{"id":3601,"date":"2012-05-22T16:18:42","date_gmt":"2012-05-22T20:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/?p=3601"},"modified":"2012-09-17T15:42:47","modified_gmt":"2012-09-17T19:42:47","slug":"pacific-northwest-ballets-after-petipa-works-and-process-at-the-guggenheim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/pacific-northwest-ballets-after-petipa-works-and-process-at-the-guggenheim.htm","title":{"rendered":"Pacific Northwest Ballet’s After Petipa – Works and Process at the Guggenheim"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PNB<\/a><\/p>\n

Pacific Northwest Ballet<\/a> – After Petipa
\nWorks and Process at the Guggenheim<\/a>
\nMay 14, 2012<\/p>\n

Fans of classical ballet often arrive at the theater and open their programs to find the words \u201cAfter Petipa\u201d next to the choreographer\u2019s credit.\u00a0 For Pacific Northwest Ballet\u2019s Works and Process event, dance historian and program host, Doug Fullington gave the audience a detailed and fascinating glimpse into the origins and early years of two well loved ballets \u2013 The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake — which were born over a century ago under the artistic auspices of Marius Petipa.\u00a0 PNB\u2019s wonderful dancers demonstrated differences in popular variations and pas de deux.<\/p>\n

In broad strokes, generalizations emerge about ballet in Petipa\u2019s day versus ballet today.\u00a0 In the late 1800s, ballet stories were slightly different and some pas de deux pieces began life as pas de quatre or pas de six. Many of the famous men\u2019s variations began as petite allegro as opposed to the grand allegro that we\u2019re accustomed to seeing today.\u00a0 Today\u2019s women\u2019s variations bear a stronger resemblance to their original late 1800s versions, but there is a much higher degree of difficulty to the steps now.\u00a0 Historic maneges would consist of a series of pique or chaine turns, but today the manege tends to incorporate a gamut of complex traveling turns.\u00a0 In Petipa\u2019s day, combinations were sometimes repeated as many as four times in a row, but such repetition is rarely used by today\u2019s choreographers.<\/p>\n

Throughout the evening Mr. Fullington revealed amazing backstories to the ballets.\u00a0 For instance, the Blue Bird Pas de Deux had originally been conceived as a dance for two couples the Blue Bird and Princess Florine, along with Cinderella and Prince Charming.\u00a0 Later, Cinderella and Prince Charming got their own music and their own dance.\u00a0 I found it interesting that in Petipa\u2019s day, several of the male dancers choreographed their own variations.\u00a0 Blue Bird was originally danced by Enrico Cecchetti, who may have choreographed his own steps.\u00a0 In the original choreography, the signature bris\u00e9s vol\u00e9s seem to go on forever and really create the image of the bird taking flight.\u00a0 Sleeping Beauty is a pretty long ballet even as it survives today, but when Petipa was choreographing, it went through stages in which it contained even more dances.\u00a0 Mr. Fullington even found historic notation with the comment \u201ctoo long, too long\u201d.<\/p>\n

In one sequence, Sarah Ricard Orza and Leta Biasucci shared the stage, executing the same variation at the same time.\u00a0 Ms. Orza demonstrated the smooth and rhythmic movement of Petipa\u2019s original while Ms. Biasucci\u2019s 2012 version had fewer repetitions of combinations, more detail, more nuance, more movement for the head and arms.\u00a0 Both ballerinas danced so beautifully.\u00a0 All of the dancers who appeared over the course of the evening left me with the wistful feeling that we in New York City just don\u2019t see enough of PNB.<\/p>\n

Mr. Fullington also took us back to the genesis of the Black Swan Pas de Deux.\u00a0 The music had originally come from Act I \u2013- a lot of \u201ccutting and pasting\u201d and \u201csurgery\u201d has been performed on the ballet\u2019s score.\u00a0 In an early incarnation, it had been conceived as a pas de quatre for the Black Swan, Prince Seigfried, Von Rothbart and a Cavalier who originally danced the man\u2019s variation.\u00a0 I was also surprised to find out that in earlier versions of Swan Lake, there was no Black Swan.\u00a0 Back then, Von Rothbart was billed as being an Evil Genie and he had a daughter who dressed in a multi colored costume and she tempted the prince.\u00a0 The Black Swan wasn\u2019t introduced until 1940!<\/p>\n

In earlier versions of the Pas de Deux, Odile does not dance with swan like movements.\u00a0 In the course of the pas de deux, she kept returning to Von Rothbart as if to take instruction from him.\u00a0 When Odette appears at the window to warn the prince, Odile covers his eyes.\u00a0 There was a beautiful ending in the original, in which Odile is in a deep penche with her arms in second position while the kneeling Prince holds her hands up.\u00a0 Then she dips down to place her hands on his knee, which brings the two of them face to face.\u00a0 It was something that I\u2019d never seen before, and it made such a powerful image.\u00a0 I wonder how it lost popularity.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Odile moves sharply in contrast to Odette\u2019s lyrical movement.\u00a0 Today the role incorporates the swan impressions with the head and neck and fluttering arms.\u00a0 The sharpness of her steps asserts her authority \u2013- she is no longer looking to Von Rothbart for instruction.\u00a0 She\u2019s in control.<\/p>\n

In the historic version of the man\u2019s variation, which used to be danced by an unnamed Cavalier, we see a petite allegro that starts and then never stops.\u00a0 According to Mr. Fullington, that variation is now lost from the repertoire.\u00a0 Today\u2019s version is more upbeat and powerful, a big grand allegro full of pirouette and tour sequences which allows the dancer pauses to cross the stage and catch his breath because the role is so demanding.<\/p>\n

\"PNB<\/a><\/p>\n

The evening concluded with a series of excerpts from the Wedding Pas de Deux from Sleeping Beauty.\u00a0 The Petipa version was more intimate than today\u2019s version which is more formal.\u00a0 There are sweet little sequences where the dancers mime phrases like, \u201cI love you\u201d, \u201cI\u2019ll dance with you\u201d, \u201cI\u2019ll make him my husband\u201d.\u00a0 The spectacular fish dives that are the signature of this piece were added in 1921.\u00a0 Dancers also performed a resurrected excerpt for the Gold and Sapphire Fairies.<\/p>\n

This was a wonderful program, guaranteed to delight any hard core ballet fan.\u00a0 I’m grateful to PNB and Works and Process for presenting yet another fantastic evening of ballet and talk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pacific Northwest Ballet – After Petipa Works and Process at the Guggenheim May 14, 2012 Fans of classical ballet often arrive at the theater and open their programs to find the words \u201cAfter Petipa\u201d next to the choreographer\u2019s credit.\u00a0 For … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,20],"tags":[406,410,409,405,247,407,138,274,408],"class_list":["post-3601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dance","category-karen","tag-after-petipa","tag-black-swan-pas-de-deux","tag-bluebird-pas-de-deux","tag-doug-fullington","tag-guggehneim-works-and-process","tag-marius-petipa","tag-pacific-northwest-ballet","tag-swan-lake","tag-the-sleeping-beauty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3601"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3725,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3601\/revisions\/3725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}