Alas Sarah, who was our exhibitions assistant, has left the team to return to the USA so that will keep us even busier. At least Monday with the strike was quite a quiet day.
Had a moment of great satisfaction on Saturday as I walked past Hatchards in Piccadilly as there in the middle of the window was our bookand on entering the shop you do not even have to go upstairs to the art department to buy it – its in the display of ‘most interesting new books from all floors’. It is selling well and tomorrow (Wednesday) I’ll be doing a signing after my lunch-time talk at the V&A. I’ve even been given a pen which is not meant to smudge for the occasion. (Really there ought to be a whole team of us signing the book – that would be worth a photo.)
I passed Hatchards between giving a session for English National Ballet’s Dance Workers (on Rudolf Nureyev’s Romeo and Juliet, so a bit of a change of scene) and introducing the films in the From the Ballets Russes season at the bfi Southbank (National Film Theatre). We still have a week of films to go including some that are great fun.
We screen the whole of the Late Night Line Up from 1968 showing the auction of sets and costumes seen in Nesta MacDonald’s photgraph above – in the exhibition you see an edited version. The film includes so many of the costumes now on display in the exhibition and others shown when we did the costume workshops at Blythe Road earlier in the year. There is also film on Olga Spessistzeva and another on her friend and contemporary, Felia Doubrovska – and the second part of John Drummond’s brilliant Omnibus. Details on
It was also good to be able to help ENB as starting in 2 weeks time (17 – 30 October) they are going to be doing a residence at the V&A ‘Rephrasing Ballets Russes’ with a huge range of events: fun, serious and of interest for all ages.
http://www.ballet.org.uk/current-projects/encounters-and-design-perspectives.html