do you remember the mind race game? He is about to turn forty, counted from his first appearance in society. It was created by two Argentines, Jaime Poniachik and Daniel Samoilovich, who were probably inspired by the Trivial Pursuita similar game invented in Canada some time before.
It consisted of a cardboard circuit to be covered with the help of dice and progress was given by correcting answers on the most varied topics: science, history, sport, entertainment, culture, nature and more.
On a much less ambitious but much more focused scale, a sort of “mind race” is presented here. exclusively on the dance of all times and places; without the need to roll the dice, without a circuit to travel; It’s all about answering by knowledge or by intuition or simply by betting with an opponent.
The following are the statements that must be qualified as true or false.
(answers and explanations are under each one)
1-The solo “The Dying Swan” is a scene from the ballet “Swan Lake”
FALSE. The only coincidence is that both have the word “swan” in the title. Swan Lake, created by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov to a score by PI Tchaikovsky, was first performed by the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet in 1895. It is a large, three- or four-hour work designed for a large body of dance; Many things happen in this ballet but succinctly it is the tragic love story between a prince and a princess transformed into a swan.
the dying swan, for its part, was released in 1907, also in St. Petersburg, albeit for a charity party. His choreographer, Mikhail Fokin, created it in just half an hour for the ballerina Ana Pavlova. What you see, simply, is a dying swan during the approximately five minutes that the piece lasts. Pavlova, however, made her a legend.
2 – Cuban star Alicia Alonso has retired from acting at the age of 75
REAL. Alicia Alonso was one of the greatest ballet stars of the 20th century, with an unusually long artistic life. When she danced for the last time, she was just days away from her 75th birthday.
It needs to be clarified that it was actually the last time… in pointe shoes. Why when she was 91 she danced again: portrait to remember was presented at the Havana Festival as part of a tribute to the great Cuban musician Ernesto Lecuona. Alonso obviously had, at that moment, great limitations of movement and the almost total blindness that accompanied her practically throughout her professional life. But the force of the scene continued to work on her.
3-El Chúcaro and Norma Viola formed a sentimental couple
FALSE. Santiago Ayala el Chúcaro and Norma Viola formed such a welded entity that the name of one seems incomplete without that of the other; However, despite the long years of very close collaboration, the tours that took them around the country and the many vicissitudes – good and bad – that they lived together, there was no sentimental relationship between them. At least that’s what Norma Viola always claimed.
It is true that in an interview she said: “I loved Chúcaro more as a partner, and may God forgive me, than my husband.” Santiago Ayala was famous for being a large hummingbird. But Norma said she was resolute right from the start and she had often warned her: “Teacher, you can’t break the rules”.
4-The tango was the most condemned and forbidden dance of the ballroom dances
FALSE. The Viennese waltz, which emerged in the last decades of the eighteenth century, was much more condemned than the tango – finally the tango received the approval of Pope Benedict XV at the beginning of the twentieth century – to the point that some European countries banned its practice for several decades.
The waltz’s enormous expansion came after the Congress of Vienna in 1814, and its explosive popularity also brought with it bans and anathemas. A German author had already published in 1797 a work addressed to his young compatriots which bore the following title: Proof that the waltz is the main source of the weaknesses of the body and mind of our generation. Strongly recommended to the sons and daughters of Germany.
5-Flamenco dance only appeared in the mid-19th century
REAL. The art of flamenco has millenary roots, some known – such as the influence of Arab and Jewish cultures – and others mysterious. But as such it was only recorded in the last decades of the 18th century with great singers like El Fillo and El Planeta. The guitar and dance appear much later, in the mid-19th century, and assert themselves with the rise of the café singer. The most famous of these institutions was the Café de Silverio, which opened in 1881 in Seville.
The Sevillian cantaor Silverio Franconetti, of an Italian father, lived eleven years in Uruguay working as a picador, naval officer and tailor; then he returned to Spain, opened his café-singer and with his encyclopedic knowledge of flamenco he brought together the best singers, guitarists and dancers of the time.
6-Antonio Gades had a very early vocation for dance
FALSE. Antonio Gades is undoubtedly one of the most important and influential artists of Spanish dance. But his immersion in that world was accidental.
In a book on the art of flamenco and his life in particular, Gades says: “I became a dancer out of hunger. My family was extremely poor and I started working at eleven: cadet, photographer’s assistant, fruit delivery boy. He wanted to try everything to escape hunger: cyclist, bullfighter, soccer player. I took some dance lessons on the recommendation of a neighbor who saw me dancing to the tune of an organ grinder. After three months I got a contract to dance in a cabaret: mambos, cabaret dances… incredibly stupid shows. I was sixteen.”
7-Pina Bausch was the creator of the genre of dance theater
FALSE. The term dance-theatre began to be used by the great German choreographer Kurt Jooss (1901-1979) in the late 1920s to describe a form of dance-theatre, with characters, situations and conflicts. your own creation the green table (1932), about the tragedy of wars, is a true classic of modern dance of the 20th century.
After the Second World War the great German modern dance movement withdrew and classical ballet performances gained strength. But in the 70s the wheel turns again and that term “dance-theatre” returns with new elements brought in by different choreographers. In the 1980s most of the official dance companies in Germany called themselves theatre-dance, beyond the different aesthetics; among these the Wuppertal Tanztheater directed by Pina Bausch, who had been a disciple and dancer of Kurt Jooss.
8- The weight of the artificial snowflakes that fell in the ballet “The Nutcracker” in 1991 was 15 tons
REAL. In December 1992, New York Dance Magazine devoted a special issue to ballet. Nutcracker, which has been a hundred years since its original premiere. Among the many curiosities of this number, the magazine reproduces a statistical table of 32 items on the American productions of the “Nutcracker” of the previous season.
It should be remembered that this ballet is an unbeatable tradition in Anglo-Saxon cultures and especially in the United States. Well, among the various objects are the 15 tons of snowflakes that were thrown in the famous scene; obviously, counting the 232 productions from all over the country; including one in the state of Alaska and two in the state of Hawaii.
9- Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers had no bond, not even friendly, off the set
REAL. Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire were the quintessential romantic couple in Hollywood musicals. How beautifully they danced, sang and acted together. However, the romance was limited solely to screen shadows. Off the film set they were barely compatible; They respected and liked each other as professionals, but they weren’t friends, they didn’t frequent the same clubs, and neither even knew each other’s homes. They were both very sociable people but in totally different fields.
During their first seven films they never kissed. The audience was starting to wonder “Why don’t Ginger and Fred kiss?!” It finally happened Carefreehis first color film, and as a culmination of a slow motion sequence.
10-The piece “The faun’s siesta”, created by the brilliant Nijinsky, culminating with a masturbation
REAL: In 1912, Vaslav Nijinsky premiered his first choreography, A faun’s nap, in a Parisian theatre. For the previous three years, as part of the Ballets Russes, he had been the sensation of Paris with her prodigious dancing. She was twenty-three and now beginning to show her genius as a revolutionary choreographer.
nap of a faun it lasted twelve minutes, and the final scene, in which the faun masturbates lying on the shawl of a fleeing nymph, caused a tremendous scandal among the audience. The director of Les Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev, ordered that the dance be resumed immediately, from beginning to end, without being able to calm spirits. The turbulent effect continued over the following months with intense debates between the conservative newspaper Le Figaro and the sculptor Auguste Rodin.
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Source: Clarin
