doug
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Historically informed performance/Music
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Seattle
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A few things to consider when assessing Petipa's choreography and musicality: - Use of a violin repetiteur was de rigueur in theaters across Europe in the nineteenth century. Please see David Day's 2007 dissertation on this topic and Bruno Ligore's "Violin Conductor's Scores and Pantomimic Encoding in the first Half of the Ninenteenth Century: Some methodological approaches" (2023). - It is well-known that Petipa met with his composers and heard their music performed on piano. His instructions to composers demonstrate his musical competence and familiarity with orchestral instruments. - Petipa studied music theory and violin as part of his training. - Petipa seems to have preferred music written in consistent periods (such as 8-bar phrases) for purposes of choreographing complementary dance phrases. He was aware of Tchaikovsky's celebrity and hesitated to ask as much of him as he did with house composers. - Most choreography seen today that is attributed to Petipa has been altered from what he appears to have choreographed--some in part, some significantly, some completely. His musicality appears to have been what I call "literal"--the choreography closely follows the pulse of the music and the melodic line, with body weight shifted on the beat. This is true of all nineteenth-century ballet choreography I've studied as yet. This did not preclude occasional syncopation, however. The accent was usually down, not up. As Alexei Ratmansky, has observed, Petipa's choreographic phrases occasionally ignore a change in musical phrase, perhaps to provide choreographic counterpoint.
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Marian Smith and I have discussed some of these topics in detail in our book, Five Ballets from Paris and St. Petersburg. Henri Justamant made many staging manuals for 19th-century French ballets. Nikolai Sergeyev’s piano score for the Shades scene in Bayadère gives a metronome mark of 120 bpm for an 8th note in the variation shown in the video above. This is much faster than the variation is now traditionally danced. Increasingly slowing tempi has been a trend in ballet since at least the 1960s. It was very common in the 19th century for dancers acquiring new roles in existing ballets to interpolate new dances into those ballets, hence some ballets have come down to us with numbers by multiple composers.
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Marian Smith and I have a written a book on Giselle, Paquita, Le Corsaire, La Bayadère and Raymonda that is now published: Five Ballets from Paris and St. Petersburg (Oxford, 2024). We modeled it in part on Roland John Wiley's Tchaikovsky Ballets (Oxford, 1985) and have included detailed descriptions of early productions of the ballets, including descriptions of choreography, mime, action and music. More info here. I'm happy to answer questions about the book or the ballets.
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Live Stream of La Bayadere
doug replied to California's topic in Press Releases and Season Announcements
Here is my account of our approach to this reimagined Bayadère: Reimagining La Bayadère as Star on the Rise by Doug Fullington I’ve always thought Marius Petipa’s choreography for the character dances in his 1877 La Bayadère would look at home on the music hall stage. So when Phil Chan suggested that we collaborate on a reimagining of this revered but problematic ballet warhorse, originally set in a fantasy India, I hoped we’d settle on an early-twentieth century setting. After discussing a variety of scenarios, we landed on a backstage drama—a show within a show—one of the favored narrative structures of American musical theatre. Phil immediately identified the congruence between Bayadère’s love triangle of Nikia, Solor, and Gamzatti and that of Singin’ in the Rain’s Kathy Seldon, Don Lockwood, and Lina Lamont. This led us to our reimagined plot, a comedy (!) featuring an up-and-coming ingenue, her fiancé, and the reigning star of the Silver Screen. Nikki (Phil’s new name for Bayadère’s Nikia) would be our star on the rise. The Gershwins’ 1930 musical Girl Crazy, which made stars out of Ethel Merman and Ginger Rogers, has long been a favorite of mine with its dude ranch setting and terrific musical numbers. I was thrilled, then, that Phil was as game as I was to set most of the ballet’s dances as part of a cowboy-themed film being shot throughout our show. In short order, Bayadère’s opening ritual dance became a Campfire Waltz, the “Djampe” scarf number became a Cactus Dance—its performers wielding riding crops—and Petipa’s lavish Badrinata festival was transformed into a Rodeo Parade. Bayadère’s iconic Kingdom of the Shades scene called for special attention and a contrasting approach. We’ve made it the “dream ballet” of our show—an art deco fantasy inspired by the over-the-top creations of Busby Berkeley. We knew the score by Ludwig Minkus would need to be adapted to deliver the sound world of a vintage musical. This particular combination of symphony orchestra and jazz band is epitomized in the work of Robert Russell Bennett, the orchestrator of choice for most of the era’s tunesmiths. From the beginning, I had the wonderful vintage musical specialist Larry Moore in mind and hoped I could convince him to take on the project and give the score a Robert Russell Bennett treatment. Larry had worked on a reconstruction of Girl Crazy in the ‘90s, and I knew he’d be perfect for Star on the Rise. To my delight, he was more enthusiastic than I could have hoped, and we spent a happy nine months in 2023 working together as he adapted the score from period sources and sent me scans of his handwritten manuscripts, which I dutifully computer-set to create a full score, parts, and piano reduction. Larry worked from two Imperial-era rehearsal scores, one for two violins and another for piano. We breathed sigh of relief as we found that Minkus’s waltzes, polkas, and galops transformed easily into tangos, beguines, and Charlestons. The new orchestration for the Dreamland scene (Larry’s apt new title for the Kingdom of the Shades) was inspired by Bennett’s glamorous settings for the Astaire-Rogers hit film Swing Time. I’ve approached Petipa’s choreography for Bayadère based on the various ways the steps have come down to us. Nearly all of the ballet’s ensembles dances and a few solos were documented using the Stepanov choreographic notation system in connection with Petipa’s revival of Bayadère in 1900. Nikolai Sergeyev, a dancer in the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet who later became rehearsal director and an important ballet stager in the West, was the notator. His work is now housed at Harvard University. (The ballet’s mime script, also copied by Sergeyev, and Petipa’s own preparatory notes are held in Moscow archives.) In setting the dances, I’ve followed the notation closely, although we’ve allowed ourselves some latitude in the upper body (and occasionally in the legs and feet) to help place the choreography within our new narrative context. Some numbers that aren’t notated have been handed down by oral transmission, from dancer to dancer. For these, we’ve consulted the earliest films we were able to locate—usually mid-twentieth century black-and-white excerpts from Bayadère. Here, we’ve allowed ourselves additional freedoms in the staging, particularly where the “traditional” choreography seems not to represent ballet step vocabulary or structure that was common around the turn of the twentieth century. In the case of the adagio from the pas d’action in the final scene, we’ve created new choreography drawing on many inspirations. Likewise, the dances for the fakirs in the opening scene—undocumented and by early accounts demeaning and exoticized representations of Hindu religious thought to possess miraculous powers—have been replaced by choreography for our band of cowboys. For these passages, we looked to other cowboy-themed dances in the American repertory for inspiration, especially those by Agnes DeMille (Oklahoma, Rodeo) and George Balanchine (Western Symphony). (The cowboy roles are a composite of Bayadère’s fakirs, the young boy students in Petipa’s Badrinata festival scene—this choreography is shared with our young Buckaroos—and the ensemble in Bayadère’s "Hindu" dance.) We’ve reassigned several dances as well: Pamela Zatti, our Gamzatti character, performs Nikia’s vina (guitar) number in the opening scene, its music reimagined as a tango; Nikki performs the "Manu" dance in the Rodeo Parade scene, a moonshine jug replacing the milk pitcher of the original; and Pam and Sol (our Solor) dance the leads in the frenzied “Hindu" dance, here rechristened as Bronco Busters, another nod to Girl Crazy. The "Lotus" dance in the ballet’s finale scene was choreographed by Petipa for 24 student girls and provided us with a particular challenge because our resources didn’t allow for this cast size. Our solution has been to set the dance for six young students joined by six Rancher men from the IU Ballet Department, and we have adapted the choreography accordingly. We’ve also included a non-Petipa dance that has become part of Bayadère’s performance tradition—the 1948 interpolation for a character originally called the “little god,” better known today as the Bronze (or Golden) Idol. Finally, with Larry’s encouragement, we’ve replaced the ballet’s apotheosis, depicting Nikia and Solor flying through the mist over the Himalayas, with an upbeat Charleston finale that befits the uplifting ending of our new story. Structured in the manner of a Petipa coda, the number features the entire ensemble dancing to the strains of a jazzy, reimagined melody from the Kingdom of the Shades. The entire IU Ballet Department, especially its wonderful students, approached this project with generosity, openness, and enthusiasm. I sincerely thank them all. February 2024 I share more details in this video interview. For those interested in reading about Petipa's Bayadère in detail, you may consult my dissertation here or order Five Ballets From Paris and St. Petersburg, available soon from Oxford University Press. Further information about Star on the Rise can be found here. New York Times preview available here. -
Live Stream of La Bayadere
doug replied to California's topic in Press Releases and Season Announcements
You're correct that the first Shade variation should travel on the relevé arabesques, although in the notated version we used for the choreography the relevés are broken up by a bourrée upstage. Likewise, few steps are notated as being performed en face, and epaulement is something we worked on at length. The drum dance (Bayadère's Hindu dance or Danse Infernale) is performed as notated for the 1900 revival and as captured on film by Alexander Shiryaev with the exception of a few arm positions and movements for the ensemble as they pose in the diagonal on stage right when the principals make their entrance. I can assure you that my work on the choreography had nothing to do with any so-called "woke ideology." Steps were simplified only for the youngest dancers of the affiliated Jacobs Academy and based on the limitations of their age and training. Working with the students and faculty of IU Ballet Theater was a delightful and rewarding experience. I hope you might read my essay on our approach to the choreography that is included in the playbill, available at the IU streaming site, or on my website at https://www.dougfullington.com/star-on-the-rise. -
Live Stream of La Bayadere
doug replied to California's topic in Press Releases and Season Announcements
The stream of Star on the Rise: La Bayadère Reimagined has been posted on the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music site and is available here. A PDF of the playbill, which includes program essays explaining approach and process, is available here. -
Live Stream of La Bayadere
doug replied to California's topic in Press Releases and Season Announcements
Hi all, The music scores in the Sergeyev Collection that date from his time in Riga contain metronome markings for much of the Shades scene, and I followed those pretty closely. And yes, we weren’t able to rig the scarf successfully to fly up into the air halfway through the variation. In the Shades entrance, the dancers perform a cou-de-pied back after the cambre and before stepping forward. It ends up looking like a pas de cheval. -
Live Stream of La Bayadere
doug replied to California's topic in Press Releases and Season Announcements
Other performance will also be streamed (Saturday, March 30 @ 2:00 and 7:30 PM EDT), and I believe the streams (once edited) will be available for viewing on the same site for several weeks after the performances. For those interested, I've made a page on my website with information about Star on the Rise: https://www.dougfullington.com/star-on-the-rise -
The IU livestreams are free at https://iumusiclive.music.indiana.edu/#/. The livestream recording will live on the site for a period of time after the performances. I’ve created a page for the IU Bayadère (the ballet is titled Star on the Rise) at https://www.dougfullington.com/star-on-the-rise.
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A note on the Stepanov notations: They are unambiguous insofar as the material documented. There is only one way to read the system. Ambiguities lie where material is omitted (often upper body) and sometimes in how the steps fit the music (partiularly in adagio). But a glissade is a glissade, a jeté is a jeté, a ballonné is a ballonné, and so forth. Burlaka set the Bolshoi Corsaire choreography and didn't follow the notated steps. I don't know why, but this is his usual MO. Ratmansky didn't read the notation at that point and was unaware of that. For my work at Bavarian State Ballet, I was a consultant and not a stager. I showed the notated choreography but some of it was subsequently altered, embellished, and revised. For other numbers, I was asked to work with scores that didn't fit the notated choreography. There were multiple goals for the production and revival of choreography was only one among several. That's the frustration of being a consultant and not having the final say.
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I don't think the use of blackface in the current Mariinsky production of The Pharaoh's Daughter can be linked to Alexei Ratmansky, who has not been involved with the production since early 2022. I also don't think it is appropriate to suggest that this production is in any way a collaboration between Ratmansky and the current stagers even if the result bears the stamp of both parties.
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The "Peasant" pas de deux was performed as a pas de deux at the Paris premiere of Giselle in 1841 by Nathalie Fitzjames and Auguste Mabille according to the published libretto and press notices. The dance was also performed as a pas de deux in the St. Petersburg premiere in 1842. Versions of the pas de deux were notated by Henri Justamant and (in part) by Arthur Saint-Leon in the nineteenth century and by Nikolai Sergeyev (documenting Petipa's production) in the early twentieth century.
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I say this on no authority, but my guess is that most of the ballet is Ratmansky's staging (which was based on source material as much as possible) and that Candeloro came in to finish it up or get it on stage. I'll add that I'm shocked that someone from the West chose to do this and that the Mariinsky allowed it (allowed it not because of the war but because Candeloro is not Russian).
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Aurora in Petipa's production was 20 years old. In Diaghilev's 1921 production, Aurora's age was changed to 16. I prefer 20 years old and believe it's a more palatable and relatable age for our time.
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Giselle -- Feb 3-4 and Feb 9-12 Plus Streaming Option
doug replied to Helene's topic in Pacific Northwest Ballet
A note that Hilarion is the captain of the gamekeepers (hunters) and therefore a prominent citizen in the community who works for the Prince of Courlande. The first group of humans featured in Act Two are hunters and the second group (those confronted by the Wilis) are villagers.