Junor Souza in Firebird. (danceeurope.net)
Here’s some pics of one of my favourite male dancers at the moment, ENB’s Junor Souza. I saw him dance the arabesque dance in the Nutcracker this Christmas, and I found his dancing very striking and sensual – and surprisingly sexy for this traditional family classic. Here’s his bio at ENB.
Junor Souza in Le Corsaire (danceeurope.net)
I’m just settling in at home after the ENB’s Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Albert Hall. I’ll reflect more thoughtfully on the production later but I’d just like to say that Daria Klimentova is incredibly gracious to fans at the stage door, after dancing miles around that huge arena of a stage and obviously wanting to get home with her husband. She had her pointe shoes for a particular fan, and a smile and a good word for everyone. It was quite a heart-hammering moment for me to have her make eye contact with me and quite genuinely and interestedly listen whilst I thanked her for her performance and got her autograph. Her Juliet was complex, and moved me to tears.
I met a lot of very interesting and lovely people at Dance is the Word’s opening session on Saturday. The day was led by Donald Hutera, dance critic for the Times, and featured Emilia from the Ballet Bag and staff from ENB, covering writing questions, giving us insights into working freelance, discussing blogging strategies and giving us all opportunity to talk about our dance background and what we wanted to gain from the course. I even got to work through some blogpost ideas in a group – really valuable and something that the lone blogger doesn’t often get to do!
One of the most interesting writing questions for me was concerning confidence and giving opinions. As I come from an academic writing background, I’m fairly confident in my own critical judgement and I think I can be very opinionated – and also willing to back up and discuss my views. This is of course in a thesis-writng context, and one of my worries is about translating this into a blog-writing, reviewing, journalistic context.
A good number of people expressed concern, not just in finding confidence in their own views, but about backing up negative opinion, and how to write about negative reaction to a piece. This is a very current concern for me, and I think something that is compounded by fora like Twitter, where it seems we’re all in contact with each other whilst not knowing anyone at all. Although I feel secure in making a value judgement on a piece, my query is around is how to express this properly, especially in a blog that is by its nature instantly accessible by anyone. I’d never be rude or destructively critical about anything, however I’m acutely aware of my position as an amateur writer in comparison to the well-respected practitioners I’m critiquing.
I guess the only way to find out what works is to write, and maybe make mistakes, and write some more. Just as judgement on dance pieces is instantly tweeted, reaction to your writing can be just as quickly fired off. It feels a little bit like entering into a fray, but hopefully a constructive, rather than a combative, arena.
I’m very excited to be able to take part in Dance is the Word 2014, a dance writing course run by the English National Ballet.
I got my confirmation through this morning, and the course starts on Saturday with writing workshops with some well known and respected dance writers, both print critics and bloggers. We’ll be attending and writing about the Emerging Dancer Awards, with opportunities to talk to the dancers themselves.
Hopefully I’ll be able to blog in a personal capacity about my experience and thrash out some writing questions with you lot! Keep your eyes on Twitter for updates and photos!
Entrechat. 