Is this a first in the NY Times arts coverage where an internet forum ("chat room", shame on you Rockwell!) commentary became the subject of the article? And in the Sunday Times too? Congratulations Leigh & Alexandra for taking us to a new level. And Thank You, John Rockwell, for taking the time to respond..

... though I thought this little dig wholly undeserved.


I cannot agree that studying modern dance repetoire weakens ballet dancers. I think it improves their ballet dancing. They might not be able to make use of that improvement in Les Sylphides, but I suspect it would even improve say the black swan pas de deux in Swan Lake. Particularly, I think it helps the men. I think it improves their ability to walk naturally on stage, for instance, and I think it informs the use of their backs. Did straying straying from the Soviet repetoire ruin Baryshnikov? Was he wrong to have defected? This is not to say that the ballet & modern repetoire is interchangeable. Certainly if one is not having the demands of the classical repetoire made on one regularly the ability to perform such work slips. I agree strongly that the future of ballet should be built upon the existing institution not grafted on from some modern institution (yes, Graham, Limon, Cunningham are certainly institutions as much as NYCB is), but I think we hurt our argument by claiming that doing any modern at all hurts ballet. I agree with Alexandra that the ballet dancers don't perform modern as well as modern dancers do, and I think that ballet companies are not the ideal institution to mount say "Appalachian Spring" (from either a balletomane's or a modern dance lover's point of view), but learning to express themselves physically through yet another aesthetic deepens any artist's expression. It's not that we're against cross fertilization, it's that we're against abandoning the core of ballet's aesthetic while we flit after commissioning whatever "hot" new modern choreographer there is.

Has anyone here done a tally of new ballet-choreographer works vs. new modern-choreographer works in ballet company repetoire? I'd love to see the results.



and off topic...



And what about that directive that it doesn't matter how one gets from position to position, that it's the positions themselves that must sing out like a string of diamonds?

Simplicity is dull, isn't it?

I would have quoted Amy's entire post, except that takes up too much space, but I think she poses several very interesting questions, most of which are central to any discussion of theatrical dance in the 20th, now 21st century.

I don't really want to discuss John Rockwell's pov here, but rather this issue of categories, and what they do and don't capture about dancing. Several years ago I wound up writing an entry for the International Dictionary of Modern Dance about the influence of MD on ballet -- no big revelations, but just the observation that people had been quietly working back and forth for many years before the big surge in "crossover" work, that the policies of arts funding agencies in the 80's-onward tended to encourage ballet directors to look beyond the "usual" sources for new choreography, that choreographer development programs like Carlisle and Pacific Northwest Ballet's Off-Stage were trying on one level to emulate the emphasis on dance making that exists in most modern dance curricula, and that these things were happening at the same time that the ballet world lost most of its long-term classically influenced choreographers.

I think we should move this discussion out of this thread on J Rockwell's initial work as the Time's chief dance critic, but I'd love to pursue it further. Could I prevail on one of the board moderators to do the linking -- I don't know how and don't have the time to experiment right now.

[quote=Amy Reusch,Jan 24 2005, 05:48 PM]

I cannot agree that studying modern dance repetoire weakens ballet dancers. I think it improves their ballet dancing. They might not be able to make use of that improvement in Les Sylphides, but I suspect it would even improve say the black swan pas de deux in Swan Lake. Particularly, I think it helps the men. I think it improves their ability to walk naturally on stage, for instance,
---------------------------

Amy, sorry, but ballet artists should not walk naturally neither in "Les Sylphides" or in "Swan Lake", this is a special, artificial walk, which should be taught in ballet school. There are insurmountable obstacles between ballet and modern approach to the dance and, clearly, Mr. Rockwell don't understand it. Modern goes from natural movements of the body, ballet - from geometrical perspective. Modern is trying to earth down the presence of dancers, ballet sends them to the air. If you'll try to put chaines of reality on ballet shoulders, it will die.

Andrei.

Andrei I agree with you. "Natural" walking has at best a limited place in ballet -- look how graceless Plisetskaya's padding around on her heels looks.

Andrei thank you for your post - and I love the way you've described the important differences between modern and ballet.

Not being a dancer, nor a ballet critic, but the mother of a formerly very serious ballet student who was required to take Modern once a week, I can state that for dancers who are naturally "turned out" etc., that this modern class caused untold injuries for her and for the vast majority of her classmates. Daughter's PT at West Side Dance Physical Therapy advised her not to do what the modern teacher requested and if possible to avoid having to take the class at all...

Granted this does not speak to the choreographic side of this discussion, but Andrei's post really hit home for me.

Two observations.

1 Ballet dancers desperately want two things. They want to dance Odette Odile. But they also desperately want to dance new stuff. They don't just want to become a museum piece. However the new stuff has to be the real deal. Just listen to dancers after the premiere - no matter whether the audience was ecstatic or not, dancers want to be challenged by the steps and if they aren't they don't care for the piece.

2 There are dancers who do best in classical. There are dancers who have bodies made for contemporary pieces. And there are dancers who do well in contemporary stuff, and take that kind of expressiveness and creativity to the classic roles and do astoundin perfomances.

It's been my experience that dancers who've been through a creative process with Hans van Manen bring so much more to a Petipa or Balanchine ballet - because they've lost the museum feel. It's if they feel closer to the original dancers of those pieces, who after all were much freeer in their expression, too.

The one thing dancers like that *don't* usually bring to classical ballet though, are the lines. But that isn't because of the creative process. It's because of a lack of academic training.

Amy wrote:


I didn't have the feeling that it was what was being said, but rather that the problem was that the proportion of modern/ crossover works in the repertories of some companies was becoming so high that they couldn't really keep a good enough classical ballet training. And for example, it is indeed a problem for some French companies (like the Ballet du Rhin or the Ballet de Nancy), which used to be ballet companies, but now perform mostly modern/crossover works with only one or two ballets in the season- how can the corps de ballet be properly trained ? I think there's quite a big difference in performing a few modern/ crossover works once in a while, and having a repertory including mostly such works.

And also, as BW pointed out, there seems to be an increased risk of injuries when the dancers have to use some very different styles in a short period of time.

[quote=Herman Stevens,Jan 25 2005, 08:50 PM]
It's been my experience that dancers who've been through a creative process with Hans van Manen bring so much more to a Petipa or Balanchine ballet - because they've lost the museum feel. It's if they feel closer to the original dancers of those pieces, who after all were much freeer in their expression, too.


Then there's the case of Suzanne Farrell, who grew up dancing Balanchine, and after four years with Maurice Bejart's Ballet of the 20th Century, came back to NYCB and danced Balanchine better than ever.

This is a very interestimg topic. I agree with the observations by Herman Steven. But I also am interested in the economic issue for smaller dance companies, since "best for the dancers" also includes providing them with the opportunity to work at their art. How can you attract audiences if you limit yourself to training and programming from just one genre?

Our local company (22 dancers, 40-week contract, 60+ performances) describes itself as "classical, modern, jazz" though training is ballet-based. They do Balanchine, Parsons, Forsythe, Ezralow, Stevenson, Caniparoli, Nebrada, etc., etc. -- which allow audiences to see a wide variety of choreography ordinarily not available in our area. The price is that they can't do everything at the level of highest proficiency. This shows most in the difficult classical and neo-classical, unfortunately.

My question is, what SHOULD companies that are not at the very top of the international or even national food-chain, be programming if the goals are: (a) dance at the highest level; (b) do the best for the dancers; and © (b) draw audiences and donor support to stay alive?

Oh, absolutely. There's great pressure on classical ballet companies to do more accessible work - from part of the audience, from many critics, and from the powers that be. Companies directors need to be really strong to resist that pressure, because once you go that way there's no going back.

[quote=Amy Reusch,Jan 24 2005, 01:48 PM]Is this a first in the NY Times arts coverage where an internet forum ("chat room", shame on you Rockwell!) commentary became the subject of the article?  And in the Sunday Times too? 

[quote trimmed for brevity by Leigh Witchel]

Simplicity is dull, isn't it?

[/quote]
i totally agree with you. some of the best ballet dancers i have seen are incredibly strong modern dancers also.

Yes, many fine ballet dancers are also excellent in the modern style. But for most dancers, is the reverse true as well? And why or why not?

As a strategy for companies, how -- in practical terms -- does cross-over actually work? Is the content of daily company class (as oppossed to rehearsal time in particular modern dances) altered?

I remember hearing a post-performance talk by the director of a ballet-based modern company mention that half the company class time was traditional ballet. The idea seems to be that SOME on-going ballet training is good for much modern choreography. However, is training, practice, and time allocation devoted to modern technique at all beneficial to ballet?

I certainly notice a lot more difficulty maintaining center balance in turns as well as an awful lot of forward-falling at the end of big jumps. Not to mention many other problems (I'm sure) that I don't have the eye or experience to notice. Or the very common phenomenon where most of the dancer's steps are fine-- even brilliant -- but the performance does not cohere or satisfy as a whole.

In order to dance ballet qua ballet, there are so many changes the body has to make -- turnout, stretched muscles, pulling up, as just a few examples. That's what makes a ballet dancer so instantly recognizable from blocks away. So when you start training the ballet dancer to get into the earth, to turn in, it may prompt new insight into their ballet technique, and that is helpful. But as the ballet body assimilates in a second-nature kind of way, the movement qualities of modern, of necessity the capabilities it worked so hard to achieve begin to be compromised. It's not the same as the ability to speak several languages with equal fluency.

It's much easier for a modern dancer with ballet training to simply revert to the more "natural" demands of that technique.

So while it must have been a very different kind of ballet for Ms Farrell, I guess it wasn't as much as a change as if she had been performing with a company with a completely non-ballet technique...

Estelle wrote....


And at that time company class chez Bejart was (probably still is) totally classical.

IMHO, modern dance doesn't hurt ballet dancers, but age does. I remember that Twyla Tharp didn't want to set "Nine Sinatra Songs" on Baryshinikov and dance it with him until his technique had become more...mellow.

Andrei, my apologies for not writing more precisely... I meant not that ballet artists should walk naturally (in say a heel to toe pedestrian style), but rather that they should look natural when they walked. Far too often I've seen a ballet artist walking very unconvincingly... not so much stylized, as awkwardly... as if they felt foolish...and I notice this much more often in the men than in the women... I wish I had Kshesinskaya's biography on hand, I could have sworn she began some argument about walking naturally on stage.

Not all Modern is focussed on bringing the weight down into the earth and not all ballet is about weightlessness.... one reason I mentioned "Les Sylphides" and the Black Swan pdd is that I can't say Black Swan is about weightlessness...

I'm not saying that any ballet training should be forfeited to make room for experience with modern but rather that ballet training should be supplemented with a physical acquaintance with modern training.

BW, I cannot imagine what kind of modern this was... there are so many different kinds, of course... though I can easily imagine a teacher "having it in" for ballet students and not teaching them appropriately ... I can also suspect students hating the movement might injure themselves in a way that more openminded students might not... it's possible to be injured by not respecting the movement, crazy as that might seem... I've been thinking a lot about your experience, particularly as it's the first time I've heard of such a thing. Did the school where your very serious student was required to take the modern discuss it's reasons for requiring it? Did they later cancel the class as the injuries piled up? I do wish you would say what kind of modern it was.

I'm also a little mystified by the problem being caused by "natural" turn out... do you mean your daughter's hips couldn't accomodate working in parallel? In otherwords, would simple walking be dangerous as well? It keeps reminding me of how Villella once said something about how he became injured by walking his dog. And then, of course, I got to remembering how one used to be able to spot the ballet kids on the upper West Side by their "duck walk", and how that doesn't seem to be fashionable any more, and hasn't been for decades now. I can't imagine that kind of turn out is what you mean. My own feet are sort of "naturally turned out" if you will, so that if I stand with them in parallel and plie, my knees knock together, so that to work properly in parallel I have to turn my feet slightly out.

I went to school with two dancers who were required to take modern classes five days-a-week in addition to their ballet, but that didn't stop one of them from dancing with ABT under Baryshnikov and another from becoming a principal at Houston Ballet. I did hear a lot of dancers complaining at first about how much they hated having to take modern and then hearing from the same dancers a few months later how much they loved modern.

It also reminds me of how dangerous Balanchine technique seemed at the time... we used to talk about the tendonitis and the large number of the company out on injury, etc... but I can't imagine anyone nowadays complaining about being asked to dance Balanchine repetoire, and the technique is required to dance the repetoire properly, I should think.

I would very much appreciate it if Paul Parrish would post his thoughts on the issue of modern class being dangerous to ballet students.

I think something that can happen very often is that really serious, pre-professional ballet training can actually "train out" a natural instinct for movement in a young person. The emphasis and intense focus on technique, and the incredible effort required to achieve as high a level of it as possible, can make young dancers sort of stiff, in a way.

This is another reason why ballet dancers look so different doing modern dance pieces than modern dancers do.

Estelle, I'm entirely in agreement with you. It's preposterous to think the classics can be maintained without proper attention... That's why I was wondering if there has been a tally done of company repetoire... I think perhaps you have it worse in Europe than we have it here in the US?

It's almost the essence of fine art that it requires an extreme amount of constant attention to bring it up to that state of refinement... post-modern glib won't sustain it. And then, of course, there are those who forget art needs life in addition to studio work... there's an understanding of what happens to a piece when it's "over rehearsed" until all the life has died in it, but what's the equivalent for the training of a dancer, who never seems to leave the ballet studio, so much so that their dancing is so devoid of personality that they're not fit for anything beyond corps work?

We used to have this debate at School. Several things come to mind. One, do Esplanade on tour a few times and tell me that some modern dance isn't dangerous to anyone; much less ballet dancers (though it's probably my favorite piece, even without the bell bottoms). Two, ballet companies have more money than modern companies, so ballet companies get famous works of modern choreographers because they can afford them. Three, it would seem nearly impossible to have a career of any length without addressing the necessity of possessing more than a passing familiarity with modern technique. While there may be a segment of the population of professional ballet dancers who can avoid doing a single contraction, I suspect the percentage to be very very small.
There may be advantages to a homogenized tuition; however, unless we're able to recreate Children of Theatre Street, I think we're stuck with a melange of styles and genres. Even those kids had to take Character.
Long story longer: versatility = good.

Welcome to BalletTalk, Hermes. I see you wasted no time in contributing to the site. I hope we'll be hearing from you often.

If you haven't yet visited, you might want to visit -- and maybe join BalletTalk for Dancers. http://dancers.invisionzone.com. If you wish to join that site, we only ask that you keep the same name, for consistency's sake.

You might also want to drop by our Welcome page and introduce yourself.

Thanks for your post. A good summation of the state of affairs.

I remember Farrell saying in her book that she was surprised at how orthodox Bejart’s daily class was. However, she and her then husband, Paul Mejia, also kept their technique in trim by giving each other daily Balanchine barres.

... there's an understanding of what happens to a piece when it's "over rehearsed" until all the life has died in it, but what's the equivalent for the training of a dancer, who never seems to leave the ballet studio, so much so that their dancing is so devoid of personality that they're not fit for anything beyond corps work?

[/quote]

That's what I mean--- and one more thing that separates the cream of the crop, so to speak. Ballet training can drive out one's natural movement instinct and impulse. It takes a person with a really driving, powerful, innate sense of movement that will refuse to be squelched by the regulated, almost machine-like nature of ballet classes, day in and day out, for years on end. When that ability to move shines through and is used in concert with that hard-won technique, you have a (ballet) dancer that can go beyond a lifetime of corps work--- and, incidentally, do justice to modern, contemporary, ethnic, etc. dances as well.

Well, I guess the situation in Europe probably depends quite a lot on the country...

But for example, the present POB season includes:
-on the "classical" side:
-three Nureyev productions ("The Sleeping Beauty", "Cinderella", "Romeo and Juliet")
-one Roland Petit mixed bill
-Lander's "Etudes" and Robbins' "Glass pieces"
-I don't know exactly where to put Forsythe's "Pass/parts" and Neumeier's full length
"Sylvia"
-on the "modern" side:
-a Preljocaj double bill
-a full-length work "Hurlevent" by Kader Belarbi
-a full-length work "Orphée et Eurydice" by Pina Bausch
-two works by Trisha Brown
-some works by Francine Lancelot (inspired by baroque dance), Susanne Linke, Michèle Noiret, Laura Scozzi and Jérôme Bel

The Nureyev classics have quite a lot of performances (and they do seem to sell better than most modern productions) but as you can see, this season includes a larger choice of modern works than classical ones. Given all the training the POB gets, I think the dancers are not really threatened to lose their ballet technique, but what I find a bit worrying is that the POB is almost the only ballet company in France, so if even them dance less and less ballet, that sets a trend for other companies...
Also, *all* the new additions to the repertory this season are modern works (world premières by Bel, Brown, Linke, Preljocaj and Noiret and existing works by Bausch and Preljocaj). And I find that season really quite thin on the 20th century repertory: nothing by Balanchine, Lifar, Tudor, MacMillan, Fokine, Nijinska, only one Robbins...
I find it frustrating as an audience member (if the POB doesn't perform it, then there often is zero opportunity to see it in France- while works by choreographers such as Trisha Brown, Jérôme Bel or Pina Bausch can be seen regularly in other theaters like the Théâtre de la Ville) and I don't think it's very good for the dancers' training either. Also, many modern works premiered by the POB in recent seasons were very short-lived (never performed again after their first season).

And the proportion of ballet works has been even lower for the other few existing companies in France, like the Ballet du Rhin, Ballet de Marseille, etc.

hermes, could you please explain what you wrote about "Esplanade", as I'm not very familiar with that work ? Also, you wrote:



I'd say it also works the other way around: a lot of modern choreographers are interested in working with ballet companies because they can get more money (and also better material conditions, e. g. more expensive sets and costumes, a live orchestra, etc.) At least it seems to me that it works like that in France...

Does anyone have any insight on how the modern dance community is reacting to "their" works becoming fair game for dancers trained in any style, while nobody would think of setting a classical ballet on a modern company? How does that make them feel?

Now, that is a good question. I would suspect that employed modern dancers are too busy premiering the original works, or on the road setting older pieces by their choreographer to worry about the poor little rich kids. J/K
I do think the ballet world and the modern world are different culturally. Perhaps there's more convergence nowadays; but, the modern folk I knew coming up were always a little more (how to say it?) self actualized than their ballet counterparts.

For Estelle,

Esplanade is a Paul Taylor piece (though referred to as a 'ballet' by the folks who set it on me) to the Bach Double Concerto (more familiar to ballet audiences as the music for Concerto Barocco). Anyway, it features a bunch of dancers performing various pedestrian movements. It starts with a walking section that begins with two lines that start with simple patterns that become increasingly complex and interesting. There's a running section. There's a section with crawling that (though there's no story), has perhaps one of the sweetest endings I can think of. The last movement (I think there are five) is intense. There's giant leaps from the girls into the men's arms. There's no-look catches. It's really dangerous and fun.
Anyway, it takes it's toll. I remember a friend of mine showing me her bruise. It was the size of a paper plate around her hip and outer thigh from the many baseball slides in the piece. All of our feet were torn to shreds. We could wear little knee-pads, but they never seemed to fit right so the knees get bruised and bloody. Your shoulders are wrecked from rolling around quickly (I can still manage one of the rolls, to scare my students). Did I leave anything out? Well, if I did I can assure you that those parts hurt too. (There's this promenade where the girl steps right above - that's above- the belt. Well, it's supposed to be above the belt anyway). My friend Traci came to a Halloween party dressed like road kill with a shirt that read, "I Survived Esplanade". You get the idea.
What was your question again? Lol.
B.

For those who are interested, Paul Taylor Dance Company made a video of Esplanade at the dawn of the video era. I'm pretty sure it is out of print, but perhaps you can find a copy in a library or on e-bay or something.

Resume!

--Carley

The Nonesuch video to which carbro refers is also a wonderful period piece, with those great 70's afros and bell-bottoms.

Esplanade is five movements long. It begins with the Bach Violin Concerto in E Major and continues, as hermes mentioned, with the last two movements of Bach's Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor (Largo & Allegro), best known as the beautiful adagio and finale from Concerto Barocco.

The following link from the Paul Taylor Dance Company site gives a good indication of the type of movement in the piece:

http://www.ptdc.org/rep_esplanade.html

It's one of those dances full of "regular" movement that makes an audience member think, "I can do that," and/or "I want to do that, now!" when, as hermes described, it is an obstacle course and a mini-marathon to perform.

:rolleyes: I followed Hockeyfan's link to learn that the video is available through the Taylor Co.

In regards to ballet dancers doing modern dance, I think another way to look at these questions



is to think of how the ballet community would react if the Paul Taylor Dance Company started doing Balanchine, or if Christopher Wheeldon began choreographing for modern dance companies. Of course, the analogy is far from perfect, since a) there are differences between modern dance and ballet companies and how they operate, and b) I'm not sure that the modern dance community is any more monolithic on this issue than the ballet community.

hermes: thanks a lot for the explanation about "Esplanade". I actually saw it, but only once and it was about 6 or 7 years ago, and had no idea it was such a "dangerous" work to perform... By the way, do you know if the dancers of Paul Taylor's company also get injured as often when performing it (I'm wondering if the dancers' initial training might have an influence) ?

Incidentally, when I saw it, it was performed by a ballet company, the Ballet de Marseille. That's yet another example of company whose repertory became more and more influenced by modern dance under the tenure of its previous director Marie-Claude Pietragalla (who staged a lot of her own "crossover" works, and programmed some works by modern choreographers such as Maryse Delente, Tero Saarinen and Claude Brumachon, while performing fewer and fewer "real" ballets) and now is becoming a modern dance company as its new director is the modern dance choreographer (who never got any ballet training) Frédéric Flamand. They are supposed to have a mixed repertory, but it seems unlikely to me that they could keep a good enough ballet level if they perform only a handful of these every season. And that's sad for the Marseille audience, who will have no opportunity at all to see any ballet (while there are some local modern dance companies, and also some others going there on tour). So far, all the dancers are ballet trained, but I really wonder whether they'll stay with the company (the change of direction is very recent).

Interesting. Wasn't Roland Petite the director at some point in history? I don't even know if he's still with us or no. I love his pieces. They're so dramatic and someone usually smokes on stage.

I have no idea how companies are structured across the pond. I imagine that there has to be a Board of some kind. I wonder how much power they have and how responsive is the artistic direction of the company to the audience's expectations. But that's another topic for another thread I suppose.

Seems strange that they would hire a non-ballet person for the Director of a Ballet company. Should be fun to follow.

I just came home from a performance of Rennie Harris Puremovement's Facing Mecca, and in the Q&A following the performance, Harris said that in the piece, he was closer to the mission of choreographing pure movement rather than hip hop. I assumed he meant rather than strictly hip hop, because to me long stretches of dancing did look like hip hop.

Harris also said that he is working with the Colorado Ballet on a new piece for the Company.

hermes: yes indeed, Roland Petit used to be the Ballet de Marseille's director, actually he was its foundator. But he left rather suddenly in 1998, for reasons which were not very clear (it seemed that there were some strong conflicts with the mayor or Marseille or something like that). And when he left, he withdrawed all his repertory, so that the company had no repertory at all (and part of his former dancers left soon after the change of direction).

His successor was the former Paris Opera Ballet principal Marie-Claude Pietragalla, but she had to resign after some conflicts with the dancers (who accused her of moral harrassment) and the new director was chosen only a few months ago.

There is no such thing as a Board: the Ballet de Marseille is a state-funded company, financed by both the state and the city of Marseille (and perhaps also the region), and the decisions are made by the ministery of Culture and local politicians. The problem is that they don't seem especially knowledgeable about ballet, or dance in general... When Pietragalla was chosen, she wasn't even a candidate (she still was a POB dancer) and had no experience as a company director, and in my opinion, she was chosen mostly because of her fame as a dancer (and also the fact that she was known by the general audience because she had appeared in some advertisement).

And this time, a majority of the candidates were modern dance choreographers, who were in my opinion not especially interested in the Ballet de Marseille dancers, but mostly in the big public subsidy for the company (it's the second most subsidized company in France after the POB). The choice of the director was a complicated story and took several months, and I have no idea why they chose Flamand, who already had his own modern company in Belgium.

There were some threads about the Ballet de Marseille there:

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=2738
http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=10476
http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=17701

Well, I'm sorry to be getting a bit off-topic, but unfortunately what's happening in Marseille already happened in several French companies, like the Ballet de l'Opera de Lyon, Ballet du Nord, Ballet du Rhin and Ballet national de Nancy et de Lorraine: a company gradually abandoning the ballet repertory, and being transformed in a modern dance company (with sometimes still one or two ballet works, but fewer and fewer). I think it often was motivated partly by financial reasons: programming modern works often costs less, because one doesn't need as many dancers, the sets and costumes often are less expensive, there isn't the cost of pointe shoes, etc. Sometimes the modern works they perform are interesting, but what is extremely sad in my opinion is that there is now about zero opportunity to see any ballet in most French cities (and even in Paris, the choice is scarce this season). And so much of the audience doesn't even know what ballet is... Also, the employment opportunities for ballet students are rarer and rarer.

It seems to me that the situation isn't yet as serious in the US, but it'd be sad if it became as in France.

Wow. Thank you for the explanation. I can't help but think that Mr. Petite's influence must've provided the funding Marseilles enjoys. There's some irony there. The saying, "Before seeking revenge one must first dig two graves," comes to mind.
Do you think the audiences in France are simply bored with regular ballet? I wonder because what's to stop someone from starting their own company? Or would one have to go through the ministry of culture. etc. I don't know. If there are butts for the seats, it seems someone entrepreneurial could find his niche. Hmmm. What's the situation in Saintes? So far, that's my favorite little city in France. Lol.

Probably, as Petit is an influential choreographer and also used to be supported by some local politicians (e.g. the late mayor of Marseille Gaston Defferre). And also there's the fact that Marseille is France's second or third city.



I don't think so: for example, this season at the POB, "The Sleeping Beauty" was sold out very quickly while the theater was not very full for several of the modern dance programs, and also when some ballet companies tour, they generally get quite a large audience. However, now there's so little ballet to be seen in most cities that I wonder if people will soon forget what ballet looks like...



No one is obliged to ask for public support to start a company, but in general creating a company requires a lot of money, and especially for a ballet company. And private sponsorship for dance is very very low in France. Most dance companies, ballet or modern, depend a lot on public subsidies, I think it'd be very hard to have a financially viable company without public support.

Well, we've been going a bit too off-topic, let's go back on topic again ! But perhaps now you understand better why, as many French ballet fans, I'm often worried when I see the repertory of ballet companies including more and more modern works...