At some point I got sidetracked…

Despite all my grand promises (to myself at least) about being less of a Slack Alice on the blog front, I got a bit distracted by my new knitting project…

 

I was in a meeting the other week, idly doodling to keep my focus on what was going on and I ended up with this. My fingers got twitchy, desperately twitchy. The need to rush out INSTANTLY to buy all the yarn and cast on.

 

I am really quite excited by this and how nicely it’s turning out. Mostly I can’t wait to finish it so I’m knitting unto like the proverbial loon, which is daft as summer keeps trying to put in an appearance and a great big blanket would be the last thing I’d need right now. Mind you, this is Angleterre with it’s ludicrous weather system so I’ll probably need this in August…

In other news, I hung another year on the line last weekend (not sure how that happened) to slightly misquote Paul Simon. At my grand age birthdays are really just another day, but getting to spend this one with my nephewits was super special – even being dragged out of bed at some unholy hour of a Saturday because they were too excited for me to spend any longer in bed. And they decorated my birthday cake…

 

Today I have to make cake of my own to obey the Work Birthday Law (Thou Shalt Bring Cake) as I was parted from my kitchen last weekend. Much as I love baking, I’m slightly loathe to be parted from my knitting for the afternoon. OH LIFE, Y U SO HARD?

Reality check (fifteen minutes of fame)

Something happened today that wound up being a bit of a poke in the eye about the fact I’ve been a total Slack Alice on ye olde blogging front of late. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to – au contraire, there are a good dozen or so unfinished posts IN MY HEAD (useless, I concur) – more that my default setting of pathologically lazy has kicked in and… yeah. You see how it is. This wasn’t my planned comeback post but it feels right that it should be. I could’ve blogged about any of a number of things over the last month or so – I’ve seen scores of awesome ballets (and even got over my Don Quixote hatred courtesy of Natalia Osipova, Ivan Vasilev and the Mikhailovsky), I’ve had a few adventures in yarn (and my hands) dyeing, I went to Hogwarts with the Bestest and (ironically given that as I finish it,spring finally arrives on this fair Isle) been knitting a blanket like a loon for (nominally) my Vati. But anyway, back to what happened today…

Mid afternoon I was at my desk (briefly, I’ve been up and down like the proverbial jack-in-a-box all day) doing three things at once and wondering which I could cock up first to put another nail in the coffin of what has been a, frankly, bog awful week. It’s been the kind of bog awful that’s rubbed off on ballet class as well and I’ve been on the down side of the middle of my game (boo that). Anyway, mid afternoon I notice my phone flashing which normally instills one of two feelings in me: 1. FEAR or 2. general blase-ness that it’s just another spam e-mail. It’s neither of those things. It is, in fact, the lovely Cassa Pancho, head honcho of Ballet Black, asking if I’ve seen the May issue of Dance Europe yet (specifically page 11). Curiosity instantly piqued I ask if this is a subliminal message that I need to swing by the Opera House en route from work to class to acquire a copy. Yes, is the answer. I am then, naturally, super intrigued and spend the last couple of hours at my desk wondering when it’s acceptable to leave without incurring too much judgement.

Work over I flee to the Opera House, crash into the shop, dodging around a surprisingly large number of browsers and make a long arm for Dance Europe between the people milling around the magazine stand. There, on page 11, is an interview with Cassa in which she casually mentions that this blog is one of her favourites.

OH, Y’KNOW, NO BIG DEAL.

I am, simultaneously, a mass of emotion and my ovaries are getting a bit squiggly. I am honoured, touched and more than a little humbled that someone I think is super awesome with everything they’re trying to do in the ballet world and whatnot is name checking ME in Dance Europe. Then I find myself grinning like a complete loon and probably marginally unnerving  the shop staff as I go to pay for my copy (incidentally, it’s much cheaper than I remember from last time I bought it). For reference, the whole interview with Cassa is pretty neat, but it’s my ego we’re stoking here and… yeah. I’m surprised my head could fit through the door to leave the building.

So, being name checked has given me a bit of a kick up the bottom to get back into the blogging swing… once I work out where to begin.

Incidentally, class was awesome tonight and I did not totally suck – largely I suspect because I was not completement morte aux pieds and sneaking a spot of shut eye in between exercises.

Oh, and in case you feared for getting my ego through doors, I got a reality check in the back of Dance Europe. It’s Alina Cojocaru’s birthday in May. It is my birthday in May. Alina and I are the same age. She is Alina Cojocaru, I am very much not.

Knit, purl, plié, tendu: an allegro allegory

One of mine and bestest’s priorities when we went to Berlin before Christmas was “where do we look at yarn”. I like to think this is a good sort of priority, luckily so does she. So we went in hunt of yarn (on a Strassenbahn, no less) and both ended up buying the same yarn but in different colourways. This yarn is beautiful AND, quite excitingly, it came on a cone. I have never had yarn on a cone before so my life is now more complete than it was before I went to Berlin. Anyway, having bought the same yarn, we decided it would be appropriate to knit the same thing in it. This yarn was speaking to us in a scarfly fashion so I magnanimously (okay, I’m lazy) stood back and let bestest pick the pattern and, after a couple of false starts, this happened:

The pattern itself can be found over here on Knitty and it seemed ideal. In fact, now I’ve finished, I can safely say it is the idea solution for our yarn. As I was casting it on for the sixth time I was saying other things, but mostly that was about my inability to count.

The problem with lace knitting is that it is awfully like allegro, petit allegro in particular: both have a similar degree of fiendishness to them. Whilst I relish the challenge of a good lace pattern and theoretically relish the challenge of a good allegro, theory does not always translate into practice. Like I said, I love the theory of allegro: all those tricksy little steps combined together to give an impression of something effortless, weightless and far, far simpler than it really is. In practice I am not very good at allegro (shin splints, a dodgy patella tendon, generally quite unhappy feet mean I’ve lost my bounce for a start) because I often muddle combinations up when working at speed. And my inability to count to four manifests on a regular basis. I have the same problem with lace knitting. One little miscount and it throws out the regularity of a pattern. A little akin to winding up on the wrong foot.

With both allegro and lace there’s so much potential to go wrong. On the plus side, mess up your lace you can go back and unpick then reknit it (although I do so detest unpicking an ssk). Messing up allegro is different, you can’t miss a beat, or wind up on the wrong foot, or miscount… You have to be a fraction ahead of yourself the whole time otherwise you wind up with my old favourite tactic of “OMG MAD PANIC CATCH UP” and landing every jump on your own foot. And that hurts.

There are other comparisons I can draw between the two: a need for good core stability in allegro is like not letting your yarn overs get too wide and unwieldy. Making sure you get your ssk or k2tog right is akin to knowing when it’s a soubre-saut and when it’s a changement. Keeping your yarn overs tidy is like managing to get your feet right in assemblés. And there’s a soothing pattern to it all after a while. For every increase there’s a decrease, for every jump there’s a logic and purpose to get you to the next step.

And there are those beautiful moments when it all comes together and you wonder what you worried about in the first instance…

Things… [Royal Ballet Triple Bill/The Ballet Boyz]

It’s rapidly descending into one of those days. I am busier than a busy bee work wise only our IT system has packed up on us and nobody has any clue if it’s going to be back today and there’s only so much manual labour a girl can do without access to things. On the plus side I’ve got the intrawebz and I’ve got Office software. And I’ve got a couple of reviews outstanding to write. GOOD TIMES.

As I’ve said before, trips to the ballet sometimes feel like buses: don’t go for ages then three performances in a week. After a triumphant evening with Ballet Black, I was back at my spiritual home for a Royal Ballet triple bill and then at Sadler’s Wells for my inaugural meeting with the Ballet Boyz. Then I went and spent the weekend in North Wales, nearly got blown off the Menai Bridge walking over to Anglesey, was utterly bemused by the weather on my way back to England and then pinged something in the back of my knee doing barre stretch.

The Royal Ballet’s bill offered up Balanchine’s Apollo and two new works by Ratmansky (OH YES) and Wheeldon. I’d seen Apollo before, but not performed by the RB – a couple of times with ENB – and not with the prologue (which, even nearly a week later, I find myself somewhat indifferent towards and wondering quite how necessary it was). I rather enjoy Apollo, it has to be said – well not so much the prologue, but the main part of the piece. It’s early Balanchine and shows so much promise that, as Frank Sinatra once (almost) sang, the best was yet to come. Federico Bonelli was a super Apollo and of the muses I particularly enjoyed Melissa Hamilton’s gorgeously lyrical Terpsichore. I was thinking the other day how there’s a certain ‘smell’ to Stravinsky ballet scores – no, seriously, if you listen to them with your eyes closed there really is. The opening of Petrushka smells of baking and smoke and busy streets. Rite of Spring smells earthy and warm, brown with green beginning to shoot in around the edges. Apollo smells new and fresh – really green, a little like lazy summer evenings that hold so much promise.

Ratmansky’s new piece, 24 Preludes, is a series of micro stories for four couples set to – quite imaginatively – 24 Chopin preludes which stretch from about half a minute to maybe four. It’s a delightful concept but perhaps a little too long and drawn out (there were probably a couple of preludes that could have been dropped). It’s a mix of moods and feelings going from one to another in a seemingly – but not entirely –disjointed fashion. Alina Cojocaru was particularly stunning and it was nice to see Edward Watson in something lyrically classical because he truly is a beautiful, beautiful dancer.

There was a lot of feeling going on for Wheeldon’s Aeternum. In places it felt very reminiscent of Dance à grande vitesse – but if that was about an earthly journey from A to B, this was a very different journey transcending from earth to, well if not heaven, somewhere other-where.  And there were undertones of MacMillan’s Requiem in there – certainly in some of the corps’ movements. Marianela Nuñez was stunning but I was particularly drawn to James Hay in the second movement as sort of a guide from here to there.

And then it was time for something completely different with the Ballet Boyz who were showing two pieces in their show at Sadler’s Wells: Liam Scarlett’s Serpent and Russell Maliphant’s Fallen. The Scarlett piece was visually stunning, softly lyrical and incredibly smooth, gently undulating and snake like in its movements and arcs.  Russell Maliphant’s Fallen makes incredible use of light and movement within the light playing on how light falls on skin creating a visually stunning piece. All eight of the ‘Boyz’ are supremely talented and I look forward to seeing more of what they have to offer. And, in response to the question Ballet Boyz or chips, it’s the Ballet Boyz…

Anyhoo, allegedly our network is coming back now-ish. So I should stop blogging/reading my Kindle with my feet on my desk/wandering around chatting/napping on the sofa and brace myself. But I might just ice my knee first…

BALLET BLACK! IN THE LINBURY! [Capslock squee]

Without a doubt, one of my best ever ballet discoveries has been the existence of Ballet Black and, every time I see them, I find myself incredibly grateful that Cassa Pancho (MBE no less, who you should also go and follow on Twittaz immediatel – @BalletBlack – because she’s awesome) had a kick ass idea back in 2001 and decided never to let go of it. If you want to see a small company who can kick your emotions around like a football for a couple of hours and then leave them utterly shredded, you could do far worse than checking out Ballet Black. In fact, I shouldn’t even be suggesting it, I should be enforcing (IN CAPSLOCK) you to all go and see them AT ONCE, IMMEDIATELY. Getting to see them in the Linbury on an annual basis has truly become one of the highlights of my ballet year. So last night I trotted off from work for a quick swim (not my brightest plan, impinged tendon in shoulder = mega ouchy) and the dashed back to the Opera House to cosy up (well as much as you can in a sold out theatre!) for an evening with Ballet Black. HURRAH.

There were four pieces on offer on the bill – three short plotless, one longer with plot. It’s a good way to showcase the entire company and to prove that they can more than handle a wide variety of choreography. In my not so terribly humble opinion, the bill provided three sure fire winners and one that left me a little nonplussed, which is a 75% success rate and I’m more than pleased with that.

I found myself nonplussed by the opening piece, Egal by Robert Binet. Conceptually and choreographically it was interesting but, and it’s kind of a big but I guess, the music grated on me and I couldn’t quite get myself past that at times. On the plus side, it was a great reminder about how (a) fierce (b) beautiful and (c) generally all kinds of awesome Cira Robinson is. Seriously, I think I’d quite like to be her when I grow up. And it was a good introduction to first year apprentice Jacob Wye who is super talented.

Ludovic Ondiviela’s Dopamine (you make my levels go silly) on the other hand was a fire cracker of a piece that utterly blew me away. I’ve seen some of Ondiviela’s work before (he’s a first artist with the Royal Ballet and he’s had pieces in Draft Works) and I’ve often struggled to reconcile myself with his work – not really quite sure I’ve been hearing his choreographic voice. That all changed with Dopamine: an electrically charged, frenetic piece of the joys of falling in love – those tingles, those sensations, the feeling of warm treacle down your back… okay, maybe the last one’s just me, but it was certainly a piece to make the heart soar and put a great big stupid grin on your face. Yeah, my levels were made to go silly. And Sayaka Ichikawa’s smile? Stunning, just stunning. Actually all her emoting was GREAT.

The first half drew to a close with Javier de Frutos’ The One Played Twice to a Hawaiian barbershop quartet singing traditional Hawaii songs. If anything there is now a great need in my life for more Hawaiian barbershop quartet music, seriously. I was wary, I confess, my previous run in with de Frutos being his somewhat controversial piece for some kind of Beyond Diaghelev evening at Sadlers Wells a few years (a piece I hated, incidentally) and I’ve avoided him ever since. THIS MAY HAVE BEEN A VERY FOOLISH MOVE ON MY PART. The One Played Twice was so much fun – especially the two solo pieces for Kanika Carr (who has amazing hair) and Sarah Kundi (who has possibly the most expressive hands in the world). Ballet it so dominated by the feet that to see, albeit two short solos, where the dancers remain firmly planted in their space using the upper body and facial expressions to tell the story is a departure from the norm and one I really loved.

After the runaway success of Storyville last year (which catapulted itself firmly into my top ten, if not top five, short works), I did wonder how Christopher Marney could ever live up to Christopher Hampson’s piece. Quite well is the answer. War Letters is a stunning piece to showcase the entire company that took all of my emotions and ripped them quite firmly to shreds before my very eyes. Set to music by Shostakovich and Glenn Miller, War Letters is not strictly linear in the sense of plot but episodic. There’s a soldier’s dream of love back home, the aftermath of shell shock, a night at a dance, the burden of love and what might peace bring. Let’s just say the tears were prickling and burning at the back of my eyes about five minutes in and never properly went away. I think really here the stand out performances were Cira Robinson visiting her shell shocked husband (Jamzon Voss) in hospital and trying to come to terms with how this is going to affect their future – so much emotion, so much. Also Sayaka Ichikawa in Coat, burdened by the love of one man so eventually casting him aside to try out others and in the end realising what she’d lost – heart breaking. On a totally frivolous note however: THE FROCKS WERE ALL TOTALLY FABULOUS AND I WANT ALL OF THEM.

All in all, a cracking evening, and a much welcome opportunity to fall in love with Ballet Black all over again. Go and see them, at once!

These hills are mine

Having oodles of annual leave carried over from last year for various reasons, I’ve been having time out back in Rural Derbyshire to use it up. Earlier this week there were signs of spring peeking through the gaps and the almost blank emptiness of winter on a rural backdrop. The sky was blue and clear, the hills and oddly bleached shade of green hazily surrounded by that funny winter sunlight. There were my favourite walks and then, so suddenly, it all changed. The temperature crashed down, the sky became heavy and grey and the cold crept in everywhere. But it’s still beautiful, peaceful. These hills are mine, etched firmly on to the inside of my eyelids, their impression there when I close my eyes and still there when I wake. There’s something soothing in their permanence and I feel that I can breathe again.

A lorra, lorra Ashton* [Royal Ballet Mixed Bill]

*Imagine that said with in my best Cilla Black impression

Trips to the Opera House are somewhat along the lines of buses: none for ages then all of them at once. It seems no time at all since I was leaving floating on a cloud of ALL THE EMOTION after Onegin and then there I was last night back again for the first night of the Ashton mixed bill. Things have happened in the interim – mostly being chained to my kitchen and work and stuff but it really does feel like I barely turned round before being faced with an evening of five Ashton pieces. Let’s face it though, that’s not the kind of evening to be sniffed at – especially given that three of them were new on me.

The opener, La Valse, wasn’t a new one on me but still wonderfully, swirlingly charming nonetheless. It was one I’d struggled to recall from the recesses of my mind and I still wasn’t sure it was the one I was thinking of… anyway, the only thing to say on that really is: Bennet Gartside, surely the safest pair of hands in the Royal Ballet? His partnering truly is exemplary. La Valse was followed by two gala pieces: Meditation from Thais and Voices of Spring. Meditation was interesting, Leanne Benjamin utterly exquisite (to the point her lines make me want to cry, I swear she has truly got some monopoly on the Fountain of Eternal Youth). The veil seemed to be a bit of a hazard though, I think I’ll have to add it to the Princess’ apples in Firebird and every maypole in every ballet ever in the ‘list of props that bother me in ballets’.

Voices of Spring deserves its own paragraph because… OH MY YUHUI CHOE AND ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. Their megawatt grins alone could have powered the entire Royal Opera House. It was just utterly, utterly happy and joyful and one of those pieces that gives you a warm and cosy feeling in your tummy. And there were petals! They came on scattering flower petals! I kid you not, it was a beautiful piece. Charming, a little quirky and just stunning.

Monotones I and II, I have a sneaking suspicion, is one that will need a repeat viewing because I found myself labouring under very mixed feelings about it. It’s an… odd piece, set to music by Satie (which is glorious) but the choreography left me swinging wildly between “OH HOW JOYOUS” and “OH NO WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Confusion, verily it is me. Emma Maguire, Akane Takada and Dawid Trzensimiech were gloriously in tune for Monotones I, if a little hampered by their costumes which, unfortunately, made me think of frogs and I couldn’t quite get past that… Marianela Nuñez, Edward Watson and Federico Bonelli were quietly explosive in Monotones II. I particularly enjoyed the juxtaposition of Watson’s slightly ethereal, elastic-ness beside Bonelli’s more earthy stance. There are words that I want to say about Monotones but mostly I find that I don’t quite know what they are other than ‘I quite want to see this again’.

Marguerite and Armand… or the return of the prodigals? Or Marg&Arm as I like to refer to it. Anyway, this run of M&As features Tamara Rojo (who absconded to be Big Cheese at ENB) in her official farewell performances and Sergei Polunin (who simply absconded) in his. I saw them perform this back in 2011 and, when I tried to bring it back to mind, I could really only recall the appalling wigs for Marguerite’s suitors and the fact there was a slightly daft plot. Again a sterling example of: never trust the boy in ballet tights, always marry the solid, sensible looking guy with the ludicrous hair. To be honest, apart from the ridiculous wigs, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was expecting about the performance. In fact I’d managed to convince myself I was seeing Yanowsky/Bonelli rather than Rojo/Polunin and I’m not so sure that helped. I found myself caught somewhere between ALL THE FEELINGS and just simply… whelmed, neither under nor over. La Rojo was sublime, Polunin I just found a bit hit and miss. There were moments of brilliance and moments of ‘meh’. Maybe it was nerves or uncertainty or something at the beginning on his part, I don’t know. It did get better as it went on and the deathbed pas de deux at the end did hit exactly the right spot. I guess it can’t be easy coming back after you’ve been gone a while. Despite my ‘no expectations’ I fear I may have expected more.