cubanmiamiboy

In "Camille" with Dolin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ue6P_rkyiA In "The Dying Swan" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg_WKtqONpA

Hi. I gathered all the tiny snippets that can be found on Youtube on the very neglected grand dame of Ballet Alicia Markova, being encouraged after revisiting her "Giselle and I" and "Markova remembers". Proper justice to her importance in the history and development of British Ballet is long due. In Fedorova's staging of "The Nutcracker" with Youskevitch-(Alexandra Danilova also appearing) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd4qggX0xNk&feature=related In Dolin's "Pas de Quatre" with Danilova, Slavenska and Krassovska. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5xzQ57VRqI&feature=related

Some other clips I found of Suite en Blanc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Delphine Moussin and Jean-Guillaume Bart in the Pas de Deux http://videolog.uol.com.br/video.php?id=368458 Myriam Ould-Braham in the Pas de Cinq http://videolog.uol.com.br/video.php?id=370037

One of my neighbors' cats was stalking me for quite a while, culminating in him planting himself on the garage door overhang which looked directly into my bathroom. It was quite unnerving to wake up and find Crazy Stalker Cat watching me brush my teeth in the morning. Thankfully, he gave up his most stalkery behavior after a few months. Elvis has lost a step in the last year, so he's had to give up entertaining himself by beating up the other neighborhood animals. I did catch him taking a swipe at Crazy Stalker Cat last week, though, so no doubt that Elvis still wants him to know who's the boss in this corner of the neighborhood. My faucet-drinking ex-street cat is also very territorial. He claimed squatter's rights himself but doesn't want anyone else taking advantage, apparently. Well...talk about being territorial. Tschen-Fu's favorite spot is the whole length of the curtain that covers my entire bed, hanging from a stick in the ceiling. He takes enormous pleasure at jumping like a maniac in the morning trying to get to the top. Finally he succeeded and placed himself up there...just for a few seconds before the whole thing-(barre and everything)-detached completely and fall on top of my head...himself hanging and screaming too... Oh...was I upset...

This feels like moving to a new apartment...

I wish that Adiarys could finally find a place/company where she develops maturity as a ballerina. She was way too young at the time of her defection-(so there was not that much of a Cuban background)-, and from then on she's been gravitating around different companies, without the chance to really show off, to create a fan base and to feel confortable with a given repertoire. Her case reminds me somewhat that of Rolandito Sarabia's. They are good, but they really need to find a nest...

...if not public health...

Hum...here we're basically talking about nationalities-(with a probable hint of ethnicity, which would be that of Hispanic descendants in all the cases above mentioned)-vs. race, which in all those cases would be Caucasian-(with the exception of perhaps Jose Manuel Carreno). Not too much racial diversity...really. A look at ABT's website profile pics will give one the obvious sight of just light skin faces.

Identification is an issue, of course. It's still hard to swim against the currents of the fair-eyed, anglo-saxon features and eurocentric loveliness notions that made the very base of ballet in its beginnings, either as an audience member or a dancer. I can't think of anyone before Acosta who was able to take such a challenge with so much success. Determination and stubbornness was a key factor. I remember something he said when he first arrived at the RB...something like "I'm here not to dance secondary roles...I'm here to be Siegfried and Romeo"...both white characters. This is the reason why somehow I never came to terms with the changing of the historical set for the "Creole Giselle" so it would appear "acceptable" in racial terms.

If anything...I think that nowadays, even if discrimination based on racial issues still exist, perhaps one of the "advances" that have been made in this field is that instead of.... "I was told that I had a very hard image for Giselle, that I could not deliver a fragile Willi and that I wasn't suited for the madness scene because of my hard hair" ...as black ballerina Caridad Martinez was once plainly told in her face, today's bosses are perhaps more "politically correct" and words-( if not thoughts AND decisions based upon them )- have been carefully muted. At the end...who wants a law sue and such a scandal...? And no...roles will never be assigned democratically. How do we convince people that Hip-hop is for anyone...?

Edited: wrong thread.

...or Mitchell's DTH when first created. According to Sara Mistretta... "How was Mitchell going to dispel this myth that blacks can never be good classical ballet dancers? By creating an all-black dance troupe, a full-fledged ballet company composed only of blacks. Although this may seem contradictory in doing so, I believe that his decision towards having a one-race group proved to be beneficial in the long run. Beneficial in that the company’s initial success could then be linked to only one determining factor: dancing talent. If the company was composed of, for instance, ten blacks, two Asians, one Indian, and five whites, then the company’s success could not only be explained by the group’s ability to dance well, but could also be explained by other factors, such as being multi-ethnic (i.e. having white dancers). However, because the company started off as an all-black group, their success was going to be more or less linked to their dancing capabilities rather than to an automatic acceptance into the white-centered ballet world. If the company was composed of whites, blacks, and other races, then the company might have been easily accepted into the ballet world based on it looking similar to other ballet companies of that time. Ballet companies were composed of mostly white dancers with only one or two non-white dancers. Therefore, Mitchell’s company would find success through their talent rather than their racial makeup". http://100megsfree4.com/ballet/balletnewsletter7.html

How many times have we seen great dancers being relegated due to, let's say, a certain height that doesn't meet the AD's standards-(or perhaps doesn't please his/her personal taste)...? Race has been, and still is-(let's face it)-, being look at, considered and analyzed. Nowadays dancers certainly don't have to deal with the issues Raven Wilkinson had to deal with, but it is a fact that there's still a long way to go. http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...&hl=caridad

Nice to know we're up to five principal bailarines in the roster. R&J is safe. "I'm going to Vegaaaaaaas!!" Daniel Baker.

I saw Reyes and Cornejo only from the end of the 1st Act (a sort of perfect storm of events, which began that afternoon, prevented me from seeing the whole performance). I agree. Reyes was delightful, but I have always enjoyed her dancing. I find her to be one of the most musical dancers in the company. When ABT came over to Miami with this production in 07, I found Xiomara to be the best Aurora among Herrera, Kent and herself. I did not see Wiles that time...chose not to.

Well...Reyneris gave the beginners class today-(which I've been taking for a while...still being as terrible as I was the first day... :blush: )- and he was a KILLER !!!! . Wow...we were all DEAD by the end of it, but it was really great .

Oh, God no...no... :blush: :blush: :blush: ... I guess I'm just a fervent lover of the mystery and glamour of the old world of ballet...Mme. Chauvire being one of its greatest goddess... But of course...very glad to get such a compliment...

True... http://media.photobucket.com/image/tamara%...savina3.jpg?o=6

Wow...gotta get my hands on that...

Prima Ballerina Assoluta Yvette Chauvire coaches Florence Clerc in "Giselle". Paris Opera Ballet Love it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cILUZMB81Lc

Oh...the "done by Petipa/Drigo" phrase in my original post was refering to the cut itself...not to the use of the said coda. I just edited it to make it more clear...

Why are musical codas from variations being left out so often by stagers/choreographers...? From the war horses, and from the top of my head, I can think of several that are usually missing from many stagings: Odile's variation, Dulcinea's variation, Sugar Plum Fairy's variation-(all three, curiously, made of a round of pique turns), Siegfried's variation-(from the Marry Makers PDD...the cut provided by Drigo/Petipa...but still...)- and the Love Duet's Adagio's coda. I remember being surprised at seeing the Love Duet's coda being used in MCB's Balanchine's Swan Lake. I think it is also included in the Nureyev/Fonteyn's DVD-(which if mem. serves Nureyev has it just for himself, Odette being quickly dumped and drifted away from the stage). Are there any other numbers being used "codaless" in some stagings...?

Ah...that's the very section I mentioned had strucked me...all the dancers gazing at the distance with that sad looking...