Category: dance

It’s been 15 months since Monica Mason took over as head of London’s Royal Ballet after Ross Stretton was fired after only a year on the job. “What is remarkable is that Mason’s honeymoon period seems still to be continuing. People at Covent Garden speak of her with respect, often love. This is the way she talks about the company – as something greater than herself that she wishes to serve. And yet she is a forceful presence: a woman of purpose.”

The director of the Royal Danish Ballet has a mission leading up to the 200th birthday celebrations of August Bournonville in 2005: “to make ballets vivid to the contemporary viewer who may not instinctively find them accessible and appealing.” The company is visiting America, and Tobi Tobias reports that progress is well along towards that goal…

“In the past, Baryshnikov has been openly critical of dancers continuing beyond their prime. He’s redefined “prime.” The works he commissions for himself are by choreographers completely familiar with what he can do physically – which is a surprising amount. Unlike other older dancers, he has not deleted jumps from his vocabulary. ‘I’m doing almost a full class every day, so I have to jump’.”

Throughout the Balanchine centennial, New York City Ballet is “contextualizing this or that facet of Balanchine’s wildly eclectic canon with material by other choreographers, contemporary and long gone. The notion of these ‘tributes,’ as the offerings are called, is far more quixotic than it may appear.” And now a full-length ballet from Broadway choreographer Susan Stroman.

Next up in New York City Ballet’s Balanchine celebration – Apollo. “At the first showing of Apollo in the New York City Ballet’s Balanchine 100 Centennial Celebration—in the curtailed staging, alas—Nikolaj Hübbe offered an Apollo in the tradition that charts the god’s evolution, giving a performance that I consider one of the finest accounts of the role that I’ve witnessed and one of the most illustrious in his career.”

Terry Teachout attends City Ballet’s latest Balanchine installment and is appaled by the orchestra: “I learned long ago not to expect miracles out of the NYCB pit orchestra, but I was shocked by what I heard. The playing of the string section in both pieces was ill-tuned and inaccurate, and in the case of Concerto Barocco the performance, particularly in the first movement, was so rhythmically uncertain as to adversely affect the quality of the dancing on stage. Dancers can’t do their job when they’re not sure what tempo to take. My friend was appalled. I was embarrassed.”

Stephen Moss tries breakdancing, and discovers it’s not for amateurs. “Jerome said my breakdancing debut was “cool”, which I suspected had some derogatory street connotation. He and D.bo then showed me how it was really done – two breakdancers taking each other on in a contest that is part dance, part boxing match, but with no deliberate contact allowed. It is fast, furious and highly ritualised – every movement has some meaning, usually insulting to your rival (grabbing hold of your crotch features at regular intervals). It is also beautiful in its fluidity. Bboys claim breakdancing is an art form – as legitimate as any other dance form, with its own narrative – and you see their point.”

“Denmark is a very small country compared to Russia, France, England, and America, yet, like those dance superpowers, it boasts a world-class ballet company with a venerable academy attached to it.” What, wonders Tobi Tobias, “could be the secret of a ballet academy that has consistently produced dancers of this caliber with such a modest number of candidates to choose from?”

Tobi Tobias continues her survey of New York City Ballet’s Balanchine birthday celebration: “The current production delivers many of the images, but, as has become NYCB custom, without rubato and without their essential perfume. The corps de ballet is neat and lively, practicing exactitude adorned, in the women’s case, with empty smiles. I had been looking forward to my favorite Scotch Symphony moment. Two of the kilts lift the Sylphide high—she seems to be standing on air—and toss her, still vertical, into her ardent suitor’s arms. I recall the exquisitely gentle Diana Adams in that moment. For two unforgettable seconds, she seemed to be not falling but floating—softly, lazily, serenely, swept crosswise by an idle breeze. It didn’t happen last night. They didn’t even attempt it. I wonder if whoever is setting the ballet even knows that moment existed. Or cares.”

History left many such vivid marks – coincidences, close calls and fateful meetings – over Balanchine’s career, and none was more crucial than the timing of his birth. If he had been born in a different generation he would probably have remained Balanchivadze and stayed in Russia. During his last years at school, however, the gilded world of the Tsar’s Imperial Ballet was overturned by revolution. To a young choreographer, the resulting artistic fomentation was enthralling, but along with it came the risks of starvation and political chaos, and in 1924 Balanchivadze left for the west.