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La Sylphide: A Brief History

5/21/2015

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Marie Taglioni as the Sylph
I want to thank everyone who came out to the La Sylphide seminar this past Monday evening. It was, for me at least, a very interesting night. We did not get to cover everything I had intended, but I guess that’s just the way live debate goes. Many of you have emailed me questions and comments and I’d like to address some of those here. And for all my readers who were unable to attend, I’d like to share some of the things I learned—both in the process of rehearsing and performing the ballet, as well as in my research for the seminar—about this fascinating subject. It is a massive topic, so I will tackle it in two posts. This first post will cover the historical context of the ballet.

La Sylphide, I recently discovered, is the ballet that set in motion the stereotypical notion of the ballerina: pointe shoes, tutu, fairy dust.  It kicked off the fruitful Romantic Period in ballet and enabled such repertory stalwarts as Giselle and Swan Lake. With the invention of the pointe shoe, which was first used to great effect by Marie Taglioni at the premiere of La Sylphide in 1832, ballet blossomed into a form of allegorical poetry.  Despite the strict, hierarchical codification inherent in ballet from its basis in the royal courts, the pointe shoe managed to transform female dancers into


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Sylphide Seminar

5/18/2015

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Peter Martins coaches Sterling Hyltin and Joaquin De Luz in La Sylphide, photo by Paul Kolnik
For those of you in the NYC area who may be interested, I am moderating a discussion of August Bournonville’s La Sylphide at the David H. Koch Theater tonight at 6pm. Panelists include NYCB Artistic Director Peter Martins, Danish coach Petrusjka Broholm, dancers Sterling Hyltin, Georgina Pazcoguin, and Joaquin De Luz, designer Susan Tammany, and stage manager Marquerite Mehler. Very Excited! 

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Mark Morris/Milton Mania

5/14/2015

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William Blake "Milton's Mysterious Dream"
What a mess I’ve been! I emerged from our DC tour as one of the few dancers unscathed by the stomach virus only to succumb to a knock-down drag-out flu at the start of the season.  I have finally made it back to the stage, but it was a miserable start to the spring and I missed some great ballets.  Because of this I don’t have much Balanchine to report on, but oddly enough my temporary estrangement from the world of City Ballet coincided with a mini-immersion into the realm of Mark Morris. Right before I got sick I taught a private movement workshop at the Mark Morris studios, a few days later I went to see his company perform at BAM, and then last week I was finally able to watch the PBS broadcast of his masterpiece L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato while I was laid up on the couch.  I have always been a fan of his work, but this recent binge bordered on obsession!

The Mark Morris studios are beautiful: light and airy and unfussy—a fitting tribute to the Morris style. And I really enjoyed the BAM performance. I caught Jenn and Spencer and Spring, Spring, Spring—both from 2013.  I missed the opening piece on the program because I rehearsed La Sylphide until 7pm at Lincoln Center and couldn’t make to BAM by 7:30.  It’s always a gamble for us 


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    Faye Arthurs
    - Faye Arthurs

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