NDT2 at the Lowry

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Nederlands Dans Theater 2, Mixed Programme, Salford, 19 April 2016

Last Sunday I saw the Hungarian National Ballet perform The Sleeping Beauty in Budapest (see Sir Peter Wright's The Sleeping Beauty in Budapest 23 April 2016). The next day I saw the Royal Ballet dance The Winter's Tale at Covent Garden (see The Winter's Tale Revisited - Some Ballets are better Second Time Round 20 April 2016). The day after that, I saw The Nederalmds Dans Theater 2's mixed programme at The Lowry. Three excellent but very different performances by three great companies in three great cities on three consecutive nights, I enjoyed them all equally.

The Nederlands Dans Theater ("NDT") describes itself over modestly as "one of the most productive dance companies in the Netherlands, if not in the world."  It is certainly one of the most celebrated. It was founded in 1959 by Benjamin Harkarvy, Aart Verstegen, Carel Birnie and some 18 dancers from the Dutch National Ballet to focus on experimentation with new forms and techniques of dance. It has taken its direction from some of the world's biggest names in dance including:

• Hans van Manen who has been associated with the company almost from its formation first as a dancer, then as a choreographer and finally as its artistic director between 1961 and 1971 which was when I first became aware of van Manen's works and started to follow them;
• Jiří Kylián who was the company's artistic director between 1975 and 2004; and
• Paul Lightfoot who has directed the company since 2011.

The NDT is based not in Amsterdam, the Netherlands's cultural and commercial centre but in the smaller and much more sedate political capital of The Hague.

NDT2 is the NDT's junior company consisting of some of the world's best classically trained young contemporary dancers. Those dancers, who are in their late teens and early twenties and recruited from all parts of the world, spend three years in the junior company before graduating into the main company NDT1. For a number of years there was also a third division of the company known as NDT3 for dancers over 40 but that was discontinued in 2005 (see Harris Green Dance: Where Age 40 Doesn't Mean the End of Everything 20 Aug 2000 NY Times). I had not noticed that the elder company had been discontinued and asked about in a question and answer session with two of the English speaking dancers after the show.

We were treated to six works at the Lowry last Tuesday:

• Schubert choreographed by Sol León and Paul Lightfoot to Schubert's String quintet in C - Adagio;
• Sad Case by the same choreographers to the music of  Perez Prado Mambo no. 8, Perez Prado Muchachita, Alberto Domínguez Frenesí, Ernesto Lecuona Always in my heart, Perez Prado Caballo Negro, Ray Barretto Watusi, Trio Los Panchos Perfidia and Perez Prado Maria Bonita;
• Some Other Time also by those choreographers to Max Richter's Thermodynamics; I was just thinking; Broken Symmetries for Y; When the northern lights / Jasper and Louise; A sudden Manhattan of the mind; This Picture of us. P.; Found song for P.; H thinks a journey; Lullaby from the Westcoast sleepers ans So long Orpheus;
• Edward Clug's mutual comfort to Milko Lazar's PErpeTuumOVIA;
• van Manen's Solo to Johann Sebastian Bach's Violin suite no. 1 in D minor Correnta and Double; and
• Alexander Ekman's Cacti to music by Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and Mahler.

I enjoyed all those works but my favourite by a country mile was van Manen's Solo. I have said many times that van Manen is my favourite living choreographer and it was his work that I had come to see. It did not disappoint. A powerful work by three magnificent young dancers, Gregory Lau, Helias Tur-Dorvault and Paxton Ricketts.

Lau opened the show and was part of the closing piece. For me he stood out even among his exceptionally talented colleagues. In praising him in this way I do not infer that he towers above the others in any regard but the programme allowed him an opportunity to shine and he was dazzling. None of the women eclipsed the others. Each had a different style and contribution to the choreography and I admired them all equally.

The company has just performed in Scotland and is moving on to Newcastle, Bradford, Birmingham, Plymouth, Brighton, Nottingham and London. If you live anywhere near those cities you should try to see them. Of a great three day feast of dance van Manen's Solo was the pièce de résistance.

Cambriophilia

"We have Anglophile and Francophile, but what do we call someone who is a lover of the Americas - particularly North America?" asked The Guardian on its Semantic Enigma page. "Mad" was one ungracious reply which not unnaturally ruffled more than a few Transatlantic feathers. A more serious reply was Americophile which I googled and, yes, the word does seem to exist.

But the English language doesn't seem to have a word for a lover of Welsh culture which is strange because there is so much to admire in that beautiful peninsula just a short drive away for most of us. So I'm going to coin one which I hope will one day find its way into the OED. "Cambriophile" and its noun "Cambriophilia".  That adjective certainly applies to me. As I said in Ballet Cymru in London 1 Dec 2015:

"To the best of my knowledge and belief there is not a millilitre of Welsh blood in my veins. Such Celtic heritage as I can claim is Irish and Scottish yet I love Wales as much as anyone who was lucky enough to have been born in that country."

One of the reasons I am a Cambriohile is that Wales has a great ballet company in Ballet Cymru. I am delighted to say that it also has a fine contemporary dance company in the National Dance Company Wales.

The National Dance Company Wales spent a day in Huddersfield on 10 March 2016 and we got to know them well. They invited us to their company class over cakes at lunch time before performing three of their works on their current Spring tour and then finally sticking around in the meeting room afterwards for a Q & A. I should say for the benefit of those readers who have never been to Wales or Huddersfield that we share quite a bit in common. We also live in a hilly, gritty landscape which once had mines and mills and we share a love of singing with one of the best choral societies in the world. A language close to Welsh was once spoken in Yorkshire and quite a bit of it remains in names of geographic features such as Pen-y-ghent for one of the highest points in our county.

Company class was taken by Lee Johnston, the company's rehearsal director, and it was entirely classical starting with warm ups on the floor, barre work, and the usual centre exercises albeit to slightly different music than would normally accompany a ballet class. While the dance these artists perform on stage may not be ballet they are clearly ballet trained and they are as supple and graceful as any ballet dancer. Gita and I ran into Johnston on the way from the auditorium to the cafe.
 "Thanks for coming" she said.
"On the contrary. we thank you for letting us watch your company class" was our reply.
We introduced ourselves as Team Terpsichore and expressed our delight at meeting another Welsh dance company.
"We are good friends of Ballet Cymru", we were told, "who are just down the road from us."

The NCDW is based in the Dance House in the Millennium Centre in Cardiff which is indeed not far from Rogerstone which is the suburb of Newport where Ballet Cymru is based. The facilities of the Dance House sound magnificent: "a world-class production facility and performance and rehearsal space for local artists, youth groups and touring companies across the UK and beyond." They share that space with a roll call of some of the best and the brightest in Wales Welsh National Opera, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Touch Trust, Ty Cerdd, Literature Wales, Hijinx and Urdd. Facilities include "two dance studios, a lounge area and office space. The main production studio, the Blue Room, has the highest quality technical specification for producing and presenting dance, including 100 tiered and retractable seats. The second studio, Man Gwyn, is a simple square rehearsal studio complete with ballet barres, mirrors and full circle grey drapes for rehearsal, auditions or intimate presentations." Apparently the Dance House is always buzzing with activity.

The company has 9 dancers of whom only Josie Sinnadurai seems to be Welsh. The rest come from England and the Continent.
"You call yourself the National Company of Wales" I asked in the Q & A after the show, "so what's so Welsh about you?"
"Good question" replied David Pallant, their latest recruit, "well we go to all parts of the country and interact with schools of community groups."
"Our dancers are actually learning Welsh to work with children" added Lee Johnstone.
"Would you like to say something in Welsh?" said our Canadian master or rather mistress of ceremonies to Angela Boix Duran who is a strikingly beautiful young woman from Barcelona.
"Yr wyf o Sbaen" ("I'm from Spain") came the fluent reply.

The company performed three works for us:

• Tuplet by Alexander Ekman whose work includes an alternative Swan Lake which seems to be even more off the wall than David Nixon's (see Up the Swannee 17 March 2016) or even Sir Matthew Bourne's (see Swan Lads - Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, Bradford Alhambra 4 March 2014 5 March 2014) so if a choreographer must have a go at one of my most cherished ballets he may as well do a proper job;
• A Mighty Wind by Jeroen Verbruggen who also designed the sets as well as choreographed the ballet; and
• Folk by the company's artistic director Caroline Finn.

I liked all three works enormously but the one I enjoyed the most was Verbruggen's Mighty Wind. It was exciting as the men tossed one of the women between them as though she were a sack of potatoes and also innovative in the way he used four mobile fans with powerful lighting to flare the dancers hair as though they were on fire. Verbruggen had created The Nutcracker for the Geneva Ballet which I mentioned in Geneva Nutcracker on 25 Oct 2015. I would love to see that work one day but for now A Mighty Wind will do.

The National Dance Company of Wales's next stop on their Spring tour is The Place in London on 12 April and then on to Aberystwyth, Milford Haven and Mold.  If you live anywhere near those places they are worth a visit.