Consistency vs. Immediacy at NYCB

[carbro]

Gia Kourlas' recent comparison of ABT and NYCB dancers (Oct. 14 New York Times ) might provide grist for the mill:

The most extreme landscape for the art form is found at City Ballet, where dozens of works, frustratingly underrehearsed, are performed each season. Yet by the very nature of the company's George Balanchine-heavy repertory, there is often ample opportunity for individual dancers to shine. The company, no longer the one Balanchine envisioned, has turned into the punk rock of ballet. Performances are jittery, raw, unpredictable and, at times, horrific, but at both its unprofessional worst and unnervingly beautiful best, programs at the New York State Theater are alive. You go because you can't fathom what will happen next. Consistency is a lost cause; City Ballet is about survival in impossible circumstances.

Is NYCB the "punk rock of ballet?" Is consistency desirable? Is NYCB in any way still Balanchine's company? Anything else?

Thanks to Violin Concerto for citing and suggesting the passage.

[bart]

Is consistency desirable?

Depends on how often you go. As a now very occasional NYCB viewer, I really WOULD prefer to think that the performance I attend (and pay for) is the best possible. And I would prefer, since the name "Balanchine" is part of the attraction, if the performance bore some relation to the Balanchine style.

Those who attend frequently might, on the other hand, actually perfer unevenness for purposes of comparison. I sometimes felt that way when I lived in New York.

And those who are total NYCB fanatics might actually feed off the pattern of emotional highs and lows

Interesting question, though.

[Farrell Fan]

"Consistency" can be one step removed from "routine." In that sense, except when Ashley Bouder dances, I think NYCB performances are much more consistent than they are "immediate." That's a colorful quote from Gia Kourlas about NYCB being "the punk rock of ballet," but I still have no idea what she means. As for whether NYCB is still Balanchine's company, I don't think even the most fervent admirer of NYCB today would claim that it is.

[oberon]

Twenty+ years after Balanchine's death, and with only two dancers remaining active who were dancing during his lifetime, I would say it is no longer Balanchine's company. It is simply the company that dances more of his works with more frequency than any other company.

New York City Ballet is, when you think of it, a very unusual artistic enterprise: founded basically on one man's genius. What other organizations can we compare it to: the Martha Graham Company, perhaps, or the Bayreuth Festival?

I find many evenings (most, in fact) at NYCB to have substantial immediacy; I do think the viewer's frame of mind has a great deal to do with how things are perceived; if you go in thinking "Well, this won't be as good as when Karin & Jacques danced it..." you will probably prove yourself correct. If you go often and allow yourself to connect with the present roster of dancers you are more likely to find yourself having a better time.

[canbelto]

I dont think the NYCB is the "punk rock of ballet." I also take exception to the idea that for a performance to be "immediate" it must somehow be underrehearsed and chaotic. Part of the beauty of ballet is consistency. Discipline, hard work, and lots of rehearsals always make for a better night at the ballet, IMO. The great dancers, IMO, combine an immediacy and spontaneity with consistency. I recently saw the documentary "Fonteyn and Nureyev" and it had clips of F&N rehearsing Birthday Offering. "You want to do that again, Margot?" was the stern order of the rehearsal coach. Margot Fonteyn did not become prima ballerina assoluta by jumping around wildly. She was able to combine emotion and passion with consistency.

The same can be said for an entire company. When I saw the ABT dance Sylvia this past summer I noted immediately how the corps seemed out of sorts and messy. This didnt make the performance more "immediate," it just detracted from the choreography. The ABT will need more time and more rehearsals for the corps to feel entirely at home with Sylvia. What I personally find dispiriting about the NYCB is how even in works that the corps or performers should know like the backs of their hands (i.e. The Nutcracker) the performances were sloppy and looked underrehearsed. This didnt make me think, "Oh, how immediate! How spontaneous!" It just made me think that I'd wasted my money.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

What I personally find dispiriting about the NYCB is how even in works that the corps or performers should know like the backs of their hands (i.e. The Nutcracker) the performances were sloppy and looked underrehearsed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, the NYCB corps has never exactly breathed as one. The ragged lines and the - hmmm, what shall we call it - "13 ways of looking at a blackbird phrasing" did bother me when I first started attending NYCB performaces regularly (almost 30 years ago - which is just about when I started listening to punk rock ...). Then one day it ocurred to me that if George Balanchine wanted straight lines he could extract them any time he pleased, and that I should probably start paying attention to other things. I don't mind if the corps is ragged but energized; I do mind if half of the girls look lost and the other half look bored and nobody's listening to the music. But I'm not particularly troubled if everyone's legs are just finding their own personal 90.

That being said, when the corps does manage nail that long straight line in Symphony in Three Movements (as they did in one of the performances I saw last season), it's pretty thrilling.

Anyway, not the Sex Pistols, but maybe Green Day ...

Just a quick edit to add that I didn't think Kourlas was suggesting that chaos is a necessary component of "immediacy," but that I do agree with canbelto that sloppines shouldn't be excused as a necessary evil. I'd rather have ragged lines of underrehearsed but engaged and musical dancers than straight lines of blandly perfect ones -- but I'd much rather have straight lines of well-rehearsed, engaged, and musical dancers.

[oberon]

I cannot think of a single performance of the approximately 400 I have attended at NYCB - both during Balanchine's lifetime and after his death - where I would apply Kourlas' description: "...jittery, raw, unpredictable...horrific..." (except maybe THE CAGE, which is all those things!) Usually I see daring, edginess, passion; maybe her sense of things is exaggerated. Punk rock? I hardly think that term applies to elegant people like Darci, Jared Angle, Jenifer Ringer or Antonio Carmena. But I do agree with her that dance is very much alive at NYCB and I suppose that is the real attraction. The rep & dancers at NYCB continue to speak to me while at the (too big) house next door I can't get anything from DON Q or ROMEO & JULIET. I'd rather sit thru a routine mixed-bill at NYCB than see something as faded and irrelevant as ABT's SYLVIA, despite its lovely score and perfectly good dancing.

As far as "sloppy and underrehearsed", my diary notes back to the 1970s reflect that this is nothing new. There have always been such evenings, and other nights when things come together pretty nicely. The dancers are human, after all...they were in Balanchine's day and they still are. When they are replaced by "perfect" automatons, I'll stop going.

[ViolinConcerto]

I'm glad the article has gotten such interesting responses.

(I just wrote a whole reply, and being new to this board must have touched something that wiped it out. How frustrating....let's see what I can remember!)

All dance is unpredictable: it's LIVE! So many things contribute to what happens on stage -- how many performances were affected by Andrea Quinn's race to the finish, for example.

As for "underrehearsed," I agree with canbelto. Back in the 70's and 80's there were fewer pieces in each season's repertory, and each one was repeated 5 or 6 times. You could watch the dancers learn and grow into a role over that span. Now ballets are only run 3 or 4 times (other than the full-length ballets, which usually run for a week), so unless a particular cast has performed it in previous seasons, no one will have had a chance to really come to know a role.

I also have no idea what Kourlas meant by "punk rock" relative to ballet, but somehow that just doesn't seem to fit.

And thanks, Kathleen, for bringing to mind one of my favorite images in all of balanchine: that long line of women opening and closing the first movement of Symph. in 3.

[bart]

I guess Toni Bentley's book, "Dancer's Journal," addresses this issue from one NYCB dancer's point of view, at least as it was a quarter century ago.

For example, the point about too-much-to-do/ too-little-time:

"Our schedule for each day is mapped out for us only the evening before. Usually by 8 o'clock, curtain time, a pencil-written schedule is posted on the bulletin board at stage level. A crowd immediately gathers for a quick silent perusal before stepping on stage. During the performances, things are canceled, added or rearranged, according to the casualty level of the performance. If a dancer is injured, the ballet must be re-rehearsed for the understaudy, or if the dancer is irreplaceable, a whole new ballet must be rehearsed as a replacement. By 11 p.m., the schedule can be assumed to be final, although in the course of the next day, things are often changed."

Or the occsional thrill of the unexpected:

"The moment, special moments, are what make it all worthwhile -- Suzanne's daredevil balance, Peter Martins when he is on (or even when he's off), a debut, an outrageous mistake in Swan Lake, even a slip or fall can be monumental and magnificent. Stories abound of idiosyncratic performances when someone overslept or got her period on stage (it has happened more often than you might think)."

Consistency may be difficult in such a complex, changing and human setting. Bland, lackluster, and going through the motions are the real .enemies, IMO That happens occasionally too. And it can be, especially in a vast theater like the State, quite deadly.

[Farrell Fan]

when I first started attending NYCB performaces regularly (almost 30 years ago - which is just about when I started listening to punk rock ...)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Balanchine never understood rock music, let alone punk rock. (Just a slightly off-topic aside.)

[drb]

I agree with Oberon that performances at NYCB are very daring, thrilling and elegant (not Punk!), both "Then" and now. Their unlimited exchance policy is a real help in this regard: in recent years I've found it useful to exchange about half my performances. Of course there has always been the occasional program that just didn't appeal. But now certain great ballets are often worth avoiding. UnDER-inspired (not un---the best inspirers are not (allowed) there) or under-cast. Sometimes, I think, lackluster solos lead to dulled-out corps. Not always, though. Ballo, with one Ashley coaching the other, is still just as thrilling (Bouder dances it differently, of course, which just shows that Merill is a good coach). Making it "same as" is not the way to make it "good as."

Often the greatest talent is used in lesser works, to Balanchine's loss. But we do have Wheeldon, hopefully he'll find another Jock. And he's still got Wendy! A muse is a muse is a muse. And yes, sometimes Mr. Martins does a great job. His Sleeping Beauty looks great, zips right along (no 3 hours and 40 minutes --and that's Mariinsky's short version--with boring bits and and story out of whack), yet has most of the good (dancing) stuff. Not every company can hit you with Vishneva/Lopatkina, but last time 'round Bouder/Kowroski was certainly worth the detour! Its a great company. And if it could somehow keep its ballerinas healthy, beyond compare!

Sure it is Mr. Martins' company (and he's kept it alive and financially healthy in pretty tough times), as much as one might like it to be Farrell's. But there's a mighty big ghost haunting the State Theater, much as that old French ghost from a hundred years ago still haunts Russia. Petipa lives! And so, deep down inside and resting for just a while... it is still Mr. B's company.

[Helene]

(I just wrote a whole reply, and being new to this board must have touched something that wiped it out.  How frustrating....let's see what I can remember!)

I've done that many times, and one way to avoid losing everything is to click the "Preview Post" button after every paragraph. That way, if you hit one of the sequences that knocks you off the page -- which happens when I hit one of the mouse buttons in a certain way that I've never been able to consciously replicate -- I'm able to use the "back" button to recapture everything that's been "previewed" until then.

[Mel Johnson]

I really do believe that NYCB has mistaken frenzy for spontaneity. Back in City Center days, the company was often being spontaneous because two or three out of three or four ballets on the program were last-minute reschedulings for all sorts of reasons. This sort of "stream of nervousness" school of performance got institutionalized, and now appears in all sorts of forms, but it's no longer spontaneity, it's now just sloppiness.

[oberon]

I cannot recall any performance at NYCB, whether "then or now", that seemed "frenzied" in the least..unless "frenzy" is part of the piece being danced (as one might say of the finale of LA VALSE). Once in a while a conductor will whip up a tempo that seems pretty hectic but the dancers usually cope.

[Mel Johnson]

At least NYCB seems to have avoided a "Sturm und Dreck" period which often follows the departure, one way or another, of a longtime AD.

[stinger784]

I remember seeing a performance of NYCB about 7-8 years ago. I am not a big fan of NYCB, but I went because I never saw them perform and I was interested in seeing them anyways. I forget the program I saw but what I do remember was that I was not impressed at all. Upon later seeing a video of the company when Mr. B was alive and well, I was shcoked and actually liked what I saw. So the company in my opinion has definetly changed. But who am I to judge. We all have our likes and dislikes. But in my humble of humblest opinions, City Ballet is not what it was 30 years ago by any standards. Mr. B really had some great dancers and now I wonder what will happen with the company as the final generation says goodbye...

'nuff said.

[Helene]

Mr. B really had some great dancers and now I wonder what will happen with the company as the final generation says goodbye...

Balanchine did have some great dancers, but I don't know anyone who watches the Company regularly doesn't think that Peter Martins has some great dancers. The teaching staff at SAB is producing wonderful dancers, and PNB is very lucky to have a large number of them in the Company. In a recent Q&A, I believe it was Boal who mentioned that 15 dancers in the current roster -- about 1/3 -- had Boal as a teacher at SAB. As much as there can be consensus, from everything I've read on the board from regular NYCB goers, Jock Soto, who was Martins' first "find," Wendy Whelan, Ashley Bouder, and Damien Woetzel are all great dancers, James Fayette and Jock Soto were universally considered great and sensitive partners, with many weighing in for Alexandra Ansanelli, Miranda Weese, and Maria Kowrowski, all of whom bloomed after I moved from NYC. This list is not by any means exhaustive. The last time I saw the Company, Teresa Reichlen performed a wonderful Lilac Fairy, and there were at least a handful of corps members who caught and kept my eye throughout The Sleeping Beauty.

I'm not trying to negate your experience -- if I had based my opinion of NYCB based on much of the casting of that SB performance, I might have gone away wondering what all the fuss was about. Plus, there are differences in taste with regards to style, and Balanchine technique does not do it for everyone.

The main debate here has been over how those dancers are presented, the rep they dance, whether they have opportunities to be coached by people who learned their roles from Balanchine or on whom the roles were choreographed, and the future of the Balanchine ballets.