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trog

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Everything posted by trog

  1. I saw this last night, and it was a pleasant way to spend a Tuesday evening. I assume this was a one off performance and it won't been seen elsewhere, which is a pity. The artists presented a mixed program of dance and music. That is two evenings of music and dance that I have seen in less than a week! Heaven. Music played by Hedwig quintet from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and a piano. The quintet sat across the back of the stage, hiding being their music stands. It wasn't until final piece in which they took centre stage, when we could see them. The choice of instruments, bassoon, clarinet, flute, French horn and oboe, meant some of the tunes sounded a bit different to normal. I think some pieces worked better than others. Of the dances, the ensemble pieces gave the most visual pleasure. Only 8 dancers, all girls, gave each artist lots of solo opportunities, including parts from The Sleeping Beauty (not my favourite ballet), and others. I especially liked the Spanish variation but as a sucker for Flamenco, that isn't surprising. A couple of boys would probably have improved the visual effect. The stage at the Crescent is quite small, but this didn't seem to restrict the dancers. I hope this is the start of a successful career in ballet for all the dancers. I'll have to keep my eye out for them in the future. I spotted David Baddiel in the foyer. Why would he attend a low key ballet evening at a small theatre in Brum? He is related to one of the dancers.
  2. There are lots of classes at the DanceXchange (known as Fabric now for some reason) in the Hippodrome and classes as the Midlands Arts Centre in Edgbaston. Sadly they don't do performance any more.
  3. When BBC4 moves online, I thought is was going to be an on-demand service (ie iplayer) and the arts and culture programming was moving to BBC2, although how this will fit in with the snooker,tennis, etc schedule is anyones guess. If arts content does move to BC2, perhaps future ballet, etc programs will be more widely seen. I don't know what will happen to the foreign language series. Presumably the Beeb will do what Channel 4 does and just put most of them online.
  4. If you're like me and use a proper film camera, you might have noticed the difficulty in purchasing film. Here's why https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy7m8x/why-theres-a-colour-film-shortage-right-now Trigger warning! The final line of the article contains strong language.
  5. I think the Beauty improves when the story is done and dusted. It's a long haul to Act 3...
  6. Me too and I like to think I turned out OK. My favourite program was The Samurai, here is a colourized version of one episode, but it was in b/w. Trigger warning - a one of the Koga ninja (the baddies) gets his arm lopped off in the opening credits (about 30 seconds in). I've never had the urge to lop someones arm off - I'm more of a shower curtain guy 🤣
  7. They will ban R&J next on the grounds she is 13. When Ballet Cymru do their Cinderella, the ugly sisters have the toes cut off when they try to put on the slipper. There have always been many children in the audience when I have see it and from what I could see none were bothered.
  8. My favourite step to do is temps de cuisse, particularly the Cecchetti variant. The mind is still wiling, but the body is finding class is more and more difficult as each year passes. The Fred step mentioned above flows very well, and even three left feet me can give it a decent bash. My essential element is a ballet is watching the corps run on, especially in Swan Lake. This still gives me a rush even after 45 years of watching.
  9. TPTV (Freeview 82) have The Tales Of Beatrix Potter Boxing Day, 08:45 Immediately afterwards is a very rare recording of The Eartha Kitt Show, which if it what I think it is, is from Australia. No ballet but some damn fine singing!
  10. There are some £40-£60 on amazon. It is very easy to build one from PVC pipe, but I think the cost of the pipe would be more than buying one. It is probably worth monitoring ebay too, if you aren't in a rush. At the mo, there are a couple for £10 or less. I built up a fairly good weight set from ebay, by placing minimum bids on plates within 5 miles of home.
  11. I'n no expert (Heck I can barely do a pirouette!) but if you can do them in the centre but not at the barre, are you subconsciously reaching for the barre, which is throwing you off balance?
  12. When transferring my DVDs to hard disk, I had one commercial DVD that failed (I have about 150). I had only watched it once. This was Pumping Iron II: The Women. No problem, I'll just buy another. Long out of print (if that is the right term), prices varied from £60 to £350 and I couldn't find a copy in the UK. I purchased one from Australia (funnily enough from Adelaide, which is where I'm from). It is missing the extra features, which is an interview with the director and some photo galleries. Seems mine was an extra rare pressing. I found a download DVD rip too at £12 - same story. With the DVD-Rs, I had 3 out of 620 fail. I was able to recover one using some software on the PC. This took 29 hours! Another I was able to download the episode concerned from the internet, but it is in a different aspect ratio to the rest of the series I recorded, which I find annoying. The other is gone forever - a documentary that I recorded off Channel 4 maybe 10 years ago. It was in fact, DVD-R no 1. It seems storage media is getting more fragile. I have cassettes of Hancocks's Half Hour that I recorded off the radio in the late 1970s which are still fine. In fact I would rather listen to these than the cleaned up MP3s I have. I have some very rare recordings. One of the MP3s I have, has clearly come from a copy of my radio recoding, which I swapped for some others. Dad was using his welder and this caused a few dropouts, which are present in the MP3 too. My VHSs are fine too. In the college where I work, teachers have VHS recordings that they have been using for 30+ years. I have been convert these to digital format. These VHSs weren't stored in the best of conditions, mostly in classrooms and often on the floor. After many years of use a few of the tapes were stretched a bit, but I had no failures at all and there were well over 1,000 tapes.
  13. The equipment isn't difficult. You need a VCR, a SCART splitter lead, one of these and a computer with a DVD burner. I converted my VHSs to DVD, and any new recordings on DVD. DVD is proving to be less reliable than VHS, so now I'm keeping everything on hard disks. At the mo I juse use external usb h/ds but a NAS would be a better option. This posting has some further information about converting HDMI outputs (eg PVR and DVD players) to hard disk files.
  14. trog

    Seriously?!

    No stranger than musicals about * one of the USA founding fathers (Hamilton) * a TV talk show host (Jerry Springer The Opera) * about the events leading to the signing of the US Declaration of Independence (1776) * a city in which private toilets are outlawed and the citizens are forced to utilize pay-toilets instead (Urinetown) - won 3 Tony awards! * the life of of an Argentine politicial (Evita) * a musical based on the Stepnen King novel (Carrie) etc, etc
  15. Somebody did this, so it looks like Pans People are dancing to The Stones
  16. I have several pair and I have found most of them on ebay. I have listed them in the order of how I rate them : Tagxi unknown brand another brand Japanese (quite uncomfortable) I also have a really compact French pair which fold into a package about 8cm x 8cm x 1cm. These are my favourites. How about this (probably) stolen pair ? This Carl Zeiss pair look very nice, and probably are brill, but they are pricey.
  17. TPTV have shown Mods and Rockers a couple of time, which features Western Theatre Ballet (pre-curor to Scottish Ballet). You can watch it here https://www.tptvencore.co.uk/Video/Mods-and-Rockers?id=e8a143ae-2b1d-40df-89b9-2858bcb84358 Spot a young MicK Fleetwood on drums.
  18. Sky Arts Sunday 7th August 06:00 Rumpelstilzchen: Ballet Boyz (Jane Horrocks, Tanya Reynolds and John Marquez) 07:20 Balletboyz: Them/Us 14:00 Cirque du Soleil: Delirium (repeated from Tuesday) Tuesday 9th August 06:00 The Metamorphosis: Arthur Pita (Edward Watson and Corey Annand) 08:00 Cirque du Soleil: Kooza Wednesday 10th August 01:00 The South Bank Show: Carlos Acosta (just in case you missed it) 01:55 Why Do We Dance? To Tell Stories (just in case you missed it the last time around) I am also really enjoying Alred Hitchcock Presents. Nothing to do with dance but superb. The cast is a real who's who of the period.
  19. Another great has gone to the big stage in the sky https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-62330478
  20. I saw the trailer and decided not to book. I'm not a fan of watching people run around for no apparent reason.
  21. Are they still using the umbrellas? The Dream was the first ballet by Ballet Cymru I saw and it has always been a favourite.
  22. OBS Studio works very well. You will also need a Mirabox and something that outputs a TV picture to HDMI. I use my PVR and/or DVD recorder. The Mirabox also says you can use Potplayer which is easier to setup than OBS Studio, but this only works with M$ Windows and I don't think this has the ability to schedule recordings. If you want to edit your recordings (clipping out commercials, etc) Shotcut is the way to go. I think Shotcut can record from a source like Mirabox, but I didn't spend the time to investigate. Run all this on Linux for a completely free experience, or use your Mac or Windows box.
  23. Here is one on Tollhouse Way (A457) in Smethwick. The sign the on the back of this one says the same thing. The road is a 4 lane dual carriage way, and I assume the signs are to direct cyclists on the new cycle path on the other side of the road, which I'm standing on to take the picture, although this makes no sense if you are coming the other way. I think a sign saying "use cycle path" would be better.
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