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nataliequa

Inactive Member
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  • Connection to/interest in ballet** (Please describe. Examples: fan, teacher, dancer, writer, avid balletgoer)
    writer
  • City**
    Chisinau
  • State (US only)**, Country (Outside US only)**
    Moldova
  1. is just not correct. we have discussed many aspects of many different arts here, and if a ballet artist extends his or her horizons, it is always a matter of discussion. I said In My Opinion. Anyway, thanks. Be well.
  2. Thanks, Helene. Sorry, again, his last name is spelled G o d u n o v, not Gudonov. "Many of us, huh." I red some American people think, for instance, Johan Renvall surpassed Baryshnikov by far in terms of technique and physical ability. Should I provide link? Sure he didn't surpass him on longevity on stage. Or I'm sure some or maybe "many of you" could agree with Fernando Bujones when he said 'He (B.) has the publicity and I have the technique." Some UK critics would agree with him. I repeat, I believe this kind of discussion leads to nowhere. As one of your fellow countrymen said " Of course Baryshnikov isn´t the best, how could he be? There`ll never be THE best dancer.You could say that Baryshnikov`s dancing was a wonderful combination of strength and lightness,or he was just a media phenomenon with a nice fattie butt. Just like you could say Bujones was engaging and passionate, or cheesy and a bad actor. Or that Godunov was a marvel of speed and precision,or that he danced like a power drill with only two settings:angry and angrier.All a just a matter of opinion." So it's just a matter of opinion and we could spend all life long arguing. Let's not do that. As US critic Lewis Segal said, Godunov was a heroic dancer, but there was and there still is no heroic ballet in USA. Nobody here would dare to stage Spartacus", - he said. About Spartacus, Bolshoi style and ABT dancers, if anybody's interested. I'm sure many of you know this publication. This Laura Jacobs is so smart. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb33...ag=content;col1 I did provide. In my next post. Would I repeat? Ok. Please, before reproaching read mesages with more attention, please, please. The topic is a documentary about Godunov, and what conclusions the authors made and what our conclusions are. So I've already expressed my opinion on that. I 'll rephrase: this is a ballet forum and in my opinion this is a wrong place to discuss his versatile movie roles. Good enough? And.. sorry, again, his last name was G o d u n o v. I suggest you watch please Carmen-suite with him and Plisetskaya and maybe, just maybe, you will change your mind, this was his finest performance IMO. Though it was rather in a studio than on stage, but he did that on stage in the Met in 1974. Oh, and later as ABT principal he did Petit's version too, partnered by young Susan Jaffe. That was good also. Thank you, Helene.
  3. Oh, never mind. I just wanted to remind the correct spelling of his LAST name, G o d u n o v, 'cause some people could confuse with Gudanov - Dmitri Gudanov from Bolshoi or Gudonov as you spell it. So the right spelling is Godunov, like Russian tsar. Thank you again for sharing, it's priceless. People, I'm glad I kind of revived this thread. But I definitely don't want to slide down to a useless discussion who was better. I could say - anyone who saw Godunov's footage at rehearsal with his ballet coach Yermolaev or saw him perform pdd with Timofeyeva or whatever... can question that. Useless, really. Personally, as to the basic ballet technique, I think Bujones was impeccable, Russians almost always kind of believed they were above the rules... maybe they were really. Sure, his life was much more complex than you think, and half of his adult life he spent on cinema. He was keen on doing films even when being in USSR and was very offended when authorities canceled his appearance in Soviet-American production of The Bluebird with Elizabeth Taylor. http://www.people.com/people/archive/artic...0074530,00.html Movies - his second lifelong passion... and second profession he was devoted to, we can't deny this fact. But, hey, this is a ballet forum and we, I think, are not allowed to discuss his various amazing movie roles. I am not saying that this "film of CorsairE" as you obviously called documentary "Godunov: The World To Dance In" is to be admired. IMO it's just the best of very few documentaries about this dancer. As far as I know there're just about 5, so there's almost no choice. Though that one only traces his career from his childhood to his 1982 summer tour...
  4. I ran the URL through Google.com/translate and got this very rough translation. In English-speaking countries, yes, that is true. Thanks for linking the article, nataliequa. I'll try to plow through the translation. Galadgeva made two movies about Godunov http://www.getmovies.ru/stars.aspx?id=38376 second and third in the list. Documentaries. Unfortunately they are not free downloadable. And yet the best is "Godunov: The World To Dance In" and she admits this fact. In that article you tried to translate she expressed her negative opinion about Viugina's movie "Escape to Nowhere", she called it "sovkovii" which means "pro-soviet' and she's right IMO. Even the title is "pro-soviet". USA and western world are not "Nowhere". In two words: the movie pictures Godunov as a loser... "betrayed his country, left his family, ran to nowhere and died alone... he was thus punished... And this might happen to everybody who would attempt to do the same"... something like that. It's a kind of stupid propaganda and a deliberate underestimation of everything he achieved in USA. He achieved actually a lot, best thing was independence: financial and intellectual, freedom to do what he wanted to and not to do what he didn't want to... latter maybe even more important than the former. Nowadays, when American newspapers and magazines open their archives in digitized form, sometimes for free, sometimes for small access fee, everybody can learn as much as possible about his life. In Chicago Tribune - about his debut in USA, Boston Globe - about his tours with ABT and then with his own temporary troupe, New York Times and LA Times - about his life and work in those cities. Life Magazine and People Magazine - about his personal life... well, sometimes in pictures.))) To name few. Thanks for the interest.
  5. This could be sometime from the beginning of 1980 through May, 1982. So it was from early-80, not mid-80. His name was Alexander Godunov or Aleksandr Godunov. No wonder he felt kinda uncomfortable being surrounded by so many hysterical fans, he was just doing his first steps in western world at that time. I think he felt like KGB was still after him and maybe that was true, I believe. They actually didn't leave him alone untill he divorced his wife, and that happened only in 1982 or something. And don't you remember that John Lennon was shot to death by a crazy fan in 1980 in New York, so this was an event that horrified all celebrities, I bet many artists for some time weren't crazy about being in a crowd or in public places... So his face expression was understandable. But later he managed to overcome his fears or let's call it discomfort and felt ok in a crowd and was nice with ballet fans, as it was shown in documentary "Godunov: The World To Dance In", 1983 by Peter Rosen Productions, distributed by Kultur. This is absolutely unsubstantiated. Actually I can prove in details it's not true, but should I? Don't want to hurt abybody's feelings. Anyway, thank you, 4mrdncr, very much for sharing. As to that Russian documentary,.. unfortunately the movie is kind of secondary: too much footage from "The World To Dance In" and a deplorable lack of original material... and very, very one-sided. That nonsense regarding "America destroying him" I even don't want to discuss, it's not worth it. His life wasn't tragic at all, there sure were some dramatic moments... as in everybody's life, but nothing tragic, absolutely nothing, except for early death. But death is tragic at any age, isn't it. In general he was a success, both in ballet, where he is considered a ballet legend, and in movies, where he made a rather creditable career. He loved and was loved by beautiful women and is still remembered by ballet and movie fans. He was actually a happy man' cause "always was doing only what he wanted to'', as Solomon Volkov put it. Not everybody enjoys this luxury. I know what I'm talking about, so does Ms. Natalia Galadgeva, a journalist and a film critic, who scrupulously investigated his life. http://www.kultura-portal.ru/tree_new/cult...p;pub_id=642516 Thanks.
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