BALLET
599
lerina's spins in any adagio are too fast: too fast physically even for
these athletes, none of whom can execute them without notable exertion
and without listing off the perpendicular; too fast stylistically because
they rob the movement of its necessary nobility. Then there are the inces–
sant over-the-head lifts, splendid sometimes but used too often and with
insufficient variety. It is exciting to see how well a ballerina can do an
arabesque five feet off the ground, but too often it looks like a stunt
and makes her look like a toy. The strenuous rehearsal of such stunts
seems to leave no time for other things that can happen in a lift. In
Bessmertnova's
Giselle,
which was mostly very beautiful, the lifts in the
last act failed completely because they weren't phrased at all. Up she
went, bang, like an elevator, with none of that sighing exhalation which
is for us the whole point. There's a whole vocabulary of expressive ef–
fects that the Bolshoi doesn't know, all those nuances of phrasing and
timing that seem to us to make dancing poetic. Even Bessmertnova in
Swan Lake
joined in the solemn heavy style of the others. Partnerships
in adagio look like expert collaboration, not like the sensitive personal
relationship we admire. And I am not speaking of wispy poetic effects.
The Bolshoi dancers often lack sensitive animation even in a large rush
of movement: concentration on single bravura feats gets in the way of a
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