The Master:

[kfw]

Ari posted the link to this article and nycdog5734 commented on it earlier.

I have a few random thoughts and questions I hope others will post their own. Bentley is always engaging, although for my taste her language and thought get a little flowery at times, and some of what she writes doesn’t, IMHO, stand up to scrutiny: “A beautiful ballet doesn't speak of or refer to loss directly as can poetry, painting, or music; it is an act of loss itself, laid bare, . . “ Yes, the art’s emphemerality is poignant, but dancing is not _about_ loss.

About this line of dancewear sporting Balanchine’s name along with, if I understand correctly, the name of the ballet it’s modeled after, plus the composer and the première date -- all this under the guise of educating young dancers. Sounds pretty gauche, and Bentley sniffs at the idea that dancers have any need to learn from this sort of history, but I would think it can’t help spark some interest in the ballets. I wonder is this has been discussed on Ballet Talk for Dancers.

I’m flabbergasted to read that after Balanchine’s death his estate owed taxes on his ballets. It’s for this reason, Bentley says, that “the marketing of Balanchine, inevitably, begun.” Are we to understand that the Balanchine Foundation licenses this dancewear? They must; don’t they have the right to his name?

Most interesting and affecting is when Bentley’s weighs in how NYCB dances Balanchine today: “Balanchine once told a dancer, "Reach for it like you're reaching for a Cadillac." They just don't reach for those Cadillacs at New York City Ballet anymore. It's SUV City Ballet now.” A not uncommon sentiment uncommonly well expressed. “The spirit of the enterprise has changed,” she writes. But how ironic it is to be told that the romance is gone by a writer who elsewhere fixates, well, anally, on anal sex (Balanchine, in contrast, slept in a separate bed for Tallchief, we might guess in order to focus his erotic energies on his work) and here refers to having given birth as having “reproduced.”

But she’s right, isn’t she? In many ways this could hardly be a more unromantic time we’re living in, and Martins’s view of love, or so I keep reading, is cold and analytical and thus unlike Balanchine’s, and if that’s so it’s one more reason the spirit of the ballets is being altered and lost.

One more thought: we briefly discussed B.H. Haggin a couple of days ago. There’s a guy who wrote professionally about both music and ballet. I don’t know if others have done the same. (Oh, John Rockwell). Reviewing Terry Teachout’s “All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine,” Bentley remarks on “his astonishing late arrival to the shores of one of the greatest artists not only of his own time but of the very city in which he lives.” It’s astonishing because Teachout is a music critic (and a drama critic), who writes a monthly column for Commentary and frequently discusses CDs, performances and favorite artists on his blog About Last Night. How is that a New York music critic doesn’t know his Balanchine long before he begins writing professionally? But he’s not alone. Teachout recently wrote that he’d taken a fellow music writer to see City Ballet, another Balanchine novice. (The guy loved it).

It’s been noted here before that lovers of one art form often have little knowledge of and interest in other, cousin, forms, but we all know how central music was to Balanchine’s work and how much he did with it. I would not have believed that a professional music critic, in New York City of all places, could be so ignorant. What explains this? More of the same specialization we see in lay art lovers, aggravated by the fact that the city offers abundant musical and dramatic choices every day and night?

These leads me to wonder and fret about the other side of the footlights. Notwithstanding the tremendous dedication of their teachers – are the dancers being given similar resources? I think of Verdy – it’s part of her legend that her sophisticated dancing reflected her cultural and artistic sophistication. But come to think of it I can’t think of too many other dancers of who we know had similar riches to draw on. Kent? LeClerq? Bentley cites Balanchine’s “crash course in European culture” courtesy of Diaghilev, but the choreogrpaher was known for frequenting Times Square movie houses, not the city’s art museums. Still, his musical knowledge and understanding were superb, and Kirstein befriended at least a few of the dancers and, we might suppose, taught them too. Today, Teachout and company can not know what they’re missing. Mel, are there many teachers out there with your seemingly encylopedic cultural knowledge? Do today’s Balanchine dancers have the time/get the opportunities for a cultural education outside their field? Do they have a chance at romance?

[bart]

Kfw, thanks for your thought-provoking post.

In the 60s and early 70s, a variety of approaches to dance -- contemporary but especially Balanchine -- were entirely interwoven into the intellectual life of New York City. The spectrum of writers, academics, visual artists, and even political activitsts who valued and discussed the work of the NYCB was impressive.

Is this still true today?

What place DOES serious dance -- and specifically ballet -- have in the larger intellectual community within the US? As far as I can tell, ballet seems an increasingly isolated art. Serious dance criticism has changed dramatically from the days of Denby, Croce, Haggin, etc., whose range of cultural and even political references was large. Dance wriiting today seems to focus narrowly on reviewing specific performances, charting the ups and downs of individual companies, and dissecting the performance history of individual dancers. Its cultural references seem increasingly restricted to dance itself.

Hope I'm wrong -- but that's how it seems from here.

[Farrell Fan]

I loved Bentley's article, and the thoughtful responses to it. Bentley's review is full of felicities .. "...pointed toes but soulless feet." "We are not naysayers, just dinosaurs who remember when the pterodactyls flew at the State Theater." And I was grateful for her putdown of the unnamed Anna Kisselgoff for reaching "a whole new plateau of equivocal diplomacy" in her review of "Musagete."

I can hardly wait for her Kirstein biography.

[Alexandra]

A brief note on the practical side of criticism today. Many critics are interested in, and knowledgeable about, other arts (some aren't, of course), but newspapers and magazines are barely interested in reviews of dance; space is extremely limited. A newspaper review is usually around 400 to 500 words; tops, 1000. There's only so much you can do with that space. As someone who writes for newspapers, magazines and the web, I thought the web would provide more space, and it does, in theory, but practically, space is limited by what someone reading a web site has the patience to read on line.

I wonder, too, how many readers would be interested in, or understand, pieces with a broader reach? I think kfw is right -- ballet is not at the center of intellectual life any more. And, one might ask, IS there a center of intellectual life in America today? If so, it's gone underground. The magazines that served such people are not viable in today's mass marketing world.

As for people writing about something in which they are not steeped, shall we say, that's part of today's newspaper culture as well. I know of instances where a dance critic has told an editor that there's a need for a second critic on a partiicular night -- two premierres or openings, say -- and the response has been, "Can't Joe [the theater critic] handle that one?" The thought seems to be that if you can write a review of one thing, then you can of another; expertise is not valued. Or, if Brad Pitt, to pull a name out of a hat (no offense intended, Brad) suddenly decided to write about dance, once upon a time an editor would have known [big point here -- he wouldn't have had to have asked; he would have KNOWN] if Brad was truly a devotee of the art form and had actually seen, much less thought about, a dance performance. Today, they'd just start taking out the radio ads and painting the billboards. 75% of those polled would say this was great for dance, because it would give the art form more publicity. The dancewear line would be a HOT item, too.

[carbro]

After having slept on it, I think Toni crossed the line into sentimentality and hero worship. Not by much, and it might be argued, if anyone's entitled, isn't she and her colleagues and predecessors at NYCB? The review paid lip service to her ostensible subject -- the books -- and then delved into the state of The Art at NYCB these days.

Three years ago, I was going through a trial separation with the company. Then, as the centennial approached and they began to pull their stuff together, it seemed as if the company underwent a drastic metamorphosis. Like many on this board, I remember the company of Toni's day, through the mid-80s to the early 2000's, to the company of the last two years. I think it deserves credit for having rescued its claim on Balanchine (which, despite the fact that those works will never be danced "the same," it has) -- at least for the moment.

[socalgal]

I agree with you, Farrel Fan! I loved Ms. Bentley's review and many of her word choices. It did not bother me at all that after reviewing the books, she entered into her own platform regarding the Past and Present of NYCB. I agreed with most everything she had to say......and I will also look forward to her book on Kirstein.

[dirac]

Bentley is a writer of intense romanticism and can get a tad florid at times, but that comes with the territory. I think she commented on the state of things at the State Theatre because it flows naturally from the subject matter of the review. This was a long piece and I don't think she was wandering too far afield.

I enjoyed the comment on "Musagete" too, Farrell Fan.