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Christmas and New Year ballet and dance on UK TV and radio

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Sim

Sim

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1 hour ago, zxDaveM said:

Always worth remembering there is often some fabulous dancing in 30s-60s American musicals shown on telly over Christmas. I was minded of this watching 'White Christmas' as Vera-Ellen (aka 'Miss Turnstiles' in On The Town) strutted her stuff. Man alive, if Betty Grable's legs insured for $1m - hers must have been £2m at least! ($5m for Cyd Charise?). Her waist must have been less than 18" for heavens sake! Also spotting some of the dancers that later appeared in West Side Story...

Yes we were saying similar.  She was so thin but boy could she dance!  Yes, George Chakiris was often fun to spot in the background dances of the musicals.  Funny to see him and half the cast of West Side Story in Twin Peaks a few decades later!  

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Sim

Sim

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21 hours ago, LinMM said:

I caught some ballet by accident tonight watching BBC4 classical collection : there were some extracts from the Royal Ballet Nutcracker …I didn’t quite catch the year but may have been 1964 Nureyev was dancing with a Clara I didn’t recognise except might have been Merle Park? I can’t remember when Park started dancing with RB though. 
I liked the Snowflakes extract some nice bits of slightly different choreography in that and there were 26 dancers …24 in corps and two lead snowflakes…would love to know who they were! 
I’ve now seen your comment above James about this programme but was a nice surprise to have a bit of Nutcracker on Christmas Eve. 

It was 1968 and was indeed Merle Park.  

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jmhopton

jmhopton

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Yes I caught a glimpse if this as well. While I enjoyed the dancing I must admit I don't like productions where there is a lot of snow covering the stage early on in the Land of Snow scene. It ruins my enjoyment of the scene as I'm so worried about the dancers slipping. I don't think they do that so much now. I think the snow generally falls near the end of the scene and possibly just at the back of the stage which is a lot better (for me, anyway).

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LinMM

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I did a bit of research after the programme as you do on Christmas Eve and found out as Sim said it was in 1968 and was with Merle Park. 
JaneS : in the info it mentions Monica Mason and Vyvyan Lorrayne as Snowflakes. 
This lead on to finding out a bit more info on Merle Park ( I did see her dance on numerous occasions back in the 70’s) but didn’t realise how long she had already been in the Royal by the time I saw her. There was also a delightful clip of her dancing with Wayne Eagling in Voices of Spring. 

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Fonty

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On 25/12/2022 at 19:36, zxDaveM said:

Always worth remembering there is often some fabulous dancing in 30s-60s American musicals shown on telly over Christmas. I was minded of this watching 'White Christmas' as Vera-Ellen (aka 'Miss Turnstiles' in On The Town) strutted her stuff. Man alive, if Betty Grable's legs insured for $1m - hers must have been £2m at least! ($5m for Cyd Charise?). Her waist must have been less than 18" for heavens sake! Also spotting some of the dancers that later appeared in West Side Story...

 

Not sure if she is in anything over the festive season, but if you want to see a fab pair of pins strutting their stuff, then for me it has to be the divine Ann Miller.  Who was also in On the Town, of course.  

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Sim

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16 hours ago, Fonty said:

 

Not sure if she is in anything over the festive season, but if you want to see a fab pair of pins strutting their stuff, then for me it has to be the divine Ann Miller.  Who was also in On the Town, of course.  

When I was a child in NYC in the 60s/70s, my first introduction to Ann Miller was a series of ads she did for 'The Great American Soups'.  One of the ads showed her in the kitchen with her husband, then the walls part with a huge can of soup at the back of the stage...she does a fabulous tap routine, then twirls back into the kitchen.  Her hubby says 'do you always have to make such a production out of everything?!'    The ad clearly worked:  I still remember it decades later!!

 

Edit:  after writing this post I thought I'd have a look on YouTube....and here it is!!  Blurry but you get the idea!!  

 

Ann Miller Great American Soup 1970 on Yahoo! Video - YouTube

 

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Mandy Kent

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On 28/12/2022 at 11:49, Sim said:

When I was a child in NYC in the 60s/70s, my first introduction to Ann Miller was a series of ads she did for 'The Great American Soups'.  One of the ads showed her in the kitchen with her husband, then the walls part with a huge can of soup at the back of the stage...she does a fabulous tap routine, then twirls back into the kitchen.  Her hubby says 'do you always have to make such a production out of everything?!'    The ad clearly worked:  I still remember it decades later!!

 

Edit:  after writing this post I thought I'd have a look on YouTube....and here it is!!  Blurry but you get the idea!!  

 

Ann Miller Great American Soup 1970 on Yahoo! Video - YouTube

 

Thank you Sim, that was brilliant fun and quite inspirational ( for next time I'm making soup!)

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Jan McNulty

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On 28/12/2022 at 13:48, Lizbie1 said:

It's not my usual channel of choice, but CBeebies has just been showing a programme featuring a ballet of the Elves and the Shoemaker - Google says it's Northern Ballet from 2015.

 

Nearly all of Northern Ballet's children's ballets have been filmed and shown on CBeebies.  I've also seen them all live and they are a great introduction to theatre going and ballet for young children.

 

When I saw Elves and the Shoemaker at the Liverpool Playhouse the children in the audience soon cottoned on to the fact that every time the lights around the windows twinkled the elves would appear and they started cheering!

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Jeannette

Jeannette

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On 18/12/2022 at 07:26, Jeannette said:

For most people, all over the world…

New Year’s Day 2023 will feature the annual New Year’s Celebration concert with the Vienna Philharmonic and dance numbers with the Vienna State Ballet, this year choreographed by Ashley Page.

 

General news, from Vienna:

https://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/en/newyearsconcert/newyearsconcert2023

 

From the USA’s PBS network:

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/from-vienna-the-new-years-celebration-2023/14197/


The Vienna Boys and Girls Choirs will also be featured.


Fabulous news!  Tomorrow’s 2023 New Year’s Day program from Vienna will feature THREE (3) filmed ballets, choreographed by Ashley Page and costumed by Emma Ryott:

 

Pearls in Love waltz (Josef Strauss) filmed at the rococo castle in Laxenburg

 

On and Away polka (Eduardo Strauss) filmed at Stift Melk 

 

Blue Danube waltz (Johann Strauss, Jr)

 

Photos/details at the Vienna company’s Facebook site:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0f82waMZgmuZXkafMo3eDHgZzLLCqNokQwcSpTVYC3passUtV8NwV581VZuyruFvil&id=154993347891168

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  • alison changed the title to Christmas and New Year ballet and dance on UK TV and radio
alison

alison

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The Balanchine Nutcracker broadcast is repeated at 6.10 am on Monday 2nd January on Sky Arts.

 

And if you fancy a late night, and familiarising yourself with Prokofiev's score for Cinderella ahead of the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet performances, the first two hours of BBC Radio 3's Through the Night programme bridging New Year's Day and 2nd January feature the full score.  It starts at 12.30 am.

 

Max Richter is Composer of the Week, 12 noon - 1 pm, on BBC Radio 3.  Wednesday's programme includes music from his ballet scores for Infra and Woolf Works.

 

The radio programmes can of course be caught up with on BBC Sounds, as well.

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alison

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Since other, non-ballet, dancers have been mentioned up-thread, I should perhaps also point out that there is a weekly series on BBC Radio 4 (Wednesdays at 11.30 am)  called Oti Mabuse's Dancing Legends.  I don't know who's been featured thus far, but next week's programme is about Cyd Charisse.

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SheilaC

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Alison, I think it would be good to have a thread for radio programmes.

A couple of weeks ago the R3 Composer of the Week was Chopin, heaven for people like me who are addicted to Chopin and to the wonderful ballets Robbins created to his music- each episode had music for one or more of Robbins' masterpieces. The following week it was Cesar Franck including the music for Symphonic Variations and Stravinsky's music for ballets or later used for ballets is frequently on.

BBC Sounds retains the programmes for a month so one can always go back to it- as I am just about to do, as there's nothing for me on TV!

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SheilaC

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I should have added that next week's Composer of the Week (R 3, at 12 noon, then on Sounds) is Max Richter, a composer many of you like much more than I do. His music used for ballet includes Four Seasons and that composed for ballet (notably Wayne McGregor) includes Infra, Woolf Works and the new piece based on Margaret Attwood's dystopian novels

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ChrisG

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Vienna State Ballet were prominently featured today as always in the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Day concert from the Musikverein this morning. There was a waltz and a polka in the main body of the concert and a lovely dance for five couples set against the Blue Danube in the encores, all beautifully choreographed by Ashley Page in sumptuous settings. Presumably it'll be avallable on iPlayer for the normal length of time!

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Sim

Sim

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1 hour ago, ChrisG said:

Vienna State Ballet were prominently featured today as always in the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Day concert from the Musikverein this morning. There was a waltz and a polka in the main body of the concert and a lovely dance for five couples set against the Blue Danube in the encores, all beautifully choreographed by Ashley Page in sumptuous settings. Presumably it'll be avallable on iPlayer for the normal length of time!

Yes, and it’s also repeated tonight at 8pm on the Beeb.  It was indeed lovely as ever.  

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Odyssey

Odyssey

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I do wish one of the UK channels would pick up Roberto Bolle’ s annual gala Danza Con Me. The line up this year would be a real treat to start the New Year. 

see under the sub heading ‘top notch dancers’!
https://www-repubblica-it.translate.goog/spettacoli/tv-radio/2023/01/01/news/roberto_bolle_rai_1_danza_con_me-381518352/?_x_tr_sl=it&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

 

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