Bolshoi's "Romeo & Juliet"

Romeo & Juliet

chor. Yuri Grigorovich  (2010)

Bolshoi Ballet

with Anna Nikulina (Juliet), Aleksandr Volchkov (Romeo), Mikhail Lobukhin (Tybald)

The performance was powerful and emotive, with astonishing moments from a choreographic version that focuses on character and inner meaning. Mikhail Lobukhin was a virtuoso Tybalt, but I was underwhelmed by the two lovers.

simulcast from Moscow, 12 May 2013

last of the season

Willem Alexander

HM Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands abdicated on 30 April 2013, and was succeeded by her son Willem Alexander. The same day he took the solemn oath of office at a session of the States General — regalia were on display. In the Netherlands there is no coronation, and the king never in fact wears the crown.

Assemblée Internationale 2013

 28 April - 4 May 2013

 It's been an amazing week bringing together students and teachers from 18 leading ballet schools in 11 countries to interact in classes, colloquia, and performances. There were two evenings of programmes by the various academies to show something of their interests and special qualities. Some was classic but most was modern, even avant-garde. These evenings were entitled Ballet: Traditionally Timeless.  Then there was an intense programme of mostly student works, blending students from different schools — it was entitled Choreography: Fast Forward. The second part was a remarkable feat, live streaming of Stream, choreographed by Shaun Amyôt and Michael Schumacher. Using state of the art technology with the help of Ryerson University, it simultaneously brought together casts in Toronto and Amsterdam, seamlessly transcending space and time.

Participants:

Canada's National Ballet School, organizing

Royal Winnipeg Ballet School

École supérieure de ballet du Québec

Houston Ballet's Ben Stevenson Academy

Julliard School

San Francisco Ballet School

Escuela Nacional Cubana de Ballet

Australian Ballet School

New Zealand School of Dance

Royal Ballet School

Schule des Hamburg Balletts

John Cranko Schule

Palucca Hochschule für Tanz Dresden

Nationale Balletacademie, Amsterdam

Codarts, Rotterdam

Det Kongelige Teaters Balletskole, Copenhagen

École de Danse de l'Opéra National de Paris

EESA/CPD de l'Institut del Teatre, Barcelona

Édouard Manet (1832-1883)

Manet: Portraying Life

Royal Academy of Arts, London

cinema rebroadcast of exhibition tour, 28 April 2013

remarkable assembly of Manet's portraiture

many experts had trivial comments, but overall coverage of the show was excellent

                                       Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe  (1862)

Lewis Carroll's Alice

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

chor. Christopher Wheeldon  (2011)

Royal Ballet

with Sarah Lamb (Alice), Federico Bonelli (Knave of Hearts), Edward Watson (Lewis Carroll, White Rabbit), Steven McRae (Mad Hatter) 

I enjoyed the cinema broadcast from London of the clever and amusing ballet (co-production with the National Ballet of Canada). The British company did not dance better than ours, but they had artists to admire. The Queen of Hearts (Zenaida Yanowsky) was perfect in the grotesque role. Federico Bonelli was as accomplished as he was handsome. The casting could hardly have been better.

Iron Lady

Margaret Thatcher  (1925-2013)

Rt Hon. Margaret Hilda Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS

Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven

Her ceremonial funeral on 17 April 2013 is a notch below state funeral, a grandiose public occasion with military honours, attended by the Queen, and estimated to cost ₤10 million at a time of national austerity and intensive cost-cutting.

Praise from admirers has been effusive while, on the opposite, pop charts in the UK have seen the resurgence of a ditty from the 1939 musical, The Wizard of Oz:  "Ding Dong! The witch is dead".

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1979-1992, she was the first woman in that post. Relentlessly conservative, she was an admirer of economist Friedrich von Hayek, the opposite in values to John Maynard Keynes. She moved to privatize state enterprises and to remove controls in the financial sector. An enemy of unions, she left the mining industry in shambles. She did what she could to dismantle the welfare state. Famously she withdrew public funding of milk for children in the schools.

When in 1982 Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands, the UK sent a naval task force that in 74 days restored British sovereignty. Argentina lost 649 military personnel in that expedition, Britain 255, along with 3 islanders. The patriotic British public was happy. It remains to be seen what Argentine representative, if any, will attend the funeral this week.*

Since her time the important financial sector of the City has been in serious speculative trouble. High unemployment in the country has become endemic. British industry remains in deep decline. National ties of the United Kingdom have weakened with periodic unrest in Northern Ireland, and with evident separatism and local nationalism in Scotland and Wales. Class divisions in Britain are sharper than ever.

It was Russians who gave Lady Thatcher her most apt soubriquet, long surviving the cold war — iron lady.

* none did

                        

Football as dance

A dance tribute to the art of football

chor. Jo Strømgren  (1997, 2009)

Jo Strømgren Kompani  (Oslo)

Harbourfront, World Stage, Toronto

12 April 2013

I was expecting a team, but there are at most only four dancers on stage (one a boyishly cute girl). The piece has all the gestures and attributes of soccer from the mystique of the ball, opposition,  aggressions, coach, and referee. It is at times quite ingenious as individualities gradually express themselves, with even homoerotic moments. A collective shower à poil is a fitting end to an hour of clever mayhem.

rating: ✶✶✶✶ (of 5)