The "D" Word

Author: Canuckguy
Source: Wikipedia
Copyright released by the author

In the foreword to the programme for this year's triple bill, Cassa Pancho, the founder and artistic director of Ballet Black writes:

"I am often asked why I started Ballet Black. I don't have a perfect answer, even after our sixteen years, but in short it is all about the D word, diversity. I believe diversity on stage inspires diversity at the beginning of the classical ballet food chain, in local ballet schools.  That in turn fuels the number of black and Asian students attending vocational school, which leads to more culturally diverse artists following a professional career in dance. From there, those diverse dancers can become teachers, choreographers, technicians, designers, managers, decision makers who will change the shape of dance. Finally, diversity on stage - and off - means the same thing for the audience, put it on your stage. But top down or ground up approaches are not effective on their own. Real diversity will only happen when you work in both directions at the same time, by giving a platform to professional dancers working across the globe today, whose very existence will inspire the tiny tree and four year olds to plié and skip for the first time in their local church hall."

Cassa is surely right. The diversification of which she writes is important not just for professionals, students and audiences from Africa, Asia and the African and Asian diasporas but for the future of dance on stage generally and ballet in particular as an art form and for everyone who loves that art regardless of his or her individual ethnicity.

Nearly three years ago to the day I answered an article by David Lister entitled Ballet Black is a wonderful company. But it's a shame on the arts that it still exists 7 March 2014 in which he wrote:

"Ballet Black has been delighting crowds and critics at the Royal Opera House this week. The company, founded in 2001 to create opportunities for dancers of black and Asian descent, has, according to our critic’s review, “never looked better”. They are good, so good that I want to pay them the ultimate and richly deserved accolade – they should be abolished."

In  David Lister's Post on Ballet Black 9 March 2014 I wrote:

"It is clear that Mr Lister abhors racism like all right thinking people. His article is no doubt written with the best of intentions but he is wrong. Ballet Black has never been more necessary than now. Not because black or South Asian dancers cannot get into other ballet companies as, clearly, they can and do. But because Ballet Black is claiming an art form that began in the courts of renaissance Italy and developed in imperial Russia for all cultures including (but by no means exclusively) kids from Bradford, Brixton and Moss Side."

The process of diversification to which Cassa refers has only just begun in the United Kingdon. Yes, there are fine dancers of African and Asian heritage in all the leading dance companies and there are also more children of African and Asian heritage in local dance and vocational ballet schools, but there is still a mountain to climb with audiences, even for the performances of Ballet Black.

In climbing that mountain we have to be very careful to avoid representing ballet as a fundamentally European art form in which African and Asian heritage artists and audiences are invited to participate because that is not how it is. It is more like a language that can be adapted by artists of any culture to express music, literature and thought from any source. An analogue of the diversification process. perhaps. is jazz. That came to the world (albeit indirectly) from Africa but was embraced not just by artists of European heritage but by those of other cultures (see Audio slideshow: Bombay's jazz age 27 Jan 2012 BBC website).

Unless the process of diversification accelerates ballet risks becoming a predominately white, elitist museum piece and that would be a tragedy for everybody and a betrayal of a beautiful art form. The process will not be complete even when every company and every dance school in the UK becomes representative of the population as a whole because diversification is an international imperative. That is one of the reasons why Ballet Black and companies with a similar mission in this country and abroad are so precious and so necessary.

Changing the subject, I was at the last night of Ballet Black's Barbican season yesterday and I have never been more delighted.  At the risk of Cassa's gentle reprimand "Well you always say that, don't you" I repeat what I have said many times in this blog, Ballet Black have never danced better. Everybody around me in the auditorium (remember, this is stuffy old London - not Amsterdam) leapt to their feet.  The applause was deafening. I will review last night, of course, but the lead review will come from the distinguished journalist, Joanna Goodman. We shall also publish a splendid report by David Murley of last week's Little Red Riding Hood workshop by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa.

Altogether, we have a lot of good things to say about Ballet Black and for once I won't be the only one saying them.

Laura Morera

I extended my stay in London after seeing La Bayadère for another day to see Susan Johnson interview Ricardo Cervera and Laura Morera. I had to endure the miserable weather in London and drive nearly 200 miles through the night but it was worth it because Morera's performance on on 16 April 2015 was exquisite (see The Best Fille Ever 18 April 2015). Fille is pretty well my favourite ballet and I have seen a lot of performances over the years but that evening was special and I wanted to tell her that myself.

I can say nothing about the discussion last night because the London Ballet Circle embargoes reporting of its proceedings, but I can direct you to a photograph of Cervera, Morera and Johnson on the Circle's Facebook page.  Morera has had a splendid career with the Royal Ballet which is summarized on her page on the Royal Opera House's website:

"She trained at The Royal Ballet School and graduated into the Company in 1995, promoted to First Artist in 1998, Soloist in 1999, First Soloist in 2002 and Principal in 2007. Her repertory includes Manon and Lescaut's Mistress (Manon), Tatiana (Onegin), Mitzi Caspar and Marie Larisch (Mayerling), Lise (La Fille mal gardée), Gamzatti (La Bayadère), Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker), Giselle and Myrtha (Giselle), Effie (La Sylphide), Titania (The Dream), the Queen of Hearts (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), Paulina (The Winter's Tale) and Principal roles in Song of The Earth, Rhapsody and Viscera."

The same web page embeds a YouTube video on the staging of Manon in which Cervera as well as Morera discuss the ballet and its characters.

Meetings like the one last night provide a rare opportunity for interaction between a dancer and his or her audience. We can express our appreciation on the night by clapping, cheering, rising to our feet and even throwing flowers but that is not the same as saying "your dancing touched my soul".  Do dancers need to know that? I don't know but I do know that I feel compelled to say that sometimes.

Inala at the Wells

Sadler's Wells, London

Source Wikipedia

Inala, Sadler's Wells, 10 July 2015

Isn't it strange that you can see exactly the same show with exactly the same casts in performances just days apart and yet have two completely different experiences.  I saw Inala in Bradford on 25 June 2015 (see Inala at the Alhambra 26 June 2015). I reported that the show was met with "a standing ovation and a lot of whooping and cheering." There was nothing like that when I saw the show again in London on 10 July 2915. A lot of polite, even enthusiastic clapping but a much more restrained reception.

That does not mean that the London audience was any less appreciative. The differences in audience reactions were discussed by Marcelo Gomes in a recent question and answer session. He explained that a quiet audience in Japan is a good sign because everybody is concentrating. In Brazil it is the reverse because a contented audience would be buzzing. London audiences are very undemonstrative compared to those in the North because they think they have seen everything. .

Although I liked Inala when I saw it in Bradford I enjoyed it rather more second time round. There are a number of reasons for that. Having seen the show before I knew what to look out for. Another reason why I liked it better is that I was able to buy a programme in London and could therefore follow the show. A third reason is that I sat in the second circle in Sadler's Wells and could see the the lighting displays and the patterns of the dancing on the stage which I had missed in Bradford because they were not visible from the stalls.

As in Bradford the best part of the show was Ladysmith Black Mambazo's singing. Except for the last one where the singers waved goodbye it was quite impossible to guess the meaning of the songs because they were sung in Zulu. The advantage of the programme is that the "Score" page summarized the songs . Some of those summaries seem very strange to a modern British audience:

All those cattle I used to pay the dowry should be paid back, When will the cows come back again?

That song was answered by

"The cows will be returned. The bridge has failed. They will  be returned. All of them." 

The dancing expressed the music of each song but did not relate directly to their subject matter  and perhaps that was a missed opportunity. A ballet could have been created for each of those songs and individual dancers could have represented a character in the song.  For instance, the theme of Warmuhle Intombi is

"You are so beautiful young lady! It's time to choose the way you go and the one to be with!"

That suggests a pas de deux or perhaps a pas de trois and that may even have been what we got but my recollection of the dancing is that it was all abstract and that all the dances formed one single choreographic piece.

Although the show is marketed as a Zulu ballet it is more musical theatre than ballet. It is an opportunity to hear a beautiful style of singing which is not often heard in this country and to see some exuberant dancing. If you like that sort of thing then this show is for you. But don't go to the show expecting ballet for that is not what you will get.

Here's Another Answer

Earlier this morning I wrote about BP's initiative to bring performances from Covent Garden to the public by sponsoring big screens in parks and public squares around the country (Ballet for Everybody in Centenary Square 4 June 2015), Here's another initiative and I am proud to say that it comes from Northern Ballet.  It is directed to schoolchildren in every part of Yorkshire.

The film shows some of the children at the Grand Theatre in Leeds.  They have been taken to see Peter Pan which I also saw last year (Not too sure about Fairies but I certainly believe in Rachael Gillespie 21 Dec 2014). For some it was their first experience of theatre.  Several were born overseas.  There are boys as well as girls. They are from all backgrounds and cultures. Clearly they are having a great time.

But their contact with the ballet goes beyond the theatre. The video shows them in the dance studios working with the dancers.  It also shows the teachers learning new skills too.

I hope someone tells those kids and their parents about the big screens in Centenary Square in Bradford and Millennium Square in Leeds. I hope some of them will see the Royal Ballet's Romeo and Juliet. Maybe that will also help change the composition of audiences over time.

Ballet for Everybody in Centenary Square

Centenary Square, Bradford

Author Beadfordbuzz.com

Source Wikipedia 

When I go to the ballet more or less anywhere in the country and look around me I find that most of the audience look like me.  Predominately middle aged.  Predominately female.  Predominately middle class. And overwhelmingly white.

That is odd because the dancers on stage are young.  There are men as well as women. They come from all backgrounds, races and cultures. Maybe not yet quite in proportion to the population as a whole but they are a good deal more representative than their audience.

Why should that be? It's too expensive say some.  Well the main stage of Covent Garden is a bit pricey and the Grand and Lowry are not exactly cheap but I've seem some excellent shows in The Linbury, Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre and the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre for £20 or less. That's not much more than the cinema and it's a damn sight cheaper than Premier League football. Ballet is too remote say others. Well the Birmingham Royal Ballet has just finished a successful tour of the medium sized towns of Northern England, the Midlands and the South and Northern Ballet started a very similar tour in Doncaster. I think the problem lies with the audiences. It is after all middle aged, middle class white women like me who tend become justices of the peace and head teachers and generally represent petty authority.

So what can be done about it? One possible solution is offered by BP. It is sponsoring the transmission of La Bohème and Don Giovanni by the Royal Opera and Romeo and Juliet by the Royal Ballet from Covent Garden to big screens in parks and city squares around the country which the public can watch absolutely free. One of those screens is in Woolwich where little Vladimir lives. Another is in Centenary Square in Bradford where a friend's sewing class meets. All the members of that class save one are of Indian or Pakistani heritage. When my friend said that she was going to the ballet one night she was met with incredulity. None of the ladies in the class had actually seen any ballet but they were pretty sure that it wasn't for them. When asked why they replied "Oh they serve alcohol in the bar" and "it's too expensive." Well, consuming alcohol in public is banned in Bradford city centre and admission to Centenary Square is free and open to all. That does not mean that the members of the class and their families will come to Centenary Square but they have two less excuses for not coming.

Let's hope it is a warm autumn evening in Bradford (and indeed the rest of the country) on 22 Sept when Romeo and Juliet is to be screened. Let's also hope that the crowd will be a microcosm of the city, young as well as old and middle aged, male as well as female and of Afghan, African, Afro-Caribbean, Chinese, Indian, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Kurdish, Pakistani, Polish, Ukrainian as well as Anglo-Saxon heritage.

Post Script

By the way, if you do go to Centenary Square and feel a bit peckish after the show you should try the Kash (short for the Kashmir) at 27 Morley Street. That is a few hundred yards from the big screen. The Kash is one of the oldest curry houses in the city if not the country. It proudly states on its fascia board that it was established in 1958. It is a Bradford institution along with Salt's Mill, the Alhambra, National Media Museum, the cathedral and Centenary Square. The Kash may not be the best restaurant in Bradford but it is certainly the best value. A couple can feast on fish pakora, onion bhaji, a chicken curry, with salad and rice or naan and maybe a jug of lassi and still have change from £20.  If you want to see what other people think of it take a look at the tripadvisor page.