canbelto

You're not alone. Union Jack is the one Balanchine ballet I will never sit through again. Way too much fluff/dancing ratio.

And in the US the ladies will give themselves a slight poof in their buns or a part down the middle to frame the face, while in Russian companies the ultra severe pulled back bun is the standard look.

Just to clarify, I didn't see the bubble wig, I just have seen V.S. wear what might be called hair extensions. I follow him on Instagram and he posts performance pics where sometimes for the more romantic roles he wears extrensions to give his hair the poof of Korsuntsev, Hallberg, or in the past, Ruzimatov. And then in more neoclassical stuff he wears his shorter, flatter non-poofy hair (more attractive, IMO). Seems as in Russia, ''poof" is de riguer for males in romantic roles, whereas in the US male danseurs prefer a slicked back look.

I found this picture online: http://www.dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2014/01/29/mariinsky-ballets-swan-lake-at-the-kennedy-center-by-carolyn-kelemen/ Looks less like a wig than hair extensions.

Isn't Somova no longer blonde? Recent photos of her show her with brown hair.

So sorry to hear about Keenan's hip surgery, amiaow. I hope that she has a speedy and very successful recovery.In regard to the overhead lifts, at the last nine Mariinsky Festivals I believe that they've always been performed by both home and guest artists (including the one Festival when Swan Lake was performed six times!). This is my only knowledge of what might happen on the home stage. I was at one Chicago string, 2006, and only one of the three ballerinas did them. I got a feeing that they were taking it easy on that tour. Alina Somova did them in London in 2011. As I recall one ballerina did them in one out of three performances while the other two did them both times in Costa Mesa, 2013. In Naples, Italy last autumn, I believe two of the three ballerinas omitted them. My guess is that it's more likely to occur in places that aren't familiar with the Mariinsky. I don't mean to imply that they lower their standards overall, because from what I've seen they don't. This is the only major technical challenge that I've noticed omitted. Is that more than you ever wanted to know about this? Just trying to keep the ball rolling until we start hearing about the next performance. Added comment: Rock the house, Anastasia ! Thanks Buddy! It's interesting that they're always performed at home but seem to be at the dancers' discretion on tour. It's kind of an iconic move too.

I'm surprised to hear that the overhead diagonal lifts in Act 2 were omitted. I had read reports of tours from other cities that mentioned the omission of the Act 2 lifts but thought that was a one-off thing. Is it now standard practice to omit the Act 2 lifts? As for the post-baby Somova, here's a video that shows that indeed, she seems to have gained some weight and also muscle tone in her upper and lower body.

I'll just add that I really enjoyed seeing Teresa Reichlen cast against type in Who Cares? I know she's done this role before but I usually associate her with introverted, adagio roles. While she's not a natural in Who Cares? she was very elegant and beautiful. I absolutely loved the two back-lifts Fairchild and Peck executed. Just perfect execution, no hesitation.

Don't know whether it was exactly the Plisetskaya kick, but Lydia Ivanova in her brief career gained a lot of attention for her unorthodox grand jetes, which were described as bigger and less lady-like than her predecessors.

I liked the opening night cast so much i went again this afternoon. It was an even better performance. Kammermusik was much sharper. Krohn and Stafford danced with more energy than opening night. Kowroski and Angle exceeded their own previous high standards in the Concerto Barocco pas de deux, and Mearns was a wonderful foil for Kowroski. Who Cares? was as always a delight.

Since the Sochi Olympics are coming up I'd like to bring up that in figure skating, there is something similar. These fans are called "ubers" and they often follow their favorite skater from competition to competition, reporting back to skating forums if there's been any changes in costume or program. They're often allowed into practices and they'll tweet or instagram photos of their skaters in practice. They set up fan sites, and the fan sites more often than not include fan-fic about their skater. They'll throw flowers and teddy bears on the ice or try to cheer louder than the other skaters' set of ubers. Being an "uber" requires so much energy and disposable income that I've often wondered if a portion of them are paid by the skaters themselves. I'd like to think not but I wonder.

I went to opening night. I didn;t much care for Kammermusik, but Concerto Barocco and Who Cares? were just sublime. I'd recommend catching the Fairchild/Peck/Reichlen/Bouder cast if you can this weekend. They are breathtaking. Maria Kowroski and Sara Mearns were such great foils in Concerto Barocco and Maria did some of the best work I've seen her do. The Fairchild/Peck "The Man I Love" is worth the price of admission alone. Simply magnificent.

I think another difficulty is finding a partner with whom you get along with, matches you physically, and with whom you have good chemistry onstage. Long term partnerships like Fonteyn/Nureyev, Ferri/Bocca, or Whelan/Soto are rare. Even rarer are the onstage/offstage partnerships. I remember reading an interview with Sergei Polunin where he talked about the fact that when he left the Royal Ballet, part of it was he was having difficulty with his female partners. They weren't getting along. After a disastrous rehearsal with Alina Cojocaru he left. Most co-workers with whom we don't really get along we can at the end of the day just pack up and go home. Dancers have to go onstage and pretend to love each other (many times) after maybe a whole day of arguing during rehearsals.

I just don't really like the tone of the article which seemed to imply that under Dorofeeva and Asylmuratova, kids were allowed to run wild and skip classes and now Tsiskaridze is putting the discipline back in the school. I doubt this was the case. What I do believe is that Asylmuratova was maybe more "student centered" in her approach. I don't see anything wrong with telling the kids it's okay to go home if they're very tired after a long rehearsal or performance or occasionally ignoring the shoes rule. Kids are kids.

I don't see why walking down the hallway in ballet shoes is banned. I'd imagine that it's convenient for students to run from class to class in ballet shoes.

There's an article about how Tsiskaridze is clamping down on discipline with the students: http://lifenews.ru/mobile/news/125382 Among the tidbits: Asylmuratova occasionally let students skip class if they had long rehearsals. This is now banned. Also, apparently going to class in ballet shoes used to be allowed, now it's banned.

Tiler Peck was a wonderful Coppelia the last time I saw her. As for the production except for the third act (which has some of Balanchine's own choreography) it is very similar to the ABT's production. It's basically a traditional Coppelia production with all the mime and story telling intact.

The ONLY thing I don't like about the 1958 performance is Diana Adams as SPF. She just seems too chilly and aloof for SPF. Her smile is very forced, like she's the type of person who'd never touch chocolates or hang out with little kids.

I really love "Letter From an Unknown Woman." Very intrigued about Joan Fontaine offstage -- she seems to have had a sharp, even prickly sense of humor that was at odds with her ladylike onscreen persona. It's a shame she never reconciled with her sister Olivia.

One of the best and the worst happened on a single evening. ABT's Month in the Country was absolutely sublime -- just a beautifully detailed, nuanced performance. Then they followed it up with a horrifyingly bad performance of Symphony in C where I really wanted to cover my eyes.

This sounds suspiciously like a somewhat ceremonial job.

Aww I like the fluffy multi-layered flower dresses. Think they're much less offensive when the flowers are dancing. You get to see the layers fluffing up and down and take on a life of its own. Much like Ginger Rogers' famous "feathers" dress in Top Hat.

Also, Balanchine's Nutcracker adheres much more closely to the original Ivanov choreography. The storyline follows the original Nutcracker more closely, and the choreography does as well. The mime of the prince, the candy cane variation, and many parts of the grand pas de deux (including the Sugar Plum Fairy being slid along the floor and the shoulder jump lifts) are part of the Ivanov notation and things that he danced while a student. So the Balanchine Nutcracker is maybe a more "authentic" Nutcracker experience, whereas the Ratmansky has a lot of Soviet influences (like making it a love story fantasy).

Definitely go see the NYCB one. That's the gold standard of Nutcrackers, especially if you're bringing along kids. It's very family friendly and the NYCB casts nowadays are great. The Ratmansky version has a darker edge and the staging is not as beautiful or magical. I'd say it's a good version for people already familiar with the NYCB Nutcracker, but I'd always use the NYCB Nutcracker as my "intro" version.

Joy Womack has her own youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/reagan1233/videos?shelf_id=3&view=0&sort=dd You can view her dancing there.