My First Impressions of 1984

George Orwell, Author of 1984

Source Wikipedia

Northern Ballet 1984 West Yorkshire Playhouse, 11 Sept 2015


In many ways Jonathan Watkins's 1984 was a howling success. Literally for there were whoops and cheers from the audience as well as lots of clapping. Several individuals rose to their feet.  And it was easy to see why for Watkins pressed all the right buttons.  Act I ended with just about the most explicit sex scene I have ever seen in ballet. The bedroom scene in Macmillan's Romeo and Juliet is demure in comparison.  A lady in the audience described that scene as "erotic" in the question and answer session with Watkins that followed the show and she was right. There were also brilliant visuals with the telescreens and an easy listening score from Alex Baranowski. Not quite sex, drugs and rock and roll but the nearest you can get in classical ballet.

No wonder this ballet has received such positive reviews:

"This is gripping storytelling" according to The Stage

"Northern Ballet's terrific new production" gushes The Guardian

"...an ambitious, compelling and, ultimately, moving new ballet" says The Telegraph.

And the tweets on the first night from members of the audience whose opinions I trust were even more generous.

So why aren't I searching my vocabulary for superlatives? I desperately want to do so because I love Northern Ballet and its dancers. Knowing how hard any dancer has to work from my feeble efforts at the barre I feel the deepest gratitude for their just stepping onto stage. I also have warm feelings towards Watkins - particularly after seeing his Northern Trilogy at The Sapphire gala and the mixed programme (see Sapphire 15 March 2015 and Between Friends - Northern Ballet's Mixed Programme 10 May 2015). There was definitely excellence in the choreography and the dancing by Tobias Batley, Martha Leebolt, Javier Torres and the ensemble. I have already commended the designs and score. And yet I left the West Yorkshire Playhouse asking myself "Is this it?"

It is horrible to write such things for I feel disloyal to the art form, company and dancers I love. I felt very much the same after seeing Christopher Wheeldon's The Winter's Tale for the Royal Ballet the first time (see Royal Ballet The Winter's Tale 14 April 2014) but eventually warmed to it after seeing it in the cinema and on TV (see The Winter's Tale - Time to eat my Hat 29 April 2015), I hope the same will happen with 1984 after I see it again in Manchester with the Swiss friend who brought the ballet to my attention (see Für Andrea - more Information on 1984 26 July 2015). Like The Winter's Tale the advance publicity that this ballet has received raised my expectations to impossible heights. I was also spoilt on Tuesday by watching some of the best dancers in the world at the Dutch National Ballet gala in Amsterdam and actually speaking to some of them at the party afterwards.

Another thing that bugged me is that 1984 was launched in the week that remotely controlled unmanned aircraft despatched two British citizens in Syria on the orders of the Prime Minister (see Cardiff jihadist Reyaad Khan, 21, killed by RAF drone 7 Sept 2015). That news followed by reports of surveillance by GCHQ (see GCHQ's surveillance of two human rights groups ruled illegal by tribunal 22 June 2015 Guardian) and the WikiLeaks revelations made me think that Big Brother has actually arrived. We even have telescreens nowadays for every laptop is equipped with a webcam and microphone. Orwell's novel was a satire of the increasingly authoritarian state of the 1940s where such things as targeted drone strikes and data mining were impossible but we are there now so why not update 1984 as a modern satire?

Watkins's ballet had a very retro feel. Indeed I was reminded of Gillian Lynne's re-staging of Helpmann's Miracle in the Gorbals  (see A Second Miracle 23 Oct 2014) and Ninette De Valois Job). I asked Watkins whether that was deliberate in the Q and A after the show. He replied that he knew Job but not Miracle in the Gorbals and if he was inspired by anything it was the cinema. He mentioned the Lego Movie several times in the session as well as Ken Loach's Kes which Watkins has also transformed into dance (see Kes on Jonathan Watkins's website).

Setting the ballet in 1948 rather than the present seemed to me to be a missed opportunity; but then who am I to say or even think such things. It was entertaining. As I said, there was excellence in the show. The folk who attended the Q & A took it at face value and really enjoyed it.  Don't let my reservations put you off seeing it.

For the Dutch National Ballet - Mixed spiced fruit scones- all vegetarian too!

I am so sorry to miss the opening gala of the Dutch National Ballet on Tuesday. I enjoyed Cinderella (see Bend it like Cinders - my take on Cinderella 18 July 2015) and it was great to meet Ernst Meisner at the London Ballet Circle. I think Kenneth Leadbeater's idea of a British chapter of the Friends of the Dutch National Ballet is a great idea and to get the ball rolling I'll prepare some of my choicest delicacies for the first meeting.

I know Mr Meisner likes his food because he told me so. If I had gone to Amsterdam I would have brought some of these scones which I baked over the weekend.  As I can't make it to the Stopera Mr Meisner will have to make his own. Here's my brilliant quick recipe for egg free, fruit scones

(c) 2015 Gita Mistry, all rights reserved

Put oven on: gas mark 6, 180 C fan assisted 170C
Grease a non stick baking tray (I find using a roasting tin bakes a softer scone)

Ingredients:

8oz self raising flour
2oz hard butter
1tsp baking powder
1oz caster sugar (more to taste - But I find this perfect as the dried fruit is sweet)
Pinch of salt
3oz dried sultanas or raisins
1/2 tsp of mixed spice
A drop of vanilla essence
120ml cream, milk or butter milk (can be mixture of them)

Method

1. Rub the butter into the in to the flour and add in baking powder and pinch of salt. (Rubbing is a method using your finger tips. Take small amounts of mixture and rub the flour into the butter until is resembles breadcrumbs. Raise the mixture to some height whilst doing this over the bowl to aerate it).

2. Mix in the sugar and fruit and spice.

3. Add in 120ml of liquid, vanilla essence and bind it together with a flat knife

4. Using your hand bring it together to form dough.
Pat out in an 8 inch circle (1 inch in height) score the top in 8 pieces like the picture. Brush the top with milk (not the sides to give it colour contrast).

5. Bake for 20 mins and remove onto a cooling rack and simply enjoy with some best butter and jam is desired.

Of course this is not just for vegetarians! I took this bake to a party last night and they disappeared in about the same time as it takes for Odile to turn 32 times.

I hope to be at the Stopera for plenty of other shows this year.  I also hope to see the new Junior Company when they come to the UK. It would be fantastico-mojo pojo if Mr Meisner would bring them to Leeds. I would spoil Cristiano, Emilie, Lisanne and the other hungry dancers with one of my to-die-for curries!

To Jane, Alison, Helen and all you other lucky people who make it to the gala on Tuesday have a lovely time and tell me all about it.

Anna Tsygankova

Anna Tsygankova danced Cinderella on the last night of the Dutch National Ballet's season at the Coliseum and her performance was a triumph. It was the first time that I had seen her but I will make sure that it is not the last. I hope that the next occasion that I see her will be at the opening gala of the Amsterdam ballet season on the 8 Sept 2015.

Tsygankova talks about her role in Cinderella in the above video that the company has released recently on YouTube.  In it she describes her collaboration  with Christopher Wheeldon which was clearly a remarkable experience. She states how it helped her develop as a dancer.  The video also shows glimpses of her in Don Quixote, Giselle, Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake and other ballets.

The final shots show her at the piano in a building with magnificent views of Amsterdam. She explains how she was brought up in a musical family where her parents practised every single day. From the little I heard she is an accomplished pianist in her own right,

The Dutch National Ballet is one of the world's great ballet companies and it is on our doorstep. Amsterdam is easier to reach than London for many of us in the UK and a good deal less expensive once you get there. There will be quite a contingent from this country at the opening gala. Kenneth Leadbeater has proposed a British chapter of the Friends of the Dutch National Ballet along the lines of the American Friends of Covent Garden and the London Ballet Circle has promoted that idea in its latest newsletter. The Junior Company has enjoyed two successful seasons at The Linbury and I hope we will bring them back to the UK (perhaps to Leeds) notwithstanding the closure of the Linbury.  Tsygankova will be assured of an appreciative audience whenever she steps onto one of our stages.

Chantry Dance's Vincent - Rarely have I been more excited by a New Ballet

Chantry Dance in Company Class

Photo Gita Mistry

(c) 2015 Gita Mistry, all rights reserved 

The rate at which Chantry Dance Company has grown and developed is remarkable. The story goes that it was started because the Chinese Calligraphy Association and Ministry of Culture could not comprehend the concept of freelancing when they collaborated with Paul Chantry and Rae Piper in the Calligraphy Concert. Now Chantry Dance are about to embark on their second nationwide tour having worked at the Royal Opera House and the Rome Opera Theatre and having established their very own school since the last tour (see If only I were young again - Chantry School of Contemporary and Balletic Arts 27 July 2015).

Yesterday Gita and I visited Chantry Dance at their rehearsal studios in Grantham to watch their company class and a dress rehearsal of their latest ballet Vincent - A Stranger to Himself.  Rarely have I been more excited by a new work and I except none of the works of much bigger and better established companies in saying this. Chantry Dance have some fine young dancers: David Beer and their latest recruits Rebecca Scanlon and Sorrel De Paula Hanika. Last year's Happy Prince was good but Vincent is so much more ambitious Vincent is danced by Chantry and his principal love by Piper. Beer in black represents death, madness and evil. The corps - Scanlon, Hanika and several of the company's associates intervene as ghastly masked spectres, as colours and eventually his inspiration as the bearers of his best known works. The score includes Satie's Gymnopédies which Chantry uses with no less skill than Ashton did in Monotones.

If you have not been to Grantham you really should.  Sir Isaac Newton studied at The King's School and Lady Thatcher was born at the intersection of the inner ring road and the main road to the A1. The town has a fine parish church with a magnificent tower and a chained library. Just down the road from the church is The Beehive pub with a living and no doubt stinging inn sign. Gita and I visited all those places.

Vincent and Eine Kleine Nacht Musik are touring Grantham, Stamford, Birmingham, Worcester, Halifax and London this month. Grantham is already sold out and they got a great preview from London Ballet Circle in respect of their visit to Elmhurst where Scanlon trained.  You can book on-line at any of the venues through Duology - Chantry Dance releases new details of its Autumn tour 21 Aug 2015.

The New Season at Covent Garden

Royal Opera House

Author Russ London

Source Wikipedia

Creative Commons Licence

The Royal Opera House's new dance season has been on the House's website since 15 April and it has already attracted some 71 comments, not all of them positive though I can't see why. The Royal Ballet is special and I wish I had the time and resources to see everything though if I did I would never be able to see anything else.  There are some who would ask "Why would you want to see anything else when the Royal Ballet is the gold standard, at least in Britain?" My view is that one needs a bit of variety in life. Fish and chips and chicken tikka masala as well as haute cuisine. In ballet terms, that means small regional as well as national flagship companies. So I have to be selective and here are my choices.

This Autumn I am tempted by Viscera, Afternoon of a Faun, Tchaikovsky pas de deux and Carmen particularly Viscera after hearing Laura Morera at the London Ballet Circle last week (see Laura Morera 25 Aug 2015). Of course, I am also looking forward to Carlos Acosta's Carmen. There have been lots of attempts to translate Bizet into ballet but they have not generally stuck with the public. Maybe  this production will be different.

One ballet that I really love is Ashton's Monotones and that is to be performed with Two Pigeons in November and early December. The Nutcracker returns at Christmas and the Royal Ballet's production is particularly good. There are so many Nutcrackers at that time of the year that it is easy to get Nutcracker fatigue. However this one is magical not least because the House with its Christmas decorations offers such n enchanting setting. It is the show to which I shall take my grandson manqué for his first experience of Covent Garden.

I did not do justice to The Winter's Tale first time round because I was shattered by the drive (see Royal Ballet "The Winter's Tale" 14 April 2014) and I only got to appreciate it in the cinema (see The Winter's Tale - Time to eat my Hat 29 April 2014) and on telly last Christmas. I think I shall appreciate it far more when I see it on stage again.

The last show on my "must go" list is the new Wayne McGregor, The Invitation  and Within the Golden Hour in Spring.  Another Wheeldon and one, of course, MacMillan.

Most of the productions are contributed by the Royal Ballet but there will be visits to the Linbury by our own Phoenix Dance Theatre which I would not miss for the world, the Royal New Zealand Ballet and a number of other interesting companies. This year the Linbury will close for a while which will mean that Ballet Black will have to find somewhere else to launch their new season which is a shame because they always shine in that auditorium. The Dutch National Ballet Junior Company will also have to find another venue if they come to this country this year. I am trying to persuade them to perform at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre and if they came to Leeds Gita and I would spoil them to bits. But I guess there are many other factors that they have to consider.

Making it easier to dance in London - Danceworks's Parking Concessions

One Sunday afternoon I arranged to meet Joanna at Danceworks to take a class with Franziska Rosenzweig. Joanna very sensibly took public transport and arrived on time. But we don't do that in the North because we don't have a tube except for a few stations in Liverpool and Birkenhead unless you count the Newcastle metro. We drive to class and park in Quarry Hill if we want to attend Northern Ballet or in front of the Manchester Met students union if we are going to KNT. I knew that Londoners spend large chunks of their working day in a hole in the ground but as it was a Sunday I thought street parking would be easy peasy lemon squeezy. I could not have been more wrong. It took me ages to park and by the time I arrived at Danceworks Joanna was doing ronds de jambe and grands battements and reception wouldn't let me in.

It is likely that this debacle has happened to others because Danceworks has now negotiated a deal with APCOA for up to 4 hours parking at its Oxford Street West car park for just £5. As the usual tariff for that duration is £34 that's an enormous saving. To get that discount motorists should collect a validation voucher from Danceworks and insert it into the ticket machines when they leave the car park. Four houses allows enough time for a couple of classes and a good natter in one of the many cafes and bars in that part of London.

Information about this discount arrived in Danceworks newsletter which also contained details of a new 8 weeks improvers' course for beginners between 22 Sept and 17 Nov between 19:00 and 20:30 on Tuesdays which will be taught by Christina-Maria Mittelmaier, a professional level class by David Kierce of the Queensland Ballet and the opening of the Ballet Academy for children that I mentioned in Danceworks Academy of 21 March 2015.

Danceworks are also running draws for tickets for West End Shows like Bend It Like Beckham which Gita saw in July and thoroughly enjoyed and Shobana Jeyasingh Dance's Materiall Men and Strange Blooms which is starting its nationwide tour from the Southbank on 15 June 2015. Also, if anyone is interested the studio has 20 tickets for Birchbox Beauty events at Selfridges where champagne will be served and products may be tried.

1984 and All That - Northern Ballet's New Season

Sellar and Yeatman's 1066 and All That is one of the books that we all read at school.  George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is another. Jonathan Watkins's arrangement of Orwell's novel for Northern Ballet opens to a full house at the West Yorkshire Playhouse on 5 Sept 2015 is the company's big ticket production for the new season. Northern Ballet has released this hour long video on YouTube with talks by Watkins, David Nixon, rehearsals, a pas de deux by Tobias Batley and Martha Leebolt and more.

After Leeds the production tours Nottingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Southampton culminating in a season at Sadler's Wells between 24 and 28 May 2016. My favourite venue for anything in Northern Ballet's repertoire is West Yorkshire Playhouse because it feels like the company's home. It is a stone's throw from Quarry Hill and the auditorium is so intimate. I have seen some lovely shows there in the past, notably A Midsummer Night's Dream on 14 Sept 2013 (see Realizing Another Dream 15 Sept 2013). Unfortunately, the West Yorkshire Playhouse season clashes with the Dutch National Ballet's opening gala in Amsterdam and professional commitments in London (see Triple Dutch 4 July 2015). If any of my readers would like to review the opening night I should be very grateful.  I will catch the ballet in Manchester or Sheffield with my Swiss friend who first dew it to my attention even though she does not go a bundle on ballet (see 1984 28 Feb 2015 and Für Andrea - more Information on 1984 26 July 2015).

Another new ballet in Northern Ballet's repertoire is the children's ballet Tortoise and the Hare which is choreographed by Dreda Blow and Sebastian Loe. Blow spoke briefly about her work for children in the panel discussion on narrative dance in ballet on 20 June 2015 (My Thoughts on Saturday Afternoon's Panel Discussion at Northern Ballet 21 June 2015). She told a delightful story about one child's reaction to one of her ballets. Although I had already admired her as a dancer I warmed to her ever more. Tortoise and the Hare opens at The Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds on 22 Oct 2015. It will also be performed in Southampton on 6 May 2015.

Elves and The Shoemaker another children's ballet choreographed by Daniel de Andrade to music by Philip Feeney is touring Hull, Nottingham, Canterbury, Manchester, Woking, Newcastle and Bradford. I saw it in Huddersfield on 11 April 2015 and reviewed it in The Ballet comes to me 12 April 2015.

Also coming to Hull is Madame Butterfly which I described as Nixon's Masterpiece in my review of the opening night in Doncaster. Another popular Nixon ballet Wuthering Heights which I saw in Sheffield on 18 March 2015 is coming to Canterbury in October and Bradford in November. Northern Ballet's take on The Nutcracker where the Stahlbaums become the Edwardses is coming to The Grand between 16 Dec 2015 and 2 Jan 2016 after touring Woking, Newcastle and Norwich. I saw it twice and sort of half reviewed it in my IP law blog for solicitors and patent agents in Manchester and Liverpool (Cracking Nuts - Copyright in Choreography 24 Nov 2011 IP North West). Even more liberties are taken with Swan Lake which is coming to Leeds, Norwich and Milton Keynes in the new year. I saw it in Leeds with my late spouse first time round. We both regarded it as interesting in the sense of "May you live in interesting times".