May 11, 2007
Word of Mouth: David Parker tonight & tomorrow at Dance Theater Workshop
I really enjoyed David Parker’s Hour Upon The Stage last night at DTW. David is a deft choreographer and he and I have been friends for well over a decade. It isn't right for me to review it, but speaking personally here, this was the best thing I've ever seen of his. It may be because he wasn’t in it. The distance that allows gave the work a sharpness and the excellent dancers gave it a glow.
The dance is a group work, most sections without music. The hallmark of David’s choreography is percussive movement that creates its own accompaniment. His source is primarily tap but there are many felicitous borrowings from soft shoe and this time a lot from ballet. His chameleon borrowing is happy. His dancers are comfortable with ballet technique without looking like ballet dancers and it’s nice to see someone borrow from ballet with affection rather than issues. Hour Upon the Stage is very sweet natured with some poignant partnering - another hallmark of David's choreography. He has a way of letting what looks like a gag blossom into something thoughtful. All the dancers are really personable – you connect with them quickly. The only thing I did not like was the usual modern dance structure of a longer work without intermission - my brain likes 20 minute chunks.
It's only on until tomorrow, alas, but a very enjoyable evening. I wish I could have let people know sooner.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 5:15 PM | TrackBack
March 16, 2007
Word of Mouth: The Lady in the Fur performs!
Rajika Puri, the woman who introduced me to Indian dance and helped teach me the rudiments of how to appreciate it, will be performing Conversations with Shiva: Bharatanatyam Unwrapped next Thursday to Sunday at Joyce Soho. I'm going to be out of town and will have to make do with the dress rehearsal on Wednesday, but go. I've enjoyed her skilled work many times, it's both theatrical and lucid. I've seen bits of this in rehearsal; what she's doing (examining the structure of a traditional form by gently picking apart the pieces) is very clear to Western eyes. The performance gives a good introduction to the language and ingredients of classical Indian dance, which has conventions that need the same initiation as the secret code of ballet mime.
To imitate Rajika, you must go! Please do, and tell me what you thought.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 1:07 PM | TrackBack
February 20, 2007
Chicago Thaw
Looking over the bridge on LaSalle Street, 2/19/07
Despite the inauspicious beginning it was a lovely trip.
I saw the Saturday and Sunday matinées at the Joffrey. The long version will be in Ballet Review, the short version is it was worth the trip, and the alternate version lives here – Franklin, a fellow knitter and blogger was my companion on Sunday. He provided excellent company!
I saw several other good friends and got more sense of the city – what’s to get a sense of, it’s a grid, right? Yeah, and so are New York and San Francisco. Chicago’s grid has the added benefit of forcing you to memorize the early presidents in order.
Before going to Chicago, on David B’s recommendation I read Devil in the White City
The author, Erik Larson, is better on the Fair and its architects than he is on Holmes. It’s probably a good thing, but he has an easier time making more comprehensible men such as Daniel Burnham and Frederick Olmstead come to life than a psychopath such as Holmes who is fascinating in a grisly way, but ultimately reads as a cardboard cutout villain.
That said, Larson does some great things in this ripping yarn. The conjunction of the two plot threads isn’t just historically correct; Larson teases out the opportunity and energy in both Chicago and fin de siècle America that fed both builders and madmen. It’s a portrait of a city and a country that rings true. Larson also pays special attention to architecture that opens your eyes. It could also be that my friends David B. in Chicago (whom I just visited) and David S. who just moved to Atlanta from San Francisco are an architect and a landscape architect respectively. I found myself noticing the lampposts on Madison Avenue as my bus moved uptown on the way to Boston, and staring upwards at cornices and molded decorations.
Larson’s book captures one of Chicago’s most vigorous architectural periods; a trip downtown will bring you face to face with some of the buildings described, except, alas, the World’s Fair itself. What remains of it is far to the south; David took me there on my first visit to Chicago. My hotel (the Club Quarters Central Loop – gotten again on Priceline for $68/night) is right next to the Rookery, which housed the firm of Burnham and Root. Go to see the Joffrey Ballet at the Auditorium Theatre and you are in Adler and Sullivan’s masterpiece. To cap it off, go up the stairs in the Art Institute of Chicago towards their phenomenal Impressionist collection. There is an exhibit of fragments of ironwork and moldings from buildings designed by these very architects. You really are there.
After lunch with David on Monday, as he said with satisfaction the first day above freezing in Chicago in more than a month, I had two hours to kill before heading to O’Hare, and they were profitably spent at the museum. With only that length of time, I decided to see only the Impressionist and American collections, but that means one sees Caillebotte’s amazing scene of Paris in a drizzle, Seurat’s La Grande Jatte and van Gogh’s haunting and claustrophobic picture of his room in Arles. The American collection has Hopper’s brilliant Nighthawks and the iconic American Gothic, a painting that's a good deal better than the image that resides in everyone's imaginations. It was an excellent farewell to a vigorous city.
And to make mischief . . . Franklin looks very hot in leather.
⟨skips merrily away&rang
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 10:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 15, 2007
Leigh's Dance Card - Chicago Edition
Goin' to Chicago. . .to see the Joffrey in Destiny's Dances. I'm seeing Saturday and Sunday matinée to see both casts of each ballet and then (what else?) SHOWTUNES! at Sidetrack.
It wouldn't be Sunday in Chicago without it.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 6:02 PM | TrackBack
February 8, 2007
Leigh's Dance Card - Go Greyhound! Edition
I'm racking up Road Rewards points this week!
Tuesday 2/6 - New York. Armitage Gone! at the Joyce. On duty for Danceview Times. This is going to be hard to write, because it was a first viewing of her work and I was neutral about it. It's a lot easier when you have a stronger opinion about the work.
Thursday 2/8 - Philadelphia. Giselle - Pennsylvania Ballet. On duty for Ballet Review. I think Julie Diana should be perfect in the role, but she did not perform last Sunday. I'm hoping I won't get there and be disappointed by a cast change.
Saturday-Sunday 2/10-11 Boston. A Midsummer Night's Dream - Boston Ballet. On duty for Dance International, but combined with a personal reason; I've known Tai Jimenez since we were students; it will be her debut as Titania on Saturday matinée.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 9:12 AM | TrackBack
February 4, 2007
Four nice things about San Francisco
Tina LeBlanc – 42 year old mother of two. Danced the lead in Divertimento No. 15 on Friday, a lead in both The Dance House and Blue Rose on Saturday night and a lead in Artifact Suite on Sunday matinee. Looks fabulous. We hate her.
Artifact Suite – for someone as ambivalent about Forsythe as I am, these are strong words, but it’s the best ballet of the post-Balanchine/Ashton era. The first part is gimmicky with a fire curtain dropping with a clunk to the audience’s giggles, but the second part is an atomic age ballet blanc of extraordinary power. It’s on program one on Feb 8 and matinee and evening on the 10th. If you can see it, don’t miss it.
EOS Wine Bar – My friend Don and I went to dinner there before Saturday evening’s performance so I didn’t drink, but the food there is marvelous. It’s “fusion” which is more gimmicky as a concept than a result. The food is delicious, roasted Brussels sprouts with sesame, winey dumplings stuffed with shiitake in mushrooms, sea bass and especially black pepper filet with eggplant.
Opal Hotel – A very solid hotel bargain. $44 a night on Priceline got me a room. The décor is uninspiring (mmm, tan!) but the rooms are clean and the bed is comfortable. The price includes in room wired access (bring a long Ethernet cable), a fitness center with only barbells but good Lifecycle cardio equipment, and a convenient if uninteresting breakfast. The staff is helpful even if the room I got was close to the elevator. For $44, I wasn’t complaining.
Of course, the nicest things about San Francisco are Peter, Mark, Randy, Jim, Don, Jenny, Rachel, Paul and Helene. The only thing missing is David.
Be back home tomorrow.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 8:54 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 31, 2007
Leigh's Dance Card - Bicoastal Edition
On the road again. . .
New York
1/30 - NYCB Essential Balanchine - Square Dance/Liebeslieder Walzer/Stars and Stripes. You want variety, they give you variety. If you're curious about Balanchine's range, this is a great program to see, although Liebeslieder is not beginner's Balanchine (it's long, though it doesn't seem so to me). At last night's performance, there was an unannounced tribute to Melissa Hayden. Jacques d'Amboise came out and reminisced for close to 20 minutes before Liebeslieder. It made for a very long evening, but it was mesmerizing. I'm on duty for Danceview Times.
San Francisco
2/2 - SFB Program 1 - Divertimento No. 15/Aunis/Artifact Suite
2/3 - SFB Program 2 - Blue Rose/The Dance House/The Firebird
2/4 - As 2/2
Nice work if you can get it.
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January 27, 2007
Smell-o-round
It’s probably been done before, but it was a first for me. At Soaking WET, the dance performance series curated at the West End Theater by David Parker, I sensed something amiss during Wendy Blum’s piece. Well, I heard and smelled something amiss. Some idiot was making microwave popcorn, and then cooking dinner during her dance with loud popping and frying noises and a microwave “ding”. David told me afterwards it was actually part of the piece. Audacious, but I think it needed to be made clearer. The dance onstage had no associations for me with the cooking. I assumed it was accidental smells and disturbances from a nearby kitchen; we were in a church that had a lot of other functions.
Also on the program was Daniel Gwirtzman’s spoof of a rehearsal that was tightly made and quite nicely danced, as well as Jody Sperling’s beautiful evocation of Loie Fuller’s work with fabric and light from the turn of the last century. Wearing yards of white fabric in a simple circle and using colored light, one would think the effect would wear thin, but it’s endlessly fascinating. A second program was Fiona Dolenga’s thoughtful “Aftermath”. Dolenga’s aesthetic mixes the Judson Church with the club scene – she shares some reference points with choreographer Stanley Love, but her take aims more towards high art.
Soaking WET is in the church of St. Andrew and St. Paul right near the 1/9 subway on 86th Street (walk one block west from Broadway, the church is on the north side of the street) on until Sunday and cheap - $15. The box office telephone number is 212-337-9565
Tonight I’m going to see the new Christopher d’Amboise ballet in tribute to Lincoln Kirstein at NYCB, on duty for Danceview Times.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 4:10 PM | TrackBack
January 22, 2007
Beauty, discussed
We interrupt the knitting to bring you some dance!
Apollinaire Scherr, dance writer at Newsday and proprietor of Foot in Mouth and I have been talking over there about Sleeping Beauty. I’m going to take the liberty of continuing my responses here, because it gives me something to put on my own blog (daily content is a chore!)
Apollinaire and I are coming at this from slightly different angles, which can make things constructive. One of the most useful dance discussions I had with a friend was over Boris Eifman, a choreographer I loathe. By the end of the discussion, I loathed his work no less, but I understood why she liked it. It may not have convinced me, but it helped me see another point of view.
Apollinaire was discussing suggested revisions to Peter Martins’ production of The Sleeping Beauty, some of which I questioned her about. You can see the original discussion here.
I’ve seen versions of Beauty by most of the major companies: ABT’s Macmillan version, about to be supplanted by McKenzie/Kirkland, NYCB’s version by Martins, the Kirov’s “New/Old” version as well as the Soviet one, POB’s version by Nureyev as well as an earlier Nureyev setting for National Ballet of Canada, and the Royal Ballet’s current version, which I saw five times this year. My aesthetic for the ballet is probably most shaped by that last version.
To me, the widest gap between Apollinaire and I (and if the conversation travels down this road, great!) is between innovation and advocacy. I think both of us see advocacy the same way – as illuminating the text. I also agree with Apollinaire that a stager has the right to forego absolute fidelity to a text; in dance, that’s impossible anyway because there isn’t a concrete text. But I think we’d draw the line at acceptable variants at different places, with me being more traditional in outlook.
To take the example at hand, I don’t think the court/fairy dichotomy in Beauty that Apollinaire suggests is constructive, primarily because Beauty is about the court - in many ways it’s not-so-subtle propaganda for the glories of monarchy. The fairy world may be eternal, but in some ways it is in fealty to the court. I don’t like the entrances at NYCB either, but that’s because the wing everyone enters (mid stage right) is way too tight. It feels as if the King and Queen enter separately because there is no room for them to enter together. In the Royal version the fairies enter through colonnades at the back – the main entryway for most other characters. It works quite well. The change I would make there is architectural rather than choreographic; have a grander entryway.
Carabosse’s music. After having seen the Royal version and then NYCB’s version shortly after I noticed the large cuts in the music Martins takes for the first time. In fact the first time I heard them, in 2004 awkwardly edited into a tape at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, I didn’t even know where the music was from, a rather poignant reminder that tradition is What You Are Familiar With. That said, I don’t think the music was conceived for dancing, as I believe Carabosse was not conceived as a dancing role. In the Kirov reconstruction of the version from 1903, Carabosse is played en travesti by a man. Also, once you’ve heard it enough, you can hear the difference between music for mime and music for danced steps, though as Bournonville said, mime is dance for turned-in feet. I do agree the music moves, but I think that movement is for Carabosse’s attendants. It diminishes her stature to have her dancing.
Giving the prince the entre’acte as a variation. Careful. I’ll point to two examples of an Act II variation. Nureyev’s has already been discussed. It’s really awful. Ashton also has one to a brief portion of an excised Sarabande that was made for Anthony Dowell. It’s much more modest; yet many of the old-timers who recall the 1946 production *hate* it (as much because it necessitates the Prince not wear his long red coat, which they loved). I don’t have that historical allegiance, but of the Princes I saw, the only one out of five that could do the variation justice was Rupert Pennefather. A true prince can show as much character standing still as in motion. Cast the role correctly and the variation is unnecessary.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 6:22 PM | TrackBack
January 19, 2007
Leigh's Dance (and Music) Card
It's a busy weekend.
Tonight, 1/19. NYCB for the Stravinsky/Balanchine bill. On duty for Danceview Times. These ballets are always a pleasure to see, but I've written about them several times already for DVT alone, to say nothing of elsewhere. This isn't a bad thing; if you've already said your piece on Agon (and I've said that many times over) it makes it easier to stay brief and keep to the performance at hand.
The APAP conference is happening in New York right now so there are showings everywhere, most of which are open to the public at a low cost (it looks good to draw a crowd).
Tomorrow night, I will try and check out Dance Gotham at Symphony Space - I've not seen Larry Keigwin's work in a while.
On Sunday night I'm going to Joe's Pub to see Zippo Songs and John the Revelator by composer Phil Kline. These are off duty.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 4:58 PM | TrackBack
January 17, 2007
First Steps, Again
I started making a ballet today again for the first time in over three years.
It started with a series of emails in October. Mary, one of the dancers I’ve made the most ballets on, sent me an email saying she had talked to Frankie (another classmate who also worked with me) and they had got to talking about how they missed working with me and that they had decided I needed to do a pas de deux for them before they got too old to do one anymore.
Yes, it made my day.
The hardest thing for all of us at our ages isn’t body issues – both of them at least are in unnaturally good shape. It’s our schedules. It took several months to find time we all were free to work together. I blocked off Wednesday nights and finally once Nutcrackers and the holidays were out of the way we got together.
It’s nice to work with friends and contemporaries. Frankie and Mary are still in good shape, but we have experiences in common as well as training and colleagues. I know how the two of them move and how they think. It makes things very comfortable, though it doesn’t make me feel any less rusty. Steps, what are those?
I had been joking with Mary for years that I was going to make a ballet for her loosely inspired by the character of the child vampire in Anne Rice’s novels. When she and Frankie approached me (both of them seemingly, and irritatingly, ageless – Bitches. I hate them.) it seemed like the right time to do it. I’ve never made a narrative work before. Because I was too lazy to find music that perfectly fit the plotline (and because I like it when people get to work) I asked Eddie Guttman, who made the cello solo for Equilibrium in 2002, to compose a piano score. He’s out of town; we’ll hear fragments next week.
To give everyone (especially me) a chance to ease into things, and because it’s hard to make real progress without a score, we worked tonight mostly on plot, character and motivation. Who these people are; what brings a seemingly young girl and an older man into the same deserted alley late at night. It’s interesting to see how motivation inspires and enriches movement – you touch someone’s head differently when you decide that the reason you’re doing it is to check for a bruise or cut. The interesting part is to then translate back this movement to ballet vocabulary. Rising onto pointe will be an important part of how to communicate this little girl is not what she seems – little girls can’t rise onto the tips of their toes.
What feels most different is there was no build up to rehearsal. With Dance as Ever there was so much preparation involved, and much of it was administrative. There’s only so much artistic preparation I can do before I walk into a studio – it still feels made up on the spot. I can’t prechoreograph. This is far more casual; there’s no performance date, and no music either (yet). I’ve deliberately not worried about finding a venue; I don’t mind being released from the ambition and hopes I had when I was younger. It’s just three friends in the studio, working.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:04 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 8, 2007
A favorite quote on choreographing
Said by a friend, Arnie Apostol:
Make a piece. If it sucks, make the next one better. And if that one sucks, make it shorter. That's all.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:35 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 18, 2006
A new resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet
Wayne McGregor's appointment has been chronicled at Ballet Talk and Ballet.co with Ballet.co being more positive and Ballet Talk at best ambivalent.
Brendan McCarthy posts his thoughts on the appointment and now Zoë Anderson has a very interesting interview up with Wayne McGregor at the Independent.
I’m firmly among those who are concerned. There’s no reason McGregor shouldn’t work with the company; but a resident choreographer – as McGregor says himself –
. . . develop[s], over a period of time, a programme of work that will have some impact on the way in which the dancers move.
And as Anderson comments:
A resident choreographer is in a position to make fundamental changes. It's not just that the Royal Ballet will dance more works by McGregor. Mason has already used the Ashton repertory to change the way that the Royal Ballet dances. By concentrating on those ballets, she built a shared style, redefining the company's identity.
The company was in a slump for several years, and only brought out of it by rediscovering the Ashton that was at the core of who they are. If McGregor sees his association with the company as more than that of a guest choreographer he could easily endanger that by making works that pull them in a different direction. If you think the company can be a servant of two masters, look at history. Classical style, as Alexandra Tomalonis has said, isn’t something you can take down off the shelf like a cookie jar and leave unattended until needed again. It needs constant maintenance. McGregor is not trained in ballet; his wriggling, eel-like vocabulary with no center or axis, is antithetical to classical training. He isn’t qualified to be a resident choreographer at a major ballet institution. See Alexandra’s humorous take at Danceview Times.
There’s a good chance he doesn’t intend that sort of association; reading the article he has rather grand plans for collaborations and mentoring but no intention of giving up any other of his many committments.
That's a very old-fashioned perception. This is a much more mobile, fluid, multi-modal kind of arrangement. I want to develop a new set of relationships with the building and the organisation, to do things that aren't currently happening.
Actually committing yourself to an institution is so very single modedly Old School, you know.
He goes on to say:
I want to develop more choreographic mentoring, in-house here, to provide more opportunities for young choreographers.Which should tick off the people at the ROH who already have these programs in place that he says are not happening.
Reading between the lines, one senses McGregor’s talent, if not for choreography (Chroma was a good work, not a great one – and the other stuff I’ve seen of his has been like watching MTV) then certainly for ambitious self-promotion. I would like to see dance regain respect among intellectuals at well, but can't we do it with less pretentiousness?
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 10:36 PM | TrackBack
December 15, 2006
Some signs of good dance (or other critical) writing
This is like one of the tests in Cosmo: Are you being attacked by a rabid wolverine? Answer these 10 easy questions and find out!
It's good dance writing if:
- It told you what you needed to know about a performance.
- It helped you understand something you were confused about.
- It helped you to notice something you hadn’t previously seen.
- It put into words a thought about the performance that you were having difficulty expressing.
- It helped you understand another point of view – why someone would have disliked a performance that you liked without taking away your right to your own conclusion.
- It entertained you.
- You marveled at the writing style.
- It made you want to see an artist’s work.
- It made you want to go see more dance.
For the knitters - a knitting post is coming up soon, I promise.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 5:43 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 14, 2006
How not to write a press release
From a release received today from Dance New Amsterdam:
B.J. Sullivan, the New York native responsible for “safety release technique”, created Walk-in-Closet in an attempt to eradicate the dichotomy between the selves we present to the world, and the selves that we keep behind closed doors.
What wrong with this description? It sounds like a grant proposal rather than a release because the sentence describes not what the dance is, but what it's trying to do. As I've said before, the goal of a critic isn't the same as the goal of a grant maker. I don't care what the social benefits of the dance are or what the dance is trying to do (I'll make that decision myself from watching it, thanks); I need to know what it is. What's the music, how many people are in it. Is it possible to describe a moment of the dance - particularly one that gives a picture of the entire mood? Use descriptive language and get a picture in our minds.
The language choices don't work here. "Attempt" weakens the idea that "eradicate" wants to convey. "Dichotomy" in context seems pretentious. The idea of a walk-in closet as a metaphor for a private life is a powerful and familiar one; better language could connect the dots. A possible example (with completely made up facts - my apologies to BJ Sullivan)
BJ Sullivan breaks into the hidden spaces in our lives in Walk-in-Closet, a tense dance for women who spy on each other's private moments while Bernard Hermann's movie soundtracks drone ominously in the background.
Also, while "release technique" is familiar to most NY dance writers, "safety release technique" without an explanation just provokes humorous visions of Susan Klein and Barbara Mahler dancing to Men Without Hats
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 6:10 PM | TrackBack
December 13, 2006
Critiquing the Critics
Time Out New York has just published an article critiquing the New York critics in several fields including dance. Like much of what TONY does, it’s aimed more at titillation than at stimulating discussion. TONY decided to work in the form of a survey, which dooms the enterprise at the outset: There is too small a group of respondents (though there may be more I don't know, in the list of panelists I recognize seven names as dance professionals) for any type of real analysis. But numbers and rankings are more sexy than a discussion. I’m rather surprised TONY didn’t give each of them stars.
Here’s a do it yourself guide to evaluating a critic. It takes more work, but you’ll learn more from it:
Go to a performance, one popular enough that you know it will be reviewed by several papers. Think about what you saw. Now read every report you can possibly find on the same performance.
Apollinaire Scherr, a critic at Newsday, blogger at Artsjournal and one of those reviewed, wisely notes that, “to say that a critic's got ‘good taste’ is just saying, ‘She's like me!’” At the same time, how close a critic’s viewpoint is to your own – I refer to it as “overlap” – is important and useful to know when reading them. I’ve learned that certain colleagues will usually dislike something I enjoy and with others I have a relatively close overlap. Overlap does matter. Reading a review by someone with whom I have almost no overlap is like visiting a parallel universe. Often it’s instructive; sometimes it’s disorienting or even infuriating. Still, reading contrary opinions helps you define your own aesthetic.
There are less subjective criteria. Depth of viewing is important. Openness is as well, the openness to realize that each performance needs to be judged on its own merits, and that not only is ballet not modern, but French ballet is not American ballet is not English ballet is not Release Technique is not Graham is not Cunningham is not Tanztheatre. A critic should not judge one form or aesthetic by another’s goals. (And that, Mr. Rockwell, is another reason why the differences between them matter.) The nuts and bolts of being a good writer matter as well, although there is one writer I can think of, who when someone criticized that critic’s pedestrian writing style, I responded, “But at least I know I went to the same performance.”
Update 12/15/2006: More thoughts on the subject here.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 6:49 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
October 30, 2006
Todd Bolender (1914-2006) on Agon
In honor of Mr. Bolender's life I'm offering the transcript of the phone conversation we had regarding Agon. It was the only contact I ever had with him. The Library for the Performing Arts has Bolender on film in the 1960 taping of Agon discussed below, and I also recall a very interesting interview with him conducted by Billie Mahoney for Dance On.
Leigh Witchel Interview notes with Todd Bolender (by telephone) on Balanchine's Agon 4/9/97 8:30 p.m. (EDT)
Do you have any idea why you were cast to do Agon?
I haven't the faintest idea.
Do you remember how Balanchine taught the ballet? Counts, Rhythms, Metaphors?
He taught the opening quartet first. The solo parts came later, though he worked very fast.
Were the rehearsals usually full-cast or only specific parts?
Done totally in piecemeal - worked a lot at night, because they were on Broadway and classes were held in the studio during the day. They would work on different sections and in different studios. He recalls many rehearsals being on stage.
Were there specific corrections he gave repeatedly? (i.e. sharper, jazzier - et al?)
He was always after clarity of movement and dynamics, he didn't push with words, just asked you to try again, and he would demonstrate how he wanted it.
Were there changes made in the first year?
"There were no changes I know of until I left. - upon reflection, there was one thing changed in the finale of the trio." It was a minor change, but doesn't remember specifically. [Bolender left NYCB in 1962 - returned in 1971 to dance The Concert] "No one else danced the role until I left, I didn't teach Villella the role. The only person I ever taught a role to was Arthur Mitchell, in The Four Temperaments." [Phlegmatic].
Was the ballet set to counts - were the counts of the ballet always the counts of the score, or did it have an independent rhythm? Were counts added later?
"I got to a point where I simply gave up counting. He taught it to counts, but they were always so peculiar" Milly [Melissa Hayden] and Diana [Adams] insisted on counting - and they were insistent about their correctness. They were counting on stage "to the bitter end." He remembers hearing them hiss their final count under their breath as they took the last pose with the arm across the chest in the opening. "I finally did it primarily by ear, sometimes it would be necessary to close your ears to their counts. I almost never counted anything ever." For the variation, he did it by listening, the relationship to the music was so specific.
How hard was the ballet for the original cast?
"It was 'breath taking'" - very taxing (he remembers always feeling like there was not enough time between his var and the coda in the pas de trois. The female duet is very brief.) "The intricacy of the movement made it exhausting and the precision necessary. I remember working endlessly [with Balanchine on the pas de trois] before performances, even after we opened, on the pas de trois, it was the heightening, to make it even better. And it was always somehow the last rehearsal in the afternoon before performances." Kept trying to refine it. No changes of steps, pushed dynamics.
About how long did it take to make the dance? (The order in which it was made?)
made VERY quickly
Were there changes that occurred in the ballet the first year? Simplifications?
No changes, but as he said, refinements, and Balanchine kept rehearsing it to get specific precise dynamics.
The 1960 filming:
Do you remember anything about the circumstances of the film? Was it a difficult shoot? Was any spacing or steps changed?
"I do indeed, because I lost my shoe at the beginning of the variation - during the drags on the heel at the beginning of the variation, I pulled the heel off." Bolender kicked his shoe off at the grands battement; it shot it into the wings. "John Taras used to say when re-setting 'Agon', 'Now this is is the place where Todd loses his shoe.' That was terrifying to Bolender. 'What do I do? Bend down and throw it off stage?' [The shoe comes off his right foot on the last heel drag. He battements it into the wings a few seconds later when he does a back curve.]
Seeing the ballet again after leaving the company (must have been late 60's, early 70's)
When he saw Agon again, he saw how difficult it was - and how wonderful Tony Blum was in his role. Very pleased to see it performed in such in such a manner. Not sure if he ever saw Eddie [Villella] do it. Might have seen Allegra in the lead, quite different from Diana (majestic, commanding) but quite wonderful (seeing something something so beautiful, but it's inconceivable that it could happen in just that way.) fragile, feminine. Balanchine would often cast a totally different body type as a successor to the role. Did not feel that the performance and quality of the lead affected the other dancers, though "It certainly would have never affected me." He would watch quite a bit (since his part was in the beginning) and loved to watch the work. Liked Watts and Tobias particularly. Was never asked to coach the role, and feels that he would refuse, simply a question of memory. "With Four T's it took me years to learn how to perform that, and it was by doing it over and over again, and with Agon I didn't have that time."
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 8:54 PM | TrackBack
October 21, 2006
Portland: Coming and Leaving II
Bernie dropped me off at the hotel and I met my friend Joan Schrouder shortly after to go to Oregon Ballet Theatre. Joan is a knitting buddy. She teaches nationally; she and I met a decade ago at Stitches. After a quick Thai meal we walked to the Keller Auditorium. The crowd milling in front of the theater was more dressed up than I had anticipated; I forgot this was the opening night of the season.
When I invited Joan, I described the program as being “a great program for someone who doesn’t get to go to the ballet all the time.” This isn’t an insult; that’s 99% of OBT’s audience. We’re spoiled in the dance capitals. The company was bringing The Four Temperaments and The Concert to Portland for the first time. It was heartening to see the house very full. OBT danced 4Ts as I’ve seen other smaller regional companies do it – like a precious gift. It’s great to see it from a fresher perspective. Francia Russell, artistic director Christopher Stowell’s mother (and director emeritus at Pacific Northwest Ballet) set this version – which is slightly different than City Ballets (think pink lampshades instead of white ones). We know each other tangentially from the series of interviews I did with her in 1997 about Agon and Melissa Hayden’s coaching sessions at the Balanchine Foundation but we’ve talked more often than she’s seen me. I waved at her from my seat and she returned the greeting with the sickly look I recognized from the times I’ve had to warmly greet someone while I was racking my brains trying to figure out who they were.
A group of PNB dancers (I recognized Benjamin Griffiths and Jordan Pacitti) were two rows behind me to cheer on their fellow dancers; sure enough, there was Peter.
“You again!” I pointed at him in mock accusation.
“You’re everywhere,” he said, bemused.
The best part of all was that Joan loved the evening. It’s such a joy to take someone to the ballet that doesn’t usually get to go.
Sunday morning I was scheduled to meet internet knitting buddies at Mabel’s, a yarn shop/café. Just as I was about to find the #4 bus Gary called and asked me if I wanted a ride in the rain. We drove through bohemian neighborhoods across the Willamette River. I met Duffy and Melissa there and we spent a relaxing morning knitting and gabbing. I worked primarily on the sleeve of Owen Robert’s Aran. Duffy was starting the toe of a sock; Melissa was working on afghan squares in a mauve ombre alpaca and Gary was making a very simple scarf but in the most tactile yarn – Jo Sharp Alpaca Georgette. Really tasty stuff; we were all copping a feel. I took a tour round the shop, but beyond the Blackberry scone (thank you, Gary!) and the almond hot chocolate; I remained on my yarn diet.
I met Bernie and his daughter Gwen at the matinee. Gwen is getting ready to go down to Miami City Ballet to study at the school. Unfortunately but understandably, the Keller auditorium was more sparsely populated than at the opening and the performance was slightly weaker. One of the big differences between a smaller company and a major one is the depth of the company in casting. That’s a direct function of size. OBT may double cast each ballet, but they don’t really have two casts.
After the performance we walked around the fountain directly opposite the theater and I took a picture reminiscent of the Japanese Gardens.
We then went out for the seafood I had been craving at Jake’s. When in Portland, go to Jake's (Yes, it's part of a chain. No, it doesn't taste that way at all.) Get the crab and shrimp cakes, and also the Dungeness Crab Leg cocktail. They go perfectly together. If you ask nicely, the waiters might do half orders (ours added a crab cake to the plate to make for even splitting). I placed myself in the amiably pushy waitress' hands (I like waitresses who tell you what’s particularly good on the menu) and she insisted I have the locally caught wild salmon and then the Chocolate Bag for dessert. The salmon was cedar plank roasted with slight woody tang and exactly as she promised, the chocolate bag containing white chocolate mousse and berries in raspberry sauce was lighter than the description made one suspect. It was an absolutely wonderful meal, as was the company.
On Monday morning the sky began a sodden gray, but as in Vermont, the weather in Portland changes rapidly because of the mountains. It brightened up about an hour later and I had just enough to have time for a walk along the river – the hotel was right next to it. There were flocks of geese, leaves turning colors, boats and joggers.
I bought a blueberry muffin from a shop on the walk and sat down on a bench to watch the river.
By the time I rode back to the airport on light rail it was overcast again, but the scenery was still lovely with grays, greens and yellows. Portland, like Seattle, is a city that prides itself on quality of life; clean public transit and free wifi in the airport. It seems almost quaint to a New Yorker, we don’t do “quality of life” here. But then again, we can’t.
On the walk back from the river just as I got back to the Four Points, I paused to admire a climbing rose on the side of the hotel. Most of the flowers were fading, but lower down one was still in full flower.
It was a lovely way to say goodbye to the City of Roses.
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October 3, 2006
Leigh's Dance Card - the season revs up
Three performances this week, all on duty for Danceview Times
10/3/06 Reich@70 at BAM - Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker and Akram Khan each perform dances to Reich's music.
10/5/06 Fall for Dance at City Center - a mix including Pacific Northwest Ballet, Random Dance, Christopher WIlliams and Farruco
10/6/06 Pandit Birju Maharaj - a legend of Kathak dance, at Symphony Space
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:32 PM | TrackBack
October 2, 2006
Seattle
I sometimes wonder about my willingness to travel great distances for only a short period; it took as long to get here as to get to London. It was worth it; Seattle is quite pretty and it was a very productive weekend.
United Airlines flight 689 to Seattle involved a plane change at O’Hare but both planes operated with the same flight number. I packed lightly and dutifully put my toiletries in a Ziploc bag as part of our country’s ongoing War on Moisture. Security lines were slightly longer than I recalled but this was a peak time. At 3 pm on Friday it took about 20 minutes from arrival to the gate. I had requested to upgrade my fare with miles, but United had sent the wrong plane; an Airbus 320 that was part of their TED fleet instead of a Boeing 757. TED planes are all coach seating; I got no upgrade but what the hell, the fare was $141 roundtrip. I bet there were at least a few mildly ticked off elite passengers. A fellow in my row was bumped out of Economy Plus into a middle seat of . . .what’s the regular area called? Steerage? Economy Minus? Because of the late arrival of the incoming plane and runway delays at LaGuardia we were nearly an hour late into O’Hare; we arrived in B concourse and my connection to Seattle left from C17 in 33 minutes. I’m glad I packed light. I sprinted to C17 and said to the gate agent, “Hi, I just arrived from the New York leg of flight 689. Do I have time to pee?” Luckily, I did.
The ORD-SEA leg was on the proper aircraft (do they levy a fine for flying an Airbus into Sea-Tac airport, original home town of Boeing?). An hour into the flight I realized that the woman behind me was also knitting a sock, so that led to a very pleasant conversation that passed the hours until landing. We made up time on this leg so I only arrived in Seattle 30 minutes late and took the Kings County public bus into downtown. It’s the most inexpensive way to get downtown ($1.25) but there was quite a cast of characters on the bus; several inebriated vagrants, one of whom shouted “WOLVERINES!” when we hit Michigan Avenue, a pack of black girls jeering the vagrants and in the front several hapless tourists including me, all clutching our suitcases bemusedly. It wasn’t at all threatening. Just odd.
I arrived at the Renaissance Hotel at about 11:30 pm PDT. I left the office at around 1:45 pm EDT so it was more than half a day’s journey and my body thought it was 2:30 am. Though I arrived late, luck was on my side. The nice desk clerk gave me a corner room (perhaps a junior suite? It’s a living room and a small bedroom) on the 21st floor with views.
Sunrise
Sunset
So they’re of the highway, what the heck. The large buff colored building down the highway at the right is the headquarters for Amazon.
The Renaissance a nice hotel, though about due for a renovation; the decor feels slightly stale. At the price I paid ($65/night), no complaints at all. Free wireless in the lobby; a fitness center on the 28th floor. The fitness center is not great, not merely because the treadmill attacked me without provocation. There’s one Universal weight machine and no bench so weight training is limited to impossible. If all you want to do is use a stair climber or treadmill, it should be fine. There is a pool and whirlpool as well.
My friend Sandi and I met the next day and we caught up and then played tourist. Lunch was at Maximilien in the public market; the food was good, the view of the sound lovely (Sandi obligingly pointed out the mad parasailors madly parasailing in the cold water). The service was fine until when Sandi requested the check and the waiter pointedly put it in front of me because I was the man. Dude, I know you’re French, but it’s Seattle.
We played tourist and walked through the Public Market. I got fresh doughnuts from one stand; Sandi went to her favorite bakery and got croissants; in between we went to a cheese maker. As Sandi noted, they eat well out here. I’ve been to Seattle for only three short visits, but it did seem to be a city that prides itself on lifestyle. After lunch, we did a drive along the water – several different waterfronts. Seattle’s surrounded by them. In the evening, we went to PNB together.
I haven’t seen Peter Boal since well before he left for Seattle; we spotted each other immediately as he came from backstage into the auditorium. It was a warm meeting, but we each were trying to be respectful of the fact that there was a professional conflict; I was reviewing his company. What the hell, at this point I’m used to it. I’ve written my review and honestly believe it’s not different than what I would have written had I not known him. It was not, however, the review I thought I would write. I took a different angle. I assumed I would spend most of the review on Carla Körbes – for a New York audience she’s the most newsworthy thing – but she only danced in In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated and did fine, but she’s not a natural choice for the role; she’s a little too soft. So the review became more general. The company looks fine; rather than coming in and overhauling, Peter has mostly continued the work Kent Stowell and Francia Russell started.
I saw the matinee the following day. Walking there I took Sandi’s doughnut suggestion and stopped off at Top Pot Doughnuts, considered Mecca for the doughnutophile. I had a maple dipped old fashioned and a Double Trouble (a chocolate glazed chocolate doughnut). They were cakey and moist, but I’m about as discerning with doughnuts as I am with wine. I liked the ones I had in the Public Market more because they were still warm.
In the Middle got an electric performance from the first cast. Patricia Barker is retiring at the end of the season (Peter announced her farewell performance, which will be put together by him and Barker – as June 10, 2007); her performance in In the Middle was a fine way to say farewell to the role. Carrie Imler sailed through Theme. No surprise, she’s another CPYB girl; I know of three in the company (Imler, Noelani Pantastico and Kara Zimmerman).
For dinner, I wandered to the waterfront because I had a fish craving. I tried Elliott’s Oyster House and spent good money on good fish; a Dungeness Crab cocktail to start and a more elaborate grilled Coho salmon dish. The quality of the both the crab and salmon was quite good, but I still have nostalgia for when there were simple fish dives you could get a plate of broiled fish (and the plate had a blue or red rim), a baked potato in silver foil and two side dishes. I bet Seattle has them; I just don’t know where they are.
I got a tremendous amount of writing finished on this trip; an article on knit care for Knit.1; two pieces revamped from this blog for the newsletter of the Dance Critic’s Association and the PNB review. I even got plenty of knitting done (progress on a pair of socks and a baby sweater – I’ll blog on both soon.) Put me in a clean hotel room with a handsome view and the possibilities are endless.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 12:53 PM | TrackBack
October 1, 2006
Out of Britain
The British are still writing about dance as if it mattered.
In the Guardian, John O’Mahony is reporting on Forsythe’s Three Atmospheric Studies, described in its press release as "The most damning comment on the horror, personal devastation and hypocrisy produced in any art form since the Iraq war began." Forsythe has never been one for understatement.
O’Mahony managed to get a written statement out of Arlene Croce that almost replayed the Still/Here controversy of ’94:
Choreographers mix dance with politics because it is the only way to get attention. And get grants too, probably. The importance of a work is equated with the nobility of the sentiment it expresses. I've stopped attending dance attractions because the last thing I want to see is dancers wasting their time on some high-minded godawful piece of choreography. I don't want to be told about Iraq or Bush or Katrina by someone younger and dumber than I am.
Croce’s not one for understatement either. Useless vitriol aside, there is a lesson there. I harp constantly on the best use of a medium. Dance depicts emotional states beautifully. It does facts and figures badly. It can be made to do it by mixing media and using the spoken word or projections, but there comes a point when what a choreographer wants to do no longer wants to be a dance. At that point it’s time to start thinking about doing an essay or a play.
If a choreographer is going to mix media or do topical work, it’s no longer only judged as a dance. Unsuccessful dances that included written narrative in them didn’t fail because the idea couldn’t work, but because they were made by talented choreographers who were untalented writers. In the same way, if you do a dance on Iraq, you need to be as knowledgeable about Iraq as you are about choreography.
In the Telegraph, Rupert Christiansen talks about the British reality series Ballet Hoo and Brendan McCarthy at Dancerdance, which has happily reanimated, takes the opposing view.
I’m sympathetic to Christiansen, possibly because the incomprehension of the difference between professional and amateur is more pervasive in the United States than in Britain. It’s part of our national fantasy that in the same way that anyone can grow up to be president, everyone is interesting and capable of being an artist the moment they put pen to paper, paint to canvas or step on a stage.
Of course, and alas, none of this is true. But when arts advocacy groups talk about the large audience numbers for ballet, that number probably includes all the families that went to see a dance school recital. They may have gone to see a ballet in name, but what they’ve really gone to do is see their daughter on stage in a sequined costume. The moment she gets bored with it and plays soccer instead, their association with the ballet ends. What Christiansen calls “the post-Victorian tradition of self-motivated self-improvement” happened here too, but is dying out. A senior dance writer whose father was a truck driver talks of his family making regular Sunday trips to either a museum or the symphony or the ballet, all from the simple firm belief that culture was self-improvement.
There are plenty of reasons this is dying out. Television isn’t helping; it offers entertainment without effort or expense. Ticket and admission prices are costly, especially for dance and live theater. But I also think the very belief that culture improves one is under attack. This is why I agree with Brendan that shows like Ballet Hoo are important. Christiansen is right that the fantasy that amateur art is professional is debilitating but the art has to be on their radar in the first place. The most important thing we need to do is get parents and children away from their TVs and into museums and the theater. Not only for children’s theater as a franchised extension for TV entertainment – “Dora the Explorer” live on stage! All that manages to do is reinforce TV watching habits – but for them to get used to the theater as a place of communal expression of culture. And therein lies the conflict – whose culture? Who decides?
In Spiked Online, Josie Appleton takes up the culture cudgel with a vengeance in an interview with Jeffery Taylor, “Where are the Margot Fonteyns?” Mr. Taylor is the proverbial Grumpy Old Man. “In my day, our teachers groped and insulted us and WE LIKED IT.” I’ve had inspiring old school teachers and abusive old school teachers. I’ve never heard of a parent who, when the need for touching a student was explained, didn’t allow it. The teachers I recall most fondly (it’s not actually a ballet teacher, but my 7th grade French teacher, Jacob Miller, a tough bastard with a very tender heart known as Jake the Snake) was the most stringently demanding. Kids respond to challenges, especially when they know that the teacher passionately cares.
I recall (happily with amusement; I was 20 by then and was old enough to handle such things) a teacher who taught a stretching class and put his hand right in my crotch to “show” a stretch. I didn’t say anything at the time, but I really wanted to say, “I don’t turn out from there. Really.” A few years later in men’s class I jokingly commented to a friend regarding the teacher, “He’s groped every other guy in the class. I guess he doesn’t like me.”
People aren’t objecting to touching, they are objecting to abusive touching. They are not objecting to demanding the best from a student; they objecting to demeaning, insulting abuse. Abusive behavior in a situation of absolute authority such as dance training is going to happen sooner rather than later without supervision and self-policing. Abusive behavior masquerading as Old School teaching sounds like a bad excuse for not having learned a better way to inspire and motivate students.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:21 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 25, 2006
Leigh's Dance Card - Bicoastal Edition
9/26 - Joyce Theater, New York. Shen Wei Dance Arts, Re - and The Rite of Spring on duty for Danceview Times. I've met once Wei briefly; we both became Guggenheim Fellows the same year.
9/30, 10/1 - McCaw Hall, Seattle. Pacific Northwest Ballet, Director's Choice It's a program of tried and true works; Fancy Free, In the Middle Somewhat Elevated and Theme & Variations. I'm on duty for Ballet Review, and curious to see how Carla Körbes, newly promoted to principal dancer, is doing. And yes, what Peter Boal is up to, but that's a no-win situation for me to write on (if I like it, I'm toadying; if I dislike it, I'm bitter) and why I picked this program because I could legitimately focus on the dancers rather than the direction.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 5:02 PM | TrackBack
September 17, 2006
New Ballet Choreography at the Miller Theatre
I’m off duty, so this hasn’t gone through a several drafts and polishings, but for the record – here it is.
Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, directed by George Steel, and Mary Sharp Cronson’s Works and Process presented three choreographers, Tom Gold, Edwaard Liang and Brian Reeder in an evening of new ballet. Liang’s work is the only one I’ve seen before.
Gold did a work to songs by John Zorn played live by the Masada trio. The live music all evening was a wonderful hallmark, and something I’m sure both co-producers of the evening are known for and proud of. Masada Songs was most remarkable for bringing Ashley Bouder back to the stage after an injury as well as having four more NYCB golden girls in the cast. Surrounding Bouder with Sterling Hyltin, Tiler Peck, Ana Sophia Scheller and Georgina Pazcoguin is an embarrassment of riches.
The work itself didn’t live up to the cast. Gold doesn’t list any other choreography in his bio so I assume it isn’t his main focus. He doesn’t think like a choreographer; there were things that should have been learned and hammered out before having an audience see your work. His choreographic sense isn’t sharp – it equates Jewish songs with indeterminate Oriental head waggling that Edward Said would have been thrilled to see at Columbia. The work also showed a hidden trap for inexperienced choreographers: Don’t work with dancers better than your ideas. Instead of forcing you to confront and fix them, they will make them work somehow.
Liang did two small pas de deux, one for Maria Kowroski and Albert Evans to Phillip Glass and the second for Wendy Whelan and Craig Hall. The first work, Softly as I speak, worked as a vehicle for Kowroski to show how far she has come in focusing her artistry. The music for the second work, Arvo Pärt’s Für Alina, was only recently used by Christopher Wheeldon in Quaternary, his piece for SFB, and that seems applicable to the familiarity of the choreography as well. In both dimly lit pieces, the dancers were the usual couple contorting and groping towards understanding. At this point, Liang is making generic Modern Ballet Pas de Deux and he hasn’t yet found the thing that will separate him from the other trees in the forest. His musicianship won’t help; for an evening of New Ballets to New Music, choosing Glass and Pärt is about as far inside the comfort zone as possible. One got the sense that Steel, who called the evening as jovially as possible “New Ballets to New-ish Music” in his curtain speech knew this too. Perhaps Steel needs to start exercising some curatorial imperative instead of allowing mass market music choices in a musical season that’s otherwise built on artistic daring.
Reeder is the most experienced choreographer and it shows in his facility with phrasing and craft. He also worked well with unfamiliar music, a Jefferson Friedman’s String Quartet No. 2. Friedman is a young composer and his quartet was interesting and listenable. It seemed as if it was not composed with dance in mind, but Reeder rose well to that challenge. Them had a hint of a plot involving the interactions of an outsider (Joseph Gorak) against a group. For every ballet, there seems to be a balance of narrative and abstraction that is the right one; Them seemed to be uncomfortably stuck in a place where it wanted either to be more abstract and have the narrative allusions edited out or to have less abstracted dance and concentrate on telling the story. Because of this, the ballet wasn’t as affecting as it could have been, but I’d like to see more of Reeder’s works. I would not be surprised if a future ballet gets that balance just right. Reeder’s dancers, members of the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, are less professionally advanced than the other dancers in the evening but showed no less promise. The men (Gorak, Roddy Doble, Thomas Forster and Eric Tamm) all have the sort of pulled out proportions and legs that seem only possible in the young.
As a dance house, the Miller isn’t a perfect fit. The sightlines from the audience aren’t good (I was only four rows back and my view was blocked by people in front of me) and the stage doesn’t breathe. The low proscenium pens in Kowroski, a dancer with opera house proportions, and leaves too little air and space around her. But as with the other less than perfect houses for dance in the city, thanks to them for making the effort at all. The Miller is primarily a music house; Steel’s specialty is new music and overlooked music from other eras and he’s made a name for himself as a discerning curator. It will be exciting to see the dance curation achieve the same level.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:46 PM | TrackBack
September 15, 2006
Leigh's Dance (and Knitting) Card
The dance season is starting again for me -
Tonight I'm going to see the program of new choreography at the Miller Theatre. I'm not on duty with this one (my friend Aleba is doing the PR and I assisted slightly with that, so I'm happy to avoid yet another conflict of interest)
I'm teaching a workshop on entrelac tomorrow at the Long Island Knitting and Crochet Guild's "Day of Learning". I've got a love-hate relationship with the technique; you can make some gorgeous mosaic-like effects with it, but it's incredibly fiddly. I do it once every several years after I've forgotten just how tedious it was the last time I did it.
On Sunday, I'll be at the New York Knit Out, a chaotic yarnapalooza in Union Square. When I'm not overwhelmed by the crowd and hiding in a corner, it's a lot of fun and I get to see a few people I only see a couple of times a year.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 4:13 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 6, 2006
Kschessinska's memoirs
I’ve actually finished a book recently. This is more of an accomplishment than it sounds, since college, especially since I took up knitting because no matter what I try I cannot knit and read at the same time, I feel like I’ve become a functional illiterate.
But in dribs and drabs I managed to finish Mathilde Kschessinska’s memoirs, Dancing in Petersburg. Kschessinka was a prima ballerina assoluta (one of the few who legitimately held the title) of the Mariinsky Theater and also the lover of Tsar Nicholas II . . . as well as several of his relations, eventually marrying his cousin, the Grand Duke André.
It’s a juicy story and she lived in, as the Chinese say, interesting times, but her memoirs are even more fascinating as a study in narrative voice than they are as history. Kschessinska is decidedly selective about what she tells the reader and even as she tells an incident you’re aware that facts are being left out. She was ebullient, scheming, self-justifying, talented, affectionate, beautiful, formidable and a survivor. A cuddly monster.
The book gives a vivid picture of court and theater life at St. Petersburg before WWI and the Russian Revolution. Her stories about her run-ins with theater management or her ambivalent relationship with Pavlova are fascinating – especially the way Kschessinska tries to gloss over the fights. Beyond her servants, Kschessinska is blissfully unaware (or unconcerned) with the life of the working class in Russia and the forces that impelled social upheaval, but their invisibility to her tells you something as well. I wish she had written more about the ballets she danced, but like many great dancers she only seems to know them from the perspective of her own performance; the accolades - and the presents - she received.
She wrote her memoirs in the 1950s and died in 1971 just shy of her 100th birthday. Close to the end of the book she becomes briefly philosophical.
Nijinsky’s memory leads me to an analysis of what separates us from the new generations. Modern dancers, I am happy to say, greatly surpass their predecessors in technique. It is only natural that technique should advance. But few of these dancers are comparable with Rosita Mauri, Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Vera Trefilova, Olga Preobrajenska, Olga Spessivtseva. Their acting is not as powerful as that of the ballerinas of old.. . .
Today’s dancers, ready to sacrifice everything on the altar of a frenzied technique, seem to forget that virtuosity without soul is dead art. Their technique is so extraordinary that one wonders how they achieved such results; but these feats leave us cold and cannot give the spectator the least feeling or emotion.
(Kschessinska Memoirs p. 266)
Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose.
Kschessinska is probably comparing dancers from an extremely strong period in the Mariinsky’s history to dancers from a fallow period at the Paris Opera, which could be part of the complaint. There is also a human tendency to believe in deterioration. Part of what we see as deterioration is a shift in cultural expectations and cues. In correspondence I had with Bob Gottlieb, who’s been watching dance in New York a good three decades more than I, he described a dancer as uninteresting and cold. I found that dancer warm and fascinating; there was a gulf in perception that was more than just taste. The cues he learned that say “fascinating” to him are different than the ones I learned and that the cues and standards of people twenty years younger than me are already different as well. Gottlieb’s standards aren’t incorrect, nor are mine. But I’m already seeing the same gulf after only two decades and I imagine it will only get more pronounced when I’m older and complaining that they don’t make ‘em like Darci Kistler anymore.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 12:12 PM | TrackBack
August 30, 2006
Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky?
Jaimie Tapper today announced her retirement from the Royal Ballet.
She was only publicly announced in casting for Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker, so those will have to be re-cast, but that's only the immediate effect.
It means there's a slot for a female principal open.
Doubtless it won't be filled immediately, but looking at the roster of female First Soloists you can guess who my money is on.
I don't think it's just bias. Given her situation and the fact that (like the recently promoted Sarah Lamb) she dropped down in rank to come to the company, I think she's the most likely candidate.
I'm curious to see if how they re-cast Tapper's performances gives any sense of how the wind is blowing. Tapper was to dance Beauty with Bonelli and Nuts with Pennefather - Alexandra did Tschai pas with Bonelli and is dancing Beauty with Pennefather.
We shall see . . .
[Thanks to Jane for the tip!]
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 4:58 PM | TrackBack
August 23, 2006
Food for thought
George Jackson pens a very interesting opening to his review at Danceview Times of Trey McIntyre's work at Jacob's Pillow.
Expectations differ for up-and-coming ballet choreographers and for their counterparts in contemporary dance. In ballet the choreographers themselves and their clienteles put more emphasis on craft than on vision. It is the nuts-and-bolts, the tooling, the finish of a new ballet that gets comments from fans and from the press. Making a piece in the manner of this or that famous example is expected and, indeed, considered desirable. So what if the work has no singular, original, innovative vision? Skeptics even argue that there’s no such thing as real novelty because, if you look closely, ballet choreographers have been copying their teachers’ dance pieces since the dawn of the artform and only the handwriting is new.
He's certainly describing how I judge a ballet work. I'm not looking for pastiche, but I do think originality as a driving force for creation is overrated, and if a work isn't soundly crafted, I usually don't care how expressive it is.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:28 PM | TrackBack
August 17, 2006
R.I.P Clark Reid
The first item a few days ago in the links section at Ballet Talk was one I really did not want to see – Clark Reid’s obituary in the Louisville Courier-Journal - the city where he had a long career as a principal dancer in the Louisville Ballet. There is a second obituary with a photo, guest book, and condolences in the Salt Lake Tribune; he had danced with Ballet West before going to Kentucky.
Clark and I knew each other informally as occasional ‘net buddies way back when on alt.arts.ballet and he invited me to participate in the Choreographer’s Showcase at Louisville Ballet in 2002. He was a decent man who kept his word, honest and passionate to a fault. He treated me very fairly, and assembled a cast of dancers for me that was better than the one I could have picked myself.
I think I only saw Clark dance once, back in 1990 when I was dancing in Lexington and went to Louisville to see their company. He danced in Antony Tudor’s Echoing of Trumpets, playing the resistance fighter who gets hanged. When I mentioned it to him, he wrote back,
When I thought I had done just about everything on stage, I get bound, hung upside down and shot. And then dragged around in a pas de deux.Typical Clark.
Clark’s great role was Billy the Kid. I asked to see the ballet while I was in Louisville, all they had was an archive tape shot in wide angle, but I got to see it. Clark excelled in character parts from a vanishing repertory, Billy or Mac in Filling Station.
Clark posted infrequently on Ballet Talk, but once when I asked him he wrote about Billy (look for the post by "cerky") and his approach to the role. He jokes about not being much of a writer, but you can see his understanding was the deep instinct of a performer – he didn’t analyze a role; he experienced and lived it.
He was a beloved teacher but there was so much he could have taught. 51 was way too young to go.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:21 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 10, 2006
Melissa Hayden 1923-2006
Photo by Carl van Vechten, 1956
Milly Hayden was one tough cookie.
I met her only once in 2000, for a coaching session under the aegis of the Balanchine Foundation’s Interpreter’s Archive and wrote the first piece in a series on the project. I had conducted a phone interview with her nearly three years before, regarding Agon.
Anna Kisselgoff’s obituary captures her spirit as a performer better than I ever could. She retired from NYCB close to a decade before I started watching, and now taught at the North Carolina School of the Arts. I had heard the horror stories. She ate adolescent girls for breakfast. One of my favorite students from Burklyn Ballet would call me in tears; finally she quit. The boys always said they had an easier time with her.
When I called to interview her, she asked questions suspiciously, rapid fire. “Well, what to you want me to say?” she snapped.
I guessed that she was like Antony Tudor and this was a test. Back down, and she would move in for the kill. So I didn’t.
“Why don’t you just talk and I’ll type?” I said. So she talked. As she talked, from the questions I asked about her variation, she realized that I actually knew it. Her demeanor changed. We talked for well over an hour, at the end of which she admitted in surprise that she had a wonderful time. After I stopped sweating, so did I.
In her memory, here are the notes of that interview – they’ve not been published in raw form before.
Interview with Melissa Hayden, June 6 1997 by phone at 12:00 noon on the subject of Agon
Do you have any idea why you were cast to do Agon? (laughs) Not a clue.
Do you remember how Balanchine taught the ballet? It was a wonderful experience. Called to a rehearsal on 83/Mad in the small studio. Called to a rehearsal alone, which made me assume I had a solo. We walked in, and there is Mr. B and no pianist. But he sat down at the piano and played the notes - for himself. He then got up and said "try this". He indicated what he wanted, I did it. He said "This [the first phrase given] is now 7 counts." "Now try this" - and he made phrase of five, and another phrase of five and then a six count phrase. He showed the movements, and then he played, and I could hear what he meant. 7-5-5-7 and a 6. It fit perfectly. [the castanets moved in a regular 6 underneath an irregular rhythm. He was very much aware of this as he choreographed] The first part was made in half an hour - then the pianist came in another half hour and the variation was completed.
Were there specific corrections he gave repeatedly? (i.e. sharper, jazzier - et al?) I never got corrected, I did what he showed. He didn't change anything in the variation.
Were there changes made in the first year? Timing got off in the coda of the pas de trois - it had to be rehearsed more, but no changes were made.
Was there a rehearsal assistant? By the '60s, Rosemary Dunleavy.
The 1960 filming: [L’Heure du Concert, CBC]
Do you remember anything about the circumstances of the film? Was it a difficult shoot? Was any spacing or steps changed? Were there any alterations in the 2nd pas de trois for Verdy vs. Hayden? Why didn't Hayden do it at the filming? Was not there for the filming, was doing something else. She showed Violette the variation once, late at night. After that she did not have anything to do with how Violette did it. See below for further comments.
The move to State Theater: What sort of changes were made to accommodate the larger space? Very few changes. It's still done as if it were danced on a smaller stage, like Barocco. It can't be opened too much, you lose the patterns.
Who would have been responsible for the ballet at that time? Balanchine didn't bother with a ballet too much once it was done. After he did a ballet, it was finished - although when we traveled, he would rehearse the ballets more intensively at those times.
Did you see Suzanne and Allegra in the role? Do you think they changed how the company danced Agon as a whole? Vast difference between Suzanne and Allegra. Diana was stiffer and looked more manipulated. The most important thing about Balanchine is "sound" not music - its feeling, it "sings" underneath the movement. Villella was wonderful, he danced the pas de trois with Pat Neary and another woman. The original girls [Barbara Walczak and Barbara Milberg] got lost in Todd's performance, and were not very distinguishable - one only remembers Todd's performance, they were like fringe. She taught Karin von Aroldingen the variation. It was closest to the way she did it. The final pose is done with the hands primarily and was very subtle.
She went back into her part in the second pas de trois for the 1972 Stravinsky Festival. By this point, the duet for the two men had become so that it was danced more straight up and down, more " two dimensional." She saw this in rehearsal and remarked to Balanchine, "Hey, this is the way the boys used to do it." "Oh yeah" and Balanchine began to show it more off balance. "It's playful...it's games." How you get from one step to another is up to the dancer. There are steps changed in the middle of the coda of the second pas de trois, to modify or simplify the movement. The changes were there by the time Gloria Govrin was there - slight changes, nearly the same, the original was possible and could have been done, but was slightly awkward.
The steps for the men in the 2nd duet haven't really changed. The style has changed. "Mr. B originally choreographed my variation at about 60 beats/minute, a very comfortable tempo. Then Stravinsky came and was checking tempos, the first pas de trois was just what he wanted, the second pas de trois entree was just fine. Then mine. The two heads came together. [She imitates Balanchine's nasal tone] 'Milly do you think you can dance it a little faster?' Well I did it, and there was still some room for style. The heads came together again. 'Milly do you think you can dance it a little faster?' Well it got spastic, and they saw the look on my face. It became a compromise between a 60 and a 72 tempo (66) How do I know that? I checked with the pianist." When we went to Russia it got so fast...
Did the 1957 premiere, through 1972. Came back to role because of the 1972 Stravinsky Festival. It became a "tall" role when Gloria Govrin took the part. The tempo may have been slowed when the "big girls" did it. The variation has to be done with the accents up.
Extra information on the existence of films: To celebrate Stravinsky's 80th Birthday, a program consisting of Apollo, Orpheus (with Villella), and Agon was filmed in Hamburg and I was in it in the early 60's. Films of the company were made in the late 50's during the tour of Japan by NHK. Agon not filmed as it was not performed on tour. The pas de deux with McBride and Mitchell was filmed in Toronto around the early 60's.
Somewhere in Russia there is probably a film of Agon from the Bolshoi visit to NYC in 1959. They came and watched Serenade, Agon, Sym in C. put on stage without costumes. Diana Adams probably did 2nd mvt, she did 3rd mvt Sym in C with Eddie Villela. She remembers that day very clearly ("I wore a little pink skirt...")
Ballet tempo may have slowed when the big girls did it. Accents up.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 12:25 AM | TrackBack
August 9, 2006
Sound and Fury
Well, it’s August.
Lewis Segal started it off with a bang, with Five Things I Hate about Ballet, an article that looks like it was designed to stimulate more chatter than discussion. And people did indeed chatter.
I’m not sure refuting Segal’s arguments is worth the effort; the piece doesn’t seem to have been written to be taken too seriously but rather as fodder for a slow season. Then again, what is a blog other than chatter?
So here goes:
Paraphrasing his five points:
1. Ballet has less history than it pretends. Segal’s real objection seems to be to shoddy versions of the classics.
[D]on't let the myth of ballet's ancient primacy and long hold on Western culture keep you from openly dissing all that's dreadful in the contemporary perversions of 19th century classics that companies keep merchandising.
Fair enough, but it would be better stated as such. Ballet does have a history and tradition; the legacy needs better care rather than abandonment. Are we supposed to hate Swan Lake or campaign for a better one?
2. Ballet reinforces prejudiced and racist stereotypes. And so does The Merchant of Venice, but we still produce it. There is only so much one can judge art by standards that changed in society after it was made. I agree that there are certain stumbling blocks, such as parts in blackface – the Mariinsky still does this for the children in Bayadère – that either should be changed or given context for the audience. Still, I think the stereotypes Segal talks about are, in the end, less important and universal than the work itself. A feminist Giselle may be worth seeing, but it is no longer Giselle. People need to – and do – relate to Giselle, as a woman who rightly or wrongly dies for love and redeems her lover by her forgiveness. The original transcends the issue simply by committing to portraying its world wholly and honestly, and without the original, none of the variations have a context.
3. Ballet infantilizes and mechanizes its participants. Didn’t this one go out of fashion with Off Balance and Dancing on My Grave? As most of Balanchine’s ballerinas attested, no one let them feel more like themselves. In the years I danced, what Segal describes as infantilization I chose to accept as a form of