Standard YouTube Licence Ballet Cymru has commissioned Charlotte Edmonds to create a new ballet called Wired to the Moon. to a score by Katya Richardson with sets and costumes by Eleanor Bull, It will be performed at the Pontio Centre in Bangor together with Patricia Vallis's Divided We Stand and Darius James and Amy Doughty's Celtic Concerto on 29 Nov 2019. I saw Divided We Stand in Cardiff earlier this year (see Made in Wales29 March 2919) and Celtic Concerto at Sadlers Wells (see Ballet Cymru in London 1 Dec 2015). I can recommend the evening for those two works alone. Having seen Edmunds's Fuse for the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company and her contribution to Northern Ballet's Tell-Tale StepsI think we can expect a very special evening.
The Pontio Centre is more than a theatre as I said in The Pontio Centre: A Resource for Inventors, Designers and Makers in North Wales14 Dec 2018 NIPC Inventors Club. There is also a cinema, restaurant, students' union, bars and cafés and, most importantly, the Hwb which is the Pontio innovation area. According to the Centre's website:
"Pontio Innovation is about equipping individuals and businesses with the tools they need to succeed in the modern economy. With a focus on transdisciplinary working and rapid prototyping, the Co-Lab, Media Lab, Hackspace and Fablab areas are equipped with cutting-edge technologies. It will boost the University’s cross-disciplinary teaching programmes and encourage collaborative work between students, staff and local businesses,"
Like the Menai Science Park (M-SParc) which I shall be visiting earlier in the day to give a talk to local entrepreneurs, inventors and creatives it is an initiative of Bangor University. New knowledge-based businesses are sprouting are springing up on both banks of the Menai Strait.
Many of the folk who have migrating or returning to Bangor and Anglesey will be attracted by the combination of coastal, mountain and pastoral landscapes that make Northwest Wales one of the most beautiful corners of the planet, but they also require the arts. That is why the Ponto Centre's facilities supporting regular visits by Wales's classical dance company and other world-class performing artists are crucial to the social and economic development of Northwest Wales.
Standard youtube Licence
When I visited Cork to see Swan Lake by the Cork City Ballet nearly two weeks ago, I received a full-length copy of Breaking Pointe from Colette McNamee the chair of the company's board. The film was made to celebrate the first 25 years of the ballet company and consists largely of an interview with its founder and artistic director, Alan Foley.
The first question to Foley was how he started dancing. He replied that he started when he was very young dancing behind closed doors to records in his parents' sitting room. Later he was sent to ballet class where he did well in competitions throughout Ireland and beyond. Eventually, he met Joan Denise Moriarty who terrified him. On their first meeting, he bolted out of her presence. However, he returned and submitted to her discipline even though there were times when he found it chafing.
In 1989 the Vaganova Ballet Academy invited dancers from around the world to attend a summer school in Leningrad. He applied without first seeking Moriarty's permission. To his great joy and surprise, he was accepted. His teacher was about to reprimand him when the Irish national broadcasting corporation learned of his success and asked her for her reaction. What else could Moriarty say other than that she was very proud of him? In some footage that must be quite rare, she warned him that he could expect to work. Apparently, he lost two stone in weight while he was there.
Although he also received training in London and New York, Foley seems to have established some close links with Russia. His lead dancers in Swan Lake were Russian nationals. The sound recording and many of the costumes for his shows came from that country. Foley remarked in the film that Russians and Irish folk share a similar temperament which is a notion that had occurred to me from my own friends and acquaintances from those countries quite independently some time ago. One of Foley's former collaborators, Monica Loughman, who is best known in this country for Big Ballet in which several of my friends and acquaintances participated, trained at the Perm State Choreographic College (Пермский государственный хореографический колледж).
Although I had attended a ballet at either The Gate or Abbey in Dublin as long ago as 1982 I had not been aware of the strength of the balletic tradition in the Republic of Ireland. I should have been, of course. Dame Ninette de Valois, who founded our national company and leading ballet school, was born in Co. Wicklow. Indeed, the teacher who led me back to the barre after a gap of 50 years is an Irishwoman albeit that she trained in Brisbane. What I learned in Cork from a taxi driver who had never attended a ballet was that Moriarty had set up a ballet company and school in Cork as long ago as the 1940s. She had been a considerable choreographer. She is particularly well remembered for adapting Synge's The Playboy of the Western World to dance.
Although Foley seems to be adept at rallying support from businesses and politicians - as I mentioned in my review of Swan Lake the President of the Republic wrote a foreword for the programme - it has received no support from the Arts Council of Ireland for several years. I was flabbergasted to learn that. Performing arts companies in the UK grumble about state miserliness but lesser institutions than the Cork City Ballet seem to get something. Kruschev knew the value of ballet as an instrument of soft power when he sent the Bolshoi to tour the West immediately after Hungary. Maybe we had learned that lesson even earlier when we send the Sadler's Well Ballet to the neutral Netherlands in 1940. The Cork City Ballet is a valuable cultural asset which should be cherished.
In my introduction to Cork City Ballet, I wrote that the company did not seem to have a school or associates programme but having seen shots of eager children and classes all over Cork and surrounding districts I think I may have been wrong. It may not be called an associates programme as such but Foley and his company definitely train the young. And not just the young for adult classes are offered at the company's Firkin Crane studio every Wednesday. According to McNamee, they are often given by Foley himself.
I warmed to the Cork City Ballet the moment the curtain rose and I want to see it do well. I have found lots of personal links to the company. I have already mentioned Big Ballet and Loughman. There are many others. One of Powerhouse Ballet's best dancers trained with Katherine Lewis, the company's ballet mistress. Sadly Lewis died earlier this year but she appears in the film. One of the company's solo artists trained at Ballet West. His principal was delighted to learn of the success of her alumnus. I shall be back in Cork next year for The Nutcracker and I hope that a good number of my theatre-going compatriots will be tempted to join me.
Standard youtube Licence Dutch National Ballet Best of Balanchine 17 Nov 2019 15:00 Zuiderstrbdtheater, The Hague
The Best of Balanchine triple bill must have been a big deal for the Dutch National Ballet for they presented Symphony in Three Movements and Who Cares? at the opening night gala on 10 Sept 2019, performed it in Amsterdam for the last two weeks at the end of September and then took it on tour to the Dutch provinces in November. I make no complaint about that because we do not see as much of Balanchine as we should in the United Kingdom. The Dutch dance Balanchine's works very well. From what I have seen, they dance his work as well as any company outside the United States.
Balanchine was born, trained and started his career in Russia but he made his formidable international reputation in the USA. The works in the triple bill reflected that history. Ballet Imperialto the music of Tchaikovsky was pure Russian whereas Who Cares?was a celebration of America. Symphony in Three Movements to a score by Stravinsky was a blending of the two. Created in America for American dancers but a tribute to another great Russian émigré.
I had intended to see the Best of Balanchine in Amsterdam on 29 Sept but a nasty fall down the steps to a car park in Birmingham the day before put paid to that plan. Instead, I saw it at the Zuiderstrandstheater (literally "the Southern Sands Theatre") on the coast a few miles outside The Hague on Sunday. That theatre is one of the most beautiful I have ever visited. It has an ample stage allowing a good view from every part of the auditorium. I was in the middle of row 17 of the stalls which was far enough back to take in the whole stage but near enough to see the dancers' features. Even more beautiful is its settling, literally yards from the sea behind a big sand dune on one side and overlooking a small harbour with a coastguard cutter at berth on the other. This was only my second time in The Hague but I really took to it. The 28 bus from the railway station took me past the Netherlands Dance Theatre's home base, the Houses of Parliament and the royal palace, the International Court of Justice, several embassies and a lovely park before reaching the Zuiderstrand which, for some reason or other, is called "Norfolk."
In Symphony in Three Movements the women dancers exchange their buns for ponytails which immediately relaxes the mood. Not too much, however, for this ballet was intended as a tribute to Stravinsky who composed albeit innovatively in the classical style. It is a ballet that flows though some of the positions are quite angular. Parts of the ballet are explosive and exuberant. Other parts such as the duets require almost mechanical precision. There are three principal couples - Sakamoto with Edo Wijnen who won the Radius prize this year; Qian Liu and Jared Wright; and Floor Eimers (another artist I follow closely) and Vito Mazzeo - and five solo couples. All were exquisite.
,
The finale, Who Cares? to the music of Gershwin as arranged by Hershi Kay was danced to a backdrop of Manhattan in the 1930s with the Chrysler Building, the Woolworth Building and other landmarks. The cast consists of one male lead - in this case, Constantine Allen - three female leads = Yuanyuan Zhang, Nina Tonoli and Maia Makhateli, five male soloists and five female and the corps. The ballet opened with the whole cast on stage. The next tune left only the corps. In the next scene, the female soloists in red and black costumes entered. They were followed by the male soloists in white shirts, ties and waistcoats. There were some beautiful duets and solos. It was a great way to end the matinee but it was over far too quickly.
I had just one disappointment. Michaela DePrince appeared in the programme for Who Cares? There was no announcement that she was indisposed but I just do not remember seeing her in the show. It was she who led me first to the Junior Company and then the Dutch National Ballet in 2913. I have not seen her in anything since the 2918 gala when she returned to the stage after a long recuperation from injury. I sincerely hope that there has been no recurrence of that injury. She is a beautiful dancer and I long to see her fly again.
Though again there was no mention of his name in the cast list, the orchestra was conducted by Matthew Rowe. Always a pleasure to see him at the rostrum.
I see a lot of ballets every year and have seen some particularly good ones this year but this matinee triple bill is among the best so far.
Standard YouTube Licence Ballet Black (Triple Bill (Pendulum, Click! Ingoma) Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, Leeds 16 Nov 2019 19:30
I suppose that a company that has danced at Glastonbury is pretty well made. There is not much that a blogger or even a critic can say that could be of much consequence. It does not, however, hurt to repeat what I said to Cassa Pancho, the company's founder and artistic director, as I was leaving the auditorium. This year's triple bill is the company's best programme ever.
Last Saturday's programme was the same as the one that I had described as "stunning" in March. As I described the three works in some detail in my review pf that performance it is unnecessary for me to do so again. However, there was one important difference between the show in March and Saturday's. The Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre is very much smaller and more intimate than The Barbican. There is no gap or barrier between the front row and stage. When the seats are removed the theatre becomes a rehearsal studio. The audience is very close to the dancers. Having twice danced on the Stanley and Audrey Burton's stage, I can say that the dancers are very aware of the audience's proximity.
Mthuthzeli November took advantage of that intimacy in leading the audience to the coalface as his dancers slowly approached stage left with the house lights still lit. As those house lights dimmed the beams of light from the lamps on the miners' helmets focused on the audience. Trapped! The danger, the darkness, the monotony, the pain of the mine was palpable. Heightened, of course, by the cruelty of apartheid on the surface as well as under the ground. Ingoma is an impressive work. November had already captured our hearts as the rakish wolf spinning his tail in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's Little Red Riding Hood. He has now captured our minds with his choreography. Nobody will be surprised that he has been commissioned to create a new baller for the company's next season at The Barbican (see Beautiful Ballet Black's 2020 Season8 Nov 2019).
Seeing Martin Lawrence's Pendulum for a second time, I noticed similarities and parallels with Ingoma, particularly with the score which resembled a heartbeat. It was opened by two of the company's strong young dancers, Ebony Thomas and Marie Astrid Mence. Mence spent a year with Phoenix Dance Theatre where she became an audience favourite. We still miss her. Their pace and the complexity of their movements increase as the heartbeats quicken. It is an almost mesmeric experience.
Click! by Scottish Ballet's Sophie Laplane is just pure joy. Each of the dancers in different brightly coloured suits performs solos or duets to Snapping Fingers and other snappy music carefully arranged by Kenny Inglis. All the company's dancers except Alexander Fadayiro were in the piece. Cira Robinson, magnificent in red, Isabela Coracey resplendent in yellow et cetera et cetera. In many ways, this work displays the essence of Ballet Black, its exuberance, its energy and its diversity.
In my preview of the new season, I mentioned the recruitment of Fadayiro, his training and career with New Adventures. On Saturday I saw him for the first time. He appeared only in Ingoma as one of the miners and it was possible to see him properly only at the reverence but he performed well. He appears to be very strong and cuts an impressive figure on stage. I look forward to seeing more of him in future.
I was very lucky to get a ticket for Saturday's show. I was #13 on the waiting list and held out very little hope of seeing the company again this year. Their performances in Stratford and Leeds were sold out weeks ago. That may be because of their appearance at Glastonbury - though I have to say that Saturday's crowd did not strike me as the sort of folk who go to Glasto - or it may be because they gave fewer performances this evening. Either way, it is good to see that they have developed a very loyal following not just in London and with one ethnic group but among the whole population and across the nation.
Andrei Bolotin and Ekaterina Borytakova in Cork City Ballet's Swan Lake
Author Miki Barlok Copyright Cork City Ballet 2019: all rights reserved Licence Reproduced with kind permission of the company
Cork City Ballet Swan Lake 9 Nov 2019, 14:30 Cork Opera House
I have seen bigger and better-resourced performances of Swan Lake but seldom have I enjoyed a performance as much as Saturday afternoon's by the Cork City Ballet at the Cork Opera House. There are two reasons for that. The first is that Yury Demakov, the choreographer, made the very best of the resources that were available to him not only in casting but also in procuring costumes and a sound recording from Russia. The second is that ballet should be an interaction between performers and audience rather than a passive exhibition and on Saturday it really was two-way communication. The Corkonian audience seems to know and appreciate its ballet and supported the company with a 100% standing ovation at the end.
This was a traditional Swan Lake without gimmicks except perhaps for the Soviet-style happy ending. All the characters were there except Benno. The plot was spelt out with stark clarity. Siegfried pledges his troth to Odette in the second act with his index and forefinger. He is tricked by von Rothbart into breaking it by making the same pledge to Odile. In this production, Siegfried manages to redeem himself not by sacrificing his life but by destroying the wicked magician.
For Siegfried, Demakov recruited Bolshoi soloist Andrei Bolotin, a powerful but slick virtuoso. For Odette-Odile he cast Ekaterina Bortyakova. I am told that she came from the Moscow State Ballet but I have been unable to find out much about her career. Like Bolotin, she gave a technically flawless performance. In my introduction to Cork City Ballet, I noted that there were no permanent members of the company other than the founder, Alan Foley, Demakov and their immediate circle. All other artists are recruited on short term contracts. They were all good but some stood out. I was particularly impressed by Robert J Thomas, the jester, Andrew McFarlane who danced the pas de trois and the Spanish divertissement and his partners, Nicole Federov and Julie Pochko.
I am nor sure who designed the sets but I liked the castle and hills in the backcloth to act I. They reminded me of Westmeath though I suppose they could have been some other part of Ireland. They were certainly nowhere else and that is as it should be for an Irish company.
It is not every company in the world that can persuade its head of state to contribute a foreword to its programme, but that is exactly what President Higgins has done for the Cork City Ballet. The company will perform The Nutcracker this time next year. I hope this review will encourage my compatriots to join me in the auditorium for a company that inspires such pride and affection is definitely worth watching.
Standard YouTube Licence
Beautiful Ballet Black has been so successful that it sold every seat in the house for its performances at Stratford and Leeds. I am on the waiting list at the Stan and Audrey but at #13 I am not holding out much hope of getting one for their show next week.
I shouldn't grumble because I saw their wonderful performance of The Suitat Sadler's Wells on 30 Oct and the triple bill at The Barbican in March which I described as "stunning". Moreover, I have just received an email which I believe to have been sent to all Friends of Ballet Black alerting me to the sale of tickets for the launch of the company's new season at The Barbican between the 26 and 29 March 2020. Two new ballets will be presented by the company's Mthuthuzeli November and the Royal Ballet's Will Tuckett. November created Ingoma which is one of the works on the current tour while Tuckett has contributed Depouillementwhich attracted me to Ballet Black in the first place.
I also note from the email that Ballet Black has acquired a new dancer, namely Alexander Fadayiro. I am not sure whether I have had the opportunity to see him dance. I do not remember him in The Suit but I could well be mistaken. However, I see that he has danced with New Adventuresand that he trained at the Central School of Ballet.
If you love Ballet Black as much as I do I would strongly recommend its Friends Circle. The subscription is only £40 a year which is about the cost of an extra theatre ticket. Friends are invited to rehearsals and often have an opportunity to discuss the work with the artists after the show. I cannot attend many of those events as they take place in London but it is a practical way to support the company, acknowledge its work in the past and promote its values and aspirations.
Finally, there is the merchandise page. I bought the "I ❤ Ballet Black" tee-shirt the first time I saw the company at the Bernie Grant Centre in Tottenham in 2013 and I have worn it proudly everywhere there are balletomanes from Taynuilt in Argyll to Trecate in Piedmont. I have made it my business to make folk aware of the beauty in many senses and at many levels of Ballet Black.
Standard YouTube Licence
Something very interesting seems to be taking place in Ireland and it is happening not in Dublin or Belfast but in Cork which has an estimated population of just over 200,000. In contrast to many cities of that size in Great Britain that do not even have an adequate auditorium for a touring company, Cork has its own recently rebuilt 1,000 seat opera house and a well-established local ballet company that is capable of staging a full-length Petipa ballet.
From this evening until Saturday the Cork City Ballet will perform Swan Lakeat the Opera House. Intrigued by this production, I have booked myself a seat in the stalls for the 14:00 performance on Saturday. I have also googled everything that I can find about the company and opera house and watched every video that I can find on YouTube. From what I have seen, the standard of performance is very high indeed.
The company appears to have been founded by Alan Foley who trained in Cork, London, Russia and New York. He is its artistic director and choreographer. According to the company's website, Foley danced with the Irish National Ballet and I think may have seen him in a show by that company in Dublin. I have not been able to find out much about the dancers other than the guest artists who have appeared for the company over the years so I can't say much about the troupe's size or experience. The Auditions page states that the company currently operates seasonal contracts for dancers for its winter season.
However, it has an impressive repertoire and has earned some complimentary reviews mainly from the Irish press but also some from Dance Europe and the Dancing Times. It does not seem to run a school or an associates programme for local students but I am delighted to see that it offers adult ballet training for absolute beginners and improvers at its Firkin Crane studios on Wednesday evenings. Should I ever be in Cork on that day I shall try to join one of those classes.
I will review the performance of Swan Lake either on Sunday or shortly afterwards.
Standard YouTube Licence Royal Ballet Triple Bill: Concerto, Enigma Variations and Raymondastreamed from the Royal Opera House to cinemas worldwide including Leeds-Bradford Odeon, 5 Nov 2019, 19:15
If the Royal Opera House had subcontracted the streaming of its live performances to PathéLive or at least recruited Ekaterina Novikova, yesterday's screening of the Concerto, Enigma Variations and Act III of Raymonda would have been perfect. The double act between Anita Rani and Darcey Bussell just did not work. Alexander Campbell and Kristen McNally who recently hosted World Ballet Day were so much better.
Also, I probably saw the screening at the wrong cinema. I was at Leeds Bradford Odeon which has been promoted as a super luxury auditorium. Each seat has an airline-style tray enabling patrons to chomp away as you watch the feature. Fine for Disney perhaps but not for ballet. Also, the transmission started late. No more than 5 minutes before the curtain was raised. Nobody in the cinema had bothered to print the programmes even after I had given a member of their staff the URL from which they could be downloaded. The ladies' loos on the first floor were a disgrace because they could not be flushed properly.
Happily, my mood changed the moment Maestro Sorokin entered the orchestra pit. Soon I was enchanted by the music of Shostakovich and MacMillan's choreography. Concerto is a very short piece but it must require considerable strength, stamina and concentration to do well. The dancers were Anna Rose O'Sullivan, James Hay, Yasmine NaghdiRyoichi Hirano and Mayara Magri. The set was very simple. Just a red disc like a setting sun for the second movement. So, too, were Rose's costumes. They filled the stage and uplifted even the cinema audience.
In the interval, Rani and Bussell interviewed Wayne Sleep and Alfreda Thoroughgood. They were the leading dancers of my youth and it was so good to see them again. They had, of course, aged but they were still beautiful. I am not sure that I ever saw Thoroughgood in Enigma Variations but I certainly remember Sleep, Anthony Dowell and the wonderful Antoinette Sibley as Dorabella. When one associates a role with a dancer it is always difficult to watch another artist a generation later fill her shoes but I was more than happy with Francesca Hayward in Sibley's role. I was also delighted with Laura Morera as Lady Elgar and Christopher Saunders as Elgar. I think is my favourite Ashton work. It is certainly my favourite of his short works. I can't remember when I last saw it but it was good to see it again.
The last work was a treat with Natalia Osipova in the title role and Vadim Muntagirov as de Brienne. Having seen the Bolshoi's performance of Raymonda on 27 Oct 2019, I would dispute that it is a silly story or not much of a story as Bussell or someone else last night. I think there is a love triangle between de Brienne, Raymonda and Abderakhman and anyone restaging the ballet might want to develop that. Abderakhman/s treatment could be explained by Islamophobia or racism. To my mind, the last Act, which is one big divertissement, is the least interesting of the ballet. But it provides plenty of scope for virtuosity, Being Guy Fawkes day, Osipova and Muntagirov excited us as well as any pyrotechnics outside.
So my thoughts of the evening are as follows: All credit to the Royal Ballet's dancers and creatives last night, If only the presenters and techies were as good.
Standard YouTube Licence
One of the most remarkable performances that I have attended was David Dawson'sSwan Lake at Liverpool Empire on 3 June 2016. My review of that show has turned out to be my most popular post attracting nearly 47,000 hits, over 10 times more than my next most popular article. The reason I love this work so much is that it is innovative and original but still recognizably Swan Lake (see the synopsis).
I am therefore delighted to announce that Scottish Ballet has announced that this beautiful ballet is to be revived (see Swan Lake The Classic retold for new Generationon Scottish Ballet's website). The work will open at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh on 9 April 2020 and stay there until 11 April. It will then visit Aberdeen, Inverness and Glasgow finishing at the Theatre Royal on 2 May 2020 (see the Places, Dates and Times page).
Standard YouTube Licence
My very first post to Terpsichore was a review of The Nutcracker by Ballet West Company. I was so impressed that I had to write it down. I had been blogging for years on the law and had even found an excuse to squeeze in a review of a show by Northern Ballet on the ground that choreography is an intellectual asset protected by copyright. The only way to do justice to Ballet West's performance at Pitlochry was to publish my review somewhere. As I did not then know any other dance blogger I decided to start my own ballet blog
Not least the most impressive aspect of that 2013 performance was that it was largely a student show, Ballet West states on its website:
"As part of your studies, you will be part of the Ballet West company which gives you the experience of working with professional dancers and choreographers to perform classical ballet repertoire and new works in genuine performance contexts throughout your time at Ballet West."
Now all ballet schools stage shows but the unique feature of Ballet West's training is that they take their show on a strenuous tour of Scotland. Between 25 Jan and 16 Feb 2020 they will perform Swan Lakeno less than 12 times in 8 cities and towns including Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee, Some of their venues such as the Glasgow Armadillo and the Stirling Macrobert Arts Centre are fair size auditoriums which they manage to fill.
Bearing in mind that all major classical companies in the UK except the Royal Ballet tour the country regularly and some of them such as Ballet Theatre UK and Ballet Cymru can cover enormous distances between performances, this must be the best possible training for professional life. In fact, Ballet West notes:
"Previous students always consider the experience of these performances as the most useful in securing work and preparing them for life as a professional dancer."
The only other school that sends its students on tour is the Central School of Ballet. They visit even more venues but they start in March and finish in July.
Although Ballet West is a small school located a long way from Londo, it achieves a lot, One of the last British students to make it to the final the Grand Prix de Lausanne was a Ballet West alumna (see Natasha Watson in Lausanne15 Nov 2014). She also did well in the Genée a few months earlier. So, too, have a number of other students. The school holds outreach classes in the vicinity for students of all ages. Possibly Ballet West's most impressive achievement is the training they give to their associates. Some of those students are very young. Many travel long distances to attend classes and rehearsals. They have a limited time to prepare for a show. But the standard of performance is very high indeed.
If I had a son or daughter of the appropriate age with an interest in and aptitude for ballet, I would certainly not discourage him or her from considering Ballet West very seriously.
Standard YouTube Licence Birmingham Royal Ballet and Ballet Black (A Brief Nostalgia, The Suit and Nine Sinatra Songs) Sadler's Wells 30 Oct 2019 at 19:30
As a fully paid-up Friend of Ballet Black and a big fan of Birmingham Royal Ballet and Cathy Marston, I decided to nip down to London on Wednesday to see their combined triple bill. I say "nipped" with some caution. It was easy enough to get down to the Smoke but coming back was quite a different matter. The East Coast mainline has deteriorated considerably since its re-nationalization by LNER and it is now a shambles. It took an hour for the 23:30 from King's Cross to amble from Doncaster to Leeds by way of Pontefract and goodness knows where else with the result that I arrived home at 04:00 yesterday morning.
Happily, the show made it all worthwhile. I arrived at Sadler's Wells just in time for a talk by Kit Holder of Birmingham Royal Ballet, Tom Harrold who had composed the score for the first work, A Brief Nostalgia, and Cassa Pancho, founder and artistic director of Ballet Black. I am very glad that I did because Tom's talk prepared me for A Brief Nostalgia and helped me appreciate it properly. He explained that he was a Scottish composer living in Manchester and this commission had been his first work for the theatre. The ballet was a collaboration between the Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Queensland Ballet. The companies had chosen Jack Lister, to choreograph the work and Tom described their long-distance collaboration. Lister had wanted to express a mood that is expressed in Portuguese by the word saudade. Deborah Jones's programme note described it as "a delicate, complicated feeling that has melancholy and pain built in but also has room for the beauty of remembering emotions, people or objects of personal value." She added that an American academic had offered "a word for 'the presence of absence," as an apt translation.
In the questions and answers that followed, a member of the audience asked why the ballet was entitled "A Brief Nostalgia". I guess he meant why a ballet addressing such a nuanced and complex topic should have been given such a prosaic title. Tom could not really answer the question but warned that it was quite a "dark ballet". "Oh dear!" I thought to myself as I remembered what The Suit is all about. "Happen we are in for a right barrel of laughs."
The piece when it came to be performed was not too bad. It was certainly not as miserable as a marital breakdown and a suicide. For a start, I liked the score and I was even more impressed with the lighting design for shadows on the sets exaggerated the dancers' line and movements. There were also some dramatic moments such as when the cast dashed in and froze in arabesque. It was the lighting which actually punctuated the phases of the ballet. It began at ground level while the later scenes lit up the space above the artists' heads.
The work that I had come primarily to see was The Suit. I am a big fan of Ballet Black both for their outstanding artistry but also for their work in bringing ballet to every section of our community including those that have not been represented in ballet proportionately. I am also a fan of Cathy Marston having seen her Jane Eyre and Victoria for Northern Ballet and Snowblind for the San Francisco Ballet recently and, of course, The Suit at least four times. Of her works that I have seen live, The Suit is by far the best in my humble opinion. However, I have seen a lot of videos of her work in Berne which I should like to see on stage.
It is one respect a very depressing work. It starts happily enough with Philomom, the husband, José Alves, and Matilda, his wife, Cira Robinson in marital bliss. The alarm clock sounds and Philemon has to go to work. He gets up, shaves, showers and dons a suit with the rest of the cast playing washbasins, showers, wardrobes and mirrors. He says goodbye to his wife still in her nightie and absent-mindedly leaves his briefcase behind. The next few minutes show his commute to work. He meets all sorts of folk such as stylish ladies like Isabella Coracey and Sayaka Ichikawa, one of whom earns a wolf whistle. and little old ladies bent double over their walking sticks such as Marie-Astrid Mence, in real life probably the youngest members of the troupe. Suddenly, it dawns on him that has left his case behind. He returns to the house and finds it is not all it should be. Matilda is still in bed but she is not alone.
Philip Feeney's music changes dramatically from regular rhythms to sounds more akin to sirens. He freezes. His home is shattered. Momentarily he is broken. When he recovers his composure he is a changed man. Matilda may have deceived him but she must have been bored looking after the home while Philemon was in the city. When good-looking Simon, Mchuthuzeli November, paid her attention it would have required a lot of resolve to resist him.
Simon had darted out of the house in his underwear leaving his suit behind. It was through that suit that Philemon exacted his terrible revenge. For the rest of the marriage, he tortured his wife with the garment forcing her to treat it as an honoured guest even taking it for walks around the neighbourhood. Everyone would have known that she had erred. She felt scorn and shame. For a brief moment, there seems a to be a chance of reconciliation but his anger gets the better of him and he shoves her away.
She wanders the home desolate and then spots the tie. She wraps it around her neck connecting the end to a beam. There then follows one of the most chilling scenes possible in theatre. That beautiful woman perishes before our eyes and then rests lifeless. I had seen that ballet four times and know that Cira springs back to life for the curtain call but I can't help shaking and feel the tears welling up in my eyes. No, this is not a comfortable ballet to watch. In fact, it is shocking. But it is compelling watching.
We needed cheering up and that is just what we got with Twyla Tharp's Nine Sinatra Songs. Each of the girls is beautifully dressed and coiffed wearing heels instead of pointe shoes. Karla Doorbar who accompanied James Barton in his last performance with the company wore the most scrumptious costume. Before the show Kit Holder told the audience that this was to be Barton's last appearance with the company and invited us to give him an extra burst of applause which we did. I was sad for a while but then overjoyed to learn that he has not retired but is on his way to Glasgow to join Scottish Ballet. Readers will tire of my saying that that was the first company that I got to know and love. They will know that I am an even bigger fan of Scottish Ballet than I am of BRB, Far from saying goodbye I look forward to seeing more of him in his new company.
I have never really listened much to Frank Sinatra but I have heard a lot of his music in lifts, waiting rooms and on the telephone waiting to be put through to the right extension in the course of a lifetime. There is something comforting in the banal and the artists of the Birmingham Royal Ballet made us forget the horror of the previous piece with their wit, their charm and their virtuosity. Although the ballet is called Nine Sinatra Songs we actually got eight for My Way is played twice. The first time with three couples - Rachele Pizzillo, Emma Price and Yaoquian Shang with Rory Mackay, Edivaldo Souza da Silva and Alexander Yap. The second time was the finale with the whole cast.
I have followed Ballet Black for as long as I have kept this blog and seen them grow. Watching them perform in one of the world's premier dance auditoriums with de Valois's foundation I thought they had come of age, Interestingly one of the audience members had reminded me of their appearance of the pyramid stage of Glasto. That must have earned them a lot of fame but I think the shows at The Hippodrome and Sadler's Wells would have given them even more kudos.
Later this month Ballet Black will perform Pendulum, Click! and Ingoma in Oxford, Stratford, Leeds and York in the next few weeks, I described that triple bill as stunning when I saw it at The Barbican earlier this year. I recommend it strongly.
