Coated

I know nothing about teaching ballet, but I'd expect that no one can judge a student's readiness by looking at their feet in a shop. Calling you a bad teacher is just extremely bad form - if they were truly concerned about the student's well-being, they should ask your student where they take classes, tell them they haven't got the right shoes for them and the contact you directly to discuss their concern.

I seem to have done it the other way round, watching from higher up first and stalls today, so I don't think it's location. My money is on the cast and possibly less jet lag.

I thought the orchestra was great the first time I went and I particularly liked the horns and flutes - perhaps someone had a day off when RuthE went? After seeing it twice, I'm now quite fond of the production despite its over-abundance of tartan and somewhat slow start. I have also caught up on my yearly quota of fairies, which generally makes me happy. I have sat through both performances with a smile on my face (not an entirely common occurrence) brought on by the simple charm of the production and by getting entrances by the nice footwork and soft arms all around. I really enjoyed watching Luke Schaufuss both for characterisation and dancing tonight, and am a bit in love with Sarah Thompson's Sylphide - there was a scene in the second act where she was so in tune with the music it made me wish the frolicking in the woods could go on and on. I wasn't too taken with the very smiley Madge of Mary McKendry and preferred Greg Horsman's sterner version.

That was truly delightful. I'd love to have walked past there...

I don't know who designed the Coli's website, but I have to use different browsers for booking, reading info and accessing info on my account. It's worse than navigating the nightmare that is the Barbican website....but at least they are redesigning

'this account has been suspended' message from balletco tonight....not the best wording since I sat there for a minute wondering which one of my post could possibly be so inflammatory that I get banned before I realised the whole site had temporarily disappeared. Eeeeek.

I had a rather pleasant Sat night at the gala after getting some last minute tickets when it became clear that it's not the usual gala format. Was it the best ballet I've seen this year? No. But it was great to see a surfeit of outstanding male dancers on stage having a bit of a lark, for me Facada with its awesome grave dancing is standing up well to a second viewing and Zeitgeist is quite watchable though I shan't comment on the costumes. Osipova looked like she is having fun, and I loved seeing what I call her 'Sod it, I'm doing it' face when she throws herself into a ballet wholeheartedly whilst throwing caution to the wind. I really like the Osipova / Watson partnership as well, so I'm all for summershows that include both. I was quite impressed with Luz's beautiful mix of delicate yet strong quick fire dancing. Vogel was an utter joy to watch, I was going to go with 'light footed' , 'great lift' and elegant, but Duck's 'springiness' is just a perfect description of both his dancing and his hair. But best of all: Gomes waggling his finger. That was the most expressive waggle I've seen. Despite my severe childhood dislike for all things Carmen, I'm now seeing Car Man. So is my visiting cousin, she just doesn't know it yet...

Ah, well spotted - the event URL still includes Ivy House so I didn't check further. Either way, still happy - never visited the JW3 and they have a bunch of interesting events.

I have found casting online for the first week, and the last 2 weeks, but nothing for the weekend of 25/26. Does anyone know what the casting is for those days?

^ You're my favourite poster right now - I always miss events at Ivy House and have been meaning to go for the last 15 years or so since I used to regularly walk past it. Now remedied, and with an event I actually want to see

Sadly I'm also in the 'somewhat underwhelmed but hopeful for future ventures' camp. A small part of me wonders whether 2 quirky individual accidentally cancel each other out and their combined choices end up being the dance equivalent of suburban humdrum. I thought the music for the last piece was quite clever, contemplated whether the drummer is always barefoot, spend about 6 minutes intensely hating the snare drums (I've had hangovers that sounded like that drum solo) and marvelled at how good they looked despite some of the material.

This was my first time watching school performances, and I'm not sure that I have seen anything as joyous as the Grand Defile before. The sheer energy and excitement of the students, the swirling of groups passing each other with perfect timing and the at this point exuberant audience created a rather wonderful atmosphere. I'm pretty much in awe of these very dedicated and talented children and young adults. I was mainly sulking in my bedroom or pretending to read Sartre at their age.... The children's Mazurka was a delightful overdose of cuteness, Sechs Taenze made me wish the main company danced more work like that (either amusing or Kylian would do me nicely) and I strongly agree with a comment made upstream about Scarlett's ability to choreograph large groups - the formations looked awesome from my perch at the top of the house, but also worked from close by in the Linbury. The two little guys dancing in 3rd Movement really were quite the scene stealers - quite an achievement given that the other dancers weren't slouches themselves. I suspect this will become a fixture in my calendar.

That's an impressive spreadsheet. It's a little difficult to scroll down on the sheet on an iPad (using chrome), but can be done

Cinderella the Entertainment if you like Wheeldon. I was fairly bored by the choreography, couldn't figure out why one would put a panto-busted lady in a post 1950's production and didn't particularly like most of the costumes. No idea why one would claim this is a more 'realistic' Cinderella - as far removed from the fairytale as the Disney version. The drunk stepmother was amusing.

Hmmm. Does the sound track vary or does is sound like all the way through?

Heh, me too. Followed by a Falstaff. This is why I should pay more attention to what is already in my calendar when booking those nice return tickets spotted online....

I'm in the process of house training a couple of teenagers of my acquaintance. Phase 2 has been initiated for one of them whereby he gets a couple of tickets to go with a friend. Obviously my ulterior goal is to eventually get them happily addicted so in a few decades they'd be willing to pick me up from an old folks home for a lovely outing to Covent Garden. And thus the circle of ROH life continues with an never-ending supply of future old fogeys... Snap - so many people I know wouldn't consider standing or upper slips tickets

I am still celebrating If they'd decided to bring a modern triple, I'd be celebrating even harder.

Oh, this is like asking which one of your pets should be put down. Are we talking about ballets that originated with the RB, or anything that was in repertoire in the 20th century? I haven't seen enough ballets to give a comprehensive answer, but Mayerling and Fille are the first thing that spring to mind. Mayerling for the maelstrom of emotion and for being the ballet that converted me from casual visitor to rather too regular attendee. Fille for its happiness and the beauty of small moves and gestures It would probably take me weeks to pick the rest. If this were my desert island ballet and the only ballet I could see for the rest of my life, I'd start thinking how I'd way up a short pieces against a full-lenght, but how do I chose between Gloria, Rhapsody, Months when I also want Wright's Giselle, and maybe Manon, and ....

I think I've been in my first proper altercation in the upper slips with a lady who would not switch off her mobile despite me asking her twice. She was asked again to keep it off in the intermission. When she complained about people spoiling the performance for her by going on about the need to switch off her mobile (she needed to take pictures, you see), I saw red and shared my thoughts with her in a somewhat forceful manner. She agreed to not switch her mobile on again. I've seen so many mobiles beaming their shining light through the darkness of the auditorium recently, some flash photography, the guy with the green blinking light...it's getting bad out there and I wish they'd continue the announcements reminding people to switch their phones off and generally not to behave like a prat. And yes, hire bouncers if necessary. Just call them ushers and give them cattle prods. Honestly, how many people will cease going to the ROH if they can't have their mobiles out when the house lights are off? If there are 20 per performance delighting the rest of the house with their brightly lit devices, that's less than 1% - seeing that most performances sell out, I suspect that they might not be missed.

I'm also nowhere near whelmed about the Robbins pieces tonight, and don't feel that they stand up to repeat viewing as currently performed. There are glimpses of something interesting, but meh. Song of the Earth however seems to get better with every performance, and this time around both singers work for me, so it's a double treat. I keep noticing Paul Kay in Earth. Maybe he always had that extra bit of presence, but I wonder a little if his beautiful success as Alain put a proverbial spring in his step.

She really is amazing. Thanks for posting the link.

If taking a very literal approach, Becoming might be close-ish to the text. The Becoming section of the book has Orlando calling a self to her that initially refuses to appear, instead a huge amount of her previous selves (like snapshots of her character in time?) spin past. After some fairly psychedelic writing, her true self finally appears and being re-united with, erm, herself I guess, allows Orlando to rejoin time in the present day. On stage, we have Orlando after Orlando - self after self appearing. A light show fantastic - matching the frenetic tone and tempi of the writing, and then possibly the 'true self' joining the curtain call as a fairly male yet very female Orlando resplendent in Elizabethan dress. As a theory, it probably won't stand up, but it'll do me. Might even buy the programme to see whether that sheds any light. Either way, I really like Orlando, and find I enjoy it more when I stop trying to figure out who is dancing. They are now all Orlando to me. Possibly even characters that weren't meant to be Orlando.

Hmm. So we now have Cubania, Casablanca screenings, the Buena Vista Social Club and Ben Folds occupying the main house between the 27th of July and the 12th August this year, so I guess maintenance starts at the usual time. At least it means I won't be sweltering in a theatre at the beginning of August, but I'm not entirely impressed how the 'russian season' has been replaced with 4 things I ain't bothered about.

I just really hope it's at the ROH, irregardless of building work. Not a fan of the Coli balcony