98 replies to this topic

[Gina Ness]

Tatiana Grantzeva was very glamourous.  She always dressed so gorgeously to teach class...like Danilova.  Tatiana wore matching bright blue leotard and knee-length skirt, pink tights with pink teaching shoes, and always had her head swathed in a white turban, wearing pearl or diamond earrings.  Very elegant and glamourous teaching attire!  She was a beauty!  And, she was a fabulous teacher!  Perhaps rg can find a photo of her...

[bart]

Gina Ness, on Feb 26 2009, 03:15 AM, said:

Tatiana Grantzeva was very glamourous.  She always dressed so gorgeously to teach class...like Danilova.  Tatiana wore matching bright blue leotard and knee-length skirt, pink tights with pink teaching shoes, and always had her head swathed in a white turban, wearing pearl or diamond earrings.  Very elegant and glamourous teaching attire!

A wonderful memory, Gina.  Diamonds and pearls!  

We haven't been talking much about teaching attire, wihch is another kind of "being on stage" for an artist.  It would be fascinating to hear other members' memories -- or current experiences -- of especially glamourous teaachers.

[cubanmiamiboy]

bart, on Feb 25 2009, 04:38 PM, said:

Thinking of peacocks, or at least the glamourous ballet  costumes that remind us of peacocks ....

http://www.topfoto.c...es/ppage92.html

http://www.topfoto.c...es/ppage65.html

http://www.topfoto.c...es/ppage69.html

Going even further in the subject of ballet/glamour/peacocks...
http://www.artsjourn...5700r-thumb.jpg

[bart]

Cristian, I know I've seen that photo of the ballerina/white peacock.       Who?  What? is it?

[Farrell Fan]

Thirty or forty years ago, my wife and I observed a class at SAB taught by Alexandra Danilova. Talk about glamour! (or glamor), she was its epitome, not to mention having  gorgeous legs. And she was most gracious to us, because, as she reminded her students, "this is your public."

[anin]

Maya Plisetskaya always was and still is very glamorous.

[bart]

Farrell, I also remember Danilova in her older years.  New York City was full of such ladies -- many of them Russian, as I remember it.  As a younger person, I was fasciinated at their connection to history and by their dedication to the arts.  I guess I always assumed they would be with us always and that their New York City would be, too.

[cubanmiamiboy]

bart, on Feb 26 2009, 12:08 PM, said:

Cristian, I know I've seen that photo of the ballerina/white peacock.       Who?  What? is it?

She is Marina Franca, a ballerina who danced for Les Ballets Russes de Montecarlo from 1938-1940. (cute costume, right...?   )

[sandik]

Found this

femme fatale

when I was reading along about Bryn Terfel on another thread.

[bart]

Thanks, sandik, for the article.

Dirac has started a new thread -- on the "femme fatale" -- here:
http://ballettalk.in...p...c=29040&hl=

You'll find another link to sandik's article there.

Perhaps it makes sense for general discussion of femmes fatales, etc., to be posted on the new thread.

Please keep this thread for "glamour ladies of ballet."   Thanks.  

[Fraildove]

I dont think you can get more glam that Irina Dvorovenko right now. Not only is she an incredible ballerina, her modeling and lifestyle screams glamorous Visiting her in her dressing room (my husband is a close friend with both Ira and Max, they graduated together in Kiev), changing into a pair of jeans, she was just exsquisite! Here is a link to her modeling photos...

Irina Dvorovenko 1



to be so beautiful and talented!

[cubanmiamiboy]

Jane Simpson, on Feb 22 2009, 04:19 AM, said:

For old-time, filmstar, glamour I'd go for Lorena Feijoo. I can just imagine her on one of the Ballets Russes whistle-stop tours, stepping down out of the train in the morning to be interviewed for the 87th time, in full make-up, a suit and heels and a gorgeous hat.

Yesterday when she came out from her dressing room her whole being screamed glamour: hair, makeup, the dress...the works.  Definitely Feijoo. (One could tell she worked carefully on it too... )

[bart]

Marvellous!  Thanks, Cristian.  It goes to show one element of "glamour" that we haven't mentioned so far -- the importance of port de bras & epaulement.  Feijoo is at a disadvantage at the start of this clip:  she enters on crutches and has to sit in what looks like a rather awkward armchair.  Yet every upper body movement is elegant, fluid, completely graceful.

Voice is important, too.  Feijoo's is fairly deep and quite welll-modulated.  She pronounces her words clearly.  Her pace is adagio.  She thinks before she speaks.  

Many dancers today don't do well in interviews.  If the voice is  high-pitched, chirpy, or erratically paced  .. if diction is sloppy ...  if "perky" is the goal  .... then "glamour" probably will not be the result.

[volcanohunter]

bart, on Mar 3 2009, 08:43 AM, said:

Many dancers today don't do well in interviews.  If the voice is  high-pitched, chirpy, or erratically paced  .. if diction is sloppy ...  if "perky" is the goal  .... then "glamour" probably will not be the result.

That's very true. Many, perhaps most, dancers have poor speaking voices. I have to remind myself that they're discouraged from "belly breathing" from early childhood. With dancers the voice is frequently stuck in the throat without much "support" from below. Even low-pitched voices are often the result of smoking and have little resonance. It would be interesting to compare the speaking styles of ballet dancers with their brethren on Broadway, who have to reconcile seemingly incompatible breathing techniques for dancing and singing.

[Hans]

I don't see the techniques for ballet and classical (opera) singing as incompatible, but perhaps musical theatre vocal technique is different.  As ballet is a silent art, it is only natural that few professional ballet dancers would have vocal training.