Our guest this week is choreographer Nicolo Fonte. Artistic Director Adam Sklute has invited Nicolo to create a world premiere for Ballet West’s second  “Innovations” program. Nicolo is working with the artists of Ballet West for three days this week before he comes back in the spring to fully create his new work. I first met Nicolo in 1989 when I staged James Kudelka’s “The Heart of the Matter” for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. At that time he was a very young and extraordinarily exceptional dancer.  It’s an honor to now assist him as he creates an original ballet for Ballet West!

Nicolo Fonte was born in Brooklyn, New York and started dancing at the age of 14. He studied at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York as well as at the San Francisco Ballet and New York City Ballet Schools while completing a Bachelor Degree of Fine Arts at SUNY Purchase. Upon graduation he danced with Peridance in NYC and later joined Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montreal, dancing in the works of Balanchine, Tudor, Kudelka and Spaniard Nacho Duato. Fonte subsequently joined Duato’s Compañia Nacional de Danza in Madrid and forged a strong identity in the Spanish company for seven years – for both his dancing and his choreography. “En los Segundos Ocultos,” (“In Hidden Seconds”), one of three ballets Fonte made for the Spanish company, was hailed as a breakthrough work of great impact with the poetic vision of a mature artist and indeed this ballet established his presence on the European dance scene.

In 2000 Fonte retired from performing to devote himself full-time to his choreographic career. Since that time he has created or staged his ballets for The Dutch National Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Royal Ballet of Flanders, Stuttgart Ballet, The Australian Ballet, The Göteborg Ballet, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, The Washington Ballet, Ballett Mainz, Ballett Nürnberg, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, TANZ Ensemble Cathy Sharp, North Carolina Dance Theatre, Tulsa Ballet, Ballet British Columbia and Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal.

Fonte received a Choo San Goh award for his 2002 collaboration with Pacific Northwest Ballet, “Almost Tango”, of which R.M.Campbell of the Seattle Post- Intelligencer wrote, “Fonte is a thinker, an architect who creates the new rather than reinvent the old. He is a master of manipulating space and creating relationships”
“Almost Tango” was also voted as one of Dance Europe’s “Best Premiere”s when it was re-staged for The Australian Ballet in 2004.

From 2002 to 2006 Nicolo enjoyed an ongoing creative partnership with The Göteborg Ballet in Sweden, creating and staging numerous works that helped establish the company’s distinct profile. While in Göteborg he created his first full-length ballet, based on the life of Tchaikovsky, which was widely acclaimed in the international press for Fonte’s marriage of rare narrative skill and thoroughly contemporary choreographic language. “Re: Tchaikovsky” appeared on the “Best of 2005” lists of both Ballett International and Dance Europe. Fonte has also played an important role in the ongoing development of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet as one of that company’s most popular guest choreographers. To date he has created five highly successful works for ASFB that have toured throughout the US and overseas – Jack Anderson, writing in The New York Times called Fonte “a choreographer worth knowing” when the company presented “Left Unsaid” at The Joyce Theater in 2005. ASFB continues to invest in their relationship with Nicolo Fonte with a planned sixth collaboration set for July of 2008.

The 08-09 ballet season has just begun but already Mr. Fonte has had his first successful premiere – “The Possibility Space”, choreographed for The Australian Ballet. Critics hailed the beauty and power of the dancing as well as the fascinating emotional resonance of the ballet, set to a commissioned score by Australian Ross Edwards.  Other upcoming projects include creations for Ballet West, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo and once again for The Dutch National Ballet.

Nicolo Fonte with members of Ballet West.

Make sure to visit Nicolo’s website – www.nicolofonte.com.

-Mark

In a presentation by Ballet West and the Salt Lake City Downtown Alliance, Ballet West 2 performed at Pioneer Park’s Farmer’s Market on Saturday, September 27th.

A special stage constructed for this event by Declan of Blue Sky Media.

David, Kristin and Kim of Downtown Alliance.

Nick and Maggie supervise laying of the floor.

Alex wore boots.                                 Jeannie, Johann, Designer Willa Kim, David and Adam.

A little Ballerina in the audience.            Premiere Danseur Bruce and beautiful daughter Zoe.

Dane, Whitney, Jenna and Lindsay.                                          Sarah and Stephen.

Alex as the Prince.                                                    Jenna and Alex as Aurora and the Prince.

-Mark

Ballet West II will perform excerpts from The Sleeping Beauty at Pioneer Park’s Farmer’s Market – Saturday, September 27 at 10am.  Please come and support these marvelous young dancers!

-Mark

Georgina Parkinson graciously granted me permission to post these very rare photographs on the Ballet West Blog.

I’m sure Mr. C. and Mr. Joffrey are beaming over this!

Bronislava Nijinska with Georgina Parkinson

Members of the Royal Ballet’s “Les Biches” revival.

Photography by Roy Round

-Mark

Even though you will not see our Ballets Russes program until later in the season, we in the studios are heavily immersed in “Les Biches”.  Howard Sayette who learned the ballet from Nijinska’s daughter and Georgina Parkinson who learned the role of the Blue Girl from Nijinska herself are rehearsing us daily and generously sharing their invaluable information with us.

I recently asked my dear friend Dance Historian Carol Shults whose lectures and writing I adore to tell us about the Ballets Russes.

– Carol Shults

Letter to Mark re Diaghilev

Dear Mark,

I am so happy you have asked me to write about the Ballets Russes for your Ballet West blog. The spring program, commemorating the hundred year anniversary of the Diaghilev company’s arrival in Paris, is beautifully planned to pay homage to one of the most spectacular events in the cultural history of the 20th century. In fact, if I were allowed to choose one arts event of the whole century to see in person, I would ask to attend the opening on May 19th, 1909 at the Chatelet Theatre of the Diaghilev Ballets Russes.
“Everything dazzling, intoxicating, enchanting, seductive had been assembled and put on that stage,” wrote Anna de Noailles, poet and member of the first-night audience. Sophisticated Paris was conquered to a degree we can only imagine by the brilliance and exoticism of the Russian company created by the 37 year-old Russian aristocrat Sergei Diaghilev, who was neither dancer nor choreographer nor musician nor visual artist, but whose instinct for the best, the newest, the most theatrically daring in all the arts was uncanny.

– Diaghilev
As an impresario he had presented, in the years before 1909, seasons of Russian art and music and opera. These had laid the groundwork for the ballet season, in which the cream of the Maryinsky and Bolshoi dancers were shown in innovative ballets by the hot young choreographer, Mikhail Fokine, who had been taking on the establishment in St. Petersburg, and for whom the greatest dancers  – Anna Pavlova, Vaslav Nijinsky, Tamara Karsavina  – would simply have laid down their lives. It was Diaghilev’s genius to surround these artists with the work of the best scenic designers in sumptuous, sexy productions that knocked Paris on its ear that year and continued to do so until his death twenty years later.
On that opening night a hundred years ago the runaway hit was a ballet by Fokine (designed as part of the opera Prince Igor by Borodin), The Polovetsian Dances. The entire Act III of the opera was presented (with the great Russian basso, Feodor Chaliapin) but it was the impassioned dancing of Adolph Bolm as leader of the Tartar horde that swept Paris off its feet. The décor and costumes were the work of Russian artist Nicholas Roerich (whose work would again electrify Paris a  few years later in Le Sacre de Printemps). Part of the impact of  these virile male dancers had to be due to the fact that male dancing in Paris had been eclipsed for over half a century by the dominance of the “ballerina;” the best French male dancers and choreographers (Perrot, St. Leon, and Petipa) had simply gone to Russia to practice their art!
In the corps de ballet of “Polovetsian”, that night was an 18 year old woman, a recent graduate of the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg, Bronislava Nijinska, the younger sister of the great male star of the company, Vaslav Nijinsky. “That evening we were all inspired by the excitement in the Theatre and danced burning with the fire and spirit of wild untamed Tartars. In the finale, in the mad rush forwards as we made to ‘attack’ the public, I remember that I had a strong feeling that I must restrain my élan or I would end the dance in the orchestra pit!”

-Fokine
Years later, matured by several seasons dancing with both Diaghilev and the Maryinsky Theatre, and having endured the privations of World War I and the Russian Revolution and more personally the loss to insanity of her beloved brother, Nijinska found herself the chief choreographer of the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev entrusted her with the commissioned Stravinsky score for Les Noces in 1923 and then gave her a very different score by Francis Poulenc in 1924. With décor and costumes by Marie Laurencin, the ballet, finally entitled Les Biches, which premiered in Monte Carlo, was essentially very French and Diaghilev had qualms about giving the job to a Russian, although admittedly extremely talented. He wrote during the rehearsal process to a friend, “The choreography has delighted and astonished me. But then, this good woman, intemperate and antisocial as she is, does belong to the Nijinsky family.” The ballet, whose ironic title means “the little darlings” was the hit of the season and speaks loudly of its time, the roaring 20’s. Nijinska herself was “the hostess” and a sofa was considered one of the leading characters. The simple velvet jacket worn by one of the female leads, created quite a stir at the time.

– Nijinska
In 1909 when the Ballets Russes was conquering Paris, Georgi Balanchivadze was a five year old child living with his family in a country house a train ride from St. Petersburg. He was to enter the Imperial Ballet School only in 1913, where in just a few years the privations of the war and the Revolution were to make the idea of leaving Russia for the artistic freedom and better life of the West irresistible for the supremely talented, but half-starved young choreographer and his friends. Engaged as choreographer for the Ballets Russes a few months after leaving the Soviet Union in 1924, Balanchine (Diaghilev simplified his Georgian surname), first made Le Chant du Rossignol, to the Stravinsky score, for the 14-year-old Alicia Markova.
After the success of Apollo, his first neo-classical ballet in 1928, Diaghilev asked Balanchine to choreograph a score that had been commissioned from Prokofiev, Le Fils Prodigue or The Prodigal Son. Georges Rouault designed sets and costumes and Serge Lifar, who had triumphed as Apollo, danced the title role, on May 21, 1929. Balanchine made a complete change from Apollo, cool, elegant, and pure, when he took on the biblically inspired narrative of the earthy, emotionally charged Prodigal. But his innovative devices and compelling imagery are equally inspired in both ballets. (Many great male dancers through the years have danced the challenging role of the Prodigal with success; among them are Jerome Robbins, Edward Villella, and Mikhail Baryshnikov.)

-Balanchine

Only three months after The Prodigal Son premiered in Paris, Diaghilev died in Venice, of diabetes. It was the end of a fabulous era. The influences, direct and indirect on not only ballet, but on the cultural life of the entire century are innumerable.

The following list of great twentieth century creative artists whose careers were nurtured by Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes is only partial:

Choreographers:  Fokine; Nijinsky, Massine, Nijinska, Balanchine.

Composers:  Stravinsky, Ravel, Richard Strauss; Debussy, Prokofiev, Da Falla, Poulenc, Satie, Auric.

Designers: Benois, Bakst, Roerich, Golovine, Gontcharova, Serov, Picasso, Delauney, Matisse, Derain, Sert, Miro, Gris, Laurencin, Braque, Rouault, Utrillo, de Chirico, Cocteau.

Mark, All best wishes to you, Adam,  and the company for a wonderful season. Have fun with the Ballets Russes program. Perhaps I can come. It has been fun to revisit the period! Carol

How wonderful it is to read your writing again Carol.  I hope this is only the first piece you will do for Ballet West!

All my thanks,

-Mark

Howard Sayette will be here again this week completing his staging of “Les Biches” and he will be joined by ballet legend Georgina Parkinson.  As Adam Sklute explained to us last week Parkinson was the original ‘Page’ for the Royal Ballet revival of “Les Biches” when Nijinska staged it.  Adam said that Georgina was a muse for Nijinska and he is very happy to be able to bring her here to pass on her knowledge to us.

Georgina Parkinson was born in Brighton, England and studied at The Royal Ballet School before being taken into the company in 1955.  She became a soloist in 1959 and was then promoted to principal dancer.  She first came to prominence when she created the title role in Andrée Howard’s “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” and with her performances as the Gypsy Girl in “The Two Pigeons” and the Wife in Kenneth MacMillan’s “The Invitation.”
Known for her strong classical technique and great dramatic abilities, Parkinson has been particularly noted for her performances as the leading woman in The Song of the Earth, the Girl in Blue in Bronislava Nijinska’s “Les Biches”, as well as Juliet in MacMillan’s “Romeo and Juliet”, and Odette Odile in “Swan Lake.”  Her other roles included Lady Capulet in “Romeo and Juliet”, the Wife in Jerome Robbins’ “The Concert,” the Tsarina in MacMillan’s “Anastasia” and Raymonda in “Raymonda, Act III.”
Parkinson has created several roles in her career including Rosaline in MacMillan’s “Romeo and Juliet,” Winifred Norbury in Sir Frederick Ashton’s “Enigma Variations”, the second movement in “Monotones” and Chloë in John Cranko’s production of “Daphnis and Chloë” with the Stuttgart Ballet, partnered by Erik Bruhn as Daphnis.  Her last created role was the Empress Elisabeth in MacMillan’s “Mayerling,” marking the end of her career with The Royal Ballet.
Parkinson was appointed Ballet Mistress with American Ballet Theatre in 1978.  In addition to her duties as Ballet Mistress, she performs the roles of Anna Vyrubova in “Anastasia,” the Fairy Godmother in “Cinderella,” the Stepmother in “Fall River Legend,” Madame in “Manon,” Madame Larina in “Onegin,” the Countess Sybelle in “Raymonda”, Lady Capulet in “Romeo and Juliet,” the Queen in “The Sleeping Beauty” and the Queen Mother in “Swan Lake.”  She created the role of Mrs. Harriman in Twyla Tharp’s “Everlast” and a leading role in Robert Hill’s “Reverie.”

Also this week Steven Woodgate who is formerly a dancer with the Australian Ballet and currently Ballet Master for Houston Ballet will begin staging Stanton Welche’s “Madame Butterfly”.

Australian Steven Woodgate joined the artistic staff of Houston Ballet as Ballet Master in January 2004. In 1985, he graduated from The Australian Ballet School. He performed with The Australian Ballet progressing through the ranks to senior artist in 1996. In 1988, Mr. Woodgate was presented with the Victorian Green Room Award for best male dancer for his role as Bim in Gaîté Parisienne. He represented Australia in the International Ballet Competition in Moscow in 1989, where he was awarded the Moscow Music Magazine Award. In 2000, he was awarded The Churchill Fellowship, which enabled him to observe many ballet masters from around the world and study their various teaching methods. As well as performing, Mr. Woodgate has taught both student and professional classes around the world. Mr. Woodgate reproduced Stanton Welch’s Madame Butterfly for the Singapore Dance Theater, The Royal New Zealand Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, and Atlanta Ballet.

I’ll try to get studio shots for you!

-Mark

Some photos of today’s Tempest rehearsal -

Romi Beppu, Beau Pearson and Members of Ballet West.

Nathaniel King, Christopher Anderson and Members of Ballet West.

Megan Furse and Members of Ballet West.

Christopher Anderson, Katherine Lawrence, Nathaniel King and Members of Ballet West.

Jason Chinea and Members of Ballet West.

Romi Beppu and Beau Pearson and Members of Ballet West.

Josey Silva and Members of Ballet West.

-Mark

Howard Sayette is back with us this week teaching more of LES BICHES which will be performed this spring for “TREASURES OF THE BALLET RUSSES.”  I thought you might like to know a bit more about him!

Howard Sayette has enjoyed a distinguished career as a dancer, teacher and ballet master. Born in Los Angeles, his principal training was with Leon Danielian, Robert Joffrey and Hector Zaraspe.  He joined Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1956 and performance for many years with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in New York.  Mr. Sayette has worked with some of the 20th Century’s greatest choreographers, including Antony Tudor, Bronislava Nijinska, John Butler, Alvin Ailey and Katherine Dunham.

For 25 years, following his retirement from dancing, Mr. Sayette was ballet master and chief regisseur of the Oakland Ballet, teaching company class and rehearsing the majority of the repertory. He has also staged ballets from the Oakland Ballet repertory for many companies in the U.S. and around the world, including Ruthanna Boris’ Cakewalk, Eugene Loring’s Billy the Kid, and Bronislava Nijinska’s Les Noces, which he staged for the Joffrey Ballet in 1989.  Mr. Sayette’s production of Les Noces for the Maly Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1995 was the first Nijinska ballet ever to be seen in Russia.

During the 2000-2001 season, Mr. Sayette staged four productions of Aaron Copland’s Billy the Kid in honor of the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth, for the American Ballet Theatre, Joffrey Ballet in Chicago, Pacific Northwest Ballet and Ballet Arizona.  In 2003, Nijinska’s Les Noces was staged again in St. Petersburg by Mr. Sayette for the Kirov Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre, a performance conducted by the theatre’s artistic director Valery Gergiev.

Mr. Sayette now resides in Denver and teaches at the Denver School of the Arts.

Hua Zhuang, Kate Crews and Jason Linsley as the The Hostess and The Athletes.

Howard Sayette teaches Kate Crews.

Kate Crews as The Hostess.  This role was first danced by the ballet’s choreographer Nijinska.

-Mark

This past week began with “Curtain Up”  at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center.  But back at the Capitol we had a whirwind of a week.  No less than three ballet greats were brought in by Adam Sklute to work with us.  Virginia Johnson, former Ballerina and Ballet Mistress for San Francisco Ballet, Prima Ballerina Evelyn Cisneros-the original Miranda in Smuin’s THE TEMPEST and Kirk Peterson who boasts a huge list of accomplishments including star of American Ballet Theatre and San Francisco Ballet all shared their extensive knowledge with us.  Bravo Adam for adding a new full length, Michael Smuin’s magical THE TEMPEST to the repertoire of BALLET WEST!

Ballerina Evelyn Cisneros

Ballet Star Kirk Peterson

Ballet Mistress Virginia Johnson is serenaded by Remington at The Blue Iguana

Kirk Peterson, Adam Sklute and Evelyn Cisneros at The Blue Iguana

-Mark

At the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 7pm on September 8th the curtain rose on Ballet West’s second annual “Curtain Up”.  This is a free event in which Artistic Director Adam Sklute gives the public a preview of the upcoming season and also a peek at the work of the candidates for “Innovations”.

Adam Sklute spoke so eloquently about the works that Ballet West will present this season I felt as though I could see them all in that very moment! Bruce Caldwell prepared two video presentations and Ballet West 2 performed remarkably for a group of ten dancers that had assembled only four weeks prior to the event.  The choreographic candidates, each interviewed by Mr. Sklute were:  Emily Adams, Peter Christie, Megan Furse, Jason Linsley, Thomas Mattingly and Pamela Robinson-Harris.  Adam Sklute promised to reveal his picks very soon.

-Mark