DanceActress

That's definitely Wayne Byars! A great teacher, and I feel lucky to have taken his class.

Thank you, Tapfan, for posting this article. Misty Copeland isn't the only one, by far. When I was growing up and taking ballet classes, Virginia Johnson, Stephanie Dabney, and Cassandra Phifer were my role models. I'm happy for Misty's success, and even happier that all this publicity is simultaneously shining a spotlight on the lack of diversity in classical ballet companies and highlighting the ballerinas of color who are soldiering on and dancing.

I downloaded a copy of this beautiful book onto my laptop three years ago. The laptop was recently stolen. Unfortunately, I hadn't backed it up I will never make that mistake again!!!

Now, I'm trying to put everything I had back together. The link is no longer working. If anyone has this book and wouldn't mind forwarding it on to me, I would be very, very grateful.

Lopatkina, Kondaurova, Aurelie Dupont

Sugar Plum: Alina Cojocaru, Myriam Ould-Braham

Prince: David Hallberg

Giselle- Alina Cojocaru, Diana Vishneva, Natalia Osipova

Albrecht- Marcelo Gomes, David Hallberg, Johan Kobborg

Myrtha- Veronika Part, Maria Allash, Marie-Agnes Gillot

I was trying to quote part of nysusan's post above- that's the first paragraph!

Cojocaru is one of my favorite ballerinas and while her Giselle was certainly well worth seeing IMO what I saw this time around is no longer on the same level as Osipova and Vishneva. I HOPE this can be attributed to a current injury and not just a decline in her technique due to the cumulative effect of her many injuries and well known foot problems. She still has a wonderful, floaty quality to her dancing, beautiful, easy extensions, gorgeous phrasing and line and is a very great interpretive artist but her technique has definitely declined. Last season when she flubbed a bit in DQ I put it down to a bad night. Now I don't know.

I'll speak up in defense of Cojocaru. Having seen her Lise in "La Fllle mal Gardee" a few weeks ago, I can say that her technique has not declined at all. There is a lot of intricate pointe work in that ballet, and Alina executed it with aplomb. It sounds like a recent flare-up of an old injury or a new injury! Either way, I hope she recovers soon.

I'm enjoying all of the Giselle reports since I'm not in New York this summer. I do wish I could have seen Vishneva and Gomes!

Of course! As soon as I leave New York

I will have to rely on BTers and Youtube to let me know what I'm missing!

well I can't really give any advice but to come the earliest you can. When I went to the afternoon show yesterday around 2:15, people were already queuing for the evening one which was at 8pm. Of course this was a Saturday so it might be different on Tuesday. The show is at 7:30. If you can afford a higher price, you can also try the box office, as early of course (fewer tickets) but you can wait inside...

Thanks for the advice! I was unlucky with the standing room queue, but my friend waited inside and we were able to get real seats.

I found the performance a bit disappointing, though. I was really looking forward to seeing Uliana Lopatkina for the first time and in her signature role. The Parisian audience went wild for Lopatkina, but she seemed mechanical and cold to me. Her interpretation of Odette/Odile was very deliberate and it didn't feel like she made any effort to interact with her partners or engage with Nureyev's particular version of Swan Lake. It seemed as though she could have been dancing with anyone. The corps de ballet, however, was magnificent. And I also enjoyed Stephane Bullion's menacing Rothbart and the highflying Pas de Trois danced by Emmanuel Thibault, Ludmila Pagliero, and Eve Grinzstajn.

It was absolutely impossible to get tickets for the run of "Swan Lake". I would like to try for standing room at the Bastille. I was lucky to stumble across standing room tickets last Christmas for "Casse-Noisette". How early should I queue up outside? I can only see the Dec 21 performance with Lopatkina!! I'm prepared to wait out in the cold for awhile

It's big. If you want to see anything, you need to sit either on the Arena or Level 1, relatively near the stage. I presume (and hope) that there will be screens for the upper level, but if you're content with that, you may as well buy the DVD.

I saw Carmen there in May, from pretty much the highest seat. The sound was good, but they didn't have any video, and I couldn't see who was singing what. I enjoyed it nonetheless, but I think this may have been helped because I've already seen Carmen a few times.

However, I'm still going to go!

Chris

Thanks! I wonder if binoculars will help...

David Denby gave the film a pretty scathing review in "The New Yorker". Favorite quote: "Dance lovers will find it so over the top that they are likely to be amused".

I came across this announcement the other day on the ROH website.

http://www.roh.org.uk/theO2.aspx

Has anyone been to the O2 arena? What is the seating like? Can anyone hazard a guess as to what "Romeo and Juliet" might look like in that space?

I'm spending this year in Glasgow and London, so I'm very happy to be able to catch up with the Royal Ballet in person!

Released today a short "dance" clip

-goro-

Is she supposed to look like that?? More chicken than swan. The audience's enthusiastic roar is highly inexplicable.

Wow! What artistry! Thank you for posting these clips.

Yes, Nunez is absolutely beautiful in "Concerto". Steven McRae and Yuhui Choe also deserve to be mentioned for their wonderful energy in the first movement.

Contrary to Natalia, I think Acosta is a dramatic black hole in "The Judas Tree". All of his beautiful technique and flawless jumps do not illuminate the character or the story. I had no idea what the Foreman felt about the Woman or anyone else onstage. So the focus was shifted to Leanne Benjamin as the Woman and Edward Watson as the Friend. What extraordinary performances from these two dancers! Benjamin is sexy, sinewy, fierce, and disturbingly vulnerable. Watson plays the Friend (or Jesus figure) as an unwillingly tender lover. His rippling torso and hips express his character's hesitation and eventual surrender. I'd read reviews of "The Judas Tree" that were overwhelmingly negative, labeling it a misogynist work. I couldn't disagree more. It's a flawed piece: the ending is extremely abrupt and there are some lamentable Jets vs. Sharks moments for the men. But on the whole, it's startlingly modern and very unsettling. Shouldn't art unsettle us?

"Elite Syncopations" fell flat for me. For ballet comedy, see "The Concert".

Tatiana! With a bit of Odette and Odile. What a fun little quiz and clever design.

Wow! What wonderful totals! Mine is small in comparison, 22, but I'm working on it:

Agon

Allegro Brillante

Apollo

Ballet Imperial

Ballo della Regina

Chaconne

Concerto Barocco

Cortege Hongrois

Donizetti Variations

Jewels

La Sonnambula

Liebeslieder Walzer

Mozartiana

The Nutcracker

Prodigal Son

Serenade

Slaughter on 10th Avenue

Square Dance

Stravinsky Violin Concerto

Symphony in C

Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux

Theme and Variations

Companies: New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Pennsylvania Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Kirov/Maryinsky Ballet, Hamburg Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet

Along with listing the ballets individually, I'm curious about the other ballet companies who dance Balanchine's works. Besides the American companies run by former Balanchine dancers, like Pacific Northwest and Miami City Ballet, what have companies outside of the Balanchine tradition brought to his work?

Yikes! Are we sure Vincent Cassel isn't the villain of the movie? He's scarier than either of the two girls.

If it's an American-made movie, I'm pretty sure Vincent Cassel is ALWAYS the villain.

Very true, ks04. His over the top hamminess just MIGHT make this film worth seeing. Otherwise, based on the trailer, the film looks atrocious.

Yikes! Are we sure Vincent Cassel isn't the villain of the movie? He's scarier than either of the two girls.

After reading the positive comments on this thread about Neumeier's production and concept, I ordered a copy of the DVD from Amazon. It's a fascinating adaptation that will reward re-watching, I think. And what wonderful dancers and actors the Hamburg Ballet are!

I have a couple questions that Ballet Talkers will probably be able to answer. In Act II, during the corps' Tempo di Valse, I noticed some unusual arm movements, like brushing away tears, similar to Odette's mime. I'd never seen that movement before from the corps de ballet, or at least hadn't noticed it, so I pulled out my Kirov video with Makhalina, and the recent DVDS of the Paris Opera, Royal Ballet, and Royal Swedish Ballet, and while the corps did a kind of variation of the movement- pulling their arms down through fifth, it's not quite the same. Is the tear-gesture one of Danilova's contriubtions? It's very poignant and makes the swan maidens' plight more tangible somehow.

My next question is about music. Neumeier interpolates two pieces of Tchaikovsky's music into his version to create pas de deux for the King and Princess Natalia. In Act I, I'm pretty sure it's Souvenir d'un lieu cher for violin and orchestra. But what is the music for the pas de deux in Act IV, after the King has been locked up and Natalia makes one last attempt to get through to him?

I would recommend the earlier RB Nutcracker with Yoshida, Alina Cojocaru and Ivan Putrov are Clara and the Nephew and, as a bonus, the too-rarely-seen-on-DVD Zenaida Yanowksy dances the Dewdrop Fairy.

I would recommend skipping Yoshida altogether and going to the first filming with Lesley Collier and Anthony Dowell. That was before Peter Wright began messing around with the production and inserting Clara and the Nephew into all the second-act dances. I think that Collier has no equal as the Sugar Plum Fairy, and she and Dowell show amazing unity of style. The You Tube clip of the variation doesn't have properly synchronized sound, so it may actually be better to watch it without the audio, because, needless to say, Collier was actually right on the music.

I did enjoy the dancing of Cojocaru and Putrov very much, but Yoshida and Cope were horribly mismatched physically.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=ArbEIvkZFg4

(Full disclosure: I have never been a Yoshida fan. I have always found her to be a cold fish, so bear that in mind.)

I completely agree, volcanohunter. I'll take Collier and Dowell any day over just about anyone

But for a more recent recording, the pleasure of watching Cojocaru, Putrov and Yanowsky outweigh Cope and Yoshida. For me anyway.

My full disclosure: I've never been a Nutcracker fan.

Thanks for the reply, DanceActress!

Wow- surely this must the third nutcracker with Miyako? I recall RB releasing one with her and Johnathan and then the BRB production with Irek.

I've never been a huge fan of the nutcracker but I presume that Miyako must be a perfect sugarplum fairy? Can anyone recommend which version I should buy?

I would recommend the earlier RB Nutcracker with Yoshida, Alina Cojocaru and Ivan Putrov are Clara and the Nephew and, as a bonus, the too-rarely-seen-on-DVD Zenaida Yanowksy dances the Dewdrop Fairy.

Thanks for that!

Most likely will be getting that- esp with Acosta in the Judas Tree!

Meanwhile, I've noticed that they are also releasing a Nutcracker, well according to hmv.

http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=12;5;221;-1;34&sku=223688

Anyone know who the lead dancers are?

Sugar Plum Fairy: Miyako Yoshida

Cavalier: Steven McRae

Clara: Iohna Loots

Nephew/Nutcracker: Ricardo Cervera

Drosselmeyer: Gary Avis

Well wonders never cease. Opus Arte is finally putting a Royal Ballet triple bill on video, consisting of Kenneth MacMillan's Elite Syncopations, The Judas Tree () and Concerto. Personally, I'm not all that thrilled by the repertoire, but I am glad to see the Royal Ballet putting a mixed bill on DVD. Now if they'd only get around to releasing that all-Ashton program from a few years back. It's not as though the market is glutted with Ashton.

http://www.opusarte....riple-bill.html

http://www.opusarte....ll-blu-ray.html

It will be great to see two plotless MacMillan ballets on DVD- we don't often have that chance on this side of the Atlantic. And I second the request for releasing the Ashton programs. Also, what happened to "Cinderella" with Cojocaru and Kobborg?