Estelle

Thanks for posting the results for men, cygneblanc ! Have you attended the competition today too ? I hope that you'll post a review when you have some time, and also tell us your opinion about the promotions. It seems to me that the promotions for men are less unexpected than those for women, both Stéphane Bullion and Mathias Heymann already have been cast in rather big roles... Heymann is only 20, I hope that he'll be able to deal with all the pressure (and also that the direction will think about his health and not cast him too quickly in too many roles, in order to avoid injuries... There seems to have been a problem with Mathieu Ganio, who unfortunately suffered from quite a lot of injuries). It's interesting to see the name of Allister Madin among the new coryphées: I've never seen him, but I remember reading a lot of positive comments about him when he danced in the school's performance, and some disappointment when he was not accepted in the company, in a rather controversial context if I remember correctly. It's good to see that not only did he get into the company, but also got promoted quite quickly- perhaps it will give some hope to the POB students as it shows that not getting into the company doesn't mean all hope of a POB career is lost... cygneblanc, do you know it the large number of positions this year for the competition means that there will also be a large number of positions for the students of the POB school ?

Thanks for giving us the results, cygneblanc ! I'm looking forward to reading your full reviews. I'm a bit sorry that Laura Hecquet didn't get promoted to première danseuse, I always found her very interesting when I saw her... I'm a bit surprised to see some names of dancers who hadn't been promoted for a long time: for example, I believe that Ghislaine Reichert has been in the company since about 1988 (same generation as Le Riche, Bridard, Martinez, Bart...), she must be about 35 ? And Caroline Robert has been a quadrille for almost a decade ? Well, that must be a hard period for the corps de ballet: the competition and two ballet productions ("Paquita" and "The Nutcracker") at the same time... Do you know how many positions will be available for men in each category ?

I wonder if the change of schedule at the Paris Opera has something to do with the technician's strikes: many performances have been cancelled, and it probably costed quite a lot of money... Leigh, it unfortunately sounds unlikely that we can meet (we have to be in Lyon on April 26 for a wedding and a baptism, so if we can go to Paris it will probably be around the 19th or the 12th...)

Welcome to Ballet Talk, gorgon7 ! The only Lichine ballet that I ever saw is "Graduation Ball", performed by the Paris Opera Ballet school a few seasons ago. It was performed at least three times by the POB school under Claude Bessy's leadership: once in the late 1980s (I remember seeing an excerpt of video of a very young Nicolas Le Riche as the Drummer Boy, and of Aurélie Dupont and Christophe Duquenne in a Sylphide pas de deux- I think it was what you mentioned as "Giselle and the Scotsman"), once in 1991 and once in 1998 (I saw it near Paris, with Myriam Ould Braham as the Sylphide). I found it delightful, and particularly well suited to a performance by a ballet school. Do you know which version of the ballet they perform ? By the way, a google search with "Le Bal des cadets" showed that some excerpts of it will be performed in Italy by the ballet school of the Teatro alla Scala of Milan.

Actually I'm not sure that Guest's books mentions the POB school teachers that much (it focuses on the company itself), even though it's a very interesting book... Béjart wasn't a student of the POB school, he never danced with the POB... From a Times obituary: "Born Maurice-Jean Berger in Marseilles in 1927, he was educated at the lycée there and extended his mind by avidly reading the books in the library of his father, a professor of philosophy. He also "began ballet classes at the Marseilles Opera, making his inauspicious debut as (by his own account) a weedy-looking grub crawling out of an apple in Le Festin de l'araignée. As a teenager he first tried his hand at choreography with a solo for himself, Petit Page. Moving to Paris, he furthered his studies with some of the best ballet teachers including Lubov Egorova, Madame Rousanne (whom he lovingly depicted in his ballet Gaite Parisienne) and, later in London, Vera Volkova." Other obituaries also mention Leo Staats among his teachers. Madame Rousanne was a very influential teacher (I think he studied with her in the 1940s or 1950s) and the list of her students also included Jean Babilée, Roland Petit and Pierre Lacotte. At the Paris Opera, I think that Gustave Ricaux and Albert Aveline were very influential teachers.

It was quite successful in France back in 2003 (more than 1.5 million viewers) and had several prizes (prix Louis Delluc, the prize of the listeners of the radio program Le Masque et la Plume...) I had found it quite moving, some of the kids are really lovely. But don't think all French schools are like that- it was filmed in a small village in a rural, isolated region (so it's a tiny school with only one class and one teacher) and an ordinary class in the average elementary school would probably have looked less idyllic. Unfortunately, there was a sort of polemic about it a few months later: the teacher, Georges Lopez, made a lawsuit to get some parts of the profits of the film, he was defeated but all that brought some bitterness very far from the emotions of the movie... See for example: http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,12...1315116,00.html This is an interesting thread, but well, the topic is so huge, and it feels a bit strange because of course the definition of "foreign " depends on the speaker (e.g. for me English speaking films are as foreign as Chinese speaking films or Italian speaking films...) I confess that I have never seen "Les enfants du Paradis"- I guess I should try to see it sooner or later... "Volver" is the only movie by Almodovar that I've seen so far, and I found it really enjoyable, especially Carmen Maura who really was wonderful as the old lady. bingham, I'm probably going to see again "Cinema Paradiso" tonight or tomorrow: my husband and I have tickets for an Italian cine-club (we used to take Italian classes in the last 3 years but couldn't continue due to schedule problems) and it's the first film of this season. I had seen it many years ago on TV and had found it quite moving (perhaps a bit saccharine sometimes), I wonder if I will appreciate it more now that I speak Italian a little bit. The choice of this film will be a homage to Philippe Noiret, who passed away last year and who was such an important actor of French and Italian cinema. This is our second year with this cine-club, the films are quite diverse, with mostly recent films but also some classics like "Riso amaro". Ballet and cinema are the two things of Paris that I regret the most (but well, anyway with a baby I probably wouldn't have had much time for that anyway), the choice of cinemas there is so much larger. Lyon isn't that bad compared to most French cities, it has a decent choice of "art et essais" cinemas but there is nothing like the wealth of cinemas in the neighborhood of the Pantheon in the Quartier Latin...

Yes indeed, the strike movement seems to be close to its end- and don't worry Legwarmer, I don't think a strike movement at the Paris Opera could last more than one month, there still is quite a lot of time before Dec 31...

My parents were among the numerous people who attended some programs of Béjart's company "Ballet du XXème siècle" in the late 1960s-early 1970s, and my mother was especially impressed with his "Nijinsky, clown of God" (she often says it was ont of the best evenings she ever spent in a theater)... And indeed Béjart was hugely influential for French dance viewers of that generation.

Béjart being probably the best known choreographer in France, I guess that there will be many articles in the French press... There's an article about him on the main page of the web site of "Libération": http://www.liberation.fr/culture/293089.FR.php He undoubtedly was quite a fascinating character- and very active until his last moments !

Many thanks for your reply, cygneblanc !

Azulynn is right, it was a planned promotion, and actually most POB fans expected Ms Gilbert to be promoted sooner or later considering her fast rise among the POB ranks, the number of big roles she had performed, etc. The retirement age for POB dancers is indeed 42, but I don't know if they get a pension at 42 or if they have to wait several years or decades for it... cygneblanc, do you know how it works ? That's indeed quite comfortable compared to many dancers, but one also has to take into account that they generally start working quite early (joining the company at 16 or 17) and there is a very high level of selection, first to get into the POB school and then to get into the company (with sometimes only one or two positions in the year, and now there are so few classical companies in France that the employment possibilites in France are close to zero for ballet-trained dancers...) One thing that annoys me about some articles about the special retirement systems is that some journalists often mention the example of POB ballet dancers with a really scornful attitude, insinuating that really it must be such an easy job, how shocking that they do retire so early, etc. Would they really expect to see all dancers on stage until 60 ?

Well, after some periods when there was no new Etoile in years, there have been many new promotions in the last few seasons ! Congratulations to Ms Gilbert ! I haven't seen her in a long while, but I'm far happier with her promotion as étoile as with the last two ones...

As Helene said, it is a tricky thing, and also from what I've been told during my own pregnancy a few months ago, in general women with a low weight before the pregnancy often tend to gain more weight than women with a higher weight (the "ideal" number of pounds to gain depends on your BMI before the pregnancy- but of course it is not something very predictable, as there are so many factors...) And one can gain a lot of weight and lose it easily: when my mother was pregnant of my brother, she gained 20 kilograms (44 pounds- and my brother was born 3 weeks earlier than planned), but lost 95% of it very quickly and without any special diet...

Leigh: "Noir et Blanc" actually was the name of a version of Lifar's "Suite en blanc", see for example: http://www.australiadancing.org/subjects/4261.html

I agree that such a wording would have been far less controversial. For example, I remember an interview of Laurent Hilaire in which he talkes about his children and how fatherhood made him feel stronger as a dancer, more confident, etc. but clearly he was speaking about his own experience only and made no generalizations about other people's lives or feelings... 4mrdncr, your colleague's words remind me of some interviews of Claude Bessy when she was the director of the POB school, from time to time, journalists asked her if she regretted not having children (what a completely idiotic and senseless question, by the way- and also somewhat sexist, as in general people seldom ask such questions to childless men) and she replied she had more than 100 children to care for every year... Actually, I wonder to what extent the final sentence about "cats and memories" reflects more the journalists' feeling than the dancers'. And as GWTW, I'd be likely to feel indulgent about the dancers's words because they must be going through quite an exhausting period (breastfeeding and working as a dancer, that must really be hard !) and perhaps they haven't thought that their words could be considered as offensive... At the POB, there have been many cases of dancing mothers in the last few decades, including quite a lot of principal dancers since at least the 1960s (in the last few seasons Delphine Moussin, Laetitia Pujol and Clairemarie Osta were on maternity leave- actually I think that the principals who finished their careers without having children were a minority in the last decades, the only one I remember among those who retired in the last decade is Elisabeth Platel), I guess that the rather comfortable status of POB dancers probably makes things less difficult than in some other countries- yet it must be quite a challenge physically. (Edited to add the following): The following sentence of the journalist is quite controversial too:

Is it after a Daphné du Maurier short story ? I remember reading something like that in one of her books... I don't like much horror movie styles (perhaps because I'm frightened too easily), unlike my husband who regrets that I don't want to watch "Night of the living dead" or zombie movies with him... And the only Roger Corman movie that I saw was his parodic "The Raven" (with Peter Lorre, Vincent Price, Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson- what a cast !)

Actually, this is a complicated topic, and from what I've read, there might be a generational divide: I guess the French etoiles you mention are those who became etoiles when he was the director (Legris, Hilaire, Guerin, Maurin...) or those who had been promoted just before (Platel), but he was in far less good terms with most etoiles from the previous generation, and especially male ones, perhaps because there was some sort of competition about casting (he liked to cast himself quite a lot) and publicity. I remember reading that at some point the only "senior" male principal who was in good terms with him was Jean Guizerix. And the Renault anecdote seemed to have provoked some scandal when it happened (I read about it in Renault's obituaries a few years later), as well as a few other incidents (throwing things at dancers, insults, etc.) Probably his tenure was seen more positively in retrospect, when people were able to compare the shape of the company before and after, but from reviews of this period (I was about 15 when he left the company direction and wasn't interested in ballet back then), it was not a quiet period at all... And for example, Mario Bois (the widower of the étoile Claire Motte, who was a close friend of Nureyev and who was chosen by him as a ballet master before her early death) wrote in a book about him about how difficult it was to deal with him sometimes, even when defending his own interests (if I remember correctly, Bois was involved in the negociations for his POB contract, on Nureyev's side, and one problem was that Nureyev refused to stay more than 6 months a year in France because he didn't want to pay any income tax). Well, one should also take into account that the POB isn't an especially easy company to deal with (ask Violette Verdy for example)...

Actually his "Firebird" was performed again by the POB a few seasons ago. I saw it and share Hans' impressions ("pretty well constructed, interesting, and effective"), sometimes it looked a bit dated (the Mao-collar blue costumes) but the main role is quite interesting, and I even enjoyed Karl Paquette's dancing (in general he's a dancer I don't like much, but he was quite good in that role). Béjart's relationship with the POB always have been quite complicated- as have been Petit's-, there were periods when the POB performed a lot of his works and other periods when he didn't want them to perform anything by him... In the last few years, the relationship seems to be quite good- perhaps because Brigitte Lefèvre used to perform in Béjart works when the was a POB dancer in the 1960s and 1970s. Actually, I have a posted (taken from a dance magazine of the 1970s) with photographs of several Béjart works, and one photo from "The Firebird" features, among others, Ms Lefèvre herself This "Firebird" featured Michael Denard in the lead role, he was a premier danseur then, and it was after that role that he was promoted to étoile. There even was a book which was published about ("Michaël Denard danse l'Oiseau de feu", by Anne Duvernoy and Colette Masson). As on the first things which made me feel interested in ballet when I was a teen-ager happened to be a book about Denard by Sylvia Chaban, as you can imagine that was a work I was looking forward to seeing for quite a while- but well, when I finally was able to see it, it was years and years later and I was far less interested in Béjart... But so far it probably was the Béjart work I enjoyed the most (Stravinsky's wonderful score probably helped).

Ballet in the Boboli Garden, what an enchanting thought (now I'm getting jealous ) As far as I know, the only ballet company in Florence is the MaggioDanza company, associated with the Maggio Musicale Florentine; its new director after Sept 1 will be Vladimir Derevianko, former directof of the Dresden Ballet: http://www.maggiofiorentino.com/ita/fondaz...azione4-1.shtml That web page mentions Balanchine among other choreographers in their repertory, but I don't know which works (also next season they're going to perform Bournonville's "La Sylphide" staged by Frank Andersen). I remember reading that Momix was extremely popular in Italy (from articles in the Italian-French-Spanish magazine "Balletto Oggi/ Ballet 2000") so I'm not surprised that its performances were sold out. Perhaps also the beginning of August is a somewhat "dead" period in Italy ? (in France, it would probably be... And for example there are hundreds of artistic festivals in July, and far less in August).

Thanks for the explanation. If I remember correctly, Violette Verdy was born in Bretagne, but I don't know if her name comes from that region. Sylvie Guillem's last name sounds somewhat similar to the first name "Guilhem", which is the equivalent of William, Guillaume, Willem, etc. in Occitan (dialect of southern France), but I don't know if it comes from Occitan or not...

I think the spelling is Guillerm, not GuillermE (but anyway it wouldn't make any difference in terms of pronounciation). I don't understand what you mean about "different francophone ethnicities", but anyway I think that both pronounciations (gee-yairm and gee-lairm) would be coherent with the spelling in that case too... The "right" one is the one used by the person herself/himself, but the other pronounciation would be possible too, I think. There's a similar ambiguity, for example, with the first name Ghislaine (as in Ghislaine Thesmar, Ghislaine Fallou...): some people pronounce it "gee-LENN" with a hard "g" as in "got" and a mute "s" and other pronounce it "zhees-LENN" with a "s" as in "sea", I believe both pronounciations are correct.

I always pronouned Sylvie Guillem's name this way too, like the French word fille. However, I was recently corrected by one of my French roomates, an artist from Paris, who told me it is pronounced "gee LEM." (That's a hard "g.") Actually, I've heard pronounced both ways by French speakers... (and both pronounciations would be coherent with the spelling, as for example the "ill" in "fille" (girl) is pronounced as "y" and the "ill" in "ville" (city) is pronounced as "l"). And I don't know how Ms Guillem pronounces her own name... artist, in "Aurélie" the stress would actually be on the last syllable, something like "oh-reh-LEE" (and I don't know how to express the pronounciation of "dupont" as the sounds for "u" and "on" don't exist in English... Anyway, it would be pronounced the same way as Dupond (as in Patrick Dupond) as the final t or d is mute).

Thanks ! Do you know if Lydie Vareilhes is related to the former corps de ballet dancer Guy Vareilhes ? Also, do you know which of those students will repeat a year and compete again next year ? About little Hadrien, I just hope he didn't get too many bad memories about his one year stay at the POB school- and especially that his father wasn't too hard on him (he seemed to be such a sweet little boy...)

Thanks, so he was the boy that I remembered. His father suffered from some sort of injury or disability, if I remember correctly ? Anyway, it's nice to see that some of the kids featured in that documentary years ago finally managed to get into the school- what a joy it must be for their families ! Oh, I remember that "baby elephant". Do you know what he became ? Actually, I remember that some things that stroke me (negatively) in that documentary was the competitiveness of the kids (I don't remember the exact words of the interviews, but some sentences were a bit shocking, especially at such a young age), and also that some parents really looked quite tough with their kids (especially Hadrien's father- when he talked, it almost sounded as if he was talking about sending an adult child to the army, not a little boy to a dance school...)

Thank for posting the results, cygneblanc, and congratulation to the competition winners (and good luck to the pupils competing tomorrow in the other competition, what a tough period it must be for all those bright young dancers). I think I saw Mr Demol last year in Lifar's "Entre deux rondes" in the school's program, but am not sure as I am not familiar with the school's students names... I might have seen that documentary in "Des racines et des ailes", if you remember it, could you tell us a bit more about what was featured in the documentary ? I vaguely remember a young boy who came from the region of Avignon (I'm not sure), was it one of them ?