Tracey

The most likely theatre for it to be shown in here in Bristol is currently on an 18month refurbishment programme, so I don't think there's much chance of me seeing it before DVD.

We land in NY for 3 nights on 17th December and would love to catch a performance of the Nut. But the website indicates that it's a bit of a lottery on getting tickets so I would like some advice on the best way to get some! We are on a budget so would be looking at Fourth Ring, although we might be able to stretch to Third if the exchange rate keeps going in the right direction!! Thanks in advance! Tracey

Your very welcome . Seeing Cinderella on Friday night, so will try to do a similar job after that one.

Mjr Mel, new old stuff will do just fine! glebb, 'review' (for what it's worth!) is here

Just back from tonight's performance and my BF has been called into work because of a faulty power switch which has taken down half the office's computer systems, so he has to go and bring them all back online again!! Anyway, ballet! It's the first time I've seen all of these ballets so it was a truly interesting evening. Drink to me only with thine eyes I'm not a big fan of contemporary music, so this took a little time for me to get into - really after the music settled into something more harmonised. Some really challenging choreography with unpredictable enchainements, but most of the cast managed to make it look easy. Trapèze I really enjoyed this. It seems that it's new choreography by Christopher Hampson on Prokofiev's original score. The ballet is set around a trapeze with a bar that's approximately 5ft above the stage hanging from a frame. Six dancers comprising three 'couples', two male/female couples and one female couple. The main male/female couple (Sarah McIlroy and Jan-Erik Wikström tonight) perform their first pas de deux on the trapeze. McIlroy also had a beautiful solo on the trapeze where she shows amazing upper body strength combined with grace to make it all seem effortless, including a one-handed balance leaning against one of the hanging ropes, and the splits above the trapeze bar with her feet pushing the ropes either side! There is some really interesting choreography, definitely worth seeing if you can get to a performance. Melody on the move How much fun was this! This is a new work from the ENB by Michael Corder - a suite of 8 dances performed to classic British light music of the 1930's - 1950's. They were comprised of one opening showpiece, with the corps providing a musichall style opening; 2 'comedy' pieces, the most memorable being 4 working class housewives and a middleclass housewife wearing tutus with their hair wrapped in turbans 'Hilda Ogden' style (for those of you that know Coronation Street of old!!) and marigolds - after waving their husbands off to work the middleclass housewife runs off with the milkman; the remaining pieces were more classic and the whole thing was rounded off with a musichall style finale. Thoroughly enjoyable evening! Agnes Oaks gave me goosebumps tonight, both in Drink and in Melody, but especially in the latter in a pas de deux to The Girl from Corsica with hubby Thomas Edur. Trapèze was excellent, as was the footwork in Drink. Go see if they're coming to a theatre near you! Tracey

Tickets usually sell out really quickly here, but the theatre had to send out extra fliers to their mailing list in order to sell out this time :shrug: . And what is more unusual is I found out from the box office that the triple bill had sold out faster than Cinderella. That should be speaking volumes to the company. Here's hoping the ENB decide to bring something different next autumn.

I'm a bit happy cos I'm going to see the ENB twice next week ! We will see Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes, Trapèze, Melody on the Move on Tuesday, and Cinderella on Friday. I'm really looking forward to it and will try (with my usual poor attempt at reporting) to let you know how both performances are. I have one gripe though - in the last few years the ENB have done Swan Lake (more than once), Nutcracker, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty in Bristol, plus a few mixed bills. That's it for full length ballets! And guess what - they're back in Feb with Swan Lake again! Now, don't get me wrong, I love Swan Lake - I love ballet full stop - but ENB's tour last year included Coppelia, but not in Bristol! We get another company (Ellen Kent International) who seem to just do Swan Lake and the Nutcracker, and next year Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake is coming too, not that I'm complaining about that one! Are you seeing a pattern here ? I will probably go and see all of it - I usually do - but I know my BF is going to start getting bored. He's new to ballet and I'd quite like to keep him interested!! And we can't afford to keep travelling all the time to see ballets. How do we get and keep people interested outside of London if we get the same stuff all the time?

Balletstar, try clicking here: Amazon VHS & DVD If it doesn't work, click on the Amazon link at the top, type in Ballet in the search box, and then choose DVD or VHS. I came up with 523 ballet videos/DVDs Tracey

Thank you Naoko, I'll remember that for the future. Tracey

I found my way here while doing a massive internet trawl to find adult classes when I wanted to return to class last year after a 15 year break. I lurked for ages, visiting 2 or 3 times a day, before I finally registered! I absolutely love it here, everyone is so nice and helpful, I've learned so much since I found it, 'virtually met' some fantastic people (and physically met one so far) and I still visit 2 or 3 times a day, and get withdrawal symptoms when I can't get the internet! Alexandra and all the moderators, thank you so much - this is by far the best board around, no competition ! Tracey

Kate, I'm jealous! I was looking at trying to come up for one of the La Bayadere performances, but Paul can't get the time off (and he won't let me travel back on my own that late - not even going to broach the subject with him!) and I can't believe the prices! They want £45 for our usual £25 seats, so I was even prepared to go in the slips and watch 'half' a performance! Next time I guess...... Have fun, let us know what it's like. Tracey

Had a letter from the ROH yesterday saying that Darcey is scheduled for bone spur operations soon, and will be out for the rest of the season. I am a little disappointed as we had booked to see her and Roberto Bolle in R&J in June, but I would like to wish Darcey all the best for her op and we hope to see her back soon. We have Alessandra Ferri as a substitute for Darcey's performance still partnered by Bolle, which I am looking forward too.

Karen, sorry you've stumped me there. I thought they'd done away with all this NTSC and PAL nonsense with DVDs. For an era where 'globalisation' is the corporate buzzword, they make a mess of these things sometimes :confused: Tracey

Not that I know of, grace. The only other one is 'uncoded' which means it can be played anywhere on any player - it may be that someone has decided to call it region 0 but it's not an 'official' coding. Here's a link to list of the regions. http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/bro...3286176-4522233 There is also a region 7 which has been reserved (not in use yet - ready for space stations maybe ;) ), and region 8 for special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.). Tracey

OK - DVD help! The world has been split into DVD regions - US is region 1, UK and Europe is region 2, the Far East is region 3 etc etc. Over here in the UK we can get what we call 'multi-region' DVD players, which basically have a chip inside so we can watch DVDs from all over the world. Alternatively, you can buy a DVD player and get it 'chipped' (I'm not sure how legal chipping is - you can also do this with PlayStations). The main reason that this has been done is so that the big movie-makers can control who gets what film and when. I have noticed that some ballet DVDs have not been 'regioned' so you can play them anywhere (see www.dancebooks.com). So, if you don't have a multi-region DVD player make sure you check what region the DVD is issued in before you buy it . Hope that helps, Tracey