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Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Waiting waiting
Waiting for results. Usual delays getting placings & marks onto the internet. Apart from the places for the top 6 in competitions, so far there are only blanket placings for all those who reached a certain round. Stefan & Zeudi reached round 3 of the Amateur Rising Stars Latin & round 2 of the Ballroom. At the time of wriitng, I can say that they have also reached round 2 of the main competition, the Amateur Latin.
Stefan, on the phone, half an hour ago, didn't have any more information than is on the internet. Even though the results are a bit disappointing, he says, the dancing is going very well. Sends thanks, to well-wishers in New Zealand. Next big competition is IDSF International Open Latin at Cervia.
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Meanwhile, the weather is cold and wet here, and I've finished reading André Levinson's writings on dance in Paris in the twenties, and Alexandre Benois's memoirs of the Ballets Russes, moving onto Cyril Beaumont's descriptions of the Diaghilev ballet productions in London.
I have got about half-way through this. It is extraordinary eye-witness documentation of performances. He notes details of performers, costumes and decor, and some offstage memoirs of people and events as well. He recalls the effects of specific productions and of the way that particular dancers performed in particular roles. He had access to greenroom and backstage. I wonder about his methods: surely he must have kept and annotated programmes; and he must also have made notes and drawings. Certainly, for production of books on individual ballets, and for 8 inch high cutouts of dancers he borrowed costumes, sought out photographs and had artists make drawings.
A great moment, perhaps the great moment, for the Ballets Russes in London was by all accounts 1912 to 1913, When Bolm, Nijinsky and Karsavina were at their best. After WWI, he certainly admired Lydia Lopokova in La Boutique Fantasque and in Petroushka, but there is a certain bold tactlessness, even as a friend, about his criticism to her huband of Lopokova's performance in The Firebird. He remembered, too well, Karsavina in that role. Just as he remembered (and described) the earlier performances of Petroushka, with Karsavina, Nijinsky and Kotchetovsky, when he later saw Massine, Lopokova, and Zverev dance it.
Stefan, on the phone, half an hour ago, didn't have any more information than is on the internet. Even though the results are a bit disappointing, he says, the dancing is going very well. Sends thanks, to well-wishers in New Zealand. Next big competition is IDSF International Open Latin at Cervia.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, the weather is cold and wet here, and I've finished reading André Levinson's writings on dance in Paris in the twenties, and Alexandre Benois's memoirs of the Ballets Russes, moving onto Cyril Beaumont's descriptions of the Diaghilev ballet productions in London.
I have got about half-way through this. It is extraordinary eye-witness documentation of performances. He notes details of performers, costumes and decor, and some offstage memoirs of people and events as well. He recalls the effects of specific productions and of the way that particular dancers performed in particular roles. He had access to greenroom and backstage. I wonder about his methods: surely he must have kept and annotated programmes; and he must also have made notes and drawings. Certainly, for production of books on individual ballets, and for 8 inch high cutouts of dancers he borrowed costumes, sought out photographs and had artists make drawings.
A great moment, perhaps the great moment, for the Ballets Russes in London was by all accounts 1912 to 1913, When Bolm, Nijinsky and Karsavina were at their best. After WWI, he certainly admired Lydia Lopokova in La Boutique Fantasque and in Petroushka, but there is a certain bold tactlessness, even as a friend, about his criticism to her huband of Lopokova's performance in The Firebird. He remembered, too well, Karsavina in that role. Just as he remembered (and described) the earlier performances of Petroushka, with Karsavina, Nijinsky and Kotchetovsky, when he later saw Massine, Lopokova, and Zverev dance it.
Posted by: Tony Green / 10:18 AM 
