Marcmomus

"The dance is of all the arts the one that most influences the soul. Dancing is divine in its nature, and is the gift of God. - Plato "Dancing is silent poetry." - Simonides "O Earth, weigh lightly upon me, I trod so lightly upon thee." - Greek Epitaph All from Arnold Haskell, 1934.

Most contributors agree that visible tattoos are an unwelcome distraction. The critic Arnold Haskell obhorred nail varnish: " ...when a work and a company are both so well-known that carmine-coloured nails, objectionable at all times, can in Les Sylphides, by cutting off abruptly the fine line of the fingers and substituting bloody stumps, produce a feeling of profound irritation..." Haskell, Arnold L., Balletomania, p.15. Victor Gollancz, London 1934

Costs from £14.99 today. You did well to get it for £5.99.

I have the impression that more operas could be turned into ballets. I have a few but there's scope for more. The music is available and is often excellent. Petit did 'La Chauve-souris' based on Strauss' 'Die Fledermaus'. Matthew Bourne used the music of Carmen for his 'The Car Man.' Neumeier choreographed 'La Dame aux Camelias' -on which La Traviata- was based using Chopin's music. Others include MacMillan's Manon, and Ronald Hynd's Merry Widow. I accept that ballets of operas might scare many people off, by doubling or squaring elitism.

It's not difficult to buy things from Amazon in Japan. I bought Lavrosky's brilliant 1954 film of Romeo and Juliet (Galina Ulanova) from a vendor in South Korea. Sure I can't read the writing on the cover, but I don't really need to. The pages can be translated into passable English by hitting a command at the top right of the page. To enter an international address, click "Add International Address" button on the bottom of the address page. 1. Click the "YOUR ACCOUNT" link (second from right) at the top of our home page. 2. Click "Set your ordering language preference" to set your language preference to English. 3. Click "Manage your address book." 4. Sign in with your e-mail address and password. You can visit their English language Help department: http://www.amazon.co.jp/help/english DVDs in the Japanese market are not in the US NTSC format but they can be played on a computer, or more conveniently on a multi-regional DVD player. These are quite cheap. Most standard DVD players can easily be hacked to make them multi-regional. I bought a remote control for mine programmed by a UK company and made my Blueray player multi-regional (for DVDs only) in 10 seconds. I also recommend using a currency converter before you buy as DVDs in Japan can be quite expensive, but those from France are not much different.

Using Proust as inspiration surely doesn't require Petit slavishly to follow the original characterisations in Proust, or even require him to provide a ballet with a coherent dramatic structure, however preferable these may be for some of us. At times this thread seems to be as much about Proust as Petit's ballet. See Clement Crisp's review in the Financial Times: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3d5bed52-cb88-11db...0b5df10621.html

Nathalie Nordquist Royal Swedish Ballet Polina Semionova Berlin Staatsballett

Rudolf Nureyev by Julie Kavanagh Ballet in Western Culture by Carol Lee The Cambridge Companion to Ballet ed. by Marion Kant Ballet and Modern Dance Susan Au

There is a DVD (and Blue-ray) available of a Tchaikovsky Gala from La Scala in 2007 where elements from all three ballets are mixed up into one. As Odile she is simply outstanding in this odd confection.

Ekaterina Maximova in the Toreador scene from Zefferelli's 1982 film of La Traviata: the devilment in her eyes and the quality of her acting captivated me 27 years before I learnt how good a dancer she was, or indeed who she was. There is still nothing that raises my spirits so quickly as that exuberant and far too short scene. Alina Cojocaru's was the first interpretation of Giselle I saw (I'm truly a latecomer), and now after seeing Ulanova, Alonso, Ferri, Mezentseva, and Zhakarova I can't decide between Alina and Alessandra Ferri, so I study them both tirelessly.

Alina Cojocaru with the Royal Ballet is a first-rate Giselle.

I have this DVD and though it is a collection of mainly disconnected scenes based on Proust's 'Remembrances' I consider most of it superb. Manuel Legris, an etoile of the POB is astonishing.

As a relative newcomer to the appreciation of ballet, I strongly endorse the suggestion that DVDs encourage attendance at a live performance. I recently went quite far out my way on a business trip to Germany to see Dresden's Ballet perform the Taming of the Shrew. I am aware this may not be a first-line house but they carried it off remarkably well to my untutored eye, and the audience loved it.

Searching amazon.fr (France), or amazon.de (Germany) can give you a different range of DVDs. Many are multi-regional DVDs but if not a multiregional player is not very expensive. Some vendors don't sell internationally, but most do. Google will translate the website into English and all your registered data (credit cards etc) is carried forward from amazon.com or amazon.co.uk. One can buy with a couple of clicks. I recently went to Belairclassiques to buy modern ballet from the POB and was transferred to amazon.fr, and bought them all painlessly, other than the usual steep cost.