Amy Reusch

Thanks for the blog link... easier for us non-tweeters to get to than tweets.... Nice to be able read enough of his thoughts that he becomes more than just a name in an article. Now, if we could just get him to stop riding the homeless people...

Thank you rg, I was hoping you'd sound in... I thought some point was made at the time of the showing of the Shiryaev Trepak animation that Shiryaev had been responsible for many of the folk dances in Petipa's ballets but had not been given credit.... but my memory is always full of misty areas... Thanks Natalia, I was wondering how Cygnets could be a waltz, but the "4 big swans" calls to mind different music... I see my eyes misread cygnes as cygnets in the first post...

For some reason I had thought the character dances were by Shiraev... not sure that's spelled correctly, the one who is considered a father of character dance and set many of the character dances attributed to Petipa? Thank you very much Natalia, that's fascinating! Do I understand that the Cygnets pas de quatre is Valse Bluette? Wikipedia had the original ending has happy, turned tragic with Modest Tchaikovky's permission after Pyotr's death. It's an interesting article. I had no idea what we hear today is Drigo's version of Tchaikovsky's score.

I just came to this forum hunting for the same answer... Who choreographed the Cygnets? It seems so Petipa to me, and yet it's part of the white act. Is there any evidence indicating who it was?

NY Times article on Royal Ballet of Flanders Hope above works...

I suppose it's Bejart's Bolero?

Some related Events in Boston: http://www.brooklinebooksmith.com/events/mainevent.html - Friday March 25th, Brookline Booksmith, Jacques d'Amboise will discuss his memoir. March 25th - Wheelock Theatre - 5:30pm - onstage interview of Jacques d'Amboise by Jared Bowen (WGBH) followed by Q&A & book signing. For more information call: 617-879-2147. The Wheelock Family Theatre is located at 200 The Riverway in the Fenway area of Boston.

We dance for the joy of it. When I was very young, I would dance for hours given the chance. Then I became serious and strived for perfect line, mulitple rotations, high extensions, impossible weight, and I strove for a professional level many hours a day, but honestly I was too tall for my generation of dancers, and not quite good enough to make up for the height. Eventually I "retired" my ambition and danced solely for recreation. At that point, honestly, I rediscovered the joy of dancing. In my serious study I had never lost the love of ballet, but the unfettered joy was hampered by concerns about shortcomings. Now that imperfection was a "who really cares, I'm dancing for my own pleasure" and no longer a flaw in professional quality... I dance about the dancing and about the music, not the perfect technique. The older I get the less I can do, but I think I'd enjoy it if even if I were in a wheelchair and just doing the port de bras.

Only 8 days alas!

I do so hope at some point he will consent to work with the Balanchine Foundation on their Interpreter's Archive... what a treasure.

Merrill Ashley is now teaching at ABT?? Wow. Thanks. I missed that that had happened.

Why doesn't Toumanova do pas de cheval in the western variation? (Or maybe my question is... why does everyone else do pas de cheval in the western variation?) Toumanova's step really reminds me of the earlier section variation in front of the toreador capes.

I know discussion of how the history of these two versions is somewhere on this board... I almost remember a discussion on one becoming de rigeur on one side of the iron curtain and the other remaining on the other side.. .but alas I don't remember. What brought me here though is the pas de chevals in the "western" version... I ran across an old Toumanova film on youtube and notice for her they aren't pas de chevals at all... but much more flamenco-like: Compare Tamara Toumanova @ 0:39 to Paloma Herrera @ 1:04 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMOPF4WYYLE Paloma's are very pretty but Tamara's look like a Spanish girl's...

It was surprising to me that they held the "difficult" conversations in English. I couldn't quite follow but I gather one of the students ended up in Hamburg? ( It was still a little confusing, not knowing the language.)

I'm afraid I'm a little confused by the terms Academie & Ecole which I assume roughly translate as Academy & School. As far as I understand: 1661 - Louix XIV established Academie Royale de la Danse in a room at the Louvre and it grew into what we know as the Paris Opera 1713 - Someone (who?) established Ecole de l'Academie as the school of the Paris Opera. I'm confused... understand that "the academy" has connotations beyond "the school"... but ... wasn't the first Academie also charged with training dancers? Or did it refine somewhat finished products? Was the Ecole started to train children? Help? And was the Academie dissolved? Or was the history of the Paris Opera vaguely similar to the Ballets Russes where an original entity underwent a regrouping so to speak into Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo? By the way, there is surprising little about the Paris Opera Ballet on Wikipedia in English.

yes! Exactly! Now there's something I wish they'd stream off their servers as a service to the community! You lucky NYers!

What I really wish had been preserved was DeMille's lecture demonstrations... I heard so much about how wonderful these are and she certainly had a gift for telling stories... was it The Joffrey who used to present them? I wonder if they aren't in some archive. I heard she would have paintings of dancers projected and then bring them to life... (or perhaps Joffrey brought them to life?)... but I suppose the media of the time wouldn't be so good at catching projections & stage lighting at the same time?

It seems kind of strange to me that ballet & modern dance were so much at odds with each other for so long... I see such reflections of Martha Graham & Doris Humphrey in this work... Graham, Tudor, Humphrey, De Mille... all look so much more like each other than their predecessors be it Marius Petipa or Isadora Duncan...

CUNY has put up on YouTube an interview with Agnes de Mille from their archives Curious set design. Also, Dancers over 40 had a panel discussion amongst former de Mille dancers.. takes a bit to get underway but some charming anecdotes:

Production design video In performance

I wonder who will play Don Q & Sancho? In the marvelous Het Nationale videos of the Ratmansky production, the roles are played by well known comic actors... will PNB get the American equivalents I wonder?

Should I hope you only see terrible productions from now on so we get treated to such juicy reviews?

In one production where they bounced me around the theater from night to night was very frustrating to shoot because the ballet looked so very different from the different angles... I'd prepare to shot looking at the previous show's tape and and then of course the same moment was not to be found from the new vantage point... .... so I feel that seeing dance from different spots in the theater can make a huge difference in how one perceives it.

Obituary - http://www.gazettenet.com/2011/02/02/jana-fugate-cummings-dancer-teacher

There is something to be said for sitting where the lighting designer sat when s/he designed the lighting for the ballet... At times I've shot the same production from various vantage points... I always prefered being in the front row center of the first balcony to see the ensemble work, but in the orchestra for the soloists.... there's something about looking down at a jump that just deflates its elevation. If one has never been to the ballet, it's rather exciting to sit in the upper balcony to get a sense of just how big the house is (from the orchestra, huge theaters can seem rather intimate). I recall an audience member at Merce Cunningham's studio telling me he prefered to see everything from a corner angle ... Sometimes for shooting dance I find the corner shows the relationships better, but only for a few short sections... only if I had the luxury of adding in a few moments from a different angle. I find the quality of the soloists is stronger as one moves down the rings and closer... but if they're lousy quality, it might be better to be up high & far back... diminished size can be a great equalizer... Personally, I don't like to be too close to ballet... one wants the pit in between... we don't want to see the Ballerina's sweat or hear the foot falls... but I must say, those front row center seats of Violin Concerto's late friend must be an incredibly vibrant place from which to view dance... but then again, there is the orchestra pit to give some distance. (In some places where only recorded music is available and there is no real pit, I wouldn't want to be front & center for ballet... modern dance maybe... but not ballet with it's efforts at illusion.)