Helene

In Canada, for Canadian Nationals and contests controlled by Skate Canada, it is the "Women's Short Program," the "Women's Free Skate," and the "Women's Figure Skating Champion." What you see as skin is actualy mostly illusion fabric. Some skaters do have bare backs, but the majority use some flesh-colored fabric up to their collar bones, even when they have "cleavage." Also, what looks gaudy and laughable on TV often, but not always -- especially when day-glo -- looks good on the arena. Like stage make-up, the costumes weren't made for close-ups. It's been a crazy week here, with intermittent Internet connectivity. I hope I can read my notes Thursday was the Ice Dance Original Dance, with the theme of "Folk Dance," and the Ladies' Free Skate. There were many "Kalinkas" and "Dark Eyes" and Ukranian dances, but there were also some very wonderful and inventive dances as well. Allie Hann-McCurdy and Michael Coreno (Canada #3) did a charming dance to "The Log Driver's Waltz" and a Newfoundland country dance. Despite the required elements -- including a dance spin (in place), the closest of which in any dance that I know of is a finger turn in ballet, and even that's not a perfect analogy -- they managed to convey the lilt and freshness of a North American country dance, and they were actually -- yikes! -- in dance holds for at least half of the program. The Czech couple, Kamila Hajkova/David Vincour did several Czech polkas, including a slow polka to which they did their circular footwork, a nice change from the frantic. The program had a good folk feeling to it, and looked very geniune. The Hungarians, Krisztina Barta/Adam Toth performed to South American Folk Music -- apparently, Peruvian flute musicians have become ubiquitious in Budapest -- and while the program had little folk quality at all, they danced it with a lovely smoothness. He has wonderful posture and line. Joanna Budner/Jan Moscicki from Poland did a beautiful Polish folk dance with lots of character, especially from him, a dance of a young man trying to impress his girl. It was sad when they tripped on the circular footwork, because they were really rolling. They did a lift right out of a spin more effectively than the eventual bronze medallists did in their Free Dance. Bobrova/Soloviev (Russia #3) impressed again in "Kalinka." He plays with the rhythm, which may be a challenge for his partner, especially when he's tossing her around. He played a great peasant, and she's adorable. Russia's #2 couple, Ekaterian Rubleva/Ivan Shefer had some of the best twizzles of the afternoon in their straightine footwork. The couple that came in last in the Ice Dance competition, Leonie Krail/Oscar Peter, danced a flamenco with flamenco-like steps, not just attitude (standard ice dance fare). He's got flair, and a bit of roughness that suited the dance very well. The Uzbeki couple, Sun Hye Yu/Ramil Sarkulov, had a bumpy ride in a Russian folk dance, but despite that, she was sunny and light, and he has quite a bit of charm. US #2's Kimberly Navarro/Brent Bommentre did what was meant to be African folk dancing, but they had too many bobbles, and the program didn't make much of an impression. Not so Australia's Danielle O'Brien/Gregory Merriman who did a dance to Aboriginal music, with great costumes decorated with traditional Aboriginal symbols, completed by face paint. It was a good stylization, as vivid as Navarro/Bommentre's was lackluster, and they had some fantastic twizzles. Sadly, they missed the cut into the Free Dance. Among the contenders, Tanith Belbin/Benjamin Agosto (US #1) skated to "Cotton Eyed Joe," "Country Waltz," and "Appalachian Hoedown." After the fall in the Compulsory Dance, they needed to close the gap in their OD, usually their strongest competition phase. He was very dynamic, but the program was mediocre in concept and hokey, and Belbin neither matched nor complemented Agosto's charismatic performance. Meryl Davis/Charlie White (US #2) were also given a generic program to "Kalinka" -- Igor Shpilband and Marina Zueva are their coaches and choreographers, and Generica is their specialy -- but they imbued it with style and the occasional grace note. Canada's Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir, who are coached by the same two, were given more of the same to "Dark Eyes." The feedback from the judges last year was that they needed to gain power and speed, and all year long they have been motoring through their programs. This was no exception, and while I would prefer a little more breath and smoothness, they accomplished their goal and were justly rewarded. I can't say I understand the relative scoring between the Italian #1, Federica Faiella/Massimo Scali, who performed a charming, but not particularly spectacular set of Italian Folk dances -- it was the type of program I would have expected from the younger, #2 team -- and the French #2 team, Nathalie Pechalat/Fabien Bourzat, who performed a magnificent Flamenco, complete with authentic flamenco dress and fan. (Props were allowed for this dance, but few teams took advantage of this.) His posture and line is extraordinary, and their work with flamenco professionals paid off for the audience, but apparently not the judges. The British team of Sinead Kerr/John Kerr, who are Scottish, performed a Scottish dance and had the crowd from the first bars of the music. They had ever-changing holds, and in their serpentine step sequence performed very close and difficult crosses, mirroring each other perfectly. They skated with the kind of infectious energy that makes a trip worthwhile. The battle for the gold at this stage was set between France #1 Isabel Delobel/Olivier Schoenfelder and Russia #2 Jana Khoklova/Sergei Novitski. The Russian team performed a Russian gypsy dance to "Two Guitars." They performed very difficult end-to-end footwork with ease, changing the speed throughout until the music built to a head. In both of their footwork passes, their hips are so close together. She has such great toe-point and turn-out, and is a pleasure to watch. Delobel/Schoenfelder danced a Breton Gavotte, my favorite program of the competition, thematically, choreographically, dramatically, and musically, conveying character through their interacting. What I found so surprising seeing this in person was how softly and smoothly they skated the program, so that the elements melted into the whole. They earned a very worthy first place after the phase. In the Ladies Free Skate, three skaters who had been struggling with inconsistency all season gave very fine performances. While none were perfect, Georgia's Elena Gedevanishvili, who struggled with puberty and coaching and country changes after her mother was deported from Moscow during the Russia/Georgia tension a few years ago, regained many of her jumps. Julia Sebestyen skated to Schubert's "Serenade" and she, too, landed many of the jumps that have eluded her since she became European Champion in 2004. Sebestyen's 3Lutz is the best in the business when it's on, with such height and power. I love her basic skating, the way she generates speed from the blade, and her spins, which have classic positions and clean transitions. Laura Lepisto, a young Finnish skater who does not have a jump higher than a 3Lo, had a superb Free Skate to pull up from 21st after the SP to 8th place overall after the FS, in which she earned 7th place. She has gorgeous edges and flow, and quite fine line for someone so young. Kimmie Meissner, too, got back some of her jumps two flights of skaters later, having moved to train with Richard Callahan earlier this year. She's not in the same form as she was when she won the 2006 World Championships, but it's good to see that her physcal growth hasn't put the kabosh on her competitive career. Sarah Meier skated a lovely, soft program, but it wasn't enough technically to pull her up higher than 6th. Miki Ando retired with an injury. The moment the announcement was made, the Japanese press corps streamed down their aisles and backstage, like rats fleeing from a burning building. It was quite a sight. Ashley Wagner, the young US skater on whom many hopes were pinned, skated weakly at her first Worlds. With rising juniors Carline Zhang, Mirai Nagasu, and Rachael Flatt moving to seniors next year, it's going to be hard for her to regain that spot. To earn three spots for the 2009 Worlds (in Los Angeles), the total placements of the top two US women could not exceed 13, a tall order that was not met, and the US Ladies will be down to two spots next year. The final group was the cream of the Ladies crop, with the lone exception of Meier. Finnish #2 skater, former European bronze medallist Kiira Korpi, had many jump problems, and finished 17th in the FS, to end up in 9th place behind fellow Finn Laura Lepisto. It's great that the Finnish team has two Ladies in the top 10, because their basic skating makes them watchable regardless of their jump content. However, I don't think the Finnish Federation envisioned it quite this way. Joannie Rochette has the best combination of basic skating and power of all of the Ladies today, in my opinion, but she did not jump well enough to make the podium, something she is quite capable of doing; she is the only total package, in my opinion. Still, she ended in 5th place, her highest result at Worlds. Carolina Kostner has a lovely program to the Dumsky Trio by Dvorak, but she had two clean landings in total on all of her jumps -- and not enough deducted for the errors, in my opinion -- a very sloppy, uninspired performance. The only upside of it was her speed. Yu-Na Kim, a skater I find quite lovely, was more choppy and aslow than usual, displaying little of her usual ease and flow. The repeat bronze medallist won the Free Skate nonetheless with two triple-triple combinations and decent, but not spectacular skating. She looked much smoother on the jumbotron in the arena than she did live. Mao Asada slipped on her entrance into a 3Axel attempt, and a huge groan went up, not only because Asada took a scary fall, but because some of us were sure Kostner would win the world title with an awful, awful skate. Luckily Asada regrouped, and despite the flutzing -- she received the edge deduction for the 3Lz, and smartly only attempted one Lutz -- and the downgrade on the 3Lo in combination, she stilled landed a 3Flip/3Toe combination soundly, and had wonderful flow that she didn't have in the Short Program. I was relieved when she won, but I wish Rochette or one of the Finns would step up to the plate. This was the worst-skated phase of the entire competition..

Compulsory Dance, Part II. Rubleva/Shefer, whom I generally like, blinded me with what looked like a medley of day-glo costume parts. Hann-McCurdy/Coreno are a young team, coached by former World Champion (with Shae Lynn Bourne) Victor Kraatz. They were lovely, with nice expression and flow, and nothing extraneous added. Khoklova/Novitski gave a wonderful performance; her form is gorgeous, and she has the best knee bend, turnout, and toe-point of any of the women competing currently, in my opinion. Virtue/Moir, like at Canadian Nationals, took the first pass at a blinding pace. When they took a bit off the speed in the second pass, the very fine detail shone through. Navarro/Bommentre didn't wait for her costume to make a wedgie: she had a sparkly silver one decorating the back of her black skirt. They gave a nice interpretation -- you could see them meeting and doing this dance socially -- and their performance was full of life. I am noteless from last night's Pairs' Short Program, but my section wondered what they did with the real Dan Zhang, because there was a mature imposter on the ice: Zhang/Zhang were a cut above everyone else, skating flawlessly and with ease, flow, and musicality, not usually their hallmarks, even nailing their side-by-side spins with near-perfect synchronicity and close together. Sadly, the past's Dan Zhang competed in the Long Program, where both were stiff and tight, made uncharacteristic mistakes on jumps, and slowed to a snail's pace in places. It was as if they were a team that was given a significantly harder program and were struggling with it, although they've been doing programs with this difficulty for years. Sadly, they were overmarked, in my opinion, in PCS, so that when the German team, Savchenko/Szolkowy also made a number of mistakes and weren't "on," they had to be even more over-marked, since they were clearly better than the Zhangs tonight. Savchenko/Szolkowy's program had their typical number of very difficult, very intricate transitions between elements -- something for which they've never been given credit in proportion to how much more difficult and transition-filled their programs are. They made mistakes on a few elements, and their levels of difficulty were very high. They struggled a bit, sometimes losing speed on the exits of elements, like an amazing, acrobatic lift that stopped dead on the put-down. Still, from everything but the standpoint of skating skills, they were superior. As Szolkowy put it in the post-competition interview from Kiss and Cry -- all the winners are put on the spot to answer questions in English, the official ISU language -- "it wasn't perfect, but it was enough." The performance of the night was Jessica Dube and Brice Davison. Apart from a less-than one revolution synch issue on the side by side spins, and a hand-down on the second throw, they were flawless. They have the best basic skating of any of the competitors, and they maintain speed going in and out of each element, the only ones to do so in this competition. They have beautiful form, and their ice coverage is extraordinary. On two of their lifts, they covered the length of the rink. They skate extremely closely together; their spirals were practically nested. They float across the ice with silent speed. They were worthy bronze medallists. Marina Aganina from Uzbekistan has skated for a number of years with several partners, and this year she teamed with Dmitri Zobnin and is coached by her former partner, Artem Knyazev. Although ranked in the lower third, she has very nice line and basic skating. When she came out in a simple dress, with a silver, sparkly bodice with spaghetti straps and the rest in simple black, I couldn't guess what she was skating to. (Zobrin was in the generic uniform of a black shirt and pants, with diagonal slashes. It turned that their program was "Giselle." I was very impressed with the way they interpreted the music, to the best of their ability reflecting the changes in the character of the music. I like the young French team who had been injured earlier in the season and were forced to miss Europeans this year, Canac/Coia. They skated to "Malaguena." His posture was superb in the spirals, which he did as classic arabesques. She had great posture and position particularly in the star lifts, and terrific rhythm in the air in the twist and throws. The young Italian team, Magitteri/Hotarek, did a fabulous program to "Grease," showing that the judges aren't using the full spectrum of the program components score. This, compared to what we saw later, was the kind of program that deserves a 7 in Interpretation. They were delightful. One short program I really loved was Murhortova/Trankov's Short Program to "Otonal." She can be exquisite, particularly in her shoulders, using epaulment to shade her movement, often making the element, like a lift, more difficult, since her upper and lower body is in opposition ten-fourteen feet above the ice. They started their Free Skate tonight with several mistakes, but then seemed to recover, until they stopped skating, and he went to the referee. Someone then proceeded to split one of his sleeves up the middle, and he rubbed his upper arm. They resumed, with a very nice side-by-side spin, but their competition was over. It was sad because they have such great movement quality and a lot of potential, and their choreography, to a ravishing Rachmaninoff prelude, was superb. One of my favorite of all of the teams in both phases of the competition was the 3rd pair from China, Huibo Dong and Yiming Wu. She in particular, at 19, is much further in her development than Xue Shen, Qing Pang, and Dan Zhang were at that age, and they skate much more like a pair than their older compatriots did until at least their mid-twenties. She has a little bit of flair, and is fearless. It seemed like Bin Yao's rink was running dry after the Zhangs, particularly after Ding/Ren retired, but there are a handful of excellent young Chinese pairs, and this one could prove to be the best of all. He still has the ill-advised throw technique that all of the Bin Yao's men have: they heave the woman and lung forward with their leg back in an arabesque, but in a huched over position. His approach to the twist and throws sounded like a skater or skier who skids to stop. Not pretty, but he's no slouch either, apart from the Bin Yao's teaching quirks. I would have watched him more if she wasn't so compelling. The Ladies Short Program was all day. I don't have it in me to watch 53 Ladies Short Programs: too many Carmens, Malaguenas, and tinkly piano music. I did see the final 26. Mao Asada landed a 3Lutz/3Loop combination -- it was quite beautiful -- but her program died out halfway through. She doesn't carry much speed, and she wasn't flawless. While Carolina Kostner has a terrible rink-long telegraph on her 3Lutz, the way she carries speed would have justified her first place position after the SP. Apart from a leg wrap, Yurikari Nakano skated a flowing, masterful program to Chopin. Miki Ando's skated as if she was stymied by a head wind: nothing flowed properly, and last year's World Champion will skate in the penultimate group. Joannie Rochette has the best basic skating of the field. Unfortunately, she changed what was to be a 3Flip/3Toe combination to a triple/double. She has polish, and she flows across the ice. Just behind her in skating skills were the two Ladies from Finland, Grace Kelly look-alike Kiira Korpi, who earned a spot in the last group with a lovely tango, albeit wearing a short, tube skirt with horizontal black and white stripes, and Laura Lepisto, who, unfortunately, was one of the few skaters in the final five groups to have two of three flawed jumps. It says a lot for the quality of her skating and other elements that she qualified for the Free Skate. There were only 4 1-point deductions among all of them, and two were from Turkey's Tugba Karademir, a very strong showing among the Ladies. Beatisa Liang skated a choreography-filled program to "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and was quite on; she might have scored higher if she wasn't the second skater up in the second half and skated later, after the judges got their bearings. Yu-Na Kim skated a relatively flat, disappointing proram. The highlights were the skaters who flowed across the ice, integrating the tricks into beautiful skating.

The 2008 World Figure Skating Championships began yesterday in Gothenburg (Goteborg) Sweden. Opening yesterday afternoon was the Ice Dance Compulsory Dance. It was the Argentine Tango. Each competitor is allowed to choreograph a beginning and and end, neither of which counts, but the meat of the dance is that the steps and the ice pattern are the same for all competitors. It's a great way to compare style and ability of all of the competitors. (There were 31.) I love this phase, because there are no lifts, turns, or footwork patterns that look like crocheting to gain difficulty. Each CD is different, and the difficulty varies. Some by virtue of their elements and/or timing favor taller or shorter dancers, and most dance teams have a style preference, but Argentine Tango is fairly neutral this way, unlike Yankee Polka or the Golden Waltz, which is a minefield of difficulty transitions. It requires tango attitude to an extent, but basic skating, posture, toe point, knee bend, and hold are key. It's an exhibition of basic skating and dancing. Weaver/Poje are a youngish team skating for Canada. I remember seeing Poje with his former partner at 2006 Canadian Nationals, and I was very impressed with his ability to do Latin style. Two seasons ago he teamed with American Kaitlin Weaver, and they were a surprise bronze medallist at Junior Worlds. They haven't had great international success at the senior level, and I think that he looks subdued where he was previously strong. They changed coaches late in the season to their choreographer, Matthew Gates, and former Canadian and World Ice Dance champion Shae Lynn Bourne, who had been consulting the team. The "Shea-ification" of Kaitlin Weaver gets stronger and stronger with each competition. What they did beautifully was interpret the changes in the music, particularly in one tricky part about 2/3 through the pattern, when coming off the curve at the short end of the ice, she does a quick turn into a melting arabesque, among the best of the competition, in my opinion. They skated very closely, and I was a bit perplexed at their scores, but the protocols aren't out yet to answer the questions. The man of one of the lower ranked teams, Sun Hye yu and Ramil Sarkulov (competing for Uzbekistan) impressed me as a fine social dancer, with a very nice sense of rhythim. I read somewhere that Ina Demireva is last year's World Champion Albena Denkova's younger half-sister. Demireva and her partner Juri Kurakin were not very skilled, but she had the long, slender Bolshoi/Mariinsky corps legs. In this case anatomy is destiny: had Albena Denkova had her half-sister's legs, she'd be an Olympic gold medallist and multi World Champion, because that line is what the judges reward in almost every case. (I think it's overrated and that movement quality is more important.) Belbin/Agosto skated sixth, since the CD starts with a random draw, instead of modified seeding as in the later phases. They were fast and skilled, and in the first pass, he had a lot of style, but she struggled with a put-on "serious" expression to suppress her natural perkiness, and I didn't find her convincing in the tango. On the second pass, she tripped and fell on the turn, and they did not recover quickly. Nonetheless, they received the 9th-highest technical score (although they had a -1 deduction for the fall), and the second-highest Program Components scores, including their highest component score of 7.92 in interpretation, while I didn't think they had a particularly strong sense of partnership or style and found their interpretation flat. My first "wuz-gifted." The Reeds, a young Japanese/US brother/sister team competing for Japan, were convincing enough to make the sibling thing a bit uncomforable, even more so than the more experienced Kerrs and Zaretskis. Even though he's younger, he patted her on the head like a big brother, restoring a sense of equillibrium. (That's why they call it acting...) The young team from Belarus, announced as "Bulgaria" by the American announcer, who kept butchering names -- there was Swedish and English announcing -- were my first costume snark: she wore a slightly too short close-fitted black sparkly dress, which was quite nice, but it had a white underskirt with black polka dots, which was quite not nice. They were clearly among the lower ranked teams for skills, but Senia Shmirina had lovely arms and shading in her shoulders. Her partner, Egor Maistrov, had an unfortunate bobble, but I'm looking forward to their original dance, the next phase. I tend to look at ice dance in two ways: who dances well together, and with whom I'd like to dance with if I could do social dance. Fabian Bourzat is the latter, my #1 choice in every CD I've seen him do. He communicates the dance through his body and line. He is Da Bomb. I do not understand their components marks, which I thought should have been as strong as anyone's, and that he and his partner, Nathalie Pechalat were behind Belbin/Agosto, even by .2, I find frustrating. The Kerrs from Great Britain were very strong; she has lovely turnout and toe-point. They had the best ending, in which she did a lunging slide and he caught her suddenly, but that didn't count in the marking. They are in a well-deserved 8th place, and, barring disaster, they should end in top 10, which would earn two spots for Great Britain next year. Bobrova/Soloviev were last-minute replacements for European Champions Oksana Domnina/Maxim Shabalin; he is injured. Soloviev was my second favorite as the man I'd choose as a social partner. He has a great sense of the underlying rhythm, and was able to imbue the dance with rhythmic detail and grace notes. She's a lovely skater, and I think they were undermarked by at least a few points. It rarely helps in these days of non-dominance to be the #3 team from any country. The Zaretskis, a brother/sister team competing for Israel, show fine rhythmic sense, but to me their skating feels choreographed down to the last iota, removing the sense of tension and play. They are very fine dancers, though. Faiella/Scalli, the senior team from Italy, did a very smooth tango. Of all the couples, they had the most similar style and feeling, and they skated with great speed and flow. Capellini/Lanotte, the "baby Italians" were a delight: they dance like the really mean it. She's a diva-in-the-rough. Delobel/Schoenfelder showed that there are things that should be left to grown-ups. These grown-ups. [Enter your favorite cliche/truism about fine wine or other food metaphor]. They created a dance with an underlying story, through hold, posture, and subtle body movement. I believe he wore the suit in which he fell during an until-that-point equally fantastic CD at Europeans a few years ago, which in the superstitious world of skating, was a very brave thing. Davis/White, the second US team, had a great first pattern, with a lesser second, having trouble in one spot. She is looking like a young Jane Seymour. Her arm movement was masterful and made the dance more difficult, for example having her arms in high fifth after the turn before resuming hold, while many of the skaters did the turn carefully and then used their partner to restabilize. She was subtley sultry, adding a new shade to their dancing. More later.

I always shake my head when I hear that America, meaning US, (and sometimes North America) is the country (place) that admires individualism, because schools are equal to the military in their demand for behavioral conformity -- and I mean outside the classroom. That any student is in physical danger for what s/he is and wants to become is appalling. As for Russian reverance for male dancers, it is no less homophobic: there is great prestige to lose, compared to the meant-to-be dismissive assumption that "they're all gay."

I loved your review, Arizona Native, and I'm so glad you posted it

I did and wrote about it in danceviewtimes. The production had such a sense of place and community, that even with all of Don Quixote's mishegas, it was palpable how a stranger coming through town, even for the briefest of visits, could leave a drop of feeling that touched the someone he left behind.

I have a brief stop in NYC on route to Europe, and I was invited by an old friend and his girlfriend to see "Juggle This" at Pratt Institute. While not all of the acts were juggling -- sadly, for the dogs were almost exclusively lame attempts at comedy -- there were four very different performers of such beauty that I can still barely speak. The first was Brent McCoy, whose "Juggling Clown" was more stylized than standard circus-like. He performed two routines while never breaking his quite smooth persona. His first act was juggling up to five orange construction cones, which was lovely, especially with the weightiness of the cones, but his second act, in which he did quite amazing things with a Stanley tape measure, was topped by the single most skilled demonstration with diablos , hour-glass shaped contraptions which are manipulated by an unattached cord through their center, that I've ever seen, let alone imagined. Florent Lestage, a 22-year-old Frenchman who is at circus school in Montreal, also performed twice. He is a natural mover, even if not a trained one and in each of his acts used the full stage in the most three dimensional way of any performer, quite literally when he juggled clubs in a full circle and when he transitioned from circular to parallel juggling. In his first act, he used two devil sticks, and like McCoy, managed to top a brilliant act with his second, in which he became a facet of the Little Tramp in an overcoat, juggling clubs and a cane, using the latter to locomote, sometimes catching a club with the handle of a cane and juggling the joined element, and catching and balancing a club on the cane itself. His handling had an angelic delicacy and his performances were exquisite. The third magnificent juggler was Jens Sigsgaard, a Dane who performs in France. He did one long routine, a combination of air and body juggling. His juxtaposition of rhythms and style was masterful in its construction and complexity. Sadly, the videos on the Internet of the last two performers don't really do justice to them. The two Sigsgaards on YouTube are far less smooth and tight -- they're from a 2006 performance -- but they and the Lestage give a sense of how the two move. Lestage The last was more of a circus act performed by Gregory Arsenal and Yannick Thomas called "Le Con et L'Ange," in which the smaller of the two, dress in cut-off pants with angel wings, jumps on, does a series of planges with, and generally harasses the larger of the two; his was a puckish rather than benevolent angel. Besides the gymnastic skill -- and the smaller man had fantastic form, to the tips of his toes -- the psychological dynamic in the theater was vivid and compelling.

According to this article, Seattle Dance Project, founded by former PNB dancers Julie Tobiason and Timothy Lynch, will perform in Bellevue at the Meydenbauer Center July 25-27, and have plans to perform at ACT in Seattle in September.

Ismene Brown on the succession in The Telegraph: Bolshoi Ballet: 'Molotov cocktail' springs surprise changes And she concludes with more news:

I think it was Elyse Borne who retired as one of the four demis in Ballo Della Regina, and she got a solo in-front-of-the-curtain bow. I don't remember if there were many flowers; I seem to remember it being short.

I'm sure I would have answered the Fonteyn question incorrectly and said China Carlson might not be old enough to know Fonteyn/Nureyev firsthand, but that's no excuse. On the other hand, there are young pitchers today who have no clue who Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson are...

Although not specifically advertised as such, apart from perhaps a line in The New York Tims, Helgi Tomasson, Adam Luders, and Gen Horiuchi were featured in their last performances, the latter two in a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream, with Luders in the Act II Pas de Deux and Horiuchi as Oberon. Was anyone at von Aroldingen or Daniel Duell's last performance? Did d'Amboise take a formal last performance bow after a "Davidsbundertanze"? Sunday night subscribers got to see a number of final performances in the 80's. Stephanie Saland was given a solo bow after dancing the "Rosenkavalier" movement during the 1993 Balanchine Festival, her last performance with NYCB. It made sense that this started after Balanchine's final illness and death. From all accounts, he wasn't big on acknowledging the importance of any given dancer, at least explicitly. I think it's important for closure, to allow the audience for whom dancers were important to express this. Of the programs built around a dancer, McBride's to me was the most touching, concluding with the beautiful solo from "Harlequinade" which ends softly with a bow to the audience.

Dancers in US companies have very short contracts, and they must prove themselves useful year after year. A dancer who has been in the corps for 10-20 years can be replaced easily by a younger, more eager, cheaper dancer. If no dancers make their way from the school, for those companies that have them, then going to the pre-professional program looks like a dead-end, unless it feeds into equally prestigious companies. That isn't -- or at least wasn't -- true of the Royal and state-sponsored companies in Europe, where being a dancer was akin being a civil servant, with pretty much guaranteed lifetime employment while still healthy, and a guaranteed end date. In Soviet times, being a member of a company, whether principal or corps, meant prestige and perks for the dancer and the dancer's family, and being in the corps was a prize. While thwarted ambition and politics is demoralizing in any environment, it's a different experience to know that a job is guaranteed versus having to prove oneself repeatedly, waiting for the contract talk, especially when there is new artistic direction.

International Ballet Theatre is performing a program at the Meydenbauer Theatre in Bellevue (WA) called "Stars of Today Meet Stars of Tomorrow" on 8 (7:30pm) and 9 (2pm) of March. The program is described as "a command performance of world-renown dancers fromt he Bolshoi Ballet, English National Ballet and Ukrain National Theatre Opera and Ballet performing with brilliantly talented artists from International Ballet Theatre." In bold red type, the postcard says, "Featuring Sarah Lamb from Royal Ballet!" (Well, from the weather she won't notice that she's away from home...)

I remember reading a quote from one of the long-time NYCB corps men -- I think it was Peter Naumann -- who said for him it was comparitively easy, going to work every day to dance, while his wife had to care of the kids and run the household. (Whoever it was had four.) It must be an odd phenomenon, though, in such a young profession, to watch a 20-year-old phenom shoot through the ranks, someone who hadn't been born when you entered a company. I don't see nearly as much of that in business, even in high tech, even if half of my co-workers were born after I finished graduate school

Some times it's money, or factors driven by money. Francia Russell often spoke about how she'd have liked to promote deserving people, but didn't have the budget. Peter Boal mentioned this in Q&A's his first year. PNB has had, for a number of years, a relatively small number of soloists compared to principal dancers and corps. PNB is more like an hour glass than a pyramid. As a result, if you don't have additional money for promotions (or principal dancers leaving, freeing up budget), you get a glut of deserving dancers in the corps or, in some companies, soloist ranks. Then an artistic director has a dilemma, especially in medium sized companies, because morale would go sideways if only some got their due, when the promoted were among a larger group of corps dancers who were cast often in soloist roles and excelled in them. Every time I hear "there will be two promotions" I get a knot in my stomach, because, in a moment, I can think of six dancers for whom promotion would be justified. More recently, in several Q&As, Peter Boal has said that he couldn't move all of the deserving corps members to soloist even if he had the money, because then he'd have no corps for the larger ballets. Instead, he casts them prominently in soloist and sometimes principal roles. The "democratic" tendencies of contemporary and modern dance roles that he's programmed more extensively give a lot more prominence to corps dancers and soloists than ballets that are more hierarchical. At Ballet Arizona, there are two major ballerinas -- Paola Hartley and Natalia Magnicaballi -- and recently, the young Ginger Smith who are cast as the leads in the full-lengths and "La Sylphide." Among the men, Astrit Zejnati is the major male dancer, has been cast as the male lead, sometimes sharing with one of the younger men, a few years ago Michael Cooke, and recently Ross Clarke. Although all of these ballets have other featured roles, a work like "Nine Sinatra Songs," which the Company will perform in an upcoming triple bill, provides fairly equal featured roles to many more dancers. The Balanchine triple bill, the last program of the season, does the same across an entire program. Two artistic directors with different emphasis on how to solve the problem of giving corps dancers challenges that outweigh rank. There's the hierarchy on the program -- although Ballet Arizona, for example, doesn't have any ranking on the program -- there's money, and there are roles. Balanchine has been quoted by a number of dancers saying that the raise is more important than the rank. There were always a number of soloists at NYCB who were in Soloist Oblivion -- they had the rank, but attending three-four times a week, even when the principal ranks were decimated by injury or exhausted towards the end of the Spring Season, you could barely find them. Soloist was a tricky spot at NYCB, unless it was a resting ground for a quick trip to Principal.

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He’s gotta start screaming more. I am one of the few that felt the same way about Marion Cotillard's performance in La Vie en Rose, about which my conclusion was "Junkies are tedious."

And we got another look at her dress, which was, in my opinion, the most beautiful one on the show, and I can't think of any other person who would have been so physically perfect in it.

Three of my favorite pianists are from Canada: Gould, Robert Silverman, and Angela Hewitt, and they could not be any more different in their playing. Hewitt, daughter of the organist at the main cathedral in Ottawa, plays Bach on the piano as if she were playing an organ, as compared to Gould, who makes the rhythmic structure so apparent. Silverman has a very warm, organic approach to Beethoven and Brahms, a complete contrast to Gould.

If we add in living royalty, Princess Caroline of Monaco has filled her late mother's shoes as a sponsor of the ballet and for ballet scholarships. Queen Margrethe II of Denmark is a devoted balletomane.

Farrell had lost a lot technically when she came back after hip surgery, although I can't remember her taking on iconic roles. Nichols danced many of her key roles to the end of her career; some people loved these later performances and others thought less of them. I haven't seen Kistler for at least eight years except on the Balanchine Centennial broadcast, but I've ready many comments here that she no longer has the strength for many of her roles and that she's simplified steps. She had an incomparably sunny and such a gracious presence on stage that I could see how someone could enjoy watching her and not care about her technique.

Not to the same extreme, but it has and does happen, even at NYCB. And surely Nureyev's longevity was much commented upon.

Oregon Ballet Theatre has posted its 2008-9 season to its website (thanks to printcess for the heads up!): http://www.obt.org/season_08-09.htm Swan Lake OCTOBER 11 - 18 2008 Christopher Stowell after Petipa (Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky) George Balanchine's "The Nutcracker" DECEMBER 12 - 24 2008 George Balanchine (Tchaikovsky) Lamberena FEBRUARY 21 - 28 2009 ASH Peter Martins (Michael Torke) THE RITE OF SPRING World Premiere Christopher Stowell (Igor Stravinsky) LAMBARENA Company Premiere Val Caniparoli (Johann Sebastian Bach and Traditional African Music) Left Unsaid APRIL 17 - 26 2009 THE VERTIGINOUS THRILL OF EXACTITUDE William Forsythe (Franz Schubert) LEFT UNSAID Company Premiere Nicolo Fonte (Johann Sebastian Bach) TARANTELLA Company Premiere George Balanchine (Louis Moreau Gottschalk) WORLD PREMIERE by James Kudelka Rush and Robbins JUNE 5 - 7 2009 RUSH Christopher Wheeldon (Bohuslav Martinu) AFTERNOON OF A FAUN Jerome Robbins (Claude Debussy) THE CAGE Company Premiere Jerome Robbins (Igor Stravinsky) THE CONCERT Jerome Robbins (Frederic Chopin)

For the upcoming Nureev (Act III, "Raymonda), Balanchine ("Four Temperaments"), Forsythe ("Artifact Suite") triple bill that will be performed in April/May, Paris Opera Ballet has posted the following video snippets on this page: http://www.operadeparis.fr/Accueil/Actualite.asp?id=483 First: Aurelie Dupont and Wilifred Romoli in the first 2+ minutes of the "Sanguinic" movement (through the entrance of the four corps women) Second: Eleonora Abbagnato et Benjamin Pech in the first 1+ minute of "Artifact Suite." I don't recognize the "signal" woman from behind or the (tiny in the video) second couple.