The Mia Documentary

San Francisco Dance Film Festival opened its 2015 series at the Jewish Community Center’s Kanbar Hall, Monday, October 5 with the documentary
“Mia,” the life and accomplishments of Mia Slavenska. Slavenska died in 2002, believing she had been forgotten though she was lionized at the Ballet Russe Celebration in New Orleans in 2000 and subsequently interviewed for the wonderful Geller/Goldfine production Ballets Russes. This documentary was created by Mia’s daughter Maria Ramos and film-maker Kate Johnson. Their choice of signage seems geared to a television screen and smaller viewing space than the Kanbar.

While the documentary has been aired earlier on television, the chance to see it again was memorable, not just because of her life, but with the inclusion of three dance critics active during the height of Slavenska’s appearances: Jack Anderson,  who for many years co-edited the Dance Chronicle quarterly. Anderson also was one of The New York Times dance critics for many years, a poet who also authored The One and Only Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

George Dorris served on the editorial board of Oxford University Press’ six-volume The Dance Encyclopedia, and contributed to the English publication Dancing Times. George Jackson covered Washington, D.C. for Dance News for many years, as well as writing periodically for The Washington Post; he now writes for the website danceviewtimes.

Newspaper accounts from Mia’s early years were quite amazing. She clearly was sure-footed technically and her debut elicited adoration from the audience. As a young adult, she created quite a stir for her advocacy of expressionist dancers like Harold Kreutzberg and Mary Wigman, causing a non-renewal of her contract with the Zagreb Opera House.

Mia and her mother left Croatia, went to Vienna, managed to get Mia into the cultural branch of the 1936 Olympics, which she won. Moving to Paris, Mia found an impresario who changed her name from Corak to Slavenska and got her into the film Ballerina with Yvette Chauvire and Janine Charrat, who played the young girl crippling Slavenska. The French title was Le Mort de Cygne.

The unexpected death of her impresario triggered Mia’s signing with Leonid Massine and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo where she languished because of a large roster of ballerinas. Here the documentary fails to credit her leading role in Marc Platt’s choreographic debut, Ghost Town, worth at least a photograph.

Also missing was Mia’s decision to spend nearly two years with Vicenzo Celli, the major Cecchetti teacher of the time. and the three seasons she was artistic director of the Fort Worth Ballet. Nor did it touch on the relationship Mia and Rozelle Frey enjoyed, and Frey’s studio where Slavenska periodically taught.

A significant portion of the film concerns Slavenska’s own ensemble, which, for a time, was profitable. Expanding the number of the ensemble proved fatal, causing them to lose their home. A good part of this footage centered around Slavenska and Franklin’s portrayals in Valerie Bettis’ A Street Car Named Desire. Tennessee Williams told Slavenska she was his best Blanche de Bois. Slavenska earlier enjoyed considerable acclaim, dancing Anton Dolin’s Pas de Quatre with Alicia Markova, Natalie Krassovska, and Nora Kaye. An excellent passage of her dancing with Royes Fernandez does not credit him as her partner.

With the fiscal disaster of the Slavenska-Franklin Company, Mia turned to teaching although she spent two seasons as the ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera, concurrently. When she left New York City for Los Angeles, she taught privately and for some years both at UCLA and CAL Arts before her retirement. The retirement years were spent writing her memoir, a copy of which was deposited at the Jerome Robbins Division of the New York City Public Library.

Slavenska attended the Ballets Russes Celebration in New Orleans in 2000; there she was one of the big draws, and is a featured dancer in the Geller/Goldfine documentary Ballets Russes. Unfortunately, she died before the documentary was released.

The film finishes with the touching evidence of the estime with which she is regarded in Croatia. A plaque is embedded in the wall of the house where she was born, and her ashes were interred in a ceremony led by Dido Bogdanovich, the artistic director of the Opera Ballet in Zagreb.

There is only so much footage can cover in an hour’s length; Ramos and Johnson have forged an excellent narrative with just enough actual dancing to fill out what largely are pictures and copies of articles, With this length of time, it only states the environment fostering her, a mother from a prominent family which lost its status and fortune following World War I, a modest father who was a professional pharmacist. Still Brava, Brava, Brava.

Stern Grove’s 76th Season and San Francisco Ballet’s Annual Appearance

July 28 remained stubbornly overcast, but not so cold that union regulations forbade San Francisco Ballet dancing. My friends shared with me a table graced by Teri McCollum and her friend Tab, an excellent view of the stage, and as the program began, anyone who could manage the space between the granite-lined path and bench legs. A couple of women even managed to sit on the Igloo at the end of the table.

What was seen was deliberately selected for an audience as intent on food and company as on the stage, designed to enjoy without heavy emotional engagement, but skillful, very much so. This year’s roster comprised, “From Foreign Lands,” Alexi Ratmansky with Moritz Moszkowski music of the same name, the cultures being Russian. Italian, German, Spanish and Polish; Stone and Steel, Myles Thatcher’s ballet for the School’s May concert to music of Michael Nyman and Yann Tiersen. Then a pas de deux for Yuan Yuan Tan and Damian Smith by Edward Liang to Thomas Albinoni, titled Distant Cries preceded the finale Suite en Blanc, Serge Lifar’s 1943 display for the Paris Opera Ballet to the music of Edouard Lalo.

The Ratmansky work comprised successively a pas de quatre of two couples; a pas de quatre with three women and one man; a pas de quatre with one woman and three men; and pas de quatre for two couples and the finale a pas de huit for four couples. The first, Russian, was a slight rivalry and partner change with Sasha de Sola, Jaime Garcia Castilla, Frances Chung and Gennadi Nedvigin, and the initial pairing, sparkling allegro and a pair of more lyric limbed dancers – in the end winding up one with each. Castilla and Nedvigin made a fascinating visual contrast in their initial appearance, the legato and the crisp, both admirably schooled. In the Italian Joan Boada displayed his elevation for Dores Andre, Dana Genshaft and Sarah Van Patten. Simone Messmer, formerly with American Ballet Theatre, made her debut in the German number opposite Luke Ingham, Myles Thatcher and Shane Wuerthner whose function primarily was to lift her aloft, allowing her to inspect them, the role originally danced by Sofiane Sylve. Frances Chung, Sarah Van Patten, Joan Boada and Gennadi Nedvigin returned to make like Spaniards, all aware of their mutual charms. For the finale, the Polish, there were jumps for the men in addition to partnering for the women. Ratmansky has a deft touch, conveying flavor without laboring the point, and it moves such a slight work along with great charm.

Thatcher’s Stone and Steel is another work displaying his growing capacity to organize an ensemble, moving the dancers individually and collectively. This ten dancer ballet was created to music by Michael Nyman and Yann Tiersen; as suggested by the title, the ambiance was insistent and the execution crisp. Sasha de Sola was the only soloist with the nine from the corps de ballet, including new corps de ballet members, Isabella de Vivo and Wei Wang; both had been utilized during the spring season, either as apprentices or in the student performing group. The other dancers were Jordan Hammond, Kristina Lind, Julia Rowe, Sean Orza, Steven Morse, Henry Sidford and Lonnie Weeks.

Distant Cries started out with Yuan Yuan Tan moving in silence and joined by Damian Smith as the music commences. Their long-standing partnering is invariably a pleasure to watch, he displaying her long limbs to great advantage. At the end Damian retreated upstage center and Yuan Yuan was left alone, perhaps portending his retirement rumored for the end of 2014’s season.

I would love to know the roster of the dancers who created the various sections of Lifar’s Suite en Blanc in Zurich just about six months before Paris was liberated in 1944. I know Lycette Darsonval and Yvette Chauvire were among them, as well as Roland Petit and Janine Charrat. Jean Babilee, because he was Jewish, had left the Opera Ballet to join the Resistance. Carlos Carvajal can recite who danced what when the ballet was danced by the Grand Ballet de Marquis de Cuevas.

Marie-Claire D’Lyse, Kristina Lind and Jennifer Stahl wore romantic length tutus for the opening sieste, followed by another pas de trois with Sasha de Sola, Davit Karapetyan and Vitor Luiz, whose principal assignment seemed to be grand jetes and beats while turning. Clara Blanco in serenade was charm with a fair amount of pique steps; the effectiveness slightly lost because the corps behind her is elevated on ramps when danced on a proscendium arched stage. This also was true for Dores Andre’s appearance in the pas de cinq with Esteban
Hernandez, Wei Wang, Lonnie Weeks and Dmitry Zagrebin.

This served as debut performances for Hernandez and Zagrebin, particularly when the four men beat entrechats in a line. Hernandez is the brother of Isaac Hernandez, now with Het National Ballet in the Netherlands. Shorter thant Isaac, I first saw Esteban at the USA IBC in Jackson in 2010, where he received the Jury Award of Encouragement. I also look forward to seeing more of Zagrebin, Bolshoi trained and former company member; he garnered a gold medal at Seoul’s International Competition in 2010.

Vanessa Zahorian transcended the title of her solo, cigarette, with her usual flair to be followed by one of the company’s India rubber balls, Taras Domitro in mazurka. Wan Ting Zhao and Tiit Helimets were featured in the pas de deux before Sofiane Sylve appeared in flute. In this fleeting glimpse before the finale, Sylve managed to capture the audience’s focus with the like strength that captivated an earlier Stern Grove audience when she danced the second movement of Balanchine’s Symphony in C. She projects simplicity but with a quiet fierce majesty rarely failing to satisfy a witness.