Aged down programs in senior women?
- Thread starter lariko
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- Dec 9, 2019
In fact, in Figure Skating we don't see real ageing down. Natalia Bessmertnova dancing Giselle at 49, that was ageing down:
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Even Zhanna Ayupova was "only" 41 in Le Spectre de la Rose (furthermore, I see in her an Historian of Ballet, she really knows how a young maid of the time would behave):
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Even Zhanna Ayupova was "only" 41 in Le Spectre de la Rose (furthermore, I see in her an Historian of Ballet, she really knows how a young maid of the time would behave):
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- Jan 31, 2019
In fact, in Figure Skating we don't see real ageing down. Natalia Bessmertnova dancing Giselle at 49, that was ageing down:
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Giselle's madness was always considered a mature piece of dancing. I doubt she is dancing it as a baby girl's twirls.
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- Dec 9, 2019
Here's the full ballet:
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Here's eight years later, in the same Ballet, 19-year-old Svetlana Lunkina, I find her quite convincing:
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She was taught this part by Ekaterina Maximova:
Maximova指导Lunkina和Tsiskaridze吉赛尔（1998）_哔哩哔哩_bilibili
Maximova指导Lunkina和Tsiskaridze吉赛尔（1998）共计2条视频，包括：指导Lunkina吉赛尔、指导双人舞等，UP主更多精彩视频，请关注UP账号。
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She is not inviting a big spender to spend a little time with her to talk about poetry. How much more obvious should it be?
In fact, in Figure Skating we don't see real ageing down. Natalia Bessmertnova dancing Giselle at 49, that was ageing down:
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
Even Zhanna Ayupova was "only" 41 in Le Spectre de la Rose (furthermore, I see in her an Historian of Ballet, she really knows how a young maid of the time would behave):
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
Spectre of the rose seems actually a fairly good story for a teenage girl to skate to and an easily cuttable piece of music. It has a flavour of Ballets Russes. Giselle is a very weird ballet, but it's very nice, esp. the second act. It's impossible to explain what's happening there but it looks and sounds very good, wonder why people don't go for it.
I think ballet is different from figure skating though because when you watch it in a theatre, there is no close-up, whereas most people watch figure skating on TV in close-up. Also they don't announce the age of ballet dancers on the programs the way they do in sports, and ballet dancers usually retire early, a rare one dances to 50 y.o. Theatre has long traditions, in which all sorts of things happened, e.g. males castrates singing female parts and females un travestis singing men, so people are used to accepting those conventions. Theatre is inherently un-naturalistic. I mean what's more unnatural than dancing everyday events or singing conversations in recitatives? Librettos are very simple too, so there is a lot of conventionality.
Still, it does look weird to see a 50 y.o. corpulent Aida and Radames, Juliette and Romeo, Violetta and Alfredo, or Senta (I guess it's OK for the flying dutchman not to look too good given his lifestyle, but he needs to be attractive at least) in an opera. It's just that the looks and voice don't always correlate, so we have to accept these conventions. But it still doesn't look too good. Nor do ugly productions look good, e.g. this parody on a miracle in La Vestale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Vw_ucRvHE&t=7209,
or this kind of unnecessary naturalism in Lohengrin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSzkYafY0pM&t=10416
In fact some of my friends in Europe say that they tend to avoid classical repertoire nowadays for the reasons of ridiculous interpretation or ugly staging.
But if in theatre they have a story to perform, a given set of singers or dancers and a director who might have his or her own vision, in figure skating they don't have to follow conventions. They have all the freedom to choose from all sorts of music which is age and image appropriate. It just makes you wonder why they still go for Maria de Buenos Aires, Be Italian or Roxanne you don't have to sell your body to the night. I tend not to mind the music without lyrics as much even if I know where it comes from as uncovered plain naturalism rubbed in the nose.
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- Dec 9, 2019
Now that you make me think about it, have no (Junior) Pairs or Ice Dance team ever skated to Spectre de la Rose? Indeed it has its Ballets Russes style (Single skaters sometimes dive in this style) which is always good to learn, as well as a different acting relationship between the partners. I don't imagine that much Single skaters in it though?
I too am sensitive to emploi when it comes to Theatre or full Operas (not Recitals) but more in general body lines. I'm not very affected by age because, as you say the stage is remote (so is the rink for live viewers), furthermore there's make up.
I think that it's the same as with Figure Skating, acting is the most important, that it's in the skater's/singer's/actor's personal register extension, so that it looks convincing (and I agree that very often, Directors' ego lead to productions that bar any meaning to Operas; singers too are tired of it though few dare to hint about it; and happy that in Figure Skating most can avoid such inconvenience).
In this piece the original theme is rather sinister in its implication (duplicity of one, leading later to the despair of the other) yet the (then teenage) composer chose to just take the musical theme and I really think that this original meaning has anything to do with the variations:
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So, I can imagine that you don't mind if a skater skates to an instrument version of a song with "aged up" implications, yet I don't think I could.
