aileen

I think of Berlin audiences (because I think of Berlin as a magnet for creative types and entrepreneurs) as being quite young and more interested in contemporary work than the big classics, hence the current appointments and the previous appointment of Duato. Is that not the case? Vanartus, at least you'll have the pleasure of seeing the lovely Ksenia Ovsyanick (who was featured in a lengthy and quite candid interview in this month's Dance Europe).

Hmm, this is an unfortunate thing to have said. What if SB wants to bring its Swan Lake to London or ENB wants to revive A Million Kisses to my Skin? Is he going to deny these companies permission to perform these works in London?

Luke Jennings asks whether it's possible to have a portfolio career which includes classical ballet. He seems to suggest not and that the discipline and rigour of daily class and rehearsals are necessary if you wish to dance at the highest level. How well do peripatetic dancers (ie those who are not part of a company) actually dance? Is there a reason that, unlike opera soloists, ballet dancers are almost always attached to companies or is this just tradition?

Penelope, I think that that's a bit harsh. I really don't think that SP was playing some cynical trick on the audience. He tried to have high production values by commissioning a score, using a live orchestra and bringing in Osipova and several other dancers (ENB, ex-ENB, Stanislavsky plus others). He also worked with several other people on the choreography. It's unfortunate that the end result was unsatisfactory. I think that SP is guilty of some naïveté. These 'vanity projects' are hard to pull off successfully. Most dancers only get involved in them towards the end of their careers when they have danced everything and have seen a lot of other work (and often experienced a lot of other art forms) by a variety of choreographers, both classical and contemporary. SP has never seemed to be particularly interested in dance as an art form (I think that he has said that he doesn't go to watch dance performances) and I do think that this may hamper him when curating his own programme.

Don Q fan, ticket prices were high for Sadler's Wells (£60 for the best seats, I recollect), higher even than for a full ballet company accompanied by a full orchestra. Like you, I am wary of this type of programme.

Nice comments and a lovely photograph in the DanceTabs review of the gala, CeliB.

Up until the late sixties there were few controls on immigration into the UK. There was a labour shortage and people were emigrating from Britain to places such as Canada and Australia. Yes, there was racism towards Black and Asian people but there wasn't the same discussion about absolute numbers of immigrants by the government and in the press. As the populations of Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have grown they have all introduced strict immigration controls.

I meant to say earlier that I like the concept of linking the legend of Narcissus with concerns about the narcissism of social media.

Yes, I think that's the one, Johnpw. The photograph of Polunin dancing it (the one with an orangey background) is often still used in articles about him. On the same programme was Maliphant's Afterlight, a work inspired by Nijinsky, performed by Daniel Proietto.

I seem to remember that Polunin performed another Narcissus themed piece as part of Putrov's Men in Motion programme shortly after he had left the RB. He was mesmerising in that.

Well, I won't be seeing this but, trying to be fair to Polunin, this programme probably looked good on paper. He started with a respected bravura Soviet piece to showcase his technique and followed it with a contemporary work which had been well received in Russia and which he thought would be a good contrast. Unfortunately, neither of these pieces particularly appealed to British sensibilities. Then there followed a new work, to a newly commissioned score, which in anyone's hands is a huge risk. There are plenty off companies with huge resources at their disposal which have produced poor works.

Well, I'm someone who has taken advantage of the cheaper prices to buy a ticket in the stalls although I'm slightly regretting it now as I suspect that Flight Pattern will look better from above.

Graham Watts has written a thoughtful piece about last night's performance. He endorses the point that capybara made earlier when he says that Polunin needed critical friends for this project rather than personal friends and long term associates. That's the problem with these very personal / vanity projects: nobody is looking at the programming and content with a dispassionate eye.

I very much enjoyed your veil and codpiece link, Mary. The mind boggles.

Yes, the reference to 'sparkly codpiece' in VickyPage's review and 'posing pouch' in one of the reviews in today's Links made me laugh out loud. What on earth was Polunin thinking of?

So agree with you Kate.

Ooh, those reviews are very negative. Tbh, I was concerned when I saw the photographs before last night's performance. It demonstrates how difficult it is to curate an evening of dance. It's not a given that great dancers have great artistic taste or make even passable choreography. I wonder how much advice and help Polunin received when planning the evening and creating his own choreography.

There was one but I think that it was locked.

There are of course a lot of non-EU dancers who work in the UK. The companies accept that they have to apply for work visas for them for a few years until they are given Leave to Remain which I think they are eligible for after about five years. Some non-EU dancers, particularly from Australia, NZ and Canada, may have dual nationality already or benefit from what used to be called Patriality which entitles you to work in the UK without a work visa for a few years. However, quite a few of these non-EU dancers are international competition winners and the ADs are presumably willing to make the extra effort needed to bring them to / keep them in the UK. Looking at the situation the other way round, and as Harwel says, it may become more difficult for British graduates looking for that first, perhaps temporary, contract to get work in the EU when companies will have to go to the trouble of applying for work visas. It's much less hassle to stipulate in application forms that applicants must have the right to work in the EU. Getting that first contract is already very hard. I've noticed, certainly at ENB, that a large number of their artist positions go to dancers moving from other companies rather than new graduates.

Ooh, I remember those scraggy tutus from Lac when it was performed at the Coliseum a couple of years ago. Part of the charm(?) of theses galas is the occasional way out piece. I remember Tamara Rojo dancing with a goldfish in a bowl one year.

I almost bumped into SP (literally) at Sadler's Wells on Saturday. He very politely stepped back to let me pass. As others have said, he has a very modest demeanour which is at odds with his 'bad boy' image.

Well, it all depends on whether Sean wants the 'whole student experience' of living away from home among thousands of other (mostly) young people. Manchester in particular has a huge student population; there are around 26,000 students at the University of Manchester alone. Jordanstown Campus seems to operate a bit like a school or FE college with everything closing at the weekend. However, it might be livelier during the week when the students are on campus and all the facilities are open. I'm not clear whether most of the students live on campus or in local houses or flats during the week and return home at the weekends or whether they live at home during term time. It's perhaps worth pointing out that university campuses can seem rather dead at weekends anyway. My friend and her son went to an offer-holders open day at my son's university one Saturday a few weeks ago and reported that it was a bit of a ghost town. All the facilities were open but there were very few students around. When I mentioned this to my son he pointed out that about two thirds of the students live off campus anyway and that those who were living on campus would still be in bed or mooching about their flats until a late hour on Saturdays and Sundays after a night out. Traditionally, students go to the library on Sunday afternoons but these days so many resources are online that you can work in your bedroom.

Principals who have risen through the ranks at the RB can become stars. The two things are not mutually exclusive. Who is a star is debatable, of course, but few principal dancers, however accomplished, become stars. That status is reserved for the very few.

It's very hard to know where to start if you have a huge choice of universities. I'm not saying that it's the right or wrong approach but many prospective students and their parents use league tables, both for the university and for the individual subject, as a starting point. I do think that there is a big difference between the experience of studying at, respectively, the London universities, universities based in large cities (eg Manchester), universities based in small historic cities (eg Durham) and campus based universities (eg Warwick). In the era of online fora and social media stereotypes about the type of students who attend the different universities have developed and this does tend to attract like-minded students so the stereotypes do have more than a grain of truth. Some courses incorporate industry placements, which appear attractive in terms of enhancing employability, but I would check exactly what the university offers in terms of securing placements ie does it have connections or schemes with employers in the numbers required by the cohort of students (it's not much help if there are 200 students in the year but there are only 40 employers on the university's books) or are you expected to organise your own placement. Whilst cost is a factor there's no substitute for visiting a university. Some prospective students are energised and excited by the hustle and bustle of a big city whilst others find it intimidating. Be aware that the much advertised advantages of campus universities fade away after the first year when you are no longer living on campus and may be living some distance away from the faculty, particularly if the campus is based 'out of town'; with the huge increase in student numbers there are few opportunities to live in university accommodation beyond the first year.

It's a long run for a *relatively* unknown ballet: 14 performances.