Pamela Moberg

Thanks all for your interest. I have been glued to the screen all day, can hardly see straight any more! I am always on the look out for new fresh talent and there has been some. Florian Amadio (born in Brazil) but a French national is someone to watch. Likewise Artur Gachinski from Russia, a new marvel from St. Petersburg. And the lovely Sarah Meier (Switzerland)won the ladies, well deserved indeed. Kiira Korpi from Finland did very well, she has been one of my absolute favorites for a very long time, so composed, so elegant and so stylish There were some young kids among the ladies doing well, showing great promise for the future: Gerli Liinamäe from Estonia (only 15), Svetlana Issakova, likewise Estonia, then Carina Johnson, actually an American girl skating for Denmark, and a very promising kid from Belgium, Ira Vannut, only 16. I know there has been some youtube stuff, thanks, Helene! You could also try http:/svtplay.se/konstakning or for that matter any other European TV station. I have checked the Swedish one, it is not bad, though there are no translations, the commentators speak Swedish. But it is the skating that matters! Maybe the BBC would have some good footage. By the way, dont get confused if you try the Swedish site, they might say "konståkning" or "konstakning", never mind, it is the same thing, just means figure skating. And tomorrow there will be a two hour gala performance, something to look forward to

Thanks all posters for all that info! The movie will premiere in my nearest town in a few days and I have decided that it will not be worth braving a snowstorm, unreliable trains and icy roads for this. Not to speak of the price of the tixs. So I will just do what I normally do in doubtful situations - I will call my friend and he will fix it for me should I get too curious after all. I am rather amazed at the violence of some of the posters' views, but realize that it was just about to be expected. Yet, it is secondary that it is about ballet, am I wrong in supposing that for us ballet people we think it is a bit of sacrilege that the very image of ballet is sullied in such a way. Are ballet fans a touchy lot? Would there be such a storm about the medical (or any other) profession? However, reading reviews in various papers it does not seem to be a good movie, ballet theme or no ballet theme. But I just fear that it will be doing ballet, as an art, a great disservice. I will probably not go to the movies until I will be able to go and watch myself. Yes, now I have said it, yours truly (not dancing though) is in a movie coming soon. Sorry, just couldnt resist

The yearly period for sitting glued to the television has arrived. This year the championships are held in Bern, Switzerland. As usual very badly televised - most of it on sports channels for which you need a subscription which I do not have. So far, of the little I have seen, surprisingly Spain has become a nation to watch.They are very new to figure skating but seem to be coming on strongly. Russia is strong as usual with a lot of new talent. Looking forward to seeing the ladies, Finland has some really classical girls, whereas there probably wont be a Finnish guy in sight, they devote themselves to hockey. The venue in Bern is a pure catastrophe - in the middle of winter it is not heated Many people are huddling under blankets in spite of being dressed in thick jackets. The Swedish commentator made a joke: "No global warming here, polar bears will soon be knocking on the doors begging to be let in". Will report more in a couple of days.

Oh Bart, oh no - definitely not It is quite obvious that you havent been to Musikverein where the concert is held. I have been and it is the most magnificent concert hall you possibly could imagine - all gilded like most palaces of old Vienna - and very impressive, just look at the ceiling! Those old politruks of the Soviet era used to hold their conventions in what in Europe is nick-named "Stalin gateaux", buildings that are fairly ornate exterior wise, but terribly dull on the inside. I do recommend a visit to Vienna - it is just out of this world. You would enjoy it, I'm sure. Re: Cachucha. Well, it is a "trad", The story has it that Mme. Elssler was in Spain and she heard the tune played by some gypsies, she liked it and had it noted down. Since it became popular, and it was very popular indeed in the 19th century, many people claimed the credit for having composed it, but it really is a folk tune. In those days it was danced by everybody, even done in drag in Stockholm - Johansson describes it in one of his letters, he said he nearly puked Oh well, Dirac, we seem to differ, I didnt feel that way at all, I thought the muted colors and the exclusive materials very fine. Wouldnt it be a bore now, if everyone had the same taste... Did you see the televised concerts back in the sixties? Or as it is Eurovision it might not have been broadcast in USA. I can assure you that the standard of dancing and the costumes have improved immensely since then. Program is different every year, but the final is always Radetsky march. In my theater ballet school, it was always played for grand battements so you can imagine I know it by heart.

This concert is an annual high-light, and I hope many of you watched it. I had had some info and knew they were going to do the "Cachucha", wondering who would dance it. To my great consternation - nobody. Of course I realised that they wouldnt possibly use the original costume - which I have seen at the Esterhazy Castle. The designer of the dancers' costumes had done a good job, very tasteful.The choreography was quite in keeping with the general atmosphere of those old palaces. The dancers were good too, gone are the days when the dancers were rather, well to be blunt, fat. There has been a great influx of dancers from Russia and it shows. The choice of music was good too, there were of course the standard waltzes and marches, but also a few things not so well known by the general public. One of my favorites, the Spanish march, was played, I might be wrong, but I think it was composed for the visit of a Spanish head of state to St. Petersburg. And the flower display was stunning. It is supplied by the same firm in San Remo, Italy, which supplies the flowers to the Nobel ceremony in Sweden.

A very Merry Christmas to all of you wonderful Balletalerters! Hope you will all have a wonderful time. Here, we have already celebrated the main Christmas as we have our festivities on Christmas Eve. Fun was had by all the family and I received some really lovely Christmas gifts. OK, I gave some gifts as well and I hope they were well received. Now, the cat is snoozing peacefully underneath the Christmas tree and it is very cold here, 15 C. below zero. (Dont know how much that is is F., but baby, its cold outside ).

The debacle has merited a notice in the Swedish press. There was an article with picture of Ms. Ringer. As hardly any of you would be able to understand the article I am not providing a link. I read it myself and just noted that nothing had been added here. Anyway, out of curiosity you might want to check it out: www.aftonbladet.se. Go to Vendela och check, it will probably be gone by tomorrow. By the same token, I find it sad when it takes such a story to even mention ballet

A lot of thanks for your interest, folks. As I really want to share this glorious event with you I have been trawling the net for some good info. The obvious channels would be the TV companies, but oh no, they had no info in English!? The mind boggles If you would be interested enough there is http://svt.2.nobel. There are pictures, text in Swedish, but not much else. Very poor show indeed I think I am going to write them a real stinker because I am sure a lot of people would be interested in various things - from the translation of the speeches to pure gossip - who wore a tiara to who had a bit too much and so on... Havent had the time myself to check, but maybe Norwegian Tv had a translation of the Liv Ullman reading - might be nrk.tv.nobel.no

I think I have written about this before - just to refresh. Nobel prizes for various disciplines are awarded by the Swedish Nobel Foundation, whereas the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by Norway. As one speaker pointed out, these prizes are NOT in any way awarded by these governments, they are awarded by the Nobel Committe and Foundation which are independant bodies. The Nobel day started in Oslo, Norway, awarding the Peace Prize. As the Chinese recipient is a dissident who is in jail and could not attend to receive his prize, the medal and the certificate was placed in the empty chair where he should have been seated. It was a very emotional moment. The big Nobel gala took place in Stockholm Sweden this evening with the Royal family present. There were long and, one assumes, very interesting speeches for the laureates in economics, physics, chemistry. However, my interest is of course in the laureate in literature. Mario Vargas Llosas from Peru. He gave the most charming speech and was wildly applauded. He gave his speech in English. After the three course dinner there is always a kind of "divertissement". The whole gala takes place in the Town Hall of Stockholm (a quite enormous venue) and leading down to the dining hall there is a great marble staircase. On these very steps there are always some kind of artists appearing between the dessert and the coffee. This year it was the choreographer Birgitta Egerbladh who was responsible for the show, her chosen theme was the twenties - a rather Ginger Rogers- Fred Astaire type of thing. Very well done, very suitable and I enjoyed it immensely. It cant be easy to choreograph for a marble staircase with a bit of landing. This was surely the best divertissement I have seen in years.

Every year in November Swedish TV treats us to an entire evening of dance - This year the theme was modern, entirely modern. Mostly things I had already seen and didnt want to give a second viewing. For example, there was this old pas de deux with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Ana Laguna (wife of Mats Ek). I dont know if I have mentioned this before, but Laguna is elevated to the rank of "Court dancer". This title is very old, from the court of king Gustavus III in the 18th century. It is solely an honorary title, very seldom conferred. Second part of the evening got better, it was the farewell performance of the group Bounce. Although it is (was) a modern company - street dance - hip hop - rock'n'roll, they had vitality, verve, musicality and an enormous energy, always enjoyable. I, and I am not alone in my opinion, think they ought to have carried on in stead of disbanding.

Just now, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded. Well, this prize is awarded by Norway (because before 1905 Norway and Sweden used to be one country, that is why the prize is still shared in this manner). It went to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo who is serving eleven years in prison. This now poses an interesting question. One cannot assume that he will be given leave to collect his prize in Oslo - normally when a laureate cannot attend for some reason, the ambassador accepts the prize on behalf of the laureate. That will hardly happen now

Here in Sweden, if the media is anything to go by, the award of the Nobel Prize has been well received. An author who many people know and have read and not some obscure little unknown poet. There was some moaning about the prize not being awarded to the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer. I, for one, am a great fan of Tranströmer although I am not generally fond of poetry. And maybe time is running out for him now as I have heard that he is not well. And of course, this is meant to be some kind of global prize, so it is very seldom awarded to Swedes. The actual announcement was made by Peter Englund who is the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy. The guy is rather short of stature and there had been some complaint made by television companies and press that he was hardly visible last year. Problem was solved by a little platform built in front of those famous doors. Also, a rather funny feature was missing this year. Previous years, just after the name being announced, someone in the press crowd has always yelled very loudly "At last". This year that outcry was missing, though everybody waited for it. Well, it turned out that the journalist responsible for the outburst was sick and could not attend. Anyway, Peter Englund who is a historian and has written a lot of historical tomes himself did very well, but maybe he was not as brilliant as the previous secretary, Horace Engdahl, (who, by the way, is a great fan of ballet) who used to read the announcement in six or seven languages. Now we are waiting for the ceremony 10 December, with hopefully all laureates attending.

Mario Vargas Llosa! I will add more comments later.

Tomorrow at 1 p.m. the Nobel Prize will be announced - promise to post at exactly 1.10 p.m. (local time, that is). Must admit I havent got a clue myself, so many names about. Joyce Carol Oates and Philip Roth are favorites. Even Bob Dylan! has been mentioned! Well, folks, who do you think will get it? Fourteen hours to go, I suppose a lot of writers are glued to their phones right now

Yes folks, ordered my copy today and cant wait to get it Also want to apologize for not getting it from Amazon, I ordered it from the nearest (to me) source, which is Dance Books in England. Must be a very hefty tome though, they wanted 35 quid for it and mail charges 15 quid I almost fainted. That is really a lot of money. Lets just hope it will be worth it. I will probably have the book by beginning of next week so I promise I will post my first impressions.

I am wondering if anybody has read something by the late Swedish author Marianne Fredriksson. She is translated into masses of languages and is very popular in Germany. Her theme is often biblical, but one of her later books dealt with nazis in Sweden during WWII.

This was really the first I have heard of it when I saw it posted in Links. Fair enough, the scientists might have had some fun, but it always annoys me no end when people confuse "Dying Swan" with "Swan Lake". Just the other day I pointed out the same error in a blog. Text ran something like this; "She danced the "Dying Swan", a famous solo dance from "Swan Lake".

Thank you Bart! Just glorious - I actually have this on DVD (taken from Swedish TV) and it is just wonderful. Forever my favorite partnership and one can only be grateful that one has been able to witness such greatness. But, will there ever be such a partnership again? Let's hope so. At the moment I cannot think of anyone reaching that standard. In comparison everybody else look rather flatfooted. Cant explain this, words fail me, can only say that even such a display for the masses and those drab custumes, no scenery, just the two of them - well, that is magic.

I recently saw a documentary about Maria Callas called "Callas Assoluta", made by Swan Productions and Arte France in 2007. It covered her entire life, including her childhood in New York. In spite of all her triumphs, it was a desperately sad film. Very well worth seeing for those interested in opera.

I am saddened to hear of the demise of Marina Semyonova - yet she had a long and rich life and I do hope that her last years were devoid of too much health problems. Finnish Tv is good at broadcasting culture programs and indeed I know that I have some footage of her from the forties. (This is rather embarrassing to admit - I worked at cataloging in the British Museum, yet I admit I am hopeless at cataloging my taped footage. Promise to make an effort here, such old pieces of old film bits and pieces, even if they are only seconds long, are invaluable).

Seeing the photograph like that on the screen, yes, it might possibly be Marie Taglioni II. A closer inspection is needed, though. I have looked through my ancient tomes and think that it must be so. Though, she married a prince Windisch Grätz in 1866 and would then have been more or less forced to retire. No prince would have had a wife who was a public performer, no matter what type of art. A mistress, yes, but court etiquette had to be adhered to in those days (today as well in royal families ).

There is an interesting article in the British Independent.co.uk - click on Home news. "Fonteyn and the plot to overthrow Panama's government". That woman didnt have her wits about her, or what! I find it very hard to believe - not that it happened, because it apparently did - but how can any person who has any position is society lend themselves to such things. Desperate people, for whatever reason, yes, that is different, but she was the essence of the typically ENGLISH ballerina, at least in her dancing. Not in her private life, it seems. One never ceases to be aghast over mankind! Must be true, it comes from the National Archives.

From what I have heard and read about this movie I would certainly hesitate to cough up almost 30 bucks for it. Still, one ought to form one's own opinion, I havent seen it, but if I get a chance to borrow it, I will.

Although I live in Sweden I have seen a lot of Universal Ballet on TV (we get it by satellite). The only problem is that their program schedule is hopeless to say the least. How many times I have switched on and sat down to a nice evening of ballet and in stead been treated to Corean cooking, I just dont know. But I am probably an expert at Corean cooking by now! I think Universal Ballet is very good indeed taking into account that as a nation Corea does not have a long tradition in classical ballet and music. Please give us full and detailed reports of the performances you see!

Thank you so much, Anne for posting that program about Hubbe! As I am from the west coast of Sweden I have no trouble understanding Danish (speaking is another matter ) It was also very interesting to hear Christina Michanek, a soloist now married to my youngest daughter's class mate in the National Ballet School.