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SheilaC

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  1. SheilaC
    Apparently New York City Ballet has announced the death of Sara Leland. She was a remarkable dancer in the last years of Balanchine, very fast and with a great personality, creating roles in Dances at a Gathering and Symphony in Three Movements, amongst others.
  2. SheilaC
    Has anyone managed to see Sylphide? Jeannette's link didn't work for me and none of my attempts to find the screening on the RDB website has worked, either.
  3. SheilaC
    It's impossible to exaggerate what an important contribution Marion made to SWRB and later BRB. An amazing dramatic dancer with great theatrical presence, no matter what role she was playing. Several years ago I read through 9 years of Dance and Dancers, from late '60s, for some research I was doing on the company that is now Northern Ballet. Of the many patterns of British ballet that I noticed, the most marked was how frequently Marion's performances, in a wide variety of roles, were highly praised. I am convinced that the rich repertory that her company used to boast was partly due to her compelling acting ability so that important dramatic works by Tudor and de Mille were introduced (will we see works by either of these great choreographers on the British stage again?). As a company coach and assistant director she helped to hold the company together by supporting the director when he had other commitments. BRB is a strong family and Marion's warmth and commitment to the company, her dancers and to fans (she invariably acknowledged you as a friend, unlike others) have been fundamental to that culture. She will be greatly missed.
  4. SheilaC
    I enjoyed watching class and was especially pleased to see Joe Sissons who doesn't appear to have danced in recent streamings. But the reason for posting is to quote some of the text, supposedly repeating the comments made by Christopher Saunders, who took the class, in his element. The machine transcribing the text seemed to be even deafer than I am yet also had magical predictive skills, occasionally showing the words before they had been spoken! (Presumably the rehearsal wasn't live and the text was added afterwards). Quite a lot of technical terms were correctly spelt but some were wildly inaccurate. In some cases I couldn't relate the words on screen to what I heard but the following examples I found amusing: adagio: a dodge, a dirge port de bras: pour the broth, spot a bra, porta bra, put a bra tendus: Tom Jews, tongs you, single tone due tombe: Tom May Hardware Tendu battement: Tan due Batman rond de jambe: Rhonda Jam/Jean/John assemble: Assam Blah grand battement: groan but glissade: Glee sod plie: plea, pee a petit jete: jetty
  5. SheilaC
    What gets me is that the company doesn't even get all of the money- £1.67 of the £10 goes in tax.
  6. SheilaC
    Apologies, I tried a different search and finally got it. Lovely to see everyone dancing so well, not least Momoko, and Cesar, a true classical dancer. They were wonderful in Giselle last year- seems so much longer! Good to see and hear Jonathan Higgins, the pianist, one of the unsung heroes of BRB. And Brandon was in his element. Nice to see Tom Rogers given a bigger role than usual.
  7. SheilaC
    Has anyone had problems accessing Lazuli? Although I paid for a ticket on 20 October I can't find an email confirming the purchase anywhere on my computer and the BRB system doesn't recognise my email address, the way the ROH does when I access a RB streaming so I can't watch it, at least without buying another ticket.
  8. SheilaC
    Am I right in thinking Dowell has narrated it? I was hoping he'd refer to Wedding Bouquet when he was asked which role he might return to the stage for, during the fascinating Q&A in the first Sarasota streaming.
  9. SheilaC
    The Sarasota streaming has a good selection of excerpts from Ashton's work. But in addition the (longer) 'extra' package includes a rehearsal of Monotones (despite the disappointment that we couldn't hear Maggie Barbieri's comments, although we could see some of her gestures); and the contributions by Anthony Dowell, both in rehearsing Meditation and his responses to the dancers' questions at the end, are fascinating. Well worth watching.
  10. SheilaC
    Joseph Sissons has, from today, an instagram series of messages about Black History month., on the ROH instagram channel. He's as inspirational and sincere a thinker as he is dancer. There are contributions from other dancers, including Joseph Aumeer, Beatrix and Will Bracewell.
  11. SheilaC
    Several years ago I visited the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam. There was an exhibition devoted to Sonia Gaskell which featured photos and information on Audrey Hepburn, who trained with her from 1945, before some years later training with Marie Rambert. The photos suggested she was a highly promising dancer, hence her continued love for ballet.
  12. SheilaC
    I'm confused ( a frequent state!). The streaming is advertised as available for 7 days. But when I bought my ticket I got a message that it would be available for 3 days after my first viewing. Has any one else had a similar message?
  13. SheilaC
    I was slightly disappointed by the programme, given the company is one of my favourites. I enjoyed the Jewels excerpts, although I was surprised that the Diamonds pas de deux, which Sarah Lamb danced so well in the Royal's streaming, wasn't included. But I was very impressed by Lucien Postlethwaite in the opening solo of Dances at a Gathering. He performed it so much better than in the recent Royal performances, much like Johan used to. It's very unusual for an opening section of a ballet, seemingly tentative at first and very atmospheric, it must take a lot of confidence to pull it off.
  14. SheilaC
    The Guardian article said there would be some Balanchine but none is mentioned in Capybara's detection work. I was hoping that one of the great black and white duets would be included, although Apollo may be more likely... if there's any Balanchine at all.
  15. SheilaC
    LinMM, the BRB autumn show will be filmed. Caroline Miller states they want "to test 'ticketed' online performances so that our fans who can't go back to the theatre yet can still see a full BRB performance this autumn."
  16. SheilaC
    I have today received an impressive magazine from BRB, 'Back to the Future'. It's very positive and contains an optimistic, albeit cautious, article by Carlos Acosta, and briefer pieces from a range of staff across the company. It lists performances of Cinderella in February in March (Southampton, Salford, Plymouth, Sunderland, Bristol) and a season at the Hippodrome, 31 March to 10 April. Elsewhere there is a reference to the season at the Birmingham Rep in May. There's an article on the new brand and its vision, not that it's particularly clear what the brand is! It seems to be taking Ballet Everywhere! ( their capitals and exclamation mark). That's encouraging, perhaps they'll start touring more and reintroduce the 2nd season in Sunderland, which they had for decades. Speaking of Sunderland, an article written by the programming director of ATG, boasts that their relationship with the Sunderland Empire is to 'engage with an area that would not normally have access to a company of the calibre of BRB'. That theatre was the only one outside of London that hosted the Bolshoi in 1956 !- and had the Bolshoi again in later years. And since the 1970s, when I moved to the North East, there were 2 seasons a year until relatively recently. (End of rant). There are several references to increased use of filming in the future. There is frequent reference to new work, still no indication that there is any intention to show any of the rich rep it holds, Ashton, Balanchine, Cranko, MacMillan (not just Romeo and Juliet) etc. I live in hope!
  17. SheilaC
    I got an email thanking me for the donation- I preferred to give a financial donation so that it could be Gift aided. ENB also sent me an email. But BRB rang me and Vail Dance not only emailed me but sent me a letter. So ROH doesn't compare well.
  18. SheilaC
    Slipped Disk today claims that 3 of the ballet coaches at the Mariinsky are seriously ill in hospital. No details were given.
  19. SheilaC
    The Public Campaign for the Arts also has a petition, to support the arts in general, and starting a map locating arts organisations near your postcode.
  20. SheilaC
    I found that I couldn't get the official link to Cinderella to work at all well. As it's Facebook I went on YouTube and found the same performance was there (slightly augmented by interesting videos of David Bintley talking about his ballet and in discussion with some of the dancers), it must be from the BBC programme shown years ago. So presumably you can get the YouTube version in the US, Japan and elsewhere. It's worth catching, there's some nice choreography and Elisha Willis (never one of my favourite dancers) is very good in the role. And the cast includes Alex Campbell, Joe Caley, Delia Matthews, with Celine Gittens in the corps- and the inimitable Marion Tait as the (very wicked) Stepmother.
  21. SheilaC
    It may be that I should have started a new topic for this but there's an article in today's Observer (page 41) that concerns me: 'A Tory donor in charge of the Royal Opera House?' (David Ross's appointment as Chair- apparently over George Osborne, another contender). Some Forum members may feel it's overly political but the content of the article raises some important issues, not least the implications for the perception of ROH as elitist (apparently David Ross has a gold Land Rover! and fixed Boris Johnson's Caribbean hideaway at the new year), contrasting his perspective with Tony Pappano's international views. It also refers to ROH Friends' allocation of seats for Kaufmann and the Open Up project. The article includes a photo of Peter and the Wolf. Perhaps the article could be included in tomorrow's Links?
  22. SheilaC
    My immediate reaction was of regret that none of the programmed ballets was from the vast rep that the company holds, which might be a worrying sign for the future; the programming somewhat resembles that of Acosta Danza! On reflection, though, I'm wondering if Acosta is planning to use the Rep theatre the way Rojo uses Sadler's Wells, to show more diverse, contemporary work while programming classical and heritage ballets in the Hippodrome (assuming it reopens!)
  23. SheilaC
    I've had 3 emails from ATG stating that all performances in their theatres are cancelled up to 18 October. So the ENB performances at Manchester (15-17 Oct) are now officially cancelled.
  24. SheilaC
    Is there any chance of this being filmed? There's no way I can get to it from the North East but it would be amazing to see Dane Hurst and Romany Pajdak dance together. And seeing Laura dance her Dances role- she was one of the few who really 'got' the Robbins. Not to mention seeing all the others....
  25. SheilaC
    I have just noticed that the Paris Opera Ballet Giselle now seems to be available on YouTube. It was blocked previously from the streaming for anyone not in France. I'm especially pleased as I had a ticket for the night when the ballet was due to be performed Live. Due to the dancers' strike that performance was cancelled, so what is shown is the previous filmed performance with the same cast (Gilbert/Ganio) as POB must film 2 performances like the Royal.
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