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This is 06, hour 06 on channel 3.

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On channel 2 is the mix of the two interview and interviewee.

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This is Andre Delafou.

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On channel 2 it's 102485, the FOM production.

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And 0VO on channel 1, which would be the individual mic on Andre Delafou from The Boom.

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This will be done until the completion of the first minute at 0VU on both the 1 and

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2 channels.

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Okay.

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I was sure I would remember.

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What were we talking about?

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Well I know that there's some other things I do want to ask you.

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We were talking about Bolero I think.

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We were talking about Bolero and about your painting the chairs.

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Yes.

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Why do you suppose that ballet isn't performed more today, Bolero?

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Because Rose has no company.

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It's not a ballet.

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You could easily perform in another company.

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Why?

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Because there will be some objections.

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Not having the right dancers.

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And not only that, but most of the companies found it kind of scandalous.

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Why is it, do you think Andre, that there are so few ballets, I mean there's Swan Lake

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of course, there are a number of others and many of Balanchine's ballets, that are performed

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by other companies.

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But there are really not a great many of them.

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I mean it's not the sort of thing.

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No, the classical.

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That's very interesting the way things disappear and things remain.

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And you never know really.

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One of the most interesting stories is the story of Sleeping Beauty.

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Dear Gilef, one who revived Sleeping Beauty was completely forgotten and who was never

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danced really in Paris or London.

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And it was a Russian production with Tchaikovsky music.

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So it was made for the court.

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And he wanted to show that to Europe too.

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And he spent a lot of money with backstores, fantastic costumes and sceneries.

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And it was a big flop in London in 1920 or 21, just after the First World War.

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It was a big flop because Dear Gilef, as his own very clever and brilliant elite,

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interested only in modern art.

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And they couldn't care less about Tchaikovsky music and 18th century style sceneries and

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costumes.

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It was a period like that, they only wanted modern art.

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They were only interested in Picasso, Matisse and they couldn't care less about the Petit

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Pas choreographies and the entire thing.

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I was reading about that.

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Fashion, you see.

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And so after that, of course, Dear Gilef understood and never tried to give back another old ballet.

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He just did modern things until his death.

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And he was less and less interested in it himself.

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The trend really has become in most European countries as well as here, that choreographers

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become associated with companies and those companies do their ballets.

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Well, it's a question of personality.

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I don't think a company could exist for a long time without a personality.

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And the personality could be not an artistic one, but it has to be somebody completely

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devoted to what it is doing, like Lucien Chase for ABT.

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And without that, the company is doomed.

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And we could see that now in this ballet everywhere.

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When you have not a very strong personality to keep things together, it falls apart, which

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is easy to understand.

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Yes, although it seems as though, for example, if you look at opera, there are the great

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opera impresarios and people who have been the driving force behind a particular opera

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company.

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And yet they will do other companies productions of some of the more famous operas.

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They will bring in the sets and the costumes and even the director from one opera company

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to another.

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But that doesn't happen in ballet, or rarely happens.

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Well, in opera, the question of creation is not so important.

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You see, most of the operas are from 100 years ago.

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The last really important ones were made more than 60 years ago.

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The last Austrian, Bervain, Lulú, Václav.

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And that's the last masterpiece.

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After that you have some British operas who are very charming, very lovely, but not so

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important.

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And so they are dealing with things already made.

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And in America at least, a ballet company is supposed to create.

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And if you want to create something, you need a personality.

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Not two or three personalities, one personality.

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Because if you have two or three personalities they fight with each other.

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It's not very good.

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I think it's a miracle when you have Mr. Balanchit and Mr. Robbins together for such a long time

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in the New York City Ballet.

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But of course they never see the other working and they never interfere.

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Who would you say was the major, what choreographers would you say have been the major influences

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on American dance?

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I think Balanchit.

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There is no comparison with any other choreographer.

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Balanchit was, with Lincoln Kirsten, a kind of go-between.

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Because Balanchit would have never reached the American audience without Kirsten, I think.

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Of course it was the great genius and the great influence.

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How would you describe Balanchit's choreography?

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Balanchit's choreography came directly from Petit Bas and all the other classical...

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And the other influence, very strong at the beginning of Balanchit, was the new spirit

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in Russia, who had a very short life because when Stalin came it was all thrown out.

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But there was a spirit of creation at the beginning of communist Russia.

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And it was when Balanchit was very young.

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And it was very daring and very acrobatic.

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And so Balanchit, the young Balanchit, was a combination of this classical, very strong

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and pure technique, and some acrobatic and daring movements.

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Ruth was the first one to ask Balanchit to make a ballet for her, you know that.

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I do know that.

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And apparently it was an acrobatic pas de deux.

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I mean it was not pure classical.

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No, no.

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It was called Polka Melancholique.

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Yes.

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How would you describe the Balanchit dancer?

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The Balanchit dancer is cool, certainly.

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He has not to express emotions, or at least not exaggerate or theatrical.

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He's an anti-theatrical.

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His body is supposed to say all, not his face.

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He's Balanchit, the spirit of Balanchit on stage.

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He doesn't want personalities, he wants a beautiful body and talent.

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Of course.

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Now how would you contrast that with the spirit of Martha Graham?

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Oh, Martha Graham, that's another singer.

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Balanchit was a performer for a very short time, you see.

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And particularly nobody has seen him dancing.

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And we don't know if he was a genius as a dancer, but apparently not.

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And Martha Graham was a genius of a performer, you see.

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And it was the combination of a genius as a performer and of a talent as a choreographer

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that was on stage and made Martha Graham so important.

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And I don't think the ballets of Martha Graham are constructions of the mind

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who could resist time like Balanchit.

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Because it was a combination of imagination, talent.

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And performing possibilities.

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She was a fantastic seller of her own ballets, you see.

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So essentially what you're saying is that Martha Graham's ballet without Martha Graham is...

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Is half of what it was.

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Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, but this is my feeling.

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Now, what about...

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How would you compare the choreography of Ruth Pate to the choreography of Balanchit and Martha Graham?

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Oh, it's a different... very different from both.

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Balanchit is pure dance.

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Like you have some pure poetry, it's pure dance.

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And the less interference, the better for him.

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Sometimes he has to, but it was kind of concession to the audience.

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Really, he didn't want anything on stage except the body and the dance.

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And Ruth is not like that at all.

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She has a very strong feeling for stories and emotions.

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She is theatrical, you see.

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I never saw her dancing, but I'm sure she was, as a performer, very theatrical herself.

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But it's not like Martha Graham.

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It was not the most important part for her when she was doing a ballet.

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She was not thinking about herself.

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She was thinking about telling a story and doing it well.

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And that really traces back to another... earlier, the earlier Italian and French and Russian storytelling traditions of dance.

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Yes.

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Why do you think it is that in this country, the sort of the premier name and the most fashionable form of ballet has been Balanchit?

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Because he was the first.

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I mean, he was the first to take the tradition of classical ballet and make a new direction of it.

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Make the classical ballet go in a new direction, especially with Stravinsky music.

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And so they were both going in the same direction together.

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Musicians like Stravinsky and Balanchit were both going in the same direction using the classical language that wasn't known in America, more or less.

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And so, you see, America has created big personalities like Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis and of course Ruth Page and Doris Sanfranca Martha Graham.

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And all those dancers were not classically trained at the beginning at all.

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You see?

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They were genius, rough genius, without the culture, without the education of the body, was the classical.

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Ruth has the chance to dance with Pavlova when she was very young, she was 17.

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And so she has more of the classical training and spirit than the others.

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But most of the American and the American audience too were not in relation with this big classical background who was the background of Balanchit.

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Do you think that's going to change now?

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Of course.

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In what way?

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That nobody could tell.

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There is not another Balanchit because there is never another person, never another Nijinsky, never another Gdiagilev.

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So we have to wait and see what will happen.

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There is a lot of talent of course, but there is some personality that is very important.

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And somebody like Politello I think is very American and very important.