World Ballet Day Highlights #2 - The Royal New Zealand Ballet

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The Royal New Zealand Ballet had a very successful tour of the UK five years ago.  I attended and reviewed their performances of A Passing Cloud in Leeds on 4 Nov 2015 and Giselle in High Wycombe on 7 Nov 2015.   Their contribution to World Ballet Day on 29 Oct 2020 was one of my highlights of that day.  

Since their visit to this country, the company has appointed Patricia Barker as Artistic Director and it was she who welcomed the audience to the company's studios.  For the first 17 minutes, we saw the company's class taken by one of its ballet masters, Nicholas Schutz.  Schutz, like Barker, comes from the United States. So, too, does his wife Laura, who is one of the company's ballet mistresses.  It will be interesting to see whether they influence the company's repertoire and choreography.

World Ballet Day coincided with the opening night of The Sleeping Beauty which is touring New Zealand.  Barker led us to the rehearsal studio where she directed Kate Kadow and suitors in the rose adagio.  Schutz reappeared with Clytie Campbell, the other ballet mistress, to demonstrate how they create the scene where the lilac fairy leads Florimund to the sleeping Aurora.

The last scene was the technical rehearsal at the Wellington Opera House.  Kadow, already in costume for Aurora's 16th birthday, greeted her internet audience in her dressing room. The camera followed her down to the stage pursued by beaming students waving excitedly.  The very last scene showed Aurora's entry, a bit of the rose adagio and one of the scariest Carabosse entries I have ever seen. Judging by the volume of applause I think the last scene must have been the first night in Wellington.

Though New Zealand has been much more successful than most countries at controlling coronavirus the company has not been unaffected by the pandemic.   According to the News page, it has had to endure theatre closures and cancel a visit to London. On World Ballet Day, sunlight streamed through the windows of the rehearsal studios. The dancers trained without face coverings.  The applause in the theatre was thunderous.  While the main reason the RNZB's slot was one of my highlights of World Ballet 2020 is that the company is good it was also because it projected light and hope. Those of us about to enter the Northern Winter were shown an image of ballet in a post-pandemic world, Just as the prince was shown an image of the sleeping Aurora by the lilac fairy.

World Ballet Day - Dutch National Ballet

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Sometimes one can have too much of a good thing and World Ballet Day is one of those times. There's a great temptation to drop everything to watch a whole day of classes, rehearsals, interviews and shows.  This year I rationed myself to just one contribution on the day and this is it.

It will surprise nobody who knows me that I have chosen the Dutch National Ballet's slot.  I have been following that company for the last 6 years and I have watched careers blossom like cherry trees in Spring. One of the folks I interviewed as a member of the Junior Company in 2014 was Martin ten Kortenaar. He is now one of the leads in Rudi van Dantzig's Romeo and Juliet. 

The recording shows three scenes from the work:  the Dance of the Knights, the balcony scene and the bedroom scene just before Romeo takes flight.  I have seen many versions of this ballet: Lavrovsky's, Maillot's, Pastor's, James's, Nureyev's and, of course, MacMillan's but there seems to be a unique exuberance to this work. According to Ted Brandsen, the Director of the Dutch National Ballet this was the first full-length work to be created in Holland.  With designs by Toer van Schayk, it must be gorgeous.

But, so too, will be Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's Frida.  I have long admired the work that she has done for Ballet Black, Scottish Ballet and other companies. This promises to be a tour de force. With Floor Eimers in the show, how could it be otherwise?

I have said many times in this blog that I can't watch Ernst Meisner's Embers without the tears welling up. I have seen it performed beautifully by different artists - Cristiano Principato and Jessica Xuan at last year's gala, Thomas van Damme and Nancy Burer and Cristiano again with Priscylla Gallo at Trecate in Italy.  In this clip you will see two new young dancers in Embers whom I am sure will go far,  They are Sebia Plantefȅve and Davi Ramos. I can't wait to see them live on stage.

Tomorrow I shall watch another clip from a favourite company that performed yesterday.   A Russian company other than the Bolshoi or Mariinsky perhaps. Or maybe an American company that is not from New York.  There is no shortage of choice.

World Ballet Day is coming

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One of the compensations of Autumn is World Ballet Day in which five of the world's top companies present their offerings and those of their guests. This year it falls on 5 Oct 2017.

The day begins in Melbourne with the Australian Ballet. We have a special interest in that company as they hosted Amelia Sierevogel earlier this year.  She told us all about her experiences with that company in Melbourne City of Dance 23 May 2017.  The Australian Ballet is sharing its slot with three other companies with which we have a connection, namely the Queensland Ballet, the Hong Kong Ballet and the West Australian Ballet.

We welcomed the Queensland Ballet to London in 2015 (see A dream realized: the Queensland Ballet in London 12 Aug 2015).  Gita and I also had the honour of meeting its legendary artistic director, Li Cunxin, when he visited the London Ballet Circle. Amelia and I have another connection with that company since our teacher, Fiona Noonan, trained and danced with them. Another favourite teacher, Jane Tucker, danced with the Hong Kong Ballet who are also guests of the Australian Ballet. The third guest that we follow with interest is the West Australian Ballet who are dancing David Nixon's The Great Gatsby in Perth this month.

The baton passes to the Bolshoi whose Taming of the Shrew delighted audiences in London last year (see Bolshoi's Triumph - The Taming of the Shrew 4 Aug 2017). The choreographer of that work was Jean-Christophe Maillot whose company Les Ballets de Monte Carlo will share the Bolshoi's slot. The Bolshoi's other guests are the Netherlands Dance Theatre who are well known and greatly appreciated here.  The Bolshoi will rehearse for us Balanchine's Diamonds and The Golden Age and introduce us to The Moscow State Academy of Choreography.

Next comes London with the Royal Ballet and four of our other great companies all of whom I know well and admire greatly. The Royal Ballet will rehearse Anastasia, La Fille mal gardée, The Sleeping Beauty and a new ballet by Charlotte Edmonds. Students from the Royal Ballet School will dance Concerto and the company will dance Anastasia.  The Royal Ballet's guests include some of the world's greatest companies including The Dutch National Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet, La Scala, the Stuttgart Ballet and the Vienna State Ballet. This should be the highpoint of the day.

Across the Atlantic to Toronto with the National Ballet of Canada. They will be rehearsing Cinderella and Onegin and interview the great Karen Kain. Wayne McGregor and Robert Binet.  Their guests include the Miami City Ballet whom Gita saw in February (see Gita Mistry Attending the Ballet in Florida: Miami City Ballet's Program Three 6 March 2017) and the Boston Ballet who were in London in 2013 (see High as a Flag on the 4th July 7 July 2917).

Finally to San Francisco, one of the oldest and finest companies in America who also promise rehearsals of Diamonds and Cinderella as well as Liam Scarlett's Frankenstein, Helgi Tomasson's Haffner Symphony and a new work by Yuri Possokhov. Their guests include the Houston Ballet which suffered badly from Hurricane Harvey (see Houston Ballet  30 Aug 2017). I take a special interest in that company partly because of its many connections with this country. partly because Li Cunxin started his career there but mainly because the outstanding young artist, Emilie Tassinari, has recently joined the corps.

Every year seems to be better than the last and this year promises to be the best of all. Nobody can watch the whole feast on one day but, happily, recordings remain on YouTube for months after the event.  It takes about a year to savour it all.

World Ballet Day: Les Ballets de Monte Carlo

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Yet another highlight of World Ballet Day was the appearance of Les Ballets de Monte Carlo as guests of the Bolshoi. The reason it was one of my highlights is that I am a big fan of the company's artistic director Jean-Christophe Maillot (see Jean-Christophe Maillot 5 Aug 2016). His production of The Taming of the Shrew for the Bolshoi nearly brought the House down when that company performed it on 3 Aug 2016 (see Bolshoi's Triumph - The Taming of the Shrew 4 Aug 2016). There is a great video of the the premiere on the Bolshoi's website.

On World Ballet Day the video showed rehearsals for a new ballet called Le Songe which was premiered yesterday at the China National Centre for the Performing Arts. The company will move on to Tianjin and Shanghai. The first performances in Europe will take place at the Théâtre National de Nice on 21 and 22 Jan 2017. This ballet is based on Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and uses Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream as Ashton.

There is an opportunity to see another of Maillot's works at the Alhambra in Bradford between tomorrow and Saturday when Northern Ballet dance his Romeo and Juliet. I saw it twice in Leeds last year and reviewed it in Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet - different but in a good way 8 March 2015 and Leebolt's Juliet 13 March 2015. You can see a rehearsal for that ballet by Abigail Prudames and Sean Bates in Northern Ballet's slot on the Royal Ballet's YouTube video of World Ballet Day. You will find them 2 hours 17:28 minutes into the film.

One of the ways in which maillot's Romeo and Juliet differed from other productions is the enhanced role he gave to Friar Lawrence and, as you can see from the first of those reviews, that role was danced very impressively by Isaac Lee Baker,  Isaac has now joined Les Ballets de Monte Carlo (see his profile on the company's website) and I think I glimpsed him in the rehearsals for Le Songe, He is certainly on the Royal Ballet's video (1 hour 52 minutes) in its Chance to Dance slot. Sadly, we won't get to see Isaac as Friar Lawrence. Northern has not yet announced its cast list for Bradford but we should get someone good judging by the chaps who danced it in Sheffield, Belfast, Woking and Canterbury.

World Ballet Day: from Amsterdam to Oslo

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It is quite impossible even for the most died in the wool balletomanes to watch World Ballet Day from start to finish without a break. I had a jolly good stab at it but even I had to eat and sleep and take a ballet class in Manchester. I have spent much of the last two days trawling through the footage looking at some of the bits I missed.  Even so I have barely begun to scratch the surface.

As I said on Wednesday, the best bit of World Ballet Day for me was the Dutch National Ballet's rehearsal of La Bayadere (see Dutch National Ballet's La Bayadere - the Highlight of my World Ballet Day 6 Oct 2016). My only regret is that we did not see more of them. The Dutch have produced three of the greatest choreographers of our time - Rudi van Dantzig, Toer van Schayk and Hans van Manen - and have two of the world's greatest dance companies, the Dutch National Ballet and the Netherlands Dance Theatre. The two guest slots offered by the Royal Ballet and the Bolshoi were far too short.

It was the young Dutch dancer, Bart Engelen who led me to the Norwegian Ballet (see The Norwegian Ballet 11 Aug 2015) and it was that company that offered the most spectacular lift of the day. The Artistic Director,  Ingrid Lorentzen, showed us:

• Patricia Neary's rehearsal of Theme and Variations which will form part of An Evening with Balanchine that will run from 27 Oct to 13 Nov, 
• a  new ballet by Alexander Ekman on "relationships" that he is just developing with his dancers and 
• the final pas de deux from Kaloyan Boyadjiev's new production of The Nutcracker with Yolanda Correa and Yoel Carreño.

I have been fascinated by Ekman ever since I saw the trailer for his Swan Lake:

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"Humans dressed as swans!" Now if you are going to jazz up Swan Lake that's the way to do it.  It was great to see him in the flesh.

But the piece de resistance came in The Nutcracker pas de deux immediately after the fish dive when Carreño turned Correa upside down and somehow suspended her on his back 4 feet in the air. "My!" exclaimed Ms, Lorentzen who has the most delightful smile and infectious giggle, "More exciting than opening presents." And she was right.

The Norwegians were dancing at the same time as my beloved Scots who had nurtured my love for ballet when I was an undergraduate at St. Andrews some 50 years ago. I turned to them in the hope of catching Bart who is part of Nasjonalballeten UNG which seems to be a special youth wing of the company. The director explained that they were on tour and dancing in Kristiansund.

I am quite hooked  by the Norwegians. I would love to see their Nutcracker but even if I don't make it Oslo between 1 and 23 Dec I should be able to make Paris in March where they will dance Swan Lake at the Theatre des Champs Elysees.

Dutch National Ballet's La Bayadere - the Highlight of my World Ballet Day

Daniel Camargo and Sasha Mukhamedov in an Extract from La Bayadere

Photo Altin Kaftira
(c) 2016 Dutch National Ballet: all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

It will come as no surprise to my readers that the slot for Dutch National Ballet between 16:00 and 16:30 was the highlight of my World Ballet Day. If anyone missed it I have shared a recording on my Facebook page. It is well worth watching as were all the contributions to yesterday's feast of dance.

There three several reasons why I enjoyed the Dutch National Ballet's programme so much.

The first is that I love the company. I am one of its Friends in the formal sense. I have visited the Stopera (the company's home) several times over the last few years including the opening night galas this year and last (see Dutch National Ballet's Opening Night Gala - Improving on Excellence 8 Sept 2016 and The best evening I have ever spent at the ballet 13 Sept 2015). Over the years I have been lucky enough to meet the company's artistic director Ted Brandsen and many of its dancers, choreographers, technical staff and officials some of whom are Facebook friends or followers on twitter.  One of my birthday treats on 14 Feb 2016 was to tour the Stopera with a group of Friends of the company (see Double Dutch Delights 17 Feb 2016).

Daniel Camargo as Solor on 7 Sept 2016

Photo Altin Kaftira
(c) 2016 Dutch National Ballet: A=all rights reserved 
Reproduced by kind permission of the company

The second is that the slot showed the rehearsals for La Bayadère and an interview with Natalia Makarova, the great dancer, choreographer and director who has staged the ballet for the Dutch National Ballet and the Royal Ballet. Although I have seen the complete ballet only once (see Blown Away - St Petersburg Ballet Theatre's La Bayadere 24 Aug 2016) it is one of my favourites. I learned some of the choreography in a special three day intensive at KNT in Manchester in August (see La Bayadère Intensive Day 1: There's Life in the Old Girl Yet 16 Aug 2016, La Bayadere Intensive Day 2: Idols and Disembodied Shades 17 Aug 2016 and La Bayadere Intensive Day 3: No Snakes 17 Aug 2016).  Yesterday featured Daniel Camargo and Anna Tsygankova, one of my all time favourite dancers  (see Anna Tsygankova 8 Sept 2016). I saw Camargo dance a scene from La Bayadere with Sasha Mukhamedov at the gala. I shall return to Amsterdam on 13 Nov when I hope to see Mukhamedov again with Jozef Varga and Vera Tsygankova in the last performance of La Bayadere.

The third reason why the Dutch National Ballet's slot was the highlight of my day is that Ted Brandsen was interviewed by Michaela DePrince, That remarkable young woman, who joined the Junior Company in 2013 and is already a grand sujet attracted me to the Junior Company and later to the main company. I met her briefly at last year's gala after which "I left the Stopera thinking how that exceptionally talented young dancer was as gracious off stage as she is magnificent upon it." I have written quite a lot about DePrince over the years for various reasons one of which is that I also have connections with Sierra Leone, the country of her birth. You will find links to some of those articles at Michaela DePrince at TEDx Amsterdam 28 Nov 2016.

We drop French at our peril

Louis XIV

Author Hyacinthe Rigaud

Source Wikipedia

There is a really depressing article by Ed West in The Guardian entitled The long adieu: how Britain gave up learning French. Apparently there has been a sharp decline in the number of British schoolchildren taking modern languages, particularly French. For some reason or other there has been a slight increase in the numbers taking Spanish (which is good) but that does not make up for not doing French.  Spanish has never been spoken in these islands whereas French was. As West notes, it is

"the language used at the first parliament, spoken at Runnymede in 1215, a language that still features in much of our legal system and which, until 1858, was the only one on British passports."

That is the reason why our vocabulary is so huge and flexible and our grammar so simple. Without the Norman conquest English could well have developed into an inflected language, much like modern German, with genders and awkward compound words.

But there is another reason for learning French which is that seventeenth and eighteenth century France shaped the modern world in science, diplomacy and of the course the arts. That is particularly true of ballet. Just go through Wikipedia's glossary of ballet terms and count the number that are not in French. As David Bintley reminded us in his documentary, The King who invented Ballet there is a reason for that. The company of the Paris Opera and the school that is attached to it are the oldest and arguably noblest in the world.

A generation ago it would not have been necessary for teachers to explain what is meant by tendu, fondu or frapper. The class would have come across those words in their unseens and prose composition. Increasingly in class I am instructed to bend rather than plier or to tap rather than piquer.  Plier means to fold rather like a pantograph and piquer means to prick which are subtly different concepts from bending or tapping which would translate into rather different movements.

World Ballet Day starts with class in each of the companies. The ballet master or mistress may give instructions in Russian, English or some other language but the exercise itself is nearly always described in French and its meaning instantly becomes clear. The use of French was never abandoned in the Soviet Union even at the height of Stalin's terror and it would have been one of the few conduits with the rest of the world. It provided a medium through which other ideas could pass.  Without such conduit would perestroika ever have been possible?

As machine translation improves, as English is spoken everywhere a tourist goes as many businesses and institutions even in France use English internally it is argued that there are better uses of time on a crowded curriculum - but are there. We don't learn French to order a pression or croque Monsieur but to understand our own language and civilization better. If we drop French we do so at our peril.

English National Ballet's Appeal for Funds for its Parkinson's Classes

I should have mentioned this earlier (and would have done had I kept up to date with my emails) but English National Ballet are raising money to fund their classes for persons suffering from Parkinson's disease (see The Big Give: Dance for Parkinson’s 27 Nov 2015 English National Ballet blog). Their main fund raising effort took place on 4 and 5 Dec 2015 but members of the public can still contribute up to 17:00 on 14 Dec 2015 through the Big Give website.

Readers may remember one of the company's classes on World Ballet Day. These seem to be adult ballet classes just like any in that they start with barre work, continue in the centre and end with a reverence for the instructor and musicians. The students may not be able to do everything that takes place in other adult ballet classes but they clearly do a lot. These are rightly described as high quality dance classes and the company's artistic director has every right to be proud of the initiative.

Classes take place at Cardiff, Ipswich, Liverpool, London and Oxford and English National Ballet hope to open a sixth venue with the funds that they expect to raise. They bring considerable benefits for the students which are mentioned in Dance for Parkinson’s study results announced 30 Oct 2015 English National Ballet blog.

I congratulate English National Ballet and wish them well with this project. I hope other companies will undertake similar initiatives in other parts of the UK and overseas. I wish the instructors, students, musicians, management and everyone participating in these classes a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

More from World Ballet Day - Akram Khan's Dust

Footage from World Ballet Day, English National Ballet's rehearsal of Akram Khan's Dust, Embedded under YouTube standard licence


Having been bowled over by Kaash on Tuesday night (see Akram Khan's Kaash - contemporary meets Indian classical 7 Oct 2015) I am keen to see more of Akram Khan's work. I shall get my chance when English National Ballet perform Dust as part of Lest We Forget triple bill in Manchester on 24 Nov 2015. I got a taster of the work this morning when I watched the above clip from World Ballet Day. The dancers are Erina Takahashi and James Streeter.

It will be interesting to compare Lest We Forget with the Royal New Zealand Ballet's Dear Horizon by Andrew Simmons and Paschendale by Neil Ieremia which also commemorate the First World War. These will be performed in Leeds as part of  The Anatomy of a Passing Cloud programme on 3 and 4 Nov 2015,

Working my way through World Ballet Day footage: Part 1 The Bangarra Dance Theatre

Rock Paintings, Kimberley, Western Australia

Author TimJN1

Source Wikipedia

Creative Commons Licence

I am slowly working my way through the footage of World Ballet Day and I am still only on Australia. However one of the delights that I have already encountered is the Bangarra Dance Theatre which is introduced by one of its dancers, Tara Bower. The company describes itself as "an Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander organisation and one ofAustralia’s leading performing arts companies." It consists of 16 dancers and according to the video each and every one of them shares an indigenous Australian or Torres Islander heritage.

The company was formed just over 25 years ago and is directed by Stephen Page. According to its website the company's dance technique is "forged from over 40,000 years of culture, infused with contemporary movement." Although based in Sydney it remains close to the Aboriginal communities from whom its material is drawn.

The slot given to Bangarra on World Ballet Day was not long. Just enough time to show a class, a trip to the country, a dancer stretching by the sea shore, a rehearsal, part of a performance and snippets from the company's tour to Turkey and Paris. The film shows the dancers in a magnificent modern auditorium in Istanbul and then in a special performance in the Australian embassy in Paris.

As they have been to Paris it occurred to me that they had probably been to London so I googled Sadler's Well and Bangarra. I found that they were here in 2008 with the Australian Ballet with whom they danced a version of Rite of Spring called Rites. The film is very impressive and I really wish I had seen those dancers on stage. In her commentary Tara Bower says that the dancers are trained in several styles including jazz and contemporary and of course ballet. In fact the class shows the dancers performing the traditional barre exercises.

New Term at Team Hud - and around the World

I may be wrong but I think there will be thousands of people around the world (if not millions) who will have been inspired to take up ballet by World Ballet Bay. Although it is always best to start as a child it is possible to start and go quite a long way as am adult. Dave Wilson is proof of that.  He started as a graduate student in the United States and I have seen him dance with Arionel Vargas and Elena Glurdjidze in Stockport and Weston Super Mare. It is also true of The Adult Beginner in Los Angeles and my learned friend The Legal Ballerina who is also in the United States. Even some professionals came into ballet late.  Matthew Bourne who established New Adventures is said to have had his first lesson in his late teens. Even I have ventured onto the stage of the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds before a full house and managed to avoid rotten eggs and tomatoes and I make dance teachers despair.

So where to start. Well if you are in Huddersfield you could do worse than try Team Hud in the sports hall of Huddersfield University. I reviewed it when classes began in January 2014 (see "Team Hud Adult Ballet Class" 22 Jan 2014). Yesterday was the start of the new academic year for Tam Hud with a crop of eager  young students including four blokes. It was taken by Fiona Noonan who trained and started her career in Queensland. "I can see she is a good teacher" muttered a chap from Barnsley whom I had met at Tristram Dance Studios a few weeks earlier. I had recommended Fiona's classes at Hype and the University and I was glad to see that he had followed my recommendation. "One of the best", I replied. "and believe me I have done the rounds." Fiona is now teaching two classes at Huddersfield: a beginners' class at 18:30 which I attended yesterday and an improvers' class at 19:30 which the chap from Barnsley was about to take. Both cost £5 if you are a member of the general public but students can subscribe to the gym for a few quid and take all the classes in all the sports and activities at no extra cost.  A larger but still affordable subscription is also available to the public and if you want to find out more you should call the University on 01484 422288.

A good teacher is everything and, as I told the bloke from Barnsley, Fiona us one of the very best. She is also teaching an intermediate and advanced class at Hype in Sheffield on Monday evenings for the time being. While I would not recommend an intermediate class for an absolute beginner it is good to be pushed and challenged and Fiona certainly does that. But she does it in a nice way and if you get something right you feel a real sense of achievement. She also has a wicked sense of humour. Try blogging or tweeting that you have had a hard class elsewhere and boy does she make you work the next time she sees you.

If you can't make it to Huddersfield then there are some great evening classes at Northern Ballet Academy in Leeds. I took two in the vacation and one with Chris Hinton-Lewis that I really enjoyed. My favourite class in Leeds is the Over 55 class with Annemarie Donoghue which runs on Tuesdays for improvers between 10:30 and 11:30 with an extra half hour for the keen types from 11:45 to 12:15 and Thursdays between 11:30 and 12:30 for beginners.  Annemarie is also a wonderful teacher and you can see her in action in this video with some of my friends. Not only do you get instruction from an excellent teacher but you learn in the studios of one of the world's best ballet companies - it's official Northern won one of the Taglioni awards - and you have Ollie, Elena or some other pianist tinkling away on the old Joanna.  The only drawback is that you have to be over 55 to join that class but anybody can take one of the evening classes. Not bad for £6.50 plus a £5 registration fee.

If you live in the North West KNT Danceworks run evening classes for adults in Manchester and Liverpool. They also have great teachers, Alisa and Karen, whom I can't recommend too highly.  I have only had two classes with Ailsa and one with Karen but I learned a lot from both and had a lot of fun. The students in both cities were friendly and keen to learn and we all smiled and laughed a lot afterwards.

I have had only one class in London from Adam at Pineapple but that was ace. Pineapple was recommended to me by Joanna Goodman who takes Amber's class nearly every week and she did me a real favour in recommending it. You have to take out temporary membership and then pay for the class which makes it somewhat more expensive than the classes in the North but then hey this is London. A class that I have not yet tried but would dearly love to do so is Paul Lewis's class at the Royal Ballet School. One day, perhaps, one day.

It is a long time since I last visited LA but the Adult Beginner reviews adult ballet classes there and her articles are always a good read.  Johanna writes about adult ballet in Helsinki in Pointe Til You Drop.  There are adult ballet classes everywhere - even in India. Wherever you are, enjoy yourselves and have fun.

World Ballet Day - Live Streaming from some of the World's Greatest Ballet Companies

 Today is World Ballet Day and you can read all about it on the Royal Opera House website.

For the last hour I have been trying to tear myself away from YouTube. I've been gushing like a geyser on twitter about the Bolshoi's class where all the stars were exercising.

A fascinating start to World Ballet Day - the @bolshoi_ru in class right now doing the same exercises as all dancers http://t.co/Ham1vsVxz8
— Jane Lambert (@nipclaw) October 1, 2014

Right now there is now a rehearsal of The Legend of Love from Moscow.

Later there will be our own Royal Ballet, the San Francisco Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian Ballet.

Enjoy.