Helene

Thank you rkoretzky and Juliet for being our eyes in Saratoga Springs!

Andrea Bocelli.

I've always wondered how to interpret "actor/model XYZ was heading toward a ballet career when she suffered a career-ending injury." What is the bar, or the ballet equivalent of "any second year conservatory student could do that?" Is it having been accepted to one of the great training academies like POB, Kirov, or Bolshoi schools? Having been accepted into the pre-professional track at one of the major schools? Having graduated from a pre-professional track? Having apprenticed with a company, with or without big institutional training? Having earned a dance degree at Julliard or SUNY Purchase or NYU?

I don't think the average person with a big ego and a bigger sense of entitlement would obey a civil servant without a weapon and a court system behind him or her. I've seen those thick Plexiglas windows at the DMV. Ushers have house management, but, in my opinion, too often, "the customer is always right," while another set of patrons is livid that nothing is done (mea culpa), not knowing that the ushers' hands have been tied. I like the idea of having a very large, glowering person to back up a usher and to take no guff.

Actually, many, if not most, of Teresa Reichlen's fans are ballet lovers, and would have been thrilled to see an excellent performance by Gwyneth Mueller, even if they were initially disappointed not to see Reichlen.

That is precisely why we have gossip and "no backstage" policies, which is, if it's in print, post and source it, and if it's not, don't post it here.

That is true if one gives them the benefit of the doubt and says that they have simply become oblivious to any noise their children make or it is a misguided attempt to train a child to behave in a theater. Unfortunately, many do know what they are doing -- saving the trouble and cost of hiring a babysitter, and bringing children who are too young or immature or unprepared to understand their setting -- but that doesn't translate into consideration for their fellow audience members. The "but I spent $100 on these seats, including one for Kid, and I'm not leaving now" or "It would break Older Child's heart to leave because Younger Child is crying" arguments doesn't hold water, although they hold sway. One of the tradeoffs of training children for the theater is the willingness to bail when the child is unable to behave properly, and to consider the tickets a sunk cost, and to prepare Older Child for the possibility. (Don't bet what you're not willing to lose.) To the argument that then the child has "won," perhaps, the battle, but not the war, which is a longer-term prospect, and it could be a while before the child is invited to the next performance. Teaching a child to behave in the theater is a process, and teaching mode is about the student and the "material." If the teacher/parent gets to see a performance in the process, that's gravy.

Natalia, If I were buying tickets, I'd follow your odds sheet

I am so sorry -- both DVD's I bought were Bolshoi. The one I haven't seen yet is with Bessmertnova, Vasyuchenko, and Taranda. The Kirov disk is Don Q.

[ADMIN BEANIE ON] Please note that the casting predictions, while based on long-time observations by knowledgeable posters, are predictions only. There will be no refunds [ADMIN BEANIE OFF]

Yes he did!! He stood with his arms upraised and holding some type of spear or weapon at the end of his big aria, and held the pose for a long, thunderous ovation. I couldn't believe that his arms didn't drop off -- he must have had real strength in his back.

Most of these were in the post-Bing era, and Ramey was another who was long overdue.

Sources, sources, folks.

Was Benno not in the ABT/Blair production in the early 70's? I don't have the original program, but I seem to remember a Benno, although not in the pas de deux.

I find it very frustrating that Conrad discusses an apprenticeship in Israel and skips straight to Domingo's career at the Metropolitan Opera. Domingo was an up-and-coming star at New York City Opera before he put a foot to the Met's stage, and he starred in Ginastera's Don Rodrigo, a new opera commissioned for NYCO's opening at the New York State Theater. He was one of the few in that era that made the jump successfully, instead of being considered a poor cousin of his Metropolitan Opera brethren, the way too many singers languished in the Bing Era.

I thought this movie was lots of fun, and I particularly liked Derek Jacobi and Robin Williams, in their supporting roles. I also found Branaugh's mastery of the fast-talking American cadence to be very impressive. Many actors have gotten the accent down, but few the speed and power.

In the first dance, each team did their best defined dance, with John/Charlotte reprising the Quick Step and Kelly/Alec repeating the Samba, this time with no wardrobe malfunctions. Although I preferred Kelly/Alec in the two previous shows, I'm not sure what the judges were thinking this time. O'Hurley kept his mannerisms to a minimum in the Quick Step, and was a lot of fun, and he tamed sticking out his abdomen instead of lifting his chest. For a non-professional man to gain the lift and posture in two months has got to be the hardest part of the entire contest. Kelly/Alec's Samba was more technically accomplished than their first attempt -- she was able to lift her arms -- but it seemed a bit stiff to me. I preferred the dash of the Quick Step to the rather Dance Feverish Samba. I'm not a big fan of freestyle, because of the tricks involved, but although I thought John/Charlotte's started out a bit slow, it was a hoot, and showed off a wider range of dance styles. They went out of their comfort zone stylistically, while Kelly/Alec stuck exclusively to their strength. The lift that John/Charlotte practiced with Patrick Swayze in the studio didn't come off cleanly, but Charlotte was a real pro in saving it, and they had a few bobbles, but not nearly as many as Kelly/Alec. I'm not sure about the relative difficulty, though, and if Kelly/Alec's difficulty was high enough, the "deductions" for the bobbles may still have netted them higher scores than John/Charlotte. I think one of the reasons there has been so much reaction to the freestyle scoring is that Kelly/Alec received 10's, which have an emotional resonance and the expectation of perfection, when, in fact, the judges boxed themselves in by giving John/Charlotte 9's across the board. I would have called it the other way in this episode.

Formatting Special Characters This post is a compilation of excellent posts originally made by Mel Johnson, with special thanks to skip and his brother for information on encoding and Windows, Ari for instructions on "ISO Encoding," Alexandra for the helpful hit to add the Character Map to the taskbar, and soubrette_fan, who gave instructions for Mac OS X. The following should work with Western European (ISO), Western European (Windows), and Unicode (UTF-8) in Internet Explore 6.0 (View/Encoding), and Western (ISO-8859-1) and Unicode (UTF-8) in Firefox 1.0.4 (View/Character Encoding) and Windows XP, with language and keyboard set to "US English." Copying from Windows Character Map 1. To open Character Map, Click Start Point to All Programs Point to Accessories Point to System Tools Click Character Map 2. Set the font from the drop-down box, if necessary. 3. Click on the character you need. 4. Click Select. 5. When you are finished selecting, click Copy. 6. Paste into your post. For Windows Users: 1. You can add the Character Map to your Quick Launch bar, if your taskbar and Quick Launch are visible. a. The Taskbar is the bar on which the Start button, Quick Launch shortcuts, and non-current window icons are displayed. (Default placement is at the bottom of the screen, but this can be changed to the top or side.) b. The Quick Launch taskbar is the far left section of the taskbar, directly to the right of "Start" button, and consists of a series of small icons, which represent shortcuts to specific programs, folders, and utilities. The default placement is at the bottom, include "Desktop" and "Internet Explorer."i. To display Quick Launch taskbar if it not visible, right click on an empty area of the taskbar, select Toolbars/Quick Launch ii. The setting Lock the Taskbar may have to be "unclicked" for this to work. 2. Create a shortcut to Character Map and drag and drop it to the Quick Launch taskbar or find the Character Map from the menu and drag and drop it to the Quick Launch taskbar. a. For XP users, the Character Map is located at Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Character Map. b. For other Windows system, please check the help files at Start/Help. Copying from This Post! It may be tedious, but if the following instructions don't work with your browser and operating system, you can always highlight the characters from this post, and copy and paste them into your post. Using ISO Codes-- For All PC Users 1. The syntax for name encoding is "&" + number code + ";" with no spaces. 2. If you preview, if coding is successful, the code will disappear and the character will appear in its place. 3. A list of codes can be found at this link: http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/refer...ial_characters/ (I was unable to make the "Name Codes" work from either Mozilla or IE by copying and pasting the code off the site, but Ari did in her original example.) For PC Users with a Numbers Pad Set the "Num Lock" to "on," and use the numbers on the pad. This won't work with numbers across the top of the keyboard. A list of the three digit codes (not including the "0XXX" series) can be found here (using the Dec column): http://www.cdrummond.qc.ca/cegep/informat/...files/ascii.htm Common Latin-based European and Latin America: alt 133 = à alt 0192 = À alt 128 = Ç alt 135 = ç alt 130 = é alt 144 = É alt 138 = è alt 0200 = È alt 161 = í alt 141 = ì alt 164 = ñ alt 165 = Ñ Common German and Scandinavian characters alt 134 = å alt 0197 = Å alt 0248 = ø alt 0216 = Ø alt 145 = æ alt 146 = Æ alt 132 = ä alt 142 = Ä alt 137 = ë alt 148 = ö alt 153 = Ö alt 129 = ü alt 154 = Ü Additional Characters alt 139 = ï alt 140 = î alt 141 = ì alt 0221 = Ý alt 152 = ÿ Fractions alt 172 = ¼ alt 171 = ½ alt 0190 = ¾ Degrees (º) is alt 167 Copyright and Registered alt 0174 = ® alt 0169 = © Currency alt 155 = ¢ alt 156 = £ alt 157 = ¥ alt 158 = P alt 159 = ƒ alt 0128 = € For PC Users without a Numbers Pad 1. Create a numbers pad: a. Press the fn (function) + alt keys down together and press the corresponding letter to create a number. (The fn key should be located on the bottom left of the keyboard between the Ctrl and Alt keys.) b. Following is a list of combinations:fn + alt + m = 0 fn + alt + j = 1 fn + alt + k = 2 fn + alt + l = 3 fn + alt + u = 4 fn + alt + i = 5 fn + alt + o = 6 fn + alt + 7 = 7 fn + alt + 8 = 8 fn + alt + 9 = 9 2. Use the list above to create characters. For Mac OS X Users 1. Go to System Preferences 2. Select the Input Menu tab. 2. Select the Character Palette and "U.S." checkboxes. 3. Be sure the Show input menu in menu bar option is checked. a. This should make a small U.S. flag appear in the menu bar. b. If you click on it and select Character Palette, it will show you a list of accented characters. c. Click on the one you want d. Select "Insert." For All Operating Systems Type the post in a program, like Word, that supports special characters and paste into the reply input box on the site. While this means using another program, the upside is that you'll probably get Spell Check at the same time

That's a lovely way of putting it, danceintheblood.

Thank you for your post, nysusan! I'm sorry you had to cope with so many distractions. It's one thing to build audiences by letting younger children into the theater, but there's no excuse for babies.

That would make this DVD even more valuable! Thank you for the information, goro.

Formatting There are several categories of formatting, but there is one formatting rule: for every type, there must be an [open format] and [/close format] "tag". Please note that in the following instructions, a space will appear between the left bracket "[" and the formatting command. This does not appear in correct formatting. However, the system will format correct formatting commands, and the only way to display them onscreen is to break the formatting convention, hence the space. The formatting tags will appear in the reply input box, but should not appear in the reply itself after you post. If tags do appear, please see the troubleshooting tips in this post. Formatting Text: There are three buttons and three drop-down boxes above the reply input box, all of which are used to format text: B=bold which will appear in the reply input box as [ b]Text[ /b] I=Italicize, which will appear in the reply input box as [ i]Text[ /i] U=underline, which will appear in the reply input box as [ u]Text[ /u] The FONT button allows you to choose from Arial, Times, Courier, Impact, Geneva, and Optima. These will appear in the reply input box as [ font=fontname][ /font]. The SIZE button allows you to choose from Small, Large, Largest. Please note that these will appear in the reply input box as [ size=1], [ size=7], and [ size=14] and [ /size]. You can adjust the numbers to tweak the sizes. Please use "Largest" judiciously. The COLOR button allows you to choose from blue, red, orange, yellow, purple, gray, and green. These will appear in the reply input box as [ color=colorname] [ /color]. Note that yellow is illegible on the site background. There are several options to format text: Guided Mode: One Type of Formatting per Text. 1. This is a radio button selection to the left of the format buttons and directly above the smilies. 2. If selected, you will be able to format text automatically with one of the following options: * Bold * Italic * Underline * Text Link to a Web Page * Email address: a@b.com * Quote 3. When you select one of the corresponding format buttons, an input box will appear onscreen, prompting you for the text to be formatted. * For text links, the first box will prompt for the link to the web page, and the second for the text link. You may choose OK to enter the text into your post input box, or click Cancel. 4. To add additional formatting: * Enter tags manually in the input box or in the reply. * Switch to Normal Mode, and use the Highlight Method explained below. 5. The only tags that can be added (manually or through the Highlight Method) are the "Font," "Size," and "Color" options, which do not have Guided Mode options. To Open and Close Tags at the Same Time (Highlight Method): 1. Highlight the text and click the button or drop-down box. 2. To add additional formats (bold and italic, font and color, etc.) you can highlight the other formatting tags or just the text and then select the second format, but if you highlight only part of a previous formatting tag -- which is easy to do if you try to highlight only the text -- the new tags will be placed in the middle of the original and will break it. (ex: [ b][ [ i]u]Text[ /i][ /u][ /b] This is the safest way to format text correctly. To Open Tags: 1. Be sure your cursor is in the correct place in the input box. If your cursor isn't "resolved" because you moved off the page, the tags will generally appear at beginning of the post. 2 Click the button or choose an option from the drop-down box, and then type the text you wish to format. The button will appear with an "*" to indicate that you haven't yet "closed" the formatting tags. 3 Type in the "open format" tag(s) yourself. As you get used to formatting, or if you have HTML experience, you may find this easier. To Close Tags: 1. For button formatting options: With your cursor at the end of the text to be formatted, click the button for the first formatting tag -- for [ b][ i][ u]Format this text, that would be the B button OR Click each button in the reverse order order you "opened" the tags -- for [ b][ i][ u]Format this text, that would be the "U" button, then the I button, then the B button OR Click the Close all Tags link next to the "Color" drop-down box. 2. For mixed formatting options: Click the Close all Tags link next to the "Color" drop-down box. 3. For all formatting options: type in the "close format" tag(s) yourself. Adding Links: 1. Unless you want to type in the link from scratch, copy the entire link from a browser window. 2. There are two ways to display a link: a. As a link:Simply paste the link into text the reply. It will appear onscreen as http://www.kcballet.org/ b. As a text link: i. With your cursor at the place where you want to insert the link, click the http:// button above the reply input box. ii. A dialogue box will open, prompting you for:(a)The link. "http://" will appear in the dialogue box, and for most browsers this will be highlighted. If it is not, highlight "http://" Paste the link into the dialogue box OR Cursor right (right arrow) and type in the link, beginning with "www." Click OK (b)The text. "My Webpage" will appear in the dialogue box, and for most browsers this will be highlighted. If it isn't, delete this from the dialogue box. Type in the link text. Click OK The formatted link will appear in the reply input box box as: [ URL=http://www.kcballet.org/]Kansas City Ballet Homepage[ /URL] and on the page as: Kansas City Ballet Homepage Quotes: 1. Instructions for quoting another poster are found here. 2. To type or past in a quote, a. Click the QUOTE button. b. A dialogue box will open. c. Type or paste in the quote. Clickable Email Address: To make and email address "clickable," 1. Click the @ button. 2. A dialogue box will appear, into which you type the email address. 3. Click OK. This will appear in the reply input box as: [ EMAIL]email@abc.com[ /EMAIL] and on the site as email@abc.com Please post only your own email address (if you are 18 or over) and those that can be found from free, official, public sources (printed or online). What Is the Code Option? Because many boards are used by software developers, there is an option called "code," which creates a box similar to a quote box, in which code is entered and in which it appears in courier type. It is separate from the main post to show that what is inside can be copied and pasted into code and used. Creating an Indented "List": 1. The "open list" and "close list" formatting tags must be entered manually; there is no list button. 2. Before the first item, type [ list] (without the space between the "[" and the "l") 3. Type the first item. 4. Put a carriage return/enter between each item. 5. At the end of the list, type [ /list] (without the space between the "[" and the "/") You can create indents within indents ("nested indents") by typing another "[ list]" before ending the first one (with [ /list]). Be sure that you have one "close list" [ /list] for every "open list" [ list]. Unsolicited advice for multiple nested "lists": Add the first indent tags and "preview." If these are correct, add in the tags for the next indent, and "preview;" otherwise correct the error and "preview" again. Continue until the post looks correct. Smilies: 1. Smilies are the little icons that can be added to reply text in posts or to the post itself in the post listing. Examples: 2. Smilies are also know as "emoticons." 3. To use them on the site, the checkbox next to Enable emoticons? must be selected in the Post Options section below the reply box. 4. To use in reply text: a. A partial selection appears to the left of the reply input box. b. To see more options, click the Show All link. c. Smilies appear in the reply input box as :smilie name: 5. To attach to the post: a. The list of icons appears in the Post Icons, below the reply input box. b. Click the radio button to the left of the icon you want to select. Troubleshooting: 1. If you preview or post, and any of the following appear in your post (not the reply input box, where they should appear), it means that you don't have an "open format" for every "closed format." means you're missing a "close bold" tag ([ /b]) or you have one "open bold" ([ b]) tag too many. [/i] means you're missing an "open italic" tag ([ /i]) or you have one "close italic" ([ /i]) too many. 2. Javascript smilies will not display on the site. Please use the ones provided.

Sorry, Becca. I moved the French text to an archival thread of its own: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=20058

(cygneblanc provided the material for this archival post from printed material provided by the Paris Opera Ballet School. This material is not available currently online. The POB School may change the rules and policies at any time.) Here are the articles of the official school rules related to exams. Annual exam for the pupils from the sixth to the second division: ARTICLE 7 : Examen annuel 7.1 Dispositions générales L'examen de fin d'année est obligatoire pour tous les élèves jusqu'à la 2e division incluse. Tout élève qui ne se présente pas à l'examen est exclu d'office de l'Ecole de Danse. Cependant, pour se présenter à cet examen les élèves de la 2e division doivent obligatoirement avoir obtenu des certificats d'aptitude, délivrés par les professeurs concernés; dans les matières suivantes : la formation musicale, l'histoire de la danse et l'anatomie appliquée à la danse. A titre exceptionnel, un élève peut être dispensé de l'examen pour raison de santé. Dans ce cas il est procédé à un examen de contrôle dans les trois mois suivant la reprise de l'élève. Le Jury est alors composé de la Directrice de l'Ecole de Danse et de deux professeurs de l'Ecole désignés par elle. La décision est prise à l'unanimité. La date des épreuves de l'examen est communiquée aux élèves au moins 90 jours avant leur déroulement. Le public n'est pas admis à assister aux épreuves. 7.2-Nature et déroulement des épreuves Les épreuves sont constituées par une présentation et un adage, une variation et une coda donnés par la Directrice de l'Ecole de Danse ou les professeurs, 10 jours à l'avance. Les filles et les garçons comparaissent séparément devant le Jury, par division et par groupe de deux, trois ou quatre. 7.3 Composition du Jury - délibérations - procédures de vote Le Jury est composé de: - la Directrice de l'Ecole de Danse, Président, - le Directeur de la Danse ou son représentant, - deux Professeurs de danse de l'Ecole de Danse élus par le corps professoral, ainsi qu'un suppléant désigné dans les mêmes conditions, - deux Artistes chorégraphiques de l'Opéra National de Paris ayant au moins rang de sujet ou plus de six années d'ancienneté dans le Ballet, élus par celui-ci, ainsi qu'un suppléant élu dans les mêmes conditions. Les décisions sont prises à la majorité absolue. Le Président a voix prépondérante en cas de partage égal des suffrages. Le Jury délibère d'abord sur !e cas des élèves dont i! estime que le renvoi ou le redoublement s'impose. Le Jury procède ensuite à un vote à bulletin secret pour la notation de chaque élève. Chaque membre du jury attribue une note sur 20 points à chaque candidat. La note globale du jury est la moyenne des notes ainsi attribuées. La note du jury est multipliée par trois pour être sur 60 et avoir un poids identique à celui des notes de l'année définies à l'article 6.3 auxquelles elle est additionnée. Peuvent être admis dans la division supérieure en fonction des places disponibles les élèves ayant obtenu une note globale égale ou supérieure à 60. Les élèves qui ne sont pas admis dans la division supérieure peuvent, selon leurs résultats, soit : . être maintenus dans leur division sous réserve des limites d'âge définies par l'article 6, .être exclus de l'Ecole. Les changements de division, les redoublements et les décisions de renvoi sont affichés dans l'ordre du classement par la Directrice de I'Ecole le jour même ou au plus tard dans les trois jours qui suivent l'examen. Competition for the first division: ARTICLE 9 : Concours d'entrée dans le Ballet 9.1 Dispositions générales En application de l'article 3 du titre IV de la Convention Collective de travail de l'Opéra National de Paris, les élèves de 1ère division achevant leurs études bénéficient d'une priorité de recrutement dans le Corps de Ballet de l'Opéra National de Paris. Ils peuvent se présenter au concours d'entrée à condition de posséder le Brevet des Collèges. Les candidats doivent avoir 16 ans dans l'année pour entrer dans le Ballet. Des dérogations peuvent être accordées exceptionnellement aux candidats plus jeunes. 9.2 Nature des épreuves La nature des épreuves : une variation classique du répertoire, est communiquée aux candidats au moins dix jours avant leur déroulement. 9.3 Composition du Jury - règlement et modalités de notation La composition du jury est fixée conformément aux dispositions particulières aux artistes du Ballet (titre IV, art.3) prévues par la Convention collective de travail de l'opéra National de Paris. A l'issue des variations, le jury procède à un vote pour chaque place en vue du classement des candidats à partir de la 1ère jusqu'à la 6ème place incluse, même si le nombre des candidats est supérieur à six. Le vote a lieu à bulletin secret. Les décisions sont prises à la majorité absolue des voix, celle du Président étant prépondérante en cas de partage égal des suffrages. Si les voix se répartissent entre plusieurs candidats sans que cette majorité soit atteinte, il est pour cette même place procédé à un nouveau vote jusqu'à ce que ladite majorité soit obtenue. Toutefois, au-delà du troisième tour, il est obligatoirement procédé au dernier vote uniquement pour départager les deux candidats ayant, dans l'ordre. obtenu le plus grand nombre de voix. En fonction de ce classement le Directeur de l'Opéra, sur proposition du Directeur de la Danse, décide des engagements, compte tenu des postes à pourvoir. Les candidats ayant réussi le concours et satisfaisant aux conditions de formation générale, sont intégrés dans le Corps de Ballet en tant que quadrilles stagiaires. Les élèves de la 1 ère division qui ne sont pas engagés dans le Corps de Ballet de l'Opéra peuvent être maintenus à l'Ecole de Danse s'ils ne sont pas en limite d'âge ou quitter celle-ci munis d'un diplôme de fin d'études. [edited by Estelle to fix a few typos]

You may get an answer to your questions on our sister site, Ballet Talk for Dancers in the Cross Talk and Career and Higher Education forums.