Pamela Moberg

Well, Her Majesty is not going to dance the Sugar Plum Fairy. But it is widely known that she is very artistic and a great fan of the ballet. The other day there was an interview with H.M. on the television where she was speaking about her new project. The RDB is going to stage an entirely new production of Nutcracker and H.M. has been commissioned to design both the sets and the costumes. This is not her first venture into ballet design.

There are four professional companies in Sweden: Stockholm Opera Ballet, Gothenburg Opera Ballet, Malmö Ballet och The Cullberg Ballet. Then there are some free groups, not attached to a theater. Stockholm does the classics, the other companies are mostly modern. If the employer applies for a work permit I dont think it would be that difficult. It seems that most of the foreign dancers received their education elsewhere, of course it is possible that some one with a foreign name came here at a young age as an immigrant and received all their dance training here.

There is something rotten in the state school in Gothenburg. This story has even made the headlines and the TV news. There is a national ballet school here, you have to audition to go there. I have some inside knowledge because DD went there (she was injured, gave up ballet and is now an attorney). It is a vocational school, DD always said that the discipline was very strict, classes every day including Sat. morning. That was a few years ago and I have no personal insight since then. However, there have been reports in the papers and on TV that ballet teachers abuse pupils verbally and mentally, punching in the stomach, hitting them on the head - one pupil was thrown out of ballet class for having yawned. One irate parent wrote a letter of complaint, called it worse than North Corea. The Board of School Inspectors have been called in and found that pupils indeed had been ill treated in a number of ways. The headmaster said that they try to work in a democratic manner, the ballet teachers defended themselves with that pupils must be toughened to be able to stand up to life as professional dancers. A real storm has broken, but the real sad thing is that the general public reads the papers and will say: Well, now at last we know, ballet is unhealthy and a despicable form of entertainment. I will follow this debate with great interest. Yet, only about half a year ago, there was another debate in the newspapers, this time in Stockholm papers. Well, it was to the effect that of all the pupils examined from the national ballet school, hardly anyone gets a job with the established companies in Sweden. Because they are not good enough! In stead foreign dancers are employed. True, check the lists of artists of the Stockholm Opera House and the Gothenburg Opera House, you will find very few dancers with Swedish names. Must say that I fear greatly for the future of Swedish ballet.

It is actually rather sad to think about it now. Most of those wonderful dancers are no longer with us. Nerina, Fifield, Beriosova and Fonteyn have all passed away. I am not so sure about Jackson and Elvin. Beryl Grey is still with us. Sorry, you have to bear with me: As a kid I was enormously proud of having performed on the same stage as Beryl Grey. Well, not so strange really, she was married to the late Dr. Svensson, a Swede, and she frequently holidayed here and then she made some guest appearances, all concertant with a partner ( a poor trembling creature from the theater's corp, it had to be a tall and strong guy for her, not necessarily the best one). I remember she did highlights like Black Swan and Sleeping Beauty pdd. We were all totally in awe, never having seen something like that.

That was a long time ago - but could the woman in blue have been Svetlana Beriosova? I know that she was in the original cast, as was also Nadia Nerina, Elaine Fifield, Rowena Jackson, Beryl Grey, Violetta Elvin, Margot Fonteyn - and the only guy was Michael Somes.

I have just seen a program on Szymborska on TV. She was being followed on her travels (well, after the great prize, she could afford it). The team had followed her to Amsterdam and Paris and Ireland. She made the impression of being very funny, witty and gay, and I just thought - that is someone I would like as a close friend. Sometimes when you watch these kind of portraits you sit there and wish that the particular person will never darken your doorstep, ever. Unfortunately, it was a program from the Polish TV, so I am afraid there is hardly any chance it being showed widely. In spite of Sweden being so close to Poland, we seldom get TV programs from there, barring the odd nature program. Finnish TV, another neighbour, is very good at cultural subjects and we get to see quite a lot of those, even ballet programs for which one is eternally grateful.

I smell a rat somewhere here- either it is a biography or it is straight fiction. But to borrow a person, who at any rate has been alive in my life time, is IMO, a bit much. Dont really know what to make of it, but my gut feeling is that I am not interested. Will definitely not buy.

Many thanks, bart, for that lovely poem! I gather that at least one of the translators, judging by his name, is a Pole and knows Polish. In my opinion it is just impossible to translate, what I call "by proxy". That is a sad fact when it comes to Swedish and literature in some not so common language, it is usually translated via French or English. It is actually getting better here now, but going back not so many years, that is just what happened. Of course, it is always preferable to read an author in the original language.

Wislawa Szymborska, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1996, has passed away at her home in Poland. Her poetry was easy to understand and she was much loved by the public. I have taken the liberty to translate one of her poems, apologizing for the poor quality, there cannot be much of the original left, as it was by the route of Polish-Swedish-English. "Photograph from 11 September. They have jumped from burning windows - one person, two, some more higher up, lower down. The photograph has captured them in the middle of life and keeps them right now above ground in the direction of the earth. They are yet each one whole with personal faces and well hidden blood. There is enough time for hair to flutter and for keys and small coins to fall from the pockets. They are still in the sphere of the air within reach of everything which suddenly opened up. Only two things I can do for them - describe their escape and not utter the last sentence".

Very sad news indeed. To be honest I did not browse that frequently and didnt post much either - my ballet community time has been 90% devoted to BalletAlert. Yet, as Natalia pointed out, reality of sheer economics play a part. I know that BalletCo had get togethers in London - never unfortunately attended a single one, why? Well, traveling to London, cost of hotel and meals, not to mention tickets for RB performances just made it too expensive for me. Probably I come across as totally embittered, which in a way is true, but my local company does nothing but modern, TV doesnt know what the word ballet stands for - result: I am now reduced to staring at bits and pieces at Youtube. So BalletAlert is a shining light in my life - one can keep track of what happens in the ballet world everywhere. Moderators and posters, you all have my very heartfelt thanks for just being out there - cant really say how much I appreciate all of you!

There has been a hurricane and power cut here, but finally we got to see it. DD and I were not terribly impressed, we agreed on most things - we both felt that the fairy tale atmosphere was sadly lacking, what now, golf clubs and balls, Royal Marines, able seamen galore - at one time DD joked "Now we will soon have the Swedish chef (the Muppet one)". Indeed, far too many distractions all around. But we were both totally convinced by Yuan Yuan Tan's performance - she was just unbelievably good. If only there had been less of able seamen strutting about and more of her, we would both have liked it better. The entire ballet stands and falls with the ballerina, with Yuan Yuan Tan it stands beautifully, with a lesser dancer the whole ballet would flounder and just become some silly goings on aboard a cruise liner- "Anyone for shuffle board?"

Christian, take a pill and try to sleep! The only advice I can offer - von Trier has gone from weird to the most weird of them all. It seems to be weirdness for the sake of weirdness and then they expect people to pay already heavily taxed money to see that kind of rubbish. No, I have given up on von Trier a long time ago. But I wonder how on earth does he get people to finance his weird output... It is not inexpensive to make a full length movie. Off topic really, but "my" movie will premiere 6 Dec. here and in Europe. Well, I might be cut out entirely, who knows. It might be called, in English. "Simon and the oaks" and it is a story about Jews and nazis during WWII- well, I will attend the first screening and it is rather exciting...

H.C. Andersen was really a very tragic figure in real life. His fairy tales were popular during his life time, but as a human being he was not a success. He was desperately in love with the famous Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, but she didnt care about him at all. Well, he was not handsome, indeed very ungainly, terribly shy and didnt have any social graces at all. In short, not a ladies'man!

Thankyou Bart Birdsall, for your review! The little Mermaid was shown here on TV last week, but as I wasnt home then, I have it on DVD now. It sounds very interesting, but I have some misgivings. DD will visit us next week end (she studied ballet before taking up law!) and we will see it together. Now I have a very soft spot for H.C.Andersen fairy tales - in my youth I won an essay competition for interpreting just that tale which has always been a favorite of mine. I promise to post my, and DD's impressions when we have seen it, it will be very interesting to see if we all are in agreement or not.

The American choreographer and dance director Donya Feuer has passed away. 31 October 1934 - 6 November 2011. From her obituary: "Donya Feuer was born in the USA, studied at the Juilliard School of Music and danced with Martha Graham 1952-1956. In the sixties she came to Sweden and was engaged at the Royal Dramatic Theater as a choreographer. She worked with directors such as Alf Sjöberg, but mostly with Ingmar Bergman. Their last collaboration was with "Maria Stuart" in 2000. Donya Feuer also made films and was awarded prizes for her film "Dansaren" (The Dancer) in 1994." I may add that my favorite work of hers was Bergman's TV production of "The Magic Flute" from 1975. The funeral will take place 11 November at 11.00 o'clock at the Jewish Cemetery in Stockholm.

In reply to Amy Reusch - yes, they are getting fewer these days, those who saw Pavlova live. I am very much by proxy - studied with Madame Cleo Nordi who was once in Pavlova's company. And while a small girl I met a lady who was in charge of the couture department in a shop. Pavlova had come to the shop to have the top layers of her Le Cygne tutu replaced. I was very much in awe. About the Dance Museum in Stockholm, if you have your ways around, dont miss it! It is one of the few museums totally dedicated to dance of all kinds. I did donate a "wayang" cloth I had to them - it is a kind of trad. Balinese patterned fabric. Now I havent been there for some time, but every time I visit I always buy a great supply of postcards in the museum shop. They have printed a lot of different Marie Taglioni lithographs in postcard size, could probably be purchased by mail order as well.

Professor Bengt Häger, b. Malmö, Sweden 1916, former director of the Swedish Dance Museum has passed away. His interest in ballet began when his mother who was a pianist took him to see a performance with Anna Pavlova. Not an unusual introduction to a life dedicated to ballet! He originally studied to become an economist, but traveled early in Europe, where he met Michail Fokine who is supposed to have told him: "You will never be a dancer, you are too tall". He never did dance, but organized tours and lectures, invited artists like Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham amongst others and founded The Dance Museum in Stockholm to which he acquired the collections of Rolf de Mare. He also wrote a great number of books on dance, a recent one was a large volume on "Les ballets Suedois". His wife, Lilavati Devi, predeceased him 2002.

No, Bart, I am afraid that Robert Frost is not a household name in Sweden. Nor is Tranströmer, come to that. Sad to say, here people in general - if they read at all - are more into Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell and Camilla Läckberg et al. Anyway, the aforementioned writers' work are are all turned into movie scripts and TV series. Nothing wrong with that, it provides entertainment for the masses, that also has a place in society. And there is also the financial situation, nobody dares to do anything that is considered "difficult". Swedish TV always has a big drama series for Christmas, this year it will be the memoirs of a drug dealer/prostitute/jailbird. Yes, I am in it - must make some cash somehow but I am sure it will get a very large viewing. Cant imagine that going on worldwide distribution, so you will all be spared the sight of moi It is a very sad fact that when it comes to culture, it boils down to hard cash. As there are only 8 million people in the country and hardly anybody abroad studies Swedish; say for example a volume of poetry might sell a thousand copies which does not even cover costs. Tranströmer has sparked an interest as a laureate and will be translated into other languages, and sell reasonably well, but that is an exception, otherwise publishing houses have to rely on stuff like Girl with the dragon tattoo to keep afloat.

Thanks, Dirac, for calming troubled waters - really appreciate that. Just one thing I did not grasp fully - where exactly did "racism" come in and what does it actually mean in this particular context? People can be green or mauve as far as I am concerned - but I do draw the line at boorishness and sheer bad manners, no matter who exhibits them. I actually demand a proper and intelligent explanation as racism could not be further from my way of thinking This has now taken a turn for the utterly ridiculous.

kfw, thank you so much for the flowers! One is right now at my desk - just plucked the last rose from the garden before the frost sets in. Yes, "by a long chalk". Must confess I do not know much about the expression, it is English, might be a London cockney one. But I remember we used it quite a lot when I was living in London and not only cockneys said it, but also educated people. It is one of those idioms that is untranslatable - if I were to translate that into Swedish and use it in conversation, nobody would understand me. Similarly, there are a lot of idioms in Swedish which translated into English would sound as absolute gibberish. What interests me is, where is the boundary between an idiom and a slang expression? My own views on the subject is that an idiom has a longer life span than a slang expression. And remember that nothing dates you more effectively than outmoded slang words - like you have been living in your own little bubble for the past decade or so:blushing: I try to keep it in mind, but do not always succeed. No really, puppytreats, I do not feel like arguing with you any more, you have your ideas, I am perfectly entitled to mine. With respects. If anyone wants to discuss Ms. Jelinek's work with me, they are welcome, I did after all try to plough through a couple of her works. With very limited success. Couldnt stand the ---- , same with the film maker Lars von Trier's work. No, life is too short

Sorry that puppytreats took took it so badly - however it was not my personal opinion - it was simply what was on radio, television and in the press - everybody thought that she behaved abominably. Having some inside knowledge of the whole Nobel Prize procedures - my late brother who had served in the Swedish corps diplomatique in Canada told me about it. The laureate is welcomed by a special host for what is called The Nobel Week. That host is Swedish but must have profound knowledge of the country of the laureate, who by the way is allowed to invite a party or family of ten people. If he wants a greater entourage than that, he must pay himself for those people exceeding the stipulated ten. There are no expenses; fares, hotel, food and everything is paid for by the Nobel Foundation. As you can see, the party is very well taken care of and catered for during their stay in Sweden, the host being at hand (day and night as my brother put it). This is one of the most splendid and well organized events during the year in Sweden. As many of the recipients are quite elderly and maybe not in perfect health, yet there are very very few who dont attend. There really must be a very good reason to be absent, this year one of the laureates passed away the day before the announcement. Then we have had people who were not allowed to collect their prize for political reasons, f.ex. Solshenitzyn, Pasternak as well if mem. serves. But to stay away on a ridiculous whim - never heard of before. Agoraphobia is not considered a valid excuse. But when it came to pocketing the money, she was neither shy, nor wanting to be left alone. In that respect Sartre was more honest, he didnt take the money as it was against his political principles taking cash from a capitalist foundation.

Thank you kfw for the House of Headache. Just wonder if he wrote that after his stroke. Come to that, one cannot help but wonder if he will be strong enough to manage the ceremony. That now is a real marathon in length - first prize ceremony at 4 p.m., then gala dinner which lasts for hours. Great pity if he will not be able to attend and I feel sure that he will not. Now, he has a valid cause, not like that Jelinek woman a couple of years ago who "was terrified of crowds and rather stayed home with her stuffed toys". Yes, it is actually true Well, Dirac, it pleases me that you found my translation readable. The method I adopted was the following: First I did it line by line, word by word. Some of it became gibberish of course, so with a very light hand I tried to make sense of it. Swedish and English differ in fundamental ways: Swedish for a start does not by a long chalk have such a splendid vocabulary as English. One could say that English with very subtle nuances has three words for every Swedish word. I will just take one example: For different ways of walking you have so many words in English that exactly describes the manner of walking. In Swedish you mainly have "walk" and then you have to add an adjective to describe the manner of walking. As Swedish people generally are very fond of nature, I find the vocabulary fairly rich in that field. But to hit just the right word which will describe an item economically can be quite hard. They say the inuits have over forty words to describe snow, probably necessary for them. Anyway, I wanted to convey Tranström himself and not impose something like my "interpretation" of his work. Translating is hard work, I cannot say I like it very much and I find it preferable to read an author in the original language. It would never occur to me to read a book written in English translated into Swedish. But with the Turkish laureate a few years ago, Orhan Pamuk, of course I had no choice. What is most annoying though, and where I feel that you lose very much is when a work has to be translated first into English and then into Swedish. Is there indeed much left of the author's intention in such cases?

Glad you got at least something out of my very clumsy translation, Bart! Well, you could begin with speaking to your local librarian. A librarian worth his or her salt should be able to guide the prospective reader and suggest works, which might not be in the library, but could be on order from some larger and more well stocked central library. I have always found librarians very helpful when challenged to get hold of something more unusual. A friend of mine is a librarian and she says she is fed up to the gills with requests for, well, wont mention any names here, but you surely see what I mean. Whatever might be said about my translation, at least I think I managed to capture some of that mystic feel of the original. However, Tomas Tranströmer is very readable and not what I would call a "difficult" poet.

Here is the poem I wanted to share with you- translation is mine, apologize for its clumsiness. I have tried to evoke the feeling for nature. Hope you will be able to get at least some sense of that. "Swedish abodes in solitary places." From “Secrets on the road” 1958. A tangle of black fir trees and smoking moonbeams. Here the cottage lies sunken and it seems without life. Until the morning dew murmurs and an old man opens - with trembling hand - the window and lets out an owl. And in another direction the estate is steaming with butterflies of laundry sheets flapping by the corner in the middle of a dying forest where the decay is read through glasses of sap, the protocol of the bark beetles. Summer with flaxen rain or a single thunder cloud over a barking dog. The seed is kicking in the soil. Excited voices. Faces flying in the telephone wires on stunted quick wings over the miles of marshland- The house on an island in the river brooding its foundations. A constant smoke – the secret papers of the forest are burning. The rain turns in heaven. The light meanders in the river. The house on the slope watches over the white oxen of the waterfall. Autumn, with a gang of starlings keeping the dawn in check. The people move stiffly on the stage of the lamplight. Let them feel without anxiety the camouflaged wings and the energy of God rolled up in the dark.

Good heavens - Gustavo Dudamel is chief conductor of GSO - Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, contract running until 2012. Dudamel has been very well received here, being himself a product of "Sistema" he has started something similar in the less endowed suburbs of Gothenburg. As far as I know, his project has been a great success. Well, Sistema worked in Caracas so why should it not work in Gothenburg? I think the very idea is wonderful. At the moment, Maestro Dudamel is sharing his time between the GSO and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Must add that Maestro Dudamel has drawn people to the concert hall who had never set foot there before here in Gothenburg, and best of luck to Los Angeles for getting such a dynamic young conductor I sincerely hope that he will continue the good work of Sistema in L.A. as well.