Dreda Blow

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It is always sad to say goodbye to a dancer - especially a leading lady - but I for one will miss  Dreda Blow prticularly.  According to Northern Ballet's news item, Saying Farewell, she will dance with the company for the last time at the Lowry on 9 June 2018.

I have chosen a clip from Romeo and Juliet because it was the work in which I first appreciated her qualities.  In Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet - different but in a good way 8 March 2015 I wrote:

"I also saw another side of Dreda Blow. I had last seen her as Mina in Dracula in which I had admired her dancing but did not warm to her. .........  Casting Blow for the role was an inspiration. She was a perfect Juliet. Playful and feisty. Loving but conflicted. Brave but fearful. Blow is elevated to my pantheon of favourites."

I was of the same view when I saw her in that role a second time in Bradford 18 months later (see  Romeo and Juliet after the Shrew  18 Oct 2016).

Dreda Blow is a joy to watch.  She is of course a virtuoso but also so much more.  She has a lovely face with wonderfully expressive features.   Qualities that make her one of the finest dance actors that I know.  Some roles she has made her own.  I cannot imagine any other Jane Eyre but her.  When  I first saw her in that role in Richmond, I remarked:

"Hannah Bateman had tweeted that Blow was lovely in the title role and she was right. Blow is a fine dancer but I have never seen her dance better than she did tonight." (see Northern Ballet's Jane Eyre: the best new Ballet from the Company in 20 Years 2 June 2016)

I said very much the same when I saw her again in Sheffield last month (see Jane Eyre Second Time Round 18 April 2018). I have tried to think of the work in which I have liked her best,  The beautiful but vulnerable Bellino, perhaps, in Kenneth Tindall's Casanova perhaps or maybe her cheeky and playful role in Demis Volpi's Little Monsters (see Sapphire  15 March 2015).

The news bulletin does not say where she will go or what she will do after 9 June 2018 but I wish her all the best.  I thank her for all the pleasure she has given her audiences in her 11 or so years with the company.

PS   Dreda came to us from Amsterdam where she trained and began her career. Through the Junior Company I have made the acquaintance of several leading ballet teachers in the Netherlands. One of them added this lovely comment:
 
 

Dutch National Ballet's Opening Night Gala - Improving on Excellence

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The first time I saw the video of Ernst Meisner's No Time Before Time was in the Prix de Lausanne finals. I fell in love with it there and then.  When I saw it live for the first time in Ballet Bubbles at the Meervaart Theatre on my birthday on Valentine's day it was the best present anyone could possibly receive. I expressed my appreciation in Thank You Ernst a few days later. Ernst Meisner is an extraordinary choreographer. His Saltarello had been the highlight of the Junior Company's Stadsshouwburg show of 24 Nov 2013. The performance of Embers by Nancy Burer and Thomas van Damme to the haunting music of Max Richter was my favourite of the following year.  I described it my review as quite simply one of the most beautiful ballets I have ever seen. Well, No Time Before Time is Ernst's best work yet.

In Ernst Meisner’s Work with the Dutch National Ballet 2 Dec 2014 I remarked that although Ernst was a Dutch national who trained at the National Ballet Academy of Amsterdam before coming to London we still like to think of him as one of our own and English audiences have a great deal of affection for him. After he left our shores for the Dutch National Ballet, I thought I would never see him dance again. Yesterday I saw him on stage together with Floor Elmers, Juanjo Arques, Rachel Beaujean, Marijn Rademaker, James Stout, Alexander Zhembrovskyy and, of course, Vito Mazzeo and Igone de Jongh in an extract from van Manen's Kammerballett to celebrate de Jongh's 20th anniversary with the company.

I was led to the Dutch National Ballet by Michaela DePrince who entered the Junior Company in 2013 and is already a grand sujet  at age 21. Because I was married to a Sierra Leonean for more than 27 years I took an interest in her career before she joined the company (see Michaela DePrince 4 April 2013). When I saw her on stage for the first time I described her as "quite simply the most exciting dancer I have seen for quite a while." When I met her briefly at last year's gala "I left the Stopera thinking how that exceptionally talented young dancer was as gracious off stage as she is magnificent upon it." Michaela DePrince was as magnificent and exciting as ever yesterday in Balanchine's Tarantella Pas de Beux which she danced passionately with Remi Wörtmeyer. The applause was deafening. "They really love her" remarked my companion, We really do.

Earlier DePrince had been one of the dancers in the grand pas d'action from La Bayadere.  Having recently learned some of the choreography from Jane Tucker I took a particular interest in that work. Sasha Mukhamedov danced Nikiya and Daniel Camargo was Solor. It was a tantalizing taster for this Autumn's production which I look forward to seeing in full on 13 Nov 2016.

One of my favourite full length ballets so far this year  has been Ted Brandsen's Mata Hari which I reviewed in Brandsen's Masterpiece 14 Feb 2016. Yesterday was my chance to see the magnificent Anna Tsygankova in the title role again. She was partnered gallantly by Artur Shesterikov.  It was another opportunity to hear Tariq O'Reagan's beautiful score.

These were the highlights of the evening for me but there was so much more:

• the Grand Defile or parade of the company and students of the National Ballet Academy starting with the first year students in light blue leotards and finishing with the principals;
• the final pas de deux from Sir Peter Wright's Sleeping Beauty with Anna Ol  as Aurelia and Jozef Varga as the prince; 
• Sinatra favourites with Anna Tsygankova and Matthew Golding in Twyla Tharp's Sinatra Suite;
• the premiere of Remi Wörtmeyer's Penumbra with Anna Ol and Artur Shesterikov, and 
• the final pas de deux from Balanchine's Theme and Variations with Igone de Jongh and Jozef Varga in the leading roles.

The evening celebrated not only Igone de Jongh's 20 years with the company but Toer van Schayk's long and distinguished career as dancer, choreographer and designer. Qian Liu and Young Gyu Choi danced in the world premiere of van Schayk's ballet Episodes van Fragmenten after showing a short film of his life and career.

As happened last year, the performance was followed by a party which was still going strong well after we left to catch the last tube to Central Station at which the stars mingled with us lesser mortals. I was particularly glad to meet some of the young dancers from last year's Junior Company who are now soaring in the company, their mentor Ernst Meisner and Esther Protzman, the wonderful teacher who inspired so many of the company's finest dancers. I have written many times about the importance of a great teacher and I know a little  about it because have been inspired by mine.

I described last year's gala as The best evening I have ever spent at the ballet. Could last year's excellence be exceeded? The answer is an emphatic "yes". Was yesterday's performance perfection?  I will tell you next year.

Ekaterina Vazem - the First Bayadere and a First Rate Teacher

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The first Bayadere was Ekaterina Vazem. In a quotation from her memoirs which appears in Wikipedia she described it as her favourite of all the ballets that she had occasion to create. She liked its:

"beautiful, very theatrical scenario, its interesting, very lively dances in the most varied genres, and finally Minkus' music, which the composer managed especially well as regards melody and its coordination with the character of the scenes and dances."

She then goes on to mention a disagreement with Petipa which you will have to read for yourself.

Vazem was a great teacher as well as a great dancer. From my conversations with dancers and my reading of their biographies I have detected a special bond between teacher and student which does not seem to exist in quite the same way in other disciplines.

I have mentioned that bond several times in this blog.  In Le jour de gloire est arrive 3 Feb 2014 I wrote about Dame Antoinette Sibley and her teachers Tamara Karsavina and Pamela May:

"At the beginning of this post I mentioned the tradition of ballet. Crisp described Sibley as a 'repository' - which set her giggling - of knowledge. She had known so many of the greats and indeed she had been taught by two of them. The great English ballerina Pamela May who taught at the School while appearing regularly at Covent Garden and Tamara Karsavina whom Sibley adored. Karsavina once invited the young Sibley to her home and she cooked a steak for her. Sibley chose a steak because she thought it might be easy - something you just place under a grill - but Karsavina took the same trouble over that steak as she did with everything else."

One of my best friends from St Andrews who trained with Olga Preobrajenska wrote this about her great teacher which I reproduced in my post of 31 March 2013:

"Haven’t forgotten about your Olga P. request….don’t really know what to say except that she was a tiny and fierce little lady who believed in physical punishment and commanded the utmost respect from her students. I was 9 years old and terrified of her. I grew to love her and when she died, mother and I attended a benefit and somewhere I have one of her linens that we purchased. There was a gentleman at the studio who acted as her manager…he appeared to be slavishly devoted to her. As a child I did not know what their relationship was other than he also collected money for the dance lessons. I remember the time that Maria Tallchief came to the studio. She was beautiful. Many famous dancers came to her for instruction."

In my article What can be achieved by a good teacher 3 March 2013 I wrote how Mike Wamaya has changed the lives of some of the poorest children in one of the roughest neighbourhoods of Nairobi through his ballet lessons:

"In many ways the kids in this class have had the worst possible start in life but in one very important respect they could not have had a better one. Look at the teacher, Mike Wamaya. He is good. I googled for some more information on Mike and I found an even better clip from CNN and this article in The Daily Nation. These films show what can be achieved from the discipline not only in the studio but also in the class room and in life generally. Something that I and most readers of this blog in many walks of life are likely to have found out for ourselves."

"Love my profession" exclaimed Esther Protzman who teaches at the Netherlands Royal Conservatory in the Hague on social media recently and well she might for she has already trained some lovely dancers many of whom are on a trajectory to the top.

Vazem's pupils included  Anna Pavlova, Olga Preobrajenska and Agrippina Vaganova after whom the Imperial Ballet School was renamed. There does not seem to be any film of Vazem's teaching but there is this clip of her famous pupil who would have inherited something from her.

When a teacher has danced with a major company his or her teaching has a special edge which is not easy but is always good.  I experienced that edge last year in Jane Tucker's Swan Lake intensive at the Dancehouse which I described in KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 1 18 Aug 2016. I wrote:

"We were led upstairs to one of the studios where we met our teacher. I know Jane Tucker from Northern Ballet and think the world of her. She has a wonderful way of coaxing us to carry on even when we can go no further. "Not bad" she exclaims after a shambles of a turn. "How are you doing?" She smiles. "All right?" And so we are."

This year I am back for La Bayadere.  These start on the 15 Aug for beginners and the 18 Aug for more advanced pupils and I gave full details in La Bayadere - where it all took place 24 July 2016. As I said before, if you want to take part call Karen on 07783 103 037 or get in touch through her contact form, Facebook page or twitter.