Possibly a bit late to the party with this one, but I’ve recently been introduced to Ballet in Birmingham. “To mark the start of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s 2011-12 season, the Company has joined forces with a Birmingham-based photographer to create Ballet in Birmingham. The campaign celebrates this world-class ballet company in Birmingham, the city it has called its home for the last 21 years.

Photographer Richard Battye captured images of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s 13 Principal dancers, the Company’s Director David Bintley, Assistant Director Marion Tait and Chief Executive Christopher Barron in areas of Birmingham that mean something special to them, away from their work with the Company.”

Last week, Kassie and I accepted a kind invitation to attend Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Cinderella press night at the Birmingham Hippodrome, and the performance was magical. Several of the dancers that performed in last Wednesday’s Cinderella feature in Richard’s set, including Cinderella, Elisha Willis. Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Cinderella is on at the Birmingham Hippodrome until the 9th December, and tickets are still available.

In related ballet news, the third instalment of Pointe Blank (Collections of original images inspired by the plots of major narrative works by BRB, and created by professional designers in and around the UK.) has been available to view online for a while now, and is worth checking out.

Because nothing says ‘I went to a thing’ quite like a blurry photo. The chap on stage is very probably Stuart Griffiths, Hippodrome Chief Exec and Co-Artistic Director of International Dance Festival Birmingham, announcing the launch of that very same festival.

There’s plenty of good stuff on over the next little while. There’s the free Breathe the Beat roadshow at the Bullring today with contemporary dance legend Louise Lecavalier in this evening.

Also tonight is the last night of Un Peu De Tendresse Bordel de Merde at Warwick Arts Centre – a show that’s had a lot of people talking and was the reason this guy was wandering around wearing nothing but a sandwich board the other day.

There’s a load of dance films being shown around town, curated by Flatpack (a nice little partnership, I thought). Birmingham Royal Ballet are doing a Three Short Works at the Crescent Theatre later in the week and next weekend there’s a whole load of family events going on.

There’s more too. Here’s the full line-up.

Take Five studio rehearsals – Two Step from Rob Lindsay.

It’s part of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s triple bill as part of IDFB, a festival I’m very much looking forward to, in case I hadn’t mentioned it already.

On Monday I went to the launch of the latest Pointe Blank project which featured illustrators creating posters in response to Birmingham Royal Ballet‘s latest production, Hobson’s Choice. You can tell I was there because I took a horribly grainy pic with my phone. That’s journalism, that is.

It’s the second time they’ve done this (last time it was Coppelia) and the folks behind it are Claire Hartley (who works at Substrakt and is largely responsible for the look of CiB) and Rob Lindsay who works at BRB.

It’s really impressive how they’ve managed to pull together work from some of the best illustrators in Birmingham – the collection’s worth seeing and is available in all it’s glory online at pointeblank.co.uk. Please go check it out.

I’m always surprised that there’s so little in Birmingham that brings illustrators and graphic designers together. There’s some great talent around. Something should be done about it, I reckon.

Photo: Hotdogs by Matt Cattell

A few festive bits and bobs happening around Birmingham…

The Frankfurt Christmas Market closes on Friday 23 December, as does the Festive Pop Up Bazaar on New Street.

It’s the BrumNotes/This Is Tmrw Christmas Party at The Victoria tonight. Click the link or ogle the poster below (sidenote: are Lewes Herriot‘s gig posters the best around town at the moment? Answers on a postcard).

Birmingham Hippodrome have Cinderella on until the end of January and has already picked up some really good reviews from the Birmingham Mail and The Stage. I went along to the press night last night (disclosure: that means they gave me free tickets) and liked the lovely horsey best.

In other theatre-based offerings:

• The Rep have The Snowman at the ICC and Sleeping Beauty at the Crescent Theatre.
• Blue Orange Theatre in the Jewellery Quarter are doing A Christmas Carol
• The MAC have The Lost Happy Endings

In fact, Area Guide’s December issue has a Christmas theatre round-up from page 26 onwards. Ah, and Visit Birmingham have a Christmas round-up too.

Film-wise, Kino 10 are showing The Nightmare Before Christmas plus some short films at St Columba Church on Friday 23 Dec and The Electric have a smattering of festive films too.

Town Hall & Symphony Hall have a bundle of events going on:

• Polar (this afternoon)
• The CBSO’s Great Big Choral Christmas
• Christmas Eve Classics
• Boxing Day Gala

Meanwhile, down in that London, Birmingham Royal Ballet are seeing out the year performing The Nutcracker at the O2, which sounds like a pretty big deal to me.

There’s loads of other stuff too, obviously. If you’ve got any other good suggestions then bung them in the comments.