Yesterday's Panel Discussion on Reimagining Classics

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Yesterday I attempted to watch the streaming of a panel discussion on the topic of Reimagining Topics that I had mentioned in  English National Ballet's Reimagining Classics Panel DiscussionThe 10 Nov 2016. The discussion was chaired by Sarah Crompton and took place at English National Ballet's studios in London. The panellists were Tamara Rojo and Gavin Sutherland of English National Ballet, Robert Icke of the Almeida Theatre who had created a new version of the Oresteia ( Ὀρέστεια) and Mark Evans of the Victoria and Albert Museum which had recently staged the Botticelli Reimagined exhibition.

I say "attempted" because the transmission broke down 6 minutes into the discussion and I did not get it back until half way through. Also, when it did come back the sound quality was appalling which meant that I struggled to hear Icke at all because he spoke very softly and I could not hear any of the questions from the floor at all. Having said that, it was certainly better than nothing and I managed to make a few notes here and there.

The discussion had been prompted by Akram Khan's Giselle which I reviewed for this blog (see Akram Khan's Giselle 28 Sept 2016). That production has not yet opened in London. I could not help thinking that it might have been better to hold the discussion in one of the cities in which Akram Khan's work has already been performed or at least to have postponed the discussion until after 19 Nov when it will have finished its London run.

I should also add that Northern Ballet has held events like yesterday's and while the first of these was all over the shop (see My Thoughts on Saturday Afternoon's Panel Discussion at Northern Ballet 21 June 2015) the second was  much better (see Tell Tale Steps 2 17 June 2016). Wisely Crompton began by asking each of the panellists to define "classical". So far as I could hear what he said, Icke seemed to define classic in terms of live and dead and that a classic was something dead and Rojo said she agreed, Sutherland considered what classic meant in terms of music and talked about heritage and techniques. Evans said he had actually looked up the word in the Oxford English Dictionary ...... and then the transmission was lost.

That was a pity because the discussion was just getting interesting at that point. In a sense, Giselle is not a classical work at all but a romantic one. I don't know whether anybody mentioned that distinction in London while they were offline but, if they did not do so, maybe they should have done because giving rein to free expression is one of the characteristics of romanticism.

The transmission resumed in the middle of a comparison of Skeaping's Giselle with Akram Khan. Rojo said the timing had been deliberate because she wanted her audience to compare the two. Ideally she would have run them on alternate nights. I think she was right to have done that. As I said in English National Ballet's other Giselle 22 Oct 2016, I plan to watch that show in the New Year. Surprisingly, Rojo said that she had faced some resistance to premiering Akram Khan's Giselle in Manchester. Personally, I think that was a good choice. The performance was received rapturously in the Palace on the first night. Possibly better than it would have been received in London where audiences would have seen other Giselles.

There was no time for questions from the internet audience which was a pity. I would have suggested that there are other more plausible updates of Giselle such as Mats Ek's and that you don't have to change the score or story to make a work relate to modern audiences. But I don't want to be too negative. Commissioning Akram Khan was a bold decision and in that I support the company 100%. We do need to try out new things if ballet is to retain its popularity and relevance.

Scottish Ballet's Young Dancer Mentoring Scheme

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Scottish Ballet's Christmas appeal is in support of the company's mentoring scheme (see Hansel and Gretel, and You Appeal  on Scottish Ballet's website).

Noting that one of the themes of Hansel and Gretel is that Gretel looks after her little brother and that Hansel looks up to Gretel as a role model, Scottish Ballet has devised a mentoring scheme that reflects that supportive relationship whereby established performers advise and assist the next generation of young dancers.

The video shows Constance Devernay coaching two promising young students.  The thrill of working with  one of the finest artists on the British stage must be enormous. Also, Devernay derives enormous satisfaction from passing on her considerable skill and knowledge.

Donations of £40 or above will be acknowledged on the appeal web page and those over £80 in the company's programme.

I have a personal interest in this appeal because I was a sort of mentee of Professor John Steer who became the company's chair when I was at St Andrews. It was he who cultivated my appreciation of ballet and introduced me to Peter Darrell and his dancers shortly after their move from Bristol. I have followed the company and attended its performances ever since (see Scottish Ballet 20 Dec 2013).

I strongly recommend Christopher Hampson's Hansel and Gretel. I saw it in Glasgow in 2013 and you will find my review at Scottish Ballet's Hansel and Gretel 23 Dec 2013).

English National Ballet's Reimagining Classics Panel Discussion

Tamara Rojo
Artistic Director and Lead Principal of the English National Ballet

Author: Erik Doble
Source: Wikipedia
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In Livestream: Reimagining Classics Panel Discussion 9 Nov 2016 English National Ballet's blog, Tamara Rojo said:

"Ballet, and art, has the potential of interpretation and reinterpretation, and this is vital to drive our art form forward. My vision for English National Ballet has been to introduce new works that push the boundaries of ballet, for both the Company and audiences, while at the same time honouring and reinvigorating traditional works that have become so loved over the years.”

The topic was discussed briefly on BBC Radio 4's Front Row by the critic, Luke Jennings, and the Artistic Director of Northern Ballet, David Nixon. I mentioned their conversation in Of Bikes and Buses 25 Oct 2016. I applaud Tamara Rojo's aspiration though I am not persuaded that Akram Khan's Giselle  achieved it (see (Akram Khan's Giselle 28 Sept 2016).

However, there will be an opportunity to consider the topic in more detail tonight in a panel discussion between Tamara Rojo and Gavin Sutherland of English National Ballet, Robert Icke, the Almeida Theatre's Associate Director and Mark Evans of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The event is restricted to Friends and Patrons of the company but the discussion will be live streamed via its Facebook page from 19:30 this evening. Further information is available in the blog article which I have mentioned.

The post adds that although attendance at the meeting is restricted to Friends and Patrons members of the public can ask a question via twitter:

"The discussion will also conclude with a Q&A, so we are asking anyone that has a question for the panel to tweet us using #AskENB handling us in (@ENBallet)."

This is a topic that interests me greatly and I am very grateful to English National Ballet for arranging this discussion and opening it up to the public through Facebook. Readers will know that I mentioned the topic again very recently in my review of Darius James and Amy Doughty's Romeo a Juliet  which is a work that does meet Tamara Rojo's objective in my judgment (see A Romeo and Juliet for our Times  7 Nov 2016). In that review I also mentioned David Dawson's Swan Lake for Scottish Ballet which also got it right and Ted Brandsen's Coppelia for the Dutch National Ballet which I have not yet seen but also seems to work. I do not know whether any of the panellists have seen any of those works or whether any of the creators of any of those ballets can listen to tonight's discussion but I do hope so.

I shall certainly be listening and I may well tweet a question if I get an opportunity. Finally, as I have been following ENB since 1955 I really ought to become one of its Friends soon. I love the company at least as much as I do any other.

Ballroom Bitz

Strictly Come Dancing’s Oti Mabuse and fellow professional ballroom dancer Alex Hixson talk weight issues, injury and €2000 dresses in The Conversation on the BBC World Service.

What I found particularly interesting was South African Oti Mabuse talking about being a member of “the only black family doing Latin and Ballroom” as apartheid was coming to an end: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04dnmp2

Let's remember America for good things

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Let's remember America for good things.

Let's relish this footage of the original performance of Martha Graham's Appalachian Spring in the Library of Congress in 1944. Let's enjoy Aaron Copland's majestic score. Let's also remember also that the set for this piece was created by Isamu Noguchi, an American artist of Japanese heritage, at a time when the United States was at war with his ancestral homeland.

Whatever we may think of its president elect, let's remember America's contribution to the performing arts (not least to dance), to science and technology, research and teaching and to civilization generally. America is still a great country. It remains a good friend.

A Ballet for Election Day

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I can think of no better ballet for US election day than George Balanchine's Stars and Stripes. 

Created for New York City Ballet this work was first performed in New York City on 17 Jan 1958.  The ballet consists of 5 campaigns to the following music by Philip Sousa:

• First Campaign, 1st Regiment ('Corcoran Cadets')
• Second Campaign, 2nd Regiment ('Rifle Regiment')
• Third Campaign, 3rd Regiment ('Thunder and Gladiator')
• Fourth Campaign ('Liberty Bell' and 'El Capitan')
• Fifth Campaign, All Regiments ('Stars and Stripes')
  Variation I
  Variation II
  Coda: Allegro molto
  Finale: The Stars and Stripes Forever.

Balanchine also made a similar ballet for us called Union Jack.

A Bright Stream but not exactly a Live Stream

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Bolshoi Ballet, The Bright Stream, The New Stage, Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, 29 April 2012 shown at cinemas on 6 Nov 2016


On Sunday afternoon, cinema audiences around the UK were treated to a recording of a performance of Alexei Ratmansky's revival of The Bright Stream that had taken place on the new stage of the Bolshoi Theatre over 4 years ago. The performance was not actually called a recording though the words "Captured live on Apr 29, 2012" do appear at the bottom of the description of the ballet on Pathe Live's website. The Nottingham Showcase cinema, where I saw The Bright Stream, charged me £12 (even after my over 65 concession) to see the film which is not noticeably less than I would have expected to pay for a live transmission from Covent Garden or Moscow.

Having said all that, the film was still worth watching for it was an opportunity to see a rare example of socialist realism in dance.  Dimitri Shostakovich's score is magnificent and Ratmansky's choreography for this work is just as dazzling as his other creations. In addition, Boris Messerer created some gorgeous sets with biplanes and a steam train crossing the stage at various points. However, the plot is not up to much and the jokes are hardly riveting. Even if Stalin had not taken against Shostakovich for his Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, it is hard to see how this work could have remained in any company's repertoire for long.

The history of the ballet was set out by Judith Mackrell in an article for The Guardian entitled Dance of Death which the Bolshoi theatre reproduced on its website. Mackrell tells us that the work was originally choreographed by Lord Keynes's brother in law, Fedor Lopukhov, which connection probably saved his life. The unfortunate dramaturge,  Adrian Piotrovsky, disappeared with millions of others in Stalin's reign of terror. Shostakovich's career was blighted by Soviet officials before and after the second world war but he stayed alive and was spared the labour camps. The reason for Stalin's displeasure is explained in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and the muddle surrounding Shostakovich's opera, an article by Mackrell's colleague Ed Vulliamy which appeared on 25 Sept 2015.

In Dance of Death Mackrell wrote:

"In the mass of Shostakovich centenary events that have taken place this year, ballet fans haven’t had much to celebrate. It’s not that the composer ignored the form — between 1929 and 1935, he wrote a trio of full-length ballet scores: The Golden Age, The Bolt and The Bright Stream. All three, though, were banned shortly after their premieres, leaving Shostakovich’s reputation so damaged, he was reluctant ever to write for the lyric stage again.
It’s a cause of great regret for Russia’s monolithic ballet companies, the Kirov and the Bolshoi. Both are aware that, had Shostakovich been given full artistic freedom, he may have become one of the great modern ballet composers — as inspirational for the dance-makers of Soviet Russia as Stravinsky was for choreographers in the west."

She is right. Shostakovich's music is so danceable. Even though he never received another commission to write a ballet score his life's work which includes music for film has been a rich mine for dance makers as Jean-Christophe has shown with his Taming of the Shrew (see Bolshoi's Triumph - The Taming of the Shrew 2 Aug 2016). Shostakovich wrote the music for the piece that my over 55 ballet class at the Northern Ballet Academy performed in Leeds on 28 June 2014 (see The Time of My Life 28 June 2014 which Mel Wong reviewed so generously in The Dance DID go on - Northern Ballet Academy Show 2014 28 June 2014).

The main characters in the ballet are Zina, a former dance student who had married Pyotr an agriculture student and buried herself in the countryside, her friend from ballet school who had stuck with ballet and become a dancer with a touring dance troupe and the male lead in the company who appears in plus fours. There are some lovely bits of mime when Zina recognizes her old friend and they catch up on each other's news. "Look at you!" Zina gestures pointing to her friend's clothes. "Are you married?" asks the dancer by pointing to her ring figure, "and do you have any children?" patting three imaginary heads. "And how about you?" "Oh no! Haven't had an opportunity to meet the right bloke" motions the dancer. Pyotr meets the dancer and becomes infatuated leaving Zina quite desolate which is the only bit of drama in the ballet. Happily the ballet dancer is a good sort and agrees to an elaborate subterfuge to teach her erring husband a lesson. The story gets a bit silly after that with the male lead exchanging his plus fours for a tutu. Better than political satire in Soviet eyes, I suppose, but not really the uplifting stuff that might have inspired Stakhanov and his pals to chisel out a few more lumps of coal each day.

On 29 April 2012 Zina was danced by Svetlana Lunkina, the lead female dancer by Maria Alexandrova, Pyotr by Mikhail Lobukhin and the male lead by Ruslan Skvortsov. I had last seen Skvortsov as Siegfried (see Grigorovich's Swan Lake in Covent Garden 31 July 2016). It was good to see him again in a very different role.

Finally, a message to Janet McNulty whose views on Nixon's Swan Lake are somewhat different from mine. The Bright Stream is another ballet with bikes. If you have not seen it you should. You may like it.