Godunov and Bejart

[Mashinka]

5 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

Alastair Macaulay: "Part of what's irksome about Bejart's treatment [of Ravel's Boléro] is its mixture of showiness and thinness. It pounds its way to excitement by doing very little, very emphatically. Then there's its ludicrous soft-porn atmosphere: a mixture of group eroticism (I get the giggles when the supporting men stand and bump their pelvises) and fake-fervent inspiration." (2012)

 

And yet it is heavily influenced by Nijinska's version, I wonder if he knew that?

Without Bejart I would have seen next to nothing of wonderful Suzanne Farrell.  

[volcanohunter]

3 hours ago, Mashinka said:

And yet it is heavily influenced by Nijinska's version, I wonder if he knew that?

Macaulay certainly knows that.

[Meliss]

6 hours ago, Helene said:

That isn’t what he wrote or said: he left because he wanted a ballet choreographed for him, feeling he had earned that privilege, and he came with an already made offer on a subject he was passionate about.  ABT never said that they’d find a different choreographer because Bejart would be panned by the critics in America.  They never said it was about money, either, because he was later offered a check by a rich patron who thought it was about the money.  

So what was the reason for the refusal? I can't think of anything more appropriate than Baryshnikov's envy again). 

Isn't that strange? 

Roland Petit, one of the best European choreographers of the twentieth century, offered the Kirov Theater to stage a ballet for Baryshnikov, but the theater refused.

A few years later, Maurice Bejart, one of the best European choreographers of the twentieth century, offered ABT to stage a ballet for Bujones, but Baryshnikov refused.

[Meliss]

8 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

In the aftermath of his departure Bujones said that he didn't insist on dancing Béjart. Rather, he wanted to have a ballet choreographed on him by a leading choreographer. 

Doesn't that mean that Bujones had a high opinion of Bejart as a choreographer?

[Helene]

Bujones did have a high opinion of Bejart.  Many critics and audiences in the NYC did not.

There could be other reasons for the refusal other than Baryshnikov's envy, including two intermediaries between Bujones and Baryshnikov, ie, Mendez and Dillingham, which might have been fine for compensation and benefits, and less fine for artistic matters, including rep.  I don't think there's an audit trail that proves anything about it, so it's a guess.

[volcanohunter]

Yes, but since Bujones was not director of the company, his opinion of Béjart's work was irrelevant. Most artists who go to war with management will lose the battle. Attempts to usurp the management's prerogatives are not tolerated. Chaos could ensue. Granting extraordinary privileges to one dancer breeds resentment and is bad for company morale. Some of this behind-the-scenes grumbling seeps out during exit interviews.

[On Pointe]

12 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

Then there was this line from Mark Morris' memoir about why Béjart's troupe was ousted from Brussels: "It may have been that [Gerard] Mortier, who had good taste, had finally decided that Béjart's work was simply crap, which it had been for many years."

I've long felt that Mark Morris was the American equivalent of Bejart.  Despite the rapturous reviews he's gotten from American critics,  try as I might,  I see little choreographic substance in his work.  I think his dancers are quite ordinary as well.  Maybe it's just me,  but I don't get the appeal,  at all.  I wouldn't call it crap,  though.  It's just not for me.

[miliosr]

8 hours ago, Helene said:

I’d always admired Farrell, who after being told by many that Bejart’s choreography was, as Morris put it, “crap,” that she was wasting her talent dancing for him, and that she would lose her technique, said (paraphrase) that Bejart was the person for whom she was dancing then, and she would give him total dedication as a choreographer and company director.

I have always loved Suzanne Farrell for remaining steadfast in her loyalty to Maurice Bejart, especially since she has done so in the face of an American critical establishment that would have liked nothing better than for her to write off her years with him as a misalliance. Farrell never forgot that it was Bejart who offered her (and her then-husband, Paul Mejia) a lifeline in 1970 when he hired them. Almost no one else was willing to do the same after the big schism with George Balanchine.

Moreover, I don't believe Farrell thought those four years with Bejart were a waste. Whether or not she was a perfect fit for Bejart's repertory and style, dancing in those 'big' Bejart works and doing so in the kind of unconventional spaces Bejart favored (in the round, in stadiums, outdoors) developed her ability to project on a bigger and bolder scale - all of which became very useful during her second tour of duty with Balanchine.

I have no doubt that Mark Morris thought (and thinks) Bejart's choreography is "crap". I also believe that he knew taking on a 'sacred cow' like Bejart in so public a manner would generate a tremendous amount of controversy and press (which it did) and would benefit him over the long haul regardless of what happened specifically in Brussels. Both things can be true at the same time.

I would say Bejart got the last laugh with Morris because Bejart works like Bolero and Song of the Wayfarer sit comfortably today in the international repertory. Name me a Mark Morris work that enjoys the same international standing.

Edited July 5 by miliosr

[Helene]

L'Allegro.

Morris rarely lets anyone outside his company dance his works, so they wouldn't be in the international repertory. 

[miliosr]

59 minutes ago, Helene said:

L'Allegro.

Morris rarely lets anyone outside his company dance his works, so they wouldn't be in the international repertory. 

L'Allegro does enjoy a sterling reputation. But has Morris ever allowed any other company to perform it?  

[Helene]

I don't know if any ballet companies have performed any of the works he did for his company.  He's shown an occasional interest in staging and even creating works for a few other companies:  Wikipedia lists 18 commissions from 1986-2012 for other companies (the 19th was commissioned by BAM, but performed by MMDG.):

1. Joffrey: 1 (1986)

2. Boston Ballet: 2 (1986, 2006)

3. ABT: 3 (1988, 2001, 2003)

4. POB: 1 (1990)

5. Les Grands Ballets Canadiens 2: (1992, 1995)

6. San Francisco Ballet: 8 (1994, 1995, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2012)

7 PNB: 1 (2012).

Wikipedia is only as up-to-date as people who update Wikipedia have interest in, so I don't' know how many more.  I haven't read his book yet.

PNB also danced Pacific and A Garden, which were made for SFB. 

[Meliss]

9 hours ago, Helene said:

Bujones did have a high opinion of Bejart.  Many critics and audiences in the NYC did not.

There could be other reasons for the refusal other than Baryshnikov's envy, including two intermediaries between Bujones and Baryshnikov, ie, Mendez and Dillingham, which might have been fine for compensation and benefits, and less fine for artistic matters, including rep.  I don't think there's an audit trail that proves anything about it, so it's a guess.

Well, if it hadn't been for Baryshnikov, Bujones would have received at least a clear answer as to why cooperation between Bejart and ABT is impossible. Instead, he received an unmotivated refusal from managers and a strange message from Baryshnikov accusing him of rudeness. Misha seemed to be a cunning fellow, but in critical cases he could not come up with convincing reasons for his decisions.

Edited July 6 by Meliss

[Meliss]

For ballet star Godunov, the US has been the perfect set change

By Arthur Unger February 25, 1983|NEW YORK  

"What will he be doing in the near future?

''I go to the Festival Ballet in London and then to South America. I would like also to dance with the Bejart Ballet in Belgium.'' He believes he is dancing better than ever because ''I now have mental freedom and the ability to be myself and to work more. This can only make me a better dancer.''

So Godunov had plans to work with Bejart in 1983. And I also couldn't find any information about his work with the Festival Ballet in London.

Edited July 6 by Meliss

[Helene]

 Chase and her representatives appeared to be more straightforward with Bujones and Mendez than  Baryshnikov. But Artistic Directors in the US need to convince no one but the Board.  And there’s been no public indication that there were any ramifications for Dillingham’s and Baryshnikov’s written accusations nor the press release or for losing Bujones, one of their best dancers and biggest stars.

I’m trying to imagine Grigorovich feeling that he had to convince anyone of anything.

Bujones got his ballet and his experience in 1986 and got to perform it at the Hollywood Bowl..  The work hardly made waves, though.

Godunov may have been more successful had he gone to Bejart.  I don’t know why that didn’t work out when he was no longer at ABT.

[volcanohunter]

5 hours ago, Helene said:

I don't know if any ballet companies have performed any of the works he did for his company.  He's shown an occasional interest in staging and even creating works for a few other companies:  Wikipedia lists 18 commissions from 1986-2012 for other companies (the 19th was commissioned by BAM, but performed by MMDG.):

1. Joffrey: 1 (1986)

2. Boston Ballet: 2 (1986, 2006)

3. ABT: 3 (1988, 2001, 2003)

4. POB: 1 (1990)

5. Les Grands Ballets Canadiens 2: (1992, 1995)

6. San Francisco Ballet: 8 (1994, 1995, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2012)

7 PNB: 1 (2012).

Wikipedia is only as up-to-date as people who update Wikipedia have interest in, so I don't' know how many more.  I haven't read his book yet.

PNB also danced Pacific and A Garden, which were made for SFB. 

The MMDG also lists The Letter V made for Houston Ballet and After You made for ABT, both in 2015. I don't see any later commissions from ballet companies.

There is also a licensing page that shows four ballet companies with active licenses to perform Morris' works, two in the U.S. and two in Europe. L'Allegro is not among the licensed ballets.

https://markmorrisdancegroup.org/professional-licensing/ 

[Meliss]

20 minutes ago, Helene said:

 Chase and her representatives appeared to be more straightforward with Bujones and Mendez than  Baryshnikov. But Artistic Directors in the US need to convince no one but the Board.  And there’s been no public indication that there were any ramifications for Dillingham’s and Baryshnikov’s written accusations nor the press release or for losing Bujones, one of their best dancers and biggest stars.

Don't you think this situation is strange?  From the book of Bujones:

"Finally, just one week before the season opener, Dillingham called Zeida and from their conversation it seemed everything would be resolved, so we were relieved. "I see no major obstacles in trying to make the new Bejart ballet work for the next year" he said to her. But the following day he called again! This time his normal tone of voice had a very different ring to it. He was curt and brief saying that my demands of a new work could not be met, "because the company was not in a position to do this." And that was their only explanation! He added that unless we accepted ABT's terms, there would be no contract. Zeida was not expecting that and she was shocked."

 

[Fosca]

On 7/5/2024 at 12:04 PM, volcanohunter said:

Then there was this line from Mark Morris' memoir about why Béjart's troupe was ousted from Brussels: "It may have been that [Gerard] Mortier, who had good taste, had finally decided that Béjart's work was simply crap, which it had been for many years."

Just for the record: Béjart's tenure at La Monnaie in Brussels was 27 years, before Mortier decided his work was crap. Mark Morris lasted three troubled years there, with the famous headline in the newspaper "Le Soir": "Mark Morris go home". Different tastes on different continents.

 

Meliss, I checked in all ten Béjart books and brochures I own - there is no information about the meeting with Bujones or about working with Godunov, I'm sorry. Some date from before 1987, in others he speaks about philosophers, authors, composers and other influences to his work, or about the dancers he chose for his companies like Jorge Donn.

[On Pointe]

7 hours ago, Meliss said:

'I go to the Festival Ballet in London and then to South America. I would like also to dance with the Bejart Ballet in Belgium.'' He believes he is dancing better than ever because ''I now have mental freedom and the ability to be myself and to work more. This can only make me a better dancer.''

So Godunov had plans to work with Bejart in 1983. 

Godunov had the desire to work with Bejart.  A desire is not a contract.  This kind of quote in the press is a ploy often used by actors to indicate to directors and producers that they are available and want to work with them,  without seeming too needy.

[Meliss]

3 hours ago, Fosca said:

Just for the record: Béjart's tenure at La Monnaie in Brussels was 27 years, before Mortier decided his work was crap. Mark Morris lasted three troubled years there, with the famous headline in the newspaper "Le Soir": "Mark Morris go home". Different tastes on different continents.

 

Meliss, I checked in all ten Béjart books and brochures I own - there is no information about the meeting with Bujones or about working with Godunov, I'm sorry. Some date from before 1987, in others he speaks about philosophers, authors, composers and other influences to his work, or about the dancers he chose for his companies like Jorge Donn.

Thank you very, very much.

[Meliss]

2 hours ago, On Pointe said:

Godunov had the desire to work with Bejart.  A desire is not a contract.  This kind of quote in the press is a ploy often used by actors to indicate to directors and producers that they are available and want to work with them,  without seeming too needy.

This is clearly not the case. Bejart wanted to work with Godunov, even created a ballet for him. And why the cooperation did not work out, no one knows.

[Helene]

9 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

The MMDG also lists The Letter V made for Houston Ballet and After You made for ABT, both in 2015. I don't see any later commissions from ballet companies.

There is also a licensing page that shows four ballet companies with active licenses to perform Morris' works, two in the U.S. and two in Europe. L'Allegro is not among the licensed ballets.

https://markmorrisdancegroup.org/professional-licensing/ 

Thank you!  I've added these two to the Wikipedia article. 

While the currently active licenses aren't a full history,except for The Letter V and After You, which are still under the original licenses, all of them are works that were created for other ballet companies, and none are works he created for his own group.  Pre-pandemic, if another company was performing L'Allegro, I probably would have been on a plane.  I've traveled more than once to see MMDG perform it.

9 hours ago, Meliss said:

Don't you think this situation is strange?  From the book of Bujones:

To give some context, in that age of stardom for a company like American Ballet Theatre, it was not unusual for star dancers to be given greater and greater privileges over those of even the same rank and over fellow stars.  Bujones describes this when he talks about after a certain contract, he had his own costume and make-up people when he was on the road, not just in NYC.  That was the way a company could compete with European companies, who treated the top visiting artists like rock stars and paid a lot of money for the privilege.  It wasn't just Plisetskaya who was handed a wad of cash to sew into her coat lining: that was standard operating procedure for singers and dancers in some Italian theaters to get dressing room payments, which made taxes interesting, to say the least.  Bujones' request for a ballet for himself would not have been considered out-of-line at the time.  For the first few years under Baryshnikov, he seemed to be grandfathered into the Chase ways to a large extent, even if he wrote that dancing elsewhere compensated for the way ABT was changing for the worse and no longer felt like a family.  He didn't anticipate that it wouldn't last.

Strange -- not particularly. If everything happened the way Bujones described, because the head of the company was less than a decade out of his own country and theatrical tradition and expectations of and from the person who ran a theater, plus he had a Board who was treating him like the czar. He had his own artistic agenda, and he had the right to go forward with it.   Any donors and audience who disagreed could make their money disappear.

Clearly it would have been news if Bujones was no longer on the roster for the upcoming season a month before it was about to start, and it would have been in the press.   However, since Bujones expected to be back at ABT in the future, there would have been no reason for him to burn bridges in any statement to the press.  ABT might have been pressed, but that's where acting like a grown-up comes in, a la, "We couldn't come to an agreement at this time, and we wish Mr. Bujones well," ie, "Never complain, never explain," rinse and repeat. 

While I might think it's a horrible way to treat people and run a business, it's the way they did it, not that they refused, that I find is an issue. 

There's no law against being thin-skinned and having bad management strategy as long as you have the power.  For Baryshnikov and his backers and minions, that lasted five-ish years, until it didn't, and ABT changed course.

3 minutes ago, Meliss said:

This is clearly not the case. Bejart wanted to work with Godunov, even created a ballet for him. And why the cooperation did not work out, no one knows.

At a certain point in a certain circumstance Bejart wanted to make one ballet on one topic for Godunov.  The details are unknown.

If Bejart had wanted to work with Godunov so badly, after Godunov's defection, he could have made it happen, either with his own company or with any number of companies in Europe, where he was very popular and where it was considered prestigious to have one of his works.  It was Bujones who brought it up, and if Bujones hadn't had an interest in Alexander the Great, it might have been long forgotten.

[Meliss]

1 hour ago, Helene said:

To give some context, in that age of stardom for a company like American Ballet Theatre, it was not unusual for star dancers to be given greater and greater privileges over those of even the same rank and over fellow stars. 

Bujones' stardom is ОК. The strangeness is that yesterday they agreed, today they changed their minds. And this is clearly at the instigation of Baryshnikov.

1 hour ago, Helene said:

While I might think it's a horrible way to treat people and run a business, it's the way they did it, not that they refused, that I find is an issue. 

There's no law against being thin-skinned and having bad management strategy as long as you have the power.  For Baryshnikov and his backers and minions, that lasted five-ish years, until it didn't, and ABT changed course.

For some people, it's hard to tolerate someone else's success.

1 hour ago, Helene said:

 

If Bejart had wanted to work with Godunov so badly, after Godunov's defection, he could have made it happen, either with his own company or with any number of companies in Europe, where he was very popular and where it was considered prestigious to have one of his works.  It was Bujones who brought it up, and if Bujones hadn't had an interest in Alexander the Great, it might have been long forgotten.

According to Plisetskaya, Bejar offered Godunov to work together when he was already in the United States. Then there are more fictions: allegedly Godunov did not come to the scheduled meeting. Then picturesque details were added to the fiction: because Godunov got drunk)). According to Godunov, the offer was not specific -  something like "Come and we'll work together". 

[Helene]

20 minutes ago, Meliss said:

Bujones' stardom is ОК. The strangeness is that yesterday they agreed, today they changed their minds. And this is clearly at the instigation of Baryshnikov.

They agreed on nothing.  Each summer Mendez would work with ABT management for the upcoming year's contract.  ABT offered a contract without the ballet.  Mendez never agreed to one on behalf of Bujones.  There was no contract.

20 minutes ago, Meliss said:

For some people, it's hard to tolerate someone else's success.

That's true, and it can be true even when there is not real competition. In Godunov's case, he wasn't nearly as successful as Baryshnikov overall -- he had fans and admirers, but not in Baryshnikov's or Nureyev's league -- and wouldn't have been real competition or threat.  Bujones was: his star was only diminished through casting, both from Chase and Baryshnikov, and he guested in places where he got more worldwide acclaim.

But there's no real proof that either happened because Baryshnikov acted out on jealousy.  He had a very different idea of what ABT should be.

 

20 minutes ago, Meliss said:

According to Plisetskaya, Bejar offered Godunov to work together when he was already in the United States. Then there are more fictions: allegedly Godunov did not come to the scheduled meeting. Then picturesque details were added to the fiction: because Godunov got drunk)). According to Godunov, the offer was not specific -  something like "Come and we'll work together". 

I'm not sure what the sources for Godunov's alleged behaviors were, so it's hard to call them fictions or fact. 

If Bejart had wanted to work with Godunov, and Godunov was willing, Bejart would have made it work with Godunov.  It's the difference between "Let's do lunch," "Let's have lunch on Tuesday", or even "Have your girl call my girl."

[Meliss]

55 minutes ago, Helene said:

They agreed on nothing. 

 By "they" I didn't mean Dilingham and Bujones, but Dilingham and other ABT officials. They were not against Bejart's ballet - and suddenly they got against it!

1 hour ago, Helene said:

That's true, and it can be true even when there is not real competition. In Godunov's case, he wasn't nearly as successful as Baryshnikov overall -- he had fans and admirers, but not in Baryshnikov's or Nureyev's league -- and wouldn't have been real competition or threat. Bujones was : his star was only diminished through casting, both from Chase and Baryshnikov, and he guested in places where he got more worldwide acclaim.

Well, Bukhones said about it something like that - "I have the technique, but Baryshnikov has the fame"). I do not understand why American critics (not all, fortunately) believed that Godunov was not as good as Nureyev and Baryshnikov. In Russia, the impression is that most people think Godunov is unattainable.

 

[volcanohunter]

2 hours ago, Helene said:

But there's no real proof that either happened because Baryshnikov acted out on jealousy.  He had a very different idea of what ABT should be.

If anyone displayed signs of envy, it was Bujones, with his public complaints of being unjustly overshadowed by Baryshnikov or his demand that a ballet be choreographed on him because choreographers frequently made ballets on Baryshnikov.