Here’s a very short clip that compares Natalia Osipova with Maya Plisetskaya. It’s from the ballet Laurencia. The Bolshoi-trained Osipova is a very fine dancer, still performing at 39. Plisetskaya was a star of the past who had her heyday … Continue reading →
Commenter “RigelDog” has this request: Neo, have you seen the video of Alysa Liu’s skating at the Olympics? I am so impressed by her dance/ movement, and I can’t describe why it seems different, and wonderful. I would be interested … Continue reading →
He had it all – perfect technique combined with utter ease and freedom of movement, musicality, “attack,” charm, sex appeal, and acting ability: I was fortunate enough to see him dance many many times in person. I also once stood … Continue reading →
I thought this ballet video purporting to show the ten greatest male dancers of the 20th century would be bad, but it’s kind of okay in many ways. However, one way it is annoying is that it can’t be embedded, … Continue reading →
There are tons of songs about dancing, for obvious reasons. But that’s not the subject matter of this post – songs about dance for the sake of dance. This is about songs that use dance as a larger metaphor for … Continue reading →
I first saw professional Russian folk dancing when I was a child in the late 1950s, when during Khrushchev’s cultural “thaw” the Moiseyev Dance Company came to New York. The performance I attended (with my family, of course) was in … Continue reading →
And I’ll throw this one in, too. Pretty racy for 1953:
Continue reading →Please watch this video. I’m not keen on this style of dancing; it ordinarily doesn’t interest me. But the reason I’m featuring this is that it’s an excellent demonstration of an element of dance called attack. Attack isn’t necessarily hostile, … Continue reading →
All dancers are unique. But some are more unique than others. Suzanne Farrell may have been the most unique of all – that is, I’ve never seen another dancer who reminds me of her in the least. The closest would … Continue reading →
“The Dying Swan” is not my favorite dance – not by a longshot. It’s a schmaltzy little number that was choreographed by Fokine a hundred and twenty years ago as a concert piece to display the expressive talents of Anna … Continue reading →
Galina Ulanova was a prominent dancer during the USSR’s ballet heyday in the 1940s and 1950s. But she wasn’t typical of anything; she was completely sui generis. At her Wiki page I found this quote from Sergei Eisenstein: Ulanova — … Continue reading →
You might say that the turns in ballet known as fouettés are a sort of parlor trick. They’re neither beautiful nor interesting – at least, not to me – and are mostly a physical feat that requires great skill. In … Continue reading →