DancingGiselle

Yes, I think it was indeed The Unmaking of a Dancer. No, I wouldn't recommend it to dance students either, but not knowing the title was bothering me a bit so I thought I would ask.

Lampwick, your question regarding Podkopayeva induced me to dig out my Atlanta 1996 tapes and watch her floor routine once again. After doing so I can confirm that Podkopayeva did indeed have a couple fouettes in her floor ex routine, although they weren’t something a dancer would be proud of (her upper-body position was especially terrible). The other balletic elements in her routine were much better; I was quite impressed by her sautees. In general, she pointed her toes, turned out, and pulled up through her legs and body much more and much better than any other gymnast. During synchronized swimming, the commentators mentioned that Anna Kozlova (formerly of Russia but now one-half of the bronze-medal winning American pair) was too tall for ballet so switched to her current sport. I f I’m not mistaken, she’s 5’10” so that may have some truth to it.

Although it's been mentioned several times, I must second Allegra Kent's Once a Dancer. Ms. Kent gives a fascinating account of her fascinating life, but it's the quality of her writing that makes it stand above all others (IMO). The book goes beyond the genre of "dancer's autobiography." Some time I ago I read/skimmed an autobiography that I had never heard of before. I promptly forgot the title, but it was written by a woman who trained in San Francisco (Suki Schorer was her best friend and fellow student), went to NYC to dance for Mr. B., and quit ballet some time afterwards. Does this sound familiar to any one? It was an interesting read, but obviously not all that memorable.

To continue with ballet and (in?) gymnastics: The main reason I prefer men's gymnastics to women's is because the men don't attempt to add any "dance" elements into their routines. No music, no choreography, no piruoettes - just gymnastics. It certainly shows that most female gymnasts - Americans, at least - have no dance training from the way in which they move. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, have a touch of elegance and beauty in their routines that clearly comes from having studied some dance. Kozich was the main example in these Olympics (I loved her all-around beam routine, although she made many technical mistakes in it), but my all-time favorite is Liliya Podkopayeva (spelling?). She won the all-around in Atlanta, and her floor routine had some beautifully executed balletic elements. The little video blurb about her life also included footage of her and her coach attending a ballet performance in Kiev, and the narrator added that Podkopayeva loved to experiement with ways she could incorpoarte dance into gymnastics. Rhythmic gymnasts, on the other hand, are all at least decent ballet dancers. The sport - invented only may be 50 years ago in the Soviet Union - is specifically meant to combine ballet with elements of gymnastics. True, it will never equal a ballet performance, but at the highest levels it is absolutely stunning to watch. Sadly, the sport is almost unheard of in the US, and NBC will only devote a very small portion of its coverage to it.

I watched the Athens 2004 gymnastics competition with a mixture of excitement, frustration, and, finally, cynicism. Ballet is my passion, but gymnastics - esp. men's gymnastics - is my guilty pleasure, and I follow gymnasts and competitions rather closely most of the time. After the US medal haul in the first few days of competition, I thought gymnastics would finally start to receive the respect and popularity that it deserves in our nation. But after the past few days, I think Athens 2004 will actually do much more to damage the reputation of gymnastics . The judging was not very good - most people with some inside knowledge of the sport (including NBC's Tim Daggett) will argue as much. But I don't think it was significantly worse than the judging at the major gymnastics competitions over the past few years. The difference was that the Olympics receive way more press coverage than any other gymnastics meets ever will in the US (when was the last time you opened the sports pages and read about the world championships? I wonder how many people prior to the Olympics even knew that Paul Hamm was the 2003 all-around winner). Overall, an Olympic gold is the sport's most coveted trophy, so gymnasts (and others) tend to make a much, much bigger fuss over their scores in the Olympics than in any other competition, and the media - always eager for a scandal - pays much, much more attention to them. That's why these things have every one talking about the abysmal judging, which - based on what I've seen in previous competitions - is only somewhat more abysmal than it has been in the past. But now is one of the few times that the world pays attention to it. I've been too busy getting to the bottom of the all-around controversy to follow the dispute over Nemov's high bar routine, but all in all allowing the crowd to influence the judging sets a bad precedent (although it seems like Nemov's score was changed for other reasons). Obviously, the crowds have their favorite gymnasts - Alexei Nemov is HUGE in the gymnastics world. I doubt they would have complained as much if a relatively unknown gymnast had performed Nemov's exact routine and received his exact score. Judges try to do their jobs as best as they can, but they make mistakes all the time. However, errors in judging go both ways - sometimes they hurt the gymnast, and, as much as gymnasts don't want to admit it, sometimes they HELP them. It all evens out in the end. That's what happened with Yang Tae Young's parallelbars routine. The judges made a mistake in not adding a tenth for the start value, but they also made a mistake in not subtracting two tenths for his extra hold.

I was quite pleased with the opening night performance - the only one that I had/will have a chance to see. Serenade is a beautiful ballet and I am always happy to see it, but the corps de ballet looked off through out the entire piece. Of course, the dancers were much better than the disaster that was ABT's corps at the Kennedy Center last month, but they never moved together as a one living, breathing organism. I could not put my finger on it until I read this thread, but I soon realized that Alexandra's observation was right on target - the ballet looked over careful. On the other hand, Darci Kistler and especially Carla Korbes were quite mesmerizing; I even found Carla's dancing more exciting than Darci's, as beautiful as the latter was. Yvonne Borree - whom I have never seen before - didn't do anything to impress me; she seemed to approach teh performance as she would a class or a rehearsal. Peter Boal's Apollo was certainly the strongest male performance of the evening - probably the strongest performance overall, but I was too enamored with Maria Kowroski to go as far as to say that. His dancing radiated both curiosity and majesty - if that makes any sense . . . His partnering was flawless, especially in the pdd with Alexandra Ansanelli, who danced Terpsichore with sensitive vitality (in my eyes). Ashley Bouder was decent, but I did not like Rachel Rutherford. When she and Ashley danced after the pdd, she seemed like she was almost struggling to catch up. I enjoyed Symphony in C - mainly due to Maria Kowroski and Megan Fairchild, as well as because of what I saw as a huge improvement in the corps as compared to Serenade. My room mate, who occasionally accompanies me to the ballet and patiently sits through my ballet videos, remarked that Symphony in C was now her favorite ballet because of the performance (she had never seen it before). I certainly saw more room for improvement in the ballet than she did, but it certainly excited (Megan) and mesmerized (Maria). It was also my first time seeing Joaquin de Luz since he left ABT, and I was actually happy to see that he hasn't lost his bravura touches. A little out of place in this ballet, but it was fun to watch nonetheless . . .

I just returned home from the performance and immediately checked this board to post but alas Alexandra beat me to it! I absolutely LOVED the performance - while it may or may not be among the best ballets I have ever seen (I must sit down and analyze it a bit more before I can come to some sort of conclusion regarding that matter) it was certainly one of the ballets that have affected me the most. I cried several times and certain scenes (the brother's mad scene, especially) literally sent chills down my spine. I left the theater completely satisfied and enraptured by what I had seen. I would like to go into more detail, but my mountain of homework beckons. I do hope to post a bit more once I've gathered my thoughts.

I have yet to finish my thoughts on the mixed program, but since I saw "La Bayadere" last night (Saturday), I wish to add some of preliminary remarks to this thread. The best part of the ballet was undoubtedly Roberta Marquez's debut in the title role. Her classical technique is pure and elegant, but I think that it was the emotion that she brought to the role that made it so memorable. Her facial expressions perfectly conveyed the love she felt for Solor in the first scene of act I and the hurt she felt when Solor was with Gamzatti. But I was in the second row, so I could see facial expressions perfectly . . . however, those who were not so near were not disadvantaged in this respect because her emotion was so evident in her body. Roberta is really quite a tiny woman, but she draws all eyes to her when she dances. Hmmm, I think I need to think of a more colorful description for those who were not present - I'll post it when I do. Ethan Stiefel danced Solor, and he is the reason I went Saturday night. His dancing was as thrilling to watch as always, and the audience absolutely loved him. I did too . . . Stella Abrera made an incredible Gamzatti. She was so beautiful and regal in her bearing, yet she was ice cold even when with Solor. Her solo in the temple in the third act really drew tears from my eyes - her movement was so intense yet in a cool, detached kind of way. Herman Cornejo as the bronze idol was another high point in the ballet. I don't really know why he was in the ballet (this was my first full-length Bayadere!) but he looked wonderful - so light yet powerful in his jumps. Other highlights that I remeber from off the top of my head (I don't have my program with me): Sascha Radetsky looking so elegant and classical in the pas d'action (or whatever it was called), David Hallburg as Solor's friend (can't wait to see more of this talented dancer!), and Victor Barbee as the sinister high brahmin. These were the accolades. Now onto the not so positive parts of my review . . . The corps de ballet was, in a word, awful. I cringed every time they started dancing, although I was used to them by the end. The women (not a lot of men in this ballet . . .) were often out of sync and very varied in technique. I was so looking forward to the act II shades entrance, and I was disappointed to see that the corps did not move together. Their arabesques were very off - some dancers were early, others were late. When they lined up on the two sides of the stage and did arabesques, I could clearly see that some girls' legs were lower, some were higher - it was all very uneven. Every one seemed to be doing their own thing. The less people who were dancing on stage (preferably just Ethan, Roberta, and Stella), the better the ballet looked. I was also surprised to see that some of the corps dancers, especially next to Stella and Roberta, looked, well, a bit un-ballerina-ish. I'm no advocate of anorexic dancers; however, these girls looked too fat (I had hoped to avoid this word, but . . .). I can't imagine that ABT wouldn't be able to get more ballerina-like dancers with all the hundreds of talented girls who would die to be in the company. The couple next to me also commented on this fact. All in all, I enjoyed the performance when the leads and soloists were dancing; I did not when they weren't. As much as I love full-length classical ballets, I'm thinking that I would much rather see ABT only do excerpts from them. Their corps is just not up to the demands of classical ballet even as their principals continue to excel at it. But this was my opinion. I heard a number of people discuss how much they loved the shades scene, and the applause following their entrance lasted forever. I even heard people say that the performance was "oerfect." Maybe, like the rest of you on this board, I'm just more critical than most.

I have not yet posted in this forum since I registered in the fall although I have been more or less keeping up with a number of the threads. However, after attending the ABT program on Wednesday night and then reading your reactions, I was motivated to add my opinion as well. I only started following ballet about three years ago, so I have not seen a large amount of performances but I have tried to see every ballet/dance company that has performed at the Kennedy Center since. I have especially become infatuated with ABT, so I realize that I had a preexisting bias prior to Wednesday’s performance . . . Raymonda I loved Marcelo Gomes in this piece - he seemed to fit his role perfectly (I haven’t seen Raymonda, so I suppose he fit the role as I would imagine in since I don’t know what the role actually entails). I have also loved Paloma Herrera’s dancing in classical roles - she has such beautiful feet - and I thought her variations were good, but she seemed less comfortable when partnered by Marcelo. To me, they looked better dancing separately; I hope they improve on this since they are scheduled together for a number of ballets in the following months. Nonetheless, I enjoyed Paloma and Marcelo - but I always do . . . The corps, however, was a different story. The Hungarian dance was fine (led by Karin Ellis-Wentz and Jesus Pastor) but really nothing spectacular - a little too mechanical perhaps. The corps in the grand pas classique did look like they could use a serious brush up on their classical technique - this was a surprise to me, coming from ABT dancers! Some of the men struggled during the lifts (I’ve had partners lift me more easily, and believe me, I weigh more and have much poorer technique than the ABT girls), and neither the “mirror” solos nor the pas de quatre dancers seemed to be in sync at all times. I had no bones to pick with the costumes - I actually loved the white and did not see anything unflattering about the character costumes. Without Words As was the case with the other two on the program, it was my first time seeing the piece. I really loved it - but I do tend to like strange modern choreography that others see as too cold or even ugly. In my eyes, the dancers’ beautiful bodies and fluid movements (continually in motion!) created a great depth of emotion. Perhaps Nacho Duato does borrow a lot from other choreographers (as one of you suggested in an earlier post), but I guess I have not seen enough to be able to tell. My favorite part was Ethan Stiefel’s dancing, which always sends chills down my spine. He internalized the choreography so well - much better than Xiomara Reyes, his partner. I don’t have anything to say about Xiomara, for in this piece she was quite a non-descript dancer - the kind that Ashley Tuttle (also in this piece) has always seemed to me. She did the piece, she did it without mistakes, but that’s it. I must add, however, that Stella Abrera in the opening pas de trois was quite forceful, and I can’t wait to see her Gamzatti Saturday night! I’ll leave the George Harrison piece for later . . .

I am going to see the performance tonight (Saturday) and will comment afterwards!