Northern Ballet's Mixed Programme

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Northern Ballet  Mixed Programme (The Kingdom of Back, Mamela, The Shape of Sound) Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, Leeds 15 Sep 2018, 19:30

A triple bill should be balanced and varied like a good meal.  The Dutch National Ballet Junior Company got it right in their fifth anniversary performance earlier this year (see "In the Future" - Junior Company's Fifth Anniversary Performance 17 April 2018). They started with a bit of Bournonville, continued with Juanjo Arqués's Fingers in the Air and finished with some vintage van Manen.  In contrast Northern Ballet's Mixed Programme was samey and far too long. 

That was a shame because each of the works in the Mixed Programme was worthy enough but they  would have been appreciated more had there been a little more variety.   Northern Ballet has plenty of works in its repertoire that it could have used - Mark Godden's Angels in the Architecture, Hans van Manen's Concertante and Jonathan Watkins's Northern Trilogy to name just three.  Had any of those works been sandwiched between say a Watkins and a van Manen the evening would have been much better.

Of the three works in the programme I liked Kenneth Tindall's The Shape of Sound  best.  His score was Vivaldi's Four Seasons recomposed by Max Richter.  There were some spectacular moments such as when his male dancers bounded onto stage in unison almost in silhouette.  There were also quieter moments when the dancers seemed to become architecture.  There was clever lighting some of which appears to have been designed by Tindall himself.  There were curious touches like linear makeup intersecting the eye line at angles of 90 degrees.  Tindall's cast included Hannah Bateman, Antoinette Brooks-Daw,  Ashley Dixon and Abigail Prudames,

Mlindi Kulashe is an exciting dancer so I had expected some exciting choreography from him.  His piece, Mamela.....  which means "listen" in Xhosa, turned out to be pensive and restrained - subdued even.  That may be because the programme states that it encompasses frustration, escapism and imprisonment though he left it to each member of the audience to create his or her own narrative.  I am mot sure how many of those themes came over. Imprisonment perhaps but only because of the greyish blue dungaree style costumes and the absence of women until some way into the piece.   Kulashe chose a score by Jack Edmonds which opens and ends with the human voices.  The movements were jerky with sudden turns and stretches.  Kulashe used 9 dancers of various levels of seniority from first soloists Joseph Taylor and Abigail Prudames to members of the corps.  One dancer who stood out for me was Ommaira Kanga Perez and I shall look out for her in future.

The Kingdom of Back by Morgann Runacre-Temple offered the only levity in the evening.  It opened with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's elder sister bearing an elaborate 18th century hair piece on her head which she removes at her brother's behest.  The piece focused on the relationship between the siblings relationship with their father and each other.   Some of my favourite dancers were in the piece including Javier Torres who was my male dancer of the year last year and Mlindi  Kulashe, Antoinette Brooks-Daw and Rachael Gillespie.  A lot of composers contributed to the score including Wolfgang Amadeus and Leopold Mozart and David Bowie.  The ballet grabbed my attention with its start but I had to work hard to follow it towards the end.  A good idea but it was rather long.

The Mixed Programme will be performed again at the Cast theatre in Doncaster tonight and tomorrow and in Newcastle in April. It is worth attending though I have seen better work including better triple bills from Northern Ballet.

Ballet Black return to Leeds

Millennium Square, Leeds

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Ballet Black, Mixed Bill, Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, Leeds 20 Nov 2015

Ballet Black always do well in Leeds for the reasons I stated in Ballet Black at Home in Leeds 7 Nov 2014. Last night was no exception. They returned with Sayaka Ichikawa, one of their most respected and best loved senior artists after a year's absence, and two outstanding young dancers, Mthuthuzeli November and Joshua Harriette. In a company the size of Ballet Black they are a substantial addition. Judging by their performance yesterday, a good one.

The programme that Ballet Black brought back to Leeds was the same as the one that they had launched at the Linbury (see Ballet Black's Best Performance Yet 17 Feb 2015) and performed in Nottingham (see Exactly My Cup of Tea 27 June 2015). This season in Leeds is likely to be their last performance of those works in the United Kingdom for some time though they are dancing them in Germany on 26 Nov 2015. When we see them again at the Barbican on 18 and 19 March 2016 they will have a new programme of works by Christopher Hampson, Christopher Marney and Arthur Pita.

The evening opened with To Fetch a Pail of Water? by Kit Holder danced by Kanika Carr and Jacob Wye. This is a work that can be sweet and innocent or dark and slightly menacing depending entirely on the cast. Yesterday it was danced sweetly by Carr and Wye. The near capacity crowd loved it as did I. Because I changed my ticket from Saturday to Friday at the last minute in order to see Northern Ballet's Wuthering Heights in Bradford I was seated towards the top of the auditorium. That turned out to be an advantage because I caught detail such as the rustling of clothes that I had missed in London and Nottingham when I was close to the stage. The significance of the question mark clicked at last. It is a shame that I won't see the work for a while now that I understand it a little bit better.

Depouillement was our first opportunity to welcome back Ichikawa who was as delightful as ever and see November and Harriette for the first time. Actually I had seen November in May when Ballet Central visited the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre and he had impressed me then (see Dazzled 3 May 2015). He did so again last night from his very first jump. This is a fine work by Will Tuckett and it was danced exquisitely by Damien Johnson, Cira Robinson and Isabela Coracey as well as by Ichikawa, Harriette and November.

Even though I have read and re-read Yeats's short poem since I first saw Mark Bruce's Second Coming in February and have now seen it three times I am still no nearer to understanding it. I think the work has more to do with voodoo and animism than the poem. There are two ritual stabbings with a dagger by the ruler danced by Johnson. The dancers are forced to pass through a hoop - literally kicked through by Carr in one case. In her angel costume with tiny wings Carr can do creepy as well as sweet when she so wishes.  The hoop seems to be the boundary between reality and some fantasy work. On the other side there is some gorgeous dancing to Shostakovich and and a delightful duet by Johnson and Robinson. Yeats writes of

"A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds."

In the ballet the shape has a lion's head and the body of a man and that's the creepiest bit if all. Maybe the ballet is not meant to be understood any more than the poem or even the book of Revelation from which it was inspired. Perhaps we should just relish the beautiful dancing, choreography, the haunting music and Dorothee Brodruck's rich designs.

The stage darkened and the auditorium erupted with applause. Not just polite ballet applause with the occasional "bravo" or "brava" but ululations and stamping. From the back of the theatre it was deafening. I feared for a moment that the seating would collapse from the vibrations. Leeds loves Ballet Black as Sharon Watson acknowledged in the Q & A that followed the performance when she thanked the company for performing in our city. What I did not realize until that Q & A was that Cassa Pancho had drawn inspiration from our own Phoenix Dance Theatre. Ballet Black and Phoenix have much in common. Yet another reason why Leeds loves Ballet Black.

Between Friends - Northern Ballet's Mixed Programme

The Architect - Trailer from Kenneth Tindall on Vimeo.

Northern Ballet, Mixed Programme, Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, 9 May 2015

Every Spring Northern Ballet presents a programme of short ballets to its public in Leeds and London. For me that programme is the highlight of the year because the company is at its best.  Not all the works in the programme are new but they are always fresh as the dancers seem to delight in performing them. That delight is picked up and reciprocated by the audience which makes these shows very intimate and very precious.

This year is special because it is the 45th anniversary of the formation of the company which it celebrated with the Sapphire gala (see Sapphire 15 March 2015). The company included three of the works from that gala in the programme.  They were Jonathan Watkins's A Northern Trilogy, Daniel de Abdrade's Fatal Kiss and Demis Volpi's Little Monsters.  They formed part of the first act which was crowned with Christopher Hampson's Perpetuum Mobile. Top of the bill was Kenneth Tindall's The Architect  which I had seen last year (see Jane Lambert A Wonderful Evening - Northern Ballet's Mixed Bill 21 June 2014 23 June 2014 and Mel Wong Kenneth Tindall - The Architect of Ballet 21 June 2014).

It was lovely to see the first three ballets in the intimacy of the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre. A Northern Trilogy is a pas de deux by Martha Leebolt and Tobias Batley, a solo by Kevin Poeung and a narrative by Leebolt and Barley joined by Hannah Bateman, Dreda Blow and Isaac Lee-Baker to Stanley Holloway's Yorkshire Pudden, One-Each A-Piece All Round and The Lion and Albert. The  opening pas de deux was danced "with Heavenly magic ...... As light as a maiden's first kiss", the solo proudly "as any gentry" and the Lion and Albert with love. I enjoyed A Northern Trilogy when I first saw it at The Grand but I relished it in the the company's own theatre.

The same is true of the other ballets, particularly Fatal Kiss danced passionately by Lucia Solari and Javier Torres.  Since the gala I have seen van Dantzig's 5 Tangos performed by Scottish Ballet which is also to the music of the tango composer Astor Piazzolla (see No Mean City - Accessible Dance and Ballet 26 April 2015) which helped my appreciation of de Andrade's work. The dance represents a life which ends in a full frontal kiss on the lips that means death.

Little Monsters is danced by Dreda Blow and Joseph Taylor to three Elvis songs. In Love me Tender we see only Blow's arms which grab Taylor's body first his upper body then his legs like a clamp as she appears about to devour him. It is love all right but love in the sense of "I'd love a tender steak" rather than "I love him tenderly."  By contrast, in "Are you Lonesone Tonight" the dancers were apart and almost disconnected.

Christopher Hampson's Perpetuum Mobile was the only work I had not seen before and what a surprise and delight. Choreographed to Bach's Violin Concerto in E Minor it has joyful leaps for the men and turns for the women.  It is exhilarating to watch but demands much from the dancers. The company did Hampson proud. Batley and Leebolt were brilliant, of course, but so too were Lucia Solari, Abigail Prudames. Ayami Miyata, Kevin Poeung, Isaac Lee-Baker, Sean Bates and Rachael Gillespie. I love to see Gillespie dance and I don't think I have ever seen her dance better.

Even though he created it last year The Architect is Kendall's first show as an independent choreographer and it was impressive. Tindall spoke about the show immediately after the matinee performance. He explained how he wanted to explore the story of Adam and Eve but tie it in with science. He referred to the double helix of the male dancers' costumes representing DNA.  Do we carry Adam's disobedience in our DNA? The words of Milton* sprang to mind:

"Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe..."

That prompted a question from me about the characters on the chests of the male dancers which reminded me of DNA sequencing. Tindall confirmed that the allusion was deliberate.

Gillespie was in The Architect and again it was a joy to see her.  But the others were great too: Antoinette Brooks-Daw, Abigail Prudames, Jeremy Curnier, Matthew Topliss, Mlibdi Kulashe and Matthew Koon who joined Miyata and Lee-Baker. The lighting and the set design were like extra dancers particularly in the last scene when humanity combined to grab the apple. The ballet was striking. Even better second time round.

This show is on its way to The Linbury with the substitution of Mark Godden's Angels in the Architecture for Perpetuum Mobile. Angels in the Architecture is a gorgeous ballet that I saw in the 2013 Mixed Programme (see Angelic - Northern Ballet's Mixed Bill 9 June 2013). It has the same music and even some of the same choreography as Martha Graham's Appalachian Spring. I would have liked to have seen that too though I wouldn't have missed Chris Hampson's ballet for the world.  London is in for a treat.

Further Reading

14 May 2015  Joanna Goodman Mixed Programme - with a sweet centre (the Mixed Programme in London)

* An old boy of my school as it happens

Au Revoir rather than Goodbye

As every reader of this blog knows, I am a huge fan of Kenneth Tindall.  Tindall makes his last appearance as a principal of Northern Ballet at Milton Keynes Theatre where he will dance Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights with Julie Charlet as Cathy. It will be quite a special occasion and one of the events arranged for Friends and Patrons (and prospective Friends and Patrons) of Northern Ballet will be a post-matinee performance discussion held in the MK Gallery from 16.45 which is next door to the theatre. Anyone who wants to come to that talk should email Joanne Clayton.

Although this will be Tindall's last appearance with Northern Ballet as a dancer it will not be his last connection with Northern Ballet.  The company will dance The Architect at The Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds as part of its mixed programme between the 6 and 9 May 2015 and at The Linbury in London between the 12 and 14 May 2015. Both Mel and I reviewed that work when we saw it last year (see Mel Wong Kenneth Tindall - The Architect of Ballet 21 June 2014 and Jane Lambert A Wonderful Evening - Northern Ballet's Mixed Bill 21 June 2014 23 June 2014).

I am sure readers (many of whom will be at Milton Keynes Theatre) will join me in wishing Kenneth Tindall toi-toi for Saturday and ever greater success in his career as a choreographer.

Further Reading

Northern Ballet  14 Years with Kenneth Tindall  29 Apr 2015
Jane Lambert   Kenneth Tindall 28 Feb 2015

A Wonderful Evening - Northern Ballet's Mixed Bill 21 June 2014

I am very grateful to Mel for her excellent review of Northern Ballet's Mixed Programme (see Mel Wong "Kenneth Tindall - The Architect of Ballet" 21 June 2014). She saw the show on Wednesday at the start of the company's short season at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre.  I saw it on Saturday night at the end of the run and loved it too. It was a wonderful evening. For me Concerto 622 was the most joyful of the three works, Concertante the most elegant and The Architect the most thrilling.  

I think I am more of a Lubovitch fan than Mel. Concerto 622 was just my cup of tea. I was close to tears for most of that performance, partly because of the intrinsic beauty of the ballet and partly because of the connotations in that it reminded me of Jerome Robbins's Dances at a Gathering which I will always associate with Antoinette Sibley.  In my view the most beautiful part of the ballet was the Adagio. This was a pas de deux by Giuliano Contadini and Matthew Koon. I don't have a video of those dancers but you can appreciate the choreography from this video which has been uploaded by Lubovitch. I particularly liked the butterfly sequence.  Others may have had other relationships in mind but the tenderness between those dancers put me in mind of my 3 year old grandson manqué and his doting dad.

Like Mel I am a van Manen fan and have been for many years. Almost a contemporary of Maurice Béjart, John Cranko, Peter Darrell and Kenneth MacMillan he is the last of the great choreographers of my youth. I had the good fortune of seeing him take a curtain call at the first performance of the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company last November. A van Manen ballet is rather like Palladian architecture. There is order and proportion in the choreography, costumes and score. For this work Northern Ballet deployed its stars, Martha Leebolt and Tobias Batley, who were well supported by Giuliano Contadini, Hannah Bateman, Jessica Morgan, Nicola Gervasi, Abigail Prudames and Isaac Lee-Baker.

The tour de force was The Architect by Kenneth Tindall. This is the third of his works that I have seen this year and it is by far the best (see my review of Luminous Jun*cture  in Angelic - Northern Ballet's Mixed Bill 9 June 2013 and mention of Bitter Earth in More Things I do for my Art - Autumn Gala of Dance and Song 30 Sept 2013). It is a multi layered ballet that has to be seen more than once to be understood fully. It can best be described as a creation myth that somehow combines Genesis with genetics. There was the story of the forbidden fruit and the fall of man but there was also a double helix and 4 sets of characters on each male dancer left breast which seemed to me to be DNA sequences from where I was sitting. The choreography was spectacular as was the dancing and Christopher Giles's set was out of this world. There were what appeared to be three bamboo canes each with a living being inside it and a lattice structure like the Eiffel tower through which the dancers crashed and dived towards the end.

As I said above The Architect is a ballet that has to be seen more than once and probably many times to be understood properly. Happily we will all get the chance to see the ballet and study it as often as we need because it is to be filmed. Two weeks before the première of The Architect Tindall and Bateman appealed for funding for the filming on Kickstarter (see "Tindall's Architect - How to Get a Piece of the Action - Literally" 7 June 2014) and I am glad to say that they met their target with just hours to spare ("They made it" 20 June 2014). I an proud to say that both Mel and I put £10 each into the pot and I for one am looking forward to the result.