Ian Macmillan

I hadn't planned to stay up for this documentary but was quickly ensnared by the truly remarkable story being told. What Alma has produced thus far almost beggars belief and that seemed to be how everyone involved reacted to hearing her work. However, Simon Rattle did note that the road may get harder for her. What we heard was very late-18th century in conception and, for an 11-year old, was quite extraordinary in its breadth. How she can orchestrate as she has without teaching is beyond me, but we must hope that she will develop in the years ahead. My fear would be that the critics will expect to hear something of the 20/21st centuries in her work by age 21, and that they will demand it by 31. But Mozart developed over the years and let's hope that Alma does likewise. PS: How's her younger sister going to fare? She already looks like another remarkable musician in the making.

Links – Monday 4 September, 2017 Feature – Hong Kong needs to attract the best, in ballet as elsewhere: Tammy Tam, SCMP Review – Garry Stewart/Australian Dance Theatre, Be Your Self Redux, Sydney: Jill Sykes, The Age Diary – This week around Los Angeles: Matt Cooper, LA Times Review – Singapore Dance Theatre, Sticks and Stones, Age of Innocence, Organ Concerto, Singapore: Tan Li Min, Straits Times Review – New Zealand Dance Company, The Absurdity of Humanity Double Bill, New Plymouth: Holly Shanahan, Theatreview

Links – Sunday 3 September, 2017 Preview – Jerusalem Ballet Gala: Ori J. Lenkinski, Jerusalem Post Feature – Royal Ballet of Cambodia: Kate Whitehead, SCMP Magazine Review – Australian Dance Party/Alison Plevey: Dempsey’s People … Canberra: Michelle Potter, ... on dancing

Links – Saturday 2 September, 2017 Obituaries: - Janine Charrat, Dancer & Choreographer: Roslyn Sulcas, NY Times - Tamara Tchinarova, Dancer & Writer: Valerie Lawson, dancelines Review – Hong Kong Ballet, Don Quixote (Ananiashvili), Hong Kong: Kevin Ng, Asia Times Preview – Monica Bill Barnes & Company, One Night Only (Running as long as we can), New York: Gia Kourlas, NY Times Preview – Alexandra Pirici, Threshold, New York: Siobhan Burke, NY TImes Next Week – Around London: Judith Mackrell, Guardian Review – Tanja Faylene Woloshen & Lise McMillan, Holy Wild, Winnipeg: Holly Harris, Dance Current

Links – Friday 1 September, 2017 Preview – Scottish Ballet’s Young Dancers, The Fairy’s Kiss, Touring: Kelly Apter, The List Interview – Mikko Nissinen, AD of Boston Ballet: Michael Levin, HuffPost Preview – Northern Ballet, Gloria, Las Hermanas, Concerto, Bradford: Emma Clayton, Telegraph & Argus Preview – Rocío Molina, Caída del Cielo, London: Lyndsey Winship, Economist 1843 Feature – Angela Rippon joins the RAD’s Silver Swans: India Sturgis, Telegraph Preview – Jack Riley & Alexander Hunter, Fuse, Canberra: Ron Cerabona, The Age Review – Beach Sessions/Madeline Hollander, Arena, Coney Island: Apollinaire Scherr, Financial Times Diaries: - New York This Week: Brian Schaefer, NY Times - Portland, OR: Jamuna Chiarini, Oregon Artswatch Review – Jonah Bokaer, The Disappearance Portraits, New York: Deborah Jowitt, Arts Journal/DanceBeat Preview – Yanira Castro, CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR, New York: Martha Sherman, dancelog.nyc Review – Alison Chase/Performance, no plan b, Portland, ME: David Greenham, Arts Fuse Review – Waangenga Blanco & Khalif Diuof, Via Alice, Sydney: Jill Sykes, Sydney Morning Herald Film – Polina: Michael O’Sullivan, Washington Post Owen Gleiberman, Variety US Sheri Linden, LA Times

Links – Thursday 31 August, 2017 News – Houston Theatres after Hurricane Harvey: Molly Glentzer/Wei-Huan Chen, Houston Chronicle - Houston Ballet Statement: BWW Review – Michael Keegan-Dolan, Swan Lake/Loch na hEala, Sydney: Jill Sykes, Sydney Morning Herald Review – Royal New Zealand Ballet, Romeo and Juliet (Ventriglia), Auckland: Brigitte Knight, Theatreview Essay – Melanie Lane’s Nightdance: Gracia Haby, Fjord Review Preview – Rambert, A Linha Curva, Symbiosis, Goat, Edinburgh: Kelly Apter, The LIst Preview – Daksha Sheth Dance Company, Sari, Edinburgh: Kelly Apter, The List Speaking in Dance – Daniil Simkin, Falls the Shadow: NY Times Fall Season Diaries: - Bay Area: Leslie Katz, SF Examiner - Baltimore: Mary Carole McCauley, Baltimore Sun

Now it may be that things are different for soloists/principals, BUT .... the Corps has to go on. In RB Touring Company days, eight shows a week was pretty much the norm. My wife will tell you of Saturday afternoons when, having done Act II of Swans and the various national dances with all the costume changes involved, they got to the end of Act IV and are bouréeing like mad, forcing feet through a pain threshold ....... all the while knowing that they'll be doing it again that night. As they used to say in the Services, "Get some time in!"

Does anyone have any idea which setting of the Stabat Mater is used for this? The Company website has nothing that I could find on the piece yet and, whilst I could perhaps envision use of Poulenc, I would not think Palestrina's double choir setting as ideal, for example. The small performing space in that chapel suggests a small-scale setting - and there's not a choir or a speaker in sight.

ENB is clearly out to promote that Song of the Earth/La Sylphide bill: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/news-in-pictures-6wp3k9fnk?shareToken=703e5465611fa6c8d93621cabe30d4cb

A scroll through should reveal a few items of interest in some of today's News pics: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/news-in-pictures-7zjm59v2b?shareToken=86b60bb74600af668106825ab13b1e85

Links – Sunday 20 August, 2017 Review – Mariinsky Ballet, La Bayadère, London: David Dougill, Sunday Times Review – Trisha Brown Dance Company, Opal Loop, Groove and Countermove, L’Amour au Theatre, Jacob’s Pillow: Ken Ross, Mass Live Review – Trisha Brown Dance Company, As above, plus In Plain Site, Williamstown: Deborah Jowitt, Arts Journal/DanceBeat Review – Dance Editorial, Love is Love, Sydney: Jill Sykes, The Age Review – Shaun Parker & Lucia Mastrantone, Blue Love, Canberra: Michelle Potter, ... on dancing Edinburgh International Festival & Fringe: Preview – Ann Teresa de Keersmaeker/Rosas, Rain: Kelly Apter, Scotsman on Sunday Review – Alfonso Baron & Luciano Rosso, Un Poyo Rojo: Kelly Apter, Scotsman Review – Arab Arts Focus: Dance Double Bill: Kelly Apter, Scotsman

Links – Saturday 19 August, 2017 Review – Royal New Zealand Ballet, Romeo and Juliet (Ventriglia), Wellington: Deborah Jones, FollowSpot Preview – Michael Keegan-Dolan/Teac Damsa, Swan Lake/Loch na hEala, Sydney: Elissa Blake, Sydney Morning Herald Review – Mophato Dance Theatre, Pula (Rain), New York: Apollinaire Scherr, Financial Times Feature – Will Adams and BuildaBEAST, Pomona, CA: Siobhan Burke, NY Times Preview – Maira Kalman/John Heginbotham, The Principles of Uncertainty, Jacob’s Pillow: Jack Anderson, NY Times Preview – Royal Ballet of Cambodia, Les Etoiles du Ballet, Hong Kong: Kate Whitehead, SCMP Feature – The Royal Ballet’s Emma Maguire & the next Leeds Gala: Margarette Driscoll, Mail Online Diaries: - Edinburgh & London: Judith Mackrell, Guardian - Portland Area: Jamuna Chiarini, Oregon Artswatch Feature –Tracks, Darwin’s Dance Company: Ben Neutze, Daily Review Edinburgh International Festival & Fringe: Review – Seeta Patel & Others, Sigma: Chloe St George, Reviews Hub Review – Boy Blue Entertainment, Blak Whyte Gray: Kelly Apter, Scotsman

Links – Friday 18 August, 2017 Reviews – Royal New Zealand Ballet, Romeo and Juliet (Ventriglia), Wellington: Deirdre Tarrant, Theatreview John Daly-Peoples, National Business Review Review – Amy Seiwert/Imagery, Wandering, New York: Leigh Witchel, dancelog.nyc Feature – “Nureyev” and Russian Culture Wars: The Economist Feature – Australian Ballet: Amber Scott prepares for Wheeldon’s Alice: Catherine Lambert, Herald Sun News – Ballet Nacional de Cuba coming to Tampa: Carrie Seidman, Sarasota Herald-Tribune Review – Julie Cunningham and dancers, Brutal, Your Ten Thousand Eyes, London: Debra Craine, The Times Preview – Ragnar Kjartansson/Iceland Dance Company, No Tomorrow, London: Ben Luke, Evening Standard Diary – New York This Week: Siobhan Burke, NY Times Review – Dropshift Dance, The Remains, Chicago: Lauren Warnecke, Chicago Tribune Speaking in Dance – The Body, a Percussive Instrument: Gia Kourlas, NY Times Edinburgh International Festival & Fringe: Preview – Scottish Dance Theatre, TuTu Mucky: John Preece, Edinburgh Reporter Review – Alfonso Baron& Luciano Rosso, Un Poyo Rojo: Domald Hutera, The List Review – Protein Dance, Border Tales: Kelly Apter, Scotsman Review – Boy Blue Entertainment, Blak Whyte Gray: Lucy Ribchester, The List Review – Oona Doherty, Hope Hunt and the Ascension into Lazarus: Donald Hutera, The Times And if you have 7 minutes to spare, there’s this: Seattle Times

Links – Thursday 17 August, 2017 Reviews – Royal New Zealand Ballet, Romeo and Juliet (Ventriglia), Wellington: Jack Yan, Lucire Ann Hunt, Dominion Post - Long Radio Feature - Deirdre Tarrant, Radio NZ Review – Mariinsky Ballet, La Bayadère, Contrasts, London: Louise Levene, Spectator Reviews – Erasing Borders Festival of Indian Dance, New York: Alastair Macaulay, NY Times Apollinaire Scherr, Financial Times Q&A – Erna Ómarsdóttir, Iceland Dance Company Director: Bruce Marriott, DanceTabs Diary – Around New York: Martha Sherman, dancelog.nyc Feature – Classical Indian dance connecting with a US-born generation: Carrie Seidman, Sarasota Herald-Tribune Preview – Alyssandra Katherine Dance Project, Brace Forward, San Francisco: Brandon Yu, SF Chronicle Edinburgh International Festival & Fringe: Feature – What it’s like to be part of Nederlands Dans Theater: Kelly Apter, The List Review – Maria Pagés, Yo, Carmen: Kirsty Morgan, Bachtrack Review – Taiwan Season, 5 Shows: Kelly Apter, Scotsman Review – Rachael Young & Dwayne Antony, Out: Anna Winter, The Stage Review – Vanessa Cook Dance, Creature: Kelly Apter, Scotsman Review – 201 Dance Company, Skin: Donald Hutera, The Times Kelly Apter, Scotsman Review – Blue Boy Entertainment, Blak, Whyte, Gray: Mary Brennan, Herald

Links – Wednesday 16 August, 2017 Review – Mariinsky Ballet, La Bayadère, London: Rachel Elderkin, The Stage Gemma Bond & American Ballet Theatre Dancers: - Review: Then and Again, The Giving, Impressions, New York: Leigh Witchel, dancelog.nyc - Preview: eight/twenty-one/seventeen, Sun Valley: Gia Kourlas, NY Times --- Includes an interview with Isabella Boylston Feature – Chicago’s Dance for Life seeks new directions: Lauren Warnecke, Chicago Tribune Review – Wayne McGregor & Random International, +/- Human, London: Staff, Londondance News – Boston Ballet’s 2017-18 Personnel: Jeffrey Gantz, Boston Globe Preview – Dance: Made in Canada, Ottawa: Michael Crabb, The Star News – Misty Copeland to guest as Aurora with Australian Ballet: Staff, Dance Australia Review – Victoria State Ballet, Cinderella, Melbourne: Susan Bendall, Dance Australia Review – DanceBourne, Godai Mixed Bill, Melbourne: Susan Bendall, Dance Australia Edinburgh International Festival & Fringe: Review – Aracaladanza, Vuelos: Kelly Apter, Scotsman Preview – Boy Blue Entertainment, Blak Whyte Gray: Kelly Apter, Scotsman Review – Velocity, Rising: Kelly Apter, Scotsman Review – Sun Son Theatre, Heart of Darkness: Lucy Ribchester, The List Review – Joan Cleville & Others, The North: Anna Winter, The Stage

Day 3, and 123 is still there, I fear. Another Invision-hosted site that I frequent is not thus affected, by the way. Ho hum.

No change here on the 123 business, so that's 48 hours more or less now and it's increasingly clear that the problem lies upstream of us users. I was unaware of 'ISP caching' until Lizbie's post, above, and have had a quick Google on the topic. I don't pretend to any depth of IT infrastructure knowledge, but some of what I've seen suggests that such caching is generally short-term, measured in hours rather than days, and if that's what's going on here then the limits are being severely pushed.

John: Before seeing your last, I cleared everything from my Chrome browser ... and still that 123 page returns using our basic URL. I seem to be stuck with it.

Other than now seeing that I'm not alone, I can see no change this morning. Firefox and Safari are fine with the Home page and beyond but on Chrome, my working browser, I can't get beyond that 123 page unless I use www.balletcoforum.com with an extension. Trying to reset my Forum Bookmark on Chrome is proving hopeless thus far - putting the basic URL into the search line always resolves to the 123 page.

I've managed to get here in a most roundabout fashion and am still seeing the 123 Reg page from my Bookmark and, once there, can make no progress. I got here by playing with the various icons at the top of the page and, given my experience today, am very surprised that many users appear to have posted throughout the day without difficulty. Could it really be the case that the Mods are worst affected by whatever has been going on back at the Host servers? Now to see if I can submit this post successfully ...... Edit: Well that went OK. It seems to me that it's the Home page that's affected - using my browser's History file, I've bookmarked the Forums page and I appear to get in from there. Further edit: I've now moved to Firefox and found the Home page OK, so is it a Chrome issue? And it's also OK on Safari.

John: In addition to that 'Apache' page I emailed to you, I've been getting random "Internal Server Error" messages when clicking on various areas of the Forum in the past 5 minutes. But they go away and return - all most odd. Sample attached.

Links - Monday 07 August, 2017 Review - Mariinsky Ballet, Anna Karenina, London: Debra Craine, Times Review - Mariinsky Ballet, Swan Lake; English National Ballet, Romeo and Juliet, London: David Dougill, Times Review - English National Ballet, Romeo and Juliet, London: Gerard Davis, Dancing Review Review - Vail Dance Festival, 2 mixed programmes, Vail: Alastair Macaulay, NY Times Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe: Review - Gandini Juggling, Sigma: Anna Winter, Stage Review - Djuki Mala: Claire Sawers, The List Review - Lenka Vagnerova, Gossip: Lucy Ribchester, The List Review - Margaret McAuliffe, The Humours of Bandon: Lucy Ribchester, The List Review - Gecko & Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, The Dream: Lucy Ribchester, The List Review - Arab Arts Focus, dance double bill: Donald Hutera, The List Review - Vanessa Cook Dance, Creature: Donald Hutera, The List Review - Northern Ballet, Casanova, Manchester: Staff, Arts Shelf Review - Marie Chouinard, Soft virtuosity, still humid, on the edge; Emanuel Gat, TENWORKS (for Jean-Paul), Montpelier: Pawit Mahasarinand, The Nation Featurette - The dancer as brand ambassador, then and now: Valerie Lawson, Dancelines Feature - Alice Reyes, AD Emerita Ballet Philippines: Cathy Canares-Yamsuan, Philippines Inquirer Feature - Leadership lessons from a ballet teacher: Shellie Karabell, Forbes Posted with apologies - the formatting tools are still not working properly. Links trawl completed by Janet McNulty.

How else is he going to pay all his dancers the equivalent of substantially more than £1800 per month?

Links – Saturday 5 August, 2017 Reviews – Mariinsky Ballet, Anna Karenina, London: Mark Monahan, Telegraph Louise Levene, Financial Times Lyndsey Winship, Evening Standard Mark Pullinger, Bachtrack Edinburgh International Festival & Fringe: Feature – No Miracles Here: Lyndsey Winship, Guardian Preview - Requiem for Aleppo: Kelly Apter, The List Preview – Aracaladanza, Vuelos: Kelly Apter, The List Preview – Maria Pagés, Yo, Carmen: Kelly Apter, The List News – Should the EIF dates change (again)? Brian Ferguson, Scotsman News – Ballet and the sweet smell of success: Jack Malvern, The Times Feature – Renegades & Radical Bodies in 3 New York Exhibitions: Gia Kourlas, NY Times Feature – AileyCamp Miami, boosting confidence through dance: Brooke Henderson, Miami Herald Review – NOW Festival, 2017, Los Angeles: Jeff Slayton, SeeDance Diary – Edinburgh & London: Judith Mackrell, Guardian Book – Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora/Joanna Dee Das: Siobhan Burke, NY Times Review – Yvette Nolan, Michael Greyeyes & Others, Bearing, Toronto: Emma Doran, Dance Current Review – Mudra Dance Company, Kartikeya, Wellington: Donna Banicevich Gera, Theatreview

Links – Friday 4 August, 2017 Reviews – English National Ballet, Romeo and Juliet (Nureyev), London: Lyndsey Winship, Evening Standard Margaret Willis, Bachtrack Gerald Dowler, Classical Source Siobhan Murphy, DanceTabs Vera Liber, BTG Gallery – Mariinsky Ballet, Anna Karenina, London: Dave Morgan, DanceTabs Review – San Francisco Ballet, Annual Outdoors Program at Stern Grove: Toba Singer, Culture Vulture Review – Rome Opera Ballet, Parade, Pulcinella, Pompeii: Martina Angioloni, Bachtrack Feature – David Hallberg returning to Australian Ballet: Hannah Francis, Sydney Morning Herald Review – Trajal Harrell, Hoochie Koochie, London: Siobhan Murphy, DanceTabs Review – Cirio Collective, Mixed Bill, New York: Leigh Witchel, dancelog.nyc Preview – Dance at Wilderness 2017: Rachel Elderkin, Exeunt Preview – Ballet B.C., Babylon (+ Flowers), Vancouver: Dana Gee, Vancouver Sun Diaries: - New York This Week: Siobhan Burke, NY Times - Around Portland : Jamuna Chiarini, Oregon Artswatch Documentary – Step: Glenn Kenny, NY Times Joe Morgenstern, Wall St Journal