Mme. Hermine

and makarova even won best actress in a musical without singing...

years ago of course saw makarova and galina panov in on your toes...

It can most definitely happen!

When Sono Osato danced for them in the 1940s, did the company have ranks? Was she a soloist or principal?

Well Marianna Tcherkassky might have been (she's half Russian and half Japanese, I think). And years before her in the early 40s, Sono Osato, but I don't know if she was a principal.

I haven't listened to this, but while searching for something else, this showed up. It appears to have been on line since April 2015.

I don't know who I'm quoting, but in these discussions, I've found that often it's forgotten that she may be the third female AA soloist but is actually the fourth AA soloist, remember Keith Lee?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/22/arts/dance/colette-marchand-glamorous-international-ballet-star-dies-at-90.html?ref=arts

I found my eyes drawn to a young man; in a sort of red and black gypsy costume. after laurencia does her big solo and there is a dance for young men, he is the one in the front row and on the left side of the screen. rather dark haired and appears to be a bit short, but pizzazz to spare. wonder who he is and where he's from.

well i'm gobsmacked either way.

Christopher Lee was my major film star crush in high school. RIP.

okay, okay --- well in that case i'll vote for the collective! that is in case ratmansky doesn't want the job, that's who I voted for.

I found this among the film listings in the Ruth Page Collection on line at the Chicago Film Archives. Here is the text - This film represents a short excerpt of Talley Beatty dancing. The notes on the film canister and leader suggest he may be dancing an excerpt from "Possessed," a Ruth Page ballet choreographed in 1932. They also suggest that this excerpt may be intended for submission to NBC as part of a television special or as demonstrative of potential works to be performed live. The sets seem to match those of a 1938 performance of "Variations on Euclid," but it is not clear if this was filmed at that time or in 1950, when Beatty also participated in a performance of "Americans in Paris" during a European tour by Ruth Page & Bentley Stone's company. http://www.chicagofilmarchives.org/collections/index.php/Detail/Object/Show/object_id/7401

Ardani Management? Seriously???

I saw theme at boston ballet in the late 1980s and i think it had been performed before that.

maybe this is a bad analogy, but i remember thinking that when they did the ballets russes film, i couldn't imagine how they could get that much history in a relatively short amount of time and do it justice. although i'm sure there are things that could have been done differently, people generally seemed pleased with it and i certainly loved watching it. wish they could have done as well by their subject as the ones who did that film.

Oh well I'll just jump in here. Big waste of time, badly done.

That might just be a difference in words, where "leading soloist" may mean what "principal" means here? Anyone?

That picture is just chock full of great lines, isn't it?

From one of my favorites, 1972's The Ruling Class:

Hadn't she already done it on tour somewhere?

That's not what anyone is saying. It's being made a fuss over because the event is unusual and hasn't happened before. In a company where most of the dancers were black, it would happen often. There's no asterisk. Anyone who attended care to comment?

Meaning, I assume, that even if it were the full traditional version, having a black couple do the leads in a company where most of the dancers were black would not be unusual?

His name is Peter Schetter.

Not first African American swan queen; Debra Austin did it with Pennsylvania Ballet in the 1980s. (Posted here with permission but not sure how to make it smaller).