Tag: TV

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So How About That Mark Morris?…

…since I know everyone’s eyes were glued to PBS tonight and not anything else on TV! Haha 🙂 Or, actually, who continually flipped back and forth between Fox and PBS between 8 and 10 pm? That’s what I would have done if I was at home tonight. I taped the Live From Lincoln Center program while I was out at a play (saw My First Time, off Broadway. Eh, was okay. Funny at first, but grew a bit old after a while. How long can you talk about your first sexual experience after all… Lacked the political import of The Vagina Monologues, the genre on which it was based. Project actually began life as a community blog though, making me curious!)

Anyway, I ran home from the theater, just in time to see who won SYTYCD. Didn’t realize my newish tape recorder wouldn’t allow me to tape one channel and watch another, so my tape of Mark Morris will now exclude the final five minutes!

So the SYTYCD results … I’m okay with it. Of the last four I wanted Danny, but I guess I am kind of happy it’s a woman for once. And, I feel that Pasha and Anya and Hok and Danny, and everyone basically, is now in the public consciousness dance-wise. Danny put ballet on the pop-dance map, as did Pasha and Anya excellence in Latin ballroom. So, I kind of have an all’s-well-that-ends-well attitude about it. Will be fun to see how this tour goes!

Anyway, I missed the first 55 minutes of the show, so am going to have to wait until I’ve caught up on what happened through the Blogging SYTYCD blog, etc. to make any comments. Unless anyone has any thoughts?

Regarding Mark Morris and his Mozart dances: I’ve been totally remiss lately, ugh! I meant to link earlier to Apollinaire’s article on this special in Newsday, but didn’t, so here it is now. If you missed it tonight, or didn’t catch enough of the Morris because you only saw it during Fox commercials 🙂 , you can still catch the Morris / Mozart program in full on Sunday, at least if you’re in NY; check PBS local listings here if you’re not.

Okay, I’m out of toothpaste so have to run to the deli now and get a chocolate bar… Did anyone see that Fox News story following SYTYCD on how chocolate cleans your teeth, hehe! I’m more than happy to believe that 😀

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Flabbergasted

Okay, I must admit, since SYTYCD began this season, several of my most intelligent friends would, if they were lawyers or writers, roll their eyes and snicker, or if they were serious arts journalists, make much more pained faces, whenever I chirped poetic about the show. They found it, at best just a silly waste of time, at worst demeaning and harmful to the art of dance. I would get really angry: my friend was on the show, and he’d had so many ups and downs, had just come out of a long illness, the ballroom competition judges who ruled his world could be so very nasty — I was so thrilled that he was finally getting his due, that the public supported him the way it did. I’d never really watched the show in prior seasons, and I couldn’t understand how my friends couldn’t see how amazing the show was to give people like Pasha such brilliant opportunities. Now he’s off, along with my blinders; I hate to say it, but my friends were so right.

First, the dancers who are left … they’re just nothing like what I’ve seen live, and it’s such a shame. Just because Danny is from ballet doesn’t mean he’s a perfect representative from that world. To me he doesn’t have the charisma, the personality of, say, Angel Corella, or my favorite. And he doesn’t have the virtuosity of David Hallberg or Ethan Stiefel — his legs don’t fully extend out into the splits when he jumps, like theirs do, and he doesn’t do hard combinations, he just does a bunch of turns, then a bunch of jumps, then a bunch of turns again. And what was all that crazy gymnastics at the end? Why didn’t he combine things into a difficult routine? The public is being cheated if they think this is real ballet. Yeah, he’s technically better than the others left on the show, but who cares when everyone’s a bore? Who wants to watch a show with no competition?

The good thing about Pasha was that he was so good at something so different than Danny. So, the public was seeing two very good dancers who excelled in their own styles — it was like people got a good taste of two wholly different points of view.

I think both because Pasha’s gone and because Danny’s not making ballet come alive to me, Danny’s completely wrong cha cha, which might otherwise have been cute since it was wrong but was ballet-dancer wrong, instead totally annoyed me. I remember seeing Jose Carreno dance salsa in his native Cuba in the film Born To Be Wild and thinking, hehehe, that’s not Salsa, that’s Ballet-Salsa! The reason ballet dancers can’t do Latin properly is because you have to settle fully into your hip in order to look properly grounded; ballet dancers have a natural turn-out, so if they settle properly, into a turned-out hip, they’re really going to grind to bits whatever cartilage is there, which means end of ballet career. So, no settling, no grounding, no proper hip action. But watching Jose in that movie was charming, because then you got to see him perform an absolutely breathtaking, beatific Don Quixote right in front of Castro. So, you got to be blown away seeing him do what he DOES. Not so here with Danny. And you don’t get a proper version of Cha Cha since Pasha’s off. And Lacey and Neil’s Lindy Hop: eh, they did what they could with it, but it’s just that if you’ve seen real Swing dancers, you know how not there it really was.

Second, what the HELL was that choreography — particularly the so-called contemporary? The Swing and the Cha Cha were fine because those dances are supposed to be cute, not meaningful, not thought-provoking, not profound, not poetic, not moving the viewer to a higher level. (Not that Latin can never do that — I very badly one day want to see Bodas de Sangre, the Latin dance version of the Garcia Lorca play.) But, those are the reasons we go to see concert dance. What was that hideous fox thing whoever choreographed for Lacey and Sabra? How am I supposed to be moved by mommy and baby fox-people doing whatever in God’s name they were supposed to be doing to each other? What was I as a viewer supposed to get out of that? And what was that 80s Adam Ant thing Mia Michaels forced poor Danny and Neil to do with each other? Is it too much to ask for serious choreographers? Lar Lubovitch for a male duet, anyone? Twyla Tharp for contemporary combined with social to brilliant effect, anyone?

No, you see, real choreographers are used to dealing with professionals. More than anything tonight I was absolutely appalled at the extreme immaturity of those dancers. Pasha never would have acted like such a child. Making fun of the choreographers to their faces, making fun of dance, making fun of a foreign language? I’m so embarrassed for Lacey that she doesn’t know better, that she doesn’t know how horridly unsophisticated she looked. I’m so embarrassed to admit that I can’t understand spoken French very well, and she’s flaunting her ignorance like that. I just … on so many levels, I’ve never seen such puerile, such beyond juvenile behavior. I just, I’m honestly in shock. I liked Lacey too before tonight.

Melanie LaPatin — bless that woman. God bless her. For the first time, she actually gets her day as choreographer, out from Tony Meredith’s shadow. Let me tell you, that woman is a slave-driving hard-ass — one reason I love her. She makes you work like you’ve never worked before in her studio — unlike Tony; he’s a softie 🙂 In a good way — we love him too, just for that 🙂 But Melanie takes no shit whatsoever, and I really thought she was going to lose it here. You know she didn’t because she had to smile pretty for that stupid ass camera. Bless her soul; she’s a far bigger woman than I am.

I was so mortified, after the show ended, I had to go outside and take a long walk, had to reassure myself there were were people with pulses, with brainwaves, on this planet, whose eyes had not been glued to their TV for the past two hours. Sure enough, wine bars were overflowing with twenty and thirty-something hipsters engaged in conversation, take-away ice cream parlors with happy-faced children and parents, coffeehouses and bookstores with people engaged in mental activity. Ah, people with lives. As of now, count me one of them.

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You guys, what happened? How could this happen? How could it???????????????????????????????????? Did everyone just die?

Well, I think it’s going to be between Lacey and Sabra now. It’s funny because I recognize all the steps Lacey does in her solos — which is really kind of fun — though I could never ever do them the way she does! I actually kind of liked Lauren tonight too, for the very first time ever — didn’t she do a few hundred pirouettes in a row? Where were those earlier? Nigel’s right — she peaked too late…

And, no, Matt, Lacey wasn’t flashing that — yuck!; she was accidentally (or maybe not) sticking what she thought she was in front of the camera, you gay breast man! Hahahaha, GBM 🙂

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Hey Man, Where Are My Peeps Tonight???

Okay, I guess I should check my local Fox listings more often 🙂 I specifically came home from work early tonight (8 p.m. — eh) to watch my favorite show and instead there are all of these men grunting like beasts and ramming their helmeted heads into each other’s bodies??? Where’s my dance!!!

Haha, it’s funny though, because the advertising is sooo different. Has anyone noticed? I don’t know what the commercials during SYTYCD usually consist of because I’ve never really paid much attention, but I know there aren’t all of these bikini-clad women and Bud adverts that seem to me to appeal to the lowest common denominator! It’s kind of sad; I guess there are real gender differences between men and women, or at least the kind of men and women who watch these respective shows. But also interesting to me is that the Fox people seem to know that most SYTYCD-watchers are women and arty, intellectual-type men, no?

Anyway, I was going to blog about this last night but got lazy and tired and had to go to bed after the show, but I’m just so proud of Pasha. I just think he’s doing so well. My favorite Latin dancer in the world has long been Slavik Kryklyvyy — and during my lessons with Pasha, I’d always bring tapes of Slavik dancing with his former partner, Karina, to the studio and ask Pasha if we could try to re-enact some of their lifts and fancy dips. He’d always be the sport and say sure, but I could tell inside he was kind of rolling his eyes — either because they were far above me and he knew he’d be struggling to hold me up 🙂 or because it’s probably just annoying for any dancer to hear how someone worships another 🙂 Pasha’s so great though for letting me drool on and on over Slavik!

Anyway, last night, during the very beginning of the show when they did their little opening half-of-a-second solos, I just couldn’t believe my eyes. He moved just like Slavik. I really think this competition has improved his dancing so much. He’s worked so hard to master all the different kinds of dance styles and choreography to the best of his ability and he now moves in ways that are just breathtaking, so beyond what he did before. I’m just so floored. And, I mean, last night’s hip hop just looked so cute on him. He’s not going to ever be some down-home, bad-ass, hipper than thou, totally hot African-American guy doing hip-hop, but he did his own cute Pasha thing with it, and it was so him and so sweet and so brilliant. And that’s what dance is all about: interpreting something in your own way, adding your style and technique, doing it to the best of your ability, and just owning it. The waltz, as well, was beautiful, as expected. And his solo: I mean, people are saying it was weird (see the comments to this post), and I totally understand what they mean, but I think it was rather ironic: I think he was saying to the judges, “Okay, you say Latin ballroom dancers suck at solos because we’re essentially partner-dancers, so here, here’s a partner-dance for you — I’ll dance with a damn mannequin.” That’s my take anyway…

And, you just never know how someone is going to hold up under pressure. Ballroom dancers dance to normally relatively small audiences — I think the biggest — definitely at Blackpool — must consist of a couple thousand??? I mean, nowhere near the millions who are scrutinizing his every move now. So, I just worry that someone will just crack under the pressure. But not any of these pros 🙂

Okay, I’m done fawning! Oh, but just one more thing: Claudia sent a link to the Blogging SYTYCD blog to some pics she found of Pasha and Anya — these are the photos of them dancing at Blackpool 2005 that I was referring to earlier! Is Anya not absolutely gorgeous!! How much do I want that black dress! Yes, Anya used to have blonde hair 🙂 She looks just bewitching with any color though, if you ask me.

Okay, in other news: I’m excited because I just received in the mail a flyer for the Martha Graham Dance Company, who will perform at the Joyce Theater in Chelsea in a couple of weeks.

I’ve only seen this company a couple of times, but what is so cool is that on the flyer is a picture of Miki Orihara, a newish contributor to my favorite dance blog, The Winger. I’m so excited to see her perform! I personally think blogs are a great way for dancers to communicate with audiences and make new fans. From her Winger posts, Miki seems so incredibly sweet. So, I can’t wait!

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Places to Score Great Ballroom Videos, Particularly Those Containing Pasha and Anya :)

April had recently asked me where she could get a video of the Dance Times Square showcase I’d blogged about earlier containing Pasha and Anya’s brilliant performances. I directed her to contact the studio itself, as they usually have a professional videographer at the showcase. However, the videos have in prior years included only the student showcases, presumably to prevent choreography-stealing. But, in the last couple of showcases the student performances have been so interspersed with the professionals’ that the videographer has just included them all on the DVD. Anyway, if anyone contacts DTS about the videos, just make sure you ascertain that Pasha and Anya’s pro showcases are on there! Don’t worry; they won’t mind if you ask — they understand!

It occurred to me, though, that there are other places you can find videos of Pasha and Anya dancing, along with other stars of the dancesport world 🙂 Two years ago, in May 2005, they competed at the Blackpool Dance Festival in England and placed second in the Professional Latin Rising Star category 🙂 🙂 🙂 . Quasar Videos makes DVDs of three of the competitions that take place there each year: the Professional, Amateur, and Professional Rising Star. I found the 2005 Pro Rising Star on this website. You can probably order directly from Quasar as well. They’re expensive though (I think they’re around $100). These are live filmed ballroom competitions, so all of the finalists are on the floor at once — they’re not individual showcases like on SYTYCD. But, for people who’ve never seen one, these ballroom competitions are so cool! And Anya had THE most gorgeous costumes that year — one white, one black! It’s too bad that they don’t include all of the competitions on one DVD (meaning Professional and Rising Star Pro) because you’d get to see all of the most awesome dancers (like my loves Slavik Kryklyvyy and Sergey Surkov 🙂 ). But you will still see some breathtaking ballroom dancing — both Latin and Standard.

They also competed in the Ohio Star Ball two years ago (2005), and that was filmed and shown on PBS as “America’s Ballroom Challenge.” If you missed that earlier competition when it aired on PBS (it was from 2005, not last year — they had to miss last year because of an illness), you may be able to purchase a DVD of it through PBS or ABC. If you’re able to get a hold of that one, you will witness how popular Pasha and Anya are with the dancesport crowd. People were NOT happy when they didn’t take one of the first three spots — even Marilu Henner (host) remarked to Tony Meredith (co-host), “wow, this is the most passionate reaction we’ve seen all night!” Annoyingly (I was obviously there that year), the producers did a bunch of “sound clips” — I don’t know if that’s the proper term, but they had a judge walk around the floor while the audience first was completely silent, then on her second walk we all chattered, then on her third we screamed and cheered like a bunch of lunatics. So, when they edited, they took out the fans wildly screaming, “Pasha” “Anya” “Pasha and Anya,” during the comp and replaced it with the quiet sound clip! Anyway, good thing about that competition is that it includes all of the top Latin dancers in the country, such as Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kruyshkova, and Yulia Zagoruychenko and Max Kozhevnikov.

Okay, I’ve rambled on long enough. Hope this helps!

Also, don’t forget about the petition 🙂

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America is Dancin'

I’ve just received word that another new reality-TV show centered on dance is in the works. This one stars Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli, judges from ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.” Apparently they will organize groups of amateur dancers (it doesn’t specify ballroom so looks like it’s not limited to just that dance style) to compete against each other, ultimately creating the best dance team. I’m not completely sure how it’s going to work, but for deets, visit their MySpace page. Auditions, which are taking place throughout the country during the month of September, are open to any amateur dancer, at any level and any age over 18. Just like a genuine ballroom comp 🙂 Fun fun fun!

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I Am Goin’ to Nationals!

Just got my plane ticket for Nationals, coming up at the beginning of September, in Orlando, Florida, where I’ve never been! I was actually pondering saving money and not going this year, but my friend, Michele, blasted some sense into me: it’s going to be far too exciting a year to miss. Am now trying to fill out above form to reserve my event tickets — $70 for Saturday night comp and $60 for Thursday and Friday night each — I do wish it wasn’t so expensive, but at least they’ve moved the competition to a cheaper hotel; last year it was in swanky Palm Beach, and the only hotel in the vicinity was the, basically, ten–star one in which the competition was held.

So, no alligators this year 🙂 (Last year, I took a brief excursion from competition madness to visit the Everglades)

Anyway, this is going to be a big year. Because of a couple of important retirements, new champions will be crowned in two events: American Rhythm and American Smooth.

I’m hoping Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine, my former teacher and an excellent dancer, will do well in Rhythm. Well, I know he’ll do WELL, but will he win is my big question?!

 

Or will the king and queen of rhythm be Emmanuel’s former partner, Joanna Zacharewicz and the super cute Jose deCamps?

 

We’ll know Thursday, September 6th, late late LATE night (these competitions are definitely for night owls)

The highlight for me though is always the International Latin. It’s always a showdown between these two:

current national champs Andrei Gavriline (my favorite American man) and Elena Kruyshkova, and

 

my favorite American woman, Yulia Zagoruychenko, and her partner Max Kozhevnikov.

They also have an open-to-the-world category, in which dancers who are not American residents or citizens can compete. Last year I was just in heaven — my two favorite Latin dancers in the world competed in that category: Slavik Kryklyvyy, who is just about my favorite dancer period (excepting this one of course of course:) ) (Slavik’s dancing here with Elena Khvorova)

and Sergey Surkov (parterning Melia).

 

Oh, I hope so so SO much they compete again this year. I’m thinking Slavik may not, may have only competed last year because he’d just broken up with his old partner, Karina Smirnoff and was testing out a new partnership before the really important world comps, but I really do hope he shows at this one. Otherwise, I’m stuck waiting until next May for Blackpool to see him again…

Two people I’m fairly sure who won’t be there are the couple I always long to see of course: Pasha and Anya, who are, sigh, off to bigger and better things these days… Of course I’m so happy for them, but it is sad knowing I’ll likely not see them compete at one of these events again. I’m thrilled though that so many opportunities are opening up for professional ballroom dancers. The same couples win these competitions year after year after year. And, while it’s always fun for us spectators to watch, I can imagine how frustrating it must be to be a professional dancer knowing you’re likely going to place exactly where you have been for the past umpteenth years.

Anyway, unrelated to the USDSC, here’s some interesting stuff I found on the net:

1) Boris Willis has created a funny little “manly dance” for me, apropos of all my blogging on Bad Boys of Dance and Ted Shawn’s Men Dancers, etc. etc. etc. Thanks Boris!

2) The artist David Michalek, who made those Slow Dancing films I was going on about forever, has linked on his site to a bunch of us bloggers who covered the exhibit. So very cool to see artists taking bloggers so seriously and considering us to be our own little form of press! And, I noticed by reading down his list of bloggers that Alex Ross, classical music critic for the New Yorker, posted a couple of pictures of the event on his blog, one of which intentionally includes both Midsummer Night Swing and Slow Dancing together like many of mine do. I’m glad someone else found the two events coinciding with each other interesting. He describes them, though, as “juxtaposed surreally” with each other in the photo. I’m still interested in why people think it’s odd that an exhibit of filmed dancers should coexist with people actually dancing, that people could enjoy both the physical experience of dancing themselves and of watching dance. To me it seems ideal, not surreal, to have these two events co-occur.

3) Root Magazine, based in San Francisco, is having a little thing on burlesque right now. There’s a write-up on a group that has its origins in Samba, which I found interesting. Root’s editor also deals with the feminist issue, which makes me happy.

4) And, finally, as I’m sure most people already know but I was a bit late to discover (oops 🙂 ), there’s a blog devoted to SYTYCD called, appropriately, Blogging So You Think You Can Dance. It’s really pretty good: they have links to practically everything extant on the internet dealing with the show, and they give detailed, fairly objective write-ups of what happened each night (which is great for me since I’m always out and missing it!) Thanks guys 🙂

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Danny Tidwell Could Use A Bronzed Dance Belt!!!!

Hahhahha! I recently got an email about this earlier post where I was pondering whether I should get Pasha and Luis bronzed dance belts for a holiday gift as an apology for constantly kicking them there during lessons. I’m just so glad, after tonight’s SYTYCD episode that I’m not the only one with that little problem!!

It’s hard to be a male dancer!… What’s up with that look on my face??… Anyway, there we are trying this very cool Karina dip (that I stole from her but can’t do correctly to save my life because, hello, I am NOT Karina!)… This trick is so gorgeous too when done properly IF you can do it properly (when he dips you, it ends up looking similar to the graphic on the top right part of the blog, except of course it should look GOOD, not like that because that is me; I wish I could post a YouTube of Karina and her old partner Slavik doing it because it looks so gorgeous, but they withdrew the clip…) But the trick is so hard because you have to get so close to him and shove your hips into his waist / crotch so that when you arch back you can still hold yourself up and he doesn’t have to throw his back out… And with Rhumba, the beauty of the trick is that you’re coming into him really fast, and with my longish legs, often the left knee that’s kind of humping his back here would be aimed a little farther to the right… He’d shout “hellohellohellohellohello” whenever he needed to warn me. Dancing is so much harder than it looks… Anyway, Argentine tango with all those between-the-legs kicks is just all the worse and I’m sure Pasha is very happy that Argentine tango is not on the International Latin syllabus!

Gosh this is like a lifetime ago! And it’s only last September… Pasha is so incredibly sweet — I just came across these pics recently. He’d agreed to have them taken with me in the studio wearing this Winger t-shirt to model for the Winger! Kristin Sloan (Winger founder and NYCBallet dancer) offered to post pics on the site of Winger readers wearing their t’s at their dance studios or dance-related events, so Pasha nicely let me model the shirt with him 🙂 🙂

I look ridiculously scared!


This was Kristin’s favorite. I look downright in pain! The shirt design is really cool though, right!

I miss him so much! And I miss dancing so much. The most worrisome thing is that, we took these pics right after we’d all returned from Nationals last September (which is on my mind since I’m about to book my tkts for this year — yay!) and I just re-looked at some of my posts on that. I was worried about my flabby butt back then… now, that I haven’t danced in a good — geez eight months — it’s so far beyond sag it’s not even funny. I MUST take dance lessons. I MUST find an inexpensive place.

Anyway, speaking of the Winger, Bennyroyce posted some excellent pics of Bad Boys, the troupe I’d posted on yesterday — they’re far better than mine since they’re up close, or from the perspective of … the Wings! Also, here’s an interesting article in a local Berkshires paper about Rasta and his guys. (Speaking further of the Winger, we still do not know for sure if that dance belt model above is indeed Mr. Hallberg. He would never fess up!!! I think it is — look how similar the face… it’s you, David!)

And coming full circle to Danny and SYTYCD, I was being masochistic and looking up photos of Rasta’s wedding 🙁 and I found this from his ballet school’s alumni page. Look who is in the center of the bottom right-hand picture! And who’s above him — is it Travis from last season?

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Off To The Land of "Bad Boys"!!!

Ugh, I had planned to do my write-ups of Gypsy and Pilobolus this afternoon (basically, liked but didn’t love both of them), but got carried away with a brief, of all things! Evil case I found at the last minute that threw a wrench in my argument! Anyway, Alyssa and I are off to Jacob’s Pillow to see Brazilian Samba / Ballet /Ballroom troupe MIMULUS, and my eagerly awaited BAD BOYS OF DANCE hehehe. So excited! I promise lots of blogging (and write-ups of Gypsy and Pilobolus when I return). Only drawback is that I’ll have to miss this week’s SYTYCD 🙁 But looking forward to reading all about it and hearing everyone’s take and seeing YouTube clips when I get back! Please Pasha and Danny be safe…

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Samba & michalek – perfect combo :)

Samba & michalek – perfect combo 🙂

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.


… and Desmond Richardson of course (in the background)! I swear they seemed to be moving faster tonight — the Michalek dancers I mean! Maybe it was just an effect of the fast, fun Samba of the Midsummer Night Swing event, or maybe it really was sped up a bit, especially in some of the middle parts?… Hmmm… Maybe it’s just that I’ve seen the exhibit so many times now that I have no perspective anymore! Anyway, something about it made it especially spectacular tonight, and it’s definitely growing on me more and more each time.

And then I got home just in time for the horrible results on STYTCD. I’m so upset about Anya. She is a really beautiful, rhythmic dancer and I’m really going to miss her on the show. I don’t know how the other two female contestants performed tonight, but I do know that as far as ballroom goes, Anya Garnis is one of the very best in this country. Oh well, what can you do? Good news is that Pasha and Danny will be touring 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Is Pasha a Nureyev or a Baryshnikov: What's In a Dancer's Sexuality Anyway?

Okay, I’m probably going to get attacked right and left for this post, but I’ve been receiving a lot of emails asking me if my former dance instructor, the extremely personable and talented (not to mention sexy 🙂 ) Pasha Kovalev, who is now a serious contestant on SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE, is gay or straight. My first thought was, argh, why does it even matter! But then I thought about it and realized, homophobia is totally passe and no one is asking because they want to judge anyone and, although of course it is completely irrelevant to the actual dancing, it does inform your crush on the guy (if you’re a straight female dance fan, which a good number of us are). I mean, you have a different kind of crush depending on whether he’s straight or gay, right?! (mine are usually far worse on the gay ones, but go figure…)

When I first fell big time for this one, my favorite dancer in the world (besides Pasha of course!), I did what everyone living in the 21st Century would do, an internet search of course. And how did my heart drop when I saw this, his cover story in The Advocate! NOOOOOOOO, I must have let out the most horrid cry. We’re never getting married now! (Because of course otherwise we were, since he’s not a big huge famous ballet dancer or anything…) But I have to say, it was far worse finding out this one, my second favorite, was married, and that this one is engaged to be married. After all, I’m never going to have to be jealous of any of Marcelo’s partners (you can’t envy a man; it just doesn’t make any sense).

And reading the Marcelo article of course made me fall in love with him all the more, and realize why he is, as Dance Magazine called him, the guy all the girls want to dance with. He is a big strong warm Brazilian guy, a kind of teddy bear, albeit a gorgeous one — in whose arms could you feel safer or more comfortable and secure?! Of course the actual story of the dance performance that unfolds onstage or TV is not real anyway, but dramatic narrative aside, to me Marcelo and Julie Kent, his frequent partner, are the greatest partnership around today, and that’s precisely because of the way you can tell they feel about each other: it’s obvious they truly love each other as friends and partners, and that’s everything in making a performance come to life!

I’ve never had the opportunity to dance with Marcelo of course 🙁 but in my own experiences, gay men are crazy fun as partners. Straight men are too, but, I dunno, there’s just something about gay men, that IMO, takes some pressure off and just lets you be you. If something gets touched, you know it was an accident, or if something stupid happens like this, or this, it’s not THAT embarrassing! And back to Marcelo briefly (I know, I can never stop talking about him; it’s an illness really…), big warm swoony stage door kisses like this could never happen if the dancer was straight, right — I mean, that might be looked on … just… a little perverted or something.

But, I also think that a dancer’s sexuality, as with all aspects of his or her personal life, though completely irrelevant to the dancing, do, rightly or wrongly, come into play in constructing the dancer’s persona or mystique, should he or she ever become really famous. Joan Acocella, in reading from her latest book at Barnes & Noble recently, said that she thought part of Baryshnikov‘s fame stemmed from his reputation for being a skirt-chaser. The press, she said, just went on a field day with a straight male dancer. I personally think it was more the political situation at the time (he defected from a country we were obsessed with hating after all), because, how does that explain the fame of Nureyev? To me personally, it is Nureyev who is the more intriguing: in addition to dealing with the shock of fame and wealth after having grown up in abject poverty, the horribly difficult decision to defect and leave his family forever behind (his mother was very ill), he also had to deal with societal and political oppression based on his sexuality. And the attacks that he had to endure, of leading a life of “debauchery” in the West while those left behind in his homeland starved, were criticisms I’m sure Baryshnikov never got. And, as for partnerships, please — that between Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn was the stuff legends are made of. For a very good, rather poetic book on this most fascinating of all dancers (IMO) please go here.

Anyway, back to Pasha, and THE QUESTION! Sorry for the long-windedness, I just wanted to make everyone read about all my favorite dancers 🙂 Okay, well, I don’t want to be gossipy, but I feel there is nothing wrong with pointing you all toward something he said on TV on either the first or second episode of the show! Remember! Remember what he said about why he wanted to become a ballroom dancer, what led him to dance in the first place! That’s a pretty good indication 🙂 If you can’t find it anywhere on the show’s website, I’ll give you a hint — it’s the same thing said by this other dance hearthrob on what drew him to ballet in the very fun documentary, “Born to Be Wild,” which if you haven’t seen, you can read his words on that issue here.