canbelto

This summer for the first time I did the "stage door" thing a few times and met quite a few ABT dancers and they were all very friendly, patient, and polite. They are also considerably tinier than one would imagine.

I think at this point if the journalists are baiting these two rather eccentric personalities into saying wackier and wackier stuff. They make good print. Alagna seems to be trying to play up the heartbroken card, and she seems to be playing up the "I was always too good for this loser" card. Typical of bitter exes.

Bolshakova is now gone from the Mariinsky roster.

I also got the blu-ray dvd. I have to say that I found the scenery for this Swan Lake to be absolutely awful. Act 1 is ok, although I dislike the updating to "Imperial Russia." But it had a kind of nice opulence. The beautiful "white" acts were what I couldn't accept. Instead of a lake, moon, and rocks we got what seems to be a completely black stagedrop with shiny spiral staircases. Act 3 reminds me of some "haunted house" Halloween special, complete with two huge candelabras, some vague cobweb-like stage frames and a gaggle of "witches" that accompany Odile's entrance. The character of all the national dances was ruined by the fact that all the women were dressed like they were again, at a fancy Halloween party/masked ball. What I did love about this production was the choreography, especially the preserved 1895 Ivanov choreography of the white actws. I loved the children that surround Odette in Act 2, and the swans miming Odette's tears at the beginning of Act 4. I also loved when the black and white swans link arms and dance together, as if they were collectively in mourning. I liked the feathery, longer tutus of the swan corps. They swished and swayed a lot like Ginger Rogers' famous "feathers" dress in Top Hat, which gave their movements a sense of lightness and grace. I also like how their longer, more feathery tutus contrasted with Odette's shorter tutu. It symbolizes a sort of hierarchy. Odette is Swan Queen. I'm disappointed that some of Ashton's interpolations are gone, like the pas de quatre, and his solo for Siegfried. I also thought Nunez's O/O was a great success. She has the tall stature and long lines that seem to be so important nowadays when directors cast O/O, but I love her warmth as a dancer. I also love how she doesn't for a minute act like a grande tragedienne. She makes Swan Lake a very human drama. I loved how she was capable of the grand gesture, like her sweeping attitudes in the pas de deux, but her scissones in Odette's variation had a wonderful lightness. I didn't love Thiago Soares' Siegfried. I thought he was inoffensive enough if you accept that Siegfried should just be a cavalier who supports Odette, but his variations were unremarkable, and I thought he had little chemistry with Nunez, despite my understanding that they are married offstage. Overall though for the little moments that almost all other productions delete, like the swans' mime in Act 4, this dvd is worth it.

I think there might be your problem. Youtube videos are often terribly synched with regards to music and movement. I would never use youtube videos as the main way to judge a dancer. The 10 minute clip minute means dances are often broken up so there is lack of continuity. As for Osipova, she is a force of nature, a phenom, who defies gravity. The sheer exhuberance of her dancing is something I'll never forget. I think one either likes that style of dancing or not.

There is one with Vishneva and Malakhov and the Tokyo Ballet. Unfortunately it's only available in Japan. Great performance though and well worth seeking out. I would stay away from the recent POB version. Pujol's Giselle I found rather weak technically and emotionally colorless.

A similar parallel can be found i think in the performance of Wagner's works after Richard Wagner's death. For years his widow Cosima exercised iron control of the "Master's" works and was infuriated by any little change in staging. She also tried to prevent his works (particularly Parsifal) from being performed outside of Bayreuth. Wagner himself was a considerably more practical man when it came to his own works. Eventually the Wagner family's iron grip loosened (it had to), although the family still runs the Bayreuth Festival. I suspect the same thing will happen to the Balanchine Trust over time. Whether it's in our lifetime is another matter.

Osipova has said in interviews that she's done Kitri so much that she could do it if they woke her up at 3 am in her sleep. I don't blame her if she wants to expand her horizons.

Maybe not the most beautiful, but I think that Act 2 of Butterfly is unmatched for its ability to touch the heart. Every time I've seen Butterfly, I've seen grown men crying during Act 2.

It's ironic because Mr. B was one of the few dancemakers of his generation (or before his generation) who did not have a knee-jerk disfavor of any filmed ballet. Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham were of course strict about not even allowing performance photographs. Moira Shearer caught Ninette di Valois's permanent contempt because she appeared in some films. But Mr. B was not like that -- he even re-touched many of his ballets to suit television better.

The Liebestod. And this is from someone who sometimes has a hard time making it through Act 3 of Tristan.

Weird how different companies seem to have different policies regarding YT. The Balanchine Trust is obviously the strictest, but Paul Taylor and Twayla Tharp are also very strict about their works being on YT. On the other hand dancers within, say, the Mariinsky or Bolshoi often seem to supply house camera videos to prominent YT members, and I can only assume that they're doing so with the tacit consent of the management.

I've seen "Clavigo" on video and I too thought it wasn't "vulgar" at all. It's certainly mature, intense, and somewhat sinister in its themes, but at the same time I thought it was inventive, compelling, and great entertainment. I have only seen the video cast so I don't know if other dancers have been able to replicate the doe-eyed innocence of Clairemarie Osta, the sinister debauchery of Nicholas LeRiche, or the flamboyant sultriness of Marie Agnes Gillot.

This video is available at www.berkshirerecordoutlet.com for about 7.99.

I'm not blithely dismissing anything, just pointing out that the Royal Ballet has never been a completely homogeneous company in terms of schooling and training. What united it was its repertory (Ashton, and later, MacMillan, and de Valois's commitment to the Petipa classics) and that itself created a style. It's sort of like the first generation Balanchine dancers spoke that it was dancing Balanchine's ballets that made them "Balanchine dancers." If that repertory has not been maintained up to standards I don't think it's because the RB lacks talented dancers. Having also seen Nunez both live and on video I don't really see anything "Latin American" about her dancing, other than her ethnic heritage.

That's a rather harsh assessment. All of these dancers have danced with the RB for many years and taken pains to absorb the RB repertoire and yes, style. That's like saying Peter Martins was NOT a Balanchine dancer and never would be because he wasn't trained at the SAB. I also think the "British style" was influenced a lot by its repertoire (Ashton), rather than specific training. Margot Fonteyn and the other "founders" of British ballet had disparate training backgrounds but were united by their choreographer (Ashton) and the vision of Ninette de Valois. To me, the question should be, are these dancers able to do justice to the Royal repertoire? Not whether they were trained at White Lodge.

I miss ketinoa's channel. I particularly enjoyed her videos of the rehearsals. Thanks to her I also got to see some kirov dancers who aren't the "international face" of the company, like Maya Dumchenko.

The extreme skeletal thinness of the dancers, from the corps de ballet to the principals, also alarms me. when I saw the Bolshoi I realized that it is possible for a corps de ballet to look thin, tapered, capable of making beautiful lines, without being positively skeletal. At a certain point the extreme thinness doesn't even look good anymore.

The most bothersome to me is how the MT's repertoire has stagnated, especially since Fateev took over. All the old Soviet/Sergeyev warhorses are back, and many of the reconstructions are gone.

Strangely I like Lopatkina when she's not dancing one of her "signature" roles (Dying Swan, Bayadere, Swan Lake). Those all leave me cold -- her chin doesn't move, her fingers are frozen, and it just doesn't seem like a living breathing performance. But the times I saw Lopatkina dance roles she dances less frequently (Raymonda, Scherherazade, etc.) she's more spontaneous and enjoyable to me anyway.

For me, Uliana Lopatkina. It's not that I don't like her performances, it's just that every time I've seen her I could think of another ballerina, often in the same company, that I'd rather see in that role. I find her performances kind of stilted and overly calculated. But then again I've only seen her after her big injury/maternity leave/comeback. A few youtube clips here and there of her earlier days suggest a more exciting performer.

Sad, if not unexpected news. I saw Swayze on TV not too long ago and he was as charming and funny as ever. Without him, I don't think Dirty Dancing would have been the movie it was, he had a natural charm and grace that made ballroom dancing seem "cool." May he rest in peace and dance in heaven.

I've seen Caroline Kennedy a few times at ballet performances. Maybe my best sighting was during the Romeo and Juliet this year. I all of a sudden heard a little commotion and turned towards the aisle and saw Allegra Kent walking down the aisle. People were randomly saying hi and she was smiling and blowing kisses to it seemed like everyone. She is as pretty as ever, and contrary to the image she presented of herself as a kind of bohemian who made her own purses from rags and stockings, she was very well-dressed and chic.

I really enjoyed that article. I read all the Little House books when I was a kid and I think my favorite book of the series was The Long Winter.

I love how she speeds up her pique turns gradually, until she's finally like a demented whirling dervish. This is a Giselle who you can believe will dance herself till death.