The Ballet Nerds’ 167th Video: “The Most INSANE Pas De Deux in Ballet”
Commendable project!
Here is a link to the 167 previous uploads. Technically very well produced, and sharp insights. No personal info that we can see on the two hostesses, though they do seem to concentrate on the Royal Ballet.
They asked for ideas in a 2024 survey, now closed.
Our peak viewership was always for DANCER INTERVIEWS and several of our uploads are approaching 100,000 views. See the interviews link in our left column.
Ballet interviews are rarely shown in western media, a sharp contrast to interviews aired almost daily on Russian TV. There seems a huge pent-up hunger for them.
Posted by Peter Quennell •
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Spanish Ballerina Sara Calero’s Supersmart Fandango By The Italian Composer Boccherini
Overview
This is possibly unique among the 1000 or so YouTubes of the Boccherini fandango. Not only does Sara excel with the castanets, she adds to the percussion by stomping with her shoes.
This is kind of a flamenco move and she does both really well.
Below is an equally unusual version: it tells a wordless tale in opulent surroundings as you can see, with the fandango dance there but more in the background. This video is excerpts from the Spanish film “Goya in Bordeaux”:.
Posted by Peter Quennell •
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ABT’s Absolutely Jawdropping “Of Love And Rage” At Lincoln Center
Review: Lincoln Center June 2022
We caught this on Saturday June 22, the last day at Lincoln Center. What a sleeper - there is only this one performance video online (dance starts at 0.43). Had we first caught it on Monday we’d have bought tickets for the rest of the week. It is an absolute jaw-dropper. Everything about it works. Story? Wow. Choreography? Wow. The two leads? Wow. Sets? Wow. Costumes? Wow. Lighting? Wow. Male and female corps? Wow, wow, wow, they seemed thrilled out of their skulls to be kept so busy. There are often up to 50 dancers onstage all at once. You haven’t lived until you have seen that.
Just amazing that Khachaturian’s flamboyant works have never been adapted for a major ballet before. His music here, in part from his 1942 ballet Gayane, unknown in the US, is so energetic under Ormsby with a fine orchestra that you will emerge from the theater 5 pounds lighter. The story is complex and there are many feuds and love-scenes. Rarely if ever has a female lead been at the epicenter of so many goings-on. Her arc sure is busy: intensely revered, she is married, then dead, then pregnant, then fought for and fought for right to the very moving happy end.
This really merits to be ABT’s long-waited flagship, and to be put on every summer season. Please, dear ABT, get some ensemble performance YouTubes online like yesterday - well, two weeks ago.
Read Alastair Macauley here. Read Gia Kourlas here. Read Marina Harss here. Read Victoria Looseleaf here. Read Jerry Hochman here. Read Nadia Vostrikov here. Read Haglund’s Heel here. Read Nick Erickson here.
Commentary: There were too many empty seats Saturday, as another reviewer commented about Monday. ABT may wrongly feel discouraged. No need. Current leaders in modern ballet promotion, Russian companies & dancers and Royal Ballet, would produce and upload half a dozen videos on any new ballet weeks in advance. Videos of rehearsals, dancer interviews, sets, costumes, story-line… Video is a great low-cost investment - ABT might have pulled in an added 1/4 of a million dollars on this ballet alone.
Below: nice video chat 2020 pre-COVID but sells it short.
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A Royal Ballet Daily Class At The Royal Opera House
This realtime video of a live class is one hour and 15 minutes long
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Why Do We Doubt There Is Ever Less Work In Making A Tutu Than This?!
This tutu was made by YouTube video poster HikariHime29. She made this one to wear to a Lady Gaga concert, not to dance Odile, but we are told that she knows what she is doing. This below is a video of New York City Ballet’s costume shop. Go, Hikari…
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Ballet Favorites Of Video Posters And Watchers: Take A Look At Polina Seminova
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Ballet In Strange Places: “Camellias” Creator John Neumeier’s Hamburg Ballet
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The Royal Ballet’s “How Ballet Evolved: The First Four Centuries”
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First 3D Ballet In Movie Theaters In The US - Giselle By The Mariinsky
Our Review
First viewing at the noon showing was somehow less than we expected - and at 7:30 we found out why. At noon, the audience was quite small (three dozen) and we were all bunched up in the front one-third of the seating. That seemed the best place to be for the 3D.
But at 7:30 the theater was mostly full when we arrived (several hundred) and we ended up in the center, two rows from the back. At that distance and height, the full 3D effect cuts in, and many of the scenes are absolutely breathtaking. Not least Natasha Osipova, light as a feather and really living her part, in extreme close-up.
The shots of the spirits in 3D in the white scenes (you can see one in 2D in the video below) had some in the audience saying “wow!”. Best camera angle seemed to us to be from the orchestra seats, which was the angle about half the time. The other half it was was up in first or second tier, and that tended to diminish the dancers, and produce some odd perspectives.
Leads and corps excellent, costumes very nice, sets okay, lighting and sound might have been enhanced. But for ballet, brilliant potential. Roll on, new ballet DVDs and YouTubes all in 3D. We’d be surprised if it takes more than 3 years.
Posted by Peter Quennell •
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London’s Royal Ballet: Some Highlights Of Being A Principal
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