Simon G

He fits the description, except for "dark". Oh joy. A richness of embarrassments at the Royal.

Not at all, Simon, just go ahead and abandon your allies at a pivotal moment in the battle. Lord Stanley, I presume? I'm a child of divorce and have trust issues. 'kay?

That's kind of contrived to the point of being painful, like one of those faded trophy wives who comes on to her teenage son's friends? You know that kind of "please, stop" feeling? I can just see the Tweets that some marketing bod will come up with: OMG - poison sux. gonna heave... ;-( LMAO - paris minger wnts 2 fngr me. shank tybalt. 10pm. Peace out. r. Does anyone mind if I do a volte face on my previous stance on Tweeting and the arts. Ban it ban it ban it. With the honourable exception for Jedward, of course. www.twitter.com/planetjedward

I resent that.

There does seem to be a pattern emerging in Mason's external hirings policy. She appears to like them tall, dark and anodyne. (though I haven't seen Kish dance, so can't include him in that.) The problem is that though the RB does seem to be top-heavy with male principals, none of them are the whole package in any way shape or form (and apart from Pennefather & Watson) none are RB trained/schooled products. Acosta is past his sell by date, yet takes an inordinate amount of performances with variable results. Kobborg is coming to the end of his career, Bolle the king of the simper is called in for the tall girls on occasion, Putrov & Samodurov are patchy and injury prone, Soares, McRae are both virtuoso first soloists, Watson & Pennefather are political promotions, Watson is an interesting dancer but not a classical ballet dancer and Makhateli for me, is the Orlando Bloom of ballet, even when he's performing you forget he's there. And Bonnelli is the closet thing the company has to a danseur noble. Sadly, this for me, is just another step in the disintegration of the RB as a cohesive company, once you get up to First Soloist level and by the time you enter principal, it's a roll of disparate schools, styles, techniques and career-ending injury. It's like a magpie has assembled the two top tiers from the shiniest baubles with little thought as to how they'll all string together. And then you get that top knotch talent languishing at the lower levels, in certain cases for whole careers. Xander Parish being a prime example, the Mariinsky saw his potential immediately from one audition, Mason had him for a whole five years, where was she looking? Oh yes, at Wayne MacGregor.

Patrick, I'm disgusted, to not share the magic of Jedward isn't retaining power it's abusing power, there's a difference. And as a pre-emptive measure should balletalert ever enter the Twittersphere I request that you be banned from contributing, your measured posts are borderline scatalogical at the best of times, I shudder to think what shenanigans you'd get up should your stream of consciousness be given free reign.

Maybe they just want to tweet they're having coffee, I mean I agree the absolute banality of some tweets is teeth-numbing, but everyone's doing it. There's been another Twitter-scandal here in the UK today Stuart MacLennan a Labour MP London Parliamentary candidate was sacked after foul and abusive Tweets, about all manner of subjects, including political rivals. Most unforgivably and totally worthy of being sacked and exiled to political Gulag for life, he made abusive tweets about Jedward. I know, I'm having a hard time coming to terms with that myself; I mean political rivals, sure but Jedward????? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/election/a...ts-Twitter.html Actually we should have a balletalert Twitter account and a Twitter forum, so we can all Tweet about performances we're watching mid performance.

Hi Kfw, I realised what you meant, what I was responding to with the "ticket sales alone" thing was the attitude of an Opera House being an exclusive environment - the questions being who exactly is being excluded, why are they being excluded, what exactly is the product that is so rarified or elite or exclusive that it's best appreciated by an exclusive minority and in which case if that's the way you want it, why ask for any subsidy out of Government or tax purses (which are NOT exclusive) - support yourself on your own, by ticket sales nothing else, to that exclusive market you feel is worthy of the product you produce. If ballet is to have any worth, it must be absolutely catholic in who it appeals to, and I believe it is, I love ballet, it's just a pity so few agree with me - which is reflected by the fact pretty much every company throughout the world operates in the red. Ballet has to see itself as a business, it can't afford to be any other way and its product has to reach as wide a demographic as humanly possible if it's to survive. If no one's buying tickets what's the point anyway? Much as I love the image of that Ballets Russes/Fonteyn era/Soviet Golden/Balanchine's star ballerinas etc era of ballet, the ideal of lost perfection, the mystique of the ballerina etc it's over, it's gone, it was a time that no longer resonates or is in tune with the time that we live in. But if ballet can't or won't adapt to produce and market its product to the era in which it exists it will die, and perhaps it deserves to. And in truth that image of the ballerina as sacred goddess when applied to today does make me slightly queasy - it's like the Ballets Trockadero without the irony, wit, humour or intelligence. I also refute that notion of celebrity or "star" within ballet, let's face it, that will never happen again and indeed did it ever except for those rare occasions such as Fonteyn/Nureyev/ Baryshnikov when celebrity was tied to greater societal influences and events. Ballet could do with the odd celebrity cropping up - the prevalent image of dance in the general public is one of "So You Think You Can Dance" not Ashton/Balanchine/Cunningham/Graham etc And I know absolutely this is a crying shame and it shouldn't be this way, and it's not fair - but around the age of five every kid starts to learn that saying "it's not fair" won't change the fact of it not being fair or right. Ballet has to grow up in the way it perceives and markets itself or it won't have any future at all. And if Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, Myspace are tools by which it does this, brilliant. I only wish Bouder had been inundated by Twitter followers.

Again, I think the saddest thing is precisely that Bouder wasn't inundated with new followers on twitter, despite being the first thing over a million people read on the front of the NYT, she barely picked up more than a couple of hundred new Twitterers. If only her high-profile status in the Twitterati had been responsible for an explosion of Twitter-stalkers, mystique-busters and Twitter-Twatters. But it wasn't. That speaks far more for the state of the art in the eye of the public at large than a ballerina on the internet. To answer a previous question, many c'lebs PRs DO use their Twitter accounts posing as the star in question but releasing PR news and tidbits via the Twitter account. You can usually tell when they're doing this because the sudden improvement in spelling, grammar and literacy is dramatic. Jedward's PR do this a great deal, in case anyone's interested?

kfw, that was Keith Cooper, the then head of marketing under the disasterous Jeremy Issacs regime. It's worth remembering that that regime and its attitudes and ethos, bankrupted the ROH, Issacs stepped down a year early, Cooper was sacked as he was universally loathed and artistically the Royal Ballet and Opera were at their lowest points artistically, creatively and technically, ever. The "exclusivity" argument is the one which makes me think "fine, then support yourself solely on tickets sold to the audience you think fit" and succeed or fail on that alone. If the art isn't there for everyone and the institutions don't make concerted efforts to appeal to everyone, to draw everyone in, to grow audiences on its own, then it's worthless. Especially here in the UK where millions of tax payers pounds directly goes to fund the ROH and the work of the ballet and opera companies. We pay for it, we deserve to have access. I also feel sadly that exclusivity has been exchanged for indifference on the part of the majority of the population, people just don't care.

I missed that. At what point in her career was she on "60 Minutes"? There was a famous interview which she gave in 1980, it was around the time of her partnership with Patrick Bissell. In it she danced a bit of a divertissement from Other Dances (I think) and then gave an interview where she was very, very, very high. Later when she was publicising Dancing On My Grave, in 1986 she gave an interview in which the earlier one was played almost in its entirety and she said how everyone knew she was off her face in the interview. Was either of those 60 Minutes?

I do have to say that anyone can be forgiven for getting a bit shirty in this conversation as it went to a very strange place very quickly, over what are really some rather sweet innocuous little tweets. Tweeting is a strange thing and no mistake, does anyone remember this story that caused major umbrage a while back? http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=2356770 A mother whose toddler drowned in a pool, tweeted asking for her twitter followers to pray for her son, later when her son died she posted a tweet in memorial. And she got a ****storm of antagonism levied against her. the thing is I can understand it, if you're in an intolerable situation you pray, you make those deals with God and hope he's listening. In such a way I can understand how powerless that enormous pain which has nowhere to go can make someone feel utterly powerless, and for this mother instead of praying to the ether, she put her prayers on twitter. It was an act of faith translated into cyberspace - had she prayed to God off her own back, pleaded with the universe to save her son, no one would have condemned her. She went to a place of comfort, she logged on - but regardless of the medium the message is still the same. She was asking for a miracle, which didn't come. Twitter reminds me of that fairytale The Goose Girl, where the princess who's been subjugated into serfdom by her own servant and afraid for her life to the point that she daren't tell anyone, is told by a king, to tell her woes into an old burnt out stove as a form of therapy. Of course the king is listening at the stove pipe in the next room, comes to her aid and saves her - the salvation part is the bit that doesn't always happen, but finding outlets always has done. I think it unfair to criticise any dancer for tweeting mid performance because we believe that they should be transported by the artistry and event of the performance. I think performers especially ballerinas who are making superhuman demands on their bodies in the space of a few hours have far more pragmatic and pressing concerns a great deal of the time - to make it through three hours of torture without destroying their bodies/careers/futures to name a few, and that's before you get to making an artisitic impression. Again like the Goose Girl maybe Bouder that day felt the need to let off steam, pat herself on the back, announce to the world she'd done it - and so she tweeted. I know I myself live for Jedward's tweets via their Twitter, check it out! www.twitter.com/planetjedward

I've only seen her dance live a few times, but that's exactly what I love about her. She's a dancer born with everything going against her in terms of a body made for ballet, and the technique she's developed is only at the further detriment of anything typically fitting the balletic ideal - and yet it doesn't matter. She works as an artist because of the sum of faults which aren't faults, just a new way and approach to what a woman in ballet should look and be like. I love dancers with difficult or inappropriate bodies, they're exciting, precisely because they make you look at dance in a new way.

Don't agree, Simon. Ballet can still be, like any other art, thought of as a 'religion', it just has to adjust like the other religions. And you don't know if literal religion will or won't last 'as long as civilization lasts'. Both it and the arts may get 'limping and wounded', just at different times and to different degress. Patrick, I'm not denying the beauty and ability of the art form to transport and when it's at its best to take you to "another plain" if you will (God that sounded naff). But what I do mean is that anyone can go into a Church and sit down and be a part of the service, of the collective audience, for free. If ballet were able to operate under such circumstances then it would be in a far healthier state, especially regarding new audiences. Anything that costs that kind of money for a single ticket is going to face huge problems in recruiting audiences who were previously indifferent to the art form. Unless ballet can find a way to bring in those new audiences, reduce costs, shorten deficits and appeal on that wider level and bring in a poorer demographic, then where exactly is the money and the audience going to come from to enable it to continue?

Patrick, If you're taking a pop at Jedward, you have really, really crossed a line this time. I'm warning you, I won't stand for it, and will ask dirac to immediately revoke all your posting rights on these boards. And don't think she won't. I'm warning you don't mess with me, not when it comes to Jedward. BTW in the UK you can get a Jedward Easter Egg. I've bought three. They come in twin packs!

The Episcopal church isn't a limping wounded art form, that MUST charge every member of the audience upwards of $50+ to $100+ if it has any chance of surviving. Let's get past the 50s Ballets Russes "Ballet IS religion" mentality - it isn't. Religion can and will continue through one form or another as long as civilisation exists. Ballet? The Jury is very much still out. Is $100 that came out of a pair of blue jeans instrinsically worth less than $100 that was put on a Platinum AmEx from someone wearing a tuxedo? I have to say this Bouder Bashing is really entering the realm of poor taste - and I also want to say, a great deal of the opinions being opined, whether anyone wants to admit it or not, are far more damaging to ballet's continued validity as an art form with Universal appeal, than a ballerina giving a few friendly tweets. What are the other options? She did NOTHING wrong!!!! She just chose to share her frustration in a calm, reasonable manner, she didn't explete, she wasn't rude, it was a funny sweet little glimpse into her life at that moment. kfw, unless ballet as an art form finds some way to make itself pay and connect and become relevant and close those vast evergrowing deficits, Tallcheif's "credo" will serve as more of an epithet on a tombstone for the art form. Carried all the way to the grave. You can't go back, regardless of Bouder Tweeting or not. But I really am beginning to wonder what this thread is actually all about? The ire and outrage levied at her is completely out of all proportion to any crime against art that she may or may not have done. Real, imagined, perceived or otherwise.

kfw, I love old-fashioned mystery and glamour, would that it were enough. But this is precisely the problem regardless of whether or not companies enter the cyberrealms ballet is losing its audience. The old guard are either dying out (sorry to be so blunt), not returning due to dislike of modern ballet, or because ballet's prices are now alienating them. The new young guard just isn't coming: again price of tickets is prohibitve, the art form itself is seen as doing little or nothing to engage younger generations and in this global recession getting bang for you buck isn't just preferable but vital if you're going to have enough left over at the end of the week to pay the rent. And indeed that old fashioned glamour of sacred monsters is itself incredibly rarified and I'm afraid to say a total turn off for many young people. You'd be hard pressed to find a single ballet company anywhere in the world operating in the black, closures of companies is at an all time unprecendented high - no one can afford to be glib, precious or a snob about this. Ballet is in crisis, without audiences it ceases to exist. Ashley Bouder, you get a young, sexy, vibrant, savvy woman about town, getting pissed off with rip-off cab drivers, deciding to take an easy option because she doesn't want to go out in the rain, navigating life in New York. You get someone clued in, human, approachable and someone with whom anyone of the new generations that ballet is hoping to attract can connect with. You get someone who a young person with an extra $20 in their pocket may consider spending that money on a cheap ticket to see dance, because in her they see something of themselves. The block booking corporate high price seats aren't going to follow her on twitter; the Parsons/Columbia, grad students, grads in jobs beneath their skill set and qualifications brigades just actually might. And let's face it, if Nureyev had been in the back of that cab, no way would he have vented his frustrations healthily and demurely via twitter, so as to not cause offence or a scene. He'd have ripped off that cab driver's head, skinned him alive and worn his hide as a pashmina. Which is the saner, healthier response?

Oh I can imagine Nureyev posting something a little more XXX than just bitching about a wig. In fact were twitter/myspace/ and the internet around in the sixties or were Nureyev around today I can see our friend Papeetpatrick amusing us constantly with selective Nureyev smut and links he'd discovered on his aesthetic surfings.

Ahhh, the 70s, the golden age of porn, somewhat before my time, but I've heard stories from those who fought it out in the trenches. When men were men and women didn't need silicone to make it big. But seriously folks, yes, triple the price in three decades is well below the rate of inflation, ballet on the other hand has gone ballistic. And I'm not knocking ballet you know I love it, I'm ballet's biggest fan - but sadly the prices for even a moderately good ticket have increased by a factor of ten. Especially here in the UK, where a top price ticket for a three acter will set you back around an eye-watering $180. And why does this not surprise me? Patrick re: Jedward here's something interesting for your delectation: http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/02/siblings-...t-siblings.html US Forbes did a major feature on them, yes that Forbes, business/money/industry Forbes, in February. Like I said to our US chums batten down your hatches Jedward are coming Stateside. Tickets for their concert tour are already being promoted on Barry's Tickets. http://www.barrystickets.com/concert-tickets/jedward/ Interestingly they're doing a UK/Ireland tour in April, they sold over £1m worth of tickets in the space of weeks. Actually that's not that interesting but I thought I'd add it for flava.

You just hit the spot, Simon. I believe in, love, WORSHIP the grandeur and seriousness of ballet-(and visual arts, and literature and so on...). Because of that, I've came to "feel" for the likes of Nureyev, Kirkland or Alonso, and their surreal approach, willing to go beyond and above the good and the bad in their unconditional devotion to the art-(kind of Faust's children in their own different, distinctive way, aren't they?). Silliness is not welcome in this circle. And Cristian, my faithful Indian companion, that's the tragedy of modern life, you can't go back, you can only go forward. The whole landscape of entertainment has changed precisely because of the internet, and if ballet can't or won't reflect that and try and engage with the world as it is, it's going to be left even further behind than ever. Ballet is expensive, cinema has hardly increased its prices in line with inflation for decades. A mid scale price range ticket to a ballet performance costs more than two tickets to the cinema, something to eat and bus/train fare home. New audiences for ballet just aren't coming and ballet as opposed to cinema just keeps getting more and more expensive to stage and produce. You mention Nureyev, Kirkland, Alonso, well all three were politcally relevant, whether they wanted to be or not, besides artistry they held a social relevance and importance through who they danced with and their lives and once again ballet was cheaper when they danced, and of course the internet didn't exist, multiplexes didn't exist, computer games didn't exist. And sadly ballet is no longer socially relevant or impactful on a grander scheme or level and probably never will be again. You mentioned Plisetskaya, well one of her bestest ever quotes which I saw her say on a Bolshoi documentary from the late 80s when she was discussing how even then she felt the Bolshoi was trading on an illustrious but bygone past was "that which stays the same goes backwards". Ballet can't afford to stay the same, it can only hope to go forward by reflecting and interacting with the world in which it exists and creates for - and that includes twitter. Also all companies seem to have Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, Myspace accounts and sites, so Bouder is hardly alone or unique. And look at it this way, thanks to Myspace and Twitter it's so much easier to stalk one's idols than ever before. (I'm joking). (Or am I?????)

But you could always do that anyway with or without twitter via message boards. (BTW if anyone's interested I'm creating a special access by pin number only 18+ board called Ballet Babes. Cristian if you'd like to edit and moderate the ballerinas in Victoria's Secret board you're more than welcome.). (And ballerinas reading any contributions gratefully received, we pay!!) The thing about twitter is a tweet is ephemeral and soon disappears amidst a flurry of other tweets. It's nothing but a stream of consciousness (or drivel, depending on your point of view.) I think this is getting a bit silly, Ashley Bouder twitters, we got to know that she was going to do an extra class at Steps, but didn't as she felt tired, that Daniil Simkin did a great performance, that she had a deep tissue massage for aches - I fail to see the problem?

Cristian, do you think the public see ballet as something mystic or are merely indifferent? Depending on which public are we referring to. Ballet lovers already "hooked" won't be in any special need for all this. If the issue is the current urgency to do some "recruitment" work among potential newcomers in order to boost audience numbers, then there are many other ways that will be more appealing and helpful to them-(live ballet viewing, great performances videos, ballet personalities biographies, etc). About the "merely indifferent" one...do they need ANYTHING at all...? And yes...I would bet on the fact that many of us still like our ballet with an aura of mystery and mystique. The problem with this model of widening the appeal, (and I do agree if it were feasible it would be wonderful) is the bottom line of cost. Live performance, televised performance, video production costs exorbitent amounts of money, rights, performance rights, royalties, broadcast costs etc running into hundreds of thousands of dollars, for niche products which won't be viewed by large audiences and could never justify the costs of broadcast and production. Especially nowadays where all broadcasters and producers are facing huge financial difficulties. Bouder on twitter, "dishing the dirt" which let's face it wasn't that dirty, or Kristen (forgot surname) on the winger, reaches a potentially huge audience and all anyone has to do is log on. That wonderful fifties era of ballet can't exist within the modern world and hope to stay alive - live art is a limping wounded beast, anything that dares and tries to reach a wider audience by connecting on a human, "catholic" level can only be good. It is good. Without the audience "mystified" or not, paying to sit in seats all we'll have are pictures from bygone golden eras.

Patrick, You might also want to check this out, Jedward's collaboration with Vanilla Ice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDwAG4EDpDA Jedward have also been featured four times on Perez Hilton, twice in Entertainment Weekly & Rolling Stone, and wait for it, Forbes. You'll also be delighted to know that they've been taken on by one of the US's biggest concert/tour promotors. What an embarrassment of riches.

Patrick, Susan Boyle???? Boyle is soooo last year. Now it's all about Jedward, the latest Irish twin sensation to come out of X Factor and now fast becoming world wide stars in their own right. This was their seminal rendition of Oops, I did it again. I see it as performance art on a level with Pina Bausch, Cunningham/Rauschenberg, as transporting as the greatest ballet. In many ways Jedward remind me of Lynn Seymour's dancing. The sum of faults only went into creating a model of such perfection it transported art to a hitherto undreamed of level. Think Les Sacre du Printemps at Le Theatre de Champs Elysees 1913, or Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon 1908 - think Jedward.

Cristian, do you think the public see ballet as something mystic or are merely indifferent? As Deborah B rightly pointed out despite being front page news on a World-leading publication with a circulation of over 1,000,000, daily, Bouder still has barely 1,000 followers. That says far more about the state of the modern art and society's relationship to it, than a ballerina tweeting at all.