aurora

I guess I never really thought of ‘My Fair Lady’ as having too many songs (it’s one of my very favorite scores, a painfully obvious choice I know). I think its a question of how many songs are too many--4mrdancr is quite upfront that she doesn't want very many in her musicals. Personally I love My Fair Lady, and oh, tons of musicals that probably have "too many songs" for some people's tastes. Listening to Kiss Me Kate, Aurora

OT--But WQXR radio is playing selections from Bayadere just now as I read this!

That's very interesting! thanks Mashinka. To be fair however, although he did not review Ananiashvili with ABT this season, he did go see her Georgian company (not in NYC--they haven't performed here yet) and reviewed them twice (I believe, definitely at least once). So it was less of a slight of her than it seems, at least that is how I read it.

yes and informative too! on the other hand, rachel ray makes me want to stab myself, or my tv! ;)

You can say that again. I'm the one who introduced the term here, but I don't really like it unless it's understood to be tongue in cheek. Moral issues where they arise aside, as far as I'm concerned the only thing wrong with aesthetic "vulgarity" is that some people don't recognize it for what it is, so that mere entertainment drives out art, the merely pleasurable drives out the work that is spiritually sustaining. But does the connoisseur of haute cuisine . . . imperfect analogy on the way . . . not appreciate a grilled hot dog? That's his loss. Apologies for the misconceived and therefore potentially misleading category. I share at least half the blame here. and while i assume my commentary on the issue makes this obvious, clearly I don't make any value judgment based on this. I'm quite proud of my taste, and of what i do!

there doesn't seem *anything* wrong with that to me. its a fantastic show!!!

Is this the one that also uses different music for the black swan coda? The fouettes I saw in a POB version on youtube were to completely different music. It felt quite odd to me. I don't feel I could even start to judge it on its relative merits because a little voice in my head kept saying "this is WRONG!"

i'd forgotten all about the Man with Two Brains! I loved that movie when I was younger. I should watch it again (i love older mel brooks movies personally!) SpongeBob fills me with fear I have to say ;)

thanks Helene!!

All those topics seem to deal with ballet guilty pleasures. What inspired my request for this new topic was actualy a sidebar on NON-ballet guilty pleasures that spun off on the Miss Manners and Standing Ovations topics--where people started talking about Iggy Pop and Rammstein and the Ramones. It may be that this is just too OT for the board, if that's the case then by all means please delete I just thought it was fun to get a better sense of what peoples "outside interests" were, so to speak

We'll see about that. hah! that sounds like a challenge!! and since it was my idea to make this a separate topic (it started out as a sidebar on the standing ovations topic) I guess I should go first. Musically, i'm not sure one can easily outvulgar Iggy Pop (but did you know he appeared on an episode of Deep Space Nine?!) I used to be a huge industrial music fan (though Rammstein never really floated my boat that much). My major obsession in life besides ballet is probably sci-fi. While it used to be limited to star trek (see iggy pop ds9 reference above), it now also includes the new battlestar galactica (though i haven't seen season 3 yet--no cable!) and the new dr who. Maybe more dorky than vulgar but... I believe I've also mentioned on here that I'm a performer--specifically I'm a burlesque performer. While I don't consider what I do vulgar (when I say burlesque I mean burlesque, its not a euphemism) I think that in the context of interests in relation to high art, it probably qualifies anyone else? (can we move the posts that inspired this thread over here as well?)

That's the problem. I don't feel guilty about them, but figured out that I was supposed to... Can we make a different/new topic for these so called "guilty pleasures"? It is really fun (I think!) to hear about peoples interests besides the ballet. I'd start the topic myself, but I think it would be neat if we could move these starting posts over there as well...(does a mod need to do this?) I'm sure my vulgar interests trump everyone elses

Since both Golding and Ellis are among those who are no longer listed in the ABT website (see the thread on ABT Soloist promotions which has gone on to be, more generally, about who has left, joined, been promoted etc), the logical assumption seems to be that they would be joining (or hoping to join) Corella's company on a more permanent basis. Carmen Corella has also left ABT--and while one can postulate a number of reasons for that (including the fact she got almost no roles this past season), it seems a likely assumption that she too would be joining as a permanent member. I've tried to word this very carefully to indicate that these are my assumptions based on the evidence we have currently about the roster at ABT and the Ballet de Espana, but just for the record--I'm just putting 2 and 2 together here. I don't *know* anything about the permanent roster of the Ballet de Espana. Call it an educated hypothesis

There is also the fact that there are dancers who are more or less musical in every company. This is probably especially true for ABT where the dancers come from a variety of backgrounds and training. (I can't answer the original question as my familiarity with the Kirov is unfortunately rather limited.)

I found there is a video of alicia alonso doing the step...its really *quite* impressive. It is on youtube.

thanks! i looked at that thread now. it is still a bit confusing though, especially as the version ABT does, which i love, is not the only other one out there that subs for it. from what i can tell there are basically three versions. The cuban where i believe she comes out right after his short coda after her turns and goes straight into those hops back on pointe (the name you provided is hillarious, unfortunate! but funny). the ABT (western?) version where she enters from stage left with a series of low flashy arabesques with a twisting back (god my ballet terminology is GONE) and then after a triumphant arabesque right in siegfried's face does the hops back in arabesque, but NOT on pointe. And then various russian versions which seems to sub pique turns for the arabesque hops. since there seem to be at least 3 substantially different versions I had trouble linking them up to the 2 versions mentioned in the other post. In any case, i cant say i think the hops on pointe are the most elegant of steps, but VERY VERY impressive--especially at the end of all that dancing

Hey all, I tried to find an answer in here, but maybe I'm just missing it. I remember someone mentioning in a forum (on here? Im not sure!) that the hopping backwards arabesques in the coda of the black swan pdd are meant to be on pointe. I had never seen it done that way, but sure enough I did while looking on youtube tonight--first in the born to be wild ABT boys dvd--where Carreno does the PDD with his cousin from cuba (i'm sorry, I will mangle her name so I'm omitting it), and then i found it again (after some looking) in a video of Lorna Feijoo. Is this a cuban thing? most of the russian videos ive found leave the hops out altogether in favor of a series of turns, and at ABT (not accurate, I know), they are done on flat rising up to point every few hops (maybe every 5th). does anyone know the source of the hops on pointe in this variation and why only cuban dancers seem to do it? Thanks!

really? neon blue plastic? I have gaynor mindens, they are very old, and a terrible floor gauged them where the box meets the shank on the bottom. From what i've seen of the inner workings they are gray, very subtle, not blue. Maybe as my pair is about 3 years old things have changed, but Im curious about this blue plastic... As a (bad) dancer with bad feet, I like them. I feel totally over my foot in them, they are incredibly durable, and I enjoy the support combined with a flexible shank. pre-gaynor mindens i did 3/4 shanks. I don't mind the look of them at all. there are plenty of shoes that have been popular over the years that I find much uglier. the variety of box shapes is also nice for different width feet, whereas a lot of older shoes tended to make those of us with wider feet look like we were sickling (sp?) when we weren't.

That's almost more confusing than anything else. Its a very strange (and brief) placeholder of a website. And a proofreader might be in order.

I know, it's terrible. But if you cick Real Audio, it's funny - it's like a read-a-long. Just listen to the interview and read with them, word for word, and when it says 'Here, he dances...' and in '[t]his footage...' and the music comes on, you just have to imagine everything! I believe its on youtube

Thanks for the heads up!! I usually watch the news hour but not always--I'll definitely make sure tonight is one of those I see.

zerbinetta, You are absolutely right. I was unclear. The numbers I was citing were the number of reviews, not the number of casts reviewed per ballet. Both Bayadere and SB (the 2 ballets that got 2 reviews) had multiple casts reviewed in the 2nd review (bayadere--Vishneva and Part were reviewed in the 2nd, I cant remember for SB--Herrera and ?) But the problem was, they only did that for 2 ballets all season

Perhaps it's my imagination because I'm so happy to be reading a knowledgeable and highly opinionated critic again, but hasn't MacCauley been writing more often that Rockwell did? Surely Sifton largely leaves it up to him as to which debuts to cover and which to forgo for other performances. This isn't precisely about reviews of debuts, but more as to various casts... In my recollection, in previous years (at least up until last year) the general trend was to cover most of the casts. The first night usually got a review to itself, while the majority (if not all of the casts) were reviewed in a 2nd review. That seemed less the case this year. I was very disappointed to see no review of Ananiashvili's performances with ABT--granted there weren't many, and they werent opening nights of the ballet, so I didn't expect a review of her cast alone, but still! (for the record, I don't think it was a slight towards her in any way, Macaulay mentioned her in the review of the gala and reviewed two performances by her other company). From the site I see only the following numbers of reviews for ballets (by ABT) Swan Lake--1 Cinderella--1 Sleeping Beauty--2 Othello--1 (granted it was a *very* short run, but a review of Ferri's debut in the role might have been nice) The Dream--1 R&J--2 (including the farewell of Ferri) Bayadere--2 I think that's it (or did I miss a ballet) so only 2 of the ballets got reviews of anything other than the opening night cast. I think that's unfortunate!

I assume this may get linked in the daily links but in case not... they are currently doing letters to the culture editor at the times, and some one wrote in on Macaulay: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/business...amp;oref=slogin it conveniently enough ends with a link to all the articles he's written thus far.

Bravo! I agree Besides, gesamtkunstwerke is ridiculously fun to say!