trog

https://mailchi.mp/dancexchange/brum-pro-class-membership-launched?e=6fc76aa788

I'm seeing it in Shrewsbury and Wolverhampton.

If you want to dig around, these are the pairings that I know of for Grand PDD on youtube Alicia Amatriain and Jason Reilly (2 versions) Elisa Carrillo Cabrera and Igor Kolb Uliana Lopatkina and Marat Shemiunov Julia Kramer and Robert Tewsley Alicia Amatriain and Roberto Bolle Elisa Badenes and Roberto Bolle Lauren Cuthbertson and Alexander Jones If you don't like Le Grand Pas de Deux, there is always "The Mistake Waltz" from The Concert by Jerome Robbins

As do Julia Kramer and Robert Tewsley. I think there are six different pairings to be found on tube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iS4Yj_84Co

We do calf raises at the barre in one ballet class I do - 8 in first, 8 on the left leg, with the right leg cou de pied, 8 on the right and repeat. It's an absolute killer! I do this in the gym too, three times a week. It hurts less if you really pull up in the knees and squeeze your bottom. Don't lean on the barre to much either; it is much easier if you stay vertical.

If you are in the circle for Swan Lake (and other big ballets), you can see all the pretty patterns the corps make, which you won't see if you are in the stalls. If you're watching R&J from the circle, the stage looks really empty for most of the ballet. The worse case for this was ENB R&J In The Round, which I saw in the Adelaide Entertainment Centre (basically an aeroplane hanger). I was in the front row and for most of the ballet, the two dancers looked to be about 4 miles away. Reminds me of when I saw David Bowie in a stadium gig. More the Small White Speck than the Thin White Duke. They said it was David Bowie, but it could have been anybody. If you are in the front row of the stalls of a theatre (my preferred spot), you can watch the orchestra if the ballet is a bit dull. You can sometimes hear the dancers grunting too, which shows they are human after all.

I've seen R&J danced to Berlioz score, which I think is superior to the more familiar Prokofiev score. There is so many great ballet scores, it is hard to pick a favourite but The Firebird is oneo of mine.

It appears that if you aren't logged in, you don't count as a view. I don't login unless I have something to post, which isn't that often. I still check the site daily though.

There isn't much on as far as I can see. Hippodrome has Calendar Girls The Musical and Ceri Dupree in The Ladies I Love The Alex has Thriller Live The Crescent has Spamalot The Rep has Captain Corelli's Mandolin The Old Joint Stock has Riot Act

At the sixth form college where I work, the dance students study Christopher Bruce (specifically Ghost Dances), Alvin Ailey, Sidi Larbi, Jasmin Vardimon, "Still Life At The Penguin Cafe" and Akram Khan (mostly his Kathak) - quite a range of styles. The bit in the article that worries me most is "Virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality will see significant growth, and will become increasingly relevant within the arts." Does the audience really need to interact with a performance using their phones? Phones in a theatre are already a scourge and I can see this only getting worse. There was a virtual reality performance at the Birmingham International Dance Festival last year. In it, you had a head set and you were in the middle of some animated movement. I found it very underwhelming. If you turned to see behind you, quickly you became dizzy, owing to the lack of something real to focus on. I also found the animations quite poor. Of course, this will improve. I know that Imperial College use virtual reality very successfully in their medicine course. Students can view a procedure from several different angles, which helps with their studies. They do this mostly once the procedure has been completed, watching it as a recording, although they do live stream the procedure to their students.

The shoes in Riverdance, Burn The Floor and other shows have microphones attached. The Rockettes too. Maybe you could consider that? There is a special tap shoe microphones available, but I suspect they will be expensive.

You can view the press release about this event in Birmingham here https://mailchi.mp/dancexchange/bbc-dancepassion-at-dx-5-april?e=6fc76aa788

Here's a radical idea - don't spot! Ice skaters don't; they turn too fast. I have no idea as to why they don't get dizzy. Maybe they do and just shake it off. I'm the worlds worst spotter. I've tried not spotting and it doesn't help me but spotting doesn't help either.

I think the relevant line in the article is "He believes more male dancers would use pointe shoes in their regular practice if they could actually get them in their size." I guess I'm lucky (or maybe unlucky) - I've got quite small feet so when I was learning pointe, obtaining shoes wasn't a problem.

If the program was recorded to the DVD as 4:3, it will play as 4:3. Twiddling the TV results in squashed people. There are loads of video editing software programs available for PC and Mac, with which you can change the format from 4:3 to 16:9. You would have to rip the DVD, change the aspect ratio and burn a new DVD. I don't know what the effect of changing the aspect ratio would be; I just leave my DVDs as they were recorded. I get annoyed when TV stations don't broadcast programs in the correct aspect ratio. The BBC regularly transmits Dad's Army in 16:9, resulting in squashed people. The program was made in 4:3 and that is how it should be transmitted. Fortunately my DVD box set is in the correct ratio. Quick plug for Talking Pictures TV. Great old programs, always transmitted in the correct ratio, no credit squeezing, no talking over the end credits, very small DOG and and no IPPs. True TV are terrible - their attempt to squeeze and talk over the end credits, often results in them squeezing the last 30 seconds of the program. As a trade off, you get uninterrupted end credits.