Sophoife

I'm cutting onions over here.

Exactly what Gil Boggs did with Colorado Ballet last year: Clark Tippet's Bruch Violin Concerto which was pretty costumes, pretty dancing, and very pretty music, Balanchine's Prodigal Son, and Kylián's Sinfonietta to finish with that beautiful sunrise-y feeling.

A lovely memory indeed @RHowarth. I can share (again) another lovely memory: after seeing him dance the Prince in Ratmansky's Cinderella in Sydney, myself and the late @jmb met at stage door, and walked back along the waterfront promenade to the car park. Preceded by Alex and his family. No, we're not stalking you! We waited a bit at the entrance to the car park, then walked on in towards the lift. There they were again. Still not stalking. We hung back and said, no, no, it's fine, we'll wait. Alex said not to be silly, held the lift door open for us, and cheerfully answered Jean's questions. A joyful memory of Jean for me (she was so excited), and a lovely memory of Alex.

I'm so lucky, she danced Odette-Odile in the 2017 Berlin performance I saw, and was kind enough to sign my programme at the stage door! I had to quickly stow my delicious pretzel in my handbag when I saw her coming out. She is TINY.

Links – Saturday 9 March 2024 Review – Ballet BC, NOW, Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver BC: Sara Harowitz, The Straight Review – Birmingham Royal Ballet, The Sleeping Beauty, The Lowry, Salford, Manchester England: David Cunningham, British Theatre Guide Helen Jones, The Reviews Hub Review – London Philharmonic Orchestra, Dance Reimagined, Royal Festival Hall, London England: Clive Paget, The Guardian Review – Philadelphia Ballet, Giselle, Academy of Music, Philadelphia PA: Sigrid Payne DaVeiga, CriticalDance Review – Pontus Lidberg, On the Nature of Rabbits, Joyce Theater, New York NY: Joel Benjamin, TheaterScene.net Review – The Royal Ballet, Swan Lake, Royal Opera House, London England: Jenny Gilbert, The Arts Desk Vikki Jane Vile, Broadway World Louise Levene, Financial Times Jonathan Gray, Gramilano Joy Sable, The Jewish Chronicle Review – New York City Ballet, Mixed Bill, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London England: Louise Levene, Financial Times Lyndsey Winship, The Guardian Zoe Anderson, The Independent Joy Sable, The Jewish Chronicle Chris Lilly, The Reviews Hub Siobhan Murphy, The Stage Marianka Swain, The Telegraph Debra Craine, The Times (share token) Review – New York City Ballet, Winter Season, New York NY: Gia Kourlas, The New York Times Preview – Ballet Austin, POE / A Tale of Madness, Long Center, Austin TX: London Gibson, ATX Today Preview – GISELLE: REMIX, Pleasance Theatre, London England: Staff Writer, Theatre Weekly Preview – Los Gatos Ballet, Coppélia, Mayer Theatre at Santa Clara University, Santa Clara CA: Patch Preview – Mark Morris Dance Group, The Look of Love, Meany Hall at the University of Washington, Seattle WA: Moira Macdonald, The Seattle Times Preview – Northern Ballet, The Tortoise and the Hare, Mansfield Palace Theatre, Mansfield, Notts, England: Steve Eyley, Chad Preview – Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Spring Mix, Benedum Center, Pittsburgh PA: Stephi Wild, Broadway World Preview – Richmond Ballet, New Works Festival, Studio Theatre at Richmond Ballet, Richmond VA: Robin Schwartzkopf, RicToday Preview – Rosin Box Project, Empower, Light Box Theater, San Diego CA : Jeff Zevely, CBS8 Preview – World Ballet Series/Grand Kyiv Ballet, Swan Lake and Giselle, UIS Performing Arts Center, Springfield IL: Ben Machi, WAND-TV News – Mission Dance Company red carpet gala featuring Evelyn Hart, Kelowna, Canada: Kelowna Daily Courier News – Your March Roster Roundup: Dancers and Directors on the Move, Alexander Campbell, Jasmine Jimison and more: Kyra Laubacher, Pointe Magazine News – Performance of Swan Lake Will Be Dedicated to the March 8 Holiday in the Capital, International Women’s Day at Astana Opera, Kazakhstan: Staff, EL.KZ News – Week in Lithuania | Liepa, a ballet dancer, loses Lithuanian citizenship: Staff, Baltic News Network Feature – The Lyric Feature, Building a Ballet: The untold tale of the National Ballet Company, Patricia Ryan and Ireland’s National Ballet School and Company: Joanna Marsden, RTÉ Video Feature – Lavender’s Dance | Kenyan Ballerina Prepares for Audition to the Royal Ballet Academy [sic]: Voice of America via YouTube Video Feature – Ballet Spartanburg, Suite from Appalachian Spring: WSPA 7News, YouTube People – Meet Houston Ballet Soloist Eric Best: Nancy Wozny, Dance Magazine People – Calzedonia Launches ‘Create Your Own Stage’ Campaign Starring Ballerina Isabella Boylston: Hanna Flanagan, Yahoo!Movies People - Jessica Fyfe appointed Principal at Scottish Ballet, Jessica Fyfe, Guest Principal, has accepted a permanent principal contract: Scottish Ballet via Instagram ...and on the other side... People – Scottish ballet dancer finds a place to call home in Wellington, Shaun Kelly, dancer with RNZB: Sharon Stephenson, The Post People – Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millepied are divorced: Canadian Press, The Chronicle Journal News Editor 2, Indo & NY News & Announces Madhurima Haque, Stuff.co.NZ Associated Press, The Washington Post (paywalled) …and finally, time for the tissues, folks… Alexander Campbell retirement curtain calls and speeches: @lady emily, YouTube

Well, I'd agree all three are world-renowned, at least to ballet fans. I first saw Daniel Camargo dance in 2012 and wow!

Thanks to all who have posted, in text, photo and video, sharing the night with people like me who absolutely could not attend (couldn't fit in his dad's luggage in my case). I'm so grateful for this forum.

Thanks @alison. I think it should happen more often. Never seen an AusBallet dancer given a microphone.

Thank you so so much @lady emilyfor the comprehensive video 😢😢😢 How lovely so many other company principals came out - and Vadream's huge hug!! I don't think I've seen a retiring dancer handed a microphone on stage before - happy to be corrected - and the speech was brilliant. He's a very special person and I hope the RAD job is all that he wants it to be. Yes @ChrisGI actually have a recording of that TMS chat.

NSW convict records have largely been destroyed, but the Tasmanian ones are still available. Women were transported to Van Diemen's Land and, originally, largely sent straight out as domestic workers. Rape and assault was part of the deal - the ratio of men to women was about 9:1. If a woman stayed on the right side of authority she got a ticket of leave (more freedom) after about half her sentence time. Over time, policies changed, and this is a great quick summary of how it all worked. The Female Factory mentioned is about ten minutes' stroll from my parents' home.

Yes, that was another thing my mother took me to before we departed for distant shores aka went home to Australia. I remembered for years the lovely light and bouncy dancing.

Yet another instance of the ROH performance database being incomplete then...it lists five performances in March, all Sibley and Dowell, and only one in July (Park and Nureyev) which TBH I've always thought was odd - one performance only, in the middle of summer? Same database shows Jennifer Penney not dancing the role at the ROH until March 1978, with Dowell; her first performance with Eagling was in November of that year. I'm adding the caveat "at the ROH" because I have no clue to elsewhere.

Thank you! I absolutely hate the online cast lists we get these days - no souvenirs! Back in 1974 as you can see, the cast list was actually stapled in to the programme and printed on glossy paper. The first five performances at the ROH of Manon were in March 1974, and all were Sibley and Dowell. According to the ROH database which we take with a pinch of salt, there was then the July performance I saw, followed the same year by three November performances (one Sibley and Dowell, the other two Park and Nureyev). In 1975 Natalia Makarova became the third person to dance the title role at the ROH. The Gaoler's Mistress appeared as a named role in just those first six performances. By November she and her scene had disappeared, never to return.

I know it's not Manon and I also know the quality isn't exactly great, but here are Laura Morera and Alexander on the occasion of his Oberon début in June 2017.

Gaoler's Mistress, not wife. I still have my programme from a July 1974 performance with Merle Park, Rudolf Nureyev, Desmond Kelly, and, as you cite, Drew and Parkinson.

Gary Avis was one of those who left the RB with Tetsuya Kumakawa in 1999 to co-found K-Ballet in Japan. The documentary series BalletBoyz had an episode dealing with this very upsetting (for the dancers) time. The documentary makers Michael Nunn and Billy Trevitt (whose son Elijah, a graduate of RBS, is a member of AusBallet's corps) were also co-founders of K-Ballet. When Avis returned to the UK he danced with ENB for a couple of years before rejoining the RB in 2004. He was appointed Principal Character Artist in 2005. This 4-5 year break would seem to account for his not having performed the Gaoler until 2005.

So I learned when trying to look up some "stats" a few weeks ago!! 😳

On the subject of Miyako Yoshida, I saw her dance Stanton Welch's Madame Butterfly in Sydney and she broke my heart. So Clement Crisp can get in a box, so there!

I'll start. He guested with AusBallet in Ratmansky's Cinderella, with the original Cinders, Leanne Stojmenov, in her retirement season. The role was made on Daniel Gaudiello, who with his wife Lana Jones was sitting next to me. Dan said at interval that Alexander was the only person besides himself to have danced every step Ratmansky gave the role. He was wonderful in the role, a real Prince with a heart and mind as well as beautiful dancing and (according to Leanne) partnering. Incidentally he did three Cinders' Princes: Bintley at BRB, Ratmansky with TAB, and Ashton at RB.

Miwako Kubota!!! Danced every single principal role that came along with AusBallet but never promoted from senior artist. The ballerina of my heart.

Uhh...literally every company shares their performance venue with at least one other company, be that opera or plays or both. Stuttgart, Paris, Berlin, Mariinsky, Bolshoi, ABT/NYCB/Met Opera, San Francisco, Australian Opera and Ballet - neither of which have a proper home theatre anyway... It would be enormously economically unsound to have a venue of the size the Royal Ballet needs for its existing productions and company size dedicated solely to the Royal Ballet. To keep running costs covered, they'd have to be performing six to eight shows a week, for at least 42 weeks a year. Imagine the number of over-use injuries!! A long (30-odd shows) run of Nutcracker alone ends up with all sorts of casting changes due to illness and injury.

@Richard LH I've replied via DM as it's a leetle teeny bit off topic 😘

AusBallet does this too. Subscribers buy in September/October for the whole of the following year, and then a day or so before a season starts, or even in the middle of one, suddenly they'll offer through their socials $99 tickets in A and B reserves, which is a saving of up to $150 per ticket. Slap in the face to the regulars much? Complaints have been made and zero effs apparently given.

A friend in Sydney has just told me of a genius hack for this type of thing: she's a member of a group of a dozen or so ballet, theatre and opera fans who have between them rented a three-bedroom apartment in inner-suburban Sydney. Not CBD but less than 20 minutes from the Opera House on train or light rail. Rent is about $6K per month. Each member of the group pays an annual amount into a joint bank account set up to pay the rent and other outgoings. Two people are the official tenants, and each generally stays there for about three months on a rotating basis, managing cleaning, laundry, basic foodstuffs, and coordinating the others' stays. They have the ensuite bedroom, and the other two, twin beds, share a bathroom. If desperate the living room sofa bed comes in to play. She tells me it's been working since 2018, and that due to the size of the group and the location of the apartment, it works out that if a person spends 12 nights a year there, they save 30-35% or more depending on what class of hotel they'd normally book. More than that and the relative cost goes further down. She was even able to volunteer to be the managing tenant for a six-month period when her daughter was undergoing cancer treatment in Sydney! I've told her I'm interested in joining the scheme for 2025 as the AusBallet Melbourne season will again be severely truncated and expensive Sydney will be a better option. I would happily manage a Forum flat somewhere in London for this sort of opportunity!!

Links – Saturday 2 March, 2024 Review – Philadelphia Ballet, Giselle, Academy of Music, Philadelphia PA: Ellen Dunkel, The Philadelphia Inquirer Review – Company Wayne McGregor/Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, A Body for Harnasie, Katowice, Poland: Caroline Roux, Financial Times Review – Dimitris Papaioannou, Ink, Sadler’s Wells, London: Louise Levene, Financial Times Graham Watts, Gramilano Preview – Ballet X, Spring Series, Wilma Theater, Philadelphia PA: Rita Charleston, The Philadelphia Tribune Preview – Miami City Ballet, Spring Mix, Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami FL: Ashley-Anna Aboreden, Miami New Times Preview – The best theatre to stream this month: Peaky Blinders, Prima Facie and more: Chris Wiegand, The Guardian News – Former Ballet BC dancer Kirsten Wicklund to take helm at Ballet Edmonton: Janet Smith, Stir News – Hudson River Museum hosts ballet performances to celebrate start of Women’s History Month: Staff, KULR8 News – Ballet West announces 2024/25 lineup featuring classics, new shows: Fresh Living, 2KUTV News – Miami City Ballet Reveals 2024/2025 Season: Stephi Wild, Broadway World Photo Feature – Philadelphia Ballet, Giselle, Academy of Music, Philadelphia PA: Scott Serio, Broadway World Feature – Why Armadillo World Headquarters Became a Hippie Ballet Hub: Rosie Ninesling, Austin Monthly And finally… Video – Air India unveils new safety video celebrating Indian dance forms: Mark Caswell, Business Traveller