World Ballet Day, October 1 2014
By Jan McNulty, September 8, 2014 in Ballet / Dance news & information
World Ballet Day
Australian Ballet
National Ballet of Canada
Jan McNulty 17,873
GLOBAL FIRST: FIVE WORLD-CLASS BALLET COMPANIES, ONE DAY OF LIVE STREAMING ON WEDNESDAY 1 OCTOBER
www.roh.org.uk/worldballetday
Australian Ballet | Bolshoi Ballet | The Royal Ballet | The National Ballet of Canada | San Francisco Ballet
The first ever World Ballet Day will see an unprecedented collaboration between five of the world's leading ballet companies. This online event will take place on Wednesday 1 October when each of the companies will stream live behind the scenes action from their rehearsal studios.
Starting at the beginning of the dancers' day, each of the five ballet companies – Australian Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, The Royal Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada and San Francisco Ballet – will take the lead for a four hour period streaming live from their headquarters starting with the Australian Ballet in Melbourne. The live link then passes across time zones and cultures from Melbourne to Moscow to London to Toronto to San Francisco.
The live streaming will take viewers on a journey into the rarely seen backstage lives of ballet dancers. This unusual access will throw a spot light on the differences in style between the five companies as they follow a very similar routine but approach choreography and performance in the ways that have made them unique on the world stage. Starting with morning class to warm up the body with different exercises, moving on to rehearsals for their upcoming performances the day will be a celebration of dance; the athleticism and unparalleled dedication of all those involved in creating a world-class ballet company.
Viewers will be able to engage and interact with dancers, choreographers and coaches who live and breathe ballet every day of their working lives, asking questions throughout the day as well as having the opportunity to contribute by submitting a film of themselves doing a pirouette wherever they are in the world. These will be edited into a film celebrating the worldwide appeal of dance.
The day's streaming will be repeated on YouTube in full so that viewers around the world can catch up on any parts of the day they missed. Edited highlights will then be made available for further viewing.
World Ballet Day is a development from Royal Ballet Live which was a nine-hour live streaming via YouTube and The Guardian website in March 2012. This unique event achieved 200,000 views of the live stream and repeat broadcast and a total of 2.5 million views of YouTube Royal Ballet Live material to date. It is, however, the first time that four of the five ballet companies are taking the cameras backstage to reveal the sweat and determination of these talented dancers.
In another first, this collaboration is the first time that YouTube has streamed live more than nine hours of content.
Full details of the unique day's activities will be available in due course. Highlights from The Royal Ballet will include Principals Marianela Nuñez and Federico Bonelli rehearsing for their performances of Kenneth MacMillan's masterpiece ballet Manon which opens at Covent Garden on Friday 26 September and is screened live into cinemas across the world on Thursday 16 October.
--- ENDS---
Bolshoi Ballet is a magic word for many ballet lovers all around the world. It is the largest company in the world consisting of 220 dancers, most of who have graduated from the Moscow Academy of Classic Ballet - one of the oldest and most prominent ballet schools in Russia. The Bolshoi is renowned for its unique style which combines true virtuosity with incredible stage presence. It has an illustrious heritage with dancers such as Galina Ulanova, Vladimir Vassiliev and Maya Plisetskaya, Ekaterina Maximova and Nikolay Fadeechev, Natalia Bessmertnova, Maris Liepa, Liudmila Semeniaka and Irek Mukhamedov playing a vital role in its history and position on the world stage.
For more the 30 years Yury Grigorovitch was a powerful leader of the Bolshoi ballet company. As a repertory company, each year Giselle, The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Don Quixote and La Bayadère are performed alongside new work, keeping a fine balance between the historic legacy and new creations. Aleksey Ratmansky has created works including Bright stream, Bolt, Flames of Paris and Lost illusions.
Under the leadership of Sergei Filin, the Bolshoi Ballet now has among its stars Svetlana Zakharova, David Hallberg, Maria Alexandrova, Semion Chudin, Olga Smirnova, Michail Lobukhin, Evgenia Obraztsova.
In its 239th Season, the Bolshoi will perform two world premieres, Hamlet with music by Shostakovich and choreography by Radu Poklitaru, and a new ballet based on the Lermontov novel Hero of our time choreographed by Yury Posokhov and directed by Kirill Serebrianikov, with a new score commissioned from Ilya Demutski.
Based at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, The Royal Ballet is Great Britain's most prestigious ballet company and one of the great classical ballet companies of the world. Led by Director Kevin O'Hare, the Company has a wide-ranging repertory that showcases the great 19th century classics alongside heritage works including those of its two great 20th century choreographers Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan. In addition, The Royal Ballet performs new works by Royal Ballet Resident Choreographer Wayne McGregor and Royal Ballet Artistic Associate Christopher Wheeldon, two of the foremost international choreographers of today. The Royal Ballet continues to create and encourage new choreography and appointed Liam Scarlett as Royal Ballet Artist in Residence in 2012.
The National Ballet of Canada
One of the top international ballet companies, The National Ballet of Canada was founded in 1951 by Celia Franca. A company of 70 dancers with its own orchestra, the National Ballet has been led by Artistic Director Karen Kain, one of the greatest ballerinas of her generation, since 2005. Renowned for its diverse repertoire, the company performs traditional full-length classics, embraces contemporary work and encourages the creation of new ballets as well as the development of Canadian choreographers. The company's repertoire includes works by Sir Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, John Cranko, Rudolf Nureyev, Glen Tetley, John Neumeier, William Forsythe, James Kudelka, Jiří Kylián, Wayne McGregor, Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon, Crystal Pite and Aszure Barton. The National Ballet has toured in Canada, the US and internationally with recent appearances at Sadler's Wells in London, England, The Music Center in Los Angeles and Lincoln Centre's David H. Koch Theater in New York City.
As America's oldest professional ballet company, San Francisco Ballet has enjoyed a long and rich tradition of artistic "firsts" since its founding in 1933, including performing the first American productions of Swan Lake and Nutcracker, as well as the first 20th-century American Coppélia. San Francisco Ballet is one of the three largest ballet companies in the United States. Guided in its early years by American dance pioneers and brothers Lew, Willam and Harold Christensen, San Francisco Ballet currently presents more than 100 performances annually, both locally and internationally. Under the direction of Helgi Tomasson, the Company has achieved an international reputation as one of the pre-eminent ballet companies in the world. In 2005, San Francisco Ballet won the prestigious Laurence Olivier Award in the category of "Outstanding Achievement in Dance" and in 2006, it was the first non-European company elected "Company of the Year" in Dance Europe magazine's annual readers' poll. In 2008, the Company marked its 75th anniversary with a host of initiatives including an ambitious New Works Festival. In 2012, SF Ballet's ambitious tour schedule included London and Washington, D.C., plus first-time visits to Hamburg, Moscow, and Sun Valley, Idaho. In October 2013, the Company performed at New York's David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, where The New York Times declared SF Ballet "a national treasure." In July 2014, the Company toured to Paris as part of Les Etés de la Danse Festival, marking the 10th anniversary of its inaugural engagement with the festival. At Théâtre du Châtelet, SF Ballet presented over 20 works by 15 choreographers over a gala evening and 17 performances. 2015 marks the 30th anniversary of Helgi Tomasson's tenure as artistic director of San Francisco Ballet.
Sim 16,810
Wow this sounds fascinating....I may have to throw a sickie from work!
Bruce 1,345
Retired Admin
Location: Windsor
For DanceTabs page on World Ballet Day Live! I just did a quick sweep of what each of the companies is saying...
Australian Ballet blog
Bolshoi Ballet – nothing as yet
Royal Ballet page
National Ballet of Canada page (pdf)
San Francisco Ballet page
San Francisco Ballet Kickstarter to raise money for World Ballet Day
The Australian Blog gives timings of who is on when, but of course it's all in Aus time!
The SF Kickstarter page is looking for $30,000 to cover their costs. They also rather jumped the gun - I found the page yesterday afternoon - well ahead of when announcements were due to be made. It may even have been up since the 3 September!
The interesting omission is New York - no disrespect to Nat Ballet of Canada. A shame that for whatever reason NYCB is not involved. I mention them particularly, though ABT would have been good instead, because they represent such a different ballet tradition with their emphasis on shorter works. But this is a wonderful initiative as is and I really look forward to see it all unfolding on the day.
Lisa O`Brien 2,945
Location: Newry,County Down Northern Ireland
....And on Saturday 4th October at 7.30 UK time,Paris Opera Ballet are performing Etudes. You will be able to find it at www.culturebox.fr.
John Mallinson 5,193
I make the UK timings to be:
The Australian Ballet - 4am British Summer Time (GMT +1)
The Bolshoi Ballet - 8am
The Royal Ballet - 12pm
National Ballet of Canada - 4pm
San Francisco Ballet - 8pm
Nina G. 1,629
Location: Hampstead
Thank you for this John.
Bruce Wall 4,445
Bruce Wall
Katherine on another platform has kindly noted:
The Australian Ballet plans to stream rehearsals of Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and La Bayadère.
http://www.behindbal...allet-day-live/
The Bolshoi plans to show rehearsals of Taming of the Shrew and Legend of Love.
http://www.bolshoi.r...cles/2014/3031/
Oh how wonderful!
I love you to bits, Royal Ballet.
alison 11,230
Sounds great, although I'm not sure even I can cope with 20 hours of live streaming
Yaffa 584
So it's all going to be available right away on Youtube (as well as the edited highlights)? I'd also love to see it all, and it'd be nice to see at least part of it live, but it definitely won't work in one stretch...
Yaffa
I believe that the entire day will be available for later viewing... Interested to know how other people are planning to watch it. Can you multitask, i.e. watch ballet videos alongside other stuff? Or are you arranging to give the video your undivided attention at specific times? Or do you prefer to watch recordings at your leisure?
If I watch it, I'm going to have to pay BT at least £6 for 24 hours' WiFi to get decent coverage, so I will probably watch as much as possible. For the last live stream, I had it running in the background, not realising just how much of my monthly allowance it was using up!
Anyway, more details about the RB contribution here: http://www.roh.org.uk/news/world-ballet-day-programme-whats-in-store-during-the-24-hour-live-stream-on-1-october-2014
loveclassics 740
Alison, BT is just about the most expensive broadband supplier going and is no longer the gold standard it once claimed to be. Have you investigated one of the others - Plusnet for example? I'm with Talktalk - the customer service is nothing to write home about but it is considerably cheaper and, like Plusnet, is more generous with monthly allowances. It's nowhere near as traumatic changing ISPs these days as it used to be and is worth it for the savings which you can spend on more ballet tickets!
Do they do 24-hour WiFi?
PRESS RELEASE WITH MORE DETAIL OF THE DAY
THE ROYAL BALLET OPENS ITS 'VIRTUAL DOORS' FOR AN INSIDE VIEW OF THE WORKING DAY AS PART OF A GLOBAL FIRST: WORLD BALLET DAY
ONE DAY OF LIVE STREAMING ON WEDNESDAY 1 OCTOBER
The Australian Ballet | Bolshoi Ballet | The Royal Ballet |
The National Ballet of Canada | San Francisco Ballet
The first ever World Ballet Day on Wednesday 1 October sees extraordinary and unprecedented access behind the scenes across five of the world's leading ballet companies. Each company will start their day with Class – the daily discipline for every dancer – then open their rehearsal studios for audiences to see what really goes on in the hours before the curtain goes up.
As part of The Royal Ballet's contribution, viewers around the world will have a rare insight as international ballet star Carlos Acostacoaches Royal Ballet Principal Vadim Muntagirov in the role of Basilio in Don Quixote. Acosta's production was first performed to great acclaim last year at Covent Garden and returns to the repertory this November.
Principals Marianela Nunez and Federico Bonelli will rehearse Kenneth MacMillan's Manon in preparation for the ROH Live Cinema screening being relayed around the world on Thursday 16 October.
Hosted by TV and radio presenter George Lamb, the four hours from Covent Garden will also include rehearsals of Artist in ResidenceLiam Scarlett working with his cast including Laura Morera and Steven McRae on his new work The Age of Anxiety which premieres on Friday 7 November. Set to Bernstein's score – Symphony no 2, The Age of Anxiety - the work is inspired by WH Auden's poem about four disparate characters in a wartime New York bar trying to make sense of their shifting worlds.
Resident Choreographer Wayne McGregor will be interviewed about creating his first full length work for the Company, Woolf Works, based on the writings and life of the seminal English author Virginia Woolf. Kevin O'Hare, Director of The Royal Ballet, will talk about the Company and the Season ahead.
The full Company can be seen in rehearsal for Artistic Associate Christopher Wheeldon's latest one act work for The Royal Ballet, his award winning Aeternum, which premiered in 2013, and Frederick Ashton's Scènes de ballet, the ballet Ashton himself claimed to be his favourite.
Company First Artist Ludovic Ondiviela, rehearses members of his cast as he creates his first Royal Ballet commission Cassandra which premieres in October as part of the Company's Linbury Studio Programme.
The variety of choreography on show during the four hours from The Royal Ballet shows a typical rehearsal schedule for the dancers. It will clearly demonstrate the breadth of choreographic talent that has been and remains integral to its identity and which continues to attract and inspire some of the worlds' greatest dancers.
Highlights from the other companies include The Australian Ballet rehearsing Graeme Murphy's celebrated Swan Lake which is one of the company's most celebrated works. Other rehearsal pieces include Stanton Welch's La Bayadère, Peter Wright's The Nutcracker, as well as a rehearsal for the Company's Fall for Dance world premiere piece Ostinato by resident choreographer Tim Harbour, which will be performed in New York City on their US tour in October. Renowned Artistic Director David McAllister will also be on hand to answer questions.
Australia hands over to Russia where the Bolshoi will be rehearsing The Taming of the Shrew with choreography by Jean-Christophe Maillot which had its premiere in July this year, followed by rehearsals for the upcoming opening of Yuri Grigorovich's Legend of Lovewhich returns to the Bolshoi stage for the first time since its renovations. Opening on Sunday 26 October, the performance will be screened lived into cinemas around the world. The Royal Ballet then follows the Bolshoi in the live stream.
The National Ballet of Canada takes over from London and also features a rehearsal of Kenneth MacMillan's dramatic masterwork,Manon in readiness for the opening of the 2014/15 Season at Toronto's Four Seasons Centre for Performing Arts on Saturday 8 November. Anthony Dowell, former Director of The Royal Ballet, who is rehearsing the company, had the role of Des Grieux created on him 40 years ago by MacMillan. John Neumeier's transformative work, Nijinsky, will also be in rehearsal in readiness for its opening in November, coached by Artist-in-Residence Rex Harrington and Senior Ballet Master Peter Ottmann.
The four-hour live stream will be hosted by Canadian TV personality Denise Donlon and will include an interview with Artistic DirectorKaren Kain among others. Viewers will also see into the company's extensive wardrobe department, take a look at athletic therapy and see the importance of dancer conditioning and cross training, as well as the preparation of pointe shoes, to provide a full sense of a dancer's day at The National Ballet of Canada.
The final part of the live stream comes from San Francisco where dancers will be rehearsing Yuri Possikhov's RAkU, featured in San Francisco Ballet's 2015 season; William Forsythe's The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude; scenes from Tomasson/ Possokhov's Don Quixote and Helgi Tomasson's Concerto Grosso being performed at the company's 2015 Opening Night Gala.
The four-hour broadcast will be hosted by former SF Ballet School student and ABC-7 feature reporter Leyla Gulen who will interview a variety of SF Ballet artists and artistic staff, including Artistic Director & Principal Choreographer Helgi Tomasson, Principal DancersMaria Kochetkova, Yuan Yuan Tan and Taras Domitro, Music Director and Principal Conductor Martin West among others.
This unusual access will throw a spot light on the differences in style between the five companies as they follow a very similar routine but approach choreography and performance in the ways that have made them unique on the world stage. Starting with morning class to warm up the body with different exercises, moving on to rehearsals for their upcoming performances the day will be a celebration of dance; the athleticism and unparalleled dedication of all those involved in creating a world-class ballet company.
Throughout the day, viewers will be able to engage and interact with the Artistic Directors, dancers, choreographers and coaches who live and breathe ballet every day of their working lives, asking questions via Twitter as well as having the opportunity to contribute by submitting a film of themselves doing a pirouette wherever they are in the world. These will be edited into a film celebrating the worldwide appeal of dance.
Amelia 1,473
aileen 3,934
According to a recent post on the ROH's website the RB is going to be shown between 11am and 3pm.
Hm... Some nice scenes in the video that Amelia posted, but I do cringe at seeing kids in ballet shoes on skates and scooters. And as for pushing a push chair en pointe...
See also the new video for the Live Ballet challenge (uploading a video of a pirouette):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXa3ZrHegPA
A pity that spotting was recommended - without an explanation of what it is.
ENB also seems to be doing something on the same day, at 9am, according to Joshua McSherry-Gray (aka BalletFriends on Twitter). I'm not sure if this is part of the World Ballet Day or is something separate. It looks as if Petite Mort will be featured.
If so, that's a bit daft - why try competing?
URL for viewing is www.roh.org.uk/worldballetday
It would have been much better if ENB had planned this on another day. Now it only gives me the impression they are desperate to jump on the bandwagon (as if to say "We too are world class you know".) They are a good national company but just not on an international level.
Bluebird 1,098
I'd got the impression that his frequent hints to 'stay tuned' merely indicate that they're planning to announce some 'exciting news' at 9am on Wednesday.
Oh, perhaps that's what he meant. I thought that something was going to be broadcast.
capybara 10,163
I agree that it seems a bit weird that ENB may be planning something for first thing on Wednesday. But I'm not sure of your grounds for saying that the Company is not on an international level, Nina G. On the basis of fairly recent sightings of all the companies involved except Australian Ballet, I would have thought that ENB was at least the equal of some of the other participants in the World Ballet Day.
Is anyone actually watching this yet? I'm intending to later, but it would be nice to find a *proper* schedule, with timings for everything. Plus I hope the "departing" company is putting up a link to the "arriving" company's website to make the transfer easier.
I've been watching it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsLCbeXaztg. The description includes a timetable.
It's a single broadcast, transferring automatically to each country.
Oh, right, thanks Yaffa. The references I'd seen were all referring to pages set up on the individual companies' websites.
Bruce has set up a discussion page for this here: http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/7937-world-ballet-day-live-today-folks/#entry105438 so can we discuss the broadcast there, please.