"Making Music Visible": Ballerina and Critic Faye Arthurs on Dancing Bach

Faye Arthurs spent two decades at New York City Ballet dancing Balanchine, Robbins, and Wheeldon. She originated a role in Wheeldon’s Scenes de Ballet while still a student at SAB, and she danced Robbins’ Goldberg Variations. She now writes dance criticism for Fjord Review and Air Mail, and does archival work for the George Balanchine Foundation.

We talk about how ballet dancers count from the stage, the special pleasures and challenges of dancing counterpoint, and how and why Bach succeeds (and sometimes doesn’t) for choreographers.

Faye’s writing: https://fjordreview.com/blogs/all/new-yorks-finest

Faye’s website: http://www.thoughtsfromthepaint.com

Works Mentioned: Robbins, The Goldberg Variations (1971), Fanfare (1953). Balanchine, Concerto Barocco, Agon, The Four Temperaments, Episodes, Symphony in Three Movements. Wheeldon, Scenes de Ballet. Eliot Feld, Organon (2001). Boris Eifman, Musagète (2004). Paul Taylor, Esplanade, Promethean Fire. Mark Morris, Falling Down Stairs.

People Mentioned: George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Christopher Wheeldon, Wendy Whelan, Jock Soto, Suzanne Farrell, Kyra Nichols, Tiler Peck, Glenn Gould, Mavis Staples, Yo-Yo Ma.

Transcript:

​[00:00:00]

Evan Goldfine: Welcome to the podcast, A Year of Bach. My name is Evan Goldfine, and today I welcome the ballet dancer and dance critic, Faye Arthurs. Faye spent two decades with the New York City Ballet, dancing the works of George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Christopher Wheeldon at Lincoln Center and around the world. She originated a role in Christopher Wheeldon’s Scenes de Ballet when she was still a student at the School of American Ballet, and danced Robbins’ famous adaptations of the Goldberg Variations, and we’ll be talking a lot about that today.

Faye has since retired from professional dancing and now writes dance criticism for The Fjord Review, and she is based in New York City, and today from New Hampshire. So Faye, welcome.

I’d like to start by talking about counting as a ballet performer. So the works that you danced were choreographed to through composed pieces.

In the moment of dancing, what’s your relation to the music as it’s being performed in the pit?

Faye Arthurs: That’s a great question, and it [00:01:00] is really dependent upon which piece you’re talking about because some pieces of music are much more difficult to count than others, to play than others. There’s a, a lot of ballet, s- ballet originally started with using so much very even simple 4/4 time structures.

The Petipa ballets, the great ballets, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, you really don’t have to count those so much. It’s very even. It’s, three reprea- repeats of one phrase, and then there’s like a, a tag into the next thing, it’s very, like you do this one step left and then you do a transition into the next sequence.

Th- there’s not much counting that you have to do in-

Evan Goldfine: So you’re thinking more in phrases for certain pieces and in counting for others. So it’s depending on the choreography and the music itself.

Faye Arthurs: It really is. Okay. A ballet like The Goldberg Variations, we’re counting a lo- it’s a lot of sixes.

We’re sticking with the musical meter from Bach, but then within that, there’s a lot of slow [00:02:00] walking sections where you really don’t have to be counting. Like even though you’re stepping on every note, you’re not in your head always counting, because

Evan Goldfine: it’s just- So you have the tempo in your head.

Y- ... the tempo’s in your body, and you’re going step. And is there a musical cue that you’re waiting for to do your next move?

Faye Arthurs: It’s just at a certain point you just know these things. Like you, you yes, there is. There is a cue and a count for everything. But you don’t have to actively be counting in your head all the time.

You know what I mean? You can be thinking about all sorts of things. You can be thinking about what you’re having for dinner after the show, at a certain point in certain dances, like it’s just so through your bo- almost like a, a breath or a pulse-

...

Faye Arthurs: If you know the sequences and they’re not that complicated.

That being said, you’re dancing Balanchine to, choreography to Hindemith or- ... von Webern and you are counting 21s, 17s, what, you are in your head the whole time you are counting. Actually I was gonna talk maybe with you later about Concerto Barocco, which is Balanchine’s- Sure

famous ballet to Bach, [00:03:00] and that is one where you can tune out for some sequences, and then you really have to be counting hard when you’re going in counterpoint, against people counting differently from you doing a similar step. So there, there... I feel when you’re new in New York City Ballet, ‘cause we have so much rep you’re counting all the time, and then it, when you’re like y- 20 years in, you don’t need to count most of Barocco.

You’re not actively counting. You’re thinking about things, or you could be counting. You’re humming the melody, something like that. But I’m not in my head going, “One, two, three.” Does

Evan Goldfine: that make- Is that hard? Yeah, of course. Is it harder for a, a counterpoint piece because maybe the melody is a little bit more obscure?

Are you focusing more on... In Tchaikovsky you can kind of, “Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.” Exactly. Okay, you know exactly where you’re gonna go from one-

Faye Arthurs: Exactly ...

Evan Goldfine: to the other. But when you’re moving in counterpoint, the melody can sometimes be obscured. So does that make it trickier for you on stage?

Faye Arthurs: Well, you’re going against it purposefully. And that was really Balanchine’s great game. It’s like you’re carving [00:04:00] your own channel into the score, and I think that’s part of what makes Balanchine endlessly dazzling. It’s- ... the audience doesn’t necessarily know that we’re counting fives against eights, or fives against sixes, or that half of the stage is in a three-count phrase and half of the stage is in a four-count phrase, but the music is in six. So we’re both- Right ... not in, we’re both not in the composer’s intended speed limit or, time signature. Mm-hmm. So it’s really people are like, “What is it about that keeps me coming back to Barroco or something?”

And I think it’s that. I think when you finally can start uncovering some of those games that he’s playing it’s just, for me, dancing it was endlessly fun. ‘Cause you felt like you were stamping your own time signature into a piece, it was like if we are switching roles in a ballet you, you might be feeling a new...

different things are accentuated when you’re cutting against a score. You feel it through your body differently, it’s [00:05:00] because your body links up so much with breath and for me, and I think for most- New York City Ballet dancers at least, ‘cause music really is the focus at City Ballet and more than a lot of companies.

And, and modern pieces for example, where there is no music or the piece is not choreographed to music or it’s improvisational and you can do whatever. But at, at City Ballet the music is the top of the pyramid, and so we’re all there because that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to like, make music visible in a sense.

And I think these little, these little cross currents in the tempos and counting against the actual time signature of the piece is part of just, you know, cutting your way through something, it’s- Yeah ... it’s fun. It just feels, it, it feels like you have a different relationship to a piece of music once you’ve done different tracks through it, different step tracks through it.

Yeah. I don’t know. I fo- I found it really fun.

Evan Goldfine: When you’re on stage and you’re dancing a [00:06:00] three-part and your compatriots also on the stage are dancing in four- Mm-hmm ... and the music’s in six, is there something where you have to tune out your other dancers - Yeah ... on stage so you don’t fall into their rhythm?

Faye Arthurs: For sure. There’s a l- there’s a lot of tuning out, but I thought what was more interesting to me was the more I did Baroque, oh, and you’ve got the, the threes versus the fours versus the sixes. The more that you can hear it all at the same time is the most - Yes ... fun, and you’re like, and you know when you’re going, but you’re predicting and, because of the nature of the step, you’re meeting up on certain things doing the same step because things overlap. And it’s just very fun when you feel like you can see it all. Like a chess game.

Evan Goldfine: Yeah. One of the beauties of digging- You would think. Yeah, one of the beauties about digging deeper into Bach’s music is that, when he’s going with three and four part fugues , you can hear the individual lines and also how they’re working together. Yeah. So in a way, it sounds like Balanchine and Robbins are able to reify that same thing that we’re listening to for the different parts in the fugues into the music itself as [00:07:00] he’s, as they’re choreographing it on stage.

Faye Arthurs: Completely. Robbins was very, very strong on the fugal form. There’s a Benjamin Britten ballet. It’s, what is it called? It’s b- it’s The Guide to the Orchestra. Oh my God, I’m-

Evan Goldfine: Oh, the, the

Faye Arthurs: children’s- Fanfare. It’s called Fanfare.

Evan Goldfine: Okay.

Faye Arthurs: Yeah, Fanfare.

Evan Goldfine: Yeah.

Faye Arthurs: And the, the finale is a fugue, and every dancer is an instrument in the orchestra, and in the fugue, they’re doing the track of their instrument, and it’s really, it’s a really great primer for children, but it’s fun to do as well because you’re, like, seeing...

You’re a visual representation of the orchestra, and- Right ... and you’re doing those lines. Yeah. It’s pretty cool.

Evan Goldfine: Yeah. When certain pieces are conducted in certain styles, the, the orchestra’s playing. They have to play Tchaikovsky different from Bach, different from Hindemith and Arvo Part and whoever.

Faye Arthurs: Yeah.

Evan Goldfine: But d- do you find that the orchestras are playing very much on the beat to assist the dancers? Is there an, a [00:08:00] conductorial technique that they’re using to help you?

Faye Arthurs: Yeah. This is... this is the problem with conducting for dance, right? It’s always considered like a lesser. To conduct for dance is...

I know conductors it’s not the most prestigious thing, right? Mm-hmm. To conduct for dance, because there are accommodations that the dancers need. And I was playing different Goldberg iterations this week, interpretations. Thinking about Gold- trying to... I don’t have the video of the ballet here.

I’m not in New York. Sure. So I was like, “Oh, it’s been, like, 12 years since I’ve danced Goldberg. Let me see what I remember.” And the Goldberg is such a personal piece. Mm. And the tempi can just... Glenn Gould’s first and last recor- are-

Evan Goldfine: Very different pieces ...

Faye Arthurs: very different pieces, and both versions, the ‘55 and the ‘81, would be undanceable for the Robbins choreography.

Evan Goldfine: Yes.

Faye Arthurs: The first is way too fast. The second is way too slow. Yes. We would be, like just limping around. And the first [00:09:00] one, the, the aria is almost like an allegro, yes. There, there are... The Goldberg Variations for Jerome Robbins is unconducted. It’s just a pianist off- Mm-hmm ... on the corner of the stage, and they have artistic license, but within the framework of they’ve been in the rehearsal rooms with us and they know the general tempi that we need.

They know how high we can jump. They know how long we wanna be in the air in a lift, that kind of thing. How long we can turn for. Oh. We can’t endlessly turn, like they, they have they have experience with us. So it’s not like the ballet pianist can just sit and do whatever they’re feeling in the moment like a concert pianist could.

Evan Goldfine: One feeling that I’ve had, I’ve l- I’ve seen The Goldbergs live a few times at NYCB, and there’s always a very, for me I’m picky, there’s a stiffness to those performances from the piano because I know that they’re trying to [00:10:00] accommodate the dancers.

And to that end, there, there’s very little license, y- as you were saying, for the expressiveness that can come from a great performance of The Goldbergs, w- which I’ve listened to dozens over time. So but the music’s great. But and I never really thought about it as okay, the trill can go only go on for only so long because you can only twist for, for that many turns, or you can only jump, I guess there’s a cue for coming up on the jump and then, down again on the jump.

How does that work?

Faye Arthurs: It’s just if you’re too slow in a, an allegro jumping passage, if the music is too slow we’re just gonna be lumbering. We won’t be up in the air for, yeah for the, so many in Goldberg, for sure, a lot of the, the choreography is oh, you’re up on this jump in this shape on this note, and if it’s too slow, you’re gonna miss that shape on that note.

Right. Yeah.

Evan Goldfine: Yeah.

Faye Arthurs: Yeah.

Evan Goldfine: Regarding The Goldbergs, just for people’s context this was con- ... choreographed by Jerome Robbins for the New York City Ballet in 1971. The, The Goldbergs are long. It’s 80- Yeah ... or 90 [00:11:00] minutes. Very long by classical ballet standards. What made that different?

W- was this one of the kind of, some of their more war horse pieces like, Nutcracker or Sleeping Beauty or Swan Lake, those can go on longer also. The Goldbergs feel different because it’s not story based or maybe it’s obliquely story based. W- what do you, what are your memories about this particular, what about this is different from some of the other bigger pieces that they, that you danced there?

Faye Arthurs: The, The Goldberg is definitely, it’s a special piece.

It’s not like a Nutcracker that’s gonna come back every year. It’s not it’s not a big crowd pleaser. It’s, it requires-

Evan Goldfine: i’m part of the crowd. I come. I’ll get my ticket every time.

Faye Arthurs: Okay, good. No it brings out a certain very educated audience, but it’s long.

And- ... I think classical music crowds are more accustomed to, just sitting through a long piece of music. But at the ballet, the format it’s just piano for- Mm-hmm ... for a long time, for- Mm-hmm ... an hour and a half, and it’s [00:12:00] a funny, it’s usually when they have people sitting for over an hour, there’s an intermission, usually one other dance, and they always try to program Goldberg to begin and then something super popular, blockbuster closes.

So people, if they accidentally bought a ticket for the Goldberg- ... you know, um, they, they will have some sort of bombastic-

Evan Goldfine: Candy at the end, yeah ...

Faye Arthurs: yeah, candy, exactly. A little dessert after your extra long salad course or whatever. But the Goldberg was always a really special dance for us. To be in Goldberg was a great honor because it is this very beloved ballet f- for the dancers and for the company, and it’s a special dance, and we lo- we loved it.

It is funny in terms of personnel though. It is it’s, even concert pianists sometimes do that big break in the middle, before variation 16.

Evan Goldfine: Mm-hmm.

Faye Arthurs: Jerome Robbins actually, he has one full cast for the first 15 variations, and then a second cast for two- And

Evan Goldfine: then they all come back at the very end, yeah, [00:13:00] right?

Faye Arthurs: Only a few dancers come back.

Evan Goldfine: So- The, there, there’s like a pair in the beginning, right? The, Yeah ... yeah.

Faye Arthurs: Yeah.

That is a funny role because you have this important first solo and then you have to wait around for an hour. You can go do a crossword puzzle or whatever you want. You’re, you get out of your shoes, your costume, everything and then you check your watch and you come back down and you put on pointe shoes and you go back out as the very last people to move at the end too, which it’s a very funny part.

But the, the rest of the first half cast can just go home. You can just go shower and leave, other than the principals. So the theme couple and then there are like six principal roles. There are two, two pas de deuxs that anchor the first movement, and those people come back as part of the big huge group finale- Yeah

At the end of part two. But the rest of the, the rest of the people are just done. If they have another ballet they’re hanging around, or they’re just home. They’re already out to dinner. So it’s a funny, [00:14:00] it’s such a long slog that that Robbins changed out his, his personnel halfway through.

Evan Goldfine: Yeah.

Faye Arthurs: But I think, I do think he was making a larger point. I think he really breaks, even in the way that this ballet is cast, but the first half is the younger kind of group, and then the younger principals, and then actually more senior corps, because it’s a lot more featured. You’re- Yeah ... you’re dancing the whole time. And then the second half is the mature principals. Three principal couples who are, like, senior ballerinas and dancers.

And then the very youngest corps, ‘cause it’s more... It’s a bigger group, and it’s more filler kind of stuff. So you’re more like scenery for it. The first half is very intimate, everyone feels like a character in the piece- Mm-hmm ... in the second half you have these three very polished, very mature grand couples, and then you have more, it’s a less humanized corps, I would [00:15:00] say, in the second half. It’s interesting. I think Robbins breaks the ballet up into stages of life really. Like kind of- Yes ... childhood and then adulthood. Or it’s one generation looking at the next generation. But throughout the ballet, and especially the first half, has a lot of very childish moves.

There are high fives, there’s somersaults, there’s some handstands, there’s hands-behind-your-back kind of struts. There are cookie cutter shapes. There, there’s a lot of playfulness, cartwheel kinds of things. And then the second half the principals are doing more virtuosic a la seconde pirouettes, fouetté turns romantic pas de deux, which doesn’t- the first half is it’s, it... The pas de tr- the pas de deuxs are the anchors, so it’s not necessarily you’ve got one romance going on, it’s a lot of-

Evan Goldfine: Playground

...

yeah.

Faye Arthurs: Yes. Yes. And yeah. So I think Robbins was making more of a statement about generations a- and, the stages of life with [00:16:00] his breakup of-

Evan Goldfine: I feel the same way about the piece itself.

There’s something very youthful- Yeah ... in the early parts, and then you have your teenage angst. Yeah. And then you, later you have a midlife crisis, and then you come back to your youth again. Yeah. So I’ve I’ve got the, the back half of the- Yeah. ... the ballet to still live through my life, yeah. So were you familiar with The Goldbergs before? What was your relationship to Bach’s music as you were coming up in, in your youth and ballet? And I guess I, I’m imagining that probably you were more drawn to, just as many people are in their youth, the more romantic side, the Tchaikovsky and the even into Stravinsky.

But I’d love to hear about how that played before.

Faye Arthurs: My, my dad was always in a rock band, was always a drummer. Grew up on a lot of Beatles and Stones and, Mm-hmm ... rock, classic rock- Sure ... or Pogues, a lot of Irish music. So I came to classical through, through my ballet training as a young child, but I just loved it and would then, be like, “Oh my God, I’m obsessed with this [00:17:00] Sleeping Beauty that we’re doing.”

So then I got really into the music of it. And from there for sure I started listening to everything. And it’s interesting because we don’t dance to a lot of Bach at City Ballet. Sure. There’s Goldberg, there’s Barocco of course, and then Robbins has three other ballets to Bach.

And Balanchine has st- you can’t even count it. He- there’s a section called Bach in Episodes, which is- ... the, it’s the Ricercata from Antoine von Webern. And so even though that’s Bach, like melodies and, structure, it’s not exactly Bach. And I was going through the rep trying to think of “We have to have something else.”

We did a ballet called Musagete by Boris Eifman, which was about the, it was like a biography of Balanchine and his muses. Mm. And that was in like 2004. And in 2001 we had an Eliot Feld ballet called Organon, which was actually a fabulous, huge ballet to the [00:18:00] Fantasia and Fugue, Toccata and Fugue, a couple different big selections.

Mm. And it was very intense, very modern dance. But there’s not a lot of Bach in City Ballet’s rep, and I think there’s something about Bach and the purity of it that like Balanchine didn’t necessarily wanna touch. Mm. He often said “If a, a piece of music is too perfect, you shouldn’t choreograph to it.”

Mm. He was trying to use kind of what he considered slighter pieces is what he said often. And so I think it’s a shame because for one thing, Concerto Barrocco was one of his best ballets.

Evan Goldfine: Yes.

Faye Arthurs: What he could have done with that could have been tremendous. But for whatever reason, he didn’t touch Bach a lot and Robbins just the f- the four ballets, and, Goldberg was in ‘71, but then Robbins’ other three ballets to Bach, he made in the very last year of his life.

They were his last three ballets he ever made.

Evan Goldfine: Oh, interesting.

Faye Arthurs: So it is really interesting thinking about [00:19:00] maturity and aging. Really, at the end of his life, Robbins was very drawn to Bach, even though he loved Bach forever, but he was more associated with Chopin, I think- Yeah

his whole career. So I don’t know. So for me, recreationally, Bach, yes, go see it- ... whenever you can in performance. Put it on all the time. But I definitely cherished, the, the few experiences I had in dancing to it because it’s just wonderful to feel it, through your bones.

Evan Goldfine: How well did you learn these pieces in your bones? I know you, you touched a little bit earlier about, you could learn the phrases of, if it’s a Tchaikovsky, you can, you know when a phrase is gonna start and end. But did you have a in your bones, each note of full score?

Or really just the melody, or was it harmony? How did that work? I’m a very in my head kinda guy, so I can’t imagine this working in my body also. How does that work on stage when you’re listening and trying to coordinate everything? Do you know the score [00:20:00] down?

Faye Arthurs: Yes. You know the score, y- your sections of the score.

In, in thinking about appearing on this show I was like, “Oh, God, do I remember Goldberg?” And I thought to myself, “Okay, let’s see. If you could just hum it in your head, what comes to you?” And I could piece together just from cold, like at least a decade off, most of the theme, the aria, pas de deux, just from that.

And then when I played a version that was close to the right tempo the rest came back, so there’s so, there’s such a muscle, a musical muscle memory- ... that I’m always amazed at, Yeah ... with dance. ‘Cause I think, oh, I, I haven’t seen, I haven’t been a part of this forever, and, I’ll be sitting in the audience, it’ll be a revival of some ballet, and I start counting sevens.

I’m like, “Why am I counting sevens?” You just know, you know your history with the piece very- Very deeply, very embodied which is I think why I danced and why I loved to [00:21:00] dance. But,

Evan Goldfine: C- could you dig a little more on that? So you felt like you were able to You, you use the phrase make music visible.

Faye Arthurs: Yeah.

Evan Goldfine: Was it the music first and then your expression of it through your body? That, was, is that the s- the essence of it?

Faye Arthurs: Yeah, I think so. There, the pianist for Goldberg on Stage, maybe I can put it this way. The pianist is constrained by our movements,

Evan Goldfine: mm-hmm.

Faye Arthurs: So they can’t do their full whatever they’re feeling in that moment kind of interpretation.

They’re a little, they’re a little handcuffed. But for us on stage, we, whatever the tempo i- look, we don’t get to generate the tempo, but how you hear and adjust and, watching different bodies do the same solo there’s a very beautiful, I think it’s Variation 7. It’s a, a female solo that is just lovely, and it’s really introspective, and actually Robbins has a framework of cast members on the stage in a [00:22:00] semicircle behind her watching her, a few in the front.

It’s a really lovely passage, and it’s a little devotional, it’s a little playful. It’s all over the place, but it’s really expressive of a particular dancer, and watching every different dancer do that solo I always think is it’s like it’s just like reading somebody, yes. And it so I feel like it comes from the music. It’s like an external prompt to put your personality or your your read. That’s where the artistry comes in. How you’re hearing that and- Yes ... how you’re, you have to be on the music. But everyone, watching different people do things is their interpretation of music and how they’re hearing something, I think-

Evan Goldfine: Yes ...

Faye Arthurs: I don’t know if that makes sense, but

Evan Goldfine: It does. I talk about this a lot in, in these interviews about what makes a good performance of Bach, because there’s very little instruction given to the performers. There’s often no tempo markings, there’s no accents, and it’s a wide-open canvas, [00:23:00] and which is why you have, you can have very highly varied performances.

And fast doesn’t necessarily always work, slow doesn’t necessarily always work, but the certain personal expression that, that people are able to put through these notes works often. And when it does, it’s incredible. And I have not gotten to the bottom of what that is. How does that work? And I’m coming closer with music.

I still don’t really quite get it. I, Why do certain people sound the way they do? I mean, You could break it down technically, but there’s interpretation of it. And I’m, I guess I can put this to you again. How do you think that you’re able to make that interpretation with highly choreographed steps and a director who’s telling you, “This is what I wanna see.”

How does Faye still come through-

Faye Arthurs: Yeah ...

Evan Goldfine: in those moments?

Faye Arthurs: Yeah. I think if you think about singing it’s a similar, it’s a similar thing if you’re in part two of Goldberg and you’re in the giant corps, you’ve gotta be, everyone has [00:24:00] to a little bit more, be more militant about how they’re interpreting the notes, that’s just what’s required of that moment. If you’re at, in the Waltz of the Flowers and you’re a flower, it’s like you better all feel this turn in this exact way kind of a thing. But then if you’re the soloist, and really every role in part one of the Goldberg ballet is full license to, make your mark hear it how you wanna hear it put your own coloring on the step.

It’s like a, a singer who has license to hold something a little too long and then catch up, elide the next phrase and do whatever. So the poor Goldberg pianist is not able to do that- ... but we are on stage. If you’re really hitting a balance, you can stay in it, and you can then catch up in the next phrase.

Or if you wanna there’s some, some dancers are considered incredibly musical, and it means they’re not on the note. It means they always know where the note is, but they’re not on it, they’re like, they’re [00:25:00] phrasing over it. Kyra Nichols, Tiler Peck currently. There, there are some, Suzanne Farrell probably most famous.

These people who can play with the music, show you a different, like stretch out or elide a phrase as they see fit in the moment, it’s like today’s a little this, t- tomorrow’s a little that, and I think those are the best performers.

Evan Goldfine: Yes.

Faye Arthurs: And I, I was always really the most excited to get to be a, in a solo or a, a part where I had the freedom to ch- you know, do my read on- Yeah

something. So I, it, there’s definitely like rank and structure comes into it. Barocco though, for example, that’s one of the most mathematical ballets, and it’s- Yeah ... there is leeway for the leads a little bit, but they correspond tightly. There are two, two women, and they, each one corresponds to the first and second violin, and they have to be on it too.

And the, and it’s just a very, for the most part, very fast piece too, [00:26:00] so you don’t wanna do something too uh, musically, you know showy and, and get on the next person’s note, ‘cause then the, the structure of that piece is ruined. Yeah. But Goldberg is, and a lot of Robbins really, is very human and very personality based.

And I think that a lot of his stuff is to solo piano. He really, that was a forte for him. And solo piano is definitely a place, not in the ballet world for the pianist, but for the dancers to be like a pianist in a concert setting, and really just do your, versus the whole or- orchestra trying to- Mm-hmm

be together. It works similarly to actual musical instruments, I think. It’s just- Yeah ... we’re riding these tempi that we don’t control. Yeah. But we still then, how we’re processing and hearing can be musical or non-musical within those [00:27:00] frameworks.

Evan Goldfine: Yeah, definitely. I’d like to talk about one of your former colleagues who I thought was one of the more magical dancers I saw, and that’s Wendy Whelan.

Faye Arthurs: Mm.

Evan Goldfine: Um, Who I think pulled off something that I’d never really seen before. It looked like she was, like, not made of substance. It’s like she, she got this thing where she looked like she was a feather.

Faye Arthurs: Yeah ...

Evan Goldfine: i’ve never talked to anyone who could explain that. I mean, Do you have any insight about how she was able to pull any of that off?

Faye Arthurs: She was, what a, what an incredible dancer. What a legend. She was so strong. So strong. And she I was just thinking about Wendy in that last con- talking about the more musical dancers. Wendy was a very musical dancer, but she was not doing the, the diva like, “I’m gonna bend time in this way.”

Mm. Like I was just speaking about. She was boiling things down to the [00:28:00] essence, she she was going for a kind of like purity of score and of line and of intent that, you know, I haven’t seen before or since. I think of her renditions of The Four Temperaments, Agon, a lot of these famous Balanchine black and white ballets that are usually very spare, very atonal.

Wendy, w- I feel like she laid down the perfect tracks of those. Mm. She just, she figured out exactly Symphony in Three Movements, another Stravinsky piece. She figured out the platonic ideal of that piece, and she went for that every show. So she was not gonna bend a note.

She was not gonna over-hold a balance. She was just going to give you the essential Agon, if that makes sense.

Evan Goldfine: Yeah.

Faye Arthurs: Those are different things, but-

Evan Goldfine: Yeah, it was pre- preplanned, but that it took artistry in the preparation, and then she- Yeah ... executed at an extremely high level.

Faye Arthurs: One of the most focused [00:29:00] artists I’ve ever known.

A, like a lovely woman, but just everything was about the stage and turning in that textbook perform- I remember thinking like, “I don’t even think her pinky finger has been in a different place,” you know? i, in different subsequent performances of Agon. I would watch and just marvel at like she and Jock Soto have done this probably identically on down to where they’re standing on the stage, the breath that they’re taking.

She just really she homed in on her ideal rendition of a dance, and she was able to just repeat it. Wow. And it was extraordinary. I mean, That, it’s a different thing. She was also great in the Goldberg Variations, but i- it’s a different thing than I was talking about before.

Yes. No less impressive, just just the opposite. Yeah. And that’s, answers a little, too, about your how do you carve out your own artistry within these things. That is a way as well.

Evan Goldfine: Yeah you do your prep ahead of time. I wouldn’t wanna hear

Faye Arthurs: that from a- In a very exacting [00:30:00] way.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Evan Goldfine: I wouldn’t wanna hear that from a jazz musician.

But it works in ballet, right?

Faye Arthurs: Yes, it does. Yeah.

Evan Goldfine: Faye, this has been great. I’d love to ask if there’s what you’ve been listening to lately. What are some albums that you’re either coming back to from a long time ago, or something new?

It doesn’t have to be classical. Anything that we can share with the listeners looking for something different.

Faye Arthurs: Oh my goodness. I have to say, I’m a little high on a concert I saw this week. I saw Mavis Staples.

Evan Goldfine: Oh, yeah.

Faye Arthurs: Who was just amazing at 87. Just her instrument is still just so robust, and she didn’t have the breath control that she had before.

She couldn’t do everything, but it was, like, just such an amazing example of an artistic aging that was, like, just beautifully done. Mm-hmm. Very gracious and very powerful. Yeah. She didn’t always have the power behind her voice that she did have, but she could, and she went to it when she needed it, and it w- it was very smart and very meaningful in the context [00:31:00] of, activism right now, and just every- everything.

Yeah ... the history that came with her, and she spoke of Martin Luther King and all the, it was just this amazing, Yeah ... an amazing show.

Evan Goldfine: That’s cool. Yeah.

Faye Arthurs: Yeah. So that’s what I’m excited about this week. I was thinking of, just thinking about Goldberg all week, thinking of- There are not a ton.

A lot of choreographers seem to have avoided Bach, I think for that reason of it’s so perfect and so pure. But some, a lot of people have some of their most famous dances to Bach. Mm. So I feel like maybe we should mention that on this show.

Evan Goldfine: Yes. Who, who else, Who else might we wanna catch if it’s ever performed anywhere?

Um,

Faye Arthurs: well, Paul Taylor’s Esplanade, that’s pretty much his signature work, and that’s to the same music as Concerto Barocco, as well as the Violin Concerto No. 2 in E Major. So that’s, his signature dance is also Bach. And he does, it’s more like Part One of Robbins’ Goldberg, where it’s [00:32:00] crawling, it’s baseball slides.

It’s very pedestrian and very silly at times, and kind of fun. Just interesting that Balanchine, Taylor, a lot of people, Robbins, have some of their best known dances to Bach, I think is... Promethean Fire is another big Paul Taylor piece that was made. It’s his September 11th response-

Evan Goldfine: Mm-hmm

Faye Arthurs: ballet, and that’s it’s a very moving dance. Mark Morris did a collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma, Falling Down Stairs to I think it’s the Third Unaccompanied Cello Suite. So the, these are big pieces in the dance world, and they’re all to Bach, even though these choreographers really didn’t touch Bach a lot outside of that.

And I think it’s interesting. Maybe more d- more dance makers should try more Bach.

Evan Goldfine: Yeah.

Faye Arthurs: Um, But I think there’s something, too, ‘cause I’ve seen a lot of lesser dances to Bach. It can be a trap as well. Where does

Evan Goldfine: it fail? Yeah.

Faye Arthurs: I think it’s just so simple and [00:33:00] pure, really, that if you go too far in either direction, it’s just gonna feel hokey.

You know what I mean? Yeah. If you try to make it overly complicated, it feels disingenuous, and if you try to make it way too simple, it also feels disingenuous. I don’t know. Yeah. It’s like Bach is such a- it’s simple, but it’s really um, not, you know? I mean, you know that, but um, you know that better than I do.

But I think it’s... I don’t know. I just... It’s a, it seems to be a pitfall of over or under complicating Bach. You have to just nail it, and I think- You got a

Evan Goldfine: Goldilocks here,

Faye Arthurs: you’re in the room ... it’s very hard to do. It’s a Goldilocks zone. Yeah. He’s a Goldilocks composer. Yeah.

Evan Goldfine: Yeah.

Faye Arthurs: That’s interesting

Evan Goldfine: well you can catch Faye’s writing at The Fjord Review. Are you publishing anywhere else lately?

Faye Arthurs: I write a little bit for Air Mail. I’ve been working doing archival stuff for the George Balanchine Foundation. Oh,

Evan Goldfine: nice.

Faye Arthurs: Yeah. Little bits here and there. Yeah.

Evan Goldfine: But thank you for coming today and sharing your experience about dancing Bach.[00:34:00]

This is a conversation I really wanted to have.

Faye Arthurs: Thank you for having me. This was a pleasure.

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