This outstanding video documents some of the rehearsel and creation process of Birmingham Royal Ballet‘s Cinderella. Created by BRB’s Rob Lindsay, this is a rare glimpse behind the scenes, while also being directly set against moments in the final production, all with commentary by choreographer and company director David Bintley.

Well worth 3 minutes of your time.

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.

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.

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…

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

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.

Artsfest is a big sprawling beast of a festival and a difficult one to wrangle from a listings perspective. A few people have chipped in with their take on how things could/should be presented but for me, while all of them help in some way, none of them really hit the nail on the head.  Still here are they:

• Every event has been manfully wrangled into the Live Brum database
• Jon Bounds has scanned the programme and put it online
• He’s also put together a map showing what’s happening where (but not when)
• Matthew Somerville from Dracos.co.uk has put together a searchable list of events listed by time, not location

I’m pretty sure that the small team running Artsfest wouldn’t have the budget or reach to put something like the above together, so it’s great to see the local community take it upon themselves.

In case it’s of any use to anyone, here’s what I’m planning to do.  Or at least what I think looks interesting.

Friday evening

Friday’s fun takes place against the backdrop of Light Night, of course.

• Stan’s Cafe are opening the doors of AE Harris Factory (110 Northwood Street, B3 1SZ) for Of All The People In All The World (6.30-9pm)
• From 7pm (not sure until when) there are two interesting things happening at the Council House.  Definitely worth seeing are Willard Wigan’s astounding micro sculptures.  Sonia Bhamra will be Painting With Light in another room which might be worth a look if you’re there
• Gallery 10 at BM&AG has Comfortism who, I think, mixes up poetry, theatre and stand-up with the odd bit of audience participation.  Could be interesting
• At 8pm there’s a parade from the Pavillions to Centenary Square
• The Town Hall present Late Night Light Night and they’ll be open from 8pm for perfomances by Soweto Kinch, The Sub Ensemble, Manga and Maylight (who I’m looking forward to seeing)

Saturday

Saturday’s the tricky one.  There’s loads happening so the best thing might just be to go for a wander around the city centre and see what you stumble across.  That said…

• Nic Gaunt’s exhibition ‘The Rotunda: 21 Stories‘ will be at The Pavillions all day
• From 3.30pm to 4.30pm there’s Raw Magic which is “a visual installation and promenade performance built into a maze of tents, for audiences to explore and choose which direction they would like to take”.  Some of the people here were involved in the very popular B1 Labyrinths from this year’s Fierce Festival
• From 8pm to 10pm BRB, CBSO and Birmingham Opera Company share the Centenary Square stage for one of the weekend’s big items.  Plus there’ll be fireworks.
• After that it’s Project X Presents for me.  It’s not Artsfest-related but it does look pretty exciting, so that’s where I’ll be.

Sunday

• If I’m functioning at 12pm then I’ll want some ‘beautiful heartwarming acoustic/electronica music’.  At the Custard Factory, Elliot Jack will be playingjust that.
• After that I might wander into the Custard Factory Theatre for some short flicks courtesy of Shortcuts
• From 7pm Needle & Thread Theatre are doing the rather charming-looking ‘Between The Lines’ – walking theatre around the Central Library.  This is on on Saturday too (call 07530 939 380 to book a free place)
• It’s Kerrangfest in Centenary Square from 12pm with The Mexicolas, The Metros, Envy & Other Sins and The Levellers later in the evening.

Of course, whether I actually get round a fraction of all of that is another question.