The Visual Outcome Brief

In June, for the first time, the Royal Ballet will perform at the O2 Arena. The company's best dancers — Carlos Acosta, Tamara Rojo and Lauren Cuthbertson — make up a cast that the ROH hopes will sell-out the four performances at O2 Arena. The arena will hold up to 12,000 audience members per performance, compared to the 2500-seat capacity at the Royal Opera House. According to a Telegraph interview with Tamara Rojo, the stage will, of course, be much bigger and there will be television screens zoomed in on the performance.

This venue is the perfect place to review ballet. It will give RB the biggest audience it's ever had, and if the shows sell out, it could help to revive ballet's stale image. With floor seats at 10 pounds a piece, this is ballet for the masses. It does, though, have implications. What does it mean for a company with such historical clout to perform in Lady Gaga territory? The financial risk of preparing for this performance is also great — preparing any performance that travels is a major cost — because of the size of the O2 stage, the MacMillan ballet will have to be restaged. The props and scenery must also be reconsidered. There are also many stakeholders in this ballet — RB, ROH, O2 and the 48,000 potential audience members, to name a few.

With Design Writing as a mode of writing, I will write three reviews on these performances that use the review of Romeo & Juliet as a way in to critique what this series of performances means within the art and criticism.

1. Read All About It: Review as Poster

Ballet posters are all over the Underground. These ballet posters have a broader viewership than those who read ballet reviews from popular news sources. The Royal Ballet maintains a collection of performance posters within its archives. I will research versions of the Romeo & Juliet poster, leading up to the current one. After seeing R&J at the O2 Arena, I will design my review into a poster, which would ideally, be hung in similar places as posters that advertise the performance this new poster reviews.

I intend to write a full review. The poster will be a product of that review — the review could be revised and edited until it is only a few words. Or, I could pull out words within my review for the poster. The poster will not just critique the ballet; it will serve as a critique on the brevity of reviews. Since it will be the same size of the posters in the tube, it becomes a critique on who is and how many are reading what you write.

2. TEXT-IMAGE-TEXT: Review as Describer

Ballets are constantly pulled between a written form and the stage. They travel from hand-written dance notation, to dancers who will perform/visualize them. Then, these ballets are translated back into text with the dance review. They might become ‘image’ again later as films, or they might be shelved until the notation is pulled out once more for the process to start over. Text — Stage — Text.

In this second review, I will layout a scene from Romeo & Juliet to show the many versions of how a ballet lives in print. Taking queues from my Type and Visual Languages essay, I will lay out a scene of dance notation, with the same scene shown in film stills, as well as descriptions from reviews. All three of these — film, notation and review — are largely descriptive (notation is a form of descriptive, technical writing; a ballet on film does nothing more than visually relay the stage experience; a review relays the experience of a well educated audience member). The aim of this review is to critique the role of description in dance reviews — is it relevant if it only happens once? Is it as unreadable as the ballet notation? The final outcome will be published online, and it will take on a physical presence in a long sheet of manuscript.

3. Past and Present: Review as New Media

Ballet is an artform with baggage issues. Companies have been criticized for staging old classics to death, but these classics draw revenue. When Alice debuted at the Royal Ballet — a new production — Wheeldon, the choreographer, was criticized for being too traditional. Now the Royal is staging Romeo & Juliet, another classic, but it’s in a new, very modern venue. It’s also the size of a stadium, and there are TV screens just to make sure you can see, which makes it a compelling place for past and present intersect.

Through photography, found images (from the performance) and recorded interviews, I’d like to examine the tension of past and present through the review by charting the journey of ballet pointe shoes. I’ll focus on their home at Freed of London, where they have been handmade the same way for 80 years, and follow them to their performance at the O2 Arena. Going to O2 is not just a new journey for the Royal Ballet; the journey from Freed to the new, giant venue is a different journey than those pointe shoes have taken before.

This becomes a critique on ballet’s use of technology — handmade tools versus bigscreen televisions. By making it a multi-media slideshow, the end result (published online) becomes a critique on all kinds of tools of the trade. Sure, dancers have their pointe shoes for tools, but the medium in which this review takes place aims to suggest that dance critics should update their own review toolkit.

Questions:

Why write three reviews on one performance?

My aim is to show the versatility of Design Writing as a mode of reviewing. Writing three different critiques on this performance can simulate what three different reviews could look like from three different organisations who adopt a Design Writing as Mode of Writing method. Each is a distinct example of how design writing can be used. Each review employs different research methodologies: archival research, reading images as text, interviews, writing, photography, design. They can all work in multiple media platforms. Two reviews have the capability of appearing online or in print. The pointe shoes review can exist in film-form online, and in captioned, photo-essay form in-print.

Where will these live?

The print version places are TBD. But everything will be online, at a yet-to-be-determined url.

Who are these reviews for?

These reviews are for dance critics and their editors. They're also for the Royal Ballet — admin and dancers. They are examples for other arts writers and reviewers to reference for determining more appropriate, engaging ways of writing about their respective fields. They are for designers because dance is a mega-treasure-trove of design objects/notation/material yet to be exposed. These reviews are for the people who went to the performance and balletomanes who did not. They are for design and art/culture-minded people who probably have an iPhone and twitter account, and suffer from mild internet addictions. They are for anyone who saw Black Swan.

Illustrating Ballet

So I talked below about this art director thing. I really think there's something there, especially in the linking and collaborating part of it all.

Last week, Tom and I went to the Mixed Bill at the Royal Opera House. I had spent a lot of time reading the reviews. As noted in previous posts, these reviews spend most of their word counts focusing on the second ballet, Live Fire Exercise, by Wayne McGregor. They seemed to be quite enamored with the technology, and all of the reviews devote at least a paragraph to the ballet's beginning, in which there aren't any dancers on stage. The reviews also feature versions of the same photo — dancers who look disproportionately large compared to the backdrop of fire, desert and explosions.

Now, we all know that you'd be crazy to take pictures at a ballet performance like this. Not allowed. And I can understand why critics would have a picture to go along with the review. It's another element to draw you in. But what really is a picture in terms of ballet? It captures less than a second of a moment you probably wouldn't recognize exactly if you were watching the ballet. Because, after all, ballet is about the movement and not about a static image. The images used with reviews are also a bit...unfaithful. Many times they're stock images from the ballet companies that of course, portray things in the best light. So before the performance, I started thinking about other ways to visually document it. I thought about what I've done with BodyTalk or as a designer when it comes to capturing something I, myself, cannot capture. That's when, suddenly, it made sense: commission an illustrator.

Tom was coming with me to the ballet anyway, and he is, in fact, an illustrator. So before we went to the ballet, we talked about a style and how we'd go about documenting. The goal was to make the experience off-the-cuff and unexpected. I proposed that everytime I tapped Tom on the shoulder, he would start sketching, for however long he liked. The goal was not to be greatly detailed. It was about capturing a moment I also happened to be taking notes on. I didn't want him to guess what I was writing. I just wanted him to sketch what he saw.

It was challenging because — especially with a new work like LFE — you can't prepare yourself for how you'll react. It seems that most of these critics had their reviews written before they had settled into their seats. But this approach to design writing mode was about being of-the-moment and intuitive. It was about reacting, because the reflection would follow.

I didn't think of it at the time, but the 10 sketches we now have are now these permanent visual records of the performance. They encapsulate ballet's un-capturable qualities — there's only so much you can illustrate while the dancers move, and you cannot rewind. They themselves become a critique on the visual elements of dance reviews. I would say that their subjectivity (what Tom chose to draw and what he didn't draw) isn't any more subjective than the photographs the Royal Ballet has edited down for you to see.

Pecha Kucha

Preparing the Pecha Kucha was a really easy way of figuring out how to determine what I thought design writing as a mode of writing should be. The presentation was also a good challenge in articulating my research question and my reason for pursuing the research. After giving the presentation and thinking more about what I think design writing as a mode of writing is, I still feel that my 'ingredients' are valid. No, I don't want to be prescriptive, but I do think that as a mode of writing, design writing does have distinctive characteristics.

I've found that thinking about how I approach art direction is a good starting point for thinking about how to approach this mode of writing. Art direction is about problem-solving, innovation, collaboration and visual storytelling within the boundaries of a publication. What separates it from just 'design' is that art directors oversee a publication — they have to make sure it all flows and that it links.

As a mode of writing, design writing can work with this model:

Design writing should address problems within the subject area the mode is tackling. I think that writing is definitely part of design writing, but there should be a visual element to it, that really elevates the critique — this, to me, is innovative. Design writing should really be linking ideas to address the problem at hand.

Takeaway points from recent e-mailed brainpickings.

Kiernan: did you ever know (Name omitted)

she is our age, I think. Maybe a year younger. Did the Move thing for a while

9:07 AM her first day was today.

me: oh wow

how'd it go?

Kiernan: (very well) her thesis or project or whatever is about music journalism, and her working hypothesis is that music critics shouldn't think about audience when they construct their criticism.

and I thought that was just total lunacy.

because of what we were just saying.

I don't know. How can you cut through the multitude online if you're self-interested?

9:12 AM me: WAIT

Kiernan: For me, you can still relate a subjective experience while thinking about your audience.

(waiting)

me: she's saying that music critics SHOULDN'T think about audience?

Kiernan: exactly.

me: wha

omg

this must be a trick or something!

Kiernan: or at least Chuck Klosterman says that, in the interview she did with him.

me: oh barf.

Kiernan: i know right?

9:13 AM me: that is chuck klosterman speaking now

but like that's not how you engage a community...especially with city papers

9:14 AM Kiernan: totskis.

me: i think certain writers have the credibility to turn anything into whatever they want (david foster wallace's consider the lobster, for example)

so what does she think the point of criticism is?

9:15 AM Kiernan: We didn't get that far yet.

it's a very, very interesting question, if you start with the premise that writers shouldn't think about their audience.

I mean, I think criticism has a tenuous grasp on usefulness even WHEN you're thinking about the audience.

9:16 AM me: and i'm of the belief that criticism should constantly be engaging with the art it critiques. it should be pushing the art forward, but the art should also be challenging the criticism to change

i don't know why we've been stuck in the rut for so long. it's like all criticism is modeled off of how to write a review of a year-long art exhibition.

that's a big audience who gets to see that (in terms of readership and those who also get to see the show)

guh. she can't just say that critics shouldn't think about audience. unless she wants to just turn her thesis into a big satire.

9:19 AM has she talked to anyone else?

Kiernan: I think the argument you make, with her assumptions in place, is that the subjective experience is the only honest one and you compromise your integrity by thinking of others.

(not that I agree)

9:20 AM and she has: Camile Dodero from the Village Voice, though she's a former web editor and not actually a professional music critic.

and a few more.

she's got an interview lined up with Sasha Frere-Jones.

a few more.

me: that's pretty cool

(little jealous)

9:21 AM Kiernan: what they all have in common is that their success is based mostly on genius (or whatever the fuck Chuck Klosterman is smoking) and therefore not great for modeling behavior or explaining the system.

9:22 AM Like, those dudes (and dudettes) can muscle through a thousand words of me-language and leave the reader breathing heavy.(except Klosterman. I really don't like him, in case that wasn't apparent. Though he does seem to have the above effect on plenty of people).

9:23 AM me: yeah. i do feel like she's talking to people at the best of places

9:24 AM they have these jobs because they're different. and they've been insanely, brilliantly different for forever. and like...they're of a different generation

she should really be talking to younger writers who write about music

9:25 AM Kiernan: yeah! pick me!

i keed.

Kiernan: I doubt she will.

which is fine with me.

me: SEE.THAT'S THE PROBLEM. no one wants to talk to people who are ACTUALLY doing the things. trying NEW things

9:26 AM Kiernan: yeah, but I mean.

me: and it's not a crap thesis. She's asking a really important question

but audience has everything to do with writing and why it's done.

perhaps if she went home to write on her personal blog, she wouldn't have to consider audience. but even the bands who play the gigs she sees — who once all probably said, "i do it for the art and for myself" — have to consider the audience.

Kiernan: yes

the tree in the forest

umm

9:29 AM there are multiple tree/forest metaphors

I meant the one about the sound

me: haha

falling?

or something?

whatevs

Kiernan: right yes. that one.

me: all up in arms about that

haha

9:30 AM Kiernan: so seriously: how's your project/thesis going?

since this is basically the same conversation.

me: good? i think?

i think i'm encountering a problem though

9:31 AM i dont' really have a way to justify why i've chosen the dance writers i'm reading

i read all of the dance writers for the big london papers. and i read dance writing in new york.

9:32 AM then i read an international blog about dance that rounds up dance news and reviews but also does kind of service-journalism pieces for the dance world but also attracts non-dance-worlders

i guess i picked these because they're english speaking ballet hubs

but i'm definitely leavning out a lot. i can, though, say that consistently any review you read is all text-based, with one stock image.

9:34 AM me: i can't believe how invisible dance is

most of the time

it's just completely hidden

Kiernan: I mean, I'm certainly no expert, but it seems like you could find the fair cross-section without reading a thousand writers.

me: yeah. you can.like. the village voice BARELY has a dance section.

9:36 AM

me: so if they barely have one...last article was MAY FOURTH...then what does that look like for smaller papers?

dang

Kiernan: yeah, not great.

me: i ended up writing a piece for the village voice...it was a pretend pitch

Kiernan: really?

me: yeah

Kiernan: do tell.

9:37 AM me: oh it was an exercise in linking a lot of different things that were briefly talked about in reviews or tiny news articles

i felt like in order to start the project, i needed to properly write a couple of articles about ballet and where it's situated within culture. so i ended up writing one about what's going on in london

9:38 AM with the fake pitch that it could be a reflection of what's happening in new york

york*

Kiernan: ah!

me: i even laid it out on a fake village voice website

Kiernan: that's a really smart idea.

me: thanks!

Kiernan: so many ideas seem so good until you implement them.

9:39 AM but if you start with implementation, or at least doing the thing...

man. we could have saved so much time in J school.

me: i know

i think that's why i'm feeling really squirmish about the project. i'm nervous about jumping into the 'doing' bit of some of it

it's like...come on. just try it
———————————————
So, to reflect:
There is now a masters thesis tied to the idea that audience shouldn't matter. You should write your review for...yourself? The author of the thesis says that you can compromise your integrity by thinking of others when you're writing about your experience of a review. This seems like quite an insular viewpoint. I think that asking the question of whether audience currently matters in the realm of review writing is important because it doesn't seem to matter at all.
Luke Jennings of the Observer spent most of his review of the Royal Ballet Triple Bill writing about Live Fire Exercise. Unlike other reviews, he actually makes a small transition between the Balanchine (danced first) and LFE, by saying the contrast between the two "could not have been greater." Jennings is the first person I've read who's tried to explain the disparity among the choreography, music and scenery, and he writes that the choreography "unites" the classically driven music and graphic, modern scenery by "anguished grapplings and cradlings." Is that supposed to mean the scenery is grapply? Or maybe that's the music?
Jennings was apparently so moved by LFE that the two sentences he saved to talk about DGV: Dans a Grande Vitesse were used to talk about how he wasn't in the mood to watch it:
After this I must confess that I wasn't much in the mood for Christopher Wheeldon's DGV: Danse à grande vitesse. An express train of a piece to a catchy, inconsequential score by Michael Nyman, it strains every rivet to entertain, and the dancers give it their all. But too much of me was still in that Djibouti desert, overwhelmed.
Okay, I guess it was three sentences. This strikes me as a perfect model for a review that doesn't consider audience. Just a few years ago, DGV made it's debut. Balanchine's Ballo della Regina premiered not that long ago in the historical scope of ballet. Simply as an audience member, I'm quite excited by the idea of new ballets being added to the canon of contemporary 'classics.' By performing DGV again and programming it with Ballo, is the Royal suggesting that DGV be a part of on-going performance repertoire? What does it mean to put a debut in the middle of the ballet programme? I think there were a lot of questions the critics just didn't bother to ask.
In fact, I didn't think they were posing any questions or major critique at all. Judith Mackrell says that this is "one of the most genuinely mixed bills of the season." Besides stating that there are two ballets written in the 21st century and one ballet choreographed in the 20th, she gives no clues as to how 'different' these ballets are. She actually says that McGregor's choreography in LFE is at its most classical. Wouldn't that make it a little closer in line with the Balanchine, which, as she says "looks back to the 19th Century world of its Verdi score." Additionally, in terms of a "moment" in ballet history, this programme seems to have interesting — albeit unconventional — ties that may not make it so mixed after all:
1. Although choreographed in the 1978 (though Guardian writers say it was written in the 1960s), this was the Royal's very first staging of Balanchine's Ballo della Regina. Additionally, this is the first staging of McGregor's LFE. What does that say? It obviously means that the Royal sees that Balanchine and these two young choreographers (McGregor and Wheeldon, who choreographed DGV) have something in common. Additionally, Wheeldon (DGV choreographer) choreographed the full length story ballet Alice in Wonderland, which premiered less than three months ago. What does it mean to show another Wheeldon?
2. All of the ballets are minimal with scenery, but how the stage is used is eye-catching. The blank blue screen that hangs in the back of Ballo emphasizes scale. The dancers, who turn and move so quickly you don't want to risk blinking, look as if they are tiny, wound-up toys on the stage. McGregor also does not use any props, but instead, his scenery (the digital screen) moves so slowly you forget that it's even moving. So when an explosion goes off at the sky turns dark, you barely notice. While Ballo's bare stage is there to highlight the bodies and present the dancers as truly untouchable objects (they're too fast, you can't catch them), LFE's scenery is an art in itself (It was created by digital artist John Gerrard). Because the art is moving, it takes just as much watching-energy from the audience to pay attention to the screen as it does to the dancers. Whether or not it's intentional, the scenery and the choreography are disconnected. DGV uses the most conventional staging, in that there is a prop — but it's quite futuristic, and that prop (a mesh boulder thing) becomes part of the choreography. Dancers hide behind it and walk through it — it's something to travel through. Like the digital art in LFE, which creates this new space and context to work with, DGV's mesh boulder-thing transcends 'prop' and becomes another dimension of the stage.
3. Also, the layering of time is a theme that runs through LFE and DGV.
In LFE, there is the slow passing of time within Gerrard's digital; the dancers who move the steps outside of the music's own rhythm. The music itself looks backward in time — to Bach — and reimagines baroque themes for the 21st Century. All of this on top of each other, including the context of knowing about a Live Fire Exercise, creates many tensions with time — technological, memory, sound, trauma, real-time versus slow-motion.
In DGV, time is about a tension between high-speed and slow, fragmented images (like slowly putting together bits of landscape you would see from a train). The dance is about a journey, and so you have aspects of time travel and time zones. TIME.

LFE : Meant to post this before last Thursday

Things to think about tonight:

-Critics are writing a lot about how Michael Tippett's score doesn't exactly work with the choreography. Mackrell says he choreographs against the music in some parts. Zoe Anderson described the choreography as the "slippiest" aspect of Live Fire Exercise, suggesting that it might "undercut" the desert war and "English lyricism" of the music and computer generated landscape by John Gerrard.

-Clement Crisp of FT wrote that "sure this LFE is the same contorted affair that we have seen in the past few years from McGregor: convulsed movement conveying a sense of physiques knotted, driven towards a neurotic introversion. But Mackrell of the Guardian wrote that "in some ways, McGregor's choreography is the most classical he has ever created." The "pirouettes and attitudes are wrenched off balance; legs shoot out with deadly force."

-There's lots of 'war' language going on throughout all of the reviews:

explosions, military, soldiers, shocks, blasts, war, violence, ravaged, army, manoeuvres, explosion, ricochet, trauma, damage, loss, deadly, force, trauma, violence, injury, heroic, survive, piercing, warfare, fighting, battle-fatigue, army, explosion, fire, burn, desert, war, military, desert, lorries, crashing, flame, explosion, Afghanistan, Iraq, The Hurt Locker, grapple, conflict, war, battle, death, loss, combat, aftermath, gun, battle-grounds, operate, unit, manoeuvres, training drill.

Words for explosions used — explosions, shocks, blasts, crashing

Words for fire — fire, burn, flame

Words for guns — gun, ricochet, piercing

Planning for LFE @ ROH

So you can't photograph during the ballet, but what if you illustrated?

Magnificent Maps

These maps do what I have been trying to figure out how to do.

Why can't I map?

I should really stop saying Can't.

Is it an attention thing?

They're great reference material for the visual presentation and the thesis.

How do you document something undocumentable? I guess it goes back to Sarah Rothenberg's essay, Measuring the Immeasurable. It seems that only through reflection can you really capture the moment. Otherwise, capturing the moment at the time seems contrived, or superficial.

In a way, it's sort-of like Mount Rushmore, a very, very, very static place. What is more powerful? A picture? Or a story about your visit.

Thoughts

Things to think about:

What is Design Writing as a mode of writing? What are its characteristics? What distinguishes it from other modes of writing, ie: investigative journalism, new journalism, creative non-fiction, etc.

For example: The ballet shoes. How does the design writer approach writing a ballet review based on the ballet shoes versus how a news journalist (or dance critic) might do it?

What do I want my projects to achieve? How will each project show something different about design writing's approach to ballet?

- A design-writing approach to documentation (many forms of media)

- Design writing as straight writing. How do I turn a ballet review into a ballet review written in the mode of design writing?

How do I want to approach this dance notation business?

Alice: I Made a Wordle

After seeing the Wordles on The Ballet Bag, I decided to make one of my own. This one is based on four reviews of Royal Ballet's Alice in Wonderland.

Words:

Invention

takes time

however

music

money

dazzling

magical (strange that old stuff still feels magical)

Kanye...blah.

I don't care if Kristen McNally likes Kanye West. This project totally pisses me off. How can he spend so much money to hire a choreographers and ballerinas to performa a really bad, cliched ballet in his epically long music video? He couldn't even produce anything 'new' for the art. Just a bunch of arm waving and by-myself-in-my-bedroom dancing. I can see how the choreography could work. But the costumes — those quintessential ballerina costumes — distract from what the choreography is doing. It's two separate ideas. I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, but man, he should start giving his money to ballet companies and see what they do with it. Hopefully it's more draft works performances. Or Beer and Ballet @ SF Ballet. That's an excellent idea.

Alice in Wonderland: Visual Documentation

I had to knew that the reviews of Alice were hitting on similar ideas, but I had to visualize. Click on each text and zoom to see what has been highlighted and color coded.

By pulling out really basic ideas, I found that all three reviews brought up the idea of the story ballet in the 21st century. Only Judith Mackrell saw Alice as a modern-day story ballet. Sulcas and Jennings both thought that Wheeldon's version was quite traditional. They also explained why it was traditional. Mackrell, however, quickly moved on. She seemed to chalk-it-up to the music. Jennings and Sulcas both said the music and stage design saved the ballet, but the choreography was what kept it from becoming a classic ballet for modern times. No one gave a completely specific example of how Wheeldon's choreography was 'dated,' but Sulcas and Jennings did mention the allusion to Sleeping Beauty and how closely he stuck to the original story.

I thought that all three reviews missed out on an opportunity to talk more about the story ballet — it's history and why it's such a big deal for ballet companies. It was only Sulcas of the New York Times who touched on this idea...and the ballet wasn't even performed in New York. Also, I wondered why there were so many descriptions in each piece (notated by pink brackets) since all of the performances were sold out before they even began AND the Royal Ballet filmed Alice to air on BBC. It seemed that word count could have been more wisely used.

What does it take to put together a brand new, full length, classical ballet. Unfortunately, we only find out what it actually takes in the Royal Ballet's own coverage on itself in a 30-minute documentary that aired on iPlayer. This, though, is not reflective or critical. It's rather celebratory. It would be helpful and interesting for those who read the dance section to know about the numbers (economics, time, energy, people) who devote themselves to something like this. I mean, it could have been "The Design Of a New Ballet." How cool would that have been? Do dance sections have no money? I can't figure it out.

Wordles: Design and Ballet

How do you sum up a year of words? To celebrate its anniversary, The Ballet Bag made two Wordles based on content from the site. It's a quick way of showing what's been timely and worth writing about.

It was an Ashton-heavy season for the Royal Ballet. And Black Swan has taken up some serious space in ballet writing. There are the obvious words — ballet (duh!) — but I like looking at the smaller pieces of the puzzle.

'Critic' (or derivatives of it) comes up a lot in these images. I wonder in what way the word was being used — to introduce a writer or to talk about the role of a critic? Wordle arranges the words randomly, but it's quite a fun experiment to see what words are paired together. It prompts me to think about issues in ballet, and what should be covered:

1. "different read"

2. "made...little...use"

3. "things wanted"

4. "another"

5. "copyright

6. "make"

7. "might end"

1. "critic wrong"

2. "fact critics"

3. "reviews tale"

4. "certain moment found"

5. "sense"

6. "online"

7. "interesting position"

8. "real dancers"

I'm also noticing that many of the words I chose to pull from these diagrams have a thingness to them, a design-ness:

critics, found, online, real, made, use, things, wanted, another, copyright, make, might, end

I keep thinking about 'making.' What goes into making a ballerina? What goes into the making of a ballet? What goes into the making of those pointe shoes? Making, to me, has to do with process. 'Making' implies questions of How? and Why?

I need to think about Making and Ballet. And Making and Design. And Making and Ballet and Design.

Thoughts: Alice in Wonderland

The Alice in Wonderland reviews share similarities:

All mention the last full-length story ballet that was created at the Royal: Twyla Tharp's Mr. Worldly Wise, which was apparently a disaster. None, though link to a past review of MWW or say why.

They are all tapping into the problem of the story ballet, and posit if Alice will set the mark for 21st Century story ballets. However, Jennings and Sulcas say that the choreography is no different than anything else. What makes it so modern is the score and the stage design. These are parts that make up the whole of a ballet, but what is missing is a choreographic step forward. They say that they expected more from Wheeldon, and that he is operating within his comfort zone, but they don't explicitly say what they expected. It seems like when they say that the choreography isn't any different than any other old classic ballet, it would be a good time to suggest why it should be different or how it could be different. Or, they could address the challenges of modernizing classical ballet choreography.

They provide examples of how the choreography is similar to other classic ballets:

-Alice's choreography is largely reactive

-Wheeldon's choreography has, with Electric Counterpout, "lacked dramatic substance," according to Luke Jennings.

-They are too faithful to the original story (like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty)

-"There's not much that would indicate, choreographically speaking, a 21st-century ballet," writes Sulcas. "Perhaps that doesn't matter much. But there are far too few memorable dance moments in Alice that might reflect something of hte characters' feelings or development, or suggest their unconscious desires and fears.

Responding to this, the reviews seem to suggest that even THE classics are more substantive than this. Since most classics were made at a time when ballet was a bigger part of culture, choreographers were able to develop characters that audiences could connect with. With Alice, the reviews suggest that Wheeldon has stuck to what a classic ballet looks on paper, but he hasn't considered the context in which they were originally choreographed — and how that played into the currently culture.

—————

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/dance/8361826/Alices-Adventures-in-Wonderland-at-Covent-Garden-Seven-magazine-review.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/mar/06/alice-adventures-wonderland-review/print

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/mar/01/alices-adventures-in-wonderland-review/print

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/arts/dance/02alice.html

Draft Works: Notes

Notes I took during Draft Works. It felt good to write while watching a performance. I hadn't done it in so long. The Linbury studio is small, quite looming and dark. The seats are a bit bigger than the ones in the Opera House, which makes it easy to take notes without disturbing anyone. We were in the very back row but still had a remarkable view because of the hall's steepness. It was a completely different feeling compared to the rehearsal I went to back in January. Then, we were up close — front row — and you wanted that sort-of feeling because Dame Monica Mason was talking to the dancer (Natalie Harrison) and the audience. You wanted that intimacy. Since Draft Works was a performance, being able to see the small stage from up above gave you more of a scale of how the dancer/choreographers used the space. It also highlighted how powerful the men looked throughout the performance. It seemed as if they could stretch their arms wide and engulf the stage with their presence. I hadn't ever seen a group of male dancers with so much power.

Afterwards, I spoke with Sian Murphy. I asked her about how she reconciled her background as a classical ballet dancer with her interest in hip-hop. From what I gathered, ballet is her job and she loves it, but she sees hip-hop like a lot of non-dancers do. It's fun to dance to, and after a long day of work, you want to listen to what you love. I guess it's kind of like a design job — you don't want to come home and look a screen after spending all day at one. Or, at least, you don't want to look at a screen in the same way. You've got to find another outlet.

She also talked about her desire to create a strong, female role. Murphy definitely did that and Turk realized the part. She was fierce, muscular and demanding. But despite being taller than Thom Whitehead in pointe shoes, the two dancers really fought for the foreground. I think Whitehead won overall. Turk was super sexy, but Whitehead was the one who transported us (me, Tom and the other dancer — Camilla — I spoke with after the perfomance) to that gritty basement club. Sian said she wanted the female part to be a role any ballerina would love to do because it looked different and fun. I get that. But I think she's casting off her ability to choreograph for a male dancer. They were both so convincing. It was so much fun to watch.

That's what was so refreshing about the entire Draft Works performance. Tom and I went for a drink afterwards, and we were both giddy with excitement over what we saw. We couldn't stop talking about the enthusiasm and energy that exploded from the stage. Okay, Royal Ballet isn't doing the most amazing job of advertising Draft Works, and there were only two performances, but still, the ballet is providing its dancers with a venue to experiment. Monica Mason was there to watch. The audience was invited to come out and talk to the dancers and choreographers afterwards. It's clear that the Royal Ballet knows it's onto something. The show was sold-out. I'm wondering why there aren't more.