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On the Arthaus Musik dvd there is a bonus: Interviews with Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin. Introduction to the ballet and choreography. On Plisetskaya's website there is also this statement about the Arthaus Musik dvd: "This is the only DVD of the live recording of the performance in 1980 at Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, which is authorized by Maya Plisetskaya." I don't understand why they would say that.

Thank you so much Carbro, for giving us a starting point. I was glad that hunterman asked this question because just today I was wondering what this statement from BalletBag's article on Petipa meant.... in practical terms that a non-dancer (myself) would understand: His [Petipa's] dances combine the technical purity of the French school with the virtuosity of the Italian school. And hunterman, i have seen the documentary on Mukhamedov that I think you are referring to. I would imagine that Mukhamedov had to cope with adjusting to many differences: size of the stage, perhaps the angle of the raking of the stage?, the kind of choreography dominant in the company, perhaps type of expression including more mime? as well as the different technical basis that I think you are referring to. It would be interesting to know more about the kinds of adjustments dancers from Russia had to make when they came to the West.

Pushkin's Button: the story of the fatal duel which killed Russia's greatest poet by Serena Vitale This is an engrossing story of three people (Pushkin, his young wife and her admirer) and the society they are part of. I really enjoyed this book. Initially it has a slightly disjointed feeling because Vitale is meshing together various accounts from letters, diaries etc. And there are some mysteries that are never solved but I like the way she deals with the possible scenarios and discusses what is probable and what is not. Now to find a good biography of Pushkin!

Article from July 2009 about the proposed Dance Palace: "UNStudio's design has won a competition to build a 21,000 square meter dance theatre in the historic centre of st. petersburg. the new complex houses the eifman ballet of st. petersburg, headed by choreographer boris eifman." "a mandatory requirement when we were designing the auditorium was to make it possible to see the dancer's feet from every seat in the hall at all times, no matter where the performer was positioned on the stage." An Further information from UNStudio.

If you are interested in using twitter I recommend The Ballet Bag on Twitter as a good source. They are in the process of compiling lists of dance/ballet resources on twitter. @theballetbag/dance-companies -- Following: 18 so far @theballetbag/ballet-companies -- Following: 31 so far @theballetbag/choreographers -- Following: 10 so far @theballetbag/dancers-on-twitter -- Following: 40 so far

From the Ballet Bag's "Bag of Ballets" a new fact sheet on Les Patineurs: The inspiration for Les Patineurs came from composer Constant Lambert. Lambert admired Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera Le Prophète which featured a short comic relief sequence with dancers on roller skates. He reorchestrated the piece and showed it to Ashton who set to choreograph a new ballet which preserved the lighthearted nature of the original work. And a clip of the Joffrey Ballet: Mark Goldweber as the Boy in Blue in the Joffrey Ballet's production of Sir Frederick Ashton's LES PATINEURS. "Live From Artpark" - 1979.

New York City Ballet has posted this new, very interesting, : "The Importance of the Perfect Fit. Principal Dancer Megan Fairchild discusses her pointe shoes."

What concerns me is that this will become the new historical truth. "Were Margot Fonteyn and Nureyev really lovers? A riveting TV drama brings ballet's most passionate pairing back to life." Daily Mail Did ballet make Margot Fonteyn 'really unhappy'? Telegraph

"BBC abandons ballet with deformed rapist Pope" Link The BBC has abandoned plans to screen a ballet featuring a deformed Pope who rapes nuns which it had announced as one of the highlights of its Christmas schedule.

Another article about Shiryaev. "In 20 years as a dancer with the Marinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Shiryaev took on all the male character parts. In his eagerness to pass on these dances to future generations he offered to use his keen amateur skills as a filmmaker to document the popular scenes of the day. His request for permission to film was refused." ....

For a future book my vote is for a biography of a Russian dancer or choreographer. And I hope, Catherine, when you complete what you are working on right now you will tell us Fingers crossed it will be in English.

But surely governments, past and present, have an extremely significant influence on creative artists and areas of cultural expression... examples of governmental rulings range from death to government grants. Many authors don't touch on the social/political aspects of their subjects because they are from necessity concentrating their view but these wider issues still exist.

Perhaps Bart was referring to news items like the arrest of the Russian historian Mikhail Suprun.

I agree! I must prefer the old fashioned way of "advanced search" with limiting possibilities than the newfangled way of "tags".

From Roland John Wiley's website: Interests and Current Research Wiley's research interests are Russian music and ballet within the context of 19th-century music; his current projects are a life and works of Tchaikovsky and a study of the choreographer Marius Petipa.

Here is a from an educational film made in 1946. "Robert Helpmann explains how a ballet is put together with choreography by Andree Howard set to specially composed music by Arthur Benjamin. The principal dancers are Gerd Larsen and Alexander Grant. The Phlharmonia Orchestra is conducted by the film's director Muir Mathieson." The dvd of this film is for sale.

Here is some further information from an obituary: 1927 - Violetta Bovt [boft] was born in Los Angeles of Russian parents 1930’s - Moved to the Soviet Union with her family Studied at the Bolshoi Ballet School in Moscow Prima Ballerina for 32 years -- The Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Lyric Theatre in Moscow. 1970 - People's Artist of the U.S.S.R. 1986 - Left Moscow and moved to Columbus, Ohio where she was hired by BalletMet as ballet mistress “Born in Los Angeles in 1927, Boft was uprooted when her father, a communist sympathizer, moved the family to the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Ultimately betrayed by the government he so admired, her father disappeared early in World War II while fighting the Nazis outside Leningrad. Boft never gave up her U.S. citizenship. She once said that she felt punished for her decision: She was not allowed to become a member of either the Bolshoi or the Kirov ballets, though she was frequently their starring guest artist; nor was she allowed to tour the United States. When she performed outside the Soviet Union, she was under surveillance.” "For Violetta Boft, to live was to dance" by Barbara Zuck, 30 April 1995, The Columbus Dispatch

There is a small amount of information on the web about “dramballet” and two examples mentioned are The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (Zakharov) and Flames of Paris (Vainonen). However, one author writes: “This pejorative term evokes the failed attempts of Soviet choreographers to fulfill the rigid requirements of social realism, as prescribed during the Soviet epoch, components fatally unsuitable for classical dance.” Is “dramballet” a pejorative term? Also, is there a book in English about this kind of ballet?

I found this video is fascinating.... The clip is from a rehearsal with Monica Mason giving her ideas on the role of Carabosse to Kristen McNally.

Does anyone have memories of Violetta Boft? Leonid has started a thread linking to a film showing her extraordinary dancing. But perhaps there are people here who remember her as a teacher when she emigrated to the US in the late 80s and joined BalletMet as a Ballet Mistress. (In the United States she became know as Violetta Boft rather than Violetta Bovt, as she had been known in Russia.)

Thank you.

Smithsonian Libraries, Archives and Museums have worked together and created the Collections Search Center, a one-stop-searching center for the public for SI collections. This fast growing Collections Search Center is hosted by OCIO and currently contains 2.3 million records with 280,000 online media such as images, sound files, videos, and online collections. Collections are contributed by: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden National Air and Space Museum National Museum of American Indians National Museum of Natural History National Portrait Gallery National Postal Museum Smithsonian American Art Museum Archives at the National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center at National Museum of American History Archives of American Art Archives of American Gardens Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives Human Studies Film Archives National Air and Space Museum Archives Division National Anthropological Archives Smithsonian American Art Museum Photo Archives Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage Smithsonian Institution Archives Smithsonian Institution Libraries

Can you tell us more about her? Here she is dancing in .

"Emily Howell, the virtual composer making waves in the computer world" Times article: includes excerpts from "her first album, From Darkness, Light, is due for release in spring. It is played by humans on two pianos through six movements." "This artificially intelligent music may speak to our minds, but not our souls" Guardian article.

A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash is a documentary about the demise of oil. Some reviewers criticized it as being one- sided. For that reason I recommend it highly, especially for the clear and rational explanation of issues by Dr. David L. Goodstein, Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Caltech.