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"No..Fokine NEVER put a backbend in there...!" ;-)


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Thanks so much for posting this clip -- I haven't yet seen the full documentary. It's fascinating to see the difference there between the two versions of that passage. That alteration (increasing the arch in back during the lift) probably happened incrementally, but now, has become a distinct change, and it's a significant difference when they correct it.

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Thanks so much for posting this clip -- I haven't yet seen the full documentary. It's fascinating to see the difference there between the two versions of that passage. That alteration (increasing the arch in back during the lift) probably happened incrementally, but now, has become a distinct change, and it's a significant difference when they correct it.

I have even seen a heavily stretching of the right leg all the way back to the head-(instead of the simple, elegant developpe devant)- while the ballerina is in that arched/horizontal/lifted position, which always makes for the whole skirt to open. I never really liked it, for which it looks too modern and gymnastic. It was really a revelation to see how the simple passage becomes a completely different animal after Markova's correction.

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I like her emphasis on community -- "what are you looking for on the floor? Do it for them!" and reminding them that their trajectory lies among the circle made by hte other dancers. She comes back to that several times Even the develloppe without the swooning backbend makes it more aware of the others.

So it's not so much a fantasy of I-thou, but a fantasy of finding an ideal peer-group, if the ballet is about a poet and his thoughts (as I've seen somewhere suggested), it's not like a poet looking for ONE TRUTH, but being at home with his thoughts"

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Markova's focuses on removing exaggerations of movement that have crept in over time. Our contemporary idea seems to be that "Romanticism" may indeed require extreme arching, extending, and sinking to the floor, just as we see in the Paris dancers' first attempt. For Fokine, movement is more restrained and also more natural. An example of "less is more"? .

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