A closeup of Vasiliev and Osipova
The male ballet dancer’s name in this video is Vasiliev, but I don’t think he’s any relation to the other Vasiliev: Vladimir, whom I highlighted last month. This Vasiliev is Ivan, a much more recent dancer. I believe this performance is from about 15 or 20 years ago, however. He is dancing with Natalia Osipova, who was his fiancee but they never married and at some point broke up.
The reason I’m showing this video is that it is taken from an unusual angle, I believe the wings. You can see into the opposite wings from where the cameraperson is standing, and notice all the people standing there and watching the action onstage. Plus you can see the soloists as they prepare to go on and as they come off.
The video also is especially fine because it features some extreme closeups and unusual angles which highlight the tremendous power and sheer muscular strength of both dancers. You don’t usually perceive that when viewing a ballet from the audience, but you can’t help but perceive it here. When Vasiliev lifts Osipova you know he’s lifting something large and heavy, despite her extreme thinness and grace. She is all muscle, too.
Both dancers have extraordinarily high jumps, and the angle of the camera really emphasizes that. Vasiliev jumps higher than Osipova, of course, because men can jump higher in ballet due to their musculature and structure. But both dancers seem to explode in their jumps during their solos. You can hardly notice their preparations and yet the dancers seem shot from cannons, although the cannons are their own strength. I think that at 7:02 Vasiliev jumps as high as he is tall.
Every now and then the video goes to slo-mo for a few seconds, an interesting effect that highlights certain movements.
Enjoy. The pyrotechnics start at around minute 4:00:
Wow!
OK – “pyrotechnics” has more than one meaning – definitely!
Yawn.
I have a daughter-in-law who was a professional ballerina. At age 40, her feet are ruined permanently. Ballet on one’s great (first) toes is incompatible with human anatomy. When ballet dancers are admired, by extension one admires their future crippled feet.
It is a terrible price to pay.
I think it’s taken by someone sitting in the front row at the extreme house right. Or they might be sitting on the apron, right in front of the proscenium, right at the opening. It’s not normal to get such a great view of what’s between the legs (curtains, not human) from the audience, however. They usually try to set the legs so the audience can’t see backstage. And people who work know enough to NOT be seen by the audience — and if you can see the audience, they can see you
They’re definitely in front of the proscenium and the camera is definitely lower than the dancers.
It’s still an unusual angle.
Cicero:
No more than in any sport. I know a lot more old dancers than you do, and most are fine.
Yep Cicero they should be painting Elvis on Velvet, safer for the feet.
Watching it again, I actually think the photographer is between the tormentor and the proscenium.
Someone Else:
I couldn’t quite figure out the angle, but it gives a very interesting perspective whatever it is
Neo- I just know ONE ex professional ballerina, a pro who danced on her tippytoes daily. You know more, and I’m glad their feet are OK. But that is the basis of my concern; plus, I really do not care for ballet, though you love it. I find it stultifying and boring. I’d rather watch and hear a string quartet playing Mozart, Beethoven or Schumann, watching the eye contacts of the instrumentalists giving each other signals.
Cicero:
Classical musicians get repetitive motion injuries, sometimes quite serious. But music brings great pleasure to so many people, as does ballet. Enjoy whatever art form you prefer. I happen to enjoy both of them.
And speaking of being able to fly . . .
Mystic Dan by a nose in the Derby! Literally! Great race!
I can no longer mouse with my right hand. I almost lost my ability to type.
Programming is a cruel art.
Huxley, might I suggest using a roller-ball (i.e., thumb-operated) mouse? E.g., Logitech, and others…
Or a knee/leg-operated one?
There’s also typing by speaking (or whatever the official name of the app might be)
(OTOH, you’ve no doubt already thought of all this…)
– – – – – – – –
In an unrelated(?) field, are you familiar with “The Hidden Huxley” (edited by David Bradshaw) or the interesting, not-quite-vanity book written by Huxley’s second wife on him and their relationship?
Sure, Neo, but your concentration on ballet is somewhat boring. When was the last time you posted classical music? Say, a Bach cello sonata?
I can only speak for meself, but Great Idea!
So glad you asked…
(Maybe it’ll uplift us out of the current all-encompassing miasma…at least temporarily…)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bys-_NsL85Q
(Skip ahead to minute 2:43…)
Jumps? I gotcher jump right here: https://twitter.com/Orioles/status/1786920681327694275?t=uV5KRmt5kvsAcJcFr5L2dg&s=19
Cicero:
Get your own blog and you’re welcome to post whatever you find fascinating. And if you want to see a list of my posts on classical music, click on the “music” category and scroll.
Cicero finds the ballet posts boring yet finds them interesting enough to offer many comments. A conundrum.
He ain’t the boss of she (neo).
Cicero, I’m shocked and saddened to hear someone pointed a gun at your head and forced you to read and comment on this post. You should contact the authorities.
There should be no celebration until the world does not know conflict anymore. There should be no athletic performance until there is no risk in all human endeavors.
That said, dance until the end of love.
If one cannot celebrate the heights of human endeauvour what is the point
Huxley, might I suggest using a roller-ball
Barry Meislin:
Thanks for your concern. I’ve been left-handing a roller-ball for over 20 years. A few years ago I discovered I am now healed enough to roller-ball rightie. Good for me. 🙂
I still can’t mouse right-handed for more than an hour without feeling it. I now know with RSI if you feel it, you stop it.
Switching to a mechanical switch keyboard (Das Keyboard is my weapon of choice) took care of my typing problems.
Anyway. I didn’t mean to worry anyone. I should have added a cheerful postscript.
I was mainly responding to Cicero’s opposition to ballet based on injury. My point is that Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI) is everywhere and truly pernicious. Once you fall into that hole, it is difficult to find your way out.
I knew a masseuse in San Francisco who developed RSI from her work. She probably needed to take a long break, but it was how she made her living so she didn’t and she didn’t heal. A year later she hung herself.
RSI is serious career-risking stuff. It is way underestimated. Pushing through RSI is the worst thing you can do.
Re: More RSI
My dentist in San Francisco was a beautiful, conscientious guy. The best dentist I had. He retired 5-10 years early because of RSI in his hips and shoulders from his work.
He told me he tried a lot of things, but nothing helped. He was an avid golfer and might have enjoyed that in his premature retirement, but he couldn’t golf anymore either.
These are my anecdotes, I suppose. But RSI doesn’t just happen to dancers.
Ok, having nothing to do with and no interest in either dance or poetry, I make it a practice to butt out.
Yet glancing at Cicero’s comment and the reply leaves me wondering if it makes a difference to dancers what form of foot they have. Recall the humanities classes in college they made you take and the references in sculpture to the Greek vs the Egyptian foot.
Seems that a blocky club-like foot with evenly projecting sets of phalanges might distribute the pressure better despite the [perhaps unfounded] supposedly biomechanically founded observation that the Greek foot lends itself to some types of athleticism.
I guess it constitutes an interesting engineering question, but as for the subject of feet in general … Phew …Yuk.
Wonder if Vasiliev could dunk a basketball. He can certainly leap.
What is RSI?
Dear Neo: Never stop posting your articles/videos of ballet. It gives insight to that which I have always loved, but had so little opportunity to enjoy!
I j can dance anymore. I crippled myself. It’s only the dancing I can’t do
Love I can do
Anne:
RSI stands for repetitive strain injury. One common type which most people have heard of is carpal tunnel, but there are many others. They can be tenacious and very difficult, or mild and fixable.
DNW:
Type of foot definitely matters. Some types are more prone to problems than others. But dancers with significantly “bad feet” (in terms of structure) often can’t rise to the professional level anyway, so there’s that.
In terms of mechanics and overall shape then, does “bad” mean orthopedically bad as in flat or super high arches? Instep malformation? Or just not well suited? Seems you have stipulated the latter,
Oh, and why, since this is ask the locomotion expert, do so many “asian” – seemingly, seemingly, folks – have a duck-like or outward rotating gait.
I was watching some urban street scene of oncoming Japanese pedestrian trafifc, and all the sudden I found myself saying WTF?
Maybe it was the camera angle.
I am strong. I want to be gentle thouhgh
DNW:
It can mean so many things – among them are weak, the wrong type of toes, not a high enough arch, too flexible and too highly arched.
It’s probably best I’m ignored. Attention would you only encourage me. Please don’t ban me. I really am a gentleman
Its an open thread yes? I was a good Japanese liaison officer. I had to shut my computer off when my counterparts visited. My screen savers was hell divetrs over the Akagi. My dad fought them. Damn good shop drivers still
Ship drivers
Ok. Got it. So it’s not really just a matter of a will and a way. To even really accomplish it, requires a type.
Which I suppose makes sense. You have to have the raw material for football, track and field, fly a fighter plane, or almost anything else. Not just to do it well, or in a superior manner, but to do it at all effectively.
Biomechanics. Then there is Form. Learning to do it right. Sort of like an extreme sport obsession. But if the basic structure isn’t there ……