How do you tell whether someone is good or great in a role?

[Alexandra]

The second time I saw the Sleeping Beauty wasn't with Nordquist and hrmm, excuse me for being non-educated, but how on earth do you determine if someone is "good" or "great" in a role? (The part that impressed me the most was actually the Lilac fairy done by Forslind)

Susanne, that is such a good question! I'm going to make a stab at it and hope others will answer as well.

I think it comes from having seen the role performed by dancers whom others have considered great in the role -- someone has to set the standard, and it's usually set by a consensus. There are some people whom MOST people who have seen a lot of dance and are educated in its history and traditions, and who have seen a wide variety of companies, etc will judge "a great Odette" -- Fonteyn, Makarova, Ulanova to name three. (There will be others who will say one or two of these were not as great as the other, but generally, if you write "Makarova was a great Odette" no one will scream.) You use that as a standard, read WHY those dancers were considered great, and match those rules, and those mental images, until you find one who measures up. (And then be prepared for somebody to say, "You've got to be kidding! She has no line, no turnout, a lousy arabesque and she's not musical!" Then you go back to the drawing board, as we say, and start building your image of Odette again.)

A useful analogy might be something that I was taught in college in an art history class. The teacher, from New York, was trying to explain why he thought his colleagues on the faculty, in this small Virginia town, weren't educated. "They're not stupid, they're ignorant," he said -- a useful distinction. "Ask them who their favorite painter is and they'll say 'Norman Rockwell.' And you show them a Renoir, and they'll say, 'Oh, that's better!' And then you show them a Rembrandt and they say, 'Better still.'" (I think some might argue that Renoir and Rembrandt aren't that far apart, but I still take his point.)

So part of it is knowing what qualities are valued for a certain role, rules that can be applied (or broken) each time you see a new dancer in that role, and part of it is exposure. I think you need both.

As always when questions of this kind come up, nobody MUST do this. It's fine to go and like each Swan Queen you see, for different reasons. But if you say "Jane Smith is the greatest Odette ever, period," and someone says, "Fonteyn? Makarova?? Ulanova???" then the discussions start.

Editing to add an afterthought in the nature of a clarification: When I say "learn the rules," I don't mean to say that one is stuck with them forever. The whole point of this exercise is to develop one's own taste and aesthetic, and form one's own opinions. But I don't think one can do that without knowing the rules. Saying "she's great" (in the formal sense; of course, we all do it every day, about everything, from friends to ice cream to TV shows) implies a comparison to "not so great," "ordinary" and "why the hell was she cast in the role?"

Edited July 25, 2003 by Alexandra

[Susanne]

Thank you Alexandra for the explanation.

But I think the trouble with me is that I actually found the role of Aurora being boring/plain. It didn't leave me with any impressions at all. It wasn't bad but it wasn't stunning either. I just don't have any opinion at all about who was the better interpretor of Aurora.

I guess and hope it's all about experience. Because you sure should have an opinion at least?

The performances that touched me the most of those two times I've seen Sleeping beauty was as I have mentioned the Lilac Fairy(by one specific dancer) and also the Fairy of power (I'm not sure if that is what she is called in English).

How can you judge somebodys accomplishment in one variation from for example Don Quixote in different ballet competitions?

(I apologize if this topic already has been discussed over and over again)

[Alexandra]

I don't think we've had this topic in months, if not years, so it's great that you raised it. I can only give a short answer now -- I'll try to answer more fully later, but perhaps someone else could give their view?

First, it sounds like you didn't like the ROLE (choreography?) of Aurora, and so didn't care much for either dancer? If that's correct, three things. One, you may never like the role Two, you may not have seen a very good :Aurora; when you do see a good or great one, she'll make you like it, or at least see the point of it. Or three, that you're expecting something else from Aurora -- something more realistic. I think this is a general perception today, in this age of Juliet and Manon and Kitri. We expect action heroines Aurora is a classical role, and the more pure classical ballets you've seen, the more you appreciate it. (Of course, some people like it first time out, and others will never like it. I was terribly disappointed in the first "Sleeping Beauty" I saw. I later realized it had been a very bad performance.)

As for judging Don Q variations in competitions, I think that's different from watching a performance. At a competition, judges will be looking (one hopes!) for specific technical things -- turnout, placement, how well certain steps are done, THAT certain steps are done. Fouettes can't travel or wobble, for example, and there should be 32 of them. There should also be some characterization, as well as phrasing -- the way the steps are dance in relation to the music, that there's a flow to the dancing, not just putting one step out after another -- but I'm afraid that doesn't count for many "points" in competition.

When watching a ballet, people also give different "point values" for different things. Some give, say, 8 out of their 10 points for technique. Someone else might say, well, they've got to meet a basic technical standard, of course, but then I want to see characterization and musical phrasing.

[Giannina]

Alexandra is right in saying that first you get some experience/examples under your belt and then you make your own decision. I have been around ballet for eons and I still make decisions that raise eyebrows. To wit:

I have an adult daughter who knows little about ballet and had seen only one "Swan Lake": Peter Martin's on TV. I took her to a performance. I simply loved the ballerina who danced Odette/Odile and I told my daughter that she'd be hard pressed to find a better interpretation. She didn't like it at all, and when we met my very savvy ballet friends at intermission they, too, hated it. I felt ridiculous, but I still think of that performance and sigh.

That's one thing about an art form; we have the privilege of being moved by all sorts of stimuli.

Giannina

[beckster]

When watching a ballet, people also give different "point values" for different things

I think this is a very interesting point. I am finding that the ballets I have enjoyed are those where the dancing is technically very well executed. Musicality is very important to me too. I am not bothered so much about characterisation although I do recognise that a ballet wouldn't be the same without a degree of acting. I would far rather see a corps de ballet who are all exactly together and on the beat, than a Juliet who is acting beautifully but dancing sloppily. I find choreography very important too - so far I have loved the choreography of some things (RB's Swan Lake and Raymonda act iii, ENBs coppelia, Flanders R&J) but found Manon sloppy and Balanchine's Apollo just difficult to watch (stop shuffling!). I suppose I like seeing steps I recognise! I thought maybe I was just weird/wrong but I suppose everyone who goes to the ballet sees things differently and puts a different priority on what they enjoy. I try to remind myself it's ok to think differently to others although at the moment I don't feel I know enough and still feel a bit snubbed when my opinion is different to someone else.

[Alexandra]

Thank you, Beckster. I'm glad you're posting more about what you're seeing, too

I think one of the things you wrote:

still feel a bit snubbed when my opinion is different to someone else

Is true for most people. I can remember when I started watching ballet and was still trying to "figure it out," I would be upset when I read that a performance I had loved was the death knell of ballet Giannina addressed this too, in her post above. It will always happen, I think, but the more you see, the more firm in your own opinions you'll become and it will bother you less, I think.

[carbro]

Musicality is very important to me too.

Me, too. In fact, musicality -- real musicality -- can get me to forgive a multitude of shortcomings. But that opens the door on a whole other range of opinions, as the one who embodies the music to me may be like nails on a blackboard to others. It is so subjective.

Someone remarked to me at a NYCB performance this spring, "If you don't like someone, you just say they were unmusical, and that ends the conversation." So true. :grinning:

[Michael]

This is a little too schematic but I mean it to be so because I think it is useful and I don't see any way around it anyway.

Learning to assess ballet critically is like learning to see, appreciate and assess any of the arts. We are confronted with examples which are considered greats or classics. This is a judgment that has been collectively made, socially speaking, before we come to the performance. We then compare those things we immediately see which are "unlabeled" to those exemplars. The Sleeping Beauty example seems to be something of that type.

In this connection learning to "see" ballet is a little like learning to speak and appreciate a foreign language. First you have to become sufficienty fluent in the language and then you usually begin to know and to appreciate the literature of that language. A prior social judgment has been made about which literature is considered classical and "great" and about who the talented contemporaries are. You may not agree, but you know at least what the received social judgment is. It is in this sense vital to know the tradition if one is to participate in the critical judgments in more than the personal sense of "I like" or "I don't like" (there is nothing wrong with that, though, as a personal judgment). In this comparison, dancers are likened to contemporary authors.

To go a little off topic, a big problem has intruded at present in that there are competing and contradictory examples and schools of what is considered good. For instance, to use an example that Thomas Kuhn uses in his book about scientific history -- in Western painting early on it was agreed that advances in perspective, coloration, naturalism, etc., were advances in "Art." Painting advanced and painters were "better" who progressed in that direction and "progress" thus accumulated. But when one comes to a point like the present where competing ideals or schools are set up, it becomes more complex to judge because you must first declare your adherence to a particular set of examples which will be considered to be fine art. That's what happens when you have ballet competitions -- a different set of rules and examples is beginning to be applied (also a functional test, what the judges say, is being substituted for the more inchoate social process) but at least the aesthetics are not completely incompatible with the normal rules of the ballet art (in fact, they claim to be compiling those rules). The significance of the "Modern Dance" movement goes even further in that it is a competing and to some degree incompatible exemplar of what is beautiful, of what constitutes Art in Dance.

[BW]

I'm sorry that this discussion has withered on the vine a bit, as it's an extremely worthwhile topic.

Although your post, Michael, speaks more about the arts, in general, and their social underpinnings - and as to the touchstones upon which "we" base our opinions as to what is "good" etc. - I do think that you and Alexandra are getting at the same issues.

What astounds me is that so many of the families I know who have aspiring ballet students don't ever take them to see ballet performed! Or, often, if they do it's always the same company or they attend so infrequently they can't begin to learn what the differences are between good, better or "best" ;) - from mediocre and even straight out bad.

To draw on the analogy of literature or poetry, I think one would be hard pressed to find a good writer who was not an avid reader from his or her youth - so how can one possibly expect a dancer to grow into an artist, let a lone a "technician", if they never attend performances? :rolleyes: This however, is another topic for another time, perhaps.

[Treefrog]

I don't think it's "another topic for another time" at all, BW. Your question speaks to the very heart of how one develops an aesthetic.

[Alexandra]

I agree. I think students MUST attend performances -- but, as with literature or music or anything, they also have to be able to discuss that with a knowledgeable adult, bat their ideas around, go through the whole "but you never saw La Sublimova" at an early age, so they get used to it -- and learn WHY people called La Sublimova sublime.

This is part of the reason why the great international companies are fed primarily by their schools -- it's not JUST the teaching, but that the kids get to watch those performances, and take part in them, from a very early age. They can go to their teachers and say, "Why doesn't she get the lead? She's the best turner," and the teacher can say, yes, but .... It's a huge part of their education.

[BW]

This is part of the reason why the great international companies are fed primarily by their schools -- it's not JUST the teaching, but that the kids get to watch those performances, and take part in them, from a very early age. They can go to their teachers and say, "Why doesn't she get the lead? She's the best turner," and the teacher can say, yes, but .... It's a huge part of their education.

Ah, pedagogy. Alas, me thinks this sort of opportunity does not present itself often enough.

How can we improve the situation as parents of ballet students, as audience members, as dancers and teachers and arts administrators - as ballet lovers?

[Alexandra]

No, it's not easy to replicate, but it's possible -- back to what you said at the start of the discussion. Parents have to educate themselves in the art form, take their kids to performances, and discuss them. I'd bet all the money I don't have that any parent whose son has any potential to become a professional football or basketball player makes sure that he gets the best coaches possible, the most performing, er, playing opportunities, that he's surrounded by anyone who can help give him an edge, and that he gets to games -- of course, it helps taht they're televised (but ballet has videos, and you can watch them with your children too). If you're child is a budding pianist or violinist, they're not JUST going too practice scales all day. You're going to make sure they're listening to music. Ballet needs the same kind of commitment.

[Guest momto2.5dancers]

What astounds me is that so many of the families I know who have aspiring ballet students don't ever take them to see ballet performed! Or, often, if they do it's always the same company or they attend so infrequently they can't begin to learn what the differences are between good, better or "best" ;) - from mediocre and even straight out bad.

This is a very good point and I would love to take my kids to more performances, but it's not always realistic. The reason that we don't go to more performances is to put it bluntly, financial. We live in a small city and we get a touring company only occassionally. And the cost involved in travelling to a large city to see a performance is more than our budget usually allows, even if we just take the dancers. :shrug: We do go to see large and small companies whenver we can. Thank goodness for tv and videos. I know it's not a perfect solution, but you do the best you can with the resources that you have.

Sue

[BW]

Sue, I do understand your reasons and they're all 100% valid. I'm sure there are many in your situation... however there are those who live within easy limits of major metropolitan areas that don't avail themselves of the many and varied offerings - and these are the situations that are so mind boggling to me.

And yes, thank goodness for videos and DVDs.

Whatever methods are available! :yes:

[Alexandra]

How about asking the school to organize trips to a big city two or three times a year? (Presuming that you're within a day trip of a big city -- go to the matinee and back in one day.) If you get enough students, they can get a group rate. And the students would have a group experience -- if I were organizing it they'd get an orientation on the bus going up, and a debriefing on the bus coming home!

Videos and DVDs ARE great, but they still need guidance. I've done video showings for several groups of ballet students, and the only watch for the technique. It's as though nothing else exists -- they need to be given background info on the ballets, and they need help finding a context in which to put their technical knowledge.

[fille'smom]

What astounds me is that so many of the families I know who have aspiring ballet students don't ever take them to see ballet performed! Or, often, if they do it's always the same company or they attend so infrequently they can't begin to learn what the differences are between good, better or "best" ;) - from mediocre and even straight out bad.

Ahhh the pleasure I got when I met with my dancing daughter in the looby during intermission at ABT's Giselle last year. (She sat in the $75 seat, I in the $45) Tears in her eyes as she said passionately "that, mother, is the most fabulous thing I have ever seen". Best $120 (plus parking!)I had spent in a long while.

[Mel Johnson]

I'd like to go back to an earlier point made on this thread, and make a distinction. The art professor may have found his colleagues "ignorant" of art, but in that case, it's understandable. Any college faculty member should have had an education that included at least a nodding familiarity with dance. Most people just don't - they are "innocent". Judging from his Rockwell to Renoir to Rembrandt test, I'd say those teachers were "innocents" as well. Their educations had not prepared them to address or appreciate art. It's a common shortcoming these days. And more's the pity!

[Michael]

I'd like to go back and amend of the earlier points, as I've had a chance to rethink this a bit:

It may be that the reason it is so hard to judge whether a particular performance or production is a great one is the fact that we react so overwhelmingly to particular dancers. Based on familiarity with with the performing tradition, I ought to be able to make some clear critical judgments. But in the theater I often react very strongly in a visceral manner to the dancers on stage; there is something akin to love at first sight on the stage (and its opposite). Accounting for those reactions makes it much more complicated.

[Alexandra]

Michael, I think you've nailed the conflict It's what I'm getting at when I say 'I liked it, but I knew it wasn't good." It's breaking apart taste and aesthetic, or emotional reaction and judgment. I think both are equally valid -- one emotionally, one intellectually. And eventually one can come to live with the dichotomy

[BW]

Funny Face has written

Finally, presentation, presentation, presentation! Go to see as much ballet as you can, and observe what it is about the dancers whom you can't take your eyes off of.

on a new thread, started by Pas de Cutie on "Cross Talk", entitled Ballet and its aesthetic requirements.

Check it out, as in many ways, it's an offshoot of this topic.