CriticalDance Forum

Ismene Brown writes about "crime and moral evasion" for the Arts Desk.

Arts Desk

Ms Brown's conjectures about Tsiskaridze in an earlier blog piece are outrageous:

http://www.ismeneb.com/ismeneb.com/Blog ... ttack.html

Basically because Pavel Dmitrichenko's girlfriend is a pupil of Tsiskaridze's she makes the assumption that he ordered Pavel D. to arrange the attack, as warped an interpretation of the facts as you are likely to read.



Well, Pavel D. will get his day in court and more of the Bolshoi's dirty linen will be on show. I must say that I was shocked to hear that he accuses Filin of taking back-handers, I could name a couple of AD's that are guilty of that but I hadn't heard even a rumour accusing Filin of such a thing.

Pavel D's girlfriend is being tainted by association in all this and this quote attributed to Marina Kondratieva is beyond belief:



Fat? Fat!

Here is what Vorontsova looks like http://static.iltalehti.fi/ulkomaat/16758055_ul.jpg

And here is Kondratieva http://www.bolshoi.ru/r/71A578B9-A97D-4 ... ora-bg.jpg I don't see an awful lot of difference size-wise.

This is such a dreadful business and a tragedy for everyone involved.

David Remnick writes a lengthy article (12 pages) on the Bolshoi for the New Yorker.

New Yorker

That took some reading! Don't they employ editors at that publication? The whole article could have been whittled down to a third.

Very subjective on the whole but malign outside influences may yet prove to have played a part in the Filin attack.

I think we have to keep in mind that the standards at the Bolshoi and in Russian companies in general -- in terms of weight for the ladies, among other things -- are not the same as in Western companies. I have heard many other Russians say the same thing about Angelina, and about ballerinas at the Mariinsky that people in the West would consider thin or even underweight. If the pedagogues view someone that way, they are not looking for excuses...there are plenty of reasons to not give someone a role.

Also, Ismene Brown's assumptions are based on what I would call "inside facts" based purely what I have heard/seen from inside Russia in the past 3 weeks.

Today the Bolshoi dancers have gathered money to hire Pavel D. an attorney -- that is how much they believe he is innocent. The same goes for Filin who today is quoted in a live interview from Germany with his sister sitting by his side, where he explains that he never had any conflicts with/from Pavel and that someone obviously "worked really well" on getting him to confess...

http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=1053348

In the Guardian, Miriam Elder reports that 300 Bolshoi artists have signed a letter asking for a Kremlin investigation.

Guardian

Boer Deng writes about the political ramifications for the future of the Bolshoi for the Atlantic Monthly.

Atlantic Monthly

Vladimir Isachenkov writes about the rising war of words at the Bolshoi for the Huffington Post.

Huffington Post

That Huffington Post article is fine but the captions to the 'Who's Who at the Bolshoi' feature at the end are both ridiculous and inaccurate.

I'm ITA with you Cassandra. And if this isn't enough, (not to mention Anastasia Volochkova's allegations over the weekend), now this escalation: http://news.mail.ru/incident/12434661/? ... &social=fb. According RIA Novosti, a person (or persons) unknown tried to break into Tsiskaridze's apartment today according to Moscow police.

Thank God he wasn't at home or I dread to think what might have happened to him. It seems no one is safe in the higher echelons of that company right now.

It has been some months now since this disgusting incident occurred and the trial of Pavel Dmitrichenko has been put back until July, curiously he has been denied bail; as his defence lawyer is the same as the defence for the unfortunate Pussy Riot members, I can only hope the lady is due to earn an acquittal this time around, unfortunately statistics would indicate that this is unlikely to happen as in Russia once they have pinned a crime on someone then they are guilty as charged as it seems the concept of being innocent until proved guilty carries no weight there. There has been a lot of comment regarding the appearance of Dmtrichenko after his ‘confession’ but being beaten up to extract a confession is not unusual in Russia I’m told. Although it may seem surprising to outsiders, Dmitrichenko still has a great deal of support from his Bolshoi colleagues, even to the extent of voting him their union rep, though how he was supposed to carry out union duties in prison was never explained. In the UK bail would never be denied to someone with no previous criminal record and reasons would have to be given as to why it is deemed necessary for him to remain in prison

Although no doubt bitterly disappointed that she was unable to pin the crime on Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Ismene Brown continues with an endless stream of blogs with the sub text of how awful the Bolshoi is, but the story she related about a TV appearance by Filin’s wealthy father in law that he later regretted brought a new slant to the story. In the meantime Filin has taken himself off to Germany for a seemingly endless series of eye operations in spite of Moscow being the acknowledged world centre for eye surgery. Graphic photos of Filin’s face have now been released months after the event leaving the defence to question just how serious his injuries were as there was no trace of facial damage when he left the hospital less than three weeks after they were presumably taken.

In the meantime Nikolai Tsiskaridze, the company’s star dancer, has been dismissed and his student, Angelina Vorontsova who is Dmitrichenko’s girlfriend, has been forced to resign, dancers known to have been friends or pupils of Tsiskaridze have been denied places on the upcoming London tour. Svetlana Lunkina, now exiled to Canada after her husband’s brush with the Russian mafia, gives an interview to Izvestia in which she slams Filin’s record as director. In his most recent press interview Tsiskaridze reiterates his view on the extent of Filin’s injuries and reveals that Filin will leave his sick bed to appear in London for the prestigious season that starts this month: we’ll see.

There seem to be a great many questions regarding this case with no apparent answers and people who took an initial interest in the story no longer know what to think

Tom Parfitt interviews Sergei Filin in Aachen, Germany for the Telegraph.

Telegraph

In the Telegraph, Sarah Crompton reports on Sergei Filin's appearance at the Bolshoi's performance at Covent Garden on Monday, August 12, 2013.

Telegraph

Filin returned to Moscow on Saturday, September 14, 2013. David Herszenhorn reports for the New York Times.

NY Times

In the Guardian, Shaun Walker reports on a press conference at the Bolshoi to introduce the 2013-14 season.

Guardian