Central School of Ballet's Summer Performance

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Central School of Ballet Summer Performance 18 July 2019, 19:30 Bloomsbury Theatre & Studio

Central School of Ballet has trained some excellent dancers.  They include Sarah Kundi who stole the show as far as I was concerned with her hilarious performance as Cinderella's stepmother in the Albert Hall (see Cinders in the Round 13 June 2019).  Hannah Bateman was at Central too.  She is my favourite at Northern Ballet.  So, too, was Rachael Gillespie whom I also admire greatly.  The School trained Kenneth Tindall whom I described as "a many sided genius", and, of course, its current artistic director, Christopher Marney, who is my favourite living British choreographer.  Central was founded by Christopher Gable whom I first saw as Romeo with Lynn Seymour ar Covent Garden.  I saw him again many years later in A Simple Man and it was that performance that attracted me to Northern Ballet as it is now called.  His term as artistic director was that company's golden age.

Yesterday, I got a chance to see some of those who will follow in the footsteps of those great names in Central School of Ballet's Summer Performance.  That is not the same as the annual tour that the performing company, Ballet Central, make each spring and summer.  The Summer Performance offers a chance to see the first and second-year students as well as those in the third year.  Though there is some overlap, the programmes are different.  Ballet Central visits about 20 theatres up and down the country between March and July,  The Summer Performance takes place only at the Bloomsbury Theatre & Studio on the 18 and 19 July.

Heidi Hall, the Director, opened the show with a talk about the School and the performance.  She reported that the £9 million appeal had been successful and that the School hoped to move into its new premises after Christmas.  Funds were still needed, she reminded us, and she invited everyone in the audience to join its "Friends" scheme.  She promised a great show and that was exactly what her young artists, the choreographers, staff and technicians delivered.

The show consisted of seven works divided into two acts:

• Jenna Lee's Rock 'n' Roll  
• Calvin Richardson's Dying Swan
• Louse Bennett's Twin Figures
• Sandrine Monin's Hidden
• Thiago Soares's Vossa Sinfonia
• Leanne King's All in Four, and
• Christopher Marney's Carousel Dancers.

I liked all of the works, particularly Lee's Rock 'n' Roll, Richardson's Dying Swam, Monin's Hidden, Soares's Vossa Sinfonia, King's All in Four and Marney's Carousel Dances most of all.

I became a fan of Lee when I saw her ballroom scene from Romeo and Juliet in 2017 (see Triumphant 1 May 2017) and my admiration of her work grew still more when I saw Black Swan at Stratford last year (see Half a Show is Better than None 16 July 2018). I enjoyed her Rock 'n' Roll best of all.  Set in a 1950s US diner or maybe a high school hop, the girls wore the most gorgeous full-skirted dresses with yards of tulle petticoats while the boys wore white tops and black bottoms.  The action revolved around a jukebox that played the fifties pop of my childhood.  It was fun to watch a turns on pointe to Little Richard.  I hope and suspect that it was fun to do those turns.

Next came Richardson's Dying Swan danced by Joseph Beretta.  Like Michel Decombey's which was danced elegantly by Javier Torres in Northern Ballet's 45th-anniversary gala (see Sapphire 15 March 2015), this was a solo for a male. Pavlova died nearly 20 years before I was born so I never saw her dance Fokine's work but my mother did when she was 3 years old and it made such an impression on her that she could describe every detail of the choreography up to the day she died (see In Leeds of all Places - Pavlova, Ashton and Magic 18 Sep 2013).  I have seen it performed twice by a modern ballerina - once by Elena Glurdjidze in the Gala for Ghana and a few years earlier by Marianela Nuñez of which I have no recollection at all.  Though I like Decombey's work as performed by Torres, Richardson's work was closer in spirit to Fokine. He took no liberties with the score.  Had Fokine created a version for a man I think it would have been like Richardson's.

Twin Figures by Louise Bennett was set to Boreslav Martinu's concerto for piano and cello.  A very energetic work, it offered plenty of opportunities to the first-year students to demonstrate their virtuosity. Some 20 dancers took part.  Clad in blue and green the effect was quite mesmeric.  It was a good piece to take us through to the interview.  At that point I tweeted:

Thoroughly enjoyed first act of @csbschool's annual performance, particularly @JLchoreographer's "Rock 'n' Roll" and Richardson's "Dying Swan". Looking forward to work by @_TSOARES @chrismarney and Leeds's own @sandrinemonin. Well done to all artists in Act I.

— Terpsichore (@jelterps) July 18, 2019

I dubbed Sandrine Monin as "Leeds's own" because I first got to know her work through Phoenix Dance Theatre for whom she created Calyx from Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal in 2018.  Deep currents ran through Calyx as they did for Hidden which she created for the second years.  Figures move about the stage their heads slightly bowed as though they were automatons.  I got the impression that the work was inspired by Fritz Lang's Metropolis because that was the feel of the piece and the narrative that was communicated to me - but I could well be wildly wrong.  The music which was contributed by Rusconi and Martinu added to the sense of mechanistic desolation.  A very thoughtful piece that needs to be seen again and probably more than twice.

Thiago Soares's Vossa Sinfonia was delightful.  It started with Beethoven, continued with Ernesto Nazareth, then Heitor Villa Lobos and Noel Rosa and finally back to Beethoven.  Its juxtaposition of Beethoven with recent composers reminded me a little of Arthur Pita's Dream within Midsummer Night's Dream.  The piece was the nearest we got to a classical work and in that regard, it would have done credit to Balanchine.

Leanne King's All in Four for the first years was a joyous work.  The girls were barefoot.  They wore long flowing skirts their hair in ponytails. They danced to Monteverdi's Beatus Vir (which I think means "blessed man" rather than "blessed be" as stated in the programme) arranged by Philip Feeney.  Feeny actually played the piano accompaniments with a keyboard and took a bow at the end. As a work of dance, it was my favourite of the evening.

Ballet is, of course, more than just dance.  It combines dance with drama, music, costumes, sets and more.  It grabs all the senses. That is why I described Carousel Dances as the piece de resistance in my tweets.  I saw several dancers who I think will go far.  The man who played the male lead, the female lead and the mistress of ceremonies to note just three.  There were plenty of circus thrills such as snake charmers, men crashing through hoops and acrobatics all forming the background to a romance.  Choreographed to tunes by Rogers and Hammerstein that we all know, it was the perfect end to a great show.

There will be one more performance tonight at 19:30.  If you are anywhere near Bloomsbury tonight and there are any tickets to spare go see this show.  It is one of the highlights of my year so far.

Tom Thorne in Truro

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In Thinking Big out West 11 Jan 2017 I introduced readers to Laura Bosenberg who is Senior Principal Dancer at the Cape Town City Ballet (see Meet the Company on the company's website). My article embedded a clip of a remarkable duet between Rosenberg and Tom Thorne.  If you scroll down the Meet the Company page you will see that Thorne is also a Senior Principal with the Cape Town City Ballet.

I mentioned Rosenberg because she will dance Princess Aurora this weekend in Duchy Ballet's production of The Sleeping Beauty at the Hall for Cornwall in Truro.  What I did not appreciate until earlier this morning is that Duchy Ballet will host Thorne as well as Rosenberg. I learned that news from a picture of the two of them on Duchy Ballet's Facebook page which links to a feature in Cornwall Life.

There is not a lot of information about Thorne on the Cape Town City Ballet's website though it mentions that he trained at Central School of Ballet so I did a lot of furious Googling. I found this rather amusing clip of his pushing a journalist through floor exercises in Ballet Basics with Thomas Thorne and this preview of the Cape Town City Ballet's production of The Sleeping Beauty with took place in Cape Town last September (see Artsvark Presser Cape Town City Ballet presents The Sleeping Beauty.

The Cape Town City Ballet proudly displays a roundel on its home page bearing the words "The South African National Ballet". That country has given the world John Cranko, Dame Monica Mason, Nadia Nerina and Phyllis Spira to name a few and it is still sending us promising young dancers such as Mthuthuzeli November and Mlindi Khulashe. I do not believe that Thorne and Bosenberg are dancing anywhere else in the UK on this trip. To my mind the most interesting place in the UK for ballet goers this weekend will not be Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Newport or even London but Glasgow.

Chantry Dance goes North

Sale, Greater Manchester

Photo Alan Halfpenny
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Source Wikipedia

When I first mentioned Chantry Dance Company's new full-length ballet in The Sandman Cometh - Chantry Dance's New Full Length Ballet 20 Nov 2016 I wrote:

"They have not yet published their venues but I hope that they will make at least one stop in the North next year. We were sorry not to see them in our region this year. They were missed."

When Chantry Dance did announce their list of venues they were all in the Midlands and South East (see The Sandman Tour 27 Jan 2017.

Yesterday the company announced that it would add the Waterside Arts Centre in Sale and the Victoria Theatre in Halifax to its list (see the "What's On" page on the company's website). The Waterside is a particularly good venue as it is close to the Metrolink station and a multi-storey car park in one of the more pleasant suburbs of Greater Manchester. I attended two performances of Ballet Black's Dogs Don't Do Ballet last May and found it an excellent venue for dance (see As Fresh as Ever: Ballet Black's Dogs Don't Do Ballet in Sale 7 May 2016 and I never tire of Dogs Don't Do Ballet 8 May 2016). Halifax is a town in which Chantry Dance has performed in the past though at a different venue. It is, incidentally, also the first place where Northern Ballet set up when it left Manchester.

Chantry Dance is more than just a dance company.  It also runs a number of educational and outreach programmes as well as the Chantry School of Contemporary and Balletic Arts in Grantham. It was through one of those programmes that I first made the acquaintance of Paul Chantry, Rae Piper and Gail Gordon who are the prime movers of the company as well as Mel Wong who subsequently contributed several interesting articles to this publication (see Chantry Dance Company's Sandman and Dream Dance 10 May 2014). Because of that work I tweeted:

@ChantryDance @WatersideArts it would be nice if you could look into doing a workshop or giving a class to local students while you are here

— Terpsichore (@jelterps) March 13, 2017

They replied:

@jelterps @WatersideArts we're hopefully running the YCC there for dance students & already looking into other participation possibilities x

— ChantryDanceCompany (@ChantryDance) March 13, 2017

"YCC" stands for Young Choreographers Celebration which is described in detail on the company's website. A few years ago I looked into the possibility of bringing Chantry Dance to Manchester or Leeds for a day workshop and actually went so far as to find a venue but the costs and risks were daunting. However, if the company does offer some sort of workshop, class or other event in Manchester or Yorkshire I will publish details of it.

This company that can fill a venue in London as well as small towns in the East Midlands. It has a choreographer who trained at Christopher Gable's Central School of Ballet where two of my very favourite young British choreographers, Christopher Marney and Kenneth Tindall, and many of my favourite dancers such as Hannah Bateman, Rachael Gillespie, Dominic North and Sarah Kundi also studied. It has coached one of the finalists in the Youth America Grand Prix (a competition that boosted the career of Michaela DePrince). It is certainly worth seeing.

Ballet Central's Only Performance in the North

Yesterday I wrote about Nederlands Dans Theater 2 (see NDT2 at the Lowry 24 April 2016) and I have written a lot over the years about the Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company. None of our leading companies has a junior company as such but Ballet West, the Central School of Ballet and the Northern Ballet School all have performance companies. It is a thrill to watch those excellent young men and women on stage and through this blog I try to encourage them all.

Central's performance company is called Ballet Central which consists of the final year students on its BA (Hons) Degree course. Its website claims that

"Central School of Ballet is the only classical vocational school to offer an Honours Degree and pre-professional touring experience on such a scale. It has been a springboard for hundreds of dancers into the dance profession."

The School was founded by Christopher Gable who was the artistic director of Northern Ballet during its golden age and it has produced many of my favourite dancers including Hannah Bateman, Sarah Kundi, Dominic North and Rachael Gillespie as well as several of my favourite choreographers such as Paul Chantry. Christopher Marney and Kenneth Tindall. Two of the artistic directors that I respect the most, Sharon Watson of Phoenix Dance Theatre and Cassa Pancho of Ballet Black are associated with the School, Watson as an artistic advisor and Pancho as one of its patrons.

Ballet Central is now making its annual tour with an interesting programme which will include works by Gable, Marney and Watson. This year is special because it is the company's 30th anniversary and the work that I am looking forward to seeing most is Marney's War Letters which featured on the cover of this month's Dancing Times. I loved that work when it was performed by Ballet Black three years ago and it will be interesting to see another company's interpretation. One obvious difference from the cover photo is that Ballet Central will be using British uniforms instead of American ones for its male dancers.

One of the dancers on tour is Jasmine Wallis who impressed me in Marney's Carnival of the Animals for the Chelmsford Ballet Company last year (see A Delight Indeed 22 March 2015). Marion Pettet, the Chair of Chelmsford Ballet, saw Ballet Central when it came to Chelmsford a few weeks ago and tipped Wallis as someone to look out for.

Despite their connections with Phoenix and Northern Ballet, Ballet Central's touring schedule allows only one stop in the North and that is at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds on Thursday, 28 April 2016. There are still one or two seats left towards the back of the auditorium. Last year's show was dazzling (see Dazzled 3 May 2016). The thirtieth anniversary tour can hardly be less exciting.

Ballet School Outings

Here are just a few trips I would love to take if I lived in London and didn't have to work for a living. Here are three great opportunities to see how dancers are trained. A year ago I spent the whole day watching Yoko Ichino and other teachers at Northern Ballet's Open Day in Leeds and was thrilled and fascinated.

Royal Ballet School
The Ballet Association, a group that aims to give active support to the Royal Ballet Companies and to promote interest in all aspects of their work, has arranged a visit to the Royal Ballet Upper School on 29 April 2015. According to Audrey Allen of the London Ballet Circle, there are still a few places on the tour.  Visitors may watch the following classes:

• First Year Ladies: 09:00 - 10:15
• Second Year Boys: 10:45 - 12:30
• Third Year Pas de Deux:  13:15 - 14:15.

Applications for tickets should be made to David Bain of 23 Capstan Square, Stewart Street, London, E14 3EU. The cost is £12.50 to members of the London Ballet Circle and £20 for their guests.

Tring Park 

This is where Ruth Brill trained.  A full day visit to Tring Park School for the Performing Arts  on 13 May 2015 from 10:00 to 17:00 with opportunities to meet  Rachel Rist, Director of Dance, and to see the morning and afternoon classes. Applications for tickets should be made to Audrey Allen of the London Ballet Circle at 8 Goldsmith Road, London, N11 3JP, Tel: 020 8361 2872. The cost to members of the London Ballet Circle is £12.50.

Central School of Ballet

If I could got to just one of these schools this is the one I would choose.  Founded by Christopher Gable the Central School of Ballet is where Sarah Kundi, Rachael Gillespie, Hannah Bateman, Chris Marney, Kenneth Tindall, Paul Chantry and many more of my favourite dancers and choreographers trained. Cassa Pancho,founder and artistic director of Ballet Black has recently been made a patron of the School. The visit will take place on 19 May 2015 but precise timings have still to be arranged, Applications for tickets should be made to Audrey Allen of the London Ballet Circle at the above address. Again, the cost to London Ballet Circle members is £12.50.

As you can see there are lots of benefits of joining the Ballet Association and London Ballet Circle and you can join the London Ballet Circle online. I am not yet a member of the Ballet Association but as a longstanding admirer of both the London and Birmingham Royal Ballet companies I intend to apply for membership straight away.

Remember the coster? Well 'e aint got no ballet school no more.

You remember "Wouldn't it be loverly", the conversation between the coster and the porter about adult ballet classes at Covent Garden? And his excitement in "The Coster gets his Answer" when the geezer in charge told him he could join his class.

Poor bloke! He's feeling a bit deflated right now because he has just discovered this email in his spam filter:

"Dear Adult Ballet Participant,

We hope you have been enjoying The Royal Ballet School adult ballet classes on Wednesday evenings. This has been a new initiative for 2014 which we have run in various formats over the last three terms and this trial period will conclude at the end of the autumn term.

Following extensive consultation, we regret to inform you that, in order to re-evaluate provision, the School has decided not to continue with adult ballet classes from January 2015. Therefore the last adult ballet class will be Wednesday 17th December 2014.

All classes are now fully booked meaning that online booking for the remaining classes this term is no longer available. If you are on the waiting list and a place in class becomes available, you will be contacted in good time.

The decision to suspend the adult ballet classes has not been made lightly; you will appreciate there are some significant considerations for the School including cost implications and child protection issues. Meanwhile, we suggest you research the following organisations, all of whom run established adult ballet classes:

The Place, 17, Dukes Road, London WC1H 9PY
http://www.theplace.org.uk/dance-adults

Trinity Laban, Creekside, London SE8 3DZ Tel: 020 8305 9400 http://www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/schools-and-community/adults

Central School of Ballet, 10 Herbal Hill, Clerkenwell Road, London EC1R 5EG Tel: 0207 837 6332  http://www.centralschoolofballet.co.uk/aeccourseoutline.php

Rambert, 99 Upper Ground, London SE1 9PP Tel: 020 8630 0600  http://www.rambert.org.uk/learning_participation/rambert_classes/adults

English National Ballet, 39 Jay Mews, London SW7 2ES  http://www.ballet.org.uk/classes/

Thank you for your understanding in this matter and we hope you continue to enjoy taking adult ballet classes. Thank you also for your interest in The Royal Ballet School. If you would like updates concerning The Royal Ballet School and priority booking for events and open days, we recommend you consider joining our Friends.
http://www.royalballetschool.org.uk/the-school/friends/

Warmest wishes,

The Adult Ballet Team"

Never mind!  It was good while it lasted!  He learned a thing or two.  He's going to check out the classes that the Royal Ballet School suggested.  He has also heard of the RAD's syllabus and non-syllabus classes for adults, Pineapple, and the londondance.com website.

He's also had a butcher's at the Danceworks newsletter which has lots of deals. He's hinted to the missus that he wouldn't say no to a Danceworks gift card. And he knows where he can go to work off the turkey and Christmas pud over the Christmas holidays.

So he's spoilt for choice, isn't he.

Christmas Carol - "A Fine Performance Filled with Joy"

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Northern Ballet A Christmas Carol Alhambra, Bradford, 16 Nov 2013

The Bradford Alhambra is a lovely theatre in a magnificent position:  just across the road from the National Media Museum, a few minutes walk from St George's Hall and overlooking the City Park with some of the finest 19th century architecture in the world. Bradfordians love to dis their city. I don't know why.  "Try living here!" is their usual response when challenged. Well, perhaps.  But I am glad to see when something important happens to their community they unite whether it is something bad like the anniversary of the disaster at Bradford City football ground in which 56 spectators died or something good when that same football club played triumphantly at Wembley a few days later.

And Bradfordians clapped and cheered their hearts out in  the Alhambra last Saturday when Northern Ballet danced A Christmas Carol.  As one of Bradford's most famous daughters tweeted, it was a "fine performance filled with joy." All my favourite dancers were there: Tobias Batley, Hannah Bateman, Matthew Broadbent, Martha Leebolt, Pippa Moore, Kevin Poeung, Hironao Takehashi and Javier Torres but the evening provided an opportunity for Sebastian Loe to shine as Scrooge. I had no idea that he was such a talented character dancer.

A Christmas Carol is one of the oldest works still in the repertoire of Northern Ballet. Created by the great dancer and actor Christopher Gable who was Northern Ballet's artistic director and also founder of Central School of Ballet with a magnificent score by Carl Davis, a spectacular set by Lez Brotherston  and sparkling choreography by Massimo Moricone it was one of the ballets that made the company's reputation (another being A Simple Man which I discussed on 14 Sep 2013).

Based on Dickens's novel there are tugs for every emotion from Tiny Tim's song (a prodigiously talented Oscar Ward who is still at Sara Packham Theatre School) to the joy of Christmas morning when Scrooge doles out the goodies to the Cratchit family. Everyone has his or her favourite bit and for me it was the pas de deux between young Scrooge (danced by Batley) and Belle (danced by Leebolt).

The production is now at the Palace in Manchester until the 23 Nov. The company was founded in Manchester and has at least temporarily come home.  Do welcome them back!

Central Forward

Ballet Central, The Lowry, Salford 25 March 2013

Ballet Central is the Central School of Ballet's touring company.  Its members are final year students on its honours degree course in professional dance and performance. Apparently that is the only degree course of its kind in the UK.  It is the sort of course I used to dream about when I was an undergraduate reading a conventional honours degree subject.

On 25 March 2013 I attended the company's octuple bill at The Quays theatre in the Lowry.  It was a wonderful show. One that I would eagerly have watched from beginning to the end immediately afterwards.  It was good to see the company in Manchester because it was founded by Christopher Gable who later became artistic director of the company that is now Northern Ballet.

The programme was arranged in three acts.  The first consisted of five short works by different choreographers including "Fireside Pas de Deux" by Gable himself. The music for that work (and indeed several others) had been composed by Philip Feeney and the maestro was at the piano in the auditorium. Indeed, I also caught a glimpse of him in the bar at the first interval.

All the ballets in the first act were good but the one I enjoyed most was Stacey Haynes's "Love on Top". Set to the music of Michael Bublé's "Cry me a River" and Beyoncé's "Love on Top" this was a jazz piece with the girls in black sparkly dresses and heels and the boys in white shirts and black ties. This was a work to show off the company's versatility and the boys' virtuosity with some spectacular jumps.

The second act showed the company in a familiar classical work, a pas de trois from Act III of Sleeping Beauty.  It was good to have this little bit of Petipa's choreography fresh in my mind as a reference point when watching Matthew Bourne's re-working of the ballet at The Alhambra in Bradford on Thursday. Tchaikovsky's score, Petipa's choreography executed convincingly by promising dancers with good technique resplendent in Richard Geller's sumptuous costumes this little work satiated all the senses. It was a good example of what I call total ballet.

The extract from Sleeping Beauty was followed immediately afterwards by Darshan Singh Bhuller's Mapping #3.  With males and females dressed alike in loose white judo style tops and trousers dancing to a score that included Shankar this was a perfect foil to Tchaikovsky and Petipa. The clever bit of the choreography was to protect dancers' movements on the floor on to a screen that gave the impression of weird and wonderful acrobatics.

If anyone wonders why I called this post "Central Forward" it is because the last act was about football.  At least that was one of the dreams of a bespectacled bookworm danced engagingly by Bethany Pike in Christopher Marney's anon. She also dreamt of Viennese waltzes. Sitting on a massive pile of books the bookworm receives a delivery of books from the postman into which she daydreams roles for herself first at a ball of which she was the belle and then at a football match in which she was the striker's darling. I loved Marney's humour - longing glances by the girl at the very fit postie and her futile attempts to dance a romantic pas de deux with her beau without her glasses. The quest for love makes fools of us all.  With costumes by Geller ingeniously morphing Royal Mail blue shorts and shirt into red and white football strip and music arranged by Feeney it was another example of total ballet.

This is the 30th anniversary tour by Ballet Central. Tours like this must provide  enormously valuable experience for young dancers at the start of their careers.  It is only possible through generous public support.  There are several ways in which balletomanes can help future tours from funding pointe shoes at £35 a throw to sponsoring a whole production or a dancer for £5,000.  Further information about helping the company is available from Joanne McIntosh, the company's development and communications director, on 020 7837 6332. Oh and don't forget the School which also welcomes support from its audiences. You  don't have to be Bloomberg to bankroll ballet.