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This is tape number 05, it's actually tape number 2, hour 5 on the timecode, Andre Del

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Fogel interview.

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It's 10, 24, 85 for Theoflom Productions, Larry Peterson producing the Infinity video

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and Byron Smith on audio, Zero VU on channel 1 and channel 2, channel 3 is timecode, 05

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is the hour.

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Okay, would you talk about the influence of Diaghilev on the art, the design of modern

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building?

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Yes, you were saying that the greatest artist of our time, but before Diaghilev it was unthinkable,

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I mean nobody would think of that, it was Diaghilev.

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And everybody, I mean Picasso.

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Yes, everybody, Matisse.

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The people who were very far from any rule, who was a mystical painter, he used them and

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it was his stroke of genius to use the art of his time on the stage, which was not think

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about before.

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It was just professionals, very talented some of them, but professionals doing their own

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thing.

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Absolutely, if you look at early drawings really, even before there are photographs

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of ballet productions, the scenery and the costumes first of all appear to have nothing

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whatever to do with each other.

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I mean there is no art to them, they are not integrated.

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They were different artists, one for the costume and one for the...

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And the stuff is very pedestrian.

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Yes, sometimes it's very charming because it's a past and it has the charm of something

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already gone and it has good taste and ancient scenery and costume usually were lovely because

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they can do bad things.

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It was a period of good taste and the idea of everything was right, but it was never

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made...

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Oh, I think Boucher made some of some...

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Boucher?

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Boucher, yes.

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I didn't know that.

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But anyway, it was a different world.

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The world of theater and the world of painters were two different worlds and only when Yagilev

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came, both worlds were...

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Do you think that there is a special affinity between ballet and art and painting?

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Well it's a human body.

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And the human body in motion and of course the human body in motion is an essential part

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of art in every civilization.

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Of course.

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So that would be the connection.

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So you see.

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Now in 1961 is when you met Ruth.

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Yes.

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Tell how that happened.

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Well it was Kibin who gave Ruth my phone number in Paris and she has seen some things I've

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made in Paris.

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She has a house in Paris at this period and she called me and she said I would love to

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meet you and to ask you to do a work for me.

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And so we met and she asked me to do this Fledermaus who was our first work together.

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And to do it we go to Saint-Tropez.

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She has a house in Saint-Tropez and it was very nice to live there with Tom Fisher and

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Ruth and very friendly and very charming and I worked there and it all went very well.

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Now compare the working relationship with Ruth to some of the other relationships you

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had with the other choreographers that you worked with.

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How is it different?

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She knows very well what she wanted and she was not vague about anything.

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I mean it was very clear so it was very easy for me to work with her.

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It's more difficult when you have to work with somebody whose mind is not clear like

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Nijilska, which was a great artist of course and a great choreographer.

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But about costumes there was nothing in her mind and so when I made the costume for her

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I have to redo it again and again to reach something which was not clear in her mind.

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So it was difficult to reach because it was not clear in her own mind.

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I have problems with Ruth, but with Ruth not at all because she knows exactly what she wants.

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And she's always loved costumes.

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Oh yes, she has a great taste for that because she has a taste for theatrical ballet.

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And this, on the contrary of Balanchine, she gives a lot of thinking and a lot of importance

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to the scenery and the costume because she loves to tell stories.

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Now when you first started working with Ruth that first summer at Saint-Tropez, did you

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have the sense then that this was going to become a major working relationship?

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Not at all.

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Not at all.

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No, I thought it was very pleasant and very charming and I found everything very nice.

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But I didn't think of the future.

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And the next year, the year after when she came back she asked me for another ballet

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and then I take the habit to go to Saint-Tropez every year.

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Of course I was making a lot of other things.

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Oh of course, during the rest of the winter.

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Yes, yes.

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When you were doing Fledermas.

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Yes.

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Was it difficult at first?

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I mean did you make a lot of different sketches?

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No.

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No?

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No.

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No, she agreed immediately.

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Immediately.

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Yes.

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I get the feeling that…

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But it was not for all the ballet like that.

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Sometimes we have to reach an agreement on something and it was not always easy.

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I'm sure.

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When I read Ruth's descriptions of her working relationship with you or in the development

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of a ballet, it sounds as though she would wait until the summer to really begin thinking

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about a new ballet and that she would really begin almost the choreographic process in

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conversations with you.

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She would write over and over.

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André and I would discuss the ballet.

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Yes, yes.

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What were those like?

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I mean what?

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Well it depends on the ballet.

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You see as I said each time the approach is different.

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And even with Ruth, each time we worked together it was not exactly the same approach.

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Sometimes everything went well and sometimes it was not so easy.

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I remember Carmina Burana.

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Ah, yes.

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I remember her set of costumes and except for the beginning who has to be kings and

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prostitutes and things.

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But after that I have an idea of abstract.

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And I made a lot of sketches in an abstract combination, patterns of colors and form.

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But when she came back after one year she said she felt that we should do it in a more

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figurative way.

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Representational.

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And I had to do it in a figurative way.

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So I had to redo the entire thing in a figurative way.

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Which was not a big problem.

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You didn't try to talk her out of it.

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Oh no, of course not.

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Even by then, because by then you had been working together for a long time.

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I know that Ruth also began turning to you almost right away to help design the costumes

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for the ballets that were part of the Chicago Opera.

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Yes.

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And it was not like working for a ballet at all.

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And I never saw them on stage of course.

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They were there.

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Yes.

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And so I didn't know how they looked.

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But they had to adapt with sceneries that were not mine.

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Of course it was not like doing ballet with Ruth.

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There are a couple of occasions.

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There's one I'm thinking of.

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When you were for Tannhäuser and you were doing costumes for the Venusburg.

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Tell about who made those costumes.

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They were supposed to be costumes of faun and nymphs and things like that.

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And we thought of, because I put the men more or less naked, but with fur,

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with pieces of fur.

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And we thought of asking the ladies of Chicago to give some of their old fur coat

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so we could work on it.

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And it was a big success.

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They received a lot of fur coat.

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And then there were some times when you would actually make the costumes at Saint Tropez.

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Yes.

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No, most of the time they were made in Paris.

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Oh I know.

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But weren't there times when just sort of in desperation to get something together for the opera,

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you'd go and buy some things and you and Ruth would put them together?

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Yes, sometimes, yes.

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Why did you agree to do that, Andre?

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Because it was amusing.

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It was amusing.

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Combinations.

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Do you remember combinations, Ruth's ballet was very, very abstract with doors.

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Oh yes, I remember.

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I never saw it on stage, but it was very amusing to do with a lot of amusing ideas.

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There was a phone number.

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Yes, the phone.

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The phone, yes.

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People entangled with the phone.

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And it was very amusing ballet.

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But a really major departure from the sort of thing that Ruth ordinarily did,

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from the story ballets or the opera into ballet, ballet.

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Oh she was always open to new ideas and doing new things.

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Ballet made from opera, it was only a period in her life.

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That's true.

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You see that.

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Of those ballets, in 1972 you did the Delpho Carmen.

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I suppose Ruth's done four Carmans.

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And that was really a very difficult situation for the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

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Yes.

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I have a terrible beginning.

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I come from Paris and it was a terrible rainy day.

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And I was in the Plaza Hotel.

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I take a taxi to the place of Harlem Theatre.

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And this place was not only in Harlem, but very far in Harlem,

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where there are still 18th century Dutch houses and things like that.

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It is very, very far.

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And after a while in Harlem, you have a kind of hill,

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and the numbers change and the names change.

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So the taxi driver, who was an old Hungarian man, can't find this place.

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And he was stopping the taxi in the middle of the street and under the rain,

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going to some people in the street and ask them, and they don't know.

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And he comes back and we go around and I saw the taxi.

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The meter.

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And finally I paid him and I go under the rain myself.

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And I found this place, but I was completely soaking.

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And I saw the costumes in the big boxes.

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And they were just open.

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They were just coming from Paris.

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And they were just open and all those dancers looking at those costumes,

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like if it was something very bizarre.

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And apparently it was not a success at all with them.

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I think they have never worn this kind of costume.

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It was at the beginning of Harlem, it was more a Balanchine company.

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And they were either in tights or in tutu, but not costumes.

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Anyway, I have a lot of problems with them.

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Describe what your concept was for that Carmen.

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It was a Puerto Rican Carmen, because in Puerto Rico you have boulevard,

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you have Spanish flavor and style, and you have a lot of colored people.

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So I figured that even the girl who danced Carmen was from Puerto Rico, originally.

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And so the costumes were?

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Were modern, Puerto Rico with Spanish touch.

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I mean, this kind of combination.

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You could see that in Puerto Rico, this kind of Spanish flavor.