rite of spring

Finding Balance: Expectations And Dance

November 18, 2013 by 4dancers

by Emily Kate Long

My last Finding Balance post discussed balance and alignment in the physical sense. I talked about how misalignments in the body can bring about sensory dissonance. In this post, I’ll look a different kind of alignment and dissonance: when our expectations of ourselves don’t line up with our work. Today I want to share some items that are not dance-specific, but very readily apply to the setting, meeting, and letting go of our expectations.

Labors of love come with high expectations, and high expectations demand a high workload. Dancers know this. Anyone who pursues art for a living knows this. The rewards can be huge, so the work is not easy. The first treasure I have to share is a list of ten rules for students, teachers, and life by Sister Mary Corita Kent, an artist and educator who gained reknown in the 1960s and 1970s. Merce Cunningham kept a copy of these rules in his studio. They are well worth hanging. Here’s the full list, from Kent’s Learning by Heart:

Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for a while
General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students
General duties of a teacher: pull everything out of your students
Consider everything an experiment
Be self-disciplined—this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
Nothing is a mistake. There is no win and no fail, only make
The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all f the time who eventually catch on to things.
Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.
Be happy whenever you can manage it. It’s lighter than you think.
“We’re breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.” John Cage

Hints: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything—it might come in handy later.

This list sums up just about everything needed to pursue excellence. What I really love about it is the emphasis on allowing room for errors and questions, and leaving no stone unturned.

As a complement to Kent’s list, and to illustrate a challenge I and many other dancers face, I also want to share Sheri LeBlanc’s essay, “The Perfectionist Dilemma.” In it, LeBlanc sensitively teases apart excellence pursuit and perfectionism, which, as she puts it, are similar only as far as the results each can produce. One gives us a healthy relationship with our efforts and achievements, while the other sets up for feelings of failure and inadequacy, no matter what we achieve. Expecting perfection from ourselves or from anyone around us automatically misaligns expectation with outcome.

What we have so far are guidelines for the pursuit of excellence, and thoughts on the damaging effects of perfectionism. My third offering is a tool to help us let go of our attachments to any unreasonable expectations we may have of ourselves. If our creative work is inherently experimental, as Sister Corita’s list suggests, it requires us to throw out unsuccessful outcomes continually. If it is to be enjoyable, it requires us to experience our successes as fully as we can. A talk by Matthew Brensilver on clinging and letting go from Zencast gives a ton of insight on letting go of beliefs, identities, and the need to be right. It’s a forty-minute, free podcast that I highly recommend. To summarize wouldn’t do it justice, but the angle he takes is the Buddhist teaching that all things and states of being are impermanent, so all can be let go when they don’t align with the present moment. I feel that approach is apt for dance, a living art.

The final item I want to share is an episode of Radiolab (another podcast) that provides a thoughtful and humorous look at misalignment of expectations in history. “Musical Language” takes a look at what happens between the ears and the brain when we hear unfamiliar or dissonant noises. I’m including it here because it features, at around 26 minutes in, the legendary riot at the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. The whole episode has to do with how the brain orders unfamiliar sounds and looks for patterns. I think there’s a parallel here for the way we try to make sense of our bodies and physical capabilities each day, or seek patterns to learn new movement. It’s also pretty funny to listen to, if you need a short science break to liven up your day.

Readers, I hope these four treats provide some new perspective on the subject of measuring up to expectations. They are thoughtful, entertaining, playful, stark, challenging—words that also describe the artist’s work.

dancer doing arabesque — Emily Kate Long, Photo by Avory Pierce

Assistant Editor Emily Kate Long began her dance education in South Bend, Indiana, with Kimmary Williams and Jacob Rice, and graduated in 2007 from Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School’s Schenley Program. She has spent summers studying at Ballet Chicago, Pittsburgh Youth Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School, Miami City Ballet, and Saratoga Summer Dance Intensive/Vail Valley Dance Intensive, where she served as Program Assistant. Ms Long attended Milwaukee Ballet School’s Summer Intensive on scholarship before being invited to join Milwaukee Ballet II in 2007.

Ms Long has been a member of Ballet Quad Cities since 2009. She has danced featured roles in Deanna Carter’s Ash to Glass and Dracula, participated in the company’s 2010 tour to New York City, and most recently performed principal roles in Courtney Lyon’s Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, and Cinderella. She is also on the faculty of Ballet Quad Cities School of Dance, where she teaches ballet, pointe, and repertoire classes.

Review: Ballet West – Mixed Repertory Program At The Auditorium Theatre

October 8, 2013 by 4dancers

Artists of Ballet West in Val Caniparoliís ìThe Lotteryî based on Shirley Jacksonís ìThe Lottery.î Set and Costumes by Sandra Woodall. Lighting by David Finn. Photo by Luke Isley. — Artists of Ballet West in Val Caniparoli’s “The Lottery” based on Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” Set and Costumes by Sandra Woodall. Lighting by David Finn. Photo by Luke Isley.

by Catherine L. Tully

Ballet West whisked in and out of Chicago in a weekend—and they left behind quite an impression.

Sleeping Beauty was on the bill for Friday and Saturday night, and Sunday offered a mixed rep program with two Balanchine pieces, one from Val Caniparoli and a new work by Nicolo Fonte.

The Utah-based company made an immediate impact with George Balanchine’s dazzling Rubies. With a 1920’s vibe and music by Igor Stravinsky, this piece is typically known as the star of the three “Jewels” that the famed choreographer created in the late 1960’s (Emeralds, Rubies, Diamonds).

Beckanne Sisk was the dancer here with the most sparkle, and her exuberance and youth were matched nicely with a sure-footed performance in a role that demands both stellar control and clean technique. Her vivacious spirit was the perfect fit for this high-energy ballet—and it showed. Expertly partnered by a very able Christopher Ruud, this dynamic couple held nothing back for later. Elizabeth McGrath gave a very capable performance as well with clean pirouettes and an effortless execution overall. Live music by The Chicago Sinfonietta added energy to the lively performance.

Rubies was followed by a world premiere, choreographed by Ballet West’s resident choreographer Nicolo Fonte. Danced by two women and two men (Katherine Lawrence, Jacqueline Straughan/Tom Mattingly, Adrian Fry) the devilishly complex choreography in Presto was punctuated with unusual, almost “bird-like” postures that added both interest and shape. Throughout the work there was a stop-and-go feel that teetered on the edge of lasting too long—but didn’t actually go over.

Much like the music by Ezio Bosso, the movements here varied between jarring and melodic. The dancers did an admirable job of performing this piece, with only a moment or two of uncertainty throughout—and the breathtakingly fast end sequence is simply brilliant.

Rubies is attention grabbing and showy, but the pas de deux from Balanchine’s Diamonds displays all the class and elegance associated with this coveted gemstone. The pace of this piece remains fairly slow throughout, but with Christiana Bennett’s laser-focused precision and grace and Beau Pearson’s confident partnering, attention never wanes for a moment from the dancers on stage.

Either you show up with every ounce of your technique to dance Balanchine’s choreography—or it will dance you. The lovely Bennett was definitely in charge here—with achingly magnificent arms and regal carriage. Traditional white costumes and Tchaikovsky pair with the dancers for a purely enjoyable pas de deux.

The last piece of the evening was Val Caniparoli’s The Lottery. Based on the short story by author Shirley Jackson, his interpretation offers the audience an interesting twist—dancers draw from a black box on stage to find out which of them will “win” each time the piece is performed. No one knows who will take the spotlight and perform that final dance.

The costumes and scenic design by Sandra Woodall evoke a simple but powerful sense of Americana. Picket fences and benches. Suspenders and plain, button down sweaters. This could be “any town” U.S.A. many years ago.

As the piece unfolds, dancers pair up and present themselves to the audience in a series of dances that give the impression of the day unfolding gradually. The mood is initially light, but begins to shift as the black box starts to take the focus—and then the ritual begins.

Caniparoli creates suspense masterfully here. Each person comes up to take a piece of paper from the box. The tension is palpable as the audience waits to see who holds the “winning” piece. One by one dancers open their paper, blank ones fluttering to the floor like wounded butterflies.

Finally, the “chosen one” is revealed, and then is ostracized and circled, reminiscent of Nijinsky’s Rite of Spring. The delightful Katie Critchlow was the one selected Sunday afternoon, and she first cried out, and then began her dance.

Robert Moran’s music is somewhat less powerful than Stravinsky’s in Rite of Spring—less able to sustain the tension needed for a truly wrenching result, but Critchlow danced through a myriad of postures and complex emotions admirably.

Caniparoli’s choreography was solid throughout the piece, but the crafting of this powerful short story into dance is where he excels here. The Lottery is compelling because it taps into basic human themes of ritual and violence, displayed superbly by Ballet West—a dramatic ending to an engaging program.

Music, Ballet & The Russian Masters

September 9, 2013 by 4dancers

Joanna Wozniak, Sacre du Printemps, photo by Herbert Migdoll

Today we have Conductor Scott Speck with us to talk about the music for the Joffrey’s upcoming “Russian Masters” program. The company will perform Allegro Brillante (Balanchine/Tchaikovsky), Bells (Possokhov/Rachmaninoff), Adagio (Possokhov/Khachaturian) and Nijinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) – with music by Stravinsky.

What are some of the particular challenges in preparing the Chicago Philharmonic to play for Joffrey’s upcoming Russian Masters program?

This is a brilliant program, masterfully constructed by the Joffrey’s visionary Artistic Director, Ashley Wheater. I love every piece on the program, both choreographically and musically. Together, these pieces present a number of fascinating challenges. Although all the composers in this program came from roughly the same region of the world, their styles are markedly different. The musicians have to shift gears very quickly from music that is suave, elegant and melodic to music that is dissonant and brutal. In addition to that is the question of endurance: this is a physically taxing program for the musicians, as well as for the dancers. One of our piano soloists, Kuang-Hao Huang, has to play an athletic Tchaikovsky piano concerto, and then shift gears and tackle a set of devilishly difficult Rachmaninoff preludes. All of this takes place in the orchestra pit, of course, and I hope that the audience remembers to pay attention to the feats of athleticism taking place underneath the stage as well as on it.

You will be conducting the music of four different composers that evening; Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky and Khachaturian. Which is the most difficult–and why?

By far our most difficult task — and also the most fun — is preparing Stravinsky’s masterpiece The Rite of Spring. This piece was once considered practically impossible to perform, because it often calls for instruments to play at the extremes of their ranges, with seemingly unpredictable changes in meter. Luckily, the musicians of the Chicago Philharmonic are some of the best in the world; they can do anything. They see this piece as a fun challenge, and I’m sure they will simply tear it up. (In a good way!)

Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) was a very controversial piece when it debuted in 1913 in Paris, danced by Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes company. Nijinsky’s choreography was part of the reason for this, but how did the music contribute to the audience’s reaction?

Controversial is right — the first performance created an actual riot, one of the few in the history of music! I think the music contributed to this chaos in three ways.

First of all, it is dissonant — or more to the point, it is poly-tonal, meaning that it’s in more than one key at a time. You might have one set of instruments playing it E major while another group play in E-flat. Nobody was used to this kind of “harmony” before.

Secondly, the rhythm is unpredictable, and that is very unsettling. Even the wildest, most dissonant rock music usually has a steady beat. But in this piece, the beat sometimes changes in every measure. The result is that unless you know the piece intimately, you never know what the rhythm is going to do next. There’s even a famous section near the beginning of Part One where at least four different meters are competing for the same moment of time. It’s the sonic equivalent of the earth shifting under you feet.

Third, and finally, we have to admit that the first orchestra to play this work, faced with groundbreaking polyrhythms and polytonality, and trying to make sense of a piece that they had never heard before, probably didn’t play it very well. I have heard a recording from a great orchestra of Paris in the 1940s — over thirty years later, with the same conductor (Pierre Monteux) who led the premiere — and it still didn’t sound very good. The musicians have to know what they are trying to express before they can get it across to the audience. Today, our orchestra musicians are so well-versed in this great masterpiece that we will have the opposite challenge: trying to make it sound unfamiliar enough.

Joffrey Ballet, Le Sacre du Printemps, Stacy Joy Keller, Erica Lynette Edwards, Jennifer Goodman; credit Herbert Migdoll

How is the music for this ballet historically significant?

Because of the riot itself, the piece will always be historically significant. But there were much more far-reaching ramifications for the history of music. After Stravinsky’s ground-breaking experiment in polytonality and polyrhythm, every other composer of the 1900s had to define himself or herself in relation to this piece. That is, either they decided to continue Stravinsky’s bold experiment, or they decided to reject it and carry on in spite of it. But everybody had to grapple with it; nobody could ignore it. And so The Rite of Spring changed the course of music history. It is hands down the most important piece of the twentieth century.

Because it is difficult to count, dancers sometimes find Stravinsky’s music challenging. As a conductor, is there anything you can do to try and make this easier for them?

The best thing that the orchestra and I can do for the dancers is to be consistent. The dancers have learned to count and memorize these unpredictable rhythms, and they could probably sing the piece note-for-note, at least the sections in which they are dancing. Now my goal is to present this ever-changing landscape to them consistently. It may be a moving target, but if it moves the same way each time, the dancers will have a good chance of hitting it.

Is there a particular section of the ballet that you particularly enjoy?

My favorite section is the last part, the sacrificial dance, in which the Chosen One dances herself to death. This is the section with the trickiest and least predictable rhythms to play — but if you study and practice it a lot (for decades, in my case!), you get into this marvelous groove that you can really feel in your body. This is the most difficult section for the solo dancer as well — she leaps some 90 times in a matter of minutes.

Because of these challenges, both for the dancers and the orchestra, Le sacre du printemps is very rarely performed. And in the reconstruction of the Nijinsky version, it is almost never performed. These will be the Joffrey Ballet’s final performances during this Centennial year, so I urge people not to miss it.

Joffrey’s “Russian Masters” program runs from Sept. 19th to Sept. 22nd at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago.

With recent performances in London, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, Contributor Scott Speck has inspired international acclaim as a conductor of passion, intelligence and winning personality.

Scott Speck’s recent concerts with the Moscow RTV Symphony Orchestra in Tchaikovsky Hall garnered unanimous praise. His gala performances with Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Midori, Evelyn Glennie and Olga Kern have highlighted his recent and current seasons as Music Director of the Mobile Symphony. This season he also collaborates intensively with Carnegie Hall for the seventh time as Music Director of the West Michigan Symphony. He was recently named Music Director of the Joffrey Ballet; and he was invited to the White House as Music Director of the Washington Ballet.

In recent seasons Scott Speck has conducted at London’s Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, the Paris Opera, Washington’s Kennedy Center, San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House, and the Los Angeles Music Center. He has led numerous performances with the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Houston, Chicago (Sinfonietta), Paris, Moscow, Shanghai, Beijing, Vancouver, Romania, Slovakia, Buffalo, Columbus (OH), Honolulu, Louisville, New Orleans, Oregon, Rochester, Florida, and Virginia, among many others.

Previously he held positions as Conductor of the San Francisco Ballet; Music Advisor and Conductor of the Honolulu Symphony; and Associate Conductor of the Los Angeles Opera. During a recent tour of Asia he was named Principal Guest Conductor of the China Film Philharmonic in Beijing.

In addition, Scott Speck is the co-author of two of the world’s best-selling books on classical music for a popular audience, Classical Music for Dummies and Opera for Dummies. These books have received stellar reviews in both the national and international press and have garnered enthusiastic endorsements from major American orchestras. They have been translated into twenty languages and are available around the world. His third book in the series, Ballet for Dummies, was released to great acclaim as well.

Scott Speck has been a regular commentator on National Public Radio, the BBC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and Voice of Russia, broadcast throughout the world. His writing has been featured in numerous magazines and journals.

Born in Boston, Scott Speck graduated summa cum laude from Yale University. There he founded and directed the Berkeley Chamber Orchestra, which continues to perform to this day. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Berlin, where he founded Concerto Grosso Berlin, an orchestra dedicated to the performances of Baroque and Classical music in a historically informed style. He received his Master’s Degree with highest honors from the University of Southern California, served as a Conducting Fellow at the Aspen School of Music, and studied at the Tanglewood Music Center. He is fluent in English, German and French, has a diploma in Italian, speaks Spanish and has a reading knowledge of Russian.

Scott Speck can be reached at www.scottspeck.org

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