(I seem to remember we did this on another thread some time ago - but maybe we should include it here too for completeness.)

Should a ballerina who would make an outstandingly good Odette/Odile but can't reliably do 32 fouettees be allowed to do something else instead, or should she struggle, or should she not be given the role at all?

Plisetskaya did not do them If she would be an outstanding Odette/Odile but does not do fouettés well, then I would change it. Personally, I don't believe that any "tricks" are sacred, and the male dancers change their variations and codas at will, ALL the time! :rolleyes:

To speak up for the male dancers for a moment, our variations aren't anywhere near as well-documented as the women's, but you're quite correct, even the ones that are properly recorded get changed regularly; it rather annoys me.

But to return to the thread question: sure, if the ballerina is otherwise outstanding, change it.

I have seen a number of them change it, especially if they realize that something is going awry...
the idea of the fouettees is, partly, a device to entrance/draw into the web of deception and if the dancer feels that the characterization is being harmed by something that night, I think that most will do something else.

I love when they are strongly and cleanly done, but I don't count them or care if somethiing is substituted for good artistic reason.

[ 06-30-2001: Message edited by: Juliet ]

I'm always torn on this question. (Plisetskaya, of course, didn't cut them because she couldn't do them. She did them, beautifully, elsewhere.)

I once would have argued that you should keep them for the reason Legnani put them in -- it kept away pretenders (those who wanted the Ballerina's Crown without having the technique necessary to wear it). But nowadays, when probably everyone in the corps can do the 32 fouettes, but perhaps not much of the rest of the role, I'd say, chuck it if necessary.

As always, if I have a balletmaster I trust, I'd trust him/her to make the right decision. When it's "The third caller to guess the right number of jellybeans in the jar gets to dance Odette Tuesday!" casting, that's a different story.

OK, I'll be the stickler here. If you can't do 32 fouettes, you don't dance Odile. If you can't hold a balance in attitude without falling off pointe, you don't dance Aurora. And so on...

~Steve

So what have dancers used to replace the 32 fouettes? I've wanted to know the answer to this for the longest time.

Plisetskaya did piqué en dedans turns in a circle. While this is not at all the same thing in terms of difficulty, I would rather see well done piqués than badly executed fouettés. Not saying that Plisetskaya could not do good fouettés, however I have seen far too many otherwise good Odiles not be able to execute what I would consider GOOD fouettés. While it is true that most corps dancers today can do 32 fouettés, doing them WELL, at the end of that long and very difficult pas de deux, is another story. Sorry, Steve, but I just don't think any one trick should determine the value of a role like Odette/Odile. I do not see the balances of Aurora as the same thing, and would expect anyone dancing that role to be able to do those, as they are much more a part of basic technique, involving strength, control, and focus, which every dancer should have. I don't consider that a trick. AND, it doesn't happen in the third act after the ballerina has already done a long and difficult second act, and another long and difficult grand pas de deux in the third act!

I think the fouetees are key from a charactization point of view. They're the ultimate weapon in her technical arsenal and she uses them as the coup de grace in her seduction of Siegfried.

Sorry, I don't buy that Plisetskaya couldn't do the 32 turns. Look at her in the Little Humpbacked Horse video, and you'll see that she tosses them off without so much as a drop of perspiration. Where do you get this idea she couldn't do them? I think this idea was spread in Makarova's book in the 70's. If anything, Makarova had a hard time doing them... she was a magnificent dancer but not the strongest technician. Correct me if I'm wrong but, as I understand it, the version of Swan Lake Plisetskaya danced was the version by Gorsky from the 1920's which didn't use the 32 fouettés and that this had nothing to do with Plisetskaya.

Ralph, I don't think anyone said that Plisetskaya COULDN'T do them. It is that she DID NOT do them.

The Conventional Wisdom runs that she had an unhappy experience with the Swan Lake 32 early in her career, and regarded them as a Jonah ever after. Any confirmation or denial of said CW is entirely welcome! She'd do them other places; just not in Black Swan.

Other ballerinas dancing the same production did the fouettes. For whatever reason, Plisetskaya chose not to do them. Re: Makarova - she had problems doing pirouettes. I saw her last class with the Kirov, and she went off into the corner at one point and was working on them with one of the then young up-and-coming soloists. Then when I worked on the Nureyev and Friends gala, Nureyev spent a lot of time working on pirouettes with her. He kept patting her stomach - seemingly telling her to use her abdominal muscles (she had a tendency to lean back), but perhaps he was doing that because he knew she was pregnant!

Fonteyn was another dancer who cut out the fouettes - at least at the end of her career.

I read this story in Diane Solway's Nureyev biography.
Nureyev had arrived in London and was stirring up the pot. He had just done Albrecht and had replaced whatever was the traditional 2nd act "dance 'til you die" step with entrechat six, which got him a lot of play.
Soon after, Nadia Nerina, knowing Nureyev was in the audience, replaced the fouettees in Swan Lake with 32 (could that be?) entrechat six, as if to say "We girls can play that game!"
Solway said that Nureyev immediately left the theatre in a rage.

They don't make 'em like that anymore Wit and chutzpah. Everything Odile needs.

I don't think whether or not to do fouettes is a big issue anymore. I know in the past, they've been many dancers nemesis. Evelyn Hart turned down a guesting invitation because it asked her to do the black swan pdd. But the 32 fouettes are in so many ballets, not just swan lake... don quixote, le corsaire, paquita, etc. They're what the audience expects, and most ballerinas can carry them off well. In most syllabus, for the advanced level you have to do 32 fouettes anyways. Now, as technique is getting more and more difficult, I'd imagine that dancers are thinking of how many doubles, triples, or even quads ( Rojo?) to include! I wouldn't like to see it go too much further, until the female principals are in a fouette competition...

Actually, I remember reading in Plisetskaya's autobiography "I, Maya Plisetskaya" that she always had a lot of trouble with fouettes, especially in Swan Lake, and that's why she replaced them with the circle of pique turns. She was an incredible Odile though, no one better in that role IMO.

[ 07-06-2001: Message edited by: Roma ]

I'm a little late to this, but want to express a bit of reserve on the notion that nowadays anyone can do 32 fouettes (especially, as has been noted above, in the context of an intense full length role). When Mckenzie's Swan Lake premiered at ABT last year, the company went through at least three different casts before one of their ballerinas completed them. (I saw Tuttle -- one year ago -- and she went off kilter not quite 2/3 of the way through and quit altogether around 24.) This year, Kent made it through 32 at her first performance and quite at about 28 at her second. (It's vulgar, I know, but I did count.) Even demon turners, like Murphy, have been known to flub -- at least according to one poster here at ballet alert who generally liked her debut very much, she took a "cook's tour" of the stage during her fouettes...I never assume a ballerina is going to make it through successfully.


The fouettes are an iconic part of the role so, ideally, they should be there -- but if an otherwise fine ballerina needs to cut them, it makes sense to let her do so. Maria Kowroski replaced them with Pique turns at NYCB, but just the line of her arabesque, shooting straight behind her in Act III, was enough to make her an exciting Odile.

Re. Aurora's balances -- they are a necessary part of the choreography, but even in this case, ballerinas with very differing abilities at balancing approach the choreography in quite different ways. I saw Assylmuratova some years ago at Kennedy Center, and at that performance she barely released her hand more than a few inches from her cavaliers, and rarely had to balance more than a nano-second, very different from other ballerinas who make a show of the balancing or at least raise their arm over their head on each balance. She did not, though, looked rushed or frazzled -- on the contrary, she looked utterly poised and lovely...and I thought it was a good decision on her part. So, even with Aurora, and with the choreography more or less intact, one sees variations...

I'd like to second the "anyone can do them" comment. It's something we often hear/read, and probably in class, they can. But I can't remember the last time I saw a really solid set delivered onstage. There may be a technical reason for this -- IS THERE, VICTORIA???

I remember one ABT principal (not a ballerina, in my book) lurching through Don Q some years ago and I swear, she fouetteed right into the wings and (perhaps) pushed off against the wall and fouetteed out again.

I have seen lots of students, in their last couple of years before becoming professional, rip off 32 fouettés, and even some multiples, in pointe classes. I have, however, seen far more people who can DO them than who can DO THEM WELL, even in class. Most will either have a turned in leg in second, or a flopping foot at least on the last half of them, or horrible arms which look more like they are doing karate than ballet, or ALL of the above. It is really, IMO, the RARE dancer, student or professional, who can not only do them, but do them with rotation, controlled feet, and good port de bras.

As far as the students are concerned, two factors are important here, one being pointe classes, and the other being that they are doing them in an isolated situation, i.e. just the fouettés, not doing them immediately following a very difficult grand pas de deux when there is no strength left in the legs.

With professionals, not only do they not have pointe classes to practice them, but they must do them in the third act of a difficult ballet at the end of a very hard pas! Another thing is that most of them seem to do them to the right, which means the left leg is doing all the relevés. Petipa pas de deux are almost all primarily left leg centered, meaning most of the promenades and balances and pirouettes are on that leg. It gets shot before they ever get to the coda!

Another factor, I think, is that most of the time the ballets which require this "trick", especially in terms of 32 of them, are not regularly in the rep, and the dancers do not get to do them on stage frequently enough to build up the strength and the confidence to suddenly handle it when they get to Swan Lake or Don Q. Doing them in class and doing them on the stage are really VERY different things. When a company is going to be presenting a ballet where several ballerinas must do this, then they need to work on it, IN CONTEXT and ON STAGE, for a long time, not a couple of weeks of rehearsal in the studio and then one tech/dress rehearsal. Sometimes the alternate casts don't even get a full stage rehearsal, much less the chance to work the whole ballet on stage many times before performing it.

Alexandra asked, in her post above, WHY we are not seeing really solid fouettés delivered on stage, from a technical standpoint. I feel strongly that one of the main reasons for the loss of control and center in these turns is the strange port de bras being used these days. The port de bras is not motivated from the back, and therefore those muscles, and sometimes those of the abdomen as well, are not working to keep the dancer centered and the torso strong. Almost all the dancers I see are using a port de bras where the arms open to a flat, palms down second position, and then moving the lower arms in and out from the elbows. ("karate chop" arms, mentioned above.) This kind of movement does not involve the back muscles the way that rounded arms in second and a circular port de bras in the turns do. While a dancer should be strong enough to do fouettés with the arms almost anywhere, including on the hips for some of them, working without the back muscles and the abdominals does not help them gain the strength and control that they need.

Another missing element is the lack of rotation in à la seconde. Besides just the look of the leg turned in, it affects the line of the foot and then the position of the leg on the turn itself. If one is going to do the turns with the use of à la seconde, then that position needs to be turned out!

[ 07-13-2001: Message edited by: Victoria Leigh ]

I would also like to second Drew's comments. I don't think every principal in major companies can pull it off as easily as some may think. I'm not trying to "pick" on any of the dancers, but Kent finished her 32 fouettes far too early in the last Black Swan pdd that I've seen her do, Tan Yuan Yuan nearly lost all control after around 20 fouettes in her Black Swan,
In any case, I think that if Dancer A is a PRINCIPAL dancer in a company, then Dancer A shouldn't be really struggling with fouettes, which IMO are supposed to be (sometimes) the least problematic technical combination in a pdd/ballet.

I tend to think that dancers with the most "gorgeous" and LOOONG legs with beautiful feet sometimes have problems technically when it comes to pirouettes. Of course, Herrera and Guillem are exceptions (I'm sure there are others I've forgotten as well.)

Last night on a PBS program called 'Classic Arts Showcase', I saw the Black Swan Pas de Deux danced by Alicia Alonso in 1968. She executed the fouettes superbly, never losing her center. This I found pretty amazing given the fact that she was losing her eyesight at the time.

P.S. Alonso was also memorable in her solo, executing by my count 2 5-revolution -- that's right, 5 revolution -- pirouettes one right after the other. Incredible!

[ 07-13-2001: Message edited by: Melissa ]

With all the opinions about the pros and cons of Fouettes in my head, last evening I saw on Classic Arts Showcase" a tape of Alicia Alonso in the Black Swan PDD performed in 1968 with the Cuban ballet. Even with the poor camera work (about one-third of the time the dancers were out of camera range!) it was driven home to me what a great technician Alonso was. When I think of Alonso it is always her great artistry, with her technique a second consideration. While watching the PDD I thought.."will she or won't she"--well, she did, and brilliantly. She had the energy of a twenty year old--and she really dazzled, and she performed them "on a dime". I have seen other ballerinasdo pique turns, and one I saw did 32 changements!--but there is nothing to compare with the fouettes when properly done (perhaps with the exception of Nadia Nerina's 32 entrechat-six). It is necessary for the b allerina to dazzle at this point in the ballet--and if she is not up to it---practice, practice, practice.

P.S.--I do not know anything about her partner--his name is Plisetsky--all I know is that he was not quite up to the part.

To me, a much bigger issue than whether someone can toss off turns is... how to they use the movement to express what the character is going through, and how they phrase and dance through the music. I can't stand watching technicians do turns with blank faces or looking like they're grunting, not really hitting the beats of the music and generally looking like an elementary school gymnastics show. I want artistry, movement and performance, not classroom pyrotechnics. For pure technical turning, I don't think anyone could match Yoko Ichino for speed and holding her spot when she was younger. Do I think that makes her the very best Odile? Not by a long shot.

Azari Plisetsky - yes, I believe brother of...Maya.

It seems Mr. Gottlieb made one of my points, in my post above, quite clear in his Observer article Friday on ABT and NYCB. Evidently ABT did eight performances of Swan Lake with EIGHT different Odette/Odiles! This, IMO, is totally absurd, and he seemed to think so too. No one gets to develop the role this way. (There were also eight Giselle performances, with only Julie Kent getting two shots at it.) This kind of casting makes absolutely no sense at all to me. It's like the thinking is 'let's give everyone we have a performance and see if we have an Odette/Odile and then she can do it next time we do Swan Lake, in three or four years'. And of course it's also the effort, as Gottlieb said, to keep everyone happy, whether they are suited to the role or not. Instead of using their large contingent of principal dancers by developing them in the roles they are best in, each one gets to do everything just BECAUSE they are a principal. Stupid idea - IMO, of course

Now that someone has mentioned Ichino, can I ask if anyone ever saw this, quoted in Selma Jeanne Cohen's 'Next Week, Swan Lake'?

"...Yoko Ichino's innovation: four fouettes, then a swoop into a low arabesque penchee and two slow revolutions holding that pose"

Sounds, er, interesting...

Personally I think that if the choreographer or director wants the dancer to do the foutes, she should work to acheive that. If she has something to work for then she will work hard to do those foutes. If after a few rehersals it looks as though she woun't be able to do then I see nothing wrong with altering the choreography to suite the dancer. There is no sense in putting in a dancer who is not as well suited for the part just because she can do foutes, or denying another deserving dancer that just because she can't.

Victoria, I think that what ABT is doing with such ridiculous casting is not so much an attempt to please the dancers as it is to please the audience.

[ 07-15-2001: Message edited by: Roma ]

That very well could be, Roma, but whatever their motivation I still think it is not at all a good idea! :rolleyes:

I completely agree with you, Victoria!
(I of course meant "box office" in place of "audience". )

[ 07-15-2001: Message edited by: Roma ]

I know we're getting away from the Famous 32, but on the octuplet casting concept, I think it actually damages box office. When there are three casts, many balletomanes will want to see all three -- it's doable. When there are eight casts, very few people could afford to see all eight, and I suspect few people would want to. So you'll choose your one or two favorites. It narrows the view. (In addition to what's already said about the harm it does to both dancers and ballets.)

This is only speculation on my part, but I thought what they were aiming for was to get Julie's fans on one night, Paloma's on another, etc, and the twice-a-year crowd will fill the rest of the seats. Perhaps they think that no one dancer has a large enough of a following to fill the house twice doing the same role. How is anyone to grow and develop like this? How long have they had this casting policy?

[ 07-15-2001: Message edited by: Roma ]

The effect of this type of casting on me is pretty much as Alexandra describes -- rather than try to compare Giselles or Kitris I tend to settle for one of each. (ABT standing room this season was $20 on weeknights and $25 on weekends; and it is very obviously not selling well at those prices.) I do think that a company can't let its box office be primarily determined by balletomane habits, but even for general audiences this type of casting is baffling -- especially with a repertory that so depends on featuring principles. Presumably, too, long term box office depends partly on developing "big" stars -- in ballet that means artists, too -- and this does not seem to be the way to do it. It also means that if a general audience ballet goer (say, a subscriber who buys a few extra seats) reads a rave review of Dvorovenko as Kitri and thinks, I HAVE to see her...well, gee, they aren't likely to have the chance. Under the current regime, Kent seems to be especially favored, though; she actually did get two cracks at Swan Lake (with two partners) and Giselle (originally planned to be with two partners). Ironically, the ballets that dancers DID get more than one chance at were the lighter weight Cinderella, Merry Widow, and (dance-wise lighter weight) Onegin; even if Ferri had not withdrawn this would have been the case. (I know Onegin has its champions, and I will concede that if ABT is going to do it at all, dancers should have a chance to perform it repeatedly -- especially given the dramatic and partnering demands.)I don't entirely envy Mckenzie having to make these decisions, but as I recall when the company had Makarova, Kirkland, Van Hamel, and Gregory leading the way, the casting wasn't quite this scattered.

I know this is off the fouette topic, but rather than fake one more remark on fouettes I will leave it up to the moderator to decide what to do .

[ 07-16-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Thanks to Victoria Leigh for the comments on fouttes. Something to keep in mind. I have to say, though, that Mary Carmen Catoya, here in Miami City Ballet, has the most amazingly consistent fouttes I have ever seen. It is not just the number of multiple turns she is able to throw in- it is also the beauty of her passe and standing leg, and the precision of each repeating position. Sorry to be a little off topic- however, I don't think she would have any problems in the third act of Swan Lake.

On the other hand, given the popular misconception that dancers can only count to 8, it's nice to have proof that at least one can count as high as 32.

Too good a topic not to get a bump every now and then...

I agree with almost all of y'all, and certainly about Plisetskaya being just FINE without them -- but want in particular to agree that it's wonderful when hte fouettes are expressive....

I remember seeing Antoinette Sibley, DECADES ago now, throw in doubles as if on a whim. She was a dangerous woman; there was nothing predictable about it, not every 4th or anything like that, just out of hte blue, like she was slapping us to amuse herself -- it made her seem almost psychopathic -- fascinating, absolutely in control of the psychological situation, the prince was just totally out of his depth in dealing with someone as cool, and profoundly indifferent as this.... I'll never forget the look on Dowell's face.

Someone way back when wrote that Plisetskaya did pique turns instead of fouettes. But what she typically did was a pique turn/chaine turn combination, which, although not as demanding as fouettes, is a bit more challenging and certainly more interesting than straight pique turns, especially with her very strong, fast chaine turns.

As for me, I'd prefer the pas de deux without the fouettes. In fact, I'd like to take out the music for the fouettes, as well -- it's so circus-y. About the only ballet in which I find 32 fouettes tolerable is Don Q, and only if the performer does something incredible with them, such as Lorena Feijoo's (SFB) flicking open her fan on the multiple turns, or Nina Ananiashvili's amazingly fast fouettes.

This may not be the right place to post this but I went to the "Career Transitions for Dancers Benefit" last night and saw Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg do the black swan pas de deux and coda (no individual variations). Cojocaru started off wonderfully, very much in character and in command. Her balances were beautiful, and she was was both imperial and dazzling, depriving her poor prince of any chance to think clearly. She started the fouettees alternating doubles & triples but it looked to me like she fell off point in the middle of a multiple pirouette about a third of the way through. The part that really bothered me was that her fouettees were travelling so far forward and so fast that I was afraid she would fall off the stage into the orchestra pit before she finished. Honest - I felt like I was watching a train wreck and had to look away! I know that the City Center stage is small, and she & Kobborg probably flew in just for this one performance but I'm surprised that a dancer with technique as solid as hers would travel so precipitously doing the 32. The audience didn't seem to mind thought, they went wild with applause. One of the elements I always look for with the 32 fouettes is that they be relatively stationary. Is that realistic or am I looking for a perfection that doesn't exist? While Cojocaru's travelling was extreme, most of the Odiles I've seen have travelled a lot more than I'd like.

By the way, I think that Swan Lake is the ultimate role for a ballerina, and that the fouettees are an important expression of Odile's personality - the climax of her seduction of Siegfried. As much as I LOVE the film of Plisetskaya, Odile just isn't the same for me without those fouettes.

While not traveling at all would be ideal, I think most Odiles probably start at the back of the stage and end up somewhere between center and downstage. I don't mind this so much because it's pretty much a natural consequence of whipping the leg front and side. Traveling sideways, however, is a problem. Also, about Cojocaru falling off pointe...it happens. More pirouettes means a larger risk of falling, which is why they're so exciting. Also, if she really did fly in, I wonder if it might have affected her turns--airplanes wreak havoc with some people's ears, which are important in controlling balance.

When she was preparing her first Kitri (okay, not Odile, but fouettes count here, too), one ABT dancer was lured to contain her fouettes by Makarova's promise that, if she stayed within one square foot, she could have an outfit from her (NM's) wardrobe. When we congratulated the debutante on her triumph, she exclaimed, "I did it! I wonder if that offer included her furs!"

Then there is that amazing film of Alonso's Odile doing her fouettes on a checkerboard floor against a background of columns, and veering only a matter of millimeters.

I did notice that Cojocaru didn't travel sideways at all, just straight forward. I think the speed of her fouettees gave her forward motion a lot of velocity and the small City Center stage really intensified the effect. It certainly was exciting!

I hope nobody minds me replying to this topic but I've only recently come across it and I thought it might be relevent to note that yes, Yoko did do exactly that-I personally didn't see her but another teacher that I work with has seen her do it, several times I guess. She said it was pretty amazing. And knowing Yoko like I do, it doesn't surprise me at all!
Clara

I think everyone counts the fouettees. To me, they don't make or break an Odile and I didn't mind in the least when Kyra Nichols or Kowroski stopped midway through and started doing other things to fill out the music. But I do wonder, and maybe some of the dancers here can tell me (us): does the ballerina have a "back-up plan" when she can't finish? Do most ballerinas have something prepared in case the fouettes go awry? How do you decide at what point to stop if you feel you can't finish? Has anyone had a fouettee-disaster: fallen over or bumped into the scenery or swirled herself into the wings?

My greatest fouette memory was Yoko Morishita...the first sixteen were done with every fourth a double. Then sixteen singles, as the orchestra increased the tempo...she whirled right down the center line and climaxed it with a dead-stop on both pointes in fifth. It stopped the ballet for a prolonged ovation. Maybe it was nothing to do with SWAN LAKE, but it was breath-taking just to watch.

Hopefully, if a dancer is cast as Odile, she and the artistic director already know that she can either consistently do 32 fouettés or something equally impressive. Unfortunately, mistakes happen, but the only solution I've ever seen to fouettés gone wrong was a pas de bourrée en tournant into more fouettés, which didn't look like a mistake at all, especially as the dancer had just fallen out of a quadruple pirouette onto the working (right) leg--so it was quite natural to dégagé the left leg, pas de bourrée, and keep turning.

It also depends when the fall out happens. One of ABT's Odiles, in her New York debut many years ago, finished with a 16 count manege of pique turns. That was also, as I recall, that dancer's swan song in the role.

I agree that nowadays almost everyone can do the fouettes and that is why I side with Steve on this.
When you've got people in the corps that can do it why not have the principal put in a bit more effort to get them down properly?
If you can't do them then you don't need to be dancing the role of Odile.

Ancient topic, but I hope nobody minds if I add my two cents...


I've seen a spectacular one, unfortunately. It happened during the English National Ballet's tour in 1999, at the Sydney Entertainment Centre (which admittedly does have a notoriously slippery stage). They were doing a fairly standard Swan Lake, but doubled in size to make it an "Arena Production" -- a terrible concept that turns ballet into a circus. I can't remember who danced Odette/Odile on the night, but after a handful of fouettes, she lost her centre and fell over. She stayed on the floor for a while, then struggled back up and finished the remaining couple of fouettes, switching to her working leg.

It might have been the arena setup, or just the size of the place, but it made for a pretty dsimal experience overall (not just the fall, the entire performance). I admit I've been prejudiced against the ENB ever since...

Thanks, tangofiction. Great story.

It's good to see this thread revived. Especially for those of us who, while diligently counting "26 ... 27 ... 28" etc. -- along with almost everyone else in the audience -- have felt slightly foolish.

Anyone else have any new, interesting 32-fouettee stories?

I pesonally don't count. If you can do 15, 20 or 25 fouettees and do and finish them cleanly, along with anything else you do to fill in after the fouettees, is fine with me.