papeetepatrick

pas·sion·al (psh-nl) adj. Of, relating to, or filled with passion. n. A book of the sufferings of saints and martyrs. pas·sion·ate (psh-nt) adj. 1. Capable of, having, or dominated by powerful emotions: a family of passionate personalities. 2. Wrathful by temperament; choleric. 3. Marked by strong sexual desire; amorous or lustful. 4. Showing or expressing strong emotion; ardent: a passionate speech against injustice. 5. Arising from or marked by passion: a teacher who is passionate about her subject. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These are definitions from the same online dictionary. I asked because I have never even heard the word 'passional', and wondered if it is a term whose meaning (and particular word) is more used in Italian. Passion directed toward oneself or without, as your 'pathos when he is onstage and... to the public' is nevertheless in the same family. What I was getting at probably most primarily is that 'lyrical' can certainly include gentle emotions of whatever kind--and these are not necessarily imbued with any kind of passion in the most literal sense, unless all sincere emotion or strong emotion is passion. In a sense you can say that it is, but this would mean that many distinctions between clarity/lucidity and passion are not very important. I think that in all the classical arts they are--whether one is talking about the difference between classicism and romanticism, or in such religious senses as can be found in the Bhagavad-Gita, in which there is 1) the man of dark inertia, 2) the man of passion, 3) the man of lucidity.

Dancerboy--do you mean 'passional' as 'passionate'? Surely these are part of it, but I usually think lyrical--which, unlike 'variation', is the same in music, dance or poetry--means to most of us 'poetic, musical' after all it comes from the lyre. Not that lyrical can't also mean passionate, but I hadn't thought most of us thought of it as nearly always emphasizing that--surely it does not. 'Lyrical' could as easily be a matter of something very Apollonian, with such qualities as lucidity or clarity being more the character than the more fiery and fleshly matters we usually associate with 'passionate'. I didn't know about 'lyrical jazz dance', that may be fairly new as terminology if it's very specific and not just descriptive sometimes. Edited to add: Here are several definitions from an online dictionary that may help: lyr·ic (lrk) adj. 1. a. Of or relating to a category of poetry that expresses subjective thoughts and feelings, often in a songlike style or form. b. Relating to or constituting a poem in this category, such as a sonnet or an ode. c. Of or relating to a writer of poems in this category. 2. Lyrical. 3. Music a. Having a singing voice of light volume and modest range. b. Of, relating to, or being musical drama, especially opera: the lyric stage. c. Having a pleasing succession of sounds; melodious. d. Of or relating to the lyre or harp. e. Appropriate for accompaniment by the lyre. n. 1. A lyric poem. 2. Music The words of a song. Often used in the plural. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000023/ This is one of the best pages I've ever seen on IMDB, it's under Judy Garland's main page, but in the early movies it lists all the songs she sings in a fair number of the movies. Best of all, in some of the listings, even the year is given, so you can really see when something made in the 40s is harking back to 1912. Somebody did a good job on that page. It doesn't list the composers, but that's easy to look up. Also, several recommended 'Good News'. Finally watched it, and it is a quite nice piece of Americana, reminds me of some of the better Doris Day musicals. Might be June Allyson's best light film, and Peter Lawford is quite handsome in it.

Hans--thanks for your excellent tutelage, I've learned a lot already. Would you say that what you say about the 'Dances at a Gathering' variations applies to all Balanchine and many others neo-classical or Romantic Revival, et alia, so that Petipa variations are therefore the originary sense of the ballet variation, as it were, and that there then grow these other kinds up to the present, that are still very recognizable relatives? I noticed people talking about variations for City Ballet dancers and others, 'Ballo della Regina', 'Apollo' and others.

I don't think they're analogous at all. That some musical variations have been made into ballets doesn't have anything to do with the difference remaining, even within the work choreographed to the musical variations, i.e., there are surely many ballet variations in the works choreographed to musical variations--existing simultaneously, but separately as kinds of variations. What I was interested in with 'Dances at a Gathering', which is various Chopin pieces, not all the same form, I believe, but don't remember too well, is if there are ballet variations within it. I would imagine some will know here if some of the solos are variations. In any case, the Chopin music used is not a set of literal musical variations, even if they are related and chosen so that they do almost seem a kind of non-literal set of them. Also, I wondered if the solos in 'Les Sylphides' are variations. This is the kind of distinction I'm still not versed on.

That's lovely, drb--I can't add anything to that except that he really had been something we knew about and loved for so long, that when I saw the obituary I was surprised he was not at least 6-10 years older.

All the Sleeping Beauty variations people have named. How does Dances at a Gathering rate as variations? It probably reminds me of musical variations, but isn't quite. I saw it only once and long ago, but it was divine. Yes, good topic, it's interesting for musicians to find out that a ballet variation is like an aria (at least according to wiki). I couldn't connect to Hans's link nor find it by searching, so if someone knows where it is, I'd appreciate another try at the links to that thread.

dancerboy--that's the COOLEST OF THE COOL! Bravo!

In this case, we turn out to be discussing both, and the Goldberg Variations is sublime. I don't remember seeing it on NYCB programs for some years, though, and I only saw it once. Someone here will be sure to know, though.

Thank you, cristian, I am glad to finally hear it again in proper form.

"Her goals have been to dance in Balanchine ballets." That's the second part of Peter Martins's description of Suzanne Farrell, and I was struck by it the first time I read it. I have never heard ambition phrased so. It's perfect, because it doesn't look beyond what she was currently doing (c. 1983), and had long been doing, toward anything beyond it. Another quote I adored was Martha Graham talking about 'the body as garment' or perhaps 'ultimate garment', but I can't remember the exact quote, and I may have read it in an early 80s NYT article. If somebody remembers it, please fill in! I feel quite the same way about this matter, tending to agree with Ms. Graham on many things.

Totally agree with you. Can't even remember a movie of her without Googling...(which i won't, BTW) I just could never get over how modern laundries were clearly in existence in the time of 'Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman'. Everything was so spotless it might as well have been Switzerland or something. It was probably a sort of 'touched by an angel' precursor, as it did not have any of the dirt that the old Westerns had (and needed.)

Definitely disagree on this one, because it is the bringing back of almost-forgotten stars who come to full bloom in Sondheim's show's original cast--Alexis Smith, Dorothy Collins, Yvonne deCarlo, Ethel Shutta--which brings the aura to 'Follies'. Also, even with Barbara Cook's singing, there's no voice as full and rich with passion in 'Two Many Mornings' as that of Dorothy Collins, beautifully partnered by John McMartin. And it goes even deeper now--because all of these old stars have permanently disappeared by now, from a story that was already about ghosts. Agree with Bart about the wonderful original cast album of 'Company', especially for Pamela Myers's 'Another Hundred People', Elaine Stritch and the guys in 'Have I Got a Girl for You..'. DVD of concert performance of 'Sweeney Todd' is good with Patti Lupone, although I don't like this show basically. I prefer 'Passion', for which there is a good DVD, but I don't care for either that or 'A Little Night Music' all that much, the chic European things don't quite come across for me. Maybe you should do one American one like 'Company' and one European-themed one, any of the above. Both 'Sweeney Todd' and 'Sunday in the Park with George' is not broad enough, I would think, if you only have two. Better to use one of those and even 'Gypsy' or 'West Side Story' where you can hear his lyricist's brilliance although not his music (although I think those two composers, Styne and Bernstein, are much greater composers), or you may be a little too close in one single period of Sondheim with just those two you named.

It's the same reason why the news on tv are mainly about bad facts happened...there's not much to say if something is likeable,nice and beautiful....;-)and dancers(and co.)are deemed to be very fussy and damn critical.Isn't it so?go on posting... But, even if the single post is longer, the different posts and threads added together that are enthusiastic about dance and dancers end up swamping the 'negative' post. The critical posts are necessary, but i would disagree that this is like the news, because the 'positive' news on newscasts and in newspapers are not even supposed to be the main thing, they are features and diversions. There was a film made back as far as the early 60's, can't remember the name, French though, that was about the attempt to turn all news into 'good news' and the results, which might seem to be admirable at the outset, were disastrous. But this forum obviously spends a lot more time celebrating dance than it does lamenting it, so that even the ones that are obviously for doing some dishing are not like newspapers with only the lastest events--threads are revived at BT from many years back and continued, which goes along with the sense of tradition. That the 'Boring Ballet' got this many hits and comments is probably purely coincidental with who picked it up and revived it, and then it's also novel and an important matter too, so that people don't get too stiff and reverential: Like, say, it was good for some people on the thread to say they find 'Diamonds' boring, so they are not forced to be in an artificial state of awe even about one of Balanchine's most quintessential and ultimate works. It made me think that on one level I probably find it boring too, since I don't really want to see it with anybody but the original--although that could change.

Oh, good heavens, yes, boredom is so readily available that we forget how offensive it is...I think carbro is trying to direct us to something that is truly so gross but that we will actually go back for more of its peculiarly disgusting fascination, and I find that easier with television and movies, of which there are literally hordes of items available.

Oh, dear, I just don't know how to get my point across, je crois...I can only say that 'Mayerling' is both offensive and extremely boring. Mr. Mukhamedov got me through the tape, I never think he is boring, and felt fortunate that I hadn't gone out to a real performance of it...Maybe the endless but uninteresting plot twists were what made it boring, but the barroom scene with the sped-up 33 LP to 78 'mephisto waltz' was horrifying, yet also boring... of course, you have a good point about this in general, and I know a lot of offensive things that are not boring. Let me see if I can think of a ballet....off-hand, most ballets that are truly offensive are also boring, like Sleeping Beauty on Ice Skates. I'll admit ballet by its nature is not that often as overtly offensive as are other arts quite often, I think it is usually that they are offensive if they do something gross with the music. I'll get back to you when I have found something truly offensive but fascinating!

It is unquestionably sleaze! I know of many ballets I find boring, and some have been put here. Frankly, I don't find 'Six Antique Epigraphs' as boring as Mel does, I don't know how much it has to do with the Debussy music, which is so divine. But I actively loathe 'Mayerling', more than any ballet I've ever seen by a major choreographer, both for reasons I've written in other threads and alos for the excellent reasons written by people here. (I liked it considerably less than even Bart and Mme. Armfeldt...) What is done to the Liszt is musically criminal, and the plot is completely repulsive, not to mention seeming to weigh a ton.

But the 'extra-theatrical anything' can be part of what makes some aspects of technique deteriorate in front of our eyes. Anyway, even if you think 'Raymonda' is rarely danced as finely as it once was, other things we've been talking about in the other threads prove that dazzling technique, even if not always imbued with all the 'extra-theatrical' things, can remain extant in athletic form (I haven't heard of ballet use of steroids and other drugs as in the Olympics, baseball and Tour de France, but it's bound to exist already or will exist--and without even quite the stigma, because it's less a matter of one competition after another and against another specific competitor in ballet and other dance). EAW, do you possibly mean that certain aspects of technique are emphasized at the expense of others? Because for the most part, but with much less experience and expertise, I agree with Leigh's last comment on the 'over breeding', and that the Pandora's box, both here and elsewhere, is not going to be closed. Along those lines is the near-impossibility in such an environment of realistically expecting another Balanchine to all of a sudden appear. He was still very much an extension of the 19th century, and that's just not going to be available. It just occurred to me that the 'Dance don't think' is just the more imperative version of what really means 'Think with the dancing' or 'Dance the thinking' or 'Make the dancing think itself' or, more simply, 'Think through the dancing.' One hears these short quotations of Balanchine like this and 'art is technique', and realizes that they are not to be taken purely literally, because they can be proved to be both true and false due to being oversimplified (probably to make a momentary point, that moment in time in which the quote was made having been entirely lost) and therefore taken in any number of ways. While art is technique, it obviously isn't only technique, and Balanchine would not have been able to demonstrate Apollo to Edward Villella in the way he is documented to have been able to do if this sort of thing were always to literally obtain.

They aren't similar at all. People will write anything.

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=22902 There's discussion (and answers) on this Farrell thread.

I managed to Google and find a clip of the Grand Pas with Guillem just now. It was especially interesting to 'watch the music', since I have not got any sound on this computer. My impression is that she is all sharpness and no softness at all. I may be wrong, because at the time I wasn't paying too much attention, but I think there were some critics who didn't like Susan Jaffe's sharpness during her earliest years, or at least around the early 80s. I never saw her in person until 1996 with ABT, where she was Juliet, and it was not so much I thought about softness, but rather lightness so that it did not look so severe even with Jaffe's very sharp technique--in short, I was blown away and transported at Jaffe's astonishing dancing. In this Guillem clip, I find that I agree with EW in that, however, slightly altered--the extensions actually do at one viewing seem to be more or less in harmony with the rest of her dancing, but I also find them not beautiful in themselves, i.e., it's just dancing I can't appreciate. It looks too fast, and makes me wonder if some of our threads on conductors with their too fast tempi are always to blame, because it's nearly impossible to imagine Guillem not being able to keep up with even the fastest tempi. I never see any repose, and that's very modern and, in music, can be very legitimate, but in 19th century work I'm just not moved. Pierre Boulez's 'La Mer' is supposed to be exemplary, but I don't think such a speedy businesslike and unromantic interpretation is especially admirable. This attitude is more appropriate for his own music. Even though most will have speakers, it is worthwhile to watch dancers without the music--I do this on tapes to--so as to try to ascertain the musicality of the dancer. Leonid is surely right about Guillem being one of those dancers that divides audiences into very clear camps; to me, her Aurora looks like something somewhat circus-like, I find it slightly blinding and in a thoroughly non-romantic way.

Unfortunately, I think they are a curiosity in the sense of what is currently still ruling the various serious fields, but for the future--even the near future--I don't. And this is related to the pop culture 'n' ballet thread, given that much youth culture is even described as 'media-driven.' If you look at it from the other side, those whose whole orientation is to pop and tech-oriented things, they definitely find classical music and ballet a curiosity, and do not see it at all in the ways those of us who have imbued our lives with it. And they are the ones in the majority--if we can hold our own at Ballet Talk, it may have an air of delightful exclusivity to it, but it is part of a tiny world and we can forget that (I wish we could forget it permanently, but I fail to be able to. The only real question may be 'is it even a tinier world now despite new regional companies, and is the pop culture growing by much larger leaps and bounds?' I think the answer is yes, but we'll see). To take an example, I took a young woman less than 30 to see 'Gypsy' with Patti Lupone this summer. By now, 'Gypsy' is pretty much in the classical echelon. She's very bright but not terribly educated in the serious Arts: I mentioned when I first reported on this sublime event, that Barbara Walters had been standing for a while pleasantly holding court while waiting for friends. My young companion found this to be the only truly thrilling thing of the entire evening. She did not care about 'Gypsy' or Patti Lupone or Sondheim or Laurents going onstage at all, but she saw Ms. Walters on television every day, so even though Walters is a generation beyond Lupone, that was what mattered to her--an icon from the pop culture of TV. And new technology always has at least some who stop using the original forms: There are plenty of Netflix subscribers who now never go to a movie house. And even if Second Life doesn't last, versions of it will appear and gather more and more attention until this sort of thing is as second nature as finding wifi when one is driving past buildings is for some, and has been for some time.

And it really should come as little surprise that this kind of athleticism would become so emphasized, even if you think Guillem has all the other attributes as well, because technical perfection is always emphasized nowadays at the expense of everything else, if necessary--and in all fields of artistic and every other kind of endeavour. There's not a thing to be done about it is my guess--probably because even though an evolution toward technical perfection may be inevitable, by its very nature you can see it begin to colour what used to be thought of as something not exactly the same. You can hear it in a young pianist like Lang Lang, for example. The colours and shadings and emotions have become a part of technique, and they can seem as if switched on without having prior introduction, or are as implants that substitute for working out at the gym.

I find it mostly so thus far, but just found that there is an old video with her doing Petipa's 'Grand Pas Classique' with 6 other POB ballets with other dancers on the tape. I might be able to see more from that.

I think it's not so much anti-ballet in an overt sense, but rather an uncaring attitude--which has always been there, of course, but is growing, or at least the intensity of ballet and other classical and traditional art forms is being diluted. I'd agree with Farrell Fan like the others, if the 'why should we care' would have real results in thwarting barbarians, but it's more a matter of can the pop culture appropriate it? I go back and forth on what I think about this, but when I read about Second Life and real music coming from the Liverpool Orchestra and seen on a virtual screen, I can't keep from thinking that these things are eating up the real material aspect that make live performance something special. http://www.liverpoolphil.com/content/homep...SecondLife.aspx will explain it better, since I'm too exhausted thinking about the order of business on something I instincively loathe to go back to it just yet... Of course, the whole culture is going back and forth on many versions of this--right now the mode is that people don't want to do as much online shopping as they did before, thinking the computer makes it 'less fun' and more 'like work', but that has only stopped the rate of growth, not the deep dedication to 'brick-and-mortar' retail shops, and even if the rate has slowed, the actual growth has not. There are all sorts of combinations in here, thousands literally, but the direction usually tends these days to be toward the pop culture devouring everything in its wake, some more slowly than others.