Created in Birmingham

Ballet in Birmingham is a nice little thing from Birmingham Royal Ballet and Richard Battye. Click the pic for info.

This is a bit self-indulgent and it starts with a brief recap, so please bear with me.

Back in Feb, Ian posted something about BRB presenting some work choregraphed by their dancers. One of the pieces used a track called Printer Jam by Mistabishi and was spotted by the people behind the Drum and Bass Awards, who invited the dancers to perform it at their launch event.

Matt Murtagh saw the piece and tweeted about it. I posted a screenshot of that tweet on CiB.

Anyway… a screenshot of that tweet on CiB made it into a video intro that was featured at BRB’s Royal Gala Performance back in March, in front of a packed Hippodrome audience which included Prince Charles. I was there, and it was odd to see little old CiB up on all of those screens in front of all those people.

The point of all of this (in case you were wondering) is that I’ve just been told that the video’s now up online:

Printer Jam feature from Rob Lindsay on Vimeo.

Kit Holder is the man behind the piece and I’ve got a quote from him about it too:

I’m really happy about how successful it’s been. When I made the piece I didn’t think it would have such longevity, so I’m chuffed to bits that it’s being performed again. It’s a real testament to the dancers and the technical department, to be honest. I jokingly asked all these different things of them and they ran with the ideas and made it all into a real piece!

You can see the piece as part of Artsfest this weekend, with a few other things being performed from 3-4.15pm on the Centenary Square stage.

Rob Lindsay at Birmingham Royal Ballet has been slaving away over a blog charting the development of Cinderella, David Bintley’s new full-length narrative ballet.

I’m a big fan of the pieces to camera that David has been using to document his past few productions, this takes things a little further and draws out some of the process of putting together a ballet – the sort of thing that you wouldn’t ordinarily see. I like.

In honour of the fact that Birmingham didn’t tick as many arbitrary boxes as another city in some popularity contest or other (but srsly – congratulations Derry/Londonderry), here’s a picture to lift the spirits:

Now that’s culture.

(Via @Robintheoffice)

The eagle-eyed shoppers among you may have noticed ballet shoes and tutus, like the one pictured above found in the Created in Birmingham shop, popping up all over Bullring recently.

Add this to questions like “What is Urban Ballet?” on the shopping centre’s Life Feels Better twitter stream, and this Urban Ballet website, and it looks like there will be a surprise in store for Bullring visitors tomorrow. Perhaps a little something like this:

If you want to find out what Urban Ballet is, it looks like it will be kicking off between 11am and 2pm, so get practising those pirouettes and get down to Bullring.

David Bintley’s good at these pieces to camera. Here he is announcing the ballet’s 20th anniversary season – favourites from over the years and a new production of Cinderella.

Prices have been frozen for this year, get in quick, etc and so on.

From a tweet by Matt Murtagh:

The specific reason for posting this is that a while back I went to a meeting about ‘audience development’ where we were told that significant numbers of people believe you have to turn up to the ballet in a fur coat and a Bentley. Oddly, many of the people there found this hilarious. It’s not, so in my own way I’m doing my bit to help the cause.

Yup, it’s that magic word free again. This time Birmingham Royal Ballet are offering a free choreographics presentation with a drinks reception and an introduction by company director David Bintley.

It’s on Thursday 11 February at 7.30pm at Elmhurst School for Dance. Tickets are limited to two per person and seats will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. If you act fast you can get your tickets here.

Hi everyone, it’s me again. You may or may not know (or care – it’s ok, I can take it) that I’m now running the West Midlands Dance website. This is the first in a series of monthly round-ups I’ll be contributing here. So…

Starting with a biggie – the People Dancing programme has been launched. This is a programme to encourage mass public participation in dance and dance-related events and is the main focus of the Cultural Olympiad for the West Mids. Info, documents and potential partners are over on the West Midlands Dance website.

It’s been announced that the British Dance Edition 2010 will be held in Birmingham on 3-6 February 2010.

There’s been plenty from Birmingham Royal Ballet who have announced their season for 2009/2010. They’ve been touring recently, with some of the dancers contributing to a blog. Also, the Guardian wrote a rather flattering guide to the company as part of their step-by-step series.

The latest Youth Dance England newsletter is out.

Breakin Convention is off on tour with several local breakdancing crews joining international acts at the Hippodrome on 12 & 13 May.

Last, and anything but least, a video from the last Project X Presents event, Digital Dystopia (link to video):

Read the fairly mind-boggling explanation and make sure the next Project X event is in your diary – it’s in Moseley on 9 May – Xhibition.

The Big Picture people have news of the Birmingham Royal Ballet offering free tickets for a preview of their upcoming show, ‘Russian Steps‘ on 8 October at the Hipodrome.

The new show consists of three ballets by Russian composers:

‘Concerto’ is a pure dance piece from master choreographer Kenneth MacMillan.

‘The Firebird’ is a magical Russian fairytale in which love conquers evil.

‘Raymonda Act III’ is the quick-footed classical finale from a longer ballet, originally the wedding celebrations of the hero and heroine.

Which all sounds lovely and excellent.  Definitely worth a go if you’ve not got anything else planned for 8 October and want to try something different.

If you want to snaffle some tickets then email your name, address and the number of tickets you want (don’t take the proverbial) to newattenders@brb.org.uk.