| Archive for langcafe2.myfreeforum.org Come in and have your daily cup of languages! |
| Deborah |
You wouldn’t fit into a Georgian folkloric troupe, then! Here’s an example of the sort of dancing the women do, at about 00:40: http://youtube.com/watch?v=AQ4RtYLXQjE Sorry about the lousy video quality. Here’s a clearer one, of performers in a Georgian restaurant in Moscow: http://youtube.com/watch?v=j5bvMVc8r28 Somehow, the woman in the restaurant doesn’t strike me as actually being Georgian. The woman may not get to do much, but I love their costumes. The traditional extra-long sleeves are there to maintain the propriety between the sexes (no hand-touching). Here are some excerpts from a stage show called Georgian Legend, which seems to be a sort of Georgian Riverdance, in that it’s been jazzed up with western instruments (the accordion, a Russian influence, has been used for so long that I’m not including that in the Westernization process). Unfortunately, all of the excerpts seem to be of the men’s dances. Their dances are crowd pleasers, because they’re so energetic and athletic, but I really like the women’s dances. http://youtube.com/results?search_query=georgian+legend I once saw a documentary on TV, years ago, that had a clip of a couple of actual “folks” in a village in the Caucasus mountains, doing a real folk dance. You can see the elements of the folk dancing in the performing troupes’ choreography, but everything is amplified and choreographed and staged so much that it barely resembles the original. This just in...I found a clip that actually has native instruments and good video quality: http://youtube.com/watch?v=iHOAFxmbqnI&mode=related&search= |
||||
| Elaine |
Deborah, I'll have to watch those videos on my boyfriend's computer or at the café down my street since access to YouTube has been disabled on our computers here at work.  Thanks for posting them. I'm dying to see what Georgian folkdances look like.
|
||||
| Deborah |
I wonder why?? It's not as if anyone actually spends any time looking at the stuff...
Just imagine only one man and one woman dancing and looking a bit less balletic, and you'll have a pretty good idea. The men dancing on the knuckles of their toes is authentic, though I imagine that back when everyone did folkdancing, that virtuoso technique was probably not practiced by all the men. According to the documentary I saw years ago, that last dance with the man and woman should be done with the woman never meeting the man's eyes. |
||||
| Elaine |
The woman in that video is simply stunning! And she glides across that stage as if on air (sort of like the nuns at Immaculate High!  )
Well, you're right about the woman not getting to do much. I was slightly disappointed that with such a lovely, flowing costume there is minimal movement on her part. I guess doing arabesques and grand jetés would've been out of the question.  Lovely nonetheless.
|
||||
| Elaine |
And since I mentioned Isadora Duncan (a reference that probably escaped the young-uns here), here's the exquisite prima ballerina Tamara Rojo doing Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan:
Part 1 http://youtube.com/watch?v=zRaKB7n7XmM Part 2 http://youtube.com/watch?v=jvy-p4ljISU |
||||
| Deborah |
Thanks for the links, Elaine. Tamara Rojo really is beautiful. I’d heard as much from many people, but I’d never seen her dance. Spain certainly is producing a lot of wonderful ballet dancers these days.
I first saw this ballet the year of its premiere, 1975, danced by the role’s creator, Lynn Seymour of the Royal Ballet. She had a more rounded body than Rojo and, therefore, probably had more of Isadora’s physicality. I remember a lot of giggles coming from the audience when the dance started, since Lynn Seymour also loosened up on the strict ballet technique a bit (not always strongly pointing her feet or straightening her knees). But that also made her seem more Isadora-like. But after awhile the giggles stopped, since Lynn Seymour was such a charismatic performer — as was Isadora Duncan, by most accounts. Here’s a good article about the background of this piece and of Isadora: |
||||
| Uriel |
I was reading that Cubans are the new Russians in terms of hot new defectable ballet dancers, due to Cuba's excellent state-run school of ballet. | ||||
| Deborah |
That's true. The San Francisco Ballet has a couple of them as principal dancers. However, despite the many defections, there are still plenty of excellent dancers left in Cuba. Some of the dancers have managed to maintain good relations with Cuba, and they can dance both in an out of the country. |
||||
| Julian |
The wife and I have been discussing taking up Philippine folk dancing lessons after the baby's born. I'm all for it since our last excursion into Latin dance lessons was a lot of fun, but I have no idea when we're going to fit this into our busy schedules.
I found a few examples of Philippine folk dances on You Tube. One of the dance groups, LIKHA, was in town a couple of years ago, which we got a chance to see and were totally blown away. Tinikling Pandanggo Sa Ilaw Jota de Manila Aray Singkil Kappa Malong Malong Likha mash-up |
||||
| Uriel |
Wife? Baby? No wonder you've been gone so long!
Nice to see you back, though! |
||||
| Julian |
Thank you. I mentioned it on another thread. Haven't you been paying attention? 
|
||||
| Uriel |
I was obviously too busy palpitating, dude. 
No, I didn't -- but then, I don't open up every thread. Especially if they look like they might be picture-heavy. You guys with the high-speed connections have absolutely no mercy on us losers stuck in dial-up land.
|
||||
| Julian |
Oh, that's a pity. I wonder if there's a way that this site can be modified so that those unfortunate souls who don't have high-speed can click on an option whether to view images or not.  Just a thought.
|
||||
| Uriel |
Just make the damn things smaller!
Hey, remember when Yann had that automatic resize feature on the old forum? I wonder if we could get something like that. |
||||
| Julian |
But wasn't that what was crashing the site or making things slower? Maybe that'll work on this site. What do you think, André? |
||||
| Uriel |
Yeah, it was doing something bad, so he had to take it off. But it was nice while it was working -- no scrolling left or right to see the whole screen. Alas, I'm no technogeek -- don't ask me how to install one on here. Hopefully Andre has the big brain ... or knows how to cozy up to a cute IT guy! | ||||
| André in Zuid-Afrika |
Hm, I'll look into it, and talk to our inhouse IT expert. 
|
||||
| Uriel |
Yeah, you go "talk" to him ... or whatever you want to call it! 
|
||||
| Joanne |
 Scandalous, Uriel! Our Dave is jail bait, according to the age thread in General, so I'm sure André will only talk to him!
Smile for the FBI, guys! Heh, heh... 
|
||||
| Uriel |
I didn't know Dave was our IT, guy. I was just being facetious!
Strike that one from the record, boys! |
||||
