Afternoon of a Faun

courtesy of www.rogerebert.com

courtesy of www.rogerebert.com

A new documentary film by Nancy Buirski Afternoon of a Faun:  Tanaquil Le Clercq recently had a week long run in San Francisco and tells the story of a brilliant American ballerina whose performing career was tragically ended after contracting polio. A principal dancer and muse for George Balanchine of the New York City Ballet, I think this review by Stephen Holden from the New York Times describes best Tanaquil’s all too short dancing life:

“As you watch grainy kinescope footage of dancers in a mirrored studio executing a pas de deux in the documentary biography “Afternoon of a Faun:  Tanaquil Le Clercq”,  it is almost as though you are beholding mythological deities who have alighted briefly on the earth. Here today, gone tomorrow, they are like rare birds, seldom glimpsed, who remind us of the evanescence of all things, most of all physical beauty and the casual grace of youth. Therein lies a primal attraction of ballet: its evocation of the ecstatic moment is as fleeting as it is haunting.”

Trailer for Afternoon of a Faun:  Tanaquil Le Clercq

Tanaquil Le Clercq and Diana Adams dancing in Concerto Barocco for NYCB

Your Most Important New Year’s Resolution: Self-Care

Degas wallppr large 892903-bigthumbnailHappy New Year ! This month’s entry is written by guest blogger, Shery Scott, serious amateur dancer (and AiB board member). Welcome Shery:

At this time of year, many of us are looking back over 2013 to assess our lifestyles and planning to make the necessary improvements that we know we need, most notably, increasing physical exercise.  Typically, however, most people will have lost their motivation to make good on their new year’s resolutions by about January 12th.

There is a better way!  Build it into your weekly schedule.  Yes, I know you’ve heard it before; but it’s so true, it bears repeating:  positive changes will last longer if you have accountability.  For myself and my fellow classmates, this means attending a ballet class at least once a week.  And don’t think your age works as an excuse:  I’m over 50 and my ballet instructor is over 60.  If we can still do it, anyone can.  And the good news is that dance, and ballet, in particular, provide much more than just physical exercise.  It provides a whole host of other benefits, too.

Physical Benefits
Dancing develops and requires balance, strength, stamina, and flexibility.  That by itself is reason enough to dig your workout clothes out of the closet.  But there’s much more to be gained (better health)…and lost (fat).  Increasing your weekly exercise can also reduce your stress, blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides.  And it can increase your lung capacity and heart and lung efficiency.

Mental Benefits
First and foremost, dancing will boost your endorphins and improve your mental clarity and memory.  My instructor is fond of saying, “I don’t need to do crossword puzzles; I do ballet.”  Why?  Because dancing forces you to use your brain in ways you might not otherwise.  First, you need to be able to remember the combinations so you can do them.  Don’t worry; nobody expects you to do anything well the first time you try.  You’ll get better with practice.  Second, you’ll be performing the same moves on the left side of your body as you do on the right side of your body.  That means dancing helps you develop mental lateral facility.  That’s important for those of us who are profoundly right-handed or left-handed to help create better development and balance on our weaker side.

Social Benefits
Unless you’re springing for private lessons, a dance class is a great way to meet new people and enlarge your social circle.  In my own ballet class, I have met some wonderful women who provide me much-needed comic relief when I’m struggling to learn a new move, or if I’m having a difficult time in my personal life.  I can’t imagine life without them.

Emotional Benefits
Once you get moving and get into the swing of things, you will feel better.  I dread getting up to go to class in the evenings, especially when it’s so dark in the winter months.  But I have never ever regretted going to class, not once.  I always feel so much better about myself and my life after I’ve worked hard in class.  And you will, too.

Spiritual Benefits
For those of us of Judeo-Christian orientation, the book of 2 Samuel 6:14 tells us that King David “danced before the Lord with all his might.”  That’s an excellent example for us to follow.  Even if you’re not of religious inclination, dancing can be a way to express your cultural identity and your spirituality.

So with all this going for you, why wouldn’t you take a chance and contact your local dance studio to sign up for a class?  Most of them have introductory specials this time of year, so go ahead and take advantage.  Just don’t be surprised if you leave the studio physically worn out and emotionally exhilarated.  Of course it’s hard; it’s ballet.  If it were easy, it would be called football.

Maria Tallchief – American Ballerina

Maria Tallchief and Erik Bruhn, 1961
courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org

Maria Tallchief, considered to be America’s first prima ballerina and the first native American prima ballerina, sadly passed away earlier this year at the age of 88. Well known for her role in George Balanchine’s “Firebird”, she became one of New York City Ballet’s early prima ballerinas, and Firebird became a great success for NYCB.

Rather than writing something about her life, in this youtube clip, I found it interesting in that she speaks about rehearsing and performing and taking on the title role of “The Firebird” for George Balanchine:

“He was very careful about how you use your hands, what they call port de bras, how they move – the hands, the elbow, the shoulder….  the soul of the dancer. He was a poet and he taught us how to react and to become this poetry.”  And, speaking of opening night: “The curtain came down and suddenly the City Center sounded like a stadium after a football game after someone’s made a touchdown, it was unbelievable, screaming, yells of Bravo, this and that….”

And, a moving tribute to her life:

Psychology and Dance: Meet ‘Dr. Dancer’

As dancers, or aspiring dancers, a lot of us have experienced that tug between the desire of becoming a professional dancer and perhaps the more secure world of a 9 to 5 career position. And, some of us are lucky enough to combine both. Nadine Kaslow has done just that – combined both worlds. Here are excerpts from an article about Dr. Kaslow, (written by Elizabeth Landau, of CNN): “Psychology plus ballet: Meet ‘Dr. Dancer”.

Nadine Kaslow sits with one slender ivory leg dangling, the other tucked neatly under her dress with the heel of her beige pump facing up. These legs have supported her throughout her career as a dancer. But in her head, Kaslow struggled for years over whether to follow that path or her passion for psychology.

She eventually found a way to combine the two worlds, serving not only as a psychologist for the Atlanta Ballet, but also becoming a powerful force for providing accessible mental health care for disadvantaged women.

“I always wore a ballerina around my neck,” she said of the gold charm she’s had since age 13, which she wore Wednesday in her office at Emory University School of Medicine. “But I never talked about going to ballet. I just didn’t think I’d be taken seriously.”

Now, as the new president-elect of the American Psychological Association, Kaslow doesn’t worry about that anymore. Besides being an Emory professor and chief psychologist of Grady Health System, she is also the psychologist for the Atlanta Ballet, where some students call her “Doctor Dancer.”

Kaslow, 56, grew up in the Philadelphia area and started dancing when she was 3. She took classes in creative movement, which involved developing skills such as “prancing like a pony.”

Little Nadine knew she wanted to do something more than what the system had set out for her. She asked her mother who was the head of the school, so she could ask to learn real dance with the big kids. The boss told her she needed to be 5, but this didn’t deter her.

“I’d stand outside the class with the big kids and I would do it in the hallway,” she said. Finally, when she was 4, because of her persistence, she was allowed to start real ballet classes with 5-year-olds.

Choosing psychology

In high school and early college, Kaslow danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet. But when she applied to college, she wrote that she wanted to be a psychologist. It’s what her mother did, too, and she enjoyed reading books about psychological problems.

“I was one of those kids that, when other kids had problems, I was the one they’d come and talk to about their problems,” she said. “I really wanted to help people but I really wanted to understand through the human mind, human behavior and human relationships.”

During graduate school, she continued taking ballet classes. In her head, it was a tug of war over whether she truly wanted a career in psychology or in dance. The director of the Houston Ballet then offered her a choice: She could have a position in the company, if she lost 15 pounds.

Perhaps because of the body-consciousness of ballet, Kaslow remembers with ease how much she weighed at various points in her life. As a Ph.D. student, she said, she was already 12 pounds thinner than she is right now. On her frame, not quite 5 feet tall, an additional 15-pound loss would be dramatic.

“I knew at that point that that was not a healthy lifestyle choice,” she said. “I was old enough and I was out of the system enough that I was able to stop and say that was it. That was my defining moment.”

She got her doctoral degree in 1983 and headed to the University of Wisconsin for her internship and postdoctoral fellowship training

At the ballet

About five years ago, Kaslow started ballet classes at Atlanta Ballet Centre for Dance Education. She met the center’s director, Sharon Story, and the Atlanta Ballet’s artistic director John McFall. It turned out, there was a way to reconcile her passion for ballet with her career in psychology.

Kaslow became the Atlanta Ballet’s first resident psychologist, helping the students and professional dancers through wellness programming and psychotherapy.

“She keeps dancing and brings her knowledge and compassion to our dancers and students to pursue their lives and passions with strength, confidence, and healthy well beings,” Story said in an e-mail. “Nadine is tiny in stature and a huge brilliant gem to all of us at Atlanta Ballet.”

When Kaslow started working with dancers in her capacity as a psychologist, she thought eating disorders would be a huge problem. Instead, she’s found other issues are more prevalent:  Performance anxiety, balance between different activities and perfectionism.

Perfectionism in particular is a problem that Kaslow has struggled with herself, and something that she shares with some of the dancers she’s seen in therapy.

“I really talk to the dancers about, how do you think about doing your best, and being good enough, and what a realistic and attainable goal is, and I try to do that for myself as well,” she said.

The cultural norms of ballet are such that it’s hard to know when a dancer truly has an eating disorder, she said.

“When I weighed about 22 pounds less than I do now, I was told I looked like a hippopotamus,” she said. “The problem was that part of me believed them. But I look at myself now and I say, ‘Well, I don’t really look like a hippopotamus now, so I probably didn’t look like a hippopotamus 20 pounds less than this.’”

Kaslow sees many connections between the study of the mind and of human relationships.

“As a scientifically-minded psychologist, I build upon many of the qualities that served me and others well in the dance world — curiosity, persistence, patience, and a passion for the work,” she said. “As an educator, I know that when I am teaching dance or psychology, it is essential that I provide a facilitating environment that nurtures creativity, self-expression, self-acceptance, and a dedication to doing one’s best.”

Her advice to graduates, she said, would be:  “Follow your passions and your dreams. I wish I had gotten that message sooner, and that I didn’t feel like I had to choose (between dance and psychology) for so long.”

Top 10 Dance Movies

With the popularity of top ten lists these days, that got me to thinking – why not dance movies? In researching this topic, I looked for other top 10 dance movie lists – 10 Dance Movies That Are Actually Worth Your Time and My Favorite Ballet Movies are notable for their picks.

I’ve compiled mine around two themes – that those chosen were (mostly) from popular film genre and that one or more of the actors in each film had classical dance training:

  1. An American in Paris:  my all time favorite with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, the famous 17 minute “An American in Paris” ballet with sets by Marc Chagall – features Gene Kelly and the film debut of a very young Leslie Caron. Can’t beat this film for the best combination of toe-tapping, sing-a-long music combined with wit, warmth and Oscar Levant (watch for his marvelous “Concerto in F” sequence).
  2. The Red Shoes:  based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, features Incredible and magical dance sequences starring the superb talents of Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann and Leonide Massine. A Classic.
  3. Singin’ in the Rain:  seems be at the top or near the top of everyone’s top ten dance movies – yes the famous routine featuring Gene Kelly “singin’ in the rain” is a not-to-be-missed favorite, but watch for his duet with Cyd Charisse in the “Broadway Melody” ballet sequence. With the ever-energetic Debbie Reynolds and smooth moves by Donald O’Connor.
  4. Daddy Longlegs:  another favorite and perhaps more obscure – Leslie Caron shot this a few years after American in Paris. Features wonderful ballet sequences with Fred Astaire and inventive musical scenes with songs and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Watch for the humorous Thelma Ritter.
  5. Blood Wedding:  a 1981 spanish film by Carlos Saura, featuring Antonio Gades and his company of flamenco dancers, in an adaptation of the Federica Garcia Lorca play.
  6. West Side Story:  the movie version of the legendary musical combines a superb story, choregraphy, dancing, music – starring Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, Natalie Wood, Russ Tamblyn, Richard Beymer. With music and lyrics by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, and the choregraphy of Jerome Robbins.
  7. The Band Wagon:  beautiful Cyd Charisse with Fred Astaire in this 1953 musical comedy.
  8. The Company:  this 2003 Robert Altman film, starring Neve Campbell (who trained at the National Ballet School of Canada before becoming an actress) – features the ups and downs in a year from the life of the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. Also stars Malcolm McDowell and James Franco.
  9. Dirty Dancing:  the iconic 1980’s dance film, starring dancer and actor Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey (daughter of Joel Grey). With it’s blend of nostalgia, romance and “dirty” dancing, the electric chemistry between Swayze and Grey is why I keep coming back.
  10. Billy Elliot:  wonderful UK film featuring a young Jamie Bell in the title role. Nothing beats this for the sheer enjoyment of watching a youngster’s love of ballet win out against all odds in his quest  for acceptance into the Royal Ballet School. Julie Walters plays the ballet teacher who gives him his start.

I leave you with 3 clips from more films (and 1 variety show) that didn’t make my list, yet have great dance sequences in them.

The late great ballerina Maria Tallchief, performing as Anna Pavlova in “The Dying Swan” sequence from the Esther Williams film, Million Dollar Mermaid:

 

Cyd Charisse from Silk Stockings:

 

Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor – dancing together in a 1959 bit from a Gene Kelly TV special – watch for the grace and timing of this superb duo:

The Return of Nijinsky – Part 2

To continue with last month’s entry, here is Part 2 of the acclaimed “Nijinsky” Ballet created by John Neumeier and performed by the Hamburg Ballet. Below (from SF Classical Voice and authored by Janice Berman), is the second part of an overview of the ballet:

The second act, initially becalmed, gains emotional fervor as it continues. The dancers’ energy and unity, vitality and control cannot be overstated. To the manic mix is added the menace, the intrinsic insanity, of wartime, represented, in the second act, by phalanxes of soldiers, slow-stepping along the backdrop, or forcefully leaping, coats over underwear, in a scene that simultaneously suggests an asylum, the horrors of battle, and Rite of Spring, wherein Nijinsky’s ballet (its choreography has been lost) caused a riot the night of its Paris premiere a century ago. There isn’t, incidentally, a lick of Stravinsky in Nijinsky. The music, beautifully conducted Wednesday by Simon Hewett, includes ballet excerpts from Chopin, Schumann, and Rimsky-Korsakov, as well as acres of scorched-earth Shostakovich, totally in keeping with the percussive anguish of the storyline, as Nijinsky loses more and more of himself. The eloquence of Riabko’s body is a wonder; he is pliant yet forceful to the last moment, when he shrouds himself in red and black cloth — a puzzling conclusion that, I learned later, represented Nijinsky’s final ballet, Wedding with God.

Nijinsky is a tour de force. We’ve taken in Nijinsky’s agonies, but we’ve also experienced a feast of the senses. Both are what Nijinsky was about.

Nijinsky’s own gifts as a dancer were stunningly represented in the work of Alexandr Trusch and Kiran West as Harlequin, Trusch again in Spectre de la Rose, Thiago Bordin, eerily replicating of Nijinsky’s smile in the famous photo as the Golden Slave in Scheherazade. Most crucially, Lloyd Riggins richly fulfilled the character role of the tragic Petrouchka, with Silvia Azzoni, cast in multiple roles, a particular standout as his partner.

Nijinsky has left us but one of his ballets, Afternoon of a Faun. His dancing exists only in photographs (well worth looking at) and commentary, and his dancing career spanned a mere 16 years. He spent more than half his life in mental hospitals and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. By any measure, this was a disastrous loss to the art form. And yet in the ballet Neumeier gives us an entire personality, a figure of passion and grace to add even more humanity to all that panic and despair.

Neumeier designed Nijinsky, using sketches by Leon Bakst and Alexandre Benois, both of the Ballets Russes. With Jeux, Afternoon of a Faun, Carnaval, Petrouchka, Scheherazade, Les Sylphides, and Spectre de la Rose, Neumeier skillfully intermingles those designs, the choreography, especially that by Fokine; historic, iconic photos, and contemporary performances. Cleverly, Neumeier gives us some choreography and imagery from the era, makes some up, and lets our hearts and minds fill in some more.

In all, Nijinsky is a tour de force. We’ve taken in Nijinsky’s agonies, but we’ve also experienced a feast of the senses. Both are what Nijinsky was about.

The Return of Nijinsky – Part 1

Coming in February, John Neumeier and the Hamburg Ballet will perform “Nijinsky” at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. Below (from SF Classical Voice and authored by Janice Berman), is Part 1 of an overview of the ballet:

Nijinsky, John Neumeier’s full-length spectacular inspired by the seminal dancer, choreographer, and tragic figure of the 20th century, has arrived in San Francisco 13 years after its premiere. No point mourning that lost time. Just hasten over to the War Memorial Opera House and take it all in. The San Francisco Ballet is hosting the Hamburg Ballet, where the Milwaukee-born Neumeier, who began poring over Vaslav Nijinsky’s biography “before puberty,” as he puts it, is marking his 40th anniversary as Hamburg’s artistic director. He’s created many other ballets, including last year’s SFB hit The Little Mermaid, but Nijinsky’s explosive, searing essence lets us know that it’s the one closest to Neumeier’s heart.

Nijinsky begins and ends with the end of Nijinsky’s career — his final performance on Jan. 19, 1919 in a hotel ballroom in St. Moritz. As the elegant crowd looks on, Nijinsky (Alexandre Riabko) looks back. Other dancers portray characters for which he became famous, in a kind of swirling fantasy; his family, dancers all, dances in as well. His mother, Eleonora Bereda and his father, Thomas Nijinsky, a pair of dancers; his wife, Romola (Hélène Bouchet), in red; his sister the choreographer Bronislava Nijinska (Patricia Tichy), his mentally disturbed dancer brother Stanislaw (Aleix Martínez). And, importantly, there is Serge Diaghilev (Carsten Jung), the impresario, Nijinsky’s mentor and lover, who fired Nijinsky after he married Romola, ending his career.

A sense of shape-shifting suffuses the ballet. Nobody remains what he or she seems for very long, except, of course, Nijinsky. In the first act, in fact, even the ballroom seems to melt and slide, as the dance grows more crazed and Nijinsky’s perceptions more skewed. Neumeier has a gift for body expressiveness in individual characters but also in big groups. In the first act, a circling, leaping skein of women, gowned in shades of brilliant orange, helps connect more intimate sequences.

Stay tuned for Part II of the article, coming next month.

Nutcracker!

It’s that time of year again… when just about everyone who’s a dancer, dance student or dance lover is involved in a performance, knows someone who is, or is looking forward to being part of the audience for that much-loved Holiday tradition — The Nutcracker.

Ever wonder how it got to be so? George Balanchine is credited with making it a household name in the United States back in the 60’s… but where did it all begin before Balanchine arrived on the scene? (Here’s a hint:  with Tchaikovsky, Marius Petipa, Ivanov, Alexandre Dumas…)  Well, thanks to youtube.com, here’s the 3 minute version — thank you Youtube and Happy Holidays!

Let’s Dance

It’s often said that training in ballet prepares the dancer for every other form of dance. The recent victories of both Eliana Girard and Chehon Wespi-Tschopp (both ballet dancers) on “So You Think You Can Dance”, the popular FOX-TV dance competition, illustrates this point perfectly (no pun intended!). Because ballet has such rigorous training and technique – which sets the rules and standards for a method of study – it prepares the body to move with specific placement and alignment incorporating artistry, physicality, musicality, interpretation, presentation and more in a way that no other form of dance training provides. Once you’ve trained in this way, you can pretty much rely on it to move anyway you wish.

With this in mind, below is “A tribute to the joy of dance… it’s a wonderful thing”:

Brainy Quotes, Brainy Dancers

Recently I came across Brainy Quote, a website devoted to famous people and their “brainy” quotes. Looking up famous dancers, here are some of my favorites…

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
Martha Graham

Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.
Martha Graham

Even though I am a professional, and I know what the steps are, I don’t quite know how I’m going to do them, because I haven’t lived that moment yet. I always feel very insecure and I get very excited.
Suzanne Farrell

I got started dancing because I knew it was one way to meet girls.
Gene Kelly

I danced with passion to spite the music.
Gelsey Kirkland

We were all novices. We really were. We didn’t know a goddamn thing about doing a show.
Jerome Robbins

To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.
Agnes de Mille

The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music. Bodies never lie.
Agnes de Mille

The universe lies before you on the floor, in the air, in the mysterious bodies of your dancers, in your mind. From this voyage no one returns poor or weary.
Agnes de Mille

God gives talent. Work transforms talent into genius.
Anna Pavlova

The ballet is a purely female thing; it is a woman, a garden of beautiful flowers, and man is the gardener.
George Balanchine

One is born to be a great dancer.
George Balanchine

Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.
Margot Fonteyn

My dance classes were open to anybody, my only stipulation was that they had to come to the class every day.
Merce Cunningham

I really reject that kind of comparison that says, Oh, he is the best. This is the second best. There is no such thing.
Mikhail Baryshnikov

The creative process is not controlled by a switch you can simply turn on or off; it’s with you all the time.
Alvin Ailey

The dancer’s body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul.
Isadora Duncan

A pas de deux is a dialogue of love. How can there be conversation if one partner is dumb?
Rudolf Nureyev

My feet are dogs.
Rudolf Nureyev

Dance every performance as if it were your last.
Erik Bruhn