Ballet History

MOSCOW - Placards for Van Cleef & Arpels decorate the main street of Russia's capital, heralding the Bolshoi Ballet premiere of George Balanchine's "Jewels," with the best seats costing between 7,000 and 8,000 rubles ($233-$266). Expectation runs high. This three-part company showpiece was called the first full-evening abstraction when New York City Ballet introduced it in 1967, and since that time some five dozen ensembles, foreign and domestic, have faced its challenges. Now it's the Bolshoi's turn.

MOSCOW - Placards for Van Cleef & Arpels decorate the main street of Russia's capital, heralding the Bolshoi Ballet premiere of George Balanchine's "Jewels," with the best seats costing between 7,000 and 8,000 rubles ($233-$266). Expectation runs high. This three-part company showpiece was called the first full-evening abstraction when New York City Ballet introduced it in 1967, and since that time some five dozen ensembles, foreign and domestic, have faced its challenges. Now it's the Bolshoi's turn.

Christy Reeder remembers a day in class when her teacher, Beatrice Collenette, eyed her ballet moves and said bluntly: "You're milking the cow. I need more." Reeder continued with a little more flair, a little more drama. Collenette had learned such unorthodox critiques from one of ballet's acknowledged masters, Anna Pavlova, the Russian ballerina regarded by many as the greatest ever. To milk the cow, in Pavlova parlance, was to have the technique down pat but not quite convey emotion.

Christy Reeder remembers a day in class when her teacher, Beatrice Collenette, eyed her ballet moves and said bluntly: "You're milking the cow. I need more." Reeder continued with a little more flair, a little more drama. Collenette had learned such unorthodox critiques from one of ballet's acknowledged masters, Anna Pavlova, the Russian ballerina regarded by many as the greatest ever. To milk the cow, in Pavlova parlance, was to have the technique down pat but not quite convey emotion.

1956: The Joffrey Ballet is born as six dancers embark on a tour of 23 one-night performances. 1963: The Joffrey dances for the first time at the White House, in the presence of President Kennedy and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. 1964: After a U.S. tour, the company is disbanded in March, after disagreements on policy with the Rebekah Harkness Foundation, which controls most of the dancer's contracts and the recent repertoire.

The time was 1946. Dancer Joseph Rickard saw an African American child turned away from classes at a Los Angeles dance studio just because she was black. That didn't seem right to him. Rickard, who was white, decided to do something about it. Opening a studio himself in the black community, he trained that child-- and her mother--and sought other black students who wanted to learn classic dance.

At the unprecedented age of 19, Julio Bocca became a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre in 1986, the youngest principal ABT ever had. How did the Argentine youngster do it? Winning the gold medal at the Fifth International Ballet Competition in Moscow in 1985 certainly helped. But it was more the result of Bocca's longtime single-minded dedication to establishing a dance career.

When the Joffrey Ballet debuted its reconstructed "The Rite of Spring" in Los Angeles in fall 1987, it received a seismic welcome - a 5.9 on the Richter scale, to be exact. The morning after "Rite's" opening at the Music Center, a major earthquake struck Southern California. The Whittier Narrows quake, with an epicenter in the San Gabriel Valley, shook buildings in downtown L.A. and could be felt as far away as Las Vegas. The Oct. 1 temblor caused widespread damage in the area, though no subsequent performances of "Rite" were canceled by the Joffrey, then a resident company at the Music Center.

American ballerina Eva Evdokimova was on the bill to dance Mikhail Fokine's "The Dying Swan" Sunday at a command performance in the Casino de Monte Carlo. Prince Rainier III and Princess Caroline of Monaco were expected to attend the performance, a benefit for the John Gilpin Scholarship Fund of the Academie de Danse Classique Princesse Grace. Evdokimova claims she is the highest-paid dancer in ballet history.

In directing California Ballet for 21 years, Maxine Mahon has never suffered from an inferiority complex. Besides tackling highly daunting subjects ("Dracula") and scores ("The Miraculous Mandarin"), Mahon has matched her San Diego dancers against medal-winning Soviet virtuosi and even the filmic perfection of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. So it's no surprise to find her attempting "Romeo and Juliet," although her company now can muster only eight male dancers--none of them exactly a classical firebrand or danseur noble.

The time was 1946. Dancer Joseph Rickard saw an African American child turned away from classes at a Los Angeles dance studio just because she was black. That didn't seem right to him. Rickard, who was white, decided to do something about it. Opening a studio himself in the black community, he trained that child-- and her mother--and sought other black students who wanted to learn classic dance.

1956: The Joffrey Ballet is born as six dancers embark on a tour of 23 one-night performances. 1963: The Joffrey dances for the first time at the White House, in the presence of President Kennedy and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. 1964: After a U.S. tour, the company is disbanded in March, after disagreements on policy with the Rebekah Harkness Foundation, which controls most of the dancer's contracts and the recent repertoire.

At the unprecedented age of 19, Julio Bocca became a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre in 1986, the youngest principal ABT ever had. How did the Argentine youngster do it? Winning the gold medal at the Fifth International Ballet Competition in Moscow in 1985 certainly helped. But it was more the result of Bocca's longtime single-minded dedication to establishing a dance career.

Fewer than 700 people actually paid to see American Ballet Theatre on Thursday. That wouldn't even be a full house at the intimate Japan American Theatre; in cavernous Shrine Auditorium (which seats 6,226) it is a rank embarrassment. Of course, the company is arguably reaping what it sows: The advertising for the season emphasizes only full-evening story ballets and mostly relegates the midweek mixed bills to mere listings. Find them if you can.

Ballet history is full of strange accidents, of masterworks somehow lost in their countries of origin but preserved far from home. "Giselle," for instance, remained unseen in France for the better part of a century. And the most daring achievements of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes became well-known everywhere in the ballet world except Russia during the Communist era.