naomikage

Bolshoi Babylon will be released in cinemas in Japan at the end of September. Maria Alexandrova, visiting here for the World Ballet Festival has been interviewed for the publicity of the film.

Sorry to be late but here is the program for Program B. I have to note that after the two performances, Marijn Rademaker (Dutch National Ballet) was injured and had to withdraw from the rest of the performances, sad because he was a passionate, beautiful Armand with magical partnering technique in Neumeier's Lady of the Camellias. Alexandre Riabko replaced him in this work with a very short rehearsal and he was also superb in that. Marcelo Gomes arrived on the morning of August 9th from and on that day he performed a solo he choreographed himself, Four Dances form Tristesse. For later dates, he danced Vertigo (Mauro Bigonzetti) with Diana Vishneva. Diana and Acteaon Viengsay Valdes, Osilel Guneo Cinderella Iana Salenko, Vladimir Malakhov One for My Baby from Sinatra Suite Igor Zelensky Peer Gynt Anna Laudere, Edvin Levazov Four Dances form Tristesse Marcelo Gomes (only for August 9th) Raymonda Dream Adagio Ulyana Lopatkina, Danila Korsuntsev Sleeping Beauty Liudmilla Konovalova, Matthias Heymann No Man's Land Alina Cojocaru, Johan Kobborg, Le Corsaire Sarah Lamb, Vadim Muntagirov Danses Grecques Oscar Chacon Manon pas de deux from act 1 Aurelie Dupont, Herve Moreau Legende Alicia Amatriain, Friedemann Vogel Lady of the Camellias Act 3 Pas de Deux Tamara Rojo, Alban Lendorf Les Bourgeois Daniil Simkin The Old Man and Me Diana Vishneva, Vladimir Malakhov (8/8,8/9 only) Dying Swan Ulyana Lopatkina Sylvia Silvia Azzoni, Alexandre Riabko Lady of the Camellias Act 1 Pas de Deux Maria Eichwald, Marijn Rademaker (Rademaker replaced by Riabko on 8/11) La Chauve-Souris Isabelle Guerin, Manuel Legris Don Quixote Maria Alexandrova, Vladislav Lantratov

Curtain Call video of Program B.

And superb photographs on Isabelle Guerin's instagram account, too. https://instagram.com/isaguerin/ Such as Lopatkina and Guerin in stage costume, how beautiful Guerin's legs are. https://instagram.com/p/6KoM9HC1dS/

Marcelo Gomes's tweet https://twitter.com/marcelogomes47/status/630579224924024832

Many from the dance community are tweeting condolences, including Bennet Gartside of Royal Ballet who was his school friend and dancers at New Adventures. He was a charismatic and brilliant dancer and loved very much by his colleagues. So sad.

Jonathan Ollivier of New Adventures, currently starring in the lead role of Matthew Bourne's The Car Man, was killed in a car crash while he was driving his motorcycle. It was the day of the final performance of The Car Man and the performance was cancelled. What a tragedy. He was a former dancer at Northern Ballet and Alberta Ballet before joining New Adventures and he also performed the dual role of The Swan/ The Stranger in Bourne's Swan Lake. http://bbc.in/1IwezBr

Ashley Border with Zelensky was The Young Lady and the Hooligan, a very Soviet style drama but with some Hollywood musical influence, curious piece and Border was such a virtuoso, Zelensky could still dance very well with beautiful leaps. Trois Gnossiennes is a very beautiful and thrilling piece by Hans van Manen (and music is of course Erik Satie), a DVD is available (Hans van Manen Festival) with Ulyana Lopatkina dancing. Here is a promo clip of the DVD. The repertoire was varied but quite classical based, I wished there were more pieces by contemporary choreographers. But anyway, there is no other gala that boasts so many international stars, and it is such a pleasure to see this. I will later report of program B which was even more enjoyable than the program B. Marcelo arrived in Tokyo this morning, and surprisingly he did perform a solo in the afternoon, a solo he danced for the Ardani Gala, he showed no signs of tiredness. From Monday he will perform with Vishneva, Vertigo, a piece by Mauro Bigonzetti and at the special gala, Nuages.

Oh I am sorry I haven't add much comments yet as I was tired. I will but the performances end like 10:30 in the evening and It takes an hour to go home, after watching 4 and a half hour performance with very short intermissions. And it is so insanely hot this summer! The B program started today and I will attend tomorrow and I will post the program after that, as there were some last minute cancellations even the Japanese program popped out this morning. I do think they should do more English publicity, there are increasing number of people coming from overseas to see this event, some of my friends from other countries are here for this. Here's a clip of the curtain call of Program A. NBS has posted some more comment promo videos on their YT channel NBS YT Channel https://www.youtube.com/user/2009NBS

Sorry to be late. I will post the program, and later add some views about it. Program A Tchaikovsky Pas de duex Iana Salenko and Steven McRae Trois Gnossiennes Maria Eichwald, Marijn Rademaker The Lady and the Hooligan Ashley Bouder, Igor Zelensky Black Swan Tamara Rojo, Alban Lendolf The Farewell Waltz Isabelle Guerin, Manuel Legris Other Dances Amandine Albisson, Mathieu Ganio Manfred Mathias Heymann Giselle Sarah Lamb, Vadim Muntagirov Raymonda Act 3 pas de duex Maria Alexandrova, Vladislav Lantratov Verklungene Feste 　Anna Laudere, Edvin Levazov, Silvia Azzoni, Alexandre Riabko Cinderella Alina Cojocaru, Johan Kobborg The Old Man and Me Diana Vishneva, Vladimir Malakhov Flames of Paris Iana Salenko, Daniil Simkin Swan Lake act 2 Ulyana Lopatkina, Danila Korsuntsev Together Alone Aurelie Dupont, Herve Moreau Onegin Act 1 pas de deux Alicia Amatriain, Freidemann Vogel Don Quixote Viengsay Valdes, Osiel Gunneo The gala lasted 4 and a half hours, and this program A will be performed 5 times.

I am currently attending this, I will post about the program later. There is a tentative one here but doesn't list who's dancing what. http://www.nbs.or.jp/english/stages/2015/wbf/schedule.html Some of the very impressive ones on Program A was Swan Lake by Lopatkina and Korsuntsev, The Farewell Waltz by Isabelle Guerin and Manuel Legris, Manfred by Mathias Heymann, The Old Man and Me by Vishneva and Malakov, Raymonda by Alexandrova and Lantratov, plus quadruple fouettes in Rojo's Black Swan, Osiel Gunneo's pirouettes.

Unfortunately David Hallberg has withdrawn from his performances at World Ballet Festival in Tokyo as his injury has not recovered enough. http://www.nbs.or.jp/blog/news/contents/topmenu/post-554.html (Sorry, I could not find an English link of the announcement)

Herman Cornejo in Le Spectre la Rose was one of the greatest performances of this ballet, he really looked like what Nijinsky must have been.

Sorry I have mixed up with other info so I will edit that. Anyway things will be clear as POB will be releasing casting info for their opening program soon.

Mathilde Froustey has tweeted that she is in class at the Garnier. https://twitter.com/lapetitefrench_/status/610892343017783298 I know there are local rules for this forum not to mention about information from other forums so I will just mention this.

FYI For productions at Royal Opera House, (I thought most of the posters here knew) you can return your tickets to the box office and if the ticket got resold, you can have your money back (with a small amount of handling fee deducted) But at the Royal Ballet, sales do depend on whoever is dancing.

According to his Instagram, Ilya Kuznetsov (not the former Mariinsky first soloist, the famed teacher) has left Bolshoi Academy and joined the Vaganova Academy faculty https://Instagram.com/p/3_e1PqBiq7/

Here is a link to the retailer that ships this DVD to USA. http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Ballet-Dances-Classical_000000000040071/item_Don-Quixote-Simkin-Yuriko-Kajiya-American-Ballet-Theater-2011-Tokyo_5491142 And a short clip from this performance. https://youtu.be/pArkyXAEZ_M Other casts include Sarah Lane and Isabella Boylston as Kitri's friends, Renata Pavam as Amor and Veronika Part also as the Queen of Dryards. It does sound tempting.

This Kajiya/Simkin Don Quixote was recorded at ABT's Japan tour several years ago. Simkin is hugely popular here and this was first broadcasted on TV. I haven't bought the DVD but went to the actual performance and also saw the broadcast. It was fairly a good one with Veronika Part as Mercedes and Cory Stearns as Espada although Simkin showed his partnering weakness. (I know now he has improved since then) The filming quality is good I think judging from the broadcast, as it was produced by NHK public broadcaster which is used to film Ballet. I am not sure why it is not available in US but solmeretailers like HMV will ship it to US. Although it is NTSC region 1 format which is not compatible with US players you can still watch on your computer or otherwise with a multi region compatible DVD player. Also there is a documentary DVD on Simkin available only in Japan.

How about the new Swan Lake Ratmansky will be staging in Zurich? I read that will be a reconstruction.

Natalia Osipova has withdrew from her Washington DC Don Quixote performance, the Royal Ballet has announced. Sarah Lamb will replace her. http://www.roh.org.uk/news/cast-change-sarah-lamb-to-dance-in-don-quixote-on-13-june-2015-at-the-kennedy-center-washington it is still hoped that she would be performing in Chicago and NYC, the release says.

She did guest as Juliet at the Royal Ballet in 2013 but not in the next season. http://www.roh.org.uk/people/evgenia-obraztsova

The announcement by Japan Arts (the impresario) mentioned that Kondaurova's withdrawal was due to injury, but not in the case of Shrinkina, it said for the Mariinsky Theatre's reasons (no details about that). So at least she is not injured.

In fact, Nina Ananiasvilli will be guesting in K-Ballet Company (Japan) 's Le Corsaire this month and June, she will be dancing the role of Medora. She guested in that company last year in Swan Lake and she did perfect 32 fouettes as the black swan. So inviting her back at ABT would be a great idea.

I went to St Petersburg late April to see a few performances, Bolshoi's Taming, Mikhailovsky's La Fille Mal Gardee, Mariinsky's Ballet Russes program and Vishneva's 20th anniversary Giselle. All performances were enjoyable, but the one made me smile most was Fille at Mikhailovsky. La Fille Mal Gardee is a new repertoire to the company so of course the dancers are not accustomed to the Ashton style but the performance was so cheerful, loved the chickens, and above all, Anastasia Soboleva and Victor Lebedev were both brilliant, so sunny and delightful, light as air leaps. Soboleva's strong pointe and musicality, Lebedev's virtuosity and beautiful classical technique. Both wonderful and their partnership was amazing, they are so good together and the audience were very enthusiastic. The performance made me cry with such happiness and joy filling the stage. Here is the curtain call video I took. https://youtu.be/JPrXYGhu8GY