An "Evening with Ashton" and the Launch of an English Junior Company

Lesley Collier

Photographer MaraJK Licence CC BY-SA 4,0  Source Wikimedia Commons

Birmingham Royal Ballet  An Evening with Ashton 24 Jan 2023  Elmhurst Ballet School

Lesley Collier was one of my favourite dancers when I first took an interest in ballet.  I had not seen her for many years so I jumped at the chance to watch her coach two dancers from Birmingham Royal Ballet at Elmhurst Ballet School on 24 Jan 2023.  Shortly before the masterclass was due to start, Carlos Acosta appeared,  It was clear that this event would be out of the ordinary.  The director introduced the dancers as founder members of BRB2.

It was only in the interval that I appreciated the significance of that introduction.  I overheard Caroline Miller (who was sitting immediately behind me) discuss the new company.  Her description sounded very like Ernst Meisner's Junior Company which I have followed since 2013 (see The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 25 Feb 2013 Terpsichore). I turned around and asked her whether my surmise was right.  She confirmed that it was.  I was delighted because I had been calling for British companies to follow the Dutch lead for many years, The Junior Company has launched many dazzling careers and strengthened still further an already great company.

The dancers whom Lesley Collier coached were Frieda Kaden and Oscar Kempsey-Fagg,  The piece that she rehearsed was the pas de deux from Ashton's Rhapsody.  Ashton had created that work to celebrate the Queen Mother's 80th birthday and he had chosen Collier to dance it with Mikhail Baryshnikov.  The music is  Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini which the conductor, Barry Wordsworth described as virtuoso in the pit as well as on stage in the Royal Opera House's YouTube clip An Introduction to Rhapsody (the Royal Ballet).   The video shows Collier coaching Steven McRea and Natalia Osipova on the same piece as she coached Kaden and Kempsey-Fagg in Birmingham. 

Kaden and Kempsey-Fagg are at the very start of their careers but they seemed to do the pas de deux just as well as McRea and Osipova.  For the audience the exercise was fascinating.  Ashton had labelled different parts of the piece with distinctive names such as "the pussy cats".  Collier spotted the most minute details such as Kempsey-Fagg lifting Kaden a little bit too high. She reran each sequence requiring a correction until it was perfect.  My only regret as an audience member is that there was not enough time for the dancers to take the whole piece from the top.

The two young dancers rehearsed the piece not only in front of their artistic director but also their artistic coordinator, Kit Holder and three of their colleagues.  The appointment of Holder is an excellent choice.  I recognized his exceptional talent as a choreographer as long ago as 2015.  I wrote in It Takes Three to Tango:

"Kit Holder has choreographed Quatrain for Birmingham Royal Ballet to Piazzolla's The Four Season's of Buenos Aires. Holder is an impressive talent. I first noticed him in Ballet Black's To Fetch a Pail of Water (see Ballet Black's Best Performance Yet 17 Feb 2015) and I was bowled over by Hopper which he created for Ballet Central (see Dazzled 3 May 2015)."

Holder has created plenty of work since then.   

Like the Junior Company, BRB2 will tour to gain stage experience.  They will start in Northampton on 25 April, continue to Nottingham on 28 and 29, Peterborough on 3 and 4 May, Covent Garden on 13 and 14 June and Wolverhampton on 24 June.  The best night to see them is probably their premiere in Northampton on 25 April 2023 when they will perform with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia.  Unfortunately, I shall have to miss that show as I have to chair a lunchtime seminar in Gaerwen on Anglesey the very next day but I will catch them in Nottingham (which is the closest venue to my home) and possibly other stages of their tour.

After the masterclass, we were introduced to the former Sadler's Wells Ballet dancer Lynne Wake who had made Frederick Ashton: Links in the Chain for The Frederick Ashton Foundation.  The film contains contributions from Sir Anthony Dowell, Dame Antoinette Sibley and Lynn Seymour who were at the height of their careers when I started to follow ballet.  There are also interviews with Dame Beryl Grey, Dame Gillian Lynne and Henry Danton who sadly died recently. Happily, there are also contributions from dancers who are still with us such as Marianela Núñez and Vadim Muntagirov.

The title "Links in the Chain" reminds me of Clement Crisp's interview of Dame Antoinette which I discussed in Le jour de gloire est arrive - Dame Antoinette Sibley with Clement Crisp at the Royal Ballet School on 3 Feb 2014:

"Sibley spoke about her teachers I realized that every teacher represents to his or students every dancer, choreographer and teacher who has gone before. Sibley loved her teachers and I can relate to that because I love every one of mine. Those who have gently corrected my wobbling arabesques and feeble turns. I texted one of them yesterday after the talk from a restaurant where I ordered - guess what - a steak.

'Oh super jealousy/ she replied.
'Don't be jealous' I responded 'You are also part of the tradition. You live it, I just see it. And you pass on your gift to others.'
'Awwwww Thanku xxxx'
'When I go to class you or Annemarie represent every dancer, choreographer and teacher who ever lived'.
'Aw Jane! I won't be able to leave the room soon'
'I am only paraphrasing Sibley. She should know. Through you I am linked to your teacher who is probably linked to someone at Ballet Russes who is linked to Petipa..
'xxxxx wise woman!.'

As indeed Dame Antoinette is. I learned so much from her yesterday for which I shall always be grateful."

Wake's film celebrated such links. Collier's coaching illustrated another. The exceptionally gifted young men and women who have been accepted into BRB2 and the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company will plug into those links through Kit Holder and Ernst Meisner.

I hope Peregrine likes his carrots

In Act I of the Royal Ballet's version of La Fille mal gardée the wealthy farmer Thomas produces a pony and trap for Lise and her mother. The pony is called Peregrine and in the interval it was given a basket of carrots and apples by Darcey Bussell.  Bussell told us that it has a fan club on twitter. That was something that I really didn't know and I wouldn't have found out had I not attended the HDTV transmission of La Fille mal gardée at the Huddersfield Odeon yesterday.

It wasn't the only nugget of information that I picked up. My ears pricked up when Lesley Collier told Bussell that Sir Frederick Ashton was a sort of ballerina. I can't remember exactly what she said because I was startled but I remember she referred to something in his eyes and I couldn't help thinking "how true." As it happens I actually saw Sir Frederick dance a female role - one of the ugly sisters in Cinderella with Sir Robert Helpmann - but I wasn't thinking of that. I remembered the story about his seeing Anna Pavlova in Lima as a boy. It was the event that fired his interest in ballet.  Insights like that together with the voice over with Natalia Osipova where she mentioned how she was learning how to carry her arms in the English style (something to which Collier also referred in her interview with Bussell) are some of the advantages of HDTV.

Another is the detail that cinema audiences see. Let me give you just one example.   I must have seen a dozen performances of Fille on the stage over the years including two in the last 9 months but I had never noticed the significance of the scarves until last night. At the beginning of Act II Simone picks two scarves out of a chest of drawers. Her daughter chooses the pink one at first but her mother wants to wear that and she gives her a yellow one.  During Act II Simone pops out to collect Thomas, Alain and the notary so that they can seal the marriage contract. Colas, however, has managed to sneak in to the parlour and is hiding below some sheaves of corn. He emerges and the lovers dance a pas de deux in which they exchange scarves. Colas was wearing a pink one and Simone finds Lise wearing a pink scarf and not the yellow one when she returns from her errand. It is her first intimation that something has been going on. That and the corn sheaves all over the floor rather than in the neat pile in which she had left them.

So I learned a lot of new things about Ashton's ballet in the Huddersfield Odeon that I would never have discovered in the best seats of the stalls in the Opera House itself.  In the past I have compared the Royal Opera House's transmissions very unfavourably with Pathé Live's transmissions from Moscow. The House's transmissions are definitely getting better. They would be better still if they could hire the admirable Katerina Novikova.  I love Bussell but I want to remember her as a ballerina not as a TV celebrity. That's why I can never bring myself to watch Strictly. The House should also lose the tweets though I have to say that I smiled when someone said that he would never touch KFC again after seeing the hens in the ballet.

So what of the performance itself? Steven McRae was a splendid Colas. He is a great dancer with enormous charm and humour. I've never met the man but if I did I know I would take to him. I'm much less sure about Osipova. She is also a great dancer. Her jumps are magnificent. But there are some ballets where you don't need virtuosity and Ashton's Fille is one of them. You need a sweet dancer like Laura Morera who opened the season (see The Best Fille Ever 18 April 2015) or Maureya Lebowitz whom I saw in Nottingham last year (see Fille bien gardée - Nottingham 26 June 2014 27 June 2014). "Is this what Ashton intended?" I thought to myself as I watched the closing scene of Act II as Lise in her wedding dress leaps jubilantly round the stage. I feel really terrible expressing even the mildest reserve about Osipova. She is, as I said above, a great dancer and in some roles such as Tatiana in Cranko's Onegin she is perfect. I know she tried last night. Though she is not a natural Lise she is still a delight to watch.

As for the other dancers, I liked Philip Mosley's Simone very much. He is a fine character dancer. Paul Kay was good as Alain too as was Christopher Saunders as his father. I congratulate Michael Stojko as the cock and each of the hens. Meaghan Grace Hinkis told us how hot and uncomfortable it is to dance in the hen suit. "It's a real workout" she added. They only have a mesh aperture in the mask for vision and that headpiece can easily be dislodged. I liked all Lise's friends. But my favourite character artist yesterday was Gary Avis as the notaire. Not so much because of his dancing (though he is always good) but for his portrayal of a country solicitor. He must have some connection with the law because he reminds me of so many of those who have instructed me over the years.

Altogether, it was a lovely evening and it has tempted me back to the Huddersfield retail park for the encore on Sunday.