tamicute

Unfortunately, you are correct that it is entirely due to being wrongly favored by someone high up.

The only obvious trait of Skorik is that she is the most puzzling enigma in Russian ballet history. Why has this no talent ballerina been made a star? Skorik was star of the movie, "A Beautiful Tragedy", but Skorik clearly is the Tragedy of Mariinsky Ballet, a disgrace to the name Mariinsky.

You will love Napoli.

Although I have never heard of anyone counting fouettes during a performance of Swan Lake, as if it is an Olympic event, I know that both Alina Somova and Viktoria Tereshkina, are the best Mariinsky ballerinas at executing fouettes. I went to Youtube to look at Tereshkina's most recent Don Quixote and went to the video where she does fouettes. Tereshkina used every 4 counts as 2 single and one double, resulting in 24 fouettes,.but 32 revolutions. Alina Somova, prior to her pregnancy, and Tereshkina also, normally would have done more double fouettes than that. I have often seen Somova do single, double, every time, which would result in even fewer fouettes, but definitely not less revolutions.Unless a dancer wants to purposely, slow down the music to fit in 32 fouettes, being with the music is a much higher priority than 32 fouettes and with many double fouettes, 32 fouettes is not possible without slowing down the music and making the fouettes seem dead slow.

Remember that , not only are dancers important, but the ballets. In some cases, if you do not like the ballet or the music, it makes no difference who is dancing.

Sounds like you are very passionate about this topic - I can understand that! Especially having seen Stepanova right after Skorik. This experience will definitely make me follow the casting announcements much more closely and do more research before booking any tickets - especially that I was planning a trip to Moscow to catch a few Bolshoi performances. I have a lot of reading and learning to do... Everyone has different tastes, but I have very strong opinions on what I look for in dancers and particularly with the Mariinsky, I am familiar with all their dancers and would gladly give you my opinion on every Mariinsky dancer. I am familiar with some of the Bolshoi dancers, but most of my knowledge applies to their stars with some knowledge on lesser dancers.. Anyway, I would be happy to give my recommendations and why, plus you can research on your own, various dancers. Casting is very important because some dancers do not deserve their roles and others are more suited for certain roles, while some are great in every role.

If the acid attack on Sergei Filin, is the greatest crime in ballet history, the 2nd greatest crime is the insane casting of Skorik in major roles. Skorik has been highly criticized by many ballet lovers for her incompetent ballet technique, her horrible Mariinsky style arms and upper body, her total lack of any stage presence, no acting ability, no flow of movements, a complete impostor of a ballerina , a true disgrace to the Mariinsky name and an insult to all ballet lovers, who should be seeing great ballerinas, like Stepanova and constantly get Miserable Skorik shoved down their throat, and she constantly dances opening nights when the best should perform, not ballerinas who are worse than the worst corps de ballet girl.

Thank you for enlightening us on the benefits of being an uneducated laborer in New York. You do need to revise your wording of take home pay. Your quoted amounts for take home pay are actually gross pay. Take home pay would deduct Federal income taxes, New Your state and city taxes, plus Social security/Medicare taxes. I am not knowledgeable on current New York state and city taxes, but my guess is that the take home pay amounts would be approximately, $ 60,000 annually and not near $ 100,000. However, in my opinion, most stagehands are similar to construction workers. In construction, you will have a licensed plumbing contractor, who has employees who perform plumbing work, but these employees are not officially licensed plumbers. The same situation applies to licensed electrical contractors, who have employees who perform electrical work, but they are not officially licensed electricians. The licensed plumbers and electricians, will make much more money than their workers, who perform electrical and plumbing work. I am certain that among stagehands, there are licensed electricians, but most of those dealing with electrical work, are comparable to construction worker electrical employees working for a licensed electrician. i cannot justify regular stagehands, who have qualifications, comparable to normal construction workers, getting six figure salaries. Although, I consider the intelligence of construction workers and stagehands to be on a relatively low level compared to most educated professions, the arts are not immune to idiots in high ranking positions.

It's also their standard MO to compare compensation for stagehands to compensation for ballerinas, instead of lawyers, bonds traders, plastic surgeons, etc. There are many construction workers around the country, who work on electrical construction plus many other construction jobs and their work is no less difficult or no less deserving comparable pay to stagehands, but I have met many construction workers who struggle to live decentlydue to awful pay. Stage hands are no more deserving of good salaries than struggling construction workers. Nobody would consider a construction worker or a stage hand as deserving the salary of lawyers, accountants, scientists, biologists, chemists or medical doctors.

This is insane and no wonder theaters have to charge exorbitant prices, because they have to cover the ridiculous stage hand salaries. One paragraph says it all Backstage workers can earn more than the onstage talent. Five stagehands at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center were each paid more in total compensation in 2011 than the highest-paid dancer at New York City Ballet, filings showed. And, in 2010, “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” paid its stagehands a total of $138,000 a week, while the principals and members of the ensemble earned slightly less than $100,000 put together." If I ran a theater, I personally would try to do anything to get rid of these vastly overpaid thieves. I do not know the legality of training stage hands in private institutions to replace these theater robbers. I disagree with this statement made "Their tasks are “extremely complex, extremely high-tech and possibly extremely dangerous,” said Martha S. LoMonaco, a professor of theater at Fairfield University, in Connecticut. “They should not be viewed as the schleppers of the theater industry.” If I ran any of these important theaters, I would try to talk to various owners to start training such workers and there are many talented people and plain shleppers, who would gladly earn a fraction of what these robbers earn. Then when these robbers go on strike, the replacements come and say good bye to this robber union, but I do not know about union lawsuits. This union alone is crippling major theaters.

I know someone who is going who will love to watch it, but I need to find out when they arrive. If their planes arrives late, they will not be able to go. Please hold it and i will speak to them , no later than Sunday. I already left them a message. Thank you very much

Is this a full time job?

My third wish is that Altynai Asylmuratova is back in charge, producing remarkable students at Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet. My fifth wish is that the new, intelligent ballet director, realizes that Yulia Stepanova is the prima ballerina assoluta of the world and Oksana Marchuk is not far behind.

Based on what you are saying, then you would consider Margot Fonteyn's rose adagio as being unmusical because she did slow down the music, particularly to allow her to balance with her arms over her head in attitude. Then among current ballerinas, Ulyana Lopatkina, primarily due to her size, dances slower than other Mariinsky ballerinas, so due to what you would describe as her technical limitations, brought on by her height, she is unmusical. This thread is titled "Skorik" and I will bring up one ballet role, where what you say, would apply precisely to her. Kitri is a role full of life and energy, all technical limitations with Skorik. so when she danced Kitri, she danced it much slower than normal and I am talking about allegro work, not adagio work. Her being unmusical at all times, made her Kitri even worse. However, the role of Kitri is in my opinion,a perfect example of allegro work, that can be danced at different speeds and still be musical, within limitations, such as with Skorik, who is totally out of character in energy, interpretation and speed. However, I will discuss the act 1 variation which Maya Plisetskaya made famous with her back leg kick to the head. This is a fast variation and is often danced at varying speeds, particularly which country and ballet company is performing. In Russia, it is always fast, but some dancers have exceptional speed and dance it super fast. I think that the normal fast dancer is as musical as the super fast dancer. The final act grand pas de deux Kitri variation is a similar situation, where even the choreography is not always the same and the use of the fan is often present or non-existent. However, a tiny dancer by the name of Malika Sabirova, 1969 Moscow Competition gold medalist, had phenomenal speed in her variation and in my opinion, her speed did not alter her musicality. However, there are some dancers that try to emphasize their balancing ability and that drastically alters the speed and in my opinion, i am used to this variation, not emphasizing balancing ability and I would consider the balancing variation as unmusical, but some will disagree.

I have seen criticism on her musicality, but the extension topic is analogous to "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". For some, high extension is a big negative and considered ugly. For others, they feel that if you have it, flaunt it, and for them, high extension is beautiful. The biggest obstacle is that ballet directors and most ballet audience members, no longer accept 90 degree extension. Then the question about how high is appropriate, depends on the individual.As you said, some feel that what is appropriate in gymnastics, is not appropriate in ballet.