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Susanne

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Posts posted by Susanne

  1. Well personally I've always believed that if you live a public life, and enjoy all the perks that come along with being a public figure, it's naive to say, "Ok, we can only talk about my career." It doesn't happen this way, and I don't see why Margot should be exempt.

    No she shouldn't be an exception. Seriously, I don't care about Katharine Hepburns personal love affairs. Either you like her as an actress or not. Of course it would be interesting to know her story briefly, but not the details. Why do we have to dig ourselves in other people's misery? THAT is what has made paparazzi so lucrative. So IMHO it all begins with ourselves, as long as we, the public, don't show an interest, then it wouldn't be lucrative. Personally I don't think that will add anything to ballet history at all unless the person in question chooses to tell her story herself (as with Gelsey Kirkland). This portrait was mostly about how evil Ms Fonteyns husband was, told by a third party. I seriously don't have any interest in knowing HOW evil he was. It is quite sufficient to know that the marriage might not have been the ideal one.

    (It is like the difference between a serious newspaper and tabloids)

  2. I understand how beloved Margot Fonteyn is, but I don't think that ignoring anything remotely negative in her personal life is going to her any favors.

    No perhaps not, but why do we need to know all those "juicy details"?? Does that make her a greater artist? Does that change the way she danced? Why does her personal life have to become exposed to us after all these years? No matter if those things said in the film were true or not.

  3. I was rather surprised by it, first its length and its content as well. It was rather clear where the sympathies of the filmmaker was.

    I had expected it to be more of a documentrary about her as an artist, rather than her private affairs. But the of course, perhaps many films have already been made on that subject of Fonteyn. :jawdrop:

    I saw the DVD at HMV when I visited Aberdeen 6 months ago, and thought of buying it. In retrorespect, I am glad I didn't.

    Funny to hear that I am not the only one who finds a striking resemblance between Fonteyn and Audrey Hepburn though :).

  4. I just found an old tin box that has once has contained Danish Butter Cookies. The box in question is red with a ballerina dressed in a white romantic tutu (not sure if it is supposed to be La Sylphide or not).

    The text on it reads: Danish Ballet, Imported Butter Cookies, Product of Denmark. It was packed for Intergoods ltd, Horsens, Denmark.

    I think the box if from late 70's or early 80's. So I just got curious if anyone knows who the ballerina is? :angry2:

  5. As far as I know, the only ballet performed in the new Opera house's big stage is Neumeier's "The little Mermaid". I suppose because it is a new production which is made for a bigger stage. Otherwise, it has been operas on that stage.

    Just keep your eyes and ears open :angry2:

  6. I foun this site (in Danish :( ) that might help with the plot.

    Description It is however from a play so the ballet might be different.

    "Peer Gynt is a young man with three faults: he lies, brags and dreams in other words: he lacks connection with reality.

    The play is about his life. About how he goes from one adventure to another and how he lies and runs away from resposibility and also about how he is fooled by others.

    When he as a 70 year old comes back home and finds out that he has spent his life badly it is Solveig's love and faithfulness that saves him."

    But yeah, if you have to buy flight tickets, hotel and a theatre ticket... If you want classical ballet, based on the only two ballets I've seen of Neumeier (The little Mermaid and Romeo & Juliet) I wouldn't advice you to go. I was bored to death (I like romantic and classical ballets)! So your decision to save up the money sounds wise. Wait for La Bayadère instead :)

    (Which is cheapest for you? To go to Stockhom or Copenhagen? Generally, I think the Royal Danish is considered a "better" company than the Royal Swedish...)

  7. Rosie, if you don't know what modern dance is or have never seen Neumeier I think you should see it. Just to see if you like it or not. There is no way of anybody to tell you what you would like or dislike. Otherwise it would be just like that story I was told as a child: A little horse was afraid of crossing a river: he asked a cow if it is deep, then she replied no. Then he asked a squirrel who of course said it was deep. He found out that the only way to know was to try it himself :wink:

    Just take any chance to see dance, then you will eventually find out what your taste in dance is and what choreographers you like or dislike, regardless of the label people put on the style (classical, neoclassical, modern, street, funk et cetera) :party-smiley-017:

  8. A friend of mine was also on the nutcracker but not the same day as i she told me that when she was there the thearte was filled with children and their familys there was also Queen Margrethe with her nephews.

    I have a feeling I'm the "friend" being referred to here :wub:

    For clarification:

    The Queen was there with his son Joachim and one of her grandsons Nikolaj... (she is after all a very big fan of ballet. We regularly goes to the ballet with her sister and as many of you knoe: she has also made the costumes for one of the company's ballets.)

    And there weren't exactly MANY families, but there were much MORE of them than on a regular performance. It also depends on the time of the day of course: matinés are aimed towards children, while evening performances are more for the adults.

    IMHO, the dancer's Caroline Cavallo and Thomas Lund did great! I usually don't care much for Cavallo, but I think a pdd like the Nut suits her. Thomas Lund was receiving applauses that would never end!

    Bill- Generally people aren't that dressed up here in Scandinavia compared with for example London. I have a feeling that performances of "the Nut" are rather crowded in general since it is the one year event that people bring their families to. There are also many tourists arriving to Copenhagen during winter to do some Christmas shopping. Consequently I think there were a fair amount of foreigners in the theatre. (People were more dressed up than on a regular performance :) )

    Edit: Thank you balletmor...it was a slip of my mind with my English :D that's the danger of copying and pasting

  9. Ok, I have read most of your reviews. Seems as most of you liked the production which really astonish me. I have watched the DVD a couple of times and I have really really tried to like it and take it onto my heart. The only thing I find it is that the production is too dark so I actually have fallen asleep several times watching it :) . I find the same phenomenon with the other Sir Peter Wright production of Swan Lake with the Royal Swedish Ballet DVD. The settings and the dancers, costumes melt together into one big orangey background and you are constantly waiting for something for the foreground. (In the Swan Lake DVD, it was a big grey background instead of orange though :cool: )

    The funny thing is that the live-stage version of Swan Lake was very very beautiful (it literally took my breath away when I saw it) so I would expect that it is the same phenomenon with the Sleeping Beauty.

    I just had a very hard time neglecting the whole oreangey-mass and concentrate on the dancing...

    I definitely agree with those who didn't like the gown of the lilac fairy. I think those long sheets on her arms made her look like a scarecrow (forcing her to have har arms right out from the body all the time) more than a graceful and yet powerful fairy. Also, I suppose I have a different picture of the lilac fairy in my mind: a mild and kind fairy rather than a fairy with power.

    I was actually more content with the extra material featuring an interview with Ms Sylve.

    Sometimes the reality doesn't meet up with expectations I suppose and in this case I had set too high expectations :o

  10. This is a somewhat strange question.

    I have a problem I need help with. I have been to the Old scene at the Kongelige Teater three times. Every time I have had a boring time. I really used to enjoy ballet back in Stockholm when I watched the Royal Swedish ballet perform. When I had watched Swan Lake I got a really happy feeling as well as after Onegin sitting far back at the "parkett". At the Kongelige I have seen Abdallah and Napoli once in the first row of the balcony (Beside the Royal loge) and at the 2 etage. I also watched an oprera at "parkett" row 3. The problem is that there is always someone in front of me preventing me from seeing everything on stage or I just feel it is plain dull!!! At the beginning I thought that there was something wrong with the ballets that perhaps didn't appeal to me, but the more I think about it the more I think it is my seats that have been wrong. I feel that I am not captivated by the performances.

    This is strange as you would think the construction of the theater in Copenhagen would be similar to the one in Stockholm as they look similar and are from the same time-period. So does anyone have any tips on where to sit in Copenhagen when you are short??

  11. About that snapped tendon: Didn't they say that she have had a lot of problems with it previously? So probably she just knew? I actually found that scene rather liberating since it wasn't as dramatic as the scene when Eric in Center Stage twisted his ankle. Instead she just gave up and said: "I snapped it". Right then I just imagined her thinking:"Why did I do that? Why did I push it? Stupid me, I really know better". I am not a dancer, but that is usually what happens to me when I get injured: no drama; just why did I do that?

    I also liked the fact that with the arm, the focus was on "the show must go on" and not on her actual injury.

    It was just so nice to see a movie without the usual Hollywood way of telling a story. :( However, I enjoyed the rehearsal/class scenes of Center Stage more.

  12. What element did Plushenko fall in? Did Joubert make any mistakes at all? I am so happy for Lambiel and Lindemann! Unforunately I did not have the opportunity to watch the men's free skate, and it seems as Eurosport won't be broadcasting it again

    :angry:

    Zhen/Shao did a small mistake right at the end when coming down from a lift (not a pair lift, but rather a dance lift) the camera angle was poor, but it looked like they hooked on eachother or something. But that was the only "mistake" that I could see in their free skate. Maybe Shao's side by side jump was a tiny bit shakey in the landing...but that is what I can come up with when it comes to small "non-perfect" details. But yes, their joy and expression just took your breath away! They remind me of Bereshnaya/Sikarluidze and Gordeeva/Grinkov.

  13. Wow the final of the pairs long program turned out really thrilling!

    Even though Totmianina/Marinin delivered a flawless program with the usual Russian precision and grace I must say that Shen/Zhao's program to Nutcracker really touched my heart. It is funny, because I remember the first time I noticed them and they ended 4th or 5th in worlds. Back then they had the technique but there was a lack of presentation. (Just as the other two Chinese couples, no matter how good they technically are, there is still something missing if compared with the Russians). I think htat Shen/Zhao have developed tremendously just as Lu Chen did. I really think they deserved to those 6.0s that they got for their free skate! Nevertheless Totmianina/Marining deserved to win the whole competition as their free skate and short program were wonderful, but without the "skating their hearts out" feeling.

  14. Not unexpected, Plushenko took the lead today after the short program. Joubert is placed second. Both of them did flawless programs. The biggest surprise was Stefan Lindemann from Germany, who did as far as I can remember, his best skate ever! His quad-toe loop triple-toe loop combination was higher and cleaner than Plushenkos! He ended up in third place.

    The biggest dissapointment was Sandhu's skate doing a 2 toe-loop instead of 4 and he fell on his 3 axel. Nevertheless he does have a wonderful style. He ended up in 11th place.

    Another surprise was the Russian Griazev, very young and loads of potential. All that energy! But then he is coached by Tarasova and Yagudin, with a solid base built by Mishin!

    Even though Lambiel did some mistakes, I still think that he is THE figure skater among the men of today. When he skates, he becomes the music and movement! Every fiber in his body is dancing!

  15. I realised that once again it is time for Europeans! I have unfortunately no television at home at the moment. So, I haven't had any opportunities to watch the competition. :angry:

    However, I saw on the results at the official site that Brian Joubert and Evgeny Plushenko won their qualifying groups respectively. Did anyone see the performance of Joubert? Was it amazing, or did the others simply do poorly?

    For those intereste, this is the official site of the competition:

    Europeans in Hungary

  16. I have to say that I thought Petrenko was much more elegant than Browning whom i saw as the huge rival at that time (me being only a child). It is possible that i would have seen it in another way today. What I remember is that no other male skater had previously got me interested in male figure skating until Petrenko entered the scene. However, I have to admit that his last years as an amateur skater was not nearly as good as his peak years. To me it looked like he had gained some weight and that former elegance of his was lost. But I still remember the Carmen short program from 1990/91 when I believe he reached his peak. :wub: I have to agree that his Gold performance at the Olympics was not the best I had seen from him.

    Only two other performances of male skaters have impressed me after Petrenko; Alexander Abt at 1998 Europeans and Yagudin in his short program "Winter".

    I think we can distinguish difference in opinions just because we live in different continents :yes: Being in Europe we/I don't have so many chances to see professional skaters and exhibitions. We do, on the other hand see the Russian amateur skaters more often which tend to make me/us to like them more than the US/Canadian skaters :grinning: .

  17. I don't know if it is true nor if it is official because they don't say anything about it on the website Kungliga Operan Unfortunately most of the information seems to be in Swedish...but I can keep you updated from what I see on the website, and if they announce anything in our dance magazine "Danstidningen" and our own Dance web. :wink:

  18. djb, I'm not an experienced skater, but have been a spectator for a very long time. IMO, bad skating technique and skill is more noticeable in skating, not just to the experienced audience, but to everybody. Which means, that if you watch a less experienced couple in pairs you will soon noitce that they are not synchronized either and those lifts that those top skaters pull off without (seemingly) effort are very hard, and you fear for the life of the poor girl. Sometimes, when they do spins you may notice that it is far too easy to be out of sync. Usually only the most experienced couples who have been skating togheter for many years, can pull that off nicely.

    In skating you will have to not only do in certain beats, you can take different length in strokes and push off with different force. A small difference in acceleration will sum up to quite big difference in velocity at the end.

    If you watch the top teams in synchronized skating, you will notice that they are quite synchronized too, just as in dance. (I am proud to announce that even though Sweden is not a big nation in singles, pairs of ice dancing we are among the top 3 teams in the worldin synchronized skating :D )

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