Mack and Mair and Adams too at the Liverpool Empire

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English National Ballet Swan Lake Liverpool Empire 1 Oct 2022  19:30

On the last day of its season at the Liverpool Empire, English National Ballet cast Brooklyn Mack as Siegfried and Natasha Mair as Odette-Odile.  it was the first time those artists had performed those roles with English National Ballet though Wikipedia states that Mack had danced Siegfried with the Washinton Ballet and Mair's website states that she had danced Odette-Odile in Moscow and Turkey.

It is always interesting to watch a dancer perform one of the great classical roles for the first time, particularly at the Empire whose audiences can be loud and demonstrative.  I am glad to say that the crowd loved them.  Several gave them a standing ovation. In the lift of the multistorey next to Lime Street station, a lady purred "Didn't you just love them" eliciting ascent and contentment.

Mack is an American.  He trained at the Kirov Academy in Washington DC. He danced with Joffrey Ballet, Orlando Ballet, the Washington Ballet and American Ballet Theatre before joining English National Ballet in 2015.  He is listed as a guest artist on the company's website rather than as a principal or soloist.  He is exciting to watch as the early clip shows;  muscular, athletic and tightly self-controlled.. He was particularly impressive in the solo part of the pas de deux of the seduction scene of the third act.

Mair is from Vienna.  That is where she trained and began her career.  A clue as to what may have drawn her to England is that her favourite role is Lise in Ashton's La Fille mal gardée.  it is not hard to imagine her excelling in that role from her monologue in Natascha Mair: our new Principal dancer | English National Ballet.  The roles of Odette and Odile are quite different and not all ballerinas can carry off both with ease.  Mair is one who can.  Delicate and vulnerable in the white acts and hard as nails in the black, she is as accomplished an actor as she is a dancer.

Mack and Mair danced in Derek Deane's production of Swan Lake which has been in the company's repertoire for quite some time.  I have seen it several times and know it well.  It has several features that I love like the prologue where Odette is turned into a swan and the Neapolitan dance which Wayne Sleep and Jennifer Penney made their own.  It provides plenty of opportunities for virtuosity in such roles as the pas de trois in act 1, the petits cygnes in the second and the divertissements in the third.   Actually, one artist other than Mack and Mair who did stand out in the show and that was Precious Adams.  She worked hard in Liverpool as a lead swan in acts II and IV and princess in act III,   She was recently interviewed in The Guardian under the headline: Precious Adams on balancing ballet and computer science: ‘you don’t want to be 45 with zero credentials’  

 

 This was the first live performance by English National Ballet that I had seen since the 70th anniversary gala on 18 Jan 2020 just before the pandemic.  It was reassuring to see it back on tour apparently in good shape.  It will soon get a new artistic director (see  English National Ballet announces Aaron Watkin as new artistic director  The Guardian 24 Aug 2022),   If the Semperoper Ballett's class and rehearsal of David Dawson's Romeo and Juliet are any kind of indicator, ENB will be in very good hands.

A Fille that owes Nothing to Ashton or Lanchbery

Krasnoyarsk State Opera House

Author MaxBioHazard 
Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International
Source Wikipedia Krasnojarsk

The Russian State Ballet of Siberia La Fille mal gardée 15 Feb 2019 Liverpool Empire

Krasnoyarsk is a city in Siberia with a population of just over a million on approximately the same latitude as Dundee. According to Google Maps, it is 4,559 miles away and takes over 14½ hours to reach by air or 5 days by surface transportation.

An opera house with a resident ballet company opened in that city in 1978.  The company's founder members included graduates of the Vaganova Ballet Academy and the Moscow State Academy of Choreography.  Krasnoyarsk has produced some fine dancers over the years despite its remoteness and modest population. They include Anna Ol of the Dutch National Ballet and Viktoria Tereshkina of the Mariinsky.  Many of those dancers trained or began their training in the city and some such as Ol danced with the Krasnoyarsk opera house company.

Every year artists from the Krasnoyarsk opera house ballet tour the United Kingdom as The Russian State Ballet of Siberia (see Anna Lidster Promoting Krasnoyarsk: How the Russian State Ballet of Siberia has won British hearts 3 March 2013 The Siberian Times). I am not sure why they chose that name. It may be that they think that the name of their city might be a bit of a mouthful for British tongues or it may be because they recruit a few extra dancers for the tour such as Francesco Bruni and Francisco Gimenez. However, it is clear from comparing the Russian State Ballet of Siberia's programme with the Krasnoyarsk opera house's website that the two companies are substantially the same.

The tourists have a punishing schedule.  They opened at St David's Hall in Cardiff with The Snow Maiden on 19 Dec 2018 and they will finish in Oxford on 16 March 2019 with Swan Lake. By the end of their tour, they will have performed 6 full-length ballets in 24 venues in every one of our constituent nations except Northern Ireland.  On Friday they reached Liverpool which is where I saw them for the first time.

I was attracted to Liverpool by the show rather than by the company.  They were to dance La Fille mal gardée with music by Hertel rather than Lanchbery and choreography by Gorsky rather than Ashton. La Fille mal gardée is in one sense the oldest ballet in the modern repertoire having first been performed at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux less than a fortnight before the storming of the Bastille but the version that we know was premiered in 1960.

To my great surprise and joy, Friday's performance was not at all inferior to the Ashton-Lanchbery-Lancaster version. I would go so far as to say that I left the Empire somewhat more elated than when I left the Lowry in October after seeing BRB's latest production which had somehow expanded into three acts. The story was very much the same. The only significant difference is that Colas gets into Simone's house disguised as a notaire rather than hidden under a bundle of wheat sheaves.

There were a few other differences.  Instead of churning butter half-heartedly, a distracted Lise collected a couple of eggs from the henhouse while her mother gathered a basketful.  Nobody dressed as poultry though there were computer generated animations of pigs and other animals crossing the backcloth which earned a few laughs from the audience. There was a sort of ribbon dance but it did not end up as a love knot and Simone performed a clog dance though not the one we know.  Alain was not swept into the sky by the storm clutching his umbrella.  Nor was he made to resemble a carthorse.

But there were elements that do not occur in the Ashton version such as a full-blown classical pas de deux complete with entrée, male and female solos and coda.  Lise dons a classical tutu which could not possibly have been in the Dauberval version. In the Russian version, Lise dances at least as many fouettés as Odile in Swan Lake or Kitri in Don Quixote.

As in Ashton's version, Simone was danced by a man.  In this case Pavel Kirchev, a Bulgarian guest artist who dances with the Varna ballet.  He reminded me quite a lot of Stanley Holden. Elena Svinko was a delightful Lise, coquettish and feisty.  She had teeth and she used them on poor Alain (Ilia Kaprov) biting his fingers and ear and stamping on his foot as he tried to express affection.  Marcello Pelizzoni, who trained in Moscow and dances with the Krasnoyarsk ballet, was Colas. He has impressive elevation, power and grace and I delighted in his virtuosity.

Considering the time they must have spent on the road and the need to pack and repack almost every day I was pleasantly surprised that the sets and costumes seemed so fresh and that the cast had so much energy.  I shall try to catch their Swan Lake when they come to Halifax or Sheffield.

English National Ballet's Swan Lake: Kanehara conquers the Empire

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English National Ballet Swan Lake Liverpool Empire 23 Nov 2018, 19:30

There are a lot of shows that call themselves Swan Lake but unless they turn on the impersonation of Odette, the deception of Siegfried and the breaking of the spell they are not Swan Lake.  You can strip out all the divertissements, have swans of both or either gender, dispense with feathers and tutus, dump them in a tank of water and even substitute a Kalashnikov for a crossbow but so long as you have an Odette-Odile danced by the same artist it will still be Swan Lake.  Take her away and it is something else even if you keep cygnets and feathery white tutus.   It may still be a good show (and many of them such as Graeme Murphy's are) but give it another name.  Monkeying with such a perfect piece of theatre really makes my blood boil far more even than stick toting wilis in disused garment factories

On Friday I saw a very good Swan Lake at the Liverpool Empire and what made it good was the performance of Rina Kanehara in the lead role.  Where did she come from?  I must have seen her before as she is a soloist but she has never grabbed my attention as she did on Friday night.  She was a lovely Odette. As delicate as Dresden porcelain.  As light as a lily.  And I felt that she was living Odette and not just dancing it.  How could she possibly change into the imperious, scheming, seductive magician's daughter of the black act after just 20 minutes interval?

But change she did.  When she reappeared in her black blue flecked tutu she was magnificent.  Clearly, she was the same woman but quite a different character and she seemed to live that role too. She was very strong, robust and as indestructible and flexible as wire appearing to deliver Legnani's 32 fouettés effortlessly.   The English National Ballet has a star in Kanehara and I will seek out her performances from now on.

A good Odette needs a good Siegfried and the company produced one in Ken Saruhashi.  Like Kanehara he is a soloist though it appears from his biography that he has danced leading roles before.  He is tall, slender and very strong.  He lifted Odette as if she were weightless and some of his jumps in the betrothal pas de deux drew my breath away.  The crowd loved him.  I heard loud Russian type growls from behind me in the auditorium, the sort you hear regularly in live streaming from Moscow or even occasionally in Covent Garden but hardly ever outside London.

A lot of dancers impressed me on Friday night and it would be invidious to single out any for special praise. It was good to see Jane Haworth as Siegried's mum and Michael Coleman as his tutor and master of ceremonies again.  I liked Erik Woodhouse, Anjuli Hudson and Adela Ramirez in the pas de trois.  Ramirez was also one of the cygnets with Alice Bellini, Katja Khaniukova and Emilia Cadorin all of whom were good.  Hudson delighted me with her Neapolitan dance in Act III where she was partnered by Barry Drummond.  This is a delightful piece which I am sure Sir Frederick Ashton created for the Royal Ballet for it has all his hallmarks on it.  In fact, I remember Wayne Sleep in that role with (I believe) Jennifer Penney.  The Royal Ballet no longer seem to do it and it is good to know that our other great national company does.  Finally, I congratulate Isabelle Brouwers and Tiffany Hedman as lead swans.  I noticed Skyler Martin whom I remember from the Dutch National Ballet and it is good to welcome him to these shores.

English National Ballet's website quotes The Sunday Express in describing the production as "One of the best productions of Swan Lake you are likely to see."  I don't agree with that newspaper on much but I think that its dance critic was right on this point.  I have seen a lot of Swan Lakes in nearly 60 years of regular ballet going including Liam Scarlett's and the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre's with Denis Rodkin this year but this is definitely the best Swan Lake of those three and one of the best of all time. I like Peter Farmer's designs and the ENB Philharmonic under Huddersfield trained Gavin Sutherland. I always give him a cheer for that though I would anyway as he is good.

Altogether it was an excellent show in a fine auditorium with an appreciative crowd.  This is not the first time I have seen an outstanding Swan Lake at the Empire.  David Dawson's very different but equally good production for Scottish Ballet was performed there (see Empire Blanc: Dawson's Swan Lake 4 June 2916).  The Empire's audience seems passionate about dance and quite a few rose to their feet at the curtain call.  I think that the crowd lifted the dancers on Friday.  It was everything a night at the ballet should be.

The Good Nutcracker Guide

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Those who like The Nutcracker have a choice of three versions this year since all three of our flagship companies are staging the ballet this Christmas. The Royal Ballet and the Birmingham Royal Ballet offer their own versions of Sir Peter Wright's production in London and Birmingham respectively while English National will tour with Wayne Eagling's.

My first choice is the Royal Ballet's. I prefer the story where the fight between the mice and toy soldiers is confined to a dream in Act I and Act II is one great divertissement.  In Wayne Eagling's the battle is central to the story and continues into Act II as the mouse king follows Clara and Drosselmeyer by grasping the gondola of their balloon. In the Dutch National Ballet's version, which is also by Eagling and most recently performed last year, the work is actually called The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.   I suppose it becomes a sort of metaphor for the struggle between good and evil.  Another big difference between Wright's versions and Eagling's is that Clara morphs into the Sugar Plum in the latter.

There are some differences between the Birmingham and London versions of Wright's ballet. The Royal Ballet's designs are by Julia Trevelyan Oman whereas BRB's are by John Macfarlane. There are also differences between Eagling's versions for the Dutch and English National Ballets in that ENB's designs are by Peter Farmer whereas Het's are  by Toer van Schayk. However, van Schayk influences the choreography of the English version.

Audiences who want to see the Royal Ballet can catch it at Covent Garden between the 23 Nov and 12 Jan 2017. It will also be streamed to cinemas throughout the UK and the rest of the world on 8 Dec 2016. BRB's will run from 25 Nov 2016 to 13 Dec 2015 at the Birmingham Hippodrome. English National's will start in Milton Keynes between 23 and 26 Nov 2016, proceed to the Liverpool Empire between 29 Nov and 3 Dec 2016, and finish its run at the Coliseum between 14 Dec and 7 Jan 2017. It will also be performed in Southampton between 29 Nov and 2 Dec 2017.

It has been some time since I last saw either of Sir Peter's versions because I could find no reviews in the archives of my blog but I can offer you a review of Eagling's for ENB from three years ago (see Cracking 14 Dec 2013). I remember that performance particularly because it was almost the last time that I saw Vadim Muntagirov and Daria Klimentova dance together. I have seen and reviewed several other versions since including the revival of Peter Darrell's for Scottish Ballet (see Like meeting an old friend after so many years 4 Jan 2015) and David Nixon's for Northern (see Northern Nutcracker 19 Dec 2015) but neither of those companies is running a version of The Nutcracker this year. There is also some background information on The Nutcracker on my resource page for the ballet which I really should update.

Don't Expect Petipa

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The last time I saw Northern Ballet's Swan Lake I felt quite deflated. It was my birthday too and I felt as Vlad the Lad must have done after his mum and I beat him at snakes and ladders in the best of three on his birthday. We still had Tchaikovsky's majestic music. The dancing was superb.  But the story and settling were quite different.  I beetled down to London at the first opportunity to see the Royal Ballet's production. It was several years before I ventured back into the Grand for Northern Ballet.

Since then I have seen Grigorovich's production, Christopher Moore's and of course Matthew Bourne's so I am more receptive to the idea that there can be different versions of that great ballet. I am therefore rather gingerly giving Northern's version a second chance.  It is starting in Leeds between the 3 and 12 March before wending its way to Milton Keynes by way of Sheffield and Norwich.

If my feelings about it don't change I still have David Dawson's for Scottish Ballet to look forward to. They are coming to Liverpool on 1 June. Now that will indeed be a treat.

A Liverpudlian Whittington

A 19th Century Panto: Dan Leno and Herbert Campbell in Babes
 in the Wood, 1897

Source Wikipedia

Dick Whittingon, Liverpool Empire 26 Dec 2015

The first taste of ballet for many Brits is not The Nutcracker or Swan Lake in the Royal Opera House or some other great theatre but a Christmas pantomime in the local rep, town hall or community centre. A pantomime is a bit like a Christmas pudding in that it has just about everything thrown in (see the trailer for Dick Whittington at the Liverpool Empire)  A typical production is based loosely on a fairy tale or other popular story. There is a lot of singing and dancing, slapstick comedy including a lot of topical jokes some of which are quite blue and a great deal of shouting from the audience. No matter what the title of the entertainment there is always a man dressed as a woman known as "the dame", a villain, a comic, a principal girl and a principal boy who is also often played by an attractive young woman (see Pantomime Wikipedia).

Although pantomimes are performed in other English speaking countries they are most popular in the UK. They are part of the British Christmas like crackers, turkey with all the trimmings, mince pies and Christmas pud.  I remember my first pantomime very well. It was Babes in the Wood at the Palace Theatre and starred George Formby. My parents, Northern exiles, were terrified of my becoming what they called despairingly a "cockney clod" with whining vowels, an inability to distinguish between "f" and "th" and a regrettable tendency to insert an "r" into phonetically clear words like "grass" and "class". No doubt they reasoned that a dose of Formby would remind me of my Mancunuan roots but I am afraid that the only impression that he made on me was that he was not very funny because he was always laughing at his own jokes.

However, I was enchanted by the fairy who danced on pointe in a brilliant tutu.  Ballet in England has plenty of overlaps with pantomime. Think of Widow Simone in Ashton's La Fille mal gardée, villains like the Mouse King and Rothbart in The Nutcracker and Swan Lake and the sword fights in Romeo and Juliet. Some ballets like Cinderella and The Sleeping Beauty even share the same plot. And in the Liverpool Empire's Dick Whittington  my ballet teacher, Mark Hindle was in the cast.

My excuse for watching the show was that I was hosting Christmas this year for a little lad from London who can run like the wind and leap like a frog. We were badly delayed by a partial closure of the M62 which required a detour into central Manchester to pick up the M602 from Salford and arrived just as Dick and his cat were about to be banished from London for (allegedly) purloining Sarah the Cook's life savings. On the way back to Liverpool the Fairy Fazakerley (Sally Lindsay) revealed Dick's future in a dream on Whittington Hill. Thrice Lord Mayor not of London but of the infinitely greater city (at least in the view of the audience and no doubt also that of the indomitable Janet McNulty) of

LIVERPOOL.

Dick (Kurtis Stacey) enlists on board the Good Ship Lollipop which belongs to the father (Pete Price) of the lovely Alice (Leanne Campbell). The ship is wrecked off the coast of Morocco by a storm conjured up by the wicked King Rat (Warren Donnelly) and the audience are treated to a 3D cinema animation of the ocean deep. Sarah (Eric Potts) is stranded on the beach in her underwear. "I'm glad to see you again" says Dick "but perhaps not so much of you" when the adventurers are reunited. Fortunately she finds pantaloons and turban as the company belted out Jai Ho. Gita who once danced Bollywood on the stage of the West Yorkshire Playhouse was in her element. Morocco was infested with rats, a problem that Tommy the cat (Hayley Goold) resolved in no time. There was an epic sword fight in which King Rat escaped the fate of Tybalt. Dick won the lovely Alica and the company took its bow.

There was plenty of good dancing in various styles. Most of the dancers came from Dolphin Dance Studio which hosts KNT Danceworks in Liverpool where Mark HIndle used to teach for part of the week. Having danced with KNT in Liverpool Town Hall (It's not every Class that you can use Lord Canning's Eyes for Spotting 9 Sept 2014) and also with students from Liverpool in the Swan Lake intensive (see KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 1 18 Aug 2015) I was so proud of those young men and women. Their choreographer, Beverley Norris-Edmunds, deserves an enormous bouquet  for her trouble.

My guests and I met Mark after the show. He graciously accepted our praise and my thanks for all that I had learned from him. My little grandson manqué performed his act for him. Mark told his parents that he should try ballet which is what I have been saying for ages. Perhaps they will act on the advice now they have heard it from a pro rather than a doting granny.

Yesterday was the first time that I had set foot in the Liverpool Empire. It is a splendid theatre. Arriving late we were shepherded into row Q of the stalls but still had a magnificent view. The acoustics were excellent. When Idle Jack (Liam Mellor) invited four children on to the stage we heard  them perfectly. Incidentally, one of those children (a little girl called Summer) was as entertaining as any member of the cast. She wielded a drumstick at Mellor with real attitude as Jack gently teased her. Scottish Ballet is coming to the Empire with David Dawson's Swan Lake between 1 and 4 June. I shall be there and if you want to see a really good show in one of the best auditoriums in England so, too, will you. 

Dancing through the Summer

Saturday's end of year show brought term to an end at Northern Ballet Academy but as their website says

"just because the sun comes out (fingers crossed!) doesn't mean we have to stop dancing!"

Jane Tucker will be giving  classes to improvers on 4 and 11 Aug beginners on the 6 and 13 at Northern Ballet's studios in Leeds.

The same teacher is also teaching intensive workshops on Swan Lake and Giselle for beginners and advanced students at KNT Danceworks on the 19 and 22 Aug respectively.  I mentioned those courses in KNT Danceworks Adult Summer Intensives 7 May 2015. I shall attend Jane's beginners' classes at Northern Ballet and her Swan Lake intensive on the 19 August and will let you know how I get on.

In the meantime I shall attend at least two of KNT Danceworks ballet classes for beginners or complete beginners each week. These take place in Northern Ballet School's studios on Oxford Road in Manchester between 18:00 and 19:30 every weekday.  I have attended classes by Ailsa Baker, Karen Sant, Josh Moss and Sarah Butler and they are all good. I reviewed Ailsa's class in So Proud of Manchester - KNT Danceworks Complete Beginners Class on 29 Aug 2015. You can also see Gita's view in  Coming Back to Ballet  on 12 March 2015. She wrote:

"Ailsa is another good teacher and clearly very popular. I counted 50 students in her beginners’ class. She let me dance in socks - much easier than dancing barefoot . She was very friendly but still commanded everybody’s attention. She made us work very hard in the stretching and strength building exercises. There seemed to be a wide range of ability and experience from professionals to newbies. Ailsa was very encouraging. Because the class was large the vibe was magic and very chatty. Like all the other classes we started with barre exercises and stretches and then proceeded to port de bras and jumps. It was great fun."

As you can see from the abive flash mob video, KNT teach more than ballet. Gita and I have taken a contemporary class with them (see My First Contemporary Dance Class 27 Feb 2015. You will find the complete timetable here.

KNT also give classes in Liverpool.  I attended their taster classes in Liverpool town hall last September (see It's not every Class that you can use Lord Canning's Eyes for Spotting 9 Sept 2014. Details are posted on KNT Liverpool's Facebook page.

If you can't get to Manchester easily I can recommend Fiona Noonan's classes at Hype Dance in Sheffield (see More than just Hype - Beginners and Improvers Classes in Sheffield 14 May 2014) and the University of Huddersfield (see Team Hud Adult Ballet Class 22 Jan 2014). You will find Hype's timetable here and Tram Hud (that is to say, the University's) here.

Of course, if you live in or near London you are spoilt for choice.  Here is a directory of dance classes kept by londondance.com. It seems that every possible taste and style is catered for. So far, I have attended only one class in London - Adam Pudney's at Pineapple in November 2013. Joanna takes Amber Doyle's classes at Pineapple regularly and speaks very highly of them on Facebook and twitter.  I have not yet attended a class at Danceworks but I have watched Christina Mittelmaier's and Denzil Bailey's and was very impressed. Danceworks are now running classes for the over 50s (see Over 50s Ballet Classes at Danceworks 30 May 2015).  A particularly good deal for the summer is Danceworks 5 day membership pass for £10 which is available from 1 July to 6 Sept.

Finally an appeal. If anyone whether teacher, student or dance school wants to write about their classes please add your comments below or contact me through twitter or Facebook.

Post Script Joanna has tweeted from Tokyo

@jelterps I love @AmberdoyleAmber general #ballet Saturday/Sunday mornings & Adam Pudney Tuesday evening elementary #ballet @pineappledance

— Joanna Goodman (@JoannaMG22) July 7, 2015

I look forward to trying one of Amber's classes.

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.

It's not every Class that you can use Lord Canning's Eyes for Spotting

One of the chandeliers in the magnificent ballroom of
Liverpool town hall

Photo Jane Lambert 

A few weeks ago I had the honour of meeting Councillor Ian Selby the Mayor of South Kesteven at a dance event (see "Chantry Dance - Making Connections" 30 Aug 2014). This evening at another dance event I met Rachel Plant the Lady Mayoress of Liverpool. The occasion was an evening of dance classes in support of the Lord Mayor's charities in the magnificent ballroom of Liverpool Town Hall.

The classes were given by Karen of KNT Danceworks whose complete beginners' class in Manchester I reviewed on 29 Aug 2014 (see "So Proud of Manchester - KNT Danceworks Complete Beginners Class"). Karen offered us three beginners' classes in ballet, jazz and contemporary. Like most of us who turned up at the town hall I took all three classes and enjoyed them all.

As you can see from the photos on its website Liverpool town hall is a magnificent building and the ballroom is probably the most impressive part of it. Some idea of its grandeur can be obtained from the photo of one of its chandeliers. There were well over 30 dancers in the room.  All of us were women and most were in their twenties or thirties though they were several who were not far short of my age.

As there was no barre in the ballroom we had to execute pliés, tendus, glissés, ronds de jambe and grands battements unaided which I found quite difficult but a very good discipline. Next we did a port de bras starting with a chassé to the right, arabesque and soutenu which was repeated on the left. We practised it together and were then divided into groups in which we performed it again. The next exercise was chaînés. Karen told us to spot something. Immediately to my right was a massive portrait of Lord Canning so I locked on to his eyes. Usually one has to make do with a door handle or a vase on the piano. Such was the glory of the setting. Next we had jumps and finally temps levés from right to left and left to right. And then, alas, the reverence. Like every good dance class it was over all too soon.

In the room next door the Lady Mayoress welcomed us to refreshments and a display of materials in aid of her mothers' charities. There were poems, sweets, badges and other goodies. Rachel Plant gave us a short presentation on dementia aided by a game of dementia friends' bingo in which she taught us some of the facts of the condition. Clearly that is a topic on which Ms Plant has considerable expertise.

After the break Karen gave us a jazz class, This was a first for me. After a warm up we learned a routine. I found jazz much faster than ballet and I struggled to keep up. However, it is also very exuberant and I am certainly coming back for more.  We practised the routine as a group and then performed it in groups.

Karen allowed us a few minutes to grab a drink and then on with contemporary which was another first for me. This was he hardest part of the evening largely because it involved a lot of floor work which us not easy for a 65 year old. However, I gave it my best shot and after two or three goes I think I was getting the hang if it by the time we had to do final stretches.

A few weeks ago someone posted on Facbook: "You can't buy happiness but you can buy a dance class and that's kinda the same thing" Judging by the chattering and laughter, tonight's classes showed just how true that is.

Postscript

I have embedded a tweet from Liverpool town hall with a lovely picture of our teacher and the Lord and Lady Mayoress at the entrance to the town hall,

Karen from @danceliverpool with @CllrEricaKemp & @RachelPlant5 @TownHallLpool pic.twitter.com/u46yC2z0Sf
— Liverpool Town Hall (@TownHallLpool) September 8, 2014