Stunning Simone Messmer

on the cover of Dance Magazine. Thanks to the Haglund'eeler who rocketed the picture to us this afternoon. Can't wait to see her on stage again when Miami City Ballet has its Joyce Season at the Koch Theater in April. Tickets are on sale right now.

 

Comments

[melponeme_k]

I'm baffled at the current vogue of making dancers look like body builders. The aesthetic of oiled limbs highlighting ripped muscles says brute, animal force to me not ethereal ballet.

Miami Ballet's NY programs are interesting, I'm going to try to make time to see them perform.

[frmrdncr]

Strong ballet dancers (and all the good ones are) have always had a chiseled musculature. They're thin, so the definition is amplified. Amanda McKerrow had muscles that you usually only see on men, and she was most ethereal. She just never posed near nude.

[Haglund]

I don't think that the cover of Simone takes taste in the wrong direction although I wonder if Dance Magazine considered its 7-, 8-, 9-, 10-year old audience when choosing the photograph. First of all, it's a still photo. If that were a stage costume, the reaction would be quite different. I recall a performance of ABT's at City Center where the sheerness of the costumes in Seven Sonatas and the bare legs and skimpy undertard resulted in sitings of the women's genitalia from the second row of the orchestra. I really think that we could do without that sort of thing - regardless of how much dancers and choreographers think that it "expands" ballet. If ballet can only expand through flexing big muscles and exposing genitalia, then it truly has come to a sad end.