At the Ballet

Choreography: Lev Ivanov/Marius Petipa

Music: Tchaikovsky

Debut: Maryinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg 1892

It’s that time of year again: the season when men, women and children everywhere assume an air of ballet knowledge and flock to see The Nutcracker. Suddenly and briefly, ballet is in the popular culture spotlight. Weary shoppers listen to The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy while waiting in line at Macy’s and imagine a sparkling ballerina in a pink tutu spinning around on her toes, and believe that what they are envisioning is entirely representative of ballet. It’s like the World Cup phenomenon in the US, when masses of usually oblivious Americans muster up some serious soccer enthusiasm and act like it’s not a fleeting interest. Or the tradition of singing Auld Lang Syne on New Year’s Eve with abandon despite most people having no idea what those words mean.

Washington Post dance critic Sarah Kaufman once wrote, “That warm and welcoming veneer of domestic bliss in The Nutcracker gives the appearance that all is just plummy in the ballet world. But ballet is beset by serious ailments that threaten its future in this country… companies are so cautious in their programming that they have effectively reduced an art form to a rotation of over-roasted chestnuts that no one can justifiably croon about… The tyranny of The Nutcracker is emblematic of how dull and risk-averse American ballet has become. … Has ballet become so entwined with its “Nutcracker” image, so fearfully wedded to unthreatening offerings, that it has forgotten how eye-opening and ultimately nourishing creative destruction can be?”

If I sound as cynical as Ms. Kaufman, which I know I do, it’s not my fault. When you grow up dancing, you treasure the annual excitement of putting on The Nutcracker. You start at age 7 skipping out of Mother Goose’s massive hoop skirt and top out ten years later as the lead in Waltz of the Flowers, the crowning moment of your short-lived dance career before the dance team college culture engulfs you. Your feelings toward The Nutcracker are forever after bittersweet. You dread hearing those over-played opening notes but end up performing in the grocery store the steps, emblazoned on your memory, despite yourself. You loathe the inevitable well-intended comment from acquaintances who, knowing you “do ballet,” are so proud to tell you that they’ve just seen The Nutcracker, and yet, when the Bolshoi broadcasts its latest production to a movie theatre near you, you go to see it.

The Bolshoi’s broadcast version had the usual highlights and pitfalls. Act One, Scene One employed adult dancers (not children) to perform the roles of the young party guests. Though this made for a comparatively dance-filled scene that moved along at a nice pace, I still found myself wishing it over with so we could get to the real dancing. Interestingly, the Nutcracker doll itself was played by a live dancer and Drosselmeyer’s role was uncharacteristically and happily dance-heavy. The interpretation of the dances from around the world, particularly that of the Chinese dance, were embarrassingly condescending. The lead roles, however, were danced very nicely and did justice to Tchaikovsky’s gorgeous music in The Waltz of the Flowers and the Grand Pas de Deux.

Though unsuccessful in its 1892 debut, The Nutcracker endured and has become one of the most popular ballets, especially in the US, where popular culture undervalues dance in general. Today the ballet is performed by large and local companies across the country as part of a beloved – and lucrative – holiday tradition.

The plot is, no doubt, familiar. A young girl receives a doll from her spooky uncle at the Christmas party in her home, falls asleep by the Christmas tree and awakens to a battle between giant mice, led by the Rat King, and toy soldiers, led by her Nutcracker doll. The girl helps the doll win the battle by throwing her shoe at the Rat King. The doll turns into a handsome prince and takes the girl away to a magical winter wonderland. Snowflakes dance. The couple then travels to a land of sweets, where confections from various parts of the world dance for them. Finally, the girl wakes up in her living room, discovering it was all a wonderful dream.

Each company tweaks the plot and interpretation a bit – some more than others. In some productions, Clara/Marie dances the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy. In others Clara/Marie does not wake from a dream at the end and, instead, goes off with the prince as in a fairy tale. In Washington, DC, Septime Webre’s interpretation for the Washington Ballet has become iconic in its own right. “Set in Washington, DC and filled with hints of Americana, this production features the heroic George Washington as the Nutcracker, King George III as the Rat King and cherry blossoms dancing on the Potomac (www.washingtonballet.org).” My husband just saw this production, his first Nutcracker (excluding my numerous childhood videotapes to which I subjected him upon our engagement) and enjoyed it.

Some call it pure nostalgia, others a triumph of good over evil. Still others, myself included, think of The Nutcracker as a coming-of-age story: a tale of sexual awakening in which a young girl on the verge of puberty imagines a handsome prince who takes her away from her home to a faraway land. All in all, it’s a charming but relatively shallow ballet, with a few stunning highlights among a lot of milling about. Nonetheless, I continue to both avoid and crave its ubiquitous presence at this time of year.

Additional resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nutcracker

Choreography:  Marius Petipa

Music: Peter Tchaikovsky

Debut: Maryinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, Russia  1890

An undeniably important ballet in the history of the art, The Sleeping Beauty has been presented time and again for over a century. The ballet has been reinterpreted by every major company since its first production in the late 1890s, and is a beloved gem in the canon of ballet. The New Yorker’s Andrew Porter describes it as, “the grandest, fullest and finest achievement of Classical ballet-it’s definitive statement…ballet’s Bible.”

The Sleeping Beauty (or “La Belle au Bois Dormant”) is traditionally presented in three acts, but the charming and energetic third act is often excerpted and presented as “Aurora’s Wedding.” Petipa’s choreography (most productions remain very true to his original) cleverly draws from Sleeping Beauty’s fellow fairy tales, featuring lovely divertissements by Cinderella and her Prince Charming, Puss in Boots, Little Red Riding Hood and others of Charles Perrault’s Mother Goose characters.

Porter wonders how Sleeping Beauty stacks up against other quintessential ballets. Swan Lake, Cinderella and others, he claims, “symbolically enshrine truth about human experience and human behavior…” He asks, “Can we find a moral in The Sleeping Beauty beyond that guest lists should be kept up-to-date lest awkwardness result?” He claims that Tchaikovsky, who happily catered to extremely detailed composition instruction by choreographer Petipa, clearly expresses his own answer through his score. “[Tchaikovsky’s] Sleeping Beauty,” he says, “is a struggle between good and evil, between forces of light and forces of darkness, represented by the benevolent Lilac Fairy and the wicked fairy Carabosse.”

Thanks to the Bolshoi Ballet, which has begun to broadcast live performances from its magnificent, newly restored theatre in Moscow to movie screens around the globe, new audiences can make their own call on the ballet’s moral. And though nothing can compare to the excitement of viewing a ballet performance in the theatre itself, ballet can only stand to benefit from the greater exposure that such broadcasts provide.

My afternoon at DC’s West End Cinema was pure pleasure. Svetlana Zakharova’s Aurora was flawless. David Hallberg, the first American principal at the Bolshoi, was excellent despite his eerily weird facial expressions. Highlights, aside from the magnificent spectacle of the theatre and stage themselves, also included the gorgeous Princess Florine (Bluebird’s lovely partner), Puss in Boots and the Gold, Silver, Sapphire, and Diamond Fairies. I wasn’t moved by the stony Lilac Fairy , however, and even Carabosse’s superb pantomime (the role, as is tradition, was played by a man in travesti) was, alas, still boring pantomime to me!

Overall, I’m thrilled for the opportunity to see more ballet and plan to attend the next Bolshoi broadcast. My next wish is that other companies will follow suit and help expose new audiences – not only to classics like The Sleeping Beauty, but also to the exciting new work of contemporary artists.

Additional resources

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/perrault01.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/debra-levine/david-hallberg-matinee-id_b_1093511.html

http://www.theaterjones.com/reviews/20111121083606/2011-11-21/Bolshoi-Ballet-Live/The-Sleeping-Beauty

http://www.balletalert.com/ballets/Petipa/Sleeping%20Beauty/Books.htm

Choreography: Gerald Arpino

Music: Hershey Kay

Debut: Joffrey Ballet 1968

Clowns – scary, right? Well, the ballet seems to add a new dimension of eeriness to the subject.

Little is available online in terms of video or commentary but Balanchine deemed it worthy of inclusion in “101.” The ballet begins with a sort of inverted Big Bang, leaving a sole surviving clown among a heap of deceased victims. The survivor manages somehow to revive his dead companions, who in turn tap into previously undiscovered human tendencies toward violence and cruelty. When their wrath turns on the survivor, he succumbs to his own baseness. Imprisoning them all in a giant balloon, he again is the sole survivor.

Additional resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Arpino

Music: Sergei Prokofiev

Choreography / Premieres: 

Rotislav Zakharov – 1945 (Bolshoi Ballet) / Konstantin Sergeyev, 1946 (Kirov Ballet)

Frederick Ashton – 1948 (Sadler’s Wells Ballet)

Margot Fonteyn as Cinderella

Alina Cojocaru as Cinderella

Moira Shearer as Cinderella

Ben Stevenson – 1970 (National Ballet at Lisner Auditorium, Wash. DC)

Most are already familiar with the tale of Cinderella. In 1697 French writer Charles Perrault published it in his “Tales of Mother Goose,” a collection of fairy tales. Prokofiev, however, saw “… Cinderella not only as a fairy-tale character but also as a real person, feeling, experiencing, and moving among us … What I wished to express above all in the music of Cinderella was the poetic love of Cinderella and the Prince, the birth and flowering of that love, the obstacles in its path and finally the dream fulfilled.”

A ballet classic, Cinderella has been choreographed and staged many times for a variety of companies. Most versions tend to follow the story that we know. Cinderella has two step-sisters (usually played by men in drag) but her step-mother doesn’t always appear. Accompanying the Fairy Godmother are the Fairies of the Four Seasons. Some productions, including Ashton’s and Stevenson’s, do away with the prince’s round-the-world search for the lost slipper’s proper owner.

“Created in 1893, it was in this ballet that Pierina Legnani, an Italian ballet dancer who had just been taken on at the … Maryinski Theatre, was to introduce a series of thirty-two fouettés which would amaze audiences.”

Premiered by the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1948, Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella, which many consider to be the definitive version, is an homage to the classical tradition of Petipa. “…Ashton has built a wonderful ballet, using a typical mix of the finest choreography with comedy, irony, and at times an underlying sense of sadness. At the heart of the piece is the meltingly beautiful pas de deux for the Prince and Cinderella at the ball…Her famous entrance, walking on pointe down the great staircase whilst gazing straight ahead, must be terrifying to do but it is always a magical effect. Almost every Royal Ballet ballerina has danced it: the best make the most of the contrast between kitchen and ballroom…”

In 1976 Ben Stevenson was appointed artistic director of the fledgling Houston Ballet, where he remained for 27 years, and during that time he created such new works as “Dracula,” “Cleopatra” and “Peer Gynt,” and brought new life in his original versions of “The Nutcracker,” “Coppelia,” “Swan Lake,” “Romeo and Juliet” and “Don Quixote.” But there’s something about “Cinderella” that causes it to remain his masterpiece.”

Sources / Additional resources

http://worldoftales.com/fairy_tales/Perrault_fairy_tales.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rostislav_Zakharov

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella_(Ashton)

http://danceviewtimes.com/2006/Autumn/04/jbcinderella.html

http://danceviewtimes.com/2004/summer/Ashton/reviews/ac11.htm

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/600109636/Cinderella-is-choreographers-masterpiece.html

http://www.ballet.org.uk/cinderella/cinderella-article.html

http://www.nureyev.org/rudolf-nureyev-choreographies/rudolf-nureyev-cinderella-prokoviev

Choreography: Jerome Robbins

Music: Igor Stravinsky

Premiere: New York City Ballet, 1951

Wendy Whelan/NYCB Video 

Laetitia Pujol/Paris Opera Ballet Video

In “Apollo’s Angels,” Jennifer Homans describes Jerome Robbins’ The Cage as one of “the ugliest and most disturbing ballets of all time…an orgy of savage female insects who stalk, kill and feed on male intruders with explicit sexual pleasure…as relentless and driving as Stravinsky’s score, and also as poignant…one of Robbins’ great ballets.” 

The story of this brief ballet follows a baby insect, The Novice, born into a tribe of violent, female predators. The Novice quickly learns the practices of her kind, winning the approval of her peers upon her first kill. Briefly, though, she falls in love with an unsuspecting male intruder. Their dance is sexual, animal. But when the tribe returns to the scene and the male thrusts The Novice toward them in disgust, they attack. The Novice, despite her crude feelings for the intruder, obeys her murderous instincts. The victorious tribe devours the male’s body.

Not surprisingly, the critical response to The Cage upon its 1951 premiere was one of shock and distaste. The Dutch government, as Homans mentions, at first banned it as “pornographic.” Robbins defended his creation, comparing it to the second act of Giselle. The Cage’s “Group” does in some way resemble the Wilis of Giselle. Even a contemporary viewer, however, must see the contrast between the loyal character of Giselle who loves Albrecht even in death, and the fickle nature of The Novice whose tribal instincts render her incapable of real love.

In “101,” Balanchine draws parallels between the women of The Cage and the many preceding stories of the predatory female, including Black Widow insects and even the legendary Amazon women. Is The Cage a commentary on female strength and self-sufficiency, or an indictment on its potential cruelty and viciousness? Perhaps it is both. It’s interesting that the piece was created just a decade prior to the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s, which did then and still does challenge society with the duality of these feminine traits. 

Additional resources

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/02/05/arts/city-ballet-the-cage-and-squar-e-dance.html

Choreography: Dennis Nahat

Music: Johannes Brahms   Listen to the score 

Premiere: American Ballet Theatre 1969

With no accessible videos on the Web and very little written about Dennis Nahat’s Brahms Quintet, I can report only on what Balanchine saw in the ballet and wrote of in “101.” Balanchine refers to the score as a “masterpiece,” which probably accounts for much of his praise of the ballet as Balanchine based his choreographic work always on his appreciation of music.  This abstract ballet featuring four pairs of soloists and nine supporting dancers, “uses the score for its narrative” but according to Washington Post critic Jean Battey Lewis, it “still celebrates the affection between the dancers.”

Nahat, an American dancer and choreographer, and co-founder of the Cleveland Ballet, choreographed Brahms Quintet “for ABT at a time when the American dancers were being upstaged by the influx of Russian talent” (Renee Renouf, May 2001). 

Additional resources

http://www.shomler.com/dance/brahmsq/index.htm

http://www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_01/jun01/rr_rev_bsj_0501.htm

http://www.answers.com/topic/dennis-nahat

Choreography: Eugene Loring

Music: Aaron Copland    Listen to the score

Premiere: Ballet Caravan 1938

Ballet Caravan, founded by Lincoln Kerstein in 1936, merged with Balanchine’s American Ballet in 1941. Later, the two men founded the New York City Ballet. In its brief, five-year existence, Ballet Caravan staged American-themed ballets for small groups of students. Today, Billy the Kid is the most famous of these.

Though it’s impossible to locate a video on the Web, Balanchine’s description in “101” is detailed enough to get a strong sense of the ballet’s aesthetic. In a stereotypical Wild West setting, Billy the Kid depicts a mostly fictional tale of the legend. The ballet begins with settlers venturing toward the frontier. Young Billy’s mother is accidentally killed and Billy takes immediate revenge. Billy makes a habit of murder and it finally catches up to him in the end. The tale is part Western, part psychological study.

More than the visual, however, it is Copland’s score, which builds upon fragments of “cowboy tunes and American folk songs” (Wikipedia), that seems to deserve most of the accolades. Copland “was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as “the Dean of American Composers”… The open, slowly changing harmonies of many of his works are archetypical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit.” (Wikipedia)

Additional resources

http://www.sab.org/school/history/1936.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Copland

http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/4423-billy-the-kid/

Choreography: August Bournonville

Music:  Johan Peter Emilius Hartmann and Niels W. Gade

Debut: Royal Danish Ballet, 1854

View a prior staging of the entire ballet online (before it’s inevitably taken down)

I have just returned from a most unexpected evening of absolute pleasure at The Kennedy Center, where the Royal Danish Ballet performed a totally enchanting August Bournonville classic: Napoli.

Having attended a dress rehearsal earlier this week for A Folk Tale, the company’s other program and another Bournonville creation, I was not primed for the sheer delight of Napoli. Despite several complimentary reviews of A Folk Tale online, I found the ballet, my first Bournonville, to be even more confusing and ridiculous than the average classical ballet. The sets were immaculate, taking me away to a troll-inhabited fantasy land, Danish style.  Current artistic director Nikolaj Hubbe is said to have toned down the religious aspects of the story but the overriding theme of Christian goodness still pervades – in overly simplistic, literal terms. Perhaps I should forgive in this respect, as the ballet is very much a product of the time and place in which it was created: 1854 Denmark. Bournonville called A Folk Tale, “The most complete and best of all my choreographic works.” However, the utterly silly plot (it’s too long and difficult to summarize here) and, moreover, the favoring of pantomime almost entirely over actual dancing had me questioning the greatness of this great choreographer and founder of the Danish school.

Hence, my surprise and delight at Napoli. Although the first ten minutes or so of the ballet were light on dancing, which is typical of the era in which Bournonville choreographed, the ballet suddenly gets balletic and never stops through the grand finale. The steps are the old-fashioned kind that we still practice in ballet class but rarely see onstage anymore. Petite allegro abounds; the Royal Danish cast executes each beat and jump – each jete, cabriole, ballone, brise – with alacrity and style. Every leg is turned out and every foot invariably stretched to a beautiful point, every face is serene and smiling, and every arm held roundly in place as both male and female dancers demonstrate their trademark quick, airy approach to some most difficult choreography. Contrary to many world class ballet companies today, the Danish seem to favor control over showmanship. Pirouettes rarely exceed a double but each is finished neatly and with an easy grace. It’s a refreshing style today.

As in A Folk Tale, the sets for Napoli were wonderful. Hubbe places the Italian town in the 1950s, cigarettes and high heels included. Also as in A Folk Tale, videography and non-orchestral sound was incorporated. However, the effect was a success in the latter ballet and not so much in the former. The Danish honor their 19th century roots, which means, for better (as in Napoli) or for worse (A Folk Tale), they tell stories through an overall setting of theatricality, with dance as one element. Audiences can expect not just pantomime but clapping and stomping, too, onstage. It’s an old-fashioned approach to story telling (prior audiences demanded humor, mime and more than just dancing from their ballets) that somehow feels a little avant-garde now.

Nowhere was the talent of the company to create real atmosphere more apparent or appreciated than in Act II. Set in an underwater grotto, this all too brief scene depicts hero Gennaro rescuing heroine Teresina from a destiny of Naiad-ism…which is like dryad-ism except under water. Gennaro’s love for Teresina overcomes the evil sea demon Golfo’s power over her and the lovers ascend toward light and life together. The entire scene was breathtaking from start to finish, thanks to both choreography and theatricality. Golfo was powerful and sympathetic, and the lovers tender and romantic. The fleeting scene was so majestic that I thought I’d like to skip Act III and simply see an encore instead.

However, the final act, despite its predictably charming peasants and the incongruity of the 1950s costuming combined with the traditional balletic dress of the soloists, was not in the least anticlimactic. The stellar cast performed a lively series of delightful divertissements with precision and color. As the curtain fell in the final moment, I was genuinely inspired to join in the well-deserved standing ovation.

I’m grateful for this week’s opportunity to finally experience the Danish school of ballet, which holds a unique and respected place in ballet history and today. The style is undoubtedly distinctive. I am intrigued and amused by the fable-inspired themes – and more than slightly confused by the cross-dressing characters appearing in both ballets (having arrived at the theatre direct from the Capitol Pride Parade, Napoli’s “drag queen” scene felt either playfully appropriate or uncomfortably mocking). But more than anything, I am entirely impressed by the quality of dancing and elaborate theatricality that combine at the Royal Danish Ballet, which make for some captivating story-telling.

Reading the story of Napoli in “101,” I recognize many changes and reductions to the original production, which was performed, according to Danish tradition, in exactly the same manner for well over a hundred years. Hubbe’s break with tradition is welcomed in my case.

Additional resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Folk_Tale

http://www.ballet-dance.com/200404/articles/royaldanish20040319.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/arts/dance/royal-danish-ballet-in-a-folk-tale-and-napoli.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/royal-danish-ballets-a-folk-tale-has-the-human-touch/2011/06/08/AGZCVQMH_story.html

http://www.theballetbag.com/2011/03/29/a-folk-tale/

Choreography: Marius Petipa

Music: Ludwig Minkus

Debut: Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, 1869

View excerpts from Ballet Nacional de Cuba’s 2008 Production

Loosely based on an episode from Cervantes’ great novel, Don Quixote is beloved around the world for its pseudo-Spanish zest, colorful costumes, gorgeous score and impressive technical stunts. In a ballet that culminates with a 32-fouette turn solo for the ballerina, it is bound to charm and excite. Indeed, Don Q. is a favorite classical ballet of mine. An excerpt from this ballet was one of the most challenging and most fun of the pieces I learned as a young dancer. I so enjoyed the hours spent working to capture the passion in the steps, which were both technically and emotionally demanding for me at age 14.

I’ve seen Don Q. performed over the years by various companies. The Bolshoi, which originated the ballet, is the definitive version in my mind. However, I was intrigued by last weekend’s production at The Kennedy Center, which was the first of any I’d seen by the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, the renowned company still directed by famed Cuban ballerina and 1948 founder Alicia Alonso.

As Alonso explains in the program notes, she undertook the staging of Don Q. in 1988 with great care and a little trepidation: “…it was very difficult to reconcile the depth of the Cervantes creation with the traditional ballet…along with the undeniable choreographic excellences and the richness of the Petipa style, I found musical incongruities with the dances of Spanish inspiration and, in some occasions, a lack of logical dramatic quality.” The result of Alonso’s thoughtful reinterpretation of Don Q. as a ballet is a unique version, “possibly the first professional version created by a company rooted in the Iberian language and culture.”

While it respects the Petipa tradition and incorporates elements of the later version by Alexander Gorsky, Ballet Cuba’s Don Q. successfully makes better sense of the plot, treats the character of Don Quixote with depth and sensitivity, links the folkloric dance elements with Minkus’ music and places technical virtuosity in the context of drama. But rest assured that these changes, while welcome, do little to diminish the ridiculousness of the ballet. Deluded Don Quixote and his drunken sidekick Sancho Panza intervene on behalf of Basil and Kitri, whose father wants her to marry a rich ponce rather than the poor barber with whom she is in love. One escape into the gypsy-laden woods, one dream of dryads and one faked suicide later, the couple is married and all is well. Cue the happy peasants, romantic pas de deux and virtuosic technical displays.

The highlight of the Ballet Cuba performance was Yanela Pinera’s Kitri, who danced with beauty and flair. Technically flawless, Pinera’s Kitri also had plenty of sugar and spice. Her partner’s long lines and multitudinous pirouettes could not compensate for a certain stiffness and immaturity that pervaded his performance. His poor Basilio could not match Kitri and, mostly, his partnering seemed to hinder rather than help her. A better match might have been Alfredo Ibanez, who danced the role of bullfighter admirably.

The corps de ballet shone, especially in Act II’s “white ballet” scene. Love, the dryads and their queen were a pristine vision of the feminine ideal. This scene began brilliantly and cleverly with Don Quixote rising up out of his body (played by a double) and entering the world of his dream.

If the production is more logical dramatically, it still lacks a pinch of the ole’ Bolshoi passion. There’s nothing like the way the Russians slam a lace fan to the floor and then dive into a deep backbend. Perhaps that interpretation of Latin passion is a bit over-the-top but then again so is classical ballet in general. Alonso’s ballet features a dance-packed few hours with very little posing and pantomime; even Don Quixote’s role involved more dancing than is typical for this ballet.

Alonso rearranged the plot elements quite a bit to accommodate a more logical progression of events and to show the Don Quixote character in a more sensitive light. In these ways, Alonso’s version is more akin to Balanchine’s 1965 interpretation, though certainly not as dark or serious as that. Balanchine’s version is completely separate from the traditional ballet. Set to a commissioned score by Nicolas Nabokov, it involves none of the antics of the original plot. Instead, it follows Don Quixote through a series of episodes and dreams, his visions of Dulcinea in the guises of other unattainable, ideal women, and to his deathbed. The subject is one with which Balanchine identified: “My interest in Don Quixote has always been in the hero’s finding an ideal, something to live for and sacrifice for and serve. Every man has a Don Quixote in him. Every man wants an inspiration. For the Don it was Dulcinea, a woman he sought in many guises. I myself think that the same is true in life, that everything a man does he does for his ideal woman. You live only one life and you believe in something and I believe in that.”

Additional resources:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/original-with-passion-ballet-nacional-de-cuba-gets-close-but-no-cigar/2011/06/01/AGY5mjGH_story.html

http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/artsfun/afterhours/19719.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_National_Ballet

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/arts/dance/24farr.html

Choreography: Maurice Béjart

Music: Hindu music

Debut: Ballet of the Twentieth Century, 1968

Watch video footage online from Bhakti:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usix5JZD23Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-awXKWc9tZg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB3ZZOZ_S0g&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTm1F4ns6V0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xNzloDIaNM&feature=fvwrel

Google “Bhakti + Béjart” and the results will include actual video footage – several versions! – of this ballet. Unfortunately, such access to ballet is rare. One of the unforeseen challenges I have in writing this blog, which was intended to capture my reflections on great ballets as I observe them, is accessing the actual ballets, live or on video. If I, an amateur dancer and dance lover actively searching for ballet, can find only rare glimpses of the work I seek, how can the uninitiated possibly discover it? I, perhaps naively, maintain hope that ballet companies will set aside intellectual property concerns and embrace the era of online video technology. Otherwise, Jennifer Homans’ conclusion that ballet has seen its last heyday may be sadly accurate. One need only to observe the drastic migration of music to inexpensive, easily downloaded digital formats to understand the critical role of the internet in attracting prospective new ballet audiences. 

Viewings of Bhakti online reveal several colorful interpretations, all of which reflect a decidedly Twentieth Century approach to dance. Created in late 1960s, Bhakti is an experiment in eastern influenced art, a successful blend of classical steps with eastern traditions. Its three-part “plot” in some ways echoes another important Twentieth Century ballet: Balanchine’s classically inspired but altogether modern Apollo. Bhakti introduces not just one, but three gods or incarnations of gods – Rama, Krishna and Shiva – who, like Apollo, dance with the women who are at times their wives, lovers, muses and students.

Béjart said, “Ballet is popular art of the twentieth century…But for the large public, ballet must change as much as music and painting have.” Surely the choreographer would be proud to see so much of his work available widely online today – and would support efforts by others to make more ballet accessible to the “large public.”

Additional resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballet_of_the_20th_Century

http://biographies-memoirs.wikidot.com/bejart-maurice