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Cambridge University Ballet Club does Swan Lake


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Just a quickie for now - maybe will add to it later, but this was (I thought!) a fabulous show.

The usual 4 act version, with choreography all by the students - although some dances pretty true to the original. Odette and Odile were played by ex-professional (but still young) dancers who live in Cambridge - Odette's hoping to get a place there to study veterinary medicine, and Odile is a PhD student studying Scandinavian rock art! But the strength in depth from the mostly undergraduate dancers never ceases to astonish me.

My highlight was the Russian dance. Not sure if I've ever whinged here about it, but I have always loved the music but have been bored to death by the tedious character dance. I know some people love it, but I most certainly do not! Anyway, what they did with it here was quite extraordinary - turning it into something slightly burlesque, slightly tango. Building on Joanna Lawrence's smooth yet spiky angular geometry to give a sense of witchcraft and devilry - I'll upload a link to a clip soon. Probably most of you will be disgusted, but if even just one or two like it half as much as I did, I will feel it time well spent!

More conventional (and closer to home, as DD1 is in it) was the cygnets dance. A couple of small cock-ups, but generally pretty impressive again, considering how little time they had to put it together...

I suppose my only minor criticism would be that I wanted to see more of Odette and Siegfried together - there was a real chemistry there, and Odette (Emma Laister) has such grace I could watch her all night, but I think the director had to keep the length down.

Anyway, one of the reasons for posting this was to suggest that there might still be a couple of seats available (and I have 2 spare tickets now as in-laws are stranded in North Yorkshire) for tomorrow's matinee and evening shows. If anyone lives nearby and loves ballet, they should really be there. The audience could do with beefing up - they were a bit rubbish this evening in terms of applause timing and volume!

Hopefully Terpischore will post a proper review if she managed to get someone along?

Edited by thewinelake
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10 hours ago, bridiem said:

 

Well they did still give it 7/10 which isn't bad!

True! I thought the score seemed generous in comparison to the words - which sounded more like 5/10.

Mind you, in the world of wine, any score under 75/100 is really terrible!

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10 hours ago, Ian Macmillan said:

Bridie:  You beat me to it!  

 

Winelake:  Daphnis & Chloe at West Rd on Saturday - no dancers, but with voices.  Plus Stravinsky and Poulenc.

We don't live in Cambridge yet, but there are some great concerts on most weeks.

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