One of the Best Ballet Experiences Ever

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When Karen Sant introduced Harriet Mills at KNT's Manchester studios last night, we gave her a spontaneous ripple of applause.  Applause is expected at the reverence but at the beginning of a class it is very rare indeed.  We applauded her because Harriet is a very special teacher.  A principal of the Karlsruhe State Ballet no less which seems to have a gorgeous repertoire. Feast your eyes, ladies and gents, on these YouTube clips that I have managed to google:  Romeo and Juliet, La Sylphide and Anne Frank.  There is something very special about a class from a teacher who has danced with a well known company and a class from a principal is particularly precious.  I have been lucky enough to attend several classes by Chris Hinton-Lewis in Leeds who was one of my favourite dancers at Northern Ballet (see It's an Ill Wind - Review of Northern Ballet's Beginner's Class 8 Dec 2013) but this was my first class with a ballerina at the height of her career.

Directing us to face the barre Harriet showed us how to stand from our toes to our shoulders.  She then conducted us through pliés in 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th, tendus, glissés, ronds de jambe, frappés and a combination of tendus, glissés and grands battements. Calling us into the centre she said that the secret of the port de bras is to keep the arms flowing and she gave us a delightful exercise that required us to do just that.  Next came pirouettes - preparations, quarter turns, half and finally full turns. Then jumps starting with glissades and assemblés in preparation for a joyful combination of balancés, arabesques, pas de chats and temps levés.  Usually our class lasts a little over an hour but Harriet gave us a full 90 minutes.  The class was so good that Karen and Mark Hindle, who has just returned from a season of the Lion King at the Hague, joined in.

Because Harriet has given us some extra time she had to start the next one immediately afterwards. It was not possible for us to thank her for our class.  I always try to do that because the relationship between teacher and student is very special as I explained in Le jour de gloire est arrivé - Dame Antoinette Sibley with Clement Crisp at the Royal Ballet School 3 Feb 2014:

"As Sibley spoke about her teachers I realized that every teacher represents to his or students every dancer, choreographer and teacher who has gone before. Sibley loved her teachers and I can relate to that because I love every one of mine. Those who have gently corrected my wobbling arabesques and feeble turns. I texted one of them yesterday after the talk .......

"Oh super jealousy" she replied.
"Don't be jealous" I responded "You are also part of the tradition. You live it, I just see it. And you pass on your gift to others."
"Awwwww Thanku xxxx"
"When I go to class you or Annemarie represent every dancer, choreographer and teacher who ever lived".
"Aw Jane! I won't be able to leave the room soon"
"I am only paraphrasing Sibley. She should know. Through you I am linked to your teacher who is probably linked to someone at Ballet Russes who is linked to Petipa."
"xxxxx wise woman!"

As indeed Dame Antoinette is. I learned so much from her yesterday for which I shall always be grateful."

So this blog post has to serve as my thank you to Harriet for a great class. We all left happy and inspired.

If anybody is interested, Karlsruhe is a pleasant medium size town in Baden-Württemberg which hosts the German Constitutional Court as well as a fine ballet company.  Practitioners in my area of law have been taking a particular interest in the Court lately because it is determining a challenge to German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement. That was the topic of a talk that I gave to Queen Mary University of London Law School on Monday night (see Jane Lambert Is British Ratification of the UPC Agreement even relevant now? 12 Feb 2018 NIPC News).

Ekaterina Vazem - the First Bayadere and a First Rate Teacher

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The first Bayadere was Ekaterina Vazem. In a quotation from her memoirs which appears in Wikipedia she described it as her favourite of all the ballets that she had occasion to create. She liked its:

"beautiful, very theatrical scenario, its interesting, very lively dances in the most varied genres, and finally Minkus' music, which the composer managed especially well as regards melody and its coordination with the character of the scenes and dances."

She then goes on to mention a disagreement with Petipa which you will have to read for yourself.

Vazem was a great teacher as well as a great dancer. From my conversations with dancers and my reading of their biographies I have detected a special bond between teacher and student which does not seem to exist in quite the same way in other disciplines.

I have mentioned that bond several times in this blog.  In Le jour de gloire est arrive 3 Feb 2014 I wrote about Dame Antoinette Sibley and her teachers Tamara Karsavina and Pamela May:

"At the beginning of this post I mentioned the tradition of ballet. Crisp described Sibley as a 'repository' - which set her giggling - of knowledge. She had known so many of the greats and indeed she had been taught by two of them. The great English ballerina Pamela May who taught at the School while appearing regularly at Covent Garden and Tamara Karsavina whom Sibley adored. Karsavina once invited the young Sibley to her home and she cooked a steak for her. Sibley chose a steak because she thought it might be easy - something you just place under a grill - but Karsavina took the same trouble over that steak as she did with everything else."

One of my best friends from St Andrews who trained with Olga Preobrajenska wrote this about her great teacher which I reproduced in my post of 31 March 2013:

"Haven’t forgotten about your Olga P. request….don’t really know what to say except that she was a tiny and fierce little lady who believed in physical punishment and commanded the utmost respect from her students. I was 9 years old and terrified of her. I grew to love her and when she died, mother and I attended a benefit and somewhere I have one of her linens that we purchased. There was a gentleman at the studio who acted as her manager…he appeared to be slavishly devoted to her. As a child I did not know what their relationship was other than he also collected money for the dance lessons. I remember the time that Maria Tallchief came to the studio. She was beautiful. Many famous dancers came to her for instruction."

In my article What can be achieved by a good teacher 3 March 2013 I wrote how Mike Wamaya has changed the lives of some of the poorest children in one of the roughest neighbourhoods of Nairobi through his ballet lessons:

"In many ways the kids in this class have had the worst possible start in life but in one very important respect they could not have had a better one. Look at the teacher, Mike Wamaya. He is good. I googled for some more information on Mike and I found an even better clip from CNN and this article in The Daily Nation. These films show what can be achieved from the discipline not only in the studio but also in the class room and in life generally. Something that I and most readers of this blog in many walks of life are likely to have found out for ourselves."

"Love my profession" exclaimed Esther Protzman who teaches at the Netherlands Royal Conservatory in the Hague on social media recently and well she might for she has already trained some lovely dancers many of whom are on a trajectory to the top.

Vazem's pupils included  Anna Pavlova, Olga Preobrajenska and Agrippina Vaganova after whom the Imperial Ballet School was renamed. There does not seem to be any film of Vazem's teaching but there is this clip of her famous pupil who would have inherited something from her.

When a teacher has danced with a major company his or her teaching has a special edge which is not easy but is always good.  I experienced that edge last year in Jane Tucker's Swan Lake intensive at the Dancehouse which I described in KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 1 18 Aug 2016. I wrote:

"We were led upstairs to one of the studios where we met our teacher. I know Jane Tucker from Northern Ballet and think the world of her. She has a wonderful way of coaxing us to carry on even when we can go no further. "Not bad" she exclaims after a shambles of a turn. "How are you doing?" She smiles. "All right?" And so we are."

This year I am back for La Bayadere.  These start on the 15 Aug for beginners and the 18 Aug for more advanced pupils and I gave full details in La Bayadere - where it all took place 24 July 2016. As I said before, if you want to take part call Karen on 07783 103 037 or get in touch through her contact form, Facebook page or twitter.

We're in the Paper

A reporter and photographer from the Yorkshire Post visited our class the other day. I remember their visit. Here's their report: Raising the barre: Pirouetting pensioners. 

I had an off day on Monday and asked myself whether I wasn't getting a little too old for this sort of thing. I suffer from fallen arches and my right foot was playing up. For the first time in a dance class I caught myself watching the clock.  "Why do you put yourself through this pain?"  I asked myself, "Aye and paying for it" I added. "Are you sure it is worth it?" Until I read this report I was beginning to wonder but it reminds me why I turn up to Quarry Hill on Tuesdays and Thursdays as often as I can, week after week.

The first reason is that Northern Ballet's Over 55 class is more than a ballet class.  I have got to know my fellow students over the last 18 months and have made friends with some of them. We meet in Café 164 after the class for a cup of tea and a chat. They are all have a story to tell. This class is where I get to meet them. It does not seem to happen in other classes.  Or at least not so much.  In other classes we exchange smiles and greetings at the barre and look forward to seeing each other next week. But then we get into our cars and scatter to the four winds.

The second reason I love class is that I like the tinkly music even if it is recorded. At Northern Ballet we usually have a pianist for the main class though our teacher uses a DVD for an extra class where we work on more difficult exercises. That used to be one of the highlights of my week until my arches started to give me grief. There's something about ballet exercise music that attracts me. There's one particular recording that all my teachers have played which almost brings tears to my eyes when I hear it. The music plugs me into a tradition which links me albeit very tenuously into a tradition that has been followed by every dancer, choreographer, teacher and student who has gone before.

And I think that is the third reason I need class. In Le jour de gloire est arrivé - Dame Antoinette Sibley with Clement Crisp at the Royal Ballet School 3 Feb 2014 I wrote how Sibley spoke adoringly about her teachers, particularly the great Karsavina. I added:

"As Sibley spoke about her teachers I realized that every teacher represents to his or students every dancer, choreographer and teacher who has gone before. Sibley loved her teachers and I can relate to that because I love every one of mine. Those who have gently corrected my wobbling arabesques and feeble turns."

I feel that connection with the great balletic tradition in every class but particularly strongly in Northern Ballet where we sometimes meet members of the company as we file out of their studio.

Oh and I get fit in the process, mentally as well as physically. I have a lot of stress in my work. I spend a lot of time in front of a computer. I have to concentrate on detail and that happens in class even in simple exercises.  Class helps to relieve that stress, to clear my head, to stretch my body and think straight when I am in court or con.  I don't think I could do my job - or at least not so well - without it.

Post Script 20 April 2015

I had another class with Fiona Noonan on Wednesday night at Huddersfield University and it couldn't have been more different from Monday. It was 90 minutes instead of the usual hour and the teacher worked us hard. Yet even though there was more jumping there was no pain. The class set me up for a really long day on Thursday which began 2 hours after I had gone to bed and included a 200 mile dash to London, several meetings and La Fille mal gardee. Friday was just as hectic with a three and a half hour con and another long drive home but now I am back and looking forward to Ballet Black.

More on the Over 55 Class

Gita Mistry   Coming Back to Ballet 12 March 2015
Jane Lambert Elizabeth Rae  7 Oct 2013
Jane Lambert  New Term at Team Hud - and around the World 2 Oct 2014
Jane Lambert  Coming Down to Earth Gently 30 June 2014
Mel Wong   The Dance DID go on - Northern Ballet Academy Show 2014 29 June 2015
Jane Lambert The Time of My Life 28 June 2014
Jane Lambert Nervous? Shhhhh...... Northern Ballet's Over 55 Class End of Term Show 24 June 2014
Jane Lambert A Treat For Us Old Ladies 27 Feb 2014
Jane Lambert Realizing a Dream 12 Sep 2013

Finding a dance teacher online...

New Year Fireworks

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At a New Year's party last night one of the guests told me that she and her 11 year daughter would like to learn a new style of dance together. She had made enquiries and found plenty of schools where her daughter could learn to dance and a few where she could learn but none where the two of them could learn together.

"Ought to be possible to find somewhere" I replied. "There are so many on-line dance directories and class finders nowadays." Indeed I had actually reviewed one of them in September.

When I started to search for myself I saw her difficulty. There may be a lot of on-line directories and class and teacher finders but they re far from comprehensive. And they tend to report what's there or rather may have been, or even intended to be, there rather than put students in touch with teachers.

I think it must be easier to find a class in London than it is elsewhere because Sadler's Wells and the Arts Council of England operate the London Dance website at http://londondance.com/. This is a massive resource of everything to do with dance in the capital. There is a searchable database of dance classes in every style from Asian to Zumba. I searched for "Ballet" and found 11 pages of listings starting with Academy Performing Arts in Woolwich to the Ysabelle Taylor Ballet School. I have not been able to find anything quite like that London Dance anywhere else in the country though regional dance organizations like North West Dance do provide some of those services.

I reviewed Dancelinks on 6 Sept 2014 and revisited it again this afternoon.  I searched for "Ballet", "Over 18" and "Leeds" and came up with Elev8dance, Headingley Dance Centre, Janina School of Dance, Lara Academy of Dance, Mullen Theatre Studios and Priestley Theatre Dancing School as well as the 5 that the database reported in September so it is obviously getting bigger. As the site does not seem to charge searchers or carry advertising I guess it must charge the studios for registering but I couldn't find out how much.

A site that published its rates is DanceNearYou. It claims to be "the number one class finder" and it charges instructors £15.60 per month and up to 5 studios or teachers £60 per month for a listing. I searched "Any/All" styles and "Leeds" and it came up with "Lindy Fridays" which offers "Social Dancing, Swing Dance Classes". 

I also found DanceWeb UK and Class Finder which have searchable databases. Class Finder seems to be particularly helpful. It reported 11 ballet classes within a 20 mile radius of Leeds and I know that at least one of them is good. Other good places to look are the Royal Academy of Dance, International Dance Teachers Association and the ISTD websites which list their members rather than studios.

If anybody has any other suggestions I shall be pleased to hear from them.

Adult Ballet in Moscow and San Francisco - could have been Leeds or Manchester

I think this class was filmed in Russia but this is exactly what we did in Leeds with Annemarie this morning.

One of the loveliest things about ballet is that you are part of a worldwide community of dance.  Here is a class in San Francisco but it could be Fiona's class in Huddersfield or Ailsa's in Manchester.





Look at the backgrounds of the pupils - architect, graphic designer, gymnast, even the equivalent of a High Court Judge - it is exactly the same in Leeds. And look at the interaction between the students and their teacher in both classes. It's a real bond of mutual respect and affection. Possibly that is the most precious thing in ballet.

Post Script

You will soon be able to do adult ballet in Dubai. There are two job ads for ballet teachers in the UAE in the RAD's Job Search International and both taking adult ballet classes is part of the job description. Where next?