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Royal Ballet Cinema Screenings: The Nutcracker (and more!)


katetimperley

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I would love to let everyone know that doesn't already they can see the Royal Ballet direct from Covent Garden in their local cinema - continuing with the Nutcracker, starting from this weekend (more ballets to come, including Rhapsody/The Two Pigeons (Ashton's masterpiece), Giselle ('the greatest of all Romantic ballets') and the world premiere of Liam Scarlett's new ballet, Frankenstein. The showings are happening across the US with more information here http://us.rohcinema.com/tickets- I run an Ambassador programme for Arts Alliance, who distribute the films, which is all about bringing ballet to as wide an audience as possible, breaking down barriers to experiencing the joy of the arts such as cost or geography and making sure that as many people love ballet as possible. I am so happy to be able to let those that don't know about what we do and if anyone would like to get involved, they are welcome to contact me - any help we can get in spreading the word on the joy of ballet is much appreciated!

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There's no mention of show times for Frankenstein at this time - The world premiere of Liam Scarlett’s Frankenstein is scheduled for 4–27 May 2016, in London.

I'll just add that Frankenstein is a co-production with San Francisco Ballet, and so it will be possible to see the ballet staged int he U.S., but not until SFB's 2017 season.

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There is a statement on the website indicating that at least some cinema venues are not yet known. OTOH, it seems many venues are listed. What's the full story on venues??

Also, my notes say that Fathom Events distributes ROH presentations (at least they used to). How is Arts Alliance related to Fathom Events?

Finally, all the performances that I've looked at on the website seem to be encore showings. Are the "live" performances not broadcast to the west coast of the USA?? (I live near Seattle.)

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I run an Ambassador programme for Arts Alliance, who distribute the films, which is all about bringing ballet to as wide an audience as possible, breaking down barriers to experiencing the joy of the arts such as cost or geography and making sure that as many people love ballet as possible. I am so happy to be able to let those that don't know about what we do and if anyone would like to get involved, they are welcome to contact me - any help we can get in spreading the word on the joy of ballet is much appreciated!

I'm so glad to hear that the distributors are making these efforts to publicize these screenings. I live in Seattle, and I must say that it's often very difficult to find any information at all about these programs. Unlike standard theatrical performances, where the presenter has the onus to contact the press about the event, as a critic I've had a miserable time getting information from the film theaters. They operate in a totally different way in their relationships to the critical community, and need some help to get the hang of dealing with the performing arts writers they should be contacting.

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Also, my notes say that Fathom Events distributes ROH presentations (at least they used to). How is Arts Alliance related to Fathom Events?

The Fathom events website doesn't list the Royal Ballet...just the Bolshoi.

I'm not a critic, but a fan -- and I also have had a lot of trouble finding out about the ROH broadcasts in the U.S. Until I used the link posted above by Katetimeperley, I would do google searches and they all turned up information about other countries. I'm definitely looking forward to catching at least one of the live broadcasts now. (Would have liked to see Hayward in Nutcracker...)

As I recall--I think Volcanohunter posted this in another thread--Frankenstein may not make it to U.S. (even the east coast) because San Francisco ballet has the rights. That's a disappointment.

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Dear All, many thanks for your replies and interests - and sorry for my delayed response, with me being in London, time zones got in the way of me getting back to you quickly! But here I am now on a gorgeous day in London, and to deal with your questions one by one:

- firstly, apologies and my bad re Frankenstein. in my enthusiasm to let you all know what we're up to, I posted too quickly! This is indeed a co-production with San Francisco Ballet, and as it will feature 'in the flesh' in the US, it will not be screening in cinemas there - so as not to spoil the surprise, as it were, for those who will be able to see it in the flesh. sorry for placing that in your path and then disappointing you - but it will be super, and I hope you guys will be able to see it in person or in some other way going forward - I will keep you posted.

- instead however, you can see the wonderful Royal Ballet's Sleeping Beauty - no need to tell you guys what a treat that will be (check the Guardian's review here - http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/mar/28/royal-ballet-sleeping-beauty-review)in its stead, which I hope will be enough to keep you going! I totally get the disappointment, but I hope you understand and appreciate the explanation!

- the statement that some cinemas are not yet known is simply because we are constantly striving to get Ballet (and Opera, and art, and theatre, and music!) into more and more cinemas each day, so the link i posted http://us.rohcinema.com/tickets is in many ways a work in progress - many venues are listed, but keep an eye as more to come each day!

- Arts Alliance are now the distributor of Royal Opera House presentations in the USA, we are happy to say. Arts Alliance and Fathom are separate companies, though obviously working in the same field

- We will, for the most part (and I'll alert you if I hear anything different) show encore showings to the West Coast (and beautiful Seattle) - this is simply to make sure that we and exhibitors are showing at the time when most people will be able to see it and that cinemas are able to get most people into their doors to enjoy the ballet. The more we can have the Royal Ballet and Royal Opera work take off in cinemas across the US, and the audiences grow and appetites develop and audiences become more vociferous in their demands to cinemas to show screenings, the more we can do - so it's amazing to see your enthusiasm here!

- totally acknowledge, regret and appreciate your difficulties in getting hold of information about screenings and rest assured we are working hard with our exhibitors to ensure they feel empowered and enthused about our content. We are also working to develop our relationship with performing arts writers (the Ambassador programme I cited is part of that) , and anyone on here who'd like to get on board with writing more about our work is very welcome to contact me directly at kate.timperley@artsalliance.com (in fact, anyone that has any more detailed thoughts, information they'd like to request or any other input is welcome to be in touch). We at Arts Alliance are only going to get this right for audiences with the HELP of our audiences, and critics, so we are open to listening about what we could do better and get dance out to more people and inspire passion for it in all sorts of existing and new audiences!! we love that you love what we do and we want to do it the best we can!

Thanks for your interest and I can't wait to hear what you think!!

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The Fathom events website doesn't list the Royal Ballet...just the Bolshoi.

Right......however, Fathom use to be the distributor (just last year I think). As everyone has been saying, it is quite difficult to figure out what companies and performances are playing where, or even at all. Last year, I spent several hours searching the net to figure out what was available and where. I made notes so that I wouldn't have to do that again. So until the OP gave that link, I thought I needed to go to the Fathom website to find out if, when, and most importantly where I could see the Royal Ballet. I had devised an entire scheme as an attempt to try and stay on top of what's available. But this performance broadcast industry seems to be in such flux (except MetHD) that the problem of finding out what's going on is doubled (as sandik points out above).

The thing that most frustrates me is that some theaters show one series, but not another; yet another theater just 10 miles away does just the opposite (competition among distributors for exclusivity I'm going to presume). Not only that but some theaters only show some of the showings for that company. For example, my local theater is showing only 4 of the 6 Bolshoi presentations. To see "Spartacus" I have to drive an extra 3 hours round trip to another town.

Added later.........BTW, now that the Arts Alliance has taken over for Fathom, far fewer theaters in the Seattle area do showings. Indeed, there is only 1 theater in Seattle proper with 2 others in nearby suburbs. All 3 theaters are rather obscure venues; none of the big chains like AMC that used to carry the Royal when Fathom did the distribution are showing any longer (again, I presume this has to do with competitive exclusivity).

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Hi All again, and thanks for your ongoing interest - it means a lot. I love that your passion for ballet drives you to create entire schemes to see as much of it as possible - that's awesome, but frustratingly unnecessary!! I agree, there are many variables in this industry which we are trying to play our part in settling down, but you are right to mention the idea of the competitive exclusivity which prevents us from being in as many cinemas as we might like - and of course, cinemas are able to choose what they think will work best for the bulk of their audience....but rest assured we are constantly striving to bring our content to as many people as we can!

so, all frustrations are heard and passed on to the relevant parties, with our thanks. I so hope you guys will be able to make it to some of the screenings coming up and I look forward to any more feedback you may have! Thanks again,

Kate

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