Dutch National Ballet: Congratulations All Round

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It's always a pleasure to announce promotions.

First, congratulations to both the Dutch National Ballet and Rachel Beaujean on the latter's appointment as Associate Artistic Director of the company. It is the culmination of a stellar career as a dancer, ballet mistress, choreographer and head of the company's artistic staff.  Here she is talking about her production of Les Sylphides or Chopiniana.  She will strengthen considerably an already great company.  This year Beajean will celebrate her 40 years with the company, an anniversary that will be celebrated at the opening night gala on the 12 Sept 2017.

Beginning their careers in the main company are two outstanding young dancers I know personally and two more whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting but whom I feel I know very well from their Vlog. The two dancers I know are Melissa Chapski and Priscylla Gallo. I first saw them in Ballet Bubbles at the Meervaart Theatre on my birthday last year and I later saw Priscylla at Trecate in Cristiano Principato's Gala for Alessia (see From Italy with Love 1 July 2016). The vloggers are Salome Leverashvili and Timothy van Poucke and I have mentioned their vlogs in Missing Amsterdam 18 Feb 2017 and Dutch National Ballet's New Season and a New Vlog from Tim and Salome 21 Feb 2017. Last but not least is Rafael Valdez. I don't think I have not yet had the pleasure of making his acquaintance but I am sure he will impress me with his dancing. Congratulations and very best wishes to each and every one of those five young dancers.

Finally, it gives me enormous pleasure to see one of my compatriots in the Junior Company. Conor Walmsley is one of the Junior Company's  new recruits and he comes from  Yorkshire. To be more precise he comes from East Yorkshire.  Xander Parish also comes from that part of the world as does Kevin O' Hare. Great local heroes to inspire this talented young dancer.

"Mesmerizing!"

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"Mesmerizing!" Not my adjective but that of Leon London, a member of the audience who watched Giovanni Princic and Melissa Chapski dance at the Natalia Kremen Foundation gala on Sunday night and kindly commented on my preview of that event.  Ernst Meisner's Embers is one of my favourite ballets and if you watch the film you will see why. Short ballets can be as great as full-length ones (viz Fokine's Dying Swan per Wikipedia) and I think this masterpiece by one of the best choreographers I know will become a classic too. The dancers in the film are the ones who danced on Sunday night.

Another work that impressed Leon was the British premiere of a duet from La Scala Ballet's Progetto Handel which was performed for the first time in Milan on 20 May 2017. As you can see from La Scala's website this is a full-length work created by Mauro Bigonzetti to some beautiful music by George Frederick Handel. The website contains a detailed description of the ballet if you click on the "Synopsis" tab.

Leon thought that the gala was "superbly produced" with grand imperial showpieces interspersed with contemporary and some brilliant performances by the students of Natalia Kremen Ballet School.  Having seen some pictures that have been posted to Facebook by Graham Watts, I think one of those grand imperial pieces must have been the pas de deux from The Nutcracker danced by Yorkshire's very own Brandon Lawrence and Delia Mathews of the Birmingham Royal Ballet.

Leon described the ballet as "a gem" but lamented that it was not fully attended with some 75% of the seats sold.  I feared that might happen which is why I did my best to promote the event on Sunday. Had I learned of it sooner I would have been there for a start and so might a lot of my readers. I only found out about it when I did because I follow Giovanni and Melissa on Facebook and Melissa posted a note about the show to her timeline.  If those in charge of the school ever contemplate a similar gala, I invite them to notify me well in advance so that I can drum up some support. Dance education is very dear to my heart.

Possibly because we are lucky enough to have as our capital one of the world's two ᾁ++ Weldstädte (see the table in Weltstadt in Wikipedia) those who live in that city tend to forget that there is culture outside. As I gently reminded dear, dear Cassa yesterday in Ballet Black's Tour 20 June 2017 conurbations like Greater Manchester, the West Midlands. West Yorkshire, Greater Glasgow, the Bristol-Cardiff corridor and Merseyside are as populous and as economically significant as most of the EU's capitals. Some of the institutions of those city regions, such as the Birmingham Royal Ballet, Scottish Ballet and the Halle Orchestra, are world class. We travel to London for shows like this one that are worth seeing and causes like Ms Kremen's ballet school that are worth supporting.