island of luzon has been hit by flooding as a result of heavy rain from super tycoon noru. emergency services in low lying areas have rescued people in low lying areas from the roofs of their houses. noru is the strongest storm to hit the philippines this year. and now on bbc news, time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. a few days ago, oleksandr shapoval, one of ukraine s leading ballet dancers, was killed while serving in the ukrainian army fighting the russian invasion. art and culture are not immune from the impact of war. my guest today knows that well. alexei ratmansky is a world renowned choreographer with roots in both russia and ukraine, once director of the bolshoi ballet in moscow, and now putting on a special production of giselle with the united ukrainian ballet, to show the world ukrainian culture lives on. has ballet become a battleground? alexei ratmansky, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much, it s an honour to be here. delighted to hav
dancers. alexei ratmansky is a world renowned choreographer with roots in both russia and ukraine, once director of the bolshoi ballet in moscow, and now putting on a special production of gisele with the united ukrainian ballet to show the world ukrainian culture lives on. has ballet become a battleground? alexei ratmansky, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much, an honour to be here. you hardtalk. thank you very much, an honour to be here. an honour to be here. you are here in london an honour to be here. you are here in london because - an honour to be here. you are here in london because you i here in london because you mounting this extraordinary set of performances of gisele. performed by ukrainian dancers. can you go about putting on how can you go about putting on a performance with ukrainians when their country is at war? there was an extraordinary project, it started in march, i received a call from my friend in holland, she is a former principal ballerina, and
i was in my car in atlanta on the tenth and 14th bridge going over the split when i heard shake it off. first thing i thought was the track was amazing and then the hit came in the players going to play, play, play, i m just going to shake, shake, shake, shake it off how does a person feel when they come home and feel like their house has been robbed? that s how i felt. players going to play, play, play, play you have the cream of the crop artists and taylor swift is the top. she s a modern pop star but old fashioned as it gets. she believes in magazine covers and performances on late night tv. a lot of the traditional ways for artists to be in the public eye. she is the biggest artist like in the world. she s just like rolling in dough. taylor swift had yet another massive year. she dropped her midnights album that rose to the top of the charts. you got the ticket master debacle literally crashes the website because ticket master can t keep up
tourists. the ukrainian heavyweight boxer oleksandr usyk has retained his four unified world titles with a victory he dedicated to the ukrainian armed forces. he beat britain s anthony joshua on a split points decision. the fight in saudi arabia was a rematch of usyk s victory in london in september. now on bbc news, click. this week, we are celebrating music, orchestral style and then this week, we are celebrating music, orchestral style and then we this week, we are celebrating music, orchestral style and then we press this week, we are celebrating music, orchestral style and then we press the this week, we are celebrating music, orchestral style and then we press the more this week, we are celebrating music, orchestral style and then we press the more tunes this week, we are celebrating music, orchestral style and then we press the more tunes on green vinyl. in the records are not the only thing we are skipping, look at that majestic gymnastic well co ordinated. .. 0k, sto
broadway i saw the empire state lay low life went on beyond the palisades they all bought cadillacs left there long ago to tell the world about the way the light went out to keep the memory alive it s all these human emotions. for some reason we can tap into that as musicians. when we came up with this idea of doing this series of in-depth interviews with really extraordinary people we started thinking about whom we should try to get and whom we should ask. and we thought about the usual political figures, obama, the dali lama. and i come back to the idea of interviewing the person i really wanted to interview, and that was billy joel. and the reason is i ve been in love with his music ever since i was a teenager growing up in india. billy joel has been a rockstar for five decades. today he keeps up his nearly ten-yearlong residency at madison square garden playing the piano and belting out the lyrics that so many fans adore. he s sold more than 150 million reco