Sophoife

Maybe at the Royal, but I can remember an AusBallet cast of the "BRB version" of Nutcracker (i.e. no Hans-Peter and no Angels) with Ako Kondo as Sugar Plum Fairy, Miwako Kubota as Rose Fairy, Reiko Hombo as Clara, and at least two part-Japanese corps girls...but Snow Fairy was a red-headed Aussie.

Australian piano exams in my youth had from approx grade four (AMEB syllabus) four "guided choice" pieces (i.e. choose one piece from each of these four lists), and they were roughly divided into Bach And His Mates, Mozart Et Al, Beethoven To Chopin Stopping Off At Liszt, and Twentieth Century. I met and immersed myself in the 48 that way, discovered Mozart added far too many acciaccaturas and appoggiaturas for my (ill-practised) fingers, and fell in love with 19th and 20th century piano repertoire. We also had scales, sight reading and an "aural" section, where the examiner played notes, chords and phrases for us to identify (phrases we had to say the key).

Added leaver: experienced coryphée Jasmin Durham, who took her final bow on 30 September after Swan Lake.

@Emeralds I queried the red gown on AusBallet socials and the response I got said "Amy did a quick change [from the nightgown] in under a minute so she could have her final bow in the iconic red dress of Marguerite!" I can assure you that in the three shows I saw nobody did such a change, including Amy Harris. Photo (taken by me) shows Amy and Nathan Brook on Wednesday 23 November. Nine years ago Lucinda Dunn's removal of Manon's cropped wig for her final bows attracted some criticism as it "wasn't traditional" (Luci's own hair was past waist length).

"Het Nationale Ballet" and its shortening to "Het" thing is amusing, because The Australian Ballet insists on the definite article being capitalised, but nobody would refer to the company as "The". The suggested abbreviation is "TAB" but that's also the short name of the Totalisator Agency Board, aka the formerly-government owned betting agencies in Australia and New Zealand, so I prefer not to use it. Hence AusBallet.

No, they and Davi Ramos have all been hired as soloists, as I said and as the company has announced. I am guessing they are the vanguard of dancers leaving Queensland before Li Cunxin formally steps down. Knowing, as I do, some of the other dancers who've approached AusBallet this year, Heathcote and Estévez are certainly right up there in terms of talent and artistry. The clear-out of experienced dancers at AusBallet this year and their replacement with, basically, eight new graduates says to me Mr Hallberg is, after delays due to Covid, now forming the company according to his lights. In addition to the three principals and two senior artists retiring in 2023, the company also lost two male principals and one male senior artist over the last couple of years, and this year has been particularly light on female principals, as no less than three were at one stage on maternity leave and one was injured, and unlike the Royal Ballet we don't have 19 principals, nor do we have any such thing as a principal character artist. We now have nine principals: five women and four men (yes, I know the website says 11 including seven women, but both Amber Scott and Amy Harris have danced their last performances with the company). It's almost guaranteed that there will be promotions in the near future, possibly even one or two during December (23 Swan Lakes in Sydney including the public dress rehearsal). Senior artists Nathan Brook and Marcus Morelli and coryphée Misha Barkidjija will dance Siegfried, and senior artists Jill Ogai and Rina Nemoto, and soloist Yuumi Yamada, will dance Odette-Odile.

Thank you @Darnedshoes for the review - and I completely agree with your final paragraph! What an opportunity for the young Onegin to dance with Lunkina! You may or may not be aware that the Cranko stagers reserve the right to casting, and have been known to both throw out a company's suggestions and to cast dancers companies don't necessarily want to bring to prominence, so it's a compliment to him he was cast - especially with her. He can only benefit from the experience, really.

The Australian Ballet has announced 11 new hires for 2024: Soloists Mia Heathcote (principal, Queensland Ballet) Victor Estévez (principal, Queensland Ballet) Davi Ramos (grand sujet, Het Nationale Ballet) Corps de ballet Laura Griffiths (joined mid-year from ENB School) Alice McArthur (John Cranko Schule, company says "from Paris Opéra Ballet" but I think that was a short-term contract only as she was a finalist in this year's external recruitment competition but not ranked top six) Plus six graduating students from Australian Ballet School: Yaru Xu, Isabella Smith, Macy Trethewey, Charlton Tough, Corey Gavan, and Jeremy Hargreaves. Leavers this year include principals Adam Bull, Amber Scott and Amy Harris, senior artists Chris Rodgers-Wilson and Dana Stephensen, plus Coco Mathieson, Karen Nanasca, Jacqueline Clark, Corey Herbert, and Lisa Craig. There may be more by the end of the year.

I saw it three times and am working on a detailed report. Season now ended, and Swan Lake opens on 1 December. Jessica Fyfe's podcast episode is available at

You can. AusBallet's stream from 21 November is available until 5 December at this link. Cost is AUD$29 or 26 if you're a subscriber. Includes The Dream and a bunch of interviews with conductor Barry Wordsworth, dancers, répétiteurs and stagers, medical/physio staff etc. Amy Harris as Marguerite and Nathan Brook as Armand, with Steven Heathcote as Armand's Father. Ako Kondo as Titania and her husband Chengwu Guo as Oberon, with Brett Chynoweth as Puck. Edited to add that I've seen Tzu-Chao Chou dancing Aurora's solo from act I en pointe in a studio and OMG he can so dance it!! He was doing it for fun but took it totally seriously. Also, of course, although the Trocks ham it up, they've got technique underlying the fun and their pointe work is on point as it were.

Thank you @Dawnstar for both the photos and the information! When I think Cecil Beaton costumes I think Gigi and My Fair Lady, and the gowns for Marguerite are beautiful.

With reference specifically to Marguerite and Armand, which I have just seen live three times in Sydney (AusBallet - review in progress), there were no wigs except on Stand-In Marguerite coughing her lungs up in the prologue (to make her more credible). The costumes and set were sourced from "Sarasota Ballet (Iain Webb, Director)" as credited in the programme. I can't remember from the one Royal Ballet show I saw in 2017: do you have the Gentleman in the violet coat with the enormous white cuffs and the one in the striped trousers? They certainly look outdated to me 🤣

Antonia Forest's The Player's Boy and The Players and the Rebels were researched and written at the time of the Shakespeare quatercentenary (1964). The player's boy of the title is apprenticed with the Lord Chamberlain's Men and there is information on costume. Think wadded-up lengths of cloth.

Not a crinoline in the early 1600s. A farthingale (which apparently originated in Spain and came to England through Mary I with her Spanish connections). Different construction and shape. @Ondine said Leaving aside the Trocks, how soon will we be seeing a male Aurora, I wonder? (Couldn't paste a second quote into an edited post) To answer that question is impossible, but I do point people in the direction of Scottish Ballet's Cinderella, in which Christopher Hampson has cast both male and female dancers in the lead role. Third response regarding pirates and slavers: both the western and eastern coasts of Africa were notorious for nests of pirates and slavers, who were European, native African, and (most vicious from my reading) Muslims from the north-eastern region (modern Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco for example). "Barbary pirates" were largely Muslim, and operated throughout the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic, down the west African coast, and historically as far north as Iceland.

Hah I'm the [sole] member of the hashtag #NitPickersNotSoAnonymous 😉, always posting on AusBallet and ROH threads "Respect the dancers and name them, please. Here's a start for you..." and my second personal hashtag #RespectTheDancers 🤭

@Paco your comment regarding the 37 degree angle of the left big toenail aligning with that of the right little finger made me laugh, thank you. It also reminded me of Katisha in The Mikado - "But I have a left shoulder-blade that is a miracle of loveliness. People come miles to see it. My right elbow has a fascination that few can resist...It is on view Tuesdays and Fridays, on presentation of visiting card."

AusBallet did a triple bill back in 2011 with the umbrella title of British Liaisons. It consisted of Checkmate, After the Rain and Concerto. I don't think I need to name the choreographers here 🤭 The general consensus at the time was that Checkmate suffered by comparison with the other two pieces. It is of course possible that its very stylised nature was harder for the company to adapt to. My recollection of six performances with varied casts is that only one cast really "got it", whereas the Wheeldon and the Macmillan were more uniformly well-danced. On a frivolous note, when I asked then-assistant AD Danilo Radojevic in about 2013 why we couldn't have something fun and light like Pineapple Poll, he said it was very dated, to which my response was "*cough*Checkmate*cough*".

Our class was taken every year to the Festival Hall for a schools' concert. Early 1970s. We also had music lessons and a school orchestra, every class learned dancing including some basic ballet, and we had Art Appreciation, with nicely-bound folder/booklet things containing colour plates and info on both the works shown and the artist's bio, one per artist. Them were the days.

Birth certificates are accepted by banks in Australia, but they're what's called secondary ID. Primary ID has a photo of you: 🇦🇺passport (up to 2 years post-expiry), current foreign passport, current 🇦🇺/NZ driver's licence, current government-issued proof of age card. OR Secondary (we need two of these): birth certificate (🇦🇺/foreign), citizenship certificate (🇦🇺/foreign), current non-photo 🇦🇺 licence, current Commonwealth pension or health care card, current 🇦🇺 Veterans card. OR Any one of the secondary ones plus one of: current foreign licence or current (3 months) utility bill with name and address, Tax Office notice (12 months), current federal or state security licence. Usefully there's quite a selection of non-photo items.

Thanks for the reminder, Naomi! If anyone is interested and is happy using a VPN, there's still quite a few Australian Ballet performances available on ABC iView, which is free. Paquita, Warumuk - in the Dark Night (Stephen Page and Bangarra), Sleeping Beauty, Coppélia, Dyad 1929 (McGregor), Cinderella (Ratmansky), Romeo and Juliet (Murphy), Spartacus (Jervies), The Merry Widow, and La Sylphide. Also Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker!, Red Shoes and Swan Lake. Lana Jones, one of the most classical ballerinas we've had in the last 20 years. Her retirement was, IMHO, far too soon, but she's now a midwife in Brisbane, and she and husband Daniel Gaudiello (also retired principal) have a son. Kevin Jackson is teaching at the Australian Ballet School. Amy Harris is retiring next week after 22 years with the company. She and husband Jarryd Madden have two children. Ako Kondo continues to dance as a principal with the company, and she and husband Chengwu Guo have a little one sharing the love with the "fur babies". Juliet Burnett left the company in 2015 after (finally) dancing Odette and Giselle, and after freelancing for a while joined Ballet Vlaanderen. She's been back in Australia freelancing again for a couple of years now. She did get to dance the Akram Khan Giselle while there. Beautiful (my favourite) Miwako Kubota retired in December 2016 and she and her partner have a gorgeous little boy. She taught company class in Brisbane while they were dancing there recently.

She would not of course be dancing with him, and I understand she's very particular about her partners (which is reasonable, for someone in her position). To cover the costs for special guests here (flights, accommodation, remuneration etc) there's a specific philanthropy fund, and the people administering that haven't changed.

Osipova was supposed to dance (special secret guest) with AusBallet pre-pandemic and told the company two days out that she wouldn't make it due to injury. She was on stage elsewhere in the world on the day she had been due to be on stage here. Not injured. I doubt she'll be invited back. Which is a shame. She needs to manage or have someone manage her commitments better.

Gosh I know we're not "supposed" to like that sort of thing, but in such hands it was pure joy and fun. When I marvel at Osipova's speed, it's that diagonal turning past the matadors I specifically remember. She was almost a blur to the naked eye.

I'd love to see Osipova as Kitri now, having seen her with Vasiliev guesting with AusBallet in 2013. Her speed was incredible! She and Vasiliev hammed up the dress rehearsal: fast, strong, and utterly joyous to watch. In the second one-handed lift he got her up, put his arm out, moved into arabesque, then rose on to demi-pointe. And held it. And held it. Everyone on stage was whooping, as were we, and finally the then-AD got on his mic and said, "OK enough please", and was heard to be laughing as Vasiliev lowered Osipova like a piece of porcelain, then made fists and displayed his biceps. I'm told their actual shows were somewhat more restrained.

Yes, he has, @LinMM. He loves teaching there.