Paul Parish

That is an exquisite performance. it's Helgi Tomasson's choreography, The production is San Francisco Ballet's, I've seen it many times now.: this is from a second pdd for Giselle and Albrecht. I believe this music is some more Burgmuller, whose music is used for the "usual' Peasant pdd.

Marc, How did the Vikharev Coppellia mime compare to Patricia McBridee's in The Danilova/Balanchine version? I've seen that and am HUGELY impressed with McBride's mime -- well, indeed, There's a celebrated essay by Arlene Croce in which she praised McBride's mime for all the reaons I would -- namely, that it's as intelligbile and natural as a sunrise. I've always assumed that Danilova as a great Swanilda andtaught the mime very much as she was taught it --but that was St Leon's version. is the Vikhaoev reconstruction of St Leon or of Petipa's version? (Wasn't there one? THOSE would be interesting to compare.)

I've seen it, too, and admire it a great deal. It's rather dry, given the dignity they wanted to give the old ladies who're demonstrating. Monica Mason is asking the TRULY legendary elders to show the vocabulary, and it's pretty much a dictionary of mime -- gesture by gesture, concept by concept. Some concepts have many shades of difference -- such as "No". There are many ways of saying no. The DVD shows several mime speeches -- there's a REALY beautiful rendition of Lise's mime scene from La Fille Mal Gardee (which Karsavina taught to the RB dancers and had learned from, I believe , Virginia Zucchi). If I remember right, it's been a long time, Sibley and Dowell teach the mime scene from Swan Lake (I am the QUeen of the swans. yonder is the lake of my mother's tears..."). which is also up on youtube every now and then, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHkqnIMKjHc NB the gestures for "Wait" and "But" are the same ("BUT if someone loves me, will marry me," etc.)

THanks, Marga-- veyr interesting to read about everybody, and also particularly to hear how our dancers looked in hte competition. Ms Andre is a very fine classical dancer. She doesn't do Giselle here, but soloist and corps roles, where she's one of hte clearest onstage. Spaulding is a musical dancer and a strong partner in the modern works -- Forsythe, van Manen, and can handle very strong dancers like Sofiane Sylve. He's good in hte classics though not great; Ive never seen him in a "white tights" role but would not expect perfection. He probably made his partner look very soft and floating in htose lifts. Wonder how "Ebony Concerto" went over.

How were Dores Andre and her partner Anthony Spaulding from San Francisco Ballet? I haven't heard anything but that they did well. Both are very fine dancers and each has fans here.

SOme wonderful photos -- Blangstrup's entrechats-sixe is amazing in its monumental simplicity, once in a lifetime photograph -- everything is implicit in that one moment...

He should ABSOLUTELY have cut that music. There's WAY too much of it, especially if you're not going to make an epic out of it. Miniaturizing the civic dimensions -- those little doll-house buildings -- necessarily miniaturizes the production -- BUT he had the original version of the score in his hands, and that was the McGuffin for he whole production anyway, that this was the FIRST TIME the world had heard the original music -- which I agree with you, was FASCINATING to hear in its original scoring. You could hear the saxophone in Friar Lawrence's music, creating that weird druggy sound.... MANY instances of how wonderful it sounded could be adduced. but it doesn't work to USE it all.

I can't remember -- but from my memory of the play, they're the two "bookish" people in the town.... my recollection of Morris's ballet is that Friar Lawrence is less avuncular than he is in theplay, but just a little older than Romeo, and kind of a kindred spirit who became a monk.... I'm sorry you didn't like Juliet's mother -- in the cast I saw, she was A) a VERY good dancer, B) in love with her husband, and C) rather conventional in her expectations and hopes but affectionate, genuinely affectionate towards her daughter. In the first scene, Juliet and her mother danced together, it was a kind of mentoring dance of "You'll become a woman," and the mother was really happy for her daughter and simultaneously reliving that time in her own life -- it was really rich, since it was not invidiously suggesting that she was living through her daughter. In fact, I liked it better than ANY other version of that scene I've ever seen. Most versions isolate the young lovers and make them emblemmatic of why society must be changed, "look how partiarchy/capitalism/Society is destroying the very flower of our youth...." The Soviet version was made that way, with Grasping Capitalism the enemy, the 60s version was ALSO made that way, with the generation gap and Colonialism being the enemy....

Noah Vinson is probably the dancer you saw dance Romeo. His dancing has a remarkably fluid, floating quailty....

great report!! THANK YOU!! By the way, the guy who played Ashley Wilkes DID play Romeo in the big Hollywood movie, opposite Norma Shearer, which is (Despite having EVERYBODY too old), is still one of the very best RnJs ever, because RnJ were absolutely great. I saw the same stars in Berkeley last year, and as you say, she and he were really lovely, and he was especially dreamy. which is the way it is in the play "With loves light wings did o'erperch these walls" Morris should have cut the music.

I would LOVE to see that! Esp with Osipova -- but ALexandrova will be wonderful, too......

Leonid, I apologize for evoking painful memories from your childhood. I sincerely regret doing so and can only say that I did not mean to. Perhaps that teacher muddled everything up for you -- but it's pretty clear that classical scholars now believe that the greek chorus DANCED, and danced big, using the whole "orchestra" ( that large space ath te floor of the amphitheatre), with complex rhythmic footwork, and didn't just gesture in a vague sort of way. Indeed, a classicist told me recently that members of the chorus were exempt from military reserve duty since everyone understood that as sdancers they were fit for combat at a moment's notice. Perhaps Mel can add something to that. You must know a great deal, mel -- please share.

Some readers of Ballet Tak will already know this, but many won't -- I just found it out myself, in the course of asking about hte origins of the word "choreographer." Scholars of classical Greece have believed for a long time that the playwrights Sophocles (Oedipius the King, Antigone, Oedipus at Colonnus) and especially Aeschylus (Agamemnon) not only wrote the words but also composed the dances, which were performed by the chorus as they spoke the poetry, which was composed with "feet" (i.e, rhythmic units suited for dancing. Like an iamb would be same rhythm as glissade or pas de chat. Dactyl like a balance or pas de basque). And Aeschylus in his younger days probably danced and acted in his plays as well as having arranged the movement patterns. The word Choreography was NOT in use yet; if they did have a word for it, I haven't heard what that was.

Sorry, RG -- It's a funny ticking point, but if Balanchine stuck there, it's interesting. Thanks to Quiggin for pushing the date of name of the activity back at least into the 18th century, which seems like a likely place for the word to arise-- though the high renaissance might be good, too; "Orchesography" comes from around 1589 and got some usage

If Balanchine was the first to insist on the word "Choreographer' in his credits, that doesn't mean he made up the word. It's greek, obviously, like photographer -- but WHO made up the word itself? Kirstein? Eddy Warburg? Denby? Some German (Laban, Wigman, Jooss?) Diaghilev? Noverre? Lully? How old is it?

Was it Balanchine who first used the title "choreographer" to refer to his work? If so, where did I read that?

Eric, everything you say makes me picture Anthony Tudor's "Gala Performance," in which the French ballerina flirts shamelessly with the audience in a gamine sort of way, the ballerina in red hogs the curtain calls, and the ballerina in black vamps the audience like we're' her prey......they also do a lot of steps, and it actually pretty impressive, but God the last time I saw it, Lorena Feijoo as the ballerina in red outdid any Trock Ive ever seen taking her bows. I laughed so hard I could not stop; she hugged the curtains, she bowed for 10 minutes, and it never stopped being funny....

Well-said, sir -- it is the truth. Like McBride, she smiled not just with her mouth but with her brow -- the space between hte eyes had no trace of a pinch to it but spread as serenely as her shoulder-blades-- without which, a smile becomes manipulativeor needy. WHich could be fine for hte strip-tease girl, but not for AUrora or Liebeslieder.

ericmonrtreal, If you want to know what Bessmertnova's version is like it's posted in its entirety on youtube -- in about 15 segments, but still there it is. Like you I adore Semenyaka. the way she rotates her shoulders in the hungarian variation is the most amazing and generous use or hte arms I have EVER seen (i.e during the phrase beginning with hte hand-clap, in which the arms are parallel, she rotates the arms so they turn out and end up in a kind of second position -- unbelievable, simply unbelievable grandeur in hte port de bras here -- not even Plisetskaya approached this magnificence.) Plisetskaya's performance is also on youtube -- just a few variations but still, they are astounding -- existentiallly, as gratuitous acts, they may beat anything else she EVER did (well, to my knowledge). Bessmertnova's performance has her at her most mannered -- the hands are like tulips, almost Chinese -- but hte scarf dance is really beautiful, REALLY beautiful, and the whole thing though strange in the extreme is glorious. I have not seen Kolpakova yet. I can't wait. But I must say I DO like the Grigorovich/Virsaladze production. I like hte way it looks -- I love hte way the medieval court costumes move -- the courtiers dancers alone are worth hte price of hte show. Not long ago, the Bolshoi brought this production on tour to Berkeley,and I was surprised how elegant it was. Having been prepared y Spartacus, etc., I expecte any Bolshoi Petipa to be coarsened, but (aside from the Arabian act, which was hella fun in its own way) it was not so, not at all. THe Bolshoi danced every inch of it, the musicality was sensitive, lively, refined, down to the lowest level, and hte soloists were enchanting. From the pas de quatre, in which Raymonda plays the harp while her four friends dance a curt dance, a fantastic set of pas de bourrees with little pas de chevals, I was beside myself with delight 00 and then came the scarf dance, and then the wondrous solos and corps dances of the dream sequence.... I LOVE Raymonda. it's very poetic. It does not need to be explained....

here's a link to one of the photos, this one is public domain http://www.nicolasleriche-lelivre.com/phot...XPOSED_jpg.html They tend to be in the "strained" range, interesting, rather than beautiful, at least the ones I've seen so far....

Coppellia is a great ballet, and Patricia McBride was GREAT as Swanilda. Not every ballerina wants to play such a person - -she seems to have no complexity, she's all extraversion and indeed pretty much the boss in this town, like the head cheerleader in high school -- But many thought it was Danilova's greatest role -- Gottlieb says so -- And Danilova was not without reflection. But she WAS irresistible when hte life force took her over, and that's what Swanilda should be like --

Hubbe is so smart, and so direct. So refreshing. I'll never forget seeing him interviewed on the Canadian Ballet promo, in which he frankly answers that he has no problem with thinking that Giselle is REALLY about something real. He makes no concession to the way the questioner is expecting him to answer; without insulting him, of course. Same in this interview -- he gets lots of leading questions and simply says "no it's NOT like that." Perhaps it's a Danish gift.

I believe SFB school has some ballet history, taught by jenefer Johnson, who also teaches at Mills college and at the U of California; she is a deeply learned dance historian. My own teachers in Berkeley include quite a lot of history -- some more overtly than others. Michael Lowe in his classes often credits the choreographer/teacher that he learned a combination from -- he'll say this was Mr massine's or mr Loring's, I particularly remember "Mr Beriosoff's petite allegro for developing a quick jump from an invisible preparation." Similarly, Marina Eglevsky will give us Mr Fokine's rond de jambes a terre; kirsten Schwartz will give Ms. Schollar's releves at the barre, with fouettes; Susan Weber always credits the author of combinations she uses, and her repertoire is extensive from Slavenska to mark Morris. Sally Streets takes from all her teachers, and makes up fabulous things of her own, but she rarely bothers us with saying where she got them, she's too busy....

Is THAT Domitro? Fabulous.... And she is astounding -- awesome and stupid. never seen that combination before, well not since the Nazis. It IS evil. The dancer may very well not be stupid at all -- it''s odile that's stupid -- and it's really scary. like rape.