Violette Verdy is now in her early 80s, but in her heyday as a soloist with the New York City Ballet I saw her dance many times and loved her performances, particularly in the role she created as the girl … Continue reading →
…we have Ksenia Parkhatskaya (see yesterday’s post if you don’t know who I’m talking about). This dance has a completely different tone than the ones I posted yesterday, and therefore it spotlights her versatility. Although it’s not the sort of … Continue reading →
Here’s a video (with subtitles) of an interesting Russian entertainer named Ksenia Parkhatskaya, performing on a Ukrainian TV show. She starts out giggling—and gets practically everyone else giggling, too—but don’t let that fool you. She a good singer, with no … Continue reading →
Let’s take a look at some beauty. This is a video of company class at one of the best ballet companies in the world, Britain’s Royal Ballet. “Company class” means it’s a class that’s taken by the company members, who … Continue reading →
You may think I’ve gone stark raving mad. What could Van Rothbart, the evil magician in the ballet “Swan Lake,” have to do with the Iran deal? Answer: not all that much. But in the wake of the Iran deal … Continue reading →
I’ve written about the ballet “Etudes” before, but now I want to hone in on one of my very favorite parts of it, the mazurka, in particular one of the male solos. “Etudes” is a ballet choreographed in 1948 by … Continue reading →
For the Fourth of July, courtesy commenter “mezzrow”: I saw that film on TV maybe 30 times when I was a child. Loved it, and in particular loved the idea that James Cagney—whom I already knew as a tough old … Continue reading →
Meet Misty Copeland, a soloist at American Ballet Theater, one of the premier dance companies in America: Because the dancer’s body is her (or his) instrument, the fact that Copeland is black becomes more of an issue than it would … Continue reading →
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 →