Amy Reusch

Originally posted by Mme. Hermine:

The tribune's production profits, however, went to the chicago tribune charities, not solely to literacy programs (although there might have been one included in the list of over 20 charities i saw).

Thanks, I had been under the impression that they were mostly literacy programs. I stand corrected. But were any of the charities arts funding?

 certainly their promotion efforts (fair game if you're trying to sell something) weren't targeted at trying to destroy anything else, rather to sell their own tickets.

I agree that they probably weren't intended to destroy anything else, but the person who told me the story did imply that it was somehow aggressive. I must say the producer of the Tribune show for decades and decades, Archie Lang, didn't seem like a mean spirited guy, so perhaps too much was read into the effort.

So i always presumed that pressure was brought to bear upon the tribune to support the joffrey's production (and i have no idea by whom, this is a supposition) because otherwise the joffrey couldn't survive in chicago at all.

Of course there was a lot of discussion of this when Joffrey first moved there... and the Joffrey's then comeback was that they could survive by touring their Nutcracker. However, the time was apparently ripe for Archie Lang's retirement and his successor didn't seem to find the effort worth the return on the Page show. I suspect that Archie Lang had a great love of producing the ballet and his successor wasn't that interested in it. From what I understand, I don't believe the Tribune was losing money on the production (although I did hear more than one version of that story, not concurring), but perhaps they could make more money investing the same money in other ways. Also, they had to move the production out of the Airie Crown while that space was being renovated and maybe getting it into another space was just too much of a hassle, etc. etc. and then there was the director's heart attack, etc. etc. At any rate, I'm delighted that the Joffrey is doing well.

Originally posted by Mussel:

Joyce, BAM and City Center were (& still are)presenters of many dance and ballet programs which were in competition with Joffrey.

I still don't understand how the Joffrey would be in competition with City Center when they performed there themselves... But is City Center a presenter? I thought most companies just rented there and it usually almost breaks them (but they can't afford the loss of prestige that not playing Manhattan would cost them).

But no one is answering my original question... Is it a good time for dance companies to relocate out of NYC? Many of the regional companies are stronger than they were in the 1970s and some would say ABT & NYCB aren't as strong (although personally I can't comment, I've seen far too little dance lately).

[ 05-10-2001: Message edited by: Amy Reusch ]

Originally posted by mussel:

I believe its move had more to do with stiff competitions from NYCB, ABT, Joyce, BAM and from within City Center than city funding cut because city funding was never a major revenue source for NYCB & ABT.

It had been in competition from NYCB and ABT since the beginning... I don't understand why you say it was in competition with performing venues though. I guess I was a little vague when I referred to the city funding. I believe a strong reason the Joffrey left NYC was the cost of staying there. The cutting of city funding to the already strapped dance community made me think of Joffrey's decision to relocate. They're not the first ones to consider leaving NYC because of the cost. I seem to remember the Stock Market was considering moving to NJ recently.

Originally posted by salzberg:

So I think the question is:

Why is Chicago -- the 3rd-largest city in the US, with over 3 million residents -- such a bad place for ballet, when the art thrives in smaller cities such as San Francisco, Boston, and Atlanta?

Remember that Chicago is a veritable hotbed of activity in theatre (to the extent that there's a separate Actors' Equity contract for "Chicago Area Theatres") and has an opera company that is, to say the least, healthy.  One would expect, then, that this arts-awareness would carry over.

When I lived and worked in the dance world there (1992-1996), I felt strongly that it was because of the Chicago Tribune that dance did so poorly. (I was very sad to come to this conclusion as coincidentally both my grandmother and grandfather had worked for the Tribune.) While the Tribune ran it's Nutcracker with full page advertisements beginning around Labor Day, Ballet Chicago had no chance. They would just disband (back when they had AGMA contracts, that is), and let their dancers do guest work (often with the Tribune) rather than try to compete. And I remember someone at Pennsylvania Ballet telling me that when the Pennsylvania/Milwaukee ballet toured their Nutcracker there, the Tribune production had giant rats leafletting outside for their own production. And the money generated by the Tribune Nutcracker didn't go back into the dance world, I believe, but into literacy programs (to generate more newspaper readers)... And of course there was very little dance coverage, either in the Tribune or the local media. And then again, if most people's initial exposure to ballet is The Nutcracker, they were not too well served by the Page production... Not perhaps because of the choreography but more because of the giant cave of a theater it was presented in... The stage was 90 feet across, after being cut down by legs, I believe (it made a miserable wide shot on video). (How wide is the Bolshoi by the way?) The Airie Crown theater might have been fine for convention speeches but it was not friendly to dance... and I don't think much of the Auditorium Theater either (I think I remember hearing ABT had a miserable time trying to fit their sets in there)... Actually, that's one of Chicago's major problems... no good dance venue... For as much as I agree with Leigh Witchel about the unfortunate tendency of philanthropists to be willing to put money into physical structures instead of artistic "software", having access to a decent venue seems to make or break a lot of dance companies. (It certainly killed dance here in Hartford.).. And then there's no "boulevard" in the Loop (like NYC's upper west side area surrounding Lincoln Center) for after the theater.... the Loop (Chicago's downtown is very much like NYC's Wall Street area... it closes down after 5pm weekdays)... there's almost no place really to go hang out after the performance... people just get back into their cars and drive to the suburbs.

It also seemed like Chicago was such a sports fanatic town that it didn't believe anyone could be interested in the performing arts...(I remember sitting in the dressing room at Ruth Page's studio and commenting sadly on the death that day of Nureyev --or was it Fonteyn?-- and getting the response from another dancer "Yeah, but what really sucks is that they fired Ditka!"[Chicago Bears Football coach].... and yet the opera there is a tremendous success... (and if I remember also stopped making their theater available to dance...) Is the CSO (Chicago Symphony Orchestra) still doing well or is their audience growing greyer & greyer too? Classical music stations are closing around the country, it's truly frightening to think what might happen if America no longer supports its orchestras).

It's too bad. Chicago has the potential to be a major dance center what with it's cheap rent. Maybe the Joffrey will transform it. Certainly Hubbard Street has had success there.

[ 05-09-2001: Message edited by: Amy Reusch ]

When it moved out of Manhattan? How is the company doing? I've been wondering after reading about NYC's mayor Gulianni cutting dance funding by 70%... Should more major companies consider relocating?

... and talking to graduating dance/performing arts students about trying to make it in American's dance capital in the new millenium... I'd like to advance another theory about the 1970s "dance boom"... I believe the NEA touring program and the then excellent PBS "Dance in America" television series had much to do with it, but... I think NYC near bankruptcy and hence cheap real estate had equally as much... back then it was possible to pay rent and take several classes a day... and it was possible for the dance studios also to pay rent (how many closed or merged in the 1980s? I wonder what the statistics are... are there less dance studios today than in the 1970s? If dancer students don't make it into SAB is there no other real financial pre-professional alternative? What is the scholarship situation? Even if you have a scholarship for unlimited free classes, how can you afford to pay the rent on a waitstaff salary?

I'm always suspicious of boards that fire the founding artistic director (unless the board itself searched for and found the first artistic director). It seems pretty shabby treatment to me... it seems that if you've kept someone on for 15 years, even it is on a year-to-year contract basis, you don't have as casual a relationship as Barb Stephens implies:

Barb Stephens, board member and general manager of the ballet company, agreed. "He's just on a contract year to year," she said of Bennett. "It's just a contract that wasn't renewed."

At a salary like that, with no benefits, for someone in their 70s... it sounds to me like he's been making an "in-kind" contribution for years, even if the tax accountants wouldn't put it on paper.

Not to give more of an explanation implies there was something unspeakable going on until one reads about the board firing the founding AD...

[ 05-07-2001: Message edited by: Amy Reusch ]

But the photographs also showed Sacre to be a clear choreographic stepping stone between the Italian ballet master, Enrico Cecchetti and the mother of modern dance, Martha Graham, and the idea of attempting to reconstruct the ballet took root.  - Deborah Bull

Anyone else have a little trouble with the above statement? It implies that Graham was influenced by both Cecchetti and Nijinski... I've never read anything that implied this was the case before... I don't believe she ever saw Nijinski nor that Ruth St. Denis & Ted Shawn taught Cecchetti.

To a 21st century ballerina, schooled in Graham, MacMillan and Forsythe, the work feels not exactly modern, but markedly different from anything else I've danced in either classical ballet or abstract contemporary dance.  -Deborah Bull

I wish all ballet students realized the value of such exposure.

I've just been asked to start thinking about editing a documentary on the art of reconstructing lost works (in this case, lost modern dance works). I don't know how I can delve into it publicly without risking offending collaborators simply by asking the question, but an issue that concerns me is "how much of the construction is the reconstructor?". I don't think the reconstructor can honestly answer that beyond saying which parts they didn't remember the exact steps to, because even the memories they do have of the choreography are very much colored by who they are themselves. Thank heavens, though, that long term memory is the last to go! Would that more legacies out there (Tudor, for instance)were following in the Balanchine Foundation's footsteps... but the issue of money always comes up. Thank heavens for NIPAD and Save As: Dance http://save-as-dance.org/

[ 05-01-2001: Message edited by: Amy Reusch ]

You had me going for a minute there.. I thought perhaps they had three simultaneous rose adagios happening...

Originally posted by Dale:

Thanks Doug.  Nice interview, by the way. I wish NYCB would bring back Pas de Dix.  I think Miami City Ballet does it regularly.

I believe this is another Balanchine Foundation project and they've already taped Maria Tallchief on the subject. They also have a tape on Patricia Wilde coaching a Raymonda variation. The tapes are available for viewing in several libraries. Hopefully they'll get their website up and then the following link will have some info for you: http://www.balanchine.org/

Meantime, it's probably listed in the NYPL Dance Collection catalog.

[ 05-01-2001: Message edited by: Amy Reusch ]

What's Johan Renvall up to these days? I just noticed that the URL to his dance company Revall Dance Company seems to be dead. Is the company alive and well, or in the same state as his website?

Originally posted by Andrei:

Yvonne and Terry you can order the video from Leigh's last performnce, I believe.

I don't believe... I know you can ;)

I hope you can all see his next concert. He certainly deserved the Guggenheim.

Originally posted by Andrei:

Amy, now a little surprise. Olga Radchenko is the daughter of Sergey Radchenko and she is not a proffessional dancer !   ;)

Thank you Andrei! I was wondering why her bio was missing from the program! She had the most interesting presence on the stage that evening. Is she perhaps an actress?

Originally posted by Pamela Moberg:

I will write at length on the different kinds of Spanish dancing, classical, folk and otherwise, when I get the time.

But, needless to say, Andalucia was not the inspiration for Petipa, rather the middle of Spain or thereabouts.

When you do, could you talk a little about "Spanish Classical Dance"? I'm a little unclear about whether it still exists, is a historical form, and what it's relationship is to what we see in ballet and in flamenco. (Please?)

Originally posted by alexandra:

I'd never thought of Elssler inventing the backbend (or bringing it in to classical performances).  I don't mean to say that I think someone else did, just had never thought of its history.

I thought her backbends in a Spanish Dance was what she was primarily famous for (along with her earthy style opposed to Taglioni's)... (oh, and of course for the US Congress going into recess to pull her carriage through the street or something)...

I didn't mean to imply that I thought she invented them (I seem to recall Egyptian tomb paintings of dancers doing backbends).

[ 04-11-2001: Message edited by: Amy Reusch ]

While we're still on the topic of Don Quixote, can I ask about the Act II variation of Mercedes? I just saw Moscow Festival Ballet's version. All those backbends looked to me like how Fanny Essler's performances were described. I've not seen anything like in the flamenco performances I've shot (I haven't seen a lot of flamenco, but have worked with 4 different companies across the country)... Is it a throwback to Fanny Essler or have I just not seen enough Spanish dance?

I did finally see Moscow Festival Ballet perform Don Quixote last Thursday, and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the company. No, indeed it did not look like a pick-up company... I was impressed at how well matched the corps and demi-soloists were. They had beautiful pointe work, and clean lines. However, I think this ballet involves a lot of flirtatious dancing and unfortunately I saw a lot of "studio face", if you will... with the notable exception of Olga Radchenko (is she related to the director?) as Mercedes in Act II (this role was split-cast). All those deep backbends made me think about Fanny Essler. I've never seen it in the various flamenco companies I've shot... is it a throwback to the 1830s? Also, they used metal chalices instead of daggers for the Act I Mercedes variation... took us some time to figure out what they were (my husband never did), and I spent most of the variation trying to figure it out until the corps picked them up "drank" out of them. I really think they should use "glass"ware to reintroduce some daring into the variation... My other complaint was that I hear this music as big "sail through the air" music, and these dancers tended to slice the air in their jumps instead of delivering the bouyancy the music calls for. They did however give us the casting in the program!!!! Marina Rzhannikova had such lovely pointework that I was truly disappointed when she didn't do the pas de cheval variation in the grande pas but rather something that was mostly about passes... Her performance was quite clean but rather restrained when it came to magic between Kitri and Basilio: Mikhail Bessmertnov. Mikhail was fine, but there was something stunted about the way he landed his jumps... perhaps it was the floor of the theater... not a good theater (they could only use one of their 8 drops... made the lighting for the dream scene look oddly bright)... Speaking of the dream scene, I would be delighted if someone would just remove it from the ballet! Timofey Lavrenuk turned it a very strong Espada. Oddly enough, I felt myself wanting to watch this company perform Concerto Barocco instead of Don Quixote. I missed that exagerated Russian acting and the great vaulting leaps. This generation of Russians (at least at the level of this company) seem restrained. In the grand pas, there are those .. oh what are they called?... tour a la seconds that end fouetted into arabesque as Basilio catches Kitri.... Whenever I've watched less accomplished dancers try them, there's that moment where you hold your breath wondering if he'll catch her before she falls... these were so matter-of-fact as to have lost all their excitement. I watched Baryshnikov's version (early 1980s?), and so enjoyed the part where he tosses and catches Kitri in grand jete rather than simply supporting her... was secretly hoping to see it happen with Moscow Festival Ballet, but it didn't.

[ 04-11-2001: Message edited by: Amy Reusch ]

Did anyone notice this on the Links page? [http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/arts_culture/bbal04042001.htm] if you didn't...

What do you all think? Would it be a good idea? Do you think if graduates were hired that we'd have some more stable companies in this country, or is Ballet inherently a non-stable endeavor? Seems like Pacific Northwest Ballet & Houston Ballet have it pretty together... But what is going on in Boston now... not just Boston Ballet, but Dance Umbrella and Marcus Schulkind... it's as if the dance world in Boston is imploding... makes one wonder if a major patron of dance just passed away there...

Originally posted by doug:

Alexandra, my knowledge of the early post-Revolution era in Soviet Russia is pretty limited.  Souritz deals with the ballet "to be or not to be" crisis on pages 42-50.  According to Souritz, Lunacharsky was the main leader involved in championing the ballet, first in Moscow, then in Petrograd.  She doesn't mention Vaganova in this section.  In fact, Vaganova is mentioned only once in the entire book, re her 1930s redaction of Swan Lake.

I've read of Lunacharsky as well, but don't remember where... I seem to think it was in Bernard Taper's biography of Balanchine [which I sadly do not own], but was it perhaps in "Choura" Danilova's memoires [which sadly I did own but lent out and now seem to have lost]? I don't remember any answer to my question in the mention, but perhaps if someone owns the Taper here they might post the pages that reference Lunacharsky from the index.

It seems there should be a book on Lunacharsky, doesn't it? Is there?

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Originally posted by alexandra:

The Danes have wonderful theories of what's suitable for children.  Did he tell you the story of Hans Brenaa sending him down to the canteen to get him "a glass of milk from the black cow" (The Danes very strongest beer, beer you can stir with a spoon, it's so thick) when he was a very small boy?  

I was rather hoping for some stories of mischief behind the scenes, but perhaps, given that the primary audience was young kids with several of their parents and school director present, he didn't think it was a good idea to go on much about that?

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Two questions for the history buffs...

(I was watching the ABT version by Baryshnikov with Cynthia Harvey as Kitri, and got to wondering.)

1) I don't know how close this version is to the original, but it looks to me like the original was made to showcase Italian technicians... I suppose everything back then was, but this with all it's "hard" pointe work really seems like it.

2) With the buffoon like role of the nobility here mixed with the flirtatious glamour among the [young] common people, it seems like it would have been the perfect vehicle to convince the soviet government after the revolution to preserve the ballet. Does anyone know if this particular ballet played any part in that?

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Dance Links: www.dancer.com/dance-links

Originally posted by Michael1:

Amy - Where and what was the occasion for Nikolaj Hubbe's presentation about this?

It was a Master Class offered by Dance Connecticut (formerly Hartford Ballet). I don't know whether it was a fundraiser or not. Now that they no longer support a company, (and seem to have some sort of identity confusion as a result) besides presenting modern dance companies they hosted two master classes. The first was with Leslie Brown which I could not attend. I don't know what the reason is for holding master classes, other than working on the quality of the school... I guess it's sort of like having guest artists dance with your ballet company? Where I grew up, NJ Ballet, they had a master class with Edward Villela every year. They usually are wonderful classes because the teacher usually is committed to getting real info out, isn't bored yet with the students & routine of that particular school, and is probably getting a pretty penny for their teaching.

One thing I forgot to mention about Nicolaj Hubbe's talk, something I particularly enjoyed... was that he said they had a policy of keeping the school very cold while the children's class was going on, warming it up only after they were off to their academic lessons, when the company classes began... apparently there is a theory that children tend to become lethargic in warm spaces and that this would energize them!

Originally posted by alexandra:

I can do this one!!!

Bits of Bournonville's ballets that would have otherwise been lost were saved this way.  The dancing school act of Konservatoriet, *his* saving of his teacher, Auguste Vestris's, class, and, I believe,

Oh, thank you for answering another question I didn't quite ask right of Nicolaj Hubbe: where was Bournonville from. I understand that his mother was Swedish and his father French but that he was born in Denmark. I'm embarrassed not remember exactly and don't have my encyclopedia handy, but Vestris was a product of the Paris Opera, no?

They weren't danced Monday on Monday, etc., at least not in the 1940s.  They would do Monday for three or four days until the teacher thought they'd made some progress, and then move on to Tuesday.  

Doesn't seem like it would be good for sharpening up one's skill at picking up combinations quickly, does it?

If you survived, you made it to the front row.

We had something like within each class (not all ages) when I was growing up at NJ Ballet. The teacher would assign positions with only the advanced students in front and sometimes you moved up and sometimes you moved back according to how well they thought you were doing amongst your peers. One teacher even took it to the barre, with only the advanced students at the front of the line... one bad mistake and you were sent "off to Siberia" at the rear... she sat her stool in front of the first 6 and watched like a hawk.

Glad you went to the seminar.  Please post more about it, Amy.

I did, in your "teachers" forum, but it doesn't really deal with Bournonville, only the master class where he didn't say what was from Bournonville and what was from Balanchine.

Of course, I'm hoping Alexandra fills in!

Today I was at a talk by Nicolaj Hubbe and I asked about something I had heard decades ago about Bournonville technique. I had heard that they had a different class for each day of the week and that the class focussed on a certain skill... for instance, on Mondays the class would always work on turns, Tuesdays petite allegro, etc. At first Nicolaj said that no, each class got around to everything, but then as I restated the question said that it had been the case that when Bournonville died his students got together and wrote down his classes and that there was one class for each day of the week. I wasn't sure what he meant by this, so he elaborated that every Monday you got the exact same class from month to month, year to year, etc. and that there were some old character dancers who could practically show up blindfolded and do the whole thing, but that the practise had ended sometime around perhaps the 1950s.

So, my question is, was Erik Bruhn the product of this old system?

[This message has been edited by Amy Reusch (edited April 02, 2001).]

Originally posted by Andrei:

Sorry, Amy, I'm not with you on the last one. It's not technique for the star and technique for corps de ballet people. It's one technique for everybody and all movements have to be executed properly. The classical ballet has the same arms and legs positions for NYCB, Mariinsky or Grand Opera dancers. If they fell form pointe, late with timing, can't finish pirrouette in the clear visual position they have a week techique, doesn't matter were they are dancing.

I seem to have been a bit vague... What I meant was that many principals/international stars come endowed with physical gifts that may compensate for weaknesses in the technique, and it may be easier to see such flaws in the average dancer.

Of course, no one should fall from pointe, although different schools have different ideas, it seams on how to get up on pointe... some schools seem less interested in rolling through the feet and want harder pointe shoes, others prefer very soft shoes (think of the differences between the French school and the Italian/Russian school in the late 19th century)...

Actually, I don't think arm positions are universal through out all the schools... some schools have very different ideas about how far forward the arms should be in fifth, where they should be in arabesque, how rounded the shoulders and arms should or should not be in second, and even how high the should be... and there are different names for arabesques, as well as first and third position.

One more thing I wanted to add... To judge a technique's weaknesses, I don't think one should look at principal or international star level dancers but rather at the average dancer turned out by that school. (Although, if you want a good example of it's strengths, perhaps the reverse is true).

Before I make a fool of myself in print (somehow I've never felt that serious about the internet... probably that brands me as an old fogey), I thought I'd check with whoever is listening here about the tradition of naming one's company "X Festival Ballet". My impression is that the first Festival Ballet was the Markova-Dolin effort and they named their company "Festival Ballet" because of that year's "Festival of Britain". Suddenly, it seems to me that there are many "Festival Ballet"s out there... Are they all following the London Festival Ballet precedent? And is it from the Markova days or were they inspired by the more recent form of the company? In other words, did other Festival Ballets only begin springing up in the 1990s founded by people who had been inspired by Markova, or were they inspired by Nagy?