Once more, with feeling: the late, great, Maya Plisetskaya
Here’s one more video to show you at least a tiny bit of what made Maya Plisetskaya one of the most wonderfully unique dancers who ever lived.
Some dancers do the steps more perfectly, with a more elegantly stretched and lengthened line. Some look less like real women and more like ectomorphic fantasy creatures. Some have more beautiful faces. Most dancers in the corps of any major, and most minor, companies today have more strongly arched and gracefully curved feet. And on and on and on.
It doesn’t matter. Plisetskaya dances, and her dancing is so vitally alive that it makes the others look like mannered mechanical dolls. This is especially true of the dancers of today, so many of whom seem to be performing without all that much joy. You want to see joy? Take a look at this, every last bit of it:
Just fabulous. Thank you !
I cannot recall such a display of discipline and abandon, grace learned and grace from the heart. I am incapable of delving deep enough into “grace” or into “heart” to explain what she does and how she does it. Thank you for this video!
I just looked up the word, ‘FLUID’ in the dictionary. Her picture was there.
Gumby and Pokey got nuthin’ on this dancer…
Am I the only one who sees the puppet strings attached to her at the 3:50 mark? She’s a damn puppet.
“I object, your honor! This ballet dancer is a travesty. It’s a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.”
As a general rule, I can’t see what people tell me I’m supposed to see in art.
But in this case, it certainly looks as if she’s having fun.
Watching closely and watching her alone, the grace, power, and sheer physical beauty of her dancing are wonderful. I know nothing of dance, but I can see why she was among the greatest. Thanks for posting!
Sheer brilliance. Thanks for posting!
Thank you for this Neo. Over the years, I am so appreciative for posts like these. I have saved many, and learned a lot. Two years ago, we began a tradition of taking our granddaughter to the Nutcracker as part of our Christmas celebration. You would think that in Los Angeles, we would have a considerable selection of performances, but we have now attended the Alex Theatre in Glendale twice. After the performance this year, my daughter and I compared notes on the successive performances, both concluding the same thing…better costumes this year, less technically impressive dancing this year. In my lifetime with only a handful of ballets under my belt, it is amazing how one can begin to appreciate beautiful talent. I find it surprising that there should be such apparent professional lack, as I say in a city our size. This year we are going to branch out, and find a performance that includes a live orchestra. I will say, for all of us, watching my granddaughter (who will be 5 this month) enjoy the ballet has been delightful!!
Sharon W:
There are a lot of good dancers. Great dancers, however, are uncommon (and great dancers who are more than great technicians are getting less common each year, IMHO). The gap between a very good dancer of the sort you find in a regional company and a great dancer is very wide. I was fortunate enough to live in NYC—which had two great companies and where all the world’s great companies used to come to perform—during one of the greatest eras for ballet, and so I saw a great many of the greats. When you see someone such as Plisetskaya in person when you are a child, you don’t forget it easily.