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Crispy

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Everything posted by Crispy

  1. I danced "The Good-Humoured Ladies" in 2000. It was the first time the ballet had been performed in full since '62 and the artistic director had to reconstruct it from Labanotation he received from the Royal Ballet. Massine ballets use a lot of "dancing pantomime" whereas traditional ballet has separate dancing sections and separate pantomime sections. While probably upsetting to people that just like watching dance for dance sake and don't like dancing contaminated with mime, Massine ballets are very satisfying to perform. After all, he manages to squeeze the story of a 3 act ballet into a 20 minute piece! Cris
  2. I hear he prefers to be called "The Artist formerly known as Prince Florimund." He now goes by an unpronounceable symbol similar to the maker marks on the bottom of Freed shoes. ;-)
  3. Well this is the version I was coached on by a dancer who danced with the Royal Ballet during the De Valois / Ashton transition. It is not the current Royal version. I believe the only arm fluttering at Florina does is after the assemble with her back toward the audience and before the promenade in seconde. Then again at the end of the pas before the bluebird lift when Florine lets go of the Bluebird's hand and balances in second. The girls have a separate variations coach, so I will not be setting Florine's variation, so I don't know if they will retain any of the fluttering there. However, this particular variations coach danced under the direction of previously mentioned ex-Royal dancer. Why no leap off stage at the end? Because the artistic director doesn't like to finish with the dancers off stage. We are also not using an orchestra and our recording doesn't have the appropiate ritardando at the end. Now I noticed in Nureyev's version, they finish with a "do-se-do" type move with Florine finishing in arabesque, supporting herself on the bluebird's shoulder. I'm thinking that will work for the requested ending. In any case, I need to get my butt in shape if I'm going to be a blue Mexican jumping bean in a few months. Cris
  4. Yes, in the original story, her name is Florine. However, the version of the fairytale I've heard is different and comes from a book of French Fairy Tales. Princess Florine's step-mother is an evil Queen (like in Snow White) who has an ugly daughter named Troutina. The Evil Queen invites princes and suitors to meet Troutina, but they are always captivated by Florine. A particular prince meets Florine and pledges his love to her. This infuriates the Evil Queen, so she sends a fake message Florine to the Prince asking him to meet her at her window. He meets her and tells Florine that he would like to marry her and puts an engagement ring on her finger. But in the darkness he could not tell that it was actually Troutina in disguise. The Evil Queen tells the Prince that he must marry Troutina since the ring is a symbol of a binding agreement. He refuses, so the queen has a sorcerer turn the Prince into a bluebird and hold Florine captive in a tower so that she will no longer have a problem with her stealing potential suitors from Troutina. However, Florine is still in love with the Prince and he comes to visit her every night. She sits at her window listening for his song. I know what you mean about the tremor like movements with the hands. I could only get my right hand to do them, so I just had to leave them out. (It's actually very difficult. I think it might be like rolling your tongue, something that some people are just genetically predisposed to.) I'm actually going to be restaging a version similar to the Royal version soon. It's the Sadler Welles pre-Royal version, actually. The only thing I'm changing is I'm taking out the ending leap off stage at the end of the Coda. Cris
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