I was surprised to learn that the Star Wars ballet made for French television during the glorious 1970’s, is not even in the top ten! Nor is the bear riding around in miniature pink car, on the list. Believe it or not, most people actually rate Swan Lake as the best ballet of all time!

But why?

Let’s not forget that the original staging of Swan Lake in 1877 was universally panned. Critics felt that Tchaikovsky’s music was “too noisy” and the choreography as “unimaginative and unmemorable”. Yet despite these blunt and unsympathetic reviews, the show lasted six years with a total of 41 performances. Could there really have been so many deaf and blind patrons back then?

If the story ended there, Swan Lake probably would have disappeared into the abyss of forgotten mediocrity. But in 1895 there was a Petipa-Ivanov-Drigo revival which changed the choreography and revised Tchaikovsky’s score. The ballet premiered on Friday the 27th of January and unlike the original version, critics weren’t competing to see who could write the nastiest review. The revised version of Swan Lake received unanimous warm praise.

And now?

The next time you feel like an adrenaline shot of culture and decide to go watch Swan Lake, the version you’ll be seeing will most likely be the Petipa-Ivanov-Drigo staging. Today, it’s the most popular version used by ballet companies across the world.

However, the most important event in the entire rich, century and a half history of Swan Lake is how this has all culminated into the film Black Swan. Yes. That’s right. This is the true ultimate version of Tchaikovsky’s ballet.

P.S. Is sarcasm lost in writing?

Each year the Expo Danza Milano hosted in Italy, brings together thousands of enthusiastic dancers from across Europe. Over the three day event, people experience an array of performances and the opportunity to listen to lectures from some of the leading national and international artists in dance.

This year’s expo saw one of our clients, California Dancewear, exhibit at the event. They required portable ballet barres as part of their programme. In close collaboration with California Dancewear, we prepared and shipped 15 of our PRIMA portable ballet barres in time for the expo. The photos below are from the show.

1. Eggs
2. Chicken
3. Rice
4. The head of a bat (Ozzie Osbourne style)
5. Sausages
6. Vegetarian Sausages
7. Processed Bacon Biscuits
8. Soya Latte 125ml
9. Soya Latte 1L
10. Uncle Joe’s homemade, freshly baked, all natural, organic snails in spicy tomato sauce.

Choosing the right food is a dilemma anyone looking to achieve peak fitness, needs to face. Fortunately, there is a plethora of information about healthy diets on the internet and some of it is actually factual. What most people suggest is a balanced diet with a mix of something like the following:

• 30% Fruit and Veg
• 30% Carbohydrates
• 20% Protein
• 15% Milk and dairy products
• 5% Fats and sugar

Does this sound reasonable to you?

Anyway, if you aren’t particularly keen on what one diet plan offers, you can always switch to another. For example, I couldn’t handle the World Health Organization announcing that bacon is as carcinogenic as smoking, so I’ve decided to bury my head in the sand and adopt the Atkins diet! Now I’m happily content consuming lashings of fried bacon as part of my fitness regime.

A ballet company is remarkably similar to a business company. Both have a dress code, both utilise the pirouette (some with the help of swivel chairs) and both involve lots of dancing. Although for some, this usually occurs after four hours of drinking at the pub each Friday after work.

These remarkable similarities also extend to the employment structure. A ballet company and a business both use a hierarchal system based on a person’s experience, skills and talent (which is why I’m still employed as the toilet cleaner here at Dinamica Ballet).

When a newly graduated dancer joins a ballet company, they normally begin as part of the “Corps de ballet”. These are the dancers that you see as the backdrop, performing in synchronization and supporting the principle dancers. In a business, this is equivalent to a Sales Representative. They’re the people who read off a sales pitch after calling poor unfortunate grannies who naively answer their phone at 5pm in the afternoon.

So what’s the equivalent of the other traditional hierarchal positions in a ballet company?

• Corps de ballet – Sales Reps.
• Coryphée – The Sales Rep who has been given an extra responsibility, such as buying the coffees.
• Sujet – Team boss. The one who usually bludgeons employees with motivational speeches.
• Prima ballerina / Premier danseur – THE boss. Normally meeting other bosses on business lunches…. and post business lunch drinks.
• Prima ballerina assoluta / Premier danseur noble – Mark Zuckerberg.

And you know what? We happen to have a portable ballet barre which is the crème de la crème of ballet barres to use at home. Do you know what it’s called?

The PRIMA

Yep that’s right, it’s like THE boss of the of the business world.