Helene

Ironically, the last comment on bare legs on Ballet Talk before this post was on Thomas Lund's, pictured in Napoli in the cover photo of the Spring 2006 issue of Ballet Review.

It wasn't simply heterosexual ascendancy, because, in NYC at least, the married Villella and d'Amboise were stars before Nureyev or Baryshnikov danced in the West. Baryshnikov's romantic exploits were well-publicized, and I think at least the illusion of heterosexual promiscuity was key. (Real Men sleep around; they aren't domesticated.) It's not enough to be heterosexual; one must be Heterosexual. It happens in figure skating as well: the happily married Janke, for example, is no match for [fill in the blank] lady-killer du jour. Of course, the standards for celebrity journalism were different in the mid-late 60's and 70's than they were in the 40's and 50's.

I'm not sure about conversant, but I think "men in tights" is an issue with a Puritanical society that is not comfortable with sex. "Naked" men, particularly male genitals, are still one of the great taboos of US society.

In his book The Paris Opéra Ballet, Ivor Guest writes, So I would add prejudice to ignorance, specifically sexism, i.e. anything woman-centric=emasculation of men, and is not a proper occupation for men, and homophobia, because any man who dances could not be a "Man", and gay is "bad." If you're ever in the need of inspiration because of other people's ignorance, I would suggest finding a library or second-hand copy of Striking a Balance and reading the chapter on Lew Christensen.

Who choreographed Simkin's piece? According to the video on his website, he choreographed "Fallen Angel," which he performed at Helsinki last year.

Someone who possessed among the most extraordinary epaulement I've ever seen was not a dancer but a figure skater, John Curry. What I think is a masterwork in any medium, his Afternoon of a Faun, which Norman Maen choreographed for Curry and Cathy Foulkes, a dancer with Boston Ballet, shows this. It was broadcast in full for TV in a program called "John Curry's Ice Dancing," and was excerpted in part 3 of a four-part BBC bio of Curry.

Congratulations to your daughter, vagansmom! I hope she finds a lot of treasures among them.

Yes.

If anyone has sat in the 5th Ring center, I'd appreciate it if you would post to say what the sightlines were like. I have Ring tickets this September, and I'm a bit anxious based on Noreen Arnold's experience in the 3rd Ring.

Just a note for people not familiar with Ballet Talk for Dancers terminology. I believe "DD"=Dancing Daughter. Amy'sMom, please tell me if I'm wrong.

I clicked on the links, and I'm in love, and I haven't even seen her dance. But Part is my kind of dancer, with wide shoulders and long, muscular legs, what I'd call "juicy."; there aren't that many very thin dancers that I've liked, although there have been exceptions. The topic is "divided opinions," and in a number of discussions of Part on this board, physique is one of the things on which opinions on Part are divided.

chauffeur, you do win the prize! I'm so glad you and your daughter made it to the performance, and that you had such a wonderful time.

DefJef, For this question I'm going to send you to the Ballet Videos forum, where there are a number of threads discussing videos new and old.

For anyone who wants to see for him or herself, I just got the following email from the National Ballet of Canada:

I've just created a new forum called "Blogs!;" for each Ballet Talk blog there is a subforum with announcements for new entries and links to the blogs. It is located under "News."

This site at dancer.dk has been shut down, per the message under the photo: http://www.dancer.dk/ A series of web searches didn't bring up any other