mmded

Bump

My husband missed out on Christmas last year because of miltary obligations so we decided to make up for it by doing a tour of German Christmas markets. We are visiting a number of cities with distinctive markets and are catching Nutcrackers in Berlin, Dresden and Stuttgart. If we are not in the Christmas spirit after that we never will be. The best part is that we will visit our dancer there and will fly home with her when she is on her Christmas break. I almost forgot the tip! Rail tickets are much cheaper to buy ahead of time from outside of Germany - you can buy them for how many days you will need to travel - they can be used at any time within a period of months. If you order them online from North America you receive them within a couple of weeks. You then simply get on the train you choose and mark off your date and your pass may or may not be checked en route. No line-ups and the schedules are very clear and simple to understand and the trains almost always run on time to within a minute or so.

Staatsoper Berlin has a very good website with an English component that makes it quite easy to order over the internet. You can also order via email or phone if you are nervous about security. The website is "www.staatsoper-berlin.de" and click on English in the top right hand corner. We have used it to order tickets for a performance in December, and so far so good.

Competitions are pretty much the best way for a Canadian dancer to dance not just in Europe but certainly in the States. Many Canadian dancers head off to Europe to try to find employment rather than go to the States. In fact dancers are told to forget about even trying for jobs in the U.S. unless they are able to do one of the European competitions or one of the American ones such as YAGP or Jackson. I don't want to get completely off topic but the importance of ballet competitions to secure a place in either a top level professional training program for finishing or an entry level position in a prestigious ballet company is something that is relatively new (I think) and for parents who are already struggling with the high cost of funding a dancer's professional training may be overwhelming! Are foreign students studying in the States on scholarship or are they paying to train at American schools? I know that non-Canadian students at both RWB and NBS pay significantly more for tuition and residence than Canadian students. At the other end training in a professional level training program is state funded in Germany for both German and foreign students and classes are very much multi-national.

I would certainly say that training in a school that is affiliated with a company that a dancer wants to dance with in the future makes sense. Students may have the opportunity to either perform with the company or at the very least understudy for the company which allows the students to be seen by artistic staff and at times do company class. Depending on the company, artistic directors may also observe school ballet exams and attend student performances. If a dancers travels far to audition (for example from North America to Europe) it is often difficult to do class on a regular basis and therefore it is more difficult to to be in ideal condition at an audition. On top of that there are language barriers, strange food and travel issues that may throw off a dancer's daily routine. Of the dancers I know personally who have done the "audition tour" of Europe from North America it has been less than ideal and the results have not been encouraging. If you look at dancer bios on company websites you will be able to see in many cases where dancers have trained and often they come from the schools that are associated with the companies or are from schools in the same country and therefore the style and level of training is well known to the company. JMHO

It's Stuttgart Ballet or Stuttgarter Ballett.

Unfortunately the casting was changed within the last day or so and both Vladamir Malakhov and Lucia Lacarra are no longer dancing. Instead Julia will be danced by Stuttgart principal Sue Jin Kan and Romeo will be danced by three principals- Jason Reilly, Filip Barankiewicz and Friedemann Vogel. I do know someone who was lucky to get a ticket and is still excited to go even with the changes.

This Saturday Stuttgart Ballet is putting on a special gala in honour of Marcia Hydee's birthday. There is a long list of guest artists including Vladamir Malakhov (Romeo), Lucia Lacarra (Julia), Egon Madsen (Graf Capulet), Marcia Hyde (Grafin Capulet), Tamas Detrich (Tybalt), Paul Chalmer (Graf Paris), Rolando D'Alesio (Graf Montague), Marion Jager (Grafin Montague), Alexander Zaitsev, Kyzysztof, Eric Gauthier, Marcis Lesin, John Neumier as well as the principal dancers of the Stuttgart Company. It should be quite the memorable evening!

Here is a quote by Reid Anderson, director of the Stuttgart Ballet Company on the importance of ballet schools to companies. The link is http://www.acts.hdm-stuttgart.de/reviews.html "I fear that both ballet schools and ballet companies tend to be the first target for cuts. So you’re always aware that the future of dance could be a bit gloomy. Stuttgart is a positive exception. People here have made ballet part of their lives. But elsewhere, few people realize what happens when you start cutting. One key example is cutting subsidies to ballet schools. When you do this, you remove a vital support from the local ballet company. Large casts draw upon a pool of dancers from the school. One third of my dancers come from the John Cranko School. A company of sixty dancers plus a local school can do almost anything. Without the back-up of students from the school a company loses flexibility and has to concentrate on small shows."

I would like to put in a recommendation for Deepa Mehta's Water in the Best Foreign film category. She is a Canadian filmaker and Water is one of a trilogy, the others being Earth and Fire. They are all very thought provoking and memorable.

Scholarship winners have now been announced on the prix website mentioned previously. Congratulaions to all!

I was not in Paris but was fortunate to see I Fratelli - Die Bruder and Die Kameliendame both in Stuttgart at the end of December. I expected to prefer the latter but I absolutely loved I Fratelli and would love to be able to see it again. I usually prefer the more classical ballets but I thought the staging was simple but very effective. I really liked the costumes even though they were very monochromatic and quite simple and I loved the music. Everything I would not normally not expect to enjoy including the story line I found I enjoyed immensely. As for the dancing - on a totally different level than what I am able to see at home. I thought the men were particularly strong but perhaps that is again in contrast to what I am able to see locally. I have to comment as well on the audiences - hard to believe compared to North America. They are so supportive and enthusiastic while still remaining respectful and attentive. Even though the performance of Die Kameliendame was a recently added show and there was a gala performance happening a couple of nights later we were only able to get three individual seats at the very back and outer edge of the theatre which I would try to avoid in the future as we were not able to see anything that was happening on the right side of the stage.

I forgot to mention, my daughter said Marjin was wonderful in Die Kameliendame!

Thank you for the link Stuttgart! mmded

The Edmonton Journal ran an article today about a 42% increase in subsciptions for Alberta Ballet in Edmonton this year as well as a $218,362.00 surplus overall this past year. Reason to celebrate this year, their 40th anniversary!

What happened to the good old babysitter that I used to use whenever I wanted to attend an event? I won't even entertain going to a matinee of Nutcracker and indeed have gotten to the point of not really wanting to attend any performance at all of Nutcrackerl. We went to a local performance of a fairly "on the edge" modern dance offering where the dancer stripped down to NOTHING and there were several very young children in the audience with their parents. I did not even consider what I thought about the entire performance- I was too busy thinking about what those small children in their party dresses and ballet buns thought about the whole thing.

Just last week we sat behind a couple who could not keep their hands off one another and kept exchanging passionate kisses constantly. I thought that was annoying until that stopped when she had a violent coughing spell for many minutes. The woman beside me finally leaned forward to offer her a cough candy which she declined and then took produced one of her own.

I attended the performance in Edmonton as well last night and really enjoyed the evening. I thought the company overall was at the best I have seen it in recent years and you certainly could not question last night why they have managed to reach their milestone of forty years successfully. I do have a couple of comments to make that are not about the performance specifically. Firstly, proofread your lovely program!!! I am one of the world's worst spellers but really would you like to be a "prestigious patron" of the company and have your donation level be PIROURETTE or ALLEGERO? There was at least one more glaring spelling mistake. Secondly I read a "review" of last night's performance in the Edmonton Journal this morning which stated that The Winter Room "was made even more moving by the performance of Tanya Dobler, a talented artist who leaves the company this season. She'll be missed" Hmm.. maybe not that missed as The Winter Room was danced last night by Leigh Allardyce and not Tanya. The casting change was announced at the beginning of the performance. I can't think of two other dancers in the company who could be less likely to be mistaken for one another.

I will try volcanohunter! Ballet is unfortunately a bit of a tough sell in our city compared to other cultural activites. mmded

I am not an Alberta Ballet subscriber but I do attend almost all of the Alberta Ballet productions in their northern "home" city as I do group ticket sales for a local ballet school. I am really looking forward to the Joni Mitchell collaboration this year! I used to be a National Ballet of Canada subscriber before moving to the west and have been fortunate to have seen Paris Opera Ballet, Stuttgart and Munich in the last couple of years as well as Royal Winnipeg Ballet. I am first and foremost a ballet mom so I read avidly Ballet Talk but don't often feel knowledgeable enough to post on this site with so many articulate members.

Also in Canada! Happy Mother's Day to all, especially to the mothers whose children may be far away pursuing their goals and dreams!

Tara Birtwhistle, a principal with Royal Winnipeg Ballet Company, has had very short hair for a long time - often dyed platinum blonde (Annie Lennox style). Quite often for contemporary productions such as Messiah, Dracula and The Magic Flute she wears it very short and quite obviously dyed. For classical productions she wears a fake bun. She also has a tatoo on her ankle http://www.rwb.org/company/dancebio/tara.html

I have seen Heather Ogen twice now, most recently in Swan Lake, and I totally agree with Helene, I didn't think she looked directly at her partner once and she left me totally cold and quite disinterested.

I was very pleased to read of the change. I faithfully read this forum every day but I despaired of every getting to 30 posts. Unfortunately I do not have the opportunity to actually see much ballet live nor do I have the knowlege of most members of this board but I am a long time supporter and fan.

With all of the recent publicity about Evelyn's Hart's acrimonious departure from Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet Company, I started to wonder if this is a common problem in dance. With so many young dancers trying to get positions in companies and with such limited budgets for salaries, who should make the ultimate decision about when it is time to give up a principal dancer position? The discussion has already started with the artistic director of Alberta Ballet aligning himself on the side of the RWB and I am sure it is only beginning. How does one weigh artistic beauty against fading physical ability? Should it be soley up to the artistic director of the company or should it also be the responsibility of the individual dancer to know when to step aside? I realize that dancers such as Margot Fonteyne and Suzanne Farrell had very long careers, but is it the same conditions in ballet companies today?