Tag Archives: New York City Ballet

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2016: A Year in the Life of Ballet

AIB-art-for-JanAs the old year passes, I thought a look back at some of this year’s highlights with some of the major ballet companies (and not so major) would be a fitting way to look at where we’ve been and look forward to where we’re going. Below are 10 of my picks for a brief look at the world in ballet for 2016.

Starting with the Australian Ballet and in their own words:  “A butterfly flapped its wings … and unleashed a hurricane year of dance that took us inside, outside and upside down; onstage, offstage and all around. Astonishing physical feats, elegant worlds of enchantment: this was our 2016.”

And a look at New York City Ballet’s 2016-2017 Season:

English National Ballet’s 2016 production of Swan Lake:

The Los Angeles Ballet celebrated their 10 year anniversary in 2016 with this documentary:

Several notable Nutcracker productions… The English National Ballet and The Joffrey Ballet Chicago:

World Ballet Day 2016:

The Bauhaus Ballet (aka the Triadic Ballet) turned 100 this year:

And you are never too old to dance or to live your dream…

Happy 2017 Everyone!

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VAI – Keepers of the Dance

Courtesy of VAI Music

courtesy of VAI Music

This morning, I had the pleasure of interviewing Allan Altman of Video Artists International — the label that has been preserving and bringing to the public, many historic fine arts performances on DVD and CD for years. We’d originally gotten in touch with each other partly because he’d found this blog and commented on last month’s entry about the Tanaquil Le Clercq documentary. I was thrilled that he agreed to this interview and found it fascinating to hear how they’re able to do what they do. I thought you, dear readers, perhaps would also be interested in their behind-the-scenes work as well as new releases they’re working on producing. Below is my interview with Allan:

I see by your website, VAI is enjoying its 30th Anniversary. Can you tell me how VAI got started, who established the company?

Video Artists International was founded by Ernest Gilbert in 1983. Ernie had been an executive at RCA Records in the days when they were still doing major classical projects, such as complete opera recordings. When Ernie began the VAI label, he was a pioneer in the field of performing arts programming on home video. It’s hard to imagine it today, but in 1983, the ability to see complete operas and ballets in your home – on demand, so to speak – was a new and exciting concept. Ernie was the President and CEO of VAI until he retired several years ago, when Edward Cardona (previously the company’s General Manager) took over.

As Production Coordinator for VAI, what is your role in producing the various DVDs and CDs?

At the risk of mixing metaphors: many roles, many hats, from soup to nuts. I’m involved, of course, in the selection of the programming (more on that below). Then there are the multitude of issues relating to licensing and clearances, involving the copyright-holders of the videos, music rights, performers clearances, etc. These tasks are divided between myself and Ed Cardona. We also work together on the look of the video packaging, which often involves more research and clearances for photos or other images. Of course, the “main course,” if you will, is the actual video material, which is often of historic vintage. I oversee the video editing and restoration, audio re-mastering, etc.

I see that you produce and publish a variety of DVDs and CDs across different genres in the world of historic artistic performances — from music, opera, ballet to musical theatre and jazz. With so much material out there to choose from, how do you decide what you’re going to produce and publish?

Everyone on the staff over the years has either been a musician or an avid follower of the arts. For example, founder Ernie Gilbert was an accomplished dancer in his youth and is still today a very fine amateur pianist.  So, over the years, while we remain a commercial enterprise and aim to release products that will generate public interest, every potential release has been filtered through our artistic sensibilities. Like any arts-based organization, we cross our fingers and hope there will be enough people out there in the buying public whose tastes match ours! More specifically, there are what we could call “personal projects” – releases that have been tied closely to individual staff members. For example, Ed Cardona is a flutist on a professional level and jumped at the chance to approach the legendary flutist Julius Baker about issuing some of Baker’s recordings. A friendship developed between them and the result was two volumes of live recitals on CD, performances  which had never before been made available to the public.

There is another very important component to our choice of material: the input we receive from customers. We regularly receive emails and phone calls with suggestions of programs to release. Sometimes these are programs which we already know about and are already researching, but sometimes we are made aware of something new, and that’s always very exciting. We are right now on the trail of a Balanchine-choreographed ballet produced by Radio-Canada that had not been listed in Radio-Canada’s database. Thanks to a call from a ballet fan alerting us to the existence of this program, we are now doing the research (I can’t divulge details yet) and hope to include it in our ongoing New York City Ballet in Montreal series.

Following the previous question, however do you go about your research and actually getting the material to publish? Can you describe the process for my readers?

Since the company has been around for 30 years, we already have close connections to a number of archives. Like our long-standing relationship with Canadian Television (made up of two divisions: the CBC in Toronto and Radio-Canada in Montreal), which makes up an important segment of our catalog. From CBC and Radio-Canada, we have ballets with Nureyev, operas with Joan Sutherland, instrumental programs featuring such legends as Jean-Pierre Rampal, etc. In other cases, we search out the copyright-holder of the program and proceed from there. Sometimes the performers (or their estates) need to be cleared separately, and we embark on the detective work of finding these people, a task definitely made easier by the existence of the Internet. Of course, in the process, there is the thrill of connecting with legendary artists of the past – dancers, actors, opera singers – many of whom had never seen their performances, which were telecast live before the days of video recorders, TiVo, or YouTube.

In particular for this blog, can you talk about upcoming Dance DVDs that will be available to the public for sale?

We are right now in the process of releasing a series entitled New York City Ballet in Montreal. These DVDs feature performances from the 1950s and ’60s, many with the original casts, and all with Balanchine present in the TV studio. In fact, we have learned through Joel Lobenthal (co-editor of Ballet Review, and the author of the insert notes for the series), who has interviewed many of the dancers in these programs, that, in the course of these television productions, Balanchine would occasionally make adjustments to the choreography based on his ability to view the dancers from different camera angles – adjustments that sometimes were brought back to New York to become part of the standard performing editions.

The third volume will include a very rare scene from Coppélia that Balanchine choreographed specifically for a 1954; it stars Tanaquil Le Clercq and André Eglevsky. The first two volumes are already available. As per the press release:

This first volume (http://www.vaimusic.com/product/4571.html) features two of Balanchine’s most beloved ballets. A 1957 performance of SERENADE stars Jacques d’Amboise, Diana Adams, and Patricia Wilde. Balanchine himself appears on screen to discuss ORPHEUS, performed here in 1960 by Nicholas Magallanes and Francisco Moncion dancing the roles they created for the work’s 1948 premiere, and Violette Verdy as Eurydice.

The second volume (http://www.vaimusic.com/product/4572.html) includes three complete Balanchine ballets. CONCERTO BAROCCO stars Diana Adams, Tanaquil Le Clercq, and Jacques d’Amboise. PAS DE DIX features principal dancers Maria Tallchief and André Eglevsky. AGON, a work Balanchine and Igor Stravinsky created for NYCB in 1957, includes original cast members Diana Adams, Arthur Mitchell, Todd Bolender, and Roy Tobias, in a 1960 performance. Rounding out the second disc is an interview with Balanchine as well as the Grand pas de deux from Balanchine’s THE NUTCRACKER performed by Adams and Nicholas Magallanes.

Please visit their website, www.vaimusic.com, for more information on their entire catalog of DVDs and CDs — find them on Facebook by clicking here — and to keep up with the latest from VAI, sign up for their special offers and new release alerts here.

 

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Afternoon of a Faun

courtesy of www.rogerebert.com

courtesy of www.rogerebert.com

A new documentary film by Nancy Buirski – Afternoon of a Faun:  Tanaquil Le Clercq – recently had a week long run in San Francisco and tells the story of a brilliant American ballerina whose performing career was tragically ended after contracting polio. A principal dancer and muse for George Balanchine of the New York City Ballet, I think this review by Stephen Holden from the New York Times describes best Tanaquil’s all too short dancing life:

“As you watch grainy kinescope footage of dancers in a mirrored studio executing a pas de deux in the documentary biography “Afternoon of a Faun:  Tanaquil Le Clercq”,  it is almost as though you are beholding mythological deities who have alighted briefly on the earth. Here today, gone tomorrow, they are like rare birds, seldom glimpsed, who remind us of the evanescence of all things, most of all physical beauty and the casual grace of youth. Therein lies a primal attraction of ballet: its evocation of the ecstatic moment is as fleeting as it is haunting.”

Trailer for Afternoon of a Faun:  Tanaquil Le Clercq

Tanaquil Le Clercq and Diana Adams dancing in Concerto Barocco for NYCB

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Ballet in Crisis?

Ballet wallpaper dancer in b_w cropdAlthough we live in an ever-changing world, do we cross the line when something that has been traditionally studied as a fine art — which comes from the soul — becomes a repetitive study of technique only? Increasingly, ballet is being seen as a competition for the best technique, rather than the fine art of “artistry”.  Reprinted for this month’s blog, comes an article from The New Republic titled:  Ballet Is In Crisis Because It’s Turning Into a Sport — a thought provoking article discussing how ballet competitions are playing a role in this. I invite you to read and comment: “The International Olympic Committee recently voted to restore wrestling to the Olympic Games in 2016. One activity that’s never been put before the committee: ballet. Despite its physical similarities to gymnastics, ice-skating and ballroom dance, most ballet dancers would bristle at the suggestion that it’s a sport—and yet, many ballet teachers and directors have embraced Olympic-style competitions in which aspiring dancers compete for gold, silver and bronze medals, scholarships, contracts and even cash. “The curious thing about dance now, and ballet in particular,” Jennifer Homans recently argued in The New Republic, “is that it has taken the form but left the feeling. Artists today seem more attached to form than perhaps ever before—wedded to concept, abstraction, gymnastic moves and external appearance.” This dearth of feeling might have something to do with the growth of competition culture, in which artistry is scored and treated as just another variable. For instance, at the Youth America Grand Prix, the biggest annual student competition, artistry and technique are equally weighted, with each evaluated on a 100-point scale. And some students at many of the world’s top ballet schools, like the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre and London’s Royal Ballet School, are recruited through competitions like the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP), the New York International Ballet Competition, and the Prix de Lausanne. While ballet companies worldwide have been struggling to attract audiences and donors, competitions have been growing ever bigger and more commercial. The last few decades have seen increasing participation and corporate sponsorship, as well as the founding of new competitions like YAGP in 1999 and the World Ballet Competition (WBC) in 2007. At YAGP, the biggest student competition, over 5,000 participants— some as young as nine—vie for scholarships, cash, and even modeling contracts. YAGP was further popularized by the well-received 2011 documentary First Position, which follows six contestants as they make their way from the regional preliminaries to the finals in New York. Needless to say, some traditionalists object. “I don’t like the idea of that kind of competition,” said Carol Sumner, who danced as a soloist at New York City Ballet under George Balanchine. “To be a great dancer doesn’t mean to have a great technique. What you have to be is interesting. Mr. B [Balanchine] said he chose dancers that are interesting to look at, he chose dancers that he wanted to see everyday—not necessarily the strongest ones.” But being interesting to look at won’t get you far when you’re being scored on the height of your extensions and the number of pirouettes you can turn.

(RELATED: America’s Orchestras Are in Crisis, Too)

Competitions may be especially detrimental for young dancers, who haven’t had a chance to develop a sense of artistry. “Kids sitting in the audience, they get wowed when they see a kid do four or five pirouettes or see their leg go over their head,” said Susan Jaffe, Dean of Dance at University of North Carolina School of the Arts and former Ballet Mistress at American Ballet Theatre. “This is pure physical talent and that, of course, is not where the art of ballet lives.” The rise in student ballet competitions might have something to do with the growing competitiveness of all children’s activities, from chess tournaments to spelling bees. Little League baseball—whose “world series” is now broadcast on ESPN—was founded in 1939; North America’s first international ballet competition was organized 25 years later. In The Atlantic last month, Harvard sociologist Hilary Levey Friedman relates the rise of competitive children’s sports to the frenzy surrounding college admissions as students scramble to fill out the “awards” section on their college applications. TV shows like Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance, which have both been running since 2005, might also have played a role in normalizing dance contests. Homans and other critics and dancers lament that ballet is no longer the crowd-pleasing, exciting spectacle it was a century ago. “It is worth recalling that when Sleeping Beauty premiered in Russia in 1890, it was like watching Technicolor for the first time: controversial, visually overwhelming, a new way of seeing,” she writes. This is hard to imagine today; contemporary audiences consist disproportionately of dancers and ex-dancers. “Dancers in competitions are just pleasing each other, pleasing their peers, pleasing the judges,” said Sumner. “It’s kind of incestuous.” This is not to say that ballet is not inherently competitive. Dancers at every level compete constantly—for spots in summer programs and schools, for attention from teachers and directors, for roles and promotions. But there’s a difference between competitive rivalry and formalized competition. Homans writes that ballet today suffers from “too much athleticism” and a “fear of feeling.” What could be more likely to exacerbate the emphasis on technique than training dancers to please a panel of trained judges rather than a general audience?”

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Marina Eglevsky – A Legacy of Dance, Part 1

Marina Eglevsky on the cover of Dance Magazine, January 1969.

Marina Eglevsky, born into ballet royalty, started dancing very early – almost as soon as she could walk. Her parents, Andre Eglevsky, premier danseur with George Balanchine’s American Ballet (which later became the New York City Ballet) and her mother, Leda Anchutina, also a soloist with NYCB, brought to her a legacy of dance that is a fascinating account. I had the great pleasure of interviewing her about her life – from her growing up years, being taught by George Balanchine, and on to when she took the spotlight in her own right as a dancer, first with the New York City Ballet, then onto Harkness Ballet and the Hamburg Ballet with John Neumeier, among others. Her father Andre is also credited with – if not the first – then surely the first in this country, of inviting amateur adults into his ballet classes at The Eglevsky Ballet school. What follows is Part 1 of my interview with Marina.

Q:  Marina, you are the daughter of Andre Eglevsky, widely regarded as the greatest male classical dancer of his generation, and you began studying ballet with George Balanchine and now stage his ballets for other companies. When did you start dancing? Where did your passion for dance come from?:

A:  I just started dancing, my parents were not really involved in whether I did or didn’t – but, once I was in it, then they became involved in how I was working in ballet.

By the age of 2 or 3 I was sitting around in rehearsals backstage. At that point, my father went on a major tour in Europe, and when he was rehearsing or busy – I would disappear and start just dancing somewhere – my mother said she would lose me all the time and to find me, would look for the crowd of people because I would be in the middle of the crowd dancing – I drew the crowd with my dancing.

My father had a performance to do on major network and was running around the studio and somehow I got into a Howdy Doody set and they whisked me away and put me in someone’s office. I remember sitting in this office and there was a pair of pointe shoes, they were really little – I just kept looking at them, and then the lady in the office gave them to me and I put those on and took Balanchine’s class in those shoes until they disintegrated and shredded.

I was allowed to take Balanchine’s class at a really young age and take company class, even though I hung underneath the barre, he would correct me. I was able to reach the barre and so he would teach me turnout, etc.  Everyday I came in with my father, and I would be in company class. By 5 or 6 they started to put me in Nutcracker and then I was more or less taking regular classes at the school and being involved in performing Nutcracker.  After various roles, eventually I grew too big for the party scene and auditioned for Clara and really wanted it, but I was too small for the costumes. I performed in Pulcinella up until 12 or 13 and by then I was a teenager and really questioned whether I wanted to continue in dance since I’d already put in a lot of time and I wanted to get more involved with regular school.

At that time, my father started his own company and school, (while still dancing for NYCB) – The Eglevsky Ballet – and out of his school he would do his own guesting appearances. At one of those guest appearances he had two heart attacks and that was end of his career so when he recovered, he went more into his own school, and Mr. Balanchine said “Please, I will help you with your school and your company and please come and work with my school” (SAB, School of American Ballet). I was around 12 at the time – it was a big change. I thought maybe I should stay around and go to school and be a doctor. I asked my parents what they thought – they said:  we don’t care. So that made me angry and I thought I’d  show them – so I decided to continue dancing. I went over to American Ballet Theatre (ABT) and focused in on a teacher there.

Eventually, Mr. Balanchine did take me into NYCB at 14 – and it was like a 2ndhome there – it was just part of the course. Yet, I was afraid to be only one kind of dancer, a Balanchine dancer – and, I was also under the shadow of my father – part of me wanted to get away from that and be on my own. Rebekah Harkness of the Harkness Ballet – had the kind of choreography I felt an affinity for and it was the kind of repertory I wanted to do – so, one day I went up to the director and asked to be in Harkness – and they ended up saying yes.

Q:  What was your experience like with Harkness – how long did you stay?

Marina with The Harkness Ballet.
Courtesy of Marina Eglevsky.

One of the 1st choreographers in Harkness was John Neumeier, and he’d expressed a great interest in me. At that time I was 15 or 16, and I didn’t understand the implications of a choreographer liking me, otherwise if I’d understood I would’ve stayed with Balanchine. While I was at Harkness, I married a dancer there which my parents were also against – after Harkness folded in the 70’s, we worked a little bit with Eglevsky Ballet and tried to heal and mend things with my parents.

After that, we were taken into Maurice Bejart’s company – we stayed with them until contracts started, and while we were waiting for them to begin, it didn’t feel right to me, but my husband was thrilled. Once I was married, my husband and I had a goal to stay together – which made it difficult to get a job. We went to Stuttgart, got a yes, but it didn’t come through, so then we went to ABT, I got a yes but not my husband, so I didn’t go. One day I was hanging around in ABT in the studios, and a man from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet was there, and asked if we wanted to be in the company, and they had this amazing repertory – like Harkness – so we said sure. So we went there – it was wonderful, one of the first choreographer’s that came to work with us was John Neumeier, and we worked with the Winnipeg company for awhile. John said he was starting a new company in Hamburg, Germany and “would you come to Hamburg?” We both said yes to joining Hamburg Ballet – John’s still there – (he was from Stuttgart, but branched off to the Hamburg Ballet.)

End of Part 1 – stay tuned for next month’s installment.

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Maria Tallchief – American Ballerina

Maria Tallchief and Erik Bruhn, 1961
courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org

Maria Tallchief, considered to be America’s first prima ballerina and the first native American prima ballerina, sadly passed away earlier this year at the age of 88. Well known for her role in George Balanchine’s “Firebird”, she became one of New York City Ballet’s early prima ballerinas, and Firebird became a great success for NYCB.

Rather than writing something about her life, in this youtube clip, I found it interesting in that she speaks about rehearsing and performing and taking on the title role of “The Firebird” for George Balanchine:

“He was very careful about how you use your hands, what they call port de bras, how they move – the hands, the elbow, the shoulder….  the soul of the dancer. He was a poet and he taught us how to react and to become this poetry.”  And, speaking of opening night: “The curtain came down and suddenly the City Center sounded like a stadium after a football game after someone’s made a touchdown, it was unbelievable, screaming, yells of Bravo, this and that….”

And, a moving tribute to her life: