For me..I guess it's the "White Swan Variation' form act 2 of Swan Lake..

Every step ( or second for that matter) I go..."so and so does this step/move/extension better than so and so".

Come to think of it...which variation in the enire ballet repitoire would you feel will tell us what a dancer is capable of..male or female?

And you can bet that I'll be You-Tubing alot here....

But I have to give a shout to the You Tube contrubutor BalletForYou...this person has made available complete ballets of several company's...3 Swan lakes..4 Sleeping beauty's....etc.

Giselle's "Spesivtseva's solo". I tend to be quite harsh on the ballerina who's performing it, especially if I find out that she substitutes the final diagonal for the series of piqué turns...

And here...three of my favourites clips of this variation...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfKPtNpyHjk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl8qskS2ZIM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXdarXu2sn8...feature=related

Talk about ART!!!

I admire the dancer who makes me look beyond the details (for a change) and see the dance as a whole.

I'm with Carbro on this one. When I don't notice (or care) what the steps are, that's a performance worth watching!

On the other side, when one notices obvious failures, random substitutions, awful mishaps and non justified choreographic absences, then the performance is not so worthy...

The Bluebird / Princess Florine variations (such as the b&W Yuri Vladimirov one on YouTube) and one or two things from Don Quixote which the Cubans are always doing. I agree with Carbro on going for musically over technique. Being overly technique-conscious is like keeping an eye out for misspellings and missing out on the poetry. Sofronintsky is a messy Chopin player (the Vladimirov of pianists perhaps) but I notice all sorts of things about Chopin I would not with a technically more proficient player.

Also what about our own techniques of seeing and noticing--which may not always be the same night to night--another variable.

a bluebird variation

This version by Spessivtzeva is remarkable for the energy she brings to it. I had to watch it twice to believe those were hops en pointe. In this clip, partly with Dolin, she dances so big:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCxbafmWkqE...feature=related

What other variations were dancers performing in Giselle when she left Russia? Perhaps this is the only one she knew? On youtube a contributer has said it was staged by Petipa for Cornalba in 1888. I have not checked this statement.

The film is shot at an angle that distorts. There are problems with the speed of the film.
Through my eyes, I definitely get a glimpse of her genius.

Pavlova who is equally badly served by film, was to have said, "It doesn't even catch the flow of movement of my dress so how can it show my dancing?

I am a bit confused--it seemed to me that Cristian was praising Spessivtzeva and her final diagonal and instead taking issue with dancers who do a manège of piqué turns en dedans.

I always overanalyze Giselle's entrance as a Wili. There has to be something wild, demented, almost out-of-body about the turns. For me, Giselle's initiation should indicate she's no longer the sweet, shy girl of Act 1, but a spirit, no longer fully in control of anything. Of the Giselles I have seen on live Natalia Osipova and Diana Vishneva both made a great deal out of this moment. Both turned with frenetic speed. Osipova has more natural elevation so she seemed like she was flying through the air, while Vishneva's initiation was so much a part of her interpretation of Giselle in Act 2 as an indomitable, formidable spirit.

You are quite correct. My sincere apologies to Christian. I misread your post.

You're quite right, Hans. I DO have an issue with that substitution.



No apologies needed, Leonid...!!

i analyze ballo della regina... its the most virtuoso female variation and when danced well is incredible!