Pas de Quatre

Mark, I don't think you have enough posts to allow private messaging, but previously people forwarded their email to Jan who passed it on to me. Then I can transfer the file online.

It sometimes feels as though ACE dislikes anything traditional or successful. They do indeed decide who can tour where. My nearest theatres are split, Mayflower in Southampton is South East Region whereas Poole comes under Southwest and Wales. We used to get National Dance Company of Wales there which was wonderful, but they haven't been for years. Touring does seem to be more restricted.

Arabian represents coffee, not Turkish delight. So depends whether you take cream in your coffee or not!

In the 19th century it was quite common for Principals to insert their favourite variation even if it was from an entirely different ballet. Both brisés and entrechats six are impressive and can convey the dancing to exhaustion narrative. The purpose of ballet is not to compare gymnastic tricks even though we can all be thrilled by virtuosity!

Merry Christmas to all - and many thanks to Moderators and Contributors for making this a special place.

I love Mark Morris! Another joyful choreographer is Richard Alston, but I don't know whether much of his repertoire will survive.

There are some horrendous situations described, so this is not to belittle that, but I do wonder if sometimes there is some misinterpretation of comments, or they haven't been properly explained. For example, as a teacher I find "lengthen your lines" a normal correction when a dancer is gripping their muscles rather than extending them. A fundamental skill in ballet is to learn how to engage muscles in an "excentric" manner which means "away from the centre".

It has long been said that Comedy is harder to portray than Tragedy.

Dogs need to go out and be fed. So I catch up with balletcoforum while drinking a cup of tea!

Sorry to hear your problems, probably nobody else will notice. In general you need to set a fan oven about 20° less than a standard oven.

A double rond de jambe is the shape of a safety pin, mini circle close to supporting leg. Grand rond de jambe is where the dancer extends the leg to the front and carries it round to the side or can continue all the way to arabesque. Not trying to hijack the thread - hopefully this will help people in their discussions and appreciation of ballet. Now fouettés are a real can of worms! There are several recognised ways of executing them.

Congratulations to your DD. I have had two pupils in the past who went to Laban and loved it.

I am not sure where the idea of "tapping" in a gargouillade comes from. It should be a small circle with the foot on each leg like in a double rond de jambe. First leg starts from 5th front and ends 5th back so the mini circle is en dehors (outwards). The second leg starts 5th back and ends 5th front so the mini circle is en dedans. The dynamic is the same as a pas de chat. It isn't actually that difficult if taught properly. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to happen these days!

Quite a few years ago now I went to a pre concert talk given by Marin Alsop before she conducted Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra concert. One of the subjects she talked about was this jet setting of famous conductors. There are many pluses she said, but the downside was that all orchestras begin to sound too similar. The distinctive sound created by individual Conductors who worked mainly with one orchestra no longer happens. At the time I thought it equally applied to classical ballet as a general "international" classical style has taken root.

Male happy romantic daydreaming, there are lots out there. Tony in West Side Story, Freddie in My Fair Lady (On the street where you live), Curly in Oklahoma .....

Strepsils are excellent. Years ago whenever I flew anywhere I seemed to always get a cold on the plane. I mentioned it to a holiday rep and she said to suck a strepsil on take off and landing. It works, I haven't caught anything since!

As worded the correct answer should be arabesque as it implies the extended leg is at 90 degrees to the standing one. Did they actually mean attitude, where you would have to say the the knee of the lifted leg is bent.

To be honest I think every day is too much for a 6 year old. She should have free days when she can go to the park, go swimming or just play with friends. A couple of days with your local school supplemented by TPA would be plenty, but the local school may not be happy with her dropping classes.

I think possibly it is the audition tours for summer intensives rather than for company jobs that Peanut68 is thinking of. It is a whole different culture in USA and Canada as there are such long summer breaks and students need to find good training

But as the official list says there is a shortage of dancers, does the salary level still count?

On the other hand, decades ago, when I was auditioning for classical companies in UK and Europe there was no pre-election so there were too many people. The worst would be when a cut was made before the class even started. Then throughout the barre after each exercise some dancers would be asked to leave. Less than half those who were auditioning made it to the centre work. Then again cuts were made after every few exercises. Would you really want to return to this? No too bad if a location is within easy reach, but you could spend lots on travel and hotels which was wasted.

As well as seeing the ballet, I have also been to a concert with Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra playing The Miraculous Mandarin. It was thrilling and I loved it!

I am pretty sure there was a BRB version touring some 20-25 years ago, but I will have to see if I can find the programme. It was a fabulous dramatic dance work. Yes a glorious noisy score at times. I have used extracts for my own choreography.

This season Christian Spuck has moved to Berlin. As a parting gift to Zurich his ballet R & J was streamed free. I caught it and enjoyed much of the production. His Dance of the Knights is the best part and there are lots of good things, including the duels and deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt. It is contemporary choreography and at times I felt it didn't differentiate enough between the Montagues and Capulets and became a bit repetitive. Well worth watching though.

I have a vague memory of a TV interview where Wayne Sleep was talking about the mask and costume problems.