bridiem

2 minutes ago, capybara said:

 

She doesn't 'get' that the dancers are artistes as well.

Her review was indicative either of real antagonism for ballet or of taking the p***.

I was minded to post a comment on the Guardian website but then wondered why I should dignify such a disgraceful piece of journalism with a response.

Well it seems your response would only have been removed anyway, capybara, so just as well you didn't waste your time.

I watched tonight's Insight online; it was billed as 'The Royal Ballet rehearses The Sleeping Beauty', but there was a long section in the middle which involved the RB's creative director, the director of the Ballet du Rhin and the choreographer of Les beaux dormants talking about that production which is on in the Linbury, accompanied by some filmed excerpts. So the Insight should perhaps have been billed differently. The live RB elements were Samanta Raine coaching Yu Hang, Sae Maeda and Leticia Dias in fairy variations. Samantha Raine is another wonderful coach, seeing absolutely everything and helping the dancers so much. All three of the dancers were lovely, and clearly thrilled to be dancing these famous solos. There was also some footage of Sarah Lamb and Steven McRae dancing part of the third act pas de deux with breathtaking beauty and skill. I found the Ballet du Rhin section far too long and although I started off being interested, my attention wasn't held. I also felt extremely irritated when the choreographer mentioned #MeToo again in relation to the awakening kiss, although since she then talked only about awakening passion and the memory of one's first kiss etc quite what she thought that has to do with #MeToo I don't know. NB in case she or anyone else is in any doubt, Sleeping Beauty is NOT about NON consensual sexual activity of any kind. End of.

28 minutes ago, Douglas Allen said:

I see that the absurd article/review in The Observer. has attracted further critical comments, which in turn have been moderated (removed). The review on the website has now been closed for further comments. Only the two mildest critical comments have been left available to see. The other ten comments have disappeared. Criticism of their writers, it appears, is not welcome at The Observer/Guardian. Sad, really. None of the comments used extreme language - they were simply expressions of disagreement coupled with a suggestion that Bidisha didn't really know much about ballet.

I seem to recall, though I can't find it now on the website, about a week or two ago that Bidisha was to be the new Dance critic of The Observer (it was at the same time that Arifa Akbar. was announced as the new Theatre critic of The Guardian. If my memory is correct, this is a worrying sign for writing on dance in British newspapers that someone apparently without any knowledge of or experience in ballet should be appointed as a ballet critic. I know such appointments have happened in the past, but such appointments have not usually turned out well....

I am shocked by this - both that the critical comments have been removed, and that/if Bidisha is to be their new dance critic. Appalling on both counts.

12 hours ago, zxDaveM said:

I share your thoughts Anna C

I can feel a letter to the Observer coming on...

I see your Comment on the 'review' has been removed by a moderator, zxDaveM. ?? Unfortunately, plenty of comments even if negative may be deemed to be a mark of success in some quarters.

6 minutes ago, Xandra Newman said:

Guess so, they'll come in and watch the ballet seeing it from their perspective...very different to ours, the older generation.

I think Bidisha, looking at her Bio on wikipedia, is no doubt an intelligent woman.

I feel her style of review aims at avoiding elitist, erudite writing as to not shy away the new younger generation.

An overly intellectual review risks alienating those who already think ballet and the ROH is elitist.

I'm not sure perspective is always a generational thing; there are people of my generation who have a very different perspective from mine. Having said that, of course everyone coming to ballet for the first time will have their own perspective, and a good thing too.

When I was young (17) and first interested in ballet, I wanted intelligent, erudite writing to inform and elucidate me. Do the younger generation now not want that?? (And this is the Observer, not  for want a better comparison - the Sun, we're talking about. The Observer used to be aimed at people (of all ages) who relished intellectual challenge.)

Bidisha no doubt knows what she's doing in writing like this. All I can say is that intelligence doesn't necessarily equate with wisdom.

13 minutes ago, Sim said:

I got more and more irritated as I read this.  Whoever this “critic’ is clearly has no knowledge of ballet nor its heritage, nor anything else to do with the art form.  She even managed to get a #metoo barb in there.  She would appear to be one of those people who thinks she is showing everyone how clever she is by ripping something to pieces.  That’s fine if you’re Clement Crisp, but when you’re someone with scant knowledge or understanding it just makes you look silly.  

I assume she thinks it makes her look 'relevant'. Very insulting to Observer readers, who might expect that a critic has some knowledge of the art form about which they're writing. Or maybe they don't care, and prefer this sort of writing to anything more serious? Only the Observer (which used to be a serious newspaper) can answer that.

10 minutes ago, capybara said:

I didn't like to quote that bit !

It was at that point that I realised that the writer was simply wanting to be noticed rather than wishing to write anything serious about the ballet.

13 minutes ago, capybara said:

Reading today's reviews of the RB's Sleeping Beauty by David Dougill in The Sunday Times and Bidisha in The Observer has emphasised to me the curious and various world the critics inhabit.

After a column about the production and the story, Mr Dougill can hardly bring himself to mention the dancers (Matthew Ball gets only 7 words). And Bidisha, who I have not come across before, treats us, among other things, to: 

"I got Yasmine Naghdi and she is spectacular. Prowling and exultant, punchy and athletic, grinning from ear to ear. ............. She cavorts with a bravura display of skill, stamina and charisma, her majestically controlled high kicks and nonchalant turns reminding me more of a music-hall sailor than a fragile “pwintheth”."

"..................the production is underpowered and baggy, in massive need of updating". 

"At the interminable final wedding, pairs of guests perform like runners-up on Strictly".

"Keep an eye on Yasmine Naghdi and let the rest waft around you like a cheap scented candle."

I know that we have limitations as to the volume of quotes but the above represents only a small selection of Bidisha's comments.

Anyone who equates the kiss that wakes Aurora up with 'a sexual assault' (as Bidisha does in her review) doesn't in my view deserve to be taken seriously on any level. 

49 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

I was in the studio and found  Leanne Benjamin to be a wonderful, inspiring coach....firm when she needed to be, but able to emphasise with the dancers, explain the context, and demonstrate some of the movements with the sort of ease and grace that she has retained from her  dancing career. She knows exactly what she is about, coaches around the world and is clearly in demand. The RB should make the most of her  whilst they can!

Her Coppelia and Firebird are well worth watching on DVD.

She was the best Firebird I've ever seen.

17 minutes ago, capybara said:

 

From Instagram, it seems that Marcelino Sambe now also shares that dressing room.

Wow! Maybe the dressing room deserves a nomination! 😁

7 minutes ago, MAX said:

I am sorry but I confirm what I say : she gives the impression to be effective but she is not to my eyes an interesting coach.

Well that depends what you find interesting, of course. I found her fascinating.

Much as I enjoyed his performance, Kish's nomination is incomprehensible.

Needless to say, I am very pleased that Alexander Campbell has been nominated as best male dancer... and since he and Muntagirov share a dressing room and tease each other on Instagram, I think they will be highly amused that they have both been nominated. I wish they could both win!

And, I suppose it would be rather nice if Nadine Meisner won the Creative Contribution award for her Petipa book. Not that I've actually read it, I'm afraid; but it would be good if the amount of time and research and solitary effort that goes into writing such a book (and probably without great remuneration or sales) were to be recognised.

I heard an usher at the ROH telling someone last week that they could take photos in the auditorium but not after the curtain went up. But as he says, if the ROH are using Rob's curtain call photos (I'm not surprised - they're amazing!) they must be OK with it.

1 minute ago, Bluebird said:

 

The nominations are for 2018/19 season performances in the UK.  BRB's Giselle was performed in the 2019/20 season.  Maybe we'll get to see their names in next year's nominations?

Thanks, Bluebird - I hadn't registered that. I hope they will indeed appear next year. And I hope that David Bintley will be awarded the De Valois award (which he won many years ago, but presumably there's no rule that it can't be awarded to someone again?). That would go some way to recognising not just his contribution but that of BRB.

1 minute ago, Sim said:

When people who aren't interested in ballet ask me why I love it so much, and how a bunch of people dancing on a stage can reduce me to tears, I wish I could just snap my fingers and show them last night's performance.  Or the slow movement of Concerto as performed by Naghdi/Hirano.  Or the slow movement of Rhapsody as danced by Hayward/Hay.  And lots of other things.  I struggle to put the feelings into words for these friends;  as I say, I just wish I could show them. 

Yes, absolutely. On the other hand, sometimes when you do show them, they don't 'get' it! I once took a friend to a performance including Serenade, and afterwards he looked puzzled and just said 'well what was all that about then?'. I was in an exalted state and was completely crushed and baffled by his response.

I see that BRB is (as I think is usual) totally ignored (apart from Koen Kessels). I personally would have nominated both Momoko Hirata and Cesar Morales for their performances in Giselle. I don't think BRB currently fits in with the NDA vision. More fool them.

But delighted to see Gary Avis (and others) nominated.

The nominations for the 2019 National Dance Awards have been announced. Press release:

In the year of the Awards’ 20^th Anniversary, the Dance Section of the Critics’ Circle is pleased to announce the short-listed nominations for the National Dance Awards  (#NDA20), covering performances in the UK between 1 September 2018 and 31 August 2019.

The short-listed nominees are taken from nominations made by the members of the Dance section of the Critics’ Circle, over thirty of whom participated in the judging process this year.

In total there were 418 companies, choreographers, performers and other creative artists nominated (up from 396 in 2018) from which the short-listed nominees are:

DANCING TIMES AWARD FOR BEST MALE DANCER
Alexander Campbell (The Royal Ballet)
Jeffrey Cirio (English National Ballet)
Israel Galván (Compañia Israel Galván)
Vadim Muntagirov (The Royal Ballet)
Marcelino Sambé (The Royal Ballet)
 

BEST FEMALE DANCER
Sara Baras (Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras/Flamenco Festival)
Francesca Hayward (The Royal Ballet)
Katja Khaniukova (English National Ballet)
Laura Morera (The Royal Ballet)
Marianela Nuñez (The Royal Ballet)
 

STEF STEFANOU AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING COMPANY
Mark Morris Dance Group
Northern Ballet
The Royal Ballet
San Francisco Ballet
Scottish Ballet
 

BEST INDEPENDENT COMPANY
Ballet Black
James Cousins Company
National Dance Company Wales
Shobana Jeyasingh Dance
Yorke Dance Project
 

BEST CLASSICAL CHOREOGRAPHY
Patricia Guerrero for Catedral (Flamenco Festival)
Cathy Marston for Victoria (Northern Ballet)
Helen Pickett for The Crucible (Scottish Ballet)
Stina Quagebeur for Nora (English National Ballet)
Alexei Ratmansky for Shostakovich Trilogy (San Francisco Ballet)
 

BEST MODERN CHOREOGRAPHY
Matthew Bourne for Romeo + Juliet (New Adventures)
William Forsythe for A Quiet Evening of Dance (William Forsythe/Sadler’s Wells)
Shobana Jeyasingh for Contagion (Shobana Jeyasingh Dance)
Arthur Pita for The Mother (Alexandra Markvo/Bird & Carrot)
Pam Tanowitz for Four Quartets (Pam Tanowitz Dance)
 

EMERGING ARTIST AWARD
Jemima Brown (Dancer, Tom Dale Company & James Cousins Company)
Salomé Pressac (Dancer, Rambert)
Mthuthuzeli November (Choreographer, Ballet Black)
Stina Quagebeur (Choreographer, English National Ballet)
Joseph Sissens (First Artist, The Royal Ballet)
 

OUTSTANDING FEMALE MODERN PERFORMANCE
Avatâra Ayuso in No Woman’s Land (AVA Dance Company)
Cordelia Braithwaite  as Juliet in Romeo + Juliet (New Adventures)
Jemima Brown in Epilogues (James Cousins Company)
Natalia Osipova in the title role as The Mother (Alexandra Markvo/Bird & Carrot)
Solène Weinachter as Juliet in Juliet & Romeo (Lost Dog)
 

OUTSTANDING MALE MODERN PERFORMANCE
Mathew Ball as the Swan/Stranger in Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake (New Adventures)
Jonathan Goddard in The Mother (Alexandra Markvo/Bird & Carrot)
Liam Mower as the Prince in Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake (New Adventures)
Joseph Sissens in Night of 100 Solos (Merce Cunningham Trust/The Barbican)
Saburo Teshigawara in The Idiot (Saburo Teshigawara/ The Print Room at the Coronet)
 

OUTSTANDING FEMALE CLASSICAL PERFORMANCE
Sara Baras in Sombras (Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras/ Flamenco Festival)
Francesca Hayward as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (The Royal Ballet)
Katja Khaniukova as Frida in Broken Wings (English National Ballet)
Pippa Moore as Princess Beatrice in Victoria (Northern Ballet)
Anna Rose O’Sullivan as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (The Royal Ballet)
 

OUTSTANDING MALE CLASSICAL PERFORMANCE
Gary Avis as Kulygin in Winter Dreams (The Royal Ballet)
Cesar Corrales as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (The Royal Ballet)
Nehemiah Kish as the Husband in The Concert (The Royal Ballet)
Marcelino Sambé as the Blue Boy in Les Patineurs (The Royal Ballet)
Nicholas Shoesmith as John Proctor in The Crucible (Scottish Ballet)
 

OUTSTANDING CREATIVE CONTRIBUTION
Koen Kessels (Conductor; Music Director, The Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet)
Nadine Meisner (Author, Marius Petipa: The Emperor’s Ballet Master)
Dimitris Papaioannou (Designer, The Great Tamer)
Peter Salem (Composer, The Crucible)
Gavin Sutherland (Conductor/ Music Director, English National Ballet)
 

The winners will be announced at a lunchtime ceremony to be held in Central London on Wednesday, 19^th February 2020.

The event will also play host to the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement for which there are no prior nominations.

The National Dance Awards have been organised by the Dance Section of the Critics’ Circle in each year of this Millennium to celebrate the vigour and variety of Britain’s thriving dance culture. They are presented by the Dance Section of the Critics’ Circle, which brings together over 60 dance writers and critics.   They are the only awards given by the body of professional dance critics in the UK.

In announcing the awards, the chairman of the Dance Section, Graham Watts OBE, said: “Once again, the short-listed represent the remarkable diversity of dance in the United Kingdom with considerably more than half of the UK-based nominees originally coming from overseas.  It is also pleasing that eleven of the short-listed nominees were from visiting companies, more than double last year, including four from the world of flamenco, three from the USA and Saburo Teshigawara from Japan.”.

The Royal Ballet tops the list with a record number of fifteen nominations (plus another three for Royal Ballet dancers appearing in other productions).  English National Ballet has six nominations; Scottish Ballet and New Adventures have four each; the Flamenco Festival, Alexandra Markvo/Bird & Carrot, James Cousins Company and Northern Ballet have three apiece

Arthur Pita’s The Mother for Alexandra Markvo/Bird & Carrot and Helen Pickett’s The Crucible for Scottish Ballet are the most successful productions with three nominations each.   Dance theatre based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet received a total of six short-listed nominations, from three separate productions, spread across several categories.  Four separate interpreters of Juliet have been nominated, including Solène Weinachter, nominated for the second successive year for her performances in Lost Dog’s Juliet & Romeo; and two dancers from The Royal Ballet (Francesca Hayward and Anna Rose O’Sullivan) competing for the same award for their respective performances in Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet.

The Awards Committee wishes to express grateful thanks to our sponsors, without whom the event would not be possible; to the body of dance critics across the UK for giving their time to ensure the best possible list of nominees; and, above all, the companies, choreographers and performers for providing such a rich variety of choice.

Slightly bizarre (though appropriately enthusiastic) review of the Takada/McRae/Hirano/Campbell/Naghdi performance (!) in today's Links, from the Londonist, by Hari Mountford - throughout, Takada is referred to as 'Akana Tawada' and the director of the RB as 'Kevin O Hara'. Not sure if this is some sort of autocorrect gone bonkers, or if the reviewer actually doesn't know their names.

8 hours ago, stucha said:

His fans probably already know this but Vadim Muntagirov will appear in the full length Raymonda as Jean de Brienne in Paris at the Opera Bastille. The dates are 22, 25 and  27 December. I hope his performances will enable him to escape the guillotine. 😎

He seems to be guesting a huge amount at the moment. I know he's at the height of his powers, but I hope he's not taking on too much. (But then I suppose his level of fitness is inconceivable to me ).

7 minutes ago, RuthE said:

 

I agree with you on the whole, but I wouldn't judge people for making an exception when the subject matter is - like the subject matter of pantomimes - a popular fairy tale.

And when curtain calls are sometimes taken rather in character, thus encouraging such a reaction.

Really interesting. Thank you so much for taking the time to write this, Floss.

It now has the correct details about who is replacing whom; but the headline cast is incorrect. As Rob S said, the actual cast should always be the one at the top. It does say 'cast change' at the top, but you would assume that the cast showing is the new one not the old one.

Why are these obvious/simple things so difficult for the ROH???

7 minutes ago, JNC said:

It's now 'correct' (as far as we know!). 

 

As initially assumed, Kaneko/Clarke will be dancing Friday night. 

 

Oh no wait...it's literally changed before my eyes...back to Takada/Takada and Hirano/Hirano...

 

Still Takada/Hirano for the 23rd. 

 

Perhaps there's a mole at the ROH following this forum and giving us some entertainment. Only possible explanation really.

P.S. I couldn't resist checking again and, as for JNC, first it was correct and then it literally changed before my eyes to T/T and H/H. It's a good thing I know I haven't been drinking...

Guess what it now says?! Takada is replacing - Takada, and Hirano is replacing - Hirano. Beyond hilarious.

I hope/suspect that it's en route to being correct. Quite a journey.

Alexander Campbell has tweeted a curtain call photo of himself and Naghdi and writes:

'A quite unbelievable night last night that was only possible thanks to amazing team work and understanding from all @RoyalOperaHouse and @TheRoyalBallet . Sending lots of love and healing thoughts to everyone and huge thanks for all the wonderful support we received. #ROHbeauty'