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my thoughts about Cinderella are these: Cinderella does not want to go to the ball so she can meet the prince and marry him, she just wants one night for herself, where she is not abused by her family. Meeting the prince and they falling in love is something that happens but she’s not too hopeful about it ( given her circumstances). When she is back at home and prevented from coming forward as the girl the prince is looking for, she fights to free herself and try the glass sleeper because she is tired of the life of servitude and literal abuse she was forced upon by her step mom and sisters. The Prince does his part but Cinderella is part of the reason they meet again at the end. Now, I don’t know how that comes across in the Ashton ballet and to me if the narrative is one similar to the one above it should be different enough from SB and Aurora. I never thought of those 2 characters as being similar before anyway.

As for a possible Magri and Ball casting I don’t think the problem is that they don’t get casted very often but that they would have a short time to prepare given he’s in Tokyo right now. It would be lovely though and they have done guests together which bodes well for her and their director to fell secure in casting him. I believe he also replaced Hay for O’Sullivans debut very last minute, right? I wouldn’t be mad if they go with Hirano, plus I liked those 2 in The Nutcracker. My hopes though are that Clarke is good to go by the 19th and no more change needs to be made.

We have actually seen footage of those 2 dancing together so I think they will be just fine. And given that he is a solid partner should be great for Mayara’s debut in the role.

Me too Dawn. I like Corrales but I think his partnering skills still needs to be more developed. And since the Royal has amazing first soloists partnering principals, it's fair of us to expect a bit more from him. He's still young, so I hope we see that skill getting more refined as the years go. Can I post a small clip (1:00 minute) of the performance that I found on instagram here?

Oh it’s public domain but it’s in portuguese.

One has. She said it on a public social media so anyone can know but it’s in portuguese. I actually really love her choice because though all former dancers from this school have gone to The Royal Ballet School, she ended up choosing something kind of unexpected - since her school’s history with the Prix always made it seem like RBS was the place she’d go. Given the support she received to go to her choice of school and also her personal liking to the school and company, I think she’ll have a incredible future ahead of her there. When all the info is made available by the prix oficial channels, I’ll be sure to comeback here say more things in detail and other tidbits about the competition ( from her point of view) that I though were very interesting and insightful.

Can we share or talk about any of the dancers choice for schools in here?

Has it been confirmed she is going to be on the Nutcracker stream?

could she be a student? Because I don’t believe she is one of the Aud Jebsen dancers.

I think they also had more rehearsal time together ( 2 weeks I believe) while she had maybe 3 days for the Ukrainian Gala.

Mayara Magri and William Bracewell will be dancing Victor Gsovsky’s Grand Pas Classique. And from the snippets I’ve seen on Instagram it looks incredible.

Mayara Magri and Matthew Ball will be dancing Concerto ( 2nd mov.)

My thoughts exactly! I wish they adapted certain styles/hair colors more often.

I could be wrong but does this program actually impacts the RB repertoire? I know a few pieces from previous holders of the position were presented on mixed programs but it seems more like what this program does it to help choreographers understand, develop and work inside a huge company like RB. I do agree with the general sentiment that maybe they could’ve appointed someone with ballet background or even someone more focused on exploring and developing within the grounds of classical ballet.

Joy has certainly talked about it but more in the sense “that’s the reason I wasn’t the star I thought I would be in Russian soil” which ends up tainting her arguments to be honest.