SanderO

WOW... this is a wonderful addition to this collection of ballet lovers. I am looking forward to reading your comments on some of our provocative threads. Thanks for joining. The site gets better and better, like a bottle of fine wine.

Enjoy we do!

If I saw Rummy, I woulda socked him in the tummy.

I don't watch much TeeVee as I find it has little to offer. But my wife Tivod a series on Ovation Television (direct tv) called bathroom Divas as she knows I love opera and ballet.

The premise for the show (haven't seen the whole series yet) is to find a 6 amateur opera singers in Canada from auditions conducted in 6 or 7 cities then send them send to Opera Boot Camp" for professional training/help and compete to be the last one standing with the "reward" being appearing on a stage in a performance with a full orchestra. I am not sure if it is to be a recital or an opera.

While I don't care for the competition and there is a lot of comparing apples and oranges which to me seems like a hard choice to make especially when they seemed not to be casting for a specific role, just the most talented and "trainable" amateur, it was interesting to see how the professionals evaluated the entrants.

It was also revealing to see how they trained them, how they improved and it really was a wonderful peak behind the curtain about how a singer gets into a role and and works on the voice and acting etc.

The range of amateurs was quite interesting as well, and hardly any had any formal opera training at all. Several had never actually seen a live opera.

I don't see how this could be applied to ballet, but perhaps it might. Dance is quite common and many have perhaps studied a bit. I wouldn't expect to find an amateur who could dance a principal role, but perhaps there are some diamonds in the rough out there.

I am enjoying Bathroom Divas and wondered if others had seen it and what their reaction was. It did make me realize how "esoteric" the art of ballet is. Talented dancers there are, but ballet seems to off on a whole other level.

This may be similar to what artists like Picasso struggled with as the de constructed the elements of a face, for example.

What seems to happen is that we lose our ability to read "cues" and hints about the visual world when we strip away "all the rest". These cues and hints are little stories in themselves, aren't they.

For example, when you see an elaborate period set in Manon for example, each element adds to your feeling of the period, the setting, and so forth. If you strip away a lot of the details and only include a few basic architectural elements, like the type of trim on a door, the audience can place the scene, in time, but this is so much more vague and ill defined. The more visual details, the more context we have for the "story".

Once all the cues are removed the story telling is reduced to movement, acting, gesture, and the associations we can draw from the music. When we hear a waltz we think of Vienna for example. When we see Firebird with everything stripped away we might try to bring to the movement our expectations from previous experiences.

Modernism in dance appears to me that is analogous to modernism in art as it moved from representational (story) art to abstraction (form).

Ballet, especially story ballet seems to involve a meta level of movement as meaning and is an abstraction to begin with. Isn't it?

I'm there on the 22nd. NYC

Andrew makes very cogent points.

I suppose the issue is more about when a company, rather than "re interpret" a work, massages it a bit so that much of what was there in the past is very recognizable and that "classic" becomes the yardstick by which it is measured.

In that sense it is a rather a bolder move to try to "perfect" a classic than to offer up something new. In ballet when you strip away all the production, a classic work is the music and dance, in opera it is the music and the singing.

I think both the ABT's Sleeping Beauty and NYCB's R+J were not well received because they in fact were too close to what came before and not a refinement, but were coarser in appearance.

Some artists or authors spend almost a lifetime on one work. Some crank out masterpieces in no time. Productivity varies for sure.

Considering that a choreography of a dance is surely a work of art, it would seem that it would take a lot of time to "complete" not to mention the attendant issues of needing a company of dancers to set the work upon (or whatever the correct jargon is).

This would seem to indicate that choreographers are constrained in their output.

Here are some things I have been thinking about:

Who were to most prolific choreographers? Are there any great choreographers who only did a few masterpieces, and little else? Do choreographers collaborate or perfer to work alone? Where do choreographers "come" from... former dancers?

I am not calling anyone a racist, especially someone who I do not know.

I think minorities would be more likely to be colorblind in their choices, because they are more sensitive to discrimination. I could be wrong. I usually am.

Mike Gunther hints that the AD or some one in management who is non white male would be more open to non white casting or more accurately hiring.

This seems to mean that the "racism" that we may see, assuming it's there, is because of top down "prejudice". That's troubling, isn't it (if true)?

Ray,

Interesting thought experiment. We have a lot of weird "interlaps" in the world of art. A photographer does not create anything but records what is already there!, But his vision (and with some manipulation at times) can be and is art. But many times it's just a documentary record.

A dancer is a musical instrument that can play music visually. But a dancer also can move to music we can't hear but they can! Or they can just move in a pleasing manner the way a tree might move to the wind or the water flowing in a stream.

Ballet is a rather rigid discipline, it seems which means it exists inside of a set of rules. And a particular ballet is even more confining to the artist, leaving less room for their own interpretation. No? Kind of like a musician performing a piece of written music as opposed to improvisation.

Coming back to the relationship between music and dance. Dance is both a visual musical instrument AND an visual interpretation of music. For one can do different dances to the same music. And this may be the basis for "choreography". I am venturing into unchartered waters because I have not studied or read a thing about this.

What I have been trying to figure out is how much of what a dancer does is "their own" and how much is their "coach" or the AD? With all the high tech animations... what would a ballet performance look like in super realistic animation? I sense it would be flat. So living humans add something and I can't pin it down.

I attended a dress rehearsal at the Met recently for Manon Lescaut. When the rehearsal was concluded, the producer (I think... don't know who it was and wouldn't recognize him if I did) stood on stage and had James Levine run through a number of passages. Whomever he was, HE was telling Levine (I thought) how he wanted those passages to sound. perhaps change the tempo or something. I am not good enough to know what was actually being done.

But what was clear is that there is lots of interpretation going on, even at the level of the music and it is a collaborative effort with the AD or the producer calling a lot of the "shots". Franco Zeffirelli has made an imprint on opera and I don't know if he ever studied music! Weird isn't it?

It seems that both opera and dance cannot cut their tie to music. Singing IS music, and I think dance is a type of visual music so a dance is an instrument in a sense "playing" music with their body.

By the rest I meant sets, costumes, lighting etc.

One of the things I adore about ballet is that it is very special place in present time. I can't have it on in the background as I can music, or opera. Dance requires my EYES and there for almost all of my attention and so I MUST be there for ballet. This doesn't even apply to theatre because I can listen to a play, (audio books etc.). You can watch dance on film or video and you can freeze it in a still image, but this are all FLAT and hardly anything like the volume that dance creates when you are present a a live performance.

Sorry for going OT.

Is this all about the notion of "interpreting" a set piece? I would think when you have artistic people and all sorts of new possibilities because of "technology" etc. they will think, let me interpret this classic and bring something "new" to it. It brings out the creative juices in a way that hyper accurate facsimiles can't. And I think the ADs and so forth have a need to be creative more than "historians".

I think there is a place for both and I think that companies need to be more clear that what they present is an interpretation and not a historical "reproduction". We seem to be more comfortable with the artistic latitude found in theatrical productions, don't we?

I, for one, would love to see a very accurate reproductions of some of the classic ballets.

The thread about re setting the classics got me to thinking about what actually IS ballet?

Suppose (and I am certain this occurs) a company performs a particular ballet without the sets perhaps using other mock ups instead, no costumes, just leotards, no live music, but recorded music etc. So what you have is a "skeleton" of the ballet, but "perfectly" danced.

This performance would certainly lack some of the magic that the full production would have, but is it ballet? How much of ballet is about the "rest"? And from a purely dance purest perspective... why should "props" and costumes matter to movement?

Mind you, I am not advocating the "stripped down" approach, but it has me thinking how the rest can make or break a ballet (regardless of the dancing / choreography).

What about the rest?

There has been a whole revival of popular dance which is manifest in a host of television competition shows. I believe even some ballet and modern dancers may even compete in some of these shows.

There is a place for competition in anything that can be measured. When a company needs to fill a part, it might have some sort of competition to see who has the best qualities for the slot... whatever they may be. So this could include the one who has the best extension or the best leaps or whatever.

But in the end, ballet is not about competition, but about art and other things esoteric... not winning.

Do you think that using the competition meme, to get people more interested in dance in general, and especially on TV is a good thing?

Even figure skating seems to have (d)evolved into mostly a competitive sport and less of "dance" on ice skates.

Is the focus on competitions a good thing? (Martha Stewart may comment too)

I see the logos on the playbills for all the large corporations as the Met Opera. These corporations can afford to sponsor more education of emerging talent. Or any of those high net work fellas down on wall street. They have not a care or a sense of responsibility or guilt for their excesses as the robber barons did.

A cleverly done minimalist interpretation would be very stunning and provide enough historical reference and context, yet allow the audience AND the dancers to focus more on the choreography.

I found that the recent Barber of Sevilla production worked precisely that way. I didn't miss the magnificently detailed and rendered MetOpera sets, which I must admit, I had a habit of looking at (with binocs) instead of the singers.

I think the same level of "distraction" is present in elaborate sets and worse when the aesthetics are "jarring" as they seemed to be the new Sleeping Beauty. I have not had the pleasure of seeing a more traditional version, but I did find the sets, costuming etc a bit over the top.

Less is more.

If this is the reason that dancers are not pursuing a career or study then our style of "free enterprise" capitalism has completely failed.

With all these uber rich in nyc why are not more endowments/grants/gifts for the arts given... they are tax deductible too.

Our system is broken.

Hans,

Sorry about putting the comment in the wrong thread... and excuse my shallow experience with some of the re interpretation of classic works.

I don't get around much performance wise... NYC seems to be it for me. Obviously some companies have the cash to mount expensive productions with elaborate sets and costumes and others can't. Some of the Met Opera sets are incredible in their historical detail, like Tosca or La Traviata. I personally like some of the elaborate sets, but don't find them necessary. Some contemporary stagings are really fun and I didn't find that I missed "anything". Others just don't cut it. The Zeferelli La Traviata is great but the one Netrebko did with Villizon in Germany (I have the DVD) was awful. The singing was fine, but it was too MTV like.

Classical productions have a certain magic about them that some modern one simply miss. Don't they?

OT, about new productions in general.

Many new productions in opera and ballet involve sets and costumes which appear to be almost totally divorced from the original. In the case of opera the singing and the music is unchanged, but the rest... sets, costumes, lighting etc can be completely new. If you see the MetOpera's Zauberflot you can understand that Mozart never would have imagined such a staging. But he may have liked it never the less. Some classical operas like the recent Barber of Seville, used classic costumes, married to minimalist classical referenced sets which relied on contemporary theatrics and lighting. there was no attempt to make us believe the story was a contemporary one, but we were rather encouraged to use our imagination more and perhaps focus more on the music and singing. I haven't a clue as to the motivation of the producer and designer. Zauberflote was the reverse almost, as you can be overwhelmed by the theatrics. I thought it worked for that fairy tale story.

Last Season's NYCB R+J was not especially well received because of the sets for one, again an interpretation of Verona which to many looked gaudy, cartoonlike and seemed to detract from the production and perhaps the dancing. I sense the same thing happened with the ABT Sleeping Beauty. They couldn't pull off the new interpretation because they made some bad choices artistically which were a terrible distraction. Apparently they tweaked it somewhat based on bad press.

Why do so many contemporary interpretations/stagings seem to miss the mark and some manage to really work, such as Met's Zauberflot of Madama Butterfly? I am leaving the choreography and the signing in opera out of this question. Are these producers trying too hard to be modern and not skilled enough to translate the past into something with a contemporary look?

It seems that classic ballet also needs to be preserved and the tendency of these new stagings to look disney like or "flintstonic" may not be doing any favors to these classic works in the end. What say you about the new looks for the classics?

I was sent this video which looks like a cross between ballet and gymnastics and pair skating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5lN96dgt_Y

Incredible balance there!

Cubanmiamiboy,

How many similar types of roles (more or less) do dancers learn as your described above in their careers? At what point have they developed all these roles (how many years on)?

This discussion is all very revealing even if there are many variations, because as an audience member I only get to see the final product and haven't a clue as to how it is "created". Of course with a classic ballet, much is "settled law" but getting it into a performance is a whole other ball of wax.

When a guest performs a role, is it the company that reaches out to the performer... or is it perhaps the performers "agent" (I assume that some of the big names have representation) approach a company with a suggestion?

How many complete run thrus of a complete work will a large company do for a full length story type ballet? Or will they break it up and only do one complete rehearsal pulling all the parts together? How does the tempi of the orchestra come into play or when does it in the preparation? This can have a profound effect I would think and for the work to flow smoothly I would also think that this would need to be factored in early on in the production and learning or tweaking the role. Who actually decides "how" the music will be done? Is it the AD or the MD of the company? Will Kevin McKensie tell the conductor to speed it up... or slow it down for example?

Are all these types of procedures resident in a company or with a AD and he or she would take their approach to another company if they moved on.. or adapt to the company policy... so to speak.

Please excuse me for asking all sorts of (dumb) questions about what appears to be a very intricate and complex process (to me), with such concern for subtlety and nuance.

How is this role learning done? Does a principal A get approached by the artistic direct and told that they want A to perform so and so role and X ballet master / coach is going to teach you the role? Or do dancers learn these classic roles .. or parts of them as exercises in their normal learning process from teachers? Or do they learn them "on their own" from seeing them performed? I recall seeing Paloma Herrera interviewed a young ballerina who said she always wanted to dance Juliet with the ABT and it came to pass (quite young for her). Do you think she knew much of the role before she was assigned it, for example? I can understand that the director would want to put his stamp on the role, but in the case of a classic role are these not more or less "settled law" so to speak?

The number of "classical" works is large but limited in ballet and opera. How many roles does a classically trained dancer have in their own repertoire in a typical career? Are these roles the focus of their life's work? Do they, as young dancers, typically aspire to learn X roles and dance them in their careers? Or do dancers learn to dance "generic" ballet and take the roles that the company sees them suited for? Can a principal dancer expect to dance all the "great" roles in their career, assuming no injuries etc.?