Hype Dance's Annual Show

Hype Dance  Annual Show Library Theatre, Sheffield, 12 My 2018 19:45


Performances are important to dance education because ballet and kindred styles of dance developed in the theatre and are intended for an audience.  The experience of appearing before a living, breathing (and paying) audience is delicious. I well remember the charge of excitement I felt in my first show which I tried to describe in The Time of My Life 28 June 2014.  Every dance student from toddler to pensioner can and should feel that charge no matter how inexperienced or incompetent he or she may be.  Most get that opportunity because almost every dance school worth its salt offers its students a chance to take part in its annual show.  Training and rehearsing for that show is what distinguishes dance classes from dreary keep fit.

Hype Dance Company is a dance school in Sheffield to which I was introduced in 2014 by Mel Wong. Mel and I had met through BalletcoForum when Mel appealed for a teacher to stand in for her regular instructor who was about to take maternity leave. I suggested mine in Huddersfield and I mentioned the vacancy to her though I think she had already learned of it from another source. However, my teacher got the job and I followed her down to Sheffield where I attended my first class at Hype (see More than just Hype - Beginners and Improvers Classes in Sheffield 14 May 2014).  In that post I wrote:

"I have not met the other teachers but judging by the standard I found at Hype they must be good. I have no hesitation in recommending that dance school."

I later took classes with Emily Talks and Anna Olejnicki who directs the school and attended Hype's open air Frightnight show on the Moor.  I am glad to say that those other teachers and the school fully met my expectations.

Yesterday was Hype Dance's annual show at the Library Theatre in Sheffield. The Library is one of three theatres around Tudor Square which must place it in contention for one of the most theatre concentrated districts in England. The Library is an intimate auditorium seating 260 sprctators attached to the Central Library which is literally next door to The Lyceum.  Hype has so many students and runs so many classes that it had to stage the show in multiple sessions.  The kids and young people performed in the afternoon while the adult dance students performed in the evening.  I attended the evening show.

Some 19 pieces were presented ranging from ballet to pole dance.  I was impressed by all the performances.  The ballet included some tricky pointe work by two soloists who impressed me with their precision and polish, a charming character dance from the RAD class and excellent contributions from the advanced, improvers and beginners' classes.  I had shadowed the beginners' class in their rehearsal a few weeks ago and was impressed by it then but it was even better on stage.  It was raised to a new level by a soloist who suddenly appeared and wowed us.  A brilliant touch by Anna who had choreographed that piece.

Hype's jazz classes are particularly strong.  All the dancers are impressive but I have to say a special word for the solitary male who showed great strength and virtuosity.  As in most dance schools there are far more women at Hype than men, but all the men who took part in yesterday's show distinguished themselves.  One showed particular wit and courage by taking part in SHE Heels mastering impossibly towering footwear with the grace of any of the girls    The pole dancer was described as a guest in the programme.  I know no more about her but she amazed me with her strength and grace particularly when she was suspended by her legs her luxuriant hair cascading about her.  Contemporary, tap. street and all the other artists performed well too.

The jazz class led us into the finale each of the dancers showing off his or her party piece. Each of the other classes followed them onto stage to mounting applause. Finally the teachers with Anna acknowledging the cheers.  She appeared as proud as Punch and had every right to be.

Ballet Black's Tour

Last year we were lucky enough to see Ballet Black for two days in Sale, one at the Lowry appropriately on Manchester Day, two days in Leeds and again in Doncaster. They also performed in Glasgow where they were much appreciated.

This year they have a particularly good programme which Joanna and I reviewed very favourably (see Joanna Goodman Sexy wolf stole the show 5 March 2017 and Jane Lambert Ballet Black Triumphant 7 March 2017). David Murley also covered Annabelle Lopez-Ochoa's workshop at the Barbican on 25 Feb 2017.

We shall see very much less of Ballet Black in the North this year. Nothing at all in the North West, a region of over 7 million people and only two days in Leeds on 17 and 18 Nov for the whole of Yorkshire and the North East with a combined population of over 8 million. However, Ballet Black are visiting Oxford, Enfield, Harlow, Canterbury, Watford, Stratford East and Pompey and they started their tour at the Barbican in London.

Save for their visit to the Stanley and Audrey Burton in November, the nearest they come to us will be the Nottingham Playhouse on 22 June 2017 and Derby on 15 Nov 2017. Ballet Black occupies a particularly warm spot in my affection but Heaven know's how I am going to make it to Nottingham on Thursday evening when I shall be at the Birmingham Royal Ballet's press night at the Hippodrome tomorrow and a breakfast meeting at Daresbury near Runcorn at 08:00 on Friday morning.

Ballet Black, you have a lot of fans in the Northern Powerhouse. Do come and see us a little more often.

The Importance of Performance

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I spent last weekend driving to Truro and back to see Duchy Ballet (see Cornwall's Coup: Duchy Ballet's Sleeping Beauty 19 March 2017).  I shall spend this weekend driving to Chelmsford to see my company dance Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I have emphasised the possessive adjective because I am proud to be a non-dancing associate member of the company and the only reason why I have never auditioned for dancing membership is that Chelmsford is just a tad too far for rehearsals.

It would have been cheaper and easier to have whizzed down to London and back by Hull Trains, Virgin or Grand Central to see Project Polunin at the Wells or even the Pite, Wheeldon and Dawson triple bill at the Royal Opera House and cheaper and easier still to have stayed in Leeds to see another performance of Northern Ballet's Casanova  (which I strongly recommend, by the way - see Casanova - "it has been a long time since I enjoyed a show by Northern Ballet as much as I enjoyed Casanova last night" 12 March 2017) but I would have missed something important.

Performances like the one I saw in Truro on Saturday and the one I expect to see in Chelmsford are important because they give a purpose to all those years of exercises at the barre and in the centre.  Ballet, like Shakespeare, is intended for the stage. Without performance, class is just a workout - about as arid as cramming Romeo and Juliet for an exam.  Performances are important not just for children and young adults but for students of any age.  I shall never forget the thrill of my first performance at Northern Ballet Academy's end of term show in 2014 (see The Time of my Life 28 June 2014).

However, students will take performances seriously only if audiences take them seriously.  Such audiences should include not just mums, dads and siblings but also regular ballet goers and even the occasional ballet blogger.  The attendance of a critical audience is particularly important when principals of leading companies perform in a student show as Elena Glurdjidze and Arionel Vargas of English National Ballet did in the Bristol Russian Ballet School's Romeo and Juliet (see Good Show - Bristol Russians' Cinderella in Stockport 19 Feb 2014) and Tom Thorne and Laura Bösenberg of the Cape Town City Ballet did on Saturday.

There is sometimes a reward for audiences who make it to civic theatres in remote parts of the country. Sometimes you see stars of the future as I did when I saw Xander Parish for the first time in York in 2007. Even as a student it was clear that he was going places.  I think I saw a spark of excellence in the lilac fairy on Saturday and also in Odette-Odile in Greenock last month (see Ballet West at the Beacon 13 Feb 2017). I don't want to embarrass or tempt fate for either of those two promising young women but I don't think I have seen the last of either of them.