It all sounds the height of good taste to me:

Bring off the dancing girls, Italian TV told
Martin Penner, Rome for The Times


FOR many of the 6m Italians who tune in each evening to L’eredita (Inheritance), a quiz show on state television, it is undoubtedly the high point.

During a pause between questions, a glamorous woman in a skimpy dress and stiletto boots appears on stage and begins to dance among the contestants. After coming to a sudden halt, she rotates her hips and thrusts her groin towards the camera, earning thunderous applause from the studio audience.

click for more

And the host of the (pretty bad, I'm told) show has threatened to leave if the dance is scrapped! Many think that would be the only good thing to have happened on Italian State TV in a long, long time.

The terrible thing is that many people are led to think that this is ballet, because in Italian these fill-in TV dances are also called "balletti", and therefore to shy away from the real thing.

I recently finally managed to drag a friend to a ballet (Swan Lake with Zacharova and Yebra, the best to start with) and she was absolutely enchanted and fascinated, and now wants to see EVERYTHING. A few evenings later she waxed enthusiastic to another friend of ours. Friend no. 2 says "How can you like ballet? I can't stand it". Friend no. 1, and me, and others around the table: "How can you say that if you've never seen one in your whole life?" Friend no. 2: "What do you mean I haven't ever seen one? I've seen the ones on TV. They're awful".

I admit, she's not the most cultured person in the world (the only person I know who actually votes for Berlusconi!), but she's not totally dumb either. She's representative of a large proportion of the Italian population. Heaven help the future of ballet in this country...

That is worrying Rennie. I knew that the everyday German use of the word Ballett includes modern dance, but I am amazed that the use of the word in Italy includes modern day burlesque.

<small>[ 02 February 2004, 02:49 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>