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Alexandra, I'm delighted you are posting these articles on BT. (And thanks for your answers to my earlier questions on BTFD.)

I'm a subscriber and have been since I was a poor grad student in NYC, so I can speak of my ilk critically.

We have many motives for attending dance, few of them having to do with experimentation or, indeed, advancing the art in any way. We are (in my experience) significantly less knowledgeable about ballet than the average opera subscriber is about opera -- or, our knowledge is focused on a much more limited repertoire. We like jumps and endurance turns. We adore the memory of Makarova and Baryshnikov, maybe even "Gelsey" if we're really taking a risk. We remember Farrell's affair with Balanchine more than her dancing. We like brand names: Giselle over "super x- upside down - and twisting" by the hot new choreographer.

And we pay the bills.

So we have power. It's the power to squash genuine artistic experimentation. But its also the power to keep the classics going.

Can you tell I'm ambivalent about this?

Reading Rockwell, I wished that I'd been there.

WAIT!!!!  I was there!!!!  

Boy, have I had THAT feeling often enough!

What I liked about the review -- which reminded me of the best Giselles I've seen -- is Rockwell's appreciation for adagio -- for slow, sustained, graceful and very difficult kind of dancing that demands so much attention and (let's be frank) experience with dance-viewing to appreciate. So often it's the flashier dancing that gets the notice. I'd love to have seen that performance. (Carbro and others, you're lucky.)

I was struck by Rockwell's characterization of Corella as "the ultimate poetic dancer." I'd have thought his reputation was based originally on pyrotechnics. In the televised ABT you can see him trying (facial expression, etc.) to develop a new, more more noble and romantic persona. You have to admire that. I really loved his placement, especially before and after jumps -- controlled, graceful, perfect. He follows through, smoothly, elegantly, on every movement. It will be interesting how far he can go in this direction.

It would be interesting to do a study HOW these dancers are able to extend their performing lives for so long -- and WHY they choose to do this, despite what must be a lot of pain and an acute, daily awareness of diminishing powers.

Add to that, they have to deal with the criticisms. Even on Ballet Talk there have been some surprisingly personal negative comments about the dancing of several NYCB ballerinas with long-term careers.

Meredith Daneman's biography of Fonteyn is full of insight into the whys and especially the how's of Fonteyn's path. (The example of Ulanova at a crucial stage of Fonteyn's career, is stressed.) Diane Solway's biography of Nureyev tells a much sadder story about longevity on stage.

Any more stories about the HOWS and WHYS?

I think Forsythe is a fine choreographer.

I've seen in the middle, Somewhat Elevated at least six times, by a handful of companies, and I disagree that Forsythe's work doesn't stand up to repeated viewings.  I found Artifact II to be a very different work than in the middle, and actually preferred it to in the middle, which I like a lot, and I look forward to seeing the ballet again..  I also think that in the middle has energized the dancers; they've translated "big" into other works, and I'm not talking about Giselle.

I agree completely. I have one problem, however. Though I've seen "in the middle" several times, I have NO strong visual memory of it. This was not the case with my first viewings of most Balanchine ballets. I liked the piece. But the feeling and memory passed surprisingly quickly. Why? On the other hand, I do appreciate that dancers seem to love performing this ballet and often dance it better, with more life, than other pieces on the same program.

To me, the issue of Forsythe and ballet is moot because he rarely choreographs ballet any longer.  I think he's shown where his interest lies by what he is actually producing, which is Tanztheater.

Question: what's Tanztheater? what has Forsythe had to add and delete from his earlier work to make this transition? Is it like Pina Bausch? The Philip Glass/Robert Wilson/Lucinda Childs: Einstein on the Beach? Satyagraha?

When the corps has unanimity of impulse, it's an awesome thing to behold.  They're mirror images of each other.  My favorite part is when the last corps member completes her penchee, and they all close ranks and step into 5th to begin the centerwork.

1) I like that word "impulse," cygnet -- their IS a sort of "pulse" to the movement when well done. And maybe that's what makes it hypnotic in effect. Like slow-motion film of pulsing ina line through a tiny capillary. It becomes something beyond -- and emotionally much larger than -- the individual choices, efforts and even technique of the dancers.

2) I really agree with your "favorite part" -- the entree is a preparation for the lovely corps work that follows, and is too often discussed in isolation. Imagine how strange it would look if the corps merely arabesqued their way across the stage and exited on the other side. An entry without something to enter FOR is incomplete.

I've only seen this twice --once live (ABT), once on video (Royal). The effect was completely different. On video, I did -- as MinkusPugni says -- spend much of my time looking for technical variations and problems. Couldn't help myself. With repeated viewings, I began to "see" what was really there and found it beautiful.

On stage, the effect was mesmerising. I found myself thinking that these women were trapped in a kind of purgatory where their penance was to do this repetitive move -- and their reward was to be able to dance the beautiful corps material that comes immediately after.

Thanks, MinkusPugni, for reviving this thread.

I saw the original Balanchine/Danilova revival in the mid 70s with Patricia McBride. I admired her enthsusiasm and was interested to see this old classic revived. But I think I was not young enough (not a kid) or old enough (not at that time concerned about re-vivifying the 19th century tradition) to care much for it.

I've seen it several times recently (over two seasons) in Miami City Ballet's performances of the Balanchine version. Beautifully danced by well-coached young dancers who fall into the spirit of the thing perfectly. But it still doesn't charm me. Act III has all the wonderfully dansant Balanchine additions, but I get distracted by all the other stuff going on (including the busy-ness of set and costume). Maybe the modern Balanchine -- with his typically simple staging and costume-less costumes -- spoiled me for it.

Act II goes against my grain, no matter how much I try to go with the flow of it. It's rather the way I feel when NPR gives time to a commentator who's introduced as a "humorist": the dogged effort to be cute and funny pours icy water over the true possibilities of comedy. For me, at least.

But, on the whole, I do agree with much of what Paul says:

But my favorite version is NYCB's (I only know the tape). McBride is simply a riot in the part. All her geekiness, those brittle cabrioles, who cares -- it fits the role completely, and she's SO willing to DO THE MIME -- she's really enjoying it, trying to get Coppellia to come down from that balcony and dance with her, come play with us!!

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What puts it over the top for me, however, is Balanchine's character dances -- nothing tops his mazurka. The new stuff he added to the last act, esp Swanhilda's variation, with its flying assembles to pointe, is wonderful, but nothing tops his mazurka. I've showed it to a class of children who immediately made me stop the tape and started doing pas de bourrees on their heels and -- we had to study it and  just turn them loose for a while, we're talking about 12 year-olds. And I was totally with them -- it is an enormously satisfying dance, to ENORMOUSLY satisfying music.

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His czardas is pretty great, too.....

I have nothing against extreme extensions per se admit to being one of those who is easily impressed by them -- unless they actually disrupt the choreography or call attention to themselves in a vulgar way.

But if developing this single trick leads to weaknesses and inadequacies in other aspects of dancing -- as Hans suggests -- it's more dangerous than I thought.

Fine review, and GREAT photo of Josephson and especially Ullman. I feel I've known them since we were all young. And I'm glad to see them still working so well together -- and working with a Bergman still creating important art.

My pleasure, Dirac. My first thought was Astaire, too. It appears so effortless, though we all know what a hard-working perfectionist he was. Compare this with Rogers, also a wonderful dancer in my book, but one who appears to have to concentrate and who seems to ride the wave of the music -- beautifully, but definitely from the outside.

I guess a general rule of thumb for me is that I suspect someone is "musical" if their dancing makes me listen more carefully to the music and to discover things in familiar music I did not know was there.

Lyndsey Winship previews the Kirov's William Forsythe program, for the Independent.

The thing is, you can't keep a determined ballet director down. When Vaziev was first appointed as the Mariinsky Theatre's ballet director in 1997, he was criticised for reconstructing outdated period- pieces; now, it's for breaking away from the company's roots. There may be some whom he'll never win over, but he is adamant in his convictions. For him, it wasn't just a case of introducing modern work for the sake of it; he saw Forsythe as "a necessity".

This, from LINKS today, is directly relevant to Natalia's post.

Alexandra, I modified that Philobolus post to add a

From dirac's LINKS (today):

Robert Gottlieb reviews Kirov and American Ballet Theatre, in the New York Observer.

The above review bears on Hans's topic. Towards the end, Gottlieb makes the following comment about a ballerina who is NOT one of the favorites of the Ballet Talk followers of the Kirov. Not sure how this connects of hypermobility, but ...

QUOTE: "She could fouette; and she DID fouette. She also flings her legs up, out and around in paroxysms of hyperextension; her limbs don't seem organically connected to her body -- they fly off into their own universe. It was disturbing to watch, both in itself and as a symptom of what one fears may be a company direction."

There's nothing wrong with a dancer being naturally flexible (Asylmuratova clearly had the potential to become a pretzel); it's the development of such flexibility rather than strength that is a problem. When a dancer is naturally flexible, it is advisable to for them to work more on allegro than on contorting during adagio (for an unflexible dancer, the reverse is true, at least in the classroom). Such training will promote a balanced technique. Vaganova wrote that while adagio is important, the entire ballet class is but a preparation for allegro. Unfortunately, the Kirov seems to have changed its priorities.

Hans, though I don't have much in the way of the technical or physiological knowledge and I've seen the Kirov recently only in some videos, this seems like a very valid point in general.

I'm not really familiar with the term "hypermobility," which, when I first read it, I assumed meant "moving very fast." As I read further, I began to gather that the opposite seems to be the case: that it has to do with slow, elaborate stretching. Is this term a kind of synonym for "flexibility"? I'd love to hear you elaborate on the definition and give some examples.

P.S.: Alexandra, as someone older than the Guillem phenomenon, I might tend to credit (or blame) Philobolus.

European tv is full of such cross-overs. Remember the wierd pairing of Pavarotti and Sting? Nessun dorma has become the international anthem of execrably performed cross-over. Or Sarah Brightman. Or Charlotte Church. The list goes on and on. Europe has much to answer for.

European popular culture often imports classical music into the popular, perhaps because it brings prestige to those pop performers who make the journey. Horowitz seems to imply that mainstream American classical music is in decline because it failed to move in the opposite direction -- a case of classical looking down its nose at other musical forms. His main charge is that American classical music for a long time could not or would not integrate even the strongest elements of popular American culture (jazz, spirituals, a style of spontaneity, rhythmic variety, cultural diversity, etc.) into the classical canon.

I guess that, today, ballet companies ARE increasingly trying to integrate many popular styles of music and to adapt the movement vocabulary to them, which is a plus. the negative is that they often do not do it very well -- that they have not yet developed sufficient choreographic skill to do this at the highest level of art. This leads to lots of non-nutritious, unmemorable dances that fade quickly from the repertoire. (Quick, name 5 ballets from the Diamond Project that audiences really want to see a second time.)

Repeated remountings of Swan Lake, Corsaire, etc., deserve to be preserved and respectfully reinterpreted for their own sake. They are also wonderful for an occasional outing -- because they generate lots of money -- and because they permit the true devotees the chance to compare dancers and performances and to deepen their appreciation. But, like similar recyclings of Aida, Boheme, or Butterfly in opera, they don't necessariliy attract the most creative people to work in ballet, may fail to interest the most adventurous audiences, and generally keep the art moving (if at all) at a snail's pace.

Alexandra has introduced a fascinating thread on Ballet Talk for Dancers.

Here's the Llink

Alexandra has written a wonderful essay as well as providing internet links to other sources. This is an education and then some!

I was especially intriged by her suggestion that Pavlova and Nureyev were unique among 20th century dancers in their influence on ballet and especially the ballet audience. Sometimes it's sad how narrow, really, the cultural impact of great dancers has generally been -- outside the ballet world. Nureyev was certainly an exception.

I have a number of memories of Nureyev. What are yours?

I always liked the sub-title to the Toscanini book, part of which is "How he Became an American Culture God". Toscanini had all that broadcast time with his NBC audience, and few were the American families (with cultural aspirations) who didn't have one or more Toscanini albums.

(Seems almost impossible to believe today, doesn't it?)

Joseph Horowitz's new book, Classical Music in America: A History of its Rise and Fall (Norton), has implications for the current status of classical ballet in America as well.

One major thesis, classical music has declined as it (a) kept repeating the old classics but could not or would not generate comparable serious contemporary American work, and (b) in the absence of star composers, all the acclaim and attention went to star performers (of older repertoire).

The Economist's reviewer writes: "In recent years, as a result of such stultifying repetition, a refusal to engage with the realities of time and place and the irresistible rise of pop culture, the bottom has finally dropped out of the classical music market. Formerly august, unassailable institutions are fighting for survival."

Sound familiar to ballet goers? Scarcity of high-level contemporary choreography (see Gia Koulas article)? Returning again and again to a relatively small number of old classics? Courting popularity by emphasizing the excitement of the performer rather than the creativity of the choreographer?

You can get one free view of a review of this in the New Stateman at www.newstatesman.com.

Some dancers dance to music; some are the music; some are pulled by the music; some are in front of the music... and then there are those who feel they should be independent of the music, as if that made them the superior artist in control of their medium...    I don't mind any of the above except for those who seem clueless about the music.

Amy, this is one brilliant observation.

One problem with ushers -- many ushers in regional arts centers are volunteers, often a bit elderly, and not professionally trained to handle this. The house has its own paid employees, but there are significantly fewer of them.

I think that, of the older generation, Sills and Domingo were the only bona fide, long-term "stars" of NYCO -- charismatic performers whose appearances sold tickets regardless sof what they did -- who went on to be stars at the Met as well. You can't really consider them as having been younger singers gaining experience before moving on, and Sills's Met debut, especially, was scandalously overdue when it happened.

Sills was incredible in her fairly wide repertory -- and often, I think, underrated as an actress. Domingo is one of the greatest tenors in stage performance (if not always in sheer vocal beauty) and has worked hard at becoming a respectable conductor. Both Sills and Domingo -- like Helgi Tommasen, Edward Villella, and others in ballet -- have made a most successful transition to directing companies. I'd love to know how much of that they learned at the NYCO.

Great story, Estelle. Robbins would be delighted at that response, I'm sure.

Hans is right -- a good idea for a this site, and it would be interesting to see what sort of do's and don'ts we could actually agree upon.

The problem with "How to Behave at the Ballet" guidelines in ballet programs -- and, in at least one case I've seen, a major part of the subscription information package -- is that people who need them don't read them, and people who don't need them feel somehow condescended to.

Audiences at classical arts performances are already SO FAR AHEAD of the general public in terms of controlling their behavior and respecting the experience of their neighbors. How much further can they move from what's considered the normin most other forms of public entertaiment?

For those who missed it last spring, here's a pretty interesting exchange about the topic of bravo v. wahoo etc. here:

Link

Thanks for this report, EmPaBallet.

It's interesting that both San Franciso Ballet and Pennsylvania Ballet are bringing Christopher Wheeldon back to Europe this summer.

Here's a link to 2 DanceView Times reviews of the Swan Lake which Wheeldon did for Pennsylvania Ballet (June 2004). Reviewers are Mary Cargill and George Jackson.

Llink