The 50th anniversary of Baryshnikov's defection

[California]

2 hours ago, Meliss said:

But it's even worse when a short dancer performs with a ballerina taller than him.

 

How about Ailey's Pas de Duke for Judith Jamison and Baryshnikov: 5'11" to 5'7"

I never saw it, but it looked like great fun for all. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/arts/dance/26dunn.html?unlocked_article_code=1.GE4.ia4j.aijbgFYLEb6n&smid=url-share

[Drew]

3 hours ago, Meliss said:

But it's even worse when a short dancer performs with a ballerina taller than him.

The ballet being discussed was Nutcracker. Not only is this a photo of a contemporary work--which might impact what the choreographer wanted as well and, in any case, suggests it's a ballet that reflects contemporary mores-- but both dancers are in the air so it doesn't speak clearly to height anyways. More generally there is a limit to what dance photography can tell you about dance. It is easy for me, at least, to understand why people who saw Baryshnikov dance frequently are not -- to my knowledge --fixated on how tall he was.  And it almost seems comical to me that one of the prejudices that lead to his departure from the Soviet Union is being rehearsed in our recent discussions about him. 

Still, as probably doesn't have to be repeated anymore (apologies @Helene) anyone is welcome to prefer tall dancers; in some roles and contexts I do myself. And even when I don't prefer them I can still appreciate them. But why would I want to limit myself in such a way that I couldn't also appreciate the lineage to which no less than Nijinsky belonged--as did  julio Bocca, Johan Renvall, Herman Cornejo, and today Ivan Vasiliev or--to name a promising dancer still on the rise that I hope to see one day--Jake Roxander.

Emploi is a real issue in the history of ballet--as mentioned above, it was a topic Alexandra Tomanlonis was much interested in. But it shouldn't be weaponized against dancers; it's a consideration but only ONE when casting--others can be far more important. But I think my final statement on this subject will not concern Baryshnikov at all. Some readers of this post may know  the British Ballerina, Antoinette Sibley's story about slipping in to watch the Bolshoi rehearse Romeo and Juliet at the start of the company's 1956 tour to London. For those who don't: she assumed, based on what she saw before her, that the "little grey haired person"--an older woman wearing a robe for part of the rehearsal--was one of the ballet mistresses. Then that "little grey haired person" removed her robe, started to dance, and became (as Sibley put it) a 14-year old girl. As even those who don't know the story will already have guessed, THAT was Galina Ulanova. Sibley understood very well that Ulanova's dancing made her into Juliet.

Edited August 27 by Drew

[Helene]

Sibley told a similar story in Barbara Newman's "Striking a Balance." :

Quote

Then we were performing at Crydon, and the whole company came back after the performance to see the Bolshoi's final dress rehearsal  of Romeo and Juliet.  They didn't start it 'til midnight because they'd had the usual trouble with sets and musicians and [G-d] knows what.  We came in, exhausted, and we all packed into the back of the stalls circle at Covent Garden while Struckhova was dancing with [Alexander] Lapauri.  The it all stopped, and this little gray-haired person all covered in woolies came up onstage from the stalls and started pointing to things.  We thought, 'Oh, she's obviously the ballet mistress.'  That wonderful Yuri Faier, the conductor -- you know, the blind man -- said something in Russian, obviously about starting again, and this little old woman with the gray hair went up to the balcony onstage and took off the woolies and was sixteen years old.  Just like that in front of us.  No make-up, no costume.  It was a miracle in front of our very eyes, and that was Ulanova.  She started with the Balcony pas de deux, and when she did the run offstage, before the Poison scene, everybody cheered her.  We were hysterical; we'd never seen anything like it.  We were all, by then, so excited that we just yelled and screamed.

In her intro to Sibley's chapter, Newman wrote, "I loved Antoinette Sibley's dancing -- as the Quakers say, 'It speaks to my condition'...", which I always think of when I am captured by a dancer, singer, actor, or other performer. 

[Meliss]

4 hours ago, California said:

How about Ailey's Pas de Duke for Judith Jamison and Baryshnikov: 5'11" to 5'7"

If the dance is comic, this is just right, but ballet is rarely comic.

[Meliss]

3 hours ago, Drew said:

But why would I want to limit myself in such a way that I couldn't also appreciate the lineage to which no less than Nijinsky belonged--as did  julio Bocca, Johan Renvall, Herman Cornejo, and today Ivan Vasiliev

It's not that they shouldn't dance). They just have to dance the right roles with the right partners. And if someone says that this is very beautiful and aesthetically pleasing - I will not believe it: 

Edited August 27 by Meliss

[Meliss]

3 hours ago, Helene said:

Sibley told a similar story in Barbara Newman's "Striking a Balance." :

In her intro to Sibley's chapter, Newman wrote, "I loved Antoinette Sibley's dancing -- as the Quakers say, 'It speaks to my condition'...", which I always think of when I am captured by a dancer, singer, actor, or other performer. 

Yes, Ulanova danced wonderfully. But still, I imagine Juliet a little different, much younger.

[volcanohunter]

9 hours ago, Meliss said:

But it's even worse when a short dancer performs with a ballerina taller than him.

This appears to be Baryshnikov with Leslie Browne, who was his partner in The Turning Point. She was of average height for a dancer at the time, but not too tall to dance with him. The photo is missing its caption, but I think this was a performance of a duet from Balanchine's Who Cares? they gave at the foot of the Statue of Liberty on 4 July 1986 in the presence of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Baryshnikov had officially become a U.S. citizen the day before and the next day took part in the 100th anniversary celebration of the Statue of Liberty. I remember this because the celebration included a huge regatta in New York Harbor, and the city was positively crawling with sailors from allied navies having something like an On the Town experience. There is video of Browne and Baryshnikov dancing together in Who Cares?, and they look perfectly fine together.

A male dancer often has to bend his knees for stability while partnering his ballerina, so his head will momentarily be lower than hers if she is on pointe. It isn't really an improvement to pair a ballerina with a much taller partner, because he will have to separate his legs and bend his knees that much more to hold her by the waist, and this looks ungainly. Princes really shouldn't manspread on stage.

But I was responding to a photo from Grigorovich's Nutcracker to make the point that initially there was comparitively little overlap between the male dancers who performed the prince in Grigorovich's Swan Lake (1969) and his Nutcracker (1966) because they were conceived for different sorts of dancers. The second role was more virtuosic because it was entirely 20th-century choreography with none of Ivanov's original production retained.

Going chronologically, dancers who performed Grigorovich's Siegfried but not his Nutcracker Prince included N. Fadeyechev, M. Liepa, Tikhonov, Godunov, Bogatyrev, Kozlov, Anisimov, Akimov, Vasyuchenko, A. Vetrov, Peretokin, Uvarov, Neporozhniy, K. Ivanov and Shpilevsky. 

Dancers who performed Grigorovich's Nutcracker Prince but not his Siegfried included V. Vasiliev, Vladimirov, Derevianko, Mukhamedov, A. Nikonov, Klevtsov, M. Sharkov, Godovsky, Evdokimov, Lopatin, A. Bolotin and I. Vasiliev.

The primary difference between the two groups was that the Nutcracker Princes were shorter.

Dancers who performed both roles included M. Lavrovsky, N. Fedorov, A. Fadeyechev, Gordeyev, A. Liepa, Possokhov, Filin, Tsiskaridze, Gudanov, Volchkov, Skvortsov and Ovcharenko.

I looked at the archives only through 2010, because after that the Bolshoi adopted the American practice of presenting a big block of Nutcrackers around new years' and almost no performances of it during the rest of the year. Today the company presents 25 performances over a period of about two weeks, which requires a greater number of interpreters of each role. I think this accounts for the fact that practically all of the company's Siegfrieds now dance the Nutcracker Prince as well, though not all Nutcracker Princes dance Siegfried.

Edited August 27 by volcanohunter

[Mashinka]

Some ballets are intentionally funny.  Wayne Sleep and Vergie Derman, clearly Mr Sleep like this picture.

 

 

[volcanohunter]

The first movement of Balanchine's Bourrée Fantasque features a tall woman and short man, although the contrast has not always been as pronounced as it is between Emily Kikta and KJ Takahashi.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/yYrYp9wk1ekeMXnL/?mibextid=oFDknk

The final movement of his Western Symphony can be performed by a woman taller than the man. Her height is exaggerated by a large hat, while he ducks underneath her high kicks.

As the article @California kindly linked above states, Ailey's Pas de Duke isn't height dependent.

 

Edited August 28 by volcanohunter
video

[Meliss]

19 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

Dancers who performed both roles included M. Lavrovsky, N. Fedorov, A. Fadeyechev, Gordeyev, A. Liepa, Possokhov, Filin, Tsiskaridze, Gudanov, Volchkov, Skvortsov and Ovcharenko.

Such a number of dancers who performed both roles indicates that their height was not taken into account at all. In addition, there were other factors influencing the distribution of roles. Such, for example, as the personal disposition of the main choreographer to one dancer and its absence in relation to another.

[volcanohunter]

You'll notice that most of these came later: the second generation of Fadeyechevs and Liepas and dancers that began dancing leading roles in the 1990s and 2000s. Among them only Tsiskaridze and Skvortsov are 6 feet tall and only Volchkov is 6'1". The others are shorter and danced Siegfried with the smaller end of Bolshoi Odette-Odiles. Extremely tall dancers such as Uvarov, Neporozhniy and Shpilevsky didn't dance The Nutcracker at all.

Being "medium" in height has the advantage of being able to straddle emploi.

Tsiskaridze, like Akimov before him, danced Siegfried infrequently. His primary role was the Evil Genius. Belogolovtsev was a big and strong principal who danced neither Siegfried nor the Nutcracker Prince, only the Evil Genius.

The casting situation changed once the company began performing more Nutcrackers than Swan Lakes and consequently needed more Nutcracker Princes.

Edited August 28 by volcanohunter

[volcanohunter]

From the Links page, courtesy of @dirac, a piece that lists Baryshnikov as the second-richest dancer in the world. Nowhere near as rich as Michael Flatley, but, if true, ample proof that he took full advantage of his defection. (Don't know how trustworthy the piece actually is.)

https://nubiapage.com/top-10-richest-dancers-in-the-world-2024/ 

Edited August 28 by volcanohunter

[California]

2 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

From the Links page, courtesy of @dirac, a piece that lists Baryshnikov as the second-richest dancer in the world. Nowhere near as rich as Michael Flatley, but, if true, ample proof that he took full advantage of his defection. (Don't know how trustworthy the piece actually is.)

https://nubiapage.com/top-10-richest-dancers-in-the-world-2024/ 

I say, more power to him for making that much money! But ten baseball players are making more than $35 million THIS YEAR! Says something about what we value as a society!

https://databases.usatoday.com/major-league-baseball-salaries-2024/

[volcanohunter]

11 hours ago, Meliss said:

Such a number of dancers who performed both roles indicates that their height was not taken into account at all. 

For clarity, in 1976, when Baryshnikov's Nutcracker premiered, Grigorovich's Siegfried had been danced by Nikolai Fadeyechev, Maris Liepa, Vladimir Tikhonov, Alexander Godunov and Alexander Bogatyrev. Grigorovich's Nutcracker Prince had been danced by Vladimir Vasiliev, Yuri Vladimirov and Vyacheslav Gordeyev. The only dancer to perform both parts at that point was Mikhail Lavrovsky. Gordeyev's debut as Siegfried came later.

A super-tall Nutcracker Prince along the lines of Jacopo Tissi in the posted photo appeared only many decades later.

It's fair to say that in 1976 the Nutcracker Prince was still the terrain of shorter dancers. Within the context of the story, in which the heroine is a child, this is entirely logical.

Balanchine's production was completely different, because the Nutcracker Prince was and is performed by a boy--certainly shorter than Baryshnikov--and the Sugar Plum Fairy has a Cavalier, who could be tall, like Peter Martins, or short, like Edward Villella, depending on the ballerina. Since I generally prefer shorter dancers as the Sugar Plum Fairy, I have no objection to the latter.

Edited August 29 by volcanohunter

[Meliss]

15 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

From the Links page, courtesy of @dirac, a piece that lists Baryshnikov as the second-richest dancer in the world. Nowhere near as rich as Michael Flatley, but, if true, ample proof that he took full advantage of his defection. (Don't know how trustworthy the piece actually is.)

https://nubiapage.com/top-10-richest-dancers-in-the-world-2024/ 

"Not all dancers, however, get the same pay; it is not always based on talent or uniqueness". This is absolutely true.

[volcanohunter]

19 hours ago, California said:

I say, more power to him for making that much money! But ten baseball players are making more than $35 million THIS YEAR! Says something about what we value as a society!

https://databases.usatoday.com/major-league-baseball-salaries-2024/

It's rare for classical art to break into popular culture. Live theater presented to a comparatively small audience restricted by the size of the theater, without television broadcasting 99.9% of the time, isn't going to reach the masses.

On top of that, we all know the sad story of "arts" networks that quickly went off the rails. Even those with government subsidies. The most popular Arte Concert videos on YouTube tell the story. Little wonder that it streams nothing but rock festivals and street parades all summer long.

http://youtube.com/post/UgkxT69URj5L4BtsVVatqrXbrmameg4yrQRo?si=Ysf50epoqQKaF3fT

That said, Baryshnikov was probably the last ballet dancer to become a household name in the United States. He even became a simile, and when an outfielder jumped exceptionally high to rob a competitor of a home run, the play-by-play commentator might have exclaimed "like Baryshnikov!" (I recall that actually happening.)

[Meliss]

On 8/27/2024 at 5:53 PM, California said:

I never saw it, but it looked like great fun for all. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/arts/dance/26dunn.html?unlocked_article_code=1.GE4.ia4j.aijbgFYLEb6n&smid=url-share

 

The article says: 

"M. B. We worked hard and we played hard. He insisted that we go out at night to some clubs. Gay clubs, like Continental Baths. I learned my English in gay clubs".

Why did they have to go to gay clubs? How strange it is.

[Helene]

Certainly those were Ailey’s clubs, and most people take their guests to the places where they go: clubs, restaurants, coffee shops, etc.  If Ailey wanted Baryshnikov to absorb the movement quality he sought, what better way than to see it up close, when they were partying, not in a classroom filled with mirrors.

Ballet dancers go to museums and theater to learn more about the context of what they are dancing. 

Hardly strange to me.  Quite brilliant and prescient, actually.

[Meliss]

3 hours ago, Helene said:

Certainly those were Ailey’s clubs, and most people take their guests to the places where they go: clubs, restaurants, coffee shops, etc.  If Ailey wanted Baryshnikov to absorb the movement quality he sought, what better way than to see it up close, when they were partying, not in a classroom filled with mirrors.

Ballet dancers go to museums and theater to learn more about the context of what they are dancing. 

Hardly strange to me.  Quite brilliant and prescient, actually.

Thank you for the additional information, but is there any different way to dance in gay clubs than in other clubs? I didn't understand - did Ailey own these clubs or just go there to study how they dance?

Edited August 30 by Meliss

[Helene]

Ailey didn't own the clubs.  While there was some overlap, the music and dancing in gay clubs wasn't confined by hetero-normative standards. 

[Meliss]

57 minutes ago, Helene said:

Ailey didn't own the clubs.  While there was some overlap, the music and dancing in gay clubs wasn't confined by hetero-normative standards. 

But why did the choreographer need dancing similar to dancing in gay clubs? Was the plot of Pas de Duke somehow related to gays?

[volcanohunter]

No. They happened to be the clubs that Alvin Ailey, a gay man, liked to visit.

That said, the disco music and dancing that was popular in the latter 1970s largely began as a gay phenomenon before crossing into the larger population, so it's possible that the clients at Ailey's favorite clubs were particularly good at dancing it.

However, Ailey's duet was set to music by Duke Ellington, which is older, and the choreography was based on Lester Horton's technique of modern dance; Horton died in 1953. According to the interview, the modern dance elements were what Baryshnikov found particularly challenging to execute.

The first dancers in the Pas de Duke video clip above are Linda Celeste Sims and Glenn Allen Sims, a married, heterosexual couple. In terms of height, they are the reverse of Jamison and Baryshnikov. The second dancer in the clip, Alicia Graf Mack, is closer to Jamison in height, though unlike Jamison, she began her career as a ballet dancer. So it goes that a piece conceived as a one-off for two superstar and seemingly mismatched dancers has endured to be performed by dancers with dissimilar bodies.

Edited August 30 by volcanohunter

[Helene]

Suzanne Farrell wrote in her memoir that Balanchine brought her to a show in Paris, I think burlesque, and a dancer made an entrance where she came onstage looking down, bored, if I remember correctly, until the moment she looked up.  Farrell was wowed by the effect it had and said to herself that she was putting that in her pocket to use one day.  And she did, in a Balanchine ballet.  Great artists absorb a lot of things from environments to which they seek out or are exposed to by others.  Those things can have nothing to do with a specific style or a specific ballet.

Most dancers would be lucky to have the privilege of direct entree into the choreographer's world as an honored guest. If there was a lesson, it was likely about letting go, but it could have simply been that Ailey liked being there.

 

[volcanohunter]

2 minutes ago, Helene said:

a dancer made an entrance where she came onstage looking down, bored, if I remember correctly, until the moment she looked up.  Farrell was wowed by the effect it had and said to herself that she was putting that in her pocket to use one day.  And she did, in a Balanchine ballet.

She most certainly did! Farrell perfected that effect to an art.

[Meliss]

13 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

They happened to be the clubs that Alvin Ailey, a gay man, liked to visit.

Thanks, I didn't know about that. I think, when working with Godunov, Ailеy did not send him to these clubs.