Birdsall

Now that "Miami City Ballet" is a brand I do not advocate changing the name at all, but since it performs regularly in 4 cities now (Naples is the 4th), it is sort of a shame that its name keeps the idea in mind that it is located in Miami. If it had had the name Ballet Florida (like the now defunct West Palm company) it would not be considered a "touring" company, I don't think, in the other places. At the same time South Florida is such a megalopolis that I think it still sort of works leaving the name as it is. I will say that Greater Miami Opera changed its name to Florida Grand Opera years ago when it merged with the Ft. Lauderdale opera company. Part of me thinks it was a wise move to get donor buy-in in Ft. lauderdale, and I sometimes think it should merge with Palm Beach Opera and then better opera overall would be produced with the resources from all 3 cities and the ability to offer star singers a longer run of performances if that is what they desire (or multiple casts). But I have to say it could backfire too now that Miami City Ballet is a recognizable "brand".....change the name and tourists might wonder, "What is this ballet company?" I have no idea whether a name change would be a good or bad move.

As I'm sure you know, Romanticism is one of the most important periods in Literature, music, etc. in my own personal opinion, and I think Giselle definitely has thematic and musical similarities to the opera La Sonnambula, for example, as well as Romantic literature. In fact, years ago before I was even into ballet I saw Giselle for the first time and thought, "I can tell this is from the Romantic period. It is so dainty like La Sonnambula but with a darkness concerning nature....." I think it definitely has a very different atmosphere than most of the classical ballets. I'm sure you are speaking strictly in terms of ballet, and ballet does seem to be a different ball of wax due to the fact that choreography isn't easily preserved but it pains me to hear Romanticism described as a stage that did not evolve or survive! LOL That pains me!!!! LOL It is one of the greatest eras of art that happened to Western Civilization, in my opinion!!!!

OMG! I never meet anyone with a Feb. 11 birthday, and then this year I found out a friend's boyfriend is the 11th, a new friend is the 11th, and now you! That is so unusual! Happy Birthday to you too! Any idea who will replace her?

So unfortunate!!!!! I suspect Ivanova's Giselle would have been heavenly! Really disappointed. I was happy she was dancing that role on my birthday!

The performance of Swan Lake with Kondaurova this past evening had lots of microphones hanging to capture sound, I assume. I am guessing this was the performance that will be used for the Feb. 14 3D movie. This could be why there is basically no info about it. Maybe they were waiting to make sure the performance went okay and if they can finish processing it or whatever they have to do before releasing into movie theaters.

I had to giggle -- my niece is just finishing her Pilates teaching certification, about the same time that she's scheduled to give birth -- it's been an interesting process! Buddy, I have heard of dancers trained in the Soviet/Russian tradition using physical therapy and gymnastics techniques to improve strength and flexibility. I don't know so much about systems that were developed in the West, like Alexander and Feldenkrais. Your niece might have an easy birth. I have had female friends say their Pilates practice made childbirth so much easier. Many clients at the studio I worked at did Pilates up until very close to their due date, and when they returned, Pilates helped them get their bodies back very quickly. The one woman I said had two c-sections was a very A-Type personality, and she did Pilates everyday at the studio and at home, so there was absolutely no sign of having had two children by c-section at all. She is proof that determination can do wonders! LOL I have a studio reformer that I bought for home, but I really miss the trap table!!!! I just don't know where I would put the trap table (cadillac) if I bought one!!! Not to mention these things cost a fortune!!!

I don't know much about behind the scenes in the dance community, but I did know the U.S. Pilates scene for a short time, when I was doing Pilates everyday and even became an instructor for a short time (and went to trainings and conferences) and almost all the Pilates instructors I have known were former or current local dancers. I was in the vast miniority of Pilates instructors and got away with not having been a dancer yet still accepted as a Pilates instructor because I was male (very few Pilates instructors seem to be male and most studios like having a male instructor to encourage more men to do Pilates). So I think Sandik may be correct. I suspect in the U.S. most ballet dancers get involved in Pilates today, and I would be surprised if foreign dancers didn't do so also (Pilates is worldwide now). At the studio where I worked one woman who had two c-sections had abs and a body that skinny teen-age girls would die to have. Pilates really works. I have seen practical miracles happen through the practice. I need to get back into it, but I find yoga more fulfilling actually, so I gave up washboard abs for a more rounded look! LOL I do know that Joseph Pilates started teaching in New York in the 1930s and Balanchine, I believe, even did Pilates from some reports. So I wonder how many ballerinas in the 1950s, for example, took part in Pilates training as opposed to how many do today. We might be surprised to find out that many did Pilates even in the 1950s.

Fascinating, but I can offer a contrast with the situation in Slovakia, post-Communism. I taught there for five months on a Fulbright lecturing award a few years ago. The only Africans/blacks/African-Americans I saw in all that time were African students studying at the medical school and the very rare black American tourist. So they have very little first-hand experience, much like the Russians. But my very fluent English-speaking students were eager to learn our cultural sensitivities, slang, etc., as so many hoped to work for multi-national corporations in western Europe. They had been taught that "black" to refer to a person is extremely offensive and should never be used. Well, not really, I explained. It's sometimes appropriate to refer to a person as "white," and then "black" is also acceptable. Meanwhile, nobody had impressed upon them that the n-word is absolutely taboo and should never be used. They had noticed that it sometimes shows up in rap music here (they have fabulous Internet access), but I urged them to refrain from ever using it. I also explained that the late Justice Thurgood Marshall preferred "Negro," as he believed it was analogous to "Caucasion," but that this was not common in our language now and many find it unacceptable. Afro-American is dated, but African-American acceptable, indeed, preferred. (We also spent some time on the evolution from American Indian to Native American and back.) So much of this reflects shifting cultural norms and it's hard to come up with a clear explanation for most of it. I don't recall ever seeing black face in the theater or on products like chocolate bars and don't know how to explain that. They loathe Russia and admire Britain, so that might be part of it. There are also regional differences probably. Here in Florida it is quite normal to use "black," and my black friends have told me they prefer it to "African-American" because "African-American" has a distancing "professional" connotation. For example, in official presentations, it is common to use "African-American" to refer to history or give presentations, but among friends it comes off as very formal and, thus, has a distancing effect. So "black" is used among friends. I have no idea if this is the way Northern blacks feel, but it seems to be how my friends in the South feel about the use of terms. Also, I guess I should mention that my experience of Germany and Austria is 20 years old, so things may have changed. There may no longer be candy bars with black faces on them. I have no idea.

As for the actual Bayadere performance, I hope that the Bolshoi will release this as a dvd. The reason I hope this is that there are so many different things in the Bolshoi's version. Solor enters with grand jetes, his warriors do more leaping than most versions, Gamzatti arabesques like crazy at her entrance and then even has an actual variation, the cat fight is done partially en pointe, etc. I also love the Nikiya and the Slave pas de deux, although the Mariinsky does this also. Then, there are the ramps for the shades! Anyway, there are enough differences in choreography (I think because of Yuri Grigorovich) to warrant a dvd release so that we have something to compare and contrast with other versions. I wonder what other people think of these choreographic changes. Do you hate them? Love them? I find it fun to see differences between versions.

I do not mean this as a defense about the black face characters in Russian ballet (both the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi use them in various ballets). I just want to explain my experience. When I lived in Germany and Austria most Germans and Austrians did not at all understand my horror at chocolate candy bars with smiling black faces on them. They had candy named "Negerkuss" (Black Kiss). By the way, "neger" is translated as "black" and does not have the n-word connotation. Anyway, we forget that we are a country with a pretty large minority of blacks, and, as a result, we are much more sensitive and possibly enlightened about the consequences of stereotypical representations and how they make people feel. But a country with a smaller percentage of a particular minority is not going to be as understanding. I could not get Germans (even ultra liberal and totally non-prejudiced Germans) to feel the way I feel about a black face on a chocolate candy bar. They just did not "get" it (they thought I was crazy and over reacting), and I think that comes from not really being exposed to many blacks and how they feel about it, whereas we have grown up as a nation with guilt about slavery and an attempt to make up for it by being very conscious of these issues. We really can't expect another country to feel the way we do if they have not had the same experiences. It is OUR reality to be shocked by stereotypical depictions of blacks because there has been a concerted effort to wipe away prejudice (at least on the surface), whereas other countries who do not have the extra baggage of slavery and do not have many blacks are not going to understand, in my personal opinion. It is hard to understand someone not "getting it" because we are products of our culture and in our culture it is shocking. Again, I am not condoning the use of blackface kids, but I am just explaining why I think it is not so shocking to Russians and why the companies there continue to use black face.

Such a waste of talent for him not to be with a company!

Is this the time of year when dancers are promoted in Cuba or is it done whenever they decide to do it. I wonder because there are 3 announcements of different dancers! Hurray for them!

Oh my gosh, yes, the last time I can remember that ballet remained in the press for this long in North America was when Baryshnikov defected. (I don't include the movie "Black Swan.") With the Internet, it's gone as close to viral as it gets for dance, and I can't believe how many people have watched at least part of Filin's video interview. Almost everyone non-ballet person I've spoken to since the attack has asked me if I'd heard about it, and many have been full of questions. I think the fact it was an acid attack makes it more gruesome to people in general, and so it becomes a bigger news story. I don't know anything about football, but even I heard about the football player who said his mother and girlfriend died, when his girlfriend was only an internet hoax or something. That made news b/c it is odd and even I heard about it even though I do not watch sports. So anything out of the usual that makes news becomes bigger news than we would normally think. I actually worked at the same school as one of the infamous sex scandal teacher/student stories, and when the story broke, I said, "This is going to go national!" and a local journalist friend told me, "No, these things happen more often than you think. It will only be local." and he was wrong and I was right. The reason I thought this is because she was probably the most beautiful (unusual in these cases actually) teacher who ever did such a thing. In fact, her lawyer claimed she was too hot for jail! So there are reasons that certain stories become household news items and why others stay within their little realm, I think. If there is a particular slant that the wider public finds fascinating it will break big.

I do think that regular journalism has become more biased in my lifetime. Even news anchors used to seem objective (trying mainly to report facts), but now they put in their opinions while reporting the news which is something they didn't do (I don't think....I don't remember that) when I was a child. I think they found that sensation and opinions sell (more people watch and more people read). With that said I have to admit that I read Perez Hilton but I take it with a grain of salt, and if his site makes a mistake it corrects it later or gives an update for more info, so as sensationalistic as it is, it doesn't mislead as much as you would think. I have also noticed that Huffington Post is much more sensationalistic than it used to be. Now some of the headlines are silly and when you read the actual news item, you see how the headline was really blown out of proportion. I guess this is the way of the world....

I could be wrong, but I think dancers in general love to dance new works. They want to feel like creators instead of always dancing roles that others have danced so well in the past and they are up against a major yardstick (being compared to all the greats). Don't get me wrong.... I think they also enjoy the challenge of dancing a famous role danced by all the greats also, but I actually think we fans actually enjoy that more. I think actual artists always want to do something new that almost feels like their own, and when you have a choreographer creating specifically for you, I bet you feel special and you wonder if the ballet will survive the test of time and you will be in history books as the first to have danced it, for example. I think we audience members are obsessive and want to see the same things over and over. At least I know I do. I could watch Raymonda or Sleeping Beauty over and over and never tire of them. I am the same way about opera (Bellini's Norma or Wagner's Ring). There are certain works I know and love so much that I want to see them whenever a new person performs the work. But I suspect dancers are the opposite of me. They long and crave to dance new ballets tailored for them. I bet it is very exciting. Euphotic was interesting, and I wouldn't mind seeing it again, but I am not sure it is better than most Balanchine, and I am not certain it really breaks much new ground. But it looked like it was probably exciting and fun for the dancers. The dancers have a totally different view of the work than an audience member. They "feel" the dance. We "see" it. So what may look "decent" or "nice" to us might actually feel "exciting and thrilling" to them. Who knows?

This made me laugh out loud!

That sounds like a big flub by the cameramen or person in charge of editing/directing the HD......the magic of the entrance is to see them coming out one by one and I always thought it represented Solor's hallucination/dream/memory/etc. of Nikiya......

Incredible! How did they fit 60 dancers on the stage? Was the arabesque in those days more upright (less forward), so less space needed? Wouldn't 60 dancers have to move at a faster pace so all of them arrive on the floor before the music ends, or maybe the music was longer and cut short only when Petipa cut half the dancers? This creates so many questions in my mind!

Thank you for the report! It is not playing in cinemas here until Feb. 17 and 19, and I have a conflict with both dates unfortunately!

I would go again to see the other cast but our schedule is full and will take parents out to lunch today to Red Tapas during second cast show. I might go Sunday if I can get a last minute ticket. Not sure. I work now so need to return Sunday and it is crunch time for me. Working is a double edged sword: self esteem rises when I work but no time to get everything done that you want to do in life! But two years of walking my dog all day was depressing! LOL

Bart, I was typing my review before you posted and was surprised that my views sort of coincided with yours despite my inexperience!

My mother and I went to Program 2 at the Kravis last night. Bart, we saw you and waved from our box when you seemed to look our way, but I don't think you saw us. We are one level up on your side in the box that is closest to the center of the auditorium. My mother's shoe broke so we did not go out of the box during intermissions even though a sweet woman at the Kravis helped us by taping her shoe when we arrived. Even though the shoe was fixed my mother did not want to chance using it too much. I have only seen an excerpt of Divertimento No.15 on video so it was a joy to see the full thing in person. Such a lovely ballet. Maybe not as stunning as Theme and Variations or Ballet Imperial but still charming. I dreaded Duo Concertant because what I read about it sounded like modern nonsense so I was sure I would hate it. To my shock I absolutely loved it. And when they are suddenly in spotlights in the dark at the end I found it touching and romantic. I enjoyed DQ PDD as always, except I felt Catoya was off her normally solid technique game. It seemed like she almost lost balance twice, traveled a lot during her fouettes and even started facing backward but to her credit was able to face forward again but then ended with her side to the audience. Usually she is amazing so I do think she was off her game. I can usually balance in Tree Pose for days in yoga class even purposely swaying torso and arms back and forth to the astonishment of other yogis but I occasionally have off days and fall out, so I can not fault her! It happens. I will say, however, that Penteado and Catoya (both amazing dancers) did not convey the imperial (almost arrogant) arched backs in the pas de deux that I love to see. The photo in the program shows that they definitely can exhibit the imperial attitude but chose not to show off last night. But I feel DQ PDD is a show off piece. I don't mean to be negative about this. I enjoyed them both overall. I have just seen better performed DQPDDs. I wonder if Cristian is correct that MCB is great at Balanchine but needs a little more coaching on classical style. I wasn't sure how I would like Euphotic by Liam Scarlett. His Viscera last season did nothing for me. I thought Viscera was the opposite of visceral. But last night's Euphotic was exciting and beautiful to me. It opened with Jeanette Delgado boureeing backward and ended with her deep cambre at the very end! This was solidly grounded in ballet moves but with lots of modern lifts and energy. It also made me wonder about the "story" of this plotless ballet. I felt it was a great mix of modern and classical and would enjoy seeing it again one day. For me the weakest section was the third where one female is dancing with two males. I felt the constant passing of the female back and forth grew a little tedious. But overall I think Scarlett created a worthy ballet.

It's possible that it was not "political" (that is, that it did not involve Filin's role at the Bolshoi), but given how intense the threats against Filin had become and given much of what is (if I may say so) understood about the influence of organized crime in Russia in relation to the arts, and, finally, given the highly personal and peculiar nature of the attack--throwing sulfuric acid in someone's face isn't exactly a clean way to rob someone--it seems to me highly unlikely this was just an arbitrary bit of street violence such as is "happening all over the place." No-one has said Filin was robbed, and according to press reports Filin himself says the attacker called him by name before the attack. So, whatever the motive--and, as you say, it may not be political--I would be very surprised if this turned out to be "some thugs out to rob or cause damage" without a very direct motivation, however irrational, against Filin. What that is we may never know. I tend to think that even if the police determine the cause, it may not be made fully public... I have read that forensic investigators tend to find that any attack involving a person's face is usually a sign of intense anger/passion.....and that almost always leads to someone who knows the person very well. Random crimes do not usually target the face of a person. It is literally an attempt to get at the essence or being or soul of the person to attack the face.

The Mariinsky's site shows the casting you mention, and everything you mention is good news. Osmolkina and Kolegova are listed for Emeralds also, but the Diamonds casting is surprising b/c Skorik and Askerov are listed for Diamonds. I tend to think Stepanova or Kolegova would be much better in Diamonds and Skorik's issues would be less noticeable in Rubies. They need to flip flop the casts. I think she has actually danced Rubies before. Casting her in Rubies would help her be successful. Giving her Diamonds seems like yet another "throw her to the wolves" decision. The casting decisions are incredibly puzzling. The decisions seem to be made by someone who has no clue about casting!

Here is some info on the ballet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Poppy