Christmas at the Dancehouse

Reproduced with kind permission of the Dancehouse Theatre

Manchester City Ballet Christmas at the Dancehouse 7 Dec 2918, 19:30, The Dancehouse, Manchester

Whenever I can I take the train to Oxford Road on a Tuesday or drive to Leeds on a Wednesday for a 90-minute ballet class.  I can't really keep up with students decades younger even though I do my level best but I am made to feel welcome at both classes and I always have fun.  When, by some enormous fluke, something does go right the smile on the face of the teacher is palpable.

The teachers of both classes and many of their colleagues whom I also revere were trained at the Northern Ballet School in Manchester.  They are all great human beings as well as fine teachers and accomplished dancers and the institution that produced them deserves support.  So, every December (when I can get a ticket) I  attend the annual performance of the School's classical ballet company, Manchester City Ballet, and every Spring I attend the showcase of Jazzgalore, its jazz and musical theatre company.

In all the previous years that I have been following the company, Manchester City Ballet has staged a full-length classical work at The Dancehouse theatre. I have seen and reviewed some excellent productions of The Nutcracker, Giselle and  Coppelia (see Alchemy 13 Dec 2014, Manchester City Ballet's Giselle 12 Dec 2015 and Manchester City Ballet's Coppelia 10 Dec 2016).  This year they did something different with their Christmas at The Dancehouse. They gave us Act II of The Nutcracker for the second part of the evening showing that they can do Spanish, Arabian, Chinese and Sugar Plum as well as anybody when they choose to do so, but they presented their own choreography using their singers as well as kids from McLaren Dance Company in Winter Wonderland for the first.

I must admit that I read the webpage advertising the show with some apprehension but the combination worked,  It gave a fuller picture of the school whose students elect a classical or jazz and musical theatre focus.  It showed, for instance, that some of its students can sing as well as dance. Francesca Thompson, for example, sang a contemporary version of Silent Night and danced the Rose Fairy.

There were some hilarious pieces such as Four Tramps where four strong men (Daniel Gooddy, James Hanna, Lucas Holden and Thomas Yeomans) entered with hands linked cygnets style actually dancing a few steps of that dance.  I know of one choreographer and a ballet mistress who would have kittens had they been in the theatre last night, but why not?  They were representing drunks and they gave a whole new meaning to pas de bourrée (for those who have forgotten their French "bourrer" means "to stuff" and to be bourré means to have had a skinful).  Another bit which worked better than one would think was a czardas to traditional Christmas carols. Finally, the Winter Wonderland was linked to The Kingdom of the Sweets when Father Christmas gave Clara (Ruby Nuttall) a nutcracker.

All credit to the choreographer, Lisa Rowlands, the ballet mistress Amanda Gilliland and the technical manager and lighting designer, Gary Whittaker.  I really liked the sets, lighting and projections, particularly of falling snow. Whoever thought of the idea deserves congratulations for her or his daring because it has paid off.

The second part included the best bits of Act II of The Nutcracker.   All danced well but I particularly liked Irene Ganau as chocolate (or the Spanish dance), Ioanna-Maria Antoniou and Elisa D'Acciavo as tea (the Chinese dance) and three of the four drunkards from the first part (Gooddy, Hanna and Yeomans) transformed into Russians.  The fourth of their number, Holden, danced the Sugar Plum's cavalier and although I admired his jumps and turns I had an anxious moment when he lifted Airi Aoki, especially in the final fish dive.  I thought perhaps they needed more time together.

Altogether I found it a very good show and anybody who can get to Manchester for this afternoon's matinee or this evening's show is in for a treat.  I thanks all the students who took part for entertaining us and wish them well for the remainder of their studies and their future careers.

Manchester City Ballet's Coppelia

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Manchester City Ballet, Coppelia, The Dancehouse, 9 Dec 2016, 19:30, 10 Dec 2016

In Of Bikes and Buses 25 Oct 2016, I mentioned a short debate on Radio 4 between the newspaper critic, Luke Jennings, and David Nixon of Northern Ballet on "making ballet relevant to today." If relevance is your pigeon, you can't go far wrong with Coppelia. You don't need to change the story, commission a new score or give your dancers sticks to carry in their mouths. Coppelia has everything. Artificial intelligence. Societal dysfunction with juvenile delinquents roughing up a pensioner on his way to the pub and ladettes breaking into his workshop and trashing his handiwork. The ballet even anticipated the Turing test.

I like the ballet for many reasons none of which have anything to do with the music or choreography. It is about ordinary human beings in a rural village in deepest Mitteleuropa. Dr Coppelius is an inventor. Indeed, he reminds me of so many of my clients. After annoying his fiancee to such an extent that she nearly breaks off the engagement Franz plans a clandestine visit to the girl on Coppelius's balcony at the dead of night by ladder. Much like the defendant in R v Collins.

Manchester City Ballet, Northern Ballet School's performance company, has been dancing Coppelia at the Dancehouse Theatre since 8 Dec 2016. I had booked tickets for last night but I was delayed by congestion in Manchester city centre and missed the whole of the first act.  As I could not fairly review a ballet after seeing just two-thirds of the show I returned this afternoon to see the whole performance. It was very, very good.

Seeing the show one and a half times enabled me to see the four lead dancers in different roles.  Marin Shimizu danced Swanhilda last night and Dawn this afternoon.  Nika Lipolt was Dawn yesterday and Swanhilda this afternoon. Miguel Angelo danced Franz yesterday and Ted Beattie this afternoon.  Those four danced their roles differently but equally well.   Beattie and Lipolt are taller than Angelo and Shimizu and commanded the stage particularly well but Shimizu has dazzling technique particularly in the poses of her solo in the final pas de deux and she is an accomplished actor.  Everyone in the cast danced well but I must give a special commendation to Callum Green who was a great Coppelius.

The show was produced by the School's principal, Patricia McDonald, who was assisted by choreographers, Anton Alexandrov and Lisa Rowland and Ballet Master, Matthew Paluch. Polly Ward and the school wardrobe department produced the costumes. I don't know who designed the scenery but he or she did a good job.

If I can get up in time to catch the 04:48 from Huddersfield to Manchester airport I should see a very different Coppelius  by Ted Brandsen in Amsterdam.  I will tweet about that during the day and will review it properly when I get back to Britain.

Manchester City Ballet's Coppelia

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Manchester City Ballet is the performing company of the Northern Ballet School. Two of my favourite teachers, Cara O'Shea and Jane Tucker, danced with that company. It is for the time being our metropolis's only resident ballet company and thus an institution to be treasured.

Just before Christmas, the company performs a full-length classical ballet. Last year it was Giselle which I reviewed in Manchester City Ballet's Giselle 12 Dec 2015. The year before it was The Nutcracker which I reviewed in Alchemy 13 Dec 2014. This year it will be Coppélia which the company will perform at The Dancehouse on Oxford Road between the 8 and 10 Dec 2016. Manchester City Ballet last performed that ballet in 2012, when they were reviewed very favourably by Ian Palmer of Dancing Times and Mike Dixon of Dance Europe (see Coppelia 2012 Reviews).

Tickets are now on sale from the Dancehouse's box office on 0161 237 9753 or 0161 237 1413 or on-line at £12 (£10 concessions).

The Northern Ballet School has recently announced a series of auditions between 7 Nov 2016 and 13 Feb 2017. Further information on admissions is available on the Application Details page. Best wishes to anyone thinking of applying.

Showcase and Move It at the Dancehouse

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The Dancehouse theatre at 10 Oxford Road in Manchester is the sister company of Northern Ballet School which is an international centre of excellence in training for classical ballet and musical theatre. Every December the school's performing company, Manchester City Ballet, dances a full length ballet in the theatre. I reviewed the company's performances of The Nutcracker in Alchemy on 13 Dec 2014 and Giselle last year. Every July the students from the jazz theatre focus join the ballet students in an exuberant Showcase of Dance. I reviewed last year's show in Serendipity 10 July 2016. This year it will take place between 7 and 9 July 2016.

In the evening and on Saturdays the Dancehouse's studios which are used by the Northern Ballet School during the day are opened up to the general public for classes in all kinds of dance. Today, for example, there are classes in flamenco and hula as well as intermediate ballet.  On Mondays there is tap, jazz, contemporary and belly dancing. On Saturdays there are classes in Chinese traditional, classical and folk dance.  I attend ballet classes given by each of the teachers shown in the clip above and enjoy them very much (see So Proud of Manchester - KNT Danceworks Complete Beginners Class 29 Aug 2014).

The evening and Saturday students also present a show from time to time. I was in the last one last in January (see One of my proudest moments - Dancing in Move It! 31 Jan 2016 and I reviewed the summer show in Better than Eurovision on 24 May 2015. This year's summer show takes place on 18 June 2016 and tickets can be obtained on-line from Ticketline or by phone on 0161 237 9753 or 0161 237 1413 for £5.00.

Manchester City Ballet's Giselle

Manchester City Ballet's Giselle

Photographer Caroline Holden

(c) Northern Ballet School 2011 all rights reserved

Reproduced with the kind permission of the School

Manchester City Ballet, Giselle, The Dancehouse, Manchester 11 Dec 2015

Yesterday I saw Manchester City Ballet, Northern Ballet School's performing company, dance Giselle and I am convinced that I saw some stars in the making. Giselle is not an easy ballet to dance because it makes considerable demands on technique, particularly in the leading female roles, but also because the ballet is a study of powerful emotions such as grief, guilt, jealousy, remorse and, above all, love not all of which the young men and women who performed last night may have experienced. This is a ballet that could easily go very wrong but instead it went very right. A great credit to the producer, Patricia McDonald, the choreographers, Anton Alexandrov and Rachel Hernon who teach at the School, and, of course, the cast.

When I reviewed the company's performance of The Nutcracker last year I mentioned Yukiho Kasai who danced one of the Mirlitons, Sayaka Sugimoto who danced Columbine and Carlos Oliveira and Alex Burrows who were in the Russian dance (see Alchemy 13 Dec 2014). This year Kasai was Giselle, Sugimoto was Myrtha, Oliveira was Albrecht and Burrows and Sugimoto danced the peasant pas de deux. One of the pleasures of following a student company is watching the development of young talent and each of those four has grown considerably. Last year they were promising. This year they are good.

One of the difficulties of Giselle is that it consists of two very different acts. The first is a jolly, bucolic scene until the very end with the gathering of the grapes, the peasant pas de deux and the arrival of the aristocrats' hunting party. There are hints of trouble as Giselle picks the petals off a flower, Albrecht reaches for a sword when Hilarion challenges him with a knife, Giselle falters with what appears to be chest pain and, of course, when Hilarion discovers Albrecht's sword and scabbard but could anyone have foreseen the tragedy at the end? Act II is spooky, A grave in a forest clearing with dangerous malevolent spirits couruing across the stage. This is the act in which the corps comes into its own with its tricky arabesques and travelling steps.

Transitioning between those two acts requires dramatic as well as balletic skills and this is where Kasai impressed me. I have seen some of the world's greatest ballerinas dance Giselle but I can't think of any who pulled off the mad scene better than her. The shock, almost a blanching of the face, the whites of her eyes as she learned of her betrayal and humiliation. She reappeared in act II in a cloud of dry ice dancing with the energy of an uncoiled spring. She performed both parts of her role - the impressionable young girl in act I - and the noble, forgiving spirit in act II - exquisitely.

In both acts Oliveira partnered Kasai masterfully. In the second he showed some real dignity in his remorse. Sugimoto danced her two roles convincingly - the exuberant peasant girl possibly a bride in act I and the icy bringer of vengeance in act II. There were two other talents that I don't remember from last year - Miguel Cardoso who danced Hilarion and Cameron Barclay who was Wilfred, Albrecht's faithful groom. I look forward to seeing them again in future shows.

There were a few little glitches in individual performance but I have seen far worse from established companies. Polly Ward is to be congratulated for her costumes as is the designer of the sets whoever he or she may be.

The programme contains a short history of the Northern Ballet School which does not appear on its website:

"NBS graduates from the company have joined over forty ballet companies worldwide, ranging from the Birmingham Royal Ballet to the Hong Kong Ballet and from the Norwegian National Ballet to the Yuma Ballet of Texas."

Several of its alumni, Jane Tucker, Karen Sant, Josh Moss, Mark Hindle and Cara O'Shea have taught me and I have learned so much from each of them. A school that can produce dancers and teachers like them must be special.

The Factory begins to take shape

Manchester  Graffiti

Photo Mike Colvin

Source Wikipeda

Creative Commons Licence

In his Autumn statement last year the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised a £78 million investment in a new arts centre in Manchester to be called "The Factory". I picked it up in my article  Let's bring the Royal Ballet to The Factory Manchester 11 Dec 2015. The Chancellor, whose constituency is in the Manchester city region, repeated his promise yesterday (see George Osborne’s Autumn Statement speech in full 25 Nov 2015 Financial Times).

The Autumn statement coincided with press reports of the appointment of the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas to design the Factory (see Rem Koolhaas wins Factory design project as Manchester goes Dutch 25 Nov 2015 The Guardian, The Factory: CGIs of Manchester's multi-million pound culture hub  released 25 Nov 2015 Manchester Evening News and OMA wins competition to design huge Manchester arts venue The Factory 25 Nov 2014 De Zeen). Work is to start on the site next year and the building should be finished by 2019.

When completed the Factory will host the Manchester International Festival which featured artists from the Paris Opera Ballet in Wayne McGregor's Tree of Codes this year. Next year it will première Akram Khan's Giselle for English National Ballet. Manchester which is visited regularly by the Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet and Northern Ballet as well as smaller companies is probably the biggest audience for dance outside London.

So we now have an audience for dance and we will soon have a major venue for the performing arts in the city. All we need now is a major resident company. As I hinted last year we would welcome the Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet with open arms if it wanted to resume the negotiations for a Northern home which were terminated by the change of government last year.

Or we could build out own. Some of the building blocks are here. We have the Northern Ballet School in Oxford Road which already has its own performing company known as Manchester City Ballet. It will perform Giselle at The Dancehouse between 10 and 12 Dec 2015.  There is also the Centre for Advanced Training in Dance at The Lowry. All we need is to commitment and money.

Giselle in Moscow, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, High Wycombe and Manchester

Dutch National Ballet's Giselle


This afternoon at 16:00 the Bolshoi Ballet's Giselle will be transmitted to cinemas across the United Kingdom and many other countries (see Live Performances streamed from the Bolshoi and Covent Garden 20 Sept 2015). I shall watch it at the National Media Museum in Bradford but I believe it will be shown by the Odeon, Cineworld and most of the other nationwide chains. It should be a very good performance. Svetlana Zakharova dances Giselle, Sergei Polunin Alnrecht, Denis Savin Hans (aka Hilarion) and Yekaterina Shipulina as the queen of the wilis. I shall review the show tomorrow.

Much closer to home the Dutch National Ballet is staging Giselle in Amsterdan between 13 Oct and 15 Nov. Tsygankova, Makhateli, de Jongh, Wotmeyer and Shesterikovare in the cast together with many other of my favourite dancers. That will be good too.

Another Giselle will come to us from New Zealand.  Adult Beginner wrote a great review of that ballet when the Royal New Zealand Ballet visited Los Angeles last year (see Giselle 8 Feb 2015 Adult Beginner). The company will dance that ballet in Edinburgh between 27 and 31 Oct and High Wycombe between 6 and 7 Nov where I shall see it.

Finally, our very own Manchester City Ballet (the performing company of Northern Ballet School) will dance Giselle at the Dancehouse between 10 and 12 Dec 2015. Tickets are on sale on Ticketline.

A Showcase of Dance by Northern Ballet School

I have just received an email from Northern Ballet School advertising A Showcase of Dance at the Dancehouse Theatre in Manchester between the 9 and 11 July 2015.

The showcase is

"the annual event which combines completely new choreography with the best of this year's dance performances produced by Northern Ballet School's Manchester City Ballet and Jazzgalore dance companies."

It will be the last chance to see the Northern Ballet School's students before they graduate and begin their careers.

I attended School's performance of The Nutcracker in December and enjoyed it very much indeed (see Alchemy 13 Dec 2014). I have also attended KNT Danceworks' ballet and contemporary classes in the Dancehouse studios (see So Proud of Manchester - KNT Danceworks Complete Beginners Class 29 Aug 2014 and My First Contemporary Dance Class 27 Feb 2015) which is all good stuff.

Tickets cost between £8 and £15 and are available from the theatre box office and Ticketline.

Chookas to everybody in the show.

Alchemy

Manchester's Theatre Street: The Dancehouse Theatre, Northern Ballet
School and KNT Danceworks

Photo Wikipedia

Manchester City Ballet, The Nutcracker, Dancehouse Theatre, 12 Dec 2014

For the last week Jeannette Winterson has been talking about Manchester on Radio 4. The title for her talks is Manchester: Alchemical City. She has chosen that title to celebrate our city's genius for creating riches of all kinds - intellectual, cultural, spiritual as well as material - out of base matter.

A good example of that genius is Northern Ballet School which set up in a derelict cinema on Oxford Road. If Manchester is to the United Kingdom what St Petersburg is to Russia then Oxford Road which connects out great universities to several of our theatres and concert hall is our Theatre Street (see "The New Mariinsky" 4 May 2013 for the significance of "Theatre Street").  The space has been converted into a magnificent centre for the study and performance of all kinds of dance. As well as the School, which justifiably describes itself as "an international centre of excellence in training for classical ballet and musical theatre" there is KNT Danceworks for adult classes which I attend whenever I can  (see So Proud of Manchester - KNT Danceworks Complete Beginners Class 29 Aug 2014) and the Dancehouse Theatre. Every year, members of the school dancing as Manchester City Ballet, present one of the classical ballets in that theatre.  This year they chose The Nutcracker which I saw last night.

The Nutcracker must be a challenge to stage because every member of the public thinks he or she knows the ballet and has his or her own notions as to how it is to be performed, whether a balletomane or not. It is one of the traditions of Christmas like Handel's Messiah. Most of  the major companies of the world have a version in their repertoire. The ballet is often shown on television. Tunes from the ballet like the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Waltz of the Flowers are played, whistled and even sung in all sorts of versions. There is not much of a story and thus not much for the principals to do but there is lots of character dancing and the second act is chock full of divertissements. 

Because the ballet is so well known choreographers and producers are tempted to put their own twist on the story and introduce gimmicks such as balloons. That is nearly always a mistake.  As I said when I reviewed Chelmsford Ballet's production ("The Nutcracker as it really should be danced - No Gimmicks but with Love and Joy" 20 March 2014) the ballet works best when it holds fast to Hoffmann's story and Petipa's choreography. Yesterday's performance by Manchester City Ballet was true to the original though the Stahlbaums were elevated to the Russian nobility as Count Pyotr and Countess Katrina, Drosselmeyer was renamed Kazimir and Clara's naughty little brother was called Misha rather than Hans or Fritz.

There were some interesting linkages between the first and second Acts. Clara had an elder sister called Natalia who morphed into the Sugar Plum Fairy and Natalia's fiancé in Act I became the Sugar Plum Fairy's cavalier in Act II. The battle scene between the toy soldiers and the rodents was one of the best I have ever seen. That was choreographed specially by Anton Alexandrov separately from the rest of the ballet which was choreographed by David Needham.  I should add that I loved Sarah Oxley's set designs, particularly her backdrop for the kingdom of the sweets with cup cake fillings substituted for onion bowl cupolas.

Manchester City Ballet showed that Northern Ballet School has a lot of very promising young dancers. Misato Ito who danced the Sugar Plum Fairy and Natalia and Jack Brownhill who was Sugar Plum's cavalier and Natalia's fiancé displayed considerable virtuosity. Nicole Hamill was an adorable Clara. She was given much more to do than in many productions in that she danced several of the divertissements of Act II.  Her dance with the children was particularly charming. Steven Lloyd, who also danced Clara's father was a magnificent King Rat. Luca De Martino, who was also Harlequin and in the Chinese tea dance was a great Nutcracker. Bradley Parsons, who also danced in the Spanish chocolate was an excellent Kazimir (Drosselmeyer). Megan Reid danced delightful solos in the snowflake and waltz of the flowers. While all the divertissements were good I cheered particularly loundly for the Russians - Alex Burrows, Carlos Oliviera and Harry Powell - the Mirlitons - Yui Hayahsi, Yukiho Kasai and Aida Martinez Pastor - and Columbine - Sayaka Sugimoto who also accompanied Bradley Parsons in the Spanish dance.

Unlike the second city of Russia the second city of the United Kingdom does not host a major ballet company for the moment (though that may change with the massive investment in The Factory - Manchester (see "Let's bring the Royal Ballet to The Factory Manchester" 11 Dec 2014)), but our city does have a very good ballet school on its theatre street.

Post Script
If you want to find out more about Northern Ballet School and the studios in which KNT Danceworks operates there is a beautifully made video called "Want To Be Here - A taste of life at Northern Ballet School" which I thoroughly recommend.

A Mancunian Nutcracker

Whenever I can I cross the Pennines to take the beginners or complete beginners classes at KNT Danceworks  (see So Proud of Manchester - KNT Danceworks Complete Beginners Class 29 Aug 2014). The instructors are clear and patient and the students are friendly. Everything one could hope for in a ballet class.

KNT Danceworks is next door to The Dancehouse theatre which presents comedy, drama and music as well as dance. However, between the 11 and 13 Dec it will host Manchester City Ballet which provides performance experience for the students of the Northern Ballet School. Judging by the extracts from Coppelia, Giselle and other performances on the School's YouTube channel those young men and women are good.

I shall be there to review the show on the Friday. Booking details are set out on the poster above.