aileen

That can happen in the UK too with our FPTP system in each constituency as well as overall. Many people feel that their votes are 'wasted' and that creates voting apathy. With referendums every vote does actually count. There will be an anguished postmortem about the pollsters' inaccurate predictions in the next weeks and months but, even as I watched the coverage on Tuesday night before any of the swing states' results came through, I felt that there was too much emphasis placed on relatively minor demographic changes in these states ie a small number of Black and Latino citizens moving into predominately white areas. People who voted for Trump wanted change and Clinton represented more of the same. Personally, I don't think that any Democratic candidate of any persuasion would have won. Of course, Trump won't find it easy to deliver on his simplistic slogans. Investment in jobs and training costs money but people want lower taxes. People want cheap goods but locally made goods have higher production costs. How is he going to resolve these contradictions?

I was the one who took this thread off track. Could one of the Mods move the discussion about eating options in the ROH area to a new thread. Thanks.

The problem with people who are 'takers' (and that includes plenty of people who do not have a MH problem) is that they are voracious. The more helpful / kind / accommodating you are the more they want. A friend once told me that 'no' was a powerful word and I agree with her. If you say 'yes' once you are asked ago and again. It's often said that you can't change other people; you can only change how you respond to them. I agree with this too. I appreciate that it's difficult but you need to put some boundaries in place, as Anna has said, otherwise your sister will continue to dominate your life. I have no idea whether your sister can change her behaviour but you can. Good luck!

I've struggled to find anywhere around the ROH to have a quick bite. There's Peyton & Byrne but their pies and quiches can be very dried up by the evening and often there isn't anything savoury at all. I think that the ROH probably capitalises on this.

That's very poor customer care / PR, Vanartus. If that were the head of Individual Giving then I might have been tempted to tell him / her that I would be cancelling my Friends' membership. And what a cheek to reprimand you for going to see other companies! It's your business how you spend your own money. Funnily enough, I received a request to become a Friend only today.

I saw this on opening night. I can't access the two reviews which appear in Links today but the review in the Evening Standard largely reflects my feelings about the performance. It's a theatrical work more than a dance work with elements of Chinese opera, acrobatics and lengthy musical interludes. There was a synopsis in the programme but I didn't find it very illuminating. The subject matter formed the basis of the film Farewell My Concubine but, unfortunately, I had read the synopsis of Raise the Red Lantern beforehand instead! The staging (Tim Yip) was spectacular and there was some very arresting choreography. In particular, the portrayal of the demon / alter ego of one of the characters was amazingly well done with one dancer dressed completely in white and with whitened skin and the other dressed completely in black and with blackened skin (and no, this was not 'Blackface' IMO). The male dancer in the role of the Concubine was very affecting as well as astonishingly elastic. However, I can't deny that the work (100 minutes long without an interval) was hard going at times, particularly during the vocal parts (which were unintelligible to me).

ENB took on a 17 year old Prix de Lausanne winner last season and she danced a number of featured roles before she turned 18. I don't know whether she was technically an apprentice but she was not described as such in her bio. She is dancing Clara in Nutcracker in December.

I assume that Shiori Kase is injured as she is not featuring in Nutcracker either.

Some interesting items in that long list. I'm particularly looking forward to seeing ENB's programme (which we already knew about), Ghost Dances by Rambert and Scottish Ballet's Pitie work.

It had sold well before the run opened. I think that it's all the factors that Alison mentioned plus there are multiple Nutcrackers and Beauties coming up and some people may have had enough of them (and may also have given Fille a miss this time).

Khan has said that he was particularly drawn to the character of Hilarion in the 'traditional' Giselle and so decided to expand the role of Hilarion in his production. In traditional versions he is a sort of Shakespearian tragic hero in a way in that his fatal flaw - jealousy - causes the death of the woman he loves and subsequently his own death.

Some people may be interested to hear that part of the score (the last part, I think) is being released under the title Requiem to raise money for the towns / people affected by the earthquakes in Italy which I believe is the home country of the composer, Vincenzo Lamagna. Edited to add: It is apparently the closing music of the ballet, which has previously been released as a solo, and the proceeds of sale of Requiem up to 31 December 2016 will be donated to the earthquake victims. I found this information on the composer's Instagram account.

Yes, you can choose your own seats at the Coliseum.

A very clever statement.

I find it rather insulting when a dancer stands in for another dancer (sometimes at short notice) and gives a great performance but is then not / never cast in the role again.

Your students could get a taxi from Luton Airport to Stevenage Station which is on the main line to York.

I think that this shows how tremendously difficult it is to create an effective full length ballet from scratch rather than produce a new version of Cinderella, Nutcracker, Swan Lake etc using the traditional score. Many famous ballets and famous productions were substantially altered / re-worked before they became hits.

Duck, please do post about the companies / performances you see abroad. Your posts are very interesting and they inspire me to go and see some more European companies in their home countries (time and money permitting). So far, I've only managed Royal Ballet of Flanders (twice).

It's interesting that you mention culture shock, Mummykool. I had that experience a year or two ago but it was the other way around with a powerful contemporary work followed by a classical work, which I found rather twee. I wish I could remember what the works were. I don't think that they appeared in the same programme and the works may have been performed by different companies. It makes me wonder whether too much of a contrast between different works in the same programme is not always a good thing.

Moderators, can you please move this post to the Doing Dance section of the forum?

To be fair to the RB, capybara, Muntagirov has been cast in many, many roles in the core rep since he joined the RB. Where he has lost out, I think, is not being cast prominently in new works by the associate choreographers (who all have their favourites). There are only so many roles to be divided between the principals and up-and-coming dancers and some of them have a rather restricted repertoire anyway and will, naturally, be first to be cast in the roles which they dance well. You mention Muntagirov dancing abroad so much. Osipova and, to a lesser extent, McRae do as well but some principals seem to guest very infrequently, perhaps confining their guest appearances to galas over the summer break. Of course, these things are negotiated and agreed between the individual dancer and the company but frequent absences do present challenges in terms of scheduling rehearsals and covering other company members who are ill or injured.

£77 for the best amphitheatre seats. Were those seats as expensive for Swan Lake last year?

Does anyone know what Martha and Toby are doing next? I had been expecting an announcement that they would be joining the cast of An American in Paris but when the London casting was announced recently their names were not included.

I think that there can be a problem with defining 'vocational' and 'non-vocational' in relation to international students. Some seem to attend studios several hours a day but you would probably not say that they are vocational students as they are not at an educational establishment which provides academic education. They may be home educated (the US) or study through correspondence courses (Oz) or leave formal education at a young age. They train intensively at a very high level but can such students be classed as non- vocational when much or most of their days are given over to ballet and academic work, to the extent that it is done at all, is put on the back burner?

Don't the schools just recruit who they believe to be the best students and in a wider pool which includes international students isn't it inevitable that a large number of students offered places in our upper schools will come from overseas? Personally, I believe that starting from scratch at 11 in our vocational schools puts our students a couple of years behind when they are auditioning for upper schools at 15 or 16.