cubanmiamiboy

Time has come for me to talk about a ballerina that holds a very special place in my heart, Lorna Feijoo. Back in 1991, and just as her big sister Lorena was getting to be known as a young, promising starlet, Lorna was still at the ballet school. I started noticing her right upon her graduation performance-(where she danced the role of Kitri). It wasn't really until Lorena defected that Lorna started her rising path within the Cuban ranks, and by 2001, the year of my departure from the island, she had already established herself as a Primera Bailarina. Miss Feijoo wasn't what we would call a "naturally gifted" dancer. It was well known that she had to work really hard to show the merciless Cuban balletomanes that she was worth to watch. She didn't have Osipova's jumps, Zakharova's extensions, Valdes' balances or Part's beauty, but soon enough it was clear that she possessed a unique quality that eventually popped out in every performance of hers. She was-(is)- EXTREMELY musical, being her phrasing and legato works truly marvelous, and so resulting in our renaming of her as the "Queen of Accents". She was definitely THE Cuban Giselle of the 90's, being her dramatic qualities another of her trademarks. I've never seen her dancing after she defected, but I believe that in Boston she has continued to be the very reliable, sensible to the music ballerina that I got to see in La Habana from her very beginnings. Miss Feijoo eventually became the one ballerina I really loved the most, probably along the lines of Rosario Suarez. Great to know that she'll be back to dancing after having her baby girl. Good for you, Lorna, and thank you for all that dancing!! As Odette, with Toto Carreno

I wonder if Alicia will decide to promote some men right before the US tour now that only two Primeros are still with the company. Well, if so that's good news for those next in line. On the other side, I can't even imagine how aggressively watched will the steps of the Cuban dancers be while in American soil...

Update on Yoli and Yoel. Carreno is no longer listed in Ullate's roster, nor is he back in Alonso's company. Miss Correa is still with the Spanish troupe. I wonder if the City Ballet offer made to him a while ago could be revived...I would hate to see his talent wasted by floating from place to place a la Rolando Sarabia...

Well....for once only two Primeros Bailarines-(Principal Dancers)- remain in the roster: Javier Sanchez and Ernesto Alvarez. They will have to work wonders-(and I know they will...)

Bourzac is one of the five dancers that just have defected in Canada...

Mixed feelings about it. How great that they will finally experience what freedom is and what it takes to have enough maturity to really know how to take the best advantage of it. How sad they have to leave in such sad terms-("defection")-the company they love, their homeland and family, not knowing when will they be able to see them again. Also, I just hope they are open enough to adapt to new repertoire-(in many cases very alien to their encapsulated, limited XIX Century oriented training/vision/demeanor). In any case, I really wish them the very best. Good luck, cubanitos...!!! Edited to add: Miss valdes doesn't seem to be very lucky keeping her partners. First she looses Frometa-(her best partner, seen on the DQ DVD)-and now Bourzac. I wonder who will dance with her now...

How sad these Old Hollywood/Glamour ladies are leaving us without having had a proper recognition for all that beauty they gave us to admire. A great loss for sure. May you rest in peace, Miss Russell. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5WGPylykOXU/S86yQGPHowI/AAAAAAAABCQ/iYHGQKoY1vc/s640/Jane%2BRussell.jpg

Overcoming an stroke is a progressive, hard journey, so I really admire your courage and desire to do so. My congrats to you and all those who had been part of your recovery process!!! WELCOME BACK!

I apologize for the double post. I didn't realize that there was one thread devoted to the clip already. My bad.

This is amazing...! (From the Youtube poster...) "This is unique. June 1928, silent film footage of the original now fabled Ballets Russes of Serge de Diaghilev. It shows Serge Lifar rehearsing 'Les Sylphides' with a corps de ballet outdoors at the 'Fetes de Narcisses' in Montreux, Switzerland. What makes this discovery particularly exciting is that Diaghilev never permitted the Ballets Russes to be filmed, and so this unauthorised rehearsal footage may well be the only record of the company. The footage was originally uploaded by British Pathe onto their website http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?­id=79902 The footage had been unrecognised, until identified in February 2011 by Jane Pritchard, curator of the Ballets Russes (Ballet Russe) exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and Susan Eastwood, a member of the London Ballet Circle. They were aided in their identification by a photograph taken during the Ballets Russes' first visit to the 'Fetes de Narcisses' in 1923, which showed the company on an outdoor stage performing 'Aurora's Wedding'. There are now many articles on the internet about the discovery including one by Jane Pritchard herself: http://www.vam.ac.uk/things-to-do/blo... Ms Pritchard says: 'What we see is I believe the June 1928 Festival (the topiary arch indicates this is the Ballets Russes second visit to Montreux when they danced Les Sylphides, Cimarosiana and the Polovtsian dances from Prince Igor). I believe that Serge Lifar was dancing the lead role -- sometimes referred to as the poet. No doubt the long wig worn confused the [british Pathe] cataloguer to suggest 'One female dancer (representing Narcissus?)'. The film confirms what many have said - that while the principle dancers were often extraordinary, the corps could be a far more ordinary affair". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qPUUyCuwzg&feature=feedu

Agreed, so here we go... Liz...GET UP AND BE BACK SOON...WE MISS YOU, BEAUTIFUL!!!

I found Mr. Douglas charming. The man suffered a major CVA, and so he has the usual post-stroke dysarthria/apraxia or probably some expressive aphasia , but besides that he really made me laugh in a way that the insipid hosting couple failed to. I LOVED how he was getting on the nominees' nerves by stopping every time he was about to announce the winner. Good for you, Kirk. Show the world how brave you are to get onstage and that there's no reason to hide or to be ashamed of the sequels of such ordeal!. In fact I found Miss Hatthaway's behavior way more embarrassing all along... Amen.

BEST DRESSES. Anne Hatthaway's Valentino Helle Berry's Marchesa Gwyneth Palthrow's Calvin Klein Marisa Tomei's 50's Charles James Jennifer Hudson's Versace Mandy Moore's Monique Lhuiller

Thought of Patrick when Sussannah York's face showed on the tribute to those who passed away... Annoyed with all those dress changes of Hatthaway. Predictable the awards to "The King's Speech"...(Best director, leading actor and best film) Oh...BTW...Portman got the Oscar.

Oh well...this is the day when it is easy to find a magazine pic. of a Hollywood starlet wearing "Vintage Versace ca. 1990"...

A little OT, this reminded me of a theater Cuban rule of tongue, which establishes that once the lights are down, you no longer have rights over your seats, and so if someone is there already remains rightfully seated. Me and my friends used to buy the cheapest tickets available and just wait on the isles for the lights to come down, spotting empty seats, to where we would quickly move in a matter of seconds right at that moment-(the theater cooperates by allowing some extra minutes for this to happen). The result is that there are very few late comers, and no fighting when you fairly loose your seat rights. The late comer just quietly seats somewhere else.

Taritas was always great. He's one of those small dancers that becomes big onstage. His gypsy in the CNB's DQ DVD is out of this world! Glad to know he's being given more princely roles and not merely relegated to the jumpers and spinners. In Coppelia, pre-defection times with Annette Delgado http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHKurDx_yQg In Don Quijote, also in Havana, with Yolanda Correa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f72gT9CrACE&feature=related In Don Quijote, as the Gypsy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7ogf6vyy6w&feature=related

As I wrote earlier, my case was quite the opposite, for which I had never seen a Giselle before coming to US without the opening second act scene with the hunters playing dice and being scared away by the willis before Myrtha's appearance, so I was surprised to find it erased from all the productions I started to see over here. On the other side, and getting a little OT, I would like to know if a deep reconstruction/recreation of the original could ever be done, including some real rare sequences, like the very final scene with the returning of Willfrid and Bathilde to the stage and the "passing" of Albretch to his fiancée by Giselle, or a recreation of the Act I Minkus PDD-(now that it seems that no notation of it exists)-or the validation of the real music-(the fast tempo one, still preserved in the Skeaping-for-Alonso Cuban staging)-again on the last scene-(please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember from this board that the slow version was done later one for Anna Pavlova) or even the little early change on the choreography-(again in the last scene and narrated by Beaumont in "The Ballet Called Giselle")- which describes that instead of Giselle returning to the graveyard, Albrecht gently carries her away from it and lowers her down on the ground, in the middle of some greenery where she disappears. Also, I don't know if the PNB's reconstruction will address one detail that I think gets a little confusing, which is that in many productions the impression of the first encounter onstage of Giselle and Loys seems to give the audience the idea that this is their very first ...that they have never interact before. Then, in that case, the gesture of Hilarion when he first shows up pointing out to Loys' hut and miming that the guy is his enemy wouldn't make sense, neither the fact that Albrecht/Loys has obviously been in his hut-(almost nearby to Giselle's)-before, and so speaking of a situation that has been going on for a while.

You're completely right about it, Patrick. It is not any worse...in fact, morally speaking, Alonso's political maneuvering-(Vaganova's own story come to mind here, BTW)- could rank in a lower level than those of Moffie or whoever got the idea to get her onstage, and I despise this strategy of her as well as I adore her Giselle. Still, Moffie should not had been allowed to be up there...no matter what.

Wow...I wish I could "get" this...

I don't know, but I've never been convinced about the ever popular "all for the much-needed cash" mantra. And yes, the few times I've said to welcome the idea I've just been totally sarcastic. When I read this post, Irina Baronova's autobiography came to mind right away, about when she said that by the time she showed little discrimination in the jobs she accepted-(those at the Roxy theater)- in lieu of ballet assignments due to a good cash influx, Igor Youskevitch crudely criticized her for “prostituting her art". So I just hope I never get to see some Miami socialites wearing tutus at the Arsht Center... Edited to add; Just for the records of rich socialites as dancers, here's a glimpse of some of the most famous ones down here...so just imagine them up onstage... I mean..."MUFFIE"?!...Really...?! Ah...Disgraceful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqqVNvTPDsg

...and I believe the only one available showing Kitri's original final act variation...? I'm not sure if it's the original-original Kitri Act 4 variation but this music and somewhat-similar steps has been used by the Bolshoi for a long time, for the First Flower Girl Variation in the Act 4 Grand Pas. The main difference is that instead of Terekhova's final diagonal of double-pirouettes, the Bolshoi Flower Girl performs a series of grands jetes around the circumference of the stage. I agree, this remains one of the finest commercially-available Don Qs, from a performance-quality point of view. It's a shame that it's so 'low definition.' I am hoping that, somewhere in the vaults of Russian State TV, there is a sharper version of this wonderful film. The US-version Kultur video (and the DVD copies from it) has the crappiest resolution imaginable. Even for its day (ca 1988), it was poor. Thanks, Natasha for that info! I don't know how reliable is Wikipedia on this matters, but this is what it has to say about it... "When he staged the production in St. Petersburg in 1902, the composer Riccardo Drigo composed two new variations for Kschessinskaya the famous Variation of Kitri with the fan for the ballet's final pas de deux, and the Variation of Kitri as Dulcinea for the scene of Don Quixote's dream (these variations are still retained in modern productions, and are often erroneously credited to Minkus)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote_(ballet)

...and I believe the only one available showing Kitri's original final act variation...?

This is tonight. Will be watching...! BTW...I'll be skipping this... , so let's see...

Quite a bold statement... -(italics are mine...)