Mel Johnson

And I hope any nude scenes aren't at the end. I mean, who goes grave-robbing nekkid?

a rather ingenious use of the Google search engine for research purposes.

Actually, it wasn't a Google search that did it. It was Invision's own internal search engines for the boards. It reduces the size of the sample to the point where every datum becomes significant. At least, that's one way of taking statistics. The other way is to canvass a huge number of respondents, so that each datum becomes less important, but larger trends become evident. Of course, I would also wonder about the 1948 poll that showed Dewey beating Truman. In that poll, the responders were limited to people who had telephones. In 1948, that was a statistically significant number, and those who didn't were likely Truman voters. Not so now.

Kind of peculiar how St. Petersburg and Moscow have crossed over in fifty years. The Maryinsky (late Kirov) used to be home to a company that looked like what would have happened had Balanchine NOT defected in the 1920s. The Bolshoi was all about circus tricks. Stalin's Ministers of Culture kept raiding Petersburg (Ulanova a case in point), so that the capital would have the company that the Marshal wanted to see.

It's not completely failed, I think, but it's not in good shape. Lots of factors would figure into it. What I find particularly appalling is the insurance angle. It's a real bad scene when an insurance company doesn't pay out on things for which its clients have paid to be covered.

I get the distinct recollection of Sir Wilfrid's line in Agatha Christie's marvelous Witness for the Prosecution:

"When this trial started he had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel."

EDITED TO ADD: And tax cuts for the wealthy have disincentivized deductible contributions to not-for-profits and other organizations.

The current RB production of Beauty is the 1946 Messel production, which was the production of my youth. Yes, it was dowdy in many respects, but there was an electricity that ran through it; perhaps Petipa attending all those scientific lecture-demonstrations had a salutary effect after all! Often, my prescription for companies losing their way in classicism is to mount this production.

While tending the posts on the Ballet Talk for Dancers board, a phrase hit me that I believed that we're seeing more and more lately. More than we ever used to. It was that students or their families ""can't afford"" classes or the insurance coverage to pay for dance-related injuries.

I ran a search on the quoted (note the double "s) phrase, and sure enough, the search wouldn't go before 2004. An ordinary search on "pas de cheval" ran right back to 2001. There are nine pages of hits and it isn't until the middle of page 5 that we get back to 2005. Of the pages before 2006, a lot of the "can't afford"s are about "I can't afford to miss more classes" or ballet schools "can't afford to do business that way". At 2006 and after, the "can't afford"s turn more into "My parents can't afford to send me to more classes" or "We can't afford the treatment because our insurance won't cover it."

I doubt very much that our demographics on the other board have changed in any significant way. Have I discovered something that Wall Street ought to be monitoring?

A good deal, all rights reserved, of Spears' early performing history is owned by the House of the Mouse. It will be interesting to see how that develops. Any input on how the show went?

Yep. The Vaganova Institute is at St. Petersburg. Both places have lots of bynames.

This is a 1941 short that was screened under the rubric, "plus selected short subjects".

If it's not a part of the will or a codicil attached thereto, then the executor is under no obligation to destroy, or cause to be destroyed. VN could have taken out a full-page ad in the NY Times, and if it weren't witnessed by two people, then it really doesn't have the necessary legal weight to compel an executor to do anything.

Roland Petit made him a dirty old lounge lizard.

A word here about how professional archivists deal with papers during the "appraisal period" (not a dollar value estimate, but a summary of the importance of the materials to the collection): An initial assessor views the collection and makes a statement as to the content. Then there is a section on "disposition" - where it went, whether to collection or out and why and where. It is up to the appraiser how much of the "disposed" material is copied to file. In this case, should the executor act to declare the items as "to be destroyed in accordance with Last Will and Testament", then that has to be done. The executor must act, however. It looks to me as though these papers will make it to public domain, if Dimitri hasn't acted to date.

Those nasty KGB-ish politics eventually wear down the best of men.

I'm sure this is the case when KGB has nothing to do with. In general it was rarely an initiative of KGB to be after somebody. The "bright idea" mostly came to them from the personal environment, mostly colleagues. My guess is that administrative duties in such a star-ish company as Bolshoi may be worse than any KGB, at least for a person with an orientation for creativity mostly.

Proof positive the FSB (KGB) was not involved: Ratmansky's body was not discovered in his bathroom, partially cut and sawn into neat 2.5cm dice, with more than half flushed down the toilet,and the Moscow Coroner did not rule it a suicide.

And as Igor Stravinsky said: "Since you're going to steal anyway, steal from the best!"

Not terribly surprising, as the RB version dips deep into the corporate memory of the company, and their first production was done by Sergeyev at the Old Vic Theatre, which had a TINY stage (not as small as the Mercury, but almost). I've seen a photo of the company onstage at the Vic and it was a large crowd in a cramped frame. Now, the NBCuba production was based on the Fedorova version, so SHE was trying to do what Pavlova did, and kept the Snow Queen and King in. After all, the transformation music and Snow Scene was Pavlova's "big ballet" for much of her career. Sergeyev kept them in because he didn't have enough machinery backstage to work the Act I transformation, and besides his audience expected them.

And there's Marian Smith's Ballet and Opera in the Age of Giselle, which is practically all backstage.

Omigawd! He's 60?! That means that I'M...Aaaagh!

Someday, I've got to grow up. Maybe when I retire.

And if for some reason, you need to remember the original cast of "Symphonic Variations", sing the names to the opening theme of the music: "Margot Fon-teyn, Moira Shear-er, Michael SOMES, Brian SHAW, Henry DAN-ton. (new phrase) and PAM-ela May...."

If you're a Shade or a Wili, ANY unity exercise is a good idea! Swans are less so, as the choreography uses more visual variety, which is one of its many strengths.

I hadn't considered the "toi" as being more than echoic of the act of spitting, but the "Teufel" idea is a good one and probably works into the etymology somewhere. In the eastern part of Germany, it used to be "ptui", but then, where my ancestors came from was SO far east that sometimes it was Germany, sometimes it was Austria-Hungary, sometimes it was Russia, and now it's in Poland! Diane is right about avoiding the Evil Eye (mal'occhio). Spit if you don't have any salt to throw over your left shoulder!

IIRC, La Bernhardt broke her knee in 1909, but the leg didn't come off until sometime like 1915-16. I still think that Davis affected that hitch in her git-along in the 1955 The Virgin Queen based on Bernhardt's film.

"Le Combat" was based on the Metrical Romance by Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, which also made a pretty good silent movie. Before that, it is credited as a probable source for parts of Shakespeare's Cymbeline. When it was produced with its "corps" of male soloists, It was usually called "Le Combat", but when only the introduction, central pas de deux and final duel was shown, it was usually called "The Duel". I haven't seen it in over 40 years.

And what of Flora Robson, Fire over England (1937)? There's even some footage left of the necessarily silent Sarah Bernhardt as Elizabeth.

Oh, yes, it's a lot of fun, and Bayadere provides a lot of endorphin spikes for all levels of the company, including the few students who are onstage as supernumeraries.

Used to be, that "Shades" was a standalone. With a lot of companies having full Bayaderes now, most of the activity has already been done before the first curtain-rise. Now, they're mostly all in performance gear, which runs all the way from, "Oboy, let's do this" to "What, again?" There are a lot of people in the show, so lots of different behaviors.

Probably any of the above, less sitting in a chair for the women. Tutu, you know.