April.5.11

TW

O future, please come and save me from myself!

The days of sorrow whisper thunder and my heart can never stop.

Thy love is stone that doesn’t shine, but sky and sun above it!

Do come and you shall have the heart of ruby diamond.

My tender friend is then a rock and music will abound!

Don’t take forever, gentle ally, as my heart may go to stop.

March.31.11

Movies

We have all been in the situation when you need something to help you kill time. The options are nearly infinite when nearly everything is available on demand. It is where I live. So I have become spoiled that way but I am working on it. And getting off track here.. Reading is too hard when you are antsy waiting for an event. For me it’s also a bad option when traveling because if I read on a plane or a bus I would very likely feel sick. Music can’t always take your mind off of worrying thoughts and eating, well, eating in order to kill time is probably not a very good idea. So watching something, a movie in particular is a favorite and excellent way to kill time. Usually it does not even matter how good the movie is. All this is plain! But sometimes you don’t want to kill time by watching a movie; you want to devote it to watching a movie. And then it actually matters how good it is. It really does to me. It’s annoying to lose two hours and a million brain cells to a bad film. (By the way, I will keep using only "good" and "bad" as adjectives for films because a system of gradation consisting of more than two adjectives becomes complicated with each additional one). XFinity, Netflix, Movieflix, et cetera, are all good buddies in the kill time by movie business as well as make time for movie business. But nothing like a good old suggestion from a friend. I’ve been introduced to some great ones that way! Anyway, I am going to put a batch of titles here and if people deem my selective skills appropriate I shall do more. I am going random and with no pretension for greatness, but the movies are good.

Of the few not so bad movies Robert Redford has made with Sydney Pollack make sure you have seen "Three days of the Condor". Jump ahead to the nineties: "The barber of Siberia" (Сибирский цирюльник) and "Croupier". Martial arts – check: "House of flying daggers"(十面埋伏). "Keys to the House" (Le Chiavi di Casa) with my teenage crush Kim Rossi Stuart. "Heaven"(2002) and "The Snow walker" – both with great couples in the lead! "Out of time" brings us to sunny Florida. "Enemy at the gates" made me cry, as have most WWII films. Finish with a classic: "My Cousin Vinny". So that is, what? Ten titles. Hopefully I brought something you have not yet seen. Please, email me with anything you think I should see!

March.29.11

Lexicon

I am writing some questions to put into a text book and ask friends and acquaintances to answer. Something like what kids in Bulgaria call Lexicon and what I used to do a lot in middle school. But more like the questionnaires Proust answered. But not as tiring and without the word favorite.

I remember reading a book of similar kind that belonged to my Aunt, written by her friends decades earlier and it was absolutely fascinating. I read it over and over again, wishing every time there were more chapters, more writers. It provided me a glimpse into a different time, all courtesy of people I never knew. All written for my Aunt, and to my benefit.

I can hardly wait to hand this to people. Below are some sample questions and my own answers. Of course, these can be answered seriously or not. Both ways it’s great fun, memory and way to see people’s hand writing. Rare sighting nowadays.

What can exemplify one’s character?

Challenge, Love, Shopping

Why are irony, sarcasm and cynicism so enduring?

Because people suck

When you hear “Pick your poison”, what springs to mind?

Chocolate butter

March.26.11

Again... It has been a while

Hello, dear reader of this. Boy, how it pains me to write this title. I have said "it has been a while" too many times over the last couple of years, but what can one do when it is true. My life involves a lot of travel and my character commits me fully to whatever it is I am doing. I cringe every time I end up having to say it.

Yet if we move past the horror of absence there often are some nice things there. Like depression over political developments for people and depression over personal developments for me.

I have been enjoying studies in the realm of philosophy, psychology, sociology and political science. Some of the material, I discovered with a smile, I had down when I was a teenager; other makes me feel like an idiot in their twenties. But it is all pleasure really, since I start and stop at will. Some of the side reading has been wholly entertaining and on the side I attach a picture of my purse batch. I acquired it on trips, as some of you won’t be surprised to hear.

On the left is Francois de La Rochefoucauld in Bulgarian, centre is Jorge Luis Borges in English and to the right is my notebook. 

November.20.10

Dancing in my Sleep

Yesterday I had my debut as the Sonnambula in George Balanchine’s ballet "La Sonnambula". It took place at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. It was magical! Afterward I continued dancing in my sleep!

For those of you not familiar with the story - there is a woman, who walks in her sleep and depending on the version of the story - in the end she either finds love and happiness or is handed the dead body of the man who fell in love with her. I did read a bit about the history of "Sonnambula" a while back, but will not be explaining historical facts here. I think that the tragic version of the story, which is the one happening in the Balanchine ballet, has few layers or better – few ways to be looked at. Depending on the viewers’ will or interest it can be very gruesome or mildly sad.

I focused my interpretation on the notion that the Sleepwalker (the Sonnambula) is completely unaware of all that everyone else sees and is engaged in. Especially – the ardent Poet. As a viewer one aches for her to answer to him or at least "sense" a bit of his longing. Nah – we want her to "share" it! I do. But when I was thinking about what will I make of her and her place in the story I found that I must do whatever I can to not "share" or "sense". Which was hard – let me tell you.

In the ballet there is a kiss. In rehearsal we hardy do it, but it’s not necessarily a big deal. But on premiere night, with all the costumes, lights, people – it’s different. I totally lost my eyes when my partner - Michael, gave me the kiss. The moment is near the end of my entrance and I went – "Darn, soo close!". But I think... maybe the audience didn’t see. They were actually why I felt so great last night – I got the warm applause an artist lives for. One moment I’ll never forget is when the Sleepwalker walks straight toward the audience... a lady gasped thinking I was about to fall into the pit! I wonder how can one doubt I was going to turn eventually, but that’s what happened and that made my night. Well, that and the chuckles we got when I nearly escape an embrace in the pas de deux.

I have been meaning to write about this part and the other day I wrote something, but since it got cut short – You, dear reader of this get a little more.

I am also attaching a couple of pictures from a "Sonnambula" themed photo shoot I did earlier this year with photographer Haley Jane Samuelson. The gown is different from that in the ballet and obviously I don’t carry a candle like in the ballet, but I had great fun exploring exactly how she would rise up from the bed. Here are some of my versions.

July.11.10

Words to live by

I was writing an article on Johnny Mac and Co. aka – bad boys of tennis and came upon this phrase which I found to be fresh, fun and hmmm –felicitous for optimistic days. We owe it to Marat Safin, a Russian player who retired from active play last fall.

"One more day above the ground is a good day. So please all of you do me a favor and enjoy it as much as you can and be good to the people around you, no matter who they are because love and beauty will save the world."

July.3.10

The eternal question ..:)

Graphics by Unknown Artist

July.1.10

Girls

When it comes to folk dancing (unquestionably in Slavic folk dancing) the men are usually more interesting to watch. But it seems there is a divine connection between ballet and women. There are scores of works of that opinion, ballet is oft depicted by the use of ballerina attributes like the pointe shoes or tutu, when buying street shoes nowadays one can readily find “Pavlova” heels (DKNY) or “Ballerina” flats (S.Edelman) and one doesn’t have to look in the stats books to know more women appreciate our art than men. Everything confirms the feeling. See: ballet -> feelings -> feelings -> women. Possibly every established male dancer is stacked against three equal females. Not bad for the men, but we are talking about the girls now. Our gender has been through more status variations than any other (giggle) and so I think it worthy to constantly examine where we stand. Jokes aside, I think, unfortunately – not where we’d like to. [All, please, take a moment to establish your assessment]

Very soon America will get another female Supreme Court Justice. In the process she’ll be questioned on a host of issues, including abortion rights. In the United States one hears debates over that topic often. Coming here from Austria Roe v Wade was the one US high courts case I knew of. What one seldom hears about is the problem of infanticide, sex-selective abortions and child neglect based on family or sociologic pressure for sons. In various forms the suggestion that it is better to be a man than a woman lives in both rich and poor countries. Nowhere is the situation more tragic than in families that want a son, get a daughter and want to be rid of her. In parts of the world all that has amounted to annihilation of literally generations of women and very unhealthy sex-ratios. It is difficult to think of how, but probably necessary to say it. The infant girls are being smothered; strangled with the umbilical cord or drowned at birth... some lucky ones are only given away. Things that should never happen are happening so often, it’s become the everyday. A lot of this is difficult to fathom, but archaic prejudices and modern economic realities have made it the very existence of some. Besides the baby victims, parents continue to live with the fact of what they have done or were unable to prevent. Some are inconsolable and end up taking their own lives. There are also the bachelors unable to find the bride they long for. I imagine lonesome souls that in large numbers could spell trouble.

The problem is small in the US compared to China or India, but just the fact that it even exists here caught me off guard. Until recently I wasn’t aware of how wide spread and serious the situation is and

moreover – that it might be getting worse. Will that happen or will the wrong right itself? I don’t know, but ballet can not afford to lose another million of women! We need their beauty, their sensitivity and their power too. Microfinance wonder stories are almost always those of women. Political leaders know that given the tools women lift their children, families and communities to a better place.

I feel terrible for all those little ones, that were not given a fighting chance!

June.27.10

a little update II

I have been busy. But I haven’t even started the yet busy summer and I am already looking forward to vacation. Let's fillip through this update!  

Bellow are a few shots I snapped with my phone while at work shooting on a rooftop above City Hall in New York. Some may give a good perspective of where my work/circus act took place. I sure hope those photographs I was posing for come out good, because I was standing so close to the edge few times I started doubting my life choices! That grin you see on the picture below I had frozen on my face for about an hour..

Happily I amazed a group of children (who might have taken their own pictures of my stunts) and probably knocked out a few ballet stereotypes before they even took hold.

Speaking of children – I look forward to meeting some new classes this summer. The traditional summer courses were not my favorite as a student, but I have to admit what good they were for my education. So I hope to be most caring with my charges and let them not wish they were at the beach. That should not be too difficult. Kids inspire! And what a lovely break they provide from the jaded and insidious ways of adults.

June.20.10

Latest Prada collection

This is about the latest menswear collection. Usually an area I’m indifferent to comment on, but Prada outdid its usual less than masculine aesthetic, adding cartoon-like versions of construction workers, hospital workers and the like to produce heinous/funny looks that beg the question "How do you like me now?" and so I must.

Let us start with the shrunken shoulders. Prada assumes some men may want to wear their jackets three inches too narrow. May be, but too reminiscent of people in a mental institution for my taste. Besides that it is most displeasing to the eye it makes complete waste of this manly feature – broad shoulders, that is widely regarded as good-looking.

I appreciated Miuccia’s bid for simplicity, but I did not think simple and beautiful had to be mutually exclusive. And how are three tone, espadrille/running shoe oxfords simple? In a nutshell the show:

Enter the attractive man. Scratch that – enter the man with fugly physical proportions, who also might be a Mama’s boy since she turned her denim skirt into shorts for him. Not to mention he might have a Napoleon complex and needs chopines that will make 16^th century courtesans jealous.  

June.1.10

a little travel log

I just returned from a trip to Martha’s Vineyard island. I was there for the creation and first showing of a new ballet.

Before going I was told the place was exclusive, with idiosyncratic ways and filthy rich people. I can’t say I noticed much of that, what I did notice was lovely surroundings and rocky beaches. It was also interesting to see the scene of infamous Kennedy accidents.

The pictures here are from a day I was hanging out on a pier in Oak Bluffs. The first one was just for memory. Then out of the blue appeared a black duck, from below the water, no other bird in sight. "What the duck?!" And I scrambled to get an after shot, before it was gone as fast as it appeared.

May.16.10

In the desert

This picture was inspiration for my DESERT VIOLET pictorial coming this summer. There was an animal going through the dunes and even though I caught the dunes more than the animal it got me thinking what would be fun, life affirming, beautiful or bizarre to see in the desert.

Sand, emotional or chocolate kind...

May.14.10

an encounter

I had a few musician friends living in Vienna and one of them let me know I was why they were going to be attending the ballet. This happened without them seeing me onstage and I replied I wished I had done that with my dancing. I was young. They told me I should be happy to have done it regardless of how it happened. I will report that I remembered the suggestion and find it to be true.

A minor example here: It was a casual encounter, a conversation was not necessary, but the lady engaged. Maybe she wondered about me. I knew if I said "I am a ballerina" it would alienate me to her. If I said "I dance" she might think I did that in a bar. In the moment I came up with "I do ballet for a living".. Ballet was mentioned yet I remained a normal human being, someone that person could relate to. She seemed at ease, maybe for having figured me out, maybe because she’d never met a ballerina and I didn’t bite. I can’t say she is a frequent ballet visitor now, I never met her again, but she let me know I had given her a perspective. Hopefully she did come to see a show.

May.12.10

 (from 2009)

Cultivating Audience

Recently I was talking to a company director, someone who grew up in the theatre. The conversation touched on programming, cast and brought us to building an audience. The topic was, until few years ago, mostly absent from my life. It was never mentioned in dance history class. It seems there has not been a time with the same kind of need for audience development. And many will agree with me, or just with the balance sheets of struggling companies the world over, that we need to bring our art closer to people. I’d say closer physically and closer culturally.

Television has the ability to reach so many and so easily, yet that medium remains ballet free. The ticket price to a smaller company production is double the price of a movie ticket and a big company show will be multiple times the price of a movie ticket. There are, of course good reasons for that, but shouldn’t there be as well a more affordable way. For too many, the majority, ballet is still something reserved for rare occasions. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the magic box stream various forms of ballet between sitcoms, game shows and the rest of the television drama plethora. In a way ballet reinvented itself during the 20^th century. But it has been a while since audiences have seen something truly new. Of course the magic of live performance will remain in the theatre! But we can also challenge ourselves and create ballet performances for digital media. Something to take ballet into another realm of possibilities. Putting 19^th century works on video is great, but so far it has yielded little result in breaking clichés about the art form. I am one of the absolute classics lovers but maybe something else is needed to grab new minds into appreciation for ballet.

I have looked around but found no one experimenting in that direction. Surely if there were potential for monetary gain the great business minds will have an incentive to sponsor such efforts. We want to see the venture capitalists go into something so largely unprofitable as art, right...

Respected colleagues of mine would say they think ballet is too sophisticated for many. That may be true, but I can’t be content with the fact that my art will remain foreign to people. I don’t think it is the people we should write off as audience, instead find a way to show what beauty they are missing out on. Invent a new magical way to translate ballet into mass entertainment still worthy of our self respect – sounds like a lot of fun! We need time and resources, but I have some ideas. Not enough, surely, but a beginning.