Nureyev And Fonteyn

Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn in 1965.

Although my parents never caught Fonteyn in performance, they did manage to see Nureyev dance a few times.

My parents first saw Nureyev in 1973. That year, Nureyev appeared in Iowa City with The National Ballet Of Canada in performances of “The Sleeping Beauty”, “Swan Lake” and “La Sylphide”, and my parents drove down to Iowa City to catch two of the performances: “The Sleeping Beauty”; and “Swan Lake”.

Nureyev was still in his prime in 1973, and my parents recall the Iowa City performances with affection. My parents were invited to attend one of the Iowa City rehearsals, which they very much enjoyed—and they witnessed Nureyev, surly and self-obsessed, shove one supernumerary and make a pass at a second (regarding the latter incident, Nureyev was rebuffed).

My parents insist, to this day, that Canadian ballerina Vanessa Harwood in that Iowa City “Swan Lake” outshone Nureyev. Harwood, according to my parents, was the finest Odette/Odile they have ever encountered, finer even than—in alphabetical order—Lesley Collier, Martine van Hamel and Natalia Makarova, all noted exponents of Odette/Odile and all of whom (along with many others) my parents witnessed in the role.

My parents next caught Nureyev in 1978. That year, Nureyev appeared in Saint Louis with the Dutch National Ballet, and my parents flew down to Saint Louis to catch a performance. Again, my parents were invited to attend one of the Saint Louis rehearsals, which they very much enjoyed—and they witnessed Nureyev, surly and self-obsessed, interact contemptuously with choreographers Rudi van Dantzig and Hans van Manen, both of whom had accompanied Dutch National Ballet on its 1978 tour of North America and both of whom had created ballets for Nureyev to be presented in Saint Louis.

Nureyev was no longer in his prime in 1978, and the Dantzig/Manen ballets on the Dutch National Ballet program were not strong. The Saint Louis excursion, according to my parents, was a waste of time.

My parents last caught Nureyev in 1980. That year, Nureyev appeared on the East Coast with the ballet company of Deutsche Oper Berlin, and my parents flew East to catch two of the performances: an evening-length adaptation of the Dostoyevsky novel, “The Idiot”; and a mixed program.

“The Idiot” was an epic ballet, and an epic disaster, hours and hours long, pretentious and preposterous beyond belief. In the final scene of “The Idiot”, Nureyev was called upon to swing back and forth across the stage while attached to a giant tolling bell. The audience found it difficult to suppress laughter; at his curtain calls, Nureyev looked embarrassed.

The mixed bill was a different matter. During the mixed program, Nureyev performed the role of Jean in Birgit Cullberg’s masterpiece, “Miss Julie”—and, according to my parents, Nureyev performed the role superbly. (The role of Jean is acted as much as danced.)

After 1980, my parents never made another effort to catch Nureyev (who, if reviews are to be believed, should have wrapped up his performing career no later than 1977 or 1978)—although my father, on business trips, once came face-to-face with Nureyev at Heathrow Airport and years later again came face-to-face with Nureyev at Zurich Airport.

On both occasions, Nureyev was traveling alone, with nary an attendant or companion in sight.

Nureyev must not have traveled with an entourage—which, given what we know about him, seems in character.

Margot Fonteyn

Margot Fonteyn in 1951.

I assume Miss Fonteyn’s ensemble in the photograph is from the House Of Dior, Miss Fonteyn’s preferred designer after World War II, when she abandoned British designers in favor of French designers; the dress, with its geometric neckline, certainly looks like a Dior creation of the early 1950s.

Films of Fonteyn do little to justify her reputation; she probably had to be seen in person to be appreciated.

My parents had only one opportunity to see Fonteyn perform, and they passed it up: a late-career appearance as Lady Capulet in Rudolf Nureyev’s production of “Romeo And Juliet” with the ballet company of Teatro alla Scala. The year was 1981; Fonteyn was sixty-two years old at the time.

It is difficult to separate Fonteyn the legend from Fonteyn the artist. Worshipped in Britain and (for a time) the U.S., Fonteyn was viewed as a joke in Russia. When The Royal Ballet made its first-ever appearance in the U.S.S.R. in the 1950s, Russian critics, the Russian dance establishment and Russian audiences were dumbfounded by Fonteyn’s abject lack of technique. The reception Fonteyn received, from critics and audiences alike, was withering if not scornful.

George Balanchine, too, always viewed Fonteyn as a laughable dancer, once remarking, publicly, that Fonteyn’s feet resembled spoons.

However, at least one Russian, Nureyev, came to adore Fonteyn. The two became lifelong friends.

Since Fonteyn’s death, we have come to learn more about the circumstances of her life and career (and death). For instance, Fonteyn continued to dance long past the time she should have retired from the stage simply because she was in desperate need of money.

Fonteyn died a pauper. For the last ten years of her life, she was—as a practical matter—supported solely by Nureyev, who paid for her living expenses as well as her medical expenses (Fonteyn died after a long battle with cancer).

Nureyev also paid for Fonteyn’s funeral. Nureyev had remained loyal even after his friend’s passing.

Nureyev himself was to die two years later . . . and had no one to perform for himself the role he had performed for Fonteyn.

Nureyev died utterly alone, with only a grasping, money-hungry sister and niece (neither of which he could tolerate) to help ease his path toward death in his final days.

"The Butterfly Lovers"

Shanghai Ballet in "The Butterfly Lovers".

Watered-Down Petipa

During China’s Cultural Revolution, ballet was the only Western art form permitted to flourish, a circumstance connected to China’s status as a client state of the U.S.S.R.

As many as 200 Russian teachers of dance lived and worked in China throughout The Cultural Revolution, all for the purpose of reproducing the Russian dance industry in China.

The effort did not work: hoards of agitprop ballets were the only results, all of which disappeared as soon as The Cultural Revolution collapsed of its own weight. However, a regimen of Russian training had been put into place that allowed China to develop dancers to a high standard—and to establish new ballet companies beginning as early as the late 1970s, a period during which China was just beginning to open to the West.

According to dance experts, China’s leading ballet company is The National Ballet Of China; the next-finest company is said to be Shanghai Ballet.

Last evening, my parents, my middle brother, and Joshua and I attended a performance of Shanghai Ballet at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Minneapolis (my sister-in-law took a pass, which is why my middle brother, who can tolerate ballet, accompanied us).

Given China’s dance history, we were expecting Russian-style dancing . . . but we didn’t get it (and we were not disappointed on that account).

The Shanghai dancers did not display the strong, supple, heavily-arched backs of Russian dancers. The volatile, expressive, fluttery arms typical of Russian dancers were also not to be seen. The Chinese male dancers had not been groomed to demonstrate flashy athleticism and brute power, the primary attributes of Russian male dancers.

Instead, the Shanghai dancers looked little different than American dancers in their training: speed, clean lines and unaffected grace were what the dancers were going for—and by and large achieved. Based upon what we saw, it appears that American ballet training has now superseded Russian ballet training in China; there was no Russian-style exaggeration on view all night.

The choreography, however, was a different matter: EVERYTHING onstage was a rehash of Marius Petipa. The choreography was either geometric ensemble numbers a la the surviving fragments from “Paquita” or caractéristique dances a la Act III of “Swan Lake”—and nothing more. If a visitor had entered the theater blind, he would have been justified in assuming that he was watching a revival of some quaint 1901 ballet choreographed by one of Petipa’s less-talented assistants toward the end of the Petipa epoch, which had become stale and formulaic in its final years.

Alas, the ballet we were seeing had been created, not in 1901, but in 2001. It was disconcerting to watch such a work, recognizing in every step and in every device a direct steal from the Petipa playbook, with nothing freshened, nothing updated.

“The Butterfly Lovers” was the name of last night’s evening-length, four-act ballet. Based upon an ancient Chinese fable, “The Butterfly Lovers” is a Chinese version of the Romeo and Juliet tale—except the young lovers in “The Butterfly Lovers” are transformed into butterflies after their deaths.

“The Butterfly Lovers” was danced to a sickly-sweet Chinese score especially commissioned for the ballet. The stage décor was very old-fashioned—ancient photographs of original Petipa stagings must have provided the inspiration—and the costumes looked like discards from the original 1927 production of “The Red Poppy”.

The presentation was not offensive; on occasion, it even verged on being fun. However, “The Butterfly Lovers” is not the sort of thing designed to appeal to American dance audiences—it is designed to appeal to a Chinese “Nutcracker” audience.

And this probably accounts for the fact that “The Butterfly Lovers” is being toured nowhere near American dance centers; its presentation is deliberately being limited—by Columbia Artists Management, the American tour coordinator—to cities without sophisticated dance audiences.

We went because we were curious—and we had no trouble sitting through the thing.

However, it must be said that The Northrop Dance Series has been presenting a lot of sub-par stuff the last three seasons.

Shanghai Ballet

We are trying to decide, right now, whether to attend a performance of Shanghai Ballet tomorrow evening.

Shanghai Ballet is five weeks into a grueling seven-week tour of North America, and tomorrow night the troupe will be in Minneapolis.

Two full-length ballets have been brought to North America, but Minneapolis will see only “The Butterfly Lovers” (some cities are getting “La Sylphide”).

“The Butterfly Lovers” sounds like kitsch—but not Monstrous Kitsch, which is what Aix-En-Provence’s Ballet Preljocaj brought to Minneapolis two weeks ago.

There is a difference between kitsch and Monstrous Kitsch. We might be able to tolerate a little of the former; the latter is beyond our power to endure.

Robert Fairchild

Robert Fairchild and Tiler Peck in Angelin Preljocaj’s “Spectral Evidence”.

Fairchild, from Salt Lake City, became an apprentice dancer with New York City Ballet in 2005. Fairchild officially joined the company in 2006, was promoted to soloist in 2007, and was named a principal in 2009.

Fairchild’s older sister is also a member of New York City Ballet.

Below, Fairchild is joined by Sara Mearns and Wendy Whelan in Alexei Ratmansky’s “Namouna, A Grand Divertissement”.

It has become a truism that choreographers invariably request the services of Fairchild when asked to create new ballets for New York City Ballet. That Fairchild is in such demand by the day’s finest choreographers is perhaps the most revealing testament regarding his gifts.

Fairchild, obviously, cannot like every new ballet in which he is asked to take part. In an interview two years ago, Fairchild remarked: “Those European things, they all just look the same.”

“Soirée Musicale”

New York City Ballet in “Soirée Musicale”, choreography by Christopher Wheeldon, music by Samuel Barber.

“Soirée Musicale” was created in 1998 as an end-of-year ballet for the School Of American Ballet, the dance academy affiliated with New York City Ballet.

The ballet entered the repertory of New York City Ballet this Spring; for the occasion, the choreographer created a new pas de deux.

New York City Ballet

In New York for Columbus Day Weekend, we attended the October 12 Saturday matinee performance at New York City Ballet.

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The first work on the program was a new work, Angelin Preljocaj’s “Spectral Evidence”, which had received its first performance in September, on opening night of the current NYCB season. “Spectral Evidence” is set to recorded vocal (and electronic) music of John Cage.

Like everything by Preljocaj, “Spectral Evidence” was extremely peculiar. Its subject matter is witchcraft; it was inspired by the Salem witch trials of 1692 and 1693, convened to address one of the more bizarre outbreaks of mass hysteria to occur anywhere in the last thousand years.

The work is set for four female dancers and four male dancers. The women wear blood-stained white garments and the men wear semi-clerical black. The women are meant to be temptresses—and perhaps apparitions. The men are meant to be pure, unsullied and morally-upright—but in danger of being led astray.

The work is merely suggestive—the women appear to be put to death twice, once by burning and once by being buried alive (although the women also appear to commit joint suicides subsequent to the burnings and burials)—and to declare that “Spectral Evidence” has a plot would be a misstatement: it is a series of vague episodes on the themes of corruption and loss of innocence. The men remain onstage at the end, the women having vanished, while the audience is invited to speculate that the men themselves have become victims of diabolic spiritual possession.

“Spectral Evidence” has not been well-received, by critics or audiences, and it is destined quickly to disappear from NYCB schedules. The work has no choreographic interest—Preljocaj’s subject matter is always the presentation of chic, not the presentation of dance—and its pretensions are laughable, and often unpleasant.

At the ballet’s center was a remarkable performance by Robert Fairchild. Fairchild had clearly captivated the choreographer, and for Fairchild was created a role of startling range: Fairchild was required to be angelic one moment and full of fury the next (Fairchild was also called upon to lip-synch Cage’s “Aria No. 52”; to Fairchild’s credit, he carried it off without embarrassment). Watching Fairchild provided the only pleasure in “Spectral Evidence”. Fairchild is a very special dancer who has emerged as an important artist over the last half-dozen years.

In April 2012, we had attended Preljocaj’s evening-length “Snow White” in Minneapolis, performed by Preljocaj’s own company, Ballet Preljocaj, from Aix-En-Provence. “Snow White”, danced to Mahler, had been a tedious exercise in low-grade burlesque, leaving us disappointed that we had wasted our time. Preljocaj is a purveyor of pretentious kitsch; it amazes me that people in France take his work seriously.

Ballet Preljocaj returns to Minneapolis next week to offer the American premiere of another Preljocaj evening-length effort, “And then, one thousand years of peace”.

In promotional materials for “And then, one thousand years of peace”, the work is described as:

Another epic work inspired by visions of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelations. Visionary choreographer Angelin Preljocaj masterfully evokes what is nestled in the innermost recesses of our existence, rather than prophesizing about compulsive waves of catastrophe, irreparable destruction or the imminent end of the world. The use of intricate scenography and props such as chains, mirrors and flags, as well as the frequent costume changes, lend [sic] the piece an abstract theatricality. Preljocaj uses these tools to unveil elements of our everyday modern rituals in unexpected ways.

If the above paragraph does not frighten away prospective audience members, I cannot imagine what would. (And I must ask: Is someone paid to write such claptrap?)

We would not be able to sit through “And then, one thousand years of peace” without laughing ourselves silly.

We shall not be in attendance.

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The second work on the NYCB program was Christopher Wheeldon’s “Soirée Musicale”, set to music of Samuel Barber.

“Soirée Musicale” was created for the School Of American Ballet in 1998; the ballet was added to NYCB’s repertory earlier this year (when the choreographer created a new pas de deux).

The ballet uses Barber’s orchestral version of “Souvenirs”.

When Barber wrote “Souvenirs” for piano four hands in 1952, he had not envisioned an orchestral version and he had not envisioned a ballet. It was Lincoln Kirstein who encouraged Barber to orchestrate the work and it was Kirstein who proposed that the orchestral version be used for a ballet.

Barber loved the idea, which is why he completed the task so quickly (Barber, usually a slow worker, completed the orchestration only months after the original piano composition). Barber’s publisher, Schirmer, loved the idea, too—and immediately began offering the orchestral score to orchestras throughout North America and Europe, an act that angered Barber greatly. Barber believed that “Souvenirs” should be known first as a ballet score, and not as an orchestral composition, and Barber urged Schirmer to withhold concert performances until the ballet had been unveiled.

Months of wrangling between composer and publisher followed, at the end of which it was agreed that there would be two concert performances—and only two—before “Souvenirs” was presented as a ballet: Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony would perform the score in November 1953; and a London concert performance would be authorized for 1954.

In the meantime, New York City Ballet made plans for a 1955 premiere for the ballet; George Balanchine intended to choreograph “Souvenirs” himself. A series of disagreements between composer and choreographer—Balanchine wanted to create a pure abstract ballet, while Barber wanted “Souvenirs” to receive story treatment—resulted in Balanchine walking away from the project, turning it over to Todd Bolender.

It was a stroke of luck for Bolender. Bolender loved the material—and Bolender, like Barber, saw “Souvenirs” as a story ballet. Bolender went on to create his one enduring work, a major hit at NYCB for several seasons—until “Souvenirs” was dropped, unceremoniously, from NYCB’s repertory, never to reappear.

(Joshua and I saw a performance of Bolender’s “Souvenirs” at Kansas City Ballet in May 2012. Bolender’s ballet is a minor masterpiece, and should be widely performed.)

Wheeldon’s choreography for Barber’s score is purely abstract, along the lines of what Balanchine himself had contemplated sixty years ago. Wheeldon treated the score as an opportunity for a series of incidental social dances, with nary a plotline or storyline in sight.

“Soirée Musicale” is one of Wheeldon’s earliest ballets—Wheeldon was still an active dancer at NYCB at the time he created “Soirée Musicale”—and “Soirée Musicale” probably should not be viewed as a mature work. It is blandly neo-Balanchine in style and effect—even the costuming is neo-Karinska—and shows little of the individuality and skill Wheeldon was to acquire in the following decade.

“Soirée Musicale” was, I thought, instantly forgettable.

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The third work on the NYCB program was Alexei Ratmansky’s “Namouna, A Grand Divertissement”, premiered in 2010 and enjoying its first revival this season. It was the Ratmansky ballet that made our visit to NYCB worthwhile.

Working with Édouard Lalo’s complete ballet score from 1882, Ratmansky threw away the original scenario. In its place he presented a series of sparkling divertissements in which he used elements from the original scenario—sailors, pirates, gnomes, femme fatales (and the cigarette girl)—to comment, ironically, on 19th-Century ballet conventions. The ballet is both an hommage to and a deconstruction of 19th-Century Classical ballet.

There was an overabundance of ideas on display; one never knew where to look, there being so much quick-fire dance action onstage. Intelligence, sophistication, cleverness, wit, freshness, effervescence, joy—and ultimately warmth: all were evident in Ratmansky’s choreography.

A full contingent of dancers was used—principals, soloists, demi-caractère and corps—and the full range of Balanchine vocabulary was on display, starting with the most complicated, demanding pointe work imaginable, all danced up-to-speed. The virtuosity the ballet demands is staggering.

In a mark of his genius, Ratmansky kept the divertissement going for a full hour—and there were no lulls, no lagging episodes. Ratmansky held the audience’s attention tightly in his grip from first to last—and, at the end, the audience leapt to its feet and roared (as only a New York audience can).

“Namouna, A Grand Divertissement” is a masterpiece, and Ratmansky is a master choreographer.

We had seen Ratmansky’s “Russian Seasons” at NYCB in February 2007, and we had seen Ratmansky’s “Concerto DSCH” at NYCB in January 2009 and again in February 2011.

Neither of the two earlier Ratmansky ballets had prepared us for “Namouna, A Grand Divertissement”.

The ballet is worthy of Balanchine—and there is no higher praise.

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On October 12, Robert Fairchild danced the male lead in “Namouna, A Grand Divertissement”. In 2010, the part had been created for Fairchild, but earlier performances this season had featured Tyler Angle in the role.

We were delighted to see Fairchild, and not Angle, dance the male lead. Fairchild may now be the finest American male dancer.

In terms of technique and stage presence, Fairchild now approaches the level of Ethan Stiefel when Stiefel was in his prime—except Stiefel was more naturally ebullient, if not a bit of a show-off. Fairchild has a noble dignity and reserve about his person that Stiefel lacked, and Fairchild can display a wider range of emotion than Stiefel ever could muster. Fairchild did not possess these qualities five years ago, and I strongly suspect that Peter Martins has devoted special care and special attention to Fairchild. Fairchild positively commands the stage at this point in his career; the next five years should bring even greater things.

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Lalo’s exquisite score for “Namouna” should be better-known. It is one of the most brilliant jewels from late-19th-Century France.

The only complete recording of the score is a very bad David Robertson recording from 1995, originally released on the Valois label and re-released in 2001 on the Naïve label. The Robertson disc makes for grim listening.

In 1994, ASV released a recording of the two orchestral suites Lalo fashioned from his ballet score. The ASV disc is better than the Robertson, but nonetheless barely arises to stopgap status: it is a studio run-through by one of the London orchestras, sight-reading under the baton of Yondani Butt, an inexplicable conductor ubiquitous at the time on the ASV label. The ASV disc is hardly worth the effort to track down.

“Spectral Evidence”

New York City Ballet in Angelin Preljocaj’s new work, “Spectral Evidence”, set to John Cage recorded vocal (and electronic) music.

“Spectral Evidence” premiered last month. We saw “Spectral Evidence” at the matinee performance of October 12.

“Namouna, A Grand Divertissement”

New York City Ballet in “Namouna, A Grand Divertissement”, choreography by Alexei Ratmansky, music by Édouard Lalo.

In “Namouna, A Grand Divertissement”, Ratmansky used the complete score of Lalo’s “Namouna”, but discarded the original scenario (which accounts for NYCB’s augmentation of the ballet’s original title, NYCB not wishing to confuse or mislead dance aficionados).

Over Columbus Day Weekend, visiting New York, we saw “Namouna, A Grand Divertissement” at the Saturday matinee of October 12.

We were floored. The work is a first-tier masterpiece, the equal of any George Balanchine divertissement ballet.

In Ratmansky, I believe Balanchine—at long last—has a successor.

It has been a long wait.

More Turgenev

The Royal Ballet, taking curtain calls in Frederick Ashton’s “A Month In The Country”.

In 1976, Ashton distilled Turgenev’s five-act play into a forty-minute ballet.

“A Month In The Country” was recognized as a masterpiece on opening night—and instantly became a permanent fixture of the Royal Ballet repertory. I believe it would be fair to characterize “A Month In The Country” as now a signature piece for the Royal Ballet.

“A Month In The Country” was Ashton’s first important ballet since “Enigma Variations”, created in 1968. It was to be the choreographer’s last work of significance; nothing Ashton created in the final dozen years of his life proved durable—or even interesting.

“A Month In The Country” may be the most subtle, complex ballet ever created. The evocation of character is amazing in its nuance; the portrayal of emotion has a thousand shadings. Turgenev’s entire story is presented, clearly and concisely, in a series of solos and pas de deux. The choreography is brilliant, the storytelling masterful. The ballet is a work of genius.

Julia Trevelyan Oman’s stage designs and costume designs matched Ashton’s subtlety. I have never seen a more beautiful or better-designed ballet setting.

“A Month In The Country” has long been familiar to audiences on the Eastern Seaboard. The Royal Ballet, in tours to the U.S., has presented the work in New York and Washington countless times since 1981, the year the company first brought “A Month In The Country” to America.

However, it was only in 1995 that a second company took up the work. The National Ballet Of Canada added “A Month In The Country” to its repertory that year. The reception—both by the Canadian press and by the Canadian public—was cautious, even chilly. Oman’s designs were singled out for being too detailed and too elaborate; more than one Canadian reviewer described them as unattractive.

Last month, a third company added “A Month In The Country” to its repertory. In the third week of May, American Ballet Theatre presented four performances of the work in New York. The public reception was overwhelming (although I have been told by persons whose opinions I respect that ABT’s casting was spotty).

MOMIX In “Botanica”

A scene from Moses Pendleton’s “Botanica”, as performed by MOMIX.

Joshua's reaction: "I think I've seen this before, about a hundred times."

Rooted In Vaudeville

On Sunday evening, my parents, my sister-in-law, and Joshua and I went downtown to The Cowles Center to see MOMIX.

It was our first visit to The Cowles Center, which opened in September 2011. The Cowles Center is a venue primarily devoted to modern dance, and is comprised of three buildings: the former Schubert Theatre, completed in 1910, and moved from its previous location a few blocks away; the former eight-story Masonic Temple, completed in 1888; and a new connecting structure that features an atrium.

The restoration of the Schubert Theatre was not a success. The original Beaux Arts design was not respected, inside or out, and the auditorium was reconfigured, with seating reduced from 1500 to 500. I have never seen a more dismal or cheap-looking renovation result—and the auditorium is an out-and-out aesthetic disaster.

The new connecting structure is merely bad 1960s architecture, something already half-a-century out-of-date by the time it was designed. I predict the wrecking ball will be called in within twenty or thirty years.

It is somehow fitting that the name Cowles is attached to this less-than-pleasing array of buildings. Over the years, I have observed, as a general rule, that people begin to snort and roll their eyes whenever the name John Cowles, Jr., is mentioned. Cowles, not a man of impeccable reputation, was a bit of a gadfly and a bit of a scoundrel and a bit of a loon. He came perilously close to destroying the Minneapolis Star-Tribune before a reluctant Board Of Directors intervened and discharged him. Even though his views, on any subject, were considered by no one to be penetrating or thoughtful, Cowles interjected himself for decades into virtually every public activity and public controversy in the State Of Minnesota. The man was incapable of embarrassment: late in life, Cowles joined a modern dance troupe and began doing nude scenes—which I am very much pleased I missed. When Cowles died, local obituary writers had a field day, there being so much delicious material from which to draw.

MOMIX’s current piece is “Botanica”, unveiled in January 2009. It is an examination of nature, plant life and changing seasons, and has not enjoyed the success of MOMIX’s “Opus Cactus” (which I have seen, and rather liked) and MOMIX’s “Baseball” (which I have not seen, and would like to).

“Botanica” received withering notices when first performed—both reviews in The New York Times were notably cruel—and creator Moses Pendleton has since cut more than a quarter of the work. “Botanica”, once two hours in length, now comes in at ninety minutes—but one cannot help but notice, even for the truncated version of the work, that the words “pablum” and “shtick” keep cropping up in critical notices all over the country.

Pendleton’s work is sometimes cute and sometimes clever, but an entire evening of his work is not fulfilling. Pendleton’s work is rooted, not in modern dance, but in Vaudeville. Pendleton is a creator of illusionist skits in which costumes and props—and plots and gimmicks—are of far greater importance than dance. What Pendleton does is no different than the work of skit-writers from early television: the creation of jokey five-minute interludes. Seeing fifteen jokey five-minute interludes in succession quickly becomes tiresome.

Pendleton uses music in his work, but Pendleton’s use of music is mood-setting, like television background music, and not connected to dance. Pendleton most often uses New Age Music—and most of “Botanica” was performed to New Age Music (with nature sounds thrown in). The selections were gruesome.

Minneapolis has a very weird audience for dance. The local audience ate up “Botanica”. There were three well-sold and well-received performances. Local audiences, chilly to George Balanchine ballets, go wild for pig slop.

In another week, Pilobolus (Pendleton’s former company) will appear in Saint Paul.

I don’t think we can take a second Vaudeville presentation in such quick succession to the first.

The Cowles Center

The Cowles Center in downtown Minneapolis, used primarily by modern dance companies.

Despite the fact that The Cowles Center opened almost two years ago, we attended our very first performance there only last weekend.

Either we don’t get out much—or The Cowles Center has very poor programming.

I was the party responsible for our visit to The Cowles Center. Several years ago, I had seen MOMIX’s presentation of “Opus Cactus” and had largely enjoyed the experience. I managed to convince my parents, my sister-in-law and Joshua that they would find a MOMIX performance worthwhile.

I doubt any of them will ever again speak to me.

Centennial

The Joffrey Ballet, in Millicent Hodson’s 1987 reconstruction of Vaslav Nijinsky’s 1913 masterwork, “The Rite Of Spring”, which we saw Tuesday night at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Minneapolis.

Two different presentations of “The Rite Of Spring” had been scheduled for the Twin Cities this season, presumably to mark the work’s centennial.

One year ago, it was announced that Béjart Ballet Lausanne would present Maurice Béjart’s version of “The Rite Of Spring” in Minneapolis in May 2013, exactly two months after Minneapolis was to witness its very first encounter with the Nijinsky original.

Such was not to happen. Béjart Ballet Lausanne’s 2013 American tour was cancelled late last year for budgetary reasons.

I do not regret missing Béjart’s “Rite Of Spring”. The Béjart version has an abysmally low reputation in America—and, in any case, I happen to agree with the view often expressed by George Balanchine: “The Rite Of Spring” cannot be staged to satisfaction, and should be appreciated purely for Igor Stravinsky’s path-breaking score.

In Crisis

On Tuesday evening, my parents, my sister-in-law, and Joshua and I saw Joffrey Ballet dance Millicent Hodson’s painstaking reconstruction of Vaslav Nijinsky’s “The Rite Of Spring”.

Premiered by Ballets Russes in 1913, “The Rite Of Spring” was to receive only ten performances, six in Paris and four in London—after which the ballet disappeared, seemingly forever, first a victim of Nijinsky’s deteriorating relationship with impresario Serge Diaghilev and then a victim of war. When Ballets Russes attempted to revive “The Rite Of Spring” in 1921, it was discovered that no one remembered Nijinsky’s 1913 choreography. The result: new choreography by Leonide Massine was commissioned, the original having been deemed “unrecoverable”.

Hodson’s reconstruction first appeared in 1987. The reconstruction is based upon the original prompt books (bearing no relationship to today’s dance notation), sketches and photographs from 1913, and interviews with surviving Ballets Russes dancers, most prominently Marie Rambert. Most dance experts admire the Hodson reconstruction, and consider it the best realization we shall ever have of Nijinsky’s greatest creation.

Nicholas Roerich’s original stage and costume drawings survive, so recreating the ballet’s design was the easiest part of Hodson’s project. The stage designs themselves are unremarkable—Roerich was more design historian than artist—but the costume designs are sensational, based directly upon ancient sources chronicling pagan Russian customs and traditions. To Americans, the costumes bear an uncanny resemblance to American Indian dress, lending credence to the theory that American Indian culture originated in Northwest Asia.

Nijinsky’s ballet is more than historic artifact; it is a timeless work of art, fully worthy of revival. Part I (“The Adoration Of The Earth”) is slow-moving and insufficiently atmospheric, but Part II (“The Sacrifice”) is powerful if not thunderous, and grips an audience’s attention from first to last.

Nijinsky’s choreography dispensed with Classical ballet vocabulary. The choreography is turned-in as opposed to turned-out, upper-body carriage is irrelevant, and technique is gravity-centered as opposed to gravity-defying—all of which has enabled some to argue that Nijinsky was the true originator of modern dance.

I find such a claim absurd. In creating “The Rite Of Spring”, Nijinsky was not creating a new art form—he was merely crafting a one-act story ballet typical of the period, albeit one devoted to primitive subject matter. There is little dance vocabulary that appears in “The Rite Of Spring” that was not already in use in Mikhail Fokine’s “Firebird” and “Petrouchka”.

Given the importance of the original “Rite Of Spring”, it is odd that only two companies have mounted the Hodson reconstruction: the Joffrey and the Mariinsky Ballet. I would think the Hodson reconstruction ideal for the repertories of American Ballet Theatre, The Royal Danish Ballet and The Paris Opera Ballet—and I would think that the ballet would be in constant demand by audiences everywhere.

Nonetheless, most ballet companies, American and European, have ignored the Hodson reconstruction—and both the Joffrey and the Mariinsky seldom remount their productions, making audiences wait years between revivals. Until Tuesday night, I had never had an opportunity to see the Nijinsky original (my parents had seen the Hodson reconstruction, danced by the Joffrey, a year or two after its unveiling). I wonder whether I shall ever have a chance to see it a second time.

The Joffrey performance was perfectly acceptable—“The Rite Of Spring” does not, by current dance standards, demand virtuosity—but I would love to see the Mariinsky in the ballet. Mariinsky dancers would be able to bring a depth of expression to “The Rite Of Spring” light years beyond what the Joffrey dancers were able to muster.

In the pit was a local student ensemble, the University Of Minnesota Symphony Orchestra.

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Preceding “The Rite Of Spring” were two other ballets.

First was a 2012 ballet specifically created for the Joffrey by Australian Stanton Welch, Artistic Director of Houston Ballet. Welch’s was a schlock ballet, set to a schlock score by John Adams, and the Minneapolis audience ate it up. It is hard to avoid schlock ballets these days (just as it is hard to avoid ballets set to music of Adams)—and the Joffrey, always the Western Hemisphere’s leading purveyor of schlock ballets, held true to form by offering the Welch.

Next was the ubiquitous “In The Middle, Somewhat Elevated”, from 1987, by William Forsythe, whose “non-ballet” ballets I have never admired. It is hard to avoid Forsythe’s work these days, too.

The art of ballet has been in crisis since April 30, 1983, the date of George Balanchine’s death. For the last thirty years, choreographers have been operating in three self-limiting and self-defeating genres: (1) the neo-Balanchine ballet; (2) the schlock ballet; and (3) the “post-modern” ballet, in which Classicism is mocked. Until a great figure arises and reinvents the art form, nothing will change: the art of ballet will remain in the decadent state in which it now finds itself, and the audience for dance will continue to dwindle.

The Joffrey is not in good shape. Among regional companies, Houston, San Francisco, Miami and Boston can dance rings around the Joffrey. The two giant New York companies operate at levels countless leagues above the Joffrey’s.

The Joffrey has a very ragtag—and startlingly unattractive—group of dancers. The dancers are ill-trained and ill-disciplined, and would be near-laughable in anything requiring rigorous Classicism (which—wisely—the company has always avoided).

Were it not for the Joffrey’s periodic exhumation of important historic works, the company would be little more than a bad joke—and in need of permanent retirement.

Also in need of retirement are the stringers used to cover dance by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and Saint Paul Pioneer Press.

More provincial coverage of dance cannot be found elsewhere.

Vaslav Nijinsky, 1911

Vaslav Nijinsky, captured in Monte Carlo in 1911 by Igor Stravinsky.

Last night, we saw Joffrey Ballet’s reconstruction of the original version of the 1913 Stravinsky/Nijinsky ballet, “The Rite Of Spring”.

Harlequinade

“Harlequinade”, George Balanchine’s only commedia dell’arte ballet, which the master created in 1965.

“Harlequinade” has always divided Balanchine devotees. Some view the work as an affectionate remembrance of the Mariinsky—and belated tribute to Marius Petipa—from Balanchine’s student days; others see “Harlequinade” as a failed reworking of a ballet that probably was not very good when first unveiled in 1900 by Petipa.

The ballet is not often staged, and performances offered subsequent to Balanchine’s death have been criticized across the board for failing to capture the spirit of the work. Perhaps only Balanchine himself knew how to realize the ballet’s magic.

I have never seen “Harlequinade”.

My parents saw “Harlequinade” once, many years ago, in a revival supervised by Balanchine himself. They do not recall the ballet with any special fondness.

What my parents remember most about that “Harlequinade” performance was a complicated Act II ensemble dance that included thirty or so child dancers, all appearing to be five years old—or younger. The child dancers had to perform very basic steps from the ballet vocabulary while circling the stage, and the second dancer in line completely stole the show, overdoing her steps to such an extreme, having the time of her life, that the New York City Ballet audience started applauding her every move.

At the conclusion of the number, the New York State Theater audience erupted as only a New York audience can, and would not allow the performance to continue until the tiny dancer was granted a solo bow.

My parents heard that the child dancer in question was replaced after that performance. Hers had been very un-Balanchine-like behavior.

“Good Clothes Open All Doors”

Debatable as is that proposition, the obverse is unquestionably true: bad clothes slam them shut again.

The ridiculous costuming devised for the male dancer in William Forsythe’s “Herman Schmerman Pas de Deux”, danced last week by New York City Ballet in Minneapolis, made it hard for us to stifle giggles.

Whatever one was to call the male dancer’s outfit, it looked like nothing so much as a cheerleader’s skirt.

George Balanchine was always extremely particular about how his dancers were dressed and presented. During the Balanchine era, NYCB was the finest-dressed ballet company on the planet.

I don’t think Balanchine would have allowed this costume to make it onto the stage.

No Progress, No Journey, No Destination, No Arrival

On Wednesday evening, my parents, my sister-in-law, and Joshua and I went downtown to attend a performance of New York City Ballet, visiting Minneapolis for the first time since 1984.

In 2011, for domestic touring purposes, New York City Ballet created New York City Ballet Moves, an endeavor by which the company sends out to cities large and small a less-than-whole contingent of dancers and musicians, all for the purpose of familiarizing persons outside New York with NYCB’s incomparable repertory and dancers. Major, large-scale works from the gigantic NYCB repertory cannot be accommodated by New York City Ballet Moves, but important smaller-scale works that are amenable to touring are part of the package—and NYCB sends a representative repertory as well as a representative sampling of dancers to NYCB Moves venues (among “name” dancers appearing in Minneapolis were Robert Fairchild, Sterling Hyltin, Maria Kowroski and Tiler Peck).

Christopher Wheeldon’s “Polyphonia” was the first work on the NYCB program.

Created in 2001 for NYCB, and set to piano music of György Ligeti, “Polyphonia” is considered by many to be Wheeldon’s finest ballet. The ballet has traveled around the world in the eleven years since its premiere, been danced by countless companies, and is now viewed as the quintessential “abstract” Wheeldon ballet.

Whether there is anything original in “Polyphonia” is another matter. Set for eight dancers, “Polyphonia” is for all practical purposes a George Balanchine leotard ballet, drawing its inspiration from Balanchine’s spare late-1950s/early-1960s works set to thorny Stravinsky scores written after Arnold Schoenberg’s death. (Stravinsky abandoned Neo-Classicism and adopted Second Viennese School practices once Schoenberg was gone from the scene, and Alban Berg and Anton Webern safely in their graves.)

I enjoyed “Polyphonia” immensely—I enjoyed it more than any other work on Wednesday night’s program—but “Polyphonia” cannot be discussed without throwing out the word “derivative” left and right. There was nothing about “Polyphonia” that was NOT derivative, from its music to its costuming to its lighting to its construction to its steps.

My father’s assessment, offered once the curtain fell: “Tough choice: I can’t decide whether it was more watered-down Agon or watered-down Episodes. I suppose I must declare the matter a draw.”

However one apportions its source material between “Agon” and “Episodes”, “Polyphonia” received a splendid performance from NYCB dancers. NYCB is a company that can dance rings around any other company, and its virtuosity was in full flower Wednesday night.

After “Polyphonia” came the only Balanchine work of the night, “Duo Concertant”, which Josh and I had seen for the first time in January 2011. One of the lasting legacies of NYCB’s 1972 Stravinsky Festival, held one year after the composer’s death, “Duo Concertant” is a two-dancer ballet in which the dancers—famously—spend almost as much time listening to Duo Concertant, a composition for violin and piano written in 1931 and premiered in 1932, as dancing to it.

After the Balanchine, the rest of the evening was downhill—and precipitously so.

The low point was William Forsythe’s “Herman Schmerman Pas de Deux”, set to electronic music by Thom Willems, a Dutch composer (born 1955) whose music is an unthreatening, pastel version of the music of Louis Andriessen, Willems’s primary composition teacher.

In 1992, Forsythe created a five-dancer ballet for NYCB titled “Herman Schmerman”. The following year, Forsythe added a pas de deux to “Herman Schmerman”—and, in 1999, he withdrew the ballet entirely except for its belated add-on, the pas de deux, now widely-performed as a standalone work in its own right.

When he withdrew the ballet, Forsythe should have withdrawn the pas de deux as well—it looks as if it had been created for the Grand Ole Opry, and was intended to be part of some ancient Minnie Pearl cornball comedy skit—although the Minneapolis audience appeared to be fascinated by the piece, primarily because the male dancer, for reasons unknown, was costumed in a shiny gold cheerleader’s skirt.

Peter Martins’s “Zakouski” was next. Zakouski is the Russian word for hors d'oeuvres, and “Zakouski” is a pas de deux set to four short pieces of Russian music, one each by Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky.

In many ways, “Zakouski” was sort of cute. It was sort of entertaining, and sort of charming, and even sort of Russian (although I could have done with less thigh-slapping). “Zakouski” was also, however, completely synthetic—and Las Vegas through and through. It must have been the sort of thing performed in upscale nightclubs in the 1940s.

Last on Wednesday evening’s program was Martins’s “Hallelujah Junction”, set to music of John Adams.

Like all Martins ballets, “Hallelujah Junction” was empty. The ballet’s saving grace, if there was one, was that it was energetic—and an eager display of energy is always preferable to a vacuum. The energy of “Hallelujah Junction” probably accounts for its current semi-popularity, although no sane person could possibly believe that “Hallelujah Junction” will be danced fifty years from now.

Martins created “Hallelujah Junction” in 2001 for the Royal Danish Ballet; the ballet was first presented by NYCB the following year. A black-and-white leotard ballet, it calls for eleven dancers, all of whom get a vigorous workout during its many gyrations.

One of the problems with “Hallelujah Junction” is its weak score. Adams is a composer of “designer music”, music created to provide a pleasant but vapid background. There is nothing challenging in Adams’s music, nothing penetrating, nothing that stops the listener’s heartbeat, nothing that engages the listener’s brain, nothing that requires the listener’s full attention.

Adams’s music is, fundamentally, trivial—as Pierre Boulez has been thoughtful enough to point out over and over—and very much representative of our peculiar times. There is much spinning of wheels, and much exertion of energy—but no progress, no journey, no destination, no arrival. It’s facile, depth-free stuff, having more to do with popular entertainment than high art.

Fifty years from now, people will find it difficult to believe that Adams was once viewed, in some quarters, as an important composer. Just as we marvel today that Morton Gould was taken seriously as a composer in the 1940s and 1950s, persons two and three generations from now will ask themselves, “How could our grandparents have not seen through such piles of piffle?”

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Disappointing as was the NYCB Minneapolis program—and it was, most assuredly, disappointing—and unrewarding as was the company’s first visit to the Twin Cities in 28 years, we would not have missed NYCB for any reason. NYCB was the main event of the Twin Cities 2012-2013 dance season.

The Joffrey Ballet has yet to come, and we may attend performances by one or two modern dance troupes—but the Twin Cities dance season is, basically, over, at least for us. (The ballet company from Lausanne, Switzerland, has cancelled—for financial reasons—its scheduled visit to Minneapolis.)

Josh and I certainly regret having had to miss—owing to my having come down with influenza—three NYCB programs we had planned to catch in New York earlier this month.

We missed six Balanchine/Stravinsky ballets: “Momentum pro Gesualdo”; “Movements For Piano And Orchestra”; “Stravinsky Violin Concerto”; “Apollo”; “Agon”; and “Rubies”.

We also missed Balanchine’s “Symphony In C” and Wheeldon’s new ballet, “Carillons”, as well as a seldom-revived Jerome Robbins work, “Moves”.

That was to be our primary bout of ballet-going for the year.

And we had to miss out.

NYCB’s Minneapolis visit was not a satisfactory substitute for what we had planned to see in New York.

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Minneapolis is said to have the best modern-dance audience in the country outside New York.

Whether or not such reputation comports with truth, the claim is one of the platitudes of our day.

Minneapolis, on the other hand, does not have a serious ballet audience—and it certainly does not have a Balanchine audience. On Wednesday evening, “Duo Concertant” earned the most muted applause of the night, while the Forsythe and Martins ballets, nothing more than goop, received the most enthusiastic and sustained applause.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune did not even bother to review NYCB’s Minneapolis performances. The Saint Paul Pioneer-Press did publish a review—and the review was laughable, dismissing the Balanchine ballet in half a sentence (“feel[ing] of excessive formalism”, “didn’t feel as sharply focused”) while heaping praise on the Forsythe and Martins mud puddles.

If the Twin Cities were home to a major regional ballet company nurtured on Balanchine repertory, such embarrassments might be avoided.

However, in the Great Plains states, only Kansas City and Tulsa have managed to sustain major ballet companies for any reasonable period of time.

Elsewhere on The Great Plains, ballet companies have died out, or never taken root.

One would think that Chicago, Minneapolis and Saint Louis, three cities with sufficient populations and sufficient wealth, would be able easily to sustain Balanchine companies—but none of the three cities has ever proven itself hospitable to classical ballet.

What do Kansas City and Tulsa have that Chicago, Minneapolis and Saint Louis lack?