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Lincoln Center Festival
Ashton Celebration
July 6-17, 2004

Can This Choreographer Be Saved?

by Mary Cargill
copyright © 1995 by Mary Cargill
originally published in DanceView, Spring 1995

"Can This Choreographer Be Saved?" was not the title of the conference devoted to Sir Frederick Ashton held last November 12th and 13th at the Roehampton Institute in London ("Following Sir Fred’s Steps" was the official title), but that was the underlying theme. Certainly the worldwide gathering of 150+ critics, scholars, and other Ashtonians did not need to be convinced that his works should be preserved. But there were distressing signals that it may be too late for many of his ballets, and that the obvious vehicle for his choreography, the Royal Ballet, has yet to make a full-scale effort to preserve its Ashton heritage. The Royal Ballet did schedule an Ashton program to coincide with the conference (reviewed by David Vaughan elsewhere in this issue), but, as more than one speaker pointed out, many of the offerings were excerpted pas de deux, reducing his canvas and reinforcing the idea that Ashton was essentially a light and trivial choreographer.

The keynote address by the Ashton scholar David Vaughan clearly set the themes of the conference. Yes, there is an English style, established by Ashton, which is lyrical, precise, and refined, with a touch of flamboyance. This style came in part from his training by Massine, Marie Rambert, and Nijinska, with its Cecchetti foundation. Ashton himself felt that his ballets would not last, according to Vaughan, because they would be considered lightweight and passé. But, as Vaughan pointed out, a serious, gloomy, or modern subject does not automatically mean a profound ballet, and Ashton created major works of art which we should not lose. Vaughan feels that the Royal Ballet is neglecting the style and the repertoire. Cecchetti, a major component of the Ashton style, is being phased out of the Royal Ballet school, and since so few of his ballets are being performed, the dancers are forgetting how to dance them and certain vulgarities are creeping in.

The obvious challenge and hope of the conference was that the papers, discussions, and demonstrations would clarify our understanding of what made Ashton a great choreographer, what qualities an Ashton dancer needs, and how to revive and maintain his ballets. The sessions of the conference, many of which had to be scheduled simultaneously to fit everything into the weekend, fell into three areas: Ashton’s background, training, and influences; his creative process and the nature of his ballets; and the possibility of preserving and reviving his choreography. Obviously I could not attend all the sessions, and this is only a partial report. Fortunately, Dance Books is planning to publish the proceedings sometime this year.

The conference pointed out many tributaries to the Ashton stream, including his Peruvian childhood. The rhythms and color of South America and its popular dances contributed to the flamboyance, to use Vaughan’s term, of his choreography. Several speakers emphasized his use of popular dances, including jazz and tap, his early work in musicals, and his work with black dancers, notably his choreography for Gertrude Stein’s Four Saints in Three Acts.

Ashton received his technical training from Massine, Marie Rambert, and Nijinska. John Percival, publisher of Dance and Dancers and former ballet critic for the Times of London, stressed that Massine and Nijinska did much of their choreography for demi-caractére dancers, and noted the role of character dancers in many of his ballets.

But Ashton was first and foremost a classical choreographer. As a boy in Peru he saw Pavlova, a lifelong inspiration. "Move like Pavlova" was, according to many of the dancers on the panels, a frequent injunction. Her upper body flexibility and flow was something he never forgot. In fact, the key word of the conference would have to be "Bend!" Though he started his training comparatively late, he received a strong classical background. Jane Pritchard, the archivist of the Rambert Dance Company, discussed two letters written by Ashton to Marie Rambert when he was working with Nijinska in Ida Rubenstein’s company, and quoted him as saying "the best system of training is Cecchetti." Ms. Pritchard also said that Rambert adored Petipa and often used the variations from The Sleeping Beauty in her classes. Popular dances, demi-caractére style, Cecchetti classicism, and the ghost of Pavlova are all part of Ashton’s choreography.

Just how he went about creating his ballets was the topic of several panels. The dancers all stressed that he made them feel a part of the process. He would come to rehearsal knowing the effect he wanted, but the actual steps would not be worked out. He would ask the dancers to move in a certain way, to be a tree or a fountain or something, watch them, and refine and revise their steps. Beryl Grey said the dancers always felt they had helped choreograph their roles, but said that of course, it was really his eye, good taste, and sensitivity that made it work.

Antoinette Sibley said she especially admired Ashton’s sensitivity and discernment. He could see and bring out aspects of people they weren’t aware of—in her case, two such utterly different roles as Titania in The Dream and Dorabella in Engima Variations. Merle Park gave a fascinating impromptu demonstration of Ashton’s eclecticism when she demonstrated the elements of the Twist in her variation from the supremely classical Pas de Quatre Ashton made for the 1963 production of Swan Lake (unfortunately not performed in the Royal Ballet’s current production.)

Another aspect of his choreography frequently mentioned is its difficulty. Symphonic Variations, that most calm, serene, and peaceful of ballets, was, according to Monica Mason, a very strong technician, one of the hardest things she had ever done. Donald MacLeary, who rehearsed the current revival for the Royal Ballet, said the dancers are always shocked at how hard it is, and that they can never get through it on the first attempt. But the difficulty is never there for effect—the whole point is that the steps should flow and the dancing should look effortless.

Ashton’s understanding and feel for music was mentioned in several sessions. Philip Gammon, the chief pianist for the Royal Ballet who worked closely with Ashton, said that though Ashton could not read a score or play an instrument, he was the most musical choreographer he has ever known. Before beginning a ballet he saturated himself in the music, and unlike other choreographers Gammon worked with, understood the structure so well he neither wanted nor needed counts.

In addition to the technical details of Ashton’s creations, there were several discussions of the, for lack of a better word, intellectual aspects. James Neufeld, a professor of English literature from Canada, made the point that Ashton leaned more toward the abstract than the strictly narrative, but that he needed an outline of a narrative to frame abstract representations of human emotions. Professor Neufeld contrasted Ashton’s approach with a choreographer like John Cranko on the one hand, who tended to construct his narrative ballets in paragraphs, and with the more purely abstract choreographers like Balanchine on the other, whose ballets are often visible music. Ashton, Neufeld feels, falls in the middle, and a ballet such as Enigma Variations, for all its Edwardian trappings and defined characters, is an abstract, not a narrative ballet. The characters are dancing emotions, not telling a story. (Later in the conference, Sir Peter Wright said Engima was a ballet illustrating different kinds of friendship.) Neufeld admitted that the night before his talk was his first viewing of Symphonic Variations, which seemed to be a purely abstract work. His original thesis, however, was supported by Cynthia Harvey, the ABT ballerina who was attending the conference, when she said that Michael Somes began rehearsals for Symphonic Variations by explaining that the ballet was about friendship.

The all-important question of preserving and performing Ashton now was addressed in several panels and demonstrations. Sibley coached the two solos from Scènes de Ballet (according to several speakers Ashton’s favorite among his ballets), and with Anthony Dowell, the pas de deux from The Dream. These brief demonstrations emphasized the importance of the personal touch needed to ensure the little details and accents were there. ("More bend" was heard several times!) During the question and answer session someone asked Sibley how the current wave of super-high extensions is affecting the Ashton style. She replied that if the roles are danced properly the position of the upper body does not allow the leg to be lifted too high, and that the coaches make sure the bodies are properly aligned. ("Humph", someone behind me muttered, "who’s looking after Petipa?" But it was a rhetorical question.)

If and how the dances should change was not really discussed, but the issue was touched on in several panels. The dancers who had worked with Ashton all stressed that it was the overall effect he was after, and that he was willing to change choreography to suit the dancers he had. Alica Markova said the Debutant in Façade, created for Lydia Lopokova, had originally been danced as a complete innocent, but when Ashton redid it for her he changed the character entirely. David Wall mentioned that when he did The Dream, Ashton had no objection to him changing the left-handed turns originally done for Dowell. On the other hand, Leslie Collier said that Ashton, when rehearsing someone else’s choreography (she mentioned Les Sylphides) insisted that every detail be done exactly as he had learned it.

A less personal way of reviving Ashton was the topic of Shelley Berg and Jill Beck’s talk about reconstructing the 1933 ballet Les Masques, not seen for forty years, for their students at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. A nearly complete amateur film of it is available, as well as a dancer who had performed it. Les Masques is a 1930’s comedy of manners, set in an elegant black and white nightclub, originally danced by Ashton, Walter Gore, Markova, and Pearl Argyle. The most difficult aspect for the students, according to Berg and Beck, was to feel comfortable portraying a character. So much of the current dance training is physical that the theatrical dimension of creating characters is often neglected. They showed a videotape of a run-through in practice clothes, stressing that this was not the final version because there were still gaps in the choreography. However, Vaughan said the ballet looked very much as he remembered it. Though there are no plans as yet for professional performances, it seems ideal for a smaller ballet company.

A discussion of a full-scale Ashton revival closed the conference, with a gallant and obviously ailing Sir Peter Wright and several members of his Birmingham Royal Ballet (the former touring company of the Royal Ballet) who performed excerpts in costume (though without sets) of their recent production of Enigma Variations. Since it has been fairly frequently performed by the Covent Garden company (apparently not always successfully) the actual steps were not the problem. But the style and characterizations were, and it was obvious that a great deal of time, care, and devotion was given to the production. Wright discussed the thought behind the casting decisions, and the dancers discussed various aspects of preparing their roles, both physically and mentally. Many commented on the pure difficulty of dancing the steps; they also discussed the ways they went about feeling their way into the nineteenth century, which varied from reading biographies of Elgar to actually putting on the costumes. All spoke with great admiration for Somes’s devoted perfectionism in overseeing the final rehearsals. Unfortunately, he was too ill to attend the conference, and in fact died soon afterwards, so this revival was his final contribution.

The results, at least on a partial viewing, seemed extraordinary. I will never forget Svetlana Beriosova, that most lovely and gracious of dancers, as Lady Elgar, but, watching Sherilyn Kennedy, I did not miss her. And Kennedy, with Alan Dubriel as Nimrod and Desmond Kelly as Elgar, gave a wonderful warmth and sincerity to the Nimrod Variation.

This fitting finale to the conference showed that with care and effort even a ballet like Engima Variations, for so long the sole property of its original cast, can be successfully done. The Royal Ballet has the opportunity, in effect, to be a twentieth Century Royal Danish Ballet, preserving a subtle and delicate heritage, but it also has the chance to follow the example of the Paris Opera Ballet, ignoring its roots for the latest trends. The conference was shown a grainy, black and white, flickering film taken of the Ashton farewell gala in 1970, for which many early Ashton pieces were carefully recreated. Besides demonstrating the amazing progress in video technology, it represented an opportunity lost. All that work for one night, when it was possible to keep some of these older works in repertory! Many of them would probably have worked well for the smaller stages used by the old touring company, but in 1971 that group was reorganized as the New Group, devoted to modern choreography (an experiment which did not succeed.)

If major Ashton revivals are done in the future, it will surely be in part due to the interest generated by this conference, and Ashton fans owe much to Alastair Macaulay, whose idea it first was, to Stephanie Jordan, the chair, and to all the contributors.

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Volume 2, Ashton Preview Section
July 1, 2004

Copyright ©1995 by Mary Cargill
reprinted from DanceView, Spring 1995

 

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