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Hans

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Posts posted by Hans

  1. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I thought Somova was charming in that variation. The legs went way too high in the beginning, of course, and her style of dancing and body type are the antithesis of Romantic ballet, but that video might be the best I've seen from her. I'm a bit afraid to see what the rest of the ballet looked like, though...she's proven in the past that she's incapable of maintaining her turnout during jumps, and Giselle has to do a lot of those.

  2. I can't stand watching ballet competitions. The same variations, over and over, performed with stuck-on grins and an emphasis on flashy pirouettes and jumps--no thank you. Maybe it would be better with professionals, but even then it would probably still be less interesting than your average gala (since even galas tend to vary the rep with different styles of choreography every now and then).

  3. I wonder if part of it has to do with the acoustics of the Kennedy Center opera house. Whenever I sit in the second tier, the shoes always sound loud, but the times I've been in the orchestra they've seemed quieter. I've seen both the Mariinsky and ABT in both locations, and the effect has been the same.

  4. Also, regarding the arms in the last set of balances, I noticed that neither Kirov Aurora I saw brought the arm to overhead fifth position in this series of balances (I saw Kolegova & Tereshkina yesterday). They both went directly from one suitor to the next until the last suitor took them into a supported penchee after which they came back up and held the final balance.

    That is funny...I remembered Kolegova raising her arm on both sets of balances. I recall thinking she didn't do it very well--it was a very abrupt, fast movement giving the impression that she was having trouble staying on balance.

  5. I'm watching the pas de deux Simon G mentions (haven't finished it yet, but I will) and there are several technical and artistic issues I notice already. One is that she sickles her foot in retiré position, which is something I cannot stand, and if you look at her developpé at 3:41-3:42, you'll see it is completely turned in. The other problem she's had and still does have is that she moves from her limbs, not her center, and so her torso gets contorted in all sorts of strange ways, which prevents her from having any sort of classical line. Her weak center, the resulting bad posture, and her inability to control her turnout are likely all contributing factors to her lack of balance.

    She also seems to be dancing without any regard for the music, but that could just be the video. (Edit: after watching the rest of the video, I think this is just a problem with the audio, not lack of musicality.)

    Mariinskyfan, I would not judge a dancer you've never seen in person on the basis of one video in which she performs an unfamiliar repertoire.

  6. I have asked a few actor friends what they think, and here are their replies:

    Stage presence is a tricky thing--sometimes it's hard to stay focused and "connected," but it's wrong to say that some just do not have it. Sometimes charisma, acting, and using your eyes comes very naturally to people, but when it doesn't, there are techniques and exercises that can teach someone how to interact and tell a story more effectively onstage...otherwise why would we have actor training courses at all?
    They have to empathize what the character would feel like in a given situation...
    There's a difference between indicating and acting. If you were a real person, describing a scenario or interacting with another human being, you would be mentally/emotionally engaged with both the memory you are describing and the person you are describing it too. Part of how we communicate with others is through our eyes. Even lecturers are told to make eye contact with the audience to engage them. Not that dancers should look at the audience, but having thought/emotion at play, especially when interacting with other dancers (their fellow actors) is so key. Sometimes I talk about hating watching actors act "at" rather than "with" one another, and this is part of it too. You have to engage both with the story and others onstage, as well as with what you are doing physically.

    If actors and dancers don't believe the story they are telling, how can they expect their audiences to believe it too? Dancers are storytellers, even when they're not performing in a story ballet. Dance can tell stories of many kinds, but a story falls flat if it's not told in a heartfelt and generous way.

    That last paragraph brings to mind Balanchine's famous line: "How much story you want?"

    I will go ahead and say that I think the attitude that some people just "have it" and some people don't when it comes to using the eyes or acting may be part of why dancers are so inexpressive today. After all, if a ballet master thinks acting ability is something one either has or doesn't have, why bother to try to teach it or draw it out? But really good acting (not just indicating or mugging, which is what most dancers do) is just as much a technique as ballet, with many exercises to develop and focus one's ability. One wouldn't just bring in someone from the street and say "Dance!" and then, when that person failed to do multiple pirouettes, &c, say, "Well, s/he just doesn't 'have it'." But that is what is routinely done to dancers. They've never acted before, just worked on doing their steps correctly and perhaps learned some variations in which they were told "put your head here; make sure your arm is there; really push down into the plié" and then they get into a company, and suddenly they are expected to know how to create a character, an atmosphere, show what is happening and what they're thinking/feeling nonverbally, "see" things that aren't there, &c. And then if they don't magically "just do it" after perhaps a few rehearsals that barely scratch the surface of what goes into good acting, they're labeled as "doesn't have it" and so they never learn.

    Even a dancer to whom acting does come naturally probably won't have the opportunity to use his/her abilities fully because of the simple, flat way in which ballet characters are frequently staged. Peter Martins didn't like performing Siegfried because he didn't get to dance until Act III. When an artistic director thinks that way, what chance does a dancer have?

  7. It can be taught, but it requires much more in-depth instruction than "look this way," which is about all you'll hear from a ballet master/mistress. I wish I knew enough about it to talk about some of the techniques used--an acting teacher would have a lot more information.

    By the way, this might be a good time to address something that comes up when dancers talk about acting. They frequently speak as if acting is putting on some sort of fake emotion, being somehow disingenuous to the audience, or merely "expressing a mood" as Nanarina puts it. In one of PNB's videos on Youtube about Romeo & Juliet, Carla Korbes mentions that when she dances Juliet, it "doesn't feel like acting," and that is what GOOD acting is. One of my favourite quotes is "Acting is not lying. It is telling the greatest truth." I think more dancers and artistic directors need to understand that. It is not a coincidence that Gelsey Kirkland gave gorgeous, moving performances and worked with an acting coach--more dancers ought to do the same.

  8. Innopac, one thing I recall in particular was that during the mime in Act II, I had to point to the edge of the stage as if tracing the path of something running across it, then run and jump in imitation of a large, frightening rat. Miss Day wanted me to really "see" the rat running across the stage, using not just my hand to show where it was going, but my eyes as well--in fact, I received the impression that the eyes were really the more important part of it, and the hand gesture was secondary.

    That's a rather simplistic example, but it leaps to mind readily and is easy to describe. Little details like that were so important to her, and they really made the ballet come alive. I also remember that we worked on the party scene quite a bit; in fact it felt as if we rehearsed that more than anything else! Even though it involves no technical dancing, all those little interactions between people are what create the atmosphere of the ballet and set the rest of the events in motion, and I still consider her staging of that scene to be the best. It was so lively and warm--like a real Christmas party.

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