ROH World Ballet Day 2022

[Guest oncnp]

6 minutes ago, capybara said:

I saw him with Melissa Hamilton.

 

Thank you. Two guests in that run then. I saw Jacopo Tissi with Nunez - a bit of a disaster but apparently the poor kid only had 2 weeks to learn the role. 

Edited November 4, 2022 by oncnp

[Dawnstar]

Yes, it was Andrijashenko with Hamilton and Tissi with Nunez. I saw both but was far more impressed by Andrijashenko, who I thought was fantastic both solo & with Hamilton. Whereas I think I commented at the time that Nunez & Tissi both had some nice moments individually but didn't really have much chemistry together.

[The red shoes]

12 hours ago, LinMM said:

A bit of a long way back but there is a reference to James Hays jumps in the Royal Ballet streamed class on Wednesday but as far as I could see(only just watched) James Hay disappeared after the initial centre work so wasn’t there by the time the jumps started happening. Or have I got that wrong 🤔

The person jumping their heart out was Joe Sissens as I think he went across more times than some!! 
It was good to see Darrion Sellman who joined RB from the Prix already in class with the Company. 

 

Darrion Sellman is astonishing for his young age… he is one to watch!!  

[Richard LH]

Slightly annoyed that the ROH  did not tell us  what the "exclusive" additional live rehearsals were going to be on TikTok, after the main streaming...did anyone see these?  Apparently they included  Takada and Richardson rehearsing  a PDD from Manon... Rachel Hollings (#lahollings) has posted some lovely still photos from this on Instagram. Do we know if this will feature as part of the Diamond Celebration? 

[capybara]

39 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

Slightly annoyed that the ROH  did not tell us  what the "exclusive" additional live rehearsals were going to be on TikTok, after the main streaming...did anyone see these?  Apparently they included  Takada and Richardson rehearsing  a PDD from Manon... Rachel Hollings (#lahollings) has posted some lovely still photos from this on Instagram. Do we know if this will feature as part of the Diamond Celebration? 

 

Agree - very poor and Akane and Calvin do not self-advertise.

Meaghan did (about her Fille pdd rehearsal with Luca).

There are rumoured to be many pdd as part of the Diamond programme.

[Dawnstar]

4 hours ago, capybara said:

There are rumoured to be many pdd as part of the Diamond programme.

 

Oh good. I was hoping, when I saw the other day that the running time was on the website as 2h50, that it would mean there would be pieces in addition to those already named (and that it wouldn't mean an hour or so of new Toonga!).

[Henry]

Re. Vadim Muntagirov's guest appearances being "touted" by BRB.  

 

My thoughts are that it is to do with box office.  This afternoon's BRB "Into the Music" at Sadlers Wells Theatre was half empty.  Bringing in a Guest Artist may be an attempt to increase interest - and ticket sales.  As such, the appearance of the guest artist has to be trumpeted very loudly, if it's gong to increase sales.  Of course, this may offend hard working regular artists - but for any ballet company, box office if not king has to matter. 

 

 

[Guest oncnp]

15 minutes ago, Henry said:

Re. Vadim Muntagirov's guest appearances being "touted" by BRB.  

 

 Of course, this may offend hard working regular artists - but for any ballet company, box office if not king has to matter. 

 Interesting point...does anyone know if any of the BRB dancers are offended?

[LinMM]

I doubt it very much! 
In the ballet world extreme talent is always appreciated whether it’s a dancer much younger or much older than yourself. 
Anyway once at the top level ( so a Principal dancer level) you recognise your own particular talents in relation to another Principals talents ….nobody usually has it all though dancers like Vadim Muntagirov come close. 
Im sure there is no resentment at all. 
How could a dancer like Brandon Lawrence for example with his own particular style and beauty be anything but generous towards a dancer like Vadim who is equally beautiful and stylish but different. I’m sure they learn things from each other. 

[Henry]

Just checking on Sadlers Wells ticket availabilty for next week's English National Ballet programme of "Ek/ Forsythe/ Quagebeur" and it's almost completely sold out!  Have there been special offers or something?  Why are they doing so much better than Birmingham Royal Ballet's "Into the Music"??

Edited November 5, 2022 by Henry
Missed out an apostrophe

[LinMM]

I don’t know perhaps because the ENB are marginally better known in London or perhaps because people think they will enjoy ENB’s programme more! 
I made the decision to see BRB over ENB on this occasion purely because I had not seen any of the three works being offered by Birmingham so wanted to see them. 
Im not seeing ENB next week even though am a Friend etc but will be seeing a couple of their Swan Lakes in January. 
 

[capybara]

Forsythe and and a new Ek are pretty big draws for ENB, I would’ve thought.

[Sharon]

Sorry to be a party pooper- but I was a bit underwhelmed by WBD this year. Watching  Olga Smirnova in class and then in SB rehearsal was, I found the most interesting  - what a special artist she is.

Edited November 5, 2022 by Sharon
Spell

[DVDfan]

I've given up on WBD, I'm afraid. I found the first one that RB did fascinating, basically a "what's happening here today" broadcast which let me into their world.

The next one, moving between five (I think it was) major companies was interesting but didn't have quite the same impact. Recently with so many recordings from different companies inserted it just feels like, well, like recorded snippets. Not the same feeling at all. 

[Emeralds]

14 hours ago, Henry said:

Re. Vadim Muntagirov's guest appearances being "touted" by BRB.  

 

My thoughts are that it is to do with box office.  This afternoon's BRB "Into the Music" at Sadlers Wells Theatre was half empty.  Bringing in a Guest Artist may be an attempt to increase interest - and ticket sales.  As such, the appearance of the guest artist has to be trumpeted very loudly, if it's gong to increase sales.  Of course, this may offend hard working regular artists - but for any ballet company, box office if not king has to matter. 

 

 

I think the low box office sales for Sat afternoon and evening were due to the rail strikes- if you can’t make it in or make it home or both, there’s no point buying the tickets or letting existing ones go to waste. The box office did allow returns (with £3.50 admin charge per ticket) so I expect many people did return or exchange  their Saturday tickets. I too had to exchange mine and found out that there had been many others affected. The weekday tickets sold much better, as I noticed when trying to get an alternative date to avoid the strikes. 

 

Swan Lake doesn't have a box office problem where BRB or most companies are concerned. After Nutcracker, it’s probably the best performing ballet at the box office. I don’t think any dancers or audiences have a problem with Vadim- who is an easygoing and popular colleague and guest at any of the numerous companies he’s danced with. He’s only dancing two shows, so he’s unlikely to be depriving any principal or soloist of an opportunity to dance or make a debut as Siegfried, as there are plenty of Swan Lake performances this season. 

 

It’s more due to the way it was worded. I didn’t watch the interview with Acosta that Janet heard, but on Facebook, the announcement said “...Vadim will dance with BRB Principal Dancer Celine Gittens in the role of Princess Odette. This will be a rare chance to see one of the world’s greatest ballet dancers perform outside London and in the South West.” 

 

Quite surreal to see that the announcer has cut Ms Gittens’ role in Swan Lake to Odette only (who will dance Odile in that case?-I doubt Sir Peter will be impressed by his production being tampered with)! Also, anyone involved in making arrangements with Vadim to find dates that fit his RB and guesting commitments will have known that it’s not rare to see Vadim dancing outside London at all- in fact, he jets around the world a lot and dances with different companies quite often. Anyone who worked in social media would also have no trouble finding his current and past guesting dates on social media or the internet is that they don’t make erroneous assumptions.

 

In the context of those two glaring errors, the sycophantic gushing about “one of the world’s greatest ballet dancers” [working alongside some of the world’s greatest ballet dancers who are members of BRB!] is probably less likely to offend anyone reading it carefully, but to raise a bemused titter instead. Still, it’s surreal to see a post with such poor wording among the normally meticulous BRB posts. Perhaps it was done by a newbie.

[Balletfanp]

I would imagine the “dancing outside London” bit is more to do with the fact that he (or other RB dancers) doesn’t dance outside London in the UK, so most UK fans, unless they can travel to London or are in a position to travel abroad, are unlikely to see him outside cinema broadcasts. The only other time I can think of was when he and Marianela danced as guests of BRB in Birmingham last year. As someone who lives in Plymouth and is fortunate enough to be able to travel up to London on occasion, I certainly never thought I would ever see Vadim dance in my home town (it’ll make a nice change not to have to travel for once!). I can vouch for the fact that the news of him dancing down here has created a lot of excitement, not least among BRB fans - one of my friends can hardly contain herself as Vadim is her favourite dancer and she never thought she would ever be able to see him live.

 

It was a mad rush to get tickets when the news came out as there weren’t that many left and I had 6 friends wanting to go on different nights - so BRB are more than capable of selling tickets on their own merit! It’s just nice that Vadim is able to guest with them (two nights only, so he’s not exactly taking over the whole tour!) and make some fans down here who wouldn’t normally get the chance to see him very happy.

 

The phrase in the publicity about “one of the world’s greatest ballet dancers” is one that is frequently used when one sees any of the publicity for him guesting in countries all over the world - and other similar phrases are used for other dancers too. It’s not unusual for companies to blow the trumpet of their guest stars very loudly to attract attention and I don’t see that BRB is doing anything different from other companies.

[LinMM]

And I suppose the plain truth is that Vadim Muntagirov IS one of the Worlds greatest ballet dancers!!! 
 

[Guest oncnp]

My objection to the objections is the double standard being applied (going back to my original comment re: CTCB)

...if your favorite dancer is described as "one of the world's greatest ballet dancers" (absolutely a matter of opinion - no right, no wrong, it's all subjective) that's fine, if someone else' is it's an insult to the company

Edited November 6, 2022 by oncnp

[LinMM]

Well in the end I’m not a “fan” of any particular dancer (don’t follow any dancers on social media as such as not on Instagram or Twitter) as tend to like different dancers for different reasons but obviously you are going to be more familiar with the dancers in the Company you see the most often. 
I don’t always book to see Muntagirov but can recognise that looking at him from the pure balletic classical style side I can see that he is certainly one of the best. 
As I don’t go to that many performances eg: I don’t see every cast for each programme I look to see pairings and this is what most influences which performances I go to so not necessarily based on the male dancer alone ….though if Muntagirov was partnered with Fumi Kaneko or Francesca Hayward more I might see him more than I do!! 

 

 

[jmhopton]

1 hour ago, LinMM said:

And I suppose the plain truth is that Vadim Muntagirov IS one of the Worlds greatest ballet dancers!!! 
 

What do you mean 'one of'? 😊

What about THE Greatest!

(Don't take me too seriously.  I admit to being a touch biased and am speaking slightly tongue in cheek.  I know everyone has their favourites and quite right too. No complaints, please!)

[Jan McNulty]

4 hours ago, Emeralds said:

Still, it’s surreal to see a post with such poor wording among the normally meticulous BRB posts. Perhaps it was done by a newbie.

They seem to be using a PR company these days rather than in house staff.

 

The PR received by the Forum also had the incorrect dates in the listings for the Plymouth and Lowry performances.  I corrected them for the Forum when I published and let them know.

[LinMM]

Well I don’t see much of the Bolshoi or Mariinsky dancers these days and hardly ever see any American ones either. It has to be somebody I’ve seen live!! 
So alright then let’s say he’s probably the best in the U.K. lol!! 
That doesn’t mean Brandon Lawrence can’t send me into paroxysms of delight of course. 

[Fonty]

Technically he is one of the best.  Not sure about THE  best.  I can think of at least two who could compete with him for that title.  🙂

[Dawnstar]

Having now finished catching up on the RB's World Ballet Day stream, my favourite part was (perhaps unsurprisingly) Melissa Hamilton & Hirano rehearsing Mayerling. Conversely, I am really not looking forward to seeing the new Tanowitz & Toonga pieces in 10 days' time (again unsurprisingly, as I didn't expect them to be to my taste). Now I guess I'll have to start working my way through some of the other companies' offerings.

[Pas de Quatre]

I am sure when skipping through the day to decide what to watch later, I saw a performance of Graduation Ball. Does anyone know who this was - I haven't found it since?

[The red shoes]

On 06/11/2022 at 21:48, Fonty said:

Technically he is one of the best.  Not sure about THE  best.  I can think of at least two who could compete with him for that title.  🙂

Exactly! There are some highly accomplished technical dancers out there who do absolutely nothing for me … musicality, emotion and acting wins me over rather than amazing feet and 10 pirouettes! 

[Linnzi5]

6 hours ago, The red shoes said:

Exactly! There are some highly accomplished technical dancers out there who do absolutely nothing for me … musicality, emotion and acting wins me over rather than amazing feet and 10 pirouettes! 

I feel the same way. Having a fantastic technique is brilliant, but the ability to emote and connect with me personally is why I am attracted to certain dancers over others.

[Sophoife]

3 hours ago, Linnzi5 said:

I feel the same way. Having a fantastic technique is brilliant, but the ability to emote and connect with me personally is why I am attracted to certain dancers over others.

 

...which is why I loved Lana Jones but worshipped at the feet of Leanne Stojmenov (both now retired principals at AusBallet).

 

Miss Stojmenov created AusBallet's Ratmansky Cinderella and danced it as her retirement performance - with Alexander Campbell.

[Harriet]

Does anyone know where on YouTube the ROH's 2022 morning class can be found? All the others are up there, yet 2022 appears to have gone missing. It was my favorite one and I would love to watch it again. Thanks in advance.

[art_enthusiast]

1 hour ago, Harriet said:

Does anyone know where on YouTube the ROH's 2022 morning class can be found? All the others are up there, yet 2022 appears to have gone missing. It was my favorite one and I would love to watch it again. Thanks in advance.

Unfortunately it looks like they’ve taken it down.

[Odyssey]

I was looking for the Mayerling rehearsal with Ryoichi Hirano and Melissa Hamilton coached by Leanne Benjamin and Ed Watson from last year, and that’s now missing too.