Powerhouse Ballet Looks Forward

Powerhouse Ballet in Class

© 2022 Jane Elizabeth Lambert

 

This year has been Powerhouse Ballet's best ever.  We gave our second and third public performances to packed houses at the Chroma Q Theatre in Leeds on 19 Nov 2022.  I reviewed the show in A Celebration of Dance: Wilis and More on 21 Nov 2022.  We held full-day workshops on The Nutcracker in March and Giselle in July.  We returned to the Northwest with company classes in Bolton and Salford in September and November.  We have offered training and rehearsing opportunities for four of our members with teaching skills, namely Katherine Wong, Lauren Savage, Christie Barnes and Alicia Jolley.

We are now on a roll and will build on that success immediately with a special online-only Post-Christmas company class with Beth Meadway between 14:00 and 15:30 on 28 Dec 2022.  Beth is one of Ballet Cymru's lead dancers.  I reviewed her performance as Helena and the Wall in Dream in Ballet Cymru at its Best on 13 Nov 2022 and in A Child's Christnas in Wales and  Terms and Conditions in Ballet Cymru in Bangor - Finishing a Great Week of Ballet on 19 Dec 2022.  Anyone can attend Beth's class from anywhere in the world.  There will be no charge.   All you need is a computer with an internet connection, a leotard or other danceweaer, ballet shoes and a little bit of space at home or elsewhere.  It is not every day that you get a chance to dance with an up and coming ballet star from the comfort of your home.  If you want to attend, register here.

Our first class in the studio of the New Year will be given by Northern Ballet Academy's Annemarie Donoghue at Dance Studio Leeds from 13:00 to 14:30  on 28 Jan 2023.  In February we hope to give our first class in Wales.   Alicia Jolley who danced in Aria has kindly agreed to give that class.   The date, time and venue have yet to be agreed but it will probably take place in Mold on the afternoon of Saturday, 25 Feb 2023.   In response to popular demand I have asked Fiona Noonan to deliver our March class and she has accepted in principle.   Her class is likely to take place on 25 March 2023 either at Dance Studio Leeds or Huddersfield University.  

Karen Lester-Sant of KNT Danceworks has kindly invited Powerhouse Ballet to dance in KNT's next show in Manchester.   We are looking forward to this opportunity immensely.   We shall start rehearsals as soon as we know the date.   We already have the piece that we presented in Leeds on 19 Nov 2022 but it is possible that we may have a new work by then. Jane Tucker who directed and choreographed the Dance of the Wilis has offered us a workshop on another scene from Giselle early in the New Year.  I shall leave the choice of scene to Jane but we have discussed some of the possibilities.  These include the Retour des Vendageurs in act 1 as there is a big role for the ensemble.   As soon as Jane gives me a date, I shall announce the workshop on Eventbrite.

One of the objectives of Powerhouse Ballet is to provide opportunities for members to develop their skills in all aspects of theatre.   We have already made use of our members' teaching skills but other members also have skills that could be useful to the company.  Fiona Cheng, for instance, is a  drama student at Leeds Conservatory.   I have seen her act in one of the Conservatory productions and was very impressed.  The betrayal scene at the end of act 1 of Giselle requires considerable dramatic skills from Giselle and the other characters  Drama is not formally taught in many dance schools and perhaps it should.   I have therefore invited Fiona to propose an acting workshop for us.  Other possible workshops include exhibition classes in Kathak and Welsh folk dancing with its spectacular grasshopper step.

As we are a company and not a school we will never charge our dancers for attending our classes and workshops.  However, we shall be introducing a Friends scheme for those who wish to support the company and participate in some of its activities but not dance in its shows.   A year's subscription will be around £25 a year and it will be possible for members to switch from "Friend" to "Dancer" and vice versa within the course of the year.   

As this will be one of my last posts for this year, I should like to wish all my readers a happy and prosperous New Year.

Excellence in Wales

Ballet Cymru "The Light Princess"

(c) 2017 Ballet Cymru: all rights reserved

The Wales Theatre Awards recognize excellence in theatre, dance and opera created and presented in Wales. Nominations for the 2017 awards were made by 40 English and Welsh language critics working throughout Wales for print, broadcast and online platforms. They made 830 nominations for 281 artists and 157 shows from 89 companies (see Mike Smith Wales Theatre Awards - The Winners 25 Feb 2017 Art Scene in Wales).

I am delighted to report that two of the companies that we follow were among the winners.  Ballet Cymru won best dance production with Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs which David Murley reviewed brilliantly in Little Red Riding Hood comes to London 2 Dec 2016 and I covered in Ballet Cymru's Summer Tour 22 May 2016 and Ballet Cymru's "Sleeping Beauty Moment" 5 Dec 2016. Caroline Finn of the National Dance Company of Wales won the best female dance artist award with Folk which I reviewed in Cambriophilia on 18 March 2016.

The best male dance artist award was won by Phil Willians of Cascade Dance Theatre. I have not yet made the acquaintance of Mr Williams or his company but I hope to do so before long. His company describes itself as

"a repertory touring company working with the Creu Cymru dance touring network to provide ensemble dance that is artist-led with a Wales and international perspective, having high production values and with an equal emphasis on quality of the art and a passion to speak to a general public audience."

For the benefit of readers outside Wales, I should say that Creu Cymru is the development agency for theatres and arts centres in Wales. Its members include nearly all the professionally run theatres, arts centres and other venues in Wales.

Last year was a good year for Ballet Cymru having been nominated for the second year running for one of the National Dance Awards. It has recruited some fine young dancers one of whom was my outstanding young dancer for 2016 (see The Terpsichore Titles: Outstanding Young Dancers of 2016 28 Dec 2016). We hope to see more of them in Ballet Cymru's Spring Tour with its new production, The Light Princess which I previewed in Ballet Cymru's The Light Princess 25 Jan 2017 and A Midsummer Night;s Dream that I also mentioned in that post. Ballet Cymru has now supplied us with the photo for The Light Princess with its press release which I have posted above.

Cambriophilia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The company performed three works for us:

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

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

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