Estelle

By the way- have there been any successful ballets on Ravel's "Ma mere l'Oye"? I remember reading about a Robbins ballet on that score for the Ravel festival, but it seems to have been short-lived. I find this score so beautiful, I'd really like to see some ballet on it...

My first contact with ballet was a book which was given to me when I was 9 by an old lady my mother had invited for dinner: it was written by the French critic Gilberte Cournand, and its title was "Beauté de la danse". It included a few nice photographs, and excerpts of various books and texts about dance (Noverre's "Lettres sur la danse", some biography of Pavlova, a text about Nijinsky's falling into madness, a text about Martha Graham by Bethsabee de Rotschild, an excerpt of the memoirs of Marie-Louise Didion, dealing with her childhood years at the POB school and her encounters with Lifar and Spessivtseva, etc) I read it almost extensively, didn't understand most of it but found some parts fascinating (perhaps even more because I didn't understand many words! For example the Nijinsky text ended with somthing like "a few days later I learnt that Nijinsky had been _interné_ (sent to a psychiatric hospital)" I had no idea what "interné" meant, but surely it looked like something dark and frightening. But there was no ballet in my home town of Grenoble, and I quickly forgot that book. I became interested in dance years later, when I was about 16-17, when I saw a TV program about Nijinsky, which included a video of his "Afternoon of a faun". Then I read again "Beauté de la danse", started browsing all the dance-related books I could find in libraries (my high school had only two, the most recent being from the early 1960s) and bookstores and thought that something which looked to fascinating and beautiful on photographs could only look better on stage. I finally saw my first ballet performance in september 1992- but actually, bizarrely I was already hooked before seeing it!

There is a version of "Daphnis et Chloe" in the POB's repertory, it was choreographed by George Skibine in the late 50s (Lifar might have done a version too). I remember seeing some photographs of Claude Bessy in that work. It hasn't been danced by the company for decades, but was danced by the POB school a few years ago (but perhaps it was only a pas de deux)? I agree that the music is wonderful- well, I'm a fan of Ravel in general...

I think that perhaps a choreographer is likely to make more mistakes (or, at least, more "public" mistakes) than, for example, a writer or a painter: often the first texts of a writer remain unpublished, a painter can make many preparatory drawings not meant to be shown to any audience, while a choreographer needs to have his/her works performed, even if they are "first tries"...

The september issue of "Danser" has Fanny Gaida on its cover page, and it includes a long interview of her (in the middle of a lot of advertisement, unfortunately...) The interview of Gaida is quite interesting. She had her farewell performance in July, after 23 years with the company (she has just turned 40). She had become a premiere danseuse in 1989, and a principal in 1993. She seems happy with her retirement, saying that recently she has been suffering from back problems, especially since the birth of her son Louis a few years ago, and has a good memory of her farewell performance (after the show, she was given the medal of chevalier de l'ordre du Merite by Hugues Gall). She has been asked to come back as a guest, but is not interested by it now, and is interested in teaching. One of the changes she mentions about the way the company works is that now there are more performances than at the beginning of her career, but that there is far less time to rehearse the works. Also the teaching system has changed: before Nureyev's directorship, each category of dancers (quadrilles, coryphees, sujets, premiers danseurs, etoiles) had his own class and teachers, now it's mixed. She mentions that it has positive sides (for example younger dancers can see role models), but that it might be intimidating, especially for shy people like her (she mentions stress and lack of self-confidence as her main problem).

Lu, I saw Nacho Duato's "Compania Nacional de Danza" in Grenoble (France) two or three years ago. I liked very much some works, and totally disliked some others... Actually that tour was quite successful and Duato's company is quite well known in France. Also there are a few works by Duato in the repertory of other companies. And, from what I have read on this site, there are some works of Duato in the repertory of some American companies too (you might use the "search" link at the top right of the page to try to find older posts with reviews of such works)- however, they don't seem to have been very appreciated... AlsoI have seen Victor Ullate's company (Ballet de la comunidad de Madrid) once in Lyon. The dancers were very good, but I didn't like much Ullate's choreographies (much athleticism and speed and little artistic content). In your opinion, why is the situation of classical ballet in Spain so difficult? Are there some other forms of dance which are more popular (modern dance? flamenco and other folk dancers?), so that little attention is paid to ballet?

Actually, usually performances start earlier (for example POB performances usually start at 7:30 PM, I think it is in order that people who live in the suburbs of Paris still can take public transportation), but since it was outdoors, probably they wanted to wait until the sky was dark. And people were queuing early because the seats were sold at the entrance, and there were no seat numbers... Well, unfortunately, there is no such thing as a perfect funding system! Public funding sometimes has the advantage that it can provide very large sums of money (the public subsisy for POB is more than 60 million US dollars, it would be impossible to find so much money from private sources), but politicians rarely know much about ballet (and rarely care much about it), so it depends a lot of the financial situation, who advises them, etc. (And I don't know if Alymer was referring to Nice- but politics on the Cote d'Azur are not, shall we say, the cleanest part of French politics).

I first accessed the Internet at the end of 1994 (Wow! I feel like a veteran when saying that! ;) ). I had started veing interested in dance about two years before, had dug through the local libraries to read anything I could find about dance (unfortunately, that wasn't much), had started buying dance magazines and cutting out ballet reviews in newspapers... But I had nobosy to talk with- I could convince my parents to attend a performance from time to time, but they were not especially interested in dance history, analyzing choreographies, etc. Discovering the Usenet newsgroup alt.arts.ballet (and, a few years later, this site) was a real blessing- at last there were people sharing the same interests! And also it made me learn so many things about dance outside France (French magazines don't talk very much of what's happening in other countries), and also realize that the visions of dance history depend quite a lot of one's country (for example, Ashton is almost unknown in France). It also was an opportunity to make new friends, and also meet some of them "in real life". And for example, I don't think I'd ever had thought about going to Edinburgh last summer to see the NYCB if I hadn't heard so much of it thanks to this site... I agree with what has been written about the drawbacks of the Internet, especially for some students who seem to think it's the magic answer to everything. I really makes me feel upset to hear people call it "the world encyclopedia"- well, what a bizarre encyclopedia! There's a wealth of information (and the amount of information about dance has increased tremendously in a few years), but it's striking to see that when one is looking for something very precise, very often there is far less that what can be found in the average library. There are zillions of page about some TV shows or videogames, but trying to find information about a lesser known author or musician is another matter... It reminds me of a recent radio program with Jean-Christophe Averty (a radio and TV producer, who incidentally is the father of the POB premiere danseuse Karin Averty). Every week he does a radio program about some rare recordings of jazz of the 20s-30s, from his own collection. Another journalist of the program innocently asked him if he had searched information on the Internet about some musicians, and he replied something like "well, I know more that what I could find". That might sound pretention at first view, but I think it's very likely to be true: he's been collecting records and interviewing people about it for decades, and that's surely more that what can be found now on web pages...

pookey, in Florence there is the company Maggiodanza, they have a web page at: http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/2022/ The direction has changed several times in recent years, and I don't know what kind of repertory they have now (for example a few years ago its director was Karole Armitage). There is a ballet company in Rome. Again, I don't know exactly in what shape it is (Italian companies seem to have a lot of administrative problems and directions which change often, and the only real big ballet company seems to be La Scala in Milano). There's also Aterballetto, lead by Mauro Bigonzetti (its style probably is closer to Kylian or Forsythe than real classical ballet), I think it is in Reggio Emilia.

Alla, probably Alexandra will reply later, but here's a link to a previous discussion about comparisons: http://www.balletalert.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ult...c&f=29&t=000034 That topic also was discussed in the following thread: http://www.balletalert.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ult...c&f=19&t=000187

<silly season again> Well, I think that it would have looked quite different if they had been hippopotamuses or turtles... More seriously, I wonder if the idea of swan characters had been used in other ballets before "Swan lake"?

Alymer, many thanks for the information about Cartier. I've seen his name very often, and was thinking "he must be an interesting person". From what you wrote, he is! Now that you wrote it, I remember he was in Nice. The Ballet de Nice has undergone so many changes in the last decade that it couldn't find any proper style... I remember they staged some Ashton a few years ago (but weren't some programs cancelled because of copyrights of something like that?), also I think that it was in that period that they staged some rarely seen Massine works, like his version of "The rite of spring" re-using the same sets and costumes as the Nijinsky one, "The blue Danube"... If I remember correctly, it was also him who decided to add works like Massine's "The three-cornered hat" and Nijinska's "Les biches" and "Le train bleu" to the POB repertory in the early 90s (I'm wondering if those ones will get performed again by the POB, by the way). He seems to be a man with a great interest for the 20th century repertory.

Andrei, I've re-read the program notes more carfeully, and it mentions "master classes" by Vassiliev, Maximova and Loudieres, but the works were not staged by them. For example, "Suite de danses" was staged by Lucien Duthoit (former POB dancer, and teacher at the POB school), Ek's work by staged by Lena Wennergren, etc. The notes also say that the program had been previously performed in Grass, and in a few Italian cities (Rimini, Fiesole...) That "Europa danse" program has been existing for three years, and each time there was a strong contemporary focus (last year, the only real classical ballet was Balanchine's "Allegro Brillante"). It is organized by an association created by Jean-Albert Cartier. I don't know exactly who Cartier is, but it's a name I've seen very often associated with ballet. If I remember correctly, he used to be the "administrateur de la danse" at the Paris Opera at the beginning of Dupont's directorship- his successor was Brigitte Lefevre, and when she became director that position was suppressed... Also Cartier had some responsibilities in Nancy and in Nice.

As I explained in another thread in the "recent performances" forum, this evening I planned to attend an outdoors dance performance in Paris, but it ended as a kind of diluvian desaster. Do you have some funny memories of performances where everything went wrong- bad weather, problems with the music, mistakes on stage, etc.?

Paris is somewhat empty from a cultural point of view in August: most theaters are closed, most festivals have ended... However, in the last few years there has been a small festival "Paris quartier d'été" from mid-July to mid-August, featuring some dance, circus, tales and music. The only ballet part of the festival was a series of performances by a group of young dancers who had been trained in Grasse (a city of the region of Nice and Cannes) earlier in the summer, with classes by Vladimir Vassiliev, Ekaterina Maximova and Monique Loudieres. I planned to attend the last one of the three performances this evening. It was supposed to include Clustine's "Suite de danses" (the only purely classical work of the evening), and also works by Ek, Van Manen, Montalvo, Duato, Kylian and Mac Kneely. It was an outdoors performance at the Palais-Royal, a few meters away from the Ministery of Culture and from the Comedie-Francaise. Unfortunately, just as we heard the first (recorded) notes of Chopin's score, the first drops of rain started to fall... Most people left their seats then and rushed to some places protected from the rain. It calmed down after a few minutes, but the stage was wet enough to need quite a lot of cleaning. Around 10:30 PM (the show was supposed to start at 10 PM, and most people had been queuing since 8:30 PM), the stade was almost dry, and the unfortunate dancers were almost ready to get on stage- and wham, it started raining again, and soon became diluvian, with strong winds, people running everywhere, flying umbrellas, loud thunder, and even a light exploding from electricity surcharge. So the whole show was cancelled, and I came home soaked with rain and disappointed. Zeus definitely was not in good terms with Terpsichore this evening! I'd be interested in hearing comments about "Suite de danses", as it is a rarely performed work as far as I know (it used to be a successful work of the POB repertory during the Lifar period, but as far as I know it hasn't been performed for 20 years at least). Some comments about Van Manen's "Concertante" and about Joey Mac Kneely (I've never heard about that choreographer, but I suspect that his works are more modern than ballet) would be interesting too.

I agree with Mme. Hermine's "two sets of eyes" idea... Alla, do your friends feel the same about older books or theater plays, for example? Also a way to work around the problem might be to encourage them to see plotless works first- and then, hope that they will appreciate the beauty of movement enough to get really interested, and that it will motivate them to bear the "cliches" of some full-length works... Also there are works like "Coppelia" or "La Fille mal gardee" which do not involve young women expiring for love!

I'm not sure, but I think it was mentioned in De Mille's biography of Martha Graham (but I think the blank review was by Louis Horst).

I remember several articles in some French dance magazines (mostly "Les Saisons de la Danse") one or two years ago about a book dealing with German modern dance choreographers during the Third Reich period. It caused some debates because it was very severe with many choreographers, showing that many of them collaborated with the nazis (for example Mary Wigman didn't hesitate at all to fire all the Jewish dancers of her company; some were involved in the Berlin Olympic Games, etc. On the other hand, Kurt Jooss resisted and fled to England.) I'll have to dig through my collection of magazines to find something more precise. But if I remember correctly, it didn't mention ballet dancers or choreographers. It doesn't seem to me that ballet was very developed in Germany then, but perhaps it is just because there are not many documents about it.

In a recent issue of "Point de vue", between articles about Prince William of England and other royal families, there was an article about the POB tour to Lebanon (dancing Petit's "Clavigo"). It included several photographs of the dancers- including several corps de ballet dancers (with their names), which is not so common.

The only video of "Napoli" that I've seen was filmed in the mid-80s, with Arne Villumsen. It was shown on the French TV a few years ago (a commercial channel showed some excellent ballet videos from time to time around 2 AM- I never understood why, but it really was worth using one's VCR). That video probably isn't available commercially, but perhaps it can be found in libraries?

I found another page mentioning her name: http://www.evrensel.net/00/08/13/kultur.html bu it's a language I don't understand at all (perhaps Turkish or Hungarish?) And the article which mentions her name (title: Ural Daðlarý?nda rüya görmeye cesaret eden gençler) seems to be a a translation of an article by Anna Kisselgoff in the New York Times. Curiously, she isn't mentioned in the notice about Leonid Lavrovsky in Koegler's dictionary.

Terry, it seems to me that in general all dancers have a rather large repertory (and also most of the contemporary works which are performed have smaller casts than classics a la "Swan Lake", so not so many quadrilles perform in them). I don't think that there is a "contemporary subcompany"... But I don't see the company so often, so perhaps you should ask people who attend more performances. However, some dancers are cast more often than others in contemporary roles, but I don't know if it is their choice or if it is the direction's choice. For example the quadrille Peggy Grelat danced a lot of contemporary roles- but now she has left the company and has joined Forsythe's Frankfurt Ballet. Delphine Baey has been cast quite a lot in contemporary works (Forsythe, Bagouet, Carlson, Gallotta...) but as far as I know it's not a personal choice, but simply the direction prefers to cast her in such roles (perhaps partly because she's very tall and sometimes she's lacking tall enough partners for classical roles). But we're getting a bit off-topic now...

Victoria, the POB often performs at two venues at the same time (and often with works requiring a large corps de ballet): for example, recently one part of the company performed Neumeier's "A midsummer night's dream" at the Opera Garnier, while another part performed Nureyev's "Romeo and Juliet" at the Opera Bastille (some soloists and principals performed in both). I don't know if they perform more regularly than ABT, but the number of performances every year is quite large (and I think it has increased in the last few years- though it might be a bit lower next season). Actually having two programs at the same time in Bastille and Garnier (or one in Paris and one on tour elsewhere) is convenient for people like me who don't live in Paris and just stay there from time to time, but it has raised more and more criticisms among the dancers and people interested in the company: at the end of the season, the injury rate is getting quite high, the casts are likely to be modified about every day, and it is detrimental to the quality of the performances, especially as understudies often lack rehearsal time and coaching- but well, it seems that it's a problem with about every company! Also some dancers of the company don't dance much, especially among the coryphees or quadrilles. But I don't know at all if it is because they are injured or in bad shape, or if the direction doesn't like them, or something else... The problem of "too many casts for one ballet" exists at the Paris Opera too- however, sometimes the number of casts has to be reduced very much because of all the dancers who are injured and can't perform (for example there were supposed to be 5 Juliets recently, but two of them- Guillem and Guerin- couldn't perform and finding suitable casts was not easy, as one of the other ones (Gaida) was going to have her farewell performance and another one (Maurin) was performing also in Neumeier's work). And the number of principals has decreased quite a lot in recent years (many retirements and not many new ones) so perhaps the opposite problem is more likely to take place...

Giannina, Ferri has already danced "Carmen" at the Paris Opera, as a guest (which is pretty uncommon, as the POB rarely invites dancers "from outside"- but Roland Petit seems to appreciate her very much). I haven't seen her, but she received good reviews.

Well, I think that if I were 100% sure that the main sponsor of the performances of company X was Mr So-and-so whose money came from drug dealing, proxenetism and child pornography, and/or the money from ticket sales would be used directly for some criminal action, or more generally some purpose I would disapprove, I wouldn't hesitate much to boycott. But fortunately such cases are unlikely to happen often... felursus, there must be plenty of web sites about Rev. Moon- but of course the problem is that, as is often the case on the Internet, it's hard to know which sources are reliable. For example I've found the following article on the site of the French monthly magazine "Le monde diplomatique" (but it's in French): http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/1996/04/M...CGILL/2619.html