Jose Manuel Carreno and the Feijoo sisters on Dancing with the Stars r

[Colleen Boresta]

Jose Manuel Carreno and the Feijoo sisters will be performing with the Macy Stars of Dance on Dancing with the Stars tonight(4/12) at 9:00PM Eastern time on ABC. Of course if it's anything like Tiler Peck's performance on Dancing with the Stars last year, the ballet stars will only get a few seconds of dancing time and it won't really be ballet dancing. Anyway, it's always good when ballet dancers get exposure on popular shows (since it happens so rarely).

http://www.realitytvfans.com/2011/04/12/jennifer-hudson-performs-tonight-on-the-dancing-with-the-stars-results-show.html#more-13568

I tried to create a link to the google article I found about this, but it didn't work. Anyway, at least I posted the website.

[carbro]

[cubanmiamiboy]

Odile died...! ...

(Why did they costumed Carreno with that thing...?

Anyway...bravo for my three cubanitos..! (and great to see my beloved Lorna dancing again... )

Edited to add: Something just ocurred to me. Could Carreno's strange costume had something to do with TV tight censorship...?

[carbro]

I guess the producer/s of DWTS decided to jump on the Black Swan bandwagon.

!! Spoiler alert !!

Odile as Rothbart? Why not?

[cubanmiamiboy]

There were able to do a little stuff. Toto showed some pirouettes a la second and Lorena a series of piques-(which were cut off right away for the camera to focus in something else... ). Lorna was basically relegated to being dramatic while lifted and carried away...

[Natalia]

Well, it was more than expected...and we even got a corps of eight swan maidens. I was cheering and applauding Toto's pirouette from my sofa, as if I were in a theater.

Love it or hate it, Black Swan has gotten ballet back on the map, in pop sectors. Even at the pre-performance chat of the Radchenko Swan Lake the other day, someone asked the touring group's ballet master if he had seen Black Swan & he said "Yes - it's funny!" He added that all Swan Lake performances on the tour had sold out and that the public always asks about similarities with Black Swan at these pre-perf chats.

[volcanohunter]

Edited to add: Something just ocurred to me. Could Carreno's strange costume had something to do with TV tight censorship...?

I doubt it, not if you consider what sprinters, wrestlers (the real ones), swimmers, divers, etc. wear these days. Not to mention ballroom dancers.

[little-junkie]

Natalia, your positivity is infectious

I'm really not sure of Carreno's "suit", and not liking the choreography and the changes they made on the characters, but wonderful technicians. All the silly things aside, it's good to see ballet on TV.

[tutu]

The performance can be seen here, starting at around 28 minutes in.

[Natalia]

This link takes you to just the ballet portion of the show:

http://deballet.com/artists/maria-kochetkova/videos/391

[ksk04]

Thanks for the links!

That was about as weird as to be expected, but good that everyone was on TV. I wonder, if given an extra 30 seconds, how many more partnered grand jetes they could have fit in!

[Drew]

Thanks for link. I was rather pleasantly surprised at how much they got to do and thought all the dancers performed with considerable elegance under the (less than ideal) circumstances.

[Quiggin]

Sorry to be such a cynic, but this comes within a centimeter of being a parody of Swan Lake. When was this relationship ever a pas de trois (which, as I understand it, was originally a dance between a satyr and two nymphs)? The swooping camera completely obliterates the dancers' craft – and dignity.

[abatt]

I thought the idea of having Odette and Odile danced by siblings is interesting. I spoke to two people from my office about the DWTS segment who have never attended the ballet. They were very impressed by the beauty and elegance of the dancers. They were also in disbelief that Carreno is in his mid forties and will be retiring in a few weeks. This segment on DWTS could certainly help foster an interest in ballet by people who have never been. By the way, which company were the corps dancers from?

[Marga]

Considering the venue and the audience, I think this was well presented. First or all, it was lengthier than last season's glimpse of ballet, and secondly, it served to educate the public by condensing a currently popular ballet theme into a display of real ballet.

I was at the dentist yesterday and the dental assistant asked about my children. When I told her about my ballet dancer daughter, she said she had never seen ballet and wanted to know what plays my daughter was in. I told her they are called ballets and stand alone. She was as puzzled by this as she was about what a ballet company was.

From our erudite vantage points here on BT, we dissect every little thing about ballet and enjoy doing so. But DWTS is not Ballet Talk fodder in the same way a ballet company and its dancers are. Most people are probably like my dentist's assistant, as far as their knowledge or interest in ballet goes.

Judging by the horrible comments following the various articles about last year's ballet movie, most people don't even realize there is a hierarchy of ballet companies and that ABT resides on the top level. Being a top company's soloist is a huge achievement, much as conquering Hollywood is to a young actor. (Perhaps one should attempt to show a comparison of ballet companies and dancers akin to that of football, basketball, hockey, or baseball teams and players in order for the general population to get a clue.)

It gladdens me to see ballet so well treated on DWTS, despite the overhead or sideview video angles or choreographic liberties, or Carreno's costume, for that matter. I hope they will continue the trend in the future. (Monday night's Nutcracker-waltz was very cute, too. It gave the audience a little more context to what they usually hear as mall music at Christmas. Too bad it wasn't good enough to keep Sugar Ray in the running. He gave a great compliment to ballet, though, and that made me very happy!)

[Andre Yew]

A few years ago, the Feijoo sisters danced as Odile/Odette for Boston Ballet's Swan Lake, so it's not wholly unprecedented. I also thought Carreno's costume was dumbed down for an audience that may not be used to men in tights. Oh well, one step at a time.

[Tapfan]

I think that for many people with limited exposure to ballet - as I'm sure is the case with DWTS viewers - tights simply look like male panyhose. And with matching ballet slippers, the dancers appear to be shoeless as well.

Also, isn't it possible that the costumers for the show thought it might be too jarring for JMC to be the only male dancer on the show wearing tights?

[4mrdncr]

Of course I thought all the camera flares and 'fog'FX were rather silly, and the choreography not much better. But then I thought about it..Although poor Lorna didn't get to do much other than supported jete lifts, Lorena didn't get to do much more: supported turns, piques, maybe an arabesque or two. Jose Manuel Carreno did a la seconds, and of course partnered his two swans beautifully. And the swan corps did a lot of bourres. Why? Because studio floors (and even this one for DWTS) are usually not sprung; are highly polished (maybe not slippery for ballroom dance, but for the one-inch round platform of a pointe shoe, not the best or safest); and there are too many extraneous sets and lights and not enough floorspace to do much more. So, we saw pique turns, only supported pirouettes, and no individual jetes or other fast, high action where someone might seriously slip and get injured.

Of course the DWTS producers jumped on the "BS" bandwagon, did Hollywood ever have an original thought or a brave one? Not likely.

Meanwhile, it was great to see JMC, and finally Lorna's sister, since I don't get to see SFB unless they're on national tv.

[Barbara]

On the issue of tights/no tights - didn't Jared Matthews wear tights when he and Yuriko did a pdd on SYTYCD last season? Same audience demographic, right? Maybe ABC worries about these things more than FOX?

[Natalia]

...Carreno's costume was dumbed down for an audience that may not be used to men in tights. ....

You mean that the world hasn't progressed since Nijinsky shocked the Tsar Nikolai II's mother and daughters at the Mariinsky by wearing tights and a short tunic in Giselle? That was exactly 100 years ago. It cost him his job in his home theater.

Carreno's 19th-c military-style jacket reminded me of the current Siegfried costume at the Royal Ballet-London. Not the trousers - very odd. The DWTS producers probably just wanted to keep him "dark" to keep the focus on the "pretty ballerinas in tutus." It probably was not against men in tights. It was a short piece and they wanted the focus on the ladies. Just guessing.