Wednesday, December 25, 2019

The worst ballet movie ever

A week or so ago I stumbled upon a ballet-themed movie from 1977 called "Suspiria". The summary sounded interesting:
This horror gem follows Susan, a young American girl whose talents have brought her to an illustrious European ballet school. But once she gets there, she realizes there's something strange going on as she's faced with a cluster of freaky happenings, from a shower of maggots to poison in her food. What she soon learns is that the school has been a meeting place for witches for many years.
It was available from DVD.com (the DVD-subscription part of Netflix). Although DVD.com rated it only 2.5 stars (of a possible 5), IMDB gave it 7.4 stars (of 10). Although I'm not a fan of horror movies I love a good mystery, so put it at the front of my queue. This evening I got a chance to watch it.

Saturday, December 21, 2019

Missed another Saturday class

I missed another class this morning. This time, though, it was intentional. And it wasn't to avoid the substitute instructor.

Friday, December 20, 2019

How to Pirouette, in five easy steps

I hate the idea of linking to Facebook, but I'll make an exception this once. It's a video by Alexandra MacDonald, a First Soloist with the National Ballet of Canada, and produced by CBC Arts.

The video is entitled "How to pirouette". In it she demonstrates a double pirouette en dehor from fourth, breaking this fundamental skill into five steps. I love it for several of reasons:
  1. The video is really well produced.
  2. She executes the pirouette really beautifully, making it look easy.
  3. She makes it sound like it's so easy, which it absolutely is NOT. This I find highly amusing.
Here's the link:

https://www.facebook.com/CBCArts/videos/2768308393193011/

And a screen capture as a teaser: