cubanmiamiboy

..."Jardin aux Lilas" included...?

Steven Soderbergh's 2002 "Solaris". The soviet 1972 original was way better that this boring version, (even with George Clooney on it)

I was recently reading an old program from Ballet Nacional de Cuba from october 2000, when Mme. Alonso organized a program called "Gala tribute to George Balanchine" during the XVII Havana Ballet Festival. The program notes is based in an interview in which Mme. Alonso describes some of her experiences working with Mr. Balanchine. I thought it would be a good idea to translate some of these notes . Here they go: Mme.Alonso on Balanchine and the music/interpretation/pure dance issue: "I remember the polemic discusions in United States, between those in favor of psichological/dramatic ballets, a la Tudor and Agnes de Mille, and then the tendency basically represented by Balanchine, in which form and music were enough reason, ojective and starting point. Some would criticize Balanchine for he would not create ballets with a story to tell, with an argument, to which he angrily answered "I create ballets to dance, not to suffer. To have that, i would rather go to a dramatic theater play!" In fact, his position wasn't as closed as it would appear, because in some ocassions he tried to create this "meaningful" type of works, althought he never achieved with them the success of his abstract and non-argument creations. With Balanchine i couldn't dance a ballet the way i was used to, for i had to go and interpret a score no by its melody, but basically by its rythm. Even though the dificulties, i totally enjoyed his choreographies. It really amazed me the fact that musically, he maintained a specific rythm, and that he would play with it due to an imagination that seemed to have not limits." Mme. Alicia Alonso

I'm reading Paulo Coelho's "Veronika decides to die". I also had read from him "Eleven minuts". In "Veronika..." Coelho writes about the meaning of madness over its main character, Veronika, a young girl who attempts to commit suicide. He also celebrate individuals who, like her, don't fit into patterns considered to be "normal" by society.

I do too. I like the old school body type of well developed thights in female dancers. Those extremely long skinny legs don't do it for me at all...

I taped it and watched again tonight. Listening to Lacotte's narration, i was going back in time and thinking that it most be hard to understand for the western culture sometimes how terrified one could have been out of something that would go against the government, and defection is one of the worst things. I was observing the answers when the interviewer would ask to the russians about their thinking over Rudy's decision and the impact that it had on their life . Almost all of them would describe the event as a chaos, and with certain bitterness and negativity. Wanting to leave the country, the goverment that had given him everything, as they would proclame , was a crime, and it was viewed as a very bad thing. I remember when i was a teen, all the good students would automatically join the CYU (comunist youth union). Generally, the entrance to this organization would be denied to those who were bad students with pro-delinquent attitudes. Basically, the good people were "awarded" the entrance, and it was not necesarily a political thing. Those who didn't belong were outcasted, and generally trouble makers. There were very few cases of apolitical students, who never asked to join the organization and were left out too. Those were generally considered rare specimens, (i was one of then). Nowadays Nureyev's situation would look as a very old and out of reality story with Marinsky and S. Petersbourg back in the vocabulary, (i must confess that i still call it Leningrad, as i learnt it), but let's not forget that there are still communist governments and struggling dancers who still defect and have to pay the consequences of being outcasted from their own countries . Please, next time we watch Rolando Sarabia (Miami City Ballet), or Lorena Feijoo (San Francisco Ballet, to mention just two examples of the loooong list), let's not forget that they are the modern cases of this phenomenom, and that they don't have the privileges that others who have decided to colaborate with the cuban goverment have.

Well, since the "beautiful proportioned" expression doesn't contain any specifications, every single answer to that question is going to be based in a personal set of preferences .

It could be the end of my faith in sanity, bart...OMG, i remember Bjork wearing that...thing...

Congratulations, Sonia!!!

Interesting. I never saw him dancing live, but in every single video that i've seen of him i have the feeling that he wants to make sure to let people know that he is the star. I see this even in his dancing with Mme. Fonteyn , in a more subtle way due, i guess, to the genuine and profound respect and love that Nureyev felt for his friend and mentor.

OMG, noooooo!!...don't give those "enterprising souls" any ideas, Alexandra..! I have enough with Mathew Bourne and The Trocks already!

What a wonderful opportunity!..I wish that we could have more of those type of events down here in Miami... It's sad of how behind this city gets in relation with cultural environment development, which we really, desperate need .

The Telegraph Why the take on lovely "Swan Lake"?...Leave it alone!..(I'm very protective on my favorite ballet.. )

Mmm...can we get risky digging into weight issues here related to "beautiful proportion"?. Until we find out, i'll vote for Lorena Feijoo and Nina Ananiashvili

Interesting. This is what Mr. Frederic Franklin has to say about acting, expression and M. Balanchine: "Later in his career Mr. 'B' would say, "Don't bother about the acting. Just listen to the music and dance." All his steps came out of him through the music. The music was terribly important to him. He didn't want any expression. The dancing was enough. That was Balanchine." Mr. Frederic Franklin

Aren't they just amazing...? I find this super speeding force , either on the chainees or the pique turns on these old soviet videos, something like hypnotic. ( like Dudinskaya's on her 1957 Black Swan ). By the way, Nureyev's whole Corsaire PDD is in the DVD "The Glory of Kirov". Ooh..poor mother was just scared that i wouldn't be able to keep my name God, thank God that didn't happen, because you know what?...That kind of thing was a popular practice back then. I had a friend, a girl, ( ) whose name, Ernesallen, was the mix of Ernesto Guevara and Salvador Allende, two popular communist heroes in the cuban political iconography.

You're absolutely right, bart. When i was going to be registered, my original name was supposed to be Christian, but the authorities didn't allowed my mother to do so,because of the religious connotations of this name in its english translation so the only way to kept it was by eliminating the H, and becoming Cristian, wich in that form was no more the english translation of a Christ follower, (big trouble back then and there, by the way...

that would be an excelent idea, bart!!... Please, do so.

Interesting point, bart. A while ago i was reading a review on Gelsey Kirkland's "Dancing on my Grave". The controversial point made with the words "Don't think, dance" has a lot to do with this subject. Here it goes: "Through the 1970s and early 1980s, Kirkland nearly paid with her life for "the passivity and guilt instilled by the Balanchine system"a dance theater that valued speed and form over dramatic content. "Don't think, dance," Kirkland was told. The ballerina's disaffection with that dictum is at the heart of this book: "To speak through the dance, to articulate something beyond the steps, was the precise art for which I struggled." Kirkland spares neither the reader nor herself in this memoir full of poetic insights into art and life, and we must be grateful that the dancer, always "seen but not heard," has at last given her inner soul voice in this magnificent autobiography."

I specially loved Nureyev's Romanian roommate stories. Somwhere , and refering to Rudy's body, he said something like "People like a good body physique, and if this body is dancing, then is a masterpiece". I think it was a beautiful idea. I totally agree. That was annoying...

It's beyond amazing...is sad, and hard to digest, but it still hapens...I can imagine how frightened Nureyev must have lived during and after his defection... Dancers in a communism society are not meant to be individual stars, but part of a whole that goes beyond the ballet itself. They represent the governmental self proclaimed superior cultural force based on a still sustained theory of a socialist masses movement success vs. individuality capitalist egocentrism and star system. Go figure...

I also wanted to add that i never realized so much before how good looking he was...Those close-ups at the beggining of the documentary were excelent.

I just finished watching it...i really can't express some of the emotions that it brought to me. I understood every word regarding Nureyev's fear. I grew up surrounded by it too,and it's just unexplainable sometimes to the western culture. The dancing footage was beautiful. I especially loved the "Laurencia" clips. The sequences of his pirouettes and chainees were out of this world...it was unbelievable.Rudolph Nureyev, RIP, and for your artistry and courage!!!! Bravooooooooooo!!!!!!

I've always been frustrated about the DVD situation related with ballet, specially with my idol Mme. Alonso . From her super extended career, there's only an awfully recorded 1965 "Giselle", and some excerpts in "Prima Ballerina Assoluta"...I usually wonder if ballet companies make sure that the original TV recordings are kept safe for possible future DVD releases.

It would be choreographically altered for sure. Can't choreographers just keep african slaves as so and just work in a more sophisticated make up method, eliminating as much as possible any grotesque signal?...I'm sure something more subtle can be done without going to the extreme of eliminating the whole "Pas". If we start erasing all the african slaves/black faced characters from all the operas and ballets (even being "minor","non important", "boring" or children roles) for that reason, then i don't really know what's gonna happen. And then, boring, non important and children dances are everywhere in every ballet, and not always by black faced characters, by the way. Should we just start eliminating those too...?