Helene

If Phelps couldn't beat Agnell's time, I wouldn't be so hard on Lochte. It might have been a wrong strategic move to have Lochte swim the anchor leg, but I'm not sure Phelps would have been able to do much better as anchor.

Balanchine loved to have tall women with medium/medium-tall sized men. Although tiny Madeleine Eastoe is one of my favorite dancers -- because she dances as if she were 5'7" -- I would rue the day when ballerinas are like tiny gymnasts.

Wu and He, though, were incredible, just gorgeous in the air. With the bronze Emilie Heymans became the first Canadian to win medals in four consecutive Olympics. Like Wu, she won a medal with her second synchro partner, and for Heymans, it was in another diving discipline: she had to give up platform diving because of injury. Congratulations to her and Jennifer Abel, her partner.

Petipa knew how to recycle. Sorta like Rossini.

According to this article from today's "Links," Luke Ingham is leaving Houston Ballet, where he was a demi-soloist to join San Francisco Ballet as a soloist. This is a link to his bio on the Houston Ballet site; I'm not sure how long it will be accessible: http://www.houstonballet.org/Inside_Houston_Ballet/Dancers/Luke_Ingham/ Highlights: Born and trained in Australia, including at Australian Ballet School 2004-2011: Australian Ballet Won "Young and Emerging Arts Initiative Award from the Australia Council, which enabled him to attend classes with New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Pacific Northwest Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and National Ballet of Canada." Having taken class at SFB, he wouldn't be new to the company.

What was the deal with having British athletes parade in to David Bowie’s Heroes? The tone of that song is desperate and wistful and ironic. The heroism there is fantasy. I couldn’t hear the lyrics well last night, but I’m guessing they at least cut out the lines about how “you can be mean and I’ll drink all the time.” At skating championships, the International Skating Union has played "We Are the Champions" when the medallists take their victory lap. Talk about tone deaf. I thought Boyle's approach was fascinating. I wonder what it was like to be in the stadium. I'm assuming they had big screens and/or an internal frequency to allow people to see close-ups on their cell phones. (in Vancouver, they jammed cell phone reception in at least the closing ceremony.). The entire Jubilee has been full of pomp. There's no way the Olympics could compete with that. I'm glad they took a different approach with the Opening Ceremony. I thought Queen Elizabeth was great in the Bond video. She's in her '80's and has had months of Jubilee-related events. I thought she looked tired more than dyspeptic during the ceremony. The CTV people were great at keeping quiet through most of the Opening Ceremony. Unfortunately, during the Parade of Athletes, the info they gave was mostly useless. CTV didn't cut the choreography, but I think you had to be in the stadium to get the effect of the patterns and mass of people. It wasn't very photogenic, and I fast-forwarded through most of it. After the children's choirs, my favorite part was the clip of "Gregory's Girl" shown during the mindless romance section. I loved the cauldron, the idea of passing the torch from one of the greatest British Olympic athletes to a group of children, and how they used the "petals" carried in my kids accompanying each nation in the Parade of Athletes to created the cauldron. I thought the Olympic Rings thing in the sky was splendid, and I love all fireworks. Were the Great Britain team uniforms supposed to be ironic? Why did the US uniforms make them look like members of the Canadian military?

The baby's name is Luciana: It is with a great deal of pleasure and immense humility, we introduce to the world, Lorena and Vitor's new baby girl, Luciana. She is Lucia's cousin, Lupe's second granddaughter, and Lorna's niece. Pictured is Lupe with Luciana in her arms and Lucia watching over. Thank you to all for being part of this glorious event. May God bless each and everyone of you and your loved ones. As ever, There's a lovely photo of Feijoo's mom, Lupe, holiding the baby, and her cousin, Lucia, by her side at the link.

About stillness, I've never seen "Watermill," but for me, the queen of stillness and attention was Beatriz Rodriguez's The Chosen One in the Hodson/Archer reconstruction for the Joffrey Ballet: She doesn't move from 8'44" of this video until 4'25" in part 3.

Yes, it was Skorik.

Tereshkina will get the review, which is excellent planning, too.

From the press release linked above (a .pdf) -- thank you amiaow: Tuesday, October 2 at 7:30 p.m. Victoria Tereshkina as Odette-Odile Vladimir Schklyarov as Prince Siegfried Wednesday, October 3 at 7:30 p.m. Anastasia Matvienko as Odette-Odile Danila Korsuntsev as Prince Siegfried Thursday, October 4 at 7:30 p.m. Oxana Skorik as Odette-Odile Timur Askerov as Prince Siegfried Friday, October 5 at 7:30 p.m. Victoria Tereshkina as Odette-Odile Vladimir Schklyarov as Prince Siegfried Saturday, October 6 at 2 p.m. Ekaterina Kondaurova as Odette-Odile Danila Korsuntsev as Prince Siegfried Saturday, October 6 at 7:30 p.m. Alina Somova as Odette-Odile Evgeny Ivanchenko as Prince Siegfried Sunday, October 7 at 2 p.m. Oxana Skorik as Odette-Odile Timur Askerov as Prince Siegfried It's clever casting: people who are going to go on weekend will go on the weekend no matter who dances. For West Coasters trying to see Tereshkina and Kondaurova, it may be possible to fly in in time for the Friday night performance and leave after the Saturday matinee. Also, by October, any of this could change.

Unfortunately, like the heroine of "Avatar" and the daughter in "The Incredibles."

US companies are blessed to have Brazilian dancers. (Sometimes we think they're "ours" and forget.) Just a few: at Pacific Northwest Ballet we have the beautiful Carla Korbes, and Marcelo Gomes (ABT) is a great favorite here and will soon be a great favorite in Russia, since he's will also dance with the Mikhailovsky Ballet. Vitor Luiz is a Principal Dancer with San Francisco Ballet, and he and Lorena Feijoo just had a baby girl. So Cuban and Brazilian cultures do have a lot in common

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