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Opus 4, No. 2: Jungian “Personality Type” Analysis Applied To Music

October 23, 2012 by 4dancers

by Allan Greene

One of my all-time favorite ballets, and one of the great dance creations of the Twentieth Century, is Balanchine’s “Four Temperaments”.  When I was Company Pianist with the Dance Theater of Harlem we must have performed it fifty times.  I did maybe twenty performances as the piano soloist with orchestras in Paris, Houston and the Spoleto USA Festival.  I am steeped in this work.                                   

At the time I was performing it, however, I was completely unaware of the connection between the four medieval “temperaments” or “humors” (choleric, melancholy, sanguine, and phlegmatic) and the much more recent work of the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung.  In the early 1920’s Jung synthesized ideas dealing with the relationship between physiology and personality, many of which he had come across in readings about world civilizations, into what he called the Psychology of Type (his 1921 book was called Psychologische Typen).  He noted how the differentiation of four personality types was common to the classical Greece (through the physician Galen), the medieval Persian physician Avicenna and early modern Europe. 

At first Jung drew on these historical ideas to resolve the conflict he was having with his mentor, Freud.  The two had a celebrated professional break-up in 1912, and Jung spent some time trying to reconcile with himself why this had occurred.  Out of this he created the concepts of introvert and extrovert, which have morphed into touchstones of our modern psychology.  In Psychologische Typen he extended the number of personality types to eight.

The idea for Balanchine’s Four Temperaments was not Balanchine’s (nor was it Galen’s) but, according to program notes for the American Symphony Orchestra prepared by Adrian Corleonis, came from the composer Paul Hindemith.  Corleonis doesn’t show however where Hindemith came across the idea.  It’s always possible that he was familiar with Carl Nielsen’s Second Symphony (1901), nicknamed also “The Four Temperaments”.

The essential idea in all of this is that there are four kinds of personality: one tending toward sadness (melancholy), one tending toward hesitance (phlegmatic), one tending toward cheerfulness (sanguine) and one tending toward anger (choleric).  All human beings possess one of these four personality types, and, according to pre-Modern medical science, must be treated appropriately.

It is my belief that all pieces of music, too, are constituted of recognizable “personalities”, and the best performances of them understand and animate the interaction of these personalities. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Editorial, Music & Dance Tagged With: balanchine, Ballet, carl jung, company pianist, dance, dance theatre of harlem, four temperaments, music theory, piano soloist

10 Questions With…Ikolo Griffin

September 10, 2012 by 4dancers

Ikolo Griffin, Photo by Weiford Watts

I met this lovely man at Dance USA when he came up to talk to me after the panel on Dance Writing–he had a pretty cool idea that he wanted to share–and now I’m pleased to be able to share it with you…

1. What is your dance background?

When I was in third grade, San Francisco Ballet’s Dance In Schools Program (led by Charles McNeal) came to my school, and following the residency I received an outreach scholarship. I started training at the San Francisco Ballet School from the age of eight until I graduated at eighteen. After ten years in the School, I became the first outreach student to get into the professional company as an apprentice in 1993. At that time SFB was becoming a world-class company, and I was very blessed to grow up watching and then performing with some of the best dancers from all over the world.

In 2001, after seven years performing professionally with the San Francisco Ballet, I moved to New York to join Dance Theatre of Harlem as a soloist. Under the guidance of Arthur Mitchell, I felt myself become more than just a dancer, but a true artist. I felt real satisfaction and fulfillment as I was promoted to a principal dancer and given the opportunity to dance leading roles in many iconic neoclassical ballets. For two weeks we performed at Lincoln Center, the heart of dance in America, and I felt I had reached a very high point in my career.

Unfortunately, after only four years dancing with DTH, the company closed its doors. I was blessed enough to join the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago and landed nicely on my feet (as always!). After my experiences in San Francisco and New York, I felt confident in my abilities as a technician and as an artist. One of the highlights of my two years at the Joffrey was working with Sir Antony Dowell on the role of Oberon in Frederick Ashton’s The Dream.

My time in Chicago was short and sweet, and in 2006 San Francisco called me home again. This time, I had the fortune to dance with Smuin Ballet. Michael Smuin was one of the best artistic directors I have worked with. He had a way of bringing out the best dancing in me and giving the audience a really great show. Mr. Smuin had been the director of San Francisco Ballet when I was just a kid, and we had worked together at Dance Theatre of Harlem as well. It was great to work with him on a full time basis because I felt he appreciated me as a dancer and as person. Up until the day he died in the studio, my experience with Smuin was marked by some of the best dancing I’ve ever done.

Since I left Smuin in 2008, I’ve been freelancing around the Bay Area. I am currently working with the San Francisco Opera as a resident corps dancer. One of the best things about working with the Opera is being back on the War Memorial Opera House stage. This is the very same stage where I did my first Nutcracker as a Mother Ginger kid. It feels like home, and the opera singers are amazing too…

2. What is “Just Turns” and why did you decide to found it?

Just Turns is an interactive classical ballet workshop. The two-hour Just Turns workshop is designed to focus the student’s approach and maximize turning technique in order to increase confidence and ability in all kinds of turns. The class structure and progression are designed to break down every part of turning technique— training spot, balance, force control, and placement from the ground up. Students are encouraged to ask questions, experiment, and take notes throughout the workshop in order to realize their ideal turning method.

My inspiration for Just Turns is in helping dancers with one of the hardest and best parts of ballet technique. While I was dancing in New York, I would take class at Steps on Broadway with Willy Burmann. In his class I really started to develop a great turning style. My turns were always good, but with the Mr. Burmann’s help they became great! When I returned to San Francisco, dancers would frequently ask me for help working on their turns after class. One day I was talking with my friend Vanessa Zahorian (principal dancer with SFB who is a great turner as well), and I thought, “How great would it be to bring back the ‘turning class’ that we would take during summer sessions?” That thought brewed in my head for a while, and when I started teaching ballet two years ago, it was time for Just Turns to be born. Now, as I am moving toward the next phase of my career as a teacher, I am finding my specific niche as a turning coach. Just Turns is my way of reaching the broader dance community and using my passion and specific expertise with turns to help dancers everywhere.

3. Who can benefit from the “Just Turns” approach? [Read more…]

Filed Under: 10 Questions With... Tagged With: american ballet theatre, arthur mitchell, ballet in chicago, ballet technique, dance theatre of harlem, dance usa conference, dancers, dancing in new york, fredrick ashton, george balanchine, ikolo griffin, jko school, joffrey ballet, just turns, lincoln center, livermore school of ballet, odc, san carlos school of ballet, san francisco ballet, sir antony dowell, smuin ballet, steps on broadway, vacaville theater ballet, Val Caniparoli, vanessa zahorian, willy burmann

10 Questions With…Allan Greene

June 5, 2012 by 4dancers

Allan Greene

Today on 10 Questions With… we have Allan Greene, a pianist that works in the dance world…

We would also like to welcome Allan to our contributing writer staff here at 4dancers. He’ll be writing a new monthly column appropriately titled, “Music Notes”…

1. How did you get started in music?

I started composing on my own when I was eight years old after I tired of copying songs from our third grade songbooks. The next year I began studying the cello at my elementary school, and the next year I began studying piano with the wife of one of my father’s electronic engineer colleagues. Things moved rapidly from there.

The cantor at my family’s synagogue recommended me to a Viennese choir-master who passed me on to an eccentric Juilliard-trained pianist. The intensity of the Juilliard training was too much for me and conflicted with Boy Scouts and after-school basketball. I moved on to a retired violinist / pianist who devoted his Saturdays to me, and presented me in recital several months before my 16th birthday.

All the while I was composing on my own. At the age of twelve I was composing suites of atonal works, for various chamber music combinations as well as solo piano. My high school choir performed a setting I created of a poem by James Joyce. Stylistically, I was heading out the trajectory blazed by Charles Ives, inventing what I called “stream-of-consciousness music” analogous to Joyce’s literary technique: I created a musical narrative out of musical objets trouvés, using juxtaposition of styles and recognizable snippets to shape the drama. A generation later, due to the invention of sampling synthesizers, personal computers and audio production software, some of my ideas were independently showing up as common compositional tools in film and television scores.

2. What brought you into the dance world?

Accompanying ballet and modern dance classes was a work-study contract gig available at Carleton College (Northfield, Minnesota) in my freshman year. After a term washing dishes at one of the college’s cafeterias, it was a god-send. I found it easy, delightful to watch and participate in, and, importantly, made being a musician both quotidian and artistic. I’ve never liked having the spotlight trained on me, so this allowed me to participate and observe simultaneously. Accompanying dance became a laboratory for me to study the effect on collaborating artists of all kinds of music and all sorts of harmonies, melodies, rhythms and textures. It still is.

3. Where has your career taken you in terms of playing for dancers? [Read more…]

Filed Under: 10 Questions With..., Music & Dance, Music Notes Tagged With: abt, allan greene, american ballet theater, balanchine, Ballet, ballet music, dance class, dance theatre of harlem, four temperaments, modern dance, music for dance, piano, the joffrey ballet, Tisch School of the Arts

10 Questions With…Elisa Toro Franky

June 17, 2010 by 4dancers

Today we have an interview Elisa Toro Franky–a 2010 competitor in The USA International Ballet Competition.  Representing Columbia, she studies at Dance Theatre of Harlem and credits Arthur Mitchell as the most influential person in her dance career.  (Arthur Mitchell is the 2010 USA IBC honorary chairperson.)

4dancers will be featuring other people who are associated with this  “olympic-style” competition over the coming weeks, so stay tuned. And now…Elisa…

1. How did you wind up a dancer?

When I was a child, my parents always encouraged my brother and me to explore different activities besides the normal school. Art has always been highly important in my family, and therefore, when I was 8 years old, my mother suggested me to start Ballet classes. I was captured by Ballet from the very first lesson, and as years went by, I chose to pursue the dream of being a professional ballerina.

 

Elisa Toro Franky

2. What road has taken you to the USA International Ballet Competition?

Since I heard about the USA International Ballet Competition in 2005, I saw it as a fabulous challenge for a dancer; the ideal scenario to offer one’s talent and hard work, while learning from excellent dancers from all over the world.

I applied for the 2006 USA IBC, without success. Since then, I have had the chance to learn and to gather performing experience during the last 4 years with the Miami City Ballet, then with the Washington Ballet, and now with the Dance Theater of Harlem. This has propelled me into the selected group of competitors for the 2010 USA IBC.

3. How have you prepared yourself for this competition, both physically and mentally?

Physically and mentally go together. I focused on the development of the physical strength required for each solo, exploring every movement transition, every corner of motion. I reflected a lot about the energetic shape for each role. In addition, the encouragement and support I received from my family, friends and co-workers was crucial in the process.

4. Do you have any advice for other dancers who are going to compete in dance?

Be very organized in the preparation process and do not waste valuable time. It is all about self-discipline and love for your art.

5. You have said that Arthur Mitchell is the most influential person in your dance career…can you explain why that is?

He is such an honorable man! He created a company that welcomes all races in one stage, where it is the mere quality of the craft that is important, not the race or the ethnicity. He opened a door for equal opportunities for African-American dancers and for dancers from over the world, and they excelled before a worldwide audience. Arthur Mitchell is respected and truly admired by all of us at the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

6. What is it like to study at Dance Theatre of Harlem?

I believe that the diversity of their repertoire made me a versatile dancer, which is essential in a dance career. The artistic faculty is there to coach us, to guide us toward the greatest dancers we can become. However, they are very strict and demanding, which impulses us to higher levels of performance.  

7. Would you share something special from your dance career so far?

I find special the fact that I willingly left my country, my family and friends, in order to pursue advanced studies and a professional dance career in USA. I was 17 years old when I had to go far away from my nest in Colombia, so I could get closer to a professional Ballet environment abroad.

8. Have you had any challenges in terms of your career so far?

Everything has been a challenge, I approach it that way. Earning soloist roles, auditioning, going on tour, experimenting with my own choreography for the first time!

9. Who are your favorite dancers?

Viviana Durante, from the Royal Ballet, to mention one of many dancers I admire.

10. What is next for you?

I am looking forward to continue to dance with the Dance Theatre of Harlem Ensemble. I am looking forward to the concrete projects they have for re-opening the main company. That has been the greatest hope cherished at DTH during the last few years.

About the competition: The USA International Ballet Competition is a two-week, “olympic-style” competition where tomorrow’s stars vie for gold, silver and bronze medals; cash awards; company contracts; and scholarships. The event is designated as the official international ballet competition in the United States by a Joint Resolution of Congress. Presented under the auspices of the International Dance Committee, International Theatre Institute of UNESCO, the USA IBC is held every four years in Jackson, Miss., in the tradition of sister competitions in Varna, Bulgaria, and Moscow, Russia.

For more information about USA IBC, visit www.usaibc.com or join our Facebook community.

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Filed Under: 10 Questions With..., 4dancers, 4teachers, Studios Tagged With: arthur mitchell, dance theatre of harlem, elisa toro franky, ibc, royal ballet, the usa international ballet competition, viviana durante

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