Three into Two won't go

You can't put a quart into a pint pot

Author John White
Reproduced under Creative Commons licence
Source Wikipedia

Today I shall watch Northern Ballet's company class and panel discussion on narrative ballet in Tell Tale Steps (see Tell Tale Steps - Choreographic Laboratory 13 June 2015) after which I will beetle down to the Hippodrome to see Birmingham Royal Ballet dance Bintley's double bill (The King Dances and Carmina Burana).

On any day but this I would have hoofed down to London to see English National Ballet's Choreographics at the Lilian Baylis Studio at Sadler's Wells or at least watched the live streaming on ArtStreamingTV at 14:15. There is a great programme with works by Fabian Reimair, James Streeter, Stina Quagebeur, Max Westwell, Morgann Runacre-Temple and Renato Paroni de Castro. I should particularly love to have seen de Castro's piece since Sarah Kundi is dancing in it with Vitor Menezes and Guilherme Menezes. Readers of this blog will know that Kundi is one of my favourite dancers and I have not seen her on stage since Coppelia in November (see Coppelia in Oxford 2 Nov 2014). I have seen a picture of her with the Vitor and Guilherme Menezes and she looks stunning. Graham Watts has written:

"Well done Sarah - lovely piece, beautifully danced,"

And he should know.

But if I were to watch that live screening I would miss Watts's contribution to the State of the Art Panel Discussion: Narrative Dance in Ballet which will take place between 13:15 and 15:00. Aside from a little pedagogic grumbling at the use of the term state of the art which is defined by s.2 (2) of the Patents Act 1977 as

"all matter (whether a product, a process, information about either, or anything else) which has at any time before the priority date of that invention been made available to the public (whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere) by written or oral description, by use or in any other way"

in the wrong context (but who other than me would pick that up) I am really looking forward to that discussion because one of the panellists is Christopher Hampson who created Hansel and Gretel for Scottish Ballet which is one of the best new full length ballets I have seen recently (see Scottish Ballet's Hansel and Gretel 23 Dec 2013. You don't get such a line up of choreographic and critical expertise every day and certainly not every day in Leeds.

Sadly, I shall miss out on the choreographic sharing but Gita will cover it for me and I will get the chance to see it all on Northern Ballet's YouTube channel later. The sacrifice will be worthwhile to catch the last performance of The King Dances. Now this is a work of tremendous importance as I explained in my article of 23 May 2015. This is a special work to mark Bintley's 20th anniversary as Artistic Director. It may go on tour but then again it may not and I am not going to miss it.

I wish all the dancers in London, Leeds and Birmingham well. I shall be thinking of them all, particularly Kundi and the Menezes.  I wish I could see all three shows live but sadly you can't repeal the laws of physics. I will do the best I can and report back tomorrow.