The "Fred Step" Spurs Synchronicity

Pas de bourree on over to the Ballet Bag to check out Linda's March 29 article on Frederick Ashton which illuminates – by detail and by video of Scene 1 of La Fille Mal Gardee – the "Fred Step. " It's a very thorough article and delightful reading.  It even quotes Alastair Macaulay on Ashton.

But what a coincidence!

This afternoon (March 30) Alastair Macaulay decided to write about the "Fred Step" in his ArtsBeat blog at The New York Times as though he had just thought of it out of the blue.  He followed the same type of detail in explaining the step as did the Ballet Bag and then described his favorite instance of the use of the step as being in Scene 1 of La Fille Mal Gardee - the exact scene that Bag Lady Linda had inserted video for in her article to illustrate the Fred Step! 

It's not the first time that a New York Times dance critic has experienced unexpected synchronicity with a ballet blogger or forum.

Comments

[The Ballet Bag]

We love you forever for exposing what we shall now refer to as "the strange case of the Fred step Synchronicity".

In a recent digital storytelling conference we attended at a London university there were all sorts of examples being shared of mainstream media taking... cough... cough... inspiration from bloggers. Would be interested to hear case studies from your side of the Atlantic!

Bourrees,

E&L

[Haglund's Heel]

Oh yeah, Haglund has stories - the best one is of the freelance writer for a group of newspapers in California who lifted big chunks out of Haglund's reviews of ABT's Romeo and Juliet to use in her own ABT reviews of Romeo and Juliet when the company toured there last summer. It took eight email exchanges with the publisher to get her review removed from the various websites. She's still writing for them!

This current "synchronicity" surprises Haglund. Alastair could have made himself a hero by crediting the Ballet Bag and providing a link to Linda's article, but instead, he stooped . . . .

Haglund posted a comment at the bottom of his article, but it didn't pass "moderating". LOL!

[James Wolcott]

The New Yorker used to note such matters in its Funny Coincidence Department, a department it had to retire after one of its own writers was caught borrowing without asking.

Perhaps Alastair forgot his journalistic manners because he is still woozy from his Steel Cage Dance Death Match with Charles Isherwood over Come Fly Away.

[Haglund's Heel]

Woozy maybe. Today in his blog about La Fille Mal Gardee, he writes that he grew up on a farm and was often left alone inside the farmhouse to "daydream," and then somehow works that into a discussion of Lise's erogenous zones. It's all making Haglund a bit woozy.