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Coated

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Everything posted by Coated

  1. It would be fun if a bored PhD student would develop a identification system for ballet processing types to explain the vast variety of perceptions of the same performance. For tonight, I'm in camp OMG: Naghdi and Ball created magic together.
  2. That would be an embarrassing oops if it's not official.
  3. @Sim , what a shame. I hate it when that happens, especially at a good performance. Ideally all standees could respect the space / boundaries of others. There are some places where I won't stand anymore to avoid potential trouble.
  4. All I can come up with to describe this bill is an assortment of superlatives. The programme itself, showcasing both the Royal Ballet and the influence of Russia on ballet across the ages, combined with the stupendous casting tonight made for a truly magical evening. Hay and Hayward in Month in the Country are probably one of my favourite ballet treasures, Lamb was achingly beautiful in Symphony in C, as was pretty much everyone else. Joseph Sissons even managed to distract me from watching Muntagirov. I nearly don't want to back to see more performances, so this one doesn't lose its special sheen for me, but it would just feel rude to return my other tickets 😆
  5. Edwaard Liang / Infinite Ocean Speed: glacial to tai-chi, with interludes of slightly faster swirls and slow jogs Lighting and costumes: conspired to make dancers appear astonishingly pallid. Also, beige/gold gauze-like tight tops with high necks and applique + matching tiny shorts ain't my thing. Music: not my cup of tea but maybe appreciated by people who are fond of long repetitive violin solos with strings strumming along as accompaniment. Though not as bad as the Glass piece that blighted the last ENB triple for me. Dancing: generic with some gymnastics. Couple of nice-ish solos, but my attention wandered so I can't be sure. Overall: yawn yawny yawn. Though judging by the enthusiastic applause, others enjoyed it. Cathy Marston / Snowblind Snowblind was a completely different kettle of fish. Cathy Marston at her clever best. Being a heathen who hasn't read any Wharton, I peeked at the synopsis of Ethan Frome, which probably helped, but I suspect I would have caught the gist of the story without a primer. The movement was beautiful, loved the lifts where he swirls her around and around at a 45 degree angle. The ending was poignant, the wife changing from a psychosomatic invalid to the person who becomes the (unwilling, I assume) carer for her husband and the rival she'd been trying to get out of her house. The last tableau of the 3 protagonists was heartbreaking, standing in a circle with their arms interwoven in its centre, locked together in misery. Jennifer Stahl was the wife, and her slightly restraint aura worked beautifully for the role. Mathilde Froustey was a passionate Mattie, and the exchange where the wife high kicked Mattie to get her out of the house is now one of my favourite ballet moments. Arthur Pita / Björk Ballet This is about as bonkers as it sounds. I was well entertained by the typical Pita offbeat staging, slightly reminiscent of a fetish nightclub at times. Most Björk references went straight over my head, but some triggered vague recognition. I was possibly slightly disappointed that Pita didn't go for a nod to the Swan dress she wore to the Oscars yonks ago. Too obvious I guess. At some point Dores Andre arrived on stage dancing on a platform, carried by 4 men and looking exceedingly fierce (or possibly fiercely concentrating on not falling off). It was pretty neat when she was eventually tipped off the platform, tumbling straight into her partners arms and somehow managed to make it all look very balletic. I might have missed a bit of the dancing watching a dancer sitting at the front of the stage with a rod, fishing in the orchestra pit, but overall it was frothy fun with some inspired moves, like the bit where the corps combined something like slow, hoppy entrechat feet with perfectly disco upper bodies. Due to the siren calls of Naghdi and Osipova, I won't see this bill a second time, but hopefully this won't be the last time I see Snowblind and I suspect I'd still find the Pita amusing if I saw it again. Liang goes on my avoid list.
  6. I need to congratulate my former self for being entirely unreasonable and buying a boatload of excellent tickets for the San Francisco ballet. Must have been expecting a lottery win, but based on tonight's Shostakovich Trilogy I made the right decision. As as much as I admire Ratmansky, I thought that a whole triple bill by one choreographer might end up feeling very samey. Instead I felt a pang of disappointment that the dancing was over when the last piece ended. The different pieces of Shostakovich set the tone for each ballet, starting with the energetic whirlwind of dancing in Symphony #9, followed by a more introspective, near-narrative Chamber Symphony and ending with the sprightly yet slightly melancholic piano concerto #1. I loved how Ratmansky's choreography never fought the music, every movement seems connected to the score. The company looked rather impressive to me, with heaps of talent across the ranks - though I have no clue who most dancers were. Lovely to see Aaron Robinson and Yuan Yuan Tang again, and some unfamiliar-to-me dancers particularly caught my eye - after much staring at the programme, I think they were Mathilde Froustey, Dores Andre and Wei Wang. I particularly loved Symphony #9, and at some point felt nearly overwhelmed with emotion, though in all fairness that might have been down to the Royal Ballet Sinfonia spinning their musical magic. Would it be wrong to ask their brass section to have a word with the ROH orchestra?
  7. Sissens, Sambe and O'Sullivan for me. Even if there were a vacancy for a female principal, I'd feel that all potential contenders should be given more lead roles before any choices are made.
  8. Not impressed with the booking dates, unnecessarily tight schedule for 3 of the levels. No time to find alternative date when your originally planned dates don't work out and one of you is dead busy in your allocated 24hr window. You might even have the pleasure of fighting with a very busy, badly designed website 2 days in a row. Joy. I'm considering swapping ballet for macramé, much less hassle (I presume, never having tried the latter) Premium 2 Friends: 2 July 2019 Premium 1 Friends: 3 July 2019 Supporting Friends: 4 July 2019 Friends+: 9 July 2019 Friends and Young Friends Packages: 10 July 2019 Friends and Young Friends: 11 July 2019 Friends Rehearsals: 18 July 2019 Daytime events booking for all members: 7 August 2019
  9. True, but using headers to create bookmarks is just good form when creating pdfs, and if they decided that chrological order is most important as a category, they should have added the date right below the header instead of at the bottom of each entry. Yeah, I know, nitpicking to some degree, but I'm also amazed at their new-found inability to represent information well. I'm not holding my breath on getting a better document than this press release tbh, so next seasons planning will probably require my own spreadsheet for seasons and dates. Very happy to see Onegin and I've not seen the RB Coppelia before, so nice to have something new to look forward to. I really hope that the Dante will come from the same well of inspiration as Woolf Works - fingers crossed. Is is certain that there will be no russian guest company for 2020?
  10. Yay, a 48 page pdf with everything mixed up higgledy piggledy and no bookmarks for easier browsing . Just what I was hoping for.
  11. It would be nice for this thread to get back to R&J performances. A little off topic is always fine, but this now 2 pages of random things interspersed with casting updates.
  12. This really was a tremendous debut. I hope to see the Sambe/O'Sullivan pairing in many more roles to come. Luca Acri was fabulous as Mercutio, such sharp and fast movements. I thought the whole company and the leads were excellent throughout, but need to find a superlative for the heartbreaking crypt scene. Anna-Rose's eyes are so very expressive and their expression seem to reach the very back of the auditorium. Her scream of despair reverberated through my marrow. Sambe always excelled at bravura, now his acting matches the rest of his stagecraft and his dancing has become beautifully nuanced. His expression when he found Juliet will stay with me for a long time to come.
  13. It's only open to students up to the age of 28 I think. A friend was trying to join when doing a masters in thei 30s and couldn't join due to their ancientness. I never understood why it's only aimed at students rather than young people, tbh.
  14. Not all ENB dancers performing the chosen one exposed their breast. I think it underlined the wildness and abandon of the piece perfectly, but I'm quite happy to see that there appears to be some choice for the dancer.
  15. Due to a lovely ongoing dental drama, i need to sell the following ticket Campbell /Magri 4 April, Don Q, SCS D46, £10, eticket
  16. Due to dental dramas, I have SCS D26/27 for sale for tonight's Don Q. Etickets, 10 pound each
  17. I enjoyed last night's performance, largely due to spirited cast, particularly Osipova's pure joy on stage, Muntagirov's wonderful dancing, as well as Reece Clarke's swagger, Fumi Kaneko's beautiful queen and Isabella Gasparini's pixie like amour. This was the first cast I'd voluntarily see twice in this production. As for the production itself, Nogoat's post pretty much captures how I feel about it. I seem to get more irritated by the shouting the more often I see it, and suspect I'll reduce my booking to Frankenstein levels when it comes around again. Reece's humour and the charmingly droll leads did help the Tavern scene though, I didn't contemplate giving up on ballet all together during it for once. ETA: The props department might also need to get some slightly larger capes for tall Espadas. Reece looked liked he's whirling a large handkerchief around at times. Very dashing handkerchief whirling, of course.
  18. This is just unbelievable bad design. Bonus: filters don't work on my older iPad.
  19. Wasn't the last load of surveys used to identify their core audience as undesirable? This one seems to profile responses quite thoroughly by age and ethnicity. I'm wondering whether I should become a 25 year old Tahitian, just to keep the statistical gods happy.
  20. Can't wait for the Bolshoi. Forgot how much I dislike this busybee, crammed, frilly and overstuffed production.
  21. I rather liked the Cunning Vixen. I loved the opera when I saw it a couple of years ago and was a bit surprised at the happy ending, but it does make it more accessible to a younger audience without traumatising them a la Bambi (I knew a kid with Bambi trauma - he insisted on watching it again and again, and cried his little heart out each time when the mother was shot). Seeing it the first time, I thought it'll make a charming starter ballet, with a bit of interest for the more mature audience and anyone who loves a good bug costume or czech fairy tales (Me! Me again!). The music worked beautifully for the ballet and the story really captured the character and escapades of the Vixen. One of the beauties of czech fairy tales / children films is that the characters tend to be multifaceted and 'realistic for a fairy tale', having good as well as bad sides and behaviours and are never in danger of being mistaken for a Disney Princess. Anyway, I digress. Seeing it for a second time, I fell in love with the ballet. What I thought initially were some longueurs, eg the chicken house disturbance, looked a lot more together, or perhaps being familiar with the ballet overall allowed looking at the detail that made these scenes interesting. But the real revelation to me were the young lead dancers, whose character interpretations were the star of the show for me. The utter delight of the Vixen after biting the dog, the cunning manipulation of chickens, taking gleeful revenge on badger - it was all there. I thought Madison Bailey was a fantastic young dancer, beautifully paired by Liam Boswell and the rest of the students. I like the combination of student performance followed by RB and hope to see that again one day, and I hope that Vixen gets more performances available / advertised to the wider public - perhaps something similar to ENBs performances for young children, or as part of a child friendly bill on the main stage. I'm always interested in the criticism of Scarlett using movement that another choreographer has previously used as the worst indictment of his 'failures'. Seeing that the ballet vocabulary is fairly restricted, isn't it a given that this will happen if you stay within the confines of neo-classical ballet? Wheeldon veers towards dance theatre and the aesthetics of musicals, McGregor is modern bendy dance with pointe shoes, Scarlett does emotions and the swirly stuff - does that really make him a mere derivative of Macmillan? Is Macmillan just a derivative of every choreographer before him?
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