The dance world lost a powerhouse when Fernando Bujones died at 50 last November.  At the time of his death, from cancer, he was artistic director of the Orlando Ballet but balletomanes around the world knew him best as an electrifying performer who over the course of a thirty–year career in the dance world took on the classic and most demanding lead roles with the world's greatest companies.  Among my treasured souvenirs are the programs saved from some those legendary performances with the American Ballet Theater.

            Bujones became a household name in 1974 as the first American male to win the International Ballet Competition in Varna, Bulgaria. He already had a fan base among patrons of the ABT, which he joined in 1972.  By ‘74, he was the youngest in the Company history to achieve Principle Dancer status. 

            Bujones could breezily execute those quick mid-air alternating movements of the feet as if he had all the time in the world.  And after a gravity-defying leap across the stage he would land as silently as a cheetah, with a flourish and a smile.

            Bujones was born in Miami, Florida, and received his early dance training in Havana, Cuba at the studio of prima ballerina Alicia Alonzo.  He retired from the stage in 1995. 

The Ballet Russes

            There is a scene in Ballets Russes, the documentary about the legendary dance company of the twentieth century, during which former dancers Nathalie Krassovska and George Zoritch -- well into their eighties – demonstrate a famous Pas de Deux that they performed together in their youth.  Krassovska is fully made-up; her eyes rimmed in black, her lids an electric blue, her raven hair pulled back in the ballerina’s characteristic bun. As Zoritch passes her from one arm to the other, she plays the coquette as she tilts her head and bats her eyes in the exaggerated mime of one playing to those in the far reaches of the balcony.  As octogenarians, Krassovksa and Zoritch can only manage to shuffle but they still move with obvious pleasure, in the movement and each other. Watching them, I’m reminded of David Lehman’s poem, January 31, (The Daily Mirror, (Scribner, 2000)) in which he observes a “thin old man swaddled in scarves,” who is walking slowly but “in his mind there is a young man dancing” and “he is that young man.”  

            The documentary is filled with poignant moments like this. The viewer is treated to a film clip of dancers in their prime followed by an interview with the dancer as he or she reflects upon the experience decades later. During these interviews, the surviving dancers – several of whom have since died – convey the Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney "let's put on a show" spirit of those early days, when the dancers worked hard and considered themselves lucky to get paid. 

            Ballet Russes arrived in movie theaters as if on cue to establish a context for the fall dance season.  The history of the original Ballet Russe and its two offspring is the history of modern dance and ballet.  It is naturally filled with the great rivalries, love affairs, outsized egos, successes, and failures that attend any period of creative foment.  The Russes not only engaged some of the greatest dancers and choreographers –  Fokine, Najinska, de Mille, and Balanchine – its sets were painted by Matisse, Utrillo, and Picasso, its music composed by Prokofiev, Debussy, Poulenc, Stravinsky. 

            The original company of exiled and impoverished Russian aristocracy was founded in Paris in 1909 by the impresario Serge Diaghilev.  In 1924 Diaghilev recruited choreographer George Balanchine who in turn recruited three ballerinas christened “the Baby Ballerinas” because they were elevated to star status while still in their early teens. After Diaghilev's death in 1929, the original Russe morphed into two rival companies.

            Many small towns in middle-America had their first experience of ballet when the

Ballet Russe, in one of its incarnations, rolled into town while on a grueling cross-country tour.  During one such tour, the company visited 110 cities in five months.  It was while on these tours that the company sometimes left behind dancers like angel dust who started companies of their own, or picked up dancers who showed promise despite the limitations of their provincial training.  The Russe acquired Prima Ballerina Maria Tallchief, who went on to shine in George Balanchine's New York City Ballet, in this manner.  In a twist on the immigrant story of the 20^th century, Californian Marc Platt had to “Russianize” his surname to Platoff in order to be accepted as a serious dancer with the Ballet Russe.  Among the more tragic stories is that of Raven Wilkinson who auditioned three times before being accepted into the troupe as the first black American to dance with a major company. The racism of the Deep South made it increasingly difficult for her to perform until finally she had to leave the company altogether.  Despite her great promise, her dance career never resumed on these shores.

            The documentary was occasioned by a reunion in June, 2000 of former Ballet Russes members.  Filmakers Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine recognized in these still vibrant and active former dancers a story demanding to be told.  While their film is enjoying success in independent theaters, it is likely to become a collectors’ item on DVD, once again bringing the magic of ballet to cities and countries around the world. 

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            If the American Ballet Theater’s summer season at the Metropolitan Opera House is filled with lavish productions of full-length “story” ballets like Giselle, Swan Lake, and Romeo and Juliet, its three-week fall season at City Center is when the company showcases the shorter less set-heavy works in its repertoire.  

            The three dances presented at the November 5 matinee couldn’t have been more different from each other.  Balanchine’s modern classic Apollo, the first of his ballets created for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe, opened the program, followed by Anthony Tudor’s Dark Elegies, a somber piece set to Gustav Mahler's Songs on the Death of Children depicting the people of a village mourning the loss of their children. The program closed with Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room, music by Philip Glass.

             In the Upper Room had its premiere in 1986 and has been a crowd pleaser ever since.  It falls on the continuum of Tharp pieces that explore the relationship between classical dance and modern.  Tharp's 1973 Deuce Coupe did this successfully – notwithstanding her use of real graffiti artists whose spray painting during the performance nearly asphyxiated the dancers – by having a lone ballerina, in tulle tutu, dance on pointe, oblivious to the casually clad dancers who boogied around her to Beach Boys surfer music.

              Ballet and modern dance take turns in an explosion of movement over the course of In the Upper Room’s nine movements.  It's like watching the "modern" team play the "classical" as groups of dancers – one in black running shoes, the other in red toe – exit and enter a smoky stage from all angles.  The "teams" join forces and attack their moves with an insatiable ferocity.  As the dancing picks up momentum over the course of the ballet's forty minutes, the dancers remove layers of costume.  By the breathless finale, the women have stripped down from the baggy black and white striped pajamas to red leotards; the men are bare-chested.  The impossibly long-limbed Gillian Murphy is especially charismatic; it's hard to watch anyone else when she's front and center.  The dancing is fast and the footwork demanding but the perpetual motion is sustained throughout by the indefatigable cast who seem to be engaged in one long sprint to the finish.  There is no discernible narrative; the ballet is more about the dramatic use of space, the effective mix of dance styles, and sustained energy.  Philip Glass’s music can be soporific (remember how it droned in the background of the movie "The Hours"?) but here, played at top volume, the electronic intensity fills the theater.  The music heightens the tension to the point that by the time the curtain falls on a light-washed stage filled with the full company it is almost unbearable. 

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            One of the benefits of working in the same place for many years is that you get to see your colleagues’ children grow up.  One minute they’re in diapers at the company picnic, the next they’re third-year scholarship students at the Julliard School of Music making their Carnegie Hall debut as part of a gifted string quartet.

            Gillian Gallagher is a violist with The Attacca Quartet an exuberant foursome that has entertained houses from Aspen, CO, to Washington, D.C., to Spoleto, Italy since it formed roughly two and half years ago.  

            It was a privilege to sit fifth row right in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall during a recent celebration of young artists and their mentors.  From that vantage point I could observe close-up the musicians' technical virtuosity and enjoyment in their work as they performed Beethoven’s String Quartet in F Minor.  It is the shortest of Beethoven’s quartets and one he never intended to be performed in public.  The final movement is remarkable, beginning slowly but ending with an unexpected and delightful flourish during which the musicians bow their instruments in unison and at great speed.  In the words of one young spectator, no doubt a classmate of the musicians, the performance was awesome!  Attacca Quartet Rocks!

 © Stacey Harwood 2005-2006

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