Melody

The thing I'm not getting in all of this is where parents are parking their common sense when this sort of stuff happens. If their child was being hit by a teacher in a maths class, or yelled at, intimidated, or ridiculed in front of the other children by the history teacher, that parent would be down at the school at the speed of light, demanding an explanation and a change of attitude if the school didn't want to be reported to the authorities. Why, all of a sudden, does this sort of behaviour become acceptable during a dance class? If it's bad teaching practice, it's bad teaching practice regardless of the subject being taught. A child is going to react badly to being physically or mentally hurt by a teacher and isn't going to do well at school - this doesn't somehow magically change when it's dance being taught rather than geography.

And female runners are wearing outfits that are increasingly coming to resemble bikinis while the men still wear singlets and shorts.

Here's a nice story - runners from different countries helping each other finish after a fall: http://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/la-sp-oly-rio-2016-runners-abbey-d-agostino-nikki-hamblin-1471369602-htmlstory.html

Gosh, five gold medals today. I didn't think we had it in us.

Despite some snarky comments upthread, I thought the golf was really exciting. And we got a gold! Good old Rosie - a hole in one and an Olympic gold in the same tournament, that doesn't happen every day. I hope his win isn't devalued by people saying that, well, the world's top four golfers stayed away, because he beat Henrik Stenson (world no. 5) for the gold, and Stenson is the 2016 Open Championship winner so he's at the top of his game.

New York Times review along with some lovely photos: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/arts/dance/review-sarasota-ballet-shows-its-mastery-of-frederick-ashton-works-joyce-theater.html?_r=0 It makes me wonder what'll happen to the Ashton repertoire when Iain Webb is no longer at the helm of the Sarasota Ballet. As Alastair Macauley said in the review, the Royal Ballet isn't falling over itself to preserve some of Ashton's masterpieces, and the Sarasota Ballet seems to be the only company that is. These ballets don't deserve to just be lost, but there's a real danger of that happening.

Would they do anything about a person who's just being loud (obnoxious but nonthreatening) during the intervals, as long as he behaves during the performance?

I was reading et another article trying to explain the Donald Trump phenomenon in the USA, and the author was saying that it was mostly about a rejection of European "high culture." In other words, the revenge of Nascar fans against opera fans. The last couple of sentences in the article made me think of this thread. "As I have pointed out elsewhere, you wouldn’t think of chomping popcorn at the opera, the symphony or the ballet. At a movie, lots of us wouldn’t think of not chomping popcorn. It is a democratic act." Apparently the author doesn't realise that in certain bastions of high culture, chomping popcorn during a live performance is no longer unthinkable.

Looking forward to updates. My husband has been following the fallout in the scientific community with some alarm; I'm glad things don't seem to be so dire in the dance world and hopefully across some of the other performing arts.

Oh, I agree with you, I was just suggesting that that might be a reason. I do remember thinking, when I read the book, that it was such a shame he didn't have an extra five or more years in the job after the move.

I read the book and found it quite fascinating. I'm sure he wouldn't have been so candid about personalities if he hadn't been so old and venerable. It did sort of read along the lines of "so what can they actually do about it, refuse to come to my funeral?" Monica Mason isn't the only person who came out of it well - he obviously adored Margot Fonteyn and Miyako Yoshida, among others. He admired Frederick Ashton's work tremendously but I gather wasn't so enamoured of the man himself. I didn't get the impression of a bunch of gossip for its own sake, mostly an attempt to include personalities as well as events in his narrative, which often helped make sense of the events. I found the writing style a bit dense and hard to deal with - it wasn't an easy read in that respect, and the timing often overlapped from chapter to chapter so I found myself having to check back and forth between chapters to see if he was talking about the same event or similar ones. But that wasn't a big deal, and I'm sure it'll be easier to figure out on a second reading. In terms of the comment in a previous post about his being rated a "reasonably successful" director - he was only in that position for a few years after the company moved to Birmingham and had to retire because of chronic ill health, so maybe the problem was that he simply wasn't there long enough for the reviewer to know if he was going to be one of the great ones. Most books on the Royal Ballet concentrate on the Covent Garden company, so It was really interesting to read a first-hand account of how the touring company developed and metamorphosed over time. One thing that came across quite strongly was the scope and detail of Ninette de Valois' vision for her companies. I hope she'd approve of how BRB has turned out. (I also loved the anecdotes where Kenneth MacMillan used to plead with him to "keep Madam away from me" when he was choreographing because she'd turn up and start interfering.) One thing I personally appreciated was his constantly referring to the difference between ballet and contemporary dance, and how ballet companies needed to stick to ballet (another of the bees in de Valois' bonnet apparently) because the two types of dance were different and there's no point expecting to be able to do contemporary dance as well as dancers who are specifically trained for it. He also had quite a bit to say on the subject of dancers (and choreographers) using ballet as an excuse to do acrobatics, especially in the romantic and classical ballets where acrobatics aren't called for and the music has to be distorted to accommodate all the extensions. This guy was definitely not an admirer of the legacy of Sylvie Guillem, and I didn't get the impression he thought much of the decision to give Wayne MacGregor such a prominent choreographic position at RB. He was very complimentary about Wheeldon's Winter's Tale as a positive example of the development of narrative ballets in the modern era (but didn't have anything to say about Alice in Wonderland). I hope Peter Wright isn't one of the last of a dying breed. He's saying so much that we see in threads here about ballet styles and the regret that so much artistry is being lost in the rush to perfect difficult technique, and I really hope that this isn't going to be a case of waiting for people like him to die off so that ballet can turn into a cross between contemporary dance and gymnastics. It seems to be something he's very concerned about, and I hope the current generation of directors and choreographers take heed.

Well, they were fairly big ones, not those tiny little six-pack thingies, which would have been a complete waste of time. And they're apparently unpalatable to deer, so they have a fighting chance in that respect. But we do seem to have to replace plants an awful lot, between the weather and the wildlife.

And just a couple of weeks ago everyone was wondering where the summer had got to! We've had temps in the high 80s/low 90s all week, but with high humidity, which has been a real trial. Tomorrow we're expecting 96F with 50% humidity, which will probably take the heat index well over 100 degrees. Not for nothing do they refer to this climate as poisonous. I planted a few bedding plants earlier in the week and have had to pour water on them daily to keep them going. I see people on Facebook posting pictures of snow scenes, saying "if you don't like this weather, remember what'll happen in 16 weeks' time" and all I can think is "bring it on!" I hate the weather here in summer, it's one of the few things I prefer about the west coast.

Well, she seems to have a very good attitude about it and hopefully will get something from the course, even if she can't take part in everything. At least she's able to go, which is always something.

Really awful news; it seems as though the terrorists are just trying to outdo each other. It's so difficult to know how to respond to attacks like this when the perpetrators don't mind dying in the process of carrying them out.

I think this sums up the events of the last couple of weeks as well as anything: https://www.buzzfeed.com/lukebailey/the-crisis-explained-maybe?sub=4292628_9112004&utm_term=.feXEqG9nN#.emQGPp6xA

I was wondering the same thing. Surely they could restrict their menu to things that are less noisy than crisps. I mean, what next? Celery sticks and ice cubes?

I think to do justice to both the classical repertoire and the size of the ROH stage, a significant reduction in the company size probably wouldn't be a good move (although with more and more funding cuts, who knows...). It sounds from what FLOSS said that a careful choice of repertoire is more important than the physical size of the company in providing opportunities.

Here's a link to some arts individuals and institutions, including the ROH, voicing their opinions about the effect of Brexit on the arts: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/jun/24/arts-hit-back-at-brexit-i-feel-nothing-but-rage

This is really great news. She's a lovely dancer.

It's always nice to see scientists who can make their subjects accessible to the general public. I remember when Carl Sagan made Cosmos for TV, he was criticised by a lot of his colleagues for wasting his time on popularisation of science rather than doing research. Such a short-sighted attitude.

Are you suggesting shutting down the Not Dance section, BBB? Some members do seem to enjoy exchanges about non-dance topics, and there's certainly no compulsion for anyone to provide information even if they do have specialist knowledge. But if people feel their expertise is being taken advantage of when other members ask for information, advice, or help about something, or that chatting about backyard birds or the latest quirks of the London transport system is detrimental to the forum, maybe we should have a vote on the usefulness of this part of the site, or on the scope of the topics allowed?

And for anyone who wants to be cheered up about the whole thing, here's John Oliver explaining it for the bemused American audience (be warned, there's a bit of X-rated stuff here, especially in the song at the end...): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgKHSNqxa8 This piece does come down fairly heavily on one side of the argument, so if the mods think it's inappropriate, feel free to delete. It's just that it's the first time in ages I've felt like raising a smile over the whole sorry business. And I see the YouTube link isn't embedding again - dunno why that keeps happening to me.

I suppose in a way it's everyone's fault, because presumably the media wouldn't be like this if it didn't sell (sort of like what happened when Princess Diana died and everyone was blaming the photographers, ignoring the fact that the photographers were only chasing her to get photos because of public demand). Having said that, I do realise that the owners of the media outlets have their own reasons for the opinions expressed in their papers and TV stations, but still they must be seeing a market for all this poisonous aggression that they're producing. If it's any consolation, which I'm sure it isn't, the same thing is going on over here in spades during this presidential election. People seem to be afraid and aggressive and are seeking comfort in the company of their political or religious "tribe," with the result that everyone is talking (actually, shouting) past everyone else and nobody's really listening. I don't know if it's the result of all the anonymity of the internet or the different specialised news channels that let people stay in their own comfort zones while demonising' all the other points of view or what's going on, but it's getting very worrying.

This is really shocking news - I'm not getting a clear idea from newspaper reports whether the suspect had serious mental health problems or whether the issue had to do with his membership of an extremist political organisation. I suppose we'll get more clarification over the coming weeks. We don't hear a lot about the EU vote over here although I'm trying to follow it on online news sources, but I gather the campaign has been contentious verging on the downright nasty (rather like the campaign for mayor of London), and sometimes that environment does make people with fragile mental health snap. I know it would be hard because of freedom-of-speech concerns, but I wish something could be done about the tone of some of the TV and newspaper reporting of these political issues.