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RE: Ross Stretton thread 2,
grace, 17-03-00, (1)
  RE: Ross Stretton thread 2,
Bruce M, 17-03-00, (2)
Another link..,
Bruce M, 19-03-00, (3)
RE: Another link..,
Jane S, 20-03-00, (4)
RE: Another link..,
Margaret the Aussie, 21-03-00, (6)
An Apology,
Bruce M, 20-03-00, (5)
stretton TV interview,
grace, 21-03-00, (7)
Another Stretton interview - nearly,
Bruce M, 23-03-00, (8)
RE: Another Stretton interview - nearly,
grace, 24-03-00, (9)
RE: Another Stretton interview - nearly,
Alexandra, 24-03-00, (10)
RE: Another Stretton interview - nearly,
Bruce M, 25-03-00, (12)
An inetrview link,
Bruce M, 25-03-00, (11)
A memory of Ross Stretton,
Renee Renouf, 26-03-00, (13)
Another interview?,
Jane S, 27-03-00, (14)
RE: Another interview?,
Bruce M, 28-03-00, (15)
...and another,
Jane S, 28-03-00, (16)
READ THIS ARTICLE!,
grace, 29-03-00, (17)
 RE: ...and another,
Karen, 29-03-00, (18)
Ross Stretton interview,
Bruce M, 04-04-00, (19)
RE: Ross Stretton interview,
Ann Williams, 04-04-00, (20)
RE: Ross Stretton interview,
Eugene merrett, 05-04-00, (21)
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Bruce M    |
17-03-00, 01:26 PM (GMT)
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2. "RE: Ross Stretton thread 2" |
LAST EDITED ON 17-Mar-00 AT 01:43 PM (GMT)LAST EDITED ON 17-Mar-00 AT 01:37 PM (GMT) Oh dear! - had better change... must be a bug because I can't edit it out easily... Phew, now sorted
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Margaret the Aussie |
21-03-00, 06:50 AM (GMT)
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6. "RE: Another link.." |
I thought as a regular Aussie reader I should add my thoughts to the Ross Stretton discussion."Caring for tradition. Daring to be different" is the current motto for The Australian Ballet, and it appears a strong personal belief of Ross'. Since Ross' appointment the AB has presented a well round program with a good mix of the traditional classics, more modern classics (ie. Manon) and new and established contemporary works. He has bought in established works such as "La Bayadere", and importantly commissioned a number of new works from both local and international choreographers. One of the most exciting aspects of Ross' artistic direction has been in the fostering of Australian choreographers. At his appointment the AB had two resident choreographers (both who had come up through the ranks of the company as dancers) and he has given both of these the opportunity of developing evening length and short works. Last year he appointed another resident choreographer - Natalie Weir. Natalie is a dynamic young contemporary choreographer who had done numerous commissions for our state companies and Ross gave her the opportunity to choreograph for a "workshop" season, her piece "Dark Lullaby" was so successful it was taken into the repetiore, and she is now developing a full length work for the company. Ross has enticed a few guests to the AB for short seasons (a rare event unfortunately for our far flung country). Sydney audiences got to see Darcey Bussell, and Sylvie Guillem is coming to dance in the AB's Olympics program (so exciting we are driving 1000 km to see her dance - a hard feat in England!) Ross has given opportunities to a number of talented young dancers and rewarded their success with appropriate promotions. Touring is also a big issue in such a large country, and although we are hearing that funding is tight Ross has increased the touring within Australia much to the delight of audiences outside Sydney and Melbourne. They also last year had three very successful overseas tours to China, New Zealand and USA. Lastly, I saw it noted in a previous posting the Ross is often noted for being "distant" with the dancers ("spending too much time on administration"), this is a fairly wide spread comment, but also needs to be put in the context of the previous Artistic Director who was often noted for being "too invasive" in dancer's lives. Hope this personal account is of interest.
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grace |
21-03-00, 04:15 PM (GMT)
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7. "stretton TV interview" |
jane, just for the record, at the end of the brief TV interview for the ABC, the INTERVIEWER'S words were "so, you want to liven it up over there". stretton squirmed ever so slightly, looked embarrassed and nodded.likewise the comment about bringing the RB up to the standard of the AB was not made publicly. again, it was the INTERVIEWER who quizzed him as to whether he HAD said it somewhere. he just changed the subject. after his little talk about something else, the interviewer came back insisting on an answer to the same question, so he conceded that he HAD said it, and again, looked embarrassed - neither of them went into the context, which i think is all-important. jane will probably know, but others may not, that dancers are great jokers, company life is full of such flippancy, and he's obviously in a pretty happy mood about this thrilling appointment...i think it's unfair to leap on any and every such pronouncement and analyse it into the ground. i know that hasn't happened yet, but i see it coming! give the guy a chance: wait and see... 
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grace |
24-03-00, 03:57 AM (GMT)
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9. "RE: Another Stretton interview - nearly" |
great, bruce: look forward to it!
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Alexandra |
24-03-00, 03:24 PM (GMT)
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10. "RE: Another Stretton interview - nearly" |
The Australian TV interview has come up on Ballet Alert! as well, and there seems to be a slight difference in perception among those who saw the interview. I'm copying the comments of one of our posters who doesn't know about this board (I'll write and tell her, Bruce!):"Also, if you caught the last few minutes, basically you saw the entire interview... especially the repeated references to Stretton being a 'colonial' He did however, agree very quickly about the 'liven up' comment (i taped the arts show, you see, so I just went back and checked...) and went on to agreeing with the comment that australian dancers are very physical and that he thinks the english dancers have the same potential, it just needs to be 'tapped' a little. Just to make it clear, despite what i posted earlier, he sounded very positive about the RB dancers." Can't wait to read yours, Bruce.
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Bruce M |
25-03-00, 08:41 PM (GMT)
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12. "RE: Another Stretton interview - nearly" |
I hate to say this.. but I've decided to run the Stretton chat in the next magazine which comes out in a weeks time - you know it makes sense!Sorry... but its not like we won't be doing stuff on the site of course.
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Renee Renouf |
26-03-00, 07:45 AM (GMT)
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13. "A memory of Ross Stretton" |
I have a personal memory of Ross Stretton during his brief tenure with The Joffrey Ballet. The Friends of the Joffrey Ballet in San Francisco staged a party for them after its final performance, out in the depths of the Marina.For those who don't know San Francisco, this was a filled-in site on the north side of the peninsula between the Golden Gate and Telegraph Hill which was used for the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915. After the Exposition was over, it became a development site of Mediterranean stucco type individual homes, two units and apartments. It also has heavy damage during the 1989 Loma Prieto Earthquake. Sorry for the digression, but it has its share of windy roads and distances from bus stops. As the evening wore on, we tried to get cabs, and they were few and far between. I attended with my mother, 85, and not quite all there. When a cab arrived for Ross Stretton, he took one look a me and at my mother and gave us his cab, refusing to share it, so that my mother could get home and to bed. I was startled by his graciousness and I have not forgotten the incident.
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Jane S |
27-03-00, 09:39 PM (GMT)
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14. "Another interview?" |
Did anyone see the interview with Stretton in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday? There's a tantalising lead-in on the FT site, with the interviewer (Louise Levene?) saying that while it's good to focus on bringing in new young audiences, what about the old one (over 45s)? I'd love to know what he said but I'm too mean to pay $1.50 to read it on-line!
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Bruce M |
28-03-00, 07:17 AM (GMT)
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15. "RE: Another interview?" |
>Did anyone see the interview with Stretton
>in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday? There's
>a tantalising lead-in on the FT
>site, with the interviewer (Louise Levene?)
>saying that while it's good to
>focus on bringing in new young
>audiences, what about the old one
>(over 45s)? I'd love to know
>what he said but I'm too
>mean to pay $1.50 to read
>it on-line!
It was with Levene and it was one part of her column and so not so long. Her take was to query the need to always bring in the young and also to note that while this was a constant theme, Stretton had a knack of agreeing with nearly every point she made. There was some comment like "interviewing him was like gift wrapping an octopus!"
The FT clearly has sorted access to sites at a data level and hence gets pieces that the papers own sites don't bother to present. crazy.
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grace |
29-03-00, 04:01 AM (GMT)
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17. "READ THIS ARTICLE!" |
EXCELLENT article jane: thank you so much for that. everyone should read THIS one!
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Karen |
29-03-00, 06:55 AM (GMT)
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18. "RE: ...and another" |
I met Ross Stretton when he danced with NBT (his wife, Valmai, was also a company member). A close friend of mine was the stage manager at the time. I was in Manchester during a run of the Nutcracker and was asked to help with some of the stage manager's administrative chores, so I was backstage in the wings for the performance. Ross came and stood next to me as we watched. Then one of those theatrical disaster occurred: the set had a table on either side of the stage with, for the party scene, "food" on them - rubber and plastic chickens, fruit, puddings, etc. - and on the reverse side enlarged toys for the scene where the tree grows. The tables were on wheels and had to turn around between the scenes and then be pulled off for the "snow" scene. Well, something went very wrong and the tables wouldn't come off and wound up spilling their contents of rubber and plastic food mostly on the upstage 1/3 but with some items landing well downstage - just in time to appear inconguously in "snow". Ross grabbed my arm so hard that I had black and blue marks for weeks, and we both had to cover our mouths to prevent what would otherwise have been very loud guffaws from being heard by the audience! (For the curious - the problem was resolved by a very alert lightingboard operator, who kept the upstage portion of the stage unlit so the stage management team could clear the debris, a brilliant Clara, who picked up the downstage items and most gracefully tossed them into the wings, and by a creative snow pas-de-deux couple, who adapted the choreography to fit on a smaller stage area.)
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Bruce M |
04-04-00, 08:57 AM (GMT)
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19. "Ross Stretton interview" |
I thought I would a copy of this in the thread for comment or whatever
After a chat with Ross Stretton one comes away with the feeling of an eminently calm and capable 'bloke'... but as you listen and respond you also think "my: what a hell of a job for anybody to take on" - there is so very much to do, so very many people to see, so many vested interests, so many questions and every response is sifted, weighed and categorised to be recalled and used in 'evidence' later. Did anybody think to read the standard police caution to him about the job I wonder?
No matter, Stretton gives every appearance of knowing exactly what he is up for and he seems comfortable with the uncomfortable. Background to the Chat
Ross Stretton came over for 5 days in the week beginning 20th March. It sounds a long time but he must have had the diary from hell with so many people to see inside RB/ROH (management above, managed below, dancers, choreographers, major benefactors...) and all the external work too. I was one of a group of eight to see him late afternoon on the Thursday - considering he must have had four days of solid meetings all day, and working meetings at night, he looked fresh and most importantly, pleased to be with us and tell us what he was about. He didn't rush away either. Of course following the initial announcement there was a flurry of telephone interviews with Stretton in Australia, plus local interviews out there and a wealth of links, quotes and anecdotes are on the net already. The joy of being part of wave 2 is hearing and talking about a slightly more considered and reflective view. But anybody looking for major revelations won't find them here. Rather it was nice to see and hear first hand his thoughts and what it might mean for the Royal - very much a kind of touchy/feely thing and few notes were taken by anyone. What follows is what we talked about with Stretton on the day. I'm not particularly aiming to give a rounded account of his career or distill down what he has said in various other interviews - they are all worth reading to get the fullest feeling for what is important to him. However the collective questions and answers I think pretty much cover the man and where he is coming from - but I would say that I suppose! Stretton Style
The original man in black - he is dressed comfortably with a black top and black trousers. He could have almost stepped straight from the rehearsal room: neat and artistic director business like I suppose. His personal style is relaxed and warm but there is authority and he tends to look you straight in the eye when answering. While he doesn't waffle he definitely has what I think of as the American way of finding the right words with the right weight. And he would invariably seek ways of firstly agreeing with you rather than telling you he disagrees: if necessary that would be wrapped up nicely and added at the end - but you might need to hunt for it! One suspects however that he can be more direct - the Australian bit of him? - and of course in one or two early interviews there was less constrained talk about what he might do with 'butts'. Although sharing some of Michael Kaiser's 'appropriate' use of English plus both having worked at ABT and Kaiser having made the call to him about the RB job, Stretton is keen to be seen as his own man - he is there to run the ballet and clearly expects to. On a positive note he talks of the pleasant initial interactions - where Kaiser asked Stretton what he wants to put on - budgets are not the central issue, which must make for a refreshing change for everybody. Stretton is at pains to make clear that he definitely is not an office bound director - he likes to be out in class, rehearsing dancers and seeing what's going on elsewhere as well. He was asked if he would dance any roles himself - the odd Carabosse for example: "That's not what I'm here to do" was the swift response. He sees dancers as different these days: much more athletic and with minds that see far broader issues. The result is that they need to be involved,motivated and pushed: not just told what to do.
Unpacking his Inheritance
Many times during the chat he talked about having to assess the position before making full plans. He needs to see the dancers, study the repertoire and what was danced when etc. With an eye to the wider organisation he also talks of the need to assess the ROH - "the ballet company is the easy part!". One got the impression of somebody who sees a goodly number of very positive ways forward no matter what circumstance they might find themselves. And if nothing else is achieved in his coming over he is going back to Australia with an awful lot of RB videos to study.
Having stressed the need to assess and mug-up on so much, the only community he didn't mention in this respect was the audience. Unfortunately time was too short to explore this. But based on what he said here and elsewhere he holds some clear views on the need to move ballet forward and broaden the audience (of which more later). While many would agree with him it would be nice if he saw the audience as there to be consulted and more formally considered perhaps more than to be educated and sold to (as well as entertained of course!). Stretton's Australian Ballet
Stretton gave us a thumbnail sketch of AB: 58 dancers with a 'full repertoire' from the classics through to very modern works, 3 resident choreographers, and giving 190 performances a year. AB seems to sell well at the box office with 90% of performances sold by subscriptions to 3, 4 or 5 performances. While there would not seem to have been much scope actually to grow the audience he has changed their composition with his move to introduce more modern works - so in part it's a more youthful audience now. A few of us draw the natural comparisons with RB which has more dancers (approx 86 plus guests ) and fewer performances (around 130) making it difficult to draw out and develop younger dancers. Also the lack of any resident choreographer(s). Stretton naturally talks about his need to see the company much more but notes the extra performance spaces that now exist in the ROH and clearly intends to use them for growing choreographic talent and dancers. He also mentions extending runs of existing programmes as a way of growing dancers rather than always doing new programmes. There are so many ways to juggle of course but the larger company and smaller number of main house performances are likely to continue to test all concerned. New Works
The need for new work was what Stretton choose particularly to highlight in his words for the ROH press release on the appointment. Most interviews have highlighted this aspect of what he brings as well. He is clearly passionate about seeing ballet move forward and renew itself. The 3 resident choreographers in AB are a testament to that as is the introduction of other works from international choreographers - the ones he usually mentions are Duato, Kylian, Forsythe, Bejart and Preljocaj... but he always adds that he can rattle off a very long list, but it does not count for much until he has seen the dancers and what the company can do. You get the impression that Stretton has a very wide knowledge of what is going on worldwide and knows how to introduce winners that will suit the dancers and win over the audience - and the proof was in Australia where new works sell apparently as well as the old. It obviously played well to the ROH board Stretton spices his responses about young choreographers and new works by noting you have to ".. build programmes around new works so that they don't fail." He cites Natalie Weir who originally choreographed a short workshop piece, who was then presented on the main stage as a one act piece a year later and this year is going on to develop that piece into a full evening ballet. It seems such a sensible way to develop talent I have to say. Classical and Heritage Works
Classical works were not mentioned at all - it seems to be taken as a given that they will feature and be looked after. Heritage works (Ashton and MacMillan are the primary RB examples) are much more of a concern to many fans and critics. Stretton was clear that the board would not have offered him the job if they thought he would not respect the RB heritage works and he - personally - was not there to oversee the demise of the RB heritage. But of course if there is extra emphasis on new works, it's logical that something must give elsewhere... so it's not necessarily easy to square all the responses. Some questioners also noted that the Royal is light in Tudor and Cranko, and yes that too would be nice to put right at sometime Stretton agreed, though he gave no particular hostages to fortune. In bringing back or recovering old heritage works he was at pains to say it was only worth doing if the work could be done with integrity and within the spirit of the original work - he's not so interested in guess-work or just getting the steps from notation. With an eye to costs he also talked about only being able to bring back works which had a life of a few seasons. Reading between the lines, always dangerous of course, it seems to be that heritage works that do come back will be done very well.. or they will not be done at all. Collaborations
Stretton seems to be a firm believer in fusing ballet with other dance/art and you can read elsewhere of some the work AB have done in this area. But he notes the ".. need to work with marketing - it's no good if you can't get it out there". He was also asked about collaborations with other companies... like American Ballet Theatre (ABT). "Why not, it's almost inevitable given the cost involved - but not just with ABT of course!". The First Stretton Season
Stretton says the 2001/2002 season is clear and totally his to shape. The season would normally start in September but he has a commitment to AB until later in 2001. At the moment the hope (of both the Boards involved) is that Stretton will be able to take up his appointment in September and AB will have a new AD in place at that time. If he is not around then it would change the works he selects for the start of the season - he needs to teach, coach and nurture the dancers in some of the repertoire he might choose. However what that might be is a long way off from being decided let alone spoken of externally. One suspects a run of Nutcrackers at Christmas might still be on though! At the end I ask how long it will take to see the Stretton difference... He smiles a smile and gives a 'how long is a ball of string' answer. It's not 1 or 2 years, though clearly he will want to land and make as big an impact as he sensibly can. We all know the answer - that it takes more than a few years to move a company on and for that to be appreciated by the wider audience, and a different audience indeed. He is obviously not daunted - just wants to get on. Stretton talks confidently and perceives there is much to be done and that he can add to the company. He is backed by a management that wants the past respected while encouraging him to take a world class company forward and actively encouraging him to ask for what he wants rather than just think money. (The cynic in me says it will never last!). The new is likely to feature more but if he keeps the seats full and gives us more diversity that will be no bad thing - at least in my book. Perhaps more than anything Stretton looks as if he will help to raise the RB profile and make ballet/dance more relevant to everyone. If he succeeds in this we will all have reasons to be very thankful indeed.
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Ann Williams |
04-04-00, 07:30 PM (GMT)
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20. "RE: Ross Stretton interview" |
I enjoyed that, Bruce. It said at least as much -and probably more - than the clutch of other interviews in the press.Can I add my tuppence worth about Stretton? When ABT came here in 1990 it was their 50th anniversary year and they produced the most wonderful souvenir brochure, complete with glamorous photographs by Annie Leibovitz. It cost the princely sum of £6 and I've still got it (never tire of looking at it actually). At that time Stretton was dancing with ABT and alongside his elegantly pin-striped portrait was a brief autobiography. It said: "Before I started ballet, I was a motor mechanic, test driving cars and smashing them up to assess the damage. when I was 18, a Russian ballet company came to Canberra, and they had a guy who could jump through the roof. I said to my father, 'I want to go to Melbourne and be a ballet dancer'. He said WHAT?!?...." Just thought you'd want to know this useful sort of stuff.
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Eugene merrett |
05-04-00, 12:21 PM (GMT)
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21. "RE: Ross Stretton interview" |
It is hard to comment on Ross Stretton as I know so little about him.Regarding the Australian Ballet. Judging from the videos I have of the company including Manon, S Beauty etc it seems that the compay is very physical. The RB looks rather earthbound in comparison. How do you raise standards? Ideally you start with the school. But does the RB director have a say in school affairs. Moreover is it politically realistic to impose the tough regime which is perhaps necessary to improve standards. Some dancer suggest begining training at 8 years old as oppose to 10 years. But I would think that child support agency would have to be consulted before such a move is considered. So it seems the only way to improve standards is to hire more dancers from other schools. And that would be a pity!
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