aurora

According to her twitter feed, Joy has been offered contracts as a soloist at the Mik or corps of the Bolshoi and is currently trying to decide...

I am in the "loss for words" camp. It was interminable. 3 hours that felt like years. Black swan in act 1? what? I pretty much agree with everything you said. I did like some of the costumes and sets, but that isn't enough to make a dull/bad/tedious ballet worthwhile. act III was just really really confusing btw, you didn't miss anything!

"Sparse"... 'El Cheapo' strikes again! I love that you can be so dismissive of something you haven't seen. ..... I saw it now. I can definitively state: El Cheapo has struck again! In her review for Dancetabs.com, Marina Harss writes: The designs, by Simon Pastukh (who also worked on “On the Dnieper”) are haunting, weird, almost post-apocalyptic. One could call them ugly. Damn right there! I thought the designs and costumes were very interesting, visually arresting, and not cheap looking in the slightest. From still photos I wasn't sure if I would like the firebird costume itself, but I found I did, quite a bit. And I thought the set design was fantastic. Besides, at least the colors weren't drab, right? ;) I really thought it was a stunning production.

I haven't had the time to write up my opinions but they actually were very much in agreement with yours. I enjoyed Firebird very much and while I like the score I do have issues with its "dancability." So just to voice an opinion in agreement!

And with the casting changes, that is now the cast on the 14th and 19th....

Thanks for the informative comparison, as well as bringing up the giant headaches that would be caused by such a move. I was also wondering about the issues of sets fitting/ and stagings.

They'd of course also have to change the dates to do so, as currently there is significant overlap with NYCB's spring season.... It would make it easier for them to fill the theater. Does anyone know offhand what each theater holds? my impression is that ny state (I will not call it Koch) is quite a bit smaller than the Met.

I don't think the height differential should be a disaster or even an issue. Osipova has so much personality I think she can stand up to anyone. I kept seeing Part cast with Wiles in this and I think tempermentally this will be a much more interesting match. Its also a gorgeous role for Veronika (or has been, and I'm so sorry I don't get back to the US until next week!!).

As its been resolved maybe its too late, but there was something in the wording of this that I found interesting. Above you called this "delivering news you don't want to hear." I would call reviews--both bad and good--opinion. not news. There is a difference and the fact that people don't seem to recognize that is maybe why the MET opera originally wanted to quash the unstintingly negative reviews...

Indeed! I would like to add however, that experienced eyes do not of course, always agree. While this is not the place to discuss reviews, it seems worth pointing out that at least one professional reviewer had the precise opposite viewpoint from Natalia--thinking Hurlin was "a delight" while critiquing her partner for sacrificing musical accent for height. In other words, some very experienced viewers thought she was fantastic. It would be a boring world indeed if we all liked the same things!

I am pretty sure you can stow crutches under the seats because I'm sure my father must have done that. He didn't go really once he needed a wheelchair so I cant speak to that. But he was on crutches from when I was 7 and I know he went after that.

I know nothing about it personally, but I found a book on 4 of the American Indian ballerinas, by someone who knew them and interviewed them. You can see a preview of it here: http://books.google.it/books?id=ZwGIO99UPAMC&printsec=frontcover&hl=it&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false hopefully that will work. If not it is American Indian Ballerinas by Lili Cockerille Livingston

I wouldn't be sure that change/simplification came from her. If you notice all these variations have differences from eachother. Viengsay for example does the early shift in position to an arabesque, while the Royal Ballet version has it a terre. In fact Danilova does do pas de chats. The others are doing gargouillades--which are similar but should have a round de jamb movement of BOTH legs in the air. In actuality, and as you identified with Markova, this doesn't often happen. The first leg does it, and the second does a normal pas de chat movement (Markova), or sort of kicks out before coming in (Viengsay). The best example of how it is meant to look is the Royal Ballet one (I'm sorry I've totally forgotten her name and watching it embedded all I can see are the wrong names!).

I don't really care if they do 28 or 32 or whatever number. I am still impressed with 15! LOL But I was just wondering, b/c especially on videos that I watch I count out of curiosity and I was always confused whether to count the pirouettes or not. If someone just does 10-15 do you just say, for example, "I like her fouettes," or do you still call it 32 fouettes? Is 32 fouettes just a term to describe doing "a lot"? I should have been more clear! I didn't mean you were being. I mean to me, if they do 32 rotations, it counts as 32 fouettes. technically probably it isn't but I am not the kind of person who cares much As for Nina, the way I worded it, it sounded like I was being dismissive of her, "if you CARE about that, watch her." In fact I think her FAST clean singles are one of the most impressive fouette displays I've ever seen. I always found them a bit more impressive IRL then on video, especially a few years ago when she was really in her prime, but she shows you can do great singles at great velocity and make them a massive feat (you dont NEED to throw in bells and whistles to make it a knockout) i think she's fab!

I'm not so fastidious on this. If you want to see someone do 32, watch nina ananiashvilli.

Maybe someone could kindly change the title of the thread to "haunting" which is what I assume it should be?

Maybe there are others, but there are a lot of short clips up on Youtube from this person: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uKylmn9lXk&feature=channel&list=UL

I think we can go ahead and make it public now. Its in the public record (not just twitter). Apologies if this is inappropriate and please delete but once it is in official news sources from the Press Release (even if that is prematurely leaked), I assume it is fair game. http://www.theartsdesk.com/dance/tamara-rojo-prima-ballerina-becomes-english-national-ballets-director

who was that, ahem, swan queen? Sorry to go this far afield but I'm dying to know. And now i hit this pose, and now this one, and now that one. Was there a character there at all?

this is a brilliant comparison! At least in the Sleeping Beauty, the visual aesthetic is nice. In his Swan Lake you just keep wondering, "OMG what on EARTH are they wearing?! That is HIDEOUS! Why would they wear that?" which further detracts from what is being "said." Or maybe that is just me

Is there a trick to finding this? it isn't coming up for me under either of their names (separate or together....)

The short answer is, they don't. There are Balanchine works that are resolutely AFTER Petipa (Nutcracker and then his heavily Petipa influenced works, like Raymonda Variations for example). And then there is Martins' Swan Lake and his Sleeping Beauty, the second of which is not bad, but not Petipa.

That could be the key. Perhaps what you see as an specialization I see it rather as a limitation, more when they publicly expose things like the Aurora's Wedding's failure, so it becomes a matter of "I can't" instead of "I don't want to". MCB has the "Ballet" last name on its presentation card. They ought to know how to do Sleeping Beauty. Paul Taylor Dance Group doesn't. NYCB does too. And they aren't a classical company. They are a neo-classical one. It is a different style.

Oh, Paul...how WONDERFUL! I wonder if I could ever see that company.. I would be very interesting to compare both versions. One thing i notice from Fracci to Johnson to all the Cubans is that they, unlike the Russians and Americans, don't get the initial arabesques into penchees. It still kind of shocks me a bit to see the amplitude of the Russians in this step in Giselle. Thanks so much for the clue on the Harlem company! I will rent the DVD. The funny thing is, just as for you, it has to be the diagonal, for me, it should be a penchee. The difference is, I can appreciate the variation done well either way.

You have a point, however, I'd keep in mind everyone knows it isn't a happy wedding. Solor DEFINITELY does not want to be there. Gamzatti very much knows that. And there is a shade that everyone feels, interrupting the proceedings. It is clearly, by this point, a forced marriage, and Gamzatti knows that her triumph is only apparent, not real. (Or at least that is how I read it). Hence the ominous feeling over the event. Well that, and, as you say, we know what is going to happen