Film: Our Kind of Traitor

[alison]

Bear with me: there *is* a reason why this is in the dance section of the forum

 

The other week, I caught up with this film in the cinema, and was surprised to see Carlos Acosta, in "Diana & Actaeon" "mini-skirt", featuring in the opening sequence, followed by a load of ballerinas in fairly standard white tutus (some of whose names I recognised from ENB when the credits rolled).  As I never actually got to see La Esmeralda in the cinema due to a transmission failure, can anyone tell me whether it would actually make sense to have D&A plus a corps in what may well have been white swan tutus or similar in the same ballet?  I'm assuming it may just have been cinematic expediency, but I may be wrong.

 

Also, if anyone happens to recognise the theatre they used: the decoration on the boxes was ringing bells, but I can't remember where it's from.

[A frog]

It seems the film uses specially created choreography, the only relevant credit I can see is to someone called Francesca Jaynes. It's likely she created something loosely inspired by existing ballets, but without giving it more thought than what was needed for the movie.

 

I haven't actually seen it so can't help re the theatre, and the list of filming locations I can find doesn't go in more details than Paris, London, etc.

[RMM1]

Yes there is a Diana & Actaeon entertainment within La Esmeralda at the betrothal celebration for Fleur de Lys and Phoebus.

[FLOSS]

The Diana and Acteon pas de deux is one of those pieces that turns up in gala programmes. It started life as part of a ballet called Le Roi Candule which, I believe, disappeared from the repertory before the Revolution. Vaganova adapted the pas de deux into a high octane Soviet style display piece which is why it has become gala fodder. She added it to the third act of Esmeralda where it sits alongside the other divertissements. I imagine it does not look that out of place when it is performed in a production that has been subjected to similar modernisation but it sticks out like a sore thumb stylistically if you see it in the context of the reconstructed Esmeralda.

Edited June 13, 2016 by FLOSS

[Wulff]

The Diana and Acteon pas de deux is one of those pieces that turns up in gala programmes. It started life as part of a ballet called Le Roi Candule which, I believe, disappeared from the repertory before the Revolution. Vaganova adapted the pas de deux into a high octane Soviet style display piece which is why it has become gala fodder. She added it to the third act of Esmeralda where it sits alongside the other divertissements. I imagine it does not look that out of place when it is performed in a production that has been subjected to similar modernisation but it sticks out like a sore thumb stylistically if you see it in the context of the reconstructed Esmeralda.

 

The correct name of the ballet is "Le Roi Candaule" - not Candule. And the divert in that ballet was known as the "Pas de Diane" and was originally a pas de trois for For Diana, Endymion and a Satyr. Vaganova's substitution of Actaeon for Endymion is mythologically incorrect since he was never Diana's lover but was turned by her into a stag as a punishment for spying on her bathing, and was killed by his own hounds. Endymion is usually considered to be Diana's lover and is so depicted in the denouement of Ashton's "Sylvia" and in some paintings, but even this, the purists tell us, is mythologically inaccurate, since he was the lover of Luna (Selene) the moon goddess, not Diana (Artemis).

 

Another fragment from "Le Roi Candaule" has found its way into "La Bayadere" in the form of Gamzatti's variation in the Pas d'Action. This was composed for the ballerina Julia Sedova who performed the role of Queen Nisia in Petipa's last revival of "Le Roi Candaule" in 1903. This version of the ballet survives in the notation held in the Harvard collection.

 

It is remarkable how various items have migrated from one Petipa ballet to another, very often at the choreographer's own initiative. "Paquita", for example, is another ballet which contains a variation originally from "Le Roi Candaule." What with Petipa's own substitutions and those of Soviet ballet masters the whole matter of what originally belonged where is highly confusing.  

[alison]

I thought Diana *was* the goddess of the moon?

 

Thanks, all.

[Wulff]

I thought Diana *was* the goddess of the moon?

 

Thanks, all.

 

So did I, but not according to some "experts".

[Tulip]

My daughter and her friends from Central were the dancers in this film. The bit they did was filmed in a theatre in London. Carlos Acosta really looked after my daughter and her friends, making sure they weren't getting too cold etc.

[Jacqueline]

I thought Diana *was* the goddess of the moon?

 

Thanks, all.

According to my pocket book of mythology, Diana is goddess of hunting and of the moon. She could talk to the animals and however much of the moon was visible, depended on her mood. Presumably full moon equals good times, three quarters fairly relaxed, half moon could go either way, quarter = beware and no moon = avoid. 

[David]

The Roman goddess Diana, usually equated with the Greek Goddess Artemis, daughter of Jupiter and twin sister of Apollo was well connected and like most women of my acquaintance excelled in multi-tasking, included amongst all the other roles ascribed above, that of fertility goddess helping women conceive and give birth to children on the one hand while proclaiming herself a fierce supporter of chastity and virginity on the other.

 

She was the archetype of the competent, free-spirited, independent and often contradictory female and not to be messed with!!!!

 

We mere males would be well-advised to steer clear of this particular debate.

[Sim]

My daughter and her friends from Central were the dancers in this film. The bit they did was filmed in a theatre in London. Carlos Acosta really looked after my daughter and her friends, making sure they weren't getting too cold etc.

Cold?  With Carlos in the room?  Impossible!! 

[Jan McNulty]

Film Review:  http://www.easyreadernews.com/130777/kind-traitor-british-movie/