The Junior Company Ten Years On

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Just over 10 years ago I flew to Holland to watch a troupe of dancers in their late teens and early twenties called "The Junior Company" (see The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 25 Nov 2013).  

I had come to see Michaela DePrince whom I had already mentioned several times in this blog. She had been born in Sierra Leone, the country of my late spouse and my former ward who is the nearest I have to a daughter.  I was amply rewarded for my journey because DePrince danced magnificently. But so did the other dancers some of whom are now principals or soloists in the Dutch National Ballet and other great companies.

That visit to Amsterdam was the start of many good things.  I met members of the company, parents and other relations of those members and fellow fans of the company from the Netherlands and elsewhere.  I made friends with many of them.   Yvonne Charlton visited Powerhouse Ballet.  She gave us some great classes in Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester and taught us some of her choreography.  In the miserable days of lockdown, Maria Chugai raised our spirits with two wonderful online classes and her appearance at "The Stage Door".   

On my visits to the Dutch National Ballet, I got to know the Netherlands, its cities and its people.   I learned about its history, its traditions and its view of the world.  Even though it has sounds that do not exist in our language, Dutch is actually a first cousin to English.  Had it not been for brexit which ended free movement it is more than likely that I would be living there now.  

To celebrate its 10th anniversary the Junior Company has just announced a tour of the Netherlands between 3 Feb and 17 March 2024 called quite simply Ten.  Its programme will consist of George Balanchine's Valse Fantaisie and new works by Krzysztof Pastor, Joseph Toonga, Wubkje Kuindersma and Kirsten Wicklund. This will be the first opportunity to see some of the world's most promising young dancers many of whom could be household names in a few years from now.  Every time the Junior Company renews its membership it reinvents itself as its Artistic Coordinator Ernst Meisner remarks in Astrid van Leeuwen's article.

The Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company has been so successful that other companies, including the Birmingham Royal Ballet, have followed its example.   Earlier this year I attended the launch of BRB2 and met its Artistic Coordinator Kit Holder at Elmhurst Ballet School (see An "Evening with Ashton" and the Launch of an English Junior Company  30 Jan 2023).   I was in the audience when it visited Nottingham on 28 April 2023 and was very impressed (see BRB2 in Nottingham 29 April 2023).   I am looking forward to its next tour which will take in Poole, Canterbury and Northampton in May 2024 (see BRB2: First 2024 Tour Venues Announced 26 July 2023 Birmingham Royal Ballet website).

The idea of a junior company as a bridge between vocational school and corps de ballet is an excellent one. I shall continue to support Ernst Meisner and Kit Holder in their endeavours in any way I can. 

Classes in Lockdown

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After I felt obliged to postpone the Snowflakes workshop that Mark Hindle had kindly agreed to give us on 14 March 2020 I had reconciled myself to a long delay before I would ever do a plié again. I did broach the subject of online classes with a teacher for whom I have particularly high regard but she was sceptical.  She was worried about limited space, unsprung floors and insurance and so was I. 

On 21 April, Maria Chugai of the Dutch National Ballet gave us an online class which made our spirits soar (see An Unforgettable Class 7 May 2020).  Encouraged by Maria's success, I asked Charlotte Ingleson of Ballet North UK to give us an online class on 2 May in lieu of the March company class which she had agreed to deliver.   Again, that was very successful.   She made us work very hard for the full 90 minutes.    As we have also missed our April class I have arranged with Jane Tucker to give us an extra class on 16 May.  Jane will also deliver her usual class on 30 May.

As Maria and Charlotte have shown that online classes are not only possible but fun I have been trying out a few more.  Online classes fall into two categories.   Some are given by ballet schools and companies over Facebook or YouTube,   They offer training by the likes of  Ernst Meisner and Tamara Rojo for free.  The disadvantage is that the teachers can't see us so there is no chance of corrections.   The other option is to enrol in a class that is held over Zoom. That is the next best thing to a class in a studio because the teacher and see and correct her students and give corrections.  For those classes, there is, of course, a fee.

Of the classes offered by schools and ballet companies, my favourites are those by Ernst Meisner.  Recordings of those classes are available on the Dutch National Ballet's YouTube channel  I am not an unbiased critic because I am a big fan of Meisner for the work that he has done for the Junior Company and the Dutch National Ballet Academy.  However, my opinion appears to be shared by two experienced teachers who certainly know what they are talking about. 

Our guest ballet mistress, Yvonne Charlton of the Dolstra Dance Centre in IJsselstein, wrote:

"Jane Lambert he is a great teacher i am doing his classes."

To which I responded:

"Yvonne Charlton de beste leraar ooit!"  

Taxing the very extremity of my command of the Dutch language.   She agreed with me.

The other person who commented on Meisner's class was our first choreographer, Terence Etheridge.   Having been one of the founder members of Northern Ballet and later its ballet master, as well as ballet master in Hong Kong, Terence knows everything there is to know about classes.   When he wrote in Facebook that it was a very good class we can be sure that it was.

I have also attended two Zoom classes.   One was given by Karen Sant of KNT Danceworks, my usual teacher in Manchester.   The other by Sonya Pettigrew of Brighton Ballet School. 

KNT usually offers classes in Northern Ballet School's studios.   I first came to KNT in August 2014 when my over 55 class in Leeds was on vacation and I have been a regular visitor ever since.  I have taken classes at various levels with all of the teachers and I have got on well with every one of them.  I have also attended some excellent choreography workshops on  Swan Lake, La Bayadere, Coppelia, Romeo and Juliet and The Nutcracker given by Jane Tucker and Martin Dutton as well as days of intensive classes known as "Days of Dance".  Over the years I have made some good friendships and close acquaintances with many of the other students.  I love KNT and am very fond of Karen.

Since the lockdown, Karen has created a portal to her online classes called the class manager.  As far as I could see from the "upcoming classes" section, everything that KNT offered in the studio is available online.  I joined my usual "Pre-Intermediate Class" which meets on Tuesdays between 18:30 and 19:45  The barre was almost identical to the studio but we had a few modifications for the centre work. Nevertheless, we finished with a joyful temps levé carrying me from the kitchen through the hall to my sitting room and back again.  Karen charged £3.50 for that class and I shall certainly be back.

Although Sonya had invited me to attend and review one of her classes several months ago I never had an opportunity to take advantage of it.  After the lockdown, she invited me to attend one of her online classes which I did on 24 April.   I joined the entry-level class and found that it was quite rigorous.  Again, there was a full barre and some demanding centre exercises.   I counted 8 of us in gallery view, mostly women but one gentleman.   Sonya is a good teacher.  She gave me several corrections for which I am grateful.   She has a very easy manner and it is clear that she is well-liked by her students.  If I lived in Sussex I would almost certainly be one of her regulars.

New online classes are coming onto the market all the time.  On 7 May Northern Ballet Academy announced that it is about to launch a new online class for the Over 55s to be given by Viki Westall from 11 May.   As it meets in office hours I am not sure how many classes I can attend but I shall certainly do one and report back to you with my findings.

An Exceptional Weekend

Through following the Dutch National Ballet I made the acquaintance of the Dutch teacher and choreographer Yvonne Charlton.  Yvonne is married to an Englishman and visits this country frequently. On one of those visits, she gave Powerhouse Ballet a great repertoire class (see Our Best Day Yet  24 Sept 2018).  Our ballet mistress, Beverley Willsmer, who is not exactly known for lavish praise, rated her class as the best ever. Before I had even left Z-Studios I was overwhelmed with requests to bring her back as soon as possible.

Yvonne emerged from international arrivals at Ringway airport at 08:20 last Saturday    My former ward and her little boy, Vladimir, who had met Yvonne at the National Ballet gala in Amsterdam last September, came with me to meet her.  As she would have got up while wilis were still about in order to drive the 32 miles from her home to Amsterdam airport, the first thing we did after she arrived was to entertain her to a full English breakfast at John Lewis's at Cheadle Royal.

Yvonne's first engagement was company class at the Dancehouse at 13:30. As we had some time before that class I gave her a tour of my dear, native city.  I started with the castra of Mancunium at Castlefield from which our city derives its name.  I showed her the Lowry and some of the paintings in the permanent exhibition.  We looked out for a video of Gillian Lynne's ballet A Simple Man with Moira Shearer and Christopher Gable but the assistant at the souvenir shop could not be sure that the DVD would work on continental apparatus.

We arrived at the Dancehouse just in time for class and what a class it was.  It was certainly the most taxing that I have ever known and it seemed to challenge even our best dancers. "No! No! No! That's not how you do a port de bras," she said to one of our stars, forcing her head to well below her knees.  And Yvonne was not afraid of correcting our ballet mistress the very next day. Even the pliés were a challenge for they finished with a relevé and then a weight shift.  Frappés on demi nearly did for me but the real killer was a type of rond de jambe that required a 90-degree sweep from a demi plié.  Her centre exercises were no easier than her barre.  She set us a rolling pirouette exercise starting with a tiré, a pas de bourré and then single, double or dynamo turns.

As I was 70 a few weeks ago I had told one of my favourite teachers who regards "easy" as a 4 letter word that I was slowing down. Having survived Yvonne's class I know I can survive anything.  I told my esteemed instructor that I shall be back at the barre whenever I can get to Leeds by19:00 on a Wednesday evening.  Indeed, I am really going to work at that lady's classes.

After class, I invited my classmates to the Revolution by Oxford Road viaduct for a libation.  Almost everyone came and we were joined presently by Karen Sant and Mark Hindle of KNT.  For a birthday present Mark gave me this beautiful bouquet of flowers.  I curtseyed and tried to remove a single flower for Mark just as I had seen Sibley do for Dowell and Fonteyn for Nureyev in my youth.  That would have been a cue for Mark to raise the bloom to his nose and savour the perfume but I am not sure that modern principals do that any more.  I have certainly not seen it at Northern Ballet and I am not sure even about Covent Garden. In Holland, it is unnecessary because the boys seem to get flowers too.

After drinks, I drove Yvonne to her hotel near Huddersfield where we threw a little party.  Several good friends from Powerhouse Ballet were able to attend as you can see from the photo to the right.

The very next morning we assembled at the Dance Circle Leeds for a 5-hour workshop with Yvonne.  I arranged for Alena Panasenka, one of Northern Ballet's accompanists to play for us.  I also invited Fiona Noonan to learn any ballet that Yvonne might teach us and coach us in it until we are word perfect.

Our warm-up class after a late night was even more punishing than Saturday class but we set to work with a will. Yvonne taught us a delightful dance to the music of Morning Mood from Grieg's Peer Gynt.  We have been invited to perform this piece at Dance Studio Leeds's gala to raise money for St Gemma's Hospice on 12 Oct 2019.

Anyone who wants to audition for this piece should stay for our first rehearsal at Dance Studio Leeds on 23 March 2019.   The Eventbrite card will appear shortly.

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.

Yvonne Charlton

Yvonne Charlton

© 2018 Yvonne Charlton: all rights reserved
Licence Reproduced with kind permission of the owner

On my trips to Amsterdam to see the Dutch National Ballet I have made a number of friends and acquaintances. One of them is the teacher and choreographer, Yvonne Charlton.  I met her and two of her students for the first time at the Dutch National Ballet's New Moves last year. We renewed our acquaintance at the Junior Company's fifth anniversary show in April.

Yvonne is head of ballet at the Institute of Dance and Movement Jos Dolstra in IJsselstein (an ancient cathedral city in the province of Utrecht a little under 30 miles from Amsterdam) and has taught there since 1989.   She teaches ballet, including pointe work, and Pilates to adults, children and young people.  She has students at every level of proficiency from absolute beginners to advanced.  She trained at the Nel Roos Ballet Academy which is now the National Ballet Academy and is accredited in the quality register of the Dansbelang NBDO and by the Royal Academy of Dance.

In addition to her classes at IJsselsrein she arranges two special workshops every year in collaboration with the outreach department of the National Ballet. Each workshop focuses on an extract from a ballet in the company's current season.  A dancer from the company demonstrates the piece and Yvonne helps the attendees master it.

Yvonne has also created her own versions of The Nutcracker and Peter and the Wolf for her students in collaboration with the Utrecht symphony orchestra which they perform in December.  The photo below appears to show a curtain call at the end of one of her students' performances.

© 2018 Yvonne Charlton: all rights reserved

The following photo shows some of her students in action.

© 2018 Yvonne Charlton: all rights reserved

One event to which she referred that aroused my curiosity was “Vrouwtje Klein Sprokkelhorst”.  Now I have not yet had an opportunity to study Dutch formally but I can work out a lot because it is first cousin to English and closely related to German which I did study at secondary school. I still use that language in my work when I look up prior art.  I know that "klein" means little in German and is likely to mean the same in Dutch. I remember from Ted Brandsen's Coppelia that the suffix "-tje" is a diminutive in Dutch because his Swanhilde is called "Zwaantje" or "Little Swan".  "Vrouw" is pronounced exactly like "Frau" and must mean "lady". So, as an educated guess, "Vrouwtje" may mean "Fraülein" or "Miss".  The words must mean "Little Miss Sprokkelhorst" but that does not take us very much further,  I googled the words and found that there really was a little Miss Sprokkelhorst who lived in IJsselstein in the 1930s with unusual water devining powers that came to the attention of the Queen of the Netherlands and who is remembered at Christmas for some reason or other (see De Kerstavondvan mevrouw Klein Sprokkelhorst).

Yvonne will be in Liverpool in September and has offered to give Powerhouse Ballet and anyone who wants to train with us us a special repertoire class on the 22 of that month (see A Very Special Class in Liverpool - and Leeds is filling up 22 July 2018 on the Powerhouse Ballet website).  She proposes to teach us two or, if time permits, three of her own works.  The class will take place at Z Studios at 42 Devon Street immediately after our usual company class with Mark Hindle.  There are some lovely dancers in Liverpool (as indeed there are in Manchester, Yorkshire and further afield) who could do justice to Yvonne's choreography.

Registration for Yvonne's class and Mark's on 22 Sept will open immediately after our Leeds class on Saturday. Even though I have hired the largest studio I can find in Liverpool I think we will fill it very quickly.