Category: dance

“No one that I have read has ever been able to explain why the general public likes ballet so much, and why, when other troupes are pulling in half a house, ballet companies are able to fill the seats. I can’t explain it, either, nor, presumably, could Ashton. But he had the magic formula. The stories, the wisdom—that was one part. But the other part was just ballet, this set of apparently meaningless steps and poses that somehow—probably by seeming the noblest possible action of the body, the body that we basically are—ratify the story, make us believe in it.”

What is it about ballet that has always caused the form to be inextricably linked to the adoration of women? John Rockwell says that, no matter how many male dancers achieve stardom, “a gauzy Romantic image of womanhood, no matter how tweaked with grandeur or anger or rage or seductiveness, remains central to the art.” The Royal Ballet, in New York this week, emphasizes the point with a new young crop of principal dancers, including four ballerinas “[representing] different facets of the ballerina archetype, past and present.”

“The world of flamenco lost part of its soul this week with the death of Antonio Gades, who died in Madrid at the age of 67 after a long battle with cancer.” A lifelong Communist, Gades claimed to view dance not as a vocation or an art, but as a means to overcome the societal oppression and poverty into which he was born.

“We in America have been on a thin diet of Ashton for many years (even his own company, the Royal Ballet, has been on strict rations). Granted that dancing Ashton requires a certain specific training, there’s still no good reason why companies around the world, so desperate for distinguished repertory, should shy away from the work of the man who is almost universally regarded as the second (with Balanchine) of the 20th century’s two greatest choreographers.”

“It is 75 years since the death of Serge Diaghilev, the founder director of the Ballets Russes. Though not himself a dancer, choreographer, musician or designer, Diaghilev had as great an influence on the arts of his time as any primarily creative person. He was a true artistic director, not just an impresario as he is often called. Through his knowledge and ambition, he pushed the frontiers of taste towards a new and untried world.”

The Bolshoi Ballet has taken five years to “reconstruct” an early Petipa ballet. “The Bolshoi Ballet’s project to recover this fascinating curiosity started five years ago, paralleling the attempted reconstruction by Russia’s other great company, the Kirov, of two Petipa masterpieces, The Sleeping Beauty and La Bayadere, as he produced them. But is reconstruction of such old ballets possible? And what are its consequences for the art? Revolutionary, potentially.”

The Bolshoi Ballet has had a tough few years. Long-time director Yuri Grigorovich was forced out in 1995. Four artistic directors in five years, a “disintegrating theatre, slipping artistic standards, appalling financial worries, and the rise and rise of St Petersburg’s Kirov under the dynamic leadership of Valery Gergiev. Then there was the Affair of the Overweight Ballerina. “Now things look brighter. The Moscow theatre is undergoing a massive redevelopment. The government has upped its funding, providing 55% of the Bolshoi’s £18m budget. And on January 1 a new artistic director took up his post: the 35-year-old St Petersburg-born, Moscow-trained dancer and choreographer Alexei Ratmansky.”

“The impression I have of today’s Royal Ballet is that of a company that places its highest value on technical precision in the legs and feet, a prescribed sculptural eloquence in the port de bras, and gentleness and gentility even in the execution of bravura feats and the rendering of powerful emotions.  Other factors that one might look for in dancing—spontaneity, risk-taking, the projection of an individual stage temperament—are muted by some sort of consensus decision about dancing that the company has arrived at (no doubt, in part unconsciously).  As happens anywhere under these circumstances, only the great stars—the Darcy Bussells, the Alina Cojocarus—transcend the prevailing code of behavior.  What I wonder about the Royal is how many potential stars (I saw several, especially among the men) are being stifled by it.”

“Los Angeles-based modern dance pioneer Bella Lewitzky, who transformed herself from a powerhouse dancer into an indomitably independent, internationally known choreographer, master teacher and arts advocate, died Friday at an assisted-care facility in Pasadena. She was 88.”

Betty Oliphant’s death this past week leaves a hole in the Canadian ballet scene, says William Littler, but her lasting mark on the genre has already been guaranteed in the form of her countless disciples, her professional children. She revolutionized professional ballet training, exposing her students to the widest possible variety of experiences, both dance-related and not. Denied many of the most basic aspects of a dancer’s development in her own youth, she was determined to turn out the world’s most well-rounded and intelligent dancers. “Biologically speaking, Betty Oliphant had no sons — she had two daughters. But in dance terms, her many children belong to both sexes and number among the most remarkable Canada has produced.”