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The still point of the turning world — 8 Comments

  1. Interesting. Somehow, looking at the dancers, thinking of the center, I preferred Yanowsky, *because* of her less expressive arms. They emphasized that centered quality– her entire body seemed equalized and focused on holding the center.

    Not to take anything away from Gregory, she was gorgeous, but looking from the pov of the plumbline, her pliant, expressive, emotional arms seemed to be separate from her legs, which seemed to be serving only to present her arms. It felt almost unbalanced– from that point of view.

    But, if I let go of the center thing, her arms were like flowers, and her legs, like stems.

  2. Neo, I appreciate your efforts to buff out my rough edges and refine me. Especially memorable was the exposure to Georgian ballet, mostly because of the knife throwing.

    I am afraid, though, that despite your best efforts I’ll still be the embarrassment pulling meat off of the fire saying, “Here, I just killed this, try it.”

  3. The set and other dancers in their costumes is fairly stunning in HD on the top video.

    I wouldn’t know a good ballet dancer from a great one, but all the control she has in the top video is mesmerizing.

  4. Very hard to evaluate – the dynamic between the black swan and her master is an integral part of the choreography in the first clip. The hardness of the character and the situation mitigate the somewhat “clinical” overextended modern style that neo has pointed out before… it also motivates the ballerina’s looking out at the audience, which would otherwise be distracting.
    The second clip does not have the gravitational pull of the sorcerer character- it’s just a pure pas de deux of seduction. This changes the motivation for some of the choreography. I can see what you mean about a plumb line – but Gregory’s arms really soften that. It seems that she consistently arrange her arms less symmetrically than in the first clip.

    More dance posts, please….

  5. Ben David:

    “Swan Lake” has long been one of my favorite ballets. But I’ve always been puzzled by the premise of Act III and the Black Swan pas de deux. The conundrum is: how on earth can the Prince be so stupid as to be fooled by a woman who, granted, looks superficially like his beloved Odette, but acts almost nothing like her—except for those swanny arms, which she only exhibits now and then?

    I therefore prefer some of the more subtle Black Swans, the ones who don’t go over-the-top with the evil cackles and the nasty stuff. It’s a hard line to walk, because you don’t want to seem too Odette-like, either. But the best ones, in my opinion, act less brash and the impersonation and duplicity is more subtle, just for the audience to see, but not for Siegfried to notice as much.

    Maybe some time I’ll write about this and try to find an example.

  6. OK – but Yanowsky (and the choreographer for that production) seems to express “what the movements mean” without going over the top – in fact, the eerie thought that she in thrall to/just a projection of the sorcerer is introduced quite effectively.

    She seduces the prince not by vamping or flattering him, but by constantly turning away from him – or rather being pulled away from him by her puppet-master, which lets the audience see what’s going on. I thought it was done very well, and as you wrote – it showed the motivation for the movements. Perhaps at the expense of the Black Swan being a character with her own will.

    Without that triangle the breaking away from coupled movements is just normal flirtation in a pas de deux. It would be much harder for the ballerina to embody both the flirtation and the evil edge given by the sorcerer.

    And thanks for the clips of Gregory then (when I was also young, but not as limber 🙂 ) and now.

    More dance posts please!!!!!
    I have spent the last month trying to explain the American elections to my Israeli friends, neighbors, and coworkers – which involves explaining the Anglosphere’s emphasis on individual free agency to people whose political thought is still colored by Israel’s Socialist past, and by our left-leaning press regurgitating the canards of the left-leaning American press.

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