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Posted

It looks like Osipova is the new Sylvie Guillem then with all this modern stuff. I prefer classical so sadly I can't see me liking any of this stuff she will be doing judging from the choreographers being employed....oh well I'll just have to find a promising classical dancer to follow instead....any ideas? 

Posted

The prospect of Osipova dancing with Polunin is enticing though. I will probably go and see it if the tickets are not too expensive. I suspect that this programme will suit the Wells better than the Coli.

  • Like 1
Posted

It looks like Osipova is the new Sylvie Guillem then with all this modern stuff. I prefer classical so sadly I can't see me liking any of this stuff she will be doing judging from the choreographers being employed....oh well I'll just have to find a promising classical dancer to follow instead....any ideas?

 

Yasmine Naghdi at RB. Madison Keesler and Lauretta Summerscales at ENB. Delia Matthews at BRB. These are just a few of the promising dancers who I think could/will excel in the classical repertoire (although Delia has been around longer than the others). I love Frankie Hayward and was very impressed with Leticia Stock in Viscera, but I see them more in MacMillan and contemporary roles. But I may be totally wrong! I look forward to watching all of them progress.

  • Like 5
Posted (edited)

Yasmine Naghdi at RB. Madison Keesler and Lauretta Summerscales at ENB. Delia Matthews at BRB. These are just a few of the promising dancers who I think could/will excel in the classical repertoire (although Delia has been around longer than the others). I love Frankie Hayward and was very impressed with Leticia Stock in Viscera, but I see them more in MacMillan and contemporary roles. But I may be totally wrong! I look forward to watching all of them progress.

 

Bless you, Sim and Don Q Fan for your comments.

 

I think it is becoming progressively clear that the 'London' Alistair Spalding so proudly proclaimed as  'a mecca for world dance' - and surely we must all applaud his rich steerage and steady arm in this regard - is - from the Sadler's perspective at any rate - 'a world mecca for contemporary dance'.  For me that assuredly stretches beyond what Judith Mackrell last year christened 'a celebration of the oddball'.  Bourne's Lord of the Flies was a stellar example of rightful mainstream success; one celebrating triumphantly the delicate balance which the Department of Media, Culture and Sport calls 'access'.  We all thrilled (well I certainly did) as Bourne's own vocabulary breathed anew.  Suddenly the air around his work was of a different hue.  

 

So keen has the British hunger for the contemporary dance swathe become that such can now settle in its majority season after season on the Sadler's Wells' doorstep.  Spalding has carefully implanted these goalposts at an address which at one time was best remembered for being a historic home for the development of UK ballet.  Now the two meet in that same's middle.  Even then they seek to stretch sideways.  Surely Khan's Giselle will be but one case in that very specific point.  Surely - given that such is but part of ENB's well rounded exercise - it can but enrich all as long as the roots of each tradition somehow remain in the clarity of the overall frame; that one does not come at the exclusion of the other.  Is It an easy balance?  No.  Assuredly it isn't.  Still it is an exciting one.  It is special.  Occasionally it may even form the crust of a lasting history.  We should I think be proud to be living at this particularly creative time; proud to be the focus of this investigative hub so many of us call home.  

 

So too should we grow pride I feel in the fact that our dedicated leaders; those of the RB, ENB, NB, SB, BRB; (and we are all so, so lucky to have such wise and insightful pacesetters in our midst;) are STILL attempting - e'en now - to stretch literacy in a balletic idiom rather than giving way - if not entire sway - to the contemporary vernacular.  Bless them.  In some quarters the latter is thought to be easier to comprehend.  (I'm not always convinced by that particular argument.)  True the experiment by the Royal with Schecter appeared to reveal little in terms of choreographic compromise from the balletic end - but - then we can recall Scottish Ballet's indelible Streetcar which took us all on a dramatic journey through the drama tiself.  So effective was its concerted rumble that it became invisible inside its own light.  It reinvented itself every bit as much as it told Williams' story anew.  Even Schecter's shake outs, however, will have been significant.  Surely they were but pathways towards a different (I won't say better as I might live to regret it) future understanding.  It may, of course, simply have been the milieu which appeared at times to be an awkward fit.

 

Somehow I stubbornly still believe that hope reigns in the middle and far distance of any dance's creation.  That's the magic.  Both contemporary dance and ballet give us a language which is beyond words.  They share a wayside and (as in Dust) we pull over.  Surely that's enough to make any ballet contemporary and vice versa. It allows it and us to live; to suspend dis-belief.  (I keep thinking of Stina's stunning VERA as a great exemplar of that fact:  A true 'Testament of Youth')  

 

Definitions may - and do - alter but our shared hunger for an emotional reward does not.  

Edited by Bruce Wall
  • Like 2
Posted

Yasmine Naghdi at RB. Madison Keesler and Lauretta Summerscales at ENB. Delia Matthews at BRB. These are just a few of the promising dancers who I think could/will excel in the classical repertoire (although Delia has been around longer than the others). I love Frankie Hayward and was very impressed with Leticia Stock in Viscera, but I see them more in MacMillan and contemporary roles. But I may be totally wrong! I look forward to watching all of them progress.

 

I would add Ksenia Ovsyanick and Shiori Kase at ENB.

  • Like 7
Posted

It looks like Osipova is the new Sylvie Guillem then with all this modern stuff. I prefer classical so sadly I can't see me liking any of this stuff she will be doing judging from the choreographers being employed....oh well I'll just have to find a promising classical dancer to follow instead....any ideas? 

 

 

At NB, the gorgeous Lucia Solari, Antoinette Brookes Daw and Abi Prudames.  Although it has to be said that NB do not specialise in the nineteenth century classics.

 

And how could anyone not mention the amazing Momoko Hirata at BRB, as well as Delia.

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Posted

Thank you all for the suggestions. I agree with Bruce that SW is indeed now the home of contemporary dance there is not one programme in the 15/16 rep that I want to see because modern dance, to me is gymnastics which is not an art but a sport and I have no desire to see that. Classical ballet will survive I am sure ...just not at SW!!!

  • Like 2
Posted

At NB, the gorgeous Lucia Solari, Antoinette Brookes Daw and Abi Prudames.  Although it has to be said that NB do not specialise in the nineteenth century classics.

 

And how could anyone not mention the amazing Momoko Hirata at BRB, as well as Delia.

 

Oh, I think Ms. Hirata is truly wonderful too, Janet.  

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Posted

Yes, Ksenia in particular (for me) plus of course the lovely Celine Gittens (how can we have forgotten to mention her?). I love Momoko although I'm not sure that we can say that she is up and coming as she's already a principal. Sophie Martins at Scottish Ballet is lovely too (she looked gorgeous in the Dawson Swan Lake rehearsal on World Ballet Day). There's no shortage of wonderful ballerinas across the companies. Many may not get the chance to dance lead roles but they are very enjoyable to watch in smaller featured roles eg Kei Akahoshi, Crystal Costa (she has danced a number of lead roles) and Anjuli Hudson all at ENB. You're spoilt for choice, DQF.

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Posted

The press release for the summer season (includes link to the online brochure):

 

The Spring / Summer 2016 Season at Sadler’s Wells

 

The Spring / Summer 2016 Season is on sale from Monday 9 November 2015 at 10am

 

 

Sadler’s Wells and Lilian Baylis Studio Ticket Office: 020 7863 8000 or sadlerswells.com The Peacock Ticket Office: 020 7863 8222 or peacocktheatre.com

 

 

The Spring / Summer 2016 Season Brochure and Guide can be downloaded from:

 

 http://issuu.com/sadlerswells/docs/brochure_online_edited?e=5210497/31038539

 

and:

 

http://s3.sadlerswells.com/downloads/brochure/Sadlers_Wells_Season_Guide_Spring_2016.pdf

 

 

 

 

Posted

Thank you all for the suggestions. I agree with Bruce that SW is indeed now the home of contemporary dance there is not one programme in the 15/16 rep that I want to see because modern dance, to me is gymnastics which is not an art but a sport and I have no desire to see that. Classical ballet will survive I am sure ...just not at SW!!!

Really?  Then exactly how would you describe those eyesore six o'clock extensions and dropped crotch jetes so beloved of classical performers?  Acrobatics of the very worst kind in my view.

 

Ballet will not survive if it doesn't start attracting younger audiences, but funnily enough contemporary dance seems to have no difficulty in attracting the younger audience at all, I wonder why that might be?  Superior product?

Posted

Not superior, just different. Younger audiences are attracted to contemporary dance largely because of the music, and the less fussy costumes than are usually used in classical ballet. Classical ballet, like classical music, will survive because it attracts a mixture of young and old people, and so it goes on down the generations. There are always plenty of young people at the ballet when I go....no matter where and in what country.

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