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aileen

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Everything posted by aileen

  1. I don't know if I'm getting more tolerant in middle age but I find audiences - even those at the Coliseum - to be pretty quiet generally. I found them almost silent in ENB's recent programmes at the Coliseum. The one exception was a Nutcracker performance in December. There was a mother with two girls, who were not tiny tots, and one of the girls was squirming around almost from the minute it started. She seemed to be wanting her mother's attention (possibly in competition with her sister) and she really was very distracting. Whilst I try to be pretty tolerant of children at family fare such as The Nutcracker, particularly at matinee performances, I was a bit annoyed. I don't think that I have ever encountered a child who was so disengaged at The Nutcracker before. You get young children asking questions or commenting out loud on what they are seeing and sometimes they get a bit fidgety after a while but this particular child stood out for her total lack of interest and concentration from the get-go. As for the Coliseum staff, they are very variable. Some are good and others come across as bored and uninterested. I'd be interested to know ENO's hiring practices. One gets the impression that there is a high turnover of temporary staff. There could be a better selection of food / snacks (the ice creams are nice). I'm not keen on the refurbishment of the circle bar. I preferred it when it was darker and more 'period'; I find it too bright now with that white shiny flooring. I think that the stalls bar area has also been redecorated recently. I seem to remember it being more glamorous before; now it just looks a bit ordinary. In general, I don't think that the Coliseum management has quite grasped the idea that when many (most) people visit this particular venue for a performance they are coming for a special night (or afternoon) out and that the whole experience is important. Rude or miserable programme sellers, sour milk (yes, this once happened to me and they could not offer me a fresh cup of coffee because they had run out of milk) and toilets lacking provisions don't cut it. Some fresh flowers would help as well. Nobody seems to think of the little touches which create the ambience of a special venue.
  2. Around the internet there are some great photographs of Corrales and Zhang. I hope that it's alright to mention that there is a particularly good one on Katya Khaniukova's (public) instagram account showing a smiling, triumphant Zhang with a haunted Corrales following after her gripping her hand. It captures something of the performance.
  3. I think that selling 14 Sylphides in two weeks was wildly over optimistic. I seem to remember that it didn't sell particularly well at the ROH a few years ago and there were only six or eight performances of it. I think that either Song or Jeune Homme (probably the former) should have been paired with something else but there probably wasn't time to rehearse something else because of the tour and the long run of Nutcracker which involves the whole company. The Coliseum doesn't seem to give ENB any assistance with marketing their productions other than displaying flyers in the foyer. They are happy to use my data to market ENO's own productions but are not prepared to use it to market ENB's (but perhaps ENB would have to pay a fee for this and have chosen not to do so so, for whatever reason).
  4. I was also at today's matinee. I fully expected Corrales to be great in the role, and he was, but Zhang was equally terrific. As well as being sexy there was something absolutely implacable about her which made the ending make sense. Arrieta, whilst he didn't (IMO) quite match Tamayo in his dancing, brought very good characterisation to the role of James. As others have said, Quagbeur was exceptional as Madge. I found it hard to take my eyes off her so compelling was she. All the little details and nuances which she brought to the role (particularly how she used her head and eyes) fleshed out the character and made her believable as a person rather than just a 'cardboard cut-out baddie'. The rest of the cast was, I think, the same as I had seen last Saturday matinee. Anyway, the dancers are now off for a very well deserved break after a very long and busy first half of the season. In the light of some comments about the corps in the early performances of Song of the Earth I feel that the company would probably have benefitted from having more than two days (one of which was a day off) between the end of the extremely long Nutcracker run and the start of the Song/Sylphide run.
  5. Thanks for your reply, amos73. Yes, it must have been a wonderful experience for them. Of course, they have another seven performances before they have to return to 'normal' life. If you wouldn't mind saying, who is your child's favourite Sylph?
  6. Amos73, did the same children dance at all the performances and go on tour with the company to Manchester and Milton Keynes? And is this the first time that these schools have performed with the company? I know that Elmhurst always perform in the Nutcracker but I don't know which school performed in Corsire or R&J (I think that there are children in the Deane in-the-round version which the company performed at the Royal Albert Hall).
  7. I saw the Friday night and Saturday matinee performances. Having not been particularly enamoured with Song of the Earth at the ROH a few years ago I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed it on Friday, hence my booking for the performance on Saturday. I felt that the Oliveira/Arrieta/Sarahusi cast was the more integrated one and Oliveira had the edge over Takahashi in terms of intensity. I've been pondering the Messenger role. I'm no expect but I think that he can be played in a variety of ways. I don't think that he has to be a tall or physically 'substantial' dancer or one who has a very menacing presence. Ken Sarahusi is very slightly built and a rather quicksilver dancer. His Messenger was not physically dominating but an insistent figure, always returning to remind the Man and the Woman that death awaited. He was not sinister or threatening but quietly bided his time. I personally thought that he was very effective in the role. Adela Ramirez and Senri Kou were both excellent in the Third Song (I thought that the whole corps was very good, actually). I have wondered before why the latter has not been cast in leading roles as she has always impressed me in the featured roles that I have seen her in. I would have thought that she'd be a natural Giselle and Sylph (ah, the mysteries of casting and career progression again....) As for La Sylphide, well, I rather liked the costumes (although perhaps another colour could have been substituted for the yellow). People are always complaining about how dark and drab sets and costumes are. Ciro Tamayo's dancing was spectacular but I agree that he could tone the acting down a notch; however, I was sitting in the stalls and perhaps it came across better to people sitting further away. Rina Kanehara was a lovely rather child-like Sylph, playful and coquettish. I thought that she could hardly be bettered but Alison McWhinney's beautiful soulful Sylph was absolutely heartbreaking at the end. I would like to pay a special mention to the children (from the Young Dancers Academy and the West London School of Dance) taking part. They were excellently drilled and a total delight (particularly the little boy wearing the red kilt dancing at the front). Btw, is it really the case that Ciro Tamayo performed on four consecutive days this week (he was in both of the performances that I saw)?
  8. You always take such great photographs, Don Q Fan. Do you take them with a camera or with your mobile phone?
  9. It's very sad and unfortunate that Shiori Kase is injured again. I'm sure that she would have been a lovely Sylph. I hope that it's not an old injury that has flared up again.
  10. There have been a lot of responses to the OP's original request for advice. One has, IMO, been unduly blunt and personal in nature. The others have, again IMO, been respectful and thoughtful. Advice has varied - and the OP is free to take whatever advice she chooses or to ignore all of it - but there seems to have been a general consensus that her daughter should cut down on the amount of dance that she does or take a complete break for a short period of time. That may not be an easy thing to do, and may nor be well received by her daughter, but I stand by my point that sometimes you have to overrule your child's wishes in his/her long term best interests.
  11. I haven't seen many versions of Swan Lake and they have all been fairly traditional (although a couple had a happy ending). The one exception was the Maillot production for Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo which I saw at the Coliseum a couple of years ago. It was radically different with a different back story (which I can't now remember) and very different costumes: scraggy feathered leotards for the swans.
  12. I saw this with three teenagers last night. It took a while to get going and I began to wonder if we were going to see any dance at all in the first scene in the house. As my daughter said, there seemed to be endless invitations to the 'ball' (dance in the Cafe de Paris). The narrative is a bit confusing - it seems to go backwards and forwards - but, as everyone (I think) knows the Cinderella story, this doesn't really matter. There are some longueurs, to fill the Prokoviev score, but, overall, it's a very entertaining and clever production with incredible sets and lighting. The Second World War setting is inspired. The best parts of the choreography (for me) were Cinderella's dance with the mannequin which morphs into the object of her affections, Harry, the pdd in the bedroom and the dance for the 'heroes' at the Cafe de Paris. At the theatre there were large adverts for Matthew Bourne's offering for next Christmas: Swan Lake.
  13. The Nureyev solo for Siegfried is included in the Deane Swan Lake for ENB (proscenium version). I very much like this production which has a lot of very good choreography for the ensembles (eg the waltz in the first act, the dance of the princesses in the third). Personally, I much prefer the traditional white tutus for the swans to the longer, shaggier ones worn in the Dowell production for the RB.
  14. Well, that makes much more sense. ENB are performing two Forsythe works, including a brand new commission, at Sadler's Wells in April as part of its Voices of America programme.
  15. With your talk of (wanting) three private lessons a week, on top of all the other classes across a variety of genres, I really feel that your daughter is doing far too much dance and probably exhausting herself both physically and mentally in the propcess. You sound exhausted with it all as well. Notwithstanding what your daughter says that she wants if you feel that your daughter is doing too much / should approach her dance differently then may I respectfully suggest that it's for you as the parent to make the decision here. Your daughter doesn't seem to be enjoying her dancing, she's unhappy and you sound very, very stressed.
  16. If your daughter is doing the new, more demanding RAD syllabus for ballet then she is working at a good level in terms of the grades exams. However, it is concerning that she 'only' achieved a pass in her most recent (Grade 5) exam. Unless she had a bad day that does rather suggest that there's something amiss technique wise. I think that you're right to be concerned about your daughter simply ploughing through the exams every six months or so.
  17. I'm sure that other more knowledgable people will be able to give specific advice but, before they do so, I think that you / your daughter need to establish what she is hoping to achieve in dance? To dance professionally? To dance recreationally but fairly seriously (eg taking the vocational exams, entering competitions and festivals, taking part in things like EYB)? To join a ballet company? To have a career in some other form of dance or musical theatre? I think that your daughter's mental health must take precedence over everything else even if that means taking a bit of a step back for a while. An unhappy child is unlikely to make as much progress as a happy one. I hope that you get some useful advice from other posters soon.
  18. It's a very large venue to fill (obviously!). Sadler's Wells would be a more obvious choice for a modern programme and I wonder why the company is not going there. Presumably, they couldn't find suitable dates. In the Middle Somewhat Elevated was performed at the Wells last year by ENB and the company had also performed it there a couple of years earlier. Perhaps that was also a factor in the choice of venue.
  19. Sometimes Sadler's Wells sells tickets for other venues eg the Coliseum. I think that this happened with Ivan Putrov's and Sergei Polunin's recent programmes.
  20. But in modern ballets the dancers still tend to wear body hugging costumes or vest and pants combos. They would almost never wear loose sweatpants and baggy t-shirts. Jade, in the UK children and teenagers are used to wearing uniforms because the vast, vast majority of academic schools have them and the uniform generally extends to the games, PE and swimming kit. As someone has said above, I think that you are over-thinking the uniform requirements. It would be a shame to miss out on ballet lessons because you don't want to wear a leotard; surely, you have worn one for school gym before. Are you sure that you really want to attend ballet lessons? I ask because you seem to be finding fault with a lot of things. Perhaps you could ask your mother to take you to see some live performances. Paris Opera Ballet does a lot of contemporary work as well as the big grand classics such as Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadere etc.
  21. I'm afraid that the flaws in Eagling's production are more than aesthetic. The Nutcracker / Nephew swapping about is confusing for most people apart from those 'in the know' and the second act staging in the puppet theatre seems to have no connection to the first act plus the dancers seem to be performing to nobody as Clara and the Nephew are off-stage for most of the second act.
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