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| An afternoon at the ballet | |
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| Topic Started: Jul 12 2015, 07:47 PM (145 Views) | |
| johnofgwent | Jul 12 2015, 07:47 PM Post #1 |
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It .. It is GREEN !!
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No, not some wierd rework of a Marx Brothers film to follow A Day At The Races or A Night At The Opera. If you had said, as little as a year ago, that I would pay good money to spend a sunday afternoon watching a dance company perform a ballet, I would have called you mad. I've been educated - by a four year old. For the past year my other half has shelled out sixty quid a term for our grand-daughter to go to ballet lessons. She's doing very well - or so I was told. And then I got the chance to find out. Because every third year, "Gwent School Of Dancing's" proprieter creates, choreographs, promotes and presents a full performance of dance, half ballet, the other half a mix of tap, jazz and other, in Newport's main Amateur Theatre, the Dolman And this was the year and today (well actually Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Today) was the day. Which means that for the past four nights, little madam, dressed in her full ballet gear with a bespoke tailored costume on top, has trodden the boards in front of a PACKED HOUSE doing a number choreographed specifically for her group using the "moves" they have been practising for their exams. Now NO child is allowed to go "on point" for the performance, even the older ones who could, because the stage floor "is not up to it" but the adults were ... She and her group were the "snowflakes in the snowstorm in the enchanted forest". I am told it took weeks to get the whole group up to speed on the routines they had to use because they were dancing around and between the paths of the fairy queen and her retinue ... so no pressure here then ... And she was absolutely perfect. Her timing was impeccable, she literally flowed across the stage. Performing alongside adults about to cash in their ballet exams for the UCAS points they need to go and join the stage school to do this for a living. And at the same split second that they reached their mark at the end of the manouvere, so did she ... Of course, it wouldn't have been a snowstorm without the rest of the flurry. Each with a slightly different set of steps to so. Visually stunning. And then she comes back on for the finale at the end of the second half with the rest of the company of at least 150 doing a set of steps to Bowie and Jagger's Dancing In The Streets ... Not a dry eye in the whole bloody auditorium. The woman who dreamed the whole performance up, then set it to music and choreographed the whole thing says she only does this once every three years as if she tried to do it any more often she would never get anything else done. I can believe it. |
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| Pro Veritas | Jul 12 2015, 08:21 PM Post #2 |
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Upstanding Member
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I work at a theatre, we have spent a not inconsiderable sum of money to have the entirety of the stage fitted with a sprung surface just for ballet and other dance troupes. We have 3 very well sized dance schools within 20 odd miles of us and because of that floor all three of them come to us every year. Each puts on at least 3 performances, and every single one is packed out. As I am usually manning the box office for these performances I have yet to see one, but as I am also the front-line of customer feed-back I know these performances go down very well indeed and are considered of very good quality for the ages of the performances. I think that ballet and contemporary dance are an area of performing arts where this country has a very solid, and decent quality grass-roots. All The Best |
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| Affa | Jul 12 2015, 10:29 PM Post #3 |
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Senior Member
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Dance classes for developing minors are a wonderful 'exercise'! There the children gain much more than physical training and dance skills. They also develop confidence, team work, responsibility, and respect for authority ........ things that will serve them very well in their adult life. |
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| johnofgwent | Jul 13 2015, 04:51 AM Post #4 |
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It .. It is GREEN !!
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I think the Dolman must have done something similar in the last two years, the seating has had a revamp (and not before time) since I was last in it, and the stage has also changed in appearance since my other half last trod its boards. The woman who founded the dance company said the stage surface was NOT SAFE to allow dancers to "go on point" last time, something clearly has changed as they certainly were last night. The Dolman was Newport's only theatre for quite a while, owned and operated by Newport Playgoers, the council did absolutely everything it could to run the place into the ground, including spending an absolute fortune building a carbuncle of a building almost across the road to compete with it ... |
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8:51 AM Jul 11