Northern Ballet's Generations - A Treat in Store for London

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Northern Ballet Generations Three Short Ballets 16 Sept 2023 14:00

Tomorrow Northern Ballet will dance Benjamin Ella's Joie de Vivre, Hans van Manen's Adagio Hammerklavier and Tiler Peck's Intimate Pages at the Linbury.  Those who are fortunate enough to obtain tickets are in for a treat.  I saw the show at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds on 16 Sept 2023. I have to think back to the first time I saw A Simple Man nearly 40 years ago for a show by Northern Ballet that I have enjoyed as much.  

In his foreword to the programme, Federico Bonelli wrote how much he had been looking forward to the moment when he could present a programme of his own to reflect his ambitions for Northern Ballet in the years to come.  Each of the works that the company danced had a connection with the Bonelli.  Adagio Hammerklavier was a reminder of his time with the Dutch National Ballet, Joie de Vivre of his career at the Royal Ballet and Intimate Pages of his guest appearances around the world.

My favourite work of the three was Adagio Hammerklavier.  I had seen it online as part of the Dutch National Ballet's Hans van Manen's Variations which were screened from an almost empty Music Theatre on 27 and 28 Feb 2023.  In my review of that performance, I referred to a panel discussion in the Stanley and Audrey Forum in 2015 when a critic who really should have known better opined that Beethoven is impossible to choreograph (see My Thoughts on Saturday Afternoon's Panel Discussion at Northern Ballet 21 June 2015).  It was glorious to watch a ballet set to Beethoven's music in the same theatre in which it had been declared impossible.   

In my humble opinion, van Manen is the world's greatest living choreographer.  I had the enormous good fortune to shake his hand at the Dutch National Ballet's gala in June 2022.  This is not the first time Northern Ballet has performed his work   The company performed Concertante in 2013 and on being asked what he thought of the dancers he replied that he liked them very much indeed (see YouTube Dance Master Hans van Manen on Concertante & Northern Ballet),   There is now a new generation of dancers at Northern Ballet and I think he would like today's artists even more.  The first couple in Adagio Hammerklavier were Amber Lewis and Jonathan Hanks, the second Alessandra Bramante and George Liang and the third Dominique Larose and Joseph Taylor. The pianist was Colin Scott.  They danced with flair and precision and I think van Manen would have liked them too,

I was not the only one to relish that ballet.   In the second interval, I spotted Bonelli standing on his own so I introduced myself.  As I was telling him about my blog Janet Mclty of  BalletcoForum joined us.  She like me had been impressed by van Manen and she asked the director whether we could have more van Manen, ideally one of his ballets in every mixed bill.  Bonelli did not think that would be possible but said that it was a very nice idea and I agree.

Joie de Vivre was light, fresh and exuberant - a perfect start to a triple bill.   The score consisted of 8 violin and piano concertos performed live by Geoffrey Allan and Ewan Gilford.  Ella described it as "a poem or epigram of human feelings, emotions or reactions."  Three couples performed this work: Dominique Larose and Joseph Taylor, Sarah Chun and Harris Beattie, Kirica Takahashi and  Jun Ishii.  Finally, I should say a word for the costumes and lighting which were exquisite.

The last piece was choreographed to Leoš Janáček's String Quartet No. 2 Intimate Letters and again we had a live string quartet  consisting of Geoffrey Allan, Helen Boordman, Rosalyn Cabot and Toby Turton.  The music was plaintive and haunting. Peck explained in the programme notes that the composer wrote it with a love interest in mind.  The piece requires a main couple, two soloists and three couples.  Sarah Chun and Harris Beattie were the main couple.  Aerys Merrill and Kirica Takahashi were the soloists.  The couples were Julie Nunes and Stefano Varalta, Kaho Masumoto and Archie Sherman and Helen Bogatch and Bruno Serraclara.

Just before the show I watched the dancers in company class.  They looked happy, energetic and motivated.

Sarah Kundi - An Appreciation

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Readers of this blog will know that I have a particularly high regard for Sarah Kundi.  Although I must have seen her several times when she was with Northern Ballet she first came to my notice through the YouTube video of Depouillage in which she danced with Jade Hale-Christofi.  It was that film that led me to Ballet Black (see Ballet Black's Appeal 12 March 2013).  When I saw her dance for the first time in  "Dopamine (you make my levels go silly)" and War Letters at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre on Saturday 18 May 2013 I was bowled over (see Why Ballet Black is Special 20 May 2013).

When Ballet Black came to Leeds 6 months later, Sarah Kundi had left the company.  As I said in Ballet Black is Still Special on 7 Nov 2013, I enjoyed Ballet Black's performance in Leeds at least as much as their show in Tottenham but I did miss Sarah Kundi.   I did not have long to wait because I found out that she had joined MurleyDance which performed in Leeds on 1 Dec 2013 (see MurleyDance Triple Bill 2 Dec 2013).

Sarah Kundi did not stay long with MurleyDance and there were reports that she had been offered work with Victor Ulate in Spain (see ByeBye and All the Best 10 June 2014).  Happily, English National Ballet offered her an appointment while she was dancing in Romeo and Juliet in the Round (see Saved for the Nation 17 July 2914).  She remained with that company for the rest of her career picking up the emerging dancer award and triumphing as Lady Capulet (see Congratulations to Sarah Kundi on 20 June 2018) and Hortensia in Christopher Wheeldon's Cinderella (see Cinders in the Round  13 June 2019).

She announced her retirement on Facebook at the end of English National Ballet's latest season in the Royal Albert Hall and I shall miss her greatly.   She was blessed with an expressive countenance that made her a remarkable actor as well as a fine dancer and a physique that gave her an aetherial appearance on stage. Those are qualities that not all principals possess and it is why there were many times that I enquired whether she was in the cast before looking up the leading artists.

Although it is unlikely that we shall ever see her on stage again, Sarah Kundi is not lost to dance.  I was delighted to see the Royal Ballet School's announcement that she has joined its staff. There she will pass on her skills, knowledge and experience to promising students.   I have had the good fortune to meet her at the stage doors of the Palace Theatre in Manchester and the Albert Hall as well as interview her over Zoom for the Stage Door.   I can report that she is as graceful and charming to her fans as she is magnificent on the stage.

I have to thank her for the many years of pleasure that she has given me and no doubt countless other balletgoers and wish her well in her new career as a teacher.

News from Ballet Black

 

In Ballet Black Takes York By Storm I recalled some of the great shows that Ballet Black had performed and added that none has impressed me more than their performance of Nina: By Whatever Means at York Theatre Royal on 23 June 2023. It will therefore come as no surprise that the ballet's choreographer Mthuthuzeli November and its leading lady Isabela Coracy are in the running for Black British Theatre Awards. More details about the Awards and how audiences can participate in the process are available on the BBTA Nominations Form.  The closing date for nominations is 1 Aug 2023.

Another bit of good news is that Ballet Black has recruited 4 new dancers.   I have no information about them other than that they come from Brazil, India, South Africa and the USA and that Ballet Black has appealed for accommodation for them.   When I do know who they are I shall ask the press spokesperson for their photos and bios and I shall write up about them here.

The accommodation that the company seeks is: "short term (a few months while they get settled) or for the length of a season (September to July). I thought the best place to start would be with our own mailing list! Are you able to help? If so, please could you get in touch with some details: 

• location (it needs to be in London, accessible for travelling to work in Marylebone each day)
• type of space: room, flat, house
• rent and any other charges
• are pets allowed? One dancer has two lovely cats!."

Talking of pets, Vlad the Lad (now a very self-assured young man excelling at sports, music and school work) loved Dogs Don't Do Ballet (see Woof  12 Oct 2014).  That show sparked in him a love of theatre which will stay with him forever.   I am sure that the work also inspired crowds of other children across the United Kingdom to appreciate dance and in some cases even study it.   I do hope the company will revive the ballet one day for another generation of children.  Of course, it will be hard to recast Madame Kanikova with her dancing, smiling eyes, the adorable Anna, her Obamaesque dad, Miss Polly with her hip flask and of course the star of the show, Bif the red setter.  Having said that, Chris Marney would find plenty of talent in Ballet Black's current membership.  They might interpret the roles quite differently,

Anyone with suitable accommodation that could be let to a dancer should contact Cassa Pancho and not me through the contact page of the company's website.

My First Class in KNT's New Studios

 

Yesterday I attended Karren Lester Sant's  Pre-Intermediate Class in her new studios at 114 Chapel Street for the first time and was very impressed.  The studio was easy to find with ample parking just across the street.  It has been fitted out with everything that a dance student could possibly need including a well-sprung floor, travelling barres and excellent acoustics. Best of all many of the dear friends and acquaintances that I have met in Karen's classes over the last 9 years were at the barre.  It was a great experience.

I set off from Holmfirth much later than I would normally do because a previous commitment had overrun. I messaged Karen to say that I was running late and asked whether I could do the advanced class barre.   As it happened I did not need to do that because Chapel Street is much easier to reach from Yorkshire than Oxford Road and there are masses of parking spaces. I came in during glissés. I did a quick warm-up of tendus and pliés and took my place at the barre in time for ronds de jambe.  

Thereafter we did all my favourite exercises. frappés at the barre, an enchantment that included tendus in the centre, grands battements and soutenus, balancés and pirouettes, posés pirouettes or "pirate peglegs" as another dear teacher calls them, glissades and assemblés finishing off with joyous temps levés.  Karen chose some lovely music for us.  I recognized "Getting to Know You" from  "The King and I" and I think also Piazzolla?  Definitely Argentine tango.

The only drawback to the evening is that I was forced to acknowledge just how far I have fallen below my previous level of ability.   I can't raise my leg to the barre for a stretch,  My balance was completely AWOL. I was slow and quite out of puff by the time I was halfway across the floor.  I can no longer stand on demi-pointe on my right foot.   Some of it is a loss of fitness which I can recover in the gym.  Some of it will be age-related.  I shall be 75 next birthday.  Some of it will be the result of the broken tibia that I suffered last year.  Happily, I can still do something in ballet and as it is nearly 55 years since I learnt my first plié at St Andrews I really can't grumble,

Anyone thinking of joining one of KNT's classes will find the schedule here.  There is lots of choice at many different levels.  On 22 July 2023, there will be a Special Guest Tracher Day with Emily-Joy Smith which looks like a lot of fun.  I have attended similar events in the past and can strongly recommend this one.

Birmingham Royal Ballet at the Lowry's Open Day

Author RobChafer Licence CC BY-SA 3.0 Source Wikimedia Commons

The Lowry

 

According to its website, The Lowry is holding an open day on 6 Aug 2023.  It has not published any details yet though it has posted a video about the event in 2021.   As we have a company class in Leeds on 5 Aug 2023 and I shall be speaking at the Cambridge IP Law Summer School between 7 and 11 Aug 2023 I would have given the event a miss had I not received an email about it from the Birmingham Royal Ballet last week.

That email carried an image of Carabosse doing her worse towering over a smaller image of Désiré and Aurora at their wedding above the banner headline "Join us at The Lowry Open Day on Sunday 6 August".  The email announces that the Birmingham Royal Ballet will attend the open day between 10:00 and 17:00 bringing costumes for The Sleeping Beauty that visitors can try on.  Between 11:00 and 14:00 there will be workshops where attendees can learn some of the choreography.

The Birmingham Royal Ballet returns to Salford to dance Sir Peter Wright's production of The Sleeping Beauty between 7 and 9 March 2024,  Readers can view the trailer here.  Companies around the world dance that production and I have seen performances of that work by the Hungarian and Dutch National Ballets. The best that I have ever seen was in Amsterdam on 17 Dec 2017 with  Maia Makhateli as Aurora, Daniel Camargo as the prince and Igone de Jongh as Carabosse (see The Dutch National Ballet's "The Sleeping Beauty" - I have waited nearly 50 years for this show 20 Dec 2017).  That bit of ballet history will never be repeated but I have very high hopes of BRB's visit to the Lowry in the Spring.

Ballet Black Takes York by Storm

Nina Simone

Author Gerrit de Bruin Licence CC BY-SA 4.0 Source 
amazingnina.com Courtesy o Re-Emerging Films

 

Ballet Black Then or Now and Nina: By-Whatever Means 23 June 2023 19:30 York Theatre Royal

I have followed Ballet Black for several years and have seen some great ballets by them including Chris Marney's War Letters, Arthur Pita's A Dream Within a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Cathy Marston's The Suit and Christopher Hampson's Storyville.  Every one of those works was impressive but none has impressed me more than their performance of Nina: By Whatever Means at York Theatre Royal on 23 June 2023.

Nina was created by Mthuthuzeli November.  Having seen his ingoma for Ballet Black and Wailers for Northern Ballet I came with high expectations.  Often that leads to disappointment because high hopes are rarely equalled but on this occasion, they were greatly exceeded.  November is one of Ballet Black's Senior Artists. He first came to my notice on 2 May 2015 when he appeared with Londiwe Khoza on Ballet Centrak's tour (see Dazzled 3 May 2015).  I have been following him ever since.  I particularly enjoyed his performance as the wolf in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Red Riding Hood as did my friend. Joanna Goodman, who also reviewed the show (see Sexy Wolf Stole the Show! 5 March 2017).

In Little Red Riding Hood November showed he was an actor as well as a virtuoso, but that is by no means an end to his talents.  He is a composer contributing the score as well as the choreography to Wailers.   He also created some of the music for Nina and designed its sets.  In the Q&A that followed the performance, we learned that the idea for a ballet on the life of Nina Simone had been his. Dramaturge and librettist can also be added to his catalogue of accomplishments.

The ballet started with the young Simone as a child in rural North Carolina. It followed her training as a classical musician in New York and the debut of her career as a nightclub singer.  Simone suffered mental distress at various stages of her life which Alves called her "demons" in posthumous correspondence in the programme notes.  Those dark periods were represented in the ballet too.   

Simone was much more than an outstanding artist.  She was one of the drivers of political and social change that I witnessed first-hand as a graduate student in Los Angeles in the early 1970s.   That was the climax of the civil rights movement but there were also protests against the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal and the beginnings of the women's movement.    In a maelstrom of change, Simone stood firm and tall.   

In casting Isabela Coracy as Simone, November practically brought Simone back to life,   A scene that haunts me is of Coarcy with her clenched fist in the air as the dancers swirl around her to chants of "power".  That is how I remember Simone in real life.  

The audience exploded in applause.   We Brits are not the most demonstrative - particularly not those of us who live in Yorkshire.  At the reverence, every single member of the audience rose to their feet.   I was hoarse from cheering and my hands throbbed with clapping.   I think we all felt that we had seen something special that night,

Nina was the second part of a double bill that night.  The first was Will Tikett's Then or Now.  I shall not attempt to review it because I missed the start owing to acute congestion on the way into York city centre. What I saw of Then as Now I liked a lot    Happily there will be another chance to see the double bill in the Autumn as the company will dance again in Watford. Norwich, Durham and the Lowry.   

Pulse

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National Dance Company of Wales Pulse 18 May 2023  19:30 Lawrence Batley Theatre 

The National Dance Company of Wales is Wales's national contemporary dance company.  It is one of three very important institutions at national, level the others being Ballet Cymru which is Wales's classical dance company and Dawnsio, the  Welsh Folk Dance Society.  It is based at the Cardiff Dance House but partners with a number of "priority venues" one of which is the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield. The company has visited Huddersfield regularly for many years and I have seen several of its performances there.  When it comes to our theatre it sometimes allows the public to watch its company class and it always holds a Q&A after the show.  By reaching out to its audience in this way it has made a lot of friends here.

The company visited Huddersfield on 18 May 2023 to dance Pulse (or Pwls in Cymraeg).  This was a double bill consisting of Waltz by Marcos Morau and  Say Something by Sarah Goldring and Yukiko Masui.  The cast for both shows were Vito Bintchende, Jill Goh, Niamh Keeling, Mario Manara, Bianca Mikahil, Ed Myhill, Euan Stephen, Faye Tan and Tim Volleman.  These were two very different works.

Waltz started with the dancers enveloped in a black hood with diamante sequins that sparkled in the dim light.   A recording of Sibelius's Valse Triste was played.   Gradually the dancers unfurled and formed some extraordinary shapes of which the most memorable was something that reminded me of the DNA double helix.  Eventually, they separated though their movements were synchronized.  There is a very good video on the work at Waltz by Marcos Moreau and more information on the Waltz page. 

According to the programme notes:

"A haunting waltz plays in the distance. From the ashes a tangle of shining creatures emerge to inhabit a new world. In the chaos and turbulence their only hope is to remain united."

I have to say that was not my interpretation,  Perhaps because I focused on the double helix I thought it was about the origin of life in the primordial soup and the beginning of evolution.   I should have added that the music changed as the piece progressed.   Sibelius was followed by Suspirium by Thom Yorke, Crawler by Holly Herndon and Pneuma by Caterina Barbieri.  I had heard the Sibelius before but not the other works.   The ingeniously designed customers were by Elizabeth Catherine Chiu (Costume Supervisor and Maker) and Danial Thatcher (Maker).  Lighting was designed by Bernat Jansà and programmed by Will Lewis.   

Say Something was a vibrant, exuberant, percussive work with plenty of beatbox sounds.   There were pulses of light and colour.  The video Say Something by Sarah Golding and Yukiko Masui (SAY) describes it far more accurately than I ever could.   The programme notes state: "Say Something explores what it means to 'represent', and the ever-growing expectation to have a voice."  I don't think the piece needed an interpretation.   For me, it was enough to enjoy the kaleidoscope of sound, light, movement and colour.  The music was by MC Zani and Dean Yhnell. Lighting was designed by Joshie Harriette.  The very striking costumes were by George Hampton Wale.

Euan Stephen was part of the panel for the Q&A after the show.  He was asked how long he had been a dancer.  As he was about to answer the gentleman next to me whispered "That's my boy".Euan had danced well in the show so congratulations were in order.  I was able to express my appreciation to him personally as he was standing with his parents as I was leaving the theatre.   It was quite a good Q&A with questions ranging from the rehearsal times for the two productions to the company's work for Dance for Parkinson's about which I had written before.  I was very heartened to learn that the company always tried to include some of its own choreography in its Parkinson's classes.

The day after tghe show I tweeted the following:

Sioe wych yn @theLBT ddoe. Mwynheais i "Waltz" a "Say Something". Hefyd, y Holi ac Ateb. Falch o gwrdd ag Ewan a'i fam a'i dad wedyn. Dwi'n ysgrifennu adolygiad rwan. Gobeithiaf eich gweld yng Nghaerdydd rhyw ddydd.

— Jane Lambert (@nipclaw) May 19, 2023

That means:

"Great show at @theLBT yesterday.  I enjoyed both "Walrz" and "Say Something," Also the Q&A. Pleased to meet Euan's mum and dad.    I'm writing the review now.  Hoping to see you in Cardiff one of these days."