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@AngelaRegarding Liam Scarlett, he was not found guilty, only ‘parted company from the RB’ and so I believe we should let whatever happened (unsubstantiated rumours) be forgotten.  


His choreography and mind is very interesting to me, as was his dancing.  The Royal Ballet themselves have left insights, rehearsals and performances involving Liam on their YouTube channel and in their shop.  We should follow their lead.  Igor Zelensky seems to do whatever he wants regardless of anyone’s opinion!
 

 

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1 hour ago, FionaE said:

 

 The Royal Ballet themselves have left insights, rehearsals and performances involving Liam on their YouTube channel and in their shop. 

 

The insight and "Why the RB love dancing...." from Swan Lake at least were made private (password required) ages ago on the ROH you Tube channel.  You Tube will not even allow me to embed the links. The performances are still there as are rehearsals where Scarlett does not appear.  

 

The NDAs have been signed I'm sure so we'll never know why the RB chose to terminate their association with their heralded choreographer. The public would never even have known about the investigation had the press not outed them five months after he was barred from the opera house.  

Edited by oncnp
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Fiona, I have no problem with Liam Scarlett's pieces (the few ones I've seen were rather mediocre, but that's just my opinion) - I just wanted to state that the international ban on him seems to be broken. Good for him, because he might earn some royalties. I was wondering on what he will live...

(If I would judge choreographies by the behaviour of their choreographers, I might never see something by Tudor or Robbins again. And I cannot imagine life without Dances at a Gathering.... It's a very difficult, personal decision and I absolutely understand anybody who despises Scarlett's pieces after what seems to have happened.)

 

I'm sorry, I have no idea why Gouneo is out.

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Am rather confused.  This recently in from Culturall, which I thought only dealt with the live streams for the Vienna State Opera, so I assumed it related to streamings and couldn't work out why the dates weren't successive:

 

 

Wiederaufnahme: "JEWELS" - für Sie um 30% ermäßigt:

"Dance is music made visible" ? dieses Bekenntnis des wohl bedeutendsten Choreographen des 20. Jahrhunderts, George Balanchine, gilt besonders für seine "Jewels". Inspiriert durch Schmuckstücke der Maison Van Cleef & Arpels entstand ein dreiteiliges Opus, das mit seinen musikalischen Stationen Frankreich (Fauré, "Emeralds"), USA (Strawinski, "Rubies") und Russland (Tschaikowski, "Diamonds") auf drei Hauptzentren des klassischen Balletts blickt, die auch in Balanchines Lebensgeschichte eine zentrale Rolle spielten.
Do 24.09. 19:30, Fr 25.09. 19:30, Sa 3.10. 20:00, Fr 9.10. 20:00, So 18.10. 19:30, Do 22.10. 19:30, Di 27.10. 19:30, Do 29.10. 19:30, So 1.11. 14:00, So 1.11. 19:30

Dirigent: Paul Connelly

Emeralds 1. Pas de deux Nina Poláková Robert Gabdullin
Emeralds 2. Pas de deux Claudine Schoch Roman Lazik
Emeralds Pas de trois Sonia Dvorák Francesco Costa Alice Firenze
Klavier (Rubies) Igor Zapravdin
Rubies Pas de deux Kiyoka Hashimoto Denys Cherevychko
Rubies Solodame Ketevan Papava

Diamonds Pas de deux Olga Esina Masayu Kimoto  

Auch hier können Sie Ihren FreundInnen zu ermöglichen Karten um 30% ermäßigt zu buchen. Wenn Ihre Freunde Karten buchen erhalten Sie als kleinen Bonus einen Gutschein im Wert von 50% der günstigsten Karte, die Sie im Rahmen dieses Angebots gebucht haben:

Auf diesen Link klicken und "JEWELS" FreundInnen empfehlen.

 

But I clicked on the link and it came up with the seating plan for Jewels.  All seats seem to be/have been available for booking - can that really be right, in the current climate?

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Alison, they have a policy to keep a free seat between groups of people who belong together - check out the regulations here.  I guess if you buy four seats together, they move in an empty seat before someone else buys tickets next to you. They promise 1 m distance between every visitor. Hm.

 

Austria had a tryout with the Salzburg Festival and the so-called "Schachbrett" (=chessboard) seating: one seat full, one seat empty in the whole theatre, which meant 50 per cent of capacity in the Salzburg theatres. So no empty rows in between like in Germany, where capacity is reduced to 25 per cent or even less. There were no reported Corona cases during the whole festival in August, so they seem to go ahead in the other Austrian theatres, even if Vienna was moved to high-risk status by most European countries in the last days because of increasing Covid cases.

 

The season at Vienna State Opera started  with Madame Butterfly, the ballet season started on Sunday at the smaller Volksoper with a triple bill by Lightfoot/Leon, van Manen and Kylián. Jewels is their first piece in the State Opera. It's interesting they will do the whole piece in Balanchine's original choreography, as Bavarian State Ballet dropped Jewels because they cannot adapt it to distancing rules.

 

Not only every European nations has its own rules for the theatres, but even the smaller Länder, the states in nations like Germany or Austria have their own rules. Berlin does it different than Munich than Stuttgart or Hamburg.

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3 hours ago, Angela said:

Alison, they have a policy to keep a free seat between groups of people who belong together - check out the regulations here.  I guess if you buy four seats together, they move in an empty seat before someone else buys tickets next to you. They promise 1 m distance between every visitor. Hm.

 

Hm indeed.  I didn't notice any indication of seats in the row immediately behind being taken out - and I would have thought the risk from someone breathing on you from behind might be greater than someone sitting next to you, if you're all facing in the same direction.

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In Japan the regulations of social distancing in theatres and classical concert halls, cinemas have been loosened on September 19th. Now they allow 100% seating if safety measures have been taken. (such as audience and staff wearing mask are compulsory, temperature measured at the entrance and disinfection of hands)   We still have 300~500 people diagnosed as COVID-19 patients every day, and a couple of months ago, a cluster occurred in a small playhouse where some play had been performed. (many actors and some of the audience got the virus, probably spread at rehearsals and at the stage door) 

 

Practically, very few theatres and concert halls have loosened their regulation at this point, we will see what will happen. In this weekend Tokyo Ballet will do Don Quixote, next month several full length performances such as Sleeping Beauty by Asami Maki Ballet, Le Corsaire by K-BAllet Companyand another Don Quixote from National Ballet of Japan will occur but at this point all of them with 50% capacity. 

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A Corona cluster has been detected at a smaller University theatre in Vienna last week, but until now I know nothing about infections at a theatre in Germany or Austria - most cases happen at private festivities or in bars. With their very strict hygiene rules, theatres seem to be rather safe places. When I visited the reopened theatres at Stuttgart in July (we're still on summer holiday here), people behaved very carefully and treated each other with respect - theatre audiences are friendly, peaceful people, I guess that makes a theatre visit easier than, let's say, a football game. 

And on the other hand there's Madrid, where an opera performance had to be cancelled because people did not stay in their seats... You never know.

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Berlin State Ballet announces some performances of Giselle for October. Patrice Bart himself has adapted and shortened his choreography according to the distancing rules of Covid, there will be fewer Wilis than usually.

Cast: Iana Salenko and Daniil Simkin on 28. and 30. October, Ksenia Ovsyanick and Dinu Tamazlacaru on 29. October. The music will be played live in the pit in a smaller orchestration.

 

For the third part of the Gala "From Berlin with Love", they will show the ball scene from Swan Lake with 29 dancers, among other highlights. They also continue to show "LAB_WORKS COVID_19" at the Komische Oper.

 

For the Staatsoper and the Deutsche Oper they can now offer some more tickets, the distance between audience members has been reduced to 1 meter.

 

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Due to the virus, the big opening of the new building of the John Cranko School at Stuttgart will be reduced to some 30 people in the new, big theatre at the school. BUT they will stream the event live on Friday, 28. September 19.00 CET.

Surely you don't want to listen to lots of Swabian politicians delivering speeches, but they promise some videos of the new building and performances by students and dancers of Stuttgart Ballet - no idea which will come when. I'm sure we will find the video on their website later.

The new building is really huge and glorious from the inside - eight ballet studios (one with a raked stage!) and a theatre, a boarding home with 41 rooms. It's in walking distance to the theatre and offers wonderful views over the town and the opera house from every balcony.

 

Check out the stream here:

https://www.stuttgarter-ballett.de/spielplan/john-cranko-schule-neubau/

 

some pictures of the building:

https://fm.baden-wuerttemberg.de/de/service/media/mid/neubau-der-john-cranko-schule-in-stuttgart-ist-fertig-gestellt/

 

https://www.metropolismag.com/architecture/cultural-architecture/john-cranko-ballet-school-stuttgart/

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During the opening ceremony, Reid Anderson just declared that the rights/royalties of the Cranko heritage will go to the new school, "to protect the school forever". He called it "a living monument to John Cranko". 

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On 28/05/2020 at 18:30, Angela said:

The German Dance Award 2020 goes to contemporary dancer and choreographer Raimund Hoghe, working on inclusion and diversity since the 1990s.

 

The Award for Outstanding Performer 2020 goes to Friedemann Vogel, Principal Dancer with Stuttgart Ballett.

 

Awards for Outstanding Artistic Developments in Dance 2020 go to:

Antje Pfundtner in Gesellschaft, a contemporary choreographer from Hamburg and her company,

and to Raphael Hillebrand, a HipHop/Urban Dance/Contemporary artist and choreographer from Berlin

 

The gala for the Award ceremony will take place on Saturday, 17. October 2020 in the Aalto-Theater Essen.

 

 

The Award Gala will be streamed live at 18.00 CET and then for 24 hours as Video-on-Demand. It promises the rare treasure of Béjart's Bolero with Friedemann Vogel

 

Programme here

the Link for 17. October:

http://www.deutschertanzpreis.de

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2 hours ago, Angela said:

John Neumeier's new work "Ghost Light" will be streamed live from Hamburg Ballet's tour to Baden-Baden on 10. October, 18.00 CET on arte.tv. It's available for two days.

 

https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/099933-000-A/ghost-light-ein-ballett-in-corona-zeiten-von-john-neumeier/

 

I've added both this and the Gala the calendar but the times aren't showing up properly.

 

Both are 18:00 CET which, dispite being input as 18:00, somehow got changed to 13:00. Sorry! 

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At Bavarian State Ballet, the December premiere of Christopher Wheeldon’s Cinderella will be postponed to one of the coming seasons. It is replaced by a triple bill called "Passages": young German choreographer Philippe Kratz contributes a new creation called "To get to become" with music by hip-hop songwriter Milo. Russell Maliphant‘s "Broken Fall" returns, the third work will be confirmed.

 

The performances of John Neumeier's Nutcracker will be replaced by Giselle and Swan Lake.

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Staatsballett Berlin continues careful steps back on stage with a 4th gala in December. The beloved Nutcracker won't happen this year of course, but they're trying to show a stream online in December, since it has been filmed some time ago. For me, Christmas is only complete with Nutcracker ballet.  Sad news is that Marcia Haydee's Sleeping Beauty had to be postponed to 2022. So everything is still back and forth. Corona restrictions in Berlin are harsher than in Stuttgart for example, so SBB performances are still very limited. 

Other news: since today, Berlin's former Mayor for 13 years and also former Senator for Culture Klaus Wowereit is now CEO of SBBs friends circle. Let's hope he brings more attention for ballet into Berlin public. In general, Ballet has not a big voice/lobby in Berlin. I hope this changes a bit now.

Edited by Sabine0308
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  • 2 weeks later...

Due to a single dancer infected with Covid, Zurich Ballet had to cancel two performances of Christian Spuck's Sleeping Beauty. They hope they will be back for 27. Oct.

Also Bavarian State Ballet will have to cancel two Swan Lakes due to six Covid cases in the company.

 

In general, most theatres in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are playing now, but with reduced audiences everywhere.  

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Berlin State Ballet also reports a dancer with Covid, but as the 91 dancers work in separate training groups, divided according to the productions in which they appear, they will be able to go on with the performances, f.e. the premiere of new LAB_WORKS COVID_19 today. The training group was immediately isolated and examined. By tracing the contact chains, the isolation and the receipt of negative test results it could be ensured that there are no chains of infection within the company. One choreography will be modified due to the circumstances.

 

The Staatsballett Berlin has been working with an extensive and continuously updated safety and hygiene concept since May 2020. The concept includes work in fixed training groups, regular tests and a catalog of measures in the event of positive test results.

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Yes. Isn't it sad? Just when things started to get going again. Let's hope it will only be for the one month! Saying this here makes me feel bad bechause I know that theatres in the UK have been closed down and without an audience far longer.

Anyway, I do  hope that the dancers can practise together, whether as pairs or bubbles of dancers, and will not have to return to the spring regime when only households were allowed to dance together.

 

 

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