Some Ballet Stuff ...
1489 An early ballet closely relates to banquet menu
1581 Balthazar de Beaujoyeux stages "The Queen's Ballet Comedy," first important dramatic
ballet
1632 Ballets performed for the general public
1636 Pierre Beauchamp born; choreographer, defines five positions of the feet.
1661 Louis XIV establishes the Academie Royale de Danse
1673 John Weaver born in London; choreographer, conveys dramatic action through dance
1681 First female dancers perform in "The Triumph of Love"
1700 Raoul Feuillet's "Choregraphie" describes dance positions
1753 Anne Heinel, born in Germany; first to dance double pirouette
1760 Jean-Georges Noverre's "Letters on Dancing and Ballets," which influences choreographers
1763 Jean-Geroges Noverre's most famous ballet, "Medea and Jason" is produced
1776 Bolshoi Ballet Founded by English entrepreneur Michael Maddox
1789 Jean Dauberval, Noverre's pupil, choreographs "La fille mal gardee"
1796 Charles Didelot's "Flore et Zephire" uses invisible wires to have dancers "fly"
1818 Petipa, Marius Born in Marseille, France
1830 Carlo Blasis' "Code of Terpsichore"
1830 Marie Taglioni develops toe technique
1832 "La Sylphide" performed in Paris, first romantic ballet
1832 Marie Taglioni popularizes the tutu
1841 "Giselle" by Fillipo Taglioni
1877 Bolshoi Ballet First staging of Pepita's "Don Quixote" and "Swan Lake"
1890 "Sleeping Beauty" choreographed by Marius Petipa
1895 "Swan Lake" choreographed by Marius Petipa
1909 Ballets Russes opens in Paris
1910 "The Firebird" and "Sheherazade" choreographed by Fokine
1910 Petipa, Marius Dies
1911 "Petrushka" choreographed by Fokine
1925 Plisetskaya, Maya Mikhaylovna Born in Moscow
1932 Kurt Joos' "The Green Table"
1934 School of American Ballet is established in New York by Balachine and Kirstein
1938 Nureyev, Rudolf Hametovich Born near Irkutsk, Russia
1940 Makarova, Natalia Romanovna Born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg)
1943 Plisetskaya, Maya Mikhaylovna Joins Bolshoi ballet company
1944 "Fancy Free" by Jerome Robbins, based on jazz-dance style of musical comedies
1944 Bolshoi Ballet Leonid Lavrovsky becomes artistic director
1951 National Ballet of Canada is established
1956 Russion Bolshoi and Kirov ballet companies perform in the West
1961 Nureyev, Rudolf Hametovich Defects from the U.S.S.R.
1964 Plisetskaya, Maya Mikhaylovna Receives the Lenin Prize
1967 George Ballachine's "Jewels," first major plotless ballet
1993 Nureyev, Rudolf Hametovich Dies .
ballet Italian balletto `a little dance' Theatrical representation in dance form
in which music also plays a major part in telling a story or conveying a mood. Some
such form of entertainment existed in ancient Greece, but Western ballet as we know
it today first appeared in Renaissance Italy, where it was a court entertainment. From
there it was brought by Catherine de Medici to France in the form of a spectacle
combining singing, dancing, and declamation. During the 18th century, there were
major developments in technique and ballet gradually became divorced from opera, emerging as an
art form in its own right. In the 20th century Russian ballet has had a vital influence
on the classical tradition in the West, and ballet developed further in the USA through the work of George Balanchine and the American Ballet Theater, and in the UK
through the influence of Marie Rambert. Modern dance is a separate development.
history The first important dramatic ballet, the Ballet comique de la reine , was
produced 1581 by the Italian Balthasar de Beaujoyeux at the French court and was performed
by male courtiers, with ladies of the court forming the corps de ballet . In 1661
Louis XIV founded the Academie Royale de Danse, to which all subsequent ballet activities
throughout the world can be traced. Long, flowing court dress was worn by the dancers
until the 1720s when Marie-Anne Camargo, the first great ballerina, shortened her
skirt to reveal her ankles, thus allowing greater movement a terre and the development
of dancing en l'air . During the 18th century, ballet spread to virtually every major
capital in Europe. Vienna became an important centre and was instrumental in developing
the dramatic aspect of the art as opposed to the athletic qualities, which also evolved considerably during this century, particularly among male dancers. In the early
19th century a Paris costumier, Maillot, invented tights, which allowed complete
muscular freedom. The first of the great ballet masters was Jean-Georges Noverre
, and great contemporary dancers were Teresa Vestris (1726-1808), Anna Friedrike Heinel (1753-1808),
Jean Dauberval (1742-1806), and Maximilien Gardel (1741-1787). Carlo Blasis is regarded
as the founder of classical ballet, since he defined the standard conventional steps and accompanying gestures. Romantic ballet The great Romantic era of
the dancers Marie Taglioni , Fanny Elssler, Carlotta Grisi, Lucile Grahn, and Fanny
Cerrito began about 1830 but survives today only in the ballets Giselle 1841 and
La Sylphide 1832. Characteristics of this era were the new calf-length Romantic white dress
and the introduction of dancing on the toes, sur les pointes . The technique of the
female dancer was developed, but the role of the male dancer was reduced to that
of being her partner. Important choreographers of the period were Jules Joseph Perrot (1810-1894),
Arthur Saint-Leon (1821-1871), and August Bournonville. From 1860 ballet declined
rapidly in popular favour in Europe, but its importance was maintained in St Petersburg under Marius Petipa (1818-1910). Russian ballet was introduced to the West
by Sergei Diaghilev , who set out for Paris 1909 and founded the Ballets Russes
(Russian Ballet), at about the same time that Isadora Duncan , a fervent opponent
of classical ballet, was touring Europe. Associated with Diaghilev were Mikhail Fokine, Enrico
Cecchetti (1850-1928), Vaslav Nijinsky , Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina (1885-1978),
Leonide Massine, Bronislava Nijinska, George Balanchine, and Serge Lifar. Ballets presented by his company, before its break-up after his death 1929, included Les
Sylphides , Scheherazade , Petrouchka , Le Sacre du printemps/The Rite of Spring
, and Les Noces . Diaghilev and Fokine pioneered a new and exciting combination
of the perfect technique of imperial Russian dancers and the appealing naturalism favoured by
Isadora Duncan. In Russia ballet continues to flourish, the two chief companies being
the Kirov and the Bolshoi . Best-known ballerinas are Galina Ulanova and Maya
Plisetskaya, and male dancers include Mikhail Baryshnikov , Irek Mukhamedov, and Alexander
Godunov, now dancing in the West. American ballet was firmly established by the
founding of Balanchine's School of American Ballet 1934, and by de Basil and Rene
Blum's (1878-1942) Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo and Massine's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo,
which also carried on the Diaghilev tradition. In 1939 dancer Lucia Chase (1897-1986)
and ballet director Richard Pleasant (1906-1961) founded the American Ballet Theater. From 1948 the New York City Ballet, under the guiding influence of Balanchine,
developed a genuine American Neo-Classic style. British ballet Marie Rambert initiated
1926 the company that developed into the Ballet Rambert, and launched the careers
of choreographers such as Frederick Ashton and Anthony Tudor. The national company, the
Royal Ballet (so named 1956), grew from foundations laid by Ninette de Valois and
Frederick Ashton 1928. British dancers include Alicia Markova, Anton Dolin (1904-1983), Margot Fonteyn , Antoinette Sibley, Lynn Seymour, Beryl Grey, Anthony Dowell, David
Wall, Merle Park, and Lesley Collier; choreographers include Kenneth MacMillan. Fonteyn's
partners included Robert Helpmann and Rudolf Nureyev . ballet music During the 16th and 17th centuries there was not always a clear distinction between opera
and ballet, since ballet during this period often included singing, and operas often
included dance. The influence of the court composer Jean Baptiste Lully on the development of ballet under Louis XIV in France was significant (Lully was a dancer himself,
as was the king). During this period many courtly dances originated, including the
gavotte , passepied , bourree , and minuet . In the 19th century, as public
interest in ballet increased, Russia produced composers of international reputation such
as Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky whose ballet scores include Swan Lake 1876, Sleeping Beauty
1890, and The Nutcracker 1892. With the modern era of ballet which began 1909 with
the founding of the Ballets Russes, innovative choreography transformed the visual aspects
of ballet and striking new compositions by Achille Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel,
and especially Igor Stravinsky (in, for example, The Rite of Spring 1913) left their
mark not only on the ballet composers who followed, but on the course of music history
itself. Later in the century, the formal tradition of ballet was upset by the influence
of jazz, jazz rhythms, and modern dance originating in the USA, which introduced
greater freedom of bodily expression. Today there exists a wide range of musical
and choreographic styles, ranging from the classical to the popular. Many full ballet
scores have been reduced by composers to ballet suites or purely orchestral works,
which incorporate the essential musical elements, tending to omit musically nonthematic
and transitional passages which may be, nevertheless, essential to the choreography
and visual narration. Examples include Stravinsky's The Firebird 1910 and Ravel's
Bolero 1928.
Tchaikovsky /chie'kofski/ , Peter Ilyich 1840-1893 Russian composer: his works are
noted for their rich orchestration and intensely emotional quality; his best-known
compositions are his ballet scores Swan Lake (1876), The Sleeping Beauty (1889),
and The Nutcracker (1891-92); he also wrote six symphonies, concertos for the piano and violin,
and ten operas; he was professor of harmony at the Moscow Conservatory (1865-78)
and from 1877 was under the patronage of the wealthy heiress Mme von Meck - Tchaikovskyan, Tchaikovskian adj
Cocktail Party Fact: Composer Tchaikovsky lived to see only the first production
of Swan Lake, which was generally considered to be a bomb. When he died in 1893,
he missed by just two years the revival that carved a permanent place for the ballet
in dance history.
Here's The Plot: Act I: It is Prince Siegfried's coming of age. He attends a festival
and his mother demands he marry. A flock of swans fly overhead and a hunt is proposed.
Act II: a lake. A magician named Von Rotbart tends swans who become enchanted maidens at night. Siegfried and his friends go to shoot the swans, when Odette, the Swan
Queen now in human form, pleads for her flock. Siegfried falls in love with her
and swears undying fidelity. At dawn, she undergoes a metamorphosis back into a
swan. Act III: the espousal ball. Guests arrive while Siegfried and his mother inspect possible
wives. Von Rotbart enters with fanfare, escorting his daughter Odile, whom he has
transformed into the image of Odette. Sigfried dances with her and declares his
love, thus unknowingly breaking his vow to the true swan. Act IV: the lake at night.
Siegfried seeks his betrayed Swan Queen. She forgives him. Von Rotbart swoops
in and Siegfried carries Odette off. They defy Rotbart and throw themselves into
the water and to their deaths. The spell is finally broken, and the lovers are united in eternity.
Memorable Moments: The famous second act of Swan Lake has been performed by almost
every ballet company in the world.
Vital Statistics: First choreographed by Julius Reisinger in 1877 and presented at
the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. The version that is generally danced today was a
second try and was first danced at the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1895.
Marius Petipa choreographed Acts I and III, Lev Ivanov choreographed Acts II and IV, score
by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, scenery by Mikhail Bocharov and Heinrich Levogt and
book by V.P. Begitchev and Vasily Geltzer.
Why See It?: Swan Lake is considered one of the most popular ballets, both among audiences
and dancers. It is said that a ballerina need only star successfully in a production to pave her path to fame in the dance world. The ballet depicts the ultimate
romantic story -- a love that is all the more passionate because it is doomed from
the start.
Source:aol://4344:1374.CBDlist1.10682643.525277186
For Black Dancers, an Uphill Path to 'Swan Lake'
By JENNIFER DUNNING
NEW YORK -- The pickets behind the barricades at Dance Theater of Harlem's headquarters
earlier this month marched with the signs and shouted the slogans that have become
familiar parts of the history of trade unionism in the United States. But for these striking dancers, there was a profound and poignant difference.
Most of them are black. They are members of a group that is, by necessity, a close-knit
family as well as a successful professional ballet company and a major American artistic
institution.
Dance Theater was founded in 1968 by Arthur Mitchell, a leading dancer at the New
York City Ballet and one of the few black American ballet dancers to become a national
and international star, and Karel Shook, a white teacher who believed, as Mitchell
did, that black dancers have, as Shook put it, "a natural place in the serene realm
of the arabesque and the entrechat."
Their point has been proved, with a wide-ranging classical and contemporary repertory
performed by expert dancers to critical acclaim throughout the world. But if the
strike, which ended on Feb. 10 after two and a half weeks, had continued long enough
to force the dancers to seek other performing jobs, would those jobs have been there?
Opinion is divided.
"If you're talented, there are jobs for you," said Edith D'Addario, who directs
the Joffrey Ballet School, which has long been integrated. "This minority thing bothers
me terribly. You're labeling them because of their color."
But many blacks, and whites, in dance today disagree. "I think there has been a
deliberate exclusion of blacks from the classical arts, not just dance," said Denise
Jefferson, Ms. D'Addario's counterpart at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center.
Ballet is a highly competitive field today, with the numbers of well-trained dancers
increasing as the jobs decrease. Affirmative action may not work in the performing
arts, but the notion of equal opportunity might be expected to prevail. The numbers
suggest that it does not.
In an informal survey of 10 major ballet companies across the United States, conducted
this year, it was found that of the total of 495 company members, only 23 were black.
Asian-American dancers did slightly better, at 24, and there were 50 Hispanic dancers. ("History suggests that in the ballet world Hispanic dancers are perceived as
white," Ms. Jefferson said. "At City Ballet, Francisco Moncion was not 'the other.'
Arthur was.")
The ratios vary widely among the companies. In the most integrated company, two
of the 32 dancers are black, three Asian and 11 Hispanic. At the other end, only
two of 48 dancers in another company belong to ethnic minorities, neither of them
black.
The survey suggests that black Americans, who represent 12.6 percent of the national
population, average 4.6 percent of ballet company membership in the United States.
Mitchell and his company have provided crucial models for black children, and not
only as dancers. The innovative eight-member Ballethnic Dance Company of Atlanta
was founded by Nena Gilreath-Lucas and her husband, Waverly Lucas, alumni of the
Harlem company, after Ms. Gilreath-Lucas realized she was "dead bored" dancing in the corps
of "Giselle" with the Atlanta Ballet and wanted to develop her own ideas and dancers.
"Being at Dance Theater of Harlem was overwhelming," she said. "Mr. Mitchell challenged
us. Onstage you weren't just dancing because you loved it but because you were proving
yourself. Now that I have a company, I understand how frustrating it was for him."
But Dance Theater and Ballethnic are the only two black ballet-oriented companies
in the United States. (The Lines Dance Company of San Francisco, created by the black
choreographer Alonzo King, is predominantly white.) And the nation has been slow
to participate in Mitchell's vision of ballet as a multiracial art.
"Those kids at Harlem are phenomenal," said Joan Myers Brown, the chairwoman of
the Black Dance Association and the ballet-trained founder of Philadanco, a leading
black modern-dance company. "There have got to be more than one or two of them. I
can't believe the good Lord in heaven only gave that gift to white people."
There has been a black presence in American ballet, though a buried one, since George
Washington Smith, said to have been a mulatto, danced the prince in the first American
production of "Giselle," in 1846.
But ballet is an art of uniform images. A short white dancer would look just as
out of place as a dark-skinned one in a line of tall white dancers. The eye tends
to accommodate such differences more easily, it seems, than the mind shifts from
historical and cultural assumptions.
Modern dance, somewhat more racially integrated than ballet, is rooted in the American
experience of the 20th century, an experience formed in large part by blacks and
whites. Classical ballet was born in the 16th-century French court and was fed by
the myths and manners of 19th-century Europe, myths in which princes, sylphs and swans,
all of them historically white, figured prominently.
That history, the dance critic John Martin wrote in 1963, was "culturally, temperamentally
and anatomically" alien to black dancers. Three decades later, the playwright August
Wilson has spoken out against racial mixing in the arts, suggesting that black artists tend their own gardens first, and perhaps exclusively.
Classics and the Question of Historical Accuracy
A number of black ballet companies were established in the United States from the
late 1930s through the '50s, though most proved short-lived and few performed the
classics.
Black ballet dancers are still largely seen as historically inaccurate in the classics.
Black women have a particularly hard time being seen as ballerinas, in what has traditionally
been described as an art of women, though Lauren Anderson, one of two black star dancers at the Houston Ballet, recently danced the Swan Queen in "Swan Lake."
The question of historical accuracy seems to be raised chiefly in connection with
such classics.
In the 1970s, when American Ballet Theater acquired a gifted black classicist, Ronald
Perry, who had been a highly praised prince in the Dance Theater of Harlem production
of "Swan Lake," he was cast in contemporary works like Jerome Robbins' "Fancy Free," the story of three sailors on shore leave during World War II, a time when such
racial mixing was totally unlikely.
But there is a great deal more to classical ballet today than works like "Swan Lake."
George Balanchine's ballets are about their dancers more than any characters, and
the repertories of American ballet troupes now include works that mix classical and
modern-dance styles. Is the inequity then a matter of the imperfect ballet bodies popularly
attributed to them?
White dancers whose bodies do not conform to the 20th-century ideal of long, tapering
lines and hyperflexible feet are almost as excluded as minority performers. But they
are not perceived, as are black and to a lesser extent Asian dancers, as members
of a race that does not measure up to the physical ideal. "That is one of the most insidious
cop-outs," said the Ailey Dance Center's Ms. Jefferson.
To start, Ms. Jefferson said, there is no one black body type. "And bodies can be
trained," she said. "Muscles can be lengthened. Feet can be stretched and strengthened.
Bodies are meant to be changed. You unearth the talent. But you have to work much
harder as a teacher and give individualized attention."
There is also a scarcity of black children, as well as black teachers, in most ballet
academies. Thirteen percent of the 350 students now enrolled at the School of American
Ballet, a City Ballet affiliate, belong to ethnic minorities. (No figures were available on specific minorities.)
Nathalie Gleboff, director of the school, is one of many ballet educators who say
that fewer black children audition and many of those who enroll eventually drop out.
"Children have to be brought here," Ms. Gleboff said. "They have to be able to come
here. It's hard. It's expensive. Sometimes it's just too much for families." And
black families, Ms. Jefferson suggested, may feel that their children are unwelcome
in the largely white academies.
Increasing the Effort to Reach Out to Children
Ballet companies are making a greater effort to reach out to minority children,
especially those in poor families. Ms. Jefferson cites Eliot Feld's New Ballet School
as a model, and promising programs at the Houston, San Francisco and Boston Ballets
and at the Miami City Ballet, which has also invited black ballet teachers in the area
to watch company classes and rehearsals.
But even if black students persist and graduate into companies, they often find
themselves dealing with the "slot mentality," as Ms. Jefferson describes it. Jeffrey
Bullock joined the jazz-oriented Hubbard Street Dance Chicago after performing with
two major ballet troupes because, he said, he felt that their multicultural approach had
more to do with representation than true integration.
"I was promoted to a soloist in one of those companies, but I realized I was not
a part of what they thought of as beautiful," Bullock said. "It was never stated.
But I understood I had to get out, for my self-esteem. Ballet is about what you see,
what is seen. You need to be a part of the vision reflected in the company's repertory and
marketing, its visual images.
"It is not only about having African-American dancers perform the classical roles.
It is about getting artistic directors to actually see those dancers performing those
roles. That takes someone with a progressive eye and outlook, who wants to change
our perception of who can be a prince or a swan queen."
In the 10 years he danced in ballet companies, Bullock added, only one work by a
black choreographer was performed
Using Black Choreographers as a Way to Stir Change
Donald Byrd, a leading black modern-dance choreographer whose "Harlem Nutcracker"
and "Crumble" allude to issues of blacks in ballet, said he believed that the use
of more black ballet choreographers could "level the ground."
"It has always been that the technique has expanded and changed because of the demands
of the choreography," Byrd said. "If there were more African-American choreographers,
the look would change. Balanchine did not go out and make speeches; he put things on the stage. But choreographers have to be developed, and that can't be left to
the large white institutions."
There are small signs that things are changing for black choreographers and dancers,
though at a glacial pace.
In 1974, the year Dance Theater of Harlem had its first major season, there were
three black dancers performing with the three major New York City companies. Today,
City Ballet has four black dancers and has presented ballets by two black choreographers, John Alleyne and Ulysses Dove. Dove's work has also been performed by Ballet Theater.
Both City Ballet and the Houston Ballet recently featured black principals in their
advertising. And performing in Europe is no longer quite so automatic a choice for
black American ballet dancers.
"Little black children who want to be ballet dancers know it can happen now," said
Ms. Jefferson, whose daughter, Francesca Harper, is a dancer with the Frankfurt Ballet,
"whether they dance with Arthur Mitchell or someone else."
Copyright 1997 The New York Times
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