Assoluta

[kfw]

Laura Jacobs writes about Veronica Part, Mozartiana,and Raymonda in the October issue of the The New Criterion:

Who will be the next assoluta in the ballet world?

EXCERPT:

We live in a time when strength has come to mean a buttoned-up performance, clean as a gymnastics routine, cool doing ever more two-dimensional, presentational, airtight. This is what people respond to in the dancing of Svetlana Zakharova, Sylvie Guillem, a whiplike dominatrix control that pushes you back in your seat in submission. But when you over-control you lose what is unknown, magical.

[Mel Johnson]

There is a problem in using the old title "prima ballerina assoluta" these days. In some circles, it carries with it a sort of baggage that goes like: "Good ol' gal who should have hung it up a while ago"!

[Alexandra]

It does have a certain meaning now, but once it simply meant "I'm the REAL prima ballerina of this company". The young Italian ballerinas who came to New York in the "Black Crook" days had this title in their contracts -- they were good dancers, but 19, 20 years old and hardly Kschessinska or Fonteyn. But the problem was that American impresarios, who didn't understand much of anything about ballet traditions, were handing out "prima ballerina" contracts to anyone (probably saved some money that way). And so the ones hired as THE star insisted on "prima ballerina assoluta" -- "the absolute first female dancer" -- in her contract.

Now it seems to be used as a fancy word for "super star" or "no, really, I mean BALLERINA."

Re the quote kfw gave us above -- how nice that someone is writing against gymnastics! (I'm assuming that the piece asks us to look at Part as something more than a gyroscope.)

[kfw]

Re the quote kfw gave us above -- how nice that someone is writing against gymnastics! (I'm assuming that the piece asks us to look at Part as something more than a gyroscope.)

And how! A teaser:

“Dance critics don’t talk about bodies anymore, or rather, female bodies. It seems to have been deemed politically incorrect, impolite, as if it’s unfair to discuss something that can’t be changed. But the body is where it all begins and Part’s is one of the wonders of ballet today.”

Part is bucking every trend in ballet today. She uses her strength to touch the precarious . . . .

[Dale]

As Part fan, I found the article very interesting. It really is an essay on wonders and delights of Veronika Part. And I agree that she is a "ballerina."

Too bad the article is not online, but here were other interesting lines:

After a reference to the late critic David Daniel, who (Jacobs writes) said today most dancers are "doing ballet."

For David there was an unbridgeable difference between dancing and doing, between artistry and athletics, art and airs, a dancer answering the history encultured in her muscles and one who ears a little, who gives a silhouette of a performances, a facsimile, all steps accounted for...

We often just get all steps accounted for (sometimes we don't), but no atmosphere or mystery.

Jacobs quotes the Time Out NY article in which Part says she believed there is a mystery in Mozartiana that she is looking for the answer.

A ballerina doesn't have to find the answer, only to feel for the secret.

I thought the article made some good points about Part's size, which has been criticized. In a way, she has made a "problem" one of her strengths. Her body has epic proportions and slowly the audience has been made to appreciate it. The same could be said for Meunier, who isn't mentioned in the article but also is a ballerina (who isn't presented as one).

However, I felt Jacobs praised Part's Mozartiana at the expense of others throughout the years, including Farrell's. Part succeeded in the role on her own terms, but several others have too (of course, Farrell, but also Calegari, Nichols, Kistler and even Weese and Whelan [Kowroski was interesting but hadn't yet come to terms with the role]).

[Thalictum]

There's a great deal about Part in the latest Ballet Review, Winter 2004, in an article by Don Daniels.

[Dale]

I didn't know it was out yet, thanks. I'll have to pick it up on Saturday.

[nysusan]

I didn't know it was out yet, thanks.  I'll have to pick it up on Saturday.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Any idea where I could pick it up in Manhattan? I've never seen it at a newsstand in my neighborhood

[kfw]

I didn't know it was out yet, thanks.  I'll have to pick it up on Saturday.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Any idea where I could pick it up in Manhattan? I've never seen it at a newsstand in my neighborhood

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The magazine store across the street from Lincoln Center carries it.

[Dale]

So does the magazine place at 72nd street and broadway, and New York State Theater.

[E Johnson]

I've also gotten it at the Universal newsstand on 8th avenue between 57th and 58th.