ABC DARK ON CABLEVISION

As of this moment, ABC is dark on Cablevision.

The two have not been able, evidently, to reach a re-transmission agreement. The difference -- it says on my TV screen -- is only $40M.

If they do not reach an agreement, that means Cablevision subscribers do not get the Academy Awards.

That would be very bad for Cablevision subscribers, Cablevision, ABC, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences -- owners of the Oscars, Oscar broadcast advertisers, the future of the Oscar telecast, the movie industry, and movie fans.

It is also a warning shot about the danger of allowing any valuable commodity to have a limited number of providers, whether that be a commercial company (like ABC & Cablevision), a public utility (eg gas & electric), a large union, a government run service, or even a bridge or tunnel.

Without alternate methods of providing needed goods or services, a complex society like ours is very fragile. Bottlenecks are dangerous!

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AVATAR (3D IMAX)

Avatar -- the 3D IMAX version -- is one of the most important, and greatest films ever made. It is a stunning directorial achievement, and a transporting experience to watch.

It would be crazy for any other film to win "Best Picture" or anyone other than James Cameron to win "Best Director."

Cameron enables new technology to extend the world of the film image into the third dimension better than it has ever been done. The world of the film has a feeling of magic on the one hand, and realism on the other.

It points the way to a whole new legion of 3D films that become qualitatively different when extended into the third dimension.

Visually, Cameron's planet is literally a new place, creative in its concept, beautiful and complex in its design and rendering.

His story is sparse and archtypal, and the theme -- paradoxically -- is the priority of nature over technology.

AVATAR is a film that must be seen by anyone interested in the nature/future of film, and it must be seen in 3D IMAX. Anything else is another film.

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QUITE POSSIBLY OSCAR'S FINEST MOMENT

In the 1830's during the forced relocation march known as "The Trail Of Tears", many, many Native Americans died of starvation, exposure, exhaustion, disease and brutality.

In 1890, many Apaches (men, women and children) were massacred at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota, by American troops.

Native Americans were swindled, robbed, double crossed, brutalized, forced to assimilate, relocated, dispossessed of their native lands, and murdered during the "American Indian Wars." The Trail Of Tears and Wounded Knee are only two of many atrocities, distinguished by having names. The ultimate result of the campaigns against Native Americans was of course, the appropriation (ie theft) of their native land, and the suppression of any resistance or threat to the New Americans.

The Native Americans, who had a complex civilization in place as they were being crowded out by New Americans, fought back, and committed their own atrocities. Movies and television of the mid 1900's, when it told stories of the settling of the West, generally told the story only from the one point of view, that of the settlers, the New Americans, and portrayed the Indians as savages and murderers who committed unspeakable atrocities.

In February 1973, there was a memorial to the Indians who died at Wounded Knee, and a protest against the treatment of Native Americans, by the American Indian Movement at Wounded Knee.

In support of the general aims of the memorial protest at Wounded Knee, and in protest against the treatment of Indians in the movies, Marlon Brando, who had become interested in Indian Rights, declined his Best Actor award for The Godfather, and asked an American Indian activist, Sacheen Littlefeather, who had Apache heritage, to decline the award for him at the ceremony.

The result of this shocking event at the Oscar ceremony was, in fact, that much more attention was paid to the situation of Native Americans, the terrible treatment they had gotten from the US Government, and the way they had been portrayed in movies.

Nevertheless, there has been a thread of derision directed at the event, and at the actress and activist, Sacheen Littlefeather, who declined the award for Brando.

Most recently, a few days ago, David Shuster -- who is usually quite reasonable -- in a segment about Oscar controversies, referred to Sacheen Littlefeather contemptuously as an actress who played an Indian to decline Brando's award.

I interviewed Sacheen Littlefeather about 30+ years ago, a few years after the Oscar event, when she acted in The Trial of Billy Jack. She was a hard working, intelligent Native American, and an articulate spokeswoman for their issues, who was also a talented actress. She was beautiful in appearance, and lovely in personality.

The situation that Native Americans were in then, as she described them, and as described also by Gus Greymountain, another Native American I interviewed (from the same film), was appalling. The financial circumstances and the general health of Native American peoples at the time needed action.

Attention to the plight and situation of American Indians was sorely needed at the time Brando declined the Oscar and Sacheen rose to the podium at the Oscar Ceremony.

It was a dramatic moment and a courageous thing to do. Viewing a clip (below) of the event shows how difficult it was, and that she behaved with grace and eloquence.

The incident should not be belittled. It should be applauded.

It was quite possibly Oscar's finest moment, because it was in a significant way a turning point for advancing the rights of all Americans. It used the Oscar platform to speak out to make the world aware of an important humanitarian and cultural issue, related to movies yet bigger than just the movies -- just as the Oscar ceremony itself is somehow bigger than just a show about movie prizes, it is a show about the world's shared culture.


Here is a link to the clip of that moment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QUacU0I4yU

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ANDREW SERBAN'S "WEST SIDE GIRL" (with ME!)

Roland Uruci, Shannon Lower (Patty Reilly), and Eric Kappenberg
Photo by Andrew Serban
WEST SIDE GIRL is a short film written and directed by Andrew Serban.

WEST SIDE GIRL WILL HAVE ITS WORLD PREMIERE
ON AUG 18, 2010 at 7:15 PM at Anthology Film Archive
as part of the Short Film Program at the NewFilmmakers Film Festival.

http://newfilmmakers.com/

Patricia Erin Reilly, the West Side girl of WEST SIDE GIRL is not an eight year old in pigtails hanging around Zabar's, but a tough young woman from Hell's Kitchen with a criminal record and dangerous friends.

I'm Bertelsman, the landlord, and I do not want Patty Reilly in my building.

Eric Roffman (aka Me)
As Bertelsman, the landlord
Photo by Andrew Serban
It's true I only have a few minutes on screen and a few lines. But as far as I'm concerned, this is my story.

Now, this movie could have been called "One Dark and Very, Very, Very Cold Night," because the action happens on... well, I just said it. And the long nights we filmed were just that bitterly freezing and windy.

In my scene, I'm coming out of one of my buildings where, according to Patty, in her vulgar speech, I've been "porking someone on the side".

Unfortunately, I am not a post-method actor. As a post-method actor I would have prepared for the scene by actually doing just what Patty said (in a nice warm place, too!), and then getting dressed and coming out into the street right when the director needed me. As a mere method actor, I used sense-memory and got ready for my long shot while waiting outside in the cold.

Perhaps in the sequel or prequel I get to present the intimate details of my story.

With a different cast, the director Andrew Serban, made another, earlier short film Patty Reilly Was Here, about the same character, Patty Reilly. This first film was shown recently by "New Filmmakers" at Anthology Film Archives.

Andrew has been doing excellent work as a professional photographer for years. And he has a strong visual style. WEST SIDE GIRL was shot at night, entirely in available light, on location on Hell's Kitchen streets. He worked slowly and with tremendous attention to detail, making sure that every shot was carefully framed, perfectly focussed, well lit, and properly played, according to his needs, and that the audio was cleanly recorded -- in between noise, stray lights, and raindrops... from passing cars, trains, clouds and airplanes. It was immensely careful work, taking great pains to get the acting, the creative storytelling, and the minute technical details in every scene all just right.

The cast, some of whom are pretty scary in the movie, did a great job of acting -- they're actually really nice people.

The story is tense and the look, film noir at its most contemporary.

The film has just been completed. As of this moment, I haven't even seen the DVD yet... it's in the mail!

I've been covering film festivals for QPORIT. My hope is that WEST SIDE GIRL will be accepted to one of the festivals I cover, so that I can interview myself live on the Red Carpet.


CREDITS:

CAST (in alphebetical order)

Eric Kappenberg (Tommy)
Shannon Lower (Patricia Erin Reilly)
John Newsome (Johnny)
Eric Roffman -- aka Me! (Bertelsman - the landlord)
Roland Uruci (Shane)
Liane Wunderlich (Sassy)


CREW

Directed by Andrew Serban
Produced by Andrew Serban and Liane Wunderlich
Written by Andrew Serban with additional material by Liane Wunderlich
Sound recording by Joe Savastano
Music composed by Richard William Flores
Music composed for the opening credits by Stuart Torrance

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ISABELLE FOKINE - INTERVIEW and PETROUCHKA - SAN FRANCISCO BALLET PREMIERE

Isabelle Fokine rehearses Petrouchka
with San Francisco Ballet dancers
©Erik Tomasson -- Photo R1P4535

At the beginning of the previous century (1900) there was a certain rigidity and satisfaction in science and culture. It was widely believed that science was almost complete. There was a solid tradition of expertise and satisfaction in music, art, literature and dance.

Just a few minor anomalies, it seemed, in science… And then came quantum mechanics: the world was at its core essentially random; and relativity: time really was the fourth dimension, mass was energy. In poetry, Ezra Pound proclaimed “Make it new” and famously edited TS Eliot’s The Waste Land (leaving it spare). In art, Picasso and others were inventing a new non-representational art. In theater, Ibsen, Stanislavsky, Chekhov, a new naturalism, and in Brecht and Pirandello, a new abstraction. In music, Stravinsky, Prokofieff and Shostakovich all of whom studied in St Petersburg, introduced new atonality, rhythmic strength and a new dynamic to music.

And in dance, Michel Fokine, born 1880, also from St Petersburg, working with the Ballets Russes in Paris was creating a new dance aesthetic, notably collaborating with Stravinsky to create The Firebird in 1910 and Petrouchka (Петрушка) in 1911.

These were the giants of modernism (see below for all links!), the upheaval in culture and science about 100 years ago. Both in its setting to the new music, and in its dramatic storytelling -- set in a Russian city with Russian characters -- Petrouchka was a milestone, a turning point in ballet. It was also great ballet.

(NOTE: PLEASE SEE THE LINKS AT THE END OF THIS ARTICLE FOR INFORMATION ABOUT PEOPLE PLACES AND EVENTS MENTIONED HERE... INCLUDING DETAILS ABOUT THE PETROUCHKA PREMIERE AND ISABELLE FOKINE'S UPCOMING TALK!)

The story of Petrouchka belongs to a long tradition of tales of inanimate objects that come to life (for example, Pinocchio, Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Frankenstein, Caprica on TV, and the films Short Circuit and, most recently, Avatar).

The ballet opens in St Petersburg’s square. On a little stage are three lifeless puppets, a ballerina, a moor, and Petrouchka. As they come to life, a love triangle follows. Petrouchka loves the ballerina. The ballerina is attracted to the moor and, in a famous scene with a famous melody, she plays a saucy tune on a toy trumpet to entice the moor. Petrouchka rushes in to interrupt the seduction, but is chased away by the moor. Ah! More trouble follows…

Without detailing here the complex libretto (again, see below for links to the whole story), note that this is a powerful drama, told not through words, but through the language of dance, set in a vibrant world of Russian characters and customs.

For any new production of Fokine’s work, because of its cultural importance and the needs of a modern audience, there are two imperatives: a production should be great theater, and it should be authentic to the original principles of its creator.

Isabelle Fokine is quite literally (it’s not hyperbole in this case) the greatest expert in the world on the work of Michel Fokine. She has access to his vast archives, studied his work for years with her father, Vitale Fokine, Michel’s son, as he re-staged Fokine’s ballets around the world, and has now had about 15 years experience directly staging the works herself all around the world, after a young career first as a dancer and then as an actress.

Working with the San Francisco Ballet for many months, Isabelle has just now re-staged Petrouchka from her grandfather’s choreography. The world premiere of the San Francisco Ballet production of Petrouchka is on Tuesday March 2, 2010.

I had the opportunity to speak with Isabelle by phone about her work.

She talked with candor and emotion, and lots more humor and laughter than the text can really communicate. She speaks eloquently, with standard American speech from growing up in the US, modulated with some quite British inflections and expressions that have infiltrated her voice during the last twenty years that she has been living in London.

Her primary goal and wish for this production, for experts in ballet and new-comers to ballet alike is, “Hopefully, a moving and entertaining experience of theater!”

“Petrouchka has quite a unique, broad base, because it is really a dance drama. Audience members not terribly interested in the history of the dance, or the difference between this production and another or why Petrouchka was considered a revolutionary work, can still understand its fundamental drama.”.

For balletomanes – the fans and experts – this is “a truly authentic production, based on Fokine’s original notations, and adhering to his principles.”

“What’s particularly nice about working here… There are no preconceptions about the ballet. We’re really starting fresh. It hasn’t been in the repertoire before. So everyone’s coming to it with new eyes. So there’s challenges with that as well. I think with the dancers, they weren’t accustomed to doing the Russian character work, so that was a hurdle to get over. I remember the first day of rehearsal, when I would tell them ‘You’ve got 16 counts of the Kazatzky coming downstage’, they would say, ‘What’s the Kazatzky?’ ” (It’s a quintessentially Russian dance step with exuberant kicks from a squat.) “So that was a challenge, but 2 weeks later everyone was doing it and doing it well. So despite the fact they didn’t have a tradition doing that kind of work, they were capable of mastering it.”

“I think I’m always revisiting my grandfather’s material. It’s always going back to the original, and going back to his material, and going back to the meaning behind the gesture. Because one can often get into teaching a series of gestures, but knowing why they’re doing certain gestures and giving them back the through line -- the motivation from movement to movement -- is essential, especially in a piece like Petrouchka where you’re not getting up and doing a series of technical feats, but you’re telling a story through this movement.”

As a young girl, Isabelle was planning to be a dancer.

“When I was 16, I thought I was on the threshold of a promising dance career, and I was signed by a major company to start work with them. But then began a cascade of injuries for me. The first was quite severe. I had broken my fifth metatarsal and severed my Achilles tendon, and that meant I was going to be off for quite a while."

"But at this time my father was still re-staging the repertoire around the world and he said, ‘You know. Don’t sulk. Come with me and learn the ballets.' It was a fantastic opportunity for me... In retrospect!”

“I appreciate it much more now in maturity than I did at the time," she said with a laugh, “but it gave me the opportunity to learn how to decipher my grandfather’s notations, to watch my father in action, and to realize how Fokine’s principles would be put into practice when re-staging the repertoire.”

“I had begun my training with my father so I was really attuned to my grandfather’s syllabus and how he worked with movement and dance and what he thought was dutiful, and what he thought was appalling. This was a chance to put it into practice with regard to the repertoire, so it was a fantastic four years that immersed me in that kind of work."

Sadly, this work came to a conclusion with her father’s death.

"After a spiral of re-occurring injuries. I was told I had ‘bird bones’ and that they couldn’t sustain the pressure of dancing. What would happen to me is that I would always be suffering with my tendons and ligaments taking in the brunt of this problem I had. And I realized I wouldn’t be able to go on to have a career as a dancer myself."

Isabelle later spent several years acting, with studies that included work at the HB Studio in New York, where she studied with Sam Waterston and Jerry Stiller, among others. I actually knew her in New York and worked with her on scenes in Jerry Stiller’s class (she was terrific); and I happened to see her on the stage (terrific again) in Tamara– (a space-specific, interactive play that came up in the QPORIT story here about Diane Paulus). Isabelle was stylish, sharply intelligent, fun to work with, strikingly beautiful, very quick to make up her mind, kind of serious, and with a great laugh.

“I think that studying acting was very helpful for me in terms of the kind of work that my grandfather created, because a piece like Petrouchka really is a dance drama. And there are large portions with no great technical feats. The story is told through movement. And so I can use dance as a language to convey motivation and provide clarity. Because I have some background in acting, that helps me to help them achieve that kind of performance. That’s not so far afield from my grandfather’s work, because he was a good friend of Stanislavsky. And their correspondence demonstrated that they were trying to do similar things in their respective art forms.”

When she was in New York, she wanted passionately to visit Russia. Her grandfather had danced as a young man at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. He left Russia before the revolution, and “In the 1920’s when Stalin asked my grandfather to return to take over the Mariinsky,” she said with a laugh, “ he wisely refused.”

The result was that it became very dangerous for any member of the family to visit Russia. Around 1988, with the Soviet Union breaking up and exchanges with the US starting, it began to finally seem possible for her to visit Russia. (A signal moment was when Oleg Tabakov, from the Moscow Art Theater, came to the US to teach Chekhov. F Murray Abraham, Dustin Hoffman, and others were among the people who met with him during his visit. And Isabelle attended several events, meeting him while he was here.)

Shortly after, she was able to make her first trip to Russia and the Mariinsky Theater in St Petersburg. .“Well… the first time was very emotionally moving for me, because I was taking a journey that my father was unable to take and desperately wanted to his entire life. I think for those people who had to leave during the revolution, it was very painful to leave and not be able to go back. So when I went, I felt I was making a journey for him. When I initially went to the Mariinsky, it was in very bad repair, and as I was walking the corridors I thought, ‘Well, it looks very much as my grandfather would have left it.’ It was very moving for me to be there. It meant a great deal.”

Some time after, she met Andris Liepa, a Russian dancer, by chance, in a chiropractor’s office in New York.

“It actually goes back even further than when I met him there. Because I knew Andris’ father in 1968. I was dancing with the Bolshoi Ballet when they were on tour at the Metropolitan Opera. I was a child in the ballets and I spotted Maris Liepa (a very famous Russian ballet dancer of the time). I was a fan of his. When I started chatting with him and he heard my name he became very interested. My father came to the theater. They met. They became friends. And while we were sitting in his dressing room chatting, he said, ‘Oh! I have a son your age.’ And then 21 years later I met Andris in New York by chance in the chiropractor's office, and we began lengthy discussions about my grandfather’s work, and what Andris was interested in. The first project was actually to film in London, Le Spectre de la Rose. That project was with Thames television, and we went into discussions about filming many ballets of the Fokine repertoire with Andris dancing the Nijinsky roles. Then British television underwent a kind of big upheaval at that point. Thames television was demolished and the project kind of went with it. And Andris said, ‘Well, if we can’t do it here in Britain, perhaps we could do it in Russia.’ That was when things were changing in Russia and private entrepreneurs were just beginning. Andris started to find producers and people who would be able to fund the works there and that was the beginning of it.”

“That project was a specific series of revivals, because Russian audiences hadn’t seen those works of Fokine before. They had all premiered in Paris, so they were quite, quite new in Russia. I think, over the years of communism in Russia, there was a kind of ambivalence to his works. Occasionally, they would say, ‘Yes, of course, Fokine is great, and we appreciate his work,’ but they weren’t familiar enough with most of his work to incorporate it into the repertoire. Of course, his career really flourished in the West, with the premieres by the Ballet Russes in Paris. Following the revolution, he never went back, so his career went across Europe and ultimately to America.”

At first, when Isabelle began re-staging the ballets, there was some resistance.

“To be honest with you, I’m a bit dumfounded from some of the reactions… on the part of the critics, most of all… as to what they think the importance is of authenticity or the original choreography. I think it’s a mixed message sent out by some of the things they say. At one point, I think, people like Clement Crisp (a major English dance critic) are saying, ‘It’s very important to maintain authenticity and dance the original choreography.’ ”

But then, she finds, critics say it doesn’t matter when particular, important elements of the choreography and the production are completely different from the original.

“What I’ve found is that when I meet with resistance, the tradition of given productions seems to have superceded the tradition of Fokine himself. I find that very… I can’t quite get my head ‘round that to be honest with you, because I’m not sure why it’s better or preferable to stage a production with known inaccuracies in the choreography or which the choreographer himself was unhappy with. I don’t quite understand that one.”

Authenticity “either matters or it doesn’t matter. To me, of course it matters! I appreciate to some people it doesn’t matter. But I think Fokine created a series of masterpieces; and so it does matter significantly. I think for me it’s very heartbreaking when a bad production is done and critics go to review it. They don't seem to distinguish the production from the work itself. So you’ll get commentary like, ‘Oh you know perhaps Fokine's work doesn't hold up very well’ or ‘It wasn’t a very good ballet to begin with.’ No! That’s the production you’re looking at … The production isn’t showing his work. I think, from my perspective at any rate, if you see his work authentically done it does hold up. Very well!“

I asked Isabelle about her evolution from the time she started re-staging the ballets until now. And about the challenges of maintaining the quality of the ballets she has re-staged.

“I think I’m always revisiting my grandfather’s material. If anything, it’s trying to go backwards. So my evolution,” she said with a twinkle in her voice, “is in the opposite direction.”

“Change happens so rapidly within an art form like ballet. I can stage a work and be gone from it for a year and when I come back and see it, it already changes in my own re-staging. Always, I’m going back to his material. It’s kind of reining it back. Because frequently, in production, dances were learned from other dancers or ballet masters that weren’t in on my original rehearsals. So changes creep in. It’s always going back to the original, and going back to his material, and going back to the meaning behind the gesture.”

She has not tried to choreograph other kinds of dance, and other styles.

“I’d say this is my raison d’être and area of specialization. I think too, when I notice, sometimes, people work across a broad range of repertoire, sometimes there can be a little cross-fertilization there. I think by working exclusively on Fokine’s work and working from his philosophy, I can, hopefully, keep that as pure as possible.”

Although Isabelle has wanted for many years to create a filmed biography of her grandfather, and to create a filmed collection of the works, that has not yet happened.

There are some films about Fokine’s dances; but there are, in fact, both advantages and disadvantages in archiving dance on film.

“There are some lovely things in the film, Return of the Firebird. Some things look very good, like the crowd scenes. You can do different things on film than you can on stage. But whenever you transfer work to film, I think that there are compromises that are made.”

After her mother retired, Isabelle and her brother assumed the management of the Fokine Estate and “its collection of a substantial amount of material: film footage, notations, designs, scores… There was a huge volume of stuff that my mother deciphered and catalogued. She also initiated some exhibitions that showed that material over the course of many years.”

For me, interactive computer technology, together with the advent of new 3D technology, which provides an especially lifelike view of people (as demonstrated, for instance, in Avatar), provides a new opportunity for filming dance. 3D is spectacular on IMAX. It is coming to large screen TV’s, and it can be integrated with interactive technologies on the computer.

This is an excellent time to create 3D IMAX films and associated interactive content – both entertainment and documentary -- of the dances and the life of Fokine. 3D films coupled with interactive technology can provide a better-than-theatrical view of the dance, allowing an archive of film that includes an audience centric overview, and a close-up of detail. Interactivity can allow scholars, dancers, and audiences to each select how they wish to view it – whether it be theatrical entertainment watched from an audience perspective from beginning to end, or perhaps as dance research, dynamically selecting each gesture and relating it to the original notations.

Also of interest to me is the question of where theater and culture and science are going, now, roughly 100 years after the last upheaval. In 1900 a few anomalies in an almost perfect picture turned out to hold the seeds of a complete revolution in our understanding of the world. Scientifically, today, lurking in the wings, are (among other things) the perplexing anomalies of dark matter and dark energy. The universe we (sort of) understand is only (at most) 4% of the universe we think is out there. As we begin to unravel knowledge of the other 96%, how will our culture change? More generally, as we look at our culture today, what kinds of change are likely?

“People are of their period… Of their historical background… Of their dance training… Of what’s going on in a given art at the time in their culture, the country where they live…”

“I think we’ve become very accustomed to the shocking and the avant-garde. At the turn of the last century, there was a status quo in dance and things were quite formulaic, so there was a very rigid tradition to break away from.”

“It’s hard to imagine today exactly what… what choreographers would be able to do that would have the same impact, because I think audiences in some ways are quite jaded to what they see on the stage. We’re accustomed to hearing music that doesn’t sound like music, and seeing dancers do virtually any type of movement on the stage. For almost anything, there is a frame of reference, so they could say, ‘Ah, yes! Well… well, that we’ve… we’ve seen that before!’ “

“I think a direction I can imagine things going in is seeing the entire history of dance, and kind of finding a new way forward based on the old traditions. Or, I know that in some other art forms, for example. in theater, going away from realistic drama … companies like Theatre de Complicite have gone into kind of a surreal form of drama. Now perhaps that would be a movement for ballet as well. Pursuing surreal versions of reality, and story telling, which is only in ballet intermittently in the current tradition.”

What is the new direction, the exciting direction that culture can take us? Part of the answer may lie in a new eclecticism that incorporates the history of human culture. Part of the answer may lie in the possibilities of new technology which facilitate interactive, hyperlinked, and selective access to knowledge, and excellent, efficient 3D recording, extending images from a flat screen to full space; and which, together, provide a new dimension for archiving and then presenting recorded images. Part of the answer may lie in the fusion of exuberance and detail and comprehensive vision I discussed in the article about Diane Paulus, which is also explicit in Isabelle’s combination of struggling to get each detailed gesture right, while still taking the broader view of the meaning, objectives and purpose of the whole. (This idea is also addressed in the program notes to Program 4 and Petrouchka.)

It will be exciting to see the San Francisco Ballet’s new Petrouchka, which premieres on Tuesday, March 2.

The following day, March 3, Isabelle will be speaking and taking questions in the Pointes of View. She says, “I’ll be guided by what the audience would like to know… about the history of the piece… or what it’s like to re-stage the production… or the ballet in the context of dance history. I’ll be guided by what they’re most interested in discussing.”

Summing up her work, she added with deep emotion, and just a little humor:

“It’s a challenging career. I suppose the most satisfying thing is that …on that night the curtain goes up… If the production is something that I feel my grandfather would look down on and say, ‘Not bad! Not bad!’ … that’s quite… quite thrilling to me! Just to think I’m honoring his legacy.”


Notes---

Isabelle's quotations -- all the italics -- are taken nearly verbatim from the transcript of the conversation, slightly rearranged, and very lightly edited.

Here are some links to items in this article:

THE SAN FRANCISCO BALLET:

http://www.sfballet.org/


Program 4 -- Petrouchka Premiere & More
March 2-7
http://www.sfballet.org/performancestickets/2010season/program4.asp


Program 4 Notes, and The story of Petrouchka:
http://www.sfballet.org/performancestickets/2010season/program4/program4notes.asp


Pointes of View
Isabelle Fokine
March 3 6-7 PM
Green Room 2nd Floor

Dance Scholar and Educator Mary Wood, along with other guest presenters, hosts each program in salon-style interviews with San Francisco Ballet dancers, guest artists, choreographers, musicians, and designers.

Pointes of View Lectures are held on Wednesday evenings from 6-7pm in the Veterans Building, conveniently located across the courtyard from the War Memorial Opera House at 401 Van Ness Avenue (at McAllister Street). These lectures are free and open to the public.

http://www.sfballet.org/educationcommunity/adulteducation/pointesofview.asp


LINKS TO MICHEL FOKINE AND HIS WORK:

Michel Fokine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Fokine

Stravinsky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stravinsky

The Ballets Russes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballets_russes

Petrouchka
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrouchka

St Petersburg -- The setting of Petrouchka, and the home of Fokine and Stravinsky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_petersburg

The Mariinsky Theater -- Fokine danced here before he left Russia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariinsky_Theatre

The Mariinsky Ballet -- Resident company of the Mariinsky Theater, also known as the Kirov Ballet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariinsky_Ballet


FILM THEATER IDEAS MENTIONED ABOVE:

There is a kindred spirit in Isabelle's work and the work of Diane Paulus described in this article from QPORIT:
http://qporit.blogspot.com/2010/02/diane-paulus-il-mondo-della-luna-hair.html

Avatar
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/

Short Circuit
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091949/

The Winter's Tale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winters_Tale

Theatre de Complicite -- Their staging of a play about The Ice Man came to New York
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complicite

Modernism -- This article details the cultural upheavals of the early 1900's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism


SOME PEOPLE MENTIONED ABOVE:

Maris Liepa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maris_Liepa

Oleg Tabakov
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Tabakov

Stanislavsky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislavsky

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RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA 2010

Chiara Mastroianni
"Making Plans for Lena"
"Non ma fille tu n'iras pas danser"
Photo credit: Jean-Claude Lother- Why Not Productions- 2009

The Film Society of Lincoln Center presents one great series after another. Currently they are about to start a special collection of films selected by Film Comment. And one of my big favorite series has just been announced:

Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2010March 11-21

Films & descriptions:

*OPENING NIGHT SELECTION
Farewell (L'affaire Farewell), Christian Carion, 2009, 113 min.
Actor-directors Emir Kusturica and Guillaume Canet co-star in an absorbing true story about a KGB colonel who gives top-secret documents to an ordinary French businessman working in Russia, helping to hasten the end of the Cold War.

8 Times Up (Huit Fois Debout), Xabi Molia, 2009, 103 min.
When a woman (Julie Gayet) struggling to make ends meet gets evicted, she and her unemployed neighbor set up a makeshift camp in the forest in this seriocomic investigation of the pressures of modern society.

French Kissers (Les Beaux Gosses), Riad Sattouf, 2009, 90 min.
The French answer to American Pie and Superbad, this hilarious and touching coming-of-age comedy follows two geeky Brittany teens on an odyssey of heavy petting, premature ejaculation and first love.

Hideaway (Le refuge), François Ozon, 2009, 88 min.
An incisive character drama about a hardened ex-junkie who is visited by the brother of her late boyfriend while recovering at a beachside retreat.

I'm Happy that My Mother is Alive (Je suis heureux que ma mère soit vivante), Claude Miller, Nathan Miller, 2009, 90 min.
Given up for adoption as a toddler, Thomas becomes obsessed with tracking down his birth mother-but if he finds her, then what? Beautifully acted by a cast of unknowns, and based on a true story.

In the Beginning (A l'origine), Xavier Giannoli, 2009, 120 min.
François Cluzet gives a tour-de-force performance as a small-time conman who convinces an economically depressed town that he has come to resurrect a long-dormant highway construction project.

Mademoiselle Chambon, Stéphane Brizé, 2009, 101 min.
A delicate, moving tale that follows Jean (Vincent Lindon), a home contractor, as he finds himself increasingly attracted by the elegant charm of his son's homeroom school teacher (Sandrine Kiberlain).

Making Plans for Lena (Non ma fille tu n'iras pas danser), Christophe Honoré, 2009, 105 min.
Recently liberated from her job and husband, Lena (Chiara Mastroianni) heads home to Brittany for the holidays-only to find her self deluged with nonstop advice as to How To Be Happy.

OSS 117 - Lost in Rio (OSS 117 - Rio ne répond plus), Michel Hazanavicius, 2009, 100 min.
A delightful, madcap comedy that follows suave Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath (Jean Dujardin)-better known as OSS 117- as he travels across Brazil with a charming Mossad agent on the trail a hidden, high-ranking Nazi.

Rapt, Lucas Belvaux, 2009, 125 min.
A millionaire businessman and playboy (Yvan Attal) is kidnapped and held for ransom in this fact-based, edge-of-your-seat nail-biter. But is his abduction a crime, or a case of just deserts?

Regrets (Les Regrets), Cédric Kahn, 2009, 105 min.
A married Paris architect (Yvan Attal) returns to his rural hometown to visit his dying mother, whereupon he rekindles his relationship with his former high-school girlfriend. A fascinating drama of romantic obsession.

Restless (Le bel âge), Laurent Perreau, 2009, 97 min.
Claire, a tomboyish teenager feeling the stirrings of first love, and her grandfather, Maurice, a former Resistance fighter, share a house but soon discover much else as well. A touching, fresh approach to the coming of age tale, with a superb performance by Michel Piccoli.

The Army of Crime (L'armée du crime), Robert Guédiguian, 2009, 139 min.
A taut, revealing thriller about the beginnings of the French Resistance, when the leaders as well as the foot soldiers of the movement were often foreigners-Poles, Jews, Armenians, Spaniards, Italians-and who often had as much to fear from French collaborators as they did the Germans. Starring Virginie Ledoyen.

The Hedgehog (Le hérisson), Mona Achache, 2009, 100 min.
A timely fable about Paloma, a young girl bent on ending it all before she becomes an adult, who learns a thing or two about life from her building's coarse, unkempt concierge (the wonderful Josiane Balasko). Based on Muriel Barbery's well-loved novel.

The King of Escape (Le roi de l'évasion), Alain Guiraudie, 2009, 97 min.
After coming to the rescue of a 16-year-old damsel in distress, a gay, middle-aged tractor salesman decides to give heterosexuality a try in this delightfully offbeat, mid-life crisis comedy.

The Law (La loi/La legge), Jules Dassin, 1959, 126 min.
Pitched between a romantic melodrama and a Fifties art film, this hugely entertaining look at a seaside Italian village wracked by barely contained tensions and jealousies features an extraordinary international all-star cast: Yves Montand, Gina Lollobrigida, Marcello Mastroianni, Melina Mercouri, Pierre Brasseur.

The Thorn in the Heart (L'épine dans le Coeur), Michel Gondry, 2009, 86 min.
A filmmaker better know for his brilliant rendering of fantasy, Michel Gondry ventures into family history in this quietly affecting portrait of his aunt, school teacher Suzette Gondry, and her eccentric, problematic son, Jean-Yves.

The Wolberg Family (La famille Wolberg), Axelle Ropert, 2009, 80 min.
Meet Simon Wolberg-energetic, enthusiastic, articulate, the mayor of a provincial French town. But does his dedication to his work blind him to everything going on at home?

White as Snow (Blanc comme neige), Christophe Blanc, 2010, 104 min.
A film noir set against snowy northern landscapes, this impressive debut features stars François Cluzet and Olivier Gourmet as brothers caught up on the wrong side of a financial scam gone bad.

"New French Short Films"
Wonderful things can sometimes come in very small packages, as this prize-winning selection of provocative short films from France amply demonstrates. See tomorrow's auteurs today

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ISABELLE FOKINE AT SAN FRANCISCO BALLET

Isabelle Fokine rehearses Petrouchka with Pascal Molat
and members of the San Francisco Ballet (R1P4552)©Erik Tomasson Roughly 15 years ago, Isabelle Fokine, the granddaughter of the great choreographer Michel Fokine, travelled to Russia and to Europe where she re-staged his legendary ballets with insights from her own training and her family's archival records.

For an interview with Isabelle Fokine, in which she talks about this work, please see: ISABELLE FOKINE - INTERVIEW & PETROUCHKA - SAN FRANCISCO BALLET PREMIERE.

As with many artistic renovations, this work was difficult and sometimes controversial. A film of some of this effort was recorded in "Fighting For Fokine."

The result of her work has been new productions of Fokine's ballets all over the world.

Isabelle is currently in San Francisco, preparing a new staging of Petrouchka for the San Francisco Ballet, which will have its world premiere on March 2.

Even more unique, and possibly historic for students of ballet, is that Ms. Fokine will be giving a talk as part of the SF Ballet's adult education program, "Pointes Of View"on March 3. This is one of the rare occasions, certainly in the US, that Isabelle has spoken about her work.

"Program 4

March 3
Green Room – 2nd Floor

Making its SF Ballet premier this season, Michel Fokine's Petrouchka was first performed by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russes in 1911. Isabelle Fokine will talk about reviving and setting her grandfather’s ground-breaking ballets around the world."

Note: March 4, 2010 --

For an interview with Isabelle Fokine in which she spoke with great feeling -- and gentle humor -- about her life and her work re-staging the classic ballets of her grandfather, please see the QPORIT article --

ISABELLE FOKINE - INTERVIEW

& PETROUCHKA - SAN FRANCISCO BALLET PREMIERE

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