toursenlair

very little dancing

I saw the whole movie and the arrangements are more tasteful than the trailers make it seem. I sincerely doubt this movie will generate any huge interest in the ballet.

or allow ticket exchanges!

So glad you liked SFB's Canadian ballerina Frances Chung, Bruce. I'm a huge fan of hers. She can do anything: classical, contemporary and she deserves to be more widely known and appreciated. She will be in the David Dawson piece at Sadler's Wells and will rock it. Here's a youtube clip of her which I hope you will all enjoy:

come to Canada sometime and you will understand why.

I stand corrected, I wasn't aware that School of Alberta Ballet had a residence.

there are only two ballet boarding schools in Canada: Royal Winnipeg Ballet School (not strictly a boarding school, I believe they billet the students with families in Winnipeg) and Canada's National Ballet School in Toronto which offers boarding from age 12 onward. As mentioned above, they do not "focus on neoclassical ballet"; they give a grounding in classical ballet, and other forms of dance.

A fist fight broke out at a performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No.5 in Malmö on Thursday night, after a listener was sent into a rage by another rustling a bag of gum. https://www.thelocal.se/20181017/fist-fight-breaks-during-mahlers-fifth-in-malmo

yes, that is correct. LIke the style of Jerome Robbins' West Side Story. Here;s one of Peck's recent ones for NYCB

I saw all of these ballets during SFB's Unbound festival last spring (except Hummingbird by Scarlett which I saw when it premiered a few years ago). Here are my thoughts. Programme B — Liang / Marston / Pita In The Infinite Ocean, Taiwanese-born American choreographer Edwaard Liang interprets loss and letting go. This was very beautiful, my favourite of the festival. Liang's style is very classical Cathy Marston adapts Edith Wharton’s haunting tale of adultery, Ethan Frome, in Snowblind. This was a very effective telling of this story but you probably want to read a synopsis of the novel first. And, in a match made in Wonderland, the fantastically surreal choreographer Arthur Pita is inspired by the music of the Icelandic icon, Björk Guðmundsdóttir for his Björk Ballet This was weird, weird, weird, and not for you if you crave classical ballet or anything like it. It's kind of a shame it's on the same program as the Liang because if you like the Liang you probably won't like the Pita. Programme C — Welch / Scarlett / Peck Set to the violin concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach, Stanton Welch’s Bespoke explores dance itself in a love letter to ballet. This is for you if you like classical ballet. The critically acclaimed Hummingbird by British choreographer Liam Scarlett is accompanied by Philip Glass’ Tirol Concerto, with shadowy designs by regular collaborator John Macfarlane. This is a great piece. “Virtuoso of the form” (New York Times) Justin Peck uses the electronic music of M83 for Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. This is one of Peck's "sneaker ballets". It seemed less inspired to me than the several other Peck pieces I have seen and loved. I think he had a lot on his plate when he got this commission. But it is enjoyable, especially if you havent seen any other Peck. San Francisco Ballet — Programme D — McIntyre / Wheeldon / Dawson With the title lifted from the work of Walt Whitman, Your Flesh Shall Be a Great Poem inhabits the eccentric world of Trey McIntyre’s grandfather. Yeah, i wasn't thrilled with this piece though the audience in general was. Worth it for Canadian Benjamin Freemantle's starring role. Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Christopher Wheeldon joins forces once again with the composer Keaton Henson to take on the modern world in Bound To. This is a ballet about how we are obsessed with our cellphones! Has a nice Wheeldonesque pdd but otherwise I felt the topic was too trivial. And, in his first work for the company, David Dawson’s Anima Animus is ballet technique stretched to its outer limit, set to Ezio Bosso’s Esoconcerto. I LOVED LOVED LOVED this piece (I'm a big fan of Dawson's choreography anyway). Tied for favourite with the Liang.

I couldn't tell you which rows exactly, but some of them in mid Orchestra/Stalls/Parkett definitely have the view obstructed. You;ve probably just never been unfortunate enough to sit there. Row 7/8 is fine: not too far away, and with sufficient rake to see all of the stage. Closer rows may be fine for people taller than me (5 foot 4).

My experience of the stalls is that it's preferable to not be in the first 4 rows as they are sunk below the stage a bit. Row 7 / 8 and back are better. Also definitely don't take a seat at the end of a row as some of these are behind big pillars that block the view.

it was a time constraint thing, according to an interview I read with David McAllister but can't find now. With intermissions it comes in at 167 minutes, perilously close to the 3-hour limit beyond which musicians, stage crew etc start requiring to be paid overtime (at least in Canada, I expect it is the same elsewhere) There is no pussycat pdd

It's more the exception than the rule for ballet companies to announce casting much in advance. RB and ABT are exceptions.

It's facebook's platform so facebook can set its own rules. How could that be illegal?

casting info at POB is usually quite late... 2 weeks before.

re Facebook vs YouTube. If you post a YouTube video on facebook, on your "business" page, facebook will actively suppress it and make sure it is seen by very few people. So if you want "reach" on facebook, you have to post facebook videos. I have had this experience with my Tours en l'air facebook page and googled the phenomenon. It is quite well documented.

the thing is that literally billions of people are on facebook worldwide. It is by far and away the most popular social media site, and young people leaving in "droves" barely makes a dent in it.

"vulgarism"? give me a break! do we really need this snobbish, gratuitous anti (North) American attitude on balletcoforum?

I love The Bright Stream and find it both very dancey and very funny. Not "heavy handed attempts at humour" at all.

a trailer has just been released for Yuli, based on Carlos Acosta's memoir, No Way Home. It seems the movie is just doing the rounds of the film festivals at the moment. I expect its theatrical release will be next year

that's an amazingly good price for a book for a niche market! It's not exactly going to have a print run like Fifty Shades of Grey, is it?

I know someone who used to dance with NYCB and the dancers did in fact only find out casting a week before! This changed a couple of years ago when the dancers' union demanded that they be given at least two weeks notice so they could organize their lives a bit better. That part I learned from Jared Angle (principal), who was one of the dancer reps for company negotiations when he gave one of my groups a tour of the theatre.

Surely only if you have a limited imagination as to the costuming.