FionaM

I think it’s interesting to note at the press announcement for Rasputin in Moscow that all the questions from journalists were about the show, EXCEPT from the British representative. So it’s a 2-way street, maybe the powers that be on here could persuade the British press to talk to Sergei about dance?

Ah that’s interesting, I didn’t know the grand circle was closed. So yes I will have overstated from what I could see. What happens to those people who bought tickets there?

Is anybody on here actually going to see his shows? Or is it only me? And the 8,000+ other people (I am estimating low, as I don’t have access to accurate figures) who have bought tickets to this week?

I think you mean the ‘Sergei bashing’ never stops. What happened to forgiveness, understanding and giving a person the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t think this was a site for venting dislike in personal attacks. If you don’t like him or what he does, you could just not comment. Are we not here to discuss dance?

Apologies I wasn’t suggesting the departures from RB were linked to Sergei leaving. Only that it didn’t reflect well on RB management. But as everyone says - that is all ancient history. And yes I was under the impression Johan and Alina were married. But as I am not a personal friend, I realise I have only hearsay to go on. They’ve been a couple for 14 years or so I read. Thanks for the clarification! And sorry again, I didn’t mean to mislead.

I think you’ll find that Johan, Alina (they are married) and Sergei are friends. Who remembers the amazing Les Lutins created by Johan for Alina, Sergei and Stephen McRae whilst at the RB? Alina, Johan and Sergei all left the RB under a black cloud within a year. I do question how the RB management managed to treat 3 outstanding principals so poorly they left? And also Tamara Rojo around the same time? Alina and Sergei subsequently performed at galas together. The programme at the Palladium next week is a joint project with Johan dancing alongside Sergei in Fraudulent Smile (programme 1) and Rasputin (programme 2). Romeo and Juliet in Verona in August this year is a new joint project with Alina and Sergei in main roles and Johan as Tybalt and choreographer. Johan and Sergei also worked together on White Crow with Ralph Fiennes. Perhaps we should be seeing Sergei through Johan’s eyes? Johan is a very capable man and I believe he sees something others may not have opened their eyes to see.

Back to Sergei Polunin and the pre-premiere of Rasputin in Moscow. Lots of interesting clips about, including this one. I am excited for the actual premiere at the Palladium on 31st May! https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx0TMnEARob/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Have you seen this?

Agree with all your points.

It’s so frustrating that in this age of technology where everything is available at the click of a button, that ROH website can’t get its casting correct, and, up-to-date. Never mind easy-to-read. I can understand not wanting to say if a dancer is injured vs ill - that’s private. On the website my major bugbear is that you cannot click on a calendar date and find out the shows & events on that particular date. Any visitor (particularly from abroad) to London will want to know this.

😳🤣

So if I am pro-something it's ok to accuse me of trolling? I won’t descend to responding. I did mean thank you for all the work you did - there was a lot of information and sadly I do have other commitments - a job, children, aged parents etc that take most of my time. Communicating on fan sites is meant to be fun and informative in the occasional free moments. (All too infrequent!) We should all be allowed to have different opinions, different likes on this forum. And for that to be respected. It is possible to be wrong or for circumstances to change so that one’s current opinion can change. All humans should aspire to openness and willingness to listen. You don’t have to like or be persuaded by the other’s point of view. Rudeness should be dealt with by objective moderators.

I cannot believe the conceit displayed here. Just because you haven’t heard of someone doesn’t mean that person isn’t ‘known’. Perhaps you should speak to Fox Sport who commissioned work from him for last year. Or just google.

Here’s a comment from the internationally renowned composer Kirill Richter who actually knows and has worked and is working with Sergei Polunin: It is part of a Russian article (see link below). This is a translation of the part referring to Sergei: "- Together with Sergei Polunin I worked on the project The Frames devoted to the Days of the Quatar culture in Moscow. I composed the music The Song of Distant Earth. That was quite an interesting experince, a mixture of cultures, working with musicians from Quatar. - How did you get aquainted with Sergei Polunin? - Via the agency which was dealt with the Quatar project. They had several options but finally they contactes Sergei and me. There is the thist person in this project, the film director Lado Quitania.An exhibition devoted to our work will be opned at the Moscow Museum of Modern Arts in May. The Frames will be released at the same time. - There have been a lot of scandals around Sergei Polunin recently. And the problem was not even the Putin portrait on his chest but rather his discriminating posts in the instagram... - Well, everything seems to be ok now. - But you never know when a relapse can occur! - I'd better avoid medical terms. Of course I know what is going on. But if I support a man and consider him to be my friend I support him in everything. It doesn't mean we don't discuss all that. All people have the right to have their own opinions ans you should always respects the choices of others even if you don't share it fully. You should respect people's right on their bodies, on thr opportunity to make any tattoos, to worship any gods and to have any skin color. It is a respect of personal territory. You see, Sergei has got his own way of communication. For example he was accused of hating gay people,but all that is not true. He wrote not about it, he only said about differences between female and male energies. He is not at all homophobic. Generally he is a very kind man. It is difficult for people who don't know him well to comprehend it." http://www.spletnik.ru/buzz/interview1/89366-kompozitor-kirill-rikhter.html?fbclid=IwAR1eEdfzzNCfu3TaXhcalAYjerbGnAzVaa_jC6GQXm9aCsY6zLltDbAcrds

Congratulations on this lengthy response. Sadly I don’t have the time to respond as other life priorities are calling me away. Perhaps others will. For those that that seem to doubt it, I am British and live in the UK. I love ballet and admire many ballet dancers. I love travel, but have never been to Russia. It’s an enormous country. I would love to visit there, amongst many other countries. Life is too short! And I am very much looking forward to seeing Sergei Polunin, Johan Kobborg and company at the London Palladium later this month. I’ve heard Fraudulent Smile and Sacre are excellent works.

Of course she didn’t, social media didn’t exist back then!

I didn’t suggest he was stifled, Sergei said so ‘the artist in me was dying’. He wasn’t being let go to take on other challenges that he wanted. And I suspect, he had a family immature way of communicating that with RB management at the time, which wouldn’t have helped. Regarding research, I have looked into the names you mention and after discounting performances with RB tours to Australia: -Kobborg and Cojocaru appeared with Australian Ballet in 2014. (After Polunin). Both had left the RB under a black cloud in 2013. -Galeazzi performed in a Gala in 2016, after retiring from the RB in 2013. -McRae is Australian, you’d expect him to be allowed to dance in his home country. Although it has been very occasional. -David Ashmole was actually a principal of the Australian Ballet company for 10 years but I do take your point that there were some guesting appearances allowed before Polunin. Though I will say they were strictly limited in number and to only the most prestigious dancers, eg Bussell. I’m sure Sylvie Guillem can describe how much a fight it was for her to be allowed to do so. Wasn’t this the reason she left Paris Opera Ballet? I seem to remember her being similarly vilified at the time. The ballet world has become much more flexible, as have the RB under KoH, and not only because of Polunin. We, the audience, are certainly benefitting. I hope you are too in Australia.

Apologies. I didn’t mean to be patronising to you or any particular person on here or elsewhere. A lot of the responses I’ve had on here have been quite rude to me. I’ve tried to remain polite. I realise he is a deeply complicated person and possibly quite immature (viz. rants on Instagram). I have a different interpretation of the Instagram quotes you mention, as explained by Sergei himself in subsequent interviews. He is very aware that he has damaged his public persona and commercial opportunities. I believe he felt Instagram is a not very serious place and they he could have a laugh without consequences. I’m sure he sees his friends using social media that way. Sadly that turns out not to be true for public figures, and he is the only one suffering because of his own actions. As I understand it, his comments about fat people, were a misunderstood use of language to encourage people to exercise more. Well I know I need to! His comments about homophobia were about him not liking seeing two men kissing publicly. I don’t like seeing any snogging male/female/whatever combination publicly, so I agree with him there. and also about men wearing pointe shoes and wanting to dance female ballet roles. I’m sure that could be a whole separate forum discussion. Not sure the general public (oh dear another sweeping statement) is ready for the corps de ballet of swans at RB to be a mix of male and female dancers. Discuss.

I studied ballet with Merle Park, Shirley Grahame, June French, Mignon Furman amongst others. I doubt very much that Jeremy Kyle or Putin did!

Actually I was as taken in by English press negativity about Sergei as many of you are. I was put off by the stories of drugs and scared by the tattoos -why scared? They are not on my body. And then I saw him dance on YouTube (clips from all the classics including Macmillan and Ashton), the Dancer movie, Take Me To Church. I spent hours online. Oh my word what had I missed. And now I have seen him dance live too. I cannot explain in words

This writer explains it better than I can:

I can’t comment on whether he was in the right place or not, even though I was there. Nothing appeared to go wrong to us in the audience. The whole show, dancing and emotion imparted to the audience was fantastic. The other principals alongside Sergei also contributed fabulous performances - Ksenia Ryzhkova, Prisca Zeisel and Emilio Pavan. Wish you could have all been there, but it was sold out in 45 minutes of going on sale! In fact I was only able to get a standing ticket, and was then able to upgrade a few days before to a stalls ticket, row 10 in the centre. The best view ever. There were queues of people wanting tickets on the night, including my spare standing one.

So sorry, I obviously misread your yawns as boredom with the discussion, rather than negativity to Sergei, which of course you are entitled to. And yes the Crimean school is going to be an interesting story to follow. The setting is absolutely beautiful. We in the West have a narrow perspective of Russian / Ukrainian issues. I for one feel I’ll-informed to comment either way on that. The history of Crimea’s changing ownership goes back many centuries, most of the last 200 + years it has been part of Russia.

No dancer is responsible for a scenery error.

As this thread is of no interest to you, why do you bother to comment?