston etc speak at length, it's always about legacy, carrying forward, etc the unspoken statement being he can't last that much longer and it's true, he can't. But what gets me is the quality of eulogy, the element of picking over bones before the carcass has even croaked - and this rather nasty feeling that it's a banquet for opportunists who are claiming their rights as heir apparent. The FT article I used the quote from is most specific in the effect a great deal of the current state of affairs is having on what it should all really be about - the company and specifically the dancers. There's absolutely no way that anyone who has viewed the company for any length of time can deny that something's really really gone wrong here. When I was reading the biog of the most recent male addition to the company before I saw him perform I noticed he hadn't had a full dance training but began by joining his university's dance department - what's more he was taken into the company without having been a member of the repertory understudy group - I was expecting that maybe he was a late-starting dance prodigy, but when I saw him perform what was clear was the huge holes in his technical armoury, poor inflexible feet, bad use of turnout, a deeply inflexible lower back which meant that in arabesque his whole torso dips to attain leg height, he takes tension into his shoulders and as such the carriage of his neck and arms is distorted - and if this was Cunningham's decision, as I'm sure it was that this was a dancer who was to carry on his legacy fine, but I don't want to pay to watch him dance. I find that three of the women are bizarrely identical and another two are ... well to put it mildly, not pleasant dancers (for me) to watch, only Julie Cunningham and Holley Farmer belong to that incredible panopoly of brilliant female dancers which the company is rightly famous for. And yes again this is just my view, but for me the joy of watching contemporary dance is the performer and the current crop take that joy away. The artistic direction of this late stage Cunningham is for me something I don't like watching; like I said I find it neutered, Cunningham Lite and if that's the direction his legacy is to continue in once he's gone, isn't one I intend to support by ticket sales. I used to have raging arguments with people who insisted that Cunningham was soulless, unengaging, emotionally vapid work, now I couldn't because that's how I feel increasingly, especially when revisiting those works I really really loved with the new crop of dancers.

Hi Helene, I think you mean eponymous? Please do correct me if I'm wrong. I also feel you've got the wrong end of the stick regarding this discussion. No one argues Cunningham's right to fire or hire as he sees fit - though I dare say Farmer, Squire and Mizuta have a number of choice things to say about the matter. Farmer in this months Time Out NY spoke eloquently about the unprecedented brutality of this firing in the Company's history and the betrayal - and I think that says more about the nature of this incident as its first hand than conjecture of what's right or wrong by laymen. The main bug bears seem to be: a) The impugning of three very great dancer's artistry by a company spokesman. b) The hubris of Carlson within the press. And this I think is the most interesting fact all press concerning Cunningham recently has been obsessed with his mortality (at 90 that's hardly surprising) and the legacy of his work once he dies. The obvious jostling for pole position within the company administration is prevalent in all articles concerning the company, specifically with the great power Carlson & Swinston now hold. This is a topic of concern for dance journalists, that much is obvious and the continued referencing of the sackings of Farmer, Squire & Mizuta are constantly brought up in relation to this as a sign of things to come. Cunningham is speaking rarely he now seems to let Carlson and Swinston do a great deal of the talking specifically in relation to that future and this is worrying in as much as Carlson, for someone who would have us believe is merely a mouthpiece, does like to bang on about his input artistically to the new work in terms of designers, music etc And again this is I think a problem with Cunningham's new work, when Cunningham was exercising total control in his heyday he didn't give a toss about the cult of cool, indeed design was for him a secondary concern, ditto music - now we have a stellar range of "collaborators" Rome Gigli, Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Sonic Youth; there's something desperate about this, it's not contemporary it's a bit like a faded Southern Belle dressing younger than her age to attract an audience that was never really that interested anyway - perhaps that's the issue, in reliquishing his legacy to the torchbearers Cunningham is becoming the Blanche Dubois of contemporary dance; desperate to seem up to date, anachronistic where once he was timeless - and of course dance companies like ageing pros are absolutely dependent on the kindness of strangers. Also the quality of the press and the Foundation spokespeople has a constant quality of eulogy, no one can seem to mention Cunningham without banging on about the legacy. And whoever holds the reins now it can be pretty certain that he will be the one with total control of the organisation once Cunningham is dead. And this is the issue - the company will be one of dancers chosen by Swinston, an aesthetic which is increasingly prevalent in the current crop of performers who just aren't a patch on those great dancers of the very recent past. And this is part of the problem for me, in recent years one can see how underpowered and shapeless many of the new dancers are - Swinston was never a technically great dancer, and had a rather wishy washy stage quality, I never saw him perform until he was in his late 40s and even then he was too old, but I have seen video of him from his younger days, and even then he was a second fiddle dancer to the company's stars - and in the new dancers many of whom have been sourced and presented by Swinston I, at least can see that they're on a model of what he was - the diversity of the company is becoming lost. I wrote before about Biped, with it's marvellous original cast, now being washed out and bland to the point of homogyny. Administration, design, programming - if one imagines all those fundamental topics which Carlson speaks at length about professing to be nothing but a mouthpiece for the master, goodness knows what will come out of the little laddie's mouth, what decisions he'll make when the master is dead - and this time there'll be no right of reply because he'll be speaking posthumously for a dead master. Helene, you're dead right, if you don't like it you don't have to go; and that's a decision I've been taking of recent, I was toying with the idea of going to Madrid to see Nearly Ninety for the purpose of seeing Farmer, Squire and Mizuta one final time and didn't - a few years ago there'd have been no question of not going. And Cunningham for all its reputation and brilliance is a small company, based around the vision of one man - more people have seen Susan Boyle perform I Dreamed A Dream in the space of a week than will have seen Cunningham in 60 years or indeed even know who he is. Because very soon the company is going to have to move forward without the man at the helm - and what we'll have is a diumverate deciding what will be seen, who will dance it and what the purpose of a creative life which lasted over 70 years really meant, really intended - and that is the antithesis of Cunningham's lifetime philosophy.

The pathos in that paradox runs through Nearly Ninety, but not all the dancers discover it. To find the freedom – and humanity – in Cunningham’s steps, the dancer has to be deeply familiar with his enormous lexicon. A 12-year veteran of the troupe, Farmer has that advantage, as does Daniel Squire, in his 11th year. Last month, Cunningham told Farmer and Squire he wouldn’t need them any more. It was a Lear-like gesture. Someone should have taken the role of Cordelia and told the old man he was wrong Apollinaire Scher in the Financial Times on Nearly Ninety The most interesting and telling parallel Carlson draws in the continuation of the Cunningham legacy after his death is with Martha Graham and Ron Protas; however he's most definitely misplaced if he's alluding merely to the legal trials in 2001, the rot with Protas set in in the early 70s when Graham near death and depressed about the end of her dancing career entrusted to Protas a rank opportunist total control over her company. There was a Soviet like purging of her board, her company and anyone who was considered superfluous or counter Graham. Carlson brings up the Protas/Graham relationship unbidden and the subtext of his growing influence along with Robert Swinston is unavoidable; like Scher's eloquent line Cunningham would seem to have his very own Regan and Goneril, an allusion one feels Scher drew intentionally. The problem of the Cunningham legacy is prevalent, he's 90, whether he lasts another five years or ten is moot, there is a jostling for pole position, to be the torch bearer for the legend. The most egregious aspect of Carlson is his totally arrogant abnegation of himself, his strong avowal that he is nothing but a mouthpiece for a living genius, a legend and by proxy he bestows upon himself the status of demi God or at the very least cup bearer for the God. But it's false in so many respects, because he comments on the decision, "it's wonderful Merce still wants to work with new people" - the careers of three sublimely talented and gifted artists having been brutally terminated, whose combined committment to the company and Cunningham aesthetic totals almost 40 years is in the wording of Carlson a wonderful new direction. To use in such a callous fashion a brutally joyous adjective to describe what must be horrendously painful for three artists who have given so much of their lives is an indication of just how high a regard Carlson holds himself in. To do so publically in the press how untouchable he sees himself as. Moreover for someone who insists he's merely Cunningham's mouthpiece he does like to talk about Cunningham a great deal, in programme notes, in interviews the legacy it would seem is his and his alone - I would argue that the legacy is in the flesh, muscles and minds of the dancers. There is a troubling parallel in the work Carlson is undertaking for Cunningham (mondays with Merce, the hiring of costumers, designers, musicians) and the work that Protas undertook with Graham. Cunningham now has Romeo Gigli, Graham had Halston, Cunningham has Mondays with Merce, in an interview with Nancy D'Alva Carlon claims part ownership of this attempt to record Cunningham for posterity, likewise in the 70s & 80s Protas sought a $1,000,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Arts to record Graham's entire ethos and repertory on video and even went so far as to try and copyright the technique. Because the fact is that in ensuring your position of legacy carrier you ensure your "immortality" by proxy, think Martins with Balanchine, Protas with Graham - you have carte blanche to destroy, rebuild (insert appropriate verb here) that company in your image whilst attesting that your vision is the departed genius' vision, the torch was passed to you after all, wasn't it? A few years ago there was an interview with Swinston in Dance Insider in which he spoke about how Cunningham has now entrusted the legacy of the repertory to him, Cunningham had originally intended Chris Komar, a lovely and gentle man, for this job, until his death in 1996 of course rendered this option impossible. The thing is Cunningham does seem to have a history of being unable to terminate dancer relationships cleanly, in Carolyn Brown's Chance and Circumstance, she details the unhappy parting of Remy Charlip, Judith Dunn amongst others, but Holley Farmer in her recent Time Out NY interview attested to the unprecendented brutality of her, Squire and Mizuta's firing; an act of Lear-like hubris and cruelty. With Mizuta, Farmer and Squire gone, so too goes the last remnants of a particularly talented and intelligent era of Cunningham dancers, those hired in the 90s. Now no dancer was hired before the start of the new Millennium, the majority with the three replacements in the last three years. I can understand that with the prevalent mood of one's mortality that fresh blood must seem incredibly important, but I think this confuses new with young. Farmer, Squire and Mizuta are dancers who reveal new aspects of Cunningham's technique afresh with every performance. The exception of course is Robert Swinston, the designated artistic heir, who at nearly 60 has been a member of the company since 1980 and who continues to dance a repertory he is incapable of bringing any breadth, flexibility or daring to any longer. If anyone saw Cunningham himself at the end of career, where in his 70s and 80s, crippled by arthritis he would still insist of shuffling onstage and interacting with the dancers, they'll know how painful it is watching such vitality of dance scaled down to a minutaie of greatness. Cunningham at least was creating movement his body could cope with Swinston insists on dancing works such as Ocean, Biped, Split Sides works which demand a body which jumps, extends, dances; and this is the problem I have with the current crop of dancers apart from Julie Cunningham (and the three soon to be ex dancers) it's a dumbed down company. Most interchangeable, and with a couple so poor in technique you wonder if someone's having a laugh at your expense. The other problem I have with the current state of the company is the newest choreography - Cunningham was at his greatest a man who never pandered to popular opinion, to perceived notions of what was in, what was fashionable, he explored and couldn't care less about the consequences - his latest choreography has been neat, serviceable and at times with Xover as if a very talented craftsman/dancemaker has decided to plagerise or create a dance in the style of a Cunningham piece. Something happened around 2004, he started losing his last great personalities, there was still Mayselle Fason, Ashley Chen, Cheryl Therrien, Derry Swan, Glen Rumsay, Thomas Caley, Mandy Kirscher, - real ballsy gutsy, sexy dancers, dancers who Farmer, Mizuta & Squire were a part of. If anyone remembers those phenomenal dancers of the 80s and early to mid nineties Finlayson, Komar, Kovich, Lent, Barrow, Ogun, Gafner etc you'll know how much has been lost already by the current line up. Put simply this is no longer a company I'd travel out my way to see, or pay top price to see: a company is its dancers and the dancers are for the most part sadly second rate and perhaps that's why the current pieces such as Views on Stage, Xover, Nearly Ninety are drawing such ambivalent or rather polite reviews - the tools, the dancers are neutered both technically and artistically - it's Cunningham Lite, a style that an opportunist can claim to make a legacy from. Certainly the dances I saw with original casts and loved deeply are shadows of their former selves in the hands of their new interpretors. The thing is Protas was a long time coming 30 years, before his toxicity reached critical mass, and like the Carlson, Swinston he'd learned that if you don't want to be disposed of it's best to make yourself indispensible. Because everyone is aware, though they never say it in so many words, that the party really is nearly over, and getting rid of the best and most interesting guests and inviting new, younger members to attend doesn't make it a fresh, new crowd, nor does it inject new life - it just makes the end when it comes that much more of a whimper.

Yeeeesssss, Aylmer I'm aware Mary Clarke has retired, as much as I'm aware that Clive Barnes is dead. Okay mea culpa, let's just assume all British critics are talentless, univolved dilettantes, who've no track record of writing for the publications on which they do write, have no working knowledge that is when they're not being ghost written. Have formed a cabal of amateurs posing as pros having tied up the British press and dance publishing industry with poorly researched, uninformed drivel. I'm wrong you're right as is Deborah and now I remember why I stopped posting on this site.

Debs, I think you're right this getting off the point, however in terms of publishing I fully accept the prevalence of ghost writing within commercial publication but in the no-money niche market of dance writing I think it's safe to assume that a dance book specialising in one specific area, especially regarding new dance, contemporary dance which Judith Mackrell is a firm advocate of, will have the stated author as being the one who's done the hard work. But, it would seem you wish us to believe that the British critics are charlatans masquerading behind the writing and talents of dance experts less glamorous than they, hence the need for a "beard"?

Actually this was the quote I was responding to, if you notice you mention two seperate programmes, Swan Lake & Isadora/Dances At a Gathering, stating that you enjoyed the latter as opposed to the former. Therefore one can only conclude that the double programme was the one you loved whereas Swan Lake you were not so keen on. Sorry to be so semantically pedantic, but I do feel most strongly that if you are going to make some highly inflammatory statements regarding a whole city's heritage of informed, detailed dance criticism then you do have a duty to articulate clearly otherwise these little mishaps will happen. Sorry, my bad.

Just for information (and probably saying what most readers of this board already know); newspaper critics are given a specific word length to write to prior to starting a review. Professionalism requires that you state your opinion clearly within that space. If you over-write, you'll be cut. Aylmer, I've worked in newspapers and that's not always the case, you get a word length sure, but the space those words are allocated to can be changed at any stage along the way and then it's up to the subs to make the words, even if they have come in on the nose, fit the column allocated. This happens especially with review sections which is seen as easiest to precis down tp a question of good/bad etc.

Deborah, That's an extremely unfair and erroneous summation of the dance criticism scene in London. For starters Debra Craine, the reviewer for the Times has been a dance reviewer and critic for over three decades, moreover with Judith Mackrell she is the author of the Oxford Dictionary of ballet and dance. We have some of the most knowledgeable critics of dance in the world whose track records in the case of Mary Clarke, Clement Crisp go back to pre WWII. The Evening Standard despite its tabloid size is however a generous and long-standing advocate for the arts in London, and it's critics across the board rate as some of the most respected and well-versed in the UK and indeed the world. Some such as Luke Jennings were dancers themselves. And yes that's the interesting thing about the ES there's a disparity between the quality of its news reportage and that of its arts coverage but it is NOT a tabloid in the sense of the sex scandal British red tops - it's pretty Right wing but curiously it's arts coverage is not. Also there is a distinct disparity between the amount written by the critic and the amount published, however, the fact that much of their work may end up on the "cutting room floor" as it were does not detract from their acumen, knowledge and skill as dance lovers. Maccauley whose opinion you seem to champion, is an ex-pat, as was the doyenne of all dance critics the late Clive Barnes - however all the critics you would believe have "sprung from nowhere" poorly qualified to discuss dance are authors of volumes of dance criticism which stand it their own right. Moreover Maccauley who you agree with (and here you contradict yourself or rather inadvertantly hit the nail on the head in regards to criticism - it's personal and of course tinged with bias.) Maccauley was scathing of Isadora which you enjoyed, Indeed all the critics across the board of been censorious of this ill-advised balletic vanity project on the part of Deborah Macmillan. The critics do seem to reach fairly common consensuses on the majority of productions - they've all been distinctly underwhelmed with ABT and having seen the production I have to agree, and I'm under no illusion that the RB production is a paragon but it is better in the essential sense that it is, horrendous design apart, far more faithful to the Petipa text. One area where the UK excels is in the independent dance press - and the great thing about the UK is that because we have such a thriving contemporary dance scene with links to Europe that is carried through into excellent publications such as Dance Now, Dance Europe & if ballet is your thing and that's the thing alone the long-running Dancing Times - to name a few. And the critics whose work receives 1000 words of column in the papers write extensively for these publications. Indeed Judith Mackrell the critic for the Guardian for the past 30 years is a huge advocate and champion of New Dance and contemporary dance and at every opportunity writes extensively and knowledgeably about these subjects in periodicals and books. Your assertion that a critic springs from nowhere holds weight - in as much as that that is essentially what a critic is, we're all critics, born critics, those who write for a paper are merely paid for it. But reading the work of Mackrell, Craine, Crisp, Clarke, Jennings, Roy, Monahan, and my personal favourite Ismene Browne, you cannot be in any doubt that the driving force of these writers is their love and knowledge for dance it's why they turn on their computer and sub their work, knowing sadly that due to column inches the best parts of their work the most passionate may be cut. And finally SL at the Colisseum is not faring well with the paying public - though in truth it was a bad move to bring this to London when the RB has it in rep. But the ABT SL the majority of the seats are in the £80-95 range. You can turn up on the door and get one of these top-price seats for £20.

I do feel very strongly that the prevalent mood around the Cunningham Foundation amongst the administration is the unspoken imminence of Cunningham's age and mortality and a jostling for position for the continuance of that legacy. The Graham analogy is sadly more apt than it first appears; in the diumverate of Carlson and Swinston Cunningham may very well have his Ron Protas.

Cheers Ray, As a quick addendum, LiLing is right regarding pay, Cunningham company's contract is available on the AGMA website and the difference between senior and new dancers in terms of pay is minimal. What makes Carlson's statements all the more galling is that , in the Monday's With Merce podcast on the Cunningham website the installment from a month ago "Dancing with Merce" carries several interviews with Farmer, the blurb on the site introduces her as "iconic" & "amazing" which makes the denigration of her artistry in the press a month later all the more gutless. The Cunningham company has been downsizing for a while, the ideal roster of 16 has been 14 for several years now, which has made restagings of full company works such as Ocean & Biped diminished where several dancers have had to double up parts, also a quick scan of the company schedule shows that there are only around 30 performances for the first five months of this year a dangerously low number. The month long/fortnight long block residencies at Sadlers Wells seem to be long in the past. In London for the past few years they manage maybe seven performaces over five days and never have I seen the Barbican even near full capacity, indeed the top tiers are closed. I do sympathise, on the food chain contemporary dance companies are bottom feeders and costs which can be written off or covered for major ballet companies spell death for the mid-scale modern dance ensembles. Especially as with Cunningham where only one choreographic style is served up. One can only speculate about the nature of the NY Times press release - it does seem brutal in the extreme in its treatment of dancers who've given over 30 years of their lives between them in service to the company, and it does have the feel of a retaliative gesture, were they given the option of leaving by their own steam? Since Farmer, Squire and Mizuta are refusing to comment we'll never know.

I haven't posted here in a very very long time but this news I felt must be replied to as I am a lifelong lover of Cunningham's technique and artistry. I find this absolutely horrendous news, not just for the brutal and callous way it was carried out in the press (yes, playing the artistic differences card is a low, low blow, not least because any response by the three dancers now comes off as sour grapes - to a more cynical mindset it could be suggested this is a deliberately calculated and effective ploy on the Carlson's part.) But the tragedy is that Farmer, Squire and Mizuta, for me at least are the only three dancers in the current line up (apart from Julie Cunningham & sometimes Rashaun Mitchell) who dance with eye-opening originality, poetry, grace and bring something else to the table besides a technical adherance to the rigours of the Cunningham technique. Squire's dancing I love especially, I love the fact that apart from a classically perfectly proportioned body his is an extremely difficult body yet he's discovered a whole way of movement a way of marrying technique, artistry and personal sensibility - I often think of Tourettes syndrome in the description of his dancing (not a string of profanities) but rather these spectacular percussive blasts that seem to eminate from his gut, his core - a series of steps is flavoured by this exciting, angry energy. Farmer is just simply phenomenal, season after season whatever the line up she's the standout female star and Mizuta who I'm not as keen on as Farmer & Squire is still a lyrical beautiful technically ravishing dancer. One of my biggest shocks of the past few years is seeing how deeply, sadly mediocre the company has become for me. There really is a generic cookie-cutter look and feel amongst the newer dancers - in truth they may be more technically secure in some cases, but something's missing, something deep, poetic and soulful. In the recent London season I was saddened to see how lobotomized Biped had become, a work which when I first saw it with Jeannie Steele, Cedric Andrieux, Ashley Chen and Derry Swan blew my mind. Steele's fabulous first solo where she circles the stage with a loping run before standing centre-stage, legs in parallel akimbo, fists drawn to the waist as if preparing to punch - as if daring the audience to "come and have a go" passed for absolutely nothing in the hands of the dancer who took her place. Likewise Cedric Andrieux's series of turns in arabesque, the soft off-kilter nature of his line and technique, his danger and excitement are absolutely not present in the technical rock of a dancer who takes his parts in the rep now. Read any history of the Cunningham company by former members and you'll see that sadly the treatment meted out to Squire, Farmer and Mizuta is not unique, and disappointingly does indeed have many precedents throughout the company's history - one of Carolyn Brown's most censorious criticisms of company policy was the lack of communication between Cunningham and dancers who were no longer favoured. Moreover it's not uncommon in any company modern or ballet for an AD to feel that they've come to the end of the road with certain dancers, that they've explored everything they wish to say through that dancer - it happens. And most poignantly, or perhaps presciently in light of this news, when I saw the company last November I have to say that it was as if Farmer, Squire and Mizuta were talking a different language from the rest of the company, it was like they were playing Mozart everyone else (apart from J.Cunningham and Mitchell) were practising the scales. It was like they were dancers from a different era of the Cunningham company. It's not true that companies such as Cunningham's have no stars - dancers like Squire, Farmer, Mizuta are merely three in a long line who have shaped and formed the Cunningham technique and company from Brown, Farber, Lloyd, Armitage, Dunn, to more recently Lent, Barrow, Finlayson, Kovich, Komar, Gafner, Steele, Chen, Andrieux - those great individual stylists and artists are essential to the progression of the Cunningham technique as a living breathing art form - contemporary dance is only vital and alive within the performer at that moment. Look at Graham's company for example, it's death happened when the stars were sacked or departed and what was left was techincal automatons approximating a technique and legend. Because the truth is that Cunningham isn't going to be around for that much longer and if the company isn't going to become a gilded shrine it needs those great dance artists of wit, flair, originality and experience to stop the company and technique from fossilizing into a monolith, a monument of the past. I do worry about these three, to find yourself at their ages, effectively jobless, their bodies at the end of road in terms of finding another full-time job in a rep dance company, having devoted the majority of your adult professional life to the vision of one man's art is utterly terrifying. And that's the thing these three great dancers deserved better and like the previous poster said they definitely merited greater respect, consideration and honour than having their artistry impugned in a press statement. Carlson's "get out" clause of not dreaming of questioning Cunningham's reasons for termination didn't translate to respecting these three artists when it came to denigrating them. Pity, because without artists of the calibre of Farmer, Squire and Mizuto - willing to offer their lives, faith and artistry to Merce Cunningham, there would have been no Merce Cunningham.

Carol M This is a golden opportunity, it's not every day one gets postings from someone who studied with Kaye and Tallcheif. Please will you tell us all about them, what were they like in class? What kind of exercises did they give? The onus of their classes, the training. Which one did you prefer as a teacher, dancer? Did you see them at ABT and NYCB, how did they cope with the differing reps? Did their reps influence the classes they gave? Balanchine/Tudor/Robbins etc I'm sure I'm not the only one here who's dying to know. Many thanks

And your point is?

Having just seen The Company i have to say this was not about dance but about Neve Campbell's vanity as a dancer manquee. The swing ballet I actually thought worse than the blue snake. It reminded me of one of those egregious soft porn films from the 70's Ballet Emmanuel. Campbell having been the producer/writer/star of the piece everything had to come down to her level, and I mean that kindly. What she did she did well enough, you could see that at one time a technique had been there, but was very VERY frayed around the edges. However, since Campbell was the one to get the film done it had to have her in it. Even as Altman it was bad Altman, think Nashville which was at once a celebration of Country while at the same time mocking affectionately. All those excellent characters who would come and go through the film, with whom one would connect vaguely, yet actually care about. You didn't care about anyone in this film. A film about dance needs good dance within it. I mean The Turning Point is hardly a great film but the dancers and the dance make it watchable, as well as Maclaine and Bancroft who give the acting meat, to what were pretty cliched parts. Arpino's choreography is strangely timeless in it's obvious naffness, if you know what I mean. I've only seen one piece of his, Round of Angels, which I found even halfway engaging. Also much of the "dramatic" content was pretty gratuitous. That awful throwaway reference to Edward Stierle and AIDS within the ballet world was horrible as it was such a moment of tokenism. Also it's just as well that Campbell fell and hurt herself in the mesiterstuck Blue Snake immediately before the fouettes. There was for me one saving grace and that was Deborah Dawn as the ageing ballerina who can't give up the stage, who desperately wants her final moments to be noted, her experience and work to be honoured yet finds herself being shunted, ignored and playing out her final moments alone. That for me had a flavour of what the passion to dance is about. All the rest was this horrible rose-tinted sentimental ballet dream of Neve Campbell.

Mais, non. Absolument pas, absolument pas Mel. Je suis contre l'ascension a Parnasse. Oui, c'est vrai que ca contienne une element de classicisme, mais c'est contre les temps de modernisme. C'est comme Theodore Adorno a ecrit "apres l'Auschwitz, il n'y a plus de la poesie. L'Apollon redux, c'est un Apollon pour un monde sans frontieres ou l'homme est devenu le dieu. C'est un tableau finale ou rien est certaine, ou l'homme est devenu le dieu mais il ne sais plus s'il a le droit. Un monde ou vouloir n'est pas toujour pouvoirs. Pour moi la choreographie contienne plus que l'image. Les arabesques du tableau, ne sont que des arabesques, c'est presque a dire que l'ascension a Parnasse, c'est dans l'ame. Mais si tu preferes l'originale c'est bon pour toi. Chacun a son gout. Je n'ai jamais dit le contre.

Seriously re: Apollo. I do very much love the original version, I'm not saying I don't the convulsive birth rites of Leto, the attendants, the screaming Apollo, and that final blinding ascension. (However, on this point I've seen this done on a huge opera house stage where it really cuts the mustard, and a much smaller stage where it doesn't have anywhere near the same impact and does descend into bathos.) But, and this is where it really makes the difference for me, Apollo redux just makes sense, or more sense as an eternal work of art, for me it's timeless, it doesn't date. When I watch the pre-revision ballet I am aware I'm watching a piece from a certain era, whereas the revised Apollo looks as if it could have been created yesterday. One can conjecture that Balanchine cut it to temper certain dancers or for whatever personal or aesthetic reasons, but when I watch the revised Apollo I just see that he cut it to make its message timeless. The ascension after the sunray peacock whatever you want to call it, to me looks like a restating of an image or idea that has already been said at full force.

Sorry Tempusfugit on this point I have to entirely disagree with you. I am always right, my tastes and insights are more reasoned, elegant and au point than anyone's. My intellect sharper, my final say the definitive from which no appeal may be heard.

On this matter I do totally disagree. I feel the revised Apollo reinvented it for the latter half of the 20th century. And was the product of a master letting the choreography tell the story. True the birth and tableau are arresting images, but they are very much in a style of expressionist theatre popular with the early 20th century when the ballet was made. The birth, indeed is bathetic, the convulsions of Leto the unwrapping of Apollo, whilst very much in the Graham mode of expressionist dance, actually undercut the drama of the young God finding himself alone awaiting the attendent muses. Moreover the music overture tells the story of birth as dramatically and potently as the Leto scene ever could. The final "peacock" is not a peacock but the sun, an assumption of power, responsibility and Godhood, it is by far and away the most powerful image within the ballet. The final procession and tableau is merely repetition and useless repetition in light of the sun ray tableau. It is an overstatement. Yes the ballet works in both formats, but with the original prelude and finale it always runs into the dangers of bathos, hyperbole and very much as if one is watching an historical reconstuction of dance history. The paring down and revisions make the ballet timeless, effortless and rely on the simplicity and sparseness of post WW2 art to tell the story. The important question to ask is "even though the omissions are beautiful, do they add anything significant to the dramaturgy?" I don't think they do, and obviously neither did Balanchine.

The current Royal Ballet has this filthy little habit of "Fixing" ballets to suit their current form, this takes several threads and not just the two Alexandra mentioned: 1) We need evening length moneymakers and we can only stage R&J so many times - Into this category comes the "Macmillan rep" as it's euphemistically called. And anyone who's seen Isadora, Anastasia and Mayerling can only attest to the fact that it's not so much rep as "retch". A restaging of a full length Isadora was threatened for this season with problem areas "fixed". The only way to fix that one was to burn all the notation, thankfully it was abandoned; then comes the problematic Anastasia. Anastasia's third act worked in it's original context due to the genius of Lynn Seymour (I think that perhaps the Seymour/Macmillan relationship is unique in that it's one where the muse outgrew the her inspiratee (bad word) in terms of artistry. Anyone, who's seen a subsequent cast of Anastasia knows that this is one turkey only the muse could fix. 2) We can't dance our classics anymore, let's get another production as it's obviously the choreographer not the company's fault - Anyone who saw the Messel/Ashton/De Valois after Petipa production of Sleeping Beauty knows that this was one of the world's great productions of that classic. However, around about the early-nineties when the rot really set in at the RB and it became clear that the company was no longer technically able to dance their signature production a whole load of "fixing" went on. Firstly the beautiful elegant Messel production was scrapped for Maria Bjornson's gothic atrocity. The result being they company danced it worse than ever due to the cumbersome sets and costumes. Next the entire production was jettisoned for the new Makarova production, frou frou, over elaborate, some nice fairy variations which admittedly did a lot for a few soloists in terms of classicism but dramturgically was a real mess. The production wasn't broke, it just didn't have the artists who could fix it. 3) Balanchine is in our heritage as we are a direct descendent of the Diaghilev tradition, so we must dance it, only problem is, we can't - Anyone who's seen the Royal make a hash out of Apollo, Symphony, Prodigal, Danses concertantes etc can only be aware how the current star system of the Royal is so divorced from any coherent tradition that they play huge cavalier choices with musicality, and choreography.

Shirley, that's absolute rubbish. A kind of elitist urban myth, they can tour, they just can't charge ROH prices, or rather they can't charge them and expect people to turn up. And the issue isn't even large scale touring, it's ANY touring.

This ties in neatly to the threads regarding funding for the Royal Ballet in the Issues section. The Royal Ballet will tour their productions to countries half way around the world, whilst not touring those same productions to any major city in the UK. Despite the fact that it is the tax and lottery contributions from those people throughout the UK which make such productions and international touring possible.

Sorry Alexandra, the problem is within the UK that now the funding of arts is indivisible from the National Lottery. The Arts Council is now funded almost entirely from Lottery revenue and any additional revenue from government funds means that the Arts Council is answerable for every penny. the problem is thus that the funding of anti-government, establishment etc what was once called experimental or innovative work is almost now non-existant within the UK. Indeed a few years ago the then culture secretary said words to the effect that any contentious arts-based work funded by the Arts Council would make the Arts Council answerable to the Government. Unfortunately in this ever censorious western society politics and arts funding are worryingly increasingly linked. Although I firmly believe that arts must be free of morality or perceived morality, the irony is that the moral right to this freedom of speech is increasingly under threat. I was disturbed and interested to see how Eminem (US rapper for balletomanes!) has now become almost a martyr to the cause of freedom on speech in arts. Eminem recently made a reference to dead presidents ie dollar bills in a song of his and is now insanely being sued by the supreme court for "anti-american" or terrorist thinking! When as is the case for the UK where literally millions each day are being spent on the lottery and the "good causes" are in the majority funding existant highly funded institutions which serve such a small percentage of the UKs arts-going population the problems of arts and politics are again indivisible. However, the arts funded lottery institutions such as the ROH really do themselves a disservice by their atrocious PR efforts. I have to say though that Sadlers Wells, has a far more egalitarian arts remit, is far cheaper (and a wonderful stage) and takes a far more all-embracing attitude to its production output. The old Sadlers Wells as anyone can recall was pretty pokey to say the least. The problem with the UK as well is that in many areas not just the arts we are an incredibly LOndon centric society. In no small part due to the fact that this was once the capital of the most powerful nation on earth and unfortunately that class structure and disparity between have and have not is entrenched deep within the roots of our culture. I recently won some tickest to go and see Scottish Ballet in Glasgow and really couldn't be bothered to travel up there. I'm as much of a London snob as anyone, I admit it. But this lottery business in this country is not good and with the increased number of lottery draws (sorry my previous figure was wrong it's not 14 its 16!!!!!!!). It only becomes increasingly worse. Why the ROH issue is so contentious though is that the house was well over £100 million in the red due to the atrocious mis-management of the house by the board over several years, was effectively bankrupt and the lottery provided an instant get-out-of-jail-free injection of cash. The cash provided by the poor man's tax, the lottery, and in that case the ROH should have been obligated to honour this by extending the parameters of the catchment area to which it toured its art. But the reverse has happened and now the companies don't tour at all.

I have had to wait a short time before responding to Mashinka's posting, and I shall give her the benefit of the doubt that she perhaps is not British and doesn't understand the pernicious effect that the lottery has within our country. Currently within the UK there are 14 separate lottery draws EVERY WEEK. Yes 14. There is the daily draw, there is the main mid-week draw, there is the saturday draw, there are also two different other types of lottery draws on wednesday and saturday and NOW there is the EURO lottery draw, a new game which is run with Spain and France and the odds of winning are 74 million to 1. As opposed to the normal odds of 13 million to 1. The most egregious lie concerning the lottery is that it was set up to fund good causes. Currently 1p from every ticket goes to fund a "Good Cause". Though those were originally intended to be arts and community based causes, they have increasingly come to be areas which the Govenment is cutting funding for, such as the Health service. One of the most repulsive adverts advertising the lottery in the UK was in a hospital ward introduced by nurses showing us the new equipment that 1p from every £1 has bought. Those "Good Causes". The good causes of which there are many now have to jump through a labyrinth of red tape in order to get any access to that money whatsoever, and there are causes good causes which deserve that money. The point of the article was that the ROH and Sadlers Wells have received over £100 million already to make up shortfalls and mismanagement. Also these institutions automatically received that money from the Arts Council, which whilst originally intended to be an independent funding body is now effectively run by the lottery ergo the government. The lottery is an all pervading influence within this country which answers to no one, no official body and as such a report which calls attention to the iniquity within this lottery funding system, which caters in the majority to arts organisations which serve less than 1% of the country's population is welcome and necessary. Mashinka, the most damaging form of thinking is one that excuses the ROH and its atrocious management and the money pit which it is. The national lottery and its stranglehold on British amenities and culture is too important to take such a glib attitude to.

I've been thinking quite a bit about Cojocaru these past three weeks, since seeing her in Symphony in C, and wondered what others thought about her, in light of her guesting in New York and Paris. Firstly, although this will be a highly critical posting, I in no way deny her talent or her potential. What troubles me is how she is, in my eyes since her incredible Giselles in 2001, really blowing it. For anyone who wasn't there, those two Giselles which elevated her to principal status were utterly spellbinding. As Judith Mackrell in the Guardian said "You had the uncanny feeling of being in the right place at the right time." Cojocaru had already caused a bit of a stir by then in Symphonic Variations, and had been promoted to first soloist after only a year within the Royal. Those two Giselles were utterly brilliant. Perhaps because she really had nothing to lose, was not a "ballerina" at that point and because they were so utterly organic and impulsive. The most powerful dance I had seen since Lynn Seymour. She was then promoted to principal. I at the time thought this was a brilliant idea, despite the fact that these were the only principal roles she had danced. It just seemed the logical conclusion to these performances. Then I saw her in many other roles and now I believe that she was promoted far too soon. Over at NYCB one sees that Megan Fairchild, (who i have not seen) has been following a similarly Cojocaru-esque route, but after her principal roles she returns to the corps, and she has now danced more principal roles than Cojocaru when she was promoted. This is not unfair, I feel, it's how promising dancers are taken care of. Because one thing that is becoming clear on seeing Cojocaru, is how her technique and strength are suffering at the hands of the roles she is dancing. Cojocaru is essentially a Russian trained dancer, with a rhythmic gymnasts facility, especially in the back, her arabesque is higher than many a penchee. She has those qualities which Russians are famous for, beautiful plasticity, facility, adagio and grand allegro. What she also has is poor footwork and a Russian style cavalier attitude to music. She also relies on what Joan Sutherland called the GPE - general pained expression, to supply drama to a role in the place of real characterisation. On seeing her in Symphony it was interesting to see how weak her feet have become, allegro work which she made mincemeat out of a couple of years ago is now clumsy and at times veyr sloppy. Her feet are suffering. Also that extremity of back flexibility is taking its toll, the soaring arabesque jarrs. But what is most troubling is her assumption of a grand ballerina manner, which is getting in the way of her developing into the dancer she is. She is not classically proportioned, so what? Many of the greatest dancers in the world did not have ballet classicisim of form, but what they did have was a clear idea of an individual path which there career could take. Also she is just too young for many of the roles she has been given. Olga, Odette, Manon, Titania etc these were not good in her hands. Also the technique was surprisingly not there, especially in Odette/Odile and Aurora, roles I thought she would have aced at least on a tecnical level. Also the musicality in the modern rep is off. She is a stunningly musical dancer within the classical rep, however with Balanchine she seems to get annoyed with how the dancer must adhere to the correct tempo, but within the form and structure of the music and dance can assert her personality there. The problems of the Royal are many and manifest as has been pointed out many times and one of the problems with an ailing company is that once they find a potential star they overpromote, overwork and eventually cause that star to self-destruct. A few years ago Cojocaru was one of the only reasons I would go to the RB, now no longer. Any thoughts?