25 years ago

[Jane S]

Before August slips away, I'm reminded that it was in August 1996 that Bruce Marriott's ballet.co - the forerunner of this site - made its first appearance. 25 years!

 

The internet was a very different place then, thinly populated in general and with almost nothing about ballet. ballet.co was originally a single-thread page, dominated in its early days - so far as I remember - by discussion of Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, with particular focus on Adam Cooper (anyone who was there will remember the Cooperettes, and the sheep joke) - but it rapidly expanded and added a magazine to the discussion pages.

 

It was huge fun but hard work even for contributors, let alone for Bruce - for instance there were no dance photographs online so to illustrate an article you had to find your own hardcopy - uncredited to satisfy  Bruce's rules - and scan it in, in my case using a hand-scanner to start with. But we were really pioneering - I can actually remember thinking that if anyone was going to tell the online world who Margot Fonteyn was, it might as well be me!

 

So thank you, Bruce - ballet.co changed my life.

 

And of course thank you also to those who run this site, in a far more complex and more competitive environment.

 

 

 

[Bluebird]

Many thanks, Jane, for drawing our attention to this - and heartfelt thanks to Bruce Marriott for all he did to develop ballet.co.

 

I've just checked the WayBack Machine.  Sadly there's nothing for 1996 but here's a link to the earliest page I could find (June/July 1997)

 

http://web.archive.org/web/19970404124938/http://www.ballet.co.uk/

Edited August 30, 2021 by Bluebird

[WAW]

Thank you, Bluebird.   That was fascinating!  

[Jan McNulty]

When I first discovered the forum (in 1996) I was on a course relating to IT Security and the Internet.  It was basically a week of exploring the internet with the odd lecture about security thrown in.  It was called Bruce's Ballet Pages then.

 

When I rediscovered ballet.co I lurked for ages.  I think my first post was in 2002 and was a whole sentence saying I had enjoyed a performance!!

[Jeannette]

Time flies when one’s having fun! Thanks for the memories.

[Ian Macmillan]

So it seems I was a relative latecomer, not having discovered ballet.co until sometime in 2002.  I joined in quite gently and then, in about 2009/2010, Bruce asked for volunteers to help with the daily Links task.  Well retired by then, I had time on my hands, was drawn in and am still here.  Back then, many daily links had to be filed in the Reviews database, something that added time each day, never more so than in the final ballet.co months.  The site's software had been compromised in some way and Bruce devised quite a complex process to protect the database and, by the end, a Links stint was around 3 hours long.  We don't spend anything like that on them nowadays!  When it became time to finally shut ballet.co down, Bruce looked around, selected the software package we now use as sufficient to run a discussion forum, and invited a number of us to carry the project forward.  Our first 10 years as BalletcoForum will be marked just before Christmas this year.  And then, having launched BcF, he set about establishing DanceTabs, a project that is now unquestionably in the first rank of world Ballet/Dance sites.  

 

Bruce - and I know you'll see this - yes, you've changed lives for a number of us; and there are hundreds more out there who won't know it, but who are very much in your debt.

 

 

[alison]

Thank you, Bluebird, for the Wayback page.  I see you can get to other pages from there.

 

Can't remember when I found the original site, except that it was still toybox.com or whatever it was when I joined up!  I definitely remember the Chat Page, though.

[Sim]

Thanks for the memories, everyone!  I was even later than you to the party, @Ian Macmillan!  I think I found ballet.co.uk in early 2003 (one evening over a glass or three of red wine with my good friend Kevin Richmond I was bitching about an awful piece of contemporary 'dance' by Mark Bruce that I had seen at The Place.  I always used to vent with Kev, as well as praise.  This particular night he asked me if I had heard of ballet.co.uk.  I admitted that I hadn't, and he said 'you must search it out and start posting your thoughts'.  Thanks heavenly Kev!), but lurked for ages because I felt very inadequate in the face of the knowledge of many posters (no change there then!).  I gradually started posting one or two sentences, and it went from there.  I have learned so much from this site in the past 18 years, and got to know so very many lovely people, that it has been my pleasure to give something back by helping to moderate this forum for the past ten years.

[Lynette H]

I did enjoy that trip back in time in the Wayback time machine. 

 

1997 was before the redevelopment. Entrance to the amphi at the ROH was separate from the rest of the venue and via a long, bleak stone staircase. It wasn't really possible to meet friends in other parts of the house during the intervals. Ballet.co was a great way of finding other enthusiasts who you might not be able to meet so easily in person at the theatre.  

 

(The bar up there in the amphi then was really tiny, run by a very efficient Japanese guy if I remember correctly. He was much friendlier than the bar staff in the posher areas. Didn't see him again after the reopening)

 

Some of the external links from the old site still work. I managed to find Jim Fowler's site devoted to Sylvie Guillem. He was a frequent poster or participant in the chat page in those days. 

 

Thanks again for ballet.co Bruce

 

[Don Q Fan]

I didn't join until December 2011!!  But I love the forum for all the information and knowledgeable members and all the lovely friends I have made.  I add my gratitude to Bruce as well for starting the forum and Dance Tabs. Thank you.