New Term at Team Hud - and around the World

I may be wrong but I think there will be thousands of people around the world (if not millions) who will have been inspired to take up ballet by World Ballet Bay. Although it is always best to start as a child it is possible to start and go quite a long way as am adult. Dave Wilson is proof of that.  He started as a graduate student in the United States and I have seen him dance with Arionel Vargas and Elena Glurdjidze in Stockport and Weston Super Mare. It is also true of The Adult Beginner in Los Angeles and my learned friend The Legal Ballerina who is also in the United States. Even some professionals came into ballet late.  Matthew Bourne who established New Adventures is said to have had his first lesson in his late teens. Even I have ventured onto the stage of the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds before a full house and managed to avoid rotten eggs and tomatoes and I make dance teachers despair.

So where to start. Well if you are in Huddersfield you could do worse than try Team Hud in the sports hall of Huddersfield University. I reviewed it when classes began in January 2014 (see "Team Hud Adult Ballet Class" 22 Jan 2014). Yesterday was the start of the new academic year for Tam Hud with a crop of eager  young students including four blokes. It was taken by Fiona Noonan who trained and started her career in Queensland. "I can see she is a good teacher" muttered a chap from Barnsley whom I had met at Tristram Dance Studios a few weeks earlier. I had recommended Fiona's classes at Hype and the University and I was glad to see that he had followed my recommendation. "One of the best", I replied. "and believe me I have done the rounds." Fiona is now teaching two classes at Huddersfield: a beginners' class at 18:30 which I attended yesterday and an improvers' class at 19:30 which the chap from Barnsley was about to take. Both cost £5 if you are a member of the general public but students can subscribe to the gym for a few quid and take all the classes in all the sports and activities at no extra cost.  A larger but still affordable subscription is also available to the public and if you want to find out more you should call the University on 01484 422288.

A good teacher is everything and, as I told the bloke from Barnsley, Fiona us one of the very best. She is also teaching an intermediate and advanced class at Hype in Sheffield on Monday evenings for the time being. While I would not recommend an intermediate class for an absolute beginner it is good to be pushed and challenged and Fiona certainly does that. But she does it in a nice way and if you get something right you feel a real sense of achievement. She also has a wicked sense of humour. Try blogging or tweeting that you have had a hard class elsewhere and boy does she make you work the next time she sees you.

If you can't make it to Huddersfield then there are some great evening classes at Northern Ballet Academy in Leeds. I took two in the vacation and one with Chris Hinton-Lewis that I really enjoyed. My favourite class in Leeds is the Over 55 class with Annemarie Donoghue which runs on Tuesdays for improvers between 10:30 and 11:30 with an extra half hour for the keen types from 11:45 to 12:15 and Thursdays between 11:30 and 12:30 for beginners.  Annemarie is also a wonderful teacher and you can see her in action in this video with some of my friends. Not only do you get instruction from an excellent teacher but you learn in the studios of one of the world's best ballet companies - it's official Northern won one of the Taglioni awards - and you have Ollie, Elena or some other pianist tinkling away on the old Joanna.  The only drawback is that you have to be over 55 to join that class but anybody can take one of the evening classes. Not bad for £6.50 plus a £5 registration fee.

If you live in the North West KNT Danceworks run evening classes for adults in Manchester and Liverpool. They also have great teachers, Alisa and Karen, whom I can't recommend too highly.  I have only had two classes with Ailsa and one with Karen but I learned a lot from both and had a lot of fun. The students in both cities were friendly and keen to learn and we all smiled and laughed a lot afterwards.

I have had only one class in London from Adam at Pineapple but that was ace. Pineapple was recommended to me by Joanna Goodman who takes Amber's class nearly every week and she did me a real favour in recommending it. You have to take out temporary membership and then pay for the class which makes it somewhat more expensive than the classes in the North but then hey this is London. A class that I have not yet tried but would dearly love to do so is Paul Lewis's class at the Royal Ballet School. One day, perhaps, one day.

It is a long time since I last visited LA but the Adult Beginner reviews adult ballet classes there and her articles are always a good read.  Johanna writes about adult ballet in Helsinki in Pointe Til You Drop.  There are adult ballet classes everywhere - even in India. Wherever you are, enjoy yourselves and have fun.

An Even Better Show: the Bristol Russians by the Sea

On 16 Feb 2014 the Bristol Russian Youth Ballet Company and their special guest stars Arionel Vargas and Elena Glurdjidze danced Cinderella in Stockport to raise money for Reuben's Retreat. It was a good show which I reviewed in "Good Show - Bristol Russians' Cinderella in Stockport" 19 Feb 2014. Yesterday, substantially the same cast danced the same work at the Playhouse Theatre in Weston Super Mare.  In my view, in that of others who had seen both performances and in the view of at least one member of the cast, they did even better this time.

There are several respects in which yesterday's performance appeared to be better than the previous one. The first is that they danced with greater confidence and panache.  The visual jokes such as the faux pas of Cinderella's sisters danced again by Caitlin Anstis and Paige Pullin or the tussle over the outside orange between the king (David Wilson), his minister (William Griffin), the sisters and their mother (Yury Demakov) seemed funnier. The Spanish princess's dance was performed haughtily yet alluringly by Ellie Wilson. Even the stars, Vargas and Glurdjidze, seemed to sparkle more. The second respect in which yesterday was better was that the choreography appeared to have been revised. It was slicker and smoother - especially the children's dances in Act I. In this production there were birds as well as mice with boys as well as girls. All the important bits were retained such as the pas de deux when the prince spots Cinderella at the ball and falls in love with her, the comic attempts by the sisters and mother to force their feet into the glass slipper and the delicious moment when Cinderella produces her slipper to the prince. The third respect in which yesterday was better was that the company had an even more receptive audience in Weston than in Stockport. The auditorium was full. There were very few empty seats in the stalls and not many in the circle so far as I could see. Overhearing conversations in the bar at the interval and in the seats around me it was clear that many had seen ballet before and knew what to look for. Certainly, the audience knew when to clap.  Ballet, like the other performing arts, is a two way communication and the mood of an audience can make or break an evening.

There are several reasons for yesterday's success.  First, the cast had danced this work before in Stockport. They knew that they worked well together and that the audience had liked them. Hence the confidence, panache and sparkle. Secondly, they were on home turf before a West Country audience. This is very much a Bristol company. It was clear from the conversations that I overheard that there was lots of local pride.  Very much the same pride as I had noted in Chelmsford when the Chelmsford Ballet Company performed The Nutcracker on 19 March 2014 (see "The Nutcracker as it really should be danced - No Gimmicks but with Love and Joy" 20 March 2014). In Stockport, the Bristol Russians had to enlist the help of local dance schools for some of the roles and their students danced very well. But in Weston the company could use their own pupils, all of whom are good and some of whom show considerable promise.

That promise was demonstrated by the Underwater Kingdom Scene from The Little Humpbacked Horse, one of the classics of the Russian ballet but one that is rarely seen in England. The music is by Cesare Pugni who also wrote the score for Diana and Actaeon which Michaela dePrince and Sho Yamada of the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company dance so well  (see "The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam" 24 Nov 2013) and are soon bringing to London.  The Underwater Kingdom had big and little pearls, corals, star fish and seaweed for students of all ages and both sexes swimming in the ocean that was the domain of David Wilson. That ballet was danced immediately before Cinderella and was a lovely taster. Most importantly it showed what the school and company can do without English National Ballet superstars. It has turned me into a fan and I shall follow and support their future productions.

The only respect in which yesterday's performance might have been improved was in the operation of the curtain and the lights. The music started when the house lights were still blazing. Somewhat disconcertingly as I was in the middle of a tweet about the show. Twice the curtain rose after the applause had ceased and one of those was for the youngest children who deserved a roar but received somewhat less acclaim.

After the show I met David Wilson at the stage door again. I had a slightly longer chat with him this time about the performance and his job in Silicon Valley.  I am delighted for him. My graduate school was in California and I know the state well. There is a lot of good ballet there.  I am sure all my readers will join me in wishing him well.  David started DaveTriesBallet blog and took his first ballet lessons in New Jersey.  It will be interesting to read his adventures in the West.  While waiting for Dave I was introduced to Ellie Wilson who is as delightful to meet as she is to watch on stage. She is in her first year at the Rambert School and again I am sure everyone will also join me in wishing her all the best.   Last but not least I met Alex or BristolBillyBob in Weston, one of the regulars at BalletcoForum.  It was good to make his acquaintance and I look forward to meeting him again.

Finally, a word about Reuben's Retreat. Before the show one of the managers came on stage and told Reuben's story, the efforts of his parents to remember him and the success of the charity so far for which he received thunderous applause. Recently, the charity announced that it had acquired property in the Peak District for accommodation for families of children with life threatening or limiting conditions (see Grace Nolan "North West charity announces property purchase" 25 April 2014 Huddled). The Bristol Russians and their guest stars have helped to make that possible for which all of us in the North are grateful.

The Guys of the Golden West

Enrico Caruso as Dick Johnson in The Girl of the Golden West  Source Wikipedia

We owe a lot to the West Country. Both Northern Ballet and Scottish Ballet trace their origins to Elizabeth West's Western Theatre Ballet in Bristol. Sadly there is no longer a resident professional ballet company in Bristol but that does not mean that there is no ballet in that city. One of the Golden Guys of the West is Dave Wilson who keeps the best ballet blog that I have come across so far (see "Fantastic New Blog: Dave Tries Ballet" 28 Sep5 2013).

Dave is a member of the the Bristol Russian Youth Ballet Company which danced Cinderella in Stockport last month (see "Good Show - Bristol Russians' Cinderella in Stockport" 19 Feb 2014). The company is dancing the same ballet again at The Playhouse in Weston Super Mare on 4 May 2014 at 16:00 with Elena Glurdjidze and Arionel Vargas as guest principals. I shall be in the audience again on that occasion and I shall review the performance for this blog. Glurdjidze is not only the company's guest artist she is also the Bristol Russian Ballet School's patron and she will take some of the school's master classes. The school is run, incidentally, by Chika Temma who trained with Glurdjidze at the Vaganova Academy in St Petersburg and Yury Denakov who trained at the Boshoi. All of those great dancers and teachers are Golden Guys.

Other Golden Guys are Duchy Ballet whose existence I discovered only yesterday. This evening and yesterday they were performing The Mousehole Cat & Other Ballets at The Hall for Cornwall in Truro. Roberta Marquez of the Royal Ballet appeared as a guest artist. According to the company's website Duchy Ballet was formed to celebrate the opening of The Hall for Cornwall with the aim was of establishing a youth ballet company for Cornwall providing the opportunity to train, rehearse and perform within a professional setting.  The company's choreographer is Terry Etheridge who was a guest choreographer of the Chelmsford Ballet Company some years ago and inspired and taught Andrew Potter who danced Drosselmeyer in that company's recent production of The Nutcracker (see "The Nutcracker as it really should be danced - No Gimmmicks but with Love and Joy" 20 March 2014). Potter acknowledged his debt to Etheridge on twetter this morning:

"Mr Etheridge, Found me, taught me and inspired me."

Having seen Potter's performance I congratulate Etheridge on a very good job. I really wish I could have been in Truro to support this production. I will be present at their next performance.

That brings me on to the last Golden Guy though of the North rather than the West. Chris Hinton-Lewis, who had the Herculean labour of trying to teach me last year, is running in the London Marathon on the 13 April 2014 to raise money for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Please do sponsor him.