How to obtain permission to perform?

[Pebz]

There's this competition that I want to take part in, and it requires competitors to perform variations from major 20th-century choreographer's works like Balanchine, Fokine, Ashton etc. How do I obtain permission to perform these works?

[Victoria Leigh]

Pebz, can you tell us a bit more about this competition? Most ballet competitions ask for variations from the older classical repertoire, like Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Le Corsaire, La Bayadere, Paquita, Coppelia, Giselle, etc. I have never seen them ask for Balanchine or Ashton, as their works are not in public domain and readily available. Balanchine's work cannot be done without permission from the Balanchine Trust, and that would not be given to a student, only a teacher or coach who they have on their list of approved people to stage Balanchine ballets. I'm not sure how it works with Ashton. Variations from Fokine's Les Sylphides are sometimes used, and I think those are in public domain. But these are all things that your teacher or coach needs to find out before they select the variations for you.

[Mel Johnson]

Variations from Fokine's Les Sylphides are sometimes used, and I think those are in public domain.

 

Nope, they're copyright, Estate of Vitale M. Fokine. Lots of people bootleg them, although they shouldn't. And I have seen competitions which stipulated that they wanted the Balanchine version of the Pizzicato variation from Sylvia. That's definitely the Trust.

[Victoria Leigh]

Okay, wasn't sure about the Fokine. Thank you. The competitions should know better than to list things that cannot be obtained!

[Pebz]

It's the Nureyev International Ballet Competition. Here's the link: http://www.nureyevibc.com/competition/competition_e.html