There is a gap in information on media reviews and articles and on touring between McLain's
monograph of 1977 and 1996 when these items were first preserved on the company website. This
section is an attempt to fill this gap. I am currently going through my own archives and am soliciting
information from others to remedy this shortcoming as well as I can. Any assistance any of you can
provide would be most welcome. Please send me any suggestions, corrections, or additions.
Click here to e-mail me, Tom Buck, the Webmaster.
Material collected so far is shown below.
By Christopher Driver
By then he was too old to become a graceful ballet dancer and spent much of his life working
against the grain of his desires and temperament: his sense of time, as one of his friends has written,
was positively Russian and alongside his soulful charm this helped to explain his survival at the Bolshoi,
which he described in Behind The Bolshoi Curtain (1974).
He found his metier as a dance teacher and commentator in different parts of the world,
from Cork to Oslo, and finally landed the Cincinnati challenge. The company was deep in debt
but his notion of marrying Christopher Bruce's Sergeant's Early Dream to the Chieftains' music
caught on and hopes were high. His own musical, Punko, was performed in Warsaw.
The Guardian (London)
September 25, 1991
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Staff report
The key to his personality, though, was that he was not really English at all, but Irish. Collins possessed all the characteristics of the Anglo-Irish - the fluent mastery of words, the flashes of poetry, the irrepressible humour, the exaggerated emotions, the sentimentality, and the gregarious enjoyment of good drink and food.
He was endowed, above all, with passion - dance, to him, was incomparably the finest of the arts. The son of Canon Collins, the CND campaigner, Richard Collins was born on June 9 1945. While still at Eton - and later as an Oxford undergraduate - he became a familiar face in the crowds queuing at Covent Garden to see Fonteyn and Nureyev at their peak. But mere appreciation did not suffice: Collins meant to become a ballet dancer himself. At an age when most pupils of his age were already joining professional companies, he persuaded the Royal Ballet School to take him on. It was far too late to become a successful dancer, but Collins, for all his intelligence, never allowed himself to admit the fact.
In 1968, after three years of negotiation, he secured a place with the Bolshoi Ballet as a student dancer. Collins spent four years with the Bolshoi, happily adapting to the Russian way of life, acquiring fluent Russian, mixing with dancers he revered, and steeping himself in Russian dance technique and teaching methods. On his return he wrote a book about it, Behind the Bolshoi Curtain, which is still among the best analyses of Russian dancers and of the way in which a Russian company works. The book is attractively well-written, and generously stocked with accounts of over-indulgence, alcoholic and sexual. But behind the exuberance of youth, an intelligent, sensitive mind is revealed - and a calculating mind too. One ploy in particular, he wrote, can be "devastatingly effective" in dealing with Russian bureaucrats - "especially if used by a man, and that is to burst into tears."
Collins next attempted a novel with a Russian background, Minka, but this was less well received. Dame Beryl Gray, having gained from Collins's writing a perhaps exaggerated view of his prowess as a dancer, offered him a contract as a principal with the Festival Ballet. In fact his talents did not really justify a place among the principals, although he was well liked by his fellow dancers. Collins's lack of control on stage was such that, once he started an ambitious manoeuvre, it was sometimes too difficult to prophesy where he would end up. For this reason he was accorded the nickname "Hurricane Betsy", which coincided with his arrival in the company.
Collins moved on to the Irish Ballet, where he was happier and did splendid, if less demanding work. Then Brenda Last offered him a post as ballet master to the Norwegian Ballet, which she was then directing. He proved a born teacher, gifted, sympathetic, with a good eye and a keen analytical mind for explaining faults.
John Field asked him back to Festival Ballet as their ballet master from 1979 to 1982, after which Collins became a freelance teacher, much in demand all over the world. For three years from 1982 he ran Atterballetto's Summer School in Reggio Emilia. Then he went to America, first to Columbus, Ohio and then as ballet master to the Cincinnati Ballet with Ivan Nagy as artistic director.
In 1990, when Nagy became artistic director of the English National Ballet, Collins took over as artistic director at Cincinnati. At the time of his death in a car crash he was doing extremely well. Having inherited a crippling deficit of more than $500,000, he had to cut the company down from 42 dancers to 28, employing them for only 30 weeks a year. By convincing Christopher Bruce to stage his Sergeant Early's Dream, and then by persuading the Chieftains to perform the music of the ballet five, he created a distinct success.
A European tour, the first for this provincial company, was in hand, and may still take place. A musical, Punko, which Collins himself had written and which was performed to great acclaim in Warsaw Poland, was about to be choreographed for the company.
Collins married twice, in 1973 (dissolved) to Diana Goedhus, and in 1987 to Elizabeth Dey. There were a daughter and a son from the first marriage, and a daughter from the second.
The Daily Telegraph (London)
September 23, 1991
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Enquirer Staff Report
The company will dance Acting Artistic Director Frederic Franklin's staging of the classic two-act
"La Sylphide" and choreographer Peter Anastos' jazzy "Ravel Piano Concerto" in its tribute to McLain.
Both CBC productions will be Cincinnati premieres.
McLain, who died of lung cancer at age 52 in December, 1984, led the company for 18 years.
He also served as head of the dance division and professor of dance at the University of Cincinnati
College-Conservatory of Music.
First performed in 1832, "La Sylphide" is one of the most popular ballets in the standard repertory.
A Romantic fantasy based on a Scottish story, it tells of a young farmer named James who is lured by the illusory
Sylphide away from his peasant-girl love, Effie.
Director Franklin, whose staging of "La Sylphide" is based on the 1830s version by Auguste Bournonville, also is
featured in the role of Madge the Witch.
A challenge grant from Thomas F. Buck to the David McLain Memorial Campaign provided the financial
impetus for this weekend's production.
Performances are set for 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, plus a noon performance Friday.
McLain also will be honored during the CBC's "Footnotes" previews, which precede the evening performances
at 7:15 p.m. Several dancers and others will come to Cincinnati to talk about their work with McLain.
Tickets for the performances, ranging between $6 and $30, are available at Music Hall, phone 721-8222, or through
Ticketron.
The Cincinnati Enquirer
May 11, 1986
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Staff report
Mr. McLain was born in Brighton, Tenn., and moved to Newport as a child. He was a 1953 graduate
of the University of Arkansas. He was a professor of dance at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and had been director of the college's dance division since 1966. He studied
at the School of American Ballet and Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo School in New York, and at
the Severo School of Ballet in Detroit, where he was named music adviser. He earned a master's
degree in humanities from Wayne State University in Detroit in 1962.
Mr. McLain then became an assistant to Robert Joffrey with the original Robert Joffrey Ballet in New York. He also served three years as dance master of the Dayton Civic Ballet before coming to
Cincinnati. In 1983, the Cincinnati City Ballet acquired a second home in New Orleans, becoming the Cincinnati-New Orleans City Ballet.
He received the University of Cincinnati's A. B. Dolly Cohen Award for Excellence in Teaching
in 1971. He was national chairman of the Conference on Ballet in Higher Education from
1970-72. In 1982, Mr. McLain received the Ohio Dance Award of the Association of Ohio Dance Companies for his statewide contributions to dance and an Ohio Arts Council Award.
"The company exists because of Mr. McLain's personal dedication," Lawrence T. Kellar, president
of the ballet board, said in a statement released Saturday.
He is survived by his mother, Mrs. John David McLain Sr., of Newport. Funeral will be Monday
in Cincinnati. Burial will be in Newport. Graveside service will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday in Walnut Grove Cemetery in Newport by Dillinger Funeral
home.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
December 17, 1984
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by Ray Cooklis
As far as principal dancer Richard Hoskinson of the Cincinnati Ballet Company is concerned, one good turn certainly deserved another.
When Hoskinson was with the New York City Ballet in the 1970s, he learned the late George Balanchine's "Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux" from the master himself, dancing it many times with that company.
Now he's turned around and taught the work to his fellow CBC dancers, setting "Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux" for the local company's performances tonight through Saturday in Music Hall.
A CBC premiere, the Balanchine is the featured work on a program that also includes Peter Anastos'"Domino" and Frederic Franklin's "Paquita" and "Poeme Lyrique."
Hoskinson admits it's a bit unusual for an active dancer to double up and stage a ballet like "Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux." But in his case, it was a most logical step.
"I was so familiar with this piece," he said. "It seems like a natural thing to do."
"Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux" has been a big part of Hoskinson's life for 21 of his 31 years.
"It's kind of interesting," he said. "It's the first piece of Balanchine choreography I had seen as a child, other than "The Nutcracker."
When Hoskinson was 10, he saw Patricia McBride and Edward Villela perform it in his native New York. "I told my parents,'I'm going to dance it some day, and I'm going to dance it with her."
Sure enough, he eventually did just that. Soon after joining the City Ballet In 1972, Hoskinson became a soloist with the company, partnering with such ballerinas as Suzanne Farrell, Violette Verdy and McBride. "Tchaikovsky" was one of his favorite works during his eight years with the New York City Ballet.
So when the opportunity came up to stage it for CBC, Hoskinson was more than ready. Still, teaching the dance as well as performing it has given Hoskinson new insights into "Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux."
"It's interesting, because you have to go back and examine your concept of the piece," Hoskinson said. "I've known it for such a long time as a dancer, but (when staging it) I really have to stop and think about it.
"Now that I've set this ballet, I see it takes a very different style and technique to dance this than other ballets. It takes an 'attack technique.' You have to really attack the steps, yet make it flowing."
The work is based on the original but discarded "Black Swan" music from Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake." Balanchine discovered the music in the 1960s and created an abstract virtuoso showpiece on it.
"It's nice, because 'Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux' is a complete ballet as it stands, not an excerpt," Hoskinsaid.
A New York native, Hoskinson joined the CBC In August, 1983. He had left the New York City Ballet three years before that time, he said, when Balanehine became ill. "I didn't like the atmosphere in the company after that, " he said.
Hoskinson was deeply influenced by Balanchine , of course. "He's sort of a father figure to me."
He still feels that influence "daily" with the CBC, which has several Balanchine ballets in its repertory and is adding more.
"We'll be rehearsing 'Serenade' and immediately I'll go back and remember what Mr. B would say to do In a certain'spot,", Hoskinson said.
"I'll hear this voice in the back of my head: 'Don't worry, dear, everything will be fine,' in that thick Russian accent of his."
The Cincinnati Enquirer
November 1, 1984
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Janet Light, Dance Critic
The Cincinnati Enquirer
February 16, 1984
 Cincinnati Enquirer/Ed Reinke Bringing "Swan Lake" to life are, left to right, Kimberly Smiley, choreorgapher Frederick Franklin, and Patricia Rozow | Until the "Nutcracker" came along and put visions of sugar Plum, into everyone's head, the one-act version or 'Swan Lake" was probably America's most popular ballet. But "Nutcracker," with its stage magic and extended pantomime owns top spot today. "Lake," nevertheless, continues as a favorite of dance-lovers who look first for choreography, second for stage magic. And just as audiences continue to find "Swan Lake" a delight - its Tchankovsky score, its time-tested choreography, its enchanted story - dancers, too, continue to find it challenging. The doomed but noble Swan Queen remains one of the great ballerina roles. Two Cincinnati Ballet dancers show why this weekend when the company presents Swan Lake" at Music Hall. Patricia Rozow, a senior company member who leads Thursday and Friday's cast, said she continues to refine her ideas about a role she has performed before. Kimberly Smiley, a young soloist who takes her first plunges into "Lake" Saturday, says every rehearsal is a lesson, to the point where sometimes "I feel like I'm going to explode, remembering all the technical and dramatic points, as well as what comes next. Their comments express two essential truths about the Swan Queen: It's a role for a lifetime; and the best way to start is when you're young. The Lakeside act tells of a Prince meeting and falling in love with a mysterious creature, a woman imprisoned by an evil sorcerer In the body of a swan who between midnight and dawn resumes human form. Only a man's love can free her. The Prince swears his love, but dawn breaks and the Princess reverts to swan form. In the four-act "Swan Lake," the Prince is tricked into pledging his love to swan queen Odette's evil look-alike named Odile. But In the one-act, Rozow said an audience might have difficulty understanding the Prince. Having reluctantly accepted his mother's command to choose a bride, he goes off hunting and suddenly falls for this enchanted being, his love, but she's afraid to ask. Here's this person who could save all the swans, but she's meek and humble. She wouldn't seduce him," Rozow said. Her initial fear and growing trust are at the heart of the drama and the famous White Swan adagio. Its slow legabo quality is harder to sustain, Rozow said, than a rapid pas de deux requiring more bravura steps, Her partner's support, as well as reactions to her, help the ballerina make this duet expressive. Rozow said she approached the final moments as if the betrayal with Odile had already occurred. The way ballet master Frederic Franklin structured the CBC version supports that idea. He inserted a Lament for the corps of swan maidens, also under the sorcerer's spell, to music from the last, tragic act of the full-length "Swan Lake." "The swans, realize they're doomed," said Rozow. I know the prince loves me but we're doomed. As Von Rothbart (the sorcerer) takes me off, I know know that's how I'll always be ... (physically), it's not a stamina part. You're never realIy gasping for breath. But mentally you have to sustain the character through the entrance and mime scene, the pas de deux, solo and coda." Most difficult for her are "all the distorted lines. Although the steps are classical, the arms have to be bird-like. "It's a distortion of classicism. For 15 years you've practiced one way, and now, you have to do things differently. You're asking your body to portray a swan Rozow said. But every dancer must mold the role to her own attributes. Kimberly Smiley finds Rozow "a big influence" as she prepares the role. "It seems so natural on her. I may try to do something she does and it looks terrible on me. Musically it might not work either. Being taller, it may take me twice as long to get around in a turn as It does Pat. You can't expect things to look the same." Odette has been Smiley's "dream role" since she was 13. She remembers watching her teacher, ballerina Moscelyne Larkin Jasinski (now her morther-in-law; Smiley is married to CBC principal dancer Roman L. Jasinski) instructing other dancers in the part. But it's one thing to watch she said and, another to do it. Like Rozow, she has found that all the unusual positions "make you a little off balance, You feel strange not looking out at the audience." But even with all the rehearsals and work, Smiley is realistic about her first performane Saturday. "You know it won't be your best one. But you can't believe it will be bad. Every day I'm learning things. I'm just now getting to where I'm playing around with it." |
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By Jack Anderson
This fall it became the Cincinnati Ballet/New Orleans City Ballet as a result of an arrangement permitting it to offer seasons in both cities. The company may now have an unusually long new name. Yet its attempt to have more than one home town may point to a way in which dance groups can prosper in these economically uncertain times. And the company, directed by David McLain, certainly deserves to prosper. Its program was notable for an unusual new production and a beautiful revival of an old favorite.
The new production was "Billy Sunday," Ruth Page's choreographic adaptation of some of the sermons of an evangelist noted for his flamboyant pulpit rhetoric. Combining dancing with a text by J. Ray Hunt that included quotations from those sermons, the work was produced by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at the City Center in 1948. Unfortunately, critics and audiences found Remi Gassman's music too dryly academic for such a robust theme, and "Billy Sunday" was soon dropped from the repertory. Yet Miss Page continued to think that an effective ballet could be made from the evangelist's sermons.
So did Frederic Franklin, the dancer and ballet master who portrayed Billy for the Ballet Russe and who is now choreographer-in-residence for Mr. McLain's company. With Miss Page's permission, he totally restaged the ballet to new music by Carmon DeLeone, Mr. McLain's resourceful music director. Combining hymn tunes with ragtime, this is just the sort of boisterous score the work needs.
In Mr. Franklin's production, Michael Sharp portrayed the evangelist tirelessly exhorting his followers in a church hall designed by Paul Shortt. As he preached, Mr. Sharp and assisting dancers acted out Bible stories and gave them all new twists.
Bathsheba (Kimberley Smiley) took a Turkish bath. The Foolish Virgins in the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins were dance-hall floozies. Potiphar (Michael Kalthoff) was a Shriner on a spree, whereas his wife (Suzette Boyer) was an incorrigibly wiggly, man-crazy society lady. And when Delilah turned Samson over to the Philistines, the Philistines proved to be the Ku Klux Klan.
"Billy Sunday" is a real hoot. Its subject may be sermons, yet it's full of the devil. However, it is still not totally satisfactory on purely choreographic grounds. For one thing, although Miss Page and Mr. Franklin show their fascination with Billy Sunday's imagery, they reveal little about him, his motivations or the social classes to which his sermons appealed.
Moreover, the ballet's general theatrical conceptions and dramatic situations tend to be more amusing than the dance steps used to bring those conceptions and situations to life. Although one giggles at each new idea, one does not always continue to giggle at the specific way in which that idea is worked out. Giggles return only when the next new idea is introduced. Yet since the ballet does move on from idea to idea, one at least giggles more than once.
Mr. Franklin was also responsible for a scrupulously rehearsed revival of Michel Fokine's "Les Sylphides." Produced by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1909, this neo-Romantic revery is now considered the first abstract ballet and it remains a model of exquisite patterning.
The dancers were attentive to all its Romantic details. Christina Foisie swept through the waltz, Debra Kelly had an easy jump in the mazurka, Patricia Rozow hovered delicately in the prelude and Richard Hoskinson demonstrated that he could dance lightly and tenderly without appearing to simper. This was a production mounted and performed with loving care.
Peter Anastos's "Table Manners" had its own airs and graces. Set to music by Handel, it showed dancers, led by Miss Foisie and Miss Rozow, enjoying themselves at a party. As can happen at parties, a few comic mishaps occurred. Some guests were persistent flirts. Others had trouble balancing invisible buffet dinners. One woman lost her escort. And there was a fit of fainting. But good manners eventually prevailed.
Choreographic good manners prevailed, as well. In the past, Mr. Anastos has shown a fondness for both knockabout farce and slightly sugary lyricism. But
here, no jokes were belabored and no sentiments turned mushy. The result was a well-bred suite of dances.
Not the least of the evening's pleasures was that of hearing live music played by an orchestra conducted by Mr. DeLeone. This company looked good in Brooklyn. It should look good in Cincinnati, New Orleans and anywhere else, as well.
The New York Times
October 10, 1983
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By Jerry Stein
Colleen Giesting, an important dancer with the Cincinnati Ballet Company, has resigned from the
Cincinnati Ballet Company.
Ms. Giesting's decision continues a thinning of the CBC's ranks of principal dancers for the
1983-84 season.
The dancer, who was especially noted for her dramatic efforts as the disguised knight in "Le
Combat" and as Salome in "Face of Violence," has been with the company more than a decade.
She plans to move to Florida.
IN THE WAKE of her departure also comes news that Donna Grisez, another top CBC
dancer, will bow out of the company for at least the first half of next season to have a baby.
Previously announced departures from the company were made by Cynthia Ann Roses and
Thomas Morris at the end of April. Miss Roses is in Los Angeles pursuing a film career; Morris,
having no present plans to join another company, will teach dance in Michigan this summer.
James Edgy, general manager of the ballet, said also that he believes some members of the corps
de ballet will not return next season, "I haven't had a chance to go over all the contracts returned,"
he said.
"I DON'T KNOW whether this is one of our biggest exoduses," he said. "The average
turnover is about one third of the company (CBC membership hovers around 30 dancers). It
might seem like a lot this year because we have had no turnover at all last year."
Edgy declined to comment on what kind of salary range is required to attract dancers of Miss
Roses' quality. He did say that the salary paid to Miss Roses would be sufficient to attract a
replacement dancer equal in ability.
Reportedly, the CBC already has signed a dancer associated with the American Ballet Theater and
Washington, D.C.'s National Ballet. However, David Blackburn, associate artistic director of the
CBC, said, "I won't comment on that. We don't want to release the new names in the company
piecemeal."
CINCINNATI Ballet Company salaries for remaining members or new members aren't
expected to climb significantly this year, according to Edgy, despite the recent joint operating
agreement with the New Orleans City Ballet, in which the CBC company will be resident
company not only for Cincinnati but for New Orleans as well.
Supplemental income from the first year's union with New Orleans will go not for dancers' salaries
but "to pay out-of-pocket expenses created by the costs of the joint operation," Edgy said.
Edgy said he doesn't expect the turnover in company personnel to hurt the CBC's subscription
campaign, now in full swing. "This is one of the advantages of not having a star-type company,"
he said. "We aren't totally devastated if lead dancers leave.
''It's just not a significant factor. For example, we get very few calls asking what dancer is dancing
on a certain night."
Cincinnati Post Staff Reporter
May 17, 1983
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By Janet Light, Dance Critic
Yet the magic that surrounds Isadora Duncan, more than 50 years after her death, is still monumental.
No permanent records of Duncan dancing survive. Yet, as described by viewers writing at the turn of the century, her effect was intoxicating: Passionate, ecstatic, noble - the stuff of legends.
On stage and off, Duncan lived her life in capital letters: the open love affairs flying in the face of post Victorian convention; the tragic deaths of two of her children, freakishly drowned when a car carrying them rolled into the Seine; her own bizarre death by strangulation when her long scarf caught in the wheel of an open car.
Choreographer Anastos, describing his new dance to be performed by the Cincinnati Ballet Company as an effort "to say something about Duncan's personality and her influence on me," says it is the artist and performer - not the woman whose flashy lifestyle shocked the staid world around her who most engaged him. Duncan, Anastos said, communicated with audiences through the simplest and most basic dance language.
Isadora turned to nature and Greek art for her revolutionary technique, which was expressive of the individual. "My Art is just an effort to express the truth of my being in gesture and movement . . . Before the public --- I have given the most secret impulses of my soul. From the first I have only danced my life," she wrote in her 1927 autobiography.
In the process, Duncan defied dance conventions. She appeared onstage barefoot, without tights, her voluptuous form wrapped only in a gauzy tunic. She dared to dance to the music of the great masters. She rejected classical ballet technique, which she considered artificial and a distortion of woman's natural beauty.
Dance that expressed the individual human spirit inherently risked hacks and quacks to pose as artists. But among dance scholars today, Duncan is considered a great artist and a real choreographer who had an enormous impact on artists of her time.
The ballet world was to incorporate her expressive innovations in the soft upper body movements of Fokine's "Les Sylphides." Through her own example of free expression, Duncan exerted a profound influence on the development of American modern dance.
Until recently the best record of Duncan dancing was in photos and drawings. (The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County has some of the famous Jose Clara and Arnold Genthe portraits in its research collection, as well as writings by and about Duncan in its circulating collection.) But as interest in modern dance history grew, samples of her dances were revived by some of the original Duncan Dancers and their disciples.
Anastos especially respects the work of Annabelle Garnson, a contemporary dancer who performs the Duncan solo repertory. And in Gamson's performances Anastos found an interesting paradox.
"I never think of Duncan when I watch her. She is the interest," he said, implying that the performer of Duncan dances must fill the outlines of the dance. In the same way, he said, no one performing the simple steps Duncan favored can help but suggest Duncan. The association is too strong.
These contradictions have played a part in fashioning "Isadora" on the Cincinnati Ballet's Cynthia Ann Roses. "I suggested to her that it wasn't important how Isadora would have performed a phrase or movement, but how she felt it could be done. The idea for the dance really began because I wanted to make something for Cindy.
"She has a big personality and is, in my humble opinion, one of the few dancers anywhere in the country who can hold an audience on her own. She even looks a little like Durican - more rounded than the uniform look of many Arnerican dancers. She even has red hair," (as did Duncan).
The dance is "about Duncan's movement qualities," said Anastos, adding that he had not used a single step from a Duncan dance. And "the style is not flashy or showy; it's very naive and simple. The dance is a blow for simplicity, skipping, running and simplicity of gesture - the things Isadora did that could so move the people who saw her."
For accompaniment Anastos chose four piano pieces by Chopin, a composer Duncan favored, because "it's so easily danceable and says something immediately to an audience. It's communicative and conversational in the way I hope the dance will be.
"But the dance is not a tribute to Isadora," he said. "That's already been done (in Frederick Ashton's 1975 "Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan") and it's not an imitation of Isadora. It's seven minutes of Cindy Roses," he summed up.
A Cincinnati dancer, a legendary figure and Chopin all converge in "Isadora." But in the program's second premiere, "Poem Lyrique," ballet company choreographer-in-residence Frederic Franklin draws only on music to make his point. It is set to Ravel's lush "Introduction and Allegro for Harp and Strings."
Choreographers Jerome Robbins and Alvin Ailey have also employed the score, but Franklin said he first heard it 30 years ago, when it was used for a ballet in a short - lived London play called "Precipice."
"I've always wanted to do something with it; it's very lyrical and to my mind, offers a great deal of movement." Unlike "Isadora," which is danced barefoot, the three women in Franklin's ballet wear toe shoes; and the choreography for them and two men utilizes a more formal ballet technique.
The Cincinnati Enquirer
March 17,1983
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by Hilary Ostlere
That's why it seemed superfluous to have the recent defector from the Bolshol, Mikhail Messerer, as
the evening's guest artist. Although his partnering of Patricia Rozow in the Act III pas de deux from
The Sleeping Beauty was exemplary as far as it went, he was suffering from an injury that
precluded his dancing full out. Patricia Rozow, however, after momentary nervousness, went on
to a triumphantly assured set of variations, bringing a serenely classic approach to the technicalities
while displaying a natural sunniness appropriate to Aurora. As Messerer visibly tensed up, she
eased into a flow of well-phrased dancing ending in the final brilliant coda of arabesques,
pirouettes and fish dives.
The darker dramatics of the evening lay with Colleen Giesting, a convincingly mixed-up young woman
in The Still Point, Todd Bolender's choreographic essay about a girl trying to work out relationships
as she grows up and, after much rejection, finding love and a measure of' maturity. I have never been
able to reconcile the spikiness of the choreographic idiom with the mood of the Debussy music
(the first three movements of his String Quartet). Despite its universality of theme the ballet seems dated.
But Giesting, ably supported by Suzette Boyer, Christina Foisie, Ian Barrett, Thomas Morris and Michael
Sharp, turned in a convincing performance, giving it a special dramatic edge, even a new immediacy.
Ruth Page's witty 1938 ballet, Frankie and Johnny, supplied the fun and games for the evening,
here staged by Frederick Franklin with all the detail one might expect from someone who knows the
work from having starred in it. Based on the well-known song - the music by Jerome Moross is actually
many variations on the one theme — the high point comes when Cynthia Ann Roses, as Frankie, goads
herself to a frenzy to kill her unfaithful lover, delivering a solo that has the histrionics of a diva's aria
with the humor of a Mack Sennett comedy. The three fates, dressed as Salvation Army lasses, chorus
the plot-line in front of a backdrop of barroom and brothel. Page's choreography, with its jazz and
music-hall touches, has slyly funny moments — as when the two arch rivals jointly mourn Johnny's
death, entwining themselves around the same funeral wreath. Johnny, a good-looking heel if ever there
was one as played by Roman Jasinki, and Barrett as the bartender who explicitly spills the beans on
him to Frankie, both gave nicely honed performances. This ballet, one of Page's pioneering works,
was considered a bit too raunchy for audiences even as late as the '50s; it deserves a place in the
repertory, especially as staged here.
But perhaps the most pleasurable of the evening's offerings was Daniel Levans' Concert Waltzes
. Here we were offered a straightforward, lyrical reading of this essentially romantic ballet that took
on a new, refined look. Gone were the quirky wrist movements and twitching fingers that marred
American Ballet Theatre's staging last spring; with the gimmicks out, the ballet had a simple,
lilting flow.
Foisie, a slender blonde who dances with great musicality and phrasing, was the second lead;
Roses, as the central figure in red, was well partnered by Barrett, who also displayed an elegant line;
Charles Flachs and Morris danced with a pleasant ballon that promises even better things.
The corps, dressed in charming peach and nectarine shades, obviously enjoyed what they were doing
and did it superbly.
Ballet News
The International Magazine of Dance
January l981 issue
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BY Janet Light, Dance Critic
Thursday's first performance by this youngest of the New York City Ballet's (NYCB) choreographers
had a distinguished last-minute guest in the audience: Lincoln Kirstein, NYCB's founder and
general director, who may well have been interested in the additions Duell has made to a work
first staged at a graduation performance at NYCB's official school.
Cincinnati was seeing "Jubilee" for the first time and in the context of this company's repertory;
and there were two Immediate impressions: "Jubilee" makes the women look absolutely terrific.
And the piece doesn't steal the show.
Duell could not have intended it to overpower. He's made a charming ensemble piece, recognizably
derived from the Balanchine mold in the fluid way folk inflections are interwoven with a neo-classic
vocabulary. The choreography bears the mark of Duell's mentor, George Balanchine, also in the
saucy way the women turn their legs in, as well as out, as they dance; or, conversely, accent a hip
movement, or execute a grand-rightand-left with classical elegance.
The CBC doesn't have another another work in repertory that makes its women look quite this
smart - and those bright flouncy costumes don't hurt one bit - or where the men look quite so
pleased to be there partnering these prancing fillies. Set for eight couples, two of whom handle
most of the nimble solo work; "Jubilee" builds its assured patterns into a strutting, rollicking
abstraction of cakewalk themes that is rhythmically the work's most Interesting portion.
"Jubilee" employs few direct references to the minstrel world the score conjures. This approach
produces a somewhat brittle veneer. A new section, "Potpourri," involves a change of tone, using
programmatic music to stage a kind of show within a show, much as an earlier ballet to the
score, "Cakewalk," did.
The Ensemble falls momentarily under an "illusionist's" spell, then moves on to solos and an unhurried
pas de deux that are slightly tongue-in-cheek. The sequence is fun, though initially it seems to have
little to do with the rest of the ballet. A first impression is that it harmlessly lengthens the ballet, but is
still a fairly bloodless evocation of a world once rich in humor and sentiment. The four soloists -
Cynthia Ann Roses, Donna Grisez, and Roman Jasinski and Charles Flachs - brought a pleasant verve
to their featured roles, as did the ensemble.
With a salute to the promising talents of Duell, who has set an entertaining work, the major attraction
on Thursday's program remained Todd Bolender's "The Still Point." A tender evocation of adolescent
turmoil and love, set to Debussy's String Quartet, this ballet's reputation is securely established and
its stature needs no further confirmation. What is interesting about the CBC version on a repeat
viewing is the depth It continues to draw from the dancers.
At its premiere last year Bolender elicited from them a full and luscious commitment to the
movement that rode the music, and a sense of ensemble that has been kept intact, Colleen
Giesting's sensitive heroine has retained its delicate searching quality and Christina Foisle,
Suzette Boyer, Thomas Morris and Michael Sharp are very convincing in creating the rejecting
world in which the heroine perceives herself.
Daniel Levans' buoyant ballroom ballet, "Concert Waltzes," opened the program with one or two
rough edges, but with a wonderful clarity on the part of Christina Foisie in those lightly skimming
pas de trois sections. Michael Cadle and Michael Sharp were her escorts, with a sparkling
Cynthia Ann Roses in the title role, and Thomas Morris as her courteous partner.
While "Concert Waltzes" looked somewhat squeezed in its transfer from Music Hall's environs, most of
this all-dance program had a welcome intimacy that one never feels at Music Hall. It seems a pity that
this repertory series ending tonight will mark the permanent closing of The Palace.
Music Hall forces one to think big, and big certainly has a place in ballet. With its strong classical
emphasis, the CBC will always need Music Hall. But it doesn't necessarily follow that a smaller
theater makes the thinking small. For a company of the CBC's present size, a smaller theater offers
important creative options, not to mention a special rapport with its audience.
The Cincinnati Enquirer
March 4, 1982
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By Jerry Stein, Post Staff Reporter
Despite Frederic Franklin's meticulous recreation of the original work by Michel Fokine, the company's performance has yet to relax into the work's poised but romantic style. Franklin has imbued the troupe with the concept of this plotless ballet, but the performance comes out overly studied.
"Les Sylphides" uses orchestrated piano music - nocturnes, waltzes, preludes, etc. - by Chopin. The ballet is set in a misty woodland, beautifully rendered by Joseph Yarga's dreamy drop curtain inspired by a landscape painting by the French artist Corot.
"Les Sylphides" features solos, pas de deux and pas de trois variations. There is only one male who is attended by the sylphs in this hypnotic setting.
But the work is dominated by the corps de ballet's intricate configurations and poses. The chorus of women dancers dressed in Claudia Lynch's gossamer long white tutus look in ensemble like one massive, foamy cloud trespassing upon the moon.
In fact, the great fascination of the work is the intricate movements of the corps de ballet and the tableaux struck by them.
The Choreography calls for the corps de ballet to create designs of circles, columns, arches and arcs formed in an everchanging vision of a lattice-work of arms. All of these poses by the corps de ballet serve to frame the variations.
Once the corps de ballet struck the many designs, the effect rivaled the most ornate of wedding cakes. But the maneuvering that took place in some of the transitions from one design to another was something else again.
For instance, the column formed by the line of dancers at house right failed to look much better than a crooked representation of the Hunchback of Notre Dame's spine. Yet the choreography calls for it to be formed several times.
The hefty audience of 2318 in the 3631 seat Music Hall roundly approved "Les Sylphides." But the very beauty of the work sometimes can blur attention from less than precise technique.
There is some excellent solo dancing ensconced in "Les Sylphides." Christina Foisie is a lively, swirling sylph in a waltz. Donna Grisez is full of grace in the turns on pointe called for in the mazurka. And although the principal soloist's choreography isn't flashy, Patricia Rozow's exact pointe work commands respect.
Roman Jasinski brought a poetic understatement to his variations. The turns and beats had an appropriate reined-in style to them. Jasinski still is not the most romantic of dancers in his attitude. It could be the manner is more friendly than courtly.
"Les Sylphides" is not beyond the company. The CBC simply has to refine it and become more comfortable with it. With Franklin's impeccable staging, even down to the maintainance of some rather precious early 1900s gesturing, the blueprint for "Les Sylphides" is well laid out for the CBC.
The CBC company looked to be under stress ... almost too conscientious at times. After all, Franklin was in the house on the occasion of his 50th anniversary.
The best bet is the company will become much more fluid in the performance once the newness of "Les Sylphides" wears off.
"Con Amore," which ends the concert, continues to be utterly hilarious in its intertwining of two tales of love.
Christina Foisie as the captain of the Amazons and Cynthia Ann Roses as the flirtatious mistress in the second scene, are first rate comediennes in slippers.
The remaining element of the CBC concert is "Le Combat," featuring Colleen Giesting and Thomas Morris as the warring knights. Miss Giesting, as a warrior in disguise, has made this role a tour de force.
The Cincinnati Post
February 5, 1982
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by Janet Light, DanceCritic
The nice thing about this whimsical little ballet by Peter Anastos, which capped the season's
first repertory series Thursday at the Taft Theater, Is that it isn't overly serious in its tribute to '30s
ballroom dancing, big band music and Astalre-Rogers musicals. It simply has the lighting designer
hang a few stars. on the backcloth, outline potted plants on a rooftop garden somewhere-and gets
on with the dancing.
There's no story, though Tom Morris' opening solo (to "Music, Maestro, Please") evokes a
dream girl who got away. He quickly gets in the mood for romance, as does Suzette Boyer,
slinky in neck-to-floor satin and looking as if she has a special way with an insult. Their
pas de deux to "Don't Let That Moon Get Away" swoons into a climactic twirling lift
and a swoosh of satin.
That's as close to the Fred and Ginger connection as "Footage" gets, unless the male chorus
in "You Turned the Tables On Me" stirs up some memories. "Footage's" emblem is its
general tone of good-natured sophistication. Rather than evoking those two irreplaceable
inhabitants of '30s never-never land, the ballet instead evokes how some audiences of the
'30s must have felt watching them. The whole cast looks as if it hasn't a care in the world and
"Footage" kind of puts you in that mood.
Anastos keeps his choreographic weave - a blend of ballet and ballroom dances like the
Shag with occasional suggestions of soft shoe-in uncomplicated designs. But just to keep
you guessing, he throws in a few clever items from time to time, like the witty entrance for
three girls who appear briefly as a quartet in "One, Two, Button Your Shoe." '
The comic bullseye is Ravel's "Bolero," demonstrating that the Tango is a dance of supreme
inconvenience. Within seconds and with burlesque - style punch Cynthia Ann Roses and
Michael Sharp had their limbs hopelessly entangled, attire in disarray and Thursday's crowd roaring.
"Footage" is well-styled fluff.
Another light work - the tambourine flavored "Grand Tarentelle" - opened the evening brightly.
For dramatic contrast, the company turned to "Dedication to Jose Clemente Orozco,"
presented with a new scoring for two guitars. The dance had less of the scrambling desperation
of previous renderings, emphasizing instead the man's stern anger and the woman's quietly
yielding support. Michael Sharp did not always project his part's steely strength but the piece
is so stongly designed, and Colleen Giesting's performance so generous, that "Orozco's" fierce
geometry still projected a lingering power.
If you hungered to see some unadorned dancing, which this program's generous diet of light
and brief repertory items had to stir up in some of the patrons, Patricia Rozow's
lovely performance in 'Tribute" was the evening's fulfilling moment. Her intelligent
phrasing displayed the work's contrasts of filagree lyricism and graceful brilliance clearly.
And by remaining understated throughout what is an ensemble piece for three couples,
she emerged as the piece's central star. As her partner, Roman Jasinski's innate finesse also
animated this "Tribute," but his solo work needed more speed.
The Cincinnati Enquirer
October 3, 1981
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by Jerry Stein, theater and dance critic
"Footage," which is new to the CBC's repertoire, had its first company performance Thursday night
at the Taft Theater. The concert series, which continues tonight and Saturday, launches the CBC's
first round of concerts for the 1981-82 season.
Originally designed in 1979 for New Jersey's Garden State Ballet, "Footage" is billed as a salute to the
dance styles Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers employed in their 1930s and '40s film musicals. The
eight dances that comprise "Footage" are backed by big band music.
. Whenever Morris is involved, "Footage" rises to a stylish, elegant level. Opening finds Morris,
dressed in tails, engaging in those easy, graceful turns of foot and swaggering movements that
Astaire always made look like muscular afterthoughts. Morris, in his emulations of the always
slightly cocky Astaire, is certainly on the mark.
Again, in the duet with Suzette Boyer - who is dressed glamorously in a white satin halter formal
designed by Claudia Lynch - a style is struck that is as romantic as David Ferguson's misty blue,
star-strewn sky that serves as a backdrop. Miss Boyer floats in and out of Morris' arms with a
lightness of a ghost on leave from its Halloween hauntings. To boot, there are spectacular
spins and lifts for Miss Boyer handled with assuredness by Morris.
And though I thought it far too over-sold, the opening night audience of 1126 heartily approved of
Cynthia Ann Roses' and Michael Sharp's satire on Ravel's cool and haughty bolero.
The two are constantly getting limbs mixed up in contorted configurations while they go through
the wooden maneuvers of the dance.
The basic problem with "Footage" is that it essentially uses a classic ballet style to evoke those
slick MGM movie dances. So long as Morris is easing around the floor in his tails being as lithe
as hot taffy, then the wave of the age flows over the mind briefly recalling the big musical, big band era.
However, during such moments as when the trio comprised of Christina Foisie, Colleen Giesting
and Kimberly Smiley suddenly abandon their slinky turns and go on pointe, the spririt of the work
is destroyed. Ginger never went on her toes in those high heeled pumps she wore.
Furthermore, during the big company dance numbers that include lots of formally attired partners
swirling around or making precision movements, Anastos' choreography slumps. Although the
dances are derivative enough, Anastos fails to equal some of the designs in '40s musicals that remain
visually impressive today. The one exception occurs in "Get Out of Town" when the male dancers join
hands to form a moving circle which in turn allows Miss Boyer to drape herself over one set of linked
hands like so much bunting on a turning carrousel.
The satiric edges that Anastos gave his burlesques of the classic ballets when he was choreographing
for the all-male company Ballets Trockaderos not only are funny, but intelligent parodies. The
recurring thought through most of "Footage" is that Anastos is simply being nostalgic. Anastos only
took a creative inch in "Footage" when he should have taken a mile.
The program opened with Roman Jasinski's "Grande Tarantelle" with which artistic director David
McLain obsessively uses as a curtain raiser. Nevertheless, soloist Donna Grisez is all airy jumps
beating away on her tambourine.
Rounding out the evening is James Truitte's blend of tension and romantic fealty in "Dedication
to Jose Clemente Orozoco." Inspired by Orozoco's murals of the Mexican Civil War, the dance
features Colleen Giesting and Michael Sharp as a Mexican couple.
Frederic Franklin's "Tribute" to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, for which he danced for years,
remains a lyric piece thanks especially to the partnership of Patricia Rozow and Roman L.
Jasinksi and Franck's "Symphonic Variations" used as accompaniment.
Cincinnati Ballet Company repeats the concert at 8 tonight and Saturday at the Taft. Price range:
$14-$4. Information: 621-5219.
The Cincinnati Post
October 2, 1981
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by Janet Light, Dance Critic
It's those folks choreographer Peter Anastos had in mind when he created his ballet "Footage,"
premiering Thursday at the Taft Theater on the Cincinnati Ballet Company's (CBC) fall repertory
series.
"The fact that Astaire and Rogers made movies is why you think only of them," Anastos
speculated recently. (The films inspired the ballet's title. But it was a company manager in New
Jersey, where an early version of "Footage" was performed, who suggested the name for lack of a
better one, Anastos indicated.)
"I don't know that much about Astaire's dance style, though I love all his movies. I'm not teaching
the CBC male dancers to move like Astaire, You can't just teach that anyway.
"The Ballet is mostly my imagination about the music and the period, and about the kinds of steps
and patterns that look good in flowing dresses and white tie and tails. It's about people in a very
civilized attitude. That was the music's style."
It was the 1930s dance band arrangements of English band leader Jack Hylton which gave
Anastos the idea for "Footage."
"People played Hylton the way they played Glenn Miller records here. His arrangements were
smoother and more sophisticated than American jazz of the time, though they aped American
jazz. He used to do light classics, too. He did a crazy three-minute version of Ravel's 'Bolero' - I
don't know what people used to do to it"
Anastos must have a few ideas about the Bolero up his sleeve. He has included it in "Footage"
and the word floating out of rehearsals is that the dance is pretty crazy itself. That would be right
in line with Anastos' past. He got his start ribbing the classics as choreographer and star of the
allmale parody company Ballets Trockadero.
Today, the Trockadero continues to bring its galumphing swans and colliding wilis to an
international audience, though Anastos has left the troupe. Its origins were much more modest,
Anastos said. The Trockadero began as an in-joke for New York critics.
"We started out with a midnight curtain. You could go see the Royal Ballet at the Met, then
come downtown to the Soho area to see us rib the performance. I was never serious about being a
dancer. I got my points across by outlining movements and icons. People had a good time, and I think
indirectly we did a lot of business for other companies on our tours, by showing people you can have
a good time at the ballet."
After fashioning 13 satirical works, "the form had outlived its usefulness. I had parodied all the
major choreographers. And the others," he said in an aside, "were doing a good job on their own.
"I had the problem all comedians have: of being taken seriously," he recalled about the period of
unemployment following his leave-taking. Then the Garden State Ballet of New Jersey
commissioned a work "because they wanted a funny ballet."
Humor continues to surface in Anastos' ballets but he seems to have no trouble being taken
seriously these days. Financial considerations closed down the Garden State Ballet but Anastos
went on to set two pieces for the Pennsylvania Ballet. After the CBC commission, he will make an
original work for the Dallas Ballet, then set another on the Florence Ballet in Italy.
Perhaps bset of all, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation recently awarded Anastos one
of the five choreography fellowships listed among the 280 grants awarded to scholars and artists
in 1981. He is the first ballet choreographer to receive a fellowship in 12 years. Most
Guggenheims go to modern dance choreographers.
Anastos, now 33, began his dance career writing criticism for Dance Magazine and later for the
prestigious Ballet Review, to which he still contributes. The Trockadero company, he reflects,
was "not so far from writing for me. It was a way of commenting on styles and concepts, and I
could write these gigantic program notes," a practice he obvl,ously relished.
Next spring Anastos and Russian scholar Tamara Glenny will travel to Leningrad to research a
book on the Russian Imperial Ballet commissioned by Alfred A. Knopf. A current debate in the
dance world concerns the dance legacy of Russia's 19thcentury master choreographer, Marius
Petipa, with the Russians claiming the inside line. Petipa choreography being a largely
undocumented area, critics aren't yet convinced by the claim.
Anastos suspects the English ballet and America's George Balanchine have stronger links to that
great dancemaker. Mixing humor and the sharp mind he seems to bring to all his pursuits, Anastos
predicted of his Leningrad venture, "We're going to f Ind out who really has the dope on Petipa."
The Cincinnati Enquirer
October 2, 1981
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By Jerry Stein
Choreographer Cathy Paine has set "Weasel" for the Contemporary Dance Theater's May 8-9, 15-16
concerts. The Z Jazz Company is offering seven premieres in its May 8-10 program at the Xavier
University Theater titled "Jazz is a Four Letter Word." And those ill fated lovers "Romeo and Juliet"
relive their tragedy when Roman Jasinski's and Yvonne Chouteau's new production for the Cincinnati
Ballet Company bows at Music Hall April 30-May 2.
The ballet repertoire is filled with many versions of "Romeo and Juliet," perhaps the most famous
being Lavrosky's Russian production in three acts, 13 scenes with music by Prokofiev.
However, the CBC's "Romeo and Juliet" will use an abbreviated telling of Shakespeare's tragedy
that Jasinski and Chouteau based on original choreography by Serge Lifar.
Jasinski and his wife Mocelyn Larkin, danced with Serge Lifar's company in his "Romeo and Juliet."
Jasinski said he also drew upon memories of the work from his days with Lifar at the Ballet Russe
de Monte Carlo. "My version for the Cincinnati company is close to Lifar's choreography," Jasinski
said in a telephone interview from Tulsa, where he and Mrs. Jaskinski co-direct a ballet company
and school.
Even though the young lovers' tragedy is condensed into one act in the Lifar-Jasinski version,
"the important episodes of the play are present," Jasinski said, "including violence, as the two
families of the lovers feud; the balcony scene; and the death scene in the tomb.
"Emotion remains, too," he adds. "For one thing, the music is so beautiul." The Lifar-Jasinski
"Romeo and Juliet" uses Tchaikovsky's lovely Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture.
The CBC "Romeo and Juliet" is something of a family affair. Roman Jasinski's son,
Roman L. Jasinski, will be dancing Romeo in the April 30 and May 2 concerts with Cynthia Ann
Roses as his Juliet. (Charles Flachs and Colleen Giesting will dance the lovers for the May 1 concert).
Roman senior does not reserve his fatherly pride in young Roman. "He has a great deal of feeling,
at a time when so many dancers do not," he said frankly. "Roman is expressive; he can act.
"Of course, he has a certain feeling for the role. He danced it when he was with our company in Tulsa."
Roman said he regrets his daughter-in-law Kim Smiley, also a dancer with the CBC, will not have
a chance to dance Juliet with his son in the upcoming concerts. "She has feeling she shows in the
dance," he said, "but it is not my department who dances it. I only make the dance for the Cincinnati Ballet."
Cincinnati Post Staff Reporter
April 30, 1981
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by Janet Light, Dance Critic
Movie producers. magicians, singers and hoofers dot the family tree three generations back. For Roses,
23,.who joined the Cincinnati Ballet Company (CBC) two seasons ago, a life outside the theater is incomprehensible.
"I can't see not dancing," she said during a break in "Coppelia" rehearsals, whose leading role of
Swanilda she performs at Music Hall' Thursday evening and, Saturday afternoon on the CBCs winter repertory
series.
She didn't begin that single-mindedly, however, and her decision to build a, career in Chicago and Cincinnati,
rather than New York, marks her as a dancer off the beaten path.
"When I was four years old, growing up in Miami, I was enrolled in a tap-ballet-jazz school. One day out of
the blue I told the teacher, I'm not coming to lessons anymore'."
Rose's mother, who had appeared with Valentino and toured on the RKO Midwest vaudeville circuit, agreed.
The lessons stopped.
Just as abruptly, Roses decided at 10 that she wanted to be a ballet dancer. Again, Mother, agreed. ' "But you
had better work,' she told me:'
Winning a Ford Foundation scholarship for studies with ballerina Alicia Alonoo's sister in Miami, Roses later
spent a year and a half in New York as a Harkness Ballet trainee. She, danced with the late- Andre Eglevsky's
company and then spent five years with the now - disbanded Chicago Ballet, where she became a principal .dancer.
She has always loved the classics, like "Coppelia," and roles that require "heart and emotion. I'm not one of
those dancers with long, long legs, and audiences looking for that kind of technical ability aren't going to find
that, with me. I love the ballets where dramatic qualities alter the technique."
Roses has created some lively characters in recent CBC productions. There was her betrayed Frankie
in the humorous revival of "Frankie and Johnny," and the frivolous wife in the ballet' buffa "Con Amore."
"To me there is a Frankie person, a Swanilda person, and my character and their characters
fuse. I don't mean to sound like Olivier. I'm not quite that 'heavy' not that developed in my
acting methods. But there is a way Swanilda walks and moves.
"I'm better with feelings and a contact and energy with the audience than I am with words.
Developing Swanilda as a character depends a lot on your partner, on the Delibes score, which just seems to
talk to you, and on a kind of energy. In 'Swan Lake' I find that energy to be calm, With Swanilda, it's bubbly and
feisty."
"Coppelia," set in a middle European town several centuries ago, was created in 1870, but its heroine is
extremely modern in her resourcefulness and willingness to act independently. When Franz, her fiance,
deserts her to court the mysterious girl, Coppelia (not realizing she is only a.life-sized mechanical doll),
Swanilda impersonates the doll to win him back. Simultaneously she tricks an old dollmaker into believing
his creation has come to life. But the tradition of a "nasty" Swanilda who cruelly destroys an old man's
dreams does not appeal to Roses.
"I don't think Swanilda is aware of hurting, anyone. She just likes to have fun. I feel really devilish about her.
She enjoys being devilish. I notice she doesn't have a mother in the ballet. She can do whatever she pleases.
P>
"She doesn't take anything seriously except Franz. But she's more in love with love. Only after she has been hurt
and hurt someone else can she really love Franz and really grow UP, Showing Swanilda's transition to maturity is
the role's challenge.
"You can't tell which movements dominate from the audience's point of view. You can't see it while you're dancing it," she
said, and direction becomes vital. Frederic Franklin, who set the CBC version, "allows dancers to find their own way.".
His ability to"show you an aspect of a character by doing it, rather than talking about it," becomes an inspiring literal
demonstration of how the physical aspects of dance have to be transmitted, she said.
Company director David McLain, said Roses, will answer any question you ask about how it, looks. You had better
just make sure you want to know!" McLain's guidance to books, paintings and "the intellectual part of dancing" were key
factors in Roses' decision to return to college at the University of Cincinnati for a degree.
The Cincinnati Enquirer
February 1, 1981
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Jerry Stein, Staff Reporter
There's the romantic campaign launched by Swanilda to transfer the affections of the lovesick Franz from
the doll Coppelia to her. The mystery of the eccentric dollmaker Dr. Coppelius; lends a magical quality
to the proceedings. And the sprightly villagers are forever breaking into mazurkas and czardas.
However, the charm found in "Coppelia" when the Cincinnati Ballet Company presented a new
production two years ago has pleasurably mellowed. What the CBC showed Thursday night at Music Hall
was a successful attempt at developing the humor and pathos of the fairy-tale ballet, not just its toyland qualities.
This series of performances of "Coppelia" is only the second time the CBC has placed the
full length ballet, so affectionately choreographed by Frederick Franklin after Arthur Saint-Leon and Marius
Petipa's original work, on a concert series. And already some smashing advances can be seen over the
1979 peformances. Most notably, there is the dancing of Cynthia Ann Roses, who premiered the role of
Swanilda for the CBC two years ago.
In the first act, Miss Roses makes the audience aware of how frustrated she is about Franz' attentions to
a doll. A display of pointe work, spins and almost arrogant poses are flashed out in a girlish attempt
by 5wanilda to impress the inanimate Coppelia and Franz.
When Miss Roses initially danced the role, the willful personality of Swanilda was not so greatly defined
as it has been this turn. The fine projection of Swanilda's personality in the first act enables the ballet to
become a story of romance rather than just a visit to fantasyland.
Again in the second act, Swanilda and her six friends make the most of the comedy that results from
their squeamishness about sneaking into Dr. Coppelius' cobweb-laden workshop.
The group of girls huddling together and slightly raising their skirts to provide a view of pairs upon pairs
of knees knocking together nervously is a delightful moment.
Roman Jasinski, as Franz, is quite devilish in his teasing of Swanhilda in the first act. But he
effectively turns romantic in the third act, using his strength to manage the difficult classical lifts in the adagio
pas de deux. And makes such phrases as his support of Miss Roses' reverse fish dive look as though it were a
choreographic afterthought instead of the difficult move it happens to be.
A word, too, has to be said about David Blackburn's ability to span both the humorous and pathetic sides
of the old Dr. Coppelius. The old man takes much delight in grabbing Franz by the ear when he catches him
in the workshop, but there is also the dramatic scene when Dr. Coppelius realizes Swanilda has tricked
him (through her impersonation of the doll) into believing Coppelia came alive through his magic. At the
end of Act II, Dr. Coppelius is seen weeping over the limp body of Coppella.
The Blackburn performance is what is called in ballet a character role. That means little if any dancing. And,
yet, it is these very roles that serve to bring dimension even to fantasy ballets.
The audience of 1680 that filled just over half the unobstructed seats available for ballet at Music
Hall also heartily approved of Franklin's use of ballet students for the Dance of the Hours, which
came across as light as time flying.
Music director Carmon DeLeone elicited a bright, provencial feel for Leo Delibes' country dances and served
up the musical jests for the antics of the mechanical dolls in Dr. Coppelius' workshop.
The overall dancing looked more carefully spaced this round than in the premiere, when the big line
movements often were curved at the end because the set seemed to intrude on floor spare.
"Coppelia" lives - at least artistically.
The Cincinnati Post
February 6, 1981
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by Janet Light, dance critic
To Cynthia Roses' starchy Swanilda and David Blackburn's poignant Coppellus, portrayals first seen two years ago at
the ballet's premiere, has now been added a credible and pleasing Franz, played by CBC newcomer Roman Jasinski.
This trio's performance had dramatic balance and a delightful sense of fun, while visually the handsome sets and costumes
immediately achieved that balance of sunniness and musty mystery that is at the ballet's heart and in Delibes score.
Frederic Franklin's staging of this comic classic provides a special answer to why a work whose heroine is called Swanilda
goes by the name of another lady. Coppella, a mechanical doll, Is the improbable meeting point of two intertwining tales.
Franz, who worships her from afar, is led back to his true love, Swanilda, with the realization that Coppelia is an automaton.
Her inventor, the eccentric Coppelius, wishes to make her real, but a taste of a flesh-and-blood woman is more than he
bargained for. When Swanilda impersonates the doll in a delicious plot twist to teach Franz a lesson, Coppelius is overjoyed
but confronted with a real woman's demands.
This is why, in an ending that differs from other versions of the ballet, the old dollmaker can go back to his beloved creation
instead of disappearing, bitter at the knowledge that his greatest dream has been punctured. He Is happier with his doll.
Franz has come to know mature love through his own experience. Both men have traveled full circle back to where they began but
are wiser for the journey.
Swanilda Is the person who brings these realizations about and Roses brought out her savvy and wit in a performance at once musical, dramatically pungent and most pleasantly danced. Clear, precise and totally without af fectation, she created a believable character whose occasional nastiness was quite tolerable.
Jasinski played Franz as an eminently decent fellow who has a roving eye, simultaneously likable and exasperating.
His spirited acting made his clash with Coppelius that of co-conspirator as much as victim. His intelligent, pleasant manner
partnering Roses in the bridal pas de deux gave this dance climax a weight and serenity that contrasted well with all the early
spatting, and his solo provided the most convincing classical dancing I remember seeing among CBC male dancers in several
CBC seasons.
David Blackburn was both funny and obsessive as a man cruelly treated but not above trickery himself. However, the
pathos in this Coppelius dominated and tugged at the heartstrings. To say he stole the show would not do justice to
Blackburn's control of a role whose pantomime movements had almost the quality of speech. To report that he is a
memorable Coppelius, however, is also true.
Although the leading players claim most of "Coppelia's" action, colorful folk dances and, in this version, a happily unpretentious
village festival, top things off. The energetic first act Mazurka, with Jasinski's dash and the fleet steps of Lisa Robinson standing
out in particular, was a high point, while Colleen Giesting's lilting Prayer dance provided a softly quiet but authoritative
moment in the finale, along with Patricia Rozow's competent Aurora.
Mention should also be made of Swanilda's six Friends, whose ensemble work accounted for humorous moments during
the pivotal second act in Coppelius' workshop. The dolls here also got their share of laughs, and I noticed that as they began
to jerk to life, the questions of a small child sitting near me were silenced until the curtain finally closed much later.
"Coppelia" speaks a child's language as well as an adult's, and that is probably one reason it continues to be popular almost
everywhere. The CBC's version is highly entertaining and that it works with its relatively small cast is impressive indeed.
It would be even more rewarding with more dancers to flesh things out.
The Cincinnati Enquirer
February 7, 1981
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By Jerry Stein
"I had my eye on her, although we didn't date for a long time afterwards," said Roman Jasinski.
The Cincinnati Ballet Company dancer was discussing how he scouted his wife, Kim Smiley, years before he ended up dancing with her and marrying her last May. The couple joined the Cincinnati Ballet Company this season. They are the company's only dancers married to each other.
Both will be dancing in the CBC's fantasy ballet "Coppelia" opening Feb 5 at Music Hall. Roman has the featured role of the spirited Franz in the ballet.
The Jasinskis are a "Romeo and Juliet" story with a happy ending.
"I already had been away from home two years In New York (with the American Ballet Theater)," said Roman, now 26. I went home in the summers to teach classes at my parents' (Roman.Jasinski Sr., and Mocelyn Larkin) ballet school in Tulsa, where Kim was studying.
Kim, 19, continues the saga. "I thought Roman was handsome but he corrected me a lot in class. And I would turn bright red. I was 14 then."
Schedules and geography cooled the romance until Kim went to New York one summer on a Ford Foundation Scholarship. She studied at both and at George Balanchine's School of American Ballet and at Robert Joffrey's American Ballet Center. Roman also had entered the New York ballet world through a similar Ford scholarship at the Balanchine school a few years earlier.
"There were several of us from Tulsa in New York then," said Kim, and we hung around together. I hadn't seen Roman for three years until we met again in New York and we found we still liked each other."
For once an injury to a dancer wasn't all bad. Roman had begun to be given solo parts at ABT. But on Christmas Day 1977, Roman injured his knee. While it was healing, the company kept him busy with undemanding corps work and character roles. "But after you have danced solos, that kind of work drives you up a wall," he recalled.
Roman eventually took a leave of absence for six months and returned home to Tulsa to let his knee heal.
Back in Oklahoma, Roman joined his parents' ballet troupe, The Tulsa Ballet Company. "At first," said Kim,
who had returned to the company, "his parents didn't let us dance together often because they thought the rest of the company would think
we were getting the parts simply because we were in love."
But once Roman and Kim became an obvious pas de deux off stage, Roman's father and mother relented. One of their roles was "Romeo and Jullet."
Roman's eye for pretty girls led him, he contends, to a dancing career. "Whenever my father and mother took me to New York we would visit Balanchine because they danced with him for years," Roman explained. "And Balanchine would tell them, 'This boy has a perfect body for ballet. Give him to me. I will train him and send him to school.'
"But I was interested in baseball and football, not ballet. I didn't get interested in dancing until I was 13. I used to clean up and do chores at my parents' studios. I was beginning to be interested in girls and I said to myself, 'this place is a great place to have a job -there's plenty of pretty girls here.'
"And since I liked sports, the physical action of dance appealed to me, too. But I think that dance is harder than sports. I think it is because in dance you have to make it look easy even though your gut is busting out there."
Before coming to Cincinnati last September, Roman went back to New York to talk to the new director of ABT, Mikhail Baryshnikov about returning to the company. "I danced for Mischa to show him my knee was all right," said Roman. "Mischa is my friend and he offered to take me back as a soloist. But the company already has 10 boys who are soloists and he thought I was crazy to want to return.
"He told me, 'You're a principal dancer in Tulsa. You get to dance a lot more there.' And Mischa was right I decided. I knew it was true that the
ABT is so big - there are about 90 dancers in the company. Every soloist is dancing about once a week."
The Jasinskis decided to come to Cincinnati, said Kim, for a little independence. "After we got -married, Roman and I thought we should start out on our own for awhile even though his parents are good friends to us."
Roman's father has choreographed several works for the Cincinnati Ballet Company. He
suggested the CBC as a possible choice for the couple. "I already had danced with the Cincinnati Ballet in 1974," said Roman. "I was a guest In their first "Nutcracker."
"But I was even more impressed when we came back to Cincinnati. I told Kim I thought this company was going places and that we ought to be a part of it."
So far, Roman and Kim assert there are more advantages than disadvantages to sharing like careers.
"When I was in New York, I knew dancers who were married to non-dancers," said Roman. "The non-dancer can't relate to how exhausted dancers get after rehearsing all day or how badly their, feet hurt."
It translates into practical matters: whoever is less tired, prepares dinner.
Dancers not only have to rehearse but go to class, which creates long work days. "We begin at about 11:45 a.m.," said Roman, "and quit about 6:15 p.m. We work straight through with some breaks.
Kim says, being married dancers doesn't mean they talk shop or "studio" all the time. "Our social life," she says, "reflects other interests. We even had a Super Bowl party last Sunday.
"Sometimes when the rehearsal schedule gets heavy, we plan little things, such as the time to go out and buy a gift, more carefully than most people."
The couple's Clifton apartment provides clues to their other interests. On the walls hang Roman's collection of the late Jerome Tiger's prints and lithographs on Indian themes. Roman is especially fond of one called "The Four Moons Ballet."
"My mother danced in 'The Four Moons Ballet,"' said Roman."She is only one of five Indian ballerinas in the country."
Kim is also a visual artist. While in high school her talent for working In various mediums Including oil, pencil and fibers, brought her the honor of being one of six finalists in the Young Talent of Oklahoma, a statewide arts contest. "I even won a scholarship to an art school that I never took advantage of," she said.
Kim's use of what is called a hard-edge style in which colors buttress each other with definite demarcations is especially effective in a large ballet poster she calls "En Pointe" and another work, a self - portrait.
Most of Kim's art work is oversized. "My art teacher told me to do large art. He said, 'When it hangs among others in a show, people can't miss it!
For the future Roman and Kim want to remain if not a dancing partnership at least together in the same company. "It would be all right for us to go off alone to another company for a week or so to dance," said Roman, "but we would turn down any jobs that would keep us apart. We won't go off separately."
Roman said when it is time to retire from dancing, he and Kim will go back to Tulsa to assume directorship of his parents' school and company.
The Cincinnati Post staff reporter
January 29, 1981
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by Janet Light, Dance Critic
In recent seasons CBC artistic director David McLain has been solidifying the group's classical repertory.
But this year captive swan queens and melancholy princes are on the back-burner. True, two of five
announced premieres boost the tradltional repertory: "Les Sylphides," a watershed Michel Fokine
ballet drenched in poetic atmosphere, and the"'Rose Adagio," a ballerina testing piece from
Tchaikovsky's "The Sleeping Beauty," both in stagings by ballet master Frederic Franklin.
But the balance of the season is shaping up light and lively, beginning with Peter Anastos' "Footage,"
opening Thursday in a starlight-and-chiffon tribute to big-band music and the dancing style Fred
Astaire and Ginger Rogers made famous. Joseph Duell's cakewalk ballet "Jubilee" and Ruth
Page's "The Merry Widow" are confections slated for the winter and spring. Two major revivals from
last season, "Frankie and Johnny" and "Con Amore," are romps plainly aimed at the funnybone.
Don't mistake light for lightheaded. Anastos and Duell are promising young choreographers of proven
ability who offer considerable substance beneath the frothy themes.
"The Nutcracker," in its eighth season, is usually regarded as the classic introduction to ballet, but
newcomers who really want to get their feet wet should consider the CBC's 3 Performance Subscription
Series. This series, ranging in price from $11 $27 per subscription, is based at Music Hall, as are
the 10 "Nutcracker" programs.
The 5-Performance Series offers a bigger dip into the eclectic stew, with prices ranging from $17
to $46.75 per subscription. This series was originally scheduled to alternate between Music Hall
and The Palace. But with The Palace's doors shut and its future in limbo, the Oct.1-3 opening has
been shifted to the Taft Theater. Location of the March 11-13 series will be confirmed at a later date.
For a subscription order form, call the CBC at 621-5219. In addition to saving 10 to 15% over single
ticket prices, season subscribers can buy one half-price ticket to "The Nutcracker" for each
subscription purchased, until Nov. 28, when the offer expires. The cheapest way to give ballet a try,
besides purchasing single tickets, is at two Brown Bag Ballet performances, where $1 will buy a
noon hour's worth of dance.
Here's how the complete schedule shapes up, with some footnotes on the premieres and a few revivals
of particular interest. All programs are at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted.
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Fall 1981
Oct. 2, 12:10 p.m., Taft Theater, Brown Bag Ballet.
March 12, 12:10 p.m., Brown Bag Ballet.
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by James Chute, staff reporter
For the past six seasons, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra has provided musicians for the Nutcracker
performances. This year, the CSO was replaced by the ballet's own orchestra, a collection of local free-lance
musicians, some CCM faculty and students, and local professionals who do not play with the CSO.
"Our reasons were purely financial," said CBC General Manager James Edgy. "We had to decide: is It better
to have a really fine orchestra, the CSO, and not pay our dancers what they deserve? Or, as a dance
company, is our first commitment to dance and our second to music? We decided dance had to be our first priority."
The ballet's cost for using the CSO for the Nutcracker would have been in the $50,000 to $55,000 range, depending
on the number of rehearsals and overtime, according to Edgy. Using local free-lance musicians, he said, cut the
cost by half to the $25,000 to $30,000 range.
The decision of the ballet has generated strong repercussions in the arts community. Ironically, the financial
bind in which the ballet finds itself was created in part by the Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts' decision not
to increase the ballet's Fine Arts Fund allocation in 1980. Six of the other eight member organizations - including
the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, which is in fact owned by the institute - were given increases in funding.
"The CSO assures its 90-plus orchestra members full-time employment all year. Losing a week of services
provided by the Nutcracker put the CSO in the tenuous position of finding another week of work for its
musicians. Although CSO management still hopes to find the extra week of work, orchestra members were
given an early week of vacation during the time they would normally spend playing the Nutcracker.
If CSO General Manager Steve Monder is unable to make up the week in the spring, the Institute of Fine Arts
could find itself having to make up the deficit that a week of unemployment for the CSO is certain to create.
Monder and Institute of Fine Arts President Paul Sittenfeld are also concerned that the ballet's experiment
may set a precedent. If the CSO does not return to the Nutcracker next year, and if other organizations
- like the Cincinnati Opera or the May Festival, which also contract with the CSO for musicians - decide
to employ free-lance musicians the effect on the CSO could be disastrous.
Because of the six weeks of work it provides for the CSO, the opera would have the largest financial
incentive to examine other alternatives. Opera General Director James DeBlasis said he has no inclination
to drop the CSO, although he uses an orchestra similar to the ballet orchestra for performances beyond the
six weeks allotted to the CSO.
Monder and Sittenfeld argue that, as the major cultural Institution in Cincinnati, the well-being of the CSO
is essential for the well-being of Cincinnati's other cultural institutions - a philosophy that what's good for the
CSO is good for Cincinnati.
Both the CSO amd the institute also argue that the CSO has Cincinnati's finest musicians. Their view is that the CSO is the major league orchestra here and that any orchestra put together with other local musicians is "minor-league."
The cost of the CSO is obviously major league. But is the artistic product produced by the CSO in concerts outside its regular subscription season $25,000 a week better than the product produced by the ballet's own free-lance orchestra?
The answer is no.
Tuesday night at Music Hall, even with the illness of ballet Music Director Carmon DeLeone and the
midday substitution of Gerald Doan, a CCM music education faculty member whose only other local
conducting responsibilities are the Cincinnati Junior Strings, the ballet orchestra sounded thoroughly
professional, with only a few minor exceptions.
This was not a student orchestra but a collectionn of gifted professionals. And some of them will soon
be playing with orchestras of CSO stature.
The CSO does have the top-ranking musicians in Cincinnati. But some of them don't play
nonsubscription concerts anyway. Many of the principal players - the orchestra's top performers - have
vacation options they can exercise during the summer or the holidays. Without these players, the
differences between the CSO and the ballet orchestra become blurred.
The half-orchestra the CSO provides for the Cincinnati Opera season is far inferior to the first class - and
at times exceptional - musical product of the CSO during its regular subscription season. But the opera
does not receive a discount rate because it is not getting the best the CSO has to offer. Whether the
orchestra the CSO would have fielded for the ballet would have been better - or how much better - is
unknown.
Robert Zierolf, who contracts the ballet orchestra, has no desire to put together an organization,
a second orchestra in Cincinnati. "I'm not trying to build an orchestra to compete with the CSO.
And why would I want to?" said Zierolf, who often performs with the CSO as an extra tuba player.
"We can, however, put together a very fine group of musicians who are highly motivated and want
to perform. I believe the difference between the musicians who play for the ballet and the CSO is attitude."
Edgy said he would like to use the CSO in future Nutcracker performances if It becomes financially feasible."
The institute, according to Sittenfeld, is working on a "fair and equitable" plan through which it might
make up the difference between what is charged by the CSO and what can be paid by organizations
like the ballet and the opera.
Still, the best way the CSO can be assured of maintaining or even expanding its role with the ballet
and the opera is to develop and maintain superior quality. If the CSO cannot field a team of musicians
for the Music Hall pit who can produce an artistic product noticeably better than a group of local free-lance
musicians, why should local arts organizations pay thousands of dollars more for the honor of having
the CSO at their performances?
In effect, unless the CSO can produce an orchestra of exceptional quality, paying higher price for the
CSO is like making a donation to the orchestra rather than paying for services rendered. Asking other
arts organizations to make donations to the CSO in financially troubled time seems like bad business
sense at best. At worst, it is fiscal suicide for the other institutions.
Cincinnati Post
December 27, 1980
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By Jack Anderson
The program at Brooklyn College's Whitman Hall, which featured two older works and a pleasant recent piece, also included the New York debut of Mikhail Messerer, a defector from the Bolshoi Ballet, who partnered Patricia Rozow, one of the Cincinnati dancers, in the "Sleeping Beauty" pas de deux. Yet that event was not as glamorous as it promised to be. Earlier in the week, Mr. Messerer injured himself Believing that the show must go on, he appeared nonetheless and in an untraditional solo variation, he even attempted some tricks, but succeeded only in looking strained. Whereas Miss Rozow was gracious and well-schooled throughout, the pas de deux still remained essentially an example of fortitude amidst adversity.
Yet the company, directed by David McLain, had much to offer, and the evening's highlight was a revival of "Frankie and Johnny." Collaboratively choreographed by Ruth Page and Bentley Stone in Chicago in 1938, this romp became popular when it was revived by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1945. As staged for the Cincinnati Ballet by Frederic Franklin, who danced Johnny with the Ballet Russe, it may well become popular again.
A danced version of the old song about how Frankie loved Johnny, "but he done her wrong," the ballet is filled with jokes that are slightly spicy, yet never too naughty. Typically, some shady ladies indicate that they do more than serve tea to gentlemen callers by lowering their window blinds at strategic moments. And although three Salvation Army musicians mime that they are singing the ballad as a warning to sinners, once they finish sermonizing, they irreverently refresh themselves by swigging beer.
Just as Jerome Moross's score incorporates ragtime rhythms, so the ballet contains music-hall strutting, stomping and high kicks and the hectic pace makes it a choreographic cartoon. Many scenes are amusingly flamboyant. Thus part of an acrobatic duet occurs on a banister and pallbearers at a funeral do a tap dance as they carry in the coffin.
Some incidents could even be balletic in-jokes. When Frankie learns that Johnny is unfaithful, her ravings may parody "Giselle's" mad scene, and when the wounded Johnny tumbles downstairs to land on his head, his melodramatic agonies mock the mayhem of "Scheherazade."
As Frankie, Cynthia Ann Roses was a sex kitten who turned into a tigress. Roman Jasinski swaggered as Johnny; Christina Foisie was a coquettish Nellie Bly; Ian Barrett, an oafish bartender, and everyone danced with obvious relish.
Another interesting revival was "The Still Point," the vignette to Debussy that Todd Bolender created in 1955 for a modem-dance group and which the New York City Ballet produced in a balletic version a year later. Concerning a young woman who considers herself a misfit until someone falls in love with her, it is a sweet work weakened by two flaws. Just why the heroine feels rejected is never clear. And when a man does appear from nowhere, he too conveniently falls in love with her at first sight.
Thanks to a sensitive production, "The Still Point" was absorbing, nevertheless. Mr. Barrett was dignified as the young man and Colleen Giesting's dramatic nuances helped make the staging truly poignant. Extending an arm, she appeared to reach desperately into nothingness. And she shrank into herself when she discovered that no one was out there. Yet when Mr. Barrett touched her, her immediate response was to recoil in disbelief. Later, she tried to push him away. But her body visibly softened as she realized that he loved her.
A production of Daniel Levans's "Concert Waltzes" indicated an interest in young choreographers, as well as old ballets. "Concert Waltzes," which has been danced here by American Ballet Theater and U.S. Terpsichore, received a neat performance, although the men were not as buoyant as they might have been. Yet the women, led by Miss Roses and Miss Foisie, were appropriately airy, and the Cincinnati Ballet, as a company, proved a welcome visitor.
The New York Times
October 21, 1980
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By David Handler
NEW YORK - New York's dance snobs are quick to say the nicest things about America's regional ballet companies. "You're keeping ballet alive. kids," they say: "Good hustle." But they're even quicker to point out that if you want to see "real" dance you simply must come to New York.
Saturday night the tables got turned. New York came to see Cincinnati, and found out ballet isn't just alive "out there," It's doing very well, thank you.
This was the Cincinnati Ballet Company's New York debut. (editor's note: The actual New York debut was August 8, 1975) The CBC launched a "Tribute to American Dance" series at the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College, and it left a lasting impression above and beyond the evening's considerable highlights.
The most newsworthy highpoint was the appearance of guest artist Mikhail Messerer, the recently defected Bolshoi Ballet star, to dance the "Grand Pas De Deux" from "The Sleeping Beauty," with the CBC's Patricia Rozow. The Russian, who was making his own New York debut, turned an ankle two weeks ago at a rehearsal in Cincinnati, and wasn't expected to perform. But no injury, apparently, be as painful as missing the chance to dance before the New York critics.
For contemporary ballet fans. the evening's climax was "Frankie and Johnny," Ruth Page and Bentley Storie's 1938 classic of. eroticism and knockabout comedy that hasn't been danced here, for 10 years.
But the strongest Impression New Yorkers came away with Saturday night was that they saw a fully professional ballet company that displayed poise, grace and strong technique while tackling a program of tremendous range. The Cincinnati Ballet Company is darned good. You would have been proud.
It was fortunate indeed that the evening opened with "Concert Waltzes" choreographed by Daniel Levans and staged by the CBC last year. This splendid showcase, danced to the soothing strains of Alexander Glasounov, proved to be the perfect antidote to the fierce tropical thundershowers that had drenched and enraged the packed house, of 2400 New Yorkers. The piece featured Cynthia Ann Roses. Ian Barrett and Christina Foisie. Miss Roses and Miss Foisie received bouquets to a hearty ovation.
After an intermission, the company moved into Todd Bolender's "The Still Point," danced to the first three movements of Claude Debussy's haunting Stringed Quartet, "Opus 10," This emotionally charged encounter swings from a disturbing evocation of loneliness to the sweet sensuality of fulfillment. The fine choreography was perfectly executed, and enhanced by some nice lighting flourishes by Pat Simmons. The Still Point proved to be the evening's most interesting dance. Another good choice, and very well received.
Then It was on to the "Grand Pas De Deux." There is no doubting that Messerer is a brave performer, for he must have been in pain. He is also nimble and dazzling. His breathtaking leaps and turns earned- nonstop applause from the audience.
He did, however, favor the bad ankle when called upon to support Miss Rozow, which detracted slightly from their work together. Miss Rozow more than held her own with the Russian. A delightful, accomplished and very lovely performer, she
has move star quality than the audience expected to see. She captivated the crowd, and earned a loud and much deserved ovation - equal to that received by Messerer.
After another intermission the company performed "Frankie and Johnny" with uncommon skill. Under the guidance of Frederick Franklin, the intricate staging of this high comedy wasexecuted to perfection. The audience loved it. "Frankie and Johnny" touched off a scandal when it premiered in Chicago 42 years ago, and though some of its dances remain very suggestive, the clear emphasis of Franklin's' staging is on laughs. This was a fine vehicle for the company, with superb scenery provided by Clive Rickabaugh and costumes by Paul du Pont. Cynthia Ann Roses, who had quite an evening's work for herself, stood out as "Frankie." The audience rewarded her with a giant roar peppered with bravos.
The CBC, which repeated its performance Sunday afternoon, paves the way for a number of regional companies invited to show their stuff in New York this season. The Brooklyn Center will also feature ballet companies from Oakland and Atlanta. Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Academy of Music has invited companies from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Houston, as well as the Ohio Ballet and Pennsylvania Ballet.
The Idea is to see what's happening outside of New York. Plenty is happening in Cincinnati.
New York Post
October 18, 1980
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By Janet Light
"Ballet's great asset is that it can heighten beyond words certain situations and give a kind of poetic evocation.
Todd Bolender's "The Still Point," premiering Thursday on the Cincinnati
Ballet Company's (CBC), season opener at the Palace Theater (Along with
"Frankie and Johnny" and special guest artist Mikhail Messerer),
probably fulfills that challenge. In the New York City Ballet (NYCB)
production, with the, dynamic ballerina, Melissa Hayden, as its anguished
heroine, The Still Point" scored an immediate success.
To one critic the work was about a young girl seeking fulfillment in romantic love. To another it spoke of the uncertainties of adolescence and the agonies of growing up. Whatever the individual interpretation the ballet's poignancy touched many people.
In an interview at CBC studio, Bolender, a former NYCB principal dancer, described the work as "about maturing, about relationships between men and women, and about certain pressures in society. Its cast of six is deliberately small.
Two people beginning to relate to each other don't need a lot of other people around. You could even think of it in terms of the old adage, ‘two's company and three is a crowd'"
Although the title is taken from T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets" the inspiration for "The Still Point" was its score: the Debussy Quartets.
I knew the music quality required some kind of tension in the movement. The story evolved from
that, employing a minimum of gesture and mime. George Balanchine always says you simply bring man and woman on a stage and you have a drama. The drama happens from the relationships of bodies moving in space.
"Originally I was going to call the ballet 'Quartet' or 'Opus 10,' after the music but that seemed boring and sometimes audiences welcome a little help. I came across that section in Eliot ('at the still point of the turning world...' and I thought, 'what a fantastic point of view.'
In science you see, it's also true that the center of tremendous force and speed is always the quietest place. In the dance, all this energy has been expended and it ends in quiet. And it's only a beginning."
Bolender did not discuss the story with the CBC cast and, in one rehearsal he quietly cautioned them, "don't get dramatic on me.
"One of the battles on has with performers generally," he explained, is that when you talk about
dramatics you usually get a superficial reaction. I start with the steps, then add the energy. It's how the dancers connect those dynamic tensions and transitions between steps that makes for expression. If I say it's a story I'm going to get a lot of phony emotions.
has known both sides of the choreographic process well. In the 1940s and 1950s Balanchine set
some memorable roles for Bolender, notably the phlegmatic variation in "Four Temperaments" and Sara Leland in "Agon." He was an audience favorite in Jerome Robbins' ballets several of which provided the comic roles at which he particularly excelled. Bolender's hilarious performances as the bored husband in "The Concert" and the pompous Percussion Leader in "Fanfare" are practically classics.
While Bolender's own choreographic efforts have traced the diverse worlds of Ravel's "Mother Goose Suite" and Bartok's "The Miraculous Mandarin," one of his most successful works "'Souvenirs," also employed his comic gifts in its' recreation of an antic romp in a stylized old-movie vein. Comedy, believes Bolender, is one of the most difficult forms of theater.
"You, must have an instantly recognizable situation. All of humor's unconscious associations - hostility, revenge, frustration, among others - must fall right, or the audience doesn't respond.
Why is slapstick funny? Why is the third time, you see someone knocked, down funnier than the first? because we've can all identify with the position of getting knocked down by life.
"Then there's surprise," he said, referring to the sight gags, and exaggerated situations of 'silent
movies and the Italian commedia dell'arte tradition, "the unexpected solution to a situation the audience thinks it has already solved. In America the stand-up comic ruined physical humor. It's sad. For me, intellectual humor is much less rich."
In the 1960s Bolender worked abroad. In Turkey's State Theater and as Director of Ballet in the Cologne and Frankfort opera houses. His stagings of American musicals met with success. But
"fighting the civil servant mentality" proved frustrating. "You had to teach them that ballet wasn't cabaret act, that it is an art." Bolender can tell hair-raising stories of stagehands belching loudly during performances from too much beer, or making lewd noises at the sleekly clad dancers on stage. Then there was the carpeted rehearsal room. "They thought dancers should be noiseless!"
Bolender has recently worked as a free-lance choreographer and will soon become director of the Kansas City Ballet. Returning to America makes one realize how high American standards are, he said.
Here companies must still produce and exist on their merits. I think that's healthy. And audiences aren't so dumb, you know. They dig what's good pretty fast."
Cincinnati Enquirer Dance Critic
October 10, 1980
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By Jerry Stein
At the beginning of Wednesday's press conference at theTerrace Hilton with
Mikhail Messerer, 29, and his mother, former prima ballerina and now teacher
Sulamith-Messerer, Lorrence Kellar, president of Cincinnati Ballet Co.told the
press the Messerers would take no questions about "Soviet internal politics."
Mikhail and his mama had defected to the U.S. last Feb. 6 while on tour with the
Bolshoi in Japan. They are in town for Mikhail's American debut with the CBC at
the Palace Theater Oct, 9-11.
While Moscow and Washington don't get any closer with such cross-overs,
tis mother and son did. As it turns out apparently one of the over-riding reasons for
the defection was so that mother and offspring could spend more time with each
other.
"I did not work (study) with my mother while we were in Russia," said Mr,
Messerer whose slightness of, body, and ascetic looks gives him a more studious
image than the sensuality of his brother defectors Baryshnikov and Nureyev. "She
was an ambassador for Russian culture and traveled all over the world "We did not
see each other.Yes. It was one reason for. my defection."
The CBC's snagging of Mikhail Messerer is considered quite a double coup In the dance world.
Not only will Mr. Messerer make his debut in Cincinnati but the CBC will be along at Brooklyn College October
18-19 when the dancer makes his New York debut. Gazing out from over-sized rose-colored
sunglasses Mr. Messerer was quite simplistic about how be came to consider bowing with the CBC in
the grand pas de deux from "The Sleeping Beauty." "Clncinnati asked me to do it. And I was
waiting for a good job.
A good job with the American Ballet Theater in New York fell through last May. I had signed for my services
(with ABT). However the management canceled the perfonnance without explanation.
I don't know why. I was supposed to dance the pas de deux from "Giselle."
The talk was that ABT backed off on Messerer after members of the company complained about the high
salaries guest dancers were scheduled to receive The company was having union problems at the time.
Mr. Messerer was all praise for American dance. "I don't think there is much difference between
American and Russian," he said. And there were good words for his partner in Cincinnati,
CBC's senlor ballerina Patricia Rozow. "She is absolutely a beautiful ballerina ... very professional
and experienced."
Post Staff Reporter
October, 1980
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by Jerry Stein, theater and dance critic
There are many choreographic designs that transcend their musical accompaniment brilliantly. But
perhaps the true art in dance is the complete wedding of sound and movement. Franklin has
accomplished this feat with his choreography set, to Cesar Franck's "Symphonic Variations."
Ostensibly "Tribute" is Franklin's. tribute to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo for which he was once
principal dancer and later ballet master. As a result, you might expect charming, nostalgic references
to the Monte Carlo formal classic style."
And Franklin does make quaint statements in the work. For instance, the use of posed dancers to
"decorate the variations of the six dancers involved. But Tribute isn't just a tribute.
There's something more than a recreation of the old Russian classicism in this work. Franklin has
also blended faster movements in his work reminiscent of Balanchine's ballets (formally called
neo-classic in style).
In "Tribute" there is enormous interweaving of what is almost frenzied lifts and spins flowing into
outstanding pirouttes from Patricia Rozow, Colleen Giesting and Pamela Willingham. But the energy
often dissolves into deep reflectiveness as the women return to their partners John Ashton, Kevin Ward
and Thomas Hanner for many lyrical pas de deux.
The shifting musical moods could not have been more beautifully interpreted than in the playing of
pianist Jeanne Kirstein - it was like listening to rippling water in a brook.
The final touch was Ann Firestone's use of soft grays, in the women's skirts and the men's
balloon-sleeved shirts. The costuming gives the appearance of a sextet of romantic shadows.
Lovely all around.
Opening the program was another pleasing sight — Balanchine's "Serenade" titled after
Tchaikovsky's "Serenade for Strings" that mixes waltzs and a majestic adagio theme.
This work may be the first ballet Balanchine ever staged in America — it has references to studio
workouts with its clean, precision movements for the corps de ballet. And the CBC corps was in
an exacting mood for it.
However, even in this '30s work Balanchine interjects romantic passages that allow us to make up
stories of love affairs among the dancers, even though the work is plotless. In the finale, a trio of
dancers is involved in a dreamlike passage. It all ends with a female dancer being carried off by male
dancers in a majestic procession.
This fall. concert series to be repeated tonight and Saturday also includes a guest appearance by the
Dayton Ballet Company's DeAnn Duteil. and Ron Hollenkamp in "Wingborne."
Loyce Houlton's work, using Anton Dvorak's "Waldersruhe," is danced in bare feet a la modern
style. But despite much sweeping to the floor and Ms. Duteil's sinewy, contortions about Hollenkamp's
body, choreographer Houlton incorporates classical passages complete with arabesques and pirouettes.
The evening ends on a fantasy note — choreograher Nelle Fisher's wry rendering of "Peter and the Wolf."
The narrator for the Prokofiev piece is Nick Clooney who had the good sense to back away from the
lecturn when the wolf (Kevin Ward) came too close.
The Cincinnati Post
December 1, 1978
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