1. Both Fonteyn and the dancer in “Bolshoi 1964” have recognizably female bodies of normal proportion. Cynthia Gregory is so tall that she is unconvincing as a 16 year old, although graceful. The “Bolshoi 1980s” dancer is painfully thin and elongated. She has some lovely gestures but is unconvincing as a 16 year old – she cannot escape being a ballerina, and she does not connect the whirling en-point passages into one expression of joy as Fonteyn, the 1964 dancer, and the ABT dancer do.

The dancers in the Paris Opera and the American Ballet Theatre clips are more normally female but still longer-torso’d than Fonteyn and the 1st Bolshoi dancer.

2. Costume plays a significant role in this. The dancers with fabric skirts and normal sleeves look the part and the (over)extensions of the more modern dancers are less obvious.

Both Bolshoi dancers are costumed as “Ballerinas” but that poor 80s ballerina is made even wispier by those dangling cobwebby sleeves. She would have made a completely different impression had she been dressed like Fonteyn or the Paris Opera dancer. Her lovely arm gestures would have been charming instead of freakish.

Just recently my husband and I watched Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story. We were dreading another awful remake of a classic and were pleasantly surprised by the superb singing by the two stars — Ansel Egor and Rachel Zegler.

We also did not find the story steeped in too much wokeness, which was a relief.

But overall the dance disappointed us both. My husband never danced much and didn’t quite know why he preferred the original movie’s dance choreographed by Jerome Robbins and danced by marvelous dancers like Russ Tamblyn and Rita Moreno.

I thought about it for awhile and then decided the problem is that the new version uses today’s dancers who have very different bodies than the dancers in 1961 – the men are far more muscular, almost burly and don’t jump as high or extend their legs as in the iconic Jerome Robbins moves that are somehow explosive and lithe at the same time. And mostly in this version the men don’t elevate much when they jump. Jerome Robbin’s version has the male dancers seemingly taking flight with explosive vitality. They are much slimmer, less muscled, but more masculine in my view. A stunning masterpiece of dance, at least for me.

Rita Moreno was also fabulous. The women dancers in the remake are very competent but again more earthbound than in the original. I can’t seem to find out who choreographed the dance in the remake.

The song is particularly revered among guitar players. Tom Morello wrote in this 2011 tribute to Hendrix in Rolling Stone: “It’s just this gorgeous song that, as a guitar player, you can study your whole life and not get down, never get inside it the way that he does. He seamlessly weaves chords and single-note runs together and uses chord voicings that don’t appear in any music books.”

https://www.songfacts.com/facts/jimi-hendrix/little-wing
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According to SongFacts Hendrix didn’t write the song for a woman, he wrote it for the Monterey Pop Festival personified as a woman.

Here’s Eric Clapton’s version of “Little Wing.” Quite wonderful too, but doesn’t reach Hendrix’s shimmering beauty.

https://societyofrock.com/eric-clapton-pays-tribute-to-fallen-friend-jimi-hendrix-with-little-wing/

Anne Rice casts her lurid gaze upon the the traditional tale of “Sleeping Beauty” under the pen name of A.N. Roquelaure. Her re-telling of the Beauty story probes the unspoken implications of this lush, suggestive tale by exploring its undeniable connection to sexual desire. Reminiscent of the charged erotica of her novel Belinda.

she just died 🙁
Anne Rice, who has died aged 80 after a stroke, was one of the foremost writers of supernatural fiction, and the author of more than 30 novels. The best known of them was her debut, Interview With the Vampire, published in 1976, and adapted in 1994 into a film starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst.

Back in the 60s when Jimi Hendrix burst upon the scene with his wildly inventive guitar sounds and incredibly fast blues runs, he blew all the guitar gods away. No one could touch Hendrix. Pete Townshend speculated that he and Eric Clapton became friendly at that time because they were both threatened by Hendrix.

However, today there are many shredders who make Hendrix’s playing sound quaint, almost leisurely. No one IMO has outdone Hendrix in exploiting feedback, but for sheer guitar virtuosity he no longer sounds like the revelation he was in 1967.

However, it doesn’t take long before shredding for shredding’s sake becomes tiresome and one appreciates Hendrix for the whole package, such as the deep, delicate classic:

–Jimi Hendrix, “Little Wing”
https://vimeo.com/166581864

Accept no substitutes.

That’s up to the dancers, but there are certain conventions.

Does the ballerina get to ad lib her bow, or is it ordained by the choreographer ?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fiH9edd25Bc

https://andsomeitsjustaswell.tumblr.com/post/649274905490325504

https://64.media.tumblr.com/8f610c7daad22f6343b10683038a60ae/tumblr_povxkoApmT1sb2hm8o6_540.gif

With luck copy and paste will work with a browser

Enjoy!
T