Gennady Smakov's Great Russian Dancers

[canbelto]

A friend just gave me this book as a gift. I expected it to be mostly a coffee table book, and it is, with beautiful pictures. However, Smakov also gives lengthy biographical and critical sketches of many dancers, and I was surprised to see how candid/controversial many of his comments were. For instance, he is extremely critical of Galina Ulanova, criticizing her technical weaknesses, and what he calls her "propaganda appeal." It's definitely an interesting book, and although I didn't always agree with him, I found his chapters to be extremely well-written and thoughtful.

[beck_hen]

I think I looked at this book the other day in a used bookstore. If it is the one I'm thinking of, it had some classifications I hadn't heard before—Tamara Karsavina and Alla Osipenko were classed as "decorative ballerinas" (or ornamental?). It could be interesting to fit contemporary dancers into the scheme, although there would have to be a category for "acrobatic ballerinas." On the men's side, I remember Nijinsky, Nureyev and Baryshnikov being put together "in a class by themselves," or some such vagueness. It seems to me that their great reputations are all that really bind them.

[dirac]

He called them "Dancers Without Category," I think. Sounded to me as if he was throwing up his hands.

The classifications are sometimes odd, but I also have a copy of this book and like it very much. Wonderful photographs, commentary opinionated but also instructive. At the time I acquired it many years ago there were several dancers in it I'd not heard of or knew little about, so it was very useful.

[canbelto]

I like how the book doesn't just profile the big names, but also touches upon the dancers whose careers were cut short but influenced Russian ballet nevertheless. The chapter on Lydia Ivanova chilled me to the bone.

After reading the chapter on Ulanova, I popped in some dvd's of her dancing, and while I don't agree with his overall negative assessment, I can't deny a lot of what he says. For instance, her habit of throwing her neck and shoulders back to hide her short, somewhat unattractive arms.

The article on Mathilde Kschessinska was very informative. Looking at her pictures today, it's hard to imagine how she could have been the PBA of the Mariinsky, and Petipa's favorite dancer. She looks so ... unballerinalike. But Smakov explains her phenomenon, and also how Pavlova changed the fashions of ballet.

[MakarovaFan]

It's a terrific book. I just wish Smakov had written the Vasiliev book he mentions. VV so deserves a book on his life and career.

[beck_hen]

I decided to buy the book based on the discussion here and am enjoying it, particularly sections on Shelest, Osipenko and other dancers not well known in the West. Reading the commentary, I'm curious about the innovations of Soviet choreographers such as Gorsky, Lopokhov, Lavrovsky, Jakobson and Goleizovsky. I know it is complicated politically; where some choreographers were viewed as dissidents and iconoclasts, others, like Grigorovich, could be perceived as propagandists. I am also interested in their purely artistic merits, if that can be separated. The only Soviet ballet I have seen is Spartacus.

I'm intrigued by the fact that a Soviet dancer like Vasiliev states that he is more interested in Bejart than Balanchine. I know that is only one case, but it suggests different values than I'm familiar with, and I'd like to understand it better.

Is there a book you all would recommend that provides a critical and cultural assessment of Soviet choreography? How does it compare to work done elsewhere in the same timeframe? It is compelling that Ratmansky is addressing the Soviet past by reviving suppressed ballets, including The Bright Stream. That too makes me wish to know more.

[chiapuris]

Is there a book you all would recommend that provides a critical and cultural assessment of Soviet choreography?

One book tangential to the subject of your question is Gennady Albert's "Alexander Pushkin".

While the book is an assessment of A. Pushkin, the teacher of Baryshnikov and Nureyev and generations of Russian, principally male, dancers, it does provide a perspective and a brief overview of teaching pedagogy and its evolution from the imperial era into the 20th c. soviet esthetic of the dramaballet.

The translation is published by the New York City Library, funded by the Jerome Robbins Foundation.

It has a forward by Baryshnikov. A very interesting book.

[rg]

"Soviet choreographers in the 1920s," by Elizabeth Souritz (1990), might be a good place to start.

likewise, the following is well researched and informative:

"The art of dance in the U.S.S.R.": a study of politics, ideology, and culture / by Sister Mary Grace Swift. c1968.

i assume used copies are available for sale or one can loan a copy from a library.

[drb]

One book tangential to the subject of your question is Gennady Albert's "Alexander Pushkin".

The book is available on Amazon and a number of pages and photos (Pushkin with Nureyev, with Baryshnikov etc.) are viewable gratis. Ballet history buffs and teachers, especially, might find it interesting:

Alexander Pushkin: Master Teacher of Dance presents in detail three of Pushkin's classes: a Senior Class from the late 1930s-early 1940s; a Graduating Class from 1967; and an Artists' Class from the 1960s. The classes reveal the inventiveness of his combinations and the logic of his class progressions. Pushkin always refused to write a ballet textbook because he did not want his method, which was flexible and adapted to the individual needs of his students, to turn into a rigid lesson plan. However, he was generous in sharing his ideas on teaching with all who came to observe his classes. His openness is reflected in this biography by a former student, which makes available for the first time in English the techniques of one of the greatest and most influential of all modern ballet teachers.

[beck_hen]

Thanks for your help!