perky

Sean Lavery, whom Farrell was partnered with before she retired, would be nice. I believe he retired early due to an injury but since as Alexandra pointed out the role is mostly mime, he could do it. How bout Eddie Villella? And this may sound out of left field, but how about Christopher Walkin? The guy danced on Broadway in his twenties I believe, and his hoofing in the recent Fatboy Slim video shows he's still got it.

A good friend of mine, on her way back from Moscow last year picked me up a magazine from the the Bolshoi. It has several articles on Balanchine and his dancers. In one picture of Balanchine he is dressed in full English riding gear, complete with a derby standing next to a horse. Since the horse has an English saddle I'm assuming the picture was taken in England, perhaps in in the 1930's? Balanchine and the horse are posing in what looks to be a London residential street. The picture just strikes me as interesting. Seeing Balanchine looking like a English Lord out for ride on his stallion. Did he actually ride? I've never read that he did. The magazine also contains articles on Violette Verdy and Adam Luders, alas I don't read Russian.

Save room for me! I was a young girl when "Seasons in the Sun" was popular. I remember sitting with my girlfriends listening to it on our radio and we would all nod our little heads in sad silence at how the poor hero of the song has to suffer such grief! When I think of it now it makes me laugh.......or barf, possibly both. Remember that other song from that era called "Wildfire"? About that horse that runs away? The only lyrics I can remember at the moment, (and thank God for losing brain cells as you age) is "She was calling Wildfire." I used to get myself into a pre-teen hysteria over that one! I would literally cry over the fate of that darn horse! Blah!

Carbro and Dirac, thank you for the suggestions.

Balanchine's Symphony In C. Although I've always wondered what it would have looked like with the different colored costumes in the Paris original instead of the mass of white at the end.

Who would you invite? You can have 6 people, choreographers, dancers, composers (although they must have written specifically for ballet, even patrons and critics. Dinner is for 8 total so include your partner, best friend, etc. Mine: Louis XIV Matilda Kschessinskaya Alexandra Danilova George Balanchine Frederick Ashton Tanaquil LeClercq/ with Mourka After dinner for entertainment Balanchine could make a short dance for Tanny, Ashton could do some of his famous impressions, Matilda could show me her jewerly collection, Danilova could charm us all, and Louis XIV?........well he doesn't have to do anything, he's da King.

I want to dance Balanchine's Diamonds with Peter Martin as my partner.

Well since we are including the golden oldies Men- Laurence Olivier, especially as Heathcliff and Mr. Darcy Yul Brynner Errol Flynn Basil Rathbone Ladies- Jean Simmons Ingrid Bergman Maureen O'Hara Julie Christie

Them's fighting words, Paolo!! Sorry you didn't like much of what you saw. Try catching Ashley Bouder in Stars and Stripes and any of the performances of Polyphonia. I remember some of the posters thought the company looked a little sluggish at last year Kennedy Center's performances. But this is after The Nutcracker and 8 weeks of repetory in NY.

Aishwarya Rai is considered the Julia Roberts of India. The Julia Roberts of the 80's and 90's. THE actress and it girl. She was indeed Miss World. Since my husband is from India we watch quite a few Bollywood movies, so I would also include Salman Khan as most beautiful man. Unfortunately in India, the lighter your skin the more beautiful you are considered. As for the rest: Men- Javier Bardem Ewan McGregor Colin Firth Denzel Washington Salman Khan Ladies- Renee Zellweger Catherine Zeta-Jones Natalie Portman Madeline Stowe Salma Hayak

I remember "Let's Make a Deal". At least we can be grateful they didn't make those "unimportant" winners try to quess which door their Oscar was behind!

I didn't stay up to watch all of it, but of what I did see what was most strange was the award for best costume I think it was, presented by Cate Blanchett(my favorite dress by the way). They presented it to the winners in the middle of an aisle for crying out loud! It's like saying, "hey, your nobody famous, so you can't come on stage to accept your award." It was odd. I liked Chris Rock as host. Invite him back. I love Renee Zellweger, I'll see just about any film she is in, but I have to say she looked awful. Of course she is too thin again, but that wasn't all of it. She looked drained, almost like the life was leached out of her. I wish her good health.

For Jerry perhaps Ask LaCour, he seems to be using him more. For Lise who else but the reigning French belle, Sylve?

Dido, I am cranky as hell in the morning but it wasn't me, I swear!!!

One of the cool things about NYCB is the way the audience and Ballet Talkers on this board pick out various corps members as thier favorites. I believe this happens more at NYCB than at any other ballet company. I suspect this has to do with the way Balanchine choreographed for the corp. It really gives them a chance to shine and to be themselves. You have uniformity of course but also more of chance to "just dance" which allows the dance temperment of the dancer to shine through. It not just "the third swan from the left", it's the glamour of Golbin, the joy of Carmena, the beauty of Korbes. Because of that I don't think a corphee title is needed.

Paul, I want to party with you!!!

I had an extremely wierd ballet related dream last night. I was sitting in the audience watching NYCB dance Emeralds. Towards the end of the ballet when all three male cavaliers are on stage the dancing suddenly stopped as Peter Martins came out and started giving corrections to two of the male dancers. This was during an actual performance. But the strangest part was that two of the cavaliers had switched out of their Emerald costumes and were wearing faded denim overall's, white longjohn shirts underneath and had straw hats on!!!!! They looked like old-time hog farmers on their way to market day. After Martins was finished with his corrections the performance resumed. Now, no one in the audience seemed to find any of this unusual or strange. What does all of this mean? Do I need to have my head examined? Am I thinking about ballet too much? Should I change my job to hog-farmer/dancer? Anyone else have ballet dreams?

What's even stranger is the fact that Cuba used to include cigarettes in it's monthly rations of subsidized foodstuff's Back to programs, I have some NYCB's from the late seventies and eighties where every other page is an ad for cigarettes or alcohol.

Just imagine Natalia if it was in 3D!!

What's nice about the movie is seeing Danilova on screen. Even though she is not on nearly enough.

Could someone please write on article on how The NY Times dance reviewers are just not as good looking as they once were? Then perhaps Rockwell will realize what an irrelevant argument he has made. The beautiful women are still there at City Ballet. What might be missing is the glamour. I'm thinking of those pictures of Toumanova and Danilova in the 30's and 40's, they looked like screen goddesses. And I remember reading somewhere of Balanchine and several of his ballerina's going out for dinner or something in the 60's and everyone of those ballerina's was dressed to the nines, fur coats, chic hats, and so on. I can't imagine any ballerina looking like that nowadays. It's just a different time and that sort of glamour is now the exception rather than the rule. It's not the dancers fault and it's not the company's fault for not "cultivating" them. There is so much there at NYCB to write about, I just wish he had chosen a more relevant and interesting topic.

Matilda Kschessinskaya and Rudolf Nureyev: The Clash of the Titans Jerry Robbins and Wendy Whelen Tanaquil LeClercg and Angel Corella Pierre Vladimiroff(sp?) and Gelsey Kirkland

I've only seen Sylve in La Sonnambula and The Four Temperments. Not really enough to form an idea of her style, although I loved her in both. Actually Michael was one of the first posters on this board to really champion and rave about Sylve so when I read his earlier Mozartiana review I knew something big had to have gone wrong with her dancing in his eyes to have changed his opinion of her so drastically. I think they need to be careful how they cast her. I don't know maybe she thought that Who Cares required an All American, cheerleader rah, rah approach. It could be a case of not enough coaching when she learned the part or simply miscommunication of Balanchine's conception of the part. Hopefully the showboating aspect of her performance will change. I personally would like to see her cast in the more "perfumey" roles. Casting her in Emeralds is a good start, which I believe she performed last year in Saratoga. Perhaps the Verdy part in Liebeslieder Waltzer. Or bring back Gounod Symphony with her in the lead. I'm afraid that casting her as Liberty Bell in Stars and Stripes (Doesn't she debut this week in it?) will only aggravate the problems Michael sees in her dancing.

Oberon, I think I've mentioned before I'm a Golbin fan. During last year's Ballo I couldn't take my eyes of her in the corps. Such a warm, elegant presence. So what did she talk about?

I'm still waiting to hear Ms. Farrell's name as one of the Kennedy Center Honorees.