Jonathan Still, ballet pianist

This is one of my favourite tales of ballet misunderstandings, but the context takes so long to describe that it’s almost untellable verbally. Let’s start with the main characters –…

One of my favourite gigs of recent years is playing for the company of dancers that does the Raymond Gubbay Strauss Gala (choreographed by Christopher Hampson). In intensive rehearsal periods,…

I think this is a Jackie Barratt-ism: describing a rather dull-looking arabesque, she said to the dancer concerned ‘that leg’s a bit…BBC2’

Another from the incomparable Jackie Barratt, when she was ballet mistress at ENB. She was rehearsing two principals in Cranko’s Taming of the Shrew, which involves a lot of complex…