The Sandman Cometh - Chantry Dance's New Full Length Ballet

Rae Piper and Paul Chantry

(c) 2014 Chantry Dane Company: all rights reserved

A tantalizingly short announcement:

"CDC presents a NEW, full length contemporary ballet for a 2017 UK Tour:
THE SANDMAN
Links for ticket bookings coming soon..."

But a redolent one. I first met Paul Chantry, Rae Piper and Gail Gordon of Chantry Dance at the Lincoln Drill Hall on 9 May 2014. It was a very special day for me for several reasons. I made the acquaintance not just of Paul, Rae and Gail but also of Mel Wong. I also danced in public for the first time which gave me the confidence to put my name forward for the Northern Ballet Academy end of term show (see The Time of My Life 28 June 2014). Chantry Dance was running a workshop at the Drill Hall in the morning and a performance of two short one act ballets called The Sandman and Dream Dance in the afternoon. I wrote about the workshop and reviewed the show in Chantry Dance Company's Sandman and Dream Dance on 10 May 2014.

I don't know whether the full length ballet that the company will present next year has anything to do with the work that I saw in Lincoln but, if it does, it will be beautiful. I suspect it may be related for the umbrella and costumes in the above photo look very much like those in the pictures that Mel took two and a half years ago. If so, the ballet will be based on the tale of Ole Lukøie by Hans Christian Andersen which I summarized in my article. My recollection of the ballet is as follows:

"Choreographed by Gail Gordon the Sandman was danced by Paul Chantry who entered in front of the stage in the shadows. He mounted the stage which had a single prop: a hat stand and the sandman's two umbrellas. Paul is a tall, elegant dancer and he circled the stage magisterially with his wide ronds de jambe and battements. From the left entered his subject, Rae Piper, clad in a simple navy print shift. Rae has the most expressive face and she expressed joy under the multicoloured umbrella but with utter dismay to the plain one. Producing from his pocket a medicine bottle Paul sprinkled the sleep inducing drops over Rae's eyes. In the absence of programme notes I cannot recall the score but it was beautiful and Gail Gordon's choreography interpreted in perfectly."

Of course, there will have to be at least a second act and roles for many other characters but Chantry Dance are good at narrative dance as they showed not just in the work they danced in Lincoln but also in the works they danced at Gravity Fields or took on tour (see Gravity Fields - Chasing the Eclipse 28 Sept 2014, The Happy Prince in Halifax 21 Nov 2014 and Duology 29 Sept 2016).

Paul, Rae and Gail are not just simply performers, they are also educators. They ran a Young Choreographers Celebration 2016 Award Winners’ workshop earlier this year which they recorded in this video and they will include curtain raiser performances from young choreographers around the country as part of the Young Choreographers Celebration 2017 in the programme that they will take on tour.

They have not yet published their venues but I hope that they will make at least one stop in the North next year. We were sorry not to see them in our region this year. They were missed.

The Happy Prince in Halifax

Oscar Wilde, Author of The Happy Price

Photo Wikipedia

Oscar Wilde lived between 1854 and 1900. In 1888 he published a series of children's short stories entitled The Happy Prince and other Tales. To celebrate the 160th anniversary of Wilde's birth Paul Chantry has created a ballet based on The Happy Prince which his company, Chantry Dance Company, has taken (with two other works) on a nationwide tour. Yesterday the company was at The Square Chapel in Halifax. They delivered a heart warming performance that the audience loved and brought me to my feet.

The show opened with Eliza Wade carrying a lantern and a suitcase and calling out for anyone who might be there. She stumbled upon Oscar Wilde danced by David Beer. Wilde makes a paper swallow and thus begins the story. The swallow was brought to life by Rae Piper dressed in a blue. She is an impressive dancer combining power with grace but it is her power of expression that enchants me. It is the quality that I noted the first tine I saw the company in Sandman last May (Chantry Dance Company's Sandman and Dream Dance 10 May 2014) and I saw it again when Piper danced Scura in Chasing the Eclipse on 28 Sept 2014. The swallow delivers precious stones from a bejewelled gilded statue of the city's prince whose spirit sends those gems as gifts to relieve the suffering of the city's poor. Grazziano Bongiovnni danced that role with flair. A handsome young man with elegant movements he was a delight to watch - particularly in his pas de deux with Piper towards the end of the piece.  I had seen them dance that pas de deux at the company's open day in August.  I described in the post how my spine began to tingle in the way that it did when I saw Sibley and Dowell (Chantry Dance - Making Connections 30 Aug 2014). On stage and in costume they are even better.  I don't think that the company has released a video of the performance, but you can see a trailer for the show in my review of Sandman.

The Happy Prince was the first act of the show.  Two shorter works composed the second act: Rhapsody in Blue to Gershwin's well known music and All I can do is be me - the Bob Dylan Ballet to Bob Dylan. These works were also choreographed by Chantry whose repertoire is already long and diverse. While I enjoyed all three works my favourite was Rhapsody in Blue, partly because I love the music and the period but mainly because of the opportunity to see Chantry dance with Piper. I have already mentioned how much I admire her dancing. Well, her husband dances beautifully too. Tall and authoritative he commands a stage. He is thrilling to watch. Together they are magnificent. In this work Chantry danced a man on a train. An actor perhaps for he whipped out a copy of The Stage. Piper, again in blue, was The Lady of Jazz

The Bob Dylan ballet showed off the whole company including two talented young women, Camille Barrié and Rosie Macari. The scene opened with Bongiovanni in a party hat muttering to himself in Italian.  He was joined by Barrié also in a party hat muttering to herself in French. I have studied both languages but couldn't make much sense of either monologue. A few seconds later Macari entered the scene muttering equally incoherently in English. They were joined by Beer and Chantry who seemed to have had a good time at the party. Both were attracted to the same girl and a rivalry ensued to the strains of "All I Really Wanna Do" in which she was literally pulled by each of them. It must have been a challenge to dance.  And there were many other challenges in the choreography including a spectacular jump by both Barrié and Macari into the arms of their partners who hoisted them shoulder high.

The company travel light with costumes and a few props but they don't need more for they have an excellent lighting designer in Owain Davies. The one ballet that did require slightly more, The Happy Prince, showed off Zoe Squire's considerable ingenuity.

I have already mentioned the audience's applause. I am not sure that the cast expected it to be quite so strong because the auditorium is not large but Piper's smile was a delight to behold.  Anyway she was moved to say a few words about the company and its outreach and educational work including its associate programme of which Eliza Wade was a member. I mentioned the range of their work briefly in Chantry Dance - Making Connections and I reviewed the associates' show in Chantry Dance Associates: Lots of Promise 28 July 2014. I have personally benefited from one of their workshops for their dance director, Gail Gordon, coaxed me onto the stage of the Lincoln Drill Hall in May which gave me the confidence to put my name forward for the Northern Ballet Academy's end of term show (see The Time of My Life 28 June 2014). If Chantry Dance can get a Rumpolean elephant like me to come on stage and enjoy herself they can do anything.

Earlier in the day I got a chance to see their company class and a rehearsal for the Dylan ballet. All dancers work hard. I appreciated that when I saw English National Ballet in class in Oxford three weeks ago (Coppelia in Oxford 2 Nov 2014) but I think this troupe works harder than most. I had been to class in Leeds in the morning and had done several of the same exercises. Watching the professionals from a distance of a few feet I noted  how they hold their arms in bras bas and second, how they define space in a forward port de bras, how they find their balance on demi-pointe and arabesque and much, much more. I hope I can remember and incorporate what I learned in my own dancing the next time I go to class.

Halifax was the penultimate stage of the tour. Tonight Chantry Dance are in London. So good was their show that I seriously thought of taking the day off and belting down the motorway to see it one last time. If you are in the capital tonight and can obtain a ticket do yourself a favour and get yourself over to The Lilian Baylis Studio at Sadler's Wells at 19:45. After last night's show Piper told me that the company plans to dance The Happy Prince for children so there may be another chance to see it. But tonight is your last chance to see the whole triple bill including the gorgeous Rhapsody in Blue.

Chantry Dance Associates: Lots of Promise

Sadler's Wells Theatre

Source Wikipedia

Both Mel and I have written about Chantry Dance recently (see Jane Lambert "Chantry Dance Company's Sandman and Dream Dance" 10 May 2014 and Mel Wong "July News from Chantry Dance Company" 6 July 2014). One of the company's activities is an associate programme for "young dancers of a pre-vocational or pre-professional level, who aspire to have a career in dance." That programme

"exists to nurture, develop and inspire the country's most talented young dancers, and to encourage them to be courageous with their dancing in order to reach new levels in their technique and interpretative skills."

Yesterday, the associates (participants on the programme) showed what they could do in the Lilian Baylis Studio of Sadler's Wells.

Owing to the closure of the M1 between junctions 21 and 22 yesterday (see "M1 motorway closed between junctions 21 and 22 following serious accident" 27 July 2014 Leicester Mercury) my journey was delayed by nearly 2 hours and I arrived towards the end of the show.  Gail Gordon, who must have formed a terrible impression of me because I was also late for the Dream Dance workshop, ushered me into a rehearsal studio and perched me on a piano stool in order not to disturb the associates who were dancing to Vivaldi or Paul Chantry who was filming them on an iPad.  They were all young women and I spotted immediately one I knew: Fiona who had taught me the dance in the Dream Dance workshop. After the show, Rae Piper told me that the dancers ranged in age from 11 to 24. At least one was at Elmhurst and two others were on their way to Trinity Laban.

The steps that the associates danced were not easy and demanded a lot of energy and stamina. The choreography to which Gail told me she had contributed was intricate.  It was executed with lightness, precision and obvious joy. The movement of those artists lifted my spirits and helped me forget my terrible journey.

After the Vivaldi several of the associates performed their own short solos. I had to take notes on the back of a VAT receipt because I had left my notebook in my car in my rush to catch a train at Luton Parkway. Consequently I was able to record my impressions of only a few of those pieces with the result that I am unable to do justice to the others. They were all good and I congratulate all the artists. I enjoyed their work enormously. However, those that I did record made a particular impression on me. An associate whom I know only as Jessica explored steps and movements beyond the positions of classical ballet to create novel and ingenious body shapes. She reminded me of two performances that I had seen recently: first, Ed Watson in the first act of The Winter's Tale where his body contortions represented his jealousy and irrationality; secondly, Daniel Montero's Ballet 101 in the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company's gala. Another dancer whose name I forget interpreted the story of Icarus and Daedalus. A human biology student represented heart beats and blood flows. Yet another one showed considerably dramatic promise in her improvisation.

The performance took place in a part of Sadler's Wells that I had not seen before. There was a plaque to Sir Frederick Ashton on the wall and busts of him as well as Fonteyn, Somes, Dolin, Lillian Baylis and Madam (I do hope real dancers will excuse my presumption in referring to Dane Ninette de Valois in this way) at the entrance. I had seen all of those great men and women except Baylis when they were alive and the flood of memories those busts triggered made my eyes water.

But I was also reminded that ballet is not all magic and involves hard work and sweat. I found myself in a lift with a troupe of Brazilian dancers including one who was naked except for a pair of sweaty underpants. They had obviously been dancing their socks off. Literally. That's about as up close and personal as most of us would care to get.

Talking about sweat, Chantry Dance is a company that works incredibly hard. On Saturday they had been performing The Sandman plus a new work in the Lincoln Drill Hall. Today they are starting a week long summer school in which Mel and Fiona are taking part. Later next month they are meeting local business. In October they will take their latest works which includes The Happy Prince on tour. One of the venues they will visit is The Square Chapel in Halifax on 20 Nov 2014.