Ian Macmillan

At the outset, and in the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that BRB at the O2 a few nights ago was my first live "Nutcracker." In the decade or so now since I developed an interest in ballet, I have never felt moved to pay full Christmas prices for this show when tapes, DVDs or plain old TV would suffice. I may therefore be unqualified to comment, but Mr Crisp must surely have a point when looking at London these last weeks. And if we take it as a given (do we?) that the Nut is scheduled as a money spinner, can all of these parallel productions in the Capital have produced what the budget setters hoped for? I'm repeating the link to Mr Crisp's article for reference: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/97e21a58-20ce-11e1-816d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1hpV5mp4N In it he makes suggestions for alternatives that the Royal Ballet might consider (Fille, Cinders, Coppelia, and a number of 1-acters), a list to which I'd have thought that the new Wheeldon "Alice" might be added as a family-friendly piece. There are, of course, financial imperatives weighing on companies and these are only likely to become more rigorous as Arts subsidy shrinks ahead of us - and, much as I share your preference for mixed bills, these are generally not supported by the public at large to anything like the same extent as the 19th century full-length works. And even for the supposedly more adventurous London area audience, ticket prices for these at the ROH are roughly set around half of those for a Swan Lake, say. I note your remarks about BRB and ENB giving up on mixed bills away from 'home' and that is by no means a new phenomenon. I have a copy of the ROH Annual Report for 1959-60 when the RB had its Touring Company. It notes "the essentially conservative nature of provincial audiences, who have preferred to play safe with the classics rather than risk a triple bill of novelties, and the repertory has been modified in consequence." In lamenting this situation, it (presumably Madame de Valois) went on to wonder if TV might play a useful educational role by showing some modern ballets rather than the classics "particularly unsuited to the medium." That has not proved to be the case to any great extent and here we are, some 50 years later, facing essentially the same dilemma as regards building an audience and, by inference, establishing a healthy bottom line. (And, in truth, for the RB in London, I doubt that audience size is a real worry - occasional price promotions are needed to fill seats but, for the most part, I'd say the ROH is filled for its performances. Pro-rata for its size, I've never noticed as many vacant seats as at the O2 last week.) All of which said, I'm not sure where this has taken me - other than to sympathise with company directors and business staff over the financial predicament they face year by year. Is the real issue, or part of it, that they have now to sustain a backstage support staff that has grown well beyond what existed in former years, no doubt for good reasons. The annexes to that 1959-60 Report give the Royal Ballet strength at 1 November 1960 as 119 dancers in both London and Touring companies, plus 26 staff from Madame de Valois to 5 chaps in Stage Management. The backstage House staff, shared with the Opera, was just 14. Now no names were given for Wardrobe, Wigs and so on, so clearly the full picture was not shown - but a comparison of today's comparable, combined RB and BRB staff listings would, I fancy, exceed the 59-60 figures by a considerable margin. That is not to say that today's personnel are not needed by current standards but I mention it to suggest that repertoire, whilst of great moment to such as ourselves, is necessarily going to have to be shaped by the best management judgement about what can pay a company's way, as a whole. I'd happily go to "Les Noces" twice a year, but I suspect I'd have plenty of seats from which to choose by the second year of such a programming regime!

Alison: If you've used Tags elsewhere, then you already know more about them than I do! But I'm wondering if the process can be automated as, back on the Balletco homepage, they have appeared in profusion under reviews and the like. Given that we didn't have them on the old forum, Bruce as editor has either undertaken yet another labour of love in adding them, or the new page has a way of doing that on its own. Maybe it has, but it's not a feature of Today's Links, so I can't say. But seeing as we didn't have them before, what real purpose do they serve? Is it that they provide a rough and ready archive function in the absence of something more sophisticated, as we had before?

Sunday Links - 1 January 2012 Who's pulling the strings in Russia's ballet revolution? A 'banana millionaire', a pair of Bolshoi defectors, an avant-garde Spaniard and an all-powerful agent are the principals in this power struggle by Luke Jennings "As with Duato and Sarafanov, the whole thing was engineered by Danilian, who is the agent of both dancers. If Osipova and Vasiliev have won any freedom at all, it is the freedom to make more money for Danilian." Observer Interview/Feature: Liam Scarlett, Dancer and Choreographer A Cherub’s Classical Vocabulary by Roslyn Sulcas "The Miami commission may well catapult Mr. Scarlett into the wider dance world. He has already had inquiries, he said, from several dance companies in the United States and has plans to create a work for the Norwegian Ballet this year and another piece for Miami, in addition to two new pieces (one with Jonathan Watkins) planned for the Royal Ballet." NY Times Miami City Ballet debuts work by hot young British choreographer, Liam Scarlett One of the youngest and most talented choreographers in ballet makes his U.S. debut by Jordan Levin "MCB artistic director Edward Villella is thrilled that he and his troupe are playing a part in the rise of Scarlett, whom he believes could be an important new talent." Miami Herald REVIEW: Mariinsky Ballet Swan Lake ballet puts up flawless show at ROHM Swan Lake Oman, Muscat, Royal Opera House Dancers: Kondaurova, Zyuzin by Sarah MacDonald "Kondaurova is amazing here, because while her dancing remains sublime, her energy is very different. As Odette she was soft and gentle, but as Odile she is somewhat morbid and wicked but alluring nonetheless!" Times of Oman REVIEW: English National Ballet The Nutcracker UK, London, Coliseum Dancers: Streeter by Jem Bloomfield "Still, Eagling’s production, designed by Peter Farmer, is a terrifically enjoyable show. The programme notes say they sought “a darker vision”....But they managed it. For once the Mouse King is a genuinely compelling villain..." California Literary Review London: Stage picks for 2012 - Claire Calvert A fairytale ballet dancer amongst our bright hopes for the year ahead by Gemma Kappala-Ramsamy and Kate Kellaway "But is she going too far too fast? "No," she says firmly. "I want to go as fast as possible. I am so ready."" Observer 2012: A silver year for Matthew Bourne, and moments of solid gold It looks to be a good year for men in dance. by Jenny Gilbert "If the coming dance year belongs to any individual, it's Matthew Bourne, celebrating a quarter-century of mould-breaking dance theatre." Independent 2011: Mariinsky, Manon, and a German Dane Memory defines what lasts: ephemeral dance and theatre, permanent art, it's what stays in the mind that matters by Judith Flanders "And Alina Cojocaru danced Manon as though it too were newly made. I’m told that there was a lot of backstage flak for her – it is true, not every step was performed exactly as choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan. But my god, the spirit was MacMillan’s, and the emotional power. It was one of the greatest tours de force I have ever seen." Arts Desk 2012: New Dance Makers A sudden healthy crop of new dance makers; young, adventurous and usually male. by Jeffery Taylor "ENB director Wayne Eagling has commissioned 22-year-old Williamson to recreate Michael Fokine’s 1910 classic, The Firebird, to the Stravinsky score; a balletic sacred cow if ever there was one. The premiere is at the London Coliseum in March and I can already hear the critical pencils sharpening to stiletto deadliness." Express Faces to Watch in 2012: Dance, Theater, Architecture and Art Select Buttons 1-3 for the Dance names by Laura Bleiberg "Millepied, Osipova, Wolfe " LA Times My Day on a Plate: Nancy Osbaldeston The dancer with the English National Ballet prepares for her performance in The Nutcracker with a light lunch and a pasta dinner. by Nigel Denby Telegraph Argyll's Ballet West to head east for China tour A Scottish dance school is preparing to make its third tour of China. BBC News For the record: New Year honours: the full list including: KB: Antonio Pappano, MD at the ROH CBE: Prof Joan White, ex-RAD OBE: Julia Farron, ex-Sadlers Wells Ballet and RAD MBE: Karen Gallagher, Barbara Benson-Smith, Mary Rose Watt Guardian And, on behalf of the Today's Links team, a Happy New Year to one and all!

Saturday Links - 31 December 2011 REVIEW: Merce Cunningham Dance Company For Cunningham Dance Company, Contentment and Finality at Armory Events USA, New York, Park Avenue Armory Dancers: Collwes, Crossman, Desjardins, Goggans, Hinrichs, Madoff, Mitchell, Munnerlyn, Nelson, Riener, Scott, Toogood, Weber by Alastair Macaulay "They say that a drowning man’s past life flashes before his eyes. If drowning brought me further visions of all this choreography, I’d die content." New York Times 2011: Ballerinas, Cuts and the Higgs Boson Theory Jolts and closures in a year that questioned how people want their dance and what we should fight to keep by Ismene Brown "For the biggest 2011 story was the arts subsidy cuts, from which I mourn the likely death of what was, a dozen years ago, a world-famous British contemporary dance creative ecosystem." Arts Desk REVIEW: American Ballet Theatre Ratmansky's 'Nutcracker' full of intimate touches The Nutcracker USA, New York, Brooklyn Academy of Music Dancers: Elliman, Hallberg, Kelly, Monroe, Murphy, Souriau-Levine by Jocelyn Noveck "Ratmanksy gives us children's behavior typical of, well, kids at a holiday party on a sugar rush....(and) seems to have invented a new step called the "tantrum pas de chat" — same as the classic step, but with the feet landing in a petulant thud." Associated Press Scottish Ballet ready to turn to new page Departing AD Ashley Page and his work by Tim Cornwell "Page has brought a distinctive style to his new versions of classic story ballets, including The Nutcracker and Cinderella. They have spurned Christmas family magic for darker, subversive twists in the tales" Scotsman New York Preview: Focus Dance Festival Focus Dance gives American artists a boost by Robert Johnson "Several emerging artists, and one veteran dance maker, will share four programs during this miniseries designed to shine a light on the American dance scene." Star-Ledger Australia: Ballet's stars dance to the music of time Seven former professional dancers who have successfully branched out by Jane Albert "Retirement comes early in the physically brutal world of dance, but the life of a professional dancer is so all-consuming it can be difficult to dedicate any thought to the future. Many don't want to think about it." The Australian It's not just the Merce Cunningham Company saying "Farewell" Boston Ballet ‘Nutcracker’ bear will retire on Saturday And here he is Boston Globe

Each day we add the latest links to reviews and interviews that we find on the major newspaper web sites around the world. If you find a link that we have missed do please post it up, preferably as a URL link. Last week's thread: See last weeks and earlier links here: http://www.ballet.co...ry/todayslinks/ Bookmarking this page: Click on the following link and then bookmark the links page that comes back - it's a special URL that will always bring you to the thread with the latest reviews: http://www.ballet.co.uk/todayslinks Reviews Database The review links we find go in a database - we have many thousands of entries and you can search it on company, dance, dancer, reviewer, publication, theatre, city or a combination of all of them! Just fill-in the boxes here: http://www.ballet.co...h/db_search.cgi Non Working Links: Some papers move pieces on their websites so it is impossible to guarantee links. If you find a recent link that does not work and you have found a working version by all means post it up. And thank you! Registering with papers: It's an increasing fact of life that papers ask readers to register before letting them have free access to pieces. Usually registration is a one off process and then, providing you've ticked any obvious boxes, you should be remembered as a registered reader and the links we give should take you straight to the pieces. In registering for papers many people get themselves a Yahoo or Hotmail email account and thus protect their main email from any inadvertent problems. Seeing Pieces Behind a Pay-wall Some papers have introduced a pay-wall. We don't generally list pieces we can't freely see. However some of the papers will show the article for free if the reader visits the page by way of a Google search. If we can do this then we list, but alas cannot give a 2 stage link - only the link that works if you are a subscriber. If you are interested but not a subscriber then use the details we give to search Google and take it from there. And Finally... We should not need to state this but these links are for our readers' use and not for other websites to take and pass off as their own. We ask all visitors to respect Ballet.co's site and the way it operates.

Friday Links - 30 December 2011 Merce’s last dance A 58-year journey is coming to an end. by Leigh Witchel "Cunningham’s works will live on — other companies will perform them. But watching his company shut itself down is like watching a beloved ballroom close. Somehow, even though you knew, you never thought you would come to the very last dance." NY Post New York: Dance in 2012 Tackling Beethoven and the ‘Firebird’ by Alastair Macaulay "What choreography in 2012 whets the appetite in advance? It’s dismayingly hard to know……At present what looks most historic about 2012 is not choreography but casting." NY Times UK: Dance in 2012 Highlights of the year ahead by Judith Mackrell "A selection of 8 UK and visiting companies." Guardian UK: Dance in 2012 Highlights of the year ahead by Zoe Anderson "Scroll down to a selection of 5 UK and visiting companies." Independent Film: Wenders' Pina: Dance Crazy One icon of German modernism pays thrilling tribute to another in Wenders' 3-D doc on the late Pina Bauch's Wuppertal Dance Theater Company by Richard Corliss "In the dancers’ deadpan athleticism, I find hints of two saturnine humorists: Buster Keaton in his silent-film glory and Samuel Beckett in his late, minimnalist playlets." Time Calgary 2011: Six that made an impact in 2011 by Bob Clark "All through 2011, Calgary proved itself what it soon officially became for 2012 — a Cultural Capital of Canada" Calgary Herald Boston Area 2011: Best dance moves of the year by Iris Fanger "The year 2011 in dance marked a number of anniversaries and several farewells that will shape local stages for years to come." Patriot Ledger And a seasonal sidelight: When glitz met Glasgow Broadway production values brought a special magic to the city’s pantoland in the early 1960s Alison Kerr talks to Johnnie Beattie "One of the glitziest, most spectacular productions ever to grace the Scottish stage opened in Glasgow in December 1961. It boasted music by Cole Porter, choreography by Sir Robert Helpmann, scenery and costumes by Loudon Sainthill and a sequence devised by the future founder of Scottish Ballet, Peter Darrell." Herald

Thursday Links - 29 December 2011 We need to talk about Nutcrackers Why seasonal ballet shows are crying out for some fresh ideas by Clement Crisp "…London is clogged, blighted, with stagings of The Nutcracker. It is a state of affairs which would seem ludicrous were it not so artistically stultifying, and so horridly typical of artistic policies and artistic funding." Financial Times REVIEW: Birmingham Royal Ballet BRB's specially expanded version of Peter Wright's 'Nutcracker' has plenty to offer - provided you're in the right seats Nutcracker UK, London, O2 Arena by Mark Monahan "Still, three cheers to BRB, whose dancers rose as one to the demands of the venue, repeatedly taking to the air with a leonine grandeur worthy of the Bolshoi." Daily Telegraph Why I will miss dance great Alexander Grant by Michael Crabb "Grant’s was a humanity bred of direct experience, of a full embrace of life’s little triumphs and sometimes greater disappointments." Toronto Star Reviews of 2011 London: Shining moments amid the gloom Whatever 2011 failed to bring, some dance performances and productions shone by Clement Crisp "But the crown of the year, a performance of bravura physicality and penetrating sensibility, was Edward Watson’s incarnation of Gregor Samsa in Arthur Pita’s realisation of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis at the Linbury Studio." Financial Times Canada: Flights of fancy and leaps of faith Dance in 2011 by Paula Citron "How smart is (NBC) artistic director Karen Kain? Delivering two original superhits by red-hot choreographers – Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alexei Ratmansky’s Romeo and Juliet –in the same calendar year was an incredible feat. " Globe and Mail New York Area: The Year's Top Ten in Dance by Robert Johnson "The impending dissolution of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company is an act of willful and perverse destruction—stingy and disastrously ill-advised. Naturally, it overshadows everything." Star-Ledger Chicago: The year’s biggest dance headlines by Zachary Whittenburg "New highs and surprises, lots of stellar work by lighting designers, and notable new artists all made dancegoing rewarding in 2011." Time Out Chicago (Don't miss the Ballerina and the Bull link.) Feature: Daniel Arsham, set designer for Merce Cunningham Cunningham Fostered Serendipity in Set Design by Ted Loos "A few months later Mr. Arsham — who at first didn’t even know the concept of “stage right” — was at work on the set for Cunningham’s 2007 piece “eyeSpace.”" NY Times Film: "Pina" - A Posthumous Spotlight on a Force of Nature by Robert Greskovic "While selective excerpts of the four works throughout "Pina" amount to a welcome addition to Bausch's thin screen catalog, Mr. Wenders's focus on the performers is an even rarer glimpse into the choreographer's world." Wall St Journal An additional Canadian review at: National Post Preview: Mark Morris Dance Group Returns to the Kennedy Center by Jeremy D. Birch "Dancer Maile Okamura, who joined the company in 2001, said, “I love that this piece has stayed with us. The beauty of it is that you can age with it and experience it with different people who you dance with over the years.”" Playbill Boston Area 2012 Preview A strong season of dance and song by Debra Cash "From the comic to the sublime, with a dash of flamenco, the winter season has it all." Boston Phoenix San Jose Preview: Students pair with dance company to dance their souls out by Sharon Noguchi "Still, that's exactly what San Jose choreographer Margaret Wingrove is inducing two dozen Yerba Buena High School students to do. And the generation that typically prefers Facebook or text messages as venues for venting and gushing is loving it." Mercury News

First of all, well done to BRB's dancers and backstage staff - an excellent production put over con brio. (But was the 'fog of war' just a bit dense and persistent in the battle with the rats?) However, I'm less enthusiastic about the experience and, on last night's evidence, consider ENB's in-the-round shows at the Albert Hall a far superior vehicle for reaching out to an extended audience. My seat was head-on to the stage, right at the top of Level 1 - which I would say was a good deal further away from the action than the back seats in the amphitheatre at Covent Garden. As a result, the Stahlbaums' drawing room appeared as something of a doll's house, and the movement was accordingly diminished in scale. A partial remedy was available in the single TV screen above the stage, which brought close-ups but lost almost all action to the sides. And despite amplification, at that distance I felt that a bit more orchestral sound would not have gone amiss ..... the reason, perhaps, for a chap next to me appearing to be asleep for most of the evening? Sightlines must be critical for events such as last night, and it appears the critics were at first seated very badly but were able to take advantage of plentiful empty seating to improve their view for Act 2. At a guess, I'd say that some 30% of the available seating was free last night, and many of those attending must have been there in cut-price seats, thanks to the various promotions on offer. If that proves the case for the remaining performances, then the bottom line for this venture may look a little gloomy. Finally, and in the hope that the wrath of the McElderry Massive will not fall about my head as has happened under Ismene Brown's review on Arts Desk, can I just say that I could have done without the young man in question, his lost final consonants and inaccurately stressed Latin? Yes, his pitching was accurate and his tone almost sweet, but why he opened the night is beyond me.....but he was very neatly and balletically ushered off by Drosselmeyer's assistant so that we could get on with the main business. A nice touch!

As a personal test of this new site, and just to get things started, can I say how totally underwhelmed I was by the recorded Bolshoi "Nutcracker" shown in cinemas last Sunday? (Lacking the old forum, Robert Gottlieb of the New York Observer got in ahead of me: http://www.observer....han-well-on-tv/ ) There were some bright moments - Artem Ovcharenko's jumps and the two snow scenes for the corps, although I had to work hard to blot out the dreadful male lamp-carriers in the second of these - but, overall, I found it a fairly wooden production. Too much from the Ministry of Silly Walks, 'children' clearly well beyond teenage, seemingly every timpani stroke accentuated by an attitude, mice reappearing in Act 2 for some reason that escaped me, and an incredible shepherdess with a lamb on wheels in tow. I'm thankful that I had only paid for cinema admission for this, and Mr Gottlieb may have a point about the Grigorovich rep needing a stake through its heart ..... though I might just exclude "Spartacus" from this general condemnation.