Naomi M

On 13/12/2021 at 23:43, Emeralds said:

I fear we’ll soon have to fly to Japan to see Ashton’s Cinderella! Thank you, Naomi- Yui is brilliant! The whole company looks wonderful in the clip. 

Ashton’s Cinderella is one of the most popular ballets in National Ballet of Japan’s repertoire, so popular that it is performed almost every year (this year in May) and also we will have an educational program of Cinderella with introduction of the backstage and sets, costumes (which were originally used at Royal Ballet and purchased by National Ballet of Japan) 

You are welcome to visit National Ballet of Japan once the pandemic is over. Currently some programs have to be replaced because of the travel restrictions with the coaches impossible to enter the country. But I think there will be more streamings. 

On 14/12/2021 at 20:43, Quintus said:

Branching slightly off - when Company Wayne McGregor used to complement the Royal Ballet for some of his pieces, such as Tree of Codes, I noticed Fukiko Takase as a stand-out contemporary dancer, and started following her in other events.  The Daiwa Anglo Japanese Foundation had her on a Zoom webinar last year talking about her move back to Japan and into freelancing, which was fascinating.  I particularly like the video she did with Thom Yorke of Radiohead fame for Ingenue - well worth looking up on Youtube.

Fukiko Takase is joining Akram Khan’s Jungle Book Reimagined tour. So now she works in both UK and Japan, she also was teaching First Grade students at The Place this year. A brilliant and very creative dancer and a lovely person indeed. 

Yasuo Atsuji principal of BRB has announced on his Instagram that after almost 14 years at Birmingham Royal Ballet he will leave at the end of February and return to Japan. Not retiring, he will continue his career as a ballet dancer in his home country.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CXEGZq3gGxN/?utm_medium=copy_link

1 hour ago, Geoff said:

When clicking on the link I get a request to install the Vienna Staatsoper app - which appears not to be available in the UK. Is there a way around this?

The same thing happened with me (message of the app not available in Japan) , but I had the app pre-installed and when I opened the app it became available. 

And with my PC I could watch this (log in is necessary)

A reminder that the above Vienna State Ballet’s program is currently streamed for 72 hours.

https://play.wiener-staatsoper.at/event/5c0fcbf7-b409-49fb-978c-824060c68ec6

15 hours ago, oncnp said:

 

But do read the fine print....the entire programs are not included (e.g Manon with Kaneko/Muntagirov) due to copyright. 

And no Diamonds either. 

It is going to be streamed but at a very expensive price of 12000JPY for 2 programs.(early bird price 11000)or 6000 JPY each. 

https://www.nbs.or.jp/stages/2021/wbf/streaming.html Japanese 

And not all works, some like Manon and Diamonds will not be streamed. 
 

Perm Opera Theatre has started an online streaming platform based on Vimeo with some of their opera and ballet contents could be streamed at a low price of about a little more than a pound for a week.  

https://online.permopera.ru/

Swan Lake, Nutcracker are among their offerings and they are fabulous productions. 

and on November 3rd and 4th, with the NIGHT OF ARTS campaign in Russia, you can watch them for free with the promo code ARTNIGHT, this Tweet says.

One thing quite unusual about Fumi Kaneko is that she did not go to a full time ballet school, she was educated in Japan and joined RB straight from Japan. (I think at the age of 19). Her teacher Kaoru Jinushi also taught Misa Kuranaga who is currently principal at San Francisco Ballet.

My first experience seeing her live was at The Moscow State Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre Japan tour where she guested in the gala performance with Kosuke Okumura (currently principal at National Ballet of Japan and Jinushi’s son). At that time Sergei Filin was director of the company and he was impressed by the pairs performance at the Moscow International Ballet Competition where the pair won silver medal. And their performance in Grand Pas Classique was fabulous, so clear and brilliant, Kaneko was still a teenager then. There used to be a video of the competition on YouTube of their Tchaikovsky Pas de Duex at the Moscow competition but no longer there, and she was sparkling. 
 

So happy that she has now grown into a beautiful and captivating artist and I am looking forward how she matures in the years to come. 

53 minutes ago, maryrosesatonapin said:

It was upon reading of Asami Maki's demise that prompted me to start this thread, Naomi, and I am so glad I did because otherwise I wouldn't have seen the two lovely videos you shared - Yui Yonezawa in particular is astonishing!

That is lovely to hear that you have been aware of Asami Maki. Swan Lake at National Ballet of Japan was dedicated to her memory and there was a moment when the audience was prompted to pray for her before the premiere performance. She had been seen in the audience often and August was when I last saw her looking well. 

Yui Yonezawa is a lovely dancer indeed, very clean and crisp, also good in dramatic roles as her performance as Manon with Vadim Muntagirov had received rave reviews. 

Here is a clip of her Ashton Cinderella.

As a person living in Japan, this thread is of particular interest of me, and it is nice to know how the Japanese dancers in UK are adored by the audience. 

Recently (on October 20th), Asami Maki who was one of the greatest ever figures in ballet in Japan has passed away at the age of 87. She was a student of Alexandra Danilova and after her dancing career, she founded Asami Maki Ballet and Tachibana Ballet School which has brought many professional dancers. Also she directed National Ballet of Japan, raised the level of the dancers and until her death was rector of New National Ballet School and she also choreographed many works, was a judge in many international ballet competitions.

Apart from the fabulous Japanese dancers at Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Northern Ballet and English National Ballet, there are wonderful dancers at the National Ballet of Japan and Tokyo Ballet, K-Ballet Company and Star Dancers Ballet who are not known to the international audience. To name two, Yui Yonezawa and Ayako Ono, both principals of National Ballet of Japan are very popular here and IMO world class ballerinas who deserve international reputation. 

Yui Yonezawa is both superior in technique and expression, very clean and precise fouettes and polished lines. 

Ayako Ono has guested in Birmingham Royal Ballet's Aladdin and Prince of the Pagodas. She is a petite, delicate and musical dancer. 

National Ballet of Japan has brought Sir Peter Wright's Swan Lake to open their new season and it has been very successful. Nao Sakuma came to coach the principals. They did stream the stage rehearsal of Act 4 of this Swan Lake for World Ballet Day but unfortunately it was only streamed live and no archives left. 

Some information of the three main companies’ stream on this article. 
https://www.seeingdance.com/world-ballet-day-211001/

RB will stream R&J and Giselle sneak previews of rehearsals and behind the scenes, a live streamed rehearsal of The Dante Project. 

2 minutes ago, alison said:

Naomi, when I was looking at the stalls seating the other day for their debut, I think it was, I noticed there were cameras scheduled, so perhaps you may get to see a bit of it, at least.

Oh thank you Alison! Fingers crossed. (at least I think I can see the cinema relayed O'Sullivan/Sambe cast which would be lovely too )  

A lovely photo gallery of Dance Tabs with Fumi Kaneko and William Bracewell in Romeo and Juliet rehearsal.

https://dancetabs.com/2021/09/special-gallery-royal-ballets-romeo-and-juliet-in-the-studio-with-fumi-kaneko-and-william-bracewell/

I envy those who can see them in this. (as I live in Japan I am unable to see)

1 minute ago, alison said:

 

And are either of them related to Yohei (formerly of the Royal Ballet)?

 

There are quite a few Takahashis around too, not all of whom are related to each other.

I don't think both of them are related to Yohei Sasaki either.

Yes, there are quite a few Takahashis around (such as Erina Takahashi). Yoshida is another very common surname. 

3 hours ago, Dawnstar said:

 

The RB currently has 2 dancers with the same surname, Mariko Sasaki and Sumina Sasaki (does anyone know if they are sisters or is it a common surname in Japan?), so I suppose in their case using their full names would be necessary, though as neither is currently at a level where they're doing lead roles they don't get mentioned much so the issue doesn't seem to have yet arisen.

Sasaki is a very common surname in Japan, and as far as I know, Sumina Sasaki and Mariko Sasaki are not in relation.

(Sumina Sasaki comes from a very famous ballet family in Osaka, Japan.  her father Dai Sasaki is a medalist at Varna, Jackson and Moscow and still a big star dancer in Japan, and her sister and brother are both professional ballet dancers)

According to NBS the organizer's website, they are considering to stream the World Ballet Festival in a fee-based service paid service, although there are some issues to be solved. 

They say they are planning to make it possible by the end of the year. I did see some video cameras that were filming, but not ones for broadcast quality.  But anyway it should be lovely to see the gala online because there were some very superb performances. 

3 hours ago, Bruce Wall said:

I wonder, Naomi, have the memorial videos for Carla Fracci and Patrick Dupont been put up on line anywhere?  Grateful for your kind advice.  

Not at this point, but perhaps it might happen afterwards. The footage were from previous World Ballet Festival performances, La Sylphide for Fracci, and the Jester from Swan Lake, Don Quixote by Dupond, all very fabulous and valuable so I hope this would be put online. 

Here is a pointe shoe worn by Fracci at the 1976 World Ballet Festival, on display in the foyer. 

World Ballet Festival Program A has ended and the next program B will begin on Thursday. As the number of participating dancers were smaller and Hugo Marchand was unable to arrive in time for Program A the gala was smaller than usual but nevertheless it is impressive to have many star dancers coming to Tokyo where the COVID-19 situation getting more and more serious. 

You can see some glimpses of the gala through the Instagram story of Daniil Simkin, Vladislav Lantratov, Vladimir Shkryalov, Svetlana Zakharova, especially Mathias Heymann's fabulous leaps from Flower Festival at Genzano (on Simkin's Insgtram story).  

For me, the highlights was Heymann, Krysanova and Kimin Kim in Corsaire, Smirnova and Shkryalov in Romeo and Juliet, as well as the memorial video of Carla Fracci and Patrick Dupont. 

I don’t think they will stream this performance, the organizer cannot afford such costs and some works have copyright issues. The overseas guests have been quarantined in a bubble and seating is not full which means the organizer has to pay extra costs. The increasing number of COVID-19 cases here, most of them are Delta variant is very serious thanks to the olympics that they should not have took place, and vaccination is not enough here. 
 

Anyway I will be going to see the first day of this gala so I will report. But I might return my second ticket because the situation here is really not good and it might be dangerous to visit theatres. 

17 hours ago, FionaE said:

I do think Bolshoi and Mariinsky have much work to do around diversity of skin colour.   (As do many/all companies.)   You only have to look at the skin tones of the Brazilian dancers hired in Russia to see that they only choose the dancers with lighter coloured skins.  Why is this?  Perhaps this would be a good place to start their education.  
 

 

Adrian Blake Michell is a black dancer at Mikhailovsky and he has commented on the Instagram post on the top of this thread. (as the first black person to achieve soloist rank at one of Russia's major companies.)

American Ballet Theatre’s Summer Celebration gala can be watched for free with registration.

The event will be held on July 15th, 19:00 local time.

https://www.abt.org/support/special-events/abt-summer-celebration/

ABT’s Summer Celebration will feature new works by Silas Farley, Helen Pickett, and ABT Principal Dancer James Whiteside. First Lady of the United States, Jill Biden, will deliver the welcoming remarks and honorees for the program are “ABT Heroes” – medical advisor Dr. Robert Galvin and ABT champion supporter and actress Jennifer Garner, both of whom have generously offered their time and talent to sustain America’s National Ballet Company® over the past 18 months.

Semperoper Ballett in Dresden presents A Collection of Short Stories, including The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, Swan Lake, Le Corsaire, Dawson’s Faun(e)

May Nagahisa has been promoted to First Soloist at Mariinsly.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CQaqVSMjnnS/?utm_medium=copy_link

And Christian Spuck appointed director of Stastsballett Berlin 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CQIztOSNv_k/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link