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The Tireless Contributor Barnstar |
For your truly amazing work on Marius Petipa, I hereby award you a most well-deserved barnstar. Your edits monopolised my watchlist and forced me to unwatch it, causing pain and suffering when I had to search for the article every day to goggle at your work. Congratulations!
— Editor at Large(speak) 12:55, 16 November 2006 (UTC) |
Articles created so far -
I am 25 years old and I am a former ballet dancer/teacher. I have trained at many great ballet shools, and taken from many great teachers. I have a deep passion for ballet, and even more so for its long and complex history, which is far more interesting than anything going on in ballet today - I take particular interest in the late romantic period on through to Imperial Russia before the revolution of 1917 - I often wonder what ballet would be like today had there never been a revolution in Russia (many of Petipa's ballets would have survived!). Not very long ago I myself was a rather extraordinary dancer, (I only stopped dancing 4 years ago - and I worked very hard to become "extraordinary"), and I probably could have gone much further with it, but I became very disenchanted with company life (I loved to dance the classics, but I hated doing the 'bare foot', modern-ballets which I found were taking up 75% of my time as a professional dancer), not to mention falling in love and moving all over the place. I currently reside in Tulsa, OK, where I live a rather charmed life with my wonderful boyfriend Brian who I've been with now for 2 years.
I am contributing primarily to any articles pertaining to ballet history, as so many dancers know hardly anything about it - I remember being a dancer in class or rehearsal and getting very frustrated at how little my fellow ballet dancers knew of the history of the variation or Pas they were dancing - ballet is RIPE with incorrect credits when it comes to the choreography or music of the classical repertory (for example, the program may say "choreography by Petipa", when it isn't even his choreography, or music by Minkus, when it isnt even his music). As far as Im concerned every ballet dancer should know the detailed history of their art!
As a result of all of this I am most interested in the complicated history that is the so-called modern classical ballet repertory. I have a great many rare and out-of-print books of studies on Russian ballet of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as many other rare sources that I have been collecting since I was very young. I try my best in the articles I write to spare others the annoyance of having to seek out obscure books and histories in order to attain knowledge of the old ballet, and compile all of this valueable knowledge from these sources into the articles I write, as well as including many wonderful photos of the dancers of old to share with the world! I find Wikipedia to be a most wonderful place to do this, and I have noticed that my "knowledge sharing" has spread around online. I am very happy when someone quotes one of my articles, or I see an article on answers.com, or on a ballet company's web page.
For your nice work pertaining to the Classical ballet I, Ghirlandajo, award you the Exceptional Newcomer Award. Keep up the good work!
I also write articles for Amazon.com, and Ive made up a few lists. Perhaps I should make my reviews alot shorter, but I do this to educate others with correct information about ballet history and music, with all of its complexities and nuances, being that there is so little specific information on the web regarding the subject, and to help other ballet dancers/teachers/balletomanes locate properly played and conducted ballet music, as that can be a feat within itself.
I also am a big enthusiast of 19th century ballet music, particularly the music of the House Composers of the old Imperial Ballet - good ole' Maestros' Léon Minkus, Cesare Pugni, and Adolphe Adam. Of the other composers of the ballet, I love the music of Leo Delibes, Alexander Glazunov, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Aram Khachaturian, and especially Riccardo Drigo who in my opinion is the greatest composer of ballet music that has ever lived - his score for Petipa's 1889 ballet The Talisman is the most beautiful score for a ballet I have ever heard. One day I would like to write a book on the lives of Minkus, Pugni, and Drigo - three composers who NEVER get their due credit.
The music of the 19th century ballet "House Composers" was the first orchestral music I was ever exposed to when I was a kid in ballet class, so I tend to lean toward more salon-style music when it comes to classical music, though I do love some purely "symphonic" composers. I adore Johann Strauss II, and Emile Waldteufel, as well as the genius that is Mozart, Bach, and of course, Tchaikovsky. I love opera as well, Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades is the greatest Russian opera as far as I'm concerned. Italian opera is, to me, just as exalted in the annals of art as the classical ballet - Gioacchino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi, Pietro Mascagni, and Giacomo Puccini.
I have a rather valueable and extensive collection of well conducted ballet recordings on CD/LP/Cassette that I have been collecting pretty much all my life, many of which are extremely rare and/or out-of-print. Over the last few years I have become well learned in the history of ballet, particularly the old Imperial Ballet - so I suppose I could go ahead and call myself a ballet historian!
As a result of my interest in the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet of the late 19th century, I have developed an intense interest in the lost Russian Monarchy, particularly the last Imperial Russian family, who were horribly executed in 1917. From this interest I have taken an interest in Victorian to Edwardian-era Royalty, but my interest in Royalty ends there, as I really find most royalty of today to be rather unecessary, a sort of "on-going soap-opera".
I joined the Wikipedia family as a means of satisfying my hobby of writing on ballet and any related subjects. I have a profound knowledge of ballet history, particularly the old Imperial Russian Ballet, it's dancers, and the ballets of the 19th century. I feel that if I do not share this with others, I am doing no one any good by keeping it all in my head. While scrolling through various articles on ballet one day I realized how much the information available needed to be improved, and in some cases corrected (I was amazed to find that the article on the great Marius Petipa had a photo of a completely different person! Needless to say I fixed the problem).
I am particularly interested in creating articles on the works/revivals of Marius Petipa. Here and there if I encounter and article pertaining to ballet or any relating subjects I might make adjustments if I find that the article has either incorrect information or important information left out. I also have the habit of adjusting my own articles when I find out new information, or I notice a passage that can be improved on.
I STRONGLY encourage anyone that finds any incorrect information in any article I compose or change to correct that information accordingly (but please let me know so that I can be sure I have the correct knowledge). Likewise if anyone should encounter a questionable passage please contact me so that we may discuss it, and change it if need be!
I have other interests as well - I am a HUGE fan of Madonna - I have a massive collection of official merchandise, which includes all of her albums on cassette, LP, and CD, as well as all of her singles, maxi-singles, and 12" vinyl singles and just about everything else in-between. I'll leave the Wikipedia articles on her to others however, as they are all very good! I am a BIG fan of The Simpsons, and I probably spend at least 1 hour a day watching a few episodes from my DVD/video collection (I tune in to "The Simpsons" everyday, and everytime I record it, if, of course, I dont already have the episode on DVD/video....right now I think I've got every episode on 27 6 hour videos!). I am also a HUGE fan of Frank Herbert's magnificent Dune chronoicles (next to 19th century ballet history and music, I am an expert when it comes to Dune!). I am also a fan of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. I also have a BIG collection of Lego sets. Well thats me (some of me)......
Thanks for reading. -- Adam Lopez
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