Comments on: The Kirov takes it on the chin

By: Martha Ullman West

Martha Ullman West — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:38:46 +0000

Yes, we’re basically in agreement I think. And of course one of the most important things Balanchine did was to make the corps de ballet as important, an equal partner if you will, with the soloists in a ballet. I like aesthetic anthropologist–let’s form a Society of Aesthetic Anthropologists and never have meetings, except of course of minds, to which we will not admit impediment or any of his/her fellows/sisters.

By: Bob Hicks

Bob Hicks — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:52:04 +0000

Hi Martha, I’m not sure we really disagree –or if we do, that it’s much more than a difference of emphasis. One of the reasons Balanchine was great was that he created something new by building on the old, not destroying or abandoning it. And of course, as the best Balanchine-influenced companies understand, his dances encourage individual expression of personality: a fine dancer making the steps her or his own is what brings the thing to life and makes it art, not mathematics. But I’d argue that for Balanchine a dance was also a matter of an integrated whole, in which every moment and every movement serves the whole picture, and that that unity of design — with its built-in breathing space for individual expression — made the sum of the dance more important than the parts. (Of course, you can’t have a sum if the parts aren’t there.) That’s different from a series of star turns, which is more like Baroque adornment in vocal music or the sort of bravura, bowdlerized orations of the 19th century Shakespearean stage. Of course, that’s not primarily what the Kirov is doing now, either: As I suggested, I think the flimsiness of “Le Coraire” encouraged the company to adopt a more historical approach. As an aesthetic anthropologist (a self-definition I just made up; maybe I should have it printed on a stack of business cards) I have a soft spot for such things. History builds on itself: Our current text-first approach to Shakespeare began as reaction against the performance excesses of the Victorian stage.

By: Martha Ullman West

Martha Ullman West — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:20:08 +0000

Sorry Bob, but every Ballet George Balanchine ever made was a celebration of the athleticism of individual and collective dancers; he just didn’t most of the time anyway do star turns (though of course he did them in the Nutcracker and to some degree in his self-proclaimed “applause machine” ballets like Stars and Stripes and Western Symphony. The thing that’s happened is that the Kirov dancers, when they’re not leading with their chins, have become the dancers wanted to make his work on when he came to the US in 1933 looking for better and differently trained dancers. Nice piece however, and forgive me for picking nits.