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ENB Season Launch


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Hello to all - I'm delighted to have found this community of ballet fans. I wondered if anyone here was at the ENB's season launch last night, and if so, what did you think? I loved Tamara Rojo's speech: "There's a misunderstanding in the ballet world that in order to cherish our heritage, we have to freeze it." I really admire the choices she's making with the company. And of course I am incandescently excited to see The Rite of Spring next year. How does everyone else feel about the upcoming season?

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Welcome Tatiana!

Whilst I did not go to the event you mention, I think ENB's new season is good - and I agree 100% with you about Tamara's leadership.  She has a good balance of old and new which is perfect to keep both dancers and audiences happy.  It is with some trepidation I am seeing the Khan reworking of Giselle but who knows I may like it!  (I'm not known for liking modern)  I was relieved to see pointe shoes being used in the rehearsals so fingers x'd.

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I very much look forward to the Mary Skeaping Giselle and I shall be interested to see the mixed bill at Sadler's Wells. So as far as programming is concerned Tamara is to be congratulated on her enterprise.

 

But having just come back from Paris where I had the good fortune to see Ratmansky's reconstruction of the Sleeping Beauty I find Tamara's comment about not "freezing" the heritage in order to preserve it clever but not particularly sensitive to the effect that even apparently minor changes and "improvement" have on what the audience sees.

 

Ratmansky has restored the choreographic text of the Sleeping Beauty to one that Petipa would recognise. He has it danced in a period appropriate style and at the correct speed. Those changes have transformed the ballet into a work that is full of charm and musicality. Petipa's musicality comes as a real revelation after years of Sleeping Beauty "improved" by sluggish tempi which enable the star ballerina to show just how long she can sustain her balances and the imposition of choreography which enables the male dancer to establish the virility of his technique. 

 

The Skeaping Giselle would appear to be the sort of production that Tamara was criticising in her comment about "freezing" the heritage because it is very much an attempt to restore Giselle as a peak of Romantic ballet and restore traditional cuts.

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