Tobias: May 2006 Archives

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May 24, 2006

YOU CAN’T GIVE ‘EM AWAY: THOUGHTS ON LIBRARIES PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2005/06 issue (Vol. 14, No. 4) of Dance Now.

As far as I can recall, the first dance book I owned was Tamara Karsavina’s memoir, Theatre Street. My favourite uncle gave it to me when I was a child—I don’t know why. Uncle Harry was cheerfully free from acquaintance with the arts, and Terpsichore had not yet claimed me for her own. Never mind. I read it—absorbed, enchanted, in thrall to the artist’s vivid, trenchant glimpses of her life’s journey: Childhood in St Petersburg in the late-nineteenth century. School days at the Maryinsky, where she was a few classes behind Pavlova and a short generation ahead of Balanchine, who admired her greatly. Development into a supreme lyric and dramatic dancer—and a great star—in what is now the Kirov Ballet. Ventures with Diaghilev, creating leading roles in ballets by Fokine and Massine. Tragically foreshortened partnership with Nijinsky. And, finally, emigration to England where for decades she contributed to the blossoming of British ballet. Though I’ve read dozens of dance biographies since, Karsavina’s Theatre Street remains, in my mind and heart, the indelible one. It converted me to dance before I had seen a single performance.

Now, of course, I own hundreds of dance books—far too many, some might say. Still, most of them have proved useful. Granted, several are mere curiosities or just tiny pointers to an ephemeral world that once turned, but their evidence is often unique. Many, having gone out of print, are growing increasingly rare and thus prohibitively expensive to acquire. Among them are dozens that I love inordinately. From time to time I fret about what will happen to them—all of them—when I’m gone. If you, reader, happen to be a bookish dance person, you might do some constructive worrying about your own horde.

(Music, art and theater buffs et al. should also take note.)

The most remarkable private collection of dance books I’ve touched with my own hands, scanned with my own eyes was that of the eminent Danish dance writer Svend Kragh-Jacobsen (1901-1984). Ensconced in his apartment in Frederiksberg, a lovely outlying part of Copenhagen, it formed part of a connoisseur’s assemblage that extended beyond books to iconography—exquisite prints of the nineteenth century’s Romantic ballerinas, original costume designs—and included a cache of resonant memorabilia. The beautifully appointed domain of a bachelor at home in the arts, the apartment was a perfect museum in miniature. Ideally, after Svend Kragh’s death, a velvet rope would have been extended across the doorway, a curator installed, and a lavish endowment found to keep the place open to dance-loving bibliophiles, who would have found here an even more generous stock on the subject than was available in Denmark’s Royal Library.

This being the real world, however, a more realistic destiny prevailed: The apartment was closed and the collection auctioned off, dispersed here and there to a bevy of highest bidders. The books deemed unworthy of such attention eventually wound up on the performing arts table at a huge something-for-everyone church book sale, where they went for a song. Stumbling across these (I can never resist a sign that says ‘Book Sale’), I bought as many as I could carry away, including a few I didn’t even need or want—because I felt so sorry for them.

My own treasures are far more modest than Svend Kragh’s. My collection of English-language dance books, few more than 100 years old, isn’t unique. Still, it will deserve a home when I’m no longer around to provide one. Clearly, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’ Dance Division, the grandest dance library in the United States, doesn’t need to inherit it. No doubt it already harbours several copies of almost every volume on my shelves. If your collection falls into this category, you’d do well to start thinking about—and investigating—alternatives.

When you’re looking for a recipient, it may be helpful to know what I’ve learned in my own search for my books’ next home: It is not sufficient simply to put a bequest in your will. Upon your death, the institution you have designated to inherit your books may very well not accept them.

You need to query the institution you have in mind, perhaps several of them, while you’re in relatively good shape. Try not to be dismayed by the responses. Your recipient of choice may greet your intended generosity with a ‘No, thank you’. No space. No demand for books on the subject. Or it may express a merely partial interest, asking for a list of your holdings that specifies title, author, publisher, year of publication, condition of book, and so on. (Making such a survey takes considerable time and patience—more than I, for one, possess.) If you manage to compile this list (at which point you may well be tempted to photograph the cover of each book digitally, readying it for sale on eBay), the institution you’ve approached will then be in a position to indicate provisional interest or lack of it in your proffered donation. If the former, you should understand that, when the time comes, your designated institution will check off the items it wants and refuse the rest. Who—once you’re safely ensconced in Paradise, seeing all your favourite ballets, coached by their own choreographers and performed by ideal casts—is going to find a shelter for ‘the rest’? Trust me, no one. What’s even worse, as a well-meaning librarian felt obliged to point out to me, once the moment of transfer arrives, the institution with which you negotiated to your satisfaction may well change its mind about its earlier indications of willingness to give your orphans a home.

What you’re looking for, really, is a recipient likely to welcome the whole kit and caboodle, being seriously (preferably desperately) undersupplied in the very material you have to offer. Such places do exist, needy and potentially grateful. It’s a matter of identifying them. Don’t, however, expect your collection, once received, to be kept intact—with your name on it, so to speak. These days, that’s just asking too much. Your books will mingle democratically with everyone else’s books. Inscribe your name on each flyleaf, if you like, before your—and the books’—departure.

I’ve made an arrangement for my own horde of English-language dance books that satisfies me immensely. Because of the peculiar nature of my career, I’ve formed close ties with the Danish ballet world. After falling in love, young, with Balanchine and then Ashton, I had an autumnal affair with an older man, exactly a century older than Ashton and Balanchine, Denmark’s August Bournonville.

My books have been accepted in advance, with thanks, by the Library of the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. This small, specialised, and utterly invaluable institution shelters, among countless fascinating and valuable items, Valborg Borchsenius’s handwritten notes on the Harald Lander productions that yanked Bournonville’s ballets into modern times. (To this day, when a new staging of Bournonville is in work, the corresponding Borchsenius manuscript will be whisked across the street to a rehearsal room in the Theatre and scrutinised as the Word handed down in a steady path. Most Danes speak and read English, so the texts of the books I’m offering will be readily accessible to the library’s clientele of artists and scholars. Granted, I’m aware of the fact that this marvellous library—with its warm welcome, its dedicated librarians, and its mesmerizing offerings—may not outlast me. Times and insensitivity being what they are, it has for some years been under threat of being merged into the larger Royal Library. One does well to remember that nothing is forever.

Needless to say, the Danes have no need for my Danish-language dance books, though many of them are now hard to find on the market. I thought that they’d make a splendid acquisition for an American college or university with a strong dance department, but they were turned down unceremoniously by my alma mater, Barnard College, where I had also taught a seminar in writing dance criticism for some years. The Harvard Theatre Collection, which is the American custodian for my oral history project on the Danish ballet, wanted the list from which it could pick and choose. I actually made this list, with the help of a Danish friend, but was then put off by the HTC’s haughty attitude—an implied assumption that I was unlikely to offer much it didn’t already possess. So my books are slated to go to the New York Public Library’s Dance Division, whose curator, Madeleine Nichols, assures me they will be welcome. Perhaps they will even be fêted, being rare birds on these shores.

I had been reluctant to offer them there first because I had reservations about certain policies of that library, among them putting up for sale to the public, in annual bazaars, duplicate or otherwise unwanted material it had received as donations. That method of redistribution—much like the flea market system, albeit with a more highbrow clientele—no longer obtains, I was assured recently. Nicholson Baker’s essays, urging against the widespread de-acquisition practiced in recent years by many American libraries because of a space crunch, caused the NYPL board of directors to reconsider its policy.

A new, scrupulously articulated method of acquisition and release has been put in place. The document outlining the library’s position, ‘The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations: Policy on Gifts of Materials to The Research Libraries’, is worth perusing, not just for information as to how one’s proposed donation will be treated, but also for its combination of graceful gratitude for generosity and lawyerly firmness as to disposition. It tells us, in short, that proffered gifts will be carefully screened for their usefulness to the library before they’re accepted, and that, once material is accepted, the library controls absolutely what happens to it. This means that a given book may be placed anywhere in the system, exchanged with a sister institution, sold off, or ‘otherwise disposed of’. The comfort to the giver as he relinquishes control over his cherished possessions lies in knowing the score and knowing that the library will do nothing haphazardly; a formal chain of approvals now exists to address both the welcoming and the letting go.

I’ve been talking here about institutions’ inheriting your books, rather than individuals. Yes, if you happen to be close to a young dancer or dance aficionado, there’s a fine romance in making her or him the legatee of your collection. Keep in mind though, that a significant private collection probably deserves to be taken over by an institution, which is better equipped to care for books (they get old and frail, just like their owners) and able to make them available to a wider readership.

Of course, you can take a cavalier attitude and disclaim responsibility for the future of books whose caretaker you’ve been during your lifetime. Related to this stance is the appealing Zen attitude of renouncing possessions and abandoning illusions of directing life’s course. If that’s your style, you may assume without fretting that your books will be speedily delivered by some harassed survivor into the maw of some charity shop, there to embark upon the next stage of their existence when they are serendipitously discovered by a dance fan who will cherish them. That’s leaving a helluva lot to chance. Is it mere wistful thinking to hope that my cherished books may enjoy an ongoing life in good company?

My Uncle Harry was over 90 when he died, leaving nary a book behind him. It was he, by the way, who gave me my first Jane Austen, years before I could make sense out of a single one of its dazzling sentences, though eventually I would reread her novels every year. Fate has the oddest messengers.

Posted by ttobias at 6:57 PM

May 14, 2006

SAVION GLOVER PREACHES GOSPEL OF TAP IN `VISIONS OF A BIBLE'

This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on December 27, 2005.

Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The program for Savion Glover's new show at New York's Joyce Theater contains a 25-word biography of the legendary dancer that ends: ``Praise almighty God.''

Witnesses to the tireless rhythmic invention and dazzling technical prowess of this genius of tap may be roused to cry ``Amen.''

Glover, one of the greatest dancers of his generation in any genre, is the sole dancer in ``Visions of a Bible.'' He also has choreographed and directed the program and designed the lighting, which suggests sunset in an urban heaven.

Backed by gospel singer Lori Ann Hunter and the Otherz, the suave, witty jazz quartet that regularly accompanies him, the 32-year-old Glover appears in his familiar homeboy guise: dreadlocks, goatee, unbuttoned shirt over white singlet, beads and khakis.

His feet work miracles. They start out whispering multisyllabic secrets, then escalate by precise degrees to complex, full-force declarations.

The soft effects suggest a clock -- or perhaps an infernal machine -- ticking away in the night. The loudest barrages make you think of artillery fire, with personal rage behind its murderous force. In between, the tapping is simply the juiciest percussion music you're ever going to hear.

Child Prodigy

Every part of his foot has myriad ways of touching the floor. Often you can't see this because the speed blurs the image, but you can hear it.

At the start, Glover's concentration is so intense that he doesn't make eye contact with the audience. As the program progresses, he lifts his face and offers a sweet, guileless smile that recalls snapshots of him as a kid.

Glover is that rare performer -- a child prodigy who has grown up to be an adult prodigy.

Born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, he was drumming before he could walk. By age 7, he was in tap class, where his instinct for rhythm was noticed immediately.

He made his Broadway debut at 11, taking over the lead in ``The Tap Dance Kid.'' Four years later, he was in ``Black and Blue,'' soaking up everything he could about tap and life from revered old hoofers in the cast like Jimmy Slyde and Lon Chaney.

TV, Movies

Then came ``Jelly's Last Jam'' (1991), where he played opposite Gregory Hines, who became his mentor. By 1995, he was calling the shots himself, choreographing and starring in ``Bring in `Da Noise, Bring in `Da Funk,'' which won four Tonys.

Glover uses varied forums to get broader recognition for his art form. Last year's ``Classical Savion'' featured him dancing to Bach and Vivaldi, as well as jazz. He's also appeared in movies, commercials and television, including five years as a regular on ``Sesame Street.''

Glover is a proselytizer for tap, a convincing street preacher practicing the laying on of feet.

Posted by ttobias at 12:00 PM

May 7, 2006

AND IN THE CENTER RING, GRACE AT 14

This article originally appeared in the Arts & Leisure section of the New York Times on December 18, 2005.

THE boy on the platform faces a pair of curlicued bronze candelabra bearing scarlet candles. He removes the central taper from one of them, inserts the index finger of his right hand into the metal hollow, upends himself and balances, his svelte, perfectly proportioned body taut and unwavering, supported only by the one finger.

He is Christian Atayde Stoinev, who turned 14 last week. He's a star in the Big Apple Circus, the one-ring, zero-lions-and-tigers entertainment that has pitched its tent in Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center for its annual New York season, which continues through Jan. 8.

Some children dream of running away to join the circus. Christian was born into it. His parents, who hold administrative jobs with the Big Apple Circus and serve as his coaches, are former circus artists. Maritza Atayde, a fourth-generation member of her family's Circo Atayde Hermanos, the oldest and biggest circus in Mexico, performed as an aerialist and with a pack of Dobermans she had trained. Ivan Stoinev, from Bulgaria, was a versatile equilibrist. Christian made his debut at 5, standing bravely on the shoulders of his father, who was mounted on an unsupported ladder.

Like many circus artists, Christian has multiple skills. Pressed to describe his line of work specifically, he calls himself an acrobat. His specialty is hand-balancing, which he embarked on when he was 10. One of his routine maneuvers is to perch upside down on two slender poles, each topped with a stack of four blocks, then, maintaining his equilibrium, remove the blocks one by one. "It takes about a year to learn to balance on two hands." he said. "From there you just play with it." The one-finger feat, he admits, is a rare accomplishment.

Tumbling combines with balancing in Christian's most charming number, performed with his minuscule pet dog, Scooby, a Russian toy terrier. As Christian does rollovers, Scooby scampers over his body in the opposite direction, as if on a treadmill. Then Scooby stands poised on a small, precarious platform made by his master's raised, flexed feet. For the finale, Christian lies horizontal on his belly atop a single pole, legs stretched wide, with Scooby poised on top of him like a toy out of a Crackerjack box.

But Christian is singular - and poignant - not so much for what he does as for the manner in which he does it. He works with precision and alacrity, maintaining a demeanor that is all modesty and grace. Where you might expect show-biz panache, even a tawdry hard sell, he is guileless and radiant.

His combination of skill and unaffected charm (enhanced by dark good looks) has already won him prizes. At Monaco's prestigious annual competition for circus youth last February, he won not only the bronze medal but also the cup awarded by Prince Rainier to his personal favorite in the show.

The limelight and its rewards are balanced by a demanding schedule of practice (several hours a day) and performance (some 10 shows a week). Academic instruction and homework are fitted around the circus schedule but never stinted. Christian is in the ninth grade at the circus's One-Ring School House, where the student body of six is accommodated in a specially outfitted trailer. There he receives a weekly 15 hours of classroom instruction and eight hours of one-on-one tutoring, including advanced work in math, his favorite subject. He applies himself to his books just as he does to his unusual vocation, with the matter-of-fact aplomb of a professional.

Christian's life is at once exotic and surprisingly normal. Even for a stage kid, his trade is unusual. What's more, his existence is entirely peripatetic. He lives in the Orlando, Fla., house he calls home only three weeks a year; the rest of the time he's on the road, housed with his family in one of the 60 trailers that constitute the Big Apple community. Yet he spends his spare time in pursuits that are regulation young-teen stuff: playing soccer with his local pals; shopping for the latest look in clothes and sneakers; playing video games; watching too much television; letting girls pursue him.

Despite his commitment to the circus, he also dreams about college. "I could play on the football or basketball teams there," he said, "and - maybe I'm better than I think I am - even become a professional."

Adolescence is a complex process with an unpredictable outcome. Christian may well outgrow his present grace. But right now, he's magical.

Posted by ttobias at 12:05 PM

ALVIN AILEY'S DANCERS DAZZLE, EVEN WHEN CHOREOGRAPHY FALTERS

This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on December 9, 2005.

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has been lucky in its association with the young black choreographer Ronald K. Brown. His previous works for the company, ``Grace'' (1999) and ``Serving Nia'' (2001), showed promising skill and a rich imagination. Unfortunately his new piece, ``Ife / My Heart,'' which premiered earlier this week, disappointed.

The dance presents what I take to be three generations of the African diaspora. A quartet in ``native'' dress does vivid percussive and rippling movement. A trio in chic urban outfits, suggesting the U.S. in the 1940's, is strongly inflected by jazz.

A pair of young sweethearts, before whose dulcet innocence all barriers fall, are open to both styles, which they gentle with modern-dance lyricism.

The action shows the groups first keeping to their own ways, then gradually accepting each other. The two younger generations try out the ancestors' moves. These elders, in turn, welcome their descendants into their rituals.

Brown's message is often more than political or social; it's spiritual. But this time, it just doesn't fly.

The air is clogged by spoken texts that you can't quite make out, competing for attention with an already busy musical collage.

Meanwhile, the choreographic strategies seem naive. A circle dance may well be a metaphor for community, but the one in ``Ife'' is too tame and too pat.

Jazz Greats

The Ailey season's second new work is from Judith Jamison, the troupe's artistic director. Aptly called ``Reminiscin','' it's set to popular songs, mostly ones that Jamison first heard, she says, when her parents were dancing cheek to cheek in the living room.

They're rendered by the likes of jazz greats Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. A few more recent tunes and vocalists -- including Flack, in ``Always'' -- keep them company.

Michael Fagin contributed a barroom set inspired by Edward Hopper's ``Nighthawks.'' The dance, however, adamantly avoids the bitter loneliness the painting evokes.

Instead, Jamison offers a suite of dances about ``relationships'' that is pervaded by a feel-good atmosphere of human empathy. In her vignettes about spats, flirtations, and heartfelt, sometimes heart-sore commitments, even the difficult and sad situations promise a satisfactory resolution.

The movement is somewhat more sophisticated than the message. Jazz lies at its heart, orchestrating a contrast between svelte curves and impudent angles. Stylized mime conveys a sense of animated conversations among a proud, spirited community.

Showing Off

Overall, though, Jamison seems inspired not by music or motion, theme or idea, but by a desire to show off the facility and personality of her dancers. She is, after all, the mother of them all. And their performance is predictably divine.

It's no secret that the company's strong point is not choreography but dancers. Among the many standouts are the nervy, electrifying Dwana Adiaha Smallwood; Hope Boykin, oak-tree strong and full of deep passions; and the lovely Asha Thomas. The veteran Matthew Rushing holds his own against the young technical whizzes on the male roster, but you remember him for his sweetness and serenity.

One of the peak performances I witnessed this season came in the Ailey perennial -- ``Revelations.'' The partnering rapport between Linda Celeste Sims and Glenn Allen Sims made the poignant adagio duet, ``Fix Me, Jesus,'' as delicate, tender, and rapt as the choreographer himself might have imagined.

The penitent's swooning pitched falls into her savior's arms -- a matter of control, courage and trust -- created the illusion of a body becoming airborne through sheer spiritual grace.

Gifted and Gorgeous

Another thing the Ailey does dazzlingly is to put on a show that envelops the dancing like gift wrap on a precious package.

Opening night, for instance, is traditionally a vivid display of beautiful and powerful people -- besides the performers themselves. This year's first night, Nov. 30, was no exception.

Every promenade in the theater served as a catwalk for audience members in ravishing, often imaginative dress. The onstage preliminaries included a welcome from Jamison, whose dynamic leadership qualities are almost palpable, followed by testimony from celebs Roberta Flack, a seductive powerhouse even when she's just talking, and Taye Diggs, all voice and smile.

Miraculously, the parading and speechifying remained warm and relaxed, persuading you that the event was simply the gathering of a family. One that just happened to harbor the gifted and the gorgeous.

Posted by ttobias at 12:00 PM