The Ballerinas

Ballet started 500 years ago in the city states of France for the nobility.

In 18th century there were fairies and sprites in the ballet. The access to the spiritual and to dreams is a feminine world and the ballerinas stole the spotlight on stage.   

Ballet is the only art where women dominate – women have played a greater part in ballet than any other art form.

There are 5 basic positions; there are dancers of technique and dancers of expression.

There are different schools of ballet. British ballet – lyrical and refined; French ballet – elegant and understated; American ballet – fast attack and athletic; Russian ballet - big and punchy.

There have been several very famous ballerinas.

British ballerina Margot Fonteyn – and her choreographer Frederick Ashton. He listened to the music for 3 months before he started to create the ballet, so he knew every note. He had an eye for detail and he loved both fluidity and design. This gave harmony of music and design.  

When Fonteyn was about to retire a 23 year old dancer Rudolf Nureyev came over from Russia, two decades her junior. Nureyev said that they were able to generate between each other that it was a gift, that we lived for each other. He said about her: "At the end of 'Lac des Cygnes' when she left the stage in her great white tutu I would have followed her to the end of the world."

Margot Fonteyn

Also there was the Italian ballerina Marie Taglioni; Russian ballerinas Anna Pavlova and Galina Ulanova and American Susanne Farrell – who lived in the moment and was able to completely let go.  

Galina Ulanova

Anna Pavlova

I grew up sketching ballet dancers and it has been a huge thrill for me to shoot at the Scottish ballet  - http://pkimage.co.uk/scottish ballet 

My other blogs on Women artists  - http://www.musicfootnotes.com/womenartists

Darcy’ Ballerina heroines -

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03xhbn8/ad/Darceys_Ballerina_Heroines/

The Head and The Heart, Oran Mor

It is fitting that this Seattle band The Head and Heart felt so comfortable on the Oran Mor stage and they appeared pleased to be playing in Scotland again. They are an indie folk-rock band and have released two albums on Sub Pop Records.  They consist of Josiah Johnson (vocals, guitar, percussion), Jonathan Russell (vocals, guitar, percussion), Charity Rose Thielen (violin, vocals), Chris Zasche (bass), Kenny Hensley (piano), Tyler Williams (drums).  


I first heard the Head and Heart at the Oran Mor auditorium upstairs in 2010, which was a classic stage setting where I got some of my best B & W Portfolio photos there as I had unrestricted access -  I was keen to hear the band again.

The Oran Mor was hot steamy and packed out for their return headline gig here. Many in the audience sang along to their songs and waved their arms high in the air and at one point guitarist Josiah Johnson entered the audience as he sang!  Songs that particularly grabbed my attention were – Let’s Be Still, Rivers and Roads, Another story, Josh McBride, Down in the Valley, Gone and Ghost. 

The band have three strong front singers, Jonathan, Josiah and Charity, and their sound is organic and accessible. They played with assured competence and careful collaborations – and also with rhythmic relaxed dancing, hand clapping and a lightness of touch. There are no big egos on stage, simply musicians who clearly enjoy playing together and it showed in all their melodic and harmonized songs. On several songs one member played the tambourine with fun energy..

The band have progressed since they supported The Low Anthem in 2010 with longer hair and a more polished performance. I went to check their youtube videos and they appera to enjoy playing live outdoors - beside bonny lochs,  summer colours or in snowy fields.  I hope my images capture some of the energy of this fun gig.  


The Head and heart were very well supported by a talented Paul Thomas Saunders. http://www.theheadandthehear

MY HEAD AND HEART PHOTOS - http://pkimage.co.uk/theheadandheart  

http://musicfootnote.blogspot.co.uk/head-and-heart-oran-mor-april-2011.html

 (PS The new electronic vivid coloured lighting and those 3 songs restrictions really don't allow for creating the best music photography. At their Oran Mor gig 2010 I had unlimited shooting and lighting that wasn't constantly changing and without those back of the stage distracting lights!.)  

Rab Noakes Milngavie Folk club

Long Dark Night (Demos and Rarities 1971 - 2011)

Where Dead Voices Gather

Do That Again

Wrong Joke Again (Red Pump Special)

Brand New Heartache (The Everly Brothers)

I'm Walkin Here (new album 2014)

Your Clear White Light (Lindisfarne).

The Sketcher on the Last Train

Out of Your Sight

More than I can say

The welcoming club was packed out with people standing at the sides - the club is often filled with addicted folkies like myself(!) and with relaxed friendly chat. The last time I saw Rab here the crowd was half this size perhaps as it was the month before Christmas. I usually pick gigs of artists I particularly enjoy.

In 2013 Noakes released a 40^th anniversary edition of his Red Pump Special album. He told us that the album was first recorded in Nashville with a cracking squad and somebody in the room had worked with Hank Williams.

Noakes sang 4 excellent cover songs choices  – Brand New Heartache (The Everly Brothers?), Your Clear White Light (Alan Hall of Lindisfarne), Guessing Kitchen Porter (Michael Marra) and O The Wind and the Rain (Percy's Song) - Rab likes juxtapositions in songs and this one was a murder ballad sung to a sweet guitar waltz. 

Rab sings songs of different eras with small histories and moods and stories and like fine wine gets better over time... I dont' wish to pick out favourites as every song has something special.  He said the mark of a good song was if it can age with you.

One song was about being able to recognise a window of opportunity when it opens...., and I wondered about his lost times when he left Stealers Wheel with Gerry Rafferty and his slot on the BBCs Old Grey Whistle test.  He told the stories behind his songs and musical journeys and his songs range from harder hitting questions to subtler optimisms.

Rab called his style 21st century skiffle - in the style of Guthrie or Leadbelly before the folk revival and also a wee bit Buddy Holly.  Noakes crosses the generations, as he looks and sounds both of now and of those fifties folk songs. .

I can understand that artists like to perform their newer material while I know also that fans would wish to hear some of his older favourites such as Branch or Clear day - perhaps the audience might sing the backing vocals!

http://rabnoakes.bandcamp.com/releases

II

Don't' Act Like your Heart Isn't' hard

Travelling Light

Jackson Greyhound

Guessing Kitchen Porter (Michael Marra)

It happened All the Same

O The Wind and the Rain (Percy's Song)

Time Slipping Away

Don't say Money Doesn't' Matter

Rab Noakes PHOTOS - http://pkimage.co.uk/rabnoakes

Rob Noakes -  with  Where Dead Voices Gather' - still relevant and even better than his younger days.... 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rabnoakes

Women Writers

Katharine Quarmby

Recently historical fiction has been selling well with the success of such series as George RR Martin's Game of Thrones which combines fantasy and history for vivid effect and also Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies.   

Many of the writers of historical fiction happen to be women and they have found that in order to achieve sales to men they have to publish under gender non specific names such as - SJ Parris, Al Berridge, MJ Carter, MC Scott. 

As stated in the Sunday Times magazine (P.Nicol Dec 2013) when writer Miranda Scott published her Rome espionage series as Miranda her readership was 80% female/ 20% male, yet when she published as MC Scott her readers shifted to 50/ 50 male/female.  

Philippa Gregory author of the White Queen holds 7 of the top 20 titles and Cornwell is the only male author in the top 15 of best selling historical fiction. . 

It should be noted also (!)  that not ALL women writers of historical fiction are writing romance tales and that some write of bloody war adventures and intrigue. 

Women will read male writers and watch male movies and it helps women to understand the male psyche. A male writer wrote recently that if men want to understand women then they should read the books on women's book shelves and watch the tv and films that women enjoy!  

Cathy Renzenbrink, reviewer The Bookseller, ' While more women read books, there is more attention in book-review pages to books written by men.  Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies, the second in her Thomas Cromwell series, was a best seller in 2013.  She holds the top and third place in the best sellers list and she says,' It is the nature of the World that men and women take men more seriously.'

 

(Some of my photos of women writers at Edinburgh Book festival)

Elif Şafak

Noo Sara-Wiwa