The Royal Ballet and “Great” Britain

[Geoff]

Just seen the government ad campaign that has the Royal Ballet endorsing the barely grammatical slogan “Creativity is Great Britain and Northern Ireland” - or perhaps, how droll, “Creativity is Great (Britain and Northern Ireland)”. Nice pics but a pretty dodgy campaign imho:

 

 

 

 

 

[ChrisG]

Dodgy indeed - I guess this is a small sample of what's in store for us post-Brexit

[Guest]

No comment 

[Ian Macmillan]

Oh dear - I think you may find all the comment that's needed by clicking on the embedded Tweet.   

[Bruce Wall]

14 minutes ago, Darlex said:

No comment 

 

Frequently best that way, I find.  Some things - like this case in point - have a habit of speaking for themselves!

 

I remember Emily Maitlis more or less saying the same when asked for her perspective before her interview with Prince Andrew was aired.  She wasn't far off that particular mark I felt.  

 

Edited January 2, 2020 by Bruce Wall

[zxDaveM]

the twitterati has not been kind

[Fonty]

Agree with all the comments, disgraceful. 

Do the management at ROH feel they have to endorse this sort of thing, because they are worried that otherwise they might lose a significant chunk of their funding?

[Geoff]

More here:

 

https://slippedisc.com/2020/01/royal-opera-jumps-on-boriss-brexit-bandwaggon/

 

 

[Xandra Newman]

I am really shocked by this ROH/RB campaign. 

So disappointed, so sad the way things are gradually evolving.

 

Edited January 3, 2020 by Xandra Newman

[Anna C]

10 hours ago, zxDaveM said:

the twitterati has not been kind

 

I’m not surprised.  Initially, I thought the “Great” campaign was some sort of official UK tourism campaign, particularly as its own Twitter account only links to Instagram.  However, a closer look at the ROH images points to great.gov.uk, run by the Department for International Trade with prominent advice on Brexit and exporting goods.   If the “GREAT” campaign has been running since 2012, why only now is the ROH supporting it so visibly?  

 

As an aside, as much as I love watching Matthew Ball dance, why two out of four photos of him?  I assume they deliberately used British born and RBS trained Principals but why not Ball, Cuthbertson, Hayward and Naghdi?  🧐

[bangorballetboy]

2 minutes ago, Anna C said:

 

I’m not surprised.  Initially, I thought the “Great” campaign was some sort of official UK tourism campaign, particularly as its own Twitter account only links to Instagram.  However, a closer look at the ROH images points to great.gov.uk, run by the Department for International Trade with prominent advice on Brexit and exporting goods.   If the “GREAT” campaign has been running since 2012, why only now is the ROH supporting it so visibly?  

 

 

This is an official government campaign that, as you say, has been running since 2012.  I assume the ROH have only recently been "asked" to be included.

[Anna C]

26 minutes ago, bangorballetboy said:

 

This is an official government campaign that, as you say, has been running since 2012.  I assume the ROH have only recently been "asked" to be included.

 

Good point.  I can’t imagine it would have been easy to say no.  I’d like to think the ROH had some say about whose photos to use though, even if the Brexity branding was out of their control...

[capybara]

Seriously misjudged on the part of the ROH in a number of respects.

[bangorballetboy]

1 minute ago, capybara said:

Seriously misjudged on the part of the ROH in a number of respects.

 

Will you stop attending?

[capybara]

22 minutes ago, bangorballetboy said:

 

Will you stop attending?

 

Hahaha! No!

[zxDaveM]

I can hear the conversation now:

Government: Would you like to be part of the GREATBritain culture campaign?

ROH: Well, as so many of our artists are not from the UK (let alone GREATBritain), perhaps not.

Government: Would you like to be part of the GREATBritain culture campaign, or would you like to lose government run funding?

ROH: Yes, we'd be proud to take part

 

Oh - and fly the flag of 'culture' with some 'beautiful snaps'? Jeez-louise!

[Lizbie1]

An alternative interpretation is that they saw it as free advertising.

 

It's not to my taste (and I, like most people here, am not the target audience) but I don't see that it's *that* objectionable.

[Sim]

I don't understand why this should insult people who are involved in the British art scene but aren't British?   By choosing to live and work here they are contributing to British culture, and are happy to do so.  We keep being told how our culture is now diverse, so shouldn't we be including everybody here as part of 'British' culture?  Separating the foreigners who live here and are contributing to British culture and society from British people is, quite frankly, much more insulting than the ad. 

[Mary]

Yes- dance is international..ballet is international- I don't really think of the dancers,  or the company in national or nationalistic terms.

 

I certainly do feel uncomfortable about the company suggesting  any kind of special support and pride in some dancers more than others because they are British , or more British than someone else...- and I assume,and hope, that is not what they are intending.

 

 

 

 

[Sim]

39 minutes ago, Mary said:

Yes- dance is international..ballet is international- I don't really think of the dancers,  or the company in national or nationalistic terms.

 

I certainly do feel uncomfortable about the company suggesting  any kind of special support and pride in some dancers more than others because they are British , or more British than someone else...- and I assume,and hope, that is not what they are intending.

 

 

 

 

I don’t see how that could be the case when they have so many different nationalities in the company, all of whom are seemingly treated equally.  My pride is in what the RBS has achieved with all its young dancers, British or otherwise.  

[capybara]

Many dancers who originally hailed from abroad have become British citizens.

[FLOSS]

I was blissfully unaware of this campaign until I came across this discussion. I can't help thinking that arts organisations have got better things to do than ally themselves to campaigns which add nothing to their status or artistic stature and which in the current populist patriotic climate could easily be misinterpreted by disgruntled employees as sanctioning giving British born dancers and passport holders preferential treatment when it comes to such matters as casting and promotion. I should have thought that it was something that the ROH would have been best advised to avoid at all costs. It seems pretty pathetic to me. The next thing you know the Union flag will be on prominent display outside the building; we will have the National Anthem at the end of each performance and will be expected to sing the words of more than one verse. Unfortunately it strikes me as just the sort of initiative that would appeal to the the great and the good who are on the ROH Board who might well think that it would bolster its national standing at little or no cost to it as an effective arts organisation. The problem with such campaigns is that however innocuous they may seem to those who sign up to them they often prove to have significant unintended consequences.The RB seems from the outside to be a remarkably cohesive company given the number of people in its ranks who have competing artistic ambitions not all of which can be satisfied.But if you were an ambitious young dancer who was not a British passport holder and were passed over on a number of occasions for a promotion which you thought you had more than earned mightn't you begin to think that favouritism based on nationality was at play especially if colleagues who were British by birth or choice  were promoted instead of you? It would not be the first time that the Board and or the Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House have put their foot in it.

Edited January 3, 2020 by FLOSS

[Sim]

I don’t think any dancer would think that, especially looking at the ratio of “foreigners” to British dancers in the top ranks.  

[Geoff]

1 hour ago, FLOSS said:

It would not be the first time that the Board and or the Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House have put their foot in it.

 

Indeed. A day - and several hundred Twitter comments later (nearly all of them opposed) - what do we know? It seems the "Great" campaign was never intended for the local, ie British, market, but to sell "Britain" around the world. This explains the apparent contradiction between those who say this has been running for years, and those (like me) who only came across it yesterday.

 

So to that extent it seems this campaign is a bit like those Hollywood stars who make a big fuss about "never" doing commercials, while at the same time Japan, for example, is saturated with their guest appearances in Japanese adverts. People believe they can serve something up to "foreigners" which they would never do "at home".

 

However this does not explain the decision of the ROH to send this out to their followers in the UK. There is an own goal here and one can speculate who or what is to blame. In any case, even if they don't read this discussion or the one at Slipped Disc, they will undoubtedly be aware of the Twitter response. 

 

 

[Lizbie1]

5 minutes ago, Geoff said:

In any case, even if they don't read this discussion or the one at Slipped Disc, they will undoubtedly be aware of the Twitter response. 

 

But - as has been demonstrated recently, "your Twitter feed is not your country."

 

(And Slipped Disc may break the occasional story but it more often makes mountains out of molehills IMO.)

[Geoff]

1 minute ago, Lizbie1 said:

“your Twitter feed is not your country."

 

Of course not Lizbie1 and thank you for pointing that out. But a quick check shows the ROH account to be UK heavy: whoever decided to send the campaign out will have been entirely aware of the analytics (the ROH has access to the figures). The ROH knows, to a level of detail not available to us, exactly where they are sending their messages to - and plenty is headed no further than the UK.

 

That is the point, as much as this campaign having also gone overseas where, some might argue, it is less controversial.

 

 

[balletyas]

8 hours ago, Anna C said:

 

I’m not surprised.  Initially, I thought the “Great” campaign was some sort of official UK tourism campaign, particularly as its own Twitter account only links to Instagram.  However, a closer look at the ROH images points to great.gov.uk, run by the Department for International Trade with prominent advice on Brexit and exporting goods.   If the “GREAT” campaign has been running since 2012, why only now is the ROH supporting it so visibly?  

 

As an aside, as much as I love watching Matthew Ball dance, why two out of four photos of him?  I assume they deliberately used British born and RBS trained Principals but why not Ball, Cuthbertson, Hayward and Naghdi?  🧐

Well in fairness there is a picture of Cuthbertson alongside two of Ball but yes - no Nagdhi or Hayward. Which says it all really.  How sad for all the non British dancers and probably very uncomfortable for Ball.   The whole thing is pretty shocking and cynical if not downright sinister.  

Edited January 3, 2020 by balletyas

[Xandra Newman]

2 hours ago, balletyas said:

Well in fairness there is a picture of Cuthbertson alongside two of Ball but yes - no Nagdhi or Hayward. Which says it all really.  

 

A faux-pas of the ROH/RB? How can we know? The question is: did they (or did they not) intentionally omit two of their British Principals (Yasmine Naghdi born in London and Francesca Hayward born in Kenya)? Why did they only use a picture of these two British Principals Lauren Cuthbertson and Matthew Ball? Is it a coincidence?? An oversight?

It doesn't bother me but it does not reflect well on the ROH/RB who are so keen to show their all-inclusiveness and diversity, certainly not in the current climate, and this ROH/RB campaign opens itself up for potential misinterpretation.

[bridiem]

36 minutes ago, Xandra Newman said:

 

A faux-pas of the ROH/RB? How can we know? The question is: did they (or did they not) intentionally omit two of their British Principals (Yasmine Naghdi born in London and Francesca Hayward born in Kenya)? Why did they only use a picture of these two British Principals Lauren Cuthbertson and Matthew Ball? Is it a coincidence?? An oversight?

It doesn't bother me but it does not reflect well on the ROH/RB who are so keen to show their all-inclusiveness and diversity, certainly not in the current climate, and this ROH/RB campaign opens itself up for potential misinterpretation.

 

I presume they used these photos because Cuthbertson and Ball danced R&J together for the first time last year to great acclaim and these are all photos of that performance and the preparation for it. Cuthbertson is sometimes described as a typical 'English rose' (and was so described in one of the reviews of that performance), and Ball got quite a lot of attention as a new British principal when he was promoted (and is generally thought to be very good looking), so I can see why they might decide to use this couple (on this occasion) to promote a British company abroad. If they'd used photos of all the British principals that would surely have been equally or more offensive to many people, since it would be actively excluding the non-British principals. But given 'the current climate' and the nature of the campaign, and if it was going to be tweeted in this country too (which seems pretty pointless), the ROH should have realised this was a potential minefield.

 

However, my real problem with this campaign is its cringeworthy and illiterate nature. The RB/ROH has always been used for diplomatic and promotional purposes, but this campaign just makes everyone look stupid.

[penelopesimpson]

Sense of proportion needed here, I think.  Or, to use another cliche, reds under the bed, perhaps?  

Edited January 4, 2020 by penelopesimpson

[Dawnstar]

When I first saw the tweet I just thought "nice pictures". It wasn't until some of the opera critics I follow started kicking off about it that it even occurred to me it could be considered political. Given lots of countries use culture to promote themselves - for instance the appearance in the Linbury last season of a ballet company from Kazakhstan - I don't have an issue with the UK doing the same. Wasn't the RB's famous post-war visit to New York basically for UK promotion purposes? As for the choice of dancers, I assumed it was because Cuthbertson & Ball were the first night cast & it's usually first night casts that get the most publicity photos taken.