Ondine

In the touring company days I can quite see that in some theatres, getting a pony on stage would have been a challenge. I've also seen the pigeons misbehave and fly around the auditorium. That was fun. 🤭 And we are getting off the topic... 😏

I couldn't possibly comment... It's on Youtube. June 2021 Also just found the whole of Two Pigeons Lauren Cuthbertson and Vadim Mintigorov but it's not official so can't link. (Also all of Apollo, Matthew Ball Melissa Hamilton Fumi Kaneko Claire Calvert Could vanish quite soon so watch while you can.) This is official so enjoy.

Not so long ago, Marcelino Sambe and Anna Rose O' Sullivan?

It may not be the case that the pony and the pigeons are banned, and that Fille won't be danced because of sensitivities around Alain etc. It's none of it confirmed. Of course, Widow Simone is a parody of a female (in the panto dame tradition) and As A Woman I could be offended. (No!) She / he / they (there's that pronouns issue to contend with) also spanks Lise. Child abuse? Doesn't bear thinking about! My main fear is that it has been decided to retire the ballet for now to 'update' it with new designs. That would be awful.

Only what I found and posted above, though it could be that there is further info elsewhere I haven't found. I am interested to know who will dance the Isadora. Again, not really 'ballet' but it's Ashton!

The performances, which will feature several rare Ashton ballets, will mark the start of a five-year, worldwide program spearheaded by the Frederick Ashton Foundation, duly named “Ashton Celebrated.” Both The Sarasota Ballet and The Royal Ballet will perform Ashton programs during this concurrent Ashton celebration within the Royal Opera House. In addition, the two companies will come together for collaborative performances throughout the week. During The Sarasota Ballet’s June 7 gala evening in the Linbury Theatre, The Sarasota Ballet will peform Ashton’s The Walk to the Paradise Garden. Other works The Sarasota Ballet will perform include Valses Nobles et Sentimentales, Dante Sonata, Sinfonietta, Façade, Varii Capricci and more, to be announced at a later date. That's from April. https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/arts-and-entertainment/2023/04/sarasota-ballet-royal-ballet-london Now Danielle Brown has retired (far too early) I wonder who will be dancing 'her' roles?

Not all the Ashton danced by the Royal Ballet though, but by the Sarasota Ballet at the Linbury? Another early Ashton still performed is of course Les Patineurs, 1937. A great deal that isn't and possibly the best has survived.

I wonder who would rehearse Ashton now Lesley Collier has retired? Even if the Linbury was available, and the choreography revived, it isn't as simple as just learning the steps. (How many can actually do 'the steps' as Ashton would wish now? The subtleties of epaulment, the port de bras?) Ballet is all so ephemeral in many ways. As technique expands, it is also reduced. One of the people who taught me some of the art and craft of ballet danced with Diaghilev and also with the Camargo Society. That generation is gone.

Michael Coleman as Jeremy Fisher. Sublime I admit. 🐸

Sure, I'm very enamoured of 'early' music, and performances on period instruments too! I know people who perform, research, revive. But it's not really mainstream. Dance history. A passion. See my post above. Wonderful recreations. So much that's actually still familiar. However, Ashton is complicated by the rights issue and various other factors, as well as I suspect certain works being lost as they were not recorded. The ROH possibly isn't the place for some of the early works and small scale works apart from 'special occasion' revivals. https://rambert.org.uk/performance-database/works/the-ballet-of-mars-and-venus-from-the-play-jew-suss/ Ashton isn't actually easy to dance with the appropriate style. As time goes on, more of this style will be lost. I've talked of this in other threads. Cash cows are sadly needed to fill those seats at the ROH and keep the entire shebang going. Ashton of course was 'modern' 'contemporary' once. Capriol Suite isn't 'ballet' if people think of ballet as pointe shoes. There are no shoes at all for Dante Sonata. That's also named (as with Symphonic Variations) after the music. A number of people here seem to think McGregor's Untitled, 2023 isn't really a title as it refers to the designer. But why not? Facade, still performed... is the tango ballet? Is Popular Song? (BTW there is a glorious clip on YouTube of Ashton himself dancing that tango with Moira Shearer. He was a gifted comedian.)

We flock to a tiny TINY number of survivals, a great deal of what was performed then is not performed now! We flocked to Ashton's Cinderella last year, a new production, but I do suspect the complex rights issue could be a factor in not performing some. 2023/4 ROH: Ashton’s boundless invention is displayed in two mixed programmes, with The Dream and his virtuosic Rhapsody. One of these programmes also features Les Rendezvous while the other includes Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan, Hamlet and Ophelia, and a guest performance by The Sarasota Ballet of The Walk to the Paradise Garden. The Sarasota Ballet will also demonstrate the genius of Ashton in the Linbury Theatre with a vibrant array of his creative output. The Royal Ballet and The Sarasota Ballet’s Ashton performances during the Season mark the opening of ASHTON WORLDWIDE, the Frederick Ashton Foundation’s five-year international festival conceived to celebrate the work and legacy of Frederick Ashton. Further information on the festival will be announced by the Foundation in due course. MacMillan is being 'revived' for the 23/24 season, let's see how well received the triple is. Kenneth MacMillan’s dramatic flair is celebrated with the romantic tragedy Manon, which this Season celebrates its 50th birthday, and a mixed programme – Requiem, Danses Concertantes and Different Drummer - plus performances and a film premiere by Yorke Dance Project, illustrating the choreographer’s exceptional artistic development across the decades.

Sure. And possibly its time will come again. I don't know how commercially successful much of it is right now and bums on seats has to be a consideration. We don't really have 'chamber ballet' in the UK. You can't hang a ballet in a gallery. Also there could be a certain amount of disappointment and that could diminish reputations. If Ashton could choose what could be revived I wonder what he would decide were keepers?

Free trial on Marquee TV and you can relive your childhood. https://www.marquee.tv/videos/royaloperahouse-beatrixpotter Sir Fred himself was Mrs Tiggywinkle.

New York Theatre Ballet (a tiny company) performs Capriol Suite (since 2005) and more recently added (2017) La Chatte métamorphosée en femme to its rep. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Theatre_Ballet New York Theatre Ballet or NYTB was founded in 1978 by Diana Byer, who became its artistic director. Dedicated to the principles of the Cecchetti-Diaghilev tradition, the company both reprises classic masterworks and produces original ballets. New York Theatre Ballet has performed works by choreographers including Richard Alston, Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Gemma Bond, August Bournonville, Michel Fokine, David Gordon, José Limón, John Taras, and Antony Tudor. The company tours its family and adult programs both nationally and abroad, and has become the most widely seen chamber ballet company in the United States. I think the problem is with a great deal of Ashton is it was choreographed for smaller spaces and would be lost at the ROH. Also choreographed for specific dancers specific galas etc. https://dancetabs.com/2015/06/new-york-theatre-ballet-capriol-suite-two-timing-cats-cradle-such-longing-dark-elegies/ My suspicion is that Royal Ballet revivals, as I said above, could be seen as quaint but rather outdated. A man of his time and I actually think the same with MacMillan.

Yes. My memory is not what it was. 😏 Dowell adapted it for the stage. I don't think Ashton wanted it staged. Wiki: 1992 production The critics did not review the original 1992 production favourably, considering it to be too long, lacking plot and missing Ashton's inspirational touch. Mary Clarke of The Guardian described the ballet as "nauseating" and finishing her review with the opinion that "Sir Fred would have been appalled."[12] Subsequent productions Susan Frater of the Evening Standard praised the Royal Ballet's 2007 revival as "charming" with wonderful sets and costumes. But also criticised it as overly long and for children.[13] Clement Crisp reviewed the 2010 performance for the Financial Times, he considered Potter's characters "nauseating" the score "Victorian vulgar" and the costumes bloated. But he did acknowledge that the audience liked it.[14]

I see no clamour for a revival of Ashton's Tales of Beatrix Potter. So popular in its day it was made into a film. I suspect the dancers are relieved, those masks must have been hell.

A great deal of Ashton is no longer performed and it's possible that if these were revived we'd think they were quaint, of their time, and there was a reason for them dropping from the rep. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ballets_choreographed_by_Frederick_Ashton

Progress though. Nothing remains static and certainly not ballet. Below are links to videos with performances of dances based on my research. These include reconstructions of extant dances in notation, or newly created choreography based on a variety of primary sources, performed by Mojca Gal with male technique. (Before c1730, women dancers, even on stage, were expected to be more modest in their movements.) Eighteenth-century ballet consisted of four distinct conventional styles: the serious, the half-serious, comic, and grotesque. These differed not merely in kinds of roles but also in movements and positions as well as choreographic principles. (For a discussion of these styles, see my The Styles of Eighteenth-Century Ballet.) The dances in the videos below are in the serious, half-serious style and comic styles. https://eighteenthcenturyballet.com/videos_eighteenth-century_dance/

An update: Here is a recent interview with Julie Joyner, RB Prix de Lausanne apprentice / trainee for 2023-4. She's won numerous awards so it will be interesting to watch her progress. "I had the privilege of teaching Miss Julie during the many years she was with Dance Arts Centre in Suwanee, Georgia. She has spent the past several years under the leadership, guidance and teaching from THE INTERNATIONAL CITY SCHOOL OF BALLET, Marietta, GA. This summer she will be moving to London England where she has accepted an apprenticeship with the Royal Ballet company in London, England, for the 2023/24 season. We will be talking about her dance journey and what it took to reach one of her goals of being accepted to her favorite ballet company. ~ Enjoy!" https://www.youtube.com/@ReneePauley4Ballet

Many years before Peregrine (and when BRB wasn't even a twinkle in anyone's eye) the old & greatly missed 'touring company' toured Fille with a filly who had recently had a foal. Pony and tiny foal were both on stage. No-one but NO-ONE gave a thought to the dancers. The entire audience went AAAAAH as one.

Joseph Toonga has worked with the RBS students for a piece for the 2022 show. He may have done more. Whatever your views on the merits or not of his choreography, I'm sure for the students involved it's useful experience and good to have on a CV that they have been part of the creative process leading to a finished contemporary piece for performance. Given how few of the RBS students end up in the company, versatility is key to employment surely? He appeared to have some rapport with these young people. He also choreographed this: Rehearsal of New Toonga: See Us!! Music Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante Joseph Toonga, Choreographer Ashley Dean, Soloist of The Royal Ballet Joseph Sissens, First Soloist of The Royal Ballet Ignore the 'Diamonds' it isn't.

Try here? Working for me on YT. Oooh. A nice treat! Thanks

'Fraid so, unless a member, aren't exhibitions bloomin' expensive now? Looks good though thanks @li tai poand hopefully not so crowded you can't see the artworks! https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/after-impressionism-inventing-modern-art

Blake Smith has a really lovely FB page which has photos of his 'journey' from a tiny up until now! I suspect a proud relative helps out. He was a JA and has done so well to make it all the way through given the competition there is now: https://www.facebook.com/people/Blake-Smith/100051575174022/ Endearing photo & piece in a local newspaper, from when he was 10: https://gloucesternewscentre.co.uk/off-to-the-royal-ballet-school-for-local-gloucester-boy/ But for beauty in movement, look no further than the excerpts from Christopher Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour, one of his best abstract works that sees the dancers moving to music by Antonio Vivaldi and Ezio Bosso. Guillem Cabrera Espinach and Tom Hazelby were excellent in their visceral duet, while Sierra Glasheen and Blake Smith were all sensuality in their much more subtle, beautifully understated pas de deux. https://www.seeingdance.com/royal-ballet-school-230622/

Oh gorgeous! Wonderful & clever choice for Northern Ballet! (Official video exceprt)