Nixon - An Appreciation

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On 28 May 2021, Northern Ballet announced the retirement of its artistic director, David Nixon (see David Nixon OBE steps down as Artistic Director of Northern Ballet after 20 years 28 May 2021 Northern Ballet).  He has already held that job longer than any other director of the company. When he stands down at the end of the year he will have been with the company for over 40% of its history.  

Good things have happened to Northern Ballet during that time. The company's move to Quarry Hill will have been appreciated by the artists and technicians but it has also enabled ordinary folk like me to dance in the same studios and occasionally even upon the same stage as the artists. The work of the Academy and the Leeds Centre for Advanced Training are other significant achievements.  There are, of course, adult ballet classes and centres of advanced elsewhere but one of the distinctions of the Academy and the Leeds Centre is whether aiming for a career in dance or simply dancing for fun, all students are trained under the Ichino Technique:

"Under this method, young dancers learn how to cope with the physical and emotional demands of dancing through preventative conditioning, a clear understanding of their individual strengths and limitations and a detailed knowledge of dance technique."

Yoko Ichino, the deviser of that technique, is also Mrs David Nixon.

Nixon is highly regarded as a choreographer.  While I can't say that I have liked all his work he is the author of two masterpieces. One is A Midsummer Night's Dream  which I reviewed as follows in Realizing Another Dream on  15 Sept 2013:

"Perhaps the best way to start this review is at the end. I could not help rising to my feet as the cast took their bows. And I was not the only one. The English, unlike Americans, are very slow to give standing ovations (except at party conferences) and I have only seen other in my lifetime. That was a special evening for Sir Frederick Ashton at Covent Garden in July 1970 when he retired as director of the Royal Ballet. It seems from the tweets and video that Northern Ballet's short season at West Yorkshire Playhouse (6 to 14 Sept 2013) has also been very special."

Nixon's other masterpiece is Madame Butterfly.  In my review I wrote:

"it took my breath away. I have seen a fair selection of Nixon's work and in my humble opinion Madame Butterfly is his masterpiece.

To his credit, Nixon has commissioned major works from his own artists and I have enjoyed these better than many of his outside commissions.  Particularly successful was Kenneth Tindall's Casanova and Daniel de Andrade's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

There has been a lot of speculation about who will succeed Nixon and what he will do next.  I have no idea about either but I know whom I would like to see apply for the role.  I think dance education is very important and two of my favourite candidates are artistic directors of great ballet schools, one in mainland Europe and the other in London.  Both have worked with exceptionally gifted young dancers in the important years between finishing vocational education and joining a company. The other candidate has already been an artistic director.  She has created sensations in San Francisco and London and also worked for Northern Ballet.  As for Nixon, someone on BalletcoForum suggested an important role for him in North America. 

Whether Nixon takes up a new appointment or retires I wish him all the best for the future.

1984 and All That - Northern Ballet's New Season

Sellar and Yeatman's 1066 and All That is one of the books that we all read at school.  George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is another. Jonathan Watkins's arrangement of Orwell's novel for Northern Ballet opens to a full house at the West Yorkshire Playhouse on 5 Sept 2015 is the company's big ticket production for the new season. Northern Ballet has released this hour long video on YouTube with talks by Watkins, David Nixon, rehearsals, a pas de deux by Tobias Batley and Martha Leebolt and more.

After Leeds the production tours Nottingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Southampton culminating in a season at Sadler's Wells between 24 and 28 May 2016. My favourite venue for anything in Northern Ballet's repertoire is West Yorkshire Playhouse because it feels like the company's home. It is a stone's throw from Quarry Hill and the auditorium is so intimate. I have seen some lovely shows there in the past, notably A Midsummer Night's Dream on 14 Sept 2013 (see Realizing Another Dream 15 Sept 2013). Unfortunately, the West Yorkshire Playhouse season clashes with the Dutch National Ballet's opening gala in Amsterdam and professional commitments in London (see Triple Dutch 4 July 2015). If any of my readers would like to review the opening night I should be very grateful.  I will catch the ballet in Manchester or Sheffield with my Swiss friend who first dew it to my attention even though she does not go a bundle on ballet (see 1984 28 Feb 2015 and Für Andrea - more Information on 1984 26 July 2015).

Another new ballet in Northern Ballet's repertoire is the children's ballet Tortoise and the Hare which is choreographed by Dreda Blow and Sebastian Loe. Blow spoke briefly about her work for children in the panel discussion on narrative dance in ballet on 20 June 2015 (My Thoughts on Saturday Afternoon's Panel Discussion at Northern Ballet 21 June 2015). She told a delightful story about one child's reaction to one of her ballets. Although I had already admired her as a dancer I warmed to her ever more. Tortoise and the Hare opens at The Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds on 22 Oct 2015. It will also be performed in Southampton on 6 May 2015.

Elves and The Shoemaker another children's ballet choreographed by Daniel de Andrade to music by Philip Feeney is touring Hull, Nottingham, Canterbury, Manchester, Woking, Newcastle and Bradford. I saw it in Huddersfield on 11 April 2015 and reviewed it in The Ballet comes to me 12 April 2015.

Also coming to Hull is Madame Butterfly which I described as Nixon's Masterpiece in my review of the opening night in Doncaster. Another popular Nixon ballet Wuthering Heights which I saw in Sheffield on 18 March 2015 is coming to Canterbury in October and Bradford in November. Northern Ballet's take on The Nutcracker where the Stahlbaums become the Edwardses is coming to The Grand between 16 Dec 2015 and 2 Jan 2016 after touring Woking, Newcastle and Norwich. I saw it twice and sort of half reviewed it in my IP law blog for solicitors and patent agents in Manchester and Liverpool (Cracking Nuts - Copyright in Choreography 24 Nov 2011 IP North West). Even more liberties are taken with Swan Lake which is coming to Leeds, Norwich and Milton Keynes in the new year. I saw it in Leeds with my late spouse first time round. We both regarded it as interesting in the sense of "May you live in interesting times".

Nixon's Masterpiece

Northern Ballet, Madame Butterfly with Perpetuum Mobile, CAST Doncaster, 21 May 2015


Yesterday Northern Ballet began a nationwide tour of venues that it has not visited before or not visited for some time. In the programme David Nixon, the company's artistic director, wrote:

"I am excited that you are joining us for a new tour, an initiative inspired to make quality dance available to more people an to expand the creativity and diversity of Northern Ballet's programming,"

The tour opened at CAST in Doncaster, a £22 million municipal theatre that opened in 2013 (Ian Youngs £22m Cast theatre opens in Doncaster 6 Sept 2013 BBC website). It will go on to Blackpool, Liverpool Playhouse, Wolverhampton, Leicester, Richmond, Bromley, Stoke, Aylesbury and Hull.

The choice of Doncaster as the starting point for the tour is interesting. Planning for the tour must have begun well before the general election. It may or may not be relevant that the town is represented in Parliament by Mesdames Rosie Winterton and Caroline Flint and by Mr Ed Miliband. Had the election gone the way that the opinion polls and many Labour Party strategists predicted Northern Ballet would have been performing in the town of the Prime Minister and two Cabinet Ministers. Some very influential people would have been in the audience. Some kind of event appears to have taken place yesterday because I met Lauren Godfrey, the company's communications manager, in the foyer clutching a bunch of programmes that were not for sale and I spotted Mark Skipper, the company's chief executive, near her.

Spending £20 million on a theatre at a time of austerity when local authorities have been cutting back on all sorts of services might seem extravagant to some. I have to say that my heart sank when I first saw the theatre from the street leading from the Civic Quarter car park. It looked as though it belonged in a different era and perhaps even a different country. I don't like the architecture one little bit. Its style is monumental and bombastic. It would not have looked out of place in 1960s Harlow or indeed the German Democratic Republic. However, I do like the theatre. The seats in the main auditorium are comfortable with plenty of leg room. Everyone has a good view of the stage. Provision is made for late comers. I paid £16 for my ticket in row I of the stalls not counting my donation to the theatre and a 50p booking fee. I was served a soft drink in the interval without queuing at the price I would expect to pay in a pub or café by a very pleasant barman and found a choice of unoccupied tables. It is a few hundred yards from the car park where I paid £2 for an evening's parking. I could have come by train from more or less anywhere on the British mainland as the mainline railway station is nearby. I could even have arrived by air because Doncaster has an international airport.

The Council justifies its £20 million expenditure as part of a regeneration package for the town that has lost much of its heavy industry.  I am no fan of public funding for the arts but the performing arts are one of the things that make life worth living. If such expenditure retains the brightest and best of Doncaster's inhabitants and perhaps even attracts wealth creators from elsewhere to the town I am all for it. Certainly there were signs that that might be happening for the theatre was packed. Even allowing for the possibility that some of the seats were occupied by those attending a shindig that was impressive. It was an appreciative crowd that knew when and where to clap. They clearly liked the show for several rose to their feet at the curtain call.

The company deserved a standing ovation because I don't think I have ever seen it dance better and I have seen some pretty good shows in the past (for example, see Realizing Another Dream 15 Sept 2013, Angelic - Northern Ballet's Mixed Bill 9 June 2013 and Sapphire 15 March 2015). The evening began with Christopher Hampson's Perpetuum Mobile which would have been enough for me had there been nothing else to see. I am a great admirer of Hampson's work and can't see enough of it. That ballet had delighted me when I saw it as part of the Mixed Programme on the 9 May 2015 and it was, if anything, even better this time round. I loved the leaps and elegant turns but most of all I enjoyed Martha Leebolt and Tobias Batley's pas de deux. However, the main offering of the evening was David Nixon's Madame Butterfly. I had not seen it before and it took my breath away. I have seen a fair selection of Nixon's work and in my humble opinion Madame Butterfly is his masterpiece.

The ballet follows the story of Puccini's opera fairly closely. Like the opera it addresses some big issues like racism, clash of cultures, the oppression of women etc. When you think about it, Madame Butterfly has quite a lot in common with Giselle though unlike that ballet there is no happy ending in Madame Butterfly even beyond the grave. It is a powerful, brutal story in which no punches are pulled. The final scene of Cio-Cio alone on stage, desolate, plunging the sword into her body is one of the most affecting I have ever seen in the theatre not just in ballet but in any of the performing arts. 

Cio-Cio San was performed by Pippa Moore, a beautiful dancer whom I already admired greatly. Yesterday she soared even higher in my esteem and affection. How she delighted us with her ecstatic jumps as she anticipated the return of her husband. How she mimicked his salutes and handshakes much to the amusement of Suzuki danced by Luisa Rocco. How she punished Goro (Matthew Koon) with nicks from her fan for his temerity in presenting another suitor. How we suffered with her at her final betrayal when she was forced to confront Kate Pinkerton (Lucia Solari) after the cowardly Lieutenant had disappeared unable to face her.

Pinkerton was danced by Kelley McKinlay, a guest artist from Canada. He performed that role well. Dashing and swaggering in the opening scenes as he wooed Cio-Cio but faltering and weak in the last as he left it to his wife to snatch their son from her. Kevin Poeung and Isaac Lee-Baker were Pinkerton's brother officers, lads on the town in a foreign port having the time of their lives. Ashley Dixon danced Sharpless, the consul with a conscience. Hironeo Takahashi danced the menacing Shinto priest Bonze and the hapless suitor Yamadori.

John Logstaff's orchestration  of Puccini's music was very successful. All the well known and well loved tunes were there. The score was opened and closed with what I assume to be traditional Japanese music. The voice that accompanied Cio-Cio's preparation for her ritual suicide was haunting and chilling but also strangely beautiful. The set designs - particularly the massive orb and the icons - were impressive as was Alistair West's lighting.

Other Reviews

Vera Liber   Madame Butterfly with Perpetuum Mobile British Theatre Guide