Here's a Link posted today by dirac:

A while ago I posted about the lead dancer at Ballet Florida, a charming young woman, who virtually ignored her partner in Tchaikosvsky Pas de Deux and in an over-the-top duet by Vicente Nebrada, while making flirtatious eye contact with the audience. She seemed to be communicating to the crowd: I'm ecstatic to be dancing this for you. Can you tell?

My other local company, Miami City Ballet, doesn't seem to tolerate it. Or, possibly, the dancers are just focusing on dancing well so they don't have time for this kind of distraction.

So: what do you think? Have you noticed this phenomenon yourself in recent performances? How do you respond when you observe it?

In a post-performance yesterday, Peter Boal mentioned that he told dancers in Diamonds to stop smiling so much, and that a broad smile to the audience wasn't appropriate for the ballet. They listened: Jewels was given three superb performances this weekend.

I was also at the Q&A last night where Boal talked about smiling.

Interestingly, his comment was in response to an audience member who asked why some dancers smile and others don't. There seemed to be a definite element in this lady's question where she seemed to be wanting ever more of the happy-happy smiles. I think it was that implication that had Boal slam the practice....and slam it so hard that he even admitted that he had told some dancers to cut it out in Diamonds.

P.S. While talking about this issue Boal painted a very interesting image. He said that he imagined a dancer to be in a box with 4 walls -- one of which was glass. We the audience were privileged to be able to watch the dancer thru that 4th glass wall. He clearly sees separation of dancer and audience as vital (while also saying that the audience was of the upmost importance in any performing art).

P.S. I wouldn't be surprised that Boal read the article of which you speak bart. Not hard to imagine that a NY'er like him reads the New Yorker. (Of course I have no evidence of this.)

In Acocella's piece on Suzanne Farrell Ballet in 2003, she quotes Farrell saying that her students lack musical sensitivity.

If many young dancers can't hear time, I guess it's not so surprising they can't hear mood, and smile their way through Emeralds and Diamonds.

Apparently Farrell can't hear that a march is 2/4, not 4/4.

Many San Francisco Ballet dancers are smilers and it sort of destroys the dance, as if they're saying pay attention to my mouth, not what I'm doing. It's really terrible in The Four Temperaments, and in the last round of Liebesleider performances in New York there seemed to be a bit of smiling and it's not such a happy ballet.

I think Peter Boal's four walls distinction important. Kyra Nichols in a talk in SF differentiated between in-the-box ballets and ones that were not.

I like dancers when they appear to be listening intently ahead for the next phrase of the dance. As if they don't know what it is quite going to be--and they're going to quietly meet it half way.

Interesting! I noticed the SFers smiling in the "Themes" section of 4Ts during their visit to NYC in the fall of '08 and thought "Oh, isn't that nice!" I thought it was such a pleasant break from NYCB's stony stares. I wouldn't necessarily want to see it that way every single time, but during that performance, at least, I rather liked the effect ... Chacun a son gout!

In The Four Temperaments their looks don't have to be stony, but they should be at least contemplative. The themes figures are sort of Janus ones--or Janusaries for what is to come. They face opposite directions and they go off on different sides of the stage. And what is to come is fairly intense.

There are Balanchine ballets that can take smiles--and whole movements that are smiles in themselves.

Is it really just a choice between smiling or not smiling? A smile -- whether serene, joyful, slap-happy, exhilerated, or coy -- can be integral to a role. Acocella seems to be focusing on the "knowing smile" -- the "self-conscious smile" -- even the "conspiratorial smile." (Wink, wink.) This breaks that imaginary wall separating dancer from watcher. It also, for me, destroys the illusion that the dancer -whether in a happy ballet or not -- is genuinely absorbed in his or her movements, in the other dancers on stage, and in the music.

There are ballets that call for the "stoney-stare," I know. But there aren't all that many. If this is indeed typical of any company or individual dancer, something seems to have gone wrong.

Facial expression is a crucial element in the illusion created by dancing on stage. I wonder: how much attention is paid to it in ballet schools and during rehearsals?

We do pay attention to facial expression in ballet class. The look must be alert, yet calm--simultaneously serene and engaged. One learns to not make faces during difficult exercises, but a smile every now and then, during a particularly enjoyable combination for example, is welcome. In Gretchen Ward Warren's Classical Ballet Technique, there is a description of the appropriate classroom expression, as well as expressions to avoid. One classroom expression that particularly irritates me is usually found on teachers who demand that their students always appear to be extremely alert: eyes open a little too wide, eyebrows slightly raised, and a sort of half-smile on the lips. While one does not want to appear bored, the 'One too many cups of coffee' look is going too far in the opposite direction.

One of the finest uses of facial expressions I've seen was in Doug Fullington's "Balanchine's Petipa" lecture demonstration #2. In it, Lucien Postlewaite partnered Kaori Nakamura in "La Bayadere". His face was on the one hand live, expressive, and focused on his ballerina, but on the other hand, subtle and refined. This was in a studio in full light, with the "audience" feet away from him. He's very young -- I'm not even sure he's 25 -- but it was an impressive display of control and maturity.

Hans, I remember reading something somewhere once about a fixed smile being used as a tool to mask effort. The basic idea stands to reason, but there was more to it than that, something technical I can't recall. Do I have that right? In any case, Macaulay reviews PNB's Jewels in tomorrow's Times. See those now forbidden smiles here.

Macauley reports that

This makes me wonder if, to use bart's wording, the conspiratorial, wink, wink smile is appropriate in Rubies, or in other ballets or sections of ballets where showing off is part of the point. Or do the feelings and the motives show to better effect if they're directed the other dancers enacting the story onstage?

It's funny -- Boal said that "Rubies" is the ballet in "Jewels" in which a full smile to the audience is appropriate

I remember in Merrill Ashley's book, she said that her now-husband told her after they first met that she had two expressions: I can't remember her wording for frozen smile, and the other was "pained ballerina look", which I misread as "painted ballerina look."

I agree with Acocella's condemnation of dancers who "woo us, grin at us, give us saucy looks." I did cringe at her naming names though. That just seemed unnecessarily harsh.
Facial expression and focus should be an integral part of the total performance, and appropriate for the work, and the role, not something arbitrarily plastered on.

I love this mental image. I couldn't have put it so nicely into words as you do here, but I think this is exactly what I see when a dancer's performance truly moves me.


You are right on the money bart. There is nothing wrong with smiling; and in fact, smiling might be mandatory if the role calls for it. It's the "pasted on smile" (for smile's sake alone) that is inappropriate. Certainly the types of smiles you quote from Acocella are completely out of place.


Ironically, the production of PNB's Jewels gives a perfect example of how even the conspiratorial smile can work in Rubies in spite of it not working in Diamonds. Opening night Jonathan Porretta danced what I call the "cheeky boy's" role in Rubies. When he is on stage with the quartet of male dancers, leading them around the stage as if they were some sort of team of horses, there is a moment when the "cheeky boy" runs along the edge of the stage, completely down stage. When Porretta did this, he not only smiled, but he gave a hearty winking laugh and devilish look directly at the audience. He completely broke the 4th glass wall in that moment. It was appropriate for that moment, and invoked great laughter from the audience (just as it should IMHO). Notably when Peter Boal made his comment a few days later at the Q&A about having chastised the dancers for too much smiling in Diamonds, he did not say a word about Jonathan's outrageous cheek in Rubies. Interestingly, on Sunday afternoon when Olivier Webers did the same role, although he is an excellent actor and very accessible to the audience, Wevers did not ham up this moment as much as Porretta had opening night. Personally, I thought Poretta's choice was the better one (and judging by the laughter, so did the rest of the audience). Rubies is so full of wit and playfulness that "showing off", as you put it kfw (later edit...initially I said bart here, sorry kfw), is completely appropriate.

Just to overkill the point about Rubies, I can't resist mentioning another part in Rubies where the music is somewhat serious, and the dancing wholly into that syncopated Stravinsky thing, when suddenly the music totally shifts to light-hearted laughter. At at that moment four girls (I think it is 4) come out and whoosh though the other dancers. I call these four girls the "bathing beauties" because to me their movements remind me of flappers from the 1920's in whole body swimming suits frolicing on the beach! Too serious there and the entire illusion, and wit, of "seeing" that particular music would be lost.

I'm not at all sure what the problem is; when I first started seeing live ballet regularly, one of the few things that I found distracting was the grinning rictus that appeared on many faces - and sometimes the whole corps (much as described by Merrill Ashley, above). It must have been choregraphed, and was awful, robotic and distracting. Happily, that seems much rarer now.

I'd suggest that teaching dancers to focus effort on facial expression is an error; for a start, they have more important things to do, also attempting a half-smile, 'to disguise effort' could end up an almost anything after a lot of effort, and a need to concentrate on what comes next.

I'd much rather see - as others have suggested - a calm, in control dancer, who does not feel they have dance with their face in any way at all, though, hopefully, they'll play down any pain or difficulty - and, as actors, they'll remain in character.

In some comedy ballets, there is a specific interaction with the audience at times - Elite Syncopations comes to mind - where the audience is 'in on the act'.

I'm happy to say that I've never ever seen the malaise described here, though I'm equally happy to say that I've seen some beautiful smiles from dancers, usually in response to audience appreciation.

Is there a problem, or it it just a reviewer with writers block?



That has to be just plain spite, doesn't it?



But has it something to do with the specific character in the specific ballet - way over the head of our critic?

Accoella is surely the only person on the planet who would actually object to being given Mr. Salstein's phone number

A clarification: at the performance I saw, SF's three Theme couples were smiling at each other, not engaging in the kind of aggressive wooing of the audience that Accocella points to. Since they're dancing together and the music isn't uniformly solemn, the smiles didn't strike me as inappropriate to the situation.

This past weekend I saw SFB dance 'in the middle, somewhat elevated...'. Most the dancers kept a straight face, but in the final pdd Ivan Popov had a big grin while his partner, Rachel Viselli, looked like she was ready to chew his arm off. Not sure who was right, but it was a little incongruous.

Re: In the Middle, Forsythe has made it clear that the competitive attitude of the dancers at Paris Opera weighed heavily on the mood of the piece - I think he recounts a story of one woman oh-so-casually showing off her arch before the audition, and then another, and so on. That became the first moments of the ballet. So that mood is there, but I've seen dancers telegraph that in performance so that the ballet becomes only about attitude. The attitude has to be in and through the dancing, not on top of it.

I care most if a dancer seems dishonest to me, subjective as that sounds. Some dancers are naturally flirtatious; some smile all the time. Jeanette Delgado grinned like a madwoman all through Square Dance, but I think it's clear that's what inside (and so must Acocella, as she didn't complain about it.) Whether smiling or not, I've been in situations where a dancer didn't do what I asked on stage - but barring that, the criticism needs to be laid at the feet of the director, not the dancer. S/he's responsible for the look of the ballet, and that includes how the dancers are behaving. In the end, everyone involved needs to realize that mood is part of a ballet, and work appropriately.

It is necessary to control one's facial expression during class because that is one of the ways in which one disguises effort. A pasted-on grin or a creepy half-smile are both wrong. No one wants to see furrowed brows and contorted mouths during a difficult adagio--it must appear easy. One develops almost a 'poker face' in class, betraying nothing, and although there is nothing wrong with a natural smile now and then, control of one's face is essential so that one can portray the appropriate 'look' for any given ballet. I think acting classes can also help with this because even if a ballet does not have characters, there is generally still a mood to the piece, and the dancers need to be able to understand and convey that, even if they are not using the usual 'acting' techniques one would see in a 19C classic.

Beautifully put - the dancer needs to be true to themselves, and to the part they are performing - that means they need to be following direction - but also that the director needs to know them!

That should avoid both the rictus at one extreme and the 'over the top' displays of personality at the other, that people have described above.

From an audience POV, I'd guess that some parts in some ballets would require much more self discipline than others.

When Edward Villella performed this, I remember the exhileration and the big grin, but not any acknowledgement of the audience. The same is true of performances I've seen by Villella's company, Miami City Ballet and in the Paris Opera Ballet dvd. Do other dancers in this role adopt Porretta's approach?

I think Acocella would respond: "flirtatious" with whom? Delgado is a naturally sunny character on stage. Her smile in a ballet like Square Dance communicates: "I love dancing this so much!" But so does the "character" in the ballet. I have never had a sense that she is trying to have a direct conversation with the audience that excludes her fellow dancers and violates the sense of the dance.

I think of the stage as a kind of "box" of energies and feelings that the dancers share with each other, and which we are privileged to observe. Any dancer -- except in very specialized choreography -- who opens the box to "talk" directly to the audienece is dissipating the energy and feeling of the ballet. It would be the same thing if the Dying Swan suddenly noticed that we were there and sought to solicit our pity. Or if the ballerina in Diamonds kept checking to make sure we understood just how difficult the choreography is.

One dancer's commentary is another dancer's wit - if it's properly integrated. It also depends on how we take it. I agree with Acocella by and large, but it's possible that the dancers she sees as chief offenders wouldn't be the ones on my list, and vice versa.

I'm not so sure about the "character" of Square Dance. I read Acocella's line about Salstein giving out his phone number and thought, "Well, I guess that means that Jeannette Delgado planted a kiss on everyone's cheek in Square Dance." I think she was conversing with the audience, in much the same way that Ashley Bouder tends to. Never mind that both of them can dance up a storm. It's this sunny, open, "come with me," attitude that endears such dancers to us.

It's not always appropriate, and in Bouder's case, it's not always the face that communicates it (part of her genius). Show me dancer who doesn't communicate with directly with the audience, and you can hand me my coat, please. The name of the game is performance.

And as pointed out by others, if it isn't genuine or spontaneous (as Poretta's seemed to be), it's wrong.

A march is not always in 2/4 time. Actually, 4/4 (or 2/2) have been used as time signatures for marches that are not usually parade marches. Although 2/4 is accommodating to marching feet, 4/4 has been used for marches which are more aesthetic in movement, such as those in social and folk dances. John Philip Sousa even wrote a few marches in 6/8 time, notably the "Washington Post March".

Suzanne Farrell is nothing if not musical. She has an innate understanding and relationship to music. It must hurt her sensibilities to see dancing which doesn't attach itself to the music being played either in technique or feeling, or both. Farrell is known for her musicality.

Watching her dance and being pulled into her performance as you began to feel the music with her was an indescribably special experience.

I still find it hard to believe that she has students who can't hear the difference between 3/4 and 4/4. I seriously doubt someone with that sort of deficiency would make it past beginner ballet.

Now this DOES sound like a problem. Maybe Acocella, in her article, just picked the wrong dancers as examples.

On the other side, I have a problem with the "martyir-going-to-the-scaffold" look...I've seen this many times as a performance ruining fact. Give me the grin anytime instead. (I wonder if I could give examples, cause I have the perfect two cases)

I think that's one of the problems I have with Uliana Lopatkina. Her supporters call it her "spirituality," but having seen her several times I've come to dread her patented frozen, "the stage is a temple" expression. For instance when I saw her dance La Bayadere her Nikya never smiled at Solor, never frowned at Gamzatti, much less the audience. During the Shades scene the mask froze even more. I find it terribly disengaging, the fact that she dances as if she were unaware that the audience was watching her.

I hope this isn't too OFF TOPIC or too much of a diversion from a fascinating discussion, but I'd like to return briefly to the dancer who gave a "hearty winking laugh and devilish look directly at the audience" during the run-around-the-stage near the end of Rubies. Here's Alistair Macaulay in the NY Times, who saw several PNB casts, including the one at issue:

This doesn't quite square with Robert Garis's account Villella's original peformances, published in Following Balanchine:
In the accompanying Martha Swope photo, 2 of his gang are running alongside Villella, looking at him, and grinning. As for Villella himself -- his eyes are almost closed. There is a kind of blissful grin on his face. This man doesn't have to charm or seduce anyone outside the scene -- he IS.

Villella himself, in his autobiography, says that Balanchine put Villella's own background into this role:
That is the image of the role that sticks in my mind. I recall a number of reactions: excitement, release, thunderous applause. I even can accept the image of what Arlene Croce called Villella's "elfin charm" in the role -- and Nancy Goldner's description of this section as a "merry chase." But an entire audience "laughing out loud"? That I don't remember. That's what Fancy Free is for.

I love it! (....but I hate the look you are referring to!)

I presume every dancer is free to give whatever interpretation they desire. Some interpretations will work, others won't. Whatever one's opinion, I felt Porretta's "over the top" puckishness at PNB worked for him and for the audience. Perhaps Mr B would have been pleased, or perhaps he would have toned it down, but I personally feel that Porretta's actions were in keeping with the spirit of Rubies. (The more I see Rubies, the more I see the humor and irreverence in it.)

My gut feel is that Mr B loved a good belly laugh......if cleverly done.

P.S. I also suspect that Macaulay's reference to "fun, repartee, naughtiness, even devilry" had mostly to do with the tall girl's attitude, and with the overall approach PNB took for the entire piece.

Sandy, most likely you are right. Maybe the audience's expectations about how and how much to engage with the artist has changed. Possibly we're the ones who feel the need to break the 4th wall as a way of reducing the distance that separates us from the artists we love. Or maybe these things come and go in cycles?

Those dancers clearly aren't trying to emulate the ending of a good production of "Dialogue of the Carmelites", where martyr-going-to-the-scaffold look is one of serene transcendence.

To take this to its extreme, I have seen dancers that look ANNOYED that there is someone watching them. In my view, they need to find a new career.
Not naming any names.....and not saying this happens tooooo often, but..........

I'm having difficulty visualizing the following as a problem -- i.e., the Nikiya in Bayadere dancing

I don't think anyone is in favor of dancers ignoring others on the stage or giving the impression that they are dancing in a a different ballet from everyone else. But ... as to the desirability of showing "awareness that the audience is watching": what exactly does this involve?

An example: in the Kingdom of the Shades scene, referred to above, isn't Nikiya's lack of awareness of the audience an aspect of the plot. She is dead, after all. How, specifically, should she show awareness of the audience?

As to "naming names": Acocella was willing to do so, so why shouldn't we? In a spirit of fair play, of course. And -- one hopes -- with examples.

Perhaps.

OTOH, as I have thought about this entire discussion, more and more I am thinking the "too much, or not enough" aspect of this aesthetic issue (the overall subject of this forum section after all) is all about a matter of degree. Frankly, I'd hate to see the 4th wall broken very often. I think something we all love about ballet is its abstracted, "other worldly" quality. If one broke the 4th wall too often, ballet would lose that vital quality IMHO. OTOH, in the right work, in the right production, done by the right performer, the breaking of any standard can be both dramatically and artistically appropriate and satisfying. Naturally, we could all disagree about whether a specific instance of this "standard breaking" is aesthetically correct or not, but surely that it can be appropriate from time to time should be embraced.

I think your point about us desiring to "reduce the distance" created by the wall that separates us from "the artists we love" is a good one. We respect and admire them so much, and it is a thrill when human, sometimes personal, contact is made (even when I see a dancer in a grocery store check out line, it is a thrill for me). So we, the audience, seek that contact, but at the same time familiarity breeds contempt (as they say). So it's a knife edge. To bring it back to my initial point, perhaps just the right amount of breaking the separation is the key. (Of course, we will never be able to agree where that line is......such is the stuff of art!)

Regarding the fourth wall and breaking character, a friend recently told a group of us at dinner of a performance of a play she had seen in Boston with Jeremy Irons. There was an instense storm going on outside the theater and the audience heard this huge clap of thunder outside which took them out of the play a bit and broke their concentration. Jeremy Irons, without in the least breaking the rhythm of the character he was playing, walked up to the window and looked out and walked back to his chair or whatever. It was like one of those dreams (someone else at dinner said)where the dream works the intrusive stimulus into the texture of rest of the dream story.

I pretty much think dancers should always be in character even when the character approximates who they "really" are.

[quote name='Helene' date='Feb 2 2009, 06:50 PM' post='241303']
It's funny -- Boal said that "Rubies" is the ballet in "Jewels" in which a full smile to the audience is appropriate


Rubies was made on Patricia McBride, whose smile was a magnificent and mysteriously inscrutable thing -- almost sphynx-like. It had a monumental quality to it, like Louis Armstrong's smile, and seemed to be like his, something absolutely necessary to getting the musical expression right.

Oh yes, Paul, and perfectly put. And this smile was never more eloquent but also inaccessible in its serenity than in 'Liebeslieder Walzer', in a 1985 performance I saw with Suzanne Farrell, Jock Soto, Bart Cook and others--all of whom were brilliant, dazzling even, but McBride went deepest. You could even see a version of it offstage as well. She was always so focussed, but gently so, as to be untouchable. That smile was also melancholy and peacefully content at the same time, and it is that face, quietly shining, that more than anything about that performance of Liebeslieder in 1985 I can never forget. And, between the two of us, we've not even begun to exhaust what might be said--although I love the comparison to Armstrong. But it didn't really call attention to itself, she was not self-conscious. And of course the dancing was the same. There was a performance of 'Le Baiser de la Fee' that was so uncanny that in it McBride reminds me somehow of Sizova (and she's the only ballerina who ever has)--that look of effortless perfection, no matter what the speed, always this ray of grace.

Oh, Sizova's faces...hands down everyone! They are something of their own. She knew how to offer the perfect-but-still-contained-princess-like-grin to her servants and family-(there's no live audience). They went from those of pure pleasure to herself-(her entrance and solo)-to admiration-(as watching the garland Waltz), to loving glimpses to her man-(the PDD Adagio)-to the courtesy looks to her suitors, but never gets into the "martyr/scaffold" edge, even in the dream sequence or the dizziness/unconsciousness one. If any, some sort of detachment from the human Desiree and his tangible reality, but nothing overly heavy or overwhelmingly transfixed. She probably has carried some Stanislavsky in her shopping cart at some point, i bet.

Well-said, sir -- it is the truth.

Like McBride, she smiled not just with her mouth but with her brow -- the space between hte eyes had no trace of a pinch to it but spread as serenely as her shoulder-blades--
without which, a smile becomes manipulativeor needy. WHich could be fine for hte strip-tease girl, but not for AUrora or Liebeslieder.

This explains so much! I will be looking more carefully in the future. Thanks.

Your analysis helps to explain that rare sort of smile of a smile which I tend to think of as "introspective" and which Patrick has more accurately talked about in terms of serenity, inaccessibility, untouchability.

Cristian, thanks too for your image of Sizova's various smiles, each perfect for the occasion. I will not e able to forget the image of Sizova carrying around a little bit of Stanislavsky in her shopping cart.

Another Ballet Talk light-bulb moment for me.

I must admit I have never experienced a Dancer "flirting" with the audience, despite my often having to sit in the front row, due to my poor eyesight, I have never intentionally even made eye contact with the people on stage. I cannot see anything wrong in a Dancer outwardly showing they are enjoying performing, it is much better than a straight face with little expression.
Surely the place for flirting is at the stage door. In the same theme, I can remember a newly appointed Paris Opera Male Etoile , who was very attractive and obviously articulate, being interviwed for television. The Lady Interviewer, was very obviously flirting like mad with him. He seemed a very likable guy, and politely answered her questions, looking rather coy. She was very animated, and it seemed as if she was about to sit on his lap!!!!

Ooooh, yes...YES...!

Is "flirting" a new phenomenon? I have little doubt that by the time the French ballet started being thought of more as an excuse (apparantly) to see women's legs by the 1880s that the dancers flirted with the men in the boxes to some extent. The Russian Imperial Ballet was a much stricter situation but I wonder, is it possible the audience favorites would flirt to some extent too? the visiting Italian ballerinas? Certainly *in a way*, the Russian technique of taking endless curtain calls and bows after a ballerina's solo is sorta "flirting with the audience", albeit during a break in the action of the ballet.

I also wonder if with modern dancers this comes a bit from different forms of dance now being accepted together. What I mean is, a modern ballet company might have in their repertoire some famous dance numbers from a Broadway show, something that 50-75 years ago and longer would have never been true. You're also more likely than you were to discover that a dancer in a tour of Chicago, say, was once a ballet dancer at some company. Bob Fosse infamously told his dancers to flirt and smile at the audience, albeit in a slightly intimidating way ("the audience is your prey"). Maybe if a performer is trained in more styles of dance this becomes more common even in ballet?

Just throwing ideas out there

There is also the undeniable appeal of an artist who knows his worth and tries to make a direct connection with the audience. Maybe the best example is Marcelo Gomes. He's not smug, but whenever he steps onstage he exudes confidence and takes the audience along for a magical ride. He also seems to infuse confidence in his partners. For instance I saw a Bayadere in which Veronika Part actually seemed to grow AS A DANCER during the ballet. By the end of the Shades scene the two were dancing as one.

I must say, I didn't feel that Salstein was out of character--I am sure she was talking about his performance as Oh Johnny. He was exhuberant and very funny, but the piece was a comedy and comedy works with some contact with the audience, as long as it isn't mugging. In my experience Salstein can be both broad and nuanced, and is just one of those dancers who seems to love being on stage, without hogging it. I did a brief interview with him, and talked about his Gamache (which I really loved), and I asked how he reacted to the audience laughing and he said

Could you hear the audience laughing when you did Gamache?

No, you can’t pay attention to the reaction, or you start trying to please the audience and overplaying, and that’s not good. Comedy is work, it’s a technique, a learned art form. Acting is learned. For some people it’s natural to feel comfortable on stage, but you have to work on the technique. You can’t just wake up one day and do 100 pirouettes, you have to build and build and build. And you can’t wake up and be funny, you have to work on that too.


This is not what a flirt would say.

I must say Acocella can be selective, since she loved Ansanelli, who looked like she was giving herself whiplash turning her head to make contact with the audience.

About smiling, I think I remember reading that Ashton told a dancer to "smile with your eyes", which is a wonderful description. Dancers have different personalities and what works for one wouldn't work for another--I was thinking of McBride, too, who just beamed, but it was genuine and involved more than just her teeth. Then there are other dancers who look like toothpaste adds, but that is because it isn't natural.