alison

Rather late, I'm afraid, but I just got hold of the Sunday Times for the 12th: the Culture section had a major interview with Adam Cooper prior to the opening of Singin' in the Rain - NB: it's not a Polunin-free area.

13 Mar 2012 – 15 Mar 2012 Now with Putrov and Polunin joint-headlining, and a different cast and programme http://www.sadlerswe...n-Men-in-Motion Lifted straight from the website: "Following the sell-out run of Ivan Putrov’s Men in Motion earlier this year, the former Royal Ballet Principal returns to Sadler’s Wells with an evening of works showcasing the athleticism and beauty of the male form in motion. For this exciting programme Putrov will be joined by some of the world’s finest dancers including Sergei Polunin (former Royal Ballet Principal), Tim Matiakis (Royal Ballet of Denmark), Clyde Archer and Isaac Montllor (Spain's Compañía Nacional de Danza). The evening will include Nacho Duato’s modern trio Remanso and a new piece choreographed by Polunin himself. Also on the bill will be Leon Jacobson’s Vestris – a solo originally choreographed in 1969 for a young Mikhail Baryshnikov after he won the International Ballet Competition in Moscow. Other highlights include one of the most famous works ever created for the male dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky’s L'après-midi d'un faune set to Debussy’s beautiful music." (which involves half-a-dozen women, or should do, of course) Edit: clashes with BRB at the Coliseum, but coincides with a couple of "dead" nights at the ROH.

I agree with Pas de Quatre above, which means that you can include Romeo & Juliet no problem, but not just any Romeo & Juliet - it has to be an M&S Romeo and Juliet , or in this case, MacMillan's, say. I wouldn't say that either the Ashton or Northern Ballet's were "classics". On the other hand, I feel that La Fille Mal Gardée (Ashton version) is, whereas the Gorsky version probably isn't. It also seems to me that more or less any "classic" ballet is probably going to be a full-evening one. Or is it by definition a narrative one? Hmm ...

Mm, it makes a change from the more obvious ballets, doesn't it. That reminds me - I was going to write a review, so thanks for the reminder.

Blimey. If that's all it is, then they won't all get tickets. Thanks

Are we back to one of the upper echelons of Friends' booking today, or something? A waiting-room of over 1300 has just greeted me.

That's good to know. Thank you all for the hard work you've been doing behind the scenes.

I find they take about 5 minutes to kick in as a rule, which isn't always quick enough when you realise that something has just arrived on that sensitive spot at the back of your throat. This is, of course, a Links thread: perhaps we should start an audience behaviour thread of some description? (What's On Stage has one that, at last count, went on for 17 pages. I don't think we can manage that, but it is clearly a problem).

I think it was briefly touched on in another post some time ago, but just to confirm that the meeting on 29th February has been cancelled and Claire Calvert will now be appearing on March 9th. Further details at http://www.balletassociation.co.uk/Newsletters/news_12Feb.html, together with some other interesting bits of information

I'd gathered

Personally, I wouldn't want to see anyone locked out of the site (I remember a forum I would probably happily have signed up to some years ago, but the owners in their wisdom put the entire thing behind a password-protected area - you couldn't even get a sample of what was on offer - so I rejected it). Another site I'm registered with has extra benefits for subscribers - plus you get a nice big "SUBSCRIBER" under your avatar so that you can "stand up and be counted" - and I was going to suggest that might be a possibility, although I'm currently not sure about the "extra benefits".

Actually, I think most, if not all, of "his team" actually predate him, don't they? I must admit, this has come as a bit of a surprise - I had thought things had settled down at ENB. Edited to get my grammar right.

In the Daily Telegraph, Rupert Christiansen's salute to Anna Pavlova: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/dance/9093012/The-Swan-who-danced-herself-to-death.html

Late last year, back on the old forum, I expressed my appreciation of the Royal Ballet - and particularly their corps - having completed an insane number of performances in November due to having to fill in for a missing opera production as well as their originally scheduled performances, and reckoned they deserved a very large cyber-bouquet. Reading today's links, I remembered that I'd been intending to do the same for English National Ballet: 35 performances of The Nutcracker at the London Coliseum, I think it was, followed by a goodly number (19?) of Strictly Gershwin. I think their Bristol performances were the last of the Gershwin programme: over the last 6 months I'd have thought they've done enough performances of it to put most people off Gershwin for life, so I think they're deserving of a giant cyber-bouquet too. I hope their schedule over the next few months will be thoroughly refreshing for all of them.

Thanks, Janet. I have to say, the one triple bill doesn't sound as though it's going to entice me to Birmingham, especially compared with the programming BRB have done in their mixed bills in recent years. Assuming that BRB are going to carry on with their London Coliseum season in the spring as they have in recent years, does that mean we shall get the Aladdin? Interesting. Giselle sounded good, until I read cabriole's post and remembered that it wasn't the Wright production.

(Answering in reverse order here: Quite - as opposed to having to hunt for it all over the net: companies' (and dancers'/creatives') Facebook pages, own websites, Twitter feeds, blogs and so on. And yes, I totally agree. It's noticeable that, Janet's sterling efforts and a few others apart, coverage of those companies has very much dropped on this site in the last couple of years. I think the fact that certain companies had their own forums did encourage people to post there - but on the other hand, to have an individual forum you do need to have plenty of traffic going there, otherwise it just looks sad and lonely. It's also noticeable that coverage of the "Russian" companies has dropped since this forum started. And have we even *had* an ENB thread yet? Not a performance-related one that I can remember.

Ah, right. And I think I saw a notice saying that day tickets on Monday (Le Nozze di Figaro) won't go on sale until noon, in case anyone's interested.

30 minutes, last time I looked.

Glad to see MoveTube back - I was wondering what had happened to it. There's another one, of Josephine Baker, which we may have missed: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2012/feb/01/josephine-baker-still-scintillating-sepia

It's worth pointing out, for those of you who've said they don't usually sign in, that one simple operation will leave you signed in permanently whenever you view the site. That way, you'll get any PMs headed your way, too

Lifted straight off the website: "Booking unavailable due to essential maintenance 16 Feb - Customers cannot book tickets online, in person or over the phone from 7pm Sat 18 until the afternoon of Mon 20 Feb. Calendar and production pages also unavailable." Suspect this means they're rolling out the new website?

Online at last: the Daily Telegraph's 5-star review of Adam Cooper et al in Singin' in the Rain in the West End: http://www.telegraph...tre-review.html Oh, and now at the Indie (4 stars) too: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/singin-in-the-rain-palace-theatre-london-6979608.html?origin=internalSearch

Definitely looking forward to seeing this one in London!

Ah, so you mean that those of us who open Ballet.co up in the morning and keep it open all day aren't necessarily doing the site much of a favour? Edit: and I've just realised I've had two Ballet.co windows open all day - wonder whether that means I've been counted twice?

Well, I'm happy to help with modding or whatever I can. Will send more details by email later, but thought I should stand up and be counted, so to speak