volcanohunter

PBS has posted a trailer: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/la-...w-the-film/988/

If I had to venture a guess, the kids are probably quite unaware of what they're doing. I remember being a kid in jazz class, which always involved performing "isolations," including pelvic rolls and thrusts in all directions, and I'm sure my 8-year-old mind never understood it to be sexual, even if that's precisely what it was. Of course I agree completely that adults ought to know better. If it were up to me, jazz dance wouldn't be included in any dance curriculum until students were at least 15 or 16 years old. Even in the context of training professional dancers I can't imagine it would be necessary at an earlier stage. The problem is that many kids think it's fun, as opposed to "boring" ballet class (even the "ballet" movie Center Stage adopted this line), and among children not studying dance formally, it's likely to be the only sort of dance they know. I remember being outraged when my television provider changed its "theme packs" to mix "family" and music video channels that had previously been segregated. It never occurred to the company that parents who want their children to watch Discovery Kids may not want them to watch MTV. I lodged my protest with the satellite company, but there was no great outcry over the change, so I have to assume that many parents don't consider the misdirection, as perky puts it, of popular culture onto their kids as a problem. But the kids are absorbing the culture, and if you were to ask youngsters on school playgrounds to reenact the latest raunchy music video, they probably could, so I'd be willing to bet that the failing isn't limited to the parents of the little girls who went viral on You Tube.

The building where I work houses a theatre that hosts these sorts of competitions annually, though I don't know how young the kids start. You can't miss the made-up girls with glittery hair and shiny costumes, nor, for that matter, can you miss the mothers. Just last week as I was leaving the building I found myself walking behind a mother and her teenaged daughter with matching platinum blonde hair, black eyeliner, skinny jeans and silver shoes. Being the "serious" dance student in my family, I never took part in the competitions. (I couldn't get out of jazz class fast enough.) But my sister, who wanted no more of ballet and character class, took jazz and tap recreationally at a local studio with her school mates, and she did compete once or twice. My mother found the whole thing distasteful so this didn't last long, and it wasn't quite as raunchy a couple of decades back. Even in those tamer days I found watching pre-pubescent girls doing jazz routines unsettling, but the numbers of participating girls (I never saw any boys) were huge. For the parents who'd transported their daughters to many evenings of the rehearsals, sewn their costumes, curled their hair and made up their faces, participation in these competitions seemed to be the crowning achievement of their children's dance training. Since there are so many people doing it--probably at most dance studios beyond the hoity-toity world of ballet schools--I'm guessing that the parents are just inured to the weirdness of this subculture and look upon it as normal.

The U.S. release date is June 29. Amazon is now taking orders for both formats.

The crowd seemed to love it.

For those who weren't able to watch it live, the opera is now available on demand. http://liveweb.arte.tv/fr/video/Don_Quicho...e_de_Bruxelles/

Bel Air Classiques will soon release a DVD and Blu-Ray of Heinz Spoerli's production of Swan Lake with Polina Semionova, Stanislav Jermakov and the Zurich Ballet. The European release date is May 21. There is a trailer on the Bel Air site. http://www.belairclassiques.com/ There are also some photographs of the production on the Zurich Opera House site. http://www.opernhaus.ch/de/programm/detail...tellID=10328065

I'm very sorry to hear about this. I suppose I secretly wished that she would always be with us as a living link to the Golden Age. I never heard Simionato live, but I grew up on her recordings and have always adored her singing. Requiescat in pace.

I just noticed that one of "my" PBS stations, Seattle's KCTS, will be showing the film on Wednesday, June 16, at 8:00 p.m. PT. Apparently it will be aired under the Great Performances banner. New York's Thirteen has it scheduled for the same night at 9:00 p.m. ET, so hopefully it will be aired nationwide. http://proweb.myersinfosys.com/detail.php?...p;air_id=394030

For those of you with region-free players, the DVD is selling on British Amazon for £5.99. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002WJAJ4E The North American version can also be pre-ordered on Amazon.com, though it won't be released until December 7, 2010.

Arte Live Web will broadcast Massenet's Don Quichotte from De Munt/La Monnaie on Saturday, May 8, at 20.30 local time, or 2:30 p.m. ET. The production stars José van Dam, Silvia Tro Santafé and Werner Van Mechelen and will mark van Dam's farewell to his hometown theatre, and probably his retirement from the opera stage. http://liveweb.arte.tv/fr/video/Don_Quicho...e_de_Bruxelles/ About the production: http://www.lamonnaie.be/demunt-1.0/program...amp;language=EN

Usually I don't leave either. Although on occasion I've been forced to wait a good long time for suburban trains and buses, I actually prefer to take my time and avoid the initial crush of people in the subways. However, if I've really hated a performance and actually made it to the end, I will leave as soon as the curtain's down. The alternative would be to stay and boo, which would a good deal less polite than ducking out in the darkness. I live in a car-dominated city by virtue of its absurdly huge surface area and long stretches of frigid weather, and I have a feeling that many people opt to leave performances as quickly as possible to avoid spending 30-45 minutes trying to exit the parkades. Whenever I see the seemingly endless rows of cars trying to make their way out of the parking garages, I'm reminded of the opening of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence:

I once attended a performance of Claude Magnier's comedy Blaise which includes a scene in which the hero, a painter, is trying to persuade a reluctant model to pose in the nude. The actress was standing on a stool and wearing a crochet shawl, and at that point an elderly man in the second or third row pulled out his binoculars and aimed them straight at her. He was so excited he was practically twitching. The irony was that the actress never actually took off the shawl, not at this performance and presumably not at any other either, which didn't stop the old geezer.

Alas Ballet Talk won't get a cut of the sale, but the DVD is on sale at ArkivMusic.com this month for half of Amazon's price. It's listed at #11 on the link below. http://www.arkivmusic.com/listpage/1764&am...e_size=100-E663

Arkiv Music is selling a number of Opus Arte titles at a 50% discount this month. Included are Giselle, Coppelia, Sylvia, La Fille mal gardee, The Firebird/Les Noces, Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker (RB), Swan Lake, Jewels (POB), A Midsummer Night's Dream (PNB) and The Nutcracker (SFB) I know it's customary on this site to shop via the Amazon search box, so I apologize for mentioning the competition, but I'd suggest sending some of your saved money as a donation to Ballet Talk. http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/listPa...p;page_size=100 Shipping rates: http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Page?p...ages/help.jsp#9

Turner Classic Movies will air Ray Enright's On Your Toes on Thursday, April 22, at 7:30 a.m. ET. Later that evening the channel will air Michael Powell's The Red Shoes at 8:00 p.m. ET. http://www.tcm.com/schedule/index.jsp?star...e=EST&cid=N

The U.S. release date is May 25. The DVD and Blu-Ray can be ordered on Amazon.

You have me totally baffled. Since there is no commercial tape of the "Illusions Like Swan Lake", I had to resort to youtube to check it out. Sadly, there were only 3 clips there. Only one of them (the Black Swan Pas de deux - with Odile in a "white" tutu??) used Tchaikovsky's music from Swan Lake. The other two clips used music that is not from Swan Lake. Since you said that: "I believe pretty much all of that music in the ballet" is used, I remain confused. Neumeier uses more music from the score than most productions of Swan Lake, but not all of it. And a good thing, too, because some of Tchaikovsky's numbers (like the coda Ashton used for his pas de quatre) barely qualify as music. However, Neumeier doesn't always use it in the original order, and he also uses additional pieces by Tchaikovsky, such as the "Meditation" from Souvenir d'un lieu cher. Most of the ballet is rechoreographed, except for Act 2, which uses an older version of the choreography than most productions, and the "Black Swan" pas de deux. The ballet is reinterpreted as the story of a king very like Ludwig II of Bavaria (the one who built all those fanciful castles). "Odette" is actually a ballerina in a ballet within a ballet--a private performance of Swan Lake watched by the King. In the third act the pas de deux is danced by the King and his fiancée. Up until that point she had been unable to break through to the him (Ludwig is believed to have been gay), but after seeing him enraptured by "Odette," she decided to wear a similar dress to the third-act costume party. The King is overjoyed by her decision and apparent understanding of what makes him tick, and they dance the usual pas de deux together. http://www.hamburgballett.de/e/rep/schwanensee.htm The video is available commerically in Europe, but as far as I know, it's in PAL format. I can't be certain since I own an earlier version of the DVD. http://www.amazon.de/Illusionen-Wie-Schwan.../dp/B002DU7MEW/

There aren't any "re-enactments" as far as I can remember. It's a combination of old footage, interviews and what could be described as stock footage: a train station in Siberia, a boat floating along the Neva, a Parisian airport, London buses, New York taxis, and that sort of thing. As a matter of fact, I don't remember anyone from New York being interviewed, which makes me wonder whether the filmmakers were there at all.

Here is a link to a television report about Angelin Preljocaj's new work, Siddharta, for the Paris Opera Modern Dance Ensemble Ballet. http://videos.tf1.fr/jt-we/opera-de-paris-...se-5788516.html

The U.S. release date is April 27. Amazon is taking pre-orders.

Sorry if I'm nudging this thread off topic. Below is a link to a brief report on the Paris Opera Ballet School from today's news on TF1. http://videos.tf1.fr/jt-13h/exigence-et-ex...is-5783892.html

On the Great Performances site there is a poll asking viewers which Robbins ballet is their favorite. There are more than 20 candidates and only ten votes so far. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/

In Canada the film will air on TVO on Sunday, March 28, at 9:00 p.m. ET, with a repeat showing at midnight. http://www.tvo.org/TVO/WebObjects/TVO.woa?...801269824445000

The video is now available on demand on the Arte web site. Same link. http://liveweb.arte.tv/fr/video/Platee__a_l_Opera_du_Rhin/ I apologize for listing the incorrect start time in my first post. I'd forgotten that Americans and Europeans don't switch their clocks at the same time. Mea culpa.