Paul Parish

Hi Jenccb -- Welcome back to the dance world -- i'm so glad your re-entry went so smoothly, and that your son is into it too.... That's owonderful! ReFantasia -- Rg might know something, so keep a look out for an answer from him, but also, and htis is really promising, be on hte lookout for Mindy Aloff's book about the Disney animations, which is about to hit hte bookstores and is going to be a VERY VERY good book -- it may have a direct answer to your question -- though i doubt that if there IS anything of hte sort you envision, that it will be very good, at least not by comparison to Fantasia, sinceh tte Disney people did htings that are IMPOSSIBLE in real life but quie ppalusible in hteir own medium, and in fact he VERY BEST in some cases (Nutcracker in fact -- Disney's choreography is better htan any other simply in terms of giving visible form to the inherent qaualities of that music)-- Well, hte thing that's going to be great about her book is that she writes really well and thinks really well and is working on a tpoic that truly merits scholarly exposition -- so she'll probably answer questions that will intrigue you but that you didn't even know you had.

Of course it is a VERY difficult thing, how corps members keep their spacing -- it is even hard for principals, it there is a lot of tape on the floor. A Princioal at San Francisco Ballet told me that it was VERY hard in Yuri Possokhov's "reflections," to do the slides on toe across the stage because of the tape markers -- the move requires the dancer to slide on pointe a lot like Gene Kelly slid would slide, in plie across a stage that had many many markings in diffferent colors of tape, which were all there for spatial reference for the whole company. The slides required clear sailing, but the tapes were there for good and were sticky and protuberant enough to catch the dancer's pointe-shoe box and knock the dancer off-pointe.. Which makes me think of a VERY fundamental issue -- namely, that spatial awareness is taught at an even more fundamental level than vrsfanatic mentioned -- those who begin ballet as adults (as I did) are IMMEDIATELY struck by the clarifying effect of working "en croix." Ballet training itself beginning at the barre sets one up to know where front side and back ARE -- with both heels down, feet in first position, your own body is divided exactly in half, with nose, chin breast bone, pubic bone, and spine in the middle and everything else symmetrically disposed bilaterally. Same thing in Second -- from there it gets more complicated, but the GREAT miracle of fifth position is that with one foot in front of the otherheel to toe, heel to toe, when you start tto tendu you know from deep inside where front is, where back is -- and if you get vague on it, your teacher will correct you -- "tendu in front of your nose, and behind your bun." Same thing with grand battements. Teachers really do say that all the time. It's Cartesian geometry with a person surrounding it -- you've got an x-axis and a y-axis on the ground, and a z-axis coming from your feet up to your head. Many years of training develop the inner awareness of this geometry and its ramifications -- and not in a vacuum, for even as the inner awareness is being cultivated the external awareness must also, so you can see where everyone is and "feel their bubbles" and don't broadcast bad vibes or move too big for the neighbors (or too small). The geometry of travelling is an extension of that -- for one thing, you trust that other people will know where THEY are and where they are going, so even if everybody is making an about-face at the same time, that you'll all sitll know where you are, and that you'll all be able to do it on the beat (i.e., at the same time) and keep going in a measured orderly way. ..................... On a separate note, has anybody else noticed how the Bolshoi video of Paquita shows an immaculately clean floor? no tape strips, NO spiking lines, it's a glorious caramel-colored expanse of CLEAN FLOOR and the dancers look like tea-cups moving around on it.... HOW do those dancers know where they are?

Since this is a dream evening, I'll be unrealistic and ask for 4 ballets all with Tanaquil Leclerq, and I'd want Swan Lake, Boutique Fantasque, The Concert, Symphony in C, and Western Symphony -- OK, it's a long evening, and that's FIVE ballets, but still, she's in heaven so she's got more energy than anything mortal, and besides, that's what I WANT.... Maybe start with Boutique, THEN Swan Lake.... OOOOOOOOOh this is going to be such a great show.... ................................................................................ ..................................

SFB's Giselle has white wolfhounds; when Julia Adam played Bathilde she upstaged absolutely everybody by sweeping her scarlet gauntlet thorough his silky white coat in hte most extravagant fashion, staying somehow within hte bounds of what a Bathilde might do -- AMAZING performer. Following Carbro into the realm of modern dance, Mark Morris has put dogs onstage BIG time in "Dogtown,' where everybody behaves in low-down doggy ways, and also in hte hunting scene of l"Allegro," where the dogs scare up a pair of lesbians. Ronn Guidi's Nutcracker, for Oakland Ballet, has a little dance for the family cat and dog at the party scene. They jump to second, to coupe, and leap forward in attitude very sweetly. I guess the Big Bad Wolf -- Little Red Riding Hood's -- doesn't count. My favorite dogs are definitely Wicked Simon of Legree's.

THANK YOU, Christian, for pointing this out. It makes me feel so much closer to you -- It's a wonderful cartoon, full of that sad fantastic sentiment that I associate with Russian cartoons, which are almost always about he things that cartoons OUGHT to be about, namely, the discrepancy between what we can imagine and what is possible. I don't think the ballerina's dance is possible -- staying up that long, landing so lightly, not to mention that position in the air for the big cabriole... It IS a beautiful dance though, and fills out the music to perfection. But there is a step in it that comes from the adagio in Symphony in C -- the penchee where the ballerina touches her head to her knee. Balanchine immediately comes to mind -- do you know his setting of this story, which is WONDERFUL? It was recorded, with Patricia McBride and Mikhail Baryshnikov, and it has almost exactly the same tone. You might like it. And secondly, because Balanchine thought that movies ought to abandon realism and go for the real gold, the fantastic.

Totally agree with you PeggyR about Tina LeBlanc -- she went down on that knee VERY hard a year ago, and it's great to see her back on top of everything again, with that wonderful singing quality and open-hearted upper body. Here's what I wrote about opening night for the gay weekly paper, the Bay Area Reporter: http://www.ebar.com/arts/art_article.php?s...amp;article=132 Watch out for the gay cruise ad at the bottom of the page: if cute guys in hammocks offend you, maybe don't scroll all the way down.

O you've got to watch it. WONDERFUL story, and it really gets something right about why people love ballet -- it's for people who need to DO something they can be proud of. Madame Fidolia is the old-fashioned "what-is-this-sack-of-cabbages- thing-you do-with upper-body?" kind of ballet teacher with a big stick and a heart of gold -- notice that her name means "Faithful" (in Ruritanian), and she really is Old Faithful -- and Posy Fossil is a true believer. I just loved them all. It's a different production than the one PBS showed back in hte 70s (which I LOVED), but I don't see how they can fail to make this satisfying. it's kind of like Auntie Mame -- "we need a little Christmas, right this very minute" -- but with ballet as its milieu.

This is bouncing off Sacto's "reference version of Swan Lake" question, but it's one of those timeless questions for which each generation as its own answers (but there is never one that answers all objections forever): how much gesture do you want in a classical ballet, and where do you want it? the discussion can get dry and superficial -- but if you look at this example, it's clear that there are MANY levels of movement-interest involved. Anthony Dowell and Antoinette Sibley rehearse Rupert Pennefather and Lauren Cuthbertson in the mime scene from Act II of Swan Lake. Royal Ballet 2006. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHkqnIMKjHc They're teaching not just the gestures themselves ("you... here... why?"), but also the adverbs, the movement quality that goes with them -- and each of them tell hte dancers to "think," and demonstrate how to do that. It requires a (very brief) pause, a softening of hte whole body, and a lowering of hte center of gravity. Notice that neither Pennefather nor Cuthbertson comes anywhere NEAR demonstrating hte process of thinking as Dowell or Sibley do, and also that nobody expects them to. Dowell is superb at looking like he's lost in wonder, as if he has to clarify his thoughts even to formulate a question -- look how he deomnstrates 'here" -- there's a separate timing for hte eyes and the hand -- he looks FOR the place before he can even see it and then points at it with a very soft hand, all of his fingers. Both of the coaches want the young dancers to think about that lake of "my mother's tears" -- the whole story is in that lake. You have to BUY the lake.

The Royal Ballet's version which I saw first in 1970 remains the most satisfying version I've ever seen -- It had the enormous advantage of being Ashton's setting of sergeyev's notations, with Ashton's own rather considerable and extremely beautiful modifications to the last act -- it is the ONLY version of hte ballet that to my mind achieves simplicity, monumentality, and tragedy in its culmination, and that makes it my candidate for the version of record. (It also included, and htis is not a small thing, Odette's mime scene ("I'm hte queen of the swans, yonder is the lake of my mother's tears" as demonstrated here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHkqnIMKjHc by Sibley and Dowell; "all the story is there in that lake."

the dance of hte sugar plum fairy played on the glass harmonica -- really even more heavenly than hte celesta check it out:

The dance of hte sugar plum fairy-- THe old version (Ivanov, Petipa, or Lopukhov?) is the best -- though there are at least two of it. As the Royal Ballet and all its derivatives dance the variation, the ballerina stays down afer the battus and goes from efface devant to effface arabesque WITHOUT releve in between -- Everybody else goes back up onto pointe there. Mary Ellen Moylan did it for Ballet Theater and is shown in it in the TINY little bit of footage of her dancing included in th "Dancing for Balanchine/6 balanchine ballerinas" program does this movement with EXQUISITE accuracy and softness. It is very rare to see anyone do it so beautifully; though the movement suits the music PERFECTLY, it is very hard to do it and keep breathing. THE RB's version is scarcely less beautiful, but it IS much less crystalline -- and it is much easier, so the ballerina can do it with considerably less strain, and she can be that much more gracious.... WOnder which version is preferable? ANd which is the original? Does "Lupokhovi" refer to Lupokhov or to Lupokhova? Did she have the technique to do that dance?

You guys! I'm laughing out loud here.... ATM, that was a good one. OK, hs anybody SEEN it? You know, SOMETIMES she's not awful.

Although I oppose President Bush and most of his policies, and voted against him every chance I got, I think he handled this incident rather well. "Bush responded," says the reporter, "to the shoe-throwing by quipping that the shoes were "size 10" and joking to reporters: "I didn't know what the guy said, but I saw his sole." ' That's snappy and charming and handsome, and he doesn't get my vote but he DOES get some kudos for sheer good temper. I think he knows it when he gets out-Bubba'ed, and this guy out-Bubba'ed him big-time.

Thanks for the examples, Mel. THe tradition in English has SOME inkling of foot-based humiliations. Here from Shakespeare: "I do affect the ground (which is base) where her shoe (which is baser) guided by her foot (which is basest) doth tread." (love's labours lost, Act I, scene 2). In the South, where I grew up, I never heard of anyone throwing a shoe at smoeone else -- but it IS the sort of thing Tallulah Bankhead might have done. More shoes?

THanks for posting this, Ray -- David Vaughan is a brilliant critic, one of the most interesting alive today -- he knows a very great deal and he sifts it carefully and with excellent judgment. He has real training and considerable experience as a performer, especially as an actor. it would be really worth while to HEAR his talk if there is an audio version of it (podcast or some such), for he can deliver a text in a winning voice, with good accent and good discretion. If you've never heard his performances of "10 Imaginary Dances by Remy Charlip," you've really missed something.

I'm wondering if dance critics everywhere shouldn't weigh in on this topic -- Pundits are gassing about it as if there were really nothing to say, no precedent anywhere, when RIGHT NOW it's timely -- in every Nutcracker, Clara/Masha throws her shoe at the Mouse King and to splendid effect.... And in mr B's version, the princeling then cuts the crown off the other end of his body and puts it on our girl, whereupon even bigger magic kicks in. Magic is always rooted in very familiar functions. Any other instances of shoes used as weapons? I can think of two: From Greek antiquity, Aphrodite fights off a satyr with her slipper. There are lots of statues showing htis, e.g. http://www.museum-replicas.com/ms_ProductD...018&SCID=16 And when Nikita Kruschev took off his shoe and pounded on the table at the UN -- (Cuban missile crisis?) and thundered "We will bury you!"

Oops, I forgot to mention that Benjamin Stewart is one of a pair of identical twins at SFB -- his brother Matthew was here first, they're both jazz fiends and dance similarly in many ways, and of course they're REALLY hard to tell apart -- It was (mostly) Matthew I was describing.

I would NOT miss it -- Cleveland is a GREAT orchestra! and this is wonderful music -- the concert would be worth it if you were blind.

Natalia, it sounds like you've got it right. I bet that's who's who -- and Martyn Garsid and Benjamin Stewart would be an interesting pair to see dance togther. Both really know how to dance with their torsos, and seem to love it. Stesart really can do jazz shoulders. it's a fabulous thing to see - -and garside's work through the ribs and spine can be extraordinarily beautiful. One of the most beautiful thinkgs all last year was his epaulement in Mark Morris's "Drink to me only with thine eyes."

Thanks for your report,Natalia. I wasn't there, so I don't KNOW who danced the male pdd you ask about -- but I can maybe help you figure it out by process of elimination. Garen Scribner and Martyn Garside could well be paired, and it seems to me often are -- though they're quite different physically, their coloring is similar and there's something similar in their attack and phrasing. both have feet like daggers and are VERY musical. Garsyde has very generous port de bras, sumptuous would not be too strong a word (English training). Garside is wirier, but both are very clean and thrilling in the onslaught of a step/phrase. If one of htem looked like president-elect Obama, that was Anthony Spaulding. He is strong enough to patrner Sofiane Sylve without disappearing. Dances big, clean, clear, passionate, has star quality. Benjamin Stewart is the chunkiest and the cutest -- he's got a big range, he's hte best jazz dancer in the company, really has hte moves, the spontaneity, the feeling, and hte timing, but dances classically just fine, strongest in demicaractere but also dances with nobility if hte role calls for it.

Not SURE of this volcanohunter, but there are TWO Nutcracker dancers in Tomasson'[s Nutcracker, and it looks like Garrett Anderson danced the doll that came with Harlequin and the ballerina at the party scene; Anderson (who's moved with his wife Courtney Wright to Belgium and dances there now and was much loved here) certainly had the bravura technique for that role. Arce is more of a partner; he's probably the mouse king. The SFB production features two different dancers as Clara -- a child for the first act and most of the second, and then a magical transformation happens just before the grand pas which brings in the ballerina to finish out the role. You don't say who dances the adult Clara, nor the Nutcracker prince -- but then, they'd be principals, not soloists.

We've got marvelous Giselles here in San Francisco, and they're VERY different. You kinda can't lose -- Kochetkova has unbelievable elevation -- when she mimes "I love to dance,' it takes your breath away. She's a natural for the role, IS young, looks younger. Tina makes a virtue out of the conflict between her spirit and her own body, which she's turned from being a powerhouse allegro thing into a fascinatingly expressive instrument -- she has had to find ways to create length and breath and nuance in adagio and moderate tempi and plays with the descent from pointe, so her body goes up as she comes down. In the great adage, her back lengthens and breathes and seems made of smoke.... myself, I LOVE dancers who transfigure themselves when they move, and she is tops at that, and also has a real feel for Giselle as a rare soul -- it's rather a Russian way, and I love it. Feijoo is also a great soul, more real in hte first act (you can believe she's plucked a chicken), great-hearted in the second. None of them is willowy, but they've all moved me. We've also got wonderful Myrthas -- Sarah van Patten has depths of sadness in her portrayal, and Sofiane Sylve is incontrovertible, tremendous, a force of Nature like a waterfall -- so it's quite a confrontation. And both of them can jump.

Well-done, Papeetepatrick! Bravo. It's great to have film to confirm that instantaneous impression. Once you've seen sovereignty in a gesture like this, you never forget it. The effect is as you say not just a technical achievement but a dramatically appropriate one -- and the communications made non-verbally like htis affect everyone. A cat would understand this and acknowledge her authority.

Beautiful photographs, Marc, wonderful costumes and set and lighting, but most of all, the poses you've caught suggest VERY beautiful dancing. Stunning! look at their turn-out: look at the rotation of the working leg in the very first picture of Alexandrova -- the Bolshoi used to be a rather turned-in company, Bessmertnova was glorious despite her lack of turnout -- but Alexandrova is showing us the sole of her shoe in ecarte back!! BEAUTIFUL! Similarly Leonova is in a beautifully crossed effacee -- the relation of her shoulders and hips to that line are really exciting.

Joyride may seem delightful some day. The mathematics of it is mostly what I've gotten so far, and the brilliantly sculptural things they do. But Morris CAN make ballets that are deeply mysterious -- I wish the rest of the world could see his "Maelstrom," and have more than one chance to see it, for it's really wonderful, casts a powerful spell, and continues to reveal secrets every time you see it. It would be a MAJOR addition to the rep of ABT Kirov, Bolshoi. Tomasson brings it back periodically, not often enough for me. I could see it again and again and not get tired. I also wish some ballet companies would take on soft-shoe pieces of his like "The Office," the "folk-dance" piece he made to Dvorak with a Tontine format -- it's really great, deceptively simple but made to last for all time.