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For those interested in a conservative perspective on the issue of changing culture, David Brooks had a recent op ed piece in the New York Times. This was reprinted in my local paper under the title, "Joe Strauss to Joe Six-Pack". If you don't have access to the NYT site, you can find it at:

www.palmbeachpost.com

Go to the bottom of the main page and hit Opinion -- this leads you to David Brooks's columns.

Brooks begins with his redisovery of an essay on Hemingway from a 1961 issue of Time Magazine. Among his points:

"If you read Time and Newsweek from the 1950s and early 1960s, you discover that they were pitched at middle-class people across the country who aspired to have the same sorts of convesations as the New York Boston elite. The magazines ... devoted as much space to opera as to movies because an educated person was expected to know something aobut oepra, even if that person had no prospect of actually seeing one."

Ostrich, check the Links for Friday, June 17, for a brief review of Romeo and Juliet, English National Ballet, with Friedemann Vogel. It appears to have been his British debut.

I find ABT's dictionary site -- with an index, clear descriptions, cross-referencing, and lovely video clips that can be manipulated on line -- really helpful in recalling and visualising these steps.

Address is:

www.abt.org/education/dictionary/index.html

Mel, thanks for the reminder about Dore. Indeed!

Does anyone have detailed recollection of Balanchine's own performance? I saw the original production twice with Balanchine as the Don, and don't really have a strong visual memory except that I had expected him to be taller -- more Dore-like, if you will. I recall a kind of tentativeness vis-a-vis his surroundings, including Dulcinea, and a withdrawn quality, even in the windmill scene. I'd almost venture to say that I felt a lack of presence. That CAN"T be right.

Thanks, Mikhail and Natalia. This should be interesting!

I confess to a soft spot for all forms of vertical or near-vertical jumping, maybe because those are the first jumps one learns in class and they are, so far, the only ones I can actually do without embarrassment. With changement, of course. Entrechats are best.

I also like the hops on pointe in Giselle -- and, indeed, anything with lots of ballon. Big travelling jumps are thrilling, but don't "bring a smile" to my face, as you say.

Leigh, I entirely agree with your last sentence. Those of us who grew up with Balanchine (especially in the City Center days) had a wonderful education in these values.

But, if the Americans for the Arts convention is any indicator, we've moved -- even the administrators of the arts community -- far from this ideal. "Value precedes quality," is the dictum from Ben Cameron, executive director of Theatre Communications Group." The article goes on: "He also reminded the crowd that in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent war on terror, it is more important than ever that arts organizations make themselves relevant to the political concerns of their audience."

A lot of pretty fishy things have been justified as a response to Sept. 11 -- but this is a new one for me. Is he actually suggestion that the arts community can or should build up sympathy and support by joining the war on terror? Or what? It SEEMS so, since he goes on to say " You have to help build a public consciousness of important issues of today. That's what your citizenship [as arts leaders] is about." This is quite extreme. And, in my opinion, quite scary when it comes from an arts administrator and not from a politician's podium or a cable talk show.

Reading the entire article, I realized that "values" and "issues" are indeed treated as versions of pretty much the same thing. Ballet Austin's example is its Light Project, subtitled Holocaust and Humanity, which seems worthwhile, uplifting, and rather (to say the least) uncontroversial.

There's plenty of room for that in the arts. However, dangers include (a) didacticism and preachiness, (b) feel-good and/or mean-spirited presentations of OUR values as opposed to those other people's values, and © alienating people who don't share or identify with the set of values you've chosen. All in all, it can be a slippery slope.

Living in a state (Florida) which could not be more divided as to the fundamental values of its residents -- and where one group's priorities are often despised and villified by other groups -- I guess I'm more wary of this course of action than inspired by it.

Ina, I'd love to hear more about "the claque" at the Bolshoi (within the limits of Ballet Talk's no-gossip rules, of course). The Bolshoi.org site is quite elaborate, sophisticated and -- I would think -- difficult to maintain. Well beyond the resources of your usual group of fans.

What about this point about weak concentration and attention-deficit. With an art like ballet, isn't so much of the beauty in the details? Doesn't ballet require precisely the kind of extended concentration (as well as cognitive knowledge) that Jacoby claims is in deficit in our culture?

Much of the popularity of show dancing, interpretive dancing, Fosse movements, acrobatic dancing, etc. -- as well as the sexualized dancing now being discussed on another thread -- is precisely that it is easy to follow, oddly predictable and familiar from other parts of our daily dose of culture. And you can often tune out for a while in the middle of a performance without missing anything essential. I would imagine that Balanchine -- or Taylor for that matter -- or even the complex steps in story ballets like Swan Lake or Sylvia -- would be very tiring for some people to follow, if they tried.

Sorry about the link. In the interest of full disclosure, I shouldl have included myself among those who are "intuitively Weberian."

I tried to find a way to download the full article, but you need a subscriber's registration. The site has recently been redesigned. Some content is available to all -- but not this one.

Here are some of Jacoby's points:

"Steven Johnson, a savvy writer on technology and its pleasures, offers a thorough-going challenge to [Weber's] bleak outlook on popular culture. To be sure, Johnson's contrariness may be a pose, inasmuch as it depends on opposition that has all but melted away. Apart from a few depressed followers of Josef Weber and his ilk, who today believes in falling cognition?" Champions of popular culture can be found throughout this broad land. One need not venture very far to discover courses on soap operas, situation comedies of Star Trek offered by cultural studies professors... To be sure, doubt about the legitimacy of their subject matter haunts even the most avid boosters of popular culture. I sometimes ask my students a variant of an Internet dating uestion: Whom would you rather date, someone who indicates their favorite pastime is to stay home to play video games or to step out to a ballet or museum? Even the most avid enthusiasts of television balk at dating their own soul mates."

"Johnson tells a 'progressive story,' in which popular culture, far from dumbing us down, becomes ever more complex, intellectually stimulating and sophisticated each year." For instance, he compares the single narrative structure of an old Dragnet episode with new shows like The Sopranos which juggle numerous characters, plots, etc. He finds the Fox series "24" to be "at least three times as complex as the old Dallas." Films, Johnson says, are also becoming increasingly complicated.

Jacoby responds: "How complex is complexity? Or, more precisely, does an ability to master complex narratives and intricate games reflect an expansion of general intelligence?" The recognition of attention-deficit-disorder shows that many people today cannot focus on one thing for long -- not usually associated with high levels of "intelligence" Jacoby: "The new complex intelligence does not foster a capacity to follow the 'sustained' argument of a typical book. Johnson must make this concession -- after all, he offers us an argumentative book, not a blog or a video game." Jacoby's final word on the book, which he praises generally: "Media complexity may express the dwindling force of cognition in the era of attention-deficit-disorder."

A number of threads recently have flirted with the the influence of pop culture on ballet, music, and the other arts.

In this week's THE NATION, there's an interesting review, by Russell Jacoby of UCLA, of two books on the subject:

Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Pop Cutlure is Actually Making us Smarter (Steven Johnson, Riverhead)

Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way you Live it. (Thomas de Zengotita, Bloomsbury).

Here's the Link

The starting point appears to be the thesis of Josef Weber, described as "a forgotten essayist who pondered, among other things, popular culture, which did not please him." (This was back in the 1950s). Among Weber's points, apparently, is the idea that people increasingly know about things and decreasingly about social reality." Jacoby paraphrases: "Later reformulated as the law of the falling rate of intelligence, it posits that intelligence sinks in society as the production, selling and advertising of commodies rises. We face a cris of the overproduction of idiocy."

Recent Ballet Talk threads on the topic leave the impression that several of us seem to take an intuitively Weberian position, while others are more tolerant. This review -- thoughtful and very shrewd indeed -- helped me in my own attempt to reach a balanced view.

I'm also grateful for the link, dachnitsa. Boy, those Russian reviewers take no hostages, especially when it comes to body types.

The review makes some interesting points about emploi, which sent me back to a thread on Aesthetic Issues: "Balanchine and Emploi."

The writer (L. Rozum) comments: "Maria Alexandrova's debut leaves much to be desired as well and leaves us to regret that the notion of 'line' or 'emploi' in lost in ballet practice. But parts are still divided into 'categories' -- for demi-charactere dancer and for danceur noble. It should be taken into consideration that not every ballet part will yield to a solist, even a strong and bright one. ... So, perhaps, the management of the Bolshoi shouldn't have complied with the desire of the ballerina who is certainly not destined to do this fantastically complex part. They should have explained everything to her and this way helped her to escape this career fault."

Sound familiar?

I like one of E-Bay's terms: "Will arrange for local pick up only (no shipping)." I can see all those snowflakes and ethnic dancers climbing into the trucks.

Thanks for Herman Stevens' excellent observation about the absence of "W" from this list of performers portraying Mother Ginger, a role involving art, self-deprecating humor, and cross-dressing. For those who imagine such an assignment might have been possible, the words "snowball," "chance," and "hell" come to mind.

Haven't seen this, but I can visualize what John Rockwell means when he says it's "tacky" and relatively devoid of pure dance. Those ballroom competitions on PBS -- hosted by Sandy Dennis, etc. -- were moving fast in that direction last time I watched.

But it IS dancing. It does involve respectiful and supportive partnering. It utilizes and apparently respects at least some people who actually know what they are doing. And (I assume) it omits the simple-minded aggresiveness and insult that pass in modern American culture as "edginess" and "irony." So, I'm all for it. And will tape the next expisode to watch for whatever echoes of Fred, Ginger, and ballet basics the dancing contains.

Thank you, nouvelle. I definitely see what you mean about the "dark, moving figures." When you think about the dark side of the performing arts throughout so much of its history -- the poverty, insecurity, exploitation and desperation -- it's astounding that so much beauty was created. I hope that those poor, exploited "rats" felt some joy as they danced and pride in what they were able to achieve on stage.

An important story, which all of us in regional ballet cities should be following. Could it happen here, too?

They've reduced the number of Nutcrackers, as premabalrina suggested. Saves money, but also cuts into revenue.

For those who tend to stiigmatize musicians' unions as unduly greedy, the article mentions that the orchestra already took a 12% pay cut in 2002 and 5% in 2003. (For the same number of hours of rehearsal and performance? It's not clear.) Seems they've been cooperative so far -- but how far can they go? In a city with a strong an orchestral tradition as Pittsburgh, recorded music would be especially insulting.

Very interesting is the talk of a possible merger between Pittsburgh Ballet Theater and Pennsylvania Ballet. The Pa. B's executive director was quoted as saying that there had been "discussion about how the two could work together." Made me think of the enforced merger of the main ballet companies in Berlin recently. This has met with some resistence even among ballet audiences on different sides of a single city. (They have to perform in two venues, West and East.) How would it work in two cities, each with its own history, tradition, and philanthropic base, at opposite ends of a state? Miami City Ballet, which is definitely a Miami institution, but which performs and gets considerable financial support in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Naples and West Palm Beach, might be a model to follow here.

Thanks, Alexandra, for the link to Alistair Macauley's article on the Fred Step. His instructions were so clear that I was able to approximate it in my living room -- which made it possible to visualize on the stage. I'll be looking for it now, and I feel richer for the knowledge.

I am embarrassed to admit that I heard about the Fred Step years ago and assumed it was something done by Fred Astaire.

I can understand why it's so rare nowadays to produce and record ballets for video or DVD release. But why do so many ballets ALREADY taped for TV, etc., still remain unavailable for home video sale -- the fastest growing market in the performing arts?

Of course there are questions of "rights," but these don't seem insuperable in other arts. For example, you'd think that the "Dance in America" quality and brand name recognition -- and its large, mostly invisible inventory -- would attract someone to put together as complete a set of releases as possible. Ditto the productions presented on BBC, CBC, the French arts channel, and other television entities.

It's interesting to research a dancer I'd never heard of. Here's a link to his biography in the Stuttgart Ballet site. He sounds quite eclectic.

Friedemann Vogel.

Helene. I wish I had been there.

After reading your account, so full of detail and affection, I feel almost as though I were.

Thank you.

In situations where dancers and other theater people emerged from "theatrical" families -- when and how did the process start? Presumably someone in the family was the first.

Where there were court theaters, did the first performers emerge from families which had a history of serving royalty in other, non-theatrical ways? I can imagine, for instance, a time when Louis XIV and his nobility either got bored with organizing dance spectacles, or got too old to do them. Where did they turn for replacement casts? Footmen and chamber maids? I can't imagine them recruiting from the Parisian lower classes.

Woops! Sorry for the error. And it's a play I've actually seen.

Thanks for the information on the ABT Streetcar, Alexandra. I really regret missing that one. Nora Kaye was, I assume, Blanche. Having seen her in The Cage, I can imagine lots of really effective scene chewing.

I just thought of another. Roland Petit choreographed (and danced ) Cyrano de Bergerac for his Ballets de Paris. Moria Shearer was Roxane. I recently saw the last 10 minutes or so of this on Classical Arts Showcase -- a 1960 taping narrated by Maurice Chevalier. Not much dancing, but Shearer was astoundingly beautiful though over-wrapped in black calf-length gauzy material. Cyrano got bopped on the head with a plank as he came to visit her. No plume, or panache, though Petit put in a few very lovely courtly steps and gestures in an attempt at cheering her up. Then his hat fell off and she saw the bandage he had wrapped around his head. He began to stagger (that plank was more effective than we thought at first)and looked surprised in silent-movie style. Stagger ... courtly steps ... bigger stagger ... fewer courtly steps. You get the idea. Finally he fell into her arms. Then she dropped him. Autumn leaves fell from a tree center stage. The end.

I was afraid this question might be lost where it was posted -- on a totally unrelated thread.

Ibsen and ballet.  An interesting juxtaposition, redbookish -- and not impossible.  Sorry that this is off-topic, but here's my question.  Other than Peer Gynt, have any of Ibsen's plays been used as the basis of a ballet, as Birgit Cullberg did with Strindberg's Miss Julie?

How about other serious playwrights: Shaw, Chekhov (Month in the Country, of course), Shaw, Synge, Pirandello, O'Neill, Brecht, Williams, Miller, Beckett, Pinter, etc. etc.

The Tribute program will be a surprise for Stowell and Russell and will not be announced in advance, with one exception.

Quite an exception -- and I suppose one that's rather hard to hide.

The PNB site mentions that the company has 21 Balanchine ballets in its repertoire. I assume they've never done Liebeslieder Walzer before. Anyone know why? Do you think it will somehow remain in repertoire after this one-off celebration?