thewinelake

That was very good. Not the greatest seats, but I can't say I found the Osipova-Golding chemistry that strong, although her end of act I was most moving. Nunez majestically graceful. Would love to hear an opinion from someone who's seen other performances.

See you there!

Osipova still hasn't pulled out from tonight's performance?

Going to Germany in the summer this year and I was wondering if there's likely to be anywhere we could go to see some dance? This is late July and we'll be in the Cologne..Stuttgart area. Looking at the Stuttgart ballet site, it would appear that the last show is on 24th July - just before we're likely to be there.

So what cast is likely to be on 29th? Anyone know?

Where were you sitting? You've made me place an order on ebay for a laser pen. Woe betide any bored paramedics when we go on 29th!

Nah, no worries, it's just that it led me to think about what a whopper this one is! I can imagine in years to come someone might have, as their specialist round on mastermind, "The Audience Behaviour Thread on BalletCo Forum" ;-)

Keep up at the back there! http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/1654-audience-behaviour/page-24#entry91908 But I wonder if anyone has read (and remembers!) everything in this thread? ;-)

Thanks, but they're for the girls to give to their dance teacher tomorrow. I went down there in the end. Not too far out of my way, actually...

Need some ROH vouchers for Wednesday. I suspect that applying for them by post now is probably going to give me 50% chance of getting them on time. Are there any places in London (other than ROH itself) where one could get them over the counter?

Ours do grades at one school and vocational at another. Both teachers seem happy with it and get on well together. Of course you should run it past the first teacher. Maybe it was easier in our case as the first school didn't do vocational exams. DD1 started on 6 with Int Foundation and is now on 8 (exam next week!) and Adv Foundation. Once G8 is done, she's intending to stay on for "adult ballet" - no respite on the chauffeuring front! DD2 pretty much the same but 2 years behind. Now another member of the same school has done the same.

Got a French exchange student coming over between 20th and 27th June and we were hoping to take her to a ballet in London. However, it looks like very slim pickings with Opera seeming to dominate the major venues. There's some USA company doing something at Sadlers Wells, but I was wondering what else there might be?

Is a full cast list for that available?

Maybe Opes?

Regular summer school is fun. Ballet is about half of it and there's no pointework. I think Summer stages may include more contemporary and might be a little more serious...

Road sense is the biggie, so I'd expect ballroom dancers to have a great advantage.

Anyone here know much about this? DDs have done the regular summer school a few times and were wondering about giving this a go. Sounds a bit more serious. Also different accommodation - Marylebone Hall - how does that compare to the Roehampton site?

By the way, I was just wondering how licensing works for this kind of thing. If (for example) an American company wanted to start performing this piece, could they ask Bourne/NewAdventures for permission, and then pay a royalty? If so, has anyone done it? This seems such a commercially attractive proposition to me, I'd expect it to have been done by now. Maybe that's just not how things work?!

Saw it last night and loved it! Very different to the traditional and more of a crowd-pleaser. I find the score took some time to grow on me compared to the more obvious charms of Swan Lake and Nutcracker, so just as well we heard it so often for the EYB shows. I felt that Tchaikovsky would have approved, and didn't know that the painful-to-watch rose adage was a post-Petipa invention. Cordelia Braithwaite played the impish Aurora very nicely, but Count Lilac (Christopher Marney) was the star for me - very clever to blend the vampire myth. Other clever things - masks on the flash-forward of Aurora's "death". Of course the puppet baby was fun and well known. I can't quite understand how I managed to forget so much of it from the TV production.... Really looking forward to Red Shoes. Might be worth becoming a Friend to get priority booking. I think I'll be scaling back ROH attendance to do more S.W. as it's so nice to be able to see the faces of the dancers (and parking is easier!).

That's a coincidence, my DD is doing just the same! (No boys at her school).

I wonder if colours are awarded for ballet? I know that there is a university ballroom dancing competition- my sister competed in that back the day...

Just did a slightly random search and found a "ballet club" at Cambridge who are putting on a couple of performances of Romeo & Juliet at West Hall (a reasonably size auditorium) in Feb. They have a guy called John Clare (who I think may be a professional choreographer???) who teaches the advanced class (suitable for grade 8/vocational students).

Just thinking that those not moving onto vocational courses generally stop doing ballet in year 13 (upper 6th form in old money!) and some schools seem to try to coincide that with passing grade 8 exams. I was wondering, though, are there many "ballet societies" at universities? Do they put on shows, etc?

I found her very friendly and almost reluctant to wear the mask of professionalism, but it is exactly that and no more. I suspect even her husband calls her Miss Lewis...

You could take a periscope