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After seeing the POB 'Paquita' I found the story so convoluted that I want back to Beaumont's Complete Book for clarification :thumbsup: . What impressed me most about the production was the recreation of a romantic ballet costume I have always loved. Just below the bodice of the dress is a few inches of open netting; a design I have come across many times in the old lithographs. In spite of the story I was so pleased to see a recreation of Act 1; these are treasures we should not lose. Thibault was outstanding in the pas de trois (is he an etoile yet?). In Act 2, the fouettes performed by Letestu are among the most beautiful I have seen. I actually did see Danilova's version of Paquita in which she performed. If the production seemed 'bald' to Ms. Croce perhaps it was because the Ballet Russe operated on a shoe-string in those days. :cool:

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A bit :thumbsup:, but also,

There's Assylmuratova doing the ballerina variation on Backstage at the Kirov, (unless I am fuddled), and she completely nails it.

It is actually in "The Leningrad Legend" narrated by Makarova.

:cool: I admit to be guilty of watching Assylmuratova in this tape almost every day...

She is indeed absolutely pure in this excerpt.

Elena Pankova, in another excerpt from Paquita on the same video is also a delight to watch. :D

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This is Croce's comment about baldness & split hairs in context (from "Makarova on Broadway," a 1980 review of Makarova & Company, reprinted in Going to the Dance):

Not long ago, the Dance Theater of Harlem gave us a Paquita divertissement that was a triumph.  But Alexandra Danilova's staging is so different from Makarova's as to amount to a different work.  Two Russian ballerinas from the same school forty years apart teach two different Paquitas.  The conflict isn't between student and professional levels of performance [Makarova's company was composed largely of students]; it's between Petrograd and Leningrad.  The way American dancers understand Russian classicism—"Petipa" for short—is the way the St. Petersburg-Petrograd generation of émigré Russians has taught it to them.  With these Russians, it has always been the rule that the teachings of the academy are shaped by the findings of choreography.  Of all the numberless differences between our local accent in Petipa and the current native one, I should say the greatest derives from the Russian academy's loss of its choreographers—first Fokine, then Balanchine—to the West.  When the choreographer succession was weakened, the academy fell under the rule of the pedagogues.  The most immediately striking discrepancy between the post-Imperial-style Paquita set by Danilova and the latter-day, Kirov-style one set by Makarova is that Makarova's has a great many more complicated and difficult steps (further complicated by difficult tempos).  Danilova's version has dance architecture; Makarova's has none.  Danilova's has buoyancy; Makarova's has drive.  Danilova's looks choreographically bald; in Makarova's, the dancers split hairs.
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