Andrei

"Leningrad's symphony" by Schostakovich, choreography by Igor Belsky.

Just for information, the Rose Adagio in the first act of "Sleeping Beauty" was transfered by Petipa from his early ballet "Golden Fish", so, probably it's not about courtesy, but choreographic patterns which perfectly fit 4/4 meter of the music - he needs four cavaliers, it's all .

Alexandra, she is touched by God's hand. It's mean, that without knowlege she managed to do genius things on the stage. But the same time she could be absolutely dull in a minute. So, may be you just saw those bad performances.

The first rank - Nijinsky, Balanchine.

The second - Fokine, Jakobson, Bejart.

The third - all names mentioned before.

I want to distinguish two kind of falls. First is when you just slip because of the floor condition, nobody can blame you and you, actualy, get rid of it very easily in your memory and it doesn't injure too much. (Even we have proverb in Russia "poor dancer always blame the floor").

The second is when you made a technical mistake executing the movement. First of all you can damage your body very seriously, specialy on the landing, second, it's really shame on you and you turn the slow-motion picture of what's happened over and over in your head. I still remember my hopeless debut in "Valpurgy's Night" about 30 years ago, when in the day of the performance I "lost" saut de basque and I have to make six of them in my variation! It was disaster and I thaught I will never dance it again, but to my fortune, A.D. gave me another chance in one week and in that time I "found" my saut de basque back, so, everything was all right.

Looking from the auditorium I usually can predict the fall one second before and, as Gianina, can't hold my breath. I believe, my "A-a-h" is too loud and I'm frightening people sitting around.

[ 07-07-2001: Message edited by: Andrei ]

Despite our relation to Eifman's choreography anybody saw this performance? Just curious :rolleyes:

Ferulsus, you mean arabesque penche in the variation of the first act? Wow!

Drew wrote:

When Sylvie Guillem uses a

super high extension as, say, Odile it looks "natural" -- in the performance I saw, at least, she didn't

strain or distort her upper body, her placement/line (other than the height of the leg) was classical,

she danced securely and musically.

--------------------

Absolutely agree. If the extension doesn't distort the position of upper body, let's her do with legs whatever she wants. Don't you think, it's ridiculus, that 135 degree is O.K., but 145 is not or may be 155? Tutus was invenented to show ballerina legs in full length, Petipa specially made the first combination in Rose Adagio with ecarte as close to the public as possible. If ballerina will lift her leg only on 90 degree, her skirt will go up and, excuse me, but we can see her groin anyway. But this movement is not about the groin but about a pointed toe to the sky, which make it incredibly powerful.

In Romantic balets with the long tutu we have a different story. Here we can't distort not just the body position, but the costume as well. It's mean that the skirt shouldn't cover ballerina's head and, what more important, the cavalier shouldn't touch ballerina legs over her dress, which happened sometimes in contemporary staging of "Giselle" or "Les Sylphides".

A.M. wrote :

I think Neumeier is opposing to that by giving

AESTETIC impression that spectator can "fill in" with his (spectator's) own story.

I didn't see this particular work either, but in my list of choreographers, Neumeier is a direct descendent of Petipa. He'd like full lentgh ballets, he used the same structure, some times the old stories, some times he's inventing his own, but doing this he emphasis not on illustration of actions, but on inner motivation of heroes.

Leigh, as I know, Nuemeier is a great spokeperson, he'd like to talk and he leads an educational program in Hamburg, so, it's no way for him to say "think what do you want to think" or something like that. I heard that press-conference with him in St.Petersburg became the lecture of ballet's history - so full were his answers.

One more reason. The auditorium has to have some breath before a dramatic conclusion, forget for a second about the plot, so the culmination will take us ungard.

Leigh, it's mean that he finisfed every brise with cou-de-pied in front, right? Did he travel forward a little bit? It sounds very demanding!

In Russian villages cemeteries are usually in the forest outside of town, not where the church is. May be, when Giselle "moved" to Russia the graveyard moved to forest as well? :eek:

Well, we still had crosses on the stage and on real cemeteries ...

In my knowledge he will not go to England. He had a concussion, fortunate, he didn't break anything, but he has to rest few weeks.

Some Albrechts come to grave with white roses as for wedding ...

This is the third time when Albrecht sees Giselle. First time he saw her from carriage when she came out of the church. Second time happened when he changed his dress and came to the same church to look at her. She noticed the handsome stranger and probably they share few words or may be not(well, the mother was around). Albrecht followed them to their house, saw the empty hut across and order to Wilfrid to buy it (Wifrid got a key). And now we have the beginning of act one. (At least in my interpretation :rolleyes: ).

Of course she is virgin or Albrecht will not come next time !

[ 04-21-2001: Message edited by: Andrei ]

Leigh, do you mean brise dessus-dessous?

I was told differently. After staying on her grave with Albrecht, Giselle goes to the centre to dance herself and even stops Albrecht to follow her. He can't tolerate it too long, he joins her and together they ask Willis to leave them alone.

Yes, Jeannie, I absolutely agree with you. For me this place (when Giselle shields me with her stratched arms staying on her own grave) was the turning point of Alberth's story. I saw suddenly the light of the love and I understand that I forgiven. The music changed the rhythm, like the time stops and we have a wonderful adagio were we belong to each other and evem Willis can't separate us.

Brise vole - flying jump, in translation, include both brise ferme (in Albert's coda in "Giselle") and brise dessus-dessous ( coda of Blue Bird in S.B.).

Arabesque is the position of the leg - pointed to the back with straighten knee. The foot can be even on the floor. Different arms give different names to the same arabesque position.

Leigh! I tried to congratulate you in Russian, but it doesn't work here, so, GO FOR IT !!!!

Yvonne and Terry you can order the video from Leigh's last performnce, I believe.

Mel, in Vaganova school this leap called soubresaut.

I'm sorry, I didn't see this pretty face can show his tongue, please, no offence to Mr.B ... :confused:

[ 04-11-2001: Message edited by: Andrei ]

"Valse triste" is probably the only Balanchine number which is still survive in Russia from the time he was there. Usually it was used for acting classes in Vaganova school

Dear friends, nominations were made when Vassiliev and Fadeechev were still in charge of Bolshoi. The new Artistic director Rogdestvensky took out "Pharaos Daughter" from Bolshoi's repertoire because he doesn't like the music of this ballet. By the rules of this competition all nominated performances have to be brought to Moscow and special jury has to look at it. So, no performance , no winners, even you was nominated before. It's really strange and ridiculus situation ...