23 replies to this topic

[Calliope]

Perhaps we should just stick to discussing the Gala as opposed to politics.

[Calliope]

Perhaps we should just stick to discussing the Gala as opposed to politics.

[anoushka]

Calliope, I think you're right, the politics of the gala belong elsewhere.

I also don't think we're in a position to comment upon the colour of dancers o our stage and whether they were home grown or not-we simply do not know about the intake of our national ballet schools and where their graduates go.

We should also perhaps be pleased that so many dancers from across the globe want to come and dance here?

[Alexandra]

Brendan, re Valerie Lawson's review, I don't think the Australian tour is an excuse at all.  (First off, why was there an Australian tour, which has aparently exhausted and injured the dancers?  It sounds like a victory lap for Stretton, and a bit early, too.  It is very unusual for a company to tour during the first year of a new directorship.)

Dancers rehearse works on tour.  They could have rehearsed before they went on the tour.  A gala as important as this one should have been planned for well in advance.  During the 25th annivesary Jubilee year the company was touring as well, and that gala was not odd bits grabbed out of the refrigerator at the last minute.

[Brendan McCarthy]

Alexandra,

I didn't intend to express an opinion one way or another. But
I am told that the Australia tour was planned pre-Stretton and that it is not something he would have chosen to do in his first year.  As it is, there seems to have been a considerable amount of rehearsal on the run for the Onegin/Don Q/Coppelia season.

Of this I am less sure: I have a sense that the Royal Gala crept into the diary quite late - that when this current season was being planned last year, no-one had any inkling of a Gala. The actual announcement, as far as I remember,  was made only three months ago. Perhaps others can confirm the actual circumstances. The late planning may have been as much to do with the Palace as with the Opera House.

On the issue of royalty, I believe that social and political currents in the UK are relevant to the question of the RB's identity. While there is a touch of Swiftian saeva indignatio about kb's postings, he is  not altogether off-beam.

[Alexandra]

On the Australian tour -- I have no idea at all when it was planned, but I cannot remember any instance, in any major company during my ballet going years, when an outgoing director planned a foreign tour to take place after he left office.  That it takes place in the native land of the new director leads me to assume that this tour was planned by the current director.  I am speculating, but it's an educated guess.  Also, regardless of who planned the tour, it's the current director's responsibility to plan the entire season in the interests of the dancers, the audience, and the repertory (not necessarily in that order.)

In my experience studying opera house managements, galas such as jubilees and anniversaries (the Ashton, the MacMillan, for example) are penciled in years in advance.  The details are worked out closer to deadlinle, but everybody knows they're coming up, and this jubilee was a biggie.  They may not have known the exact date until close to the wire, but they knew it was this year.

TO KB:  I have tried to do ths through email, but that obviously isn't working.   Discussing politics is fine when it is relevant.  Passion -- positive or negative -- is fine.  Rants are not.  Stay on topic, stay to the point, AND STOP BEING RUDE.  Your posts are offensive to many people here, not for their ideas-- which, I'm sorry if this disillusions you, but they're not new and have been expressed here, and elsewhere, often -- but because of your tone and your dismissive attitude toward other posters.  If you wish to continue posting here, you will abide by the board's rules and policies.

[Alexandra]

On the Australian tour -- I have no idea at all when it was planned, but I cannot remember any instance, in any major company during my ballet going years, when an outgoing director planned a foreign tour to take place after he left office.  That it takes place in the native land of the new director leads me to assume that this tour was planned by the current director.  I am speculating, but it's an educated guess.  Also, regardless of who planned the tour, it's the current director's responsibility to plan the entire season in the interests of the dancers, the audience, and the repertory (not necessarily in that order.)

In my experience studying opera house managements, galas such as jubilees and anniversaries (the Ashton, the MacMillan, for example) are penciled in years in advance.  The details are worked out closer to deadlinle, but everybody knows they're coming up, and this jubilee was a biggie.  They may not have known the exact date until close to the wire, but they knew it was this year.

TO KB:  I have tried to do ths through email, but that obviously isn't working.   Discussing politics is fine when it is relevant.  Passion -- positive or negative -- is fine.  Rants are not.  Stay on topic, stay to the point, AND STOP BEING RUDE.  Your posts are offensive to many people here, not for their ideas-- which, I'm sorry if this disillusions you, but they're not new and have been expressed here, and elsewhere, often -- but because of your tone and your dismissive attitude toward other posters.  If you wish to continue posting here, you will abide by the board's rules and policies.

[Lolly]

Originally posted by kb:

Quote

And Lolly, one final thing, I would hope that by the tone of my postings you would gather that I am passionate, I'm passionate about dance, about the ideal of dance and its rightful place as one of the most everyman art forms on offer. And I am passionate that this diluted, innocuous abstraction the RB offers up is an insult to the ideal of Bayliss, De Valois and all that made the RB what it once was.

kb, you might have noticed that I am passionate too. However, I think we present our opinions in different ways - I just hope to give people a taste of what I have seen. I do not call other people's opinions "utterly untrue" as you have called mine.

Perhaps I am also more trusting than you (and perhaps naively so) that when something is in aid of a cause, then that cause is where the money will end up. I believe the money raised by the gala will fund dancers from the company in their choreographic pursuits - why would I have any reason not to believe this?

Originally posted by kb:

Quote

Lolly the statment vis a vis race is a strong and powerful one, whether you like to face it or not

I find that statement quite rude.

[Leigh Witchel]

kb -  I removed the paragraph on race from your earlier post.

The ideas and thoughts are not forbidden, and you are welcome to restate them, but do it in a less incendiary manner that invites discussion rather than offense.  I've got another job, as does every other administrator on this board, and I don't have the time to run after you every time you post, trying to deal with the potential fallout.