mauriceC

For me,"TWINKLE" was a total delight........long time since I have said that about a new ballet........liked the other three too...

Janet,I am glad you mentioned "License My Roving Hands"...had to check to see if Jimi Hendricks was "heavy metal" before I commented well it is not the first heavy...but as it was SWRB I suppose it doesnt count..........I cannot get at all excited about this as it is not my kind of music and there seem to be an awful lot of people involved...lets hope they agree on which way to go.Hope for BRB it is a huge success and it will certainly get them plenty of publicity.

I think of her very much as a RB Touring Company dancer,part of that great John Field group of protegees in the late 60s/early 70s;she was a fine dance actress.As has already been said,she was also great support for Nureyev in his Paris Opera direction. Vividly recall seeing her giving an opening day class at Yorks Ballet Seminars,.......not an easy ride!!!!

Whilst I was lucky enough to see her in a variety of roles with SWRB,my most vivid memories of lovely Vyvyan Lorrayne have to be of Monotones and Enigma;I do not think she was equalled in either.I am pretty sure I recall a friend commenting at the time that she was the only Ysobel who managed to die her shoes to match the blue ribbons in the costume.She is a beautiful Fairy Summer in the Sib/Dowell Cinderella film but also,later with SWRB surprised us all with her very funny but poignant American Lady in "the Grand Tour";great fun at the time alongside her contrasting Balanchine roles in Apollo,Prodigal Son and Allegro Brillante. Happy memories,thank you.

What a glorious treat that was! All praise to Iain and Maggie for staging so much of the Ashton legacy .

re Raymonda Act 3 Always a treasure as far as I am concerned. I still recall the original RB Touring Company performances with Doreen Wells and David Wall with great pleasure Forgive me if this has been mentioned in the previous posts but it should not be forgotten that the Touring Company performed the full length ballet at the Spoleto Festival with Nureyev and Wells replacing Fonteyn in the mid 60s.The first UK performances were announced for the next regional tour opening i n Coventry but the production was withdrawn because of scenic difficulties and never seen.and was replace by "Sleeping Beauty" with Fonteyn. Act 3 was then presented in the Autumn 1966 tour in the present gorgeous designs .......I am pleased to hear that once again there is applause on curtain rise.....at the last BRB revival the audience sat on its hands!

All best wishes to James ..He has always been splendid with BRB in a tremendous variety of roles from Petrushka to Widow Simone!

The Mill,Banbury is a small welcoming venue with a space rather than an actual stage. I agree wholeheartedly with Sheila's initial report that this is an excellent group of dancers who presented four varied pieces with total professionalism and aplomb. The running order was changed to put "Playground" as the central piece;I recall it as being pretty dislikeable thirty years ago but this smaller scale version(the orIginal must have been 10/15 mins longer?)was harrowing. It was also so good to see a piece of Cohen after so long........happy memories of London Contemporary Dance Theatre.......... Deservedly sold out at the Linbury,I reckon and I look forward to catching them again soon.

""Playground" was performed on the Spring 1980 SWRB tour;I saw it in Stratford and Birmingham . "Dance and Dancers" listings show it also in Liverpool,Sunderland,Norwich.Bristol as well as Sadler's Wells and ROH.It was programmed between either Concerto and The Grand Tour or Concerto and Elite Syncopations except at ROH (Grosse Fugue and Paquita). I look forward to seeing the Yorke Dance programme in Banbury on Thursday.

The Macmillan Conference a few years ago ended with Lynn giving a masterclass on the R & J..I think Bedroom pas de deux. She urged the dancers to" make it more dangerous"......something i now always look for whether it is ballet or play.

In an early review of "Dances At A Gathering".Richard Buckle said"Seymour was such a miracle of Mozartian comedy,I was sure she had sprung it on them.I was right.Next day Robbins said"We didn't know she was going to do that".She had surprised the most Mozartian of choreographers." I was lucky enough to interview her for BRB Friends when she was coaching the Ashton Isadora Waltzes.She talked a lot about Sir Fred being so lovely to her when creating "Two Pigeons" and how she had no fear of him;the devastation of not doing the opening "Romeo" and working with Nureyev(no dancer ever worked so hard). Some years earlier,i had interviewed Christopher Gable( rehearsing "Peter & The Wolf" for SWRB) and he spoke much about dancing with Lynn;he recounted a tour to a Festival in the South of France,run by ,pianist,Moura Lympany;Gable said they had been there less than half an hour when the "director" approached him,throwing his hands up in the air saying"Miss Seymour is eem possibeel!". "

Is this an expanded version of the 1973 ballet? My memory is that it was one part of a triple so about 45mins at most??

An excellent interview from Celine .Pity there was not time to point out that during the run,she like the others will be dancing several other roles,making it even more hard work that the the interviewer thought.

I remember interviewing Graham for SWRB Friends at the Hippodrome.A very nice chap!

I did have to look up the year;the dancers were a certain Margaret Barbieri with Hendrik Davel. For the record,the rest of the programme(S Wells) was Solitaire,Monotones 2 and The Grand Tour.