Amy Reusch

I am wondering anout DeMille's legacy, what with the new Peck ballet (of which I've only seen very short video clips) using Rodeo. Peck says 'I think the cowboy theme is a little cheesy'. Sometimes I feel DeMille's work is so 1950s era Americana and reflects a view we no longer have. I wonder if after a couple more decades go by this very 1950sish aspect will add to its charm rather than detract from it. Would a fresh restaging of it manage to put new life into it or would it again reflect our perspective on the 1950s outlook? The Cowboy mythology isn't very strong in our culture anymore (at least perhaps not so much outside the southwest)... i know of no children playing "cowboys & indians" as in earlier generations when there were plenty of cowboy shows on children's television.

Still, I cannot hear Rodeo without hearing the great American West, and I cannot help but feel the need to see cowboy hats somewhere in the new ballet. I wonder if I would like the Peck piece more if it were given cowboy trappings, or would I just find a new appreciation of DeMille's work by the contrast? I think I'd like to see it without the backdrops, more minimalist... The music cries out "cowboy", would it be more evocative without every detail filled in for us? But, don't lose the cowboy hats!

Who is protecting DeMille's legacy? Is she just another forgotten woman choreographer? Or did she have the misfortune to pass away before this concept of trusts to protect a choreographer's legacy came into being?

What would we think if ABT gave a young dancer/choreographer Agon's music to create a ballet to?

It just seems a little strange. Was it daring? Or was it something else?

Tallchief 5'9"? Maybe 5'9" en pointe? Could she have been so tall for her era and not have it constantly talked about? At 5'9" she would have been taller than Suzanne Farrell....

How tall was Frederic Franklin? Here is a photo of the two of them together... If she were 5'9" in her stocking feet, she would likely have been 6'1" on pointe, maybe more... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Tallchief#mediaviewer/File:Maria_Tallchief_in_Ballet_Russe_de_Monte_Carlo_ad.JPG

Here she is dancing with Royes Fernandez who told me he was 5'8" and considered quite tall for a dancer of his era at ABT. I think it was a measurement for her on pointe.

I vote for live chickens and a jealous ballerina! (but perhaps only once)

"I find it interesting that three of the four surviving companies from the Dance Posters list are associated with techniques than can be methodically taught: Graham (Martha Graham Company), (Lester) Horton (Alvin Ailey Company) and Humphrey-Limon (Limon Company). " ~ Miliosr

Is it because they cultivated techiques or because they built up an institution (in the form of a school) and that institution perpetuated the company?

It is so wonderful that PNB does the low priced tickets for young people...I wish all the companies did this! There would cease to be "graying of the audience" complaints perhaps.

I would enjoy seeing Ratmansky take on a Saroyan short story...

Apologies for answering my own post... But found this at the Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/american-ballet-theatre/images/ab0001p1_enlarge.jpg. which mentions a piece by DeMille called "Black Ritual"

The Library of Congress Exhibit can be found here: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/american-ballet-theatre/1940.html

ABT has put up some interesting photos on their facebook page to celebrate their birthday today.

https://www.facebook.com/AmericanBalletTheatre/photos/a.122834101857.133692.15817871857/10152908138376858/?type=1&theater

Have there been other Saroyan ballets?

What was the Spanish Unit of 12 and the Negro Unit of 14? How were they used?

Came accross this obit via a friend on facebook and thought it should be included here.

http://www.pilatesglossy.com/edwina-fontaine-is-no-longer-with-us/

I assume the training only up to age 11 is temporary and will be pushed back as the institution grows? Perhaps this is because they want to assure that they are turning out high calibre students by age 17 rather than trying to put a year or so of retraining onto dancers trained elsewhere? Many decades ago, I studied with the new principal, and have nothing but respect for her. The way the ABT system has reached out to improve standards across the country and across a wide variety of schools is to be admired. Only a minescule fraction of students can make it into the elite schools like SAB and SFB and many of these are limited by body type. To assume none of the others could make a contribution to the field is shortsighted. I also don't see how having one more school hurts Southern California. It hasn't exactly hurt the New York dance scene to have lots of ballet schools.

From my memory of the video, Sarafanov is anything but sloppy... A very perfect technician with beautiful line. I would like to see him dance Theme and Variations.

Still wondering about cough drops... I came across this Australian Ballet description of the Divertissements, and Mother Ginger in particular... and now wish to know if anyone in the forum has ever seen an image of the mentioned tin of sweets?

Seen less often nowadays is the first sweets divertissement, featuring Mother Ginger (Mere Gigogne) and her clutch of playful Polichinelles. A character with roots in the commedia dell’arte, Mother Ginger usually appears in a comically oversize skirt from under which young children emerge to dance the part of the Polichinelle candies. The divertissement took inspiration from a well-known candy tin that sold in Russia in the 1890s, formed in the shape of a woman wearing a large skirt. Naturally, the tin opened at the bottom to reveal the bonbons inside.

http://www.behindballet.com/the-sweets-of-the-nutcracker/

Thanks for taking the extra time to explain why Sarafanov didn't look right in the entrechats... from the unhappy descriptions it seemed like he was "acting struggling heroically" and it did not make sense that this was problematic...

I think maybe Albrecht's struggling to continue to dance while managing to keep the struggle virtuosic ... yet not clumsy nor overacted... is worthy of it's own thread... it seems such a subtle distinction... between the acting seeming too real vs seeming too acted vs just right...

I can't help but be struck by all the "shhh" comments Markova makes and the "shhh" pose in the varation ... it is at the chin at 10:51 and Markova then speaks a moment about "it's not just to say to them 'shhhhh'"......

... and wonder if perhaps the Sugarplum weren't the soothing cough drop after Prince Whooping Cough's tarantella?.... Perhaps the prince was more of an elfin prince then than the knightly prince we have him as? I wouldn't want to push this idea, I'm not sure it's a good idea, but it kind of fascinates me that possibly there is yet another interpretation... After all, perhaps someone here knows... was the Tarantella a dance ever done by nobility? I was under the impression it was more of a street dance than a court dance... but I really wouldn't know...

It just makes me think of those images of the Smith Brothers lozenges and wonder if cough drops weren't a late 19th century invention...?

http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/33036-is-prince-coqueluche-gone-for-good/

It does not sound like the partnership between Osipova & Sarafanov has gained anything since the 3D screening of their Giselle a few years back. Anyone who saw them then and now notice any differences?

It's a shame they didn't get some of the Denishawn costumes... For a while they were in the keeping of UCLA's dance program, but there was a dispute about the way the costumes were being cared for and perhaps they are no longer there... I wish I remembered the details. I don't know who guards the Denishawn legacy these days... Are there any Denishawn dancers still with us?

Could be... St. Denis really seemed to understand that how the costume moved was half the dance...

There was a gorgeous Ballet Imperial tutu, with the lace exagerated so that it could be seen as such from the audience. They had a dress Elssler danced her Cachucha in as well as a pair of her green slippers. Such tiny narrow feet they had back then, the metatarsal arch surely was more arched than most girls today have. The jewels costumes glimmered & glitzed beautifully. Rubies was missing the tutu... Was what they use now originally over a tutu?

There was a willi costume from the Franklin DTH Creole Giselle...

No photos, so my memory, so rapidly fading, must serve...

There was a Nureyev coatume & a Baryshnikov costume... Some of NYCB's recent fashion forays...

The Graham costumes were more crafted than I realized from their photos.

Remarkably, there was was an uncredited designer costume from the White Oak Project (I wonder what happened?)

Lynn Garafola & Robert Greskovic's words were on the inscriptions...

There was a ballet inspired ballgown from the 1860s (might not have the year right there) with tulle gathered over satin).

It was stunning.

Just went to see this exhibit and was floored! It is free and up only a few more weeks... Get to it before the year ends!!!

The Elssler items!! And I had no idea the Garaham dresses were so beautiful... And the unusual darning on Pavlova's slippers... And how on earth did Fonteyn balance so beautifully on those rounded tips? So much to see! Karinska's work up close... Do not miss this one!

Baker's Dozen (Tharp)

Bella Figura (even though it is not classical)

Etudes

Vienna Waltzes

Cranko's Romeo & Juliet

It has been said before, but please see Agon.

The Concert.

Beautifully shot... Have only watched the corps episode so far... I hope they bring out the art as reason for being in the episodes I haven't watched yet... Competition can be found anywhere, take up running if that's your soul's inspiration...but Balanchine & ballet... There's so much more to it than "winning"... The first episode is so well shot, and cut, that surely Art will come out on top very soon?

If you see Sacre de Printemps, you should try to see it on the same bill and immediately following Les Sylphides, to get the full "shock" treatment as the original audience did... though I don't think anyone actually pairs these two together any more.

I'd add Bright Stream to your list, and more Balanchine.

I haven't seen a Spectre yet that explains the legend's lustre... Nijinsky must have had a truly unique stage presence.

'twas ever thus... the hiring of family members, friends & lovers... there are examples throughout the history of ballet...

But it's better when the family member fills an opening, than when someone is let go to make room for the family member. There are diplomatic ways of drawing on the talent resources of friends and family, and then there is what happened to Gribler, DeGregory, Hadley, Sheridan & Juska.

For some reason I thought AGMA had a prescribed time tor dancers to be hired. I thought all that took place in the Spring. How does it actually work then? Can a sudden replacement be made if a dancer quits? I guess AGMA would not want to ever make hiring a dancer difficult. It must be easier than say the POB's rules?

Thank you. Sometimes there seem to be uncredited sub-choreographers... Such as Shiryaev in Petipa character dance... And I wondered if a scene like that battle scene might be such a thing. I thought since fight choreography is its own specialized field in modern theater, perhaps it was also a specialty back then.

I can well understand how it might have been a difficult scene for a choreographer famous for needing to hear the music before choreographing what with how chaotic the music in the battle scene gets. Tchaikovsky is such a good storyteller, he even gives us a sense of the chaos of the battlefield.

Trying [unsuccessfully] to find where I read about Ivanov abandoning rehearsal when the music wasn't ready, I did find some nice notes on Ivanov..

https://www.balletmet.org/backstage/ballet-notes/200

http://www.abt.org/education/archive/choreographers/ivanov_l.html