#and my prof who does translations professionally said mine were better than his and he actually speaks the language

[woundedheartwithin]

An ash I know stands, Yggdrasil by name, a high tree, drenched with bright white mud; from there come the dews that drop in the dales, it always stands green over Destiny’s well.

The Poetic Edda, Völuspá 19 Andy Orchard’s translation, 2011

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[melmothblog]

Ask Responses: General

A compilation of responses to the miscellaneous ballet questions which came through Ask this week. As always, thank you for asking.

I hope you don't mind me asking a quick person question. Where/how did you learn English? I'm a native English speaker, and I swear your English is better than mine, haha!

That’s sweet of you to say! My family left Russia when I was very young. I think I stared learning English when I was ten or eleven. We were living in Asia at the time, so it wasn’t especially relevant, but my school (which was run by the Russian embassy, funnily enough) had an advanced foreign languages program, so I didn’t have much of a choice. I’ve lived in an English-speaking country for 12 years now, and I consider myself a native speaker.

Have you seen the Sergei Polunin movie 'Dancer'? Thoughts? It's running in a theater here and I was thinking of going :) Thanks!

No, I haven’t seen it. I don’t know if I will. I dislike Polunin and I haven’t been following him at all for the past few years. I have heard that the film is interesting and the reviews are good, though. So I think that you should definitely go and see it.

Hello, Melmoth, I am very interested in the history of the Russian ballet, especially the Russian ballet in the 20th century, and also in the ballet technique, just to understand better what I am watching :). Can you recommend me any book/films/TV programmes to read/watch. They can be in English or Russian - I will improve my Russian ;). I have been trying to find information on your blog, but the "search " looks like it isn't working.

Have a look at this post, please. It’s a good starting point. Also, you can have a look through the Ballet History section of the blog (it one of the links in the menu on the left-hand side).

The search does work but it’s linked to the hashtags, and only about a quarter of this blog’s content is properly hash tagged… It’s a work in progress.

Wait, Vishneva wanted to join the Bolshoi? Didnt she say she'll remain loyal to St P? Since learning this new piece of information, I'll guess she's saying that now in a case of souer grapes.

The plan was for her to join the Bolshoi as a permanent guest artist (Mariinsky still would’ve been her primary company), but it fell through. Diana insists that it was because the Bolshoi ballerinas kicked up a fuss and prevented the management from hiring her. While this could be true, there is some evidence to suggest otherwise.

Hi Melmoth! Thank you for answering our questions and giving us your insight into the ballet world! I was wondering whether adults who haven't learnt ballet since childhood can go on pointe? Apparently adult ballet classes are a thing now but with appropriate training could an adult start on point?

Thank you! Adult ballet is definitely a thing and, with dedication, time and a lot of hard work, an adult student should be able to go en pointe. Ilya Kuznetsov (the former BBA coach, whom I refer to constantly because he’s all kinds of awesome) recently wrote a post on his blog dedicated to this very subject. I translated it because I think you’ll find it useful:

“Whenever I mention to professionals that I run an adult ballet studio, I’m met with the same question: why do they do it? I always struggle to explain it. People like coming to class. Some find that it suits them better than working out at the gym. They like the challenge and the unusual atmosphere of a ballet studio. But some of my students want to perform as well. I understand the negativity with which amateur performances are often viewed. Based on my own experience, however, I can honestly say that plenty of the amateur dancers are gifted enough to handle a decent ballet miniature. Moreover, the rehearsal and performance process is interesting for both the students and the teachers.”

You said that both the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky are declining, do you think there's a way or chance that they'll pull back up and improve again?

Only time will tell. I generally tend to have a more pessimistic view of the future. The thing that I mention most often is that the incoming generation have a very different worldview to that of their predecessors. The way they process information, their values, and their expectations are completely different. Ballet itself (much like all of fine arts) is also changing, as it’s trying to adjust to the world around it. There is more pressure to make money in order to survive and, as a result, quantity is becoming more important than quality. These days, it’s impossible for a dancer to spend months preparing for a show (incidentally, this is why the Soviet-era productions were of such high standards). There is a lot of emphasis on getting things done as quickly as possible, and this inevitably affects the overall quality of the work.

Classical dance post exam photos are all labelled class of "teacher's name". Do students remain in a specific teacher's class from year to year or is each year different? If they have the same teacher is it a random assignment or are student/teacher specifically matched? (Questions by @jlmart8)

It depends. Usually, a student will have had several teachers by the time they graduate. In some cases the assignment is random, while in others a teacher may request to take a particular class. In some rare cases, a teacher may fight to coach one particular student from the first grade to the last (example: Prof. Lyudmila Kovaleva and Diana Vishneva).

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