Alexandra

Bart, Pilobolus certainly were gymnasts -- literally! -- but I don't think it had an influence on classical ballet training or what ballerinas wanted to look like. Natalia, I think that the repertory does have something to do with it and I think your comment about the company (and other former Soviet companies) wanting to be cutting edge, or perceived as cutting edge is right on. (I'd add that their idea of cutting edge is often what was hot in the 1970s!) But neither Neumeier's nor Forsythe's dancers look like the current Kirov crop. Re the comments by Robert Gottlieb, it was the "limbs don't seem organically connected to her body" that bothered me too. There's a floppiness about some of the women, as though they have no control over their limbs. Hans, could you give some examples of what you meant?

I've blamed the emphasis on flexibility as Sylvie Guillem syndrome -- when Guillem became THE star, companies started looking for girls who looked like her and were as flexible as she was, and so girls started to work on flexibility at the expense of everything else. (When Fonteyn was THE star, dancers tried to look/dance like her; in the Makarova era, the same. And it's been that way since Taglioni.) So part of me isn't too worried -- yet -- because Guillem's career is winding down and there will be a new star coming up somewhere. And that star is always at least 180 degrees different from the last one. But until then -- I agree with Hans. The Kirov this last time was hard to watch for me. I like seeing different bodies unified by style; I saw the same body over and over. And the women's dancing seemed weak, no matter how many turns they were doing. That beautiful underlying steely strength was gone. They didn't run. They pattered. In many (most?) dancers, too, the high extension distorts the line.

I think your "actor/model X" example could mean anything from someone tearing every muscle in her body during her last year at the Royal Ballet School to someone with no talent whatsoever who desperately to be a ballerina and is studying at the notorious Dolly Dinkle School of Ballet, Tap and Barbecue until someone sees a photo and tells her she had the bones to be a model. Or a kind teacher says, "Dear, have you ever considered getting an MBA? You have no turnout!" The idea of what is classical training is interesting, though. One thing I've been reading the past few years in interviews with artistic directors is that they're seeing so many students with a natural talent but inadequate training. Once, classical traning meant having attended one of the great academies -- and there weren't many. (Paris, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Copenhagen, Milan) But now there are some very good teachers in schools attached to a company -- Washington School of Ballet and Maryland Youth Ballet, in the D.C. area, have both provided ABT and NYCB with well-trained stars -- or even small studios. (I just learned that Ossipenko and Terkhova are teaching this summer in a small studio in Florida.)

Thanks for linking to that, bart -- I would appreciate it if we'd keep the discussion on this board and not there. That forum is intended for dance students and their parents. Here, everyone can participate. I'd also say that it's not my suggestion that Pavlova and Nureyev are unique in spreading ballet to new audiences -- you'll read that in many books and articles. (I'm going to do Pavlova next. I did Nureyev first because the idea for the forum on BT4D came because I showed a film of Nureyev to one of my summer classes last week and none of the younger children had ever heard of him.) The web site http://www.nureyev.com has an excellent biography and lots of photos.

I'm happy, since that's along the lines of what I've been saying for years And she said it very well. I also agree that Balanchine's "Don Quixote" was a daring, experimental work -- like some ballets of Ashton's that were similarly dismissed, sadly, it LOOKS old, because Balanchine was reviving and extending a traditional structure and many people couldn't see past that.

Thalictum, it's not a question of believing you or not, but of the Gossip Rules which, I believe, have been pointed out before. IF IT IS NOT IN PRINT DO NOT POST IT.

When things like that happened 40 years ago, they were blamed on the Communists

Thank you for letting us know about this, Estelle. America always looked to Europe as a model of arts funding -- now globalization may have affected this, as well!

That's interesting, Hans. I've read -- though I can't remember where now -- that the arms were from Russian folk dance, and were the ballerina's contribution, and her tribute to the audience. (And intended to appease the anti-foreign-guest-star segment of the audience.)

If they answered, that would blow the alias, wouldn't it? As I wrote you, allegromezzo, although there are dancers who read this board, and some who post here, the mission of the board is not to be a Q and A board for dancers to answer questions.

I only saw Taranda on stage in "Raymonda" and in "Giselle" (both as Hilarion and Courland. He was adequate -- for him; 20 times better than ordinary mortals -- as Hilarion, and over-the-top tremendous as Courland. He did Courland as a provincial Henry VIII. I loved his Abderakhan as well. One of the things I find distressing about watching performances of companies in whose cities I do not live, is that, grateful as I am to have a glimpse of the Tarandas of the world, I seethe when I think of people who have seen them every week, for a whole career

Off-topic: Bergman did do a "Swan Lake," in a way: "Summer Interlude."

I didn't know of the demise of the New York Native (nor, actually, anything about the paper but the name) but I remembered, reading this, of the many articles about alternative theories -- unsolved clues as well as now-discredited ideas -- on AIDS that appeared in mainstream magazines, such as the Atlantic Monthly, during the '80s. Re this article, I hadn't thought of fear of benig denied entry to a country as being a possible motive for denying one had an illness (one of the writers' points).

This is old news, but I found a 1993 article on the web while doing some research on Nureyev that I hadn't seen before, presenting a case that Nureyev was HIV-positive, but did not have AIDS, and that his death was really caused by AZT poisoning. It may be of interesting to some, and so I'm posting a link to it here: http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/jlpetrushka.htm

doug will know that I hope he sees this thread. For me, it's the structure and, the more I'm learning about 18th century ballet, the way he used the forms of a century ago in new (then) ways. And the variations -- he makes it look so easy to make interesting classical choreography. (But if it's so easy, then why have only Fokine, Ashton and Balanchine been able to do it since?)

I'm one who thinks there are no "master choreographers" in ballet working today. (In modern dance, you have Paul Taylor and Merce Cunningham still working, and I think Mark Morris has been around long enough to be considered a Master. There would be people who would say Twyla Tharp, Tricia Brown and Susan Marshall are; I would not.) To be a master, you have to KNOW she or he is in the history books -- and often that comes early. Otherwise, the person is promising, or a journeyman. Many people thought Eliot Feld would be a master choreographer when he began working, and for a decade after, and then that promise was, sadly, not fulfilled. [Editing to say: I wrote that back in 2005! I feel differently today.]

Excellent, Hans. I'm glad to see you back in high form

I'd choose the Ashton, although I don't love the pas de deux to the Would Be Brides music. And Nureyev's Act IV is the only part of his "Swan Lake" that I like.

A post was deleted from this thread and the poster notified.

I saw the Moscow/Stanislavsky Ballet's version a few years ago and admired the company very much. I didn't care for the ballet -- in the fashion of the Soviet era, it excised every bit of Petipa and substituted new dances. The next year I saw, for the first time, the old Bourmeister production, which did the same thing and had other similarities -- no mime, no Petipa, an updating, for its time. And then, working backward, I realized that the "radical" additions by Nureyev, and later, Grigorovich, weren't really radical at all, but descended from this production which is, after all, what they grew up with.

The version now danced by the Royal Danish Ballet is a reconstruction, after many years out of repertory. I don't remember the names of all the characters, I'm afraid, MP; the two ballerinas are Eliza and Victorine. The leading male dancer is usually referred to as only the Dancing Master. There's only one class in every version I've seen -- including the one-act one. As the American critic Arlene Croce once wrote, "It's center practice arranged for stars." A line of children comes in at one point and does a few very simple exercises, then leave, and the adults continue dancing. But at least in Denmark in this century there isn't a beginner, intermediate and senior level class.

Dazzled by Carabosse's threads, no doubt ;) I knew you knew.

I'm sure Juliet temporarily got her bad productions mixed up, but the revolving door has been "Sleeping Beauty." I'm also hoping for something better (taking on faith that the Makarova production wasn't up to snuff, having personal experience with the Crooked Production that preceded it). We'll get to see it in D.C. next spring. And maybe the next spring, we'll see a Back to the Old Royal Ballet Great Production Putting All the Ashton Dowell Dumped Back In production.

From time to time we check the American and European company forums and make new forums if there are enough posts about a company in the general forum to warrant it. Over the weekend I added company forums for: Texas Ballet Theater Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre Ballet Internationale Ballet Florida Oakland Ballet Carolina Ballet We don't have very many posts in Oakland or Carolina yet, but they're important companies and should be on the list. In Europe, I added: Northern Ballet Theatre Ballet de Bordeaux Ballet National de Marseilles Ballet de Toulouse Paris Conservatoire The forums are ordered by number of posts, partly because the most popular companies aren't always at the top of the alphabet (and thus would be harder to find if we listed them alphabetically) and partly because I'd hope, like soccer fans, you'd see the competitive advantage of posting in YOUR company forum. Go Flanders!! You're in the top 7, beating Munich, Dutch National and Eifman!

Re video/films of "Pas de Quatre," there's one on "The Glory of the Kirov" of an older generation, including Komleva; sorry, I haven't watched it in awhile and don't remember the others, but I'm sure someone else will!