alexaa1a

I strongly disagree. I see no difference between a football team being criticized for playing like ballerinas or a ballet company being criticized for dancing like football players. Ballet dancers are generally known for their grace and delicacy and football players do not play touch football. They tackle and hit hard. They do not apologize if they hit too hard.

I know that when I was taking class at SAB, I received criticism from friends, but I was a good fighter and after beating up some friends, they soon stopped criticizing me. However,many years ago, ballet was considered to be possibly the most feminine type of activity. I do not think my football team was ever criticized for playing like ballerinas or as if we were wearing tutus, but we were criticized for playing like girls or as if we wore dresses. So I do not see much difference between dresses and tutus. Pennsylvania Ballet and some here on ballet alert were highly offended by that tutu criticism, but I received much worse criticism when I was taking class at SAB and that tutu comment was not much different criticism than what my football coach told us when we played bad, so I see no reason for anyone to be offended by that comment. i love ballet and football and understand that tutu comment as an accurate description when a football team plays poorly.

So no, the Eagles have not played like they were wearing tutus. If they had, Chip Kelly would still be a head coach and we'd all be looking forward to the playoffs." As someone who played competitive male football in all my school years in full equipment, and danced ballet professionally on stage, I disagree with the criticism with the original Facebook comment and my reply to the Pennsylvania Ballet is that if the entire Pennsylvania Ballet ballerina roster played in full equipment against the Philadelphia Eagles football team, every ballerina would be in the hospital or in a grave and would not be going to the playoffs, but to funerals. I remember my high school football coach, who played on Oklahoma University's collegiate champion team He coached our team to New York City champion in my first year, but when we played bad, he would criticize us for playing like girls or playing as if we wore dresses. When any group of ballerinas can play a full game against an NFL football team and have one ballerina on the field by the end of the game, who was not carried off the field in a stretcher or headed to the morgue, would be a miracle.. If every Mariinsky ballerina played against the Eagles, Skorik and Shapran would definitely be in intensive care or dead.

True and Semenyaka's DVD had her in her 30s.

What roles has Maria Menshikova danced since joining Eifman? Thank you

Mariinsky Ballet usually performs it, at least once a year. In the 2009/2010 season, they probably performed it around 5 times..

Yes, sell, sell, sell!!!!!!

Since the new season started in Spetember, not one Vaganoav student has danced in a Mariinsky Ballet, inlcuding Shakirova, who danced in the past two seasons with the Mariinsky Ballet, as Amour in Don Quixote, Juliet's friend in Romeo & Juliet, a small swan in the the lake scene with that famous dance of 4 small swans, as Odalisque in the Jardin Animee dance of 3 odalisques, a soloist in Ramansky's Concerto DSCH (she even danced this in London with Mariinsky), one of the 3 muses in Apollo (also danced in London), Florine in Sleeping Beauty plus the star of Rubies. Last season, Nika Tskhvitaria danced Florine in Sleeping Beauty. This season is the season where the statement of using Vaganova students was made and no Vaganova students have danced, including the 2015 graduates, Shakirova and Tskhvitaria. An extra year of Vaganova training has deteriorated their talent. Regarding coaches, most coaches do not watch company class and due to the time factors of classes and rehearsals, most corps dancers leave class after the barre or early in the center and that is obvious in every class video that I have seen , where corps dancers rarely take a full class because they need to go to a rehearsal. Regarding what big roles, coaches get to rehearse these graduates, is obvious. They coach them in no big roles. The important coaches do not rehearse minor roles, except in rare instances. Being a Vaganova graduate entitles you to dance many corps roles, many character roles and if you are lucky,a few minor roles. Do not even consider dreaming about good solo roles like Queen of Dryads or Lilac Fairy or Myrtha or Gamzatti. You are not getting them if you have the Vaganova brand to your name.

You are 100% correct.

Looking at the last 3 Mariinsky ballet directors would show a sudden, drastic change under Fateyev regarding the entrance of top Vaganova graduates into Mariinsky Ballet. Under Vaziev, top graduates never went elsewhere, although Borchenko in 2000 wanted to go home to Belarus, which she did. The only possible exception , is that in 1998, Irina Perren had been one of the better girl graduates, but was not one of the two highest ranked Vaganova graduates and went to Mikhailovsky where she became a big star. Under Vinogradov, there was only one year as an exception and that was in 1982, the year Fateyev graduated. Vinogradov only wanted corps de ballet girls and there were two obvious soloist girls graduating, Margarita Kullik and Elena Martinson. Vinogradov did not want them since he was looking for lower ranked girls, but Dudinskaya went to Moscow to complain about her all time favorite, Kullik not being selected. Moscow made Vinogradov hire Kullik and Martinson and they both were dancing solo roles very quickly and principal roles also. What has happened under Fateyev for gradautes is unprecedented at Mariinsky. Beginning with 2010, the most important male graduate in decades, Viktor Lebedev, along with the exceptionally talented Zapanikova, both went to Mikhailovsky. The ongoing procession of top graduates going elsewhere is unheard of. 2011 added clear standouts Smirnova and Shapran, along with a very strong male in Sergei Strelkov. The past graduating class had the most famous teenage ballerina in history, Zhighanshina, who danced the lead in Paquita in all 3 grad performances, in my opinion, superior to when I saw Viktoria Tereshkina dance Paquita as a Mariinsky ballerina. What Fateyev has done managing Mariinsky is exactly in accordance with his Dancing Times interview. He regards Vaganova graduates as low level talent. Zhiganshina should not have taken classes at Vaganova and she would now be a big Mariinsky star. because in Fateyev's eyes, her talent disappeared once she entered Vaganova.

Sadly, most of them leave ballet has never been true in Russia. It is a rarity that any corps dancer will quit ballet in Russia.

Vasnetsova only danced Odeete/Odile once on November 2, 2008, during the beginning of Fateyev's reign as acting ballet director. Probably Vaziev had planned her debut, but only my guess. This is the Mariinky link to her debut http://www.mariinsky.ru/playbill/playbill/2008/11/2/1_1900/ 3 days earlier, Kondaurova made her Swan Lake debut. http://www.mariinsky.ru/playbill/playbill/2008/10/30/1_1900/ Kondaurova had many more chances in the next few months, but Vasnetsova never had any more chances. Olesya Novikova had a remarkable debut on June 18, 2011, but she never got a 2nd chance, just like Vasnetsova. http://www.mariinsky.ru/playbill/playbill/2011/6/18/1_1900/

Unfortunately, Vaganova needs foreign money because it is no longer the Soviet Union where the Soviet government supported Vaganova. Now Vaganova needs the foreign money. However, Vaganova does not currently allow foreign students to enter in first year, so dancers not going to Kirov Academy in Washington or anything similar, are at a serious disadvantage. Even Kirov Academy has changed drastically for the worse since now many current teachers are not Vaganova graduates and are training their students very different to the Vaganova style. When Vinogradov started the Kirov Academy it was like the SPB Vaganova school with Vaganova graduates teaching, but now there are German teachers brought up in Germany, who know nothing about the Vaganova style and they are not training their students in the Vaganova style. The Kirov Academy does have some Vaganova grads teaching, but it no longer is 100% Vaganova grad teachers.

With special exceptions, I do not feel that foreigners belong in Mariinsky Ballet. Their training and style is so different. Where my feelings against foreigners is most evident is when the Japanese dancer, Kumiko Ishii, is on the stage. Her technique is too weak and her lack of sufficient Vaganova training is much too obvious. I refused to see Kampa dance Kitri, even at the cost of missing Stepanova dance Dryad. For me, any dancer, who had their most important early years of ballet training, not at Vaganova, and in schools like where Kampa and Ishii trained, which are different to the Vaganova style, these dancers do not belong in Mariinsky Ballet. Dancers like Haley Schwanz who had her early training with Vaganova graduate, Angelina Armeskaya, from the Children of Theatrer Street movie, at the Washington Kirov Academy, fit in well at Vaganova and would have fit in at Mariinsky because her early training years were in the proper Vaganova style. Vaganova has great teachers in SPB, but they cannot break the bad habits brought up from improper training in the early years and Haley Schwanz had the proper training and would have been a wonderful Vaganova style ballerina at Mariinsky, but she joined Malakov's Berlin Ballet.

Bart, which is the coaches' box? What would it correspond to on this seaing plan? http://tickets.mariinsky.ru/en/performance/7604/ thanks! Sasha The coaches box is inside of loge 1 in Mariinsky stall boxes. Tickets are not for sale in that coaches box (I think the door entrance says loge 0). There is a mini Tsar's box directly next to the stage, which is closer to the stage than the coaches box and also not for sale and not shown in ticket diagram.