Susanne

How odd! I found Grace Under Pressure: Dancing Through Time at another web-based book shop (which usually has the same range as amazon, but they are a little bit more informative about when the books will arrive) They said that the book is temporarily sold out (!) it only came out in November 2003!

Does this mean that all the dancers at the Royal Danish Ballet do spot today? I imagine it might be difficult not to spot if you were taught that way ever since toddler years, as quite many dancers in the company aren't originally Bournonville-trained?

Ooops I had completely forgotten about this thread. As a matter of fact I did send them an e-mail. :rolleyes: They replied that This was in mid August, when I received the reply.

I was assuming that you were referring to Lotta and Petter's Jul when you talked about Nutcracker in your first post since that is the very same version of the Nutcracker that was performed last Christmas in Gothenburg by the Gothenburg Opera Ballet! Which I assume was quite a succes since the performance is nearly sold out here in Stockholm?

What do you mean by "nuts"? Nutcracker? The Nutcracker (in Pär Isbergs choreography) has moved to Stockholm and almost every performance is sold out... Didn't they give the performance "Push" and "a chorus line" during that period? I've heard nothing but positive remarks from those two...strange that they are loosing audience. Isn't the Gothenburg Opera Ballet Repertory mainly more focused on more modern dance and musicals? Sadly, it doesn't seem as Gothenburg has so much to offer somebody who likes classical dance Is Stockholm the only classical scene left in Sweden?

That remark about the height of skaters made me think of the time when Kurt Browning was still competing as an amateur always against Viktor Petrenko (that was how I looked at it anyway), who was my favourite skater. I always thought that Kurt Browning was too heavy looking with a huge bum :rolleyes: while I thought Viktor Petrenko had the perfect skater body. Last year I saw Kurt Browning in Nottingham on a gala and he was clowning around right in front of me. I didn't recognize him at first, and then I thought that he must have lost enourmous amount of weight! But then he went on the ice, and I saw that he was "the same old guy"...so those skaters definitely look smaller in "real-life"

It was a lovely performance!!! I'm in seventh heaven right now! It was without doubt the best ballet I've seen so far! (Not that I've seen that many ballets though ) I thought that Massot fitted in the role perfectly. He had the technique as well as the character. I was a little bit dissapointed with our Lenskij (Oscar Salomonsson) though. He seemed sloppy in some way...maybe it was just the goofy hair and clothes :rolleyes: But Nathalie Nordquist was just wonderful as the joyful Olga! She definitely had the childish joyfulness and innocense. (For those of you who don't know who she is: She is a rather young soloist with the company. She did Odette/Odile in the DVD-production of Sir Peter Wright's Swan Lake in cooperation with BBC) Caroline Cavallo...hmmm I don't know. I thought she was wonderful in the last scene, but she didn't make any deeper impression on me in the first part of the ballet. She seems to have a very good technique with alot confidence though. Please note: I don't have much experience in watching ballet these were just my impressions! I am definitely going to see it once again, if it isn't sold out! Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention that the coreography was just in my taste. With a nice mix of humour and drama. The steps were very much alive as well! Edit2: And yes, the decor was lovely! The colours and the settings of them, WOW! The costumes were marwellous as well!

I guess there aren't too many fictional ballet books for adults However, I read three very good childrens books that were written by a British author when I was a child. They were by the author Jean Richardson: The first step Dancer in the wings One foot on the ground these three all are about the same girl, and we follow her from childhood to a young adult. I simply loved these books! They tell ballet not from the most glamourous side and it seems to be quite authentic. (At least they were authentic enough for me as a 16 when I re-read them the last time ;) ) We are not too spoiled with ballet fiction here. (Unlike when I was in France and saw that every other book shelf in the bookstores had fiction ballet books for children)

Pamela, unfortunately it doesn't seem as Sebastian Michanek will be in the cast the 9th of December. The cast is as follows: Onegin Jean-Lucien Massot Tatjana Caroline Cavallo Lenskij Oscar Salomonsson Olga Nelli Korpela Gremin Christian Rambe Larina Ylva Helander Amman Kate Lind af Hageby I have seen him dance a couple of times though. In The Sleeping Beauty, "light and shadow" and in Don Quixote. I don't consider myself knowledgeble enough to make any statement about his abilities though . Why don't Eva just take the train to Stockholm and watch Sebastian Michanek by herself? I'm sure she is the better one to make the judgement than I.

Yes! I am going to see them dance the 9th of December in Onegin

The version that the Royal Ballet performs today, is it the same as the one of Dame Beryl Grey? What about the one that Margot Fonteyn did?

Hmm I just wanted to clarify that the Protopopovs are pair skaters while Kimova/Ponomarenko and Usova/Zhulin were competing in ice dancing in the early 90's. The Protopopovs were already pro at that time. I wasn't until later that Usova teamed up with Platov (who used to compete with Gritchuk until late 90's) as pros. Zhulin is now coaching/coreographing. Last season he was coaching Tatiana Navka and her partner. (Who were mentioned here before) Are you following me :sweating: In the 90's there were also another very lyrical Russian couple that did pairs skating: Natalia Muskitienok (spelling?) /Dimitriev. Dimitriev continued the amateur skating later and won the Olympic gold with Kazakova (in 1998?? don't remember) Musikteinok/Dimitriev used to compete against Brasseur/Eisler (Canadians) I recently saw an old video-tape of the Muskitienok/Dimitriev performance from 1990 or 1991 and it was a breathtaking performance. That was lyrical....

I think that part of the explanation to that is the ice-dancing boots are cut-much lower than the single skates (pair skates) as they don't do jumps and don't need the support. But the I didn't see the performance so I cannot say how flexed their feet were. And also the lines in ice-dance is generally better than lines of pair/single skaters just because ice-dancing is dancing and the other have more emphasize in jumping and synchronised spins and lifts. Of course the top single and pair skaters have pointed feet as well as good lines! (Like Bereshnaya & Sikarluidze)

Yep Lucind Ruhs spins were awesome (haven't seen her since she turned pro) But there is a new Swiss guy named Stephan Lambiel who is worth watching! His spins, oh la la! During Europeans in Lausanne 2002 he had the audience support as well so he did an incredible program and placed quite good (5th or something) without even attempting the triple lutz!

hmm about those injuries. Correct me if I'm wrong but my impression here is that (since I'm in a country where figure skating is a very small sport) the coaches in figure skating don't empasize safe training as much as the dance teachers do. To me it seems as there are more profound sience in dance training than in figure skating. But then again, it might be because we have a dance college for dance teachers whilst the coaches usually are people who are working for free. (That's the tradition here: In sports, the coaches work for free, while art teachers have a salary) Wasn't it back-problems that Tara suffers from?? Enough said about that. Whatever the problem is with his hip (or other body parts for that matter ) he developed to a wonderful skater. I remember the first time I saw him at Europeans along with Urmanov and Plushenko, I thought that Yagudin was another of those "jumping machines". The step is very far to the short program to "Winter" wich I think certainly was one of the best single skates program I've ever seen (between 1989 and 2003), and I'm not even a fan of him! So I'm really looking forward to see Sasha Cohen this season! I'm a little surprised that Kwan hasn't turned pro yet?

Tarasova seems to have great success in coaching single skaters! I didn't see Cohen at Skate America, but from what you are describing, she seems to have made great progress. Do you remember the change of Yagudin when he switched to Tarasova? Suddenly he had the artistic ability as well as the technical ...

What pops into my mind when I hear about Anastasia is that Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding figure skating story at the 1994 winter Olympics in Lillehammer. Figure skating has never been a big sport here in Sweden and despite the papers were covered with the news about the attack on Nancy Kerrigan (done by her "rival" Harding's boyfriend, or was it her ex-boyfriend???) the sport itself didn't receive more broadcasting-time on television nor did more people start to figure skate. (On the contrary the public service channels cut down the coverage of figure skating a couple of years ago. ) This will only emphasize people's view of ballet as "shallow" and the only thing that takes to make it is to be thin. But there is no focus on all the years and hours of struggle and hard work in the studio which takes to make it.

I'm quite aware of that this might sound as gossip. But I came across an article on one of our tabloids today and the article says that Volochkova wasn't allowed to dance Swan Lake because she has put on some weight. So please delete this if inappropriate This article is unfortunately in Swedish, but here is the link: Link to article about Anastasia I was just wondering if it is something which is known world wide or just something this tabloid more or less has exaggerated? The article says: "There were no Swan Lake for prima ballerina Anastasia Volochkova, 27 years. The male dancers refuse to work with her because her ice-cream eating has made her too heavy. Anastasia Volochkova is one of Russias most well-known ballerinas. She is part of the Bolshoiballet-with which she has come in dispute with. Twelve hours before Anastasia was supposed to perform Swan Lake the board of the ballet called and told her that she wasn't going to perform since she had become too heavy. Volovhkova has belonged to the Bolshoi since 1998. She is taller than many other ballerinas and admits that she loves ice-cream. But she also adds that she has switched it to frozen yoguhurt with less calories."

As far I have seen it is almost compulsory for art created today to be "experimental". In music it should preferrably be with a lot of strange sounds and harmonies. In fact as many as possible! I guess it is somewhat regarded as synomymes that art should be brought forwards with new experiments and new way to express yourself. It is almost the same thing with picture arts. How many artists try to paint as Rembrant or Monet? My impression is that most people I have come in contact with looks down on both classical music and ballet no matter if the "classical" was created today or not. As soon as it sounds or looks classical it is regarded as "boring stuff". But then I live in the country of the Cullbergbalett We also have a lot of music-writers who write pop-music, and it is almost regarded as more "genuine" if you don't know how to read a score and if you haven't taken a music lesson in your whole life. Benny Andersson, one of the former members of the 70's band ABBA, is almost set as an example and he has announced that he doesn't read scores. As we all know both classical music and ballet requires years and years of proper training and devotion from the student as well as the teacher. So the "natural talent without any lesson"-person can't exist. Most people I know of just listen to the most famous classical pieces (the Moonlight sonata by Beethoven and the four seasons by Vivaldi for example) and think that it is enough. Then they move on to those pieces with a more experimental nature. I agree about the publicity and exposure, I hardly know any classical composers of today. :shrug: But myself, I don't like the contemporary classical music. I even find Stravinsky having too odd harmonies for my taste .

I hope nobody minds, but I found a review of the performance of Dances Concertantes in the biggest newspaper here. This is my translation (so bear with it ): "Apollo" which is having it's 75th anniversary is well known and is danced on many stages around the world. It became abvious that the piece needed more experience dancers who don't feel uncomfortable and who can give the movements more meaning. Apollo has been danced by many great dancers as Baryshnikov and also Peter Martins. The Apollo of Ask La Cour was both weak and vague, and I couldn't resist to wonder if la Cours' - who is Danish too- role was to just walk around looking like Martins. The three muses, Saskia Beskow, Ellen Bar and Amanda Hankes grew into their roles, especially Saskia Beskow. "Tachikovsky Pas de Deux" which was coreographed in Petipa's spirit, was on the other hand a real show off of ballet as a beautiful art. The young Megan Fairchild, only 19years old, has been dancing for seven years. She already has good control of the speed, lightness and the flying in the steps, and she accentuates brilliantly the highlights. She shows off without any manner (edit: maybe a better word would be divalates?), which is liberating. Her partner was also liberated from annoying artificalities and generously made her shine. ------- "Triple Quartet" to music by Steven Reich is energetic and playful. Balanchines neoclassical ideal is strongly present, and a small touch of Forsythe would have been interesting if it had brought up a more personality in the style. The movements were disincts, the dancers crystal clear, the tempo generally high. Parts of the piece was quite conventional but there were also innovative movements that surprised. The skilful dancers and their dancing joy makes you happy when the speed, flow and musicality is in center. Craig Hall is remarked as one of the more interesting dancers. He has attitude, stile and musicality, he handles gravity and lightness in a fascinating way and has as nobody else a sort of off-beat which gives the movements another dimension. The original article with a picture is found here: Dagens Nyheter's article of Danses Concertantes

Thank you Jorgen for the website-link! The strange thing is that they say that danses concertantes consist of soloists and principals of the NYCB, but all but one of the eight dancers are "only" corps dancers. But all of them are between 19 and 25 years, so... Tonight I went to see the performance again... And I must say that I was rather unimpressed by Apollo the first time, even though I found it better the second time. The music of Stravinskij needed more time to "sink in". I have heard a lot about Apollo before, and I guess I had too high expectations. But the piece grew with time and I found it interesting the second time. Ask la Cour did Apollo and I saw Saskia Beskow, Ellen Bar and Amanda Hankes as the three muses. In the Tchaikovsky pas de deux the dancers were Andrew Fayette and Megan Fairchild. But I didn't find any Andrew Fayette at all at the NYCB website... :shrug: When I saw the Tchaikovsky pas de deux the first time I simply fell in love with it I think it was the very classical "look" of it that appealed to me. (And of course the very pretty dress that Ms Fairchild wore she also had the most beautiful smile which showed a lot of dancing-joy that was nice to see) The piece was very fast and the steps were executed very smootly and quickly in an impressive manner! The music also made it "easy" to like. I love Tchaikovsky's music in ballet! The last one was the "Triple Quartet" by Millepied (dancers: Ellen Bar, Saskia Beskow, Amanda Hankes, Craig Hall, Ask La Cour and Benjamin Millepied) which had its premiere here in Sweden! It had never been performed before at all! It was a rather modern piece and my first impression was Center Stage (the movie) final meets modern/contemporary dance. I don't think that this piece had a story in it so I found it a little bit too long for being an abstract piece...but I could be very wrong. And wathever you do, you cannot accuse the NYCB-dancers of smiling impersonal throughout a whole piece! Compared to our local company they look very "cool" when they dance!

I didn't see the performance in St Petersburg but I hope you won't mind me chiming in How many of the company members went to St Petersburg? Yesterday I saw a performance with some members of the NYCB here in Sweden, and they said something about arriving from St Petersburg. But the stage they danced on wasn't raked since it wasn't in the old Opera house, and I guess there wasn't that much of a jet-lag left for us after St Petersburg I think the NYCB has never been in our small country before! So that was a unique opportunity to see them and a Balanchine coreography! But as it turned out that two (Ask la Cour and Saskia Beskow) of the eight dancers are originally from Denmark They performed Apollo, Tchaikosvky's pas de deux and a new coreography called "Triple Quartet" by Benjamin Millepied.

I have been reading about different ballet styles and syllabuses. From what I have understood Bournonville is quite different from other styles seen on the ballet stage in the world. No matter how much you read and watch pictures of the style you will only get a small idea of how it might look like on stage. Therefore I was wondering if anyone know of any website that might provide small sample video-clips or illustrating animations on the Bournonville style? I have visited the bournonville.com site which was very informative, but still only with pictures and words. Thanks in advance!

Thank you Alexandra for the explanation. But I think the trouble with me is that I actually found the role of Aurora being boring/plain. It didn't leave me with any impressions at all. It wasn't bad but it wasn't stunning either. I just don't have any opinion at all about who was the better interpretor of Aurora. I guess and hope it's all about experience. Because you sure should have an opinion at least? The performances that touched me the most of those two times I've seen Sleeping beauty was as I have mentioned the Lilac Fairy(by one specific dancer) and also the Fairy of power (I'm not sure if that is what she is called in English). How can you judge somebodys accomplishment in one variation from for example Don Quixote in different ballet competitions? (I apologize if this topic already has been discussed over and over again)

My first "real" live ballet performance was Sleeping Beauty staged by Dame Beryl Grey (from the Royal Ballet). Even though my very first actual live ballet experience was a production of Don Quixote by the Royal Swedish ballet School and they most definitely inspired and impressed me! Why is that Nutcracker seems to be the far most common ballet in the US, every local studio seems to have it's own production of it? I don't even know the real synopsis of it. The only Nutcracker I've seen is erhhm the Barbie version I'm afraid