Helene

Sounds great! In at least the major Australian cities there is a very large pdestrian shopping zone, and when I was there at the beginning of December one year, it was 32C/90F degrees in Adelaide, and over the loudspeaker, between Christmas carols, were announcements for sales. There was also one of the tallest Christmas trees I've ever seen, and when I got back to Sydney for my outbound flight, there were signs all around for beach Christmas and New Year's celebrations. But at least it was December!

I could say the same about a lot of dance I've seen

Figure skating has long been another exception by practice, but skating-related threads are not to rehash what's been said on figure skating boards, but to discuss movement to music and its relationship to the sport. Dressage, horses moving to music, can't come soon enough. We still have the Ladies' floor ex, rhythmic gymnastics, and synchronized swimming, too.

Sorry, Barbara: the point of the thread is to discuss the Olympics, and that goes for things that finished 2 seconds ago. If you want to remain unspoiled, please stay out of this thread. This has always been true for our Olympics and figure skating threads.

I know that there have been droughts and horrid weather in much of North America, but in the Pacific NW, my heat was on in the beginning of July, and I'm not ready for the barrage of "Nutcracker" marketing emails I've been receiving.

Not according to Sebastian Coe, who, called Phelps the most "successful" Olympics athlete (after Phelps' 19th medal), and when pressed, came up with other possibility and settled on Jesse Owens: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/olympics/sebastian-coe-says-michael-phelps-up-there-but-not-the-greatest-olympian-of-all-time-164592226.html?viewAllComments=y

Word. I'm sure that Speedos would be just as comfortable to play in as the women's bikini bottoms.

When Peter Boal took over PNB, 1/3 of the dancers had been his students at SAB, and since then he's hired more, a handful of whom danced in other companies first. I wouldn't doubt a teacher's ability to have an extensive network. His credibility in the Russian dance community and the depth of his relationships with his students and other dancers isn't anything we can judge without being in that world, and unless someone from that world speaks on the record about it, we really haven't that much to go on. He certainly makes himself vulnerable if his claims are not true or highly exaggerated. If he's going back to Russia to make his film, it's hard to imagine him getting a warm reception if they think he's a liar, unless it is somehow advantageous to them. As far as his intent to sell DVD's, I think it's pretty clear from the distracting footage in the background of his video blogs, which, like infomercials, rely upon great length and constant repetition.

Vail has posted an extended excerpt of the third couple in Jerome Robbins' "In the Night" performed by Tiler Peck and Amar Ramassar -- from NYCB Moves -- and the film quality is wonderful: Robbins Foundation, Vail, and NYCB!

There used to be a live pianist off to the side. I can't find any references to when there was a switch to instrumental recordings, but I would not be at all surprised if current "dance" styles -- just as second-rate (I'm being kind here) in hip-hop, jazz, contemporary, and even cheer leading -- became the norm soon after they were no longer limited to piano transcriptions. I never understood how Caslavska's hair didn't knock off her balance, but she was the most dominant gymnast ever, with two all-around Olympic titles in 1964 and 1968 and every major championship in between. Olympic titles in the same years were not the only thing they had in common with the Soviet Pairs team the Protopopovs: the coming of the more athletic -- and young -- Tourischeva was considered doom to the lyrical and balletic style favored until then, just as Irina Rodnina and partner's dominance was considered the end of lyricism in skating. Apart from doing point work, I also don't think that every corps member of a regional company in 1968 was a better dancer than Caslavska, from what I saw of regional companies from the '60's. I think the change of music was a nightmare, but death came when the judges started to accept the broken wrists and splayed hands in floor ex and balance beam. Shannon Milller is one of my top 3 all-time favorites, with Tourischeva and Caslavska, but her hands are cringe-worthy. Balance beam is the event in which the internal rhythm becomes clear, even with the floor ex competitor's music blaring in the background and crowd cheering for the other three events running simultaneously, but they still are required to do at least a full turn and leaps, just like in floor ex, and while they don't shimmy, they do all kinds of cutesy poses in between the tumbling and other elements. There's rhythm in vault and uneven bars, but not the same physical momentum and continuous movement in floor ex and beam, due to those pesky laws of physics. Rhythmic Gymnastics debuted at the LA Olympics, sadly boycotted by the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, except Romania, and the field was very diluted. There was a question in a recent ballet thread about what makes you think of pain while watching, and in addition to when gymnasts on the beam tumble and land with the beam between thighs -- thankfully rare these days -- watching rhyming gymnasts extend to a minimum of 190 degrees makes me queasy. Artistic Gymnastics has a much longer history, competed first in the Olympics in 1928.

If they have to dance, I wish it were more like this:

If you follow the link above to the thread about him on BT4D, there is a discussion about his teaching credentials, which are solid. It was not like he got diplomas from the Dasha Dinkleovna Academy.

His expresses his disdain for the Mikhailovsky Ballet as not even third rate. The Mikhailovsky doesn't have a training academy and traditionally got dancers, however good, who weren't hired by their affiliate companies. It can't be defiled by foreigners. The billionaire businessman who runs it doesn't come from the great traditions of the theater, etc. As a result he's made some pretty great business moves in his hiring.

I agree. One of the biggest differences in physical ability, though is that women are pretty much limited to tumbling, turns, and leaps, and probably a few presses, while men have the upper body strength to do planges and whatever they call it when they swing their legs around as if on the dungeon torture device pommel horse, although the total amount of time the men do these moves probably equals the amount of embarrassing "dance" movement the women do.

He doesn't claim that Hallberg was the first American to dance with either the Kirov and/or the Bolshoi. He's saying that Hallberg being accepted as a permanent member of the Company -- crossing the huge line between a guest and someone who is accepted at the same level as the Russian dancers -- was what made Osipova and Vasiliev leave, since it was such an affront. (In his video, there's a screen shot of the page on Ballet Alert! where Tsiskaridze's reaction to Hallberg's hiring was first posted.) If you follow his logic -- i.e., Russia has everything, America has nothing -- it makes perfect sense that Osipova would be perfectly fine dancing with Hallberg on the American stage in his company, because she is so clearly superior and brings luster and prestige to him and ABT (and wherever else they guest outside Russia). Superior artists guest star with lesser companies all the time, and they get paid good cash to do so. They also get to build leverage with their home company, because what they are offered outside could compensate more and more for what they would lose withing the company, at least temporarily. That in itself would make not her mercenary. It's Conrad's claim that Hallberg isn't capable of partnering her and that she is endangered by his partnering. If that's the case, she's willing to risk her health and career for quick cash and opportunities now, and that's pretty mercenary, although entirely her own risk to take. He also claims that Hallberg was given the position because of his personal relationship with the Bolshoi director -- I assume Filin -- and that it will likely cause both Hallberg and Filin to be fired. He said the critics have been negative and that it's widely reported in the Russian press that this has been a mistake, and I think he was saying the press was reporting potential firings, although I might have misunderstood. I don't read Russian -- perhaps someone who's been following this in the Russian press could comment. Again following the logic, if Filin is fired, then the current situations could be a temporary respite for Osipova and Vasiliev. who might be able to waltz back into the Bolshoi as returning heroes. So it would really be a win/win situation for them to posit leaving as a response to the cheapening of Russian ballet: they get lots of roles, guest appearances, new productions, and freedom, establishing an international brand bigger than some greater dancers, as well as apartments in expensive Russian cities and a pile of cash in the meantime, while they are still young, and then when some one else takes over the Company, they're golden, until at least the next regime change.

The gender-based requirement -- among other gender-based restrictions, like the number of tumbling passes they can do -- is imposed in the scoring criteria, which require interpretation, and the basic fact that Women's floor exercise is defined as movement to music, where Men's floor exercise has no music nor requires interpretation. It's built into the discipline. What people are bemoaning is that the judges aren't marking as if it were a requirement -- giving some gymnasts a pass on the interpretation/dance part, mostly marking strong tumblers as strongly or almost as strongly as those who meet the requirement. It's the same complaint about ballet competitions rewarding gymnastics and tricks, even if the official judging criteria includes style, interpretation, and musicality.

One of Conrad's messages in the videos is to understand why you're there and to have no illusions about it, but to follow his example and get the most out of it. Despite its ups and downs, I think that NYCB is still considered the top company in the United States, and I don't think SAB students have this attitude. Balanchine famously said, "But first a school," and although he didn't have huge money or choices when he started it, when the Ford Foundation money -- and, not to be underestimated, its blessing -- came along in the 60's, if he really wanted to create a codified training, he could have. He chose to have teachers who were trained in different ways and had different performing and teaching experience. For the students who want to dance the Russian classics, it's not surprising that they look to the Bolshoi and Mariinsky especially as the pinnacle. Yes. That's long been the case for private colleges and universities, few of which have aid-blind admissions. I'm sure that this is true in the public sector. In the private sector, there have always been the children of alumni and people who name buildings who take the place of students who more meet the published criteria. That said, the Mariinsky school started out as royal academy, and it and the Bolshoi schools were exclusive and, apart from war periods, considered so important that they were sheltered and funded even as people starved. The public importance was prestige, not to provide opportunities to tax-paying residents. There have been enough students over the years who had connections and were less talented than students who were rejected, so it's never been purely the "best of the best," but it's the difference between accepting a legacy student and a foreigner. Exactly.

In Canada, there are three channels covering the Olympics, CTV, SportsNet, and TSN, and I think every hour at least two of the three of them are covering the Olympics. The downside is that instead of showing entire events, like weightlifting, archery, judo, on one of the channels, they show just a few of each if we're lucky, and re-broadcast the abridged coverage on one of the other three channels. Still, it's miles ahead of NBC. McKayla Maroney's vault was one of the most beautiful things I've seen in Women's gymnastics . Kudos to Gabrielle Douglas, the only US women to compete on four events. Her score was highest in two and second in two. Sui Lu's beam routine was stunning, too. Lochte, who did look tired after his opening win in the 400 IM, came back strong in the first leg of the US Men's winning 4x200 Freestyle Relay. His was the second fastest time (1m45.15s) after Phelps' anchor leg (1m44.05s), and they were 3.07 seconds ahead of the silver-winning French. Yannick Agnel's anchor leg was 1m43.24s. Congrats to Allison Schmitt on winning the 200m Freestyle with an Olympic Record! Missy Franklin missed bronze by .01. I know she already has a gold medal, but that has to hurt. The Kazakhstan women are killing it in weightlifting so far.

I've been slowly, very slowly, reading Robert Caro's latest book on Lyndon Johnson, "The Passage to Power," and Alan Taylor's "The Civil War of 1812."

I think the continuing conflict in Chechnya and a few other areas would suggest that there are racial sensitivities in Russia. That doesn't mean that the Bolshoi will take this into consideration in its production.

I'm having trouble following some of his logic. For example, it is ten times more work for a Russian teacher to teach an American student at the Bolshoi school, but he can teach pirouettes in minutes on his DVD. Wow. Is Natalia Osipova less at risk when she's paid to dance with Hallberg at ABT than when she's dancing with him on the stage of the Bolshoi? Why not just call her for sale directly? That being said, I don't doubt for a second that the Bolshoi/Bolshoi School has opened up to foreigners for the cash. I have no doubt that at least some of the teachers at the Bolshoi School feel pimped out and/or cynical about the entire enterprise.

Relays are a combination of all of the times. Unless any of the team members had a personal best -- which as far as I've been listening and reading did not happen -- each one of them is responsible for their overall placement.

Pretty brave: at least five former champions won't repeat. They should forget about Carson Kressley as a competitor and hire him to replace Brooke Burke-Charvet.

Wasn't that Balanchine after seeing Isadora Duncan? If not, I'm sure he said something equally rude.