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volcanohunter

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Posts posted by volcanohunter

    Toute une soirée avec Maurice Béjart

    in Ballet Videos, Films, Broadcast Performances, Photos, and Interviews

    Posted

    To mark the passing of Maurice Béjart, Canada's Artv network is pulling out its Béjart double bill: Serge Korber's documentary Béjart... Vous avez dit Béjart?, followed by a performance of L’amour, la danse, a retrospective of his ballets taped at the Palais des Sports in Paris in 2005.

    Broadcast times:

    1 December at 9 p.m. ET

    2 December at 1 p.m. ET

    4 December at 1 p.m. ET

    http://www.artv.ca

    "The Lake of my mother's tears"

    in Ballet Videos, Films, Broadcast Performances, Photos, and Interviews

    Posted

    Although it's a revisionist production, John Neumeier's Illusions like Swan Lake uses an "older" and arguably more authentic text of Act 2, reconstructed by Alexandra Danilova, complete with huntsmen flanking the swans, a White Swan pas de trois and Odette's mime. The DVD wasn't released on the North American market, but it's a region-free disc, though you need a PAL-compatible monitor to watch it.

    Kirov La Bayadère

    in Ballet Videos, Films, Broadcast Performances, Photos, and Interviews

    Posted

    Admittedly this may not be quite as exciting as the forthcoming Kirov Raymonda DVD, but Kultur is planning four fSU releases in late January.

    La Bayadère (Kirov; Komleva, Terekhova, Abdyev)

    http://estore.websitepros.com/1652646/Detail.bok?no=1198

    http://www.amazon.com/Minkus-Bayadere-Kiro...e/dp/B000YKYT2Q

    Swan Lake (Bolshoi; Bessmertnova, Bogatyrev, Akimov)

    http://estore.websitepros.com/1652646/Detail.bok?no=1199

    http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Swan-Bolsho.../dp/B000YKYT30/

    Macbeth (Bolshoi; A. Fadeyechev, Timofeyeva)

    http://estore.websitepros.com/1652646/Detail.bok?no=1200

    http://www.amazon.com/Macbeth-Molchanov-Vl.../dp/B000YKYT3A/

    Medea (Tbilisi; Goderdzishvili, Julukhadze)

    http://estore.websitepros.com/1652646/Detail.bok?no=1201

    http://www.amazon.com/Medea-Georgiy-Aleksi.../dp/B000YKYT3U/

    Cranko's Romeo & Juliet

    in Ballet Videos, Films, Broadcast Performances, Photos, and Interviews

    Posted

    Onegin was once released on VHS by National Ballet of Canada with Frank Augustin as Onegin. I have seen the copy of that and it was a very good performance. Augustin's acting was touching and his legs were beautiful. It is sad that it is no longer available...it should be on DVD.

    This is strictly a matter of personal opinion, but I always thought of Augustyn as the weak point of that performance. At the beginning of his career he was a very beautiful dancer, but around age 30 his technique began to deteriorate, and by his mid-30s I always had the distinct impression that he was phoning in his performances. Canadian critics usually fudged around this by writing reviews along the lines of "sure, his dancing isn't what it used to be, but he's still a very good partner."

    On the other hand, the performances of Sabina Allemann as Tatiana and Jeremy Ransom as Lensky are fantastic, and the video should definitely be re-issued on DVD.

    To showcase Augustyn at his best, I wish the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation would dig into its archives and pull out its telecast of Ashton's La Fille mal gardée from the mid-1970s.

    David Adams

    in Ballet Obituaries and Memorials

    Posted

    David Adams, the first male star of the National Ballet of Canada, has died at age 79.

    Though it may seem irreverent, I can't help but remember David with a chortle. The first memories that spring to my head:

    - swore by Russian training, despised English-style training because it produced "RAD thunder thighs"

    - did a wicked impersonation of Rudolf Nureyev

    - loved feet anecdotes: in a pinch the Royal Ballet could have crossed the Atlantic in one of Beryl Grey's pointe shoes; Celia Franca's feet were so bad that when she pointed them demonstratively, the audience would giggle

    - on meeting his next Giselle: "Oh no, she's loose." "Oh no, he's going to jump."

    - liked his tobacco on the strong side

    - cautioned against idolizing anyone: "They'll always disappoint you in the end"

    - "If you don't like something about yourself, change it."

    - honestly believed that with enough effort a female dancer could keep her breasts from moving

    My single most memorable episode with David took place when I was still a student. A leading dancer with a European company was visiting his old haunts in Canada and asked David if he could take the class he was about to teach. Finding the class too easy, he spent the entire barre doing his own thing. At the conclusion of the barre David opened the studio door and kicked the visitor out. He absolutely would not tolerate someone ignoring an instructor or showing up his students.

    I'm glad he finally did receive the Order of Canada, though, my heavens, they waited a long time to give it to him. And it's a pity the Canada Council never provided him with funds to write and publish his memoirs (not for lack of trying on his part). They would have been a blast.

    Requiescat in pace, David.

    Nutcracker: The Story of Clara

    in Ballet Videos, Films, Broadcast Performances, Photos, and Interviews

    Posted

    For my part, I didn't object to the dance theatre aspects of the production, which I've only seen on video. However, I couldn't quite get used to the complete reordering of the score. Sure, I'm used to hearing Swan Lake rearranged every which way, but I've always thought of the Nutcracker score as pretty much perfect as written. I still have trouble getting used to the placement of the Sugarplum Fairy's variation in Balanchine's version, or his interpolation of music from The Sleeping Beauty, beautiful though it is. In Murphy's version the music is not at all in the familiar order, and for me it's strange to hear the lushest and grandest music from Act 2 being used for something other than the ballet's finale, so ultimately I found the production to be anti-climactic because of it.

    Brydon Paige

    in Ballet Obituaries and Memorials

    Posted

    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.

    Black and White Swans in Swan Lake

    in Discovering the Art

    Posted

    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.

    Eleanor Powell and tap

    in Other Performing & Fine Arts: Performances, Exhibits, Films, and Events

    Posted

    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 :bow:. 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.

    Eleanor Powell and tap

    in Other Performing & Fine Arts: Performances, Exhibits, Films, and Events

    Posted

    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!

    Six Ballets by Hans van Manen

    in Ballet Videos, Films, Broadcast Performances, Photos, and Interviews

    Posted

    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

    High extensions

    in Closed Polls

    Posted

    I've often wished I could travel back in time to see the performances Farrell gave with National Ballet of Canada after she left NYCB. What could that Swan Lake, for example, have looked like? All those careful, rigid, polite Canadian dancers surrounding this voluptuous creature with incredible freedom and reach.....Did she try and hold herself back, or did she just let go and show herself, as Balanchine once said, like a "whale in her own ocean?' I wish there was a tape somewhere.....

    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.

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