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)
James Tate has been practising with timelapse photography around Birmingham:
Marketing Birmingham have a new vid for selling the city. It was put together by Fullrange and, among others, features Birmingham Royal Ballet, Clusta and Made Media
Two installations were installed at the CiB Shop yesterday. First off the Art Detection Services set up their workshop and offices in our Strange Little Room At The Back. Here’s head Art Detector Matt Moore hard at work.
Matt will be scanning Art that is brought in to test whether it is Good or not. If it is Good it’ll go on the walls as part of the Good Art Gallery.
The not-very-Private View of the gallery will be on Friday 23 April at 6pm. Go follow on Facebook to keep in the loop.
(The upstarts at More Canals scooped us on this with a feature on the Agency. What can I say, some of us have a shop to run.)
Later on that afternoon the costumes that had been haunting our stock room somehow made their way into the upstairs gallery.
These are costumes and props from the Birmingham Royal Ballet that were created in Birmingham and are on the road as part of their 20th birthday shenanigans. Explanatory documentation to make this clear will be following shortly. Meanwhile the headless people are watching you shop…
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.
During my first stint on Created in Birmingham I had a nagging feeling that there was loads of good dance stuff going on but it was all happening under my radar. I’m pretty much on top of it these days, partly for the reasons given in the disclaimer at the bottom of this post but mainly because there’s so much dance stuff happening around the city this year.
Anyway, from tomorrow until Sunday, British Dance Edition – a biennial showcase of the British dance scene – is in Birmingham. It’s a big deal, with loads of venues hosting performances, events, presentations and debates. It’s a national showcase, not a local one, but there’s a fair bit of local interest:
There’s probably more too. Most of it’s for paying delegates only but there are some good public events too.
Disclaimer – I’m working on/at British Dance Edition (incl one of the debates) and International Dance Festival Birmingham. WestMidlandsDance.com is one of my websites too.
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.
The Birmingham Post Power 50 (tremble at their might!) has just been announced. With last year’s list having an impressive showing from the arts world, interest at CiB could almost have been described as ‘mild’.
Ok, so it’s easy to be cynical about these things (and it’s open season on the Birmingham Post site – all the winners’ profiles are commentable), but there’s little sense in detracting from the recognition given to the following folks who work hard on the city’s arts & culture scene.
So, from CiB (hating the game, not the playa since 2007) hearty congrats go to:
While I’m at it, the Birmingham meeja luminaries who would like to thank their friends, family, deity of choice, etc and so on are:
The big list of movers and shakers is on the Birmingham Post website which, like I say, they’ve made an effort to do all nice so you can comment on how brilliant and deserving everyone is.
But feel free to vent your spleen in the comments here if you feel the need.
A couple of good things from the Ikon. Firstly, every Wednesday over the summer the gallery and bookshop will be open until 8pm (cafe until 11pm).
Coinciding with the late openings is a series of talks called ‘These are a few of my favourite things’ which will be
loosely based on Desert Island Discs where speakers will present their eight most memorable artistic experiences illustrated by a slide show
The schedule for those is:
The talks start at 6.30pm and places are free, although they need to be booked in advance on 0121 248 0708.
