Dance*is*life Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 Personally I am a Boris Eifman groupie - I go to see every new production he brings here. Some are better than others, but they are always interesting and different and the dancers are amazing - both technically and dramatically. Not a tutu to be seen and not always on pointe, but it is obvious that his dancers' technique is built on classical ballet. Perhaps that is one way Ballet is going? I would hate to see the great classics disappear and have often wondered why people would even consider that - no-one would say that Bach or Beethoven have gone out of style, so why should Giselle or Sleeping Beauty be passe? However, I agree with Naomi above, that good contemporary ballets can be very exciting, whilst some neo-classical works are so similar, lacking in highlights that they fail to inspire sufficient interest. In addition it sometimes seems that dancers nowadays are in danger of becoming almost clone-like. Same perfect bodies, endless legs and divine feet. All of them with legs round their ears, whipping off multiple pirouettes. Some years ago, I saw the Zurich Ballet in Heinz Spoerli's Goldberg Variations. The dancers were all absolutely perfect, but I personally found the performance rather boring - I suppose I prefer a bit of imperfection! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 I do think it is so important to get ballet students in particular, but not just them, to watch live ballet performances and not make do with youtube. There is something so magical about watching a live performance whether it is ballet or plays, musicals, concerts, operas. The thing is that on stage you accept the fantasy of the concept and let it carry you away. I dislike pandering "down" to the young generation, in the belief that they won't appreciate classical music or ballet. We've had discussions previously in Doing Dance about how many ballet students don't actually seem to go and *watch* ballet. And when you think of the number of leading professional dancers who have said something to the effect that it was only when they actually went and saw their first ballet that they really "got" what ballet was, and that was what ignited the spark inside them ... 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 I think culture is impoverished if it's separated too much from its history. In much the same way that I don't especially like the trend of ballet companies concentrating on contemporary choreography, especially contemporary modern dance rather than contemporary ballet, at the expense of the classical and romantic repertoire, I wouldn't like to see orchestras and opera companies jettison - or even just sideline - the great 18th and 19th century works, or theatres stop performing Shakespeare on account of drama has moved on, or Tate Britain be closed because after all we've got Tate Modern and that's all we need. I don't see, really, how you can fully understand and appreciate the modern works without also being exposed on a regular basis to the classics that the modern works rest on. I don't know enough about the technicalities of dance training to know whether students wanting to specialize in modern dance can do it without a grounding in ballet training. But I do wonder whether 7 and 8 year old girls start going to ballet school with the hopes that one day they'll get into a company where they never have to put on a pair of pointe shoes. Since modern-dance troupes exist in some profusion, it seems like unnecessary duplication for ballet companies to be inviting contemporary choreographers to create the same sort of thing that they create for their own troupes. It would be like a symphony orchestra inviting composers to create chamber music for them - it doesn't use the full scope of the orchestra, and chamber orchestras do exist if the composer wants a vehicle for his work. I don't quite know what possesses the people in charge of ballet companies when they hire artistic directors who are known to rather despise the classical ballet repertoire and don't believe that the heritage of a company or a country is particularly worth preserving. Like it or not, ballet is a cultural art form with a very relevant history, and the wrong artistic director in place for a few years can do irreparable damage (which is another way of saying that I have no idea what the hell they were thinking when they invited Ross Stretton to lead the Royal Ballet). Also, just in terms of pure practical sense, these days arts organisations are pretty much expected to pay their way, and, like it or not, generally speaking it's the classics that put bums on seats. When orchestras experiment with whole seasons of basically modern music, they're very often playing to a succession of half-empty houses. I just wonder what sort of position RB will be in financially at the end of the season if it really does programme a whole season of 21st-century works (or whatever it was that Kevin O'Hare was thinking he might like to try). I'm sure it's frustrating for artistic directors to have to serve up regular helpings of Swan Lake and Nutcracker, but if that's what the audience wants, then at least the companies should be in a fit state to do a good job of it. 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna C Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 A post in this topic has been hidden as it contravenes the section of our Acceptable Use Policy which states that contributors should be respectful to others. Anna C On behalf of the Balletcoforum Moderators Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dance*is*life Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 I will never forget when a young but very much up and coming dancer was given the role of Franz in Coppelia. He complained to me that no-one had really directed him in his acting when he was supposed to climb the ladder to look in the workshop window - he didn't know why he was doing so!! I explained the story to him, but was rather shocked that I had to. Surely every ballet student should be studying the great classical repertoire as part of their training! I believe that ballet classes and technique should be taught as part of the whole performing art. So many students learn variations from La Bayadere, Paquita, Sleeping Beauty etc etc without having a clue where the solo came from and where the variation appears in the actual ballet. How can you dance a variation properly if you don't know the ballet it came from? 15 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colman Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 I'm sort of pleased to hear you complaining about this: I just thought the kids and parents in our school were weird. Even a lot of the adult students don't seem to watch ballet. I was totally freaked out when briefly discussing the plot of Coppelia with our teacher during a class and realising that almost none of the other dozen or so adult students had any idea what we were talking about. They'll go to the Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Beauty and maybe Giselle and maybe the annual trip to whatever Ballet Ireland are touring locally and that's it. There's two ladies we regularly see at the cinema broadcasts and that's about it. The idea of popping in a DVD from the RB of an evening is alien to them. The more I think about this the more depressing it is. Where do you get your audience if even the students won't go? 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Macmillan Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 Question: If the 'classics' we have turn out to be not as classical as we thought, is 'the future' to be found in delving yet further and deeper back - vide Alexei Ratmansky's reconstructed Sleeping Beauty in New York, and now apparently in his Swan Lake premiered in Zurich a few nights back? Alastair Macaulay for the NY TImes reckons it's "the one by which we should judge all others." See today's Links or via this Tweet: http://twitter.com/nytimesarts/status/696647469480964098 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLOSS Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 (edited) Surely part of the problem is that students can easily come to believe that ballet is just concerned with the reproduction of classroom steps if they have no opportunity to see them used in performance. That is probably the reason why, in their original form, so many nineteenth century ballets have children in them even if only as spectators. It was part of the training and ensured that students in a school attached to a company came to understand from an early age that ballet is a theatrical art form. Balanchine is said to have created Serenade to demonstrate to his students the difference between steps in class and steps in performance. It is true that anyone can access excerpts of ballets and examples of well known dancers dancing famous solos but unless someone enables the viewer to understand that what they have seen is only part of something much more complex and not necessarily representative of it as a whole they will never understand that ballet is about dancing and that reproducing the steps is merely the starting point. Seeing a recording of an entire ballet is better than not seeing the source of the excerpt concerned but it is at best only a shadow of the full theatrical experience. How or why should anyone care that the Esmeralda solo does not actually come from the original version of the ballet or that the account that they have seen danced by a well known dancer is considered by many informed people to be irredeemably vulgar? The comments that accompany these clips are usually little more than "Wow that's great " or "My sister who is ten has got more technique than that". Why should not they believe that quantity rather than quality is what counts when hardly anyone comments on the distortion of the music to accommodate the performer and the performer's lack of musicality?. In private Petipa lamented the impact that the Italian school was having on ballet. Fortunately for the development of ballet in the twentieth century Fokine felt the same. His Chopiniana is a revolutionary work which evokes the purity of the French school of the early nineteenth century. His ideas on the display of technique dominated the aesthetics of ballet in the West until at least the 1980's. In Russia the Soviet ballet aesthetic emphasised technical feats which is, no doubt, why Danilova described it as no longer concerned with narrative or the creation of mood but as a "display of dance".. The problem at present is the lack of major choreographers able to tame and channel changes in technique so that they appear to have meaning and purpose rather than merely inducing astonishment. If you are presented with a choice between a piece of abstract classical choreography which is acceptable while you are in the theatre but is totally unmemorable once you have left it and a day later seems virtually interchangeable with the works of other choreographers and a genre of dance which has immediate appeal you are going to choose the dance work with immediate appeal. I don't want to see ballet degenerate into a museum art form but it seems to me .that there is a great deal for dancers,. choreographers and audiences to learn from the great works of the past. One of the most constructive things that someone like Kevin O'Hare could do would be to give the audience the opportunity to see a much wider range of the historical repertory than is currently the case. In the case of the Royal Ballet it would mean reviving the Diaghilev repertory, more early Ashton and works by choreographers like Tudor and giving careful consideration to ensuring that the company's next Swan Lake returns to the work's nineteenth century roots in both text and performance style. This might assist young talented choreographers like Scarlett and Wheeldon to see that there are a wider range of choreographic approaches than those of Balanchine and MacMillan. Edited February 8, 2016 by FLOSS 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 (edited) I also don't much care for the tendency for variations to be seen mostly as stand-alone showpieces these days; I assume it has something to do with the high profile of the international ballet competitions and so many of the competitors putting their entries on YouTube. It makes me cringe to see eight-year-olds dancing things like the Black Swan variation, because it looks like just a bunch of steps in a black tutu, there's no real characterisation going on. It's just another thing that makes ballet appear more like a gymnastic or ice-skating routine, and not an art form with history and context. Edited February 8, 2016 by Melody 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 At the vocational schools, do they have classes in the history of dance and other art forms? I mean, not a GCSE subject, but something that helps their understanding of ballet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi4ballet Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 I don't especially like the trend of ballet companies concentrating on contemporary choreography, especially contemporary modern dance rather than contemporary ballet, at the expense of the classical and romantic repertoire I'm inclined to agree with you. Stick to what you do best! Although it has been said that many professional ballet dancers relish the opportunity to dance contemporary works, I remember reading somewhere that it is also associated with an increase in the rate of injuries, as they are asking their bodies to move in ways that differ from their ingrained technical training. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dance*is*life Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 (edited) One of the reasons that I like teaching RAD Grade 7 is because it's in the style of the Romantic period and it gives me a chance to teach my students a bit of ballet history. I always take in some ballet books and show them the pictures of ethereal fairies posing an arabesque on a flower (the flower is presumably strengthened by a metal rod or something). It's so nice to work on something which concentrates on quality and style and not just technique. Surprisingly enough, all these ambitious young dancers who normally think that the height of success is being able to do over-splits, really enjoy dancing it and manage to pull something very lovely out of themselves, that hadn't been there before. My parents, bless them, took me to see everything they could and whenever there was ballet on the TV, I was allowed to get out of bed to watch it. (That was in the days when kids went to bed early!) I remember to this day certain really special performances that I was lucky enough to see, and so regret not having seen Baryshnikov in his heyday at Covent Garden. TV, DVDs, live screening, youtube - there's ballet everywhere today, but nothing can replace a live performance. What will the youngsters today remember? Some YAGP candidate whipping off multiple pirouettes? Edited February 8, 2016 by Dance*is*life 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi4ballet Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 My parents, bless them, took me to see everything they could and whenever there was ballet on the TV, I was allowed to get out of bed to watch it. (That was in the days when kids went to bed early!) That must have also been in the days when there actually was ballet on the television! 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anon2 Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 At the vocational schools, do they have classes in the history of dance and other art forms? I mean, not a GCSE subject, but something that helps their understanding of ballet. The first three years dd at vocational school (11 - 14 yrs) they had timetabled dance studies lessons, which from what I remember covered everything from the history of ballet, through the development and different styles. The pupils are also exposed to a live performance of BRB at least once a term. They also get to see the cinema screenings and if appropriate the touring companies when in the local area. The one thing she sees less of since being at school is contemporary. Our local dance agency and now the CAT scheme have always arranged compulsary trips to live dance performances too for their students. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLOSS Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 Perhaps Kevin O'Hare should push a bit to get some of his company's performances on terrestrial television at Christmas and Bank Holidays..I can't imagine that the BBC would say no at a time when it is being forced to economise, The rather disappointingly jokey programme about dance coverage on the BBC shown at Christmas made it clear that de Valois was not at all precious about. her company and was eager to get it on television to publicise its existence and raise its profile both before and after the war. All those ballet recordings from the 1950' and 1960's which have recently appeared on DVD did not happen simply because Margaret Dale wanted them they happened because de Valois wanted them. It would make a great deal of sense if in addition to streaming a number of performances each season the company showed at least two ballet programmes a year on terrestrial television. After all everyone pays for the company's activities through taxation. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAB Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 I rather think that those ballets were shown because there was a audience for them back then. I doubt the BBC would be enthusiastic about increasing ballet programmes if the ratings remain low. Regardless of who was doing the asking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trog Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 There are more people than ever attending the adult class that I do. At the start of the year, they were turning people away. It has settled down now but we're still getting 20 per class. I remember the days when it was in single figures. Another school that I know of has had to lay on another beginners class especially for teenagers, so I think the future is pretty sound, especially for those of us who play at being dancers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colman Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 (edited) I fear you'll find that's a transient thing, linked to the dance programme thingies. I've seen the ebb and flow of beginners in martial arts linked to the release of movies several times - it's all MMA at the moment, which is appalling, but what can you do? Whenever there's an big samurai movie out I can guarantee we'll get an uptick in beginners in Iaido. They seldom last. Edited February 9, 2016 by Colman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted February 14, 2016 Share Posted February 14, 2016 I rather think that those ballets were shown because there was a audience for them back then. I doubt the BBC would be enthusiastic about increasing ballet programmes if the ratings remain low. Regardless of who was doing the asking. I'd be interested to know what the ratings were for the Acosta Carmen, which after all was shown on BBC4. After all, if a big name like that doesn't attract someone outside the usual balletomanes, what will? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fonty Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 I'd be interested to know that as well. I can't be the only person who things that ballet doesn't come across all that well on tv. Likewise opera, and also televised performances of dramatic plays or musicals. I have seen several live performances of plays on tv, and in every case the actors seem to be shouting and over-acting, although their performances would be wonderful if seen in the theatre. The small screen requires a more muted performance in order to come across well. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 I rarely watch a ballet production on TV and I know many others who feel the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jm365 Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 Yes, I agree that ballet on tv is nowhere near as great an experience as seeing a ballet in the theatre - but it's better than nothing! Everyone on this forum is already a ballet fan, and is willing to make an effort - sometimes a great effort, as I read - to get to live performances. However, elsewhere in other threads people have wondered how to get more awareness of what ballet has to offer and for this purpose, ballet on television is probably the best way available. And it's the only place where many people who can't get to a theatre can have a chance to see ballet. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 Very true jm365. Actually I tend to find contemporary dance comes over better than ballet on TV. Having a larger screen can help too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunrise Posted February 16, 2016 Share Posted February 16, 2016 Yes, I agree that ballet on tv is nowhere near as great an experience as seeing a ballet in the theatre - but it's better than nothing! Everyone on this forum is already a ballet fan, and is willing to make an effort - sometimes a great effort, as I read - to get to live performances. However, elsewhere in other threads people have wondered how to get more awareness of what ballet has to offer and for this purpose, ballet on television is probably the best way available. And it's the only place where many people who can't get to a theatre can have a chance to see ballet. I think that's why I really value the cinema relays and outdoor relays - it's probably as close as you can get to a live performance, and the atmosphere, particularly the few outdoor relays I've been to, can feel quite special. I don't find the performances as over exaggerated on the big screen as I do on tv. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Odyssey Posted February 16, 2016 Share Posted February 16, 2016 The small screen does provide an opportunity to whet the appetite through interesting documentaries such as the Nureyev one that aired over Christmas. I agree that screening productions provides only a limited experience of the medium, but it can provide a stimulus, particularly when it's a new or rarely seen work rather than yet another production of Nutcracker. On a slightly different point about the future of ballet, it will be interesting to see the impact of, quite imaginative and often substantial, educational projects which the major companies have been involved in over the last 20years. During this time there has been a great deal of outreach work which wasn't the case for previous generations. The young people who benefited from the early years of these initiatives are now earning. It would be interesting to know if any research is being done into whether those in their 20s and 30s who attend ballet had some exposure to ballet while at school such as having a dancer in residence or an extended project with a company. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lilian88 Posted February 16, 2016 Share Posted February 16, 2016 I hope that my answer isn'toff topic, but when I think about the future of ballet, as about the future of art in general, what worries me isn't the clash of the old and the new, which has always existed, but the risk that ballet becomes a product and the theaters become factories: risk in my opinion very current. Dancers no longer artists but products by intensive farming and packaged representations ready to eat ...Fortunately there are discordant voices; are not many but they make me hope! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted February 16, 2016 Share Posted February 16, 2016 Well, I don't know about the artists themselves Lilian but the organisations they belong to have definitely become more business orientated. It is definitely all about the bucks, certainly with the administrative staff. I know these are dangerous times for the arts with all the funding cuts and an increasing number of organisations chasing less and less money - at least in the UK - but cutting off the interaction with their adoring public is surely shooting themselves in the foot! Good point Lilian. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted November 20, 2016 Share Posted November 20, 2016 This article was published in links recently and has some interesting thoughts about keeping ballet relevant. The author is specifically talking about National Ballet of Canada but it could be any ballet company: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance/to-stay-relevant-the-national-ballet-of-canada-must-eschew-tradition-and-challengeaudiences/article32809064/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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