A star of the Kirov, Royal Ballet, and formerly New York City Ballet, he has made some interesting and unusual choices for the programme. For whatever reason, male ballet stars seem more inclined to get together their own performing groups than ballerinas. Igor Zelensky is the latest to introduce his group to British audiences with a week of performances at the Lowry Centre’s, Lyric Theatre. A star of the Kirov, Royal Ballet, and formerly New York City Ballet, he has made some interesting and unusual choices for the programme.
The most surprising is Balanchine’s Apollo, given complete from the first solo onwards. The title role, which he has not danced in Britain before, suits him perfectly: his lithe, powerful physique; the smooth, unforced strength of his movement and an emotional commitment greater than he has shown lately in more conventional roles.With Yulia Makhalina as Terpsichore, Irina Golub and Elvira Tarassova as the other muses, this was a good performance of a rewarding ballet which is not seen often enough. A shame, though, that Stravinsky’s score has to be heard on tape – never entirely satisfactory.

Makhalina and Zelensky also gave one of the more predictable numbers, the virtuosic Don Quixote pas de deux. Thomas Edur, the group’s only non-Kirov dancer, partnered Svetlana Ivanova handsomely in duets from The Sleeping Beauty and Giselle, and there was a glittering account of the famous “Corsair” showpiece by Tarassova and Andrei Batalov, whose multiple pirouettes and seemingly jet-propelled leaps are quite amazing.This same couple also performed an intriguingly contrasted duet, “Autumn Flowers”, by choreographer, Yevgeny Pansilov. This had Batalov holding Tarassova in involved manipulative lifts while himself standing on one leg, the other raised in high extensions.Other attempts to get away from the standard formula of concert programmes were only partly successful. The duet from Barlanchine’s Rubies does not work too well when ripped out of its full context, and Le Spectra de la Rose (as we saw lately during the Kirov season) suffers inordinately when given without its setting by Bakst of a plausible room with real windows. Andrian Fadeyev’s account of Nijinsky’s celebrated role is better than some, but is that enough?Igor Zelensky showed another side of his talents by choreographing the show’s finale, a display of one technical prowess after another.

Zelensky’s choice of traditional Japanese drama music was not obvious but worked well and his sequence arrangement was effective, with quiet passages of walking around between exciting bursts of bravura. Naturally he favoured himself, but everyone had their fair share of progressive moments of prominence in a cumulative display of brilliant dancing.. There was a moment in Britain when reggae music and its symbols – dreadlocks, the colours red, yellow and green – were an inescapable part of inner-city areas with an Afro-Caribbean community. It was a moment personified by Bob Marley’s dreadlocked, ganja-smoking image but, beyond Marley, there was the rich history of an island, its peoples and their music. There was a moment in Britain when reggae music and its symbols – dreadlocks, the colours red, yellow and green – were an inescapable part of inner-city areas with an Afro-Caribbean community. It was a moment personified by Bob Marley’s dreadlocked, ganja-smoking image but, beyond Marley, there was the rich history of an island, its peoples and their music..

Car owners are facing a crippling combination of increased running costs and a dramatic slump in the value of their vehicles. Car owners are facing a crippling combination of increased running costs and a dramatic slump in the value of their vehicles.
While the cost of running a car has far outstripped inflation and risen by more than 60 per cent in the past 10 years, millions of motorists are discovering that their cars have little or no trade-in value. Thousands more who took out loans to buy their cars are in a negative equity trap, whereby they now owe more on their cars than they could get from selling them.Over the past two years, £15bn has been wiped off second-hand car prices as dealers try to compensate for being forced to drop the prices of new cars. CAP Monitor, the confidential industry price guide, estimates that around 11 million of the 26 million vehicles on the road have no “viable sale value”.This week the Alliance and Leicester and What Car? magazine will publish details showing price falls of up to 25 per cent on used cars, with industry analysts predicting this figure may rise to 35 per cent over the coming year.

A Ford Galaxy bought two years ago for £24,000 might now be worth just £9,400, while a Vauxhall Corsa purchased six months ago for £7,500 would probably fetch no more than £4,000 today.The value of used cars has nosedived following a series of campaigns by consumer groups protesting at what they consider to be the “rip-off” prices of new cars in the United Kingdom. A recent European Union survey found British motorists pay twice as much for some cars as their continental counterparts.Phil Evans, of the Consumers’ Association, said: “New cars were so massively over-priced that sales just dried up. Now they are being forced to bring down prices but they are trying to hold on to their profits by dramatically marking down the trade-in price of second-hand vehicles.”At the same time, the expenses involved in running a car have risen significantly above the rate of inflation. While the cost of living has increased at an inflation rate of 37 per cent since 1990, the expenses involved in driving have increased by more than 59 per cent.