Counting

[Mireille]

I'm ready John Ardoin's excellent book on the Kirov and comparing Balanchine to Kirov, he quotes Andris Liepa saying that Russian dancers never count, they simply feel the music, and that it is a difference between dancers in the East and in the West.

Having a Russian teacher, I have been told a million times to "listen to the music" before a variation.

But how do corps de ballet dancers get to feel the music the same and respond to it the same way, or 32 corps de ballet dancers perform the same movement at the same time and same speed without counting? Someone has to decide that the développé is on 3 and pass it on, no?

Is this "difference" a myth?

[Leigh Witchel]

I think what's not being said here is the difference between dancing alone, where one has some leeway in timing and dancing in a group.

[carbro]

And isn't counting just an aid in learning? After a dancer has the steps in the body, the music becomes The Thing, doesn't it?

[Leigh Witchel]

Well, not if you have 18 people who all need to move their arm in the same way at the same time. Then, counting is very important.

[bart]

How about with a highly unfamiliar and modern score, perhaps more percussive than melodic -- leagues away from the hummable old Nutcracker. Corps members have to enter at different times, perhaps waiting for quite a while before the entrance. Each entry has to be exact or the pattern is lost. And once on stage there's lots of steps to syncopated beats that are timed differeintly for each dancer..

I've seen such ballets. But how do they do it WITHOUT counting? And how do they count when it's an irregular rhythm? And how high do they have to count if there's a long wait before they come onstage or make a move.

(Thanks, Mireille, for raising a question that has always bugged me, though I never thought to ask.)

[Mel Johnson]

Russian companies still have a lot of Oompah music to dance to. If you have to count that, then you aren't really a dancer.

[Paul Parish]

well said, Mel....

BUT you guys-- rhythm is a mathematical thing -- there's lots of dancing that really is 90 percent in the rhythm, and in deed, the difference between danceable and "listening" music isreally in hte math of the rhythm section....

It's no disgrace ot count, though REALLY tricky rhythms are so tricky you have to feel them, you don't have time to htink them out -- but there are PLENTY of ballets wehre counting is crucial. At the first performance of the Rite of Spring, Nijinsky and ARambert were shouting out he counts from the wings so the dancers would have a hope of moving at the right time.

Mark Morris's ballets have very tricky counts. And from what I've heard from people who've stage Balanchine's balelts -- like Theme and Variations -- there are all sorts of places where the accent is OUT where you'd think it would be IN,and so on -- even for the principals.....

[Gina Ness]

Counting is a framework. Sometimes it is more necessary than other times if the music structure is complex (I'm thinking Stravinsky, for example). However, you get to the point after learning a ballet that you don't think so much about the counts anymore... you dance to the music.

[bart]

I've always been curious about this.

How does counting actually work, apart from the obvious ONE/two/three, TWO/two/three, THREE/two/three -- Mel's OOMPAH?

How do you handle the very common frequent and unfamiliar shifts in meter , often in the middle of a measure, that one finds in certain 20th century scores? (Eg., Petrushka has a section in which 2 bars of 3/4 and 7/8 are superimposed over each other, followed by 2 bars of 2/4 and 5/8 and one of 3/4 and 8/8. *)

And what do you do, for instance, if you have to wait 113 measures before making an entrance?

And how do you do all this while looking like it's perfectly spontaneous and like counting beats is the last thing on your mind?

I played some of this music in a student orchestra long ago and I remember it being a daunting task even with the score right in front of us.

(* Source: NPR Guide to Building a Classical Music Collection.)

[Hans]

One thing to keep in mind is that dancers don't count the same way musicians do. For example, during a march in 2/4 time, a dancer would count each quarter note for an entire phrase: "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight" instead of "one, two" each measure. Breaking the music into phrases instead of measures (choreography generally follows phrases) makes it easier to keep track of.

The answer to the rest of your questions is: Lots and LOTS of rehearsal. :blush: You just do it over and over and over again until you know your part and the music by heart and could sing/perform it backward in your sleep, blindfolded, with one hand tied behind your back!

[bart]

One thing to keep in mind is that dancers don't count the same way musicians do.  For example, during a march in 2/4 time, a dancer would count each quarter note for an entire phrase: "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight" instead of "one, two" each measure.  Breaking the music into phrases instead of measures (choreography generally follows phrases) makes it easier to keep track of.

Many thanks, Hans. This is really a revelation to me. And it makes sense out of something that long puzzled me. I'm going to try it out.

[Alexandra]

Some of the Danish dancers in the 1990s were quite proud of the fact that "I never had to count" or "so and so never had to count the score for me." But I think, as others have said, that depends on the complexity of the score. Bart, to add to the confusion about counting, I have a quote from Henning Kronstam about Ashton (both were considered very musical): "Ashton didn't care about counts. He didn't care whether you ended on one or on four, as long as you were with the music."