Paul N

Well, I'll add my view which is something like this: Luke's article is good in terms of having the debate, and I congratulate him on that, but to be honest, to me, the article seems to mainly present theories and perceptions - I can't see that it presents much in the way of actual evidence that shows the RBS isn't doing a very good job for both the British and overseas students it trains. Certainly, some of the statistics look stark, but who is to say - and importantly, on what basis - that they are unusually poor? There aren't many of these elite schools around, and I imagine they all have unique circumstances, so making comparisons would be difficult I think. Bearing in mind that the RB only takes on a very few young dancers each year, and that both it and the RBS look for the best from around the world, it does not seem surprising that very few make it all the way from the first year at White Lodge into the RB. The 'rest of the world' factor also accounts for the paucity of British dancers in the top rank(s) - their are only a few top rank places and the rest of the world is a very big place. The one statistic that does look low to me is that only around a quarter of the starters make it to graduation - why can't that be higher? But I don't really have a feel for how right or wrong that figure is. We've talked about some of the comments in the Guardian - well, read 'fulhamfan''s posts of 26/27 March - I find him/her persuasive. The issues for me from the article are, firstly, the claim about "the school's increasingly narrow physical ideal" (and that students may be assessed out for failing to meet this). If it is true that the ideal is becoming increasingly narrow, then I don't really understand why. Who is driving this, and for what reason? I don't think it's what the audience wants is it? Secondly, and related to that, the point about the importance of company "identity or unanimity of style" (which seems to be one of the arguments for increasing the proportion of company dancers who have trained for most of their years at the RBS). Again, I'm not sure what the evidence is of a significant lack of company style in the RB. The one thing I remember from their La Bayadere a few years ago was not their 'star principals', but that their Shades were breathtaking. I guess that some would say that they don't dance Ashton as they should (and some I think say they can't do MacMillan either!), but I would put this down to insufficient practice and an increasingly wide repertoire rather than the company being fundamentally unable to dance Ashton through having a too high proportion of foreign trained dancers. I'd be interested to hear what those who know the RB a lot better than I do think. Company style is often raised as something important, but is it really so, in the case of a company like the RB which has such a wide rep.? Don't styles go with works (choreographers) rather than with companies?

Aileen - it is a perfectly reasonable observation. On the old ballet.co site, there were very few posts on ENB compared to RB and I could never understand it given that they are both based and perform a lot in London. There were more posts on BRB than ENB, though that was generally down to a very small number of posters. I think it's very sad. I think many ballet supporters do have a team that they support, the "home" team, a bit like football supporters you could say. I hope we can continue to see a resurgence of posts about ENB - and believe me, this is a resurgence.

John - I'm afraid this is ambiguous and it needs to be clear, in my opinion. You do not state what you require Irmgard to do, if anything. Are you saying that Irmgard must supply her full name or her post will be deemed to be in contravention of the acceptable use policy and removed?

Yes, let's be having some reports please, especially after seeing the rehearsal on Friday! Who else was in this cast?

Bit of a correction to this - I've just lost about 20mins of Liam Scarlett rehearsal - so with Opera at least, need to take a copy of the file from the cache *before* stopping the download or closing the browser window i.e. while it's still streaming

Alison, were you using IE? If so, check your Temporary Internet Files for a very large file with today's date on it. You may still be able to recover whatever you've got stored and play it as a flash video file. Certainly, I am finding the stream is going to the cache in Opera, and I can recover it and play it using VLC. With Firefox and Chrome it's harder to find the files and they are very limited in size. (Opera can be set to 400MB) and IE also has a big limit iirc. Wish I'd discovered this earlier. Also, watch it in 360 pixels, not 480 or 720.

I missed the Pagodas rehearsal but have seen half of the class, the Alice rehearsal and just now the end of the Polyphonia rehearsal. Great to see how Wheeldon and his assistants work and how they are so on the ball. From what I've seen, this is a really excellent new initiative, giving the wider public (around the world) great insights into the 'behind the scenes' of a normal RB day. Judging by the tweets, it's looking really successful and I won't be surprised to see this done again. Well done RB!

It's very good. I'm getting out of breath just watching! Who is the teacher?

Hello Albal. I take it the men above are Captain Belaye? So, there is the very interesting question as to who would be the Jaspers for those Polls? (I was only watching this a few nights ago on the ICA Classics DVD with Stanley Holden as Jasper.) Thoughts anyone?

Just had another look. Always amazed at Venus - unmistakable. I could also see Jupiter's moons through a birdwatching telescope. Had a leisurely scan at other jewels in the current night sky. Starting from Venus and Jupiter, and moving westwards, through south and over to the east, we have: First, the bright winter constellations - Orion, with its two bright stars Rigel and Betelgeuse, its belt, and the nebula just below the belt (can see it with binoculars). The belt points up to Aldebaran in Taurus - carry on a bit further and the Pleiades star cluster is also visible to the naked eye (impressive through binoculars). Orion's belt points down to Sirius, the brightest star, in Canis Major - also unmistakeable, very bright, and being low, it twinkles a lot (unlike the planets). Completing the winter group are Procyon in Canis Minor, Castor and Pollux (the twins) in Gemini, and Capella in Auriga. Then, moving east, the sky is duller. The main feature at the moment is Mars, which appears as the brightest object in the constellation Leo - bright, orangy-red, and it doesn't twinkle. Finally, above the eastern horizon, another bright star, twinkling like mad, all colours, orange, green, blue: Arcturus, lying at the end of the arc of the handle of the Great Bear (or the Big Dipper - always looks like a big saucepan to me, and at the moment it's standing on its handle). Sighting Arcturus in the east is as much a confirmation of Spring as sighting the first swallow.

Alison - there's already a thread for this here: http://www.balletcof...ia-spring-2012/ Can an admin person merge them please?

Ian - there's already a thread for this, here: http://www.balletcof...s-2012-revival/

How about: What’s Happening Talk about what’s happening and what’s coming up New seasons, tours, casting, reviews Stage, cinema, TV and radio General Discussion and Other News All other dance talk and news goes here ... the idea being to keep the focus of "What's Happening" on the events that are actually happening (/ going to happen).

Agreed, they were very good together. I especially liked the bit at the start of Scene 3 when they were reunited, and the ensuing pas de deux. In the afternoon, Nao was very good in the two solos - in Scene 2, with tied hands, really straining, in vain, to be free (in contrast Jenna Roberts was more passive here - abject and despairing); and then in the Scene 3 solo, very sensual and really feeling and expressing the rhythm of the dance. Victoria Marr also very good as Lykanion, in the seduction scene. I've wanted to see Nao and Robert in this since BRB posted a great studio rehearsal video clip of them (I can't seem to post a link to it on Vimeo without embedding it in this page...) Parker really makes a difference. He and Nao were terrific in Act 1, which is one of the best examples I know in ballet of plot exposition and development, continuously moving and well paced with numerous twists and turns. It's a great dramatic moment when the two pigeons are first seen flying by, through the window. There is a flaw though, in that first, in happiness at how good it is, and later when it's all going wrong, your eyes get a bit moist and you can have trouble focussing! (Good to sit near the front!). The bit that most gets me is when he is rejecting her attempts to keep him from heading off, and after the violin solo, we have the orchestra strings playing a wonderful pianissimo (you can hear a pin drop). After he exited, Nao was left slumped at the door, heartbroken, her friends empathising with her plight - it all seemed to happen so quickly. Hear, hear!

I can certainly see it working well and easily for BRB - start a thread "BRB - Spring Passions", stick the Brum casting in it, casting updates, add some thoughts on the shows, add the Coli casting, some more thoughts etc, and you have a nice complete record all in one place - far preferable to having separated casting and reviews threads imo. For the RB way of releasing casting, well in advance and without user-friendly casting pages on their web site, I appreciate it's not so easy, so it's up to what people want to do. But whatever pattern is used for the RB threads, I don't think the BRB (and other) threads should have to follow the same pattern. As it's probably good to keep all casting in the same forum, then either put all casting in What's Happening, or merge What's Happening and News.

I would re-label "Discuss this Forum/Site and Future possibilities" as "About us / Help" (or something similarly concise), give it concise sub-text, and move it to Balletco forums so it's with all the others (I tend to keep missing it currently). When I was new, "What's Happening" confused me - I was expecting it to be "What's On" i.e. what's coming up, which we normally put in News. Not sure if other newbies would be confused... but I can't think of a better title. (Now a calendar of stuff coming up, like on Ballet Alert, looks to be really good. We could manage that couldn't we? Could include stuff on stage, in cinema, on TV and radio. Can it be done so that several people can contribute?) Think I would prefer News and What's Happening to stay separate. But, I've often thought it would be better if EVERYTHING to do with a run of performances (e.g. RB - Romeo and Juliet) was in that thread. In particular, all the casting info for that run would go in that thread (in What's Happening). Other stuff like new season announcements, leavers, joiners etc would go in News as now. Not sure that sub-forums would work. On what basis? By company? Can't see that we would have enough, and enough activity, to justify it. Maybe by geographic region... UK, Russian, European, American, World? It can get complicated... and for any sufficiently good reason?

Angela - yes, this is a is a great topic - more coverage from Germany - and elsewhere in Europe - is very welcome, so thank you for the news and your thoughts. I hope you can see that lots of people are interested.

I thought throwing the bouquet into the audience a great touch - it took me completely by surprise - wasn't expecting it at all. The bouquet is thrown in the DVD performance but not into the audience - there is none - it's a performance for a film version. Let's hope you don't end up catching one of this week's pigeons Janet!

A very great pleasure yesterday to see this beautiful tale of the lives and relationships of real people in a down to earth place, packed with romance and humour, delightful incidents and touching moments, the odd dark one not excluded. In the context of BRB's announcement of mostly fairy story classics for next year, it felt an extra-special treat. It was good to see Alex Campbell back again with the company. His performance as Will Mossop was good, if not all I thought he might make of it. Most successful was his fast, light and effortless looking dancing - his solos and the fun ensemble pieces with Fred Beenstock and Albert Prosser, here extremely well taken by Joe Caley and Rory Mackay, all enjoying themselves as they cut loose. As for characterisation, Mossop's reserve, shyness and awkwardness were well done, but there were times when other sides of his character could have been more clearly portrayed, without restraint. When playing with the shoes and boots, he thinks he is unobserved, and I wanted to see a more uninhibited release of playful simple carefree exuberance. And as the work reached its end, to accompany his rise in status, perhaps a more confident, bolder Mossop, owning the stage, his shop, was called for. Maggie Hobson is a great character, all iron-willed, fiercely strict, no nonsense, keeping everyone in their place, and that's all there is to her, until, at the flick of a switch, she's human, with feelings and emotions. There are some beautiful touches in the part. The two looks through the door window, firstly in sadness at being left in the shop - in life - alone; and then just a little later in delight as a confused Mossop makes a rather flustered exit. And the arms saying, "yes, I have all this, yet still I am poor". Wonderful stuff. Ambra Vallo was quite superb. I thought her performance a masterclass - a dancer playing the character (not herself), and revealing so much character not through acting, but through choreographed steps, movement and body language. She stuck to the task with strict control and discipline and it paid great dividends. A quick mention for two others I hugely enjoyed: Joe Caley, always a pleasure to watch for his great lines, precision and musicality, and here combined with fine acting to make a very dapper and highly amusing Fred Beenstock. And much praise to Laura Purkiss, a beautiful dancer, sparkling in every detail as Vickey Hobson - what a fine couple she and Caley made. So, here's hoping that amongst the relentless tide of princes, dolls, kings and queens, beauties, beasts and ugly sisters, a fair share of the stage can be reserved for these real people too.

Hello Alison - to the right of each of the voting options, there's a View button - when I click on those I can see the voters.