innopac

Could someone tell me what their favorite dvds of Sondheim's musicals are? I would like to buy two dvds to introduce a tertiary music student to Sondheim. After spending some time on Amazon it seemed to me the best choices would be: Sweeney Todd (1982) with Angela Lansbury, George Hearn Sunday in the Park with George (1986) with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters I would appreciate any advice. Thank you.

Second Life Ballet "Legendary US choreographer Bob Fosse talked about redefining the language of our bodies, and most would agree, he did. The founder and Artistic Director of Second Life Ballet, an Avatar named Inarra Saarinen, is on a similar mission, inside popular online world Second Life. Inarra is a real life (RL) professional dancer and choreographer who has worked across forms and styles for many years. She holds an MFA in dance and has trained with the acclaimed Joffrey Ballet. She has also worked with the Miami City Ballet, Los Angeles Ballet, Concert Ballet of California, Long Island Dance Theatre, Momentum Dance Company, Stephen Koplowitz and Dancers, Impulse Theatre and Dance, as well as working in Japan, television and film. By any yardstick, she's had a very successful career as a practitioner. So what next? Time to conquer another universe! Under Inarra's wing, the groundbreaking Second Life Ballet has gone from strength to strength. The 200 plus group works in a specially designed virtual theatre that holds 80 avatars. Inarra choreographs, directs, write the narrative and creates animations. SL Ballet uses original music - their most recent from resident composer Alazarin Mondrian."

That is it! Thank you both!

I guess they are using SecondLife for promotional reasons. I just did google search and there is a "ballet company" on SL who have created a ballet call Olmannen. There is also a clip elsewhere on the web of the actual ballet. But don't you think these virtual performances by professionals and amateurs are more a curiosity than anything else?

Here is another question I am hoping you can help with: A friend is trying to find the name a Russian ballet that she saw on Bravo years ago. Here is how she describes it... "In it were prisoners dressed in rags and periodically huge guards would enter who abused and beat them. Then in would leap this charming little creature dressed in a white leotard with a tiny red heart sewn on his chest. I called him Hope. He encouraged the prisoners to dance and free themselves. It was a very dramatic ballet, the guards killed the little fellow but in the end his body was lifted triumphantly after the prisoners freed themselves." Do any of you know the ballet she is describing? And thank you for all the generous and interesting responses to our questions you have given over these past months!

A friend has asked me to ask about the "snowflakes" that often fall on the stage during the snow fairies dance in productions of "The Nutcracker." She is especially interested in terms of the Nureyev Covent Garden production (dvd). What are the snowflakes made of? Do they create a problem for the dancers?

A reaction to the book extract from Julie Kavanagh's biography of Nureyev: "Did Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn have an affair or didn't they?" Reading this excerpt made me think about three things.... 1. Should a biographer practice restraint with using the material they gather? I believe, yes. I found the statements about Fonteyn's abilities as a lover quite disturbing. They are what you would expect to find in the tabloids rather than a scholarly work. 2. The key point for me is Ashton's statement: When the choreographer Frederick Ashton and his Norfolk neighbour Keith Money, the ballet writer, discussed the matter, each was "adamantly certain" that nothing took place; and when questioned in his eighties, Ashton had not changed his mind. "I don't think that he awakened in her any sexual thing. You always love the person you dance with for that moment, and something must emanate from you that communicates itself to the audience." Surely a tremendous amount of excitement is generated during rehearsals and performances from moments of creative synergy. My feeling is that these two artists of consummate artistry had the ability to "flow", (using Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's word), together. 3. Did they sleep together? Who really cares?

How do dancers deal with the problem of sweat during performances... their own sweating... their partner's sweating...? Is there a problem with the floor getting slippery from sweat during performances? Why is it in filmed close-ups the men often have sweat dripping off them but not the women?

Here is a rough translation of what Lucette Aldous said when talking of Nureyev and his absolute commitment to every detail of a production. "To me he had three brains in his head.... On stage he would see something out of the corner of his eye and suddenly he is saying, 'that conductor is not playing good music tonight... and just look at corps de ballet... they sit on their asses....' By the time we got around the front he said, 'look at that dreadful light up there -- I will kill stage manager....'" From the documentary Three Ballerinas: a celebration of the lives of three remarkable Australian dancers [Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2002] Interviews with Lucette Aldous, Marilyn Jones and Marilyn Rowe. It is unclear from the interview if these outbursts, while Nureyev and Aldous danced, occurred during the filming of Don Quixote or during a live performance. Would professional dancers talk to each other on stage during live productions?

A friend just emailed me about Alexandra's comment: "That was the difference I saw between Thibault and the two other men in Emeralds. [dvd] His lines were so clean, so beautiful..."

Thanks for pointing that out... have watched again -- more carefully this time -- and see what you are saying... amazing!

TERROR, RATHER THAN HORROR, IS SUFFICIENT FOR ANY DRAMATIC PRODUCTION "When selecting passages from history for the purpose of adapting them to the Ballet, it is not necessary to make choice of those horrible deeds that have disgraced mankind, nor to extract from fiction those atrocities of which human nature appears almost incapable. The composer should reject those shocking and sanguinary events which generally form the subjects of the Spanish and English dramas. He should avoid also the slightest imitation of that gloomy and improbable stuff with which certain authors are filled; those poets who take a pleasure in describing all that is most desperate and dreadful in nature are not to be followed. Perhaps this species of subject may be adapted to the deepest tragedy; but even then, good taste would reprove and reject productions carried, by an overheated imagination, beyond the bounds prescribed to imitative arts. We must, in short, banish from the Ballet the Fausts, the Manfreds, and the Frankensteins." From: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collI...&linkText=1 The code of Terpsichore. The art of dancing, comprising its theory and practice, and a history of its rise and progress, from the earliest times ... by C. Blasis. 1831 After a post by Leonid led me to Blasis and his writing I followed the link and found this chapter. What struck me then was relating Blasis's thoughts to ballets such as Mayerling, Ivan the Terrible and Macbeth.... There are moments in these that are "horrible" and "shocking" in nature and personally I find these moments quite confronting but deeply moving. And I have thought in the past that it is intriguing that ballet was being used as a vehicle for these stories. However, the physicality of dance gives these subjects a meaning that is not available through words. I was wondering if others agree with Blasis and feel that there are subjects that should not be used in ballet.

Here is the source for the claim that Nureyev was the first man to dance on high demi-pointe. Perhaps Solway was misquoted - maybe Solway meant the first Kirov dancer. I don't have the book on hand to check the quote. "On the other hand, Nureyev was eager to express himself and refused to be enclosed in a mould. He 'didn’t fit the Kirov mold ... He was the first man to dance on high demi-pointe and the first to extend his leg high in the air.' (Solway, 1998)." from: "Making Sense of Nureyev’s Career Through Career Theories" by Elodie Tran Tat in Otago Management Graduate Review Volume 3 2005 http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:3GDUTF...;cd=1&gl=au

Last night I watched the silent film October 1917 by Sergei Eisenstein. In that there was a short clip of wild celebrations with older men breaking into folk dancing. It struck me that much of the time they were very high on the balls of their feet. And I wondered in what ways Nureyev's early folk dancing training influenced him in terms of dancing ballet later in his life. For example he is said to be the first man to dance on high demi-pointe. Could this have come from his folk dancing training?

This may have been talked about before but whose choreography in general do you feel is the most pleasurable to dance to?

Dancerboy87, I am interested to know what you mean by saying that Nureyev's choreography is not very musical? Could you expand on this and perhaps give an example? Thanks. innopac

Thank you so much!

Does anyone know where there is either a detailed description in English of the original production The Bolt by Shostakovich or a translation of the libretto by Viktor Smirnov?

I do that a lot. This is probably "off topic" but... YouTube's attraction is it is a free central place for clips. But aside from the fact that almost all of the clips are not put there legally, there is the issue of incomplete and incorrect descriptions. Also, the information and key words can be intentionally misleading. I have seen one clip which claims to be of a famous male dancer when it is not and have heard of another clip involving plagiarism of choreography. Wouldn't it be wonderful if someone had the time and money to make a legal "YouTube" type database just of short ballet clips. A central place to go for clips of interviews, of discussion about technique, of reviews and criticism, of ballet classes, of the ballet vocabulary of steps, of dress rehearsals of productions, clips from commercial videos/dvds/television programs. Perhaps it could even contain photographs and pdf articles about ballet or descriptions of ballet resources for students, teachers and researchers. Surely there would be enough people that would give copyright permission if they saw the educational and promotional value in such project. Perhaps the video clips could have links to the copyright owners, the publishers, amazon or ballet companies. Some of these clips exist legally on the web but there is no central linking point. .... Does something like this exist already?

The copyright issue is a very serious one, more than many people realise. However, I wish more dancers, ballet companies and dvd distributors would put their own clips on YouTube. This would be one way to promote and generate interest in ballet. For example, I would imagine that there are others like myself who have purchased a dvd after discovering its existence through YouTube.

Official Website of The Lives of Others This is a very powerful German film with the wonderful actor, Ulrich Mühe. It is one of the best movies I have seen this year... one of those you could watch more than once. Sad news. Ulrich Mühe has just died. Thank you for posting this. Ulrich Mühe was an exceptional actor. For me his performance in "The Lives of Others" communicated almost unbearable poignancy and depth.

The translation of the lyrics can be found in The Unknown Kurt Weill, edited by Lys Symonette. (1982) Here are some snippet quotes: . . . . "I believed that I could not live without you." . . . "You promised me blue skies, and I cared for you like my own father." . . . "When will I ever be able to tell you: It's over." . . . Here is a letter to Kurt Weill about "Wie lange noch?" [How Much Longer?]. Letter from W. C. Morck of the Office of War Information (?) to Weill, 3 July 1944: This organisation wishes to express its deep appreciation and to thank you and Mrs. Weill for your very fine work on the song "Wie lange noch." These recordings, which have a very definite place in the prosecution of the war, have been received, reshipped, and by the time this note reaches you, they will have reached their ultimate destination. At some time in the future, we hope that it will be possible for us to show you more definitely how your song assisted in the total war effort. Until such time, however, we would appreciate your treating the song in a most confidential manner. Farneth, David. Kurt Weill: a life in pictures and documents. Overlook Press, Woodstock, 2000. page 230

Official Website of The Lives of Others This is a very powerful German film with the wonderful actor, Ulrich Mühe. It is one of the best movies I have seen this year... one of those you could watch more than once. Review of The Lives of Others "An intense thriller begins in East Berlin five years before the fall of the Berlin Wall and traces the gradual disillusionment of State Security Captain Gerd Wiesler, who works for the Stasi Secret Police..."

When you join Ballet Talk there is required information for your personal profile: city, country and connection to ballet. Is it possible to change the information after you have joined? Thanks.

Just an alert -- this is the first ballet I have seen available in both formats: HD DVD and DVD. HD DVD Swan Lake - Paris Opera Ballet DVD Swan Lake - Paris Opera Ballet