Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

Glen Tetley


Recommended Posts

Hail and farewell. The obituaries are starting to come in. A sample - Anna Kisselgoff's obit in the NYT.

But essentially he was Europe’s favorite American choreographer, more honored in the Old World than the New. In 1969, he closed his own company in New York and arrived to freelance full time in Europe. From the 1960s to the 1990s, Mr. Tetley seemed ubiquitous on the dance scene there. Through his prolific creation of new works, he reversed a traditional pattern: America had imported ballet from Europe, but Mr. Tetley introduced and integrated American modern-dance aesthetics and movement into European choreography.
Link to comment

I'm finding the discussions of his work fascinating right now, especially in light of the note by Bob Yesselman about the difference in aesthetics between American and European dance. I've always thought of Tetley as someone who bridged continents and styles -- a kind of precursor to cross-over or fusion choreography.

Link to comment
Hail and farewell. The obituaries are starting to come in. A sample - Anna Kisselgoff's obit in the NYT.
But essentially he was Europe’s favorite American choreographer, more honored in the Old World than the New. In 1969, he closed his own company in New York and arrived to freelance full time in Europe. From the 1960s to the 1990s, Mr. Tetley seemed ubiquitous on the dance scene there. Through his prolific creation of new works, he reversed a traditional pattern: America had imported ballet from Europe, but Mr. Tetley introduced and integrated American modern-dance aesthetics and movement into European choreography.

Thank you for the link. I am an admirer of many of Glen Tetley's works and spoke with him on a number of occasions when he worked in London. I found him a charming man, happy to talk with dancers and members of the audience in the Nag's Head pub opposite the stage door of the Royal Opera House after performances.

Link to comment

http://www.panix.com/~blackwoo/md_glentetley.html

"I have always wanted to be free," says Glen Tetley in this portrait, explaining why he never had an exclusive association with one particular dance company. As a result he has led an extremely varied life in dance, working with many superior talents in many places and thereby enriching the repertoires of the great dance companies all over the world with his ballets.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/theatre/story/2007/...-glen-obit.html

http://www.abt.org/education/archive/chore...s/tetley_g.html

http://www.ballet-dance.com/200406/article...ey20040501.html

http://magazine.fandm.edu/autumn00/au00_story2.html

An era ends, with the passing of this choreographer, as well as the great Russian teacher, Tumey. Peace.

Link to comment

In early 1973, I was in Athens after traveling in Asia and having been cut off from Western dance by choice and environment for a number of years. I went to the film, "I am a Dancer" about Nureyev, which turned out to be a crash re-introduction to ballet.

There was a short segment of a solo for Rudy by Tetley in the film, and it was really my first view of modern ballet, and I loved it.

Even better, at a small gathering in SoHo (NYC) about 10 or 15 years ago, where Tetley was speaking, I told him how much I loved his piece and how it had helped to steer me towards my current incarnation as a ballet nut. I'm glad I had the chance.

Link to comment

I hope we have a chance to reevaluate his work, which seems to me to be unjustly dismissed by many members of the American ballet critical establishment.

Sandik has made a good point about Tetley as someone who "bridged continents and styles" and suggests that he may be a "kind of precursor to cross-over and fusion choreography."

I also think he was one of those choreographers who are quite serious about bringing about a fusion of the various classical arts -- dance, music, literary source, design -- a goal not unlike that championed by Balanchine. I have fond memories of both Pierre Lunaire (great Schoenberg score, effective Ter-Arutunian design) and Voluntaries (Poulenc). In 2003, Tetley, who had a place down here in West Palm, was involved in the staging of his short ballet Sphynx -- based on Cocteau's La Machine Infernale, set to music by Martinu, desgined by Ter-Arutunian -- for Ballet Florida. I enjoyed its fluid and even stately choreography very much, though I admit that the audience seemed a bitunderwhelmed, giving it a lukewarm reception compared to those given to the Robbins and McIntyre pieces on the same program.

Link to comment
I learned today that the choreographer Glen Tetley died on Friday. The cause was given as cancer. He would have been 81 next month.

I thought that many would like to read two UK obits. Links below.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/obituary/0,,2001718,00.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...1/31/db3102.xml

If you go to the Royal Opera House website and click on Ballet and Dance and then PRESS

you find a tribute to Glen Tetley.

I find that my friends and I are talking a lot about his works and especially their survival. I hope that the USA gets to see more of them in the future so that he can be evaluated by audiences even if the ballet press

have not admired his works so much in the past.

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...