Google Video - Ballet

Had a look at Google Video for the first time in a while yesterday. They added some new features to it, like supplying easy html to embed the video into ones website, very nice! :) So I'm trying it out. Searching for "ballet" yeilds way more interesting results than it did a while back too. I put up this clip I found of a ballerina performing 32 fouettes (in what looks like some kind of gala thing). I'm using it cos its short.

For the curious, an explaination of the significance of performing 32 fouettes can be found here, or just read on! :)

Swan Lake is one of the more technically demanding ballets, due in part to a remarkable Italian ballerina by the name of Pierina Legnani. When Legnani danced the central dual role of Odette/Odile, she brought to it the ability to perform 32 fouettes in a row. The public was so impressed that from that production on, any ballerina who danced the role had to perform the 32 fouettes. Legnani's name is still cursed by ballerinas the world over.

A fouette is a fast whipping turn on one foot. As you can appreciate it, it's very difficult to stay in place while doing this. But ballerinas don't just hate the 32 fouettes because they're technically demanding. They also resent them because they are, in essence, "a circus piece " In other words, they're strictly for effect; movements with no psychological motivation behind them. And for a ballet like Swan Lake to be a fulfilling experience, the movements have to reveal character; they have to have reason.