I wonder if this thread has started in another forum... (do we really not have a thread yet on the Tudor Centennial?)

Listening to Chicago Public Television's interviewer refer to "Anthony Tudor", I wondered if she realized the choreographer's prominence. It seems to me that there are many companies honoring Antony Tudor's centennial this year, but I couldn't list them off hand. Could we make a list here? (I'm a little shocked that ABT doesn't seem to be doing anything, although their site shows a picture of The Leaves are Fading on their blank fall repertory page.. perhaps they're planning something then?) The Antony Tudor Trust page only mentions the Julliard event, and doesn't even mention Joffrey's production.
I guess his work has dropped from popularity, but for earlier generations of dancers Tudor was Balanchine's opposite and rival just as ABT and NYCB were. How does this happen? Is it because Tudor was so not a classicist? Have his works become like melodramas of black & white cinema, not easily accessible to today's audiences? Have they become stiff blurred versions of what they once were? Do today's dancers lack the acting skills to bring them to life? We seem to be bankrolling revivals of Sylvia and The Pharoah's daughter instead. (I love Ashton and Petipa too, but I'm not convinced the story line flows well in either of those two works) I'm not a huge Tudor repertory fan, it's a bit more charged than I'm usually ready to extend myself toward, (I'm not big on Fall River Legend either), but I'd love to see his Romeo & Juliet staged before it's completely out of reach... so many people I respect have admired it. I do remember The Leaves are Fading as being quite beautiful.

New York Theater Ballet
- Little Improvisations
- Judgement of Paris
- Jardin aux Lilas or Lilac Garden


Joffrey Ballet
- Lilac Garden
- Dark Elegies
- Offenbach in the Underworld

Festival Ballet Providence
- The Leaves are Fading

Julliard
- hosting symposium ( http://www.nytb.org/TheAntonyTudorCentennial-NYC2008.htm )
- Dark Elegies

Muhlenberg College
- Continuo

ABT lists the following works in their repertory, but doesn't mention if they are performing any this year:
http://www.abt.org/education/archive/chore...rs/tudor_a.html
-Dark Elegies
-Dim Lustre
-Echoing of Trumpets
-Fandango
-Gala Performance
-Goya Pastoral
-Jardin Aux Lilas
-Judgment of Paris
-The Leaves Are Fading
-Little Improvisations
-Nimbus
-Offenbach in the Underworld
-Pillar of Fire
-Romeo and Juliet
-Shadow of the Wind
-Shadowplay
-The Tiller in the Fields
-Undertow
[Edited 3/31 to add:]
Judgement of Paris revival will be premiered at ABT's opening night gala on 5/19 at the Met...including ABT alumni: The season’s only performance of the ballet will feature ABT alumni Kathleen Moore as Juno, Martine van Hamel as Venus and Bonnie Mathis as Minerva, as well as Kevin McKenzie as The Client and Victor Barbee as The Waiter.
[Edited 4/7 to add:]
ABT has announced their Tudor Centennial Tribute for this Fall City Center season
http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...mp;#entry224681


ABTII @ Joyce Theater, NYC, 5/1, 5/9-11
-Continuo

Joffrey Ballet's blog has some photos (page down): http://jpointe.blogspot.com/
NY Times article on Joffrey's Tudor presentation: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/arts/dance/22joff.html

Julliard Tudor Centennial comments/remembrances form: http://www.juilliard.edu/pdf/Remembrance-Form.pdf

Sarasota Ballet will present Lilac Garden in celebration of the centennial, in April 2009
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080.../804200378/1661 (mentioned at bottom of article)

Hartford, CT - 5/10/08: Ted Hersey Dance Marathon 10th Anniversary concert will present among other things, Julliard students performing excerpts from Dark Elegies'
http://www.tedhershey.com/program/

Boston Ballet - 5/15-18/08
- Dark Elegies

Don't despair. According to the February issue of Dance Magazine, other companies (in addition to the ones listed above) have performed or will perform Tudor pieces during the first half of this year:

Continuo (ABT II, Boston Conservatory, Brigham Young University)

Dark Elegies (Boston Ballet, Boston Conservatory, Company C Contemporary Ballet, Western Michigan University)

The Leaves Are Fading (Colorado Ballet)

Lilac Garden (Ballet Mainz)

Little Improvisations (Ballet Tucson)

Offenbach in the Underworld (Milwaukee Ballet)


As I read over the combined list of performances from the two posts, I'm left with a glass half-full/glass half-empty feeling.

The half-empty feeling comes from the realization that Tudor's work exists mostly at the regional ballet/college company level and hardly at all at the heavy-duty Group of 7 level (ABT, Bolshoi, Kirov-Mariinsky, NYCB, POB, Royal, Royal Danish.) (Sorry Helgi -- you're still the "Russia" of the group.) ABT should be the flagship company for Tudor but, apart from whatever they do this fall in honor of the centennial, seems content to put on one desultory Tudor piece a year. (And, putting on witless three act ballets instead of hunkering down and reviving something worthwhile like Tudor's Romeo and Juliet.) Truthfully, New York Theatre Ballet is more the flagship company for Tudor at this point than ABT is.

The half-full feeling comes from the realization that Tudor's pieces are probably better served by being performed on the smaller stages that come with regional/college ballet. I'm not sure huge opera house stages work to Tudor's advantage. (I feel the same way about Graham and Limon.)

Interesting how certain Tudor works are "in favor" and certain works aren't. As Dance Magazine notes, no one has announced plans to stage Pillar of Fire, Shadowplay, Undertow, Echoing of Trumpets, Dim Lustre, Gala Performance, or (especially) Romeo and Juliet.

The Juilliard School is holding a Tudor Centennial celebration March 29-30. Here's the list of events:

http://www.mostlyweb.com/atbt/uploads/2008-03-events.pdf

I would love to see ABT do Jardin. Do you all think it would be an audience pleaser these days? It is one of the dance masterpieces of the 20th century, but would today's audience go for it?

I performed Little Improvisations years ago in a regional company. I don't think a major company has ever done it. I'm not sure it is suitable for the "big time." On the other hand maybe it could be a good vehicle for some ABT dancers, I just don't know.

I remember Danny Levins in Undertow back in the day. He was terrific

(putting the text in bold was my doing, not ABT's)

http://www.abt.org/insideabt/news_display.asp?News_ID=217

And I'm wondering... how does March 22 come to be "year-end"? It seems so early.

(Copied from another thread)

NYTB has also added Tudor’s bedroom pas de deux from Romeo & Juliet, staged by Airi Hynninen, to the [April 4] program.

Yes, NYTB is doing a Tudor program this week and next. This Company has a lot of experience performing Tudor ballets. In fact, Sallie Wilson is the Ballet Mistress, one of the great Tudor Ballerinas. I highly recommend this program to anyone who has an interest in Tudor's works.

http://www.nytb.org/season_repertory.htm

Amy I agree. Why isn't there a Tudor Centennial thread?

You're posting on it! And thanks to Amy for her thorough list of commemorations.

Also, New York Theatre Ballet's programs have been posted under "Press Releases and Season Announcements." Please try not to duplicate existing posts (I recognize that it's not always easy to find earlier posts), but feel free to add a comment to bump the topic up.

There are some reviews of NYTB's earlier performances of the Tudor bill of a couple months ago in in Recent Performances, and I hope those that see Friday's and next week's performances and those by Joffrey and Festival Providence will add theirs.

Sorry Carbo. I think I meant to say Forum instead of thread. I'm new to this board and I'm still a bit unclear on the terminology. I'll make sure I read things more carefully so I don't double post. I think I just got over excited.

Did anyone attend the Juilliard event (March 29-31) posted above by Dale?

It would have been wonderful to listen to the Tudor Dancers listed on the program: Eliot Feld, Bonnie Mathis, Kevin McKenzie, Amanda McKerrow, Kathleen Moore, Kirk Peterson, Lance Westergard, Sallie Wilson.

The students were performing Dark Elegies (on a program with Graham and Limon).

Carbro, I think the issue is that at the top of the Ballets and Choreographers forum there are subforums for the Balanchine & Tudor centennials but one has to wade through the threads to come across this one about the Tudor centenniel.

I'm glad Missgoodytoeshoes posted here about Sallie Wilson... it's good to have all the info under one roof. I've been on this board for ages (look at my member number!) and I wouldn't have gone hunting under Press Releases... I would have assumed that like the Balanchine and Ashton forums, there'd be something under Ballets and Choreographers for Tudor.

I do hope someone made it to the Julliard event and posts some comments here...


(Is there some other board where the Tudor enthusiasts hang out?)

I spoke once to Mr. Tudor about Sallie Wilson's work referring to her as one of his disciples and he returned something like "Disciple? Slave!" Someday I have to find the tape of that interview and post a transcription here. He talked about how he had wanted to enter the church but realized he was evaluating everything in theatrical terms and that his home really was the theater. He lived at a zen monastary in his later years, didn't he? I typed up a transcription years and years ago for the producer who organized the interview, but I think it was before I owned a computer and I can find no disk of it" I think it ended up at the NYPL. The video is not riviting but the discussion was interesting (to me, at least!)

I attended the celebration and will be writing about it for DanceView Times. I found it very interesting. There might be less talk about this than other celebrations because most of the attendees seemed to be former students. Other than a few writers, I didn't see the usual people I see at the Guggenheim talks or at the Balanchine lectures.

It's so interesting to me that Tudor's following has dwindled so quickly. Do you think it has something to do with the institutions backing the Balanchine & Ashton centennials? Or it it just a reflection of a smaller repertoire? Is it because Tudor's work was somehow linked to a certain time and it's mode of expression is now dated? Is it a money thing? Or is it publicity?

Speaking of publicity, I notice that ABT is now beginning to publicize the centennial a bit more:

http://www.abt.org/insideabt/news_display.asp?News_ID=218

The Zen Institute on East 30th Street. (Rinzai Zen.)

Amy, I hope you do get the chance to publish the transcript!

Dale, looking forward to your report in DanceViewTimes. Like Amy, I'm interested in hearing from (and about) Sallie Wilson.

Good questions, all of them. I think the answers are intertwined -- Tudor was affiliated with ABT for many years, as well as teaching at the Met and Julliard, but he made relatively few ballets, so the raw materials for an extensive retrospective are thinner than they might be for other choreographers. His contributions to the field were as much in the studio as they were on the stage. As beautiful as they are, his works never made up the majority backbone of a company rep as Balanchine and Ashton did.

I don't really think that his style is out-of-sync with contemporary tastes -- every time I've seen one of his works performed it seemed to make a big connection to the audience. And he's certainly on the wish list of most critics I know. I don't know about the financial aspect of things -- does anyone here have any information about the fees the estate charges for staging? (I know that kind of information is held pretty closely by most companies -- I'm not asking for deep secrets to be revealed)

I attended the Tudor celebration this weekend and it was terrific!!!

There was some speculation and discussion by the panel regarding why Tudor's pieces don't seem to be performed as often as others. Some thoughts were:

It takes time for a company to learn a Tudor piece correctly. Not only are they technically difficult but they require the dancer to really become the character in the piece. This requires time and money that most companies don't have today. Someone made a comment that a Balanchine piece can be learned and performed in 2 weeks time and most require little cost in the way of costumes and scenery so they may be more appealing to some companies.

Those attending all seemed to agree that the pieces are not dated. The human element in his pieces are timeless.

Comments were made that possibly companies tend to assume that audiences are just not interested in Tudor. Poor publicity was also raised as a cause. Comment was made that the last time ABT performed a particular piece (I think it was Undertow - Dale please correct me If I'm wrong), they advertised it in the back of the brochure with a picture of a gravestone. Not very enticing to the uninitiated.

In answer to Bart's question, Sallie Wilson was unfortunately unable to attend the celebration, but if you are ever in NYC, the NYPL has video tapes of other similar panels where Sallie did talk about her experiences working with Tudor and they are well worth watching.

As an aside, I find in amusing that ABT is advertising this big revival of Judgment when it is performed regularly in New York City by NYTB. - Just my opinion.

I think it has to do with the fact that the board has been reconceptualized and reorganized in the interim. The subforums such as those for the B'chine & Ashton Centennials have gone the way of the company forums.

I think it's a combination of those factors and more. Not only was Tudor's output miniscule in comparison with Balanchine's (pretty much everyone's is, actually ), but the ballets themselves are so specialized. I don't know if the trust has many Tudor veterans staging works or if it trusts dancers who learned ballets second-hand to supervising stagings. They should be more widely seen, but is it practical to just fly into town, teach the dancers the steps and motivations and go on to the next? Six months later, will they still be meeting the demands of the ballet with no Tudor acolyte balletmaster around? I think today's dancers, for the most part, need a whole different kind of education before they're ready to give a Tudor work what it deserves. NYTB has it.

Whoops! I see that MissGTS posted as I was writing , so there's some redundancy here.

ETA: I have been a certified balletomane for something like 33 years, and I have never seen Undertow. Never! Something's wrong here. It is considered a classic, but it's rarely performed.

Julliard Students performed part of Undertow at the celebration this weekend. I think it was Kirk Petersen who has been working it on it with them. It was hard to hear what he was saying but I think he said he chose Freshmen as he knew it would take a while to reconstruct it. So maybe in a couple of years, they will dance it in their graduation performance!?!? Something to look forward to.

I think that in some ways Tudor works are more fragile that works by some other major choreographers. I think, that for example, Balanchine works danced badly look like good or great pieces (depending on the work) danced badly. I think that Tudor has to be properly coached and performed in order to show the work. Some musical composers are like that. Many works of Bach are jazzed up, souped up, played on synthesizers, etc and still the piece shines through. Other composers are not so lucky. I think it doesn't mean that the work is a lesser work, just less durable, in a sense.

Tudor also suffers from not having a major institutional home for his works. He is not central to ABT's DNA the way Balanchine and Robbins are to City Ballet or Ashton and MacMillan are (or was, in Ashton's case) to the Royal. Nor did he impart to his followers a flagship company bearing his name and performing his works year-in-and-year-out the way Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham and Jose Limon did.

Lots of good explanations as to why Tudor's work is neglected. I'll add my own subjective, dancer-based one. I think performers--and ADs--can be impatient with the process of setting a Tudor ballet, b/c it's incredibly mystified (as in made cryptic), even to those performing it. It's the rare dancer who really "gets it"; the rest of us are never quite sure we're "rolling under the barrel" or "carrying the head of John the Baptist" in just the right way. Or why those images matter to the movement. And while no one is as harsh as Tudor himself was, the people who set his works sometimes emulate his authoritarian ways--to an end that is, again, not always easy to understand.

Could you elaborate? If it's not too much to ask, I'd be curious to know more about where this imagery is requested.

"Under the barrel" (and over the barrel) refers to a part of Dark Elegies (women's dance, so I don't remember when); the port de head of John B comes in Lilac Garden, when some (3?) corps women whisp across the stage (near the beginning, I think), with their arms out in front of them holding .... something.

Oh!! I remember shooting this for Pennsylvania Ballet... and thinking one section with 3 women whisping across the stage was very strange... kind of art-nouveau-ish? ... I didn't know what to make of it... it seemed very mannered like something out of the Edward Gorey PBS Mystery! television series animations... I wasn't sure if it was something that seemed right when the piece was made but now didn't connect for audiences (or me, at any rate... I remember thinking it was a very curious section). Thanks Ray.

I also remember the 3 women, most recently from Miami's performances. Amy, you're right: there is an Edward Gorey feeling to it. Running while carrying a prophet's recently hacked-off head on a platter would indeed tend to encourage feelings of urgency. Not to mention THREE such heads. Question: to whom were the heads being delivered?

Actually, the shape wasn't hands holding a platter, but actually holding the head, at about eye level or slightly above--the top hand on the top of the severed head, and the bottom hand holding the (presumably bloody) neck-stump--so a different kind of urgent, perhaps (i.e., motivating the dancers to run like they're carrying a bloody head?--never mind that most of us wouldn't pick one up to begin with). Gruesome. And three of them!

I think most viewers imagine that they are holding boxes, perhaps gifts.

In today's Links, dirac posts a Washington Post article by Sarah Kaufman commemorating Tudor's 100th Anniversary. I'm copying the link here because there's a slide show of photos of recent Tudor performances, including several shot at the Juilliard tribute.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8040304206.html

Happy Birthday Mr. Tudor -- born this day in 1908!

Thanks for the link to the juicy article bart. I'm not sure which was juicier -- the reference to the simmering "anti-Balanchine animus" or the apparent simmering animus toward Kevin McKenzie for his stewardship of the Tudor repertory at ABT.

As a musician, I was always struck by the fact that Tudor absolutely dared to use the music of Mahleer and Schienberg for ballets. While I am not a fan of PILLAR OF FIRE, I have always been struck by the movements devised by Tudoe for KINDERTOTENLIEDER. His use of the arms, the head, and the eyes, are quite touching and, more to the point, totally complement the msuic. It is as if the msuci and movement were organically thought through, a la Petipa and Tchaikovsky.
It is a masterpiece, and I am not one to so easily use that word!

wow! What an article. I liked the final bit:

I am quite curious to hear what more people on BT think of Tudor--we have a large Balanchine-friendly population, and Tudor seems to often be seen as Balanchine's opposite, perhaps along the lines of Martha Graham but with ballet. I have unfortunately not had the opportunity to see much Tudor, and so I wish that his works would at least be revived for film if ballet companies are not going to perform them anymore. Of course film is not a substitute for continuous performance, but it is better than nothing.

I'd love to get to know Tudor's work as well. Susan Reiter has written about New York Theatre Ballet's Tudor and Limon Celebration on danceviewtimes.

Performing Tudor came up today at an ABT Teachers' Workshop. It was interesting to hear Raymond Lukens talking about how chassee pushing down through fifth to slide out to tendu (my poor paraphrasing, please don't blame Lukens) doesn't seem to be taught much these days, with tombe taking it's place, and how this makes it difficult when it comes to mounting Tudor work on today's dancers.

At the symposium, was there much discussion of changing styles of technique affecting the mounting of Tudor works?

This is just the kind of detail that those of us who are neither trained dancers nor teachers need to hear. I can visualize it based on the way you describe it, Amy. But it would NEVER had occurred to me that something so simple -- so basic -- could make much of a difference. I can see this now, however, and it makes me long to see more Tudor (performed correctly). Thanks for the insight.

Joel Lobenthal of the New York Sun weighs in on the Tudor Centennial:

Tribute to Tudor
http://www2.nysun.com/article/74260



and

There was a brief review in today's NY Times by Jennifer Dunning of New York Theater Ballet's presentation of a pas de deux from Tudor's Romeo & Juliet
Rare Revival of Tudor’s Take on Young Love
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/arts/dan...o.html?ref=arts

Another company celebrates Tudor's Centennial: Sarasota Ballet



http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080.../804200378/1661

Company website: http://www.sarasotaballet.org/


Romberg?

You know -- Sigmund Romberg. Tudor was moonlighting, doing choreography for operettas -- Desert Song, The Student Prince. I understand he made a couple very nice duets for Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald in New Moon.

(removes tongue from cheek)

On May 10th in Hartford at the Bushnell, the Ted Hershey Dance Marathon 10th Anniversar concert will present Julliard Students performing excerpts from Dark Elegies.
http://www.tedhershey.com/program/

Another addition to this thread:

Alistaire Macauley in the NY Times: Under Analysis: The Psychology of Tudor's Ballets (2nd page has a nice photo of Tudor in a 1942 performance of Pillar of Fire)



Speaking of which, this week Boston Ballet presents Dark Elegies alongside Balanchine's Concerto Barocco & Tharp's In The Upper Room

I'll be seeing Dark Elegies on Saturday (performed by BBT). I'm looking forward to this ballet, as I have never seen this one.

Amy's quotation from Macaulay's May 11 article gave me pause, especially the last few sentences of the piece:
The implication that the works may disappear or go into mothballs is a sad one. Is it possible? If so, would this have to do with the relative smallness of his body of works? Or the very different concerns out of which art is created/produced/performed in our culture today?

mbdance, please share your responses to Dark Elegies when you've seen it. This is one Tudor ballet that many of us know little about. The scenario, briefly described in the Macaulay piece, sounds powerful and not your typical Tudor situation.

I'll definitely write my impressions. A friend of mine had seen it and said that it stands out as one of his most profound pieces.

bart -- I would throw a third variable into the mix regarding the longevity of Tudor's work.

The April issue of Dancing Times features an interview with Limon stager Sarah Stackhouse in which she talks about staging Limon's The Moor's Pavane and Chaconne for the Phoenix Dance Theatre in the UK. Specifically, Stackhouse discusses how today's dancers are phenomenal in terms of jumping and turning but not so great in terms of performing "gestural movement" or movement that is "slow and dragged-out".

I got thinking about this when I read your post about Tudor because it seems to me that the handicaps Stackhouse discusses in relation to restaging Limon works would also apply to Tudor. Dancers today are geared more toward speed and power rather than the less pyrotechnical characteristics found in Tudor. While it's not impossible to train them up to Tudor, a proper restaging of Tudor probably requires more time than usual and, as they say, time is money. If you're a company director with time constraints and a tight budget, you may say to yourself that Tudor isn't worth it, no matter how much you may love his work.

miliosr, you're really onto something.... though it's not completely hopeless. The more that young ballet dancers cross-train with contemporary dancers, the more they'll encounter "energy-work." I'm calling it that, not sure WHAT it's called, but in Butoh and also in the descendants of Ausdruckstanz, theyre's intense interest in being able to develop techniques of altering energy states -- to move way into the self, far behindhte surface, to be come very cold, or very forward, -- whatever, these ARE techniques, and it'swhat's missing most in the very facile dancers coming out of hte ballet schools now -- a ballet like Dark ELegies -- which by hte way the Limon company dances superlatively well -- requires that powerful, deeply withdrawn energy, to creat e that "after great grief a formal feeling comes" communal emotion whthout which the Tudor shapes would not have any force as gestures.

Interesting post Paul.

In the Dancing Times article, Sarah Stackhouse talks about how the early modern dancers (i.e. Limon and Graham) were interested in capturing Expressive states and how they used these states to drive their bodies. She admits freely that many of the dancers were "terrible" from today's technical perspective. But she also says that they had an "engagement" with the material which animated their bodies.

I would love to see the Limon company perform Dark Elegies this Fall. But, alas, it looks like their major non-Limon (or Humphrey) revival will be Anna Sokolow's Rooms.

What an interesting idea to have a modern dance company take Tudor into it's repertory... which of Tudor's ballets could suffer having the pointe shoes removed?

Two reviews of Boston Ballet in Dark Elegies

Karen Campbell in the Boston Globe:
http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/arti..._boston_ballet/


Jeffrey Gantz in The Phoenix (with photo)
http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid61675.aspx