Old Fashioned suggested in another thread that we have a new one on this question. Are you waiting for the next great genius of classical ballet? If not, why not? Where do you think the new GG might take the art form? Or do you think he's already arrived?

If you vote in the poll, I offer the perennial plea that you post the thoughts behind your vote as well to enhance the discussion. Thanks.

Sandy McKean posted this in the thread on the Sarah Kaufman article:

Well, NO, I'm not waiting for him/her. Precisely for the points miliosr already brought up, it's up to the form itself to declare its need for something specifically 'ballet genius'. Or NOT. If there can be one, wonderful, of course. We could only not love it if we hated ballet, and we don't. But there should be signs before s/he appears that something might explode onto any artistic scene. I don't see what it means to 'wait for the next ballet genius'. Of course, I guess I can wait without giving it any thought, and that I wouldn't have any choice about. It sounds a little bit like Heidegger's 'only a god can save us', though. All the traditional arts have changed, and the world we live in has only vestiges of the worlds that produced towering geniuses. I think Nietzsche said something along the lines ot the Giant Man of the Great Man or something like that being 'over', well, always when people say those things in a big new pronouncement it takes a while to kick in, but when movies started, all sorts of people thought them impossibly vulgar and low, cf. Walter Benjamin's 'The Work of art in the age of Mechanical Reproduction.' Even if you don't agree with him (I don't), these continuing media advancements, including all the silly ones, have huge effect.

The question really might be, can a really thriving ballet audience survive? That has to remain, and it may or may not. I don't have any idea. Many old forms are disappearing are becoming radically alteres, and ballet and opera are old forms, and then maybe some are not disappearing. In the meantime, even the mediocre ones are at least there, although personally I can't drum up that much interest. I'm fairly sure there will be 'dance geniuses', I don't know about 'ballet geniuses'. Might have to do with the economy and whether a committed ballet community can survive.

I wrote something about High Modernism and post-modernism based on remarks of miliosr on the SK thread, and now can say definitely NOT, the question might be 'the next genius', but there can be no new Balanchine, he whose last period could be called High Modern. There IS no more 'modernism'. YOu have to use the word 'contempoarary', since 'modern' was outmoded with a period which has passed paradoxically, whereas 'modern' used to be whatever was current. Modernism had much more discipline and severity and structure than the amorphous messes one sees after its collapse, and collapse it certainly has done.

So that miliosr's legitimate query about 'whether the ballet form has exhausted itself or not', whether it will find new geniuses may still be possible. But what we have now is the normal evolution of things, when you look at the other arts and disciplines. There's not going to be any towering central figure like Balanchine or Graham, who were both modernists, because that is over. We may not be thrilled about Peter Martins's choreography, and not much more thrilled by Wheeldon, but it's not abnormal for the general cultural environment we live if today, and have done for some 20 or more years. To have that kiind of genius would mean to go back to a period which has gone. I don't know that there can't be a ballet genius, but there will be no 'next Balanchine'. So that I think part of miliosr's implied query is answered: Ballet may or may not be exhausted (probably not), but High Modernism a la Balanchine has been, you don't see it anywhere, and all this current 'nostalgia for modernism' in theory and philosophy and literary circles is all about this loss of discipline that modernism still at least had just like classicism and romanticism. There is a much bigger mess of chaos in the post-modern, post-structuralist world. And High Modernism is gone in music, except for diluted imitations, why wouldn't this happen in dance just like the rest? Well, that is what is happening. So if someone wants to wait for 'genius', he will probably find some, not just one. but there won't be some fierce central figure like Balanchine or Graham, because they depended on things that hadn't been unearthed yet, and that they then did unearth. There is NOTHING left to unearth, just little tendrilly efflorescences which the Balanchine ex-dancers do with their half-baked choreography. I personally don't have much of an opinion on imitating Tudor and Ashton instead of Balanchine, but I think that something like the extreme concentration on one figure as Balanchine is now is actually ALSO a part of this post-modernism. You can see it for some years now in museum exhibitions, the gigantism and overly lavish hyped-up things, there are many other examples. But a choreographer with huge power like either Balanchine or Graham would need to be in another period than the one we are now living in, and seem to be planning to for the foreseeable future.

A new perception is therefore needed, because the idea of a 'next Balanchine' has no reality. These 'nostalgias for modernism' going on right now will go the way of all nostalgias, which is to say, short shrift after a little tearful shufling around here and there.

...but why the concept of the never ending comparisson? Who was "the One" and "the Next" in between Corally, Bournonville, Saint-leon, Taglioni, Perrot, Petipa or Cechetti...? I get kind of lost when thinking about it, so I can't really vote...

Yes--and the anxiety of the wait. Nobody is holding her/his breath for the next great novelist, and no one in the visual arts wants another Picasso or Matisse for a while. There's enough already to look at for a long time.

It'd be nice to have a great filmmaker, though, to hold a mirror up to the madness of the time and show us our faces in it.

To address this more pragmatically and less theoretically than Papeetepatrick, I think a more precise way to describe how some ballet lovers feel -- well, to describe me anyway -- would be 'waiting for the next choreographer whose new works I genuinely look forward to seeing' to come along.

'Genuinely look forward to seeing' -- that is, looking forward out of more than a desire to stay caught up with the latest repertory or latest new role for dancer x or y, looking forward out of more than a yen for a little variety or curiosity concerning a set designer or composer (all reasonable motives to see a new work). I'm speaking of a real desire or eagerness to see what this choreographer is going to do next, where his or her vision may take me or, rather, take ballet. I have enjoyed several of Martins' ballets but I can't say, for example, that I genuinely look forward to each new one or deeply regret the fact that I miss so many of them living, as I do, far from New York or any other ballet metropolis.

Right now, Wheeldon and Ratmansky both seem generating something like this kind of desire/eagerness for some ballet lovers. For others (not really on this message board and presumably more in Europe than in U.S.) Forsythe.

In fact, my one ballet trip this year is organized around seeing certain dancers in Giselle--not the next Balanchine or even the last one--but I am particularly pleased to be able to see a Wheeldon ballet I have never seen on one of my non-Giselle nights and sorry to miss the new Ratmansky. We will see if either choreographer proves to have staying power as a creative force to be reckoned with, but from what I have seen of both I would at this point say that there is at least a possibility my wait IS over...but it was never a wait for the next Balanchine.

(By the by, I read this right after I posted it and decided it was too negative, then reread again and decided it was too positive...so I'm editing now to say, I don't mean to be either...just to say that at least now there are some choreographers on the scene who seem worth following without feeling one has conceded to mediocrity. Oh..and I might be wrong about that especially as I haven't seen that much of their work.)

I voted No---because I do believe that today's ballet scene has a lot to offer. It took Balanchine years to become the ikon he is today---it was not always so. Whoever is out there, he/she must educate the public to his/her vision---which is what Balanchine did.

Amen.

I agree with this, too. However, it led me to vote for "It would be nice, but ..."

I just wish I had confidence that the economics and social structure of the performing arts world would allow for the time and money necessary for the required experimentation and education. Given the cosmopolitan nature of New York City in the 30s-40s, the large pool of available dancers, and the financial support of Kirstein and his group, Balanchine had advantages one could not count on today.

Regarding the need to "educate the public to his/her vision" -- The diffusion of Balanchine's influence throughout the U.S. was made possible by the Ford Foundation grants of the early 60s. Regular broadcasts, on public teleavision, of the Dance in America series produced by Merrill Brockway were crucial to creating the identification of "ballet" and "Balanchine." Are we likely ever to see anything like this in the future?

Great question. PBS did give us a Diamond Project broadcast a few years ago, and the Balanchine tribute was obviously a worthy broadcast, even if it wasn't forward looking. But I sure wish they were giving us Ratmansky and Wheeldon this month instead of a poorly received Romeo and Juliet.

Surely it's not a coincidence that the last NYCB performance broadcast on Live from Lincoln Center was also a Martins creation. I'm starting to think quality does not play a role in these decisions at all.

Ballet broadcast performances tend to be dominated by well known titles - Swan Lakes, Romeos and Juliets, Nutcrackers, etc. and evening length ballets with a famous name, like the Lubovitch Othello, which made Martins' Swan Lake look like a masterpiece. The Diamond Project broadcast, a mixed bill, had such poor ratings it never made it out to the West Coast. Mixed bill broadcasts do happen but they seem to be a harder sell these days.



Thanks for posting, Drew. You sounded just right.

Balanchine was the kind of genius who comes along once a century, so that's how I voted. By the way, does "baited breath" have to do with fishing? I believe the term is "bated breath."

Quite right, Farrell Fan, and I'll correct it. In my defense, I've seen it spelled that way in Respectable Publications and it never occurred to me that it was wrong.

dirac, you are the best!

I voted for "once a century" not only because that's how I "feel" about it, but also that geniuses (genii?? ) of Balanchine's calibre come along at something like that rate in essentially every field I can think of. I mentioned Newton and Einstein for physics in another thread. Kant or Hegel come to mind for philosophy. Perhaps even a Henry Ford in industry. We think nothing of looking back on Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, or Wagner as somehow a head or two above the other incredibly talented composers of their eras......what's different about dance?

Now, we do not 'think nothing of looking back on Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, or Wagner as somehow a head or two above the other incredibly talented composers of their eras', unless we want to overvalue. None of these are necessarily (or they are in some areas of music, not in others) above Haydn, Schumann, Schubert, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Verdi, and quite a number of others in the same two centuries, plus there's some Debussy coming out at the end of the 19th, and that can't be left out as being up there with those four masters. Comparison is either 'odious' or 'odorous', according to whether you prefer Donne or Shakespeare; although I admit it has to be done sometimes, but nearlyu as often as we casually do it. This kind of categorization never has anything to do with the reality within the Arts themselves, but people find comfort in valuing artists in this way, I guess. In any case, even with the first 4, that's still 2 per century, not 1 per century. Anyone can think of these things any way they want to, so that part really is just subjective and what might be called radical fanship. If you're 'exposed enough', as vicious New Yorkers , you're going to see there are always more than 'one per century'.

I read SandyMckean as giving a very normal conversational example and I am sure you did not mean to sound patronizing in the above sentence as I regularly witness your generosity of expression with other ballettalk posters.
How each of us respond to a work of art has as much value as any other persons whether educated to PhD level or with low educational qualifications.
When you say, "...the reality within the Arts themselves.." one has to ask whose reality?
The thought of the nebulous scientific approach to the evaluation of art works and eras that are flourishing in our acadaemia are often seen to me by persons of the type that, "... can read music but cannot hear it" or, " ...cannot see the wood for the trees" and yet want to jump on the latest analytical approach that ultimately has no value and will be rejected by most because smacks of dictatorial control of the way individuals should approach art and its history. Are we are talking about theories substantiated by persons with the self-interest of monetary reward and employment or, theories expressed by actual artists?
I vote for Balanchine as a complete kind of genius but I also vote for another complete kind of genius choreographer in the 20th century Frederick Ashton. Unless of course this is just a vote about a Russian choreographer who lived and worked for a long time in America.

We are talking about these things to some degree as well as a number of others. My point was about the composers. It is habitual to decide on some of these cateogories of 'greatest'. So no, I did not mean to be patronizing, but I did know something that perhaps someone else didn't. In that case, since my formal education has been musical, it hasn't anything to do with 'someone's appreciation', as that routinely people will put either Mozart or Beethoven above the other, and declare the other invalid, and they will not realize that Schumann and Haydn in many cases achieve the heights of genius as Mozart and Wagner. Simple as that.



Well, there are useful analytical approaches, but I personally am not interested in any because they might be the 'latest'. As for being able to 'read music, but not hear it...' it's possible to read music, hear music, as well as be involved with some intellectual readings of things. I'm not always successful at the latter, but I definitely am capable of both of the former; we do the best we can in fairly informal blog-like comments.

papeetepatrick, I actually agree with you for the most part in your post #18 (and no offense taken BTW).

I should have chosen my words more carefully. I certainly didn't mean to imply that these composers were somehow better or greater that the others of their eras. OTOH, I do think that some creative people (Balanchine, Mozart, Wagner, and others) are more transformative than others who lived in those eras and who also had great talent (or even greater talent in the judgement of some). I picked my list off the top of my head, not as a well considered statement, but just to name a few to make the point of their rarity. As leonid said: I meant my comment as "a very normal conversational example".

Thanks, Sandy, appreciate it. With this medium, we don't nearly always know the dimensions of what someone else is thinking, so we do the best we can--and it's true, none of us can be 'polished' in this kind of rather informal writing; a lot of it is instinctive, or just guesswork.

Edited to 'also add that it may not be always that the arts all parallel each other in terms of number of geniuses per century, etc., i.e., dance may not follow music may not follow painting, just because they all share in certain other period characteristics.

First: I'm going to put my 2 cents in here with papeetepatrick to defend analysis practiced by non-artists. I'm not sure any one scholarly approach to aesthetics/arts is "flourishing" in academia over any other, and not sure why putting forth a particular interpretation is tantamount to mind control. Do you have a particular one in mind? Also, most scholars feel deeply passionate about the objects of their studies--that's usually why they study them. (I will admit that there are--as in ANY endeavor--obnoxious, overbearing, and ambitious pedants.) And I can't think of anyone in academia who's in it for the money!
OK, on to what I really want to ask: Has BT ever polled people's interest in new choreographers? I mean, is it OK not to care about "the next Balanchine"? What's lost by not caring? How does it serve the art to care or not? Do we favor a nurturing approach--support choreographers through successes and through failures--or more of a "Darwinian" one--let posterity decide who floats to the top?

Ray, you'll note that the present poll gives voters a number of options, and if you think the current ballet scene has much to offer and you're not looking for another Balanchine, you're free to vote and say so.

The subject of where new choreographers might come from and how they develop has also arisen from time to time on the board, although I can't recall a specific thread offhand, but that could also come under the purview of this topic if you'd like to talk about it.

Thanks, dirac, and I didn't mean to point out any problems with the current poll. I just wonder the extent to which ballet watchers (both BTers and others) are interested in new choreographers at all--beyond, perhaps, providing vehicles for their favorite dancers. And I am genuinely curious as to how others feel about nurturing new choreographic talent--i.e., is it essential for the continuation of ballet?

To be honest, I would be more interested in getting to see more of the old choreographers works. (C'mon, when was the last time I was able to see Giselle...7, 8 years ago...?) I mean, the repertoire is so extensive-(and technically difficult)-so, why not starting with that first...?
Eg. Did MCB really NEED to put on that brand new Tharp's abomination-(AKA "Nightspot" )-if Miamians don't even know "Chopiniana"?

Got it, Ray. I thought it would be a good independent topic after all, so I started a new thread.

Re: the new Tharp piece. Tharp is a famous contemporary choreographer with proven high/low appeal, so I can understand why MCB would welcome a new piece from her. I have the impression that regional companies everywhere are doing her Sinatra pieces. 'Chopiniana' would probably be better for the dancers and the audience, though.

Exactly. So if audience and dancers are both satisfied...what's left...? The choreographer's ego?

My point was that it was a high profile commission, which gets more attention from press and public. (And you could argue also that it's a boost for the dancers to have the experience of working directly with Tharp and have her make a new work on them.)

Ray,

I think that's an apt choice of phrase in relation to this thread. Do you think that ballet is actually continuing in terms of progressing as an art form or just standing still. Kind of like a static passenger on a conveyor belt?

Cubanmiamiboy, I was slightly "peeved" by your saying that the audience shouldn't be exposed to a Tharp work when they don't know Chopiniana or Giselle - I find this quite a exclusory mind set and I want you to know that I'm not criticising you for that, I used to really take umbrage when audiences would clap to high heaven some God-awful new piece and be left cold by a classic - but the sad truth is that many of those greats aren't easy to take on first viewing for non regular ballet goers - and there's also a great deal to be said for the argument that if In The Upper Room appeals to far more people than Chopiniana or Les Noces then is it a greater work? If nothing else it's infused far more with the passion for watching dance.

I don't believe that for a second, by the way, but I have to accept that the work which I know I could come to a site like this and wax lyrical over and have my appreciation appreciated by other ballet lovers, leaves novice ballet goers bolting for the exits.

To come back to the next Balanchie, I think to you could swap Balanchine in the title for Ashton, Nijnska, Tudor - what you're asking is will there ever be another period in history where a talent for choreography of that level be nurtured, given room to grow, be of importance to society, have a place in society? I don't know, I don't think so.

I think the saddest thing about the Royal Ballet's belief that they've found a new ballet pop God in Wayne MacGregor, is how much they've miscalculated. Chroma was a hit because a) the seats were dirt cheap and b) the music was by Joby Talbot from the Divine Comedy interpolating Blue Orchid by The White Stripes - the "yoof" crowd weren't coming because ballet was suddenly cool again, they were coming for the novelty of hearing pop music on a classical orchestra and to see some dancers "jump around" - they came to see a pop video and when it was over they left the Opera house and never went back again.

And one thing I do believe in relation to Ray's very poignant use of "continuance" - if all ballet is going to do is rely on past glories of Chopiniana etc it's not continuing, it's static, moving foward without going anywhere - and if people want to come because they saw Movin Out or In the Upper Room or Matthew Bourne's lastest and want to broaden their experience with another Tharp which happens to be on a mixed bill with Chopiniana or 4 Ts - that's great; you don't convert someone by bashing them over the head.

And that's why bad new choreography is better or rather preferable to no new choreography - at least something's happening. The Balanchines, Ashtons, Tudors, Petits Fokines etc knew it took a hundred stinkers to make one Apollo, Symphonic Variations or Les Noces.

Simon, I do understand your point, but when I think of all the beautiful, excellent choreography that is being left in the dark for years and years-(not only Giselle and Chopiniana, but Tudor, Massine, Nijinska, etc...)-to the point of getting the risk of being forgotten/lost, getting to know that my local Company-(and one of the most talked about ones in the country)-won't included one Petipa during the whole next season, is kind of frustrating...Then, when I hear the production cost that "Nightspot" carried on...well, I just want to
An anecdote: At one point, Alonso's company was doing its Chopiniana using the Wilis tutus against a plain black backdrop...so talk about an expensive ballet-(and MCB does have Giselle)

Cubanmiamiboy,

I think this anecdote sums up the problem that ballet is facing in trying to contiue, especially in the current climate, and that is one of money. The National Ballet of Cuba being probably the only ballet company continuing under a Communist regime and probably the closet thing in the world today of a company which still functions under the financial an artistic ethos of a company during the ballet boom years of the 50s to 70s.

Alonso could afford to do this on her home turf, whether she could afford to do this on a touring agenda is doubtful - she tours the big three acts because she knows that the virtuosos she's bred are her selling point for western audiences who equate ballet with circus tricks.

The biggest problem that Russian ballet faced in the past 20 years was glasnost, when state funding disappeared and the Kirov and Bolshoi had to operate under the money-driven agendas of major western companies. However, even during Communisim they stuggled on foreign tours, I remember reading once on a tour of the US in the 70s the Bolshoi was so cash strapped and the per diem for the dancers so meagre that they ate dog food until Sol Hurok stepped in and increased their living expenses. Whether this is true or not, I'm not sure.

But in terms of choreography one can argue that great choreography of the 20th century was a Western phenomenon - Balanchine, Ashton, Tudor, Fokine, Lifar, Nijinska, Nijinsky, Macmillan, Cranko - they flourished in the west. Not a single piece of choreography created behind the Iron Curtain survived or was taken into western reps pre or post glanost.

Another problem is that ballet isn't cool - in the public consciousness it's anachronistic. I once heard some rather glib man dismiss Serenade as just a "typical classical ballet piece" - there was no way he could understand that it was an iconic piece of neo modernism, one of the cornerstones of choreography that reinvented ballet form for the 20th century. Likewise Les Sylphides (or Chopiniana) a novice sees the romantic tutus, here's the music and sadly turns off. How can one describe to a naysayer it's importance in ballet modernism? One can't. All you can do is hope that a first time viewer will have the curiosity piqued and decide to find out more for themselves.

Money is such a key issue and it's sad that a new Tharp at great expense will pay for itself in a way that a restaging of Les Sylphides or Les Noces won't. I read an interview with Wayne MacGregor where he stated his fee for a new ballet is upwards of $70,000. For a half hour of his grim supported rhytmic gymnastics, what a rip off! The thing I truly hate about his choreography for ballet, or rather ballet dancers is how regressive and mysogynous it is - this is partly due to the fact that he has no knowledge of ballet technique, so he sees the pointe shoe as a means by which a man can twist a woman into unfeasible pretzel shapes and use her legs as calipers. The image of women in ballet is an ambivalent one, especially the view of the pointe shoe and great choreography for women celebrates the virtuosity of pointe work - all Macgregor does is take it back a century; his endlessly manipulated women are no more emancipated than the 19th century image of romantic ballerinas - it's an S&M update.

I didn't know that. All I can say is...wow.

That's outrageous! But he's not alone. I think in general there's a huge disparity b/t what, say, a dancer gets paid and what a "hot" (?!?) choreographer can garner. Unfortunately, ballet companies that can will actually pay these inflated fees.

Which was exactly my point when I mentioned Tharp's last abomination at MCB. Yes, I do realize that they were selling her name-(and also that of Issac Mizrahi as the costume designer, which BTW, was Abomination # 2, with capital A and Elvis Costello's with a live band onstage ). I can't even imagine the whole Grand Total... Cha-Ching !!

I think value-per-dollar Elvis C. delivered the most--you could "close your eyes and listen to the music"!

Uuh...it wasn't exactly the case...

cubanmiamiboy, tastes do vary widely for all sorts of good reasons, and I would not rush to spend money on a ballet with an EC score. I have, however, eagerly rushed to hear him in concert. He's a very smart and literate songwriter, and someone likely, if not to inspire the next Balanchine, at least to draw in a few ballet neophytes to pay the bills till the next Balanchine does at last come along. (I speak as someone whose first ballet was Robert Joffrey's "Trinity.").

Oh, I believe you Kfw. I myself own his "Blood and Chocolate" and "Momofuku". Sadly, this wasn't the case of Tharp's piece score...

I really love the following insight:

This point seems worthy of several dissertation projects, and probably an international conference or two.

Regarding the points about Elvis Costello: kfw reminds us about the wide variations in taste. In our own time, there are so many artistic styles and languages to chose from. It sometimes seems as though each exists in its own box, so that fans of one aesthetic do not pay attention to -- and may, in fact, never encounter -- alternatives. The more unified artistic world in which Balanchine (and the others on Simon's list) developed is gone. Perhaps that, more than anything, works against the possibility of there ever being a "next Balanchine."

And I was speaking strictly in relative terms! Costello has a lot more artistic integrity at this point than Tharp, even in "lesser" work. Much as many have dismissed Forsythe as a ballet choreographer, maybe it's time to strip Tharp of that status too. I'm cross-referencing Helene's post on the "Fell influence of Balanchine" thread when I say at this point I'd be willing to keep Nijinsky in the ballet club and kick Twyla out! I mean does she get to be called a "ballet choreographer" because she says she is? Or am I mixing up evaluative criteria with analysis (i.e., bad ballet is ballet too)?

I'm inclined to agree. I haven't listened to Costello regularly since the eighties, but I haven't heard anything of his before or since that seemed especially suited to ballet, although I suppose there's no harm making the experiment. Nor could a ballet of his music be expected to draw audiences, necessarily, as even at his peak Costello was never wildly popular.



You don't have to call Tharp a ballet choreographer, which she isn't, but regardless of what one may think of some of her recent efforts she is a major artist with a significant body of work.

If is difficult enough to discover important choreographers in a lifetime that alone witness the first night of a great work. I have however been fortunate to witness the premieres of works by Ashton, Cranko and MacMillan, although some never hit the mark for me.
If we had perhaps forty significant ballet choreographers in the twentieth century things might have been different. Instead we had less than ten. Whilst Petipa in his various guises has become ubiquitous and Ashton and MacMillan and Cranko have moved out of Europe around the globe, Balanchine has not only been imported into companies that have no real personal choreographic status, but also into companies that have a long established repertoire tradition of their own.
In more than 45 years watching and waiting, I have seen a good number of choreographers who never really produced more than one or two good ballets and despite fairly continuous employment never revealed any more than their original promise. I have also seen a hundred plus ballets I wished I had never seen but in the process, I have witnessed many that have enriched my life.
Ballet in all its guises has been marketed across the world for a hundred years and we live in an age where marketing over substance has created far too many ballet companies without thinking that choreographer’s exhibiting real skill and a personal style are a rare phenomenon. So also, are great peformers and that is why ballet In my opinion can never become ubiquitous at a very high standard.

There can never be another Balanchine because the circumstances that enabled his latent talent to arise; only existed in him and the era in which he lived as a young man cannot be replicated.
Balanchine came into the Imperial school and the Maryinsky Theatre at a time when attempts were being made to change the tradition. He embraced the putative soviet tradition of expression through music, as inspired by his mentor in actuality, Feodor Lopukhov. Being musically trained at the Petrograd Musical Conservatory (Petipa trained at the Brussels Conservatory of Music) he had an advantage over many budding choreographers. When Balanchine took the NYCB to Russia, it was not just the choreographic skill that gained him admiration, it was also the athleticism of his company a flowering of what early soviet choreographers had tried to achieve but failed, due to conflicting political influences. When he left Russia, little did he know that he would be catapulted into an arena of giants and become one in the process.

Lincoln Kirstein tells us that when Balanchine reached western Europe, he had the taste of a young Soviet revolutionary. Balanchine’s first real success was with the “constructionist” ballet “Le Chatte”(1926), where we see him working with the founders of soviet Russian constructivism the Russian brothers, Gabo and Pevsner. In "Apollon Musagete", we find Balanchine looking back and forward with its story telling in a minor key his dancers only echoing the attributes of goddesses and his use of geometric poses far removed from the poetics of Petipa he knew in his youth. In "Le fils Prodigue", we see echoes of the use of the methodlogy that soviet realism had sought to achieve.
With Balanchine’s extraordinary musical background he was to find in Stravinsky a creative relationship that was extraordinary if not always straightforward.

Balanchine was entirely a man of his own time and events occurred through others that nurtured, protected and enabled him to create in a manner that no other 20th century choreographer has enjoyed.
It was also George Balanchine’s destiny to be born into a highly cultured family in a Russia where culture had a great status even when it had to fight to maintain it status in the early revolutionary period.
Where Petipa had witnessed the great choreographers of the Romantic period and learnt his craft, Balanchine had Diaghilev to support and encourage his talent from which two great masterworks appeared and the rest is history. Balanchine was blessed by having a number of great dancers at his disposal almost throughout his whole career.

Simon G states, “ But in terms of choreography one can argue that great choreography of the 20th century was a Western phenomenon - Balanchine, Ashton, Tudor, Fokine, Lifar, Nijinska, Nijinsky, Macmillan, Cranko - they flourished in the west…”
Of course the rest of the world had thejr own very old theatrical cultures, but today, you will find superior dancers from the so called east in almost every major company of Europe and the USA.
Fokine, Nijinska, Lifar and Balanchine’s talents were all nurtured in Russia and subsequently in a Russian atmosphere until their talents were established. Ashton, Cranko, Macmillan and of course Ninette de Valois, were inextricably linked to the Russian Ballet and Diaghilev traditions via teachers, performers and being members of the Sadlers Wells and the Royal Ballet as were the founders of ABT and NYCB had teachers of note from a Russian cultural background until fairly recently.

"Not a single piece of choreography created behind the Iron Curtain survived or was taken into western reps pre or post glanost." How could “Spartacus” among other soviet ballets, ever be performed by western companies as they lack the numbers required as well as the performing skills that only the Russian companies possess. What western companies perform, “Le Corsaire” and “Don Quixote” in the manner necessary as we in the west have never produced leading dancers of the stature that Russia has produced, that alone character dancers of the calibre found in Russia and its former territories.

Nature and circumstances alone create genius and it is not enough to create circumstances.

Our societies today appear to militate against waiting to recognise superior talent and the obsession is rather more inclined to the new than with the great.
Other great choreographers may arise in the future but all of the elements that existed in the past to recognise and nurture budding talents are today dissipated by giving too many big opportunities to too many minor talents too often.
Although I am getting older I am still prepared to wait and with hope that someone choreographically exceptional will appear to astound me and you.

You're right, he's always been more of a critical than a popular favorite. At least that's been my impresson. But I also assume that critical favorites have by and large educated, which is to say moneyed, fans, that can afford to follow their curiousity to the ballet. Or so I hope.

I don't know, Leonid, it seems to me that the media is ever on the lookout for new stars to promote. Whether or not it would trust the public to take to ballet dancers for any other reason than athletic prowess is another question.

Education and money don’t always go together, alas. Would that they did.

My thought was that Costello’s aging fan base, which probably has accumulated a decent nest egg by now, might already be expected to have been exposed to ballet at one point or another, and so featuring his music would probably be something of a wash in terms of attracting audiences unless he’s enjoying some sort of vogue with the kiddies that I don’t know about, which could well be true. Last time I checked in with him he was telling Joni Mitchell in Vanity Fair how much he liked Cole Porter and Duke Ellington, laudable opinions to be sure but not exactly in tune with the youthful zeitgeist. I also seem to recall a collaboration with Burt Bacharach.



I think we got a bit spoiled, Simon G. There was so much genius and extremely high second rank talent in those days that perhaps we forgot that such an explosion of talent happens rarely, if at all.

“Whether or not it would trust the public to take to ballet dancers for any other reason than athletic prowess is another question.” Pretty sad if this is the case in which if we have to embrace the exhibition of “athletic prowess” instead of art. It seems the demarcation line that separates art from entertainment is in decline. I see a difference in the artistic expression of physical gifts in Vasilev’s performance as Spartacus, compared to the over physical elaboration of variations in a Petipa ballet. When the latter takes place the art of ballet begins to lose meaning.
Ballet can be entertaining in its various levels of expression but we should still be able to see that it is not merely entertainment; it is or traditionally was, on a different level.
When the lines between a serious artist and an entertainer get blurred everyone is a loser,
but this is what the popular media wants us to embrace.
Regarding the public, who are ballets public? I have seen the Royal Opera House promote and gain publicity for a new work on the basis that it employed music from a rock band and on the first night fans of the music came in some numbers. They did not come again so I do not consider them part of the real ballet public that support ballet companies through thick and thin.
The media is much more engaged in the commercial manipulation of minor talents than in the past and in some aspects is merely an opportunity to raise the profile of its contributing writers or presenters. In this process we see performers raised to the heights of stardom when once they would have had difficulty in being a supporting act. In England is there is a creeping disease of “I helped…………to become a star” or, “I helped the choreographer………..to be come a success”, among dance journalists?
In the past with or without media support dancers achieved stardom by dint of effort and real talent and the media was then, serious independent dance writers recognising the possibility of stardom and without the naked ambition to become a ‘celebrity’ journalist’.
It seems I have been guilty of going off topic (In search of the next Balanchine) apologies.

There was, count 'em, one Balanchine, just as there was one Nouvere, St. Leon, Bournonville, deBlasis, Perrot, Coralli, Cecchetti, (...oops there were two Petipa-like father like son), Massine, Fokine, Ashton, McMillan, Cranko (The British should feel blessed to have such equally brilliant choreographers alive and producing around the same era), Robbins...and now McIntyre, Wheeldon, and Alonzo King etc, etc., etc. Ya know, the 21st century world is too small for one great choreographer.

To make a comparison take classical music performance, it used to be in the old "Columbia Artists' Tours" that the few great virtuosi of piano, violin, cello etc. could tour and make a very upper class living. Now, only a few performers can do this; they are great, but just as phenomenal are 1/3 of the Julliard grads. As a result, a payer with the ability a, musicality and technique of a Jasha Heifetz, has trouble getting a symphony job as back row, 2nd violin, much less a chaired position; there are just too many out there like them.

Why? Several reasons: 1) We live in a global culture and great teachers and instruction exists outside of Europe and the Americas. Now all 7 continents are providing more beyond high level talent. Look at Gustavo Dudamel who came out of an impoverished family in the middle o' nowhere South America, where some bright minds put together a training program for poor young children...and they crank out the talent like it was a factory!! 2) the worlds population has grown so the odds of great talent is as great as not so great talent. 3) We can communicate in real time for little money, and can travel just about as easily.

The same has happened in ballet: the larger the population the higher the likelihood of talent. The more retired professionals who are trained to teach open schools, the more they will produce great talent. The more ballet can be seen and accessed easily and inexpensively, (the internet plus just about any number of devices) the more talent will arise. Its a matter of mathematics. Now, principle dancers are hired to be corps members of ABT...and it shows...corps should look cohesive, not like a group of soloists, which upon occasion, has marred some of ABT's productions.

No longer will we see isolated cases of talent like Balanchine, Ashton and others. We'll have mavericks like Trey McIntyre who has so expanded the idea of "what is ballet" that I do not think we can say, "well, ballet is such and such". It's now ballet-as-foundation, but (thanks and bows to all the modern dance pioneers up to this day), ballet is hip-hop, jazz, tap, release technique, horton, graham, character dance, gesture, acting, musicianship , athleticism, and "whateverthechoreograperimagines" etc. etc. So, much so that, if a dancer traines in 2 or 3 dance types with one main technique as his/her forte', then, the sky is the limit to what they can (a) learn (b) perform. Its not about the rather false idea of "triple threat", its about being flexible and pliable to what one can do for a choreographer and audience.

Therefore, no more Balanchine's, please. Let's have more established choreographers who become known and whose work will last beyond their days. Thank you Mr. B., I loved dancing your work. And, thanks again for opening up our view to how much further the bounds of both classical and contemporary ballet can be expanded beyond even you.

-Philip

In those three Philip, it doesn't even have one.