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Christmas TV and New Year dance programmes - discussion 2016


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Fonteyn belonged to a stoical generation, they squared their shoulders in adversity and got on with life.  I can think of other ballerinas that faced difficulties in their lives, but haven't so far had documentaries made about them.  Svetlana Beriosova springs to mind.

 

I believe the one made on the life ot Tanaquil Leclercq could quite rightly fall into that category.  The documentary made on her was very good I thought ... as was the two part 'Margo' on Fonteyn.  It said so much more about Fonteyn  - both as an artist and human being - than the one Ms. Bussell was featured in.  

 

I suppose the BBC just wanted - in this regard - something they could call their own and gain residuals from.  Times they are hard ... and it seems with the BBC they may well be getting harder.   

Edited by Bruce Wall
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Yes, but for the casual viewer who's not going to bother recording, they're only likely to come across it if it's on TV at a reasonable hour. Mind you, it *was* straight after the News, I believe.

 

It is being repeated New Years Eve afternoon on BBC1 at 3.15pm for those who want a more prime-time showing.

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Oh great ....many thanks Jacqueline so glad haven't missed it its so nice to see Lesley Collier too......another one looking great for her age

This morning have just started the dreaded chesty lurgy thingy so looks like settling down in front of our new tv with a glass of Baileys to watch ballet will be just what the doctor ordered. My partner enjoys ballet when he hasn't got to go miles to see it and maybe there will be a Christmas Day episode of Pawn Stars to keep him happy!!

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Just got home from Sleeping Beauty and fast-forwarded through the "Bussell on the BBC" programme.  This actually looks as though it might be worth recording, with some significant clips of her in performance.

 

(But which stupid idiot went and scheduled the repeat of this against the repeat of her Fonteyn programme???!!!  One on BBC2, one on BBC4)

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I watched the Darcey prog last night. It contained a lot of footage which was interesting to see again and see how La Bussell evolved over the course of her dance career. She appeared supremely confident from an early age, despite the diificulties she has talked about elsewhere. Then again, as she also said you have to work very hard to get to and stay at the top.

I only saw Darcey live once, in Viva la Diva, about which the less said the better. Watching her dance last night, I could appreciate the beauty and precision of her movement and her extraordinary physique. As Eric Morecambe said of playing the right notes on the piano, Darcey - to my eyes anyway - danced all the right steps and quite probably, in the right order. And yet, I got no sense that she was feeling the music and the story.

There was a clip from Sylvia, involving a dramatic looking tussle between Sylvia and her captor, whose name escapes me. It was all going on and when the camera gave a close up of her face - nothing was registering there. She could have been waiting in a queue somewhere.

I found myself comparing and contrasting, given the news we had yesterday of Zenaida Yanowsky's retirement. Not only a fabulous dancer but a terrific actress with a hugely expressive face, most recently seen, for me to great advantage in Elizabeth.

So much of effective dancing is in the face, the eyes and so on. Sarah Lamb is another fine example of the sort of understated expression I find compelling.

I wonder if Darcey's career had taken a rather less turbo powered trajectory from such a young age, she may have had more time to develop her acting skills. We'll never know.

Anyway, it was interesting to see Darcey dance again. She seems so associated now with Saturday night tv and glamour, it was a reminder of where it all started.

Edited by Jacqueline
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I caught up on Darcey Bussell's Margot Fonteyn programme yesterday and I must say that I enjoyed it.  OK it wasn't a deep investigation into Margot Fonteyn but I felt Darcey had a huge respect for her and seemed moved when she visited her resting place in Panama.

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I agree with so much of what you say Jacqueline. My thoughts about the programme, much of which was familiar to me, was that despite her staggering facility and undoubted star quality I can never quite think of Darcey as a ballerina. I do wonder if had Macmillan lived and worked with her longer her acting skills might have been developed.

 

she is a great example of nothing succeeds like success. You are a star, everyone says you are a star, people hear that you are a star so they want to see you. Ergo, you become a bigger star.

 

I hope this doesn't sound ungenerous as Darcey is undoubtedly very widely respected and liked but whenever I saw her dance I was enormous impressed with her physical ease but cannot remember ever being moved by her. I must confess now that I never saw her as Giselle or Juliet so I may well have lost out but in works like Winter Dreams, which i saw a number of times, she could have been seeing her lover off to the bus stop rather than losing him for ever.

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Last night's programme reminded me that I only saw Darcey on stage very rarely and that my two most vivid memories came via TV - her supremely assured Rose Adagio during the 1999 ROH Reopening Night, and the last minutes of her final performance in Song of the Earth when, whatever may have been the case at other times, her face and eyes were fully involved in the story being told in that anguished, winding reverse bourrée.  

 

And she's a joy on Strictly!

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I enjoyed the Darcey Bussell programme last night immensely. It really made me miss her dancing! For me, there was something special about her that I'll never quite be able to put my finger on. I loved seeing her in the beautiful Prince of the Pagodas solos and Winter Dreams pas de deux again. While I know that there is a lot of criticism out there for Darcey as a presenter, to me she has an enthusiasm and obvious passion that I find warm and inviting.

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Because I only caught the end of Darcey's career ( after a long break away from seeing any ballet) I didn't see her do loads ....the first thing was Sleeping Beauty a role which I felt she was well suited. Like others have said here I noticed her ease and grace she was definitely a very fine and beautiful dancer in that respect. She was lovely in Prince of the Pagodas too ....though not a favourite ballet of mine.

 

I didn't see her do anything very dramatic but sensed she would struggle here a bit. And I do get fed up of every new dancing talent being called "the next Fonteyn" .....Fonteyn was a one off so nobody will be like her. And she wasn't good at everything either though still one of my favourites.

 

From the programme last night I felt this feeling was confirmed ....no way was she a fiery and feisty Spanish lady ...as Carmen!! She comes across as too nice and polite. It's difficult though with "extracts" like this as just showing a pas de deux it's harder to build up any dramatic momentum but I didn't think she was a dancer who would have moved me enormously though quite like the bits we saw of Song of the Earth....usually that final trio has me in tears but wouldn't expect that to happen from the couple of excerpts we saw.

 

What a technician though! And this is still important we do need dancers who have that ease and facility which is why I won't "knock" her. As I think with all dancers you just choose what you want to see them in ....where their particular skills are best on show.

 

I still haven't seen the Fonteyn programme but enjoyed last nights very much.

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Good to see the Song of the Earth extracts - would be wonderful to see again that whole farewell performance as I think it's only been broadcast once and isn't available on DVD. And what about a repeat of a magical Cinderella from years ago with I think Alina, Johan and Anthony Dowell/Wayne Sleep as the Ugly Sisters? Again I think that only ever had one broadcast. Perhaps a new thread on what isn't on Christmas television?

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I am so glad they presented the programme about Darcey Bussell's career through the eyes of the BBC.  (I just wished each excerpt had been longer!)  I have a lot of the footage on Video Cassettes, however my poor video player broke down some time ago, so this programme is a very welcome replacement. So many memories of her beautiful dancing, and Winter Dreams and Song of the Earth certainly portrayed to me a vast amount of emotion, to name but two.  In my eyes she deserves every amount of success that she has enjoyed. 

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Last night's programme was much better than I had hoped, almost non-stop dancing,  most extracts I had seen before but Tryst with Jonathan Cope was new to me, plus Song of the Earth, Darcey Bussell never lost her youthful, fresh style.

 

I thought the Margot Fonteyn programme was well presented too, it took a safe not too controversial view, I would not have been so generous about Tito, lovely to see faces from the past especially Donald Macleary, I wish there was some film of him and Svetlana Beriosova. there's a lot lurking in the BBC archives.

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Last night's programme was much better than I had hoped, almost non-stop dancing,  most extracts I had seen before but Tryst with Jonathan Cope was new to me, plus Song of the Earth, Darcey Bussell never lost her youthful, fresh style.

 

I thought the Margot Fonteyn programme was well presented too, it took a safe not too controversial view, I would not have been so generous about Tito, lovely to see faces from the past especially Donald Macleary, I wish there was some film of him and Svetlana Beriosova. there's a lot lurking in the BBC archives.

 

... but not much of Beriosova and almost nothing of Macleary, unless they've recently found some more?

 

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I was pleasantly surprised by the Darcey Bussell programme last night - so many clips without intrusive commentary. As others have said, a glimpse of the treasures in the BBC archives. I was fortunate enough to see Darcey a couple of times, most memorably in Prince of the Pagodas. Macmillan's comment about her being unlike an English dancer in her attack as well as her physique was so apparent at the time of her rise to fame, perhaps less so now. I loved the clip from Cinderella - I think her sunny personality perfectly suited the role. Surprised there wasn't a little more made of her excelling in Balanchine works and her success in America - although the extract from the Tchaikovsky pas de deux did illustrate this to some extent.

This, combined with the clips, promises well for the Nutcracker documentary tomorrow.

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I didn't see the Bussell programme, it seemed from the write up to be full of clips I have seen before.  However, I did see her live many times.  There is no doubt that she was a superb technician, and was at her best when she simply had to move without having to portray too much emotion.  She had a lovely creamy quality of movement that, combined with a wonderful physique, was ideally suited to non acting, pure dance roles

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I enjoyed the Darcey BBC program very much - as others have said, it favoured dance over commentary, and I saw lots of footage that I've never seen before.  I hope it reached a wider audience that may only really be aware of her from Strictly.  I was also struck by how often TV programmes seem to have given performance spots for Darcey, which was a great profile raiser not just of her but for the art form - I'm probably not that exposed to them, but does it ever still actually happen that a ballet dancer performs on a light entertainment show?  Picking up on Macmillan's comments, her physique was perhaps more along Russian lines than English.  Those legs!

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I've just caught up with the Darcey programme - really enjoyable. I think I'd forgotten quite how wonderful she was in her way and this programme seemed to use footage of most of her best roles and not those to which she was less suited. Her amazing body and technique! But they were really supplemented only by her lovely, sunny personality - what MacMillan called her innocence and radiance. If more than that was wanted, it wasn't really there. Except, for some reason, in Song of the Earth, which she danced with such power, clarity, force and feeling that it absolutely took my breath away, both live and in this documentary. As if she knew, in this role alone, precisely what she was doing and why she was doing it. She clearly has an iron will to have achieved all she's achieved; and that came out in Song of the Earth. In too many other roles there was the frustration of seeing only the beautiful dancing. But she was so wise to stop when she did, and in her best role.

 

It's a shame really that so much media attention was focused on her and so little on other excellent dancers. But she clearly did so much to bring ballet to the wider public, and continues to be a great 'advertisement' for it. More power to her elbow! (Or feet, I suppose.)

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Surprised there wasn't a little more made of her excelling in Balanchine works and her success in America - although the extract from the Tchaikovsky pas de deux did illustrate this to some extent.

 

I guess the point was that this was the BBC raiding its archives, and they presumably wouldn't have had access to anything from NYCB?  Plus I don't remember much of the RB's Balanchine output being screened.

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Loved Darcey Bussell: My Life on the BBC. It was a lovely compilation and as bridiem said, I'd forgotten what it was about her as a dancer which I liked so much. At my parents' house sitting in the room where I remember watching her at the age of 11 on Going Live, made me feel so old. Made me want to pick up the phone to my grandma, (a balletomane who followed Darcey's career closely, to ask whether she'd watched it (she passed away recently). I remember watching the lovely Southbank Show about Darcey and Viviana Durante with her which must have been at some point in the early 90s. Much preferred this to the Margot Fonteyn programme and a wonderful celebration of her career. Shame they didn't show anything from the programme where she tried all of the different Hollywood dancing - loved the Singin' in the Rain 'Good Morning' routine.

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