Visiting Friends - Ballet Black at Home

The View from outside the Feathers

Author Geoffrey Skelsey
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The day before I left for Amsterdam while the Beast form the East was still stalking its lair I visited Ballet Black for a rehearsal of extracts from Arthur Pita's  A Dream Within a Midsummer Night’s Dream and Cathy Marston's The Suit which the company will present at the Barbican between 15 and 17 March 2018. Every performance of that show is now sold out but the company will take it on tour to Newbury, Hatfield, Bristol, Nottingham, Inverness, Dundee and Exeter in Spring and no doubt Leeds and other venues in the North in the Autumn (see the Performances page of Ballet Black's website).

Pita's Dream is already a favourite with audiences and critics. I raved about it in 2014 when I saw it no less than 4 times in London, Southport, Nottingham and Leeds (see Extra Special - Ballet Black at the Linbury 26 Feb 2014  27 Feb 2014 and the links to other reviews and articles). The Suit also promises much with music by Philip Feeney and designs by Jane Heather.  As I don't want to spoil the anticipation of either ballet, all I will say at this stage is that Cira Robinson delighted me again as a regal Titania and Isabela Coracy as a playful Puck, Marston's work is dramatic and I was reminded of Jane Eyre and Rochester in the duet and the demons from Marston's work for Northern Ballet in the extract that was performed for us.

The rehearsal took place in Ballet Black's new studios at The Feathers Association in Lisson Grove. That's not a part of London that I know well and as Hull Trains delivered me to King's Cross with a couple of hours to spare I explored the neighbourhood.  It is largely residential with few places to eat though I managed to find a cafe a few hundred yards from the studios that served some excellent Moroccan specialities for a very reasonable price. The Feathers is positioned on a bridge above the railway tracks leading to Marylebone station from which the above photo must have been taken.

The visit was a special event for Friends of the company.  If you are not already a Friend, Thandie Newton, the company's patron, lists some of the benefits of membership:

"Internationally recognised for its vital message of giving black and Asian dancers the professional opportunities they merit based solely on their talent and dedication, Ballet Black continues to amaze. As a Friend, you will be making a valuable contribution to the sustainability of this small yet hugely significant company and will support its ongoing commitment to aspiring dancers and to its ever increasing and loyal audience. In return, Ballet Black will welcome you behind the scenes to watch Company rehearsals under the exceptional eye of Artistic Director, Cassa Pancho as well as with acclaimed guest choreographers. You will receive quarterly newsletters to keep you up-to-date about news, events and performances so you will never miss out."

After the show, the company invited us for tea and biscuits in their office where the dancers joined us. It was very pleasant to see them all again.  The only one I did not already know was Ebony Thomas who had impressed me in Leeds in November and I took the opportunity to introduce myself to him.

I am confident that this year's tour will be Ballet Black's most successful yet.  I shall watch the show on Friday 16 after which there will be a post show talk.   The next day there will be an open rehearsal and workshop as part of the Barbican OpenFest.  According to the blurb:

"Cassa Pancho (Artistic Director of Ballet Black) will conduct a Ballet Class for all ages on the Barbican Freestage, prior to Ballet Black's open rehearsal and performance on Saturday evening in the Barbican Theatre. This workshop is free and open to all, no prior experience necessary."

I can hardly wait.

A Day of Superlatives - Dutch National Ballet's Don Quixote

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Dutch National Ballet Don Quixote 28 Feb 2018 20:00 Music Theatre, Amsterdam

Wednesday was a day of superlatives. I don't think Amsterdam has ever looked lovelier than it did that night in the clear, crisp air with a full moon and the lights of the buildings, street lights and traffic twinkling in partly frozen canals and the river. I don't think I have ever seen a better Don Quixote even though I have seen artists like Isabella Boylston and Marianela Nuñez dance Kitri and Carlos Acosta dance Don Basilio. Above all, I don't think I have ever seen the Dutch National Ballet dance better.

One reason why I enjoyed that show so much was that nearly all the leading rôles were performed by dancers who graduated from Ernst Meisner's Junior Company.   Sho Yamada, who danced Don Basilio, had partnered Michaela DePrince in an extract of Diana and Acteon the first time I saw the Junior Company (see The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 25 Nov 2013). Riho Sakamoto was Kitri on Wednesday night. Jessica Xuan, who also joined the Junior Company in 2013, was queen of the Dryads. Yuanyuan Zhang, danced Juanita. Many more of their contemporaries including Cristiano Principato and Thomas van Damme supported them in the show,

Wednesday's show was their opportunity to impress and each of them grabbed it readily.  They danced with exuberance and verve.  Combined with imaginative sets that included a winking moon, costumes for ambulatory cacti and monsters more outlandish than Hieronymus Bosch's, the stage exploded with energy, movement and colour. Don Quixote had never been my favourite ballet because the story is so confusing.  Basically La Fille mal gardée except that it is dad rather than mum pushing daughter into an arranged marriage.  What has that to do with Cervantes? Or cactus men and beaked monsters for that matter?  The answer is "not much but who cares so long as the ballet flows".  Wednesday did flow to Minkus's jaunty score with spectacular choreography such as one armed lifts and daring fish dives. Ratmansky's production helped me understand the ballet and to appreciate it properly.

Yamada danced Don Basilio with style and swagger.  Tall, slender and athletic he commanded the stage.  Sakamoto charmed me with her coquetry and impressed me with her technique, especially with her fouettés in the final act. Though it is probably unfair to single out any artist for special praise, there were captivating performances by Xuan as queen of the Dryads, Suzanna Kaic as Cupid and Zhang as Juanita.  There was fine character dancing from Nicolas Rampaic as the slightly dotty Don Quixote and hilarious clowning by Frans Schraven as his squire.

I have already mentioned the imaginative sets and costumes.  I was not surprised to learn that they had been designed by Jérôme Kaplan who had impressed me several years ago with his designs for David Nixon's Gatsby. I have also mentioned Minkus's jaunty score.  Its interpreter on Wednesday night was Marzio Conti.  As I was seated directly behind the conductor only 5 rows back I experienced the music as he must have done. Perhaps that was yet another reason why I enjoyed the show so much.

Usually I come to Amsterdam for the day arriving on the first flight out of Manchester and returning on the last.  This time I had come to give a talk on patent litigation  at the Radisson Blu hotel in Russia.  Not really Russia, I should explain, but the street where the hotel stands is called "Rusland" which is Dutch for "Russia". On the way back from the theatre I felt transported to Petipa's Russia as I followed the frozen canals with the music resounding in my ears. That is just how I imagine St Petersburg to be.  One day, perhaps, I will find out whether I was right.

Talking of translations, a partner of the Dutch office of a leading international law firm invited me to dinner on Tuesday night at Hemelse Modder which translates as "Heavenly Mud".  The meal was scrumptious. I had croquettes of mussels, fennel and tarragon, lamb stew and a delicious lemon pudding with an excellent German red. I mentioned it on Facebook to which Ted Brandsen commented that it was his favourite restaurant.  I can quite see why.  It is now one of mine.   It is not far from the Music Theatre and I strongly recommend it.

Sarah Mortimer's New Studios

Just over a year ago I mentioned that Sarah Mortimer had left Ballet Theatre UK to start a new career as a freelance dancer and teacher (see Sarah Mortimer 24 Nov 2016).  Sarah was a delightful dancer and I was very sorry to see her go. However, teaching is at least as important as I explained in One of the Best Ballet Experiences Ever 14 Feb 2018.

I was therefore pleased to learn that Sarah has acquired her own dance studio known as Tenterden Studio Dance Company in one of the prettiest towns in Kent.  According to the studio website, the studio hosts Tenterden Ballet Studios which teaches a wide range of classes including adult ballet between 11:00 and 12:00 on Friday mornings. Should I find myself in the area on a Friday morning (which is not impossible as Tenterden is not far from Ashford International railway station) I shall try to attend it.

Sarah also offers private and personalized coaching and lets out studio space to other teachers.  I wish her every success in this venture.

Gaudeamus Igitur: St Andrews and Cambridge Student Shows

On 30 April and 1 May 2018 at 19:30 the St Andrews Dance Club (which I helped to found) will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a performance at the Byre. The show will feature "11 styles of dance from ballet to hip hop, choreographed by over 20 choreographers, this show is a true celebration of all the club has achieved over the past half century." I mentioned the club in Ballet at University  27 Feb 2017 which included a clip from Striking a Pose. It is good to know that our club has survived and prospered over those years. You cam buy tickets through the Byre's website here.

Last year's article was promoted by a post on BalletcoForum on Cambridge University Ballet Club's Giselle,  As you can see from their trailer the students reached a very high standard and their performance was applauded enthusiastically. This year they will dance Swan Lake at the West Road Concert Hall at 11 West Road, Cambridge  on 2 and 3 March 2018,  According to the Club's website

"over 100 dancers from the Cambridge University Ballet Club are coming together to choreograph and perform this four-part ballet. It will be an unforgettable experience!"

I attempted to learn the cygnets, prince's solo, Hungarian dance and the swans' entry at KNT in Manchester a few years ago (see KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3).  It isn't easy.  Fitting rehearsals into an already busy timetable requires a massive commitment from each and every member of the cast. They have my respect. I shall try to attend, or send a reviewer to attend, one of their shows.

I spent a very pleasant week at Downing College at the IP Summer School last year and I attended an adult ballet class while I was there (see Ballet, Bodywork and Bits in Cambridge 15 Aug 2018). It was one of the hardest classes I have ever taken in my life. I don't know whether any members of the Cambridge University Ballet Club attended that class but the standard in that class was very high indeed.

I wish the students at both universities toi, toi and chookas for their performances as well as every success in their studies and subsequent careers.  I will certainly be in the Byre on 30 April and I will do my best to attend and review one of the shows in West Road.

At Last - Sylphs in Gurn and Effie Land: Scottish Ballet's Tour of the Highlands and Islands

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As regular readers know, I love La Sylphide.  I have been hinting like mad to Gillian Barton and Daniel Job to stage that ballet for their students since 2013 for they are located in the Highlands where the ballet is set (see Taynuilt - where better to create ballet  31 Aug 2013).  They considered it but for one reason or another decided against it. Instead, they staged that other great romantic ballet, Giselle, which has proved to be a howling success (see A Very Special Giselle 4 Feb 2018 and Ballet West Amplified 11 Feb 2018). 

Last year Central School of Ballet, which, like Ballet West, tours the country to give its students stage experience, performed a large part of Sir Matthew Bourne's "romantic wee ballet", Highland Fling, as part of its show.  I caught it at Leeds and blogged about it in Triumphant on 1 May 2017. Highland Fling is by no means the same as La Sylphide but it does keep Løvenskiold's music which to my mind is the best bit of the ballet.

This Spring Scottish Ballet are taking Highland Fling on tour to the Highlands and islands and one of their stops will be Atlantis Leisure in Oban which is the nearest town of any size to Taynuilt.  The show takes place on 29 and 30 April and as there is a ballet school just down the road there is likely to be a run on the tickets. Needless to say, I bagged mine early.

While I am in Scotland I shall attend the 50th Anniversary Show of the St Andrews Dance Society which I helped to found (see Ballet at University 27 Feb 2017).  That will take place at the Byre in St Andrews on the 30 April and 1 May 2018. The Dance Soc used to have a link with Scottish Ballet through Professor Steer and to a much lesser extent yours truly.  It was I who helped to bring Scottish Theatre Ballet to the Buchanan on 15 Feb 1970 as I was on the steering committee of the first St Andrews Arts Festival. I will try to find out whether there is still a link between Dance Soc and Scottish Ballet and if it is broken do what I can to restore it.  It would also be good to link Scotland's oldest degree awarding institution with Ballet West which is one of the newest.

The Winter's Tale - Close to Perfection though perhaps not quite there yet

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The Royal Ballet  The Winter's Tale 15 Feb 2018, 19:30 Royal Opera House

I have now seen Christopher Wheeldon's The Winter's Tale three times on stage and at least twice on screen and it has definitely grown on me.  The first time I saw it I was less than overwhelmed.  I wrote in Royal Ballet The Winter's Tale 14 April 2014:

"I expected so much of The Winter's Tale. I had been looking forward to it for months. A new work by Christopher Wheeldon based on Shakespeare by a fine choreographer for our national company with a stellar cast. It should have blown me off my feet. Well I quite liked the show but blown off my feet? I wasn't."

I liked it a lot better when I saw it in the cinema a few weeks later (see The Winter's Tale - A Time to eat my Hat 29 April 2014) and even more when I saw it again in 2016 (see The Winter's Tale Revisited - Some Ballets are better Second Time Round 20 April 2016).

Thursday's performance was for me the best ever.  I tweeted:

Thoroughly enjoyed @TheRoyalBallet's Winter's Tale last night. Never seen Nunez, Soares, Stix-Brunnell and Bracewell dance better. My review will appear in https://t.co/1UvITcDv6f very soon. I have really grown to love that ballet over the last few years.

— Terpsichore (@jelterps) February 16, 2018

Yes, it is a lovely work - an uplifting story to a gorgeous score performed by some of the world's finest dancers in the grandest auditorium in England.  Pretty close to perfection.

Close to perfection but perhaps still not quite there.  I saw the ballet on Thursday with my friend Gita. She has seen a lot of ballet as well as other kinds of dance and attended a lot of adult ballet classes and even a few intensives. She watched the ballet with me on telly when it was broadcast one Christmas but this was the first time she had seen it on stage. Interestingly, her comments were very much the same as those that I had made in my first review. Fine choreography, great dancing, lovely music but the first act dragged a bit, the sets and especially the animations were distracting, she did not really get the bear and the ballet as a whole was far too long. Thinking about it again I couldn't say she is wrong but that does not mean that it is not a great work. On the contrary, I think it will keep its place in the repertoires of both the Royal Ballet and National Ballet of Canada and over the years it will evolve into something even better.  Especially if future producers do a bit of judicious pruning here and there,

Because it had been my birthday on Wednesday, Gita and I pushed the boat out a little.  We booked seats in the centre stalls close enough to see the expressions of the dancers but far enough back to take in the stage as a whole.  We dined in the Paul Hamlyn which meant that we could keep our table relax and reflect in the intervals. I have been to Covent Garden many times and it never fails to impress but to get the full the majesty of the place you have to sit in the stalls. Surrounded by red and gold, enveloped by light with the buzz of the audience I involuntarily squeaked with delight.

The lights dimmed and Kevin O'Hare entered the stage with the news that Alondra de la Parra was indisposed but Tom Seligman had stepped in to take her place.  Now Maestro Seligman is very good and he conducted confidently. So confidently in fact that he was already half way across the stage when the ballerina was about to invite him to take a bow and he was also the last performer to take a curtain call.  However, I had been looking forward to see Ms de la Parra. There are not many women conductors.  All those I have seen, such as Jane Glover and Marin Alsop, were extremely good. I have never seen a woman before an orchestra at Covent Garden and I would have been proud to see Ms de la Parra there. No doubt there will be other opportunities to see her and I wish her well.

I have seen Marianela Nuñez quite a few times over the years but I don't think I have ever seen dance better than her performance as Hermione on Thursday night. The same goes for Thiago Soares who danced Leontes, Beatriz Stix-Brunell as Perdita, William Bracewell as Polixenes,  Vadim Muntagirov as Florizel, Itziar Mendizabal as Paulina and Bradford lad, Thomas Whitehead, as the shepherd. Coming from Yorkshire, Gita and I applauded him particularly vigorously (as I always do) when he took his bow. Did he notice, I wonder?  Gita likes to choose a man or woman of the match. I can't remember whom she chose but the dancer who impressed me most on Thursday was Mendizabal. Paulina speaks truth to power but remains faithful to her awful boss and leads him back to his senses. She holds the show together. The role requires very careful casting and Mendizabal was the  right choice.

I loved the music, the choreography, the designs and special effects (except the bear) and the costumes (which, Gita said, showed Indian Sub-Continent influences). Once again I was close to tears at the final reunion of Perdita and her parents. Indeed the whole last act is a tear jerker. Yet again I loved the dancing round the tree.  Act 1 needs to be in the work to set the scene but I wish it were not quite so long.  Perhaps the last bit of act 1 could be added to the second act.  But these are minor niggles. Taken as a whole Thursday's performance was really good. If I did not have a ticket for the Dutch National Ballet's Don Quixote that evening I would see it again at the pictures when it is screened across the  world on the 28 Feb. If you can get to see it at least in the cinema but preferably on stage I strongly recommend it.

Newcastle Nutcracker

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Scottish Ballet  The Nutcracker  Theatre Royal Newcastle 2 Feb 2018

I have seen three versions of The Nutcracker over the last few months: the Royal Ballet's at the Royal Opera House, the Birmingham Royal Ballet's at the Hippodrome and Scottish Ballet's at the Theatre Royal Newcastle.  I just can't decide which I like best because each version has its own strengths. Scottish Ballet's are Peter Darrell's libretto and choreography, Lez Brotherston's designs and, of course, the company's brilliant dancers. 

In Darrell's version, Clara remains a little girl. She does not morph into Sugar Plum.  She gets rid of the vermin who stray into the second act by kissing rather than thumping them.  At the end of the ballet it is she and not Sugar Plum who invites the conductor onto the stage to take a bow.  I also like Scottish Ballet's divertissements.  The Chinese, for example, are not treated as acrobatic clowns despire the musical prompting.  They have a short but sweet dance for two female dancers.  The Arabian dance is a charming solo for one femalle. There is an English dance with a hornpipe that brought to mind  Balanchine's Union Jack and, to a lesser extent, Cranko's Pineapple Poll.

Brotherston's sets and costumes are magnificent. It cannot be easy to create a set for touring. The opening scene looked like a Christmas card.   It gave way to the Stahlbaums' Christmas party in a solid looking living room but the scene that impressed me most was the kingdom of the sweets with its hundreds of Christmas tree baubles.  As for the costumes I particularly liked the female mice.  Without a doubt Brotherston's vermin are the best in the business.  Nobody has better mouse heads.

Sugar Plum was danced by Bethany Kingsley-Garner. I became one of her fans when I saw her in Cinderella in 2015 (see Scottish Ballet's Cinderella 20 Dec 2015). I was impressed by her performance in Dawson's Swan Lake a few months later (see Empire Blance: Dawson's Swan Lake 4 June 2016). She delighted me yet again in The Nutcracker.  She was partnered well by Evan Loudon. Chrstopher Harrison was a splendid Drosselmeyer.  Marge Hendrick was a charming Snow Queen. As I have said before, it is the children who can make or break The Nutcracker and in this production the students definitely helped to make it.  Particularly Ailish Ogilvie who danced Clara and Charles O'Rourke her tiresome little brother.  Finally, it s always good to see Matthew Broadbent.   Tall and athletc he attracts attention. I was a fan when he was at Northern Ballet and even  more so now.

There were a few weaknesses. The orchestra sounded a little thin at times partcularly in the overture but that could have been the theatre's accoustics.  Newcastle's Theatre Royal is an archotectural gem and it is easy to reach by public transport but it is not the most comfortable venue. Scottish Ballet's Christmas show visits all the major venues in Scotland but rarely ventures into England and never south of Newcastle. That is a shame because audiences in the rest of the UK would love it.