alison

We also have the "Room 101" thread in Not Dance if you feel the need to get anything else off your chest

Perhaps nobody?

Well, I really didn't see that one coming. I dare say matters may become clearer with time. What a shame, though - I've seen him in so little recently, one way and another . I wish him all the best for whatever he does in the future. BTW, what else was he scheduled to be dancing in?

Thank you, betterankles: I must say, if she's done it that way, I've never noticed - which I guess is how it should be.

I'm sorry, I didn't intend it to be. I just assumed that many people would move heaven and earth, so to speak, if necessary, given how popular she is. After all, I don't know how booked the church and Alina's diary are - it might possibly be difficult to reschedule. And if they did, who's to say that the RMT won't schedule another strike and scupper it again?

There was a 1-page report in Monday's Evening Standard, too, although oddly enough it doesn't seem to have made its way online. Other obituaries can be found in the Links thread for this week. Edited to add a link which I've just found, a tribute by the director of the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury: http://www.marlowetheatre.com/page/3132/Latest-news/189

Quite a lot, I expect. Not everyone is reliant on the Tube.

Website designers who can't be bothered to check what their sites look like. I know, I have a Windows XP computer which can't take anything more recent than Internet Explorer 8. I accept that: there's nothing I can do about it. But when I try to view them on an up-to-date Firefox or Chrome browser and they are still non-navigable, that's appalling. Yes, Evening Standard, ATP and others, you should be ashamed of yourselves. This seems to have happened with quite a few sites this month: I guess they've decided that August, when people are on holiday, is a good month for changing everything.

And now, while strolling around iPlayer, I find this 30-minute television interview with her, broadcast for the first time yesterday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b065hp1k/hardtalk-sylvie-guillem-ballet-dancer It's there for a year, which should give you time to watch it

Yes, I'd just checked my diary and noticed it, too Can you get into Kings Cross, Euston or even City Thameslink by other means? It might be walkable from there.

More ammunition for those of us who believe it's shortsighted to impose retirement on dancers at a specified age

And she appears to be on there again tonight - in 15 minutes. Seems rather odd to have two in quick succession.

FLOSS, thank you very much for your long and considered analysis. I was going to look last night, but find that La Sylphide is one of the DVDs I currently have in storage Well, if the BBC doesn't do it (and what is the point of "public service" broadcasting anyway?), who will? How many people with only a casual interest in the arts will bother to take out a subscription to Sky Arts 2 (assuming it still exists? I know it seemed to be under threat), or if they have a package which does include it will actually get around to watching it rather than something else? Instead, we get the lower reaches of the tabloids telling their readership it's not for the likes of them (is the ROH still doing readers' events for The Sun and Daily Mirror? I haven't seen any indication in the last few years), and higher up there seems to be more interest in dancers' beauty routines/fashion choices etc. rather than what they actually do for a living. A very good question, and yes, good idea. Want to start one?

What a shame you didn't We don't have nearly enough coverage of contemporary on here.

I've moved further comments relating to the accident onto the thread about Jonathan: http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/10342-jonathan-ollivier/

No, you're not. I registered it a couple of months ago, I think, and have been wondering why.

Ah, that's what it was. Thanks, Jane.

How tragic. He should have had so many years left. I'll never forget his Swan/Stranger in Swan Lake: one of the best, if not the very best. My deepest sympathies to his friends and family: and to all his New Adventures "family", as well.

Yes, but common sense would set alarm bells ringing against virtually anything these days where ENB's concerned, if it's not Nutcracker, Swan Lake or R&J, and maybe Sleeping Beauty, wouldn't it? Certainly outside London. It's unfortunately a bed which they helped to make, by at one stage pretty much pandering to that attitude and not programming anything broader, but it's come back to bite them since. If you'll pardon the mixed metaphors.

I know, but I meant I don't think they literally touched in this one, whereas if I remember rightly they do at least do that in the Kobborg production. Unless I'm confusing it with something else.

Yes, I don't believe there was even a touch between them in this production? If there was, perhaps he would have been less desperate to possess her (and I use the term advisedly - I think the lack of dramatic depth which various commentators noted could perhaps be summed up by Lyndsey Winship's comment "In a ballet that hinges on romantic intoxication and despair, that’s what you need to elevate this to more than a very pretty period piece" in her review in the Evening Standard http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/theatre/la-sylphidequeensland-ballet-review-a-leap-into-the-darkness-10442938.html). Intoxication, obsession, or some other intense emotion pertaining to the Romantic Movement needs to be there, and I didn't feel that it was in the performances I saw. Incidentally, I think I remember that James and the Sylphide do touch occasionally in the Kobborg production - can anyone else confirm?

I hate to admit it, but I've never been a fan of sports where one side just clocks up a score and then the other side does the same afterwards. I prefer the ones where it can chop and change all the time (and does - I'm no great fan of football, either, because it usually doesn't)

Agree about the witches, but apart from that - would you like to elucidate, MAB?

Not quite such a good deal tonight, but £50 tickets down to £30 at tkts in Leicester Square.

Definitely looped, then. I should have stayed and watched it. Thanks!