Skip to main content

Artistry and body type - choreographer Kapitanova speaks

Reading up for a piece of writing, I coincidentally came across this passage in an interview Vladimir Zaglada conducted with Moscow Dynamo choreographer Yelena Kapitanova.  I'll quote it here word for word.

'As I see it, the most important thing is that gymnastics dance fortifies and inspires the body of the gymnast, sometimes even concealing certain superficial defects.  When you are watching a powerful, elastic, pliable body exploding skyward, do you really think about the fact that the gymnast's legs are short or long?  You appreciate the line of the body and how beautiful it is in motion.  Everything else is forgotten.' (Zaglada, 2010)

Interesting in light of some of the discussions surrounding 'The Artistry Fallacy'.

Comments

  1. It's an interesting opinion

    "When you are watching a powerful, elastic, pliable body exploding skyward, do you really think about the fact that the gymnast's legs are short or long? You appreciate the line of the body and how beautiful it is in motion. Everything else is forgotten"

    Exact noticed !

    ReplyDelete
  2. So well said!! I couldn't agree more!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you, Queen for using an excerpt from the book which I really like. But something what suppose to be important for gymnastics' professional was always for me just a regular rules of my work. Got more and more questions about One Coach's Journey...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Komova should have won!

It was a very tight battle in the North Greenwich arena today, with American Gabby Douglas beating out Viktoria Komova by a mere 0.259 points (see results below) and the legendary Aliya Mustafina sealing her comeback from that career-threatening injury with a well deserved bronze medal. Yes, she suffered a fall from beam after her Arabian somersault but elsewhere she was at her best, a real endorsement of the work of the Russian coaches in nursing her back to almost-top form since that fateful day in 2011. Komova had a faultless competition apart from a step on landing her Amanar vault. Frankly, she must feel utterly shattered after coming second once again by a very small margin to an American who was treated very generously by the judges. Komova soared and took every beam move to the max, rounding off with her rare double Arabian dismount in fine style; Douglas literally sidled along the beam, seeming frightened to take her feet off the apparatus for all but her somersaults. Kom...

Who really won the WAG All Around?

You will find a link to the FIG's newly published book of results at the Olympic Games here .  This year, they have broken down the judge's execution scores so you can see exactly how each judge evaluated the gymnasts' performances.  It makes for interesting reading - if only I had more time to analyse each judge's marking.  A skim reading already highlights multiple inconsistencies in individual judges' marks and makes you wonder why they bother with the jury at all. I have taken the time to look at the reference judges' scores for the top four in the women's all around.  The FIG explains here what their role is, and how they are selected.  I even used my calculator, which is a risky thing in my hands.  My, how I wish we could have seen a similar document for the Tokyo World Championships. I wonder if anyone can explain how, if the FIG's Code of Points is so objective and fair, it is possible to come up with two different results using two differ...

The State of the Art - Gymnastics in 2013

Just picked up Peter Aykroyd's 1987 book  International Gymnastics: Sport Art or Science?.  Seeing it reminded me that gymnastics is in a constant state of flux and change; its identity has been subject to debate and conflict since the earliest days of competitive gymnastics, well before it existed in the form we recognise today.  I want to try to talk about the state of the sport today, how it compares to past models, how it arrived at this point, and what are the questions arising. I make no apologies for publishing the picture comparisons on this page, which were created by Lifje.  Some have seemed to find them rather challenging in the past, but they are not airbrushed or altered in any way.  Yes, the pictures are purpose selected for the sake of comparison, but they express a truth about the direction the sport has taken over the past few years.  They are not so much about Russia versus America as artistry versus athletics.  I do not pretend...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more