Zoritch website ‘Ballet Russe’ in InterViews/News database

A book about the famed Ballet Russe is always asking to be read and I was pleased when this one came in the post from Renee Renouf. Renee is our West Coast correspondent and the writer who has helped Zoritch get his story out. You can get the book from the Zoritch website, which also has many pictures, or I think Dance Books has (or had) some copies.

I found this an interesting book - in part for its anecdotes but also for the opinionated way things are said. Having read it straight through I think I'd recommend it more as a coffee table type book that you can dip into and out of.

The sub-title 'Behind the Glamour of the Ballet Russe" I think quite accurate in some ways - this is very much about the particular detail of a dancer's life, and one which is not always glamorous. It's about a good dancer with a good many great reviews, if not a dancer with roots in one of the established companies we now see today. But Zoritch was part of a great period of ballet and this book would prove entertaining to those who know about ballet. Some anecdotes will surprise, some bore, some amuse, some wind you up, but I think there would always be a response!

Long introductions over, I'm not actually sure I warm much to Zoritch. As a character he seems a loner (freely admitting he did not make friends at school for example), obsessed with perfection (complaining about Bolshoi dancers not bothering to dress properly for class any more) and neatness ('Saville Row' suits) not to mention the minutiae of his life and the cost of things ('Saville Row' suits aside). Some things however are skirted around with no talk of partners in the book, though he does confess that Massine made a pass at him!

Of himself he says that "Extreme timidity has been my number one enemy" and yet his comments on others are anything but timid at times. It's as if a lifetime of tight-lipped observation has all spilled out. Er.. at this point it may be helpful to know that I didn't particularly warm to Margot Fonteyn from her autobiography either!

The majority of the book is laid out chronologically. It starts with the revelation that one of his ancestors was official Lover to the Empress, Catherine the Great of Russia. (by digression: It seems you had to pass numerous medical and potency tests but once 'in' the gift of various estates made for a rich lifestyle). Zoritch started performing in 1933 and joined the Nijinska, and then the de Basil, Ballet Russe companies in 1935. These companies were successors to the original Diaghilev company that the name Ballet Russe normally conjures. Many original dancers were around but it's important to know that this is not an insider's memoir of the time when the Ballet Russe were rewriting what ballet and dance could be. More a memoir of those dancers' subsequent exploits.

George Zoritch by Massine

The last 15% of the book is about his views on this and that, but in reality the whole book is peppered with his thoughts and views. Here are a few goodies:

on Agnes de Mille: "All the dancers she chose to do her choreography were upset at having to take her directives. Her type of dancing could readily be done almost by anyone not bedridden. A frustrated dancer, unable to achieve any goal as a ballerina, she hopped about on stage, jigging her feet. While calling ballet dancers lazy, Miss de Mille did not realise that it was belittling for them to dance such child's play as Rodeo."

Fred Astaire: "No matter what he did, pliable and flexible, hopping on the walls or the ceiling, Astaire always looked the same. I did not particularly enjoy his string bean look or his dull, neutral expression. His voice reminded me at times of an artificially-sweetened soda with the aftertaste of a tin can."

Balanchine: "Often Balanchine's ballets are danced in a sterile, dry manner, minus artistic interpretation. This is how I see his company perform. The girls had strong technique always; but they appeared to me like puppets on a string. I remember also un-ballet-like movements. One dance segment had the ballerina get on pointe, her feet spread in wide second position; then she rolled to half toe, her knees turned in meeting one another; from this pose onto her heels into second position with flexed feet up, accompanied by strange port de bras. These unorthodox moments lacked rhyme or reason except to make the dancer grotesque, angular and dry. To my thinking, these maneuvers hardly benefited classical ballet. Balanchine's comment in defending his ballet company was that his style of dancing was more in line with classical dance than the Bolshoi, which he called Romantic. Balanchine seemed to forget that ballet itself is Romance personified."

Gene Kelly: "I still patiently wait for Gene Kelly to straighten his forever-bent knees, or his pelvis. He looked as though he was always sitting in a hammock. A good dancer does not depend on props or scenic effects; the audience is there to enjoy the true beauty of the performer."

Karinska (Balanchine costumier): "her costumes were never ready before the opening curtain. Premiers were delayed as much as 45 minutes, everyone biting their nails, awaiting arrival of the costumes. Suddenly, Barbara Karinska would troop in with her parade of dressmakers. Unfinished costumes required sewing, or pinning with safety pins, barely in time for the dancers to make their appointed entrances.

Anton Dolin: "Quite an extrovert, Dolin demanded attention be constantly focussed on him. His personality and his dance appearance was like a frisky goat. I never fancied him a leading romantic dancer."

There are naturally more positive comments but somehow its the waspish ones that stay in the mind. The Royal Ballet (RB) comes up a time or two. There are complaints of our critics only having eyes for RB in 1951 (RB were on a massive high having recently conquered America) and not the de Cuevas Company (yes who?) when they toured the UK.

He is also full of comment about Nureyev being the only dancer that actually made Margot Fonteyn outstanding - before that British schooled men were "lyrical but lacking emphasis... a surfeit of politeness, lacking the breadth, confidence, carriage and width of gesture..". I actually agree with a lot of this - based purely on seeing a few videos though, *but* RB were doing amazing business in the late 40's and 50's and both Fonteyn and the company were considered hot property long before Nureyev joined.

Zoritch though comes from a golden age of training and dancing when connections with the 19th century were still real and close. He actually had lessons with Olga Preobrajenska who herself was a student of Petipa and Ivanov and she in turn taught Vaganova. I'm romantic enough to believe that contact with such greats does enrich others and I bow to those who have been touched. Such contact and handing-on does matter...