Geoff

Might it be relevant to point out that anything Osipova does is bound to be interesting?

For anyone who didn’t get tickets for the long-sold-out Insight on the new Forza, new seats for sale just popped up on the website. Currently four available.

On Wednesday 6 March Alex Beard, Chief Executive of The Royal Opera House, is the guest speaker at a meeting of the Ballet Association in London. He will be answering questions, which need to be submitted in advance. 6 March should leave enough time for anyone not already a member of this excellent organisation to join.

Just to say, a few tickets for this just popped up on the website

This is still online, for those who want to see for themselves: https://youtu.be/NnT4QTdzP_I

I was just asking about the Festival in general terms. Sometimes shows are streamed,, sometimes not, and perhaps someone knows if there are any plans. It would be good to be forewarned.

No chance this might be streamed internationally, I suppose?

Just in case anyone wandered in here thinking this might be a historical discussion about great dancers, this thread (slightly oddly titled, maybe a mod could adjust?) is concerned with an allegedly popular BBC television series called “The Greatest Dancer”. As I am currently out of the UK I had to look this up to work out what people are talking about.

This BBC4 film about circus (available on IPlayer for another fortnight) has a sequence with Gandini juggling: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001jfn The relevance for the Forum is that Gandini - who I first became aware of as the best part of the recent ENO production of Akhnaten - collaborate with choreographers. From the lively and enjoyable snatches of work shown in this film, there are a couple of current RB choreographers who could usefully benefit from considering joining this trend.

Well the pictures come up fine on my IPad, just needed a bit of patience. Great details, eg the mime for “lake”. Many thanks DQFan!

The Daily Telegraph reports on events coming up in 2019 at ROH:- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/25/royal-opera-house-join-metoo-era-challenges-misogyny-stage-asking/

I have hugely enjoyed the first two episodes of this well-made series (last one coming up on Friday). McRae can certainly tap dance but it struck me that his style is quite a long way from what Astaire did (never mind his use of what looked like heavy off-the-peg shoes) so I would be interested to hear from someone who knows about the history of tap. Are the differences a function, for example, of where one learns, or from whom, or the era, or simply personal style?

Any chance of a live stream or whatever, for us elsewhere?

A bit more here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b088n7s9 Looks good: Neil Brand’s previous series have been authoritative and interesting.

Unless you have a better email suggestion Bluebird, this address is probably the best we’ve got. All I said is that this should get the information to the right person (I assume it will be passed on and by someone sympathetic to access issues at that!)

Coated, this is really very useful. I believe ROH - given its various commitments to the Arts Council - could benefit from what you say. Might you like to contact them, just forwarding your post to them should be enough? The email address which appears repeatedly throughout the ROH website is boxoffice.access@roh.org.uk This should ensure your information reaches the right person.

Do you mean for a particular performance, as previously announced, or do you mean Osipova has withdrawn from all performances Shade? The website is currently showing her dancing on three nights.

Many thanks!

Any chance of a step by step guide? I am on a laptop, and have now spent some time inside YouTube (and have tried Googling how to do this) but all I can find are ways to add captions one writes oneself. Help!

Many thanks John, you must be right and my memory (as usual) at fault! Apologies.

For this beginner, there remains something which is not quite sorted out: the Shades alternate (every other one does the arabesque on the right leg, interwoven with all the others on their left) How does that work, why is it done and what is the impact (visually as well as physically)? Here is a relevant link to another part of the ROH website (haven’t found the clip you mentioned, Fonty, can you help with this as well?:- https://www.roh.org.uk/news/behind-the-scenes-rehearsing-la-bayaderes-kingdom-of-the-shades

The series is affectionately remembered under the title ‘The House’ but your version is what appears on screen. One important correction: the person you are recalling was the then ROH boss, Sir Jeremy Isaacs. Here’s a link: https://youtu.be/2_-HRQ2YaQw

This discussion has now itself been picked up by the (online) press: https://slippedisc.com/2018/11/outrage-at-covent-garden-chairmans-elitist-remarks/ Well done Penelope!

Wonderful first night last night, it felt like the "old days" (ie real voices, the orchestra playing like they meant it and had rehearsed). At the curtain calls the audience kept the cast rather longer than usual as well: everyone knew that things had gone really well. I will be going back at least twice.

Thank you Scheherezade. Fingers crossed you get a decent reply! The ES Interview with Ian Taylor was no accident: access to the Chairman is rare and will only have been provided by the Press Office for a reason. So perhaps it is worth speculating on what that reason could be. It will not be because Taylor is catnip to journalists: he seems pretty low-profile and dull with it, so this article is unlikely to have been driven by any great hunger in the press to get time with him. No, this interview has far more the look of a managed piece of PR, carefully timed and with pre-prepared messages (don’t for a minute think anything Taylor is quoted as saying just slipped out by accident - that is not how interviews with top corporate heads are conducted - almost certainly there will have been some ROH press person sitting in on the interview to watch what is asked and what is said, to make sure the journalist “understands what Ian is saying”, ie that the previously worked out ‘talking points’ are covered). Two possible reasons for Taylor’s rather clumsy statements. The first is that this may just be the outcome of a flap following the unfortunate public comments by Lucy Sinclair, the ROH “Director of Media and Audiences” (ie in charge of the strategies being pushed in the article and also, by agreeable coincidence, in charge of the press office). Ms Sinclair was recently shown up: her chosen colleagues in that foolish consultancy were pilloried in Private Eye and she then suffered the indignity of having her key statement publicly contradicted by her boss, Alex Beard (see the “new” opera house thread for details of all this). I am not suggesting that Sinclair is “fighting for her job” through the pages of the Evening Standard, but there is striking congruence between Taylor’s remarks and what Sinclair has been quoted as saying. And, as it happens, she conveniently has control of the press office so could make this interview happen. Just a theory. The other reason is far more serious than possible pique by a self-important and not overly gifted member of the new ROH corporate class. The Arts Council - with increasingly Maoist agendas - features explicitly in the article, and its officials may well be the intended readership (if that is the case, there is nothing exceptional about this - plenty of corporate PR is aimed at no more than a few specific readers). It is not possible to exaggerate just how crazy the Arts Council Is becoming, with social/political targets overtaking any considerations of quality or even the “arts” as such. Only last week a senior English arts manager (no names, sorry) was bemoaning his time at a recent Arts Council day for Directors and Chairmen: there was no mention of music or dance, never mind high-quality music or dance, during this day, just social inclusion, social mobility and diversity targets. These are all laudable aims but have now taken over from what mere punters like us might innocently believe the point of an “arts” council to be. Seen from that perspective, I rather feel sorry for Taylor and the ROH, desperately trying to suck up to their biggest single customer (the figure is in the article) by displaying their eagerness to tick the boxes.