Swanilda8

Episode 6 is now up: http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.com/2016/03/bolshoi-balet-episode-6-part-1.html http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.com/2016/03/bolshoi-balet-episode-6-part-2.html I love the contemporary choreography week! It's harder to judge, because it's impossible to know if the problems that a couple is having is the result of bad choreography or bad performance. BUT I love seeing the range of pieces, and it's good to see some of the dancers - particularly Kim and Shakirova - pushed to try something new.

Thanks, Buddy! I'm sorry I didn't answer sooner - I've been in Copenhagen this week, and I haven't been spending as much time online as a result. I'm a musicologist - I work on Soviet ballet, and I spend a lot of time in Moscow attending the ballet, so I find this competition very interesting. I've finally finished episode 5. I haven't even seen the last two weeks, but I'll try to post summaries soon. http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.com/2016/02/bolshoi-balet-episode-5-part-2.html

I'm only half way through last week's episode. Vladimir Vasiliev was a guest judge and he had a lot to say, but then all the other judges decided they had a lot to say as well, and here we are. http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.com/2016/02/bolshoi-balet-episode-5-part-1.html

I've finally finished the posts from episode 4, which can be found here: http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.de/2016/02/bolshoi-balet-episode-4-part-1.html http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.de/2016/02/bolshoi-balet-episode-4-part-2.html My concerns about Kim and Shakirova remain the same - why aren't they performing something other than bravura Petipa duets (obviously, this week Vaganova in the Petipa style)? Even within the universe of Petipa, they are confining themselves to a very narrow aesthetic framework. They would have to perform very differently for Swan Lake or even Don Quixote. I am much more impressed with Terada/Okawa and Tsvirko/Khokhlova. I do hope that this competition does great things for Midori Terada and Koya Okawa's careers. I'd love to see them in person some day.

Agreed - Kim is phenomenal. I wish they would give him better roles, though. It's been a succession of fairly similar bravura pdd every week - except for week 3, when the theme essentially ruled it out. It makes for very dull viewing. Surely he does other types of roles at the Mariinsky?

Again, it took me a long time, but the summary/reviews are up. http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.de/2016/02/bolshoi-balet-episode-3-part-1.html http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.de/2016/02/bolshoi-balet-episode-3-part-2.html My favorites this week were Terada/Okawa, and (surprisingly) Lebedev and Soboleva.

I agree that the style of judging on Bolshoi Ballet is very different from the style on American reality competitions, even though Farukh is kind of doing Simon-lite this season. For me, the big difference is that the critiques, however harsh, are really about the technique and the artistry. They are meant to help the dancers and educate the audience, not to show off the judge's sharp tongue. The judging in the first season was even better - Azari Plisetsky, Vladimir Derevyanko, and Diana Vishneva were the permanent judges, and they seemed to have no desire to like "make it in show business" by being entertainingly cruel. They just had really smart remarks about the performances. I think it also makes a difference that, while these dancers are all relatively young, they do have jobs in major Russian ballet companies. No one is thrown out on their ear for failing to impress the judges.

Ok - it took me a really long time this week to get everything up. Hopefully next week will be better - because this is obviously coming in under the wire. But thank you for the kind remarks - it's great to know that some people are reading! I think that the judges (or the producers) agreed with you, Buddy, about the pair from Krasnoyarsk, because at the end of the last episode, the judges got the option to give an extra vote to a single couple, and they agreed on Bulgutova and Kudryavtsev. The internet is abuzz about Ruzimatov's judging. I'm not sure if it's just that he's biased for his own pair, but he does seem to be unfairly harsh (in my opinion) on Kimin Kim and Renata Shakirov and on Midori Terada and Koya Okava. I must say that I did not agree that the Giselle duet from the Mikhailovsky pair was particularly good. There were some interesting elements there - and Levedev's variation was particularly clean - but there's a real awkwardness to some of the dancing. I wonder if these two aren't really well matched. http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.com/2016/01/bolshoi-balet-episode-2-part-1.html http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.com/2016/01/bolshoi-balet-episode-2-part-2.html#more

I'm glad you're looking forward to the new post. It'll probably take me another day or two to get up (sorry!).

Yay! I'm so excited about this tv show. It's my favorite. Unfortunately, the judging isn't nearly as good in this first episode as it was last time, but hopefully that'll improve over the course of the season. I've done a two-part write up of the first episode on my blog, with summaries of the judges' comments for anyone who's interested but doesn't speak Russian. (Also it gives me the opportunity to give my own marks - go Tsvirko! go Batsuev!) http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.com/2016/01/bolshoi-balet-episode-1-part-1.html http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.com/2016/01/bolshoi-balet-episode-1-part-2.html

I can't believe the article didn't mention Balanchine's experiences working with black dancers in the US - particularly the Nicholas Brothers and Katherine Dunham. To me, that seems to be one of the clearest ways in which traveling to the United States affected his choreography. There's excellent - and broadly accepted - scholarship on the fact that his collaborations with those artists impacted his choreography (and vice versa).

It's been a while since anyone mentioned this production, but I saw it at Sadler's Wells on New Year's Eve this year (the same day it was announced that Matthew Bourne was being knighted). I loved the first half but hated most of the second. I thought Bourne's musical interpretation was beautiful and original - drawing out the Wagnerian sexual longing in Tchaikovsky's score and doing playful things with the social dances. But I didn't like the second act focus on the hero's need to rescue his love from the evil vampire. It really removed any agency that Aurora has (and she has quite a lot in the Petipa version). I was very disappointed because I thought there were so many excellent places the ballet could have gone. I wish Bourne would consider revising the last act, but I suppose as it's very successful he probably won't. The audience was in raptures. Anyways, my complete review is here: http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/the-unfortunate-vampire-bride-matthew.html

I agree (though for slightly different reasons). I was all ready to defend McGregor, since I think that overall his ballets are quite interesting and even progressive on a gender front - mostly because he allows the men to take on characteristics usually reserved for women on the ballet stage - being partnered by someone, using that rippling effect through their limbs and torso, sticking out their bottoms, and even this 'crotch-splitting choreography'. But I couldn't believe that his only defense was that the ballet is abstract - that's not a defense at all. Of course even abstract ballets are being performed in a real world and respond to all kinds of things in ballet and in society at large. In particular, any ballet is automatically about gender (at least a little bit) whether its choreographer wants it to be or not, because ballet has such a long history of delineating parts by gender. Not to mention a long history of commenting on gender roles in society - Giselle with its murderous dead brides, Coppelia with the woman/doll, Sleeping Beauty with its queen, Afternoon of a Faun with its blatantly sexual male leading role (I could go on). Anyways, I came out of this still with goodwill and support for McGregor and his ballets but also wondering if maybe it would be worth his time to think of a ballet in which a woman partners a man (maybe he's already done that at some point - I haven't seen all his work).

I don't think that Ulanova and Plisetskaya were ever officially awarded the title prima ballerina assoluta. I've certainly never seen it listed amongst their official honors. They were both named "People's Artist of the USSR," which was the highest title you could get as an artist in the Soviet Union and was officially bestowed. I think that prima ballerina assoluta is just something that people, particularly in the United States, have used to indicate how important Ulanova and Plisetskaya were. As a comparison, Zakharova and Lopatkina are "People's Artists of Russia" (as are Alexandrova, Antonicheva, Allash, Makhalina, Vishneva, and Dmitri Gudanov). I don't think this title could quite compare to "People's Artist of the USSR," however, since "People's Artist of Russia" was a title under the Soviet government as well, just one that ranked lower than "of the USSR."

I saw Viscera when the company premiered it a few years ago and I really liked it - I remember thinking that Scarlett was a very musical choreographer. It's been a while, though, and I was just starting to watch a lot of ballet at the time. I'm seeing the program this weekend in Broward, so I'll report back when I get a second look.

One of the things I always admire about Polunin is that he always finds a way to talk about the generally unfair conditions for ballet dancers. He never makes it a story about his own personal hardships - as easy as that would be to do since he's obviously had many. He comes off sounding very intelligent and savvy. I hope that his message is heard loud and clear.

Thanks! I hope you get to see it someday too. I also hope they put it out on DVD, which should be easy, since they did the HD Broadcast of it with Lantratov and Vishneva last year.

I'm just returning from a short week in Moscow, where I saw Lost Illusions three times. Once was with an absolutely phenomenal cast: Vladislav Lantratov, Ekaterina Krysanova, Ekaterina Shipulina, and Alexander Volchkov. I was expecting Lantratov to be fantastic in the part, since I'd seen youtube clips of him performing it, and he did not disappoint. He is a really fantastic dancer, musical and emotional and great at dancing Ratmansky's choreogrpahy. Florine is a perfect part for Shipulina - earthy and fun and seductive, and she does a lot for selling the beginning of the third act, which is probably the ballet's low point in terms of interest. Most surprising to me was just how much I loved Krysanova. I've seen her before, and of course always enjoyed her dancing (she has impeccable technique) but she really was something else entirely on Friday. She had the Sylph style perfectly done - everything always just slightly tilted off its axis and very very delicate. The other cast I saw was not as good - Vyacheslav Lopatin was very good in the part in terms of sculpting the figures, but he's not quite as musical as Lantratov (to me at least), and Anastasia Stashkevich is no Krysanova. I did really like the ballet. The end of the first act is possibly the most amazing thing I've seen on stage all year. The rest of the ballet doesn't live up to it- but that would be hard. I certainly hope it stays in the repertoire. I have a longer review in my blog, that goes more into the music and choreography and history. http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.com/2015/10/lopatin-and-stashkevich-enthralled-by.html

I saw them together in "Other Dances" at the Stanislavsky. They made a very good pair - I always think he has some partnering issues, and they weren't totally gone here, but this was definitely the best I've seen him partnering-wise. I also think they're both very smart dancers ( as well as obviously brilliant virtuosi), so I'm looking forward to more partnership between them. I wonder if he'll appear at Covent Garden with her.

Just a correction - they're working with Fabio Palombo, who is an assistant to Marco Goecke, the choreographer. Whoops!

The Russian tv channel Kultura is bringing back its reality competition 'Bolshoi Ballet' (or Big Ballet). It's coming this fall, and they just released the first clip of dancers rehearsing for it - Daria Khokhlova and Igor Tsvirko from the Bolshoi, rehearsing a piece with Fabio Palombo, a choreographer for the Netherlands Dance Theater (I might not have the name quite right - it's Фабио Паломбо in Russian). I'm very excited about all this - I absolutely loved the original program, and it did great things for ballet in Russia (imho). Also, Daria Khokhlova and Igor Tsvirko are both excellent, so it's a well deserved shot for them to get some big exposure. Not to mention a great opportunity for us to see them dance. I'm hoping that it will either be available on kultura's website or on youtube, as it was last time. http://tvkultura.ru/article/show/article_id/136643/

Congratulations to Misty!!!

I hadn't until now. Thank you!

I want to see Russian Seasons so much. So much. I've only seen the clips on youtube, but that is enough to have me hooked for life. It looks like I might have to plan a little trip to Moscow next year. I am surprised that they're taking Flames of Paris to London, when they just performed it there. Also - I wonder if Osipova will perform with them in England.

I'm sorry to say that those are legitimate concerns about life in Russia. I also would not recommend traveling to places in Russia that aren't St. Petersburg and Moscow without speaking Russian. Even in those two cities you might get confused - though less so if you stayed in the center of the city in a nice hotel (where the staff would all speak English). At the same time, I do really enjoy being in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and my friends who have visited me in Moscow think it's a very exciting city.