Bruce Again

Less than 24 hours after seeing Rambert's Rooster in Manchester, I saw Christopher Bruce's face in another programme. This time it was for Ten Poems which was part of the double bill The Crucible with Ten Poems which Scottish Ballet danced at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh.

Shortly before the show, I tweeted:

Two Christopher Bruce works in consecutive days. I wonder whether I shall enjoy @scottishballet's 10 Poems as much as @Rambertdance Rooster.
— Jane Lambert (@nipclaw) October 4, 2014

I did.

I found "Do not go gentle into that good night" particularly moving. @scottishballet did Wales proud with its tribute to its great poet.
— Jane Lambert (@nipclaw) October 4, 2014

The two works had quite a lot in common. Rooster was choreographed to familiar songs.  Ten Poems to equally familiar poems. There was similar precision and control in the choreography in both works. Marian Bruce who designed the sets and costumes of Rooster also designed the costumes and sets for Ten Poems. But there were differences. There is much less light and joy in Thomas's verse than in the music of The Rolling Stones. Do not go gentle into that good night danced by Andrew Peasgood and Chris Harrison had me close to tears. On the other hand, having seen men push women around in Rooster I derived some satisfaction at masculine comeuppance in Lament. There weren't too many laughs in Ten Poems unlike Rooster but the plucking gesture in the general neighbourhood "of the old ram rod, dying of women" by one of those women generated one of them. Indeed a guffaw of (mainly) female laughter.

The other work in the double bill was Helen Pickett's The Crucible.  This followed closely Arthur Miller's play which I first saw performed by the National Theatre at The Old Vic at about the same time as I was introduced to Dylan Thomas's poetry. It is about the Salem witch trials which resulted in the execution of some 20 people in 1692 for the crime of witchcraft. Each of those condemned was convicted on the evidence of a scheming teenager who manipulated her friends and through them the whole colony of Massachusetts into a hysterical frenzy. Miller wrote The Crucible as a study of mass hysteria and the irrationality of group think as Senator McCarthy was ending the careers of some of America's leading figures in the arts with groundless or exaggerated allegations of Communist sympathy.

There were very strong performances by Sophie Martin as Abigail Wlliams, Chris Harrison as John Procter and Eve Mutso as his wife, Elizabeth Procter.  Indeed, the whole cast were great. Tense and dramatic it was in many ways more powerful than the play. Charles Heightchew's designs and George Thomson's lighting were striking, particularly the last scene with a silhouette of the gallows and a prisoner ascending to his doom.

The double bill is moving on to Aberdeen having started in Glasgow and having also visited Inverness as well as Edinburgh but sadly it will not be seen outside Scotland, at least not for the moment. That is a pity because we don't see enough of Scottish Ballet south of the border. It does a season at the Wells, of course, and makes it down to Newcastle occasionally but not to Bristol where it was born or Leeds where its first cousin if not sister company through Laverne Meyer now resides. Its family resemblance to Northern Ballet is remarkable. We in Leeds and I am sure the folk in Bristol and indeed the rest of the nation would welcome it with open arms if it could be persuaded to pay us all a visit.

Scottish Ballet and Ballet West

Glasgow Armadillo

Photo Wikipedia

Tomorrow I am going to Edinburgh to see The Crucible with Ten Poems by Scottish Ballet. I am always excited when I go to Scotland because Scottish Ballet was the first company that I got to know and love and therefore occupies a very special place in my affections (see Scottish Ballet 20 Dec 2013). It was in Scotland that I took my first classes and indeed it was there that I first learned to appreciate ballet. Although I was brought up in suburban Surrey less than 20 miles from Sadler's Wells and Covent Garden I never saw any ballet on stage because my father thought it was rather frivolous and even mildly subversive owing to its associations with the USSR. It was only when I had my own income in the form of a local authority grant and jobs that I could pick up driving vans and minibuses around London that I was able to see ballet regularly.

There is another Scottish company that I love to watch and that is Ballet West from a small village a few miles outside Oban.  Ballet West is a school  in an idyllic location which seems to attract talented students from around the world and train them to a very high standard.  To give the students stage experience they produce a show which they take to theatres and other venues in small towns and city suburbs around Scotland. My very first post to this blog was on Ballet West's Nutcracker which I saw in Pitlochry. This year I saw their Swan Lake of which you can see a video of their performance in Inverness. I once explored their village and its surroundings while waiting for the Craignure ferry and I whooped with delight when their pupil Natasha Watson won a medal in the Genée. As you can see, I am very, very, very, very impressed with Ballet West.

Ballet West's next ballet will be Romeo and Juliet which is the show they took to China in 2011.  They will be taking it to the Clyde Auditorium on Valentine's day which is known locally as the Armadillo, their most ambitious venue yet. My birthday coincides with that day and my favourite way of celebrating that day is watching ballet. There are some great pictures of the boys in rehearsal on their Facebook page.  Other news from that page is they will be holding a fund raising lunch by Loch Lomond on 2 Nov for which there were still a few vacancies last time I checked. If you can't make that there are many other ways you can support that Centre of Excellence.

Post Script

I have just received an invitation through Facebook to meet some of Ballet West's dancers and creatives when they perform in Glasgow which I have gratefully accepted.

News from Scotland - Dylan Thomas, The Crucible and the Commonwealth Games

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Dylan Thomas's birth and to celebrate the occasion Christopher Bruce has created Ten Poems which he set to Thomas's poetry as read by Richard Burton. You can get a flavour of the work from Fern Hill on Scottish Ballet's website. Ten Poems is to be premièred in the UK by Scottish Ballet at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow on 25 Sept 2014 together with the world première of Helen Pickett's The Crucible.  As I am now formally a Friend of Scottish Ballet I shall be there and I shall report back to you.  In the meantime here are some gorgeous photos from Scottish Ballet of the rehearsals for the two works.

I received that information in my Scottish Ballet newsletter for July 2014. Among a number of important events in Scotland over the next few months are the Glasgow Commonwealth Games which take place between 23 July to 3 Aug.  The equivalent of the Olympic torch is the Queen's Baton which is being relayed over 190,000 kilometres across 70 countries in 288 days. The last part of the baton's journey will be in Glasgow itself where it will be carried by dancers of Scottish Ballet on 22 July.

Two other events connected with the Games in which Scottish Ballet is taking part are the Commonwealth Youth Exchange by which a group of exceptionally talented young dancers visited Singapore and the Commonwealth Youth Dance Festival at which that group will be performing.

I am not sure how much if any of those events I can see for myself as the Games coincide with the visit of the Mariinsky to London and there is only so much that one can do, but I am glad to have renewed my acquaintance with this fine company and I will certainly see The Crucible, Ten Poems and The Nutcracker later this year.