Drew

Thank you...if anyone could make Taming of the Shrew sit-through-able for me post Haydee/Cragun it would be Osipova or, even better, Osipova/Vasiliev....

I only saw a handful of performances this year, most of them excellent -- or indeed better than excellent (including 2 Cojocaru performances of Aurora in ABT's Sleeping Beauty and Lopatkina making a stunning impression in the, as I think, absurd and trashy Carmen), but the performance that seared itself into my memory this year was Kondaurova in Ratmansky's Anna Karenina: to my eyes she not only made a case for her own performance but for the ballet as a whole. But as to her own performance: the way she looked out into the audience as the thought of suicide first comes to her mind...well, I still see it in MY mind's eye: a strange kind of ecstasy seemed to sieze her. But I was moved throughout by the concrete and differentiated emotion she brought to every scene, whether quiet or intense, domestic or erotic...and also moved (and dazzled) by the sheer dance power she conveyed through her legs shooting out to the side as she was lifted into the air. Throughout she conveyed the sense that a being of enormous intelligence, energy, and feeling was caught in a worldly trap with passionate rebellion turning into still another worldly trap...Which is why the suicide seemed like a flight to freedom, though a despairing one. So: Kondaurova as Anna Karenina: the absolute highlight of my (admitedly limited) ballet going year -- but also a highlight of my ballet-going across the years. Not a lot was said about this performance at the State Theater in the press or online: Kondaurova was "third cast" in New York. Obviously, I think it deserved and deserves attention -- as indeed it got in Russia where she won the "golden mask" for it. (For some context: I'm not a fan of the Cranko-Macmillan full length-story ballets--though I can appreciate the great performances they sometimes inspire--say, Haydee in Onegin. I found Ratmansky's approach to this "genre" rather interesting in its resistance to being a Cranko-Macmillan style crowd pleaser--in its speed, its use of pantomime and tableaux, and in its almost unremitting grimness. The scenic effects are stunning and in many ways carry the ballet almost as much as Kondaurova's performance does. Anyway, I would not mind seeing the ballet again for its own sake though I don't know that it would hold up. I would run to see it again with Kondaurova.)

I, too, will very much miss Ballet.co--and I don't think Facebook or Twitter can fill the same role as the forums, nor play the same "gathering" function even when it comes to information...But I do understand that the cost and work of maintenance is huge.

Colbert's interviews are always in a satirical and often goofy spirit; for one thing he is playing a character who is supposed to be an ego-maniacal buffoon. And he was not remotely MEAN-stupid (for which my model is Letterman interviewing Makarova well before 1989 and asking her why she does not ever go back to Russia very much as if that were a real option for her. She actually commented in some distress that she had been told that Letterman's show was supposed to be funny). My main complaint about Colbert was no video footage at all of Hallberg dancing to "show" what he does in a more effective way than the bit in the studio could and no explanation for the younger television audience of what the Bolshoi is. Just one sentence would have been helpful even if done in a satirical spirit ("Stalin's favorite ballet company"). I thought that in the comedy context David Hallberg "represented" ballet very well--came off as very nice and natural. Colbert's regular viewers also know that Colbert genuinely seems to like/respect the arts or at any rate that he is willing to give them some sort of popular platform. I will say that he seems to me especially interested in and, behind all the goofiness, serious about modern painting and that does not seem at all to be the case with classical ballet. But if you want a serious interview then watch Charlie Rose--though whatever his "seriousness" he can hardly be called knowledgeable. Ratmansky had to correct his confusion between the Kiev ballet and the Kirov ballet. Not making that up. I suppose the producers, or whoever prepares Rose's notes, should take some of the blame for that one. As a ballet fan, I found the slip at least as embarassing as anything on Colbert, but I'm still grateful to Rose for featuring dance artists on his show. Hallberg was excellent on CBS Sunday morning which was also "serious"--and included the story of his injuring himself during the Bolshoi film broadcast of Sleeping Beauty, not saying a word, and finishing the performance. Plus, as one might expect these days, several questions on bullying. The highlight for me, though...some lovely footage of him as a young student.

Thanks to everyone for information about the auditorium. It is very helpful. I definitely hope to see Osipova and Hallberg as well as Cornejo Reyes, but am still finalizing travel possibilities...

Miliosr: There is a possibility I may be able to make it to Chicago for some performances...Can you tell me anything about the theater--especially how good/strong the banking of the seats is downstairs (I am short), sight-lines and the best seats upstairs. Thank you...

Wish they would bring this production on tour--it looks quite lovely and though I'm not a huge fan of pastiche, the bits I watched seemed to have real flair and to capture the spirit of the music with some charm and wit. (Similarly, I'm a youtube skeptic when it comes to forming judgments of dancers, but at least preliminarily very impressed by Heymann--so much so I looked at some other videos of his dancing (Fille, Onegin, Sylphide) and...uh...if THAT is what comes across in the theater, plus what youtube can't capture, then...wow! I think I may be a little dizzy. Elegance, fluidity, ballon, line--where does one stop? delicious beats, gorgeous extensions, good looks--just, wow!)

At some of my very earliest ballet performances she was the star ballerina--partnered by Eugene Collins--with the National Ballet of Washington. Rest in peace.

Could not bring myself to watch Breaking the Waves consequently --too painful--so I just watched bits and pieces when it was on some cable station. I never even wanted to see a Von Trier movie since Breaking the Waves...until Melancholia. Watched it (On Demand rather than in the theater)--LOVED it. And thought Dunst and indeed the whole cast was stunning. As for wierdness...I would say that on the subject of depression many details in the movie were examples of spot-on realism, though of course the movie as a whole is something rather more than that. Dirac: I once read that hard-core Wagnerites were inclined to sneer at those who were all too fond of Lohengrin and not, by implication, say, Götterdämmerung. Perhaps the visually gorgeous and occasionally quite jokey Melancholia will be Von Trier's Lohengrin. (Of course the Wagner allusion is not incidental.) But...yes...absolutely loved it.

I am very wary of this move--I've seen the Mikhailovsky, though pre Duato, and . . . seriously??--but of course I hope for the best for these two extraordinary artists. Personally I enjoy seeing the greatest dancers in the greatest contexts. If the reports on this board are anything to go by, then Osipova's Swanilda, though excellent at ABT, did not have the same kind of impact it had with the Bolshoi, at least as seen in London. I say this not only because of my own enthusiasm for her two London Swanilda performances, but because of the uniform and, in my opinion, justified ecstasy of the London critics. (Though I enjoyed her so much in the role I can't resist noting that Robert Gottlieb described even her ABT Swanilda as being as satisfying as any Swanilda he had seen and he included Mcbride and Makarova.) I am also disappointed at the thought of how this must impact the development of a Hallberg-Osipova partnership. ABT does not cast Osipova and Hallberg that much together, and I had high hopes for their developing their partnership at the Bolshoi. Their partnership seems to me (based on the two performances I have seen) of major artistic caliber, truly inspiring to both artists, and arguably taking Hallberg to heights as a performer that he had not reached before, certainly that I had not seen in him. All in all, I'm a little discombobulated by the news...

maybe Engram with Federico Bonelli? Than sounds right--it was linked to his (Mcgregor's) work on studies of the brain and part of an Ashton tribute program...I think, though, that Cojocaru did something else with Kobborg on the same program...

This is long: call it making up for years of ignoring the company (of which "ignoring" I say something at the end). The Atlanta Ballet has put together a rather ambitious season this year including a Tharp world premier. The opening program took place last week at the Cobb Energy Center. It was made up of two ballets: Kudelka's Four Seasons -- which the company had danced two years ago -- and Mcgregor's Eden Eden. The former is set to Vivaldi (live music for these performances) and is a very engaging, though rather tonally predictable cycle-of-life allegory with a central male figure surrounded by a small and usually somewhat individuated ensemble (an effect Ratmansky was widely praised for in Concerto DSCH) and having a different 'love relationship' pas de deux to match each one of the four 'seasons' of his life. Spring innocence, summer sensuality, fall maturity, winter decay and death etc. (I did a search and it has been written about before on Ballet Alert!). The most unexpected choreographic detail was the rather literal approach to winter -- not only featuring older dancers including company director John Mcfall, but also someone wearing their everyday glasses. That's a "bravo" you hear from very-near-sighted and has-problems-with-contacts me.The male lead's dancing in Winter also includes rather literal gestures invoking back pain, chest pain etc. John Walker was the lead and it's a tribute to his poise that these gestures did not make the audience giggle. Perhaps the best thing about the performance I saw was the joyful and loving devotion brought to the choreography by every dancer on stage. The scenic projections were also lovely. Less appealing to me were the costumes. Program notes spoke generally of the ballet combining older baroque elements with contemporary ones and that is obviously what the costumes were trying to convey...but I found the effect very distracting. Several women in the spring ensemble had leotards with long sleeves cut to evoke pre-20th-century 'historical' styles and skirts, cut out in the front, also evidently suggestion older styles of dress, while other women wore only the leotards and historically themed sleeves: it looked for all the world as if the company had run out of money in the middle of preparing the production and had to skimp on the skirts. In other movements, some women wore slacks with yoga stripes but then had stylized blouses with high collars evoking the 'baroque.' For my taste, it just clashed. And not in an interesting way. As good as the dancers were, they were not always at ease negotiating the sudden speeding up of the choreography to match the shifts in the Vivaldi--and some of the more complex partnering looked as if everyone was concentrating very hard. That vitiated some of the erotic emotion of the ballet, but was I think largely made up for by the overall investment in the ballet by all of the dancers. I was sitting very close and noticed a number of them in the ensemble with distinctive, lovely qualities--one showed unusual ballon, another lush sensuality, another what I can only call delight. I am eager to get to know these dancers better. Still, given their slight difficulties with some of the challenges of the Kudelka in the choreography's faster passages I was a bit dubious the dancers could handle McGregor: but by and large they did what seemed to me a very good job--one small woman in particular danced with all of the appropriately cool and slightly aggressive 'attitude' that the choreography seems to call for. I do think they sometimes lacked the full musical and bodily precision that it needs. Eden Eden has McGregor's trademark very fast, very extreme, very rhythmically pounding choreography. (I believe it, too, has been reviewed on Ballet Alert before.) My companion, who has been going to the ballet for a few years now -- i.e. since meeting me -- did not like it at all and described the dancers as looking like "worms writhing in earth." I can't really argue with that, but will say that, for me, the jury is out on McGregor. Certainly compared with what has been on offer from the Atlanta ballet in recent seasons (Dracula), I will take it. That does not exactly mean I think it belongs at the Royal Ballet...Though, in fact, the only McGregor I had seen before was at a Linbury studio performance and the dancers were Cojocaru and (I think) Kobborg. Let's just say with Cojocaru it looked very, very, very good and nothing if not precise. Eden Eden is set to a Steve Reich opera on the theme of cloning and robotics. In fact, my companion criticized this as well as the dancing, objecting to the leap from clones to robots. I was prepared to defend that particular leap. However, the score's voice overs concerning the challenge posed by cloning and robotics to our understanding of the human (what the human 'is,' its relation to technology--or indeed its being as technology etc.) were, in their way, almost as predictable as Kudelka's cycle of life allegory. That is, they could have been more interesting, though I have to admit that had they gotten too interesting they might have become a distraction, instead of, as it were, simply 'framing' the choreography... There are four couples--each emerging from below the stage in stylized hairless quasi-nudity, and each growing into and beyond their own bodies and encountering each other in increasingly intense passages in the opening passages of the ballet; at a crucial point they assume clothing and hair (it's done very simply and effectively with tunics dropping from the ceiling) and presumably, therefore, as the program notes suggest, sexual identity. I found it pretty engrossing and then....a scrim came down and sort of wrecked my concentration. Why exactly? Well, I don't much care for dancing behind scrims but the real problem was that once the scrim came down I could not see the dancers below the top of their ankles which completely threw me out of the performance. I believe the purpose of the scrim was to permit an array of increasingly extreme lighting effects to be projected over the stage picture without, say, endangering the dancers and also to increase--as indeed did the mere fact of a scrim--the general image of dehumanization (or, as I would prefer to think, re-imagining of what humanization is). I can't quite say if it worked or not based on this one performance, especially having lost the dancers feet and thus, too, the sense of their contact with the floor--but Alwin Nikolais was way ahead on this sort of thing in any case. Nonetheless, I'm glad the Atlanta Ballet acquired Eden Eden and would not mind seeing them dance more McGregor. Indeed my one complaint about the program is that it was rather short. It could easily have fit another 20-25 minute ballet on the program and have stayed within the 2 1/2 hour mark. Perhaps there are economic considerations? Certainly I very much appreciated the live music for the Vivaldi. I also know just the choreographer who would have made a perfect fit with this program. Would it be too much to hope that the company would once again take seriously their early history as a Balanchine offshoot? When I first got to Atlanta I saw that they proudly posted on their website a critic's praise for McFall's leadership in getting rid of the "dusty" Balanchine repertory. For those wondering why I do not often show myself supportive of my local company on Ballet Alert, start there... Later this season the repertory includes Elo and Wheeldon as well as the new Tharp. I am pleased by these developments...Now, would one Balanchine ballet a season be too much to ask?

Thank you Alexandra...it's rather touching to see this being worked on by students--as if the vision scene were an allegory of ballet itself (which it sort of is anyway)...though perhaps that's not exactly the point of this thread.

Mutatis Mutandis, I don't think Sweden is alone in this respect...

Everyone sounds pretty irritated with Millepied and dismissive of the recent turns his career has taken. I agree that it was long past time for pretending he was a principal dancer at NYCB, but since he is retiring as a dancer, I'm up for some nice memories, too -- including the first time I saw him dance which was at an SAB workshop performance. He was dancing in a new Robbins work and made an excellent impression: one instantly saw that he was very talented and I felt nothing but giggling delight at the appropriateness of his name for a ballet dancer--a point that I vaguely remember Clive Barnes was not too high-minded to make. It seemed to me at the "height" of his dance career, he had the potential to become a go-to leading man for NYCB--especially as Woetzel's career was winding down. That is, he showed himself to be someone with presence who could impress technically and pair effectively with ballerinas. In recent years, I had given up thinking he would realize that potential or even return to his career as a dancer, but when he was dancing with NYCB I was pretty happy to see his name on a program. I certainly have never held his good looks against him. His choreography? I have not had the chance to see any of his ballets--and read mixed reports about them to say the least--but if he can find creative things to do with a musical about competitive standing-in-place that will be a triumph of sorts.

Big Oops...I just realized that the short program is the only portion of competition I watched, so that's what I thinking of in my earlier post comparing the skaters...Perhaps I will stick to posting on ballet in future...

Can't speak to technical issues--though I was under the impression Kostner's jump content was less than Czisny's?--but I loved Alissa Czisny and did not think she looked particularly tentative, certainly not in the context of her hardly forceful style; Kostner does have a more forceful (though, to my eyes, a somewhat all over the place) style and I think she will probably look even more 'out there' and so, in the context of her skating style, be more effective, later in the season. Czisny certainly won the costume competition over everyone else many times over... Completely agree with you about D/W. [edited much later to say that it turns out I was thinking of ladies short program not free skate...apologies...]

In thinking about the background figures on the poster--barely visible as they emerge, perhaps threateningly, from behind the bull--I wondered whether the whole image does not belong in the line of Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People." Delacroix's female "Liberty" stands in a pose that, very loosely, recalls an attitude en arrière (at least to my eyes) as she stands out against a crowd of (male) figures. More distantly the attitude pose makes me think of much older statues of Mercury alighting on earth. Delacroix's content is "historical" (the July 1830 revolution), though the history was, for him, very recent--that is, still polemically alive. The ballerina on a bull poster conjured an event that had yet to occur (and, in a way, has yet to occur). And is certainly still polemically alive. I think it's really kind of fabulous, but am willing to acknowledge that if I hated the political connotations then I might find it harder to admire aesthetically. Don't know really. By the by, I have never seen the bull statue in the photo but assume many others on this forum have; it's a statue by Arturo di Modica that is located -- I go by Wikipedia -- in Bowling Green Park in Manhattan.

Absolutely!

When the dancing is choreographed, lit, shot, and edited the way it is in this trailer it scarcely matters that the woman is Natalia Osipova...except maybe when it comes to the height of the final leap and even that could be an effect of camera angles. It's sort of depressing to me, but perhaps the actual show will be more dancerly...

I take the 'no politics' rule very seriously, but am hoping we can at least take notice on Ballet Alert that one of the iconic protest images of recent months is a figure widely referred to as a "ballerina" on top of the statue of a bull. The dancer atop the bull IS in a ballet position, attitude en arrière, but is barelegged and barefooted. One article I read described her as on pointe--which she most certainly is not--but which does show the degree to which the "ballerina" moniker has taken hold. I am actually very late to the party regarding this image which I only learned about this week, though I gather it has been circulating on the web for months...I did a search on Ballet Alert, but saw no mention of it, so thought it was worth posting about even belatedly. I had trouble finding a politics-neutral link, but people might try googling "the ballerina and the bull." If you search "news" most of the entries that come up will be pertinent. I find this poster a much more interesting phenomenon with regard to the popular idea of a "ballerina"--graceful, yes, but empowered and anti-elite--than, say, Aronovsky's Black Swan.

Fair enough...but I will repeat (I promise moderators: just once) that it's a balance. In part, because Whelan's and Kowroski's and Mearns' "artistic development" can impact their performances in the ballets you (and most of us) do want to see. What if a sublime Kowroski Diamonds was partially nourished by, say, Prism, the Diamond Project work which Tomasson created for her early in her career? (I would say, a pleasant enough work, which featured her effectively, but hardly a masterpiece.) And for many of us, it was a Richard Tanner work that first brought the fabulous pas de chat of Ashley Bouder to attention: presumably that work was important for her as an early featured role. Now IS it really always the case that dancers are "getting" something from these new works that spills over into other better works? Surely, one might well respond, an Ashley Bouder's talents transcend any one given work! She hardly needed Richard Tanner. Might it not even be detrimental to dancers to be putting too much energy into weak ballets, works that cultivate, as it were, values that are not particularly balletic or musical? An important question certainly. Heck, Croce seemed to think that focusing on the hardly mediocre Macmillan made the Royal incapable of dancing the much greater Ashton. Though--to give a pertinent counter-example--Farrell seems to have learned a lot from dancing Bejart for years! So I don't have tidy answers. But it is not at all clear to me that Whelan and Kowroski and Mearns have not benefited from having works created for them and that those benefits have not also energized their dancing in far better ballets: the ballets everyone agrees they love to see them dance. Whelan in particular first seemed to make her mark in Peter Martins' works. Personally, I like to see programming at NYCB emphatically Balanchine-centric (uh...Robbins, too, matters, but his works seem much more uneven to me). And I wish they would do more "offbeat" Balanchine revivals (Gaspard de la Nuit?). But I actually don't know if that's what the new audiences want or not--as opposed to long-time balletomanes. I once had to stifle myself when a friend raved to me about Red Angels specifically at the expense of the "boring" Concerto Barocco (he's a very good friend). It does seem pretty clear that under Martins, the company has been over-gambling on new works and new choreographers. I won't argue with anyone there and I share the disappointment, but I don't share the outrage. And I can't help but give Martins credit for his support of Wheeldon and Ratmansky and even the initial opportunities he has given others. Kevin O'Day did one much-praised work for NYCB and Martins gave him another chance. Likewise with Mahdaviani. Well, gee, I would have done the same...I fully support, too, the decision to invite Forsythe: he did not seem to 'take' at NYCB, but he is a major figure in contemporary ballet. As for more recent years, they have brought a lot of seemingly embarrassing flops--and Wheeldon and Ratmansky... As for ABT being more exciting these days than NYCB as someone above commented? It's an entirely different kind of company, but given the kind of company it is, based in full length works, its productions of several of the classics are at least as embarrassing as NYCB's premiers and with less excuse. (I say nothing of some of the appalling premiers they offered post-Tharp, Pre-Ratmansky.) As for the twentieth-century full-length works ABT dances--honestly, even as ballerina vehicles I consider many of them quite mediocre. (Onegin? If you think it's a great ballet, then it's no great surprise you don't like NYCB.) And what is a ballet like Onegin there for if not the "artistic development" of ballerinas like Vishneva who, I don't doubt, love dancing Pushkin's heroine as much as Whelan loves having works created for her. Ditto Osipova and Juliet. The one thing you can say for these works is that they are crowd-pleasers. So, score one for McKenzie and ABT--but, no, I don't find this approach exciting. As far as the classics are concerned no-one seems to hold ABT to a serious standard--that is they complain, but without the sense of urgency one gets in complaints about NYCB. When it comes to Balanchine people do rightly hold NYCB to a serious standard. It's as if people expect sub-par productions or a lackadaisical corps in the great nineteenth-century ballets at ABT. The attitude seems to be that as long as a Cojocaru or an Osipova or a Murphy are at the front of the stage who cares? I am not unsympathetic to this view; I love those dancers--and have never opposed ABT having a few regular guest stars. But if the Martins' regime is flawed, I would hardly hold up Mckenzie's as an artistic paradigm. The fact is that we need some major companies that are at least trying to get new works on the boards on a regular basis. Presumably both Mckenzie and Martins are in their final years as directors of their respective companies...we will see if whoever comes next does better. Maybe, maybe not.

There's a balance I think...Perhaps the company (any company) would not be able to keep some top dancers without new works? Perhaps some dancers would grow bored and their boredom would show in how they performed even the works you (who "pay for it") most want to see? It's not unheard of for even failed works to develop aspects of dancers that then inform their other performances in positive ways...Dancers are living bodies who need to be inspired in a particular way (not a book, as you made the comparison, to be put down or picked up at will with no harm done to the words on the page while the book stands sitting unread on a shelf). Having said that, I don't entirely disagree with you at all (and I also know you are just trying to make a point): dancers' desire for new work should not serve as the main basis for a company's artistic policies, certainly not for a major ballet company's policies. But I don't think it can be entirely dismissed either, especially when a company is founded on a principle of creativity. For that matter, audience popularity--that is, what people are willing to pay for--should not be the main basis for a company's artistic policies either: no matter how much they pay. It's a balancing act there too. After all, it's not as if Variations For a Door and a Sigh which the company revived so brilliantly--with Von Aroldingen's coaching as I understand--is ever likely to be a sold out affair...

They are stunning and, at least on Youtube, Novikova made them seem perfectly light and easy.

I am editing to note that Macaulay really only argues that the new Fall NYCB seasons have been seasons of treading water--which is not quite the same thing as a global judgment on the company under Martins or even over the last couple of years. However the comments on Macaulay's phrase here on Ballet Talk have broached the issue as a larger one and I'm responding to that response: Who are the top two classical ballet choreographers working today? Presumably most fans would answer: Christopher Wheeldon and Alexei Ratmansky. The first emerged at NYCB and did his first major works there; the second emerged elsewhere but has choreographed breakthrough ballets there, works that greatly enhanced his reputation in the States at the very least and have been re-staged elsewhere. I also wonder whether either would have had these opportunities with NYCB if the company had not kept up its devotion to having constant premiers. I'm not saying most have not been mediocre--by all accounts (and from what I have seen too) they have been; but I'm not sure waiting around for 'a Wheeldon' works if the Wheeldon never gets opportunities to shine before anyone knows he IS a Wheeldon. If you don't like Wheeldon or Ratmansky, fair enough. But they are widely respected...and I have not often heard people suggest the names of other choreographers supported by other companies whose work they like better. And also: who, according to many viewers and critics, (Macaulay included) is one of the most exciting if not the most exciting American Ballerina in the world today--NYCB's Sarah Mearns. I am sure several others on this board would want to place the names of Tyler Peck and Ashley Bouder beside that of Mearns (along with ballerinas from other companies but my focus here is NYCB). Add to the above the fact that NYCB at least dances a lot of Balanchine on a regular basis and indeed many critics (Macaulay included) very much praised the quality of their dancing in Balanchine just last spring, and I would say that "treading water" makes more sense to me as a judgment on a particular season or group of performances--which, in fact, is how Macaulay uses the phrase--than on the company's recent history as a whole. Certainly "Ocean's Kingdom" was a predictable failure (seriously: who thought it was going to be more than a trifle at best). At the very, very least, the ups and downs of the Balanchine performances over the Martins' years rather confirm that by keeping Balanchine alive in repertory, the company has at least preserved the conditions necessary for these works to be realized in great performances whether it is an unexpectedly thrilling Chaconne with Wendy Whelan (as I saw some years back) or Mearns in Diamonds--which I have been reading about this season. The fact is that institutions like NYCB are never going to hit it out of the ballpark every season let alone every performance. So, from my perspective, it's best to take a longer or 'big picture' view -- while of course one may also register short term disappointments. When I take the long view, I see top dancers and top ballets emerging from the company over time--and not just "in house" talents, but really major figures. I may say I'm disappointed with this or that aspect of the company's policies or performances (and the new ticket pricing system????? What the ****--uh, I don't want to be banned from this board, but...). So I would say: maybe not Michael Phelps, but not treading water either.