Cliff

As someone who likely lacks any sense of musicality, I'm a bit confused by the discussion so far. When one watches a performance, what exactly indicates musicality?

The arm movements vary in the various types of glissades shown on the ABT site. The forward and backward steps kept the arms nearly motionless while the other directions had noticeable arm movements. Why is this? Cliff

Instead of clockwise and counter-clockwise, there are inside and outside pirouettes. So, is the direction chosen in order to transition gracefully from the preceeding step? Or is there any particular significance or meaning attached to the direction? Maybe in a story ballet an inward pirouette would signify acceptance and outward indicates rejection. Cliff

I voted yes on the theory that any publicity is good publicity. The story was on NPR this morning. When was the last time they ran a ballet related story? Eventually Volochkova will perform again, and there will be more headlines. Its free advertising. Those people inclined to see the worst are unlikely to attend a performance anyway. Other people will be intrigued and may decide to see what the fuss is all about. The one downside I see is that concerns about the weight issue may cause some parents to remove their daughter from ballet. Cliff

Another review is posted at the IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/Reviews/356/35631 To clarify, The Company was shown at the Toronto film festival and might be shown at other festivals. The regular opening is scheduled for 12/25, a typical release date for films with award aspirations. Robert Altman is a great director. I'm looking forward to seeing The Company. Cliff

I went to decent public schools where the art and music classes concentrated on practice, not theory or history. I learned that I lack any musical ability and cannot paint. It was only after discovering ballet that I began listening to classical music. Sorry for shifting the subject. Why is it, that while much of classical music came from German and Austrian composers, there are few German and Austrian ballets? Cliff

A spinoff from the thread "Eras in Ballet History" at http://balletalert.ipbhost.com/index.php?s...showtopic=13172. Regarding the era of the Romantic Rebellion, Alexandra wrote: Which makes me wonder whether there have been any recent productions by gas light. After all, there've been efforts to reproduce exact choreography, costumes, and sets. So why not lighting? Cliff

A scientific genius doesn't break the rules (laws) of nature, instead a new rule is formulated that is closer to the truth than the old rule. Perhaps an artistic genius is doing the same sort of process - breaking the old rule and replacing it with a more general rule. Cliff

The ABT site has a dictionary with some pictures and brief videos of a few steps at http://www.abt.org/education/dictionary/index.html Cliff

I attended the matinee. Several dancer substitutions were announced before the performance, but I didn't remember the names. Cliff

Good review, Treefrog. I just went once, on saturday. Part of I/DNA was unintentionally confusing because a little girl substituted for the young boy. The program notes clarified the situation. At the start a brief film preview was shown of the Joffrey's upcoming season and a feature on Robert Altman's film "The Company." After "Gosford Park," Altman wanted to do a film about something he knew nothing about. Ballet. The focus appears to be the insular social world of the dancers. Many backstage scenes were shown. It looks promising. Cliff

Thanks for posting about this topic. For those of us less familiar with the terminology, would there be a set of pictures or diagrams that corresponded with various examples of the notation? A computer program that could read Benesh notation and generate an animated dancer would be fun. Jumping ahead, would a pair of dancers be represented by two parallel sets of notation? Cliff

Swan Lake. Some time ago I discovered an out of the way library that had three different perfomances of Swan Lake on tape. The idea of watching all three and studying them seemed worthwhile. And it was informative. I enjoyed the dancing; however, the music disagreed with me. Cliff

Ballet is a sport if it gets you out of a physical education requirement.

All the more reason to apply technology and automate the strobe. Why have a human do something that a machine can do better? Attaching a signaling element to the dancer's costume plus an offstage detector would enable precise determination of the dancer's position. Cliff

Strange Prisoners was an ambitious attempt at presenting the abstract concept of Plato's cave allegory. A good effort despite falling short. The strobe effect of Caught was interesting. On a technological note, one way to ease the strict timing requirements is to sync the strobe to the dancer using sensors. There is potential in strobe because it enables - among other things - the illusion that a dancer is gliding though the air. This continues the tradition of pointe shoes in elevating and defying gravity. Mutimedia was new when Astarte premiered back in 1967. Now it's special effects looked old. I was expecting something more mind-blowing and psychedelic. Surprisingly, Astarte was mostly adagio dancing. My favorite was the multimedia-impaired Birthday Variations. Just beautiful ballet. Cliff

I'm unfamiliar with all of the choreographers listed, so I selected Petipa. He created the well known classics that most people think of as ballet. I realize that choosing a greatest based on popularity is suspect. On the other hand, creating the ballets that are commonly used to define real ballet ought to count for something. Cliff

I do some business travel, occasionally on short notice. So I delay purchasing tickets until I'm certain to be free. How easy is it for subscribers to make changes or even to cancel? Cliff

A few scattered comments. It is more accurate to say that Sanskrit is a member of the Indo-European family of languages. About 6000 years ago there existed a language known as primitive Indo-European that subsequently splintered and developed into a large group of languages spoken in Europe, Iran, and India. Similar to how Latin splintered into Italian, Spanish, French, etc. The earliest version of the game of chess originated in Persia around the 6th - 7th century. Some of the rules were different (the bishop and queen had limited movement) although the knight had the same distinctive move. Islam arrived and spread chess throughout it's world. By the middle ages the game had arrived into Europe. In 1470, modern chess was formed in Italy. The next 5 centuries saw a huge explosion of practice and development of theory. There are literally thousands of chess books- for international chess. But considerably less for Persian chess or any of a dozen variants. Going back to the main topic: What is Western about classical ballet? Ballet struggles for support is such relatively well-off places as Cleveland and Ireland. Until recently, non-western societies have generally been poor. And so development of their own dance traditions were impaired. If individual genius is the result of talent plus opportunity, then perhaps there is an analog to society genius? The Renaissance supplied the roots of ballet and the increased freedom and wealth of the West provided the nourishment. Cliff

I think that what ballet implies about Western civilization is the same as what baseball and other professional sports imply: The West invented a usable steam engine. Almost two centuries ago the industrial revolution started in Europe. This produced a large number of people with leisure time and money to spend. Professional entertainment - ballet, baseball, et al. - flourished. On the subject of how the West came to its place in the world, a fascinating book is _Guns, Germs, and Steel_ (subtitled "The Fates of Human Societies") by Jared Diamond. It covers the geographic reasons as to why different cultures developed differently. Cliff

The NYCB tape with Suzanne Farrell in "Tzigane" and "The Four Temperaments."

It seems that the Scottish Ballet has financial problems and that management's answer is to alter the artistic direction from classical ballet to contemporary dance. Thus, saving money by dropping expensive productions like _The Sleeping Beauty_ and _Swan Lake_. Is isn't clear that any less radical changes were considered. Is the issue really elitism? Or are the dancers just referring to the word "elitism" in order to garner more public support? Cliff

I was struck that Knight included everyone who attended a sporting or artistic event as a member of an elite group. Attemps to bring in non-attendees are understandable given the financial situations. However, there is the danger of losing focus. Perhaps the answer is moderation. To pursue the sports analogy, a famous celebrity could be added to a team in order to attract more people. But this would degrade the team's performamce and enrage the current fans. Shouldn't this also apply to art museums and other artistic endeavors? Cliff

There is confusion because the word elite gets applied to two different groups: the athletes/artists and the audience. Knight uses the sports analogy to argue that the public naturally prefers to see the best (the elite). What is the best? In the sports world, the elite is determined by quantified performance. In the artistic world, performance rankings are based on the subjective interpretation of critics who may disagree. I think that the main point of the original article is that art museums are increasingly focused on attracting the people who do not attend art museums in preference to the (elite) people who do. And that this results in questionable exhibits. Cliff

A former world chess champion (Lasker) wrote that he learned more from his losses than his victories.