A Thoroughly Good Chap - HNB's Next Artistic Director

Ernst Meisner

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The appointment of Ernst Meisner as the next Artistic Director of the Dutch National Ballet is excellent news and nowhere will it be welcomed more than in this country.  He trained at the Royal Ballet School and spent the first 10 years of his career with the Royal Ballet.  While he was here he staged a gala at the Orchard Theatre in Dartford at which he invited Leanne Benjamin, Alina Cojocaru, Zenaida Yanowsk, Ed Watson, Filip Barankiewicz and four dancers from Russia to perform (see Mara Galeazzi Ernst Meisner: My Project in Dartford 4 June 2005).  Since returning to the Netherlands in 2010 he has maintained many connections with us.

I first made his acquaintance in 2013 when he responded to my review of the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company's first performance at the Stadsshouwburg in Amsterdam on 24 Nov 2013.  The company was about to take its show on a tour of the Netherlands, Having attended the recording of an outstanding performance of The Messiah by the Huddersfield Choral Society at the Huddersfield Town Hall I sent the Junior Company the DVD of the recording to play on the road.  The next year he asked Richard Heideman, the company's press officer, to arrange for me to interview him and his remarkable young artists (see Jane Lambert Meet Ernst Meisner and His Remarkable Young Dances 6 Dec 2014 Terpsichore),  On their next performance at the Stadsshouwburg Ernst invited me to meet him the dancers and their families at a reception after the show. I have kept in touch with many of them ever since.

Two weeks after the Junior Company returned to London in 2015 the Dutch National Ballet Christopher Wheeldon's Cinderella at the Coliseum.   I saw it on 11 July 2015 and loved it (see Jane Lambert Bend It Like Cinders - My Take on Cinderella 18 July 2015 Terpsichore),  Anna Tsygankova and Matthew Golding danced the lead roles but several of the members of the Junior Company whom I had met in Amsterdam were given roles in Cinderella.

Every year the company presents extracts of its work from the previous year as well as other short pieces at a gala and throws a party.   I attended the gala on  8 Sept 2015 which I described without any hyperbole as The best evening I have ever spent at the ballet in Terpsichore. Following my visit I joined the Friends of the Dutch National Ballet and have been a fan ever since.

When I first met Ernst he was the "artistic coordinator" of the Junior Company.  He is now its Artistic Director.  He later became Artistic Director of the Dutch National Ballet Academy and is now the Associate Director of Talent Development.  Above all, he is an exceptionally talented choreographer.  I cannot watch Embers without tears welling up but my all-time favourite is No Time Before Time.  This work expresses perfectly the energy and exuberance of the Junior Company. In my lifetime the Netherlands has produced three towering figures;  Rudi van Danzig, Toer van Schayk and Hans van Manen.  It is no idle flattery to mention Ernst Meisner in the same breath.

I have illustrated this article with a frame from Ernst's Online Ballet Class video.  He gained a whole new worldwide audience from those classes during lockdown,  Those classes kept us moving and gave us hope. I followed every single class and am enormously grateful for them.   

When Ernst Meisner becomes Artistic Director, the Futch National Ballet will be in excellent hands.

Welcome Back! Junior Company returns to the Linbury

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Dutch National Ballet Junior Company Young Talent Festival Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House 5 July 2019, 19:45

Last night I dashed down to London to welcome the Dutch National Ballet, Junior Company back to the UK. I have been following them since 24 Nov 2013 when I first saw them at the Stadsshouwburg in Amsterdam.  They visited London for the first time in 2014 (see And can they fly! The Dutch National Ballet Junior Company at Covent Garden 30 May 2014) and again in 2015 (see Junior Company in London - even more polished but as fresh and exuberant as ever 7 June 2015). Since then the Linbury has been closed for refurbishment.  Last night they returned as part of the Royal Ballet's Young Talent Festival.

I went to Amsterdam in 2013 to see Michaela DePrince whom I had first mentioned in April 2013 - several months before she joined the Junior Company,  I saw her at the Stasshouwberg and was impressed:

"I had come to Amsterdam to see Michaela dePrince about whom I have written a lot. She appeared as Diana in Diana & Actaeon a ballet originally choreographed by Agrippina Vaganova for the Kirov in 1935. Soviet ballet was athletic and spectacular requiring enormous virtuosity. I had seen something of dePrince's virtuosity in her YouTube videos but she is even more impressive in real life. She is quite simply the most exciting dancer I have seen for quite a while."

But I was also impressed by the other 11 dancers. I have followed their careers and those of their successors ever since. I have seen many performances by several cohorts of the Junior Company but I don't think I have ever seen the Junior Company dance better than they did last night. 

More satisfyingly, the audience loved them. London sees a lot of dance - possibly more than any city in the world with the possible exception of New York - and balletomanes in our national capital do not easily rise to their feet for anything. I have always stood up for the Junior Company but in London, I have often been the only one. Yesterday I was joined by others and there was certainly a lot of noise even from those who had remained seated.

The programme started with Ernst Meisner's No Time Before Time.  That is one of my favourite ballets from one of my favourite choreographers of all time. Meisner's work touches my emotions in a way that only one other work has ever done.  When I see Embers, for example, my eyes begin to water, I start to sniffle, my body begins to tremble. I deploy every single sinew to control myself.  Only Fokine's Dying Swan has the same effect on me and that is at least partly because of its association with Pavlova.  No Time before Time is exuberant and makes me want to join the dancers on stage. It has a beautiful score by Alexander Balanescu that echoed tin my brain all the way back home to Yorkshire. Lasr night's cast interpreted it differently from those who danced it at Lausanne and the Meervaart in 2016. Perhaps more sensitively and delicately but equally delightfully. 

The next work was Charlotte Edmonds's Fuse which I had also seen at the Meervaart in 2016.  Set to Armand Amar's Dam in China and Paddy Fields it begins with three dancers who appear to be bound to each other with their bonds behind their back. As the music changes from vocals to percussion the dancers appear to break free.  In a short speech before the show, Ernst Meisner explained that the idea for Fuse had originated on the Linbury stage the last time the Junior Company had visited London.  They had been so impressed with Edmonds's work that the company had invited her to create a work for the Junior Company in Amsterdam.  In a short video which was shown before the piece was performed Edmonds reflected on the encounter between different cultures, interests and traditions. "Fuse" in this context appears to mean the result of mixing rather than the ignition of explosive (though it could also have meant that). The first time that I saw that ballet, I wrote:  "This was the first time I had seen Edmonds's work and I look forward to more." Since then I have seen more at Northern Ballet's Tell Tale Steps 2 and I look forward to her work with Ballet Cymru.

Daniela Cardim's Cardim's What got you here was the only work that I had not seen before.  It was a thought provoking piece but one that was not entirely bereft of humour.  There was a commentary which started with a celebration of the genetic accident that each individual represents but continued with the chilling thought that well over 99% of all life forms  that have ever existed are now extinct. There was an exchange of finger pointing that seemed to result in a realization that any responsibility for such mass-extinctions is pretty widely shared. There was the interesting discussion of the circularity of time and movement. If a traveller started in a straight line to travel to the end of the universe he would eventually return to his starting point.  More disturbing was considering what would happen if we knew the world would be destroyed within 4 years by the explosion of a neighbouring star,  Would farmers bother to plant crops or deliver them to stores?  The work ended dramatically with the dancers pointing accusingly at the audience before retracting their fingers and directing them to themselves.

An interval followed Cardim's work in which members of the audience were equipped with tiny red and green torches for Juanjo Arques's Fingers in the Air.   That was a work I had seen at the company's fifth anniversary show on 15 April 2018 (see  "In the Future" - Junior Company's Fifth Anniversary Performance 17 April 2018).  This time the commentary was in English. The audience was asked to vote on whether the men or women should dance, whether we wanted to see solos or duets and whether we wanted the dancers to perform with or without lights.   It did not matter because at the end we were shown what we had been missing but the audience voted for the women, duets and lights. The site of the whole company dressed in the same black leotards was compelling.  Arques was in the audience. I greeted him just before his piece started. It happened to be his birthday, What a way to celebrate!

The last work was Hans van Manen's In the Future.  I had seen that work in the fifth anniversary show and also at last September's gala.  Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, two new movements were added to In the Future.   According to the programme notes, these were Winter and The Sound of Business which were part of David Byrne's Music for the Knee Plays album.  I enjoyed Winter and the Sound of Business but I would have preferred to see them as separate pieces. Each of those works is a complete work itself in words and music as well as dance.  It was, however, a spectacular way to end a very successful evening and a triumphant return to London.

The Junior Company will perform again tonight at 19:45. I do not know whether tickets are still on sale at the box office but if they are and you can reach the House in time I strongly recommend this show,

Terpsichore Titles: Best Choreographers

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Three awards this year and they all go to choreographers associated with the Dutch National Ballet.   The first is for full-length ballets, the second for one act works or less and the third is for the best new full-length ballet in the United Kingdom. My choice for the first category is Ted Brandsen, for the second Ernst Meisner and for the third David Dawson.

Two of the highlights of my year were Mata Hari (see Brandsen's Masterpiece  14 Feb 2016) and Coppelia (see Brandsen's Coppelia 12 Dec 2016 and Pictures of Coppelia 15 Dec 2016) and they were both created by Ted Brandsen. I also saw two of my favourite young dancers, Cristiano Principato and Emilie Tassinari, in Brandsen's Replay when I went to Italy in June (see From Italy with Love 1 July 2016). These were very different works but each and every one was a masterpiece in its own way. As I said in my last post, there has been some brilliant full-length works by Bintlley, Dawson, Maillot and Marston this year and they all have merits but Brandsen wins it on points.

If Brandsen won the full-length contest on points, Meisner won the short works title with a knockout. I fell in love with No Time before Time when I saw the video from Lausanne. I was amazed when I saw it at the Meervvart in Ballet Bubbles on 14 Feb 2016 and carried to my feet with the crowd's acclamation when I saw it at the gala in September. In my review of the gala I wrote:

 "The first time I saw the video of Ernst Meisner's No Time Before Time was in the Prix de Lausanne finals. I fell in love with it there and then. When I saw it live for the first time in Ballet Bubbles at the Meervaart Theatre on my birthday on Valentine's day it was the best present anyone could possibly receive. I expressed my appreciation in Thank You Ernst a few days later. Ernst Meisner is an extraordinary choreographer. His Saltarello had been the highlight of the Junior Company's Stadsshouwburg show of 24 Nov 2013. The performance of Embers by Nancy Burer and Thomas van Damme to the haunting music of Max Richter was my favourite of the following year. I described it my review as quite simply one of the most beautiful ballets I have ever seen. Well, No Time Before Time is Ernst's best work yet."

In the video above Ernst Meisner talks about his craft. It is well worth a listen.

Dawson's Swan Lake was so good that it has to be acknowledged (see Empire Blanche: Dawson's Swan Lake 4 June 2016). It was the best new full-length work for a British company all year though Cathy Marston and David Bintley were not far behind. Dawson produced a work of which Peter Darrell would certainly have been proud and Petipa too perhaps.

The Terpsichore Titles: Outstanding Young Dancers of 2016

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In The Year of the Swans: My Review of 2016 27 Dec 2016 I wrote:

"Every so often one spots a dancer with what I call the wow factor. Michaela DePrince had it when I first saw her in Amsterdam in 2013 and described her as "quite simply the most exciting dancer I have seen for quite a while" (see The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 25 Nov 2013)."

I have already mentioned Michaela DePrince. Xander Parish stood out in much the same way when I saw him for the first time in York in July 2007.  The outstanding young dancer title is for a young man or woman who impresses me in very much the same way as they did. Such performances do not grow on trees. For many years it may be impossible to make a selection.

Also, such a selection will always be very unfair. As readers can see from the above YouTube clip, all the young dancers in the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company are excellent and they are just one company. Because I live near Manchester most of the performances that I see are in Britain or the near continent. There must be so many great performances that I do not see in Russia and other countries in the former Soviet Union, in the United States the other great powerhouse of dance, not to mention China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Cuba and the rest of South America and the entire continent of Africa. Indeed, as I live 200 miles north of London, 250 south of Glasgow and at least 100 from Birmingham there will be many breathtaking performances in my own country that I never get to see.

This year there are two dancers who stand out in the way that Parish did in 2007 and DePrince in 2013 and I want to acknowledge them both.

One is the young Brazilan dancer, Daniel Robert Silva, who began Ernst Meisner's No Time before Time at the Meervaart Theatre on 14 Feb 2016 (see Ballet Bubbles 16 Feb 2016), in Lausanne where the ballet was premiered and at the opening gala of the Dutch National Ballet's season. I saw Silva again as the bronze idol in La Bayadere and he impressed me again even more (see Dutch National Ballet's La Bayadere 14 Nov 2016).

The other is Gwenllian Davies of Ballet Cymru. In the Riverfront Theatre on the banks of the Usk in Newport on Guy Fawkes night, I witnessed something extraordinary (see A Romeo and Juliet for our Times 7 Nov 2016). I have seen many of the world's greatest ballerinas dance Juliet. Technically and indeed artistically their performances were brilliant. But when I saw them dance I knew that I was watching Seymour, Tereshkina and Cojocaru. When Davies danced I saw only Juliet. That is why her performance was spellbinding. Perhaps on another night it would not have been but magic was wrought that night.

I want to express my appreciation and gratitude to all the excellent young dancers whom I have admired but not yet acknowledged in this way and to wish them all the very best in their careers and lives.

The Terpsichore Nominations

Just a bit of fun inspired by the National Dance Awards and not to be taken at all seriously but at the end of every year I do a review of the best work that I have seen in the previous 12 months (see Highlights of 2015 29 Dec 2015). At the end of the post I set out my favourites which were:

Ballet of the Year
Ballet Cymru's Cinderella, runner up Ballet Cymru's Tir

Company of the Year
Scottish Ballet, runners up Dutch National Ballet and the Royal Ballet

Small Companies of the Year
Ballet Black and Ballet Cymru

Contemporary Company of the Year
Phoenix Dance Theatre

Male Dancer of the Year
Denis Rodkin in La Bayadere, runner up Matthew Golding in the Royal Ballet's Onegin and the Dutch National Ballet's Cinderella

Female Dancer of the Year
Laura Morera as Lise runners up Anna Tsygankova and Bethany Kingsley-Garner as Cinderella

Choreographers of the Year
Christopher Hampson for Perpetuum Mobile for Northern Ballet and Ernst Meisner for Embers for the Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company

Dancers to watch
Floor Elmers of Dutch National Ballet, Krystal Lowe of Ballet Cymru, Marie-Astrid-Mence of Phoenix Dance Theatre and Gavin McCaig of Northern Ballet

Promising Newcomers
Bart Engelen, Norwegian Ballet, Cristiano Principato and Emilie Tassinari, Dutch National Ballet Junior Company, Tim Hill of Ballet Cymru and Prentice Whitlow of Phoenix Dance Theatre

This year we shall do it a little differently. I invite everyone who has contributed to Terpsichore in the last year or so (that is to say Alison Winward, David Murley, Gita Mistry, Janet McNulty, Joanne Goodman and Mel Wong (happy birthday Mel by the way) to nominate for each category. Then I shall hold a ballot for the readers.

I have not quite made up my mind yet but provisionally Jean-Christophe Maillot is leading the way in the best full-length ballet stakes with his Taming of the Shrew for the Bolshoi pursued hotly by Ted Brandsen's Mata Hari, David Dawson's Swan Lake and Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre in that order.

In the one-act ballets category, it is a dead heat between Ernst Meisner's No Time before Time  and Christopher Hampson's Storyville.

My classical company of the year is the Durch National Ballet though I was impressed by the Australians and the Bolshoi when they came to London and the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet are always near the top of my lists.

My nominations for best small company are Ballet Black and the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company,

Having seen a lot of contemporary dance, this year I can't make my mind up between Netherlands Dance Theatre and Rambert though Phoenix and the National Dance Company of Wales are also on my list. I am not sure how to classify Alvin Ailey but they definitely deserve an award.

Best male dancer this year has to be Federico Benelli for his Albrecht in Giselle and Lauren Cuthbertson as best female in the same production, However, I would make special personal awards to Bethany Kingsley-Garner for her Odette-Odile in Liverpool and Anna Tsyganlova for her Mata Hari.

Dancers to watch? There are so many but I think we shall be seeing a lot of Cristiano Principato of the Dutch National Ballet who proved his worth as a choreographer, artistic director and chief cook and bottlewasher as well as dancer in Trecate earlier this year, Daniele Gould in Hungary who was an enchanting Puss in Boots and Mthuthuzeli November here.

I would also like to add a special adult ballet education award to Karen Sant of KNT Danceworks for organizing wonderful intensive workshops for adult ballet beginners in Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, La Bayadere and The Nutcracker and Jane Tucker for teaching them.

Alison, David, Gita, Janet, Joanne and Mel are invited to let me have their nominations (if any by 17:00 on 30 Nov) and then we shall offer it to the readers for a vote.

Dutch National Ballet's Opening Night Gala - Improving on Excellence

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The first time I saw the video of Ernst Meisner's No Time Before Time was in the Prix de Lausanne finals. I fell in love with it there and then.  When I saw it live for the first time in Ballet Bubbles at the Meervaart Theatre on my birthday on Valentine's day it was the best present anyone could possibly receive. I expressed my appreciation in Thank You Ernst a few days later. Ernst Meisner is an extraordinary choreographer. His Saltarello had been the highlight of the Junior Company's Stadsshouwburg show of 24 Nov 2013. The performance of Embers by Nancy Burer and Thomas van Damme to the haunting music of Max Richter was my favourite of the following year.  I described it my review as quite simply one of the most beautiful ballets I have ever seen. Well, No Time Before Time is Ernst's best work yet.

In Ernst Meisner’s Work with the Dutch National Ballet 2 Dec 2014 I remarked that although Ernst was a Dutch national who trained at the National Ballet Academy of Amsterdam before coming to London we still like to think of him as one of our own and English audiences have a great deal of affection for him. After he left our shores for the Dutch National Ballet, I thought I would never see him dance again. Yesterday I saw him on stage together with Floor Elmers, Juanjo Arques, Rachel Beaujean, Marijn Rademaker, James Stout, Alexander Zhembrovskyy and, of course, Vito Mazzeo and Igone de Jongh in an extract from van Manen's Kammerballett to celebrate de Jongh's 20th anniversary with the company.

I was led to the Dutch National Ballet by Michaela DePrince who entered the Junior Company in 2013 and is already a grand sujet  at age 21. Because I was married to a Sierra Leonean for more than 27 years I took an interest in her career before she joined the company (see Michaela DePrince 4 April 2013). When I saw her on stage for the first time I described her as "quite simply the most exciting dancer I have seen for quite a while." When I met her briefly at last year's gala "I left the Stopera thinking how that exceptionally talented young dancer was as gracious off stage as she is magnificent upon it." Michaela DePrince was as magnificent and exciting as ever yesterday in Balanchine's Tarantella Pas de Beux which she danced passionately with Remi Wörtmeyer. The applause was deafening. "They really love her" remarked my companion, We really do.

Earlier DePrince had been one of the dancers in the grand pas d'action from La Bayadere.  Having recently learned some of the choreography from Jane Tucker I took a particular interest in that work. Sasha Mukhamedov danced Nikiya and Daniel Camargo was Solor. It was a tantalizing taster for this Autumn's production which I look forward to seeing in full on 13 Nov 2016.

One of my favourite full length ballets so far this year  has been Ted Brandsen's Mata Hari which I reviewed in Brandsen's Masterpiece 14 Feb 2016. Yesterday was my chance to see the magnificent Anna Tsygankova in the title role again. She was partnered gallantly by Artur Shesterikov.  It was another opportunity to hear Tariq O'Reagan's beautiful score.

These were the highlights of the evening for me but there was so much more:

• the Grand Defile or parade of the company and students of the National Ballet Academy starting with the first year students in light blue leotards and finishing with the principals;
• the final pas de deux from Sir Peter Wright's Sleeping Beauty with Anna Ol  as Aurelia and Jozef Varga as the prince; 
• Sinatra favourites with Anna Tsygankova and Matthew Golding in Twyla Tharp's Sinatra Suite;
• the premiere of Remi Wörtmeyer's Penumbra with Anna Ol and Artur Shesterikov, and 
• the final pas de deux from Balanchine's Theme and Variations with Igone de Jongh and Jozef Varga in the leading roles.

The evening celebrated not only Igone de Jongh's 20 years with the company but Toer van Schayk's long and distinguished career as dancer, choreographer and designer. Qian Liu and Young Gyu Choi danced in the world premiere of van Schayk's ballet Episodes van Fragmenten after showing a short film of his life and career.

As happened last year, the performance was followed by a party which was still going strong well after we left to catch the last tube to Central Station at which the stars mingled with us lesser mortals. I was particularly glad to meet some of the young dancers from last year's Junior Company who are now soaring in the company, their mentor Ernst Meisner and Esther Protzman, the wonderful teacher who inspired so many of the company's finest dancers. I have written many times about the importance of a great teacher and I know a little  about it because have been inspired by mine.

I described last year's gala as The best evening I have ever spent at the ballet. Could last year's excellence be exceeded? The answer is an emphatic "yes". Was yesterday's performance perfection?  I will tell you next year.