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Dance, General, Martha Ullman West

Jacques d’Amboise, dancing and talking

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Groundbreaking ballet dancer Jacques d’Amboise, who created memorable roles in works by Balanchine and other stars of ballet’s American golden age, will be in Portland on Thursday, April 14, to talk about his new book I Was a Dancer. D’Amboise also choreographed for Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, and appeared in dancing roles in the movie-musical classics Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Carousel. Art Scatter’s chief correspondent, Martha Ullman West, will introduce him before his talk at the Portland Ballet Studio. Come hear ’em both — and read what Martha has to say about d’Amboise below.

By Martha Ullman West

Writing about dancing ain’t easy, as you’ve all heard me say more than once. Like visual arts and music, this is non-verbal communication, and, to paraphrase William Butler Yeats, people dance to say the things there are no words for.

Jacques d'Amboise in "Apollo." Courtesy New York City Ballet.Few dancers are as capable of eloquence with words as they are with their bodies, but there are exceptions. Jacques d’Amboise, one of this country’s first homegrown great male ballet dancers, is one of them, and he’ll be in town to talk about his new book, I Was a Dancer, this Thursday, April 14, at the Portland Ballet Studio. (6250 SW Capitol Highway, 7:30-9 pm, for reservations call 503-452-8448.)

I’ll introduce him, briefly. Then he’ll read from the book, show some clips from the superb DVD Jacques d’Amboise, Portrait of a Great American Dancer, take some questions from the audience and sign some books, which thanks to Annie Bloom’s Books, will be available for purchase at the studio.

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Dance, General, Martha Ullman West

Martha Ullman West on the Ghost of Nutcrackers Past

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Nobody knows her Marzipans from her Sugarplum Fairies as well as Martha Ullman West, the distinguished dance writer and charter member of Friends of Art Scatter. We here at Scatter Central are pleased as holiday punch — and with the right additives, that’s pretty darned pleased — to turn our space over to her for some insights into Oregon Ballet Theatre’s “The Nutcracker” and the long line of Nutcrackers leading up to it. Read on!

When George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker premiered at New York City Center in 1954, critic Edwin Denby reported that a “troubled New York poet sighed, “I could see it every day, it’s so deliciously boring.” I thought of that remark while viewing the same choreography, excellently danced, when Oregon Ballet Theatre opened its current run on Friday. I think the poet, not named by Denby, but possibly W.H. Auden, must have made his backhanded comment at intermission, following the first act party scene. I don’t know if he ever went back, but I have, again and again, in many versions, including a Nutcracker God-help-me on ice, and the boredom becomes less delicious each time.

So on Friday, my mind wandered a bit — well, more than a bit — during that family party, notwithstanding adorable children in their party clothes, naughty Fritz and dancing dolls, all of whom performed just as they should have, harking back to the ghosts of Nutcrackers past — specifically James Canfield’s at OBT and Todd Bolender’s, which is still being performed by Kansas City Ballet. Both Canfield and Bolender (who danced in Balanchine’s 1954 production) have enlivened the party considerably, the former with mechanical dolls that are somewhat reminiscent of Dorothy’s companions in the Wizard of Oz (and they accompany Marie on her journey, in Canfield’s case to the palace of the Czar) and the latter with hordes of small boys galloping around the staid gathering tooting toy trumpets, and less formal social dances than Balanchine’s.

Nevertheless, there are elements of Balanchine’s party that I love and look for, particularly the Grandfather dance, which begins in stately decorum and concludes with a lively little pas de deux by the Grandmother and Uncle Drosselmeier, here performed by apprentice Ashley Smith and principal dancer Artur Sultanov, who will be seen in later performances as the Sugar Plum Fairy’s Cavalier. Moreover, his Marie is performed by a little girl and not an adult dancer pretending to be one. Julia Rose Winett, who danced the role on Friday night, has a jump that makes you think she has springs in her slippers. She can act, too. You know she’s scared to death during the battle of the mice and toy soldiers, even though the Mouse King really doesn’t look very frightening.
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