Coated

Aww, tonight's performance made me feel all warm and fuzzy and christmassy. The lower school children and the choir were just adorable and very impressive on stage. Cory Stearns seems to have mastered hovering beautifully in mid-air and and I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more of him. The partnering looked a little uneven at times, but I guess that there isn't a lot of time for rehearsals with a guest performer. Ricardo Cervera and Valentino Zucchetti really stood out for me on stage today, and Meaghan Hinkins was a very sweet Clara. The energy on stage was really noticeable and definitely lively, with the whole company coming together to deliver a really enjoyable performance. After watching tonight, I now want to be a special little snowflake

This year's 'Get into London Theatre' includes 7 dance shows, tickets are around £15 / £25 and booking opens on the 10th Dec. The list doesn't give to many details, but the Giselle/Don Quixote/Swan Lake seems to be the Sofia National Ballet at the New Wimbledon Theatre in early Feb http://www.getintolondontheatre.co.uk/shows/dance-opera/

Best Panto I've ever seen. I really enjoyed it whilst watching, though the re-education through food deprivation leaves a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Alicia Amatriain was fabulous, and I love her complete lack of vanity and ability to pull the most amazingly atrocious faces. Having seen her in Fanfare LX as well where she is every inch a gorgeous dancer makes her performance even more impressive to me.

Snap, those were my favourites too. I also really liked the pdd from the Lady of Camellias. Rather looking forward to the Taming of the Shrew after having had a glimpse of the company. I had to think of the spatchcocked discussion when the female dancer was moving the limbs of her male partner during 'Little Monsters' - quite nice to see a gentle opposite of the 'female doll'. The very knowledgable gent sitting next to me mentioned that 'Hommage au Bolshoi' was not a UK premiere as listed in the programme, he had seen it performed at the Coliseum by the National Ballet of Canada with Marcia Haydee and Richard Craqun in '72, and I've just found a stock photo of the performance online. Guess they should have asked my seat neighbour to proofread the programme

2x2 was utterly mesmerising, and I'd happily pay good money to see either dancer again. The only piece I wasn't too keen on was Present Past, but that was down to my personal preferences rather than the actual performance, I felt the music was completely incidental to the choreography and it didn't seem to link up with the rhythm of the 2 pieces at all. Fang-Yi Sheu's control was extremely impressive, with not a single muscle shaking even in the most demanding poses. I'd love to see Yuan Yuan Tuan in a full length classical ballet one day...

I have recently seen two pieces that were overwhelmed by a wall of sound, to a degree where you could barely make out your own thoughts or emotion because your body vibrates forcefully with the sound waves attacking from all sides. For some audience members that seems to create a strong feeling of 'immersion', to me it feels like a cheap manipulation of the senses. All music has the ability to manipulate emotions and most chord are associate with some emotion or other (My favourite being G minor for Discontent) but using sheer, constant volume to get the effect really distract from any dancing that might be happening on the stage. I'm now taking cotton wool to any performances that might turn up the volume to 11.

Fumi Kaneko really shone in the short time she was on stage today - can't wait to see her in other roles and agree entirely with the very positive comments made about her upthread. If you have to get a replacement mid-performance though, I don't think you could do better than Nunez. She just swept on stage as if she was planning to throw in a matinee all along and it felt like a bit of a guilty pleasure watching her with Soares. I managed to see 4 performances, and they all felt somewhat different. The ballet really shines when the full cast is on top form, but can drag on a little if a few of the smaller roles are somewhat indifferently danced. One of the standouts for me was Hirano who I started noticing in Mayerling (though not for his Bay Middleton) and his Espada was definitely a high point of the DonQs I've seen.

Would be lovely if they stopped by in London-ish with this as well...

Both Hamilton and Watson acted their socks of in Act III, it was rather awe-inspiring. I wasn't too taken with their chemistry before the last act, but I could just watch their third act on a never ending loop. Melissa Hamilton managed to be practically boneless yet graceful at the same time when a despairing Watson tried to will her back to live. Both Bennett Gartside and Valentino Zucchetti died well on stage (Valentino might have overacted a wee bit, but it suited the moment) and I really liked the corps in those scenes - it looked like everyone on stage was involved / affected by the unfolding drama. There were definitely some wow moments from Watson and Hamilton on the dance front, but for me this one seemed to be all about the acting.

Some Row H/G seats used to be held for people on a Hamlyn access scheme when someone I knew was part of it a few years ago. And for some strange reasons the Nutcracker insight is now showing plenty of tickets again, after showing as booked when I looked yesterday. I might end up sitting on someone's lap after all. And I'm pretty sure they won't thank me for it.

If this is the future of dance, dance and I will have to part company when the future arrives. Never mind the dancing, which was ok but repetitive - the sound was so ridiculously loud that I spent most of the performance with my fingers in my ears. I've seen a lot of theatre and the multimeeedja excesses of 5/6 years ago were a bit tedious, so I can't say I'm happy to now see this arrive in dance. But then theatre mostly got over it and some came up with interesting uses of video or breaking the 4th wall, so maybe dance will eventually. I'm not quite sure what the piece was saying about science (or atoms), and I'll stick with the statement that emotion or intensity in a dance performance should ideally be achieved through the dance, not volume of sound. At curtain down, 4 people in my row rushed for the exit, one of them pushing open a door that was alarmed with the words "I don't care, anything to get out of here". I suspect opinions on this piece are likely to differ. There were 2 dance sequences that I liked well enough to leave McGregor on my "list of things I'll watch voluntarily" for now. Next time I'll check who is responsible for the sound scape though (hesitate calling it music) and take cotton wool, just in case.

I liked it as a bit of fluffy fun. Unlike a lot of people, I quite liked the moving houses. Probably not the right thing to watch if you expect high art (whatever the precise definition of that might be) or deep emotional involvement. Wasn't blown away by Sarah Lamb, but still enjoyed her performance. DonQ Fan mentioned the hair colouring she wore for the performance, and whatever they used didn't really work for the overall look - either that, or the make-up department decided to make her appear strangely washed out. She was quite funny in the death scene, and I think that since my only other DonQ comparisions are the Bolshoi and the recent Vasipova I probably have quite outrageously high expectations when it comes to Kitri. The thing I loooooved were the big purple flowers for the Dryads, and the slightly asymmetrical choreography for the corps, coming together for more classical symmetrical lines eventually. If that wasn't purposefully planned, then they should include it from now on. Got a couple more performance to see, and after reading all the McRae/Salenko comments I'm really looking forward to Tuesday night. It would have been nice if they had stayed away from the pastel costumes for some of the outfits, and it might be worth considering a Kitri costume that can be worn by dancers who don't have the complexion to carry of red and black. On a slightly different topic, I sat very close to a couple of boys who watched the entire ballet with a minimum amount of fidgeting and zero noise. Very impressive for the younger than 8 crowd, and they only seemed to get really bored during the camp fire scenes - which I noticed since it had the same effect on me.

Great pix. I saw it on Friday and really liked the company - they worked well together and I loved the shadow play in Indigo Rose.

If it's the write-up from the Aye Write festival, she seemed to refer to rival ballerinas but pointed out that it was hardly 'Black Swan' like. http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/darcey-bussell-at-aye-write.20872536 Any work environment can be difficult, and I have yet to work in an office with more than 20 people where everyone gets on like a house on fire. Taking into consideration that dancers tend to work very very hard towards their career, it doesn't seem surprising that there is the occasional conflict or less-than-professional rivalry.

Those are great fun, though the one in the shower makes me physically hurt. It doesn't just break my non-negotiable "No jumping in the bathtub rule", it completely annihilates it.

I loved Hamilton/Pennefather in Mayerling, and am really looking forward to Hamilton/Watson and Lamb/Pennefather in R&J. Quite excited about Soares/Nunez as well, but I'd be excited about watching them stuffing envelopes.

Bring in Vassiliev. Ask him which choreographer he wants to work with and surprise us all with the resulting piece. Or just ask him to occasionally dance with his wife. I'll be fine with that too.

There is a YouTube clip showing how the score uses the revolutionary songs mentioned by Grand Tier, and a 'Blondel air from the "Richard the Lion Heart" by Gretry'. The clip also mentions that the score was composed as a 'musical and historical novel' and incorporates the revolutionary songs as well as composers popular in that epoch http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VdB2IEB7Fz0&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DVdB2IEB7Fz0

Right now I want to hug this forum for making me think I should probably book for Flames in the first place. And because I am a very lucky girl, I ended up with tickets to all three performances and it was worth every penny. Lantratov and Shipulina really work well together, and they were both excellent in the matinee. They might not have brought quite the same joie de vivre to the stage as Osipova/Vassiliev, but Lantratov seems well on the way to develop a quite strong stage persona and to my layman's eyes his dancing was mighty fine. Shipulina was in fine form too, her pirouettes in the wedding pdd were beautiful. Denis Savin's Jerome made me nearly cry at the end. Gudanov did not dance today, and I *think* Skvortsov might have done both performances today as Marquis, though I am a bit confused as to who did what. Either way, the Marquis was perfectly despicable and debauched in all performances, and I felt he deserved a 'Rothbart boo'. The evening performance brought the house down, with standing ovations and endless applause (at times with synchronised clapping). Vassiliev was just 100% Vassiliev and Krysanova was a bit of a revelation as Jeanne. Her scene with the Marquis was incredibly expressive and she brought a really sweet quality to the character, backed up by faultless dancing. I had the same reaction to Kretova as Mireille as I had to her in Rubies - I just loved every second she was on stage. And the Furies are now one of my favourite ballet scenes. Just brilliant. Even the curtain call tonight was more entertaining than 'normal' curtain calls. One of the tiny little girls on stage decided to make one more run just when the curtain was going down and dragged the conductor along with her who looked a bit startled at his sudden run for the lime light. And Vassiliev, big adorable show-off that he is, treated the audience to one more special when he leaped out with a big backwards jump from the curtains for the 3rd or 4th red run. Overall, I think Flames really is a bit of a romp, which works out for me since I quite like romps.

I really love the first picture, it captures what the performance felt like.

Flames was incredible. The whole cast was excellent, the ballet itself was a great romp and Vassiliev's jumps were like nothing I had seen before, and that includes Vassiliev in other performances. It'll take me a while to be coherent about this, at the moment my brain just goes 'OMG, did that really happen? How on earth did he do that?' The performance just flew past, and whilst Osipova and Vassiliev were a bit of a standout, it wasn't by that much - this might have been my Bolshoi dream cast of the current crop.

And another decent Swan Lake, this time with a beautifully mournful and innocent Odette from Smirnova. Chudin was on form as well, and definitely more expressive than when I saw him in his Swan Lake with Shipulina. I love his cabrioles and pretty much any quick footwork he does, he just makes it look so effortless. I might have even welled up a tiny bit at the very end tonight. Odile was perhaps a little too mellow, but the dancing was a joy to watch and this performace was definitely a nice way of ending the Swan Lake run. Only downer was that Denis Medvedev was replaced due to injury

Hah, it's not only drivers who take issue with 2 cyclists idling along next to each other - as another cyclist, you have a choice of crawling along behind them or throwing yourself into oncoming traffic in an attempt to overtake them. And seriously, what would would make you think cycling 2 abreast is a sane thing to on a busy London main road?

I very much second the Kristina Kretova alert - she really stood out in Rubies and had genuine stage presence I saw Smirnova twice in Sleeping Beauty, wasn't overly impressed with the first performance, rather liked her in the second one and then saw her in Diamonds and was blown away. Either she has grown on me, or she has on-and-off days but the one thing I consistently liked about her is her natural elegance, she is not a loud, look-at-me dancer but draws you in with beautiful lines

I don't think I ever get goosebumps (though its possible I'm to engaged with what is going on to notice what's happening on my forearms) but I well up during most well played violin solos, cry outright during Opera when duets perfectly harmonise (most likely Puccini) and my innards are tied into knots when I even think of Edward Watson sitting at the table exuding anguish at the end of Mayerling.