Geniuses? Probably none. Now, hacks on the other hand.... :rolleyes:

It does happen, though maybe not with those words, and not every day. The people that I spoke to in the original cast of Agon knew they were in something special and groundbreaking, at least from what Barbara Milberg recalled the audience did too. But that's only part of a whole career. Later in the same season, Balanchine made Gounod Symphony. Though artists do try to break boundaries (especially their own) I think this more proves than disproves pmeja's point. It's about saying what you need to get said.

That's really a different thing, though, I think. They weren't making something new for the sake of making something new. They were making a new ballet that turned out to be groundbreaking.



That's it, I think. The genius does what he does.

The Martin Scorsese film about Bob Dylan was on PBS a few weeks ago, and I think Dylan was an exemplar of this. He took one of the oldest song forms imaginable -- the ballad -- and made it new, not on purpose, but because he understood it so thoroughly that he picked up the lute, as it were, exactly where it had been put down, strummed the strings, and sang in the voice of his time. (Ahead of his time, of course, but that's also what geniuses do. They smell/sense what's going on, it speaks to them and they to it, and 25 years later it's hard to know which came first.)

The more I think about this, the more I wonder whether we're still dealing with the underlying resentment at the Ford Foundation mega-grant for ballet training in the US that was distributed in the 1960's almost exclusively to Balanchine-affiliated company schools, even though ballet class is/has been standard training for the majority of modern dancers. Add to that the institutions behind ballet as it matured: the real estate, endowments, continuing grants, government support (varied by country) and "friends of" groups with substantial funds (see: Mariinsky underwriting for its recent London tour).

I suppose in this financial climate ballet is supposed to say, "We're a moribund art form. Here, you take the money, upcoming geniuses of relevant art. We'll just keep watching that old archival film of Anna Pavlova's Dying Swan on YouTube while holding onto our walkers and ruing what has been."

This is supported by a letter to Stravinsky written by Diana Adams, and quoted in the new Stephen Walsh biography of Stravinsky.


Alexandra, the Ashton statement is superb! I suspect that many critics of ballet are a kind of reverse-side-of-the-coin to Ashton: they just don't like what they see when they watch ballet. These critics seem to struggle to find ways to turn ballet into something they WOULD enjoy, a kind of "not-ballet." My own feeling is: If you don't like it, follow Ashton and give your attention and support to other forms of dance that you do enjoy.

After 2 years of membership on Ballet Talk -- and greatly increased viewing, discussing, reading, etc. -- I find just about everyone I've ever encountered to be quite interested in a variety of forms of dance expression. Preference for ballet -- and the sense that, somehow, it is the "mother" art of dance in the western world at least -- does not mean ignorance of or unwillingness to taste the pleasures of other forms.

Indeed ballet dancers tend to be the MOST responsive of all to a variety of choreographic styles. For a striking example, read the interview with Aurelie Dupont in the Spring 2006 number of Ballet Review. When asked about the teachers who have influence her, she enthuses over Pina Bausch. When asked which choreographers she loved working with, she mentions Kylian, Ek, and .... Bausch. This from one of the great classical dancers of our time!

As to the Rockwell piece, he raises the spectre of "fanatic balletomanes" and then caricatures it.I'm sure there are such people. I don'd read many here or in the ballet press. Instead, I find a great deal of complexity in the way ballet fans -- ESPECIALLY those who have the opportunity to see a variety of performances each year -- respond to attempts to use the classical vocabulary in new ways. True, there is criticism when it does not work (see Leigh's reference to Dracula above), but that is quite different from damning new kinds of work even before they are performed.

EDITED TO ADD: Helene and I were posting at the same time. Your point, Helene, about resentment following the Ford Foundation grants sounds plausible to me. In the same Spring 2006 number of Ballet Review, there's an article by Joseph W. Polisi, "An unsettled Marriage: the Merger of SAB and Juilliard." At one point in the negotiations to move Balanchine's school to Julliard, there were serious plans to junk the existing Juilliard dance program. Those involved handled this, it seems to me, in an insensitve manner. Rumors about what was being considered created a storm of outrage.

There is no doubt that the ill-feeling against the Balanchine enterprise was real and intense. At Julliard, the Dance Division remained and was given facilities on the same floor as SAB's. SAB seems to have wanted little to do with this other dance program. To wit:
In a similar vein, Balanchine does not seem to have deigned to have much to do with the Julliard Dance program after the move there. If there's hostility to ballet in the dance world today, it may be a reflection of some of those long-ago resentments, based in a time when "ballet" was indeed on top in terms of money and respect, and when the ballet establishment may have shown just a touch of arrogance towards its non-ballet dance brothers and sisters.

Yes and yes.

"The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth. The very name Troubadour means a 'finder,' one who discovers."

-- Ezra Pound

I don't agree entirely with the above, but conscious breaking of boundaries does indeed happen from time to time. (And on the other side you have an artist like Manet, who seems to have been genuinely flummoxed at the fuss he caused.)

I'd be very interested to read some quotes, BY, not about, an acknowledged master, who said, "I consciously set out to break boundaries and making something new for the sake of making something new is why I work." I've never come across that. [Editing to add: Except the current generation of Boundary Breakers, of course!)

A lot of interesting points have been made on this thread. I think the Ford Foundation wake may still be going on, resentment coming from those who weren't working at the time. There is resentment in the modern dance community (understandable, if I don't agree with it) that ballet gets the lion's share of the resources (which is true) and that this is why more people attend ballet performances (which I don't think is true).

What a documentary that was!

Alexandra's likening of Dylan to Balanchine brought to mind another similarity -- their shared insistence that their works spoke for themselves. Dylan's turning back to his questioners "What do you think it means?" is his version of "All my ballets are about dancing."

I agree with the parallel, Carbro, but before we get some "how can you compare Dylan and Balanchine?" posts, I hadn't meant to compare the two as artists, but to give Dylan as an example of someone inventing something without consciously setting out to break boundaries.

It's clear that Stravinsky wished to make a significant break from the musical language that dominated Russian composition in the pre Revolutionary period. It's also clear that this had something to do with his decision to live and work most of the time in the West in those years.

At the time he was composing Rite of Spring, he wrote a letter to his friend Andrei Rimsky-Korsakov (son of the late composer, who had been Stravinsky's most important teacher) who had expressed upset with Petrushka. In it he said:
This isn't a very dramatic quotation, I admit. But it does support the idea that creative artists who break barriers are sometimes quite conscious of -- and even proud of -- what they are doing.

I'll try one more time and then I'll stop I don't think I've expressed what I'm trying to say clearly.

Every artist wants/hopes/tries to do new work. What I'm objecting to is the notion that they do so MERELY FOR THE SAKE OF DOING SO TO GET ATTENTION or for marketing purposes. I agree, there are a lot of artists who consciously develop new forms, and certainly know who which of their works are within a tradition and which are not. Stravinsky would say things like, "I believe that music expresses itself only" which certainly was a new notion then, and his works furthered that idea. But I don't think he sat around for months thinking, "What can I do that will be different, will get me front page coverage?" The idea was to allow his creativity free rein.

I've written (here and elsewhere) that, although we often say that this artist breaks the rules, I don't think artists think that way. For them, there are no rules -- that's one way of saying it -- or there are rules, but they have a much wider interpretation and understanding of them. The rule isn't, for example, "You can't mix blue and lime within two square inches in a painting" or "you have to use the color wheel" but that one has to use colors in a way that -- terrible word -- "works." Some artists can make the very juxtaposition of two warring colors look natural, and when others do it, they look like they don't know what they're doing. The second artist needs the rules, the first one doesn't and we'll say he creates a new rule -- juxtapose colors in this or that way. But to him, he's just painting and using what he needs to do what he wants to do. This is very far afield from Lewis Segal's article, in a way, although if ballet choreographers stopped BOTH following and consciously trying to break rules, as if there were a list of them and they've got to find one that hasn't been broken yet, we might be getting somewhere.

As a proud Dylan fanatic, I'm pleased to say that this point made here. Stravinsky and Eliot and other modernists wanted to, so to speak, to submerge personality in the work itself. Come to think of it, isn't that just a variant on the age old idea of the artist channeling a muse? In a similar way, Dylan immersed himself in the tradition (and as recently as 5 years ago still performed traditional songs), furthered the tradition with up to date topical songs performed by modern instrumentation, and has always insisted that his work speaks for itself and should not be confused with him.

Yes, and other very fine ways of looking at the 'Artwork' as having its existence beyond the human artist himself are to be found in Adorno's work, who expresses it especially well, as in 'Negative Dialectics.'

Maybe it is more precise to say that the artist expands the rules. To contemporaries it appears that the artist isn't following the rules. In retropect that artist is seen as following an artistic progression. The Impressionists were attacked for departing from strict realism. Subsequent -isms continued the divergence from realism.

That sounds quite similar to the dance situation in France- except that here there was no Ford foundation grant, but state subsidies. Modern dance appeared quite late in France compared to the US, and had at first very little financial support, and there must have been some resentment about the huge POB subsidies. Even now, if I remember correctly, the Paris Opera (opera, ballet and orchestra) gets by far the biggest cultural subsidy of all French institutions... But outside Paris, the number of ballet companies is small and shrinking, and the audience has fare more opportunities to see modern dance than ballet (and for example this is obvious in summer during the season of the festivals). I don't know if more people attend ballet performances, given the small number of performances outside Paris. And I feel that now the institutional support is far more on the side of modern dance than of ballet (except for the POB, which is protected by its status as an old traditional institution- but well, its repertory includes more and more modern dance too), many newspapers won't even review ballet performances, etc. The lack of important French ballet choreographers after the generation of Petit and Béjart surely didn't help (but it was nonetheless striking to realize in the last programs of choreographies by POB dancers "Danseurs chorégraphes" that all the works were modern dance works, not ballet ones...). And in a period of shrinking subsidies, modern dance companies cost far less... Also it seems to me that another factor which might have had a role in France might be the influence of theater (e.g. most theaters - except operas- are directed by theater people, not music or dance people, and such directors might feel more familiar with modern dance works, which are often influenced by theater in France, rather than with ballet).

Well, sorry to get a bit off-topic from Mr Segal's article, but frankly I was really annoyed to read an article which seemed to voice about any silly prejudice against ballet I'm so accustomed to hear (generally from people who never attended a single ballet performance, except perhaps their little 6 years old cousin's Dolly Dinkle school performance).

Well said, Estelle!

Some great responses here. But no one's addressed Bart's 3rd point, distilled from Segal's article:

3) Dancers work on an "assembly line, automatic and unyielding." They are treated like children and are disposed of as soon as they get too old, too fat, or just too ... something.

I think this is generally true and part of the reason I retired from the field--specifically, I felt that for a profession, ballet ranks low in terms of consulting its own resident experts. Symphony orchestra sections always audition new members; ADs wouldn't even think about asking a company dancer what they think about potential hires. It's just not part of the culture. The lingering persistence of autocratic practices like this--practices that don't always yield satisfying artistic results--are part of what Segals evokes for me when he talks about the "decay" of ballet.

And another point of decay, riffing off of Leigh's comment about the Dracula problem: what, exactly, qualifies a particular ballet choreographer to oversee a muti-million dollar comission? I won't name names but SO many times as a dancer I've wondered "who is this person and what standards have allowed him (and it is usually a him) to choreograph aside from his 'eminence' in company X"? This laxity of standards at the top is what drags ballet into the realm of middlebrow art. [Funny story: one of these parvenu choreographers told us corps dogs in the room--18 strong--to "make a star." That was a long day!]

So I guess we need to recognize, as many of us have already, that Segal's article is a screed, designed to move us to thought and action. This list aside, the culture of ballet is not accostomed to productive self-criticism or institutional reexamination.

Ray

PS The point about Segal omitting opera is excellent, except that opera in the 19th and early 20th centuries could be highly politically charged--think many Verdi operas, Poulenc's Dialogue of the Carmelites, and even Puccini's Tosca. When we think about "political ballets" we always recur to the Soviets (or the PRC), who usually combined politics and dance in hamhanded ways.

Where to begin! Segal was presumably trying to be deliberately provocative, and some of what he said I certainly agree with--so many classical productions seem DOA (like every production of Swan Lake in the last 20 years!). But that isn't the art form's fault, because there are plenty that are simply wonderful. The idea that ballet dancers are brainwashed little automatons is just absurd, as he must know. I do agree that there is too much of an emphasis on youth and technique, but that isn't ballets' fault--just do more Bournonville with all those wonderful grown up mime roles!

And the juvenile insults (flatulence indeed) of the ballet audience reminds me of the old lawyer joke--if you have the facts, argue the facts, if you have the law, argue the law, and if you have neither, pound the table. For arts critics, it seems that if you have neither, insult the audience. It certainly smacks of a reverse sort of elitism--"you and I aren't like those geriatric hidebound old fogeys, we are much better than that."

As for art having to be relevant, well, just think of the great works that he will have to live without.
"Excuse me, Mr. Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth is violating civil rights all over the place, and you want us to watch a play about a woman in love with a donkey!" As for Fred and Ginger, well, I don't see how anyone can bare to watch, knowing about the bread lines and the Hoovervilles and the Depression. All I can say is that next time Swing Time is on TV, Mr. Segal had better be reading the collected works of Clifford Odets.

Well put Ray. Your experiences in the ballet world mirror mine.

I see what you’re getting at, cargill and quite right too, but I'd add, off topic, that the escapism of American cinema in the thirties was not so much a denial of the existence of the Hoovervilles as a response to them – and to the increasingly heavy hand of the censor over filmmaking. (And even in Fred and Ginger World, Rogers calls a police officer a “Cossack.”) “Swing Time” is as much a product of that terrible era as “Waiting for Lefty." (And there were writers and directors in Hollywood who were frustrated at having to focus mainly on fluff at such a time.)

Very interesting post, Ray -- thank you.

Ray, for an illustration, albeit extreme, of why ballet companies don't ask company dancers what they think of new talent, see the memoirs of Mathilde Kschessinskaya. She was sort of a version of Zero Mostel's sketch character, the Italian tenor, Mostelli. "Mr. Mostelli, what did you think of Enrico Caruso?" "'ee's a PEEG!" "Giovanni Martinelli?" "'ee's a PEEG!" "Jan Peerce?" "'ee's a PEEG!" "Robert Merrill?" (sweetly) "Baritone...."

In simplest form, I'm with Betsy Krut of Santa Monica who wrote to the LATimes re Segal: ".............put him out of his misery. Then you could hire a dance critic who actually enjoys dance and would have the ability to write an informative review."

I'm still reading and enjoying everyone's comments here on Ballet Talk. They are SO informative and SO passionate, and all ring true in their individual ways. Any of you could have written a better article for the LATimes.

Alexandra hit every nerve in my body when she wrote what Segal should have, including: "Every artist wants/hopes/tries to do new work. What I'm objecting to is the notion that they do so MERELY FOR THE SAKE OF DOING SO TO GET ATTENTION or for marketing purposes."

Everything Segal wrote was shameless, uninformed bashing.

As usual, I was pleased to see Rockwell's attempt to write something supportive of ballet in return, but it doesn't have the depth that most of the Ballet Talkers share here.

Bravo to you all of you for caring so much!!!

The weird thing about Segal's article is that it seems like a much smaller Critic's Notebook type article, meant to be carried as a reflection inside, that suddenly got blown up and placed on the front page because either an editor wanted to spur discussion, or they didn't have anything to run on the front page (in the print edition it came with huge stock photos).

But Segal really does love ballet - when the big companies come it gets very well placed coverage, and when Segal likes it he really does like it. And he goes to multiple casts frequently (even if the reviews don't get carried by the Times).

He's expressing, though, disappointment with the form. Some of which I agree with, even though I still keep going to see the same old ballets. I groan when the Kirov brings another "Romeo" or ABT tours to California with another tired story ballet even though it is doing much more interesting things in New York (to be fair, we lucked out this year when they brought Sylvia).

LA may not have its own company, but we're in a fairly rare position of getting regular visits from major companies (only DC and maybe Berkely can compare). Very strong presenting organizations regularly bring the Kirov, Bolshoi, Royal, ABT and NYCB to our corner of the country - so we get to see a lot. Sometimes its thrilling (the Royal's Giselle real life!), sometimes its plain boring (ABT's Romeo seems to have been a test run here for their Met season... I completely see and sometimes agree with Sega's assessment of ABT's performances here).

But more to the point: while I see how Segal's article could incense a lot of folks, he makes some good points and I don't think they're entirely unfounded. My two cents.

Yes. but in reference to the earlier request for another Diaghilev, he was the one who asked his artists to "Astonish me."

I found I had less to say about Segal's article than about Rockwell's riposte - it lives here: http://www.leighwitchel.com/blog/archives/...d_and_fury.html

Of Segal's points I found I reacted least to the third - ballet is infantilizing and mechanizing, etc. I guess I've heard it so many times that now I think, "Oh, this one again?" And I guess it would be too much to explain that ballet isn't infantilizing - ballet directors are. Hire better ones.

Regarding Rockwell, I wish he'd can the "fanatical balletomanes" meme he's stuck into what seems every fourth article. Either cite chapter and verse or enough with this particular straw man.

Yes! But by what means can this happen? Again I pull up the comparison with classical music: somehow musicians have managed to hang on to their traditions while they've changed a lot about how they govern themselves and guide their institutions. Can dancers participate in the same ways?

The great thing about the political subtext in Verdi's operas, for example, is that they were subjugated to the form (those censors were watching carefully), and, to apply Alexandra's point, the form was suited to that type of expression. Opera is more static dramatically than ballet, and the expectation is that a singer or chorus will stand for a long time, virtually immobile (even with good direction) and soar over an orchestra. Opera's "big" effects work wondefully for grand emotion in a way that petit allegro just doesn't. Ballet has to move, and to move and move and move to big bombastic scores usually used for historical/political ballets gets tedious quickly in most cases. (Hence my skipping forward to Vasiliev's sections of Spartacus.)

A quite wonderful political work by Val Caniparoli (which is being performed by Atlanta Ballet this upcoming season), is The Bridge, but it focused on the personal relationship of a couple caught in civil war, for which ballet has the tools, not the civil war itself.






I think there are a couple of issues at hand: dancers are more disposable than symphony musicians, who will remain colleagues for decades. Their unions tend to be stronger. But I think the trick to getting feedback on fellow dancers is inherent in Mel's anecdote: you don't ask a tenor to judge other tenors; you ask other tenors to judge baritones, and more specifically the sopranos with whom they will sing. Just as it might make sense to get feedback from potential partners.

The biggest difficulty in comparison between ballet dancers and musicians is their relative ages during their careers. A 35 year old musician is in a different position to speak about his/her job and art form than a 17 year old dancer. I wonder if you would find a correllation between the median age in a company and dancer autonomy/self-image/satisfaction.

I like that anecdote in re ballet b/c for all the talk of dancer abjection, we're all trained to imagine ourselves as soloists! Musicians by contrast see the writing on the wall a lot sooner, I think, about the trajectory of their careers (a second trombone never gets to play a first trombone part, for example, while a corps dancer can of course move up the ladder). But still, why can't corps dancers help audition other corps dancers, the people that they'll have to work with? Is that at all equivalent to the woodwind section auditioning a new clarinetist? Are dancers just too immature--i.e., b/c they're too young--to participate in the process of running their own organizations? Something has to change; it should be CLEAR to any ballet watchers that most ADs can't do it alone (or, they cede their authority to the marketing/management arm).

This seems kind of chicken and egg. An environment that raises dancers to be discouraged from thinking creates directors who will continue this behavior. This has become a part of the culture of ballet and therefore is very difficult to change. In fact, I think that in discouraging independent and intellectual thought among the dancers, especially among the women, may be one of the reasons we are not seeing more great choreographers.

That sort of intellectual autonomy is a good thing, but I don't see it as a tautology towards better choreography or better ballet. One of the best choreographers of the last century (Antony Tudor) probably would have been hauled in front of every labor board had they existed. Good working conditions don't necessary equal a better product - they're a goal in their own right.

Well put, Winky--you've really diagnosed the root of multiple problems here! Many of the smartest women I've know in the profession have been smart enough to get away fast after they retire -- and the profession should be concerned about this.

True enough--nothing guarantees anything. But discouraging dancers' artistic/intellectual inquisitiveness and their participation in institutional self-determination because "that's the way it is" don't seem to have produced much for us lately either.

I've always been bothered by the fact that corps members are still, apparently, often addressed as "boys" and "girls." But other than that, I draw a distinction between dispensiblity and disrespect. Soloists are drawn from the corps for their dance talent, and individuality is an essential/indipensable element of dance talent. The greatest talents will often be noticed and promoted. But the first role of a corps member is sublimation to the whole, and to my mind that's no humiliation or restriction, that's service. They also serve who stand and observe, and then move in un-PC conformity to the vision of the greater talent.

When it comes to soloist and principal roles, we know that some ex-dancers/repeteurs have the vision to allow more interpretive freedom than others. But if at this level of higher talent, most dancers again felt more restricted than not, surely we'd see less range of interpretation.

On a side note, what saddens me is that most dance training isn't, and perhaps if current technical standards are to be met can't be, well-rounded. There are only 24 hours in a day, and today's dancers do have an unprecedented ability to move. I only wish there were more Balanchine's and Diaghlev's to take them to museums and assign them challenging reading.

I think the difference is that woodwind players aren't lesser musicians than cellists or trombonists or conductors, they just have different roles to play. Corps members are most often lesser dancers than AD's were, so shouldn't we expect that AD's see better? Even apart from their greater dance ability, which must often correlate with better vision, they have many more years of viewing to sharpen their vision. It would be nice to think that Martins consults Pauline Golbin in a pinch. But it stands to reason that he's the legitimate authority.

Ray, dancers are so threat-averse that a formal process of including corps dancers in the auditioning board for corps would begin an inexorable decline in quality of the corps, until those selected were no threat to ANYBODY! but no treat to watch, either. Robert Joffrey used to have an informal way of getting input from company dancers when prospective members started taking company class.

I brought this up with a friend the other day. Where are all the former dancer women in choreographic roles today, and director roles? I still am keeping my fingers crossed for Melissa Barak... She choreographs small pieces on SAB students from time to time, and those pieces I've seen were all quite good. Why? Because she understands women's technique (avec pointe shoes) far better than most of the new male choreographers out there. I hope to see more from Melissa at NYCB one day as a choreographer when she isn't dancing her tail off every day/night....

As far as ballet company directorships. Women may have a harder time, because of the nature of our society, but of course it's possible. We all often wonder what NYCB would be like today if Mr. B had given his company to Suzanne Farrell to artistically direct. If Mr. B had opened the door for Suzanne, and it was a good transistion, successful, Mr. B would have opened the door for many other women in ballet companies. National Ballet of Cuba, The Royal Ballet have opened doors... I think in time, women here too will take on more leadership roles, and not just in ballet.

Ballet's women don't run away.... Many retired ballet women have settled into the nurturing roles of ballet's mentors, teachers, coaches, and motherhood. They are professional writers too!


This is nonsense about ballet being infantilizing and mechanizing.... Yes, there is youth among dancers, but better directors are the answer. And dancers do contribute more than you may think towards the process of creating a ballet, maintaining a ballet.

I think role is key: apart from chairs, who play solo parts called for in the orchestra scores, the role of section musicians is to blend, and function much as the corps. During performances, they are expected to follow the lead -- sound quality and interpretation -- of a conductor, who is on stage with the orchestra during performances.

Orchestral players are either musicians who have either decided not to pursue a solo career, or, hopefully, have put their solo ambitions aside to fulfill a group role professionally, at least while they are performing with the orchestra. While there is competition for the few chairs and for the associate and assistant concertmaster position when there are rare openings, or to move from the second violin section to the first, most orchestral musicians fulfill their ambitions by moving up the orchestral food chain to another organization.

By contrast, even if an AD chooses to hire a dancer with the assumption that the person will be a long-standing corps member, how many dancers, at least in North America, join the corps with no ambition to rise up the ranks? There's no tradition of a corps job as a respected civil servant. If the AD hires a dancer because s/he sees a potential soloist or principal, then how the dancer fits into the corps -- or doesn't -- might not interest the AD, much to the chagrin of the rest of the corps. Once in a while orchestras give their own chairs a chance to solo in a concerto, but more likely, they (try to) hire Yo Yo Ma, Yitzhak Perlman, or Lang Lang, who sell the tickets. While ballet companies do hire guest stars, most performances are led from the ranks of all tiers.

I do think Mel's anecdote does have the answer for getting feedback, though: you don't ask a tenor to rate other tenors; you ask a tenor to rate the baritones or sopranos with whom they will sing. It might help to get get feedback about the dancer's partnering abilities/ability to be partnered, unless the dancer is a short male expected to dance jesters.

A few days ago, dirac posted a LINK to an article by Marc Shugold on RockyMountain.com, responding to the Lewis Segal - John Rockwell discussion. Here's a summary (omitting some of the explanations the author gives for each point). Here's the Llink to the complete article: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/spot...5031431,00.html

Any more thoughts from BT?


Sugold concludes on a very positive note. However ....

I have never understood why people feel there is an "air of superiority" surrounding ballet. On the other hand, ballet DOES often produce feelings of unfamilarity and the fear of the unknown. Does ballet demand that you will look closely, attempt to feel deeply, and try to learn something? Yes. Is it usually expensive? Unfortunately, yes. But, in American culture, who's really more snooty and intolerant nowadays: the professional rock and/or pop music critic? or the person who loves and responds to ballet?

As to "silly plots," Shugold gives the example of Giselle. The story is, in certain terms, quite trite, simplistic, and contrived. But it is also a platform that carries and conveys deep and important human feelings, and raises issues of forgiveness and redemption. Does that make it "silly"?

No,it's not really silly at all. You hit the nail on the head; the audience needs to be taken by the dancers THROUGH the surface elements of the plot to the ones that matter. Then instead of "silly" you have a plot that is very moving. Really, an experience that is both beautiful and moving.


Some ballets plots, though, ARE silly and there no way around that.

Any favorite silly ballet plots? Like Le Corsair or Sylvia?

I've been wondering how ballet dancers themselves feel about the charges raised by this piece. And now I've come upon a reaction from one of the best. . . .

The Autumn issue of DanceView has an interview of Muriel Maffre (SF Ballet) by Dale Brauner.

What about the idea expressed in the article that the "weight of tradition" is something that discourages people from seeing/liking ballet? I think the operative word in this criticism is "weight": generally speaking, the ballet world holds the notion of its tradition in a kind of hushed reverence that can seem tediously sentimental and even cultish to an outsider (and sometimes to me, now that I'm long retired--and "deprogrammed," haha).

We do?!

Could someone please mention that to various choreographers and artistic directors who shall not be named?

I am not sure why ballet traditions need to be considered a burden, as not every new work is expected to be as good as Giselle or as groundbreaking as Agon, and other art forms have even weightier traditions--think of the number of musical masterpieces that exist preserved by notation in their original form compared to the relatively small number of classic ballets, most of which have been altered considerably.

I'm not talking about the actual value/maintenence of traditions, I'm talking about attitudes. That's the irony of it. Even bad choreographers take on the matle of tradition as if they are guarding the holy grail--believe me, I've worked with my share of these tiresome guardians of "ballet purity" who breathe life into the old SNL "bad ballet" moniker. There is more of a diversity of approaches to/digressions from traditions in the music world. Even as standards are in some cases absolute, people can do crazy things and it's still "classical music."

I agree with Hans regarding ballet traditions not need be considered a burden they should only be considered an inspiration and a model.

Rays last sentence raises questions regarding classical music I cannot entirely agree with. When orchestral music has become an object of marketing and celebrity promotion of an entirely commercial enterprise that may be 'crazy' it does not follow that it is entitled to be called 'classical music'.

Because noises are made by a professional orchestra with a conductor in a venue that is associated with classical music, it does not follow that it 'classical music' has been performed but it may be called as such for
commercial reasons much more than artistic reasons.

Classical anything, follows an academic form which originated millenia ago. The term classical, can only be used as a benchmark meaning 'the highest form' or quality. To associate noise, with the accepted 'masters' of music is to me a vulgar marketing ploy to gain some standing for a commercially exploited maker of such music.

Anyone interested and knowledgeable enough about the traditions of 'classical ballet', will not be fooled by a cheap representation whose aim is inevitably entertainment of a kind rather than 'art' which is the aim of 'classical ballet'.

There is a place for, original thinking in theatrical dance which could follow the 'classical ballet' form. There are always possibilities for theatrical dance that employs much of the technical vocabulary of classical ballet that will however remain outside the academic pantheon of classical ballet.

I enjoy many of the genres of theatrical dance but am frequently dismayed when 'cross-over' steps or moves are used simply as a gimmicky effect in a particular genre that has its own form. Crazy music is not for me nor is crazy dancing just for the sake of being different. Original creative works genrally survive, commercially exploitative works one hopes will only give short term financial rewards(surely their aim) and the Emperor's new clothes revealed.

Tradition can not only sustain the best of works, it also resonates most loudly with knowledgeable audiences and those less knowledgeable.

I personally agree with leonid on this. But there are those -- and they have been powerful in the criitical establishment for quite a while -- who reject the very idea of creating a hierarchy of value, importance, and even quality in the arts. This is especially the case when the "classical" forms and values under consideration are primarily European and/or upper class in origin.

This not the kind of debate in which there seem to be many converts on either side.

The best ways to preserve the "classical" in the performing arts today are probably similar to those that have enabled it to survive and flourish for centuries:
a) keep the standards as high as possible; ;
b) support education in, and exposure, to the classical arts in schools and in the media; and
c) don't be afraid to embrace new approaches, techniques, and subject matter -- but ONLY when they are the develop naturally out of the classical tradition, NOT when they require sad leaps into alien territory for the sake of gaining larger audiences.

I concur with leonid's and barts eloquent posts.

For me the term 'classical' in dance has to do with two canonic aspects:
1) the 'dehors' opening of the body on either side, generally encapsulated in the term 'turnout', and
2) the port de bras from low 1st to mid 1st (extending the arms to the midpoint of a hemisphere) to high 1st
(also en couronne or 5th position)-the top point of the hemisphere-, with the extension to the sides of the hemisphere, which is 2nd position.

I would like very much to hear what others think of 'classical' in dance.
Has Segal been enough of a thorn to revitalize the discussion on BT?

bart's point b) about supporting education is crucial. How can one promote it in the U.S. today?
I tend to be pessimistic about this. But we need to find ways.

My pessimistic self thinks that the only way classical ballet can be promoted so that it stays classical ballet -- without the second coming of a Balanchine-Ashton-Tudor triumverate -- is if men are respected and rewarded for doing it. At this point many boys face physical and emotional abuse from their so-called peers for wanting to become dancers. I think the best form of education is the programs like Jacques d'Amboise's, where dance is brought directly in the schools.

Phil Otto managed a similar Pacific Northwest Ballet program in Seattle schools after he retired from the company. He was also teaching open classes, and one day he told our class that early on, some tough-looking kids came up to him when he was on his way to teach at one of the tougher schools in Seattle. Phil's a big guy, and it's hard to imagine any stranger with any hope of long life expectancy confronting him, but he said he was a little worried until they asked him whether he was the "dancing guy." When he told them "yes," they offered to watch his truck while he was in class.

I hate to be cynical, but if some tough-looking guys gain respect for dance and start watching the backs of the younger "dancer dudes," and make harassing them a dangerous choice, we can go to the next educational step, which is exposing dance to their peers.

I wonder if shows like "American Idol" and the like are doing anything to make dancing more acceptable for boys. I can't stand shows like that, so I don't really know, but don't they have male dancing contestants sometimes? Not ballet dancers, probably, but perhaps would-be Broadway dancers.

Well let me play a sort of devils advocate here. The paragraph above refers to "classical music". Technically,
in music parlance, classical means "of a certain period", that is after Baroque and before Romatic. But that's sort of spliting hairs, most people use the term "clasical music" to refer to what can also be called "serious music"

What I have a problem with is the "benchmark" to denote quality. Who has the say here? Not the critics , surely, I doubt many readers would grant that them that authority. The academics?

Staying with music, since Leonid commented on it, in the early 20th century R. Strauss, Stravinsky, Janacek
and some others were all "convicted" of making noise. That wouldn't be said today, that's for sure.

For myself, I would say that time will be the ultimate authority on all these forms as them evolve, because evolve and grow they must. In the immediate time frame it's hard to tell what is a trip down an artistic dead end and what is a trip down a true path of growth.

"Vulgar" marketing ploys generally don't have lasting "legs" so in the long terms it isn't much of a concern