I don't watch much TeeVee as I find it has little to offer. But my wife Tivod a series on Ovation Television (direct tv) called bathroom Divas as she knows I love opera and ballet.

The premise for the show (haven't seen the whole series yet) is to find a 6 amateur opera singers in Canada from auditions conducted in 6 or 7 cities then send them send to Opera Boot Camp" for professional training/help and compete to be the last one standing with the "reward" being appearing on a stage in a performance with a full orchestra. I am not sure if it is to be a recital or an opera.

While I don't care for the competition and there is a lot of comparing apples and oranges which to me seems like a hard choice to make especially when they seemed not to be casting for a specific role, just the most talented and "trainable" amateur, it was interesting to see how the professionals evaluated the entrants.

It was also revealing to see how they trained them, how they improved and it really was a wonderful peak behind the curtain about how a singer gets into a role and and works on the voice and acting etc.

The range of amateurs was quite interesting as well, and hardly any had any formal opera training at all. Several had never actually seen a live opera.

I don't see how this could be applied to ballet, but perhaps it might. Dance is quite common and many have perhaps studied a bit. I wouldn't expect to find an amateur who could dance a principal role, but perhaps there are some diamonds in the rough out there.

I am enjoying Bathroom Divas and wondered if others had seen it and what their reaction was. It did make me realize how "esoteric" the art of ballet is. Talented dancers there are, but ballet seems to off on a whole other level.

One major obstacle to a similar experiment with ballet is pointework. One must train, at the bare minimum, three times/week for 90 minutes/class for at least three years to even start pointe.

Reality TV in the UK.

Over the last two or three years, there have been a number of these type of programmes, they included two shows, one to find a Maria another to find a Joseph both for Andrew Lloyd Webbers productions of the Sound of Music and Joseph Multicolour Dream Coat.in the West End. The quality of peformers was excllent, and the two young people who won the parts, were extremely good, and had rave reviews which resulted in them both achieving a long run on stage.

After the success of this genre, a similar programme on Opera was made, again two very talented ordinary people won, and received acclaim. One of the women was in fact blind, but due to her exceptional voice won the opportunity to perform. I cannot remember what the programme was called, but it featured a well known opera company, and ran for a number of weeks.


Finally, the subject of Ballet has been used here, it involved the Birmingham Royal Ballet, their Directors and Ballet Staff, the production was Romeo and Juliet.
It involved a group of under privalleged young people from the Midlands, they were all of different race, and some had been in trouble with the authorities, or were definately not the kind of people who one could imagine would relate to Ballet. The experiament took a year to complete, at the end of which it was almost inpossible to believe they were the same youngsters. Most of them were in their teens, and worked hard to achieve what they did. The producers Desmond Kelly and Mariane Tait, gave them the chance to include in the relevant act, their Brake-dancing skills.
This was brilliant, dressed in the costumes of Jesters and Entertainers, to Prokiev's jaunty music, they brought the house down, to a standing ovation.

This was amazing a truly remarkable performance. Two more of the group played the Nurse and Friar Lawrence, who he performed with great skill. One of the outstanding boys a striking coloured fellow with a physique as good as any dancer, was given the role of Tybalt , and gave a brilliant and skilled fight scene.


This just proves that given the opportunity people from all works of life can enjoy the Arts.

I think the dancer you refer to actually appeared as Tybalt.

For those interested here is a link to some performance pictures on Birmingham Royal Ballet's web site.

http://www.brb.org.uk/masque/bin/masqueweb...ry&urn=8323

Funny that you started this thread, as I just stumbled on a reality-TV inspired set of videos on YouTube made by Cincinnati Ballet called "PROJECT Ballet." Strange premise--a "Ballet team" is pitted against a "Regular team," and they carry out various dance and non-dance related tasks, with Victoria Morgan as the "Charlie" (from Charlie's Angels) figure. A bit silly from what I've had time to see so far, and I'm not sure who the intended audience is or if it's shown outside of YouTube land. It smells promotional (i.e., a heavy emphasis on heterosexuality). Anyone have more insight?

I will amend my post. It would be great if a DVD was available.
Thank you so much for the Link to BRB site and the Ballet Hoo dancers. Sorry about my error re character