Once upon a time I collected photos of each Chosen One performing in a different ballet. Wasn’t too hard to do. But finding them in their own skin, their own choice is hard to do and wanna know why? About 11 Chosen Ones want nothing to do with me. Eventually I will name them. Today, these women control the atmosphere.
Marie-Claude Pietragalla
Joanna Drabik
Karen Mesquita
Daria Pavlenko
Priscilla Albuquercue
Maude Sabourin
Renata Versiani
Taryn Kaschock Russell
I don’t give up easily. If I feel up to it I will dig around for more. But I am more focused on my personal confession and comedy blog. I am saying too much there.
And why we should all get to see them before people stop even watching it. I’m not joking.
Why or how is lost to memory for me but I posted the first version of the Joffrey’s debut of “Le Sacre du Printemps” – a virgin if ever there was one as no one had ever seen the ballet. These dancers needed to create an emotional anti-ballet masterpiece based on the story telling of Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer. They told it well. The company drew from their own pains and joys and confusions and staged the footprint that all companies thereafter had the luck to follow. Luck? Yeah. Talent? Not necessarily.
As soon as the Mariinsky 2008 HD version was posted on YouTube all was sort of lost. Had the Joffrey allowed a posting of a clean copy then people would be able to see dancers experiencing their roles not counting their steps. Here is a tiny clip of what the original Joffrey from 1987 would look like were it not being hoarded like the end of the world were coming and only turned in toes would save you:
So it exists.
The Companhia Nacional de Bailados also performs the ballet semi-regularly but will not release a copy. I know they have some hardcore perfection in their history but this is what I have been able to get:
HOWEVER…there are a ton of Chosen One performances I have pulled together because of the dancers’ kind sharing or my good fortune. SEE FOR YOURSELF…uh…I forget the point. Oh yeah..I’m tired of trying. I don’t think there is anything left out there that I could acquire for free so if you would like to take over, drop me a line.
Recently my friend or rather a personal hero of mine named Millicent messaged me a photo of the Ballet Russes that included Massine and Stravinsky: who are the others.
I should really let people know not to ask questions like that because down the rabbit hole I went and my idea of a rabbit hole is like the 2nd floor of a kappa alfa house: it all ends up shoved in a drawer and never spoken of again on top of it. But rabbit hole sweet rabbit hole…without you there would be no This Is Not Swan Lake, no Sacre collections, no fried hard drive from an old Samsung lap top circa 2009.
Of course, there are so many Ballet Russes photos which I managed to get somewhat in order over the years many of which are taken at train stations, airports ships and an occasional car. Also I have about 40 performance shots but lets start with 3 “scowling Stravinsky” images. Have a look and keep scrolling away for more likely mislabeled photos of the best thing France ever did to Russia. Amusez-vous.
“scowling Igor”
And these are just the posed photos. There are so many more but I must close here for now so that it will be half finished. Far be it for me to anything correctly.
I have watched more crappy videos of the various courageous ballerinas who danced the role of The Chosen One over the last 12 years but I’ve pretty much stopped looking. It still boggles the mind that such a jewel in a ballet company’s Crown was filmed so poorly by nearly everyone but the Mariinsky .
Of course there are other companies -I’m certain – that have nice quality but for some reason they don’t want to release it. I suppose there is a great fear that Philistines may become educated and then where WOULD we be? Or, they just weren’t good.
And then out of the blue I stumbled upon a 1994 rehearsal video – still crappy quality – of CNB’s Ana Lacerda.
I had long thought it was impossible to get a greater lunge out of that solo then the one Zenaida Yanowsky got but I was wrong. All of the extension and perfection only turned inward and awkward it’s just stunning. There is something very special about Ana Lacerda. She is an elegant ballerina an emotional contemporary dancer a gorgeous model and on top of all that she’s a sweet person. This combination doesn’t usually conclude with the words “sweet person”. I suppose you could say simply she is an exceptional person.
the
And I’m so glad that the video is rehearsal so that the dress is not covering what she’s achieving. She’s elegant, she is right on time boy right on each mark though sadly the video will show something a little different because it’s so old and the settings were a little weird.
I wish I could see rehearsal footage of each dancer just to see what is happening, what they’re doing with their body that you cannot see because of the costume.
Would that not interest you? Doesn’t this amazing stunning video of Ana Lacerda make you want that? If you are not saying “yes” then you may have wandered off the path from the Nutcracker or some other torturous thing. Cirque du Soleil.
For years I have thought I understood what it was about but really, I was on the periphery. That did not stop me from waxing ridiculous when I started this blog. On I went about Le Sacre in 2006 but I wrote from the sheer emotional crush of it- the spiritual entanglement that befalls many of us lay people. To hell with the academics.
And so I count my blessings to have been connected with Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer. I have learned a lot about the ballet from them and also how to remain inclusive with it, never condescending. Because everyone who comes at it , comes from their own direction and there we all meet anyway. Doesn’t matter if a person is short on facts or the only one who has them, we all turn our toes in the same.
Am I going to emo-blog here? Nicholas Roerich. Yes, I knew who he was but I did not know what he did. He was, as Doctor Archer explains in this little disastrously amateur video I have thrown together, the “father of the ballet”. Without his word, Nijinsky wasn’t budging on the choreography. Which I think Stravinsky may have borrowed for his own but no matter how you slice this, they are mad Russians in the end.
Also dead. They are dead Russians.
There is a lot of online stuff liking Roerich to Rasputin and I am like “hey, I am already sold”. You don’t need to sweeten it up with darkness. Well, anymore than we already have here.
So Kenneth Archer tells the tale and I butcher it all into a video. Look! Here it is now!
The tribe depends on the sun god Jarilo to warm the earth thereupon they must immediately stomp the energies into the earth. The crops will grow, the animals will flourish and the year will be plentiful. There is no free lunch with Jarilo. He wants to be paid and – what a shocker – he wants a virgin. But he is a sick god and he wants her to commit suicide. This is one sick little marriage.
Being a virgin in Roerich’s Pagan Russia was such a known liability so why not take the chance on being a slut? I mean, I did it in 1981 and I survived. Of course, the stakes were different…anyway…
Izadora Weiss and Wojciech Misiuro , directors of the Baltic Dance Theater has done what no choreographer has been able to do with the concept and music of Le Sacre du Printemps: turn it into a traumatic experience. This is not fringe or experimental. It is irresponsible. Although it is not visually the “useless whore” statement of this photo, it throws its lot in with it.
I used to do some performance stuff that was out there, lyrics about my rape set to circus music, delivering a “baby” at the prom and stuffing it in the trash making sure no one sees…it was dark comedy. Fringe and experimental, a little offensive but for the most part, no one really knew what was going on. I am funny on stage and can distract from the content. Yikes…I just realized I am a slapstick comedienne. Gross.
But what Izadora Weiss has done is use a misogynistic objectification of a woman: not Chosen but victimized and psycho-sexually controlled – to interpret the libretto of Le Sacre and really, I get it. Any woman who has been involved with a violent malevolent sadist and who would think the abuse is really because he loves her and she is the one WOULD get it because hey look…right in this photo you can see the promise of love in his fist.
Yes. There is an implied intimacy in this photo.
Weiss and Misiuro’s “Rite” is not experimental. It is calculated. This isn’t dark comedy. It is simply dark. It is horrible.
These photos alone are not easy to look at. This is not a submissive orsacrificed Chosen One. It is a controlled victim. This performance does not use domination and submission as a dark exploration of Le Sacre nor is it a commentary. It is an indifference.
It goes too far. I can’t believe I am saying this but it is worse than Preljojac’s Rite of Spring “gang rape”.
I write constantly that I strive to bring dance to the “ballet is frigging stupid” set. This ballet would most assuredly attract people who would otherwise never watch ballet. Unfortunately, those people would be sexual sadists and violent misogynists.
There are clips available online for this performance and they too will draw men in for a yank. The thought that strangers to Stravinsky’s masterpiece may play it while abusing their victims – even in a consensual psycho sexual relationship – sort of makes me want to puke.
Years back I got my hands on the Ballet Boyz’ “Rite of Spring” which starts out in a unique way but man I have never seen anything crash and burn so fast. There is this old BDSM lady who makes angry faces who walks around during Spring Rounds and I wrote:
“What’s with the old dominatrix lady making faces during Spring Rounds?”
They forced a hard copyright violation on Youtube. I think that was the last public appearance of this casserole of nonsense.
So watch the opening 3 minutes if you can and then…should you actually be reading this…tell me it’s great. I’m sure this is the first time you will see it. Tell me it’s 2nd only to Nijinsky. And include your address because I WILL come bitch slap you. You may not know when….but bet on it.
If your ballet sucks and you get someone who is syndicated to write how bad it is…take it! You will likely never even get asked to do Circue du Soleil so take any mention you can get.
Lord Henry Wotton said “The only thing worse than being talked about is NOT being talked about.” Actually, Oscar Wilde said it and stuffed it into The Picture of Dorian blah blah”. Here is the “ballet” for you to judge for yourself:
I’ve spent the last few weeks studying Act I of the Nijinsky choreography to Le Sacre du Printemps, this on the heels of coming away wholly disappointed in the Sacrificial Danse performed by the Joffrey in March. The Sacrificial Danse – have I been too fixated on that? It is, after all, the pinnacle, the reason for the story, the purpose of the ballet but how often do we miss the forest for the trees?
Act I.
You MUST see it live to appreciate it. Nijinsky had 5 different groups performing 4 – 8 different things at the same time. This is choreography on par with Mozart’s absence of recitative in the Marriage of Figaro. I never realized it until watching from the 3rd row. A wide angle shot peppered with close-ups does not do it justice. But somewhere between 1987 – when the Joffrey debuted the Nijinsky work with no blueprint, nothing to study and only the concept of The Rite and the importance of the music- and 2008 when the Mariinsky released the DVD, the only commercially available version of Le Sacre, something happened. What was a full engagement, a risk and a breaking of ground by the Joffrey became nothing more than steps done to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring by The Mariinsky. Even years later with Daria Pavlenko, same deal.
Induldge me.
The Joffrey had to rely entirely on its comprehension of the story and Stravinsky’s music which requires – no demands – the release of everything one knows musically to make space for the Rite. And they did just that.
Years and many performances later, the Mariinsky is counting, they are waiting to do the next step, are entirely outside of the music and have reduced Nijinsky’s masterpiece to a paint-by-number effort. They do not at any point engage. Do you see it?
Giving them a Mulligan by saying the commonness of the constant performance may have dulled them is absolutely wrong and here is why: when I saw the Joffrey in March…they performed with the same intuition for the music that they did in 1987! Act One was fully thought out by Nijinsky and was designed to embrace Stravinsky’s oddities. You can not possibly see it for what it is until you see it live. And The Joffrey owns it.
The Mariinsky’s lack of interpretation, absence of engagement with the music reinforces my claim that this company and perhaps Russian dancers on the whole have no ability to connect. They accept instruction and execute as told and that…that will never due with Le Sacre du Printemps.
My mother is Ukrainian and is the coldest person I have ever met. I am told she looked bored as she counted breaths at my birth.
le sacre du printemps: the collections 