Saturday Matinee

A huge thanks to Tonya of Swan Lake Samba Girl, who posted this video, as well as others, from the Vail International Dance Festival, seemingly an Olympic-caliber showcase of dance with the best varied dancers from around the world. From capoiera to ballroom to ballet, kudos to the Vail International Dance Festival for making these videos available for everyone to see. It’s nice to see the dance world catch up to what the internet has to offer. (For more videos, check out the link to Tonya’s blog.)

It just happened that this weekend, I was showing my aunt (an ex-ballet dancer) Forsythe’s in the middle, somewhat elevated, with Svetlana Zakharova and Andre Merkuriev of the Mariinsky. Being trained in classical ballet with very little exposure to modern ballet, she admitted she didn’t know what to think of it.

Ok, summer break homework for my blog readers – what differences do you see between the two interpretations of the same duet (Sylve and Ball, Zakharova and Merkuriev shown below)? The Mariinsky version really gets going in about a minute or so. I find differences in gravitas and split-second reaction time. There’s a sharpness in both, but a very different kind of sharpness.

If you like these pieces, remember SF Ballet will be performing this piece in its 2010 season. Check it out, here.

Also found: Sofiane Sylve and Simon Ball in Giselle. Can SF Ballet fans hope to see Sofiane’s Giselle some day?? Vail International Dance Festival, you guys are awesome!!

Taken from the Vail International Dance Festival blog. Photo © 2009 Erin Baiano