I remain fascinated with the dancing of Georgian men. That’s “Georgia” as in here: In Georgian folk dance tradition it’s the men rather than the women who sometimes dance on their toes, or en pointe as we like to say … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
…and yet Galina Mezentseva has been retired for at least twenty years, and is of my generation. The minute I watched the very first video that I’d ever seen of her, which featured her performing Odile (the Black Swan role … Continue reading →
[Hat tip: commenter “Alifa.”] I just received the news that Russian dancer Maya Plisetskaya (whose full name should have been “the great Maya Plisetskaya”) has died at the age of 89 in Germany. Death appears to have come suddenly, of … Continue reading →
I saw the Russian dancer Galina Ulanova perform in person when I was very little, not long before her retirement at the age of fifty. She remains unique among all the dancers I’ve ever seen in person or in video. … Continue reading →
Here’s a great rehearsal video of some Georgian (the Russian Georgia, not the US one) dancers [hat tip: commenter “g6loq”]. Usually they wear costumes that make it more difficult to see their bodies. It creates a nice illusion but hides … Continue reading →
“Caedmon” asks me to comment on this clip of Natalia Osipova’s fouettes. Let’s take a look and compare them to the ones shown in my previous post about those whiplike turns: I have to say I lke Osipova’s fouettes the … Continue reading →
I’ve written about the ballet step known as the fouette before, and so I’ll quote myself: The turn…is known as the fouette—a word that means “whip.”…The trajectory of the leg as it quickly unfolds leads the body into the turn … Continue reading →
Here’s an article on the laborious and idiosyncratic complexity of the relationship between pointe shoes and the ballet dancer. The shoes are hand-made (and for professional ballet dancers, custom-made) but they are not worn as is. There is a lengthy … Continue reading →
I’ve always liked this portrait of Madame X by John Singer Sargent: Here’s the story of the painting, thought quite scandalous at the time. The original was even more scandalous, because it featured the lady with a strap falling off … Continue reading →
A while back, Ann Althouse asked the question “why don’t we eat swans anymore?”: And it’s not because they don’t taste pretty darn good: “If you want to know how it tastes, it’s “delicious ”” deep red, lean, lightly gamey, … Continue reading →
I recently attended Boston Ballet’s new production of the old warhorse “Swan Lake,” and enjoyed it despite (or maybe because of?) the fact that I’ve seen the ballet about twenty-five times before, in many difference guises. I’ve seen companies from … Continue reading →