The sublime Suzanne Farrell in 1966: “Concerto Barocco”
This is a rare treat, a video featuring Suzanne Farrell of the New York City Ballet in Balanchine’s great work “Concerto Barocco” to the music of Bach.
Farrell was about 21 years old in this performance, and she was a singular dancer who is hard to describe, because her qualities were unusual. People keep using the word “mesmerizing” in the comments to describe her, and I think it is correct – although of course we’re looking at a technically-deficient black-and-white video on a computer screen, and dance is best experienced in three dimensions and in person.
Another thing I remember reading about Farrell is that she is a religious person. I think her dancing is a form of meditation, which is very different from the approach of most ballet dancers. She is not showing off or even “projecting.” Something internal is happening that is perceived by the audience but not directed to the audience. It is spiritual in its essence, and that quality was present from start, when she was a teenager.
From the comments at YouTube:
She never plays to the audience. Rather, she let’s you in on a private experience. She really does dance as if no-one is looking.
I call your attention to Farrell in the pas de deux, the passage I’ve cued up here:
And watch the repetitive revolutions (known as promenades) in arabesque penché. which Farrell gives a slightly spiraling effect (but doesn’t over-exaggerate the height of the raised leg in back, unlike more recent dancers), and then a few moments later the twirls and what I call the “swoops” where her excellent partner Ludlow carefully lowers her down almost to the floor as she bends backwards with fluidity:
Here’s the entire thing, in case you’re interested. The finale is really arduous (start at around 18:29 and watch to the end). And remember that this comes after close to twenty minutes of nonstop dancing for most of them:
I was in college in the early 1960s and remember seeing her on the cover of Time or Newsweek (iirc). She was absolutely gorgeous. If she hadn’t wasted all that time dancing, she could have been a famous model.
LOL ;>))!!
Thank you, Neo.
Well, yeah, that’s easy if one has no bones.
neo: More seriously, what makes Balanchine special? The gay New York poets I used to read went on about him.
From search I can see you’ve covered a number of Balanchine performances.
huxley:
You know, I can take up that question, but the answer’s long. Maybe in another post some time.
The summary answer is this: (1) if you saw ballet before and after Balanchine, you’d know. He changed a great deal; really revolutionary. (2) he used music in a very different way, and wasn’t afraid of music (like Bach, for example, in this piece) that was not previously thought to be suitable for ballet (3) he was extremely prolific over a very long time and the quality of the work was high, although there were some forgettable ones as well (4) he had an eye for spotting and training talented dancers
Neo, I noticed the tempo of the first movement is slower than I’m used to hearing (typically vivace or high end molto allegro) and wonder whether this is of necessity or simply choice? As I don’t know dance I can’t say whether higher speed is possible or otherwise somehow too frenetic or some such? Or on the other hand doable enough but merely rejected for aesthetic reasons of the director/choreographer’s purpose? It’s beautiful to be sure — just tarrying where my imaging-ear is expecting a livelier progress.
sdferr:
I don’t know, but my guess is that it’s a deliberate choice.
Ah thanks.
Oh, and kicking in for the clan Ó Fearghail:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93_Fearghail
neo: Thanks.
That’s a good start. If you want to write more sometime, I’d like to read it.
As I recall, Edward Gorey, the illustrator (I guess one can’t say cartoonist) of those unique and marvelously morbid, old-fashioned little books, was a big Balanchine fan. He was also roommates with Frank O’Hara, my favorite New York School poet, while at Harvard in the 50s.
However, apparently I’m thinking of Edwin Denby, a dance critic and New York poet. Also one of those people who knew *everyone*, at least in art circles.
Here’s a fine article on Denby and Balanchine, excerpting what he said about “Concerto Barocco”:
In a 1945 review of ”Concerto Barocco,” set to Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, Denby writes, ”In its vigorous dance rhythm, its long-linked phrases, its consistent drive and sovereign articulation, ‘Concerto Barocco’ corresponds brilliantly to this masterpiece of Baroque music.” Gifted with a rare ability to describe dance moments in nontechnical language, Denby says of the couple dancing the adagio: ”Then at the culminating phrase, from her greatest height he very slowly lowers her. You watch her body slowly descend, her foot and leg pointing stiffly downward, till her toe reaches the floor and she rests her full weight at last on this single sharp point and pauses. It is the effect at that moment of a deliberate and powerful plunge into a wound, and the emotion of it answers strangely to the musical stress.”
“The Man Who Understood Balanchine”
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/08/bookend/bookend.html
Edwin Denby died in 1983 at the age of 80. He might have seen Suzanne Farrell in 1966.
Whatever else one might say of Balanchine, he left some memorable quotes, though not always in tune with the 21st Century.
In my ballets, woman is first. Men are consorts. God made men to sing the praises of women. They are not equal to men: They are better.
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Someone once said that dancers work just as hard as policeman, always alert, always tense. But I don’t agree with that because policeman don’t have to look beautiful at the same time.
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Put a man and a girl on stage and there is already a story; a man and two girls, there’s already a plot.
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Choreography is simpler than you think. Just go and do, and don’t think so much about it. Just make something interesting.
https://www.azquotes.com/author/819-George_Balanchine
The last, so far as I can tell, is the secret to creativity.
The cascade of arched bodies at 7:50 really caught my eye. It’s visually very striking, and reminds a bit more of modern dance rather than ballet. Plus, there is the usual element of story telling in most dance which I’m often not very good at discerning. (Perhaps because I like to just concentrate on the lines and motion by themselves.)
But that dance element didn’t seem like any conventional story telling element. It conveys strength and power. It’s almost like a massive bridge abutment that supports a glorious tower.
I have tp second Julie
I have to stand up for Ukrainians. Vindman is giving them all a bad name.
https://www.facebook.com/USNavy/posts/111628215526802
“The Distinguished Flying Cross was presented to the widow of Lt. Miroslav “Steve” Zilberman yesterday. The E-2C Hawkeye pilot of VAW 121 pilot ordered his crew to bail out after engine failure, enabling three others in the plane to escape as he manually kept the Hawkeye stable. Rest in Peace, Lieutenant. ”
I wish I could find the citation. The wikipededia makes things prettier.
Zilberman held things together so his crew could bail out. How he had the strength to fly that E-2 I’ll never know. He knew he was going to die. He had everything to live for.
Fun fact. The E-2 is such a valuable aircraft, the Navy puts its best pilots into them. They don’t like it, but it’s a fact.
Fun fact II: I’m an honorary Hormel Hawg. VAW-114.
The engine twisted everything around.
My wife and I were avid regulars to the NYC Ballet at Lincoln Center in the late 90’s and early 00’s. Put it on your bucket list of things to do. It is akin to watching professional ice hockey on television versus being there at lower level center ice. There is nothing quite like it. Monochrome YouTube videos don’t do it justice.
Thanks.
I also appreciated what you wrote about Balanchine. Although I’m no expert, I always thought of him as a transitional figure. A lot of Balanchine looks like “classical ballet” to me, but the actual motions are new, not from the classical canon. Yet it “looks right”.
I also see a very modern approaches to groups, and to abstract motion.