9 replies to this topic

[crumpybumpy]

I am new to ballet and I am just a fan...learning from my wife who still takes class.

Anyway...we saw a beautiful performance of The Nutcracker tonight.  At one point "Coffee From Arabia" was carried in by the Sultan where his arm was stretched straight up, and she was sitting on his hand entering the stage, in this pose the height she achieved was incredible...and it amazes me that they could keep that pose without falling??!?!   What is the name of that pose?

[Ray]

crumpybumpy, on Dec 13 2009, 07:15 PM, said:

I am new to ballet and I am just a fan...learning from my wife who still takes class.

Anyway...we saw a beautiful performance of The Nutcracker tonight.  At one point "Coffee From Arabia" was carried in by the Sultan where his arm was stretched straight up, and she was sitting on his hand entering the stage, in this pose the height she achieved was incredible...and it amazes me that they could keep that pose without falling??!?!   What is the name of that pose?

I don't think it has a formal name.  Can you tell us where you are writing from (i.e., what version you saw)?

[crumpybumpy]

Ray, on Dec 13 2009, 09:43 PM, said:

crumpybumpy, on Dec 13 2009, 07:15 PM, said:

I am new to ballet and I am just a fan...learning from my wife who still takes class.

Anyway...we saw a beautiful performance of The Nutcracker tonight.  At one point "Coffee From Arabia" was carried in by the Sultan where his arm was stretched straight up, and she was sitting on his hand entering the stage, in this pose the height she achieved was incredible...and it amazes me that they could keep that pose without falling??!?!   What is the name of that pose?

I don't think it has a formal name.  Can you tell us where you are writing from (i.e., what version you saw)?

It was a production in northern new jersey by the nunnbetter dance theater.  A lot of the choreography is of their own design.

[diane]

If the dancer sat on the partner's hand up in the air, we used to just call that a "seat lift".

It is o.ik. to do (not horribly difficult) if both know what they are doing and they are coordinated with and trust each other.

-d-

[stinger784]

I've learned it as a "torch lift."

[Mel Johnson]

diane, on Dec 14 2009, 05:31 AM, said:

If the dancer sat on the partner's hand up in the air, we used to just call that a "seat lift".

It is o.ik. to do (not horribly difficult) if both know what they are doing and they are coordinated with and trust each other.

-d-

Generally speaking, if somebody' a-settin' up thar, we used to call it "stulchik" (the little chair).

[leonid]

diane, on Dec 14 2009, 05:31 AM, said:

If the dancer sat on the partner's hand up in the air, we used to just call that a "seat lift".

It is o.ik. to do (not horribly difficult) if both know what they are doing and they are coordinated with and trust each other.

-d-

It has always been known to me as a "stulchik" since it was explained that is what it has always been known by when I enquired as to the name of the onehanded lift in "La fille mal gardee."  Certainly that is what London balletomanes were calling it at the beginning of the 1960's.

[crumpybumpy]

Yes thank you very much.  I searched for stulchik lift and came across this discussion (where they also described it as a "po-po lift"):

http://www.ballet.co...ening/6363.html


which also led to a page from "A dictionary of ballet terms" By Leo Kersley, Janet Sinclair thanks to google books:

http://books.google....m...;q=&f=false

[richard53dog]

crumpybumpy, on Dec 15 2009, 06:50 PM, said:

.  I searched for stulchik lift and came across this discussion (where they also described it as a "po-po lift"):

I've come across Margot Fonteyn using the po-po lift term. I believe it was in her autobiography, she wrote of being introduced to a new partner and shortly after
rehearsing this type of lift in the piece the two were going to perform together. She sounded slightly embarrassed , as if this was not something she was comfortable doing with an almost stranger.

[Mel Johnson]

"Ropopo" was a euphemism used by dancers who had come up in the thirties and forties.  All three syllables were said quickly,quietly, and with nearly no accent on one over the other.  The age of fascinating euphemism is mostly over now.