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World Ballet Day 2021 (October 19th)


Amy Reusch

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I see the San Francisco Ballet has made the strategic decision to...do nothing. Which doesn't seem very strategic. Why not create a pre-recorded video of a rehearsal or ballet creation, at the very least? It's public relations, people.

The Mariinsky Ballet is at least taking this all seriously - they've lined up a series of videos to watch leading up to WBD:

Mariinsky Ballet Morning Class at the Historic Stage (Teatralnaya Sq 1, Saint Petersburg, Russia)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEK38SoI_bs

Ballet future: public talk with Mariinsky aspiring dancers (presented and moderated by Yuri Fateev)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW8WQY3yzQQ

Mariinsky Ballet Stars (Diana Vishneva, Victoria Tereshkina, Ekaterina Kondaurova, Kimin Kim)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiVcZafQO_I

Edited by pherank
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Well, so far I have watched a big chunk of Australian ballet's World Ballet Day footage, a smaller chunk of the Bolshoi's and smaller still of Royal Ballet's (mostly just the Kaneko and Bracewell R&J balcony scene coached by Edward Watson  and Leslie Collier). Plus all of the shorter POB offering  and some of the Universal Ballet offering. And now I am deeply (and only a little bit ironically) disappointed not to be able to come onto this website and find outraged responses to Vaziev. Some may remember that most years I half-heartedly defend him, but this year I was going to join the chorus of outrage as I think he out-did himself in singling out a new company member for humiliation in footage that he has to have known would be used (and must later have approved) for International transmission. (According to the subtitles "Shameful! ...She should be ashamed! ...I could do a better arabesque than that...." etc.) Indeed the footage of the rehearsal was so brief I almost suspect the company of having included it just to thumb the nose at Vaziev's critics. 

As postscript to Russian Martinet ballet tropes for this World Ballet Day, I'll also mention listening to a young male dancer at the Universal ballet talk about his experiences with a Russian teacher at the Kirov Academy in D.C. -- which included crying through the night as he repeatedly wrote out exercises as a "punishment" and throwing up mid-class--even though he concluded his stories up with remarks to the effect of "it made me a better dancer...it helped me..." and the like.

Happier highlights from what I have seen: definitely the Australian Ballet rehearsal of the Pas Des Alouettes from the Ratmansky-Petipa Harlequinade and their company class led by former company principal and now coach Fiona Tonkin. (I hope I have identified her correctly--because WOW! watching her demonstrate steps was a pleasure). I also very much enjoyed the Royal Ballet R&J rehearsal, for a lot of reasons, but partly because I'm so happy that Fumi Kaneko is coming off a successful debut as Juliet which, whatever I think of the ballet, is a huge landmark for her career.

I hope eventually to watch more of the footage--usually I watch the RB class and I'd like to watch the Mariinsky class that was posted this go round as well. But my paying job is rather in the way....

Edited by Drew
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