mmded

I think it will be a huge loss for Belgium to lose Kathryn Bennetts but the company has not been supported there as much as it deserves and the funding is just not there. In an article appearing on the company facebook page Kathryn says she has to work with a 6 million euro budget while other European companies of similar size have 20 to 25 million euros. For dancers in the company it makes for very a very disheartening and often stressful environment to work in. The company is one of three companies that has been invited this year to perform in Stuttgart for a huge gala celebration in honour of the company's 50th anniversary. Stuttgart is the polar opposite to Antwerp and Belgium. The city reveres and supports their ballet company as I have never seen elsewhere. Flanders, thanks to Kathryn Bennetts, does tour extensively so I am very hopeful that there will be lots of reaction from outside of Belgium if not from within the country.

I have seen it in New York and really enjoyed it. I would see it again with no hesitation.

David Dawson created The Third Light for the Royal Ballet of Flanders last year for their 40th anniversary. It was reviewed by Marc Haegeman for Danceview Times. The piece was also featured on the cover of the March 2010 edition of Dance Europe . http://www.danceviewtimes.com/2010/05/the-royal-ballet-of-flanders-40th-anniversary-season.html

David Dawson has been appointed choreographer in residence at the Royal Ballet of Flanders. http://www.koninklij...be/Site/rbf.htm

Character dancing has always been a part of my daughter's training, in her home studio in RAD syllabus, residential training in Canada and continued at John Cranko Academy in Germany. Character dance was one of the exams required to complete in order to graduate from Cranko.

It was in several local Stuttgart papers today.

I was at the Stuttgarter Ballett tonight for a performance of Cranko's Taming of the Shrew. Reid Anderson announced prior to the performance to the audience that principal Jason Reilly is NOT leaving (for National Ballet of Canada) but would instead be in Stuttgart for a few more years. I know there was a lot of press and excitement in Toronto when it was announced he was returning.

I saw NDT in Toronto last weekend. I am so glad I had the opportunity to see them live! I am not sure what the rep was in Chicago but I loved both Shoot the Moon by Lightfoot Leon and The Second Person by Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite. Both had images and moments I will carry in my mind for a long, long time. They had enthusiastic standing ovations at the end of each piece from an audience that had many recognizable faces from the Canadian ballet and figure skating worlds (I am sad to say that the Carmen/ Skin Divers offering by NBoC i saw in the afternoon was not at all in the same league).

Miles Pertl won the Grand Prix award at the San Francisco regional YAGP competition in 2007 and was a top 12 finalist at the YAGP NYC finals the same year and received at that time a scholarship to John Cranko Schule. He has trained there since. Norbert Lukaszewski trained at John Cranko Schule under Petr Pestov before winning the Grand Prix prize at the YAGP finals in 2008.

My daughter is dancing with them until the end of the season. They are in the middle of Sleeping Beauty, then back to La Fille and they are also doing Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet before the end of July as well as other modern productions. They dance about every third day so it shouldn't be too difficult to catch them unless your daughter is going the week they are in Madrid (May 11th-16th).

It is worth going just to see his class of graduating boys from John Cranko Schule. One in particular has already been singled out in Europe as being potentially THE next great male dancer.

We were there on the 20th as well and Katie Morgan was the highlight of the night for me! I think I have seen now ten different Nutcrackers over the years. NYCB is the first I have seen the Candy Canes and I have to say I really disliked the choreography and the costumes. I just kept thinking convicts in candy colours!

The Grand Prix winner's name is Norbert Lukaszewski who is in his graduating year from Academy at the John Cranko Schule in Stuttgart, Germany. Congratulations !

Just got back from the Royal Ballet showing of Sylvia. It was actually filmed in December 2005. It was the first time I have seen Sylvia from beginning to end. It does not in any way replace seeing ballet live IMHO but it is certainly worth an afternoon. It was not well promoted locally so there was only a handful of people in the audience. They did a 20 minute intermission before the third act which was a little odd in a movie theatre. I am planning on going to the rest if possible.

We sat directly behind Yves Saint-Laurent at a POB performance of La Sylphide a few years ago. My non-dancer daughter spent the entire time watching him and memorizing every detail of everything about him so she could search out photographs of him to convince herself it was really him! He was whisked out immediately after by the person who had accompanied him but she managed to make eye contact with him for an instant.

I will be in Paris at that time. I looked at buying a ticket earlier but did not commit so if anyone has any advice with regards to last minute tickets I would be grateful. Thanks mmded

Actually I wished there was more "dancing" too. I found that the upper body movement was really interesting and unlike anything I have seen before live but I found myself wishing that the choreographer could have focused as much energy and thought to the lower body as he must have with the upper body and in particular the hands. I think the "shaking" is something the choreographer is known for. There are some beautiful feet and legs in the company that were hidden by the costumes (and lighting) and the dancers did not move as I have seen them in the main theatre. I would not want to see that type of choreography more than once a year in all honesty but their Nussknacker is a very small production in terms of venue, number of performances and number of dancers. I think between my husband and I we have seen at least ten different Nutcrackers and Stuttgart's Nutcracker won hands down as being the most unusual. I am not sure how accurately ballet translates to film. I saw Joni's Mitchell's The Fiddle and Drum danced by Alberta Ballet and I was not blown away. I saw a recording of the same production a year later and I now would make a real effort to see it again to see if I would have a different reaction. Joni Mitchell's music for me meshed with the dancers more hauntingly when they were seen in extreme close up and from interesting camera angles. I think there was too much going on live with the slide show in the background. Perhaps Nussknacker is better seen in person - it certainly ended with many bows, flowers and long applause that is not common in North America. I actually loved the "nut pants" and thought they must be fun to dance in (I think!) I am not sure if the sound of them came across on television but it was almost eerie at times in the small theatre.

I have seen two modern productions in a fairly conservative region of Canada this year and both have had above the waist female nudity. One was Margie Gillis who has been dancing professionally for 35 years (I am still not sure what I think about that performance). The other was Wen Wei and I thought it was very effective and well done.

I reread the entire thread and I did not see any mention of either convincing or unprofessional or indeed any comment on Nadja Saidakova. I am really puzzled!

In the Winter 2007 Dance International Magazine there is a small dance note about Celine Gittens being cast to learn the role of Odette and Odile for the Birmingham Royal Ballet's production of Swan Lake. She is certainly one audiences WILL be watching!

Not a recent performance per say but I saw Haydee a little over a year ago in Mauro Bigonzettis' I Fratelli and she is still a compelling, unforgettable figure and much revered and loved in Stuttgart.

its the mom, I checked through my program and did not find either dancer. The leads the evening we attended were Marie - Nadja Saidakova, Drosselmeier - Ibrahim Onal, and the prince was Ronald Savkovic. We did see Malakhov - he was sitting on the other side of a column next to us! papeetepatrick, Stuttgart as accurately as I can tally from the website is performing twenty eight different productions this year alone not including the big Cranko galas in honour of what would have been his 80th birthday. Classics being performed this year alone are Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, La Sylphide and Onegin (if you count that as a classic). Their Nussknacker is put on at the Kammertheatre, one of three venues the company uses. I am guessing the seating capacity is probably no more than two hundred as compared to the Opera House which seats 1200 and is almost always completely sold out. Their Nussknacker will not appeal to everyone but Germany is more open to cultural exploration from what I have seen during the three times I have visited. The response to Nussknacker was just as enthusiastic and the bows as many as after their more traditional offerings. Their Nussknacker runs at the same time as other productions and only involves a relatively small part of the company. I would say that I am a traditionalist when it comes to ballet but in both very modern productions I have seen in Stuttgart the classical training is never forgotten or compromised. I saw Limb's Theorem in Munich a couple of years ago and can not say the same about that experience. The theatre in Dresden is beautiful and it is worth the price of a ticket just to see it - amazing really when you consider it has been completely rebuilt after the war. Actually there are so many beautifully restored buildings in Germany that you would never guess they are not original. Dresden's theatre ranks right up with Opera Garnier although they are not at all alike.

John Neumeier's Nussknacker opens with a birthday party for twelve year old Marie (Clara to us). Her brother Fritz is a military cadet and her older sister Louise is a ballerina and Drosselmeier is the ballet master. Gunther (the prince is the lead cadet who gives Marie a nutcracker on behalf of the regiment and Drosselmeier gives her a pair of pointe shoes. She is fascinated with the shoes and the person who gave them to her but falls in love with Gunther. After the party she puts on the pointe shoes when she is alone, falls asleep and dreams of Gunthar and in her dreams dances with him en pointe and participates in a "magnificent rehearsal" (Scene Two). Scene Two actually opens with a line of dancers at the barre. Scene Three is the performance where Louise dances the grand pas de deux with Gunthar, Fritz also dances and all of the dancers that are common to the Nutcracker we are familiar with in North America. Drosselmeier has much more of a dancing role than I am accustomed to throughout and I really appreciated that. The cadets' choreogrpahy at the birthday party replaced any mouse- soldier dancing and I also think I prefer that as well. To me it makes more sense. The one thing that ran through my mind a couple of times during the performance was just how many little girls would go home and think they could perhaps don pointe shoes and progress as rapidly as Marie (Ballet mom hat on). Interesting to me was that Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet Company premiered the Neumeier Nutcracker in 1972 and performed it annually until they switched to a Canadian version that I have not seen. The Berlin Nussknacker also has a strong military component to it. Marie is separated from the Grand Duchess's (her mother) family by revolutionaries and her favourite nutcracker who is dressed in her father's regimental colours (Prologue). Act One is Christmas at the Staulbaum's who have adopted Marie an is fourteen years later. In this Nussknacker she has a sister Luise and a brother Fritz but she does not feel part of the family. Drosselmeier is an astronomer who shows up at Christmas Eve. He was witness to Marie's abduction through a magical monacle. Drosselmeier presents her with her lost nutcracker which connects her to her old world although she does not remember it. She falls asleep to have nightmares about soldiers abducted her as a child fighting with her father's battalion. She throws her nutcracker at them and it becomes a prince. Drosselmeier, the Prince and Marie have a pas de tois after which Drosselmeier decides to take her back to the Grand Duchess in a balloon which involves a trip through the snow and the Snow Queen's territory. Act II Is the reunion of the Grand Duchess and her daughter Marie. She hosts a grand ball with ambassadors from different nations who, of course, do characteristic dances. The guest of honour is a member of Marie's father's regiment (the prince) who the Grand Duchess wants her newly found daughter to marry. Of course Marie is thrilled to oblige.

We saw this past December Nussknackers choreographed by John Neumeier performed by Dresden SemperOper Ballett, Patrice Bart performed by Staatsballett Berlin and Marco Goecke performed by Stuttgarter Ballett. I enjoyed all three for different reasons but I have to say for an overall Christmas experience for mass audiences you still would have a hard time bettering National Ballet of Canada's Nutcracker. Rather than attempting to talk intelligently about each one I guess what I took away from seeing the three of them is that I came away with was a strong opinion about what each company is in general. Perhaps it is not fair to do so but I come from a place where the regional ballet company makes no bones about the financial importance of the Nutcracker every year and it really shows in the safe but tired Nutcracker that includes a large contingent of local young dancers to fill lots of seats (my own included years ago). Berlin was the most familiar in terms of traditional plot and characters, Dresden I enjoyed because of the ballet story line and Stuttgart was very non-traditional and I would probably have to see it several more times to really appreciate it all. Naively perhaps, I was hoping to see Polina Semionova or Vladimir Malakhov (I know he is injured) in Berlin but felt a little like it was a cast that was very heavily augmented by students perhaps from the affiliated school and I felt at times they detracted from the professionals. Dresden also did not have some of the names I am familiar with but both Drosselmier, Pavel Moskvito (Choyphee) and Gunther, Yevgeny Bondarenko (Halbsolist) were very impressive. As well Marie, Alexandra Lo Sardo (also Coryphee) was very convincing as a young girl who did not dance but wanted to emulate her older sister Louise who was a ballerina at the court theatre. She was excellent at slowly revealing her ballet skills throughout and is probably a dancer on the rise in the company. I think she actually stole the show from Louise who was a soloist with the company. Again not many principals to be seen. The company is quite varied in both body type and height which I am not so used to in North America but all technically solid. I am not sure I can make any intelligent comments on the Stuttgart production - I have not seen anything like the choreography, I honestly don't know how the dancers make their bodies do some of the movements. At times it almost seemed they must have been dancing with strobe lighting but it was all them. The staging was very dark and stark, the costumes very modern and non traditional and the score was abbreviated and included excerpts of Silent Night by Mahalia Jackson. Thousands of nuts poured out of wardrobes that edged the stage, the Nussknacker wore pants entirely covered in walnuts that could shake, Klara wore jazz pants with a huge bustle. It was a small cast but included first soloists, soloists and the dancing was all high calibre. They were in a league of their own as far as the level of dancing. My impression is that if Stuttgart does something they do it 110% and make it their own. Their Nussknacker may not be for everyone but you have to appreciate the dancing. (To be fair I have to say I have now seen five Stuttgart performances and I am much more familiar with the company and its dancers than the other two companies so I am sure I have a bias.)

I saw Juno too and also really enjoyed it with my daughters. I came home and bought the soundtrack for my ipod and and then found more songs by Kimya Dawson on my Napster service!