What would "a Massine dancer" be?

[Amy Reusch]

Talking about the differences between Balanchine and Massine with a friend, and what their relative merits might be... I got to wondering about how we have a concept of what a Balanchine dancer might be, but what would a Massine dancer be? And for that matter, what would a "Fokine" dancer be?

[Hans]

I'm not sure Fokine and Massine had as specific ideas about style and the way a dancer ought to look as Balanchine had, but it's definitely a possibility.

[Paul Parish]

Well, Hans, I know what you mean abut the 'look" -- but Masine had VERY strong ideas about the line, the picture he wanted the dancer to make.

One of my teachers, Michael Lowe, who was a principal dancer with Oakland Ballet when that was one of the few companies interested in doing Massine (they did a lot of Ballets Russes ballets, of course -- 5 or 6 of Nijinska's, a number of Fokine's, a lot of Massine's -- Boutique Fantasque, Snow Maiden, and one of the symphonic ballets) told me that when Massine came to set something on them, he taught the upper body first, and only when it was perfect did he show the actual steps...

Massine was really a character dancer, and a Massine dancer would have (don't you think) among other things a lot of plastique, "epaulement," the ability to dance with weight (and gusto), rhythm, a gift for mimicry, musicality, and moxie.

[Crispy]

I danced "The Good-Humoured Ladies" in 2000. It was the first time the ballet had been performed in full since '62 and the artistic director had to reconstruct it from Labanotation he received from the Royal Ballet. Massine ballets use a lot of "dancing pantomime" whereas traditional ballet has separate dancing sections and separate pantomime sections. While probably upsetting to people that just like watching dance for dance sake and don't like dancing contaminated with mime, Massine ballets are very satisfying to perform. After all, he manages to squeeze the story of a 3 act ballet into a 20 minute piece!

Cris

[Alexandra]

Fokine had very specific ideas about line. He wanted to go back to a more Romantic line, a softer look to the body. There's a bit about this in Lucia Chase's essay the big ABT book (by Charles Payne).

On Massine, thanks to Paul and Crispy for those comments. I was watching "The Red Shoes" again a few weeks ago, and another thing I noticed was how tight the groupings were. Nothing is stretched out, not the body, not the collection of bodies, if that latter makes sense. In the off-stage scenes, there was the same sense of closeness. There's a little scene about a birthday party for Massine's character, and they were all huddled together, like a huge family trying to fit into a small frame.

[bart]

. I was watching "The Red Shoes" again a few weeks ago, and another thing I noticed was how tight the groupings were. Nothing is stretched out, not the body, not the collection of bodies, if that latter makes sense. In the off-stage scenes, there was the same sense of closeness. There's a little scene about a birthday party for Massine's character, and they were all huddled together, like a huge family trying to fit into a small frame.

I've seen very little Massine on stage. Alexandra's impression of Red Shoes made me think of similar impressions from films of Gaite Parisienne and Beau Danube. Quite the rush-hour subway crowd at times.

Is this something that was felt to be necessary to accomodate the camera? Or is the same impression given in his choreography for the stage?

[Alexandra]

Bart, from the videos I've seen, the choreography of the '30s generally (and this includes Nijinska and Ashton) is more compact (my word for "the dancers are really close together). I talked to two colleagues about this, wondering what their memories and impressions were, and we speculated -- and it's just that -- that during the '30s and '40s because of style, history, politics, whatever, there was a more communal view of humanity. The "ME Generation" may have an impact on arts as well as advertising and personal relationships!

One other thing that the dance students I showed this to got within 16 seconds was that the dancers were not concerned about technique, in the sense of being precise (turn out, line, etc.) "THAT's why they could turn so fast!" as one of them put it. So Massine was not looking for beautiful lines or pristine technique.

[beck_hen]

A fun book to read that addresses this topic is Lydia Sokolova's memoir Dancing for Diaghilev (and a good read overall):

"All choreographers must agree that there are certain dancers who excel in the particular type of movement they invent. Just as Karsavina and Tchernicheva were essentially Fokine dancers, so I am sure that Lopokova, Idzikovsky, Woizikovsky and myself were most suitable and adaptable to Massine's individual kind of ballet. I have taught the role of the Miller's Wife to Mme Karsavina, to Tchernicheva, Devillier and Dalbaicin, but I could not teach any of them to do all the movements as Massine taught them to me .... I was anyway so essentially a character dancer that other people could not be expected to perform all my contortions .... That is why these perfect ballets, although they are still done, are in a way lost, and when Massine ceased inventing his extraordinary movements for Lydia, Stas, Leon and myself we were lost too, and never did anything so great again."

I think it's a shame that people who might excel at this type of movement are not very encouraged—since everyone is supposed to be an all-rounder, there is not a special niche for the character dancer, and off the top of my head I can't think of anyone at ABT who is that now, though I have enjoyed Victor Barbee, Keith Roberts, Ethan Brown, Kathleen Moore and Sandra Brown in those types of parts in the past.

[bart]

Beck hen, your last point seems to deserve a thread of your own. So I've taken the liberty of starting a new topic on character dancing in Aesthetic Issues. Here's the link:

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=21964

[Mel Johnson]

But, having worked around Massine when he staged or cleaned his ballets for Joffrey, I'd have to say that a "Massine dancer" is any dancer that Massine himself told, "You! Do this part!"