Живи, а то хуже будет
Юбилейная двухсотая запись с тэгом Constantin Patsalas. Как приятно чувствовать себя главным психованным популяризатором этого никому не нужного человека. Ну ладно, "никому не нужного" - это сильно сказано, но ясно, что это не Рудольф с Эриком, вокруг него фандом не сложится (и слава богу, и не надо). А я его все равно люблю и с большим кайфом собираю о нем куски информации. Благодаря outsatiable удалось добраться до Globe and Mail, теперь очень хочется найти все-таки доступ к датским газетным архивам, к рецензиям на Das Lied von der Erde, последний балет Константина. Но тут, как водится, нужен человек, записанный в Королевскую библиотеку и имеющий возможность прийти в эту самую библиотеку и на месте влезть в Mediestream, газетный онлайн-архив. Потому что копирайт-с, в газетах, изданных после 1918 года, можно рыться только в библиотеке, а из дома - ни-ни. Свинство, а что поделаешь?
Ну и фиг с ними, жадными датчанами. Давайте читать более щедрых канадцев. Очень милое интервью Константина в номере от 12 апреля 1980 года. Вроде бы ничего сногсшибательно нового там нет (ну разве что информация о том, что он поставил нечто сольное для Наталии Макаровой; а еще - что он научился плести макраме, чтобы создать костюмы для Angali), но все равно читать очень приятно.
Patsalas finds his dance muse in the music
"I feel I have an Oriental mentality," says the very Greek-looking Constantin Patsalas, choreographer and soloist with the National Ballet of Canada. "It makes me a little more relaxed about my work sometimes. I think that if I have enough talent, no one - not the company, not the critics, - can stop me. It means I don't feel I want to rush."
Three things are odd about this view from Patsalas, who will be presenting two new works in the National Ballet of Canada's annual choreographic workshop April 15 to 19 at NDWT Theatre. The first is that Patsalas rarely looks relaxed. Dark and wiry, he says at one point, "To me, to speak with my hands is very natural," and what those never-silent hands are most concerned with is sketching choreographic ideas in the air. His animation is more restless than relaxed, more King and Bay than Japanese rock garden.
There is no crescendo or diminuendo in dance. Patsalas wants to put them there.
And if the National isn't giving him the official status as a company choreographer that he would like, neither does the company appear to be "stopping him." Since joining in 1972, he has had three ballets (Inventions, Black Angels and Rite of Spring) from the choreographic workshop taken into the company repertoire and his very beautiful offering for the recent spring gala, Angali, is reported to be following the same route. No other choreographer within the company has had such a success rate, one which is particularly impressive since the complex music he has used, and the strong, spare, abstract tone of much of his choreography has not endeared him to some critics or audiences.
Thirdly, he may not "feel he has to rush," but his itinerary looks close to busy. He has created work on two occasions for the Ballet Contemporaneo de Camera in Venezuela, won the prestigious choreographic prize of the Boston Ballet in 1979 with a new composition, and has completed a solo for Natalia Makarova. And he may accept the invitation to go to Stockholm to mount Angali for the Royal Swedish Ballet.
Now, he is presenting two works at the workshop, of which one, Canciones, based on a group of Spanish songs, was created for the Ballet Contemporaneo. The other is a solo, Recital, danced alternately by Gizella Witkowsky and Amalia Schelhorn, which he describes as "absurd, like Ionesco and Beckett. There are allusions to the classics - Giselle, Swan Lake, La Sylphide - and other works, including some of my own. The score is a collage by Luciano Berio, and the dance is just as schizophrenic."
The two works sound totally different, but both have elements of the Patsalas style as it has been emerging through the years.
Recital reflects his continuing fascination with modern music. "I enjoy contrasts in movement, the swift changes from black to white - and then the exploration of all the reds and yellows in between. Modern music can be good for this, because it's more immediate and unpredictable. I like to be surprised."
The importance of music - and perhaps the frustration of realizing it in dance - has led Patsalas to try to find choreographic equivalents to musical terms. "We don't have 'crescendo' or 'diminuendo' in dance. In Recital, I was experimenting with those kinds of transitions of intensity."
But Patsalas uses simpler, more traditional music for dances both serious and light-hearted. He has an admitted "love of the exotic," which was satisfied by the distinctly Indian strains in the Jacques Charpentier score used for Angali.
"I have an affinity with those cultures. There is a mystic quality in countries like India that is religious rather than psychological." The inspiration, of course, can be far from religious; for all its spiritual tones, Angali was partly inspired from the erotic drawings in the Kama Sutra. Patsalas took up macrame to make the costumes he felt the work demanded.
The Spanish songs in the Canciones, or the South American rhythms for Parranda Criolla, last year's workshop piece, reflect Patsalas' love of folk art. "I really feel the roots of both classical and modern art are rooted in folk painting, music and dancing. I'm particularly interested in Spanish and South American rhythms. When I work with this music, after the more serious pieces, it is like taking a holiday."
Arising in part from his interest in oriental philosophy, Patsalas draws parallels between the natural world and the psychological. Rite of Spring in particular benefited from his observations of water, rocks and plant life. "I saw this small tree on a hill in Spain a few years ago, which had a climber growing right beside it. I looked at it and began to think: is the tree supporting the climber, or the other way around?
"There is a moment in Rite of Spring that was inspired by thoughts like that, in which a girl is winding herself around a man who is standing upright. Ideally, the audience should wonder: is the woman a support or a parasite?"
Unlike James Kudelka, the other major company choreographer, or the recently departed Anne Ditchburn, Patsalas has not yet tackled a story ballet. One of the reasons for this is practical. "Story ballets tend to grow, with expensive sets and costumes. It is harmful to put such financial pressure on a ballet - which is why I usually design my own sets and costumes. You make an expensive ballet, and audiences come to see the spectacle and not the ballet."
But there's also the fear that such elements might fragment what Patsalas most wants to do in choreography: to find "the true wavelength" of the musical scores that inspire him.
"The most important thing for me now is the quality of movement. Everything else - character, plot, stage acting - is just makeup."
Ну и фиг с ними, жадными датчанами. Давайте читать более щедрых канадцев. Очень милое интервью Константина в номере от 12 апреля 1980 года. Вроде бы ничего сногсшибательно нового там нет (ну разве что информация о том, что он поставил нечто сольное для Наталии Макаровой; а еще - что он научился плести макраме, чтобы создать костюмы для Angali), но все равно читать очень приятно.
Patsalas finds his dance muse in the music
"I feel I have an Oriental mentality," says the very Greek-looking Constantin Patsalas, choreographer and soloist with the National Ballet of Canada. "It makes me a little more relaxed about my work sometimes. I think that if I have enough talent, no one - not the company, not the critics, - can stop me. It means I don't feel I want to rush."
Three things are odd about this view from Patsalas, who will be presenting two new works in the National Ballet of Canada's annual choreographic workshop April 15 to 19 at NDWT Theatre. The first is that Patsalas rarely looks relaxed. Dark and wiry, he says at one point, "To me, to speak with my hands is very natural," and what those never-silent hands are most concerned with is sketching choreographic ideas in the air. His animation is more restless than relaxed, more King and Bay than Japanese rock garden.
There is no crescendo or diminuendo in dance. Patsalas wants to put them there.
And if the National isn't giving him the official status as a company choreographer that he would like, neither does the company appear to be "stopping him." Since joining in 1972, he has had three ballets (Inventions, Black Angels and Rite of Spring) from the choreographic workshop taken into the company repertoire and his very beautiful offering for the recent spring gala, Angali, is reported to be following the same route. No other choreographer within the company has had such a success rate, one which is particularly impressive since the complex music he has used, and the strong, spare, abstract tone of much of his choreography has not endeared him to some critics or audiences.
Thirdly, he may not "feel he has to rush," but his itinerary looks close to busy. He has created work on two occasions for the Ballet Contemporaneo de Camera in Venezuela, won the prestigious choreographic prize of the Boston Ballet in 1979 with a new composition, and has completed a solo for Natalia Makarova. And he may accept the invitation to go to Stockholm to mount Angali for the Royal Swedish Ballet.
Now, he is presenting two works at the workshop, of which one, Canciones, based on a group of Spanish songs, was created for the Ballet Contemporaneo. The other is a solo, Recital, danced alternately by Gizella Witkowsky and Amalia Schelhorn, which he describes as "absurd, like Ionesco and Beckett. There are allusions to the classics - Giselle, Swan Lake, La Sylphide - and other works, including some of my own. The score is a collage by Luciano Berio, and the dance is just as schizophrenic."
The two works sound totally different, but both have elements of the Patsalas style as it has been emerging through the years.
Recital reflects his continuing fascination with modern music. "I enjoy contrasts in movement, the swift changes from black to white - and then the exploration of all the reds and yellows in between. Modern music can be good for this, because it's more immediate and unpredictable. I like to be surprised."
The importance of music - and perhaps the frustration of realizing it in dance - has led Patsalas to try to find choreographic equivalents to musical terms. "We don't have 'crescendo' or 'diminuendo' in dance. In Recital, I was experimenting with those kinds of transitions of intensity."
But Patsalas uses simpler, more traditional music for dances both serious and light-hearted. He has an admitted "love of the exotic," which was satisfied by the distinctly Indian strains in the Jacques Charpentier score used for Angali.
"I have an affinity with those cultures. There is a mystic quality in countries like India that is religious rather than psychological." The inspiration, of course, can be far from religious; for all its spiritual tones, Angali was partly inspired from the erotic drawings in the Kama Sutra. Patsalas took up macrame to make the costumes he felt the work demanded.
The Spanish songs in the Canciones, or the South American rhythms for Parranda Criolla, last year's workshop piece, reflect Patsalas' love of folk art. "I really feel the roots of both classical and modern art are rooted in folk painting, music and dancing. I'm particularly interested in Spanish and South American rhythms. When I work with this music, after the more serious pieces, it is like taking a holiday."
Arising in part from his interest in oriental philosophy, Patsalas draws parallels between the natural world and the psychological. Rite of Spring in particular benefited from his observations of water, rocks and plant life. "I saw this small tree on a hill in Spain a few years ago, which had a climber growing right beside it. I looked at it and began to think: is the tree supporting the climber, or the other way around?
"There is a moment in Rite of Spring that was inspired by thoughts like that, in which a girl is winding herself around a man who is standing upright. Ideally, the audience should wonder: is the woman a support or a parasite?"
Unlike James Kudelka, the other major company choreographer, or the recently departed Anne Ditchburn, Patsalas has not yet tackled a story ballet. One of the reasons for this is practical. "Story ballets tend to grow, with expensive sets and costumes. It is harmful to put such financial pressure on a ballet - which is why I usually design my own sets and costumes. You make an expensive ballet, and audiences come to see the spectacle and not the ballet."
But there's also the fear that such elements might fragment what Patsalas most wants to do in choreography: to find "the true wavelength" of the musical scores that inspire him.
"The most important thing for me now is the quality of movement. Everything else - character, plot, stage acting - is just makeup."
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17.10.2017 в 20:12-
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17.10.2017 в 20:36-
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18.10.2017 в 10:07-
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18.10.2017 в 11:26