Colman

I was at the Irish National Youth Ballet's Nutcracker last Subday and enjoyed the party scene much more than I did the broadcast one: it was utterly charming, and there was always something amusing going on in the background - the camera close ups hid those elements if they're in the RB production.

It's a toy solider fight! Half way between set piece battle and childish chaos.

I think the male presenter - what is his name?? - was chosen precisely because he was an outsider that didn't know about ballet, but they don't use that. It'd be a bit silly having Bussell asking someone to explain the plot or whatever, but he could do it believably.

The worst I think I'd say about Cuthbertson/Kish was that they could probably have done with a bit more rehearsal to work out their spacing - I'm pretty sure her knee hit him hard on one of the turns as well. But Kish did a perfectly good job under what looked like difficult circumstances!

The camera work, especially in the party scene, drove me mad, as usual. Hayward was lovely, as ever. I'm afraid Campbell reminds us of a rather annoying chap we know, which makes him harder to watch than he should be.

Except Twitter may be the worse possible venue - not a good place for expressing nuanced thoughts.

Well, we need to keep the flag from bomb to border post to town: maybe we could use a French or American one? Russian? Still too risqué? I suppose we could use a made up one - though the brief did specify no allegory or myth. As for the guns, I'm not sure how to literally deal with modern terrorism without them, though I understand your concern …

Now, pretend you're a team commissioning ballets. You get that brief. What do you think? What do you do?

I don't think you have to be a choreographer to try to block out what a ballet might look like, given your constraints. You seem to want a straight forward narrative ballet, about complicated nuanced topics. So three acts on migration and terrorism. Exploring the idea might help elucidate the difficulties faced by choreographers, especially if you don't want fantasy or allegory. Oh, remember that you need to sell enough tickets to pay your expenses too. And not offend your patrons, burn too much of your karma. I mean, I can imagine a ballet about two sisters (need to be sisters - need to cast some pretty, well-known ballerinas here, might bring in at least a *few* punters) living their lovely life at beginning (idyllic domestic scenes), freedom fighters (terrorists depending on point of view) arrive (intimidation and tension), billet themselves in house (maybe a few touches of the "bad guys" humanity here?), UK flagged bomb destroys home, kills everyone except two sisters (grief and horror and anger). Sisters go in different directions - one into refugee camp, one into arms of the bombs' targets. Lyrical, touching, but angry scene of the split. Try to tease out what emotions drive their different choices. Act II * Scene with refugee sister in transit. Need to do desperation, abuse, intimidation bits. * Scene with revenge sister in training. Excitement, glamour of weapons, darkness of first kill, endurance of arranged marriage for the cause. * Scene with refugee sister at a symbolic border. Hope and fear. * Scene with revenge sister being given her mission. Go far away and kill those who killed your family. * Split scene, contrasting hope and joy and sadness of refugee entering safety with anger and determination and grief and thirst for revenge of other sister. Act III * Scenes: Refugee girl in girl meets boy scene in brightness of promised land (no idea how we're going to do this inside set budget). Burgeoning true love. PDDs and all. (Hope the critics like this, might help sell some tickets) Mayeb we can work some rejection of the immigrant into this. Maybe boy saves girl from harassers? interspersed with Revenge girl in same place, experienced as darkness and evil - change music and lighting. * Scene: at peak of refugee girl's excitement and depths of revenge girl's horror and revulsion revenge girl starts her mission. (Gun attack probably easier to choreograph than a bomb scene, but not sure we'll be allowed stage that. Maybe go with bomb.) Sisters reunited, recognise each other. Higher stakes version of dispute scene, again. How to finish? Do we make a judgement? Do we leave the dispute unresolved, the bomb unexploded as the curtains fall? Does anyone see any reasons (other than the heavy-handedness, I'm sorry, I have a cold) that something like this might face any difficulties getting onto a major stage? It should be possible to make the dances beautiful and moving, it should be possible to tease out some of the emotional content, if none of the rational content.

Come to think of it, didn't Bourne's Swan Lake throw in commentary on celebrity too?

Ballet as prose?

What would a ballet about terrorism look like? Or one about migration? Or one about a same sex romantic relationship?

Why doesn't Bourne's Swan Lake count?

Since the issues we face now seem to be pretty much 1930s+Climate change, I'm not sure what an abstract art form can do …

Our two boys would take your hand off for a smoked salmon blini. That doesn't sound outrageous for afternoon tea, but I would be visiting from Dublin and I'm acclimatised to prices here.

Well, I cleared up mine by starting ballet classes. :-) But yes, a knowledgeable physio will give you a much more useful answer - see if his teachers can recommend one, maybe?

Just realised I forgot about this, which is annoying. Back from stables too late and no time to arrange babysitting - doesn't sound like something the 4 year old is going to sit through.

Social media botherers displacing critics from their rightful place as arbiters of proper taste! Horror! Artistic directors worrying about opinions from mere mortals! Fall of civilisation. Whenever a critic talks about a silent majority you've got to assume that they mean the millions of readers they imagine hanging on every word they write. There's a chunk of the established media that consider "Twitter" a disparaging term. I'm looking forward to seeing Two Pigeons in the cinema - I like the Ashton stuff I've seen, even if it's not danced as well as in the good old days.

That Nutcracker shot (so to speak!) is not an absolutely terrible photo, which the other one was. Cameras always lie. Neither is erotic, assuming you're past the first flush of teenage hormones (in which case *everything* is erotic). As for the rest, possibly I've been desensitised by spending a couple hours a week with scantily dressed women, but I don't get it. And ballet *is* my mid life crisis. :-) (If we're going to go on a nether-regions-are-vulgar rant I'd rather see something done about the male assets on display. Seriously guys, get a decent dance belt.)

This is a great thread for a ballet newbie like me to read. Obviously, I don't care, so long as they broadcast or record them. (Since I'm not likely to make the trip from Dublin for more than one or two ballets!)

Having looked now, I can't tell: between a fort nights distance and the camera effects it's impossible. I don't think there was any significant revision.

We saw one of the Dublin shows, and it was great fun. I have the idea in my head that the the red ballroom scene had changed from the recording we have, but I haven't actually gone and checked. The attendance was awful, and Bourne tweeted later that they probably wouldn't be able to come back to Dublin on future tours. <sigh> If it's not Swan Lake, Nurcracker or Romeo and Juliet, Dublin doesn't want to know.

You haven't met our four-year old. He'd be very happy. And let's not revisit the teenagers chomping pop-corn during Romeo and Juliet's balcony scene, shall we?

Excellent. I know what we'll be watching in the office tomorrow morning then!

Do they normally archive these to their YouTube channel? 7:15 tonight is in the middle of classes for us!