Book Review: Vaganova Today

Book Review

Pawlick, Catherine E., Vaganova Today: The Preservation of Pedagogical Tradition
Gainesville Fl, University Press of Florida, 2011,  201 pp, $29.95
ISBN: 978-0-8130-3697-7

The name Vaganova usually fills the ballet lover with suitable respect.  The noted pedagogue’s name recurs regularly during a ballet competition when the Diane and Acteon pas de deux is performed, whether as one of the two variations or by an ambitious couple.

Any mention of schooling in a dancer’s biography leads to the fundamental expectation of purity and possibly virtuosity.  I remember Julia Vershbinsky telling me that her daughter Asya was one of six girls selected for study at that St. Petersburg institution out of several thousand – I venture six – but my memory is not that accurate.  But it gives one some notion just how lucky a child is when selected.

So it’s hardly surprising that Catherine Pawlick would be drawn to explore the school, its teachers and system as it existed when she started an interesting career in translation in that most elegant of Russian cities, the northern capital hewn from marshes by Peter the Great.

As Pawlick explains in the Preface, her initial exposure to the Vaganova syllabus was as an exchange student.  Duly impressed with the purity of the system under the Soviet regime, she returned to Russia in 2003 she made the decision to return to St. Petersburg to live in 2004, spending six years immersing herself in its ballet world, writing and interviewing members of the Institute; absorbing the structure and subtle ambiance inevitable with such a legacy of rigorous training and extraordinary artistic accomplishment.

Following the Preface with an impressive list of individuals in Acknowledgments she provides the reader with a Chronology of the Vaganova Institute, beginning in 1737 with Jean Lande,  the first French ballet master in St. Petersburg, requesting permission to open a ballet academy, and May 4, 1738 when Anna Ivanova signed a decree opening the “Dancing School of Her Highness.” This beginning was reorganized in 1779 forming the Imperial Theatre School, mandated to prepare dancers, musicians and actors.  [Compare the date: the British North American colonies were immersed in the American Revolution.]

Pawlick follows with a chronology of Agrippina Vaganova’s life, with its surprising credits for having served as artistic director of the Kirov, 1932-1937 when The Flames of Paris, and The Fountains of Bakshchsirai entered the repertoire.  Restagings included Swan Lake and Esmeralda, the latter providing the Diane and Aceton pas de deux has become such a staple.

Also during this time, her Basic Principles of Classic Ballet was published, which was published in English in New York by Kamin’s Book Store and translated by Anatole Chujoy with a red paperback cover and spiral binding if memory serves. Truly, Vaganova was a formidable contributor to the classic tradition which many of us today revere and extoll.

To return to the book’s format, following the Chronologies and Preface, it constitutes three sections: Vaganova, the Dancer [pages 5-28]; Vaganova, the Teacher [pages 29-74]; and Vaganova Today: Her Students pages 75-178] before Pawlick’s Conclusion.

A well-documented history of Vaganova includes comments about Olga Preobrajenska and her teaching methods, not only by Vaganova but visitors to Paris from Russia and by George Zoritch, a Preobrajenska student devoted to her memory.  As a strict classicist, Vaganova was ill suited to Fokine’s romantic approach; this prevented her from joining the dancers of the Diaghilev company either at its inception or with the four dancers, including Balanchine and Danilova, who left to tour Germany the summer of 1924 and never returned.  A further restriction on her career, Vaganova believed, was the lack of influential patronage.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Vaganova’s position after the Russian Revolution was not an easy transition, again mostly because of the hierarchy briefly remaining in St. Petersburg where Vera Trifilova was preeminent. In the text Konstastin  Sergeyev also explains the pros and cons which raged in the ‘Twenties artistically and classical ballet was not immune to controversy. It seems clear that the fact Vaganova never enjoyed the status her talent deserved . Lacking aristocratic or royal patronage provided her with opportunity under the Communist regime. Making do in the interval with other schools her diary records as awful, following Trifilova’s departure, Vaganova was invited to teach children’s classes because of her love of the school and “her irreproachable professionalism.”

Part of Vaganova’s success can be attributed to her ability to analyse her own physical difficulties with the classical syllabus. this enabled her to spot problems in students and to provide corrections and approaches to overcome the challenge of this most rigorous training.  The pictures opposite pages 25 and 33 give the reader some idea of Vaganova’s strength and commanding presence. A contemporary equivalent, though quite different, might  be Martine Van Hamel whose road to principal with American Ballet Theatre was singularly rigorous.

At the same time, Vaganova emulated Olga Preobrajenska’s approach to the students assigned her with equally reverential results.  Students were treated with respect and corrections were gentle though firm.  “Preo’s” student believed in training the entire body; I think this to mean she wanted a dancer to move as herself with the classical technique developed upon the intrinsic body style; this is something one can see clearly in a dancer, whether moving a trained body or the
technique pasted on.

The praise showered upon Vaganova’s pedagogical efforts are uniformly high with lavish, though discerning comments from Pyotor Gusev, Konstatin Sergeyev, and Fyodor Lubukhov as well as Ludmilla Blok and Nikolai Ivanovsky.
Opinions about her tenure as artistic director of the Kirov Ballet do differ, particularly when Vaganova opted for more naturalistic and expressive gestures
rather than traditional mime.  Lubukhov chides her for reorganizing the Diana
and Acteon pas de deux in Esmeralda, citing the role of a satyr danced by Georgy Kyasht with a conflict including a young Vaslav Nijinsky, a section Vaganova excised from the ballet; it had included Anna Pavlova in the Petipa production.

Reaching Vaganova Today: Her students, it is further divided.  First is
the Role of Pedagogue.  This describes a former dancer who received the full nine years of training in the academy, received a diploma, danced in a professonal Russian theatre and completed the Vaganova’s Academy graduate program for pedagogues, roughly a four year process.  Completing this course enables the dancer to coach other dancersin the theatre or to teach in the Academy.  This rigorous process still allows for performance.  Until recently, no individual trained in another academy or school was permitted, although individuals setting ballets for the repertoire are permitted in to stage the given work.

Pawlick then provides lengthy quotes from dancers turned pedagogues
either who remember Vaganova or who have come through the system and exemplify the tradition.  It is amazing and singular just how many of the individual teachers speak almost identical phrases.  This repetition, Pawlick commented to me, was nothing of her doing.  She interviewed the individuals separately and on a one-to-one basis.  Such is the veneration which existed at the time of Pawlick’s research and at a time when Altenai Assylmuratova was directing the Academy.

Mark Morris Interprets Handel, Zellerbach Hall, April 25

Mark Morris likes Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall; he likes the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and he not only likes Baroque music, he excels in staging it, musically and choreographically. This happy combination came together April 25 for the world premiere of the Morris take on George Frederick Handel’s Acis and Galatea; it brought Alastair MacAulay out from Manhattan and enjoyed a capacity audience of music lovers who didn’t bestow a nearly unanimous ovation until the conductor arrived to take a bow. Stingy after the glorious dancing, but understandable, since the orchestra section seemed three-quarters full of grey headed individuals, including this die-hard dance devotee. There is that look to primarily music lovers.

Such a glorious occasion. As the lights were slightly dimmed during the overture, I could spot heads bobbing happily to the music just like mine; all’s right with the world, briefly.

As the curtain rose, Adrianne Lobel’s canvas seemed to suggest Leon Bakst’s 1912 backdrop for Vaslav Nijinsky’s ‘L’Apres Midi D’un Faune”, rendered rugged, jagged, redolent of earthy reds some greens and yellows with browns. Against this Isaac Miszrahi provided the four major singers and dancers with tie dye wafts of yellows to mint green over white for the singers and diaphonous draperies for the dancers, bare to the waist for the men, cap sleeved for the women, floor length all.

On to this stage strode barefooted Galatea in tie dye fashioned with a full skirt and boat neck, framing dimunitive, full-bodied, dark headed Sherezade Panthaki; as Galatea, she was integrated into the dancers’movements as were the three male singers. As she sang the contemplative lines regarding nature in the spring, frequently in triplicate, the Morris dancers moved in trios, curving lines, parallel, crossing , forming circles, arms rising as if to signal “behold!”, or stretched forwards as if to follow with an arabesque which happened. At appropriate places there were skipping phrases, the front leg extended in softened attitude en avant. Of course throughout, Morris inserted silly gestures, echoing the music, hands pushing during multiple orchestra string repetitions, wrists flicked as a tone did a melisma of appreciable length. Where the music warranted, the Morris dancers created circles, moving with step, then pause; at other moments the opening step/kick polonaise blended to the music. Clearly Morris, attuned to the Handel Opera, arranged by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, brought every movement and gesture in his abundant vocabulary into play, laced with his whimsy, wit, at times sly commentary.

Hard to say whether Morris wanted to make a Mutt-Jeff pun in selecting tenors Thomas Cooley and Zack Finkelstein as Acis and Damon when they physically encounter Galatea, but there it was, Cooley sandy-haired, Finkelstein black-haired, underscoring their roles.

Act I requiree Galatea to yearn for love, Acis ditto and bass-baritone Douglas Williams as Polyphemus, vocalizing at length before the two lovers came face to face. A stage drop with two strategic openings, images one could imagine as the head and tail of a whale, abetted the entrances and exits a visual parallel as Galatea was led on and off stage by the dancers, Acis standing alone, but augmented by the Morris men, with partnering as the couple came together in musical ecstasy.

In Act II, Damon, an entirely peevish suitor for Galatea, a dandy quite narcissistic, Galatea fended him off with the aid of the dancers, pushing him in the chest, protecting Acis until the moment when he was felled by a stone, personified by a dancer launched from the dancers over Acis’ shoulders, a marvelous stage resolution.

Again, there were entrances and exits; one telling little group down stage right, required the dimunutive Lauren Grant, collect one leg of three or four dancers across her own outstretched,eliciting laughter from the audience.

Michael Chybowski’s lighting echoed the death of Acis, blocking Lobel’s stage designs, creating a murky grey atmosphere, followed by a dull red; in the apotheosis with Acis as a new god upstage center, gold leaf coronet and diaphonous white shawl draped Indian style across his torso, the happy greens conjuring a blissful pastoral landscape returned before the curtain descended. For me, the summary could be wrapped with one word, “sublime.”

Eifman’s Perspective on Rodin at Zellerbach Hall, May 12

Without question, Boris Eifman’s company elicits great praise for its dancing and similar controversy about its choreography.  Nothing, however, keeps the transplanted Russian speaking public from attending his ballets in droves; they were out in force for the May 12 matinee when I went to see Eifman’s interpretation of Auguste Rodin’s tumultuous love affair with Camille Claudel.

What one can expect from an Eifman ballet are slender dancers with jaw-dropping flexibility, striking sets, many with metal structures which get incorporated into the action because the dancers climb, crawl or drape themselves along one of another of the bars while the taped music blares one of several climatic moments.

For the matinee the cast included Oleg Gabyshev as Rodin,  Lyubov Andreyeva as Camille and Nina Zmievets as Rose Beuret, Rodin’s long-suffering companion, and mother of his son, whom Rodin married at the end of his life.  Not only are the soloists less than mid-thirties in age, but the matinee’s three principals were trained outside the main stream of Russian classical academies.  Gabyshev hails from Novosibirsk, Andreyeva from Minsk, Belarus and Zmievets from Kiev, Ukraine.  Two others featured on Saturday graduated from the Vaganova Academy, two hailed from Perm.

Eifman very cleverly utilized a series of French composers for his dramatic exposition, most  pieces with which American audiences likely were familiar: Maurice Ravel; Camille Saint-Saens; Jules Massenet; Claude Debussy; Erik Satie, cutting and pasting where score and dramatic action seemed to jibe.

Eifman seems to be at his best at moments crystalizing action, the last visual image before a blackout. Also effective with repetitive movements, he shows Rose’s providing Rodin with his food – the economic serving gesture, the slump of Rodin, his quick dispensing of the meal, mind distracted.  Zmievets’ use of her torso snaking forward, profile to the audience, her sharp nose, dark hair and supple reach of her body from neck through to her hips was a sculpture in itself.

Several instances occur when the metal structures frame images indelibly associated with Rodin, most notably when the corps members assume the famous, if never realized Gates of  Hell. (The crowning three figures of which were inspiration for Yuri Possokhov’s Francesca da Rimini.)Also, the movement of bodies which assumed the positions of The Burghers of Calais, a copy known to many visitors to San Francisco’s Palace of the Legion of Honor.  Yet another device was Rodin moving dancers’ limbs before throwing a canvas over the figures displaying yet another famous statue such as The Lovers.

One expects Eifman to depict the triangle in extreme fashion and he doesn’t disappoint.  I found my stomach churning even when observing and feeling skeptical about the feverish extremes of Claudel.  In that category I would place Eifman’s assignments for the inmates of the mental institution.  Granted time and culture divergence, having worked in an inpatient psychiatric setting, the costuming and circle arrangement for the women inmates rang false, if perhaps quite necessary for Eifman’s concept of the tangled love and sculptural collaboration. He depicts only Camille’s destruction of her work, nothing of what remained, and, of  course, her subordination to Rodin’s endeavors.  Eifman may have felt it would soften the stark contrasts which are such a hall mark of his choreography.  In his choices, Eifman eliminated Rodin’s contacts with the dancing greats of the day: Isadora Duncan; Anna Pavlova; Vaslav Nijinsky.

Obviously, I have not reprised the story line, but for those interested Wikipedia provides outlines of both artists.  It also might be noted that little, if anything, was made of Camille’s brother, Paul, the French diplomat and poet, who was responsible for placing his sister into an asylum, or of the asylum staff who made repeated efforts to see her released, actions unsupported by her family. That is the final part of the horror story.

Oakland Ballet’s Diaghilev Tribute

Rita Felciano, Claudia Baer and I attended the May 11 matinee of Oakland Ballet’s Diaghilev Imagery at the Malonga Casquelord Theatre, Alice Street in Oakland.  The venue itself is a surprising tribute to East Bay cultural interests in the ‘Twenties. A building devoted to women artists; it  provided both studios and residences at a time when the vote and non-domestic expressions for women were still novel and doubtless self-conscious.  It currently houses Dimensions Dance Theatre and a bevy of African-related dance groups rehearse and perform there as well as Axis Dance Company.  Early in its performing history Company C also utilized its 500 seat capacity.

Artistic Director Graham Lustig invited Amy Seiwert to reimagine Bronislava Nijinska’s Les Biches, created to the sprightly Francis Poulenc music. Moses was assigned Carl Maria Von Weber’s Invitation to the Waltz to reinvent Spectre de la Rose, Michael Fokine’s choreography for Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina.  The woman in this extended waltz conjures the image of the spirit of the rose, mingling it with her romantic inclinations towards a young man she met at a ball.

Seiwart made no attempt to deviate from Nijinska’s original libretto if she did soften it by rendering the two male athletes as partners to the two young girls with the hostess having a lover deserting her for the Girl in Orange, said female originally The Girl in Blue.  This deviation in the plot gives rise to a wonderful pas de trois of the hostess with the two men.  The sofa remains, a screen and a closet has been added, both hinting at possible deviation from the  display of heterosexual pairing.

As The Hostess Emily Kerr had the opportunity to display her lithe body before donning a blue dress and that rope of pearls, and Sharon Wehner’s Girl in Orange displayed her share of moxie with nimble pointe phrases sharply accented and executed.  Bryan Ketron as the unreliable lover of the hostess delivered some of the crispest pirouettes in Seiwart’s reinterpretation.  I think Seiwart did well, considering the indelible sarcasm  with which Nijinska mocked affluent French society in the mid-Twenties. Seiwart is innately gentler.

Robert Moses was handed the most difficult possible assignment; trying to reinterpret a ballet which Fokine fashioned for Vaslav  Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina.  Moses naturally wanted to modernize it, calling it Bloom; one can’t blame him for that.  But to the lush 19th century waltz, Moses  expected two shoeless dancers to evoke the perfume of a dream demanding floating, aerial movement.  To compensate, Moses relied on his amazing capacity for arm movement at the expense of partnering. “We applied my working process to the traditional choreographic and musical structure. In doing so we applied equity to the roles, shifted the ballet and added a layered lexicon. Connie’s costume design is simple and reflects an updated sense of the male/female idea…in her dream she has power, agency and desire on which she acts.  In her dream he is more than a fantasy.”

The costume in question was a skimpy, short white tunic of stretch fabric worn by Ramona Kelley; Vincent Chavez was nude to the waist and wearing jeans.  Partnering was minimal. Lifts were almost non existent and could have contrasted clearly with Fokine’s still traditional choreographic approach. (Manuel Legris can be seen on You Tube in the original and displays a 19th century approach to partnering.) Where was the lexicon? I simply did not feel Moses’ statement and the dancing cohered,

Finally, Graham Lustig undertook Igor Stravinksy’s Pulcinella Suite, taken from Pergolesi manuscripts, and a tale linked to the Italian commedia dell ‘arte tradition.  Because the dancers appeared masked, the plot was displayed on a board in front of the top of the curtain and its ins and outs conveyed the sense of commedia dell arte, although the historic work choreographed by Leonide Massine never remained in the Ballets Russes repertoire.

Two young girls, Prudenza and Rosetta, are enamored of Pulcinella, a street artist who is dressed in flowing white shirt and trousers with huge black buttons and peaked white hat.  Florindo and Cliovelio, their ardent suitors, have a hard time, until they decide to disguise themselves in Pulcinella attire, inspiring success with the two young maidens. Their disguise enrages Pimpinella with Pulcinella who has to feign death to be reunited with her. The Doctor and his wife are part of the action and a dithering Dame Diamentini.

Naturally this is all very tongue in cheek, enhanced by masks and the narrative board;  the sense of confusion, plot and counter plot are pretty apparent. With lively music, Pulcinella made for an excellent closer.  As Pulcinella Gregory De Santis showed promise, but needs to prune his energies and sharpen his portrayal.  In general there was a feeling of frothy white with ruffles and busyness, where posture and precision could emphasize the wit more cogently.  I think the original costumes were sufficiently heavy that the froth had to be provided by the characterization.  It was evident, however, Lustig knew the tradition thoroughly.

One interesting note was the name of Michael Levine listed as an understudy.  With career credits chronicling staggering experience one wonders why he wasn’t at least featured in Pulcinella.

In utilizing the Casquelord Auditorium for it spring season, Oakland Ballet may have solved its problem of  venue size and cost.  One hopes it settles in to the space for other seasons.

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Russell Maliphant Dance Company, The Lam Research Center Theater

Russell Maliphant  really brought a trio to the Lam Research Center  Theatre,  Buena Center for the Arts, October 13 and 14 under the auspices of S.F. Performances in one of those 60 minute performances without intermission, fast  becoming de rigeur mode for modern dance ensembles. The title was Afterlight.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the evening followed the performance, when  Maliphant’ commented about his association with Michael Hulls whose lighting creates an atmosphere enhancing, perhaps structuring the movement quality. Adding to the ambiance was the Gnossiennes1-4 of Erik Satie, placing the patterns executed by Thomasin Gulgec, Silvina Cortes and Gemma Nixon  clearly in the realm of personal rumination.

Maliphant also said the genesis of Afterlight stemmed from a Sadler’s Wells Commission for its 2009 Spirit of Diaghilev season. He went beyond his Royal Ballet training to study not only t’ai ch’i and ch’i gong, but the Rolfing Method of Structural Integration, contact improvisation, capoeira and yoga.  Hitching such diverse movement principles to a study of Vaslav Nijinsky’s drawings brought him to what was seen on stage.

At the opening,Gulgec was seen  in movements balletomanes could recognize as influenced not only by the circles, exaggerated eyes and heads in Nijinsky’s drawings but by the character of Petrouchka in that most perfect of dance theatre productions.  Thomasin seemed to embody the drawings as well as the character of that puppet.  Silvina Cortes and Gemma Nixon brought to the piece touches of Nijinsky’s third work, Jeux, all backed by the limpid Satie compositions.

Most difficult  was where it led.  After the  trio’s appearances and the exposition evoking the brief Nijinsky career, nothing seemed resolved.  The piece floated onward until the music’s end.  The dancing was elegant, skilled, the stage spare, the lighting and music intimate and  evocative; that was the entire sum.  No convention in modern dance these days seems to  require a conventional conclusion to an idea or an exposition. Russell Maliphant hued to this line of permission.

With all the resources, music, lighting and participating dancers, what a pity.

Parallel #20

Parallel is a Hungarian annual journal on contemporary dance. It came to my attention through the network which has established itself  via the Dance Critics Association, and in particular through G.E. Dunn, Sandy Kurtz and Leland Windreich.

What makes issue #20 so important is that it features photos of the Nijinsky-Markus connection, and with it, photographs not only of Emilia Markus as a beautiful and formidable theatrical personage, but also as the grandmother of Vaslav Nijinsky’s two daughters by Markus’ daughter Romola.  There are photographs of Tamara Nijinsky as a young girl, a teenager and a young actress, as well as a recent one with her daughter Gingka Gaspers.

It is well worth looking for, even if you can’t read Hungarian.