A Balanchine Memorial

[MJ]

Is there a monument to Mr. B anywhere? If not, why not? This Centanary celebration would be the perfect opprtunity to honor him.

MJ

[Mel Johnson]

In a very real sense, the theaters he helped design, like the State and SPAC are living memorials to him. This is what makes the SPAC situation so disrespectful - ousting a company that gave the house birth!

[MJ]

SPAC is throwing out City Ballet? For the Rockettes?

Typically a monument has the inteneded person's name on it. I don't see a painting or statue of Mr. B in the State Theater.

Maybe White Plains, NY will offer a suitable spot. Mr. B's first performance was there at the Warburg estate.

MJ

[Farrell Fan]

I've thought for many years that the New York State Theater ought to be renamed for Balanchine, particularly since the New York City Opera doesn't like being there. But I guess it's not going to happen, and I don't understand why. There at least ought to be bronze heads of Balanchine and Kirstein in the lobby.

[MJ]

I've been told NYS paid for the State theatre. Note the Flag on the outside and in the lobby, US & NYS. Robert Moses, who built Lincoln Center, was a state employee. He has three memorials (Park on Long Island, Parkway upsate, Plaza at Fordham U/Lincoln Center)

There is no staue of Abe Lincoln at Lincoln Ctr either. The Kennedy Center has that Monstrous head of JFK, it appears a bit out of place in the hallway.

MJ

[Hans]

Why would there be a statue of Abe Lincoln at Lincoln Center? I was always told that it was named for Lincoln Kirstein....

I always found the JFK head to be on just as grand a scale as the rest of the building--and if nothing else, it makes for a great reference point/meeting place!

[Alexandra]

Best quote on the JFK head I've ever heard, from a small boy to his parents: "How long has he been dead!"

[Ari]

Why would there be a statue of Abe Lincoln at Lincoln Center?  I was always told that it was named for Lincoln Kirstein....

Oh, no. It was named for Abe. Lincoln Kirstein was a dedicated enemy of Lincoln Center, he used the word himself (actually, what he said was, "Lincoln Center is the enemy" of NYCB).

[carbro]

There once was a bust of The Great Emancipator in the NYST lobby, just above one of the tables on the side. Briefly. However, I was under the impression that the 16th President was not the Lincoln for whom the Center was named. The name was in honor of the architect of the Lincoln Building (near Bryant Park) and other NYC structures. I am sorry, but I don't remember his first name, and Google has proved fruitless. :shrug:

I think it is long past due (and the Centennial would have been a perfect opportunity)to rename NYCB's home for its founding genius.

[Roma]

Maybe they are waiting to rename it after Martins...on his centennial.

[Mel Johnson]

No, there was a statue of Abe in Lincoln Square, which was replaced by Lincoln Center. It was by Henry Kirke-Brown and I believe it was moved to Union Square.

[carbro]

I knew I could count on you, Mel. Thanks.

[atm711]

The architect of the Lincoln Building (60 E. 42) was J.E.R. Carpenter, 1939. The lobby has a reproduction of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.

[Jane Simpson]

I'd have thought the only monument Balanchine needs in the State Theatre is the one Christopher Wren's son wrote for his father in St Paul's Cathedral: Si monumentum requiris, circumspice. ('If you seek his monument, look around you.')

[MJ]

If other cities (Washington, Philly or St. Petersburg perhaps) Planned to erect a monument, I betcha NYC would do something. The assumption is NYC would be obvious, but what other cities would have the legacy to build one? and for what reasons?

MJ

[Jack Reed]

I suppose I'm the odd man out or something to bring this up here, but isn't the man himself on record as thinking that "Americans make too much of death"? I know that whenever I see his and Kirstein's heads in bronze or something on opposite sides of a doorway over at SAB, it gives me the creeps. I guess that's about my sense of loss at NYCB and all that, but Jane Simpson's quote comes closest to what I think is the most appropriate way to remember (or, better, to honor) artists - maintain their art. (I don't say "preserve"; the aroma of formaldehyde puts me off.) Wren built; Balanchine choreographed.

Sorry if I'm raining on the parade...

[Alexandra]

Rain away, Jack I see both sides of this one. The purist in me agrees with Jack and Jane -- and then I see a future with Stanton Welch Street, Tetley Park, Stroman Square and the statue garden devoted to Eifman but no Balanchine Boulevard, and I say, build it big and build it now

[Mel Johnson]

isn't the man himself on record as thinking that "Americans make too much of death"?

Yes, but then when he said that, he hadn't been dead yet.

[Hans]

MJ, I can't really think of any other American cities that have enough of a Balanchine legacy to build a monument...certainly not Washington, although an excuse could be made that he was a national treasure. (Also, Washington is becoming so crammed with monuments that soon everyone will have to move to Bethesda.) I agree, St. Petersburg would be a very appropriate place for one as well.

[Jack Reed]

St. Petersburgh? But Balanchine was an American! I'm thinking of Taper's discussion in his biography of where to bury Balanchine's remains: "Stravinsky had been buried in Venice. So had Diaghilev. Some thought that was where Balanchine's body belonged. But he disliked Venice. Others thought of Monte Carlo, of which Balanchine had fond memories, or of Paris, or London, or Zurich. But no place in Europe contained the proper soil to hold the remains of the greatest master of movement in history. If his remains belonged anywhere, it was in the United States. He was, as he often proudly declared, with that aristocratic lift of his head and in that low, courteous, decisive voice that never lost its Russian accent, an American."

[Hans]

That doesn't mean that a memorial in St. Petersburg would be inappropriate, although as we've all been saying, one in NYC would of course make more sense. But why not more than one?

[Mel Johnson]

Now of course if it were St. Petersburg, Florida, that might be a little odd.

[MJ]

As a student of NY politics, NOTHING gets built in NYC unless Civic pride is at stake. For example, a possible Olympic/NFL Stadium on the West Side. By threatening to build a monument in DC/Chicago/Dallas , New Yorkers will open their checkbooks.

I think we can confidently say Mr. B invented American Ballet, maybe a monument in DC is appropriate.

I do recall Mr. B is buried in a Cemetary on Long Island. Pretty boring tombstone.

BTW I've planned my own funeral, I want a Viking Funeral, Flaming arrows and everything. :^)

MJ