Ondine

Link (Does anyone else think he looks like Robert Helpmann?) https://www.facebook.com/theaustralianballet/videos/marcus-morelli-and-jill-ogai-promotion-to-principal-artist-the-australian-ballet/862028655468043/

I should have put Laura Griffiths here as a joiner, really, but she seemed to neatly fit the Nutcracker thread at the time! Here's a link.

I reckon the tapping is dubbed on afterwards! It's fun though. If anyone is feeling inspired by that:

From The White House for Christmas

Not gloating or anything, no, no, however I suspect today Piers Morgan will be very near exploding point. 😌 (It's in the news for anyone not in the know.)

Anyone who can't wait, it's been on YouTube for a very long time, with a bit of searching. I also have the book. I think the Emma Livry's tutu part is what really remains with me! More information here about her, her dress, the tragedy and that of others. https://hauntedpalaceblog.wpcomstaging.com/2018/03/29/the-bonfire-of-ballet-girls/

Oh eck, that sounds grim, hope it isn't too painful and inconvenient and wishing you a speedy return to 100%. Shocking you have to miss the RB though!

I've been looking also and yes disappointed too! 🤨 It could be that they are holding off until the encores etc are over.

Best of places to be! How lovely.

Cecchetti International Classical Ballet (CICB) Competition 2024 details now available on the Cecchetti International website. It is held in different countries every three years, though it was cancelled in 2020 (pandemic). This is for students, and there are junior and senior divisions. 2024 is the turn of the USA: Holland, Michigan, July 21-27. It will be hosted by the Cecchetti Council of America. Guidelines, venue, events etc via this link: https://www.cecchetti.org/cecchetti-competition-2024/ https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1505028/enrico-cecchetti-teaching-a-class-print-schwabe-randolph/

In order not to derail the RB Nutcracker thread any more than I already have (though there was a link to a previous post) I'll put this here. Lucie Saronova. What incredible lives some of these dancers / teachers had. All the work, the pioneering, the globe-trotting at a time when travel wasn't easy or rapid. I do enjoy these bios on the Cecchetti International site. https://cicb.org/lucie-saronova/

Yes gah! No such thing as a tweet now anyhow, it's an X. I see you have to follow the 'get tickets' link for the Feb 1st info. https://www.giselleballetcinema.com/tickets/

RB Nutcracker in cinemas, if you missed or simply want to go again and again, Encore screenings are mostly on Sunday 17th December. However, I typed in my postcode and in the list of cinema showings I note several cinemas in the region have extra showings on top of the Encore ones. It does say 'filmed' for those. https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-events/the-nutcracker-in-cinemas-details

Small Nutcracker & RB deviation, I see 19-year-old Laura Griffiths has joined Australian Ballet, trained at English National Ballet School (David Yow) and was Senior Award Winner in the 2022 Cecchetti Classical Ballet Bursary Awards, adjudicated by Anita Young. You can watch her online performance here at just after 11 minutes in: https://www.istd.org/discover/news/cecchetti-classical-ballet-bursary-awards-selection-event-2022/ Previously she had been an award winner in the Lucie Saronova Memorial Awards held by Cecchetti Ballet Australia, when she was a student at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School: https://danceinforma.com.au/articles/lucie-saronova-memorial-awards-post-results-2/ 2018 https://www.danceaustralia.com.au/news/a-fine-standard-at-the-lucie-saronova-awards 2019 Lovely photo: https://www.facebook.com/cecchettiballetaus/photos/a.1318926498304041/1318928494970508/?type=3 And an interview here: https://midlandexpress.com.au/arts/2023/10/03/ballets-rising-star-laura-griffiths-puts-australian-ballet-under-a-spell/ “I watched The Australian Ballet for years growing up, and they informed what I knew as professional ballet. I aspired to be a part of the company in Australia one day.” As a student, Laura’s path took her on what she describes as “a full circle adventure” after not being accepted into The Australian Ballet School three years earlier. She was instead accepted into the English National Ballet School, in London, and left the country to train at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Though no doubt she'll be doing corps work, one to watch out for in next year's Nutcracker? It's quite heart-warming to see her achieve her ambition after all those years of dedication and hard work.

A December blog from Isabella Gasparini https://balletassociation.co.uk/blogs/news/a-dancers-blog I started this season as a First Soloist, with a new set of challenges and expectations. Appreciating the journey, every moment of being onstage and the privilege of being in this position is something I would never take for granted, but things can get overwhelming, and every now and again we need to be reminded of how far we have come and where our true purpose lies. I'll add the link to this here: https://balletassociation.co.uk/pages/reports-2023-isabella-gasparini

A little Christmas tree magic: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0yy8mGsK6G/?hl=en Also, here is more about the 'relaxed performance' of Nutcracker. It does appear that a great deal of effort was made for this, so well done all involved: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0q4GEHoOty/?hl=en

Hopefully: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0zJaCstMTi/?hl=en

There's actually a fair chunk of extracts from Manon with Sarah Lamb and Vadim Muntagirov on YouTube, not all Royal Ballet clips though

British ballet student Joshua Fickling (Royal Ballet School, Moorland Academy) has joined the Sarasota Ballet as a corps member for the 2023 / 2024 season. Born in Bucks, raised in Huddersfield. So we can claim him as northern? https://www.sarasotaballet.org/people/fickling-joshua/ I know many on this forum follow the Sarasota Ballet (which is coming to the UK in 2024) so thought I'd post this good news here. Given his Cecchetti training, he should do well in its Ashton ballet revivals! Congratulations to Joshua, who has been popping up on various competition and other news items for the past couple of years. He spent some time with Birmingham Royal Ballet in 2023, and the McNicholl Ballet Collective. He won first prize in the GradPro Showcase in May (look at that judging panel!) https://www.seeingdance.com/grad-pro-national-showcase-230527/ The main Gail Monahan Award went to Joshua Fickling, who looked very assured in his class work with excellent turns and jumps, before giving a confident rendition of Ali’s solo from Le Corsaire and ‘L’Amour de Sol,’ a contemporary solo that seemed to suit his personality perfectly. Others have clearly recognised his talent too. Presently an apprentice dancer with McNicol Ballet Collective, Fickling also performed in Birmingham Royal Ballet’s 2023 national tour of Swan Lake and has secured a contract with Sarasota Ballet for their 2023-4 season. You can catch a glimpse of him dancing in the video here (he was runner-up in the Senior Award) around ten minutes in 2022 The Cecchetti Society Classical Ballet Faculty is delighted to announce the results of the online Bursary Awards Selection event. Anita Young MBE had an extraordinarily difficult job of adjudicating the 74 entries, which came in from the students of our UK and International teacher members. https://www.istd.org/discover/news/cecchetti-classical-ballet-bursary-awards-selection-event-2022/ Meet Joshua, a former Moorland Ballet Academy Student ( background, interview and lovely photos): https://moorlandballetacademy.com/blog/meet-joshua-a-former-moorland-ballet-academy-student/ In 2022, Joshua was invited to perform at the prestigious Cecchetti Centenary Gala at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and was also the ‘ballet face’ of the Move It Event in the same year. He also performed at the GradPro Awards, an event reserved for the most talented and promising dancers. He was awarded the Barbara Geoghegan and Jennifer Morgan Musicality Award at the Cecchetti Vocational Awards in 2022, another testament to his incredible talent. Joshua: All the lessons that I received from the directors Lynsey and Simon Kidd as well as the Cecchetti training from Gillian Hurst helped me to develop my dancing to a standard which was good enough to help me secure a professional job with the Sarasota Ballet Company in Florida, USA! I know that without all the love, care and attention from the teachers I would never have been able to go on to achieve what I have. I’m so eternally grateful for this. (I have no connection at all with Joshua or Moorland, I'm simply celebrating a success story.)

But, as Shakespeare said elsewhere, the course of true love never did run smooth. In 2001 arsonists destroyed Northern Ballet’s headquarters and much of its archive, including costumes from ‘Romeo & Juliet’, just three weeks before opening night. Then the catastrophic floods that struck Leeds on Boxing Day 2015 wrecked sets and costumes at the company’s stores. A recent public appeal has supported the recreation, repair and updating of Lez Brotherston OBE’s intricate period costumes and spectacular wooden set, ready for the long-awaited revival of the piece. The Northern Ballet Archive, donated to the University of Leeds in 2021, tells the 50-year story of the company from its foundation to the present. This exhibition documents the production, the evolution and sometimes the complete recreation of a cornerstone of the repertoire – and celebrates the return of this beloved work to the stage in the company’s home city of Leeds. A little shaky, there is a YouTube Ben Critchley Prokofiev - Romeo and Juliet - Northern Ballet Theatre BBC2 Christmas 1992 Comments under include: I couldn't stop crying, wailing actually, when the end credits started rollout, totally overwhelmed by its sheer tragedy, expressed through these genius, genius dancers. Hats off to the choreographer Massimo Moricone, a tale set in Italy, immortalised by his tribute to the arts: that absolute love! I haven't seen anything quite like it, coming all together in such magic. Worth my journey on earth. I have been searching for this since I saw it on A&E (once an arts channel in the states) many years ago. Best R&J ever. Death of Tybalt leaves me shattered. Thanks for posting this. I don’t know why they don’t release this commercially.

Plenty of male romantic yearning in ballet though, which I suppose is related! There's a gorgeous clip of Dowell doing romantic yearning on John Clifford's YouTube channel A search Anthony Dowell (rare Sleeping Beauty variation by Ashton) should bring it up. Sigh.

No well. One day he'll maybe explode and it will be messy. 😌