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NY Honours 2018 - Darcey Bussell made a Dame, & more


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slightly off topic, but does anyone remember a small group of dancers from the Royal Ballet who did programmes explaining basic steps in ballet and one or two solos/ pas de deux? They toured to schools and small towns were there were no theatres. I think they were called Ballet for All. Saw a couple of their performances and they were excellent

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The Ballet For All is ringing bells!! I'm trying to remember now just how long ago they were around 

 

I did get a ballet group into a school in Islington at some point but am sure this was way back either late 70's or early 80's so not sure if it was this group or not. 

 

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2 hours ago, LinMM said:

The Ballet For All is ringing bells!! I'm trying to remember now just how long ago they were around 

 

I did get a ballet group into a school in Islington at some point but am sure this was way back either late 70's or early 80's so not sure if it was this group or not. 

 

LinMM, hate to say it but I think it was the 60s! I think they went on for quite a few years.

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3 hours ago, ninamargaret said:

slightly off topic, but does anyone remember a small group of dancers from the Royal Ballet who did programmes explaining basic steps in ballet and one or two solos/ pas de deux? They toured to schools and small towns were there were no theatres. I think they were called Ballet for All. Saw a couple of their performances and they were excellent

Peter Brinson, Ballet for All. They did a wonderful job. x http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-peter-brinson-1614724.html

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6 hours ago, ninamargaret said:

slightly off topic, but does anyone remember a small group of dancers from the Royal Ballet who did programmes explaining basic steps in ballet and one or two solos/ pas de deux? They toured to schools and small towns were there were no theatres. I think they were called Ballet for All. Saw a couple of their performances and they were excellent

 

I saw Ballet for All present 'The World of Giselle' in Holland Park in June 1978. It was brilliant and I'd only started going to ballet the previous year so it was really illuminating.

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7 hours ago, ninamargaret said:

slightly off topic, but does anyone remember a small group of dancers from the Royal Ballet who did programmes explaining basic steps in ballet and one or two solos/ pas de deux? They toured to schools and small towns were there were no theatres. I think they were called Ballet for All. Saw a couple of their performances and they were excellent

I still have my Ballet for All programme from the late 1970s when they came to Malvern. Frustratingly doesn't list individual dancers!

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Yes I remember them, and saw them several times over the years at The Theatre Royal in Bury St. Edmunds and also I think at The Arts Theatre in Cambridge.  I will see if I have time to check the programmes. Also I have a paperback book titled Ballet for All which is a history of ballet.

 

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  • alison changed the title to NY Honours 2018 - Darcey Bussell made a Dame, & more
On 01/01/2018 at 20:54, capybara said:

 

I think that they can. DAME Nellie Melba, DAME Joan Sutherland, DAME Anjelina Jolie etc

At the times of the daming of Melba (1918, for her charity work during WWI, and the Grand Cross in 1927 for services to Australia) and of Sutherland (CBE 1961, DBE 1979, both for services to the performing arts), Australia used the Imperial honours system, and they were (with others such as Dame Joan Hammond, Dame Margaret Scott, and Dame Peggy van Praagh) awarded the highest honour available at the time. 

 

Since the 1975 creation of the Order of Australia, fewer Australians were put forward for British honours, with the Federal government ceasing nominations in 1983 and the States more gradually following suit, with the final British honours coming in Queensland and Tasmania in 1989. After discussions with Britain, Australia formally ceased to make recommendations for British honours. 

 

Australians can, of course, still receive a British honour but such an award is officially called a "foreign award" if made after 5 October 1992. So if Cate Blanchett is ever made DBE, it will be of the same honorary nature as Angelina Jolie's. Incidentally, Leanne Benjamin AM OBE got her (honorary? I don't know if she's a British citizen) OBE ten years before her Australian honour, in 2005. 

 

Also, to drag this back to the official topic, I met Dame Darcey several times when she was living here, and she was quite pleasant, but clearly a networker on a grand scale. She was invited on a number of occasions to coach Australian Ballet dancers in roles she knew well (I am told), and the fee "requested" was (I am told by one of those involved in the various invitations) so high on each occasion that it was felt to be an indication of just how much she didn't want to do it. She was on the board of Sydney Dance Company (and is now their patron) but never involved in any formal way (board, coaching, teaching) with Australian Ballet. Does she coach at the Royal Ballet at all? 

 

Her elevation can only be applauded, as it is reminding the GBP that dance (as she put it in a 2016 interview) "is not just street dance".

Edited by Sophoife
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On 1/2/2018 at 16:29, ninamargaret said:

slightly off topic, but does anyone remember a small group of dancers from the Royal Ballet who did programmes explaining basic steps in ballet and one or two solos/ pas de deux? They toured to schools and small towns were there were no theatres. I think they were called Ballet for All. Saw a couple of their performances and they were excellent

I saw them in 1977, performing Romeo and Juliet, the dancers were Nicolas Dixon and Susan Crow.

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On 06/01/2018 at 11:11, Sophoife said:

I love watching that sort of thing and enjoy the ROH Insights when made available. 

Me too. I love seeing behind the scenes and it helps me appreciate the performances more when I see the dancers on stage 

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Slightly off topic but Bussell was listed with all the usual suspects as coaching some of the principal dancers for the Nutcracker revival in the 1916-17 season and she was the coach for the Ashton Foundation's masterclass on Ashton's Raymonda pas de deux. The latter coaching session can be found with several others on the Ashton  Foundation's website under the heading "news and events".

 

Sophoife. 

The other coaching sessions show Anthony Dowell coaching the prince's solo from act 2 of the Royal Ballet's production of Sleeping Beauty and the Dance of the Blessed Spirits while Merle Park is shown coaching The Walk to the Paradise Garden. I hope that they are accessible in Australia.

Edited by FLOSS
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Also worth noting in Bussel’s favour that as ‘the most famous British ballerina since Fonteyn’ (Alastair McCauley) is President of the RAD and is inspiring a generation of children who receive their exam certificates signed by her. 

 

Re coaching, she mentions her extensive coaching in the Ashton Rediscovered Raymonda Q&A. Even during her 5 years In Australia she continued to coach. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Blossom said:

Also worth noting in Bussel’s favour that as ‘the most famous British ballerina since Fonteyn’ (Alastair McCauley) is President of the RAD and is inspiring a generation of children who receive their exam certificates signed by her. 

 

Re coaching, she mentions her extensive coaching in the Ashton Rediscovered Raymonda Q&A. Even during her 5 years In Australia she continued to coach. 

 

 

And I think she has a lovely manner as a coach - always encouraging and respectful and getting the best out of the dancers of whatever age or rank, and really gives insightful technical corrections specific to the individual  rather than ‘this is how i did it’.

Edited by RHowarth
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1 hour ago, RHowarth said:

And I think she has a lovely manner as a coach - always encouraging and respectful and getting the best out of the dancers of whatever age or rank, and really gives insightful technical corrections specific to the individual  rather than ‘this is how i did it’.

 Yes, I think she is lovely with it as well. Very collaborative - ‘I think that we need to xxx’ not ‘you need to do xxx’.

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The honours system is very strange. Just before he died, there was a push for an OBE for Mick McMannus ( The Man You Love to Hate).  He was a favourite of the Queen Mother but the petition was to no avail.

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28 minutes ago, JohnS said:

Given the fabulous Sylvia performances we've recently been fortunate to see, are folk being a little ungenerous here?  My understanding was that dancers had very much appreciated Darcey Bussell's coaching.

 

How do you know, JohnS?

 

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Thanks Capybara.  The attached gives some support:

 

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/watch-marianela-nunez-rehearses-the-royal-balletssylvia-with-darcey-bussell

 

I was also fortunate enough to have a backstage tour and quite by chance saw Darcey Bussell coaching Sylvia for a few minutes - I hasten to say through the studio window.  I sensed a clear rapport and my guide enthused about the contributions coaches like Darcey Bussell make.

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As a general rule I would consider either Collier or Hatley preferable to Bussell as a coach of Ashton's choreography but you need to remember that when the recent revival of Sylvia was being prepared the company was also preparing Nutcracker  which meant that coaches like Collier were engaged in preparing their quota of SPF and partners. I imagine that the demand on coaching time which Nutcracker places on the coaching team was the main factor which led  to Bussell being asked to coach Sylvia. Bussell  has one one advantage over Collier and Hatley as far as both Sylvia and Raymonda pas de deux are concerned and that is she has actually danced both of them.

 

The full length Sylvia was not danced for that long before it was reduced in length and finally disappeared from the repertory, By the time that Collier was in her prime Sylvia was just the third act pas de deux which might very occasionally be sighted in an Ashton divertisement section of a mixed bill. Collier danced the pas de deux  with Jeffries in 1984. Hatley only ever appeared in it in minor roles. Bussell is in a position to provide practical advice and speak from experience about whether there are any places where you can or should rest a bit  because of the demands about to be made on the dancer in performance. Yanowsky is on record as saying that it is an exhausting role because you portray a different aspect of Sylvia in each act which means that it is like dancing three different ballets. The dancers who appeared as Sylvia when the Mariinsky danced it said it was the most difficult ballet they had ever danced. 

 

As far as Raymonda pas de deux is concerned it was dusted off in 1994 when it was danced by two casts Hussain and Cooper and Bussell and Solymosi and it must then have been coached by Macleary who had danced it with Beriosova. Collier has never danced it . It was created on Macleary and he was present during the coaching session and gave what sounded like some very helpful advice to the younger dancers who appeared in the session.It may not look like it in the video of the coaching session but in the studio it is very clear that this pas de deux is a real box of technical tricks.Again having performed it has to be an advantage when it comes to coaching the choreography of the pas.

Edited by FLOSS
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On 08/01/2018 at 12:38, FLOSS said:

Sophoife. 

The other coaching sessions show Anthony Dowell coaching the prince's solo from act 2 of the Royal Ballet's production of Sleeping Beauty and the Dance of the Blessed Spirits while Merle Park is shown coaching The Walk to the Paradise Garden. I hope that they are accessible in Australia.

 

Thank you so much for pointing me in that direction, Floss - it's a veritable treasure trove! :)

 

23 hours ago, Blossom said:

Also worth noting in Bussel’s favour that as ‘the most famous British ballerina since Fonteyn’ (Alastair McCauley) is President of the RAD and is inspiring a generation of children who receive their exam certificates signed by her. 

 

Re coaching, she mentions her extensive coaching in the Ashton Rediscovered Raymonda Q&A. Even during her 5 years In Australia she continued to coach.

 

I honestly don't remember ever looking at any of my RAD or other extra-curricular (piano, singing, double bass) examination certificates and registering who had signed them, however I see your point. Looking through them yesterday, I find that indeed, all are signed by Margot Fonteyn de Arias! 😳

 

Well, I don't know who Bussell was coaching in Australia, but it must have been private or back in the UK as it was not Australian Ballet, nor (after asking the relevant person) Queensland Ballet! As I said earlier it was apparently very obvious that she really didn't want to coach (at least with Australian Ballet), which is a great pity as I am sure there would have been many benefits, both for dancers and for us in the audience, from such coaching.

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Sophofie,

I am so pleased that you were able to access the Foundation's website.Keep an eye on it because the coaching sessions conducted during the 2017-18 season will be posted in due course and another session coached by Dowell is not to be missed nor is the forthcoming event when Mason coaches Ashton's version of the Spanish dance from Swan Lake.

 

The Foundation is promising that the Ashton Symposium will be posted which should be of real interest particularly if it includes the discussions and not just the coaching sessions. That is not to say that sessions coached by Sibley, Dowell and Collier won't be interesting, they will, but not being able to hear what Margaret Barbieri and Iain Webb have to say about the Ashton repertory would  be a great loss. One thing you can access about the Symposium is the article which Patricia Linton wrote for The Dancing Times. It makes interesting and rather worrying reading as she points out the RB's institutional amnesia when it comes to reviving its Ashton repertory. She singles out a number of former dancers whose assistance would be invaluable when reviving a work like Monotones 2 and raises the issue of dancer's early training at the RBS as a key to producing dancers for whom the style comes naturally.

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