After the giants, what now?

[Alexandra]

We've been talking a lot about various aesthetic issues over in the NYCB forum, and I thought I'd post a topic that can be discussed in any context.

This is the opening of a review Paul Parish wrote for DanceView Times (for the full article, go to Stainless Steel and Angelic Grace

It often seems to me that we've arrived in the dance world at a stage very like that which succeeded the great age of Elizabethan drama—after Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Jonson, what follows is a generation that's hyper-aware of what's been done, and the gifted among them, the Fletchers and the Websters spend their wits making madder mad scenes, more villainous villains, elaborating self-consciously on the affective devices that made King Lear so involving, so upsetting it made grown men cry.

Similarly in the wake of the heroic generation (Balanchine, Graham, Ashton, Limon, name your favorites), we get dances that live in the suburbs of the masterpieces they created. It's nobody's fault—it's just where we are in the cycle. Today the technique has flowered to the point where the practitioners are so adept they are almost in advance of what the idea-folk can ask of them.

So you hear that Helgi Tomasson is going to make a ballet to Bach, what do you expect? Well, it won't have the organic, fated quality of Concerto Barocco, the structure will not make form reveal function—but I expect that the dancers will move to that music with a grace bordering on the angelic.

Usually, the "after the giants, what now?" question in dance is related to the end of the Beethoven and Stravinsky eras in music. New musicians were frozen by the preceding generation, couldn't compete and couldn't figure out a way out of what seemed an artistic cul de sac. That's probably true -- the Romantics figured out a brilliant work around; Brahms could then come back to the symphony with fresh eyes. But I liked Paul's idea, too, that "what follows is a generation that's hyper-aware of what's been done, and the gifted among them, the Fletchers and the Websters spend their wits making madder mad scenes, more villainous villains, elaborating self-consciously on the affective devices that made King Lear so involving, so upsetting it made grown men cry."

What do you think? Paul's theory definitely fits MacMillan, to me, following Ashton: "madder mad scenes and more villainous villains," indeed. I'm not sure I can find an analog for Balanchine; I'm seeing smaller mad scenes and weaker villains, but others may feel differently.

Paul, if you see this, I hope you'll join in -- and others, please feel free to agree or disagree.

[dido]

Just to add another analogy, think of Greek literature and 90% of those answering will say Homer, Sophocles, Aeschylus or Euripides, but we have tons and tons of poetry, mimes, even novels from the 4th century on.

Many of these later Hellenistic writers were scholar/poets. Callimachus is probably the greatest figure, known for excercising vast influence on Roman poetry and completing a catalogue of the Museum at Alexandria.

They too were hyperaware of what had been done before, and it took the form of a conscious revolt/immitation. Yeah, do an epic, like Homer, use Homer's language, but do it in 4 books instead of 48, and make it all about human relationships (the Argonautica).

I think this question of "after the giants" gets solved in a lot of different ways, at a lot of different times. The Hellenistic poets went very intellectual and small scale ("A big book is a big evil"), Webster went over the top and beyond.

What's interesting about all this for me is how individuality is still preserved. I can't stand most Hellenistic poetry (though I do like the epigrams), but the Duchess of Malfi is hands down my favorite play ever written. I realize it can't compete even with the worst of Shakespeare, but I still love it to death.

[citibob]

In my reading of ballet history, I surmised that the most innovative periods are often those in which a ballet tradition is just being established in a society. That's true of Balanchine as well as the Russican Classical period. Balanchine went to Denmark before the USA, but evidently was not able to do his thing there because of the strong Bournenville tradition. And the Ballets Russes --- they came to Paris at the end of "the decadance" period of French ballet. So again, Paris was a fertile ground for thier "new thing".

[Alexandra]

Citibob, I agree -- except, perhaps in Russia. I think part of the reason is that while plays and music can stand re-interpretation from generation to generation, dance, by its very nature, needs to preserve, or try to preserve, in effect, blocking, presentational style, phrasing and tone, as well as steps, atmosphere and story. And you'll constantly run into the "they're not doing it the way they did it when it was new" and the "she's no Ulanova!" problem. It takes a great deal of patience, will and money to survive this -- to have an institution that's lived through a number of generations, and has enough of a repertory built up that you can dip into that repertory and revive ballets for those in the new generation that are suited to them.

The most creative period in modern dance was the time of Giants. When the Giants began to die off, instead of out-Gianting them, dancers turned to the No Manifesto and created something out of that.

To play Devil's Advocate, on could argue that what have been acclaimed as great innovations did not seem like that to traditionalists, and they made a good case for their position -- Levinson in Paris was not won over by Diaghilev's company. There were ardent defenders of neoclassicism well into the Romantic period, despite what Gautier would have us believe.

But I think what Paul is writing is that artists get stuck in a Giant Rut, as it were, repeating formulas. (I think that the Sons of Balanchine are repeating formulas, but in a very diminished way. The only thing that is Bigger are the extensions and number of turns.)

[Paul Parish]

As a southerner, I love to think by way of analogy .... but no analogy can be pushed too far.

but I think there IS something provocative about this one. I showed these graphs to Marni Wood, who's chair of the dance program here at Berkeley, and was a star in Graham's company in hte 50's/60's, and she loved it -- didnt think it was all that new an idea, but it WAS well put. SHe said, in fact, that the great British critic (well, actually I think he's great) Dickie Buckle was onto this long ago. "he'd say, 'Apres toi, Martha.... What THEN?!?' "

(BUt then, Ms WOod is a fountain of hilarious and instructive stories about Graham.

another thread for that someday.)

THe sons of Balanchine -- to MY mind, from seeing a great deal of Helgi Tomasson, rather than (say, a great deal of Peter Martins) -- have caught his way of building momentum through a phrase, and his cleanness of execution, without having his depth of poetic metaphor or penetration into LARGER musical structure.

I'd have to say, at the moment I am admiring Helgi TOmason a great deal as a dance maker, esp in the his creations for TIna LeBlanc, who's a fantastic interpreter and advocate of his work -- she is making his Valses Poeticos look like, and like it's in the same league as, Robbins's "Other Dances" -- it's just stunning how musical and sensitive these dance phrases look, with her dancing htem -- similarly, in his new ballet, 7 for 8, she makes the choreography seem as musical as all but hte very greatest Balanchine. Because she is herself so musical???? Well ,she did manage to make Forsythe's Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude look hella musical, so maybe it IS her doing -- indeed, when she danced Valses Poeticos years ago with David Palmer, she didn't make it look like this -- I don't remember the voluptuousness and passion in the releves in effacee that just take my breath away the way she does them now in this piece -- so maybe it's because having had a coiuple of children, she;'s become finally a "released" artist, somebody who's really dancing into hte moment and being as free and intimate with us as she is with her babies.... In any case, her dancing has fantastic new dimensions to it. the honesty that was always there, physically, is now joined to a spontaneity and a wide range of emotion, especially rich in affectoin and playfulness, which makes TOmasson's choreography look immensely appealing.

My hunch is that her astounding facility is rather like his, and he can create work for her that has a lot of momentum and co-ordination straight out of his imagination and response to the music, he can identify with her.... but who cares what I think, everybody here feels that something remarkable is happening there....

[perky]

Maybe a bit off topic, but facinating articles like Paul's are the reason I just subscribed to DanceView Times

[Mel Johnson]

Although facetious in tone, my previous (deleted) post on this subject was entirely serious in intent.

After the Giants, next the Cowboys.

After Fokine and Massine (Giants), Jean Borlin (Cowboy).

After de Valois and Ashton(Giants), MacMillan (Cowboy).

After Balanchine and Robbins (Giants), Forsythe (Cowboy).

And we won't even get into the Buccaneers!

[sandik]

After Fokine and Massine (Giants), Jean Borlin (Cowboy).

After de Valois and Ashton(Giants), MacMillan (Cowboy).

After Balanchine and Robbins (Giants), Forsythe (Cowboy).

And we won't even get into the Buccaneers!

Please, don't stop there!

[Alexandra]

Mel, if you'd posted what you did above and not just the one-liner, I wouldn't deleted it, since we wouldn't have been in danger of having a dozen football jokes. We've had discussions derailed in this forum previously when people got facetious, and that's something I want to avoid.

Your thesis is interesting -- another way to say that after a master there's rebellion. I'd argue that Borlin was trying to be a Giant, especially the Massine kind, though. And I don't see Forsythe in the same line as Balanchine and Robbins; he's from another house. I don't know about MacMillan. Was he trying to rebel against Ashton, or do his own thing? (I don't have an answer to that.)

Now, who are the Buccaneers?

[Mel Johnson]

The 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been hailed by some sportswriters as the Worst Professional Team in all Football History. The ballet equivalent would have to be a choreographer like the writing of Warren G. Harding, "So bad, a kind of grandeur creeps into it," or the singing career of Florence Foster Jenkins.

You have a point; Borlin was trying hard to match the Massine/Diaghilev masterpieces, but he just didn't have the same competency, or company to bring that vision to the stage. His luck with graphic designers, though, was pretty good.

I think that MacMillan was trying to continue the tradition started by de Valois and Ashton - but his own hermeneutic was working too hard, and often overcame his best intentions.

Forsythe is outside the direct line of Balanchine and Robbins, true. He came to where he is now through several secondaries (Cowboys) including Gerald Arpino and John Neumeier, and the almost-unclassifiable Bejart.

(PS. I'm not saying he worked for or with any of those, just that his aesthetic seems to include their influences.)