grace

thanks for the responses. since i haven't been back here for about a week, and there are only these two responses, and neither of them from IADMS members, i guess it's reasonable to assume that IADMS members and BT members are not the same people! a teacher friend of mine shared some ballet technique teaching information which was new to me, and important. she picked it up at a seminar of some type, held in melbourne 2 years ago, i believe held in conjunction with the australian ballet school. she said it was an IADMS seminar, but its not listed on the IADMS website, so i think it wasn't quite that simple. i was after more information (about this particular technique point), and also to see if there is anything else important, that i am missing out on...

i'm just wondering how many ballet talkers - if any - are also members of IADMS? (if you don't know what that is, then the answer is obviously 'not you'! so here's a link, for your info: http://www.iadms.org/ ) i do know, of course, that they are a unique body, and 'do good work', so to speak...BUT: because there are no examples, on the site, of anything you can get from joining - other than attend conferences, which is out of my price range - i can't measure the worth of joining, to myself. i suppose i am most intrigued by their discussion forum. BUT: before their site was re-fashioned, it was possible for anyone to visit their discussion board without joining - and it was as quiet as a cemetery...so i wonder whether it is active, now? anyone got any insider info?

getting back to the original question: i am not going to refer to any books here - rather to my memory over years of watching and learning and reading...(and i have danced this, too). i say - and this is just me - that it makes sense, to me, that if she is learning to fly, she would be making attempts to fly. so, the moments where one may be directed to flutter - don't ask me now to recall at WHICH moments! - it makes sense to me to flutter...within reason. and re the prince: my perspective is that it is mostly only the russians who call him Desire; elsewhere he is Florimund (flower of the world). for fascinating insight into the whole story and its psychological ramifications, refer to Bruno Bettelheim's book, the title of which escapes me at the moment, but i'm sure you can work it out, by browsing at Amazon (via the banner, of course!).

EDIT: i'm sorry. i wrote this post without noticing the second page of this thread, which i HAVE now read. ..just so you understand why these comments below seem out of sequence... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- what a fascinatingly informative thread! i'm so glad i looked in, here - just out of idle curiosity. thanks, ismene brown (& others) for a good story well told. solor, re: i sure hope not! and as a notator (benesh), i would imagine this extremely unlikely, even when things ARE old enough to be 'in the public domain'... i imagine you could go in there and study them, but not make copies... but hey! i may be wrong... i wait with interest, for a better-informed response.

just to say that i looked on AMAZON, and cannot see the book, there - so presumably it is not released in america yet - which you'd think is really a missed opportunity for the publishers, since you (in USA) have seen this ballets russes film which WE have not yet heard about in australia... releasing the two at once would have seemed to make sense to li'l ole me! mind you - it's nice, just for ONCE - to have access to a book BEFORE 'you people'! you "ALWAYS" (said in whiny voice) get stuff first!!! :nopity:

no, kfw - at least not in the sections that i have read. this is what is bothering me.even *I* feel a need to understand - so why didn't SHE?!? (or maybe she DID, but she doesn't explain). i guess we are all different ... and the standards of 1949 were very different to those of today - but i still find it 'mindblowing'... sorry it took me so long to respond. i posted a response and then the computer 'lost' it. then i ran out of patience with my internet connection, which has been giving me problems since recent re-connection.

glad to hear that, atm711. elsewhere at this board, there is a discussion about the ballets russes film. i haven't read it yet, but i notice that, in the book's acknowledgements, baronova writes "on behalf of all my colleagues in Colonel de Basil's Ballet Russe, I extend my immense gratitude to Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller, for the magnificent documentary they have made on our company and our times Ballets Russes". i always assumed that both the word Ballet and the word Russe should be plural, in the company's title - as the film is titled (in the quote above), but when Baronova refers to the company (in the quote above), she uses the singular of both words... just an odd thought... the book is titled "IRINA - Ballet, Life and Love" and is published by Penguin.

she states in the book that her huband (cecil tennant) required her to give up associating with ballet for 5 years after their marriage - that was what he told her he required of her, if they were to be married. within a page or 2 of describing this ultimatum, one old ballet friend (tamara finch) gets back in touch with her - just married to the actor peter finch. tennant encourages her to invite the finches over. baronova herself says she regarded this as odd. i haven't read further to see how OTHER old friends were dealt with. but i HAVE read the bit that says she started to do barre at home, as was her daily custom, the next day - and then realised with silent tears that there was no longer any need to (do barre), since she had decided to accept tennant's ultimatum, in order to marry him. bearing in mind that i haven't read much more than this, i HAVE noticed, from the book, that it appears that he died in a car accident approximately 17 years later (1967) - after they had had several children. at some undefined point, (presumably in the 1960's) she was invited by fonteyn (as president of the RAD) to do several things for them. she tells foneyn that she has promised her husband to have nothing to do with ballet, so fonteyn requests an invitation to lunch, to personally persuade tennant. fonteyn's approach was successful. 14 chapters cover her life from 1920 to 1967 (his death), with "Ballet again" being the first topic of the final chapter (relating fonteyn's RAD & lunch invitations), and his death being the final topic of that SAME chapter. so that should help to explain some of the points brought up by posters, above - but i can't (yet!!) explain the classes in holland park in 1959 or '60, that pamela moberg mentions... please give me time to read more! i don't want to hurry through it, just to satisfy people's curiosity, as i would like to really enjoy the journey... as far as i can tell at this point, she wrote her book in byron bay, where she lives, in 2005 - so i guess she didn't die in '02... she has done some radio interviews in australia very recently - just before THIS christmas - to promote the book. i think she might be alive !

yes. 'birds of paradise'. you are BOTH right. thank you.

having SOOOOOOOOO enjoyed the fonteyn book(daneman), and having unfortunately got to the end of it, a while back...i felt encouraged to try another biography, and have just bought the paperback of Irina Baronova's autoiography, which was relased in australia in time for christmas. with a GORGEOUS cover and dust jacket. i just dipped into it, in more or less the middle, and then near the end, last night. and was a bit staggered to see that the whole book covers her life up to some time in 1967 when her (second) husband, cecil tennant, died. the ensuing 38 years are covered in approximately one and a half pages, in which she basically states that she doesn't want to recall all that time of her life, since she lost him. she is now 86 years old, and living in a lovely part of coastal australia, with her daughter. i met Baronova a couple of times - once in england and once in australia - and have the utmost respect for her. but this approach - which obviously one ALSO has to respect and have sympathy for - is strikingly wierd, wouldn't you say? and disappointing when one wants to learn about people and how they deal with their lives - especially the hard parts. another section which i read last night, described her (2nd) husband's proposal, with his (several days later) totally UNexplained insistence that she must give up ALL her ties to ballet, and all her ballet friends, if she was going to marry him. he gave her 48 hours to decide! without explanation. and she accepted that. and accepted him. i guess it WAS 1949...but still... a review i read described the book as "not reflective" - i guess that's true!

OK, i am very late in getting a copy of this book. and pretty much everything has been said - and said so well - already. but i JUST LOVED IT! and want to say so. i really didn't want the story to end. one thing it did for me, also, is that it took me back to the feelings i had when i was an adoring child looking at her photos and reading about her - and eventually seeing her dance (with nureyev). and i, for one, REALLY wanted to discover the personal side, of someone who just simply was too perfect to be real. i found that standard of behaviour - her standard - held up to me by myself, and by the values of the generation i was born into - SOOOOOOOO intimidating and impossible. it was SO reassuring to discover she was wonderfully and awfully human. *THANK YOU* meredith daneman. i LOVED re-visiting this time - the time when ballet was SOOOOOOOOOOOO special to me. and in response to some criticisms above: i DID get - more understanding of her personality, - more knowledge of her approach to roles, - a feel for the works i have not seen, etcetera... but i agree that, with a couple of lovely exceptions (the swimming one, for example), the photos might have been more exciting.

i've been 'away' (from the internet) for a long time, so i'm going back, reading threads i missed out on...this one caught my eye. it's interesting because of the different ways people have responded. my thoughts on ballets specifically mentioned already: agon: hmm..well..i never thought of it this way, but i certainly could see it now that 'you' say that... bugaku does nothing for me. sleeping beauty...hmm...??? manon &/or mayerling: - definitely not. to me they are definitely sexual - but that is not the same as erotic. as came up on some of the threads about toni bentley's more recent writings, 'eroticism' is a very personally defined quality, isn't it? various other works mentioned i have not seen. to me, an exquisite performance of any really good ballet can be perhaps 'erotic', in that it is an arousal of the senses at the finest, purest, highest level - like spirituality...wooh! now THERE's a challenging concept! wonder what leigh in particular might say to that? (because i respect his thoughts). the ballet which instantly comes to my mind when the word 'erotic' is mentioned, is a work by choo san goh, which i saw performed by singapore dance theatre in conjunction with hong kong ballet (about 8 years ago). maybe it had 'birds' in its title? one reason that i particularly recall this ballet, is because i was reviewing it, but my editor was also with me at the performance. *i* found it erotic - its delicacy, somehow - and the balletmaster (an american, whose name i can't recall, who i assumed to be gay) agreed with me. the editor, however, couldn't see this/didn't feel this, AND DELETED THIS OBSERVATION from my review - which ticked me off! it has been exceedingly rare for her to 'censor' my writing. and there was no doubt in my mind that t wasn't 'just me' viewing it THAT WAY. the balletmaster person had been in a position to see/know most of goh's work, so i respected his opinion. so, the editor - having heard him agree with me - must have felt strongly that we were BOTH wrong, in order to censor that comment...wierd! i'd love to see that work - and ANYTHING by goh - again.

last i heard, tonkin was teaching ballet in new zealand. but that may be out of date...

thanks for your carefully written review, becca. i was interested to hear an audience reaction to david nixon's dangerous liaisons, because i have just reviewed simon dow's dangerous liaisons for west australian ballet. the conscience idea is a fascinating one. dow used voiceovers to read excerpts of the letters, and then follow the story on, onstage. they were deliciously wicked sounding voices, two members of alliance francaise - one male and one female.

surely the daneman book will go into the training? there are plenty of fonteyn videos around still. it sounds like you would really appreciate seeing her technique and performance style for yourself. my own view is that she would not even get into any good ballet SCHOOL these days, let alone a company... what do others think on this?

brbropus39, i'm afraid i can't remember the titles, though i could look them up, via a review i did of the performance - in fact i could post the review of the performance, one day when i have a bit more time to put into the board - hopefully some time this week...sorry that i have been away for a while. heck - i should just look for it NOW, shouldn't i?!? oh! i looked. and then i realised that THAT was pre-computer age. it's not on disk/on file, so i can't post it. it was one of those old TYPEWRITER pieces! sorry.

thanks for all these contributions. this competition will be happening again in perth in september 2005, so it is appropriate that this thread has 'come up' again.

nanatchka? could you fill me in on exactly what you meant, please?

a highly entertaining link, kfw. some quotes: i really don't know. i am not expressing an opinion, just pointing the way to any interesting piece of thinking and writing.

i'm with you, brbropus39, in having loved the goh works that i have seen, and wishing that i could see more - and more often. the works of his which i saw, were performed by hong kong ballet and singapore dance theatre (the company directed by his sister at the time...NOW - i don't know...)

leigh - sorry. i edited my post as you were responding to it. perhaps my query was misunderstood?

nanatchka - i do understand your message about objectivity.. and - apart from simply NOT 'getting' how it is even possible for honesty to be self-indulgent - i agree with YOUR post too! (feel free to explain to me, if you wish, what you mean...)

to chauffeur for

thanks dale. btw atm711, i haven't forgotten you...could it have been in fonteyn's magic of dance series? - somehow that seems more likley than the other two...

thanks dale. i had a look: wow. "you learn something new every day"! - and it's only 7 am...i assume from the search you did, that some people can access some information online. how does THAT come about?