John Mallinson

Ahh, the good old days! But I think it's always fun not to know in advance - increases the anticipation.

I'm afraid there is no more information. It will be a programme of short new works by company members but what, by whom, and danced by whom are never announced in advance. Standard variable but always interesting and entertaining.

You're right, but I was using 'Royal Ballet' as a generic term!

The Wise Virgins solo was revived for the dedication of the Ninette de Valois memorial in Westminster Abbey in November 2009. Danced then in tandem by the Royal Ballet's Natasha Oughtred and Romany Padjak. Some details towards the bottom of this page: http://www.balletassociation.co.uk/Pages/company.html

Thursday's Links - 5 January 2012 REVIEW: Merce Cunningham Dance Company Hail and Farewell Park Avenue Armory Event USA, New York, Park Avenue Armory Dancers: Collwes, Crossman, Desjardins, Goggans, Hinrichs, Madoff, Mitchell, Nelson, Riener, Scott, Toogood, Weber by Deborah Jowitt "Considering that for many years, he and his company performed under difficult conditions before an uncomprehending public, he was, I’m sure, tickled by the adulation that his dancers have been receiving in recent years. And he might might have been amazed by the rapt response at this final Event." Arts Journal Preview: Come Fly Away, Chicago by Hedy Weiss "Frank DID come to a performance of Nine Sinatra Songs at the Uris Theatre in New York once, and it was fantastic,” Tharp recalled. “He took a huge freight elevator, walked out on stage to take a bow with the dancers, and the audience almost died." Chicago Sun-Times Come Fly Away - a work in progress Sinatra - filtered by Twyla, Vegas by Chris Jones "When Come Fly Away opens Jan. 10 in Chicago at the very suitable Bank of America Theatre, it will be fundamentally different from the show I saw on Broadway nine months ago." Chicago Tribune Preview: Elizabeth Streb, NY Occupy The Armory! by Brian McCormick "It is the greatest feeling in the world to actually do something your mind tells you is impossible. We do this every day, all the dancers. Our rehearsals are electrifying." Gay City News The Globe and Mail's 2012 dance preview (Canada) by Paula Citron "What I’m least excited to see The late choreographer Alvin Ailey created 79 works, but you wouldn’t know it given the tendency of the company he founded ... to include his 1960 signature Revelations at every performance." Globe and Mail Dance Stars of 2011 Graf was still off the charts when ranking dance stars by Carolyn Kelemen "Still, my fondest remembrance of Alicia's dancing came in late spring at the Ballet Royale studio on Red Branch Road, where she danced a solo for friends, families and, especially, for mentor Donna Pidel. Indeed, the Columbia native is the shiniest star in this planet's dance galaxy, and ranks first in our list of best dance performances of 2011." Baltimore Sun Alvin Ailey, LC Sims and the posters Leaping Into History by Urban Gardiner "I'm thinking of one poster in particular: It was last season's, and it starred company member Linda Celeste Sims looking like an airborne citizen of Avatar's Pandora. She's dressed in not much more than strategically placed streamers of turquoise body paint." Wall Street Journal DESH performances cancelled by Natalie Woolman "Akram Khan has had to cancel future performances of his one-man show DESH due to an injury." The Stage

Wednesday's Links - 4 January 2012 REVIEW: Merce Cunningham Dance Company 5 stars Park Avenue Armory Event USA, New York, Park Avenue Armory Dancers: Collwes, Desjardins, Goggans, Hinrichs, Mitchell, Nelson by Apollinaire Scherr "... we clapped and wept and roared for the Merce Cunningham dancers to come back, to stay. They did return to the stage again and again for bows, looking more overwhelmed each time. But they could not stay forever." Financial Times REVIEW: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Trying Always to Please, Rarely to Challenge Revelations, Journey, Arden Court, Home, Minus 16, Streams USA, New York, City Center Dancers: Mack, Sims LC by Alastair Macaulay "Strangely, the difference between good and bad choreography counts for less at Ailey than at anywhere else. The lure is neither the individuals nor the material they perform so much as a more generalized feeling of large-spiritedness that the Ailey company always delivers." New York Times REVIEW: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Robert Battle, Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Artistic Director Involves Audience In Show Minus 16, Home, Revelations USA, New York, City Center Dancers: Mack, Rushing by Jocelyn Noveck "Later, these dancers suddenly appear in the audience, looking around in a rather sinister way for partners to bring up onstage. At a recent performance, some of those recruited looked like deer in the headlights, but most of the amateur dancers were footloose and uninhibited, including one elderly woman who truly brought down the house ..." Huffington Post Dancing Diplomacy: American Troupes to Tour Again for State Department by Juie Bloom "American dance companies are once again heading overseas to practice a kind of choreographed diplomacy as part of the second season of DanceMotion USA." New York Times Dance Flash: Reflection and Anticipation Abound by Becca Klarin "Strangely, over the past few weeks, my brain keeps rolling over the past year like a silent black and white film, as I remember fun-filled flashbacks like watching RAWdance swoop through the dining area at Orson (never ever try to eat gnocchi while watching a duet! Your fork will miss your mouth every time)." SF Appeal Le martyre de Saint Sebastien by Sue Gilmore "Next week, Michael Tilson Thomas dials the wayback machine on his long tenure with the San Francisco Symphony and returns to the highly unusual, overtly theatrical work by Claude Debussy that the conductor introduced to the Bay Area in its full form for the first time in his inaugural season in November of 1995." Contra Costa Times New costumes for MacMillan's Rite of Spring Kinder Aggugini teams up with the English National Ballet by Alicia Waite "As part of the Beyond Ballet Russes season, which will celebrate the legacy of Russian choreographer Diaghilev's legendary dance company, Kinder Aggugini will be creating the outfits for an English National Ballet production of The Rite of Spring ..." Telegraph

Tuesday's Links - 3 January 2012 REVIEW: Merce Cunningham Dance Company Will Cunningham's Works Survive? Park Avenue Armory Event USA, New York, Park Avenue Armory Dancers: Crossman, Goggans, Mitchell, Scott, Swinston by Robert Greskovic "As sell-out crowds at the Armory milled around the venue's vast Drill Hall for these final MCDC appearances - which took shape as sampler presentations of Cunningham's dances - the event, with dancers appearing on three separate raised stages, had the air of a fashion designers' runway show." Wall Street Journal REVIEW: Merce Cunningham Dance Company One Last Time Park Avenue Armory Event USA, New York, Park Avenue Armory Dancers: Collwes, Crossman, Desjardins, Goggins, Hinrichs, Madoff, Mitchell, Munnerlyn, Nelson, Riener, Scott, Swinston, Toogood, Weber by Tobi Tobias "The curtain calls were many, with the dancers lining all four sides of the central platform and then reforming as a tight hand-in-hand circle again and again." Arts Journal REVIEW: Merce Cunningham Dance Company The Merce Cunningham Dance Company takes its last bow Park Avenue Armory Event USA, New York, Park Avenue Armory by Robert Johnson "Ironically this fiercely independent choreography, the thing Cunningham valued most, cannot survive without a company trained to perform it. The claim his troupe was euthanized to save the repertoire from decay makes no sense, since closing the company abruptly hastens this decline." Newark Star Ledger REVIEW: Merce Cunningham Dance Company After The End Of Merce Park Avenue Armory Event USA, New York, Park Avenue Armory by Michael H Miller "Dancers cycled onto and off of the stage, moving with such ease and subtlety that it was hard to tell when an entrance or exit had been made until after it happened." GalleristNY Roslyn Sulcas's four London Nutcrackers: REVIEW: Matthew Bourne London Succumbs to the Spell of The Nutcracker Nutcracker! UK, London, Sadler's Wells Dancers: Brennan, North, Shaw, Trenfield, Vassallo, Westmoreland by Roslyn Sulcas "the creation of steps has never been Mr. Bourne’s strength. His gifts lie in his sense of theater, his wit and timing and his understanding of the dramatic essentials of the stories he has transformed through contemporary, almost allegorical settings." New York Times REVIEW: Royal Ballet London Succumbs to the Spell of The Nutcracker The Nutcracker UK, London, Covent Garden Dancers: Hamilton, Ondiviela, Polunin, Hinkis by Roslyn Sulcas "More interesting were two junior leads, Meaghan Grace Hinkis as Clara and Ludovic Ondiviela in the Nutcracker/Nephew role, both notable for their lively, articulate musical phrasing and confident grace." New York Times REVIEW: Birmingham Royal Ballet London Succumbs to the Spell of The Nutcracker Nutcracker UK, London, O2 Arena Dancers: Millar, Willis by Roslyn Sulcas "For the first half (I moved for the second act), this screen was the only way to see anything at all from where I was seated at orchestra level, which meant I had no sense of the transformation scene in which the drawing room and tree swell to immense proportions, nor of the oft-praised snowflake dance ..." New York Times REVIEW: English National Ballet London Succumbs to the Spell of The Nutcracker The Nutcracker UK, London, Coliseum Dancers: Acosta Y, Kase by Roslyn Sulcas "Shiori Kase metamorphosed from a perfectly pleasant young Clara into a radiant Sugar Plum Fairy, whose transformation into a fluid, precise, enchantingly musical and technically assured ballerina was made more touching by Yonah Acosta’s tender, courteous partnering." New York Times Top artists reveal how to find creative inspiration with contributions from Tamara Rojo and Wayne McGregor "Do Empty Panic Forage Generate ..." The Guardian Birmingham's 3rd International Dance Festival The world comes to Birmingham to dance by Diane Parkes "Due to hit the streets and venues of the city in April, the month-long festival will see leading companies from across the world descend on Birmingham. Included in the line-up, which was announced recently, are Sylvie Guillem together with Russell Maliphant, Royal Ballet of Flanders ..." Birmingham Mail Review of 2011, Melbourne Staging a year in slow motion by Chloe Smethurst "There were quite a few interesting new works presented, and some very welcome remounts of existing work. Yet, on the whole, there was less dance on offer, and more of it was passable than brilliant." The Age Taipei Gala Starry, starry night by Diane Baker "Next weekend will see a virtual UN of dancers (five Russians, two Canadians, two French, two Americans, two South Koreans, a Spaniard and a Czech) on stage at the National Theater for the Sixth International Ballet Star Gala." Taipei Times

Monday's Links - 2 January 2012 REVIEW: American Ballet Theatre A Fairy Tale Stoked by Childhood Dreams The Nutcracker USA, New York, Brooklyn Academy of Music Dancers: Cornejo H, Gomes, Gorak, Hallberg, Herrera, Kajiya, Lane, Murphy, Part, Reyes, Riccetto, Simkin, Stearns, Tamm by Alastair Macaulay "How can we add up the positive and negative aspects of this Nutcracker? I changed my mind at every performance. And I keep changing my mind about Mr. Ratmansky. When I say he is the finest artist choreographing in ballet today, I say so with mixed feelings about ballet itself." New York Times REVIEW: Merce Cunningham Dance Company Merce Cunningham Dance Company concludes Park Avenue Armory Event USA, New York, Park Avenue Armory Dancers: Mitchell, Weber by Susan Reiter "The dancers bowed on each stage, then collected and held hands on the central stage for repeated bows. Ultimately, they had to leave us, and with their final exit, a powerfully significant and influential era in contemporary dance had come to a close." Los Angeles Times Après Merce by Alma Guillermoprieto "Followers like myself also loved his senseless determination to make every piece new, even if it meant losing audience members unwilling to work that hard for the payoff: in a favorite story, his brother once asked, 'Merce, when are you going to make something people like?'" New York Review of Books REVIEW: Mariinsky Ballet Gala show brings curtains on 2011 in Oman New Year's Eve Gala: Chopiniana, Simple Things, Carmen Oman, Muscat, Royal Opera House Dancers: Golub, Kondaurova by Sarah MacDonald "ROHM’s New Years Eve Gala with the Mariinsky Ballet was really the perfect end to 2011 and a splendid way to start 2012." Times of Oman REVIEW: Les Ballets de Monte Carlo Lac Monaco, Monaco, Grimaldi Forum Dancers: Coppieters by Ora Brafman "The ballet was intense and Swan Lake will never be the same after the tempestuous Lac." Jerusalem Post REVIEW: Aletta Collins Reviving a Long-Lost Tale From Kurt Weill’s Archive Magical Night UK, London, Linbury Studio Theatre Dancers: Cooke, Gulgec, Randi, Ridley-DeMonick, Ruggeri, Adams-Camacho, Comerford-McDonald, Luo by Roslyn Sulcas "The happy ending, however, like much of the opening section, feels slightly formulaic, the choreography is often repetitive, and the show as a whole has - at least from an adult point of view - little of the sophistication and captivating magic of William Tuckett’s Faeries, last year’s Christmas production at the Linbury." New York Times Daniil Simkin - Man of the moment by Diane Baker "In addition to working for the American Ballet Theater, Daniil Simkin travels the world appearing in galas and as a guest artist. Tracking his travels on Twitter gives one a whole new appreciation of the term jet-setter; the man is always on the move." Taipei Times Swinging Parties New York City's swing-dance demimonde. Slideshow by Piotr Redlinski New York Times

This is the link to the Dar Dance site - http://www.dardanse.com/