Paul Parish

that sounds right, Mme. Hermine -- it was certainly not d'Amboise, I htink it WAS Bonnefous -- the guys "biding hteir time" were fabulous on that recording -- hoofing it, but the steps had such a lilt to them, the cabrioles in particular were SO musical....

Dido, I agree with Marc about the Fokine.... I saw them in Berkeley just a month ago.. But if they[re also diong the balanchine program , it's REALLY good to see Jewels from a distance -- I saw it 3 times, and hte best view was from hte back of hte mezzanine -- hte finale of Diamonds is really thrilling from back there, and the pas de deux is magnificent from a distance, didn't lose a thing....

All these things are kind of in hte past now, and the new historicists make it difficult for us to get back to the emotions associated with certain kinds of looks-- But I certainly agree with you about Kaye -- and I am absolutely certain she was staggering in the role. She was a strikingly beautiful woman who nevertheless could portray that kind of hunger that gay men felt condemned to have to suffer and never have appeased - rather like Judy Garland, she could embody that condition of being condemned to a form of starvation... And that's partly because she looked Jewish -- in a period when Jews were still outsiders looking in. Hagar CAN be beautiful -- she just can't be conventionally pretty. She's got to be a "non-contender" ( "I coulda been a CONTENDER!")

I remember when ABT brought Pillar here in the late 80's, the critic Keith White remarked to me, 'o Leslie Brown can't do Hagar -- she's too pretty." This may be a gay man's response -- Keith was certainly gay, and so am I -- but so was Tudor. It's not sexist, really, for it's not about WOMEN -- it's about beauty, and how you respond if you need to have it and you don't. Very mid-century theme -- it's in Rodeo, and all through Tennessee Williams. I hope it isn't too tacky of me to say that Hagar has to be a homely girl, if not downright ugly. Sallie Wilson could be transfigured by hte beauty of her expressions and of her dancing, so that great beauty shone through her, but she was not a good-looking woman. Julie Kent can't possibly do the role, she's Breck-girl pretty, and she doesn't have the dramatic range to play someone who doesn't THINK she's pretty that (say) Ingrid Bergman or Olivia de Havilland had.

Allow me to put hte same question -- it's in the first paragraph of hte first letter, regarding his first triumpjhs on his return to Stockholm: " I danced my Pas de trois, as you know in The Marriage of Figaro. The public saw me with pleasure, every ecol was applauded, and I was quite pleased with myself....." Yeah, I'm wondering too, what is an ecol?

silvy, there are 2 other versions I've seen -- One on "Dinner with Balanchine." about 7-10 years old now -- with international all-star cast -- including the FABULOUS performance by Elizabeth Loscavio of the blue girl's variation (with the foouettes) which has probably never been danced better by anyone.... the "falling-off-pointe" variation on this version is by Judy Fugate in what was Patricia McBride's role (i.e., the ballerina's), and what you're PROBABLY referring to is Balanchine's witty quotation of the move in the solo from "FLower Festival at Genzano," where hte ballerina takes a pique in arabesque, fouettes quickly to second position and back again to arabesque WITHOUT falling off pointe (In the Bournonville original, the ballerina does hte movement TWICE: very thoroughly in a supported adage, and then tosses it off best she can in her solo variation -- in the BAlanchine "Fascinatin' Rhythm," it's really a kind of rhythmic shimmer -- and also an inside joke....) There was also an old version with hte original cast, broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting System in hte late 60's or so, with Karin von Aroldingen, Marnee Morris, and Patricia McBride -- this one is t he best, BY FAR, if you can find it -- mostly because von Aroldingen was a STAR in her role -- horsing around on stage, jumping HUGE..... her version did not have hte jete battus, i prefer it.... but you have to be able to go careening around the stage like a pony to pull it off...... huge jumps in second position, making a whole turn en dedans (if I remember right)..... there are WONDERFUL roles for hte corps, by the way..... That would be SO much fun to dance... When is your performance? Which role are you doing? what are the challenges?How EXCITING!@!! Let us know how it goes!

It's great to hear such good things about Sacramento Ballet-- though they're a "regional" company, they've always been known -- at least around here, in the SF Bay Area -- as a company of VERY strong dancers, with a really good school behind htem.Some big stars have come out of there -- Parrish Maynard, for example, was trained there. Barbara Crockett knows what she's doing. It's especially good to hear that "Theme and Variations" and "Agon" came across so well -- any company that can dance those idiomatically, so the audience enjoys them, is dancing very well indeed. Is Richard Marsden still with the company is some capacity?

Me, too Peppermint -- would love ot hear more, so glad, SO glad you went, and so glad it was so GOOD -- it sounds really GREAT, got to tell you. I'd specially like to know about Serenade//// actually any of it, so interesting. What did Farrell say about wearing a tutu? What did Mason ASK Tallchief? What did she answer? What was their conversation like? I went to symposium once that Villella was at -- I got stuck in an elevator with him and a couple of other people, and he just started telling stories.... amazing experience. you're absolutely right, he is hilarious.

You guys please talk it up -- my TV was "disabled" and I didn't see any of it.. Thank you for the reports so far. Funny Face, I'm SURE i would have agreed with you... I love it when there's no moment where I have to look away.

When I was in high school I worked in a plastics plant -- we made dishes -- after school and in the summer, and the thing you notice if you MAKE the stuff is how much force the original meaning still has -- it's called plastic because it could be shaped in any form you want it. The root of the word is the same as plasma and plaster... But what it means, I think, in ballet terms, since ballet is an idealistic art, has to do with sculpting, molding an ideally beautiful shape. Technically, you might say it's more about posing than moving -- except that really beautiful movement goes through really beautiful positions, and the pirouettes we remember for hte rest of our lives always express ideally beautiful positions. Some dancers have more sculptural possibilities in them than others. And in some cases, the DIFFERENCE between what they look like in one position from what they do in another is really striking -- Baryshnikov in particular, with his squatty little body, had EXTRAORDINARY plastique, given how miraculously the line came into being, almost out of nowhere: here he is in mid-air in effacee devant beating the world's most beautiful cabriole, leaning back like he's in a lawn chair-- there were many elements to this beauty, elevation being one of them -- but the plastique was JUST as glorious. Indeed, lots of people can jump high but don't look relaxed, or if they DO look relaxed they look ungainly somehow. TO jump high, look relaxed, beat your legs effortlessly twice in a double cabriole, AND pull your lines so they go out the roof -- well, the last of these is I think what they mean by plastique. A great test of plastique is attitude effacee -- the Rose adagio attitude -- which is based on a little bronze statue of Mercury by the Renaissance sculptor Giambologna (it's famous again as the FTD logo). The thing that made his statue so famous in its time is that it composes from three angles -- so if yu turn it in your hand, there are three different angles from which it is spectacularly beautiful. So the idea of turning that figure around was already around centuries before Petipa featured promenades in attitude. (Carlo Blasis had a lot to say about attitudes and arabesques, really worth reading..... his drawing s are wondeful. Check out "The Code of Terpsichore" old-fashioned, but he could do multiple pirouettes in penchee arabesque.) Some remarkable dacners have more plastique than movement talent -- Stephanie Saland comes to mind as a dancer with a tremendous plastique imagination that exceeded her technical abilities to put things always into effect -- but there were times when she was truly glorious -- at the end of Serenade, when she was elevated and carried off into the light, her position became so glorious, her sternum rose, her back arched so, it was sacramental, the outward sign of an inhabiting grace, it was like she was entering into Paradise. ................. (Sorry, I just re-read this and it sounds SO high-flown and professorial -- but i don't see how I can change it. I don't wear my learning lightly -- but I do apologize. On the other hand, I DO think it's all true, so I'm leaving it up.)

Thanks for that detailed report -- it's great to be able to read about what MCB is up to from out here on hte West coast. They played in Berkeley a few years ago, "Jewels" -- and heir Emeralds is still my favorite I've ever seen, including SFB/s, NYCB/s, and now the Kirov's -- the Miami dancers were SO luscious, they seemed like children almos,t hey were so young, but my God, they were just fascinating in a ballet that many dancers don't know how to make look like it's alive. (Actually, the worst I've ever seen was City ballet, abut 10 years ago -- and they probably weren't much rehearsed. Everybody else I've seen do it has been doing it as if it were a BIG DEAL, and City Ballet at that point was NOT.)

Gorey adored Allegra Kent --and she adored him. When he died, she wrote a very touching memoir of him in Ballet Review. As artists they had a lot in common -- each was the real thing, one of those kissed by the fairy, who have that mark of strangeness on them, as if the other world is more real to them than htis one.

THere was a long article about her in Ballet Review not long back, VERY VERY interesting -- by Joel Lobenthal, I think. Went into considerable depth, made me want very much to see film of her dancing.

Yo, Thing, save me a dance... you too, Carabosse!

R U Sirius?

Wow, this is a great thread... Thanks, Vagansmom, I'll be on the lookout-- I saw a great tour of the champions some 10 years ago at the Oakland Colosseum - The great thing about it was a Russian couple who cast such a spell over the crowd, there was no applause till the end of their dance. It was essentially one seamless adagio in which every stunt functioned as a grace note or complex ornament -- rather than being THE BIG DEAL, each was subordinate to the ovrall design, like Chopin translated into skating. THe long traverses which usually get treated just as breathers or momentum-gatherers-- by most skater-choreographers-- were phrased as a soprano would spin out a pair of tied whole notes, and the uncanny thing was to see how a crowd of 50,000 responded to these artists -- the same crowd that had been applauding stunts and doing hte wave through the traverses -- was reduced to a total hush by this couple. The most amazing thing they did was when he let her down into a death spiral -- I think that's what they're called, where she put her feet in second position and dida huge back-bend that then I guess somehow flattened, for they slowed down to a near stop, he let her down onto the ice in a position that had lost all but the last iota of momentum, to a pregnant pause in the music -- and from there somehow she rose again, I cannot tell you how it happened, but nobody who was there will ever forget it..... I don't remember their names, but it was clear to all of us there that the Russians were committed to artistry at a level we could all acknowledge and revere, and recognize that none of the rest (talented and hard-working as they were) were working at anything near the level the Russian coaches had conceived of....

I think I'll come as the roi soleil -- if I can find my sunburst wig -- i know it's around here somewhere.....

Jane, you're just too good.... Watch out, they won't let you leave the country. Re Jaffe's arabesque, with respect to all of y'all, I admire it, but I don't think it's beautiful.

It is indeed glorious music -- and it's been choreographed to a LOT. Seems like about ten years ago I saw dances staged to it over and over -- almost never did they measure up to the music, but it's one of those curious things, this music is not jealous and is willing to share the stage very graciously with choreography that can't hold a candle to it.... The adagietto from Mahler's 5th Symphony gets used in a similar way, even more often....

Well, that picture shows a superb modern arabesque -- not very atmospheric, but you can sure see what she's doing. Here's by way of supplement an example of the kind of EFFECT you can get with an arabesque -- http://www.maurice-abravanel.com/markova_a...cia_engels.html ( the fifth picture down the page).... For me, this picture really casts a spell. It's Alicia Markova in an arabesque ouverte with "romantic" arms and the whole position "allongee," and though it's old-fashioned, I think it's really exquisite.

Sorry I missed it -- are there more events in this series? Is it on ESPN or network TV?

Marc!!! what 's that about Nioradze? "Sorry, folks" is not enough. You MUST tell me what you liked about her Firebird. She made me apoplectic.... THough she WAS way past the edge.....

Well, Helene, there's food for thought there.... Helgi Tomasson's had very good luck in having a real Dane in the company here (SanFrancisco) who is perfect as both Gurn and Hilarion. Peter Brandenhof is a hunky guy, he's a terrific mime, he can do virtuoso steps (which Hilarion's dance of death has in the SFB version), in short he can be very attractive and a LOT of fun to watch without being AT ALL the guy who should get the girl.... As Hilarion, he's a brilliant performer, and takes it to the edge of being like Stanley Kowalski -- too forceful, too armored in his own flesh, one of those guys who can't see anything from anyone else's point of view, and so sexy he'd crush the spirituality out of Giselle.... As Gurn he's quite an acceptable husband for Effie; he's got a chip on his shoulder, sick of James getting everything he wants, with enough poetry in him to be (since he is in love) able to see the sylph but determinedly average, his mime-phrase that goes from the Sylph's flight into the pratfall (when the chair's removed) is one of hte highlights of hte show.... His physical type is a paradox, like a Piero della Francesca angel with really thick legs. To my mind, he's almost as great an asset to this company as Derek Rencher was to the Royal Ballet (which is enormously high praise, for I consider Rencher to have been on a level with Sibley and Dowell and Mason as an artist).

Thanks for the link, Mel -- that;'s a wonderful resource.

Thanks for that wonderful post, Millamant -- Yes, I too wonder what Firebird would have been like with Vishneva. She is fantastically gifted. Re Fokine and Petipa -- in 1905, when Fokine led the dancers out on strike, one of their demands was for the RETURN of Petipa. They really did respect him enormously.