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Usually at this time of the year Northern Ballet takes a slot at the Linbury. Joanna Goodman saw them there last year and reviewed their performance in Mixed Programme with a Sweet Centre 14 May 2015. Unfortunately the Linbury is closed this year but Londoners can still see them in the capital.

On Mondayon 23 May 2016  Javier Torres will be the guest of honour at the London Ballet Circle. I will be in the front row of the audience to hear him speak.

Between 31 May and 1 June Northern Ballet will dance Jane Eyre at the Richmond Theatre. I am giving a talk on IP law and fashion in London on the 2 June so I will be in the audience on the 1st. My parents moved to Surrey from Manchester when I was very young and I spent most of my childhood and adolescence in that part of England. It is a lovely theatre overlooking the Green and I have fond memories of pantomimes in that auditorium.

One of the performances by Northern Ballet that I most enjoyed last year was Jonathan Watkins's Northern Trilogy and, in particular, Yorkshire Pudding.  For me that was one of the highlights of the Sapphire gala (see my reviews in Sapphire 15 March 2015 and Between Friends - Northern Ballet's Mixed Programme 10 May 2015). Watkins will be London Ballet Circle's guest on 6 June 2016. Here is a video of Watkins from last year (see Jonathan Watkins on Working with Northern Ballet).

After that interview Watkins created 1984 which I don't like anything like as much (see My First Impressions of 1984 12 Sept 2015, Watkins on 1984 14 Sept 2015 and 1984 Second Time Round  24 Oct 2015). However, Londoners will get the chance to judge for themselves as it will be at Sadler's Wells between 24 and 28 May 2016.

My First Impressions of 1984

George Orwell, Author of 1984

Source Wikipedia

Northern Ballet 1984 West Yorkshire Playhouse, 11 Sept 2015


In many ways Jonathan Watkins's 1984 was a howling success. Literally for there were whoops and cheers from the audience as well as lots of clapping. Several individuals rose to their feet.  And it was easy to see why for Watkins pressed all the right buttons.  Act I ended with just about the most explicit sex scene I have ever seen in ballet. The bedroom scene in Macmillan's Romeo and Juliet is demure in comparison.  A lady in the audience described that scene as "erotic" in the question and answer session with Watkins that followed the show and she was right. There were also brilliant visuals with the telescreens and an easy listening score from Alex Baranowski. Not quite sex, drugs and rock and roll but the nearest you can get in classical ballet.

No wonder this ballet has received such positive reviews:

"This is gripping storytelling" according to The Stage

"Northern Ballet's terrific new production" gushes The Guardian

"...an ambitious, compelling and, ultimately, moving new ballet" says The Telegraph.

And the tweets on the first night from members of the audience whose opinions I trust were even more generous.

So why aren't I searching my vocabulary for superlatives? I desperately want to do so because I love Northern Ballet and its dancers. Knowing how hard any dancer has to work from my feeble efforts at the barre I feel the deepest gratitude for their just stepping onto stage. I also have warm feelings towards Watkins - particularly after seeing his Northern Trilogy at The Sapphire gala and the mixed programme (see Sapphire 15 March 2015 and Between Friends - Northern Ballet's Mixed Programme 10 May 2015). There was definitely excellence in the choreography and the dancing by Tobias Batley, Martha Leebolt, Javier Torres and the ensemble. I have already commended the designs and score. And yet I left the West Yorkshire Playhouse asking myself "Is this it?"

It is horrible to write such things for I feel disloyal to the art form, company and dancers I love. I felt very much the same after seeing Christopher Wheeldon's The Winter's Tale for the Royal Ballet the first time (see Royal Ballet The Winter's Tale 14 April 2014) but eventually warmed to it after seeing it in the cinema and on TV (see The Winter's Tale - Time to eat my Hat 29 April 2015), I hope the same will happen with 1984 after I see it again in Manchester with the Swiss friend who brought the ballet to my attention (see Für Andrea - more Information on 1984 26 July 2015). Like The Winter's Tale the advance publicity that this ballet has received raised my expectations to impossible heights. I was also spoilt on Tuesday by watching some of the best dancers in the world at the Dutch National Ballet gala in Amsterdam and actually speaking to some of them at the party afterwards.

Another thing that bugged me is that 1984 was launched in the week that remotely controlled unmanned aircraft despatched two British citizens in Syria on the orders of the Prime Minister (see Cardiff jihadist Reyaad Khan, 21, killed by RAF drone 7 Sept 2015). That news followed by reports of surveillance by GCHQ (see GCHQ's surveillance of two human rights groups ruled illegal by tribunal 22 June 2015 Guardian) and the WikiLeaks revelations made me think that Big Brother has actually arrived. We even have telescreens nowadays for every laptop is equipped with a webcam and microphone. Orwell's novel was a satire of the increasingly authoritarian state of the 1940s where such things as targeted drone strikes and data mining were impossible but we are there now so why not update 1984 as a modern satire?

Watkins's ballet had a very retro feel. Indeed I was reminded of Gillian Lynne's re-staging of Helpmann's Miracle in the Gorbals  (see A Second Miracle 23 Oct 2014) and Ninette De Valois Job). I asked Watkins whether that was deliberate in the Q and A after the show. He replied that he knew Job but not Miracle in the Gorbals and if he was inspired by anything it was the cinema. He mentioned the Lego Movie several times in the session as well as Ken Loach's Kes which Watkins has also transformed into dance (see Kes on Jonathan Watkins's website).

Setting the ballet in 1948 rather than the present seemed to me to be a missed opportunity; but then who am I to say or even think such things. It was entertaining. As I said, there was excellence in the show. The folk who attended the Q & A took it at face value and really enjoyed it.  Don't let my reservations put you off seeing it.

Between Friends - Northern Ballet's Mixed Programme

The Architect - Trailer from Kenneth Tindall on Vimeo.

Northern Ballet, Mixed Programme, Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, 9 May 2015

Every Spring Northern Ballet presents a programme of short ballets to its public in Leeds and London. For me that programme is the highlight of the year because the company is at its best.  Not all the works in the programme are new but they are always fresh as the dancers seem to delight in performing them. That delight is picked up and reciprocated by the audience which makes these shows very intimate and very precious.

This year is special because it is the 45th anniversary of the formation of the company which it celebrated with the Sapphire gala (see Sapphire 15 March 2015). The company included three of the works from that gala in the programme.  They were Jonathan Watkins's A Northern Trilogy, Daniel de Abdrade's Fatal Kiss and Demis Volpi's Little Monsters.  They formed part of the first act which was crowned with Christopher Hampson's Perpetuum Mobile. Top of the bill was Kenneth Tindall's The Architect  which I had seen last year (see Jane Lambert A Wonderful Evening - Northern Ballet's Mixed Bill 21 June 2014 23 June 2014 and Mel Wong Kenneth Tindall - The Architect of Ballet 21 June 2014).

It was lovely to see the first three ballets in the intimacy of the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre. A Northern Trilogy is a pas de deux by Martha Leebolt and Tobias Batley, a solo by Kevin Poeung and a narrative by Leebolt and Barley joined by Hannah Bateman, Dreda Blow and Isaac Lee-Baker to Stanley Holloway's Yorkshire Pudden, One-Each A-Piece All Round and The Lion and Albert. The  opening pas de deux was danced "with Heavenly magic ...... As light as a maiden's first kiss", the solo proudly "as any gentry" and the Lion and Albert with love. I enjoyed A Northern Trilogy when I first saw it at The Grand but I relished it in the the company's own theatre.

The same is true of the other ballets, particularly Fatal Kiss danced passionately by Lucia Solari and Javier Torres.  Since the gala I have seen van Dantzig's 5 Tangos performed by Scottish Ballet which is also to the music of the tango composer Astor Piazzolla (see No Mean City - Accessible Dance and Ballet 26 April 2015) which helped my appreciation of de Andrade's work. The dance represents a life which ends in a full frontal kiss on the lips that means death.

Little Monsters is danced by Dreda Blow and Joseph Taylor to three Elvis songs. In Love me Tender we see only Blow's arms which grab Taylor's body first his upper body then his legs like a clamp as she appears about to devour him. It is love all right but love in the sense of "I'd love a tender steak" rather than "I love him tenderly."  By contrast, in "Are you Lonesone Tonight" the dancers were apart and almost disconnected.

Christopher Hampson's Perpetuum Mobile was the only work I had not seen before and what a surprise and delight. Choreographed to Bach's Violin Concerto in E Minor it has joyful leaps for the men and turns for the women.  It is exhilarating to watch but demands much from the dancers. The company did Hampson proud. Batley and Leebolt were brilliant, of course, but so too were Lucia Solari, Abigail Prudames. Ayami Miyata, Kevin Poeung, Isaac Lee-Baker, Sean Bates and Rachael Gillespie. I love to see Gillespie dance and I don't think I have ever seen her dance better.

Even though he created it last year The Architect is Kendall's first show as an independent choreographer and it was impressive. Tindall spoke about the show immediately after the matinee performance. He explained how he wanted to explore the story of Adam and Eve but tie it in with science. He referred to the double helix of the male dancers' costumes representing DNA.  Do we carry Adam's disobedience in our DNA? The words of Milton* sprang to mind:

"Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe..."

That prompted a question from me about the characters on the chests of the male dancers which reminded me of DNA sequencing. Tindall confirmed that the allusion was deliberate.

Gillespie was in The Architect and again it was a joy to see her.  But the others were great too: Antoinette Brooks-Daw, Abigail Prudames, Jeremy Curnier, Matthew Topliss, Mlibdi Kulashe and Matthew Koon who joined Miyata and Lee-Baker. The lighting and the set design were like extra dancers particularly in the last scene when humanity combined to grab the apple. The ballet was striking. Even better second time round.

This show is on its way to The Linbury with the substitution of Mark Godden's Angels in the Architecture for Perpetuum Mobile. Angels in the Architecture is a gorgeous ballet that I saw in the 2013 Mixed Programme (see Angelic - Northern Ballet's Mixed Bill 9 June 2013). It has the same music and even some of the same choreography as Martha Graham's Appalachian Spring. I would have liked to have seen that too though I wouldn't have missed Chris Hampson's ballet for the world.  London is in for a treat.

Further Reading

14 May 2015  Joanna Goodman Mixed Programme - with a sweet centre (the Mixed Programme in London)

* An old boy of my school as it happens