POB's Swan Lake

[volcanohunter]

TFO, Ontario's French-language educational network, will be broadcasting the POB's Swan Lake, with Agnès Letestu and José Martinez, on Sunday, December 23, at 8:00 p.m. ET.

Naturally, I'm grateful to TFO for putting some ballet on the air, but why only at Christmastime?

http://www.tfo.org/

[carbro]

Naturally, I'm grateful to TFO for putting some ballet on the air, but why only at Christmastime?

I'm only guessing here, but maybe it's because Christmastime is a traditional time for really special gifts? Which, if you look at it that way, only serves to remind how scarce ballet has become on tv.

[volcanohunter]

The POB's Swan Lake will return to TFO on Sunday, December 7, at 8 pm ET.

http://www.tfo.org/television/emissions/se...26&c=45ABF0

[Nanarina]

[Here in the UK we have the same problem, that Ballet is rarely shown on TV, the Arts in general are very badly supported, and if they do creep in, it is usually late at night. BBC gives us a ballet at Christmas, and sometimes Easter. But that is it. Although if you have SKY and get ARTE channel, then it is more available. Considering the cost of a BBC TV licence it is poor service for lovers of The Arts.

[Sacto1654]

[Here in the UK we have the same problem, that Ballet is rarely shown on TV, the Arts in general are very badly supported, and if they do creep in, it is usually late at night. BBC gives us a ballet at Christmas, and sometimes Easter. But that is it. Although if you have SKY and get ARTE channel, then it is more available. Considering the cost of a BBC TV licence it is poor service for lovers of The Arts.

The problem is that unlike in Russia, where ballet is extremely well-known (and justifiably so--after all, some of the most famous "classical" ballets came from the Imperial Ballet (what we call the Mariinsky Ballet today) during the reign of Marius Petipa from 1850 to 1903 and during the Soviet era, the Bolshoi Theatre's ballet troupe became a major international showcase for the country), here in the West ballet is treated like almost an esoteric art form, and it's very rare we see ballet broadcast on TV. Go to Russia and watch the VGTRK's Kultura channel--they practically have huge amounts of ballet performances from both the Bolshoi and Mariinsky troupes along with other ballet troupes in Russia. Indeed, a top-level ballet dancer like Ulyana Lopatkina would be to Russia what a top-flight movie celebrity is to the USA.