trog

At the college where I work they use Logic Pro X on the Macs and Sibelius on the PCs.

A long time ago, Birmingham City Council banned the apostrophe from street signs http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4388343/Apostrophes-abolished-by-council.html. Perhaps I should go and stick some on.

Probably all those years on pointe helped.

Not a forum as such, but the BBC News website has Have Your Say (HYS). It's pretty rubbish though - comments are posted very quickly and it seems as though you can only display 10 comments at a time. BBC forums have always used rubbish software but this is even worse than the message boards.

Auntie forgot to squeeze the closing credits and insert the annoying CA. I hope this is the start of a trend.

The Rambert ballet is appropriately called "Rooster" and yes it is very good!

I'm not sure but I think John can switch on the user list in the System area of Block Manager. I don't know if everybody sees a little arrow on the LHS but I do and it allows me to switch stuff on and off.

It even gets a mention in that bastion of news The Metro!

It has been about 15 years since I've done a class with a live pianist. It's too expensive to hire somebody. When the time comes that I have to give up class, I intend to brush up on my piano (which i gave up when I was at uni and sadly haven't had the chance to return to) and play for class for free. Battletaxi, on the CD that I mentioned above, one of the tracks was Blackadder and we all sang along to it.

My long time teacher, who sadly retired last year, had a CD of piano versions of well known songs and TV theme songs, which we all thought was great. I'm not sure if she really appeciated us singing along with them though! One of the ladies in class is a chorister so the sound wasn't as bad as you might think.

I agree! I wasn't thinking about getting one - a hand stretch is more than enough. I'm doing a fair bit of that today, as I've got a bit of cramp in my right foot from probably from overdoing it in the gym last night. I like the old Playboy Bunny trick too - roll your foot across a bottle.

I received an email about this today - has anybody tried one? https://www.footstretch.com/ It looks like it could be painful especially around the Achilles tendon. In someways it reminds me of that turnout machine that was exhibited when the Theatre Museum was in Covent Garden. I wish that I could remember what it was called.

I'm on several forums under different names - it's related to the email used to register with the forum, so work forums, were I use my work email address have a id that is not in anyway related to Trog (my official nickname). I can't say that I've ever recognised anybody across forums, and AFAIK I've never been identified either. Strangely, I have been recognised twice in the physical world from my postings on the original ballet.co forum. Once walking near the Birmingham Hippodrome andthe other in the foyer of the Lowry. We didn't have avatars on the previous forum but somehow the people still knew it was me.

Pretty much what every ballet teacher has told me - resist as you lower from releve. What works for me, probably won't work for you. Over the last couple of months I've been doing squats with releve in the gym. I used to squat 80-90kgs on an Olympic bar with knee wraps going to thighs parallelish to the ground (the classic body builders squat). My knees were objecting, so I changed to 20kgs on the bar, Hindu squat (heels touching your botty), back to stand, pull up the knees, go to releve and lower heels in a count of three. I'm not turned out (I find I can't squat turned out). Result - better knees (well less worse), stronger ankles (noticeable in class) and less muscle burn in the hamstrings. I've always squated without shoes which works the ankle nicely.

I enjoyed The Cage - it's a ballet that I've been wanting to see every since I read about it, in Balanchine's Festival of Ballet. I found Russian Seasons a bit dull and confusing. There was no contrast between the four seasons. I found Etudes patchy but as Lexy said, it might improve over time. When I was watching Etudes, I was thinking I'm sure I'd seen Tamara Rojo do it years ago, and reading capybara's post above, maybe I did. Ten people in the Dudley cinema - bliss after the 40 or so for Swan Lake - much less chit chat during the performances.

What about proper LSD rather than this funny decimalised currency? I solved the light bulb problem. I bought 200 100w just before they banned them. Should see me through my lifetime. (I'm a big fan of the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling - can't abide standand lamps)

There is, of course, pas de cheval

A couple of days ago, Miss said when you're doing an arabesque imagine your peering out of a stable door. (Basically lean forward a bit at the waist.) I had an excellent moment in class. Miss is ex-BRB and she was one of my favourite dancers. She was doing a new sequence (nothing complicated) and we were marking it with the music. Off she and I went, but the rest of the class didn't, so I got to dance with her, which was lovely

Not a good season IMO, with four ballets that I don't like or I'm bored with seeing - viz In The Upper Room, Aladdin, R&J and Sleeping Beauty. The London Peguin Cafe program is more interesting than the Brum one. I wonder why the change?

I saw this at the Birmingham Hippodrome Friday evening, and with a mixed bag of dance, I knew before hand that there would be some that I love, some that I hate and some that I would be indifferent too. One thing that you could not complain about was the lack of diversity. The cost was excellent too, at only £15, although there were many offers going, so I only paid £10. Before the show, there was lots of dance performances in the foyers of the Hippodrome. I saw some Morris Men, some contemporary and there was something going on in the restaurant, but I couldn't see what. I also missed the flash mob, which sounded as though it would have been lots of fun! As to the show proper, the pieces were preceded by a short film interview of the dancers or choreographer. The evening opened with Aakash Odedra Company with a piece called #JeSuis. Supposedly about refugees, I thought it was quite dull. The dancers started wrapped in cling film lying on the floor in in a heap. The escaped the cling film and then either rolled around on the floor or bent over at the waist. Next came the BRB's Jenna Roberts and Brandon Lawrence dancing the pdd from Jessica Lang's Lyric Pieces. As expected they danced superbly. Brandon gave a lovely interview as the introduction. I think the choice of a modern piece rather than a pdd from Nutcracker/Sleeping Beauty/Swan Lake, etc was a good one. Many in the audience probably think ballet is all tutus and tiaras. My only complaint was that it was too short; an extra pdd or a couple of solos would have rounded out the section. Tango next with Julia Urruty and Claudio Gonzalez. With both dancers wearing fat suits, (Julia with impossibly large curves), it was a very funny piece to watch. Characters that you see on the tango floor, exaggerated to perfection. The fat suits in no way impeded the dazzling footwork. The first half ended with an extract of Gypsy Mixture by the Richard Alston Dance Company. The intro said that this was a party that would make you want to get up and dance. I found it OKish but it really went no where. Perhaps you needs to see the entire piece? The second half opened with Acosta Danza performing Derrumbe. This was a piece of contemporary dance about the breakup of a couple. Supposedly clothing is used as a metaphor for the baggage and emotions of life. Again I felt that this really went no where. The tango came back (hooray!) with a piece about life in Buenos Aires. The rain, the noise of the traffic, people connecting and moving on, all brilliantly presented with fab dancing. This was pure Argentinian tango, fantastic to watch. Connor Scott, BBC Young Dance of the Year 2015 presented a short piece called White Water danced to a jazz score. I was pretty indifferent to this. Parts were OK but I felt he looked a bit lost on his own on the Hippodrome stage. Finally came Iron Skulls Sinestesia. Introduced by Jonzi D (why?), this was supposed to be a hip-hop telling of a dystopian future. The gas masks were about a subtle as a sledge hammer in showing dystopia. I'm afraid I find hip-hop boring - repetitive music (for people with short attention spans) and while athletic, throwing yourself around lacks rhythm. There is no contrast. It was an excellent evening's entertainment and the Hippodrome was very nearly full. The Hippordome has presented this event before, with different acts. I hope it becomes an annual event. This is a Sadlers Wells production and I think it is on tour although there are different acts performing, depending on where it is.

In my experience many leave their phone on at the cinema. They can't possibly miss out on that all important picture of someones dinner on Facebook. We're in the throws of a zombie plague and it's only going to get worse! 10 Signs Of The Smartphone Zombie Plague - Listverse Young people "get post-traumatic stress" when separated from their mobiles | Metro News As a none mobile user, I feel quite blessed!

I think the problem has less to do with trolling and more to do with IMDB migration towards being an Amazon annex over a movie database. I never trust a review by a paid critic. I used to know the reviewer for an Australian daily, and this person disliked Sci-Fi films, yet they always gave the film a reasonable review. The worse that they would say is "This film is not for me". I suspect many professional reviewers also post favourable reviews of films, etc that they really don't like. I will trust the review of a truely independent review, that is Joe Public. There were many negative comments about main stream films on the IMDB. Amazon is in the business of selling stuff and negative reviews might impact on their sales. This is reason the BBC closed it's Points of View message boards. These were meant to feed the TV program of the same name. There was too much negative discussion on the boards about specific TV programs, so Auntie said to use Twitter, where you can't have a proper discussion and they can control what is being talked about. There is nothing more annoying to an organisation is the ability for people to start topics on whatever they want. I haven't found a forum dedicated to films as reliable as IMDB. The big advantage with IMDB was that you could find a discussion about a specific film that you were interested. This was really useful for an old film that would pop-up on the TV; you could read independent comments and decide if you might like it. I sometimes read the Digital Fix and Home Theater forums but they are very US centric and mostly related to current films. Den of Geek isn't bad if you're interested in current TV programs and Movie Forums has some interesting discussions. Again I only lurk on these. I miss the IMDB forums, where I was an occasional poster.

We had a very small ballet class last night, with just 7 die hards. Normally there are 12-15. To make matters worse, Miss had lost her voice, although she soldiered on and delivered her usual lovely class. I don't know what was going on, but the traffic around Brum was terrible last night; I don't know if anybody tried to get to the DX and gave up.

Here's five to get you going : Riot At The Rite Black Tights Carmen White Nights Mao's Last Dancer Here's a sixth, the ballet sequences aren't the best, but it's a darn good film Suspiria

When I was doing trapeze lessons, the teacher had us sing or recite poetry when we were on the bar. You can't talk and not breathe at the same time.