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Osipova


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"She had attended a performance of Ballet Theater’s “Sleeping Beauty,” in which she is to dance Saturday night, at the Metropolitan Opera House and was crossing Amsterdam Avenue on her way home when she was mugged, said the agent, Sergei Danilian. “Two guys just came from her back and they hit her and they took her bag...”

:excl:

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I'm not shocked. That's New York. Muggings unfortunately happen. Thankfully not as much as they used to, but they do. It's an unfortunate side of working and living in the city. I doubt she was targeted because she is a dancer.

Still, I know from personal experience that it is a traumatic event, and I do feel for her.

My real question though, is why on earth did the muggers did her pointes? The hammer, ok, but pointe shoes? What do they plan to do with them? Sell them on eBay?

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One of Balanchine's finest male dancers, Bart Cook, was mugged in the 1980's (reportedly on his way to see Gelsey Kirkland's debut in Swan Lake).

I myself was blocked and grabbed (and I assume about to be mugged) by someone I originally though was a panhandler--I even said "excuse me" as I tried to walk by him--in the Lincoln Center area subway right after a performance. The station was full of people, though the particular short tunnel I was walking through was empty. I yelled "Hey!!!" instinctively I suppose, as I myself was rather surprised by the violent and loud noise issuing from my mouth and then echoing through the tunnel, and the person let go of me and walked off. When I went into the crowded waiting area for the train, no-one appeared to have heard anything or, at any rate, to have paid attention. This was around 1992.

One tends to think of New York being much safer now -- and it is -- but my heart still races when I enter that subway station and I try never to walk through tunnels anymore. Well, actually, I usually splurge on taxis in New York if I have very far to go or no-one is around and, otherwise, walk. But, of course, now I'm a tourist in New York and, at that time, I was living there.

It is very upsetting to hear about Osipova's experience: I very much hope it does not have long term effects on her and that it does not sour her on New York and the United States. She has a growing number of admirers here and I count myself as one of them...

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My real question though, is why on earth did the muggers did her pointes? The hammer, ok, but pointe shoes? What do they plan to do with them? Sell them on eBay?

Likely they just grabbed the whole bag and ran -- that's pretty standard.

My question is what they thought when they looked to see what they got.

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sYou're welcome, leonid. At least Osipova seems to be all right, which is something to be grateful for.

I too was wondering what the muggers propose to do with her pointe shoes.....

Of course one is grateful to hear that Osipova is physically ok.

I am somewhat surprised that she was was she not escorted back to her hotel?

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This is just awful; I'm so sorry my city gave Osipova such a poor welcome. But I have to say, the Osipova of my imagination would have pulled out a gun (with very pretty mother-of-pearl inlay, of course), karate-chopped them, handcuffed them, had them arrested, convicted and they'd be halfway to Siberia by now. In my imagination, Osipova is half Mathilde Kchessinska, half Foxy Brown.

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This is just awful; I'm so sorry my city gave Osipova such a poor welcome. But I have to say, the Osipova of my imagination would have pulled out a gun (with very pretty mother-of-pearl inlay, of course), karate-chopped them, handcuffed them, had them arrested, convicted and they'd be halfway to Siberia by now. In my imagination, Osipova is half Mathilde Kchessinska, half Foxy Brown.

Yep, awful. Reminds me of some documentary with Lopatkina talking about being afraid of walking through Leningrad immediately after the fall of the Wall.

I don't think NYC allows concealed carry permits in the hands of foreign nationals, and she would have been in a world of hurt if discovered carrying a gun to work, probably. Perhaps Osipova should take a page from Sylvie Guillem book and start practicing martial arts in her ample free time. Thank to God she was not raped.

So, ABT: pay her a bodyguard, pretty please. I still expect to see her dancing live! She was expected to perform past summer here, but Alexandrova substituded for her.

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I'm not shocked. That's New York. Muggings unfortunately happen. Thankfully not as much as they used to, but they do. It's an unfortunate side of working and living in the city. I doubt she was targeted because she is a dancer.
Correction: It's an unfortunate side of working and living in a city. According to InfoPlease.com, NYC's crime index places it way, way, way at the bottom of US cities with populations of 100,000+. Also keep in mind that most crime is not in neighborhoods such as Lincoln Center where large numbers of tourists visit. I live in the police precinct that includes Lincoln Center, and when I once called for police help with a noise complaint, the responding cop said, "If you need us again, just call 911." I responded that I thought 911 was reserved for genuine emergencies, and he said, "Well, in this precinct ..." and shrugged, as if he was happy to have any call to break up the peaceful tedium of his shift. :)

As a New Yorker, though, I am ashamed that it happened at all.

As for why Osipova may have been targeted, it was likely because at 5'4" and probably about 100 lbs soaking wet, she looked, to the untrained eye, weak. Ha! She played it smart, though, by not resisting. Dancers as a group have to be adaptable, and I hope our visitor suffers no lasting effects.

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According to InfoPlease.com, NYC's crime index places it way, way, way at the bottom of US cities with populations of 100,000+. Also keep in mind that most crime is not in neighborhoods such as Lincoln Center where large numbers of tourists visit. I live in the police precinct that includes Lincoln Center, and when I once called for police help with a noise complaint, the responding cop said, "If you need us again, just call 911." I responded that I thought 911 was reserved for genuine emergencies, and he said, "Well, in this precinct ..." and shrugged, as if he was happy to have any call to break up the peaceful tedium of his shift. :)

The Village Voice had a great investigative piece a few weeks ago. Don't rely on NYC crime statistics, most crime reports are downgraded to be listed as petty offenses by the Powers That Be. They WANT the crime stats to look lower, so the politicians can get re elected by sayng "crime went down under my watch".

There are even recordings of precinct meetings where the lieutenants tell the beat cops to "pay the rent" (write more tickets). And yes, they do have quotas.

would not surprise me if this is true in most cities.

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I agree with Sunday that ABT should hire an escort for Osipova. Hopefully this will not make her think twice about returning to NY.

Let's hope the same thing doesn't happen to Cojacaru.

Heck, no! Let her be afraid enough to go to work to the peaceful Segovian countryside!

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I agree with Sunday that ABT should hire an escort for Osipova. Hopefully this will not make her think twice about returning to NY.

Let's hope the same thing doesn't happen to Cojacaru.

Heck, no! Let her be afraid enough to go to work to the peaceful Segovian countryside!

What? :)

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I agree with Sunday that ABT should hire an escort for Osipova. Hopefully this will not make her think twice about returning to NY.

Let's hope the same thing doesn't happen to Cojacaru.

Heck, no! Let her be afraid enough to go to work to the peaceful Segovian countryside!

What? :)

Did you see the smiley in the header of the post?

Corella Ballet is based in La Granja, a little town in Segovia province, Spain.

So, that was intended as a (perhaps lame) joke

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From a Russian website:

http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-06-16/thugs-ro...-ballerina.html

NY thugs rob Russian prima of her ballet shoes

International ballet star, Russian Natalia Osipova, was mugged in New York on Tuesday as she left the American Ballet Theater.

Muggers hit her in the face and stole her bag with her pointe shoes, NY Times reports.

Her valuable personal effects, such as money, passport and laptop, were not with her at the time.

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From a Russian website:

http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-06-16/thugs-ro...-ballerina.html

NY thugs rob Russian prima of her ballet shoes

International ballet star, Russian Natalia Osipova, was mugged in New York on Tuesday as she left the American Ballet Theater.

Muggers hit her in the face and stole her bag with her pointe shoes, NY Times reports.

Her valuable personal effects, such as money, passport and laptop, were not with her at the time.

There is nothing funny about this incident but i would loved to have seen the faces of the muggers when they openned her bag.

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But....and I am in NO WAY suggesting the incident was her fault....she is no country bumpkin, she's from Moscow for heaven's sake. Seems she should know walking by yourself late at night in any big city is not a good idea. And even more unbelievable to me is that no one (whoever she was with before beginning her solo walk) didn't offer to walk her home.

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Seems she should know walking by yourself late at night in any big city is not a good idea. And even more unbelievable to me is that no one (whoever she was with before beginning her solo walk) didn't offer to walk her home.

I've lived in four big cities in a row, and I travel extensively on my own. If I thought walking alone late at night in a city was a bad idea without question or regard to specific circumstances, I'd never get to the ballet or opera.

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According to InfoPlease.com, NYC's crime index places it way, way, way at the bottom of US cities with populations of 100,000+. Also keep in mind that most crime is not in neighborhoods such as Lincoln Center where large numbers of tourists visit. I live in the police precinct that includes Lincoln Center, and when I once called for police help with a noise complaint, the responding cop said, "If you need us again, just call 911." I responded that I thought 911 was reserved for genuine emergencies, and he said, "Well, in this precinct ..." and shrugged, as if he was happy to have any call to break up the peaceful tedium of his shift. :excl:

The Village Voice had a great investigative piece a few weeks ago. Don't rely on NYC crime statistics, most crime reports are downgraded to be listed as petty offenses by the Powers That Be. They WANT the crime stats to look lower, so the politicians can get re elected by sayng "crime went down under my watch".

There are even recordings of precinct meetings where the lieutenants tell the beat cops to "pay the rent" (write more tickets). And yes, they do have quotas.

would not surprise me if this is true in most cities.

That's about the best the Village Voice can do is such articles, although interesting to see they're still doing the overblown crap now that they barely even exist as a credible journal. To wit, crime statistics are WAY WAY DOWN, and it is in general NOT dangerous to walk at night, not even normally for Osipova. I have lived here for 42 years, and it is nothing like what it used to be in terms of sinister--you have to go and look for it in rough neighborhoods usually. So I consider this an anomaly. Osipova had no reason to fear this might happen, and it's very unlikely in the Lincoln Center area.

It's a horrible thing, but she wasn't doing a thing I wouldn't have done, and there is no 'country bumpkin' about what she did. Stray crimes happen all the time, but if you want a much greater likelihood of them happening, Los Angeles still has a lot of the noir feeling, and will often deliver on this sinister sensation. New York is very policed (Europeans always point this out), nearly every street corner. This is purely a freak event, and it is especially unfortunate that it would happen to this obvious genius ballerina, esp,. since this has been the moment of HUGE celebration for her performances in just the last weeks at ABT. But I think it has little to do with New York.

It's true that even Lincoln Center is not quite as safe as walking down Park Avenue, but that's beside the point. Nothing is, and Lincoln Center is basically safe. I've been nearly mugged a couple of times back in the 70s, but outran the perps, and also have an ex-gf. who wouldn't accommodate the muggers with her purse either. While I understand those who say that Osipova was smart to not resist her criminals, I equally admire my perfectly catlike ex for refusing to give them any money even at gunpoint! She'll do anything to be disagreeable, and got away with it too. In L.A., even as a visitor, I've been threatened MUCH MORE.

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