releasing some frustration…

with ballet 🙂

I’ve finished listening to ‘Clarissa’ this morning and i am so frustrated i could explode. I’ll let it stew and churn for a bit and once i’ve had a chance to collect the scattered thoughts i’ll let you know what i thought of it. Until then, here is something vastly more satisfying, believe me, you’ll enjoy it! It’s an extract, the version i saw live in the show was slightly longer but this is most of it.

Steve McRae and Ed Watson, as you surely know by now are my favourite principals in the Royal Ballet 🙂  I am in fact going to ballet again tonight, for a repeat of the evening i had a week ago. I loved it so much i HAVE to see it again! So while i am away i want to leave you in good company  🙂 It’s quite likely i have shared this with you before, sorry if this is the case.

Principal of The Royal Ballet Steven McRae performs his tap solo Czárdás with violinist Vasko Vassilev as part of World Ballet Day 2015

Aren’t they fantastic?

In case this is a repeat there is a slightly longer rehearsal of another modern piece i love.

Royal Ballet Artist in Residence Liam Scarlett rehearses his new ballet The Age of Anxiety with dancers Laura Morera, Steven McRae, Bennet Gartside and Tristan Dyer. This piece was just… ‘scrumptious’.. it was fun and sad and melancholic and thoughtful

http://www.roh.org.uk/productions/the-age-of-anxiety-by-liam-scarlett

I’ll talk again about Liam Scarlett, the choreographer, in a few months’ time when we’ll see his new full length ballet, Frankenstein, about which we are all very excited here. Until then the rehearsal for Age of Anxiety. Liam Scarlett sets Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony no.2, ‘The Age of Anxiety’, inspired by W.H. Auden’s epic poem. In a New York bar in wartime four lonely strangers attempt to find spiritual meaning in an industrialized world.

The weekend is here, relax, everyone!

 

 

Leading man weekend on Drama TV

Giggles! Ok, i couldn’t resists it 🙂 I swear it’s not my line, that’s what the advert i just watched said quite literally.

My dear friend who introduced me to a certain actor just emailed me this:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/dramachannel/11-reasons-why-you-definitely-need-john-thornton-i-19vbh

This is how he says Hello. According to the article above: ‘That word you’re looking for is “omphhh”.’ No comment!

And i just saw the last minutes of North and South on Drama TV, ggrrr, missed the thing almost entirely! However upon a hasty search through the schedule i struck gold:

http://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/north-and-south/watch-online/

I’m sorry, this is UK only, but maybe you can see it online as it is available to watch for 30 days it seems.

And if you have the whole day free, you can also watch Pride and Prejudice again in its entirety as it is just starting: http://drama.uktv.co.uk/tv-guide/

Have a lovely Sunday!

Love Virtually with David Tennant

Not what you might be thinking 😉 I’m actually going to suggest another radio adaptation which the BBC are thankfully replaying today and tomorrow on Radio4extra. This is one of David’s many appearances on radio and it is a different take on Valentine’s day listening:

Today at 2.14pm UK time, tomorrow at 2.15am! UK time. It should be available on BBCiPlayer radio after that for 30 days to listen to:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0499n6h

Daniel Glattauer – Love Virtually

Starring David Tennant and Emilia Fox, Love Virtually by Austrian novelist Daniel Glattauer is a thoroughly modern epistolary novel with one difference – its protagonists Emmi Rothner and Leo Leike communicate exclusively by email.

The European answer to You’ve got Mail.

Two million copies sold in Germany to date. And bought by thirty-five publishers around the world, Love Virtually by Austrian novelist Daniel Glattauer, is well on the way to becoming a global publishing phenomenon.

They “meet” when Emmi mistakenly sends an e-mail to Leo’s inbox. A romance ensues that allows them to live out a shared secret life far removed from their day-to-day existences. But to what extent does it rely on fantasy and escapism, and will it survive a real-life meeting?

The problem is…Emmi (a modern Madame Bovary) is married….

Have email, Facebook, texting and the like created a generation of isolated young people who prefer to communicate remotely – who may be in fact afraid to engage in face to face contact to find love? Is it possible to fall in love with someone you’ve never met? Does a virtual affair ‘count’ as adultery? What are the implications of the fact that we can pretend to be anyone in cyberspace?

Adapted by Eileen Horne.

Ballet – Christopher Wheeldon celebration

Edit: I have to share with you some pictures of last night 🙂

Click on DanceTab’s flickr for more

I had to pick a few from their beautiful collection, click for bigger images and have a look at the gallery above as well for more:

The finale of the pas de deux in the video you have below from After the Rain/Wheeldon. The incredible Marianela Nunez and Thiago Soares (photo by DanceTabs)

The new ballet, Strapless was fabulously decadent, beautiful costumes and shallow people depicting a world of self-indulgence and conceit 🙂

Natalia Osipova in Strapless as Virginie Amélie Gautreau, first celebrity adored by society and then shunned because she dared appear in a painting … strapless (one strap fallen off).

 She was beautifully frivolous and ultimately so vulnerable, great portrayal.I have to share with you the scene which was part of the painting process: the painter John Singer Sargent, searching for inspiration, imagines the presence of his lover and muse, Albert de Belleroche:

Matthew Ball as Albert on the left and the intense painter, Ed Watson on the right 🙂 Photo by DanceTabs

 If you click through the gallery in the link above the last photo is of Sarah Lamb and Steve McRae frolicking sprightly in the woods. Within the Golden Hour, the last of the 3 ballets last night had a deep sense of connection with nature which was a great ending.

…………………………………………………

It has been a full on week, but it ends beautifully with a night at the ballet. A celebration marked by 3 pieces of one of my favourite contemporary choreographers, Christoper Wheeldon. The music of the pieces is perfect and all my favourite dancers of the Royal Ballet will be on stage tonight. I feel incredibly lucky and am very much looking forward to this! So i wanted to share with you a few videos of the ballets i will see tonight, via news article from the ROH which talks about the works, enjoy!

After the Rain / Strapless /Within the Golden Hour

Our quick introduction to The Royal Ballet’s mixed programme celebrating choreographer Christopher Wheeldon.

Lauren Cuthbertson and Christopher Wheeldon in rehearsal for Strapless, The Royal Ballet © 2016 ROH. Photograph by Bill Cooper

A Celebration

Christopher Wheeldon, Artistic Associate of The Royal Ballet, is a familiar figure to Covent Garden audiences – but this is the first time the Company has presented an all-Wheeldon mixed programme. It offers an opportunity to see just how widely his choreographic talent ranges. Two acclaimed abstract ballets, created for American companies, bookend a new narrative commission from The Royal Ballet, bringing together different sides of Wheeldon’s career.

Music and Dance

For the three ballets in this programme Wheeldon has used the music of three very different contemporary composers. The beautiful simplicity of Arvo Pärt comes first, a haunting setting for Wheeldon’s After the Rain. Italian minimalist composer Ezio Bossoprovides the score for Within the Golden Hour, incorporating music by Vivaldi. And in-between comes a dynamic new score from Mark-Anthony Turnage, specially written forStrapless. Turnage has previously collaborated with Wheeldon on ‘Trespass’ (Metamorphosis: Titian 2012), co-choreographed with Alastair Marriott.

After the Rain

Wheeldon created After the Rain in 2005 for New York City Ballet. This abstract ballet for three couples has become most widely known for its deeply affecting pas de deux, set to Pärt’s profoundly moving Spiegel im Spiegel. The pas de deux has often been performed on its own, including by The Royal Ballet in a 2012 gala performance, and was famously captured on film with NYCB principals Maria Kowroski and Ask la Courdancing at dawn on the roof of a skyscraper on the World Trade Center site. This is the first time the work has come to the Royal Opera House in its entirety.

Strapless

For this new narrative ballet Wheeldon has drawn inspiration from an arresting portrait byJohn Singer Sargent – one that, in its time, was the source of much controversy. Sargent’s 1884 portrait of Amélie Gautreau – titled Madame X – was intended to strengthen her position as one of Paris’s most celebrated society beauties. But, thanks in large part to the painted detail of a strap slipping scandalously from her shoulder, the work tarnished Amélie’s reputation forever. Inspired by Deborah Davis’s book Strapless, Wheeldon takes us inside the glamorous beau monde of Amélie and Sargent, and explores the ever fickle nature of celebrity.

Within the Golden Hour

Within the Golden Hour was created in 2008 for San Francisco Ballet, to mark the company’s 75th anniversary. Wheeldon choreographed the work for 14 dancers, and includes much of his characteristically inventive handling of ensembles. Three centralpas de deux lead to a finale in which the whole cast comes together in a single, shimmering formation.

After the Rain / Strapless / Within the Golden Hour runs 12 February–11 March 2016.

Original article by PAUL KILBEY Ccontent producer- ballet Royal Opera House

#richievalentineswap

Edit – click on the images to enlarge, i’ve figured out how to do it!

Some days turn out just perfect! I got home about an hour ago and a delicious present awaited at my doorstep 🙂

The lovely crafty plushie-princess Nancy (@_sinnamin) has made me the most adorable Valentine present! And i can’t even tell you how exciting it is to get post from across the globe, from beautiful places you have never been to. Here’s a bit of un-wrapping action summarised:

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Stopping to snap was difficult as you can imagine! It’s impossible not to want to touch the treasure 🙂

It contained some lovely pencils,  beautiful cards… i can stare into Thorin’s eyes for hours! … and 2! soft, pink, sparkly garlands.

The garlands enclose in their hearts some of the best loved incarnations of Richie: we have John Thornton, including his lovely hand tied cravat, short-haired Francis and his glittery eyes (i didn’t dare pinch his cheeks!), forever-my-weakness-Guy (with his wild hair and irresistible eyes) and sweet Proctor 🙂

And.. wait for a it… a handwritten message from Richie himself, penned on a card with his very own image on it and with an additional soft heart to keep close to you!

Nancy really has the softest heart and the most wonderful crafty fingers! There are delicate sparkles in the garlands and i love all my Richies dearly!!!

I hope she will like my quick set up 🙂 Pop Thorin is feeling a bit smothered in pink love but i think he likes the company. I better watch out for what these boys will be up to at night!

Here’s my little fantasy corner of mantelpiece which now is even more loved than before 🙂

I may move my squishy beautiful richie hearts around though because i want to look at them more 😉 but for now thank you so so so much to Nancy and all the other crafting fairies who had the wonderful idea of the #richievalentineswap!

Thanks for my amazing present Nancy! it really does #spreadthelove and will remind me of all the lovely people i’ve come to know through #richie 🙂 and their big hearts and amazing talents!

PS. Nancy, i am so coming after that eyeliner Guy! 😀 His lovely head is just the beginning .. hihihihi