Victoria Leigh

If you are doing just the second act of Swan Lake, then both the little swans and the big swans are considered soloist parts. The little swans are smaller - not smaller parts, smaller girls! ;) Both the big and little swans are difficult and require strong dancers. Then come the rest of the swans, and the number of swans varies from one production to another. With a school production that will most likely depend on how many students there are who are ready to learn and dance the corps roles in this ballet.

There are no other roles for female dancers in Act II of the ballet. If you were doing Act I or Act III there would be other things, like the big waltz and the pas de trois in Act I, or all of the special character and demi-character dances in Act III, and the princesses dance, but no swans except for Odile in Act III.

Here is another one, which Juliet mentioned on another thread somewhere. I like it because you can listen to some of the selections, and I registered for the catalogue and it was sent very quickly! I just ordered a couple of their recordings today. They have orchestrated CD's for class. They are interesting, with very long bands, which is good, however one still need at least two or three of them to use different music for every exercise in a full upper level class. I ordered #7 class, orchestrated, which is in the catalogue but not online, and also the classes taken from Don Q and Paquita.

When you get the catalogue they also send a demo CD, however I found that to be relatively useless as there is very little on it for ballet. Most of the demo is for other forms of dance. I discussed that with him today when I ordered the albums.

www.christopherseminars.com

Stuttgart, there is a link in the Tuesday, Aug. 13 Links section (in the News forum) to an article about a new ballet by Christopher Flemming which is based on a painting. The link is about the 7th or 8th post down on that page I think.

Watermill, I have been a great fan of Chita Rivera since I saw her in the original Broadway production of West Side Story when I was a kid. However, I'm pretty sure it was Rita Moreno who played Anita in the movie.

For SI auditions each school has different requirements, so you need to look at all those first. Most will list the maximum length of time as well as what classwork exercises they want to see. Most do not require a variation, however pointe work should be required on all of them. Some want barre work, others do not. For instance, I prefer ours to be no longer than 10 minutes, showing center work adagio, pirouettes, petite allegro, grand allegro, and pointe work. Sitting through barre work on video is very tedious, and I find it unnecessary.

That said, I receive videos with everything but the kitchen sink on them, and I have not rejected anyone because of that yet ;) However, I do NOT watch all of it either. I watch as much as I need to see to determine if the dancer is qualified for our program or not, and at what level if she/he qualifies.

Sorry, but I know nothing about competition videos....nor do I want to know! :eek:

Melba, first I must ask you to please not type in all higher case letters, as it comes across like shouting

When you want to type jeté, or any word which has an accented letter, do not type that letter at all. Just type the code for that letter. Then you will not get the double letters. I don't have all the accents at hand right now, but here are the ones I know without looking them up.

(Hold down the Alt key and use the numeric keys on the right side of your keyboard.)

é is 130

à is 133

è is 138

î is 140

É is 144

ç is 135

ê is 136

â is 131

I love it! I will be quite happy to be a member of the Drinkus Defense League! And as far as Adam is concerned, besides Giselle, he happens to be the composer of "O Holy Night". He also composed other ballets which, unfortunately, did not become as popular as Giselle, but this could also be the fault of the ballets themselves and not the music. I do not feel he can be dismissed or trashed!

Oops, thanks Kate That was a typo! I fixed it!

I have the Royal Ballet's Coppelia on DVD. It is from a live performance in Feb. of 2000, with Leanne Benjamin and Carlos Acosta. I think it is lovely!

I also have ABT's Giselle with Eric Bruhn and Carla Fracci. The beautiful and elegant Toni Lander is Myrtha. However, this DVD was made from a film, not from a live performance, and it is frustrating as they use all sorts of film techniques to "enhance" the story, thereby totally messing it up and missing some of the dancing. I bought it because of Eric and Toni, and I'm glad I have it, but I was quite upset with it in terms of how it is produced.

Hello rala56, welcome to Ballet Talk on Ballet Alert! Online

I can't give you any help on Madame Swoboda, but the last I knew Roni Mahler was teaching in Kansas. Wichita I think. That was some time ago, though, so I'm not sure if she is still there or not. Hopefully there will be someone else here who has more updated information!

Thanks, Lolly I work with pianists too, however once in a while there is a pianist out for some reason or other, and then I am the one who can work with CD's, so the pianists who are there get shifted around and I give mine up for a class or a day. I have a few CD's, but would like more, and I know the RAD classes have some very nice musical choices.

Thanks for than information, Lolly! I have a question about the CD you have. (This is related to using the CD's for class, not for at home practice.) Is it the one with 2 CD's, and are the individual bands, especially the center work, long enough for several groups to do an exercise like pirouette combinations, petite allegro and grand allegro? My problem with so many recordings is that the music for these kinds of exercises is limited to the same 32 or 64 measures as the other combinations, which means you have to keep restarting for each group. Nuisance.

The ballet class CD's are sold in some dancewear stores, but not very many. Check Dance Magazine for ads on where to order them. Some of the online dancewear places may have some of them too. They are generally not sold in regular music stores. There is a series of French ones that I did find in Tower Records.

Poppiedancer, read the posts above Dance Magazine's is linked in my post, as is Pointe Magazine. You can read some things online, but you certainly don't get the whole magazine, and there is no substitute online for purchasing the print edition of any magazine!

Dance Spirit is more about all forms of dance, including a lot of the competition type things. It's not as good if you are a serious classical dancer, but if you also do lyrical, hip hop, tap, etc., you might find it more interesting.

Billy the Kid and Western Symphony

Billy the Kid and Western Symphony

While I was certainly less than thrilled with Kevin's, I still think that Peter's tops any poll for worst ever. It's on a par with Kevin's Nuts......almost. That was the absolute worst production I have had the misfortune to suffer through.

I would like to have the following works in my companies' repertoire. Not all in the same year, of course, but to draw from and make the programs for about 4 seasons.

Tudor Ballets

Pillar of Fire

Dark Elegies

Jardin (with original design, not the new ones)

Romeo and Juliet

Leaves are Fading

Gaite Parisienne

Judgements of Paris

Ashton Ballets

La Fille Mal Gardee

The Dream

Two Pigeons

Enigma Variations

Cinderella

MacMillan Ballets

Gloria

Manon

Elite Syncopations

Romeo and Juliet

Balanchine Ballets

Theme and Variations

The Four Temperaments

Pas de Dix

Bournonville Ballets

Napoli

Flower Festival at Genzano

Konservatoriet

Other ballets

Etudes (Lander)

Fall River Legend (DeMille)

Miss Julie (Cullberg)

Three Preludes (Stevenson)

Classics

Giselle

Pas de Quatre

Nutcracker

Swan Lake

La Bayadere

Le Corsaire

Raymonda

Family/Children's Ballets

Peter Pan (Perhaps Trey McIntyre's? Haven't seen it.)

Alice in Wonderland (If someone can choreograph a version I like)

Contemporary or New Works

Perhaps a Wheeldon, but I haven't yet seen his work.

Can't think of any other contemporary works that I would want to repeat or keep in repertoire. Perhaps something new by Trey McIntyre.

There were a couple of early Feld works I liked a long time ago, have not seen them in too many years. (Harbinger, At Midnight, and another one whose name I cannot recall.)

I'm sure there are many others I would like, but this is just what came on first thought. I seem to be a bit lacking in new and contemporary works

For starters, check this link

http://www.balletalert.com/studio/resources.htm

Have not seen the article yet, Ray, however just from the title, I would say I totally agree! Manhattnik's quote at the end of all of his posts says it very well..."Every dance is too long, but some are more too-long than others."

Jhora, there can be several reasons for this. Sometimes the acoustics in a theatre are very different, depending on where you are sitting. However, there are other possibilities. Very hard shoes will do it. Some makes of shoes are just really noisy and others are not. It depends on how they are made. And then of course there is the factor of how well the dancers USE their feet and learn how to CONTROL that noise factor with strength and lift and articulation. So, who knows? Often hard to tell. I recently saw a Bolshoi performance where one of the principal dancers was very clunky with her walking and running, and most of the others were very, very quiet, so, what was her problem, shoes or lack of strength in her feet and articulation of the feet? Or, just really bad shoes? Not sure. :eek:

Yep, it's already started. The Royal Ballet's newest live performance taping of Coppelia, done in 2000 with Leanne Benjamin and Carlos Acosta, is only out on DVD. I have it, and it is lovely! The Borders in DC stopped carrying ballet videos some time ago, but at last check did not have the DVD's yet either. Tower Records still has a video collection, but they have a growing DVD section too. It's inevitable, as it is a better format, with more time and information on the DVD's, and they will hold up much, much better. I find the quality, even with an older TV, to be definitely superior.

The DVD's are great too in terms of being able to find all the different sections of the ballet without searching or rewinding. They list the sections of the ballet just like on a music CD, and you can go directly to #10 or 15 or whatever. Very convenient

Nice to see you again, Nadezhda!

As usual, you pose interesting questions I think that it is assumed that Von Rothbart, who is lurking through the second act, sees and hears everything that Odette and Siegfried are doing and saying and then coaches his daughter Odile.

Nothing to be embarrassed about, Marilia! An easy mistake to make, and a lot of young dancers thought that it was a real academy.

Kivovboy, I believe the school that you are referring to, at Vassar, is American Academy of Ballet, so that would not be ABA. They probably chose to call it ABA because there is not such a place!