Bruce

How thick of me not to realise your connection sooner, Anne and Bruce! How are you, dear Bruce? This forum has been a life line for so many people and a source of deep enjoyment to us all. I shall be forever grateful to you. Thank you once again.

Thank you - you sweet thing!  I'm ok, but like Harry the dog, getting older and deafer!

So much has changed since I started BalletCo back in 1996 but pleased that the forum continues flourish and prosper. Bravo.

I'm new to this thread - being the husband who sorted Anne's phone out!

Never using PAYE before the surprising thing to me is that all the mobile service providers really stress buying (monthly) bundles as a way of paying to use the phone/service. With most it's not at all clear that you can operate the old way of buying credit to make calls as and when you want. Most bundles are £10 a month and more, but Giffgaff do a £5 one. All up that means you are looking at £60 - £120 a year, which doesn't stack up if you use the phone a couple of times a month at best.

It turns out you can operate Giffgaff the old way - load up credit and then add more when you need. They can also auto-top-up if your credit goes below £3. The Sim, like most, is free and we put £10 credit on to get things going.

We got a brand new unlocked Samsung E1200 phone off Amazon for £14 - an absolute bargain and it gets fine customer reviews:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0079JZ4O2?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00

So for £24 Anne now has a solution that is not tied to any one provider and operates cheaply for her very low volume needs. No email or data here!

Finally, although Orange/T Mobile/EE were a pain in not migrating Anne forward as they should, they were good when we wanted to port her old number to Giffgaff. The gave the PAC code over the phone without fuss and it all went through smoothly at the Giffgaff end too. Hurrah!

Are these a return to the original designs for Lez Rendezvous, with the gates of the park standing open ? The programme says that the costumes are courtesy of Sarasota Ballet.  I think they revived it, with the original designs. 

Yep Sarasota went back to the original designs. Some old costume designs really still work (Symphonic and Les Patineurs say) and others can look soppy which is what Rendezvous looked like to me. BRB have been touring the Anthony Ward designs - nice costumes but wretched backcloth. It would be better to combine the Sarasota gates and the Ward costumes!

Glad you enjoyed!

Jann Parry's review is now out as well - and Jann also had a better time:

http://dancetabs.com/2015/07/whelan-watson-other-stories-london/

Now slightly dreading seeing his tonight, but at least it is very short!

Well I hope it worked out nicely for you and, rep aside, just gotta see them while you can.

Hate to say it, but I was disappointed by this bill. Love the dancers, love that they strive to do new things with their artistry, but they've yet to find their Maliphant, Khan or Ek in the same way that Guillem has shown fresh life after classical ballet.

The Javier de Frutos might have looked much stronger closer to, but way up in the gods it just looked slow and fiddly. Liked the originality of set and sounds (ticking clock), wish I had had some tank binoculars.

I love the enthusiasm of Arlene Philips in real life, but I don't think her solo for Watson and a pair of red high heels really took off as plot or amazing movement. The Annie-B Parson solo for Whelan also had red footwear in - this time red slippers, also used as a prop - and with much purposeful patrolling of the stage boundaries. The haphazard movement didn't draw me in at all. Luckily the drummer (it's one long drum solo) was entertaining to listen to and watch.

The headline and longest piece, the Arthur Pita with all its nudity, suspenders and flick knives, seemed gratuitous to me. It shocked a little, but the  pay-off of a story you might believe in wasn't there. Again, being a way back might not have helped. I always think of Pita as a trustworthy deliverer of quirky good things, but this seemed cheap. That left Daniele Desnoyers' piece as the best of the bunch - this was about two great dancers coming together and exploring their dance making, which none of the other pieces really did. Trust a woman to not get carried away and deliver a good professional job, I thought. And trust a man to put a woman in suspenders, was the thought that rapidly followed.

Musically I thought Frank Moon did a great job and the Jean-Marc Puissant set intrigued - all very classy. But come the end I counted myself lucky that I didn't have to review it as such (Jann Parry is covering for DanceTabs) because if I did I'd probably end up saying 5 star dancers deliver a 2 star show. Perhaps a little harsh, but the broadsheet reviews to date, while saying many nice things are giving it 3 stars. I suspect we all hoped for more, given the ingredients.

Huge congrats to all on the success of the fundraising drive.

Re lurkers and others, back in the Balletco days I looked at the forum stats and concluded that around 0.5% of visitors to the forum were posters. That's a lot of unrepresented views. That said the forum seems pretty vibrant at the moment and that despite the coming of Twitter and Facebook etc.

A recording is availble on YouTube though it says only for 30 days:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9fAhZ4-XvA

I'm sure they will do Choreographics, or soemthing similar, in 2016. Perhaps not announced because they need soembody new in the organisation to run with it and make it happen.

BIRMINGHAM ROYAL BALLET

ANNOUNCEMENTS 2015

At the end of the 2014/2015 season, Birmingham Royal Ballet is able to announce the following:

Mathias Dingman is promoted from First Soloist to Principal.

Céline Gittens is promoted from Soloist to First Soloist.

Yvette Knight is promoted from First Artist to Soloist.

Karla Doorbar is promoted from Artist to First Artist.

Miki Mizutani is promoted from Artist to First Artist.

Lewis Turner is promoted from Artist to First Artist.

The following dancers will join the company:

Letícia Dias Domingues from Brazil, graduate of the Royal Ballet School, will join as an Artist.

Miko Fogarty from London, graduate of the Indiana Ballet Conservatory, will join as an Artist on a one-year contract.

Beatrice Parma from Italy will join as an Artist from Turkish State Opera and Ballet.

Rachele Pizzillo from Italy, graduate of the Royal Ballet School, will join as an Artist.

Brooke Ray from New Zealand, graduate of Royal Ballet School, will join as an Artist.

Mitsuru Ito from Japan will join as an Artist on a one-year scholarship as a Prix de Lausanne prize winner.

The following dancers leave the company:

Natasha Oughtred leaves Birmingham Royal Ballet after eight years with the Company, six of those years as a Principal. Natasha recently became a mum and has chosen to retire from ballet.

Benjamin Soerel leaves Birmingham Royal Ballet after six years with the Company. Benjamin is returning to the Netherlands to study for a degree in Physiotherapy at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.

Lorena Agramonte leaves Birmingham Royal Ballet after a year with the Company.

Laetitia Lo Sardo left Birmingham Royal Ballet earlier this season after seventeen years with the Company, two of those years as a First Soloist. Laetitia is now teaching ballet and enjoying life as a mum.

Sofia Rubio Robles left Birmingham Royal Ballet earlier this season. Sofia has returned to Gran Canaria.

Not sure about the nymphs, but here are some huntresses (from the BRB dress rehearsal of Sylvia)...

The cast sheet refers to them as Huntresses, but in Bintley's synopsis he refers to them thus...

Act I, scene 2

Diana, Goddess of the hunt, arrives in a moonlit grotto where she and her followers, chaste and virginal nymphs all, stop to refresh themselves after their evening's sport...

And a big thank you for the pictures Dave.

Is this Sylvia similar to the RB's version?

As others have said the Ashton and the Bintley are very different in tone and we are lucky to have both. But I have to say that if I could only keep one it would probably be Bintley's in the wonderful Sue Blane designs.

Nice girls of course but if you want to party I don't really think that sylphs are for you!

Dave Morgan was up at Brum to shoot Sylvia and shortly he will be along with some pictures of nymphs. Or had better be!

I won't say more - only dig a bigger hole for myself!

I saw yesterdays matinee at the Hippodrome and had a fine time. Preposterous plot but what great fun and great dancing from Momoko Hirata, Jo Caley, Celine Gittens and the company. More Nymphs for me please!

Hear hear Bruce!

 

It seems to me that there is now such a gap between Bintley's early work, Tombeau and Galanteries for the RB and Allegri Diversi for BRB being good examples where the choreography speaks for itself and his more recent work which seems to be far more about production values.

I think Bintley can still do the business, and I don't object (big time) to investing in, and thinking about productions in the round - which is where many choreographers seem to be these days. I still think of e=mc2 as new, if it is now nearly 6 years old, and it really showed Bintley as on the beat. Its been a while but I trust that the relationship with composer Matthew Hindson will deliver more success. All up I still see Bintley as a world class choreographer and my concern is that the company ought to have more creative eyes working with them and the audience would get greater diversity as well. Even Balanchine realised that he needed another great creative around at NYCB - Jerome Robbins.

The only middle ranking company I can think of where a choreographing director so monopolises new work is John Neumeier at Hamburg Ballet. And while I appreciate Neumeier as well as a choreographer I don't think either company is well served by doing so much by one person.

It used to be that BRB could point at Northern Ballet as a place run by a choreographer who did nearly all the new work. That's really changing now as Northern become more adventurous - and with it more interesting. Or more interesting for me anyway!

All that said I find myself on a train to Brum to see Bintley's Sylvia!

I saw three performances of The King Dances/Carmina Burana last week and enjoyed them all!

 

I loved The King Dances from the moment the curtain rose on 8 courtiers encircling 8 free-standing torches.  I thought the work was a visual and aural feast.  I felt the movements of the courtiers were much enhanced by the swirling of the skirts of their frock coats.  The set is basically a black box from which dancers appear and disappear.  The movement was much as I had envisaged it may be given the subject matter - ie a series of courtly gavottes, which gradually showed more virtuoso steps, although never going as far as today's pyrotechnics.  In the second section I loved the duet for the King and the Moon Goddess - the fabulous William Bracewell and the serenely beautiful Yijing Zhang.  Iain Mackay used his enormous stage presence to great effect as Mazaron.  While the set was very dark I thought the lighting was very clever and highlighted the dancers well.  I loved the costumes apart from the Devil's in the third section which looked cheap and tacky compared to the other magnificent costumes - it could have come from a high street fancy dress shop!  The Sun King costume is a rather bright lurex where I would have preferred brocade but I expect brocade may not have given the final effect with the lighting where the Sun King had a kind of after glow as the stage went dark just before the curtain fell.  William Bracewell was magnificent as The King, moving from the teenager led by Mazaron to the King taking control.  He was incredibly regal at the curtain calls!

 

As a friend said you don't have to push it to look beautiful; simple steps provide their own beauty.

 

The alternative cast of Lewis Turner, Tyrone Singleton and Yvette Knight was equally compelling.

 

I've loved Carmina Burana since I saw the premiere just on 20 years ago.  The three performances I saw were tremendous.  The first cast was led by the sublime Celine Gittens with Jamie Bond, Mathias Dingman and Tyrone Singleton as the seminarians, Elisha Willis as Lover Girl and Daria Stanciulescu as the Roast Swan.

 

The alternative cast was led by the magnificent Samara Downs - all too believable as the Empress of the World defeating men!  William Bracewell gave another outstanding performance as the first seminarian, Joe Caley as second and Brandon Lawrence making his debut as 3rd.  Momoko Hirata was a delight as Lover Girl and Yijing Zhang was just gorgeous as Roast Swan.

 

Unlike Two Pigeons I felt that there was a terrific rapport between Samara and Brandon but it was very different from the sheer sensuality of Celine and Tyrone.  You could see that Brandon was totally awestruck by Fortuna but did not understand why or what was happening.  Samara was triumphant in his defeat,  Brandon (of course) danced the role brilliantly but for me there was much more to his performance than that.  You could see him being gradually drawn into Fortuna's web, not quite understanding what was happening but then finally giving in to his sensuality and then his terror at her transformation.

 

For me, this was one of the most exciting performances of Carmina that I can remember seeing.

 

Personally I thought that the two works complemented each other.

Thanks Janet - good reading and great to hear about the second casts. I'm not so sure of King Dances as a piece that will endure, but it's certainly good looking. Carmina has endured and always does it for me - wallopingly good fun!

All that said I wish Bintley would give himself fewer main-stage commissions and allow others to create significant work on the company. For the avoidance of doubt I'm talking about significant choreographers rather than developing ones (if the commissioning of Whitley and Holder was appreciated).

This programme is being live streamed today (Saturday) at 2.15 on ArtStreamingTV

Based on seeing the show last night I'd say it's well worth watching. Sadly you can't see it live because it's all sold out!

Putting aside the rights and wrongs of who should be involved in Choreographics I have to say I thought the ladies took it on the night - first Morgann Runachre-Temple (supported by the brilliant custom score of Laura Stevens) and Stina Quagebeur's Hopper piece to Scriabin. Both inspired above and beyond.

I gather George Williamson is leaving ENB so Choreographics might well change again. But every year something has changed anyway.

There was a lot of bitterness and bile earlier at the change of ENB director - all on record and it would be good not to repeat it really. The reality is that Rojo got the job and has been there nearly 3 years now.

Wrt to the interview itself I just wanted to say that I've known Rojo since I first interviewed her in 1998. I think she is a great lady, a great dancer and all the force of nature stuff that people talk of is true. I love her commitment to the new as well and count myself a supporter. But it's not blind support and I genuinely didn't understand the ENB strategy and also didn't understand why nobody was asking obvious questions about strategy and funding. Most interviews have been, to my eyes, blindly supportive and sold just on the idea of somebody pushing the art forward. But there is more to the art and to running a company than that. And I've always pushed for the non-London audience and its about time that ACE put priority on regional touring - which of course they have.

I find it interesting that if the critics were asked which is the company "on a roll" out of ENB, BRB and NB, they would point to ENB and yet in the last funding round it was BRB and NB who did well. They read the tea leaves right this time. But who is to say that ENB were wrong necessarily and a London centred approach that relies more on generating own income, rather than being given so much subsidy, might be better longer term.

Although some of my questions clearly surprised people I don't think they were unusual in the broader scheme of things - journalists (which I am not) ask questions like that of leaders all the time. As Rojo proved she is more than capable of deploying her arguments and in the doing I think we all learned more. I repeat again, she is a great lady. And very determined!

Here is a link:

Hmmmmmm - props!  Just as well the dancers have such good reactions!

Kenny Tindall says he is going to ban me from seeing his works in future!

Tonight is press night so hopefully ROH will have techies there to sort whatever might arise.

Just wanted to say that if you are seeing the Linbury show then you might find the DanceTabs iv with Kenny Tindall illuminating re his piece in teh bill - The Architect:

http://dancetabs.com/2015/05/kenneth-tindall-choreographer-on-his-new-work-the-architect/

Looking forward to the show and seeing The Architect again - hopefully this time sans the prop failure!

Re the standing ovation in the stalls, I'd describe it as respectable enough in numbers but by no means universal. It was odd the way it happened as well - a handful of people, mainly at the back, stood at the start of the curtain calls, but throughout many of the calls for the dancers, people were seated. Certainly there was much clapping and clear enthusiasm for all on stage, not least Ferri. It was only when McGregor and (I think) 10 other creatives filed out on stage that there was much stamping from some in the stalls circle and then clumps of people stood up and the clapping continued. As I said not everybody did - McGregor is not a choreographer for all.

Does the fact that Bill Boyd put 4 tickets on sale last night tell us anything?

It would seem to say that Bill didn't like the show. One view and it would be nie to see it articulated. Glad he did 'cos I'm buying one!

I guess some broad view will emerge over the run - here, critically and in the wider world.

I thought there was much to commend in Woolf Works not least McGregor's continued move to more ballet based movement and working with the grain of the company.

The first and last acts were full of interesting movement and the first particularly had a Kenneth McMillan feel. It's an act I feel I really want to see more and understand more. The last act - the suicide - is incredibly moving and well done. The middle act is, I think, more what people associate with McGregor - lasers, tech and contortions. I rather feel like the first and third acts are the guts of it and in the second act we all go off to the circus as a diversion. It might be that with time I appreciate act 2 more - it's a thick programme that may provide illumination, though I tend to detest McGregor programme notes for often providing endless clever, clever frustration rather than clarity. All up though I came away rather exhilarated by the fusing of old and new and doing it rather tastefully - great costumes and an impressive Max Richter score too.

And then there was Alessandra Ferri - She's still got it.

It might be better to have 2 lists

1) publications that are entirely behand a pay wall. The Times is an example. No amount of legal cleverness will enable you to see articles.

2) publications that have a 'soft' paywall - ie one that still enables some, or all pieces, to be seen... if you know the way to get to such gems.