bart

Farrell Fan, Ashley was also on my mind. Not only speed, but the ability to articulate each movement so that you can see it (observe it, really) precisely and in detail -- despite the speed. What a gift.

Thanks, Barre Talk, for that truly impressive summary.

So much of what you recount has happened in other cities, though possibly not in such a dramatic concentration.

Just by reading the LINKS on Ballet Talk over the past few years I've observed all of the following with a number of troubled ballet companies: -- Finding and keeping an appropriate house (of an appropriate size for dance). Grandiose production plans that are developed and committed to without sufficient market research. Factions and divided loyalties on the Board and in the administration. A tendency to forget the donor base when big decisions are being made or disasters are in the making. Lack of interest in enlisting (or even informing) the dance fans who buy tickets but are never encouraged to develop curiosity and knowledge about how "their" ballet company is actually being run.

On the other hand, a number other companies seem to have found a way to avoid all or most of these problems and to flourish.

Don't these guys ever get together to compare notes?

I'd think that PNB and other highly successful operations would have a lot to teach their colleagues in other cities and regions of the country.

In the latest Danceview Times, Nancy Dalva has a review of ABT' new run of Twyla Tharp's "In the Upper Room." (See today's

LINKS.)

During the course of the review she makes the following comment about two of the dancers, and about "speed" in ballet in general:

QUOTE:

Maria Riccetto and Laura Hidalgo take on the twinned ballerina roles as independent creatures, and in a much more modernist—shall we say Balanchinian?—mode. No visible preparations, and enough speed to get where they are going just a bit before they need to. This speed is a deep Tharpian necessity ...

Which dancers today, or in the past, are most gifted with this quality of speediness? -- getting "where they are going just a bit before they need to."

And, are there speedy dancers who are also at capable of profound dancing at more moderate or even adagio tempos?

As a longtime donor to Colorado Ballet, I am still awaiting any contact from Colorado Ballet to advise what the changes mean to the company.  Keeping donors in the dark is not a good way to get them back onboard and insure the financial future!

I agree. But in my experience it's all too common. Donors are asked to give, but rarely given even the slightest idea of the organization's finances, unlses the size of the gift allows them to demand this as a condition.

Thanks for the review, Helene. On the whole, it's wonderful that smaller cities are having the opportunity to see the classics via these touring companies. In West Palm Beach we've recently had a Swan Lake from Moscow Classical Ballet and a Sleeping Beauty from Russian National Ballet Theater. Both performances created and impession very close to that which you describe. One big difference was the lack of involvement with local ballet schools, so that what you saw on the stage was pretty much what came out of the bus the night before. I love the idea of enlisting local children. What a great opportunity for them, not to mention a guarantee of extra ticket sales from loyal families and friends. Incidentally, the performances I saw were both pretty much sold out, which shows that there is a demand for this sort of thing. (At least as far as the one-ballet-a-year crowd goes.) I'd love to see a slightly more adventurous choice of ballets, though.

Among the similarities between your experience and the two companies I've seen: simple design and staging, gorgeous and obviously expensive costumes, lousy sound system and occasional out-of-sync dancing, a preponderance of female dancers, the failure to identify which principal dancer was performing (very frustrating, and I would think quite insulting to the dancres).

One big difference: the corps we saw with both companies danced in a perfunctory and not-very-interested manner. It must be difficult to preserve excitement for such a repetitive performance schedule when you are doing limited and not very exciting choreography.

The soloists (Rothbart, Bluebird, etc.) were excellent. I know what you mean about wishing the local company would pick up a few of them. I wonder how many fine dancers take on this sort of gruelling work just in the hopes of that happening.

$150.00 seats at City Center says something about the expectations of the promoters. Note the use of "Kings of Dnce" rather than "Ballet."

Is it just me, or does the order of programming seem a bit intriguing? I like the idea of starting with a new Wheeldon for the 4 men -- and the Jeune Homme (which just happens to include one of the world's greatest female dancers, in New York at least) makes sense. But I wonder what the the 4 solos at the END of the program will be like? And how the audience will respond. Isn't that traditionally the position for the most bravura dancing?

One awful thought: the copy-cat productions that will be touring the provinces. Four Irish Kings of Dance?

Ben Huys and Susan Hendl were down at Miami City Ballet this September to set Robbins' Dances at a Gathering on the company. I was on a tour and was able to watch them for 3 hours. (There was another 3 hours' work later in the afternoon!)

Hendl and Huys worked beautifully together and with the various casts of dancers. He demonstrated with full-out dance more than Hendl and has remarkable lightness, grace, and fluidity of movement for someone who seemed both tall and solidly built. I was very impressed.

There's a new review that dirac just posted in links.  One of the things the reviewer says is that Lacotte's version is "better than the original," a remark I find absurd considering that he hasn't seen the original (and based on what I've seen of Lacotte's other work, I have a tough time swallowing the idea that his best is better than Petipa's worst).

I just returned to this thread after reading Clive Barnes's column (Dance, November 2005) on resurrected classical ballets. Whether or not you agree with Barnes, I love the sting in this comment:

QUOTE:

"Both [the ROB/ABT revival of Ashton's] Sylvia and [suzanne Farrell's reconstruction of] Don Quixote aimed at authentic facsimiles of their first versions, rather than any subsequent revisions. Authenticity is a word that seems to stick inthe craw of any Russian company. It comes as no suprise that Pierre Lacotte (a choreographere of many steps but no phrases who specializes in pallid 19th-centuryh pastiches) decided with his Bolshoi version of the Petipa/Pugni The Pharaoh's Daugher to ignore the Stepanov notation of Petipa's choreography in the Harvard Collection, and to choreograph and design a completely 'new' version of his own. Presumably he thought he knew better than Petipa. The resultant tasteless farrago demonstrates that he did not."

On the other hand, Barnes loved the Ratmansky "Bright Stream": QUOTE: "the Bolshoi's new artistic director has choreographed a beautifully satirical comedy, funny in itself, and also helped by Boris Messerer's spot-on period designs... Way to go! If you can't be authentaic, at least be imaginative."

Thanks so much for the links. I hope that we get lots of reviews from Ballet Talk members as well.

People of my generation remember when the Joffrey -- still based in New York -- was considered to be in the Top Three ballet companies in the States. Their revivals and reconstructions were "must see" events, and their pop artistic Arpino stuff were much discussed.

I hear good things about their dancing and productions now -- and they appear to be ambitious. But they seem eclipsed by other big city American companies (San Francisco, PNB, Boston, Miami, Houston, etc.). With a history like theirs, I hope this does not conitnue.

The Solway biography of Nureyev calls this "one of the first dance films staged for the camea and not simply a filmed stage performance. Petiti directed it after working on a number of movies in Hollywood. Thinking that rudolf had 'the face of a movie star,' Petit edited the film to make ample use of close-ups."

There's a discussion of this production on the following link:

Article on Jeune Homme/ Nureyev

You'll need to scroll down a bit.

Both ABT and the Kirov have this in rep. ABT's 1951 premier had the same leads as the ballet's first performance in Paris in 1946, Jean Babilee and Nathallie Philippart. I found a photo of Diana Vishneva as the death figure, with (I think) Farouk Ruzimatov, in the Kirov production. Here's the Link.

http://www.vishneva.ru/eng/photo.php?gal=3&no=4

Vishneva in Jeune Homme

Thanks for these reviews. And thanks, drb, for the link to the wbur website, with its review and magnificent photos of the dancers. Lucky Boston to have a public radio station so considerate of ballet and its audience.

I guess Toni Bentley's book, "Dancer's Journal," addresses this issue from one NYCB dancer's point of view, at least as it was a quarter century ago.

For example, the point about too-much-to-do/ too-little-time:

"Our schedule for each day is mapped out for us only the evening before. Usually by 8 o'clock, curtain time, a pencil-written schedule is posted on the bulletin board at stage level. A crowd immediately gathers for a quick silent perusal before stepping on stage. During the performances, things are canceled, added or rearranged, according to the casualty level of the performance. If a dancer is injured, the ballet must be re-rehearsed for the understaudy, or if the dancer is irreplaceable, a whole new ballet must be rehearsed as a replacement. By 11 p.m., the schedule can be assumed to be final, although in the course of the next day, things are often changed."

Or the occsional thrill of the unexpected:

"The moment, special moments, are what make it all worthwhile -- Suzanne's daredevil balance, Peter Martins when he is on (or even when he's off), a debut, an outrageous mistake in Swan Lake, even a slip or fall can be monumental and magnificent. Stories abound of idiosyncratic performances when someone overslept or got her period on stage (it has happened more often than you might think)."

Consistency may be difficult in such a complex, changing and human setting. Bland, lackluster, and going through the motions are the real .enemies, IMO That happens occasionally too. And it can be, especially in a vast theater like the State, quite deadly.

In my youth: Balanchine's Apollo in the current design, or the Santo Loquasto costumes for Tharp's Baker's Dozen (white shirts, white slacks).

Today: the movie producer's plus fours (with cigar) in the Nureyev Cinderella.

Sometime in the future: any version of Carabosse.

Very interesting and important questions. My first thought -- not really an "answer" -- is kind of obvious: that the more one's work is visible in performance all around the world, the more one is likely to be taken seriously, and possibly copied.

Taking Forsythe as an example, he most popular ballets are in the repertories of an astonishing number and range of companies, from ballet Everests like the Kirov and Paris to small regional and even local companies. (I posted a list today on the previous Forsythe thread.)

I don't know the process by which this happened with a relatively young man like Forsythe. Balanchine, on the other hand, was a legend before his work had any kind of significant dispersion.

Incidently, I love that phrase concerning Forsythe: "on the edge of contemporary ballet." It certainly rings true, though in this case the "edge" of one thing seems to be the epicenter of something else.

Here's some information on the scope of Forsythe's work -- and its expansion around the world -- from the Nederlands Dans Theater site BEFORE the folding of Ballett Frankfurt.

QUOTE:

"Since 1984, he has directed the Frankfurt Ballet, and his works have been considered major and provocative events. With Steptext, created in 1985 for Aterballetto, Reggio Emilia, his audacious style, with its breaks and accelerations, began to attract critical attention and an enthusiastic public. His distinctive deconstructing of the language of classical ballet took definitive shape in In the Middle Somewhat Elevated, created for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1987, and New Sleep (for the San Francisco Ballet, 1987).

"William Forsythe has also choreographed ballets for the New York City Ballet ( Behind the China Dogs-1988, Herman Schmerman (Part 1)- 1992), the Royal Ballet (Firstext-1995), the Nederlands Dans Theater (Say Bye-Bye-1980, Mental Model-1983, Marion, Marion (NDT III), Four Point Counter- 1995), the Joffrey Ballet ( Square Deal-1983), the National Ballet of Canada (the second detail-1981), and his works are danced by companies all over the world, including the Royal Swedish Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, Finnish National Ballet, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, Ballet de l`Opera national de Lyon, Ballet du Rhin, Batsheva dance Company, Boston Ballet, Cullberg Ballet, Pennsylvania, Ballet Florida, Carolina Ballet, American Repertory Ballet Company, Ballet du Capitole, Star Dancers Company - Tokyo, Ater Balletto - Reggio Emilia, Balletto di Toscana - Firenze, Ballet British Columbia - Vancouver, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens - Montreal, Ballet Zaragosa, Centre chorégraphique national Tours, Ballet Gulbenkian - Lissabon, Pacific Northwest Ballet - Seattle, National Ballet of Cuba, Bayerisches Staatsballett, Hamburg Ballet, Ballett der Deutschen Oper - Berlin, Ballett der Deutschen Staatsoper - Berlin, Ballett der Oper Düsseldorf, Nürnberger Ballett, Staatsoperballett - Viena, Ballet der Oper Graz, Ballett Basel, Ballet du Grand Théàtre de Genève, the Dutch National Ballet, the National Dance Company of Spain and the Australian National Ballet.

"For his own company, he has choreographed Artifact (1984), LDC (1985), Isabelle's Dance (1986), Die Befragung des Robert Scott, Same Old Story (1987), Impressing the Czar, The Vile Parody of Address (1988), Slingerland, Limb's Theorem (1989), The Loss of Small Detail (1991), ALIE/N A©TION (1992), Quintet, As a Garden in this Setting (1993),Invisible Film, Of Any If And, Eidos: Telos (1995), Six Counter Points, Sleeper's Guts (1996), Hypothetical Stream (1997), Opus 31, small void (1998). Since autumn 1990, the Frankfurt Ballet has had an official "second residence" for two months a year at the Châtelet Theater in Paris.

The stories aren’t really like that.  The world is gentle and secure, yes, but Father doesn’t always know best, although he thinks he does, and Day, Jr. describes a world that’s changing all the time

True of the tv show, too, as with "Father Knows Best." The larger point, however, of the tv "Life with Father" and innumerable other shows of the period was something quite different. The plot and humor came from the need to deal with change, definitely. (Father doesn't really know as much as he thinks.)

But the writing always conveyed the message that these changes, however agitating at the moment, are not really to be feared. (Father has wisdom, even when he doesn't know it.) The larger continuity of a basically good world, strong family, and eternal verities was what counted. And that could survive and even embrace a great deal of surface change.

The story you refer to about the violin would not, I think, have been presented in that form in this series. There would have had to be a comfortable, value-confirming conclusion. At least on commercial tv -- in America -- in the 1950s.

dirac, I was a kid, and it's funny how well I remember the look, the setting, and the relationships within the family, but not the plots. I Googled to see what is out there. Among what I found was this:

QUOTE:

"2.08 [--] Life With Father: FATHER AND THE DANCING LESSON

copyright date 13Jan55 (rerun 25Oct56)

Synopsis:

Clarence must learn the two-step for the big dance and Father assures

him he'll teach him. Then Father enrolls in a dancing school to learn

it and so does Clarence. [RF]"

You get the idea: Father Knows Best in Edwardian dress.

Not much happened, but it was gentle and very secure (emotionally and financially) It depicted a world that had not, could not, and would not change in any profound way. Ever. That, even more than the rather stiff and (to me) entirely unrealistic portrayal of the Day children, was what must have appealed to me.

Here's a link to a Sun-Times review (by a "theater critic," alas).

Review of Joffrey "The Dream"

Question: how much attention do American schools pay to all these details of turning, and to the slow, developmental process of building up a strong turning ability?

So much attention is given in the dance press to those students who are "natural turners" or are prodigies of one sort or other, that I don't really know what is done to teach the others.

Is consistency desirable?

Depends on how often you go. As a now very occasional NYCB viewer, I really WOULD prefer to think that the performance I attend (and pay for) is the best possible. And I would prefer, since the name "Balanchine" is part of the attraction, if the performance bore some relation to the Balanchine style.

Those who attend frequently might, on the other hand, actually perfer unevenness for purposes of comparison. I sometimes felt that way when I lived in New York.

And those who are total NYCB fanatics might actually feed off the pattern of emotional highs and lows

Interesting question, though.

Articles and reviews in The Economist are almost never signed. The only exceptions I'm aware of are occasional long special reports.

One of the ideas that was new to me was that Forsythe, having absorbed neoclassicism, then subjected this style to the process of exaggeration, reversal, distortion, imbalance, and sheer oddness that (apparently) constitutes "deconstruction," at least as the writer uses that concept.

I happen to like "In the Midddle ..." and "Step Text" both of which I've seen twice. One of the things that amazed me about these works was that, 24 hours after the performance, I could visuallize very little of what I've seen -- though I had a strong memory of the feelings aroused. Maybe now that I know that his work includes comments on the classical (or neoclassical) style, I'll be able to process it more efficiently and keep it longer in my visual memory.

There's a short but quite interesting article on William Forsythe and his new company, on the occasion of performances at London's Sadler's Wells Theatre -- in The Economist (Nov. 1-7).

Here's Link.

Willliam Forsythe article/ The Economist

This is a succiinct account of Forstyle's work, new company, the story of his problems in Frankfort, and future plans. Very well done, as is true of so much of The Economist's art and culture criticism and reportage.

Since Forstythe's older work, particularly "In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated," are in the reps of many ballet companies (Kirov, POB, Boston, Houston, PNB, Ballet Florida, among others) I thought this comment might interest BT readers:

QUOTE:

"Born in 1949, he trained as a dancer in New York with Nolan Dingman, one of Balanchine's original dancers, and for many years immersed himself in the elaborately purist style that Balanchine acquired in the early years of the century at the Imeprial Ballet school in Leningrad. The articulations that occur in his own choreography, Mr. Forstyle explains in a borrowed Sadler's Wells dressing-room, are simply the logical extension of the Leningrad style. 'This,' he says, standing to demonstrate the torsion of waist and shoulder-line that classiscal dancers call epaulement, 'becomes this.' He increases the twisting until the position implodes, and a high-speed chain-reaction of adjustment and counter-adjustment is set in train. It is as if he were subjecting his classical dancer's body to chaos theory."

Excellent dance writing, IMO!

Forsythe's company, based in Frankfurt and secondarily in Dresden, will be touring Japan and Australia this year, and will be at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in May, 2006.

drb: as someone who is very much math-challenged, I am in awe. Two things I wish I could do: high level math (heck, I'd settle for accurate arithmetic) and great dancing.

dirac's and vagansmom's mention of Clarence Day brought back instant (and alarmingly detailed) memories of a 1950s tv series of "Life with Father". I even recalled then names of the actors who played mom and dad: Leon Ames and Lureen Tuttle. This from someone who has to refresh my memory periodically about the names and athors of books I read last week

Thanks so much, rg, for your response. It's wonderful that so much information exists. The Rouben Ter-Arutunian set (Ballet Rambert's production and I think also in the new Royal production) is apparently very central to the success of this ballet. I've seen the Nureyev documentary, but did not recall the inclusion of PL.

Rudolf Nureyev first performed PL in Copenhagen in 1976, according to Diane Solway, and included it on a Friends of Nureyev program that played on Broadway in 1977. He had first seen Ballet Rambert doing it in 1969 and wanted to learn it then, but Tetley resisted at that time, gave permission a decade later, and then refused a revival in the 80s when Nureyev was head of the POB.

Tetley's initial doubts about Nureyev had to do with style and personality. He says, "There was something compellingly earthy, physical and direct about him, and the character of Pierrot is innocent, vulnerable and easily manipulated. Rudi could be shockingly earthy." In other words, a good Petroushka, but no Pierrot.

By the 80s, Tetley considered that Nureyev could no longer handle the role in terms of technique -- especially the "airborne quality". Nureyev offered him Patrick Dupond, but Tetley says he did not want to return to the POB after an unpleasant experience with another ballet . ("Sure they're wonderful dancers, but heavens, the attitude!")

Tetley speaks of the "introspective, gossamer quality" of the Schoenberg score. I imagine that it is not easy to find a vocalist and musicians with the skill and expertise to bring this difficult score across to the dancers, not to mention the audience.

Today's links has several reviews of the Royal Ballet's recent production of Glen Tetley's Pierrot Lunaire, performed to the Schoenberg score for solo vocalist and instruments.

I remember being bowled over by a recording of this score when I was in college, but have never seen it on the stage in any form. I know that Nureyev danced it late in his career.

Has anyone seen this new production -- or any other? I'd really appreciate hearing your impressions. The reviewer mentions that Ballet Rambert also has it in rep. What about other companies, including American?

________

HERE'S A QUOTE from one of today's reviews of the Royal's performance:

"Pierrot lunaire, Tetley's first surviving ballet, was made in 1962 to Schoenberg's score for narrator and ensemble. Orchestral textures shift and change, as Linda Hirst declaims the German text with wails and sung lines. The ballet opens with Tetley's best image. Rouben Ter-Artunian's set is a white scaffolding tower, lit with stark white light. Pierrot swings from a bar, body arched back into a crescent: he is the moon. Ivan Putrov is an innocent Pierrot, throwing himself into Tetley's mix of ballet and modern dance steps, avoiding the saccharine of the wide-eyed expressions.

"Carlos Acosta is lithe and aggressive as the experienced clown Brighella, strutting and mocking Pierrot. Deirdre Chapman is a mercurial Columbine, pugnacious, wistful or aggressive by turns. The cast of three carry the ballet, personalities clear and bold.