Heavy Arts: Flashdance

I mentioned Heavy Arts Theatre School in my article on The Base Studios, Huddersfield on 2 March 2013. On 25 and 26 May 2013 Heavy Arts presented Flashdance at The Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield. I bought tickets for myself and a friend largely out of loyalty to the show's producers. I had expected a good amateur performance but nonetheless an amateur one. In fact the show exceeded my expectations. It was good. by any standard.  It was exuberant. It was energetic.   It was polished. It was poignant.  And in some scenes it was funny.

Based loosely on the film which grossed over US$201 million in box office receipts the musical tells the story of how Alex, a young woman working in a Pittsburgh steelworks by day and in a bar by night with very little formal education achieves her ambition of becoming a dancer against all the odds.  There are a number of sub-plots.  Her employer's nephew, Nick, uses his influence to get Alex an audition.  Her friend, Gloria, is tempted away to a pole dancing joint where she is abused by its owner, Kool and has to be rescued by Alex.  Alex's mother, Hannah, is shot in an armed robbery by  Jimmy, Alex's first date, who is desperate to raise a few hundred dollars.

This plot provided a setting for some good songs and even better dancing.  A triumph for the producer, director and choreographer Sean Sedley and the producer and general manager Matt Slater.  Sedley and Slater coaxed the best out of their cast - Caroline Hamilton who played Alex, Alex Jones who played Nick, Leah Varnam who played Hannah, Lawrence Guntart who played Jimmy, Oliver Burkill the sinister Kool and Florence Anstey, Beki White and Macy Varnham who played Alex's friends, Gloria, Keisha and Jazmin. They were all good - as indeed were the performers I have not mentioned - and it would be invidious to single out any of them out for special praise.

The scene changes were slick moving convincingly from a steel mill to Hannah's dry cleaning shop, a ballet school, Alex's flat, Kool's Bar and so on.  There were some difficult technical effects such as the end of the first act when the heroine was doused in what appeared to be a jet of water.  I struggle to see the point of that scene but it was still impressive.

There was just one detail that did not quite work for me and that was the accents.   For most of the audience it would not have mattered but having lived and worked in the USA they grated on me.  Pittsburgh is a steel town in Western Pennsylvania rather like Sheffield.  Like Sheffield it has its own distinct speech patterns that are recognizable instantly in America. "Still" for "steel", for instance, and "yous" for the second person plural. There are some good examples on YouTube. The actors managed something vaguely transatlantic but it was not Pittsburgh. The show would have been even better for me had the company stuck to their native speech.. Either than or they find themselves a good dialect coach.

According to the programme  Flashdance is the company's tenth show since 2007 and they have tried some very ambitious productions.  I look forward to their next show.

The Base Studios, Huddersfield

"Huddersfield is not as famous in the world of classical dance as St Petersburg, Paris or London," observes the Birmingham Royal Ballet's website, "but it was the birthplace of David Bintley - one of the most consistent and significant forces in British ballet."   But the birthplace of the Director of one of the world's great ballet companies is not our town's only contribution to dance.

I am not referring to the photograph above which is the town's railway station and not an opera house even though its splendid portico bears more than a passing resemblance to the Bolshoi Theatre but to The Base Studios at 3 New Street where I render my very humble homage to Terpsichore's muse every Tuesday at 20:00 trying the bottomless patience of the adult ballet teacher Fiona Noonan, 

Fortunately, The Base has much better students than me even in the adult ballet class and in its Youth Dance Academy which I mentioned in one of my other blogs ("Huddersfield Youth Dance Academy Auditions 26 Jan 2013" IP Yorkshire 18 Jan 2013), it is nurturing some quite remarkable talent.   

Other activities that may well produce another Bintley include Heavy Arts  the resident youth production company which provides students with the opportunity to work with professional artists to create full-scale youth musical productions. Students for the Heavy Arts programme are taught in three groups:  Juniors (ages 5-8), Intermediates (ages 9-12) and Seniors (ages 13+).  I am told by Matt Slater, the Base's General Manager, that one of the programme's Juniors will be in tonight's première of Northern Ballet's "The Great Gatsby" in Leeds.  This remarkably talented child has already performed recently in two of Nixon's other works.   

Of course, ballet is not the only type of dance to be taught at The Base Studios.   There's a great list of other styles on The Base's Dance Classes page and it is ever expanding.   I can't keep up with it which is why I have invited Matt to become an author of this blog and I am even more delighted to say that he has accepted. So there is at last one contributor to this blog who knows what he is talking about.

Finally, Terpsichore is not the only Muse that Huddersfield honours.  It is also the home of the Choral which claims not without justification to be the UK's leading choral society "producing a unique and thrilling full-bodied ‘Huddersfield Sound’ from over 200 voices."  The University has a great music school which hosts the famous Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival every autumn. There is an excellent art gallery and the Lawrence Batley repertory theatre . 

This Pennine town which is my adopted home is not as large as St. Petersburg, Paris or London but it is no worse a place than any of those metropoles for producing and refining exceptional talent.

Update

9 Mar 2013  The Base Studio's Facebook page with great pictures of Sean, Fun Fridays, the rehearsal studio and my wonderful teacher.