Jane S

Crikey! An absolutely stunning Swan Lake from Rojo and Lendorf - I've never liked Rojo better, never seen her so relaxed, open and natural - totally, completely different from the hard, technique-only Aurora from a couple of years ago - and can she still do fouttes? She can, she can. And I've never seen her smile so much, either. So what with Lendorf being the dancer I most enjoy watching these days, I had a very good evening indeed!

Cojocaru/Vasiliev, anyone?

Not quite. This was the last I heard: Subject of course to change, casting for the RDB Dancers at the Peacock Theatre on 9th and 10th January will be as follows: A Folk Tale pas de sept Susanne Grinder/Amy Watson/Femke Slot/Kizzy Matiakis Gregory Dean/Marcin Kupinski/Sebastian Haynes (Andreas Kaas replaces Kupinski 10th mat) Flower Festival at Genzano pas de deux Diana Cuni /Alban Lendorf Jockey Dance Andreas Kaas/Sebastian Haynes La Sylphide (Sylph/James/Madge) 9th Gudrun Bojesen/Ulrik Birkkjær/Sorella Englund 10th mat Susanne Grinder/Gregory Dean/Sebastian Haynes 10th eve Gudrun Bojesen/Gregory Dean/Sorella Englund Le Conservatoire pas de trois Gudrun Bojesen/Diana Cuni/Ulrik Birkkjær (Watson replaces Cuni 10th mat) Napoli Pas de six: Susanne Grinder/Amy Watson/Femke Slot/Kizzy Matiakis/Andreas Kaas/Sebastian Haynes (Cuni replaces Watson 10th mat) Solos and Tarantella: the company

I guess everyone who goes to see the RDB dancers will pick out their own favourites, so rather than go through the whole list I thought I'd just say a bit about two who will soon be retiring and, at the other end of the company, two you've probably never seen before. The seniors: Diana Cuni is in her last year with the company – catch her now! She's known as a Bournonville specialist, remarkable particularly for her speed about the stage and her footwork and as I wrote about her recently, she's the one above all the others who seems to know the secret of perpetual motion. Gudrun Bojesen probably has only one more year before retirement. She's the company's leading ballerina, beautiful in Bournonville and also heart-rending in dramatic roles like Giselle and the Lady of the Camellias. She's very Danish on stage – gentle, completely unshowy – and I shall miss her badly when she goes. The juniors: Andreas Kaas, 21, looked to be embarking on a fairly well-trodden Danish career path – Gurn in La Sylphide, the young hero of Kermessen in Bruges, the Erik Bruhn prize in Canada (against competition including James Hay) – when John Neumeier picked him out to dance Armand in Camellias, with the even younger Ida Praetorius. He's quite slightly built and I was astonished at how well he coped with such a demanding role, which includes a lot of partnering – excellent signs for the future. He's also becoming known for his amazing feet – David Hallberg, watch out. (Kaas is pronounced like 'coast' without the t – so I'm told.) Sebastian Haynes is really breaking the normal career pattern - I doubt ever before has a dancer done Madge in La Sylphide and the hero, Junker Ove, of A Folk Tale in the season he turned 20. He has a really strong stage presence and it's anyone's guess where he'll go from here – but it will definitely be up! Eva Kistrup sees far more of the company than I do and regualrly posts interviews with the dancers: here are some of the most recent Susanne Grinder http://danceviewtimes.typepad.com/eva_kistrup/2014/12/queen-of-hearts.html Gregory Dean http://danceviewtimes.typepad.com/eva_kistrup/2014/03/raenessance-man.html#more Sebastian Haynes http://danceviewtimes.typepad.com/eva_kistrup/2014/11/the-chameleon.html Andreas Kaas http://danceviewtimes.typepad.com/eva_kistrup/2014/10/lucky-boy.html#more

If you missed this you can still hear it, for the next few weeks, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02fhx8k The section with Gregory Dean starts at 2hr 16m and lasts about 10 minutes - it's not very deep stuff but Dean handles it very well (and gets in some nice publicity for Arts Educational, where he trained). And it's not every day you hear a battement sur le coup de pied being demonstrated on the radio. (Details taken from @Rdbprincipals at http://instagram.com/p/xeg0eQhPjk/ where you also get a nice photo of Dean with Ida Praetorius)

From the RDB Principals and Soloists Facebook pages: Make sure to tune in to BBC Radio London 94.9 tomorrow morning between 9-10am UK time, as they will be talking to principal Gregory Dean about the upcoming tour to London.

Melody, a few years ago I had an experience at the ballet very similar to yours at the Blue Man Group - a woman sitting next to me calling out, applauding with her hands over her head, and generally overreacting, very noisily - she also gave off a strong smell of alcohol. Halfway through an act the man she was with stood up, said - very loudly - "This isn't a f***ing rock concert" and left, and at the interval I asked one of the ushers if she could do something as no-one for several rows around could concentrate on the ballet (and I learnt later that the dancers could also hear her). It turned out that the lady had Tourette's Syndrome - until then I hadn't realised it could present like that.

Subject of course to change, casting for the RDB Dancers at the Peacock Theatre on 9th and 10th January will be as follows: A Folk Tale pas de sept Susanne Grinder/Amy Watson/Femke Slot/Kizzy Matiakis Gregory Dean/Marcin Kupinski/Sebastian Haynes (Andreas Kaas replaces Kupinski 10th mat) Flower Festival at Genzano pas de deux Diana Cuni /Alban Lendorf Jockey Dance Andreas Kaas/Sebastian Haynes La Sylphide (Sylph/James/Madge) 9th Gudrun Bojesen/Ulrik Birkkjær/Sorella Englund 10th mat Susanne Grinder/Gregory Dean/Sebastian Haynes 10th eve Gudrun Bojesen/Gregory Dean/Sorella Englund Le Conservatoire pas de trois Gudrun Bojesen/Diana Cuni/Ulrik Birkkjær (Watson replaces Cuni 10th mat) Napoli Pas de six: Susanne Grinder/Amy Watson/Femke Slot/Kizzy Matiakis/Andreas Kaas/Sebastian Haynes (Cuni replaces Watson 10th mat) Solos and Tarantella: the company

Good news - it's now confirmed that Alban Lendorf will be dancing!

Yes - in fact she danced on the first night of the Kirov's first-ever London season, in 1961 - in The Stone Flower, with Yuri Soloviev. (I was there - she was lovely and I only wish I could remember her more clearly.)

Well, if that's what it is, it's disappointing but presumably can't be helped - in the circumstances, though, I hope they'll make that explanation public.

Thanks, Bluebird

Depends on why Glurdjidze isn't dancing.

There was also a nice photo of this across the front page of the print copy of the Times this morning - would have been nicer still with a credit to the photographer - anyone know who it was?

Some additional Don Quixote casting at http://www.roh.org.uk/news/additional-casting-confirmed-for-don-quixote

I'd say Ceremony of Innocence was at least twice as effective, in every way, at Snape. Also, I gather that last night was Deirdre Chapman's last performance with the company - she's been a strong presence and there's no-one else quite like her to fill the gap she'll leave.

I don't think 'need' has anything to do with it - it is perfectly normal and accepted that many (most?) people leave their seats in the interval and if others don't like standing up to let you through, it's their problem not yours.

I finally got to the Ashton bill last night and have to agree with the disappointment many seem to have felt with Scenes de Ballet - if this had been a school show I'd have thought they coped very well but for a full company performance it was nowhere near good enough. Elsewhere I was impressed by Reece Clark's apparent composure in Symphonic Variations and I also liked Magri - and Nunez of course.

'Called in' implies to me that the Bolshoi has some sort of claim on her - is that what you were meaning, Bruce, or has she just chosen to go?

Returning to this after rather long than I meant (brain turned to mush for several days by post-Copenhagen cold, or possibly Madge's curse): It's hard to know where to begin, there's so much to say and so many possible points of view - so maybe I'll start with the bottom line: there are too many illogicalities, too many ill-thought through amendments, and too little justification for changes for the production to be anything close to a success, but there are some plus points and it really isn't the end of civilisation - the company can, and I believe it will, return to a traditional production after this with greater insight. And some people think it's wonderful anyway. The main problem for me is that the concept comes from, and apparently mostly remains in, Hubbe's head: he states explicitly in the programme note that he devised it to help him work through some hang-ups he has with James - a hubristic and dubious justification anyway and one that apparently only comes over properly to the audience when he himself is playing the role of Madge. So rather than the ballet being 'all about Madge', as someone has said, I'd say it's probably rather more about Hubbe, and when he's not there the new concept is only faintly discernible - if you knew nothing about the background you could have watched either of the other two casts and come away only vaguely confused by a few moments of the action; and neither of the new Sylphs I saw will have more than about 10 seconds of action to unlearn if they dance the role in the traditional version in future. The grey and white decor is disconcerting at first and rather depressing by the end of Act 1. Act 2 , the 'white room', works better than you might think as a space for dancing, though in the non-Hubbe version I didn't get any feel for it being 'a place of death'. From the stalls at least there was no problem at all with seeing the white dresses against the white background, and it was a real pleasure to be able to see James's feet properly - for once the black socks were just right. Eva Kistrup saw the first night as well as the 2 performances I saw and has written 2 long and detailed reviews: http://danceviewtimes.typepad.com/eva_kistrup/2014/10/killing-your-darlings.html http://danceviewtimes.typepad.com/eva_kistrup/2014/10/making-stars.html Also a word for Etudes which has got rather lost in all the controversy about La Sylphide: I used to find this ballet rather boring but am now near-addicted to it even in less than perfect performances and - unlike Eva - I was very happy with Holly Dorger's performance in the 'Sylphide' section - she's usually thought of as a strong technician but I loved her adagio dancing and I believe I'd like her better as Odette than as Odile. Lovely arms and a sort of thoughtful grace that gave me a lot of pleasure.

FLOSS, do you mean that James Hay doesn't do the 'look at the sky' pirouette - the one where he throws his head back and gazes upwards?

I don't mind if the Fairy variations are danced by principals or people in their first year in the corps de ballet so long as they have the personality and the confidence to make their roles sing: see Antoinette Sibley aged about 20 in the recently televised 1959 performance, or Francesca Hayward last season, doing possibly the best Songbird I've ever seen. The trouble with too many others - and it's not new - is that they do the roles as if they've been told they'll be fired if they make a single mistake - very correct, very careful and very unexciting.

Still sorting out thoughts about the production but meanwhile I can report an excellent debut by Gregory Dean as James, especially in the second act, danced and acted so well that I'd be hard put to choose between his performance and Lendorf's the previous night. Also a very impressive debut from Sebastian Haynes as Madge - I don't know his exact age but if he's turned 20 it's only in the last couple of months, and yet he has the authority and presence of a far more experienced artist. Impossible to forecast how he'll develop but it's going to be very interesting to find out. (He dances in the Dying Swan mentioned in the post above.)

First impression is that Hübbe actually hasn't gone far enough - too many inconsistencies to be convincing, and last night, with a different cast, there was no trace of his homoerotic subtext till, literally, 2 seconds before the curtain came. down. But apparently it was different in several ways from opening night, rather less extreme - I swear I saw several people smile in the first act. Good to see Lendorf, anyway, and I'm looking forward to Gregory Dean's debut tonight. More tomorrow, when I get back to a proper keyboard!

The Dancing Times has published a list of the repertoire and the dancers: http://www.dancing-times.co.uk/news/item/1640-royal_danish_ballet_dancers It only names 10 of the 12 dancers, though.