DVDfan

I think it is for the ushers to deal with any actions which audience members have been specifically asked not to do. They should have the authority and can't be dismissed as 'disgusted of Tunbridge'. However, I think it would also be useful to know why people ignore these rules. Not knowing it was a rule would be one reason, but it doesn't sound as though this is often the case. Many years ago I had a conversation with a published author which revealed that he listened to pirated music tapes all the time. He clearly thought that the music belonged to everyone and that it was the publishers, agents etc who were doing wrong in demanding payment. Why he thought this I don't know, given that the copyright and royalties on his own work were obviously important to him. So maybe the filmers have a similar attitude, think this is a copyright issue and not an audience disrupting issue. If I am right, adding something to a clear announcement about the reason for the restriction would help. It isn't always obvious that something you do routinely is upsetting to other people in a particular context.

I haven't watched it myself, but if it is Flight Pattern you mean, it is on the ROH streaming service. You can get a trial period either free or for a small fee, and watch it yourself before showing/taking a child.

I have had a subscription for some time, and I'd say that they do add new content most months, though it is a bit irregular. Some months there's nothing new in ballet, then the following month there will be two things. An odd feature is they way some things have been marked 'coming soon' when they had been available for some time previously. I haven't noticed anything being removed permanently yet. And the website design is plain weird.

This reminds me a bit of the push to get people into sports, and the reason it does is that I don't take part in any activity defined as culture because I have no talent. Olympic champions talk the talk, but when in action what they actually mean is talent. They don't mean sport for fun and exercise, they mean winners. And most of us are loosers, inevitably. I feel that most people engaged in culture have a similar focus. Look at the difficulty of finding somewhere to sing classical music if you can't pass the audition. They tell you that the best way to learn to sing, or sing better, is to join a choral society, but you won't find one that doesn't audition. And if you do manage to slip into a come and sing event, a lot of people who can sing get very ratty if they're next to someone who is struggling. So I think that in education, when engaged with children in dance, music or theatre, there has to be a certain openess and value placed on simply taking part. The talented should be able to move on to more demanding things, of course, but the rest should know they are wanted and welcome. The teacher has to believe that there is equal value to the pupils, no matter how useless they are at the activity, and that those pupils are as worthy of their attention as the star of the class. And I think this is something that is lacking - musicians for example are very dismissive of the non-musical. The other thing is money. I gather that De Valois toured her company during the war, performing in church halls with two pianos - I think we do have to get back to some of that if ballet and other arts are to be truly accessible. People will spend a tenner out of curiosity, they won't fork out for train fares, hotels and a hundred pounds on top of that for a ticket for something they don't know they're going to enjoy - and that's assuming that they have that money to spend in the first place. A lot don't.

I may be wrong about this, but I was under the impression that in the past, most serious injuries meant retirement. Now improved medical treatments and rehab facilities mean that dancers can come back, but after lengthy periods of sick leave. Maternity leave should absolutely be normal, I wouldn't want to watch ballet if it were still the case that ballerinas had to resort to abortion to keep their careers going. And we'd loose a lot of talent if the ladies who wanted a family had to retire first.

Wrt Marguerite and Armand, the fashions of the 1830s really were peculiar, so it's difficult for a designer. They do convey the shallow, rather corrupt fashionable society that Marguerite is enmeshed in, though, by being a bit OTT and silly.

As I understood it, at the end of Anastasia, when she is scooting around the room on the bed, this is supposed to be a moment when she is truly certain of her identity - but if she still thinks she is Anastasia, she can't be as this is a delusion, and therefore the poor woman is in fact trapped in a false identity haunted by implanted, traumatic memories. I'd like to add that I only said it was outdated, I didn't say it should never be performed.

I completely agree with the point made above, that a great play/opera/ballet should be performed using whatever performers are available, regardless of the colour of their skin and that of the historical characters represented, if any. Not to is to cancel part of our culture and to deny performers the chance to 'give' their Othello, Macbeth etc. It also keeps skin colour to the forefront of our thinking, when it should, in an ideal world, be fading into insignificance. Of course, if what you are saying is that white actors shouldn't 'black up', but play with minimal make-up, that's a valid suggestion, I think, given that 'black face' has been used to denigrate black people in the past. Returning to the subject of outdated ballets, for myself I feel that Anastasia qualifies, and has done since it has been known for certain that Anna Andersen was not the Grand Duchess Anastasia. I think the plot is so rooted in the belief that she was that it can't be performed to an audience who know she was not. I also believe that most historians are now convinced that the Tsarina was not in a physical relationship with Rasputin and that the Tsar was faithful to his wife after marriage, so the passages suggesting otherwise in act II strike a discordant note. All this is in stark contrast to Mayerling, which is well grounded in fact, though obviously as a show lasting less than 3 hours, has to be a bit selective in its portrayal and interpretation.

This is a fascinating topic. I think that most audiences can cope with the idea that societal attitudes were different in the past, and that films/books/plays/ballet/opera that reflect them should simply be seen as period pieces. A lot of criticism comes from ignorance - an example that springs to mind are the people who repeatedly insist that Cleopatra was black and should not be portrayed by a white woman. Actually Cleopatra was Greek. The same people also seem to me to insist that Henry V can be played by a black actor - well, I don't think you can have it both ways. Casting is either colour blind or should be true to the racial origins of the character. In most societies that have practiced slavery, it was colour blind. Not all, but nevertheless the situation in the USA where only black people could be enslaved was unusual. During the 17th century coastal areas of Southern England lived in fear of slave raiding by Barbary pirates - the original Corsairs, so you could claim that Le Corsaire is offensive to us. I think that what makes a ballet or any other art form dated or still relevant is not attitudes or situations that are no longer in favour or acceptable but whether it still contains insights or stories that are relevant, and in ballet whether or not the music and choreography are brilliant or just very good. For example, Fille remains relevant because of the choreography and the feel good story - a story most can relate to of a young woman who wants to marry her own choice of husband for love, and rejects the worldly advantage of the match her mother wants her to make. This taps into the universal theme of coming of age, breaking away from her parent's control and of marrying for the right reasons.

Yes, it is lovely and important because otherwise how is Siegfried supposed to know what has happened to Odette, but I honestly don't think that most newbies in the audience can read Odette's mime without knowing the gist of what she's saying in advance. I know I couldn't - it's such a daft plot you can't apply reason to it.

I agree that the coloured tunics worn by Dante and Virgil look peculiar, but at the same time it is difficult to see what else they should be wearing. Full period costume wouldn't work, though Dante might wear shirt and tights, and I suppose Virgil could wear a Roman style tunic. However, that would pin down the cultural background of the characters and if they are supposed to represent Everyman, which looks like WMG's intention, that would be spoiled. That wasn't Dante's intention when he wrote the Divine Comedy - Virgil represents the classical world and its wisdom, which can take you so far in terms of a moral and spiritual journey but stops short of the 'full shilling'. Only Christianity can take you into paradise and the presence of God, which is why Beatrice takes over as Dante's guide. The soul on the journey is specifically Dante himself. However, the ballet isn't called the Divine Comedy, but The Dante Project, so I suppose we are to understand that the one is the inspiration for the other, rather than the dramaturg. Wrt the plot, I agree that you need a synopsis but I don't think that invalidates DP as a ballet, because Swan Lake makes no sense without one and no one would say that isn't a great classical ballet.

When my kids were at school, the difficulty was that the teachers took the attitude that the pupils wouldn't be interested in classical music, only in the pop they already liked and were exposed to. A prize example of teaching children to be children, instead of opening their eyes to the wider world and expanding their minds.

I was responding to a post somewhere up thread where the King and Queen were referred to in this way.

Charles and Camilla Windsor did not attend the performance on Tuesday night. I gather those individuals often do go to the ROH, as they are fans of opera and ballet, with minimal fuss. On Tuesday night the Head of State made an official visit to the ROH on a ballet night, for which everyone who thinks ballet is important and somewhat neglected by the Establishment should be glad, as this can only give it a boost.

I don't know if it's alright to bump this thread up a little now that Prima has appeared on the ROH stream, and those of us who can only watch that way can now comment on it? And I'm additionally uncertain because I totally disagree with the majority of comments about the costumes. I expected to dislike them after reading this thread, but instead I thought they were lovely and the way they moved with the dance was very interesting. It gave an extra dimension to the steps, almost like having an extra limb. I liked the strong colours and I liked the fact that the performers were dressed in dresses instead of vest and pants and I felt they were dignified by this. The performance was about their musicality, personality and technical abilities, not about their bodies. My only reservation was about the 'dinner plates' on Hayward's hip, which I thought could do with a little modification. I also liked the choreography and I thought it was more original and less derivative that most neo-classical work, but as I have limited knowledge of ballet I'd be interested to know if anyone disagrees with that.

So glad to hear that things are going well for you and Adrian, albeit slowly. Wishing you all the best for the coming week.

Please, folks, this is a very emotive and painful subject for all who are caught up in it. Don't let's have arguments about a single comment and what someone meant by it. Does it matter? Really? I'd hate to see this very useful and important thread - probably the most important ever on this forum, have to close down. Let's offer support to those affected and try to explain the issues to those who haven't experienced them, so that they too can understand and in some small way be part of the solution.

As I have said in another thread, this isn't really about ballet, it is about teachers bullying pupils. This can happen anywhere - my daughter is 34 and still suffering from the verbal abuse meted out by one teacher in an ordinary English primary school. This included encouraging the other girls to exclude her socially. Complaints - if you understand what is happening which you may not as your child is too humiliated to tell you - will be met with a process similar to gaslighting. Please, please, please Panorama, do do a documentary on teacher bullying in ordinary schools!

Personally I think that Alain could be portrayed simply as a gauche teenager, not ready for romantic relationships. As far as heritage is concerned, I don't think RB can win. If they focus on their heritage they won't be able to do any new work, and they would be criticised for that just as hard. You could equally argue that producing new works is a major part of their heritage - Ashton and McMillan were new once. And not everything that McMillan produced was good. I think too that ballet and theatre generally have forgotten the value of entertainment for people's health and well being. People don't flock to 'feel good' pieces because they are somehow culturally poverty stricken, they do it because it makes them feel better. I know that theatre has a role in holding up a mirror to society and asking serious questions about life and morality, but so can every other art form including newspaper columnists and the bloke down the pub. Where theatre does something unique is in getting a crowd of people together and laughing - the health benefits of this are considerable.

I am not saying that RB or any other company should restrict its contracts to British dancers, but I think that the nationality of students at schools funded by British tax payers does matter - where are talented British students supposed to go if British schools don't take them? Not every parent of a talented child can afford fees and expenses to go abroad - after all, one of the main reasons for seeking a place at WL is that it is fully funded. The other issue is that WL does not seem (from the posts on here) to offer training that is good enough for students to graduate to RBS. As a tax payer this worries me. But none of this worries me half as much as the main issue of this discussion and of the Panorama program, which is the deliberate and avoidable destruction of student's mental health by teachers. Nationality of the students is irrelevant, but the fact that this is happening in British schools is not.

As a taxpayer, I feel that the apparent failure of WL and RBS to produce world class dancers from British students, is important and should be addressed. There cannot be a smaller pool of talented, motivated children with suitable physique who are willing to work their socks off to achieve their ambition here than in, for example, France. However, this discussion is tending to move away from the primary issue which is that some teachers in top dance schools viciously bully students until their mental health has been broken. Whether those students are part of an 'elite' is irrelevant - the school has offered them a place and should be giving them good training in a supportive, safe environment. My father was 40 years a university teacher and did his best with all the students in his classes, regardless of their probable grades - he did this because he was a naturally good teacher. However, quite rightly, a high level of failure and drop out would have harmed his career, the reputation of his department and his university. So why do we allow ballet schools to get away with it?

I too wondered (after hearing the File on Four program) whether I should stop watching ballet. Thinking it over, I came to the conclusion that this is not actually about ballet, but about teachers bullying pupils. This is something that is very destructive, as my family knows to its considerable cost, and also something that can happen anywhere. And wherever it does happen, it needs to be stopped. If I thought a ballet company was treating its dancers in the ways described in the programs, I would stop watching that company.

It seems to me that a big part of the problem is that children at vocational schools have entered into a world where nothing matters except ballet. Even when teachers are kindly and avoid verbal bullying, there is an underlying assumption that there is no other way to be, no other life that has validity except that of a professional dancer. And you're in a world where young hopefuls are regularly discarded and replaced - which is not common practice anywhere else - so the stress is enormous. To answer one or two of the previous posts, it is extremely difficult for parents to know what is happening to their children at day school, let alone boarding school. They are not in the classroom, the children do not understand what is happening well enough to explain it clearly enough to a parent who is a stranger to that world, and they buy into the ethos of the school - as parents we generally tell them to. Schools are responsible for what happens during the school day, and doubly so when it is the behaviour of a teacher that is the problem.

So pleased things are going well for both of you🙂

I have only seen Judas Tree on DVD, and that is bad enough, so I hate to think about its impact seen live. It goes too far, personally I don't think it should be performed again, and certainly no one should see it without being aware of the content and how graphically it is depicted. I think what Lady MacMillan says about it opens an interesting discussion about the intention of the creative versus what the audience sees. In my opinion a language of any kind - dance or any other - has two participants, the speaker and the hearer. If the hearer doesn't understand, it has failed as a means of communication. Now with dance, much of the time, this doesn't matter. The music is good, the dancers are beautiful to watch. But with the Judas Tree it does matter because the key section is a powerful depiction of a gang rape, it is horrible and distressing to see and I don't think that claiming it represents something else is valid. If that is so, portray the something else!