Grimm - an Interesting Collaboration

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One of the highlights of the Dutch National Ballet's opening night gala in 2015 was an extract from Narnia, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe which was performed by Ernst Meisner's Junior Company and Marco Gerris's ISH Dance Collective. In The Best Evening I have ever spent in the Ballet 13 Sept 2015 I wrote:

"When we returned to the auditorium images of falling snow were projected on to the stage. Before the house lights dimmed two dancers dressed as lions were in the auditorium. Then I recognized some of the beautiful young dancers from the Junior Company on stage. The beat was compelling. The dance an amalgam of ballet and hip hop. It was Narnia, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by Ernst Mesiner and Marco Gerris. A collaboration between the Junior Company and ISH Dance Collective. That was the highlight of the show for me. When Ernst visited the London Ballet Circle he mentioned the possibility of bringing it to the UK. It would be wonderful if that were ever to happen. Particularly if it could be brought to Leeds or Manchester."

Last month I was lucky enough to meet Marco Gerris after the Junior Company's fifth anniversary show. I told him how much I had enjoyed the extract of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe that I had seen at the gala. I mentioned my review including including the last sentence.

Marco asked about Leeds and Manchester so I told him about  Northern Ballet, Phoenix Dance Theatre, the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, the Centre for Advanced Training and the Arts Council's plans to make Leeds a centre of excellence for dance.  I also mentioned The Lowry and its CAT, Northern Ballet School, Manchester City Ballet, our theatres and our city's links with English National Ballet,  I hope to have planted a seed that may one day lead to our seeing Marco's work in this country. I am aware that the Dutch National Ballet has been in touch with the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre but nothing has come of it so far.

Unfortunately, we are unlikely ever to see Narnia again. Apparently, the company was unable to obtain the rights it needed to re-stage Narnia (see Narnia becomes Grimm).  However, Ernst and Marco have created a new ballet called Grimm which is touring the Netherlands with great success.  According to the Dutch National Ballet's website:

"GRIMM is about two boys who find themselves in a fantasy world, where they meet Red Riding Hood and the wolf, the seven dwarves, Rapunzel, Snow White, the witch, Cinderella and other fairytale characters in succession. They get mixed up in exciting adventures, in which all sorts of elements from well-known fairytales are jumbled up in a lively parade of fairytale characters. As in all fairytales, a big role is played by love and jealousy, friendship, tyranny, intrigues and the battle between good and evil."

There is a British connection in that the score was contributed by  Scanner (Robin Rimbaud).  Unfortunately, the tour ends this week so I will be unable to see the collaboration this time but I will certainly catch future ones.

Although it has nothing whatsoever to do with ballet, I should mention that the BBC has started to broadcast a series of three programmes by Misha Glennie called The Invention of the Netherlands.  The first episode was about the low countries' early history and the Dutch Republic's war of independence against Spain.  It jolted me into thinking just how little I know of the country.  I have made scores of visits to Amsterdam over the years for business or pleasure but save for a weekend in Rotterdam with a lawyer friend who drove me around South Holland including Oudewater where, as in Pendle, they had witch trials I had never been anywhere else.

I was reminded by the programme of the Netherlands' diversity.  In Frisia, for example, the locals speak a language that is even closer to English than Dutch. In Baarle-Nassau in Brabant there are pockets of Belgium that are surrounded by Dutch territory (some just a few square yards in size) and in some places pockets of the Netherlands within Belgian enclaves on Dutch soil.  I think this may be the year for a coach or motoring holiday of one of our nearest neighbours.

BalletLORENT's Rumpelstiltskin

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BalletLORENT  Rumpelstiltskin 7 April 2018, 14:30 Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield

The dancers of BalletLORENT performed the Poet Laureate's adaptation of the Grimms' Rumpelstiltskin to an almost full house at Huddersfield's municipal theatre with great gusto yesterday afternoon.  The audience which consisted largely of schoolchildren and their patents seemed to like it. In so far as I have reservations they relate to the style of dance which is just not my personal preference.  The exaggerated and sometimes unpredictable jumps, turns and arm movements as well as the clambering over the sets reminded me more of troops on an assault course or even children in an adventure playground than highly trained dancers but then that may be because I see too much ballet and not enough of other styles of dance.  Having said that, it had very little in common with Wayne MacGregor;s Yugen or Sharon Watson's Wundrush which are contemporary works that I enjoyed very much indeed.

Despite its name BalletLORENT is not primarily a ballet company though one dancer did bourré on pointe briefly as she tried to distract a grief stricken king.  It is a contemporary dance company based at Dancecity in Newcastle (see Dance in Newcastle 4 Nov 2016).  It has already created two works based on the Grimms Children's and Household Tales, namely Rapunzel and Snow White which explore "how complicated and faulted individuals are relevant to the contemporary world". As the programme adds, "This is not Walt Disney." I had seen Snow White on 30 Sept 2016 and reviewed it in BalletLORENT on 3 Oct 2016.

Carol Ann Duffy's Rumpelstiltskin has parallels with Snow White in that they are both about the rejection of children by their patents.  I didn't like Grimms' tales when my mother tried to read them to me as a child because of the horrible ways that characters met their ends.   I don't think that she liked them either because we never reached Rumpelstiltskin and I looked up the story for the first time only yesterday. I was born just a few years after the second world war when passions were still running high against Germany.  I heard it said more than once that the Grimms showed a cruel streak in the German character. That, of course, was nonsense.  I am glad to say that such things are no longer said, but the stories were still chilling. With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps the most alarming aspect of the tales is the fact that not all children are loved as they should be. Alas, that is always a contemporary reality.

Yesterday's performance focused on the following main characters: the king and queen and later the queen's ghost danced by John Kendall and Virginia Scudeletti, the shepherd, Toby Fitzgibbons, his daughter Natalie Trewinnard and, of course, Rumpelstiltskin danced by Gavin Coward. There were also a  lot of children in the cast. All, professionals and kids, danced energetically and expressively and were applauded vigorously for their efforts. My favourite characters were the sheep who did not have to move with wild abandon.  They appealed to me because they behaved, well, just like sheep.  The choreographer  and maybe the dancers seem to have spent some time watching them on moors and in farmyards because their head movements  in particular were quite lifelike.

The set consisted of a palace and a hill mounted on scaffolding and there were props like straw, gold leaf and bigger and bigger spinning wheels all cleverly designed by Phil Eddolls. There was a lavish use of gold cloth by Michelle Clapton, especially in the queen's costume.  Murray Gold's music fittted the story well. I particularly liked the reel in the wedding celebrations.

The show opened at Sadler's Wells where it received good reviews from the dance critics. Huddersfield was its second stop.  It will move on to The Lowry, Hull, Oxford, Darlington and Aberdeen (see the tour dates page of the company's website).  The audience in Huddersfield seemed to like it very much so it is quite likely that you will too.  If you live anywhere near those towns then watch it - particularly if you have children to treat.

Hansel and Gretel in Newcastle - a bit like falling in love

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Author Gita Mistry
(c) 2017 Gita Mistry: all rights reserved

Scottish Ballet, Hansel and Gretel, Theatre Royal Newcastle, 3 Feb 2017

Ballet can be a bit like falling in love. Once in a while, you see a show that stands out.   You leave the theatre floating on a cloud.  You can't quite put your finger on why, especially if you have seen the ballet before, but somehow it is special.  That was how I felt last night after watching Scottish Ballet's Hansel and Gretel at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle.  I had seen Hansel and Gretel before in Glasgow on 21 Dec 2013 and had enjoyed it then (see Scottish Ballet's Hansel and Gretel 23 Dec 2016), but I loved last night's show so much more.

As the show has not yet been to London or, to the best of my knowledge and belief performed abroad by any other company, I shall describe it briefly for my readers. The story follows loosely the fairy tale as retold by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm but with some twists and refinements.  It is set not in medieval Germany but in a small Scottish town near a forest - Dunkeld perhaps or maybe Aberfeldy - in the nineteen fifties or sixties.  The period is set by the costumes.  Little girls in gym slips. The boys in short trousers,  The mums in headscarves and the dads in flat caps. Local toughs in denim jeans and leather jackets. An enormous fridge in a corner of Hansel and Gretel's home - entirely bare except for cans of lager - some basic furniture and a massive telly.

Why did Christopher Hampson set his ballet in post-war Scotland which was well before his time let alone that of most of his audience? Part of the answer may be that Scottish Ballet and indeed Western Theatre Ballet before it has always been topical.  A tradition started by its founder Peter Darrell who staged the marvellous Mods and Rockers to Beatles music in 1963. The story begins with child abductions which of course is the subject of historical child abuse investigations and trials that were taking place in 2013 when Hansel and Gretel first appeared and, unfortunately, are still continuing today.

Hansel and Gretel are kept away from school until those abductions end.  Not surprisingly, they get bored with each other's company.  They slip away while their parents doze in from of the TV, first into the town and then the woods where eventually they find the witch's cottage.  Everything else follows the Grimms' story. They enter the cottage and find a table heaving with food with dancing chefs who come out from below.  The witch plies the kids with goodies, but then things start to go wrong. She chops off the head of Hänsel's teddy. She forces the children to play a game of hide and seek which ends with Hänsel finding himself in a cage under the table. Her malevolence becomes clear when she tosses the remains of the teddy into a cupboard overflowing with children's toys including two enormous rag dolls danced by Andrew Peasgood and Madeline Squire.

Happily, the story ends well - or fairly well for I can't be the only one who would prefer to see the witch in the dock than in the Aga - but at least the children (including those abducted in the prologue) are saved and reunited with their parents. A pile of bones reminds us not to feel too sorry for the witch who maybe had what was coming to her. Hänsel and Gretel are hoisted on the adults' shoulders and the children and parents parade triumphantly around the witch's kitchen.

The score is essentially Engelbert Humperdinck's as arranged by Richard Honner. The sets are by Gary Harris.  There are two excellent videos in which each member of the creative team explains how they brought the show together (see Scottish Ballet: The Making of Hansel & Gretel (Part One) and (Part Two).  Masestro Honner conducted the orchestra last night.

As I noted three years ago, there are some really juicy roles in this ballet. Hänsel and Gretel, of course, with Gretel taking the initiative but her impetuous brother the glory.  After all, it was he who kicked the old woman into the oven.  Yesterday Hänsel was danced by Constant Vigier (an up and coming choreographer as well as first artist with the company) and Kayla-Maree Tarantolo who trained in Amsterdam.  Gita likes to award "man" or "woman of the match" accolades to dancers as though they were cricketers. Her woman of the match was Tarantolo. I heard Gita giggling as the wide-eyed children gobbled the sweets or the witch hobbled about her kitchen. Now Gita just doesn't usually laugh in ballet but she was having a great time in this one.  "I am really enjoying it" she mouthed to me several times.

 Probably the most demanding role in the ballet is the witch because she mixes so many roles.  As I said in  2013 the teacher morphs into the local vamp, the ballerina in the moon and finally a wicked and twisted, ugly old witch. In The Making of Hansel and Gretel  Hampson says that he created that role for Eve Mutso who is a splendid dancer. Difficult shoes to fill but Grace Horler rose to the challenge and performed that role brilliantly. Indeed, she made it her own. The antithesis of the witch is, of course, the good fairy - in this case the Dew Drop Fairy - and she was danced delightfully by Claire Souet. Hansel and Gretel's mum and dad were danced by two of my favourites, Araminta Wraith and Christopher Harrison. They also have to morph from the everyday into the sublime as the children imagine them in evening dress dancing in high society. There is a sleek and sinister sandman danced by Peasgood last night and, of course, the menacing ravens - Rimbaud PatronHenry Dowden, Thomas Edwards, Eado Turgeman and  Evan Loudon.

Hampson is a great hero of mine as I have repeated many times in this blog. I had heard him speak at Northern Ballet's symposium on narrative dance (see My Thoughts on Saturday Afternoon's Panel Discussion at Northern Ballet 21 June 2015) but until last night I had never actually met him. Gita bumped into him in the theatre lobby and, knowing my admiration for the man, held him in conversation until I appeared. However eloquent my reviews (if indeed they are) and tweets, there is nothing like telling the choreographer in person how much one enjoys his work. Especially after an outstanding performance like last night's.

BalletLORENT

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BalletLorent Snow White Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield 30 Sept 2016

Had it not been for a poster in a subway at Huddersfield station it is unlikely that I would have heard of BalletLORENT's performance of Snow White at the Lawrence Batley Theatre last week. That would have been unfortunate for I would have missed a very good show.

There were a number of reasons why this show was so good. The first was Grimm's story retold by our poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. As Liv Lorent, the company's founder and artistic director, noted in the programme:

"There is so much to love in this story - and Carol Ann Duffy has taken the retelling to a new imaginative and poignant place ...."

The story of Snow White has everything: a study of the relationship between mother and daughter that turns from love to loathing, an examination of the psychology of a woman whose vanity or maybe insecurity precipitates such turn, a critique of social inequality, namely the contrast in the living conditions between the royal family and the miners  that prompted the revolt that led to the queen's downfall, the redemption of the ugly huntsman who was rewarded with the hand of a princess and indeed so much more.

Another important ingredient of success was Lorent's simple but very effective choreography for a cast that featured trained dancers but also included children. According to the website:

"Following the success of the Rapunzel young cast programme with 6-16 year olds, Liv was interested in engaging 5-8 year olds in Snow White. At this slightly younger age, children are more uninhibited and express themselves very freely and naturally. Liv worked with a group of DanceCity’s CAT (Centre for Advanced Training) students for 1 week in July 2014 in order to gather ideas for this project, and the company also delivered 6 trial workshops to primary schools in areas of low arts engagement in Newcastle in Autumn 2014, including Westgate Hill Primary School, Hotspur Primary School and St Charles Primary School. 12 children selected from these pilot workshops were also invited to participate in a Snow White research and development week at Northern Stage in January 2015."

There were some striking scenes such as the miners at work at the beginning of the first act, Snow White's housekeeping in the second, the ghastly meal at which the queen devours what she believes to be her daughter's heart, the queen's couru en pointe after she falls through the mirror and her fandango as her shoes turned to hot metal.

The title role in this production was danced by Natalie Trewinnard who delivered a delightful performance of the winsome young princess's coming of age.  The other major female roles were the queen and her reflection danced by Caroline Reece and Gwen Berwick. Reece is an accomplished actor as well as dancer who projected malice and menace quite chillingly. Gavin Coward morphed from a ghastly henchman into noble hero before our eyes. John Kendall  danced the king of the neighbouring kingdom summoned to woo the queen but stricken by the beauty of her daughter.

Carol Ann Duffy's story was narrated by Lindsay Duncan. I worried a little about the narration because I had suggested the show to a friend of two German speaking tourists who understood very little English. They had asked to see a ballet simply because dance does not require an understanding of English. I am told that they left the theatre "beaming from ear to ear."  They followed the plot without difficulty and enjoyed the show very much indeed.

I should mention the music and designs. Murray Gold's vibrant and pulsating score, Phil Eddolls's ingenious sets and some very clever lighting by Malcolm Rippeth contributed greatly to the success of the show.

As this was the first time I had seen a performance by BalletLORENT I looked them up over the weekend. The company was founded in 1993 and is based at DanceCity in Newcastle. It carries out extensive educational and outreach work as well as performances and the home page of its website quotes some very favourable comments from The Guardian and Financial Times.  

Snow White is the second of a series of Grimm tales retold by Carol Ann Duffy hat have been set to dance in collaboration with Sadler's Wells and Northern Stage.  The first of these stories was Rapunzel which I hope to see in due course. I shall also look out for news of the third.  Snow White is moving on to Stirling (11-12 Oct), Dundee (21-22 Oct), Inverness (25-26 Oct) and Bangor (11-12 Nov 2016) and tickets for all those performances can be booked through the company's website.