Ballet Cymru's Giselle

Author Sian Trenberth Photography   © 2021 Ballet Cymru - all rights reserved

 

Ballet Cymru Giselle Riverfront Theatre, Newport 6 Nov 2021 19:30

On its home page Ballet Cymru proclaims:

"We are a ballet company who like to do things a bit differently. We enjoy finding new ways to make what we do exciting, innovative and relevant."

Nothing exemplifies that better than their new Giselle which was premiered at Lichfield cathedral and online on 8 July 2021 (see Giselle Reimagined 9  July 2021).  They are a small but important company which spends much of its time on the road.  Many of their venues are small auditoriums with limited ranges of stage equipment.  Ballet Cymru's artistic directors, Darius James and Amy Doughty, have taken the essentials of some of the world's great ballets and refashioned them for a small cast that is constantly travelling before audiences that may not see a lot of ballet.  They succeeded spectacularly with their Cinderella and Romeo a Juliet.  Their Giselle is a similar success.

Making such adaptations often requires adjustments to the libretto, characters and score.  For example, the mesmeric effect of rank upon rank of artists in white romantic tutus approaching each other in arabesque as the music reaches a crescendo is difficult to achieve with a small cast on a tiny stage playing recorded music.  Moreover, most modern audiences are unfamiliar with Rhineland folk tales about forest maidens who die before their wedding day.   Most of us have seen or at least heard of horror movies about the undead who crawl out of their tombs at night.  That is why there were zombies crawling about the stage instead of wilis en pointe in Act II.

If you replace wilis with zombies you probably need a new score.  James and Doughty commissioned Catrin Finch to adapt Adam's music. Finch had previously contributed the music for Celtic Concerto and The Light Princess and it was through those works that I first learned about her.  I have started to explore her other work. I was lucky enough to meet her at a reception at the Riverfront Theatre after the show.  I hope to write more about her work in this publication later.  Finch kept important parts of Adam's score such as the overture to Acts I and II and passages from the made scene but the greater part of the work was her own.  Some of it was very dramatic such as the percussion to indicate a heartbeat.

Apart from substituting zombies for wilis, James and Doughty kept the story more or less intact.   It unfolds with great clarity.  In keeping with their mission to make everything they do exciting, innovative and relevant James and Doughty set the ballet in contemporary Wales rather than the medieval Rhineland.  As there are not too many lords of the manor in Brexit Britain, Albrecht is no longer a noble, Merely a married man playing the field away from home.  He does not carry a sword but he does keep something in his wallet that enables Hilarion to denounce him.  The main character changes are the introduction of male as well as female zombies and Cerys, a besty for Giselle instead of an over solicitous mum,

I have now seen the ballet three times - once on-screen on 8 July, once live at the Stanley and Audrey Burton in Leeds on 4 Nov and again live in Newport on 6 Nov.   Each performance was a different experience. The company danced well in Lichfield and Leeds and must have made a lot of friends in both places but their performance in Newport before their home turf was of a different order of magnitude.  After a performance of TIR some years ago, their patron Cerys Matthews described them as "the pride of Newport and the pride of Wales".   She won a peel of polite applause for that remark.  On Saturday, it was palpable.  The crowd in the Riverfront have learnt to appreciate ballet and taken their home company to their hearts.  Just like the crowd in the Grand has adopted Nothern and the Hippodrome BRB.  Ballet Cymru has put down roots that may one day blossom into a mighty national company with its own school.

The cast was the same in all three shows.   Beth Meadway danced Giselle with grace and poise.  It was as if she was born for that role. Tall with an expressive countenance, there were instances when she was on pointe in Act II that reminded me of the lithographs of Grisi.  Andrea Battagia is a powerful athletic dancer but he is also a fine dance actor capable of expressing the subtleties of Albrecht's personality and his many emotions.  Isobel Holland, one of the most pleasant individuals one could ever hope to meet in real life, was a convincing personification of decay and evil as the lead female zombie.  So, too, was Robbie Moorcroft - again congeniality itself in real life - who created the new role of lead male zombie.  Two newcomers to the company impressed me particularly: Yasset Roldan as Hilarion and Hanna Lyn Hughes as Cerys.  I shall follow their careers with great interest. All the members of the company danced well in all three performances and I offer all of them my congratulations. 

James designed the sets and video projections.   These were ingenious and set each of the scenes effectively.   I particularly admired the churchyard scene just before dawn.  Ballet Cymru relies heavily on such projections but these were particularly good.   The opening scene of an ECG flashed onto the gauze together with the percussion and the cast's jumping like cardiac muscles warned the audience at the start that Giselle had a weak heart. James's designs were accompanied by skilful lighting design by Chris Illingworth and the imaginative costumes of Deryn Tudor.

Wales has a strong dance tradition as you can see from this grasshopper dance but it does not yet have a national ballet school or comprehensive nationwide facilities for developing balletic talent.  There are good ballet teachers in the main towns and cities but most of Wales is rural.   Ballet Cymru's Duets Programme goes some way to filling that lacuna.   Before Saturday's show, several young local schoolchildren on that programme presented a short demonstration of what they had learnt in a very short time.  They drew rapturous applause after which most of them watched Giselle in the row in front of me.  Ballet Cymru's investment in its nation's youth will create, at the very least, an eager and informed audience for dance and possibly even some of the next generation of the world's principals.

Giselle Re-imagined

Lichfield Cathedral

Author Nina-no Licence CC BY-SA 3.0 Source Wikimedia

 

Ballet Cymru, Giselle Livestream from Lichfield Cathedral, 8 July 2021 19:30

Ballet Cymru is not a big company.  If one consults the dancers' page as I tried to do yesterday because there were several artists in the cast I could not recognize, Ballet Cymru appears to have only four members.  Yet Ballet Cymru is capable of staging major full-length classical ballets and often doing them better than many bigger and better-resourced companies.  its Romeo a Juliet is one of the best and its Cinderella is definitely the best - much as I admire the Hampson and Wheeldon versions for Scottish Ballet and HNB.  

Those productions are successful because Darius James and Amy Doughty rethink those ballets for a small cast on the road. They are innovative without being gimmicky.  Their works are of our time yet remain anchored in the classical tradition.  Most importantly, though their artists are from Australia, Bermuda, Italy and Yorkshire, the company is unmistakably Welsh.  Here are two examples of how they work.   If a score does not quite work for them they have the courage to commission a new one.  As often as not, that commission will go to a Welsh composer such as Jack White or Catrin Finch. Another example is how they tell a story.   Romeo a Juliet is set not in renaissance Verona but post-industrial Newport.   The brawl between Montagues and Capulets in Act 1 takes place in the pedestrian underpass to the River Usk.  It is broken up not by a duke but by flashing blue lights.  

James and Doughty applied that formula to their new Giselle which was premiered at Lichfield Cathedral last night.  Although I saw it only on screen I have no doubt that it was a spectacular success.  The camera caught the front row of the audience who rose to their feet at the curtain call. Standing ovations are de rigeur in some parts of the world, but in Lichfield they are rare.  I know that city well because I attended prep school there.

As I knew that James and Doughty had commissioned Finch to write the music I was surprised to hear the opening notes of Adam's overture but it was quickly followed by percussion as the cast entered the stage and shortly afterwards (and my memory may be playing tricks on me here) Bugeilio'r Gwenith Gwyn.  As I tweeted last night Finch's arrangement of Adam with her own work and traditional Welsh airs was one of the reasons for the ballet's success.

The ballet followed the familiar story but with some modern twists.  There are not too many peasants in Newport these days so there was no peasant pas de deux.  Fox hunting is illegal in Wales so there was no ducal hunting party.  Young Welsh women can learn about the men they encounter from their smartphones nowadays so there was no petal picking. But there was still a Giselle danced by Beth Meadway, an Albrecht (Andrea Battaggia), a Hilarion (Yasset Roldan), a Berthe (Hanna Lyn Hughes) and a Bathilde (Natasha Chu).  Other artists, described in the cast list as "friends", were  Robbie Moorcroft, Joe Powell-Main, Madeleine Green, Jakob Myers, Sanea Singh and Jethro Paine.  Chu and Lyn Hughes also appeared in the crowd scenes. 

We at Powerhouse Ballet hold all the dancers of Ballet Cymru in high regard but we have a particular affection for Meadway. She taught us In my craft or sullen art at the Dylan Thomas workshop when Ballet Cymru visited Leeds (see More than a Bit Differently: Ballet Cymru's Workshop and the Launch of the Powerhouse Ballet Circle  29 Nov 2018 Terpsichore).  She also gave us one of the best online company classes ever last year.   Above all, she is a North Country lass - just like most of us.  I already knew that she could dance but I had never seen her act before.  She is at least as good an actor as she is a dancer.  She did not just dance Giselle.   She made us believe that she was Giselle.

Tall and dashing, Battagia was cast well as Albrecht. It was easy to see how Giselle's head was turned by him.  He did not carry a sword but he did have some sort of ID that he carelessly left in a wallet in his coat pocket.  I have always felt a bit sorry for poor old Hilarion.  If anyone deserves to die it is Albrecht and in Dada Masilo's version, he does (see  A Brace of Giselles 15 Oct 2019 Terpsichore).  James and Doughty stick to tradition and he perishes in a horrible way. Roldan danced his role with verve and passion.   The choreography gives him opportunities to demonstrate virtuosity and he took full advantage.  Berthe seems even younger than her daughter which may be why she is described in the cast list as "Giselle's friend".  There is a poignant moment as Berthe comforts Giselle when she first experiences heart trouble.   It is also Berthe who tries to revive Giselle at the end.   

In any production of Giselle, there is a contrast between acts 1 and 2.   In this production, the contrast was marked by the absence of pointe work in act 1.  The women wore soft shoes and turned on demi.  In the spirit world, Myrtha and Giselle were on pointe.  No doubt to emphasize their lightness like Taglioni in La Sylphide or Grisi in the first Giselle.  The wilis were the scariest I have ever seen.   The friends in act 1 became spirits in act 2.  They, therefore, included men who were particularly threatening.   They crawled over their graves like serpents.   No graceful arabesques or penchés.   They were led by Isobel Holland.   The tension between Holland and Meadway was palpable.   Holland like Meadway is an excellent actor. She also taught us at our Dylan Thomas workshop.  We at Powerhouse know that she is delightful in real life but as queen of the wilis she was grisly and venomous.  

The set was simple but robust which will be ideal for touring.   Essentially rectangular slaps with reflective surfaces. As in their other ballets. Ballet Cymru relied on projectors to create scenery or change mood.   One background - ancient Celtic and Latin crosses - was simultaneously beautiful and unsettling. All credit to the lighting designer, Chris Illingworth.  Congratulations also to the costume designer, Derek Tudor.  Myrtha's was stunning.   The women's skirts with their layers of material must have been a joy to wear.

I look forward to seeing this show on stage very much.  A screen is all very well but it is two dimensional and ballet has depth.   If Ballet Cymru ever offers this choreography as a workshop we should love to learn it.   Once this third wave has subsided we shall learn the Coralli-Perrot-Petipa version of the dance of the wilis but the James and Doughty version would be such fun.

A World-Class Company for a Changing Nation

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Ballet Cymru Rome a Juliet 31 May 2019 Riverfront Theatre, Newport

This is the third time I have seen Darius James and Amy Doughty's Romeo a Juliet and each time I see it I have found something new. Last night I saw two exceptional talents: Danila Marzilli, one of the finalists in the ballet category of the BBC Young Dancer of 2019, for the first time; and Beau Dillen whom I had seen two months earlier in Made in Wales. Marzilli danced Juliet in the second professional performance of her life (the first being the previous night) and Dillen the nurse, standing in for Krystal Lowe at the very last moment.

To give a young dancer straight out of ballet school the leading role is an incredibly risky thing to do both for the dancer and the company. James and Doughty did that once before with Gwenllian Davies the last time I saw Romeo a Juliet and it worked spectacularly well (see A Romeo and Juliet for Our Times 7 Nov 2016). It also worked last night with Mazilli. Mazilli is very accomplished technically but she can also act. The despair in the bedroom was palpable after Romeo had taken flight and her parents, grief-stricken with the loss of Tybalt, were piling on the pressure for her to marry Paris. So, too, was the fear as she considered whether to take Friar Larence's potion.  So, also, was the agony of finding Romeo's body in the Capulet family grave.  These and all the other thoughts and feelings fleeting through young Juliet's consciousness were communicated with considerable eloquence.

In most versions of Rome and Juliet and, of course, the play the nurse is much older than Juliet and her social inferior.  In James and Doughty she is a confidante.  In previous performances by this company, she has been called Cerys.  In last night's show, she was referred to simply as "Juliet's friend." As such, she adds a dynamic to the narrative that actually enhances Shakespeare.  She recognizes Romeo at her parents' ball and tries to lead Juliet away.  She tries to intercede with Juliet as she rejects Paris. It is she who finds Juliet stone cold the morning of her wedding. This is a role that requires maturity and authority which is why it is usually performed by one of the company's most experienced dancers. Dillen is the company's apprentice yet she filled that role magnificently.

Romeo was danced by Andrea Maria Battagia who performed that role the last time I saw the ballet.  He is everything a male lead should be.  A virtuoso who thrills with his solos but nevertheless displays his ballerina like the setting of a precious jewel so that she dazzles.  I think we owe a lot to Battagia for the way he partnered Mazilli last night, much as he did with Davies in 2016. Battagia can also act.  For the first time ever I saw Romeo as a flawed hero. Possibly because he despatched Tybalt and Paris with plebian knives rather than gentlemen's swords.  A whiff of brexit Britain rather than renaissance Verona.

That brings me on to another quality of James and Doughty's work. It is set in our time and our country.  The first time I saw the work I noted Tybalt's dragon tattoo and the substitution of Cerys as a confidante of Juliet in place of the nurse (see They're not from Chigwell - they're from a small Welsh Town called Newport 14 May 2013).  Instead of a duke, the brawl between the Capulets and the Montagues is broken up by the flashing lights and shadowy figures of the Gwent Constabulary. The knifings of Mercutio and Tybalt took place not in the Piazza of Verona but underneath the flyover of the exit lane from the bridge over the Usk.   I recognized the setting in the projections against the backdrop. Again there were the flashing lights of the Heddlu.

Talking of Tybalt it is always a delight to watch Robbie Moorcroft swagger on stage. Our hearts go out for Miguel Fernandes as Mercutio, the cub of the Montague pack with something to prove. Romeo tried to hold him back but too late.  He takes on the wily Tybalt who knifes him.  His bravado after his first wound is one of the most heart-rending scenes of classical dance. The second knifing turns Romeo and Juliet from a saccharine romance into drama. Romeo has to get involved.  He then has to go on the run. There is no way this story could end otherwise than badly.

Lord and Lady Capulet danced by two of my favourite dancers, Alex Hallas and Beth Meadway, added yet another quality to the work. Other productions show a tearful, vengeful Lady Capulet but her husband's role is usually minor.  Not in James and Doughty's work. They are sleek, powerful, authoritarian - and Northern. It just so happens they are both from Yorkshire. I could almost hear them:

"Now listen up, our kid. There's nowt wrong with Paris. You could do a lot worse than wed him. I know he's not much to look at but he's got brass and he's not wanted by the law. Not like that Romeo Montague. Ooh, I do hope they catch him, lock him up and throw away the key. How could you even look at him after what he did to Tybalt?"

And with her friend joining in, is it any wonder that Juliet buried her face in a pillow before quaffing Friar Lawrence's potion and eventually killing herself?

Everyone in this show danced well.  Joshua Feist was a perfect Paris, another recent recruit whose career I shall follow with interest. Isobel Holland was an impressive Friar Lawrence. Much closer to Shakespeare than the manipulative cleric in Jean-Christophe Maillot's version of the ballet. Maria Teresa Brunello was a convincing Benvolio.  Not easy to dance a role of the opposite gender.  Holland and Brunello are to be congratulated for that alone.   Especially as there are some in ballet who would not countenance it.   I recently met a teacher and choreographer who was scandalized by my learning to dance the bronze idol in an adult ballet intensive.

James and Doughty have big plans for their company.  They are touring China soon where I am sure they will be admired.   They hope to employ their dancers on full-term rather than short-term contracts.  Ballet Cymru reminds me a lot of Scottish Ballet when they first moved to Glasgow 50 years ago.

Like Scotland in the 1970s, Wales is changing fast.  I sense a growing sense of nationhood.  The National Assembly now makes primary legislation.  The Supreme Court already sits in Cardiff and there are calls even from Unionists for a separate Welsh court system.   Until a few years ago the economy of the North was largely rural and that of the South was not unlike that of the American rust belt.  The economy is changing rapidly into one that is knowledge-based.   I see signs of that transformation every time I visit M-Sparc, Aber Innovation or the Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre.  The entrepreneurs, innovators and creative folk who are driving that change need the arts and expect the best.  They demand world-class dance and Ballet Cymru is delivering it to them.

"A Most Rare Vision ...... A Dream"

Ballet Cymru A Midsummer Night's Dream 7 June 2017  19:30

Yesterday I had to make a tough choice between two ballet's derived from A Midsummer Night's Dream. In my local cinema was The Dream by Sir Frederick Ashton, one of my favourite ballets because I shall always associate it with Dame Antoinette Sibley and Sir Anthony Dowell, streamed live from Covent Garden. At the Preston Guild Hall and Charter Theatre was a live performance by Ballet Cymru of Darius James's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

What made the choice particularly hard was that The Dream was to be performed as part of a triple bill with Symphonic Variations and Marguerite and Armand.  Just as I associate The Dream with Sibley and Dowell I shall always associate Marguerite and Armand with Rudolf Nureyev and Dame Margot Fonteyn and Symphonic Variations. Making the choice even harder was the knowledge that Zenaida Yanowsky was due to make her last appearance yesterday.

Much as I love the Royal Ballet and Yanowsky I chose Ballet Cymru without hesitation. In my book, living breathing human beings on stage will always trump images flashed onto a screen. Also, there is a chance of seeing a recording of last night's transmission though, sadly, there are not many cinemas advertising the encore. I think I made the right call because last night's performance was outstanding.

Darius James first created the ballet for the company in 1997. It was an immediate success. The Sunday Telegraph described the dancers as "impressively able" and commended James for making use of "every gift they have." The Theatre Critics of Wales nominated it for the best dance production of 2013. It is not hard to see why for James is a skilled narrator with an exceptionally keen eye for detail and a superb gift for transposing Shakespeare's words into movement.

James understands Shakespeare better than most.  In A Romeo and Juliet for our Times 7 Nov 2016 I described his Romeo a Juliet as James and Doughty's best work yet which shows how a small company of young dancers with modest resources can stage a full-length ballet brilliantly. Other plays that have inspired James are The Tempest, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew and Hamlet which I should very much like to see.

Unlike Ashton, who focuses on the quarrel between Titania and Oberon and their reconciliation, James follows the play faithfully. That could not have been easy because the plot is complex. In addition to the quarrel there is the love affair between Hermia and Lysander and Helena's pursuit of Demetrius, Puck's mischief making, Titania's infatuation with Bottom, the mechanicals' performance of Pyramus and Thisbe and the nuptials of Theseus and Hippolyta. James's solution is to divide the ballet into three parts. The first part embraces everything except the merchanicals' play and Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding. The second part is that play.  The third is a Petipa style pas de deux with Hippolyta in a classical tutu. It may sound bitty when described in words on a page but, in fact, it works very well indeed.

One day Ballet Cymru may have principals, soloists, coryphées and a corps but at present it has twelve young, very able and very ambitious young dancers. All of them had important roles in the ballet that reflected their personalities as well as their respective technical skills. Each and every one of them performed his or her role brilliantly.

Oberon and Titania were performed by Adreamaria Battagia and Gwenllian Davies who had impressed me so much in Romeo a Juliet.  They do comedy as well as they do tragedy. They also doubled as Theseus and Hippolyta. For me, the pas de deux at the end was the high point of the show. Casting Miguel Fernandes was inspired. He is a talented character dancer as well as a splendid virtuoso. Anna Pujol was a delightful Hermia and Robbie Moorcroft a gallant Lysander but it was as Bottom where Moorcroft's brilliance shone through. The company's latest recruits, Miles Carrott and Beth Meadway, were each given two demanding roles which they performed magnificently. Medway touched our hearts as poor spurned Helena and our funny bones as Snug. Carrott excelled as Demetrius and Quince. Natalie Debono was a spirited Peasebottom. Ann Wall, who doubled as fairy and mechanical, was a hilarious man in the moon complete with lamp and dog.

The music for most of the ballet was Mendelssohn which James tells us in the programme is a delight to dance.  No wonder as the score has so many familiar tunes. For Pyramus and Thisbe, however, the dancers provided their own music on tin whistles and kazoo which virtually spoke the words of the play. I was amused by Pyramus's death throes and the Death March that the motley band managed to conjure from their assorted instruments.

As a small touring company Ballet Cymru has to travel light so it relies on projections to create scenery and atmosphere. Chris Illingworth's designs were inspired.  So, too, were Yvonne Greenleaf's costumes. The simple body hugging costumes for the fairies with their fluffy, white wigs worked well. So, too, did the mechanicals' working clothes and, of course, Bottom's ears.

The company will perform A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Waterside Arts Centre in Sale on Saturday. A tip to all my classmates at KNT - if you are free on Saturday afternoon or evening. try to get down there.  After Sale the show moves on to Bangor on the 15 June followed by Tewkesbury, Poole, Taunton, Stvenage, Hereford, Basingstoke, Ayr, Porthcawl, Newbury and Lichfield.

The Light Princess - a Special Ballet for a Special Company

Copyright 2017 Ballet Cymru: all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

BalletCymru The Light Princess, Riverfront Theatre, Newport 20 May 2017, 19:30

In 2015 Ballet Cymru's Cinderella was my ballet of the year and its Tir was the runner-up (see Highlights of 2015 29 Dec 2015. Last year Gwenllian Davies was my young female dancer of the year for her magnificent performance as Juliet on 5 Nov 2016 (see The Terpsichore Titles: Outstanding Young Dancers of 2016 28 Dec 2016 and A Romeo and Juliet for our Times  7 Nov 2016). Quite remarkable, I think you will agree, for a small company in a city with a slightly smaller population than Huddersfield some 140 miles from London.

Yesterday I tried to put my finger on what made Ballet Cymru special and this is what I concluded.

First, the company is lucky to have as artistic directors Darius James and Amy Doughty who are two of the finest choreographers on the British stage. Their ballets with expansive upper body movements and sudden spins, whether chaînés, fouettés or pirouettes, are thrilling to watch. James and Doughty create their work in collaboration their dancers with the result that every movement showcases the artist's personality as well as the vision of the choreographers. Each of those artists is young at peak strength and energy, When James unfurls them, as he does at the end of company class, they are a wonder to behold (see Ballet Cymru at Home 5 Oct 2015).

Secondly, this company is unmistakably Welsh. Its dancers may come from all parts of the world and it visits nearly every part of the United Kingdon on tour but its credentials are entirely cymric.  The company's name, after all, is "Ballet Cymru" - never "Ballet Wales", the literal translation. There are Welsh characters even in Romeo a Juliet and Cinderella: Juliet's confidante in Romeo a Juliet is Cerys, Cinderella's half-witted step brother is named Cas and her step sister is called Seren. The backdrops projected onto the screen are created digitally from scenes of Wakes ranging from the subway under the arterial road near the Riverfront Theatre in Romeo a Juliet to Lake Bala in The Light Princess. More importantly, the company commissions scores from outstanding Welsh composers like Jack White who wrote the music for Cinderella and Stuck in the Mud and Catrin Finch who contributed Celtic Concerto as well as The Light Princess to the company's repertoire. I am most grateful to Ballet Cymru for introducing me to those composers.  I am now a fan of both.

Thirdly, James and Doughty make clever use of technology. I have already mentioned the projected backdrops which are designed for the theatres around this island which might struggle with conventional scenery. Yesterday, there were gently floating images as the overture concentrated our thoughts on weightlessness. We saw circus hoops courtesy, no doubt, of Citrus Arts who had previously worked with Ballet Cymru on Cinderella.  For those who had not read the programme or my preview, the synopsis in two languages flashed onto the gauze with occasional directions to the audience such as "hiss". Did you know that the Welsh for "hiss" is "his"?

Like The Sleeping Beauty, George McDonald's story begins with a christening for a princess to which three of her relations had not been invited. Like Carabosse those relations were witches but, instead of sending the royal household to sleep for 100 years (a fate that Exeunt's Anna Winter might regard as lenient (see Exeunt's Ballet Reviews - Mayerling and Casanova 12 May 2017) they made her weightless with the result that she had to be tethered with ropes. The king and queen consulted Kopy-Keck and Hum-Drum, Chinese experts in spells as to what might be done but they offered conflicting and equally useless advice. At a water carnival on Lake Bala, the princess discovered that she could acquire weight under water. She nearly floated away again when a visiting prince dived into the lake to rescue her for which gallantry he received no thanks at all from the princess. Realizing that their spell did not work in water the witches tried to drain the lake. They were foiled when the prince offered his body to plug the drain. The prince's willingness to sacrifice himself for the love of the princess broke the spell. A cartwheeling king and equally ecstatic queen allow the princess to marry her rescuer. All, no doubt, lived happily ever after.

Anna Pujol, who had delighted the Millennium Centre as Little Red Riding Hood before Christmas (see Ballet Cymru's "Sleeping Beauty Moment" 5 Dec 2016), danced the princess. She showed formidable strength and artistic versatility with her floorwork representing her swimming and her adeptness with hoops. Her prince, Andrea Maria Battagia, partnered her gallantly. I loved Robbie Moorcroft's performance as king (particularly his cartwheels) and was impressed by Beth Meadway, a recent recruit to the company, as queen. I was also impressed by another recruit, Miles Carrott, who complemented Miguel Fernnades and Natalie Debono as the vindictive, serpentine witches. Gwenllian Davies was one of the experts and the magnificent Krystal Lowe (anything but humdrum) was the other.  Davies showed that she can dance character roles as convincingly as she can dance Juliet. Daniel Morrison danced the butler and Ann Wall the nurse with their usual flair. Each of those roles offered the dancers a chance to shine and shine they did.

Something that made last night particularly special was the appearance of Catrin Finch in the orchestra pit. This was not the first time that the company had performed with live musicians.  The last time I saw them they shared the stage with the entire National Orchestra of Wales, but it was the first time that I had seen them with their own ensemble and the result was magic. Sadly, the musicians cannot follow the company everywhere so the performances at Bury St Edmunds, Llanelli, Milford Haven, Stevenage and Newcastle under Lyme will make do with recorded music.

Those performances will still be worth seeing.  This is the best ballet that I have seen from this company ever and it is the best new ballet that I have seen so far this year from any company.

A Romeo and Juliet for our Times

Ballet Cymru, Romeo a Juliet, Riverfront Theatre, Newport, 5 Nov 2016, 19:30


Never has the story of Romeo and Juliet been more relevant to our times. Powerful aristocratic families may no longer brawl in Verona but, as Krzysztof Pastor showed in his version of Romeo and Juliet for Scottish Ballet, other forces have taken their place (see Scottish Ballet's Timeless Romeo and Juliet 18 May 2014). In Pastor's ballet the protagonists wore red shirts and black shirts and his message was reinforced by documentary footage from recent Italian history which was projected onto the backdrop. We see similar divisions in the bitter election campaign on the other side of the Atlantic  and, indeed, in our own country since the EU referendum. Shakespeare teaches us that hate kills. A lot of people die in his story - not just Romeo and Juliet but also Tybalt, Mercutio and Paris. However, there is also hope in Shakespeare's tale for the feuding families eventually come to their senses.

It is one thing for a theatrical work to be relevant to our times but quite another to transpose it to our times. It is sometimes said that ballet (like the other performing arts) needs to "get with it" (as folk used to say in the 1960s) if it is not to wither on the vine. It was the subject of the discussion between David Nixon and Luke Jennings on Front Row a few weeks ago which I mentioned in Of Bikes and Busses 25 Oct 2016. Pastor's colleague at the Dutch National Ballet, David Dawson, successfully brought  Swan Lake up to date for Scottish Ballet (see Empire Blanche: Dawson's Swan Lake 4 June 2016). It seems that Ted Brandsen may have pulled it off with Coppelia (see A Coppelia Makeover  5 Nov 2016). Other choreographers have been less successful. I fear that Akram Khan did not quite manage it with Giselle nor Nixon with Swan Lake I think Darius James and Amy Doughty succeeded in Romeo a Juliet.

Over the last few years, James and Doughty have produced one fine work after another - Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella and Tir to name just three. They have a company of dancers who in my view stand comparison with any similarly sized troupe in the world. They have rightly been nominated for the National Dance Awards for the second time year running, Why they do not get even more critical attention and indeed acclaim beats me. I may be a humble blogger but I have seen a lot of ballets in my time and in my book James and Doughty and their company are among the brightest stars in the balletic firmament just now.

I had seen Ballet Cymru's Romeo a Juliet in the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal in 2013 and loved it (see They're not from Chigwell - they're from a small Welsh Town called Newport 14 May 2013). On Saturday I saw the same ballet in the company's hometown and loved it even more. The show was presented in the Riverfront Arts Centre, a modern complex of galleries, studios and auditoriums on the banks of the Usk. The larger of the auditoriums seats 482 persons and has a big stage for dance. It was there that the show took place.

One of the reasons why I loved the show so much was Gwenllian Davies's remarkable performance as Juliet. Davies is in her first year with the company and this is her first job. Consequently, she is barely older than Shakespeare's Juliet. As I told her after the show, I have seen some of the world's greatest dancers in the role including Lynn Seymour and more recently Alina Cojocaru and Viktoria Tereshkina, but never have I seen a more convincing Juliet. Davies danced with passion and energy and, for a while, I saw in that talented young artist what Shakespeare must have imagined. Of course, Juliet is nothing without her Romeo. Andrea Battagia partnered Davies exquisitely.  Also young he has already achieved much in his career. He brought that experience and authority to the performance. He commands a stage in a way that few other dancers of his age can equal.

Another reason for the success of the ballet was Lydia Arnoux. She danced Cerys or Juliet's best friend. Because I am accused of double standards in not criticizing this innovation as "change for change's sake", I should explain that James and Doughty have set their ballet in modern Britain (indeed Newport) in which teenagers' nurses no longer exist but best friends do. Cerys more than makes up for the absence of the nurse. She introduces a new dynamic into the show. I had seen Arnoux in Kendal but she was even moredelightful on Saturday night.

Anther excellent young dancer whom Ballet Cymru has recruited as an apprentice just over a month ago is Ann Wall. As a member of the London Ballet Circle, I am proud to see that we have supported her. She danced Lady Capulet which is a demanding role for any dancer but particularly a very young one. She has to balance conflicting emotions of love and duty and acquire instantly the weight of years. She succeeded admirably.  In that role she was partnered deftly by Robbie Moorcroft as Lord Capulet. Moorcroft, another of the company's most experienced dancers and well liked by audiences, was impressive. He was magisterial in restraining Tybalt and rebuking Romeo after Romeo had gatecrashed the Capulets' party but tyrannical in his anger when confronted by a defiant daughter.

It was her father's blow that triggered the chain of events that led to the death of the lovers and Paris. Paris, danced by Mark Griffiths, yet another recent recruit by the company. Paris, an apparently decent man with seemingly sincere affection for Juliet, suffers not just her rejection but also death after lingering in the crypt for just a little bit too long. I have always had sympathy for him as I have for Hilarion in Giselle. He has even less cause to die.

The same cannot always be called for the headstrong Tybalt whom I have always regarded as a bit of a thug. Dylan Waddell portrayed him as a loyal brother zealous in defence of his sister's honour. Waddell, whom I had previously seen in MurleyDance, us a strong but sensitive dancer and a fine actor. Miguel Fernandes was a great choice for Mercutio. Another exciting dancer tp watch. So, too, was Anna Pujol, a convincing Benvolio.

One dancer I was particularly glad to see on stage was Krystal Lowe. She first impressed me in Kendal and my admiration for her work has increased with every performance. Her appearance in Tir at Sadler's Wellls last year a few weeks after the loss of Mandev Sokhi  was one of the most moving I have ever seen. She was the Friar on Saturday, a pivotal role but not the extended one created by Jean-Christophe Maillot for his version. Lowe was as magnificent as ever. If I had flowers I would gladly have tossed them on stage for her. On Saturday she performed as a guest artist. I understand that she is now at the University of South Wales and teaching Ballet Cymru's adult ballet class. I am sure all my readers join me in wishing her well in this latest stage of her career.

I said above that this was a Romeo and Juliet for our times. James and Doughty achieved this with only minimal changes to the libretto and only an abridgement of Prokofiev's score. The dancers wore modern dress and images of Newport flashed on stage. For instance, an image of the passage under the bridge across the Usk (which lies just yards away from the Riverfront) appeared in the riot scenes. The flashing light of a police vehicle appeared just at the point where the duke would arrive in other productions. Instead of swords the boys carried shillelaghs and knives. Nothing to suggest Verona.

Romeo a Juliet is James and Doughty's best work yet, It shows how a small company of young dancers with modest resources can stage a full-length ballet brilliantly.  It would not surprise me in the least if Ballet Cymru were nominated for a National Dance Award next year on the strength of this production.

Ballet Cymru's Summer Tour

Darius James with Gwenllian Davies and Miguel Fernandes

Photo Gita Mistry
(c) 2016 Gita Mistry, all rights reserved

Ballet Cynru, Roald Dahl's Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs, Riverfront Theatre, Newport 21 May 2016

Last night I attended the opening of Ballet Cymru's summer tour at the company's home theatre in Newport. The works which they are taking on tour are revivals of Roald Dahl's  Little Red Riding Hood & The Three Little Pigs to celebrate the centenary of the writer's birth and Romeo a Juliet to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.  Both ballets were created by Darius James and Amy Doughty whose work I admire very much indeed. Their Cinderella was outstanding. It was so good that it was my ballet of the year and their Tir was my number two (see Highlights of 2015 29 Dec 2915).

The work which the company performed last night was Lwhich I previewed in Hard not to have Favourites ...... Ballet Cymru's Little Red Riding Hood rides again 28 April 2016). These are dance dramas based on two of Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes which are connected by the appearance of Little Red Riding Hood as wolf slayer in both works. Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf are act 1 and The Three Little Pigs are act 2. The ballet is very short which makes it suitable for young children of whom there were quite a few in the audience last night but those stories have an ironic twist epitomized by the line "Ah, Piglet, you must never trust Young ladies from the upper crust" which appeals to adults.

The central figure in the show (or as Gita would say "person of the match") was Little Red Riding Hood danced last night by Lydia Arnoux who displayed her usual virtuosity with charm and humour but she was supported strongly by Mark Griffiths who told the story and also by Andrea Battagia who danced the wolf and Robbie Moorcroft who danced the dissolute alcoholic grandma in act 1. Yesterday was an opportunity to see Ballet Cymru's latest recruits two of whom appear with Darius James in the photo above. Gwenllian Davies, who is actually Welsh, danced the virtuous grandmother yesterday. Her companion, Miguel Fernandes, was part of a cow in act 1 and a pig in act 2. Dylan Waddell was the other half of the cow. Anna Pujol was a pig in both acts. They all performed well as did the whole cast.

The recruitment of four new dancers with excellent credentials attests to the increasing strength and self confidence of the company. It is still relatively small in numbers but not in ambition for it will perform Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs to the accompaniment of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in the massive Millennium Centre in Cardiff on 4 Dec 2016. That will be a great day and a coming of age for a great little company. Wherever you are in the country, nay Europe or indeed the world, it will be worth a trip to Cardiff for it will be a day to remember.

Thinking out Loud about Ballet West

A few miles outside Oban lies the village of Taynuilt. I spent a day there on 31 August 2013 before catching a McBrayne ferry to the Isle of Mull.  I wrote about my visit in Taynuilt - where better to create ballet? 31 Aug 2013.  The reason I came to Taynuilt is that Ballet West is there.  That school must be one of the most remarkable educational institutions in the United Kingdom. It offers degrees in dance and higher national diplomas in professional dance performance to residential students, dance training through its associate programmes to children and young people in Glasgow and Edinburgh and summer schools in Taynuilt and outreach classes to children, young people and adults at various venues in the Highlands.

The training that appears to be available at Taynuilt is particularly rich in that the staff includes Daniel Job, who danced with the Royal Danish Ballet and the Ballets des Marseille and with such greats as Roland Petit, Kenneth MacMillan and even George Balanchine, and Olga Voloboueva who trained at the Vaganova Academy and danced with the Mariinsky Ballet when it was known as the Kirov.

The best testimonials for an educational institution are the achievements of its students and last year the only British finalist in the Lausanne International Ballet Competition was Natasha Watson who has now graduated from Ballet West. I have followed the career of this talented young woman for some time and celebrated her success in the Genée in Yet More Good News from Ballet West - Natasha Watson's Medal in the Genée 30 Sept 2013 and her entry for Lausanne in Natasha Watson in Lausanne 15 Nov 2014. Another graduate of Ballet West is Sarah Mortimer who dances with Ballet Theatre UK. I first came across this artist in Ballet Theatre UK's Little Mermaid at the Atkinson and wrote about it in Pure Delight - BTUK's Little Mermaid in Southport 27 April 2014 and I have been following her career ever since. Ms Mortimer also did well in the Genée in a previous year and I should mention in passing that Ms Watson is by no means the only medallist (see Ballet West's Competition and Awards page), In fact, on Saturday evening I shook hands with three of them: Ms. Watson and her teachers, Jonathan Barton and his sister Sara-Maria Barton.

One of the reasons why Ballet West achieves so much is that it gives its students and associates touring experience through its performance company. Northern Ballet School offers its students performance experience in Manchester City Ballet (see Alchemy 13 Dec 2014 and Manchester City Ballet's Giselle 12 Dec 2015) and, of course, the Central School of Ballet does the same with Ballet Central (see Dazzled 3 May 2015 and Central Forward 25 March 2013).  At the beginning of every year Ballet West tours Scotland and I have been coming to Scotland for these tours since 2013. In fact the first post in this blog was on the company's performance of The Nutcracker in Pitlochry (see Ballet West's "The Nutcracker" 25 Feb 2013). I also reviewed their Swan Lake in Swan Loch - Ballet West's Swan Lake, Pitlochry 1 March 2014 3 March 2014 and Rome and Juliet in Ballet West's Romeo and Juliet 1 Feb 2014.

Last Saturday I saw Ballet West perform The Nutcracker again in Stirling.  The 2013 production had been good but this production was even better. It was tight and slick and could stand comparison with that of any professional company. Indeed, in my humble and totally ill informed North Country opinion as some of the metropolitan toffs who sound off about dance  would have it, in some respects it was even better.   Of course, it did have pros - Mr Barton who danced the Snow King and Herr Stahlbaum partnering Ms Watson as Frau Stahlbaum and the Snow Queen, Sara-Maria Barton as the Sugar Plum who was partnered by Ballet Cymru's Andrea Battagia and Andrew Cook, a graduate of Ballet West whom I had greatly admired for his performance in Swan Lake two years ago who danced Drosselmeyer and the Russian divertissement in Act II.

One of the reasons why I like this version of The Nutcracker so much is that it is faithful to its libretto and the choreography of Ivanov and Petipa. Though it had some delightful Scottish touches like Mother Ginger who shook Clara vigorously by the hand, draped a red shawl round Clara's neck and decanted a gaggle of associates from her ample skirts there were none of the gimmicks of other productions that tend to get my goat. There were, for example, no rodent kings clinging onto the dirigible into Act II.  Clara does not morph into the Sugar Plum but remains childlike. The Stahlbaums remain the Stahlbaums of somewhere in Mitteleuropa rather than the Edwards of Bramhope. All credit in that regard to Mr. Job, the choreographer, whom I had the pleasure of meeting after the performance.

I think on Saturday I saw some stars in the making.   Uyu Hiromoto who danced in the snow scene and as Columbine in Act I and was the dew drop fairy in Act II, Owen Morris who was Rat King, accompanied Andrew Cook in the Russian divertiseement and also danced the Arabian and Alice Flinton who was an adorable Clara.  She is only a first year HND student yett she already knows how to hold an audience. We were enchanted by her mime scene where she recounts the battle with the mice and how she clobbered King Rat. She was Gita's man (or in this case) woman of the match.

In any production of The Nutcracker it is the children who often make or break the show for they take on so many roles. In this show they took on even more than usual and coaching them all cannot have been easy. They brought real joy to the stage but they kept their discipline. Whoever drilled those kids deserves enormous applause.  I think a large part of the credit goes to Ms Barton who told me that she had been teaching as well as dancing Sugar Plum that evening when I met her after the show but there were others and if I had flowers to throw they would have got some.

I should say a word about the sets, costumes and lighting.  They were magnificent, particularly the party scene which reproduced the Romanesque columns from the video that appears above.   The backdrop of the kingdom of the sweets was a vivid floral design.  The programme says that these were designed by Amelia Seymour.  There are a lot of tutus of various colours in this show not to mention the mouse king's outfit and period clothes of the party guests. More flowers for the wardrobe team.   There was also some clever lighting particularly in the transition scenes in Act I which was designed by Matthew Masterson.

The production is moving on to Inverness on the 11 Feb, Glasgow on the 13, Greenock on the 14 and Edinburgh on the 20. If you live anywhere near those places you should do yourselves a favour and get tickets for the show.  Gita and I drove 250 miles to see it and it was well worth the journey.