Terpsichore

Capybara It sounds a very good programme. , I would have enjoyed particularly The Dying Swan and Diana and Acteon. I was tempted to come and would have done had I been in London.

Many thanks for your interesting post, Living the Dream. We three shall give your daughter and that of the other forum member a mighty cheer when the cast take their bow. The little lad and his mother are looking forward to the show. The boy has already seen a bit of ballet on television at the New Year's concert from Vienna and he certainly liked the music and I think also the dance. More and more companies are staging shows for young children, Scottish Ballet offered Wee Hansel & Gretel recently and Northern Ballet will tour with Three Little Pigs from tomorrow.

I agree with Ian Macmillan that Good Swan Bad Swan was a great success. I learned a lot from her step by step analysis of the pas de deux in Acts II, III and IV. I suppose only a ballerina who has danced that role can gain such insight. It has been a good season and I shall be a little less resentful at renewing my TV licence.

On the first Christmas after the death of my late spouse, my former ward (the nearest I have to a daughter) went into hospital and gave birth to a beautiful little boy whom she called Vladimir. Despite his Slavonic name little Vladimir is entirely African, his mum being Sierra Leonean and his dad Ghanaian. He has a beautifully expressive face and in his play I have seen him balance on one leg one arm outstretched before him the other to his side and his other leg off the ground almost in line with his body. Nobody told him how to do that trick. Now his mum says that all kids can do that. As she sees far more children of that age than I do I am sure she is right. But it is also possible that the little lad has a taste and perhaps even a talent for ballet so I am taking him and his mum to see "My First Ballet: Coppélia" at The Peacock on 13 April 2014 at 15:00. That ballet is aimed at children aged 3 and over so he is just old enough to see it. English National Ballet's website has lots of resources. Vlad's mum is already a balletomane (how could she not be with me as her guardian) but she is very level headed and unlikely to be a tiger mum even if her boy does have talent. The ballet is to open in Shrewsbury on 5 April and then proceed to London, Manchester and various theatres in the home counties, I should be interested to hear from anybody who sees the show before I do. It is of course possible that Vlad does not take to ballet. If that's the case, that's fine too.I have lots of other interests including sport - especially cricket which I love at least as much as ballet.

Two Pigeons I enjoyed your post very much. If you want to see Scottish Ballet, you will get an opportunity if you live within easy reach of London. The company is bringing its Romeo & Juliet to London in mid-May. The company has evolved a long way since I first knew it and it seems to have a good artistic director in Christopher Hampson. If you would like to learn more about Peter Darrell the Peter Darrell Trust website has lots of materials including a very good appreciation by Clement Crisp. Although we do not see much of his work nowadays Darrell was regarded very highly in his day. Looking through my old hoard of Dance and Dancers from the late 1960s and early 1970s his name came up as often as John Cranko's and Kenneth MacMillan. I feel desperately sad about Elaine McDonald and I am reminded of Anjuli-Bai's post on a ballerina's perspective on retirement. As Lord Brown said in the opening judgment on her appeal "ill health can be dreadfully cruel." She was and remains one of my favourite ballerinas. It was good to see her again in the programme. I saw flickerings of her old self several times, especially when her smile returned. At the Northern Ballet Open Day PhillUpNorth told me that Northern Ballet also traced its roots to Bristol. I had always thought Northern Ballet had started life in Manchester in 1969 but I see from the obituary of its founder Laverne Meyer that he had worked with Elizabeth West in Bristol and indeed with Darrell even after Western Theatre Ballet moved to Scotland. Now that I am aware of the connection I can see more than a slight resemblance between the two companies. You are right that there are lots of fascinating characters and stories in British ballet and with the internet it is now very much easier than it once was to uncover them.

I have just finished watching ArtWorks Scotland: Peter Darrell: Scotland's Dance Pioneer on i-player. It brought back lots of memories because Scottish Ballet was the first company that I got to know after I had left home and thus had an income for theatre tickets and ballet lessons. The first dancer whom I followed was Elaine McDonald. It is good to see her again on TV. This time in a programme about ballet rather than in a news item on her claim for social care against the borough of Kensington and Chelsea which went all the way to the Supreme Court. There is an interesting contribution from Matthew Bourne. He said that Darrell's Swan Lake was the first ballet he ever saw and that it influenced his own work. Having seen Matthew Bourne's work on Tuesday it is still fresh in my memory. I can see the connection There are some precious clips of Mods and Rockers, Cheri.and some of Darrell's other works. I was lucky enough to meet Darrell briefly on two occasions: once when Scottish Ballet performed at The Whitehall theatre in Dundee and I was requisitioned by John Steer to provide transport for Kenn Wells and another dancer and the other time when they danced at St Andrews. I am glad to see that Scottish Ballet intends to revive Darrell's Nutcracker at Christmas. That will require another trip to Glasgow.

To create a ballet set in Ptolemaic Egypt at the time that Rome transitioned from republic to empire covering such momentous events as the assassination of Julius Caesar and the battle of Actium and featuring such important figures from history and literature as Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Augustus and Cleopatra was quite a challenge. Ashton never tried anything like that. Neither did Macmillan though he did tackle historical events in Anastasia and Mayerling. Nor, indeed, did any of the great choreographers of the imperial or soviet eras. The nearest I can think of is Spartacus which was set in the servile wars. David Nixon and Northern Ballet accepted that challenge and I think that they succeeded. I left the theatre quite dazed. Something that rarely happens to me and never before in ballet. The normal laudatory adjectives - even superlatives - will not do justice to this work so this will be a factual, possibly even clinical, review. The first thing that impressed me was that an enormous amount of work had been done not just by Nixon but also by the other members of the creative team and indeed Martha Leebolt who danced Cleopatra and for whom the role was created. In the programme she wrote that she had prepared for the ballet by reading lots of books, watching the film and everything on TV that she could find. She took in anything and everything because she was aware that even the smallest detail strengthens a character and makes it more realistic. This is a fascinating period of classical history that has interested me since the age of 7 and I know it well. I actually studied it formally for my A levels in Latin and Roman history and informally before and since. I have visited the temples and seen the artefacts of Hellenistic Egypt in the great museums around the world. Even though a ballet does not have to be a historical document it is clear that considerable trouble was taken to get the history and the artistic details right. For those who have yet to see the ballet the story and the characters are set out on the company's website. The score, specially composed by Claude-Michel Schönberg, can be downloaded from Amazon or i-tunes or heard by Spotify subscribers through the music page. The stage designs were spectacular and ingenious transporting the audience seamlessly from Wadjet's temple to Ptolemy's palace, a vessel in full sail, the streets and senate of Rome and back to Egypt. Equally impressive were the costumes from Cleopatra's regalia to the deities of ancient Egypt who appeared in the last scene as Cleopatra's spirit entered the afterlife. The choreography covered two murders, riots and commotion, a great battle, love scenes of Cleopatra with Ptolemy, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, Cleopatra's confrontation with Octavia and her worship of Wadjet and much more. I cannot begin to describe it all. There is only so much that the senses can absorb but there are sequences that stick particularly in my memory such as the opening and closing scenes of Cleopatra and Wadjet and the battle of wills between Cleopatra and Octavia. A stellar cast danced last night. On stage with Martha Leebolt were her handmaidens Charmian and Iris danced by Pippa Moore and Antoinette Brooks-Daw, three of the company's best. The other strong female role was Octavia performed by Hannah Bateman yet another star. For me, Octavia's encounter with Cleopatra in which both dancers showed their considerable acting skills was the high point of the evening. As for the men, there were impressive performances by Kenneth Tindall as Wadget, Javier Torresas Caesar and Tobias Batley as Mark Antony. Everyone danced well from principals downwards. This is a ballet that has to be seen more than once and probably many times to be appreciated fully. It is to be performed only in two theatres, The Grand in Leeds until 15 March and then The Lyceum in Sheffield between the 25 and 29 March 2014. We have had to wait since 2011 for the return of this work. Goodness knows how long we shall have to wait to see it again.

You are probably right because Chris Trenfeld retweeted one of my tweets that contained a link to the article. Just before Christmas the Theatre Royal Glasgow distributed the wrong cast list for Hansel and Gretel to everybody. I pointed out the error to the front of house manager and he emailed me the correct cast list a few days later. The Theatre Royal Glasgow (which is managed by the same company that manages the Palace in Manchester) charged me what Ferrovie dello Stato call a supplementario that was a hefty proportion of the ticket price for the privilege of booking on-line and paying by debit card.

I liked all the works including Limbo but I agree that it is not an easy work to appreciate. I have written about the work elsewhere and here is a summary of what I said about the ballet. "In the programme Lawrence explained that Limbo is "a speculative idea about the afterlife of a human being dying in 'original sin' without being assigned to the hell of the damned." He explained that this work was "not a narrative but a deep feeling of striving for one's life ... surviving it or leaving this world for another. Dedicating this work to the memory of his late grandmother, Annie Lawrence, the choreographer added: "The notion of death and whether there is life after death played a big part in the process of making this piece. When someone is dying you do not want them to go. You hope that they will be around forever." And then he speculated "If someone is in Limbo can they also be brought back to life?" With costumes designed by Rebecca Hayes and lighting by David Plater the dancers, Jose Alves, Jacob Wye and Cira Robinson, gave the impression of flickering embers. Obviously it was not intended to be comfortable to watch. Similarly Hindemith's Sonata for Solo Voila (1922) Op 25 No 1 was not supposed to be easy to listen to. The interaction between the dancers was combative. Each of them was grim faced. But the choreography gave each dancer an opportunity to display his or her virtuosity. Altogether, a very moving and compelling work." I intend to see the ballet again when the company comes to Southport and Nottingham. It may be an acquired taste like oysters.

Last night I saw Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at the Bradford Alhambra. It was great entertainment: gripping drama, humour, spectacular choreography and powerful dancing. It is easy to see why this production won so many awards and ran and ran on Broadway and in the West End. I enjoyed it thoroughly. When I reviewed Bourne's Sleeping Beauty on 6 April 2013 I asked "Why can't I be nicer to Matthew Bourne?" Well, this time I think I can. That does not mean to say that I don't have reservations about his work. As I said last year: "I have mixed feelings about Matthew Bourne. He has won so many awards. His ballets are dramatic. His choreography spectacular. I have seen Cinderella and Nutcracker as well as Sleeping Beauty. Two of those performances were at the Alhambra and the third was at the Wells. On each occasion the crowd went wild. And the crowd is part of the ballet. And yet...... The trouble is that one can sometimes be too clever by half and Matthew Bourne is very, very clever. He knows how to raise a laugh from the audience with the puppet baby Aurora. And then to make them shiver as she climbs the curtain. Brilliant! But is it ballet?" Bourne's Swan Lake was even less like conventional ballet than his Sleeping Beauty with no tutus (except in a spoof romantic ballet with monsters and an axe-wielding maiden), hardly any (if any) dancing on pointe and no great ballerina roles but if ballet can be defined as dance drama there was plenty of that. For those who have not yet seen the work there is a good synopsis in Wikipedia. The fairy tale about a handsome prince falling in love with a princess under the spell of a wicked magician is jettisoned. In its place is inserted a study of an insecure and unstable individual who is heir to his country's throne but cannot quite live up to the responsibilities for which he is being groomed. He is briefly distracted by a brassy, flashy blonde who makes a thorough nuisance of herself in the royal box during the performance of the absurd ballet and later snubs him when he shows up in his underwear in the Swank (Swan + K get it?) bar. His mother, the queen, (a Volumnia type who places public duty before everything including her son) denies him any signs of affection. Haunted by nightmares of menacing swans who first show him love and then molest him he eventually flips. He produces a pistol, shoots at everybody in sight, is committed to a secure hospital where he receives something like convulsive electric shock treatment and after more nightmare images of molesting swans he eventually dies. With its corgi on wheels it was the best propaganda for republicanism since the days of Cromwell. It is perhaps no coincidence that the ballet was first staged in 1995 just a few years after so called annus horibilis. According to a notice board in the foyer of the theatre, the prince was danced by Liam Bower, the swan by Chris Trenfield, the queen by Saranne Curtin and the brassy flashy blonde by Anjali Mehra. I am not sure how accurate that was because the photos in the programme seem a little different from the faces I saw on stage (albeit from a distance and some height) and there was no cast list but whoever danced those roles last night did an excellent job. Growing up as I did in Molesey by the Thames I have no illusions about swans. Nasty hissing brutes that chased small dogs and indeed small boys they had far more in common with Matthew Bourne's boys in feathery breeches than with the sweet teenage girls of Ballet West last Saturday or even Wayne Sleep's in his Big Ballet. There were two other stars of this ballet, Lez Brotherston who designed the sets and costumed. I was amazed how he transformed the prince's bed into a balcony from where the prince and queen acknowledged the cheers of the adoring crowds. Gently teasing the Bradford audience he dressed the brassy, flashy blonde in a pink dress that was very similar to several outfits that I spotted in the theatre bar. Clearly the blonde was cast as a "Brat-ford" lass. It is no wonder that she raised a massive cheer when she took her bow. The other star creative was Rick Fisher who arranged the lighting. The enormous shadows of the clinicians in the hospital and the swans in the last two scenes were striking and frightening. There was so much in this ballet that I liked - the way Bourne reworked some of the familiar old tunes like the music to the 32 fouettés and the divertissements, the kiss that the prince gave to a bag lady who had come to feed the swans as the curtain fell on Act II - I am so glad I can be nicer to Matthew Bourne. He deserves some praise.

I have just returned from a very long and tiring drive to Pitlochry where I spent a pleasant weekend. One of the delights was a trip to the Festival Theatre where I saw Ballet West perform Swan Lake. Here are extracts from my review: "I enjoyed that performance very much. In watching Ballet West, a reviewer has to bear in mind that it is primarily a school. Consequently the main roles have to be danced by its teachers, Jonathan Barton and Sara-Maria Smith, and most of the other roles are performed by students some of whom seem to be quite young. The troupe has to dance to recorded music which limits the opportunities for acknowledging applause and makes no allowances for the the styles and capabilities of individual dancers. Similarly. the small stages of some of the auditoriums will limit the scenery and props that can be used. Also audiences must vary considerably. Last year the company danced to a rather larger and more appreciative audience at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre. On Saturday the house was much less full, there was applause in a number of wrong places, silence where applause would have been justified and even some pantomime style booing (thankfully drowned out by cheers) when Rothbart took his bow even though Isaac Bowry had danced that role very well. When all those factors are taken into consideration it was a very good evening indeed. Swan Lake is quite a long ballet and demands much from the principals especially in the third act when Siegried is deceived by Odile. In particular, there are Legnani's 32 fouettés which is the probably the best known part of the choreography. They require considerable stamina, concentration and skill and not every dancer is up to the test. When that test came I was counting and I am glad to report that Smith passed with flying colours. I should add that Barton danced his part of that pas de deux with equal virtuosity. Another good strong male dancer was Andrew Cook who danced the pas de trois in Act 1 impressively with Daniella Brown and Helen Foskett. He seemed somewhat more mature than the other dancers and I have been scouring the programme and googling his name (so far unsuccessfully) for some background information. Brown and Foskett also danced well and they appeared again with Ally Barnes and Yolanda Magashi as the little swans, another difficulty bit of choreography which they performed successfully. Other female dancers who particularly impressed me were Claire Rice and Hannah Fowler. I liked Rice's part in the mazurka very much. Another divertissement that I enjoyed was the Neapolitan dance which was danced by Duncan Saul (a guest artist) and Yolanda Magashi. In the 1970s that role was danced by Wayne Sleep, The Neapolitan dance was a great favourite of the crowds and it was probably the foundation of his career. Saul's performance reminded me a little of Sleep's all those years ago. But my favourite dancer this year as last was Isaac Bowry who danced Rothbart. A very talented young man showing promise as a character artist I shall follow his career with considerable interest. Although I have singled out a few names I must stress that all danced well and I commend them all." The next Swan Lake I shall see will be Matthew Bourne's for which it is good to have the conventional version in mind.

It is worth returning to Pitlochry for the theatre festival between Spring and Autumn. I spend at least a week of my holidays there every year. It is one of my favourite theatres now that the poor, dear Byre is dark. The others are the Open Air in Regents Park and the Stephen Joseph in Scarborough. I am negotiating with my clerk time off to take one of Tours en L'air's overseas ballet trips every year.

Yes. Their performances page links to the box offices that accept on-line bookings. Would Guildford not be easier to reach from Sussex than Cambridge. I am sure they will visit other theatres. They are firm favourites in Leeds and after their last visit I seem to remember the company tweeted that they looked forward to returning, or someone from Leeds (possibly Mark Skipper) tweeted that we looked forward to seeing them again, in Autumn 2014. Talking of Leeds I have somehow got to drag myself to class at 11:30 today after a very heavy day's work yesterday which also required me to drive into central London.

I have just driven 220 miles through interminable roadworks, strong winds and driving rain but it was well worth it to see Ballet Black's Triple Bill at The Linbury last night. I saw them in Leeds and Tottenham last year and fell in love with them. Their new programme was even more enjoyable than last year's. The company offered three very different ballets last night: Limbo by Martin Lawrence to a score by Hindemith danced by Jose Alves, Cira Robinson and Jacob Wye; Two of a Kind by Christopher Marney to music by Tchaikovsky and Ravel danced by Kanika Carr, Sayaka Ichikawa, Damien Johnson and Christopher Renfurn; and A Dream within Midsummer Night's Dream by Arthur Pita to music by Handel, Vivanco, Cole Porter, Shelton, Hart and Rodgers with Robinson as Titania, Johnson as Oberon, Alves as Demetrius and Botton, Carr and Hermia, Wye as Lysander, Renfurn as Salvador Dali and - here was the surprise and the treat - Isabela Coracy as Puck. Each of those works brought out a different quality in the company: Limbo the virtuosity of Alves, Robinson and Wye; Two of a Kind was fluent and lyrical; Dream brought out both those qualifies too but also the company's sense of fun. Coracy, dressed as a boy scout, made a wonderful Puck. She had impressed me with her speed, power and grace when I saw her at the S & A Burton last November. But last night she displayed considerable talent as a character dancer. The fact that the London season has been sold out for some time attests to their popularity. But those who were unable to catch them in London can see them in Cambridge or Guildford, which are not very far away, later in the year. I am looking forward to seeing them again when they come to Southport.

Although I have not yet been able to find the transcript of English Bridge Union v HMRC I see from a report in The Australian that the tax judge considered the criteria for an activity to be regarded as a sport: "To our minds, sport normally connotes a game with an athletic element, rather than simply a game. .............................. "Contract bridge involves some physical activity, but not a significant amount. The physical activity is not the aim of participation and physical skill is not particularly important to the outcome." Well ballet almost certainly meets that criterion if nothing else but it may fail on others such as an absence of competition except in events like the Genee.

David Wilson may be too modest to mention it but he has just published a fascinating account of the performance from the perspective of s dancer on the Dave Tries Ballet blog. It is very well written and is the next best thing to living through the experience. He has also linked through to a very touching note by Mrs Graham (the mother of the child in whose memory the Reuben's Retreat appeal was established) on the appeal's website. I am delighted to learn that there will be another performance of this ballet in the West Country in May which I hope to attend.

I am so glad you like Ballet West. I am also a fan. I saw their Nutcracker at Pitlovhry this time last year and was very impressed. They were certainly worth the trek from Yorkshire. I shall be in the audience when they return to Pitlochry next Saturday evening. They are located in the most idyllic spot bit far from Loch Etive, I explored the countryside near Taynuilt while waiting for a ferry to Craignure last summer. That possibly explains why the school has had so many successes including a Genee medallist this year. I urged them to come to England last year because I think we would take the company to our hearts.

Is anyone else coming to see Ballet Black's new programme at the Linbury next week or on their subsequent tour which takes in Cambridge, Guidford, Southport, Exeter and Nottingham? I saw them twice last year at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham in May and at Quarry Hill in November. I was bowled over by Christopher Marney's War Letters and Ludovik Ondiviela's Dopamine and although the company has lost Sarah Kundi to MurleyDance it has gained Isabela Coracy from Brazil who is a very powerful, athletic dancer. I am a great admirer of their founder and artistic director Cassa Pancho. The new programme includes another new work by Marney as well as new ballets by Arthur Pita and Martin Lawrence. I am trekking down to London on the 26 Feb and also catching them in Southport on 22 May. For the last couple of years they have visited Leeds and if they come again this year I shall catch them there too. I can't see enough of them. I shall of course let you know how they get on Wednesday and also when I see them in Southport. En passant I should just like to say hello to Vlad Pereira. My former ward's little boy (who is the nearest I have to a grandson) is also called Vlad. He is already signs of interest in ballet at the age of 3. His mum will be at the show. I saw both Nureyev and Fonteyn dance on several occasions though my favourites at the time were Sibley and Dowell. Although Nureyev and Fonteyn were great dancers I think there are also great dancers now.

I suspect Helen Grant was quoted out of context by our wonderfully fair minded press. One of my other passions is cricket and I know that she has done much to encourage girls to take up the game through projects like the Chance to Shine initiative. Of course, journalists didn't mention any of that in their articles on ballet and pompoms. I wonder why. Just for the record I don't vote Conservative.

Just to say that I saw the video on Channel4oD last night and enjoyed it very much.

Thanks Michelle_Richer That is a very helpful post and I suspect not just for me but for many others. Over the last week I have heard a lot about Paul Lewis and his teaching here and on twitter from students who have taken his class elsewhere and they all benefited considerably. In addition, there is the inspiration of taking a class in one of the finest ballet schools in the world. The moment you enter the building you see photos and exhibits of the great dancers, choreographers and teachers who have passed through or been associated with the school. I applaud the Royal Ballet School for opening its doors to the public (albeit with the qualifications and reservations that you mentioned) and I am delighted that it is thinking of expanding its classes. I have noticed on the Royal Opera House's website the work that it is doing with the public in Thurrock through such initiatives as Culture Change. Scottish and Northern Ballet have been doing the same sort of thing in their hinterland for years and it is a very good thing. Changing the subject radically you are quite right that Northern Ballet Academy are on half term. Annemarie did mention it last week and I see that I made a note of it. That is another good thing because I worked very hard at the University yesterday with one hour each of ballercise (a combination of ballet, aerobics and pilates), core work and ballet and I can certainly use a day off.

I have already sent my good wishes to Fiz on twitter. As yesterday went so well I decided to go to my teacher's second class at Huddersfield University. I am rather glad I did because I got talking to a young Vietnamese graduate student who was about to take her first class. I told her what to expect with the warm up, barre work and various centre exercises to music. She proved to be very good and she got through the bare work and port de bras, various types of turns and jumps as well as any of us. On the way out she said that she wished she could do more classes so I told her about Northern Ballet's open classes. I also told her about David Wilson who also started ballet as a graduate student and danced yesterday with Vargas and Glurdjidze and gave her the URL of his blog. I am grateful to the RBS for responding encouragingly to my enquiry but there are only 30 places on the open course, there are scores of dancers who could benefit from it more than me, I have two good teachers here and at Northern Ballet ballet who can help me realize my potential and I may have been useful today to the young graduate student. . Tomorrow I attend Annemarie Donoghue's class in Leeds for the over 55s where I always have fun and learn a lot. Had I gone to London tonight I would have been very tired tomorrow. Maybe I'll take it another year but for now and with apologies to Voltainre "tout est pour le mieux dans la meilleure des classes possible."

On 31 Aug 2012 a little lad from Mottram called Reuben Graham died at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol. While they were in Bristol Reuben's family were housed in a CLIC Sargent Home from Home, After his death the family appealed for funds to establish a similar residence in North West England in Reuben;s memory, To raise money for the appeal the Bristol Russian Youth Ballet Company visited Stockport to dance Cinderella at the Plaza on 16 Feb 2014. According to its website the Bristol Russian Youth Ballet Company was formed by Chika Temma and Yury Demakov in September 2011 to offer talented dancers from Bristol and the South West between the ages of 14 and 19 and opportunity to work with world class dancers. Temma and Demakov studied at the Kirov (now Mariinsky) and Bolshoi ballet schools respectively and have established the Bristol Russian Ballet School to teach ballet in the Russian tradition. I am not sure how the Russian tradition differs from other countries' traditions but I hope to find out. At her talk to the London Ballet Circle on the 11 Feb 2014 Elena Glurdjidze said that she had met Chika Temma in St Petersburg and that they had become friends. She spoke warmly about Temma's school in Bristol and also about the appeal in Reuben Graham's memory in North West England, As I said in my earlier post, "My admiration for Glurdjidze increased all the more. She is not simply a great dancer. She is also a lovely human being." Glurdjidze is the Patron of the Bristol Russian Youth Ballet and she wrote in the programme about her pride and delight in her connection with the School and at dancing Cinderella "in this very special performance" which was her first experience of dancing with youngsters. I should add that she has already given classes to the Bristol students which I mentioned in my previous article and she will be teaching at an iintensive course at the School between 13 and 17 April 2014." The School does not just teach teenagers, Adult ballet classes are also available and one of the students on the adult ballet course is David Wilson who keeps the Dave Tries Ballet blog. As I said in an article about his blog last September: "Dave reminds me of myself 40 years ago. I had my first ballet lesson at about the same age when I was an undergraduate. I also went to graduate school in the United States (UCLA in my case). And I got into ballet for very similar reasons to Dave (see "Why I'm Trying Ballet" 4 Aug 2011)." When I wrote that article I thought Dave was still in America for I added that if he ever came back to England I should love to meet him. I got the opportunity to meet Dave on 16 Feb 2014 because he was in the show. He danced two roles, the dancing master in the first scene with the ugly sisters, and the king at the ball. These were both demanding roles both dramatically and technically and at one point he had to lift the ballerina and deliver her into the hands of Arionel Vargas who danced the Prince. In fact Dave had to lift several dancers including the wicked stepmother who was danced by Demakov. Had Dave started his ballet career at the age of 5 and studied at a leading ballet school his performance would have been commendable. When one considers that he started only a few years ago at graduate school it is all the more remarkable. It says a lot for him and also for his teachers on both sides of the Atlantic. His training is set out in detail in his blog and it makes fascinating and for me at any rate inspiring reading. I have seen a lot of versions of Cinderella in my time most recently David Nixon's at The Grand. I think my all time favourite is the first one I saw at the Royal Ballet with Sir Fred Ashton and Sir Robert Helpmann dancing the ugly sisters in the early 1970s. The production that I saw on Sunday was close to that version in that it retained the Prokofiev score and the fairy godmother was a woman danced delightfully by Leanne Shears unlike Nixon's and it wasn't set in wartime London unlike Matthew Bourne's. There was also some quite delightful touches. In the first scene Cinderella is given extra work to do by the stepmother and sisters including picking up the contents of a bowl that are discharged on stage. At that point a group of mice appear who pick up those contents and present them to the ballerina. The mice were danced by pupils of the Sara England School of Dance and the smile on the face of Elena Glurdjidze as she accepted them was delightful. Another scene that I liked which I do not remember in anyone else's version were the dances of the Spanish and Indian Princesses as the Prince and his attendants scour the town looking for the owner of the glass slipper. The Spanish princess was danced beautifully by Ellie Wilson who is now at the Rambert School. I hope we shall see a lot more of her. Also to be congratulated were Miriam Bennett, Celeste Lewis-Williams and Christina Lojo who represented the Indian princess. The reason there were three of them was that the princess had 6 arms like Kali. Not an easy feet to accomplish on stage and they executed it brilliantly. Of course, the top of the bill were Glurdjidze and Vargas and they glowed. When I filed past Glurdjidze on 11 Feb 2014 I told Glurdkidze that I would be in the audience on Sunday to which she replied that she would give her very best for that performance. She was as good as her word. Two weeks earlier I had seen her in The Dying Swan at The Gala for Ghana. She had been beautiful then and wonderful on Sunday night. Vargas, of course, is a magnificent dancer and a great favourite of the crowds as Conrad in Le Corsaire. He gave a thrilling performance. Everyone on the stage on Sunday did well: the sisters, Caitlin Anstis and Paige Pulin, who were anything but ugly but showed their potential as character dancers, the fairies (Georgia Smart, Sarah Sigley, Abigail Baker and Miriam Bennett), Time (Andrea Santato), the Minister (William Griffin) the fairy attendants and the pupils of Denton Community College and Ashton Sixth Form College who danced in the ballroom scenes. As I had seen previously seen plenty of empty seats at the Lowry and Palace when the Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet and Rambert have been in town I feared that the Bristol Russians might not get a good audience even with Glurdjidze and Vargas on the bill. While they did not quite fill the Plaza I was pleased to see that they did not do badly. It is very important to support companies like the Bristol Russians and also Chelmsford Ballet in Essex and Ballet West in the Scottish Highlands because they bring ballet to new audiences and give the dancers and teachers of the future. I did get to meet Dave after the show making an exception to my usual practice of never going to the stage door however good the performance because the artists need their space too. We did not have long to talk because a coach was waiting with its engine running to take him and his wonderful companions back to the West Country. And I am glad to say that the Reuben Retreat project is well on target. Before the show Mrs Graham mounted the stage to say that the appeal had raised most of the funds it needs and had already found a property and begun to deliver counselling services. So well done her. If you want to contribute to the Reuben project you can do so through Virgin Money Giving. If you want to support the Russians in Bristol keep checking the "Support Us" page of their website.

I have just come back from class and am on a high which doesn't happen very often. Everything went well not just for me but for the other students too. Our teacher played some lovely music from Monotones and Spartacus which prompted us to do our best.

I I didn't just wonder what was meant by the definition I actually asked the Royal Ballet School to explain itself. I published my email to the School and the School's reply which was very clear though not what some members of the Forum had expected. However, there is no need to talk about that here. I agree that discerning what is meant by "beginners" and "intermediate" is a lot of fun for those in the know but for those who are not and need a straight answer, the use of code or jargon is very irritating, It is also perhaps damaging in that it goes contrary to the efforts of companies like Scottish Ballet and Northern Ballet (and now even the Royal Ballet) to make ballet accessible to the public. It is after all the public who keep ballet going whether as theatre goers, sponsors or indeed taxpayers. The great thing about Northern Ballet Academy is that it specifies very clearly the level of ability that is expected for each level of class and it does so in the Queen's English.