grace

thanks for the information, estelle and mel. yes, mel - i thought you seemed to be implying at least having met the ...umm ... err ... "lady?". glad she didn't have it in for *YOU*! enough said on this topic.

I can't check which now, for my matronly cat Gwendolen is sleeping on my lap, and I don't want to disturb her

thank you, estelle, for a terribly sad link, which shocked even me... sorry alexandra, to post again about something unrelated to Wilis, but this will be brief, i promise: estelle, i am curious - did you read her writing in french, or in english? i am just curious as to the possibility, which you suggest, that it was translated?...and i find it odd that you seem to know who she is - although maybe that is only after you looked up her name, online? i assume you are what i would consider 'too young' to know about such things !!! (that is, under 40). i also am amazed at her birthdate - for such a strident feminist who gained notoriety in the hippie 60's : she was born in 1936 - like my MOTHER! thank you for the link, estelle. i appreciated reading it.

after only 3 days away from the board, i have just worked my way through 9 pages of new posts!

it took four hours (it now being 1 am) - & by the time i was finished - there more MORE NEW POSTS!

it's a great feature...

thanks mel - actually the bit i was asking about was whether the Y chromosome was the one for the guys? (i am well up on the womens lib stuff of the late 60's/early 70's, having been a card-carrying member at the time... although not a member of SCUM!)

what you write about "one hem" is beginning to ring some bells, now...maybe to do with the poem...

some of my students went. but the finals were sold out, months in advance, so they may not have seen those.

btw, i have it on good authority that subsequent genees will be in birmingham, athens for the olympics year of course, and hong kong!

without any intent to derail this fascinatingly informative discussion , when i saw this:

...the burial place of nuns who have offended heaven with impure thoughts. Bertram summons up the sinful dead nuns ("Nonnes qui repose") commanding them to action. They rise from their tombs, at first slowly, and then work themselves into a frenzy, shedding their habits and dancing a bacchanal. They attempt to seduce Robert...

According to the Illustrated London News of the period, there was no moment which betrayed any jealousy among the four superstars

- interesting! maybe not enough people who stage this ballet are aware of that...

"affable"

i found leslie edwards to be a lovely man - from another, gentler era. (i'd love to read his book.)

yes, michael: we got your point.

i'm sure all canadian ballet fans aren't that bad...

regrettably, rodney, i haven't seen it. you probably know that it has been extremely well received in australia....

glebb, i was in london at the time of the revival of ashton's ondine, and saw most performances (late 80's). what was it that you wanted to talk about? (sorry if i have been too dumb or too distracted to work that out... )

...this enchanting Aladdin's cave of a website.

over in the MEN's (ONLY) FORUM, mic31 has posted this question:

Well we know what makes the females stand out on stage. What really sets a man apart, what makes a Nureyev, Barishnikov, or a Peter Martins so memeorable? People still talk about them now. These guys as well as many other have set the bar for men in ballet. The reason why I ask is simply to begin a discussion on what makes a great male dancer. I really want to know from everyone what makes dancers like Eric Bruhn and Fernando Bujones so special.

it struck me that MY first thought on this subject, was that the man is, well...you know...gorgeously sexy-looking.

and i am NOT talking 'tights', here. get your minds out of the gutter, PLEASE!

you MAY find him desirable, personally, or not - but what i am talking about is something slightly different again: animal magnetism.

moderator mel has responded (very sensibly), as follows:

The first thing I would look for in a benchmark danseur, like the ones already mentioned, would be a very high standard of technical excellence. The second is an ability to enter into a relationship with the audience. Ballet has no term for it that I know of, but in Spanish, it is simpatico. The third part is the ineffable, the undefinable artistry. Why would one prefer to watch Edward Villella over Rudolf Nureyev? Why not the other way around? What did Martins have in "Apollo" that still radiates, when Jacques d'Amboise did so very, very many performances of it and is hardly spoken of today? Were these dancers able to work brilliantly in more than one emploi, as could Baryshnikov? And what made Bruhn The Greatest? At least in my book? And why the hell did Bujones change choreography and nobody seemed to notice it or mind it but me?! (Well, Baryshnikov did, too, but that's another story.)

since mic31 says

I really want to know from everyone what makes dancers like Eric Bruhn and Fernando Bujones so special

ladies: what say you?

a strong hint of the ghoulish and sinister in the ballet that seems to go unnoticed.

BW - could i ask you to clarify what you mean here, please? ~

I suppose if the classical technique were taught, it would be understood, and have become an integral part of these dancers...

One is a pretty soloist who stands the Chairman of the Board up for a date.

one hem of the skirt is always damp!

thank you to doug and marc for the quotes - i love the writing.

actually i have always thought that the wilis could be transposed into 1960's or early 70's, as members of valerie solanis' new york based organisation (whether or not it ever really existed) SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men). sorry to all Y chromosomes present (have i got that right, mel, please?), but i'm intrigued to see WHO else - if anyone - remembers what i am talking about - WITHOUT looking it up!! B)

they were all female

definitely interesting: the woven wire, in contrasting colours...are they all male figures? it looks that way.

there are some inspirational dance sculptures, including ballet - actually they are bronzes - by a lady named maggie parker, who lives in colorado. she used to be a ballet dancer, and now is a pilates instructor, as well as an artist. here is her website:

http://www.maggieparkersculpture.com/index.html

i recommend waiting long enough to let the images load, on the gallery page, as these dancers really have a sense of movement about them, a lovely free spirit - while still being anatomically and technically acceptable, to those of us who care about such things!

i love these bronzes and would like to have something similar in my fantasy garden, which would be like tom merrifield's - now there's ANOTHER ballet sculptural artist to love the work of!

dear michael, i don't know if you're own personally quirky brand of humour will be fully appreciated, here - but *I'M* laughing! thanks for giving my morning a good start.

there are lots of thought-provoking posts here, on a type of topic which i normally shy away from reading. (i feel " " for monica mason, when i read carbro's words, though...she really IS someone who is every bit as driven and dedicated etc etc as those revered/named ballet founders.)

i recognise SOME of what's talked about here, but i think our situation in australia is not as extreme as yours. certainly ballet companies started out with ONE PERSON at the helm, with the vision - but with lots of UNPAID helpers and amateur enthusiasts to fill out gaps - i don't mean onstage (although that happened too).

now, where i live, a ballet company would have perhaps half as many staff as dancers...until you got up to the larger companies, when the figure might become something like 1 staff to every 4 dancers. it certainly is a major shift, when looked at that way, in not-so-many years, really.

my take on it, is that this change has been driven here by:-

1. financial need (as volunteer efforts got stripped away, and government funding has been repeatedly slashed), and

2. increasing audience sophistication. i don't mean that the BALLET audience is increasingly sophisticated, but that the public in general has more choices about what to do with its time, and is far more demanding now, than it used to be (thanks to TV, movies, special effects, computers, MTV, etc etc)

i appreciated reading this profile:

...the practical "Ballet Russe attitude" AD - one who, when faced with difficulties, had a first response of 'how do we make this work, for the best possible performance?'

These days ...ADs (and dancers) have an entitlement attitude - "well it has to be this way, or it is not possible"...

K2356 - the TUTU book of the australian ballet, by greg barrett, similarly included quite a few nude shots, if i recall correctly - BUT - as with mel's examples, these are quite a different matter to a centrefold in a men's mag, aren't they?

the australian ballet also did some shots in a men's mag, of their dancers - but frankly, i didn't think they were very sexy, at all - the bodies were too thin, too angular, too hard-looking, the faces too frank, too purposeful...compared to what men 'usually' choose to look at, in that context.

i'm not expressing an opinion, pro or con, about ballerinas in the buff - i really am not sure what to think... - but i know that any 'artistic' portrayal is really a completely different issue, to this lady's situation.

dear ozzie, re:

Lucette was one of my teachers years ago.