Curtain Up on a New Festival.

JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS I attended an extraordinary dance congress called the Monaco Danses Dances Forum, the first of its kind, held in Monaco, that tiny principality on the sun-drenched south coast of France. A wiseguy guidebook writer proposed that there are three kinds of people who live in Monaco: the billionaires, the millionaires and the tourists. If that is even partially true, then it is ironic that professional dancers don't fit into any of these categories. In fact, many of the dancers and support staff in Monaco's Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, as well as its artistic director, Jean-Christophe Maillot, who did so much to make this dance congress happen, have chosen to live in less costly industrial Nice nearby.

But many of the dancers' patrons do fit in--the billionaires, the millionaires--and turn out in glamorous bundles for the arts, such as the Monaco Danses Dances, held at the spectacular new seaside Grimaldi Forum (much of which is actually below the sea). Think of Monte Carlo as a 540-carat white diamond of exceptional brilliance and Monaco as the platinum setting. In Monte Carlo is the Casino and adjoining Beaux Arts-style Garnier Theater. Today, Monte Carlo is not so famous among dance people for its gambling as it is synonymous with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, a central presence in the development of twentieth-century dance history. And the Ballets Russes introduced us to Vaslav Nijinsky, unarguably one of the greatest dancers and choreographers the human species has produced. Therefore, it is appropriate that the first Nijinsky Awards should be presented here, and lavishly presented under the patronage of Caroline, Princess of Hanover, daughter of the American movie actress Grace Kelly and Monaco's Prince Rainier III.

The patronage of the Princess reminds us that ballet survived primarily on royal support for hundreds of years--that was certainly true of Diaghilev, who, said Jean Cocteau in a film clip, "never had a sou" but "knew the rich ladies." And royal patronage seems very much alive, here and there, despite the role that corporate sponsorship has come to play in today's arts economy. (See Presstime News, page 33, for a fuller account of the first Nijinsky Awards.)

But this Forum, or more accurately this congress, had not so much to do with Monaco's rich cultural heritage as it did with analyzing the directions in which dance is headed today. And there was, in fact, a vast range of work to be seen in Monaco. Almost too much, really, because some of the most interesting and diverse dance programs were scheduled to be viewed on film--meaning you had to make choices almost hourly about what you wanted to feast on now. But, then, a good congress, it seems to me, does exactly that, leaves you wanting more--and more is being planned for December 2002--free, one hopes, of some of the administrative wrinkles that were to be expected the first time around.

What were the organizers trying to do? A statement of purpose puts it this way: "Focused on creators, performers, technicians and associated tools, the event aims to reflect the extreme wealth of choreographic methods and practices in conjunction with other artistic and technical fields.... The ambition of the Monaco Danses Dances Forum is to review the state of dance, translate its movements and forms and open up new perspectives."

And did they succeed in this ambitious goal? No and yes. It was not, I am afraid, as successful in the selection of the first Nijinsky Awards. The honors and cash bestowed on the recipients--four of them in six categories--were without question well deserved. And the production on December 16 was lavishly done, although I could not help being reminded time and again of the disparity between today's shaky dance economics and the big bucks paid out for this one-night spectacular that was meant to rival our Academy Awards, to outdo our Antoinette Perry Awards. Of course, making aware the people who can help dance with substantial dollar gifts and by getting them to attend the Grimaldi multimedia performance presentation and elaborate champagne supper following was probably the driving motive behind the opulence. Still, I kept thinking how far the money that must have been spent on the presentation of these awards would have gone toward resuscitating financially compromised dance companies around the world.

Another troublesome aspect of the Nijinsky Awards came about as the result of an unwieldy layered voting process (one-third of the votes coming from the Internet, where there were too few participants). As a result, the thirty-four finalists were predominantly white Europeans or Russians, and there were no Asians or blacks at all! Not exactly in step with the multicultural, international events going on in that same building during the past five days.

One solution to the snafus with the selection process for the Nijinsky Awards is to have the recipients selected by a committee that is familiar with the work and reputations of the nominees. (Dance Magazine has selected the recipients of its awards in this manner for years. This year, 2001, for example, there will be four recipients in four categories representing Broadway, ballet, management and modern dance.)

But the organizers of the Monaco event achieved their stated goal during the Danses Dances Forum congress portion. There was a real and palpable sense of the international and multidisciplinary nature of dance today. They presented an exhaustive and exhausting range of performances, colloquiums, screenings, installations, exhibitions, workshops, demonstrations of new video and music technologies, numerous impromptu gatherings for swapping information and ideas, and even two days of auditions. (Twenty dancers got good jobs with almost as many companies.)

This was a start, and a brilliant one: an attempt to reach as many dance people as possible and address numerous issues that are today's high-priority concerns. We need this kind of congress in this new age when communication and affordable transportation have made us feel part of a world community as never before. The organizers have spent years putting this together, and I am confident they are already hard at work on the next one.

Richard Philp, Executive Editor