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"Marius Petipa - The Emperor's Ballet Master"
by Nadine Meisner
Oxford University Press, 2019

reviewed by George Jackson
copyright 2020 by George Jackson

Our concept of classical ballet stems mostly from the work of Marius Petipa (1818 - 1910), a French choreographer resident principally in Russia at the end of the Czarist era. Until the publication of Meisner's biography, personal information in English about Petipa was somewhat scarce. As a reader of German, I relied on Eberhard Rebling's "Marius Petipa, Master of Classical Ballet", printed 1975 in what was East Berlin. Rebling's 430 page collection contains texts by Petipa (his formal memoirs, spontaneous diary, diverse letters etc.) and opinions about him by contemporaries and by important successors (Nijinska, Balanchine, Ashton, Grigorovitch et alia). It is an expansion of a Russian volume, “Marius Petipa, Materiali Wospominanija Stati” printed 1971 by the Leningrad branch of Iskusstwo Publishers.

Lifar Lied to Himself?

"The Fascist Turn in the Dance of Serge Lifar"
by Mark Franko
Oxford University Press, UK, 2020

by George Jackson
copyright George Jackson 2020

Before tackling this exhaustive and exhausting book about the controversial Serge Lifar by Mark Franko, who is a widely published critic and a professor at the University of California's Santa Cruz campus, I suggest that readers review what is generally known about Lifar (1905 - 1986) as a dancer, choreographer, company director, commentator on dance and as a person. I encountered Lifar directly in 1948, when he brought his Paris Opera Ballet to tour the USA. The company was large. Its training seemed admirably uniform. Stylistically, though, many Americans found the dancing "mannered". The choreography and dramaturgy, mostly by Lifar, seemed old fashioned compared to Antony Tudor's psychodramas or George Balanchine's neoclassicism. 

Dunas's Denby

Book: Edwin Denby – His Life, His Dance Essays, His Poetry
Author: William Dunas
Publication: 2008 in Woodside, NY, USA

by George Jackson
(copyright 2020 by George Jackson)  

This home-made book is a proposal for producing a professionally printed book. The proposal consists of many un-numbered pages of text contained in a black 3-ring folder. The text is photocopied only on the frontside of each sheet of firm white paper. On the cover is the basic bibliographic information and a 1964 drawing by Red Grooms of Denby in profile - he is typing. Dunas calls the book a “publishing fellowship proposal manuscript”. It is unlikely that the proposed book will ever become actual, yet the proposal serves as an autobiography of Dunas and a biography of Denby. The Dunas portion is amusing, somewhat confusing and ultimately sad. The Denby part is substantial. Who was Dunas and who was Denby?

Everything Dances

Everything Dances
Book: “Alles tanzt” issued by Andrea Amort
Published in 2019 by Vienna’s Austrian Theater Museum and Berlin’s Hatje Cantz

This big, weighty volume (almost 380 pages, 10.7 x 8.5 x 1.7 inches) has a German text with English summaries. In addition to the summaries, its plentiful and plush illustrations are proving to be of interest to those who do not read German. The book  served as catalog for the exhibit “Cosmos of Vienna Dance Modernism”. As a self-contained item, “Alles tanzt/(Everything dances)” tackles many aspects of modernism in addition to dance and does so from the late 19^th Century to nearly today. There are 3 forewords, 29 chapters and 4 addenda.  The main chapters are divided into 3 sections: the structure or anatomy of the modernist scene (Part 1), the rupture of that scene (Part 2) and aftermaths (Part 3). Topics in addition to dance that are  especially explored by the book’s diverse authors include women’s emancipation, psychology and psychoanalysis, and the political landscape.

Hedi Pope Centennial

Hedi Politzer/Pitt/Pope was born 100 years ago on March 18 in Austria. She was a pupil of Vienna’s waltzing and ballet-based modern dancers (particularly of Ellinor Tordis, Hedy Pfundmayr and the internationally renowned Grete Wiesenthal) and can be seen in the 1937 film “Silhouetten”. She fled from Austria’s 1938 annexation by Nazi Germany to the United States, where she appeared as a leading dancer in “refugee revues” that introduced European cabaret to New York’s Broadway.  She was told to forget her earlier dance training and become an American modern dancer. Is it possible, though, for the body to forget what it once danced? Hedi did acquire new skills in America, shortened her last name to Pitt and during World War 2 married an American sailor (William Pope). She founded CODA (Contemporary Dancers of Alexandria, Virginia), making it a prominent studio and company across the Potomac river from Washington, DC and, as Hedi Pope, directed it for decades. Hedi now lives at a retirement home in the mountains of North Carolina, near her daughter’s and son’s families. Happy 100^th to you, Hedi!     

(see also the tribute to Hedi P in the March issue of the on-line Austrian dance publication tanz.at)

Bits & Pieces

Demo: Now 2020
with Damian Woetzel, Jon Boogz, Robbie Fairchild,
Lil Buck, Lauren Lovette, Roman Mejia, Dario Natarelli,
Melissa Toogood,  Brooklyn Rider quartet, Kate Davis, Alberta Khoury
Eisenhower Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
March 2, 2020

 by George Jackson
copyright 2020 by George Jackson

There wasn’t the familiar sparkle. This series of highbrow vaudeville acts usually comes to a sizzling climax. Not this time. I don’t think the coronavirus can be blamed. Moreover, the program got off to a good and snappy start with “1.2.3.4.5.6”, a rhythmic phrase danced, recited and clapped by three men (Lil Buck, Robbie Fairchild, Dario Natarelli) and one woman (Melissa Toogood). Then our host and curator, Damian Woetzel, appeared and was his suave self, giving the evening a spoken introduction. What followed, though, seemed random fragments. Even variety shows need substance.

The cast of DEMO in A Story. Photo by Mena Brunette

Achievement

“Defile”, “Birthday Offering”, “Meditation from Thais”,
“Allegro Brillante”, “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” 
Eisenhower Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
February 20, 2020

 by George Jackson
copyright 2020 by George Jackson

It is a fun program, the Balanchine and Ashton (and Kent) quintuple bill that The Washington Ballet is flaunting this February week. An audience that seemed to fill the theater enjoyed itself from start to stop – especially the stop: Balanchine’s “Slaughter”, which isn’t one of his sublime masterpieces. I’ve seen many performances of it but never a better one. It is a “character” ballet with the gals not on toe but in heeled shoes and the only academic danseur a comic lampoon. Yet this choreography as danced on Thursday night revealed the classic steps and stances that are at the core of all the shimmying and shaking and hoofing by Sona Kharatian as the striptease girl, Daniel Roberge as the tap dancer, their cronies and combatants. Whatever else artistically and commercially these five dance pieces achieved, there was satisfaction!

Sona Kharatian and Dan Roberge in George Balanchine's "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" Photo by xmbphotography.

Stalwart in Step or Stance

 

“A Tribute to Marian Anderson”

Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company

McEvoy Auditorium

National Portrait Gallery

Washington, DC

February 3, 2020

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2020 by George Jackson

 

She was one of the world’s greatest singers. Marian Anderson (1897-1993) specialized in German lieder and African American spirituals. Opera she had the chance to try only late in her career because prejudice against her African ancestry had, earlier, kept her off stages such as New York’s Met. Currently, Marian Anderson is the subject of a Portrait Gallery exhibition as well as the inspiration for Burgess’s choreography. Almost all the music Burgess chose is by Johannes Brahms, half a dozen of his lieder (songs) - from Opus 43 to Opus 121. Burgess placed the singer (soprano Millicent Scarlett) prominently on stage, either left (between pianist Jeffery Watson and the dancers) or center (surrounded by the dancers). He uses the seven dancers in two ways, as dancers and as watchers, perhaps as wardens. This piece displays the most austere dance images Burgess has made, repeatedly from song to song, over and over again. Yet no two of the danced “songs” are actually alike. Remarkable is the effect of subtle differences.

 

Photo: Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company. Tony Powell for the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.

Current Classicism

“The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude”,

“Approximate Sonata 2016”, “Petite Mort”,

and Shostakovich “Piano Concerto #1”

The National Ballet of Canada

Opera House

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Washington, DC

January 28, 2020

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2020 by George Jackson

 

The Canadians opened their visit to Washington by exploring what classical choreography looks like today. The four pieces on this program share very basic features yet are intriguingly distinct, even the first two works which were made by the same individual. Everyone interested in the state of dance could learn a lot from these ballets by America and Germany’s William Forsythe, by Czechoslovakia and The Netherlands’ Jiri Kylian and by Russia and America’s Alexei Ratmansky. There were just two chances to catch this event, Canadian National Ballet’s first night in town and its second. Then the company goes on to standard, 19th Century classicism with “The Sleeping Beauty”. 

 

Naoya Ebe and Harrison James in William Forsythe's "The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude."

 

Image and Impact

Matthew Bourne’s “Swan Lake”

A New Adventures Production

Opera House

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Washington, DC

January 22, 2020

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2020 by George Jackson

 

The image of a swan in ballet is, traditionally, that of a human figure streamlined to the stretching point with arms undulating as if they were wings about to lift off and toes pinpointing the ground. Usually the figure is female. Likely this image predates the initial (late 19th, early 20th Century) “Swan Lake” stagings by Julius Reisinger and by Joseph Hansen in Moscow, by Marius Petipa and/or Lev Ivanov in and near St. Petersburg, and then by Jaroslav Berger (Act 2 only) and (the complete 4 acts) by Berger and Achille Viscusi in Prague. The ballet’s composer, Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky, kept changing and complicating the music. The score had started as one for a simple, amateur production and early on had included singing. Passages by another composer, Ricardo Drigo, were added and later removed sometimes. Tchaikovsky’s ultimate music was very Wagnerian. The staging he seems to have liked the most was that of Act 2 in Prague by Berger. However, most productions today refer back to Petipa and/or Ivanov as their source for drama and choreography.