Where Is the Heartbeat in the Balanchine Legacy?
Cpmomcat
has a comment? Very interesting article.
Cathy P
NYTIMES
Where Is the Heartbeat in the Balanchine Legacy?
By JENNIFER HOMANS
GEORGE BALANCHINE died in 1983. He left a world class dance company, dozens of
ballets and a great school. He made New York the mecca of classical ballet in
the 20th century. It was here that he and the New York City Ballet
revolutionized classicism. For four decades, New Yorkers were treated to some
of the most extraordinary performances of our time. To spend an evening at City
Ballet was to enter a gloriously entertaining world. For two hours, you lived
in a heightened state, and left the theater knowing that humanity was capable
of wit, beauty and grandeur.
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Now the unthinkable has happened: at the City Ballet, Balanchine ballets have
become boring, pompous and passé. Since Balanchine's death, what was once so
vital has become dull and "established: a lifeless orthodoxy reigns.
What happened? Balanchine's ballets are not in trouble just because Balanchine
died. They are in trouble because an era has ended. Balanchine was one of a
generation of Russian artists who emigrated to Western Europe and America in
the tumult of World War I and the Bolshevik revolution. Their sophistication
and breeding ran smack up against the raw optimism and energy of America. The
encounter proved momentous: at his school, Balanchine forged a Russian-American
hybrid culture, which nourished generations of American dancers. At City
Ballet, he took those dancers and created a new kind of classical ballet. And
now the Russians, with Balanchine, are gone. The ballets have faded because the
milieu that gave them life has passed away.
In the years after his arrival in 1933, Balanchine surrounded himself with
Russian teachers, administrators and artists, among them Anatole Oboukhoff,
Pierre Vladimiroff, Alexandra Danilova, Felia Doubrovska, Natalie Molostwoff,
Nathalie Gleboff, Barbara Karinska and, of course, Igor Stravinsky, one of
Balanchine's closest artistic collaborators.
Many worked with him for decades; they trained his dancers, ran his school,
designed his costumes. They established a kind of St. Petersburg-on-the-Hudson.
Born on the cusp of the 20th century (Balanchine in 1904, Danilova in 1903,
Doubrovska in 1896, Oboukhoff in 1896, Vladimiroff in 1893, Stravinsky in
1882), these artists were reared in the old world of 19th century Imperial
Russia. But they came of age in the heady days of Russian modernism and
political revolution. Their artistic orientation was Janus-faced: it looked
back to the 19th century and forward into the 20th.
They were the direct heirs of the classical tradition. At the Imperial Theater
School in St. Petersburg, Balanchine and his contemporaries were trained by
dancers who had worked directly with Marius Petipa in the original productions
of "Swan Lake" and "Sleeping Beauty." Petipa was a Frenchman who had studied
with Auguste Vestris in Paris in the late 1830's. He partnered the legendary
Fanny Elssler and performed in early productions of such seminal French works
as "Giselle." Drawn by the wealth and resources of the czar, Petipa was one of
many Western European dancers to settle in St. Peterburg, where he was
appointed ballet master to the Imperial Theaters in 1862. There he carried the
French tradition forward: he transformed the lyrical, Romantic style of
"Giselle" into a diamond-cut classicism fit for the Russian Court. When he
retired in 1903, a new generation inherited his legacy. Balanchine was next in
line; he could practically touch Petipa.
But it was not just Petipa's classicism that Balanchine took from his St.
Petersburg childhood. It is easy to forget that Balanchine — the modernist
who adored America, Fred Astaire and Hollywood westerns — was a child of old
world Russia. In St. Petersburg, dancers were servants of the czar, trained in
the etiquette and sumptuous rituals of the Imperial Court. Balanchine also knew
and loved the majestic, incense-suffused rituals of the Russian Orthodox
Church. He remained a practicing member of the church until his death, and used
to speak of the physical and sensual quality of his religion: purple cloaks,
strong incense, images of angels and the bearded Christ.
One has only to look at his ballets to see the lasting power of these rich
courtly and liturgical influences. Much of his choreography is architecturally
grand, and he was a master at staging formal processions; his dancers had regal
bearing, exquisite manners and uncompromising taste.
But the young Balanchine was also a rebel. He mastered classical dance
technique but found its practice stale and lacking. It was, he once told
Lincoln Kirstein, "inauthentic" and mired in dusty old habits that had nothing
to do with the modern world. He was not alone: other Russians like Michel
Fokine, Alexander Gorsky, Kasyan Goleizovsky and Fyodor Lopukhov had all set
out to re-invent ballet without forsaking the classical idiom.
Many of the artists involved in this modernist project emigrated. They left St.
Petersburg and Moscow, bound for Paris and London. Some went with Serge
Diaghilev before World War I; others, like Balanchine and Danilova, fled in
1924 when the Bolsheviks clamped down on their artistic experiments. With their
departure, the artistic center of dance shifted from St. Petersburg to Paris
and London. Crucially, many of the Russians moved on, to New York.
What Balanchine and his peers created in New York in the years 1933 to 1983 had
everything to do with their Russian heritage and cannot be understood apart
from it. First, there was the School of American Ballet. When successive
generations of Americans encountered these Russians and learned to dance, they
were learning more than technique. Well into the 1970's, when I studied at the
school, we were immersed in an exotic, highly theatrical, Russified world.
Danilova and Doubrovska were still teaching; Molostwoff and Gleboff ran the
place, and Russian was the lingua franca. Doubrovska was mysterious, glamorous
and playfully aristocratic; Danilova wore lilac perfume, long false eyelashes
and trailed lime green chiffon. There were also representatives of a heavier,
Soviet-tinged classicism in Hélène Dudin, Antonina Tumkovsky and Andrei
Kramarevsky, who dressed in darker colors and stood in stark contrast to the
old world luxe of the Ballet Russes performers.
In fact, there was no set "Balanchine way." One encountered a kaleidoscope of
eccentric, independent-minded artists. The Russians were joined by Muriel
Stuart, a free-spirited English dancer who had performed with Pavlova; the
Danish teacher Stanley Williams; and several of Balanchine's American dancers.
All had distinctive, colorful styles and masterly command of the principles of
classical technique. The school was not just a training ground; it was a vital
connection to the vast, varied, radical and classical tradition of Balanchine's
youth.
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And onstage? Balanchine's work has often been described as "abstract," "pure
music in motion" and said to stand opposed to the "theatrical" tradition of
narrative ballets like "Swan Lake" or "Coppelia." True, Balanchine made many
ballets that had no story. True, his dancers were known for their attention to
form: speed, attack and aerodynamic line. But it is a mistake to suppose that
his dances were not deeply theatrical. On the contrary, they were flush with
dramatic allusions: the god with his muses in "Apollo," the women winding as if
across a Greek vase in "Concerto Barocco," the troubled sleeper in "La
Sonnambula," the Temperaments, in the "Four Temperaments." The list is endless.
Balanchine's ballets were never cold plates of raw steps.
Musicality made his dances more theatrical, not less. Not in the "dress-up"
sense of dancers learning roles and "acting out" a plot; rather, Balanchine
created human dramas by setting individuals in clearly defined musical and
choreographic circumstances. When Suzanne Farrell, one of Balanchine's greatest
muses, threw herself into a phrase and wound her way to its end as if it were
her kingdom to command, she made the music and dance live. Why? Because we
watched her take chances and make choices in rigorously restricted frames of
time. To pirouette now or a split second later? To accent a movement or pass
through it? Each decision had consequences for the next step, for the other
dancers onstage, for the shape of the role. Free will, choice, responsibility,
relationship to others: the drama was big, bold and real.
And now? Everything has changed. Many of the Russians have died. This need not
be so bad. Several generations of (mostly) American dancers, after all, were
Balanchine's partners in re-casting the classical tradition. Now it is in their
hands, to pass to the next generation. The problem is that so many of
Balanchine's most interesting and experienced dancers have left City Ballet and
are rarely invited to teach or coach its dancers.
Consider: Allegra Kent, Melissa Hayden, Violette Verdy, Suzanne Farrell,
Patricia McBride, Jacques d'Amboise and Edward Villella all work elsewhere.
This is why the most innovative, lively productions of Balanchine's work are
coming from outside the precincts of City Ballet. Suzanne Farrell's company,
based in Washington, continues to present his ballets with dramatic freshness
and a lively intelligence.
But at Lincoln Center, Balanchine's ballets have been stripped of theatrical
content. With few exceptions, they are presented as formal architectonic
structures, carefully constructed monuments to technique. Peter Martins, one of
Balanchine's most celebrated dancers, directs the company and the school. He
has interpreted the Balanchine legacy in the most restricted fashion: just the
steps, ma'am. Not surprising, perhaps. His own strength as a dancer lay in his
powerful physical technique and handsome but stoic demeanor. Mr. Martins openly
concedes that he preferred dancing in class to performing onstage. Should we be
surprised, then, that his leadership has produced legions of technically
proficient dancers who seem to think that Balanchine is just about doing the
steps, beautifully?
MR. MARTINS and his dancers have no feel for mystery, taste or formal
etiquette; they have flattened Balanchine's exquisite ballets into
straight-talking, "can do" common-sense dances. In their hands, eloquent,
elevated works like "Symphony in C" and "Divertimento No. 15" become timid,
tense and arid; the ferocious intensity and rhythmic wit of "Stravinsky Violin
Concerto" are lost to smooth, glassy ease. Gone are Balanchine's daring,
spirited performers who truly were aristocrats of art. Indeed, the company is
now composed largely of dancers who have come of age in the Martins era. Most
are too young to have seen the company in its glory days. For them,
"Balanchine" is this step-driven, one-dimensional form. Occasionally, a dancer
struggles to find more, as if she knows something is missing. But she ends up
contriving emotion with breathy flourishes and fake ornamentation. The dances,
like the dancers, look pretty enough; but we no longer know what they are
about.
At City Ballet, what Balanchine and two generations of Russians began has come
to a dead end. Balanchine's ballets have become staid, just as Petipa's had
when Balanchine was a young man in St. Petersburg. They now look, to borrow his
own expression, inauthentic. Balanchine's generation rebelled, and in so doing
rediscovered the human drama at the heart of the classical tradition. The task
for the present generation is clear: in the spirit of Balanchine himself, they
must look orthodoxy in the face and say no. They have glorious technique. But
have they the courage to make ballet dramatic again? Not from the outside, not
by pasting "meaning" onto steps, but from the inside — from within the
strictures of classicism. We had better hope so, for the current impasse is not
just sad; it is a form of abandonment. Not just of Balanchine's beautiful flesh
and blood ballets, but of the great theatrical tradition they bequeath us.
Jennifer Homans writes about dance for The New Republic and is a former
professional ballet dancer.
geoffrey kimbrough
> Where Is the Heartbeat in the Balanchine Legacy?
Like a typical New Yorker, the author answers her own question and
then ignores the answer because it doesn't center in New York:
> This is why the most innovative, lively productions of Balanchine's work are
> coming from outside the precincts of City Ballet. Suzanne Farrell's company,
> based in Washington, continues to present his ballets with dramatic
> freshness
> and a lively intelligence.
>
Balanchine was a revolution, and, like all revolutions, eventually comes
time to stop the fighting and enter the Integration phase. Balanchine
alumni all over the world are putting Balanchine into the repertories of
the world's ballet companies, where their subversive influences can mix
with the classics, and with Graham, Tharp, etc. NYCB has nothing to
mix it's Balanchine with, so, with no new Balanchine coming in, there's
nothing interesting going to happen there until some other revolution
starts. A ballet company needs to have something more to do than
"keeping the revolution alive." Revolutions cannot be maintained
in a steady state. The Heartbeat, such as it is, is in the Balanchine
Trust/Foundation, which is getting more and more authentic
Balanchine out into the trenches, where eventually history
will reveal it's ultimate worth.
Drosselmeyer
eve cusson
i'm afraid that we are doomed to watch "constructions" at nycb - interesting
constructions, in the style of christopher wheeldon and others, but nevertheless,
just constructions - the lego school of choreographic design
no heart, no soul
for some years now, i have very seldom left the state theater at lincoln center in
the energized state of the balanchine years
i thought it might be me, ageing out or something
it's not me
it's them
Cpmomcat wrote:
> and blood ballets, but of the great theatrical tradition they bequeath us. Â
PriMoDnc
Good reply, I have nothing to add.
Terpsichorally,
P. M.
geoffrey kimbrough
>
> Like a typical New Yorker, the author answers her own question and
> then ignores the answer because it doesn't center in New York:
I'm sorry, I have to apologise for the cheap shot. While there are some
rather metrocentric people in NY, my comment was unnecessary and
uncalled for. (no, nobody called me on it, I just regretted it the instant
I pressed the Send button.)
Drosselmeyer
Tom
because it isn't intended that way.)
No, NYCB is not in good shape these days. But I'm just glad it's there at
all. It was such a one-man show in Balanchine's lifetime that it could
easily have just disappeared after his death--in spite of the fact that
corporations are, in principle & sometimes in fact, immortal. All you
have to do is scan this group for word about how many other companies have
disintegrated when a successful artistic director is replaced by one who,
for one reason or another, can't do the job. Martins, for all his short-
comings, has held the company together.
In any case, I don't think it could have gone on as it was forever, even
if Balanchine himself had been immortal. Indeed, things already changed
greatly after the move to Lincoln Center, & Lynn Garafola, writing in
_Dance for a City_, suggests that they were never again what they had been
in the Good Old Days at the City Center. But in general, times change, &
if Balanchine were alive to-day he'd find a very different company from
the one he ran before 1983. Dancers have changed: their expectations have
changed (marriage & babies, to pick the most conspicuous example). Demo-
graphics have changed; the market for ballet has changed. Balanchine
himself was always changing. No doubt other examples will occur to you.
Yes, many of the dancers that could have kept the tradition alive have gone
elsewhere--where they in fact *are* keeping it alive. That's bad news for
NYCB, but you know, it's wonderful news for all those other places, & for
the tradition itself, because the tradition is being given a chance to take
root there instead of being confined to New York.
In addition to all this, any company with a legacy like Balanchine's is
bound to become in some degree a museum. I don't think there's any help
for this. Things in museums are not alive; they're like so many insects
on pins. So I suspect it's apt to be with ballet museums, too, & while
I'm grieved to see the Balanchine tradition in New York go the way of the
Petipa tradition in St Petersburg, I'm not surprised.
I have to admit that for me, the old excitement isn't there any more. But
I'm 40 years older than I was in those days, & I cannot be certain how much
of the change is in me instead of NYCB. (And for me, watching a perfor-
mance can't ever be as exciting as taking class, in spite of all my
failings. I'm by nature a doer, not a watcher.) Still, even with all its
flaws & the way it has fallen away from what it was, for me no other major
company can come near it. If I'm not going to watch NYCB, I'd rather watch
Leigh Witchel's Dance As Ever, or the all-too rare performances of Ernesta
Corvino's group, than some of the other big, well-publicised companies.
But that's just me.
Tom Parsons
--
--
t...@panix.com | Never send to know for whom the beeper beeps;
| It beeps for thee.
http://www.panix.com/~twp | --Unattributed
Arrow
performing arts
groups recruit dancers. This is obviously for the level of company
where income earned as a performing dancer represents the greatest
part or the entirety of his/her income from one year to the next. It
was not proposed
for ballet, and may or may not apply to it. It is as follows:
When there is a big audience for dance, a lot of funding, and at
least a
long shot that becoming a recognized professional dancer could lead to
a
gratifying life style, the small percentage of students who have real
talent and real drive and ALSO end up in dance school are ENCOURAGED
to pursue this as a career. As the audience or the funding or other
things about the dance world
dimninishes, the same number of promising students might show up in
dance schools, BUT there is NO encouragement for them to take a
long shot and try a dance career - something that has happened with
acting in New York City where a lot of the best talent does whatever
rehearsal/performance scheduling that can be crammed into
weekend/evening
time slots without regard to what it pays (often free lunch and bus
fare
or even nothing). The State Theater might be renovated or move
its location at ??? affect on the NYCB. Currently performing
Balanchine dancers
might have, in this reduced market, less of a chance of earning
supplementary
dance-related income while employed with NYCB or after retiring from
NYCB, and there is a smaller audience in New York City for dance now
that tourists can see at least samples of the company on commercial
video and many people who lost loved ones or found themselves
temporarily or permanently unemployed because of Sept. 11th concurrent
with reduced funding for the arts, meaning those out of work
or missing a bread-winning family member will budget more
carefully when thinking about patronizing expensive
dance programs.
The above is a generalization, but might give someone an idea
to come up with something better, considering what happened between
Vladimir Vasiliev and Vladimir Putin re the Bolshoi ballet two years
ago - a situation that fits the model.
Arrow
Tom <t...@panix.com> wrote in message news:<ad354d$brn$1...@reader1.panix.com>...
geoffrey kimbrough
> (I hope this isn't taken to be an apologia for Martins & what he's doing,
> because it isn't intended that way.)
>
> No, NYCB is not in good shape these days. But I'm just glad it's there at
> all. It was such a one-man show in Balanchine's lifetime that it could
> easily have just disappeared after his death--in spite of the fact that
> corporations are, in principle & sometimes in fact, immortal. All you
> have to do is scan this group for word about how many other companies have
> disintegrated when a successful artistic director is replaced by one who,
> for one reason or another, can't do the job. Martins, for all his short-
> comings, has held the company together.
Well, just for the sake of argument, I will disagree. I think the Board
and staff has kept NYCB going. The operation of one of the world's
most respected ballet companies doesn't cease overnight. 19 years
sounds like a long time to us ballet dancers, but it's not very long at all,
as Arts Organizations go. Martins' "success" is that he has managed not
to rock the boat, but there's nobody at the helm. I must admit that I
never was all that fond of him as a dancer: So clean, so pure, so, so
*boring.* Perhaps I was just jealous because I'm short 8^) But from
what I've seen (a little) and heard (quite a lot), he's running the company
the same way: Deadpan masquerading as subtlety. It's as if he
invented Botox.
Ok, enough Martin-bashing. He isn't the only man in the world who
isn't the next Balanchine. 8^) So, whither NYCB? I can't be the
first person to think that NYCB will succeed in re-inventing itself
when not even the ballet masters and mistresses have ever actually
met Mr. B, and not a day sooner. Those kids (I guess they're in
the corps now) will be willing to try something new, and if the
NYCB machine hasn't completely collapsed, and there's
no reason it should in the short term, they'll kick butt.
Drosselmeyer
dancertm
<gkimb...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>Ok, enough Martin-bashing. He isn't the only man in the world who
>isn't the next Balanchine. 8^) So, whither NYCB? I can't be the
>first person to think that NYCB will succeed in re-inventing itself
>when not even the ballet masters and mistresses have ever actually
>met Mr. B, and not a day sooner. Those kids (I guess they're in
>the corps now) will be willing to try something new, and if the
>NYCB machine hasn't completely collapsed, and there's
>no reason it should in the short term, they'll kick butt.
I must admit, I've not seen them in years, but I must say in history
all arts go through cycles. For example, musically the Baroque period
extended from 1600-1750, with many good composers, it took THAT long
to produce Bach and Handle. I would assume the same in dance, it might
be we're in an artistic, and creative holding pattern.
eve cusson
i agree with you re: leigh witchel's dance as ever ---
their heart-felt, joyous performances are what dance is all about
eve c
Tom
>
> I think the Board and staff has kept NYCB going.
Okay, you've danced professionally & I haven't, so I'm not going to argue
with you. (Sorry.) So tell me, what does a board do to keep a company
going? Fund raising, & hiring & firing ADs, of course, but what else?
And in those companies that are in trouble, what have the boards (or left
undone) done that got them in the soup? Made a bad choice in hiring an AD?
Nope; can't be that, because in that case it would be back to the AD again.
So please enlighten me.
And dancetm wrote,
>
> ...in history all arts go through cycles. For example, musically the
> Baroque period extended from 1600-1750, with many good composers, it took
> THAT long to produce Bach and Handel. I would assume the same in dance,
> it might be we're in an artistic, and creative holding pattern.
Agreed. I've thought for some time now that the late 20th Century has been
in such a condition. Maybe I'm just showing my age, but I don't know of
any composers around now with the stature of Stravinsky, Bartok, Hindemith,
Britten, Shostakovitch...I could go on but I won't. Music seems to be in
the kind of trough that the 18th Century was in after Handel & before the
new crest beginning with Haydn. (Minutiae, as well as I can determine:
Handel died in 1756; Haydn began to come into his own around 1770, although
I don't know how much of him the concert-going public heard before Solomon
brought him to London in 1790.)
Tom Parsons
--
--
t...@panix.com | The greater the power,
| the more dangerous the abuse.
http://www.panix.com/~twp | --Edmund Burke
geoffrey kimbrough
> Drosselmeyer climbed down from the clock & wrote,
> >
> > I think the Board and staff has kept NYCB going.
>
> Okay, you've danced professionally & I haven't, so I'm not going to argue
> with you.
But you're in NYC, and I'm not, so you have at least as much standing
as I do on the topic of NYCB. Argue away. 8^)
> So tell me, what does a board do to keep a company
> going? Fund raising, & hiring & firing ADs, of course, but what else
Boards do not always hire and fire ADs, in most cases it is effectively
the other way around. But in any case the Board has to keep some
fiscal control over the AD, who might otherwise spend all the money
on sets and costumes and have none left to cover salaries.
> And in those companies that are in trouble, what have the boards (or left
> undone) done that got them in the soup? Made a bad choice in hiring an AD?
> Nope; can't be that, because in that case it would be back to the AD again.
> So please enlighten me.
I didn't mean to imply that *only* the board could make or break a
company, just that, in the case of NYCB, as long as the board, and the
school, and the subscribers didn't all disappear the day Mr. B died,
that Martins' major contribution in keeping the company alive was to
not rock the boat. I will give him credit for that. There are certainly
many people who could have done much worse. My humble
opinion is that nobody could have done much better: The shadow of
Balanchine is just completely overwhelming, such that no other major
talent will be able to thrive there until at least a generation has passed.
Hmm, this sounds like a complete flip-flop from my last posting, but
I don't think it is. I'm just saying that the job of not destroying a major
arts organization in a 19 year span is not that notable an achievement.
But perhaps I'm overestimating the strength of the NYCB organization.
I've assumed that they are not the same kind of mickey-mouse, hand
to mouth, barely getting by organization that most lesser companies have.
If I am wrong, I owe Peter Martins more respect.
In the general case, every case is different. Now, if we are talking about
the specific situation of a company that is losing or has lost it's founder,
such as with NYCB, Ohio, and Houston, who are all under discussion
here, all the boards can do is keep raising money and paying the bills
and hope that the audience will accept and support the artistic vision of
the new regimes. It may take several tries to get it right, such as what
happened with Pittsburgh Ballet Theater in the '80s. The Dallas Ballet
provides the counter example.
Drosselmeyer
Tom
> of Balanchine is just completely overwhelming, such that no other major
> talent will be able to thrive there until at least a generation has
> passed.
That is very possible. There are people who *have* done much better, but
they're all in other companies. To name but two, Farrell is doing very
well on her own, & I've read critics who said Villella's Miami City Ballet
was doing Balanchine better than NYCB. So I think you're right: these
exceptions are physically remote from NYCB & Mr B's shadow. Whether either
of these (or any other NYCB alumni) could do as well in New York is
problematical.
(Amusing imaginary scenario, not to be taken seriously: suppose Balanchine
& the Board had named, for example, Villella, instead, while Martins went
off & directed his own company. I can picture critics damning Villella up
& down & saying, "Why couldn't they have chosen Martins?) :-)
Tom
geoffrey kimbrough
> (Amusing imaginary scenario, not to be taken seriously: suppose Balanchine
> & the Board had named, for example, Villella, instead, while Martins went
> off & directed his own company. I can picture critics damning Villella up
> & down & saying, "Why couldn't they have chosen Martins?) :-)
Exactly. Once again, after we work through all the noise, we find ourselves
in perfect agreement.
Drosselmeyer