Cliff

I'm a straight man who likes math and science and art and literature. It seems to me that there are several factors why men are less involved in art & literature. Men work longer now and have more leisure time options. A century ago people made music to entertain themselves and their families. Then the invention and inexpensive distribution of recorded music reduced the need to do it yourself. People didn't become less musical, they just shifted from producers to consumers. Since the 1970s men have started working out, have easy access to recorded films, 10x the television channels, and videogames. Art is sacrificed to the time shortage. Historically when women move into an area it loses stature and men move out. More women into art & literature would be expected to result in less men. This is probably more relevant than the feminine qualities of ballet.

In the recent Lord of the Rings movies, an actual actor (Andy Serkis) played the part of Gollum. A computer animated image of Gollum was then superimposed on top of the actor's image. Although expensive, it is possible to take the film of a real dancer dancing and overlay it with the image of an actress. In other words, any actress could be cast as Margot Fonteyn and then shown dancing. Meryl Streep could play the part.

According to several (NYCB) biographies I've read, dancers continued to take classes even after being promoted. So how, exactly, does an early promotion impair a technique?

The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago will be performing Dark Elegies, along with Square Dance and N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz this march. I look forward to seeing Dark Elegies because Lilac Garden and Leaves are Fading made a strong impression.

I received a flyer with the Chicago castings. 4/19 eve Ferri, Corella, Murphy 4/20 mat Kent, Carreno 4/20 eve Herrera, Gomes 4/21 eve Ferri, Corella, Murphy 4/22 eve Kent, Carreno 4/23 mat Reyes 4/23 eve Ananiashvili, Beloserkovsky 4/24 mat Mckerrow, Stiefel Cornejo TBD

The documentary video, "The Dancer," follows the young student Katja Bjorner at the Royal Swedish Ballet school. Does she still dance? And how did her career develop?

Why are some stages raked and others not raked? What sorts of steps become easier or more difficult with a raked stage?

Just a quick note that there is a wondeful performance of Altynai Asylmuratova dancing Tudor's Leave are Fading in the video Essential Ballet: Stars of Russian Ballet.

I'd like to see more works of Tudor.

I only saw a few minutes of the team rhythmic gymnastics, and it looked like much more of a performance art than the other Olympic team events. So I got to wondering. Have any ballet choreographers, perhaps in pursuit of the avant-garde, incorporated the rhythmic gymnastic elements of balls, hoops, clubs, and ribbons into a real ballet? If a pointe shoe can revolutionize ballet, then other items may also offer something to expand the vocabulary.

Art might be more popular that sports if movies and pop music were classified as art. Sports are regularly televised while high art is not. That alone would explain a greater popularity of sports. People watch what is offered. I'd bet that a decade of monday night ballet would generate a huge number of fans.

Was Rubies ever taped? It would have been a fine DVD extra.

This spring the ballet Chicago studio company presented a mostly Balanchine program. In one of the dances (I forgot which one) the women wore long dresses with decorative trim at the bottom. After a misplaced foot, a long arc of trim detached and was dragged along the stage. Suddenly it became very suspenseful. For several minutes the dance continued with the other dancers all making little side steps, and jumps, and adjustments to avoid further disaster. Finally there was a time when half the dancers were paused at the side of the stage. The dancer with the torn dress slipped offstage and returned seconds later with the loose material snipped off. The audience applauded.

All of the ballet DVDs I've seen so far are just VHS transfers. They lack any of the the extra features usually found on movie DVDs. So, what bonus material would you like to see on a DVD? Commentary tracks are a given. Perhaps subtitles for mime. I'd like to have a ballet filmed twice. A distant view for the choreography and a closeup view of the dancers.

I hope there are a substantial number of Balanchine pieces that were recorded, unreleased, and filed away in the dusty attic of the NYCB. At least they wouldn't be lost.

What is the distinction between full length story ballet people and classical ballet people? Aside from full length romantic story ballets. I'd assume that most people who like Giselle would also like Sleeping Beauty.

If I understand correctly then, European fencing minimizes the profile while Japanese fencing emphasizes mobility at the cost of an increased profile. Does this imply that the European style is more defensive and the Japanese style more aggressive?

Potential customers have to see an ad before that can be sold by the ad. A challenge for advertisers is that each individual ad competes with hundreds of other ads for the attention of potential customers. Many people just don't see every ad in the sunday paper. Usually just the full page ads and the occasional ad adjacent to an article. It takes something unusual to grab attention. Perhaps the incongruous pairing of a football and pointe shoe?

I enjoyed The Company. Essentially it was a year in the life of a company and it was quite interesting to see something about the dancers, the backstage activities, and the rehearsals transitioning into the performances. Some reviewers criticized it for lacking a plot. But would they rather have seen yet another story about a novice dancer making it big, or a romantic comedy, or a murder mystery? Its like condemning a Ferrari because it isn't a SUV. One peculiar aspect of the film for me is that I've seen numerous performances of the Joffrey, and recognized, or partially recognized, many of the dancers and some of the locations. Meanwhile the lead actress was unknown.

Tzigane, although I haven't seen many of the mentioned works.

I enjoyed the program and noticed a few things. At one point the narrator was talking about how accurately Degas recreated the dancers in a studio. Then it cut from a painting of dancers in gauzy dresses and loose hair to a live scene of dancers in simple clothes and tightly bound hair. Was Degas historically accurate or was it artistic license? Later on it was mentioned that dancers began performing about age 14, so some things changed. It was considered shocking when Degas painted from above. Yet, I wonder if high ticket prices forced him to sit in the nosebleed section where he unintentionally created some controversial paintings? His style changed as his eyesight diminished. It looked like he stopped painting faces but continued to paint hands in detail.

Are there savants in dance? That is in the technical sense of someone who could master a particular step after it was demonstrated once. If there aren't any such dance savants, then it would suggest that muscle memory is of a different order than the regular memory.

Yes, but it is easy to outsource the jobs of balletgoers to India.

I'm still learning to watch ballet, just like Jaana Heino. My first perfomance was the Bolshoi doing Romeo and Juliet. My seat was way off to the side which made watching the far end of the stage difficult. Consequently when the principals were distant I tended to watch the nearby dancers. Nowadays I sit closer to the center and devote more attention to the principal dancers. I also spent some time looking at the audience. I still do that. Initially I didn't pay much attention to the steps. Later on I did, but found it less interesting than watching the whole dancer. Of course, I've barely studied the steps. Just a little introduction from the little book "Basic Ballet: The Steps Defined" by Joyce Mackie.

Sometimes (less often than I'd like) a segment of ballet is exceptionally beautiful. The dancer sort of flows in a way that seems both elegant and natural. I'm guessing that this is what is meant by musicality. Yet, to me, music doesn't seem to be a factor. It is wallpaper. Music has precise timing. So is musicality another way of saying that a dancer dances with precise timing?