A Christmas Carol - A Reflection of a Golden Age

John Leech Marley's Ghost

Source Wikimedia Commons

 Northern Ballet  A Christmas Carol Leeds Grand Theatre, 31 Dec 2024

Although I read in Dance and Dancers about a performance at the Royal Northern College of Music by a new company called Northern Dance Theatre when I was an undergraduate at St. Andrews, it was only in 1987 that I saw them for the first time.  I could not have had a better introduction because it was Gillian Lynne's A Simple Man with Christopher Gable as L S Lowry and Moira Shearer as the artist's mother.

They were two ballet heroes from my childhood.  Shearer had retired before I took an interest in ballet though clips and photos of her remained long afterwards.  Gable, on the other hand, was one of the biggest stars in the 1960s when I started to attend the ballet.  I saw him several times and admired him greatly.

At about the same time as I saw A Simple Man or perhaps shortly afterwards Gable was appointed Artistic Director of the company now known as Northern Ballet.  As I said in my review of Moriconi and Gable's Romeo and Juliet on 5 April 2024, "[s]ome of my favourite works were created while Gable was the Artistic Director of the company and I have always regarded that time as a golden age."  I added that it gave me great pleasure to see Romeo and Juliet again and that I very much looked forward to seeing A Christmas Carol again in November.

I actually saw it on the last day of the year and I was not disappointed.  We had an excellent cast:

• Jonathan Hanks was Scrooge
• Joseph Taylor was Young Scrooge
• Dominique Larose was Belle
• Harris Beattie was Bob Cratchit 
• Jun Ishii was Scrooge's nephew
• Sarah Chun was the nephew's wife
• Bruno Serraclara was Mr Fezziwig, and
• Amber Lewis was Mrs Dezziwig,

The rest of the cast and indeed the casts of the other performances in Leeds are here.   For those who do not know the ballet or even Dickens's novella, the role of each of those characters is introduced on the Christmas Carol Characters web page and the synopsis is on the Christmas Carol Story page,  There are some lovely videos and photos.   Lez Brotherston's designs were as fresh as ever as was Carl Davis's score.

I have waited a long time to see this show again.   The company danced to packed houses most nights in Leeds.   I hope it will keep its place in the repertoire.

Northern Ballet's 50th Anniversary Celebration Gala

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Northern Ballet 50th Anniversary Celebration Gala 4 Jan 2020 19:00 Leeds Grand Theatre

Last night's gala was everything for which I had hoped and a great deal more than I had dared to expect.  It was one of the best evenings that I have ever spent in a theatre and by far the best evening that I have ever spent in Leeds.  It was so much better than the company's 45th-anniversary gala in March 2015.

The evening consisted of excerpts from 18 ballets some of which are among my favourites.  A few of those ballets I had not seen for decades. Several of those excerpts were danced by favourite artists such as Federico Bonelli and Marge Hendrick. The excerpts were interspersed with speeches and videos from dancers, choreographers, directors and others who have contributed to Northern Ballet over the last 50 years.  A few of those recollections touched me personally because they recalled events that have become part of my life.

Having seen Elaine McDonald on stage and having met Peter Darrell several times (see Scottish Ballet 20 Dec 2013) I was close to tears when Hendrick danced Darrell's Five Rückert Songs to Mahler's haunting music. My association with Scottish Ballet goes back to my second year at St Andrews where I was taught my first plié as well as a lot of other things that qualified me to make a living (see Ballet at University 27 Feb 2017). Scottish Ballet was the first company that I knew and loved and it is still the company that I love best.  I swelled with pride as Christopher Hampson entered the stage and discussed the two companies' kinship.

My other personal highlight was A Simple Man with Jeremy Kerridge and Tamara Rojo as the painter and his mother.  That was the first work by Northern Ballet that I ever saw.  I attended its performance shortly after returning to Manchester to take up a seat in chambers. My late spouse and I had been regular ballets goers in London and remoteness from Covent Garden, Sadlers Wells, the Coliseum, The Place and the Festival Hall seemed unbearable.  It was Gillian Lynne's brilliant choreography with Christopher Gable and Moira Shearer in the leading roles that reassured us.  We could see that there was a ballet company in the North that was just as good as Nick Hytner's Royal Exchange and the Hallé at the Free Trade Hall. I have followed and supported all three of those great Northern institutions (albeit not always uncritically) ever since.

The evening started with the party scene from The Great Gatsby which I reviewed at its premiere and on tour. After the opening, the company's director, David Nixon, appeared and greeted the audience. He paid tribute to his predecessors and all who had contributed to the company in various ways over the years. He singled out Carole Gable who also appeared in a video and the composer Philip Feeney (see Central School of Ballet's staff biographies). The very early years of the company were recalled by photos of the dancers and press clippings that flashed on the screen.  There were also some personal reminiscences from the 1970s. The later years were covered in much more detail, There were videos from Robert de Warren, Michael Pink, Patricia Doyle. Several of the company's leading dancers were recalled from retirement including Tobias Batley, Martha Leebolt and Dreda Blow who now live on the other side of the Atlantic.  The nostalgia was palpable - just like Noel Coward's Cavalcade.

Some of the works in Northern Ballet's repertoire were danced by guest artists from other companies. Federico Bonelli of the Royal Ballet partnered Abigail Prudames of Northern Ballet in the balcony scene from Massimo Moricone's Romeo and Juliet.  Momoko Hirata and César Morales of the Birmingham Royal Ballet danced the wedding night scene from Nixon's Madame Butterfly which I have always regarded as Nixon's masterpiece. The Royal Ballet's Laura Morera and Ryoichi Hirano, another two of my favourite artists, danced the countryside scene from Jonathan Watkins's 1984.   Greig Matthews and Amanda Assucena danced Rochester and Jane in the proposal scene from Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre.

It was good to see Central's students, Elise de Andrade and Matteo Zecco, in a scene from Cinderella by their school's founder, Christopher Gable.  As a fan of Phoenix Dance Theatre, I was delighted to see the magnificent Vanessa Vince-Pang (yet another favourite) and Aaron Chaplin in Sharon Watson's dance chronicle Windrush: Movement of the People.  Space and time do not permit me to mention everything in detail.  Other works included

• Scrooge's proposal from A Christmas Carol with Jonathan Hanks and Antoinette Brookes-Daw, 
• Dracula with Sean Bates and Mlindi Kulashe, 
• the bedroom scene in Carmen with Minju Kang and Lorenzo Trosello, 
• the wire scene in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas with Filippo Di Vilio and Matthew Koon, 
• the cup duet from Cleopatra by Abigail Prudames and Joseph Taylor, 
• Casanova's dance with Bellino from Kenneth Tindall's Casanova with Dreda Blow and Giuliano Contadini in the roles they premiered, and
• Leebolt and Batley with Rachael Gillespie and Harris Beattie as the old and young Heathcliff and Cathy in Wuthering Heights.

All danced delightfully and I congratulate them all.

The finale was the last scene of A Midsummer Night's Dream which is Nixon's other work that I regard as a masterpiece (see Realizing Another Dream 15 Sept 2013). The whole cast took to the stage including Kenneth Tindall.  He was one of my favourites in the company and I thought I would never see him dance again.  At the end of the gala, Nixon recited Puck's speech which ends the play: 

"If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends."

It is supposed to be uttered by a dancer.  Kevin Poeung said those words when I last saw the show.  But the words seemed entirely appropriate as they dropped from Nixon's lips.  A shower of gold confetti rained from the ceiling. Hardly anyone remained seated and there were not many dry eyes.

An Exceptional Weekend

Through following the Dutch National Ballet I made the acquaintance of the Dutch teacher and choreographer Yvonne Charlton.  Yvonne is married to an Englishman and visits this country frequently. On one of those visits, she gave Powerhouse Ballet a great repertoire class (see Our Best Day Yet  24 Sept 2018).  Our ballet mistress, Beverley Willsmer, who is not exactly known for lavish praise, rated her class as the best ever. Before I had even left Z-Studios I was overwhelmed with requests to bring her back as soon as possible.

Yvonne emerged from international arrivals at Ringway airport at 08:20 last Saturday    My former ward and her little boy, Vladimir, who had met Yvonne at the National Ballet gala in Amsterdam last September, came with me to meet her.  As she would have got up while wilis were still about in order to drive the 32 miles from her home to Amsterdam airport, the first thing we did after she arrived was to entertain her to a full English breakfast at John Lewis's at Cheadle Royal.

Yvonne's first engagement was company class at the Dancehouse at 13:30. As we had some time before that class I gave her a tour of my dear, native city.  I started with the castra of Mancunium at Castlefield from which our city derives its name.  I showed her the Lowry and some of the paintings in the permanent exhibition.  We looked out for a video of Gillian Lynne's ballet A Simple Man with Moira Shearer and Christopher Gable but the assistant at the souvenir shop could not be sure that the DVD would work on continental apparatus.

We arrived at the Dancehouse just in time for class and what a class it was.  It was certainly the most taxing that I have ever known and it seemed to challenge even our best dancers. "No! No! No! That's not how you do a port de bras," she said to one of our stars, forcing her head to well below her knees.  And Yvonne was not afraid of correcting our ballet mistress the very next day. Even the pliés were a challenge for they finished with a relevé and then a weight shift.  Frappés on demi nearly did for me but the real killer was a type of rond de jambe that required a 90-degree sweep from a demi plié.  Her centre exercises were no easier than her barre.  She set us a rolling pirouette exercise starting with a tiré, a pas de bourré and then single, double or dynamo turns.

As I was 70 a few weeks ago I had told one of my favourite teachers who regards "easy" as a 4 letter word that I was slowing down. Having survived Yvonne's class I know I can survive anything.  I told my esteemed instructor that I shall be back at the barre whenever I can get to Leeds by19:00 on a Wednesday evening.  Indeed, I am really going to work at that lady's classes.

After class, I invited my classmates to the Revolution by Oxford Road viaduct for a libation.  Almost everyone came and we were joined presently by Karen Sant and Mark Hindle of KNT.  For a birthday present Mark gave me this beautiful bouquet of flowers.  I curtseyed and tried to remove a single flower for Mark just as I had seen Sibley do for Dowell and Fonteyn for Nureyev in my youth.  That would have been a cue for Mark to raise the bloom to his nose and savour the perfume but I am not sure that modern principals do that any more.  I have certainly not seen it at Northern Ballet and I am not sure even about Covent Garden. In Holland, it is unnecessary because the boys seem to get flowers too.

After drinks, I drove Yvonne to her hotel near Huddersfield where we threw a little party.  Several good friends from Powerhouse Ballet were able to attend as you can see from the photo to the right.

The very next morning we assembled at the Dance Circle Leeds for a 5-hour workshop with Yvonne.  I arranged for Alena Panasenka, one of Northern Ballet's accompanists to play for us.  I also invited Fiona Noonan to learn any ballet that Yvonne might teach us and coach us in it until we are word perfect.

Our warm-up class after a late night was even more punishing than Saturday class but we set to work with a will. Yvonne taught us a delightful dance to the music of Morning Mood from Grieg's Peer Gynt.  We have been invited to perform this piece at Dance Studio Leeds's gala to raise money for St Gemma's Hospice on 12 Oct 2019.

Anyone who wants to audition for this piece should stay for our first rehearsal at Dance Studio Leeds on 23 March 2019.   The Eventbrite card will appear shortly.

Dame Gillian Lynne (1926 to 2018)

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Theatre goers generally and ballet goers in particular will be said to learn of the death of Dame Gillian Lynne.  Although she will be better known for her musicals, Cats and Phantom of the Opera, I shall remember her for three reasons.

First, her choreography of A Simple Man starring Christopher Gable and Moira Shearer.  That was the first time I saw Northern Ballet shortly after I returned to the North to take a seat in Manchester chambers.  My late spouse and I were regular ballet goers and I was a Friend of Covent Garden. Though we looked forward to occasional visits to Leeds and Manchester by touring companies we missed the Royal Opera House, Sadlers Wells and The Coliseum. I had read of the Northern Dance Theatre (as Northern Ballet was then called) in Dance and Dancers when it was founded but I never expected much from it.  Gillian Lynne's A Simple Man was a revelation.  It was every bit as good as anything I had seen anywhere else in the world. 

As a native Mancunian I was bloated with pride that it had been achieved by a Manchester company.  After seeing that work I began to follow Northern Ballet.  In my humble opinion A Simple Man has never been bettered  though other great ballets were created by Christopher Gable and more recently Cathy Marston.  It was Dame Gillian's masterpiece that attracted me to the company and it is one of the reasons why I have continued to support Northern Ballet through Friends' subscriptions, donations and other ways for more than 30 years.

The second reason I shall remember Dame Gillian is that she recreated Sir Robert Helpmann's Miracle in the Gorbals for the Birmingham Royal Ballet in 2014 (see A Second Miracle 23 Oct 2014).  She had been a member of the original cast.  She said in The Inspiration which was reprinted in the programme: "There are very few people left alive from that 1944 creation and not one of us remembers a step."  However, as I said in my review, Lynne re-created the ballet to Bliss's music in the style of Helpmann and it certainly looked authentic to me.  In my My Personal Ballet Highlights of 2014 28 Dec 2014, I wrote:

"My favourite ballet of 2014 was Gillian Lynne's re-creation of Robert Helpmann's Miracle in the Gorbals for Birmingham Royal Ballet which I was at Sadler's Wells in October. I had seen Helpmann dance with Frederick Ashton in Cinderella and he also presented the gala to Sir Frederick which I saw when I first became interested in ballet. Miracle in the Gorbals broke new ground in many ways just as its almost exact contemporary Appalachian Spring did in the USA. Even though Lynne's production was a re-creation rather than a revival its performance was something of a miracle in itself and a joy to behold."

The third reason I shall  remember Dame Gillian is a charming story that Sir Ken Robinson told about her in a famous TED talk.  I discussed it in Dance is just as important as Maths 17 Aug 2014. When she was a little girl in the 1930s Dame Gillian was thought to have a learning disorder because she was lacked attention and was disruptive in class. Her teachers referred her mother to a specialist in such disorders who gave her an opportunity to dance to the radio. Sir Ken continued:

"And when they got out the room, he said to her mother, "Just stand and watch her." And the minute they left the room, she said, she was on her feet, moving to the music. And they watched for a few minutes and he turned to her mother and said, .Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick; she's a dancer. Take her to a dance school.'"

Dame Gillian's mother heeded that advice and the result was miraculous. In Dame Gillian's words:

"I can't tell you how wonderful it was. We walked in this room and it was full of people like me. People who couldn't sit still. People who had to move to think. Who had to move to think. They did ballet; they did tap; they did jazz; they did modern; they did contemporary."

As I remarked about the specialist: "What a remarkably perceptive, far sighted, enlightened man he was. And what a wonderful mother."

I am sure all readers will join me in sending sincere condolences to Dame Gillian's family, friends and connections.

Tribute to Moira Shearer

Author Ballerinaonlina
Source Wikipedia
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Every performance of Sir Matthew Bourne's The Red Shoes at Sadler's Wells is sold out.  Having seen the show twice at the Lowry (see Red Shoes Bourne Again 3 Dec 2016 and The Red Shoes Second Time Round 4 Dec 2016) I am not surprised, The show was inspired by the film The Red Shoes which I reviewed on the 15 Nov 2015. The star of that film was Moira Shearer who danced from 1938 until 1987. Through that film she probably did more to inspire children to learn to dance, and the public generally to take an interest in dance, than any other artist, Margot Fonteyn not excepted. She certainly inspired me and by all accounts, she also inspired Sir Matthew.

Shearer was born in Dunfermline in 1926. She made her first professional appearance at Cambridge in Mona Inglesby's Endymion in 1938 when she would have been only 12 and it was Inglesby who gave Shearer her first job in Inglesby's newly formed International Ballet in 1941 at the age of 15. Shearer's last performance was in Gillian Lynne's A Simple Man for Northern Ballet Theatre in which she danced Lowry's mother (see Northern Ballet's A Simple Man 14 Sept 2013). I saw the ballet shortly after I had returned to Manchester. It was the first time that I saw the company (although I had followed it in the dance press since its formation) and it is the first and remains the main reason for my support of the company.

It is, of course, The Red Shoes for which Shearer is best known and its two short ballet sequences. The first is the extract from Swan Lake at the Mercury Theatre where Vicky Page is discovered by the impresario Lermontov (see  The Red Shoes (1948) ~My Favourite Movie YouTube). The second is the premiere of Lermontov's The Red Shoes at Monte Carlo (see The Red Shoes (1948) - Ballet Sequence YouTube).

Shearer retired as a dancer in 1953 but continued her career as an actor for many years. She married the journalist and broadcaster, Sir Ludovic Kennedy, in 1950 in the chapel of Hampton Court palace. Their wedding seems to have generated enormous attention (see the newsreel clip on YouTube). She and Sir Ludovic had four children. She died in Oxford in 2006.  She was a distinguished artist of two mediums, loved by many and greatly missed.

As this article appears on 25 Dec, I should like to wish all my readers around the world a very merry Christmas.

Dance is just as important as Maths

TED stands for technology, entertainment and design. It describes itself as

"a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world."

The Great and the Good have given talks including Bill Clinton, Jane Goodall, Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Richard Dawkins, Bill Gates, Bono, and many Nobel Prize winners.

One of the most popular speakers is the educationalist Sir Ken Robinson. His speech "How Schools Kill Creativity" which is embedded above has been watched nearly 28 million times. That's right. 28 million. Almost the population of Canada.

That speech is remembered for the catch phrase "Dance is an important as maths." Looking at the transcript I don't think he actually used that phrase but that was certainly the meaning he conveyed:

"There isn't an education system on the planet that teaches dance everyday to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is very important, but so is dance."

A little later in his speech he tells a charming story about the ballerina and choreographer Gillian Lynne. In his talk Sir Ken refers to her as the creator of Cats but my favourite work is "A Simple Man" which she made for my beloved Northern Ballet. Here's how the story goes:

"I'm doing a new book at the moment called "Epiphany," which is based on a series of interviews with people about how they discovered their talent. I'm fascinated by how people got to be there. It's really prompted by a conversation I had with a wonderful woman who maybe most people have never heard of; she's called Gillian Lynne -- have you heard of her? Some have. She's a choreographer and everybody knows her work. She did "Cats" and "Phantom of the Opera." She's wonderful. I used to be on the board of the Royal Ballet in England, as you can see. Anyway, Gillian and I had lunch one day and I said, "Gillian, how'd you get to be a dancer?" And she said it was interesting; when she was at school, she was really hopeless. And the school, in the '30s, wrote to her parents and said, "We think Gillian has a learning disorder." She couldn't concentrate; she was fidgeting. I think now they'd say she had ADHD. Wouldn't you? But this was the 1930s, and ADHD hadn't been invented at this point. It wasn't an available condition. (Laughter)People weren't aware they could have that.

Anyway, she went to see this specialist. So, this oak-paneled room, and she was there with her mother,and she was led and sat on this chair at the end, and she sat on her hands for 20 minutes while this man talked to her mother about all the problems Gillian was having at school. And at the end of it --because she was disturbing people; her homework was always late; and so on, little kid of eight -- in the end, the doctor went and sat next to Gillian and said, "Gillian, I've listened to all these things that your mother's told me, and I need to speak to her privately." He said, "Wait here. We'll be back; we won't be very long," and they went and left her. But as they went out the room, he turned on the radio that was sitting on his desk. And when they got out the room, he said to her mother, "Just stand and watch her." And the minute they left the room, she said, she was on her feet, moving to the music. And they watched for a few minutes and he turned to her mother and said, "Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick; she's a dancer. Take her to a dance school."

I said, "What happened?" She said, "She did. I can't tell you how wonderful it was. We walked in this room and it was full of people like me. People who couldn't sit still. People who had to move to think." Who had to move to think. They did ballet; they did tap; they did jazz; they did modern; they did contemporary. She was eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet School; she became a soloist; she had a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet. She eventually graduated from the Royal Ballet School andfounded her own company -- the Gillian Lynne Dance Company -- met Andrew Lloyd Weber. She's been responsible for some of the most successful musical theater productions in history; she's given pleasure to millions; and she's a multi-millionaire. Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down."

Thank goodness that doctor didn't. What a remarkably perceptive, far sighted, enlightened man he was.   And what a wonderful mother.

We in Britain will get a chance to listen to Sir Ken in conversation with Sarah Montague early tomorrow morning immediately after the midnight news. For the next few days we can even listen to them on the iPlayer.

Finally, a word on TED. Anybody can join the mailing list. I've been on it for years.  If you do you will get an email with a selection of some of the best talks every Saturday afternoon. It's one of my weekend treats.

Northern Ballet's "A Simple Man"

 
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This is an except from "A Simple Man" a ballet about the life of LS Lowry which I saw in 1987 on the centenary of the painter's birth.   At that time Northern Ballet was based in Manchester and being a Mancunian I was very proud of it. And of course of LS Lowry.

The ballet was created by Gillian Lynne to music by Carl Davis. Northern Ballet has produced a great booklet about the ballet and the artist.  

If you want to see his works come to the arts complex in Salford that proudly bears his name.  It has the largest collection of Lowry's work in the world.

Post Script

31 Dec 2013

Gillian Lynne, the choreographer of this ballet was honoured for her services to musical theatre and dance in the 2014 New Year's Honours List.