Robert Gottlieb
Robert Gottlieb
Robert Adams Gottliebis an American writer and editor. From 1987 to 1992 he was the editor of The New Yorker...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth29 April 1931
CountryUnited States of America
The 1920s brought not only the Charleston but the flat chest.
along commanding evidence faith figures genius george martha performer taken younger
Martha Graham, along with George Balanchine, is one of the two commanding figures in 20th-century American dance. For those much younger than I am, her genius as a performer will have to be taken on faith - and on the always-suspect evidence of film. What will last, if things go well, is her genius as a choreographer, as a woman of the theater.
certain extremely father happier lawyer thoughts
I was the only child, and I know my father had certain thoughts about me. He was a lawyer and extremely literary, but he would have been much happier if I had wanted to be a lawyer, a scientist, an engineer. But what I wanted to do was read.
relationship
Without a Prospero-Caliban relationship to balance the Prospero-Ariel one, 'The Tempest' loses much of its resonance.
ballet combining dancer dialogue disastrous founding mess sometime terrible vegas
Melissa Barak, an ex-City Ballet dancer and sometime choreographer, has put together an unspeakably dopey and incompetent mess called 'Call Me Ben,' combining ultra-generic dance, terrible dialogue and disastrous storytelling, about the founding of Las Vegas by the gangster Bugsy Siegel, who insists, violently, on being addressed as 'Ben.'
act best depends domestic elaborate features great house observe scenery seat second sit
The best seat in the house often depends on the ballet. For instance, much of the first act of 'The Nutcracker' is domestic and small scale, so it's great to sit up close. But the second act features elaborate scenery and choreography, which are better to observe from a distance.
above below bulbs centers chest concept large pattern strung
'Eclipse' is a concept piece, and its concept centers on 36 large light bulbs strung from above in a geometrical pattern and at different heights, some of them at times down below the dancers' chest level.
december
When December comes, can 'The Nutcracker' be far behind? No, it can't - not in America, anyway.
familiar filled italians russians sacred shakespeare whom
For Russians, to whom Pushkin's poem 'Eugene Onegin' is sacred text, the ballet's story and personae are as familiar and filled with meaning as, for instance, 'Romeo' and 'Hamlet' are for us. Russians know whole stretches of it by heart, the way we know Shakespeare and Italians know Dante.
ballet earn money shall spends stuck
As ye sow, so shall ye reap. When a ballet company spends a lot of money on gimmicky pieces, it's stuck with them for a while - they have to earn their keep.
ballet beauty classical harder repertory
The heart of the classical repertory is the Tchaikovsky-Petipa 'Sleeping Beauty,' and no ballet is harder to get right.
altered eternal radically relationship tone uneasy
The eternal and uneasy relationship between ballet and modern dance endures, but radically altered in tone and intensity.
ballerina movement paradigm strength
The first movement ballerina should be a paradigm of strength and authority.
ballet dancers eternal good mysteries people perform plain pure supposedly untalented work
One of the eternal mysteries of ballet is how untalented choreographers find backers for their work, and then find good dancers to perform in it. Is it irresistible charm? Chutzpah? Pure determination? Blackmail? Or are so many supposedly knowledgeable people just plain blind?