Estelle

I haven't seen any topic about dance books or dance magazines yet, what about starting a thread about it? But I don't know if it'd be OK to talk about other dance magazines than Ballet Alert and Dance View, what's your opinion Alexandra? So let's start about dance books: which are your favorite ones? I think it'd be nice if people posted some reviews of the books they have read recently. PS: what about another thread "your favorite dance critics"?

There are quite a lot of videos that I like, so choosing is difficult... Among my favorites: -"Paris dances Diaghilev" by the POB, with Fokine's "Petrouchka" (with Loudieres, Guizerix and Mongne) and "Le Spectre de la rose" (with Legris and De Vulpian), Nijinsky's "Afternoon of a faun" (with Jude and Pietragalla) and Nijinska's "Les Noces" (with Platel, Belarbi, Platel, Legree and Lormeau). Four great ballets, with some of my favorite dancers... -"Swan Lake" by the POB, with Marie-Claude Pietragalla and Patrick Dupond. This is not the best choice of POB soloists in my opinion, and the sets of this production are a bit odd, but the corps de ballet is so bright... I also like a "Swan Lake" by the Kirov, with Yulia Makhalina and Igor Zelensky- the sets and costumes are gorgeous, Zelensky is very good, the only problem is that I don't like Yulia Makhalina's performance at all! -"Five Graham pieces" (sorry, it's not real ballet): five pieces ("El penitente", "Herodiade", "Steps in the street", "Diversion of angels", "Maple leaf rag") filmed at the POB with Christine Dakin, Terese Capuccilli, Kenneth Topping... -Mats Ek's "Giselle" and "Swan Lake" by the Cullberg Ballet, with Ana Laguna and Yvan Auzely -Jacques Garnier's "Aunis" with Kader Belarbi, Wilfried Romoli and Jean-Claude Ciappara -Bournonville's "Napoli" by the Danish Royal Ballet with Arne Villumsen, and err, whatsername?

Margot, I have the same edition of "Beaute de la Danse" as you. I also liked the picture of the young Lifar in "Icare" (it looked so odd to me), and one of Pontois and Denard in some classical ballet (I don't remember which one). Gilberte Cournand doesn't have a dance bookstore any longer, but she still is a reviewer for "Les Saisons de la danse". By the way, Alexandra, is there a place of the board devoted to dance books?

Hi Margot, I posted a "review" in alt.arts.ballet about Mats Ek's "Giselle" (which I saw in october with Pietragalla, Martinez and Le Riche), perhaps you could find it with Dejanews. In the documentary about her which was done recently, Monique Loudieres said that it was one of the most difficult roles she ever danced. Coming from someone who danced so many "Bayadere", "Swan Lake", and so on, it means it really isn't easy... It uses the same music as the "classical" version, but the plot is a bit different: here Giselle is a somewhat mentally retarded girl who lives in a small village (the costumes look like Scandinavia at the beginning of this century), and Albrecht is a kind of fancy "dandy" with a large white jacket. The second act takes place in an asylum: the Wilis are the crazy girls of the hospital, and Myrtha is their nurse (danced by the same dancer as Bathilde in the first act). It's not a parody of the classical version (which wouldn't be very interesting), it's a very different ballet (and I find it very moving). There's a video of it, filmed in the late 80s with the Ballet Cullberg (with Ana Laguna as Giselle and Yvan Auzely as Hilarion); but I don't know if it exists as a NTSC video. A last comment: Yvette Chauvire, the epitome of the French Giselle, said she liked this version a lot!

Hi Margot, I had heard about that documentary, but have never seen it. I only saw some excerpts of the rehearsals with Pietragalla and Guerin. (By the way, Khalfouni was a POB principal before joining Petit's company in Marseille, it was around 1981 so perhaps it was filmed before she left?) Delouche made quite a lot of movies about dance (some about Nina Vyroubova, about Serge Peretti...) but unfortunatly seeing them isn't easy. I saw two movies about Monique Loudieres: one called "Lueurs d'etoiles" filmed a few years ago (with excerpts of reharsals with Robbins, Dupond, Chauvire, Kylian, Vladimir Vassiliev...) and a more recent one which was shown last year in the program "Musiques au coeur" (with fewer rehearsals and more excerpts of ballets, for example from Robbins' "Dances at a gathering"). Both films are really interesting.

Thanks for the information about Loudieres in "Don Quichotte"! Actually I didn't have that POB program: for some unknown reason, I didn't receive the november/december programs by mail, and couldn't get it at the Opera Garnier. (Actually the Paris Opera is very bad at informing its fans, one almost has to kneel and shout and cry and beg and threaten to climb on the Apollo statue at the top of the Opera and to throw oneself in the air to get their monthly and yearly flyers...) Is Kitri considered as technically difficult? Pity she didn't also come back for Ek's "Giselle"! I'd like to go to the special gala on Dec 31st, but I'm afraid I'll have to make a hold-up in a bank before to pay the tickets... ;-)

Thanks for mentioning that video of "Notre-Dame de Paris", Margot. It was shown on the French TV, but unfortunately I couldn't see it nor record it, and haven't bought the tape yet. It also is an oportunity to see Legris, Hilaire and Le Riche. Guerin also was filmed in "L'Arlesienne" with Legris (it was shown on TV but I missed it, and as far as I know there's no commercially available tape). It's a pity the POB doesn't make more tapes... By the way, the fans of Loudieres might be interested in knowing that she appears in the "Paris Dances Diaghilev" tape, as the Doll in Fokine's "Petrushka" (with T.Mongne as Petrushka and Jean Guizerix as the Moor); in the same tape Elisabeth Platel dances the bride of "Les Noces" (with also Belarbi as the bridegroom and Lormeau and Legree). And Guerin and Loudieres dance the roles of the nasty sisters in the video of Nureyev's "Cinderella" (with Jude and Guillem in the main roles).

Olivier, are you sure that the couples "in real life" always are good partners? I hope that their personal problems don't get reflected in their dancing... As far as I know, there are at least two other couples "in real life and on stage" at the POB: Lionel Delanoe and Delphine Moussin, both "premiers danseurs" (but Delanoe was severly injured a few seasons ago, and I haven't had real opportunities to see them together since then), and Nicolas Le Riche and Claire-Marie Osta (but he's a principal and she's "only" a soloist, so she isn't given much opportunities to dance with him).

Hi Margot and Alexandra, yes, Monique Loudieres actually premiered Neumeier's "Sylvia" in july 1997. She also was listed in the POB schedules last season (for MacMillan's "Manon" in june), but I don't know if she actually danced it (the casts announced by the POB are subject to change). In july, she was supposed to dance in a gala in Nimes (it was a charity gala about AIDS, with also Legris, Martinez, Letestu, A. Dupont...), but finally cancelled because she was injured. I haven't heard about her since then. Since some POB dancers often dance in Japan, I'll ask a Japanese friend of mine about it. [This message has been edited by Estelle (edited 12-04-98).]

Olivier, you posted an interesting list... I wish I had more opportunities to see Legris and Loudieres together (I only saw them in Neumeier's "Sylvia"). I've read Jacques Garnier had created a special dance piece for Denard and Thesmar in the early 80s, called "A coeur ouvert", about an "old" couple of dance partners and all its problems. I wish I had seen it. Among the present POB dancers, perhaps one could add Hilaire and Guerin, and Letestu and Martinez. Pietragalla and Belarbi used to dance together quite often, but now it seldom happens, I don't know why.

About Anna Polikarpova: I'm not a fan of Grigorovich's ballets, but that video of "The stone flower" is interesting (it also features Tatiana Terekhova as the Queen of the Copper Mountain), and Polikarpova alone makes it worth seeing. She looks so sweet, graceful and light that I'd love to see her as Juliet or Aurora for example. Unfortunately there aren't many videos of Isabelle Guerin, as far as I know (and that's the same for most of the POB dancers). She appears in a video of "La Bayadere" as Nikiya (with Hilaire as Solor and Platel as Gamzatti), and in "Apollo" in the "Balanchine Celebration" tapes.

Thanks for the kind comments about my site. But I'm afraid there are many things which need updating on the "old" site in Lyon, and the "new" one in Marseille isn't finished yet.

Did anybody on this board see Anna Polikarpova (now with John Neumeier's Hamburg Ballet, previously with the Kirov Ballet)? I only saw her in video in Grigorovich's "The Stone Flower", but she was so graceful and marvellous that I was very impressed... Elisabeth Platel definitely is a great lady. I wish I had seen her more often (she's going to retire at the end of this season). I'd also suggest Isabelle Guerin. Perhaps she doesn't have the same class as Platel, but she has a wider repertory, and was very good every time I had the luck to see her...

Dear Margot and Alexandra, it was interesting to read what you wrote about Dupond/ Legris/ Atanassof, because every time I realized that one of you had written what I had intented to reply... I agree about Legris' great qualities in Petit's "L'Arlesienne" (Alexandra, did you see it in Paris last year when Robert G. was there?) He also was impressive in John Neumeier's "Sylvia" with Monique Loudieres. I wish I could have seen them together in "Giselle" or in "Les Mirages"! I think that perhaps Legris was too likely to be cast in roles of "cute princes" with technical difficulties but little personality, but now he seems to be interested in getting a wider range of roles. Dupond sometimes was a bit too much playing his "wonderkid" character, but I also saw him in some more "mature" roles (for example in Petit's "Camera Obscura" in 1994, or as the Phlegmatic in "The Four Temperaments). And Tharp's pas de deux really was so well suited to him! By the way, does anybody know what he's doing now? I haven't heard about him since he left the POB... Kader Belarbi (also a POB dancer- well, I'm afraid I haven't seen other companies often enough...) doesn't seem to have a great technique, but sometimes his stage presence is impressive (and sometimes he looks just absent); for example in Paul Taylor's "Speaking in tongues" everything changed as soon as he appeared on stage... Nicolas Le Riche is still young, but already has had a rich career, and I'd be ready to bet on him... They don't really qualify as "ballet dancers", but I'd also like to mention Kenneth Topping of the Graham company, and Yvan Auzely of the Cullberg Ballet.

Steve, you wrote "Why, at age 42, did I suddenly get so totally involved?" Well, I also asked that question to myself (replacing "42" with "17"), and wondered how I could have lived so many years paying no attention to dance... That's probably a common point between discovering dance and falling in love. :-) I discovered dance thanks to some books before seeing any ballet on stage. When I was nine, a friend of my mother had given me a book called "Beaute de la Danse", by Gilberte Cournand. But then I paid little attention to it- there were so many things in it that I didn't understand... However, I realized later that some of its chapters might have influenced me (especially a text by Marie-Louise Didion about her childhood at the Paris Opera Ballet School, and another one about Vaslaw Nijinsky's last performances before he became crazy), and indeed it was a pretty good book. When I was about 16, around 1991, there were some cultural programs on the French channel FR3 some saturday afternoons. By chance, I once watched one which was about Nijinsky, including a documentary about his life, and a filmed performance of "Afternoon of a faun" with Charles Jude and Marie-Claude Pietragalla. Then I started paying more attention to dance, looking for the names of some choreographers and dancers in dictionaries, reading the reviews about the POB performances in Paris... It became really important for me in the spring of 1992: there was a bookshop not very far from my school, and I went there to browse dance books as often as I could. There especially was a book about Michael Denard, with great photographs, which must have made me miss quite a lot of evening buses! I finally managed to see a live performance in september 1992: it was the opening gala of the Biennale de Lyon, with several classical pas de deux ("Don Quixote", "Diana and Acteon"...) and also modern works (such as Limon's "Chaconne"). My parents were mildly interested: my mum would have liked to attend dance classes in her youth, but her parents couldn't afford it; later in the early 70s my dad and her used to attend some ballet performances (POB or Bejart) in Paris, but they had forgotten it since then. They agreed to attend some performances with me, but weren't much interested in talking about dance... Like steve, I was really delighted to discover alt.arts.ballet in 1994- so there were people as crazy as myself! :-)