Jaana Heino

ronny, I don't think talking about possible storylines etc is actually discouraged (site owners will correct me if I'm wrong, I trust?). Nevertheless, I too feel that discussing a possible story-line online not in real time would be awkward. I have not done any ballet storylines, of course, but I write some fiction, and it seems to me that the beginning of creation is pretty solitary work. You turn the idea around in your mind, ponder and polish and maybe talk about it to someone - but that some one must be present so that they can react immediately and you can go on pondering. When it's somewhat polished you might post an outline on some board, to say "I've got an idea like this for a story, do you think it would work? Do you see any blunders with the plotline? Any suggestions to make it better?" This is to say, I think you could get more interested posters if you actually posted a suggestion for a story line and asked for comments, instead of a general "let's create". (Which is what I recall you doing, forgive me if I remember wrong.)

Thank you for this wealth of information! The Age of Steel sounds like something I would really like to see. Apart from the ballet information, the mention of no stepmother in the English versions of Cinderella also was interesting. Being from Finland, I find it hard to imagine the story without her.

felursus, listening to the music before going is a great idea. Unfortunately I don't think I can get the music for this ballet in time, but I'll keep that in mind for the future.

Ok, this is a potentially stupid question, but since I'm told that this is the forum for stupid questions I'll post it anyway. ;) Next week, I'm going to go and see Cinderella performed by the Finnish National Ballet. I know practically nothing about the production, except what the brochure says: music by Sergei Prokofjev, coreography by Ben Stevenson. Evil stepsisters danced by male dancers. As I'm not an experienced ballet goer, and so I'd like to ask anyone who knows something about this ballet tell me whatever it is that you think I want to know about it beforehand. Outline of the acts (I'll buy the program once there, of course, but it would be nice to hear about it beforehand, too)? Any famous / thrilling parts of coreography or technically interesting / challenging parts I want to watch for? Trivia that I can use to impress my equally unexperienced company? Something else I want to know?

I'm not a very experienced ballet goer, and I must say that I don't like the convention of applauding in the middle of the performance very nice. It shatters my concentration on the piece and the mood very much. In between acts, or after a particularly good variation once or twice during the ballet, or something such, maybe, but why on Earth do people clap their hands when the music is still playing and the dancer still dancing? I guess I'll get used to it by time - but right now I cannot help being a bit uncomfortable with it.

Thanks for the extensive summary, at. I'd like to see that ballet. (I think you call the guy who paddles "the gondolier" - the boat is called "a gondola".)

I agree that in a story ballet the story-telling has to be good to be enjoyable, and that non-story ballets (obviously) don't have this requirement. Nevertheless, for a non-story ballet to work for me it has to excell in other areas, most importantly coreography. What might work in a story ballet when I know what the dance "is about" doesn't necessarily work for me in a ballet without the back story. The coreography (and also things like lights, costumes, sets, etc) in a non-story ballet has to work "on its own", create emotions etc outside of a story. This makes getting non-story ballets work for me as difficult as making story ballets - only difficult in different areas. I can enjoy the good dancing from a technical point of view, of course, also when the ballet doesn't work otherwise, but that's a different matter altogether. I hope I made sense. I have trouble finding the correct English dance words, since English is not my first language.

Ms. Leigh, or some one else who knows, could you please explain me what is meant by "contemporary ballet" as opposed to classical? I know the word contemporary/modern dance, but I think this is different? I tried the web, but didn't get any wiser... Thank you.

Ms. Leigh, or some one else who knows, could you please explain me what is meant by "contemporary ballet" as opposed to classical? I know the word contemporary/modern dance, but I think this is different? I tried the web, but didn't get any wiser... Thank you.

Not only men, felursus. Similar comments can and have be heard from women to women (and I suppose, from women to men, and men to men - at least I have no reason to think otherwise). There are fools, and slaves of fashion, in both genders, and in all social classes. Sexual attraction of course pays a role, but it goes both ways, and women are not at all in a passive role in that. Maybe in some cultures, or in ours in the history, it might have been men who told women what to do and how to dress. But in the modern world I, as a woman, think that I should feel ashamed of myself if I blamed "the men" for my follies and quirks. I am free to choose, and it's my fault if I don't choose as I know to be right.

I would say, as an answer to the first question, all of the above and in addition the most important: to go on with their art, expressing what is in their hearts and trying to create beauty to the world for those to whom it might seem that there is none left. It is, I feel, important to show that art and beauty and goodness are so important that we will *not* let terror and grief and acts of hatred stop it, and I think the artists shoul bear an even greater responsibility in this. True, dancing happy dances and singing joyful songs might be difficult, but there is beauty and goodness and, well, mental healing also in the sad ones, and also if a joyous part is made more somber by the dancer's sorrow it only makes it better, I think. I don't know if you see what I mean... I cannot very well express it in English, I'm afraid.

Just to say that my thoughts are with you closer there, and thanks to the New Yorkers for reporting.