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Princeton Books puts out a pre-ballet history in 2 videocassettes (each is somewhat short) called: Early Dance Part 1: From the Greeks to the Renaisssance and EarlyDance Part 2: The Baroque Era. these are decent overviews of the dance history before ballet as we now know it came into its own. otherwise there isn't much reliable on the video market as dance/ballet history. individual ballets are, of course, on video and in some cases on DVD. if you were to ask about specific titles that you feel would be of interest you'd likely find a number of opinions and tips about what's proven popular and useful to readers of this site. alas, as noted here, fonteyn's 'magic of the dance' series isn't available commercially. the book that accompanied the series is probably out of print but also probably still gettable on bibliofind, etc. still, the most useful visual explication on tape is not so easy to get hold of, unless you know a balletminded friend who might have taped the series when it was run or re-run on PBS.

this may be redundant but in case it's of interest VAI now has on the market a DVD that includes TWO compilations on one disc, called RUDOLF NUREYEV/ERIK BRUHN - BELL TELEPHONE HOUR (1961 - 1967). as follows: Bruhn-DonQ PdD w/ tallchief; SwanLake PdD (Black Swan) w/ arova; Coppelia PdD w/ arova; Romeo & Juliet (Balcony scene) w/ fracci; La Sylphide (Grand Pas) w/fracci. Nureyev-(in the form of the previously released videocassette arrangement) w/ Flower Festival PdD w/tallchief; Corsaire PdD w/serrano; Esmeralda (Diana & Acteon PdD) w/berisova; Swan Lake PdD (Black Swan), w/beriosova. [all in color w/ exception of Nureyev's Black Swan and a brief section of La Sylphide]. seems to be a VAI site www.vaimusic.com DVD no. seems to be 4221 total running time 83 min. i don't know if one can actually order on line; found a copy at tower in nyc.

thank you, grace. i know that booklet. and even have a photocopy of it somewhere in my files. still, even tho' it seems a fact that when more or less copyrighting the choreography for his solo, MF himself referred to his dance as THE DYING SWAN, this does not mean anything conclusive about its past. records in russia for i don't know how many years or performances, however, give the title of the solo as THE SWAN. i do not know personally how soon the 'dying swan' name entered the picture. obviously once pavlova was touring it and playing it all around the world it was known by the latter title. still, i've always wondered when precisely the 'dying' part came into the mix and what motivated the change. there is probably enough documentation around to make a good guess as to time and motivation for the expanded title, but perhaps one will never for certain whence it came to be so called. or maybe someone on this site has already done the research and published a paper unbeknownst to us. as a colleague noted to me years back regarding similar dance history matters: we know SO little.

perhaps along the way here, someone will identify precisely when fokine's solo, originally created as and called THE SWAN got THE DYING SWAN as a title. my assumption is that anna pavlova (or her presenters) decided to give the solo the more dramatic title when she toured the work and noted all the reactions to its dramatic tone; perhaps fokine was even consulted. the records are likely 'out there' to pinpoint when the newer title was first used, but i wonder if there is any extant documentation to explain why/how the title: THE DYING SWAN came into the picture.

someone mentioned that oxford is now offering the INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF DANCE for something like $200, which would amount to about a $1000 discount. seems like it's worth seeking out if you don't already have this 6-vol. set and are wanting to acquire it.

according to Lynn Garafola's annotated chronology in THE DIARIES OF MARIUS PETIPA (SDHS Vol. iii, no. 1) petipa's 'definitive' revison of perrot's ballet, which was originially given in london in1844, and then in st. petersburg in 1848, dates from 1886, when he restaged it at the maryinsky for v. zucchi, and included for her a new 'pas de six' (to drigo). so while there may be 'ESMERALDA' Pas de Deux around attributed to Perrot, these at best would seem to come down to us via the revised petipa production. in any case it seems no longer on the international circuit, the way the pas de six and the 'diana and acteon' dances are. w/the exception of ben stevenson's pastiche of this pas de deux, most recently given in the states by ABT, there haven't been any presentations of the pas de deux performed lately. if mem. serves in the 70s ABT (and others) were doing this pas more frequently, and those stagings may well have had 'after perrot' credits. p.s. here are the credits for a version by john gilpin and included in the video called 'the romantic era' Esmeralda.Pas de deux (Choreographic work : Gilpin after Perrot) Chor: John Gilpin after Jules Perrot; mus: Cesare Pugni. Perf: Mexico, Guanajuato, Teatro Juarez, Cervantes International Festival, May 16-18, 1980; Eva Evdokimova & Peter Schaufuss.

i suppose we'll only know for certain if a seattle reader/post-er chimes in here. to be sure the russian's consider the pas de six (for la esmeralda, gringoire and four tambourine playing women) to be 'pure petipa' and 'diana and acteon' by vaganova's hand. the problem w/ attributing the music to current soviet/russian stagings is that the version that lived into the 20th century from the 19th c. 'original' had choreographic reworkings by gorski and musical reworkings by asafiev, etc. until all those russian/soviet records are opened and made available to western scholars, even if only to those who read russian, we may remain in the dark making assumptions all over the place, sigh. there is a sense of the ways in which ESMERALDA got restaged in soviet times in elizabeth souritz's invaluable 'soviet choreographers of the 1920s.'

i have a vague sense that william tuckett of the royal ballet did a 'crucible' but i can't say for sure, i certainly never saw it but believe it was done.

all i can recall specifically is the 'flood' that engulfs the close of the last act, done way back when it came to nyc whenever that was, w/ yards & yards of blue silk.

in light of recent mention here about a dancer's birthday, in case one isn't aware of it, richard finkelstein maintains a rich a thorough site called 'this month in dance history' complete w/ various anniversary days, per month, including birth and death dates for various individuals in dance history. as follows: http://www.artslynx.org/dance/danchron.htm

buried in your anecdote, mel, is the fact that starr d. was an apprentice w/ NYCB. i didn't know this. also i hadn't realized that the company had apprenctices in those days. do you recall what roles these two dancers were rehearsing at the time. it would have been spring, not winter, so not Nutcracker. maybe everyone else knew this, but i wasn't aware of starr d's ever having a connection to nycb. etc.

if mem. serves there was a post on this site at some point that seemed knowledgeable and that noted how, with regard, at least, to movies that were no longer on the commercial market, it was legally permissable to make a copy of the discontinued tape so long as one did not sell, or otherwise make commercial, that copy. or something like that. also some years back the merce cunningham tapes that were offered for sale came w/ a permission for the owner to make ONE copy for his own purposes, i took it to mean this suggestion went toward extending the tape's overall life - i.e. to copy a few years along and thus have the tape for a longer shelf life. admittedly none of this answers the specific question posted here, but i think it's safe to say that so far there has been no dragnet by the authorities to go after individuals who make copies of their off-the-air tapes for personal, non-commercial use. maybe someone w/ legal expertise will spell out the actual laws themselves.

yes, this ABT at the MET was done after those listed above. this one includes LES SYLPHIDES, SYLIVA, TRIAD, PAQUITA, and may still be available.

alas, tho all of these programs exist in isolated collections around the country, none has been marketed for commercial sale as individual tapes (or DVDs). it seems everytime one asks about things like this,one is told the permissions/rights needed to put the perfs. out on the commercial market amount to a nearly insurrmountable task. hearing tales of what all it took to get the balanchine library of television shows out on commercial cassette, one wonders that even these few finally got out. (as comparisons between the original telecasts of these shows and commercial releases show, it becomes clear that even after all this concerted effort, some permissions were still denied.) perhaps the popularity of DVD will do something toward inspiring enterprising individuals to work at these complicated tasks and some of the programs you list will see the light of day as commercial releases.

being NO music expert here i can but relate a few observations made by others, more knowledgeable in this area. one friend described the flourishes lanchbery has added to the bayakerka scarf duet as sounding like 'tea dance' music. clement crisp once described the 'tweakings' by lanchbery in his 19th century scorework as 'gratuitous burblings'

just checked the 'ballet gala' recording and yes, unless my memory is completly off, the variation given there and familiar from other russian performances of this 'corsaire' number, is the one i recall kirkland's dancing. after doing a little checking, i think her debut in this number, which had her dancing this variation, came with credit as follows: choreography, Rudolf Nureyev after Marius Petipa ; danced by American Ballet Theatre: Gelsey Kirkland and Ted Kivitt. it was part of ABT's 35 anniversary gala at City Center, on January 25, 1975. later that year she danced the number again, opposite nureyev, at least once w/ nureyev at the met op.house and once again opp. nureyev at the NY State Th.

forgot about the a.simon authorship here. actually the separate history of this number first included, in 1899(?) for the pirates' lair scene (and added especially for legnani(?)), and then turned into a concert number, eventually made famous by nureyev in the west, is a story i've been longing for some russian/soviet archivist to tell. i suspect alexander chekrigen had a hand in putting this set-piece on the boards as a showpiece/highlight, separate from the full production but it's only a hunch and i don't have the records, etc. on hand to try to piece the saga together. as for what variations got lifted from what other places to serve as showpiece variations, i suspect the logic at work here, possibly taken from the thinking that guided the 'fluid' possibilities for solos in the grand pas (divertissement) from 'paquita,' was based on what solos were to the liking of whatever ballerninas were in line to perform in the duet as a concert number. (a link to answer of the simon solo here might well be alla sizova, who danced this duet w/ nureyev at their 'graduation' concert. as the now-historic film shows, she danced this same simon variation, with great ease, flair and power alongside nureyev when they were both finishing their school years. i wonder who her teacher/coach was at that time. perhaps that individual added this number. or perhaps it was added earlier by another ballerina who was part of sizova's lineage.) i hope i can give a listen to my 'ballet gala' CD soon; it's been a while, and now i wonder if the variation given there is the one gelsey kirkland chose when she danced the 'corsaire' duet on gala programs. as i recall, with respect to new york ballet audiences anyway, her 1970s performances of what was an unfamiliar variation marked the first time since nureyev's 1960s version had become popular that a variation different from that made famous by fonteyn was given in this number. so many questions; so few readily available ways to get at the answers...

haven't listened to my recording of this gala in a while: by 'original' variation do you mean that danced regularly by fonteyn, et alia after nureyev staged his 'corsaire' pas de deux for the royal ballet? if so, then is likely minkus, as it seems to have been taken, at some point, from 'the dream scene' of 'don quixote' where it is the variation for the queen of the dryads, and interpolated into the soviet 'corsaire' concert version of the originial 'pas de duex a trois,' if mem. serves....

there was a mention in the TIMES, last sunday, style section, the bill cunningham spread of 'society' photos, brooke astor was shown being escorted to the 'landmarks' dinner by al hirschfeld, and martins was named among the 'landmarks' in question that evening.

gotham book mart is indeed still on w.47th street between 5th and 6th avenues. (tho' the building is in the process of being sold so the shop will move when a reasonable, alternative location is found.) the frances you refer to was the shop's famous overseer, Miss Steloff, as in Frances Steloff. she has died but not that long ago and was i believe over a hundred. a director whose name i don't recall made a little documentary about Miss Steloff's life with books (and cats), etc., which was shown on a new york public television station a few years ago. the store still maintains a dance section,near its music section, but its holdings mostly specialize in fiction and literary subjects. it remains also a mecca for edward gorey readers and fans, as it was long connected with gorey and his work, which continues to be one of the shop's most extensive concentrations.

the NYPLibrary for the Perf. Arts has about 50 citations for grieg dance works. a number of choreographers have done versions of 'peer gynt,' among them in the US, ben stevenson for houston ballet, tho' not revived recently to the best of knowledge. two soviet choreographers - lopukhov and jacobson - have done 'the ice maiden' to grieg - (orchestrated by asafief) john cranko and arthur mitchell both choreographed the composer's 'holberg suite' (and have so entitled their ballets). anitra's dance has been done by both jean borlin and nikolai legat. additionally mary wigman, doris humphrey and ted shawn have also used grieg. and so on, w/ sundry other choreographers.

i don't know if there's been a survey taken lately but i think it's safe to say the in the balance ballet still has 'numbers' on its side re: audience attendance over all. maybe dance/usa has some stats. nyc's joyce theater is not a good example of attendance figures. firstly it's a small theater, secondly it does show some ballet companies and some of these sell better than some of the modern-dance-based companies in the rotation. still, my observations are casual and non-scientific; i have no hard figures. for example, one big regular sell-out is the trockadero.

dance tech./instructional vids are not my area of interest, but i trust there are educators on this site who could be of more specific help. kultur markets a video dictionary of classical ballet which explicates and demonstrates positions, poses, and steps in a somewhat methodical presentation. there is at least on CD-rom that i believe aims in a similar direction. otherwise there are barre/exercise cassettes around. to answer better what you are asking here one might learn whether your curiosity is that of an observer, i.e. an individual who would like to better identify/recognize ballet steps, or that of someone hoping to hone his interest in practicing ballet personally. i think it's agreed near and far that one cannot learn to dance from a tape, but i suppose there are some tapes that can act as helpful supplements. if your interest is in any way historical, there is a tape put out by princeton books(?) that shows demonstrations of steps and combinations from the notebooks of august bournonville. maybe you'd also like to post your query under a topic that dwells on teachers and teaching methods.

this variation is more or less standard soviet fare these days, so far as the duet has been performed in nyc over the past 30-odd years. ABT now has it in its current staging too, if mem. serves, or in the one just previous to this, perhaps due to some of kolpakova's input. the music is not to the best of my knowledge identifed. it is definitely not the usual burgmuller variation. maybe pugni? drigo? maybe someone here knows for sure. it's this version that is probably given on all the tapes of soviet GISELLE videos currently extant. alas the film of ulanova's GISELLE opposite nikolai fadeyechev omits this peasant pas, tho' according to a brochure of that film when it was first released, the duet was there and filmed (w/ bolomolova and i forget whom), but somehow it got cut soon thereafter. so unless an uncut print of that surfaces we'll not know what version of the pas was given by the bolshoi in the 1950s.

jeannie who 'lives' parttime in russia will likely have some thoughts here if she sees this. nowadays it seems most of the little-known/little-seen items have indeed been brought out of russia by some group or another. vyacheslav gordeyev's group has been known to perform what he claims to be petipa's 'dance of the hours' from ponchielli's LA GIONCONDA. one work shown english tv in the late 70s is petipa's 'cavalary halt' (sometimes called 'cavalry bivouac'),which has been seen in bits and pieces outside russia, but not to the best of my knowledge often in its full one-act form. baryshnikov's abt/all-petipa prog. televised in '81(?) included not just the 'jardin anime' from 'le corsaire' at that point not seen here, but also a 'fille mal gardee' pas de duex, tho' since the same pas has been credited to gorsky. also one bolshoi group has put on the pas de six (if mem. serves) from 'niad and the fisherman' at one point the 'ocean and the pearls' trio from 'humpbacked horse' was given sporadically but not much lately. nikita dolgushin's concert groups have been known to perform it on tour. recently the japanese ballet academy, btw, did the 'dance of the hours.' i'm probably forgetting some tidbit or other, which jeannie could likely fill in if she reads this. (there are the two(?) petipa (notated) variations that doug fullington could name here in the lacotte 'pastiche' of 'daughter of the pharoah' recently staged by the bolshoi. also the recent kirov staging of the newly researched 'la bayadere' contains the never seen in my time 'lotus dance' from the final act, choreographed for and danced by student dancers. except for a pas or two seen outside russian, the full of petipa's 'harlequinade' has been staged primarily inside russia, specifically in leningrad, in a staging by pyotr gusev. the 'ballet legends' tape w/ kurpapkina has one duet from this, tho' i'm not sure if it's all said to be petipa or it's partly said to be gorsky. don't forget that the somewhat overfamiliar 'grand pas classique' from 'paquita' begins w/ the often omitted 'children's polonaise and mazurka' and the famous 'golden' 'pas de trois' from that same divertissement is not overfamiliar outside russia, where it's not consistently presented when the grand pas is given hereabouts. there are also segments of 'esmeralda' the well-known 'pas de six' is not given that often outside russia. good luck w/your research.