Marenetha

I'm trying to think of how a Chanel ballet would work, but to be honest-- all I'm coming up with is Gemma Ward in a little black dress and sun glasses. Let's add in Karl Lagerfeld's influence--perhaps she would not be wearing a little black dress, but merely an unending array of quilted handbags to cover every need. She could have handbag earrings! A handbag hat! A doll-sized shoulder bag! A quilted hip bag! A quilted Alice band! An outsize baguette bag! (I am having difficulty believing that this would be placed on the internet, but alas -- http://www.vogue.co.uk/whos_who/Karl_Lagerfeld/ ) Perhaps there would be a series of divertissements based upon the importance of each quilted accessory? "Look! Here comes the Box-Jacket-Denim-Mini-Skirt-and-Quilted-Shoulder-Bag Fairy!" "I can't wait to see this one--I heard she hits her partner in the face with it during the final pas de deux!" (... I am actually very fond of clothes from Chanel. I happen to find the handbag thing a bit mysterious, even though I own one, and wish I wasn't too poor to afford more! )

Due to artistic and personal differences, Maina Gielgud has resigned from the Houston Ballet. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/features/3303258 She will be missed.

Ooh, that sounds like fun! When I was around 7 or so, I remember that Exxon would rent out Tokyo Disneyland at least once a year for all the employees+family; this sounds like a just slightly (just slightly) more cultured variant on that.

Houston Ballet is guaranteed a 44 week season, which means that (barring any exceptional risks) : First Year Corps Salary = $30,140 Principal = $49,500.

Houston Ballet has several black dancers (including one, Cleopatra Williams, who went to my school for all but her last year of training!) and really -- I don't see the problem. They dance in the corps, they dance as soloists, Lauren Anderson danced both as Cleopatra (who they say looked Greek) and every other possible classical role. I don't really think it's so much of an issue. Like Treefrog said--does La Bayadere ring a bell? What about any other number of ballets where clearly, there can be no historical accuracy with an all-white cast? I really don't see this so much as racism; I see it more as talented black students who are interested in dance being turned to modern, jazz, and hip hop simply because of greater amounts of black role models there.

Oh, I do like Barbara Bears. She has such lovely line .... She's so nice, too! It really would be nice if ballerinagallery could get some Houston photos - of Janie Parker, Barbara Bears, Lauren Anderson, and perhaps Mireille Hassenboehler. They seem to be trying to diversify lately - maybe?

Saw it last night. Opened on Thursday, and I've got season's tickets for Saturday. The program consisted of Stanton Welch's Nosotros, Christopher Bruce's Rooster, and Serge Lifar's Suite en Blanc. Nosotros was alright. There were some really clever bits, especially the fourth pas de deux with one of the newer corps members, Nao K-something, whom I would look up, except that she is not up on the site yet, and Bridget Zehr (I think that that's her first name) was lovely as usual. It did seem a little long, though ... 11 straight pas de deux (and by the end of the evening, what with Suite en Blanc also, I was really sick of pas de deux ending with a new couple walking onto the stage.) I thought Rooster was adorable. My mom wasn't quite as much of a fan because she thought it didn't quite capture the sixties and seventies dances the way that she remembered them, but I thought it was quite an amusing character piece. It got about four curtain calls, which is rather rare for HB. Last was Suite en Blanc, and I do have to say that HB is VERY good about scheduling the best pieces for last. Suite en Blanc was LOVELY. Gorgeous ballet. Gorgeous Mirelle Hassenboehler, fantastic Zdenek Kovalina, great everyone. Lovely. Great technique, very clever, very, very nice. The women seemed to be a little off that night, but the men were *perfect*. Lovely night of ballet, I thought.

Hmm. I'm still uncertain about Welch. Some of his choreography has seemed extremely clever; some of it has seemed absolutely mind-numbingly boring. I hope that the works he does for 2005-2006 are of the first order ... I am excited about Cranko and Kylian, however. And about Balanchine, MacMillan, and Stevenson - I assume that that's for the gala?

I adore watching taller dancers. Short ballerinas can be absolutely lovely, but sometimes if they are too short I find it utterly distracting - take for example, Leticia Oliveira of Houston Ballet. She's probably 5'1" or so - she's a wonderful technician, but it is *so distracting* because she is so short! I mean, I really don't think that I could see her as a leading dancer in much of classical repertoire, simply because she is so tiny! It wouldn't really seem like an adult was dancing, but rather, that a child was. Does that make sense?

Here are some of my particular favorites: Anya Linden (her face is PERFECT) Olga Spessivtzeva Violetta Elvin Elena Evteyeva Ludmilla Semenyaka Tamara Geva Sofia Federova

There used to be a pretty good ballet school in Tokyo - Ana's School of Dance - that despite the name sent off about three kids yearly to the Royal Ballet School, but I don't know what's happened to it, and if it survived the proprietor's death. It might be worth looking into - I can't think of any other ballet schools in Tokyo, sorry.

Once a Dancer was pretty enjoyable - I liked it, but it wasn't terribly special. I don't know why. Both of Gelsey Kirkland's books were interesting, but I enjoyed the second a lot more. The first, she definitely wasn't far from having been almost completely unhinged, so it while it was fascinating, it was quite a downer. The second autobiography she wrote was focused on how she developed a role. It was FASCINATING. I, Maya Plisetskaya was a slow book to start, but it was fantastic once I got into it. Infinitely interesting. And yes ... she definitely wrote it herself. Autobiography by Margot Fonteyn ... I just wasn't interested! I kept trying and trying and trying again to read it, and it kept putting me to sleep. I only was able to read part of Split Seconds by Tamara Geva, but I'd definitely recommend it. Great read. Dancing for Balanchine by Merrill Ashley was most interesting when she talked about technique. I could have done with less photographs of steps, but ahh well. All right, but not the most talentest of authors. Prodigal Son by Edward Villela was fabulous. I don't know why, but it was very enjoyable.

Haha, so sorry ... I utterly forgot. I saw it the Saturday it came out. The first ballet, The Birds was all right, but rather quirky, and not all that interesting. It was fairly repetitive after about the first ten minutes, although the choreographer did a very nice job of catching the idea of a bird. She just continued to catch it, continued to catch it, continued to catch it .... The second ballet was wonderful. It was rather peculiar too, but I really enjoyed it - the concept was told very well; the dancing was interesting, and it was dramatically done, but very fascinating. The last ballet, Celts, was absolute fun. It was one of those just 'sit back and breathe' ballets - high energy, looked like a LOT of fun for the dancers (which translated into fun for the audience.) It was very attention grabbing; very much the sort of ballet where you wait until the end to breathe. Fascinating.

I have tickets for the 11th of September - whee! I'll write my impressions about the ballets on Saturday, because honestly, I think this board could use some livening up.

I didn't know that they had a student rush thing - that's too bad. There were a couple of ballets last season that looking back, it would have been loads of fun to have taken them too (for example, In the middle, somewhat elevated - I loved that ballet. Loved it.) I'm really only interested in Suite en Blanc, Firebird, and Giselle at the moment, but I imagine that the other ballets will actually turn out to be really cool (even rather mediocre ballets can be interesting, and I know nothing bad about these ones). I am glad though that this year my mom got our season's tix on Saturday nights, rather than Sunday afternoons ...