The Performers; 2; The Music Came First

and i think personally i didn't do it practicing and so i didn't continue his studies done what i always loved music and i didn't stay on the boat and felt like to not have to make a graceful and i had a very active and it's in toronto and i was one the music came first i'm omar sharply with a conversation with melissa hayden and this is the performer joe farmers says concerned with the

act of performance soon by the performance of the audience and those of the elderly i need melissa haven as one of the most distinguished ballerinas now working in the united states he was born in canada raised to detention with a ballet theatre and is now a principal dancer with george balanchine's york city ballet in the west side apartment overlooking central park i mentioned you're the ballet with its connotations of romanticism and entrenched aristocracy appeared to many people as something of an anachronism first of our ballet as you've mentioned it has it didn't belong to the aristocracy it was sound that started in the court of the louis you know the fourteenth actually and that since then through the years it's had its high moments and it's the moments in different countries i think for us in

america now it's at its peak or where we are now we have a great there is such a great doubt interest in the in ballet today that it can they can become a household world word rather than belonging to the young people i mean also to people who have found perhaps have not even heard a symphony orchestra so that town you have a development in both ways people become interested in music invariably become interested in the ballet i don't think that one really becomes interested in the ballet it's just for what you see on stage because ballet doesn't bother music and it does effect on whether you like to hear what you are thinking this is a well known matter of emphasis in the new york city ballet music is by reputation in essence of considerably more importance than it is in many of the ballet company well i think

no one has to think of his to balanchine when they're making that statement because as a choreographer he is primarily ii a musical choreographer and this stance being that he will not use his talents are basically doesn't excite him to use my music and of importance la is quite famous ballets this was of which had never been particularly distinguished a purely musical something like to sell the akp i done music of course but then again i just since the ballet so perfectly and it is the dayton ballet that i'm talking about contemporary ballet taliban is that created today i wonder is more aware of the importance of music with dance you have in the modern dance as well oh you had martha graham she usually has the piece is written for her especially composed pieces so that there is a perfect wedding of the two creative forces in the senate's balance you know we do not have the opportunity in the

company to have that much music commissioned but we have i have of course stravinsky has worked very closely with balanchine and just recently or not too long ago recently i mean about four years ago we had this stunt japanese composer young man who was commissioned to do a piece for the company and the ballet it is build that end they're having returned from a most successful european tour recently it happened to be one of them out of favor ballets see you see with something done but they created today both musically and quite graphically usually it's a big success in the past that they somehow is essentially to work legendary martha graham and so the context for this and so a lot of england's the principal conductor of the university the whale south very closely

connected with her company and that goes back about three or four years he's only been with us about seven years in this country conducting for the new york city ballet but he has during the seasons when he's been they work with martha graham is leading to is a few years ago it would have seen what i think you will too speaking of classical ballet martha graham mr morrow it seems this distinction is as being taken much more seriously because you think this is true and do you think there's some sort of significance well of course when she does one can say that mark graham is a creator of today so was jerry robbins so as agnes de now solis balanchine golden happen when create has decreed they have to create a today and they are inspired they are exposed to the same things they are exposed to musically the same things as easily the same things consequently there must be that i

am i mean where will that that's what i was trying to get out of my initial question lately question of the immediacy of the ballet experience of formal performance and audience today at a forum which has been frequently considered a debated formed by a number of people was a romantic forming a form which which springs out of social conditions that no longer exists and is it possible for such a form to get a kind of spontaneity it repeatedly conditions on to that yes of course is tomorrow she's always doing that he's in most classical choreographer he was schooled in russia at the leningrad school and his what he teaches us as a company basically a very classic steps this is our basic training so we train this way we can do anything because it is so highly specialized training in such muscle development that when he works with modern music modern

music i mean music of their parents or our hiddenness or stravinsky you have to take the essence of the music and then create a new movement to this kind of music because it's not outside it's not handle any has created music of notes out in hand and is purely classes within the framework of the music and the dance is to classical and baroque music also taking bets again make you know radio still and don't you know they don't agree with me right that's true says most effective that's not a gimmick it's most effective and that this will be considered but for some reason the work of the modern dance world say oh the ballet theater music by stravinsky though will be considered for some reason a ballad tradition

tradition now i i disagree well i i don't i don't quite understand as an example may i i can only cite examples we have a ballet that was commissioned in nineteen forty two excuse me in nineteen fifty seven stravinsky wrote the music and used to balancing created this modest palisades minus because it's it's accepted all over the world as an artist that this is that i'm not i'm getting to now artist you have to say is the modern ballet and modern classic ballet that you calling your classic ballet basically again we are dressed in pointe shoes and tights and have the simplest of costumes as perhaps the mind and said we'll use that ignorance also created that in a sense they bring out the music you can call this just modern modern what is modern ballet i mean it is based on the classic form and yet

comparing this ballet tag on to something like the rain wonder we have the music but a person with pink king candy box to choose that said that they had the physical construction of the combinations have to be different because of the music and then you would say this is a classical ballet i mean aig david montero is a classical ballet based on possible suspects and ron is a mood you can call it modern well i wouldn't call it minor its annual classic it's from the classic it's a new farm it's a pure form in other words the modern ballet as its modern in the sense of engagement with with the time so to speak but does come directly out of the gospel tradition as opposed to something by rabbi michael grimm for instance which may come out of a much newer traditions largely created by himself has manifestly had this is the main difference yes of course i've never worked with modern

with martha graham i had been a great admirer her of hers for years and often see her company when they perform for me as a classic answer i think it's fabulous to see the way those bodies knew i would love to do that and when i am involved in the kind of odd in the neo classic works that mr bouncing creates i often think of my initial experience with that we're watching martha graham's company and it's inspiring at least i have a different feeling about settling in that particular way i'm right is one of the main differences and movement here that have been in the middle of the body very rarely moves as the trunk as newspapers in the modern there's a great deal of the movement comes exactly from that i as i said it will not discuss her mind by big money and that's not modern ballet modern dance or the i have never studied it

i haven't watched it i know from my training i'm basically one is supposed to keep the trunk of the body very still and very quiet and the limbs work from that and that's where i have been told in this way you get a great deal of strength and you get a great facility very high you get up on one's points you get up on your points you can shout across the stage very quickly an agenda set pattern that is given to you that on that's all i can speak about it just for my own prison experience that moving at the trial where are there are there are we called the positions of the shoulder in the upper part of the body at home all that different positions of the body it's not finance the army and so this payout impulse that modern dancers get with that they use with hat contractions that is exactly i didn't want to feel that something that we do not utilize i mean it is not hot the choreography i think think of someone showed me how to do it i believe i

would understand wow how i could pop act how i could do it because i would have a controlling my body had a very strong body and the training i have a nice thing was ballet dancers could do that it really shows how tom selders that these really are in spite of the data that the borrowing from one to the other that has been increasing these really do remain distinct forms basic training yes well of course we never wear slippers which is another thing when he starred as youngsters go through a soft ballet slipper they were going around barefoot and i love watching the utilization of delays and the way we actually we then graduated to point shoes no they're not people have a yeah i have the idea that we are supported by these toe shoes i happen to have one of the mighty spirit of shoes i've seen around it it's just a little piece of leather on the outside minute piece than synthetic paper is that in a cardboard or let it made up inside and it's just all satin with candice little bit of glue here and

there and that's it and i really stand up on my own clothes by this little bit of support and only because i have strengthened my body and my legs and we'll talk a little about your own career and howl is sticking to be a visit to look to but although ballet is how the united states the emergence of permanent established companies and countries is a fairly recent development only because i think i know exactly when this interesting about it again i've often thought for myself that possibly with it sounds corny but it's possibly the showing of the red shoes you remember i think there's no way exciting young people so that when they were sent to school or whether a ballet company came to a particular city or town they wanted to go and see it to parents had to accompany them and in this way about eight inches to his eye was

stimulated wasn't television there you get verizon's not been signed and satisfying to watch ballet on television i've watched myself in three runs and it's who i said they said an expulsion order to apply to any other way ways would never see you on the other hand we have during i'd say fifteen years ago they were a number of large companies that traveled america now we have people from abroad the kirov company the bolshoi company sponsored by <unk> it causes is also possible because they are government sponsored as a cudgel exchange which started years back and again these people in different cities and towns can see these companies a great deal of his stimulation has been brought about by the ford foundation survey and establishing radio's regional ballet company so that with the realization that america is so large that we have about five or six years the

reason the companies that have been now given grants to buy the ford foundation left office has been come about that the interest of the people themselves and also the development of the talents you see now people aren't really afraid you know he didn't have a six year old or seven year old used to be sent to ballet school to have graced now when baron can go to a school and then even perform professionally in the city when there's this interest and eighty and support from the community as well well i'm actually at an island cow it and i don't know i see as i said music came first i mention is a kingdom come would come first with an audience because i came first that may eisen that music when i was very honest and i think possibly i didn't like practicing and so i didn't continue with the studies

that cannot but i always loved music and i didn't start until i was about twelve years old and convinced my parents that i would like to dance not professionally but just as a to make a graceful and i had i was very active physically i was on the swimming team i swam when i was very young and an accommodation going to school a column and swimming and dancing my two or three lessons a week and was very happy then all of a sudden i saw the regional lines to mount carmel in toronto and i was like no that was my little secret i never told my mother off on a vision about i guess it but then i when i graduated from school and i graduated that the young i did get a position in an office we're saved my own money and i convinced my parents and that recounts we are about three months to study and the money ran out after three months but by that time i had a job so that i never did have to go home other than a vacation and i

was very fortunate i get i guess i'm never ever really being had ever having been out of toronto canada based at here was that scared me that you just getting made when you end up with a million dollars it's amazing i'm an assistant at one of the schools there i was invited into ballet theater for the tuna have here is lucia chase had trouble at the company and had to close it for awhile and i went to south america with police alonso who is ballerina of that company for years when i was invited to join the new york city yes yes yes of plants we had one performance the next six days we had a curfew and when the line out on the streets after six at six in the

evening and jam packed at about noon it was getting it is that right oh not only that i was so a lot of times i didn't have money then daly when hayden sometimes reluctant hotel rooms studio and sometimes winter not allowed in the dining room but the officer lives very well and coming back to new york in nineteen i remember the date on never forget it was a long history a form when its eyes and i don't know there's a before the jet age and that i sat in that plane for ever it seemed it seemed like it took more than twenty four hours to come up for months when his eyes to new york and when i arrived here i thought of his shia heaven he was up till the eighteenth

nineteen forty nine the only way that america or windy or less a week you were jubilant ocean from villages yes well you wonder how back in nineteen forty eight he was invited by lucia chase to do a ballet scene variations and down he remembered man soloist in the company and apparently he was rather taken away from ibm the way appeared in rehearsals and also on stage and during that time my stay in south america uneasy alonzo invited nicholas model honest to the dance with new york city ballet to dance with her company for a couple of months at that time i had only next nikki i didn't know him at all i'm just knew of him and after two months being with eighties his company he casually mentioned that ballet society was forming a

professional company that was the name of the new york city ballet before it was officially known as new york city ballet society and i think all that would be very nice i think that would be mothers working with balanchine but anyway i am committed to lucia chase with ballet theatre and maybe sometime i will you know come back and perhaps i will work with the new york city ballet anything think very undecided because i was with that so i was so it was without a thin and i wanted to come back to the company i love the company of heads at a modest that and when the year was out all the sudden i decided i didn't want to go back to la feria no one of those things and i thought why shouldn't i join a company that's starting to french because that is the balancing of the head i think why not you know why not take a chance and i did when i

came back to new york and just bouncing invited me and sent me my ticket when the size and invited me up to new york to be part of the new york city ballet and never forget this because that is to chase then called means no i hear your home and diane and then she said well you know we're following the company would you love to be you know would you like to rejoin the company and i said wow that's a decision for meat and they say you have so many things are offering me and balanchine you know i don't know what i will do in the company that you know i think i would like very much to stay with mr balanchine and i've never really changed my mind in all these years earlier form of years ago it was the culmination of a great confusion for me there was great confusion first my first season with the company with a three week season and we were very poor company i remember mr bill dollar million dollar was doing a ballet and ballet called unclean it was not a

very successful ballet i happen to be in the ballet and there were no costumes they went into it i remember somebody standing around and my costume was made from an old dress and then someone suggested they'd bison white sleigh and tina rose here in the district there and you know engages was makeshift when i say it was important to me and i think basically that's why so many of my ballets are around are just the way they are in the time well i think there's some guys i couldn't possibly see janis now in other than the leontyne barbara four temperaments you see that minus line of the body in the way the legs work from the mine it's in these baseline education of the legs among funny in the valley that can be done and the epa you're quite graphically weapon choreographer can do with race and you get excited isn't over the two that you thought that the present

state of bowing united states was the highest he's ever been but this is because of the because of the situation of the new york city ballet oh i think it's very responsible i think the company is very much responsible for this mostly acting as the balancing is very responsible for this leader's the desert lucky it's because of that we have a regional war that gave them at least various proof it's because again that we have a scholarship plan at the school so that children and added up to new york to study you must recall over the time of the ford foundation grant there was the news was not taken that classic calm and content people in the nfl other people needing other people who had companies and other people who've had schools and you know i just read those papers and read their comments that's all been aware that i'm stubborn but i believe

in what you know i really believe in in the ballad of the merger and the homes of one learn through this was true not so at all how can it be i mean he's so generously to these new companies that eric fong he gave his ballets i mean they didn't have a repertoire i mean to have the company must have a repertoire the need to have to have someone who creates new ballets and you must have talent to create a hop skip and jump around to music you know but is it something you cannot learn you must have the talent to choreograph and to create and there aren't that unfortunately there are not that many people and that's something that cannot be taught some people think they can be taught i know some very in a well some people who have spoken about this that they are going to have schools up for choreography you cannot really teach choreography it's you can teach era someone mathematics that's the

way you can teach choreography even put a wonky a together with another step and another step together with another step when you get a combination of steps and still it doesn't mean a thing you know that's not choreographing literally just grow out of our knowledge of the basics someone who is very intuitive someone's musical someone who well i don't know that many choreographer the people i do know i respect tremendously i can't imagine myself korea that i couldn't and yet i have worked with so many people well what we know about the future for the balloting americans is very wrong question about which a lot has been senate rejected and so you think that there's any danger in for instance in over planning in the performing arts in the amount of money that has become available in a number of these fields are there some artists i've heard expressed misgivings with the growth of all these

cultural centers and grants in one direction another direction than another direction that that it's all over the top heavy to rapidly you think this is possible whether is the problem about filling his bag cultural center you know you may be on the center and have all these gorgeous things but then of course you have to fill the center it will be better to leverage to encourage existing companies rather than two you know i think the fact that there is this civic interest in having these cultural centers it goes hand in hand with the development of a group in the certain vicinity and having a center because it then becomes had an incentive for these cultural groups to develop he's very well to sit or sit or stand in the studio and singing forever or practice your addiction forever or spend a dance studio you're dancing forever if there is no place to go i mean you must have an audience to applaud consequently the carter center's work very much in hand with big

development at a particular sin the different fields and i think these trends mr woods i don't think they're becoming overloaded how can you become overloaded happy new overloaded not as with money you get an honest the comfort of knowing they don't have to fight for their bread and butter thank you know working six hours a day as a i don't know what you do with the work of a cleric as a clerk in this shop and afterward some were creatively i mean and it takes so much energy out of a president you don't have to suffer that way maybe years ago you did but i don't think it's so necessary today you think the situation is improving music influence conversation with melissa haden i'm all my shampoo and this has been the performance reviews but w r v e r d fm station of the riverside church in new york city