beckster

Nutcracker. If Coppelia were there, that would be my choice. I loathe Coppelia. The storyline is stupid, the doll choreography annoys me ... and I have a thing about ballets which are meant to be a story but they fill up an entire act with dances which seem to exist purely so that everyone gets a chance to have a go. It's all very well in a ballet school performance, but in a professional company, totally unnecessary. Sadly my favourite ever ballet music is in Coppelia.

I have just been looking into contemporary dance classes for myself here in the UK, and they describe them as being "Cunningham" or "Graham" based - i.e. they are the same as what Americans would call modern. In the UK, modern (syllabus-wise) refers to "modern theatre dance" i.e. jazz or lyrical dance. I expect the Australian system has bits of both the US and the UK in it.

I believe it is the height of your arm in second position, i.e. somewhere between your shoulder and your waist. Most of us have to compromise in class - in fact I now find it hard to use the lower barre when two are available, being 5' tall and used to a barre that is too high!

Yes, I suppose the point I wanted to make was that it is all related to context. A swastika or a bikini would be in very bad taste if the setting was not sympathetic to it. A swastika worn in a ballet which was not addressing the second world war in a sensitive and thought-provoking way is likely to offend people, especially since many alive today will remember the events and their true horror. However, in context, a costume which showed a swastika might enhance a ballet like that described by JaneD. Surely that is what costume is for? If the ballet was thought-provoking and meant to make you think about the subject more deeply or realise its implications, a swastika might not be out of place. In the same way, a scene with erotic or sexual tones would be acceptable in an "adult" ballet like Mayerling but would definitely be tasteless in another more traditional type of ballet or one which was aimed at a younger audience.

Can you distinguish between something which is tacky, and something which is in bad taste? Or is it just a matter of context? I went to see Bourne's Nutcracker! recently and I loved it. However, the costumes were gaudy, the dancing was at some points suggestive, and I suppose that people who take ballet seriously (TOO seriously ;) ?!) might have found it to be in bad taste. I personally thought it was great, because everything was done tongue in cheek - they chose those pink wigs because they were funny and overdone, not as a serious statement. It suited the production. If Aurora came out wearing a pink puffball tutu and matching fluffy wig for her birthday party, it would be an entirely different story.

Oh yes, it is very important to get the distinctions between Britain, UK, and its constituent countries. Take note, visitors to the UK. Particularly important is the fact that Scotland is not in England, being a separate country. And was it Eminem who thought that England was in London?! I thought that was a great article, btw. I didn't find the comments about the audience members to be either unfair or insulting. You really do get a very mixed bag at the ROH, and that is the way it should be! It ranges from the students at the back of the amphi, in jeans and trainers, to the people downstairs in posh frocks. Incidentally, to get a good view you don't have to pay £40. I've had good seats for £25 and less.

I've applied for a ticket to see the Bintley triplebill with scenes de ballet in. It does sound a very interesting piece so I hope I get to go. I am intrigued by the idea of setting a ballet to a mathematical base.

Give me a few weeks, Lolly, and I'll be a Lahndaner and will be able to watch lots of ballet. Then maybe I will start posting about them, if I feel brave.

I was planning to boycott. I know it's practically blasphemy, but I really hate the Nut, and I don't even live in the USA where it is ubiquitous. However, I'm going to see Bourne's "Nutcracker!" in the hope that it will be a bit different and will cure me of my prejudice.

I think maybe it could have been Lord Fitzwatchamacallim. He had a waxed raincoat thing which is obviously de rigeur among the eccentric upper classes. But what was he doing in the back of the amphitheatre where he couldn't see? He should have been in the royal box wearing wellies and tweed, distracting people's view away from Sylvie's Docs.

I went to the Rojo/Acosta performance on the 21st, and I thought it was wonderful. I've seen it before by various companies who deigned to tour in Yorkshire, but the Royal definitely beat them all hands down. Anyway, speaking of the tights, the person sitting behind me (who incidentally kept pronouncing it "ballut" rather than "ballay", I hope ironically) was complaining they couldn't see Seigfried's legs in the third act. He said it was all very well for the youngsters (me, presumably, after I moved his coat because it was poking me in the neck during the second act) but older folks wouldn't have been able to see, and he was going to write to the director about it (!). His companion said "do you think it will make a difference?" and he said "Oh I expect so" with complete confidence. Hilarious.

I am a total believer in the idea that the immune system needs to be trained. Your immune system is thoroughly naive when you are a baby, and you have to expose it to allergens so that it knows what is harmless and what isn't. That is how the immune system works - it has to know its enemy before it can defend the body. Of course there are people who would be sensitive to pollen, smoke, or whatever, anyway, but as a general rule the immune system needs to encounter lots of things when you are a child, or it overreacts to everything.

I too have heard that many dancers smoke. But then, I doubt that the proportion of dancers who smoke is any different from the proportion of university students (to take a group of people of similar age) who smoke. In the UK at least. I suppose dancers should be allowed one vice - after all, the rest of their lives is so regimented ... unlike students, who have no excuse ;)

Oh, that's ok then. When it got to the end, I thought I must have missed something at the beginning (perhaps the prince being put in the first coffin?) but obviously I didn't.

I went to see Mayerling on Friday, my first ever visit to the ROH. And I suppose my first ever non-fairytale ballet. There was a change in cast due to Kobberg being injured but not knowing any better, it didn't make any difference to me. I thought it was fabulous, not like anything I've seen before. The PDDs were amazing - especially the wedding night and the first one with his mistress. I thought Cope played the prince very well; there was kind of an air of restrained violence about him. I'm afraid I don't really have any intelligent comments to make though, especially since everyone else here is such an expert. Now I have to admit that I missed the prologue, because it took me a few minutes to work out that the left hand side of the stage was visible only if I knelt up on my seat (gotta love the upper slips). What happened? Or was it exactly the same as the epilogue?

I've gone off David Attenborough, because he was an honourary graduand at my undergraduate degree ceremony, and he started his speech by saying how wonderful it was to be in Bradford. Bradford is several hundred miles away (and several places down the university league table) from where he actually was ... snobs like me care about these things ;)

I think the problem with the list is that many people will want to appear well-rounded. So, they think, I must include an author, an artist, a politician, a scientist, an engineer ... and if they don't know much about a subject they will go for the obvious choice. Maybe the list would have been better if they had categorised it, so people could answer in their area of expertise. If someone asked me to name an engineer, probably Brunel would be the first (and only) one I can name. Similarly we have Darwin, as the obvious contender for token biologist, and while I don't dispute that his contibution to science was enormous, there are others I might put ahead of him.

Mine would definitely have been the Scottish Ballet, at Hull New Theatre. I was probably about 10, but I don't know which ballet I saw first ... Swan Lake or maybe Peter Pan. I loved Peter Pan and I still remember now what the scenery was like, and the mime scene at the end where a little girl in her nightie flew away with Peter.

I think LMCtech means like, if 8 plies are good for you, then doing 88 must be even better. And my addition to the thread is that pointe shoes have blocks of wood in the toe.

I'd like to know what it takes to become an accompanist. Although I'm a ballet-doer, I know it will never be more than a hobby and I'd like to have other ways of being involved. So if anyone here has experience of that, I'd love to hear about it!

The music to the dance of the knights from R&J always gives me a chill, whether I'm watching the ballet or whether I'm listening to the CD in the lab with people talking and working all round me. And my visual thrill is the act in Swan Lake where the curtains open to all the mist and then you suddenly realise that the bumps on the stage among the mist are actually the dancers. That was pretty special the first time I saw it. And then the mist rolls into the orchestra pit and the timpani go flat

In Deborah Bull's book (currently my bible on life as a ballerina) she says that the opposite is sometimes true: when on tour, the corps dance every performance, and consequently get injured more often, than the soloists and principals who usually only dance every second or third performance. I suppose these things work both ways. If you had to do solos and corps in the same ballet, that would probably be worst of all

Thanks for clearing that one up - I assumed that the little swans would do the cygnet dance ... clearly just making things up as I go along! It is funny to think of ballet the way it was in the past. Things have changed such a lot since things like swan lake were written. It would be very interesting to see a ballet performed the way it was in the past. You see pictures of dancers from the past and they look very different to the way dancers look now.

That's interesting, about being contracted to dance in smaller groups only. What would they do if the ballet in question didn't have smaller groups?! I thought the four little swans were usually danced by students? I have a photo postcard of the royal ballet swan lake corps, with two lines of grown-ups and in the middle is a line of younger girls. They look extremely young, but are probably older than they look, maybe mid teens. It's kind of funny that a dancer's first real role, apart from party child in the Nut, might be in this group of four (like a coryphee) and then if they are eventually accepted into the company they could be on the back row of the corps

I was reading Deborah Bull's book "Dancing Away" and she mentions a level within the company called a coryphee.I'm not sure whether this is above or below the corps, but I'm interested to know whether all companies have this level, which I've never come across before.