Holiday season

"Giselle" ballet has been spectacular. I must say, San Francisco ballet is one of the best ones I've seen so far. The dancers are incredible: so expressive and amazingly talented. It was my first time at "Giselle" in my life, so I was not prepared at all for the second act with willis, and it scared me quite a lot. Never have I thought that a group of beautiful ballerinas in white wedding dresses and veils could look so dark and disturbing. Here is a picture from an older performance:

But inspite of the darkness of the ballet, I completely loved it :)

Today I went to a graduation celebration that our university president has set up for some students at his on campus residence, and it was so beautiful there! Christmas lights, numerous poinsettia plants everywhere, red tableclothes, xmas cookies, and cute cocker spaniel running around. The amazing thing of all, they had 3 chocolate fountains there! Felt like a fairy tale, because in real life there are no chocolate fountains. Then it finally hit me: Christmas is almost at the door, and my graduation is running right in front of it!

Oh-oh! It's also December 1, a new month already.

Thanksgiving

The last 2 weeks have been quite interesting and now I don't even know why I felt sad in the past days.

So, first of all, I won an iPod shuffle (1Gb) in the competition in one of my classes. It is not even the prize that I am happy about, but more the victory part. Unfortunately (or rather fortunately?), I already have an mp3 player, so now I need to find some good foster parent for the poor iPod. Will try to think of something interesting here.

Secondly, I have gone to the university "Midsummer Night's Dream" opera performance, and even though it was not the most brilliant opera I've seen so far, it made the Friday night great nevertheless.

Thirdly, not being able to find anyone free on Sat. night, I went to the movies by myself to see "Slum-dog Millionaire" in DC. Such a great movie! A bit depressing, but touching. After that, I drew for a couple of hours at Starbucks and then got myself a book and read it later at home till the arrival of the night.

Fourthly, the ballet performance in DC that we went to yesterday had an interesting turn-out. When I was buying the tickets, I was sure they were for the San Francisco's Ballet dancing "Giselle", because this is what the online event description was stating. When we came to the theater and got the program brochure, it listed some strange musical and dance pieces for the current date and then Giselle for the weekend dates. I was devastated and quite upset, since I was really looking forward to seeing a full ballet.
Have to admit, the dance pieces were quite interesting and the dancers themselves were extraordinary good too. I was still upset about missing the "Giselle" though, so later at home I wrote an email to the theater saying that their online event description never stated that SF Ballet will dance Giselle only during the weekend and that on the other days they will just dance "misc". My hopes were not high, when I wrote the complaint, but at least I wanted my voice heard. So what do you think? Today I got a response with an apology and an offer of 2 free tickets to the Giselle performance on Sunday! I guess, there is good customer service somewhere in the world after all :P

The fifth thing would be that I tried doing pilates today and found it exceptionally good. The exercises are challenging, but it is a great work out and somehow is soothing for the mind. Maybe that's something I'll continue in the evenings after the graduation.

Oh, and of course before I had all this great time going out, I barely slept during the week, working on all of my school projects and studying for the exams. Just mentioning this, so that no one feels bad about not having free time, because quite often I don't have much of that either ;)

P.S. I am thankful for all I have. I really-really am now! And I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!

Interview with Diana Vishneva.

I've been looking through the various ballet videos on YouTube and found an amazing interview with Diana Vishneva - the star of Mariinskiy Ballet in St Petersburg. The interview is all in Russian, so somebody asked for an English translation. I did a quick and rough one of video Part 3, so please forgive me for any mistakes :) Enjoy the read!

"Giselle" is probably one of my favorite plays. It's a masterpiece in the romantic ballet kind. There's nothing better in the classic ballet than a first act of "Giselle". Of course, it's my personal opinion, but many people would probably share it. When I was celebrating my 10 years in theatre, I specifically chose to perform this ballet. It is a disclosure of an inner actress of the ballerina.

Of course, there is one name that is always associated with "Giselle" and it is Olga Spesivzeva. The photos of her in this ballet are widely discussed: her poses, her individuality. She brought a lot into this ballet; she basically dedicated her whole life to it. After her there was another famous ballerina - Galina Ulanova. She had completely changed "Giselle", but nevertheless got on the history pages as another famous Giselle. Dancing "Giselle" after such stars is a great responsibility: you always have to add something to it; you cannot just dance it plainly. This ballet is all about the individuality of the prima: you cannot hide behind the technicalities of dancing or implementations of the particular movements, because it is not them that make this ballet so special.

I was preparing for this ballet for a very long time, setting the date for an opening performance 3 times and every time cancelling and pushing it further away, because I didn't feel ready: it seemed like some nuances were overlooked. It is only when I danced it for the first time that I realized: you cannot just train yourself for dancing Giselle. It is a type of performance that can be improved only by giving a show after show. Of course, this is somewhat true with all the performances, but with “Giselle” it is crucial: you need to understand all the nuances, find your own way of dancing, and bring out your inner gift of acting.

There are 2 completely different acts: the first one is mundane and the second one is completely surreal and weightless. It's usually easier to do well in the second act, because the first one is much harder. It is harder because of its apparent simplicity, naïvety. Of course, a lot depends on your partner and a contact with him as well: he can be of great help or completely useless. Every performance is different and unique, and you never know how it will go with your partner: what he would do, how you would be able to respond to it, and what kind of things would develop between the two of us. But, of course, something always will occur between us: the magic feeling that you so wait for and that audience so impatiently expects to see. In this duet sometimes even I start to believe that everything on the stage is for real. I know it's just a performance and I only create an image, but it feels like all the events are real.

Preparing for this ballet always makes me feel special. I think one can dance it through the whole career and always learn something new about it and add some unique things to it. With experience you will start to perceive the role differently and through the performances you will sense a whole new set of emotions within you.

From a pure technical point of view, the first act has this one capricious combination of turns that need to be done perfectly. You are deep in the mundane image and you act and dance accordingly, so, of course, when the time for this combination comes - you feel disturbed and bothered, because suddenly you need to concentrate on some technicalities that you don't even feel like doing.

In the second act the arms and poses are very important: they are flying and weightless. The position of your head is very important too. You need to make it all look unreal, create an image of a spirit - so you would suddenly stop on the tip of your toes or do these movements when you look like you are getting deep into water. And, of course, you should not make any noise with your shoes. If you create some sound when you pretend to be a spirit, then you can say that the whole second act was completely ruined."