Dancing Ashton.

ROMANTIC, PASSIONATE, AND funny, Frederick Ashton's choreography captures the best and worst of what it means to be human. The erotic playfulness of the pas de deux for Oberon and Titania in The Dream, for instance, reflects the underlying relief of harmony restored. The charm of his Cinderella owes as much to the comic preening of his stepsisters-in-drag as it does to the yearning of his wistful heroine.

IT'S A SWEET, SANE WORLD AS Ashton sees it. Skaters may slip and fall, but they get up. The golden age may be lost, but the joys of a country farm remain undiminished. Even a doomed courtesan's heartbreak has its own glamour. While symmetry and form have a place, they don't undermine Ashton's essential warmth and gallantry. As true an heir to Petipa's classicism as Balanchine, Ashton's choreography is the architecture of the human heart. Our look at Ashton includes a guide to the ballets appearing in the upcoming centenary as well as interviews with dancers who perform them.

GUIDE TO ASHTON BALLETS

Fans of the great English choreographer Frederick Ashton can look forward to a feast this month, when the Lincoln Center Festival celebrates his centennial. (He was the exact contemporary of George Balanchine.) Below is a decade-by-decade guide to some of his ballets.

The 1930s: Ashton joined Sadler's Wells Ballet (later The Royal Ballet) in 1935 as dancer and resident choreographer. His earlier ballets had included Les Rendezvous, the first full-fledged statement of his own personal form of classicism--and thus the basis of the British style: lyrical, precise, yet robust. Ashton at once cast the company's young ballerina, Margot Fonteyn, in his version of Stravinsky's Le Baiser de la fee. With her innate musicality and flawless line, she was to become his muse.

Les Patineurs portrays various types to be found on the ice-rink: showoffs, lovers, beginners. The choreography displays the growing virtuosity of English dancers and demonstrates Ashton's increasing mastery of choreographic structure.

A Wedding Bouquet, with text by Gertrude Stein, depicts a provincial wedding in early twentieth-century France--one of those occasions when everything goes wrong: one guest is a little crazy; another gets drunk and has to be removed. The bride and groom perform a pas de deux that parodies the climactic duet of any classic ballet, turning upside down the conventions of the genre (and the ballerina herself).

The 1940s: Ashton served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, and his first wartime ballet was Dante Sonata. Lost for many years, it reflects his response to the tragic events of the time, to a turbulent fantasia by Liszt.

In 1946 the Sadler's Wells Ballet moved from its own small theater to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Ashton's first new ballet there was the serenely neo-classic Symphonic Variations (revived last fall by American Ballet Theatre). In 1948, it was followed by Scenes de Ballet. With a rhythmically complex Stravinsky score, it is at once purely classic and uncompromisingly modernist.

At the end of the same year Ashton choreographed his first full-length ballet in the tradition of Petipa: Cinderella, to the score by Serge Prokofiev. In putting the Ugly Stepsisters in hilarious drag--originally Ashton himself and choreographer Robert Helpmann--he drew on the traditions of the English Christmas pantomime.

The 1960s: Perhaps Ashton's most beloved ballet is La Fille mal gardee. First performed by The Royal Ballet in 1960, it has been presented by many companies, including ABT and the Joffrey Ballet. It was followed by another two-act ballet: The Two Pigeons was choreographed for the RB touring section, forerunner of today's Birmingham Royal Ballet. The final reconciliation between the two lovers shows Ashton at his most poetic.

Two years later he again created a new work for Fonteyn, enshrining her legendary partnership with Rudolf Nureyev. In Marguerite and Armand a courtesan on her deathbed, relives a tragic love affair in a series of pas de deux.

In 1965/1966, Ashton returned to his classic mode in a pair of trios set to music by Erik Satie, Monotones I and II. With their sculptural groupings of precisely calibrated arabesques, these dances distilled Ashton's personal classicism to pure essence. Two years later Enigma Variations, a gallery of portraits of the composer Edward Elgar and his wife and friends, became the clearest example of the way Ashton extended the vocabulary of ballet as a poetic language.

The 1970s: As a young man Ashton had seen Isadora Duncan dance, and he retained vivid memories of her as a force of nature. Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan, originally danced by Lynn Seymour, evoke Duncan's passion and physicality. The Thais pas de deux, created for Antoinette Sibley and Anthony Dowell, is a vision scene with an Orientalist flavor, and a tiny masterpiece.

The 1980s: Ashton, who had retired as director of RB in 1970, created Rhapsody for Mikhail Baryshnikov, a guest artist with the RB that year. The ballet included one of Ashton's typically tender and lyrical pas de deux.

JOHAN KOBBORG

Principal, Royal Danish Ballet, in the Dream

Interviewed by Margaret Willis

When The Royal Ballet came to Denmark in '95 and performed The Dream and A Month in the Country, I was captivated. I made up my mind that I wanted to dance ballets like these.

It is very challenging for dancers to perform Ashton today because so much emphasis in their training is on adage movements, big jumps, and high legs. Ashton demands speed, and he uses the upper body a lot. My Bournonville training helps, but only from the waist down as the upper body doesn't move. Whereas in Ashton, you have the identical last footwork, but doing a lot of port de bras at the same time. You often go against your natural feeling and breathing, which is why it takes a lot of rehearsals.

I love dancing Ashton. You can only do the Russian classics so much before they become old hat. With Ashton you have to work on the steps constantly, and getting into the character helps you. His choreography will look stiff if a dancer can't bring life into it. You may think that Symphonic Variations is just steps, but it's about creating the right atmosphere among your fellow dancers.

Born in Denmark, the prize winning Johan Kobborg trained at the Royal Danish Ballet School and joined the Royal Danish Ballet in 1991, becoming a principal three years later. He joined The Royal Ballet in 1999.

RACHEL PEPPIN

Principal, Birmingham Royal Ballet with Chi Cao in Two Pigeons Interviewed by Margaret Willis

The role of Dorabella in Enigma Variations is fiendish to dance. It's short but there's a lot of hopping on pointe. By the end you have cramps in your calves and feet, your knees feel weak, and your back hurts! But I still love it!

Ashton demands great timing, precision, and musicality, which I have to work at, especially in the first act of Pigeons. It's a killer--all style and very sharp footwork. I have spent a great deal of time alone after rehearsals getting it right. His port de bras may seem a little old-fashioned, but I rely on my coaches to make sure that I'm doing it correctly. I've had wonderful coaches including Michael Somes, Anthony Dowell, and Bob Joffrey, and now, at BRB, Marion Tait and Alain Dubreuil.

I keep my stamina up by taking loads of Pilates and body training as well as aerobics. The stronger I get, the quicker I can move. But I still don't think anything can prepare you enough! Dramatically you have to pull on your own emotions. Dancing Ashton's ballets makes me feel like a ballerina--very feminine and with wonderful emotions to express.

Texas-born Rachel Peppin trained in St. Louis and at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York. She was a member of Atlanta Ballet from 1987 to 1992, when she joined Birmingham Royal Ballet. She was made soloist in 1994, and became a principal in 2002.

TETSUYA KUMAKAWA

Principal, K-Ballet of Tokyo in Rhapsody

Interviewed by Wendy Perron 

I learned Puck in The Dream from Anthony Dowell when I was 16 or 17. Anthony taught me how Puck feels. I was very shy to act in front of people in the studio. Once I broke that barrier, I enjoyed it. At 19, I made my debut as Colas in La Fille mal gardee. In it I really have to show my love to my partner. The partnering was hard--holding the girl high up with one arm for the climax of the pas de deux--that was a shaky moment. My arms got twice as big by the end of the rehearsal period and shrank after.

Rhapsody is one of the most difficult for dancers to do--a lot of technique and quick tempo. The Japanese are good with quick movement. The Rachmaninoff music gives you emotions, not specific stories. The music is so nice and romantic that automatically I start to fall in love with the girl; when the music is big, beating, and quick, we get excited.

Rhapsody is an absolute killer for me. Ashton created it on Misha [Baryshnikov] and all the steps he asked him to do were Misha's favorite steps. The hardest part is sustaining the stamina. The patterns of the eight couples, the colors, and music are like fireworks.

Tetsuya Kumakawa joined The Royal Ballet in 1989. In 1993, at 21, he was named a principal. He left in 1998, taking five RB dancers with him to Tokyo to form the K-Ballet Company.

MAIA WILKINS

Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, with Willy Shives in A Wedding Banquet Interviewed by Hedy Weiss

Knowing that Margot Fonteyn had once danced these roles added pressure, but it was also incredibly inspiring. The degree of purity and cleanness needed was a great challenge.

We were very lucky in having Christopher Newton [a former dancer with The Royal Ballet who worked closely with Ashton] set A Wedding Bouquet. He taught us the steps, let us make the choreography ours, and then pulled us back when we got too carried away with the characters. But dancing Julia is a total hoot, and I especially enjoy the way we can play off each other. There's a lot to explore.

The more I've learned of Ashton the more impressed I am with the diversity of his work and his subtle humor. His choreography is not the most difficult bunch of technical hicks. The challenge is to use your technique to express an emotion. Both Wedding Bouquet and Les Patineurs are great fun to dance. That's not the case with Monotones, which I learned many years ago but never performed. I still remember how naked I felt doing that--the combination of the choreography and music, the bare costume and the bare stage.

Maia Wilkins was one of our "25 to Watch" (see DM January, 2002, page 59). In the movie The Company, she plays the dancer who is injured and replaced by Neve Campbell.

ASHTON CELEBRATED

July 6-17

With star-studded casts, four companies perform in the Lincoln Center Festival's Ashton centenary: The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, K-Ballet Company of Tokyo, and, in its first New York appearance in ten years, the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago.

The first week the Joffrey Ballet performs A Wedding Bouquet (with Maia Wilkins), Monotones I and II, and Les Patineurs. Birmingham Royal Ballet performs The Two Pigeons, Enigma Variations, Dante Sonata, and Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan. K-Ballet Company performs Rhapsody, with Tetsuya Kumakawa and Viviana Durante as the lead couple.

The second week The Royal Ballet performs Scenes de Ballet, Divertissements (including Thais), and Marguerite and Armand with superstar Sylvie Guillem and Nicholas Le Riche. Lead casts for Cinderella include Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg, and Tamara Rojo and Jonathan Cope; Sir Anthony Dowell plays one of the ugly stepsisters.

For complete schedule and up-to-date casting, see www.lincolncenter.org.

David Vaughan, the archivist of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company is the author of Frederick Ashton and his Ballets. He will be presenting a symposium in conjunction with Lincoln Center Festival's Ashton celebration.