aurora

It seems very possible that "La Sylphide" of June 19 may be cancelled. But since ABT is on tour in London the information is just being late.

The Osipova saga continues.....I just took a look at ABT's website. The Sylphide for Fri Juen 19 is now listed as TBA/Hallberg. So it looks like Osipova is out of the June 19 performance. Typical of ABT to bait and switch on casting. It's happened numerous times in the past, and so now I expect it all the time.

and in the greatest of ironies--i switched my tickets from the 17th to the 19th because originally the 17th was the date that she was double booked....

argh!

tattoos are less "modern" than the extreme extensions that are seen in ballet today (tattoos have been around in western society since the 19th c at least).

On stevedores and sailors mostly, as way of showing pride in masculine strength and courage. Not on pretty girls.

I didn't realize we were speaking exclusively of female dancers, especially since most of the examples of tattooed dancers have been male

Seriously, ballet dancers need to take extremely good care of their bodies, tattoos and piercings are unnecessary health risks, distracting, and ugly. I think if we put tattoos in ballets, it would ruin the elegance and make the ballets seem much more modern.

I have no argument with the idea that visible tattoos don't belong in classical ballet.

However your reasoning causes me to want to respond. For one thing, tattoos are less "modern" than the extreme extensions that are seen in ballet today (tattoos have been around in western society since the 19th c at least).

Moreover, there are very few health risks associated with piercings or tattoos provided you go to a clean shop and take care of them while they are healing (which is pretty easy and minimal).

As for ugly, that's merely your aesthetic judgment. For one thing, not all tattoos and piercings are the same. Some are ugly, some are strikingly beautiful. Just because you find them ugly doesn't make them so. Unless you fancy yourself a universal arbiter of taste. Personally I think people who walk around in track suits in public (on airplanes!) are hideous.

And don't forget, there are people who don't see the beauty in ballet (though I'd imagine not on this board), something you might want to consider before you issue blanket statements on things which are ugly.

Thank you for the hint on the clips...

(wow...is it me or the music for Don Quijote was played veeeeeeeeeery sloooooooooowly...?)

Not the coda! It is breakneck speed!

Also--I believe Natalia's notes said Gillian Murphy for Tarantella, but that is not what the youtube video says, nor does it *look* like her...

Portions of the Vishneva/Gomes Giselle is already on youtube as well as their Manon. Funny, I thought I had already posted this but cannot find it. Enjoy!

Some of Don Q too!

...but what about some "Summum Bonum", or even some Bentham-Mill Social Utilitarianism...you know,"the greatest happiness of the greatest number" thing...?

The important thing to remember is that it is dangerous for the dancers. No photo or UTube video is worth someone getting injured, no matter how many of us enjoy them.

Without debating the ethics of videotaping performances to put up on youtube, I think it is worth mentioning that as the thing that imperils dancers is camera flash, and there is no reason for a flash to be used in videotaping, there is absolutely no reason to believe, as was implied above, that videotaping a performance in any way leads to performer injury.

There are clearly problems selling ABT's Swan Lake as today's Metro has a half price offer for it.

because a lot of this thread has dealt with possible ticket selling difficulties I just wanted to put this in some perspective. Hopefully this is not too OT.

I was able to get discounted ($26) tickets for almost every performance of the Kirov at the not terribly large City Center last april.

Similarly for Miami City Ballet's NY debut (yes not as big a name, but a much anticipated debut in NY as one of the foremost Balanchine interpreters) i got $26 tickets to opening night--first row center.

I don't think either tour was considered a failure.

P.S. In my experience most folks who collect unemployment insurance have no idea that doing so ultimately costs their employer. I certainly didn't until our small company once had to layoff a couple of people only to have our mandatory state unemployment insurance rates go up 500%. It took us years of no layoffs to get the rates back down.

I think most people who have been laid off, especially in this economy where NO ONE is hiring, probably don't really care that it costs their employer!

sorry for being a bit OT, but my sympathies are primarily with those who now have no jobs.

Was it really necessary of the New York Times dance critic to assess Kisler's career at this point when we know she is retiring?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/arts/dan...1&ref=dance

But she's not retiring yet. Not even at the end of this year's spring season. If she's still performing then yes, a critic should still do their job and critically assess that dancer.

Please find herewith a link to the programme (not very exciting) for the Mariinsky Ballet at the Royal Opera House August 3 -15 2009

http://www.roh.org.uk/whatson/mariinsky/index.aspx

Details of Gergiev's 'Ring' Cycle is also shown.

Hooray! one can get a chance to see Somova as the lead in everything they are doing (well the Balanchine as casting isn't up but one can assume she'll be cast in that as well)!

In her turns, always jerky with arms folded closely about her,

I actually didn't see to what you are referring particularly, but the arms folded closely is a Balanchine stylistic choice in pirouettes. Perhaps not appropriate to the piece but indicative of the style in which she worked primarily. I am not sure if that is what is going on here, but it seems a likely possibility

You get some idea of her qualities in clips available on youtube in “Les Sylphides” with Royes Fernandez.

you can see this here:

The topic starter said:

She exhibited the worst balance I’ve ever seen in a professional dancer

check out 3:40 on the youtube video linked above--I think you will find differently

I think when we call a peacock glamorous, we're beginning to confuse glamour with charisma. Charisma, btw, seems to be a quality that dogs pick up on. I noticed in my dog's playgroup, the dogs and the humans were often attracted to the same people and/or dogs who had that certain aura.

Interesting distinction. I think you can be charismatic certainly without being glamorous (President Bill Clinton springs to mind). But I think Charisma is probably an essential element in glamour.

I don't really see that peacocks are charismatic though. Charisma is, to me, a force of personality that I don't see that one can ascribe to an entire species of birds.

Some dancers are under so much pressure to be reed thin. I think even more so today than ever before. If you view tapes of ballets from 20 years ago, which was not so long ago, the ballet dancers seem heavier and THEY were considered very thin.

I actually have the opposite reaction, fairly adamantly. I would say the 80s-90s were the height of pressure for thinness in ballet. Looking at ABT at least there are many dancers, some with great success, who are not bone thin. No one comments (sorry to name names, but i mean NO offense) on the fact that Gillian Murphy has a womanly body. It is accepted. She is a beautiful dancer with a physique that enables her to achieve great technical feats. But in the late 80s-early 90s when Tina LeBlanc was a star with the Joffrey, reviewers routinely commented on the size of her breasts and how they were unballetic.

I would say the trend, on the whole, has been for the better.

These answers surprise me as I had always thought that professional dancers are movement "geniuses" and would be able to adapt to all sort of rhythms and movement forms, timing whatever. I was referring to all the other forms of dance when I started the thread, social dancing, jazz, tap, you name it. I can understand that any genre takes some dedication and training and some more than others for sure, but trying to imagine my favorite ballet geniuses as looking as if they have two left feet doing a merengue is hard to wrap my mind around. YIKES

the center of gravity and type of movement is totally different in many types of dance. particularly as regards hip movement, which is NOT a part of ballet but is a part of many other dance genres.

That said, certainly people who are trained in dance are much quicker at picking up combinations and steps--as you are used to doing so.

I recently started a new dance form (belly dance) which has almost nothing in common with ballet. That said, every teacher I've been to has been able to tell I have dance training.

[Murphy, Reyes, Wiles, Herrera, Hallberg, Gomes, Stiefel, et. al. may be wonderful dancers, but international stars? I'm not so sure about that or their ability to draw crowds on their own, at least advance crowds. Word-of-mouth could drive some more sales after the fact.

Isn't Gomes, at least, an 'international star' by today's standards? If not, then who is and how does one determine it? By how much they guest with other big companies? I don't think the term means what it used to, because there aren't any international ballet names like Fonteyn, Nureyev and Baryshnikov. I'd seen NYCB for years, but until I came to BT, I never heard of Lopatkina or Vishneva, so I think they're only known if you're involved in a non-casual way as well. But I don't know either.

I would argue Hallberg is as well--He has done extensive touring in Japan, Russia etc, and I would imagine he wasn't asked to perform at the Maryiinsky festival due to lack of celebrity! I believe Murphy performed there last year in Swan Lake as well. As for Stiefel--I guess it depends who you are asking. While his recent career has certainly been marked by injury, didn't he do that "4 Kings of Dance" thing or whatever it was called? And then there was that movie...which probably makes him a bigger star than any of the others according to some standards...

If the production is one that retains the major mime speeches/dialogues, a prologue is unnecessary. Odette tells Siegfried what happened to her in Act II; we don't need to see it twice. Likewise, Siegfried's conversation with his mother in Act I tells us his situation. Even if the mime is removed, a principal dancer still ought to be skilled enough to convey the general idea.

While I agree with this in principle, I think it is perhaps expecting a bit much from the general audience.

A lot of people do not find the mime very accessible. I love it (and really prefer when it is included) but to the lay modern audience I don't think it is easily understandable.

I don't think the prologue is necessary, strictly speaking, but I think it probably *does* enrich the experience for a lot of viewers, and I don't find it distracting or to diminish the strength of a production. Its short, if you don't like it you can close your eyes and listen to the music

Additionally, in ABTs (much criticized) production, where you have *2* versions of Von Rothbart--the swamp thing and the suave princely VR--the prologue serves to clarify that distinction/connection, eliminating possible confusion when the elegant Rothbart shows up for the ball with Odile.

"Swan Lake" I understand, I'm not sure what would make Londoners want to see ABT. Perhaps casual balletgoers still associate ABT with Baryshnikov and Makarova, and that would account for it, but I don't see ABT having an internationally known, compelling roster at the moment. Royal Ballet, sure -- Cojocaru, Rojo, for example -- but ABT? As fine as the male roster is, I don't think it's the men who sell ballet, unless there's a superstar like Baryshnikov, and the men rarely sell "Swan Lake".

I might be a chump but I'm traveling from NY to DC to see Part in SL--and I'm not the only one on the board who is doing so...

Why does every company bring Swan Lake to London. Coals to Newcastle? Or some kind of Rite of Passage, along the lines of: "If you can make it there you'll make it ANYwhere.")?

Without a mega-star name or a famous name company, I think it is simply that it is easier to sell Swan Lake rather than any other ballet.

This seems an odd response considering the topic here is ABT in London. I know you were responding to a question not directly about ABT, but the implication is that they are not a famous name company, which, if not perhaps in the top 5, still seems inaccurate.

My own 1.5 cents: no preparation before turns ...

Not so much no preparation, rather a preparation from an elegant lunge instead of the "double squat." It drives me nuts to see a dancer start a pirouette from a 4th pos. demi-plie in a Balanchine work. In any work, actually, since Mr. B's dancers have proved the unflattering position unnecessary.

the difference is not just in the plie, but also in the arms.

Instead of curved arms, balanchine style, at least as it was taught at SAB, is to have arms pretty much fully extended in the preparation, and then, instead of bringing the arms in to a typical first position, the arms are brought closer to the body, overlapping, as one often sees dancers do in partnered pirouettes so as not to whack their partner.

At least this was what was taught in the 90s at the school.

Potentially OT:

I was thinking of going to see ABT in DC as we are not getting the Part/Gomes pairing this season in NY. Anyone have any recommendations for reasonable/decent places to stay in DC?

Can anyone explain to me why anyone would want to do a jeté like this? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...hpid=artsliving

Is it just an example of the "more must be better" school? Or could some poet here illuminate the aesthetic value of it enough for me to appreciate the line?

It is absolutely disgusting.

Sorry, i try to be measured on here, but that is just hideous!

Can anyone explain to me who saw the performance, what Alistair MaCaulay meant in his review when he wrote, " In Act II the Cleopatra-like Ekaterina Kondaurova (Queen of the Dryads) was, as an artist, more nearly stale than I have ever seen her. "

Is it a typo? If not what does he mean?

I think he was saying he is bored by this particular ballet and intimating she was as well.

The prior line read: "But the ballet palls. It is not my mind alone that glazes over in such fare."

WOW, Washington is getting the Part/Gomes/Hallberg Swan Lake we in NY were denied last season. This might actually necessitate a quick trip to DC! I would definitely do it if it were a Sat performance, Friday means that I'd have to take a day off of work. That makes it more difficult, but still possible...

and we won't be getting it this spring either--I think I might do the same!

(though to be fair I enjoyed the Part/Hallberg/Gomes one of last year, and am looking fwd to the Part/Bolle one of the upcoming season!)

It's interesting that as of now, with 22 votes cast, not a single one has gone to ABT, for all its outstanding artists. Could that be due to its generally stodgy programming?

possibly (probably?)

I think it also speaks to the fact that those of us in NY (one of the largest contingents on here) and in the US generally have a lot more opportunities to see them.

Since I *can* see them, with some frequency, they aren't nearly as enticing as companies that come here infrequently, such as the Bolshoi, Paris Opera, Royal Ballet, etc.

Of course NYCB has a few votes, I'd be interested in whether that is because they tour less or if it is NYers who put them top of the list.

Also, the fact it is a dream ballet experience, and you could, in theory, go back to any point in time probably makes this poll less "accurate" as a gauge of who people really want to see than if it was a possible experience.