Sophoife

It's the European one-day championship match @Terpsichore 😉

6 hours ago, Ondine said:

The source is here in the post above.

Thanks for the reminder - I went and read those reminiscences more fully.

6 hours ago, Ondine said:

The point I was making is that to dance Ashton a Cecchetti training is useful, as Ashton's choreography and style is very much based on that. When Christopher Carr is talking of whole body movement, and how many dancers don't get it and so find Ashton difficult,  same with all the fleet footwork, it's because it's now not familiar to them.

 

Which is actually in my view a pity.

I couldn't agree more. Which is why it's a shame ABS syllabus doesn't draw more from Cecchetti.

@Ondine I would very much appreciate the source of that quote, please. I do need to change my comment to "anyone currently with AusBallet who has Cecchetti training got it privately". 

Dear Mr Welch whose dancing I remember with much pleasure. His teacher was RAD. He left AusBallet in 1973.

Dame Peggy left in 1974, returning in 1978 for one season.

The imminent season of The Dream and Marguerite and Armand is just the third time this century AusBallet has performed any Ashton.

Australian Ballet School website says "The Australian Ballet School’s curriculum is unique to the School" and I am told by both current and former dancers that it is far more Vaganova than Cecchetti. Yes, the first director of the School was Dame Margaret Scott and Cecchetti was in her DNA. She was replaced by Gailene Stock more than 30 years ago, after 28 years. The curriculum has certainly altered since then.

Cecchetti method not part of ABS syllabus if I remember correctly. Anyone with AusBallet who has Cecchetti training got it privately.

If I'm wrong and someone knows better, please correct me: learning is lifelong.

Haha @Ondine, great pickup! The dancers tell me he shouts a lot but they don't really mind because they know he loves the work and he wants them to do it right. Ashton is such a distinct style and it's pretty much a dance generation since they did any.

47 minutes ago, capybara said:

(2010)...Others who were prominent students that year went to...initially, Scottish Ballet (Imogen Chapman).

(I've removed the bits irrelevant to this comment)

Goodness, Imogen is older than I thought, then! 

One does wonder, though, in the cases of Bracewell and Muntagirov specifically, were they recruited to the RB or did they initiate the contacts that led to their contracts?

Of course a famous example of someone graduating from RBS, getting a contract at RB, and then going (successfully in his case) elsewhere is Xander Parish.

Another is Polunin, although he doesn't seem to have really settled anywhere since leaving the RB. And yes, thank you, I'm quite well aware of what he has been doing so please, nobody jump in with his CV since 2012.

IIRC Muntagirov and Polunin were the same year? and Dame Monica offered a contract to Polunin. 

In Daria Klimentová's book, she says that Wayne Eagling offered Muntagirov a contract thus:

Discovering that his counterpart at The Royal Ballet was not taking Vadim, Wayne Eagling was in like a shot and offered him a great deal to join ENB. Knowing the company, and having come to know Vadim, I doubt if the attraction of this arrangement would have been so much about money because the main temptation would certainly have been the prospect of being offered the major classical roles to dance early in his career, which is every dancer’s dream. To whet his appetite even more, Wayne offered Vadim the chance to dance the role of Albrecht (the lead male role in Giselle) before Christmas in his very first season, which meant that within six months of leaving ballet school, he would be headlining in a major ballet in a major company. This was completely unheard of, but Wayne clearly had every confidence in the young Russian boy.

Quoted from chapter 10 of Daria Klimentová with Graham Watts: Agony and Ecstasy: My Life in Dance published in 2013 by John Blake Publishing.

I was copying the quote when your comment appeared @Jan McNulty, so I'm going to say that in my reading that counts as public information 😉 and that if anyone would know, it would be Klimentová.

17 minutes ago, Odyssey said:

I was very impressed by how fluent and comfortable she was in explaining the sections to a live audience. I have found her presentation during the live streamings a little stilted , so this was a revelation. 

Dame Darcey is dyslexic, and for the live streams she is required to read from cue cards. Speaking off the cuff as it were would probably be much easier for her.

1 hour ago, LinMM said:

Desert Island Discs these days very few chosen to take part …and from all walks of Life …..have any classical music in their choices! Whereas 25 plus years ago or so I’ve often gone out and bought a record( or even CD!) from listening to the programme. 

The first time I saw Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain (it was the full version, not just the pdd), after wiping the tears from my face as it was Steven Heathcote's penultimate performance as a principal (July 2007), I rushed off up Swanston Street and bought the relevant Arvo Pärt CD.

In the days when there was a music shop open after 10pm in a bustling hub that's now a desert of takeaways and building sites.

34 minutes ago, alison said:

 

Yes, I was really enjoying his class, too - to the extent that I didn't switch over when the RB one came on (and when I did I was quite disconcerted by the roving camera).  He was very keen on the toes, too ... and I can't remember what else now.

Épaulement, arms, faces, toes, hips, knees...oh and pretty backs too.

Not in AusBallet world, @alison.

They divide the theatre into Premium and A B C and D Reserves, with for this Ashton evening in the Joan Sutherland Theatre at the Sydney Opera House (which was originally intended as the concert hall) a price range for adults of $333, $254, $176, $127 and $85. "Restricted view" seats and believe me they're restricted (@Bluebird can attest to this) are $61. No extra benefits.

Given those prices, and that I'm a Melbourne subscriber not a Sydney one, I was absolutely delighted when the aforementioned @Bluebird gave me a heads-up on an offer of A and B reserve seats for just $99 and snapped up three reasonable ones for less than the cost of one Premium seat. I'm sitting way to the side for two, so despite being A Reserve with a slightly restricted view, and in the centre but in the second back row of the stalls for the third.

Reminder that SOH seating is in blocks with no aisles except at the sides, nothing like the horseshoe of the ROH.

They used to sell 6 standing places in the circle on each side (12 total), later reduced to 5 a side, on the day and I have very fond memories of walking down through a dawning Sydney and parking myself first in the queue with my portable breakfast (there's a convenience store at Circular Quay that sells plastic bowls of cereal, and I'd buy some milk, plus a piece of fruit and a coffee - often provided by my hotel!). Security often lent me a cushion.

By 6:30am the queue was always full, because they would only sell one ticket per person so if you wanted two you both had to queue. It was very fair. Box office doors opened at 8:30, tickets went on sale at 9, and usually sold out by 9:05. I'd be back at my hotel and back in bed by 10 😁

Then they started making standing places available the day single tickets went on sale, and removed the limits. Since Covid I understand the standing places are no longer sold.

Back on topic, my favourite class stream was Paris Opéra Ballet with Gil Isoart, who kept telling them to do something doucement or joliment or to n'oubliez pas l'épaulement et le visage 🤭 He wanted all the centre work to be presented, not just completed. It was a mixed rank class, the only male étoile I recognised was Paul Marque. I spotted Bleuenn Battistoni and Bianca Scudamore. One chap had fluoro green sockettes for the barre work 🧦

15 hours ago, capybara said:

David Hallberg seems to be creating an RB in Australia!!!

Edited to add:

Well, not the current RB but one with the kind of RB rep. many of us on here would like to see

I'm sorry @capybara but I beg to differ here. The last time we had any Ashton was 2015 and we haven't had a full length (Fille) since 2004. Christopher Carr staged The Dream here eight years ago, and he's done it again. We are so so lucky to have him here!

This double bill is insultingly short but still asking full prices ($333 for a premium seat, which is 85% of the stalls and the front two rows of the circle).

I'm spending two nights in Sydney plus flights (just too much driving and the train takes far too long) plus three performances, because the Ashton bill is not being shown in Melbourne next year.

Under the tenure of Mr Hallberg we've had some real rubbish, some hold-overs that were financially committed to before 2020, a "revamped" traditional Swan Lake cutting out a bunch of traditional bits and with no mime to speak of plus an underwhelming ending, and a couple of cool things (Kunstkamer, Everywhere We Go).

Annoyed in Albury

Thank you @Bluebird - my go-to guru 😘

18 minutes ago, Silke H said:

IG fouettés

 

in case anyone is in need of a giggle

my take on the RB’s pirouette/fouetté challenge for WBD

 

🦛🩰

Absolutely fabulous 😍🤩 especially if you look at my avatar.

On 02/10/2023 at 22:08, oncnp said:

try this one? Livestream on Ballet TV | The Australian Ballet

On 03/10/2023 at 02:36, alison said:

after that, on 21st November, and presumably for two weeks after, we have The Dream and Marguerite and Armand

On 08/10/2023 at 03:13, Pas de Quatre said:

 You can only watch once. 

 

They have a weird system as the link is sent in an email and then you are supposed to start watching and cast or connect by wire to your Smart TV. Couldn't get any of my devices to do that so I am watching on a laptop. Is anyone else having this problem? 

AusBallet's streaming model is WEIRD and at $29AUD quite expensive to only be able to watch once.

Watch once on one device. No swapping between devices.

Set up your device to be already streaming or already connected by cable to your preferred screen before you start the stream, is my advice. I would of course never advise anyone to capture the stream as that would be Very Naughty.

Very odd they're streaming a Tuesday performance with, IMHO, sub-optimal Titania and Oberon. But it is the retiring Amy Harris as Marguerite.

Casting as scheduled:

Marguerite Amy Harris

Armand Nathan Brook

Armand's Father Steven Heathcote

Duke Joey Romancewicz

Conductor Barry Wordsworth

Pianist Andrew Dunlop (ex Northern Ballet, now our "Principal Company Pianist & Head of Music Staff")

Titania Ako Kondo

Oberon Chengwu Guo

Puck Brett Chynoweth 

Bottom Luke Marchant

Hermia Rina Nemoto

Lysander Hugo Dumapit

Helena Valerie Tereshchenko

Demetrius Mason Lovegrove

Conductor Barry Wordsworth

27 minutes ago, alison said:

 

Ravel's Piano Concerto in G?!  How on earth could anyone swap those two movements around?!  I mean, the final movement finishes with such ... finality.

🤣 Graeme Murphy made a piece in about 1980 for the great Australian dancer Kelvin Coe, called Beyond Twelve. It has three dancers playing the central character: boy larking about and playing footy with his mates, young man working at ballet and meeting with his first love, and mature dancer close to retirement (nothing lasts forever).

The second movement is used for the mature man and at the end he walks off alone upstage, the backdrops parting to reveal (particularly in Melbourne) a vast empty backstage space.

With the right dancer (and I saw Kelvin several times in the role, and only Andrew Killian and Steven Heathcote ever approached him), it's a beautiful piece. And the rearrangement works 😉

https://youtu.be/HLFa_oHjKAg?si=0WbwqICvfwCi7-UU from 40 seconds.

Thank you for these considered and thoughtful reports @SheilaC! 

We hardly ever get any Robbins here 🇦🇺 and it's so lovely to read about performances of his work.

I remember seeing En sol in Paris in 2017 and being completely confused, as the other ballet I know to that music swaps the order of the second and third movements.

I said to Mr. G. that having watched the stream I was awfully glad I hadn't been asked to judge (as if!!) 🤣

He said that "judging is so hard when it's at that high level" and that the winner was "very refined".

If it's named after Phyllis Bedells, why do they keep calling it the Bedell's Bursary?

🙄

#NitPickersNotSoAnonymous 😉

Dan Gaudiello very very pleased with Ed Cooley's bronze medal.

I'm so pleased a boy who's had some coaching from Daniel Gaudiello has made the final. 

Makes a change for Dan from choreographing The Red Shoes: Next Step 😂 

4 hours ago, Scheherezade said:

although that isn’t always the case with real life partners. 

I present to you Guo Chengwu and Ako Kondo of AusBallet who embody that statement. IMHO of course. I'm so lucky, I had them for my one live Swan Lake. I'm getting them for one of my The Dream casts, too. Whoopee 😐

😐@Dawnstar I am so sorry to hear you had to leave - I know you wouldn't have done so if you had felt okay, so you did the right thing for yourself. And coping with rail replacement buses under those circumstances...!  Please enjoy the best kind of hug I can offer - a virtual one 🤗 (probably your preferred kind anyway 😘)

1 hour ago, Sim said:

If you can get to a cinema to see the screening on November 7th (or a replay) I can’t recommend this cast strongly enough!  

2, 3 and 6 December for us in 🇦🇺 

At least I'll know the casting in advance 😉

I noticed that the whole video focused on sound. Fantastic, but what about sightlines?! I mean, some of the SCS standing places have tall stools in front! Fabulous for the stool sitters, not so much for the stander.

3 hours ago, Ruby Foo said:

http://EllisonBallet.org

 

Ellison have, what looks like a great preparation summer programme for potential auditonees including a variations intensive.

I know they're a bit old, but if you do a search on this site the reviews for Ellison Ballet summer schools are rather positive! 

And @Ruby Foo I didn't mean it as a "correction", sorry if you saw it that way, I meant it as an expansion. That's why I said your comment was "not accurate", rather than "wrong". Because yes, POB take their own first, at the internal audition. Sometimes they take their own at the external one, too, but they do take complete outsiders as well. Who then, of course, have to work massively to absorb "le style parisien" (I'm told the parts of the TV series L'Opéra  showing the étoile coaching the seasonal contract holder in company style are accurate).

I will be seeing Amy in her penultimate performance, as Marguerite, on 22 November. Can't believe the casting is available so early 😉 The other Marguerites I get are Sharni Spencer and Robyn Hendricks. I'm excited to see all three.