BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?

Subject: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 04:07 AM

rubbish!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 04:12 AM

Adding to your growing list, huh jOhn?..zz..e

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: greg stephens
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 04:14 AM

Yes oof course it is John, as you know very well.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: el ted
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 04:32 AM

Yes. It's full of mincing pufta's.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: GUEST,Ellenpoly
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 05:19 AM

Nothing more expected from you either, el ted..zz..e

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 05:24 AM

Elitist crap, same as opera, what's that all about then ? fat men and women yodelling in slow time.
eric

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 05:32 AM

eric-we already decide that opera is rubbish, see seperate thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: GUEST,Tap dancer
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 05:34 AM

"elitist crap" now were have I heard that mentioned before, oh yes it was about folk clubs. You are all jealous because ballet dancers have BIG sandwich boxes, some of you are not like them, and some of you cant get your hand on them.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 05:53 AM

Thanks jOhn, are my postings becoming rubbish ? or wre they already ?
eric

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 05:57 AM

Guest Tap dancer, do you mean ' lunch box '? if so I wouldn't want to and I doubt that Fat Lucy [ Pavarotti ] has even seen his for the last 30 years.
eric

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: el ted
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 06:01 AM

At least he isn't a mincer.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: GUEST,noddy
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 06:52 AM

ballet dancers are fitter than most footballers.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Pied Piper
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 07:44 AM

Another elitist, vastly and undemocratically subsidised "Art form"
I once went to see the Ballet Rembert doing "Ghost dances", the music was great (Incantation) spoilt only by the dancers inability to hit the ground in time with the music.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: GUEST,earthling
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 07:47 AM

They showed a ballet version of Beatrix Potter's Tales from the Riverbank one Christmas. That wasn't rubbish. It was cute and furry.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: fiddler
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 07:51 AM

I wish I was as fit as most ballet dancers!

What a body - think what those girls could do in bed?

Sorry debasing the art form.....

I don't like it to much but it does get the mind going - alright call me a ........ better than being a bigot!

Andy

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 12:29 PM

Ballet Dancing is wonderful.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: greg stephens
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 01:14 PM

I admit it's clever,standing on the end of your toes, but why bother? I bet it hurts.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 01:21 PM

Standing on the end of your toes is glorious.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: GUEST,Van
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 03:21 PM

It's obviously too-too refined for jOhn

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: GUEST,fred miller
Date: 01 May 04 - 01:29 AM

mixed bag. mostly comes from an idealy antique notion of bodies which is rubbish, and a vocabularly of movement which is rubbish. Most of the dancers and artistic directors would like to do more reasonable art, but can't sell it to stupid farts who want to see yet again that swan dragged across the stage like a shopping cart with a bad wheel. Lovely!! Enchanting!! um. Anyone who doesn't want to fuck a good dancer is gay, or, wait, if you're a guy and if the dancer is a guy, and you don't, then you're not-gay, or, whatever, you do the math, I have a headache.

My 7 year old boy taught me how to enjoy it, though. At the end of every showoffy bit of fluff just shout BALLET! at the top of your lungs. It's fun. You'll like it.

I grew up on modern, with a modern dancer who can choreograph anyone who can move into a clear and evocative thing about something. The ballet crowd hates good dance for reasons I can't fathom. You can't please them unless they know they're supposed to like it, and it fits their fantasy of themselves as cultured aristocrats. They are in the precise sense of ther word, retarded. I'm proud I met Hanya Holm, and the admirable Bella Lewitski. The life of a dancer per se is usually shorter than the life of the person who used to dance. It's sad people won't watch their dances, because then they are gone. All that effort and beauty lost in the wind. You can't really record it it in any way. Catch up.

   Ballet. Is it just me, or have you met 5 to 7 broken ballerinas for every one who can still do it? What does that say about a cruel and stupid art? And most of them look like marionettes compared to our retired Helen Star, whose hands had a quality like a silent film heroine. Her heels were crippled, and people said she was too old to play Juliet--as if they were at a Zefferelli film or something. I feel that people are generally just too stupid for dance as an art form, they don't get it, and they don't deserve it.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 01 May 04 - 02:19 AM

Some of us just think it's beautiful and don't really give a crap whether anyone else approves or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: CarolC
Date: 01 May 04 - 02:23 AM

That Jack the Sailor post was from me, but JtS says he concurs.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: The Stage Manager
Date: 01 May 04 - 05:36 AM

Is someone trying to wind me up here?   I was Stage Manager for Ballet Rambert (Now Rambert Dance Company) when Ghost Dances came into the repertoire. The music was actually by Inti Illimani and the piece inspired by the appalling political oppression in Chile under Pinochet, at the time. Sorry if you find these sorts of public statements by artists and choreographers elitist.

It was performed in Gdansk Poland, just after solidarity had been supressed. No one in that theatre at that time could possibly have misunderstood the message it brought to the people of Poland. Particularly as Marie Rambert, was herself Polish. The singer Steve Tilston was also on that tour playing in a piece called Sergeant Early's dream (along with Maggie Boyle). He has written a song called Polonaise about that tour which is on one of his albums.

Frankly if the vast majority of musicians I have worked with were as dedicated and worked as hard as your average dancer, they'd be a lot better for it.

I've also worked on UK tours by the Bolshoi and Kirov Ballets. Sorry guys but in what I hope is my slightly better informed opinion you guys are talking through your bottoms, and showing an age old and ridiculous prejudice which is largely unjustified.

SM

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 01 May 04 - 07:09 AM

Then why is it so bloody expensive to go and see one ?
I live in West Yorkshire and you don't get kids from council estates going to see ballets. WHY ? cause they can't bloodywell afford to go thats why.
It is kept so expensive to keep the riff raff out.
Think about this , it's only a few years ago that Placido Domingo refused to sing at his London concert because [ he said ] the tickets were far too expensive for his ordinary fans to come and see him.
eric

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 01 May 04 - 09:05 AM

As my old Dad always used to say, "How can they call it art when it's plain to see the girls aren't naked. Art is naked."

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 May 04 - 09:12 AM

Sorry, Stage manager, but no amount of intellectual argument will persuade someone to like ballet who loathes it. Or to loathe ballet if they like it. That's the way of the world.
Chacun a son gout.
There's no accounting for tastes.
De gustibus non disputandum est.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: The Stage Manager
Date: 01 May 04 - 12:27 PM

I take your point Greg, but Eric raises a fundamental issue, ticket prices are way too high. When I was with Rambert we particularly enjoyed the occasions when we got to perform for what Eric calls to call 'Rif-Raf', usually abroad. "Rif Raf" often have an instinctive understanding for non verbal art forms, and the appreciation is more genuine.

On joining Rambert I was particularly struck by the range and depth of expression that dance was capable of. It was not something that had occurred to me previously. Certainly most of the performers within the company would prefer to perform for everyone who wants to see them regardless of monthly income. I think Eric would also be surprised at the social origins of some of the performers and staff. The Billy Elliot phenomenon has been going on for some time. It is a real problem in the UK that Opera and Dance/Ballet has become the ghettoised as entertainment of "Toffs". This is far less the case abroad.

My own view is that if The Arts Council had any balls they'd be pitching a big tent in the middle of Eric's council estate, and let the people there make up their own minds and meet some of the people involved in 'the arts' . These days the arts seem to be run by accountants, and we know the sort of houses that accountants live in.

SM

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 May 04 - 12:48 PM

Gawd!! What a collection of philistines!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 01 May 04 - 12:58 PM

Nobody said anybody has to care what anyone else thinks, but my point of view is not that ballet is elitist, but that it is crude and tired and trite and illustrationy. I don't care if it delivers a message, so does a postal worker.

The better ballets are really more modern, less classical ballet, simply because all that effort of choreographers and dancers really does add up to something. You can't really respect the work of dancers at the same time you deny their growth and direction. It would be like saying um, "in my more informed opinion, this is not elitist, you're just full of crap" which is a pretty elitist way of saying something isn't elitist. When Barishnikov was here with the Mark Morris Modern Dance company they did good straight modern and the ballet audience HATED it. I think it would be better if it were MORE elitist, less commercial pandering to people who want to pose as cultured aristocrats, more for people who really like it.

    I know these people. They buy and patronize the stuff they are supposed to have, whether they like it or not. I see it all the time, selling them $50,000 rugs and stuff, then explaining to them they're supposed to look handmade, like that.

Other people certainly may genuinely like ballet more than I do, sure--I used to love old dry brittle lute music, loved it. But nobody can tell me ballet isn't struggling with a largely phoney parasitic audience of posing idiots. I happen to prefer modern dance, myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: GUEST,Ms Penelope Rutledge
Date: 01 May 04 - 01:11 PM

I have long avoided returning to this pestilential forum, but I cannot stand idly by while idiots like jOhn from Hull start threads abusing the arts, and other idiots persist in adding their witlessisms to his. Ballet is a noble and beautiful art form and deserves better than to be picked apart by cretinous morons from dysfunctional family backgrounds.

* PR

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: CarolC
Date: 01 May 04 - 01:13 PM

Last time I attended a ballet was in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Martinsburg is a small, blue collar, working-class town in a mostly rural, mountainous, working-class, coal-mining state. It was at the community theater. The dancers were from dancing schools in that town and some nearby towns. The dancing, while hardly world class quality, was nevertheless very satisfying to watch. And I think the dancers quite enjoyed what they were doing. I got in for free because I was dating one of the technical directors, but I think the tickets probably cost only a few dollars (US) more than movie tickets.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: dianavan
Date: 01 May 04 - 05:35 PM

I love ballet but hardly ever get to see it because the tickets cost so much. I also appreciate ballet as a wonderful discipline for girls and boys. It is no different than learning how to play a musical instrument. You practice and then you want to perform. Same as athletics.

I actually regret that my son was encouraged to become an athlete. Looking back at old photos, I now realize that his grace could easily have made him a dancer. Luckily, he found this out himself. Although he is still athletic, he balances this with dancing and yoga.

I used to think opera was rubbish but my daughter convinced me to buy season tickets. Learn the story first! Its much more enjoyable. I go to marvel at the set designs and the costumes.

I also attend folk festivals and enjoy myself in that scene. Why limit yourself?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Phot
Date: 01 May 04 - 07:37 PM

I was introduced to ballet many years ago by a very good friend, the first performance I saw was, La Femmale Gardae (Sorry about the spelling) at Covent Garden. I was, and still am hooked! Ballet is a fantastic art form to watch and experience, go buy a ticket and try it, you never know, you might like it!

Wassail!

Chris

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 01 May 04 - 09:01 PM

Well, I'm from a dysfunctional family background, but still I say, the medium of dance is the body, and the attitudes toward the body expressed by classical ballet might be a little less than noble, maybe not very broadminded, really. It's beautiful sometimes but so is other dance that doesn't smell so funky. Ballet has very little to do with how we really see ourselves, I hope. And then therefore it is merely athletic and fine, but not poetic and profound.
   I worked for a Ballet, and the artistic directors were hemmed in by the audience. Go to it, by all means, but for god's sake see some good modern--not that "interpretive dance" gunk, whatever that is, but real stuff. It's not that expensive when and if you can find it, and it's good, or good also, if you wish.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: dianavan
Date: 02 May 04 - 12:51 AM

In Vancouver there are many forms of dance. We are lucky because there are so many cultures here and one of the art forms they seem to hang on to is traditional dance. They also teach others. Actually, many, many children are enrolled in a wide variety of dance classes. I really like modern dance and recently enjoyed a dance in our community that was performed outside, along a historical path.

I always have loved dance but feel that it has been misunderstood for a long time. Seems that many (including musicians) do not value dance as a viable musical expression. I love dance and I don't mean the kind of dance that requires a partner and seems to be part of the courting ritual. In fact, that kind of dance always intimidated me. I stay far away from it. What I enjoy is the intimate connection between the dancer and the music.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Benjamin
Date: 02 May 04 - 02:54 AM

Personally, I enjoy ballet a lot. The dancers are amazing! Also, some of the best symphonic music was writen for the ballet. As for the price, I agree that it is generally to high, but I'm not sure anyone who throws that arguement out has any real idea of just how expensive it is to put on such a production. The endowment for the arts should be helping out here more than it does.
Also, Indian Classical Dance is another great art form. I would highly recomend seeing it if you have the chance. I know that there will be a big performance this year at Seattle's Folklife Festival. It's well worth your time, not to mention the price you'll pay (the festival is free)!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Shimbo Darktree
Date: 02 May 04 - 12:38 PM

Good God, man, I just got off the opera thread! JOhn, why don't you take up songwriting? If you're this bored, it would be a great way to fill in time, and you could toss them into this melting pot, and we can all pass judgement from high as to whether they are rubbish!

Oh yes, ballet ... seen it, don't like it. COnsists largely of dancers' shoes scuffing and spoiling some quite reasonable music.

But why do you care whether we all like ballet or not, and whether we think it is rubbish or not? Can't you make up your own mind?

How did I get sucked into this? I'm off to bed, to dream of writing songs that everyone absolutely adores as soon as they hear them. Now, there is a subject for a thread ... how can I write tunes to my songs so that they don't sound like "just another boring tune"?

In hopes,

Shimbo

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 02 May 04 - 08:51 PM

Dear Benjamin:

I have to disagree. The need to make the music "dance-able" and programatic has made ballet some of the worst of the classical repetoire. Sure, there are a few exceptions, but not many.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Benjamin
Date: 03 May 04 - 01:03 AM

"The need to make the music "dance-able"? Uh, what exactly do you think most forms in classical music are?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 03 May 04 - 04:10 AM

jOhn, I'm now thinking you began a good thread, in spite of yourself.

I studied ballet enough to know it's both difficult, and rewarding. There is a disipline involved that has helped me in many other aspects of my life.

I grew up watching the greatest companies in the world, and found myself getting spoiled for watching anything but the best.

Over the years, my interest has waned. I find other dance forms more interesting in that the dancers are not constricted to such a formal structure.

I've also been put off by the soaring prices in all the performing arts. If there isn't some kind of stripping down back to basics, we are bound to lose our audiences to cheaper fare.

The arts, whether it be ballet or opera, theatre, or folk music for that matter, needs to be accessable. Once it forgets that it's primary function is entertaining, enlightening, and uplifting people, they may as well pack it in...xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Mudlark
Date: 03 May 04 - 12:17 PM

I enjoy watching good ballet, as much as I enjoy watching good figure skating or gymnastics. But I have to say, once having seen Robin Williams immitating ballet dancing ("fairy dust, fairy dust") it is difficult to ever again enjoy it purely.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 May 04 - 12:48 PM

Not John from Hull..again...when are we going to start to ignore this silly bugger.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 May 04 - 02:44 PM

The need to make the music "dance-able" and programmatic has made ballet some of the worst of the classical repertoire.

Really?

The music for Les Sylphides was written first as a group of piano works by Chopin and was not originally intended for ballet. Other than transcribing the piano music for full orchestra, no substantial changes were made. The same holds true for several other ballets, such as Gaîté Parisienne (music by Offenbach) for example. Music first, then later choreographed and danced to.

A few composers who wrote music specifically for ballet were Glazunov, Stravinski, Roussel, Copland, Delibes, Dvorak, Purcell, Prokofiev, Rimsky-Korsakov, and on and on for about six pages. The composer who is probably best known for his ballet music: much loved ballets with gorgeously lush music such as Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker, is, of course, Piotr Illitch Tchaikovsky.

I take it that beyond the apparently narrow confines of your own taste, you don't listen to much music?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 03 May 04 - 05:36 PM

My bona fides are: 10 years of classical piano, 2 years as 3rd clarinet in a small local orchestra, and a little experience as a super in the opera.

For the sake of discussion, let's suppose that the best of the classical repetoire consists of 1000 hours of truly fine music. I maintain that at the most 20 hours of that is ballet. I don't count Purcell as a ballet composer.

Yes, much of classical music is based on dance forms. The relationship, however, is very loose.


Although trained dancers may be splendid athletes, I have always felt that both ballet and modern dance are UGLY. And, since most formal criticism is based on an analysis of personal experience and taste, I stand by my opinions.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 03 May 04 - 05:37 PM

In other words, yes ballet dancing is rubbish.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 May 04 - 06:06 PM

I'm not exactly unacquainted with music. Three years University of Washington School of Music, two years at the Cornish School of the Arts, over fifty years singing folk songs and ballads and playing both folk and classic guitar, taught folk and classic guitar for several decades, worked as an announcer at a two different classical music radio stations over a period of years.

You don't like ballet? You don't like opera? Okay. Nobody is making you llsten to anything you don't want to. But to call ballet and/or opera rubbish says more about you than it does about ballet and opera.   

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 May 04 - 06:39 PM

Note:—

Purcell. An example of one of the early composers of ballet as distinct for simply "dance music." Not know primarily as a composer of ballet (at least, not as it developed later), but Dido and Aeneas and The Faery Queen contain fairly substantial ballet sequences, as did other stage works he composed. If you want to scratch him, I can add a half-dozen others from the same period.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: Sam L
Date: 03 May 04 - 06:59 PM

Ugly? wish you'd elaborate a little.
I get sucked into ballet despite my better judgement. Although I generally feel it's a weird and distasteful aesthetic, it's seductive, like planned communities, Shaker villages, Playboy bunnies. I suppose I think dance is more temporal than other arts, doesn't keep well.
Modern ugly? Kind of a big sweep, there. Well. Compared to polka, or Appalachian clogging, or urban breakdancing, or the fox trot, or the mashed potato, sure, but still. Gee.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 03 May 04 - 09:11 PM

Correction, Mr Firth. I never said I don't like opera. "Un Bel Di" may be the most beautiful song ever written. Nevertheless, my opinion also has merit, even though you may have more education and experience. Ugly is ugly, and seldom needs explanation. Mind your blood pressure, Mr Firth.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Ballet Dancing Rubbish?
From: michaelr
Date: 03 May 04 - 09:30 PM

I'm with Don on this.

It's amazing to me that jOhn from Hull keeps starting these witless threads.

It's amazing to me that so many people take him seriously enough to actually answer his moronic questions.

It's amazing to me that so many Mudcat members whom I had (through their posts) come to respect actually agree with his idiotic statements.

New lows on Mudcat... :-(

Michael