chrischris

You have some principals that hardly seem to dance at all and are, to my knowledge, injury free, in both the male and female ranks, so it does seem bizarre that the RB are getting guest dancers in, and giving some dancers loads of work and others hardly any at all. I kind of hope they don't get any more principals, and allow some of the younger dancers, or older ones that have often been overlooked (Gartside, for instance) the chance to dance some of the lead roles.

That's a shame. Pennefather has been really unfortunate recently with his partners getting injured.

Thanks. The fact that current photographers are invited in makes this about turn all the more bizarre.

Pardon my ignorance harpistic (or anyone else on here that takes photos) but at the rehearsals where the photos are taken, are photographers invited by the ROH, or do they have to apply? Are people at the ROH aware of who the photographers are and where their photos end up? Agree with Janet, a very retrospective step. They don't seem to have any understanding of PR or social media. Look at the way they announce cast changes days after they are already common knowledge.

I despair of the RB and ROH sometimes. Do they actually want people to come to the ballet? An incredibly short sighted decision and I am interested to hear their reasons.

That's good. I've never heard of this screen before to be honest, so it's made me even more curious to see Raven Girl now.

What was her reaction?

To be fair, she is not someone I know anything about really, so I don;t know whether that is true or not. I've met a couple of the younger royals as they were involved in a charity I used to volunteer for and they were very nice.

I read somewhere (maybe on here) that Princess Margaret could be so rude they often had to drag dancers to meet her when she was at a ballet event.

Wonder whether having the junior (comparatively low profile) royals as patrons actually has any effect on fundraising or publicity.

It's pretty dark, but no more so than your average episode of Eastenders, so I wouldn't have any qualms about taking a 12 year old, though of course it depends on the 12 year old, and only you will know what they can handle.

I don't know much about him, but he's really young isn't he? I hope this was his decision and injuries didn't force it. Good luck in whatever he chooses to do.

I'm late twenties and I always knew who Darcey was, but from Vicar of Dibley and things like Top Gear and French and Saunders. Alison, I agree, you can't push people in to a role they are not comfortable with. With Rupert, I meant more the behind the scenes stuff on the ROH youtube page. I've seen a lot with Ed recently, and and other principals, but not so much with him (on a side note, I wish the ROH would do these featurettes on some of the lesser 'name' dancers and not always on the same ones, regardless of nationality). I also think parts of this issue are cyclical. Looking at the RB in the late 90's, they had Bussell, Jonathan Cope, Deborah Bull, Sarah Wildor, Bruce Sansom and Adam Cooper at the top at one stage, which is a pretty impressive group. Barring injury, fatigue or lack of motivation, Ed probably has about 5 years left, Rupert and Lauren around 10. In that time you'd hope that maybe Melissa Hamilton and Claire Calvert would have moved up the ranks, and hopefully some younger ones coming through, so you could conceivably have around 5-6 really great British principals in a few years time.

She said a couple of years ago she hoped she had 5-6 years left, so I hope it's just sloppy reporting. Such a great dancerand actress, and it would be great if she was finally given Aurora next season.

Going back to one of the original points made, the only star in ballet in the UK over the last few years has been Darcey, and there is no doubt she had a huge impact on the visability of ballet in this country and encouraged people in to the ROH to see her. I also imagine she encouraged a lot of younger people to follow her and take up ballet. Other than with people like her, ballet has a pretty low profile. Brind says more needs to be done to advertise Lauren. Do people agree with that? Personally, I think the RB do do quite a lot of advertising with Lauren and Ed, and there are lots of interviews with them and youtube clips etc (they don't seem to do so much with Rupert, which I find odd), but they are not cross over stars. Is there more the RB could be doing to market their stars more effectively? It's hard to judge whether there is really an audience any more for the kind of cross over stuff Darcey used to do, and i'm not sure Lauren should be marketed as the star to watch at the RB just because she's British, but maybe having British principals the country actually knows the names of would help encourage children to get involved in ballet, and spur on the young British dancers coming up the ranks.

Fingers crossed for Lauren in Mayerling, but it's looking unlikely.

Thanks for the responses. There was a comment in the bloomberg article about O'Hare implying he is keen to keep the dancers approaching 40 on at the RB, and I hope that's the case. It would be a shame if Yanowsky wasn't still utilised for the next few years. Irmgard, your comment about dancers that have not reached principal status is interesting. I forget how few performances the principlas actually do compared to the artists and soloists, and that probably extends your career by a few years.

I've heard it said before that British dancers develop later than others, and though my knoweldge of British dancers is not extensive, I think Bussell, Cope, Watson and Pennefather either did their best work, or are doing it, in their 30's. That's probably true of most dancers though, I guess.

Slightly more detailed article, with comments about the Ashton style. http://www.standard.co.uk/news/royal-ballet-needs-more-homegrown-talent-to-preserve-its-britishness-says-veteran-star-bryony-brind-8613795.html

Does anyone know if Cuthbertson is going to be fit enough to dance her scheduled Symphony in C performances, or whether Beatrix S-B is fit for the RB Japan tour? Many thanks

We're a small country, but we have a large population (the 22nd largest I believe, out of around 200 countries), and there are areas where we completely punch above our weight (rowing, sailing, cycling, music, fashion) so I don't necessarily think the populations size is such an issue.

It is a difficult subject to discuss. In my opinion it's one of the biggest issues with the big UK companies, but it's hard to even identify the cause of the problem, let alone rectify it. There are a lot of British dancers in the lower ranks of the RB, for whatever reason they just aren't breaking through. I agree with her comments on the relative low profile of ballet dancers today. As has been said elsewhere, the only one that has had any kind of significant profile outside of the ballet world recently has been Darcey. Maybe the RB could advertise Lauren, Rupert and Ed a bit more, as I do think homegrown people becoming successful does have a knock on effect. Then again, maybe they don't want to be heavily promoted and would prefer a quiet life. Alternatively, maybe they could just try and convince Darcey to make a comeback?

Was Sylvie Guillem a good actor dancer?

If I rememebr correctly, she was promoted after dancing Juliet in 2008, but I don't know what else she had danced.

Personally I would be shocked if Yuhui Choe wasn't promoted this year. She has seemed recently to have been dancing principal roles every week, and I wouldn't be surprised if Melissa Hamilton was promoted to First Soloist, as she's taking on quite a few senior roles too.