Powerhouse Ballet January Update

Fiona Noonan

On 16 Sept Terry Etheridge held a workshop in Leeds where he created a beautiful ballet for us.  He invited not only the dancers he had selected for the piece at an audition that we had held the previous day but also everyone who had attended the audition. It was a glorious day and it was then that we became a company. We had come from different adult ballet classes from across the North of England and North Wales. Although we had been very courteous to each other we had flocked to our own groups. All this changed at the workshop. Everyone chatted to everyone else. I sensed that some real friendships were being formed.

Those friendships were reinformed the very next week when Yvonne Charlton visited us in Liverpool.  I described her visit as Our Best Day Yet in a post to the company's website.  I wrote:

"I have already received requests to bring Yvonne back to the UK. In response to those requests, I have asked her whether she would like to license us to perform her work so that we could add it to out repertoire. She has no objection in principle and is prepared to return for an audition and workshop similar to the one we did with Terry Etheridge in Leeds."

Yvonne is coming back on 23 Feb 2019 when she will take the company class ar the Dancehouse Studios between 13:30 and 15:00. The next day she will teach us one of her ballets at Dance Studio Leeds between 09:00 and 14:00. Her music is Morning Mood from Grieg's Peer Gynt.  Alena Panasenka, one of Northern Ballet's accompanists, will play for us.

Yvonne has to catch a plane to Amsterdam immediately after her workshop so she cannot coach us but Fiona Noonan has very kindly agreed to do so. Fiona was the teacher who led me back to ballet after many years and I shall always be grateful to her for that.  She attended Terry's audition on 15 Sept and danced with us at our workshop with Ballet Cymru on 28 Nov 2018 (see More than a Bit Differently: Ballet Cymru's Workshop and the Launch of the Powerhouse Ballet Circle 29 Nov 2018). Last Saturday Fiona gave us an excellent company class.  It was one of the hardest classes I have ever done because we started with centre barre to develop our strength.  However, it paid dividends when we tackled pirouettes and a balancé, pas de bourré, pirouettes, dedans and dehors enchainment.

Many of the members of our company train regularly at KNT Danceworks which holds classes in the Dancehouse's studios every day of the week except Sundays and public holidays. KNT's principal is Karen Sant and she gave us one of our best company classes ever on 1 Dec 2018.  KNT is about to celebrate its 10th anniversary with a gala at the Dancehouse on 4 May 2019 the tickets for which are already on sale.  Karen has kindly invited Powerhouse Ballet to premiere the ballet that Terry Etheridge has created for us at her gala as her special guests.  As KNT has been listed in several publications as one of the top adult ballet classes in the UK this is a singular honour which I acknowledged on the company's website on 25 Jan 2019.

We now have to rehearse in earnest and our next rehearsal is fixed for 10 Feb 2019 at 15:00 at York St John University. We will of course also hold rehearsals of Morning Mood and Fiona will suggest dates, times and venues after Yvonne's workshop,  As we are as much a North Wales company as a Northern English one we are planning a day-long workshop in Mold which Martin Dutton of the Hammond has already agreed to teach.  We shall hold company classes at the end of each month and I have already booked our Jane Tucker for our anniversary class.

If our debut goes well we shall convert into a charitable incorporated organization and seek funding from Arts Council England and maybe the Arts Council of Wales, the National Lottery and other organizations.  As part of our social mission, we shall perform at hospitals, care homes and other institutions whose residents do not get many opportunities to watch dance.

Several readers have asked, "what has happened to my dance reviews?" The fact is that I have not seen any ballet since Birmingham Royal Ballet's performance of The Nutcracker in the Albert Hall. Talk about Dry January. I have been so busy with Powerhouse I have had little time for anything else.  But all that will change as of tomorrow when I shall see Scottish Ballet's Cinderella in Newcastle and Saturday when I shall see The Nutcracker by Ballet West in Stirling.   

The Audition is now full

Terry Etheridge

On Tuesday our ballet mistress, Beverley Willsmer, told me that Terry Etheridge had given one of her best classes ever.  Having danced with what is now English National Ballet as well as a leading company in Germany and having trained at the Rambert, Beverley will have attended a lot of  classes.

The class for the audition is now full and we have a waiting list.   If you want to be considered for our first ballet it is still worth putting your name down on the waiting list and keeping the 15 and 16 Sept free.   I have relinquished my place at the barre to make way for a dancer with a better chance of being selected.   I shall try to move the class to a bigger studio.  Urgent matters and illnesses that prevent dancers from attending class always crop up at the last moment.

If we can't give you a place at the audition please do not despair.   We have a cracker of a class the following Saturday, the 22 Sept 2018 with 90 minutes hard graft from Mark Hindle and a further 60 minutes masterclass with our guest teacher and choreographer, Yvonne Charlton. from the Netherlands.  We have also lined up a workshop with Ballet Cymru, Wales's national classical ballet company, as well as company classes with Jane Tucker, Karen Sant and Fiona Noonan who are excellent.

If you want to discuss this article or find out more about Powerhouse Ballet send me a message on my contact form.

Powerhouse Ballet August Update

Leeds Company Class 28 July 2018

© 2018 Powerhouse Ballet: all rights reserved

Last week's class with Annemarie Donoghue of Northern Ballet was the best class ever in terms of numbers with 21 attendees, and it was also very enjoyable.  But the excitement generated last week has been quite overtaken by events,

On 31 June 2018 I wrote that we had been offered a slot at Move IT in Manchester on 16 or 23 Feb.  I had originally planned to stage the pas de six from Bournonville's Napoli because there seemed to be nothing in the piece that I had not been taught at one time or another by my teachers at Northern Ballet or KNT.  However, Beverley Willsmer, who had actually danced that pas de six, warned me that it was nothing like as easy as it looked.   She advised us to commission our own work if we could.

As a result of her warning, I wrote on Powerhouse Ballet's website:

"I thought of the pas de six from Napoli but Beverley who has danced that work tells me that it is nothing like as easy as I had supposed. I should be very grateful for suggestions from members of the company and indeed anyone else."

I was wondering where on earth I could find a choreographer as I penned that article.

As soon as I had published that article,  the eminent dancer, choreographer and teacher, Terry Etheridge, contacted me through Facebook with an offer to create a ballet for us.   This was an exceptional opportunity and I grasped it with both hands.  Not only has Terry enjoyed an impressive career as one of the first members of the company that is now Northern Ballet, a soloist at Festival Ballet, artistic director of Hong Kong, head of dance at Urdang, principal of Rambert school and guest choreographer for the Royal Swedish Ballet school, he has many years experience of teaching and creating ballets for dancers just like us for he is resident choreographer of Duchy Ballet in Cornwall.

One of the dancers with whom Terry has worked at various times in his career is our ballet mistress, Beverley Willsmer.  She has also danced with Festival Ballet as well as in Germany and she was ballet mistress to Chelsea Ballet which is another amateur ballet company.   I am proud to say that I danced with Beverley in my very first show at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds in 2014.  Until Jonathan Barton advised me last April that one can watch a performance or one can do a performance but not both at the same time (see Visiting Taynuilt 4 May 2018) I used to position myself close to Beverley at the barre in the hope that some of her brilliance would rub off onto me. I am not sure that any did though I certainly learned a lot from her.

Terry will be in  Leeds on 15 and 16 Sept 2018.   He will hold an audition in the form of a class on 15 Sept from which he will select his cast.  He will invite the dancers he chooses back the next day to create the ballet.  I shall take thorough notes and so will Beverley.   We shall film the choreography at the end pf the session. 

Beverley will then invite the cast back for rehearsals starting immediately after each company class beginning with the 22 Sept in Liverpool.   Other rehearsals will take place in Leeds on 27 Oct immediately after Jane Tucker's class, Manchester on 1 Dec immediately after Karen Sant's and Leeds on 26 Jan 2019 immediately after Fiona Noonan's. We might even be able to squeeze in a rehearsal on 28 Nov immediately before or immediately after our workshop with Ballet Cymru.  Yet more rehearsals will be arranged by Beverley as and when necessary.  If you want to be in the show and can commit to the rehearsals here is the link to our Evenbrite page. We have room for only 6 more dancers so if you want to audition don't leave it too late to register.

The show is only one of a number of great events for you.   Don't forget Yvonne Charlton's master class on 22 Sept in Liverpool and Ballet Cymru's workshop. Fiona Noonan, who has CRB clearance, will also teach a class for  younger dancers.  We need to find a Clara (aka "Marie"), her horrible little brother who smashes the nutcracker, his even sillier little chums who disturb the girls with their drums and trumpets while they are playing with their prezzies, mice and some toy soldiers for The Nutcracker which we hope to dance at least in part next year.