Pamela Moberg

dancemomCA - a bit late in the day, sorry but I have been rushed off my feet. About hotels, try something called Hamburg Tourismus GmbH, they must be on the web. I used to live in Hamburg many years ago, I just loved it. And it it not such a small place, 1.8 million. The opera house is modern, the ballet is good nowadays. In my days the whole place had a very nice atmosphere, hope it has remained so. We are hoping for detailed reports! And lots and lots of good luck from Pamela. And if there is anything I can do, being so close, dont hesitate to ask me.

I sincerely do hope that even those of you not present in Warsaw have been able to see the gala performance. Here, in Sweden, it was broadcast this afternoon. Of course it was wonderful. Brian Joubert was near perfect - Thomas Werner was real cool, but unfortunately the poor guy took a fall. Also, there were the Kerrs of Great Britain - I hadnt seen them before as Sw. TV doesnt broadcast everything. They are not a married couple, but brother and sister and in time they might be as good as Torvill-Dean. Just give them time and experience. Sw. TV has been showing the Finnish girls morning, noon and night, and rightly so. I was just sitting there thinking of an appropriate English word for their skating - yes, I got it at last. The word is serenity. Helene compared Kiira Korpi to Grace Kelly, couldnt agree more. Now I have a question - I am in full agreement, but it would be nice to hear the opinion of others. The Sw. commentator, Lotta Falkenbäck, herself a one-time skater, was of the opinion that the skating style of today more and more approaches classical ballet in style and feel. Indeed so, I am so old that I have actually seen Sonia Henie live. Yes, it is true, I was a kid and she was absolutely on the last leg of her skating career. But I vividly remember, that was the first time ever I saw any skating, except kids on a frozen pond. Well, Henie whizzed round the rink at fantastic speed, suddenly stopped and did a great number of pirouettes, whizzed around again, more pirouettes etc.etc. That was all. That was as far from ballet that one could possibly be. So I am inclined to agree with Ms Falkenbäck. :huepfen024: Anyway, it has been an incredible week. And I just learnt that the Worlds will be held in March 2008 in Gothenburg - tickets will be on sale from March, great contingents of Japanese expected, even Coreans. See you then, folks!

Helene has already reported so perfectly that there is no need for me to add my two cents, well, here is at least half a cent! I have just seen the ladies and I am pleased. Three Finns among the first six. Hooray for Finland, brother country. Kiira Korpi (3rd) as well as Susanna Pöykiö and Alisa Drei were just lovely. The Swedish girl, Lina Johansson, did not do too well, but she has also been injured, yet, a very good attempt and she has really improved since the last time I saw her here in Sweden. Elene Gedevanishvili, whom I like a lot, did not quite succeed this time. Not to worry, she is still very young. Alexandra Ievleva - she looked very tall - was an interesting girl. More of her, please. The Turkish girl who came 10th was not shown on Swedish TV unfortunately. But now a question - this was the European championships and actually a very small bit of Turkey is in Europe - the other side of the Bosporus is in Asia - so this is OK. But when did Israel move to Europe? Must have missed something in the news here... In all my maps Israel is technically and geographically in Asia (Minor). To sum up, it has been a very enjoyable week and tomorrow I know will be wonderful. No nerves and the chance to do what they do best. I love those shows!

Are you really in Warsaw, Helene? Great going! I feel almost ashamed, I am living absolutely next door and I am not there... Well, anyway, you wrote beautifully and like someone who understands what it is all about. I do not profess to do so, I have never been on ice in my life - in fact when I went to the theater school we were strictly for-bidden to skate. But I enjoy watching very much and I view it as I do ballet, as something artistic, and I appreciate the ballet feel and the music and the beauty enormously. But I am not a sports fan, and it would never occur to me to watch hockey - of which there is a lot in Sweden - or football or any other sport. (Sorry, must confess to heavyweight boxing, but it is forbidden here). Of course it is nice to see "golden oldies" doing well - and there were indeed some oldies in the pairs, some were verging on pension age I thought. I am always on the look out for youngsters who look promising but are not yet perfect. Tonight I watched the men and there were three of them I liked a lot. 20-year old Andrei Lutai (Rus) somehow reminded me of a very young Nureyev. Alban Preaubert (France) was just my kind of guy, and Kevin van der Perren from Belgium was wonderful. My own Kristoffer Berntsson was not so lucky, he did his best but had a couple of falls. Talking of Swedish skaters, there is Berntsson, and then the unfortunate Pylkina and Hogner of whom I have seen precious little, I somehow feel that there must be something wrong with Swedish skating. In a way most of them seem so tentative and almost look like they are apologising for being there - fault of training or what? Hope Kristoffer will inspire more youngsters in this country! And tomorrow I will be glued to the set, my absolute favorite Gedevanishvili will be on. I think she is lovely, and that her first name coincides with that of my eldest daughter endears her even more to me. Good night for now, youll hear from me tomorrow night. :huepfen024:

The German couple I mentioned yesterday won gold - I suspected as much. And by the way, they skate for Germany but she is actually Russian, but they were real wonderful and I am sure they will do well in the next Olympics. Otherwise the broadcast consisted mostly of an interview with the only Swedish participant. It is always nice when some new and fairly unexpected skater wins the gold. A very enjoyable evening!

The annual European skating championship started being televised tonight. Held in Warsaw, Poland. I suppose there will be Russian dominance (as usual). Tonight will be the pair skating and sadly the Swedish couple will not participate as they have come down with flu. The Polish pair, Dorota and Mariusz Siudek, 31 and 34 respectively, normally live and train in Canada, but they have returned to skate for Poland. There are a couple of promising French couples as well as a German one. This will go on all week and I hope to be able to report. It is especially interesting if there are some newcomers of the younger generation and also some new countries. Hardly think so, though, the Eastern countries always dominate totally and then the English are good at ice dancing - the Torville-Dean effect, I suppose. Anyway, I look forward to a delightful week in front of the television.

When I was a young ballet student I used to write to dancers asking them for an autographed photo. Almost all of them replied. Then, when I had my ballet school in Spain I gave most of them away to my pupils - all my photos were nicely framed. But I have kept three and they are all hanging in my study now; Margot Fonteyn, Svetlana Beriosova and an authographed program with Alexandra Danilova. There are some antiquarian book shops selling autographs as well, but of course it is more fun to get it from the person him or herself. I might have told this before, but I still blush with shame when I think about it. I saw Flemming Flindt with London Festival Ballet and he was so handsome, really to die for. He had just done the Drummer in Graduation Ball and I asked him (in Danish) to please write with my own fountain pen. It was somewhat old and leaky and I noticed to my horror that his fingers became stained with violet (yes!) ink. But I still keep that old program in my collection - just a bit sad to notice that some of them are no longer with us, f.ex. Toni Lander and John Gilpin - they were marvelous in Etudes. :huepfen024:

Thankyou, rg, for that beautiful Christmas card! Also Happy Christmas to those who are orthodox. My sister-in-law is, so we celebrate the grand total of no less than two Christmasses in our family. For good measure I have also, thanks to my life in Spain, added on Reyes when we all give each other gifts a second time round. DD who studied in Holland wanted to add Dutch Christmas - but no, enough is enough.

This is becoming some sort of political rally, and what I am going to say will be off topic, yet, I strongly feel that something needs clarification. GWTW wrote: "Again, the hallmark of democracy is tolerance of others" couldnt be more with you there, and "as long as they are not harming others". Is not the arsons, molotov cocktails, knifings, shootings harming others? It goes on, you know. In Sweden there is freedom of demonstration as long as you notify the police in advance. You are free to demonstrate against vivisection, violence towards women etc. etc. 30 November is the day of death of King Charles XII, then the neo nazis are out in force. There is always a counter demonstration in another part of town - police try to keep them separate but always fail with ensuing great battles, people get injured, a couple die in the process. OK, it is democratic, but nil tolerance on either side - they would all kill each other if they could. These scenes are occuring more and more often all over Europe and must somehow be stopped. Sad to say, the Swedish Democratic Party participated in their first election here last September - luckily they didnt have much success - and I would add that those in charge of the party dont look too terrifying, they talk of care of the elderly and infant schools and more money for the hospitals. It is the hangers-on who are the criminal elements, mugging foreigners, torching immigrant hostels etc. This somehow has got to be nipped in the bud now - just consider the early thirties in Germany. People shrugged their shoulders and said "You always get a few young hooligans". Well, what did that come to!

Last night I watched a performance of La Sylphide on the Corean channel arirang. Well, now we must keep in mind that the dancers of Universal Ballet are not trained in the Bournonville style at all. But they took the matter seriously and on the whole it was very enjoyable

Furher to Helene's last post. Well, I think I can make some comments here. Sonia Henie was mentioned, but there were scores of other artists - they were Swedish and I am well familiar with their fates. I will not mention them by name as none of you would have ever heard of them, besides they are dead by now. However, they were great movie stars and singers in nazi Germany during WWII. They were of course all nazi sympathizers (otherwise they would not have worked). Some remained in Germany after the war, they would not have been welcomed back in Sweden. One singer and movie star, though, went back to Sweden after the war and she fervently claimed that she had not been a nazi in her heart, but only paid lip service in order to get lucrative movie contracts. That might have been so, but that is a kind of prostitution. Nobody believed her, it was an after construction. The Henie case was supposed to be similar. The British Royal family you are referring to would be the Duke of Windsor who was a house guest of Hitler, or so they say. Well, that I think we can put down to general silliness in extremis. In a way one can understand those artists, but the only noble thing to do would have been to leave the country - and a lot did, in fact. WWII was a terrible business and with Sweden being so close, but never invaded, I have a lot of inside information. Many people did things going against their wishes, because they had assets to protect, and families to protect, whereas some committed dark deeds only for economical winnings. There is a family chronicle being televised in Sweden right now dealing with this subject. Most interesting. But, today, in this enlightened age, with full knowledge of the holocaust and the camps, to embrace such ideas is indeed foolish - after all one must be capable of some reflection and thinking with one's own head.

Yikes - 15 posts! Now we should all take stock and realise what we have just done. We have given free publicity to Ms. Clarke - she is by now almost world famous. Who was it who said the following: "Even bad publicity is good publicity"? Some people here in Sweden - where we also have neo-nazis and such undesirables - are of the opinion that the less said about them the better. No big articles in the main papers, no big coverage on television. That just might work, recently I heard about one rally somewhere, only a handful of people turned up. That might be just the right way to treat them - let them sit in their obscurity in their cellars where they can air their murky views not within earshot of others. Another thought comes to mind here. When an educated person or for that matter a person in the public eye commits some idiotic deed, we tend to judge them in a harsher way than we would judge someone who is a complete nonentity. "They ought to know better..." That sort of thing.

Did anybody attend this live? I wish I could attend, but tickets cost 650€, if you can get one, that is. That wonderful old concert hall only seats about a thousand - I have been there for an ordinary concert and it is really awesome. Today's concert was good, they played some fairly rare Strauss pieces, conductor was Zubin Metha. The dancing, which is only for television viewers, was very good. Those lucky ones at the actual concert could admire the spectacular flower arrangements in stead. The same people of San Remo in Italy do the flower arrangements for the Swedish Nobel ceremony. The soloists this year were Lucia Lacarra and Cyril Pierre doing a Viennese waltz - she was just beautiful, floating around in a lovely long dress in an authentic ball room. I have watched all the concerts since the beginning in, I think 1959. The standard of the music has always been high, but in the beginning the dance was - I will be kind here - somewhat amateurish. A few years back they started to engage world stars, last year it was Daria Pavlenko if memory serves.

A very Happy New Year to everybody! Hoping everybody will be in good health and enjoying life. HAPPY 2007 to all of you from Sweden! :huepfen024: :party-smiley-017:

It really hurts to find out that such pathetic people are around. In my innocense I thought that ballet people were more broadminded - after all - ballet has always attracted masses of different people and in my active days we got on famously with each other. The Gothenburg Opera Ballet has such a varied corps that it is called a UN in miniature. At least, lets think that ballet is a refuge from racists and such dark forces of evil. Besides, people in the arts ought not to comment on politics.

Couldnt agree more - that Giselle pas de deux is sublime. When one can say that only having seen it on a silly little screen, just imagine how that would have been live! Having seen a few Giselles in one's life, they all pale into insignificance. A dream scenario: to see Maximova-Vasiliev and also the Fonteyn-Nureyev one that brought the house down. It would have been very interesting comparing the two. Anyone seen either of these performances live?

A very Merry Christmas to all BalletAlerters - never mind when you celebrate or how you do it! In Sweden the big day is 24. A typical Swedish Christmas looks like this: Everybody except me watches Donald Duck and other Disney stuff like a bit from Cinderella and Robin Hood, that is at 15 hours. Then I usually repair to the kitchen - not that I am specially anti Disney, but it gives me peace and quiet to get on with the stuff. Pickled herrings in a lot of varieties followed by the Christmas ham. We actually have a very scaled down meal as we are not fond of a lot of the traditional offerings. Distribution of Christmas gifts - also scaled down as we think it is mainly for kiddies. One substantial gift for each one. Very easy this year as the girls are setting up home. A couple of books for my husband and in return he gives me a couple of books. Something for the house, this year a DVD. And then Lucia (the cat) climbed the tree and upset it, nice antique glass baubles broke, everybody on hands and knees picking glass splinters, vacum cleaner out but nobody angry with the cat. Everybody sick of Christmas tree, well, we have a plantation and have been selling trees since end November. 12 € (Euro)/ tree and the customer has to saw it down himself - people think that is fun! :huepfen024:

Thankyou so much, rg, for posting those beautiful photos! Also, Lydia Kyaksht wrote a biography "Romantic recollections", London 1929. Anybody read that? I havent myself, but one can always find out if Dance Books might possibly have done a re-print. Otherwise one has got to search antiquarian book shops.

Hans and Dirac, I beg to differ. Not that I thought that Pavlova was no good, but IMO it is not possible to judge her performance on the strength of that film. The movie technique in those days was quite awful to say the least. I have always been very interested in movies and I think that the whole movie industry did not find its feet until lets say, late thirties. "Gone with the wind" doesnt look technically (not much in any case) dated even today. The early American musicals are also quite lovely. But when did Pavlova do that film? Late twenties? I think it is a very great pity that we cannot see the old ballerinas today, like Karsavina, Pavlova and Kschessinska. I would particularly like to see Kschessinska's Esmeralda. Must make a confession: Even I did Dying Swan in my youth and even got a medal for it. Now I will get it out and wear it for fun on Christmas Eve! :rolleyes:

Very glad indeed to see that Sebastian Michanek is doing so well in Copenhagen. Congratulations to him, here I also speak for my daughter who went to school with him and he was also a neighbor of ours. Nowadays it is easier, before a foreign dancer would have gotten nowhere, in fact they did not not even employ foreign dancers (rather like the RB in the olden days). Lots of best wishes Sebastian, from Pamela and Eva :huepfen024:

Well, 4mrdncer, if that makes you feel old, it makes me feel real ancient. For my (then) very young daughters I had collected a few video tapes on my very first video. One of those films was a documentary about the Royal Ballet School. Ferri as a young pupil did a short solo and you could see already then that she had enormous talent. The steps were fairly simple, it was a rather wistful romantic dance, but how she came across, and that on TV. Much to my regret I have never seen her in real life. At the moment I am in the process of editing all my ballet videos, putting it on DVD in stead - much of it bits and pieces I have recorded from the TV. A lot will be scrapped as being of no interest any more, but some old stuff will be for ever treasured. F.ex. I have nearly all of the EBU competitions - it is wonderful to look back and see how some dancers have developped.

What a wonderful piece of information, thank you so much Mary Lynn, for sharing it with us! I bet that Elssler did the "Cachucha" dance - that is the dance she was so famous for and when you see old lithographs of her she is very often in that costume. Elssler "was" the Cachucha, much in the way that Anna Pavlova "was" The Dying Swan". By the way, I have seen the actual costume, it is in a museum in Eisenach, the old Esterhazy property, just outside Vienna. It is beautiful, pink satin covered with black lace. The Cachucha dance became a sort of hit parade thing in those days, just everybody had to do it. It was even done in drag at the Stockholm Opera. Just imagine that, in those days...

Thanks Bart for that wonderful Palm Beach paper article, I really rolled on the floor laughing. (I am afraid that I pressed a lot of wrong keys somewhere here, so if this post is in a mess, please forgive.) As I will be in the front row on Dec. 10 (Nobel night) and I always have a very special dinner that evening, I offer to be the official BA reporter from the festivities. Joking of course, I will be in front of my TV set. But actually, some tickets for both ceremony and the ensuing dinner-dance at Stockholm Town Hall are on sale to the general public. I have always wanted to attend, it is very festive, but the cost would be prohibitive, fares, hotels and then clothes because one would want to look good!

The news that Orhan Pamuk has been declared the Nobel laureate 2006 has generally been received very well here in Sweden. Comparing with the terrible debacles of the past two years, it is hardly surprising that the choice of Orhan Pamuk was welcomed. Personally I am also pleased that the prize goes to someone of reasonable age. In the past it has happened that the prize has been awarded to some obscure octagonarian of whom one has never heard again. One past award that I liked very much was the South African writer J.M. Coetzee and I found his books wonderful. I believe Mr. Coetzee is a friend of BA poster R.S. Edgecombe. Two years ago someone rather obscure called Elfriede Jelinek won. She didnt even bother to attend the prize giving ceremony, claiming she was "too shy to appear in public". That is what I call pure bad manners. She delivered some sort of talk which was filmed at her home in Austria where she sat surrounded by cuddly toys. Then last year we had Harold Pinter who didnt appear either, claiming sickness. Well, the man had actually suffered a minor stroke - but he also sent a taped lecture in which he attacked everything from the US to President Bush to all governments right, left and center. The whole speech was a catastrophy. Now we only hope that Orhan Pamuk will attend the ceremony and behave as a decent man and not make an ass of himself in public. As far as I know, he is delighted and will be delighted to come. Even more delighted will be Princess Christina who traditionally always sits beside be winner of the literature prize. A couple of words about the author: He was born 1952 in Istanbul, Turkey. He is not a Muslim writer, I would call him totally secular - nor is he a political writer although politics play a great part in his writings. And that is only natural - Turkey has lived through many political upheavals. His most famous books are "Red" 2002, "Snow" 2005 and "Istanbul - memories of a city" 2006. Must confess I havent read him, but about a year ago the English paper Guardian printed extracts from his books. I liked what I read and on a subsequent visit to northern England I found that his books had sold out - obviously on the strength of these excerpts. As I do not read Turkish I shall have to read him in English. What worries me is that the books to be sold in this country will be translated from the English into the Swedish. Turkish-English-Swedish = "Lost in translation"! :huepfen024:

Yes, most probably Dolin, and I think definitely Markova. If one wants to preserve the autograph it is not really a good idea to frame a photo. The ink fades very rapidly.