7 replies to this topic

[iwatchthecorps]

Miami City Ballet has launched a blog on its newly updated website. Check it out at MCB Blog

[cubanmiamiboy]

[cahill]

There is an interesting entry on the bog, "Edward at the podium", the speech he gave at the  American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

[Jack Reed]

I highly recommend the long fifth paragraph on "what dancing taught me":

http://www.miamicityballet.org/blog/

(Scroll down for the speech.)

For instance:

Quote

Dance showed me how to swim in time through designated space with gestures of integrity.

"Gestures of integrity."  Maybe it's me, but I hear here thought similar to Farrell's: "You can speak a lie, but the body doesn't lie."

[bart]

Jack Reed, on Oct 28 2009, 08:26 PM, said:

I highly recommend the long fifth paragraph on "what dancing taught me":

EV includes a remarkable and long tribute to Dance itself. Especially classical ballet, and all the meaning that classicism imparts to physical movement.  For example:  "I discovered a mind-driven physicality -- dance."  Ballet "made sense of abstract gesture."  "I learned the ability to speak in silence ... how to swim in time with designated gestures of integrity."

EV's language reveals just how much of a philosophical Idealist Balanchine was, and EV himself has become.  The talk is permeated with Idealism, the view (more or less) that the physical world gains its significance  -- its "reality -- from what or mind and consciousness can make of it.  To an Idealist, the highest form of physical reality is one which enriches and expands mind, perception, and awareness of life, and gives it meaning.  

EV's dismissal of "tricks," his unwillingness to claim to much for the technical bravura aspects of his own dance career, are related to this.

He learned a lot more than dancing from Balanchine.

[Jack Reed]

I think Villella may have picked up and made his own some of what people refer to -- some dismissively, I'm afraid -- as
Balanchine's "mysticism":  "This is not the real world.  The real world is somewhere else." In other words, this is the world of appearances, which finds its meaning elsewhere.

[cahill]

The blog now has some fun behind the scenes with the dancers of their opening Nutcracker in Naples.  Patricia Delgado has the flip camera.  Deanna Seay talks about her 20 years of Nutcrackers at MCB!

[kfw]

I just noticed MCB's blog has a new feature entitled Questions With Bart

Quote

I have recently received a well thought out list of questions from a great lover of ballet. This man often comes to Miami City Ballet performances; by often, I mean he never misses a program, and generally attends more than one show each weekend. He has a wonderful appreciation for what we do, and has a great understanding of the ballets we perform.

Because his questions are so wonderful, I have decided to create a new series called, "Questions With Bart." The first installment starts now!

Wow! Imagine what a great asset this guy would be to Ballet Alert!