Millepied story...

[oberon]

Hopefully Ari will post a link since I am inept in such matters.

Great photo of Benjamin and a story about his increasing interest in choreography.

[Helene]

The link to the link is in today's Links (5 April 2005).

I found two parts particularly interesting. It seems that the much-maligned White Nights sparked Millipied's interest in ballet, so regardless of what one thinks of the film, it was instrumental in creating at least one important ballet career.

The second is key to many of our discussions concerning contemporary ballet or modern:

The teenage Mr. Millepied realized he was being trained as a modern dancer and convinced Mr. Cohen he should switch to ballet.

The realization was critical for him, as he was already 13 when he started dance training, and he was lucky to have found a teacher, Michael Rahn, who trained him well enough in two years to qualify for the SAB summer session and, a year later, to be admitted to SAB full-time.

[Farrell Fan]

Nice article, but I wish the Times had told us how to pronounce "Millepied." When there's doubt they often do that. In the case of Italian names, I sometimes disagree with how the Times says they're pronounced, but I guess the ultimate authority is the bearer of the name, even when s/he's wrong. Does anyone know how Benjamin pronounces his name?

[Alexandra]

From someone who's worked with him: mill ah pyay

Don't know if that's gospel, but it's a start!