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In advance of its upcoming season at NYC's Joyce Theater, the Martha Graham Dance Company held a little 86th anniversary celebration of Graham's 1931 dance, PRIMITIVE MYSTERIES, last night, Feb. 2, at it's Martha Graham Studio Theater. The 2-hour or so event was part of the Graham Studio Series's presentations called GRAHAM/DECONSTRUCTED. The attached photo shows the 'birthday' cake iced with a facsimile of Ed Moeller's 1931 photo of Graham in the dance's central role. Primitive Mysteries was first shown on Feb. 2 of '31 at NYC's Craig Theatre.
A scan of the program pages from that date is now part of the Primitive Mysteries entry on the Martha Graham app along with an number of historic photos and video clips related to the dance's beginnings and history over the past 86 years.
Also part of this theme on the app is a posting of 7 page essay by Neil Baldwin, "Primitive Mysteries, Reviving a Modern Masterpiece." Baldwin is working on a new biographical study of Graham, entitled: MARTHA GRAHAM: WHEN DANCE BECAME MODERN (under contract with Alfred A. Knopf).
Part of the presentation was a "trimmed" version of a 2008 play written by one-time Graham dancer Jean Colonomos: "The Third From the Left." In the reading of Colonomos's work, by 5 current MGDC dancers, among other anecdotes related about Primitive Mysteries as it was being revived in 1964 was the nickname sometimes bandied about calling the iconic Graham work Primitive Miseries.
It seems that a similar presentation to that via the Martha Graham app can be found via this link:
marthagraham.org/googlearts -
yes the 1976 telecast of R&J from the Bolshoi Th. in Moscow was led by Bessmertnova and Mikhail Lavrovsky.
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the fish dives in SB III are not considered canonic Petipa in Soviet/Russian ballet circles. they were added for Diaghilev's SLEEPING PRINCESS in '23 by Nijinska, acc'd to reports.
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f.y.i as posted on a related thread, casting for THE SLEEPING BEAUTY HD transmission acc'd to the promoters:
CAST:
King Florestan XIV: Alexander Fadeyechev
The Queen: Ekaterina Barykina
Princess Aurora: Olga Smirnova
Prince Desire: Semyon Chudin
Catalabutte: Vitaly Biktimirov
Four Foreign Princes: Ivan Alexeyev, Artemy Belyakov, Egor Khromushin, Alexander Vodopetov
Duchess: Vera Borisenkova
Peasant Dance: Anna Antropova, Alexander Vodopetov
Evil Fairy Carabosse: Alexei Loparevich
Lilac Fairy: Yulia Stepanova
Fairies of Kindness:
Tenderness (Candid): Daria Khokhlova
Carelessness(Fleur-de-farine): Bruna Cantanhede Gaglianone
Generosity (Breadcrumb scattering Fairy): Daria Bochkova
Playfulness(Twittering canary): Olga Kalinina
Audacity(Violent): Elvina Ibraimova
Jewels Fairies:
Margarita Shrainer (Diamonds)
Xenia Zhiganshina (Sapphires)
Victoria Yakusheva (Gold)
Yanina Parienko (Silver)
Characters
White Pussycat:Victoria Litvinova
Puss in Boots: Denis Medvedev
Princess Florine: Anastasia Denisova
Blue Bird: Artemy Belyakov
Little Red Riding Hood: Maria Mishina
Grey Wolf: Anton Savichev
Cinderella: Daria Khokhlova
Prince Fortune: Vladislav Kozlov -
in case this hasn't been noted before, f.y.i. the casting as provided by the promoters of this transmission:
CAST:
King Florestan XIV: Alexander Fadeyechev
The Queen: Ekaterina Barykina
Princess Aurora: Olga Smirnova
Prince Desire: Semyon Chudin
Catalabutte: Vitaly Biktimirov
Four Foreign Princes: Ivan Alexeyev, Artemy Belyakov, Egor Khromushin, Alexander Vodopetov
Duchess: Vera Borisenkova
Peasant Dance: Anna Antropova, Alexander Vodopetov
Evil Fairy Carabosse: Alexei Loparevich
Lilac Fairy: Yulia Stepanova
Fairies of Kindness:
Tenderness (Candid): Daria Khokhlova
Carelessness(Fleur-de-farine): Bruna Cantanhede Gaglianone
Generosity (Breadcrumb scattering Fairy): Daria Bochkova
Playfulness(Twittering canary): Olga Kalinina
Audacity(Violent): Elvina Ibraimova
Jewels Fairies:
Margarita Shrainer (Diamonds)
Xenia Zhiganshina (Sapphires)
Victoria Yakusheva (Gold)
Yanina Parienko (Silver)
Characters
White Pussycat:Victoria Litvinova
Puss in Boots: Denis Medvedev
Princess Florine: Anastasia Denisova
Blue Bird: Artemy Belyakov
Little Red Riding Hood: Maria Mishina
Grey Wolf: Anton Savichev
Cinderella: Daria Khokhlova
Prince Fortune: Vladislav Kozlov -
f.y.i. a release about an event held by NYC's Harriman Institute and Barnard College Department of Dance.
The symposium is free and open to the public:
DANCING THE COLD WAR
An International Symposium
16-18 February 2017
Sponsored by the Harriman Institute and the Barnard College Department of Dance
The Cold War was fought on many fronts, with dance as a powerful weapon in its arsenal. The
ballet wars of the 1950s and 1960s, including high-profile defections, captured international
headlines, but numerous forms of dance from folk dance and modern dance to rock and roll were
drawn into an ideological struggle that pitted capitalist freedom again communist oppression.
Dancing the Cold War, a three-day international symposium sponsored by the Harriman Institute
and curated by Lynn Garafola, brings together scholars, artists, critics, and others to explore the
multiple dance encounters that took place during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the
United States as well as the allies, clients, and surrogates of those countries in different parts of
the world. It will consider the impact of touring and the mass media in challenging ideological
certainties and the changes that transformed the Russian dance community in the immediate post-
Soviet period.
Thursday, 16 February, 1501 SIA
5:00 Opening Event
Welcome: Alexander Cooley, Director, Harriman Institute
1) Kimberly Marten (Harriman Institute): “The Cold War in a Global Context”
2) Lynn Garafola (Barnard College): “Maya Plisetskaya and Plisetskaya Dances”
3) Screening: Plisetskaya Dances (1964)
Reception
Friday, 17 February, 1512 SIA
9:00 Dance as an Ideological Weapon
Moderator: Naima Prevots (independent scholar, Washington, D.C.)
1) Eva Shan Chou (Baruch): “Soviet Ballet in Chinese Cultural Policy, 1950s”
2) Jens Richard Giersdorf (Marymount Manhattan): “East German Folk Dance as
Affirmation and Resistance”
3)) Stacey Prickett (Roehampton University, London): “Dancing National Ideologies: The
Athens Festival During the Cold War”
4) Victoria Hallinan (Boston Architectural College): “Soviet Folk Dance for an American
Audience: The 1958 Tour of the Moiseyev Dance Company”
10:45 short break
11:15 Ballet: Battlegrounds and Encounters
Moderator: Anna Kisselgoff (former Chief Dance Critic, The New York Times)
1) Stephanie Gonçalves (Université Libre de Bruxelles): “Dien-Bien-Phu, Ballet, and the
Cold War: The First Soviet Ballet Tour in Paris, May 1954"
2) Harlow Robinson (Northeastern University, Boston): “Sol Hurok and Gosconcert”
3) Janice Ross (Stanford): “Outcast as Patriot: Leonid Yakobson’s Spartacus and the
Bolshoi’s 1962 American Tour”
4) Tim Scholl (Oberlin): “Traces of the Past: Cold-War Encounters and Their Impacts on
Soviet Ballet”
Discussant: Simon Morrison (Princeton)
1:15 lunch
2:15 Global and Media Battlegrounds (I)
Moderator: Lynn Matluck Brooks (Franklin and Marshall College)
1) Julia Foulkes (New School): “West and East Side Stories: A Musical in the Cold War”
2) Victoria Phillips (Columbia): “Dancing Behind the Iron Curtain: Martha Graham on
Tour, 1962-1987”
3) Joanna Dee Das (Washington University, St. Louis): “Dance and Decolonization:
African American Choreographers in Africa During the Cold War”
3:15 break
3:45 Global and Media Battlegrounds (II)
4) Elizabeth Schwall (Northwestern): “A Spectacular Embrace: Cuba-Soviet Dance
Dialogues, 1957-1973"
5) Sergei Zhuk (Ball State University): “‘The Disco Effect’ in Cold-War Ukraine”
6) Marsha Siefert (European University, Budapest): "Anna Pavlova: The 1983 Biopic and
Cold War Ballet Films"
Discussant: Julie Malnig (Gallatin School, New York University)
5: 30 Cinematic Coda
Excerpts from Romeo and Juliet (1954), The Sleeping Beauty (1964), Katia et Volodia (1989),
and Spartacus (1970).
6:00 Friday program ends
Saturday, 18 February, 1512 SIA
Battlegrounds and Encounters: Dancers on the Front Lines of the Cold War
9:00 Introduction: Lynn Garafola (Barnard)
Screening: Balanchine’s Western Symphony (1956)
9:45 Dancers’ Round Table
Kay Mazzo (NYCB), Suki Schorer (NYCB/SFB), Gretchen Schumacher (ABT), Suzanne
Hammons (Joffrey/SFB), Trinette Singleton (Joffrey), Sylvia Waters (Ailey), Carla Maxwell
(Limón), Carolyn Adams (Paul Taylor), Rob Kahn (Paul Taylor), Karen Brown (DTH), Charles
Reinhart (ADF), and others in conversation with Lynn Garafola, Elizabeth Kendall (Lang), and
Lauren Brown (Marymount Manhattan)
11:00 break
11:30 Dance Theatre Harlem in Russia
A conversation between Karen Brown and Elizabeth Kendall.
Russians on the American Stage: excerpts from Giselle (Natalia Makarova/Mikhail
Baryshnikov), Vestris (Baryshnikov), The Nutcracker (Baryshnikov/Gelsey Kirkland/Alexander
Minz), Prodigal Son (Baryshnikov, with Balanchine), Push Comes to Shove (Baryshnikov)
12:30 lunch
2:00 The End of the Cold War and Historical Memory
Moderator: Daria Khitrova (Harvard)
1) Irina Klyagin (Harvard Theatre Collection): Through a Glass: Researching Dance
History at the End of the Cold War”
2) Elena Kunikova (Master teacher/New York): “Russia Abroad”
3) Maria Ratanova (Harriman): "In Search of Lost Time: Restoring Memory, Reviving
Connections"
4) Charles Reinhart (Director Emeritus, American Dance Festival), in conversation with
Lynn Garafola, “New Directions in Contemporary Dance”
Discussant: Simon Morrison (Princeton)
4:00 break
4:30 Alexei Ratmansky on his Recreations of Soviet-Era Works
A conversation with critic Marina Harss.
5:30 Final Remarks -
FYI a publicity photo for MOURKA.
This photo appears on the opening pages of my copy of MOURKA, The Autobiography of a Cat, Sidgwick and Jackson Ltd/London/1965, with the following text:
"My name is Mourka.
I am an orange and white
Americat, male -- but
more about me later.
Let me tell you about
my feline tree."
Eventually, on the penultimate page of the text, there's a related photo, with the following caption:
"A falling satellite almost hit me,
but I dodged it gracefully."
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a few prints i have related to the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM photo linked above just say: 1966, Columbia Pictures Corporation - no specific photographer's name is given.
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a few guesses here, some more confident than others:
The SYM C reh. moment is most likely by G.P.Lynes
The RUBIES shots of McBride are Swope
The MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM reh. with PMcB & GB is on the set of the Oberon film production (i have some prints of this same shoot and if i can lay hands on them i'll see if they're stamped w/ photographer's credit).
The Vogue Farrell is ?
The DON Q rehearsal kiss is a Life Magazine photographer's
The DON Q promo ?
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your memory is correct, Helene.
the front cloth of Ter-Arutunian's 1964 design for Balanchine's NUTCRACKER - i don't know what Horace Armisted's 1954 scheme offered for this initial drop - is indeed a snow-covered vista of snow laden roof- and spire-tops, presumably suggesting a snow-blanketed Nueremberg, over all of which a angel and a shooting star hang in the seeming frosty air. the angle's garment appears to trail the kind of vapors made by warm breath in cold, winter air. i'm surprised that the web, from a quick check just now, seems not to have an image of this longstanding, familiar NYCB drop. there is, however, a posting of the first act's parlor interior, with its gingerbread architectural frame, complete with detailing that includes the snow-collected roof surfaces.
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Ballet Society, a "wing" of Eakins Press has just released BALANCHINE TEACHING, a portfolio of photographs taken by Nancy Lassalle in 1961 during the second Teachers' Seminar at the School of American Ballet. The 36 page publication has an introduction by Mrs. Lassalle and an essay and commentary by Suki Schorer. If any further information comes to my attention, I can post it here.
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my dvd player in NYC plays the CBC disc just fine.
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Bourne's NUTCRACKER! is commercially available on dvd from Amazon and likely other sites.
and yes it's set in an orphanage, Macaulay's NYT rev. of Wheeldon's new version mentions this.
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F.Y.I. scanned publicity photo for TWO DUETS, specifically for Other Dances, which was filmed on Broadway: the Minskoff? if mem. serves (Calcium Light Night was filmed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music) - as someone who was at the taping, I can still rem. the reaction of Robbins when he saw, for the first time, Makarova's then new hairstyle - if mem. serves he smiled at it through gritted teeth - presuming he'd be seeing her, as she danced his ballet for the cameras, in her familiar, "classic" "bun head" look. again, if mem. serves Makarova's reaction was mostly to giggle.
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FYI 1988 newsphoto of MMP teaching a Master Class in Portland, OR
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for the record the video linked here is not a recording of OTHER DANCES, it's more or less a version of what Robbins first arranged for Baryshnikov to dance on his 1979 White House program, where it was called: THREE CHOPIN DANCES (see NYPL cat.listing below):
Three Chopin dances : Chor: Jerome Robbins; mus: Frédéric Chopin; cos: Santo Loquasto. First dance (opening pas de deux, mazurka op. 17, no 4) from Other dances first performed at the Met, New York, May 9, 1976; second dance (solo) from Dances at a gathering, first performed at the New York State Theater, May 8, 1969; third dance (solo and pas de deux) premiered at the White House, Washington D.C., Feb 25, 1979.
The further reworked version on the recording posted here (a video that was "around" in private videotape collections in the years after the period when Baryshnikov and Kirkland toured together) , the sections seen here are in order, 2 from DANCES AT A GATHERING, that is the duet for Kirkland and Baryshnikov - which is essentially the "pink" (McBride) pas de deux from DaaG, followed by the DaaG solo originally made for Villella "in brown," and 2 from OTHER DANCES (Makarova's solo) and the duet conclusion.
NYPL's cat. listings for Other Dances and for Dances at a Gathering are given below:
Other dances: The 1st and last pieces performed as duets; the others performed as solos. Chor.: Jerome Robbins; mus.: Frédéric Chopin (Mazurka, op. 17, no. 4; mazurka, op. 41, no. 3; waltz, op. 64, no. 3; mazurka, op. 63, no. 2; mazurka, op. 33, no. 2); cos: Santo Loquasto; lighting: Gilbert V. Hemsley, Jr. First perf: New York, Metropolitan Opera House, May 9, 1976, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Makarova.
Dances at a gathering: Chor: Jerome Robbins; mus: Frédéric Chopin (Mazurka, op. 63, no. 3; Waltz, op. 69, no. 2; Mazurkas, op. 33, no. 3, op. 6, no. 4, op. 7, no. 5 & 4, op. 24, no. 2, op. 6, no. 2; Waltzes, op. 42, op. 34, no. 2; Mazurka, op. 56, no. 2; Etude, op. 25, no. 4; Waltzes, op. 34, no. 1, op. 70, no. 2; Etudes, op. 25, no. 5, op. 10, no. 2; Scherzo, op. 20, no. 1; Nocturne, op. 15, no. 1); cos: Joe Eula; lighting: Thomas Skelton. First perf (preview): New York, New York State Theater, Annual Spring Gala, May 8, 1969; New York City Ballet. First public perf: May 22, 1969.
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Wendy Ellis Somes and Malin Thoors get staging credit; they took bows after the first perf. this week.
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Susan Borree mother of Yvonne Borree
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Repertory in Review's list of subsequent casts of its NYCB catalog of works, which came out in 1977, does not list Farrell for the Fourth Campaign, so it might be safe to assume that she didn't dance the pas de deux.
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Donna, Paul and Francis Sackett
DANCING THE COLD WAR - a symposium
in Ballet Presentations, Lectures/Symposia, Exhibits & Awards
Posted
the following has now been released as a update for this event, not sure how much it differs from what's above but for now what follows here stands as the current program:
DANCING THE COLD WAR
An International Symposium
16-18 February 2017
Sponsored by the Harriman Institute and the Barnard College Department of Dance
The Cold War was fought on many fronts, with dance as a powerful weapon in its arsenal. The
ballet wars of the 1950s and 1960s, including high-profile defections, captured international
headlines, but numerous forms of dance from folk dance and modern dance to rock and roll were
drawn into an ideological struggle that pitted capitalist freedom again communist oppression.
Dancing the Cold War, a three-day international symposium sponsored by the Harriman Institute
and curated by Lynn Garafola, brings together scholars, artists, critics, and others to explore the
multiple dance encounters that took place during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the
United States as well as the allies, clients, and surrogates of those countries in different parts of
the world. It will consider the impact of touring and the mass media in challenging ideological
certainties and the changes that transformed the Russian dance community in the immediate post-
Soviet period.
Thursday, 16 February, 1501 SIA
4:45 Dancing the Cold War: Images from the Collection of Robert Greskovic
5:00 Opening Event
Welcome: Alexander Cooley, Director, Harriman Institute
1) Kimberly Marten (Harriman Institute): “The Cold War in a Global Context”
2) Lynn Garafola (Barnard College): “Maya Plisetskaya and Plisetskaya Dances”
3) Screening: Plisetskaya Dances (1964)
Reception
Friday, 17 February, 1512 SIA
8:45 Dancing the Cold War: Images from the Collection of Robert Greskovic
9:00 Dance as an Ideological Weapon
Moderator: Naima Prevots (independent scholar, Washington, D.C.)
1) Eva Shan Chou (Baruch): “Soviet Ballet in Chinese Cultural Policy, 1950s”
2) Jens Richard Giersdorf (Marymount Manhattan): “East German Folk Dance as
Affirmation and Resistance”
3)) Stacey Prickett (Roehampton University, London): “Dancing National Ideologies: The
Athens Festival During the Cold War”
4) Victoria Hallinan (Boston Architectural College): “Soviet Folk Dance for an American
Audience: The 1958 Tour of the Moiseyev Dance Company”
10:45 short break
11:15 Ballet: Battlegrounds and Encounters
Moderator: Anna Kisselgoff (former Chief Dance Critic, The New York Times)
1) Stephanie Gonçalves (Université Libre de Bruxelles): “Dien-Bien-Phu, Ballet, and the
Cold War: The First Soviet Ballet Tour in Paris, May 1954"
2) Harlow Robinson (Northeastern University, Boston): “Sol Hurok and Gosconcert”
3) Janice Ross (Stanford): “Outcast as Patriot: Leonid Yakobson’s Spartacus and the
Bolshoi’s 1962 American Tour”
4) Tim Scholl (Oberlin): “Traces of the Past: Cold-War Encounters and Their Impacts on
Soviet Ballet”
Discussant: Simon Morrison (Princeton)
1:15 lunch
2:15 Global and Media Battlegrounds (I)
Moderator: Lynn Matluck Brooks (Franklin and Marshall College)
1) Julia Foulkes (New School): “West and East Side Stories: A Musical in the Cold War”
2) Victoria Phillips (Columbia): “Dancing Behind the Iron Curtain: Martha Graham on
Tour, 1962-1987”
3) Joanna Dee Das (Washington University, St. Louis): “Dance and Decolonization:
African American Choreographers in Africa During the Cold War”
3:15 break
3:45 Global and Media Battlegrounds (II)
4) Elizabeth Schwall (Northwestern): “A Spectacular Embrace: Cuba-Soviet Dance
Dialogues, 1957-1973"
5) Sergei Zhuk (Ball State University): “‘The Disco Effect’ in Cold-War Ukraine”
6) Marsha Siefert (European University, Budapest): "Anna Pavlova: The 1983 Biopic and
Cold War Ballet Films"
Discussant: Julie Malnig (Gallatin School, New York University)
5: 30 Cinematic Coda
Excerpts from Romeo and Juliet (1954), The Sleeping Beauty (1964), Katia et Volodia (1989),
and Spartacus (1970).
6:00 Friday program ends
Saturday, 18 February, 1512 SIA
Battlegrounds and Encounters: Dancers on the Front Lines of the Cold War
9:00 Introduction: Lynn Garafola (Barnard)
Screening: Balanchine’s Western Symphony (1956)
9:45 Dancers’ Round Table
Kay Mazzo (NYCB/Ballets USA), Suki Schorer (NYCB/SFB), Gretchen Schumacher (ABT),
Suzanne Hammons (Joffrey/SFB), Trinette Singleton (Joffrey), Sylvia Waters (Ailey), Linda
Hodes (Graham), Carla Maxwell (Limón), Carolyn Adams (Taylor), Rob Kahn (Taylor), Karen
Brown (DTH), and Charles Reinhart (ADF) in conversation with Lynn Garafola (Barnard) and
Elizabeth Kendall (Lang).
11:00 break
11:30 Dance Theatre Harlem in Russia
A conversation between Karen Brown and Elizabeth Kendall.
Russians on the American Stage: excerpts from Giselle (Natalia Makarova/Mikhail
Baryshnikov), Vestris (Baryshnikov), The Nutcracker (Baryshnikov/Gelsey Kirkland/Alexander
Minz), Prodigal Son (Baryshnikov, with Balanchine), Push Comes to Shove (Baryshnikov)
12:30 lunch
2:00 The End of the Cold War and Historical Memory
Moderator: Daria Khitrova (Harvard)
1) Irina Klyagin (Harvard Theatre Collection): “Through a Glass: Researching Dance
History at the End of the Cold War”
2) Maria Ratanova (Harriman): "In Search of Lost Time: Restoring Memory, Reviving
Connections"
3) 2) Elena Kunikova (Master teacher/New York), in conversation with Lynn Garafola,
“Dancing Russia Abroad”
4) Charles Reinhart (Director Emeritus, American Dance Festival), in conversation with
Lynn Garafola, “New Directions in Contemporary Dance”
Discussant: Simon Morrison (Princeton)
4:00 break
4:30 Alexei Ratmansky on his Recreations of Soviet-Era Works
A conversation with critic Marina Harss.
5:30 Final Remarks
Dancing the Cold War takes place in Columbia's International Affairs Building (420 West 118th Street), the Thursday and Saturday sessions in Room 1501, the Friday sessions in Room 1512. Like all Harriman events, Dancing the Cold War is free and open to the public.