Amy Reusch

Fascinating. I wish I could read Japanese. It's not a pirate version is it?

Didn't Dance Theater of Harlem have a Creole Giselle or am I confusing it with something else?

Ashley Bouder in Who Cares? But isn't this a tricky question, in that one dancer's musicality might glow in softer choreography while another's might be more striking in big vibrant movement? I only saw the movie once, but I remember thinking Galina Ulanova was very musical in her Romeo & Juliet. 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.

Thanks for posting this... it was nice to see some familiar names... it makes me wish all companies kept a "where are they now?" page on their websites so we could see where our favorites have gone on to.

Thank you, Leigh, for putting this topic up. It may not be dance, but many of us have been worried.

Carbro, please refresh my memory for me, did Hayden's studio become Darvash's studio (& then Steps for a brief while?) when Hayden went up to vitalize Skidmore's dance department? (Or have I got it all mixed up?)

This is dangerous to say, but I would hold off judgement on the Hayden class not knowing what took place... While the parent's reaction was truly wrongheaded (my God! What gems there are out there! How dense can you get?)... still, I was in a master class at SUNY Purchase with Melissa Hayden back in the late 1970s and my memories are not flattering to Ms. Hayden. And at the time, she had a notoriously bad rapport with accompanists. I don't know what the deal was, we must have got her on a particularly bad day, because no one could have gone on like that for very long.... I just would like to hear from someone else who was in the class first before I accuse the dance student of "not getting it".

Thank you Estelle! I wouldn't have thought of that.

What relationship is there between Celts & tigers?

I think there's a dirth of ballet touring in the United States... most of the ballet that tours, I think... would be the one night stand college venue tours that seem to book mostly Russian companies... It's very unfortunate. I live near Hartford, a small city in Connecticut which at one time was the richest city in America. Our local company failed around the millenium. We only get "stars of" type ballet tours in Hartford and small Russian companies at the University. ABT is touring to: Columbus, OH; Cleveland, OH; Kansas City, MO; Chicago, IL; Los Angeles, CA; and JAPAN NYCB - I'm not clear on where outside New York State one can see NYCB in performance in 2005. I wish the ABT Studio company would do the college tour... or the Joffrey. Modern dance companies tour quite a lot (at much less cost). Some of the ballet companies don't want to perform to canned music, but I think ballet to canned music in smaller venues is better than no ballet at all in the smaller venues. Wasn't that subsidized by the Princess Diana memorial funds? Last year there was some sort of cheap seat dance festival at City Center in NYC that did very very well. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have caught on as a management concept... though the 4th Ring Society at NYCB perhaps fills the bill: NYCB Fourth Ring Society

I think this might be a direct link to NYPL's Danse Macabre Digital Library Collection: Danse Macabre (took me quite a few clicks to find it, so I thought others might appreciate a direct link)

Thanks for the heads-up! What an interesting article! I never realized this was why she had such a carefully worked out technique... I've always sort of wondered why early modern dancers were so concerned with coming up with a codified technique [since more recent modern choreographers don't seem to be] ... thought it was some sort of way of countering Ballet's tradition and validating their own... never would have guessed there were financial reasons for it.

Well, I'm sure I'll have to read to book... but I'm still resisting. "contemporary dance" seems very amorphous a term to me... I understand the concept in visual art, but I find it harder to pin on dance.... sure, I see the typical 19th century concept of the feminine in 19th century ballets, but I'm not sure I see a return to this in contemporary dance (not unless we're talking MTV videos) I guess I need specific examples in contemporary dance... Marga, your argument is so strong... I follow you through the descriptions of Martha,... but could you give some examples of contemporary modern dance objectifying women... or is it that postmodern dance with it'a penchant for quoting objectifies and trivializes in the way of a generation raised in visual culture by Madison Ave via the medium of television? But I've seen postmodern choreography that points out the objectification mostly by quoting... that by being conscious of the objectification -- in a way that 19th century choreography wasn't self-aware-- that it is feminist commentary in a way that simply presenting "strong" women was not... perhaps the presenting "strong' women was feminist, and the postmodern quotation of objectfication stereotypes was feminist commentary. On the other hand, perhaps I'd better get a good night's sleep... I sense my rambling is spiraling.

I don't buy this argument for a minute. Ruth St. Denis (between Duncan & Graham) was very very ornamental... Graham certainly wouldn't have wanted de-sexualized dance... There was a whole movement away from ornamental toward either abstraction or psychological motivation. And does Tharp liberate the female body from sexual objectification? This is an attempt to borrow an argument from art history and apply it to dance history. I'm not sure the lens doesn't distort more than it succeeds in revealing. It seems kind of trite here. ... but as for the golden age of dance and the other reasons for it's demise, I think they're quite sound... though they should include the growth and near death of government subsidy, particularly the touring grants and the PBS media coverage.

Ari, Thank you SO much for the work you've done over the years on the news links... What a service to the international dance community they have been! I wish you all success in whatever you put your time towards now. Grateful regards, Amy

Actually, I think this "unique theatrical form" is perhaps less endangered than some other modern dance forms because the Graham technique was so clearly and distinctly defined... like ballet, there was a very clear ideal to be reached for... very exacting... very demanding... no muddling about acceptable... so much like Vaganova that I think Ballet-to-Graham is an easy mental training transition for a dancer... (of course the physical differences are another story) The company I saw a few years ago oddly enough reminded me more of a regional ballet company than the Graham company or even another modern company.... the sharpness and dynamic thrust was missing... the dancers were physically competent but lacked that edge... they somehow looked too stable or too balanced to communicate the energy properly.

My fear is that legacy is fast fading away... dance is so very ephemeral, so very youthful that if the works aren't being performed as they should be, very soon it is all forgotten and somehow films (in spite of our best efforts) don't seem to keep the flame very well... There has to be that magic of the live theater to inspire the next generation's commitment. Even the best films, don't, I don't think, give the viewers that visceral experience where one almost tenses up along with the performer on stage (though films do allow those of us who can't afford prime seats a good view of world class performers we would otherwise only understand from the upper balconies). I was so in favor of White Oak's committment to performing that earlier repetoire! But how can a $5 Million budget for a single modern company be floated? Ballet companies seem better structured for that sort of thing. Any thoughts?

Mainline Times: Putting it Together (Article on two behind-the-scenes anchors of Pennsylvania Ballet: Martha Koeneman, pianist & Tony Constandino, Stage Manager) I have been smiling ever since I read the following: [italics &i boldface mine]When someone has served an institution for as long as either of these two have [Koeneman: 32 years; Constandino: 22 years], particularly considering how many changes of administration a ballet company can go through, they become an institution in their own right. There are generations of dancers grateful to the two of them. Is it not unusual for a stage manager engage in on-stage swordplay?

NY Times: 6/9/05 Troubled Graham Troupe Retools I've always wondered about the Graham company's ability to persist after Graham was gone... Is it a museum or a dance company? Is it's only a curatorial situation, how will it attract dancers of a high enough caliber to keep the performances valid... and if it's a dance company, how can it add to it's repertory without losing Graham's artistic vision?

Well... I didn't get a chance to read my program until after the ballet was over (though I did attempt to find something out about the ballet by checking ABT's website the night before... to no avail! Whatever happened to ABT's wonderful old site? Tamara Barden's work was much better than this. I gave up trying to find the ballet's synopsis... assumed it had something to do with the Diana/Artemis legends... A friend called with an extra ticket a day before the premiere... I should have thought to dig into my Balanchine's Complete Stories of the Great Ballets... but alas... ). I was hoping to get a chance to check it out during the second intermission, but no luck as there was no second intermission. They looked like cats. They looked a lot like cats with rather strange tales. Their movement seemed to be cats (since when do goats bat at one another with their paws?... oh ok, maybe not "at" each other but still, those port de bras spoke of cats) Perhaps because I did not have my opera glasses and was up a balcony or two... but my friend had hers and she thought they were cats as well. I kept thinking to myself "what the?, did the Queen Mum fancy cats? What are they doing here? " Actually, the whole 3rd act was inexplicable without program notes... and at times it seemed to break into a sort of "Rocky Horror Show" or "Moulin Rouges" music hall 'let's everyone dance now' quality... Actually, the "what the?" was my reaction to a great deal of activity in the 3rd Act. I thought the whole performance was worth sitting through to see Gillian Murphy's pirrouettes... however, I wasn't thrilled otherwise.... Not knowing the ballet's historical casting, I spent the first act thinking "Fonteyn, Fonteyn, Fonteyn.. this ballet cries out Fonteyn". Perhaps it's a casualty of the Balanchine influence in America, but I don't think ABT's dancers understand port de bras musicality the way dancers in Fonteyn's time did... I don't think it's a "classical training" sort of thing, because I felt Maxim Beloserkovsky came up equally short in a Vaganova sort of way... hard to describe... too flashy? not quite... but it was more a "look at this snapshot, look at this snapshot" rather than an embodied fullness to the music.... I'm afraid not being a poet, it's difficult to describe the difference. However, please, if one is going to dance with a drawn bow, it is important to actually take aim, if the movement is going to come across otherwise the pose looks well... err.... like the dancer is more self conscious than movement conscious. I haven't seen much Ashton in my life and none recently. I enjoyed the contrast to his contemporary, Balanchine's work... Ashton has such a different understanding of pointe work... it seems much more about the special effect of pointe rather than Balanchine's use of it as an extension of line... The corps seemed like multiple pas de deux, more like "dancing people" than "architectural elements". I rather like how the corps wasn't together in places, it seemed to lend individual coloring to the movement... I thought perhaps it was left intentionally ragged. There was something about the choreography, I don't know quite what, but it seemed I always looked away just as something unfolded in the plot and found myself continually wondering "now where did that come from? This ballet doesn't hold together like the more famous story ballets, but it was reminiscent of the earlier court ballet entertainments with it's "reference club" allusions to mythology and the various cameo roles. The lighting* & costume pallet was quite beautiful. Gillian seems quite the coquette, I gather she makes a good Copellia? Perhaps more coquette than Amazon? I scrawled some comments in the dark on my program that I can make head nor tails of now: - want to crescent moon to be evoked with every arabesque... - corps like a frieze - wish that when they were blowing their horns it would be in time with the french horns in the score instead of seemingly random. - shades of the Willis in the first act - use of ballete - *except I didn't seem to like the opening of Act II for some reason... on the other hand there was some sort of torch bearer lighting that came off well? - one soloist, Terpsichore? was rather lax in her footwork... - "flowers! not batons!" - "wonderful glittering hand movement" - "nice sissone failli" - "pas after cats pure Petipa" - similarity between the Ashton & Balanchine Sylvia choreography: not a part for anyone with weak ankles. Oh dear! A performance can be so different depending on how far from the stage one is. I gathered from my friend with the opera glasses that Gillian's facial expressions were very worth catching.

Thanks Silvy for telling us how it went! I had been wondering how you made out. I think the audience was very very very lucky! Did they enjoy it? (I know I would have!) Did you get any feedback? ~ Amy

I was wondering, they didn't bring that work to NYC, I don't think... why not? Also, aren't they facing the Rockettes scourge this Christmas?

I was sort of hoping, that at the top of Russian ballet, there was "beyond Vaganova" training.

Thanks Leigh... I wonder, is Johnson suggested these choreographers put style above content? Eifman is pretty content-oriented from what I read... Not having seen him, I find the reviews reminiscent of Bejart... I rather enjoyed the wisdom of the peasantry more than Karenina's hysterias, but admit those wouldn't make for typical ballet fare... unless we get some sort of neo-Judson on historical themes...

Streb certainly makes use of extremes in her work! Are they "mannered"? I guess I need to know more about mannerism. Are mannerisms decorative?