Amy Reusch

I'd rather see the Royal Ballet. I'd like to see Het Nationale and Paris Opera as well. Royal Danish and National Ballet of Canada. I'm less interested in the Bolshoi offerings.

I like the above so much better than this Hollywood version (with another stellar cast)... The cinematography is just so manipulated that the dancers start to look incongruent compared with typical movie characters we are used to seeing on such movie settings, and the choreography is interfered with, obscured and sqished into new dimensions... As if the director was just trying a little too hard.

When NYCB did that Nutcracker, it had to be done with a European orchestra, not their own. I'm afraid I don't remember the details anymore but it was discussed on the original ballet newsgroup alt.arts.ballet. I want to say the dancers were not dancing to the orchestra you hear playing, but don't quite remember how it worked... whether it was shot in Europe or shot here and synced later? Someone here must remember. I wonder how the MET got it to work with their union. The idea that it wasn't going to be a big money maker has not bothered unions in the past... Could the MET have simply agreed to the union's terms, believing they would recoup? Edited later to add the following: I looked it up and here are the credits. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107719/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm It says NYCB orchestra but also three pianists. I swear though that there was something about the sound, whether they had to shoot the whole thing in Europe? Will dig further. Can't seem to find alt.arts.ballet archive anymore. Pity.

They certainly are "lovely legs"!

NYCB has put up a video with Mearns & Bouder discussing the role. So interesting to see two very different types of ballerina in the same role.

A Rockettes of Spring Rite might spur ME to riot.... Pax de Duex notwithstanding.

When did the idea of Odile wearing black get started?

It has its moments, but for the most part, in my humble opinion, it is bizarre and a very strange programming choice for this superb company trained for another style of ballet, particularly for very different aesthetic of arm use. It is so different, that I'm not sure one can consider that one has seen "Swan Lake" if one goes to Martin's version, any more than one could say seeing the movie "Black Swan" was seeing "Swan Lake". It's almost like, say, Martha Graham decided to stage Swan Lake. It agrees with the company about as well the costumes in the production agree with each other. (The costume design is very odd, with some costumes traditional and others perhaps borrowed from some Batman movie) That said, there are some places where it redeems itself and there is some beautiful dancing. Go. See it. Then go see the work in a production closer to what the original creative team intended. I would be interested to hear how you found a traditional production, having been primed by the Martins production.

Thank you for posting the video... so lovely.

Didn't Balanchine say something similar? Or was it someone else? I'm remembering some discussion of the ballet at the time of the revolution... hmmm... here it is in Taper's Balanchine biography, p.51... but it's not Balanchine, who says it.. but a dancer answering Fokine's questionaire about the definition of ballet... http://books.google.com/books?id=fztBS9mc-Q8C&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=Balanchine+pure+pornography&source=bl&ots=mVZJU713t5&sig=Um3QlpUcZZC8hGDpuaA2Mgsv_sA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hDDoUbfGM43siwKkrYGICw&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Balanchine%20pure%20pornography&f=false

Is it just me or do the boy furthest right and the boy third from the right look like brothers?

Leigh Witchel's Elevator was tremendous fun too...

Graduation Ball.

Timing is everything... Changing era erodes the humor...

Agnes DeMille's Three Virgins and a Devil... And Tudor's Gala Performance...

Filling Station... Doesn't get done much lately but is full of humor... Ratmansky's Nutcracker...

I think Villella probably feels his was the hand that was bit.

Last line in Marina Harss' interview of Edward Villella: Do you miss dancing? [His eyes light up, and he nods, with a roguish smile.] I’m looking for the devil’s 800 number. http://dancetabs.com/2013/07/edward-villella-founding-artistic-director-of-miami-city-ballet/

Would be fun to see Danilova before she left Russia, very early Balanchine too... Just to see his first attempts...

Oh! Thank you! The Quadrille connection is interesting! "The quadrille (in French quadrille de contredanses) was now a lively dance with four couples, arranged in the shape of a square, with each couple facing the center of that square. One pair was called the head couple, the other pairs the side couples. A dance figure was often performed first by the head couple, and then repeated by the side couples. In the original French version only two couples were used, but two more couples were eventually added to form the sides of a square. The couples in each corner of the square took turns, in performing the dance, where one couple danced, and the other couples rested. Terms used in the quadrille are mostly the same as those in ballet. Dance figures have names such as jeté, chassé, croisé, plié, arabesque, and so on." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrille

I've been wondering, what exactly is the literal translation for "coryphee"? I see it comes from "head" and "leader" (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/coryph%C3'> Would it be Senior Corps or is it more like a dance captain of the corps? If I push "google translate" hard enough it comes up with "chorus leader". Is it also an opera term?

Beautifully lit too!

That Les Masques must exist somewhere on film... Hopefully safe in some archive. The NYPL shares only a VHS copy? (I can't imagine it's reel-to-reel 1/2" video.). Maybe we're lucky and it's a high end broadcast digital format. I only mention this because there are members of this board who were born after the advent of videotape, and therefor might not realize it didn't exist in 1938... Videotape for the broadcasting industry was introduced in experimental form in the early 1950s but not to the consumer market until the mid 1970s. Ancient history, right?.

I would like to see all the legends ancient and more recent... I'd also like to have seen Louis XIV conquer the night, but perhaps not the entire ballet... and I would like to have seen all my teachers when they were about 23....

I think this one deserves to go here, even if it not specifically about dance.. "Do not make your goal to be the best. 'Best' is a label. It's something someone else decides for you, 'Better' is more personal. It's a process, and in my opinion, 'better' is something more interesting than 'best.'" ~ Mikhail Baryshnikov