Xena

What number is your edition? if you don't mind me asking?

sorry LMCtech, that was has gone whoooosssh ..straight over my head...:confused:

Oh that reminds me of anotehr one, about always having your hair in a bun will cause you to go bald. Are there any truths in any of these?

Recently there have been a few threads where someone has brought up a saying or an Old wives' tale related to ballet. For example, Lola_doggy (on the Adult dancers board) says "I have heard it said that the more you dance the wider your feet get," and then there was the thread on the young dancers forum from Katrina about how sitting cross-legged can ruin your turn-out. I was wondering if anyone has any other Old Wives' tales or sayings related ot ballet? I find them fascinating. Jeanette

oh oh ohh I have one...its an episode of Angel, usually shown on WB, a spin off from BUffy TVS. There is the episode from season 3 where Angel (a vampie with a soul) takes his friends to see Giselle , but becomes suspicious when the prima ballerina is one he saw dance more than a century ago. They sneak backstage to investigate and find themselves consumed with an overwhelming passion for one another as the spirits of unrequited lovers take over. The girl who plays the prima ballerina is Summer Glau, who danced with San Antonio ballet in Texas. When Angel is talking about the ballet company he says .. "Oh yeah, yeah. I saw their production of Giselle in 1890 -- cried like a baby. And I was evil!". Jeanette

Being boring, I would most definately not give it to them, as it would change the future and throw in a few paradoxes to boot. Can you imagine what would happen? You give them Ballet 101, they see the ballets that are about to choreograph. WOuld they still do them? They might decide, 'Oh this ballet by this Balanchine bloke has some nicer and better ideas'. Then they incorporate that into their 'new ballets' and disaster..there would be no Balanchine, or there would , but he would have been something else as his 'choreography would have already been copied'. But then if Balanchine wasn't a choreographer, then his ballets wouldn't have been in 'Ballet 101' in the first place, so Tchaikovsky and Petipa couldn't have used them...hence a paradox. So no I wouldn't give the copy to them. I would watch in wonder at how they developed their ballets and take extensive notes, so that when I got back to the present, I could write a wonderful book about it.

The main reason is inspiration. I get that motivation to get my extension higher and to improve my dancing in class. I always feel I dance better after having gone to see a ballet. I also like to really see how professional dancers dance and to watch how they perform their steps. I guess I also go because my favourite dancer is performing in it, namely Darcey Bussell, and therefore I have to go and see her dance, as I would never be able to see her otherwise. Jeanette

Thanks BW I will certainly look into buying that book as will I Alexandras' book:)

Oh yes, that is true. I was taught to always look to the audience or at my partner. But one of my teachers here in the US is so very much into looking at the hand, the foot etc. I do like the feelof it as well. But I still primarily adopt the look out at the audience technique. Is that a European thing then? I would never have thought about that.

Yes I think the 'reserved' bit is probably what my teacher meant. Its fascinating to hear though all those little things Alexandra mentioned. I am intrigued even further....

This is just a query I had from reading a post on the Pointe Forum from Lolly, about a pointe shoe tailored for the 'European dancer'. it got me thinking what exactly is a European dancer? and can you tell if you were watching a ballet, who had American training and who had European training just by the way they dance? My teacher tells me I have a European style, but I never thought much about it until now. Jeanette

At the moment I am reading James Joyces' Ulysses, and a book called Life on Earth by David Attenborough. I had the last book for at least 15 years and never read it, althoguh now I'm glad I am, and Ulysses ..well I was intrigued. Lots of people had mentioned how difficult it was too read, but I am absolutely loving it, it makes me chuckle when I read it on a dreary monday morning on the train to work. I was also going to read Lovely bones, but then read the first chapter that amazon gives you and with all the dreadful abductions over here in the US (and in the UK), it put me off reading it. Jeanette

HI Here is the company who prodcues all the magazines, inlcuding Pointe magazine, their address, tel No. and Fax. Lifestyle Ventures LLC 250 West 57 Street, Suite 420 New York, NY 10107 phone: 212 265-8890 fax: 212 265-8908 Jeanette

both the Academy of Ballet and San Francisco Dance Center have open classes, and Mission Dance I think. SFDC has advanced classes throughout the morning everyday, even weekends, and are open classes.

HI There are 3 or 4 good schools in SF. It depends what level you are lookingfor though. There is the Academy of Ballet just off Market and Church, run by Richard Gibson and Co, they have a website...http://members.aol.com/balletsf/ There is the San Francisco Dance Center....(home of Alonzo Kings Lines Ballet)..http://www.linesballet.org/dance/index.html I go to this school. I went for a few lessons to the Academy of Ballet, but I moved and the SFDC was nearer for me. So I go there, and have been for the last 6 months. Then there is Dance MIssion ...http://www.dancemission.com/ City Ballet School... http://www.cityballetschool.org/index.html Then there is the Shan-Yee Poon ballet school http://www.poonballet.com/ Any more questions do feel free to ask Jeanette x

cool, sorry I know. I just know that you and a lot of people who write on the forums on the general discussion boards know so much about ballet, not just the dancing side and I try to learn from you all, so sometimes I am hesitant to join a discussion as I feel I don't know enough to speka up, but I guess you have to start somehwere and I may as well learn from experienced and knowledgeable people like yourself Its good for me to try and learn more than just the technical aspects of dance, as there really is so much more...... Jeanette x

Oh sorry..I'm thought I may have got it wrong! Okay, I'll try again Recently I have just done this. It is music by Debussy, entitled Clair de lune, and I have listened to this before and know it well, or rather thought I knew it well. Dancing to it has changed it for me. Its just given me a different perspective on it totally. I think I enjoy listening to it more now, than I did then, because I can now feel the music rather than just appreciate it. I think I'll shut up now, as I've probably got completely the wrong end of the stick again. Sorry

I will try to answer as best I can I am presuming that you don't know in advance that you may dance to this piece of music? Normally prior to dancing to a piece of music I will have perhaps listened to it, thought 'hmmm nice bit of music' and gone on with life. But when I then find myself performing to it, it changes it entirely. Suddenly its all I listen to, on the way to work in the morning, at work, on the way home. You discover all these little nuances, and suddenly every note to me becomes an instruction. then forever afterwards, whenever I hear that particular piece of music, its as though it talks to me, and I can remember most of the steps. Even now when I listen to a piece of music that I danced to when I was 12, I can still do the dance more or less. So I think it changes my attitude towards that piece of music for good, and helps me listen to music more, in general and appreciate it more. (My experience is mainly from dancing to a piece of music for a performance and especially for my set syallbus classes when I was doing exams. jeanette

I think a lot of people including dancers have forgotten what the stories of ballet are really about. I have seen Sleeping Beauty danced by the Royal Ballet and I have always thought that Aurora symbolises perfect beauty and grace. Therefore a perfect 90 degree arabesque to me symbolises that moment of pure perfect beauty a lot more than perhaps an arabseque waivering somewhere between the hips and the shoulder. So as ballet will undoubtedly evolve, I hope the original meaning of the ballet itself and the characters within it will never be forgotten. Jeanette

Sorry to mail again.....I am just so stunned, I totally cannot beleive what has happened, I have no words that can adequatley describe this feeling. I am so sorry for those of you that do live and work near where this happened. Its just you wake up one morning and your whole world has changed. I haven't heard anything from Major Mel, I hope he is okay?? The office today is so quiet,. We work in a goverment building, although it hasn't closed down. I just feel so terribly sad for those people on those planes and the plane that is still missing as well as for all those who just went to work on a normal Tuesday morning. I have no one to talk to here as everyone has gone.....

Apparently according to the NYTimes, " At&T shut down its entire phone and communications system in Manhattan, and cell phone service is interrupted also" everyone is walking out via Brooklyn Bridge. Its going to be a very very long day for a lot of people

I just heard on my way into work this morning about the terrorist attacks in NYC and Washington ( I think) I know those of you that live in DC and NYC may not be logging on to this board today, but in case you do, I hope you are all alright. It was a bit of a shock to hear this morning, and I am very sad for anyone that was hurt or anyone who knows anyone that was hurt. I don't feel like dancing at all today . As I said I hope you are all alright? With love Jeanette

If I may just add a bit..I found this and thought it was quit einteresting and may answer the question as to why swans.... ".. It is highly likely that Tchaikovsky had a good deal of influence over the story’s development. Legends of swans were presumably familiar to Tchaikovsky and his artistic friends, who no doubt discussed the idea of the swan as a symbol of womanhood at its purest. The legend of the Swan-Maiden goes back for centuries, appearing in differing forms in both eastern and western literature. Women who turn into birds and vice versa were popular themes, and the swan was particularly favored due to its grace when swimming in the water. The ancient Greeks considered the swan to the bird closest to the Muses. When Apollo was born at Delos, the event was celebrated by flights of circling swans. The Tales of the Thousand and One Nights tells the story of Hassan of Bassorah, who visits a place inhabited by bird-maidens. When they take off their feather garments, the bird-maidens are transformed into beautiful women. Hassan captures the clothes of one of the maidens in order to keep her in human form as his wife. She is able to regain her feathers and flies away from him. Hassan sets out on a quest to regain his wife and after many adventures succeeds in finding her. Sweet Mikhail Ivanovich the Rover is a Slav tale that begins with Mikhail the Rover who is about to shoot a swan that warns him "Shoot not, else ill-fortune will doom thee for evermore!" On landing the swan turns into a beautiful maiden. When Mikhail tries to kiss her she warns that she is an infidel. However, if he takes her to the holy city of Kiev, then she might be received by the church and thus free to marry him. So they set out. In a similar South German legend a swan speaks to a forester who is about to kill her. The beautiful maiden in this case says that she would be his if he could keep her existence a secret for one year. He fails and thus looses her. Celtic folk-lore brings us The Legend of the Children of Lir. When King Lir’s first wife dies, he marries a wicked woman Arife. Jealous of Lir’s children from his first wife, Arife turns them all into swans. The complete scenario of Swan Lake is not to be found in any of these legends, but many parallels do exist. Other possible sources of inspiration could have been Johann Karl August Musäus’ Der geraubte Schleier, Hans Christian Andersen’s The Wild Swans and Alexandre Pushkin’s Tzar Saltan, the story of a prince who saves the life of a wounded swan who later reappears as a woman to marry him. There are also elements of the story that are traditional in many ballets. One cannot discount the influence, at least on Tchaikovsky, of Wagner’s opera Lohengrin, the story of an heroic Swan Prince, a man with a mysterious past who arrives on a magical swan-boat. ..." Go to http://www.balletmet.org/balletnotes.html for an extensive essay on Swan Lake! Happy reading. [ 08-20-2001: Message edited by: Xena ]

Have you tried this place: http://www.parnassusrecords.com/p274.htm#H it is a company that specializes in rare, out of print music. You may be able to get hold of it through them. Its listed under DECCA (eng.) they may be able to help you in some way. Jeanette :-) oh I just realised that its an LP..i think. but it may be a start. [ 05-31-2001: Message edited by: Xena ] ok back again..I just found this site : http://www.seaford-music.co.uk/smws3i.htm put homage in the 'find in page'(on your web browser menu bar, in netscape its under edit) and click through until you get to homage to pavolva. No: 4527672 it says "5 discs - GB pounds 33.99). goodluck [ 05-31-2001: Message edited by: Xena ] [ 05-31-2001: Message edited by: Xena ]