Estelle

Yes, their web site doesn't work any longer, and I haven't seen any performance by them listed by French dance magazines (while they used to perform quite often in French towns), so it seems very likely that the company was closed. It's a pity, because it provided an opportunity to start a career for a lot of young dancers, and also it showed some ballet programs in small French cities with no other exposure to ballet.

Well, unfortunately the English part of their site still is "under construction". However, perhaps you can have a look at their site in French and use a translation tool like Babelfish. Actually there are tenths of "Conservatoires" in France, they are public schools of music, ballet and sometimes theater, most of them are funded by the cities (conservatoires municipaux) and some also by the regions and the state. The better known ones are the CNSMDP (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris), created in 1795, and the CNSMDL (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon) created in 1980.

Gigi1, I'm not 100% sure, but it seems to me that the Jeune Ballet de France stopped functioning about one year ago, for financial reasons. And it didn't have a school: it was a company which was made especially for young dancers just out of school with no previous profesionnal experience. They spent one or two years with the company performing in various cities in France and in other countries, usually their programs focused on the history of ballet, showing various excerpts of ballets from different periods.

Sorry, I don't remember the year... But if we're talking about the same program, it was in "Des Racines et des Ailes" on France3, I think.

Some other articles about that topic in "Le Monde": http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3246-...301080-,00.html "Un rapport dénonce les pratiques en cours à l'école de l'Opéra de Paris", by Dominique Le Guilledoux http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3208-...301297-,00.html "Pas trop d'hypocrisie", by Alain Lompech (Lompech is one of the classical music critics of "Le Monde", but in recent months he's also been writing a weekly chronicle about all sorts of things).

Jiri Kylian's "Symphony in D" and "Sechs Tanze". To some extent, Lichine's "Le bal des cadets" ("Graduation ball"). Some parts of Balanchine's "Western Symphony" are quite comical too.

Some belated comments about two not-so-recent performances of the Ballet de Bordeaux... On Oct 27th, I attended two performances (matinee and evening) by the Ballet de Bordeaux, in Bordeaux. It was in a theater which should be interesting for any balletomane: the Grand Theatre de Bordeaux, where Dauberval's "La Fille Mal Gardée" was premiered in July 1789. It has been through some changes in the last two centuries, but about ten years ago it was renovated, bringing back its original colors (blue, white and gold) and is a lovely small theater with good sight lines. The program, called "Soirée Américaine" (American evening), included four works: "Aureole" and "The rite of Spring" by Paul Taylor, "The Moor's Pavane" by Jose Limon, and "The Four Temperaments" by George Balanchine. Only one real ballet work among four, but all the pieces were interesting. The Ballet de Bordeaux, which has about 35 dancers, is one of the very few French ballet companies which still have a real ballet repertory; it has been through quite a lot of problems in the 1990s (and especially the death of its former director Paolo Bortoluzzi), but since September 1996 its director is the former POB principal Charles Jude, who has a keen interest in the classical repertory. Paul Taylor is less famous in France than in the US, and I was glad to have an opportunity to see again "Aureole" (I had seen it only once, by his company in Lyon) and to discover his "Rite of Spring". Both works were very interesting, but during "Aureole" I was wondering how "light" and "balletic" it was supposed to look like (I don't remember precisely the performances by Taylor's company...) (to be continued)

A few days ago Prince Takamado, a cousin of the Emperor, passed away. Some obituaries mentioned that he was interested in the arts, and especially ballet, and I found the following article (written five years ago): http://www.robertfulford.com/takamodo.html Excerpt: "He travelled, skied in the Laurentians and the Rockies, made friends, and watched ballet, one of his great interests, the National Ballet in Toronto and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montreal. He's still far more than a casual fan. When Ballet B.C. played Tokyo some years ago, he not only went to the performance but attended rehearsals as well. And in the 1980s, for two and a half years, he wrote about ballet for the Tokyo Shimbun, an experience that demonstrated his curiously limited life. It would be unthinkable and scandalous for a Japanese prince to criticize a citizen; it would be outrageous if he criticized a foreigner. So the pieces he wrote every month on ballet were journalistic oddities, reviews with the negative parts left out. "I never called my writing criticism. Because I could not write anything bad or nasty, I tried to help people to appreciate the performance." There was a comic side to this, which he could appreciate as much as anyone: "Readers began to think that whatever I didn't mention must have been something that should have been criticized." To omit was to condemn. From his friends in the ballet world he often heard a question about something he'd ignored: "Was it that bad?" Eventually he found the work dull and gave it up."

A related question would be that it's not so easy to make a non-romantic male-female pas de deux...

Yes, but I think that one criticism about the school is that its very hard and competitive atmosphere might force some students, being a bit too sensitive or original-minded, to leave (and often to give up ballet); being trained with POB teachers outside the school isn't the same as inside the school, from that point of view. But well, one can never know what Platel and Guérin would have done if they had been trained at the POB school, perhaps they would have left and perhaps they would have had the same careers.

Actually, Alexandra, Guerin and Platel weren't trained at the POB school initially: both came from the Conservatoire de Paris, won a gold medal, and it enabled them to spend one year at the POB school before entering the company (that system doesn't exist any longer). However, they were trained in the POB's style, as most teachers from the Conservatoire are alumni of the POB school, and if I remember correctly, one of Platel's main teachers was Christiane Vaussard, former POB principal and also teaching at the POB school for decades. By the way, Platel will be Claude Bessy's successor as the school's director, and I wonder if she'll decide some changes. This discussion made me think about the training of the POB's principal, and I realized that there were a few of them who had not been POB trained: -Isabelle Guérin, Elisabeth Platel and Jean-Yves Lormeau (Conservatoire). Also Clairemarie Osta (premiere danseuse, but in my opinion she could have been a principal) comes from the Conservatoire. -Jose Martinez (Rosella Hightower School in Cannes, he got a medal in Lausanne and spent one year in the school), Laetitia Pujol (studied in Toulouse at the Besso Ballet Academy- in some interviews, she was extremely negative about it, and said she would never let her children have the same childhood as herself- and also got a medal in Lausanne and spent one year at the school) -Jean Guizerix and Michael Denard (both started ballet at 17 in small schools) -Ghislaine Thesmar (I think she studied at some point at the Conservatoire but am not sure) -Wilfride Piollet studied at the POB school but I've read she had a special status (also following modern classes elsewhere, and perhaps also some regular high school classes) -Charles Jude studied in Nice with Lycette Darsonval and Alexandre Kalioujny Of course there are/were also plenty of principals who were trained only at the school, and while there is no second Ulanova, people like Noella Pontois, Cyril Atanassoff, Monique Loudières, Elisabeth Maurin, Carole Arbo, Aurélie Dupont, Manuel Legris, Laurent Hilaire or Jean-Guillaume Bart aren't exactly bad dancers ;) But I think allowing some people "from outside" to enter the company is good too, it can bring some fresh air... Also I've sometimes heard some people in the audience complaining about the fact that since the school is at Nanterre, the students seem to have weaker personalities, but I don't know how true it is. About picking people: well, I think that some of the people promoted by Nureyev had already been noticed when they were in the school (for example everybody had noticed Guillem) and Platel already was a principal... But I agree that there might be a lack of "eyes". And probably also a lack of coaching, it seems that videos are used more and more frequently, and often there are so many casts that most dancers are under-coached. Katharine, I wouldn't be so negative about discipline in the French educational system (it depends a lot of which school and which kind of studies) but yes, I remember how successful "Dead Poets' Society" was when I was in high school (however, it probably wasn't totally unrelated to the fact that there were all those cute teen-aged boys in the film ;) ) and the articles about the POB school reminded me of other recent debates about "bizutage" (I think the translation is "hazing" but am not sure- well, what is done to new students in some engineer schools and universities, sometimes just funny and sometimes very abusive, violent and sexist) and people defending it in the name of tradition...

Some links to the articles in "Libération": http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=71711 http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=71712 http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=71713 and an article on yahoo.fr about that topic: http://fr.news.yahoo.com/021204/202/2vn5j.html and one in "Le Figaro": http://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/20021205.FIG0005.html

In "The Four Temperaments", during the Phlegmatic movement, the moment when the corps de ballet arrives in the diagonal doing grands battements.

I hope that Steve Keeley will read this thread (as he was a fan of Ms Lorenzo ).

Alexandra: what is OSHA? That sounds like a fine program. I wish the SFB had danced some Balanchine and Robbins works when they came to Paris last season (they danced a Morris- Adam- Tomasson mixed bill). By the way, I remember the performances of "Dances at a gathering" by the NYCB I saw in Edinburgh in 2000, it was surprising to notice that many reviews were negative about the ballet (and also the audience reaction was quite tepid).

I loved the "Alina Cojocaru groupie" part. :-) Would you also admit Manuel Legris and Peter Boal among the Honoris Causa members (I agree about Miteki Kudo, by the way). About the competition: according to the web site of Sofia Parczen (member of the corps de ballet), there should be an unusually high number of available positions this year. That's probably because several dancers left, or retired (and sadly Ghislaine Fallou, who had been absent for several seasons for health problems, is not listed among the premieres danseuses any longer- what a sad career!). So here are the numbers: -3 female coryphees, 3 female sujets, 2 premieres danseuses -5 male coryphees, 4 sujets, 2 premiers danseurs That's much higher than last season (there was only 1 female coryphee!) However, in the last few years, it happened several times that a position of premier danseur/ premiere danseuse was not filled. But for the other categories, in general all the positions are filled.

Thanks for the explanation, dirac. Actually I had heard about that play, but only with the title of its French translation, "Les sorcières de Salem", and I didn't know the original title...

What is "The Crucible"? About "The Green Table": I remember a public rehearsal of the Ballet du Rhin which included an excerpt of it, and its co-director Jacqueline Gravier said that they had premiered it in Strasbourg just on the day of the beginning of the Gulf War- the theater was not very full, and the atmosphere was very tense...

I don't weep, I'm just green with envy (and actually the French TV too did show more dance until the mid-1980s... Now there's almost nothing.)

Well, that discussion reminded me of a book I had read a while ago, "L'année de l'eveil", an autobiographical book by the poet Charles Juliet, talking about several years he spent at a military school in Aix-en-Provence at a very young age in the 1950s (such schools don't exist any more), it included some really striking examples of stupidity and cruelty (for example, the students were in unheated places, so their hands were bleeding regularly because of the cold, and they were punished because of the blood stains on the gloves. And about everything was like that... And for most of the kids, going to that school wasn't a choice. But I'm getting off-topic.) No, it doesn't mention anything about the dancers themselves. Well, I hope it has improved since then, but I remember articles or videos about the school made in the 1970s, and Claude Bessy used very harsh expressions with girls about 12 about their weight (like "you got awful big buttocks this summer" (tu as pris de vilaines grosses fesses cet été))- wouldn't it be more efficient to say it more gently and to offer constructive advice? I really wonder how many potential good students the school must lose every year, because they were a bit too independent-minded or a bit too fragile (one's personality at 12 isn't very predictive of what it will be at 16) and that system drove them away... And I wonder to what extent it is linked to the scarcity of choreographers in the school's alumni. AAlso, for me it isn't a pretty sight to see 10 years old girls saying with a smile that the other students are their enemies, that if they ask them for help during a class they won't reply because each of them wants to be the best, etc. Well, what was most frightening in a TV documentary I had seen about the POB school a few years ago was the attitude of some parents. I really felt sorry for some kids, who seemed to be mostly a way for their parents to show off...

I hope that more details about those problems will be published. And in particular, about the POB school, it wasn't clear if "public humiliation of the teaching staff" (humiliations en public des enseignants) meant humiliation of the students by the staff (the most likely), or humiliation of the staff by the direction. Also, I don't think that kids get in the army at 10 years old now... And while discipline is important, I think that there would be some ways to reach the same results without such a harsh and competitive atmosphere (for example the Conservatoire seems to have a less difficult atmosphere). There are quite a lot of people who are now in the company and complain a lot about the time they spent at the school (for example, Aurélie Dupont, who can't be accused to speak because of frustration ) A point which isn't mentioned in that audit, but which sounds interesting to me, is that recently a POB dancer (Delphine Moussin) complained in an interview to a magazine that there are not enough people to help the dancers stay in good help, in particular there is no nutrionist (neither at the company nor at the POB school) while the dancers or students are often told to lose weight (so they have to manage by themselves to do so, without medical advice), no ostheopathe (I don't know how to translate that)... Last week I had also read (but I don't remember in which magazine) an article about that report, focusing mostly on the working conditions in some of the technical services of the opera. It seems that in some services, an unusually high number of people resigned, or retired earlier than planned, or asked to go elsewhere, or were on sickness leave, and that it was related to some changes of people directing the teams...

http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=66031 The committee of hygiene, security and working conditions of the Paris Opera (it's something that exists in all big French companies and public institutions) had commissioned a report about the working conditions at the Paris Opera to Socialconseil, an independant auditing company. The report, which has just been completed, mentions several problems (the article mentions especially the costumes section, the wigs and make-up section, and the POB school).

Actually she might have mentioned it too- but in "Le jeune homme et la Mort", the cast isn't very large ;-)

The performances of the students of the Conservatoire National Superieur de Danse et de Musique de Paris will take place on Dec 9th, 10th, 12th, 13th and 14th at the salle d'Art Lyrique of the Conservatoire. Unlike in the previous years, there will be only one series of performances, instead of two (one with the "contemporary" students and one with the ballet ones- all the students are in their 5th and last year). I don't know the reason for such a change. The program will include: -a new work by Robert North (music by Dmitri Chosakovitch) -a new work by Yvann Alexandre (music by Bela Bartok) -a new work by Mark Tompkins (music by Maurice Ravel) -some excerpts from George Balanchine's "Agon" (music by Igor Stravinsky) From what I've read, the music students of the Conservatoire will be involved too. The performances are free, but one has to book some tickets by phone before (01 40 40 46 33, starting on Nov 28). Another event organized by the Conservatoire that might interest some people here: they will start this season a new kind of program called "Apres-midi de la Danse", showing some works of the repertory staged after choreographic notations, danced by the students of 3rd and 4th year. It is supposed to be only for an audience of researchers, pedagogues, and artists. The first one will take place on March 26-27 and will include: -"Reverie" (Hanya Holm) -"La Valse" (Frederick Ashton) -"Raymonda" (Marius Petipa) -"The Green Table" (Kurt Jooss) Also there will be some "open doors" (with public rehearsals and classes) on April 5th-6th, and some exchanges with the dance classes of the University of California Irvine on May 16t-h17th.

http://www.danceinsider.com/vignettes/v1017.html An article about it by Tobi Tobias (which includes spoilers).