Estelle

The POB performances start at 7:30 PM too (and even sometimes earlier for some very long operas). It sometimes is not very convienent to have dinner (before might be a bit too early and after a bit too late), but I think such an hour might have been chosen to enable the people who come from the suburbs to be able to catch a metro or suburb train to go home after the performance, even for long ballets... And that doesn't mean that they don't like ballet. I agree that sometimes, pauses are necessary between two very different ballets to get into the proper atmosphere. On the other hand, I've sometimes been bothered by having two or three 20-minutes intermission in a program with relatively short works (like the recent mixed bill at the Paris Opera), it's a bit frustrating to be in the theater and to have the feeling to be spending more time in the halls and foyers than watching the stage!

Could you elaborate, please (perhaps in another thread, as this has little to do with the present thread)? Do you mean for reasons of style, or technique, or of body shape? I have never seen Pontois dance, as I became interested in dance just before her final retirement (she danced her last performance at the age of 50, in 1993), and have seen no video of her. She was very popular as a principal dancer (and my mom was a fan of hers when my parents lived in Paris in the early 70s). I find that her daughter, Miteki Kudo, who presently is a sujet of the company, is a very charming dancer, and regret that she hasn't been given more opportunities to dance. I'm afraid it's not restricted to the POB, and not restricted to dance- there are so many movies which focus mostly special effects and "extreme sensations" too... Unfortunately, that seems as unlikely to happen someday as, say, dancers being better paid than musicians... I remember reading several interviews of her in which she mentioned having had some weight problems and eating disorders (and she said that one cause of the problem was a problem of lack of self-confidence). Still about the injuries: Victoria mentioned the fact that the dancers are often too optimistic, believing that injuried won't happen to them. I wonder if also there isn't another problem, which is considering that not dancing because of an injury is a sign of weakness, and that "the show must go on" and a "serious" dancer should keep on dancing even with injuries. Probably that's partly because of necessity (the careers are short so they can't miss an opportunity, and also most dancers are not well paid and can't afford to stop too much), but perhaps it's also a problem of way of thinking and of respect for one's body. Ballet dancers always seek perfection and are used to work hard, and it might be difficult to tell the difference between a "temporary" pain which usual in the training, and a more serious injury which can be health-threatening. [ January 09, 2002: Message edited by: Estelle ]

I have read such comments by Claude Bessy in numerous interviews- and I think things probably have gotten worse from that point of view since 1986, at least at the Paris Opera (more modern works in the POB repertory every season...) For example, I've been told that the number of injured people in the company was likely to increase quite a lot each time they were performing some works by Forsythe. In his recent creation "Pas/parts" a few seasons ago, there was no second cast for some of the roles, and the choreography had to be changed at the last minute because of an injured performer... I agree that it is worrying to read that dancers in their early 30s are already considered as "old" and have bodies crippled with injuries...

Thanks for the information, Mashinka and Kevin. That does sound like an interesting company.

On Dec 21, the Ballet de Kiev will be performing "Don Quixote" (I don't know which version) in Asnières, near Paris. I only saw "Don Quixote" once, many years ago, and it is one of my worst ballet memories: the company (Grand ballet classique de Moscou, I think) wasn't bad, but it took place in a hall near Grenoble which usually hosts rock concerts and is totally unsuited to ballet, the acoustic and sight were awful, and Minkus' music, which is not exactly my cup of tea, was on a tape of poor quality (and there were no program notes to explain that silly story). So could anybody tell me if the Ballet de Kiev is an interesting enough company to take the risk of seeing "Don Quixote" again?

Thanks for the information, Alexandra! Unfortunately, I doubt that it will ever be translated into French (there are so few dance books published now in France ) ...

Thanks for the link, Alexandra. That's a very interesting interviews, and the students there are very lucky to have such a bright professor. I wonder about the careers of the alumni of that university? glebb, lucky you to have been so close to Ms Verdy. When did she dance "La Sylphide", "Swan Lake", "The sleeping beauty" and "La Sylphide", was it when she danced with ABT? It's interesting to see that she had such a varied repertory: creating roles for Roland Petit at the beginning of her career, then dancing the classics for the ABT and the Balanchine and Robbins repertory for the NYCB... I hope that someday she'll publish her autobiography.

I've just seen on the web page of the company that they'll be performing in NYC between March 18 and 24 with the program "Un hommage aux Ballets Russes" (a mixed bill with works using the scores of "Le spectre de la rose", "L'après-midi d'un faune", "Boléro" and "Pulcinella"). I hope that some of the members of this board will attend it and share their impressions... Also I saw a page about some choreographers invited by the company: Birgid Baker (American, from NYC), Alberto de Leon (from Mexico) and Renatus Hoogenraad (from the Netherlands, danced with the Royal Ballet of Flanders). Has anybody heard about them?

Lu, I haven't seen that Nutcracker, but I have seen Thierry Malandain's company (which was to become the Ballet Biarritz) a few seasons ago in Paris, in a mixed bill with choreographies by Malandain, and had enjoyed it a lot. Malandain is one of the very few French choreographers with a real ballet background, and his works were musical and well-structured. One month ago, the Ballet Biarritz performed in Massy (near Paris) with another mixed bill, but unfortunately I couldn't attend it. Thierry Malandain is a choreographer in his early 40s, who danced with several companies including the POB and the Ballet du Rhin, and created his own company "Temps présent" around 1986. His company stayed in Saint-Etienne (a city in the region of Lyon) for several years, and in 1998 it became a state-funded "Centre Chorégraphique National" in Biarritz, in the pays basque (just near the Spanish frontier, on the Atlantic). The company has a web site at: http://www.balletbiarritz.com/ but it seems to work bizarrely... There is a list of dancers on that page, with some photographs: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/ballet.biarritz/ht...au1/danseur.htm From what I've read, the company has been quite successful since it settled in Biarritz, they tour quite a lot in the region (but unfortunately, not so much near Paris). They receive some support from ths Spanish region of Guipuzcoa, and seem quite involved in some projects with French-Spanish basque cooperation Also Malandain now is the director of the dance festival "Le temps d'aimer" which takes place every fall in Biarritz (and is one of the few French dance festivals not ignoring totally ballet- most of the festivals in France focus only on modern/contemporary dance). It's nice to see that such a company works well, in a city which had no resident company before... [ January 05, 2002: Message edited by: Estelle ]

Well, I have no idea. I found it a bit surprising too, as Le Riche is more well known than Bélingard... And I don't know on which evening it was filmed. I'm looking forward to seeing the video (which was recorded for me by some friend). Well, les goûts et les couleurs... There were periods when Bridard almost wasn't cast, but he has danced a bit more recently (as Bottom in Neumeier's "Dream", as Frollo in Petit's "Notre-Dame"...) and is a very good dancer. He rarely is cast in "prince" roles (while he'd have the silhouette for it), but I don't know if it's his choice, or if the direction considers that he's not good at it. By the way, there's an article about him at: http://www.culturekiosque.com/dance/inter/bridard.htm [ January 05, 2002: Message edited by: Estelle ]

I wonder what the premiere of Palais de Cristal looked like. I don't know if Balanchine had had much time to work with the POB dancers, and probably their style then (1947), in the Lifar period, was quite different from that of his own dancers... I have seen both "Palais de cristal" (by the POB) and "Symphony in C" (by the NYCB), but only twice for the former and once for the latter, and if was five or six years apart, so I'd be unable to tell the differences, except the obvious differences of costumes (four coulors vs black and white)- anyway I was delighted in both cases (but I regret not having seen Loudières, Platel or Guérin in it- which movements would have been best suited to them?) In fact, I think I've seen so little great choreography lately that I'd be happy to see *any* company in "Symphony in C"... (And it seems that the POB prefers to wait until the last living interpret of the first cast is passed away before they consider staging it again. Well, given the present shape of the company, I wonder if they'd have enough real ballerinas for the cast!)

I wonder what the premiere of Palais de Cristal looked like. I don't know if Balanchine had had much time to work with the POB dancers, and probably their style then (1947), in the Lifar period, was quite different from that of his own dancers... I have seen both "Palais de cristal" (by the POB) and "Symphony in C" (by the NYCB), but only twice for the former and once for the latter, and if was five or six years apart, so I'd be unable to tell the differences, except the obvious differences of costumes (four coulors vs black and white)- anyway I was delighted in both cases (but I regret not having seen Loudières, Platel or Guérin in it- which movements would have been best suited to them?) In fact, I think I've seen so little great choreography lately that I'd be happy to see *any* company in "Symphony in C"... (And it seems that the POB prefers to wait until the last living interpret of the first cast is passed away before they consider staging it again. Well, given the present shape of the company, I wonder if they'd have enough real ballerinas for the cast!)

I attended the performance on Dec 28 (just after the competition), and on the whole I was a bit disappointed. I really love "Pétrouchka" (the wonderful sets and costumes by Benois, the tenths of small roles with amusing little details in the crowd, the whole atmosphere...) bu didn't find Laurent Hilaire very convincing in the main role, he was far from being as moving as Kader Belarbi that I had seen in the same role about 4 years ago. On the other hand, Maurin was very good as the Doll. Showing the two versions of "Afternoon of a faun" back to back was an interesting idea, but I found that hearing the score twice made me feel a bit sleepy (well, perhaps having seen about 120 variations in the day didn't help ) Yann Bridard was interesting as Nijinsky's faun, but I think he needs some more maturity to really fill the role (but on the whole, I think he's an interesting dancer, adding more and more depths and presence to his roles). I was looking forward to seeing Robbins'"Afternoon of a faun": it had entered the POB's repertory in 1974 (danced by Denard and Thesmar, another cast was Nureyev and Pontois), but hadn't been danced since the 1970s. But what I saw looked a bit insignificant to me. I suspect that it might be a problem of casting: the dancers were Karl Paquette (a premier danseur promoted last year, and about whom I'd have trouble saying anything positive) and Juliette Gernez (a very young coryphée), and it looked a little too much like "Ken meets Barbie in the dance studio"... What is the casting policy for it at the NYCB? For this series of performances, most of the casts were very young dancers from the corps de ballet (by the way, it seems that this season the direction wants to give more roles to corps de ballet dancers- or perhaps it's just that there aren't enough principals and the premiers danseurs already are too busy with "La Bayadère", which was danced at the same time at Bastille... ), unlike the casts in the 1970s who were more mature dancers. The audience, whose reactions had been quite tepid for the first ballets of the evening, was very enthusiastic for Blanca Li's "Sheherazade", but I was in the minority and really didn't like it much. It used Rimsky-Korsakov's score, which was for me the only positive point. There was no plot, only some "atmospheres" in five tableaux and three main characters, a couple of soloists and a female dancer called "Sheherazade" in the program notes. Blanca Li doesn't come from a ballet background (she started as a competition gymnast, then studied Graham technique, then did some flamenco...) and her previous works were mostly theatrical, but it seems that for that ballet she tried to use some ballet vocabulary (especially pointes). The result was somewhat awkward, with a falsely balletic style and a limited vocabulary, and I found her handling of the corps de ballet quite weak (unisson most of the time). In the main roles, José Martinez managed to be excellent in spite of the poor choreography, but Delphine Moussin was a bit off, and there wasn't much chemistry between them. Laure Muret, as Sheherazade, had a role which was mostly crossing the stage with her bizarre costume from time to time. While the sets by Thierry Leproust (variations on some oriental themes) were interesting, one of the worst elements of the ballet was for me the costumes by Christian Lacroix. Last season, his costumes for "Jewels" were quite good (even if it was a bit frustrating to note that 75% of the press coverage was about the costumes only...), but those ones were among the ugliest ones and less suited for dance I've seen on a ballet stage. After a while, I started to think that some of the costumes for the female corps de ballet in the second tableau probably were an inconscious allegory for housework: some kind of featherduster on the head, sleeves looking like dustcloth, and line-breaking sweatpants (below a skirt) because it's more comfortable to run the vaccum cleaner. José Martinez had a bizzarely disssymmetric costume (see: http://www.imagidanse.com/francais/presse/...heherazade.html ) and the costumes for the male corps de ballet were worse. The fifth tableau was supposed to depict and orgy, and I found it especially long, repetitive and ridiculous. I remember some comments of people shocked by some position of the female dancer in the pas de deux of "Agon" (with legs wide open), well, that work was one million times worse from that point of view, and had any possible clumsy and inelegant movement (and the costumes of the female dancers, with flesh-colored tops which made them look almost bare-breasted, were quite unflattering). I haven't seen the "Homage to Kochno" program ("Mavra", "The prodigal son", and "The seven capital sins"). A small correction to Alexander's post: the cast which was filmed was *Jérémie Bélingard* and Agnès Letestu, not Nicolas Le Riche (back from an injury after several months of absence).

On the other hand, I found there was in general quite a difference between the female sujets and the coryphées and quadrilles: the sujets looked had more assurance and looked more at ease. I liked her very much too. She had been delightful as Effie in the "Young dancers" program at the end of the previous season, and looks very promising. It's a pity that there was only one position of female quadrille this year: 19 of them were competing (out of 33 female quadrilles: probably the other ones were injured, or considered that they were too old to have any chance to get promoted)... And missing an opportunity one year can have sad consequences, as every year there are new, younger competitors. There had been many discussions about Thibault's non-promotion last year, and I'm afraid he's not liked much by the present direction and is unlikely to be promoted... Some more information about the competition: -the ranking for the female quadrilles: 1-Myriam Ould-Braham 2-Dorothée Gilbert 3-Leïla Dilhac 4-Lise-Marie Jourdain 5-Pauline Verdusen 6-Sandrine Westermann Their compulsory variation was the variation of the 6th fairy in Nureyev's version of "The sleeping beauty". -male quadrilles: 1-Grégory Gaillard 2-Simone Valastro 3-Alexis Saramite 4-Young-Geol Kim 5-Jean-Sébastien Colau 6-Audric Bézard Variation: 1st variation of "Napoli"'s pas de six. -female coryphées: 1- Emilie Cozette 2- Laurence Laffon 3- Myriam Kamionka 4- Alexandra Cardinale 5- Aurore Cordellier 6- Juliette Gernez Variation: variation de l'étoile from Lander's "Etudes". -male coryphées: 1-Mallory Gaudion 2-Bruno Bouché 3-Styéphane Bullion 4-Nicolas Paul 5-Nicolas Noël 6-Julien Meyzindi Variation from the first act of Lacotte's "Paquita". -female sujets: 1- Nolwenn Daniel 2- Mélanie Hurel 3- Stéphanie Romberg 4- Isabelle Ciaravola 5- Muriel Zusperreguy 6- Céline Talon Variation: "La Cigarette" from Lifar's "Suite en blanc". I was very surprised to see that Fanny Fiat, who did an excellent competition, was not among the first six dancers (actually, being among the six first has no practical consequences when one is not promoted, but at least it shows some appreciation from the jury). [ February 04, 2002: Message edited by: Estelle ]

Here are the results of the last POB competition: -promoted from quadrille to coryphée: Myriam Ould-Braham (19) Grégory Gaillard (21) -promoted from coryphée to sujet: Emilie Cozette (20) and Laurence Laffon (23) Mallory Gaudion (24) -promoted from sujet to première danseuse: Nolwenn Daniel (28) There was another available position of première danseuse, but nobody was promoted. This year, there was no available position of premier danseur.

There was some ballet on the French TV also (mostly on the cultural channel Arte): a documentary about the former POB principal Fanny Gaïda (unfortunately, it was filmed very badly, and the film director talked more about herself than about Gaïda), Lacotte's "Coppélia" danced by the POB school, Petit's "Clavigo" with Le Riche, Osta and Gillot, and yesterday the "Homage to Kochno" which was danced by the POB recently, including Balanchine's "Prodigal son" with Letestu and Bélingard. Unfortunately, I think that it won't last- often channels show more ballet in the Christmas period but forget it the rest of the year... Also there are two cable channels, Mezzo and Muzzik, devoted to classical music, opera and dance. I don't know anybody who gets them (myself I have no TV) and it's a bit frustrating because they have some very interesting programs sometimes, for example yesterday they were showing Ashton's "Cinderella" with Dowell and Sibley...

Vagansmom, it's the same Ek I was talking about. Mats Ek is a Swedish choreographer in his mid 50s. He's the son of the choreographer Birgit Cullberg (who died one or two years ago) and the actor Anders Ek. He was the director of the Cullberg Ballet for many years, and left the directorship of the company a few years ago (but still creates some works for them from time to time). (There also is another Ek: his older brother, Niklas Ek, who danced with several companies, including Merce Cunningham's company and Béjart's Ballet of the XXth century, and more recently the Nederlands Dans Theater III (the part of the company for "senior" dancers)). I don't know what kind of training Ek had as a dancer, but I've read that he started his career as a theater actor. As far as I know, the dancers of the Cullberg Ballet have had some ballet training, and he's created some works for ballet dancers like Guillem (besides "Wet woman", he also created a duo for her and his brother) or ballet companies like the POB, but his choreographic style seems very very far from ballet, and closer to modern dance. [ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: Estelle ]

Vagansmom, it's the same Ek I was talking about. Mats Ek is a Swedish choreographer in his mid 50s. He's the son of the choreographer Birgit Cullberg (who died one or two years ago) and the actor Anders Ek. He was the director of the Cullberg Ballet for many years, and left the directorship of the company a few years ago (but still creates some works for them from time to time). (There also is another Ek: his older brother, Niklas Ek, who danced with several companies, including Merce Cunningham's company and Béjart's Ballet of the XXth century, and more recently the Nederlands Dans Theater III (the part of the company for "senior" dancers)). I don't know what kind of training Ek had as a dancer, but I've read that he started his career as a theater actor. As far as I know, the dancers of the Cullberg Ballet have had some ballet training, and he's created some works for ballet dancers like Guillem (besides "Wet woman", he also created a duo for her and his brother) or ballet companies like the POB, but his choreographic style seems very very far from ballet, and closer to modern dance. [ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: Estelle ]

You're welcome, Lovebird. How did you become an admirer of those dancers? Did you see all of them perform? I hadn't heard about Anissa Curbelo before, but did an web search with google and found that she was dancing with the Ballet of Cuba. I found the following review of a performance in France last year, with a small photograph of Anissa Curbelo in "La fille mal gardée": http://www.imagidanse.com/francais/presse/...allet_cuba.html

To make it even more complicated: now about the situation in France... In French, the terms which are used the more often are "la danse classique", which means "ballet" ("le ballet" isn't used very often), and "la danse contemporaine", which is a very fuzzy term encompassing pretty much anything which isn't ballet and isn't jazz dancing. For example, now dance teachers must have an official state diploma, and the official categories are "danse classique", "danse jazz" and "danse contemporaine". I have always wondered about the content of the "danse contemporaine" exams, as there is no definite style... "Danse moderne" is more or less an equivalent of "danse contemporaine", but it isn't used very often (at least, not by people who are interested in dance). "Modern dance" (in English), on the other hand, is used for choreographers like Graham, Limon, Humphrey... And then there is "néo-classique", which sometimes mean choreographers like Balanchine, Ashton, Tudor... and sometimes more or less any choreographer with a vague relationship with ballet (I've seen it used about Forsythe, Duato, Ek, Maillot, Ek (!), Kylian, for example). In that second meaning, it seems quite close to "contemporary ballet" in Leigh's definition.

To make it even more complicated: now about the situation in France... In French, the terms which are used the more often are "la danse classique", which means "ballet" ("le ballet" isn't used very often), and "la danse contemporaine", which is a very fuzzy term encompassing pretty much anything which isn't ballet and isn't jazz dancing. For example, now dance teachers must have an official state diploma, and the official categories are "danse classique", "danse jazz" and "danse contemporaine". I have always wondered about the content of the "danse contemporaine" exams, as there is no definite style... "Danse moderne" is more or less an equivalent of "danse contemporaine", but it isn't used very often (at least, not by people who are interested in dance). "Modern dance" (in English), on the other hand, is used for choreographers like Graham, Limon, Humphrey... And then there is "néo-classique", which sometimes mean choreographers like Balanchine, Ashton, Tudor... and sometimes more or less any choreographer with a vague relationship with ballet (I've seen it used about Forsythe, Duato, Ek, Maillot, Ek (!), Kylian, for example). In that second meaning, it seems quite close to "contemporary ballet" in Leigh's definition.

I don't know if she still is there, but a few years ago Steffi Scherzer was a principal dancer of the Berlin Staatsoper. Claire Motte was born in 1937 and was a POB principal between 1960 and 1977, premiering several works by Lifar and also the role of Esmeralda in Petit's "Notre-Dame de Paris"; after her retirement she taught and was one of the ballet masters of the POB, but she died in 1986 from cancer. She was married with Mario Bois (who wrote a verrry gossipy book about Nureyev) and had two sons. I've found the following photographs of her: http://ibelgique.ifrance.com/rmuller/sieff...nse/page_03.htm http://ibelgique.ifrance.com/rmuller/sieff/danse/page_02.htm Some photographs taken by Jean-Loup Sieff in 1960. http://www.multimania.com/pif/lifar.htm Motte and Lifar in 1977.

Thanks for those very interesting replies! Just after seeing the film, I learnt that two days before Verdy herself had been there for a talk after a screening of the film. That's frustrating, as it surely would have been very interesting! Robert, I had a look at the web site of the Alliance Française at http://www.fiaf.org and it says that the film will actually be shown on March 26 (US premiere), at 12:30, 3:30; 6:30 and 9PM, and that the 6:30 PM screening will be followedby a talk with Violette Verdy and Dominique Delouche. I hope that some of the members of this board will attend it- and that they will post some comments! The Emeralds solo is the first rehearsal filmed in the documentary, with Elisabeth Maurin- she insists a lot on the hands movements, with comments like "it is as if you were discovering your own hands and wrists" or something like that. What a lovely work- I hope that the POB will dance it again soon... (Also I wish they would add "La Source" to the repertory; it would be especially appropriate as it is on the same score as Staats' "Soir de Fête"- but it seems that direction prefers to comission lousy new ballets by contemporary choreographers... ) Jack, the anecdote about the bouquet is lovely. What is Verdy doing now? I remember there was an interview of her on this site about her teaching in an American university, but couldn't find the link. She had been the POB director of dance around 1978-80, after Raymond Franchetti and before Rosella Hightower. From what I have read, her directorship was shortened because of some problem of strikes of the dancers, which wasn't really her fault; I don't know how good a director she was considered, but anyway she didn't have much time to make personal decisions (but she added "Tchaikosvky pas de deux" to the repertory). I've read that in the early 1980s she was the artistic director of the Boston Ballet, how did it work?

I got the second edition of Ivor Guest's "Le Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris" (I already had the first one, but it had been published in 1976, and the new one is updated).

I saw that "Sleeping Beauty" by the Cullberg Ballet a few years ago in Lyon, and was very disappointed: I like Ek's "Giselle" a lot, and find his "Swan lake" interesting, but that "Sleeping Beauty" looked quite empty to me (and quite ugly too, the costumes really weren't good). Perhaps also it was weakened by the fact that the cast was less good that that of his "Giselle" and "Swan lake" (I think that Ana Laguna and Yvan Auzely are excellent modern dancers). There is a video of his "Swan Lake", with the original cast (Laguna as Odette- Odile, Auzely as Siegfried), it was shown on the French-German channel ARTE a few years ago. As far as I know, there is no commercially available tape of it in France (unlike his "Giselle", which was on a commercial tape).