Alexander Godunov, unique and unforgettable

[Helene]

4 hours ago, Mashinka said:

  Perhaps it is an example of British bureaucracy, but I think someone dying at Godonov's age would warrant further investigation.

Perhaps elsewhere in the US if the laws were different, but there weren't trigger laws for autopsies to be done automatically in LA in 1995, or there would have been one.  If there had been such a law or practice, it would have been a boom industry, since many young people die in LA.

The British healthcare system is government-run.  That's not the case in the US, although there are public hospitals, more then than now, since health care conglomerates have bought hospitals, and many rural hospitals have closed.

[Fraildove]

Alas, my son also knows of Godunov. My husband was also a Soviet dancer and I was trained by all former Soviet dancers. Just as the one you quoted. As I said, I would be very curious to see how many of my son’s classmates know who he is. I know that many of my colleagues did not know him and I was dancing professionally in the late 1990’s and 2000’s. 

[Mashinka]

I would say what fame Godunov had was in films, those people here who remember him in Die hard, would be very surprised to know he was formerly a dancer, even in ballet circles he would be virtually unknown.  He never danced in Britain and I have no idea if he danced in other western European countries.  The big names here from the Soviet era are Yuri Soloviev and Vladimir Vasiliev.

[California]

This discussion reminds me of something that Anna Baryshnikov said on a talk show: paraphrasing, her friends don't know about her father's dancing; they remember him as the old guy in Sex and the City. 

[Helene]

Paul McCartney joked on Saturday Night Live that kids thought he was famous for being in the band Wings.

[On Pointe]

There is a college that makes a list each year for the faculty of things that the incoming freshmen will likely know nothing about.  For example,  many eighteen year old students can't read cursive handwriting,  which limits their ability to study historical documents.  They also don't know how to use a dial telephone.  To them,  the internet has always existed.  It's a fun list,  but also very sobering.

[Petra]

4 hours ago, Meliss said:

SAMUEL MELNIKOV Нью-Йорк Сити Балет NYCB https://www.nycballet.com/discover/stories/meet-the-newest-dancers-in-nycbs-corps-de-ballet/

"An inspiration of mine since I was very young is Alexander Godunov. I remember being six or seven years old and watching videos of him dance. I couldn’t believe the strength and power he had when dancing. My dad came as a refugee from the Soviet Union, making me a first generation Russian American. I remember watching Flight 222, which is loosely based on Godunov’s defection. It led me to watch more documentaries about him; I think the movies helped me to better understand my heritage".

This quote actually disproves your point. Melnikov clearly states that his interest in Godunov was sparked by their shared heritage. That doesn't mean that every ballet student or even most have heard of him.

In the English speaking world, Amy Winehouse is more famous than Alexander Godunov. This isn't a claim; it's a statement of fact.

[Helene]

We have been a ballet board since 1998.  We are not the only board around, but we are filled with passionate balletomanes, many who have been attending ballet for decades, and some of whom have been attending ballet since before Nureyev defected.

Except for responses to recent topics posted by @Meliss and one resurrected by @Meliss about ABT Corps promotions from a decade ago and last posted to before that in 2013, the latest posts about Alexander Godunov here were:

1. Discussion in the 2024 Swan Lake at the Kennedy Center thread where Susan Jaffe was being discussed, and two people noted that Alexander Godunov was her partner for her Swan Lake debut in 1980.

2. A mention in the Pacific Northwest Ballet press release from 2023 when Deborah Hadley died, that, among every where else she danced,  she performed with Godunov and Stars.

After a bunch of references to Boris Godunov, the opera, the last thread/post that had any substantial discussion of Godunov was a thread from 2007, last replied to in 2009, which was about a film "Alexander Godunov Runs Nowhere."

While people here saw him dance, and some liked or loved and/or admired his dancing, he did not inspire members here to write about him for 15 years, except twice as a footnote, and a third time, in links, with a post to a "What ever happened to?" article from April.

Again, we're not the only discussion board or place that people discuss ballet, and I have no interest in parsing social media statistics to account for cross-platform posts and bots.  Here, though, people post about what they're interested in, and Godunov is not a dancer that many have been interested in posting about.

Edited July 11 by Helene
typo

[Meliss]

5 hours ago, Fraildove said:

Alas, my son also knows of Godunov. My husband was also a Soviet dancer and I was trained by all former Soviet dancers. Just as the one you quoted. As I said, I would be very curious to see how many of my son’s classmates know who he is. I know that many of my colleagues did not know him and I was dancing professionally in the late 1990’s and 2000’s. 

☺️

And who are your favorite dancers?

[Helene]

1 hour ago, Petra said:

his quote actually disproves your point. Melnikov clearly states that his interest in Godunov was sparked by their shared heritage. That doesn't mean that every ballet student or even most have heard of him.

I don't think that's what the quote was saying, since he was captivated by Godunov's dancing on videos when he was a young child.  It was the documentaries that explained their shared heritage.

Of course that doesn't mean that every ballet student or even most have heard of him.  For one thing, there's been a generational shift from physical media to streaming, and the first place to go is no longer your dad's DVD collection -- your dad may have thrown them out by now, depending if he's younger than a Baby Boomer -- but the internet.   There's so much current content on the internet through social media, compared to twenty years ago when you'd have to buy physical media, which was limited and focused on a few, so many more people can find exciting content and dancers to emulate from their phone.  Dancers who are their contemporaries or not much older.  In small snippets, not multi-hour videos, and where there is constantly updated content from all around the world.

[Meliss]

4 hours ago, Mashinka said:

He never danced in Britain

Are you sure of this? 

4 hours ago, Mashinka said:

I have no idea if he danced in other western European countries. 

Of course he did. France, Italy, Germany, Greece.

[Meliss]

4 hours ago, California said:

This discussion reminds me of something that Anna Baryshnikov said on a talk show: paraphrasing, her friends don't know about her father's dancing; they remember him as the old guy in Sex and the City. 

☺️

4 hours ago, Helene said:

Paul McCartney joked on Saturday Night Live that kids thought he was famous for being in the band Wings.

☺️

[Meliss]

51 minutes ago, Helene said:

We have been a ballet board since 1998.  We are not the only board around, but we are filled with passionate balletomanes, many who have been attending ballet for decades, and some of whom have been attending ballet since before Nureyev defected.

Except for responses to recent topics posted by @Meliss and one resurrected by @Meliss about ABT Corps promotions from a decade ago and last posted to before that in 2013, the latest posts about Alexander Godunov here were:

1. Discussion in the 2024 Swan Lake at the Kennedy Center thread where Susan Jaffe was being discussed, and two people noted that Alexander Godunov was her partner for her Swan Lake debut in 1980.

2. A mention in the Pacific Northwest Ballet press release from 2023 when Deborah Hadley died, that, among every where else she danced,  she performed with Godunov and Stars.

After a bunch of references to Boris Godunov, the opera, the last thread/post that had any substantial discussion of Godunov was a thread from 2007, last replied to in 2009, which was about a film "Alexander Godunov Runs Nowhere."

While people here saw him dance, and some liked or loved and/or admired his dancing, he did not inspire members here to write about him for 15 years, except twice as a footnote, and a third time, in links, with a post to a "What ever happened to?" article from April.

Again, we're not the only discussion board or place that people discuss ballet, and I have no interest in parsing social media statistics to account for cross-platform posts and bots.  Here, though, people post about what they're interested in, and Godunov is not a dancer that many have been interested in posting about.

A search for "Alexander Godunov" on this forum shows 2,181 results.

[Meliss]

1 hour ago, Petra said:

This quote actually disproves your point. Melnikov clearly states that his interest in Godunov was sparked by their shared heritage. That doesn't mean that every ballet student or even most have heard of him.

In the English speaking world, Amy Winehouse is more famous than Alexander Godunov. This isn't a claim; it's a statement of fact.

I think it's impossible to compare their popularity in any reliable way.  And is it worth it?

Edited July 11 by Meliss

[Helene]

Most of them are from the plethora of recent threads.  Before then, the first last time he was seriously discussed was in 2009.

[Meliss]

And since we are discussing popularity and singers here, I would like to ask: have any of you heard about the singer named Dean Reed?

Edited July 11 by Meliss

[Meliss]

45 minutes ago, Helene said:

I don't think that's what the quote was saying, since he was captivated by Godunov's dancing on videos when he was a young child.  It was the documentaries that explained their shared heritage.

You are quite right.

[Helene]

2 hours ago, Meliss said:

I think it's impossible to compare their popularity in any reliable way.  And is it worth it?

This has been quantifiable for years for goods/products and for people.  It's part of what fuels the economy.

For example, the Q-score, developed in 1963 and still used today "is a measurement of the familiarity and appeal of a brand, celebrity, company, or entertainment product (e.g., television show) used in the United States."  It's only one of many, especially as computing power has become so much less expensive and all of the cool kids want to be data scientists, not software developers.  All of the algoritms have their own weighting system of values, and few are relying on human panels, but one general thing most systems share is that name, or increasingly, now that people can buy anything by clicking from an image,visual recognition is key.  You don't even have to remember anyone's name if you can click the "buy" link from their photo or video or handle.

Hollywood is driven by data and box office.  Popular music is a multi-billion dollar industry that relies on quantifiable algorithms to determine programming, what artists to sign, whether they tour, whether they record, and whether their vast publicity industry works to ensure name recognition and, hopefully, popularity.  Advertisers look for reach, recognition, and popularity in determining where to put their dollars, and businesses look at these stats to determine to whom to give sponsorships and whom they want featured in their commercials.  Go capitalism.

The popularity of popular artists in general vs. the popularity of classical artists in general is like comparing the popularity of NBA Basketball to the popularity of Olympic kayaking : a niche passionately loved and defended by a small number of people vs. a mainstream, multi-billion dollar enterprise.  Those classical artists who get mainstream attention can cross over into more popularity, and, like Nureyev and Baryshnikov in ballet, Pavarotti in opera, Leonard Bernstein in composing/conducting, become stars in the eyes of the general public, and superstars of the ballet world.

[Fraildove]

3 hours ago, Meliss said:

☺️

And who are your favorite dancers?

My favorite dancers… to name a few:

Yuri Soloviev

Alla Sizova

Ekagerina Maximova

vladimir Vasiliev

Baryshnikov

Gelsey Kirkland

Gabriela Komleva

rudolf Nureyev

Erick Bruhn

Altynai Asylmuratova

 

more recent:

Uliana Lopatkina

Alina Cojocaru

Vladimir Sklyarov

sergei Polunin (before his troubles)

Evgenia Ovraztsova

Maria Alexandrova

Diana Vishneva

Friedeman Vogel 

Edited July 11 by Fraildove

[lmspear]

1 hour ago, Meliss said:

I think it's impossible to compare their popularity in any reliable way.  And is it worth it?

Make friends with a good research librarian or someone with access to the Lexus/Nexus database.

You could compare the number of obituaries for each individual in the press and broadcast media aimed at the general public. Track how many times Reuters and Associated Press obits were picked up by other media outlets.

Is it worth it?  It depends on what your goal is and if your willing to invest in the resources.

[Helene]

2 hours ago, Meliss said:

And since we are discussing popularity and singers here, I would like to ask: have any of you heard about the singer named Dean Reed?

Not every singer is going to be as well known as the most well-known ballet dancer, even ballet-dancer-turned actor: that was not what was meant in context.  It  was about comparing the difference between being a well-known popular singer and a ballet dancer.  (Possibly any dancer except Fred Astair and Gene Kelly.)  Beyonce > Nureyev.  Sinatra > Baryshnikov, although probably close.  The Beatles > Nureyev or Baryshnikov. 

Amy Winehouse wasn't the Beatles, but she was huge, and she was not in someone else's movies.  Generally speaking, I know the names of more apprentices in my local ballet company than popular singers, but even I knew her because she was everywhere, and I am not a hermit.

In the Soviet Union or Russia, the most well-known great ballet dancer may have been a superstar compared to the most-well-known popular singer.  But that's never been true in the US, not even when ballet dancers were regular guests on mainstream TV variety shows.

 

[volcanohunter]

12 hours ago, Mashinka said:

I would say what fame Godunov had was in films, those people here who remember him in Die hard, would be very surprised to know he was formerly a dancer

Even if people had seen Godunov in Die Hard, they might not be able to name him. Apart from Godunov, whom I knew as a dancer because I've been following ballet for a very long time, I can identify only four other actors in that film by name. The characters of the computer hacker, the policeman, his nay-saying superior, the limousine driver, the television reporter and the cocaine-snorting office worker were much more vivid characters than any of the gun-toting "muscle" pursuing the protagonist, but I would have go into the internet to find the names of actors who played them. I would be willing to bet that most non-ballet viewers wouldn't be able to name Godunov either.

(When I watch the film, I do so for Alan Rickman and Bruce Willis' one-liners. Die Hard is a classic of the genre, and I fall into the category of people who think it is a Christmas movie.)

[Mashinka]

4 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

I fall into the category of people who think it is a Christmas movie

So do I.

[Meliss]

10 hours ago, Helene said:

For example, the Q-score,

Well, representative samples of the population is not a very reliable way to learn about someone's popularity. But OK, The relationship between popularity and genius is not always direct.

9 hours ago, Helene said:

Not every singer is going to be as well known as the most well-known ballet dancer, even ballet-dancer-turned actor: that was not what was meant in context.

The context was as follows: "A singer will always become more famous than a dancer because of record sales". It can't be true, because any singer can't be more famous than any dancer.

As for Dean Reed, he was once more popular in Chile than Elvis Presley, according to their places in the charts. Dean took the first place, and Elvis took the third.

[Meliss]

10 hours ago, Fraildove said:

My favorite dancers… to name a few:

Thank you. And what can you say about Godunov?

10 hours ago, lmspear said:

You could compare the number of obituaries for each individual

Oh no, it's too sad.