Spring2011 Ballet Review

From the Spring 2011 issue of Ballet Review

Elizabeth Souritz on the Young Balanchine in Russia

On the cover: Mark Morris’ Festival Dance. 4 Paris – Peter Sparling 6 Boston – Jeffrey Gantz 8 Stupgart – Gary Smith 10 San Francisco – Leigh Witchel 13 Paris – Peter Sparling 15 Sarasota, FL – Joseph Houseal 17 Paris – Peter Sparling 19 Toronto – Gary Smith 20 Paris – Leigh Witchel

40 Joel Lobenthal 24 A Conversation with Cynthia Gregory

Joseph Houseal 40 Lady Aoi in New York

Elizabeth Souritz 48 Balanchine in Russia

61 Daniel Gesmer Ballet Review 39.1 56 A Conversation with Spring 2011 Bruce Sansom Editor and Designer: Marvin Hoshino Sandra Genter 61 Next Wave 2010 Managing Editor: Roberta Hellman Michael Porter Senior Editor: Don Daniels 68 Swan Lake II Associate Editor: Joel Lobenthal Darrell Wilkins 48 70 Cherkaoui and Waltz Associate Editor: Larry Kaplan Joseph Houseal Copy Editor: 76 A Conversation with Barbara Palfy Mark Morris Photographers: Tom Brazil Costas 87 London Reporter – Clement Crisp 94 Music on Disc – George Dorris Associates: Peter Anastos 100 Check It Out Robert Greskovic George Jackson Elizabeth Kendall 70 Paul Parish Nancy Reynolds James Supon David Vaughan Edward Willinger Sarah C. Woodcock CoverphotobyTomBrazil: MarkMorris’FestivalDance. Balanchine in Russia great nineteenth-century ballets: the Tchai - kov sky and Glazunov ballets, also Giselle, Le Corsaire, and Esmeralda plus Fokine’s ballets. And during the time that Balanchine worked in the company, there were important revivals Elizabeth Souritz of the ballets that suffered during the difficult years of civil war, when most of the great danc - Balanchine, as we know, left Russia in July ers of the Imperial Ballet went abroad. 1924. The years 1921-1924, which were his for - Balanchine had the opportunity to dance in mative ones, were also a important period for the Fyodor Lopukhov revivals of the The Sleep- Russian art in general. Even during the first ing Beauty and Raymonda (both 1922) and The years after the revolution of 1917, when every- Nutcracker(1923). He also not only watched per- one suffered terrible deprivations – cold and formances by the great Olga Spessivtzeva, but hunger – artistic life was never interrupted. danced with the lovely Elisaveta Gerdt, whose On the contrary, avant-garde artists took ad- style must have had a strong influence on him. vantage of the new freedoms. Even greater op- It was classical dancing at its purest, all beau- portunities were offered when the NEP (new ty and harmony, performed with no attempt economic policy) was inaugurated in 1921. That at dramatization. was the moment when Balanchine graduated Balanchine thus acquired the best in ballet from the Imperial Theaters school. that Rus sia possessed, but he also had the op- Balanchine’s years in Russia have been well portunity to watch, and even participate in, researched in the United States. Ballet Review important experiments. The time just before has published several articles, including in Balanchine left Russia was extraordinarily 1975-76 a substantial piece by Yuri Slonimsky, rich in achievements in all the arts. It is im- who knew Balanchine personally. I think these portant to remember that during the time Bal- re min is cences were never published fully, anchine worked at the GOTOB (Maryin sky), even in Russia: only the small part that Slonim- Lopukhov staged some of his important work: sky inserted into his 1984 book Chudesnoye Bylo The Firebird (1921), the dance-symphony Mag- Riadom s Nami (The Miracle Was Right Next to ni ficence of the Universe (1923), and Night on Bald Us). Some portions of the Mikhail Mikhailov Mountain (1924). book, Life in Ballet (1966), have also been pub- I went through the Petrograd newspapers lished in the States. to discover what Balanchine might have seen A lot of investigating by people in different during 1921-1924. At the beginning of the 1920s countries (including Russia) was done for the there were many exhibitions by avant-garde early dances listed in Choreography by George artists, for example, at the Museum of Art Balanchine: A Catalogue of Works (1984, now on Culture at Isaakievsky Square. This museum the Internet). We have in English the memoirs hosted concerts of modern music, Casimir of Tamara Geva and of Alex andra Danilova. Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin spoke there, and Solomon Volkov interviewed the choreogra- performances by theater groups were given: pher for Balanchine’s Tchai kov sky, and Fran cis Sergei Radlov’s group performed a play by Mason published I Remember Balanchine(which Velimir Khlebnikov, Zangesi, with sets by reprints the Slonimsky). There is not much to Matiu shin and Malevich, in October 1922. add to this. Balanchine worked with Radlov in 1923 on Of course the most important influence on a play by Ernest Toller, Hinkemann (called in the young Balanchine was the ballet school Russia Eugene the Unfortunate). Balanchine also and the Theater of Opera and Ballet, now once probably saw productions staged by the three again called Maryinsky. At the time the com- greatest Russian theater directors of the time pany still had in its repertory many of the – Vsevolod Meyerhold, Alexander Tairov, and

48 ©2011 Elizabeth Souritz Lydia Ivanova and Nicholas Efimov in a Balanchine pas de deux, c. 1923. Evgeny Vakhtangov – whose companies per- performances, including participation in the formed in Petrograd in 1922–1924 with impor - chanting of Alexander Blok’s poem “The tant plays: The Magnanimous Cuckold and Give Twelve” in 1923. us Europe(Meyerhold), Phèdreand Giroflé-Girofla Of course, just as important for Balanchine (Tairov), Turandot and The Dybbuk for the Jew- were the dance performances by groups that ish Habimah Theater (Vakhtangov). worked in studios and did experimental cho- We know that Balanchine was associated reography. There were an especially large with the FEKS (Factory of the Eccentric Actor) number of these in Moscow, which Balanchine that staged plays in Petrograd in fall 1922 and may have seen when he traveled there, but in 1923. Balanchine and his dancers worked some troupes came to Petrograd and gave per- with Vsevolod Vsevolodsky-Gerngross, who formances there. Also he must have heard had an experimental Eth nographical Theater about groups such as Vera Maya’s, with her that used the hall of the former Duma in the acrobatic dances in the early 1920s; Inna Cher- Nevsky Prospect. It is in this hall that Bal- netskaya, who flirted with Ausdruckstanz; anchine’s Young Ballet gave some of its own and Ludmila Alex e yeva, who developed Isado- spring 2011 49 ra Duncan’s ideas. Isadora herself danced in gan to change, sometimes it meant reverting Petrograd in February 1922, while her school to ideas from the 1920s. What Bernard Taper, (under Irma) performed there in May 1923. probably using Balanchine’s own account, tells Another group Balanchine very likely saw us about Balanchine’s 1962 visit to Russia is because we know that they gave performanc- very important: He saw the Goleizovsky Skri- es in Petrograd was Lev Lukin’s Free Ballet, in a biniana and was profoundly disappointed. It April 1924. Lukin was a dilettante in dance (he was more or less the same as what had been had had no academic training) but a profes- performed in the 1920s, and for Balanchine sional musician who used Skriabin and Pro - it was incredibly old-fashioned, obsolete. He kofiev for his etudes. They were highly emo- had moved so far in those forty years, but tional, with a hint of ero ticism, for which he Golei zovsky, because of his circum stances, was soon to be strongly attacked. had hardly any opportunity to develop his Working alongside Balanchine in Petrograd style. were the Heptachor group, which derived Balanchine’s return in 1962 was to a coun- from Duncan, and the studios of Tamara try that had little in common with the one he Gleb ova and Zinaida Verbova. But the great- knew in his youth. He had come at an impor- est influences on Balanchine were two groups: tant moment in Russian politics, Russian art, Kasian Goleizovsky’s Chamber Ballet, which and Russian ballet. The end of the 1950s was came in 1922 with a large repertory of the most the time of the so-called “thaw” (ottepel’), the famous Goleizovsky works, like The Faun, Sa- first years after Stalin’s death in 1953, after the lome, and so forth; and to perhaps a lesser ex- Twentieth Party Congress in February 1956, tent Nikolai Foregger’s Mastfor (Workshop) when Khru shchev denounced the “cult of per- with its “machine dances.” sonality” of Stalin. Things were changing, but The years 1921-1923 were rich in experi- the changes went rather slowly, especially in mental dance, but by 1924 one senses official foreign affairs. pressure becoming stronger. On August 24, In the 1960s, the Cold War that began at the 1924 (about six weeks after Balanchine had end of the 1940s was still in force, even at its left Russia) a decree was issued that mandat- height. It was in 1962, exactly at the time when ed the closing of all private dance schools and New York City Ballet was in Russia, that the studios. Of course, many managed to survive Cuban Missile Crisis occurred. To understand by attaching themselves to state institutions. the tenor of the times, I looked through news- In Moscow, one of these was GAKhN (State papers that appeared in autumn 1962, espe- Academy of Art Science), which did a lot of cially Pravda, the principal paper of the Com- research on experimental dance. It, too, was munist Party. Now, all these years later, we closed five years later. have forgotten the journalistic style of the Lukin’s company did not survive 1924; Go - time, the rhetoric used. It is a very special lan- leizovsky’s closed in 1925. Other choreogra- guage, which is now bewildering, a kind of phers had to change to a different kind of dance Soviet slang. Enormous headlines: “Hands Off or movement, for example, Vera Maya to folk Cuba!” “Stop the Imperialist Plot!” “Pirate Ag- dance and comic sketches, and Ludmila Alex- gression That All Free Nations Condemn,” e yeva to so-called “harmonious gymnastics.” “Destroy the Schemes of the War-Mongers!” (Sports were acceptable while exper i mental and so forth. dance was not.) What a blessing then that Bal- At the same time, new ideas were emerg- anchine already had left for the West. ing in Russia, especially among the intelli- * gentsia, although some events of 1962 show For the next forty years, ballet in Russia and that all kinds of people believed that the ballet in the West developed quite independ- changes had brought them new freedom, and ently. In the 1960s, when things in Russia be- they dared take advantage of it. I am referring

50 ballet review to the uprising of the workers in the town of But on the whole the changes were slow and, Novocherkassk to protest the rise of prices. what is more, the end of the “thaw” was soon They soon found out that it was not as they to come. One important event in 1962 was the expected because they were shot at by troops exhibition at the hall of the Manezh in De- and several demonstrators were killed. cember, which celebrated the thirtieth an- More or less the same thirst for freedom niversary of the Moscow department of the was happening in the arts. People connected Artist’s Union. For the first time in many years, with art wanted to see beyond the Iron Cur- works of avant-garde artists were exhibited: tain, while the officials were trying to stifle old ones who had been banished from every- them. There was a strong desire to investi- where for years, like Robert Falk or Vladimir gate, to understand, to discuss. The movement Tatlin, and young ones trying to work in a of the so-called “dissidents” came into being. style different from the officially proclaimed Young people gathered at the monument to Socialist Realism. Mayakovsky and poets read their poems. One Of course, there were people in the Artist’s listened to the radio broadcasts of Svoboda Union (especially some of the most famous (Freedom) and “German wave.” One read the from the previous period who had benefited samizdat (self-published books of forbidden from their adherence to the Communist Par- works like Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago) ty) who wanted the exhibition to be denounced and passed the copies on. One listened to the as harmful. They knew Khrushchev’s taste and songs of Bulat Okudjava and Vla dimir Vysot- his ignorance in arts, and whispered in his ear sky. There were important events in official- that “terrible trash” and some anti-Soviet kind dom, too. Stravinsky came to Russia for the of art was being exhibited. first time in forty years, and his music was Khrushchev came and made a scene, shout- played (it had not been played there since the ing, “You really mean this to be painting?! What 1930s). Of course, the choice of the music per- does that sculpture represent? I don’t under- formed was supervised and had to be approved stand! This is Kremlin? Then where are the by the officials. merlons on the walls? Why does this factory Also in 1962 the first Solzhenitsyn story,One have three chimneys?” He declared that “in- Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (about the Gu- stead of painting, all these people should work lag), was published in a Soviet magazine, Novy at tree-felling.” Khrushchev was not alone, Mir (New World). But this was an exception, there were other officials and someone even which happened because the editor of the jour- said that this is “pederasty in art. And if ped- nal, Alexander Tvardovsky, known as one of erasts get ten years in prison, why not these the most influential Soviet poets, managed to artists?” open his magazine to the freethinkers of the In ballet we did not have such events be- 1960s. Just two years earlier, Pasternak had cause ballet was confined to state theaters, died still persecuted, and Doctor Zhivago, which and there it was not possible to show works had been published abroad in 1957 and for very different from the ones approved by the which he was forced to refuse the Nobel Prize, Ministry of Culture. (A performance could be was still banned in Russia, and not published shown to the public only after a special “com- there until 1988. mission” had given permission.) Nevertheless, For the first time in nearly forty years there things were happening in ballet. were at last some exhibitions of foreign mod- Since the end of the 1940s and especially in ern painters that in the past were hardly ever the 1950s there were two groups fighting. Quite mentioned, as they were considered “non- a large number of choreographers, dancers, realistic.” The very year Balanchine came and especially critics and researchers were there was an exhibition of Fernand Léger and not satisfied with the drambalet (a full-length at some point also one of Marc Chagall. story ballet where dance was allocated a sec- spring 2011 51 ondary place and the plot presented exactly these sessions. (The booklet was published in as it would be in a drama performance). This 1962. Neither Balanchine nor any other for- was the kind of ballet that not only prevailed eign choreographer is mentioned. It would throughout the 1930s and 1940s, but was also not do to refer to foreign productions as an considered the only acceptable form. example of what Soviet ballet was striving to Those who criticized drambaletfound strong achieve.) But in the 1960s the drambalet ap- opposition from its adherents and party offi- proach met with increasingly sharp criticism cials. The most active and aggressive person by dance writers, choreographers, and danc - was the choreographer Rostislav Zakharov, ers. One said that the importance of a ballet who not only staged ballets and operas, but production was not only in its plot, but also also wrote books and articles, insisting that in its dancing. this was the only type of ballet in accordance Those who insisted on changes were at last with the method of Socialist Realism. And of given the opportunity to show what they could course, everything that was not Socialist Re- do. The breakthrough came when Yuri Grig- alsim should be condemned – especially the o r ovich produced his Stone Flower (1957) and “decadent” Western art. Legend of Love (1961), and at nearly the same Zakharov also often used political weapons time Igor Belsky hisCoast of Hope (1959) and The against his opponents. Those who thought dif- Leningrad Symphony (1961). Of course, all these ferently were called worshippers of the West, ballets were produced before New York City imperialist accomplices that undermined the Ballet came to Russia and were the result of Soviet ideology. And these accusations, while processes going on in Soviet ballet. But the ridiculous, at a certain point could become influence of the companies from the West was quite dangerous, for example, in the years 1948 also of some importance. and 1949 at the time when there was a crusade These companies began coming in the late against the so-called “cosmopolites.” 1950s, the Paris Opera Ballet being the first in Certainly in the 1960s the situation was 1958, then American Ballet Theatre in 1960 and different. But still Zakharov was quite in- the Royal Ballet in 1961. As a matter of fact, fluential, not so much owing to his produc- two of these companies had Balanchine works tions as to the speeches he gave and the arti- in their repertory: the Paris Opera Ballet’s Le cles he wrote. He was also the powerful head Palais de Cristal and ABT’s Theme and Variations. of the choreography department of the The- The first was very well received; the second ater Institute (GITIS). He produced many left the audience indifferent. That was all that accusations against the articles and books could be seen of Balanchine’s works before by Vera Kras sovskaya, Yuri Slonimsky, Poel 1962. Likewise, if one wanted to read about Karp, and others. He also criticized the first him, there was next to nothing, or only crit- ballet dictionary compiled in Russia (Vse o Ba - icism. lete, All About Ballet, 1965), on which I worked What did we know at that time about Bal- with Slonimsky. We were reproached for giv- anchine? Not much. I think it was very sel- ing too much information on foreign ballet dom that the newspaper connected with art, and not enough on Soviet companies. Sovietskaya Kultura (Soviet Culture), reviewed There were also at that time official discus - any ballet productions in the United States. I sions arranged by the Theater Union or the have come across one review of a Balanchine Min istry of Culture, where the confrontation work,Till Ulenspiegel (from April 2, 1952), and between these two groups – those clinging to quite a revealing one. A photo was published the drambaletand those who demanded change of Jerome Robbins in the title role dancing – was apparent. One can read in a brochure, with a skeleton. The accompanying text said, “The Musical Theater and Contemporary “This production of the New York City Ballet, Life,” some of the statements made during which the reactionary newspaper the New

52 ballet review York Times claims to be a success, is a vivid ex- ally not the best: those went to ministries, ample of the depth of degradation to which embassies, and the like. Still, the audience, es- bourgeois art has fallen. These American ig- pecially when the company moved from the noramuses in the arts treat with contempt the Bolshoi to the Palace of the Congresses, was great works that mankind is proud of [mean- quite democratic: people really interested in ing probably Charles de Coster’s eponymous seeing something new, not just the bosses. novel].” I have looked through many reviews writ- If one wanted to get information about Bal- ten during the tour (one I myself wrote). The anchine one had to turn to the Theater Ency- first program (on October 9 at the Bolshoi) clopedia (published in 1961). In its article on consisted of Serenade, Agon, Western Symphony, Balanchine (signed by Natalia Roslavleva) one and Interplay. Of course, Pravda was the first reads about Concerto Barocco, The Crystal Palace, to give a signal to every other newspaper and and Ballet Imperial that they are “distinguished critic, so that they would know what they by the sharpness particular to Balanchine and should write. at the same time have a formalistic character” The next day Pravda offered its pronounce- (“formalistic,” by the way, was very strong ment by asking two famous artistic person- criticism!). About his abstract ballets of the alities (who were sure to say what they were 1950s, “they are over-refined, sophisticated asked to say!) – the ballerina Olga Lepeshin- and erotic.” About his versions of the Tchai - skaya and the composer Aram Khatchaturian kovsky ballets, that he “distorted the mean- – to give their opinion about what they had ing of the music.” seen. Both claimed to be interested and praised The New York City Ballet tour was part of the company on its dance technique, but had the official cultural exchange between the reservations about the content of the ballets: United States and the Soviet Union, part of “Of course we cannot accept everything that Cold War politics. While the Americans danced was shown. Many things are not close to our in Russia, the Bolshoi dancers performed in heart,” said the ballerina. “The only short- America. For this reason, the press had to coming of the American company is the lack abide by certain rules. You could not write of a story line,” said the composer. anything like the above-quoted insulting Thus the pattern was set: you could praise pa ra graph, nothing abusive; you had to re- the dancers, even say that the choreographer member that they were official guests. At the was skillful in imagining movements, espe- same time there was the Soviet ideology to be cially if you stressed that he has been brought taken into consideration. You had to impress up “in the great Russian tradition,” but you upon the reader that here was something should criticize him for adhering to the plot- not as good as our own product, but also that less kind of ballet. any good part was the result of past Russian This was what most critics wrote, some be- influence. cause they were told to do so, many (and this * I want to stress) because they really did think On October 9, 1962, the New York City Ballet it was “alien to our art.” In every city in which tour began. We all looked forward to it. I re- the company performed (Moscow, Leningrad, member perfectly well the long lines in the Kiev, Tbilisi) there were many reviews. The square by the Bolshoi where we stood for most important reviewers were Zakharov (in hours, talking to friends who were also all Vechernyaya Moskva, Evening Moscow), Mikhail there and making new friends. Seats were Gabovich (in Sovietskaya Kultura, Soviet Cul- cheap, even for foreign tours, so the problem ture), Boris Lvov-Anokhin (in the appendix was not of having the money to buy a ticket, to Izvestia-Nedelya, The Week), musicologists but of getting one, if possible a good seat be- like Marina Sabinina (in Soviet Music) and cause what was offered for sale were gener- some less-eminent critics like Nikolay Eliash spring 2011 53 or Anna Ilupina. (In the Soviet era we did not ticles, after the first program (October 13) and have critics attached to newspapers. When- at the end of the tour (November 1). He gives ever a review was needed, the editor chose an explanation of the Balanchine style and the person he thought would be the best – a shows its place in the history of ballet: the professional critic or someone working in the Petipa ensembles, Les Sylphides, Lopukhov’s field.) works. He speaks of Balanchine’s “creative Balanchine gave a long interview at the end genius,” of the “meaningful beauty” of the of October to the newspaper Sovietsky Artist plotless ballets, saying that ballets made on (Soviet Art Worker), an organ of the Bolshoi sym phonic music have a right to exist. Yet even Theater. Later it was reprinted in Sovietskaya for him, in Episodessome poses and movements Musika (Soviet Music, January 1963). are “antiaesthetic.” It is clear that the one who spoke most This shows to what point we were imbued harsh ly against Balanchine’s ballets was Za- with official ideology. That is why I said that kharov, on October 11 after the first program. what the critics wrote was not always because Compared to what he wrote in his books about they were not allowed to give any other opin- young Soviet choreographers and critics, it ion, but also because that really was the way was rather mild criticism. He noted the pre- they thought. I know this from my personal cision and discipline of the dancers, their fine experience. technique. But to him Balanchine’s works I was asked by the magazine Teatr (Theater) were a “vivid example of Western ‘modern to write about New York City Ballet after the ballet’” (a favorite phrase he always used as an end of the tour was over. In preparation, I accusation, an expletive). He condemned Bal- interviewed Balanchine, Lincoln Kirstein, and anchine for “adhering to the principle of some of the dancers. About my conversation purely formal quests unacceptable in Soviet with Balanchine I remember that it was in his ballet.” He insisted that ballet should be based hotel room, and there were flowers on the on subject matter, a dance plot. With Serenade table. To the inevitable question, “What are he found it impossible to describe the content your ballets about?” he showed me a rose and of the work. Agon for him was “closer to math- asked, “What is this rose about? It is just a rose ematics than dance” and “addressed the mind, and it is beautiful. Same with ballet.” I was leaving the heart cold.” very excited about what I heard from him – Of the same opinion were some of the old- not realizing it was something he repeated er dancers of the Bolshoi who wrote in the to everyone – but at the time it probably did Bol shoi’s Sovietsky Artist. Nikolai Gerber, on not add much to my knowledge of his art. October 26, said that Balanchine’s dances were Now that I have reread my own article, I just “a collection of movements that have no am amazed at what I wrote, and at my lack content.” Others also wrote about the “dehu- of understanding. On the whole, the article manization” of the dance and that “the objec- contains much praise, but also it has remarks tivity that Balanchine advocates is alien to that point to complete ignorance. For exam- us,” that “many of his aesthetic convictions ple, I wrote that Theme and Variations was a raise strong objections.” failure because the choreographer did not The most thoughtful newspaper reviews show through dance the emotions contained were by Mikhail Gabovich, who is not well in the music. Episodes was an interesting ex- known in the West. He was a dancer at the periment but just a sketch for some future Bolshoi who often partnered Ulanova (for ex- ballet, and I thought it should not yet have ample, in the film Romeo and Juliet). But he also been shown to the public. wrote about classical dancing and published I can’t remember that I was told to write many articles in support of the young chore- this or that. Teatr was one of the most inde- ographers of the 1960s. He published two ar- pendent and professional magazines, not like

54 ballet review a newspaper meant for a broad public. So tion of choreographers was already aspiring probably these really were my impressions. I to: ballets where music was of prime impor- mention this article of mine not because it is tance, ballets of one act, ballets that were all of any value, but because it shows what we dance. What was the result of this influence? were taught to think and what our mentality To begin with, one saw that there are differ- was. ent kinds of ballets, different kinds of dance * (because soon “modern dance” companies al- A few words about the influence of Balan - so came to Russia), and that there was free- chine on Soviet ballet. The 1960s and 1970s dom of choice. This was important in itself. were a very important period in Soviet ballet. Then, some choreographers started to imitate Young choreographers took over and produced what they had seen. many new works: Grigorovich with the bal- Unfortunately, this did not always produce lets that succeeded The Stone Flower, such as good results. At a certain point, especially in The Legend of Love, Spartacus, and his new ver- the 1970s, dozens of plotless ballets emerged. sions of the classics; Belsky with Coast of Hope Second-rate choreographers found it much and Leningrad Symphony; Vinogradov with easier to take any music and make dancers his new version of Romeo and Juliet and with move to this music in indifferent patterns, as Yaroslavna; Natalia Kassatkina with Heroic Po - in any ballet exercise. That way, the chore- em, Le Sacre de Printemps, and The Creation of the ographer did not need a writer for the libret- World; Nikolai Boyarchikov, Georgy Alexidze, to, a composer to compose music, leotards and many others. would do in place of costumes, and at the same Choreographers of the older generation time he was considered “up to date” and prob- who were not encouraged during the 1930- ably really imagined himself another Balan- 1950s because their ideas were not in accor- chine. dance withdrambalet got the opportunity to do This was what went wrong with the idea of new works: Fyodor Lopu khov, Ka sian Golei - imitating New York City Ballet with a pauci- zovsky, and Leonid Yakobson with The Twelve ty of imagination, choreographers not being after Alexander Blok, The Bed-bug after Maya - capable of “thinking” in terms of dance. There kovsky, and his Choreographic Miniatures. were only a few who understood Balanchine’s Many of the works produced during these style and were talented enough to work in years are of real importance to Russian bal- it. One of them, Georgy Alexidse (also a Geor- let. Certainly the influence of Balanchine’s gian), produced on the Leningrad Chamber choreography had something to do with it – Ballet from 1966 to 1968 several programs not only Balanchine’s, but all the works shown of various sixteenth- to eighteenth-century in Russia during the 1960s when foreign com- com posers, for the Kirov Ballet Prokofiev’s panies began touring there. They opened new Scythian Suite and a concerto by Vivaldi, and horizons to Soviet choreographers, dancers, in the 1980s, when he worked in Perm, he also and even audiences, liberalized the artistic choreographed his own Mozartiana. effort of those working in the arts toward new As to companies introducing Balanchine forms of expression. ballets into their repertory, that came much The influence was even greater because later, in the 1980s. Now, of course, Balanchine’s some of the choreography that was seen cor- ballets are danced all over Russia – especially responded to what the new Russian genera- in Petersburg and Perm.

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