Infra at the royal ballet

Wayne Macgregor, Max richter (a philip glass inspired composer) worked on a piece called ‘Infra’ Macgregor is now a creative there after refusing to join the ranks of the core after being invited to join the core*.

The dance piece is modern but even got a viewing on the bbc last week so theres no excuse to say i was washing my hair/fur/feathers or whatever you have.

I liked it, the ‘art’ it did not need, but then i was not looking at that.  It is moments like this that the bbc excels at but not very often.  Hidden away it as it was for all of your asbos.

5/5 Bananas.

* rare

Rudolf Nureyev, Julie Kavanagh

is isbn: 9781905490158, and something well worth the read. Unlike most biographies this does not resort to amazing, brilliant, fantastic, extravagance, triumph’s that i will call ‘gushing’ that certain lovies end up with in their books which means you can usually avoid them and respect the work more.

Ms Kavanagh (who was a dancer) manages to excite and keep those ‘a’ ‘b’ ‘f’ and ‘t’s to the bare minimum while showing the progress of the art form in the performer that’s quite hard to do without getting boring.

Towards the end the book strays a little (third person) but the author does an admirable job.  It is 700 pages minimum to read and takes a while to get through.

This book has been out for a while and was rather damaged by a bbc documentary on first publication with stuff not in the book and with my dislike of the gushing biography meant it was not a usual read here at the zoo.

4/5 Bananas.

A deluge of ballet on tv at christmas finally figured out.

Have you ever wondered why the great british public only get to see ballet on all tv’s if

1. there’s a dead composer ‘celebrating’ a +50 , or 100 years cumulative anniversary.
2. or christmas

no ? Well with Darcey Brussel doing her farewell in 2007 meant a lot of ‘men in tights’ at last years christmas – when lets face most of the english whom do the turkey dinner on the 25th routine are probably in a state of sleepiness, or drunk.

The bbc is most guilty of this , and yes while there probably is a cultured tv channel on pay tv where theres alot more of culture why is it that the bbc cannot show this at any other time of year, minus the dead composer event.

Granted its not every bodies cup of tea, so is this a treat for me, or is this the bbc’s idea of tormenting its low brow audience. I`m sticking with that as it seems a reasonable excuse.

Regional ballet

Bananas finished sexing the chickens one evening, had a swim with the penguins to clean up, ate a banana and jumped on a train to a regional town to the see the Moscow city ballet and sleeping beauty

Bananas also wore a nice dress and with the rest of the party i was unnoticeable among humans.

It was cramped as a performance (how they miss the big stage) and mistakes where made but an entertaining evening.  Not like  the ballet in the the city but its nice to see the thing in smaller* places.

*Ballet was one of the things first ever seen on test broadcast television in england before the second world war.

Magic ?

firebird

We interupt this blog ….

Vaganova technique

Vaganova school, very physical. Rather cool.

to the point

A Japanese animation hilight (how to use the internet too)

This is called ‘Princess Tutu’ which was made in 2002 and seen naturally in Japan and nowhere else to our detriment for it has fine animation as you can see, its stunning at times, and great music.

Here are few of the many fan adapted submissions from youtube (the series is not available for purchase yet but its on bit torrent. (there are english subtitles) And i highly recommend it for a download.

An example of the series ‘comtemporised’

If you liked that – enjoy some more.

So why am i raving about – it screams quality and the Japanese use the internet to promote it, and spread its message. As i mentioned earlier it can be sampled by bit torrent and while its a hefty download of 4 and bit gb’s its well worth a go if you like the artwork seen above and less the pop songs (which work well in these fan subs).

These above mash ups are fan submissions, the stories are clever and use some complex story telling methods that even some adult tv shows would be scared from using.

It mixes western ballet (eg Russian and French) into European folklore and some common Japanese anime techniques and still comes out well.

It is not soft and soppy, there is a level here to this animation that should be considered higher than just childrens entertainment for Dr Turing, The Grimm Brothers, The Matrix and the Art of Ballet all collide together.

It runs to 25 minutes and then in the second part goes into 10 minute sections. It is epic. If your having a depressing holiday season (christmas) have a hunt for it

Warning: It will make english tv look crap