Saying goodbye to Zenaida

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The Royal Ballet  The Dream, Symphonic Variations and Marguerite and Armand encore, Leeds Showcase, 11 June 2017

Yesterday, I found a movie theatre that showed last Wednesday's performance of The Dream, Symphonic Variations and Marguerite and Armand. I had missed the live transmission because I was in Preston that day watching Ballet Cymru dance Darius James's A Midsummer Night's Dream (see "A Most Rare Vision ...... A Dream" 8 June 2017).  I had intended to see Ballet Cymru on Saturday in Sale but that was the only day I could get to London to see Scottish Ballet's Emergence and MC 14/22. I had already dashed down to London to hear Christopher Hampson's interview with Gerald Dowler at the London Ballet Circle. There was also the little matter of a general election at which I like many other voters did my best to make sure that the blighters who had failed to stand up to their Eurosceptics last year and who had opportunistically sought to take advantage of a commanding lead in the opinion polls this year got their comeuppance.

Sir Frederick Ashton had created The Dream in 1964 to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth.  I remember that year well because it was the year I took my "O" levels one of which was English literature which included a compulsory Shakespeare play, Birmingham Royal Ballet revived The Dream last year to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his death. When I think of all the plays and sonnets that he crammed into that short life I admire that genius all the more. I love that ballet particularly because it was created for Dame Antoinette Sibley, my favourite ballerina of all time, and Sir Anthony Dowell, my favourite male dancer. I cannot hear Mendelssohn's music without memories of those two flooding back. It was wonderful to see footage of Sir Anthony coaching Steven McRae and Akane Takada. I nearly blubbed like a baby when I saw him again embracing Zenaida Yanowsky.

The other ballet with special memories was Marguerite and Armand. Ashton had created it for Fonteyn and Nureyev and they danced it at the gala for Sir Fred's retirement as director of the Royal Ballet on 24 July 1970. I know because I was there. You can see a picture of Sir Fred on stage with the company in the Royal Ballet's album on Flickr. Fonteyn's role was danced on Wednesday by Yanowsky and Nureyev's by Roberto Bolle. They are very different from Fonteyn and Nureyev but they seem to have conquered that ballet and made it their own. "Regal" was the adjective that sprang to mind several times as I watched Yanowsky trace the familiar steps. She is tall. She is graceful. She is grand. Bolle is much more believable as Armand than Nureyev ever was. He danced the role. Bolle lived it. Two other greats danced solo roles - Cristopher Saunders as Armand's father and Gary Avis as the duke.

I first saw Symphonic Variations 20 years after it was first performed and it already had a period feel. Perhaps the swirling isobars backdrop and the tennis dress tutus.  But many of the original cast - Pamela May, Moira Shearer, Margot Fonteyn, Brian Shaw and Michael Somes were still dancing. Only Henry Danton had retired. Ironically they were all survived by Danton who appeared in the recording still handsome and, seemingly, with all his faculties intact.  It was a joy to see this grand old man. He had retired before I started following ballet so I never saw him dance but I have seen his photos and what a dish he must have been.

However, the most memorable part of the performance was not the dancing but Zenaida Yanowsky;s curtain call. Flowers were everywhere. First from the House's flunkies (whatever happened to the powdered wings and knee breeches of my youth), then from the premiers danseurs nobles  (tears welled up when I saw Carlos Acosta), he was followed by Ed Watson (more tears) and they flowed like a New York fire hydrant when Anthony Dowell embraced her as a daughter and finally a floral blizzard from the balcony. Goodbyes are something the House does particularly well. I am sure there are goodbyes at The Stopera, the Palais Garnier, the Met but they can't be as they are at Covent Garden.

Scottish Ballet - Emergence and MC 14/22

Scottish Ballet Emergence

Photo Andy Ross
© 2017 Scottish Ballet: all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

Scottish Ballet, MC 14/22 (ceci est mon corps) and Emergence, Sadler's Wells. 10 June 2017, 19:30

I recently asked Christopher Hampson why he was content for Scottish Ballet to bring full-length ballets like his own Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel, Peter Darrell's The Nutcracker and David Dawson's Swan Lake that tour Scotland to the North of England but never to London.  He replied that he wanted the capital to see the sort of works that distinguish Scottish Ballet.

I did not understand his reply at first because it seemed to me that those ballets are flagship works. They attract crowds night after night in all the cities they visit. But then I reflected upon the history of Scottish Ballet. I reminded myself what it was like when I first knew it.  I think the first work I saw was Peter Darrell's Mods and Rockers which was performed to the music of The Beatles.  I also remember The Houseparty from the same era which was one of the first ballets to have been created especially for television. Scottish Ballet was known as Western Theatre Ballet in those days. It was not a national company nor even a regional one for the West of England. It attracted audiences because it was innovative and adventurous. One of its most daring early works (which I never saw because it was well before my time) was A Wedding Present.  According to the Peter Darrell Trust website, that work explored the impact on a marriage of a bridegroom's love for another man a full 5 years before the Sexual Offences Act 1967.  So it is entirely consistent with the company's tradition that it should bring to London in its diamond jubilee year works by Angelin Preljocaj and Crystal Pite.

Preljocaj's MC 14/22 (ceci est mon corps) came first.  I have not yet been able to work out the significance of "MC 14/22" but "ceci est mon corps" means "this is my body". They are the words that the vicar utters when distributing the host to his congregation at Holy Communion. Christians celebrate that sacrament in memory of Jesus's last supper with his disciples which most of us imagine from the painting in Milan by Leonardo da Vinci. That much was easy enough to follow because there were 12 dancers (though no Christ), a number of metal tables that were laid out as one long table at one point and a chant that sounded a little like Κύριε, ἐλέησον.

But this was in no sense a religious work.  The Kyrie was muffled and that muffling appeared to be paralleled later when one of the dancers used sticky tape to hobble the movements of another.  The programme describes the work as "a meeting of the spiritual and the carnal" and refers to the dancers as "Apostles of Movement". It opens with three dancers. One on stage left appearing to wash or massage the body of the other.  A third at stage right applying masking tape to the floor.  Slowly an image of bodies on tables begins to glow. The dancers, all male, appear on stage, one checking the body of the other. At various times they appear to fight.  At other times they show affection. Much of the action takes place in silence. The composer, Tedd Zahmal refers to his work as a "soundscape" rather than a score. Sound, when it comes, is deafening. One bout sounds like a gunfight. Another like a steelwork's rolling mill.

This work is to be appreciated rather than to be liked.  One viewing is probably not enough to do justice to it. I will have to see this work several times to come to terms with it. But even at the superficial level of a single viewing, it was an enthralling piece and one to be admired.

Emergence followed after the interval.  This was an elegant work and one that was much easier to follow. For a start. there was a score by Owen Belton.  There were female dancers as well as males with the women spending a lot of time on pointe.  The clue to understanding the ballet for me was that one of the characters is called "Bee-Man". A striking, swirling circular backcloth with an aperture and some very delicate lighting gave the impression of the interior of a hive or anthill. The ballet was arranged in the following movements:

• a Prologue with Sophie Martin and Evan Loudon;
• A Second Duet by Bethany Kingsley-Garner and Victor Zarallo;
• The Bee-Man danced by Thomas Edwards;
• A Quartet by Martin, Nicholas Shoesmith, Zarallo and Jamiel Lawrence;
• A Sextet by Zarallo, Lawrence, Barnaby Rook Bishop  Edwards, Shoesmith and Rimbaud Patron; and
• Tunnel by Shoesmith and Pascal Johnson.

The solos were punctuated by the ensemble.  There were some powerful moments such as the scene at the start of the trailer when the females arranged in a single file step out from stage left and appear to absorb the rush of oncoming men as a sea wall resists a storm.

This double bill received loud and sustained applause.  It was a performance that the company's founders, Elizabeth West and Peter Darrell, would have relished.  I don't know how many other companies could have carried off an evening like this.  I can count on one hand the companies that would even try.  By any measure, Scottish Ballet is magnificent.

Yesterday the London entertainment and hospitality industries raised money for the victims of the Manchester and London outrages. Hampson, who like me comes from Manchester, appeared on stage at the start of the show to announce donations by Sadler's Wells and to appeal for donations from the audience. The ushers had collecting boxes at the end of the show and judging by the sound of the rattling they must have received a lot of contributions.

"Show!" - the Video

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In Show 14 May 2017 I wrote how it felt to dance in Move It o at the Dancehouse Theatre in Manchester on 13 May 2017. Our teacher and choreographer, Karen Sant, filmed our performance and she has recently uploaded her videos onto YouTube so you can now see how we did.

It was a memorable night. We all had a whale of a time. Here are links to some of the other performances:

• The Advanced Ballet Class;
• The Advanced Contemporary Class;
• The Advanced Jazz Class;
• The Beginners' Ballet and Jazz Class;
• The Beginners' Class;
• The Beginner Contemporary Piece;
• The Intermediate Ballet Class; 
• The Pointe Class; and
• The Repertoire Class dancing the entry to the Kingdom of the Shades from La Bayadère.

Everybody who took part in those performances studies dance after a long day's work.  We are all ages. Some of us had taken up dance for the first time as adults. Our classes take place in the studios of the Northern Ballet School on Oxford Road of which the Dancehouse Theatre is an integral part. It is a really lovely place to learn dance. Karen once referred to us as "the KNT family". That is not a bad description.  If you want to join us, you will find all the information you need on the KNT website.

"A Most Rare Vision ...... A Dream"

Ballet Cymru A Midsummer Night's Dream 7 June 2017  19:30

Yesterday I had to make a tough choice between two ballet's derived from A Midsummer Night's Dream. In my local cinema was The Dream by Sir Frederick Ashton, one of my favourite ballets because I shall always associate it with Dame Antoinette Sibley and Sir Anthony Dowell, streamed live from Covent Garden. At the Preston Guild Hall and Charter Theatre was a live performance by Ballet Cymru of Darius James's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

What made the choice particularly hard was that The Dream was to be performed as part of a triple bill with Symphonic Variations and Marguerite and Armand.  Just as I associate The Dream with Sibley and Dowell I shall always associate Marguerite and Armand with Rudolf Nureyev and Dame Margot Fonteyn and Symphonic Variations. Making the choice even harder was the knowledge that Zenaida Yanowsky was due to make her last appearance yesterday.

Much as I love the Royal Ballet and Yanowsky I chose Ballet Cymru without hesitation. In my book, living breathing human beings on stage will always trump images flashed onto a screen. Also, there is a chance of seeing a recording of last night's transmission though, sadly, there are not many cinemas advertising the encore. I think I made the right call because last night's performance was outstanding.

Darius James first created the ballet for the company in 1997. It was an immediate success. The Sunday Telegraph described the dancers as "impressively able" and commended James for making use of "every gift they have." The Theatre Critics of Wales nominated it for the best dance production of 2013. It is not hard to see why for James is a skilled narrator with an exceptionally keen eye for detail and a superb gift for transposing Shakespeare's words into movement.

James understands Shakespeare better than most.  In A Romeo and Juliet for our Times 7 Nov 2016 I described his Romeo a Juliet as James and Doughty's best work yet which shows how a small company of young dancers with modest resources can stage a full-length ballet brilliantly. Other plays that have inspired James are The Tempest, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew and Hamlet which I should very much like to see.

Unlike Ashton, who focuses on the quarrel between Titania and Oberon and their reconciliation, James follows the play faithfully. That could not have been easy because the plot is complex. In addition to the quarrel there is the love affair between Hermia and Lysander and Helena's pursuit of Demetrius, Puck's mischief making, Titania's infatuation with Bottom, the mechanicals' performance of Pyramus and Thisbe and the nuptials of Theseus and Hippolyta. James's solution is to divide the ballet into three parts. The first part embraces everything except the merchanicals' play and Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding. The second part is that play.  The third is a Petipa style pas de deux with Hippolyta in a classical tutu. It may sound bitty when described in words on a page but, in fact, it works very well indeed.

One day Ballet Cymru may have principals, soloists, coryphées and a corps but at present it has twelve young, very able and very ambitious young dancers. All of them had important roles in the ballet that reflected their personalities as well as their respective technical skills. Each and every one of them performed his or her role brilliantly.

Oberon and Titania were performed by Adreamaria Battagia and Gwenllian Davies who had impressed me so much in Romeo a Juliet.  They do comedy as well as they do tragedy. They also doubled as Theseus and Hippolyta. For me, the pas de deux at the end was the high point of the show. Casting Miguel Fernandes was inspired. He is a talented character dancer as well as a splendid virtuoso. Anna Pujol was a delightful Hermia and Robbie Moorcroft a gallant Lysander but it was as Bottom where Moorcroft's brilliance shone through. The company's latest recruits, Miles Carrott and Beth Meadway, were each given two demanding roles which they performed magnificently. Medway touched our hearts as poor spurned Helena and our funny bones as Snug. Carrott excelled as Demetrius and Quince. Natalie Debono was a spirited Peasebottom. Ann Wall, who doubled as fairy and mechanical, was a hilarious man in the moon complete with lamp and dog.

The music for most of the ballet was Mendelssohn which James tells us in the programme is a delight to dance.  No wonder as the score has so many familiar tunes. For Pyramus and Thisbe, however, the dancers provided their own music on tin whistles and kazoo which virtually spoke the words of the play. I was amused by Pyramus's death throes and the Death March that the motley band managed to conjure from their assorted instruments.

As a small touring company Ballet Cymru has to travel light so it relies on projections to create scenery and atmosphere. Chris Illingworth's designs were inspired.  So, too, were Yvonne Greenleaf's costumes. The simple body hugging costumes for the fairies with their fluffy, white wigs worked well. So, too, did the mechanicals' working clothes and, of course, Bottom's ears.

The company will perform A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Waterside Arts Centre in Sale on Saturday. A tip to all my classmates at KNT - if you are free on Saturday afternoon or evening. try to get down there.  After Sale the show moves on to Bangor on the 15 June followed by Tewkesbury, Poole, Taunton, Stvenage, Hereford, Basingstoke, Ayr, Porthcawl, Newbury and Lichfield.

Hampson! A Postcript

I am very glad I attended Christopher Hampson's conversation with Gerald Dowler at the London Ballet Circle last night.

It was a very good meeting. I learned a lot about choreography and running a major national company with a great heritage and I also enjoyed some interesting anecdotes. Dowler is a good interviewer. One of his techniques (which I shall try to remember next time I chair a meeting) is to pause at various stages to invite questions and comments from the floor. It prompted an interesting discussion.

Although I try not to have favourites Scottish Ballet has a very special place in my affections. I have followed it since the 1960s. I was acquainted with its founder Peter Darrell and several of his dancers. I remember ferrying several of them to their lodgings in my old Ford Popular and giving others a tour of St Andrews. It is good to know that this very special and very precious company is in such good hands.

Yesterday's visit was my first to the Circle since David Nixon's talk last year. It was good to exchange greetings with Susan Dalgetty Ezra and other members of the Circle. It was a very long day. I had to leave home at 14:20 to catch the 16:21 train from Donny and I did not return until just before 02:00 this morning but the talk was well worth the effort.

Hampson!

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Whenever the London Ballet Circle has a special guest such as Li-Cunxin or a special event such as the Circle's 70th anniversary celebrations last year, the Dancing Times's Gerald Dowler is asked to play a special role. Dowler has a profound knowledge of the ballet and a pleasant interviewing style that can coax the best from a guest. Dowler's services have been called upon tonight as he will interview Christopher Hampson, Scottish Ballet's artistic director and chief executive.

Hampson is a Mancunian like me and he is one of the artists I most admire in the performing arts. His work is also admired by my readers because my reviews of Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Storyville and other works attract a lot of page hits. In February of this year, I actually met him in Newcastle and seized the opportunity to tell him how much I admired his work.

For those who would like to learn a little more about Hampson, the London Ballet Circle has published this potted biography on its website:

"Christopher joined Scottish Ballet as Artistic Director in August 2012 and was appointed Artistic Director / Chief Executive of Scottish Ballet in 2015. Christopher trained at the Royal Ballet Schools. His choreographic work began there and continued at English National Ballet (ENB), where he danced until 1999 and for whom he subsequently created numerous award-winning works, including Double Concerto, Perpetuum Mobile, Country Garden, Concerto Grosso and The Nutcracker. Christopher’s Romeo and Juliet, created for the Royal New Zealand Ballet (RNZB), was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award (Best New Production 2005) and his production of Giselle for the National Theatre in Prague has been performed every year since its premiere in 2004. Christopher created Sinfonietta Giocosa for the Atlanta Ballet (USA) in 2006 and after a New York tour it received its UK premiere with ENB in 2007. He created Cinderella for RNZB in 2007, which was subsequently hailed as Best New Production by the New Zealand Herald and televised by TVNZ in 2009. His work has toured Australia, China, the USA and throughout Europe. Other commissions include, Dear Norman (Royal Ballet, 2009); Sextet (Ballet Black/ROH2, 2010); Silhouette (RNZB, 2010), Rite of Spring (Atlanta Ballet, 2011), Storyville (Ballet Black/ROH2, 2012) nominated for a National Dance Award 2012, and Hansel and Gretel (Scottish Ballet 2013). Christopher is co-founder of the International Ballet Masterclasses in Prague and has been a guest teacher for English National Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Hong Kong Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures and the Genée International Ballet Competition. Christopher’s work now forms part of the Solo Seal Award for the Royal Academy of Dance. Christopher most recently gave a talk on ‘Creative Thinking’ for TEDx Glasgow and developed and led the inaugural Young Rural Retreat for Aspiring Leaders, in association with Dance East last summer."

Even though I really do not have the time to swan off to London today I shall be on the 16:40 from Donny to London and the 22:57 back. I am traipsing down to the Smoke tonight mainly out of respect for Hampson but also partly out of love for Scottish Ballet which I followed even before they became Scottish and also partly as a minor act of defiance to those religious fanatics who have wrought so much harm to my native city and national capital.

Scottish Ballet is making one of its rare and highly valued visits south of the Tweed and Solway this week. Between Wednesday and Saturday, it will dance Emergence and MC 14/22 (ceci est mon corps) at Sadler's Wells. I will be there on Saturday evening.

If you are free tonight, the interview takes place between 19:30 and 20:30 tonight on the 1st floor of the Civil Service Club at 13 - 15 Great Scotland Yard, London SW1A 2HJ. The Club is next to the Nigerian embassy and on several bus routes. The nearest Underground stations are Charing Cross and Embankment.

A Phial of the Antidote

Photo Mattia Giannuzz
Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 3.0 Unported Licence
Source Wikipedia

I had intended to write about the brilliant Southbank Centre's Alchemy Doncaster festival of South Asian arts that Gita and I attended at CAST in Doncaster yesterday and Friday but after last night's outrage in our capital, I am not in the mood for celebrating and I  doubt that my readers are in a celebratory mood either. However, I do intend to report on the festival soon because the arts are the antidote to the toxins of hate that have led to terrorism and all sorts of other distressing events recently.

This weekend's festival of comedy, dance, drama, gastronomy, music, photography and poetry from British artists of South Asian heritage and artists of the South Asian diaspora living here contains a phial of the antidote.  Cakes, a brilliant monologue by Bilal Zafar, in which he gently took the mickey out of folks who have a problem with Muslims with his tweets about a fictitious Muslim only cake shop in Bristol is just one example. Whether intended or not, Cakes reminds me of Sir Toby's riposte to Malvolio:

"Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?"

Bilal has posted a video of his monologue to YouTube which I think you will enjoy.

Gita and I will review Bring on the Bollywood with its brilliant dancing as well as many of the other performances this week but today our thoughts are with the victims of last night's appalling violence and their friends and relations.