Booklover89

I'm perfectly capable of 'getting' the point that you were making FLOSS. My own point was that your analysis of Kevin O'Hare's perfectly courteous explanation in the face of some unexpected disruption is itself a little bit out of proportion. What does it matter if Kasper Holten did or didn't make a similar annoucement? Either way, you could use it to criticise the Opera House and reinforce an argument that 'standards are slipping'! Anyway, I think I'm going to go back to being a reader and not a poster on this forum. I just want to enjoy and appreciate the wonderful dancers at ROH and not constantly be corrected for having a generally positive view of the place...

Well, I imagine people would have complained if they hadn't been warned that there wouldn't be food available, and I don't know that you can blame ROH for that. For many of us going to ROH is a rare treat, and I do sometimes take advantage of the opportunity to have some food while I'm there, especially if I've come straight from work. I'm sorry if that's a sign that standards have fallen...

Yes, aileen - I don't think anything I said contradicts what you have just said. It goes without saying that we wouldn't be having this discussion if she wasn't 'famous'. But I would just question whether we really need to have several posts pointing out that a successful social media profile won't necessarily translate into company success (even if they are proclaimed to be 'general comments') under a thread entitled 'Miko Fogarty' - that rather invites people to draw inferences and it can come across as quite mean-spirited, even if not intended that way. Perhaps we could start a new thread for a general 'social media' discussion, as it's an interesting topic? She's only 17, we don't know who is advising her, and let's remember that promotion on social media is very much the norm for her age group (and increasingly for ballet dancers in general). I do think we should reserve judgement on her abilities and avoid speculation on how she will handle the 'company transition' until we've actually had a chance to see her perform.

Perhaps we should hold back a bit until the poor girl has had a chance to actually dance with the company for a while before merrily pointing out that her social media presence won't necessarily translate into leading roles? Yes she's promoted herself on instagram etc, but so do a huge number of dancers who are both training and already established in companies. She's done very well in a tough, tough discipline, and I hope that she is happy in Birmingham and brings much pleasure to BRB audiences. Aileen - I'm sure companies do welcome it when a dancer provides a particular 'angle' for publicity, but I'm not convinced that it really plays any more of a part in a decision to promote a dancer than any other factor. Though, as with most people on this forum, there are certainly dancers who I feel have been continually passed over for promotion for no explicable reason... Edit: Apologies NinaG, I did not see your disclaimer in bold above. Obviously I agree that discussion re: social media should be restricted to general terms and not targeted towards Miko in particular. But perhaps it would be more appropriate to move the generalised discussion away from a thread with her name attached to it?

I take your point that it wasn't technically 'non-hierarchical' in the way one would expect, but I was actually really pleased to see that he was exclusively using dancers from the Soloist, First Artist and Artist ranks. I think there's so much exciting emerging talent there at the moment. I remember last year in the Chroma/Human Seasons double there was a huge amount of overlap between the Principal dancers in those two works (most of whom were drawn from the core 'McGregor group' of dancers) and it was all beginning to get a little bit monotonous. So I'm very glad to see that a new group of talented performers are getting the opportunity to make new work and, by the sounds of things, relishing it. Also, logistically, it may well have freed up Principal artists to rehearse 4Ts and Song of the Earth, and we've been rewarded with very well-danced performances of those. And I do think the Royal dancers already do a pretty incredible job in adapting to different styles...

Yes, he does seem happy there, as far as one can tell. It's lovely to see. I do hope he's used for at least one of the cinema broadcasts next season.

Not to mention how bad it would be for my bank balance!

Yes, particularly after the criticisms that were levelled at management after Polunin left re: overburdening promising young dancers. I would take fewer performances of higher quality over seeing Muntagirov rushed into everything.

I think the criticism above was really directed at the relative share of this season's cinema broadcasts featuring one principal dancer, rather than 'slating' Osipova herself (who I like very much). But I have some sympathy with the management, as a number of other current principal dancers have already been featured in broadcasts of Swan Lake and Fille. I suppose they could have filmed another dancer for Giselle, but imho the decision to film the stunning Osipova/Acosta performance was more than justified. Anyway, each to their own...

There was some discussion on here a while back of how the ROH had failed to film the 'dream cast' for Symphonic Variations when they had the chance, tried to rechedule the same cast to be recorded for DVD a few years later, but were foiled by injury. Things can change so quickly in the dance world, it seeks rather risky to wait several years to see if you can capture an even better performance. That said, it would be nice to see some new faces for next season's cinema broadcasts. I wonder who they'll use for Romeo and Juliet in the autumn.

Did anyone else see Hamilton/Golding last night? How did Melissa do in her debut? Unfortunately I couldn't make it.

First-time post, just to say how lovely it is to see Romany Pajdak being given an opportunity in the Brahms Waltzes. The ROH booking page for the Ashton bill obviously hasn't caught up yet though - Cuthbertson is still listed for all performances.