Silk and Steel

Will we ever again be blessed with a rhythmic gymnast who is as artistic, as graceful, and indeed, as beautiful as Maria Petrova? I do not claim to be knowledgeable in the field of rhythmic gymnastics, but Maria is the only one I have seen whom I consider to be an artist, and not just an athlete. Here I will quote Marc Haegeman's words in describing Bolshoi Ballet's Svetlana Zakharova {see here & here}, as I find them befitting Petrova and wonderfully germane: "...her technically radiant dancing has an ideal blend of steely brilliance and silken delivery." (Marc Haegeman in Dance Now, Spring 2008; on Le Corsaire, Bolshoi Tour in Paris, January 2008.)

When I was in junior high school (thirteen or so), I watched Maria's performance for the first time on television, which was her ball routine in the 1993 Malaga European Cup. The choreography, the music, her technically perfect execution, gorgeous artistic rendition, and even down to her choice of costumes etc., had me completely engrossed. I then started writing articles about her and carefully following all her competitions - in a word, I was rather obsessed.




The reason why I enjoy and use YouTube so much is because I can access numerous rare video clips of something I might otherwise never be able to find (or will definitely take me forever to locate), as well as the fact that I make lovely discoveries everyday. Below are Maria's performances of the ball routine in 1993, 1995, and 1996, the year in which she retired.


The beginning of the ball routine in this clip is cut, but you can see it in the second video clip. The performance I watched and was mesmerised by is the 1993 Alicante World Championship (first clip).










About Maria Petrova

Maria Petrova (Bulgarian: Мария Петрова) (born November 13, 1975 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria) is a Bulgarian rhythmic gymnast. She shares the world record for the most individual world all-around rhythmic gymnastics titles of all time and has never placed lower than seventh in any competition in her entire career.

Petrova began her training at the age of five at the Levski Club in Sofia, Bulgaria coached by Natalia Moravenova. In her first World Championship appearance in 1991, she came second in the team competition after a hoop drop. Petrova found herself in fifth at the Barcelona Olympics after a penalty of .20 was imposed due to the zipper on the back of her leotard that had broken during her hoop exercise. A few months later, Petrova took second place behind Oxana Kostina and ahead of Larissa Lukyanenko.

In 1993, Petrova performed with her Panovaesque ball to an Indian melody. She also competed in a ribbon exercise, and a small-toss filled clubs routine to Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner". Her final performance to Carmina Burana caused a great crowd ovation. She went on to win the all-around, as well as three more gold medals (ball, hoop, ribbon) and a bronze medal (clubs).

She went on to win one more European title and two more world titles (shared in 1995 with Yekaterina Serebrianskaya), tying her with countrywoman Maria Guigova for the most wins in the latter category. Although she had tried to retire several times after her first World title, Petrova continued competing as a favor to the Bulgarian national team, which was in a rebuilding phase after the Eastern European Communist collapse.

Petrova shares the world record for most individual world all-around rhythmic gymnastics titles with Maria Gigova. Petrova's three titles were earned in 1993, 1994, and 1995 (shared).

In 1998 Petrova married Bulgarian footballer Borislav Mikhailov. She is currently a judge in rhythmic gymnastics.
(Via: Wikipedia)

You leave the same impression of something beautiful, but annihilating

If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.
You leave the same impression
Of something beautiful, but annihilating.
Both of you are great light borrowers.
Her O-mouth grieves at the world; yours is unaffected,
And your first gift is making stone out of everything.
I wake to a mausoleum; you are here,
Ticking your fingers on the marble table, looking for cigarettes,
Spiteful as a woman, but not so nervous,
And dying to say something unanswerable.

The moon, too, abases her subjects
But in the daytime she is ridiculous.
Your dissatisfactions, on the other hand,
Arrive through the mailslot with loving regularity,
White and blank, expansive as carbon monoxide.

No day is safe from news of you,
Walking about in Africa maybe, but thinking of me.


~The Rival, by Sylvia Plath


Solarised portrait by Man Ray (c. 1930), photo via John @ verdoux.

Lee Miller, by Man Ray (c. 1930), photo via John @ verdoux.


From one of my favourite films, The Saddest Music in the World.

Christian de Laubadère

The short Miami jaunt this past weekend saw my encounter with artist Christian de Laubadère's exquisite series of works The Necks—paintings that are filled with delicate, feminine regalness and sensual sophistication—displayed at the Setai Hotel. It was an instant love affair which has left me entranced and besotted still now. The neck (in particular the nape), along with hands, are what I consider to be the most beautiful, narrative and poetic parts of a woman's body. Christian de Laubadère combines the nape with intricately detailed depictions of different hairstyles through Chinese history (especially those of the Tang and Qing dynasties), and a subtle hint of colours in vintage embroidered/printed fabrics or lace which he sources from China as well as France, to evoke a sense of faded, ethereal, mysterious grandeur, hearkening back to a poetical world of nostalgia.

The Necks 2003-2006
The Necks 2007-2008
Christian de Laubadère exhibition at the Stephanie Hoppen Gallery, London.

(Above two) Christian de Laubadère's paintings as displayed at Hotel Setai, Miami.





About the Artist (text taken from his official website)

Christian de Laubadère began living and working in Shanghai in 2001.

The series of 137 paintings displayed in the Hotel Setai (Miami) and the most recent 21 paintings shown in Shanghai are a reflection of Christian's fascination with the sophistication and sensuality of women, past and present. He paints on paper and canvas using lead pencils, smoke and charcoal as well as printed and embroidered fabric selected from China and France.

His signature in Chinese characters is "Lu" (麓 foot of the mountain) and "Mi" (冪 power) directly translated from a nickname of his childhood "Loumi" which means "my favourite one" in French dialect from Gascogne province.

無題

The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think. ~Horace Walpole (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797)


Danse Serpentine (c.1896), Loïe Fuller



Loïe Fuller (1902), portrait by Frederick Glasier

Pina 碧娜

“Beauty captivates the flesh in order to obtain permission to pass right to the soul.” ～Simone Weil


Now from his breast into his eyes the ache
of longing mounted, and he wept at last,
his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms,
longed for as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by a swimmer
spent in rough water where his ship went down
under Poseidon's blows, gale winds and tons of sea.

Few men can keep alive through a big surf
to crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beaches
in joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind:
and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband,
her white arms round him pressed as though forever.

～The Odyssey by Homer (Translated by Robert Fitzgerald)

Pina Bausch by Walter Vogel, 1967

Philippine “Pina” Bausch (July 27, 1940 – June 30, 2009), 
photographed in Café Müller.

Der Abschied (we miss you...)

The sun departs behind the mountain
In all the valleys, evening descends
With its cooling shadows
O look! Like a silver boat
The moon floats on the blue sky-lake above
I feel the fine wind wafting behind the dark spruce
The brook sings loudly through the darkness
The flowers stand out palely in the twilight
The earth breathes, full of peace and sleep
And all yearning wishes to dream now
Weary men go home
To learn in sleep forgotten happiness and youth
The birds crouch silently in their branches
The world is asleep

It blows coolly in the shadows of my spruce
I stand here and wait for my friend
I wait to bid him a last farewell
I yearn, my friend, at your side
To enjoy the beauty of this evening
Where do you tarry? You leave me alone for so long!
I wander up and down with my lute
On paths swelling with soft grass
O beauty! O eternal love!
Eternal, love-intoxicated world!

夕陽度西嶺  群壑倏已暝  松月生涼夜  風泉滿清聽
僬人歸欲監  煙鳥棲初定  之子期宿來  孤琴候蘿徑

At Parting

The drink of parting
He asked him where he would go, and also why it must be
He spoke, his voice was choked
My friend, on this earth, fortune has not been kind to me!
Where do I go? I will go wander in the mountains
I seek peace for my lonely heart

下馬飲君酒  問君何所之  君言不得意  歸臥南山陲  但去莫復問  候雲無盡時

The Song of the Earth, choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan and set to Gustav Mahler's music, is amongst my most beloved ballets. The Farewell (Der Abschied), final movement of the music Das Lied von der Erde, is based on two Chinese poems written in the Tang Dynasty:
1. “At the Mountain-lodge of the Buddhist Priest Ye Waiting in Vain for My Friend Ding” by Meng Haoran
2. “At Parting” by Wang Wei
The poems were first translated into French, and were edited by Hans Bethge (in German) thereafter. The German version was then adapted by Gustav Mahler when he composed the final movement of Das Lied von der Erde in 1908.

Former Royal Ballet Prima Ballerina Darcey Bussell chose this piece as her swansong, her farewell to a dazzling career in the ballet world (she was Principal of the Royal Ballet since age 18). As Judith Mackrell wrote, "It was such an eloquent statement of the fact that dance's power lies so uniquely in the physical present, its beauties impossible to preserve because they rest on what is most vulnerable and perishable - the human body. Bussell knew that her own body was on the cusp of its powers. And she decided to leave before its decline was evident to anyone else."
(*From - Darcey: We miss you already)

17th May 1966: Anthony Dowell and Marcia Haydee in the ballet, 'Song of the Earth'. Music by Gustave Mahler, choreography by Kenneth MacMillan. (Photo by Erich Auerbach/Getty Images)

Rehearsal footage of Darcey's final performance (see also here - Song of the Earth: Introduction and Rehearsals)


My favourite scene from The Sleeping Beauty...

And, one of the Balanchine pieces very dear to my heart...

A Million Kisses to My Skin

David and I went out this evening for a very lovely dinner date at the wonderful French restaurant/bistro Le Boudin Blanc. We had beautiful food including a divine chestnut crème gateau with spices and dark chocolate sorbet (my obsession with Indian chai these days has given me a penchant for everything exotically fragranced). In a way the ambiance in this little gem of a restaurant neatly tucked away on a cobble-stoned alley felt even a teeny bit more French than being in Paris (ah, the blasphemy!)...

On our drive back home Bach's Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor was playing on the radio. I instantly turned up the volume as I've loved this gorgeous piece ever since I first heard it, and even more so after seeing David Dawson's ballet "A Million Kisses to My Skin" which he created for Dutch National Ballet in 2000. I went to the performance when Dutch National Ballet toured Sadler's Wells in London. The precision and athleticism does not wane its artistic and emotional quality in anyway, as far as I am concerned. Instead, I find a beautiful parallell between the dancer's movements and what attracts me so much to Bach's music (as well as numerous contemporary choreographers/musicians/composers). An emotional complexity and profundity achieved not through the least bit of sentimentalism, but via a channel that is controlled, balanced, subtle/implicit, at times intellectually challenging, or even 'digital' and rigid. Yet this communicative channel delivers something that is infinitely timeless, glowing intrinsically with qualities that are transcendent. How Bach's music moves me.

David mentioned one of his favourite books dealing with a similar subject, which he thinks I will love - Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, a Pulitzer Prize-winning book described as "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll." It is to be included in my ever growing book list, and I am not a fast reader at all!

As Random Dance Artistic Director and Royal Ballet Resident Choreographer Wayne McGregor eloquently puts it, “I think there’s something wonderful about these dancers, how they’re able to take dislocating, disorienting physical language and imbue it with emotional resonance. I’m a great believer, as was Merce Cunningham, in that the human body can never be without meaning, that the body can never be abstract. The body is inherently literal.”

*Since embedding is disabled, please click here to watch the first movement of David Dawson's A Million Kisses to My Skin, performed by Dresden Semperoper Ballett in 2008, starring Natalia Sologub, Jiri Bubenicek, Olga Melnikova, Maximilian Genow, Elena Vostrotina, Claudio Cangialosi, Julia Carnicer, Giselle Doepker and Arika Togawa. Also visit the gallery for some excellent photographs of this ballet.




Glenn Gould plays Bach Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, BWV 1052

愛染

愛染明王 (Aizen Myou-ou, Rāgarāja)



In Vajrayana Buddhism and in the esoteric Tendai and Shingon sects of Japanese Buddhism, Rāgarāja (Aizen Myō-ō, 愛染明王 or 愛染妙王) is the deity which transforms worldly lust into spiritual awakening. Originally a Hindu deity, Rāgarāja, the deity was adapted into Chinese Buddhism as Àiren Ming-wang, and then as Aizen Myō-ō when the founder of Shingon, Kobo Daishi returned from China to Japan.



Rāgarāja is considered a Vidyaraja or "Great Wisdom King", in keeping with others like Acala and Gozanze. There are four different mandalas associated with Rāgarāja. The first posits him with thirty-seven assistant devas, the second with seventeen. The other two are special arrangements, one made by Chisho Daishi, fourth patriarch of the Tendai sect, the other a Shiki mandala which represents deities using their mantra seed syllables drawn in bonji.

He is portrayed as a red-skinned, frowning man, his appearance representing suppressed lust and passion. He variously has two, four or six arms; in the latter form, his hands bear a bell, a stick, a thunderbolt, a lotus, a bow and an arrow. Similarly, he sometimes has two heads, with a lion's head in his wild hair. According to the Yogin Sutra (Ch: Jingangfeng louge yiqie yujia yuqi jing) attributed to Vajrabodhi, he represents the state at which sexual excitement or agitation becomes enlightenment and passionate love becomes compassion for all living things.

(*Text via: Wikipedia)

Poetry (iv)

...I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

~T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, 1922.

*

On the Nature of Daylight, from the album "The Blue Notebooks," composed by Max Richter.



Also watch David Dawson's ballet set to Richter's hauntingly beautiful score.

Poetry (iii): Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs

*Dedicated to David my love.

Why, such is love's transgression.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest
With more of thine: this love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

(Romeo and Juliet: Act 1, Scene 1)


Portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne (1898-1920). My favourite painting by Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920).


Helen of Troy, 1863, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882). Oil on canvas, 31 x 71 cm. Kunsthalle, Hamburg Germany.
*For the complete writings and pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, visit the Rossetti Archive (it takes time to load).

Poetry (ii): Words & Music for Egon

Egon Schiele, Pregnant Woman and Death, 1911. Oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm. Narodni Gallery, Prague.

Embrace (Lovers II), 1917. Oil on canvas, 39 3/8 x 67 in. (100 x 170.2 cm) Osterreichische Galerie, Vienna.


Given that you’re present right to your
fingertips, that you’re seized with desire,
and given the way you bend your knees
and show me your hair,
and given your temperature
and your darkness;
as well as your subordinate clauses,
the insubstantial weight of your elbows,
and also the material soul
that’s gleaming in the little hollow
up above your collar-bone;
given that you’ve gone
and come, and given all
the things that I don’t know about you,
my monosyllabic syllables
are not enough, or too much.

~Hans Magnus Enzensberger


Fighter, 1913. Gouache and pencil on paper, 19 1/4 x 12 5/8 in. (48.8 x 32.2 cm) Private collection.

Agony, 1912. Oil on canvas, 70 x 80 cm. Neue Pinakothek, Munich.


Against Constancy

Tell me no more of constancy,
That frivolous pretense,
Of cold age, narrow jealousy,
Disease and want of sense.

Let duller fools on whom kind chance
Some easy heart has thrown,
Despairing higher to advance,
Be kind to one alone.

Old men and weak, whose idle flame,
Their own defects discovers,
Since changing can
but spread their shame,
Ought to be constant lovers;

But we, whose hearts do justly swell,
With no vainglorious pride,
Who know how we in love excel,
Long to be often tried.

Then bring my bath, and strew my bed,
As each kind night returns,
I'll change a mistress till I'm dead,
And fate change me for worms.

~John Wilmot


Death and the Maiden, 1915/16. Oil on canvas, 150 x 180 cm. Oesterreichische Galerie, Vienna.

Freundschaft (Friendship), 1913.


Daffodils (1804)

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

~William Wordsworth (1770-1850).
For biography and works, visit this website.


Two Women, 1915. Gouache and pencil, 32.8 x 49.7 cm. Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna.


Music for Egon Schiele, by Rachel's.