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Lincoln Center Festival 2017


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3 hours ago, nanushka said:

I was quite underwhelmed by tonight's Emeralds, though apparently almost everyone else here disagrees with me. Huge screaming ovations especially from up top. Three complete sets of curtain calls after the regular bows.

 

Gilbert was fine. She managed to come off pointe twice in a single climactic supported pirouette but her balances (especially at the very end of the first movement) were very nice. Unfortunately she has the face of Patti LuPone and the upper body of an Olympic track and field star. Her iconic ports de bras in the solo were perfunctory, as if she were admiring her new bracelet from Woolworth's. She has a very flexible back but has a tendency to deploy it only at the end of a step, rather as an afterthought.

 

Of the other couple, Louvet was the stronger. He's committed throughout, at least.

 

Moreau, in the trio, covers space well.

 

Overall, though, just about zero sense of having entered a different world. No magic. Yawn.

 

I wouldn't call this "the upper body of a track and field star":

 

 

She does look like Patti Lupone but that's not a bad thing. I adore Patti.

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5 minutes ago, canbelto said:

 

I wouldn't call this "the upper body of a track and field star" [...]

 

 

She looked quite sinewy to me.

 

And Patti's great. But Broadway belters don't typically transport me to the Emerald forest.

 

Edited to add:

Wow just watched a bit of that Giselle video, haven't seen arms like that since Mezentseva. She did not look like that to me tonight, in orchestra G.

Edited by nanushka
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3 hours ago, canbelto said:

This might be sort of delicate to ask but ... when did the Bolshoi men become so pretty? The ones I saw on the tour have these elegant insteps and slender thighs. Very different from the old-school Bolshoi dancer, who could do all those lifts in Spartacus without breaking a sweat. You know, strong upper body, thick thighs, powerful jumps.

 

Like where did these types of dancers go?

 

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Anna Kisselgoff posed a related question to Sergei Filin when she did a public interview with him as part of the last Lincoln Center Festival Bolshoi appearance. That is, she asked him about the overall change of style/type in their leading male dancers, and what had brought it about. I should underline that I don't remember how she worded it, and I don't think he really gave an answer either, though I remember that after she followed up a bit he did say something along the lines of those bodies perhaps not being right for contemporary repertory. But again, I don't remember the exact wording.

 

I think the top Bolshoi men have been less beefy--more pretty if you will--for quite some time. (Or at least those I know about.) And well before Filin became director. Filin himself was not a Vladimir Vasiliev or Yuri Vladimirov type. I always thought of Ivan Vasiliev, despite his shorter height, as something of a throwback.  (Edited to add: one somewhat more slender/streamlined male dancer--also very good looking--that I remember from the late 70's/80's Bolshoi tours is Alexander Bogatyrev. But he still didn't have the lines today's Bolshoi men have. Bogatyrev died when he was just 49.)

 

How do others see the change over the decades?

 

 

Edited by Drew
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12 hours ago, nanushka said:

Their idea of diversity is apparently a lone redhead in the front row.

 

The explanation is quite simple, it is because Russia never enslaved people of other races by the millions, so the ethnic makeup of the country reflects this.

Edited by Fleurdelis
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Thanks to canbelto, I just watched the video of Olga Smirnova in Diamonds, and it is night and day better than Kovaleva.  Don't get me wrong, Kovaleva is a very lovely dancer, and she has a very bright future ahead of her.  She did a good job in Diamonds, and her technique was mostly fantastic,  but she lacks the experience and maturity needed to deliver a dramatically resonating performance (like Smirnova and Mearns can).  I would like to see Kovaleva in Diamonds again, maybe five years from now, because I think I'll have a different opinion.

 

I now officially regret not seeing the Smirnova cast in person, but hopefully she'll come back to the US again at some point.

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35 minutes ago, Fleurdelis said:

The explanation is quite simple, it is because Russia never enslaved people of other races by the millions, so the ethnic makeup of the country reflects this.

 

One of the reasons for diversity in the US is our horrible history of slavery, but it is certainly NOT the only one.

The fact that the US was a beacon of hope for people fleeing things like the pogroms in Russia --meant to eradicate minority groups like the Jews who fled Russia FOR the US is a much nicer reason for diversity in the US and, ahem, lack of diversity in Russia.

 

So yeah, they didn't enslave people but perhaps we can not glorify a place with their own unpleasant past and racist present.

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37 minutes ago, Fleurdelis said:

The explanation is quite simple, it is because Russia never enslaved people of other races by the millions, so the ethnic makeup of the country reflects this.

 

Yes, what I had in mind was how, even accustomed as we are to our own fairly whitewashed ensembles, it's quite visually striking to see even that small bit of diversity absent.

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8 minutes ago, aurora said:

 

One of the reasons for diversity in the US is our horrible history of slavery, but it is certainly NOT the only one.

The fact that the US was a beacon of hope for people fleeing things like the pogroms in Russia --meant to eradicate minority groups like the Jews who fled Russia FOR the US is a much nicer reason for diversity in the US and, ahem, lack of diversity in Russia.

 

So yeah, they didn't enslave people but perhaps we can not glorify a place with their own unpleasant past and racist present.

 

I am Jewish from Russia myself. So, I can tell you quite a bit about the unpleasant past and the present, but this would be way too off-topic for this forum and will have nothing to do with the ethnic makeup of the Bolshoi's ballet company.

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3 minutes ago, nanushka said:

 

Like that whole serfdom thing, for instance.

 

Yes, absolutely true, Russians enslaving other Russians. I am sure quite a few, if not most of Bolshoi's cast are descendants of serfs. Does this satisfy your diversity requirements?

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1 minute ago, Fleurdelis said:

I gave you the reason why. What would you have liked to see? More redheads?

 

I don't think I've been clear. I was not launching a political criticism of the company for a lack of racial diversity. I wouldn't have "liked to see" anything.

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2 minutes ago, Fleurdelis said:

 

Yes, absolutely true, Russians enslaving other Russians. I am sure quite a few, if not most of Bolshoi's cast are descendants of serfs. Does this satisfy your diversity requirements?

 

I have no requirements. I'll repeat what I wrote above:

 

Yes, what I had in mind was how, even accustomed as we are to our own fairly whitewashed ensembles, it's quite visually striking to see even that small bit of diversity absent.

 

"Visually striking." Not "appalling" or "reprehensible" or even "unfortunate."

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6 minutes ago, Fleurdelis said:

 

I am Jewish from Russia myself. So, I can tell you quite a bit about the unpleasant past and the present, but this would be way too off-topic for this forum and will have nothing to do with the ethnic makeup of the Bolshoi's ballet company.

 

You made it a point, seemingly, to negatively compare the US and Russia vis-a-vis this issue--hence the turn this conversation took.

 

I'm not "Jewish from Russia" because that side of my family was forced to flee 100+ years ago...

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Just now, aurora said:

 

You made it a point, seemingly, to negatively compare the US and Russia vis-a-vis this issue--hence the turn this conversation took.

 

I'm not "Jewish from Russia" because that side of my family was forced to flee 100+ years ago...

 

No, I made a point that it is ridiculous to expect a ballet company from another country to have the same ethnic makeup as a US company. Because their histories, and, therefore, implications on current ethnic makeup are quite different.

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I was indeed referring to the lack of racial diversity that I saw onstage, which was "visually striking" to me.

 

I did not, however, say that I "expect[ed] a ballet company from another country to have the same ethnic makeup as a US company." Those are your words, not mine.

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A nation needn't have had a history of chattel slavery to be ethnically diverse, nor for there to an expectation that its national dance company would reflect (if not actively respect and celebrate) that diversity. There are any number of ethnic minorities still living in today's Russian republic, even if it's shed many of its former non-ethnically Russian republics -- the various Central Asian "stans" by way of example. If I'm not mistaken, Nureyev was ethnically Tatar. Balanchine may have been culturally Russian, but he was ethnically Georgian. 

 

I don't know anything at all about the ethnic makeup of Russia's big dance companies: would it be surprising to find non-ethnic Russians among its ranks? 

Edited by Kathleen O'Connell
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3 minutes ago, nanushka said:

I was indeed referring to the lack of racial diversity that I saw onstage, which was "visually striking" to me.

 

I did not, however, say that I "expect[ed] a ballet company from another country to have the same ethnic makeup as a US company." Those are your words, not mine.

 

If you were referring to racial diversity after all, then you should perfectly understand and accept the reason I have provided.

Edited by Fleurdelis
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Just now, Fleurdelis said:

 

If you were referring to racial diversity after all, then you should perfectly understand and accept the reason I have provided.

 

I never said that I didn't! You provided a perfectly reasonable historical explanation for the phenomenon that I observed. I never said that I required or desired or even expected to see anything other than what I saw onstage.

 

Once more:

Yes, what I had in mind was how, even accustomed as we are to our own fairly whitewashed ensembles, it's quite visually striking to see even that small bit of diversity absent.

 
I am not criticizing the Bolshoi! Please look back at what I have actually written above, rather than assuming that you know what I meant.
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2 minutes ago, Kathleen O'Connell said:

A nation needn't have had a history of chattel slavery to be ethnically diverse, nor for there to an expectation that its national dance company would reflect (if not actively respect and celebrate) that diversity. There are any number of ethnic minorities still living in today's Russian republic, even if it's shed many of its former non-ethnically Russian republics -- the various Central Asian "stans" by way of example. If I'm not mistaken, Nureyev was ethnically Tatar. Balanchine may have been culturally Russian, but he was ethnically Georgian. 

 

I don't know anything at all about the ethnic makeup of Russia's big dance companies: would it be surprising to find non-ethnic Russians among its ranks? 

 

One simply has to dig deeper and learn about the different ethnic groups that inhabit Russia, and also learn a bit about the individual Bolshoi dancers and which ethnic groups they come from. Thankfully, the internet provides ample opportunity for this.

 

Then, perhaps, these "Russians" will all of a sudden stop looking the same and lacking individuality and, yes, diversity, to the enlightened American public.

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2 minutes ago, nanushka said:

 

I never said that I didn't! You provided a perfectly reasonable historical explanation for the phenomenon that I observed. I never said that I required or desired or even expected to see anything other than what I saw onstage.

 

Once more:

Yes, what I had in mind was how, even accustomed as we are to our own fairly whitewashed ensembles, it's quite visually striking to see even that small bit of diversity absent.

 
I am not criticizing the Bolshoi! Please look back at what I have actually written above, rather than assuming that you know what I meant.

 

You can see in my other comment that the Bolshoi dancers that you saw could actually be a lot more diverse when you might think once you actually look deeper into who they are and their backgrounds. I suggest we leave it at that.

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14 minutes ago, Fleurdelis said:

 

One simply has to dig deeper and learn about the different ethnic groups that inhabit Russia, and also learn a bit about the individual Bolshoi dancers and which ethnic groups they come from. Thankfully, the internet provides ample opportunity for this.

 

Then, perhaps, these "Russians" will all of a sudden stop looking the same and lacking individuality and, yes, diversity, to the enlightened American public.

 

I wasn't asking you to do my work for me; I simply thought someone might know. Since I haven't seen the Bolshoi in quite some time, I can't speak to how diverse the company looks from the stage. 

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20 minutes ago, Kathleen O'Connell said:

 

I wasn't asking you to do my work for me; I simply thought someone might know. Since I haven't seen the Bolshoi in quite some time, I can't speak to how diverse the company looks from the stage. 

 

The issue is, in the old Soviet Union, people were forced to declare their ethnic group and stick to it, so something like what you suggest could have been easily done back then. Thankfully, this practice has been abandoned since the 1990s, and now people are free to choose for themselves what type of ethnicity they feel they most belong to, and to even refuse to be categorized and judged based on their ethnicity. You can still more or less figure out people's backgrounds based on their names (except for the ladies who get married, and take their husbands' last names), as well as sometimes (and this is a VERY slippery slope) their appearance. But you may find that this topic is a lot more complex and diverse than simply slotting people into white, black, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander boxes, which, unlike some people in the US might think, does not come even close to covering all the ethnic diversity that exists in the world.

Edited by Fleurdelis
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Hmm FWIW I once was at a Home Depot and a Russian guy came up to me and spoke nearly perfect Chinese. He said he grew up in an area where the majority of people had Chinese descent and picked up the language as a child. There's a lot of Russian ballet dancers (past and present) who have a central Asian look that is not anywhere near what I'd call looking "white."

 

One example: Ana Turashvilli:

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