volcanohunter

According to Amazon, the DVD will be released on November 20. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000WXR4UO/

Oh, but she did. And the results of her "comeback" tour with Giuseppe di Stefano were awful beyond imagining. The last impression she left with audiences often resembled a rusty, sputtering faucet.

This is sad news. When Alberta Ballet marked its 40th anniversary a year ago, its former artistic directors came to join the celebrations. I imagine the experience was somewhat bittersweet for Mr. Paige, as none of his ballets was in the company's repertoire any longer, and his big-ticket productions of The Nutcracker and Cinderella had long since been replaced with newer ones, in part to accommodate the company's increased size. Still, it was lovely to see Mr. Paige, though he was wheelchair-bound and very frail. Requiescat in pace.

Though I've never taken the time to study the history of Swan Lake costuming, I can't imagine that the presence of black swans is completely unusual. A photograph of a student production of Swan Lake that my mother danced in in the 1950s shows both white and black swans in the corps. There must have been some precedent for this since I can't imagine Utica, New York, as a place for radical costuming innovation.

Relaxed ankles and bent knees are required in tap dancing. You can't shuffle without them. The relaxed upper body and bent elbows follow the legs, but the abdomen is always engaged. In watching old musicals, it seemed to me that female tappers, dressed in skirts as they usually were, were at a disadvantage. Their relaxed legs and feet were exposed, whereas the men's long, baggy pants disguised the "bad line" of their tap dancer's legs. I don't think it's coincidental that Eleanor Powell did so many numbers in top hat and tails. (Ginger Rogers also adopted the baggy trouser look in the tap number she did in The Barkleys of Broadway.) If you look at Powell's quasi-ballet numbers, I'll agree that they were dreadful. I don't doubt that she had lots of turnout, but evidently she'd never learned to use it, and her feet weren't built for pointe work. But I think that Cyd Charisse's ballet numbers were pretty awful too, and she was trained for it. Perhaps Hollywood just does ballet badly. Tall, powerful female dancers like Powell are often difficult to pair up. That's the case in ballet also. I blame the men for not measuring up . Besides, I don't think it's absolutely essential for a woman (or man) to be sexually seductive to be a star dancer. If it were, Fred Astaire would never have had a career. I first saw Eleanor Powell's dancing as a teenager and immediately adopted her as a female role model. The majority of audiences may not have warmed to it, but I admired her self-sufficiency, confidence and strength, probably because I was so lacking in those qualities myself, and it was very reassuring to see that a tall woman could become a great dance star.

The new DVD of the Sergeyev Swan Lake, with Uliana Lopatkina and Danila Korsuntsev, can now be pre-ordered at Amazon (and the BT Mini-Store, of course). The North American release is scheduled for November 13. http://www.amazon.com/Swan-Lake-Tchaikovsky/dp/B000UVLJKO/ http://www.deccaclassics.com/music/dvd/0743216.html

Actually, I think that Powell could be extremely subtle. Most of the "Broadway Rhythm" number in Broadway Melody of 1936 (excepting the back bends) and the "Fascinatin' Rhythm" dance in Lady Be Good demonstrate extremely fine gradations of dynamics. I'm sorry she didn't do more of these numbers. Pound for pound, I think Eleanor Powell had more raw dancing talent than anyone else I've seen, including phenomenal balance and a body every bit as bendy as Sylvie Guillem's. But it's as if she had too much ability. Film producers always seemed to use her as a one-woman production number, and the outrageous acrobatics were never far from view. I much prefer Eleanor Powell the rarefied tapper. As for butch: definitely Ann Miller!

Now available for pre-order at Amazon, Arthaus Musik is releasing a 2-disc set to mark Hans van Manen's 75th birthday. The release more or less coincides with the Hans van Manen Festival the Dutch National Ballet has been presenting this month in Amsterdam, where four of the ballets on the DVD have been performed. Disc 1 features the Netherlands Dance Theater in Déjà Vu, Solo, Kammerballett and The Old Man and Me. Disc 2 features the Dutch National Ballet in Frank Bridge Variations and Two Pieces for HET. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000W1V5QU http://www.arthaus-musik.com/templates/tyC...tail.php?id=435 http://www.het-nationale-ballet.nl

In this case Polyphonia was performed first. I suspect that had it been placed at the end of the program, the audience wouldn't have stayed. (I probably wouldn't have; Ligeti is not my favourite composer. Perhaps if I'd had ear plugs...)

I saw this program and the net effect was to make the evening seem very long. I'm perfectly happy seeing Giselle on its own. As it happens, the Giselle I saw wasn't performed well, so I can't say I left the theatre feeling satisfied, even with the "bargain" of an extra ballet thrown in.

The first fruits of the ROH's purchase of Opus Arte: the telecast of Ashton's Sylvia, with Darcey Bussell and Roberto Bolle, will be released in the coming months by Opus Arte. (Presumably, the release date of November 1 applies to Europe.) http://www.opusarte.com/pages/product.asp?ProductID=218 Thanks to the Dansomanie forum for the heads up.

If I'm not mistaken, she didn't actually complete the performance, and Nadia Potts danced from Act III onwards. The performance took place while Farrell was dancing with City Ballet. BTW, I'll agree that NBoC dancers back then were careful and polite. The company still had a distinctively English cast (akin to the quasi-English accent called "Canadian dainty"), sadly lost since then (like the dainty). But they were certainly never rigid. Nadia Potts, in particular, was one of the loveliest and most lyrical Swan Queens I ever saw.

It's probably because her torso isn't thrown way out of alignment when she elevates her leg. Assuming that tilting or leaning aren't built into the choreography, I wish ballerinas would lift their legs only as high as they can without knocking their torsos off the vertical axis or tilting their pelvises. In this photo of Zakharova as Odette, her torso is leaning way over to the left because her pelvis is tilted so far that her pubic bone is probably at a 75 degree angle to the floor. I absolutely cannot accept this as beautiful classical line. http://www.danzahoy.com/pages/edicion_10/i.../critica/02.jpg Guillem, on the other hand, manages to keep her torso much straighter. Her pelvis is tilted also, and I wish she wouldn't do that, but the distortion is not as great. http://homepages.tesco.net/~rostibolli/con...ie_guillem2.jpg On the other hand, if a ballerina is dancing Bhakti, I really don't care how much she exerts herself to turn her pelvis inside out. That's the nature of the beast. http://www.rolex.com/en/media/images/world...vie-guillem.jpg

It's interesting that Agnès Letestu holds the opposite view. http://www.danceview.org/interviews/letestu.html For my part, I generally don't object to high extensions as long as the torso and pelvis aren't distorted as a consequence. Unfortunately, they usually are.

I don't think this is an especially recent thing. A Royal Ballet program I have from 1981 does not use the term corps de ballet and identifies dancers as principal dancers, solo artists, coryphees or artists (who included Phillip Broomhead, Deborah Bull and Alessandra Ferri). It makes me wonder whether the Royal Ballet ever used the term corps de ballet.

It was one year. http://www.danceinternational.org/archive/spring2004.htm

That's funny because one of my childhood ballet teachers (British) used the term "hamburger hands" derisively. It's how she would chide dancers for sticking their thumbs out, as though they were gripping Big Macs.

The berkshirerecordoutlet DVD is a pirate, isn't it? For quality's sake I imagine the Image Entertainment disc is preferable. I did manage to get a still-packaged disc of the Ferri/Murru for my sister some six months ago, but the supply seems to have dried up since then, and the used copies out there are selling at astronomical prices. I hope it's reissued soon because the Zakharova/Bolle La Scala performance is so awful that I can't even bear to think about it. Incidentally, if wouldn't be my first choice, but if anyone is in the market for the Peter Wright production for the National Ballet of Canada, with Karen Kain and Frank Augustyn, buy it via Canadian Amazon rather than Amazon.com. The VAI disc of Giselle sells for some $30 on Amazon.com, but on Amazon.ca you can get a double bill of Giselle and the condensed Sleeping Beauty with Veronica Tennant and Rudolf Nureyev for $20 CAD. http://www.amazon.ca/National-Ballet-Sleep.../dp/B0000CA1F5/ http://www.amazon.com/Adam-Giselle-Augusty.../dp/B00022LJ38/ http://www.amazon.com/Tchaikovsky-Sleeping.../dp/B00022LJ2Y/

I suppose it's not surprising that several French dancers work with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal: Joelle Henry (principal; Conservatoire National Superieur) Herve Courtain (principal; POB School) Jeremy Galdeano (second soloist; Marseille) Emilie Durville (corps; Marseille)

From a staging standpoint, I admire Maina Gielgud's production for the Australian Ballet. I remember seeing it at the Met in 1989(?), and it was completely compelling. As for the DVD, Kelvin Coe is not the greatest Albrecht I've ever seen, and Christine Walsh was considered a technically deficient dancer, though I belong to the camp that believes she had lovely qualities to compensate. Full marks to Joanne Michel's Myrtha, the corps is very good, and the production is solid in every respect. Theoretically the Faveo/Opus Arte DVD is intended for the European and Asian markets only, but since it's a region-free disc with NTSC picture format, it's practically tailor made for North America. European "mid price" is steep by North American standards, but having compared the Faveo releases of the Australian Ballet with their fuzzier Kultur counterparts, I think they're worth the extra change.

Here are some French dancers working as principals or soloists in Germany (based on a superficial search, so I apologize for the dancers I've missed): Staatsballett Berlin: Gaela Pujol (soloist; Toulouse, POB School) Corinne Verdiel (soloist; Lyon) Bayerisches Staatsballett: Cyril Pierre (principal; Nancy, POB School) Severine Ferrolier (soloist; Centre de Danse Christiane Espitalier de La Valette) Laure Bridel-Picq (soloist; Cannes) Olivier Vercoutere (soloist, trained in Stuttgart) Hamburg Ballet: Helene Bouchet (principal; Cannes, Marseille) Joelle Boulogne (principal; Cannes) Catherine Dumont (soloist; Angers, Hamburg) Yohan Stegli (soloist; Aix-en-Provence, Hamburg) Sebastian Thill (soloist; POB School) Dresden SemperOper Ballett: Raphael Coumes-Marquet (principal; POB School) Severine de Cussac (second soloist; POB School) Fabien Voranger (second soloist; Royal Ballet School. Marseille, POB School) Leipzig Ballet: Jean-Sebastien Colan (principal; POB School) Martin Chaix (soloist; POB School) Remy Fichet (soloist; POB School) Forsythe Company: Cyril Baldy (Conservatoire National Superieur)

For those who live in Calgary and would like a sneak peek, the film will have its premiere at the Calgary Film Festival on Friday, September 28. http://calgaryfilm.com/schedule.php?fd=995

Judging by these French and Japanese sites, the Lopatkina/Korsuntsev Swan Lake will be released by Decca shortly. I have no knowledge of Japanese, but the DVD appears to be on sale in Japan already, and it will be released in Europe on October 22. Hopefully, a North American release date will follow soon after. http://www.alapage.com/-/Fiche/DVD/953002/...e_appel=ALAPAGE http://www.hmv.co.jp/product/detail/2577860

When I visited the USSR in its death throes I met a middle-aged woman named Ninel who detested her name. She took it to be a manifestation of deplorable weakness on the part of her parents. In everyday life she went by Nina instead. Like Vladilen Semenov? Excellent example. Thanks.

Many Russians of a certain generation have kooky Soviet neologisms for names. I wouldn't care to speculate how many women of Kurgaplina's generation were named Ninel', but I don't think that the name would have seemed at all odd at the time. BTW, the male equivalent is Vladlen, a contraction of Vladimir Lenin. Off the top of my head I can't think of any dancers with that name, but I can think of actors and opera singers with that handle.