A Celebration of Dance: Wilis and More

 

Dance Studio Leeds, Powerhouse Ballet, Part of Giselle 19 Nov 2022, 15:00 Chroma Q Theatre, Leeds

By some fluke, I once accomplished a chassé, pas de bourrée, pirouettes single or double and pirouette dedans without everything going wrong. The delight on my teacher's countenance was a picture to behold.   I saw exactly the same expression on Saturday after  Powerhouse Ballet had danced the scene from act II of Giselle where Zulma and Moyna summon the wilis from their hidden forest graves to attend  Myrtha.

The reason for my teacher's delight is that the cast danced very well.  So well that I felt impelled to rise to my feet in standing ovation.  Our teacher, Jane Tucker, had taught us the choreography during a day-long workshop in July and rehearsed us almost every weekend since.  She had a cast with different levels of skill and experience and she adapted Coralli and Perrot's choreography in a way that enabled each and every one of them to shine. Christie Barnes excelled as Myrtha as did Lauren Savage and Esther Wilson as Moyna and Zulma.  They were supported by a polished corps consisting of Fiona Cheng, Jayne Johnston, Helen Peacock. Sue Pritchard, Helena Tarren, Lois Watters, Anne Williams and Bo Zhang. 

During our rehearsals, we discovered the talents of many of our members.  Christie Barnes not only danced Myrtha but also directed several of our rehearsals including one that was effectively a second workshop at York St John University.  We also discovered that she is an accomplished photographer and filmmaker as she chronicled our progress. Lauren Savage proved to be an excellent teacher leading one of our company classes and several warm-ups.  We found costuming and make-up skills and lots of practical tips such as the best place to park on a busy Saturday from different members.

Those discoveries have advanced one of the objectives of Powerhouse Ballet which is to provide opportunities for members to develop their theatre skills. That is why I invited Katherine Wong to lead our company class in Bolton last October`.  I have also asked Alicia Jolley to give a class in North Wales in the New Year, Holly Middleton to help rehearse future productions and drama student, Fiona Cheng, to teach us how to act.

Our 8-minute extract from Giselle was just one of many pieces performed at Dance Studio Leeds's Celebration of Dance on Saturday.  The show was staged to raise funds for Martin House children's hospice in Boston Spa.  At a health and safety briefing just before the show, the studio's director, Katie Geddes, announced that she had raised a very healthy profit for the charity,  Readers will be happy to learn that this publication contributed to that sum as one of the show's sponsors.

Because I wanted to assist our cast in any way I could I only saw the second half of the show.  However, everything that I did see was excellent.   Every style of dance was on display from Egyptian folkloric bellydance to West Side Story.  I enjoyed them all, particularly belly dancer Ya Habibi who entered the stalls inviting the audience to join her on stage, West Side Story and Afro Fusion's Rise 'N' Shine.  Some of the pieces that I would like to have seen but couldn't because they were in the first part were Indian classical dances.  Happily, at our last rehearsal, I asked the director to give us an exhibition class and some background information on the art form early in the new year.

Powerhouse Ballet hit a number of headwinds even before lockdown of which the biggest was scepticism.  When Covid 19 closed the studios and theatres I wondered how we could possibly survive.  Relief came from an unexpected source.  Maria Chugai, a soloist of the Dutch National Ballet and the best Myrtha I have ever seen in over 60 years of balletgoing, offered us an online class in April 2020 which was a spectacular success.  The success of that class encouraged me to invite other performers such as Krystal Lowe, Beth Meadway and Shannon Lilly as well as Jane Tucker, Annemarie Donoghue, Fiona Noonan and other teachers from our region to be online ballet mistresses.

Powerhouse Ballet is now on a roll.  We have found a new venue at Ballet Contours near Manchester city centre where we shall hold this Saturday's company class. We welcome dancers from Hull to Hollyhead.  If you can get to East Ordsall Lane by 15:00 do come and join us.  We have invited Heather Boulton, the director of the studio, to give us our first company class at that venue.  I visited the studio a few weeks ago and was most impressed.  It is fully equipped with a well sprung floor.  Above all, Heather is an excellent teacher.

Ballet Cymru at its Best

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Ballet Cymru Dream Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, Leeds 19L30

Yesterday I saw Ballet Cymru's Dream for the third time and I think it was their best performance of that ballet yet.  There were two reasons for that.  The first is that the performers and audiences are more familiar with the work.  They know what makes us laugh (and cry) and members of the audience who have seen it before know what to look out for.  As I said in Croeso i Ŵyl Dream on 9 July 2019:

"Shows often grow as they tour the country and I think that has happened with Dream. It was already a good show when I saw it in Mold on 29 May but it was even better yesterday."

The second reason is that the ballet was performed in a theatre in Northern Ballet and Phoenix's studios that those companies use for their own shows before an audience that knows and appreciates dance.

The Stanley and Audrey Burton's lighting and projection equipment enabled the company to make full use of James and Doughty's projection and Charles Illingworth's lighting designs.  The company has always made ingenious use of those projections to create a sense of space.  For example, their Romeo and Juliet is set not in 15th-century Verona but in contemporary Newport.  The scene of the rumble between the Capulets and Montagues is instantly recognizable as the pedestrian walkway under the approach road to the bridge over the Usk.  Well, despite the Greek music in the mechanicals' play, I felt transported not to an Athenian wood or even Warwickshire or South Wales but to New South Wales where Cobwebs or rather their makers are to be feared.  The giveaway was the image of Sydney Harbour Bridge which I once walked across not to mention the gum trees and pyrotechnics in another scene.  A reminder that Ballet Cymru has a strong link with Australia as well as Wales in Amy Doughty and Robbie Moorcroft.

Every dancer excelled last night and it would be wrong to single any out for special praise.  It was hard not to adore Kotone Sugiyama who danced a feisty Hermia.  Especially as she wiped her hands after knocking Demetrius (Jacob Hornsey) cold.   Hornsey must also be commended for his performance as Bottom.  Also, I loved Sanea Singh as Puck.  An interesting contrast to Ballet Black's Isabela Coracey who also dances Puck in Arthur Pita's Dream within a Dream.  Llongyfarchiadau calonnog to Caitlin Jones whom I think I remember from Swan Lake in Glasgow and Greenock the last full-length ballet that I saw live on stage before lockdown.   She has created the role of Lysandia and made it her own.  Moorcroft who dances Oberon and Helena's dad is always a pleasure to watch as is Isobel Holland his Titania.  A special cheer for Beth Meadway and not just because she is one of our own.  Her main character was Helena but she was also Wall and any artist who can bring to life a structure of cereal boxes has a very rare gift indeed.  Her little dance at the curtain call for Pyramus and Thisbe was greeted with thunderous applause.

The company's patron, Cerys Matthews, once described Ballet Cymru as "the pride of Newport and the pride of Wales."  But not just of Wales.   They have performed three very different works, Child's Christmas, Giselle and now  Dream in Leeds.   I think it is safe to say that we have taken them to our hearts.  And Yorkshire folk are not known for wearing their hearts on their sleeves.  

Mack and Mair and Adams too at the Liverpool Empire

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English National Ballet Swan Lake Liverpool Empire 1 Oct 2022  19:30

On the last day of its season at the Liverpool Empire, English National Ballet cast Brooklyn Mack as Siegfried and Natasha Mair as Odette-Odile.  it was the first time those artists had performed those roles with English National Ballet though Wikipedia states that Mack had danced Siegfried with the Washinton Ballet and Mair's website states that she had danced Odette-Odile in Moscow and Turkey.

It is always interesting to watch a dancer perform one of the great classical roles for the first time, particularly at the Empire whose audiences can be loud and demonstrative.  I am glad to say that the crowd loved them.  Several gave them a standing ovation. In the lift of the multistorey next to Lime Street station, a lady purred "Didn't you just love them" eliciting ascent and contentment.

Mack is an American.  He trained at the Kirov Academy in Washington DC. He danced with Joffrey Ballet, Orlando Ballet, the Washington Ballet and American Ballet Theatre before joining English National Ballet in 2015.  He is listed as a guest artist on the company's website rather than as a principal or soloist.  He is exciting to watch as the early clip shows;  muscular, athletic and tightly self-controlled.. He was particularly impressive in the solo part of the pas de deux of the seduction scene of the third act.

Mair is from Vienna.  That is where she trained and began her career.  A clue as to what may have drawn her to England is that her favourite role is Lise in Ashton's La Fille mal gardée.  it is not hard to imagine her excelling in that role from her monologue in Natascha Mair: our new Principal dancer | English National Ballet.  The roles of Odette and Odile are quite different and not all ballerinas can carry off both with ease.  Mair is one who can.  Delicate and vulnerable in the white acts and hard as nails in the black, she is as accomplished an actor as she is a dancer.

Mack and Mair danced in Derek Deane's production of Swan Lake which has been in the company's repertoire for quite some time.  I have seen it several times and know it well.  It has several features that I love like the prologue where Odette is turned into a swan and the Neapolitan dance which Wayne Sleep and Jennifer Penney made their own.  It provides plenty of opportunities for virtuosity in such roles as the pas de trois in act 1, the petits cygnes in the second and the divertissements in the third.   Actually, one artist other than Mack and Mair who did stand out in the show and that was Precious Adams.  She worked hard in Liverpool as a lead swan in acts II and IV and princess in act III,   She was recently interviewed in The Guardian under the headline: Precious Adams on balancing ballet and computer science: ‘you don’t want to be 45 with zero credentials’  

 

 This was the first live performance by English National Ballet that I had seen since the 70th anniversary gala on 18 Jan 2020 just before the pandemic.  It was reassuring to see it back on tour apparently in good shape.  It will soon get a new artistic director (see  English National Ballet announces Aaron Watkin as new artistic director  The Guardian 24 Aug 2022),   If the Semperoper Ballett's class and rehearsal of David Dawson's Romeo and Juliet are any kind of indicator, ENB will be in very good hands.