cubanmiamiboy

I think GeorgeBfan has spoken the definitive words in his honest assessment. It is not, as he says, the fact of having to darken someone skin to try to portray a certain black skinned character if unable to have a performer-(or various of them)-with such racial features. It is instead the way the racial issue is offered. The clip I posted earlier has clearly, for those who know Spanish, a definitive underlying critique to the social situation of the characters being played-(a rich family driver and maid), and the ultimate intention of it is to ridicule to its most extent the very social picture-(in a place where maid uniforms and the like are by now a defunct issue). I guess the whole thing depends on who gets touched by what. I will never forget the first times I got to see maids in those obsolet to me uniforms going behind their rich employers to the hairdressing salon I worked here for many years, acting and doing things that looked to me like things from the XIX century. Many times I got horrified by the fact that many coworkers around me would look and interact with such situations and behaviours as if they were the most normal thing in the world, when to me they were uttermost humiliating. I know the same happen with the blackfaces of Pharaoh's Daughter. I'm sure they speak different words to GerogeBfan than those to the Russian stagers who included them. Edited to add: BTW, and to make an interesting ballet comparison. There's an old post of mine about one of MCB's Nutcrakers-(Balanchine's version)-in which I remember mentioning a little detail I observed in the background action during the party scene, where Frau Silberhaus is seen reprimanding one of her maids with a marked, unnecessary severity. Now, Frau Silberhaus is a POSITIVE character in the plot, and still one is been forced to accept that she has the power to act in a way that could be not acceptable to some, just because the choreographer or stager wants it. I would like to know if anybody here has ever seen this detail in this ballet, and if the detail has spoken the same way it did to me. So...could that be that uniformed, domestic servants being yelled at and steoreotypes related to blacks are still seen as a normal thing by certain groups...?

I think it is Feijoo, Paul. It amazes me how different the look of the ballet is when one compares that picture with those of the revised version. It is literally like watching another ballet. With no rocky props, the muses without the headdresses and simpler tunics, Apollo sans his tunic and sandals, and now with a ballet tight and no birth and ascension to Parnassus scenes, I don't know if I will even recognize it. I haven't seen the ballet in US, but for the pictures it looks very foreign to me. I'm also 99% certain that even the stylistic treatment of what I will see is different from the 1940's version Alonso retained in Cuba, and even probably different steps here and there too. It is a shame that there are not filmed clips of the Cuban version for me to compare it, because I'm not that familiar with the ballet the way I am with, let's say, Giselle, which I'm able to see whatever little changes take place from the modern versions I've seen to the Markova/Dolin staging presented by Alonso in her company. Still, I can tell right away that this is a different animal. BTW...why would have been the rationale for Balanchine to cover Apollo's legs with tights for the revised version...?

In Cuba we inherited Apollo sans tights and with the headcaps for the muses, along with the rocky scenary. Here's Eglevsky with Marjorie Tallchief, Barbara Fallis and Mme. Alonso as Terpsichore, 1946.

Well...I still remmber TV shows of that kind, and to be honest, it never ocurred to me there were offensive in any form....but then, I must confess that I never faced so much "political correctness" issues in my whole life until I got here. But...I'm not really in any position to question all this. It is what it is and every society-(and person)-deal with such issues in their own particular ways. This is one of such TV shows. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HH1mrwjQkQ

I agree, and coming from a nation with the same slavery past, this is something I can relate . Actually there's a whole Cuban theatre art form, "Teatro Bufo" , which is based in characterizations of white actors in blackface,all with a deep sense of criticism but highly permeated by humor. There's a great book I have..".Blackface Cuba, 1840-1895 (Rethinking the Americas)" by Jill Lane, who teaches theatre studies and American studies at Yale University. Invualuable source to understand this complex process which, as I said, in Cuba took a singular humorous turn. http://www.amazon.com/Blackface-Cuba-1840-1895-Rethinking-Americas/dp/0812238672 "Blackface Cuba, 1840-1895 offers a critical history of the relation between racial impersonation, national sentiment, and the emergence of an anticolonial public sphere in nineteenth-century Cuba. Through a study of Cuba's vernacular theatre, the teatro bufo, and of related forms of music, dance, and literature, Lane argues that blackface performance was a primary site for the development of mestizaje, Cuba's racialized national ideology, in which African and Cuban become simultaneously mutually exclusive and mutually formative. Popular with white Cuban-born audiences during the period of Cuba's anticolonial wars, the teatro bufo was celebrated for combining Spanish elements with supposedly African rhythms and choreography. Its wealth of short comic plays developed a well-loved repertory of blackface stock characters, from the negrito to the mulata, played by white actors in blackface. Lane contends that these practices were embraced by white audiences as especially national forms that helped define Cuba's opposition to Spain, at the same time that they secured prevailing racial hierarchies for a future Cuban nation. Comparing the teatro bufo to related forms of racial representation, particularly those created by black Cubans in theatres and in the press, Lane analyzes performance as a form of social contestation through which an emergent Cuban national community struggled over conflicting visions of race and nation." I want also to highlight that there's a term used in Spanish to designate people of African ancestry, and has NOT any diminishing aura whatsoever. Our late great Celia Cruz used ita lot in her songs, like "La Negra tiene tumba'o","negra" being called in this case a beautiful black girl with a sinuosuous swing. Perhaps "negra" or "negro" sounds a lot like the "N" word so forbidden and hated over here, but, I repeat it, it does NOT has the same connotation. I think that's what J.LO uses in her songs too.

Ricky Ricardo: Check!

Flower Festival in Genzano... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqq3eGkEPh4

Can we consider the fact that they want dancing kids representing black dancing kids and they just don't have them...? I realize many SB productions use a black guy to portray the black prince-(probably a moor of some sort), but this is easy to get, considering that it is only one character...not a bunch of them. I'm sure that in PD, just as in Bayadere, the Russians used the only option they had; just as in Petipa's times, the use of paint. What happens when a ballet production is in need of portraying boys onstage and they don't have them-(just as in The Nutcracker)-? Do they usually get rid of the idea and change the party scene into an all-girls one..? No. Girls are disguised as boys, and even if we know it, the idea is to keep somehow the story as faithful as in the original. Sex or race, it is all a matter of make-believe, and I doubt many of us don't get this concept.

Lots of junk, guilty pleasure little numbers...nothing to brag about over here...

Very glad to see that Pharaoh's Daughter is becoming a staple in the Bolshoi's repertoire. That means that for a whole generation of very young dancers and audiences, Aspicia will be seen and danced along Odette, Aurora and Giselle. Hopefully she will make the trip overseas at one point.

http://archives.metoperafamily.org/Imgs/DomingoOtello.jpg

To be honest, I've never seen anything offensive on the issue. Artistic stereotypes that belong to a certain era ought to be seen as so. Some of them are even funny. Do I care about the vision of whoever has of certain culture offered by Mr. Arnaz portray..? Absolutely not...that would be that person business-(and prove of many things)- to identify hundreds of years with a comical character -(and that tells a lot of the recipient's level of information and analysis capacity, be it a person or a whole society). The option should be given to people, and in the way, artistic productions can be offered with a more faithful air to the originals.

True What I'm really looking forward to is Phelps' performance on the 100 butterfly this Friday. This will be Phelps's final individual swim of his career, so it's hard to see him losing. Still, the margin for error is very slim going against American teammate Tyler McGill and 2008 upstart Milorad Cavic. Phelps was deeply fatigued by this time of the meet in Beijing, and it took everything he had plus divine intervention to beat Cavic by 0.01 seconds then. Four years later it will be very difficult again, but I know he'll find a way to the wall first !

True

More weight loss for Alley...

Unfortunately, this time Lochte cost himself and two other teammates a victory. He hit the water with a 0.55-second lead over France and touched the wall 0.45 seconds after Agnell.

Miachael Phelps looked like his old self again in the men's 4x100 freestyle relay . He's not the one who lost the race. It was Ryan Lochte-(who seems to be such a favorite now)-, who choked away Team USA's big lead on the final leg. Judging from Phelps' amazing swim, I need to predict that his time as a dominant force in men's swimming is far from over. He was superb in his leg of that relay, posting the fastest time by anyone except for France's Yannick Agnel. Then we have to consider that the 100-meter freestyle isn't even Phelps' best event. He doesn't even compete in the regular 100-meter freestyle sprint. He's been better throughout his career in the longer sprints, and his specialty is the butterfly. Go Mikeyyyyyyy, gooooooooooo!!!! Will be watching the man...

Oh, that's true...

I see the controversial little black faced painted kids from Bayadere are back in Pharaoh's Daughter. Any thoughts...?

Let's hear it for escaping into a world of beauty and romance! Sometimes it's all you can do, isn't it? And let's hear it for that too. It's surprising how quickly one can start to pick up things. I'm able already to return to recordings I first saw two weeks ago and get more pleasure out of them. Even just knowing which steps are more difficult and hence more impressive when executed with lightness and verve makes a difference. Yes, returning to the same ballet over and over and seeing different dancers dance the same ballet really teaches a lot. I was an opera lover for 20 years and never tired of seeing different singers interpret La Traviata or Norma or Rusalka, etc. Even movies are like this. You can re-watch the same movie over and over and see things you missed the first time. There's an interesting point to consider about watching a certain loved ballet over and over if at one point in our viewing history one feels like there was a definitive performer who gave all you wanted and expected. Usually it is at a live performance. The point being...what are we really looking after that...? Aren't we all internally comparing everything after-(or even before)-with that particular performance, usually thinking that it didn't come close to it...? atm711 made a remarkable comment on how she thought that she had seen the ultimate performance of the female leading of Diamonds by Farrell...until she came across Lopatkina's. Still, wasn't Lopatkina's being compared to THE performance..? And then...is it possible that a latter performance can surpass one that is deeply rooted down in memory lane due to many different reasons...?-(not only great technique, but many other sentimental things). There's a famous theory on drug addiction that makes an addict first hit as the very point of comparison for subsequent-(and never again achieved)-tries. I'm sorry if this is such a crude example, but the pathos is somehow related. In my case, I have ultimate performances-(probably some of them of in lesser levels of technique/artistry than subsequent ones)-that are so rooted that I',not afraid to confess they are almost impossible to surpass. I certainly enjoy ballet, and never get tired of watching, let's say, Giselle over and over and over, but that I reached a certain point extremely hard to be surpassed, that is also true.

Will anybody here follow the men's swimming competition...? (Being the only sport I've ever practiced/watched with passion, I might as well find a partner in crime around here... ) Michael Phelps is my hero..!

Definitely, Miss Helene. Even though we come from different colonization roots-(Brazil by Portugal vs. Cuba by Spain)-it is the fusion of the European heritage with what was brought by the African slaves that makes our cultures so similar.

God... save me from that sight...

Oh, yes...glad that Birdsall mentioned about the Brazilian dancers. We have a couple of them too over at Miami City Ballet, and they are amazing too. Yes, tell us about the ballet scene over your native country! (BTW...I never feel as much as home as when interacting with Brazilians...our cultures have A LOT in common... )

Body-type wise, there has been certainly a movement toward hyper extension and muscularity in females. Not too much can be still invented then...the body naturally stops at one point developing, and still it ought to be constricted by certain preconceived ideas that we inherited from the XIX Century, from photos and lithographs. A ballerina, even if she works out in gyms nowadays, will never be as developed as a female bodybuilder. About sizes, I think the controversy will keep going on, as they were, are and will be great technicians that were or will never be able to be a size zero. That has happened at all times in the history of ballet-(didn't Kschessinskaya feel sorry for "poor little Pavlova" being so skinny and fragile when she was teaching her some role due to her pregnancy..?). I believe that there's a little whispering around about not going that extremely thin...and if that's what the future can be, so welcome.