News: Romeo and Juliet rehearsal to be live-streamed on 11 September 2015

If you didn't manage to get tickets to this Royal Ballet's Insight event you can watch it live on YouTube. More information available here.

Tickets for these events always sell out so quickly, so I think it's really great the ROH is trying to make these events more accessible!

Ballet Dressed Up and the Deloitte Ignite Festival 2015

Every year, the Royal Opera House kicks of the new season by throwing open its doors to the public for a month of (mostly) free events and activities for the whole family – known as the Deloitte Ignite festival.  I attended the festival on Sunday, September 6^th.  There was plenty to see and do, from performances in the Covent Garden piazza (including one man with a piano mounted on a four-wheeled bicycling negotiating the cobble stones of Covent Garden market while playing perfectly syncopated rag time – it was amazing!), to festival food, to an opera karaoke booth.

But my favourite event was undoubtedly “Ballet dressed-up”. At this event in the Paul Hamlyn Hall David Donnelly and Hannah Grennell, to amazing artists from the Royal Ballet, performed a short piece choreographed by Hubert Essakow, inspired by the story of Romeo and Juliette.
 

David Donnelly and Hannah Grennell
of the Royal Ballet

They first performed the piece wearing simple, dark coloured training gear. They then performed the piece again several times, each time wearing a different costume. The costumes ranged from the period costumes worn in MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliette, to contemporary jeans cut-offs matched with heavy boots, to sheep costumes. Each time the audience was asked to describe how the performance was perceived by them, and each time the dancers described how the costume impacted the way the danced. It was very interesting! 



David Donnelly and Hannah Grennell
of the Royal Ballet

One of my favourite iterations was the performance in which the two dancers were connected by a pair of extended double-ended tights, with one end worn over each their heads. Every time they moved apart, they were drawn back together by the elastic material of the tights.  One audience member observed that this could represent the struggle Romeo and Juliette had to go through to be together. Another audience member, aged roughly eight, observed that it involved a lot of team work. :)

I was also really enjoyed the performance in which the dancers wore Eastern inspired costumes that involved long pieces of fabric tied around their wastes. The dancers were forced to swirl the fabric around in order to not to become entangled in it, creating beautiful shapes in the process. I was also very impressed by Hanna’s slightly deranged performance wearing a blood stained shirt (fake blood, we were reassured) and one red high heel - she using the other to stab herself with.

David Donnelly and Hannah Grennell
of the Royal Ballet

The finale involved a pair of costumes that had masses of balloons attached to them. Even the dancers could hide a giggle as David tried to turn Hanna under his arm while trying to manoeuvre around the balloons.

All in all it was a very interesting and entertaining event. The Deloitte Ignite festival will continue until the end of the month, and I highly recommend trying to catch on of the events. More details can be found here.

The Royal Ballet's 2015/16 Season

The Royal Ballet recently announced details of the 2015/16 season and I am very excited! This is what I am most looking forward to:

- Raven Girl will be returning to the stage in October. This was one of the first performances I saw at the Royal Opera House and ultimately what got me excited about the Royal Ballet. It was the first time I saw Sarah Lamb perform (the role of Raven Girl was created for her), and I have been her fan ever since. It is also the my favorite Wayne McGregor ballet and the final pas-de-deux between Sarah Lamb and Eric Underwood remains the most beautiful thing I've ever seen on stage. You can watch the rehearsing the scene here. 

- Elizabeth - a ballet about the life of Elizabeth I. This ballet was created by Will Tuckett for the Royal Ballet in 2013 and was performed at the Royal Navel College in Greenwich. It will be coming to the Linbury Studio in January. I don't know much about it, but it sounds interesting.

- A Christopher Wheeldon triple bill, including a new work, in February AND his Winter's Tale returning to the main stage in April. 

- Liam Scarlett's new ballet, Frankenstein, coming to the main stage in May. Scarlett has an incredible talent for story-telling through choreography and seems to have a thing for dark themes. I love his Hansel and Gretel.

- Orphee et Eurydice - not ballet but opera for a change. The reason I am excited about this one is because of choreographer Hofesh Shechter's involvement as co-director. His recent collaboration with the Royal Ballet was incredible, and I am excited to learn that he will be collaborating with the Royal Opera House again.

Further details of the Royal Ballet's 2015/16 season can be found here.

Sergei Polunin

In June 2010, at the age of only 19, Sergei Polunin became the Royal Ballet's youngest ever principal dancer. Two year later, he shocked the ballet world by resigning the Royal Ballet with immediate effect. Here are a few of the things he's gotten up to since:

Insights: The Royal Ballet in Class

Today I got to watch members of the Royal Ballet in class! This open class was part of the Royal Opera House's Insights series, and there will be similar events occurring throughout the year. I think it's really wonderful how actively the Royal Opera House pursues audience outreach. 

I went to the class expecting mostly members of the corps the ballet to be there and was completely blown away to see Sarah Lamb, Steven McRae, Thiago Soares, Federico Bonelli, Akane, Takada, Eric Underwood, Yuhui Choe, Ryoichi Hirano and Claire Calvert all there, sitting under the barres warming up! They were dressed in layers of tights, leggings, leg warmers and jumpers, surrounded by yoga mats, leg rollers and thera-bands, stretching and chatting amongst each other. It was so great to see how the dancers socialise with each other. The atmosphere felt pleasant.

It was really interesting seeing how ballet dancers start their day. The class was structured like a typical ballet class, starting at the barre and progressing to the centre. The dancers shed layers of clothing as the class progressed (it got pretty warm in the studio even for the audience), and the girls started in flat and changed into point shoes for the centre. All the key exercises were covered from plies and tendus, to pirouettes and jumps. The class was given by Olga Everinoff, who demonstrated the exercises and walked around the room giving corrections in a clear but kind manner. It was obvious from the way the dancers acknowledged her when they left the class that she is well liked.

We were told that after class, which lasts 75 minutes, the dancers go on to rehearsals. Class starts at 10.30 and rehearsals go on to 17.30 on performance nights or 18.30 when there is no performance. They do this six days a week. It's absolutely incredible. 

World Ballet Day

Happy World Ballet Day! The Royal Ballet, The Australian Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada and San Francisco Ballet are streaming live to YouTube from their rehearsal studios for 24 hours! You can watch the live stream here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsLCbeXaztg

My Royal Ballet 2013/14 Season in Review

This season was the first time I managed to catch, in some form or another, every production of the Royal Ballet on the main stage, as well as a handful in the Linbury Studio Theatre. The discovery that it is actually possible to get reasonably priced tickets, as well as Live Cinema screenings and Sky Arts 2 made it possible. I loved every moment, and it's pretty hard to pick my favorites. Nevertheless, looking back over the year, there are certainly some productions that stand out in my memory.

My favorite full length production was without a doubt Christopher Wheeldon's The Winter's Tale. In fact, this season was the season I really discovered Christopher Wheeldon for myself. He has an incredible ability to make ballets that feel contemporary without distorting the art form beyond recognition. 

I also really enjoyed Giselle and was lucky enough to catch two performances, one in house with Sarah Lamb and Steven McRae, the other at the cinema with Natalia Osipova and Carlos Acosta. Seeing the same production twice with different casts was a really insightful experience for me. But my favourite casting throughout the whole season has consistently been Sarah Lamb with Steven McRae. 

Sarah Lamb in Jewels© ROH

Over Christmas I saw both the Nutcracker and Jewels. I love the tradition of going to the ballet for Christmas, and both of these productions put me in a real Christmas spirit. (I'm quite sad the Royal Ballet won't be doing the Nutcracker next season!) 

Triple Bills are always my favorite because one gets to see a variety of works. This season the Royal Ballet did four incredible triple bills. My top picks were 

Melissa Hamilton and Gary Avis
in DGV © ROH

- the Rite of Spring, which 100 years on from it's world premier still feels ahead of its time;

- Steven McRae in Rhapsody - I will never forget those incredible jumps that made the entire audience gasp;

- Gloria, with the beautiful Melissa Hamilton;

- Serenade, which I'd actually seen performed by the Boston Ballet when they visited London last year, but loved even more this time;

- and Christopher Wheeldon's DGV - LOVED IT!!! 

The biggest disappointment was probably Wayne McGregor's Tetractys. I loved everything he did up until then, especially Infra, Chroma and Raven Girl. But Tetractys felt a bit bland. Still, I was glad I got to see it after some shows had to be cancelled due to Natalia Osipova sustaining a concussion during a performance! 

I always love going to the Linbury Studio because the productions tend to be more experimental. Liam Scarlett's Hansel and Gretel was definitely the most disturbing thing I saw at the Royal Ballet this season. Liam Scarlett has a really talent for telling dramatic stories through choreography. I am really looking forward to his new ballet, The Age of Anxiety, next season!

Northern Ballet dancers in Luminous Juncture
Emma Kauldhar

Other Linbury highlights included the Northern Ballet, especially Kenneth Tindall's Luminous Juncture, and Mayuri Boonham's The Human Edge, which she choreographed for Yuhui Choe and Kentra Kura. I also loved Draft Works, which I intend to make a regular fixture in my calendar!

Finally, an absolute highlight was getting to meet Edward Watson at a signing of his new DVD The Metamorphosis.

A Place to Dance - Royal Ballet School Documentary

A Place to Dance is a 1991 documentary about the Royal Ballet School. Watch closely and you will catch a glimpse of Edward Watson!

Watch the documentary: